Introducing: Haunting
26:18 Share

Everyone knows PayPal is a checkout button for online payments, but now you can use your PayPal debit card online and tap to pay in-store. The PayPal debit card is your ultimate pal in paying smart, everywhere. And now it earns you 5% cash back on a monthly category of your choosing. Restaurants, apparel, groceries, health and beauty, and gas on up to $1,000 of monthly purchases. So let's do this after the podcast.

Start earning 5% cash back with the PayPal debit card today. Don't just pay, PayPal. Terms apply. See PayPal app. This card is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. Pursuant to license by MasterCard International, Inc.

Sometimes where a crime took place leads you to answer why the crime happened in the first place. Hi, I'm Sloane Glass, host of the new true crime podcast, American Homicide. In this series, we'll examine some of the country's most infamous and mysterious murders and learn how the location of the crime becomes a character in the story. ♪

Listen to American Homicide on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's been 30 years since the horror began. 911, what's your emergency? He said he was going to kill me. In the 1990s, the tourist town of Domino Beach became the hunting ground of a monster. We thought the murders had ended, but what if we were wrong? Come back to Domino Beach. I'll be waiting for you.

Listen to The Murder Years, Season 2, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Andrea, host of Betrayal. Happy Halloween to those who celebrate. In addition to the launch of a new episode of Betrayal today, I also have a little spooky surprise too. I mean, it is Halloween after all. Over the last year, my colleagues at Glass Podcast have been working tirelessly to find some of the craziest, most haunted, and terrifying stories you'll ever hear.

Well, mission accomplished. And you can hear all of these terrifying tales on the new podcast, Haunting. As a fan of all things paranormal and unexplainable, these stories have me shook each week. But it's not all thrills and chills. This show will make you laugh too. It's hosted by one of my all-time favorite comedians, Lauren Lapkus. You may have seen her in movies like The Wrong Missy and The Outlaws, or shows like Orange is the New Black and A Million Little Things.

While now, she's taken on a new, more lifeless role. On Haunting, Lauren embodies the fictional character Teresa, a micro-influencer who met her untimely demise only to find herself stuck in purgatory. Each week, Lauren, aka Teresa, shares incredible firsthand accounts of people who have faced the unexplainable. Ghosts, demons, spirits, you name it.

So if the Halloween spirit has you in the mood for something spooky, please check out and follow Glass Podcast's latest show, Haunting. New episodes launch every Tuesday and can be found on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have an encounter of your own, email the team at hauntingthepodcast at gmail.com. That's haunting, H-A-U-N-T-I-N-G, the P-O-D-C-A-S-T, at gmail.com.

Now for the spooky surprise. Betrayal listeners, stay tuned for an exclusive ad-free episode of Haunting. I hope you enjoy. Hello, my haunties. We're back with a brand new episode of Haunting.

It's another windless, weatherless day in purgatory, and Len is wearing shorts. Strange. That's not me. That's my normal man. Unzipped. Now they're off. Len's saying it's not strange because they're just his normal cargo pants and he unzipped the bottoms, so now they're shorts. But I'd argue that's even worse. Why did he decide to unzip today? Who's he trying to impress? If I didn't know any better, I'd say Len's got a hot date tonight. Well.

Maybe. Oh my god, he does have a date tonight. Len, you little slut! I knew it. Who is she? How'd you meet? Tell us everything. Oh yeah, what's her sign?

Canadian Banshee. Hot. Semi-recently deceased. Okay, good. Not too fresh. Working through some unfinished business. Aren't we all? Has a dead German shepherd. Haunts her childhood home. Met on the apps. Ah, cute.

Wait, we have apps here? Ghosted, the Afterlife's premier dating app connecting supernatural singles looking for their eternal flame. Till death do us start. Huh. Naomi, you're on the apps too?

How did I not know about this? Well, Len, I'm excited for you. The zip-off cargo shorts were an interesting choice for a first date, but here's hoping she's the ghoul of your dreams. Well, we'll hear you. Okay, let's get into our first story.

When love calls, you answer. That was a segue. It'll make more sense in a minute. I think about what would have happened if we would have answered the phone that day. Could we have maybe communicated back with her? Or maybe she had more to say. Or maybe it wasn't even her at all. My name is Corey, and I received a phone call from the grave. I'm from Alabama. I've lived here my entire life.

It's a small college town, southern hospitality, wave at your neighbor. There's lots of friendly people, lots of football fans. It's like a religion here. Pretty much everyone in my family is local. We all are kind of tight-knit, all live in the same area. We're all from Alabama. My great-grandmother, she was kind of the glue that held everyone together.

We all called her Maumau. Even her kids called her Maumau when they came over. It was just like her name for us. Her real name is Maud. Stereotypical old school name, I guess.

When I think of my great-grandmother, I would describe her as tiny, frail, your typical great-grandmother. She had kind of a raspy voice that echoed her age, you know. It was very distinct. If you just ran into her out somewhere and didn't see her, you would know from her voice that it was her. She was very loving, and her home was always very welcoming.

Everyone just came to her house, and it was just a meeting place, honestly. If you ever came to her house, it would be kind of like a family reunion. A typical day for her, I guess, would be doing puzzles and crosswords. She always had QVC playing in the background. I don't think she ever watched it. I think she just liked to hear it. But I just think of her sitting on her couch, just in her certain spot she sat in.

She definitely did have her quirks. She grew up through the Great Depression, so she was kind of set in her ways. So a quirk she had was that she didn't really say "I love you" ever. It was just something she did not say. It was not in her vocabulary. Even to her own kids, she never really said "I love you." It was always evident that she loved you, but she never said it. It made her very uncomfortable.

That was just something the family respected and we all knew, like, don't get your feelings hurt. I have shared this story with my parents and that's pretty much about it outside of my grandparents who experienced it themselves. I don't really talk about it much. I just kind of keep it to myself. It was late August 2005, about a week after the passing of my great-grandmother. She was 92 years old.

At the time I was 12 years old. I'm visiting with my grandparents. Nothing out of the ordinary. I'm very close with them, so going to visit them is a common occurrence. We're sitting around the living room, just talking, checking on each other, seeing how we're doing. She had just passed a week prior, so she was definitely coming up in conversation. It was just me, my grandmother, and my granddad. While we were talking, the phone rings.

My granddad, he picks up the phone, looks at it, kind of looks kind of puzzled and turns it around and shows us the caller ID. It just shows 10 zeros, no name, no number, just 10 zeros. Usually when they receive a phone call that, you know, it doesn't recognize, it says unknown name, unknown number. That's kind of the standard. But this had no name or anything, just all zeros.

He does this thing when he assumes it's a spam call and he held it up and was like, "I don't know anyone named 0000" and the answering machine can get it. He just lets it go. Maybe a minute or so later, the phone lights up. There's a new message. My granddad doesn't like messages on the machine. He likes to clear it off. He picked up the phone and he plays it on speaker.

When he hits play, there's just static interference, like someone has a bad connection. I don't want to say as extreme as like TV static or something, but like it was kind of like rustling and there was some some crackling in the message, just like someone was trying to get through and maybe they were like going under a bridge or something, you know. About 10 seconds after the static, we heard the words. It was the distinct voice of my great grandmother.

We all just kind of looked at each other and were just kind of shocked and kind of in disbelief. Did we hear what we think we just heard? My granddad, he was like, "What was that? Did you hear what I heard?" We actually played it back a few times and sure enough, it was her voice. From the look on everyone's face in the room, we all knew that it was her. It definitely sent a shiver down my spine.

when you let your mind go there that it could possibly be her. The static of it really gave you an uneasy feeling. It wasn't just "I love you." It was a sound like something was struggling to get that to come through. Twelve-year-old me was like, "We're definitely gonna try to call this number back." I grabbed the phone and hit redial on the caller ID.

Typical like robot voice thing says that this is not a valid number. That just kind of blew my mind. I expected it to, you know, call someone or something, you know, like I didn't expect it to say that. It was just a repeat of basically the original call. Just like wide eyes and staring at each other. Like what just happened?

I expected someone to pick up, some old lady to pick up that had the wrong number. That did not happen. I was very stunned to find out that it was not an actual number. Up until the very day of her passing, she still never even told my granddad that she loved him. I feel like she had regrets or she just needed to let him know that before moving on.

It does provide another sense of comfort, especially for my granddad, because that was his mom. I definitely feel like it was something he needed to hear. I feel like it gave my granddad closure and some comfort, just knowing that maybe she's okay, that she does definitely love him, even though he knows. But it's just a comforting feeling, even for me, so I know it has to be for him, you know.

It definitely has changed my perspective when you see a number pop up that you don't know. There's always someone on the other end trying to reach you for whatever reason. It does make you stop and think because once it hangs up, you know, that's it. You don't get a second chance. What if instead of it going to voicemail, if we had answered, could we have communicated back? Len, Cory's mama's ghost could be you tonight.

I'm kidding, obviously. Don't tell her you love her on the first date. But I'll admit, you got me inspired. I made a ghosted profile. It's really hard to get a good picture. When I look around, all I've seen of other people are a lot of ethereal blobs and what looks like water damage. Ooh, this guy seems fun. He's a wraith. Okay, bad boy. Perpetually 28. Worst fad I ever participated in. Tuberculosis. Oh!

Honey! Ooh, this one's a voice note. Ooh, F-I, F-I, F-I. Okay, okay, okay. I'm convinced that... Hmm. Gotta roll. Um... I'm swiping right anyway. Dating is a numbers game. It's all about racking up matches and seeing what sticks. Naomi, have you met anyone on here? A nice incubus to settle down with, maybe? Well, I don't know what you're into...

All right, while I survey the goods, meet Kim, whose haunted farmhouse became something of a daycare when a friendly spirit decided to play babysitter. On this one particular day, it was a cold February morning. It was just me and the babies in the house. When they woke up, they were hysterical, inconsolable. I could hear them screaming and crying from the kitchen. And then all of a sudden, they stopped crying.

In all of this confusion, I had forgotten to turn the monitor on. When I turned it on, I heard something. Someone's in the house, and I have no idea who this is. It's scary, and I don't know what to do. My name is Kim, and there was something in the house with me. Back in the '70s, my family moved into this old farmhouse.

It was on a hill, white with black shutters, and a porch that went the entire length of the front of the home and the side of the home, with a large living room and seven bedrooms, four on the second floor and three on the third floor. When you come up the street, that's the first house that you would see. And I think it was one of the original farmhouses for that area of Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

My mother found records and she talked to the previous owners. They lived there from the 40s, the 50s, the 60s until we got this in the 70s. They said the farmhouse was built in 1900. And then in about 1930s, it was taken over by a woman named Mrs. Degendash. She was an old heavyset woman. And I think she was German.

She started a boarding house for nuns and single ladies and whomever for a brand new high school that was being built in Southampton. When we moved in in the 70s, my father put an addition on the back of the house. He put a rec room, another set of stairs, another bedroom, and a big bathroom. So it was a big and beautiful old house.

From the moment we moved into that house, from the very first night, I would hear footsteps. If I was in my room, I would hear footsteps, and I would look down the hall, and there would be no one there. It was an every night, but it was consistent, and you just knew that it wasn't a brother or sister because they wouldn't head down that part of the hallway, and it was never in the new part of the house. It was always in the old part of the house.

It was creepy as hell. When me and my sisters used to sneak in late at night, we always thought it was either our mother or our father. Finding out that we were sneaking in late at night, you would turn around and there would be nothing there. Or I would walk up the long stairway and there's footsteps behind me, but I'm alone. Usually I would hear these footsteps on the way to this back room that we called the Agnes of God room. My mother named the room the Agnes of God room.

That was from an awful movie with Jane Fonda about a nun who murdered a baby. It was creepy and weird. So this particular hallway to the right was the Agnes of God room. To the left of that was the nursery and then another room. And the Agnes of God room is the room that Mrs. Degendash apparently died in. I was always too scared walking down the hallway towards the Agnes of God room.

Because as soon as you hit the landing, I hear footsteps. I turn around and there's no one there. It was a heavy footstep. It was a good sturdy shoe. They were just footsteps. When I told my mother the story of Mrs. Degendash and the footsteps, she said, "You don't need to be scared here because we're always safe with me." My mother called herself a strega, which in Italian means witch.

She was named that through a woman from South Philadelphia who sat on the corner, who all the children were very, very frightened of, who was also a straga. When this woman passed, she gave this kit to my mother. It was a hollowed-out, wooden, beautiful, carved crucifix, maybe a foot tall. And inside was special oil, holy water, and sage leaves.

That kit stayed underneath her bed for as long as I can remember. I was always too scared to even open it up. But that is what kept her from being so frightened of anything in the house because she had the kit and she was convinced that Mrs. Dagen-Dash or whatever, they were good spirits, that they would not harm us.

So flash forward to when I have a beautiful set of twin babies and it was a lot to take care of. The apartment that my husband and I lived in would not allow children. So we moved back in with my family. It was always a very busy household with kids and sisters and siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents and everything else.

This one particular day was just me and the babies in the house. And these babies didn't sleep awake the night before. They were both sleeping in the same crib at the time. When I got them up in the morning, they were hysterical, inconsolable. The blankets were in the corner of their crib. I took them out of bed. I was trying to console them.

Are they hungry? Are they sick? Do they need a doctor? I'm frightened. I'm not usually by myself. I usually have people here to help me. There was nothing I could do to make these babies happy. I'm scared and I don't know where to turn. So I put them both down in their crib and ran downstairs to get them a bottle and some medicine because they are clearly not feeling well.

I could hear them screaming and crying the whole time as I ran down the hallway, into the kitchen. Then all of a sudden, they stopped crying. But I heard something. I ran to get the monitor, and when I turned it on, I hear humming and then singing. But I am home alone, but I could hear a lullaby. A woman is singing a lullaby to my babies, and I have no idea who this is.

It was an old German lullaby. I stopped dead in my tracks. I dropped the bottle and I stood still for a moment. I didn't move. It didn't make any sense. There was no one home. Who could be singing to my babies? There's no radio in there. There's no television in there. There's no one else home. Who could be singing? And then reality strikes. I flew up the stairs two at a time, ran down the hallway.

Ran into the room as fast as I could. When I get back to them, my two babies, beautiful babies, are sleeping soundly. They are safe with blankets over them, without a care in the world. There is no one there. They had blankets over them. I can't even tell you how that happened. There was blankets in the crib, but they certainly weren't on them when I went down because they were kicking and screaming and crying.

So someone or something had pulled the blankets over them. It felt surreal. I'm looking at two babies who are calm and sleeping, and I remember feeling relief and thankful, but not understanding who was singing and who covered them up. It's scary and it's wonderful all in the same moment.

I feel like I want to say thank you to Mrs. Dagen-Dash because she put these babies to sleep and there were many nights after that that I said to her, Mrs. Dagen-Dash, where the hell are you? I could use you today. If I could sing, I'd be on every baby monitor in America. And I get that this story is unsettling. Dead nun, disembodied voice, the general weirdness of twins. But other than a visit from a beloved dead relative...

This is best case scenario paranormal encounter. Actually, both of today's stories were kind of feel good. Between that, Len's date, my six new matches, seven if you count the couple, I'd say it's been a pretty good day at Haunting HQ. And look at that, Len decided to re-zip his shorts into pants after all. You need help? Len, I'm not touching your knees. Are you insane?

Don't start, Naomi. It's basically gray area workplace harassment. Well, it's been an almost good day.

I'm going to figure out if we have an HR department here, but you guys know the drill. If you've got a supernatural experience you'd like to share with us, email Len at hauntingthepodcast at gmail.com and your story could be featured in one of our upcoming episodes. Now everyone wish Len good luck on his date and tune in next week for the dirty deets because on this pod, we haunt, we hoe, we kiss, we tell. Love you all.

If you have a haunting story to share, please email us at hauntingthepodcast at gmail.com. Haunting is a production of Glass Podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcast. Haunting was created and executive produced by Nancy Glass, Andrea Gunning, Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus. It is hosted by Lauren Lapkus as her character, Teresa. Haunting is directed by Aaliyah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan. It is written by Aaliyah Welsh with additional writing by Nancy Glass, Trey Morgan, Ben Fetterman, and Kristen Milkury.

Additional production support by Todd Gans. Additional voice acting by Trey Morgan as the character producer Len Walker. Editing and sound design by Matt DelVecchio with additional editing by Nico Arruca. Mixed and mastered by Dave Sayah. Operations and production support by Kristen Milkury. Haunting's theme and original compositions were composed by Oliver Baines and Dari McCauley of Noiser. Music library provided by MyMusic. Special thanks to Speakeasy Sound Studios in Burbank, California.

Follow us on social media by searching for Glass Podcast or by visiting glasspodcast.com. For more shows from iHeart Podcast and Glass Podcast, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sometimes where a crime took place leads you to answer why the crime happened in the first place. Hi, I'm Sloane Glass, host of the new true crime podcast, American Homicide. In this series, we'll examine some of the country's most infamous and mysterious murders and learn how the location of the crime becomes a character in the story.

Listen to American Homicide on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's been 30 years since the horror began. 911, what's your emergency? He said he was going to kill me. In the 1990s, the tourist town of Domino Beach became the hunting ground of a monster. We thought the murders had ended, but what if we were wrong? Come back to Domino Beach. I'll be waiting for you.

Listen to The Murder Years, Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm going deep undercover. It's hard to visualize you with hair. To expose the secret world of professional shoplifting. So you can make $1,000 a day shoplifting. Yeah. And I end up outside the mansion of the shoplifting queen herself. I hear the cops. Dude, I think we should go. Listen to Queen of the Con Season 6, The California Girls, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.