S19 Ep19: A Veil of Darkness Volume 3: The Shadow People Files (Sn. 19 Ep. 19)
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Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us. I'm your guide, Derek Hayes.

Hello folks, I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you've joined us here this evening. I have quite a list of calls collected for tonight, all centering around one perplexing phenomenon. A shadowy figure that can and will show up essentially anywhere. Here to kick off this all shadow man episode is Megan from that state up north.

Hi, Monsters Among Us. My name is Megan and I'm calling from Detroit, Michigan. And I wanted to share a little bit about my paranormal experience.

It was about 10 years ago and I was at my family's home with my parents and I'd recently gotten like really into the paranormal and apart from you know watching things on TV and I know me and my friends sometimes would you know mess around with the Ouija board. I never really understood kind of the dangers of potentially what could happen with using those paranormal tools.

So I wanted to try to get a little bit deeper into it. You know, I was learning about spirit guides and potentially like communicating the spirits. So I had bought a book and it gave exercises on, you know, how to communicate with the spirit world. And I remember reading it right before bed and I was like, you know, trying to meditate and I was, you know, trying to connect with my spirit guide. And I just said, you know, I really want to try to connect with my spirit guide.

And I kind of like said that as a meditation and prayer to myself. Closed the book and then went to bed, turned off the light. And then sometime during the night, and I'm a pretty sound sleeper, but I woke up and you can imagine, you know, it's a pitch black room, but I opened my eyes to see what now I can only imagine to be a shadow person.

So in the darkness of my room, I still see the outline of a person about five feet tall. But what distinguished it from the night was it was darker than the dark of my room. And I was so startled and that even within the blink of my eye, me kind of gasping and screaming like I let out an audible scream, it was gone.

And I remember just being so freaked out.

I went back to sleep, but just in the morning, like I couldn't believe what I had actually saw and that it actually occurred the previous night. So I was pretty freaked out. So I didn't use the book anymore. I really kind of distanced myself from using the Ouija. And then now on TV, you see so much more about the paranormal clips and videos. And that's how I later learned I was most likely a shadow person.

I've never seen it again, but I think that that really opened my eyes to the potential dangers of shadow people and me thinking, what did I potentially unleash into my parents' home? So I definitely got rid of that book. I no longer played around with the Ouija just because it was such a profound experience. So I just want to caution those out there who are potentially using anything like that or want to communicate with forces beyond them or spirits that

Sometimes it's just better to leave those aside just for your own safety. But it was definitely something that spooky that happened to me and I wanted to share it with the podcast. So thank you so much. Love the podcast and keep it spooky. Bye bye. Thank you, Megan. Now you hear this sort of warning all the time. Do not mess with Ouija.

And of course, we often learn of the ramifications when one does, quote-unquote, mess with a Ouija board. And I think it's safe that we can add Megan to this list. Mess around and find out, as some folks say. But I don't necessarily share that view. I have a number of Ouija boards here in my office slash studio, and I haven't noticed anything strange involving them.

That said, I'm also not out here trying to contact the dead with them either, so perhaps I should put my money where my mouth is. I might just have to bust one of these out one day and see for myself. Famous last words of a fool, perhaps. Either way, we appreciate the phone call, Megan. As you're about to learn, you are in great company. A lot of people have seen whatever this thing is.

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That's code MAU50OFF at factormeals.com forward slash MAU50OFF to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. Now, let's get right back into the action with a call out of the volunteer state. Please welcome Phil to tonight's show.

My name is Phil from Chattanooga, and this happened to a college friend of mine back in 1978. He was 17 years old at that time. It was the wintertime. And he belonged to a church, a very large church. And one day the deacons came to him and said, we would like to make you a junior trustee. So he thought it was a great thing. So he accepted the job. And all that job meant was you get to open and close the church.

get there early, stay late. So what happened to him one night, he was closing up the church. That meant that he had to go around to each exit and make sure each exit was locked and secure. He also had to make sure that the furnace was off. If there was a heat pump running, the heat pump was off. And then he had to turn a light off to make his way out. He had to walk down this long hallway.

to get out. His hallway was probably 60 feet long and he had to turn the light off before he started walking down that hallway. So that meant that he had to walk the entire length of that hallway in the dark. And on each side of that hallway were classrooms. And these classrooms were 10 foot by 10 foot.

And he had to walk by these rooms with these doors, some open, some have opened, some closed. Well, that night, he got everything locked up. He flipped off the last switch. He starts walking down the hallway. And all of a sudden, some of the doors start closing on their own. Well, he doesn't think much about that because he's thinking that the heat pump is reversing itself. The air handle is reversing itself, causing a vacuum, sucking some of the doors closed.

But that still doesn't keep him from having the chills. So he continues to walk. He has that don't look around behind you thing going on. He gets to the very end of the hall, to the outside door. He turns around and he looks. And at the very other end where he just turned the light off, there was a shadow figure standing there. Standing there just looking at him.

He had his eyes played to it, and just the second or two after he saw it, it just disappeared. He locked up the church building real quick, ran to his car, and the next Sunday he told those deacons, I'm not doing it again. And he said, I saw something last week, and I'm not doing it by myself again. And one of the deacons said, you must have seen Clifford.

And he asked, well, who's Clifford? Well, Clifford was the pastor 20 years ago. And he died in the hallway of a heart attack. And every now and then, someone will see a shadow or an apparition. And we've come to believe that that apparition or that shadow is Clifford. I don't know what it is. He doesn't know what it is.

Could it be? It could be Clifford or it could be somebody else. I'll let everybody else decide. Thank you. Thanks, Phil. How interesting that this particular shadow entity has its own nickname. And you know, that detail got me a little curious. So I had Delaney dig up a few other shadow entities with known names. And although the list is brief, it makes up for it by being pretty interesting. The first on the list is Julia Legre.

According to legend, in the mid-1800s, a young girl named Julia Legre was visiting family on Edisto Island in South Carolina when she suddenly fell ill, slipped into a coma, and seemingly passed away. She was interred in a mausoleum the next day. It wasn't until 15 years later, when her family was burying another relative, that they discovered Julia's body crumpled at the mausoleum's floor. She had been buried alive.

Visitors to Julia's grave report seeing a small shadowy figure darting around the cemetery and hearing the languished cries of Julia begging to be released. Then we have John Wesley Hardin, a staple in the Old West, with more than 30 kills notched into his holster. John Wesley Hardin was one of the most ruthless outlaws to roam the Texas plains.

Hardin's grave is beneath a prison-like cage, constructed of stone and iron bars. But according to visitors at Concordia Cemetery in El Paso, Texas, that's not enough to keep Hardin down. Folks have reported seeing a shadow figure of a man in a cowboy hat and cowboy boots leaning up against the ramshackle prison cell.

And then we have Big Jim and David Mason from the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum there in West and West Virginia. It was a psychiatric facility, infamous for its disastrous, unethical, and inhumane treatment of patients. Two of those patients were Big Jim and David Mason, who were reported to have killed another inmate by splitting his head open beneath a bedpost.

The shadow figures of both men have been reported hanging around the now empty bedrooms and causing a sense of unease and terror to anyone that visits. And this last one is a bit of a stretch. The Dark Watchers. Not just a single shadow figure, but an entire group. The Dark Watchers are said to appear as a group of darkened, silhouetted entities that observe travelers along the Santa Lucia mountain range.

in central California reported to wear large brimmed hats and carrying long walking sticks. The Dark Watchers are most active at dusk and dawn, so there are a few named shadow entities, Phil, just like your roommate experienced, or at least similar. Thank you again for sharing your story. Now, next up, we venture on up to Oregon. Please welcome Jacob to the show.

Hello, Derek. This is Jacob, and I'm calling from Gresham, Oregon. So, I've been listening to your podcast for a little while. I've heard people talking about shadow people. I'm guessing that's what I've seen, but I'm not too sure. Anyways, this was probably 20 years, 2002 through 2004. It had to be

And I woke one night from sleeping on the couch. I just would pass out in random locations in my house. I was in a family room, which was a ranch-style house, two-car garage. But one of the garages was converted into a family room slash bar area. I remember waking up in the corner. I seen a shadow.

The ceilings, I don't know, probably were about seven to eight feet tall. The shadow pretty much almost reached the ceiling. Nothing weird happened. I just remember waking up and looking at the wall and seeing the shadow. Like I couldn't see a face or anything. It was just a figure, maybe a man. And the only reason why I say that is because they would try to talk to me.

one of the nights. So, I used to sleep in my parents' bedroom in a crib. There was a three-bedroom house. My sister was in the one room. My two brothers were in the other room, and then I was with my parents in their room. So, they used to try to talk to me, but I can't remember what it was trying to say to me. All I remember feeling was really uncomfortable, just uneasy.

When it would try to talk to me, I would hide under the blanket and I would tell it to go away. I don't want to talk to you. I can't remember how many times it happened, but there was three or four times I can remember waking up in my parents' bedroom and it trying to talk to me. It was like one of those voices, like really deep, low octave, just really deep voices.

There's another current. I think this was the last time I've seen it. It was during the snowstorm because '04 there was a really big snowstorm here. So the house was on a corner lot and just in a regular neighborhood with other houses and duplexes and whatnot. But the backyard was like an L-shape. So there's a sliding door

from the bar area, family room area, and then deck, and then to the right was a little tiny woodshed, not that big. After the deck, there was a patch of grass that extended to the far back fence before it would touch the street. And I was back there playing in the snow. I love the snow. I don't know why I always have. So I remember seeing it. It was on the fence, and the fence was a pretty tall fence.

six foot, seven foot tall thing. I've seen a shadow figure. That's all I can remember, just as a shadow figure. It was on the back then. I tried to go back inside, but for some reason, the door was locked. I couldn't get it open. I started to freak out. As I'm trying to get inside, I start banging on the door, but nobody was coming. And as I'm freaking out, it starts to...

move towards me and slowly goes from the fence to the house. Starts going up on the house on the far side and I'm on the complete opposite end. Slowly starts to move up on the house. Still freaking out. Gets closer, gets closer. Probably gets to about five feet away from me and as it's that close, a sliding door opens.

Boom, ran inside. So I closed it and locked it and just ran away. That was the last time I think that I'd seen it. I remember telling my mom about it and she would tell me, "If you try to talk to me, to pray to God, tell him to remove it. Tell him I don't like it." So that's what I did. After that, I didn't experience anything weird like that again.

Anyways, thanks for listening to my story, and good luck with the show. We appreciate the call, Jacob. And I wondered how long it would take for that detail to come up. One of these shadow entities trying to speak to us. For the longest time, I'd never heard of anyone mention that detail in their account. But once I pointed it out, it seemed to have opened the floodgates.

But as interesting as it was that this shadow entity tried to communicate with Jacob, that detail pales in comparison to the mental image of one of these things climbing on the side of your house. Boy, I'd like to see the doorbell camera footage of that one. By the way, it was an incredible account. We thank you, Jacob, for calling in. We help shield your property before it's too late. Plus, the best part? You don't need insurance.

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Now, if you would, please journey with me to the Empire State. Brian, go ahead with your Shadow Man story.

Hey, Derek. So I'm new to listening to your podcast, but I've been listening to it all week. And my name's Brian. I'm from upstate New York. I've lived here in this area my whole life. But I do have several stories that kind of link together after listening to a lot of your podcasts. It's brought back a lot of memories. First one goes back to when I was probably about two years old, living in Ithaca, New York, in an old apartment building with my parents.

And at that time they were into the supernatural kind of stuff. And they told me one night they woke up to me screaming and I was pointing at the corner of my room. And I would not stop pointing or screaming. So my father said he just basically sat there and talked to whatever I was pointing at. And after about 10 minutes, I sat right back down and went back to sleep. That's like the first weird thing that has happened to me. Fast forward to when I was about five.

We were living in Endicott, New York, in a split-level house. And I never thought of this as weird until I heard it on your podcast, but I used to see static figures, you know, no features of any kind. They were just human shapes that moved within other, I don't know, light. It was just hard to explain, but like people say, it was just like a static figure, no real definition.

I called them fuzzy people or something back then. And then that changed to shadow people that I would see in this room. And one particular night that scared me, I remember vividly, that's why I'm telling you this story. I was laying there and there was, like, in my child mind, it was a mother and a father shadow figure, you know, halfway up the wall in a seated position. And there was a littler one. And the littler one came down the wall and came across me.

towards my bed and it got close to me and I screamed and swung at it and it ran back across the room up the wall and then I assume was communicating with the other two. They looked down at it and then both of their heads whipped in my direction. I jumped out of bed and ran to my parents' room. I don't know if I saw him again after that, but that instance kind of sticks out in my head as something that was kind of profound.

And then when I was about 19, living in a different location, I was living in a basement bedroom, no windows. I woke up in the middle of the night one night to go to the bathroom, I think. And I stood up and I took a step and I noticed a figure darker than the darkness standing in front of me, about two feet in front of me. And I don't scare you, but every hair on my body stood up.

I just stood there looking at it. I was basically paralyzed. It had just kind of like dissolved in front of me. But yeah, that was a pretty spooky story. And then me and my wife purchased a house, you know, about 10 years ago. It was an old house that had gotten moved from one location to another. So it was really, really old. And I did a lot of work in it, and I never noticed anything funny. But after our twins were born, my wife swore at night when she was rocking the kids.

Thank you, Brian.

static figures and shadow people. Perhaps that suggests that this place was some sort of meeting point between the two entities. Or perhaps simply a passageway that acts as a bit of a funnel and brings all these entities to Brian. And to come face to face with one like that, almost literally, it's a pretty close encounter compared to most that I've heard regarding this particular phenomenon.

And if I'm honest about your call here, Brian, it sounds like you might be the common denominator here. Not so much the location. But regardless, it's spooky stuff. And we thank you again, Brian, for sharing it with us. Now, folks, if you have a story you would like me to share here on the program, why not give us a call? 888-608-9. That's 888-608-NIGHT.

or record your story on your phone and email the file to me at monstersamonguspodcast at gmail.com. Trust me when I say that we're looking forward to hearing from you. Now, full disclosure on this next one, I might be cheating a bit because it's not necessarily a shadow man per se, but in its own weird way, I think it still qualifies. Please welcome Jason from the state of Kentucky.

Hey Derek, this is Jason. I'm currently in North Central Kentucky and this story takes place in New Orleans. I lived there for 20 years and obviously New Orleans is very haunted.

She is her own entity. This city lives and breathes. When I got there in 2000, I experienced certain things, catching things out of the corner of my eye, hearing voices, but especially I feel the energy around me. You know, when I walk into somebody's house, I say, whoa, you've got a loud house. Or, oh, wow, your house is kind of quiet.

And I worked in the French Quarter mostly as a doorman at a bar, at a couple different bars. And this couple would show up every once in a while. Let's call them Gracie and Joe because I want to keep their identities a secret just in case.

Gracie and Joe were kind of a weird dyad. Gracie was bubbly and outgoing and she always wanted to have fun and meet new people. And Joe would kind of lurk in the background. You know, he was really quiet and he kind of came off a little bit jealous. I didn't know too much about them, but over the years, I got to know them. And I kept in touch with Gracie because she was active on her Facebook. He didn't have one.

And I was visiting my mother in Tampa, Florida on Thanksgiving in 2019. And I saw the Facebook post. She had announced that her husband, Joe, had passed away. I immediately contacted her and said, hey, look, if you need any help, let me know. Boy, how did she call me back fast?

She didn't know what to do because she was married at 16 to Joe, and he basically took care of everything. He expected her just to be at the house and, you know, taking care of this, taking care of dinner and blah, blah, blah. So she really didn't know what to do. I gave her a little bit of advice and told her I'd be on my way to New Orleans from Tampa. That was my plan anyway.

When I got to New Orleans and I went to her house, walked in her house and it felt like sunshine when I walked in the house. She had several cats and she was doing quite well for herself. I had just happened to show up

And I was there for a couple weeks. I was hanging out with her. We were having fun. We were reminiscing and watching TV together and stuff like that. We were drinking beer and drinking rum. Her favorite was rum. And a couple days later, I walked into the house after a day of work, and I walked in and I said, whoa, the energy here has absolutely changed.

This is a very loud house now and it's very dark. And I said, whoa, what is the difference? And she cheerfully came up and said that Joe's ashes had arrived today. She had him cremated and his urn was delivered that day.

And I didn't say anything because I didn't want to be disrespectful and I didn't want her to think I was freaking out or think that I had anything negative to say about this. So a couple days went by and she had gone to bed and I was sitting on the couch and just to lay it out for you.

The couch pointed at the TV, but then out of the corner of your eye, you could see the bathroom that was right in between the two bedrooms. And I was laying there watching TV, and guess what time it was? About 3.15, 3.30, just in time, if you know what I'm saying. I saw this big shadowy fog appear.

start to fill the area right in front of the bathroom and between the two bedrooms. And I knew better than to look right at it. I kind of watched it out of the corner of my eye. I kind of sat there and I go, "Oh boy, what the hell's going on here?" The shadowy fog, it didn't look like a person or anything. It was just kind of a fog, like a dark shadow.

And it wafted into the bedroom. And it was a couple of minutes, and I kind of just blew it off. It was a couple of minutes later. I just heard this coughing and gasping. And Gracie was coughing, coughing, coughing, gagging, coughing, gasping. And she came out of the room.

and sat down on the couch and she was gasping for breath. I said, what the hell's wrong with you? And she goes, I don't know. She goes, I woke up coughing my brains out. So we drank some rum and drank some beer and I didn't tell her about the shadow. Like I said, I don't want to freak her out and I didn't want to, you know, act like I was like, ooh, there's a ghost here or anything like that.

So after that, the house still had that dark energy, that negative energy. I couldn't escape it. She took on a different demeanor from then. She kind of got really quiet and she would not go back into that bedroom. And by that time, the landlord who had always dealt with Joe was

decided that it was time for her to move out because she could not pay the rent and she was kind of waiting on his life insurance and stuff. We don't gotta get into that legal stuff. But she had to move out. You know, I said, "Hey, I'll help you find a new place. "We'll get you a new place, something perfect for you, "something you can afford." And we did. It was closer to the city than she was.

But in the time COVID started, it was just perfect timing for COVID. And she stopped eating and she was very sullen, very quiet, very, you know, not herself. And she basically just sat there while I did everything to move her out of the place. And then she just kept on drinking her rum and not eating anything.

And two of her cats died in the middle of all of this. By the time I got her moved into her new place, I was like, I'm getting ready to get out of here for the summer. Are you going to be okay? She insisted that she was going to be okay. And I told her that, hey, this is my friend Leroy. He helped us move her into the place. If you don't answer twice in one week,

I'm going to send Leroy to check on you because I'm worried about you. You got to start eating again, you know? And she said, okay, fine. I won't stab him if he shows up. If I don't answer my phone twice, send him over to check on me. So it was a couple of weeks before I called her twice and she didn't answer the phone. So I sent Leroy over there and the landlord had told Leroy that she got taken by EMS a week ago.

And he wasn't sure where she went. And he was calling for her rent and, you know, how people don't care. They just want their money. So I flew from Minneapolis to New Orleans. I did the five things you don't want to do during COVID. A, I was in the airport. B, I was on an airplane. C, I was in New Orleans. And D, I was looking in hospitals for my friend.

And finally, I found her and she had had a stroke and went into a trapped in state where she was fully conscious of

And she knew what was going on, but she could not communicate. She could not move. She could squeeze my hand a little and she could blink. And boy, howdy, could she tell me when she wanted the TV to be on a different channel. So I got a hold of her family. So her sister and her father came from Georgia and picked up all of her belongings, including the urn. Now, I bring this up because the urn got taken from New Orleans to Florida.

And she started recovering immediately. So I was traveling around the world like I always do. And I got a phone call from her. It was her. She was talking. She's like, where's all my stuff? What did you do? I tried to explain to her what happened. She had very little memory. She barely remembered that we moved her into a different apartment. She recovered fully, remarried to a good friend of mine a couple years later.

Wow. Quite the saga there, Jason.

Thank you for calling in. So not exactly a shadow man, but I thought it did sound like a man in the shape of a shadow. Whatever it was, it seemed to have quite the negative effect on poor Gracie. And whatever it was, it seemed to be at least somehow connected to her late husband, Joe. And it's good to hear that Gracie made a full recovery, Jason, because you had me worried there for a while. Thank you again for taking the time.

to call in. Now folks, I'm going to take another quick break, but don't go anywhere because things are just heating up. All right, this next one comes to us anonymously from my state of California.

I never experienced anything like Bigfoot or UFOs or ghosts or stuff like that.

even though living in like prime areas for that type of activity.

born on the northern coast of California and never saw or smelled or heard Bigfoot while living there and then moved to the Sierra Nevadas in the Lake Tahoe area where the house I grew up in as a kid was backed up against national forests. We had miles of woods behind us and now live in a very rural town in the Sierras in California with, you know, about 120 people and still have yet to experience any of it.

One of the places that my wife and kids and I like to visit is the Eureka Dunes in the northern end of Death Valley. And it's pretty up there. There's no people. It's very remote. The sand dunes are there, and we usually go in the spring or the fall, and the kids can play in the dunes, and it's always warm and not too cold at night. It's just very remote. It's a very pretty place.

Also, the dunes out there, they sing something about the dry sand on top of wet sand. It makes a humming noise when the temperature's right and the wind is blowing. It reverberates through the dunes. You'll be sitting out there during the day, and you'll get sounds like a distant airplane, but it's really the dunes vibrating.

But whenever we go camping at the dunes, we've been there maybe a dozen times. For me, as soon as the sun kind of sets, kind of this eerie feeling of,

This uncomfortable feeling that, you know, you shouldn't be there. The area is too open or too exposed. This is something that sinks in my stomach and will last throughout the night until, you know, morning.

I don't say anything because I know that if I say something like, "Well, I'm uneasy, I'm uncomfortable or not feeling great," then my wife's going to be uneasy and uncomfortable, and she's uneasy and uncomfortable, and the kids are uneasy, and no one's having a good time. So usually I just kind of push it deep down inside and try not to think about it, but there's this feeling there that as soon as that sun sets, there's just something wrong.

After spending so many years in backcountry and backpacking and remote areas, I don't feel that anywhere else. It's only in this location at these dunes. And the last time we were out there, we're there and it's close to a full moon.

The nights were extremely bright, and if you've ever experienced a full moon in the desert where there's no trees and very little ground cover, it's just something different than experiencing that where there's light pollution or there's heavy forest. Everything is whitewashed. Everything's this blinding light. Shadows and objects are very crisp and defined. So we're there, and darkness falls, and that same uneasy feeling comes back.

So eventually go to bed, get in the camper and fall asleep. And I remember having this dream where I'm with, you know, the family and we're just standing and off in the distance is this shadowy figure and this, this feeling of unease and being uncomfortable and I'm,

this uncontrollable urge to confront that. And in the dream, I end up running straight towards that shadowy black blob. And, you know, it's Dream's Day, so everything seems super fast and super slow at the same time, but I'm running towards this object because I feel like I need to get to it. And as soon as I reach it, I wake up.

and I'm shaky and cold and it felt like a nightmare but it really wasn't a nightmare and I'm laying there trying to figure out what that meant and to calm myself down and I had to pee. So I figured now's a good time, I'm already awake, I'm gonna crawl out of the camper and go pee. So I make my way and go outside and the moon is out and it's super bright, you can see the dunes and the surrounding mountains.

And as I'm peeing, I'm kind of just looking out at everything. So a little uneasy and shaky from the dream and just that general feeling of uncomfortable, something's wrong. And as I'm staring out in front of me, there is this shadowy blob, like, I don't know, two or three hundred yards away from me.

And I'm looking at it, trying to figure out what it is. The bushes out there are very spindly and kind of wiry. You can easily tell because light will shine through them easily and they look like a bush. And this was darker and denser. Just this silhouette. I'm looking at it and that same uncontrollable urge to...

you know, chase after that and confront it and run towards it to figure out what is going on, what it is. I'm trying to suppress that urge. And it took a lot for me to calm down and just slowly back away and get back into the camper. You know, after that, it's just a really kind of rough night of being kind of on edge and uneasy and nervous and

Eventually fell back asleep and the next morning everything was fine. The feeling's gone. I told my wife about the dream, but I didn't tell her about what happened outside. So that was now two years ago. During that time, and this is what struck a chord with my situation in the collar, there's a religious aspect.

At that time, my wife and I were trying to get out of a religion that was unhealthy for us. And I don't know if there's a correlation. Maybe it's all psychological to confront. I don't know, but it seemed to resonate with me, and I figured now's a good time to share if someone else has experienced something similar. Anyways, we're planning to go back to the dunes, and...

Well, thanks a lot, caller, for unlocking a new fear. A shadow entity out there in the desert. Now, Sarah and I spend a lot of time down there, and I already knew to watch for rattlesnakes and mountain lions, but I never thought about running into one of these shadowy entities all the way out there in the barren wasteland.

But now I bet that's all that I'll think about. So thank you for that, caller. And thank you for making the phone call. Now running into one of these things is one thing. It's what happens after you see it that can really make your blood run cold. Just ask Archer out of the state of New Jersey. Hey Derek, this is Archer calling from New Jersey.

Haven't always lived here. I used to live upstate in New York. And I was listening to your last show when I heard Leslie from California's story about being pulled out of a bed. It immediately brought to mind some pretty haunting memories from my childhood living in a house in upstate New York, which was for sure haunted. I had a bunk bed, but there was no one in the top bunk.

Later on, my brother would end up sharing a room with me if he was born. But I have memories, probably from my earliest memories, are from that room. I would wake up in the middle of the night, and there'd be a man, a large black shadow of a man at least, standing at the foot of my bed. And he'd be laughing or smoking a cigarette, and he would pull me off my bed by my feet. Yeah, I would be screaming and crying, my parents would rush in, and there'd be nobody there.

So this continued for at least a full year. It was probably longer. I don't remember a lot of my childhood, but this is one of the few things I do remember. I must have been around like five years old or younger. And I would often wake up due to my head hitting the floor at the foot of my bed. Now, I don't know how a kid turns around in a twin bed, but that happened to me all the time.

My parents used to joke about it. They were like, oh yeah, we'd find your feet at your pillow and your head at the foot of the bed. They were aware that I would somehow flip over in my sleep, but they also remember coming in plenty of times to hear me screaming and crying. My head would hit the floor and my feet would hit the floor and I would look up and above me would be the shadow man laughing at me in this dark husky voice. He's just like, hehehehehe.

You know, something really, really creepy. And then as soon as that door opened, as soon as the light in the hallway hit the room, nothing. There was no one there. And I remember how terrified I was to go to sleep in that room. I used to also sleep talk, apparently, around this time. And my sister's room was right next to mine, would come in when she heard me, you know, up at, you know, any hour of the night.

I actually remember her running in a few times after I'd been pulled off the bed at first. He would grab my head after my feet. I don't know what was going on, but she comes into the room and I'm sitting both upright in bed. She asked me what's going on. And I just laid back down and closed my eyes and whispered something. She gets really close to me. She'll hear what I'm saying. And she's like, Archer, I know you're awake. What's going on? And I whisper, I have to pretend to be asleep.

Thank you for calling in, Archer. Getting pulled out of the bed. Now, as Archer mentioned, we have heard that detail before.

I believe the call he's referencing is Leslie's. From California all the way back on Season 17, Episode 15. If you'd like to check it out. But I'm glad we don't hear this detail often. But boy is it interesting when we do. And as wild as that detail is, believe it or not, things continue to get crazier from here. I'll be right back with the proof.

We're now down to the last two entries of the evening. And I might be cheating a bit again, but I think it'll be worth it. And to prove it, we work our way to a state we don't visit all that often. Please welcome Katie from Connecticut. Hi there, this is Katie and I'm calling from New Canaan, Connecticut.

On February 29th of 2024, an email went out to our neighborhood saying that there had been a robbery on a street close by. The burglars had come in through the second story and had disabled the alarm, etc., etc. The email was just to say, be careful, this has happened.

So that came through my consciousness on the afternoon of February 29th. That evening, I had been experiencing some back pain and I thought maybe it was because of my mattress. My son is in college and so his room is free. And I thought, oh, I'll just sleep in there, you know, to see if a different mattress would make the pain go away. So I was not in my usual bed. I fell asleep normally.

And at some point in the early morning, I woke myself up as I occasionally do. I'll say this happens about every, you know, three or four months. I woke myself up with a recurring nightmare. The plot's always the same. The antagonist is always the same. Those details don't really matter, but I do always wake myself up from these dreams and

In an attempt to scream, I will be screaming, but my lips are closed. So there is sound that comes out, but it's not a full scream. The feeling of it is similar to like a sleep paralysis kind of thing. It's happened so many times now that I'm fully aware of what it is when it's happening. And so I'm having this experience and I'm waking myself up with the scream. And I look to the left of my son's bed.

And there is a person standing there. I don't see the face. I just see like what you would see at bed level. I can see the torso and the beginnings of the legs. And I immediately think, oh, it's my husband who has heard this scream. He's also familiar with this. It helps me every time it happens. It will wake him up too. And I thought, oh, he's heard it from his room and he's come in to help me.

And then I realized what I'm looking at is definitely not my husband. And your mind works so fast in situations like that. I immediately thought of the robbery, which I hadn't given any more thought to. And then I quickly thought, well, that doesn't make sense. Like why the robber would come around to this side of the bed. And none of it makes any sense. And I reach my arm out into the space and

because the presence is so real. I can see it so clearly. And of course, there's no one there. My hand just touches empty air. At that point, I just went back to sleep. I wasn't scared at all. I just thought, well, isn't that interesting? And I went back to sleep. This is on Thursday night slash early Friday morning in the middle of the night.

On Saturday, just following that, the very next Saturday, I had a retreat with some girlfriends of mine. And we did these fairly often. And we focus in that we have a leader and we focus in this retreats on generating positive energy and love and heart centered presence and emotions. And it's a really lovely group of people. It almost feels like a religious experience.

And after the intro that the guide leads us on, then we have a period of silence where we just drop in and concentrate on our breathing and see what happens. I hadn't given this dream any thought. I hadn't given the robbery any thought. I certainly had not given what I perceived to be a being standing beside my bed any thought since it happened on Thursday night.

Saturday, as I'm lying in the silent retreat and trying to think of things and people that make me feel good, I had a series of thoughts that led really randomly, but very definitively to the realization, this is out of nowhere, that the being in my room on Thursday night, two nights prior, was someone that I had known in high school.

Now, I'm 51 years old, so this is 30 years ago that I would have seen this person. And by the way, I didn't know him very well at all. He was a little bit older, had an apartment, was in college in our town, and we used to hang out in his apartment.

and party with him and I thought he was very cute. I had a crush on him. I remember at one point he kissed me in the hallway. There was definitely a chemistry and a spark there between the two of us, but I didn't give it any thought past like 1991. I didn't see him. I didn't think about it. So to have this awareness that this being in my room was this person was completely out of nowhere.

I was pretty stunned by it. This person, his name was Hugh. He had also had a tragic and very mysterious death in his early adulthood. So there was definitely the understanding and awareness that it was his ghost in my room. So we went on with the retreat and it was all great. And I was still processing this.

And when I came home and discussed it with my husband the next day, I was saying to him, this is so weird. Like, I just am 100% sure that's who was in my room when I was having this nightmare. And I said to my husband, I'm going to look him up. I'm going to see if I can find a photograph online. You know, it was 1991, the last time I saw him. And I could not find a photograph to remind me of what he really had looked like.

But I did find his obituary and I was absolutely stunned that he had died on March 1st. I don't know the year. It was probably the late 90s. And he was definitely in my room on March 1st, 2024 in the early, early hours of the day.

He was a professional scuba diver and had died exploring an unknown new cave system in the Bahamas, like super deep in the water. So he was basically lost at sea is what they would say about a death like that. I was sad when I had heard it happened, but I did think, wow, like what a crazy way to go, first of all. And what a brave person to be doing that in the first place.

But when the matchup came with the date that I saw him in my room and his passing, I could not believe it. Now, a skeptic would say that's a one in 365 chance. And of course, this is a leap year, so it's one in 366.

But when you factor in the fact this person had not crossed my mind in 30 years, and you think about all the people that come and go in your life in 30 years span, to be that sure that that's who it was is really weird. And I love, love, love the podcast and listening to everyone's experience. Because when this happens to you, there's not a shred of doubt about what it is that you're experiencing, that it's real.

The question is, why is it happening? And what is the point? What is the purpose of it? Why would he be standing there as these past months have come and gone? And I've thought about it every single day and wondered. I can only say that there had been a connection between us when we were young. I'm impressed with anybody that's willing to do that type of thing, that take that kind of risk and really pursue their passion.

And of course, it's always sad when tragedy strikes like that. But I really am inspired by people like that. I'm also very passionate about the deep ocean. And so the purpose of his life is meaningful to me. And the fact that he would have appeared to me during this nightmare, just be standing right there beside me, makes me really happy.

know in my heart that he's a protecting energy and a benevolent force to be there with me. And I just wanted to share this story because it has been so meaningful to me as I've processed it, even though it's a person that's kind of random in a 51 year life to have just pop up like that. And you just never know, do you? Yeah.

And I love your encouragement that we all stay open to these things because that is when they start happening more and more often and certainly with, you know, more convincingly. So thank you very much for listening. Thanks, Katie. You're right. What a way to go. He sounded like an incredible guy, though. Now I included this story because I couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't a shadow figure that she saw.

She did mention that it had no face and it stood there, as most shadow entities seem to do. And if it was a shadow person, how was it connected with Katie's fallen friend Hugh? This is why I bent the rules for this one. It was too good not to include. And just to cover all my bases, I did my best to find a news report about this incident, given the clues that Katie left. But I was unable to find anything.

But if we do dig something up, I'll be sure to update the show notes. But I think I agree with you here, Katie. It does sound like it's too big of a coincidence. The same date and your friend randomly popped into your head like that. But then again, that is what's so notable about coincidences. They stick out because they're unusual. Either way, it was a great story, Katie. We thank you again for ringing in.

Well, folks, here we are. The final story of the evening. And to close things out here this evening, I offer you a call with a bite. Please welcome G from the state of Texas. Hey, Derek. I'll just go by G. I'm from Houston. This took place years, years before 9-11. But this involved a house where my grandparents rented out.

and behind that house, they basically built a shed right there. But when I was a small child, I was playing outside by myself, you know, being dumb, throwing rocks around and whatnot, and I heard knocking coming out from that shed. To give you an idea, the shed is made out of tin. It was made out of those corrugated metal tin panels, but I heard knocking, I heard movements there. Me being the young, dumb little kid that was brave and fearless,

Decided to run over there and see what's going on. The second I got to the door, I... I wanna say it was a shadow person. I'm not really sure what it was. I still remember vividly in my mind. Basically, the second I passed the shit door, I saw it jump out at me. Both hands extended out towards me. And I heard a god-awful gurgling scream. The thing was black.

It looked like it was covered in tar. It had glowing red eyes and I saw its teeth. Its teeth were all jagged and broken. Yeah, even to this day it still scares me. You know, I was less than seven years old. I still remember vividly it was a clear, cool breeze. It was a perfect summer day. Afterwards, they said they found me in my grandma's arms, inconsolable, crying, asking what happened.

And I wouldn't say. It wasn't until years and years and years later when I told my mom about the story when I finally fessed up to her. She told me before they built the shit over there that it was my grandfather and my father and my uncle building that shit. That shit was basically used for laundry, storage and whatnot. They had told me that as they were digging up, putting a foundation, they had found human remains.

But at the time, my grandfather and father were undocumented at that time. So I don't know what was going through their minds. They thought it would be better to keep it quiet, not tell anybody, not to make a big fuss about it. And then she goes on to tell me that it was probably those missing bones because when they found the bones, they left them over there overnight. They were discussing whether to call the police or not. And then when they decided to call the police, they went to see if the bones were still there. They were missing.

It was just weird. That shit had its own little mysteries, missing stuff, missing pets and whatnot. And there's more stories to that property they used to live at before it was bulldozed and made into new homes. Basically, weird things happening at that property during my short time of me remembering living there.

Like, I think when Mother saw a weird reptilian creature on all fours, basically crawled over the fence, crawled in front of our property, and then the house that I lived in was literally adjacent to the property where the shit happened.

My mom saw the whole thing and I asked her about it and she's like, "I don't know what that was or whatnot." But by the time I got there, I happened to see the tail of it. And the tail... Well, with age, I'm able to tell the size of it. If my memory serves right, that tail was almost eight feet long. It was massive. It went through the shed. And as my mom tried to look on the other side, it basically disappeared. It looked like it went to a different dimension.

And then, like weird stuff happened around that piece of property. I don't know if you ever got any calls about it from Houston. But the houses that used to be there on that street, on 25th Street, are long gone now. Now it's new town homes, new apartments and whatnot. So, you'll be hard-pressed to hear anything from over there.

But keep up the good work, Derek. Thank you. Okay, bye. Thank you, G. The shed from hell. And those bones. Who knows where those came from. Now the way I see it... At best, someone incidentally built a shed over a few shallow graves. At worst, someone put those bodies under said shed. Other option is pretty gruesome, if I'm honest. And the description of that creature...

What the hell was that? Does that match what we at least think we know about this Shadow Man entity? Or did G have a run-in with something else altogether? Maybe something that put those bodies under the shed? Now, regardless of the explanation, the event's made for an incredible ending to tonight's program. So thank you again, G, for taking the time to call it in. And folks, that's going to wrap it up for tonight. A big ol' thanks for tuning in.

It was a real pleasure to scare some stories up for you. Now, Monsters Among Us podcast is written and produced by me, Derek Hayes. Copyright Red Crow Media. Additional support is provided by Sarah Carter Hayes, Delaney Bowers, and Connor Ryan. All media used in this production is done so under the protection of fair use. Be sure to give us a like and follow on social media.

Give us a like and follow on YouTube and a rate and review, wherever you can do that sort of thing. And don't forget you can catch the show every Saturday evening at 10 p.m. Eastern on the Unexed Digital Network. Just visit unexednetwork.com to tune in. And finally, tonight's score was provided by Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse, co.agmusic, and Carl Casey at White Bat Audio.

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