October 7, 2025 • 27 mins
Join Madame Strangeways for this true scary paranormal story about phantom footsteps from above... but there's no attic. And to make things worse, the footsteps are accompanied by the sound of something heavy dragging behind them. Eeeeeek. A terrifying experience to be sure! And also, happy Strangetober! If you're listening to this to get into the spooky season and set the mood for Halloween, welcome!!
As always, stick around after the story for a spectral analysis as well as possible mundane explanations from the Madame about this haunting, and let me know where you land believer or skeptic! Follow the podcast to hear more true scary ghost stories and strange stories of the unexplained.
Thank you to Petra for granting permission to read their story from Reddit. Remember, Strangers & Strangelings & Strangecetera: you can feel afraid and not be in danger.
❤ A huge, spooky thank you to my Patrons! TJ Hodder, Gmanmusic, Ted, Keith, & Tori! ❤
➽Join My Patreon! Get an EXCLUSIVE sticker/decal to put on your water bottle or whatever! Also get your name read at the beginning of every episode! Also access to a guided sleep meditation and exclusive bonus content! Wow! Golly gee willikers! Join today at: https://www.patreon.com/madamestrangeways
➽ Send Me Your Thoughts or Theories on the Ghost Stories in this Episode and I may share them on a future episode: madamestrangeways@gmail.com
➽ Submit Your Own Strange Story: madamestrangeways.com or madamestrangeways@gmail.com
➼ Follow me on Instagram at @madamestrangeways
➼ Subscribe to my YouTube: @madamestrangeways
➼ Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/madamestrangeways
Produced by: Madame Strangeways
♫ Theme Music by: Marina Ryan at marinamakes.co
Cover artwork by: Andrea Giselle Roldán at @cultofteddy
Every true strange story narrated in this podcast was read with permission from the original author.
Follow the podcast and explore strange, spooky and true paranormal stories as narrated by Madame Strangeways.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I will always tell people to trust their gut, although it's
tough because I want to trust mygut but sometimes my gut is
paranoid. Welcome strangers and strange
(00:21):
links and happy strange tober. I, Madam Strangeways, am here to
narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained.
Stick around after the story where I share my strange
thoughts and observations for believers and skeptics alike,
and I will drag you down a Slough of strange rabbit holes
along the way, kicking and screaming if needs must, before
(00:44):
we get to today's true strange story.
The strangest of shout outs to my Patreon patrons TJ Hotter of
the Tapes of Trepidation podcast, G Man Music, Ted, Keith
and Tori, thank you so much to my Feral Fiendish 5 for
supporting the show. Do you want to hear your name at
the beginning of every episode? Or maybe you'd fancy a free
sticker? Or what about access to Madam
(01:06):
Strange Notes, AKA Strange bonuscontent?
Join the Patreon today at patreon.com/madam.
Strange Ways. Oh, did you hear that?
I think it's about to rain hellcats and hell hounds
outside, so you know what that means.
On to our true strange story here on Madam Strange Ways.
(01:53):
My most terrifying experience byPetra.
We had a little girl ghost in our previous house.
We've all seen her, hurt her. She was sweet, nice.
We didn't mind. Coexisting was easy.
She was maybe 5 or 6 years old. One night I was all by myself.
(02:16):
Kids were spending the night with friends and or their mom.
We are a patchwork family. My little girl was at a friend's
house and the other two with their mom.
My husband was at work, he's a truck driver and expected back
around 4. AMI was sitting on the couch
watching TV when it started. I heard heavy footsteps and
(02:38):
something dragging above me. Except this was a one story
house with no attic, not even a crawl space.
Heavy, heavy footsteps dragging.Maybe a heavy sack of flour.
I want to think flour because weall know what the alternative
(02:59):
would be. It was so loud and I was so
frozen with fear that I could not move off the couch.
I called my husband and asked ifhe could hear this through the
phone and he could. I called some more friends and
they all heard it. My husband told me to go to a
hotel but I couldn't because my purse and car keys were in my
(03:23):
bedroom. I felt like I could not go down
that hallway to my bedroom. I don't know why that I had that
feeling, I just. I just knew not to go into the
hallway so I stayed on the couchuntil my husband came in at 4:00
AM. When he walked in we could both
(03:44):
hear it for another couple of minutes then it was gone.
Never happened again. I was terrified and the whole
air around me felt thick and dreadful.
It never stopped until my husband came home and after he
heard it for a few minutes it stopped and the air felt normal.
(04:09):
This was the only time I was afraid of a ghost, quote UN
quote and I had never been so afraid.
Petra, thank you so much for allowing me to read your
(04:31):
horrifying story. I am so glad to hear that you
are not in this house anymore because this happened in your
previous house if I understood correctly.
So thank goodness because you don't need that in your life.
Hello, everybody, welcome, welcome.
Welcome to Strange Tober. Happy Strange Tober, everyone
(04:52):
all month long, so excited. You know, I'm recording this.
I'm I'm going to tell you a little peek behind the curtain.
Behind the strange curtain. It's October 4th when I'm
recording this. I should have been recording
this back in August at minimum. Probably should have been July.
That's not how we roll here. That's not how we roll here in
(05:14):
the strange zone. Strange.
I feel like I had a word for this at some point.
You know what? e-mail me
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. What do we call this space?
Oh, strange space. What do you think?
Let me know, madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
Anyway, that's not how we roll here.
That's not how we roll. So unfortunately I am recording
this on October 4th. We're already four days into
(05:36):
Strange Tober and I'm already like, no, Oh my God, October's
almost over. Like I'm, I'm already like
mourning it. And it's not even Halloween yet,
so I don't know if you feel the same way again, e-mail me
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Let me know, am I alone?
Is it just me? Anyway, on to Petra's story.
First of all, Petra, what a coolname.
(05:57):
What a cool name, what a bad assname.
I love it. But what I don't love is that
you had to go through this. So first of all, Petra, I am so
sorry that you had to experiencethis, especially alone.
I mean, I'm not sure how much better it would have been if
your kids had been home, becausethen I'm sure that probably
would have spooked the kids in addition to spooking you.
(06:18):
That would be my guess. But also maybe there would have
been something kind of like, like a protective instinct on
your part to protect the kids, and then maybe you would have
been running on more adrenaline.I don't know.
I'm. It's just scary to be alone.
It's scary when you're alone because you're also like, am I
crazy? You know, for instance, like
calling your husband and asking,like, can you hear this or am I
(06:41):
hallucinating? And yeah, just so, so creepy,
Especially because. OK, OK, let's just jump back.
Let's let's jump to the beginning.
A little girl ghost. Y'all had a First of all, I love
Petra. How just like casually you're
just like, Oh yeah, we had a little girl ghost in the house.
Yeah, no worries. She was just like 5 or 6.
Like we got along great. She was a great roommate.
(07:01):
She didn't bother anybody. She was really nice.
Like, what do you mean? How can you just drop that and
then just walk on? Go on with the story.
That's crazy. I want to know more about this
little girl, first of all. First of all, especially because
everyone has seen her. Everyone has heard her.
I don't like it. But you know, I guess she didn't
(07:22):
bother anybody. That's fine.
But then like, so then did you have two ghosts?
Because is this a separate ghost?
I assume that a little girl ghost is not making heavy
footsteps. I suppose she would be capable
of it if she put her mind to it,because you know how I feel
about weird little girls. I love.
I I love weird little girls. I was a weird little girl before
(07:46):
weird little girl power. You know, I so she could
probably figure it out, but it'sif it made you feel unsafe,
probably it's not a little girl ghost.
Although now that I'm saying this out loud, guys, this isn't
scripted. If this isn't clear, none of my
commentary is is is scripted when it comes to these kinds of
stories, unless I'm doing like adeep dive when there's research
(08:08):
involved, then it's kind of scripted.
But this is not scripted at all.It's probably you're probably
thinking this is very clear thatit's not that it's not scripted
Madam, because here's the thing.Little kids are spooky and and
scary movies. They're super spooky when
they're used to spooky effect. Right?
So like if you look at signs, the little girl, I don't think
(08:29):
she was spooky, but I bet some people did.
I thought she was so cute. Bo Oh my God, so cute, so cute.
I didn't think she was scary, but I bet some people kind of
thought she was a little weird. However, you look at Ringu or
Juon and it's like, OK, well, terrifying, right?
So scary, but this little girl ghost is like a western little
(08:52):
girl ghost and maybe western little girls are not as scared.
Why is that? Why someone smarter than me let
me know madamstrangeways@gmail.com What
is it with like the the split between little kids especially
being super? Maybe my maybe my sample size is
(09:13):
small, but I feel like there's something to be discussed there.
Just like I said, someone smarter than me please chime in
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Anyway, I don't think this was
little girl because like you said, like Petra said, little
girl ghost was sweet and nice etcetera.
Curious, so is there 2 ghosts? And where did this ghost go?
(09:37):
Because it doesn't sound like itever happened again.
It was the only time it happenedand you've never been so scared.
So what the heck? What was it?
Was it a ghost? Was it a ghost?
This is where we get to the point where if there was a
complete 100% skeptic listening,I'm not sure that they're still
listening. However, I love to give both a
(09:58):
skeptical or a mundane explanation as well as a
paranormal 1. And so that's kind of what we're
going to get into here. So I will start just with the
paranormal explanation where, OK, you've already got, you
know, you're already understanding that there's
paranormal activity in the home because like there's a little
girl ghost in the house, right? OK, so clearly there's ghosts
(10:21):
around. Is it that strange to think that
there's a second ghost? Probably not, right, 'cause
like, what is it? Like I don't even want to say
this 'cause I hate them. But it's like if you talk to an
exterminator and you see, you know, they say like if you see
one gross bug, I'm not even going to specify I hate, I hate
(10:44):
bug infestations. It's disgusting.
But anyway, they go like if you see like 1 bad bug, it's not
just one. There's a bunch.
You just can't see them and they're hiding or you know,
they'll come out soon or there'sa ton of them.
So is that kind of what we're dealing with here?
You know, like not to be Ed Warren about it and call it an
infestation because we know Ed Warren, the self-proclaimed
demonologist and self-taught demonologist loves to throw the
(11:07):
word infestation around when it comes to ghosts and demons.
But you know is that is that kind of related?
Like, maybe there were just moreghosts.
And maybe for some reason, this night, maybe this night was the
night that the man died 50 yearsago and this is just the last
thing he did when before he diedwas drag a sack of heavy flour
(11:31):
around. Nothing else.
Nothing else. Nothing weirder than that.
Just flour. I get you not wanting to think
of something scarier. Like, for instance, a body.
Sorry, I did have to say it. A corpse.
Maybe it's not even a corpse. Maybe it's a living person and
something's horrible. OK.
Just there's so many thing. This is the thing.
(11:53):
Your imagination is always worsethan the truth, right?
Or worse than when you don't know something.
You're going to fill in the gapsand they're going to be really
disturbing and scary. Or at least that's how my brain
fills in gaps. I know it's not just me.
I bet if you're listening to this, you probably do the same
thing anyway. You know, maybe that is just the
night that he did that. And every year, you know, or
(12:17):
every five years or, you know, whatever, you know, there's,
there's sure. I think if you already have one
ghost in the house, it's not that much of A stretch to say
there's another ghost. Now.
Why was it doing that? What was that feeling?
You know, just something bad happened in the house.
I would have a lot of more. I would have a lot more
questions. I would want to know if I was
looking at this from a paranormal, if I was a
(12:38):
paranormal investigator, I wouldwant to know, are there any
crimes that happened in the house, like murders, deaths, you
know, anything that you could find?
What's the history of the house?What was there before the house?
And that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm asking if there
was a Native American burial ground on on the land.
OK, we don't have to get that horror movie cliche about it.
(13:00):
But like, was there something else traumatic that happened on
the land? I know, you know, there's the
stone tape theory where, you know, in a nutshell, something
that has happened in real life kind of gets etched into the,
the, the quote UN quote like tape of time and that it just
repeats. And it's not an intelligent
haunting. It's a residual haunting.
(13:21):
So is, you know, is, is that what we're dealing with?
But then I would also have to ask, well, then why hasn't this
ever been experienced before? Why was it never experienced
again? Like what you know, it's just
there's lots of questions. Very scary though, especially
because like when you got to trust your gut right?
Like I will always tell people to trust their gut, although
(13:42):
it's tough because I want to trust my gut, but sometimes my
gut is paranoid or my gut is having, having, having a bit of
an, having a little bit of a panic attack, just a wee bit,
just a wee little panic attack, that's all.
Yeah, that happens sometimes. And so it's hard to trust my
gut. But of course you should trust
(14:03):
your gut. You know, that's just do as I
say, not as I do, but I get it like feeling I cannot do X
because I just feel in my bones that something bad is going to
happen if I do it. I sounds really, really scary
and especially if it, you know, all of this was clearly
happening through the witching hour, 3:00 AM, which I will say,
(14:26):
I feel I feel away about 3:00 AMAnd like anytime, anytime in a
story when someone is saying like, Oh my God, and 3:00 AM, it
was happening at 3:00 AM and that's the witching hour.
And that's when you know, demons, blah, blah, blah.
I've been that. I've been there before.
I have thought that before. I've had to seriously do kind of
(14:46):
like almost exposure therapy with myself alone, not with a
therapist to now. I'm like, and when I wake up and
it's like 3:33 AM, I'm like, nice.
And then I go back to bed because there's not really any,
there's not really any basis for3:00 AM.
It's just kind of word of mouth and also cognitive bias.
(15:10):
And you know, you just when someone says this thing always
happens at 3:00 AM, you know, myquestion is, are you actually
recording this information? Are you gathering all the data
every time you wake up? Are you looking at what time it
is and then writing it down to the spreadsheet?
And then if you are, and then you are still only waking up at
(15:30):
3:00 AM, then though that comes to, OK, I'm getting into the
mundane and skeptical view. My point is, if you're looking
at it from a paranormal point ofview, 3:00 AM spooky time.
Spooky time. So obviously this was happening
during the quote UN quote witching hour because your
husband, Petra's husband didn't come home until 4:00 AM.
(15:50):
And then but of course, of course, like within minutes of
Mr. Petra coming inside the house, all of a sudden it stops
and never happened again. That's so annoying.
Could I just say like, I'm glad it didn't have it again, but
like that's so annoying. Like what do you what are you
(16:11):
talking about? It's almost like when you're
having an IT issue and then IT takes a look at your computer
and then it's not happening anymore and you look crazy and
you look kind of dumb. I mean, you're like, I swear it
was just happening, but now it'snot happening anymore.
Kind of like that. I mean at least he it was
happening when he was there and you could both hear it, but
(16:31):
still like what is that ghost? Oh, now that there's a man in
the house, you're not going to scare the woman that's left
alone. Hmm, don't approve, don't like
it. So that ghost dragging the
flower, the flower dragger ghost.
Not cool, dude, not cool. All right, so now we're moving
(16:55):
on to mundane or skeptical or asI like to also say, naturalistic
explanations. OK, So I was kind of getting
into it with the 3:00 AM spooky hour.
But The thing is, is like there are studies that show that 3:00
AM is kind of really typical time for people to wake up
either because of high cortisol,like REM sleep, etcetera.
(17:18):
I mean, of course, it depends onaround when you go to sleep, but
circadian rhythm just happens tobe that that you're kind of up
at 3:00 AM. Now, that is not what's
happening here. Petra was up.
She was up. She was up at 3:00.
That's not what this is. I just have to address it
because I brought it up. My bad.
That's my bad. Anyway, so little girl ghost,
(17:40):
all right, I don't know. Not knowing, OK, because I don't
know what actually happened withthe little girl ghost.
I don't know any of the experiences that happened around
the little girl ghost. Obviously, it doesn't sound like
it was anything, you know, traumatic even remotely.
But The thing is, the entire family has been primed.
(18:00):
The entire family has been primed to expect there to be a
ghost in the house. So once you expect there to be a
ghost in the house, kind of likewhat I was saying earlier is
like, well, then I don't think it's that big of a stretch for
you to think that there are two ghosts in the house.
If you're already having things happen in the house and you are
(18:21):
assigning a supernatural explanation to them.
Of course, if something happens and you can't explain it, you're
going to be, you know, you're going to be pinning it on the
paranormal. You're going to be pinning it on
a ghost, obviously not the little girl ghost in this case,
but a ghost. So there's that.
First of all, you know, regardless of whether or not the
little girl ghost is actually a ghost, regardless of whether
(18:44):
that is because obviously, listen, if I read your story on
here, I need you to understand. If I read your story, it's
because I feel like you are telling the truth and you have
really experienced something that is unexplainable.
So I am not questioning whether or not there was a little girl
ghost. It actually doesn't matter.
The point is, is that you're primed for there to be a ghost
(19:06):
in the house. So there's that.
However, it doesn't make a dragging sound and heavy
footsteps above you when there'sno attic or crawl space.
It doesn't make that any less terrifying.
And if it were me, of course I would do the same things where
it's like, was it wildlife? Like, what was it?
Was it, you know, there's going to be some mundane explanation,
(19:30):
except, you know, that Petra felt that overwhelming heavy
sense of dread and foreboding and, and, and just fear.
So, you know, is, does that comefrom expecting it to be a ghost
or, you know, what is that? What what is that?
Is that that anxiety? You're also alone.
It's night time, you know, I assume that the house is not
(19:53):
normally empty. So does that maybe play into it?
You know, I know I get really jumpy sometimes, especially when
it's late at night and I'm like,what is that noise?
I don't normally remember hearing that noise.
Maybe I did, Maybe I have heard that noise, but I wasn't paying
attention because I wasn't scared and on high alert
questions. But if it were happening to me,
I think this is kind of the way that I would go.
(20:15):
It's like, first of all, Oh my God, is there someone on the
roof? Like, is there an actual human
being on my roof? Walking back and forth.
And if so, why? And if so, oh God, you know, I
think I would panic and and think about calling 911.
I mean, I think definitely calling someone to be like, do
(20:36):
you hear this? Am I crazy?
I think that makes complete sense.
But I think if it were me, I would really hope that it was
like a rabid raccoon. You know, like, I don't want it
to be rabid. I do.
I, you know, if I could wave a wand and eradicate rabies from
the world right now, you know, Iwould.
But I would hope that it was like an animal that was for some
(20:58):
reason pacing back and forth, although I can't really think of
a reason why that would ever happen.
But barring it being an animal, you know, happening so
consistently back and forth, back and forth and in the
footsteps, I mean, I know rodents of all kinds, you know,
from squirrels to rats to, you know, probably raccoons.
(21:19):
I know they're not rodents, but,you know, wildlife that can get
into your OK. There's not an attic, there's
not a crawl space. But there's something right?
Like in the roof. Like, I mean, I guess I'm trying
to picture a roof scenario in which it just goes roof house.
(21:41):
Is that also? I feel like now I've said roof
now do I say it weird? Do I sound like I'm a dog
barking? Roof, roof, roof, roof, roof.
How do we say madamstrangeways@gmail.com?
Let me know. How do you pronounce roof?
Was I pronouncing it weird? Anyway, there has to be some
space. Even if it's not a crawl space,
there's something up there because like, insulation is
(22:02):
supposed to be up there, right? I guess, I don't know, that's
kind of even scarier. I don't love that, you know, OK,
I'm just, I'm just riffing here.Like, is it like, was there like
a loose roof? Shit, there it is again.
Is it a loose shingle? You know, like, was it a windy
night possibly. Was there a shingle that was
kind of being blown just enough to get the wind under it and
(22:25):
then it's kind of smacking back down on on the roof roof.
Is that maybe that's something or like a branch of a nearby
tree? You know, that's like hitting
the there's I, I feel like there's something there.
I just without me being there and, and being able to replicate
(22:46):
it or, you know, take a look around, you know, we're just
never going to know. We're never going to know
exactly what caused it. But you know, it could be
something like that. But then even even if it was
something like a shingle or a tree branch or honestly
anything, anything mundane, why did it stop shortly after Mr.
(23:08):
Petra came home? That would be my question.
I don't have an answer to that. Maybe.
OK, you know what? If it actually was a human
being, a living human being thatwas actually walking back and
forth with a heavy sack of flouron the roof like a weirdo.
If it actually was a human beingdoing that.
(23:29):
And husband came home and then weirdo on the roof was like, uh
oh, rut row. And then clambers off the roof,
never to be seen or heard from again because he didn't realize
that Miss Petra had a Mr. Petra.You know, maybe that's it.
Maybe that makes the most sense out of all of the options, all
(23:52):
the mundane options. Maybe.
I kind of think I like that the best, although it is almost the
scariest. See, as again, I'll always say
honestly, the living are way scarier than the dead and
they're definitely a lot more dangerous than the dead.
The living can hurt you. The dead I will.
This is the hill I will die on. And when I die on that hill, I
(24:14):
will not be a danger to you because I firmly believe that
the dead cannot hurt you and that there is not a supernatural
force or a paranormal force thatcan actually hurt you.
So that's me. That's my hot take.
That's my paranormal hot take. But you know, living creatures
can, human beings can definitelyand will definitely hurt you.
(24:35):
So spooky, very spooky. So I guess when it comes to
breaking it down, paranormal versus mundane, the paranormal
angle, I mean, I think I, I, I kind of like my pet theory of
like something happened on that night.
It's a residual haunting and he's just repeating his, his
(24:56):
death or something leading up tohis death.
Or it's like, you know, I don't know, it's something dramatic
and hopefully cool and not at all a body or a corpse.
That's just fingers crossed. And then from a mundane or
skeptical standpoint, maybe it was actually a human being
dragging something heavy or justwalking and the dragging, Who
knows? I don't know.
(25:16):
Maybe it was actually a human being and then they skedaddled
as soon as Mr. Patrick came home.
I don't know. Let me know though, if you're
listening and you have thoughts on to how to explain this from
either a paranormal angle or from a naturalistic or mundane
angle. I would love to hear your
thoughts. e-mail them to me at madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
(25:38):
And of course, if you have your own strange story that you want
to hear narrated on the show, e-mail it to me.
You know the e-mail madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
(25:59):
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.
(26:21):
The underworld, obviously, I mean, come on.
Was that not? Was that not clear?
Madam Strange Ways is produced and narrated by me.
Madam Strange Ways theme music is by
marina.ryan@marinamakes.co. Cover art is by Andrea Chisel
Roldan at Cult of Teddy on Instagram.
(26:42):
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.
I will always tell people to trust their gut, although it's
tough because I want to trust mygut but sometimes my gut is
paranoid. Welcome strangers and strange
(00:21):
links and happy strange tober. I, Madam Strangeways, am here to
narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained.
Stick around after the story where I share my strange
thoughts and observations for believers and skeptics alike,
and I will drag you down a Slough of strange rabbit holes
along the way, kicking and screaming if needs must, before
(00:44):
we get to today's true strange story.
The strangest of shout outs to my Patreon patrons TJ Hotter of
the Tapes of Trepidation podcast, G Man Music, Ted, Keith
and Tori, thank you so much to my Feral Fiendish 5 for
supporting the show. Do you want to hear your name at
the beginning of every episode? Or maybe you'd fancy a free
sticker? Or what about access to Madam
(01:06):
Strange Notes, AKA Strange bonuscontent?
Join the Patreon today at patreon.com/madam.
Strange Ways. Oh, did you hear that?
I think it's about to rain hellcats and hell hounds
outside, so you know what that means.
On to our true strange story here on Madam Strange Ways.
(01:53):
My most terrifying experience byPetra.
We had a little girl ghost in our previous house.
We've all seen her, hurt her. She was sweet, nice.
We didn't mind. Coexisting was easy.
She was maybe 5 or 6 years old. One night I was all by myself.
(02:16):
Kids were spending the night with friends and or their mom.
We are a patchwork family. My little girl was at a friend's
house and the other two with their mom.
My husband was at work, he's a truck driver and expected back
around 4. AMI was sitting on the couch
watching TV when it started. I heard heavy footsteps and
(02:38):
something dragging above me. Except this was a one story
house with no attic, not even a crawl space.
Heavy, heavy footsteps dragging.Maybe a heavy sack of flour.
I want to think flour because weall know what the alternative
(02:59):
would be. It was so loud and I was so
frozen with fear that I could not move off the couch.
I called my husband and asked ifhe could hear this through the
phone and he could. I called some more friends and
they all heard it. My husband told me to go to a
hotel but I couldn't because my purse and car keys were in my
(03:23):
bedroom. I felt like I could not go down
that hallway to my bedroom. I don't know why that I had that
feeling, I just. I just knew not to go into the
hallway so I stayed on the couchuntil my husband came in at 4:00
AM. When he walked in we could both
(03:44):
hear it for another couple of minutes then it was gone.
Never happened again. I was terrified and the whole
air around me felt thick and dreadful.
It never stopped until my husband came home and after he
heard it for a few minutes it stopped and the air felt normal.
(04:09):
This was the only time I was afraid of a ghost, quote UN
quote and I had never been so afraid.
Petra, thank you so much for allowing me to read your
(04:31):
horrifying story. I am so glad to hear that you
are not in this house anymore because this happened in your
previous house if I understood correctly.
So thank goodness because you don't need that in your life.
Hello, everybody, welcome, welcome.
Welcome to Strange Tober. Happy Strange Tober, everyone
(04:52):
all month long, so excited. You know, I'm recording this.
I'm I'm going to tell you a little peek behind the curtain.
Behind the strange curtain. It's October 4th when I'm
recording this. I should have been recording
this back in August at minimum. Probably should have been July.
That's not how we roll here. That's not how we roll here in
(05:14):
the strange zone. Strange.
I feel like I had a word for this at some point.
You know what? e-mail me
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. What do we call this space?
Oh, strange space. What do you think?
Let me know, madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
Anyway, that's not how we roll here.
That's not how we roll. So unfortunately I am recording
this on October 4th. We're already four days into
(05:36):
Strange Tober and I'm already like, no, Oh my God, October's
almost over. Like I'm, I'm already like
mourning it. And it's not even Halloween yet,
so I don't know if you feel the same way again, e-mail me
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Let me know, am I alone?
Is it just me? Anyway, on to Petra's story.
First of all, Petra, what a coolname.
(05:57):
What a cool name, what a bad assname.
I love it. But what I don't love is that
you had to go through this. So first of all, Petra, I am so
sorry that you had to experiencethis, especially alone.
I mean, I'm not sure how much better it would have been if
your kids had been home, becausethen I'm sure that probably
would have spooked the kids in addition to spooking you.
(06:18):
That would be my guess. But also maybe there would have
been something kind of like, like a protective instinct on
your part to protect the kids, and then maybe you would have
been running on more adrenaline.I don't know.
I'm. It's just scary to be alone.
It's scary when you're alone because you're also like, am I
crazy? You know, for instance, like
calling your husband and asking,like, can you hear this or am I
(06:41):
hallucinating? And yeah, just so, so creepy,
Especially because. OK, OK, let's just jump back.
Let's let's jump to the beginning.
A little girl ghost. Y'all had a First of all, I love
Petra. How just like casually you're
just like, Oh yeah, we had a little girl ghost in the house.
Yeah, no worries. She was just like 5 or 6.
Like we got along great. She was a great roommate.
(07:01):
She didn't bother anybody. She was really nice.
Like, what do you mean? How can you just drop that and
then just walk on? Go on with the story.
That's crazy. I want to know more about this
little girl, first of all. First of all, especially because
everyone has seen her. Everyone has heard her.
I don't like it. But you know, I guess she didn't
(07:22):
bother anybody. That's fine.
But then like, so then did you have two ghosts?
Because is this a separate ghost?
I assume that a little girl ghost is not making heavy
footsteps. I suppose she would be capable
of it if she put her mind to it,because you know how I feel
about weird little girls. I love.
I I love weird little girls. I was a weird little girl before
(07:46):
weird little girl power. You know, I so she could
probably figure it out, but it'sif it made you feel unsafe,
probably it's not a little girl ghost.
Although now that I'm saying this out loud, guys, this isn't
scripted. If this isn't clear, none of my
commentary is is is scripted when it comes to these kinds of
stories, unless I'm doing like adeep dive when there's research
(08:08):
involved, then it's kind of scripted.
But this is not scripted at all.It's probably you're probably
thinking this is very clear thatit's not that it's not scripted
Madam, because here's the thing.Little kids are spooky and and
scary movies. They're super spooky when
they're used to spooky effect. Right?
So like if you look at signs, the little girl, I don't think
(08:29):
she was spooky, but I bet some people did.
I thought she was so cute. Bo Oh my God, so cute, so cute.
I didn't think she was scary, but I bet some people kind of
thought she was a little weird. However, you look at Ringu or
Juon and it's like, OK, well, terrifying, right?
So scary, but this little girl ghost is like a western little
(08:52):
girl ghost and maybe western little girls are not as scared.
Why is that? Why someone smarter than me let
me know madamstrangeways@gmail.com What
is it with like the the split between little kids especially
being super? Maybe my maybe my sample size is
(09:13):
small, but I feel like there's something to be discussed there.
Just like I said, someone smarter than me please chime in
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Anyway, I don't think this was
little girl because like you said, like Petra said, little
girl ghost was sweet and nice etcetera.
Curious, so is there 2 ghosts? And where did this ghost go?
(09:37):
Because it doesn't sound like itever happened again.
It was the only time it happenedand you've never been so scared.
So what the heck? What was it?
Was it a ghost? Was it a ghost?
This is where we get to the point where if there was a
complete 100% skeptic listening,I'm not sure that they're still
listening. However, I love to give both a
(09:58):
skeptical or a mundane explanation as well as a
paranormal 1. And so that's kind of what we're
going to get into here. So I will start just with the
paranormal explanation where, OK, you've already got, you
know, you're already understanding that there's
paranormal activity in the home because like there's a little
girl ghost in the house, right? OK, so clearly there's ghosts
(10:21):
around. Is it that strange to think that
there's a second ghost? Probably not, right, 'cause
like, what is it? Like I don't even want to say
this 'cause I hate them. But it's like if you talk to an
exterminator and you see, you know, they say like if you see
one gross bug, I'm not even going to specify I hate, I hate
(10:44):
bug infestations. It's disgusting.
But anyway, they go like if you see like 1 bad bug, it's not
just one. There's a bunch.
You just can't see them and they're hiding or you know,
they'll come out soon or there'sa ton of them.
So is that kind of what we're dealing with here?
You know, like not to be Ed Warren about it and call it an
infestation because we know Ed Warren, the self-proclaimed
demonologist and self-taught demonologist loves to throw the
(11:07):
word infestation around when it comes to ghosts and demons.
But you know is that is that kind of related?
Like, maybe there were just moreghosts.
And maybe for some reason, this night, maybe this night was the
night that the man died 50 yearsago and this is just the last
thing he did when before he diedwas drag a sack of heavy flour
(11:31):
around. Nothing else.
Nothing else. Nothing weirder than that.
Just flour. I get you not wanting to think
of something scarier. Like, for instance, a body.
Sorry, I did have to say it. A corpse.
Maybe it's not even a corpse. Maybe it's a living person and
something's horrible. OK.
Just there's so many thing. This is the thing.
(11:53):
Your imagination is always worsethan the truth, right?
Or worse than when you don't know something.
You're going to fill in the gapsand they're going to be really
disturbing and scary. Or at least that's how my brain
fills in gaps. I know it's not just me.
I bet if you're listening to this, you probably do the same
thing anyway. You know, maybe that is just the
night that he did that. And every year, you know, or
(12:17):
every five years or, you know, whatever, you know, there's,
there's sure. I think if you already have one
ghost in the house, it's not that much of A stretch to say
there's another ghost. Now.
Why was it doing that? What was that feeling?
You know, just something bad happened in the house.
I would have a lot of more. I would have a lot more
questions. I would want to know if I was
looking at this from a paranormal, if I was a
(12:38):
paranormal investigator, I wouldwant to know, are there any
crimes that happened in the house, like murders, deaths, you
know, anything that you could find?
What's the history of the house?What was there before the house?
And that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm asking if there
was a Native American burial ground on on the land.
OK, we don't have to get that horror movie cliche about it.
(13:00):
But like, was there something else traumatic that happened on
the land? I know, you know, there's the
stone tape theory where, you know, in a nutshell, something
that has happened in real life kind of gets etched into the,
the, the quote UN quote like tape of time and that it just
repeats. And it's not an intelligent
haunting. It's a residual haunting.
(13:21):
So is, you know, is, is that what we're dealing with?
But then I would also have to ask, well, then why hasn't this
ever been experienced before? Why was it never experienced
again? Like what you know, it's just
there's lots of questions. Very scary though, especially
because like when you got to trust your gut right?
Like I will always tell people to trust their gut, although
(13:42):
it's tough because I want to trust my gut, but sometimes my
gut is paranoid or my gut is having, having, having a bit of
an, having a little bit of a panic attack, just a wee bit,
just a wee little panic attack, that's all.
Yeah, that happens sometimes. And so it's hard to trust my
gut. But of course you should trust
(14:03):
your gut. You know, that's just do as I
say, not as I do, but I get it like feeling I cannot do X
because I just feel in my bones that something bad is going to
happen if I do it. I sounds really, really scary
and especially if it, you know, all of this was clearly
happening through the witching hour, 3:00 AM, which I will say,
(14:26):
I feel I feel away about 3:00 AMAnd like anytime, anytime in a
story when someone is saying like, Oh my God, and 3:00 AM, it
was happening at 3:00 AM and that's the witching hour.
And that's when you know, demons, blah, blah, blah.
I've been that. I've been there before.
I have thought that before. I've had to seriously do kind of
(14:46):
like almost exposure therapy with myself alone, not with a
therapist to now. I'm like, and when I wake up and
it's like 3:33 AM, I'm like, nice.
And then I go back to bed because there's not really any,
there's not really any basis for3:00 AM.
It's just kind of word of mouth and also cognitive bias.
(15:10):
And you know, you just when someone says this thing always
happens at 3:00 AM, you know, myquestion is, are you actually
recording this information? Are you gathering all the data
every time you wake up? Are you looking at what time it
is and then writing it down to the spreadsheet?
And then if you are, and then you are still only waking up at
(15:30):
3:00 AM, then though that comes to, OK, I'm getting into the
mundane and skeptical view. My point is, if you're looking
at it from a paranormal point ofview, 3:00 AM spooky time.
Spooky time. So obviously this was happening
during the quote UN quote witching hour because your
husband, Petra's husband didn't come home until 4:00 AM.
(15:50):
And then but of course, of course, like within minutes of
Mr. Petra coming inside the house, all of a sudden it stops
and never happened again. That's so annoying.
Could I just say like, I'm glad it didn't have it again, but
like that's so annoying. Like what do you what are you
(16:11):
talking about? It's almost like when you're
having an IT issue and then IT takes a look at your computer
and then it's not happening anymore and you look crazy and
you look kind of dumb. I mean, you're like, I swear it
was just happening, but now it'snot happening anymore.
Kind of like that. I mean at least he it was
happening when he was there and you could both hear it, but
(16:31):
still like what is that ghost? Oh, now that there's a man in
the house, you're not going to scare the woman that's left
alone. Hmm, don't approve, don't like
it. So that ghost dragging the
flower, the flower dragger ghost.
Not cool, dude, not cool. All right, so now we're moving
(16:55):
on to mundane or skeptical or asI like to also say, naturalistic
explanations. OK, So I was kind of getting
into it with the 3:00 AM spooky hour.
But The thing is, is like there are studies that show that 3:00
AM is kind of really typical time for people to wake up
either because of high cortisol,like REM sleep, etcetera.
(17:18):
I mean, of course, it depends onaround when you go to sleep, but
circadian rhythm just happens tobe that that you're kind of up
at 3:00 AM. Now, that is not what's
happening here. Petra was up.
She was up. She was up at 3:00.
That's not what this is. I just have to address it
because I brought it up. My bad.
That's my bad. Anyway, so little girl ghost,
(17:40):
all right, I don't know. Not knowing, OK, because I don't
know what actually happened withthe little girl ghost.
I don't know any of the experiences that happened around
the little girl ghost. Obviously, it doesn't sound like
it was anything, you know, traumatic even remotely.
But The thing is, the entire family has been primed.
(18:00):
The entire family has been primed to expect there to be a
ghost in the house. So once you expect there to be a
ghost in the house, kind of likewhat I was saying earlier is
like, well, then I don't think it's that big of a stretch for
you to think that there are two ghosts in the house.
If you're already having things happen in the house and you are
(18:21):
assigning a supernatural explanation to them.
Of course, if something happens and you can't explain it, you're
going to be, you know, you're going to be pinning it on the
paranormal. You're going to be pinning it on
a ghost, obviously not the little girl ghost in this case,
but a ghost. So there's that.
First of all, you know, regardless of whether or not the
little girl ghost is actually a ghost, regardless of whether
(18:44):
that is because obviously, listen, if I read your story on
here, I need you to understand. If I read your story, it's
because I feel like you are telling the truth and you have
really experienced something that is unexplainable.
So I am not questioning whether or not there was a little girl
ghost. It actually doesn't matter.
The point is, is that you're primed for there to be a ghost
(19:06):
in the house. So there's that.
However, it doesn't make a dragging sound and heavy
footsteps above you when there'sno attic or crawl space.
It doesn't make that any less terrifying.
And if it were me, of course I would do the same things where
it's like, was it wildlife? Like, what was it?
Was it, you know, there's going to be some mundane explanation,
(19:30):
except, you know, that Petra felt that overwhelming heavy
sense of dread and foreboding and, and, and just fear.
So, you know, is, does that comefrom expecting it to be a ghost
or, you know, what is that? What what is that?
Is that that anxiety? You're also alone.
It's night time, you know, I assume that the house is not
(19:53):
normally empty. So does that maybe play into it?
You know, I know I get really jumpy sometimes, especially when
it's late at night and I'm like,what is that noise?
I don't normally remember hearing that noise.
Maybe I did, Maybe I have heard that noise, but I wasn't paying
attention because I wasn't scared and on high alert
questions. But if it were happening to me,
I think this is kind of the way that I would go.
(20:15):
It's like, first of all, Oh my God, is there someone on the
roof? Like, is there an actual human
being on my roof? Walking back and forth.
And if so, why? And if so, oh God, you know, I
think I would panic and and think about calling 911.
I mean, I think definitely calling someone to be like, do
(20:36):
you hear this? Am I crazy?
I think that makes complete sense.
But I think if it were me, I would really hope that it was
like a rabid raccoon. You know, like, I don't want it
to be rabid. I do.
I, you know, if I could wave a wand and eradicate rabies from
the world right now, you know, Iwould.
But I would hope that it was like an animal that was for some
(20:58):
reason pacing back and forth, although I can't really think of
a reason why that would ever happen.
But barring it being an animal, you know, happening so
consistently back and forth, back and forth and in the
footsteps, I mean, I know rodents of all kinds, you know,
from squirrels to rats to, you know, probably raccoons.
(21:19):
I know they're not rodents, but,you know, wildlife that can get
into your OK. There's not an attic, there's
not a crawl space. But there's something right?
Like in the roof. Like, I mean, I guess I'm trying
to picture a roof scenario in which it just goes roof house.
(21:41):
Is that also? I feel like now I've said roof
now do I say it weird? Do I sound like I'm a dog
barking? Roof, roof, roof, roof, roof.
How do we say madamstrangeways@gmail.com?
Let me know. How do you pronounce roof?
Was I pronouncing it weird? Anyway, there has to be some
space. Even if it's not a crawl space,
there's something up there because like, insulation is
(22:02):
supposed to be up there, right? I guess, I don't know, that's
kind of even scarier. I don't love that, you know, OK,
I'm just, I'm just riffing here.Like, is it like, was there like
a loose roof? Shit, there it is again.
Is it a loose shingle? You know, like, was it a windy
night possibly. Was there a shingle that was
kind of being blown just enough to get the wind under it and
(22:25):
then it's kind of smacking back down on on the roof roof.
Is that maybe that's something or like a branch of a nearby
tree? You know, that's like hitting
the there's I, I feel like there's something there.
I just without me being there and, and being able to replicate
(22:46):
it or, you know, take a look around, you know, we're just
never going to know. We're never going to know
exactly what caused it. But you know, it could be
something like that. But then even even if it was
something like a shingle or a tree branch or honestly
anything, anything mundane, why did it stop shortly after Mr.
(23:08):
Petra came home? That would be my question.
I don't have an answer to that. Maybe.
OK, you know what? If it actually was a human
being, a living human being thatwas actually walking back and
forth with a heavy sack of flouron the roof like a weirdo.
If it actually was a human beingdoing that.
(23:29):
And husband came home and then weirdo on the roof was like, uh
oh, rut row. And then clambers off the roof,
never to be seen or heard from again because he didn't realize
that Miss Petra had a Mr. Petra.You know, maybe that's it.
Maybe that makes the most sense out of all of the options, all
(23:52):
the mundane options. Maybe.
I kind of think I like that the best, although it is almost the
scariest. See, as again, I'll always say
honestly, the living are way scarier than the dead and
they're definitely a lot more dangerous than the dead.
The living can hurt you. The dead I will.
This is the hill I will die on. And when I die on that hill, I
(24:14):
will not be a danger to you because I firmly believe that
the dead cannot hurt you and that there is not a supernatural
force or a paranormal force thatcan actually hurt you.
So that's me. That's my hot take.
That's my paranormal hot take. But you know, living creatures
can, human beings can definitelyand will definitely hurt you.
(24:35):
So spooky, very spooky. So I guess when it comes to
breaking it down, paranormal versus mundane, the paranormal
angle, I mean, I think I, I, I kind of like my pet theory of
like something happened on that night.
It's a residual haunting and he's just repeating his, his
(24:56):
death or something leading up tohis death.
Or it's like, you know, I don't know, it's something dramatic
and hopefully cool and not at all a body or a corpse.
That's just fingers crossed. And then from a mundane or
skeptical standpoint, maybe it was actually a human being
dragging something heavy or justwalking and the dragging, Who
knows? I don't know.
(25:16):
Maybe it was actually a human being and then they skedaddled
as soon as Mr. Patrick came home.
I don't know. Let me know though, if you're
listening and you have thoughts on to how to explain this from
either a paranormal angle or from a naturalistic or mundane
angle. I would love to hear your
thoughts. e-mail them to me at madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
(25:38):
And of course, if you have your own strange story that you want
to hear narrated on the show, e-mail it to me.
You know the e-mail madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
(25:59):
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.
(26:21):
The underworld, obviously, I mean, come on.
Was that not? Was that not clear?
Madam Strange Ways is produced and narrated by me.
Madam Strange Ways theme music is by
marina.ryan@marinamakes.co. Cover art is by Andrea Chisel
Roldan at Cult of Teddy on Instagram.
(26:42):
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.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!