[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Odd Trails contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com. Enjoy the show!

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_00]: This event occurred 12 years ago and was perhaps the scariest moment of my life.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: For about a month or so, there were constant noisy helicopters with search lights flying over our house.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: This was so noticeable that the search lights would literally illuminate the whole house at night and cause the leaves to stir.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I asked my boyfriend what gives and he told me that since we lived in a bad area that there was probably just a criminal loose that they were searching for.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I have pretty bad insomnia and usually stay awake in bed for hours. My boyfriend, an alcoholic at the time, was out cold after a night of heavy drinking.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I heard the back door to the laundry room slam open and shut. My entire body froze with fear as my mind immediately jumped to the thought of an intruder coming to harm us.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I quietly looked up and what I saw was not human. This looked like what I now know to be a grey alien. It was tall and had hard grey looking skin.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_00]: It was naked but didn't appear to have any genitalia to speak of. It was frantically moving about as if searching for something.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Since the bedroom and laundry room were connected, I could see it opening the cabinets above the washer.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Then it began throwing the towels over its shoulders, removing every last one.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I quietly covered my whole body under the covers and tried to silence my breathing.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_00]: All of a sudden, the search lights once again illuminated the dark room and I could hear it blaring from above.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I heard shuffling and the door slammed shut once again.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't get out of bed after I heard this. I was frozen in fear. I stayed awake under the covers until daylight.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Once my boyfriend was awake, I told him what happened and he believed me.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't wake him up because I knew he would confront the alien and I didn't want to risk our safety.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_00]: We went over to the laundry area and sure enough, the back door was cracked open, the cabinets were still open,

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and the floor was littered with the towels.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't hear anything of it or see the alien again after this but it has stuck with me all this time later.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I think about it nearly every day and it confirmed my suspicions that we are not alone.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I have come up with one theory. In one of the surrounding towns there's an air force base.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps they had captured an alien and held it captive there for some reason.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the alien escaped and came into my room, digging through the cabinets, searching for human clothes to disguise itself as one of us until it could find a way back to its home.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps once it realized there were only towels in our cabinet and the helicopter was approaching, it bailed.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It seemed so frantic, I'm sure it was scared.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that it found its way back to where it came from and no humans harmed it.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I have always been a horror aficionado with a wild imagination, even as a kid.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So I know that this could be what caused night terrors to occur more frequently for me.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: As a child, starting from when I was about 9 years old, I remember vivid moments when I would be frozen in my bed while hearing loud ringing in my ear.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd also hear whispers getting louder and louder to the point of becoming indistinguishable gibberish.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_01]: The more that it happened, the more I panicked.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I always panicked because there was no way for me to move, let alone get in a deep breath.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I also noticed that the more I tried to move, the more it felt like there were ropes tied around me holding me down to the bed.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Getting tighter and tighter, situations like this occurred before I ever knew about sleep paralysis.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Netflix has a movie called Nightmare that explains this phenomenon in much more detail.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I had no clue that it was normal for others to experience this as well.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The best way I could explain it is, it's almost as if you don't remember falling asleep, your mind drifts off from being very sleepy to being extremely lucid and terrified at the fact that something feels wrong, then you can't move your body.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You can only move your eyes.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And the more you try to fight the sleep paralysis, the more panic sets in.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I believe this panic is what causes us to conjure these dark thoughts, which then manifest dark figures.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it could be aliens, demons or whatnot.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_01]: While in high school, this became a frequent occurrence.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I began to think that I was being possessed or someone was trying to contact me.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember feeling paralyzed and seeing a tombstone appear near the foot of my bed as I was trying to sleep.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd also wake up with bruises from where I felt tightness from trying to move.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: There were even moments when I saw my mother open my bedroom door.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I would try to scream for help when I eventually woke up.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd go to my parents and I'd be angry with them for not helping me.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: They would say that they never came into my room and that I had been quietly sleeping the whole time.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I noticed this would only occur when I was extremely exhausted from the day and I just wanted to crash.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: The more tired I was, the easier it would be for me to fall asleep, which made these paralysis moments come on even faster.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Fast forward to when I was 23.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I had just begun dating my now wife and we decided to go away for a weekend in Philadelphia.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: We decided to stay in Old City, Philly, in a hotel that seemed ancient but it was clean and nice.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It felt like there was a lot of history there since the building had been standing since the 1700s.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: We eventually got tired after exploring the town and drinking all day.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Once we decided to go to bed, and this is important to note, I was on the left side of the bed and my wife was on the right.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_01]: There was a simple arm wire that was empty in the top portion with an old TV system in it.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, the doors needed to be open to see the TV and the bottom has drawers for clothes.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I have also been somewhat of an arcoleptic so I tend to fall asleep into a deep sleep in a matter of minutes.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: We went to bed without watching TV so the arm wire doors were closed.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I recall closing my eyes and lying in bed then waking up and swapped places.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I was suddenly on the right side and she was on the left.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Another important detail of the hotel room is that the entrance door to our room was closer to the left side of the bed which is why I chose to sleep there.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: When I woke up on the right side of the bed, what I saw still gives me goosebumps to this day.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I opened my eyes and immediately I knew I was in one of my sleep paralysis dreams because the arm wire was now open and the TV was playing old reruns of The Simpsons and all of the lights were off.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: My wife is usually very scared of old places and tends to feel a bad presence or bad energy while I on the other hand purposely go to the old places to spook myself.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just say I got what I was asking for.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_01]: As I looked around the room, I began to see our doorknob wiggling as if somebody were trying to get in.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I began to panic.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew this was a dream but it was hard to calm my mind and snap out of it so I closed my eyes and I began to pray.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But then came the noisy chatter in my head.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I opened my eyes hoping that it was over but then I saw that the door was opened slightly but the chain was still holding it closed.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I began to see a dark shadow of a hand with claws trying to get its way in to unlock the chain.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_01]: My panic began to rise further making me want to throw up.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Once again I closed my eyes and I started to try and kick my body awake.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This has worked countless times before.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: When I opened my eyes once more, the shadow figure was in our room staring right at me.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It was the figure of a woman with long hair but the only detail of her face was their light white eyes.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I closed my eyes.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Once I opened them again, the figure was standing right next to my wife who was sound asleep.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_01]: The figure slowly inched over toward me as she was whispering my wife's name.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: That was about all my horror fanatic self could take.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I was able to force my muscles to contract as much as I could and explosively jolt up.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: This startled my wife since I was sitting upright screaming and sweating.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_01]: The light was still on in our room and my wife tried to calm me down.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_01]: At this point I was on the left side of the bed where she was.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't tell her what I saw but I told her that there was no way in hell I was going back to sleep.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I checked the doors and everything was locked.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_01]: The armour was closed, the TV was off and nothing was out of the ordinary.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Usually when I have these episodes there's nothing changed around in the room

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: so this was the first time that things were completely switched.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It was the only time I experienced an episode like this.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: When I was 10 years old, my dad moved our family to Camden, South Carolina.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_00]: We moved into a medium sized house with a lot of trees in the yard.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00]: To get to the house you would go down this long dirt road that wrapped around to the back of the house

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_00]: and led back to the road.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: It was about a mile long.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Behind her house there was an abandoned house with its own dirt road that led to a creek with crayfish.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: At night I swear there was a light in that house that looked like a candlelight or a lantern.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I could also see a lady with an old time puffy dress and a checkered apron.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: She had straight red hair and always seemed like she was busy cooking.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But no one lived in the house.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_00]: It looked like it had been abandoned for years.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The roof was caving in and so were the floors.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_00]: The crazy part is this never scared me.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_00]: What has terrified me still to this day and makes me scared to look into mirrors at night is this.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: One night my middle brother and I were doing what any siblings do.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: We were in our room at bedtime but decided it was a good time to get into an argument.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember what it was about but I guess it was bad enough that our parents made my brother go into their room to sleep with them leaving me by myself.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: There was a door that connected our rooms that we always kept open but they made me shut it and cut off all my lights even my night light.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Now it was pitch black in that room and there was no kind of light in the back of our house to illuminate the room.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I just laid there until I fell asleep but sometime in the middle of the night I woke up for no reason.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have to use the restroom and I couldn't tell what time it was because I didn't have a clock.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I was lying on my right side facing the window then I turned onto my left side because I hated looking out the back of my house.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I was always scared something would be looking in.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And there in the dresser mirror was this figure.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It had a black hood on and its face was solid white.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Where the eyes were supposed to be there were black holes.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Its mouth was stretched out like it was screaming at me.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_00]: The thing is it looked like it was upside down.

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing I remember is being so terrified but I couldn't run, talk or do anything.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing I managed to do was pull the covers over my head so it couldn't see me.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I felt like if I moved or tried running it was going to grab me and pull me into the mirror.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I think I eventually blacked out or passed out from the fear.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I told my mom the next day I had seen death in my mirror.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_00]: She said I must have been dreaming but thinking about the look on her face now that I'm older

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I know she believed it was something because later in life I would find out my mom was like me

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: able to see things.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it was really death because I was a child

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and we were always told that's what death looked like.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But anytime I tell people this story I will always say

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_00]: let me tell you about the time I saw death in my mirror.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_00]: After that night I covered the mirror with a blanket

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00]: and refused to sleep with the lights off.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_00]: We eventually moved.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I have many more stories to tell but that experience has stuck with me through all these years

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and at the age of 36 it is the reason why I refused to walk into a dark room with the mirror

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_00]: without turning the light on first.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_01]: One day I was hanging out with my best friends who we'll call Daniel and Stuart.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: We were messing around while walking through a national forest.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't too far from my house.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We were planning on going cliff diving at a secluded waterfall.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_01]: There was an older trail that I like to take to the waterfall

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_01]: but it was narrow and taking the wrong step could result in a 15 meter drop off of the side of the cliff.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So five minutes into our walk we decided to stay on the main designated road.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: We should have known not to do this but we just didn't want to take the old trail.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: We continued our walk on the main road and it wasn't long before we came upon an abandoned cabin

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_01]: not even a mile from my home.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01]: We decided to settle in there since this place had a great vantage point of the hill and the cliff.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_01]: The sun was beginning to set as we heard animal calls far off in the distance.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: We brushed it off his coyotes or maybe prairie wolves since they were native to the area.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Daniel decided that he wanted to start a fire so we set a fire in an old tire

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_01]: as we made jokes and laughed about middle school drama.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course we mixed a little role playing into just like nerds.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: That's when we heard it.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_01]: A blood curdling scream.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It was quiet so it seemed very distant.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Now if you know the basics of skinwalkers then you know that the quieter the scream the closer they are.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I looked at my friends who didn't react.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought perhaps they didn't hear it or they were following an old rule that has been passed around in the area where we lived.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: If you see it, no you don't.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_01]: If you hear it, no you don't.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Another piece of advice passed around was to never look in the trees.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I broke all of these rules that night and in doing so I heard the sound of sticks cracking in the clearing.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Then we all heard its heavy footsteps on the fallen leaves and sticks.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_01]: That's when we all began freaking out.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: We were in quite a pickle because there was only one way to get away and that went straight to my house.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_01]: We were about to run when Stuart looked in the trees and there it was, a tall shadowy creature.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I froze and I stared at whatever that large figure was.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I was staring at its feet as my friends were frantically gathering our things.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Stuart swore that he saw these shining things.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Out of the three of us I was the only one who played sports, specifically speaking.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I ran track and played the traditional version of La Crosse.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I quickly pushed my friends out onto the trail.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Then I purposely ran slower since my cocky teenage self assumed that the creature would target me and then I would outrun it.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01]: We took off but it didn't chase us.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It just stayed in place, watching us as we ran.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Needless to say we did not go back into the woods for quite a while after that.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So to whoever or whatever that shadow or skin walking creature was let's not meet.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I work night shifts at the maternity ward at a hospital in England.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I have always been sensitive to spirits since I was young and had seen shadow figures before on multiple occasions,

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_00]: usually when I was extremely tired or during sleep paralysis.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Since starting my job I was told many stories by many people about experiences they or others had

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_00]: when they went into a certain bay of beds on the ward called G Bay.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I was told windows would open and slam shut sometimes.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: The birthing balls would roll around the room all at the same time when no one else would be in the bay.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_00]: The temperature would sometimes be extremely cold in there at any time of the year.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: As we have babies on our ward it is usually very hot so they don't get cold, meaning this was very unusual.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: We even have a midwife who was a practicing medium who said there was a bad negative energy in there.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I never liked going into G Bay at night as it was usually the quietest bay and was also the darkest.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: The most active spot in the bay was the first bed on the left as you walked in.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: The hospital I work in is situated in the center of town and the data and signal connection is always really good.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_00]: However, whenever I or anyone I would work with stepped into G1 our connection and wifi would completely drop.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Patients staying in G1's bed space would usually mention the lack of connection and even ask to move.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I would go into G Bay I'd always get an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00]: My chest would feel tight and sometimes I would feel dizzy so I never liked going in there.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_00]: My first experience in G Bay I witnessed actually happened to a patient.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_00]: She was staying in G1 and had rung her call bell.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_00]: My ward has four six bedded bays and is shaped like an L.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_00]: G is situated at the farthest point from the entrance of the ward and is quite isolated compared to the other bays.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I went to answer the call bell and the patient was clearly upset and looked frightened.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I asked her what was wrong and she was certain someone was in the bay with her walking around as she could hear footsteps and equipment moving.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_00]: She refused to sleep in there alone and had to be moved to a different bay.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00]: When I was cleaning and making up the bed space after she had left I felt extremely uneasy and on edge.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't bring enough linen down with me so I went to grab another pillowcase.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_00]: When I walked back in I saw a tall completely black figure in the corner of the bed space by the light.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It must have been eight feet tall and had no features other than a seemingly male silhouette.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly I rationalized it and thought I was just seeing things at night, maybe even sleep deprived.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Following this incident I would often see the same figure on the ward during my night shifts or have other experiences.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I would be sitting at the front desk on my phone and see someone walk past or down the corridor but I would look up and see no one.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_00]: One of my shifts I was clearing a different bed space in G bay after the patient had left, meaning it was empty.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I felt something grab my ponytail and then hit it with so much force it flicked up into the air.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_00]: This really scared me and made me dread having to go into the bay even more.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: My worst experience still feels like yesterday and it was the thing to really convince me and stop rationalizing the experiences like I had been.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It was another night shift and it was a fairly quiet one.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have many patients on the ward and I felt really tired that night.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_00]: In the past I have always been more susceptible to spirits and energies when I was tired.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I had come back from my break at around 4.30 am and needed to pee.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_00]: The staff toilet is right by G bay on the ward and the call bell would always go off in there when no one would be around or in the toilet.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: At night we turn the lights off on the ward as patients are sleeping and hospital lighting is super bright.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_00]: There was no one in G bay that night so it was pitch black in there too.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Normally a night light is kept on in that far corridor because if not it is complete darkness and nothingness.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_00]: However this night shift there was no light on the corridor other than the staff toilets light illuminating it.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I went to pee and everything was normal.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't feel uneasy or any dread but out of habit when I'd finished I switched the light off when leaving.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_00]: This shocked me as I was left in complete darkness.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00]: As I didn't feel uneasy I carried on in the darkness and turned right exiting the toilet and making my way up back the corridor.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: As I turned to walk back up the corridor I saw a figure coming towards me and I thought it was a person so I jumped back and apologized to them for nearly bumping into them.

[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_00]: That's when the figure disappeared and the feeling of dread consumed me.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I suddenly felt sick and my head had alarm bells ringing and was screaming at me to go, go, go.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I quickly made my way back up the corridor.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_00]: That's when I felt a cold icy breath on the back of my neck that gave me full body chills followed by booming footsteps that sounded like they were just behind me.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I made it around the corner and back into the well lit area of the ward and looked behind me and it was gone.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I've never had a negative experience like this before.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: My other experiences with spirits have been positive and comforting but this felt dark and maybe even evil.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen it since and I really hope I don't see it again.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: In the heart of a dense forest concealed beneath the towering canopy of ancient redwoods lies a forgotten nature reserve once owned by Native Americans and cherished as a place of mystic reverence.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_01]: It had since fallen into obscurity.

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a place where a sense of eeriness permeated the air providing a feeling that always tingled at the edges of consciousness and on one fateful night that unsettling sensation would emerge from the shadows and confront reality.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a moonless night when I ventured into that nature reserve with my boyfriend.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Upon arriving the memories of childhood campfires and whispered tales came rushing back instantly filling me with a mixture of nostalgia and trepidation.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The redwoods loomed tall and imposing their dark silhouettes creating an otherworldly backdrop in the midst of the grove stood a structure that was once a hub of education and laughter now abandoned and forgotten due to the cruel passage of time.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: The man who had presided over the nature reserve and campsite had always been enigmatic.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_01]: He was a man whose peculiar demeanor had caused friction with the surrounding communities.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_01]: After the camp's demise he vanished leaving only a void of uncertainty and a lack of explanation in his wake.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yet his presence seemed to linger like a shiver down the spine of the forest.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01]: As we ventured deeper into the grove a chill suddenly overtook the air as if the very soul of the forest had turned cold.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The structure I mentioned before was in the distance and boarded up.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It should have been lifeless and dark but a light flickered to life in its doorway acting as a mysterious beacon cutting through the inky blackness.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01]: My heart raced as a shadowy figure materialized in the illuminated frame.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01]: The impossibility of it all held me in a vice grip.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_01]: This structure had been devoid of power for years and nature had reclaimed its insides.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_01]: The figure turned, its features shrouded in darkness and then let out this blood curdling shriek that split through the silence and echoed through the woods.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_01]: My boyfriend and I exchanged horrified glances confirming that we both bore witness to this macabre spectacle.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Abruptly the light vanished plunging the scene back into obscurity but not before a burst of sinister laughter emanated from the depths of the trees behind us.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We spun around hearts pounding only to hear the frenzied patter of footsteps growing louder and closer.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Panic surged as we realized we were not alone.

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Was this the specter of the child who had vanished from the camp a lost soul to the enigmatic woods?

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Fear lent us wings as we sprinted back up the dimly lit path each step carrying us away from the malevolent unknown that lurked in the forest's heart.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_01]: The night seemed to conspire against us the very trees whispering their ancient secrets to us as we fled their grasp.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Years have passed since that nightmarish encounter.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_01]: The nature reserve remains a realm of terror in my memories.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The figure in the doorway, the harbinger of the inexplicable has etched itself into my consciousness.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_01]: The forest's secrets remain hidden, its shadows unyielding.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The memory of that night serves as a warning that some mysteries are best left undisturbed.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The callous laughter that chased us through the woods still reverberates in my nightmares.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a reminder that in the heart of the darkness ancient fears awaken and those who wander too deep may never find their way back.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_01]: To the shadowy figure in the doorway in the middle of the woods, let's not meet.

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get started I have some bad news that ends with very good news.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_00]: You know how we thought people just stopped sending in stories about a month or so ago?

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And we've been freaking out thinking we're just gonna have to end this show because we don't have any more stories.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Alright, I was just gonna ask you about this because I went to the spreadsheet and I was like, where did all these stories come from?

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, funny thing.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_00]: On Monday morning, the release of episode 100, I woke up at like 4 a.m. with the sudden realization that,

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_00]: holy crap, something is wrong with the email forwarding.

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_00]: People are emailing us, we're just not getting them.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So I got out of bed super early, logged into our dashboard and I checked and it turns out our email account somehow became sentient.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It stopped forwarding the stories to our Gmail account and we have an actual stories at oddtrails.com domain where all the emails have been going.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't used to have that.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_00]: It became sentient, it was just forwarding and then it stopped forwarding.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_00]: But now it's a real email with its own security, SSL, all of that.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so weird, so long story short, it gets even better after going through all of the spam deleting stories that we obviously couldn't use,

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_00]: we are left with exactly 100 new stories.

[00:32:44] What?

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, they're freaking out because I was so scared because I was like this is the end of the show.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_01]: How are we not getting a single submission?

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Have people just told us all of their stories and there's nothing left out there?

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so stoked.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because the listenership has gone up consistently yet the story is just abruptly stopped.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting kind of scared about let's not meet because stories are getting very light.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a Gmail.

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe the same thing will happen, maybe we'll just get a burst of let's not meet stories.

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So by all means, everybody keep sending in your stories.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_01]: This is great.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_01]: We now have content and if you have any let's not meet stories, send those in.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Stop holding onto your stories.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Stop second guessing yourself.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Just send it in.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We love it.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And that also serves as an apology.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_00]: We weren't ignoring you, I promise.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we're going through all of them now.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It is painstaking but we appreciate it.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, speaking of let's not meet, I noticed that two of your stories this week ended with the line let's not meet,

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_00]: which is really like saying on the show too.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my stories this week were actually all submissions sent from listeners of my other podcast, let's not meet.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_01]: When they're towing the supernatural line, I like to move them over here to odd trails where they really belong.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_01]: The stories that don't end up on let's not meet are either supernatural or they're just too R rated.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we don't really go there with odd trails either.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_00]: We actually recently received an email titled sex with a demon.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sorry, but no.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll admit though I'd be tempted to read it if it while I read it,

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but I'd be tempted to feature it if it were called 50 shades of great alien.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think we have a good PG 13 balance where not really R rated kind of people at least not in public.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Plus I like that listeners can really enjoy the show with their kids.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Same I'd say PG 13 is a pretty fair rating for the show.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like we've asked each other every question imaginable by now.

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So at the risk of repeating ourselves yet again, I'm assuming R rated movies weren't really a thing for you growing up.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you already know how strict my childhood was PG 13 was the limit.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_01]: We watched plenty of Indiana Jones.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's good.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_00]: You can thank Spielberg for the PG 13 rating being a thing.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_00]: It was so funny watching my mom freak out when Beetlejuice said the F word because it's a PG movie.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, she reacted.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You would think I personally lit a cigarette in the kitchen or something.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_00]: She freaked out and got mad at me for it.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Made no sense.

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I could always watch them at my cousins or friends houses but never at home.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: The first R rated movie my dad ever let me rent was Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I was probably already 13 at that point.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Nice. Love me some Christina Ricci.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Johnny Depp school too.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was really Tim Burton's final farewell before shifting into his 2000s phase of family entertainment with all the remakes and stuff.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_00]: What was your R rated experience growing up?

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I actually remember my first time ever hearing the F word when I was about seven.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I went over to my neighbor friend's house.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_00]: His mom was drinking gin at like 10 a.m. and watching set it off with Queen Latifah.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I just knew in my bones that the characters were saying all of those mysterious bad words I'd been warned about for so long.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting deja vu. We've probably talked about this already.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's got to be expected at this point over 100 episodes down and we've only lived a short time on this earth.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Plus we talk movies nonstop even when we aren't recording.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so did you ever have that friend who was just way too into swimming?

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you go to a pool party and he'd always be the one swimming laps and diving like he was in some kind of competition or something.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I knew where you were getting with that and my trauma is already starting to come up.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I went to Courtney Miller's house back in the fifth grade because she invited me over to her birthday party.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I was all excited to gift her a Backstreet Boys t-shirt and make her my girlfriend,

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_00]: but this, keeping it PG-13, this A-hole named Steven Graham shows up with a huge teddy bear that she liked even more, but it gets better.

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Steven takes out a bunch of pool rings from his bag and basically puts on a show for us.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_00]: What?

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he threw like five of those rings into the deep end and showed off how brave he was and how long he could hold his breath underwater.

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And Courtney, of course, was mesmerized and I'm totally fine and I hope they're doing well.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_01]: That's wild.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Steven Graham, what a little jerk.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that you name-drop too.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That's great.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I was never really good at diving and honestly it scares me.

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's diving from a regular old diving board, but I would never think about cliff diving like in the story figure in the woods.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, not a chance.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like skydiving risk versus reward.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Our author and their friends were a brave bunch in that story about the skinwalker.

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Being that this is a paranormal podcast, I've made it a point to really brush up on as many of these entities and cryptids as I could,

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_01]: but skinwalkers are the creatures that I've spent the least amount of time researching for some reason.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we should probably brush up on skinwalkers if we ever plan to make that trip out to Skinwalker Ranch.

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I think I've probably spent the most time researching aliens in UFOs.

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I think me too.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, so we got an alien story this week.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_00]: We sure did.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Always a cause for celebration.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I gotta say, I laughed at the towel stuff.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Some people are afraid of aliens taking over the world, but it turns out they're just after our miracle brand luxury towel sets.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Who knew the intergalactic thread count was so important?

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I like to imagine that alien bringing back some towels to the mothership and just sitting around the table with his counterparts.

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_00]: New towels, what do you think? Silver infused, thermoregulating, sky blue.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't believe Xenu prefers snarglebops towels to mine.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I will say it's such a sad reality that the author of the story felt compelled to end it with the hope that no humans brought any harm to the alien.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That sucks.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, fair concern. Humans always manage to ruin everything speaking of our short time on Earth.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So to our old city Philly author, I've got to give props to your sleep paralysis demons for their choice in TV programming.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's one of the scarier sleep paralysis stories we've had but I agree maybe they watched too many Treehouse of Horror episodes leading up to their trip.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You're actually not wrong.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that consuming any kind of dark or horror media much like our show activates those lower frequencies to some measure allowing these unexplainable things to happen.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's just the, I don't know, evangelical upbringing talking but it seems to be the case for me at least leading up to my aggressive sleep paralysis demon that I spoke about on many previous episodes.

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I was definitely consuming massive amounts of dark, gritty true crime podcasts and I was working at the office.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's some metaphorical wisdom out there that likens our mind to a garden with our thoughts and the media that we consume being the seeds we plant.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to go down a dark spiral looking at depressing news and being consumed by all the death and destruction in the world.

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And I love true crime the more dark and disturbing the better and I want to be informed but it's also way too easy for me to become emotionally invested in these things.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Things that I have no control over so I think it's important to step away from all the morbid curiosity from time to time.

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_00]: That's just a healthy suggestion to everybody else as somebody who can get stuck in that trap.

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's not to deter people from listening to our podcast.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But to be fair, we don't get into the true crime gritty stuff here even unless not me.

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't I have clear lines that I draw.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like anything too violent.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like anything that goes to yeah to the our rating limits.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So you're always going to feel safe here with odd trails.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_01]: We like the strange and weird here.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_01]: The final story on this episode reads like classic horror poetry.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It was beautifully haunting Bravo Emma for painting such a unique and terrifying picture.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like that one a lot.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_00]: We usually stay away from language that comes off as too flowery for a number of reasons.

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But Emma actually showed some true talent in her writing and I appreciate that as somebody who was an English nerd in school English and history.

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_00]: That was about it.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But she also highlighted the importance of having a reverence and respect when dealing with the paranormal.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Something that never hurts to emphasize.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_00]: One key takeaway from our story is the line some mysteries are best left undisturbed.

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And I like that a lot.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a good line to end the episode on.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It really is speaking of that.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you and goodbye.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks everybody so much for listening.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_01]: We appreciate every single one of you this week.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Patreon.com forward slash odd trails if you want to get ad free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate for the best listening experience again.

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_01]: That's patreon.com forward slash odd trails to support the show today.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you check out the new episodes of my other podcasts.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's not meet a true horror podcast.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Paradise.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_01]: It sucks and the old time radio cast all at cryptic county podcasts dot com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you guys next week everyone stay safe.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Peace out.