Whispers in the Walls: True Tales of Haunted Houses (Sn. 18 Ep. 17)
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Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us. I'm your guide, Derek Hayes. Come on in, folks. Grab a seat by the fire. It's getting awfully cold out there these last few weeks. Winter is right around the corner. Now I have an excellent little program put together for you this frosty evening.

And since this episode was originally slated as a Tuesday episode, tonight's content will be themed. A carefully curated collection of calls that all center around haunted houses. Slamming doors, ghostly voices, glimpses of a stranger passing down your hallway. Now in the interest of getting this thing going, let's introduce tonight's first caller.

To kick things off tonight, please welcome Teresa, all the way from Pennsylvania.

Hi, Derek. My name is Teresa and I'm new to the podcast. I really enjoy hearing everyone's stories and experiences. So I thought I would call in and share my story. I live in central Pennsylvania and this took place about 25 years ago. My husband and I had just gotten married and we were renting a home out in the country.

I didn't really know anything about the history of the house. My husband found the house for us, and all I knew was that the person we were renting the house from, it was his parents' house. They were the only ones who ever lived in the house, and they had both passed away.

The house was a small ranch-style home, and it had a carport that was located right off of the kitchen. And I remember this happening to me numerous times when I was home alone, where I would be standing in the kitchen,

And I would hear what sounded like a car door slamming and then keys jingling. And I would hear this coming from outside in the carport, like someone just arrived and they're getting ready to come into the house. And each time I would think,

Oh, my husband's home. And he wasn't home. There was no one there. There was even one time where I was standing in the kitchen talking on the phone to a family member. And I heard a car door slamming. I heard the keys jingling.

And I said, oh, I've got to go now. My husband just got home. And as soon as I said that, I remembered these experiences and I thought, oh my gosh, I hope he's home, but he was not home. So that kind of freaked me out a little bit. Another thing that we experienced actually took place when both of us were home. It was a Sunday morning, early in the morning.

And we were just lying in bed talking, getting ready to get up and start the day. Our bedroom was adjacent to the kitchen. So it was located on the same side of the house as the carport. It was springtime, summertime. So we had our bedroom window open. And again, we were out in the country. So it was super, super quiet.

And so we're laying there talking, and all of a sudden, we hear three distinct knocks on the door that goes from the carport into the kitchen. It was an old wooden storm door, so I absolutely recognized...

the sound of someone knocking on that door. And we just laid there. I think we were a little bit in shock because, mind you, we could look out the bedroom window into the carport, and the window was probably less than 10 feet wide.

So we would have been able to see someone standing out there and we had a gravel driveway. So we would have been able to hear someone coming up the driveway in a car or even walking up the driveway for that matter. So my husband eventually did get out of bed. He went outside, looked all around the property and there was no one to be found. So that's my story. I love your podcast.

Thank you so much for giving us a platform to share our stories and keep up the great work. Take care. Bye-bye. Now you're going to hear a lot of stories like Teresa's here this evening. Thank you, Teresa, for sharing. Now you might be interested to know that recently some new metrics on hauntings were released. You see, a survey was recently conducted of 1,000 home owners. The website Angie's List actually put it all together.

And according to their data, 60% of homeowners suspect their home might have a few unwanted visitors causing mischief. 65% of respondents have experienced unexplained phenomena in their homes. 77% reported hearing spooky sounds at home. And nearly 20% are afraid of certain areas in their home, like basements or attics.

And nearly 60% of homeowners would prefer not to be home alone. And let me tell you, it wasn't hard putting together an episode of all haunted house stories. Because I have dozens and dozens of them to choose from. Just like Jared's entry out of Texas.

Hi, my name is Jarrett. I live in Texas. Love the podcast. Love what you're doing. This actually just happened a... I guess it was an hour ago or so. It's April Day...

I'm home alone. My family's out to eat in, um, Fort Worth. And I live in a suburb of Fort Worth. But, yeah, so, I'm home alone. I had just woken up from a nap when I heard a, uh, it sounded like a man whistling. And I thought I was just hearing things because I had just woken up, whatever. So, like, I woke up,

Thank you.

Now, speaking of whistling, if you're a supporter of ours over on the beyond, I have quite a story waiting for you there tonight. But first, thank you, Jared. A whistling ghost. Now, believe it or not, I've actually experienced this phenomena myself. Now, I've told this story before, but it's my show, so I'm going to tell it again. But this time, I'll be brief. I was visiting family 15 or so years ago when we'd gone to my high school's football game.

And since my brother lived within walking distance of the stadium, we walked back to his place afterward to wind down. And as we walked into the front door and into the living room area, we could hear a distinct whistling sound coming from the back of the house where all the bedrooms were located. Now all the adults were within feet of me and none of them were in the back rooms. In fact, the only person back there was my maybe two-year-old niece.

who darted back to her room to play. Now I know she did not know how to whistle at the time, so there was absolutely no way she was whistling this distinct tune. Now not a tune that I'd recognized, but distinct nonetheless. And this wasn't a one-off occurrence for them. My brother had been noticing strange things around the house prior to this, including disembodied whistling. So I get your confusion and concern here, Jared.

I think you're right to be unsettled. And thank you again for the phone call. Now when we come back, more haunted house stories. So don't touch that dial. The holidays are upon us. And if you find yourself already needing a break from the crowded stores and overplayed Christmas music, you're not alone.

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Now our next haunted house takes us to the state of Illinois. Stephanie, welcome to the program. Hi, my name is Stephanie. I'm from suburban Chicagoland, and I grew up in a home that was extremely haunted. Anybody that has ever been in that house has a story. So my story, at least the one I'm going to share today, is about when I had my son,

And he was maybe about three months old and I had to run away from him real quick to go into the kitchen and he was in the middle of eating a bottle. I took the bottle and I propped it up with a blanket as many new tired moms do. You can't just fold it though. You have to kind of wad it, bunch it so that the bottle doesn't roll off of a neatly folded blanket.

Well, I go into the kitchen and I'm doing whatever it was that I needed to do. I don't really remember what it was at this point in time. It's been many years. And when I went back into the living room to check on my very small son, I realized he no longer has the bottle, nor does he have the blanket on him.

Now, keep in mind, he's only about two or three months old at this point in time. So he is completely incapable of moving these items away from him. And we were the only two people in the house. And I'm looking like, where is this blanket and where is this bottle that I had propped on him?

And sure enough, this blanket was folded neatly and very nicely and placed on a table that was directly behind my son in his little infant carrier. The bottle was stood up, sitting like a person would have put it there on the table right next to the blanket. And...

It totally blew my mind. I picked up my baby and we sat outside for about an hour after that because even though I knew the house was haunted, I had never seen anything happen so physical like that prior to that event. But that definitely wasn't the last physical situation that this ghost had created in my house or energy.

So yeah, that's my story. Hopefully I'll hear it on your podcast. Thank you, Stephanie. Just like my niece, she was far too young to have made the sounds that we heard that night. A solid three or four seconds of someone or something whistling from the back of the house. And Stephanie, I think your situation is even more less likely to have gone that way. Something tells me that your son was far too young to fold his own blanket.

Either way, it's creepy stuff. Even if the ghost was trying to be helpful. Now folks, if you have a story to share, a true story, simply give our hotline a call at 888-608-NIGHT. That's 888-608-N-I-G-H-T. Or shoot me a voice memo to MonstersAmongUsPodcast at gmail.com. Now you know, sometimes it's not the entire house that's quote-unquote haunted. On occasion...

The strange activity is confined to a single room. Just ask Elena from North Carolina. Hey, my name's Elena and I'm from the Charlotte, North Carolina area. I've been listening to your podcast for a while now. It's what gets me through work every day.

I haven't had many experiences, but I do have one that stands out in my memory. I was probably six or seven at the time, and it happened a couple times, but I live in a different house now than I did at the time. And from the time that I was born, I wouldn't sleep. I had my own room, but I would not sleep in it. When I went into it to get a toy or whatever I was getting out of it,

I was in and out as quick as I could because I just did not like the feeling of that bedroom. Well...

See, my story of what happened really doesn't have a beginning because from my memory, I was just kind of thrown into the middle of a scenario, I guess you could say. But pretty much what happened was I'm standing at my bedroom door. My hand is on the door handle as if I'm about to walk out, but I'm frozen. I can't move. I can't talk.

I can't do anything. I can't even make any noise. And all around me, I'm hearing whispers. My window blinds are opening and closing super fast. And keep in mind, I'm six or seven years old. I freaked out. I couldn't scream. The door was shut. I couldn't even get out of the door. And

And there's these voices in my head. There's something pulling me back from the door. There's the window blinds opening, closing, so the light in the room is going off and on. Pretty much, it's getting dark, then it's getting light. And it was just crazy. And it happened a couple of times, and I vividly remember it. Like...

not a dream. I remember the feeling and the feeling of not being able to do anything about it and feeling like somebody was there with me. And like I said, I never would sleep in this room alone. I would try to. I'd go lay down with the dog with the TV on.

I'd end up right back in my mom's bedroom. And like I said, going in to just get a toy was horrible. Because the whole time I was in there, I would feel like something was out to get me and something was watching me. And I told my parents and my grandparents, but of course, they're just, oh, you probably just had a dream that felt very real. It happens. It's just a nightmare. And even to this day, I still don't know what it was. I

I know it wasn't a dream. And you know, there's the sleep paralysis, which the not being able to move, not being able to speak, that all makes sense, but I wasn't laying in a bed. I was standing in front of my door trying to get out.

So, yeah, I mean, I'd like to know if you would have any idea of what it could have been or if you've heard anything similar. But I definitely wanted to share my story because I think it's a weird one. So thanks for listening. I hope you decide to air it. And I will if I have any more that I can think of or anything that happens to me, I will definitely call back. I love your show. It gets me through my day every day. Thank you. Bye. Thank you, Elena.

Now Delaney sent me another survey about paranormal activity that I'd like to share. Now this one, a poll of 823 people conducted in October of 2021 by Cinch Home Services. And according to those 823 souls, the most common room in your home to have an experience in is your living room with 33%. The next two highest were the bedroom and the kitchen.

Now the survey also says that a majority of experiencers are alone when things go down. 51% of them, in fact. And 14% of experiences happen in June, more than any other month, although August is right behind, with 13% of experiencers pulled. And lastly, 1 to 3 a.m. is the most likely time of the day to have one of these strange experiences.

So use this data wisely. It may help you either find or evade future strange encounters. Now let's squeeze one more call in before we take the next break. A from New Mexico. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Derek. This is A, telling about an experience in New Mexico. Thank you so much for putting together this podcast. It's been wonderful to listen to everyone's stories during this pandemic. My most inexplicable experience occurred at a prime age for hormone-induced whole-grain activity, if you believe in that.

So I've been classifying it as such for years, but the truth is I really don't know. The relevant background is I am an only child, grew up in a three-bedroom home, and our house was broken into within the three years before this occurred. Nobody was home at the time, thankfully, but the break-in left me on extremely high alert from the ages of around 11 until I was a senior in high school. I had to listen to audiobooks to sleep and often stayed up listening for any signs of intruders.

Now to the inexplicable part. Our computer room, yes, this was back in the days of AOL disks and dial-ups, always gave me the creeps. I always got the hackle-raising feeling of being watched sitting at the computer with my back to the closet. After my parents went to bed, I would often hear the chair scooting back and keyboard clocking, sounds I tried to attribute to my cats messing around, but those cats were frequently in sight of me, so that explanation didn't always work.

One day, I was home alone, cleaning in preparation for my birthday party. The computer room was also filled with leftover moving boxes and general junk, so I settled for closing the door to hide it. I pulled the door two, at least three times, as I moved around the house cleaning, and the next time I'd walk down the hall, it would be open.

Finally, I closed the door until it latched and pushed on it to make sure it was closed. On my next trip down the hall, it was open by a foot. I left it, clearly something objected to being closed away.

I held on to a small idea that my beef with this room was part of my paranoia until someone else witnessed it. I was sitting at the computer with my best friend, working on a group project. I opened the window for air. The door immediately slammed shut, which would have made sense. However, we both then watched the doorknob turn and the door open again. It didn't bounce off the frame. This thing had definitely latched when it slammed. My

My friend and I stared at each other. I asked if she had seen that. The doorknob turned? Yep, was her response. I ran out to the living room to ask my mom if she had been in the hall. She had not and looked at me like I was insane. We still occasionally bring up this incident in conversation and still don't have an explanation. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks. Take care. That's a lot of activity for one home.

Now it's probably too late for you now, eh? But I hear keeping a journal of all this activity can be helpful. Having dates and times there in front of you allows you to look for patterns and repetition. Not to mention the cathartic release one might get by jotting down such traumatizing events. So I guess if it happens again, you know what to do. Thank you again for calling in. Now folks, we'll be right back with more spooky stories.

- Yeah, they don't play around.

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From Parts Unknown. Hello. Quickly, I just want to say that I really enjoy the podcast. I've been listening for a couple months now, and I have nothing but good things to say about it. So kudos to you on that, and keep it up. I'm not going to say my name, because this is actually something that happened to my mom and her family when she was growing up.

I just kind of want to respect their privacy. But this would have been a while ago, I'd say 40, 45 years ago. It happened where my mom and her family were growing up right outside of Springfield, Missouri.

Anyway...

In my mom's childhood home, they had some really weird occurrences that were completely unexplainable. For example, there was a coat rack in the living room that had some bells on it. And sometimes there would be no one near this coat rack, like no one had opened the door, so it wasn't a breeze or anything. And these bells would just start ringing really loudly.

And then suddenly the star just stopped with no one around them. Something a bit more sinister, I guess you could say. And that was on multiple occurrences. My grandma would be walking down the stairs and she said that she'd swear she'd see a dark shadow of a man standing at the bottom of the stairs.

And then it would just blink out of existence. And she saw that multiple times. I don't know if that's what you classify as the shadow people. I've listened to those episodes before. But that happened multiple times. And actually, the most disturbing part and the thing that I found most scary is one day when my mom and my aunt were both little girls, they were getting ready for a middle school dance. And my aunt, she was...

I don't know, maybe 10 at the time. She had set her dress and her new shoes that she had gotten out on the bed in the morning. But they came back in the afternoon to get ready for the dance, and these shoes were gone. No one had touched them. My grandfather was at work, and the rest of the family had been downstairs the whole day. So no one had been up there, but the shoes were gone. They spent an hour or two looking for them all over the house outside, but these shoes were absolutely nowhere to be found.

So my aunt was putting on different shoes and they all went out to the dance together. But this is where it gets weird. When they came home, they went up to the room and the shoes were sitting on her pillow. But that wasn't the scary thing really. The scary thing was that the shoes on the bottom were muddy and that there were muddy footprints on the bed and leading into the room. Obviously, no one had been up there.

But the shoes that had just disappeared had all of a sudden reappeared with mud on the bottom of them, leaving footprints all over the place. So I don't really know what to make of that. As I said, it's a secondhand account. It's not mine. But obviously, I know my mom and all her side of the family, and they're all super chill. They're like not people to make things up. So something weird happened there. But anyway, I just thought that I'd call in and share it. Keep doing what you're doing. I love listening. Bye-bye.

Thank you, caller. The missing shoes really threw me for a loop. It's one thing to have them disappear, but it's another to have them reappear, covered in mud. Now, if the living weren't somehow responsible for this disappearance and reappearance, I shudder to think what might be. It's great stuff again, caller. So thank you for calling in. Now, folks, the holidays are right around the corner.

Do your holiday shopping at MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com and by clicking the shop tab, get Granny a brand new set of Monsters Among Us beer koozies. Or give your brother's kids a few sticker packs. They can stick those suckers anywhere they want. We've got it all at MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com and tickle that shop tab. Now this next entry is another collection of odd occurrences that all took place in one single home. Please welcome Melinda.

to the program.

Hello, my name's Melinda, and I believe I grew up, I know I grew up in a haunted house. I would hear footsteps, people walking up and down the stairs, my doorknob jiggling, and I wasn't the only one that heard it. My cousin was over one day, and we both heard what sounded like tissue paper rattling. So we ran upstairs really quickly because we were the only ones there, and locked my bedroom door and stayed there until our mom got home.

Another time, my boyfriend and I were watching TV and no one was home. And we heard footsteps upstairs. So we looked at each other and said, did you hear that? And we both said yes. And about that time, the TV started smoking and blew up.

So we got out of there as fast as we could. Another time, our dog had died, and a sister and I were in the bed, and we heard a dog walking into the bedroom with his nails clicking on the hardwood floors.

And we both sat up and started calling. I don't know why we thought the dog would be there. We knew he was gone. And it came into her room, and then it stopped. It quickly stopped, and we never saw anything. I saw a woman standing in the upstairs window one day when I was with child in the backyard swinging, and it wasn't my mom, and it wasn't anybody I recognized.

I had my neighbor, my sister, and my boyfriend all come over at different times because I heard footsteps, and I was sure somebody was in the house, even though nobody was. I was out of town one time when I was a child, and my mom kept hearing children calling.

And she was so concerned. There were no children outside playing. There was nobody in the house. And she wanted my dad to go get me because she was afraid something was wrong. Another time I left my room clean, straight, neat. Came back, there was stuff everywhere. I asked my mom, had my little cousin been playing in my room, playing with my dolls? And she said no. She said she hadn't been there. No one had been there. That it should have been just like I left it.

Thank you, Melinda. All sorts of spooky encounters. But the exploding TV, I think that one got my attention more than anything else.

Because a TV blowing up is rare, but it does happen. But it usually doesn't happen at the same time that strange sounds are taking place on the other end of the room. That kind of stuff makes my hair stand on end. So thank you again for taking the time to call, Melinda. Now you know sometimes it's not the place that's haunted, but a person. Terry from California. Tell him what I mean.

Hi, this is Terry. I live in California near San Francisco, and I don't think that any of my story is location related. I think it's all related to my daughter or myself or our connection. But she was born in 1984, and when I was pregnant with her, I was getting her bedroom ready for her, you know, cleaning it up.

painting it, putting the crib together, things like that. And the whole time I was doing it, I kept feeling like there was somebody there with me. And literally, I would turn around feeling like someone was in the room with me and there was no one there. And I had a friend who said she had a friend who could see spirits or could see. So I thought, you know what? What the heck? I'm going to have her come over and see if she can get rid of any of my concerns about what this was. So I

She comes over and she says she can't see anything, she can't feel anything, but she asked me to hold her hand while we're standing in the doorway to the baby's bedroom. I hold her hand and she looks up like almost to the ceiling.

and says he's very tall and it's the baby's guardian angel. So that made me feel a lot better that it wasn't anything. But, you know, I still wasn't sure I know her personally. I just knew that she said that she could see spirits

So anyway, she says, oh, yeah, he looks like Moses. He's very tall. He's got a long beard. He's very wise looking. And so he's watching over her. And during the 80s, I was pretty young in my early 20s and 20s.

And my husband had turned out to be kind of a shady character. We divorced a few years later after I found out some of the stuff he'd been up to in the background. Anyway, later, my daughter was about a year old. And in the same apartment, we had a coat closet right as you walk in the door, like directly in front of you. And she would not go past that coat closet.

It was one of those apartments that you could go. It was kind of a circular. You could go one way to the kitchen or the other way past the bedrooms into the kitchen. And she would not go past that front door unless I picked her up and carried her either out the front door or around the other way. She just kept looking at that door and crying and she wouldn't go past it. So I didn't have to worry about her sneaking out the front door as a toddler, but she

It was still kind of disconcerting that she would feel that way. And then a couple years later, I discovered all the stuff that her dad was up to in the background, and we decided to get a divorce. He threatened our lives, and I was very scared, so I jumped in my little Volkswagen, and at that time, we then had two daughters, and started the drive 90 miles to my parents' house.

And I was so afraid for my life and my kids' lives. On the drive, I counted 23 streetlights turned off as I drove under them and turned back on after I passed. Because I started watching in the rearview mirror thinking, is this like a power outage thing or what? But as I would approach them, they would turn off. And after I passed, I would look in the mirror.

And they would turn back on. So after like four or five, I thought, I'm going to start counting. And it's 23. And I had to go over a mountain pass to go to Central California. Then, same kid. She was about six. I was a single mom. I would tuck her and her sister into bed. And she would say, Mom, close the closet doors because he comes out and plays with our toys at night. And I said, who plays with your toys at night?

And she said, the boy in the closet. And I said, what does he look like? And she said, it's a little boy and he has red eyes. So that scared me.

And then we'd also have random things happen around the house, like the phone would ring and no one would be there. This was before cell phones, so there was no way to track it. It was just, you know, the old phone on the kitchen wall thing. And then immediately the doorbell would ring and I'd walk over to answer the door and no one would be there. Anyway, so now this same daughter is in her early 30s and unmarried.

Thank you, Terry. A little boy with glowing red eyes. Yikes.

I think I'd block that out of my memory as well. So we certainly can't fault your daughter for wanting to avoid it. Now as for debunking, there's not much here I can do. It sounds like your daughter had some extra protection of some sort during a scary and challenging time. Precisely when you'd expect to have that type of protection, I suppose. But what I can debunk, however, might be the streetlights.

Even back in the 80s, those things were triggered by light sensors. Sometimes passing headlights are enough to trick the sensor into thinking it's daylight, which causes them to turn off momentarily. Now it's especially noticeable late at night when you're the only one on the road and have been for some time. But I certainly can't guarantee that's what happened here. We always gotta leave a little bit of room for the paranormal. Either way, we thank you again, Terry.

for sharing the entry.

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Well, folks, I only have a handful of calls left. So let's start with the one on the East Coast. John from North Carolina. Go on ahead with your story. Hey, Derek. My name is John. I'm from Williamsburg, Virginia. Originally, I now live in North Carolina. The story I have is growing up,

It was a three-story house. It was a modular home.

And it sat on Centerville Road in part of Fort's Colony in the neighborhood that we were living in. And right across the street was a church and a graveyard. And, I mean, the house was a nice house, but the more we lived in it, we lived in it for about two and a half to three years or so. But the family that lived in it before us that was running it

They left very quickly, sought new accommodations to live in. And almost immediately when we moved in, like weird stuff started happening. My mom, she was big into cycling at the time and she had like a stand that she would put a road bike in in the basement, go have a workout down there. And there was one time where she was down there cycling and she just felt this intense cold come over her.

and this like weight started forcing her down onto the handlebars and she couldn't move her counter edge and she said it felt like someone was laying down on top of her and she just felt this intense fear and then it eventually went away and other weird things started happening too I grew up

traditionally with yellow labs and yeah like labs shed a lot by their nature but our lab at the time meredith she lost all of her hair like all of it to the point where she was almost bald and we were concerned that maybe there was something wrong with her no there wasn't anything wrong with her in the sense could it explain it except that maybe she was stressed

But she also used to sit at this one closet in the house and just stare at it and growl. Just intensely, like that guttural growl that a dog gives when there's something threatening or something that they don't like. And then the weirdest experiences were one night my younger brother was in his room doing homework and we were downstairs. And he started hearing...

a conversation between two voices that he described as being very deep, aggressive voices and he said it was coming from inside of his closet and they were talking about him. I think he said like one of the voices was saying the little one consistently talking about him being my younger brother and the smallest in the family.

The other one was saying, that one's a spitfire. We can't go after him. Then one night I had a very intense, vivid dream where I woke up in the dream in the middle of the night and there was this child sitting on the end of my bed and I couldn't move or do anything, almost like sleep paralysis in this dream. And a child slowly turned around and his eyes were...

They weren't black, they were just empty sockets, like he had no eyes. And he started crawling towards me. And I woke up and I had actually, at 15 years old, I had wet my bed from fear. Just a very weird house. We found out later on there was a lot of things that had happened during the construction of that house.

A couple workers had died. The roof had actually fallen through the house when they were building it and killed a couple of the workers. Then being in close proximity to that graveyard too, I imagine there was probably a lot of residual coming across the street. But I just wanted to share that story with you. Use it however you want. I love the podcast. I love what you do. I've submitted before. Keep up the great work. Hopefully my story fits in somewhere. So I appreciate it, Derek. Thank you. Thanks, John. Poor pup.

I immediately imagined an invisible trickster plucking the fur off the dog. And it was disturbing. And having a ghost call you a spitfire, that's gotta be some sort of achievement or merit badge or something. I know I'd put that on my resume. And of course, all the other activity that John reported in his call. It all leaves no question as to why his story belongs on this list. So thank you again, John, for ringing in here this evening.

Now for this next entry, we venture all the way to the opposite coast. Jay from California. Welcome to tonight's program. Hi there, Derek. I'm from California, and this is my first time calling in. I'm a new listener, as turned on to you by Blurry Photos. So I have a quick story to share with you.

This is probably from about 2009 or 2010, which was my first experience with, I guess, what would be called the paranormal. This was in Northern California in a town called Arbuckle. Small town. I was at my grandmother's house.

My uncle was living in the basement. And so if you walk in through the front door, there's a staircase directly in front of you that goes down to the basement. And if you turn right, there's a staircase that takes you up into the kitchen. And my grandma, she hung bells from her door. So that way, if anyone were to open the front door, you could hear the bells ringing.

And I was standing in the kitchen and I was about 12 or 13 at the time. My uncle was outside working on his car and my grandma was out and about in town that day. And so she wasn't home. So I was just sitting in the kitchen waiting for my grandma to get home since she was babysitting me that day. And I heard the bells on the door ring and

and what I thought were footsteps going down the steps to the basement. I thought that it was my grandma who had came home or maybe my uncle who had come inside. And so I went downstairs to greet who it was that came in. The door was cracked open, which it wasn't originally. And I went downstairs and I didn't see anybody. So this kind of left me at a loss for words and

I thought maybe, you know, it was the wind or maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. And it very well could have been that, but it definitely left me a little bit startled. And just to give you some backstory on the house that my grandma lived in.

It was originally built in the 1800s, I believe in the 1870s or 80s, and it was originally used as a hospital. And that room in the basement was originally a sort of recovery room where people would lay on cots and recover after having surgery and such.

And so knowing this little bit of history that I had learned later on in my life, when I was about 15 or 16, two or three years after this experience had happened, I thought that it wasn't entirely impossible that there could have been some sort of energy residing there. Maybe I would theorize a family member going to check in on a loved one who had had surgery in the past and might have passed on and

It never felt malevolent to me, but I definitely felt like that there was something there. But anyway, that is my experience. I'm really enjoying the podcast so far. I just finished season six and I'm looking forward to continue listening again. This is Jay and I'm from California and have a good day. Bye now.

Now I think I've said this before, but I'm not sure if I've ever heard of a hospital that didn't have some sort of strange activity reported in it. They all seem to either trap, hold, or attract that type of energy. And to live in a home that was once formally a hospital. Those are the perfect ingredients for a haunting of some sort. And based on the experiences Jay just laid out for us, the building is living up to the expectation. But what do you think, folks?

Would you live in a former hospital? Could you? I'm not sure I would go for that. I'd drive myself crazy thinking every little shadow was some sort of ghostly activity. And I'd completely lose it if I ever did see something unmistakable. I know some sort of obsession would certainly kick in. But I'm curious to know how many of you could look the other way. Either way, thanks again, Jay, for sharing your story.

Tell NICD. It's a personalized school experience.

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Now tonight we've already heard what it's like to live in a haunted house. But what is it like to visit one? Les, the mic is yours.

Hi, Derek. My name is Liz. I'm calling from the Midwest. Love your podcast. I've been listening to it for a couple of years. I think that it is the best one out there. I wanted to call in. I have only had one paranormal experience in my life. I have it in the spring of 2013. Before that, I never had a paranormal experience. I know other people who have them. I believe that it was real, but it was kind of like a paranormal dead zone for me.

So at the time I was dating a guy who had a lot of paranormal experiences and unexplainable things constantly happened around him. Now again, this was spring of 2013. I was visiting with him and his family at his mom's house.

And his mom's house was mega creepy. I am definitely not the type who's like, oh, this place has negative energy or whatever. But it was so creepy. It had such bad vibes. My ex had expressed to me that he felt that it had been haunted by extremely negative presence for years. And then to add on top of that, a family member of his actually recently tragically passed away in that house.

So usually I did everything I could to avoid hanging out there because it was just a spooky place. But that day I went over to visit his mom. It had gotten a little bit late and we had had a little bit to drink. So I did decide to stay the night. And my ex's mom was just a really old school religious lady. She wouldn't let us sleep in the same room. So he was sleeping in the basement and I was sleeping upstairs on their four season porch.

So I fell asleep out there probably around midnight.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. with the most intense feeling of dread I have ever felt in my life. And I could clearly hear someone walking around in the kitchen. I could hear them opening the fridge, running the water, rummaging through a drawer, but I could literally see into the kitchen through the window from where I was laying on the couch, and there was nobody in there. Completely empty.

I freaked out when I saw there was nobody in the kitchen, but I was at that moment looking, seeing nobody, hearing somebody walking around. So I just ran. I looked out of the house. I didn't say anything to anybody. I just took off through the other doors of the porch that went outside, sprinting in my car. And at this point, I was fully sober. The couple drinks I had before bed were out of my system. And I drove away as fast as I could. And I actually felt like something had followed me. It was in my car. So I called my best friend.

completely freaking out and total hysterics. I ended up just driving around random neighborhoods for the next half hour because I was scared that whatever was with me was going to follow me home. So I did not go back to my place until I felt like it was gone. After that, I did not go over there again. And kind of a crazy end note to this story, his family wound up selling that house a couple months later. The developer who bought it was planning to demo the whole thing and start from scratch on the lot because the lot was in a really expensive area, but the house was old and in bad shape.

The night before they were supposed to move out, our whole area got hit by just this awful storm and a tree in their yard fell down and it fell onto their house and it only hit the room that his family member had recently tragically died in. It completely demolished the room and no other part of the house was impacted.

I know logically that could be a coincidence, but I mean, when you add on everything else, that's just so crazy. And I would not have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes. And I always kind of felt like that was an intentional statement being made by that deceased family member. It didn't impact the sale at all because they were done with that lot anyway, thankfully. So...

I don't know what's going on with that guy these days. We broke up years ago. I haven't spoken to him since, but I do still think about that sometimes because it was so scary. Since then, you know, I like to learn about the paranormal stuff, but I will not go out of my way to invite it into my life. I try to stay away from all that. Thank you so much for listening to my call, and thank you for the show. Have a great day. Bye. Thanks, Liz. I guess I don't blame you. Why stick around when you can easily duck out and never come back again?

No one can really blame you there. But I am very curious about what other odd occurrences took place in that home. If this is what happens to a guest, could you imagine what someone living there might encounter? Now Liz mentioned that she's from the Midwest. And as it turns out, that poll from Cinch Home Services covers different regions of the US as well. And according to them, the South is the most haunted region in the country.

followed by the West, then the Midwest, and finally the Northeast. But I'm not completely sure that I agree with all that. Now it's time for tonight's final entry. And if you would, please join me in Massachusetts, where we meet up with Rick, who has a tale from a far off land.

Hello, my name is Rick. I'm calling from Massachusetts and I want to share a story that happened to me over the span of four months, about 12 years ago now. It was in 2007. I had taken a four-month trip down to South America, to Brazil to be more exact, and I rented out this house with a couple of other people. Next to this house was a center for a... it's a type of religion

It only exists in South America and Brazil, to be more exact. It's called Umbanda. That's U-M-Banda. It's a little different from Santeria. It's a mixture of European spiritism with African folk religions and also native South American folk religions.

It had been closed down. The owner of the building was remodeling it, and he was turning it into a hotel, I believe. But it was used as this theater center for, I think, like 20 or so years more. At first, you know, I didn't think anything of it. You know, I was next door to it. I mean, it did look kind of creepy at night. You would look at it, it's just like this big concrete building, about three stories tall. There were these people that were renting out some space in the basement. Up top,

Up on the third floor, there was a man up there, which I found out later from some of the people that lived in the area, that whenever they're going to close these spirited centers down, they find one person, usually it's somebody homeless,

And they'll sit this person down and they'll do what's called a discharge session. So essentially what they do is they discharge all of the spirits that they have conjured up and they've talked to over the years from the building and they charge it into this one single person. And this guy was, he was really, really strange. What I heard is that he was asleep in an empty room up on the third floor.

He would just sleep like on the bare ground, like not even a mattress or anything. And I remember a couple of times like I ran into him. He was in pretty rough shape. I gave him money. And when I would give him the money, he would just tear it and just throw it, you know, like everywhere. He'd be like, I don't need this money. I don't need this crap.

We tried to give him like a mattress so that he could sleep on. And he took the mattress, went upstairs to his room, and he just threw it out the window, which I thought was strange. But he's just a really, really strange guy. And you would like kind of hear him talking to himself every now and then.

Yeah.

I heard the door open, the door unlock, my bedroom door unlock and open. When it did that, I saw this like huge, I'd say he was probably like six or seven feet tall. Huge, huge elf creature. It looked like a bug. He was sort of like a mantis man.

bipedal bug and he emitted this sound I believe it came from like the antennas on his head because when I looked at the top of his head like his antennas were moving around and it was like an infrasound it was a buzz it came in like it hit me in the head and I felt like a vibration like right in the center of my forehead with this I was completely paralyzed I couldn't move at all but I kept on trying to fight it and fight it and trying to get out of it

And he just kept on like floating closer and closer and closer to me. It was dark. I couldn't see his face, but I could make out the outline. I could make out like the bug thorax and sort of like the arms and hands, which were kind of folded up almost like a praying mantis. But finally I was able to move my leg and like just let out like a sound, you know, like something like that. When I did that, it vanished. The door was locked and it's as if like I had woken up out of that. So I was like in

in some sort of like sleep paralysis in some like alternate state. I remember running downstairs and just trying to make sense of like what just happened. I had like a cup of coffee or so and then I tried to go back to sleep, which I really didn't.

But after that is when things really started to pick up. For the rest of the time that I was there, it would start at like 2, 3 a.m. and it would just keep going up until, you know, like 5 or 6 in the morning when the sun would start coming out. But I would hear drums, you know, like African drums beating as if there were like 20 or 30 people playing these drums, just, you know, beating drums all night.

And I would hear that and I asked the other people that I was in this house with and they said they heard it. I remember actually going out at night and trying to like look, you know, trying to see like what was going on, but all the lights were off. And it just didn't make sense. And it was just constant, just beating at these drums for like hours and hours and hours. No stopping, no nothing, just constant.

Another time, I was in my room changing, putting on a shirt. When I turned around, I just see this black lady, like a black female with, you know, like long hair and her eyes were just completely white and she had these lips with like red lipstick on and she was just smiling at me with like these like rotten teeth.

I saw that and I went through my shirt and I fell back. I was like so scared, but it, it happened so quick, you know, it happened like super, super fast throughout my time there. I mean, I, I have like some nightmares here and there, but visually I wasn't able to visualize or see anything else, but I mean, it was really, really strange. And I think it had everything to do with what was going on, you know, with what went on in the center. I remember a few times, uh,

Thank you, Rick.

Now I have to think that the giant bug was part of some sort of sleep paralysis episode. The locked door is the dead giveaway. Creatures like that typically don't lock the door on their way out. Now the drums and the woman with the rotten teeth, neither of those seem to fall in that category. So perhaps they were symptoms of a haunting. Regardless, it was a great entry. It was wild stuff. And we thank you again, Rick, for sharing it.

Now folks, that's going to do it here for this evening. Monsters Among Us podcast is written and produced by me, Derek Hayes. Copyright Red Crow Media. Additional support was provided by Sarah Carter Hayes and Delaney Bowers. And all media used in this production is done so under the protection of fair use. Please give us a like and follow on Instagram and Facebook. And while you're at it, join us on YouTube as well.

Don't forget you can catch the show every Saturday evening at 11 p.m. Eastern on the Unex Network digital radio. Just visit Unex.com to learn more. And finally, tonight's score was provided by Iron Cthulhu, Apocalypse, Code at AG Music, and Carl Casey at White Pad Audio.

Now folks, we're jumping right into the beyond from here. But if you'd like to join us, you can do so by visiting our website, MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com, and by clicking on the Patreon tab. Or you can join us on Apple subscriptions. You can find the button to sign up on our Apple show page. Regardless of where you join, it's $5 a month for days and days worth of past Beyond episodes. And you get a new one each and every Thursday.

And get this, you can try it all absolutely free for seven days. And if you like what you hear, maybe stick around for a month or two. FLOTUS or bone or whatever. Now folks, tonight's Beyond episode is a bit unique. On occasion I get a call that is simply too long to air on a normal episode. But that doesn't stop these longer stories from being downright interesting. So tonight I'm dusting off one of those calls

One about whistling, like I teased earlier. It comes to us from the foothills of Colorado. Please welcome Sean to the program.

So...

I have a different story of something that happened to me in Colorado, which, by the way, this is Sean in Colorado once more. And at the time, I was living between Colorado Springs and Pueblo. And for your listeners to vision this, we're in a high arid desert where, you know,

Trees are sparse. You've got shrubs everywhere. In the city, we have a lot more trees. But in between, in between both of these cities, it's more like a high valley mesa. You have a lot of dirt, a lot of shrubs, a lot of open area, not very many trees. And I was living out there just after I got out of high school.

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