Nosferatu, doppelgängers, psychic mediums and Ohio cryptids (Sn. 18 Ep. 28)
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Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us. I am your guide, Derek Hayes. Welcome back to another thrilling installment by way of the time machine. As I mentioned a few weeks back, the crew and I intend to take some time off here over the next month or two.

to recharge our batteries and to fix some issues we have here in the studio. Electronic issues. I can feel the gremlins creeping up on me now. So anyway, this is one of those days off, but I would never leave you stranded out in the desert with nothing to sip on. Now I still have something special in line for you tonight. Two Patreon unlocks. An episode from earlier in this season.

And one from Star Wars Day, May 4th, 2023. Now if you're new to these aftershows, you have no idea what you're missing. We stick around for another 25 to 30 minutes after each Thursday episode to share additional submissions. Stories full of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and little green men. And tonight's unlock is no exception.

So sit back and prepare yourself for vampires, doppelgangers, psychic predictions, cryptids, and much more. As I present to you, the Beyond portion of Season 18, Episode 7, and Season 15, Episode 6, in that order. Enjoy, folks. Because it's in the Beyond that we hear intriguing entries, like this one that was sent in anonymously.

Hi there. My name is not important, but I think you might be interested in my story. So ever since I was little, I've seen ghosts. It's actually a bit of a family gift, and it's come down through my dad and my grandfather before him. I've leaned into it more than just about anybody in my family to the point where today I get

called out to spooky residences to diagnose properties as haunted or not haunted. And oftentimes that comes with certain tasks on my behalf, whether it be cleansing a property, blessing a property, or just saying, nah, you don't really need anything done here. A lot of the times when I go on these investigations, I pay attention to where phone lines are and

what direction the house is facing, whether there's any optical illusions created by windows or noises on the street.

Well, the story today is about the woman's house that I visited and a pretty historic town in Maryland. The reason that I had been called out to the house in the first place, besides the pure amount of activity that the woman was experiencing, was because she had woken up several times in the last few weeks...

a gigantic figure hulking over her bed. And on a couple of these occasions, she had had the sensation of being pinned down by that figure and even choked to the point where she could not take a breath. And I had asked her if she had ever experienced night terrors before or if she had experienced

Ever had anyone in her family experienced night terrors? If she was talking to her doctor about these symptoms, she had never experienced a night terror. No one in her family had either. There was no history of it. And so all of this had become a very rapid onset.

Well, I got to her house and it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day in middle of June. Absolutely beautiful. I get into her house and it's cold. It's dark. It's cramped. And immediately I start getting this feeling of just being uneasy, like I was being watched from just about all sides.

The activity that she had reported in the house was that of seeing shadow people, so essentially these amalgamations of black blobs. And almost as soon as I stepped foot into the house, I could see them too. And they were just about everywhere. It was an incredibly active and uncomfortable property.

Normally, I do what's called a cold reading, which is where I walk through and they don't tell me anything about the property in advance. So I say whatever comes to mind. This time, I didn't have that benefit. So I already had a little bit of background knowledge going in. That

That being said, as I walked around the house, I could tell that it was incredibly active, incredibly uncomfortable to the point where we were standing in the kitchen near the end of my walkthrough and we were talking about how the energy in the house had gotten that bad.

Well, she started talking about how she had been calling on her ancestor spirits to protect her. And as we're having this conversation, I begin to notice what looks to be either orbs of light or these columns of white mist sort of conglomerating in this kitchen.

About the same time, the dogs start going absolutely wild. They were inconsolable. They were two dogs who had been incredibly well-behaved throughout the rest of the encounter, but as we're standing in this kitchen and I begin to notice these entities coming towards us, the dogs went nuts. So I say, all right, that's enough. I've seen enough. Can you just send the dogs outside? So she

So she sends them into the backyard, and I take my smoke stick upstairs, and I begin to smoke the house. Smoke cleansing, that is. It's not the same thing as smudging, because smudging is a protected indigenous practice, and I am not an indigenous practitioner. But as I was doing this cleanse, I went from the top of the house to the very bottom. And at the end of the cleanse, not only was the house a lot

We brought the dogs back inside. They curled up on their dog beds and went right to sleep. And that to me says job well done.

In connecting with her afterwards, I found out that most of the issues that she had been experiencing were alleviated with the cleansing, as well as some of the instructions that I gave her in terms of not opening random doorways to the spirit world in her home. And if she was going to do that, then also knowing how to close them properly and how to keep her space clear.

Anyway, love your show. Have a good one. Thank you, caller. I bet I have 100 folks that could use your services. I get asked for that sort of thing all the time. Wild stuff, caller. We thank you again for ringing in. Hello, squad. Pleasure to share this crisp October evening with you. Now, I have half a dozen solid stories to share with you here this evening in the beyond. So don't go anywhere.

We're just getting warmed up. And to keep this spooky train rolling, please welcome Elena from North Carolina to tonight's broadcast.

What's up Derek? This is Elena from North Carolina. I'm calling with my dad's story. This happened about 35 years ago. My dad and my mom had just gotten married and they were living out in a small town called Gloucester, about 45 minutes from Moorhead City, North Carolina. It's a coastal town. My dad was a social worker at the time and he had

a call and this boy is being abused because it was always the same story. There's a ghost in my room. I'm not comfortable. Something is going on. There's

there's a ghost in my room. So my dad goes, checks it out. He ends up saying, "Okay, this boy is fed. He's perfectly fine. The house is clean." "It's a weird, creepy house," my dad said, "but fine enough for nothing to happen of it." Flash forward to about four or five years after that, my mom and my dad are trying to find another rental in the area, and they stumble upon a house

that is really nice, had been recently renovated, just new shutters, painted, everything is great with it. They love the house, so they get it. They ended up finding out that the house was the same house that my dad had the social work call five years prior. They found out because my dad had been waking up in the night, every night at 2:55,

feeling like someone was choking him. And he's a Christian, so he would pray all of the things that Christians pray in a situation like that, and it would go away. My mom thought he was crazy, obviously, so they ended up leaving the house because a close friend said you either need to exercise the room or you need to move out. So they moved out. My dad...

He had done research after they moved out of the house. He was just really interested in what happened to him. And he found out that the lady of the house had hung herself in that bedroom that he slept in with my mom and that that little boy had slept in.

Thanks, Alayna. Talk about a coincidence.

What are the chances that the father would end up back in the same house? Frankly, it's incredible. And talk about vindication for the young boy. I sure hope he's listening. But regardless, I love the story, Elena. So thank you again for calling in. I've seen so many of them come out and say that they're going to try to... Live at Fire Station 25 in Oakland, Matt Bigelow.

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Call today for your free estimate. Now, folks, next up, we visit the state of Massachusetts. Debbie, welcome to the program. Hi, Derek. My name is Debbie. I have...

A mix of two stories. The first one happened to my dad before I was born, and the second one was when I was with him in about 1983. My dad was 19 years old in 1962 and straight out of central casting for a hippie biker. Think easy rider as a teenager.

He was riding his motorcycle in a suburb of Boston, and he was hit by a car. He broke both his legs, one arm, his back, probably more than that that I don't remember, chased the guy for hitting him, and then was promptly transported to the hospital on death's door. Especially with medicine in 1962, my grandparents really were not sure if he was going to survive or not.

He remembers hearing the doctor tell his parents that it would be a miracle if he survived. They took him into surgery, one of many at that point, and he remembers seeing a white light and his Uncle Sam and his Uncle Jack over to his left. However, his Uncle Sam and Uncle Jack were dead.

So his Uncle Sam motioned him to go back, that it wasn't time, that he wasn't supposed to go towards the light. He survived the surgery, obviously, since I'm here. He found out later that his Uncle Sam had died of cancer while he was in the operating room on the table. So there's that. That's my story. As everybody says, I love your show. Look forward to it all the time. Thanks so much. Bye.

Thank you, Debbie. It's pretty incredible. And something we hear about from time to time. Those that are near death suddenly claim to see and sometimes even communicate with those that have passed on before them. I've even heard about deceased pets meeting those near the end. Creepy, a little bit. But probably much more comforting than anything else. At least, that's how I see it. Thank you again, Debbie, for calling in.

Now next up, we hear from Jules in parts unknown.

Hi, my name is Jules, and I have a story from my grandma. I think it was a few weeks back, there was a story about one guy. He and some other people were at an inn in Massachusetts, and he had an encounter with a ghost or something with the bed shaking and the door slamming shut and seeing something on the hallway. No one else felt that.

But it reminded me of a story that my grandma told me. And it's a short story. I don't remember when it was, but they were staying at the John Hancock Inn in Plymouth, Massachusetts, similar to what the other person was saying in that other episode. She and my grandpa, half-grandpa, they were in bed, they were watching something on the television, and she felt something slap the back of her head.

And so she thought it was my grandpa. When she asked my grandpa, he said he didn't do it. And obviously the inn's an old place, but no one else was in the room. It's sort of strange because I can't think of another explanation if it wasn't my grandpa just joking around or if it's some paranormal thing.

I listen to the podcast every time there's a new podcast, and I've been trying to listen to some of the older episodes. It's great work. Bye. Thank you, Jules. Now, like we do for almost every call shared here, we did some digging to see if there are any other reports that coincide with our callers. But this time, I not only found nothing, but I couldn't even find the inn that Jules claims the story took place in.

Now it was mentioned that the grandparents were visiting the John Hancock Inn of Plymouth, Massachusetts. But according to Google, no such hotel exists. But there is a John Carver Inn in Plymouth. So perhaps Jules just got the Johns mixed up. But either way, a grandma slapping ghost. I did not have that on my bingo card for tonight. So thank you Jules for the little surprise and for sharing the entry.

Alright folks, now for tonight's final submission. An unsettling story that hits close to home. Misty's home in North Carolina. Hi, this is Misty from North Carolina. One of the things that happens to me regularly that's puzzling is that my son and I will either see or interact with or hear stories

my husband when he is not there. An example might be my son saying, "Mom, where did dad go?" And I say, "He's not home from work yet." And my son says, "Yes, he is. I just played with him." Or I will be answering from another room. Like he will have said something like, "Well, where is it?" And I'll say, "Where is what?"

And then I realized he's nowhere in the house. And I wouldn't say it happens often, but it does happen regularly and has happened for years. My husband is alive and healthy and very much not a spiritual kind of guy. So he thinks we're crazy when we say, hey, you were just here or hey, you just said something to me. Is this a thing? What is this phenomenon? Thank you so much. Thanks, Misty.

Now what you saw was likely your husband's doppelganger, or in German, double walker. Essentially the exact copy of your husband. Sometimes it's a coincidental look-alike situation, and sometimes, like in your entry, it seems to be some sort of exact copy. Now seeing a doppelganger is one thing.

We've already established that each person has on average about seven doppelgangers around the world. The chances of running into one of those is very slim, but it's not zero. But to interact with one in your home, I'm gonna pass on that. But I do appreciate that you took the time to share this story with us, Misty. Thank you again for calling in. And tonight's final story is a, well, it's a weird one.

from my old stomping grounds of Toledo, Ohio. Please welcome Gerald to the show. Hey Derek, it's Gerald Davis from Toledo, Ohio. I'm just calling in with a sighting that me and my ex-girlfriend had.

One day we went to the gas station that was by my house. On our way back, I was coming down Door Street. I made a left to go on Forest. I began to approach the stop sign that was at the corner of Forest and Fernwood.

And in my left ear, I heard, "Turn off your lights, turn off your lights, turn off your lights, turn off your lights." It was very fast, just kind of like the disclaimer at the end of medicine commercials where they talk real fast. The only lights that I had was my headlights that I could think of. So I hear a voice and I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

They weren't angry or showing signs of violence, but they were assertive. And I knew it was serious. So all this happened in the span of like 15 seconds. Turn off your lights, turn off your lights, turn off your lights. So I had a toggle switch because my headlights messed up and I had someone fix it. They put a toggle switch on it for my headlights. I hit that switch and I can remember my ex-girlfriend saying, what are you? And she stopped because...

It was a white ball that came out of the tree. As soon as I turned the lights off, a white ball, it appeared. It was probably positive softball. And we saw it and it did like some kind of maneuver and shot off into the trees. And we was left speechless.

Well, what do you suppose that was? Thank you, Gerald. Whatever it was, it's been reported before.

We've heard similar stories over the years of people that claim to hear strange voices in their head that tell them to do something abruptly or quickly only for them to narrowly avoid disaster moments later. Is it a guardian angel? Some sort of ghost attachment? Or maybe a self-preservation tactic that science knows little about? Whatever it was, whatever it is, it's equal parts fascinating and terrifying.

And we thank you again, Gerald, for sharing it here with us. I hope you're enjoying the programming thus far. But now for the second half of this double feature. Season 15, Episode 6, already in progress. Greetings, Monster Squad.

Do I have a chunk of bonus content lined up for you this evening? An after show full of curses, government interference, and downright madmen. So to kick us off, we begin here in California, where Jesse is in storyteller mode.

Hi, Derek. My name is Jesse. I'm a big fan. Thank you for what you do. My story is sort of in the third person because the strange part actually happened to my dad. This happened in the late 90s. I want to say 1998 or 1999 in Whittier, California. Sounds like a goosebump book or something, but I promise it was real life.

So my dad used to polish brass knickknacks. He would go to garage shelves and find weird little things and polish them. I guess you could say it was a hobby of his. One day he went to a garage show and found a weird candle holder with three naked devils. I remember this item vividly. It was very obscene, but that is as far as I can go into detail without being rated R. So anyways, this candle holder caught his eye. He bought it and left the garage show.

Anyways, he brings this candle holder home and polishes it and becomes a conversation piece at her house.

My grandma told my parents to get rid of it, that it felt cursed. We aren't superstitious people, so my mom and dad were like, whatever, and kept it. Now, I don't know if it really was cursed, but all I can say is a series of traumatic things happened to my family for a few years after we acquired this item. For example, we lost our home and had to move in with family. I got expelled from school, and probably the most traumatic one would be that my dad died in 2003 from cancer.

It was really sudden. He passed only one month after being diagnosed. It's kind of sad. So my mom did end up getting rid of the double candle holder my dad got from the vanishing garage sale. But I just thought it was an interesting coincidence to trail negative events my family experienced after this purchase. I tried to Google the double candle holder to see if I could find something similar, but I was unable to come up with anything.

Thank you for letting me tell my story. Maybe someone else has experienced something similar. Keep up the awesome work you do on the show and thanks again. Thank you, Jessie. Now, you know, I've visited my fair share of yard sales over the years. So I wonder how many items I might have that could be cursed. Now, generally, I have extremely bad luck, so I probably wouldn't even notice. Then again, if the results of the curse were as dire as Jessie's were, then I imagine it'd be difficult for me not to catch on.

But I too am curious about this candle holder. Hopefully someone out there listening knows exactly what's being discussed here. Maybe they can even provide a photograph. Until then, I suppose we will just wait patiently. And thanks again, Jesse, for sharing the mystery. Welcome to the After Show, folks. It's a downright pleasure to have you here with us this evening. I have a lot to get through, so I'm going to get right back into the action. Beginning with Alex, out of Ohio.

in her string of numerous encounters.

Hi, yeah, my name is Alex. I'm from Ohio. I'm kind of towards the center from a small town called Lockington. And it's kind of a cool town. It's where they used to have the lock for the canal boats to go through. And it's kind of a creepy town. And it's where one of my stories takes place. But first, I want to tell you one that's not my story. It's actually my grandma. She passed away in 2009. That's when she told me this story was probably 2008, maybe 2007. It would have been in seventh grade.

And she told me this story of this house that she used to live in when she was a little girl and she was like 15 years old. And she had this neighbor lady named San.

And she said she would go to this neighbor lady's house every full moon because this old woman, Fan, had told her to be wary of the spirit living in my grandma's house. So my grandma wasn't superstitious. We're a pretty Catholic family, and she didn't really pay much attention to it, but she liked Fan, so she would go over there and do what she told her to do.

And anyways, my grandma told me about how she had this box that Fan had made for her and she would take it to her house on the night of every full moon they had. And Fan would go outside with her soup ladle and she would try to scoop the moon out of the sky. And she would scoop the moon out and she would put it in this box. And she would close this box and she'd hold it close to her mouth and I don't know what she would say or I don't know if my grandma ever told me what she would say or if she even knew. But she would say something to this box and she'd give the box to my grandma.

And she told my grandma, she said, make sure you put this on your bedside table until the full moon's over. You know, just do whatever you want with it. Bring it back to me on the next full moon. So that's what she would do. And I guess she had done this for, I don't know how long. I don't know if it was a couple months or a year or what. I didn't really ask that question. But one day, I guess, Fan wasn't there. I don't know if she had died or I don't know if she'd moved. I don't know. I just know that the grandma said that Fan wasn't there. And she took her box.

over to her and you know she wasn't home and she went the next day and she wasn't home and it had already been several days into the full moon and she said it was the second maybe the third night of not seeing fan and not having her moon in this box and her sister who she stayed with in her upstairs bedroom she went to stay with a friend that night and so my grandma stayed in the room by herself she said she had two windows on each side of her bedroom and the ceilings were kind of slanted at the top that went down to about maybe two or three feet above the ground where it was straight up

And her bed was in the middle of the room. And she said she had her bed and a nightstand and her little rug that she had by her bed that she put her slippers on when she went to sleep. And she said she crawled into bed. Everything was normal. She laid down and she went to sleep. And she said she woke up in the middle of the night with her covers not on her. They were on the floor. And she thought, you know, oh, I kicked them off. She sat up.

she went to put her slippers on to, you know, go pick her blanket up. And she said her slippers weren't there. And she always took her slippers off and she put them right by her bed every single night. So she knew exactly where she was. So she could get up in the morning, put them on and go do her thing. She said her slippers were not there. So she looked around. She said it was, you know, it was really, it was really dark. And she looked around, she couldn't find her slippers. She picked up her blanket. She put it back on her bed and went back to sleep. Next morning, she still couldn't find her slippers. And so she, you know, she continued about her day, didn't

think anything of it. And that night she had her and her sisters and her brother had left and with their, with their mom and their dad was behind the house. And they had found out that they needed to come home because their house was on fire. So they went back to the house and my grandma said her slippers were sitting on the front porch, sitting outside and the house was up in flames and the whole thing burnt down. The whole thing burnt to the ground.

And then they moved. And she said she never heard from Van ever again. And the box burned up in the house and all their things were lost. And it was a tragedy. So that was pretty much my grandmother's story. And I want to tell you, this next one is mine. But it also pulls in my dad and a couple other people who have similar stories. But like I said, it lives in Lockington. And it's a locked town. I had this friend that lived a couple miles down the road. And when I was younger, I was probably 2004, 2005. So I'd have been...

fifth grade and I would walk to my friend, my one friend's house. And there was a old gravel quarry that people would always want to go, you know, like raccoon hunting back there. And they'd always take their dogs back there, but people would only ever go one time because they were so freaked out by this place. And they'd tell everybody, you know, don't go back there. Don't go back

And people just, you know, they didn't, I don't know if they didn't believe them or what, but they would try to come back there and go hunting and they would come out and say the same thing. You know, never again am I going back there. And anyways, this story I'm talking about now, this happened down in front of that gravel quarry. And there's also a cemetery right there and like a fork in the road. And we had to walk by the cemetery to get to my one friend's house from my other friend's house. And that's where we were heading. And so we're walking and we're

It's just me and my friend, you know, fifth graders, walked out in the middle of nowhere out in the country. And, you know, we never, we always just talked. We never really were scared or anything of it. We just knew, you know, don't go back there. And the only time we ever got a little freaked out was walking by the cemetery. You just walk a little faster. But we're walking, and out of nowhere, we hear this, it was, I don't want to say it was a yell, but it was, and it wasn't really a scream. It was kind of just like...

maybe like a whale. Like if you were to take, you know, the scream that R2-D2 does and make it a little deeper and I don't know, I guess freakier. I'm not sure, but that's kind of what it sounded like as R2-D2. And it had this scream and me and my friend looked at each other and like, what, you know, what was that? And we kind of looked around and we looked to the left towards the quarry and we looked to the right, which was, there was just some houses and like a field back there. And it's the summer. It's probably,

8, 30, 9 o'clock. It's starting to get dark and we kind of look at each other and we're like, okay, we're just hearing stuff. So we start walking again, you know, walking a little faster and we're coming up towards the fork in the road where the cemetery is directly in front of us and the road goes left of the cemetery or right of the cemetery and at this point the gravel quarry is not behind us but it's on our left and it's getting to be on our backsides and then we hear it again.

And I stopped, and this time my heart is like in my stomach. And I turned, and I looked, and it looked like, I don't know if it was crouching or if it was just short. I'm thinking it was just short. It was only a couple feet tall, and it just was like a white face with this, just these big black lines.

I'm not sure...

But it started running. After it looked at us for a couple of seconds, it turned around and started running back into the gravel boy. And it was running in a zigzag. And me and my friend just started running the other way as fast as we could. We didn't talk about it for a couple of days. But when I finally decided, you know, hey, I'm going to tell somebody, I told my dad. My dad looked at me and he just smiled. And he said, it's still there. And I said, what are you talking about? And he said, the lock looker.

And I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it now that I remember exactly how he said it. And my dad is this six foot six, big, burly, retired police officer. You know, he's in the military and he looks at me dead in the eyes and he said, the lock looker. And he told me the story of when he was a kid, there's the Lockington Dam is right there off of where I'm talking about.

And he said that when they would go camping out there, he would see this little white thing. He's the one that coins from lemur looking thing. I actually hadn't thought of that until I saw one and said that. And I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, that's a lot like what it looks like. But he said that his buddy walked up over the dam the one day and looked down and he said they thought it was a trash bag. They thought someone had dumped a trash bag down there and got a little closer to it. And they said the trash bags started moving.

So they immediately thought there was the puppies or there's something in this trash bag. And so they start running full sprint. And then he said, I know where it sits up and looks at me and does this piercing stare. And it let out this scream and turns and runs in a zigzag motion back into the woods.

So I'm for sure it's the same thing. I don't know what it is. I've never heard of anything small like that. Out in Ohio, the only stories you hear are Bigfoot, and this thing was not very big. So I'm not sure what it was. And then also around Lockington, this also kind of ties in. It was April 28th of 2016.

And my younger brother and my now husband, who was then the time my boyfriend, they decided to go camping. And they went camping on a walking kazam like they usually do. And they get their camp set up. They don't do anything weird. You know, they're totally fine. They're out in the wilderness all the time. They're hunters. They weren't scared at all. And they set their camp up. And they're sitting around talking and having a good time. And out of nowhere, they start hearing what they think maybe are logs.

Maybe they're big frogs. Something big and heavy is getting thrown around in the woods around them. So they look at each other, and they get their lights out, and they start looking. And they don't see anything, but at this point, they know there are big borders and big logs that are being thrown because one of the logs was thrown right in front of my husband's feet. And they have a lot of money and camping equipment and stuff out there, and they just left it. They looked at each other, and they just ran.

And they said they ran as fast as they could to try to get out of this wooded area. And it said it sounded like something was running right beside them the whole way out of the woods that was chasing them out of the woods. And they were hearing big, huge, I don't want to say tree knocks, you know, because that's kind of, I don't want to say cliche either, but something was knocking against these trees as they were running. And it was...

Hitting it with such a force that it was so loud that you would have had to be standing in place to hit it that hard. But at the same time, they could hear it running right alongside them. And they tried to get in the car as fast as they could. They just drove home. And as far as I know, they left all that camping stuff out in the woods and

Thank you, Alex. The Monsters of Ohio.

And the state is full of them. I should know, I grew up there. And spent the first half of my life there. Grassman, the Loveland Frogman, Old Orange Eyes, South Bay Bessie, the Peninsula Python, and now the Locklooker. Which is a new one to me. You know, I tried to research these Locklookers. I wasn't able to find much of anything of substance.

Except on a random Facebook post where I found residents of the area briefly discussing another creature said to roam that region late at night. They call it simply the Lockington Werewolf. But could this creature and the Locklooker be one and the same? Is there a creature at all? Like I said, the Locklooker is new to me, as is this Lockington Werewolf.

So what I'll do is I'll keep my ears open. I might even ask a few folks that live in that area what they know. I'll report back on this one. Until I do, though, thank you, Alex, for sharing those entries. I just don't feel good about what's to come. All of this. You know, that's one of those where they... And dozens of other acts of what we believe. All right, Bill, let's talk about today a little bit. Now, folks, this last entry takes us to the land of Lincoln. Josh.

Welcome to the show. Hey, Derek. My name is Josh. I'm from Illinois, East Central Illinois, a town called Champaign. It's where the University of Illinois is located. I've been debating on whether or not to call in my story because talking about it gives me severe anxiety because it's one of the most frightful things I've ever experienced in my life. So I'll start from the beginning. I was doing a lot of meditation at the time. It was a couple years ago and I

I was doing a guided meditation on trying to open my third eye, and I was about an hour in to this guided meditation. I was in the middle of a field of flowers in my mind, and all of a sudden, I hear this noise, and this dark, masked figure kind of looks like a World War I gas mask soldier in all black, but he was badly burnt and dead.

He came at me, and the noise he made was like that of, I don't know, the sand people from Star Wars maybe. But it was so scary that it made me scream, and I came out of my meditation. And then I was looking around, and it was still daylight out, and the hairs on my arms were risen. I was crying, and I was so scared, but...

That's just the beginning because after that I was laying in bed one day and I was just watching some TV and my closet door was cracked, which I know for a fact that I had shut it because I just, I'm very particular about shutting the door and everything like that. And I looked at this cracked door and I see some red eyes and a clawed hand and it opens the door and it comes out and it looks like kind of like Nosferatu almost and

But it never fully came out of the door. It just showed its arm and its head and it was staring at me. And I was freaked out because, like I said, I've been trying to meditate on opening my third eye so I could see things that weren't there maybe. But...

I closed my eyes, I got out of bed, went to the kitchen, and I came back into the bedroom and it was still there. And this thing was everywhere for the next three days of my life. Only in the dark places though. And I felt like there was this crazy heavy weight on my shoulders.

for the next three days to where it was hard to walk, it was hard to breathe. And this thing followed me around and it was always lurking in dark corners. But it was never more than 10 feet away and it was never closer. Like it was always maintained like a 7 to 10 foot distance from me.

But it just was following. And I think it was waiting for me to fully let it in. And I think it was a demon. I don't know. It might have been a ghost. But it was the most scary thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. And the way this thing looked at me, it was like...

Like it was pleading for me to open that closet door. But I'd shut it and then I'd come home and the door would be open again. And like I said, it wouldn't just be in the closet though. It would be in dark corners everywhere. And it followed me around for three days and...

Eventually, it just went away. But it scarred me, man. Like, I don't know. It scared me so bad. And then about a year later, I was searching on being attacked during a meditation by, I don't know, just like dark entities or a masked figure with gas masks. And that's actually how I found your show, because I typed in...

gas mask figure attacking you in your dreams or your meditations. And that's how I came across your Mad Gasser episode from Charleston, which is actually only like 40 minutes away from where I live. But even just telling this story right now, I'm sweating profusely. My voice is shaky. My heart's beating so fast. I really love the podcast. Wanted to call in and maybe you can give me some insight as to what happened because I have yet to find anything short of demonic possession or I don't know. But anyway, thanks. Love the podcast. Keep it up.

Thank you, Josh. Now the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Illinois is the case that he's referring to. And we did cover this years ago. But for those that can't remember, Urban Rafe was jolted awake on the morning of August 31st, 1944 by a sticky sweet smell that caused him to vomit violently, suspecting a gas leak in the family's Mattoon, Illinois home. Rafe's wife attempted to get up from their bed to check the pilot light on the kitchen stove.

but found she was partially paralyzed and unable to move. A few blocks over, another woman heard her child coughing in a bedroom down the hall, but she too was unable to move.

In the days following the initial event, several more residents of Mattoon reported similar aromas around their homes, in addition to fits of nausea and swelling of the arms and legs. Police initially pointed to burglary as motivation, and some witnesses reported finding footprints, but evidence relating to a specific person was scant. The local authorities received a rapid increase of reports, many of which turned out to be false alarms.

Overrun with questionable sightings and experiences, police released a statement which concluded that the entire incident was likely the result of explainable occurrences exacerbated by public fears. Experts also believe that the Mad Gasser of Mattoon may have represented the anxiety felt by women while local men were on war service. The Mad Gasser was never caught. And if I remember correctly, a witness did see someone they suspected to be the gasser.

Someone the witness claimed was a woman dressed as a man. And although I can't find it now, I swear I've heard details about a woman's shoe print being found under a victim's window. Peculiar details, for sure. But what's more peculiar is that this isn't the first time something like this has happened here in the States.

On the evening of December 22nd, 1933, Cal Huffman was home with his family in Baldetourt County, Virginia, when his family was suddenly overcome with an intense bout of nausea. Mrs. Huffman noticed a distinct odor hanging in the air, but failed to determine the source of the smell. Less than an hour later, the stench returned. The family notified the police, who visited the home, but once again, the search came to a dead end.

In the early hours of December 23rd, the mysterious gas reappeared, causing the entire Huffman family to suffer from headaches and restricted breathing. Fearing a deliberate attack by a prowler, Cal Huffman enlisted the help of a local physician to identify the noxious fumes. Chloroform, ether, and tear gas were rolled out almost immediately, and to add to the confusion, a woman's shoe was found beneath the window of the home.

Over the course of the next year, the communities of Botetourt County would be rocked by multiple gassings. Victims reported burning eyes, tingling limbs, staggering movements, and weakened states of exhaustion. Families were attacked in their homes directly, sometimes being sprayed through open windows or while sitting in parked cars on the street. Tensions ran high as mass hysteria began to grow. Residents were warned of the gasser, and small mobs were formed to hunt down the assailant.

On more than one occasion, witnesses caught brief glimpses of the attacker, but the criminal was too cunning to be caught. Rumors ran rampant, hoaxers were decried, and some purported the whole thing to be a figment of the town's imagination. Overwhelmed by nearly 50 accounts of gassings, local authorities eventually released a statement saying that the lack of tangible evidence confirmed that the Mad Gasser never truly existed.

and that the gassings were simply normal everyday occurrences. And just like in Mattoon, this gasser too was never caught. Now I'm sure you picked up, as I did, that a woman's shoe was found in Virginia, and 11 years later, women's shoe tracks were found at another gassing location. That's so beyond coincidence that I almost wonder if it's not a red herring, meaning this quote-unquote evidence was left on purpose.

But these coincidences are too strong not to assume that these two cases may be connected in some way, if not perpetrated by the exact same person. But regardless, that's all behind us now, isn't it? We don't have mad gassers spraying windows anymore. But thanks to some quick research by Delaney, we can't exactly say that it hasn't happened again.

Now first spotted in a forest near the small Swiss village of Mols in the late 1890s, Le Lion, the ghost of Mols, is a figure of contemporary urban legend that may have basis in reality. Standing six foot tall, Le Lion is said to have worn dark coveralls, a camouflage cloak, and a gas mask that covered his entire head.

The first woman reported to have seen the ghost said that she stumbled upon him as she was picking flowers in the forest. Startled, the ghost quickly bolted beyond the tree line. In 2013, Le Matin, a French newspaper, published the only known photograph of Le Leon.

After the photograph became widely circulated online, Le Matin published an article stating Le Leon's cloak and gas mask had been found discarded in the forest, along with a note titled, Death Certificate and Testament of the Ghost of Mosse. The letter told of Le Leon's dissatisfaction with his newfound celebrity.

Since then, no sightings have been reported. Some locals believe Le Leon may have been a survivalist, an eccentric, or someone who suffered from a debilitating skin disease, which would account for the extreme measures taken to cover his body. Okay, so the last one didn't exactly gas anyone, but it's still plenty creepy. And I'm afraid none of these stories do anything to explain away Josh's nightmarish experiences. For your sanity, Josh,

I will suggest that sleep paralysis could be a logical explanation for all of this. I know that's an easy excuse, but Occam's razor and all. Either way, it's scary stuff, Josh. And thank you again for sharing that call.

The following call will be shared exactly as I received it. No editing other than volume control has been applied to this file. This is how I heard it and how you will as well. Before I introduce this next caller, I will say that connection problems are frequent on our hotline. And I don't think that it's us necessarily. Just bad cell phone reception, I think. Regardless, keep that in mind as you listen to this anonymous caller out of the state of Oregon.

Yeah. I'm calling from the state of Portland, Oregon. Something weird happened this morning. It's been happening for a few days, but now I know. Yeah. I just called you guys as soon as I started saying the word helicopter. My phone got disconnected. It's weird. There's a 3.30 in the morning in Portland, Oregon. I don't know how long it is before they shut off my call again. But, um...

I had a dream and I haven't had a dream for days. I've been having very good sleep and I just wondered, I thought about that, you know, I haven't had any, you know, out of pocket dreams lately. And I wake up at 3:30 in the morning, the feeling of being scared after I woke up, being watched and that somebody was also inside of my place. I don't really feel like that normally.

And I'm bold, I walk around, I don't really care much, you know, I'm not afraid. But it felt otherworldly afraid. It's where I didn't want to look out the window or anything like that. Part of my dream was about very small, micro people, the size of a Keurig, you know,

coffee, uh, little pot that you'll put in. The only reason I could say that is because in the dream they, they were living inside of those. He, he, he wanted a sip out of that and, um, that they were living inside of those. Weird part about it is in my closet, I have some of those, um, you know, Keurigs, but I'll hear little ticks come from the closet every now and then. And, um,

I've had to sage it out once in a while, but I hear little things like right now I just felt a jerk. It feels as if something's jumping off of my bed. I live by myself. I don't have any rats or rodents or anything like that. But it feels kind of like something, you know, when somebody gets up or moves off the bed and walks away.

But this dream about these little people living in the walls the size of the Keurig, about 2 inches or so. And I remember that they were saying that they're living underneath the pillows and just tucked in small nooks and spots, real small people.

So I hear this tick outside, like outside my window, kind of like something dropped. So now I stick my head out the window, but, you know, grab my sidearm and I stick my head out the window. And immediately, I didn't, there's nothing right there, but behind me,

There's a parked in the back. There's a white truck with these weird like government looking plates. And he's got these big old like extra lights and high beam like kind of lights and stuff. And I've been hearing last night was a higher frequency was going off in my area. I was wondering where it was coming from, you know. But yeah, so I step out, you know.

And flashed my light, flashlight in the ride. And his head was the size of a damn orange with some sunglasses on it. Regular glasses. So I flicked off the light real quick. I mean, he was hiding, like, tucked up underneath the steering wheel. Like, he was letting that cover his whole head. But no, ain't no damn human got the head the size of an orange with some sunglasses on it. You know? And he...

So I go out, I go back inside, you know, and I go back out a little while later and I start up one of my vehicles to warm it up. Just I had that feeling like I got to get up and go just in case something's going to happen here. You know, and as I'm warming it up, literally at 420 on the dot, he just, you know, he takes off. I mean, from 330 staking out my spot all damn night like that.

I mean, there's nothing around here to be in my driveway at 3:30 in the morning and I'm having dreams of little men and feeling like I'm being watched and feeling like I've been infiltrated. So yeah, that's what's going on with me. It's about 6:10 now in a.m. I haven't slept since I'm staying up 'til it's time to start the day. So yeah, thanks, appreciate your show, man. - Thank you, caller. That's wild stuff.

It's strange stuff. And I hope you get it figured out. Thanks again for calling in. And thanks again folks for joining us this evening. As always, keep it spooky and have a good night. And there you have it folks. The Beyond portion to both Season 18 Episode 7 and Season 15 Episode 6. Now be sure to tune in on Thursday because that episode will be brand new. Until then...

Monsters Among Us podcast is written and produced by me, Derek Hayes. Copyright Red Crow Media. Additional support is provided by Sarah Carter Hayes and Delaney Bowers. All media used in this production is done so under the protection of fair use. Be sure to follow us on our social media accounts. Give us a like and follow on YouTube. And while you're at it, leave us a rate and review wherever that sort of thing is possible.

Don't forget you can catch the show every Saturday evening at 11 p.m. on the digital airwaves. Just visit onxnetwork.com to tune in. And finally, tonight's score was provided by Iron Cthulhu, Apocalypse, Co.he Music, Carl Casey, and White Bat Audio. Now make sure you check out our film Shadows in the Desert High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle. I'm getting a lot of messages from people that have watched it and apparently loved it.

And I truly appreciate you guys writing in. Now, I'll do my best to write back, but there are a lot of messages. So please don't get offended if I can't. Now, if you watched and you liked what you saw, go on over to Amazon and leave us a review, if you would. The more good reviews we have, the more viewers we get. And the better the chance that we are able to do something like this again in the future.

And lastly, Monsters Among Us Jr. is brand new this week as well. The latest episode will drop tomorrow afternoon. Just search for Monsters Among Us Jr. wherever you get your podcasts. All right, folks, that's it for me for tonight. But catch me on Thursday. I'll be sure to keep it spooky. Until then, you keep it spooky and have yourselves a good night.