S19 Ep6: Whistling monsters, haunted ashes and grinning men (Sn. 19 Ep. 6)
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Join me and follow the podcast Conspiracy Theories, where we explore what's really going on behind the official narrative. Like, what if the Loch Ness Monster isn't a monster at all, but an elephant? What do the richest 1% know that we don't know?

Why are they building all those bunkers? And really, what the heck is going on with the Denver airport? Join me every week to see just how high up this goes on the Spotify podcast, Conspiracy Theories. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us.

I'm your guide, Derek Hayes. Welcome back to another terrifying installment of your favorite paranormal podcast. Now, it's a real pleasure to have you with us here this evening. We have quite the show lined up for you tonight. All sorts of ghost stories, creature stories, and even a couple of tales about the strangest creature of them all, the human being. Or at least we think they're human.

But first, we begin with a story about a shadow entity doing something most shadow entities don't do. Or at least those are the claims. So please welcome Anthony, all the way from Illinois. Good evening, Derek. This is Anthony. I am from South Central Illinois. I just wanted to report a story from back whenever I was in high school, back in the early 2010s.

I slept with my parents' young dog. She was a miniature Dachshund. It was a two-story house and we were down in the basement. And I remember being probably about 17 years old and the dog would get upset. I woke up from her like growling and barking at what was going on in the world. And I woke up

And this time I just assumed it was just another instance of a little dog, big, big attitude, you know. But my parents' basement, they had a landing. I looked over at the landing there that was in the basement because that's where I slept. And there was this figure there. It was a shadow figure. I mean, you're talking about a probably six foot three man. And he looked at me and he goes, are you okay? Yeah.

And I looked at him and I said, I'm fine. Clearly, the dog was not okay because she was upset. She was trying to fight this entity. At the time, I was like, I'm good. I have nothing to do with it. I tried to go back to sleep, but the dog's heartbeat was racing so much. I just grabbed her. I was like, dog, you got to chill out.

We finally fell back asleep and waking up in the morning again, you know, I asked my dad, I said, "Hey, did you come downstairs and ask me if I'm okay?" And dad was like, "No, I was asleep. I never went downstairs." And I went to my mom and I said, "Hey, did you come downstairs?" And she said, "No, I was asleep by 10 o'clock." I said, "This is weird."

I was playing some video games earlier that night and I went to bed and then next thing I know some weird stuff happened. The place that they live at is a new build. No other building has been on that property but the area is very old. We're talking southern Illinois is Ohio River Valley so maybe there was some Native American stuff going on. I really don't know. I will never forget it. Thank you very much. You have a good one.

Thank you, Anthony. So I bet you picked up on the detail that tripped me up. The fact that the shadow figure spoke. Now we've broached this topic a few other times throughout the show's run. I believe I even put a call out at one point for other stories involving shadow entities that seem to speak. Now we got a few hits here and there, but the phenomena is still quite rare. But not so rare that we couldn't dig up another example.

The following was posted on the TruthIsOutThere subreddit and seems to describe a very similar experience. I'm six years old. I'm in my bed trying to fall asleep in dim lamp lighting. I'm looking toward the front of my bed. I'm at the edge of my sleep, maybe fading in and out. And then at some point I notice a dark figure standing at the foot of my bed, facing at me. It's the height of an adult. All black.

I couldn't make out a face or distinctive details, but interpreted as wearing a flowy, hooded cloak, kind of vague and blobby. It proceeded to ask me benign, small talkish questions. "What's your name?" or "How old are you?" I can't remember if it had a voice or what it sounded like, but I do remember squeaking out an answer to each question out loud.

The interaction was pretty short, maybe a minute, and then it just faded back into the dark hallway, unceremoniously. And that was it. So, while you might belong to a very small group of people, Anthony, take some solace in knowing you're not completely alone in what you've experienced. And thank you again for sharing the phone call. Now, folks, I'm not lying, I have a hell of an episode slated for you this evening. But before I can get to all of those calls...

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And finally... Now next stop, we head to the land down under, where Lee is waiting with a tale. Hi Derek, it's Lee from New South Wales in Australia. I was just listening to season 18, episode 4, and I was listening to Patty talk about the cat that jumped on her bed. I knew there was no cat, you know what I mean?

So I've had the same thing happen to me quite a few times and I thought I'd call and tell you all about it because surely there's got to be more people out there. What happened, I was living in a house about five, six years ago. I was living by myself. I had two cats, but I would never let the cats sleep in my bedroom at night. I would close the bedroom door, make sure they were outside because I don't like to be woken up. The first time that it happened, I was woken by something jumping on the bed

and it felt like a cat. And I thought, oh, you know, Jasper, that's one of my cats, is coming up towards my pillow, and I could feel the little footsteps coming up towards my pillow. I put my hand out like Patty did, and nothing there. Well, I was not happy. So I told whatever it was to go away, and it stopped. About two weeks later, it happened again. Again, I could feel something jump on the bed like a cat.

and make it sway up towards my pillow. But without me putting my hand out there, because I knew there'd be nothing there, this thing hissed at me and it was so loud. And as you can understand, I almost my pants. And I sat up in bed and there was definitely nothing there. And I swore at this thing, if you can imagine all the dirty language that's coming out, which I can't repeat here, told this thing to boot off.

and to never come back, ever. Well, it went away, but that hissing, oh my god, I've never experienced anything like that before. About six months later, it did happen again. There was no hissing because as soon as I realized something's walking on the bed, I turned on the light and told it to boot off again, in more severe words. Since I've been at this new house now, I haven't had that experience with that creature. If it was a cat, it was an awful cat. God knows what it was.

But recently my little pet died in December while I had to put her to sleep. She was sick. But she has also jumped on my bed, but I know it's her because she always sits in the same place. And yeah, it's lovely. But Patty, oh, she really sparked the memory for me. I really love your show. I binge it on the way to work, on the way back. She's spooky. Love it. Okay, take care. Bye. Thank you, Leigh.

You know, this story made me think of a funny scenario. Isn't it odd that one person's terrifying ghost encounter could be another person's blessing? For example, I lost my cat Annabelle about a year and a half ago. And if she were to come back in ghost form and hop on our guest bed while we had visitors, I bet they would be plenty disturbed. But if her spirit were to jump onto my bed, I would be elated to see her.

But I can see why you would get unnerved by such a visit, Lee. Unexpected, uninvited spirits of any species are a tough thing to sleep through. So thank you again for sharing your submission here. And thank you for tuning in on your long commutes.

Now, listeners, if you have a story you would like me to share here on the program, give us a call. The hotline is up and open 24-7, 365-888-608-9. The number once again is 888-608-NIGHT. Or you can record a voice memo on your phone and email it to me at monstersamonguspodcast at gmail.com.

Oh, and don't forget about these quick and easy rules. Rules that'll ensure that your story will sound its best when it finally hits the air. Call from a quiet place, not a moving vehicle. The road noise is just too much and it drowns your voice out. One story per call. Finish your story, even if you have to call back in and pick up where you left off. True stories only, please.

and secondhand stories are okay, just as long as the original witness claims them to be true. And above all else, make sure you keep them spooky. That's 888-608-NIGHT, and we can't wait to hear from you. Now this one reminds us that we should look to the night sky every once in a while, because you never know what might be floating around up there. Please welcome John from the state of Tennessee, Tennessee.

to tonight's program. Hi Derek, this is John out of Knoxville, Tennessee and I wanted to share with you my story of my UFO encounter, one of two, but this one kind of really struck a chord with me. It freaked me out for a little bit, but

The main reason I finally decided to report it is because I'm a recent fan of the show and I was kind of binge listening. And I was listening to season 13, episode 18, I believe, where the caller discussed seeing the object over the lake when she was there with her family and friends.

And it was very, very similar to what I saw when I was on my way to work, actually, fall of 2023. So a little bit of context here.

I am a former teacher. I taught for several years before deciding to leave the school system. And this past year was my last year that I wanted to teach. And the school that I taught at on Friday mornings, I had to be there extra early for various morning duties and things.

So what I would usually do is just get up a little bit earlier and go to work to have enough time to get everything prepped before I had to go and do other things around the school. So this morning, like most Friday mornings, I would kind of reward myself by stopping by the Starbucks that was near the school. And that morning when I pulled through the Starbucks drive-thru, I had left my window down. And just to give another little bit of context,

When you stop at Starbucks, you have to get off of the highway that I would take. You have to go take some residential streets. So I pulled off of the highway, went through, got my order. Window was still down. It was late September, early October. So the weather was really, really pleasant this morning, even though the sun hadn't come up yet. So it wasn't super cold, but it was very clear and it was going to be a really nice day.

And I turn onto a four-way stop, and then I turn right again to get to the residential road that I have to take to get to my school. And usually, even when I'm arriving this early in the morning, it was about 6:15, 6:20 at that time in the morning, there are still cars on the road because this residential street also takes you directly to the regional airport.

And when I get onto this residential street, the first thing I notice is that there is no one on the road this morning, which is a little odd. I'm driving and just like the caller previous, I noticed that there was something that I felt like was watching me. It took me a moment, but I looked up and I saw this object floating in the sky.

At first, I thought it was some sort of airplane or some sort of drone or helicopter or something because that's really not uncommon to see in that area as it's next to the airport. But when I looked at it, it just looked wrong because it wasn't flying like a helicopter. Literally, it felt like it was just placed in the sky and it wasn't moving at all.

And the object was roughly football-shaped, like the other caller said, and this is kind of what got me to report this, is that across the front in the very center of it, say, if it were a football shape where that center stitch would go through, there were a row of five square lights that would strobe from left to right, left to right, and...

like i said i thought maybe it was a drone and so i realized i had my windows still down from ordering my coffee and i craned my head out the window just enough to see if i could hear like the rotors of a drone because it was very close to the ground it couldn't have been more than 50 to 75 feet off of the ground and it was just dead silent and i was almost directly in front of it and directly below it and when i realized i couldn't hear anything it was just floating there

I stopped and I got a really close look at it. And that's when I noticed it was shiny, kind of metallic football shape with those lights. As soon as I looked directly at it and got a good look, say about four or five seconds, the light all went off at once. And then the craft shot directly up in almost a cartoonishly fast fashion.

Needless to say, I was really freaked out.

I immediately woke the rest of my friends up in a big old group call and told them, you will never believe what I just saw. I don't believe what I just saw. And when I got to work, the whole purpose of getting there super early, of course, is to work on other things. And that was just immediately blown off because I had to represent this. I drew a quick sketch of it, which I can send you if you'd like, but very, very, very interesting, very freaky experience.

It was one of the scariest moments of my life because it was so unknown. And I hope that there are other people who have seen something like that and can give me more context maybe, or the previous caller that saw something like this. Maybe if she hears this, then she knows that she's not the only person that's seen something pretty much identical with that. Thanks for listening. I hope you hear it on the show. Bye. Thank you, John, for calling in.

and go ahead and send that drawing in if you can. If we do get it, we'll update the show notes so everyone can see it. But as far as UFO shapes are concerned, the football shape certainly isn't the most popular, but it does get reported from time to time. And I've linked to a few of those examples in tonight's show notes. Examples that Delaney dug up for us. And we checked to see if anyone else in John's area has reported anything similar before.

And unfortunately, we came up dry. So how about it, listening audience? Have any of you a guess? If so, you know how to reach me. And John, don't forget about that drawing. It'll certainly help us to identify your object. Now thank you again, John, for sharing the story. A couple thousand years. And yesterday the jungle was hot.

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Now we've been talking about monsters quite a bit lately.

So I figured it was time to pepper in another monster call. Or at least what we think might be a monster. From the state of Ohio, please welcome Kalen to tonight's program.

Hi Derek, my name is Kaylin. I am calling in regards to a call that happened a few episodes ago. I had posted it on the Monsters Among Us fan page and Sarah had actually told me if I was comfortable enough to call it in. So here I am calling it in.

So here it goes. Hey all, I'm listening to the current episode that came out Thursday. The guy that called from Ohio talking about the whistle in the woods. I'm about an hour south of Columbus, and the house I live in has a tree line that has woods behind it. It was a few months ago. Around midnight, I had to go to my car to get something. Before I could make it back to the gate, something whistled at me, only I stopped.

We have lots of outdoor lights, so when I turned, I saw two sets of eyes looking at me, both reflective. One was about human height, and the other about medium-sized dog. It whistled again. Then, our alarm system went off in the driveway. I literally heard whatever it was run into the woods. I took off back into the house, damned whatever it was I needed from the car. The fear I felt afterwards, I stopped ingesting paranormal media for a while. It shook me. I'm still scared of the tree line.

And that's true. I am still scared of the tree line. We have big windows in our kitchen that look out towards those. And I do not go in the kitchen at night. I grab what I need and I do not go back into the kitchen at night. I don't like looking back out there. If I have to go outside, I'll have my dog with me or I'll make my husband go out there because I'm not going out there at night. It really scared me.

But yeah, so I just wanted to put my story out there. The story winds up real close. I had paused the podcast as I was listening to it to write the post on the fan page. But yeah, there's something out there whistling and whistling at people in the woods in Ohio.

But yeah, it was pretty creepy. But yeah, so thank you. Thank you for what you do, you and Sarah and the whole Monsters Among Us team. And stay creepy, everybody. Thank you, Caitlin. Well, you know, that's something that we do quite often. If we see that you've left us a written story anywhere on our social media, we highly encourage you to call your story in. After all, the show can't continue without calls coming in at a steady rate.

And as for your experience, Caitlin, Ohio is a well-known Bigfoot hotspot. In fact, there is a triangle-shaped area of activity in the eastern half of the state, aptly named the Ohio-Bigfoot Triangle, or sometimes the Grassman Triangle. Grassman being the name many researchers give to the Bigfoot-like creature said to inhabit the Buckeye State. But as far as whistling is concerned...

in regards to Bigfoot. That sort of thing has been reported, and people have claimed that it can and does whistle. There are some Native American stories that involve it whistling as well, so you're not crazy for jumping to that conclusion, Kayla. But for all of you out there that are curiously wondering what a Sasquatch whistle might sound like, I have you covered.

I found this recording that was made in Oklahoma. A supposed recording. The Bigfoot whistling. Courtesy of the North American Wood Ape Conservancy. Sounds awfully long, loud, and low to be a bird to me. But maybe someone out there recognizes this as something benign. If so, be sure to reach out. But whatever it is, I understand why hearing something like that come out of the tree line would rattle you, Kalen.

If I heard that outside, it would certainly rattle me as well. Thank you again, Kalen, for sharing your experience here on the program. Now let's jump over the Ohio River for a tale out of the bluegrass state of Kentucky. Please welcome Murphy to the program. Hey, Derek. It's Murphy from Kentucky. And I want to tell y'all about Uncle Bob.

So in 2000, we live in central Kentucky and my brother had turned 18 years old. So he moved out of the house and him and four of his buddies got a party house. Essentially. I'm not sure how much time passed six months or so. And one of the guys just disappeared. And, uh,

It was a weird thing, at least for me. I was 12. I was wondering why nobody had called the police. Maybe they knew more, they just weren't telling me and they haven't told me since. But he was gone. He left everything he owned. So after a while, the other roommates started pressuring my brother because it was his friend.

They're like, "You gotta do something with all of this stuff. Like, get it out of here so we can get a new roommate." So my brother starts going through the stuff and he finds a box from a crematorium. And it's got ashes in it. And it's got the label on it. Not the full name, but his name was Robert. And my brother had no idea who this guy was. His buddy had left him behind, whoever he was.

So my brother held on to him, because you know, it's different than throwing out like someone's bedding. But then a lot of weird stuff started happening in this house. Doors opening and closing, things moving, appliances turning on. It started to freak him out a bit, and he was convinced it was the ashes.

Now, me, my sister, and my parents lived way out in the country. And for some reason, we ended up with Bob. This will never make sense to me, how chill my parents were about this whole situation because they were religious fanatics. I grew up in the worldwide church of God, right in the heat of the Satanic panic, and it was just rough.

So for them to be as chill about all this was really weird. But we ended up with Bob. So all of a sudden at our house, doors were opening and closing. The TV would turn on. It would always go to the same channels. The microwave would open and close and then a time would set and it would start. Bob was basically our poltergeist. But

There was never anything malicious about it. I mean really he was just obnoxious. He was clearly a night owl because he was most active when we were all trying to sleep. And we just kind of made a joke out of it because that's what mom and dad were doing oddly enough. We interacted with him. We treated him like he was still alive.

We would talk to him in the night when he was being noisy. One of us would holler out, be like, Jesus, Bob, just go to bed. You know, something like that. There were a couple times I remember I'd hear my door open, some floppy footsteps. I'd just be like, Bob, I got school in the morning. Could you just please, just not tonight. And, I mean, that was kind of it.

It was never anything terrible, but I guess it was wearing on my parents. Because after about a year and a half, Dad grabbed me one morning, and he and I grabbed some shovels, and we walked about three miles into the woods, I think. We found this tree. Dad had this little red flag he brought with him. But we found this tree, and it was massive.

and the whole thing was just all burls. It was a woodworker's dream. It was definitely hard to miss. So, dad was like, "That's way better than any flag." We dug a hole, put him in a bag, and buried him. And went back to the house, and I mean, nothing happened after that. We had his name because of the label on the box, but this was before Google and stuff, so

Dad tried to kind of hunt down some relatives, but it turns out Bob was a bit of a recluse. So we buried him, went home. The stuff stopped. Life went on. When I think it was maybe another year later, my dad got a phone call. And it's this guy. He had hunted my dad down. And he was Bob's brother. And he wanted to come get his brother.

So dad was like, "Sure, you know, this is where we are." And the guy lived days away, so he had to fly in. We went out, we dug Bob up, cleaned him up. And the guy came and we sat down, we talked to him for a bit. And as it turns out, Bob was murdered. He was stabbed 27 times when they found him in his apartment. He was dead over a week before someone found him. So...

I'd say if there's a restless spirit, Bob definitely qualifies. We told his brother, "We're like Bob is still very much around and he's probably going home with you in more ways than one." And his brother was chill about it and left and that was really my only experience with, I guess, a ghost. And it was pretty benign and friendly. Great job, love the show.

thanks jerry thank you murphy bob sounded like a fun guy or maybe i should rephrase that bob sounds like a fun guy because apparently he's still with us here in some capacity at least that's what the story would suggest and you know ashes are sort of a weird thing aren't they i mean if you break it down you have an overpriced jar filled with dust that used to be someone or at least a loving pet

It's kind of weird, really. And out of curiosity, I asked Delaney to dig up some information on just how often remains go unclaimed. And the numbers are quite staggering. Approximately 2-4% of those who die in the United States every year go unclaimed, which equates to about 34,000 to 150,000 deceased Americans. That is a lot of ashes.

Now some of the most popular reasons for not claiming someone are poverty or the inability to afford funeral costs, homelessness or lack of identification, and natural disasters or pandemics. And hopefully not every vessel of unclaimed ashes comes with a ghost like Bob here.

If that were the case, I think we'd hear many more stories just like Murphy's. And while that would be great for the show, it would probably make for a stressful situation for everyone else. So thank you again, Murphy, for taking the time to call in. And thanks for helping to give Bob a good and decent home for a number of years.

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Go to shopify.com slash audioboom to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash audioboom. I thought a pretty cool feature with us. Now for this next story, we venture to the Windy City. Please welcome Art from Arizona. Hey Derek, this is Art from Arizona. I wanted to share a couple of my experiences with you. My family and I have always had some kind of supernatural experiences happen in our lives.

from ghost sightings and shadow people to UFOs and angels. And you can also throw in a couple instances of premonitions. So I was born in 1968 in a small town in Texas into a home in which my two older brothers and three older sisters were already being haunted by whatever already lived in that house. We stayed living in that house for about three more years until one Halloween night when my dad finally had his own experience and realized it wasn't just our imaginations. In my dad's words, "Grab what you can, we're outta here."

The experience I'm sharing today takes place many years later. We left Texas and eventually wound up in Illinois, and in 1982, we moved out to the northwest suburbs of Chicago. My dad bought a two-story house, and the younger of my three sisters decided to move into the second-floor apartment. Not too long after, my sister started telling us of different situations in which she would see a little girl in her house, a little blonde girl, long hair, wearing a white nightgown.

She said seeing the little girl didn't scare her so she figured this little girl was not a malevolent ghost. One night as we were all in my sister's living room having a movie night, my sister noticed my nephew, who was about 5 or 6 at the time, staring into the kitchen with a very puzzled look on his face. My sister asked him what he is looking at and without turning his head he says, "There's a little girl in the kitchen." My siblings and I knew about the little girl but my visiting nephew did not.

Trying to find out if my nephew was seeing the same little girl, my sister asked him a few questions. What is she doing? She's just walking back and forth, but her feet don't move. They don't touch the floor. What is she wearing? A white dress. What color is her hair? Black, yellow, or brown? Yellow. And it moves funny, like it's in the wind. This was a confirmation my sister needed. For the next few years, my sister would continue to see this little girl in different rooms of the house.

In one instance, our neighbor who usually came home late from work and would sit on his front porch smoking a cigarette waiting for my sister to get home and safely make it into her house asked her if she had a roommate. My sister said no, why? He said that every night as he sat on his porch and watched her go into her house and up the stairs that led to the second floor, he would see her pass by the window and then see another person walking up the stairs behind her. Fast forward to 1997.

At this time I was now living in Arizona. I went out to Illinois to visit my family. My first night there was coming to an end and everyone started to leave. As my last brother left, I realized that I hadn't secured a place to sleep that night, asked my sister if she had a spare room for me. She said I could spend the night in her den, but there was no bed, I would have to sleep on the floor. "No problem," I said, and she handed me an extra blanket and pillow.

I walked into her den. To the right of the door was a wall which the door would hit when wide open, and to the left was a closet that had a curtain as a door. I spread out the blanket and lay down on my stomach with my head towards the door and my feet towards the closet. I was starting to fall asleep when suddenly I felt as if my toes were being lightly stepped on. I lay there with my eyes closed when I then felt what seemed to me the feeling of fabric moving up the side of my leg

and to my arm which I had folded at my side by my head. I lay there thinking of the only thing that could be in this room with me, and feeling her nightgown rub up against me. I knew at this point she had to be right in front of my face. Then I thought of the fastest and safest way to get out of the room. Although the more I thought about it, the less I could recall the position in which I had laid down. If I jumped up and ran in the wrong direction I could end up in the closet. Not good.

All these thoughts suddenly came to a screeching halt as I felt a small hand touch my face at my temple and caress the side of my face down to my chin. And then again, cold hand to my temple and another streak of cold chills down to my chin. I laid there pretending to be asleep and deciding I was not going to open my eyes.

Now, listening to your listeners' submissions, I have to say that I've never understood how many say at this point they fell asleep and woke up the next morning. But I did the same thing. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a bright, sunlit room. I looked around and saw that I was laying in the exact position in which I laid down. Why was it so confusing the night before?

Without another thought, I jumped up, grabbed my pillow and blanket, and ran out the door into the kitchen, where I found my sister having breakfast at the table. She looked at me in surprise and said, "What's wrong with you?" I told her everything that had taken place the night before, with who I truly believed was Little Ghost Girl. She just looked at me and then with a smile on her face said, "Uh, she likes you." I was like, "Uh, no."

Needless to say, that night as my family and I all got together, I made sure to catch a ride with my little brother back to his place where I spent the rest of my vacation nights. About two years later, I'm sitting at home back in Arizona with my daughters and we're telling ghost stories around the dinner table. My oldest asked me if the little ghost girl still lives at my sister's house. Not knowing, I made it a point to call my sister that same day and ask her. She says, oh no, I had to kick her out.

Thanks Art. You know it sounds like that ghostly little girl was getting a little too comfortable in the home.

and I love the idea that so many in the home had experiences with her, and that all those stories seem to line up as far as details are concerned. Now, I thoroughly enjoyed this entry art, and I can't thank you enough for sharing those details here with us. Now, we're nearing the end of the main program, but I have something fun to win this episode on, so please join me in welcoming Spencer to tonight's program.

Hi, my name is Spencer. I've always wanted to tell this story, but it's like kind of a core memory type story. It actually happened when I was living in Kansas City. We lived in like a small greenhouse. We didn't have many rooms in this house. Like the living room wasn't a living room. It was more of a dining room. And we watched all of our TV in our parents' bedroom. Well, one night we went in

and we were watching wrestling, and it was a crazy stormy night. I sat at the bottom of the bed on the floor on the left corner, and we had a window that was like a long floor-to-ceiling window, but it was glass pane. And this window had no curtains. We were all poor, so it was like one TV. We all watched it, and there would just be this window that you could clearly see outside. Well, as we were watching...

the storm was going on it was crazy and i would once in a while you know notice little flashes from the window or whatever like caught my attention but as i sat here and watched the window it flashed and there's just this bald pale guy that was sitting there staring at me and the feeling i got was like beyond just invasion of privacy like it was

Definitely like a death type of feeling like this thing had been out there for a minute and watching and almost like fascinated. His eyes were large and bulgy and we lived in a bad neighborhood. So I just, I was told it was just a homeless guy and not to worry about it. But my siblings had supposedly caught in a glimpse too at that moment and they were freaking out.

Well, when our dad went out there, he saw no one, nobody at all. It wasn't uncommon for the alley we lived by to have homeless people or transit people, but nobody that night, just no signs of footprints or anything. But when I tell you this guy, this thing, it just had zero hair. It was pale white. It was soaked looking and just fixated.

Thank you, Spencer. Well, that'll certainly keep you up at night.

A human-like face. Bald. Pale. Large, bulging eyes. Peeking into your window. At night. During a storm. That's what we in the business here call... Nightmare fuel. Now it's sort of reminiscent of Spring-Heeled Jack and... Maybe a little bit of Indrid Cold mixed in there. And believe it or not, there is another, newer iteration of this strange and unsettling... Phenomena. A flap that took place back in Scotland...

The year is 1976. The location is an area of Glasgow known as Cross Hill. Two teenage girls make their way home after dark from a party. There's no one else on the street, but ahead of them under a streetlight, they suddenly see the silhouette of a man. He's tall, thin, bald, and appears to be wearing some sort of tight black leotard.

As they approach him they notice his arms are moving in a strange erratic fashion. It kind of looks like he's doing the robot in stop motion. The girls just keep going towards them, this is after all night time in Glasgow. As they get closer though he looks at them and they realise he's got a horrific terrifying gurn on his face. When they see this, quite understandably the girls run for it. They get a couple of lampposts away from him when they look back only to find he's totally vanished.

The girls claim there was nowhere he could have head or run to, he didn't have enough time to go anywhere. It was like he just vanished into thin air. This was not the only appearance of the Gurning Man. Shortly after the two girls encounter, an old woman is putting some milk bottles out in the early morning when suddenly she spots something in the road. It's a tall, thin, bald man who's just running in place.

He turns and fixes her with that same horrific Gern. In fear she thinks about phoning the police but all of a sudden he vanishes right before her eyes. Now that clip courtesy of Unexplained Scotland. And the sightings don't stop there. Believe it or not it happened again. Two sightings of the grinning man were apparently reported in 2017.

In the first, a woman living in the Queens Park area next to Cross Hill was headed home after seeing some friends. When she saw a strange figure standing between a parked van and a car, she described him as a spindly old man wearing tight dark clothes with a neckline that almost revealed his nipples. She only saw him when within a few feet of the man. He then started making strange noises, rubbing his chest and loudly snorting and groaning.

She placed him at between 70 and 90 years old, and a group of teenagers made a further sighting within Queens Park itself. They were sitting when one saw a strange movement in the bushes. She pointed this out to her friends, one of whom lit up the area with their flashlight on their phone, and they saw the Gurney Man, fitting that classic description and characteristic behavior. After that, the girls hot-footed it out of there.

Now although this "gurning man" and it's "gurn" not "grin" or "grinning" although I wonder if the two aren't one in the same. But although this "gurning man" fits Spencer's description perfectly, I still hear a few of you hardcore skeptics arguing under your breath. You're probably saying, "Scotland and Kansas City are pretty far apart." To that I would say you're correct.

It seems unlikely that those two could be or should be connected in any way. But let me ask you, would Texas be close enough? Here with an eerily similar story is an anonymous caller from the Lone Star State of Texas. Hi, I'm calling from Texas and I'm calling about something that happened over 10 years ago.

I was still living at the time with my grandmother and, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. So we didn't have central AC, so we had to leave all the windows open. And we had the front door open, the heavy door open, and just the screen door latched. Well, on this hot night, myself and two friends were sitting in my backyard. And we had a sliding door, so the sliding door was open, letting ventilation through the house. As we're sitting out there, listening to music and stuff,

I look up and my friend walked through the sliding door all the way to the living room, which I could see. And I could see the front windows that were barred. It was an old house and the windows were all barred the way it was designed. As he's standing there, I noticed that in the window there is a man and this man is

He had short blonde hair. He was wearing a Hawaiian-styled shirt. That's what I remember vividly. He had a huge grin. And on his grin, he had these tiny teeth that were kind of spaced out. They were just really spaced out. And he had a huge grin. He had these huge, huge eyes.

that covered where his eyebrows would be all the way down, these huge round orbs. And they look kind of like LED lights. There was just light shining out through them. So this guy looked to be staring directly at me. And he's like looking at me with a big grin. And he just starts waving.

And I kind of like freaked out. My friend who's standing there in the living room was watching the same guy and he bolted out the front door to go catch him or something. So I stood up and I ran inside the house and I was like freaking out. My friend walked back in and I didn't want to tell him, hey, I saw this guy with this weird eyes for lights. Like, did you see the same thing? Because then he's going to think I'm crazy, right? Right.

So I don't say anything. I'm like, why did you run outside? And he just tells me, saw a guy at the window and I was like, oh, you did? And he's, you know, describing them the same, same shirt, blonde hair, everything. But he says, but you know, those eyes...

And I was like, they were lights, weren't they? And he nodded and he agreed. We kind of freaked out. He wanted to spray holy water everywhere around the house, so we did. But I don't know what it is. I've looked it up online. Can't find much.

Thank you caller. So what do you think, dear listener? Do we have a match? Sure, there are differences. For starters, our caller's stranger had blonde hair.

The other instances of this strange fella seem to depict him as completely bald. The description of the teeth is something that I haven't heard in the previous accounts. And of course he was waving in this latest call. A detail we haven't heard in other stories. And of course the eyes that seem to light up. That's not something you hear about anywhere else, frankly. So could these sightings be of the grinning man? Or could it be the gurning man?

on vacation here in the states? Or could all of this just be some sort of prank? Some sort of joke? Or is there something strange afoot here? Something we haven't yet given a name? Now per usual I'll keep my ears open for similar accounts. But for now, these are two good examples of whatever this phenomena is. So let's hope that one day we get the answers we need.

Until then, a big thanks to both Spencer and our anonymous caller, and to all of the other submitters we heard from here tonight. And a huge thanks to you as well, listener, for taking the time to tune in. But don't go anywhere, because I have more MAU coming up right after this.

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 over YouTube. And give us a rate and review wherever that sort of thing is possible.

And don't forget that you can catch the show on digital radio every Saturday evening at 10 p.m. Eastern. They bumped us up recently. Just visit the Unexed Digital Network at 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. Visit borreggotriangle.com to learn how. And that shop is still open and still on sale. Visit monstersamonguspodcast.com and click the shop tab. Alright folks, I'll see most of you on the other side of this break. But for everyone else, keep it spooky and I'll catch you later. Music

Since you run up, you get done up.

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.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash audioboom, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash audioboom to upgrade your selling today. shopify.com slash audioboom. And with that, the circle of life is blown. Now tonight's secret entry covers a subject we haven't talked about in quite a while.

But with the warm summer months ahead, I expect sightings of this creature to go up and so will the submissions to our hotline. But for now, let's allow Audrey from North Carolina to share her incredible experience.

Hi, Derek. This is going to be short and sweet. My name is Audrey. I'm from North Carolina, and this happened in the suburbs outside of Charlotte. I had never heard about the ABC, the alien black cat, before listening to this podcast, but probably about four years ago, I was still in high school, and I was driving to his house, and I was like,

And I remember seeing this animal that it wasn't a dog. It wasn't a coyote. It was way too big to be a cat, but it had like a long tail like a cat and was black and was kind of built like a cat. And I watched it slink into the woods. And I asked my boyfriend today, I said, do you remember when I, when I texted you about that? And he was like, yeah. And I came over and I couldn't stop talking about it. But I just thought that was interesting because maybe I saw an ABC. But yeah, I hope you have a good night.

Thank you, Audrey. It sounds like you might be right. It sounds like you might have encountered a member of the infamous Alien Big Cat Club. And having seen one of these myself many, many years ago, I can attest just how awe-inspiring a run-in actually is. In a roundabout way, my very own sighting laid the groundwork for me to eventually create this program.

So if you want to blame anyone or anything for the existence of this show, blame the ABC. Now thank you again, Audrey, for sharing the report. I have zero doubt that there are some unusual felines roaming the eastern half of the U.S. And I have zero doubt that you saw one. So thank you again for sharing the call.

And folks, this is the point in the program where we go beyond. The MAU After Show, where we share a few more calls and spin a couple of additional yarns. And to join us, all you have to do is visit our Patreon page, our Apple subscription page, or the Patreon tab on our website, and pledge the $5 level that gives you access to 100% ad-free programming and additional content. Days worth of additional content.

And don't forget, you can get a seven-day free trial on either of those platforms, so you have no excuse. Join us in the beyond, where you get to hear stories like Taylor's out of the state of Indiana. Hi, Derek. This is Taylor from Indiana. I was just calling to talk about weird occurrences that have happened since having my son. I...

And he was born at 22 weeks exactly.

His birth weight and height respectively added up to 22. He was 11 inches long and one pound, one ounce. So I added up to 22, like two plus two. I'm weird. Then when we came home from the hospital, there was a singular flower.

That had bloomed on a plant that didn't have any buds on it when we had left for the hospital. And it's only supposed to bloom in, like, the spring and, like, that was it.

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.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash audioboom, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash audioboom to upgrade your selling today. shopify.com slash audioboom.