The Show Must Go On! – Ep. 257

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Welcome back everybody. We've got a pretty interesting mix of stories this week, some classic hauntings of course, an unusual encounter up in the night sky, and a pretty peculiar one that comes from Japan that I can't really make sense of. We're gonna start things off in Cincinnati, Ohio, where a little curiosity leads two co-workers into the basement of an old apartment building. And what happens next? Well, you'll just have to find out on this episode of Odd Trails.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_00] Apartment Basement by Trismeg81 I've had a handful of paranormal experiences that'll stick with me forever, but this one in particular had me shook. I'm keeping some details about the property under wraps though, because it is tied to my career, and I don't want to cause anyone a headache. It was December 2018, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_00] I was working a contract that required me to stay there for a year, and I was living in Mount Adams. I loved Cincinnati. Something about the city felt like it carried a lot of energy, and I had more paranormal experiences there than anywhere else I've lived. Around 9pm, I arrived at a co-workers holiday party, also in Mount Adams. Their apartment was on the third floor of an older building.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_00] I later looked it up in the city's tax records, and I found out that it was built in the 1920s. The hallways and stairs looked like they'd been renovated sometime in the 70s or 80s. There was run-down carpet, orange-colored laminate floors, and some old Art Deco woodwork that had survived in the corners. The apartment itself was much more updated though, with hardwood floors and newer appliances.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00] There were about 10 of us at the party. At some point, I found myself sitting in the kitchen, talking to someone. It felt damp in there. Something was off about it, and the longer I sat there, the more I wondered why. My eyes eventually landed on a dark door, with a curtain over its glass window. When the hostess came into the kitchen, I was like, I've been staring at that door. Where the hell does it go?

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00] She told me it led down into the basement. I stood up to look, but she warned me not to use it. The building owners had told them that the stairwell hadn't been updated, and it could be unsafe. She said there was a laundry room in the basement, but she never used it. Residents could get down there another way, through the front entrance. I wasn't going to let this fly though.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00] Anytime I'm put in a position where someone else is telling me what to do, I feel compelled to defy what I interpret as a power trip. I also had a couple of beers in me. Eh, come on, I said. I called out to Rachel, another guest who shared my curiosity. Hey, Rachel, come check this out. There's a weird door in the kitchen that goes to the basement. She came in and it was game on.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00] The hostess said, If anything happens to you going down that stairwell, it is not my fault. I turned the knob and slowly opened the door. It clearly hadn't been used in a long time. Paint peeled away as it came loose. It was dark, so I turned on my phone's flashlight. The stairwell was made of old grey wood with brick walls.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_00] I checked the steps before putting my weight on them, and they seemed sturdy enough. We started a slow, cautious descent. After about six steps we'd reach a landing, turn the corner, and find another six steps. At the first floor, the wooden stairs ended, and a straight set of concrete steps continued downward. At the bottom was a rickety white door that wasn't fully closed.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_00] I remember feeling a surge of energy and looking at Rachel. We exchanged a look without saying anything, then went down and pushed the door open. It was a laundry room, dimly lit by a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling on a cord. A washer and dryer sat against one wall, beneath narrow windows facing the street. There was a small round table and chair on a ragged old rug.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00] And on the table I noticed a dusty pad of paper, with a worn pencil beside it. I picked up the pad. Written faintly in lowercase pencil were the words, Don't look behind you. My initial reaction was, That's funny. I'd probably do the same thing to put people on edge in a place like this. I showed Rachel and she laughed it off too.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00] But we both instinctively looked behind us. We noticed fluorescent lights overhead, stretching off into the darkness. Near another staircase, the one residents actually used, we found a switch. When we flipped it, the lights came on one after another, revealing just how much space was down there. The laundry room led into a long corridor,

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00] with another room about the same size at the far end. The best way I can describe the layout is the shape of a dumbbell on a floor plan. I'd say it was around 50 yards from one end to the other. I looked at Rachel and she looked at me. We knew what we had to do. She linked her arm through mine, and we started down the corridor together. There were private storage units on either side,

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00] probably seven or eight on each side, each around five feet by five feet. Some had solid wooden doors, and others had chain-link fronts. There were a few that were locked with padlocks, and others didn't seem like they were in use. We could see old clothes, rolled carpets, and cardboard boxes inside. Nothing particularly strange, but the whole setting was so eerie.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_00] At the far end, the corridor opened into another room. Across from us stood a stand-alone wooden storage locker. It looked newer than the rest of the storage units, no padlock on its door. Off to the right was a separate room, maybe ten feet by ten feet, with no door. We walked over and stopped in the doorway, and I felt an immediate drop in temperature.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00] My first instinct was that something wasn't right, but I told myself it was probably just an old room without installation. It had concrete walls, high windows, and junk all over the floor. Wood scraps, broken furniture, even an old toilet. A ratty old New York Mets baseball hat was sitting on the windowsill. We couldn't really go in without worrying about stepping on a rusty nail.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00] Rachel leaned in toward me and said, it just got colder. That felt like enough exploring for both of us. We started heading back toward the corridor. By then, a couple of other people from the party had come down into the laundry room and were calling out our names. We shouted that we were coming back. But I don't know what it was. My intuition told me that we weren't done there. I stopped and gripped Rachel's arm a little tighter

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_00] and said, wait. I turned back toward the standalone wooden locker. We looked at each other, then started walking toward it. Something was off-putting about that basement, and we both felt it. Inch by inch, I could feel her starting to tense, and I recognized the same thing in myself. At about four feet away, the tension was palpable, both physically and mentally.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00] My heart was racing, and Rachel was trembling. I slowly reached toward the door handle. My hand was about five inches away when we heard it. Bang, bang, bang. The reverberation from the impact shook the entire wooden structure. The sound waves from the impact shook me to my core. Instinct took over. Rachel and I ran as fast as we could to get back down the corridor.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_00] The people waiting in the laundry room screamed and ran up the concrete stairs. When I reached the laundry room, I spun around and looked back. Silence. Silence. The locker door was still in the same position. From the laundry room, the wooden structure looked menacing as it stood there at the far end of that narrow, fluorescent-lit corridor. Before Rachel could follow the others upstairs, I yelled, Wait.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_00] She looked at me like I was out of my mind. Who's down there? I shouted toward the locker. No response. The only logical explanation I could think of was that someone from the party had gotten in there somehow and was messing with us. I know you're messing with us, I yelled. Still nothing. Rachel was like, No one's down there. Let's go. And I said, Seriously?

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_00] We have to go back down there. And after a moment, she agreed. Before we went back, we yelled up the stairs and asked one of the other people to come down and watch us from the laundry room. She hesitantly agreed. I was still convinced someone from the party was hiding inside that wooden structure. I headed back down the corridor, this time with more certainty and less hesitation.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_00] When I reached the end, I stopped and stared at the door, waiting for Rachel to get closer. I jutted my arm out, yanked the door, and jumped back as far as I could. Nothing. There wasn't a single object inside, just a concrete wall at the back, and a small drain in the floor with a metal cover. There was no other entrance or exit from the locker, no way for anyone to get out

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00] without passing through the door we just opened. I looked at Rachel and she looked at me. We both went pale. I turned back toward the empty space, absolutely dumbfounded. The person in the laundry room asked what was in it. At the exact same time, Rachel and I both answered, Nothing. I checked again just to be sure, and yeah, there was nothing.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00] I looked around the room too, and as far as I could tell, there was no way someone could have gotten into that part of the basement without coming through the laundry room by one of the two staircases. We slowly backed away, then made our way through the corridor and upstairs. looking behind us the whole time. It's one of the most insane things that's ever happened to me, and I still can't explain it. Before writing this,

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_00] I texted Rachel about it, as I've done many times over the years, just to confirm that it really happened and that she hadn't somehow banged on the door without me seeing it. Her response has always been the same. I can 100% say all of that happened, and it was not me.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_00] Good on the author and Rachel for having the guts to turn back around and investigate that sound. You would not catch me dead there, and not just because it was a co-worker's function. No offense if you're listening. Hopefully you're not. So our next story comes to us from Misha. She actually sent in a story that was featured on episode 239, Mabel's Haunted House. Misha titles this one, The Man in the Hallway. I was six years old when I saw a man

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_00] in a military outfit standing in the hallway of our trailer. He was see-through, and he was looking right at me. This was my first paranormal experience that I can remember. My mom was very interested in ghosts and the paranormal, so I sometimes wonder if that influenced how I understood what I saw. But I remember the experience clearly. At the time, we lived in a trailer park.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_00] The trailer had a kitchen near the front door, a living room beside it, and a narrow hallway leading to the bedrooms. My room was the first door on the right. Farther down was the bathroom, and at the end of the hall, my mom and stepdad's bedroom. Before that room became mine, I slept in my parents' room because a friend of my stepdad's was staying in what would become my bedroom. Sometimes I wet the bed.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_00] I felt embarrassed about it, so when I woke up needing to use the bathroom, I would get up and go. One night, after the friend had moved out and I had my own room, I woke up needing to pee. I left my room, went down the hallway to the bathroom, and then started back. That's when I saw him. I looked up to get a better look at the man standing in the hallway. He was wearing a camouflaged

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_00] military outfit. He was see-through, and he was just standing there, looking at me. I stared for a moment because I didn't understand what I was seeing. I wasn't frightened by his presence, though. I didn't feel that he meant me any harm, but I remember thinking, this guy is a ghost. He's see-through. And that realization scared me,

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_00] so I ran back to my room and went to bed. The trailer itself never really frightened me. I still don't know who the man was. Maybe he was my great-grandfather, though I don't know much about him. Or maybe he was someone who had lived there before us. I remember telling my mom that I had seen a man in a military outfit in the hallway during the night. I don't remember exactly what she said.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_00] I think it was something like, if he didn't scare you, he's probably not bad. Or that it was just okay. I've never learned who he was. But that was the first paranormal experience I can remember. It never fails to amaze me how kids just don't get scared about things

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_00] that they should probably be afraid of. But maybe it's slightly different with the paranormal. Perhaps they have some sort of intuitive knowing if something is harmful or malevolent. So yeah, she saw a guy in the hallway who apparently just wasn't supposed to be there. And rightfully so, some alarm bells went off when she noticed that he was see-through. I wonder who he was. Alrighty, now brace yourself. I have three ads to read this episode. I gotta eat, okay? Just hang tight, some of these sponsors

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_00] might tickle your fancy. And if not, there's always Patreon for five bucks a month. Let's start with kickoff. Better credit can make a big difference when you're trying to buy a car, rent an apartment, or even purchase a home. That's where Kickoff comes in. It's a credit building app with plans starting at just five dollars a month. No credit check and no hidden fees. I heard good things about Kickoff from some friends so I was actually excited to try them out as a sponsor. And not to humble brag or anything,

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00] but my credit has been pretty good for a while now. However, I really like their auto-pay feature. Very helpful for silly little boys like me who think deadlines are arbitrary. Also, went up by about 50 points without even trying. Kickoff helps build credit through on-time payments. And like I mentioned, you can even set up auto-pay to make things easier. Users with credit under 600 grow an average of 86 points just by paying on time. You can get started for as little as $1

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_00] for your first month. Start building credit with Kickoff today and get your first month for as little as $1. That's 80% off the normal price when you go to getkickoff.com slash oddtrails today. That's kickoff without the C. Get K-I-K-O-F-F dot com slash oddtrails must sign up via getkickoff.com slash oddtrails to activate offer. Offer applies to new Kickoff customers first month only. Subject to approval.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00] Offer subject to change. Average first year credit score impact of plus 86 points between August 2024 and August 2025 for Kickoff credit account users who started with a score below 600 who paid on time and had no delinquencies or collections added to their credit profile during the period. Late payments may negatively impact your credit score. Individual results may vary. Eight Years of Barely Sleeping by Kiyoshi Nakamura I'm 54 years old and I live in Tokyo, Japan. I work full-time

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_00] as a certified care manager. Now, I want you to imagine someone who sleeps only two hours a day or sometimes zero yet continues to work full-time, drive, exercise regularly, and live an energetic life with almost no fatigue. It sounds almost superhuman, like something out of a science fiction movie. Yet, this is what I've been experiencing in my everyday life for eight years.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_00] Before May of 2018, I normally slept approximately seven to eight hours every night. Then, quite suddenly, my sleep pattern seems to have changed dramatically. According to my extensive personal records, I've apparently only been sleeping zero to two hours per day ever since. Sometimes, I experience consecutive nights without any perceived sleep. Yet,

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_00] I'm not bedridden, exhausted, or unable to function. Quite the opposite, actually. I continue working full-time as a certified care manager while managing my daily responsibilities. I rarely experience daytime sleepiness and generally have normal energy levels. How can someone apparently sleep so little for so many years and still maintain such an active life?

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_00] This is the central mystery of my experience. But, the story doesn't end with sleep. Around the same time in 2018, several other strange and unexplained phenomena began. Computers and other electronic equipment have repeatedly malfunctioned at my home and workplace. Some incidents have been witnessed by other people, and some problems continued even after the equipment was replaced.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_00] I've also recorded unusual electromagnetic field measurements, including magnetic field readings reaching 200 to 203 microteslas, along with unusually high electric field readings. Physically, I've experienced episodes of intense heat sensations, excessive sweating, skin irritation, vibrations, and other unexplained symptoms. Throughout this period,

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_00] I've carefully documented my experiences. I've kept detailed sleep records, photographs, videos, electromagnetic measurements, and correspondence with international experts. Although my reported sleep duration has not yet been independently confirmed through a formal sleep laboratory testing, such as polysomnography or continuous EEG monitoring, my long-term observations and

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_00] continued daily functioning have attracted interest from specialists internationally. Specialists in sleep medicine, neuroscience, electrical engineering, electromagnetics, and radio frequency technology technology have responded to my experiences, provided scientific comments, technical perspectives, and suggestions for further investigation. My case is now progressing beyond

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_00] expressions of scientific interests. I'm currently in discussions regarding collaborative research with a university professor in Australia, and another professor has raised the possibility of conducting examinations in the UK. I've also attached three PDF documents, containing my sleep records, electromagnetic measurements, comments from scientists and specialists. What makes my

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_00] experience especially unusual is that these different phenomena began around the same period. Every day, I go to work, help other people, drive, exercise, and continue living my life, while carrying an extraordinary mystery about my own body that has remained unanswered for more than eight years. This is not a fictional story or an urban legend. It is an

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_00] ongoing first-hand experience, accompanied by extensive personal records. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my story and review the attached materials. I do not recommend depriving yourself of sleep. As slightly curious and envious I am, if the author is able to do this

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_00] and not have any sort of health problems, seen or unseen, not gonna roll the dice, my sleep is already bad enough without trying. Yeah, that was a weird one. Now, how about a good old-fashioned UFO story? Got a good one and I held onto it for this special episode. Let's buckle in. This one was sent in by Thomas and he titles it Something Above the Fields. This happened in September of 2020, outside of Topeka, Kansas.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_00] I was 27 at the time and working for a company that delivered agricultural supplies to farms in the area. I'm still not sure what we saw, but my co-worker and I bring it up every once in a while. We had an early delivery scheduled, so we were at the warehouse at around 4.30 in the morning, loading our truck. I had been working with my co-worker, Eric, for about two years at this point. The warehouse was just outside of town, surrounded

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_00] mostly by fields. There wasn't much light pollution out there, so on clear nights you could see a ridiculous number of stars. Eric was inside getting the last few things together while I stood outside drinking coffee. I happened to be looking up at the sky when I noticed something moving overhead. at first I thought it was a cloud, except there weren't any other clouds around. It was a dark shape, almost rectangular,

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_00] moving slowly from west to east. I couldn't actually see much of the object itself. I could only make out its shape because it was blocking out the stars. It's hard to explain, but imagine somebody moving a big piece of black cardboard across a picture of the night sky. That's basically what it looked like. I watched it for a little while before calling for Eric. He came outside and I pointed up,

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_00] without telling him what I thought it was. He looked around for a second and said, what the hell is that? We stood there watching it. Neither of us could make out any lights or wings, or really anything that would help identify it. I asked Eric if he thought it was an airplane. He said maybe, but then asked why we couldn't hear anything. I hadn't really thought about that until he mentioned it. It was

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00] completely silent, but I couldn't tell how high up it was. At some point, it seemed to stop moving. I remember asking Eric if he was seeing the same thing, and he said he was. We watched it sitting there for maybe 10 seconds before it started moving again, only now it seemed to be heading back toward the direction it had come from. That's really the part that doesn't make any sense to me.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_00] Eric walked out more into the parking lot, trying to get a better look, but neither of us could figure out what it was. Eventually, we lost sight of it. I don't remember it taking off really fast or anything. It just became harder to distinguish from the rest of the sky, until we couldn't see it anymore. We spent a few more minutes standing outside, talking about it. Eric thought it might have been some kind of military aircraft.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_00] I wondered if maybe it was a strangely shaped cloud that we couldn't properly see in the dark. But it hadn't looked like a cloud to either of us while we were watching it. I brought it up to Eric again a few months ago. He still remembers it, although he thinks we watched it for quite a bit longer than I do. Neither of us is completely sure how long the whole thing lasted. We both remember the same basic details, though, especially the way it appeared to

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_00] stop and then move in another direction. Neither of us have seen anything like it since. I still can't think of an explanation. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Thanks for sending that one in, Thomas. So what's interesting about this is it theoretically can be any shape we've seen. Something that might not be a triangle necessarily

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_00] but still blacks out a lot of the stars, you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell what shape it is if your only frame of reference is the lack of stars behind it. There were some UFO sightings in Belgium in 89 and 90 where people described rectangles and trapezoids. The Phoenix lights are sometimes lumped into this but I don't know. I know they're not flares, I don't know if it's a black triangle, I don't remember if it blacked out the sky completely, but if it did that completely destroys the military's official report

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[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_00] Growing Up in a Haunted House by Shannon. I grew up in what my friends call the Amityville Horror House. Everyone says it looks like it. The house is about one hundred and six years old as of twenty-twenty-six. Is the place haunted? I absolutely think so. Although most of what we've experienced hasn't been anything crazy scary. My three siblings

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_00] and I have all had strange experiences there. Along with other family members and friends. I'll start with one of the earliest incidents. Which I think is also one of the scariest. This happened shortly after we moved into the house. Maybe two or three months later. I was in first or second grade so probably around eight years old. I don't actually remember this happening but my mom told me about it. She was up late playing

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_00] games on Club Pogo when she noticed me walking down the stairs. She turned around and stopped me about halfway down. She asked what I was doing and I told her I was going to the basement. She asked why and I responded because he told me to go to the basement. My mom told me no and to go back upstairs and go to sleep and apparently I stood there for a moment before saying okay and going back to my room

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00] and like I said I have absolutely no recollection of this. I've sleepwalked before. One time I actually woke up eating cereal at the table at one in the morning but I'd never been known to have a conversation like that while sleepwalking. The weird thing is that our basement has always been creepy. When we first moved in there was basically a Jesus shrine down there. There were religious items hanging from the rafters including

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_00] a vanity plate that said Jesus. Someone had also carved a cross into the spray foam and the cement was painted white. My parents got rid of all the religious items but the cross is still there. Another strange experience happened when I was in elementary school probably around third grade. My sister and I shared a bunk beds and back then we always slept with our bedroom door open.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_00] The beds were positioned so that when I was lying down I could look to my left and see into the hallway. The house was dark that night except for the stairway light on the other side of the house which gave off this faint yellow glow. I was lying in bed when I suddenly saw this white ball of light appear. It showed up in the corner where my brother's bedroom door and the closet door meet. It disappeared and then popped up again in the closet doorway.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_00] It kept doing this, appearing and disappearing in different spots. I was terrified. I didn't know what an orb was at the time and I had no idea what I was looking at. Eventually I worked up the courage to get out of bed and close the bedroom door. Then I hid under my blanket until I fell asleep. After that night, I always slept with the door closed. Years later, my family was

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_00] exchanging stories during dinner and I brought up that experience. My mom said she had always wondered what had made me suddenly start closing my bedroom door. Another experience happened when I was in middle school. I dealt with pretty bad insomnia back then, so I would often stay up late reading. One night around midnight, I

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_00] looked outside and there weren't any cars. I thought maybe I had accidentally left my boom box on at a low volume since it had done that before. But when I checked it was turned off. I even picked it up and put my ear against the speaker to see if maybe something was wrong with the volume button. Nothing. I couldn't figure out

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_00] where the music was coming from. So I eventually just got back into bed. And after a little while the music stopped. One of the scarier experiences happened during summer vacation. It was

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_00] was was across from hers. I opened her bedroom door and the hallway light shined onto her bed. She was sitting straight up, staring at me. At first I thought I had startled her while she was getting up to use the bathroom. I said sorry but she didn't move. She just kept looking at me. I said her name. Still nothing. She

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_00] didn't move or respond. I was petrified. I don't know how long we stayed like that but it felt like a minute or two. Then without saying a word she laid back down pulled the covers over herself and closed her eyes. Needless to say I didn't sleep very well that night. Another experience involved the basement. Our basement is unfinished. What my

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_00] was a Michigan basement. We had our laundry room down there along with two deep freezers where we kept food. One day I was going downstairs to change the

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_00] Vikings of off. If he went downstairs in she had no idea what I was talking about and said her game hadn't made any noise. I reluctantly went downstairs did what I needed to do and got back upstairs as quickly as I could. One of the more recent experiences happened when I came home from work, and the rest of my family was out at dinner.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_00] I was relaxing on the couch with my cat and dog when I decided to go upstairs to use the bathroom. Suddenly, three loud bangs came from upstairs. It sounded like they came from my bedroom, which was directly above the living room. Both the cat and dog jumped up and looked toward the ceiling. Their ears perked up, and they both did that little head tilt animals do when they hear something strange.

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_00] I went to the stairs, turned on the light, and, like a scared but smart woman, sent my dog up to investigate. I heard him trot down the hallway toward my room. Then he came back, looked at me, perked up his ears, and tilted his head. Almost like he was saying, why didn't you follow me? It's safe. So I went back upstairs and checked all three bedrooms. Everything was fine.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_00] Nothing had fallen over, and I couldn't find anything that would explain the bangs. We've had plenty of other little things happen over the years, too. Footsteps upstairs when everyone is downstairs. Random thumps and bumps. Strange perfume smells. And that eerie feeling of being watched. Another place that has always creeped us out is the big barn.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_00] None of my siblings or our friends like being in there alone. My older brother has a friend who's practically family, and even he's left the barn while working on his truck because of strange noises and a bad feeling. We used to keep farm animals down there, and none of us liked going out to feed them alone at night. We'd usually go in pairs.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_00] My sister and her friend also had a strange experience while playing a game called Spirits. Spirits. It's a game where you use a deck of cards to ask yes or no questions. Red means no, and black means yes. They were playing in our bedroom where I had an acoustic guitar sitting nearby. They asked, do you like playing guitar? Before they even had a chance to flip a card, my guitar made a noise.

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_00] They both freaked out, and my mom came running upstairs. They told her what had happened, but she didn't believe them. Some of the strangest experiences, though, had involved the younger children in our family. Around 2018, my older brother had a daughter. When she was little, she would constantly stare into the corners of rooms, laughing, giggling, and pointing at something nobody else could see.

[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_00] As she got older, she would walk up to the baby gate blocking off the basement and start babbling toward the stairs, almost like she was having a conversation with somebody down there. At the beginning of 2020, my dad passed away from cancer. After he died, there was this one particular corner in the living room that my niece would constantly look toward. She would smile, point at it, and say,

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_00] Grandpa, Grandpa. Now in 2026, my older brother has a daughter as well. He, his daughter, and her mom live with my mom in the same house. His daughter started doing the same things. She would look toward that same corner of the living room, point, laugh, and giggle. But something even stranger has started happening. She began talking about three months ago,

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_00] and now she'll go over to the basement and talk to someone named Ryan. Her mom has caught her doing this multiple times. The first few times, she'd ask, B, what are you doing? And my niece would respond, talking to Ryan. She's even taken my older brother's fiancé and my sister over there to show them Ryan. And what's really strange is that this isn't the first time a child outside our immediate family

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_00] has done something like this. Before either of my nieces were born, my older brother had a friend who was dating a woman who had a little boy. He was about four years old at the time. That little boy also liked going over to the basement and talking toward it. Whenever somebody asked who he was talking to, he'd simply respond, him. So, those are just some of the experiences

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_00] we've had in this house over the years. I've had other strange things happen, and my siblings have their own stories that I haven't even gotten into. But I still think about that incident when I was little, when my mom caught me heading downstairs because some man had supposedly told me to go to the basement. I have no memory of who I was talking about. And now, all these years later, we've had multiple children

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_00] talking to someone near those same basement stairs. I don't know who they're talking to or who Ryan is, but it definitely makes me wonder. Thank you so much, Shannon. That one was... Damn, that was a good one. So when Shannon told her mom that some guy was telling her to go downstairs,

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_00] then all these years later, you have multiple children almost doing the exact same thing, and the fact they're talking about a Ryan by name. I know it's a common name, but I only know one Ryan for whatever that's worth. Sup, Redfoot? Love you, bro. But Ryan's aside, it was interesting that her niece would point to the same corner of the living room and say Grandpa after Shannon's dad passed away. I wonder if there could maybe be more than one presence in the house. Maybe just some of them are family members. Either way,

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_00] who the hell is Ryan? Is this the same person who was telling Shannon to go down into the basement when she was a kid? If so, why? Maybe one of those things that's best left unanswered. I love cats, I have no clever transition into this next ad read, but after that, it's all for the outro stuff. So let's talk about Smalls. If you're a cat owner, you know how picky they can be about their food. And it's just so much fun when you have multiple cats who all want things their own special way.

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[00:45:42] Meow. Meow.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_00] Some really good stories in this episode. One thing that stood out to me and why I picked most of them is because there are more than one witness. Multiple witnesses. Tris Meg had Rachel, Thomas had Eric, and Shannon's family apparently has this whole generation of kids who just see this unknown guy. Ryan, perhaps? There's obviously a really big difference between seeing something strange just by yourself versus having somebody with you right there and sees exactly what you saw, experience the same thing.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_00] Stating the obvious, but hey, whatever. Facts are facts, right? Oh, that actually reminds me. So, you know in the intro music from days past, forget facts, forget logic, forget everything that seems real. You know how it goes. There has been quite the bounty to find out where exactly that came from and to this day nobody has any idea where except for me. Yes, I found the source of it.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_00] And I want to have some fun with this and see if anybody else can be resourceful and find out too. And no, I did not use AI but the answer is kind of out there. I don't know, I wish I could give you a hint but it didn't exactly fall into my lap. I basically went on a deep dive following adjacent breadcrumbs from what we do know about it. Doesn't really help much. You know, I will say it is from a movie, not from a TV show and the movie is from the 70s.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_00] There's your hint, your one and only hint. The award, well, gonna be doing some merch here shortly, gonna kick off the new year with some big plans and big moves. I feel like there might, there may have been something else I was gonna talk about with these stories. Oh, Kyoshi's sleep thing. Yeah, what the hell? Zero to two hours for eight years, I believe he said. Somebody's gotta chime in here. I don't wanna take the easy way out and just Google, can you survive? Obviously, you really can't, but an anomaly

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_00] is an anomaly. And I did look at his documentation, it looked legit, but also if it's been happening for this long, dude, get a sleep study. You can do it. But yeah, I still have some things to iron out here in this new era. This is coming out a bit later than I anticipated. Moving forward, I'm gonna aim for Wednesdays or Thursdays. So let me know what works best for you and we'll let democracy decide. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's episode. Once again, I really appreciate

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_00] everybody who's stuck around and continues to support the show. And of course, a huge thank you to everyone who submitted their stories. If you've experienced something strange yourself, I'd love to hear it. Send it on over to stories at oddtrails.com. I had three ads to read this episode. I am not complaining. Talk about first world problems. But if you don't like them, consider subscribing to Patreon. $5 a month, no ads, and I'll take requests. Whatever you want to see on there, I'll do my best.

[00:48:46] [SPEAKER_00] Or just pay the $5, download everything, cancel, and then sign up again when you're ready to get more. How about that? Beat the system. That's it for now. Until next time, peace out.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_00] ghosts and the ghouls disturb you, darling. We won't do that.