As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 207 - Unexplained Horror Stories & Other Scary Stories

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Today, on the 207th episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast, we have 9 True Chilling stories. These stories come from the shadowy corners of reality, where everyday life takes an eerie twist & ordinary people experience the extraordinary. Today we will be diving into Some unexplained horror stories & Other True Scary stories from listeners like you! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your on supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in todays episode... beananabeanz, Onerlight, the Ozark's Oracle, Chrissy, rabbitX14420, CountryBoy, CiaraW, Doreen, Tanya847 As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. TimeStamps… Ad breaks after Story 1 & Story ### 1 ➤ 1:01 2 ➤ 14:14 3 ➤ 18:15 4 ➤ 21:31 5 ➤ 35:08 6 ➤ 38:00 7 ➤ 43:26 8 ➤ 53:25 9 ➤ 1:17:18 ----- Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. Note: The podcast nor the host endorses any advertisements played during the podcast, ads are not chosen by ATRD or Raven Adams, they are chosen automatically by the advertisement systems by the platforms that host the podcast. I do not endorse, support, or promote any opinions or statements made in any adverts played during the show. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #GlitchInTheMatrix Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Bar-Oublic Concour. The Reglements of the Concour Sapplic. Hello and hey there, friends. Hopefully you are doing well on this beautiful Wednesday. I had to think about

what day it was the week. Hopefully you are doing well. If you're not, well, let me know what ails you, my friends. If you're on a platform where you can leave a comment, please do leave a comment

down below with, uh, what's going on? How are you doing? How is... Life. Don't talk to me about life. Uh, anyways. Yeah.

Uh, today we have some strange and scary stories, which is kind of a mix of stories from listeners like yourself. And some unexplained stories. Always a good time for bizarre stuff. Hopefully you enjoy them. And I will stop talking your ear off and let you get on to the scary stories. Enjoy. I live in a pretty rural area.

It's not completely isolated, but the nearest town is about 20-minute drive, and I work in a city about an hour away. I got my house pretty cheap, and it was perfect for me. The city is still growing and developing, so I thought it would be a good place for my first home. I didn't need much anyways, as I was typically a homebody, so it worked out for me. what I'm about to share is something that I still can't make sense of on one of those late-night drives home after work. I had stayed a lot later than I had planned. I was working overtime to catch up on some numbers

and got stopped talking to a coworker that was there doing the same thing. I finally left around 11 p.m. The route is mostly highway, but the last 30 to 40 minutes are on a state road. Two lanes, long stretches of driving with very few streetlights and a lot of open fields, farms, and woods. During the day and even during the sunrise and set, it's pretty peaceful to drive through. But when you're in a rush or exhausted, it can be a long, boring drive. Luckily, I had a late night energy drink, so I was pretty awake, just physically drained. I had music going and the windows cracked to keep me focused.

This was a few years ago, and back in mid-autom, so it was a bit chilly at the time. That is when I first spotted the figures. Going along my normal drive, I saw something on the right side of the road, maybe about a hundred feet ahead of me, near the edge of a tree line that bordered a large, empty field. At first, I just registered it as something out of the ordinary, a momentary blip on my path home. You get used to seeing deer, coyotes, the occasional fox, maybe even some farm equipment, but the closer I got, the more I realized it wasn't any of those. It looked like a person standing there, perfectly still.

My immediate thought was something like, what an odd place for someone to be. to be standing at nearly midnight. But then I thought maybe it was a farmer that was scaring something off his land, or maybe just looking at something. So I slowed down a bit, squinting, trying to get a better look. As I got closer, my opinions began to change, because it was way taller than any person I knew. It was also incredibly thin, like unnaturally so.

It was just silhouetted against the slightly lighter sky above the trees, but it looked like it was wearing dark clothing that just blended into its shape. The shirt, or whatever it was, must have been tight or form fitting because I could tell that it was wearing something, but I could still make out just how skinny it was. Other than that, there were no distinctive features, just a tall, skinny, dark shape. and it didn't move at all.

There was no sway in the slight breeze. It didn't adjust. Nothing. It just stood there. Because of its immense ability to not move, I figured maybe it was some weird modern art sculpture on someone's property. Maybe the owner didn't like it and ditched it on the road. Or maybe it was one of those realistic and creepy scarecrow

that I've seen some farms put up around Halloween, and they just never took it down. Either way, I just shrugged, made a face, and sped back up driving past it. I mean, I may have felt awake, but maybe I was more tired than I thought I was. I drove for another few miles, the figure long gone and out of view behind me, but that experience had left me slightly jolted, and I was a bit more awake. But then I saw another one. This one was closer, maybe only 70 feet, often.

the road, still in a field, but closer to my side. Again, it stood perfectly still, but had the same impossible height and thinness, the same dark, indistinct form. That's when my heart rate picked up a bit. There were two of these creepy figures or scarecrows in different fields, miles apart. I slowed down again, feeling that sense of unease. I drove past this one a little bit of slower than the first. As I got closer, it remained utterly motionless, just a dark and spindly figure standing there facing perpendicular to the road, looking into the field. I still couldn't make out any facial features and details, and it was still just a silhouette, but everything around me felt heavy. It's still hard to explain, but it was just there with this intense stillness

that felt wrong. Again, after staring it down for a few seconds, I passed it by quickly, as if it was going to follow me. I seriously felt crazy at that moment. I looked this thing up and down and there was not a single movement from it, but I kept anticipating some stupid horror movie trope

where it would turn around and scream or something. But regardless, what even were those things? things. I take this road almost daily and I had never seen them before. I was probably another five to six minutes down the road when I saw a third one. That one was the worst. It was right on the edge of the pavement, like just a few feet from the white line. I stopped pretty hard. At first, I was thinking it was walking into the road from the looks of it until I got closer and came to a complete stop.

It was maybe 10 feet from the road. It was facing away from the road looking into the field, just like the last one, but this one looked much taller, closer to 7 or 8 feet. And being as close as I was, calling it skinny was an understatement. It just looked like a dark line against the slightly gray field beyond its limbs. I had to have been sitting there in my car on the road for a few minutes. I'm both glad and disappointed that no one else ever drove up behind me. I would have had to have kept moving, but I also wish someone else would have to see if they were seeing the same thing I was.

I was just far enough away that my headlights were right on this thing's back. I could see the texture of whatever it was wearing, and it looked like it would have been incredibly uncomfortable. It looked rough, like burlap or something similar. But like I said, it looked stretched over what I assume were incredibly thin limbs. And I know that my description partially sounds like it would be some kind of scarecrow in a T position, but that's not even how it was standing. The posture was just wrong. Its shoulders seemed too high and the back of its head and neck seemed elongated,

and slightly bent forward, almost as if its head was too heavy for its neck. It wasn't rigid like a pole either. There was a hint of curvature, but it was completely and utterly motionless. Every instinct was going crazy in my body, telling me the obvious answer to this situation was to leave, keep the doors locked, and get home.

But I was still morbidly curious as to just what? What the hell I was looking at? So, I continued to sit there for who knows how long, still refusing to believe that this thing wasn't alive. I flashed my brights at it and honked my horn. Not a budge or jump. It didn't twitch. Didn't shift its weight.

Nothing. Still a bit freaked out, but not having anything else to do, I put the car back in drive and slowly crept past it. I kept my eyes on it as my car's bumper pulled even with it, and I started to crane my neck to try and see its side, maybe its head better, or even if it had a face. But as I did, as the side of my car was directly beside this thing, I felt something.

This is the part that I tried to explain, and I feel crazy. It wasn't a sound that I heard with my ears exactly. It was more like a pressure inside of my head or a brief sharp burst of static right in my skull. It was like that muffled thwump sound you hear when you hit your head on something, but it felt invasive and unpleasant. Like a tiny silent scream or a blast of interference inside of my mind. Like someone just barged into my head and started going through my memories. Things were coming up that I had no reason to think about at that point in time.

time, but yet there they were. I had a slight moment of control, and I looked back at the figure, and I caught the tiniest glimpse of its face. But what I saw wasn't much of a face. It was just smooth and featureless, like that same burlap-like fabric was pulled over its face, but the shape was long and sloping. The only thing you could make out was where one of its eyes should have been, and it was just a dark hole.

and well that was it the moment my brain fully came back to my control it switched from what is this freaky thing to this is an absolute primal terror and you need to get as far away from it as possible I floored it I curved slightly fearing something might happen

if I just grazed the damn thing and I took off not even checking my rearview mirror I just drove as fast as I dared on that dark road praying that something else didn't pop out at me. My heart was pounding so hard that I was struggling to catch my breath. I was sweating, which made no sense with how cool it was,

and I remember being too afraid to even check my mirrors. I got home, locked my door, made sure my windows were locked, closed every blind and curtain, and turned on practically every light. I didn't want to be in the dark, and I've never had that problem before. No one was in my house, but I felt like someone was around, like someone was watching or listening. I felt so paranoid and crazy, and I hated it. I couldn't sleep, so I stayed in my living room playing something on my Xbox for most of the night. I finally started feeling tired and was forgetting about the figures around four in the morning,

and thankfully I didn't work the next day. However, I was supposed to meet up with my mom for lunch, so I pulled myself off the couch, made myself presentable, and took that same path out there. The only thing that comforted me was that it was daytime. I drove that same route, nervously looking around for those figures again, but they were nowhere to be found. I took that entire road to get back on the main highway, and I didn't see a single one. It had been about 12 hours since I was on the road the previous night.

Where could they have gone? When I met up with my mom, I told her about the figures without mentioning the creeping feeling in my head, and she found it very strange, too, and had no suggestions on what they could have been either. After that, I never saw them again. I worked the same shift and was a nervous wreck the next night that I drove home, but they were gone. and as of today I still have not seen them again. But this feeling that they seem to emanate and that awful feeling in my head will never go away. While they looked like they were just some weird statue or something,

I can't help but wonder if they were living things. And if so, what the hell could they have been? Worse yet, what was their purpose that night? I just don't like the idea of thinking that they may still be out there somewhere. Lazang sur-gillet, Pucance-Moyerned 15 minutes. We're like it's the

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My parents live very deep in the mountains, and I began seeing odd things in their house as early as five years old. My mom also grew up here in reports that odd haunted types of things have always gone on at the house. I was never really allowed to watch horror movies about ghosts or shows like ghost. hunters growing up because of the nature of the house, and I slept with my mom until I was around 13, because I was scared after seeing so many things at home. One night, however, we decided to watch the Ghost Adventure Waverly Hills episode. That night I woke up around 3 a.m. to that feeling of something watching over me. I could feel it as soon as I woke, the feeling of evil and malice in the air. I rolled over and locked eyes with something standing beside my mom's side of the bed.

Its skin was inhumanely pale, and this is coming from a redhead. It was slouched over and seemed as if it would never be able to straighten all the way up if it wanted to. The skin looked as if bones were sticking out and fingers were extremely long and clawed. The face was sunken in and the eyes hollow black holes seemingly. It appeared to have a few greasy-looking hairs on its head, totally naked, but no genitals that I could see. I stupidly left my mom to fend for herself and covered myself totally up under the covers. I laid awake the whole night sweating bullets. My mom woke the next day and raised her shirt and asked what in the world had happened.

She had claw marks down her side. They were so bad that they were bloody and, The fingers looked as though they'd been stacked on top of each other almost. I wish we had a photo of this, but at the time this happened, it was probably around 2007 or 2008. That would have placed me around 7 to 8 years old, and cameras weren't as around in your face as they are today, so we didn't think to take a picture. Prior to this, I had seen the creature once beforehand, but it didn't injure anyone. One night I woke and saw it on my side of the bed. I hit under the covers that night as well, but when I dared to peek out, it was still there hours later.

This was before the first incident that I described, and once again it didn't hurt anyone the first time. It was gone the next morning when daylight hit and finally came out from under the covers. This story may read like a creepypasta, but it's very real. I never saw the creature again after the incident where it harmed my mom, but every time I drive down a dark back road I think of it. I know I was not asleep, or imagining things when I saw this. I wanted to share my story to find more related ones close by. I've heard a lot of strange stories from people in my area, but none of this creature.

It sounds stupid, but the best comparison for the appearance of this creature, is the creepypasta for the rake. It looks almost identical. I would like to clarify that this did not impact me imagining this. I did not even have internet access until 2009 or 2010, and didn't discover creepypastas until much later. In the past, people have called it a crawler, but I'm not sure what this would be considered. My parents also live at this same house. I've been a skeptic ever since knowing of these things. I have avoided saying the word in the post title, and whenever they're mentioned, I abruptly stop the conversation and do everything in my power to distract myself from the word

in order to prevent them from being driven toward me. For this reason, I'll be using the word creature instead. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure if this thing really was a S-W creature. It could be something similar, but I digress. These are the one thing that I have consistently avoided since adolescence. At writing, it is 3.11 in the morning, and this occurred about 20 minutes ago. I was on my way home from a friend's place, a bit groggy and feeling a bit down. I live about 30 minutes away in a small rural area.

I try to keep a good eye on the road at this time as we live in Deer Country. and I don't want to hit anything. Throughout the drive, I did so like normal, and all was well until turning off the highway into the road leading to my house. There was a large, low-visibility hill right at the intersection to said road. As I crossed the horizon of the hill, there was the creature, sitting motionless, hung out, staring at my vehicle. It took the form of a dog, sort of brown and black. and splotchy.

However, I'm 100% certain this was not a dog. Its eyes were large and lifeless. It didn't move. Only a twitch of the ear was visible. That's the only way that I knew it was real. It was hunched over like some sort of gargoyle. Instantly, I went to honk at it, but as some of my fingers grazed my horn, I was paralyzed in fear. I couldn't freaking move.

It was just there, hauntingly staring. It was the eyes, the absolutely ungodly eyes. Dread consumed me and I hit the gas and turned on to the road. This is a gravel road, mind you, and I sped all the way home, about four kilometers away, and I've locked myself in my room ever since. I can't move and I sure as hell can't sleep. I don't understand why this creature was drawn to me. Perhaps my avoidance drove it closer?

Nonetheless, I'm absolutely freaking petrified and certain that thing was not a dog or anything of the sort. I apologize if this writing is poor. I'm terrified and not thinking straight and sure as hell not going to sleep anytime soon. Any thoughts? would be great. And for a little more information, I live near the Rocky Mountains, if it helps. So this happened to my friend Rachel and I back in 2021. Things were just starting to get back to normal,

and we hadn't been able to hang out as much as we used to, so we finally made plans. We were going to get stuff to make pizza at her place and just watch movies and craft all night. Unfortunately, Rachel started feeling ill that Friday morning, so she said that she would monitor how she was and let me know. I was supposed to go over there that night, but she texted me later that afternoon saying that she was feeling like garbage, and then it was best that we cancel. Just to be sure. I told her it was no problem, to take care of herself and keep me posted on how she was doing. She didn't know what it was, explaining how she'd had a headache the previous night and was that was. now feeling sick, but she didn't want me over in case it was contagious, and I agreed.

Shortly after, I called my mom for our normal weekly talks that we'd had. I told her I was going to Rachel's, so we were going to skip this time, but I went ahead and called her since she had canceled. Most weeks, those calls end up being an hour long or so. We just catch up on what's going on at home, work for me, or the latest drama happening in her book club. She'll let me talk to my dad for a bit and then back to her. It was a pretty normal call for us. The call lasted a little over an hour and when we hung up, I got a notification on my phone for a voicemail. I thought it was strange because I hadn't missed a call. There was no call that popped up. I swiped it away at first thinking it was just a notification for the app and not

from an actual call. I didn't think about it very long because my initial logic was that I had no missed calls, so no reason that I would have a voicemail from someone. But then shortly after, as I was making myself something to eat, I got the notification for the voicemail again.

Since I was waiting on the microwave, I finally opened the voicemail app, and that's when the weird things started. The voicemail, according to the app, came in while I was on my phone with my mom. And it was from my phone number, like I had called myself and left a voicemail. Clearly that wasn't possible,

especially so when I was actively on a call with my mother. I looked over the number carefully, just to make sure that I wasn't filling things in, like a number off or two numbers being transposed, but it was my exact number. I stared at it trying to process how that was possible. I know how numbers can be spoofed and whatnot, but what would be the point of calling the person with the number that you're spoofing?

It didn't make sense to me. Curiosity got the best of me, so I listened to the voicemail anyway to see what it could possibly have been. First, the audio quality was not the best. It was weirdly muffled, like the person was calling from inside a closet or under a blanket. So I started thinking that it was a pocket dial. There was some rustling, heavy breathing, and then I heard a familiar voice. Feeling absolute garbage.

I knew that voice from anywhere. It was Rachel. When she wasn't feeling good, she liked to say that a lot, too. And her text message that she had sent me earlier that day was that she was feeling like absolute garbage. Yet here I was listening to a voicemail with her voice about feeling like absolute garbage, from my phone number. How was that even possible? The only difference was that the voice sounded a little more desperate than her text conveyed. It was like she was struggling to speak in the call, and I only heard pieces of it between the muffled sounds.

Whereas the text was very Rachel. Girl, I'm feeling like absolute garbage. I played it a few more times, and it only made me more confident in determining than it was Rachel. I went to my call log, and there were no missed calls before, during, or after the call with my mom, and certainly not from my own number, nor Rachel's. It was definitely bizarre, but I just chalked it up to some kind of weird technical glitch. Maybe somehow Rachel's text was converted to a call or an audio file? Maybe it was some kind of feature I didn't know about.

I'm not a complete computer genius, so it was possible in my mind. Whatever it was, I just decided not to overthink it and went about my evening. Around 10 p.m. I found myself scrolling through my phone and that voicemail caught my attention. So I went and listened to it again. This time I noticed some things that I had missed before. Like in the background, there was a faint beeping sound and it was in the same pattern. Then I noticed what sounded like breathing. There was the shuffling that I had heard, but I'm pretty sure that part of it was hard breathing.

It still didn't seem real, but I thought that it was. it wouldn't hurt to check in on her. So I texted her, as we did for most of our conversations, and brought up the weird voicemail that I got, saying how it was weird. Then I asked her how she was feeling and even offered to pick her up something that she needed. I didn't get a response from her, but it also wasn't a complete surprise, since she was sick and it was going on 11 p.m. I assumed that she was probably asleep, and that made me feel better.

Maybe she could at least sleep through it. So I went to bed and told myself to check in with her the next morning. Saturday morning, I woke up around 6 a.m., and when I checked my phone, she had not responded to me yet. I didn't think it was weird, thinking maybe she took something and was still out. So I sent her another text that morning saying, Hope you're feeling better, and to let me know if she needed anything, and then I took a shower. after I got dressed and started making myself some coffee, I checked my phone again and still, nothing from her.

I started to get concerned, because if she had gotten any worse, would she even be cognizant enough to get her phone and respond? Or even was she not near her phone? I tried calling just to be sure. I felt bad as it rang, not wanting to wake her if that was the case, but not only did she not answer, it went straight to voicemail, like her phone was powered off.

That was definitely unusual for her. She used her phone for her work, so she never let it die, and I could think of no other reason her phone would have been off. The problem is, I didn't know who else to call. I lived about an hour away, and I was hoping to find someone that was closer to her that could get there before I could. Her only sibling lived in another state. She was estranged from her mother, and her father was older in wheelchair-bound, so it's not like he could run over there real quick to check on her.

I didn't know any of her neighbors, and especially didn't have their numbers. The only way I had to contact her by was through her boyfriend. The only problem with that is that they'd been only dating for less than a year at the time, and I certainly didn't know him well enough to have his phone number. We were, however, for her. friends on Facebook, so I looked him up and messaged him. I'd asked him if he had heard from her because she wasn't responding to me and how she had been feeling sick the day prior. He actually responded pretty quickly, saying he had last heard from

her the previous night as well, and that he was also just getting a voicemail. He said that he was heading over there to check on her then, and I was so relieved. I gave him my number and asked him to have her call or text me or at least keep me posted on what was happening, and he agreed. An hour passed, and I still had not heard from either of them. Since we swapped numbers, I texted her boyfriend and asked if everything was all right, and he didn't respond. Now, I was really getting worried. When he didn't respond after about half an hour, I actually called him,

feeling like some crazy paranoid friend. When he answered, his voice was low, but I could also hear the story. in his voice. I asked him what was going on, and to my surprise, he said he was at the hospital with Rachel. He told me that she didn't answer the door when he arrived, and since he had a spare key, like I did, he let himself in. That's when he found her unconscious on her living room floor. Her phone in the kitchen was dead. He said that he called 911 immediately, and when they came out, they started doing tests. One of them pulled out a test. One of them pulled out a test. that he didn't know what it was at the time,

and that's when one of them mentioned the carbon monoxide levels were extremely high, and that they all needed to get out of there immediately. He didn't even have time to get Rachel's phone, which was a problem because he was trying to get her dad's number. Thankfully, I had it and told him I would call her dad so he could stay with her. But what really bothered me was that the paramedics told him that she was lucky he showed up when he did, because much longer and it likely would have been fatal. I was in shock.

It explained why she wasn't feeling well, and it could have started with their headache she had on Thursday night. But then I started piecing the timeline of events together. She had a headache Thursday night, started feeling sick Friday morning and cancelled because of how bad she was feeling. It came on so quick that we both figured it was just a stomach bug or maybe a bad migraine causing her to feel ill. Knowing Rachel, she probably hadn't charged her phone yet,

and that's why it died, because at some point on Friday night, she had passed out nowhere near it. I rushed out of my house to head to the hospital to see her, and when I talked to her, her timeline matched up too. She said that she was feeling really dizzy and nauseous, so she went to grab some water, as she had been lounging on the couch since it was the quickest access to the kitchen and bathroom. Her room was upstairs. She didn't realize how low her phone was, or that she had left it in the kitchen, but she remembered walking back to the living room. That's when the room started spinning and her body felt really heavy.

Then she woke up in the hospital. But it was the time that really struck me. The weird voicemail I got was about the same time that she mentioned she would have passed out. She was comparing the times based on what was on TV and what all she had done and it fit. Somehow, I got a voicemail for her. from my phone number of her voice around the time she would have passed out or right before. After I got to the hospital and talked to her about what all happened, I asked her if she saw the message I sent about the voicemail and she hadn't.

So I shared it with her. I even let her listen to it. She was just as shocked as I was. That was definitely her voice, but she said that she had not called me that night. We both thought that it was pretty freaky, and I had this horrible sense of guilt wash over me. This was definitely some bizarre event, but what if it was supposed to be some kind of warning or call for help? What if her boyfriend had never gone over to check on her?

What if I still went over there that night? Would it have affected me, too? Thankfully, they were able to identify where it was coming from. It was the water heater. There was a crack in it, and apparently, Apparently it finally broke when Rachel had taken a shower Thursday night. She was living in an older rental house, and the landlord didn't have any CO2 detectors installed, which would have caught this. I also think that's what the beeping was in the voicemail.

As a way of warning me of it, and I didn't really think of that or catch on to it. It was reported, of course, and the landlord was pretty crappy and wanted to take his time getting it repaired, so Rachel just moved out and in with her boyfriend instead. That was their plan when her lease was up anyways. But since this happened, we've both agreed that the voicemail had to have been some kind of warning. We joked that we were so in tune with each other that maybe our phones were too. And then we thought,

What if in another timeline we didn't check on her in time, so she was left to die alone? Maybe it was a cry for help to not let her. happen again? Otherwise, we have no explanation for that voicemail. I have since gotten a new phone, and while I refused to delete that voicemail, it unfortunately did not transfer over with the new phone. What's worse is I didn't even think about it before I reset my old phone, so now it appears to have been lost for good. Or maybe it is out there somewhere, waiting to be the push, another version of me or someone else may need to check on Rachel.

There's something else here now, something new. From, exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home.

From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Hey, Raven, it's Chrissy here again. I've got a story that's a bit off the beaten path, and I know you love a good mystery. So, picture this. I'm wandering through this quiet, old library, smelling the books, just looking for a particular novel, when I catch a glimpse of someone between the shelves.

And not just anyone, and someone who looks exactly like me. And I mean a dead ringer. We lock eyes and it's like looking into a living mirror. Her eyes are my eyes, and in that moment, a hundred wild thoughts start rushing through my head. This time it's not just my ADHD. You know me.

I've always had a thing for those conspiracy theories. The ones about the elites secretly cloning themselves are how it only takes eight years to grow a full human copy. And here I am staring at someone who could be my clone, even though I'm definitely not rich enough to have ordered one. But it gets weirder. I start thinking about all those stories. Maybe they're sending clones to Mars and it's a backup for Earth

and it's way more populated than we're told, or hiding them on the dark side of the moon where there's supposedly a secret city. And of course, I remember David Polite's and those missing. 411 cases, people who just disappear without a trace. Maybe they're all part of some grand experiment and I'm face-to-face with living proof. Then, just when I think it's over, I see her again at a hospital, after my surgery a few days later. She spots me too, and there's this flicker of recognition, like she knows me.

Twice in one week? No way, it's a coincidence. No way did she get a bust appendicitis, too. and just happened to be in the next bed over? So what the heck is going on? Did they do something to me? Take something? And to top it all off,

I've noticed these men in black types hanging around my ward. Pale skin, black suits, straight out of a UFO encounter story. I swear one of them even hinted that I shouldn't talk about what I saw. Like a big hint. I won't go into that, but here I am telling you anyway. This might be my last story, but I've never been one for backing down from threats. I'm a fighter, not a fleeting kind of girl.

So yeah, that's my strange little rabbit hole of a week. I hope you enjoy it, Raven. Take care. P.S. Could patients handle two of you? No. I can't even handle one of me. I came upon your podcast a few months ago, and I've been listening and observing. They're quite interesting. Some of the stuff going on out there is pretty amazing, very freaky, and some insanely unbelievable, if I have to say so myself.

Let me start out by saying that my name is Doreen. I live in West Palm Beach, Florida. I'm a spiritual medium. I'm talking the real deal. I keep it to myself and use it where God leaves me. Believe me, good is returned with good. What goes around always comes back around. I got this gift 25 years ago, when I was saved from a head-on collision and I was teleported, not kidding, from one side of the two-lane overpass bridge to the other.

But maybe that story's for another day. Okay, so warning, this is a tearjerker, so get some tissues. Okay, here's something that happened to me a few years ago at the veterinarian's office. I had this feeling to take my cat, Angel, to the vet. She's now deceased from cancer. Oh, and there is a rainbow bridge. It's for real. I have another story on that again, but maybe for another day.

As I was waiting in the lobby reading a magazine, a woman sits down across from me with a small crate, so I knew right away it was a cat. All of the sudden, I start concentrating on the crate and look inside. Couldn't see much, but felt more. She was crying. I believe that the universe puts us where we are needed the most, so I said excuse me, and I asked her if I could look into the carrier. She said yes.

Almost immediately, I welled up with emotions and started crying. That happens to me a lot when there are cases of extreme emotion. I heard the cat say, telepathically, the same way I do readings of people that have passed on. Yes, I can communicate with animals. You can either believe me or don't believe. I don't need anyone to judge me, and I don't need negative comments in this poor man's feed. Just go with it.

Thank you for that. Okay, to continue. I heard the cats say, Tell Mommy I'm in a lot of pain. I'm ready to go. Let me go. You gave me a good life. Thank you, and I love you.

Now, you have to understand that not everyone is 100% open to this. She stopped crying and she was listening to me. how I said that we have to hang on to the good memories and that we did the best we could and gave them the beautiful life and those the memories that we have to hang on to and that we must believe it's not goodbye it's till we meet again that it's not death

it's a transition and that they are at the rainbow bridge he'll come visit you in spirit and you have to believe that she told me how he was astray 17 years ago and that she took him in and he had a pampered life. I said, there you go, he knows that. And that nothing can live forever, death is a fact of life.

We sat for a few more minutes in silence. I was concentrating on the crate, and then I heard her cat say, I see Tim. I see Timmy. I'm like, who's Tim or Timmy? And her mouth dropped open. She said, I used to have a cat named Timmy, but he died five years ago.

I said, there you go. Timmy has come to take him to the Rainbow Bridge. You must believe that you will see him again. At this point, she was still crying, but seemed a little comforted for what it's worth. They ended up putting the cat to sleep an hour later. I saw her carry it out in a box. It still hurts, and yes, we do miss them, but at least we have something to look forward to at the end of our days.

I hope this makes it to your podcast, and whoever hears it, when they hear it, is meant to hear it. And we must always believe in our hearts. There are things that we cannot explain, but it's for real. Listen to your heart always. I'm sorry that I didn't exactly start this off like everybody else does. The truth is, there are a lot of people out there who don't believe in this. They think it's the devil and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they do the Bible thing, and I want to jump them, but I don't look good in an orange jumpsuit.

Anyway, it is what it is, and I believe it's for good. I help people, give them hope and inspiration that there's something after this flesh life that we live. And the people that don't believe, well, they're on their own. I tell them that one day they will find out for themselves. Thank you for all the hard work you do, because, these are fascinating, and it makes life on this planet a little bit easier. And I love the way that you say, thank you. Well, thank you.

Sincerely, Doreen. I'm new around here, but I wanted to share my story of what happened to me back in 2017. I was pretty confused and freaked out at the time, but I still remember the details like it just happened. However, I still don't have an answer for what I experienced. I had been out with a few friends for one of their birthdays, and yes, there was some drinking involved. I was a bit buzzed, but not completely intoxicated. I could walk, my words weren't slurring, and I could think straight, too. However, I was still drinking, so I did not drive that night.

One of my friends picked me up, and when I was ready to leave, I called for an Uber. Everyone was still having a good time, and I didn't want to pull them away, so I just took care of myself. When the Uber arrived, I gave him the address, and we left. I live in a residential neighborhood, maybe 15 minutes from downtown, in a small house. It's a pretty quiet area, with mostly older homes and older people living in them. I've never had any problems with any of them either. I've been living there for about three years at the time of this event, so I would like to think that I knew everyone pretty well. The Uber dropped me off in front of my house, and as I was walking to the door, he drove away.

It was pretty late, probably midnight or one, so it was pretty dark outside. I had my porch light on, knowing that I would be out late, and I can make out the familiar silhouette of my little gray house in the awning. Once at the door, I grabbed my keys from the purse and put them in the door. That's where things went wrong. The key wouldn't fit. I thought I was a little intoxicated, so maybe I put it in upside down, so I flipped the key and try it again. Same issue. So, we treat it like a USB cable, and I flipped it over again with the same results.

Okay, so maybe I just grabbed the wrong key. So I tried my other keys. I only had four. One was a Chevy car key, so it clearly wasn't that one. The other one was the key to my garage and my sister's house key. I knew what they all were, but I tried them anyway, and none of them worked on my door. How the hell was that even possible? I stared at the door for a moment, then walked down the stairs to look at the number.

It was my house number. I felt silly checking it. Because, of course, I recognized my own house. Not to mention, I gave the Uber the address and watched him plug it into the GPS. But not knowing what else to do, I went and tried my keys again and same result. I felt stupid, and I was getting frustrated. I was just ready to go crash on my bed with my dog. Why was I not able to get into my own house?

My car was even in the driveway. So I walked around to the back door to try it, as it used the same key, and of course, it didn't work either. I took a step back and looked over the door trying to think about what to do next when I looked over the small porch. That was the first time something didn't seem right. There was an outdoor rocking chair on the porch, something I didn't own. I looked around and saw a small decorative sign that I also did not have. I looked over the backyard and saw raised garden beds, and I felt so confused. None of this was my yard, but this was certainly my house.

I walked back to the front and looked at the numbers again, still showed the same number. I was confused and a little scared, to be honest. I know that I was a little drunk, but none of this was making sense. It's not like I walked to the wrong house. I was taken here by someone else that was using GPS directions, so how could this not be my home? I pulled out my phone, ready to call a friend to make sure I wasn't going crazy, when I heard a door unlocking. The door to my house. And even though it was my house, I felt the need to hide and not look like I was a burglar.

I quickly ran to the street and started walking down the sidewalk, holding my phone to my ear, trying to look like I was just on a walk. I glimpsed over and saw an older man answering the door in a row. He watched me walk by and then closed the door. I continued to walk, not knowing what to do at that point. I couldn't get into my own home, and it also appeared that someone else was in my house, and I didn't know who they were. I kept walking down the street, and I called my friend who was at the party. I explained to them vaguely what was happening,

saying that I was having troubles with my keys and asked if they could come by to help. This was the friend that had picked me up and was the designated driver that night, so I was confident that they would know where to go, and they would also be sober and clear-headed. They said no problem, and I told them that I would meet them at their car. After we hung up, I finished walking to the end of the street, looked at the street signs, and was comforted that I was on the right street, at least.

I kept walking, though, around the corner, hoping to just do a walk around this little block, to calm me down. I let myself point out other familiar things that let me know that I wasn't crazy. I recognized the house in the corner with the rounded fence posts. I saw the house with all the bird feeders and the one with all the kids' toys in the front. I knew this block. I walked up that block, turned left, and headed back down my street.

As I passed the large trees, I could see a car parked in front of what I thought was my house. I sped up my pace and got to the car where my friend Parker got out. I explained to him that I was having troubles with my key and he walked up to the porch with me. I'm sure that I probably looked suspicious as hell as I looked around. I tried my key again and in it went. What the hell just happened? I hesitated to walk in, so Parker offered to go first and I let him. I then followed and was greeted by my little beagle, Duke. I asked him if he could check the rooms and he obliged. I remember standing by the front door with Duke turning on the lights, and the place looked

exactly as I had remembered it. It was my home. He checked my two rooms, the bathroom, kitchen, and even the basement, and no one was there, and nothing was out of the ordinary. I even went out back and checked my garage and my Chevy was there, too. Just as I thought it had been. I clearly wasn't thinking straight and was more so concerned that there was a man in my house. After we went back inside, Parker sat me down and asked me what was going on.

That's when I explained everything to him. How the keys wouldn't work on either door, about the chair in the back and the raised gardens. I even mentioned the old man that walked out of my house. I remember him looking at me, trying to make sense of it because, much like me, I was thinking I must have just been mistaken, right? I literally checked the house number three times, walked around the block and ended right back where I started with my friend in front of the house. Yet I certainly couldn't get in the first time and now I was sitting on my couch.

We even left, took his car around the same block that I walked to see if I was mistaken. Maybe I was a house or two off and I never realized how similar they looked, but we came back empty-handed and completely confused. All the houses were small, like mine, but mine was the only one that was light gray with white shutters. In fact, my house was the only one with shutters at all, as it had been redone and added when I bought it. And none of the numbers were close to mine to have been mistaken. Like, my street number is 847, but there were no 8-7-4s or 487 or, X4-7 on that block that would have confused my house with.

So what the hell happened that night? He took me back home and I just said maybe I was tired or something and tried to let it go not wanting to worry my friend. But to be honest, I was very worried. There's no way, even with the two drinks that I'd had, that I would have mistaken my house. So how could my house have shifted? disappeared like that and then returned when I went for a walk.

I didn't even recognize the man that answered the door, and I never saw him again after that night. It's been almost a decade since that happened, and I still live in that same house, but thankfully I've never had something like this happen again. But after reading into glitches and parallel universes, I almost wonder if that may have been what happened. that maybe I went home at the wrong time and someone else was living in my house.

I just hope that nothing else changes like that in my life because I don't think I could handle it a second time. Dear Raven, may I first take this opportunity to thank you sincerely for providing a judgment-free home for the weird, phenomenal, paranormal, unexplainable odd and glitchy true stories. Of course, thank you for listening. In doing so, you've given so many people confirmations, validations, and what I believe to be most important, you've given us all a place where we can finally feel like we belong. I'm grateful and since that you have finally given my truth a voice. I have another Ozark's Oracle story for you.

This is the story that brought me to the conclusion that my life was fated to be different than most, and that the word normal would never describe me or, my daily life. I was quite young at the time. The year was 1990 or 1991, I believe I was 17, and I still remember every detail of what happened, along with the intense physical sensations, sounds, and sights of the night with extreme clarity. It was mid-October. I had lived in Springfield, Missouri for less than a year.

I'd grown up in a very small rural town and being in a metropolitan area, still quite new to me. And due to the small town phenomenon of everyone knowing everyone, I was dating a guy who was cousins of one of my closest friends from the small town who had recently moved to Springfield from his small town home with his parents. I also had a few cousins living in Springfield at the time. It's a college town and the biggest city in the Ozarks, so people tend to move there after high school looking for work and independence. which is what had brought me there as well. One of my cousins, Kim, had invited my boyfriend Doug and I over for a party.

In doing so, she indicated that she wanted to introduce me to her pets, and that my boyfriend could see them too. When I gave her a puzzled look, she tells me that her pets, or rather the pets of her now husband, Aaron, are a mated pair of timber wolves. Yes, in a quiet neighborhood on the east side of the city, My crazy-ass cousin had not one but two fully-grown apex predators behind a chain-link fence, of all things. I say this because I've owned several dogs smart enough to literally unstitch the stuff. I knew immediately that she meant it as some sort of honor that I was selected to meet her pets.

That's just how the hill-pilly culture works. If a person shares some secret activity, possession, project, or alternative slash cheaper means, it indicates trust and respect. This sort of gesture is expected to be met with warm appreciation, but I was confounded, wondering if I indeed had to let my jaw hit the floor when she so casually said this. She even laughed as she told me how they had to buy a 10-foot-tall section of chain-link,

bury it three-foot, and include a chain-link covering over the backyard as well, just in order to keep them from escaping. noting that now was a good time for me to meet them because they were not currently separated due to the breeding cycle of the female. My boyfriend and I both hit her with a barrage of questions, but agreed to accept her invitation, curious to see these wolves for ourselves. As it turned out, the night of the party, dark ominous clouds had rolled into the area and the entire city was under a severe thunderstorm warning, with widespread lightning strikes said to be lighting up the sky from early evening into the next day. Believe it or not, my cousin was excited that it would be storming the night of her party.

Because she, her husband and their crowd were all heavy metal fans and they believed they could play their music much louder without disturbing the neighbors amidst the sounds of the thunderstorm. Made sense to me, so I tried to embrace the same vibe. That evening I put on my blackest eyeliner, a concert, t-shirt, and jeans, but left my hair in a ponytail. No need to waste hair spray on a rainy night. I was excited to see Doug pull up at 6 p.m. We made the short drive to my cousins from the Central Park to the east side, and Doug parked his five-speed blue Pontiac Grand Dam parallel on the street in front of her house,

in a neighborhood of break houses, all upper-middle-class places that did not appear at all like a place where someone could keep a hold of two apex predators in the backyard, without anyone noticing. I decided not to question it, believing my cousin had some large shepherd-mixed dogs back there and not actual wolves. We walked to the door hearing loud metal music already blaring and loud off-key howling coming from inside the house. that was clearly coming from the people inside, not timber wolves. So Doug and I look at each other and shrug with smiles, and as we do, lightning flashes bright across the sky and the west. We have time to give each other a verbal,

woo, before he knocks on the door and we chuckle. The moment my cousin opens the door, the loud boom of thunder finally sounds, and we're all startled. We go inside and tell them about the cool lightning and thunder that seemed to be timed perfectly with our entrance. We weren't familiar with terms like synchronicities at the time, and I still believed coincidences were possible. In hearing about the streak lightning,

and how long it took to thunder, my cousin-in-law Aaron says now would be a great time to watch a lightning show. The saying we all wholeheartedly believed in was that after a lightning strike, you could count the seconds until it thunders, and that's how many miles away the storm is from your location. He watched the lightning outside and counted, waiting for the thunder and said that the storm was still more than ten miles away, and we could watch it moving west to east across the city best from the rooftop.

It was not yet raining, so the roof wouldn't be slick, and it would be an amazing light show with Metallica's Ride the Lightning playing in the background. We all agreed to this like the reckless heathens that we were and waited for Aaron to load the CD before fetching us a ladder from the backyard to access the front. roof. Once he returned with the latter and the group of all eight of us lined up to follow Aaron outside, that's when Kim grabbed my elbow to hold me back and say, Wait, you have to meet the wolves first. Oh, okay. I'd almost forgotten with all the excitement about the storm, I replied. I followed her from the living room through the kitchen and out of sliding glass door into a huge backyard with an in-ground pool, an unusually high privacy

fence, and to my astonishment, along the north side was a chain-link enclosure with two enormous wolves pacing. There's just no mistaking them for domestic dog breeds. These were definitely wolves. Knowing more about them now, I'd guess they were gray wolves, but they were scary big, both dark in color with glowing yellow eyes that flashed red in the lightning. In the half-second, I locked eyes with the larger of the two, and I felt him look right through me, and then heard a deep, raspy male voice say,

"'Witch,' in a drawn-out whisper. As I forced myself to look away and break eye contact, all the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and the slightly smaller female wolf began howling. The sound was so hauntingly familiar. I felt its resonance deep inside my chest, and my body began to tingle all over. Then, the other started howling,

too, and I blurted out, peace, sister, peace, brother. And they both fell silent and laid down. My cousin then grabs me at the elbow again and says, I knew they would like you. You've always had a way with dogs. I don't usually get this close to them without Aaron. It's at this time that I realized that we're standing maybe six inches outside the enclosure.

But I could have sworn that I had only taken a step or two at the most outside the back door before I froze in place at the sight of these things. Seriously, it's breathtaking. And I remember thinking in that moment of realization, my God, these things could kill us both. All of a sudden, I turn around and run toward the house, hearing Kim running behind me. She's always been faster and gets to the sliding glass door ahead of me, where she gives me a stern look while putting her index finger to her lips, making a shush. sign.

We walk in calmly like nothing happened and join the possession out the front door, as if we were with the group the entire time. I'm wondering how it could have taken this long for six people to get out the front yard, and when thunder crashes loudly and a couple of people start voicing concerns about safety. Doug, trying to fit in, speaks up and says that he's going up the ladder first, since the storm came in with us, so I say I'm second. We climbed the ladder to the cheers of our own. our hosts and the other guests.

Aaron quickly follows, the other couple, Shanna, my cousin's best friend and her boyfriend, Ryan follows, and then Kim. I'm standing in front of Doug with his arms around me from behind, waiting to see the lightning, and then whispered to him quickly that there really are two wolves in the backyard. He chuckled a, yeah, sure, and I shot him the I'm so serious right now look. He then shrugged his shoulders and says, That was amazing. Lightning had just sent streaks in three directions.

The thunder followed less than ten seconds away, though. The storm clouds were blackening as we watched, and the darkness wasn't creeping in. It was speeding toward us. I'd been counting the seconds after each lightning strike when I counted to three. I announced that three miles away was close enough for me, and that I could see and smell the rain coming.

I'm getting down now, I said, and without thinking I ran to the opposite side of the roof to look for the ladder. About the time I climb onto the ladder, I realized that we all climbed up on the other side, but I started climbing down anyways. I had gotten down far enough that my head was just below the roof line when Aaron appears at the top and yells, You town that ladder, cousin, we're all coming down too. After everyone had gotten inside safely, the rain started pouring like a switch was flipped on. And then the next lightning strike and thunder clap were simultaneous and hit the house. We all stood in a collective silence. Until the next lightning strike flashed through the dark house,

and Kim started flicking her bick lighter to see her way into the kitchen in search of emergency candles. When she returned with a few lit candles, we all found seats and were trying to catch our breath, excitedly chatting about our close call. Kim sets down the candles and asks me, How did you know where the ladder was? You all remember we climbed up in the front yard, right? Everyone agreed. I didn't know how to answer,

but I replied with a shoulder shrug and said, I don't know, I was scared and ran away from the direction of the threat. I followed that immediately with, Hey, let's smoke some to change the subject. And take all the questioning eyes off me. Doug quickly pulled out a dubie and fired it up. Please remember that we didn't have terms like glitch in the Matrix in the early 1990s, and we were neck deep in the Bible Belt.

And I'd been wearing a label of weirdo and freak since childhood because of unexplained and paranormal events often occurring in my presence, regardless of where I was or who I was with. At the time, I was still uncomfortable with and often embarrassed by the strange occurrences in my life, and what I would later come to know as my many gifted abilities, I used marijuana to hide from them, and myself at the time. I later learned to utilize its calming effects as a meditation aid. I believe it's especially helpful to achieve meditative states for those of us with noisy heads.

If you know, you know. The aid of us puffed and passed, and while we did, I whispered to Doug that I was ready to leave. Once we finished, Doug and I told the group we were going for a cruise to continue watching the lightning storm and grab a bite to eat. We hit the closest fast food place and headed east, the direction of the storm was moving, in search of a secluded place to park. We were teenagers and we wanted to make out, too. We didn't drive long and arrived in an area known as Valley Water Mill, a man-made waterfall on the southeast edge of Springfield Lake that I believe was. was constructed by the water department.

We parked facing northwest and pulled out our takeout. While we ate and chatted, the rain stopped, but the frequent lightning streaking across the sky hadn't stopped. And we started talking about it. We both made statements that neither of us had ever seen so much lightning in a single storm. That had only been a few hours, and it felt like there had been several hundred, if not a thousand strikes. And then I heard it.

It was a loud humming noise at first. Then it got louder and became a clear buzz noise. As I asked Doug if he can hear it too, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and then I feel as if all my hair is standing on end, and I can feel this deep buzz noise in my chest like an intense vibration. I blurt out and almost a shout, It's coming from over here. I turned my head to look out my window,

and in that instance fire shot out of the ground, above the window line, not but maybe 10 inches away. And in the blink of an eye, lightning struck the exact spot. Doug and I both screamed as it struck and the thunder came instantly. He dropped his grandam into first and punched the gas. I hadn't turned my gaze from the passenger window when I felt the car jerk into motion, and as I turned to face the front, we see a huge snow-white owl in front of us. wings spread wider than our windshield, but with no time to react on wet streets, Doug couldn't stop.

And we ended up hitting this magnificent creature. I remember the sense of awe that had felt like it wrapped itself around me at the side of the owl, and how it felt as if time slowed down. And it took several long minutes for us to drive in to the owl, but I knew that it all had happened in seconds. The owl had met the windshield and fell immediately onto the hook. hood. The wings draped over both edges of the hood, and the moment the vehicle came to a stop, Doug put it in neutral and pulled the e-break, we both hopped out. I was in a panic. I kept saying, this is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. We killed a spirit guy, Doug. This is bad. This is bad. Tears were

streaming down my face and my entire body was trembling. What do we do? How do we make it right? Doug yelled, over the almost continuous thunder as lightning continued to strike all around us. I don't know how I knew what to say, but a matter-of-factly yelled back, we have to take the body to bury and offer the great owl spirit tobacco and other herbs to apologize and pay for what we did. Doug reached for a large wing feather trying to pull it free. The owls slid off the hood with a thud onto the wet pavement. I watched an utter shock as the owls,

eyes open wide, and then it lets out a horrible streak, striking with its beak at Doug's right arm as he shrieks in pain. The owl is now in the air, kind of. One claw has a hold of Doug's forearm and the other is slashing at his upper arm. It's bigger than windshield wide wings were flapping all they could. It was desperately trying to free itself, obviously frightened, having come back to consciousness with a six-foot-four, 280-pound man trying to pluck a feather. I was screaming in terror, let go, as I watched this fiasco take place in front of me. After a few minutes of this, Doug heaves himself down to the pavement, intending to escape the owl's razor-sharp claws, I assumed. The feather broke free as he hits the ground, and the owl free of him locks eyes with me, and then flies directly toward me.

And as I start to pull my head back, expecting to have to drop to keep it from hitting me, it swoops straight up. like six inches from my face. I didn't feel any breeze, you know, air moving from its flight, but oddly enough, I caught a whiff of a familiar smell. I would recognize that smell anywhere, but had never smelled it but the one place on earth

that could possibly smell like that specific smell. My spooky granny's house. It took me a few minutes to lower my chin. My gaze had followed the owl up, and I watched it continue to fly up into the storm until it disappeared. When I did lower my gaze, I see Doug standing before me, a bloody mess on one side, but surprisingly his slash marks are many and not deep.

He's holding his right hand where he was beak-bitten with his left hand, and in his right hand is a beautiful snow-white feather with not a drop of blood on it. I was shaking uncontrollably and crying. I lifted my hand with that accusing index-finger gesture I pointed at him and said, This is bad. It's bad. My hand fell limply to the side, and I remember whispering, Oh no, as I watched the darkness coming, closing in around me.

Tunnel vision was taking me, and I was seconds from collapsing. I recognized what was about to happen, but was powerless to stop it or help myself. Much to my pleasant surprise, when I came to, I was inside Doug's car. He was kneeled between the door and where he had set me, wiping my wet hair from my face. Once I could speak, I said, I don't feel anything. Doug answered, that's because I caught you. How bad are you hurt? I asked him.

And he said that he needs stitches on his hand, but he wants to go home and clean up first. I agree. He shuts my door, and as he walks around to his, he kneeled over and picked up the feather. We drove back to his place and bump into his dad while searching for first aid supplies in the hallway closet. Doug gives his dad a brief but honest rundown of the night we had, as I'm silently freaking out in my head. I don't think I could have told my mom what really happened, or if she would have believed me, but when Doug's dad says to him, she's right, you've offended the great owl's spirit and you have to fix this. I can't believe you took a feather. I'm brought back

into the current moment. His dad says that he has to make some phone calls and tells us to go clean up his wounds, telling Doug to put on a snap-down long sleeve when he's done. We had landlines then, and no one made calls after 10 p.m. unless it was an emergency. This added to the anxiety now riding like a weight in the pit of my stomach. I follow Doug into the bathroom, and I start dabbing a cotton ball with clear solution. It says wound wash and black Sharpie on the bottle. I shrugged and proceeded to use it. As gently as I could, I wiped clean the many.

slash marks on his hand. When I'm done, I say, okay, let's see it. We got to clean it out first, and then I'm using peroxide and alcohol to try to prevent this infection. Doug then pulls his left hand from his right. He held it the entire time. I worked the gear shift on our way home from the passenger seat for him so he could keep pressure on it, but there was nothing but dried blood where the mark from its beak should have been. We were both staring in disbelief. What the hell? We both asked at the same time. His dad walks in, looks him up, and says, I thought you needed stitches, wassy.

I did, Doug exclaims. And I added, The bite mark is gone. I watch that thing bite him. Well, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth around here, his dad stated. He then turned to Doug and said, Doc's waiting for you.

I'll be back in the office when you get there. Take her home on your way, not after. And he throws Doug as key. and says, I'll have your car taken care of tomorrow. I didn't understand this because the windshield nor the hood were actually damaged. As we were walking out, his dad instructs him to take the damned feather with him to the docks office. We were both quiet on the drive to my house. I asked one question, does your dad know a doctor or something?

His reply was, no, my great uncle is a vet. I left it at that. my mind was swirling with the images of the night and memories of fire shooting up from the ground. When he dropped me off, I was thinking, I'll never see him again. But he kissed me softly and said with a chuckle, It's always an adventure with you, little one. I gave him a sly smile and said, You want to rent a movie and stay in tomorrow night?

To which he said, yeah, see you at six, as I shut the door and then went inside. I collapsed on my bed. and didn't wake until Doug knocked on my door the following evening. I noticed when I walked him out to his car after the movie that he was now driving a Burgundy Grand Am with an automatic transmission. I point at it in question, he says, my dad took care of my car.

Again, I decided to just leave it at that. This particular night seemed set in stone for me. I wasn't like everyone else. Strange things happened to me, around me and for me. and that those around me were at a significant risk of experiencing these phenomena too. And as the years have continued to reveal many unbelievable but undeniable truths to me, I've heard those exact words. It's always an adventure with you, on many occasions from a variety of people.

Each time, I get a flash of a magnificent white owl. By the way, it was several years later when I learned that lightning is actually an optical illusion, and it's known to begin with the earth shooting up fire, in that the Ozarks is not a known habitat for the snowy white owl. I have no logical explanations for the events of this night, but I do know that it was the first step of a lifelong quest to better understand the spirit realms and the beliefs about spirit guides, spirit animals, totem animals, familiars, and the like.

And I can tell y'all that this was the first of many strange encounters involving owls. But to this day, I've never seen another snowy white owl, not even in captivity. Until next time, Raven. Hey everyone, especially folks in or around Pike County, Indiana.

Fair warning, I'm not sure if this would be Bigfoot related or not, exactly. I'm more so investigating if it could be or not. Also, I don't want to post personal stuff like this, but I had an experience a while back that I haven't really been able to shake, and I'm wondering if anyone else has seen anything similar. Late one night, approximately 2009-2010, on a rural road outside near Pike County, Indiana,

I saw something that doesn't match anything I've ever heard of. I wasn't alone, my cousins were with me, and they saw it too. It was a figure walking up, right. Two legs, no doubt about that. It wasn't huge, probably about my height or a little shorter, but very skinny and completely pitch black, almost like it absorbed the light around it. But the part that stuck with me most was the eyes. They were glowing bright blue. Not reflected like animal eyes and headlights, these looked like they had their own light source. Full on, icy blue.

It didn't growl or make any sound. It didn't seem scared or aggressive. It just looked at us like it acknowledged us. And then it walked across the road and into the woods like we weren't even there. We were all frozen for a second and then just said, did you guys see that? And they both said, yeah, we left. I'm not claiming anything supernatural, but I lived in Pike County a long time. and I've never seen anything like this.

Not a bear, not a bobcat, not anything local that I could explain. And honestly, I've never heard anyone talk about bright blue eyes on anything like this. So I figured I'd ask. Has anyone else around here or anywhere else seen anything like that? Especially with those blue eyes. I'm just trying to see if this is a one-off

or if there's more to this. Hey there, friends. I hope that you enjoyed this collection of scary stories on this episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast. If the platform you're on has the option to follow podcast and you enjoyed my work, please do consider doing so. Also, leaving ratings and reviews are super important for the algorithm to support the growth of the podcast.

I'm just one guy doing this. I don't have a team. It's literally just me doing everything. So any support like that is greatly appreciated. Never expected, though. So if you go above and beyond with that, I do appreciate it. Some platforms also allow you to leave comments, and if you feel inclined to do so, please do. I would appreciate that.

I do have a Patreon in a merch store that you can also check out if you want to support a little further. The Patreon side of things get you early access to all of my content. It is formatted differently as it goes in line with what my YouTube channel is, but it is the same stories. just different collections. There is also a website astherravendreams.com where you can check out pretty much everything about me, my social media platforms, fiction stories I've written if you want to read those,

as well as submitting your own stories, which there's a big button on the front page you click to do so. And those stories basically keep the podcast alive, to be honest with you. So, yeah. All that said, friends, I do hope that I see you again here very soon. Until then, remember that you are loved. that you are valid, that you are important. You're the best you that you can be.

Don't forget it. And until next time, much love. And sleep well.