S19 Ep16: Time travel, a phantom funeral and death comes knocking (Sn. 19 Ep. 16)
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Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us. I'm your guide, Derek Hayes. Howdy everyone and thanks for swinging by here tonight. I know that there are literally hundreds of paranormal podcasts out there, so we really appreciate you choosing ours. And what a wise decision that was, because I have an excellent episode in store for you here tonight. Tales of Time Travel, Men in Black, Lights in the Woods...

In a final destination worthy death at a strange art installation. But first, we kick things off with disembodied sounds. Please welcome Daisy from Texas to tonight's program. Hello, Monsters Among Us family. My name is Daisy and I'm from Dallas, Texas. And the story I wanted to share today, I would describe as a slightly more comical version of episode 8, season 17, where this girl heard breathing around her house.

Well, for me, this happened around eight years ago when I was still in high school. And often my parents would work on the weekends, so I would often wake up home alone on Saturday mornings. This one Saturday, I woke up and I was ready to go to the kitchen, make myself some breakfast when I heard loud snoring.

Now, the way my house is set up is you have to go through the dining room, through the kitchen, through this kind of back porch area to get to my parents' room. And the house is pretty small, so if you leave your door open or you make a loud noise, you can hear it from a different room. And since I left my room and heard snoring, I thought, hey, my dad didn't go to work. Looks like he gets to sleep in, and he probably left his door open since I can hear it.

So I thought it'd be a good idea to go shut his door before I start, you know, whipping up my eggs for breakfast. And so I'm getting closer and closer to his bedroom door. I go through the kitchen, through the back porch. Well, as I am approaching the door, the snoring just completely stops. It just stops right as I'm like one inch from the door. And so I thought that was so weird. And so I pushed the door fully open and what I saw made my stomach drop.

The bed was completely unmade. There was no one in the room, no sight that my dad or my mom was even in there. And so I go to the garage, I check, no cars, which means my parents aren't home. And so I don't know what was causing that snoring sound. I was so anxious that morning until my parents finally got back home. The only other paranormal-ish thing that has happened to my house was also during breakfast time.

One time, I was eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, and from the corner of my right eye, I could see the cabinet door was open, but from the cabinet, a bowl kind of

came straight out and then fell straight to the floor, kind of like at a 90 degree angle. And I saw it in the corner of my eye happen. And I was so scared. I didn't even turn to look at it fully because I could just see the movement and knowing that I was home alone. I did not want to face whatever was making that ball fall and crash. But...

Nothing super paranormal other than a snoring ghost, I suppose. But thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you for the Monsters Among Us crew for putting this podcast together. Thank you, Aunt Jennifer, for showing me this podcast. And I hope everybody has a good rest of their day. Thank you, Daisy. Awake or asleep, just as long as you're tuning in.

Now you know the only thing worse than hearing someone snore is probably hearing someone you can't see snore. At least that's how I look at it. As for the moving of objects by said spirit, I can do without that as well. If this were all happening in my home, that is. But those sorts of details make for a great story. And we can't thank you enough, Daisy, for choosing to share yours here tonight. Now folks, I have a ton of stories to share with you here tonight.

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of their own. Hi Derek, my name is Chris and I'm calling you from Utah. I'm calling because something really weird happened to me two hours ago. It's not creepy or anything like that, but it's something so weird that's never happened before. And I think I just saw an hour ahead into the future.

So I work from home and I was actually not working. I was working on a calendar that I normally work on during downtime. So I have my phone. I wasn't thinking of anything weird or not even listening to music. Nothing. I was just working on the calendar and I get a notification on my phone that my package has arrived to my mailbox. So I look at it and I'm like, oh,

It was exactly 3 p.m. today. So I have a candle business and I was expecting some fragrance oils. So because it's so hot here in Utah, I was like, oh, shoot, I got to go get them because the mailbox gets really hot.

So it was 3 p.m. I see a notification, "Your package has been delivered." I see the picture of the oils, you know, that I get and everything. So I grab my keys and I'm like, "Oh, I don't want to go because it's super hot here. It's already 100 degrees." So I still went. I walked two blocks to my mailbox and I open it and it's empty. I'm like, "What? Let me check the notification."

The notification was nowhere to be found, was gone. My package wasn't there and I got the notification. So it's now 4:30 and I get the same notification, the very same notification that I got an hour ago. Exactly the same, the picture just like it was a deja vu.

So I went and got my package at 4:30, but I got a notification that it was at 3:00 PM. So you will think like the mailman sent her a notification. I don't know. I don't think so. I just feel like it was an hour ahead in the future. I don't know. Maybe I'm just tripping, but I thought it was a little interesting. Maybe somebody else has the same experience. But anyway, thank you for your time and take care. Bye bye.

Thanks, Chris. Now, just to play devil's advocate here, these shipping agencies don't run as smoothly as they used to. Glitches are prevalent. The staff is overworked. Mistakes happen. And I've also heard that the USPS has major integrity issues, leading to postal staff scanning stuff as delivered to meet a quota or to make their numbers look better. Perhaps we have some mail carrier listeners that can confirm this.

Maybe my old mailman knows the answer. I know that he's listening. Hello, Aaron. So it's entirely possible that the notification was sent erroneously. In fact, I'd say that it likely was. But we can't dismiss the idea that this could have been some sort of glitch in the Matrix or some sort of time slip situation. We certainly have to keep those possibilities open. But regardless of what occurred, we thank you, Chris.

For not only calling in, but for holding the fort for us there in Utah. Now, folks, if you have a story you think would be perfect for this program, here is how you submit it. Give our 24-7, 365 hotline a call at 888-608-NIGHT. That's 888-608-N-I-G-H-T. Or email me a voice memo at monstersamonguspodcast at gmail.com.

And remember, true stories only. One story per call. Call back if you have to finish. And most importantly, call from a quiet place. And last call for camp stories. Get those in if you have them. And while I'm at it, send me those monster calls as well. Maybe a lot of people would rather die to hear them. Now next up, we venture to New England. Please welcome the following anonymous caller.

Hi, I wish to remain anonymous. I live in New England and I don't want to specify where, but this happened about a year ago last summer at night, close to nine to 10. It was more towards the end of the summer. So I want to say maybe in August, I had put my son to sleep.

My husband went to bed and usually I walk around the house just making sure all the doors are locked or the windows are locked and everything is ready to go to bed. And as I was walking past our sliding door that faces our backyard and behind our backyard, there's this wooded area.

It's not really a place where anybody hunts or anybody goes in there to camp. It's very heavy, full of vegetation, so it's not really a place that you can walk through. There's so much vegetation that you cannot see through it. And before you get to that, after my backyard, there is some grass and then a road and then those woods.

So as I was looking, just glancing at the sliding door, locking it, making sure everything is locked, I look towards the woods and I see just flashing lights. And I just caught a glimpse of it. Then I looked again just to make sure that I've seen that. And so I stare for a while. And then there are these lights.

big flashes of light inside the woods, in this dense wood that you cannot see anything through. There's just these flashing lights from the left side and then the right side is answering with more flashes of light. And it seemed almost like a conversation. The left would go off and they were in different ranges. It would be closer to the ground than the mid, than above the

closer to the top of the woods, but it would be all over. And then the right side would answer the same way, closer to the ground, halfway, and then closer to the top of the woods. And it just kept going back and forth, back and forth for a long while. And I just stared at it and I could not believe what I was looking at. So I thought, well, maybe there's people playing with flashlights, but

There is just no way because you cannot transit through those woods. It is impossible. And then I thought, well, maybe they're fireflies, but the fireflies are very small and you can barely see them at a distance. And these woods are a good 200 to 300 feet away from my house. So I have no idea what these lights are going on. So I run upstairs, try to wake up my husband. He wouldn't wake up.

And I come back downstairs and I kept going. And it went on until I said, "Okay, I have to go to sleep." So I left and went to sleep. The next day, I tell my family. They're not really believing me. I'm not a person that believes in a whole lot of things, so this was brand new to me. Of course, my husband said, "I have no idea. What could that be?"

Maybe there were people playing with flashlights in there. We did take a walk through the road and we looked inside the woods. There was just no way that anybody could be inside those woods walking around. It's just not... You can't walk through because the trees and the bushes are so tangled with each other. There is just no way of transiting through there. So that night, again...

I go walking around the house and I see the flashing lights again. And I go upstairs, I wake up my son, my husband wasn't home, he was gone for work. And my son comes downstairs and he stands there with me and he says, "I see them. I see them, mom. I see them." Of course, that made me feel a lot better because I thought, "Okay, am I crazy? You're seeing them too." Well, we went to bed because again, they went on for a long time. And then the next day, it happened again.

And then after that, they just cease. Only happened for two to three days and I didn't see them again. Of course, it's not summer yet. I'm waiting to see the summer again and see maybe if there's something that happens in summer, then it would have more of an explanation. Maybe it's some sort of insect or something. And I have lived in many different states and I have never seen anything like this before.

I know that there is some occurrence in the desert in states that have deserts of balls of light and saying that they're crystals and so forth. But this is a wooded area in New England. It's not a place like that. It's a place where the summers are very short. So there's not a lot of insects and there's not a lot of plants that can grow when the summers are so short. All there is is wood.

That's my story. I just felt like I had to tell someone. This has been in my mind ever since it happened every day. Every night I look out my sliding door and I don't see them and I'm hoping again to see them, but I just have never seen anything like that. And the fear that I felt when I was looking at them, I have never felt that before either.

Thank you, caller. Now this story is giving me Rendlesham Forest vibes, if I'm honest.

the 1980 case where air force personnel came face to face with some sort of blinking craft in the forest just outside of raf woodbridge in the uk for two nights mps soldiers and even the deputy base commander all saw these lights flashing back and forth at one point appearing in two separate places flashing nearly identical to the behavior mentioned in our caller's story

But outside of that, I don't have much to suggest here, caller. Except that maybe a pair of raccoon hunters had worked their way into the area. That would explain the lights. But it would not explain what the lights seem to be communicating with one another. This is an interesting one for sure. And on the surface, it seems fairly benign. But when you find yourself out in the country alone, and you see this past the treeline, I bet you'll quickly learn.

that you share our caller's point of view. Either way, thank you again, caller, for sharing the story and for calling in.

Now, I know many of you are always looking for podcast recommendations. Well, the Let's Read podcast features a wide array of horror stories, ranging from true crime and paranormal encounters to creepy personal experiences, making it a must-listen for fans of the genre. Many of the stories are submitted by listeners, providing a diverse and authentic range of terrifying tales that resonate with a broad audience.

Let's Read is hosted by Joel, whose storytelling prowess creates an immersive and chilling listening experience, perfect for fans who love to be on the edge of their seats. Dive into a rich archive of episodes, with spine-tingling stories that include everything from haunted houses, to ghost sightings, to unsettling true crime cases, and creepy encounters.

Join a vibrant community of horror enthusiasts who engage with the podcast, sharing their own stories and experiences, making it an interactive and dynamic show. Stay tuned for special episodes and themed story collections that explore new and exciting facets of horror storytelling. Search for Let's Read on your favorite podcast platform and remember to hit follow so you never miss an episode. There's also a link in tonight's show notes.

Now next up, we head to the place of my birth. Luella from Ohio. Welcome back to the program. Hi, Derek. My name's Luella. I was calling because I had a little short story that I wanted to share. I hadn't heard anything like this ever, but it was like a phantom funeral procession.

that my mom saw. I didn't see it. Like I said, my mom saw it. It was on a Memorial Day. We were going to the cemetery, you know, put flowers down on my grandparents' grave and like that. And so we were getting close to the cemetery. She wasn't driving. I wasn't driving. About six of us in the car. She wasn't driving. Like I said, we weren't but about maybe five minutes from the cemetery. She told my uncle who was driving, she said, slow down, Elle, because

she said don't you see that funeral in front of you she said watch out for the funeral there we were like what funeral everyone look at the enough funeral that she did it's a funeral right there so you don't see that funeral you know she was just being persistent that it was a funeral there and we were like there's no funeral there ma finally you know she just stopped but

She swore that she saw a funeral procession right in front of us. I don't know if it was coming up or going down, whatever, but she said there was a funeral there. Like I said, we were just like five minutes outside of the cemetery. I live in Cleveland, Ohio. I tried to Google to see if any funeral processions. You can't, like, I don't know anything about phantom funeral processions. I never heard anything about a whole phantom funeral procession. But yeah, that's my story.

Thank you, Luella. How about that?

A ghostly funeral procession. Now I know you called in looking for answers, Luella. But I'm afraid that I have none. My knee-jerk reaction here is that your mother has the shine. The eyes. The gift. Whatever you want to call it. And it seems like she might have locked onto something that no one else could see. Well, since I'm out of ideas, maybe someone out there listening can fill us in on what might have went down that day. Until then, however...

Thanks again, Luella, for sharing. It sounds like it was quite the sighting for at least one of you there in the vehicle. All right. This next story takes us to Illinois. Welcome to the program, Jared. Hey, Derek. This is Jared from about an hour south of Chicago. This happened in the town of Lockport, Illinois. A best friend of mine growing up,

His mom got a dollhouse, a very old Victorian-style dollhouse. Nowadays, I would assume these would probably run big money just for the craftsmanship of them. But anyway, she got it from her neighbor as a kid growing up. The little girl died, and they had a garage sale, and she got this dollhouse.

So that was when she was a kid. She always had stuff happening with this dollhouse. Now she's grown up, she has children, best friends with her son, and we're messing around with the dollhouse. It had a plug-in where you could plug it in and there was a little light in there. This day I remember that it was not plugged in.

I'm absolutely 100% sure it was not plugged in. We're messing with the thing. Don't really believe that it was haunted, this and that. And as I go down to put my face right next to the dollhouse, that light turns on, and I can see that it's not plugged in. So immediately right then and there, I get up.

We all run out of the house, freaking out. So that was one instance with the dollhouse. Another thing, I'd be sleeping over there, and he had a little sister. She was probably four or five at the time. A lot of nights, she had an alarm clock radio in her room, and it would just start blaring white noise in the middle of the night, constantly.

She ended up keeping this thing in a crawl space in the basement. And you could hear a little girl saying, play with me. Obviously, it was not his younger sister that was making that noise. I know for 100% fact that something is definitely going on with this dollhouse. Thank you. Bye. Thanks, Jared.

You gotta love a good haunted object story. And a haunted dollhouse. That's the sort of thing they make movies about. In fact, I made a short film about a dollhouse for film school. I think it's still up on our Patreon somewhere. Way back there. It certainly wasn't my best work. But if you'd like to check it out, I bet you can find it there. And speaking of haunted objects, we've recently had a few additions to the studio. Two brand new haunted objects.

or at least new to me. A turn of the century wall mounted mirror that said to harbor something unsettling and a pendulum that was linked to some strange activity. Now a quick reminder if you have any haunted object you no longer want I will take it off your hands much to my wife's chagrin. Now I've had these items here in the studio for a few weeks now and so far nothing strange has happened not yet anyway.

And a big thanks to both Deb and Shelly for sending those items in. It's a fun little experiment. And both items fit right in here in my workspace. And while I'm thanking people, a big thanks to Brian for sending me not only a Sasquatch footprint cast, but a handprint cast as well. It was much appreciated, Brian.

And a reminder, I'm working on a collection of casts just like those. So if you're one of those Bigfoot cast collectors, please reach out to me. I'd love to make some sort of deal. Because it's my dream to open a paranormal museum of some sort. So I'm getting a jump start on the curation. Anyway, lots going on here in the studio and I love it. And thanks again, Jared, for sharing the entry. Now let's do one more call before this next break.

Hayden from Canada. Welcome to the program. Hi, my name is Hayden Suter. This happened in North Portal, Saskatchewan, on the borderline of Portal, North Dakota. I was sitting in my house and I was staring out the window. Like it's about dusk, it's kind of muggy out. Like it was just raining a lot, but at the time it was just muggy out. And there was this guy dressed all in black

walking around the village whistling like I'm like well that's not nerve-wracking at all so I ran to all the doors in my house and made sure all the doors were locked and he just walked away I don't know if he disappeared or not because I didn't see him again I kind of hid it out I haven't seen him again since

Thank you Hayden. Ooh, that's creepy. And it's a good thing you're not in Venezuela, Hayden. Because encountering a whistling man down there could end up being life-threatening.

Of course, I speak of the haunting figure, El Silbon. This terror of the plane is El Silbon, or the Whistler, and just wait until you hear why this one-time human became the monster he is now. If you are unfortunate enough to see El Silbon, you'll be looking at an emaciated figure more than three meters tall, with elongated limbs and with an old sack slung over his back.

Also known as El Sin Fin, the Endless, he's a malevolent ghost with a very real physical presence, the result of being cursed by his grandfather for killing his own father. He roams the plains of the Los Llanos region, a large area of tropical grasslands bordered by the Andes in the north and west and the Amazon rainforest in the south. Now that is yet another clip from PBS's Monstrum. I really enjoy that show.

And I doubt you had a run-in with Elsa Bone, Hayden. But it sounds like you had a run-in with something unusual. At the very least, someone unusual. Either way, thanks for reporting it, and thank you for calling in. This report is sponsored by... When it comes to vehicle injury cases,

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Kimberly Akimbo is the winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. And now it's coming to Chicago. It's a story about growing up and growing old in no particular order. The New York Times calls it profoundly funny and deeply moving. The Washington Post says, I loved it from the first note to the last. Kimberly Akimbo, playing at the CIBC Theater, June 10th through 22nd. Get tickets at BroadwayInChicago.com.

Now, if you've ever driven north on the I-5 from the San Fernando Valley through a place called the Grapevine, just outside of Los Angeles, you might have noticed the area feels a little strange. Well, there just might be a reason for all of that. Here to fill us in is Adrian from the Golden State of California.

Hey, Derek. This is Adrian calling from San Diego, California. This wasn't actually my story. It's actually one of my high school teachers, which we'll just call Mrs. K. Now, we were in class one time, and she had mentioned in class how when she was younger, she had caught a photograph of death, or what she believed was death.

So, of course, the class got curious, you know, started talking about it. And she said that she would bring the picture in for us to look at. So the next day she brought it in the class. She was explaining, you know, it was I believe it's called Christos Umbrella, which was an art.

up the grapevine in California. It looks like in the Tahoe Pass around the early 90s. I believe from looking it up, it happened in November of 1991, I think. And she explained that she was up there taking pictures. It's just a bunch of like these large, looks like metal umbrellas that were displayed all along the road in that area. So what she said happened was

It was really windy. She said that an umbrella, I don't know if it fell over or if it actually lifted up. I was kind of reading about it, but I think it just fell over. And it actually fell on an unfortunate lady who was there. Unfortunately, she was killed. But my teacher was on the road.

overlooking the hill where this happened. So she had a camera, you know, she started taking pictures, you know, not pictures of the person who was crushed, unfortunately, but kind of pictures of the scene. She was a good ways away, you know, from what I recall, based on the picture, maybe 40, 50 yards away. Now she was on the road.

It looked like from the road, there was a drop, and then the hillside, you know, kind of went from there. The umbrella and all the commotion was, you know, like I said, on the hill about 40, 50 yards away. The picture was in black and white, and she said she took some pictures, and then when she developed them, she noticed that in one of them, there's clear damage.

a guy walking like right across the photo. So she's standing there taking the picture and just off to the right, you see this guy walking. Now she believed he was dead because, you know, in the picture, if I remember correctly, so I'm going off of memory from seeing this picture, he was wearing like a black trench coat. It looked like maybe he had like a fedora type hat on. He had his hands in his pockets and,

But it was just all black and it looked just like a guy, but it really was weird because you couldn't see his face. It was like black. It was just like shattered out. So everything was blackened out and it was just him walking from the left to the right.

He's in the shot on the right side, walking towards the left. And then in the distance, you see the umbrella and all the commotion that was going on. Now, the class kind of started laughing about it because it looked like he was wearing Chuck Taylor's shoes. And everybody's like, oh, yeah, Death wears Chuck Taylor's, you know.

I don't remember seeing the all-star sign on the shoes or anything. But, you know, he did have, you know, the black shoe with the white sole. That was the only color that he had. So, you know, the class kind of started laughing about it. And she was just like, yeah, whatever, you know. I mean, yeah, he has white shoes. But I took this picture. I did not remember seeing this guy. I think I would have noticed him walking in front of me when I was about to take the shot. I would have not taken the picture.

But she didn't see him. She took the picture. And it wasn't until later, after she developed the pictures, she saw the image of him. Now, you know, it's been about 25 years since I graduated high school. If I get a chance, I'll pull up my old yearbook, get her first name. I only knew her by her last name, of course. If I'm able to locate her, like maybe on social media, I'll see if she still has the picture and see if it's possible to share it.

But it was weird, you know, and you might be able to think maybe she just blacked it out. But this was the 90s, you know, it wasn't a digital photo, it was an actual photo. It looked legit, not that they just blacked out the face. From what I remember, it was just all solid black. You couldn't see the face at all. All you saw was just the hat.

Thank you, Adrian.

I know this area very well. I've driven through here dozens of times on my way to places north, north of LA at least, and I've always thought it had an odd feel to it. The weather is wild up there on that hill, and I call it a hill, but it towers over 4,000 feet tall, and the grade is pretty steep as well. The vertical descent from the summit down the five-mile grade is 1,603 feet.

and there have been countless deaths as a result of this dangerous cocktail of road conditions. Just check out some of the headlines that Delaney was able to dig up. Feared grapevine is seen of terrible accidents. Grapevine has reputation of death trap in western states. Slaughter on grapevine, checked by crackdown. Truck demolished in plunge off grade. Experts analyze Kern's high road of death.

And Grapevine Grade Carnage, appalled state probers. It's a place you certainly want to be paying attention in while you're driving through. And the area is super old as well. There's a town up there on the top of the hill, Gorman, California, if you can even call it a town. I think there are only about 15 homes up there, and only about 50 people actually live there year-round.

But it's an unassuming place, because Gorman is one of the oldest continuously used trails and roadside rest stops here in California. From ancient indigenous tribes, to missionaries, to families on vacation and long-haul truckers, the area has a long and complex history of existing as a liminal space for thousands of years, so one can assume that it's rife with energy.

And to add to the mystery, the grapevine is near the intersection of two of the largest fault systems in the state. The San Andreas Fault and the Garluck Fault. So I guess you can say it's an odd place. And I thought all that before I even knew about the death of a 33-year-old mother. Or that Christo's umbrellas even existed at all. Now Delaney and I scoured the internet in search of a news clip discussing this tragedy.

The best that we could do was a clip from a documentary on the umbrellas, courtesy of Ray Sattard. It was a nice beautiful day with a southerly breeze. Within 15 minutes time, the wind had shifted. And somebody said, look at the canyon. Here's this massive white thing working its way up the canyon.

It went from a white puffy rolling thing to all of a sudden it was black. High winds and rain held the Tahoe Pass late this afternoon, one gust ripping an umbrella from its foundation. It funneled right through here and it hit these four. One, two, three. It blew the three in front completely apart.

and it uprooted this one right here. Strong wind not only uprooted the umbrella itself, but it also uprooted the base. And then it went across the street and threw the woman into this hill. She was running, she had contact lenses supposedly, and shielding her eyes from the dust, husband trying to pull her, all kinds of things. We don't know. Christo issued a statement saying he and his wife were deeply saddened by the death. I will live with that tragedy in the end of my life, you know.

The victim's name was Laurie Rae Matthews. And believe it or not, this is not the only death associated with these umbrellas. As part of this art project, another 1,200 or so blue umbrellas were erected over in Japan. This was a huge operation, by the way.

3,100 umbrellas, 20 feet tall, 28 feet wide, nearly 500 pounds a piece, and costing a whopping $26 million in 1991 money. That would have to be billions in today's cash. After the death of 33-year-old Laurie Rae Matthews, Christo decided to dismantle the art installation two weeks ahead of its scheduled end date.

And according to a New York Times article, during that process, a 51-year-old Japanese worker, Masaki Nakamura, was operating a crane when the machine's arm touched a 65,000-volt high-tension line about 25 feet above the ground. So all of this is to sort of play into that photograph you just told us about, Adrian. It seems that death is intertwined.

with not only this art installation, but the entire area up there on the grapevine. So it makes perfect sense that death would appear in a photograph of it. This is a pretty incredible story, and I'd love to see the photograph if you ever manage to find it, Adrian. But in the meantime, thank you again for the phone call, and thanks for teaching me a little bit about my own backyard. Now folks, if you will...

It's time for tonight's closer. From the state of North Dakota, please welcome Mark to tonight's program. Hey Derek, this is Mark from North Dakota, and I grew up on a farm. My dad actually built our house, but he ran out of money, so he only finished the basement. The main floor was not finished. So we didn't have a doorbell, and we didn't have a lock on the front door.

The door to the basement, which was finished, was just an interior door. So in the early 90s, we moved into town. I was about eight or nine years old, and we moved into a duplex. And it was the first time that I had a lock on the door and a doorbell. So in the front, there were two doors. One of the doors, you would go in. It would be seven steps down, and that was our unit.

There was also another front door in the front next to our door. And that door, you'd go seven steps up. And there was an old lady that lived up there.

So after school one afternoon, my mom is home, down in our unit, in the back in the kitchen making dinner. And I'm out on the porch playing with that door. I'm locking myself out and then I'm ringing the doorbell. And I'm getting a kick out of this because I'm a kid and it's the first time I've had a doorbell and a lock and it's just kind of fun. So I lock myself out, ring the doorbell. My mom comes up the steps, unlocks the door.

And I do this a second time. I lock the door. Mom comes back up, and she opens the door for me. And I was really surprised that she was not mad. She just opened the door, went back to making dinner. She wasn't bothered at all, which was kind of weird. But I was going to do it a third time, and I thought, Mark, just don't do that because...

What if she doesn't unlock the door? Or what if she is slow to come unlock the door? So I decide not to do it again. And that's when I noticed this green car going super fast. This car had already circled the block once. But it didn't register with me because it wasn't weird. It was only weird the second time it came around.

The same green car came around speeding super fast, turned onto our street, stopped right in front of me and right in front of our duplex. Two guys got out. They start running towards me. And the minute that their feet touched the grass, I knew this was a bad thing. And I ran into that duplex. I closed the door. I locked it and I ran downstairs.

into my room and I hid under the bed. And at that point I just listened and those guys did not knock. They did not ring our doorbell. They also did not knock at the lady's door and they did not ring her doorbell either. Because when people would ring her doorbell we could also hear it. It was a different chime, but we could still hear it. And obviously if they knocked I could hear that. And I was listening really well.

They didn't even come on the porch. And after a few minutes, I looked out the window and they were gone. And the reason I didn't tell my mom in the moment was I just wanted these guys to leave. And I didn't want them to think that other people were watching or saw them. I just wanted them to be very comfortable to leave. Then I just tried to forget about it. I really did because it didn't make sense to me.

So a year later, we moved across town. And one afternoon, my dad and my mom and I went for a drive, which was something very standard in a small town. You'd drive around and you'd just see what was going on with different houses or just see if you were bored. It's what you did. And my dad ended up going back over to that duplex and

And he went past the main road, which there was a main road perpendicular to the duplex. And I didn't know this existed, but behind that main road, there was a dirt road. And there was a whole block of shacks back there. And my dad drove past there. And that green car was parked right beside one of those shacks. And I was so scared, I put myself right down to the bottom of that car until my dad drove past.

And once we got home, I couldn't talk about what happened. So I wrote it down in a letter, gave it to my mom. She read it and she said, oh, those guys were probably there for that old lady. But I know that's not true because they didn't make any noise. There was no knocking on her door or our door. There was no doorbell ringing, either ours or hers.

And believe me, I was listening extremely well. And my room was right in the front by that front door anyway, so I heard everything. And also those guys, they had tattoos on their arms and they were really scruffy. And that was unusual in the early 90s in a small town in North Dakota. Nobody like that had ever gone and saw that old lady. And people that went to go see her, they would park in the driveway.

Nobody parked on the street like that to go see her. They also didn't go to any other place because there was plenty of parking along that street and it would have been really weird for them to park in front of our place and then go to somebody else's place because that's not what you did. And I'm kind of piecing this together that because they lived so close, they probably saw that I was locked out. And if they were driving home on that main street perpendicular to mine,

They would have seen me. And if they circled that block, they would have thought, gee, that kid's locked out. And also, they didn't even try to talk to me or ask directions for any place. They just thought they could come over and do that. I always thought it was weird that there were two people because I didn't think that a person could convince someone else to do that.

But then I saw on TV a show about something that happened to somebody and the witnesses said that it was a group of people that took the person. So then I thought, okay, so it does happen that there's more than one person that could agree to do that. The reason why I'm calling is because a few seasons back, you had an episode of a pizza delivery guy who was followed home by a green car.

And obviously it's not the same green car, but maybe there's something about old, beat-up green cars that attracts monsters, right? Okay, Derek, I love the show. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Mark. Incredible. And it sounds like a botched kidnapping attempt, if I'm honest. But not very smart of them, if they live in the same town and drive that recognizable vehicle.

So maybe you lucked out there, Mark, or maybe this was some sort of miscommunication. Something in my gut tells me that you were feet away from danger. But then we have that green car variable. And as Mark had mentioned, that green car variable has been bridged on past episodes. So maybe there is something to all of that after all. So we decided to pull that thread just a little bit further, just to see what we find.

So I sent our researcher Delaney off to do some digging in hopes that we can uncover other instances where a green car was clocked doing something unusual. And, as she so often does, she struck gold. The following report was found on Lon Strickler's Phantoms and Monsters and it occurred in Milroy, Indiana on September 2nd, 1973 at around 2.30 in the afternoon.

Part-time preacher Connor Corey had prayer with his sister's family in Northern Kentucky and then headed north toward his home in Indiana. He was on State Route 3 near Milroy when he noticed in his rearview mirror what appeared to be a dark green car with fenders like barrels. Suddenly, it was very close to his rear window and now looked like a van but had a huge curved windshield. A buzzing sound filled the air.

and he observed two distinct human-like figures with shoulder-length hair inside the object. There was a brilliant flash, and the buzzing ceased. From there, Corey was taken aboard a ship where he encountered two man-like figures with dark eyes that were dressed in tight-fitting suits that had a cloak and sash tied in the front. Now, I'm not the jump-to-conclusions kind of person, but it's hard not to draw a connection here.

These two stories are eerily similar, save for the abduction part of the tale, of course. But that's not much of a reason not to explore this option. It's widely suggested that most memories involving alien abduction episodes have been completely wiped from the abductee's mind. Only flashes of the event can be recalled, if anything at all. So it is possible that Mark simply doesn't remember the back half of his experience.

Or is it more likely that all of this is just a strange coincidence, and green was just a popular car color back then? Regardless, Mark, I love the story and I appreciate the entry. And a huge thanks to the rest of tonight's callers as well. Because that's going to do it for this installment. Now be sure to stick around until after these credits to catch more MAU for free. But first...

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 Instagram and Facebook. Give us a like and follow on YouTube. And leave us a rate and review wherever that sort of thing is possible.

Don't forget that you can catch the show every Saturday evening at 10 p.m. Eastern by visiting the Unexed Digital Network. Just visit unexednetwork.com to tune in. And finally tonight, our score was provided by Iron Cthulhu, Apocalypse, Co.ag Music, and Carl Casey at White Bat Audio.

Don't forget to check out our film Shadows in the Desert by Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle. Just visit borregotriangle.com to learn more. Now our shop is only going to be open for another week, maybe two. So don't miss out on 20% off. Most places are raising their prices right now. We're slashing them. Visit monstersamonguspodcast.com and click the shop tab to take advantage. All right, folks, those that know, know where to catch me.

For everyone else, have a good night.

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Now, tonight's secret story is one I pulled out of my hat. I'm hearing this for the first time, right along with you. Now, there's no reason, really. I just thought this might be fun. So let's find out what Hazel has to tell us. She's calling in from the state of Iowa. Hi, this is Hazel, and I'm from Iowa. I'm from Iowa.

This story takes place in Savannah, Illinois. So I was dating somebody over there for a while, and he always claimed that his house was haunted. And I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. He said he would hear running up and down the stairs and whatnot. So I just brushed it off for a while. But then while he was at work, I would be there alone. And over the time that I would stay there, I would have experiences of

I would hear people running up and down the stairs while I was alone in the house. He had a kid, but she always went to school where she was with her mom. So there was one time I was sitting in the living room, and one of the toys that the kid had, a ball, came and rolled through the house inexplicably.

Which, you know, it could just be uneven floors, but it had never done this before, and I had never seen it again. But the main story I have is there was one night that we were all sleeping in his bed, me and him and his kid, and it was raining. And we're all just sleeping, you know. And I wake up because I can hear dripping down at the end of the hallway.

So I hear his kid get up. And I think, well, that's weird because, you know, she's little. She's afraid it's dark. So I try and get up and I realize I'm paralyzed. I know what sleep paralysis is. So I'm like, oh, OK, this is going to be a little spooky. It's whatever. And I open my eyes and at the end of the bed is his kid. She's sitting there staring at me. And, you know, this freaks me out a little bit.

So I just closed my eyes because I didn't want to freak her out. But then I feel her rustle in the bed next to me. And I'm like, oh my God, what is looking at me from the end of the bed? I start wiggling my fingers and my toes and whatever, trying to wake up, trying to move around. And I can still feel this thing down at the end of the bed. And then it runs off the end of the bed down the hall to where the dripping is.

So that's the end of that one. It was just really f***ing weird. But he had always said that the room that she stayed in was real haunted. And it was always cold in there. But it was on the outside of the house, so I'm not sure. I did get weird feelings about the closet and the bathroom, which were like conjoined. And that's where the dripping was coming from, the dripping sound.

which like you could chalk up to oh it was raining and my brain was making things up but i don't know it was real real scary love the podcast thanks for putting it out thanks thank you hazel you got quite a ways to go there can you believe we're up to season 19 already it looks pretty big when you stop to see how far you've come any big thanks to everyone for helping to make that happen now as for hazel's entry what are we dealing with here

A doppelganger? The spectral twin of her boyfriend's child? Or was this one of those ghost of the living situations? Or just plain old sleep paralysis? It doesn't matter the cause. Because could you imagine being jolted awake to see someone you thought was in bed with you standing there looking at you only to realize that they are in fact still in bed with you? Here in the business we call that mind-bending terror. And we thank you, Hazel.

for sharing it here with us. Alright folks, it's that time of the night. Time to go beyond. But don't worry, you can join us for just $5 a month. Just visit our website to learn more. MonstersAmongUsPodcast.com and click that Patreon tab. Once you're there, you'll get access to days worth of back catalog content. Thousands and thousands of phone calls. Just like this one from an anonymous source in parts.

Hi, this story is from years ago around 1999-2000 time period. I was in the military and stationed in San Antonio and was having a house built out by SeaWorld. At that time there was nothing out there. So they had started the streets

And they had the demolition complete of the area. And they were just now laying the foundations and putting up some framework. So I would go out there fairly regularly just to watch the progress of the house. So how the story starts is one of the first times they actually had kind of some of the walls up but was not enclosed. I walked to the back of the house but on the inside just to see...

progress and I was standing in what was going to be the bathroom and I was there with my kid's father at the time and I was in the room by myself standing close to what would be a window and I heard a donkey rang which doesn't make sense because this is city there's literally nothing out there they had about five or six house frames that they were starting but no other houses

So I went outside, looked around.

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