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- [00:00]
Jack Wagner
This show is sponsored by Liquid iv. This summer I am personally hoping to give myself some sort of break from my work, which I feel is well deserved. As much as I love hearing terrifying stories every day, I have been craving some hiking, camping, surfing and basically just being away from my computer for once. Whenever I'm out doing that stuff, I always keep a Liquid IV in my backpack. I swear by this stuff. I I pop one of them in my water bottle and it really powers me through whatever I'm doing and I always feel great the next day. Also, if I'm out late and wake up feeling, you know, terrible from whatever it is I was up to the night before, Liquid IV is the first thing I grab in the morning. Even before ibuprofen. I'm not kidding. Just one stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone. It has three times the electrolytes of leading sports drinks. It also has lots of vitamins and all of that good stuff. Get ready for the summer with extra extraordinary hydration from Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to liquidiv.com and use code otherworld at checkout. That's 20% off your first order with code otherworldiquidiv.com this episode is sponsored by Quint. Guys, vacation season is nearly upon us. I actually have a very busy year myself when it comes to travel. Most of it is for weddings, but I do have a potential Hawaiian vacation coming up that is in the works. Fingers crossed on that. Also, I will definitely be treating myself to many luxe upgrades that I deserve with Quince's high quality travel essentials at fair prices like lightweight European styles from $30. Also premium luggage options and stylish tote bags to carry it all. The best part? All Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quint cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings onto us. And Quint only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. So for your next trip, treat yourself to luxe upgrades you deserve from quince. Go to quince.com otherworld for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's quince.com otherworld to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Make sure to use the link if you buy stuff from Quince. Quince.com Otherworld Foreign welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host Jack Wagner. This episode is about somebody who believes they may have come face to face with death itself. Not a near death experience in the way that it normally comes up on the show. This is an encounter with the personification of death, the Grim Reaper. Also known as the angel of Death. The Grim Reaper has got to be one of the most famous figures in the scary universe. These days I feel like you're most likely to see the Grim Reaper pop up as a decal on the back of a truck, maybe as a tattoo or printed on a giant T shirt, perhaps even on some kind of very aggressive Facebook meme one of your uncles might share. However, the origins of what we know as the Grim Reaper date back very far into history. Most cultures and religions have some sort of similar deity who carries out God's will by taking lives and serving as a sort of bridge between our world and the next. And even though the Grim Reaper we know of now is visually kind of a creation of pop culture, over the years I have heard of many people encountering a cloaked black figure that appears near the end of someone's life. Often this is something seen by people who work in hospitals or in places where lives tend to come to an end. So whether this being is a literal entity slipping between worlds and reaping souls, or just a manifestation of a very well known symbol of death, I'm not really sure. But this episode features two people who had experiences involving it, and hopefully we end up getting even more stories about this topic submitted in the future. This first story comes from Alexis. This is episode 120. The title is the Final Visitor and you're listening to Otherworld.
- [04:55]
Bobby
Hello, is this Bobby?
- [04:56]
Alexis
Yes, it is.
- [04:57]
Jack Wagner
At its core, the science you can't argue with I was worried about is.
- [05:02]
Alexis
Up in the sky.
- [05:02]
Jack Wagner
It's almost frustrating that it's happening.
- [05:04]
Bobby
I'm literally I'm gonna die.
- [05:06]
Jack Wagner
Its limbs were just like wrong.
- [05:09]
Bobby
Everybody moves back into the light, even.
- [05:11]
Jack Wagner
If it take in a minute.
- [05:35]
Bobby
Hi, my name is Alexis. I am 34. I am an event producer and a drag performer and currently live in Portland, Oregon with my partner and my two cats, Weegee and Lemmy. I grew up in Orange County, California, specifically Laguna Niguel. It was a brand new track home with white picket fence, ocean blue carpeting, two stories with a beautiful garden in the backyard that kind of butted up to a steep hill with walking trails. I was an only child, so I definitely was left to my own devices a lot of times. I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandmother who is an artist, but otherwise a lot of Time just kind of playing by myself. My dad was a senior deputy coroner investigator for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. So as a kid, my understanding of that was he goes out and finds dead bodies. And his specialty was solving unidentified or John or Jane Doe cases. And he was always really good with computers, building them from scratch in his free time. And so he was essentially the IT department before they had an IT department. And he went on to create the John and Jane Doe online database because there wasn't a way for other counties or states to quickly cross reference. You know, if somebody went missing in one state and they found an unidentified body in another state. So this way they could kind of communicate with each other or even within the same state. And they even did a KCAL9 special on him in, I think it was like 1999 or 2000 called Detective of Death, which I thought was really funny when I was a kid. He had a really great sense of humor. He also taught classes at the Coroner's Academy there on identification. And he would be talking about tissue samples and walking around with a specimen jar in his hand and while doing the lecture, reach into the jar and take a bite. It was full of beef jerky, of course, not actual human flesh. That was kind of his personality, but I know it was really draining on him. The investigators are usually the ones who have to go in and tell families that their loved ones are deceased. And doing that day in and day out definitely takes a toll. I know he would take like two showers a day just to wash off kind of the smell of death. I didn't realize at the time that because of that anxiety and stress, he was a really high functioning alcoholic. But that definitely came into play later on in our life. And then my mom was a night shift ER nurse, so kind of between the two of them at the dinner table, lots of times it would be like, how was your day, honey? And talking about brains being splattered on the ceiling or some kind of weird metal object stuck in somebody's orifices. And that was just kind of normal for me. So I didn't really know any different. My parents were not religious and we were definitely like a X Files household because this was, you know, early 90s. Watched a lot of horror movies and sci fi, also like ER and Law and Order, which I thought was funny considering that was basically their jobs. So they would get off work and then watch what they just did all day. As I got older, when I was like in middle school, my parents got divorced when I was 10 and my dad was teaching, he would sometimes ask my opinion on slides and it was like, oh, should I use this picture or this picture? And it's a picture of like a woman decomposing in a bathtub. And it's like, dad, I know this is normal for you, but probably inappropriate to show to like an 11 year old. Like, it's one thing to hear about something because, you know, again, we watched a lot of horror movies growing up and so you can kind of distance yourself from that. But if you're seeing like crime scene photos, actual crime scene photos, it's not special effects, you know, it's not. I mean, you know that that's not real. But when you see real pictures, when you smell the smells, it becomes more real. And, and also just the, the heaviness of it, like I was saying, you know, it definitely affected my dad in a pretty significant way. Just the heaviness of having to tell people that, you know, your brother, your mom, your husband, somebody is gone. And sometimes it was by their own hand, sometimes it was an accident. So feeling that kind of like secondhand heaviness definitely made it more real. And you know, ultimately my dad died from alcohol related issues at 52. So he was really young, but he just, you know, couldn't shake it. And it's a lot for somebody to deal with, I guess, like, since I had a handful of pretty impactful kind of paranormal things that happened to me when I was a kid, that really stuck with me because they both of the, like, kind of big things that happened, happened Right, right before my parents got divorced. So I feel like the house was pretty charged at that time. And then after my parents got divorced, my mom moved up to La Garo Head to kind of run away, and my dad moved in with my grandparents, his parents. And my mom continued to be a nurse, but she kind of moved more into admin rather than bedside nursing, which was good for her. I think she needed a break. But my dad stayed at the coroner's office for several more years and I, you know, going through middle school and high school, I kind of went back and forth between them. After my mom had moved back to Orange county, and I have gone several times to the sheriff's department, you know, I would go visit or I would attend events and things like that. But as I got older and especially as my dad's alcoholism got worse, I tried to spend more time at my mom's house just because I grew up being really close to my dad and it was really hard to be around him. Like that. So when I graduated from high school, went to college, went to community college, and then I transferred up to Cal State Long beach. And I was living out of the house at that point. And so my priorities had kind of shifted into my schooling. I went to school for creative nonfiction and poetry. And so I still saw my dad, but he unfortunately was forced to take early retirement because of his alcohol issues. And after that, his health went pretty downhill. So again, it was really hard for me to see him like that. So I had kind of distanced myself until he passed away in 2012. He had collapsed outside of ATM and essentially had put himself into an alcohol induced coma. And I was 21 and I had to be the one to kind of make a decision on what was going to happen with him. And because of his past working at the coroner's office, I knew he would not want to, you know, be a vegetable. I knew he would not want people at the coroner's office to have to come out and deal with his body. Like, he would be so embarrassed by that. And so we had to make the decision about, you know, his end of life. And it was. It was something that was a long time coming, but it was also really sudden, and I was still pretty young, and so that was really hard. So that happened. And then very shortly thereafter, my cousin, who was only six months older than me, he was 22, he went to Taco Tuesday with his friends. He had just graduated from college, he was coming home and his heart stopped and he died. And that was really shocking because we had no prior indication there was anything wrong. He had just been snowboarding. He, you know, was very active. But we found out later that there is a genetic heart mutation that runs on my mom's side of the family that my grandma, who recently passed away, she has or had, and my cousin had it and didn't know. And because of that, he had an enlarged heart from like a virus and just dropped dead, which was really scary and shocking because he was so young and otherwise so healthy. So that really kind of changed my outlook on life. And I always thought, like, I need to just make it past 22. And I also have this genetic mutation, which I found out pretty recently. So nothing is guaranteed, and you just have to appreciate your life while you have it. So just losing my dad and then my cousin and shortly thereafter having a health scare with my mom, all within like four months. I was really just trying to have a fresh start and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I found a online magazine that was hiring and essentially needed an everything person. So I was going to be helping write articles and work on a radio show and go to events up in LA and Orange county and San Diego. So I was 22, this is 2013, summertime, probably May or June, and my editor and I had gone to a art gallery opening up in Hollywood. And I was living in Orange county back at my mom and stepdad's house at the time. So I was driving an hour and a half, two hours each way. When the event was over at about 12:30 or 1 in the morning, I had to drive back home. I think it was on the 4:05 if I remember correctly. But I got in my little black 2008 Suzuki Firenza, had my ipod plugged in and was going maybe 70ish miles an hour driving home. And I was in the second most left lane, so not the fast lane, but the next one over. And I'm going. And weirdly, even though it's probably a Tuesday or Wednesday night, there's not really anybody else on the road, which is great because I just want to get home. I'm going. And all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye, I see a, it was either tan or silver little four door sedan going sideways across the freeway. So from my right to the left, cutting across. And this all happens within a matter of seconds, but it feels like it's in slow motion. I turn the wheel super fast and swerve into the fast lane. And luckily there was nobody there because otherwise I would have hit them. I swerve, this person cuts across the front of my car, hits the center median and starts spinning and they start spinning clockwise towards my car. And there's a brief moment where I see the person inside the car. Like I see their eyes. In that moment, my brain was just trying to process what is happening because a, when is there ever somebody driving sideways on the freeway or any street for that matter? And so there's the moment of kind of puzzling realization, like, wait, there's something traveling in front of my car going down a perpendicular direction to where they should be going. I'm going 70 miles an hour. So regardless, if somebody had like swerved into my lane, I still have to slam on the brakes and they hit the wall and they start spinning towards me in this counterclockwise way. And again, I don't know how quickly or how slowly this was happening, but it definitely felt like it was happening really slowly. Like I can see, see the car rotating towards me and the way the Light was because it's, you know, 12:30, 1:00 at night. There's a few overhead street lamps, but not super well lit. So I can only really see a silhouette of a person. I couldn't really see their face. I honestly don't even really know what they looked like, but I just saw kind of like reflection of their eyes for a second as they were spinning towards me counterclockwise. And we kind of had this passing moment where I looked at them and I can see them looking back at me. And I can only imagine how terrifying that would be. I mean, it was terrifying for me being in that situation. And it just felt like a dream, but it was absolutely not a dream. You know, I had not been drinking. There was no way that this wasn't real, but it felt like this should not be happening. And then seeing them spin so close to my car and just be a couple inches away, like I. I should have hit them and I didn't and them spinning off diagonally backwards towards the opposite side of the freeway and smashing against the wall. I just was in shock. I was frozen. I was maybe five inches away from D.
- [23:37]
Jack Wagner
All right, we'll be right back after this quick break. This episode is brought to you by Pretty Litter. Spring is in the air. You know what is not in the air, at least in my house, is the smell of my cat's litter box. That's because I use Pretty Litter, which obliterates odors so we can enjoy all the wonderful scents of spring. Pretty Litter's non clumping formula traps odors and moisture. It's ultra absorbent, it's lightweight, low dust, and one six pound bag works for a month. Since Pretty Litter ships for free right to my door, I never run out. I don't have huge kitty litter bags taking up space. And I don't have to go out in the cold and lug those huge tubs from a store to my car and into my house. You know, it's funny, I actually spent a month recently in a different city with the cat. Brought him along. And we were staying on the fourth floor of the building, which is quite a climb if you're doing it multiple times a day. And we ordered Pretty Litter, so this was very much appreciated. It actually got delivered right to the door of my unit on the fourth floor. I did not have to lug it up the stairs, even though, listen, I'm very strong. It would not have been a problem for me to lug it up the stairs. I simply appreciated the convenience, you know, pretty litter helps keep my house smelling fresh and clean. Try some. You will love it. Go to PrettyLitter.com OtherWorld to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy that's PrettyLittleitter.com OtherWorld terms and conditions apply. See site for details.
- [25:18]
Jake Brennan
Do you know what went down at the Viper Room the night River Phoenix died? Or how about the mysterious death of Brittany Murphy? Are you aware of how Steve McQueen escaped murder at the hands of the Manson family? The obsessive killing of Dorothy Stratton? The real life murder that inspired David Lynch's Twin Peaks? The three conspiracies surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death? These stories and more are told in the new podcast Hollywoodland, where true crime and Tinseltown collide. Hollywoodland is hosted by me, Jake Brennan, creator of the award winning music and true crime podcast Disgraceland. Follow and listen to Hollywoodland wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:57]
Jack Wagner
This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Folks, for the longest time I thought it was normal to get charged what I was being charged for my cell phone plan. I feel like I've just had the same thing since I was a teenager and haven't really looked back until recently when I found out about Mint Mobile and their premium wireless plans that start at just $15 a month. Say goodbye to your overpriced wireless plans, jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages, Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You could use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with your existing contacts. So ditch your overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month. No matter how you say it, don't overpay it. Shop data plans@mintmobile.com otherworld that's M I N T mobile.com otherworld upfront payments of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for the first 3 months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra cement Mobile site for details this show is brought to you by Rocket Money. The start of the new year is the perfect time to get especially with your finances. Rocket Money is a great way to do that. If you have not tried it, and if you think maybe you're a person who's not quite paying attention to your finances as much as you should, I would highly recommend giving Rocket Money a try. Let it Dive in and see if it could find anything that you're overpaying on or maybe some subscriptions you forgot to cancel. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and even helps lower your bills so you could grow your savings. You just link your various accounts. Rocket Money lays everything out super nicely and instantly identifies the stuff you're signed up for. And I'm telling you, if you do this, the results might shock you. You might find some very strange things in there that you forgot you signed up for. It's happened to me. It's happened to people. I know I'm always a little horrified, but then very grateful to finally be able to cancel it. And additionally, maybe the coolest thing on Rocket Money is the fact that they can negotiate to lower some of your bills. For instance, your Internet bill, you can click a single button and Rocket Money will call up your Internet service provider and negotiate a lower price for you. I didn't know that was possible until they did it for me. Apparently you can just ask to have these bills lowered. I'm not sure what they're saying, but it definitely worked. I've done it a couple times myself and I'm so grateful for it. If you have not tried Rocket Money before, definitely give it a try. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 5,500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year. When using all of the app's premium features, cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money, go to RocketMoney.com OtherWorld today. That's RocketMoney.com OtherWorld this episode is brought.
- [29:04]
Lily
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- [29:46]
Bobby
I think if it, if it was not fatal in that moment, they were definitely very critically injured because they were traveling. I mean, I have no gauge of how fast they would have been traveling into like the center median, but I mean, fast enough or with such force that it ricocheted across the entire freeway. And it's like that doesn't seem like it's that big of a distance, but that's kind of a big distance. There was like six lanes in this freeway, you know, the four or five. So when they hit the center divider or the median and then spun away and then hit the opposite wall, it was like, it was kind of hard to see from that distance because they were kind of far away from me at that point. But I mean, definitely the way they hit was their passenger side smashed up against the wall, like perpendicular to the car. And so it was like that whole side was crunched in. I didn't see if there was a passenger or not. So I don't, I don't know about that. But just the force of which they hit both of those walls, I would be surprised if they were not like in critical condition or it was potentially fatal. As soon as this happens, I pause for a few moments and I see somebody else pull up behind them and they're checking on them. So my thoughts are just like, I need to go home right now. There is that dark burning rubber smell just in my nose. My eyes are welling up with tears. Not from crying, but just because my eyes are so open. Like I've been holding my eyes open so hard that it's like they feel wind blasted and my back is sore from bracing so hard and ripping the back of my dress. And I just feel like a computer that's getting rebooted or something. I have no thoughts other than I need to go home right now. And so I just slowly press on the gas and I can feel how uneven my tires are. I probably should not have driven home, but I was just one track mind. I just need to go home right now. It's 1130 in the morning at this point. I just need to go. And so I'm driving. I don't know how fast I'm going at this point, but you know, steady enough that I'm. I'm just trying to get home quickly. But also my tires are pretty messed up. I'm going for, you know, maybe 10 or 15 minutes and no music, no nothing, just staring straight ahead, just hoping for the best. Luckily, there's not really anybody else on the road at this point. The only two other cars that I saw on the road were either the crashed car or the person who pulled up behind it. And after I drove away from the scene, it was just me by myself on this six lane freeway, totally alone. But all of a sudden I notice kind of out of the corner of my eye towards the passenger side out of my right, a black hearse pulls up. Not in the lane closest to me on my right, but the next one over. And it's kind of one of those, like, classic black hearses with, you know, the swirls on the side. And that's not that unusual, I guess, but the fact that I didn't see it before this moment, I didn't see it in my rear view mirror. It just kind of pulled up alongside of me, and it matched my pace, like it was going in the same speed that I was going. And I pull up a little bit, and I look into the driver's side of the car, and it looks like something out of an 80s movie. It's another one of these moments where I'm like, am I actually seeing this? The driver's side window is glowing neon green with this kind of fog emanating from it. And there's a figure in the driver's seat that is wearing a black hood, black gloves. And I turn to look at this figure, and I'm staring at it for a few moments, and then it turns and looks at me. And it has a skull face like that is literally the Grim Reaper. And it's not a mask. The skull looked real. I mean, as somebody who has seen real human skulls in my life, again, it's, you know, one lane over in a car. But texturally, you know, you can tell that it's, like, smooth but rounded. Not like a mask would be flat. Texture looks like bone, not rubber. It's not like a rubber Halloween mask. And the sockets, if it was a mask and they were painted black, you would have the, like, reflection of the light off of the, like, the gloss of the paint on the inside of the mask. But this, it was like the opposite of light, devoid of light, almost like a velvet black, if that make sense. More than anything else, I think what made it feel real and still makes it feel real to me is the feeling I got when this thing looked back at me. You know, it's facing front, it's driving, and then turns and looks at me. And it's just this. Even though there are no eyes there, it's like this. This knowing look. And the skull face, there's no emotion to it, but you can feel there's almost this, like, smugness about it. And that is what scared me. And I have this kind of sting in my chest, and, you know, that rush of adrenaline of this thing looking at me, and the feeling of like, I almost got you. You could have been it. Like, this could have been It. And, like, I know, yes, it could have been a person in. In a costume or whatever. Like, people have hearses. I almost bought a hearse for myself when I was. But at the same time, this is 1130 in the morning, Tuesday or Wednesday night in, like, May or June. There's no reason that a person should be there at this time, especially with this glowing green light and weird fog coming out of the car. And I know the descriptor of saying it was like an 80s movie maybe makes it seem less credible, but that's honestly what it felt like. Like, in that moment, I was like, what? Like, this seems like a scene out of a movie is like. What it felt like is like, this is too, like, artfully staged to be something that's happening in front of me right now. But it is really happening is what it felt like. Because this happened so quickly. I mean, this is probably a few seconds. All I really saw was just the face and then the way it was turned because it was like both hands are on the steering wheel, all black with this black hood, and it's turning over its, I guess, left shoulder to look at me. I really only saw the face and then the hood. And then because of this, like, green light and smoke, those were the things that really stood out the most.
- [39:37]
Jack Wagner
Wait, I'm sorry to interrupt. Like, was this a guy in a costume? Or was like. Or were you seeing. Like, this was not a real.
- [39:51]
Bobby
Yeah, this is not a guy in a costume. Like a. I am a performer, so I know what costumes look like. And also, being someone who was, like, obsessed with Halloween since I was a little kid, like, I have seen my fair share of, you know, skeleton costumes or skull masks. And also I've seen real dead bodies and real skeletons. So I know that what that looks like. And, I mean, if you close your eyes and you imagine what the Grim Reaper looks like, like, that is what I saw. And, you know, like, your natural inclination when you see a cool car on the road is you want to look into the driver's window and be like, oh, who's driving that cool car? Who's driving this hearse in the middle of the night on the freeway that just appeared. And, yeah, not only was it the Grim Reaper or, you know, something that looked just like what you would imagine, the Grim Reaper, but also there's this glowing green smoke in the car that if you were a person, you would not be able to see or breathe with the amount of smoke that was in there. I mean, it wasn't like, just, you Know, a cool ambiance light. Like, it was like. Like if you had a fog machine, like an industrial fog machine in your car and, you know, was blasting it, you know, full amount, and there's glowing green light in there, and you're driving, like, I don't think that's something that a person would do, or if you were a person, I do not think that you would get very far or driving on the freeway, you know, 60 plus miles an hour, probably not great. After I have that moment where I'm looking into the car and this figure is looking back at me, I speed up. You know, I may be looking for, like, five or 10 seconds, and I speed up because I just want to move past this. You know, I have this really intense feeling looking at this skull figure, and I need to go. And so I speed up, and I am watching the hearse in my rear view mirror, and I can see the figure still with, like, both hands on the steering wheel, the skull face, the glowing green, and this kind of fog that's filling up the front part of the car in the windshield. And I look back at the road, and then I look back into the rear view, and, you know, a few moments had passed, but then the car was gone. It just was there one moment, and then it was gone. It wasn't behind me. It wasn't in any of the lanes on either side of me. It was just gone. And there was. It was not close enough to an exit that somebody could have gotten off an exit. There was no exit nearby, so it was just gone. This was probably the most intense thing that has happened to me personally. I think I've been through a lot of intense things with other people, but as far as something happening to me personally, this by far was and continues to be the most intense and definitely the closest I've ever been to a really dangerous situation. I have never had any kind of hallucinations. I've never seen anything like that before or since. I was completely sober and very lucid when this happened. I obviously made it home. But I. I remember I just kind of put myself to bed. I was so kind of just drained. I feel like the best word was just drained. Like I had nothing left in me. And also the dread of having to try to explain to my mom and my stepdad that I had just ruined all four of my tires and having to deal with that the next day. I did not tell them about what had happened with this, like, hearse skull, grim reaper figure. I mean, I told them about the accident, but you know, I didn't know if they would believe me. And so, yeah, I just went to bed and then had to try to deal with the car the next day. I don't think that, like, the Grim Reaper is a real entity or being. I feel like it was more so like an omen, because to me, it's like. I don't know. I mean, maybe it was somebody kind of shepherding the spirit of that other person away, like, if they did die in that moment. But to me, what it felt like was more of a warning, like, this could have been you. This could have been really bad. This could have been the end, is what I felt in that moment when this figure was staring back at me. And I. It was definitely just kind of confirmation that there is something else out there. But also, even though it was scary in the moment, kind of felt like maybe someone was looking out for me because, you know, this. This car was only a couple inches away from me when it was spinning towards me. It should have hit me. I should have hit this other car, and I didn't, for whatever reason. So I kind of feel like whatever this thing was that I saw, it was more mischievous and, like, I was saying, kind of like smug rather than, like, being malicious. It was just kind of like, that could have been you, but you missed it just narrowly. So overall, I mean, I think it definitely makes me grateful that I'm here and that something, you know, didn't happen to me in that moment. I wish that I knew what happened to the other person. I am irritated because there's one photo of me from this event that had popped up in my, like, Facebook memories a few months ago, and I have been trying to find it so I could try to track down exactly what day this was and try to look it up. But Again, this is 2013 that this happened, and I'm sure there's been a billion car accidents since then. I mean, I hope that person is okay, but I don't know. Overall, I guess just kind of, you know, nothing is guaranteed, and something can happen to you in a split second, any moment. So you just kind of got to appreciate what you have while you have it. It's been 10 years since this happened. I think revisiting definitely is a reminder, both figuratively and literally, to slow down. I am somebody that is very ambitious, and I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish in my life that I haven't done yet. And I always feel like I have to go faster and I have to do more, and I Always have to be busy. But if you're going so fast you can't enjoy your life, then there's kind of not a point. I might live to be 90, or I might just live until the end of the day today, but I just have to, A, have a sense of humor, and B, just really appreciate the things around me and the people that are in my life and not get so caught up in feeling like I need to go fast all the time.
- [49:28]
Jack Wagner
All right, thank you to Alexis for sharing her story. I thought this was such an unexpected and unique one. There are so many different ways you could interpret this. I joked around with her a bit after the interview about how funny it is that the Grim Reaper, if it is a literal being that exists, can drive a car. I guess he rode a horse in the past. It's not that much of a stretch, but I don't know, it just seems funny for some reason, especially that he would choose to drive a hearse. What I found most interesting about this story, though, was the connection with that this image had to her late father and his line of work. Like I said, there are so many ways to interpret the story, but maybe whatever this thing is manifests itself in a familiar form. Maybe this was a message from her dad, or maybe she herself manifested this thing, whatever it was, after coming just inches from death herself. So after speaking to Alexis, her story actually reminded me of another interview I did a very long time ago that I thought was a cool but very short story. Too short to be its own episode. It, of course, also involves the Grim Reaper. I thought it would be perfect to put at the end of this episode. This story comes from a woman named Lily, and I'll let her take it from here.
- [51:04]
Alexis
So my name is Lily, and this story happened in 2011. I was in the 11th grade, and my grandpa had been in a nursing home for maybe three years at this point. And nothing like physically wrong with him, but his mind was pretty gone. Never officially diagnosed, but he had some sort of dementia or Alzheimer's, and he'd just become too much for my grandma to take care of. So they moved him into this home. And we got updates here and there about him we'd gotten. The latest update we'd gotten was that he was moving rooms from the room he'd always been in into a different room with a new roommate. And we just totally assumed that that had happened. And then maybe like two weeks later, I go to bed one night and I have this dream that I'm in the nursing home and my Family lives in Canada, near Toronto, and my grandparents lived in New Jersey. So we really only got there like in the summer. So I'd only ever been in the nursing home maybe two or three times when we would, like, visit once or twice a year. But it was like super vivid dream of me being in this nursing home. And I'm sort of running through the halls trying to figure out where his new room was. Can't find it. I stopped this nurse and I'm like, hey, I'm here to see my grandpa. And he had moved rooms and I'm not sure where his new room is. Could you lead me to his new room? And she just sort of goes, oh, no, he never moved rooms. He's where he's always been. So I'm like, okay, cool. Start walking through the nursing home again towards where I knew his room was. And his room was sort of at the end of a hallway, like the door. And on the right side of the hallway there was like four sort of waiting room chairs. So I turn the corner and see his door, it's shut. And there's these four waiting room chairs. And there's this sort of human, like, figure sitting one of the chairs just like totally hunched over with its head in its hands, like, just like really sad. And it's wearing these long sort of flowing black robes with this big black hood, so I can't see a face. And it's just like totally, like, head in its lap, in its hands, like sad. And like, you can. It's a dream, but you can sort of like feel things in dreams sometimes. And it was this super, like, tangible, just like foggy, sad, heavy feeling. The best way I can describe its posture and like, the feeling was that it was, like, sort of ashamed. And it was like, really sad and just like depressed. And like, it wouldn't look at me and it didn't want to do what it was about to do. And then there's this huge crash and I wake up, I'm in my bed. I look at the clock, it's 12:33am and I just kind of quickly thought, like, oh, that was kind of like the grim reaper. That was sort of weird. He was in a nursing home, but we had no reason to think that he was dying. I didn't really think about him dying. It was sort of something that I assumed would happen much further into the future. Go back to bed, forget about the dream in the morning. I had an English exam the next day. So I woke up, went to my high school, wrote the exam, came home early and my mom's sort of waiting by the door when I get home, and she goes, the nursing home just called and your grandpa died. And they're not sure what time it was, but it was sometime in the middle of the night. And I just sort of immediately remembered the dream and I was like, oh my God. Pretty sure it was 1233. And then she called my dad, who was at work. She didn't say anything about the dream and he doesn't really sleep. So he was like downstairs in the middle of the night watching tv, and he was like, I was watching TV last night and this bowl flew off the shelf at 12:33 and just smashed on the floor. So that's the sound that had woken me up from this dream, which is just like another weirdness to it. And then we'd ask the nursing home in the end if he had ever moved rooms. And he had actually never moved rooms, unbeknownst to us. So the nurse in the dream was right.
- [55:54]
Jack Wagner
All right, thank you to Alexis and Lily for sharing their stories. Like I said in the intro, I've sort of just heard about people encountering a cloaked black figure in hospitals and generally places that are near death for quite some time. We are always looking for new stories and whenever I put out an episode about a new topic, I'm hoping it drums up some emails from people who have experienced something similar. If you have one of your own, you could send it to storiesotherworldpod.com thank you once again to Alexis and Lily for these stories. This has been episode 120. The title is the Final Visitor and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal and North Americans. The song you're hearing right now is Blood Barons by Crystal Stilts. This episode was edited and engineered by Theo Schaeffer. Our associate producers are Nikki Kate Delgado and Haley Pearson. Our artwork is by Cul de Sac Studios. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, become a parent patron@patreon.com OtherWorld Our social media is OtherWorldPod. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five star review and telling your friends about the show. Thank you to the team at Odyssey. Leah Rees Dennis, Rob Morandi, Eric Donnelly, Maura Curran, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor, Michael Lavey, Josephina Francis and Hilary Shuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural or unexplained, you could send us your story@storiesoutpod.com.
- [58:06]
Bobby
Can anyone.