S19 Ep7: Paranormal Pets: Cats and dogs from the other side (Sn. 19 Ep. 7)
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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?

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 am your guide Derek Hayes and it's great to have you with us here this evening and wise of you to tune in tonight because they have a real interesting episode lined up an episode I think many of you are going to love because tonight's theme involves so many of you out there according to the American Veterinary Medical Association there are nearly 90 million dogs roaming the states and 74 million cats

and nearly 116 million pet-owning families out there. And if us humans are experiencing the strange and unusual, you've got to assume that our pets are as well. So that's what tonight is all about. Paranormal cats and dogs. And we're going to kick off tonight with a real brain tickler out of my state of California. Please welcome Marlon to the program.

Hey, Derek and the MAU community out there. It's Marlon from Vista, California. I'd like to let everyone know about my glitch in the Matrix story because these things really do happen and I want to get it out there so that other people can share their stories. Well, what happened was

I was working painting a room in a land conservatory place in Fallbrook, California. So I'm up on the ladder and my girlfriend shows up and she knows my boss and they're out there talking. She's got this little puppy, a miniature Schnauzer, which I still own. She's about 11 years old now. So we're up there. They're saying hello and

I'm up about, I don't know, it's a 16-foot ladder, so I'm all the way at the top, and I'm painting, and I acknowledge them, and then they go outside to talk. I was going to finish painting what I was painting, the trim or whatever, then climb down and go say hello to everyone, but something told me just, you know, stop and go check on the dog. I remember...

Just before they walked away, the dog had kind of wandered off and I asked my girlfriend, "Hey, where's the dog?" And she turned and I guess she couldn't find it or something. But I remember coming down the ladder and walking outside of the room and they had already dispersed, I guess, looking for the dog. And I see my girlfriend from a distance.

and I'm seeing that she's looking through some bushes and kind of does a double take and then all of a sudden she yells out, "Oh my gosh, she's gonna get ran over." And I was just reading her body language and then as soon as I heard that I just ran towards the street without knowing exactly where the dog was. I'm running towards the street and then I happen to see the dog so as I'm running

What I saw still escapes any logical denial. It just gives me chills because I know it happened. Well, as I'm running, what I saw was a red truck run over the dog. And I clearly saw the tires kind of bounce up and down when it runs over something, you know, with the shocks. So I saw that, but...

Even though I saw that, I knew that wasn't happening because I still kept running. I mean, it happens in an instant, yet when you sit back and you analyze it, it almost feels like everything was in slow motion, like everyone says. So I'm running, and a red truck does come up close to the dog, but it...

veered to the left. It didn't stop. It didn't even hit his brakes. That kind of kicked me off. But it did not run over the dog, obviously, if I still have her. And the dog was still standing about maybe three-quarters of the way across the street, I guess, chasing a rabbit or something.

So basically what I believe happens, knowing what I know now of the paranormal, I do believe that may have been either a glitch or I believe that I may have seen a parallel universe that is almost identical to this one, but maybe say one second ahead of ours or so.

where the dog did get ran over because I've tried to dismiss this and forget about it and think, oh, maybe it was just the thought of the dog being ran over as I'm trying to run and save its life. But I can't get it out of my mind. And so I've learned to accept that I saw what I saw.

And I think back after it happened, I was relieved that the dog did not get ran over. And after it was all said and done, everyone left, went back to work or whatever. I have to admit, I felt a little strange, almost confused. And now I'm convinced that I did see a glitch.

Thank you, Marlin. So what do you think here, folks? Did Marlin find himself in a parallel universe? Was he the victim of some sort of time slip experience? Or perhaps, was this some sort of ghost of the living? Or a doppelganger situation? Or is it possible that he'd been huffing paint fumes?

for far too long. Now I kid, but we appreciate the entry, Marlin. I'm glad to hear that the pup is doing okay. And pups are what tonight is all about. But we haven't forgotten about our feline friends either. Tonight's episode will be a mixture of both puppies and kitties. But don't let the cuteness lower your guard. Some of these stories are downright eerie. Now it's time for a brief break, but I'll be right back with more pet stories.

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You know, you guys just keep playing, and you kind of start to... Let Larry know what's on your mind. And it's a cat story that comes up next. From the state of Florida, please welcome Sarah to the program. Hey Derek, this is Sarah from Florida. I have two cat stories for you. The first one, this happened up in northern Illinois, and we lived in this house that was built in the 1920s.

I believe it was haunted. Enough weird things happened there. Anyway, after my dog passed away, one day this cat walked into the house and it was huge. And he just stayed with us. So we named him Tiger and he was a great cat. He was huge. He would take up the entire couch lying on it. I mean, he was huge.

And one thing he liked to do was I had this window sill over my bed that was pretty high up. He'd jump up there and he'd lie there. And then he liked to wake me up in the morning by jumping on me and shocking me awake. And he thought that was really entertaining. And I also had this alarm clock that was a wind-up Big Ben alarm clock. It was really loud and it was wind-up.

This was like a Saturday morning and I didn't wind it up because I wasn't going to school that day. So I'm asleep and all of a sudden that alarm clock goes off at like three in the morning. I just jumped awake. I was just shocked and I was shaking because it was three in the morning and I was just wondering what was going on and I was all confused. Plus I knew I was going to be in trouble because my mom did not like to be woken up.

So I climbed up there and turned off the alarm clock. I'm just sitting there for a minute trying to figure all this out. And I heard a noise in the closet. So I went over the closet door and opened it up. There was like a lot of motion going on in the closet. I turned on the light in the closet and my cat had somehow got in the closet and got a shopping bag handle wrapped around his neck and was strangling.

So I managed to unwrap him and untie him and everything. He was okay. But I always wondered, that was a big mystery to me, whether the cat turned on that alarm clock from the closet or whether the house ghost turned on the alarm clock. It was just a real mystery to me how that happened and why that alarm went off at 3 in the morning and saved my cat. Okay, the next story, this was in Florida, California.

This was in the 90s. There was a feed mill that you could go and get your horse feed from. So I went there one day to get some horse feed. And there was two kittens that were climbing around on the tires of the car next to me. So when I went in and got the feed, I asked about them. And the guy said, well, cats don't live long here. If you want to take them, go ahead. So I took the two little kittens.

One was a gray tiger stripe and one was a black and white tuxedo. And I found a home right away from a coworker with the tiger stripe one. But the black and white tuxedo one, I ended up keeping and I named them hijinks. So anyway, I went back not too much later than that to get more feed. And I look in there, a black and white tuxedo cat adult.

sitting there against the tires of the car that was like just a little ways down from where i parked and i was looking at it and i thought that must be hijinks mother the way she was staring at me it was like she knew i had taken her kittens and i was looking at her all of a sudden i could start to see the tire through her and then she just kind of slowly faded away

So I realized that when he was talking about how dangerous it was for cats there, that's what he was talking about. And I think that she knew I had taken her kittens and was just there to thank me. Those are my two cat stories. Have a great one. Thank you for your podcast. Thank you, Sarah. Poor little guy. I don't know who or what turned on that alarm clock, but I sure am glad that they did. Saved in the nick of time, it sounds like.

And while my Sarah and I were back in Ohio a number of years ago, we left our cats at home with arrangements for a pet sitter to come once or twice a day. Well, this was over a decade ago, so home security cameras weren't what they are now. But I still had something rigged up using an old iPhone, and I would randomly check in to make sure everyone was doing okay. And while I was checking the feed during a holiday Christmas party back home,

I saw my little black cat, Annabelle, dart through the frame with a shopping bag, snugly secured around her midsection. She was freaking out, man. Running around, knocking things over, jumping off of couches and chairs, tipping things left and right, trying her best to free herself. I felt pretty bad being 2,000 miles away. There wasn't much that I could do.

And I knew the situation could get dangerous if she were to get hung up on something. So I finally contacted a neighbor who was able to rush over and free her. And from that day on, we no longer left that type of bag laying around for safety reasons. And as for the feed store mama cat, I hope that she did come back to thank you, Sarah. That's a touching way to look at it. And lastly, I have to say that Hijinx is an amazing name for a cat.

So thank you again, Sarah, for taking the time to call in. Now, folks, if you have a story you would like to share here on the program, a program that only survives off of submissions just like yours, give our hotline a call at 888-608-NIGHT. That's 888-608-N-I-G-H-T. Or you can find the Voice Memo app on your phone, make a recording, and email the file to me at monstersamonguspodcast at gmail.com.

Now folks, our next entry takes us to the state of Texas. Please welcome Tracy to tonight's program. My name is Tracy and I'm calling from Texas. I wanted to let you know about the time that I had to put my 18-year-old dog to sleep. He had severe arthritis. He was blind, deaf, lost all his teeth and was in a lot of pain. I couldn't let him suffer anymore.

So I was crying my eyes out when I took him to the vet for them to give him the shot stopping his heart. I was holding him in my arms and crying. And the minute that the vet gave him the shot and he passed, I felt his spirit walk through my arms and sit on the examining table next to me.

I couldn't see his spirit, but I could sense it and feel it so much. It's almost as though I could see it. Well, he wasn't the old dog anymore. He was a young, you know, when he was healthiest. So I immediately stopped crying. And I told the vet and my mother who was there with me. I said, I just felt Wally's spirit just walk through my arms. And they looked at me like, oh, my God, she's lost her mind from grief. But.

I also felt him sitting on my lap the whole way home back to my mother's house and I never cried another tear over him. So I also have one other story involving another dog I had named Chelsea was at my house. It was daylight. It was also in Dallas. And a friend of mine called to tell me that another friend of ours, Joe, had died.

He'd been hit by a drunk driver. And as Jeff was telling me the story about Joe, my dog Chelsea starts growling at this chair, one of my dining room chairs. And she was running up to it, but not quite getting up there and then backing off like she saw something there that was scaring her. And she kept growling at it, running up to it and then backing off. And I said to my friend, Jeff, do you hear my dog? And he said, yes.

I said, it's as though Joe is sitting in this chair. And of course, Joe would always want to hear what you were saying about him. So I asked my dad, who is a veterinarian, what could my dog be seeing something that I couldn't? Why is that? And he said, well, dogs can see in the infrared and humans cannot. So I

Thank you, Tracy. Sounds like Wally was a good boy. And having gone through a similar experience with Annabelle, I feel for you. I didn't have the luxury of feeling any spirit leave her body. However...

though I was certainly looking for the signs. And as for the second part, I think you're dead on. It is often claimed that cats and dogs alike can see or sense paranormal activity better than we can. And while that might be true, cats and dogs actually cannot see the infrared spectrum. That's an incorrect fact that we hear about all the time. They do, however, have much better night vision than we do.

So perhaps that enhanced function is enough to give them a glimpse of the other side. Regardless, those were great stories, Tracy. You were pulling at the heartstrings a bit there. But great stories nonetheless. So thank you again for calling in.

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They allow us to continually improve on the program and produce content at a more frequent rate. So in short, supporting them supports the show. So if you hear something you like from our advertisers, don't be afraid to check it out. Now, let's check out our next entry. A call from Jen from up in Maine.

Hi, Derek. This is Jen. I've been listening to you for three or four years now. I thought you might enjoy this somewhat lighthearted story about a deathbed visitation. So it was February of 2019, near the very end of the month. It was cold but not snowy, and I was in Illinois caring for my mother who was dying of a brain tumor. The brain tumor gave her symptoms of dementia.

So she went from being totally fine to having advanced dementia within a span of about a week. So that meant, you know, she would wander around and she might think you were someone else. You know, everything that goes along with that. And so the hospice people gave me a baby monitor because my mother was also like a ninja. She would sneak out of bed, but she was now wobbly and she would kind of, you know, fall. So I had a baby monitor to hear her.

So I was asleep on the couch one night, just maybe about 10 feet from her bed, really, because the rooms were so close together in her apartment. And I was awakened by my mom talking. And she was saying, oh, hello, it's nice to see you again. Hi, Maggie. Hi, Maggie. I love you. And I thought that that was really interesting because Maggie was the name of her cat, and

who had passed away the previous fall before she had gotten this brain tumor. The cat was very old and she'd had her for, gosh, like 17 years or something like that. So my mom was a very devoted cat mom. She had that cat Maggie who passed away and another one named Sarah who was currently, as I was listening to this baby monitor conversation, she was out in the living room with me where I was sleeping.

So I just decided to let my mom have this conversation with her imaginary cat, thinking that's okay. You know, we're not really supposed to try to tell them that what they're seeing or imagining isn't real because it upsets them. So I let it go and I just listened, kind of smiling, you know. Yes, it's sad, but it's also kind of sweet the way she was talking to her cat. But then all of a sudden, I hear the tinkling of cat bells ringing.

My mom kept her cats in collars that had the little bell on the front. And very definitely, there was the tinkling of the cat bell and a constant movement like a cat walking up and down the bed. So I thought that was pretty great. And then when I realized this is an actual thing that was happening,

I didn't want to go and break the spell and ruin the moment. So I just kept listening through the baby monitor as my mom had a talk with this cat. Now, I've heard my whole life about people having deathbed visitations from relatives and angels. And, you know, I had been wondering if something like that would happen to my mom. But no, it was her cat. Like she just was visited by her deceased cat.

And that gave us a good smile. And then the next day, well, day and night were kind of off kilter for her. So the next wake up, whenever that was, she just took my hand and said very firmly, you know, there is a pet heaven. I thought that was pretty sweet. And we just had a good smile over it. So, of course, I can't explain what happened, but I do know what I heard. And I do know that there were no other cat bells in that room. So, yeah.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Have a great day, Derek. Thank you, Jen. Imagine being ushered out of this world by one of your favorite deceased pets. I imagine that's probably one of the best ways to go. And hopefully, I will be so lucky. But this sort of thing is reported often. The dying seeing the dead right before they pass. And as Jen had said,

It's typically human friends and family that greet them. But every once in a while you hear about a pet leading them off to the other side. Wherever that is. Now we're awfully sorry for your loss, Jen. But we are grateful that you were able to share the story here with us. So thank you again for calling in. Now folks, not all of tonight's stories are heartwarming and uplifting. Some of them are downright unsettling. Take Kim's entry, for example.

She's calling in from the state of Georgia. Hi Derek, this is Kim from Georgia. I was just listening to season 13, episode 4, and Jake had called in about a giant cat that had wings, and you said that you had not heard of that specific cryptid

And it was really weird. I had been wanting to call in for about a year to ask you if you knew of this cryptid because I had seen it as well. And I was just too nervous to call in. So when I heard Jake describing it, I just felt like I had to bite the bullet and call in. So this happened in 1992. I was 15 years.

And me and my husband were on a date. I had to be home at 11. So we were driving to the house. It was really dark. We live in the country. It's very rural and mostly just woods. A few houses, no streetlights, no gas stations or anything like that. So we were about 75 feet from the driveway.

And we had been driving pretty fast because I was fixing to be past curfew and, you know, we needed to get to the house. But we were both keeping our eye on the woods because we have so much deer that run out in front of us. So even though he was driving kind of fast, we were still watching. But an animal ran out in the road and...

I only saw the back end of the animal and the only thing I could even describe it is a large cat that it was black and I only seen the hind end of it the back two legs and the very long tail and it was big it was really big like a female lion

And I didn't see the front. So we hit it. We hit the animal. It was really fast. And it flew up. And it didn't hit the windshield. It just went up into the air. And so my husband said, oh, my God, did you see that? And I said, yeah, that was some kind of really big thing.

Like, I don't know, a jaguar or something. It just was so big. And it had such a long tail. And so my husband said, no, it wasn't a cat. It was a giant bird. He saw the front of it. He said it had wings. He thought it might have been like an owl or something that had very big wings. And he said, when I hit it, I seen the wings fly up.

And it went up into the air. We had to keep going because I couldn't be late to get home. So we pulled into the driveway and I got out and told my parents that we had, you know, hit an animal and we were going to walk back down there to see if we could see it.

We couldn't agree on the type of animal that we had seen. And I kept insisting that it was a cat, and he kept insisting that it was a bird. At the time, his car was a 69 Camaro, so it was very heavy metal, not like the fiberglass that, you know, cars are today. But the front of the Camaro had a dent in it,

and had blood on it. But it didn't have any fur and it didn't have any feathers. It just had, you know, a nice size dent like when you hit a deer. So we walked down there with flashlights. We couldn't see anything. And the next morning was Saturday. So he came back over to the house about nine o'clock in the morning. We were thinking that we could maybe see it in the daylight. So

We walked for about a mile into the woods looking around. We couldn't find anything. We walked up and down the roads, couldn't find anything. There was a little bit of blood in the street, but we were never able to find it. And whatever it was, when it went up into the air, it didn't come back down. And that's, you know, why he said that it

you know, had wings and that when he hit it, it flew. It flew with, you know, the wings. So we couldn't agree on what it was. And so we just decided that we were both right because we were both so insistent on what we saw. So we just agreed that we were both right and that it had to be some type of giant black cat with wings.

We didn't have any idea what it was. My husband called it a gargoyle and we've been together ever since. And so we still talk about that gargoyle that we hit because we don't know what it was. But I just wanted to let Jake know that, you know, he's not crazy, that there is a cat out there with wings. I was hoping that you would maybe know some type of cryptid that was similar to that, that

Thank you, Kim. Now, the call she's mentioning, Jake's original entry, was from Season 13, Episode 4. But because his entry was incredibly short, I'll just share it again here real quickly. So welcome back to the program, Jake from Wisconsin.

Hey, Derek, this is Jake from Green Bay. I am one of your patrons, if that's important. So it's Memorial Day. I've waited a few hours to call you. I was riding my brand new motorcycle this morning, a 650 Ninja. I was out in the country east of Green Bay, Wisconsin, but there's only one Green Bay. And I was riding my brand new motorcycle this morning, a 650 Ninja.

And another quick thanks to Jake for that original entry.

Now Delaney and I poked around a bit, and we did find a few mention of wings on these creatures here and there, but no details worth sharing. Just that this has been reported before, and there are some popular culture references to this type of creature, but nothing that would suggest it was a real flesh and blood creature. But Kim and Jake's entries do suggest that.

And they imply that some large, miraculously malformed or impossibly evolved big cat is out there sporting a pair of wings. As impossible as all that sounds. But if you think a big cat with wings is wacky, wait until you hear what I have in store for you right after this quick break. And she turned him down. Cincinnati do it. They basically did it on the defensive side of the ball.

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Now I promised something even more strange than a set of wings on an alien big cat. So how about two heads on one? Is that weird enough for you?

Please welcome Angela out of the state of Florida. Hi, Derek. This is Angela from Tampa, Florida. This happened about two years ago. I was a new mom. My baby was probably about four weeks old. And at the time, I lived in a two-story house that was about 100 years old that we had rehabbed in a place called Old Seminole Heights. This particular night, I was asleep on the couch. I had the baby's bassinet right next to me. My husband had to get up really early for work the next morning.

So he was upstairs. And if you can imagine how this house looks, it's like a shotgun house. So from the front door, you can see all the way to the back of the house where the kitchen is and the island. To the right of the kitchen, looking at it from the door, is a sliding glass door onto a really big deck in the back where we had some patio furniture. And the dining area was in front of the sliding glass door. And my couch was in the living room when you first enter. Next to the front door, the bassinet's right there next to me.

So I had fallen asleep there. Baby was asleep. And I had this dream where we were looking for a home. And we walked into this house that we had just purchased. It had like a big circular foyer and black and white marble floors, doors going into different rooms. And I stood in the center of the room and I said, I can't believe we got this house so cheap. I can't believe they thought it was haunted. And immediately at that moment, a woman who's in like

old world clothing, I guess, a blue skirt, white shirt tucked into it. She had a white turban on her head. She was Caribbean. My family's from Cuba way back. And I knew she was a mother and her eyes were pure white. She came at me very fast. She wasn't walking, she was floating, but she just came from that doorway directly to me, like not even a split second had passed and she was just kind of there. She put two fingers out in front of me and she tapped between my eyes and

and I immediately became stiff. I could not breathe. I fell backwards flat. I remember trying to breathe, trying to do anything, and I couldn't. And as soon as I hit flat, I was able to gasp for breath, and I was in my living room on my couch awake. This is where it gets a little more strange. So I'm recovering from that dream, sitting up, and I decide to get myself a drink of water, check the baby, get up, start walking toward the kitchen, and I see a shape.

on the deck outside of my patio door. At first I think it's a person on all fours, maybe throwing up, because the part where the movement is that I was focused on was facing the other way. And then I realized, no, that's an animal of some sort. It's all black. It's about the size of maybe a medium dog, I don't know, or a small person on all fours. And they were doing something with its head. I thought maybe it was eating something. I wasn't sure. And then I kind of took in the image of the whole thing.

And I realized that it was looking directly at me from the other side of the body. And I don't know how to make sense of this, but it was like a cat's head and a cat's face making eye contact with me. And so I just slowly backed up and put my hand on the bassinet, felt my baby in the bassinet. I don't know why instinctively I wanted to protect her. And I looked down at her and then I looked back up and the thing was gone.

And immediately I started hearing my baby cry, cry for me from out on the front porch behind the front door. I'm getting chills just talking about it because there's something about hearing your newborn baby cry for you that pulls your heart toward it. But I had my baby right in front of me and I put her in my arms and I held her and I sat on that couch until the light came out in the morning. I feel like I didn't blink the whole night and I just held her and watched her

And I listened to that baby crying out on my front porch. And as the sun came up, the sounds kind of dissipated. My husband came downstairs and everything was normal from then. So that's my super weird new mom story. If you hear of anything else like that or have any ideas, let me know. My dad has his own suspicions about what it might be. And it's all old Cuban folklore, some santeria and that kind of thing. So I'd be interested in your take. Thanks. Thank you, Angela.

Sounds like a fever dream or something. Either way, it's wild stuff. And if I couldn't find anything on winged ABCs, I highly doubt I'll be able to find anything on two-headed ones. But since Angela asked, I'm happy to offer an alternative explanation for what might have happened. A non-paranormal explanation, if you will.

You see, Angela had just moved into a new house. She had recently had a baby, and she'd mentioned that she was all alone because of her husband's odd work hours. So perhaps she was simply overstressed at the time. Perhaps so stressed that she struggled to distinguish dream from reality. I know it's a bit of a cop-out and an easy excuse, but stuff like that does happen. But apparently, so does strange stuff.

I've certainly proven that over the past decade or so. So who knows what it might have been. But what I do know is that I really appreciate the phone call, Angela. No matter what the explanation is. All right, everyone. We've heard a good deal from the felines of the world. It's time to give canines a bite of the action. So from Big Sky Country, please welcome Rhonda to tonight's program.

Hey, Derek, Sarah, everybody, the whole gang. It's Rhonda, and I now live in Montana, in the northeast part of Montana. And we have an entity in our home. I know that he's here. I believe he was the first owner of the home. I believe he's the one that built the house in 1945. I've seen photos of him, and I've seen him in our home, and he matches significantly.

Well, a few days ago, being that it was, you know, right around Halloween on November 2nd, I actually took down all of the Halloween decorations and replaced them with Thanksgiving and autumn decorations because I'm crazy like that. And I noticed that the lights in the window, which are now like a yellowish orange color instead of purple and green,

They just kept falling. I have like those little command hooks. And for some reason, the lights just kept falling, the strands. And I'm like, okay, fine. So they fell again on the night of the second. And I'm like, forget it. I'm too tired. I'm just going to go to bed and I'll fix them in the morning. So I get up on the morning of the third and I'm talking with my fiancee.

I was looking at him from the kitchen and I said to him, oh, thanks for fixing the lights in the front living room window there. He said, what do you mean? And I said, well, they had fallen again last night and I appreciate you fixing them and putting them back up on the hook. He looks at me very strangely and he said, I didn't do that. Remember, I went to bed before you. I said, yeah, but you were up before me and I thought maybe that you had done that.

He said, nope, wasn't me. Maybe it was Mason, who is my son, who lives in our basement apartment in our home. So when I saw him later on that day on the 3rd, hey, I said, thanks for fixing my lights last night when you came home from work. He said, what lights? And I said, the lights in the living room window, the big picture window. He said, okay.

I didn't fix those because I only came into the kitchen. And I said, okay, I'm looking at you. Sure. He goes, yeah, I'm positive. He goes, I set the stuff down on the counter and I went downstairs to go to bed. It's okay. So I just think the spirit that resides here with us. And I said, Hey, thanks for looking out. And what about my day? So yesterday on the 4th,

I was standing here in the kitchen, which is a galley kitchen. The kitchen runs from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room. Then you bank a left in the living room and there's where my desk and everything gets for school. So I'm standing in the kitchen while I was preparing my dog's raw food diet.

And of course my dog is prancing all around me because he knows that I have all the good nummies. So I'm standing here and I'm listening to the story from season 12, episode eight. She's talking about hearing footsteps and she's talking about the kids next door, Joey, who has a circus and the clown and the clown had moved from the stairs to facing the stairs and

The dog goes nuts, which I can completely identify with. And all of a sudden, because our back door is open from the kitchen that goes down into the stairs and you can go right to my son's apartment or you can go left out into the mudroom. Well, I could hear very distinctly. I could hear footsteps running up the stairs. And she was at that exact moment.

talking about how she could hear and see the feet and she can hear the footsteps and all of that. And then all of a sudden, all around me, I could hear like, you know, just talking like that, like a bunch of people talking in a room, but it was amplified towards my ears. I even have the chills right now just remembering it. And I was like, whoa, hold on a second.

So I stopped the podcast and my dog was, I call it downward dog where he puts his butt up in the air and he brings his head down real low as if he wants to play. But that's also a subservient pose for my dog. He does that when he is asking for something and he was down like that facing the door that can go down to those stairs. And

You know, I asked him what's wrong because, you know, I'm a pet owner and I talk to my animal all the time, even though he really doesn't verbally answer me back at all, ever. That'd be a whole nother phone call. But anyway, he was acting very subservient. He was whining. He was kind of yipping a little bit. And I was like, you know, come here. Come on. Come away. You know, come away from there.

And he did. He came over and I got him away with a piece of cucumber. And we went over into the living room and we sat there for a minute until all of the speaking and all of this put up on the staircase until all that stopped. And I just sat there and I was like, okay.

Well, I can see that either this is ramping up because of the veil or because he just wants to be known. Either way, I just wanted to let you guys know about that and keep up the good work, guys. Keep it spooky. Bye. Thank you, Rhonda. That's a point of view I never really considered before. Not to any length, at least. But I wonder how many pets out there have had their very own paranormal experience. They just weren't able to tell us about it.

Hello Derek and Monsters Among Us listeners.

This is Ash of Washington State. I'd like to share a short story of a peculiar event from 2004 when I was living in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I was living in an apartment with my one-year-old son and my boyfriend at the time. We had just moved in and finished unpacking when I caught something scurry into the kitchen out of the corner of my eye.

It was a blur of movement and I went into the kitchen to investigate, concerned that we'd moved into a place with rats. I couldn't find anything in there though. Over the next few months, I saw the same blur of movement in various places around the apartment. I swore it looked like a cat. As my boyfriend mentioned noticing something as well, I did a couple of times do a thorough search of the apartment and

Checking in closets and under beds, just to be sure there wasn't a cat actually left behind from the previous tenants, hiding somewhere, or maybe an opening that would allow a cat to squeeze in from outside. The searches turned up nothing, so I shook it off as simply being tired from trying to balance school and work and a baby. A couple months later, still dismissing the blur as sleep deprivation, I had a friend over.

On her way back from the bathroom to the living room, she stopped in the corridor in front of the open door to the bedroom. I could see her from the living room and she crouched down and started saying, I asked, what are you doing? She said, your cat just ran under the bed. She's being shy, isn't she? I replied, I don't have a cat.

I got up and we both looked under the bed and around the entire room but found no cat. Then I sat down with my confused friend and told her about what I'd been seeing. I'm not sure why the ghostly little cat was there, but she continued to be seen darting around the place for the rest of the year I lived in that apartment. Thank you, Ash.

I love a good ghost cat story. The Demon Cat of DC comes to mind, or the Crescent Hotel's resident ghostly feline, Morris, or from near my hometown, Major Buxton, a cat set to haunt the Buxton Inn in Granville, Ohio. And speaking of ghost cats, Delaney sent me the following story in preparation for this episode, and not only had I never heard of it prior to tonight...

I also thought it was much too interesting not to share. So here's the story of Tomcat. Tomcat, also known as the Phantom Feline of Fort McAllister, was a black cat that took up residence at the Confederate encampment there in Savannah, Georgia. According to legend, Tomcat would run back and forth along the fort's defenses during the maelstrom of combat.

Each time Tomcat would wager one of his nine lives dodging the wall of lead cannon and musket balls that flew overhead. On March 3rd, 1863, Tomcat was struck by a stray bullet and killed. Now visitors and reenactors alike have reported seeing a ghost cat peek over the walls and hearing Tomcat's loud meows echo through the halls. Now we'll be right back with more spooky cats and dogs.

right after this. Now I have a couple more calls to share with you tonight. And the first one comes to us from the state of Wisconsin. Please join me in welcoming Stacey to the program. Hi, my name is Stacey. I'm from Wisconsin.

My story is from, I want to say, 2005 to 2007, somewhere in there. And it takes place in Krivitz, Wisconsin, which is about an hour north of Green Bay. We used to own property up there, and I spent a lot of summers there. And we wanted to reminisce because now we're in the Manaqua area. So my mom and my grandma and I took a trip up there to stay for a couple days. And we stayed at the Schaefer Park Motel.

There's a motel on each side of the street crossing each other. And we had a great day. We retired to the room. I decided I was going to go outside and call my husband who was at home, see how he's doing. So shut the door, went to the courtyard, which was beyond the parking lot. And I'm standing there on the phone talking with him. And I'm looking in the direction of the street where there was a streetlight. And

All of a sudden, I started to hear what sounded like a jingle bell. I just heard this little bell. I started looking towards the direction of the sound, which was just beyond the streetlight, and there were trees blocking that area. All of a sudden, I see this dark-colored, dark brown, black, medium-sized dog appear. And I realized that that jingling must be a collar. So I'm just looking at it, and I notice there's not a person around.

And I was just standing there. I thought, oh, I'm starting to get nervous now. Like, is this dog safe? When I was a little girl, I was bit by a dog. So then I kind of weird about it. So all of a sudden, the dog starts walking towards me. And I decided that I just head back to the hotel room. It starts to pick up speed. And at that point, I actually run back to my room. When I get there, and this was because I wouldn't door, I couldn't get back in.

So I'm yelling to my mom who's in there knocking on the door to please open the door. Why is it locked? And she says she didn't lock the door and she's coming towards the door and just trying to open it. And she's like, I can't get it open. And I'm trying to open it from my end and I can't get it open either. You know, keep turning around. And this dog is very close to me now. And my grandmother was in the room right next to us. And now she's at the door asking if I'm okay. And she opens the door and I go in there.

So I wait a while and I'm telling her what happened. I wait a few minutes and I look out the door and the dog is nowhere to be seen. I walk over to the next door where my mom and I are staying and the door opens up effortlessly. And she was saying it was like it was glued to the frame. There was no give at all. And that's how I was feeling when I was turning. I could tell the valve was not locked because it was turning, but the door was not opening. So I thought, well, that's really super strange, but...

I'm kind of used to strange in my life. So when we wake up in the morning, the motel staff tell us that we have to move across the street to the other motel because there's a water problem at ours. And I ended up getting a staph infection from that water problem, by the way. But long story short, we've moved all our stuff across the street, had a normal day. It's about 10 o'clock at night. A bunch of guys...

I'm going to say eight to nine guys in like three or four cars showed up. Hunters, I'm guessing. I'm not sure. But they were staying in the room next to us. And they were loud. I mean, they weren't obnoxiously loud. They were just having a good time. Rambunctious, you know. But when they settled down and got settled in their room, I decided I wanted to go outside and take a walk. And when I tried to open the door...

This had a wooden door and then it had a screen door on this one. And so the wooden door opened, but the screen door would not budge at all. The tube was literally like it was glued to the frame, just like the experience before. So I'm doing everything I can. I can't get it to budge on any corner. It is literally stuck.

And, you know, if it was locked, that wouldn't be the case. You'd be able to push it in a corner, a screen door, you know. But no, it's like completely solid, will not budge at all. My mom gets up and she tries it. My grandma, in this case, there was enough room for all three of us in the same room. So she got up, tried it, couldn't do it. One of the guys next door came over and then he brought two more guys. They couldn't open the screen door from the outside.

Because I'm calling out to them as I saw them, and they're like, we'll put a note there for the staff that you need help. So I had no choice but to stay in all night because I couldn't open the door. First thing I did when I woke up, and it was like 6 a.m., staff didn't get there until 8, I think it was. The door opened after a few minutes. So I don't know if it just, whatever was happening, got released on its own, or if the guys figured it out, or if the staff helped, but...

We could not figure out why the door would be unmovable. It wasn't locked. Even if it was, there'd be some give to it. So anyway, I was trying to think, you know, was something trying to save me from some tragedy? Like, terrible things revolved in my head. Like, were these guys troubled? You know? And something was trying to protect me and keep me in there. But then I thought, well, no, it happened the night before. And that time, it locked me out. And, you know, put me in

possible danger with this dog. We don't really know, but it freaked me out and the dog was running towards me. And then the second night it was locking me in. It's been a conundrum for me. I don't know what the point was and why it happened two nights in a row with two different types of doors, but all at the Schaefer Park Motel.

I understand a few years back, the restaurant had a fire and now the place is out of business. I have had problems with doors throughout my life. Most of those occurrences happened after that. There's been many times where the same type of scenario has happened. And everyone I talk to, they say, I don't have problems with doors. I don't know what to tell you.

And it's always like it's glued to the frame. I don't know if there's some trickster energy or something I'm giving off or what, but I think it's highly bizarre. And I just wanted to share it with you because I haven't really heard a story like that. Thanks so much for your time. Take care. Bye. Thank you, Stacey.

Now, I've covered this before, but it bears repeating. The Black Dog, or Hellhound, or Devil Dog, is an infamous menacing figure with origins in English folklore, although it is uncertain just how old the legends are. For centuries, the Black Dog has existed as an omen of death. However, in some folklore traditions, the Black Dog serves as a malevolent guide or protector.

While descriptions vary wildly, the most common report is of a massive canine with shaggy black fur, glowing red eyes, gnashing teeth, and sharp claws. The legend is so prevalent in the UK that nearly every county in England has some sort of legend relating to the black dog.

And other popular monikers for the clandestine canine include: And any of those would make a killer band name.

But this is a Tuesday episode, so we can't really dive too deep on this experience. But we will re-explore the Black Dog legend again on a future episode. So for now, we will leave Stacy's entry as an appetizer. So thank you again, Stacy, for sharing the phone call. And folks, that brings us to tonight's final entry. A strange one. From an anonymous source in parts unknown.

Hey Derek, I've got a weird one. So I attended the University of New Hampshire and it was the beginning of my freshman year and people were just starting to meet each other. I had been talking to a couple people that lived in the dorms near me and we lived on the edge of campus, like pretty much in the college woods. And one night

A group of them went to get fries from the late night convenience store on campus. And on their way over, they saw what looked like to them a cat the size of a deer. And it just kind of slinked off back into the woods. They texted me about it. They didn't have any pictures. That's just the description they gave. And

It's possible that it was just a trick of the eye, you know, seeing something much closer than you think it is, so it looks huge. But a week later, one of them was going into the woods for a biology lab, and on the way into College Woods, they saw a different colored tabby cat that appeared to them to be also the size of a deer. I think...

Either they were pulling my leg or they're giant cats on the UNH campus. So I just wanted to submit maybe a new cryptid that you may not have heard of. And I hope you enjoyed. Thank you. Thank you, caller. Now what do you think here, folks? A misidentification? An escaped pet? Overgrown house cats? An ABC perhaps? Or is this something else altogether?

And I bet many of you are curious as to what the largest house cat on record is. Well, don't worry, I got you. His name was Myman Stuart Gilligan, or Stewie for short, and he was a Maine Coon who measured a whopping 48 and a half inches long back in 2010. And although Stewie sadly lost his battle with cancer in 2013, he remains to this day the longest domestic cat ever recorded.

now stewie was not only the largest domestic cat to have ever lived he was also a celebrated therapy cat who helped countless senior citizens in local assisted living facilities in other words stewie was a good boy now of course there is a photo in tonight's show notes at monsters among us podcast.com under the show notes tab if you would like to lay eyes on stewie he was an absolute unit but i don't know caller

It's not impossible to say there isn't some environmental change that's causing these cats to grow to an abnormally large size. But the size of a deer is a bit of a stretch for that theory. That is a pretty big cat. But before I go, I would like to point out one thing. The University of New Hampshire's mascot is a character called Wild E. Cat, a six-foot-tall wild cat that is known to roam the campus. So I guess take from that what you will. And thank you again, Caller.

for sharing that entry. And folks, that's going to wrap it up for tonight. Those are my cat and dog entries for this evening. Now, I hope you had fun tuning in, and I hope to see you on Thursday for a brand new installment. But for now, Monsters Among Us podcast is written and produced by me, Derek Hayes. Copyright Red Crow Media. Additional support is provided by Sarah Carter Hayes, Delaney Bowers, and Connor Ryan.

All media used in this production is done so under the protection of fair use. Be sure to give us a like and follow on our social media pages. Join us on YouTube, where you can leave us a like and follow. And while you're at it, please leave us a rate and review wherever that sort of thing is possible. They tell me that's a great way to grow the show. And don't forget that you can catch the show every Saturday evening at 10 p.m. Eastern on the Onyx Digital Network. Just visit onyxnetwork.com to tune in.

And finally, tonight's score was provided by Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse, Co.agmusic, and Carl Casey at White Bat Audio. And of course, don't forget about our film Shadows in the Desert, High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle. Just visit borregotriangle.com to learn how you can tune in. And also, don't forget about our merch shop. It's currently on sale now, 20% off anything listed in the shop. Just visit monstersamonguspodcast.com

and smash that shop tab. And folks, we're not immune to this tariff mess that is going on, which means that when we restock later this summer, prices will likely go up, so you'll never get it cheaper than you will today. Again, that's MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com, and click that shop tab. Alright folks, time to get started on another episode. But until then, keep it spooky, and have yourselves a good night. ...

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