Someone in the Playhouse – Ep. 253

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Odd Trails is a true paranormal podcast. If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_01] Forget facts. Forget logic. Forget everything that seems real. You just trust. Believe.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00] Someone in the Playhouse by Toblerone and Only Around the time I turned 20, I started going to a new church with my roommates. After service on our first Sunday there, we were talking to people our age, and this girl Amanda who had been going for about a year or so invited us to her family's home afterward. They hosted game nights after church,

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00] and it had become part of a Sunday experience for others our age. We drove out to Amanda's family's home, and there it was, a huge cabin up on a hill. It was beautiful, and although large, it had a sense of coziness to it. There were roughly 15 to 20 guys and girls in their early 20s all hanging out,

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_00] playing card games, throwing a football, and so on. Eventually we had a large dinner, and my roommates and I were fitting in great. The sun began to set, and one of the guys in the group offered to play sardines. It's like hide-and-seek, except one person hides and everybody searches. When someone finds the

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00] starting person, they too hide until there's one seeker left. It sounded fun. It was dark. There were plenty of trees, tall grass, and buildings on the property to keep things interesting. The only rules were to stay on the property, no flashlights, and not to go into the garage. It was a large, separate building. The group designated my roommate Sean to be the first one to hide.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_00] Sean usually does well at games like this, but goes to extreme lengths to win. I wasn't surprised when, after about 10 minutes, it seemed nobody had found him. The rest of us gathered in pairs to try and make things go quicker. I got paired with Amanda, since she knew the property way better than anyone. When I told her about his unorthodox tactics, she decided that we should go check the

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00] garage. The garage was huge. It held four to six cars, had a giant workshop area, and had an upstairs loft for storage. With how nice everything was, I understood why it was off-limits. Amanda told me not to touch anything, but said that we could at least look quietly. I decided to check the storage area upstairs.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00] There was one staircase leading up and down. It was pitch black, so I used my phone screen to light the way. When I got to the top, I was a bit creeped out. It was just boxes covered with cloth stacked anywhere from four to six feet tall. I made my way around, but didn't find anything. Amanda hadn't talked

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_00] in a bit, and I figured she was just waiting downstairs for me. Right as I thought that, I felt what seemed like someone breathing down my neck. I turned around with my phone screen shining to reveal nothing. Empty space. I swore there was someone right behind me, but I guess it was just a draft. I got downstairs and told Amanda what had happened. She told me not to make up stories like that.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00] We walked out of the garage and started through the field behind her house. There was a dirt trail, and it was either a full moon or close to it because no lighting was really needed. After a couple of minutes, we saw someone about 5'10", run across the trail, roughly 20 yards ahead of us. It wasn't Sean. I caught a glimpse of his face. We quietly ran behind and saw him slip into a small shed.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00] There's only one way in. We've got him, she said in my ear. We ran through the doorway just seconds after him to find yet again nothing. No sounds or signs of anything having even been there. Amanda was right, though. There was only one way in and out. An empty doorway and boarded up windows all around. When I turned around to see Amanda's reaction, she was pale and speechless.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00] She said she was pretty scared and needed to go inside, and I was gladly willing to get out of there and help her. On the way back up to the house, I saw something through the window of the garage. It was that same face that had run into the shed. I said, Hey, there he is, and pointed. Amanda let out a terrible shriek and ran inside crying. Worried, I ran behind her. She ran into her room, slamming the door.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_00] Her father went into her room for a bit, while her mother got me some food and tried to distract me from the more than awkward situation. Everyone got called into the room and asked to sit down. I remember the look on their faces and how serious her father's tone of voice was. I need you to tell me exactly what you saw. I told him everything.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00] Amanda nodded along, up until the part where we saw the person run into the shed. She said she had figured it was Sean, but I told him it wasn't. I didn't recognize who it was. But it was the same person I had seen in the garage, looking through the window at us. He looked younger than us, but I didn't remember seeing him during any of the activities earlier in the day. Amanda's father went over to the dresser on the other side of the room and grabbed a picture of their family.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00] He pointed at a boy in the middle of the picture. It was the one from the garage. Was this him? Her father asked, with a bit of shakiness in his voice. Yes, it was. I said, ecstatic. They both started tearing up, and Amanda was noticeably bothered by the whole situation. That's my son, John. He committed suicide just over a year ago, her father said, as tears rolled down his face.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_00] I just remember being so scared and uncomfortable. Remember, this was my first day meeting these people. They had opened up their home to try and bring in good company and push out the darkness. We talked for about an hour, and they shared how they hear cries coming from his room some nights, but had never had anything like this happen before.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_00] That shed was a playhouse that they had built together and had since boarded up. The garage storage area was all of his stuff from his room. I had no clue the entire time. Needless to say, that visit ended right there. My roommates and I got out of there, and I never really talked about it with anyone. I became close with that family. I still am.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00] I can't prove what I saw that night, and I obviously don't know what happens after death. But I've never been able to shake the feeling that whatever was in that house wasn't their child, even if it wanted us to think it was.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_02] Haunted Lands by Kimberly As a child, my parents decided to move my sister and me to a new town. To this day, I'm unaware of the reason they chose Victorville, California, of all places. I knew almost immediately there seemed to be something off, though. Something not quite right with the place. I told my parents about my feelings, but they only brushed me off.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_02] Over time, the feelings only got more intense. I started feeling like someone was in my room at night, watching me. I would tell my parents, but they only made me feel like I was going crazy. At night, I didn't like the quiet, so I started listening to the radio in my room. It was one of those boomboxes with a tape deck and a metal antenna. I always left it on the same station every night.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_02] There were nights my mom would turn it off or wake me up to turn it off myself. Then one night, something suddenly woke me up. I realized my radio was on a station you could only get to if you moved the dial all the way to the other side. The next morning, I asked my mother why she had changed the radio station. She told me she never went into my room that night, and that got me a little nervous.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_02] After a while, nothing else happened. Then one night, I was sitting in the family room in a rocking chair. It was kitty corner from the kitchen when you first walked in. Suddenly, I felt like someone was standing behind me, over my head, and holding a knife. I looked behind me. Nothing was there. I only sat in that chair a couple more times, and each time I had that same feeling.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_02] Safe to say, I never sat there again. Over the years, things mostly stayed the same. Then one night, I woke up again with the radio on, and I noticed the dial was all the way on the other side. Again. I went to turn it off, and before I could even touch it, the antenna slid down against the wall, all on its own. I freaked out, flew back into my bed, and I didn't get up again.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02] Over time, it all started to feel like a blur. Almost like it hadn't really happened. Then my aunt and cousins needed a place to stay for a while, so my sister moved into my room with me. One night, we were sleeping in our bunk beds. I turned over, facing away from the wall, and toward my standalone cabinet. I saw my sister standing in front of it, with the door open. She had long blonde hair that went down to her butt.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_02] But I thought it was strange because she was wearing a nightgown with a ruffled neck and wrists. I asked her what she was doing going through my things. She said she wasn't. So I said, I'm looking right at you. Then she struck the bottom of my bunk. I looked down underneath me, and saw my sister sitting up in her bed, wrapped in her blankets. I said, what the hell?

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_02] Then I looked back toward the cabinet. Then, the girl disappeared. After a while, we had to move, because the owner wanted to sell the house. Our friends next door needed to rent their house out, though, so we moved into theirs. This house felt different. In a way, I couldn't quite put my finger on. I still sometimes felt like I was being watched, but I felt a little better knowing we had an alarm system.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02] My dad used one of the rooms as his office. The motion sensor in that room almost never seemed to light up, unless you were literally jumping around right in front of it. And yes, I actually tested this. Eventually, my parents started letting me come home from school and stay by myself. I would come in through the garage, then walk to the alarm panel by the front door, and turn it off. One day after school, I came home through the garage,

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_02] got to the alarm system, and turned it off. I stood there for a moment, and noticed a few of the motion sensors were lighting up, including the one in my dad's office. I went and checked. No one was there. I thought it was weird, but when I went back toward my room, I noticed all of the sensor lights were on. I backed away from the panel. Then I saw the light from my dad's office

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_02] flashing on and off. I dropped my bag and ran to the neighbor's house. Sometime after that, I became friends with the boy who had moved into my old house. One day I asked him, Do you ever feel weird living here? He had actually been given my old bedroom. He said, You mean feeling like you're being watched all the time? And when you sit in the rocking chair, you feel like someone is standing over you with a knife?

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_02] The rocking chair was in the same place where ours had been. All I could think was, so it wasn't only me. Later, my dad decided to dig us a pool and found pieces of stone. The look on my mother's face said it all. We asked about it, but my parents refused to say what we were all thinking. The only other incident I remember happened when I was sitting on the floor in the family room doing my homework.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02] I thought I heard something. I looked up at the TV, which was turned off, and saw someone standing behind me in the reflection. My blood went cold. I turned around, and there was no one there.

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[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_00] all over the Oregon coast by Radiant Turnip 7686 My husband, our kids, and I just got back from a trip to the Oregon coast and something just kept happening that got progressively weirder. I know there are logical explanations for most of this, but by the end of this trip, my husband and I were joking that we were experiencing some kind of glitch in the matrix.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_00] The first time was at Nana's Irish Pub in Newport. There was a woman there that my daughter kept pointing out because she thought she was someone she knew. Because of that, I got a pretty good look at her and I remembered her face. The next day, we were about 25-30 miles away at an outlet mall in Lincoln City and I saw this same woman shopping there. Then, we were at the Goodwill in Lincoln City and my kids accidentally cut

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_00] in front of a guy. I apologized to him so I specifically remembered what he looked like. He was bald and he had these really distinctive chunky half-loop earrings. Later that same day, we were back in Newport, about 25 miles away walking through Fred Meyer. We were picking up snacks in the chip aisle and there was the same guy standing right next to us. I pointed him out to my husband and he said he recognized him from Goodwill as well.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00] At another point, we recognized a family from a restaurant and then realized they were staying at the same hotel as us. That one isn't particularly weird on its own, but at this point, we were definitely starting to notice a pattern. But the last one is the one I can't stop thinking about. We were staying at Waves Hotel near Nye Beach in Newport. As we were pulling out of the hotel parking lot, there was a girl jogging down the street.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_00] My husband actually commented on her first because for a split second, he thought she was a car coming up beside us. I looked over at her and noticed that she was really pretty. She had a pink workout top on and her hair was in a slick back bun. We both specifically noticed this girl. We then drove from our hotel to downtown Newport near the area where the sea lions are. It's roughly a ten minute drive.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_00] We parked, got the kids out, got situated with the stroller and started walking. That same girl came jogging past us. Same pink shirt, same hair. We both immediately recognized her. My husband and I looked at each other thinking, what in the world? At first, I said, wow, she made good time. And then we actually thought about it. We had driven there. She was running and she somehow went from passing our

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_00] hotel to passing us downtown after we had driven there, parked, and gotten out of the car. Even being generous, I can't imagine there being more than 15 minutes between seeing her at the hotel and seeing her again downtown. Obviously, there could be an explanation. Maybe there was a shortcut. Maybe she got into a car somewhere. Maybe somehow it was a different woman dressed identically. And Newport and Lincoln City are tourist towns along the same highway, so I

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_00] understand why we might cross paths with the same tourists. But having this happen with multiple unrelated people over the course of one trip was so freaking weird. And the jogger is the one that really gets me because my husband and I both noticed her before we left the hotel and both recognized her when she passed us downtown. I genuinely felt like we kept encountering the same NPCs in different parts of the map. Has anyone

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_00] else ever had a trip where something like this kept happening? I'm sure there are perfectly normal explanations, but it was one of the strangest strings of coincidences I've experienced. And then, one last weird coincidence happened on our way home. We originally planned to drive straight from Newport, but on Sunday I randomly decided to stop in Bend for the night to break up the drive for the kids. Bend had never been part of our plan. For basically

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_00] the entire trip, I had the same song Need To stuck in my head. It's also my husband's alarm song, and all week I had been humming it and singing it. The kids were singing it, and we played it multiple times. We got to Bend that night, and my husband mentioned that it looked like there was a concert happening. I told him to look up who was playing. It was the artist who sang that song. We randomly changed our

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_00] plans, ended up in a city where we weren't supposed to be, and arrived at the exact night that the artist behind the song we had all been singing all week was performing there. At that point, we were just like, what is going on with this trip?

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_02] A Subtle Strangeness in My Neighborhood by Christian B. Hey guys, I wanted to follow up on my story about my childhood home, which you read in episode 194. At the start, I alluded to a series of other odd things that were seen and encountered around the neighborhood. The area was originally founded in the late 1600s, and it's full of old houses, woods, stone walls, and local tales and

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_02] legends that really only seemed to be known around town. So these stories are a mix of the things I experienced, things friends encountered, and rumors I grew up hearing. Growing up, the whole area felt almost like the Goosebumps series. Different parts of the neighborhood, which was pretty secluded and separated by a reservoir, loan houses, and a whole lot of woods. Each seemed to have something different going on.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_02] The woods themselves were filled with old rock walls that were supposedly property or agricultural markers. If you wandered far enough into some of the secluded areas, you could stumble across old foundations, shacks, and even abandoned compounds. One of the biggest local stories involved property along the main road connecting the north and south ends of the neighborhood. A narrow gravel path disappeared into the woods between

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_02] two stone pillars and a rusted, warped metal gate. The story was that there had once been an orphanage somewhere up there that burned to the ground. I never heard much more than that, but it was enough to keep most people away. After passing it hundreds of times by car and school bus, one day my brother and I, along with a friend we'll call Ben, decided to walk through those woods toward the center of town. Ben claimed he

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_02] knew someone who had found a way through before. As soon as we crossed the twisted gate and started up the overgrown gravel path, one of the first things we found was a rusted and bent bicycle. Naturally, we were creeped out, and excited because it seemed to at least give a little credibility to the whole orphanage rumor. Farther up the hill, we found what looked like a crushed-in 1960s Ford or Chevy, hidden by the

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_02] bushes. Not long after that, we spotted an old stone structure in the trees and realized it was the remains of a fireplace and chimney. There wasn't much else left besides a slab, but whatever had once stood there was clearly long gone. We never found out what the building actually was. As we continued along the trail, the whole area started to make us uneasy. It felt like we

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_02] were being watched or like we weren't even supposed to be there. Eventually, we came across an old stone well sitting by itself in the woods, quite a ways from the ruins. Imagine the well from the ring, and that was basically it. We threw a few rocks down it, messed around for a bit, and kept going. The well didn't seem especially supernatural at the time. What made it strange, though, was that, years later,

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_02] I went back along what I was sure was the exact same route, with some other friends this time, and I could not find that well anywhere. Maybe I remembered the location wrong, but it always stuck with me. Eventually, the trail led us to an old industrial brick building building that kids around town called the Slaughter House because of its dark, semi-open rooms. From what I learned years earlier, it

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_02] was probably some kind of old water-pumping station from the 1930s or 40s. That building became a pretty popular place for kids to hang out, smoke, and drink. And that leads into something a friend of mine, who I'll call Scott, claimed happened to him nearby. One evening around sunset, Scott and another friend were walking through the woods toward the building, when they noticed a white sheet hanging from a tall tree

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_02] branch a little ways off the trail. Curious, they walked toward it to see what it was. The strange part was that every time they got closer, the sheet seemed to be farther away. How it kept appearing deeper in the woods. As they started losing daylight, they finally gave up and headed back toward the main trail. I was skeptical

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_02] when Scott first told me that story, especially considering what they were heading out there to do. But it wasn't the only strange thing he claimed to have encountered around the neighborhood. Keep listening for more after this quick break. Credit's one of those things that's really easy to ignore, right up until you actually need it. Maybe you're trying to get a car, rent an apartment, or eventually buy a house. Then suddenly your credit matters a whole

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[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_02] Part 2 One of the stories that made me take Scott a little more seriously happened near an old church at the center of the neighborhood. When Scott was younger, he was riding his scooter along the main road toward a crossroads near the center of the neighborhood. At that intersection is an old, one-room, wooden church from the 1800s with a cemetery beside it. As Scott passed the church, he glanced toward the dirt parking

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_02] area and noticed an old man standing there. The man looked out of place. Scott described him as wearing what looked like an old farmer's outfit from the 1930s or 40s. He had on warm denim overalls, a white button-up shirt, and boots. But the thing Scott remembered most was that the man was standing in the middle of the lot. Staring directly at him while leaning against an axe.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_02] Scott understandably didn't want to do anything with some strange old man holding an axe, so he turned around and headed home. Maybe ten years later, Scott was driving home from high school and past the same church. He glanced over toward the parking lot. The exact same man was standing there. same clothes, same axe, just staring at him as he drove past.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02] Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it was somehow the same person, but Scott was pretty convinced he looked exactly like the same man he had seen there as a kid. Another strange experience involving Scott was one I was actually there for. growing up, we had sleepovers at each other's houses all the time, and whenever I stayed at his place, we would usually crash on the couches in the living room. One night, after we had turned everything

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02] off and we were lying there in the dark, we heard something bouncing somewhere outside the room. It happened a few times and stopped. Neither of us thought too much about it at first, but a few minutes later, it started again. This time, it honestly sounded like someone was rolling one of those little rubber bouncy balls down the stairs toward us. After it stopped, Scott went out to check. There was nothing there.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_02] We were a little on edge by then, but we tried to go back to sleep. Then the sound started again. Except this time, it sounded like it was coming from the fireplace in the same room as us. The best way I can describe it is that it sounded like someone had dropped a rubber ball down the chimney and it was slowly bouncing off the sides on its way down. Again, we checked. Nothing.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_02] I stayed at Scott's house plenty of times before that and plenty of times afterward. He lived there for years. That was the only night either of us had heard anything like it. After experiencing that myself, I was a little more willing to believe some of the other weird things he told me about the area. The last experience happened technically just outside the neighborhood, near a large reservoir that bordered much of it. There was an old dam at the end

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_02] of the reservoir, built in the early 1900s. A road that once crossed the dam had been closed to vehicles years earlier, but people could still park nearby and walk up to see the water. I believe I was in middle school at the time. A cousin of mine, who was about 15 years older than me, was visiting and asked what there was to see around town. My siblings and I suggested the dam, since it was only about five minutes away.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_02] We drove over, parked on the closed-off road, walked around for a while, and eventually headed back toward the car. My brother and I reached at first, and we were waiting for my sister and cousin. While we stood there, I happened to glance up a steep hill beside the road. There wasn't really anything up there, and no obvious reason for somebody to climb it. But at the top, I saw a woman hanging clothes on a clothesline.

[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_02] That alone seemed strange. What really caught my attention, though, was what she was wearing. She had on what looked like a blue dress from the 1700s or 1800s, along with a white apron and a bonnet. She was facing away from me, so I could only really see her from the shoulders up. I watched her for a few moments. Then I heard the car unlock as my cousin and sister approached.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_02] I looked away toward them, and when I glanced back up the hill, the woman was gone. So was the clothesline. I immediately asked if anyone else had seen somebody up there, but nobody had. To this day, I have no idea what I saw. Maybe someone was doing a photo shoot or filming something, but there were only a couple of other cars around, and I never saw or heard anyone else.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_02] The hill itself also wasn't exactly an easy place to get to. I just know that one moment, I was watching a woman in old-fashioned clothing hanging up laundry on top of that hill, and a few seconds later, nothing was there. Those are some of the main stories I remember from growing up in that area. It's called Huntersville, or Hunterbrook, depending on who you talk to, in Yorktown, New York.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_02] There really isn't much online about any of this, and maybe that's part of why these stories have always stuck with me. They were just strange things people around the neighborhood saw, heard, and talked about. And growing up there, after a while, that kind of strangeness almost started to feel normal.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_00] Something in My Window by AdventurousLow5249 I want to share a strange story that happened recently. I still get goosebumps when I think about it. I really don't understand why. I'll mention in advance that I'm writing through a translator because I'm Russian. It was summer, nighttime, very hot. My parents had opened the windows wide because it was unbearable to sleep.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_00] I couldn't fall asleep, so I was sitting on my phone. My bed was near two windows, one on each side, and I decided to turn over to my other side. At the moment when I turned over, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the silhouette of a person who, slightly bent over, was looking through the window. I clearly saw the neck, head, torso, shoulders, and arms of this thing. I could see how the moonlight slightly illuminated

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_00] it, and just as I almost finished turning over, it immediately dived down. After what I saw, I was frozen. Maybe two minutes passed, and for some reason, I burst into laughter, but an intense fear still remained. Then I rolled back over, and about twenty minutes later, I fell asleep. The next morning, I decided to figure out what it could have been, and I still can't wrap my head around it.

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_00] The distance from the ground to the windowsill was about two meters, and the silhouette itself was slightly hunched over. There was nothing near the wall to support it, so this thing would have had to have been four meters tall. I still don't know how to explain it. I especially remember how, just as I was about to finish turning over, it shifted slightly before diving down. I don't deny that it could have just been my imagination, but it seemed very realistic.

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[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, blood. Ew. Ooh, I hate that. Look at that. Oh, don't show me it. Sorry. Whoops. Habit. Habit? You have a habit of showing people where you blow your nose?

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Filthy habit at that. Hopefully the stories don't sound too bad. I've had to delay those. It's funny that we're doing the outro before I record the stories, but at least we read through them first. This is not fun. I hate it.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_00] What number cold or flu is this for you for the last 365 days?

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_02] Ooh, if we're going that far back, maybe six, but I feel like at least three have been the past 60 days, 30 days maybe. Yeah, it's rough. I think it's just allergies and compounding from there. What about you? Are you getting sick or encountering any cats lately?

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_00] No cats. The only cat we have is our outside cat, which comes and goes when she pleases, but I haven't, I'm trying to remember the last time I had a cold or a flu, and a proper one hasn't been since I quit drinking, so it's been two years.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_02] Since you've

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_00] ever even had like a fever? Yeah, I haven't been sick in almost, it's almost two years. Wow, good for you. I don't know what's going on. I guess I'm due for like a really bad one. This happened to me before, like a decade ago. I went for like a few years just not getting sick, and then went right back into the routine of getting sick every fall or every winter, you know, you get at least one or two colds.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, usually I'm pretty good. This is what's so surprising. I'm pretty much that way always, but I don't know. Maybe also like, because you're able to stay home more often, like you're not required to be around like hundreds of coworkers every day, but you also go to like the grocery store and the gym, so that doesn't really.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, and my wife also works with the public every day. She sees hundreds of people every day, and she doesn't, she's not getting sick either. I don't know what's going on with us. I'm going to search through our cabinets and find the thing that's keeping us from getting sick, and I'll share it with you guys.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_02] Awesome, awesome. I'll try on some lemongrass or something that ought to do it.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_00] Honestly, I credit Tulsi Tea. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's like, it's called holy basil. It's just a leaf from India. It's a different variety of basil. I've been drinking that since I stopped drinking alcohol, because I stopped drinking caffeine around the same time, so I switched to this. That might be it, too. I've heard that it helps with immunity, but who knows? Mmm. Let's jump into some feed bags, the feed baggie.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_02] Alrighty, sure thing. Loretta says, guys, nutrageous. Nutrageous.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_00] I know, I kind of like that, like it's a

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_02] last name. My name is Cartwell Nutrageous Winslow III. Nutrageous?

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_00] It sounds, oh my god, it sounds like that key and pill bit with the college football players. Cartoons, plural. Cartoons, plural.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_02] I love that. Yep. Alright. Guys, nutrageous is even better than Snickers. They're like a Snickers and a Reese's peanut butter cup in one. Okay, I don't know if I've tried those off the top of my head. I'm thinking of a hundred grand. I don't know about nutrageous. About episode 250 though, some of those sounded a lot like time traveling. Pretty wild. I see ghosts, but I don't believe in them. What? That's her saying what? And then goes on to say,

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_02] makes sense, but honestly, doesn't. LOL, LOL, LOL. I'm so glad this podcast isn't over and Brandon will be continuing it. Hopefully it doesn't suck. Just kidding. You don't have to kid about that. Hopefully it doesn't suck, but I'm pretty confident that it won't. So stick around and find out.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Going back to this nutrageous, I've never even heard of this. I got to look up to see if this is a regional thing. I've never seen it in the stores.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, it's a Reese's product. I think I have had it before.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_00] Okay, it's just a different version of a Reese's. It just has nuts in it. That's not too weird, but I've never seen it.

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_02] Hmm. Wisp is pretty good out in the UK. I wish we got more of their chocolates.

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_00] My God, I love UK candy and chocolate. Everything.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_02] Everything in Europe is better food-wise. They actually care and have standards. Imagine that.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I have a friend who's a podcast over there and she sent me a care package with a bunch of their treats and stuff. And mainly, I just asked for Jaffa cakes. That's my thing. I love Jaffa cakes. It's like a little orange moon pie type thing. It's so good.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_01] Hmm.

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_00] Anyways, moving on, we've got Katya back again. From the stories I've heard, there are a few kinds of imaginary friends. The ones that kids clearly deliberately make up. A family member's spirit playing guardian or a ghost. So, so many imaginary friends give so many indications of being spirits or entities and they're often terrifying. There are so many mystery lights and I like to refer to most as

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_00] ghost lights or fairy fire because usually the quote unquote real explanation doesn't cover every sighting or can't be recreated reliably. That's true. Yeah, nobody can ever really recreate a lot of these lights in these stories that we hear about.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_02] For most things, a lot of the paranormal stuff can't be reproduced in a controlled setting. But I suppose that would make sense if whatever powers that may be allow it to happen don't want to be tested. I would be spiteful I think if I were a spirit and some buffoon with a measuring device was like, all right, prove yourself. I would be thinking I got nothing to prove to you, bud, and I wouldn't reveal myself. Agreed. I'm the same. Jackie, referencing episode 252, says,

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_02] My brother and I used to hear my mom's cell phone ringing at the same time. And she would be at work. Happened at least twice. No one else was home. We lived on almost an acre of land in the woods. Now that is interesting. I like that. Both hearing the phone going off and obviously she's at work and has the phone with her rather than just one of you hearing it. That's really cool. I wonder why that could be the case.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_00] It reminds me of two things. One, what I talked about last week about how I hear my mom's voice yelling at me. But again, I think that's just trauma. But also the phantom vibration of your phone in your pocket, it's kind of the same thing where you feel it and you reach in and you're like, my phone's not even in my pocket. But you've got the phantom vibration.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_02] To make it even worse, there's a known iPhone issue where it will actually buzz and vibrate and check your notifications and nothing is there. And it makes you lose your mind. But when I've had my phone on my desk, I clearly hear it buzz, I feel it buzz, and it's, okay, I definitely know something happened, but nothing and it drives me crazy.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, drives me crazy too. So let's jump into my sardines story. That's what I'm calling it. Sardines question. Mark, because, okay, so it starts off with this classic childhood game of A Night of Sardines. I've never played or heard of sardines, have you? Yeah, we talked about it before. We did. Okay, see, this is why I'm leaving on trails. The real reason. The real reason is I can't retain anything.

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I don't remember talking about it, but I had a refresher from the story. It's where one person hides, everybody's looking for them, and when they have to stay hiding with them, packed in like sardines until everybody's hiding. It's kind of cute. I think it sounds more fun than hiding, go seek.

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_02] You would really appreciate the sardines episode in the show Inside Number 9. I think we may have talked about sardines, but it's perfect, very relevant.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_00] Probably. I've only seen maybe six or seven episodes. I don't remember one being called sardines, but I'll check it out. There was actually one that was very, very scary. We're probably repeating everything that was going on in our conversation before.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_02] Probably. I wouldn't be surprised if we've been doing this for a while now, and we're just on a loop in the audience. It's like a Truman show. The audience is aware that we're doing something new, and it

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_00] ends up being a really, really sad story, going from playing games to realizing that you just saw their dead son. It's both sad and kind of awkward, because it's weird. It's just bizarre. It's the first time you met these people, and you see their dead son. What?

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, and somebody always knows there's some sort of room you don't go into. Usually it's the garage or the basement, and in this case it was the playroom. I think it's got to be from some sort of personal experience, whether it's a real occurring trauma that may have occurred or some sort of lingering spiritual activity that preceded the person who experienced that in that room. Either way, good for trying to keep it contained.

[00:49:19] [SPEAKER_00] Well, the creepy part about it was that the author had this feeling that whatever it was in that house wasn't actually John. They got like a very, very negative feeling from this entity or whatever it was.

[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_02] Like an impersonating mimic?

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, yeah. I know that a lot of people believe these kinds of spirits, like when you see deceased loved ones, are actually tricksters mimicking the deceased. I don't know what a spirit or whatever could gain from that. Maybe they just enjoy it?

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_02] It's gotta be. It's gotta be. Or just sheer boredom. Or a troll in their living life.

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. It's just very strange to be introduced to a new group of people. Everybody's new to you. You go over one of their houses the first night you meet them and this happens and they're bawling their eyes out because they saw their dead son and you're just like okay something something's weird here. Yeah I

[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_02] gotta go. Similar to the Haunted Land story from Kimberly they felt that person with a knife standing behind them in the same chair. I want to know what that's all about. I want to know if somebody well first of all if it may have been the same chair that's always been there and if not why are they both seeing the same person walking up behind that specific chair holding a knife. Maybe somebody got shanked or something I guess I don't know if that happens in prison or if shanking is like

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_02] if it's stabbing outside of prison or if it's shanking inside prison and if it's with a shank you know

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_00] I think I think shanking needs to be a shank like it needs to be like a homemade knife

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_02] right right yeah you never really hear about shanking outside of prison but then again people could make shanks outside of prison either way

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_00] that's true I wonder if there's a different name for it when you're not in prison probably a god damn it

[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_02] I'll just bleep that out for good measure

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_00] so I was gonna say yeah so it was weird that they both saw the same ghost or whatever with the knife but what's also weird is it seems like the ghost was confused because it followed her over to the new house but it was bouncing back and forth or

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_00] there are multiple ghosts or maybe it's the land the area that's haunted

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_02] that could be it maybe a large mansion laid there at one point and it got rebuilt who knows who really knows I don't think ghosts really have to abide by the laws of walls ghosts are all wall hackers so who cares you know

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_00] yeah I think I think they just don't understand that they're stuck in a loop like us stuck in a loop I got one I've got a segue stuck in a loop like NPCs in Oregon I want to touch on this one because it's something that we've all kind of experienced but to the extreme so I wonder if these glitches are just like the simulation running low on RAM you know how a game doesn't have enough memory so it has to repeat the same stuff especially old video

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_00] games old cartridges and that's why we keep when we're on vacation or something we end one of these could be explained logically it's just unlikely that they would all happen together so I don't know what I don't know if there's a term for that where

[00:53:07] [SPEAKER_00] something seems supernatural because there are so many coincidences and it could very well be a lot of confirmation bias and tourist run-ins I can't tell you how many times I've been on vacation and I've saw the same people in the same tourist

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_00] towns or areas multiple times yeah this happens to everybody it's a fairly common thing and they were in touristy areas

[00:53:45] [SPEAKER_02] yeah I always get really annoyed if I'm shopping in a

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_00] and then you run into them again down another aisle and you have to do like the half squished mouth smile and nod thing I remember running into somebody that I knew and I had dental floss and a new toothbrush and they were like so upping your dental hygiene game and I was like yeah yeah all right we'll see you later yeah big gulps huh well if you guys have got a weird story

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_00] you want to send in I've got a couple episodes left if you want to hear me narrate it make sure you get it in make sure you send them in to stories at oddtrails.com if you want to hear them on the show then sign up for our patreon to get ad free versions of all of our episodes that's at patreon.com forward slash oddtrails check out my podcast let's not meet whenever you get the chance I think you'll like it that's where you'll find me when I'm gone we'll see y'all next week everybody stay safe

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_02] peace out ghosts and the ghouls disturb you done