August 13, 2021 • 56 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast,
a m paranormal podcast network. Now get ready for another
episode of Strange Things with Joshua P. Warren. Welcome to
our podcast. Please be aware of the thoughts and opinions
expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only
and do not reflect those of I Heart Media, I
(00:21):
Heart Radio, Coast to Coast, AM employees of premier networks,
or their sponsors and associates. We would like to encourage
you to do your own research and discover the subject
matter for yourself. Get ready to be amazed to find
(00:54):
a wizard of weird. This is Strange Things, right. I
am Joshua pe Warren, and each week on this show,
I'll be bringing you brand new mind blowing content, news, exercises,
(01:16):
and weird experiments you can do at home, and a
lot more. And on this edition of the show, I
want to share with you some strange stories that helped
to inspire the direction of my life as a professional
paranormal investigator. This goes way back for me, back to
(01:37):
when I was a teenager. I grew up in the
mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. That's where I was born
and raised. I was always an unusual kid. I started
writing my first published book when I was fourteen years old.
By the time I graduated high school, I had published
three books. I wrote for the local newspaper. I also
(02:04):
had a column and the school newspaper called Strange but True,
pretty basic Ripley's believe it or not kind of stuff.
And I guess around the time I was working on that,
I started really enjoying this concept of just sort of
off beat, strange, esoteric subjects, and I got this idea
(02:32):
to create a book called Speaking of Strange. And if
that sounds familiar to you, it is because that years
later I would actually create a radio show called Speaking
of Strange, and the name of the show came straight
from the name of the book, and um, of course
(02:56):
that ran for many, many years on the station there
in Asheville, UH News Radio five seventy do w w
U n C. And however, the book Speaking of Strange
was published in nineteen ninety four and it's subtitled Residents
(03:18):
of the Western North Carolina Mountain's Tale of their Encounters
with the Unexplained. So this is different than the other
two books I published. When I was in high school,
in middle school and all that. I published my first
when I was I guess in middle school and um,
then the other two in high school. The first book
(03:40):
I wrote was a book of fictional scary short stories
and poems. And then the other book that I wrote
was a book. Uh that was a nonfiction book about ghosts.
But this book is an anthology. I decided to collect
stories from people all over my region about just strange
stuff that has happened to them, not necessarily creepy. I mean,
(04:03):
trust me, I I said, it's it's wide open. Tell
me about ghosts and UFOs and big foot and weirdo
experiences that are are are traditionally paranormal, but feel free
to open your mind. Let's get into the strangest territory possible.
And not everything has to have a neat little ending
that we tied together at the end with the boat,
(04:25):
you know. And so what I did was travel around
my region and I primarily put posters up at uh well,
wherever there was a bolton board, but mainly bookstores seemed
like a good match. You know, people who go to bookstores,
they're literate and they're into that sort of thing, so
(04:45):
maybe they would feel more inclined to write an experience
they've had and send it to me. So I put
posters all over town. I may have run an ad
in one of the local papers, I don't remember, but
I didn't do a heck of a lot considering the
enormous surge of mail that flooded into my mailbox. And
(05:08):
it was wonderful, and so I realized very quickly, this
is not gonna be hard at all. And so sure
enough I went through and I typed up these stories,
and I got permission from everybody and edited them, and
UH hired Tim Peterson, my good buddy, to illustrate it.
And before you know it, boon, we had this book
(05:29):
called Speaking of Strange. It came out, it was a
big seller. And now, however, the book is out of
print because unfortunately I ended up having a problem with
the publisher back in the day, and we we had
some disagreements about things, but we got it worked out.
We're all cool now, and actually maybe someday this book
would come back into print. But I realized the other
day that I don't even have a copy of this book,
(05:50):
at least here at my place in Vegas. And it's
so rare that I kind of keep an eye out
for it once in a while, and it popped up
on eBay, and uh so I bought it. So I
have this copy of Speaking of Strange in my hands,
and it at the bottom it says mountain ghosts, haints
and other unexplained happenings. Now, if you don't know what
(06:12):
I haint is, that's why a lot of the old
timers and the Appalachian Mountains referred to as well a
hot a ghost. So a ghost is a haint, mountain ghost,
haints and other unexplained happening. So I guess ghosts and
haints could be a little redundant, but anyway, Haints is
like a haunted place. So I'm just going to read
(06:32):
to you some of the stories that I collected. And
I enjoyed doing this so much that again, this is
one of those things that solidified the direction that my
life would take. So I did this book called Speaking
of Strange, and then I did a radio show called
Speaking of Strange, and now I'm hosting this podcast called
Strange Things. So I have a wonderful relationship with this
(06:57):
word strange, and uh, I encourage it and I adore it.
So I'm just gonna flip through here, and you're never
gonna know exactly where the story is going. I I
want to set it up for you like that. They're
all fairly short. And I actually wrote a foreword to
this book, and I'm not going to read that, but
(07:20):
I put this quote at the beginning of my foreword.
It's a quote by Mark Twain. Quote of course truth
is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense end quote.
By the way, my friend Murray, the magician here in
(07:42):
Las Vegas, said that he is related somehow to Mark Twain.
I don't think he realized the true significance of that.
Mark Twain was just such a literary giant. What's interesting
about Murray's He's from Canada. So anyway, I'm just gonna
start reading these and if we run into a rake,
than I'll pause and I'll come back after the break.
(08:03):
This first one was sent to me by Julie Bush Candler,
North Carolina. She wrote, it happened in New York on
a beautiful sunny day. Spring had come at long last,
the carnival had come to our neighborhood. And I must
have been around eight or nine. My cousin Eddie was
with me. He was a year older than me, and
(08:24):
we spent our weekends together exploring the wilds of the
concrete jungle. How a child loves a carnival, and I
was no different than any other. We had been having
a great time on the rides and playing those carnival
games that kids have so much playing until our money
ran out. There was a park nearby, and I thought
(08:46):
to myself how beautiful the green grass looked, and the
leaves back on the trees where they belonged. I love
that season. It just makes me feel so good. It
was fun being outside and playing without all those heavy
winter close. Such a lovely day for a carnival. The
breath of spring was in the air. We wanted to
(09:07):
keep on having fun, but we needed money. We had
run out. I told my cousin that we should go
to the park, kneel down and pray to Jesus that
he give both of us more money so that we
could keep on having fun. We went and we both
kneeled down, closed our eyes and pray to Jesus. My
(09:29):
prayers always started out, please Dear Jesus, and then I
would pray. When I finished my prayer, I told my
cousin to start digging and we would find money. Where
I was kneeling, I started digging. I had found a
spot with soft dirt and it was easy to dig.
(09:50):
I immediately found a huge pile of change. Thank you,
Dear Jesus, I said. I started yelling to Eddie, who
was about twenty feet away. I found it. I found it.
He didn't find any, but that was okay. What I
had found was enough for both of us to finish
(10:11):
out that beautiful spring day at the carnival. It was
a day that I would never forget. It was a
day that my angel wanted me to keep on having.
I won a piggy bank and got home at dark.
My mom was upset because we were late. I told
(10:31):
her what had happened, but until this day, I don't
think that she ever believed me. Isn't that a sweet
little story from Julie Bosh of Candler. She didn't mention
what year that took place. And again, this book was
published in ninety four, and so you know a lot
(10:51):
of the people who wrote stories were probably up there
in years themselves at the time, so that may have
been a long time ago. So indeed, um let's see here,
we're gonna sort of bounce in all over into different
subject matter. But you know, one thing I want to
mention to you about the story I just read is
it's interesting to me how many people want to wish
(11:12):
or pray for money and they say I want a
million dollars. That's usually what they say, I want a
million dollars. I got an email yesterday from a guy
who said, I want a wishing machine and I want
to program it to get a hundred million dollars. That's
what he said, hundred million dollars. But you know what,
(11:34):
why don't you think more about what you need right now,
right what you need right now? Like like she did.
She thought, you know what, I just want to have
a good day today, and I want to have enough
money so we can enjoy a fun experience here at
the carnival. And sometimes if you're a little more realistic
and you you just say, look, I don't need to
(11:56):
own five mansions and two yachts and all that to
be happy. Let's just take this steps and let's look
at what I need right now that's right in front
of me, and let's focus on that. And if you're
kind of reasonable, then you can accrue whatever you need
whenever you need it. But that is a lesson from
the mind of the child that all of us need
(12:19):
to remember even as an adult, no matter how stressful
it may get for you sometimes financially. If you love
amazing pictures, videos and breaking content, be sure to sign
up for my free e newsletter at Joshua P. Warren
dot com. It takes two seconds and you'll instantly receive
(12:43):
a free digital good luck charm and instructions on how
to cheaply make or a glasses at home that might
allow you to see the other side. And on my website,
take a look at the Curiosity Shop to find rare,
amazing things you will not find anywhere else in the world.
(13:03):
There is no period after the P in Joshua P.
Warren dot com. I am Joshua P. Warren and you're
listening to strange things on the I Heart Radio and
Coast to Coast a m paranormal podcast network, and I
will be right back after this. We are happy to
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announce that our Coast to Coast am official YouTube channel
has now reached over three hundred thousand subscribers. You can
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(15:03):
Welcome back to Strange Things on the I Heart Radio
and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network. I am
your host, the Wizard of Weird, beaming into your worm
whole brain from my studio and since city, Las Vegas, Nevada,
where every day is golden and every night is silver.
(15:27):
When I was putting together this anthology back in nine
called Speaking of Strange, this regional book, I even was
able to get some stories from some of my teachers
in high school. One of them was my English teacher,
Mr Boyles, David Boyles, and you know what, he and
(15:50):
I are still friends, were still in touch. He's retired
from teaching now, but he is still writing books and
poems and all kinds of stuff like that. And uh,
he also throws the coolest Halloween party in Asheville, North Carolina,
or the general Asheville area. Every year, everybody's fighting over
(16:13):
an invitation to David Boyle's Halloween party. He's one of
those guys who goes over the top, spends months preparing,
and when you go there, it's like you have arrived
at a theme park. So here is the story that
he contributed to the book. David Voyles from Swanna Noah,
(16:34):
North Carolina. He wrote, Actually, I like animals, I really do,
even cats, But somehow I prefer the company of dogs
to cats. Cats have that sneaky quiet quality about them
that gives people reason to believe that they actually could
(16:56):
be companions too. Whiches and devils, as the old folks
tells so wisely, tell us. Let's say you hear the
crash of your pattern antique china hitting the floor where
moments before your cat had been investigating. When you pop
your head through the doorway wild eye to see what happened,
(17:18):
you'll only see your feline friends sitting calmly several feet
from the scene of the crime, tail wrapped around itself,
paul poised in midair, apparently only temporarily distracted from its bathing.
Who will turn to you, blink slowly, and resume it's
licking as if nothing had happened. Obviously a devious, if
(17:40):
not downright demonic being. On the other hand, a dog
who has dislodged your china from the shelf, perhaps because
it suddenly found the ivy pattern and bossed in its
shiny surface to be a mortal threat to you, would
be profoundly wagging its tail, frequently turning its head from
the shattered piece is to your horrified gaze, expecting praise
(18:03):
for its daring deed. A stupid creature, maybe, but one
that is definitely of this earth. Since you know my
philosophical observations about the nature of dogs and cats, perhaps you,
like me, will find it strange that the only supernatural
experience I ever had involved a dog, a very typically
(18:25):
dumb dog at that. I have always wanted one of
those dogs like you used to see in the old
Disney movies, you know the kind I mean. Those dogs
never dug up the rhododendron bushes five minutes after you
have spent seven long, back breaking hours planting them. They
never barked in the middle of the night, unless it
was when robbers were trying to break into your house
(18:48):
or when the neighbor's little blind child had fallen down
the well. And they never, and I repeat, never went
to the bathroom on the brand new Persian carpet in
the living room. Somehow, I have never owned a dog
like that. The dogs in my life have have always
chewed up every new pair of shoes, eyeball marked constantly
throughout the night, every time the slightest breeze blue. And
(19:11):
as to the persian rug, well, I don't want to
talk about that and the disgusting things they dragged home. Maggie,
a lovable but not particularly bright pound puppy we adopted,
was no exception. As a matter of fact, she was
the rule. She loved to root about in the neighbors
trash and bring me her newly found treasures. As a result,
(19:35):
I found myself the recipient of used diapers, garbage bags
filled with someone else's garbage, no less, and finally, even
a hog's head. My wife and I live in the country,
and one of our neighbors has live stock, including pigs.
(19:57):
I suppose that one hot number day he had slaughtered
a hog and deposited the incredible Excuse me, the inedible
remains not far from our house. As I happened to
glance out the window of the study where I was working,
I noticed that Maggie had been amusing herself with unusual concentration,
(20:20):
considering her rather limited attention span, by playing with an
unfamiliar object. Now I hadn't had not given it any
real fought until my four year old son came in
and said, Daddy, there's a pig face in the yard.
Imagine my delight at finding the freshly decapitated head of
a rather large hog on my sidewalk. I quickly got
(20:43):
a shovel, carried the hogs head to a steep hill
on the edge of our property, and pitched it over
the barbed wire fence, where it rolled down a ravine
to its final resting place, or so I hoped. About
a week later, when we had guests visiting us for weekend,
we all awakened to a rather unpleasant odor drifting into
(21:04):
the house from the windows which had been open to
allow in that wonderful cool mountain air. We had suffered
from nocturnal visits from a family of skunks before, but
this smell was even more revolting. The mystery of its
origin was solved, though, when my son reported, Daddy, the
pig faces back. Now you can easily imagine how that
(21:28):
hogs had looked after lying in the hot summer sun
for a week, And if you know anything about dogs,
you can probably also imagine who was standing proudly over it,
tell wagging as if to say, look what I found.
I fetched my shovel and gas mask, had my son
take Maggie inside the house and hope that she would
(21:50):
be distracted from her new toy, and gave the hogshead
another heave ho over the fence, hoping it would be
the last time I saw it. Several months later, however,
I returned home from work and found the cleanly preserved
skull of a hog facing me on the top of
(22:12):
our front steps. I swear the empty eye sockets were saying,
I thought you'd get rid of me. Huh. Maggie was
clearly obsessed with this particular possession, and I felt I
would have to take special measures to ensure that she
didn't hurt herself by chewing off sharp shards of the
(22:34):
bone which might stick in her throat. Once again, I
had my son keep Maggie indoors while I carried the
skull off with shovel in hand. This time I dug
a hole in the woods and buried the skull in it.
Apparently the burial of the skull worked, Maggie never brought
(22:56):
the skull up to the house again. Unfortunately, however, her
bad habit habit of sniffing around the neighbor's trash, eventually
caught up with her. And as you probably know, dogs
will lick any old, disgusting thing they happened to come across,
from rotting hogs heads to use baby diapers. You might
(23:17):
want to think about that the next time Rover gives
you a friendly lick. Anyway, I'm sorry to say that
Maggie must have licked up some poison, because she showed
up sick one evening and died a few hours later.
I buried her on the edge of our property with
a few of her doggy toys, sadly shaking my head
(23:40):
as I thought of how appropriate it would be if
her favorite toy, the pig Face, was with them. A
few days later, as I was driving up my long
curved driveway, I glanced fondly over towards Maggie's grave, action
that had become a daily ritual. I noticed something white
(24:06):
standing out in direct contrast with the brown patch of
dirt which marked her grave. Curious, I stopped the truck
and walked over to inspect it. You might guess what
I saw sitting on that mound, as if someone had
carefully placed it there. That's right, a hog's skull. I
(24:33):
guess Old Maggie was determined that she was going to
keep that prize after all. That's a weird story, huh,
David Voils, he called it Maggie in the Pig Face.
(24:54):
An illustrator Tim Peterson put a little cartoon of a
pig looking at a dog, and and the dog looking
at the pig, and their little hearts floating around the
two of them. Uh, what do you think what category
to stuff like that go into. I mean, we're talking
(25:17):
about real, physical, tangible stuff. It's not like we you know,
you see some phantom that vanishes the glides away, or
some UFO overhead that shoots off into the distance, or
some creature that just sort of morphs into the bushes
and trees. I don't know, real stuff like this happens
(25:40):
all the time. That was but don't you think that's cool?
My English teacher wrote that. I even have a story
here that my little sister Jessica wrote, And my sister
is six years younger than me, and so she can
tributed to this book. And I don't even know if
(26:02):
she would still remember this experience. It's called the Spirit
of Easter. And I tell you what. We have to
take a break soon, so um, i'll read this to
you when we come back. It has to do with
a haunted toy. Yeah, a haunted toy. Those stories are
(26:23):
always interesting and creepy. Oh yeah, and here's this is
a very strange one. Um. Yeah, this is actually very
fitting one about well, an encounter with a person or
was it? Yeah, this is good stuff. Okay, Well, let
(26:44):
me remind you if you like these kinds of things,
you can always get in touch with me easily. Just
go to Joshua Pee Warren dot com and you'll find
my email address at the bottom of the homepage there,
or you can follow me on Twitter at Oshaua P
Warren at Joshua Pee Warren. That's because I am Joshua
(27:05):
pe Warren and you're listening to strange things on the
I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a am paranormal
podcast network, and I will be right back after this.
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to Coast to Coast m dot com for details. Welcome
(29:57):
back to Strange Things on the I Heart Radio and
Coast to Coast a am paranormal podcast network. I'm your host,
Joshua Pete Warren, and this is the show where the
unusual becomes usual. Yeah. My little sister, Jessica, my only sibling,
is six years younger than me. And here is what
(30:20):
she contributed to my book, my anthology published in nine
called Speaking of Strange Residence of the western North Carolina
Mountains tell of their encounters with the unexplained. Jessica Warren
of Asheville, North Carolina wrote, watch out the Easter bunny
(30:41):
may leave spirited presence. A while back. As an Easter present,
my aunt sent me an ordinary blue toy rabbit which
could play music. I placed the rabbit on my dresser
where it would not be disturbed. However, one night, about
a week after I had gotten it, I awoke to
(31:04):
the sound of its chirpy tune in the darkness of
my bedroom. I had not been around it all day,
yet it began to play on its own. It wasn't
only annoying, but creepy. Well after that, from time to time,
the bunny you would just start itself up again for
(31:26):
no reason. It would play its ghostly tune as if
it possessed the mind of its own. Eventually I had
to place the bunny in my basement to gain peace.
But still even now I wake up in the night
sometimes to hear its eerie melody creeping up from the
(31:48):
empty basement below. M M. I wonder if she still
has that haunted bunny somewhere. I could use it right
these days. Put it in my collection of spooky haunted
things that I do plan to put back on display someday,
(32:13):
probably here in Las Vegas. So there you go. It
runs in the family. Here's a story that I thought
was especially fitting for a book like this by Let's see.
This was sent to me by Greta Shelton, who lived
in Asheville, North Carolina. She wrote, I was a child
in the nineteen fifties, and those days hoboes still rode
(32:36):
the box cars and begged for food at the doors
of houses in my neighborhood, which bordered the railroad tracks
between West Haywood Street and the Smith Bridge. One evening
I went home to eat supper with one of my friends.
It was the winter of nineteen fifty eight. My friends
family was poor, so the meal consisted of pento beans,
(32:59):
fried potatoes, and corn bread. It began to snow as
we sat down to eat, and we watched the snow
as we sat at the table. The kitchen windows were
frosted a bit, but we could see the snow pouring down.
Halfway through the mill, a knock came at the back door.
(33:20):
It was indeed a hobo, stopping to ask for a
piece of bread and a drink of water. The ragged
stranger was invited in and brought to the table to
eat with us. His plate was filled and his cup
poured full of steaming coffee. The man's hands wrapped around
(33:43):
the hot cup and he held it to absorb the heat.
I noticed his fingers sticking through the tips of the
gloves he wore. He ate as if he had not
eaten in several days, and after finishing, he warmed himself
by the stove. I noticed rags wrapped around his feet
(34:03):
and rope tied to hold them on. He had barely
spoken during the mill, but appeared to be at peace.
After he grew warm by the fire, he looked around
at all of us and said it's time to go now,
Thanks and God bless you all. He went out the
(34:24):
back door, down the steps to the yard, and disappeared.
We walked out onto the porch and looked down at
the yard to see which way he went. There were
no footprints in the snow. The surface was smooth and
glistening in the moonlight. For all the rest of my life,
(34:48):
I have wondered about this incident. Who was this stranger?
What was the purpose of his visit? Perhaps I will
never know, But I have always believed in angels since
that night. Huh, I bet you know. It is funny
how in the Bible when people encounter angels, they don't
(35:13):
know they're talking to an angel. Often the angel just
looks like a normal person. Uh. There are were some
points in the Bible where an angel says, yeah, I'm
an angel, and the guy says, yeah, right, prove it
to me, and the angel has to do some magic
tricks to prove he's an angel. I guess that's why
(35:35):
they say you better be careful when you're talking to somebody.
You never know. You never know when you might actually
be talking to an angel, and you better treat them nice.
Here's a story by Sarah go Forth. She sent this
to me about an experience that she had also in Asheville,
North Carolina. The Big Old Classic cemetery in Asheville is
(35:59):
called Riverside Cemetery. That's where Thomas Wolfe is buried, and
a lot of famous people. She wrote, in Riverside Cemetery
in Asheville, North Carolina, you will find a marker for
Barkley bart Or, so she's giving us a name here,
the name of a man named Barkley or nicknamed Bart
(36:22):
Barkley bart Or, dated nineteen thirteen, not too far away.
You'll also find a marker for James go Forth, my father.
Both Bart and my dad were working for and with
John Rumball and his attempt to establish an automobile legacy
in Asheville. The building in which they worked was on Broadway,
(36:47):
opposite the Masonic Temple. In nineteen thirteen, I was an
only child. We were living at sixty three A A
Street and attended church at Ora Street Presbyterian Church right
in sight of our house. Or had a small child, Tommy,
about my age. When the building on Broadway was finished,
(37:11):
I recall going there to see it. There was a
freight elevator used to get cars to the show room
on the street for the street floor level. It was
also used to transport supplies and such that were delivered.
One day, machinery was being installed. Embart and Jim my dad.
(37:32):
We're with a company representative installing a machine operated by
a high compression force. They needed a special tool, which
was on another floor. Well. Jim turned and crossed the
building to use the steps when there was a huge explosion.
Dan said, he whirled around and returned to the scene
of the accident. Or was seriously injured but conscious. He
(37:57):
asked my dad to quote hit him in the head
with a hammer end quote. Then he died as my
dad held him. The company representative was blinded and later died.
Or was seriously injured but conscious. Um no, I'm sorry anyway,
(38:22):
she says. The building, which was later to be used
by Morgan Wholesale, was also damaged. Dad said a metal
plate from the machine was blown through two inside walls
across Broadway and was later found in a vacant lot
by the Masonic temple at our house. After the terrible accident,
(38:42):
strange things began happening. One Sunday evening, my parents wondered
about leaving the porch light on when we went to church.
The light was not on, and as we left church, however,
we could see that the light had somehow turned on. Indeed,
sometime later, Dad said that he was awakened by strange sounds.
(39:03):
One night, he heard the sound of water running. He
checked the bath on the second floor to find that
everything was fine. He then realized that the sound was
coming from the kitchen. In the kitchen downstairs, he found
the falsett wide open. Later, a door between the living
area and dining room had mysteriously locked with no key.
(39:27):
We never found out exactly what caused such strange experiences,
but for the rest of his life, my dad insisted
that Bart was desperately trying to tell him something and
that's the end of that story. So you see, folks,
you might say, oh, well, that was unsatisfying because we
(39:51):
have this tendency to want to have a nice you know,
bo wrapped around the end of the story. But that's
just not how reality works. This is a weird one,
my okay. This is by Marie Murray Guy, also from Asheville.
She says the following story took place in World War
(40:13):
two England. Today, I have been thinking of my father's
little man. Dad was very practical in a lot of ways.
For instance, when the air raid sirens sounded to warn
us of an air raid while we were grabbing our blankets,
important papers, a thermos, flask of tea, items we always
(40:34):
had ready each night, and rushing off to the nearest
air raid shelter. Dad would say, stay in bed, get
some sleep. If it's a direct hit, no matter where
you are, you've had it, and then closing the door
after us, he would go off to bed. Twice we
had near missus and he was thrown out of bed,
(40:54):
but he climbed back in and settled down to sleep again.
Because the German bombers had started dropping small magnesium firebombs,
Mother and I slept downstairs, but when the sirens sounded
we always went to the shelters. The night my father
first saw his quote, little man, I was in bed
(41:15):
downstairs with a bad case of the flu. Mother was
on war work and left to catch her bus at
ten minutes to ten for the night shift. Dad stood
at the front door, watching mother until she was out
of sight. He was just about to come into the
house when he said quote. A very small man about
two ft high waddled past him and went to our
(41:38):
neighbors next door. The little man knocked on the door
and waited. During this time, Dad took stock of the
stranger's appearance. When we come back from this break, I
will tell you about that appearance. What did the little
man look like and why was he there? I'm Joshua
(42:01):
Pete Warren. You're listening to Strange Things on the I
Heart Radio and Coast to Coast, a um paranormal podcast network,
and I will be right back. My name is Mark Rowlings,
president of Paranormal Date dot Com. Over five years ago,
(42:23):
George Nor approached me with a unique concept, a dating
site for people searching for someone with interest in ufosed ghosts, Bigfoot,
conspiracy theories and the paranormal. From that, Paranormal Date dot
Com was born. It's a unique site for unique people
and it's free to join to look around. If you
want upgrade and enjoy more of our great features, use
promo code George for a great discount, So check it out.
(42:46):
You've got nothing to lose. Paranormal Date dot Com. The
Coast to Coast Damn mobile app is here and waiting
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(43:06):
We have a handy video guide to help you get
the most out of your mobile app usage. All the
info is waiting for you now at Coast to Coast
AM dot com. That's Coast to Coast am dot com.
(43:48):
Welcome back to the final segment of this edition of
Strange Things on the I Heart Radio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network. I am your host, Joshua
pe War And and here is what Mary Murray Guy
said about her father's little man. He wore typical Tyrolean clothing,
(44:13):
short pants, green short sleeve shirt, suspenders, and a little
hat with a feather on the side. And when there
was no answer to the little fellow's knock, Dad called
out to him, there is no one home right now.
They both work and do not get home until after
eleven o'clock. At this the little man came to the door,
(44:37):
pushed his way past my father and entered the house.
Dad came in all excited, saying, Hey, here, what's you doing.
Where's he gone? He looked at me and said, where's
he gone? I said, sitting up in bed, Where's who gone?
Well Dad had not been to his favorite pub and
had nothing but a cup of tea, so I knew
(44:59):
that he said he'd seen a little man. He had
seen something. He was not interested in dreams, omens, spiritualism, signs,
et cetera. And whenever an old aunt came and we
asked her to read our teacup, he always said, I'm
surprised at you. Dad searched the house but found no one,
(45:20):
no signs of a little man. Finally he gave up,
scratched his head, and sat down in his chair. Barely
five minutes later, there was a knock at the door,
Mr Ainsworth. A voice called out, and Dad went to
the door. I'm sorry, the voice continued, but your wife
has had an accident. She fell and has broken her foot.
(45:44):
She missed the bus and decided to walk, but fell
as she crossed the field. She was lucky a man
also missed the bus and found her. She's been taken
to the hospital and will be home sometime later. To
call her happened to me a man and who knew
us and had volunteered to call and give us the news.
(46:04):
The hospital was full mostly with air raid victims. So
mother was brought home by ambulance about two hours later.
There were two of us in bed, with Dad as
our nurse. The second time the mysterious little man appeared
was just three days later. Dad was in the toilet
outside and the door was suddenly pushed open, and there
(46:27):
stood the little man again. He looked up at Dad,
turned and then disappeared from sight. Dad hurried into the
house and stood at the foot of our bed, scratching
his head as he always did when he was puzzled.
We could tell something was wrong, and we waited for
him to speak. I've seen that little fellow again, he said,
(46:49):
and then proceeded to tell us what had transpired. Well,
this was just too much for mother and me, and
we burst out laughing. Dad was a little bit irritated
at our laughter, and he said, now I know that
I have just seen that little man again, so you
just laugh all you want to. And we looked at him,
and I think we both believed him. The next day
(47:13):
there was a telegram from the West African Frontier Force Headquarters,
regret Sergeant Smith died this morning. Sergeant Smith was my husband.
His mother was never the same after she heard the news,
and six months later she died at the age of
(47:37):
and three days before she died, Dad saw his little
Man for the third and last time. Deep down, I
believe in the little Man knowing my no nonsense father,
and because that, I have had strange things happen in
my life. Two. What do you make of that? Huh?
(47:59):
I could maybe do a whole podcast about the significance
of little people has something to do with fate. I
suppose here's a story called a fateful Encounter John Owen
by Fairview, North Carolina. As close as I can remember,
it was the fall of nineteen seventy three or nineteen
(48:21):
seventy four. I was working second shift and had gotten
off at one o'clock. As I was coming home on
garen Creek Road and Fairview, I had a flat tire,
and halfway through changing the tire, my flashlight went out.
After exhausting the gas from my cigarette lighter, I gave
up and decided to start walking. There was little or
no traffic on the road at that time of morning.
(48:43):
By then, it was probably about two thirty in the morning.
It was a dark night and there was only enough
light to make out the outline of the tree tops.
I was only about four miles from home, and as
I walked along, I could see a dim outline of
the road except the areas where it was shaded by tree.
I would walk along on the pavement and I felt
(49:04):
the grass and weeds brushing my ankles, and I knew
I was near the edge of the road. About halfway home.
I was in one of those pitch black areas at
the foot of the mountain. I coaxed one last light
from my lighter as my eyes readjusted to the darkness,
and then suddenly there she was. It was a yellowish blue,
(49:26):
glowing figure of a woman. She was wearing what appeared
to be an old fashioned style full length dress with
puffy sleeves. It tattered to rags and strips below her waist,
and none of her body was visible below the dress.
Her image floated a few feet above the ground. She
appeared to be a young woman with long, straight hair.
(49:49):
I froze in my tracks, having no idea what to do.
After a few seconds, I asked her who she was
and what she wanted. It was a dead, calm night
with no reads it all. Her dress, however, moved back
and forth as if it was blowing in the breeze again.
I asked her who she was and told her I
(50:09):
was trying to get home. She pointed in the direction
from which I had come. I could hear nothing, but
her lips moved, telling me to go back. I wasn't
going to argue. Scared silly, I took a few steps back,
turned around, took a few more steps, and then glanced back,
and when I turned and looked, she was gone. I
(50:33):
started walking back towards my car, and after a few
minutes a man and his wife drove by and stopped.
They picked me up, and as we pulled off, I
started telling them what had happened. As I talked, I
realized that they must have thought I was either on
drugs or an escape ee from an asylum. His wife
had scooted almost onto her husband, to the point that
(50:57):
there was almost room for another person between us on
the truck seat. Despite the fact that they were scared
of me, they stopped and let me out at my car,
where they shine their headlights so I could finish changing
the tire. When I at last started to drive home,
I stopped when I got to the spot where I
(51:17):
had seen the woman. I got out of my car
and I asked into the air once again, who are you?
Why do you want? I heard or saw nothing. Then
a few feet up the road, my eye caught the
sight of something lying on the side of the road.
I pulled my car closer. They're lying on the edge
(51:41):
of the road was a rattlesnake that had been run over.
Inches away. Was it's coiled up mate, right where I
would have been walking. Yeah, gulp, I think I can
(52:04):
squeeze in one more for you. Weaver Donaldson from Canton,
North Carolina and March of nineteen fifty eight, I was
in the Armed Forces stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I
had been there for three weeks and I was given
a weekend pass. I and a friend from my hometown
took the bus home on a Friday night. On Sunday,
(52:27):
we were returning to base in my personal vehicle, a
nineteen fifty one Ford Coupe. And those days, the law
enforcement was not as it is today, And as the
saying goes, I had the hammer down. The time was
just past midnight and my friend had gone to sleep.
It was a lovely night. The moon was full, the
heavens were filled with stars and there was not a
(52:49):
cloud to be seen. It was my first time driving
that highway and I had just passed through Corbin, Kentucky.
I went into what seemed to be a long straightaway,
and again I put the pedal to the metal. Then,
all of a sudden, a flash of lightning came from nowhere,
(53:10):
which I thought hit the top of the car. I
slammed on the brakes and stopped. Being scared, I got
out of the vehicle to discover that I was entering
into a sharp left curve. I walked just a few
feet ahead to find a massive ravine of such depth
(53:31):
that I could not see the bottom. There was no
guard rail. Neither my friend nor I would have survived
the crash had it not been for the warning of
a lightning bolt. Don't these kind of give you the
(53:52):
goose bumps? What does it mean? I guess it means
that all these stories mean we're not alone. Sometimes you
see these things, they freak you out there, creepy, they're spooky.
Sometimes they reassure you and they bring you peace. But
(54:14):
whatever they are, however we perceive them, these are indications
that there's something very, very special. About the realm we're
living in this mysterious paranormal universe, and if you pay attention,
if you open your eyes and you open your mind,
(54:35):
you might be surprised how many things are swirling around
you to help you understand in some small way what's
going on and to help guide you through this experience
called life. Regardless of how we explain these things, or
just except we can't explain these things, I think that
(54:56):
you can now understand pretty clearly why that stuff like
this inspired me to continue pursuing paranormal investigation, to dig
into the mysterious and the wondrous. And that's one reason,
thanks to this book, that I'm such a curious person.
(55:18):
That's it for this edition of the show. Follow me
on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren. Plus visit Joshua P.
Warren dot com to sign up for my free e
newsletter to receive a free instant gift, and check out
the cool Stuff and the Curiosity Shop all at Joshua P.
Warren dot com. I have a fun one lined up
(55:40):
for you next time, I promise, so please tell all
your friends to subscribe to this show and to always
remember the Golden Rule. Thank you for listening. Thank you
for your interest in support, Thank you for staying curious,
and I We'll talk to you again soon. You've been
(56:02):
listening to Strange Things on the I Heart Radio and
Coast to Coast a UM paranormal podcast network. Well, if
you like this episode of Strange Things, wait till you
(56:24):
hear the next one. Thank you for listening to the
I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a m paranormal
podcast network.
Welcome to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast,
a m paranormal podcast network. Now get ready for another
episode of Strange Things with Joshua P. Warren. Welcome to
our podcast. Please be aware of the thoughts and opinions
expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only
and do not reflect those of I Heart Media, I
(00:21):
Heart Radio, Coast to Coast, AM employees of premier networks,
or their sponsors and associates. We would like to encourage
you to do your own research and discover the subject
matter for yourself. Get ready to be amazed to find
(00:54):
a wizard of weird. This is Strange Things, right. I
am Joshua pe Warren, and each week on this show,
I'll be bringing you brand new mind blowing content, news, exercises,
(01:16):
and weird experiments you can do at home, and a
lot more. And on this edition of the show, I
want to share with you some strange stories that helped
to inspire the direction of my life as a professional
paranormal investigator. This goes way back for me, back to
(01:37):
when I was a teenager. I grew up in the
mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. That's where I was born
and raised. I was always an unusual kid. I started
writing my first published book when I was fourteen years old.
By the time I graduated high school, I had published
three books. I wrote for the local newspaper. I also
(02:04):
had a column and the school newspaper called Strange but True,
pretty basic Ripley's believe it or not kind of stuff.
And I guess around the time I was working on that,
I started really enjoying this concept of just sort of
off beat, strange, esoteric subjects, and I got this idea
(02:32):
to create a book called Speaking of Strange. And if
that sounds familiar to you, it is because that years
later I would actually create a radio show called Speaking
of Strange, and the name of the show came straight
from the name of the book, and um, of course
(02:56):
that ran for many, many years on the station there
in Asheville, UH News Radio five seventy do w w
U n C. And however, the book Speaking of Strange
was published in nineteen ninety four and it's subtitled Residents
(03:18):
of the Western North Carolina Mountain's Tale of their Encounters
with the Unexplained. So this is different than the other
two books I published. When I was in high school,
in middle school and all that. I published my first
when I was I guess in middle school and um,
then the other two in high school. The first book
(03:40):
I wrote was a book of fictional scary short stories
and poems. And then the other book that I wrote
was a book. Uh that was a nonfiction book about ghosts.
But this book is an anthology. I decided to collect
stories from people all over my region about just strange
stuff that has happened to them, not necessarily creepy. I mean,
(04:03):
trust me, I I said, it's it's wide open. Tell
me about ghosts and UFOs and big foot and weirdo
experiences that are are are traditionally paranormal, but feel free
to open your mind. Let's get into the strangest territory possible.
And not everything has to have a neat little ending
that we tied together at the end with the boat,
(04:25):
you know. And so what I did was travel around
my region and I primarily put posters up at uh well,
wherever there was a bolton board, but mainly bookstores seemed
like a good match. You know, people who go to bookstores,
they're literate and they're into that sort of thing, so
(04:45):
maybe they would feel more inclined to write an experience
they've had and send it to me. So I put
posters all over town. I may have run an ad
in one of the local papers, I don't remember, but
I didn't do a heck of a lot considering the
enormous surge of mail that flooded into my mailbox. And
(05:08):
it was wonderful, and so I realized very quickly, this
is not gonna be hard at all. And so sure
enough I went through and I typed up these stories,
and I got permission from everybody and edited them, and
UH hired Tim Peterson, my good buddy, to illustrate it.
And before you know it, boon, we had this book
(05:29):
called Speaking of Strange. It came out, it was a
big seller. And now, however, the book is out of
print because unfortunately I ended up having a problem with
the publisher back in the day, and we we had
some disagreements about things, but we got it worked out.
We're all cool now, and actually maybe someday this book
would come back into print. But I realized the other
day that I don't even have a copy of this book,
(05:50):
at least here at my place in Vegas. And it's
so rare that I kind of keep an eye out
for it once in a while, and it popped up
on eBay, and uh so I bought it. So I
have this copy of Speaking of Strange in my hands,
and it at the bottom it says mountain ghosts, haints
and other unexplained happenings. Now, if you don't know what
(06:12):
I haint is, that's why a lot of the old
timers and the Appalachian Mountains referred to as well a
hot a ghost. So a ghost is a haint, mountain ghost,
haints and other unexplained happening. So I guess ghosts and
haints could be a little redundant, but anyway, Haints is
like a haunted place. So I'm just going to read
(06:32):
to you some of the stories that I collected. And
I enjoyed doing this so much that again, this is
one of those things that solidified the direction that my
life would take. So I did this book called Speaking
of Strange, and then I did a radio show called
Speaking of Strange, and now I'm hosting this podcast called
Strange Things. So I have a wonderful relationship with this
(06:57):
word strange, and uh, I encourage it and I adore it.
So I'm just gonna flip through here, and you're never
gonna know exactly where the story is going. I I
want to set it up for you like that. They're
all fairly short. And I actually wrote a foreword to
this book, and I'm not going to read that, but
(07:20):
I put this quote at the beginning of my foreword.
It's a quote by Mark Twain. Quote of course truth
is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense end quote.
By the way, my friend Murray, the magician here in
(07:42):
Las Vegas, said that he is related somehow to Mark Twain.
I don't think he realized the true significance of that.
Mark Twain was just such a literary giant. What's interesting
about Murray's He's from Canada. So anyway, I'm just gonna
start reading these and if we run into a rake,
than I'll pause and I'll come back after the break.
(08:03):
This first one was sent to me by Julie Bush Candler,
North Carolina. She wrote, it happened in New York on
a beautiful sunny day. Spring had come at long last,
the carnival had come to our neighborhood. And I must
have been around eight or nine. My cousin Eddie was
with me. He was a year older than me, and
(08:24):
we spent our weekends together exploring the wilds of the
concrete jungle. How a child loves a carnival, and I
was no different than any other. We had been having
a great time on the rides and playing those carnival
games that kids have so much playing until our money
ran out. There was a park nearby, and I thought
(08:46):
to myself how beautiful the green grass looked, and the
leaves back on the trees where they belonged. I love
that season. It just makes me feel so good. It
was fun being outside and playing without all those heavy
winter close. Such a lovely day for a carnival. The
breath of spring was in the air. We wanted to
(09:07):
keep on having fun, but we needed money. We had
run out. I told my cousin that we should go
to the park, kneel down and pray to Jesus that
he give both of us more money so that we
could keep on having fun. We went and we both
kneeled down, closed our eyes and pray to Jesus. My
(09:29):
prayers always started out, please Dear Jesus, and then I
would pray. When I finished my prayer, I told my
cousin to start digging and we would find money. Where
I was kneeling, I started digging. I had found a
spot with soft dirt and it was easy to dig.
(09:50):
I immediately found a huge pile of change. Thank you,
Dear Jesus, I said. I started yelling to Eddie, who
was about twenty feet away. I found it. I found it.
He didn't find any, but that was okay. What I
had found was enough for both of us to finish
(10:11):
out that beautiful spring day at the carnival. It was
a day that I would never forget. It was a
day that my angel wanted me to keep on having.
I won a piggy bank and got home at dark.
My mom was upset because we were late. I told
(10:31):
her what had happened, but until this day, I don't
think that she ever believed me. Isn't that a sweet
little story from Julie Bosh of Candler. She didn't mention
what year that took place. And again, this book was
published in ninety four, and so you know a lot
(10:51):
of the people who wrote stories were probably up there
in years themselves at the time, so that may have
been a long time ago. So indeed, um let's see here,
we're gonna sort of bounce in all over into different
subject matter. But you know, one thing I want to
mention to you about the story I just read is
it's interesting to me how many people want to wish
(11:12):
or pray for money and they say I want a
million dollars. That's usually what they say, I want a
million dollars. I got an email yesterday from a guy
who said, I want a wishing machine and I want
to program it to get a hundred million dollars. That's
what he said, hundred million dollars. But you know what,
(11:34):
why don't you think more about what you need right now,
right what you need right now? Like like she did.
She thought, you know what, I just want to have
a good day today, and I want to have enough
money so we can enjoy a fun experience here at
the carnival. And sometimes if you're a little more realistic
and you you just say, look, I don't need to
(11:56):
own five mansions and two yachts and all that to
be happy. Let's just take this steps and let's look
at what I need right now that's right in front
of me, and let's focus on that. And if you're
kind of reasonable, then you can accrue whatever you need
whenever you need it. But that is a lesson from
the mind of the child that all of us need
(12:19):
to remember even as an adult, no matter how stressful
it may get for you sometimes financially. If you love
amazing pictures, videos and breaking content, be sure to sign
up for my free e newsletter at Joshua P. Warren
dot com. It takes two seconds and you'll instantly receive
(12:43):
a free digital good luck charm and instructions on how
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allow you to see the other side. And on my website,
take a look at the Curiosity Shop to find rare,
amazing things you will not find anywhere else in the world.
(13:03):
There is no period after the P in Joshua P.
Warren dot com. I am Joshua P. Warren and you're
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will be right back after this. We are happy to
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(14:15):
tests that could save your life from cancer are now
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(15:03):
Welcome back to Strange Things on the I Heart Radio
and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network. I am
your host, the Wizard of Weird, beaming into your worm
whole brain from my studio and since city, Las Vegas, Nevada,
where every day is golden and every night is silver.
(15:27):
When I was putting together this anthology back in nine
called Speaking of Strange, this regional book, I even was
able to get some stories from some of my teachers
in high school. One of them was my English teacher,
Mr Boyles, David Boyles, and you know what, he and
(15:50):
I are still friends, were still in touch. He's retired
from teaching now, but he is still writing books and
poems and all kinds of stuff like that. And uh,
he also throws the coolest Halloween party in Asheville, North Carolina,
or the general Asheville area. Every year, everybody's fighting over
(16:13):
an invitation to David Boyle's Halloween party. He's one of
those guys who goes over the top, spends months preparing,
and when you go there, it's like you have arrived
at a theme park. So here is the story that
he contributed to the book. David Voyles from Swanna Noah,
(16:34):
North Carolina. He wrote, Actually, I like animals, I really do,
even cats, But somehow I prefer the company of dogs
to cats. Cats have that sneaky quiet quality about them
that gives people reason to believe that they actually could
(16:56):
be companions too. Whiches and devils, as the old folks
tells so wisely, tell us. Let's say you hear the
crash of your pattern antique china hitting the floor where
moments before your cat had been investigating. When you pop
your head through the doorway wild eye to see what happened,
(17:18):
you'll only see your feline friends sitting calmly several feet
from the scene of the crime, tail wrapped around itself,
paul poised in midair, apparently only temporarily distracted from its bathing.
Who will turn to you, blink slowly, and resume it's
licking as if nothing had happened. Obviously a devious, if
(17:40):
not downright demonic being. On the other hand, a dog
who has dislodged your china from the shelf, perhaps because
it suddenly found the ivy pattern and bossed in its
shiny surface to be a mortal threat to you, would
be profoundly wagging its tail, frequently turning its head from
the shattered piece is to your horrified gaze, expecting praise
(18:03):
for its daring deed. A stupid creature, maybe, but one
that is definitely of this earth. Since you know my
philosophical observations about the nature of dogs and cats, perhaps you,
like me, will find it strange that the only supernatural
experience I ever had involved a dog, a very typically
(18:25):
dumb dog at that. I have always wanted one of
those dogs like you used to see in the old
Disney movies, you know the kind I mean. Those dogs
never dug up the rhododendron bushes five minutes after you
have spent seven long, back breaking hours planting them. They
never barked in the middle of the night, unless it
was when robbers were trying to break into your house
(18:48):
or when the neighbor's little blind child had fallen down
the well. And they never, and I repeat, never went
to the bathroom on the brand new Persian carpet in
the living room. Somehow, I have never owned a dog
like that. The dogs in my life have have always
chewed up every new pair of shoes, eyeball marked constantly
throughout the night, every time the slightest breeze blue. And
(19:11):
as to the persian rug, well, I don't want to
talk about that and the disgusting things they dragged home. Maggie,
a lovable but not particularly bright pound puppy we adopted,
was no exception. As a matter of fact, she was
the rule. She loved to root about in the neighbors
trash and bring me her newly found treasures. As a result,
(19:35):
I found myself the recipient of used diapers, garbage bags
filled with someone else's garbage, no less, and finally, even
a hog's head. My wife and I live in the country,
and one of our neighbors has live stock, including pigs.
(19:57):
I suppose that one hot number day he had slaughtered
a hog and deposited the incredible Excuse me, the inedible
remains not far from our house. As I happened to
glance out the window of the study where I was working,
I noticed that Maggie had been amusing herself with unusual concentration,
(20:20):
considering her rather limited attention span, by playing with an
unfamiliar object. Now I hadn't had not given it any
real fought until my four year old son came in
and said, Daddy, there's a pig face in the yard.
Imagine my delight at finding the freshly decapitated head of
a rather large hog on my sidewalk. I quickly got
(20:43):
a shovel, carried the hogs head to a steep hill
on the edge of our property, and pitched it over
the barbed wire fence, where it rolled down a ravine
to its final resting place, or so I hoped. About
a week later, when we had guests visiting us for weekend,
we all awakened to a rather unpleasant odor drifting into
(21:04):
the house from the windows which had been open to
allow in that wonderful cool mountain air. We had suffered
from nocturnal visits from a family of skunks before, but
this smell was even more revolting. The mystery of its
origin was solved, though, when my son reported, Daddy, the
pig faces back. Now you can easily imagine how that
(21:28):
hogs had looked after lying in the hot summer sun
for a week, And if you know anything about dogs,
you can probably also imagine who was standing proudly over it,
tell wagging as if to say, look what I found.
I fetched my shovel and gas mask, had my son
take Maggie inside the house and hope that she would
(21:50):
be distracted from her new toy, and gave the hogshead
another heave ho over the fence, hoping it would be
the last time I saw it. Several months later, however,
I returned home from work and found the cleanly preserved
skull of a hog facing me on the top of
(22:12):
our front steps. I swear the empty eye sockets were saying,
I thought you'd get rid of me. Huh. Maggie was
clearly obsessed with this particular possession, and I felt I
would have to take special measures to ensure that she
didn't hurt herself by chewing off sharp shards of the
(22:34):
bone which might stick in her throat. Once again, I
had my son keep Maggie indoors while I carried the
skull off with shovel in hand. This time I dug
a hole in the woods and buried the skull in it.
Apparently the burial of the skull worked, Maggie never brought
(22:56):
the skull up to the house again. Unfortunately, however, her
bad habit habit of sniffing around the neighbor's trash, eventually
caught up with her. And as you probably know, dogs
will lick any old, disgusting thing they happened to come across,
from rotting hogs heads to use baby diapers. You might
(23:17):
want to think about that the next time Rover gives
you a friendly lick. Anyway, I'm sorry to say that
Maggie must have licked up some poison, because she showed
up sick one evening and died a few hours later.
I buried her on the edge of our property with
a few of her doggy toys, sadly shaking my head
(23:40):
as I thought of how appropriate it would be if
her favorite toy, the pig Face, was with them. A
few days later, as I was driving up my long
curved driveway, I glanced fondly over towards Maggie's grave, action
that had become a daily ritual. I noticed something white
(24:06):
standing out in direct contrast with the brown patch of
dirt which marked her grave. Curious, I stopped the truck
and walked over to inspect it. You might guess what
I saw sitting on that mound, as if someone had
carefully placed it there. That's right, a hog's skull. I
(24:33):
guess Old Maggie was determined that she was going to
keep that prize after all. That's a weird story, huh,
David Voils, he called it Maggie in the Pig Face.
(24:54):
An illustrator Tim Peterson put a little cartoon of a
pig looking at a dog, and and the dog looking
at the pig, and their little hearts floating around the
two of them. Uh, what do you think what category
to stuff like that go into. I mean, we're talking
(25:17):
about real, physical, tangible stuff. It's not like we you know,
you see some phantom that vanishes the glides away, or
some UFO overhead that shoots off into the distance, or
some creature that just sort of morphs into the bushes
and trees. I don't know, real stuff like this happens
(25:40):
all the time. That was but don't you think that's cool?
My English teacher wrote that. I even have a story
here that my little sister Jessica wrote, And my sister
is six years younger than me, and so she can
tributed to this book. And I don't even know if
(26:02):
she would still remember this experience. It's called the Spirit
of Easter. And I tell you what. We have to
take a break soon, so um, i'll read this to
you when we come back. It has to do with
a haunted toy. Yeah, a haunted toy. Those stories are
(26:23):
always interesting and creepy. Oh yeah, and here's this is
a very strange one. Um. Yeah, this is actually very
fitting one about well, an encounter with a person or
was it? Yeah, this is good stuff. Okay, Well, let
(26:44):
me remind you if you like these kinds of things,
you can always get in touch with me easily. Just
go to Joshua Pee Warren dot com and you'll find
my email address at the bottom of the homepage there,
or you can follow me on Twitter at Oshaua P
Warren at Joshua Pee Warren. That's because I am Joshua
(27:05):
pe Warren and you're listening to strange things on the
I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a am paranormal
podcast network, and I will be right back after this.
With age, women and men have issues with fine lines,
(27:28):
wrinkles under eyebags, creepy skin on the neck, and aging
on the hands. Dr Nathan Newman, doctor to top athletes
and celebrities, plus, creator of stem cell based lumines, is
proud to announce a much lower price on his products.
Dr Newman tell me about the long term benefit of
luminess versus other store bought products. The technology that we
(27:48):
have comes from the factors and the polypeptides that the
stem cells are producing. These the language that the skin
uses to talk to each other. And by using these products,
you're maintaining the health and balance of the skin versus
other products that we used to have before this technology
came about, was only putting something to cover the skin.
(28:09):
It was never really to help to maintain the balance
of the skin. So when we're using the lumines cairline.
We're going to continue to have a very healthy and
beautiful looking skin that will be maintained and will continue
to get better and better over time. Versus when you're
using a moisturizer or we're using most of the other
products that we had before this technology, you would only
(28:30):
get sort of the moisturizer right there and then that
was it. There was no long term benefit. Thank you,
Dr Newman. For several years we have offered Luminess products
and decided a price reduction was in order so more
can enjoy the amazing benefits of Dr Newman's stem cell
based lumins. Shop now at healthy looking dot com. We're
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(28:51):
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That's healthy looking dot com or call eight hundred six
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(29:19):
Belle Vault has classic audio waiting for you. Now go
to Coast to Coast m dot com for details. Welcome
(29:57):
back to Strange Things on the I Heart Radio and
Coast to Coast a am paranormal podcast network. I'm your host,
Joshua Pete Warren, and this is the show where the
unusual becomes usual. Yeah. My little sister, Jessica, my only sibling,
is six years younger than me. And here is what
(30:20):
she contributed to my book, my anthology published in nine
called Speaking of Strange Residence of the western North Carolina
Mountains tell of their encounters with the unexplained. Jessica Warren
of Asheville, North Carolina wrote, watch out the Easter bunny
(30:41):
may leave spirited presence. A while back. As an Easter present,
my aunt sent me an ordinary blue toy rabbit which
could play music. I placed the rabbit on my dresser
where it would not be disturbed. However, one night, about
a week after I had gotten it, I awoke to
(31:04):
the sound of its chirpy tune in the darkness of
my bedroom. I had not been around it all day,
yet it began to play on its own. It wasn't
only annoying, but creepy. Well after that, from time to time,
the bunny you would just start itself up again for
(31:26):
no reason. It would play its ghostly tune as if
it possessed the mind of its own. Eventually I had
to place the bunny in my basement to gain peace.
But still even now I wake up in the night
sometimes to hear its eerie melody creeping up from the
(31:48):
empty basement below. M M. I wonder if she still
has that haunted bunny somewhere. I could use it right
these days. Put it in my collection of spooky haunted
things that I do plan to put back on display someday,
(32:13):
probably here in Las Vegas. So there you go. It
runs in the family. Here's a story that I thought
was especially fitting for a book like this by Let's see.
This was sent to me by Greta Shelton, who lived
in Asheville, North Carolina. She wrote, I was a child
in the nineteen fifties, and those days hoboes still rode
(32:36):
the box cars and begged for food at the doors
of houses in my neighborhood, which bordered the railroad tracks
between West Haywood Street and the Smith Bridge. One evening
I went home to eat supper with one of my friends.
It was the winter of nineteen fifty eight. My friends
family was poor, so the meal consisted of pento beans,
(32:59):
fried potatoes, and corn bread. It began to snow as
we sat down to eat, and we watched the snow
as we sat at the table. The kitchen windows were
frosted a bit, but we could see the snow pouring down.
Halfway through the mill, a knock came at the back door.
(33:20):
It was indeed a hobo, stopping to ask for a
piece of bread and a drink of water. The ragged
stranger was invited in and brought to the table to
eat with us. His plate was filled and his cup
poured full of steaming coffee. The man's hands wrapped around
(33:43):
the hot cup and he held it to absorb the heat.
I noticed his fingers sticking through the tips of the
gloves he wore. He ate as if he had not
eaten in several days, and after finishing, he warmed himself
by the stove. I noticed rags wrapped around his feet
(34:03):
and rope tied to hold them on. He had barely
spoken during the mill, but appeared to be at peace.
After he grew warm by the fire, he looked around
at all of us and said it's time to go now,
Thanks and God bless you all. He went out the
(34:24):
back door, down the steps to the yard, and disappeared.
We walked out onto the porch and looked down at
the yard to see which way he went. There were
no footprints in the snow. The surface was smooth and
glistening in the moonlight. For all the rest of my life,
(34:48):
I have wondered about this incident. Who was this stranger?
What was the purpose of his visit? Perhaps I will
never know, But I have always believed in angels since
that night. Huh, I bet you know. It is funny
how in the Bible when people encounter angels, they don't
(35:13):
know they're talking to an angel. Often the angel just
looks like a normal person. Uh. There are were some
points in the Bible where an angel says, yeah, I'm
an angel, and the guy says, yeah, right, prove it
to me, and the angel has to do some magic
tricks to prove he's an angel. I guess that's why
(35:35):
they say you better be careful when you're talking to somebody.
You never know. You never know when you might actually
be talking to an angel, and you better treat them nice.
Here's a story by Sarah go Forth. She sent this
to me about an experience that she had also in Asheville,
North Carolina. The Big Old Classic cemetery in Asheville is
(35:59):
called Riverside Cemetery. That's where Thomas Wolfe is buried, and
a lot of famous people. She wrote, in Riverside Cemetery
in Asheville, North Carolina, you will find a marker for
Barkley bart Or, so she's giving us a name here,
the name of a man named Barkley or nicknamed Bart
(36:22):
Barkley bart Or, dated nineteen thirteen, not too far away.
You'll also find a marker for James go Forth, my father.
Both Bart and my dad were working for and with
John Rumball and his attempt to establish an automobile legacy
in Asheville. The building in which they worked was on Broadway,
(36:47):
opposite the Masonic Temple. In nineteen thirteen, I was an
only child. We were living at sixty three A A
Street and attended church at Ora Street Presbyterian Church right
in sight of our house. Or had a small child, Tommy,
about my age. When the building on Broadway was finished,
(37:11):
I recall going there to see it. There was a
freight elevator used to get cars to the show room
on the street for the street floor level. It was
also used to transport supplies and such that were delivered.
One day, machinery was being installed. Embart and Jim my dad.
(37:32):
We're with a company representative installing a machine operated by
a high compression force. They needed a special tool, which
was on another floor. Well. Jim turned and crossed the
building to use the steps when there was a huge explosion.
Dan said, he whirled around and returned to the scene
of the accident. Or was seriously injured but conscious. He
(37:57):
asked my dad to quote hit him in the head
with a hammer end quote. Then he died as my
dad held him. The company representative was blinded and later died.
Or was seriously injured but conscious. Um no, I'm sorry anyway,
(38:22):
she says. The building, which was later to be used
by Morgan Wholesale, was also damaged. Dad said a metal
plate from the machine was blown through two inside walls
across Broadway and was later found in a vacant lot
by the Masonic temple at our house. After the terrible accident,
(38:42):
strange things began happening. One Sunday evening, my parents wondered
about leaving the porch light on when we went to church.
The light was not on, and as we left church, however,
we could see that the light had somehow turned on. Indeed,
sometime later, Dad said that he was awakened by strange sounds.
(39:03):
One night, he heard the sound of water running. He
checked the bath on the second floor to find that
everything was fine. He then realized that the sound was
coming from the kitchen. In the kitchen downstairs, he found
the falsett wide open. Later, a door between the living
area and dining room had mysteriously locked with no key.
(39:27):
We never found out exactly what caused such strange experiences,
but for the rest of his life, my dad insisted
that Bart was desperately trying to tell him something and
that's the end of that story. So you see, folks,
you might say, oh, well, that was unsatisfying because we
(39:51):
have this tendency to want to have a nice you know,
bo wrapped around the end of the story. But that's
just not how reality works. This is a weird one,
my okay. This is by Marie Murray Guy, also from Asheville.
She says the following story took place in World War
(40:13):
two England. Today, I have been thinking of my father's
little man. Dad was very practical in a lot of ways.
For instance, when the air raid sirens sounded to warn
us of an air raid while we were grabbing our blankets,
important papers, a thermos, flask of tea, items we always
(40:34):
had ready each night, and rushing off to the nearest
air raid shelter. Dad would say, stay in bed, get
some sleep. If it's a direct hit, no matter where
you are, you've had it, and then closing the door
after us, he would go off to bed. Twice we
had near missus and he was thrown out of bed,
(40:54):
but he climbed back in and settled down to sleep again.
Because the German bombers had started dropping small magnesium firebombs,
Mother and I slept downstairs, but when the sirens sounded
we always went to the shelters. The night my father
first saw his quote, little man, I was in bed
(41:15):
downstairs with a bad case of the flu. Mother was
on war work and left to catch her bus at
ten minutes to ten for the night shift. Dad stood
at the front door, watching mother until she was out
of sight. He was just about to come into the
house when he said quote. A very small man about
two ft high waddled past him and went to our
(41:38):
neighbors next door. The little man knocked on the door
and waited. During this time, Dad took stock of the
stranger's appearance. When we come back from this break, I
will tell you about that appearance. What did the little
man look like and why was he there? I'm Joshua
(42:01):
Pete Warren. You're listening to Strange Things on the I
Heart Radio and Coast to Coast, a um paranormal podcast network,
and I will be right back. My name is Mark Rowlings,
president of Paranormal Date dot Com. Over five years ago,
(42:23):
George Nor approached me with a unique concept, a dating
site for people searching for someone with interest in ufosed ghosts, Bigfoot,
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Com was born. It's a unique site for unique people
and it's free to join to look around. If you
want upgrade and enjoy more of our great features, use
promo code George for a great discount, So check it out.
(42:46):
You've got nothing to lose. Paranormal Date dot Com. The
Coast to Coast Damn mobile app is here and waiting
for you right now. With the app, you can hear
classic shows from the past seven years, listen to the
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vault where you can listen to uninterrupted audio. To head
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(43:06):
We have a handy video guide to help you get
the most out of your mobile app usage. All the
info is waiting for you now at Coast to Coast
AM dot com. That's Coast to Coast am dot com.
(43:48):
Welcome back to the final segment of this edition of
Strange Things on the I Heart Radio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network. I am your host, Joshua
pe War And and here is what Mary Murray Guy
said about her father's little man. He wore typical Tyrolean clothing,
(44:13):
short pants, green short sleeve shirt, suspenders, and a little
hat with a feather on the side. And when there
was no answer to the little fellow's knock, Dad called
out to him, there is no one home right now.
They both work and do not get home until after
eleven o'clock. At this the little man came to the door,
(44:37):
pushed his way past my father and entered the house.
Dad came in all excited, saying, Hey, here, what's you doing.
Where's he gone? He looked at me and said, where's
he gone? I said, sitting up in bed, Where's who gone?
Well Dad had not been to his favorite pub and
had nothing but a cup of tea, so I knew
(44:59):
that he said he'd seen a little man. He had
seen something. He was not interested in dreams, omens, spiritualism, signs,
et cetera. And whenever an old aunt came and we
asked her to read our teacup, he always said, I'm
surprised at you. Dad searched the house but found no one,
(45:20):
no signs of a little man. Finally he gave up,
scratched his head, and sat down in his chair. Barely
five minutes later, there was a knock at the door,
Mr Ainsworth. A voice called out, and Dad went to
the door. I'm sorry, the voice continued, but your wife
has had an accident. She fell and has broken her foot.
(45:44):
She missed the bus and decided to walk, but fell
as she crossed the field. She was lucky a man
also missed the bus and found her. She's been taken
to the hospital and will be home sometime later. To
call her happened to me a man and who knew
us and had volunteered to call and give us the news.
(46:04):
The hospital was full mostly with air raid victims. So
mother was brought home by ambulance about two hours later.
There were two of us in bed, with Dad as
our nurse. The second time the mysterious little man appeared
was just three days later. Dad was in the toilet
outside and the door was suddenly pushed open, and there
(46:27):
stood the little man again. He looked up at Dad,
turned and then disappeared from sight. Dad hurried into the
house and stood at the foot of our bed, scratching
his head as he always did when he was puzzled.
We could tell something was wrong, and we waited for
him to speak. I've seen that little fellow again, he said,
(46:49):
and then proceeded to tell us what had transpired. Well,
this was just too much for mother and me, and
we burst out laughing. Dad was a little bit irritated
at our laughter, and he said, now I know that
I have just seen that little man again, so you
just laugh all you want to. And we looked at him,
and I think we both believed him. The next day
(47:13):
there was a telegram from the West African Frontier Force Headquarters,
regret Sergeant Smith died this morning. Sergeant Smith was my husband.
His mother was never the same after she heard the news,
and six months later she died at the age of
(47:37):
and three days before she died, Dad saw his little
Man for the third and last time. Deep down, I
believe in the little Man knowing my no nonsense father,
and because that, I have had strange things happen in
my life. Two. What do you make of that? Huh?
(47:59):
I could maybe do a whole podcast about the significance
of little people has something to do with fate. I
suppose here's a story called a fateful Encounter John Owen
by Fairview, North Carolina. As close as I can remember,
it was the fall of nineteen seventy three or nineteen
(48:21):
seventy four. I was working second shift and had gotten
off at one o'clock. As I was coming home on
garen Creek Road and Fairview, I had a flat tire,
and halfway through changing the tire, my flashlight went out.
After exhausting the gas from my cigarette lighter, I gave
up and decided to start walking. There was little or
no traffic on the road at that time of morning.
(48:43):
By then, it was probably about two thirty in the morning.
It was a dark night and there was only enough
light to make out the outline of the tree tops.
I was only about four miles from home, and as
I walked along, I could see a dim outline of
the road except the areas where it was shaded by tree.
I would walk along on the pavement and I felt
(49:04):
the grass and weeds brushing my ankles, and I knew
I was near the edge of the road. About halfway home.
I was in one of those pitch black areas at
the foot of the mountain. I coaxed one last light
from my lighter as my eyes readjusted to the darkness,
and then suddenly there she was. It was a yellowish blue,
(49:26):
glowing figure of a woman. She was wearing what appeared
to be an old fashioned style full length dress with
puffy sleeves. It tattered to rags and strips below her waist,
and none of her body was visible below the dress.
Her image floated a few feet above the ground. She
appeared to be a young woman with long, straight hair.
(49:49):
I froze in my tracks, having no idea what to do.
After a few seconds, I asked her who she was
and what she wanted. It was a dead, calm night
with no reads it all. Her dress, however, moved back
and forth as if it was blowing in the breeze again.
I asked her who she was and told her I
(50:09):
was trying to get home. She pointed in the direction
from which I had come. I could hear nothing, but
her lips moved, telling me to go back. I wasn't
going to argue. Scared silly, I took a few steps back,
turned around, took a few more steps, and then glanced back,
and when I turned and looked, she was gone. I
(50:33):
started walking back towards my car, and after a few
minutes a man and his wife drove by and stopped.
They picked me up, and as we pulled off, I
started telling them what had happened. As I talked, I
realized that they must have thought I was either on
drugs or an escape ee from an asylum. His wife
had scooted almost onto her husband, to the point that
(50:57):
there was almost room for another person between us on
the truck seat. Despite the fact that they were scared
of me, they stopped and let me out at my car,
where they shine their headlights so I could finish changing
the tire. When I at last started to drive home,
I stopped when I got to the spot where I
(51:17):
had seen the woman. I got out of my car
and I asked into the air once again, who are you?
Why do you want? I heard or saw nothing. Then
a few feet up the road, my eye caught the
sight of something lying on the side of the road.
I pulled my car closer. They're lying on the edge
(51:41):
of the road was a rattlesnake that had been run over.
Inches away. Was it's coiled up mate, right where I
would have been walking. Yeah, gulp, I think I can
(52:04):
squeeze in one more for you. Weaver Donaldson from Canton,
North Carolina and March of nineteen fifty eight, I was
in the Armed Forces stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I
had been there for three weeks and I was given
a weekend pass. I and a friend from my hometown
took the bus home on a Friday night. On Sunday,
(52:27):
we were returning to base in my personal vehicle, a
nineteen fifty one Ford Coupe. And those days, the law
enforcement was not as it is today, And as the
saying goes, I had the hammer down. The time was
just past midnight and my friend had gone to sleep.
It was a lovely night. The moon was full, the
heavens were filled with stars and there was not a
(52:49):
cloud to be seen. It was my first time driving
that highway and I had just passed through Corbin, Kentucky.
I went into what seemed to be a long straightaway,
and again I put the pedal to the metal. Then,
all of a sudden, a flash of lightning came from nowhere,
(53:10):
which I thought hit the top of the car. I
slammed on the brakes and stopped. Being scared, I got
out of the vehicle to discover that I was entering
into a sharp left curve. I walked just a few
feet ahead to find a massive ravine of such depth
(53:31):
that I could not see the bottom. There was no
guard rail. Neither my friend nor I would have survived
the crash had it not been for the warning of
a lightning bolt. Don't these kind of give you the
(53:52):
goose bumps? What does it mean? I guess it means
that all these stories mean we're not alone. Sometimes you
see these things, they freak you out there, creepy, they're spooky.
Sometimes they reassure you and they bring you peace. But
(54:14):
whatever they are, however we perceive them, these are indications
that there's something very, very special. About the realm we're
living in this mysterious paranormal universe, and if you pay attention,
if you open your eyes and you open your mind,
(54:35):
you might be surprised how many things are swirling around
you to help you understand in some small way what's
going on and to help guide you through this experience
called life. Regardless of how we explain these things, or
just except we can't explain these things, I think that
(54:56):
you can now understand pretty clearly why that stuff like
this inspired me to continue pursuing paranormal investigation, to dig
into the mysterious and the wondrous. And that's one reason,
thanks to this book, that I'm such a curious person.
(55:18):
That's it for this edition of the show. Follow me
on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren. Plus visit Joshua P.
Warren dot com to sign up for my free e
newsletter to receive a free instant gift, and check out
the cool Stuff and the Curiosity Shop all at Joshua P.
Warren dot com. I have a fun one lined up
(55:40):
for you next time, I promise, so please tell all
your friends to subscribe to this show and to always
remember the Golden Rule. Thank you for listening. Thank you
for your interest in support, Thank you for staying curious,
and I We'll talk to you again soon. You've been
(56:02):
listening to Strange Things on the I Heart Radio and
Coast to Coast a UM paranormal podcast network. Well, if
you like this episode of Strange Things, wait till you
(56:24):
hear the next one. Thank you for listening to the
I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a m paranormal
podcast network.
Host
Joshua P. Warren
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