S19 Ep21: Stories from the Heartland: Terrifying tales from Ohio (Sn. 19 Ep. 21)
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Monster Tales

And there's one thing that each of tonight's calls have in common. They're all from the same place that I am. Now, I grew up in Ohio, in southeastern or east central, depending on how you look at it. I went to school in northwest Ohio, and I lived in the state until I was around 27 years old when I moved out here to Southern California. So to say that I know a thing or two about the state would be an understatement.

And to say that I have an awesome collection of calls from the Buckeye State would be an understatement as well. So without further ado, please welcome tonight's first caller. Rebecca, welcome to the program.

Hi Derek, my name is Rebecca. I'm calling from Amanda, Ohio. I am out in the woods. My story starts off with a couple years ago, I purchased a couple miniature horses. They live in the barn that's probably about 12 yards from my house.

I had a camera set up in the barn that I could see up here what's going on down there and I periodically look at it. I looked at it one day and I seen a weird black shadow back in the corner of the barn. It was weird. It was just a dark shadow. I didn't ever notice it before. My husband got home from work and I had mentioned it to him. The very next day, I look in the monitor and the shadow is back.

but it's really, really, it's a black mass about maybe seven foot tall, maybe three foot across, big black mass. And it's just standing there staring at the horses or it didn't have any eyes that it could stare, but it was facing in that direction, looking over them. My husband, I hollered for him, like, it's back, it's back, come look at it. And I didn't know what I was seeing,

So we're standing there and then I hollered for my son. He's in his 20s and I hollered, you know, come on down here. And as soon as I hollered, come on down here and look at this. The mask changed into a little ball. It zipped all around the barn and it shot around. As soon as I yelled, it shot around and looked directly at the camera at us. And then it was zipping all around and it zipped right out the barn.

I have no idea what I've seen, and I never got any creepy feelings in my barn. It's a happy place, and I haven't seen it since. I wish that I would, and I went down there and tried to put out the energy, you know, show me what you are. If you have any insight on what it could have possibly been, I would love to hear your feedback. I hope that you can use my story, and thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Thank you, Rebecca, for the phone call. Now, barns are very prevalent in Ohio, and apparently so are shadow people. Now, at first thought, I thought maybe this was a Bigfoot story, a seven-foot-tall, dark humanoid shape that certainly falls in line with the Sasquatch description, especially in Ohio, a known Bigfoot hotspot. But Rebecca mentioned that the creature seemed to morph into a black ball,

then darted about the barn. I haven't heard many reports of Bigfoot doing anything like that, so obviously she's talking about some other phenomena. Now the only logical thing that I can think of that might explain this encounter is some sort of insect on the camera lens. If an oblong shaped bug were to land on the lens, forced perspective could make it look as though the figure was standing there in the image.

Then, if the bug were to scramble about the lens or fly just in front of it, it would give the effect that it turned into a ball and started darting about the barn. But I think this is one of those cases where I'd have to see the video to be sure. But regardless, a dark figure in a barn, there's just something very Ohio about that story. So thank you again, Rebecca, for taking the time to share it.

Now, folks, I think I have time to do one more call before our break. So let's welcome Matt from, of course, Ohio. Hello, my name's Matt. I'm calling from Ohio. And this story is actually a story my mom told me. She's unfortunately no longer with us, but I wanted to share it.

This took place when she was about 14 or 15, so this would have been the late 70s, like around 78, 79. Also took place in Ohio, outside of the Akron area. So my mom was laying in bed. It was about 11 or 12 at night.

It was warm outside and they didn't have AC. So it must have been spring or summer. And she had her window open for air. And they live kind of out in the more rural area. They live by cornfields and not a lot of houses next to each other. She's laying in bed.

And she notices a bright light out in the distance. And at first she notices it's lower than what looks like an airplane should be. A lot of airplanes fly over that area, but it's lower than it should be and it's moving around very slowly. And as it's moving, it's moving closer to her. She gets up and takes a really good look at it, notices it's a lot closer than she initially thought.

maybe a mile away, maybe not even that far, about 15 or 20 stories high. And it's slowly and methodically moving, not quite in a straight line, but around. And then a spotlight, a bright spotlight shoots down from it. And it's acting like it's looking for something in the cornfield. And it's slowly moving and looking. And she thought it was a helicopter at first because...

of how slow it was hovering, like the plane couldn't move this slow. But then she realized her window's open, and anyone that's been near a helicopter knows you hear them before you see them, and it was completely silent. She gets up, and she goes to try to wake up her parents, my grandparents. They don't get up to look at it. They tell her she's just dreaming, it's whatever. My grandma, she did remember this. She said she wished she would have gotten up, but she was just...

too tired to get up. Like I said, they worked a lot. So my mom goes back and she watches it. This probably goes on for 10, 15 minutes. It's just moving around. Then the stick stops completely. Spotlight turns off and it shoots straight up into the sky out of view. And she said she'd never seen anything move so fast. It went from zero to 100 in just an instant.

That's my story. Thanks for listening. I hope it gets into the show, and thank you. Thank you, Matt. Sounds like quite the experience. And you know, Ohio is no stranger to UFO sightings. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, Ohio ranks 8th in states with the most UFO sightings. And Delaney was kind enough to put together a list of the most active cities in the state in regards to UFO sightings.

The following list according to stacker.com. And here they are from 10 to 1. Garrettsville. This entry is interesting because only about 2,500 people live in Garrettsville, making it far and away the smallest hamlet mentioned on tonight's list. The second lowest is the town I was literally born in, Cambridge.

which only has a population of about 10,000 people. Which makes the fact that it made the list pretty astounding. Now the rest of the list hits all the major cities in Ohio. Youngstown, Canton, Akron, Dayton, Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus. But those two outliers are quite interesting. And for the town that I was born in to make the list, a town known for Bigfoot sightings, not for UFO encounters, it certainly piques my interest.

Now this won't be our only exploration into unidentified flying objects in Ohio. There's more to come later on in the episode. But for now we must take our first break. I'll be right back with more Ohio Oddities right after this. They changed coaches again. They had it. They had an opportunity. Summer is here and we're all chasing something. A break, a goal, a vibe.

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Now next up, we visit a haunted house in Ohio. Jessica, welcome to tonight's program. Hey Derek, this is Jessica from Ohio. I'm about 30 minutes north of Columbus out in the country and I live in the woods. I'm on 75 acres. We're surrounded by woods. My house is pushed back off the road. We've been having some activity in the house recently to the point where my guy will wake up

and he's bruised and he's swollen in spots. One time he actually broke his foot. Well, this morning at about 3:00 AM, he said he woke up and he told our dog, "Lay down, buddy," because the dog sleeps in bed with us. Our dog is about a 70-pound black pit bull. We also have two black cats that live with us, also sleep in the bed.

I was just waking up at this point too. I know that my dog was not up because he sleeps right up against me. I can feel him at all times. He has to constantly be touching me. So I felt him and I knew that he wasn't up. Fast forward to about 8 a.m. I'm making breakfast. I sat down with him to talk about like, hey, were you sleep talking? And he says, no, I kind of leaned up.

And I looked and our room is black, ceiling's black, and I have blackout curtains. I'm a corrections officer, so I like to get some sleep. And he said, no, he leaned up and he saw what he thought was our pit bull with ears pointed straight up. And when he said, lay down, buddy, he kind of looked harder and kind of squinted. And he said he rubbed his eyes and then he noticed the thing was gone.

Well, he said he just kind of freaked out, rolled back over and went back to sleep. And again, I didn't know about this thing at the foot of the bed on my side until we had talked about it at 8 a.m. There's been other activity in this house to the point where doors have come swinging open. I've been in the shower and our bathroom sink has come completely on and it was just me and my guy in the house at the time. I've always had activity around me.

The house I grew up in came off of Hoover Reservoir before Hoover was put in. It was placed up on top of the hill. Lots of activity in that house. Again, it's always had activity around me. I do believe whatever it is is attached to me since it's happened my entire life, and usually the activity doesn't happen unless I'm in the house. Kind of spooky, but love your show. Keep it up. Can't wait to listen. Thank you, Jessica. More black masses in Ohio.

And that checks out. Ohio is full of ghostly, ghastly, and beastly legends. And plenty of infamously haunted places as well. Here is a short list of Ohio's most haunted, courtesy of Ohio.org. First, we have the South Pass Island Lighthouse. There on Lake Erie, visitors to the lighthouse report creepy footsteps, slamming doors, and unexpected noises coming from the lighthouse.

Then you have Franklin Castle in Cleveland, a notorious building, also known as the Tiedemann House, has become well known as one of the state's most active. The stone house was built by Hannes Tiedemann back in 1881 through 1883. Then you have the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, once serving as a state prison. The Ohio State Reformatory housed more than 150,000 inmates throughout its time.

This haunted Ohio prison, which is also called the Maynesfield Reformatory, is reportedly home to hundreds of disgruntled spirits. In the Majestic Theater in Chillicothe, known as America's oldest continuously operating theater, Chillicothe's Majestic Theater has been screening films and housing ghosts since 1853.

And as a former Ohioan, I can tell you that they've missed a few heavy hitters. The Moonville Tunnel, the Buxton Inn, the Ridges, they're in Athens. A town many researchers believe to be the most haunted town in all of America. So you see, these things are almost expected if you live in the state, Jessica. And it sounds like you're just part of the status quo. Now, thank you again, Jessica, for calling in.

It's not just UFOs and ghostly stuff that happens in Ohio. Weird things go down there as well. Just ask our next caller. Christian, welcome to the show.

Hi, this is Christian from Ohio. But I'm listening to an episode where somebody is talking about sleep paralysis and I guess I've had experience with sleep paralysis. Although I feel like what I experienced wasn't quite the same as what I've heard everybody else experience, but I don't know. So my experience started, I was 18 and I was working at one of the theme parks here in Ohio.

And I guess I had gone to bed a little early and I had this dream that I went to go turn off the light switch and I could suddenly see the profile of my own face. And I told myself that this wasn't right. And then I suddenly basically lost control of my body.

as if a demon was trying to possess it. But I remember trying to yell out for help or whatever, but I couldn't talk or anything. And I went out and sat on the sidewalk and called my then boyfriend to tell him, you know, about the dream. And this continued for several years, actually.

I would have a dream that I was sitting and talking to somebody or, you know, just doing something normal. And then I would have this feeling of dread. And then I would say, you know, something's not right here. And then I would start losing control of my body and start screaming in maybe tongues. I don't know. Or just saying like really nasty, mean, awful things. And then...

I would wake up from those. And I grew up religious, but I'm not religious now necessarily. But I realized that these dreams stopped when this would happen. I would recite the Lord's Prayer. And for some odd reason, that would stop the dream or stop the entity or whatever it was. I've had another similar dream recently where I felt like

An entity tried to take over my body and I started saying the Lord's Prayer and it stopped and I watched it exit out of my room through the wall. So, I don't know. I know that sleep paralysis has been explained away by lots of neurological testing and things of that nature. I have always suffered from sleep issues. When I was very young, I used to sleepwalk.

And that's definitely a different creepy story. But yeah, I just thought I would share my experience with the sleep paralysis. I was never awake when it happened. I was definitely asleep and unable to move. I mean, I never thought I was asleep. I always thought that I was awake when it was happening, but awake in my dream, not awake in real life, if that makes sense. And then I would basically fight for my life or yell for help.

And that's it. Thanks. Bye. Thanks, Christian. It's a fine line, isn't it? Between some sort of sleep disorder and the paranormal. And it's impossible to say which of the two it is. At least from my vantage point. Now I can make educated guesses. But the truth is, no one, not even the experiencer, really seems to know for sure.

And I think it's important to remember that we can seek medical help for issues like reoccurring sleep paralysis and sleepwalking. If it gets to the point that these disorders are disrupting your life or causing you extended stress, don't be afraid to ask for some help. Now, if you get that help and the activity persists, well, in that case, you might have to call a paranormal expert wherever you find one of those.

But regardless of all that, this sort of thing always makes for an interesting entry. So thank you again, Christian, for taking the time to share.

And folks, if you too have a story you would like me to play here on the air, just ring up our hotline at 888-608-NIGHT. That's 888-608-N-I-G-H-T. Or you can record your story using the Voice Memo app on your phone and email it to me at MonstersAmongUsPodcast at gmail.com. Now I feel safe in saying that this next entry is pretty strange. Ian, welcome to tonight's program.

It's right on the higher river.

And it actually the first permanent settlement west of the Ohio River for all you history buffs. So I lived on a big S hill, a hill. And then there's a big S turn that came down the hill. And then it came down to a main street and intersected with another main street. It was Washington Street and 7th Street intersecting in Marietta, Ohio. In that intersection, there was a lot of Victorian houses on Washington Street.

However, these houses were kind of modern era because the farther you came from the river when they first started building, the earlier settlers then just expanded out and as the town spread, there was newer houses built. The house on the corner was built probably early 1900s and it had a brick foundation and I was coming down to a stop sign turning left. Looking over, I see that there's a group of construction men doing construction on the foundation.

I think they're doing some kind of HVAC or maybe rewiring some electrical work. But not knowing what exactly they were doing, I was just kind of being nosy, looking over and seeing what was going on. You know, they're regular guys talking, and what caught my eye was that one of the guys that was talking, like, I saw his forehead, and then when I looked at his face...

His face was totally sunken in as if a cannonball took off his face. If you think of a cartoon, you see a character that sits on the face of the cannonball and the face sinks in. That's what it looked like. It wasn't gory or anything like that. It just looked dark and sunken. I couldn't see any facial features. I couldn't see a nose. I didn't see eyes. I didn't see lips. However, I could tell that he was talking to the other guys. Now,

As soon as I saw this, it totally weirded me out. And I was, you know, trying to do a double take. I was looking back. I was turning. I was looking around there, trying to see, you know, what I really saw. It was my mind really comprehending what I saw. And I was sort of taken aback that there was a stop sign probably 50 feet down the road. And I stopped and immediately turned around to see if I could catch another glimpse of this guy or this figure with a face that didn't have a face, I guess you should say. But I turned around and

Everybody was gone. They all went inside. The trucks were still there, so I'm sure they all went inside. I was seriously so taken aback by this that the next couple days, I kept driving by there multiple times to see if I could maybe catch a glimpse of this figure. I know it's super weird. I don't know. I mean, I doubt it's a common thing. Have people ever seen other people? I mean, humanoid-looking creatures with no face? I don't know. I mean, if somebody has, I haven't heard about it, but...

Another thing that really struck me about seeing this figure is I didn't see a face, I didn't see lips or anything, but he had a cigarette in his hand. So he was somehow smoking a cigarette and he had no face. That's one of the main things I remember that really stood out to me. I was like, how could this possibly be? This guy's smoking a cigarette, but he doesn't have a face.

I was trying to make sense of this. Like, what could have possibly this be? Of course, the first one that stands out to me is, well, is it somebody that actually was in an accident and lost their face and somehow are living? Like, I've never seen a medical documentary or anything that showed someone that was injured so badly in the face, like their facial features were gone and it was just sunken in. I've never seen something this extreme. Now, I've seen, like, documentaries on World War I soldiers or World

World War II, they've taken shrapnel and had prosthetics for the middle of their face, and this was nothing like that. There are cases after wars of men getting their upper jaw blown off. They've made prosthetics to pop in, and you really can't tell that anything is amiss. Or it could have been possibly like a glitch in the matrix if we're actually living in some simulated reality. I don't know if I believe that, but also, the third one, it could be

Thanks, Ian.

Well, what do you think, gang? A bizarro world? A parallel universe? A glitch in the Matrix? Or simply, a survivor of a horrific accident? If you have any insight on this story, you know what to do. As I suggested, Ohio is a very strange place, and Ian's story is a perfect reminder of that. So thanks again, Ian, for sharing the experience. The thing about this was ludicrous.

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Ohio is weird, indeed. And you're about to learn just how weird it gets, here with this next entry. From Whitley, in where else but the Buckeye State. Hi, my name's Whitley. I'm from your hometown, Ohio.

And I've been listening to your podcast lately, and I was telling my grandmother about it, and so I'm going to tell her story. First of all, I guess I should say my grandmother's a very strong woman. She is religious, she's very independent, and very bold-headed. That'll make sense a little later.

This story also includes my cousin, and my cousins never really had a hope in life. They were taken away from their parents when they were very young. They moved in with my grandmother. So there's that. So what happened was she was laying in bed one night, and she woke up in the middle of the night, and she saw my cousin standing there, and he was waving at her. And next to him was a really...

dark entity and its face was really contorted and messed up. And she said she knew she was looking at a demon. And she said, "Who are you? What is your name?" And it wouldn't answer her. So she said, "You know, in the name of Jesus Christ, I compel you to leave this house." And they both vanished. Well, later we found out that that night my cousin had overdosed on drugs.

and they had brought him back. So he did live. But I think at that time he died. I think he was going to my grandma to say goodbye to her because he loves her very much. And I don't know. I don't really know. She swears up and down that it happened. She's not delirious. I guess we'll never know. But I'd like to hear your thoughts on it and see what you think.

I also want to say I really enjoy the podcast and I think it's really nice to have a safe place to talk about things like that. Thanks. Thank you, Whitley. That's a new angle I've never really thought of before. Someone becoming a ghost only momentarily while their body is being revived. That almost sounds like the plot to an early 90s dark comedy or something. But there's nothing funny about Whitley's story and I'm glad to hear that the cousin survived the ordeal.

Hopefully things have improved for them. But how do you see it, listener? Did the cousin return to say goodbye during their temporary bout with death? Or was this something else altogether? You can share your views on our new Discord server, now open to everyone. There are already hundreds of people in there sharing their thoughts and opinions. And I do pop in there from time to time to deliver my two cents.

Now there's a link in tonight's show notes if you'd like to check it out. And hopefully, we'll see you over there soon. Now this next one comes to us from my old stomping grounds. Please welcome Gray to the program. Hey there, this is Gray. I'm from Appalachia. I'm actually from East Central Ohio. And this is something that happened to me last night, actually, less than 24 hours ago.

So my family has lived in the middle of absolutely nowhere for generations and generations. And every time one of the elders in our family passes away, someone tends to inherit their house. So we've been there for, when I say generations, I mean generations. And last night, me and my mom were visiting my brother at his house, and we

To paint you a little picture, all of our houses are very close together, kind of family farm style. And the nearest village is a 20-minute drive, and the nearest actual town is pushing closer to 45 minutes away, middle of nowhere. And we were there last night about 8 o'clock probably. We'd just been visiting. And we're walking back across his yard. Now, his yard is about an acre. It's a big yard.

So we're walking back to the car and as we're walking, pitch black, clear night, no wind, no noises from the woods, we hear this scream. And it's like a deep guttural angry scream and we freeze. And we're like, what the hell was that? And it comes again, we hear it again. And it is like nothing I have ever heard before.

I have lived in these woods for 24 years. My mom has lived in these woods for nearing 50 years. And neither one of us has ever heard anything like that ever before. And I'm thinking, is it one of the horses? But a horse can't make that sound. And we've got bobcats and coyotes and deer in these woods, but none of them can make that kind of sound. It was a scream, like a long, drawn-out, angry-sounding, guttural, like, deep scream.

scream and it carried across the woods and it sounded like it couldn't have been more than like 100 200 yards away and it just like my blood went cold i was so scared and then it did it a third time and then of course we take off we're running for the car at this point we hear it one more time before we get in the car and on the way home we only lived about 10 minutes down the gravel road

On the way home, we're looking and we're looking and we don't see anything near the road or in the woods. No eyeshine, no nothing. And oh my gosh, I'm still scared. It's like I said, less than 24 hours ago. And oh, I am very afraid to go out in those woods right now. But yeah, my dad suggested maybe it was a deer growling because apparently deer can growl.

So I looked that up, and that wasn't it. And it wasn't a bobcat, and it was not a noise a coyote could make. And all the horses are fine. It sounded almost like a cow, like a bull. You know the sound when a bull gets really angry? It almost sounded kind of like that. But we don't have cows, and the nearest cows are two or three miles down the holler.

And none of the farmers around there have asked us about missing any. And it, I don't know, it just, I can't explain it. So, looking forward to hearing what you have to say about that one. Hopefully somebody's got some kind of an idea, because my only thought is some kind of big split, maybe? And we do live near, like, the Salt Fork Lake region, so maybe? But, yeah, I don't know. Thanks. Thank you, Gray.

Well, that's Grassman Country, Ohio's version of Bigfoot. In fact, there's a region in that area that many refer to as the Sasquatch Triangle. That's the area in which I grew up. And in fact, that area is where one of the most infamous pieces of Bigfoot audio was recorded. It's known as the Ohio Howl, and it was recorded back in 1994 in Columbiana County.

some 40 to 50 miles northeast of where Gray was calling from. Here is a quick sample of that recording. Recorded by Finding Bigfoot's Matt Moneymaker, if I remember correctly. So that could be one more explanation, Gray.

As you mentioned, I grew up just down the road, less than 20 miles from Salt Fork, in fact. And I too have heard the legends, and heard from folks in the area that claim to have heard similar sounds. And Ohio does rank fourth in Bigfoot sightings per state, so I guess you never know what might be out there. Either way, thank you again, Gray, for sharing that gnarly entry. Now folks, speaking of monsters, this next entry is pretty wild.

Please put your hands together for Molly. Hi, my name is Molly. I'm calling from Ohio. I have a story from 2011. This would have been my son's third birthday. We lived out in a farm in Clark County, Ohio, in actually South Vienna. And I am looking out our front window because we have two acres in front of us before the road.

And I see this giant dog and it's walking like a cat. And I was so confused because I couldn't process what this was. And we have all these children running around. We have all our family over. We're having a giant cookout. And suddenly it clicks. This is a black cougar in my front yard by my front pond.

And I have all these children outside. I screamed, got everybody inside immediately. This was back before the day of decent digital photography. I did not get a photo of this.

But my husband came out because he thought I was absolutely insane. And all the adults are coming out and we confirmed this is a black cougar or black panther, some form of a big black cat. And we just couldn't believe it. So my husband went and he got his shotgun and he fired one round into the air.

That did not scare it. So he broke out his .30-06 and he shot at the animal. But right as he went to shoot, I sneezed, which was very inopportune timing. And he missed the animal's heart region and he shot it in its back hip and it was a through and through. And the animal took off.

And it wasn't until about six months later that we actually heard from the news what had happened. I looked everywhere for a news article on this, but there was a gentleman who lived in Zanesville, you may have heard, in 2011 that let all of his exotic animals loose after unaliving himself. Well,

What had led up to this chain of events of him unaliving himself and letting all of the animals loose was he was having problems with animals escaping. And one of the animals that had escaped was a big black cat. I can't remember if it was a cougar, a jaguar, a mountain lion or whatever it was, but this was the animal.

And the thing that really got us is odd was about three weeks after the party, we had heard through the natural resources officers that we were friends with, because you become friends with your OD and our officers if you're a farmer. And they had said that they had had a big black cat found about 10 miles from our house in the next county over because we live right on the county line.

that they had put down that had a through and through bullet wound on its back haunch and they were surprised it was still even able to walk.

And that's my story of how sometimes something that can possibly be a cryptid or something we don't know what it is actually has a reasoning behind it. And it still just blows my mind. And I'm so thankful that we got everybody inside safely and nobody was hurt. I love your show.

Keep up the good work, and I wanted to let you know we also made a donation to our local animal shelter of cat and dog feed in memory of your beloved fuzzy friend. Thank you, and have a good one. Bye. Thanks, Molly. And thank you so much for the donation. That is incredibly kind of you. And of course, Molly is referring to our girl, Annabelle.

an amazing and beautiful black cat that we were lucky to share our home with for a full decade. She passed of cancer a little over two years ago, so thank you again, Molly, for that touching gesture.

Now I also grew up very near Zanesville, the very place that Molly mentioned was home to an exotic animal massacre. When owner Terry Thompson released 50 exotic animals, including lions, tigers, and bears, on the town of Zanesville, all 50 were killed, though there are persistent rumors that a small monkey managed to avoid being dispatched, but I've never heard of the prior escapes that Molly alluded to.

Not to say that they didn't happen. I had been out of Ohio for a good four or five years... When this event went down. So I didn't exactly have my finger on the pulse at the time. So all of that very well could have happened. But regardless of how it all went down... Your account was pretty incredible. And if I'm honest, a bit tragic. Because I'm a big proponent of leaving these animals be. I live in mountain lion country right now. And trust me when I say...

They're more afraid of us than we are of them. But keep your distance, of course. Make no mistake, they're perfectly tuned killing machines. Thank you again, Molly, for sharing your story.

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Please welcome Hunter to tonight's program. Hi Derek, this is Hunter. I'm from your home state of Ohio, and I have a handful of creepy stories, but I'm going to start with the first, which happened when I was about 10 years old. Now I was living in Belpre, Ohio at the time, just across the border from West Virginia. So I was sitting in my parents' bedroom reading a book. I was positioned in a way so that I was looking down the hallway where all our other bedrooms were.

I was sitting there reading when I noticed a figure dart from my bedroom across the hallway into the bathroom. Now, I didn't think much of it at the time, so I set my book down, got up, and went to investigate. Checked the bathroom. Nobody was there. Looked in my bedroom. No one was there. I walked around the entirety of the upstairs. I was the only one upstairs, so I thought nothing of it.

I went back, sat down, picked up my book, and continued reading. Now, I don't remember how long I was reading, but the next thing I distinctly remember. You probably remember Beanie Babies, right? Little animal dolls filled with beads. They have a very distinct sound when you drop them. A little tsss sound. I'm sitting there reading, and I hear that sound. That I lower my book, and in the hallway is sitting...

A beanie baby. Facing me. A beanie baby that I do not remember being there prior. So again, I get up and investigate. No one was upstairs. I was all alone. At least that's what I thought. This is one of many creepy stories that have happened in my life. And this one in particular I didn't think much of until I grew older and realized how strange it was. Anyways, as everybody says, love the show. Keep up the great work. Thank you. Thanks, Hunter.

a possibly haunted Beanie Baby. Sure, why not? Like I said, Ohio is terribly weird. So I guess this is par for the course. Thanks, Hunter, for sharing that entry. Now, having grown up in Ohio, one thing I can tell you about the state is that it's covered in cemeteries.

4,100 in fact. And that's not even counting family cemeteries. Cemeteries owned by companies or churches. Or those without actual interments in the past 25 years. So that number is likely almost twice that size. And that's a lot of graveyards for a state with only about 12 million people. And you know this next entry takes us to one of these liminal spaces. Please join me in welcoming Brad to tonight's program.

Hi, Derek and Monsters Among Us. My name is Brad. I am calling from Cincinnati, Ohio, with a strange occurrence that happened to me. Not necessarily something scary, but something that I thought was worth reporting in. So I recently lost my mother to

earlier this year and already had one strange occurrence of thought it might be some sort of visitation or something like that, but just kind of, you know, brushed it off. But I was coming out of a grief support group, and this was at Spring Grove Cemetery. For those in the area, you know that Spring Grove Cemetery is...

a pretty awesome place. It's one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in the entire country. I mean, this place is absolutely massive. And it was nice to have a grief support meeting and

I didn't get a chance to really peruse and tour the grounds on this particular night, but the meeting ended about 7:30 p.m. It just rained earlier in the day, so the sky was a little bit gray, not too warm, not too cool, probably between 60 to 70 degrees. And I'm walking out of this meeting, I kind of parked in the back,

Wasn't sure what part of the building to go into. And I am kind of by myself. There's no cars driving by. And I hear this kind of flapping. And I'm like, what is that? So I'm looking around and then I look above me and there's this bird that's, I wouldn't say hassling me, but clearly either I agitated it or something happened.

And I just thought that this was so strange. Like this bird kept flying back and forth right above me, following me. And I tried to walk a little bit faster because I didn't know if there was something on the ground, like if maybe a baby fell from a nest or if there's something it was trying to eat that I was walking over. And I thought, okay, well, if I kind of get out of its way, maybe it'll, you know, just kind of be on its way.

But the spirit just kept flying right above me, like, you know, a couple feet above my head, just back and forth, chirping and squawking pretty loudly, and I thought that that was just kind of bizarre.

my mom, when she would talk about visitations with going to see her husband at his grave site, that she had a few occurrences of there be some sort of bird or animal that would kind of visit her. And she always thought that that was kind of a sign or a way of the dearly departed just kind of visiting. And

considering that this was from a grief support meeting, and I've never had anything like this happen to me. I've been to the Spring Grove Cemetery a number of times. Great place to run and walk. Beautiful mausoleums and headstones. And I've never had anything like this occur.

Never had anything like this occur anywhere where a bird was just continually following me for probably close to a minute of just flying back and forth. I got a little bit of it on video and I will go ahead and send that to you. I'm not too sure what kind of bird it was. You know, just kind of a small, carnal, blue jay sized bird.

but maybe I can identify it or it can provide some sort of answer what might have been happening. But I kind of felt like this was a sign of being visited. I wasn't feeling great after the grief support meeting and maybe this was just a way of the dearly departed coming back to comfort me. Thank you for the podcast and everyone out there, keep it spooky. See ya.

Thanks, Brad. And I'm sorry for your loss. Losing a loved one is one of the worst experiences anyone can go through. But sometimes those bad experiences can be alleviated a bit by one of these perfectly timed signs from beyond. A little nod to let you know that they're still around. And I hope for your sake, Brad, that what you suspect took place is exactly what went down. I hope it was your mother reaching back out to you.

How great would that be? And how great of you to share the experience here with us. Now folks, I have a few more strange Ohio stories to share. But first, I need to take tonight's final hat break. So don't go anywhere. I'll be right back.

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Now, like I mentioned earlier, Ohio is a hotspot for UFOs as well, and here to help me prove that is Tommy, with his own unidentified encounter from one of the nation's most notorious military installments that just so happens to be located in Ohio.

Hi Derek, this is Tommy from Western Ohio, just north of Dayton, Ohio. And my story takes place on Friday, September 15, 2023. I drive about 45 to 50 minutes from the Indiana state line to my office in Dayton, Ohio. And I drive this three to four times a week. And

And on Friday, the 15th of September, I was driving from west to east as the sun was rising about 7.15 in the morning. And as I neared the Dayton metro area, which is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, I looked up into the eastern sky and saw a light that I'd never seen before. But like many of the calls that you have,

I really thought that it was an aircraft either at the Dayton International Airport or something from Wright-Patterson. So I watched this light as it hovered in the same place, and my mind automatically gravitated to this is an aircraft coming from east to west right at me. The light is in the same place. It seemed normal, but the light was brighter than usual. So I watched it for about 15 seconds,

As I neared the Brookville, Ohio exit coming east, looking into a bright blue sky, no clouds. All of a sudden, after about 30 to 45 seconds, the light trails off to the north and fades, kind of like a shooting star would fade across the night sky. Seemed odd to me, but I just kind of discredit it. As I'm driving along, I go about five or six miles further,

the light fades back into view, reappearing in exactly the same location. This seems really odd to me. So I watch, it's hovering there. By this time I'm near the Dayton International Airport, so this is still further into the eastern skyline. Maybe 15 degrees off the horizon with the bright blue sky in the back and the sun rising about 20 after 7 in the morning at this point. The object hovers there for a while,

and darts off to the north once again. And as it darts, it fades out of view, almost like it was being cloaked in some way. And now I'm really intrigued because I've never seen anything like this paranormal in my life or extraterrestrial or unidentified. And...

After about another three or four miles, I'm nearing the interstate I-75 and I-70 interchange. Still looking off toward the Wright-Patterson area toward the east. The same thing happens. The same object falls back into view again for about 10 seconds and then finally fades out. Odd story. I've never seen it before. Could I discredit it as some sort of flare? Was it some sort of aircraft test from Wright-Patterson?

Thanks, Tommy. Now, at first, I thought you fell victim to the planet Venus.

a planet that's fooled me more than once. But Venus does not just shoot off into the sky. That's not how any of that works. But given the proximity to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the base that legend says was where the Roswell crash debris was taken to, and home to infamous Hangar 18, a place some UFO researchers claim still houses recovered craft and the bodies of the occupants.

So if you're going to see something weird in the sky, seeing it over right pat makes perfect sense. And speaking of government interference, this next one just might be an example of that. Please welcome JP to tonight's program. Hey Derek, this is JP in Cleveland. It's about 9 p.m. on March 30th. So I'm a manager in a restaurant downtown Cleveland.

talking to a cook towards the end of shift tonight out back in an alley. After we're done talking, he calls to his girl who's waiting for him in a car nearby and says, hey, would you go look at these lights that are up in the sky? They're crazy. And I go out and I look and sure enough, there's three lights in a triangle pattern through a slightly overcast sky.

And we're looking at them and we're all kind of tripping out at them. And then the light at the point just blinks out. And then after 30 seconds, it comes back. And we're all like, whoa. And all three of us at the same time break out our phones and start recording. After a minute of recording these and seeing a larger, brighter light, a little bit to, I would say, the west of the first three lights,

We record for about a minute and all these lights are just like hanging out. The bigger ones are kind of fading in and out. And then I noticed that my camera stops recording. Then my cook's friend says her phone stopped recording. The cook said, oh man, mine did too. And we all start digging through our phones and all three of the recordings are missing.

Thank you, JP. Well, that's kind of unusual.

It would be one thing if the camera malfunctioned and suddenly stopped the recording. After all, phones do weird things. They're awfully glitchy. I know mine is. All the time. But it wasn't just one phone. In fact, it was three. And all three seemed to shut down at the same time. Which to me suggests that whatever these lights were, they deplored some sort of scrambling or jamming of the signal. They rendered the phone useless.

Now a quick Google search didn't directly explain how such a thing could have even happened. According to much of what I read, a total blocking of the camera and microphone functions would require technology that simply does not exist. Which tells me it either was all a big coincidence, or this power does exist, and it's reserved for certain government operations.

I suppose it's possible that invaders from another time, plane or planet might have that ability as well. And if they wanted to stay undetected, they could implement this jamming mechanism to keep from showing up on any unwanted videos. But as a self-described rational thinker, I can't help but wonder this. If they wanted to stay undetected and go unnoticed, then why the hell would they put bright lights on each corner of the craft?

That sort of defeats the purpose, me thinks. Well, despite that odd observation, this was an awesome entry, JP. And it now has me curious if this has happened to anyone else. If so, you know how to reach me. MonstersAmongUsPodcast at gmail.com or give us a call at 888-608-KNIGHT. And thank you again, JP, for sharing that unusual phone call.

And that's going to do it for tonight, folks. A huge thanks for hanging out with us here this evening. I hope you had as much fun exploring my home state as I did. Now before I duck out of here, I have some info I need to deliver. 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. Give us a like and follow on our social media pages. Give us a like and follow on YouTube. And leave us a rate and review wherever that sort of thing is possible. Don't forget that 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. Now don't forget to watch our film Shadows in the Desert. Visit BoregoTriangle.com to tune in. And don't forget to join us in the beyond. Go to MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com and click the Patreon tab. Get all the instructions on how to join. And don't forget you can do it for seven days absolutely free.

Now I'll catch you all back here on Thursday with a brand new installment. Until then, keep it spooky. And of course, have yourselves a great night.