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- [00:01]
A
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B
Welcome to other world. I'm your host Jack Wagner. This episode is about somebody named Melissa. Melissa is from a town called Loma Linda, California and apparently Loma Linda is a Blue Zone. If you haven't heard of that term, that means that basically an abnormal amount of people that live there end up living to a very old age. Apparently this is because Loma Linda has a very high population of Seventh Day Adventists, which, if you don't know what that is, it's a branch of Christianity that has some highly specific beliefs and rules. Some of those involve a healthy diet and not consuming alcohol or tobacco, which is why they think maybe this is the reason for Loma Linda being a Blue Zone. Melissa grew up as a Seventh Day Adventist herself. She is not anymore. I'm going to be honest with you, I barely knew anything about this denomination and I was very curious to learn about it. But I bring up those beliefs because as a result, Melissa ended up not believing in ghosts or spirits whatsoever. Melissa went to school and got her pharmacy doctorate at usc. She became a pharmacist and started working her first job at a home health pharmacy in Loma Linda. She will explain what type of pharmacy this is herself, but it's not your typical neighborhood pharmacy. It's not the type you're probably imagining. There are actually a lot of pharmacies and medical facilities in her region. Actually, I remember breaking my collarbone years ago and having to have one of my friends drive out to Loma Linda to pick up some sort of weird scar medication that was custom compounded out in Loma Linda for me after I had surgery. I'll never forget this because it was really far away and I remember being Very annoyed that I had to go pick this up due to some sort of mix up. Anyway, Melissa started working at the pharmacy and right away people started talking about strange stuff that goes on there. And eventually Melissa started experiencing it herself. This episode genuinely freaked me out. I don't say that very often and it's one of my recent favorites. The episode is called the Pharmacist and you're listening to Otherworld.
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A
Hello, is this Bobby? Yes.
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B
It is at its core, the science.
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A
You can't argue with. I'm so worried about all of a sudden up in the sky.
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B
It's almost frustrating that it's happening.
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A
I'm literally, I'm gonna die. His limbs were just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a. My name is Melissa. I am from Southern California. I was born in Glendale, but we moved to Loma Linda when I was 4 years old. So I always say that I'm from Loma Linda. Loma Linda is a really small town. There's only about 30,000 or so people who live here, but it's about an hour, hour and a half outside of Los Angeles, depending. And it's not really known for anything except that it is a blue zone. So. So a blue zone is some part of the world where people live to be 100 or older more consistently than the rest of the population. And it is the only blue zone in the United States. So there's been stories in like National Geographic about it and there's a documentary series on Netflix and one of the episodes has Loma Linda in it. And the reason why is because of the influence of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. So again, there's not that many people who are Seventh Day Adventists worldwide. But in Loma Linda there's a really high concentration because the leader, I guess you could say way back when like 100 years ago or so, moved a lot of the church members to Loma Linda to found this area and make a hospital and this kind of stuff. So Adventists tend to be vegetarian. The traditional diet is like plant based. And I guess that's kind of just led to this whole living to 100 years old or more than normal. So another one of the beliefs besides the diet thing with SDAs is that they are not believers in going to heaven after you die. They do think you will get there eventually, but when you die that you just go to sleep. The big refrain I heard growing up was always that the dead know nothing. That I'm not even sure if it's in the bible. To be 100. I just know that this was something we were taught all the time, is that the dead know nothing. So when you die, you don't know anything about what's happening. You do not come back as a spirit. You do not haunt anybody. You do not see what's going on around you. Your consciousness, your soul, whatever you want to call it, goes to sleep, and you just wait for the second coming of Christ. When he returns, then you will be raised from the dead and your judgment is decided then. So at that point, if you do go to heaven, that's when you go to heaven. So the big thing is that when you die, you do not just go straight to heaven. There is nobody looking down on us from heaven. I remember when my grandmother died, my cousin, who is not Adventist, did the eulogy and he made a comment about her looking down on us from heaven. And my mom and I kind of exchanged looks like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe he said that, because that is not part of the belief system that we had. And then hell is also different from other religions. So they do believe in not really a hell, but, like, you would burn. So however long it takes for our human body to burn in the flames of hell is how long hell lasts for. It's not eternal. There is no eternal punishment in this belief system. So if you don't go to heaven, then your body's just consumed and you're gone. So those are kind of like the two different things. But I think something also like just general Christianity, you know, obviously not into paranormal, not into any type of mediumship or tarot or anything along those lines that I was told always was, like, of the devil when I was a child. So their paranormal belief is very rigid, I would say, or at least the version I was in when I was a child was pretty rigid, that there was no such thing as ghosts, there was no such thing as a haunting. Anything like that was not actually true. And so I kind of grew up in that belief system. So I was born at Glendale Adventist Memorial Hospital. My mom was Adventist, my grandma was Adventist. So I grew up Adventist. My brother and I, we grew up in the church. I went to an Adventist school. And I really didn't break out of my little Adventist Loma Linda bubble until I went to college. So that was just the belief system I had growing up.
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B
So that's interesting. I didn't know that Adventists believe that, like, you just go to sleep, like, what is Jesus doing in heaven all by himself?
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A
Do you know anything about, like, have you ever heard about their belief system or know anything about them?
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B
I really don't know that much. I feel like they're kind of secretive.
- [09:34]
A
Yeah, they're kind of. They're a little out there. It's a little weird. So they have a lot in common with Mormonism and with Jehovah's Witnesses. They all, all three of these religions started in the same part of New York around the same time. It was called the Burnover district in the 1800s. And they all kind of branched from there. So I didn't know this growing up because we didn't learn about other religions because someday Adventism was considered God's one true religion. So we didn't learn about other religions. So I didn't know. But now that I'm older, now that I know more, I kind of see all these different similarities between these three. So one of the things is that when you have this Adventist believe, the reason the church started and the reason their founder created the Seventh Day Adventist Church, her name was Ellen G. White. And in the 1840s there was something called the Millerite movement. And this person whose last name was Miller, he thought the world was ending at a particular day. He was one of those, you know, we see them now, like saying the world is going to end kind of a thing on this particular day. So everyone sell your stuff, get ready, meet together, and we're all going to see Jesus come back at the same time. So of course that didn't happen. And it was called the Great Disappointment. And so from that, some of his followers started following Ellen G. White, and she founded the Seventh Day Adventist Church. So like any failed belief prophecy people, they tried to go back and kind of retcon it. So they were like, oh, well, we got the date right. Like, Jesus was definitely doing something. He just didn't come back. So they said, oh, well, what happened was in heaven, Jesus went into the inner sanctuary. And right now he's reviewing all of the books of life, I guess, like all of the records of everything that everyone's ever done, ever. And so he's doing his final judgment to see who goes to heaven and who doesn't. And so from that date, that date was correct, but the date was actually correlated to what Jesus is doing in heaven right now. And once he's done, then he'll come back. So when I was growing up in the 1990s with the Esta Church, it was always that like, Jesus is coming back soon. We're in the end times. This is the end times. He's gonna come back because he's been doing this thing since like 1848 or whatever the year was. And he's coming back soon. So it's an apocalyptic religion.
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B
So he's been doing homework this whole time.
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A
Yeah. And apparently it takes a long time. He's got a lot of records to review because it's taken a hot minute there, man.
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B
That sounds not fun for him. This is interesting though. I never knew all this.
- [12:25]
A
Yeah, yeah. There's only. I think there's only like 18 million SDAs in the entire world. So unless you are in. In one of the cities where there's a high concentration, like it's very hard to find them.
- [12:37]
B
And would other Christians and non believers get into heaven or only Seventh Day Adventists.
- [12:45]
A
When I was growing up in the 90s, I can say I was told that Adventists were God's one true religion. That only SDAs were following the correct teachings of Christ and anybody else was not. They were following some kind of corruption by the devil.
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B
So. So he doesn't have as much homework as he would have if he had to read everybody's records.
- [13:09]
A
Yeah, so this is what I'm saying.
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B
So that's a plus.
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A
The commonalities with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism. I heard the same thing from people who are ex people from those religions and it was the same story. It's like we all get told the same thing, right? We are following the one religion and everybody else is wrong. And I've heard that from other groups as well. But I will say now that it's more modern times, I guess, even though it's only been like 30 years since I grew up in it, it's a little bit more liberal. So I have heard. I mean, I'm not in the church. I have not attended church in over a decade. But I have heard that, oh well, you know, if you're a good person, then you go to heaven and it's not really so strict. So it is a little bit more loose than what the fundamental version I grew up with. I guess that's a good thing. But yeah, I've definitely heard it changing in the recent decade. This part is a little weird because of this religious indoctrination I had. I really didn't believe in paranormal. I didn't believe in ghosts, I didn't believe in medianship. I didn't believe in a lot of that. But at the same time, there was that in my own family. Like my mom has had clairvoyant experiences. My grandma was a clairvoyant. Her best friend was a clairvoyant. Both of them were someday Adventist. They joked around and called each other witches. Her grandmother in Mexico was a bruja, like a medicine, magic medicine woman. So I had, I don't know, I had these experiences where people in my family had these things happen to them. And I personally had dreams that had end up coming true. And you know, they're saying, my mom would say, oh, it's because of your grandmother and me. And I had that part. But at the same time, I was like, well, ghosts don't exist. Like, maybe people have some type of intuition, maybe people are influenced in that way, but ghosts don't exist, hauntings don't exist. And when I think of it now, I'm like, that belief system really does not make sense. But at the time, that was definitely my outlook on the world. So when I was in high school, I could not wait to leave Loma Linda. I could not wait to get out. So I ended up going to college in Los Angeles. And I knew that I wanted to be something in healthcare. Like I said, Loma Linda is not known for much, but it does have a massive health care system. And almost everyone that I went to school with had a parent that worked at the Loma Linda University Medical Center, A nurse, a doctor, a pt, some connection to the hospital. The joke was always that Loma Linda was its own type of company town, where instead of a factory that everyone's parents worked at, it was the hospital that everyone's parents worked at. So I always knew I wanted to be something in the medical field like most of the people I went to high school with. And I ended up being a biology major. And then I got my doctorate in pharmacy because my uncle was a pharmacist. He kind of convinced me that he loved his job. So I decided to go that route and become a pharmacist. And then I moved back. So I didn't really ever fully leave. I came home a lot on the weekends. I was always still like halfway in Loma Linda. And then of course, as soon as school got out, I just returned back and tried to find a job, try to get my first job as a pharmacist. I got hired at my first job and in a home health pharmacy. And most people do not know what a home health pharmacy is. Even people who are in pharmacy don't know what this is. A home health pharmacy is not a regular pharmacy. It is a closed door pharmacy, which means that we almost never see patients. We don't dispense any pills. There is absolutely no oral medication. If it's something that you could get at a CVS or Walgreens, you go there. A home health pharmacy is a specialized pharmacy and it is mainly for people who need IV medications at home. So the money making part of the pharmacy is the IV room where they make IV medications. The pharmacy itself was pretty large. If you think about like oh, CVS or Walgreens, like take all the aisles out, take all the customers out, that kind of stuff. But just the size of the building, that's kind of roughly what you would think of when you think of this place. So it was relatively large. We had about 35 or so people working there and there actually weren't very many windows. There was windows on the outside of the buildings, but once you actually like got inside to it, the windows were really, really small and only at the top of like the outer walls. Where I spent most of my day was kind of more inside the middle of the pharmacy and there was just no windows. So you couldn't tell like what time of day it was. You couldn't really tell anything because there was no windows. In the part where I really spent most of my day being a home health pharmacy and working there is just different. What you would do is you come in every day and the first thing you would do is you would pull up the patients that you needed to call that day because we never saw them face to face. We would call them and ask them what they needed supply wise for their IV line and for their medications. And then you look up their labs, you look up any doctor's orders to see if any of the IVs are being discontinued or changed. Once you finalized everything with that, you printed the order. And this was a delivery ticket that the driver would use to deliver this person's medication and supplies. And then you'd actually have the IV label. So the IV label would go to the IV room and they would make whatever medication this patient was on because the pharmacy did not have windows in the inner part. For me personally, I found it very depressing when you have those winter months when the sun isn't out for very long. I would just not see the sun. Right. I usually worked like a 9 to 6 shift, so by the time I got done in the afternoon, the sun was already down. I didn't see the sun during the day because where I am there are no windows. And it was just really depressing for me. Other people kind of were saying things were weird at the pharmacy when I started. Of course, everyone was nice when I first started introducing themselves. But as the months kind of went on after I started working there, people were saying that things were a little bit weird. There was always talk about management. One of the things with this pharmacy was that everything was on video camera. So there were cameras above every single entrance, above all the doors, in the hallways, in the IV room. So unless you were in the staff lounge or one of the restrooms, you were on camera when you were there. And one of the managers who was there when I started would actually watch the cameras when he was at home. So even if he wasn't there for the day, he would have the cameras on at his house, and he would call people if he saw something he didn't like. So it became this weird feeling like you're always being watched. Just know you're always being watched. I was a pharmacist, so I did have access to the cameras, and we were supposed to have them on our screen all the time. I will say I did have to open it, but I almost never looked at it. I mean, I was supposed to, but it was just. To me, I thought it was a little bit excessive. We couldn't rewind, though. So a regular staff pharmacist could not rewind on the tape. Management staff, though, could. And I think the cameras had come in maybe six months before I started because it was relatively new. Some people were not happy. I did hear that some people quit because of the cameras. And apparently when the cameras were put in, they were also recording audio, which then it was found out that that's illegal. You can't do that in California. So they had to change it and just have it record video. But it was this really weird, antagonistic relationship for a little bit with management. And then being in this kind of closed environment, it just got a little bit strange. The vibes were a little bit weird. Once I started working there, I also just noticed some things kind of right away. So because it's an IV pharmacy, you have to have a sink right next to the IV room, like really close to it, because the technicians have to wash their hands, or anybody who goes into the IV room has to wash their hands. And then they go in, and then they gown up, and then they go into the actual IV room itself. And the sink and the paper towel dispensers in the restrooms and by the IV room were all automatic. So you don't touch anything, right? You have to keep your hands clean. So everything's just automatic. And I would notice that randomly these things would turn on. So where my cubicle was, I could hear the sink. I couldn't see it because the cubicle wall was like, separating my line of sight, but I could hear the sink. And you would just hear it randomly go on and off. Or you would hear the paper towel dispenser just start dispensing and no one was there. Or the same thing. When I would go and check IV supplies, I was maybe like 20ft away from the sink. I was not staying in front of it. It's at like a diagonal angle. And you would just hear that go off behind you, right? I'm at the table, I'm checking IV supplies, I'm checking stuff off. And then all of a sudden, like, kind of 20ft behind me, I hear the. The sink go off or the paper towel dispenser go off. And at first I'm just like, oh, well, you know, this hospital's cheap. Like, of course they bought the cheapest stuff that doesn't work. And the sensors are broken. That's just gotta be why, right? And the same thing would happen in the restroom. Those things would go off, go on and off all the time. Like, you would sit in the stall and the sink goes off, and paper towel dispenser goes off, and there's no one else in there with you, and you're in a stall. So, you know, it's not you setting this off because the door is in between you and the sensor. So again, I just thought, well, you know, the sensor's broken, the sensor is delayed, the stuff is cheap. That's gotta be the explanation for all of this. So I really tried to rationalize it when I started. Any pharmacist that starts has to go through six weeks of training, which is a lot, right? In a normal pharmacy, maybe you gain a couple days. But because of the nature of what we do, and because it's so different, and also because by law, we have to have someone available 24 hours a day. That meant that the pharmacist had to rotate being on call. And at our pharmacy, we were on call for a week at a time. So once a month, we are on call for a week. And when you're on call, you're by yourself. So you really need to know the IV lines, the tubing, the pumps, the systems, like, everything in order to help somebody. Because the pager and the phone calls would always be at like 2 or 3am Pumps work great during the day, but somehow in the middle of the night, they stop working. So you really have to know the system. So when I first started, I did my six weeks of training and part of that was spending time with the technicians in the IV room. Because if any medication issue happens, if a medication has to be made after hours or on the weekends, the pharmacist has to come in and do it. You're not going to have a technician there with you. So you have to know how to do everything. I did my training in the IV room and when I was in the IV room, some of the tech started mentioning that things were weird in the building. One of the things was that in the IV room you are not supposed to have your cell phone. It's not considered sanitary. You have to go through all this procedure of washing and gowning and gloving before you go in. So they had a radio that was on the counter space there. But you're not supposed to have your regular cell phone. So the radio would be what played music. And I remember when I was doing my training, they would say that the radio sometimes would just randomly start changing the channels by itself. And they were attributing it to some type of ghost messing with the system. So I just kind of brushed it off and I was like, again, it's cheap, it's some old radio. It's probably like $20. It just malfunctions sometimes. They probably should just replace it. And then you wouldn't have this issue. And then I started hearing more about how they would see maybe like a shadow in the IV room. Sometimes they would feel like something was there in the mornings. The first IV tech who got there who had to open up the IV room, they were by themselves. So they would come in at 7am and they'd be by themselves. And I would hear things like, oh, it's really creepy when I come in in the morning. Or sometimes I see something like out of my peripheral vision I see some type of shadow or something moving. And then when, look, nothing's there. And again, I'm still just trying to rationalize, like maybe they're just scaring themselves. Maybe they feel like something is there with them. And because now they, they have this belief their, their brain is playing tricks on them. They're thinking something's there when really nothing's there. So I'm hearing it, but I'm really just dismissing it. I'm not really paying attention. And then I start seeing the paper towel dispenser and hearing the sinks go off and, and all of this is kind of happening within. I would say, my first six months here, one day I'm checking the IV supplies, and the sink that's like 20ft behind us goes off and paper towels dispense. And one of the techs, like, makes a comment about how this always happens. And I'm kind of agreeing, like, yeah, it's weird. It's weird that clearly these things are so broken. They go off multiple times a day, and the management doesn't change them. And it's just weird that this is happening. And we both mention that we have also had this occur to us in the women's restroom. And the technician that I'm talking about says, oh, that happens to me. But I've also heard that this other tech said that she sees stuff in the restroom. And then that part kind of hit me different because, like I said, I've heard the sinks. I've heard the paper towel dispensers when I'm in the restroom, but I had never seen anything. So I was trying to get more information, and she didn't really know that much. She just said this other technician had told her she had seen shadows walking in front of the stalls. So in the little gap between the floor and the bottom of the stall door, she saw stuff, like, walk past the stall she was in. And so something about that really got my attention, because I can say that the sinks are cheap and the sensor doesn't work, but I can't explain that part. So I find the technician who had said this originally, and I just kind of casually bring it up, like, hey, you know, did anything weird ever happen to you in the restroom, like the sinks and the paper towel dispenser keep going off? And she's like, oh, yeah. And I was like, anything else, you know, kind of happen? And she's like, oh, yeah, I see shadows. Like, shadows have walked past my stall while I'm sitting there. And so that shocked me. I didn't know how to react to that because now I'm starting to believe in something I didn't believe in before. So I asked her a little bit more like, do you know what it was? And she's like, no, but, you know, that's happened to me before in there. And so I just asked, like, what do you do? Because nothing like that has ever happened to me. And I don't know what I would do in that situation. And I never believed this stuff was true. So I'm asking her, like, what do you do in that situation? And she told me that she just continues on with her day. She. She washes her hands. She does everything normal, does not change at all. And so I, I asked her, like, how do you do that? Right? If that were me, I would be freaking out. I think I would be freaking out. So I asked her, like, how do you do that? How do you stay calm like that? And she told me, you cannot show them fear like it wants you to be afraid of it. It's showing itself to you because it wants that fear reaction from you. So you just have to completely ignore it and don't show it fear. And I just kind of remember that line. That line has really just stayed with me all of this time, all these years later, because I thought, okay, if something happens to me, that's really what I'm going to try to do.
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B
All right, it. We'll be right back after this quick break. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. Are you looking for a podcast about pro football that doesn't put you to sleep with an avalanche of analytics or insult your fandom with brainless hot takes?
- [31:03]
A
Well, hi, I'm Dan Hanzas.
- [31:05]
B
And I'm Mark Sesler.
- [31:06]
A
Oh, hi, Mark. And we're the hosts of Heed the.
- [31:08]
B
Call, the NFL podcast you've been waiting your whole life for. He the Call covers every game, every storyline, everything that matters. And we do it all with a touch of mirth. Football is fun. Why shouldn't your football podcast be the same? Follow and listen to Heed the Call NFL Podcast Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [31:26]
A
Every drop of Jack Daniels is mellowed through sugar maple charcoal, giving Jack its smooth taste. That's what makes Jack Jack.
- [31:34]
B
Please drink responsibly. Jack Daniels and old number seven are registered. Trademark Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee this episode.
- [31:42]
A
Is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability Amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Your teen adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradiction. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New team the new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you. So one weekend I'm on call, and I'm on call with one of the drivers who. Who was the driver I was closest to at this pharmacy. And I'm still incredibly close to him today. He's one of my best friends, so we joke around a lot together. And I feel very comfortable, right, telling him, joking around with him. And one time when we're on call together, I think it's a Sunday morning, like 10 o', clock, I get a phone call that there is a new patient discharging from the medical center and they're going to go home on IV antibiotics. Now, this is a new patient. We didn't have them. And this medication had not been made during the week. So because it's the weekend, I have to go in on call and I have to go make it in the IV room by myself. I can do it because I did the training and I made IVs when I was in pharmacy school. So I can do it, but I'm a lot slower than the technicians who do this every single day, all day. Right. I know I'm going to be stumbling a little bit because I'm not exactly sure where everything is, where the syringes are, the needles, the actual medication valve. I have to look for everything. So I call my friend, the driver, who's on call with me, and I tell him we have a new order, so I have to go in and make it. But give me like at least a half hour. And he says, okay, you know what? Give me. I'll be there in 40 minutes. We'll make it 40 minutes. So you have plenty of time, don't worry. And I live really close to this pharmacy, so on the weekend I can get there in less than five minutes. So I leave my house, I drive to the pharmacy, I park in the back, which is by the warehouse, and I walk up to the door and I put my keys in the door. And my key always would get jammed in this door. I'm not really sure why. When I'm opening the door, when I'm fighting with my key, and when I open the door, I hear Footsteps walking towards me. The footsteps are pronounced like, it is very clear that someone is walking down the hall. And the flooring in that area is like concrete with a very, very thin carpet. So you hear the footsteps very clearly. And immediately I say, God damn it, Dave. We said 40 minutes. Because I'm kind of joking with him. He's my friend, right? I can kind of joke with him like that. But at the same time, I'm like, dude, we just talked about this. What are you doing? Like, you said 40 minutes. It's been five, and you're already here. So I get my key out of the door, and I open the door fully. So now I'm looking in the hallway right inside the building, and it's completely dark. There was no hesitation in my mind when I heard the footsteps that someone was in that pharmacy and walking towards me. And that's why I reacted, why I did. Because like I said, I had five minutes before. Just gotten off the phone with a driver who said he would be here in 40 minutes. And then in my brain, I'm hearing him walk directly towards me. From the sound, it sounded like they were maybe 20, 15ft away. And then they were coming closer towards me. I could hear them start off a little bit softer. Not that much difference, but you can tell when someone is walking towards you versus walking away. And it clearly was someone walking towards me clearly. So the footstep sound is getting louder as it's coming closer to me. And when I open the door and I stare, the footsteps are still coming towards me. So the footsteps don't stop. The second I actually get my key out of the door and open the door, the footsteps stopped right by this technician's desk, like, right at the wall where the women's restroom is. One thing about the pharmacy is that everything lightweight is on a sensor. It's a motion sensor. So if you walk through the pharmacy in the morning or on the weekend, the lights turn on as you're walking. But when you first open the door, everything's black. So I open the door and I hear these footsteps walking towards me, and it's pitch black. So then I just freeze. I just stand there. And immediately in my head, I'm thinking, oh, no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. And that's just like repeating. And I'm thinking, like, I'm finally experiencing what other people were experiencing there. So I'm standing there and I'm trying to think, like, what do I do? And the line from the technician who saw the shadows in the restroom just Comes back into my brain. Like, it wants your fear. It's showing itself to you, and it wants your fear response, and you can't show it fear. You just go on with your day. So I kind of just wave my hands like crazy right by the door to get the lights to turn on. So the lights turn on and no one's there. I'm the only person in this pharmacy. And I tell myself, just get to the IV room. Just get to the IV room. Just get to the IV room. Just get to the IV room. And so I start walking. But I'm explicit with myself, do not run. Because if I run, this becomes like a predator prey relationship. It's gonna know I'm freaked out. So I'm not running. Like, I will not run. So I'm walking, like power walking through the pharmacy, like, waving my hands like crazy. And it almost feels like one of those horror movies where someone is running and, like, behind them, like, the lights are, like, looking on from the motion sensor. And so I'm power walking through the. Through the hallway and hit the first, like, locked door that we have to badge into. And I open up that door and then I walk and I get to the sink and I. I'm scrubbing in and washing my hands. And then I get into the anteroom where you actually gown up. So I'm there. I'm like, okay, thinking. And when I'm in there, I remember one of the other pharmacists told me that when she has to go in on the weekend, she just blasts music from her phone. And she said she just plays it as loud as she can. And she tells herself nothing is there, so there's nothing for her to be scared about. And I think, okay, that's what I'm gonna do. So I'm not supposed to have my cell phone in the IV room, but I do, because if I want to play music, I'm going to play it through my phone. I for sure am not going to use the radio. That changes by itself. I am not going to let something try to talk to me through this radio. Like a Transformers movie or something, right? So I'm like, I'm not touching that radio. You cannot pay me right now to touch that radio. So instead, I just put my phone on the counter and I turn on Pandora. This is like 2015, 2016. So I put music on. I put it, like, as loud as I possibly can. And then I start cleaning the hood. And I tell myself, like, okay, I made it to the Ivy Room. I'm Fine. I'm safe. It was probably like a Frank Sinatra playlist that I put on. I'm usually more of a 90s, early 2000 alternative rock, but I wanted as calm as possible. So I put on some Frank Sinatra, like, oldies music. Trying to think low energy, like just really calming, really safe, Nothing's happening around me. Kind of a vibe I was trying to do. So the music's going on my phone. I'm cleaning the IV hood, because you have to clean it before we start. And I look at my hands, and my hands are visibly shaking, like they're in gloves. And I'm trying to wipe down the hood, but they're visibly shaking. And I'm stumbling around and I feel just freaked out. And there's this giant window looking out the IV room. And because I'm in the IV room, I'm not being picked up on the sensors outside. And so the IV room lights are on because I'm moving around in there. But the lights for the rest of the pharmacy turn off, off. So when I look up through this window outside, it's pitch black. All of the lights are off. And I'm trying to get done with these medications, and I'm shaking and I'm freaked out, and I'm going as fast as I can, but I'm clearly not as competent as I normally would be because of how scared I am. So I finish up with the medications. I am done, and I am trying to get out of there as fast as I can. So I have to do the opposite thing in reverse. I have to walk back through the pharmacy. So I just do the same thing. I leave my phone playing music, I power walk, I wave my hands and I hit the door. I get my car, and I'm gone. I am done with that place. So that was Sunday. We come into work on Monday, and I think I go into the IV room to do the morning check, and I start telling the IV room text what happened. And so I tell them that I heard footsteps and that I had to come into the IV room and that the lights turn off. And again, the male Ivy tech is in there. And when I'm saying this, he's kind of confirming. So he is saying that when you go in in the mornings with IV text, do the. The setup in the morning, the same thing, because no one is else is in the pharmacy walking around, how the lights turn off and how creepy it is because all of a sudden it's just. Just pitch black outside the Ivy room. And you can see it through the windows. So they're kind of acknowledging that it is incredibly creepy to be in there when everything else is pitch black and you just have to wait for someone to walk by and turn on the lights. And because of what they had gone through in the Ivory Room, they were, they were open to this. I was comfortable telling them this. When I was, I was thinking back on this, I don't think I've ever told, like my mother, I never told my boyfriend. I never told anyone who didn't work in that pharmacy. So because they had had their experiences and they had told me about it, I was comfortable telling them. But I really did not tell anyone outside of the pharmacy staff there. I would say maybe, maybe like six more months later. I am checking medications that are coming out of the IV room. So the morning is really busy. The IV room is like getting everything done to go out for delivery that day. And I'm checking in front of the IV room. So there are two restroom areas in the building. One of them is close to the IV room and it is a single stall, gender neutral bathroom. It's close to the IV room, so a lot of the IV techs like to use that one. And then there is a men's and women's restroom section on the opposite side of the pharmacy. It's near the warehouse and it's a longer walk. So usually the technicians and the IV room staff like to use the one that's really, really close. So I'm checking in the morning and one of the IV techs comes out and she says that she's going to go to the restroom. So the cart that I'm checking, the medication's on, I have to move it. And she walks past me and I'm just checking. And then a couple seconds later, I see her in my periphery walking back towards me. And so I turn and I look at her and she says, it's occupied because that restroom is a single stall. If someone's in there, you know, obviously she can't go use it. And so she walks past me going towards the other restrooms that are multiple stalls and men's and women's. And I make a joke to her. I turn to her and I say, ha, ha, now you have to go into the haunted one. And she looks at me and I remember she did not say anything. She just rolled her eyes at me. And I do have that type of humor where I will make jokes about things that maybe I shouldn't make jokes about. And I made that joke and obviously she, she didn't find it particularly hilar. She obviously had had stuff happen to her in the IV room. And we all kind of know what was going on in the women's restroom. So she doesn't laugh. She just walks off. And a couple hours later. So this was in the morning, I would say a couple hours later in the afternoon. I need to go use the restroom. And I always go to the women's restroom. So I'm walking down the hallway, I go into the women's restroom, and right when I open the door, when you open the door, you are looking at the sinks and the mirror, and the paper towel dispenser is like on the wall right when you open the door. So she is actually at the paper towel dispenser drying her hands. The same tech that I made this joke to. So we kind of awkwardly go past each other because she's trying to come out while I'm trying to go in. And the stalls are on your left hand side. So when you go, when you open the door, on your right is the wall that has the paper towel dispenser. Right in front of you are the sinks. And on your left hand side is the first stall, like the wall of the first stall. So I go, and I go into the second stall. And on the second stall, I really don't know why, but there is a electrical box right above the toilet. So that's there. I. I don't know why, but it's there right above the toilet. So I go into the stall, I lock the door, and I start fighting with this like, toilet seat cover. And when I'm trying to open it, I hear this boom. And I don't even like, look up or do anything because I'm so involved in trying to open up this toilet seat cover. So I'm still like messing around with it. And like a second later I hear this boom. And it's loud. It sounds like someone is slamming against the wall, like right, right above the toilet. Like the wall that is right behind the toilet. It sounds like someone is body slamming with all their weight. It's loud. The second one is loud. And it's so loud that I jump. And I look up and when I look up, I see the metal door of the electrical box. And it's warped. And it's warped in a way. When I look at it immediately I think that looks like a hand. It looks like the best thing that I can describe is one of those, like toys you have as a kid that has a bunch of pins in it. And people like, would Put it to their face or put their hand through it, and it makes an impression on the other side. It's like that, but, like, completely smooth, right? The pins have little gaps. Or maybe if you think of Star wars and carbonite, when Han Solo's in carbonite and it just. It's like. Like an outline of a shape, but, like, in smooth metal, that's what it looks like. It's. It's like a hand there. But the hand isn't, like, completely vertical. It's, like, angled. Like it's coming towards me. And I remember looking at it and saying, that looks like a hand. And then I was thinking, well, why didn't I see that when I came in? Because the toilet seat covers are right underneath this box. Like, why did I not see that? And when I'm looking at it, it's like there's a little bit of motion or something, and it just completely disappears. Like, the hand is gone. And it's like the COVID of this electrical box, like, snaps back to normal. And so when it snaps back to normal, there's no dents, that it's not warped. It is a completely normal door for this electrical box. Nothing's abnormal. And when I see that, I just kind of stand there, stupefied, like, confused. What. What just happened? Right? And while I'm staring at it, again, I hear this boom. And when that sound happens, spins. The electrical box warps again and again. It's like this hand is coming through. And this time, I see it moving. It's like I see the hand hitting the inside of the electrical box when I hear the sound. And then it travels. It, like, bends. So your hand is, like, hitting the inside of the electrical box, rocks and then kind of like, tilting towards me. And so I see this movement of it when I hear this sound. And the first thing that goes through my mind is what you are seeing is breaking the laws of physics. And when that thought goes through my mind, I scream. I scream bloody murder. That's really when I freaked out, because I've taken a lot of science classes. I was a science major in my undergrad. I have my doctorate in science. I know what metal can do. I know that if an electrical panel gets that warped, it's not going back. It's not fixing itself right in front of me in a split second. That part is what scared me when I thought, this is breaking the laws of physics. That's really what scared the hell out of me. And that's just why I screamed, because I knew for a fact this Is not normal. This is not natural. This is not what we consider to follow the rules of everyday life. What I'm seeing is impossible without a paranormal explanation. And that's. That's what terrified me. When I thought that what I'm seeing is paranormal, I froze. Like, I know people say fight or flight. I froze. Like, I physically could not move. And then I'm just standing there, trying to think about what to do, but my body is not moving. Like, I do not think I could have walked out of the restroom and just ran. Like, when I. After I screamed, screamed, I don't think I physically could have walked out. I was stuck there. And so because I was stuck there, then my brain is trying to think of, like, what to do, how do I get out of this situation. Which is why I decided to apologize to it. I sit down on the toilet and I'm apologizing, and I decide to say it out loud because I figure if I think it, it's not. Not going to know. I. I don't know. For some reason in my brain, I just thought, I have to say this out loud. Like, I have to talk to it. It's here. It's in the stall with me. So I have to talk to it like I would if a person was here. And I know it's a little ridiculous sitting in a restroom by yourself, talking out loud to what you think is a ghost that just tried to attack you through an electrical box. But I sit there and. And out loud, I just start apologizing and I guess trying to compromise with it. So I say I'm sorry. Like, I am sorry that I made you angry. I'm sorry that I made that joke about you haunting this restroom. And clearly you did. Not like that. Like, I understand you were mad at me. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry that I tried to make light of that. And I know you're here. Clearly, I know you're here. And I promise in the future, I will never make another joke about you and about you haunting this place. I will never make another joke about that. And I know you're here. You know I know you're here. So I'm going to acknowledge that you're here. I know you're here. But you don't need to show yourself to me. I will never make another joke. I know that you're here. You do not need to show yourself to me. And I felt a little stupid. Yeah, I did. I felt stupid saying that out loud. But I just thought if it accepts my apology, it's not going to do anything to me me if it doesn't accept my apology. It knows how to communicate with me. It knows how to show itself to me. So I just sat there and waited. And I thought, if I hear a huge boom behind me, I know is going to try to get through the electrical box. And now that is right behind the back of my head. So I will hear it. And nothing happened. And because nothing happened, I thought it accepted my apology. It knew that. That I was remorseful. And when I think that it's accepted my apology, I just get up and I just walk out. So I walk back out and I walk back up towards the IV room. And when I walk up there, the tech who had been coming out of the women's restroom when I went in, she's going into the anteroom. She's going through the first door to get into the Ivy room. And so I see her and I say, you're not going to believe this. You're not going to believe what just happened to me in there. And I tell her about the slamming and the hand coming through this electrical box and, like, how I freaked out. And she said, oh, yeah, I heard you scream. And I looked at her, I was like, what? And she's like, I heard you scream. And so I asked her, like, okay, like, why didn't you come back? Like, you heard me screaming in the restroom? And she said, well, I wasn't gonna go. I wasn't gonna go back in there. I don't know if I ever would have believed people and what they saw if I hadn't seen this. Because seeing a hand come at you through something that you know is impossible is terrifying, like, physically seeing some force coming towards you. Like the footsteps I heard, I didn't see anything. I heard it. And I tried to rationalize it, but this. This I couldn't. This was clearly something paranormal and wanting my attention and looking like it was trying to get at me. Like, this hand is moving and pointing in my direction. I think of. Of a hand coming at you. That's what I'm seeing. Like it's trying to come physically at me. And I'm seeing it slow down while the metal is warping, but it looks like it is trying to come at me. Like it is trying to get to me. At the very least, it wants me to know that it is there. But in my mind, I'm thinking maybe it wants to attack me. I don't know. And that's terrifying when you see some type of paranormal force coming towards you, maybe trying to physically harm you. That is scary. Like, I can feel my heart racing right now just talking about it. My stomach is starting to hurt because that was one of the scariest things that I have ever seen. So after that, you know, I told. I told all the IV techs. We tried to figure out if there was a way to. Someone could have done that to me. Like, maybe someone was in the hallway. But like I said, that other IV tech was walking out of the restroom. Like, she would have seen someone. There were cameras. No one was in the hallway. It wasn't. It wasn't someone messing with me, like playing a practical joke or something on me. So I knew. I knew what happened. I knew that it happened because I. I had pissed off this ghost. So after I apologized to calmed down for me, I never saw it again. I worked there probably probably another year and a half afterwards. A year and a half to two years after this happened. And I never had anything else happen. No footsteps, no. Nothing like this ever happened to me again. I just thought, you know, me and the ghosts are going to coexist here, and we're not. But we're not going to infringe on the other, right? We're going to stay in our own parallel universes or whatnot. And I never had anything else happen like that. I did end up leaving. I left in August of 2017. So I worked there for about three and a half years. And yeah, I left. I was very happy to get out of that pharmacy. Not even just for the ghost, just other stuff going on there. So I did end up leaving. And I have not set foot in that. In that pharmacy in. In years now. That really did change my whole perspective on this. If you had asked me about ghosts the first day I stepped into that pharmacy, I would have told you they don't exist. And if you think they exist, you are absolutely ridiculous. And if you had told me that you had a ghost story, I would probably not have even paid attention to you. Secretly, in my head, I would have been laughing at you. And then after the day that I walked out of this experience, the day I left the pharmacy was a completely different mindset, right? My time in that place changed my entire outlook on what I think is out there. And if I had started. If I had talked to you when I first started there, you know, I would have been like the, oh, I have a scientific background. I know science. I've taken science classes. And now I actually teach. I teach chemistry. And. And one of the things that's in our curriculum, one of the things that I teach is the discovery of different parts of the atom, right? We know that there's like protons, electrons, neutrons now, but go back 100 years, people didn't know that that existed. And in my mind now I would say I have a very different understanding of the role of science in this. Just because we can't measure something or physically see it now does not mean that it doesn't exist. It just means we don't have the proper tools, we don't have the things that are necessary to measure it or to see it. Like a proton was old, always there, but that just wasn't discovered. Stars and comets and anything that's out there in space that has been found recently was always there. We just couldn't see it, we didn't know it. So just because we don't have a methodology to reliably measure these things and explain these things, personally I think that that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Thankfully I had people in that building with me who experienced stuff, who I could talk to this about, but I really did not tell other people. I don't think I told anyone outside of the pharmacy about this stuff. So I think I just wanted to hear other people's experiences in a way to remind myself that, that I wasn't alone in this. Like I'm not crazy, I didn't just make it up. It wasn't my brain playing some trick on me. And so I'm definitely more understanding of people's experiences with this. I think I am more accepting also of what I saw and I don't think someone doubting me would ever change what I know I experienced there.
- [62:44]
B
Okay, thank you to Melissa for sharing that story. I just want to say I was genuinely just as surprised as all of you probably were when she had that experience in the bathroom with the fist punching through metal. Basically I was surprised because Melissa did not share that part of the story in her email. Normally I know everything that happens in these stories before I interview the person. Melissa just explained an overview of what happened and then alluded to the fact that more things occurred. But she did not really get specific. So when she started talking about this, I was legitimately so surprised, wide eyed and at the edge of my seat as she explained it. The whole thing is just completely insane. Situations like this for me when a firm non believer ends up having something so vivid, intense and extreme happen out of nowhere. These are just the type of stories that keep my interest really fueled in this type of stuff and it makes Otherworld a really fun and occasionally frightening show to work on. Thank you once again to Melissa for sharing her story. This episode is called the Pharmacist 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. This episode was edited and engineered by Theo Shafer. 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, you can become a patron@patreon.com Otherworld Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five star review and telling your friends about the show. Our social media is therworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odysee. Leah Rhys, Dennis, Rob Mirandi, Eric Donnelly, Maura Curran, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor, Michael Lavey, Josefina Francis and Hilary Schuff. Follow and listen to To Otherworld now for free on the Odysee app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural or unexplained, you can send us your story@storiesotherworldpod.com.