S19 Ep4: Ghost children, a shape-shifting snake and an Aussie werewolf (Sn. 19 Ep. 4)
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When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, Allbirds, Skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling, and for the shoppers buying, simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not-so-secret secret, with ShopPay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going...

So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Skims uses.

Do you love to hear first-hand paranormal accounts?

Of course you do. You're listening to this podcast. Well, if you love Monsters Among Us, then I think you'll also love True Scary Story Podcast. True Scary Story brings you real horror stories told directly by those who live them. They have ghost encounters, paranormal activity, and terrifying moments that'll truly haunt you. Listeners can even submit their own stories, so every episode feels personal and real.

So if you love true horror, check out True Scary Story. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us. I'm your guide, Derek Hayes.

But I hope you're ready to have the life scared out of you though, because I have a whole slew of creepy calls and sinister stories to regale you with here this evening. Stories of strange children, transformative beasts, grim reapers, shadow figures, and maybe even a werewolf. But to kick us off here this evening, we begin in the Empire State. Please join me in welcoming Ken to tonight's program.

Hello, Derek. My name is Ken. I'm calling from Western New York. Go Bills. I lived in a city nearby Lockport, New York. And in Lockport, New York, back in the 1800s, our governor of New York, Washington Hunt, lived in a mansion. After a while, he donated it to Lockport.

I used the mansion as an orphanage, especially during the time of World War I, where an exuberant amount of men were drafted into World War I, leaving a lot of women and children to their own devices with not very much money. So it was an event that women gave up many of their children to orphanages, and that was a big orphanage at the time.

Now, the name of the place is called Windham Lawn Home for Children. It's now a place for troubled teens. The teenagers there often say that there are spirits amongst them. I don't know if that's true. I kind of do believe them, though, with things that are happening there. Anyways, when I worked there in the mansion, there was a stairway.

It's similar to a school stairway where you go up half the way and then you have to turn to go the rest of the way up the stairs to the second floor. And there's usually a partition next to the stairway. Well, one night in October, I had the office to myself. It was dark out. It was about 5:30 at night. The rest of the staff had gone home and I was the only one in the building. I was going up to my office to put things away.

As I went up the second flight of stairs heading towards the second floor, I saw an apparition of a little girl who was probably eight years old, had straggly hair, a very old, dirty nightgown, and was carrying a ragged dowel from her hand. She looked very sad and very sick. Because of partition, I couldn't see her legs, but it didn't look like she was walking towards me. It looked like she kind of floated or drifted towards me.

Thanks Ken. You know I sure can't blame you here. If I saw the spirit of a little girl floating toward me at my workplace, I too would likely hurry home. Now I'd never heard of the Windham Blonde Home for Children

And there's not much info on any paranormal activity that's said to go on there either. At least, not that we could find. But that certainly doesn't mean that the claim Ken made wasn't true. Because I, for one, happen to believe him. I just have no idea who the little girl was that he saw. Nor where she might have come from. But I must say, the story really sets the tone for tonight's installment.

Like I said, I have all kinds of spookiness to share with you here this evening. So let's get that first break out of the way, so we can jump right into them. Now don't touch that dial. You know, I used to have no idea what to give my mom for Mother's Day. Especially when she hits me with the classic, "don't give me anything" kind of spiel. But I still want to get her something that feels special.

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Well now, this next entry comes to us from the state of Texas. Please welcome Adriana to the program. Hi Derek, this is Adriana calling from Texas. And I'm calling to tell you about something really creepy that happened to me at my mom's house. And this was in Grand Prairie, Texas.

I don't know what year it was, but it was right along the time when the movie The Passion of the Christ came out. You know, it was like a really big deal. And I remember like being in town visiting with my family and we were watching that movie. I was staying in my sister's bedroom and she was sleeping in the guest bedroom. I went to sleep. I don't know. It was probably around midnight and I went to sleep with the door open, but I just felt like

I had this uneasiness, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. So I just slept with the door open. And the way my mom's house is set up, it's kind of like an L. It was built in the 80s, so the master bedroom would be at the back. My sister's guest bedroom, where I was sleeping that night, was in the middle. And then a little further down around the corner was the other bedroom, like where she was at.

So I go to sleep and I wake up because I hear like these heavy footsteps of somebody like walking. And when I open my eyes, I see this black figure walking by, but I just see it go by. It doesn't look at me and it kind of, I almost feel like it looked like what the Grim Reaper would look like.

And so I was like, "Mom," you know, I wake up. So I'm like, "Okay, what is that?" You know, the footsteps were loud enough for me to wake up from my sleep. And so I get up, you know, I wasn't quite sure maybe it was my mom walking around. Sometimes she would get up at night and just double check that the doors were locked or turn off the kitchen light if someone left it on, you know, different little things. So I called her name and she didn't answer. So I went to her room.

And when I went to her room, I saw that she was completely asleep. So I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. So I got my rosary out of my purse and I just started praying. And I went to sleep with my sister in that other bedroom right next door, which is right around the corner. The next morning I woke up and I told my mom and my sister about it. I feel like they didn't believe me. So then...

That afternoon, I talked to my husband and he told me he was actually in Albuquerque, New Mexico, doing a team building event on a hot air balloon ride. And he told me that, you know, he almost died, that their hot air balloon crashed and he was really lucky to be alive. And it was really, really weird because I really feel like

Maybe that was like an omen or something. I don't know. I tried to look it up online and I came across a couple of things that said something like, if death is nearby, you know, it's possible you can see this black Grim Reaper. But it wasn't like a person and I didn't see his face. It just was this black hooded person walking by. It was really, really creepy, like scary. I don't know what it was that I saw.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has ever like had that experience. It was really scary. Anyway, keep up the good work and I love listening to your podcast. Okay, thank you. Bye. Thank you, Adriana. Well, to answer your question, yes, this sort of thing has been reported before. Many times, actually. And a particular story that stuck out to me came to us from Lincoln in Australia.

His account was featured on Season 16, Episode 18, a story in which he described the exact same creature standing in his bedroom as a child. But I think we can all agree that these sightings are always unsettling and always unnerving. And frankly, many of them are the stuff of nightmares. So I'm sorry I can't offer any answers for you, Adriana, but we sure do appreciate you taking the time

to call in. Now folks, if you have a story you would like to share here on the program, give our 24-7, 365 hotline a call. 888-608-NIGHT. That's 888-608-N-I-G-H-T. Or record a voice memo on your phone and email the file to me at monstersamonguspodcast at gmail.com. Now there are a few rules to your submission, so please pay attention.

True stories only. Call from a quiet place. No moving vehicles, please. One story per call, but you can call in as many times as you'd like. But please do finish your story once you start one, even if you have to call back in a second time to finish. But above all else, make sure you keep them spooky. You know, recently we had some listeners ask for more monster stories. They couldn't agree more.

So if you're sitting on some sort of monster story, consider this your sign to give us a call. 888-608-NIGHT and we can't wait to hear from you. Now, on to tonight's next submitter. And coming to us from parts unknown, please welcome Catherine to the show. Hi, my name is Catherine. This story would take place in a little town called Niles, Michigan. That's actually where I grew up most of my life.

This in particular story happened when I was a teenager in my later 20s now, but this would be a little over 10 years ago. Just to preface before I tell you the story, I do want to say that I am what I would consider to be a witch. That might sound funny, but the most important thing that a real witch can remember is to always try and explain mundane before you explain magical.

So I have done that with this situation, and I truly cannot think of a mundane explanation. So if someone can, I would love to hear it because it's just baffled me since this happened.

So I was about 15 or 16 years old. And in my parents' home, they have a enclosed back porch. It's a cement slab. And there's a couple stairs leading down from the sliding glass door when you go out onto the porch, down onto the cement slab of the porch. And the sliding glass door has that kind of horseshoe-shaped handle.

So when I went out onto the porch, I went to close the door. And when I was younger, I used to just like use my full body weight to swing the door closed. So I was basically leaning back so that I was leaning off of the stairs, but I was holding on to the door handles. So nothing bad should happen, except...

The door handle actually snapped off. It was like plastic instead of metal, like it should have been. And it completely snapped off. It broke. As I was mid-swing pole with my entire body weight leaning back off of these stairs. So I'm about to fall two stairs straight back like a log on the back of my head onto the cement slab. And I remember it felt like slow motion.

And I remember thinking, I'm really going to hurt myself or I could even die from this because I had momentum falling backwards and I could not catch myself. It just felt like my arms were useless. So right before I hit the ground, I remember looking at the ceiling and seeing the ceiling. So I was already at at least a 90 degree angle. I was getting ready to hit the back of my head on this and that slab. I

all of a sudden was standing on the other side of this 20 by 10 slab. I literally was standing on my feet on the other side of the screened in porch. And I was so far away from the door that I just stood there for like two minutes. I remember being so stunned.

And I wasn't even seeing anything. Like, I was just standing there trying to understand what had happened. Because it was, like, one second I was looking at the ceiling, and the next second I was standing on the other side of the porch. It was as if no time passed in between. And I do remember when that happened, it looked like there was, like, a flash of bright light. And then, boom, I was standing on the other side of the porch. Even to this day, like, I've questioned...

If it's something spiritual, if it's something mundane, if my brain just forgot that I hit my head, but there was no after effects. I never was injured. I'd never had any evidence of a fall. I bruise really easily. So I feel like I would have felt that if I had fallen. And yeah, I mean, my personal belief is that

It was an angel. I know it sounds crazy. I'm a witch. What are you talking about? Well, I grew up very, very religious and very Pentecostal, like very much speaking in tongues, all of that very loud and proud Christianity. And so I had no doubt at the time that it was an angel. But now, I mean, I still think it could have been an angel. I don't know, because I can't think of a way that I got to the other side of that porch.

Keep up the great work. Appreciate it. Bye. Well, you know, I guess that might make me a witch as well, Catherine. Because I, too, always look for the mundane explanation before I even entertain a paranormal one. So, of course, I ran Catherine's experience through the same checks and balances. And I simply cannot come up with a logical explanation here. Obviously, something or someone intervened. But who intervened?

And why? And possibly most importantly, how? Now like the previous Grim Reaper call, this phenomenon too has been reported a number of times here on the program. We've heard from plenty of other people that claim some unseen force intervened at the perfect moment to save them from certain death as well. And I imagine these reports will continue to flood in as the show progresses.

So for now, I'll simply say thank you, Catherine, for the phone call. And we'll continue to explore this strange phenomena as the calls continue to come in. Now, folks, I think I have enough time to slide one more call in before our next scheduled break. So from the state of Pennsylvania, please welcome Jake to the program.

Hey, Derek. My name's Jake from eastern Pennsylvania. I was calling in just to talk a little bit about my childhood home that I grew up in. It was a converted schoolhouse, but the guy used to live there. He lived out of the schoolhouse and not only taught there. And apparently he was not very well liked by a lot of the kids in the neighborhood. This goes back a long time ago at this point.

Not very well liked. They used to, like, throw stuff in his yard, you know, old furniture, appliances, rocks, whatever they'd get their hands on. And he would just bury it in the yard. He wouldn't remove it. He would just lug it out back and he'd just bury it in a hole in the ground. So for a long time, we would dig up old appliances, things like that. But more importantly, one day I had stayed home from school. I was pretty young at this point, maybe like third or fourth grade.

And my sister had to step away. She was the only other person home. She'd leave for whatever reason, so I was the only one left home. And I was hanging out in my bedroom, and I remember every single light, appliance, everything. Anything that was electronic, it all turned on, and there was just this cacophony of sound, and then it all turned off as soon as it happened. And at the time, I was, like, freaking out.

There was another instance where, same thing, I was home sick or I was home from school for whatever reason and this old house used to have an intercom system. Obviously the intercom system, it doesn't go back to anything. You know, since then it's been unplugged. It doesn't route to anything. There's no way for anyone to speak over it. Same thing, I'm home from school. I'm the only one home. I'm a little older at this point, maybe sixth or seventh grade. And this loud noise comes over this old intercom.

Love the show. Keep up the great work and can't wait to hear more. Thanks. Thank you, Jake, for calling in. I wonder if a power surge could cause the issues that Jake described in his submission. I imagine a surge could cause many electronics to suddenly come to life. And if enough power was pulsing through those lines, I could even see an on-off switch being bypassed by the voltage. And I wonder if it could affect the intercom system in the same way.

Now on the other side of that coin however, we already know that schoolhouses are spooky places. There are dozens of infamously haunted schools here in the United States, and likely hundreds more that have managed to keep their strange activity a secret. Making your home in one of these places, while that might be unique and interesting, it could leave you wide open to some sort of supernatural activity.

But we can't thank you enough, Jake, for taking the time to share your activity here with us. We sure do appreciate the phone call. Pushing her dog in a stroller and her kid was on the leash. We had a second chance. Until I championed his crown at the...

When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, Allbirds, Skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling, and for the shoppers buying, simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not-so-secret secret, with ShopPay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going...

So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Skims uses.

Now this next entry isn't exactly a grim reaper in the bedroom, but I will admit it's pretty damn close. From the deserts of Arizona...

Please welcome the following anonymous caller. Hello, I'm submitting a report from Arizona. I'd like to keep my name anonymous. This story takes place in the house I'm living in currently, in the room that I'm currently recording this in. So one night I was in bed sleeping and I was woken up by some movement around my house and

Usually my dad sometimes will come out, just check the doors, make sure they're all locked and stuff. And so I called out his name. Dad, is that you? No response, just nothing. So I'm kind of nervous because I can tell something's out there. Then I just try to go back to bed. But I see like the outline of a person, like a figure, but can't see the features at all. It's just an outline. It's just pitch black.

and it moves and almost like flashes like boom, boom, boom, like it's just moving. There, there, there, there. And it started to get more solid, I want to say. Like I could see it more, like I could start to shape things out from it. And so at this point I'm freaked out and I just go under my bed, have my head peeking out, and it comes over to my bed right in front of me. All of a sudden it leans over

And I feel this like cold feeling pass through me. I'm just not moving, waiting for it to leave. And I just feel that cold feeling. And then it goes away and he moves up, leaves my room. And then he lingered for about five more minutes, just stood and stayed. And then just gone in an instant. Just fell back asleep and woke up the next morning and just carried on. Thank you. We appreciate the story, Caller.

Thanks for ringing in. And as scary as that experience likely was, believe it or not, it could have gone much worse. Just ask Sylvia from down in Texas. Hi, Derek. My name is Sylvia and I'm from San Antonio, Texas. We're living in my mother-in-law's house, my husband and I with our 12-year-old daughter. We've lived there for about three years.

His mom and oldest daughter moved down to the country, so we're looking after the house. When we moved in, I used to experience footsteps around the house. We used to have a dog that could sense things around. I would notice him look up and growl at something that I couldn't see. There were times where I could be right outside the door on the porch smoking a cigarette and

I could hear like a door opening and heavy boots when my husband used to work for Spectrum. And I would come in and say, "Did you forget something, hon?" And I would go to the front and see nobody there. And this happened a couple of times. There were times where me and my husband would be watching TV and we could hear like something really heavy fell and like broke on the floor.

it would really shake us up and we would go immediately to go look around and see what it was. We couldn't find anything and we checked everywhere in the house and we could not find anything. So this happened a couple of times. We got used to it. You know, nothing ever bothered us. So after a while, you know, everything seemed to calm down. I was asleep and I was going to get up and go use the restroom. For some reason, when I tried to get up,

I could feel something pushing my head down into the pillow. I mean literally pushing my head down where I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn't even scream, but in my head I'm telling this thing to stop and it just wouldn't let up. Other parts of my body could move, I just could not lift up my head because I felt

I literally felt someone pushing my head down. And I got so scared because I felt like I was suffocating. And in my head, I'm yelling, "Let go! Stop!" I mean, it took everything that I had, every strength that I had to really push my head up from this pillow.

And the first few times I couldn't do it, and I'm still telling this thing to let go and to stop until finally I pushed really, really hard and I was able to get up. And I was just so terrified and shaking and I just couldn't say anything. I couldn't even go back to sleep. I sat there and waited and finally just got up from the bed and

I went and did my morning stuff and I just sat there, didn't say anything, didn't wake up my husband. It came time to take my daughter to school and my husband to work. He asked me, you know, what was wrong because he was saying you were being very standoffish. I was very quiet and all of a sudden I just broke down and

He couldn't understand what was going on and it took a while, but I told him what had happened and he's like, "Well, why couldn't you wake me up?" And I was like, "I was scared." So my daughter was sitting behind me and she was telling me, "Mom, you need to pray. You need to pray." So we got home after a while when the day was done. I dreaded the night because I thought it was going to happen again.

I told my husband, "Leave the door open," because I'm the one that goes to sleep first. I told him, "Leave the door open." He said, "But you can't go to sleep with the TV on." I said, "I don't even think I'm going to be able to sleep." So now he has to leave the door open, and I usually don't fall asleep until I know he comes into the room. Now, I can't have the door shut. I have to have some type of light coming into the room because I'm afraid.

And I'm still scared. Anyways, it hasn't happened anymore. I'm hoping that it doesn't happen anymore. I'm just wondering if this has happened to anybody. Like I said, we've had stuff, you know, never been touched. My daughter has only had where before she was going to go to bed, somebody had whispered, you know, like to soothe her, I guess. I kept telling her it was her uncle who had passed away and died.

Thanks, Sylvia. If I'm honest, part of me suspects this to simply be sleep paralysis.

But another part of me suspects something a little more sinister. After all, I can't think of a single occurrence of sleep paralysis in which the sufferer reported having their face shoved violently into a pillow. Pressure on the body and being pushed into the bed and having the feeling that something is lying on top of you. Those have all been reported. But I can't think of a single instance where a face was shoved into a pillow.

So I'm gonna leave this one up to you listeners. What do you think happened here folks? Is this sleep paralysis? Was it a demon? A ghost? Or something so unsettling that it escapes our imagination? Whatever it was, we appreciate you telling us all about it Sylvia. So thank you again for the phone call. Now next up we venture to my neck of the woods. Please welcome Gloria.

from here in California. Hi, my name is Gloria and this story took place before I existed. I want to say the 70s in Landers, California. It's north of Joshua Tree, California. This area is known for UFO phenomena and actually there is a famous place called the Integratron where somebody

said they were visited by aliens and they built this perfectly spherical building with no metal, all wood that's acoustically amazing. I don't know how to describe it. It's like a giant cylinder. It's built above an aquifer and then the top of it

is half a dome. And I've been in there before for sound baths, now it's just a tourist location. If you whisper on one part of the room, it'll travel to a different part of the room. As you walk from one point to another and just talk, the sound around you will change.

Well, this story has nothing to do about the Integratron, although it's very interesting. The story has to do with my grandfather and his third wife, my step-grandmother. So they're out in the middle of the desert. They purchased the property. They had put a hot tub out in their backyard to watch the stars at night.

And they were in the hot tub looking up, watching the stars, and they saw something go across the sky. They said it was like a shooting star, but then it stopped.

And then it went a different direction and it stopped and it just kind of zigzagged across the sky. My grandfather was known for telling stories. My step-grandmother was not. And actually being around her, she always denied any type of alien stuff. She hated the Integratron, the people that it brought, and she thought everyone was crazy.

You know, I grew up with her always like shaming, you know, extraterrestrial alien activity, people believing that. And then one day my grandfather tells me this story that they both witnessed. And I turned to her and I looked at her and I said, is this true? She quietly nodded her head yes, and then just kind of like walked away.

It was because, you know, she didn't want to be seen as crazy. But it's something that they both experienced was a UFO up in the desert sky around the 70s. Have a beautiful day. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you for calling in, Gloria. And yeah, the Integratron.

We actually visited the Integratron for the first time while we were evacuated during our most recent forest fire back in September. Now we were able to walk the grounds and visit the gift shop, but unfortunately the actual Integratron was in use that day, so we were not able to go in. But the Integratron is not very far from here, so I'll definitely give it another go sometime here soon.

And I hope that we have a similar experience that Gloria's grandfather and step-grandmother had. And if we were to have a UFO experience there, it would be par for the course. Because the man that built the Integratron claimed that an alien gave him the blueprints. It's called the Integratron.

A handcrafted dome, a marvel of engineering, situated atop a freakish geomagnetic vortex. Built in the 1960s by retired aerospace engineer George Van Tassel, whose blueprints he claimed were a sort of telepathic download from outer space friends, Nordic-like extraterrestrials. Today, the Integratron is owned and looked after by sisters Joanne and Nancy Carl.

1953, he has a close encounter with a spaceship, a physical encounter with a spaceship. They invited him to come in and they download him with a bunch of information. They told him that he could build a machine that would extend our lives 20 to 50 years or more. And that if humans extended their lives, they would gain enough wisdom to save our race. He spends 25 years of his life engineering and building this structure.

And he never gets to turn it on, right? He's shut down by the government a few times. Do we know what kind of technology he was talking about? Tesla science, Tesla technology. Clearly, somebody didn't want it to happen because he did die suddenly and mysteriously. And days later, everything disappeared from the building. Small model research, all of his journals. So consensus, something special is going on here for sure. I like that clip from Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations.

And look, with a building like the Integratron out there, luring in flying saucers, it's no wonder that people are seeing things out in the desert. And it's no wonder that your family saw something as well, Gloria. As I said before, I spend a lot of time out in this area, and I can attest, it is a special place. And with stories like the one from Gloria's family circulating throughout the area, I can see that I'm not the only one that thinks so.

So thank you again, Gloria, for sharing your family's tale.

And that's it in a nutshell. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, all birds, skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling, and for the shoppers buying, simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not-so-secret secret, with ShopPay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going...

So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Skims uses.

Now next up is an unsettling entry out of the state of Iowa.

Welcome to the show, Heaven. My name is Heaven and I'm from Des Moines, Iowa. And one morning when I was getting ready for a college class, I heard my sister that I live with say my name. She said, Heaven. And she said it in such a way I knew that something was going on.

And so I run from brushing my teeth in the restroom, 7 a.m. on like a Tuesday morning. I run from the front room over to the back door where she has the back door wide open. And she's pointing straight out of the back door and...

are in a residential area and to the left of the house there is a gate that's probably six feet high and then there's a small field and then an elementary school. So this elementary school usually they don't start class until maybe eight or something and this is seven so nobody was even there yet. But she's pointing out of the door and she's pointing across the fence

to this little girl that is standing in the field just staring at us. And it's a super foggy day, so you can just see her long white dress and her long black hair, just as creepy as ever. And she's just standing there, and she looks to be probably four and a half, maybe four foot tall. And she says, "Hello? Hello?"

And we have a pit bull that was on a chain coming from the backyard. And he is just barking at her like crazy, which is crazy because during the day when the kids are out there, he doesn't bark at them at all.

He never barked at them. He never had any issues with little kids. But with this one, he was barking, he was growling, he had his tail up, he was on alert. And my sister was pulling him backwards with the chain trying to get him inside as this little girl says, Hello? Hello? Hello?

And I said, leave the dog, shut the door. And she said, no. And she just keeps pulling him and trying to get him to come in. He's not coming because he's being aggressive towards this, what we presume to be a little girl. However, she's in all white and the school children wear blue.

And we know all the children that are our neighbor's children. So it was really weird that she was even out there, especially in the fog at 7 a.m. or a school morning. Anyway, we finally pull on the dog, slam the door, and the girl said, hello, hello. She starts running at us. As she starts running at us, we get the door shut. We get the dog inside. We slam the door. We look to the left of the door.

in a little window that's right next to the door. We see her get to the fence. She kind of cocks her head to the side and turns away and just starts skipping away.

It was the creepiest thing ever. I never really had any closure about it because when I went to class, like 10 minutes later, I had to go get in the car. And as I drove around that property, I did not see any cars, any adults. I didn't see the little girl. I didn't see anything. So it was really the weirdest thing ever. We just had an ominous feeling. We have no idea where this little girl came from and we don't know what child would sprint at adults.

So yeah, that's my story. I really think that it might have been a demon taking shape of a little girl out early in the morning at a Catholic elementary school. So, love your podcast. Thanks so much. Thank you, Heaven. What do you think about this one, folks? Is this one a ghost? Could this one be a demon? A time slip or one of those black-eyed kids?

or just a wild child, hell-bent on giving someone a scare. It's certainly weird that the dog had that reaction to the figure, and it was weird that the little girl seemed to run straight at the witness. That's not normal behavior. And it was also weird that she seemingly disappeared at the drop of a hat. Now I'll file this experience in the old Rolodex.

Maybe later down the line, someone will submit something similar that will help us get to the bottom of this pint-sized perplexity. But until then, thank you again, Evan, for the phone call. Alright folks, it's time for tonight's closer. But before I hit play, a quick reminder that our merch shop is still open and still on sale. 20% off everything store-wide.

And it looks like we'll be closing down in early May for the big move. So you still have a few weeks to take advantage of the savings. Just visit MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com and click the shop tab. Now, like I'd mentioned a bit ago in the episode, we've had some people asking for more monster stories lately. And trust me, I would love to play nothing but monster calls. After all, those are my favorite. But I simply do not have that many.

and I try my best to have at least one per episode. So that means I need to be sparing with the ones that I do have in my collection. It ebbs and flows. Sometimes we get a lot, sometimes it goes quiet for several months. But with that request in mind, I pulled out the following call. A real hair raiser from down in the Outback. Well, close to the Outback. Please welcome Joe.

All the way from Australia. G'day Derek, this is Joe from Brisbane, Australia. This happened when I was about seven years old. I'm now 27 years old. So this is 20 years ago. It's kind of...

stretching my memory a bit and I'm not sure what sorts of information my brain's kind of added to the story as the years have gone by but it still feels fairly vivid for me and it's probably one of the only strange things that's really ever happened in my life. At the time I was living in the Southern Highlands which is about two hours south of Sydney for any of you Americans who know where that is.

My parents were renting a dairy farm and it was about 300 acres and it was quite a bald sort of property, not many trees, not very woody, but there was this really big hill. I remember as a seven-year-old, I actually had quite a lot of freedom from my parents as to just kind of wander the property and do as we liked. I had six brothers and we all got up to all sorts of things on this property and I

I remember this one time I was alone and I walked my way up to the top of this hill. You got pretty well 360 degree panoramic views of the property and heaps further than that, obviously. And I remember looking down into this one paddock. It was probably maybe 100 meters down the bottom of the hill into this separate paddock. And I saw this creature that I could only describe...

as looking like the werewolf of Harry Potter. It had a really big back, almost triangular looking, but it had super long gangly arms and quite short back legs. But it was still kind of crouching on all fours and it was sort of lurking its way across adjacent to how I was looking at it. This absolutely terrified me, but I just sat there watching it for a minute. This thing...

It was kind of sniffing around and then at one point it kind of put its head up in the air and it looked as if it was smelling the air and it turned its head and looked directly at me. I can't tell you the sorts of fear that was running through my body at that moment but fortunately

It kind of almost in a frightened way turned the other way and almost looked like it galloped away. And it hurled a fence that easily that it just blew my mind. It just jumped this fence and it just took off. And as it was running, I just thought, I'm going to run the same. And I just ran down that hill as fast as I could. And I got home. I just ran inside, slammed the door shut.

And I was just panting. And my brother is like, what's going on, mate? What's happened? And I said, I have no idea. All I know is I have just seen something that looked like the Wolf of Harry Potter. And he told me that he reckons he saw the same thing once upon a time. And he thought it was a Tasmanian tiger. But I'm sure it wasn't a Tasmanian tiger. Anyway, that's my story.

Thanks for the podcast. See you later. Thank you, Joe, for that terrifying entry. Imagine it, folks. The werewolf from Harry Potter right there in the flesh. And then it turns to look at you and your heart nearly beats right out of your chest. And to know that the brother might have seen the same creature at an earlier date. These are all the ingredients needed for a classic cryptid recount.

Now in my opinion, this doesn't sound like a Tasmanian tiger or a thylacine to me. For starters, those creatures traveled on all fours. They were not bipedal, as described. Plus they have an orange or tan or rust colored coat, complete with black stripes down its back quarters. Now again, in my opinion, this doesn't sound like the creature that Joe reported.

but the description does sound like a well-known cryptid we supposedly have here in the states the werewolf-like dogman and at some point in the act of processing this call i came to the realization that i'd never heard a dogman story out of australia at least not that i could remember which made me wonder if reports even existed down that direction

So I sent Delaney on another wild goose chase to see if any reports of that gnarly cryptid have ever surfaced from Down Under. And not only did she find one, but she found several. All courtesy of the YouTube channel, Dogman Encounters Radio. And I've linked to a playlist full of encounters from Australia. Just hit up the show notes at MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com to check those out.

But there was one story in that collection that particularly caught our ear. An experience that took place just north of Sydney, less than 200 miles from where Joe had his experience, near the town of Watanabe. The witness was about 15 years old at the time, and had gone outside at night to cool off during a particularly hot evening. And that's when he spotted something across the way, something that changed his life forever.

Here is the witness himself explaining exactly what it was that he encountered that evening, courtesy of Dogman Encounters Radio. I turned and I looked and about 15 to 20 meters away, which in feet I think is about 50 to 60 feet, somewhere in that range was the back fence. And just outside of the back fence, squatting down,

was a very black, dark, shadow shape. And I focused on it. It took a second or so for my brain to register that that's not just a shadow, it was something. And looking at it, to me, it looked like a dark, shaggy human with very long hair, very well built, not super muscular, but very strong muscle definition would be the right word. Looking at the creature...

It was looking down the yard, down the hill towards the side fence that I had just been looking out over and I was looking straight at it. It had its left hand resting up on the top of the fence and its right hand was between its knees as it knelt there to base itself I guess.

And that's when the creature turned its head and looked straight at me. It had a dog's muzzle or a wolf's muzzle. It had pointed ears, very thick, dark fur all over the back of its head and its neck and its shoulders, in places thicker and thinner, but it was completely covered in hair. And it had these eyes that I'll never forget, these piercing blue eyes.

That's two very similar descriptions, two very similar locations, and both creatures turn to look at the witness before quickly evacuating the area. That's quite the coincidence, wouldn't you say? But what if I told you that Australia already has a beast-like cryptid that supposedly haunts the southeastern portion of the country?

A creature whose description sounds eerily similar to what Joe just described. A creature the Aboriginal people know simply as the Bunyip. Arguably the most globally recognized mythical creature from Australia is the Bunyip, an important staple in Aboriginal folklore. This amphibious being poses a threat to all who travel near inland waters.

Lurking in lagoons, deep water holes, swamps and rivers, this predatory creature presents a clear danger to humans and animals alike, threatening to drown or eat them at a moment's notice. Originating in the stories and beliefs of the Southeastern Indigenous Peoples of Australia, accounts of the bunyip are widely varied, but a few things are for certain: it's big, scary, and won't hesitate to kill you.

Now that was a clip from PBS's Monstrum, and I've linked the full segment if you would like to learn more. But essentially the Bunyip is a massive amphibious creature that is said to be as stealthy as it is deadly. And descriptions of the creature vary, but a majority describe it as a large 15 to 20 foot tall hair covered beast with the face of a dog, sometimes walking on all fours, sometimes standing on its hind legs.

It prowls the waterways and ambushes victims walking along the water's edge. Now again, this is awfully similar to what Joe just described, especially if the bunyip's legendary size has been exaggerated. So there are the suspects, folks. I'll let you deduce the rest. But of course, a quick visit to tonight's show notes will certainly help you. I've linked to everything we've spoken about here this evening over at MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com.

And under the show notes tab. And that's going to do it for this portion of the program. Thanks again to Joe for sharing the entry. And a big thanks to all of tonight's callers. And another big thanks to you, listener, for tuning in here this evening. But you can get more spooky content. The fun does not have to stop here. Stick around until after the outro to learn how you can get more MAU absolutely free.

But until then, Monsters Among Us podcast is written and produced by me, Derek Hayes. Copyright Red Crow Media. Additional support is provided by Sarah Carter Hayes, Delaney Bowers, and Connor Ryan. All media used in this production is done so under the protection of fair use. Please give us a like and follow on our social media accounts. And give us a like and follow at YouTube as well. We really could use the help over there.

And if you would, please leave us a rate and review, wherever that sort of thing might be possible. Don't forget that you can catch the show every Saturday evening at 11 p.m. Eastern on the OnX Digital Network. Just visit onxnetwork.com to tune in. And finally, tonight's score was provided by Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse, Co.ag Music, and Carl Casey at White Pad Audio.

Now don't forget to watch our movie, Shadows in the Desert High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle. Just visit borregotriangle.com to learn how you can tune in. Now I'll catch most of you on the other side of this quick break. But for everyone else, keep it spooky and I'll see you next week.

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Where some of us have been meeting for a number of years. It's in this secret story territory that I like to play some of the weirdest and strangest calls that I can get my hands on. And tonight is certainly no exception. So joining us from parts unknown, please welcome Nicole to tonight's program.

Hi, this is Nicole, and this took place in Richland, Washington, back in about 2012. I was in a nice development, upper middle class area. Very nice homes. I was visiting a friend. He had come outside to walk me. It was late. We were watching movies, and it was about midnight, one in the morning. It was summertime. And we walked outside, and he was like,

All of a sudden, they got, I want to say, kind of wider people.

So it was probably about three, four feet wide and probably three feet tall. You know, just like if somebody was sitting on the ground, but it started to morph into something different, like a large snake intertwining itself.

And it just kept intertwining and moving and intertwining. It kind of reminded me of the movie King Arthur, where it's like down in the basement, he talks to that octopus lady and she's just intertwining all around herself. It was like that. And when it was intertwining itself, every once in a while, you'd see the face would like pop out. And then the face would go back into intertwining. And then you'd see maybe like a kneecap.

an elbow, but then it would like morph back into like this big, huge, kind of like a big snake or octopus intertwining itself. We watched it for a couple minutes, just couldn't figure out what we were looking at. I mean, we were like at a dead stare and we looked at each other and kept looking back at it and it kept just intertwining every so often. The face would come out and then move back into the intertwining. It was like this huge snake octopus thing.

And then all of a sudden, it just like the fear hit. It just wasn't making sense. He's like, get in your car and get out of here. And I got in my car and I just took off. He went down the basement back to where he was staying. And we talked the next day. He said nothing else happened that night.

But I still, to this day, don't know what we were looking at. We were both confused. And it has stuck in my head ever since. So if anybody has seen anything similar to that, it would be great to know. Just to understand maybe what I was seeing. But I love your show. And thank you very much. Guys, have a good night. Bye. Thank you, Nicole. I am at a loss with this one. I don't even have a guess.

as to what this might have been, especially since Nicole and her friend sat and watched this thing for several minutes. If they couldn't solve the riddle then, I'm sure as hell not gonna solve it now. But I am intrigued, and like Nicole, I'd love to know what was writhing around on the ground there that night.

So if you have any insight, you know how to reach us. 888-608-KNIGHT or MonstersAmongUsPodcast at gmail.com I hope we get to the bottom of whatever this thing was. Until then, thank you again, Nicole, for taking the time to call in. Now, gang, we've arrived to the junction. From this point forward, we're going beyond.

But you can join us for free simply by taking advantage of Patreon or Apple Subscriptions' free 7-day trial. After that, it's only $5 a month to keep the MAU flowing. In tonight's Beyond, we discuss Haunted Hot Springs, astral travel, and this intense experience by Archer from over in the Garden State.

Hey Derek, this is Archer from New Jersey. So I used to live with my parents in a house which was on the southern edge of Poughkeepsie in New York. We lived right next to an airport, so we were very familiar with all kinds of lights in the sky and any and all kind of aircraft that would come in and out of there. Small private airport called Dutchess Airport, I think. But

A couple times I saw things that I can't explain, and a couple other people saw them too. So I thought I'd share these stories. First one was in 2012. My brother was having a little graduation party after graduating high school, and a couple of my friends were there. We decided we were going to go back to my friend's house to go have our own little party and get away from all these, you know, young'uns. So I hopped in my car, and I had one of those manual convertible roofs.

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