Volume #2 Strange Stories, Unexplained Encounters, Cryptids & the Paranormal

Volume #2 Strange Stories, Unexplained Encounters, Cryptids & the Paranormal 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This episode is brought to you by Audible. Hello, friends,
and welcome to our second compilation of listener stories. We
would like to thank each and every one of you
for sending in your encounters and look forward to more.
If your story didn't make it into this video, don't worry.
We have more listener story compilations on the way. These

(00:23):
stories are raw, unedited, and some are very frightening. They're
being told in first person narrative, just the way they
were sent in. Let's begin, shall we the Summer of Hell.
It was the summer of nineteen ninety six, or better
referred to as the Summer of Hell. I can't help

(00:45):
but to blame myself. After all, I've watched plenty of
horror movies to know all the basic rules, but even
then I ignored the most important one. I was young
and curious, so attracted to anything horror related. I played
with the spirit board by myself. And if that wasn't enough,
I had chanted spells that I found in a spell

(01:06):
book written in another language. Frustrated at what I thought
was a complete fail since nothing had happened, I continued
on with this dangerous combo. A few days had passed
and things began to change. I started hearing strange sounds.
For each night that went by, the evil entity became
more aggressive. Some call it sleep paralysis, but I know

(01:30):
it was an evil force holding me captive. I could
hear the growling in my ear and the voices as
it whispered to me, calling out my name. I was terrified.
I thought so hard to have just enough courage to
open my eyes, and then fear would strike again when
I would witness with my own eyes a hooded shadow
figure by my bed, and shadow figures darting in and

(01:52):
out of the wall while calling my name. It was
getting worse. I can now feel it touching me. It
actually touched my foot. It wouldn't let me sleep, and
it was as if it were getting stronger. I was
so scared, and knowing it was my fault, I didn't
want to tell anyone, especially my father. All my family

(02:13):
had warned me about tampering with spirit boards. I no
longer felt safe in my own home, and every chance
I got, I tried to go somewhere, hoping that this
thing wouldn't follow me. I distinctly remember several occasions where
the evil had followed me. My aunt had asked me
to stay with her and her family during the week
to babysit my little cousins while she worked. I'd fallen asleep,

(02:39):
but something had disturbed in my sleep. I opened my
eyes to the light above me flickering on and off.
Immediately got up, left the bedroom, fell asleep on the
couch for the rest of the night. Another night, I
experienced the same exact thing, but this time, as I
left the room, I heard whispering coming from my cousin's bedroom,
which was located right now the living room. Confused and terrified,

(03:04):
I started to wonder if it was my cousin that
I'd been babysitting, only to find out later that day
he was sleeping with his parents in their room the
entire night. I knew I had to dispose of the board,
and when I did, I heard a voice later that
night say I will come back. Eventually, we moved and
I began feeling safe again. The activity still happens from

(03:27):
time to time. I realized later that this thing wasn't
part of the house. I summoned it and it was
attached to me. I thought I was losing my mind.
To one day, my older cousin had visited. She was
also a believer who'd had her own personal experiences. We
were exchanging stories of strange events, and she distinctly said

(03:49):
she heard a heavy breathing coming from upstairs. We both
looked at each other, and she noticed that my dog
had turned toward the direction of the stairs, and then
she heard it too. She had lived there prior to me,
and stated that she's never heard that during the time
of the residency there. Daniel T I saw a humanoid

(04:15):
something in the woods outside my childhood home. This was
rural northern Wisconsin and I was fourteen. Up until that day,
I had zero fear of the woods. I spent most
of my time out there exploring and feared nothing. My
parents had a lousy marriage and thought a lot, and

(04:36):
I felt more at home outside than in the house.
On hot nights, I'd even take a sleeping bag and
sleep on the roof of an old shack on our property.
Saw bears, I saw wolves. They were always more afraid
of me than me them. I didn't believe in ghosts, bigfoot, demons,
or even God. I only got lost out there once

(04:58):
when dark fell sooner than I'd expected. I stayed calm,
found the north Star, and then if I continued south,
i'd eventually come across the old railroad tracks near my home.
Even the thought of spending the night out there didn't
bother me. The thought of my mom's rage when I
didn't come home did so. It was summer, I just

(05:19):
turned fourteen, my mom had left, my father bothered worked
all the time, sister was living out on her own.
Once school was out, it was me and my cat.
And this is before the internet or smartphones. We lived
on a dead end dirt road and around noon I
took my usual stroll down the long driveway to check

(05:41):
the mail. My cat followed me everywhere, and I actually
kind of relied on him to give me a heads
up if there was a bear or something close by.
A bit of movement behind me as I stood at
the mailbox made me aware there was something across the
road in the trees, but there were pesky deer everywhere.
I heard a loud crash, then like something very loudly

(06:03):
making its way through the brush. It's like every damned
classic horror story. My brain had no capability for the
thought of anything paranormal or spooky. I simply tucked the
mail under my arm and headed into the woods to investigate.
My cat followed close behind. I got about ten yards

(06:25):
in when I noticed what I hadn't noticed before. There
was no noise, nothing. It was a beautiful June day,
and yet there wasn't a single bird singing, no insects,
no leaves rustling. It was absolutely silent. At the same
time I registered the silence, I got that eerie feeling

(06:46):
that something was watching me. I stopped immediately and started
scanning the woods for deer. Hunters know what I'm talking
about when I say you look for the shape of
a deer instead of trying to pinpoint them by color.
And that's when I spotted it, two brown furry legs,
the top of it concealed by tree branches. I went

(07:09):
to side with her leave When my cat hissed. I
looked down and he was completely poofed out with his
back arch looking at the same thing I was. I
looked back up and the legs moved, not like a deer,
like a human. Everything happened at once. After that, I
dropped the mail, picked up the cat by the scruff

(07:30):
of the neck, and ran for it. Whatever was out
there with me was running after us. I've never run
so fast in my life. I tore up the driveway
into the house, locked the door, and grabbed the phone.
I called my next door neighbor, who was the ex
chief of police, and he came over immediately with his pistol.
He checked out the spot I'd been in and found nothing.

(07:52):
I was so hysterical, I was in tears. He stayed
with me until I was able to reach my mom
and have her come and get me. They thought I
was completely high or delusional. I know exactly what I
saw and felt. It was broad daylight. I never felt
safe in those woods again and stopped sleeping outside. Anonymous

(08:17):
shadow person. I don't expect anyone to believe this, and
I don't blame you if you don't. Sometimes I'm not
sure I believe it myself. Regardless, it is one hundred
percent true. I was driving in the woods years ago.
It was a pretty familiar area. To this day, I
can drive to the exact spot it happened. It was

(08:39):
summer and I drive a convertible, so the top was down,
maybe somewhere around two amish. It was a very clear night,
but it had stormed earlier. Not really relevant, just trying
to give as much detail as I can. On the
horizon of the right side of my car, I saw
flashes of amber light in the distance. At first I
thought it was an emergency vehicle, but I know the

(09:01):
area well and there was no road where the lights
were coming from, nothing but woods for miles. In fact,
I almost crashed the car trying to figure out the lights.
There was a tree down in the road from the
storm earlier that I almost hit. I had stopped the
car and turned around. That's a two lane road with
no lights nearby whatsoever, nothing but starlight and my headlights.

(09:25):
As I turned my car around in the middle of
the road, my headlights land on this thing. I guess,
whatever it is, it was eight feet tall at least
at least that's my best guess. It was much taller
than me at six feet. I stopped the car. Why
I did so, I couldn't tell you. I don't know myself,

(09:48):
but I did, and I shut the lights off. And
this thing, it was definitely humanoid and definitely not human,
had some sort of luminescence about it. Its skin glowed
a dull white light. The things started to move toward
the car and was making terrible noises, hoarse moaning noises.
That's the best way I can describe the sound it made.

(10:12):
As it got closer, I could make out its features
now wear glasses. My prescriptions very outdated. I know, bad
idea driving a night like that, But anyway, again, it
was very tall and very very thin. I remember thinking
if it was human, it would have starved to death
long ago. Its arms were out of proportion, as was

(10:34):
its neck. They were abnormally long. Its arms were nearly
to its knees. It had wrinkled, worn, leathery looking skin,
which was the purest white I'd ever seen. The wrinkles
of its skin made it look impossibly old. It folded
over itself and over again. The best way to describe

(10:55):
it would be looking like some kind of combination of maggot,
birch and wet newspaper, like if you cut your finger
and wear a bandage way too long, and you take
the bandage off and the skin it's sickly white and
wrinkled like that. But everywhere the closer it got I
could see more its eyes, or parent lack thereof. They

(11:18):
just looked like large, deep, dark holes. Its mouth was
crooked and way too wide. If it had ears, the
corners of the mouth would be right up to them.
This moaning, limping, shuffling thing came too close for comfort. Finally,
and I'd seen enough. I started my car and took
the Nope train right out of there. I drove ninety

(11:39):
miles an hour all the way home. In hindsight, I
regret leaving. I had the strong impression after the fact
that the thing was injured or sick or even dying.
It did not look well, and whatever it was, I
think perhaps it only wanted hell. In hindsight, I hoped

(11:59):
it had round help or had at least come to
a swift end, as it was obviously suffering. A little
bit of background. This was in southwest Michigan, and myself
I've been employed in the past as a paramilitary contractor,
which means I had plenty of psych evaluations and mandatory
for the job. I'm perfectly saying, except for chronic insomnia,

(12:20):
I absolutely do not do drugs other than cigarettes and
the very occasional beer. Anyway, this is my story. Like
I said, I don't expect you to believe it, but
it is the honest truth. I guess. I really just
want to know what this thing was if anyone has
seen anything similar. Hell, it's been a few years, and
it's one of those stories you tell when the subject

(12:41):
of highestrangers comes up. Anonymous, I came across bigfoot deep
in the forest. I was hiking up in the Cascades
in Oregon. I was in a more remote area of
the range. On the sixth or seventh day on the trail,

(13:03):
the hair on the back of my neck starts standing up.
I chalked it up to being a mountain lion in
the area. But the weird thing was the uneasy feeling
never left. That night is when I heard the howling.
It wasn't wolves or bears or any of the other
animals I'd ever heard. The closest thing I could relate
it to is the noises apes and monkeys make This

(13:25):
persisted for the next few nights. Eventually things started rummaging
through my campsite. Naturally, I assumed it was a bear
or raccoons. But then on the eleventh day I woke
up and my food bag was removed from the trees.
Something could cut the line through. All my food was gone.
I decided to keep pushing. I had four days left

(13:48):
till the end of the trail. I'm familiar with what
I can and can't eat in the area, and I
could always fish for food. The same night the activities occurred,
and on the thirteenth night, something star already throwing rocks
at my tent. For some reason, I lost it. I
screamed in the darkness for whatever it was to leave
me alone, hoping it was just some person woking with

(14:11):
me and maybe they'd scream out sorry, mate or something. Instead,
it grew quiet for the first time in nights. Nothing
could be heard. Then a scream more louder and vicious
than before, cut through the night. Then nothing, complete and
utter silence. Again. Despite it being quiet, I wasn't able

(14:32):
to sleep that night, I just waited. The next day,
I continued my hike, dead tired, just wanting to get
out the hair on the back of my neck. Still
standing before, still quiet, I felt like I was being hunted.
Towards the end of the day, I had sat down
to rest before pushing a few more miles when I

(14:54):
saw it, something tall and large, bigger than any man
animal I had seen, sliding through the forest, not making
a noise. I yelled at it, and it turned to
look at me. I never got a good look at
it through the trees and the brush, and it was dark,
but I knew that whatever it was, it was causing this.

(15:17):
I threw a rock at it and then pulled my knife.
This thing just kept staring at me. I don't know
what kicked in, but I no longer felt scared. I
felt angry, and I ran at the thing. It ran
from me, and I chased it in the woods. It
had long strides and easily outpaced me, but I continued
to chase. After several minutes, I gave up and collapsed

(15:42):
in exhaustion. I rested for a bit before backtracking my
way to my backpack and resting area. I was tired
and made camp there. Another night of silence, so I
woke up the next day and I only had about
ten miles to go until I was out. Exhausted, hungry,
and mentally drained. I made my way out. As I

(16:06):
got closer and closer to the end of the trail,
the typical forest noises return, birds, mice running through the undergrowth.
All these noises slowly returned. I no longer had this
feeling of unease. I got the trails in, sat in
my car and cried. To this day, I still passed

(16:27):
off with someone just looking with me. But the way
that thing moved in the forest, I just don't know.
I told a park ranger about it, and he jokingly
said they have a bunch of bigfoot sightings in the area,
but most likely it was a local falking with me
or my own imagination. I do a lot of long hikes,
but that fifteen days was by far the worst. Signed

(16:50):
In nineteen ninety three or nineteen ninety four, I'm not sure.
I was living in a place in Nashville, Tennessee, small
town called Antioch. I was out walking the dog one day,
or letting the dog do his business out in the
front yard. I could feel something watching me. It was
about three o'clock in the afternoon, and everybody around there

(17:12):
was at work except for me. But I could just
feel something watching me. I started looking at the woods
down in the woods directly in front of me, and
I couldn't see anything, but I could hear the leaves
rustling in the trees, So I started looking up towards
the tops of the trees, and I had very good
eyesight at the time. I didn't do drugs. I didn't drink.

(17:34):
But I saw something crouch down in the tops of
the trees the only way I could describe it. And
I don't even know if the movie had come out yet,
so I don't know anything about it. But the movie
Predator where they saw the invisible creature, you could see
the outline and everything, but you could see right through it.
And it was sitting up in the very tops of

(17:56):
the trees where it wouldn't hold the weight of a
man by any means. Now, this thing was as big
as a man. I just stood there looking at it,
and then I let go of the leash and I
took off a dead run, and I yelled, hey, took
off towards this thing, and it started running across the
tops of the trees. It ran the length of a

(18:17):
football field in just no time. I mean, it was
really fast. I don't know how it was running across
the tops of the trees, but I know what I saw.
After I thought about it, I thought, what in the
world are you doing chasing this thing? I stopped, and
it stopped about the length of a football field away

(18:37):
from where it started, and it turned around and looked
at me again, and then it took through the woods,
through the tops of the trees, out into the woods,
and I didn't see it again. It scared the hell
out of me, I know that, and I never ever
told anybody about it because I thought people would think
I was crazy as a loon. Greg Early one morning,

(19:07):
between two am and three AM, my dogs woke me.
I let them outside, and they took off, running across
the patio down the slope behind my house. Normally they
just walked out. At that moment, the bending and swaying
of two seven foot blue spruce trees thirty feet away
from me caught my attension. I could see movement and

(19:28):
an outlined creature jumping on to the top of one tree.
It didn't climb, it jumped from ground level to the
top of the tree. I saw the movement and then
the top of the tree bend and it jumped onto
the next tree about three feet away. Both trees bent
over with the weight. There was no wind, and the

(19:50):
tops of the trees bent and swished as if something
heavy had jumped on them. I saw the outline of
a creature that was transparent but ate or monkey like,
jumped from one tree to the next. I could see
the tree through it, but the outline of the creature
was white and sharply defined. My impression was at around

(20:10):
five or six feet tall. The landscape lighting gave me
a clear view of the trees. As I stared out
at the patio door. The top of the patio cover
over my head, which is constructed of wood beams and wood,
started sounding as something heavy was on top walking. The
trees were now standing straight as normal. I didn't see

(20:32):
it leave the trees, but I had the impression that
there might have been two of them. I didn't feel threatened,
but I definitely wanted to close and lock the door.
I called the dogs, take goodness, they were already almost
to the door, and then closed it. My dogs usually
go out in the morning and have for years. This

(20:52):
was the one and only time anything like this had happened. Anonymous.
It all started on the last week of December in
twenty twelve. My mother and I were relaxing after work
watching TV when out of the corner of my eye,
I noticed movement in our hallway. When I turned to look,

(21:14):
I noticed two shadowy like figures that appeared on our
hallway wall. In disbelief of what I was saying, I
turned my head over towards my mother, and right as
I did, she made eye contact with me and simply said,
you see them, don't you. I said yes. She told
me not to acknowledge them because they are entities that

(21:35):
consense fear. But in disbelief, I looked back over the
hallway wall and they were gone. A few days had
gone by, and my mother told me she felt a
sense of dread and said someone in our family's going
to pass away before the end of the year. Well,
on New Year's Eve twenty twelve, my mother and I

(21:57):
celebrated at home. We watched them, we tron and had
a pizza delivered to ring in the new year. I've
always been a real mama's boy, so this was an
ideal way for me to spend my New Year's Eve.
Around eleven pm that night, we saw the two figures again.
This time we both experienced an overwhelming quietness and sense

(22:18):
of urgency and dread. We both did our best ignored
and eventually the shadowy figures And since this went away,
we discussed the experience and again my mother told me
to never acknowledge them, and before I could press her
for more details, my mother started telling me how much
I meant to her, and that I would go on
to do great things in my life. She loved me,

(22:39):
et cetera. She then got up and walked towards the kitchen,
turned around and said I love you, then fell to
the ground. I had previous EMT training and am certified
in CPR, so I dialed nine to one one and
explained to them my mother is in cardiac arrest and
I needed medical assistance asap. I was doing CPR on

(23:01):
my mother for nearly twenty minutes, and for anyone who's
ever done CPR, it's not easy. The MTS arrived at
eleven thirty eight pm and my mother was taken to
the emergency room. By this time, our neighbor and friend, Bonnie,
had rushed over to my house and drove me to
the hospital. When I checked in at the front desk,
I was taken to a small private room and the

(23:23):
physician told me that my mother had passed away. The
autopsy showed my mother suffered from a fatal heart attack
and her time of death was eleven fifty nine PM
on December thirty first, twenty twelve. When I was taken
in to see her one last time, her lips were blue.
She was cool to the touch, but she was still

(23:44):
my mom, so I just hugged her and couldn't let
go for nearly thirty minutes. Thankfully, my neighbor Bonnie was
there and gave me plenty of support and encouragement to leave,
as my mother would want me to stay strong. Fast
forward about six months after my mother died, I wit
my job and had become a recluse. I would only
leave my house to purchase groceries. I quickly realized how

(24:07):
severely depressed I was and decided it was time to
get away. I ended up traveling to Joshua Tree National
Park and decided it would be my getaway to find
some peace and closure. I notified my neighbor body not
to worry that I'm just going on a day's hike
and would be back by midnight. When I arrived at
Joshua Tree, I parked my jeep and entered the Lost

(24:28):
Palms Oasis trail. After a few hours of walking and hiking,
I stopped to take a break and eat. As I
finished up and looked around, nothing looked familiar, and I
in fact was not on any trail. I was not
too worried and felt confident I would find my way back.
But as I made my way through the desert landscape

(24:50):
that I did not recall ever passing, I started feeling
like I was being watched. I started to panic. Then
I started hearing strange growling noises, but could not determine
from what direction they were coming from. It almost seemed
like they were all around me. So I stood in
one spot and made a three hundred and sixty degree rotation.

(25:12):
As I came to stop, I saw something transparent, no
defining shape, just to blur directly in front of me
that was coming closer and closer to where I was standing.
I quickly turned around and started walking faster and faster
in the opposite direction, and then experienced the same overwhelming
quietness and sense of urgency and dread I had experienced
with my mother just six months prior. Then, all of

(25:33):
a sudden, almost like a snap of a finger, daytime
turned into night. I wasn't sure what was going on,
but knew something wasn't right. After walking around in the dark,
I found myself by a large rock about as big
as a large suv and felt safest there. I put
my back against the rock this way, I felt nothing
would sneak up behind me. I used the night to

(25:54):
hydrate and eat some snacks I brought. I remember trying
to make sense out of what I was experiencing, but
knew that my mother and I had already experienced something
within our own home, but at least when I was home,
I felt safe. Here, I was vulnerable and alone. As
I tried to rest that night, I started seeing a
number of shadowy entities walking around in the desert, almost

(26:16):
as if they were wandering around aimlessly. It freaked me out,
and the more I acknowledged them, the closer they got
to me. At one time during the night, I remember
feeling something breathing down my neck. Remember my back was
against a huge rock. I just closed my eyes and
did my best to keep them shut. The last thing
I remember about that night was opening my eyes and

(26:38):
seeing three shadowy figures, one at each side and one
directly in front of me. Then once again, in a snap,
it was morning. I would experience the same weirdness for
two more days until the last day. On the last
day of me roaming around Joshua Tree, I hadn't had
any food or water since the initial first night, I
was scared and dehydrated. I came upon another large rock

(27:02):
and remembered in my EMT training that digging a hole
near a rock in the desert will keep you cool
and less likely to get severe sunburn. I did just
that and thought to myself, I'm literally digging my own grave.
By the time I laid down in the two foot
arch hole I had made and covered my chest and
legs up of dirt, I blacked out. I don't remember
anything for the rest of that day or night. The

(27:25):
next morning, I was woken by an off duty search
and rescue employee who was literally making me choke on water.
I remember him saying, there are a whole lot of
people out looking for you, buddy. I was picked up
by helicopter and taken a regional medical center in Palm Springs, California.
In the days during my recovery, I saw two detectives,
a number of psychiatrists, and my neighbor Bonnie, who was

(27:48):
there at the hospital by my side one hundred percent away.
The detectives wanted to close the missing person's report my
neighbor Bonnie made the second day I was missing, but
they asked me strange questions like was I using a
flare gun in the area? No? And why had I
purchased a large amount of camping gear and survival materials
prior to my hike. I'm going for a hike. Strange

(28:10):
questions to ask someone, or maybe it's just me. The
physician stated he thought I was planning to kill myself
due to the loss of my mother, but honestly, that
never crossed my mind. The psychiatrist told me I didn't
experience anything but hallucinations due to lack of food and
water and effects of dehydration. My neighbor, Bonnie overheard my
story and later confided in me that she too experienced

(28:33):
similar shadowy figures when she hiked in Joshua Tree. When
I arrived back home, she used sage and other New
Age methods to rid my house of whatever darkness was there. However,
it continued all the way up until I moved to
Tennessee in twenty fourteen. By far, the most aggressive was
the transparent entities that were in Joshua Tree. I felt

(28:54):
like everything was about to end when I encountered them.
I've always wondered if my mother experienced more than what
happened that night. I'm not sure what the hell happened
those few days in Joshua Tree National Park, but from
what I can remember, during the moments when daytime would
turn into night and snap, I felt like I was
falling down or being suspended in mid air before completely

(29:16):
realizing what was going on. I also remember a strong
urge to go to Joshua Tree. I would think about
going all the time, and when I finally went, almost
felt like I was being called there by something. My
sister often talks about my first week living in Tennessee.
She said that she felt like a demon was attached
to me. One night as I slept on her couch.

(29:38):
I woke up with her putting holy water on my
head and saying a prayer over me. But I don't
believe in all that I used to. But nowadays I
have an easier time believing in alien abductions and portals
rather than being followed around by a demon. But then again,
who knows. Right. Finally, I can tell you, with one
hundred percent honesty, I experienced all the I can't explain

(30:02):
what it or what they were, but I can tell
you I feel like my life was spared for some
strange reason. Perhaps I didn't meet the requirements for whatever
it is they need. Looking back now, I would never
have gone hiking alone. But again I remember this irresistible
urge to go to Joshua Tree and would frequently feel

(30:24):
like I was being called there. Well, there you have it,
our second batch of listener stories. We hope that you've
enjoyed these true stories from some of the folks that
tune into the Missing Persons and Mysteries Channel, and look
forward to bringing you more volumes in this series in
the near future. We invite you to send your stories

(30:45):
for inclusion in future videos, and you may remain anonymous
if you wish, feel free to email your stories too
Disappearance of at gmail dot com. Thanks again for listening,
and please be sure to give us a lie called
video and to share and subscribe for more strange stories. Likewise,
if you enjoy true tales of the supernatural, the occult,

(31:07):
and the paranormal, I invite you to visit my channel
thirteen past midnight. There's a link in the description. Meanwhile,
be good to yourselves and one another. I'm Steve Stockton
and I'll talk to you next time. For those of

(31:29):
you who love mysteries, I suggest signing up for audible.
Audible is offering our subscribers one free audiobook, two free
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(31:50):
After you sign up, go check out some of my
favorite audio books. Unacknowledged an expose of the world's greatest
secret Stephen Greer, MD, Hunt for the skin Walker, Science
confronts the unexplained at a remote ranch in Utah by
Colm kelliher PhD. Inside the Black Vault, The Government's UFO

(32:16):
secrets revealed by John Greenwald Jr. By signing up, you
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sign up. Thank you,