Helltown
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Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath no hollow, or one that lieth dead in the desert, or a ghost unburied, or a demon, or a ghoul, whatever thou be until thou art removed, thou shalt find here no water to drink. Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own. Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence break through thou not.

We are protected, though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may be scared to death. Welcome to Scared to Death, creepspeepers, Roberts and Annabelles. I'm Dan. Hello, Dan. I'm Lindsay. Hello, Lindsay. Hello. Hello.

Real quick, we just got our Spotify wrapped info for the year. And just want to take a second to thank everyone who gave us a chance in 2024. We saw a 21% jump in followers on Spotify. Woohoo! 36% of our listeners found the show in 2024. That's crazy. Yeah, we're in 112 countries now.

It's just been a really fun year for Scared to Death and also the response to Nightmare Fuel. Just wow. Really hoping to focus even more going into 2025 on this side project that was just a total gamble this past year. So yeah, thanks for the support, the feedback. It all really motivates us to get better on this show. Motivates me additionally to do more with the worlds being created in some of the Nightmare Fuel stories. So just thank you. Yeah, it's been really fun to watch you explore that space because I know for so many years we've talked about like

what would be your dream job? What would be your dream project? And, uh, nightmare fuel is, is very much that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really, really cool. And just, yeah, the things you guys say, like, can you make it into a book? Can it be a movie? Can it be this? It's like, just know that in the background, we're also hoping and wishing and praying and, uh, trying to figure out what that might look like. Like, listen, if any of you are just, you know, huge Hollywood executives and you'd like to give Dan a movie, we're here for the taking. Yeah.

And then just one more quick thing. If you're looking for the perfect last minute holiday gift this season for somebody you love or yourself, you can now gift Patreon memberships. Very cool. Yeah. For scared to death, you just go to patreon.com slash scared to death podcast slash gift. We will put that link in the episode description.

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And then one last thing, the Apple store is now tacking on a big 30% additional charge to all new, all new patron memberships. But only if you sign up through Apple store, just sign up on patrons website using Google or any other browser. Then you can still use the patron app on your iPhone. You can still go into the, you know, the same app that sold on the Apple store, not pay the 30% easiest workaround ever. Just avoid using Apple store for that initial purchase. Everything else works the same.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can feel free to email us for help at info at scaredtodeathpodcast.com. It's a lot of info off the rip. We know that. Thanks for, you know, understanding that at the end of the day, like, we just have business info we have to share with you guys sometimes. Yeah, and this is just stuff to be helpful and be thankful. Yes, exactly. What fan-submitted horror stories do you have this week? Well, believe it or not, Dan, I don't have one. You have two! I don't have two. Oh.

I don't have three. I have four stories this week. A little quick hitters. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So just a little bit different format this week. My first story will take us on the road with a long haul truck driver.

running into something okay my second story is about premonitions maybe dream premonitions my third story also about premonitions and even stranger and ups more upsetting than the previous and then my fourth and final uh story will give us demon in the machine in real life oh okay

A little nod to a nightmare feel there. I have two kind of. Both of them are collections of stories. So we have really a lot of stories this week. Fun. Yay. Yeah, mine are just collections of stories on the same theme. The first is a set of lore all revolving around Helltown, Ohio. Oh, dear. A place very close to Cleveland. I will share the story of Helltown, some scattered lore, two supposed modern encounter tales.

Then we will talk about Banshees and I'll share some mythology on this very Irish creature. We talked about him once on a bonus episode a long time ago. Yeah. But never really delved into like the full Banshee lore. And these are different little encounter stories. Okay. And yeah, I'll share a smattering of claims of encounters with this supposed harbinger of death.

So once you have kept the scared to death spoopy sock ritual alive, I will tell my first tale. Okay, these socks are very funny. One sock says peck the halls with like rooster guys all over it. And then it has a matching, not matching. Those little chicks. Chick socks.

Chicks for the chick. Chicks for the chick. Peck the halls with balls of holly. All right. For decades, Boston Township in Summit County, Ohio, has been referred to mainly as Helltown.

Helltown actually encompasses Boston Village and parts of the Sagamore Hills and Northfield Center townships. Okay, I literally have never heard it called Helltown. This is all new to me and I know exactly where we are. Oh, okay. It's like not far at all from places that I went as a kid. Okay. Yeah, these areas are often combined into one large region referred to as Boston Mills or just Boston. Yep. Paranormally speaking... Just skiing there too. Oh, okay. Paranormally speaking, Helltown is alleged to have it all from a creepy haunted school bus...

to alleged satanic human sacrifice in a local church and even a cryptid. Shut the fuck up. But Helltown, of course, did not start off with such dark and disturbing legends or an ominous unofficial name. Located between Akron and Cleveland, just 15 miles from the former, 23 miles from the latter, it was once a perfectly normal, not haunted, not hellish Midwestern village.

Boston Village, named after Boston, Massachusetts, was founded way back in 1806 with the first cabin built on the grounds of the present-day Boston Cemetery. It was officially organized in 1811. The first mill in Boston, built in the 1820s, and then the construction of a portion of the Ohio and Erie Canal in the area between 1825 and 1827 brought a lot more people to the area and the mill industry flourished.

After a railroad was constructed half a century later in the early 1880s, the area was named Boston Mills in reference to a large area paper mill. Life then continued normally for nearly a century. But then in the 1970s, an environmentalist movement flourished in the U.S., and on December 27, 1974, hundreds of acres of land, including a lot of acres within Boston Mills, were designated a National Recreation Area for the future Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

And while that might sound nice and pleasant, it wasn't nice or pleasant at all for a lot of locals because the government used the power of eminent domain to buy a whole bunch of residents out of their homes, forcing them out of the area. Multiple townships would be abandoned for the creation of this new park, and the forced location of many would later be examined in the 1983 PBS documentary For the Good of All.

Some houses ended up being intentionally burned as training exercises for local fire departments, and you can still see the charred remains, I guess, of some of these buildings today. Because so many homes were purchased at once, the government fell behind on demolishing them. According to the blog The Ghosts of Ohio, it was not uncommon to drive down a street and find several boarded-up houses sitting next to the burned-out remains of others.

Although they were compensated, many residents were outraged that they had to leave their homes against their wills. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park was later established in October of 2000 when Congress changed its status from a national recreation area to a national park.

The government had put up no trespassing signs during its National Recreation Area days, but during the previous 26 years, while the land sat almost totally abandoned, waiting to become that national park, it became a breeding ground for urban legends and gave the area its new foreboding name. Time now for the tale of Helltown.

During the waiting period, in 1985, the local Crecy family still owned a private dump near the area now known as Helltown, which they sold to the National Park Service. And park rangers who visited the site developed mysterious rashes and a puzzling illness. Soon it was discovered that the dump was polluted with a whole bunch of toxic chemicals that had not been disposed of properly.

A conspiracy then circulated that the purchase of the land for the national park was actually a government cover-up to hide a deadly chemical spill in the area that caused mutations amongst residents and their children. The dump became a Superfund site, with the NPS wrapping up restoration of the area in 2020 as far as I can tell. But before that restoration was completed, an urban legend was born, that of the Peninsula Python.

a supposed giant mutant snake that lived amongst the toxic waste named after the village of Peninsula, which is adjacent to Helltown. The tale of the Python was originally told by Cleveland Press reporter and notorious hoaxer Robert Bordner in a 1945 story in The Atlantic with a perhaps overly defensive title of The Peninsula Python, an absolutely true story.

Robert claimed that a 15 to 18 foot snake was seen slithering around local farms, leaving a trail like a heavy tire track that went in and out of the river and generally was scaring the hell out of anyone who saw it. Python was never caught, killed or found dead, despite a few hunts by organized posses. But eventually it just stopped appearing if it was ever there at all, of course.

While most don't seem to believe that such a snake ever existed, there do seem to be a lot of people who believe that something is very wrong with an abandoned bus in Helltown. There are two versions of local lore regarding this bus that is actually no longer there but was there recently.

The first version claims that a group of high school students were heading to a ski resort when an elderly woman flagged down the bus. She told the driver that a young boy inside her home was injured and needed immediate help. The driver, trying to do the right thing, approached her house in Helltown, where the bus was then swarmed by a group of occultists who ended up murdering everyone on board. Another legend claims that a serial killer escaped from a local asylum and murdered the bus full of children.

Both stories allege that the bus was abandoned at the site of the reported slaughter. And while I do not believe either one of these origin stories to be true, I do think that perhaps something creepy and or tragic happened in the bus based on the sightings that were reported in and around it for a period of many years.

Some who explored the bus claimed to see the apparitions of the murdered children inside the vehicle. Others allegedly witnessed a shadowy adult-sized figure smoking a cigarette, believed to be the spirit of someone who once killed children in the bus, based on the feelings people got when they claimed to have witnessed the thing nearby. Still others professed to have heard the faint, unsettling sound of multiple children laughing, disturbingly followed by hearing these same ghost children then scream in terror.

These types of encounter claims have dried up as the bus ended up getting removed in recent years due to numerous complaints from locals about paranormal enthusiasts constantly trespassing and exploring the area. Another one of the focal points of Helltown that's allegedly still there today is the Boston Community Church, which is said to feature an upside-down cross on its exterior.

I say allegedly because while numerous articles refer to two churches in the Helltown area and that this one is abandoned, I can't find any photos of this one. But I can find a lot of photos of another church in the area, Mother of Sorrows, in Peninsula, and it has what could be interpreted as an upside-down cross woven into its design. I'll share a photo of that later.

Often when people are writing about the first church, that Boston Community Church, when they attach a photo of it, it's actually a photo of the second church, Mother of Sorrow. So maybe two churches, maybe just one. Either way, many believe the upside down cross on one or both of them symbolizes a satanic influence and that occult activity, including rituals involving human sacrifice, have allegedly occurred inside the walls of, again, one or both of these churches.

As intriguing as that may be, perhaps the most infamous spot in Helltown is Stanford Road, better known as the Road to Nowhere. Stanford Road is a dead-end road with a steep hill and a sudden drop that can make anyone riding along it feel like you're about to drive off of a cliff. Many believe this road is cursed, and that if you drive down it at night, you'll either experience a tragic accident or you will encounter an evil spirit. And we will revisit this road in a few moments.

Finally, while all of the abandoned houses in Helltown were finally torn down in the summer of 2016, stories persist that a group of strange people, or people-like entities, still live in the woods of Helltown to this day. The blog Colonial Ghosts published the following account of one reader's experience visiting Helltown. Someone wrote, I've experienced much in my explorations over the years there, some of which I don't care to remember, and some of which I can never hope to explain. Helltown is not truly abandoned.

It does have residents, but they are a strange and frightening breed. I've gone exploring the woods and cemetery of the area in the late night and wee morning hours and have returned to my car to find strange people looking into its windows. This has happened twice, once at 2 a.m. and another time at 4.30 a.m. Both times the people fled as soon as they saw me approaching the car before I had a chance to speak with them. Both times they were dressed all in black. A part of me is glad that I didn't get to converse with them because I've heard too many tales about the ways of Helltown residents.

supposedly they are all Satanists and worship of the town's two evil churches. I've been to both of these churches, however, not inside of them. One, the mother of sorrows has upside down crosses hanging from it. I've also been to the Boston cemetery, which I've encountered, uh, where I've encountered a ghost sitting on a bench. The cemetery is as dark a place as I have ever been darker than the area around it somehow.

The graves date back to the early 1800s. The same night I saw the ghost, I also heard strange growls and howls from the depths of the graveyard. This was more than enough to convince me to leave as the prospect of getting attacked by some strange boneyard-dwelling beast was not appealing to me, to say the least. The following is another anonymous post, a bit more detailed, about a disturbing and seemingly unique encounter in the abandoned village that we have cleaned up for narrative purposes.

Hey y'all, I've recently seen some posts online about Helltown, Ohio, and I thought I would share my experiences as a local. First, I want to say that anything you read about the haunted bus, the serial killer, or the giant snake is all bullshit. But Helltown is haunted. There is most definitely something off about the place. When you go there, it feels like stepping into another dimension. Like either you or it shouldn't be there. The story I'm sharing happened a few years ago, when my friend and I first got our licenses and the freedom to sneak around behind our parents' backs.

We'd heard stories from some of our older friends who'd done the same thing. Again, none of them saw the bus full of murdered teens or the serial killer, but they still had some pretty intense, hard-to-explain-away experiences. Someone swore they heard footsteps following them, and when I tried telling them it could have just been local wildlife, they told me that the footsteps sounded decidedly human, and whenever they stopped to look back, the footsteps stopped, but they felt like someone was back there, still in the distance, watching them.

And then when they turned around and started to walk again, pretty soon they would hear those same footsteps following behind them. They said this went on for the better part of 15 minutes. Another kid I know swore they saw a man-shaped shadow in the corner of their eye. And when they turned to get a better look, it didn't vanish, not right away. Just stood there, facing them. And then it turned and walked away, vanishing into thin air. What happened to my friend and I was stranger, and I think more disturbing than these other stories, which is why I'm making this post.

My buddy and I drove down to Helltown and saw it all. The churches, the cemetery, even the school bus before they took it away. Neither one of us were brave enough to go inside the churches or the bus, so I can't tell you what if anything was going on inside those places. We did decide to drive down the infamous Road to Nowhere, though. My friend drove it a crawl down the dark, foggy road. We got there about an hour after sunset, not accounting for the recent time change, and by the time we got to the road, it was so, so dark. For a while,

All we saw were trees, trees, and more trees. But to give Helltown its credit, they added a pretty creepy atmosphere. I eventually suggested that instead of driving, we should park, sit in the silence, see if anything's going to happen. And that's what we did. And holy shit, did something happen. My friend put the car in park, which caused all four doors to unlock at once. Then he immediately pressed the lock button so we didn't have to worry about the remote possibility of somebody sneaking up on us. And well, I don't even know what they do.

As we sat in silence, my eyes scanned left, right, up, down, high among the trees, low along the ground, looking for a shadowy figure or an orb of light or anything that could convince me that the place was actually haunted. Something to justify the creeped out feeling that had been with me since we showed up. I wanted it to be more than just my imagination. After about 15 minutes of nothing happening, I finally broke what was starting to feel like an awkward silence. I said something like, okay, we should probably click-

I was interrupted by all four doors unlocking at once. Okay, are you fucking with me? My friend asked me, looking spooked and giving me the side eye. I shook my head no. Seriously? He said. He was looking scared as hell all of a sudden. I was feeling pretty creeped out myself. All the hair was standing up on both my arms. I'm not, I insisted. He clicked the lock button on his side and while the familiar click reassured us that we were once again safe, the feeling didn't last long. About 10 seconds later, just as my friend had gathered back their composure and was about to put the car in drive...

What the hell? I whispered. The car was old, but not that old. They had never had this problem before. It was weird for it to start malfunctioning all of a sudden. And why did it happen in Helltown of all places? Let's just leave, I suggested. My friend nodded in agreement. Click. This time the click noise sounded different. Both of our eyes shifted to the back seat where we now heard the sound of someone pulling on the door handle. A very specific sound. And it was definitely what we heard because we both watched the passenger door open on its own in the back.

I remember being completely frozen, unable to look away, and my breathing becoming more and more panicky. I had never been that scared before. It was terrible knowing that something was happening that couldn't be explained rationally and not knowing what might happen next. It felt like literally anything was possible. My mind was scrambling, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. The door slowly closed. Some invisible force was now pulling it shut, and soon it was shut again. I about jumped out of my skin when my friend reached out a hand and squeezed my arm, silently questioning if I was seeing the same thing.

I nodded to let him know that he wasn't alone, and then something else happened. The faint smell of cigarette smoke wafted towards both of us. Neither one of us smoked. Neither one of us had ever smoked before. And we, of course, couldn't see anything in our immediate vicinity that might be the source of that smell. My friend was the first to break the tense silence, asking just barely loud enough for me to hear him, "'Is it... do you think something's in here with us?'

Both of us were now gripping each other's forearms, nails really digging in, turning towards the backseat. I'm sure we had matching expressions of total terror on our faces, and I nodded yes. And right after I did, another wave of cigarette smoke drifted towards us, stronger this time. What do we do? My friend now whispered, sounding like he was about to run out of the car screaming. I had no clue. I was still trying to figure out what was happening, if it could possibly be real. And then it happened again. The door opened.

Just like it would as if a real person was getting out of the car And then it shut again And the smell of the smoke was gone the energy in the car now felt I don't know lighter It was like whatever in that car just got bored with us. Whatever had happened was over We wasted no time getting out of there My friend and I debriefed later that night and we both agreed we had to have seen a ghost a spirit Whatever you want to call it There's no way my friend could play such an elaborate prank on me And I wouldn't have been able to do that to him either

So that's my Helltown story. It was certainly terrifying in the moment, but also honestly fascinating. I definitely feel lucky because I know from all the horror movies I've watched that it could have been so much worse. That's terrible. That's so terrible. Let me tell you partially why that like really freaks me out. Yeah. During the pandemic, my girlfriend Randy and I, like it was, you know, it was so hard to like

keep communication going and stay sane. Right? And so we would meet, we would each get coffee from home. Oh, I remember this. Right? And then there was like, there was a new development going in and there was like this spot that you could just kind of go and park where they hadn't cornered it off yet. So we would sit in our own cars. We'd roll down

Like she would stay in the driver's side. I'd move the passenger side. We'd, you know, put our windows down and then talk across. Right. Just, just for safety and like all the things or whatever. Yeah.

And just the very thought of like, that's what I was envisioning the whole time. Just sitting there, hanging out with a friend. I mean, obviously these people are in the same car, which is like that idea of like my locks beginning to mouth. What I think is malfunctioning. And then a door opening and closing on its own. And then the thought of this mofo ghost sitting in the backseat of my car, just falling.

blowing cigarette smoke into my face. Uh-huh. Get the fuck out of here. How am I driving my car home? Yeah, that moment of like a door, just one of the doors in the back. Oh my God. I mean, I know some brand new cars have a function where it's like you can push a button and make the door open. Okay. But that's real new. Yeah. So like, you know, 99.9% of the cars in the market, if that just, there's no explanation for that. Yeah, that's got to be like, yeah, that's got to be like, now, I guess the only thing

The modern version of that that we would already know is like when you're in a minivan and they can open the slider when it's got that backdoor sliding door thing. But for a car to have the door swing out. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. Swing out, not on a track. Yep. And then swing back in. Totally. Yeah. That's insane. That's so upsetting. Yeah. I did not care for that. I also feel the need to say this. I think that when you were at the beginning and you were talking...

about Boston Mills I think there is skiing in Boston Mills but I was also thinking of brandy wine so just for my Ohio listeners in case I have misspoke yeah well you know you know it's been a while and I'm not a skier and I never was and I still am not so um I could be wrong but

Okay, so I have some pictures. Of course you do. No, I'm just kidding. And this first one, photo purported to be that abandoned school bus that used to sit in Helltown. Okay. I mean, certainly very creepy looking. Yeah. Especially if you were trying to explore that at night. Yeah, no thanks. This next one is the photo of that Mother of Sorrows church in Peninsula. Okay, yep. With this design that, you know, design features some interpret as a subtle upside down cross. Oh, at the top there in the steeple-like? Yeah.

Oh, I see. Yeah, right in the peak of the roof there in the front. It looks like a design. But I see. I mean, it is a cross upside down cross shape. It is. But unusual. It almost looks like the the peak needed bracing. And that's just how the bracing. Yeah. Went in with a brace. Well, like not even if I feel like somebody just wasn't thinking they were just like, oh, this this is functionally what is the best plan? And then it was like, ah, shit. Whoops.

This is another pic of the church. Just look a little spookier at night. Uh-huh. All things do. And I think there might be a second church in the abandoned area, but it doesn't look like a church. The articles referring to that second church always show the pictures of this one. Oh, interesting. But there is a nondescript looking building that I don't know if it's even there anymore that I think was one of the original churches. Okay. That just doesn't look spooky. It looks plain. Okay. So maybe that's the explanation for the second church theory. And then...

Oh my God. What is that house? That is one of the abandoned homes now torn down, demolished. But before it was demolished, that was just sitting there for years and held it. We've actually used this picture before. I was just going to say, did we just see this in a recent episode? Because I am having the craziest deja vu. Hold on. Wait, let me see if I can. Was it in the episode of a house just in the last couple of weeks? And like a family currently owns it and is like doing tours out of it, but they kept, it kept changing hands. Yeah.

Yes, I think so. I use it as an example of like...

Like a fake out of like, here's a picture of their house. I don't know why they think it looks haunted. And just like picture like the creepiest looking house ever. I think it's from the episode that we just did, the McRaven house. It might be. It might be. It's from one of these recent ones. And I just picked it like I found it by Googling like super creepy haunted house. Sure. And then it's actually a house that was in Helltown. I'm like looking through all my old notes, but I feel like... Yeah, it might be. It was recent. Yeah. Okay. Because I was like...

That, I'm so glad you could have let that go and you could let me think that I was losing my mind because I was like, I have seen that house before. My heart started racing really fast. I was like, oh God, oh God, oh God. This is the cemetery. I mean, it's a day picture. It doesn't look that scary. What is that random tree?

Is that a tree or is that a totem pole? I don't know. It's like a dead tree. When you guys see this photo, whether you're scanning to this point in YouTube or you're looking at these images on Patreon or on socials, it's like somebody cut off the top of a tree but left one branch. So it just is this weird Groot-looking thing with one arm. It does look like a Groot thing, like a tall Groot. Tall, creepy Groot.

Funny. Finally, the road to nowhere. So just, yeah, just, you know, used to be a little road through a couple little townships and now there's no purpose for it. So they've kind of blocked it off and it's fallen into disrepair. Man, there's so many roads that look like that in Ohio. Just that I like remember from my childhood, my teenage years, just exploring, trying to look for a place to go drink or fool around or whatever. What? Oh, no, I was an angel. I was at church on Sunday. Don't worry. Yeah.

You ready to leave your home state and head to the Emerald Isle for some horror lore? I just want to say Ohio is so great. Yeah? It's so great. We're going to spend so much time there after Monroe goes to college. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. We've been talking about it. Yeah. Don't worry, guys. I'm not moving there, I'm just saying. We're just going to hang out there a bit. Uh-huh. Before we move on to more scares, we need to take a quick in-between story sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a Robert or Annabelle on Patreon to get all these episodes ad-free, additional bonus episodes, and more.

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Oh.

Ah, yes, the forever challenge of soaking up as much vitamin D is upon us. And for me, this time of year is always a bit of a roller coaster. On the one hand, I love to hunker down and stay in. On the other hand, I also need to get out and socialize. If I don't, my depression and anxiety can get

real, real ugly. Thankfully, we both have amazing BetterHelp therapists to lean on during this time of the year. If you have been considering starting therapy, maybe now is the time. Why not give BetterHelp a shot? It's entirely online and designed to fit into your busy schedule.

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Go to storyworth.com slash scared today and save $10 on your first purchase. That's S-T-O-R-Y-W-O-R-T-H dot com slash scared to save $10 on your first purchase. Storyworth.com slash scared. Thank you for listening to our sponsor deals, Creeps and Peepers. Okay, the Banshee. Let's talk about Banshees. Yeah, I can't remember.

It's been a while since we've talked about it, and I think it was just a bonus episode. They've been referenced in a few other stories. The Banshee has been a prominent figure in Irish mythology for centuries. The name Banshee is derived from the old Irish word Benside, loosely translating to fairy woman. The name is connected to the sheed or she mounds in the Irish countryside. Written accounts of the Banshee date all the way back to 1380 in Norman literature. The Banshee also appears in some of the oldest known writings of Scottish and Welsh mythology.

Banshees have been freaking a lot of people out for a very long time, perhaps because they're always omens of death. Throughout different parts of Ireland, there is much debate about what the entity actually is. Some think they're spirits, while others believe that they're fairies or even witches. The Banshee can appear in many forms, but seem to also be feminine. They can take the shape of a beautiful woman, an old hag, and even as various animals. No matter how she appears though, she always emits a loud, pained signature wail that can be supposedly heard from miles away.

One old description of the Banshee states, it was a woman of no earthly type, with a queer-shaped gleaming face, massive red hair, and eyes that would have been beautiful but for their expression, which was hellish. She had on a green hood after the fashion of an Irish peasant. Some stories describe the Banshee as a looming, ominous figure up to eight feet tall, while others describe her as short in stature, just three or four feet tall and hunched over.

Many of those who have claimed to encounter her up close report seeing roaring red eyes filled with tears and that her presence is often preceded by crows, yowling cats, or howling dogs. Some people in Ireland have believed that each family has their own personal banshee that visits them when death is near. Others believe there is but one banshee in all of Ireland, and she haunts the entire island. According to the lore, after hearing the cry of the banshee, you or a family member will soon die.

And if the banshee is nothing but lore, or excuse me, and is the banshee nothing but lore, or could there be a real world explanation for her origin? Keening is a traditional Irish form of expressing grief for the dead or dying. Comes from the Gaelic word quina, which means to cry or weep. But it wasn't any ordinary crying or weeping, more like wailing, a loud, heavy expression of grief.

The practice was traditionally performed by one woman or a group of women at funerals, and some of these women, as strange as this may sound, were literally professional grievers. Some women were known around the country for having such exceptional keening abilities that they were paid to appear at the funerals of people they didn't even know. It's possible that the legend of the banshee comes from this old practice, or some would argue that it's the other way around, that these women were inspired by a supernatural entity.

Whatever the truth is, I have a few Banshee encounter stories to share from the early 20th century and also some more recent Banshee history. Time now for the tale of the Banshee.

This first story comes from the early 1900s, featured in the book True Irish Ghost Stories, published in 1914 and written by St. John Drelincourt Seymour. Later stories will be added in future revisions. And if his name sounds familiar, it is a book, this book of his, we have pulled stories out of from, we've pulled stories out of it before. My mother, when a young girl was standing looking out of the window at her house in Black Rock near Cork.

She suddenly saw a white figure standing on a bridge, which was easily visible from the house. The figure waved her arms towards the house, and my mother heard the bitter wailing of the banshee. It lasted some seconds, and then the figure disappeared. Next morning, my grandfather was walking as usual into the city of Cork. He accidentally fell, hit his head against the curbstone, and never recovered consciousness. The next story about a banshee is found in several books. It's a pretty well-known banshee tale from the 1940s.

One winter, an elderly resident of Fulton Place became suddenly ill and was confined to his bed. A few days later, a set of black crows landed in the street in front of the house and began to pick up scraps of bread that had been thrown out into the road. Visiting relatives immediately rushed out and chased the crows away, fearful of this symbol of death that sat right outside the door.

Later that night, the old man's condition deteriorated and a priest was summoned to administer last rites. Sometime after, one of the younger visitors heard a knock on the back door. She asked if anyone else had heard it but was told no. She heard the knock again, this time followed by a low moaning sound. An old woman sitting opposite noticed her startled expression and instinctively told her to go to the door, exclaiming, he'll have no rest until the knock is answered. The young girl went to the door and opened it. She screamed and collapsed to the floor in a heap.

The people inside came rushing out, found her lying on the ground in a distressed state. They brought her back inside, calmed and comforted her, and then asked what happened. The girl explained, "'When I opened the door and looked across the yard, I could see an old hag-like woman with long white hair and a long white dress. She appeared to be crying and moaning and wringing her hands. She began to come towards the door. I screamed, and she just seemed to vanish. The old man passed away later that night.'"

and as far as all the people present on that occasion were concerned, the house had been visited by a banshee. The last banshee story I have comes from some time in the past 20 years, posted anonymously online. My first encounter with a banshee happened around 10 years ago, when I was still residing with my family in Cork.

My mother had been bedridden for a week and I started to worry. I was looking after her as best I could, but my father wasn't in the best of health himself and I couldn't afford to take time off work. I was in a constant state of half sleep, walking around in a daze.

One evening, I arrived home from work and completed my normal routine. I went upstairs to check on my mother, and then I went to the kitchen to get started on dinner. I gazed out the window as I scrubbed the dishes, the warm, soapy water making me even more sleepy than I already was. The kitchen window looked out upon our backyard. We had a small decorative flower bed just outside the window, a vegetable patch, and a little stream that ran in front of the woods. Years ago, my father built a small wooden bridge across that stream.

On that very bridge, I could see the figure of a woman walking towards me slowly. I wasn't quite sure if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, or if I was extremely tired and so delirious I was hallucinating. My mind leaned towards the latter because she didn't look like a normal woman. She appeared kind of how I expected a ghost would look, white and wispy, though I could make out distinct features.

An hour or so later, I had all but forgotten about the woman, pretty certain it had just been a product of my extremely tired imagination. I finished up supper with my father, and we sat with my mother, talking and reliving old memories until she fell asleep. As I took the dishes back downstairs, ready to clean up for the night, I spotted something in the periphery of my vision. I looked up, and sure enough, on the bridge, there was that woman again. I shook my head to clear my vision, but she was still there.

She seemed in more solid form now, wearing a white dress with long, waist-length dark hair hanging loose. Black, piercing eyes stared right at me. It had been a good three hours since I had been downstairs last, and I wondered what the woman could be doing, especially on private property. I dried my hands off quickly with a towel, slipped on my shoes, and went out the back door to ask the woman if she was all right. Perhaps she was lost and needed directions to the nearest bus station. As I stepped outside and looked over at the bridge, I saw nothing. I ventured over,

It was quite dark and I figured maybe I just couldn't see her in the darkness. But no, I stood at the edge of the bridge alone, the silence almost deafening. However, although I was alone, I felt like I was being watched. A little out of sorts, still wondering if I really was that run down that I was imagining all sorts of things, I quickly headed back inside, locking the door and drawing the curtain shut. It took me hours to fall asleep that night. I couldn't stop thinking about her. The following day, I was off work and decided to tend to the garden. I wanted to pick fresh vegetables to make soup for dinner.

As I was on my knees in the soil, I heard some scuffling. Thinking it was a squirrel, hedgehog, or even a fox, I stood up to look around. I listened carefully and determined the noise seeming to be coming from the bridge. I walked over, and to my astonishment, I saw a strange deer, the whitest deer I have ever laid eyes upon. It stared at me with large black eyes, and something felt especially strange and intentional about the interaction I was having with this creature.

It took me a moment to realize I'd seen those eyes before. I got lost in my thoughts for a moment, thinking about how they were the same eyes, somehow, of that woman. Then as I lifted my head up again, pulling myself out of my own thoughts, the animal had vanished. That night went by rather smoothly. My family enjoyed the soup I made. My father and I spent the evening at my mother's bedside to give her some company and cheer her up. Once again, I took all the dishes downstairs to clean up for the night.

As I walked downstairs, I heard a roll of thunder followed in heavy rain drops battering the window paint. How strange, I thought. It had been beautiful all day, not a cloud in the sky. Then as I was scrubbing the dishes, I heard a knock on the door. I was immediately a little wary. We rarely had visitors and never this late. I dried my hands off and smoothed my hair down to look a little more presentable and went to open the door. The noise is what hit me first.

My ears felt like they were bleeding. As soon as I swung open the door, the most pained wail rang throughout the house as if it was coming from all directions at once. It was so loud for a second I thought I felt the house shake.

Trying to gain some composure, I looked up at the visitor and was shocked to see the same woman that had been standing on the bridge, her hair wild, swirling around her in the wind and rain, her eyes piercing my soul. Her mouth was a huge black chasm. I fell back in absolute terror, the anguish screeching cry ringing all around me. I started to feel lightheaded from the noise and I was certain I was about to pass out. I heard a loud crash of thunder and a flash of lightning light up on the doorway, enhancing the dark features of the woman and burning her expression into my brain forever. And then everything stopped in an instant.

I blinked and the woman had vanished. The storm was gone. The house was silent. But now I heard another distant wail from my father. I rushed upstairs, saw him contorted in grief as my mother lay next to him dead. Months later, my father told me what I had encountered was a banshee. Apparently, we were lucky to have a spirit that cared so much about our family. It meant we were good people. He believed that the banshee helped take my mother to the afterlife. I hope he's right. One more strange thing about that evening before I'm done.

I had gone to inform our neighbors of my mother's death that evening, and not a single other person had seen or heard any storm that day. Although my father told me we were lucky to be visited by the banshee, I felt haunted. For months, every time I'd close my eyes, I would see her face, those eyes, that gaping mouth. I would hear the echoes of her scream ringing in my ears. The experience left me with a feeling of dread, a sense that one day I'll see her again, maybe when she comes for me.

I don't know. What do you think? Do you want a banshee? I don't know. Do you want a family death banshee? I don't think we get one over here. But you don't think they can travel this far? No, they're... I know. But it reminds me of like Grim Reaper kind of mythology and stuff. And I mean, I mean, I guess if something is coming to take you... Okay.

Actually, you know, I used to be as a little kid, I'd be like, oh man, it'd be so scary to see the Grim Reaper. Yeah. And knowing that death was coming for you. Uh-huh. But if you did see some Grim Reaper-like figure like a Banshee, it would also be proof that you're not just, well...

It wouldn't be proof, but it would suggest a strong possibility that you're not just going to like poof and your existence is over. Because this is something that is not living. Yeah. That does exist. And it's coming for you to take you presumably to wherever it is. Which is kind of exciting. Unless it's taking you to hell. Yeah, that would suck. Like you don't know where it's taking you other than the other side. And what is the other side? We don't know.

Nope. I think we just poof. Like, I think our energy... I know, you don't love that. I think... What was I just watching recently? Maybe I was watching it with you. Where they said something to the effect of like, you know, when we die, or energy transfers. Oh, we were watching From. Oh, okay.

Oh, uh-huh. And the, I don't know, I know a lot of our fans are watching it now. Yeah. It's so good. I know, it's a weird show. It's a weird show. I don't want to give anything away because I don't know where anybody's at, but one of the characters in the season finale of what was this, season three? Mm-hmm. The,

scientist-y guy. I didn't watch it from the beginning. I hopped in at season two with you guys but got caught up. I can't remember his name. There's so many characters in this show, but I know who you're talking about. Yeah, and he says he's an astrophysicist or some kind of... He's a big tech guy, just a brainiac. Got it. Okay, great. He made hundreds of millions in tech, yeah. Great. Okay, well, he says if we're going to follow these theories...

when you know people are energy like we we are a form of energy we give off energy aka vibes like whatever you want to call it yeah and when we die this energy it doesn't just go away like it just goes kind of into the ether but it it lingers right and that's what i believe i believe we die and i think that we can leave a reverberation of ourselves but i think that's it i just think that's it

I don't know. Now I wish, I wish I could jump ahead to next week. Yeah. Um, because I have a story next week's episode that's interesting, possible proof of an afterlife. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, uh, I have, I have next week in your Christmas Eve Victorian tales. Yep. Uh, so the non Victorian, it's gonna be one Victorian tale and one like, you know, modern and the modern one is, uh, it's fascinating. It's not like an anonymous, you know, it's one that you can look up this video. You can see what I saw. It's,

Pretty wild. I don't want to give anything too much away, but it's, it's, I was like, oh, it's, it reminds me of Teresita Bassa. One of those types of stories where I'm like, how do you explain this? Okay. Okay. Well, we'll talk about that next week and I will try not to fall asleep during the Victorian tale. Like I did that one time. I know. I think it's a pretty good one this year. Um, uh, tiny Tim, somebody wrote in and said, when does Dan do his tiny Tim tales? They said, you sound like tiny Tim when you do those. Okay. Um,

Okay, I have some pictures here. Great. Let's have it. This first one, an illustration of a banshee called The Banshee Appears, created by American artist R. Prowse in 1862. Yeah, that's a cool old drawing. Mm-hmm. Drawing. Almost like an engraving, maybe. And then this next one, another 19th century banshee illustration, comes from a book published in 1834 by Thomas Croker called Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.

And there's the banshee just waiting for someone to die. So weird. The tree that the banshee is sitting in front of looks like a crocodile. Oh, uh-huh. It looks like scaly. The texture of it. Uh-huh. Yep, yep. And then one more, just a modern illustration from 2017 found on the website occultworld.com. So creepy and so beautiful. Mm-hmm. Really, really well done. Yeah, it's really cool. If that comes from me, I am fucked. Ha-ha.

Yeah. No, thank you. Oh, there was something in my brain. I know what it was. I had this last thought about hell. Yeah. I will say I'm not, maybe I should be, but I'm not worried about hell. Here's my big hang up on hell as it's been described to me by various people over the years. Yeah. You know, just the forever torturing, like it never ends, you know, burning specifically. Yes, we know. Okay.

We're all familiar with what hell is supposed to be. I just think about how you acclimate to certain things. Like humans are amazingly adaptable and we can acclimate to terrible things. Yes, burning would be so outrageous. But I feel like after you've been burning for like five years, you're over it. You know, you're just like, whatever. I'm used to this level of pain. Like I've been burning for so long. I'm just like, whatever.

Maybe that's not how it works. I like that, though. That's what I tell myself. I like it. Okay. I don't really believe in heaven, so I don't really believe in hell. So I think it's like a little bit lost on me. Yeah, okay. You know, which is crazy. Like the Catholic girl, you know, like all those years. But I don't know. It just, okay, what, just real quick sidebar and then we'll dive into these four stories.

When we hear people talk about like, oh, I had a near-death experience and I saw a white light. I saw heaven. I saw heaven's gates. I cannot think of, this doesn't mean it's not out there, but I cannot recall any time hearing a story of like, oh yeah, I had a near-death experience and I saw hell. I've come across those stories. You have? Yeah, there's a few out there. A few? Yeah, there's not a lot. Most people think they're going to heaven. But there are a few of people, well, there's this one story and I can't remember the person's name now, but if I remember it correctly, it's

They did have a near-death experience, thought that they were going to hell, saw all that stuff, and that made them like born again. And then they became like a motivational speaker. Oh, well, that sounds like a business plan. True. I know. That doesn't sound genuine to me. But I bet, you know, for every story that's online that somebody takes the time... Okay, I look at it like the number of listeners compared to the number of people who leave a review. Sure, sure, sure, sure. There's way more people listening than will ever leave a review or a rating. Of course. I don't disagree with that. And so I bet there's...

way more near-death stories and tense stories out there that we'll just never hear because the people don't share them with anybody. Like, they don't get posted anywhere. Sure, sure. Including the hell stories. But, but again, I, I, I, Yeah. I just, my personal experience is that

So many times like, oh yeah, near death, near death, near death, white light, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I know. I know. It reminds me. The odds are. I'm like, okay. So to me, I think it's like, yeah, you're hoping that there's a heaven. No one's hoping that there's a hell.

True. So it's like, I don't actually even think that you're seeing a white light or any of that. I think like, you know, it's something that the brain is doing as it's shutting down. I don't think you're going to some up in the sky thing. It reminds me of just, again, really quick, but like reincarnation tales, they always crack me up where

where I'm like, why is almost everybody who talks about, you know, previous lives, they had really cool previous lives. Like they were a prince of this country or they were like this important historical figure. I'm like, no, odds are, just statistically, you would just be like random blue-collar jobs going back forever. Yeah, why can't you just be a regular person? Yep, why can't you just, you were a stonemason, you were unemployed for a while. You were a cobbler, you were a nanny, you were a schoolteacher, a librarian. Yep, I know.

But despite all that, I still choose to believe that something's out there. Well, that's nice. Okay. Okay. What kind of Layla do you have this week? I'm sticking with the traditional one. I've been feeling comfortable with the brown Layla lately. Trad wife Layla? Trad wife. Oh, my God. Totally. All right. Here we go. Let's get on the road with our long haul truck driver.

Hey, queen of all that is spoopy. And hey, Daddy Dan, your friendly trucker here with a paranormal experience. Thank you. I'm not sure how to start this, so I'll jump right in. I was driving down I-20 East to make a delivery in Waterloo, Iowa. I was on the phone with my husband when all of this happened. I was in Williams, Iowa, when out of nowhere, I heard something hit the side of my truck. I let out an audible, what the fuck was that? I

I told my husband I was going to pull over and make sure there was no damage. I got out of the truck and the call immediately dropped. Weird, since I had full bars. Anyways, there was no visible damage after doing a quick inspection. I got back in the truck, called my husband, and pulled back onto the interstate. It was exactly 9.07 p.m.,

As I was merging onto the interstate, a grain hopper truck started coming up on me. As he passed me, I heard garbled CB chatter. I didn't think anything of it. I hear this all the time. But then, of course, out of nowhere, I heard another jumble and a question. How about you, omitted company name, got your ears on? I grabbed my mic, keyed it up, and said, yep, come on back, driver. Then the call with my husband drops a second time.

I called him back while waiting on the driver to come back to me. Another distorted message comes through. You're dragging something behind your trailer. Better pull off and check it out.

And I did just that. I pulled off and hopped out, dropping my call with my husband for now a third time. This time, as I'm halfway to the back of my trailer, my husband called me back. James, you need to stop talking to whoever that is on your CB. I think you're having some sort of paranormal experience. Wait, what? I asked him. He said, I think you need to keep driving. Don't stop until you get to your stop or the next truck stop.

Okay, let me get back in the truck. And then he screamed, you're out of your truck? Well, yeah, that driver told me I was dragging something behind my trailer. I wanted to check it out. Get your ass back in that goddamn truck and drive, James. Whatever this is doesn't like me talking to you. I think that's why my calls keep dropping. It's what made my paranormal flags go up. Get out of there now. I swear to God, if you were in a horror movie, you'd be the first to die, James. Okay.

I did as my husband told me and drove. I made it to my delivery, dropped my trailer, and drove to the truck stop for the night. While trying to process what had happened, I went inside to purchase a bottle of water. As I came back out to my truck and got in, I noticed the cabinet above my bed where I keep all of my dry food in was wide open. I always have it closed. And in fact, it's tough to open. And it can't be opened on its own.

There was a can of soup lying on my bed, soup that I had in the very back of the cabinet and was behind a loaf of bread, but the bread hadn't been moved. I took a picture of the cabinet and tried to send it to my husband, but it wouldn't go through, while every other picture I sent him went through with no problem. Weird. Thanks for keeping it spooky. Much love, James, your friendly LGBT trucker.

I love James. Oh, I just hit the wrong button, I realized. That's okay. People are so mad at you right now. They're so mad, right? They're furious. They don't even know that the story's over. That was the wrong song, wrong sound, and now that's it. They're out. You know what? I have to do this so James doesn't just punch holes in the walls. James is taking himself and everyone else with him. All that Spotify growth is gone. James just, in a rage, just drove his truck off the road. Why did you push the wrong button? Why do you hate me, Father? Yes.

It's just creepy. Yeah, it's just a weird series of events there where it gets... You know when there's multiple things like that? Like the dropping calls like three times, not just once, where it shouldn't. And just the picture not going through and hearing that noise initially that maybe was something in the back behind him. Just all of it together in a short span of time is definitely going to make you...

Enough to make you go like, wait, what? And James' husband also getting like the red flags of like paranormal stuff. Uh-huh. Weird CB. Uh-huh. Yeah. Something prompting him to get out. Yeah. Like that really did me in. I'm like, oh. Yep. Just a lot going on in a short amount of time where it's not like, you know, you're seeing this big shadowy entity or anything. Yeah. But you're like, I don't know what just happened. Yeah. But something weird just happened. Totally.

Totally agree. Totally agree. Maybe there was just something he drove like over, you know, like there was something in some little area. Uh-huh. And he went through that little thing zone. Oh, yeah. Sure. And it's like messing with him until he leaves its space. Kind of like, I don't know. Yeah. Or until it gets what it wants. Some kind of reaction. Or him. Or some snack. Maybe he wanted some bread in the back. Maybe he wanted some honey wheat bread. Yeah.

Yeah, no, thanks, James. Okay. You ready to hear the first of two type of premonition tales? I am. Let's go. To the queen of socks and the king of scares. I have been an avid listener for a long time. I randomly found your pod one day and have listened to it ever since. I love your back and forth banter and the tales and all the good things you do. A lot of us listeners truly appreciate you. Oh, that's nice. Well, thank you. That was very sweet.

Let me begin by saying I very rarely remember my dreams. But in August of 2013, I dreamt that my kids and I were on our way to visit my aunt in the next town over during a storm. We turned onto her street. She lives on a secluded property about half a mile from a housing development. As we traveled along, we noticed a teenaged boy walking along the road. He was drenched, wore a windbreaker, jeans, and no shoes. I was so scared.

I noticed his shoulders were slumped and his head hung low. My older son and I looked at each other as I pulled up alongside this boy and my son rolled down his window. I asked the boy if he needed a ride anywhere, but he shook his head no and waved us away. He never looked up or even at us. We shrugged our shoulders and continued on to my aunt's house.

As I crossed the tracks and saw my aunt's property line, I glanced at the ditch that runs along her property, noticing it was full. When I turned onto my aunt's long driveway, she was already coming out to meet us. I noticed my uncle standing right behind my aunt, though he had passed away 14 years earlier. It was nice to see him again, though. My kids scrambled out of the car and into her house.

My aunt leaned into me, asking if I'd seen the boy. I told her I had, and that I had tried to offer him help. She wanted me to go back and check on him again because she had seen him walking along the road all morning long. As she is saying this, my uncle is standing behind her, shaking his head slowly from side to side. I woke up crying, overwhelmed with feelings of sadness, my heart aching. I called my mom, who was immediately worried because I'm not known to be a crier.

She wondered why I was feeling so sad after the dream and even asked if I had recognized the boy in my dream, which I did not. Monday came around and I'm sharing my dream with my coworker. As I'm talking, his eyes grow bigger and bigger. Once I'm done, he tells me there is a kid who was reported missing in the same town my aunt lives in.

My coworker had even planned on volunteering for the search party. I had no idea about this missing kid. The summer storms we were having finally subsided and the search, while briefly paused before, was now set to resume. A few days later, I received a text from my friend. As I'm reading it, he calls me. Before I can say a word, he is asking what my aunt's name is. I share her name and he says she's on TV and that she has found the boy's body on her property. What?

I tell my mom everything and now she wants me to go check on my aunt. The next day, I go to see my aunt who's already heard about my dream. She walks me to where she found the boy. As we're walking, she tells me about the father coming to her door, asking about his son and if he can search for him on her property. Of course she said yes, but told him she wouldn't be coming out to assist as she's quite a bit older and didn't want to be out in the storm.

He comes back later to say he did not find his son but left his contact information just in case. Later that morning, my aunt found the boy herself. A black bird had flown into her house, but she had somehow managed to shoo it away. But it gave her a bad feeling, and she decided she needed to check her property. She usually walked around her property after storms to assess any damage and needed cleanup.

We come upon the spot the boy was found and she describes how she saw black plastic poking out from underneath her pomegranate bush. She used her grabber to lift it when she noticed a bare foot, assuming it would be the man's son. She quickly called the sheriff. The young boy had died by suicide with the 22 he took from his house.

He was wearing the same clothes he wore in my dream and no shoes, same as my dream. My aunt convinced me I felt what he was feeling in that moment and woke up when he died. She had me attend the memorial services with her so that I could close this experience.

Family members shared beautiful stories about him. When his mom spoke, I recognized that she was Filipino. My aunt and I exchanged immediate glances. My dad's side of the family are Yacay and Mexican, while my mom's side of the family are Mexican and Filipino, which led us to believe that I must have been the link between the two. Neither one of us knew him, but for whatever reason, he had come to us.

If I was feeling what he was feeling that night, and I'm positive I did, I do hope he's at peace now because he was hurting so bad. Anna. Thanks, Anna. I was thinking about a different part of the story when you said... Is the boy Filipino? Well, he must be because his mom spoke at the funeral, so he... And she was Filipino. Okay, got it. Yeah. Because I think...

That's crazy. We just brought up Teresita Bassa earlier. Oh, yeah. But Teresita Bassa was Filipino. And the lady who was possessed by her spirit possibly after she died was also Filipino. Like there was this connection there. I'm like, what is it about that culture specifically that has these like spiritual connections possibly between people? Maybe there's just perhaps as a culture more into it.

I'm more open to it. Right. Into it is not a polite way to say that. I just meant they explore it more. I don't know. It's traditionally a more Catholic, right? Yeah. The Spaniards colonized it, and then they had a lot of very distinct spiritual traditions prior to that. They were very into...

What do they call it? I think, like, I think, can I get, it was animist, like, an animist spirituality where, like, everything has a soul. Everything has, like, a life force. Uh-huh. Which is, like, from, like, in Japan. That was there as well. Yeah. But, yeah, that's just, and looking into, it's been a while, but, like, exploring Filipino kind of, like, stories set in the Philippines before. They're just, they have a very, very, very interesting kind of, yeah.

association with the afterlife and different entities and lots of people supposedly witness like you know very unusual creatures and things i don't know it's very interesting what if i'd like to learn more about filipino like uh mythology and horror lore what if there's something about like the geo geographical location of philippines yeah and like

I don't know. Maybe it's over some portal. It's a portal. No, honestly, though, like maybe it like infuses itself into their culture literally from the ground up. Yeah, yeah. You know, where it's just like they feel more... Well, because I feel like you could possibly say something similar of like Native American or American Indian people. Like they're so connected to the earth. There is this deep belief that everything has a soul. Everything has a spirit. Like they're...

I just feel like more open to this idea that everything lives and breathes and dies. So if you're, I suppose you could make a connection and say like, if you believe that in life, then you could carry that over into what happens when we die, that the energy continues on and they're in, they feel connected to their ancestors and their roots in a way that just like, as like white, essentially like Anglo-Saxon people, we just don't have that same connection.

spiritual connection. We did the pagan stuff, but yeah, all the Celtic and Germanic tribes and stuff like a lot of them had that. But yeah, but that like that's just so strange. And I hear what you're saying about like, you know, energy transferring and everything, but like

It just feels so magical when somebody can have a dream and in that dream, somebody they have never seen before is dressed exactly as that person is later found dead in a situation that they also dreamed about, like a premonition type dream. Mm-hmm.

I have a... It's just hard for me to think that, like, any type of science could explain any of that. Sure. Sure. Something magical, something spiritual about it all. Yeah. I had a weird... Your friend Nick passed away this week, and I didn't even tell you this. Just yesterday. I can't even remember if I ever met Nick. I feel like I did once, but I'm not entirely sure that I did. And I most certainly... I think you did it at the comedy club once. Okay. The Spokane Comedy Club. And I am...

Most certain that I've never met his daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Kylie. Yeah. I wouldn't even exactly like didn't even know. Sorry. Yeah. I haven't met her in like, not sorry. I haven't seen her in like 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. But the day that you shared, you know, that we found out he was going to have, that he was in hospice and we were making arrangements to go see him. I, I,

I must have been in bed. I don't know. I was lying down somewhere. Now I can't even remember where I was, like why I was even lying down. I think you had texted it to me and I was still in bed. Anyways,

I had this weird vision in my brain that I was like, well, that was strange. Okay. So again, like, I don't know really off the top of my head what he looks like. And I certainly don't know what she looks like, but it was of a man and a little girl going down a set of stairs at Christmas time. And I was just filled with this, like, they were like hand in hand and I was filled with this like flood of happiness. And then Nick died either later that day or the next day. And I was like, well, that was fucking weird. Like, I don't know.

And it just felt like him. I don't even know what that means. Yeah. I don't. So like these premonition sort of like dreams, these trance like states, like, you know, it's, it's fascinating because she's, Anna is saying like, she didn't know this boy and this boy came both to her and to her aunt. And I think it was to help him find his body. Hmm.

Mm-hmm. You know, like so that he could be put to rest. That's like life after death of some kind if you're, you know, steering events. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, rest in peace, Nick Tyson. Yeah, really, really good guys. The guy that got me started in stand-up and got other people started as well and just a really good dude. Yeah. Yeah. He had a long, hard fight. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Okay. And also this week, Jerry Pauly passed away. Well, actually, I guess it was a week... By the time you guys hear this, it'll have been like over two weeks, but he passed away on Thanksgiving. Yeah. You know, sending our love to Tracy and yeah, just a crazy out of nowhere thing. Yeah, the Hillbilly Horror Podcast. Yeah. Hillbilly Horror Stories. Yeah. So if you...

You know, you can, they do have a GoFundMe going. We posted it on our socials. But even if that's not in your budget, if you can continue to listen to their show and support it, I know that they did have some sponsors. So, you know, sponsors are based on downloads. And that is a way that you can help Tracy while she manages this next phase of her life. Yes, yes.

Okay, now this next premonition-y type thing is very peculiar. It's very odd. I had to read the story twice to really wrap my head around it. So I'm prepared for questions, but I'm just going to say I think you really got to lock in on this one. I'll be focused.

Hey, Lindsay. And somehow, Dan Cummins, I'm a huge fan. Thank you. My wife loves the show and is always listening to it in the car. And upon hearing some of the stories, this felt like a good place to get my story off my chest. I'm not sure if this is a gift or a curse. I don't exactly know when this started, but I assume it's been happening all my life since my mother says that when I was a baby, I never got along well with other babies.

I believe it was because the things I see when I first encounter a young child, usually late toddler and younger, this will only happen once with each person with just two exceptions, which I'll get to at the end. The child's face will blur into what it will look like at death.

Just for a brief moment, when I meet a baby, I usually see the face of an elderly person. And then, like television static, it goes back to normal. I had mentioned it once or twice when I was growing up if someone asked why I was making a face or looked sad after seeing a baby. I would say the kid looks old and then receive a stern look from my mom. So I just stopped talking about it really quickly.

I never knew why this was happening to me or what it meant until the unfortunate weekend I figured this out at a family gathering.

I met my new baby nephew when I was young, like early elementary young. But for the first time of all the babies I had met, his face did not show an old person's face. Instead, it was the age of a kid my age, a little blue and puffy, but a kid nonetheless. I found this very odd, but could not place why I had felt so uneasy seeing this, more uneasy than seeing an old person.

Fast forward to a half a decade later. We had a family reunion of sorts for someone's graduation. A few of the outdoorsy types wanted to go fishing since we lived by a lake. They took my nephew and his dad with them. I never got the full story since I was only about 12 at the time, but it seems that my nephew had fallen in, no life jackets on anyone in the bunch, and in his panic, he inhaled too much water in a short period of time.

Lo and behold, when I get to the open casket funeral, the blue and slightly puffy face awaited me. Everything fell into place after this. All the old faces, all the middle-aged faces, the one middle-aged guy with the trichinotomy hole, the young faces, the ones with blood. I was seeing these people's faces in death. Now when this happens, I almost feel joy seeing the old faces. The baby will grow up to have a long life and die at the ripe old age of get off my lawn.

I mentioned that there were two exceptions to this, though. I'm not sure if it's through attachment or love or fear, but one child is my niece, who grew to be one of my closest friends and my wife's favorite family member. Her face was not old, and an eye was swollen shut like after a UFC match. It was too damaged to gauge her age, but her face currently seems like the right age of that. So I'm a little bit worried.

The second face has become quite aggravating to me as it happens almost every day. Her face is melted and the facial features are sunken and broken, similar to what that brother in Toy Story would do to a Barbie doll head. I can faintly smell the burnt hair and skin and some sort of sour chemical. This kid is my daughter and she's two right now. J.R. Isn't that fucked? Yikes.

I was just thinking when they were telling that story. Yeah. I was like, oh my God, I would fucking hate. Like, what a, I've never heard of anything like that before ever. And what a true curse that would be. I mean, definitely curse. He's like, I don't know, gift or curse. For sure, curse. I mean, gift when you see the person is like old. Curse when you see that the person is going to die young. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I see what he's implying there. Yeah, by the gift. But like, I was like, oh my God, I wouldn't want that because, wait.

When the kids are young, I'm like, I would be so terrified. And then if I saw them, their face changed to an age that wasn't elderly. Well, now I'm just fucking panicked. Panicked all the time. All the time. All the time. Yep. Just a sense of foreboding, just dread, just that feeling just continually. Yeah. And I don't know what you do.

Right. It's like, what does he do? You can't put him in a bubble. You can't put him in a bubble. I mean, for sure, I'm sure you're doing things like, well, my kid's never going to bonfires. My kid's like, we're never going camping. Like, you just start to like live in this weird space of like, what are all... I would go mad. I would go mad. Yeah, what are all the ways that I can protect my child from being near fire? Okay. Then it's like, how many fire detectors can I have installed in my house? I know. I was just thinking... How many pairs of fire retardant pajamas can I have? Because right when they're little, they have those like special pajamas. It's like...

It reminds me, I mean, this might be a terrible reference, but it is just what popped up in my head of the Final Destination movies where the premise has been years since I've seen any of them. I don't think I saw any of those because they were all based on airplanes, right? No. Oh. It's just this premise. Was the first one an airplane crash? I think there was an airplane, but it's been so long. I just remember the premise mostly of you can try to avoid death, but like, let's say, I can't remember like what omen shows up where you, I think you see something.

And then you know that death is coming for you. And so now you're just trying to be extra safe, essentially. And then, but if you like, uh, avoid like a car crash is supposed to happen and then somehow avoid it. Well, then it just still keeps coming for you in a different fashion. It's like, once you've been marked, essentially, it's like things are just going to keep happening around you until you eventually die. And that made me think of like, okay, well,

I don't want the kid around fire, so I'm going to keep him at home. And then the house burns down. Right, right, right. And then you're tortured thinking like, well, if I would have let him go, am I the reason that they ended up dying? Because I tried to protect him. It would just be, I would go crazy.

Yeah. JR, I wish that we had some sort of advice or some sort of like, oh, you can pray this away. You can uncurse yourself. Talk to everybody. Priests, spiritualists, everybody. Shaman. That was my next thought was like, I think all you can do is...

the best you can do. Yeah, I would consult every type and I know some of them are probably going to be scammy, but like all you, if you could just find one, if this is like a, if this thing is real, then there is somebody out there who probably knows how to cure this kind of thing or maybe perhaps they do, but like check, check with everybody. I would be probably seeking out reliable like tarot card readers or psychics, like somebody who might be able to

to tell me when and where this might happen. Like I would be, that, that, that would be my initial outside of like the prayers and the blessings and, you know, all these different things. But, so yeah, so if anybody, if we have any, um, practicing witches or anybody, uh, you know, in that space, if you would like to reach out to us, we're happy to pass your information along to JR. Uh, obviously we can't,

guarantee that he is wanting or willing to connect with you, but we can at least pass the information along. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Crazy. That was terrifying. It's awful. It's awful. And then we have one more. Okay. Hey, Dan and Lindsay, I've been listening to scared to death since the beginning. Tales of the supernatural have always intrigued me as I've always been a believer since my childhood. I am in every sense of the word, a creeper.

I was listening to an episode where Dan said how creepy it would be if something appeared in the screen. In his words, quote, right behind you, something wasn't there when you turned around, end quote. Let me tell you, this happened to me as a child on multiple occasions. I grew up in a small town in central Wisconsin. My childhood home was 120 years old. Plus...

You know, field, stone, basement, old. Growing up as kids, always we wanted our own space. We were a family of four in a two-bedroom, one-bath house. And when we needed space, there really wasn't anywhere to get away from it all. I convinced my dad to remodel our basement. Before the remodel, it was like a dungeon. You know, old storage, root cellars, furnace, and not much else. So when I say creepy, I mean creepy.

My dad divided the basement into two sides with a dividing wall. On one side was a place for us kids with bunk beds, an old tube TV, and a computer desk for us to play Diablo and Starcraft. Oh, the good old days. On the other side, nothing changed. Just the same 100-plus-year-old creepiness. After the remodel, of course I was excited. I shared a room with my sister for what seemed like eons, and I was excited to have my own space if I needed it.

I slept one night in that basement and only one night. To this day, though, it has been the best sleep I've ever experienced in my life.

Late one night, I was sitting on the chair watching TV. Of course, you remember those old tube TVs that weighed like 300 pounds where you can see any reflections when the screen goes dark? Yeah, I too am that old. When the screen went dark, I could see the light bulb on the floorboards behind me. I distinctly saw someone or something block out the light and walk up behind me unnoticed.

in my chair in the screen. The ghost or entity or whatever you may call it cast a shadow on the wall in front of me. It started gradually on the floor and continued rising as you'd imagine your shadow growing larger. Thinking it was my dad checking on me, I said, oh, hey, dad, what's up? When he didn't answer, I looked behind me and literally no one was there. I got the shivers, the hair on my skin stood up. And when I say I ran upstairs, I mean I ran and did not look back.

Thinking this all could have been my pre-adolescent imagination, I just kind of washed it off.

A few days later, I was playing a computer game yet again on our old computer tube monitor. Behind me, another light in the corner on the floorboard where the old root cellars used to be. The screen goes black during a loading sequence when I saw the light go black and someone or something again walks up behind me. But this time it was different. I saw this being walk up and put its hand on my right shoulder, pressing down with the force of a firm pat.

I closed my eyes and screamed. I grabbed my shoulder with my left hand to shake whatever had touched me, and I ran out of my shoes and up the stairs and told my family what had happened. They chalked it up to my imagination, saying there aren't any ghosts in this house.

Through my childhood, I'd seen shadows on the walls, lights flicker, and I'd hear the occasional unexplainable sound. But nothing to the extent of what happened those first few days in the newly remodeled basement. To this day, I'm 35, I still run up those stairs and get the chills and I never, ever, ever look back.

Lawrence. Lawrence. Oh, my God.

That, um, because, yeah, I'm older than Lawrence and like having like... Yeah, you're old as shit. Having been around like so many like... You love that. I love it because it's just so dumb. It's so dumb. You're not old. But having been around like so many like tube TVs and stuff growing up, I can know exactly what they're talking about. Yeah. Where...

I don't know, like they were like more reflective somehow or something because of like the type of glass on them. I'm assuming that like now we have like anti-glare reflection, even like on our glasses and on our windshields of our cars. So I'm imagining it's like that technology was probably applied to TVs as well as over the years. Yeah, it must be because I do remember that being a thing where now when you're watching TV, I mean, you might see a little reflection perhaps, but I don't really notice it much. Like, okay, like when we watch, we tend to watch TV upstairs now and we're sitting in the living room. I don't,

I can't even remember ever seeing like reflection of our dining room table behind us in the TV. No. And I remember like growing up, it would be like, oh, hey, can you close the blinds? Because like the sun glare would ruin it. It would kind of like wash things out. Yeah. Yep. And you could see like, you know, if I'm watching TV and all of a sudden like my mom gets up to go do something in the kitchen, I could see her reflection there. And then that really got me the whole like old like tube monitors. And it is funny, like they were just so deep compared to like monitors now, these big, heavy square things. Yeah.

And there would be this loading screen. So when the screen's all lit up with whatever kind of game you're playing, well, now the animation is bright. There's enough bright colors to kind of mask any reflection. Sure, okay. But then when you would go to the next level, it might just...

these older games, it would just be like loading and then like dot, dot, dot, and then maybe have a percentage. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it would just have like this. It would kind of be like a bar and it would like fill up. Yep, sometimes it would be a bar. Yeah, I forgot about that. And then you get a text, a bar, something like that, and tend to be in the middle of the screen. And then around these, you know, just small collection of letters is nothing but just a blank screen. Right. And I do remember because I had this old Commodore 64. That's so funny. It's an old, old one. And like, and it would go, everything had to load. Load.

Like there was constant loading in all of the games because it was so early. Yeah. And like dial up, you know what I mean? Oh yeah. The whole thing was. So your screen was blank off and on constantly. Yeah. And I specifically remember like so much reflection. Like you could see like the room behind you and just that visual and then something in that reflection coming up behind you. Get the fuck out. I would lose my fucking mind. Yeah. Oh my God. I would, I would squeal. I would hit notes I've never hit before. Yeah.

That's terrifying. Yeah. So I thought that was a fun kind of throwback. Yeah. I really like that collection of four. That was really fun. Noted. Yeah, yeah. I was taking in some feedback from the fans. Okay, cool. So yeah, I think here and there, we don't want to just go for the...

over the top, you know? Yeah, yeah. And same thing. I like to mix it up too. I know like, you know, I try to mix up like the modern encounters that we get, you know, and all of this, of course, is alleged, you know, with... They know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With stories that are more grounded in some history, at least, where it's like, you know, a series of...

supposed sightings over many years in the same place. You can go online, you can see all the websites. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, and just mix it up. Yeah. Yep, for variety. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but we always love, you know,

Respectful, constructive feedback. Yeah, totally. It is actually really helpful. So helpful. And because we do actually want to give you what you want. Yeah. You know, I mean, we can't please everybody. We know that. You guys know that. That's just life. Yeah, the goal is to merge what we want with what you want. Yeah, yeah. And when you kindly and respectfully say like,

hey, I've noticed recently. Totally. As opposed to like, you guys show fucking sucks. Like, that's not ever going to get you anywhere with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just not those people. Speaking of support and feedback, do you want to thank some of our Anabels? Oh, yes, I do. I would like to thank the following Anabels for their continued love, support, and patronage on Patreon. We know you have lots of places you can spend your money, so thank you for helping us do what we do. Amanda Hunt, Katrina Jenison, Isabella... Ooh, boy.

Elizalde? E-L-I-Z-A-L-D-E. Elizalde? Isabella, I'm really sorry. Because what I want to say is Eliza, but that's not right. So, I'm sorry if I butchered your name. Alex Hooper, Jordan Story, Kelly Coventry, and Hannah Yeager. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to thank the following Annabelles. Teresa Perez, Abigail,

Camp Henkel. Yeah. Camp Henkel. And then this is a name I've seen before. I'm going to say it's, um, Anias. Uh, it is a N A I S. Anias Rosas. Sure. Uh, sorry if I pronounce that wrong. Uh, UD Morales Morales, uh, Nicole move. So see, I have never T S O S I E. So see probably, uh, Tim, uh,

Tim nailed it. Nailed Tim. Michaela nailed Michaela. Whoa. You did what now to Michaela? I nailed Michaela's name. Thank you. And Chiff's.

I will kill you. You've nailed zero Miquelas in your life. Have I? Hey! You were the one talking earlier about your glory days of makeout spots. You were real happy talking about that. Glory days. Oh, man, high school. What a hoot. I just have a few spoopy shout-outs this week to Chris from Chris. Happy 35th birthday to myself.

I love this one. To Captain Tism from Fat Gandalf. Happy birthday. And to Elizabeth from Rhonda, happy 41st birthday. I love you to the moon and back. Aw.

Captain Tism and Fat Gandalf. You guys are a pair of funny friends. That's very funny. I think it was friends. I don't think it was an intimate relationship. And that is our show. That is our show. Thanks for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to mystory at scaredtodeathpodcast.com. You're welcome. You can email us for everything else at info at scaredtodeathpodcast.com. Thank you, Logan Keith, scoring today's show. Thanks to Heather Rylander, continuing to organize the My Story emails. Thanks to book editor Drew Atana, polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six.

Thank you to Sarah Finch finding the first story I told this week and to Olivia Lee finding the second. We are on Facebook and Instagram where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at Scared to Death Podcast. We also have a private Facebook group. Keeps growing. Creeps and peepers. Full of horror lovers. Yeah, thanks for being nice to each other in there. Yeah. There's so much. There always is and always has been frustration, anger, animosity. And I just love it when y'all can come together in there and just leave everything else behind and just focus on something.

that you can share with one another. It's very lovely in there. I appreciate it. Big thanks to the All Seen Eyes, Creeps and Peepers moderators. Thanks for making our online community such a fun, welcoming place. Nice source of escapism. Enjoy your nightmares, Creeps and Peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Bye.

If spirits threaten me in this place, fight water by water and fire by fire. Vanish their souls into nothingness and remove their powers until the last trace. Let these evil beings bleed through time and space. Evil may pass through, but have no home here within. Scared to death. Bad Magic Productions. Why did you push her wrong, bud? Well, that was fucking weird. Me siento terrible, ma'am.

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