November 12, 2024 • 30 mins
Therésa and her mischievous owl, Merlin, navigate between realms—and romance—when they meet a hot nature boy, “Toby.” Meanwhile, Nicole has a run-in with a relentless and angry spirit haunting her friend’s cute cottage in the woods, and Jade has a chilling encounter with some thing that does not like being ignored.
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Episode Transcript
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THERÉSA (00:21):
Hello, Hello, my hauntos Therésa here. Welcome back to another
episode of Haunting. The podcast where we share listeners submitted
stories of other worldly encounters with the great beyond. I'm
excited to gab with you girls today because I've been
having a little encounter of my own. As some of
you may remember, I got saddled with a familiar, Merlin.
(00:41):
Only he's not the slinky cat I was expecting. He's
a massive, great horned owl. Anyway, I've been trying to
make the best of it by accompanying Merlin on his
hunting expeditions in the mortal realm. As a familiar, Merlin
has access to both the physical and spirit world. It's
nice getting to look down on everything from a bird's eye view.
It reminds me of my dad's company jet, which we
(01:03):
sadly lost access to after the indictment. So this one morning,
Merlin's flying through the Poconos and there's this adorable nature boy.
He's got his little binoculars and camera, clearly a birdwatcher,
and he's like, obsessed with me.
LEN (01:18):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (01:21):
Well, if he's obsessed with Merlin, he's obsessed with me.
I'm basically Merlin. The crazy thing is he's so not
my type, but there's something about him that's just so
cute and wholesome. I can't explain it, but it might
be love. I usually go for trust fund DJs or
guys who say bet. This could be a really good thing.
The only challenge has been communication. I had Merlin follow
(01:44):
him back to his apartment in Philadelphia, perch outside of
his window and tap on the glass. This seemed to
really excite him, again because he's a huge bird nerd
so I might need to get a bit more explicit
with my messages. But I have a little romantic gesture
up my sleeve I think should do the trick. I'll have an
update on that later. For now, let's get started with
our first story of the episode. This one comes to
(02:07):
us from Nicole, an LA native just like me who's
had her fair share of disturbing paranormal experiences.
STORY A (02:16):
I'm Nicole and I was followed by something sinister on
a trip to see a friend. I am born and
raised in Los Angeles. I have always grown up knowing
that my family has had a connection to the other side,
(02:37):
whether it be psychic, whether it be seeing spirit, They've
all had interactions. My grandmother specifically would see spirit all
the time. She would have a woman that would walk
up and down her stairs at her childhood home. This
(02:57):
woman would sit on her bed and help my grandma
brush her hair while she was sitting there. This was
then passed down to my mom, who has always had premonitions.
My mom has even been approached in the supermarket by
people saying, are you aware that you have psychic abilities?
(03:17):
These people are just drawn to her. That was also
passed down to me. I was in sixth grade. It
was the last year at my elementary school and there
was a big Washington, DC trip that the sixth grade
class would always take. Having been in LA this was
(03:42):
cross country, it was far away, so it was the
biggest deal. It was a class of thirty and every
kid in the class ended up going on this trip.
It was the trip. We were probably the most annoying
group of kids for the other people on the plane
because a red eye, you know, there's business people trying
(04:05):
to fly to Washington, D C. for their meetings in
the morning, and none of us could shut up. We
were talking the whole time, laughing, yelling. We were probably
driving everyone crazy. I don't think any of us slept
on that plane because there was just this air of excitement.
This may be hard to believe, but I was so
(04:27):
excited for the history part. My grandpa was a history
buff and my grandma was a docent at the Huntington
Museum out here in LA basically a volunteer leading tours
and everything around the Huntington Museum. So she just gave
me a love for history that was shining through in
sixth grade.
(04:54):
Once we landed, we went to the hotel, we checked in,
we were immediately shuttled to our bus. We went to
the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, that whole area of Washington, D.C.
We had a tour guide that lived there that would
take us to all these monuments and all these museums.
(05:16):
She knew everything about everything and as she would speak,
I would notice that she'd always work in these tidbits
about ghosts or spirits and things that she had seen
or things that someone on her tour group had seen.
I thought that was the coolest thing.
(05:37):
One of the main highlights that we were all looking
forward to was heading over to Colonial Williamsburg. As our
bus entered the area, it felt like we were in
a completely different time in space, like we were being
transported into the seventeen hundreds. Our tour guide told us
(05:59):
there were so many different spirit encounters that she had
seen and that people that she led on tour groups
had seen. We spend the whole day in Colonial Williamsburg
churning butter, weaving baskets, making blankets, making candles. At the
(06:21):
end of the day, our entire group was absolutely exhausted.
It's dusk at this point, it's starting to get dark.
Our big group was walking back to our bus. As
we were walking, there's a man standing at this fence.
(06:41):
He was in traditional colonial garb. He was wearing khaki
capris with white socks up to his knees, black buckle shoes,
a white blouse, a black overcoat, and a tri-corner black hat.
(07:05):
I thought it was odd that he was wearing a
black overcoat because it was the middle of May and
it was so hot and humid out. But I noticed
that this man was just glaring at me. Not just staring.
He's glaring.
In this moment, I could not take my eyes off
(07:26):
of him. I'm just feeling this overwhelming sense of dread
and this overwhelming sense of guilt. He was making me
feel as though I had done something to disturb him
or to upset him, and I could not look away
from him. As I walk past him, he is moving
(07:55):
his eyes along with me, but not turning his head,
just moving his eyes to follow me and to watch me.
As if I were the only kid in that entire
group of people that were standing there. He just stared
at me singularly, as if to say, I see you.
My eyes are burning at this point. I've been maintaining
(08:18):
this stare for so long. And then I blink, and
then he was gone. I have a million thoughts running
through my head. Why did he show himself to me?
What did he want from me? Why was he glaring
at me? I described this person to the people in
(08:39):
my class. I told them what he was wearing. No
one else saw this person. I knew what I had
seen was real. I knew it wasn't made up. I
knew it wasn't a hallucination. That feeling could never have
been fabricated. I knew I had seen spirit. It wasn't
(09:03):
until several years later that I had my next experience.
I went up to Oregon to visit my friend. I
was so excited because I'd never been to Oregon before.
I couldn't believe how beautiful it was there. She pointed
out her house from down the street. It was a
very cute cottage model, with lots of vines growing on
(09:27):
the sides of the house and a cobblestone driveway. Before
we even got out of the car, my eyes were
immediately drawn to something on the second floor. All of
a sudden, I felt ill. I was nauseous, my stomach dropped,
(09:50):
I felt feverish, but I had chills. I could feel
the goosebumps all over my body. We unload the car,
walk inside, and what looked very cute from the outside
ended up being very creepy on the inside. The house
(10:12):
had brick walls with nothing hanging on them, hardwood, creaking floors,
and the house just looked old.
We stayed in for the rest of the night, made dinner,
and just sat together catching up. About ten o'clock we
(10:33):
decided to go to bed. I fell asleep very fast.
At some point in the middle of the night, I
woke up and was very thirsty. I walked slowly down
the hall, make it into the kitchen, pour a glass
of water, and turn around to head back to the bedroom. Immediately,
(11:00):
I feel the energy shift.
I start to feel a darkness surround me and a
very negative energy all over the room. I feel fight
or flight take over, like my body is having this
visceral reaction to the shift. It feels like a physical
(11:22):
being is in there with me. It feels like someone's
eyes are boring into my back. But I refuse to
turn around because I didn't want to acknowledge that presence
because of the evil that I felt with it. I
can feel my adrenaline starting to pump, and I feel
(11:46):
this energy getting closer and closer to me, so I
start to run down the hall. I feel like I'm
in danger. I jumped into bed and pull the covers
up over me. I was thinking, do I need to
leave this house in the middle of the night and
(12:07):
find myself a hotel? Am I in danger still? I
pull out my phone to distract myself, and I eventually
feel the energy go back to being peaceful and calm,
and ended up falling asleep.
(12:31):
The next morning, I was very excited because we had
a big day planned, going to tour Oregon State University,
going on a hike, and then going to breweries afterwards.
We're getting ready upstairs in the bathroom, and I mentioned
to my friend that something weird had happened last night.
(12:53):
I told her that I was in the kitchen and
a dark presence came over and followed me back to
the bedroom. She's quiet for a moment and gives me
a look of oh no, this is happening to you too.
She tells me there had been multiple experiences with this presence.
(13:15):
Her and a friend had seen a pen levitate above
the desk on its own, suddenly drop and roll onto
the floor. She'd seen the same thing happen with a
roll of duct tape at that same desk.
She also told me that she had been locked out
(13:36):
of her room before. Leading to the upstairs was a
very old wooden door with paint peeling and an old
style lock that required a skeleton key like you see
in movies to be physically turned. How was she getting
locked out when there was no one in the room?
(14:00):
She told me that a man had died in that
house a long time ago. They believed that that is
the presence that I felt that was stalking about the house,
and not to be too scared because they had been
living there for many months at that point and that
(14:21):
entity had never fully approached them before.
I had a great rest of my trip and was
left undisturbed and believe that in my first night there,
this spirit wanted to test the limits and see how
far it could push me. Since my trip to Oregon, I
(14:45):
have had other encounters with spirit and the paranormal, but
nothing has ever come through again that has felt as
sinister and nefarious as that presence did.
THERÉSA (15:04):
I actually took the same field trip from LA to
DC when I was in elementary school. I didn't see
a ghost, but I did see my history teacher hit
on a Betsy Ross impersonator, which still haunts me to
this day. We've got to take a quick AD break,
but don't go anywhere because we'll be back in two secs,
well technically four minutes, maybe less. I don't know. Ads
are Len work.
(15:32):
Ugh guys! Huge drama with Toby. Oh, I've decided to
name bird guy Toby. I pulled up my social accounts
on his laptop and cut the power so I could
flash "Hey Cutie" in Morse code with the lights, but
he just started seizing. How was I supposed to know
that would happen? Once the paramedics left, I sent Merlin
to his window to calm him down, and he threw
(15:53):
ahead of garlic at him. Yeah, not cool at all.
We're not vampires. Ignorant. Toby slept with the lights on
the rest of the night. But I'm hoping once he's
less on edge, he'll be curious enough to pick up
a Ouiji board or organize a seance so we can
have a proper rendezvous. I'm killer on a first date. Anyway,
let's keep things moving. Our next story is from Jade,
(16:15):
who spent an extremely unsettling night at the mercy of
a pretty pushy spirit.
STORY B (16:22):
I was reading a book quietly and it was totally silent.
Everyone was sleeping, and I heard this thing running up
and down the stairs. And suddenly it slammed against the door.
The door actually shook, and I jumped up. What the
fuck is this? Like why is this happening to me
(16:44):
right now? I am actually quite afraid. I'm terrified. My
name's Jade. When staying with my family, something was going
bump in the night.
I grew up with my mom in Washington State. My
father lived in Las Vegas, and I would visit them
(17:05):
once or twice a year. The summer around the time
that I was seventeen, I was visiting my father and
my stepmom in Las Vegas. I didn't have my own
room in the house. The setup that we typically had
was that my baby brother would sleep with my parents
during the time that I was visiting, and I would
take over the nursery as sort of a guest room
(17:28):
for the duration of my visit. The outside of the
house was pretty common for what you might see in
a Las Vegas suburban area. It was a white stucco
one story house. There was an overhang of the roof
that kind of cast a shadow on the overall house.
(17:52):
The bottom floor was the entire living area. Kitchen, living room,
sort of a front room as well. In the middle of that
living area, t here was a staircase that led up
to a very small landing. The landing was surrounded by
three bedrooms and a bathroom. But for being such a
(18:14):
hot and sunny place, the house did seem to be
a bit shadowy for some reason. The last night that
I was staying with them, I was up in the
nursery room and I was reading Brave New World by
Aldous Huxley. Everyone had gone to bed before me around
(18:37):
ten o'clock. My father and stepmom were with my baby
brother in one room. My other little brother, who was
about twelve at the time, was in his bedroom.
They sleep with their doors open. I do not. I
had just gone to the bathroom. I returned to the nursery.
(19:00):
I closed the door behind me, and I'm continuing to
read my book. I'm up late. I'm seventeen years old,
you know, it was pretty typical of me to stay
up till one or two in the morning. Everyone was
sleeping and then from the bottom of the stairs, I
hear something strange, and I realized that the noise is footsteps.
(19:26):
The footsteps stop at the top of the stairs, and
I hear them go back down. This continues maybe six times,
back and forth. The nursery was directly next to the staircase,
so I could tell that the footsteps were coming from
(19:49):
the bottom of the stairs. This landing was quite creaky.
I would have heard someone kind of coming out of
their rooms and walking down the stairs.
This sound did not start at the top of the stairs.
This sound started at the bottom of the stairs from
the living area. The footsteps almost sounded like a child
(20:14):
barreling up and down the stairs, almost like when you
hear kids kind of running around the house, very clumsy,
very haphazard. So as a sidebar, my grandmother was very kooky,
and she told me that if anything unexplainable or paranormal
(20:36):
ever happened, the best thing to do is to ignore it,
because if you pay attention, you'll feed into the energy,
the activity will get stronger, or something like that. This
is the only advice I had ever gotten about how
to interact with a ghost, so it is in my
head that I should just ignore these footsteps. Of course,
(21:00):
I can't stop listening entirely because I am freaked out,
but I'm choosing not to acknowledge it, call out to
my family, or interact with anything whatsoever. I did go
through the logical checklist of trying to figure out where
(21:21):
this was coming from. I didn't think that it could
be an intruder. The house had an alarm system, so
if anyone had entered on the bottom floor through a
door or the windows, the alarm would have gone off.
I didn't think that it was anyone in my family,
just because I hadn't heard them go down. Again, it
(21:43):
was totally silent. I was reading a book quietly. Everyone
was sleeping. When I was listening to this, I felt
almost like a cat being up on its haunches, Like
my hair stood up and I got goosebumps a bit.
I think, honestly though, in situations like that, I freeze,
(22:05):
and I'm kind of assessing the situation. I'm trying to
kind of have the body language that I'm ignoring this thing.
At the same time, I am listening carefully to track
where these footsteps are going, how often they're coming up
and down the stairs, just to A. figure out what
(22:25):
it was, and B. try to think of an action
plan as well of how I was going to get
out of the situation, if I needed to take any
action at all.
The footsteps come back up and they stop, and I'm
thinking to myself, maybe whatever's happening is done, and so
(22:52):
I begin to relax. I go back to kind of
pretending that I'm reading my book, when suddenly I heard
what sounded like a grown man took both of his
fists and slammed them against the door of the room
that I was sleeping in. So hard that the door
actually shook. I jump up off the air mattress and freeze.
(23:19):
I have this thing in my head that I just
need to ignore what's going on and it will go away.
So I sink back down onto the air mattress. I
continue to pretend that I'm reading that nothing has just
happened and again, slamming on the door harder this time.
(23:42):
The door shook, the wall shook, almost giving me the
sense of don't ignore me. I'm actually quite afraid now.
I am terrified. I can no longer ignore what's going on,
and I decide to take action. I throw my blanket
(24:03):
over my head for protection. I felt like if I
were surrounded by something, I at least physically felt better
if I was going to leave this room into who
knows what's going on in the hallway. I flip on
the bedroom light. I swing open the door, and the
(24:26):
landing was empty.
I flip on the hallway light. The stairs are immediately
to my right, and I can see my family is
still sleeping in their beds. My twelve year old brother's
room is immediately to my left. His door's open, so
(24:50):
I walk in, shut the door behind me, flip on
my brother's light so that there's essentially a trail of
light following me. I shake him half awake, and I
tell him to scoot over because I'm sleeping in his room,
and he half asleep kind of just rolls over, makes
(25:12):
space for me. I get into his bed, pull his
covers all the way over my face. It's Nevada, it's
the middle of summer. I basically am suffocating myself, but
I don't care because I'm so afraid of what has
just happened. I'm laying in his room for about twenty
(25:33):
minutes and I hear the bang. It's softer than when
it was directly on my door, but it gave me
the feeling of I know you're in there. The fact
that it had followed me to my brother's room was
(25:53):
really unsettling. My first thought was, what the fuck is this? Like?
Why is this happening to me right now? And I
do remember texting my stepmom the words
Which was unhelpful because then I heard her cell phone
(26:14):
go off from downstairs in the kitchen. Her phone was
charging on the kitchen counter. It wasn't anywhere near her,
so she couldn't save me. When I talked to my
family the next morning, nobody had heard anything. Nobody had
(26:35):
been woken up. By what was going on. I seem
to be the only person who heard it. I think
that they believed me, but I think that they kind
of brushed it off as maybe a one off thing,
or maybe I was scared and I was kind of
blowing it out of proportion. But in the months following
(26:56):
they started to have the same experience. The banging started happening
on my brother's door as well, so he would hear
the footsteps running up and down the stairs, and he
would hear the banging on his door when he slept
with his door closed. They also started to hear the
sound of muffled arguments coming from the top of the
(27:16):
landing upstairs, almost like you're hearing two people fight, still
in the house, but almost kind of far away. Because
this happened so frequently and the banging was so aggressive
and terrifying, they ended up leaving that house at the
end of the first lease term. So after they had
(27:38):
spent that full twelve months in that house, they moved
into a different house because the vibes were very bad.
Nothing has really ever happened in their new house.
THERÉSA (27:53):
Jade's grandmother is right. We spirits do feed off of attention. Well,
this spirit especially. If only I could get some from
my mortal boyfriend. Men are so afraid of commitment.
LEN (28:04):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (28:06):
No Len, nobody cares.
LEN (28:07):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (28:08):
All right, let's take a quick break to hear from
our sponsors.
You guys, I have never been so entertained in my
entire life or death. Toby or whatever his real name is,
hired a priest to perform an exorcism on his apartment,
(28:29):
like I'm some kind of Stage-five-clinger. But I realized from
the other side, exorcisms are hilarious. I'm just sitting there
watching this priest go completely insane with the Holy water
and the Hail Mary's, and Toby is curled up in
the corner whimpering. I thought about flickering the lights again,
just so they'd feel like they were accomplishing something. The
(28:52):
whole thing was a huge turn off. I was planning
to have Toby killed in a mysterious owl attack so
we could be together, but that whole charade just gave
me the ick. I'll leave you to your weird little
hobbies so you can die a virgin at eighty. Well,
that's all I've got for now. I'll be scouring the
underworld for more exorcisms to crash. If anyone has a
(29:13):
supernatural story they'd like to share, a better one than
Toby's who couldn't handle a few flashing lights, write to
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and you could be featured on an
upcoming episode. Till next time.
STORY A (29:30):
If you have a haunting story to share, please email
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com, and if you like what you hear,
please like and subscribe. You can also follow us on
social media by searching for Glass Podcasts or by visiting glasspodcasts.com.
Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts and partnership with
iHeart Podcast. Haunting is created and executive produced by Nancy Glass,
(29:50):
Andrea Gunning, Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus, and it is
hosted by Lauren Lapkuss as their character Therésa. The show
is directed by Aleah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan,
written by Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by Nancy Glass,
Trey Morgan, and Ben Fetterman. Additional production support by Curry
Richman and Todd Ganz. Additional voice acting by Trey Morgan
as the character, producer Len Walker. Editing and sound designed
(30:13):
by Matt Delvecchio and mixed by Dave Saia. Operations and
production support by Kristen Melchiorre Haunting's theme and original compositions
were composed by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay of Noiser.
Music Library provided by Mybe Music. Special thanks to Speakeasy
Sound Studios in Burbank, California for more shows from iHeart
Podcast and Glass Podcast, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,
(30:35):
or wherever you get your podcasts
Hello, Hello, my hauntos Therésa here. Welcome back to another
episode of Haunting. The podcast where we share listeners submitted
stories of other worldly encounters with the great beyond. I'm
excited to gab with you girls today because I've been
having a little encounter of my own. As some of
you may remember, I got saddled with a familiar, Merlin.
(00:41):
Only he's not the slinky cat I was expecting. He's
a massive, great horned owl. Anyway, I've been trying to
make the best of it by accompanying Merlin on his
hunting expeditions in the mortal realm. As a familiar, Merlin
has access to both the physical and spirit world. It's
nice getting to look down on everything from a bird's eye view.
It reminds me of my dad's company jet, which we
(01:03):
sadly lost access to after the indictment. So this one morning,
Merlin's flying through the Poconos and there's this adorable nature boy.
He's got his little binoculars and camera, clearly a birdwatcher,
and he's like, obsessed with me.
LEN (01:18):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (01:21):
Well, if he's obsessed with Merlin, he's obsessed with me.
I'm basically Merlin. The crazy thing is he's so not
my type, but there's something about him that's just so
cute and wholesome. I can't explain it, but it might
be love. I usually go for trust fund DJs or
guys who say bet. This could be a really good thing.
The only challenge has been communication. I had Merlin follow
(01:44):
him back to his apartment in Philadelphia, perch outside of
his window and tap on the glass. This seemed to
really excite him, again because he's a huge bird nerd
so I might need to get a bit more explicit
with my messages. But I have a little romantic gesture
up my sleeve I think should do the trick. I'll have an
update on that later. For now, let's get started with
our first story of the episode. This one comes to
(02:07):
us from Nicole, an LA native just like me who's
had her fair share of disturbing paranormal experiences.
STORY A (02:16):
I'm Nicole and I was followed by something sinister on
a trip to see a friend. I am born and
raised in Los Angeles. I have always grown up knowing
that my family has had a connection to the other side,
(02:37):
whether it be psychic, whether it be seeing spirit, They've
all had interactions. My grandmother specifically would see spirit all
the time. She would have a woman that would walk
up and down her stairs at her childhood home. This
(02:57):
woman would sit on her bed and help my grandma
brush her hair while she was sitting there. This was
then passed down to my mom, who has always had premonitions.
My mom has even been approached in the supermarket by
people saying, are you aware that you have psychic abilities?
(03:17):
These people are just drawn to her. That was also
passed down to me. I was in sixth grade. It
was the last year at my elementary school and there
was a big Washington, DC trip that the sixth grade
class would always take. Having been in LA this was
(03:42):
cross country, it was far away, so it was the
biggest deal. It was a class of thirty and every
kid in the class ended up going on this trip.
It was the trip. We were probably the most annoying
group of kids for the other people on the plane
because a red eye, you know, there's business people trying
(04:05):
to fly to Washington, D C. for their meetings in
the morning, and none of us could shut up. We
were talking the whole time, laughing, yelling. We were probably
driving everyone crazy. I don't think any of us slept
on that plane because there was just this air of excitement.
This may be hard to believe, but I was so
(04:27):
excited for the history part. My grandpa was a history
buff and my grandma was a docent at the Huntington
Museum out here in LA basically a volunteer leading tours
and everything around the Huntington Museum. So she just gave
me a love for history that was shining through in
sixth grade.
(04:54):
Once we landed, we went to the hotel, we checked in,
we were immediately shuttled to our bus. We went to
the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, that whole area of Washington, D.C.
We had a tour guide that lived there that would
take us to all these monuments and all these museums.
(05:16):
She knew everything about everything and as she would speak,
I would notice that she'd always work in these tidbits
about ghosts or spirits and things that she had seen
or things that someone on her tour group had seen.
I thought that was the coolest thing.
(05:37):
One of the main highlights that we were all looking
forward to was heading over to Colonial Williamsburg. As our
bus entered the area, it felt like we were in
a completely different time in space, like we were being
transported into the seventeen hundreds. Our tour guide told us
(05:59):
there were so many different spirit encounters that she had
seen and that people that she led on tour groups
had seen. We spend the whole day in Colonial Williamsburg
churning butter, weaving baskets, making blankets, making candles. At the
(06:21):
end of the day, our entire group was absolutely exhausted.
It's dusk at this point, it's starting to get dark.
Our big group was walking back to our bus. As
we were walking, there's a man standing at this fence.
(06:41):
He was in traditional colonial garb. He was wearing khaki
capris with white socks up to his knees, black buckle shoes,
a white blouse, a black overcoat, and a tri-corner black hat.
(07:05):
I thought it was odd that he was wearing a
black overcoat because it was the middle of May and
it was so hot and humid out. But I noticed
that this man was just glaring at me. Not just staring.
He's glaring.
In this moment, I could not take my eyes off
(07:26):
of him. I'm just feeling this overwhelming sense of dread
and this overwhelming sense of guilt. He was making me
feel as though I had done something to disturb him
or to upset him, and I could not look away
from him. As I walk past him, he is moving
(07:55):
his eyes along with me, but not turning his head,
just moving his eyes to follow me and to watch me.
As if I were the only kid in that entire
group of people that were standing there. He just stared
at me singularly, as if to say, I see you.
My eyes are burning at this point. I've been maintaining
(08:18):
this stare for so long. And then I blink, and
then he was gone. I have a million thoughts running
through my head. Why did he show himself to me?
What did he want from me? Why was he glaring
at me? I described this person to the people in
(08:39):
my class. I told them what he was wearing. No
one else saw this person. I knew what I had
seen was real. I knew it wasn't made up. I
knew it wasn't a hallucination. That feeling could never have
been fabricated. I knew I had seen spirit. It wasn't
(09:03):
until several years later that I had my next experience.
I went up to Oregon to visit my friend. I
was so excited because I'd never been to Oregon before.
I couldn't believe how beautiful it was there. She pointed
out her house from down the street. It was a
very cute cottage model, with lots of vines growing on
(09:27):
the sides of the house and a cobblestone driveway. Before
we even got out of the car, my eyes were
immediately drawn to something on the second floor. All of
a sudden, I felt ill. I was nauseous, my stomach dropped,
(09:50):
I felt feverish, but I had chills. I could feel
the goosebumps all over my body. We unload the car,
walk inside, and what looked very cute from the outside
ended up being very creepy on the inside. The house
(10:12):
had brick walls with nothing hanging on them, hardwood, creaking floors,
and the house just looked old.
We stayed in for the rest of the night, made dinner,
and just sat together catching up. About ten o'clock we
(10:33):
decided to go to bed. I fell asleep very fast.
At some point in the middle of the night, I
woke up and was very thirsty. I walked slowly down
the hall, make it into the kitchen, pour a glass
of water, and turn around to head back to the bedroom. Immediately,
(11:00):
I feel the energy shift.
I start to feel a darkness surround me and a
very negative energy all over the room. I feel fight
or flight take over, like my body is having this
visceral reaction to the shift. It feels like a physical
(11:22):
being is in there with me. It feels like someone's
eyes are boring into my back. But I refuse to
turn around because I didn't want to acknowledge that presence
because of the evil that I felt with it. I
can feel my adrenaline starting to pump, and I feel
(11:46):
this energy getting closer and closer to me, so I
start to run down the hall. I feel like I'm
in danger. I jumped into bed and pull the covers
up over me. I was thinking, do I need to
leave this house in the middle of the night and
(12:07):
find myself a hotel? Am I in danger still? I
pull out my phone to distract myself, and I eventually
feel the energy go back to being peaceful and calm,
and ended up falling asleep.
(12:31):
The next morning, I was very excited because we had
a big day planned, going to tour Oregon State University,
going on a hike, and then going to breweries afterwards.
We're getting ready upstairs in the bathroom, and I mentioned
to my friend that something weird had happened last night.
(12:53):
I told her that I was in the kitchen and
a dark presence came over and followed me back to
the bedroom. She's quiet for a moment and gives me
a look of oh no, this is happening to you too.
She tells me there had been multiple experiences with this presence.
(13:15):
Her and a friend had seen a pen levitate above
the desk on its own, suddenly drop and roll onto
the floor. She'd seen the same thing happen with a
roll of duct tape at that same desk.
She also told me that she had been locked out
(13:36):
of her room before. Leading to the upstairs was a
very old wooden door with paint peeling and an old
style lock that required a skeleton key like you see
in movies to be physically turned. How was she getting
locked out when there was no one in the room?
(14:00):
She told me that a man had died in that
house a long time ago. They believed that that is
the presence that I felt that was stalking about the house,
and not to be too scared because they had been
living there for many months at that point and that
(14:21):
entity had never fully approached them before.
I had a great rest of my trip and was
left undisturbed and believe that in my first night there,
this spirit wanted to test the limits and see how
far it could push me. Since my trip to Oregon, I
(14:45):
have had other encounters with spirit and the paranormal, but
nothing has ever come through again that has felt as
sinister and nefarious as that presence did.
THERÉSA (15:04):
I actually took the same field trip from LA to
DC when I was in elementary school. I didn't see
a ghost, but I did see my history teacher hit
on a Betsy Ross impersonator, which still haunts me to
this day. We've got to take a quick AD break,
but don't go anywhere because we'll be back in two secs,
well technically four minutes, maybe less. I don't know. Ads
are Len work.
(15:32):
Ugh guys! Huge drama with Toby. Oh, I've decided to
name bird guy Toby. I pulled up my social accounts
on his laptop and cut the power so I could
flash "Hey Cutie" in Morse code with the lights, but
he just started seizing. How was I supposed to know
that would happen? Once the paramedics left, I sent Merlin
to his window to calm him down, and he threw
(15:53):
ahead of garlic at him. Yeah, not cool at all.
We're not vampires. Ignorant. Toby slept with the lights on
the rest of the night. But I'm hoping once he's
less on edge, he'll be curious enough to pick up
a Ouiji board or organize a seance so we can
have a proper rendezvous. I'm killer on a first date. Anyway,
let's keep things moving. Our next story is from Jade,
(16:15):
who spent an extremely unsettling night at the mercy of
a pretty pushy spirit.
STORY B (16:22):
I was reading a book quietly and it was totally silent.
Everyone was sleeping, and I heard this thing running up
and down the stairs. And suddenly it slammed against the door.
The door actually shook, and I jumped up. What the
fuck is this? Like why is this happening to me
(16:44):
right now? I am actually quite afraid. I'm terrified. My
name's Jade. When staying with my family, something was going
bump in the night.
I grew up with my mom in Washington State. My
father lived in Las Vegas, and I would visit them
(17:05):
once or twice a year. The summer around the time
that I was seventeen, I was visiting my father and
my stepmom in Las Vegas. I didn't have my own
room in the house. The setup that we typically had
was that my baby brother would sleep with my parents
during the time that I was visiting, and I would
take over the nursery as sort of a guest room
(17:28):
for the duration of my visit. The outside of the
house was pretty common for what you might see in
a Las Vegas suburban area. It was a white stucco
one story house. There was an overhang of the roof
that kind of cast a shadow on the overall house.
(17:52):
The bottom floor was the entire living area. Kitchen, living room,
sort of a front room as well. In the middle of that
living area, t here was a staircase that led up
to a very small landing. The landing was surrounded by
three bedrooms and a bathroom. But for being such a
(18:14):
hot and sunny place, the house did seem to be
a bit shadowy for some reason. The last night that
I was staying with them, I was up in the
nursery room and I was reading Brave New World by
Aldous Huxley. Everyone had gone to bed before me around
(18:37):
ten o'clock. My father and stepmom were with my baby
brother in one room. My other little brother, who was
about twelve at the time, was in his bedroom.
They sleep with their doors open. I do not. I
had just gone to the bathroom. I returned to the nursery.
(19:00):
I closed the door behind me, and I'm continuing to
read my book. I'm up late. I'm seventeen years old,
you know, it was pretty typical of me to stay
up till one or two in the morning. Everyone was
sleeping and then from the bottom of the stairs, I
hear something strange, and I realized that the noise is footsteps.
(19:26):
The footsteps stop at the top of the stairs, and
I hear them go back down. This continues maybe six times,
back and forth. The nursery was directly next to the staircase,
so I could tell that the footsteps were coming from
(19:49):
the bottom of the stairs. This landing was quite creaky.
I would have heard someone kind of coming out of
their rooms and walking down the stairs.
This sound did not start at the top of the stairs.
This sound started at the bottom of the stairs from
the living area. The footsteps almost sounded like a child
(20:14):
barreling up and down the stairs, almost like when you
hear kids kind of running around the house, very clumsy,
very haphazard. So as a sidebar, my grandmother was very kooky,
and she told me that if anything unexplainable or paranormal
(20:36):
ever happened, the best thing to do is to ignore it,
because if you pay attention, you'll feed into the energy,
the activity will get stronger, or something like that. This
is the only advice I had ever gotten about how
to interact with a ghost, so it is in my
head that I should just ignore these footsteps. Of course,
(21:00):
I can't stop listening entirely because I am freaked out,
but I'm choosing not to acknowledge it, call out to
my family, or interact with anything whatsoever. I did go
through the logical checklist of trying to figure out where
(21:21):
this was coming from. I didn't think that it could
be an intruder. The house had an alarm system, so
if anyone had entered on the bottom floor through a
door or the windows, the alarm would have gone off.
I didn't think that it was anyone in my family,
just because I hadn't heard them go down. Again, it
(21:43):
was totally silent. I was reading a book quietly. Everyone
was sleeping. When I was listening to this, I felt
almost like a cat being up on its haunches, Like
my hair stood up and I got goosebumps a bit.
I think, honestly though, in situations like that, I freeze,
(22:05):
and I'm kind of assessing the situation. I'm trying to
kind of have the body language that I'm ignoring this thing.
At the same time, I am listening carefully to track
where these footsteps are going, how often they're coming up
and down the stairs, just to A. figure out what
(22:25):
it was, and B. try to think of an action
plan as well of how I was going to get
out of the situation, if I needed to take any
action at all.
The footsteps come back up and they stop, and I'm
thinking to myself, maybe whatever's happening is done, and so
(22:52):
I begin to relax. I go back to kind of
pretending that I'm reading my book, when suddenly I heard
what sounded like a grown man took both of his
fists and slammed them against the door of the room
that I was sleeping in. So hard that the door
actually shook. I jump up off the air mattress and freeze.
(23:19):
I have this thing in my head that I just
need to ignore what's going on and it will go away.
So I sink back down onto the air mattress. I
continue to pretend that I'm reading that nothing has just
happened and again, slamming on the door harder this time.
(23:42):
The door shook, the wall shook, almost giving me the
sense of don't ignore me. I'm actually quite afraid now.
I am terrified. I can no longer ignore what's going on,
and I decide to take action. I throw my blanket
(24:03):
over my head for protection. I felt like if I
were surrounded by something, I at least physically felt better
if I was going to leave this room into who
knows what's going on in the hallway. I flip on
the bedroom light. I swing open the door, and the
(24:26):
landing was empty.
I flip on the hallway light. The stairs are immediately
to my right, and I can see my family is
still sleeping in their beds. My twelve year old brother's
room is immediately to my left. His door's open, so
(24:50):
I walk in, shut the door behind me, flip on
my brother's light so that there's essentially a trail of
light following me. I shake him half awake, and I
tell him to scoot over because I'm sleeping in his room,
and he half asleep kind of just rolls over, makes
(25:12):
space for me. I get into his bed, pull his
covers all the way over my face. It's Nevada, it's
the middle of summer. I basically am suffocating myself, but
I don't care because I'm so afraid of what has
just happened. I'm laying in his room for about twenty
(25:33):
minutes and I hear the bang. It's softer than when
it was directly on my door, but it gave me
the feeling of I know you're in there. The fact
that it had followed me to my brother's room was
(25:53):
really unsettling. My first thought was, what the fuck is this? Like?
Why is this happening to me right now? And I
do remember texting my stepmom the words
Which was unhelpful because then I heard her cell phone
(26:14):
go off from downstairs in the kitchen. Her phone was
charging on the kitchen counter. It wasn't anywhere near her,
so she couldn't save me. When I talked to my
family the next morning, nobody had heard anything. Nobody had
(26:35):
been woken up. By what was going on. I seem
to be the only person who heard it. I think
that they believed me, but I think that they kind
of brushed it off as maybe a one off thing,
or maybe I was scared and I was kind of
blowing it out of proportion. But in the months following
(26:56):
they started to have the same experience. The banging started happening
on my brother's door as well, so he would hear
the footsteps running up and down the stairs, and he
would hear the banging on his door when he slept
with his door closed. They also started to hear the
sound of muffled arguments coming from the top of the
(27:16):
landing upstairs, almost like you're hearing two people fight, still
in the house, but almost kind of far away. Because
this happened so frequently and the banging was so aggressive
and terrifying, they ended up leaving that house at the
end of the first lease term. So after they had
(27:38):
spent that full twelve months in that house, they moved
into a different house because the vibes were very bad.
Nothing has really ever happened in their new house.
THERÉSA (27:53):
Jade's grandmother is right. We spirits do feed off of attention. Well,
this spirit especially. If only I could get some from
my mortal boyfriend. Men are so afraid of commitment.
LEN (28:04):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (28:06):
No Len, nobody cares.
LEN (28:07):
[MUMBLES]
THERÉSA (28:08):
All right, let's take a quick break to hear from
our sponsors.
You guys, I have never been so entertained in my
entire life or death. Toby or whatever his real name is,
hired a priest to perform an exorcism on his apartment,
(28:29):
like I'm some kind of Stage-five-clinger. But I realized from
the other side, exorcisms are hilarious. I'm just sitting there
watching this priest go completely insane with the Holy water
and the Hail Mary's, and Toby is curled up in
the corner whimpering. I thought about flickering the lights again,
just so they'd feel like they were accomplishing something. The
(28:52):
whole thing was a huge turn off. I was planning
to have Toby killed in a mysterious owl attack so
we could be together, but that whole charade just gave
me the ick. I'll leave you to your weird little
hobbies so you can die a virgin at eighty. Well,
that's all I've got for now. I'll be scouring the
underworld for more exorcisms to crash. If anyone has a
(29:13):
supernatural story they'd like to share, a better one than
Toby's who couldn't handle a few flashing lights, write to
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and you could be featured on an
upcoming episode. Till next time.
STORY A (29:30):
If you have a haunting story to share, please email
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com, and if you like what you hear,
please like and subscribe. You can also follow us on
social media by searching for Glass Podcasts or by visiting glasspodcasts.com.
Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts and partnership with
iHeart Podcast. Haunting is created and executive produced by Nancy Glass,
(29:50):
Andrea Gunning, Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus, and it is
hosted by Lauren Lapkuss as their character Therésa. The show
is directed by Aleah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan,
written by Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by Nancy Glass,
Trey Morgan, and Ben Fetterman. Additional production support by Curry
Richman and Todd Ganz. Additional voice acting by Trey Morgan
as the character, producer Len Walker. Editing and sound designed
(30:13):
by Matt Delvecchio and mixed by Dave Saia. Operations and
production support by Kristen Melchiorre Haunting's theme and original compositions
were composed by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay of Noiser.
Music Library provided by Mybe Music. Special thanks to Speakeasy
Sound Studios in Burbank, California for more shows from iHeart
Podcast and Glass Podcast, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,
(30:35):
or wherever you get your podcasts
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