August 20, 2025 • 23 mins
Join Madame Strangeways for this true scary ghost story set in an old Italian monastery. Was it the ghost of a monk haunting the halls? Or is there something more mundane and scientific to explain it? As always, stick around after the story for a spectral analysis from the Madame about this haunting, and let me know where you land: team believer or team skeptic! Follow the podcast to hear more true scary ghost stories and strange stories of the unexplained.
Thank you to Running_Chamomile for granting permission to read their story from Reddit. Remember, Strangers & Strangelings & Strangecetera: you can feel afraid and not be in danger.
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Produced by: Madame Strangeways
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Cover artwork by: Andrea Giselle Roldán at @cultofteddy
Every true strange story narrated in this podcast was read with permission from the original author.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Oh, I didn't hear you come in. What's that?
You've got a true strange story of the unexplained you'd like to
hear narrated on the show. e-mail it to me,
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Welcome strangers, strangelings,
and strange cetera to Madam Strangeways, where I, Madam
(00:23):
Strangeways, narrate your true strange stories of the
unexplained. Stick around after the story
where I share my strange thoughts and observations and
drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and
screaming if needs must. Today I've got one new true
strange story for you. But first, the strangest of
(00:47):
shout outs to my Patreon patronsTJ Hotter, G Man Music, Ted,
Keith and Tori. Thank you so much to my Feral
Fiendish 5 for supporting the show.
Do you hear that rumbling in thedistance?
I think it's about to rain Hellcats and Hell Hounds out
there, so you know what that means.
On to our true strange story here on Madam Strange Ways.
(01:34):
I had a terrifying experience inan old monastery dormitory in
Italy. What do you think happened by
running chamomile? I want to share something that
completely changed my outlook onthe paranormal.
A few years ago, I stayed in a student dormitory in Italy that
(01:57):
was part of an old monastery. It was adjacent to a church, and
while the building was old, my room was cute and cozy.
I had no issues with it until something strange happened right
before Christmas. For two days, I felt terrified
(02:21):
in a way I can't explain. It wasn't just a mild feeling of
unease, it was a deep gut wrenching fear that made me feel
like something was standing in the corner of my room staring at
me. It wasn't something I could just
(02:44):
brush off. It was so strong that it made me
physically uncomfortable, like Icouldn't breathe properly.
I want to specify I wasn't stressed out or having any other
issues at the time. I was actually having a great
time in Italy, enjoying life as a student.
There was no reason for me to feel this kind of fear, and that
(03:08):
made it even worse. It felt like it came out of
nowhere and took over, making itimpossible to feel safe in my
own room. By the second night I tried to
ignore it and told myself I was being ridiculous.
I thought if I just went to sleep it would pass.
(03:29):
But then I woke up in the middleof the night to find my sweater
was on the other side of the room.
The sweater which I always wore to sleep because the heating was
off at nights. At first I tried to think of a
reasonable explanation. Maybe I took it off in my sleep
(03:52):
without realizing it, but I don't sleepwalk and I've never
done anything like that before. Plus it didn't make sense I was
wearing it to stay warm because the room was so cold and I
definitely wouldn't have removedit in the middle of the night.
(04:12):
It just didn't add up. Then that same night I saw a
shadow move in the corner of my eye.
That was the final straw. I completely lost it.
I couldn't handle it anymore. I ended up crying and running
downstairs to the kitchen. After that, everything returned
(04:35):
to normal. No more fear, no more strange
feelings. It was peaceful and calm again,
just like before. Nothing else happened for the
rest of my stay. The weirdest part, when I
mentioned what happened at dinner, one of the girls
(04:57):
literally screamed and said she had felt someone staring at her
too. I should also mention that the
building was an old monastery. Maybe that ties into some
mysterious paranormal energy or history in the place.
I'm still not sure what happened, but it definitely left
(05:21):
me wondering if it was somethingbeyond just my imagination.
Has anyone experienced somethinglike this before?
(05:43):
Running chamomile or chamomile if you're from the UK?
Thank you so much for allowing me to share your absolutely
traumatizing tale. I don't know if it's more or
less traumatizing knowing that you were not the only one who
experienced something there on your stay.
It's like, OK, I'm not crazy or am I?
(06:06):
Is this a case of mass hysteria or is there a ghost?
Which one's worse? I did some Googling it.
There is no spittin. I couldn't tell where this was
in Italy. And there were a lot of comments
and some people were asking like, was this Naples or like
where in Italy specifically was this?
So I don't actually know the city.
(06:27):
So, you know, here's the thing, if you go and you Google haunted
monasteries in Italy, there's actually quite a lot of them.
Perhaps not shockingly, there's a lot of them.
I feel like maybe an Italian monastery kind of just comes
with ghosts. Like I don't even know that they
necessarily need to have an origin story.
(06:48):
I just feel like you build an Italian monastery and it just
automatically boop, here comes aghost.
If you build it, they will come.They being ghosts, monk ghosts,
possibly. So there's a whole lot of them.
You can jump online, you can Google them.
Some of them are abandoned. Some of them are very popular
hotspots. Sure, I'm sure.
I'm sure, not sure exactly wherethis one was, but there's a lot
(07:12):
of them if you want to go read about some stories.
As far as you know me, I like totalk about like what are some
either folkloric or like supernatural explanations for
what happened versus mundane or naturalistic explanations.
So without actually knowing where the monastery is, I can
only go so far with regards to, you know, local folklore or who.
(07:35):
What kind of ghost is this? Is it a ghost?
Is it multiple ghosts? Is it a monk ghost?
Unclear. I think we can assume that.
I think this is a pretty cut anddry case of a haunting with the
shadow figures and the feeling of dread and the oppressive
feel, especially when you've gotmonks around.
I don't know. Monks are creepy.
(07:55):
They're creepy in the daytime. They're creepy when they're
alive. They've got to be ultra creepy
at night. Alone in a in a monastery?
In an ancient monastery. Very scary.
So I want to say upfront that the subreddit that running
Chamomile Chamomile posted this and specifically has A tag where
(08:15):
you can tag your post to requestthat someone debunk the story.
And for some of you, you may be wondering why on earth would you
want someone to debunk a ghost story?
That's the point of the ghost story is that it's a ghost story
and it's unexplained and that's what makes it fun.
Well, for someone experiencing unexplained phenomenon that for
(08:36):
someone experiencing it and it'svery scary, they want some other
explanation other than it being a ghost.
Just like me. I don't want it to be a ghost.
You know, they just want it. They want it to be debunked.
They want someone to tell them no, no, no, no, don't worry.
It wasn't a ghost. Nothing scary happened.
This was all in your head and everything's fine and you didn't
(08:56):
actually see a ghost because that is a very scary.
That's very scary. However, because this was tagged
debunk this, I'm here. I'm here for it.
The Madam is in. So my 2 pet theories for this
case in terms of debunking are carbon monoxide, which you may
have assumed from the beginning if you know me personally, and
(09:21):
also low frequency sounds. And I'm going to start with
carbon monoxide. So symptoms of carbon monoxide
poisoning include such things asa pressure on your chest,
auditory and visual hallucinations, and also kind of
like an unexplained feeling of dread.
And of course, that's in addition to headache, nausea.
(09:43):
And then of course, if you've exposed, if you've been exposed
to it long enough, death, it's not it's not good.
So this is hey, PSA, strange PSA, go check your carbon
monoxide monitors. What do you mean you don't have
a carbon monoxide monitor? If you live in a home in which
there is any sort of gas whatsoever or you have even if
(10:06):
you have a fireplace, you know what?
I want you to go make sure that you have a carbon monoxide
detector. You can get them pretty cheap,
keep them around, test them occasionally.
And also while you're at it, go ahead and check the batteries on
your smoke alarms. Make sure that those are
working. All right.
So end strange PSA. So carbon monoxide poisoning.
This is something that you may have heard of and if you
(10:26):
haven't, this is so interesting.There is a famous, I say famous
and in the paranormal world, there's a somewhat famous Reddit
story about this guy who posts and says, man, I live alone and
I keep waking up to these post it notes that are really weird
and they have weird messages on them when they're left around my
(10:46):
house. So it has to be my landlord.
My landlord is obviously coming into my house while I am asleep
and leaving me these weird notesand some other weird stuff that
was going around in the house and he was freaking out.
Someone comes in. This was years ago.
Someone comes in and is like, hey OP, I'm going to need you to
(11:06):
check your carbon monoxide levels.
Go get a carbon monoxide detector.
Because like they gleaned from like one of the photos or the
description of a room that therewas poor ventilation.
I don't know. I mean it was a genius call.
And this is before everybody wasscreaming carbon monoxide.
I think the reason everyone on Reddit jumps to carbon monoxide
now is because of this post. It note story so interesting
(11:29):
because spoiler alert, it was carbon monoxide.
So this guy, Oh my God, pause. Not only was there, I just
remembered not only were there post it notes being left around
the house that he thought somewhat, but his landlord was
leaving for him that were very strange and cryptic.
Not only that, he was like I setup a camera.
I set up a camera and attach it to my computer to film to see if
(11:51):
anyone was coming in and out of the room and then out of the
house. And every time I check the
camera, everything is deleted. There's no, there's there's
there's no record that I recorded anything.
Someone is coming in and deleting the footage.
Now he he was being slowly poisoned by carbon monoxide and
(12:11):
he was leaving himself these weird post it notes and
forgetting that he wrote them. And come to find out the camera
that he quote UN quote set up wasn't even plugged in properly
to the computer. And when he was quote, UN quote
checking on the recordings, he was just like opening in a blank
folder on his laptop that had nothing to do with cameras.
(12:33):
So that is how bad carbon monoxide can affect you even at
a low level like overtime. So just to give you an idea, he
was really paranoid. He was forgetting that he was
doing things. Obviously running Chamomile was
not exposed to this long enough term, it seems like to have
experienced memory loss. But maybe, you know, who knows?
(12:55):
Anyway, I just thought I would tell you that crazy story.
Also, while I'm on a little tangent, really kind of one of
the things that really set me along this path that I am on
that has led me here to you right now in this moment is an
episode of This American Life called.
And the call was coming from thebasement.
(13:18):
It was a Halloween episode from like a million years ago.
And I found it one Halloween when I was trying to find
something spooky to listen to, you know, and Oh my gosh, it
was, it just completely changed my worldview and really helped
me break out of my, you know, fear of demons, which I've
mentioned in previous episodes. OK, jumping back into this,
(13:39):
carbon monoxide poisoning has been kind of explained as the
reason for a lot of hauntings, especially going back into the
Victorian age. The Victorians had ghosts all
over the place. Everyone had ghosts in the
Victorian age, right? And that's because there were a
lot of gasoline lamps and also toxic wallpaper, which I feel
(13:59):
like I need to do a little mini episode about because what the
heck. Anyway, So we think that's part
of why that happens. But you may be asking, well, but
how are you going to get carbon monoxide in an old monastery
that doesn't have heating? Well, here are some theories
that I have. So just because the rooms
weren't heated doesn't mean thatthere weren't water heaters or
(14:20):
boilers. And especially if there were
installed, especially in the kitchen, if you think about it,
even if these were installed anywhere in the monastery, they
would have been retrofitted. And so when you have these
ancient buildings and then you retrofit things inside of them,
they're probably not done like, super efficiently.
(14:41):
And even more so do you, how often, let me ask you this.
How often do you think that a boiler or a water heater in an
old ancient Italian monastery isbeing serviced?
How often do you think that's happening?
Realistically? Probably not very often, OK, I
(15:03):
don't think that's, I don't think that's much of A stretch.
OK, Anyway, they may also have, especially in the kitchen, wood
burning stove, wood burning. How did I say that?
Wood burning stoves or fireplaces.
OK. So if they're using those, even
if they're not even necessarily in everyday use, older
buildings, if they have like inactive chimneys even or
blocked flus, I mean, who doesn't?
(15:27):
Who among us doesn't have a blocked flu?
You know that what that turns into is a carbon monoxide trap,
basically. Like if the flu is blocked, it's
not allowing carbon monoxide to leave the monastery.
So that's kind of trapping it inside.
And then of course, if there's improper ventilation, which I am
sure that there is in this monastery, which was not built
(15:49):
around trying to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, just wasn't
something they were worried about in the floor plan.
So then on top of that, even if running chamomile did not have
this in their room, if someone else anywhere nearby did have a
kerosene or a gas heater, then Imean, baby, you got a Stew
(16:10):
going. Because if there's not proper
airflow, which we just said there's probably not, then that
could definitely affect any one of the people in those rooms in
the monastery. And we did know that it wasn't
just running chamomile that experienced this.
At least one other person in thegroup also experienced feeling
like they were being watched. So kind of feels like an area of
(16:34):
effect sort of situation with carbon monoxide.
Just a thought. OK, so that is kind of what I'm
thinking for carbon monoxide. I don't know.
Tell me what you think madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
How likely do you think that is?And then we will now move into
low frequency sounds. So Victoria Tandy, this British
engineer and also member of the psychical Nope, the Society for
(16:57):
Psychical Research. Why did I say that?
So weird. We're just going to keep moving
anyway. Which you may have remember
having popped up in the Enfield Poltergeist episode, which if
you have not listened to, pleasego back and listen to the
Enfield Poltergeist episode for more about the for more about
the Society for Psychical Research.
(17:17):
Why is that so difficult? Anyway, Victoria Tandy, this
engineer, had a ghostly experience in his work lab.
He saw a ghost. He felt this oppressive air of
dread and fear and he was like, what is going on?
I'm a scientist, let's figure this out.
And so he did. He discovered that there was a
(17:40):
low frequency sound in, out inaudible.
What is going on guys? Sometimes words are hard.
I don't know what to say. Vic Tandy discovered that there
was this low frequency inaudiblesound that was happening in the
lab because of a fan that was installed that was around 18.9
(18:01):
Hertz. And it was causing him to have
shadowy hallucinations of ghostsand an overwhelming feeling of
dread. Is that not just wild?
OK, so running Chamomile probably didn't have a fan going
in their room, right? It's the winter, first of all.
But if there was a bell tower atthis monastery that could
(18:23):
actually produce low frequency like inaudible rumbling because
if you think of a bell tower, what is it?
It's just like a it's just like a wind tunnel.
It's just like a vertical wind tunnel, right?
So that could be creating some sort of vibration that is going
through the monastery. And then also church organs.
If there's a church next door, there is in the story, it might
(18:46):
even be connected to the building, to the monastery.
And if that's the case, church organs again, now you've got a
bunch of a bunch of smaller windtunnels that are all connected.
And the whole point of the wholepoint of an organ is for air to
move through it. So even if it's not being
played, something could be happening there, like some sort
of some sort of distortion, somesort of rumbling with with wind.
(19:09):
Because also, even though there's not a lot of ventilation
going on in the monastery, I'm sure it's also not very well
insulated against wind. Oh, and while I was doing this
research, I found this research paper on ResearchGate.
Here's the thing. ResearchGate needs to call
itself ResearchGate Keeping because it would not let me make
(19:30):
an account as a just a a rando if I don't have an association
with some sort of research institution.
So what the heck is that? It even allows me to select oh
I'm just like a person of the public just having having fun
looking up research papers. It allows me to select that but
then it just times out and I should really just e-mail one of
(19:51):
the writers of the paper and I bet they would e-mail me the PDF
Anyway. I wanted to read this to include
this in the episode but I couldn't get to it because I was
being I was being gate kept awayfrom it.
So the paper was called Using low frequency sound to create
non contact sensations on and inthe body.
(20:11):
I'm going to read that again, Using low frequency sound to
create non contact sensations onand in the body, which I assume
means. That they experiment with using
low frequency sound to make people feel as if they are being
touched. Is that not so scary?
I can't wait to read it. I don't know how it's going to
(20:33):
turn out. I'm going to e-mail one of the
authors of the paper, maybe all three of them if they don't
respond to me. But I want to read this paper
and I want to share what I find with you guys, so I'll keep you
updated anyway. What do you think caused the
spooky happenings behind the story?
Do you think it was carbon monoxide poisoning?
Do you think it was low frequency sounds?
(20:55):
Do you think it was a little of column A and a little and a
little of column B? Or do you think it was the ghost
of a monk? In terms of debunking, I know
since the original author running Chamomile wanted it to
be debunked, I would also love to hear other theories about
debunking so that we can give them some Peace of Mind about
(21:16):
what happened to them. And if you have a spooky story
that you want read on the show and if you want me to debunk it,
I would be happy to. But if you would also not like
me to debunk it and you would like me to be very respectful of
what happened to you, I can do that too.
Just be sure to e-mail me at madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
(21:45):
Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the
unexplained. Remember that you can feel
afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me,
probably. Please follow the podcast, leave
a rating on Spotify or Apple, ortell your friends and foes about
the show. It would mean the world to me.
(22:08):
The underworld, obviously. I mean, come on.
Was that not? Was that not clear?
Madam Strangeways is produced and narrated by me.
Madam Strangeways theme music isby marina.ryan@marinamakes.co.
Cover art is by Andrea Chisel Roldan at Cult of Teddy on
(22:28):
Instagram. You can submit your own true
strange story at madamstrangeways.com or e-mail
it to madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
See you soon, she said ominously.
Oh, I didn't hear you come in. What's that?
You've got a true strange story of the unexplained you'd like to
hear narrated on the show. e-mail it to me,
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Welcome strangers, strangelings,
and strange cetera to Madam Strangeways, where I, Madam
(00:23):
Strangeways, narrate your true strange stories of the
unexplained. Stick around after the story
where I share my strange thoughts and observations and
drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and
screaming if needs must. Today I've got one new true
strange story for you. But first, the strangest of
(00:47):
shout outs to my Patreon patronsTJ Hotter, G Man Music, Ted,
Keith and Tori. Thank you so much to my Feral
Fiendish 5 for supporting the show.
Do you hear that rumbling in thedistance?
I think it's about to rain Hellcats and Hell Hounds out
there, so you know what that means.
On to our true strange story here on Madam Strange Ways.
(01:34):
I had a terrifying experience inan old monastery dormitory in
Italy. What do you think happened by
running chamomile? I want to share something that
completely changed my outlook onthe paranormal.
A few years ago, I stayed in a student dormitory in Italy that
(01:57):
was part of an old monastery. It was adjacent to a church, and
while the building was old, my room was cute and cozy.
I had no issues with it until something strange happened right
before Christmas. For two days, I felt terrified
(02:21):
in a way I can't explain. It wasn't just a mild feeling of
unease, it was a deep gut wrenching fear that made me feel
like something was standing in the corner of my room staring at
me. It wasn't something I could just
(02:44):
brush off. It was so strong that it made me
physically uncomfortable, like Icouldn't breathe properly.
I want to specify I wasn't stressed out or having any other
issues at the time. I was actually having a great
time in Italy, enjoying life as a student.
There was no reason for me to feel this kind of fear, and that
(03:08):
made it even worse. It felt like it came out of
nowhere and took over, making itimpossible to feel safe in my
own room. By the second night I tried to
ignore it and told myself I was being ridiculous.
I thought if I just went to sleep it would pass.
(03:29):
But then I woke up in the middleof the night to find my sweater
was on the other side of the room.
The sweater which I always wore to sleep because the heating was
off at nights. At first I tried to think of a
reasonable explanation. Maybe I took it off in my sleep
(03:52):
without realizing it, but I don't sleepwalk and I've never
done anything like that before. Plus it didn't make sense I was
wearing it to stay warm because the room was so cold and I
definitely wouldn't have removedit in the middle of the night.
(04:12):
It just didn't add up. Then that same night I saw a
shadow move in the corner of my eye.
That was the final straw. I completely lost it.
I couldn't handle it anymore. I ended up crying and running
downstairs to the kitchen. After that, everything returned
(04:35):
to normal. No more fear, no more strange
feelings. It was peaceful and calm again,
just like before. Nothing else happened for the
rest of my stay. The weirdest part, when I
mentioned what happened at dinner, one of the girls
(04:57):
literally screamed and said she had felt someone staring at her
too. I should also mention that the
building was an old monastery. Maybe that ties into some
mysterious paranormal energy or history in the place.
I'm still not sure what happened, but it definitely left
(05:21):
me wondering if it was somethingbeyond just my imagination.
Has anyone experienced somethinglike this before?
(05:43):
Running chamomile or chamomile if you're from the UK?
Thank you so much for allowing me to share your absolutely
traumatizing tale. I don't know if it's more or
less traumatizing knowing that you were not the only one who
experienced something there on your stay.
It's like, OK, I'm not crazy or am I?
(06:06):
Is this a case of mass hysteria or is there a ghost?
Which one's worse? I did some Googling it.
There is no spittin. I couldn't tell where this was
in Italy. And there were a lot of comments
and some people were asking like, was this Naples or like
where in Italy specifically was this?
So I don't actually know the city.
(06:27):
So, you know, here's the thing, if you go and you Google haunted
monasteries in Italy, there's actually quite a lot of them.
Perhaps not shockingly, there's a lot of them.
I feel like maybe an Italian monastery kind of just comes
with ghosts. Like I don't even know that they
necessarily need to have an origin story.
(06:48):
I just feel like you build an Italian monastery and it just
automatically boop, here comes aghost.
If you build it, they will come.They being ghosts, monk ghosts,
possibly. So there's a whole lot of them.
You can jump online, you can Google them.
Some of them are abandoned. Some of them are very popular
hotspots. Sure, I'm sure.
I'm sure, not sure exactly wherethis one was, but there's a lot
(07:12):
of them if you want to go read about some stories.
As far as you know me, I like totalk about like what are some
either folkloric or like supernatural explanations for
what happened versus mundane or naturalistic explanations.
So without actually knowing where the monastery is, I can
only go so far with regards to, you know, local folklore or who.
(07:35):
What kind of ghost is this? Is it a ghost?
Is it multiple ghosts? Is it a monk ghost?
Unclear. I think we can assume that.
I think this is a pretty cut anddry case of a haunting with the
shadow figures and the feeling of dread and the oppressive
feel, especially when you've gotmonks around.
I don't know. Monks are creepy.
(07:55):
They're creepy in the daytime. They're creepy when they're
alive. They've got to be ultra creepy
at night. Alone in a in a monastery?
In an ancient monastery. Very scary.
So I want to say upfront that the subreddit that running
Chamomile Chamomile posted this and specifically has A tag where
(08:15):
you can tag your post to requestthat someone debunk the story.
And for some of you, you may be wondering why on earth would you
want someone to debunk a ghost story?
That's the point of the ghost story is that it's a ghost story
and it's unexplained and that's what makes it fun.
Well, for someone experiencing unexplained phenomenon that for
(08:36):
someone experiencing it and it'svery scary, they want some other
explanation other than it being a ghost.
Just like me. I don't want it to be a ghost.
You know, they just want it. They want it to be debunked.
They want someone to tell them no, no, no, no, don't worry.
It wasn't a ghost. Nothing scary happened.
This was all in your head and everything's fine and you didn't
(08:56):
actually see a ghost because that is a very scary.
That's very scary. However, because this was tagged
debunk this, I'm here. I'm here for it.
The Madam is in. So my 2 pet theories for this
case in terms of debunking are carbon monoxide, which you may
have assumed from the beginning if you know me personally, and
(09:21):
also low frequency sounds. And I'm going to start with
carbon monoxide. So symptoms of carbon monoxide
poisoning include such things asa pressure on your chest,
auditory and visual hallucinations, and also kind of
like an unexplained feeling of dread.
And of course, that's in addition to headache, nausea.
(09:43):
And then of course, if you've exposed, if you've been exposed
to it long enough, death, it's not it's not good.
So this is hey, PSA, strange PSA, go check your carbon
monoxide monitors. What do you mean you don't have
a carbon monoxide monitor? If you live in a home in which
there is any sort of gas whatsoever or you have even if
(10:06):
you have a fireplace, you know what?
I want you to go make sure that you have a carbon monoxide
detector. You can get them pretty cheap,
keep them around, test them occasionally.
And also while you're at it, go ahead and check the batteries on
your smoke alarms. Make sure that those are
working. All right.
So end strange PSA. So carbon monoxide poisoning.
This is something that you may have heard of and if you
(10:26):
haven't, this is so interesting.There is a famous, I say famous
and in the paranormal world, there's a somewhat famous Reddit
story about this guy who posts and says, man, I live alone and
I keep waking up to these post it notes that are really weird
and they have weird messages on them when they're left around my
(10:46):
house. So it has to be my landlord.
My landlord is obviously coming into my house while I am asleep
and leaving me these weird notesand some other weird stuff that
was going around in the house and he was freaking out.
Someone comes in. This was years ago.
Someone comes in and is like, hey OP, I'm going to need you to
(11:06):
check your carbon monoxide levels.
Go get a carbon monoxide detector.
Because like they gleaned from like one of the photos or the
description of a room that therewas poor ventilation.
I don't know. I mean it was a genius call.
And this is before everybody wasscreaming carbon monoxide.
I think the reason everyone on Reddit jumps to carbon monoxide
now is because of this post. It note story so interesting
(11:29):
because spoiler alert, it was carbon monoxide.
So this guy, Oh my God, pause. Not only was there, I just
remembered not only were there post it notes being left around
the house that he thought somewhat, but his landlord was
leaving for him that were very strange and cryptic.
Not only that, he was like I setup a camera.
I set up a camera and attach it to my computer to film to see if
(11:51):
anyone was coming in and out of the room and then out of the
house. And every time I check the
camera, everything is deleted. There's no, there's there's
there's no record that I recorded anything.
Someone is coming in and deleting the footage.
Now he he was being slowly poisoned by carbon monoxide and
(12:11):
he was leaving himself these weird post it notes and
forgetting that he wrote them. And come to find out the camera
that he quote UN quote set up wasn't even plugged in properly
to the computer. And when he was quote, UN quote
checking on the recordings, he was just like opening in a blank
folder on his laptop that had nothing to do with cameras.
(12:33):
So that is how bad carbon monoxide can affect you even at
a low level like overtime. So just to give you an idea, he
was really paranoid. He was forgetting that he was
doing things. Obviously running Chamomile was
not exposed to this long enough term, it seems like to have
experienced memory loss. But maybe, you know, who knows?
(12:55):
Anyway, I just thought I would tell you that crazy story.
Also, while I'm on a little tangent, really kind of one of
the things that really set me along this path that I am on
that has led me here to you right now in this moment is an
episode of This American Life called.
And the call was coming from thebasement.
(13:18):
It was a Halloween episode from like a million years ago.
And I found it one Halloween when I was trying to find
something spooky to listen to, you know, and Oh my gosh, it
was, it just completely changed my worldview and really helped
me break out of my, you know, fear of demons, which I've
mentioned in previous episodes. OK, jumping back into this,
(13:39):
carbon monoxide poisoning has been kind of explained as the
reason for a lot of hauntings, especially going back into the
Victorian age. The Victorians had ghosts all
over the place. Everyone had ghosts in the
Victorian age, right? And that's because there were a
lot of gasoline lamps and also toxic wallpaper, which I feel
(13:59):
like I need to do a little mini episode about because what the
heck. Anyway, So we think that's part
of why that happens. But you may be asking, well, but
how are you going to get carbon monoxide in an old monastery
that doesn't have heating? Well, here are some theories
that I have. So just because the rooms
weren't heated doesn't mean thatthere weren't water heaters or
(14:20):
boilers. And especially if there were
installed, especially in the kitchen, if you think about it,
even if these were installed anywhere in the monastery, they
would have been retrofitted. And so when you have these
ancient buildings and then you retrofit things inside of them,
they're probably not done like, super efficiently.
(14:41):
And even more so do you, how often, let me ask you this.
How often do you think that a boiler or a water heater in an
old ancient Italian monastery isbeing serviced?
How often do you think that's happening?
Realistically? Probably not very often, OK, I
(15:03):
don't think that's, I don't think that's much of A stretch.
OK, Anyway, they may also have, especially in the kitchen, wood
burning stove, wood burning. How did I say that?
Wood burning stoves or fireplaces.
OK. So if they're using those, even
if they're not even necessarily in everyday use, older
buildings, if they have like inactive chimneys even or
blocked flus, I mean, who doesn't?
(15:27):
Who among us doesn't have a blocked flu?
You know that what that turns into is a carbon monoxide trap,
basically. Like if the flu is blocked, it's
not allowing carbon monoxide to leave the monastery.
So that's kind of trapping it inside.
And then of course, if there's improper ventilation, which I am
sure that there is in this monastery, which was not built
(15:49):
around trying to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, just wasn't
something they were worried about in the floor plan.
So then on top of that, even if running chamomile did not have
this in their room, if someone else anywhere nearby did have a
kerosene or a gas heater, then Imean, baby, you got a Stew
(16:10):
going. Because if there's not proper
airflow, which we just said there's probably not, then that
could definitely affect any one of the people in those rooms in
the monastery. And we did know that it wasn't
just running chamomile that experienced this.
At least one other person in thegroup also experienced feeling
like they were being watched. So kind of feels like an area of
(16:34):
effect sort of situation with carbon monoxide.
Just a thought. OK, so that is kind of what I'm
thinking for carbon monoxide. I don't know.
Tell me what you think madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
How likely do you think that is?And then we will now move into
low frequency sounds. So Victoria Tandy, this British
engineer and also member of the psychical Nope, the Society for
(16:57):
Psychical Research. Why did I say that?
So weird. We're just going to keep moving
anyway. Which you may have remember
having popped up in the Enfield Poltergeist episode, which if
you have not listened to, pleasego back and listen to the
Enfield Poltergeist episode for more about the for more about
the Society for Psychical Research.
(17:17):
Why is that so difficult? Anyway, Victoria Tandy, this
engineer, had a ghostly experience in his work lab.
He saw a ghost. He felt this oppressive air of
dread and fear and he was like, what is going on?
I'm a scientist, let's figure this out.
And so he did. He discovered that there was a
(17:40):
low frequency sound in, out inaudible.
What is going on guys? Sometimes words are hard.
I don't know what to say. Vic Tandy discovered that there
was this low frequency inaudiblesound that was happening in the
lab because of a fan that was installed that was around 18.9
(18:01):
Hertz. And it was causing him to have
shadowy hallucinations of ghostsand an overwhelming feeling of
dread. Is that not just wild?
OK, so running Chamomile probably didn't have a fan going
in their room, right? It's the winter, first of all.
But if there was a bell tower atthis monastery that could
(18:23):
actually produce low frequency like inaudible rumbling because
if you think of a bell tower, what is it?
It's just like a it's just like a wind tunnel.
It's just like a vertical wind tunnel, right?
So that could be creating some sort of vibration that is going
through the monastery. And then also church organs.
If there's a church next door, there is in the story, it might
(18:46):
even be connected to the building, to the monastery.
And if that's the case, church organs again, now you've got a
bunch of a bunch of smaller windtunnels that are all connected.
And the whole point of the wholepoint of an organ is for air to
move through it. So even if it's not being
played, something could be happening there, like some sort
of some sort of distortion, somesort of rumbling with with wind.
(19:09):
Because also, even though there's not a lot of ventilation
going on in the monastery, I'm sure it's also not very well
insulated against wind. Oh, and while I was doing this
research, I found this research paper on ResearchGate.
Here's the thing. ResearchGate needs to call
itself ResearchGate Keeping because it would not let me make
(19:30):
an account as a just a a rando if I don't have an association
with some sort of research institution.
So what the heck is that? It even allows me to select oh
I'm just like a person of the public just having having fun
looking up research papers. It allows me to select that but
then it just times out and I should really just e-mail one of
(19:51):
the writers of the paper and I bet they would e-mail me the PDF
Anyway. I wanted to read this to include
this in the episode but I couldn't get to it because I was
being I was being gate kept awayfrom it.
So the paper was called Using low frequency sound to create
non contact sensations on and inthe body.
(20:11):
I'm going to read that again, Using low frequency sound to
create non contact sensations onand in the body, which I assume
means. That they experiment with using
low frequency sound to make people feel as if they are being
touched. Is that not so scary?
I can't wait to read it. I don't know how it's going to
(20:33):
turn out. I'm going to e-mail one of the
authors of the paper, maybe all three of them if they don't
respond to me. But I want to read this paper
and I want to share what I find with you guys, so I'll keep you
updated anyway. What do you think caused the
spooky happenings behind the story?
Do you think it was carbon monoxide poisoning?
Do you think it was low frequency sounds?
(20:55):
Do you think it was a little of column A and a little and a
little of column B? Or do you think it was the ghost
of a monk? In terms of debunking, I know
since the original author running Chamomile wanted it to
be debunked, I would also love to hear other theories about
debunking so that we can give them some Peace of Mind about
(21:16):
what happened to them. And if you have a spooky story
that you want read on the show and if you want me to debunk it,
I would be happy to. But if you would also not like
me to debunk it and you would like me to be very respectful of
what happened to you, I can do that too.
Just be sure to e-mail me at madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
(21:45):
Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the
unexplained. Remember that you can feel
afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me,
probably. Please follow the podcast, leave
a rating on Spotify or Apple, ortell your friends and foes about
the show. It would mean the world to me.
(22:08):
The underworld, obviously. I mean, come on.
Was that not? Was that not clear?
Madam Strangeways is produced and narrated by me.
Madam Strangeways theme music isby marina.ryan@marinamakes.co.
Cover art is by Andrea Chisel Roldan at Cult of Teddy on
(22:28):
Instagram. You can submit your own true
strange story at madamstrangeways.com or e-mail
it to madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
See you soon, she said ominously.
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