Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 169. Real Scary Stories: A Cursed Church Camp, An Eerie Ranch, and The Deep Woods (Feat. Morgan Absher)

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Your terrifying stories are back, and they did not disappoint! From deep inside the Michigan woods, to a haunted church camp, to the backroads of Argentina, and a 2am parking lot encounter. Morgan from Two Hot Takes is joining us to read through tales that range from something inhuman in the trees to a dream that may have saved someone's life, as we try to figure out what is going on with you guys!! Our Small Business Spotlight this week is Rescued to support them head to: https://www.shoprescued.com/ Mentioned Episodes: Reddit Scary Stories: Djinn, Doppelgängers, and Imaginary Friends (feat. Two Girls One Ghost) https://open.spotify.com/episode/1UhNHFDDhXrKO8TeXFzL6y https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heart-starts-pounding-horrors-hauntings-and-mysteries/id1618084297?i=1000749006441 Backwoods Horror: Creepy Encounters, Cryptids, and more // Dark Summer Series https://open.spotify.com/episode/7hvbTc9vbf7SXF2m0j8Ekh?si=NwLnd4s7QAa6Ry4zSV9qvg https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heart-starts-pounding-horrors-hauntings-and-mysteries/id1618084297?i=1000660368212 Unsolved Mysteries of The Great Lakes: Ghost Ships, Lost Crews & Ancient Curses https://open.spotify.com/episode/2jNTQQuwArYg0bSEKdo81F?si=GuB1YagiT5G4uQffgKtq0A https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heart-starts-pounding-horrors-hauntings-and-mysteries/id1618084297?i=1000718719244 Subscribe on⁠ Patreon⁠ to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society and enjoy ad-free listening, monthly bonus content, merch discounts and more. Members of our High Council on Patreon also have access to our weekly after-show, Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. You can also enjoy many of these same perks, including ad-free listening and bonus content when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on⁠ Tik Tok⁠ and⁠ Instagram⁠ for a daily dose of horror. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Welcome back to Harzies Pounding. I'm your host, Kayla Moore.

Today, I want to turn the microphone back to you guys. For listener appreciation month, I wanted to highlight some terrifying stories that you all sent to me. I'm talking about mysterious chanting coming from the backwoods in the Midwest, a church camp that had something demonic lurking in the cabins, and much more. You guys definitely did not disappoint. And speaking of listener appreciation month, I wanted to thank everyone who shared with me where they listened to our show on Instagram. I sent out a bunch of free goodies and I'm still sending out free merch to some of my favorites. So if you want to participate, you can share a photo and tag Where I Listen HSP.

And I wanted to shout out Rinn who listens while doing archival research in a very beautiful library. It's very heart-sards founding. Also, I wanted to continue to shout out our small business community. We have so many amazing hardworking community members. I am truly always amazed. And today I wanted to highlight Rescued. Rescued is a resale boutique in Silvis, Illinois, co-founded by Hartzardspounding listener, Aaron Granite.

And the really cool thing about Rescued is they are a boutique that benefits pets and needs. need. To date, they've donated over $1 million to help pets. So if you're in the Sylvice area, make sure to check them out. They also have an online merch door that I ordered a t-shirt from. You can find out more in the description. But seriously, thanks to Erin and rescued for their awesome work. And thank you to all of our amazing listeners. I am very grateful for each and every one of you. I loved doing listener appreciation month. And next month, I'm going to be back, just me with one of the strangest disappearances I've read about. It happened in Washington. You're definitely going to want to listen to that.

But for now, let's get into some of your stories with my good friend and the host of two hot takes and clues, Morgan Napier. Morgan, welcome to the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters. Oh, my gosh, that's what we're calling in here. I love that. This is the headquarters. What are your first impressions? It's incredible. Oh, thank you.

It's incredible. I'm going to take that saber-tooth, tiger skeleton thing home. I love that thing. Facebook Marketplace. I know. I love the Marketplace. Talk about buying, like, weird things on Facebook. Your lamp is beautiful. We've got Gordy back there haunting me from afar. Now, we have a lot of

stuff too from listener's small businesses now. Like this mug I got from Cocoa and Ducky, which is a listener, small business. That candle in the back, those two candles actually in the back are from Wicked Wick candle company, which also listeners. That's amazing. That's really cool. We wanted to like be very intentional about it and be like what like what businesses do the listeners have. Oh, that, I think whatever blanket you have behind. Yeah, that you have on you is also listeners. I know. It's amazing. We have a lot of good stuff in here. You put together a really pretty studio. I'm so happy with it. I'm jealous. You're like making me want to redo mine. I know. No, it was it was time for a refresh. I'm so happy that we were able to kind of upgrade some stuff.

So thank you for coming over. So today, what I wanted to do, I have a bunch of scary stories that listeners have sent in. Every couple of months, I feel like I reach out to the community and I'm like, send me your scariest stories. They never disappoint. It's all. always very bizarre stuff happening to these people. I'm a little worried for them, but I wanted to dive into. I have curated a couple for us today to get into. I'm ready. So I want to read this first one that came in from a listener. It's called the House of Rules. And it goes, Hey, Kaelin. I'm Sneha, writing to you from Kerala, India. Before anything else, I just wanted to say this. I've been binging hearts outst pounding since the beginning of 2024. And I genuinely haven't been able to stop. That's very nice. Thank you so much.

Kerala for context is India's southernmost state. As of 2025, it's one of the highest literacy rates in the country, roughly 95.3%. But literacy here has never erased belief. In fact, some of the most educated families I know are also the ones that quietly keep old rules. Don't whistle at night. Don't answer if someone calls your name after dusk. Don't sleep facing the east unless invited. Our folklore isn't loud.

It doesn't announce itself with screams or apparitions. it works through obedience, ritual, and silence. What I'm sharing below is not a commonly told Carol a ghost story. It's something that happened to my great-grandparents in 1904 during British rule when my paternal grandmother was still a toddler. It was never written down, only spoken about once every few years, usually with the instruction. Don't repeat this outside the family, but I'm choosing to post it now. This is the house that followed the rules.

I know I'm already like goosebumps all over. In 1904, my great parents lived in a region that was thick with rubber trees, narrow canals, and land that never fully dries. The British had already established administrative offices there, and Indian clerks like my great-grandfather, were expected to function in two worlds, obedient to colonial authority outside the home and bound by ritual and hierarchy inside of it. Their house was not large, but it was precise. Everything in it followed rules. The front door was only opened after sunrise. lamps were lit in pairs, never alone. Food was served facing south.

Mirrors were covered after dusk. No one asked why. These were not superstitions, just instructions, passed down with the house. And the house was old enough to expect compliance. One evening, a British officer arrived unannounced. This was unusual. Officers didn't just visit Indian homes unless there was trouble.

He came on horseback, muds splashed up to his boots, and he asked for water. When my great-grandmother brought it, he hesitated before drinking. This house, he said, does it belong to you? She answered honestly, no, we belong to it. He laughed, but he was a little uncomfortable. That night, something small changed in the house.

The oil lamp in the prayer room flickered and then went out. When it was relit, the flame leaned sideways, as if it was being pulled by breath. My great-grandmother blamed the rain. She always blamed the rain first. But then the house began correcting them. If someone sat where they shouldn't, they started feeling ill. If food was served in the wrong order, it would spoil by morning.

When my great-grandfather once slept with his head facing east, something that's strictly forbidden, he woke up unable to move his legs for hours. And then the voice appeared. It didn't speak loudly. It didn't echo. It sounded like a thought, not sound. And it only spoke in instructions. Move the lamp.

Close the door. Not that direction. My great-grandmother thought that she was losing her mind until my great-grandfather repeated the same instructions aloud one evening, finishing her sentence for her. They never spoke about it directly. In those days, you didn't discuss these kinds of things, especially not under British rule, where anything unexplained was labeled as hysteria or punished. And then my grandmother, barely two years old, began refusing to sleep.

She would sit upright staring at a wall, nodding slightly as if she was listening. When asked what she was doing, she said very calmly, the house is teaching me. One afternoon, though, my great-grandmother broke a rule that she didn't know existed. She swept the inner corridor after sunset. That night, the house made its first demand. The voice spoke clearly now, no longer instructions, but expectations. You missed a corner. The next morning, my great-grandfather was summoned by the British administrative office.

A complaint had been filed anonymously, accusing him of improper conduct. The details were intimate, specific. They were things that no one outside of the house should have known. The officer leaned forward and said, half joking, half serious, your walls are very attentive. That night, the house no longer whispered. It was like it was speaking. Doors were opening and closing on their own. Footsteps moved through the rooms without bodies. My great-grandmother saw reflections where no one stood, not faces, but just postures, as though something was practicing how to be human. Finally, the house issued a final instruction.

Leave the child. They fled at dawn. They took nothing but their clothes at my grandmother, who screamed the entire journey, not in fear, but in rage. She kept repeating the same sentence. I didn't finish learning. The house was abandoned soon after. The British officer who had visited died mysteriously within a year.

The land was never sold. Even today, locals say the structure is intact, clean, orderly, like it's waiting. Because some houses don't haunt you. They train you. Thank you for reading this, Kaelin. Writing this felt like breaking a long held silence, and Heart Starts Pounding felt like the only place it belonged. I loved that story when I first read it.

I love it because it feels like family folklore, but also the idea of a house having rules, I think is something that a lot of cultures practice, like there's specific rituals that you have to follow or else you're kind of breaking the order of things. I loved it. I'm blown away. I find it so interesting too that, you know,

you have this story coming from India and the don't whistle back or whatever the whistle is. That whistling also pops up Appalachia. Like, yeah, yeah. There's so much where it's like if you hear a whistle or you hear a name called. And so it's like, yeah, these stories kind of transcend cultures and geography. It's going so many different ways. And I always feel like if something shows up, there's like sleep paralysis demons that show up in every culture all over the world and they always have the same symptoms, the same type of entity that comes into the room. The same look. The same look. Multiple people

describe the same exact figure. There is a reason for it then. Like, I keep showing up places, I just think that there's something to it. So yeah, they're like, don't whistling was really interesting. But then, yeah, there's like little ones that are also kind of freaky. I know. Well, and it's like, the first thought that popped into my head was like, this is like the opposite of the Enkonto house. Have you seen Enkonto? I have not. Oh my gosh. Was he Encanto house? It's like, just this house that has magical rooms and everyone gets their gift and the house then starts freaking out, but the house protects everyone. And the, the house kind of takes care of the family and their powers. And it was like the opposite where this house is almost just not feeling as friendly and nice. Yeah, you don't want to mess with this one. This one's not giving you presents. No. And the fact that it still sits empty. And I think land has a lot of power, especially when tragic things have happened on that land. Yeah, definitely. I think that energy just sticks. And it's interesting that no matter what is there, what structure,

that energy can kind of transform. Has anything else happened in your house? Any other ghosty sightings? You know, not recently. Which is weird because you're renovating and that's always the time where stuff pops up. I know. We found out because we purchased this other house and shortly like after like three days after we closed, the old owner died and the wife was still present. Wow. And so they had boards where they marked their children's height. And, And I wanted to gift them that once we started demo and I could get it out of the wall. That is so, that's so thoughtful. So we started demoing. I got my contractor to cut the boards out.

I reached out to their realtor to be like, hey, can we make sure she gets this? And she responded back. She passed away within a year. And she was 20 years, some odd years younger than him. And I'm just like, what? That's so sad. And so, I don't know. It's just like.

Can you reach out to the children? And so we got it to the kids. Oh, that's great. Yeah. We got it to the kids now. But I'm just like, I took it to the studs because there was a lot of mold. And I definitely think the house has a new vibe. But I still, like, I want to bring in someone who can kind of walk through and like, I don't know, like cleanse the house in an appropriate way. That's like. Get a read on it. Yeah. And just like make sure that everything's settled. Because I'm, as you know, I'm a. believer. So. Yeah. And you don't want to mess with something. No. You don't know what it is. If I had to cover my mirrors after after dark. Yeah. Yeah. Just to not see them in it. Like that would, I would have to move. Oh yeah. I would have to move. Oh, we just did a story too on another episode that we did last month about this girl who there was a gin in her mirror that fell in love with her. And that's a thing in, I guess, like, in cultures where there's gins is like, gin entities can live in your mirrors. And if you, like, look at yourself too long in the mirror and you're, or if, like, you're too vain or if you undress in front of a mirror,

the gin can fall in love with you and become obsessed with you and try to, like, pull you you into the mirror realm. Oh. Which, did you ever do Bloody Mary as a kid? You definitely did. Yeah, I definitely did. Yeah. I definitely did. Yeah. I was always the one at the sleepover, like, hey, guys, wouldn't it be crazy if we, like, all did Bloody Mary? But, like, did you ever see anything in the mirror? Um, no, I don't think so. It was one of those things where we, we'd have sleepovers and, like, one of my friends would always be like, I saw her. And like, you have no idea if she actually did. I, oh, I'm so excited for your little one to be three and start to hear all the stories. I know. He's already, I always, like, I already feel like he's

interacting with some shadow realm, because he's always just, like, looking at something I can't see. So I'm just so curious what it's going to be like when he gets a little older. I know. Truly, already giving old soul. I know. Like very aware. Yes. Like, and did you see there was a trend for a while where people were posting their babies and like basically being like my baby was born, like aware? No. We're going to have to get you on that. I, yeah, I feel like I could do that trend too because he already is just so awake and like he only has like he's starting to smile a little bit, which is nice, but he has one facial expression. It's like furrowed brow. Like, what are you doing? Like, that's his only facial expression. He's so cute.

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All right, do you want to read what I have for you next? Yes, I'm going in blind. I'm so excited to see. Okay, so this one you have labeled predictive dreams. Anna wrote in, Hi, Kaelin, I'm a longtime listener and fan. What is your take on dreams that predict the future? This happened to me in 2021 while I was working at a chain restaurant that rhymes with Kerger Bing.

I think I can guess what that one was. I worked nights at the time and would usually get off at around 1 to 2 a.m. One night, I had a dream that I was closing up at work. like usual, when on the surveillance camera monitor, I saw a hooded figure that was trying to break into my co-worker's car. I alerted my co-worker, who immediately went outside to confront this hooded figure, and the hooded figure ended up pulling out a gun and shooting my coworker, thus killing him. This dream seemed so real to me. I still remember waking up, shaking from the nightmare, and the big sigh of relief when I realized that it was just a dream. I don't normally have super

realistic dreams like that. I mentioned my dream to my co-worker the very next day and told him about my dream and how he died. I still remember after I told him about my dream. He told me that if someone was trying to break into his car, that is exactly what he would do. He would just go out and confront them. My coworker was a hot head who worked out religiously and was not afraid of confrontation. He was a strong guy. At the time, we brushed it off as a weird dream. Three days after I had my dream, The exact scenario played out in real life. We were closing up and on the surveillance camera monitor, my manager mentioned to us that there was a hooded figure next to my co-worker's car,

and it looked like he was trying to break into it. Instead of rushing out to confront the man, like he did in my dream, my coworker set off the alarm of his car to scare the guy off. It worked, and the guy hid behind some of the bushes at the edge of our parking lot. We could see on the camera exactly, where he was at. We figured that eventually he would leave the area, and since no crime was technically committed, none of us felt the need to call the police. Cut to 30 to 45 minutes later, and we were done with closing the store, and the guy was still behind the bushes. We all walked

out as a group, and we could see that the man was still hiding behind the bushes, and he was looking at us. Normally, after we were done with our shifts, we like to hang out around the parking lot outside and chat for a bit before we all went our separate ways. We still planned on doing that this night, even though there was a stranger watching us from the bushes. We figured that we had enough strength in numbers and that the guy was harmless because he hadn't really done anything dangerous at the time. My manager, on the other hand, did not like the vibes this guy was giving off. She decided to drive by him to see what he was doing and to get a closer look at him. Right after she slowly drove by the guy, she immediately sped up and drove,

back to us going in a circle. She told us that we all had to leave immediately because she saw that the guy had a gun. He was holding it in his hand when she passed by. After we heard that, we all immediately ran to our cars like chickens with their heads cut off, and when the man saw this, he started to slowly walk towards us.

I swear, we all left skid marks in the parking lot, trying to leave so fast. I could see the man walking towards my car in my rearview mirror when I was pulling out. The next day, my coworker confessed to me that when he saw the man messing with his car trying to break in, his first instinct was to confront the guy,

but he remembered the dream that I had told him and he stopped himself. He told me that that was the only reason he did not confront the man was because of my dream. Even though he had brushed it off as a weird dream, something in his gut told him to take it seriously. I haven't had any other,

dreams like that since then, it still gives me the chills to think about how I had a dream that almost came true three days later. But because I told my coworker about my dream, I possibly saved his life. Wow. I believe in predictive dreams, definitely. 100%. 100%. I have had a listener reach out and I think it was on my dad's show when we did like a spooky episode and she predicts family members deaths. She's very tied in and her great grandma was tied into the psychic realm and like family history of it. And she can predict people's deaths. And she gets like a glimmer but isn't quite sure who it is.

She just gets like feelings through her dreams or something like that. And so then it's kind of like, well, God, who's it going to be? And so it's really, really tough for her. That's so scary. Does she like reach out to the people and tell them, hey, I had this dream about you? No, because I don't think she gets enough, but she knows it's coming. And she can get like kind of a vibe. Like it's a feminine energy on my husband's side.

Oh, okay. But she doesn't know who. So she just starts getting the feeling. Yeah. Okay. Wow. I mean, it's really dark to think about, but I don't think I would want someone to tell me. I don't know.

If it was something like this, it's preventable. Yeah. Like, hey, it was kind of wild, but I had this dream that someone outside of our fast food job like shot you. I would want them to tell me, I think. I think so. I think if it's something that you can. potentially change your fate. But then some people believe that like, no, your fate is set. Doesn't matter what knowledge you have, it's not going to help. But it helped here.

It did help here. This was remarkable. Unless it becomes like a final destination kind of thing where you cheated death and then now it's just going to come collect at some point. Which also kind of freaks me out. But that's, have you ever had a predictive dream? No, I've had a lot of visitation dreams from like loved ones after they've passed. But yeah. Not any predictive dreams that are standing out. I had both at the same time. Did I tell you about this? No.

So I had a predictive dream from someone who passed away who came to me in a dream. I just got the chills. A family member who passed away that told me I was going to have a boy. And it was exactly a year before I did the gender, before I got the envelope and read what the gender was. It was like a year to the day, which is really, freaky. I remember us talking about this because I remember you saying, I've had a dream from someone and they told me what, you know, gender my baby will be. Yeah. And you weren't even pregnant yet. You

weren't like, yes. It was so early on. And you're like, I guess I'll see if it's true once it happens. And here you are now having what they said. Oh boy. Yeah, exactly. And then the night before, so I, because I left the envelope in the car and I had the dream a year before. And then we were going to just do a little gender reveal in our apartment. And the night before we did that, I had a dream that Matt couldn't wait. So he broke into my car to get the envelope out and opened it. Oh my gosh. Confirmed that it was a boy. That is absolutely, that's a remarkable dream to have. I know. It was really cool. And yeah, for it to be, yeah, a visitation dream and a predictive future dream. That's incredible. It was really interesting. Insane. Wow. Wow. Yeah, I think people are just tapped into stuff. And I think when you dream,

you just can kind of plug into something that we don't have access to when we're awake. I feel like we're more accessible for spirits as well. Yeah. There's something about dreaming. We're not awake. We're not dead. Like it feels like such a limbo state to me. Yeah.

Where it feels like we're easier to reach. Yes. And that's why I think sleep paralysis, I don't, I think it is like something. I think it's a demon. We talk about sleep paralysis so much. I think I just like talking about it. Have you, do have it?

Yeah, I do. I've had it since college and like absolutely. I've, I remember. I had this one really scary episode of sleep paralysis where I always got like a really bad vibe from like one of the crawl spaces in our house in Austin when we live there. Oh, wow. And one night Matt had a cold. So I went and I slept up in the guest bed.

And I had the most, truly most harrowing sleep paralysis that I've ever had where I woke up. Actually, I woke up and Gordy was in my arms, which he wasn't. Like, Gordy's in the other room. But I wake up and like Gordy, my stuffed haunted monkey doll is in my arms just and his head slowly turns to me. And then his eyes just melt off of his face. And you still kept him. And I kept him because I don't think, I don't think that was really Gordy in my heart. I'm like, like, yes, we've had so much ghosty activity with Gordy, but in my heart, I believe he's good. Like, look at him. When you actually woke up, woke up, was he in your arms? No, he was still in the other room.

Okay. But this is the same house where you thought your dog got out of the crate. Yes. And you heard stuff running around upstairs. but nothing was up there except Gordy, right? After I got Gordy, I put him in the studio, and we also got the puppy at the same time. We got young Fitzgerald at the same time, and Fitzgerald is and was a menace. And so we would hear, like, galloping upstairs, and Matt would be like, where's the dog?

And so I'd run upstairs to be like, oh, the dog got upstairs. He wasn't supposed to be up there on his own. He was just a puppy. He peed everywhere. So I would, like, run to go get him, and I get up to the studio. Fitzgerald's not there, but Gordy is just looking right at me.

So I don't know what isn't Gordy. Has you been tame at your new spot? So tame. So maybe it was the house possessing Gordy. I think it was something about the upstairs of that house. The upstairs was also an addition. It was built like 40 years after the house was built. So there was just something about the upstairs that was off.

I know. Gosh. If only walls could speak. I know. But sometimes you can get a person who can come in and kind of like get a sense of the area and tell you what it's trying to say. That's what I need. So if anyone out there has the ability to tune in, please come walk through my new house with me

and help me figure out how to bless it. I haven't even really asked that of the community. Like I know we have people in the community that are really tapped into stuff and I've had community members. Like I posted it. So see that doll back there? So I'll put up a picture of it.

But my grandma, one year for Christmas, she like sent me that doll. She's like, I found this in my basement. Oh my gosh. So she sent it to me. And I posted a picture of it. And one listener was like, dude, I'm getting really.

really, really, really horrible. Like, I'm really plugged into this stuff. Like, I'm getting a really bad read from that doll. And I was like, oh. Yeah. So I kind of keep her over there. We have not in your house anymore. But I'm, I'm so curious. I know not in my house. In the studio is fine. As long as she doesn't, like, unplug the equipment and stuff. But yeah, listeners that are plugged into that stuff, hit me up. Let me know. We can face time. I'll show you, like, certain areas of my house. You can tell me if it's haunted. Yeah, I would, I would also sign me up. Maybe we, you know, two birds, one stone. But I think dolls are something that are really, they seem easy to haunt. I mean, obviously we have Annabelle from the Conjuring where that's based on a real story. But I saw a video

lately of a woman who like got these dolls from a garage sale and like felt that they were haunted. And so she was getting them back to the right culture so the culture could yeah, take care of the dolls in the way that they want. But it's just, I think dolls are one of those things that are so, if a spirit gets into it, it just feels so powerful. Yeah, I think Gordy's culture is like, well, hers for sure is like ill Victorian children. So I don't know how I would return her, but Gordy is just, I don't know, Texas, little kids in Texas. Yeah. Yeah.

He came from. All right. I want to read you this next one that I found from a listener. I'm ready. It also made me stop in my tracks and kind of led me down a rabbit hole that I want to tell you about. Oh gosh. And I hope, I'm curious if I teach this listener or anything from like what I learned. And just a heads up, this one has a little bit of.

animal abuse like animal gore. So this story is titled, Hide and Seek. And it comes from Valentina. And it goes, hi, I'm Valentina. This story comes all the way from Argentina. So I apologize in advance for any typos. English is not my first language. I've always lived in the city. I was born and raised here, but part of my extended family lives deep in the countryside. There are no forests or mountains there, just flat plains with some low hills and endless grass. When I was eight years old, I traveled there for a week during midsummer with my grandparents. and other relatives. Their land was divided into three distinct areas, a creek that ran through the property, my family's house, which was surrounded by animal pens, and had a massive seven-meter

high shed for machinery attached to it. And finally, just a few meters from the main entrance, the original owner's house. It was a four-bedroom house with high ceilings, beautifully enclosed by hundreds of tall pine trees. It was very secluded, but not too far from my family's home. On the second to last day of our stay, my family and I went to the creek to cool off because the heat was unbearable. We walked several meters along the bank until we stopped dead in our tracks. A foul, horrific stench filled the air. There, under a tree by the water's edge, lay a cow. It was mutilated from its legs up to its back with deep gashes as if it had been hunted by something. The adults claimed that another animal had caused its death, but they didn't sound convinced.

I suspected they only said it to us children so that we wouldn't be scared. There were no predators in that area capable of inflicting such large, deep wounds. When night fell, we children decided to play head and seek in the pitch black darkness of the fields, trying to act brave. The rules were simple. One person counted and the others hid. We weren't allowed to go past the fences surrounding the house and we strictly could not go near the big pine trees of the big house, as it was too easy to get lost or hurt among the trees in the dark. I had the misfortune of losing around, so I had to count to 100. I didn't realize how dark it was until I finished counting and had to start searching. Moving away from the only porch light was easy at first, but after 15 minutes, I was still missing

two people. My cousin, who had already been found, started helping me because I was the youngest and I was struggling. We searched for over a half hour. Eventually, we started shouting that we were bored and if they didn't come out, we would just leave them out there alone. Right then, a loud, heavy thud came from the trees of the big house. We yelled again, reminding them that hiding there was against the rules, but there was no answer. Only another thud, just as loud as the first. We slowly approached, terrified,

as the moonlight only allowed us to see the dark silhouettes of the pines. Suddenly, from behind us, the two missing kids shouted, we won, you didn't find us. My oldest cousin asked, where were you? And they started laughing, replying, we were under the truck the whole time. everyone turned around and ran back to the house for dinner, but before following them,

I couldn't help but glance at the trees one last time. In the shadows, I vaguely made out a strange figure moving quickly toward the back of the grove. I ran inside and tried to explain what I had seen, but nobody believed me. They told me I was just imagining things because I was scared,

and they insisted I eat before my food got cold. I didn't bring it up again. After midnight, we all went to bed. I slept in my cousin's room with the other small children. The window faced the wooded, area of the big house, about the distance of five parked trucks away. I fell asleep quickly from exhaustion, but we were soon jolted awake by the youngest child's frantic crying. He was calling for his mother in desperation, staring fixedly at the window. I sat up terrified and looked in the

same direction. There, at the top of one of the trees, sat someone. It looked like a woman, but her body was distorted, too small for the size of her head, with incredibly long white hair. She was just sitting there, staring in our direction. The only thing moving was her hair in the wind. Her face was unreadable from that distance, but she did not look happy. Less than five seconds later, my aunts and grandparents burst into the room, alerted by the screaming. They found half of us paralyzed with fear and the other half grumpy from being woken up. I didn't know how to explain what I saw to them, so they would believe me. I just started crying and I begged my grandparents to let me sleep with them. Spent the rest of the night squeersed.

We squeezed between them unable to close my eyes, consumed by terror. The next morning, no one asked any questions. To the adults, it was just kids being afraid of the dark. We packed our bags and left for home. I haven't returned to that field since. I was eight then, and I'm 21 now. I can still recall the sensation of knowing that woman was there, even when I couldn't see her. I knew that she was waiting for someone to look at her again.

Oh my gosh. Ooh. At first I'm like, okay, animals like a big cat. could have pulled like a smaller animal, not a cow, but like a smaller animal into a tree and it fell for the thud. But the minute I hear woman, gray hair blowing in the wind, no. No, no, no. So I looked it up because I had heard about, I just wanted to look up like cow mutilation, Argentina, just kind of like figure out what's going on. What's the lore? And what I found was that Argentina has had an issue with very strange, unexplainable cow mutilations for a very

long time. So this was an article that I found. This one is from June 4th of 2025, but it reads, Oh, so recent. An Argentine rancher was left scratching his head after one of his cows was mysteriously slain in a manner that bore the hallmarks of the infamous cattle mutilation phenomenon. According to a local media report, the downed animal was found on Monday morning in the community of Centalon. Nelson Biordo recalled how he was alerted to the strange situation by a farmhand who stumbled upon the dead cow and marveled to him that it appeared as if something had tried to, quote, rip its face off. When the rancher went out to investigate, he was shaken and mystified by what he saw. And there was a picture included that I saw. I'm not going to show it to people because it's pretty

intense. But it doesn't look like anything an animal would do. Okay. But it's like as if someone took the skin all off here. So you can see the teeth. It's like something ripped off, but it's really clean and like surgically precise almost as if someone just ripped off the skin from the face. Now, a predator wouldn't necessarily do that. It doesn't, it doesn't look like something was trying to eat the cow. That's the thing. I'm not an animal expert by any means, but like you watch things like planet Earth, little David Attenborough, you know? And it's, if an animal is going to take down a cow, like you think most of it then would be eaten. Yes. And there's other animals like sometimes cows will, you know, fend or like a donkey or a llama are really like protectors of a herd. That's why they'll often have

them mixed in. They're guardian animals. Yeah. But if it's gone, you know, a donkey's going to then stick with the rest of the herd and it's, it's so interesting. Oh yeah, that is interesting. I don't know. I need animal experts to chime in. I know. I found another article two from 2002 where there were 200 cattle, one horse and a handful of sheep, slain with surgical accuracy. That comes from this article. Was it at the same farm? It was not.

This one was in La Pampa and also Buenos Aires. But according to witnesses, mostly local farmers, the mutilated cattle were found lying dead in pastures with only some parts missing. Some witnesses maintained that the animals were found without a trace of blood around them. authorities investigating the incidents say however they did find some blood near the scene of the slangs and so the what's going to take down a whole cow but yet not really leave any evidence of it people immediately so this is funny part the article goes on to say some argentines believe that the animals were slaughtered by extraterrestrials or those entranced by a passing UFO others say

that the slings were the handiwork of chupacabras a mythical beast that is half bat and half kangaroo with razor-like claws capable of dissecting the cows with pinpoint precision. Very, very, like tons of chupacabro lore in that part of the world, too. And then others think the whole bovine mystery is an attempt by the government to distract Argentines from the country's ongoing economic collapse. You know, conspiracy theories sometimes... Sometimes there's a threat of truth in there. That is fascinating.

Yeah, so I just thought that was interesting that she also, like, who is? Who even knows if that's related to this other thing that she saw in the tree because that's really scary? But the fact that she also stumbled upon one of these very mysteriously butchered cows. Within such a close time span. Yeah. It feels like it would then be connected. I'm so curious about the cow mutilations. Because I know there was also an issue in Wyoming.

Maybe, I don't know, if we have any experts in this in the audience. Like parts of America, too, have had these like really mysterious cow mutilation cases where people are like, is it UFOs? Is it aliens? What are they doing? Are they taking samples? The only thing that's like kind of pinging for me is marine biologists were discovering sharks, that the sharks were missing like an organ and it was taken out with such precise, surgical like technique almost. And they started to put it together that it was actually dolphins doing it. Dolphins are organ harvesting sharks? Is there like a black market in the ocean? We should probably Google this. We should, we should Google this before I lead people astray. But I'm pretty

sure. Dolphins are low-key evil, though. I didn't realize dolphins and like orcas, like, killer whales. They will like mess with little penguins just for sport. I have a hard time watching killer whale videos. I've just seen a lot of planet Earth lately. Okay, I see. What happened? Question mark. Scientists solved mystery of 15-foot white shark missing its liver. Was it the dolphin? And let's see. DNA evidence has confirmed that kill Whales in Australia hunted a white shark for its liver, marking the first recorded case in the region. The carcass discovered in Victoria showed telltale bite wounds with genetic analysis linking the attack to killer whales. There's something else that I've seen where it's like dolphins are

being a little, a little crazy, but killer whales, I'm telling you, man. Killer whales just taking the liver. Just the liver. And there's something, there was something about it. So I'm like, that's where I'm like, okay, maybe if there's like one common thing, in this cow necropsy where I'm like, we can kind of like see like, oh, it's just the cow's liver or it's just a kidney. I'm like, maybe there's an animal out there that just has a taste for that delicacy. It does kind of look like it. Like, so the quote, these findings provide compelling evidence of killer whale predation on white sharks in Australian waters with a strong indication of selective liver consumption. Like it might just be a pallet thing for them. But they were so confused.

They're like, why wouldn't the whole shark be gone? It's just the liver. that is blowing my mind. This is a rabbit hole I'm going to dive into later. Just wait till you learn that killer whales are teaching other killer whales to attack boats. Yeah, I was whale culture. Like whale culture is a thing where like how humans have culture. Whales are like the only other species that have culture. So every few years the headline pops up that about the salmon hats like killer whales wearing salmon hats and like scientists can't figure out why. But it was like a thing they also did in the 80s. and then they started doing it again recently.

And it's because killer whales, again, I'm going to have to fact-track all of this, but from what I saw, killer whales, it's mostly the grandmas that teach young kids things. But these whales are so smart that they remember things. So they'll learn how to kill a stingray by flipping it upside down. And then they'll teach the young whales that, but it's only that pot of whales that does it. And that's not similar of any other species on the earth, except for here. humans. They're just so smart. That's amazing. So smart and like kind of evil, apparently. I know. Oh my gosh. Maybe a bad combo. No, I'm fascinated by this cow lore now, though. I'm like,

this is wild. Cow lore and killer whale lore, adding it to the episode list. Because like, oh my gosh. But yeah, that one freaked me out. The stuff, I don't know. Like the woman sitting in the tree. I don't know. What was it? Sound off in the comments. It's something. It's definitely something. Where is Daredevil? Am I here? Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again. So what's next? We're gonna take this city back.

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Hey, Kaelin, happy new year, and congratulations on the new baby. Oh, thank you. I also have an early January birthday. Okay, Capricorn. As a fellow fan of cryptids, ghost stories, and how history can haunt the present, I've enjoyed your podcast for a while and finally decided to pass along an experience that happened to me, several years ago. Perhaps it can be included in a future episode of spooky slash unknown encounters from the woods. My mother was born and raised in Michigan, so I've gone there to visit family and friends

ever since I was little. In July 2017, my mom took my two younger sisters and I to visit family friends in a new home. They had moved further north in Michigan. Their new house was isolated. No neighbors nearby, unreliable Wi-Fi, and woods stretching as far as you could see. The first of the The surroundings were beautiful, but we were truly in the middle of nowhere. For reference, I grew up in and currently live in the heart of a decent-sized city. While I love the woods, I don't like being in them once it gets dark. The people we were visiting, a husband and wife who were good friends with my mom, lived in the main house. Also on the property was a smaller building that they had renovated into a guest house.

My family and I were the first ones to stay there. It was connected to the main house via a path through the woods, but the trees were so thick that you couldn't see one from the other, even at night when the lights were on. My mom and I were staying in one room. My sisters would share another just down the hall. The guest house had large windows around most of the building. None of the windows had curtains.

This made all four of us a bit uneasy. In the city, everyone knows to close your curtains before it gets dark. Here, once the lights were on at night, it felt like we were on full display to whatever or whoever might be out in the woods. There weren't any locks on the doors, beyond a tiny pinlock, which of course wouldn't do much. For someone who grew up being taught the importance of locking your doors, this made me even more uneasy.

That first night, long after we had all gone to bed, I woke up to a strange sound. I'm a light sleeper, but it took several moments for me to realize that, I wasn't dreaming. What I heard is hard to describe, a terrible, loud cry, half bellow and half chant that didn't sound like a true language. I remember laying there, frozen in fearful confusion, and trying to shake off the haze of sleep, listening to something absolutely foreign and utterly inhuman that seemed to be getting louder and nearer every moment. Without warning, beneath the sheets, I felt my mom's hand wrap around mine. She didn't move and neither did I, but through the darkness she spoke four brief words.

I hear it too. Together we laid there. I remember daring only to move my eyes, convinced that I'd soon see something enormous and feral on the other side of those huge, curtainless windows. What I expected to see, I had no idea, but something was certainly out there. The closest comparison for the sound I can think of is heavy metal metal. music. The gutteral harsh vocals, which to the untrained ear, often seem like they aren't actually using a real language. In all honesty, though, I'm a huge fan of metal and rock, so I'm no stranger to the crazy inhuman sounds. What I heard that July night was unlike any band I'd ever played,

and it was so loud. Time didn't seem to exist as we listened and waited. Eventually, the terrible sound started to fade as if it was moving away. In a burst of bravery, I hopped out of bed and hurried to the front door to make sure the little pin lock was secured. Even then, I knew it was such a silly thing to do if some sort of Bigfoot or other creature was out there, that pinlock wouldn't have done much. The city girl and me was so accustomed to always locking your doors and locking your car that it felt instinctive, like I had a veneer of protection. After scurring back to bed, I realized my two sisters were still sleeping just a few yards away in another room. Had they heard, whatever my mom and I did, they would have come tearing down the hall into our room.

The fact that neither had awoken was unsettling, to say the least. I have no idea what time of night it was. As I was just drifting back to sleep, I heard the guttural cries again, much fainter and further away. Thankfully, after that brief reoccurrence, I slept until morning. I remember being so relieved to see daylight. the woods feel much less intimidating when the sun is out and the sky is blue. My sisters made no mention of hearing anything sinister during the night. My mom and I made a tacit agreement to not bring it up and frighten them.

After all, we were staying there a few more nights. Later, we went to the main house for breakfast. I remember discreetly asking the couple who lived there if they had heard anything at all. Neither had. That sound never reappeared during the rest of our visit, but I have never forgotten it, nor will I ever forget how frightened I was at the sheer magnitude of unfamiliarity of such a roar.

I still remember my mom's hand finding mine under the covers that night and how her voice sounded when she said she could hear it too. For some reason, only she and I were able to hear whatever was out there that night, even though there were four other people nearby who should have been able to. Several years have passed since then.

I've shared that experience with a handful of people, all of whom have been equal parts frightened and puzzled about the sound's source. Back home in the city, I've tried to rationalize what I heard. Still out there in the depths of Michigan's woods, I truly wonder if it could have been a big foot or some similar creature. I've been fascinated by cryptids since I was a child. It's one thing to be thrilled and intrigued by such tales from the safety and familiarity of home. It's quite another to be faced with the possibility of something unknown

and ominous right outside your door. What do you think it could have been? Has anyone else ever experienced something similar in the wilderness of Michigan? Whoa. I mean, you're from the Midwest. What's out there? Minnesota, man, we're basically neighbors.

There's a lot of legends. I had a friend's cabin I went to one night. And he was like, if you ever hear drums outside, make sure you get back. Like, I think drums was a common thing in northern Minnesota. Interesting. Kind of reminds me of the night marchers in Hawaii. Oh. Yeah, the night marchers in Hawaii are, we talk about them in an episode. I'll link it in the

description. But they're the spirits of old soldiers of the Hawaiian tribes when it was tribal soldiers. And so at night, if you're camping near the beach or just out in the, near the woods, whatever, you'll see kind of a line of lights and it's their torches. And you'll start hearing the drums and then it's like a line of ghost soldiers that will walk past you and you cannot well what are the rules you like can't look at them and you can't look I know so you have to like close your eyes and look at the ground which is so scary to me yeah but it's so out of control where you're just like okay let me stand here and not make a sound and look down and close my eyes it's just yeah you're like at whatever it is is mercy yes yeah oh I hated so much but we when I was talking about the great lakes

for an episode. I was reading about how old the tribes were that lived in the area, like thousands of years old. I mean, there's so many different tribes all across, I mean, the United States, but especially, I feel like the Midwest. Like, there were so many different tribes along the lakes and northern Minnesota and northern Michigan, the UP. Used to not be lakes, right? They were planes. Yeah. That's why there's like all these kind of like cities underneath the Great Lakes from those communities.

They're now finding, like, the Stonehenge underwater. Like, I think it was, was it Lake Michigan? It was somewhere up there. I believe it was Lake Michigan. It's one of the Great Lakes. I mean, they're finding canoes that are 10,000 years old, that they're now getting out. And, I mean, there's some amazing indigenous folklore and stories that maybe would explain this sound. The chanting.

The chanting. I'm so curious about because it sounds like metal music. I know. that was an interesting detail. And why can only they, mom and our writer, hear it versus the other people? Well, that's the thing with the night marchers too. I think it's like family lore and sometimes it's like your ancestors too so only specific people can see them. Wow. So maybe it was something tied to that, but that's really scary too that the mom saw. I know. Can you imagine just being there? And like I think all of us can feel that like heart racing stomach just falls out from underneath you when you're like scared. And all of a sudden you're just trying not to move, try not to breathe too loudly. And a hand reaches for you. Like, I hear it too. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, you know your mom's next to you, but still to just like have that just, that physical touch just kind of be like, oh my God. Have you gotten out in the woods much?

No. Out there in Minnesota? Minnesota, spent much time like camping or anything. You know, I used to. When I was growing up, we'd go like portage, like where you'd bring all your supplies in a canoe and go stay on an island. And my brother goes up to the boundary waters every year whenever they can get like, it's like a lottery to go get a pass to go. through. Yeah. I didn't realize how intense it is to be able to do it. So he'll go up there with a group of friends and they, you know, sometimes we'll take gummies even. I'm like, that is very brave.

But I haven't, I haven't gone up there a lot. I'm genuinely, I'm scared of the dark. Like I really, you know, even walking across my property at night, there's not a lot of light. It's pitch black. And so I tend to avoid experiences like that. Yeah, the property where you had your wedding. I know. I can't even imagine at night. Like there's so much, I would just picture someone in the trees watching me. You do. And it's just, I think the unknown of like this story too with like the windows and like the minute you have lights on and it's dark outside, like you know you're in like a box that's lit up where anyone can see you. And I think a lot of times in the woods in the dark at night, there's a lot of things that can see you and you would never know they're there. I know. I would think about that. That was like growing up, we had a room that. was all windows and then woods. And the Connecticut woods are really scary. Yep, nope. No, thank you. There's a lot of spooky stuff going on in Connecticut. But I always just felt

like a fish in a barrel. Like, oh, they can see me, but I can't see them because all the lights are on in here and they're just out there staring at me because I'm a nine-year-old girl. They're just like waiting to come. I always, always, always had that fear. Yeah. And just like, I believe in Bigfoot. So I'm like, I don't know, maybe it was Bigfoot blasting some sort of sound to the other Bigfoot. I don't. I really, I don't mess with it. You know what I read the other day that I was really surprised about? So Bigfoot is mostly associated with like the Pacific Northwest.

But guess what state has the number two most Bigfoot sightings? I was shocked when I learned this. Tennessee. Florida. Oh, the Everglades. The Everglades. Yep. There's a lot.

The Everglades, man. Something's going on down there. I could see Louisiana also being one that just like really would ping for like, I mean, it's such a spooky paranormal state. There's so much slorms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. I'm prepping an Everglades episode right now. Actually, that's going to come out in a few weeks. And the thing I've learned about the Everglades is one, don't go there ever, like under any circumstance. Because you're just going to see something you don't want to see because of how many bodies get dumped there. It is the, and I'm saying this because I trust my audience. but like it is literally the perfect place to dump a body. Alligators.

Alligators. The heat, the elements, yeah. Humidity. The second a body goes into the Everglades, it's gone. There's like really no hope that you'll ever find it. Wow. It was a total fluke if they find people that have been dumped there. And but it's so sad because people in the area know that too.

So like they take advantage of it. But really scary. Wow. Everglades stuff. Wow, wow. Really freaks me out. Okay. I have one more for you.

Okay. This one, the title is Church Camp, curse. So of course, I had to throw it in here. This comes from Sarah. And it reads, when I was in high school, I was a youth leader at my church where my dad was the youth pastor, and we would have spring and fall retreat for the confirmation students. Oh, I'm having flashbacks. As a Catholic, I'm having flashbacks. One spring retreat, I decided to go up early with my dad and set up because my best friend at the time, Janine, was one of the weekend leaders, and I thought it would be fun to go up early with her. While we get there, and the small girl,

of teenagers and myself all get assigned to preparing the cabins for the arrival of the confirmation students. Janine and I decided to get preparing our cabin over with so we could put our bags down. We walked up to our cabin door and it was locked. That was weird because we were told by one of the center managers that they'd unlocked all the doors of each cabin before we got there. The others got into their cabins all right while ours was the only one that was locked. Now the way that these cabins were set up, there were two sides. Both sides are the exact same. Five to six bunk beds, a communal-style bathroom and a balcony sleeping level for one to two chaperones. Both sides have doors to enter from, so there wasn't any walking through the adults area. So remembering that there was another

door, I decided to go around, let myself in through that door, go up to the balcony, and then back down to the other side to let Janine in. I first yelled to Janine that the door on the second side was unlocked, but I felt like I was in a bubble. I realized after the fact now, it was weird that Janine couldn't hear me yelling or that I couldn't hear anything around me. Granted, I tend to be soft-spoken, but this felt weird. I didn't think much of it. I just decided to go through the cabin and open the door where she was waiting. But when I opened the door with a playful, boo, Janine was nowhere to be found. I lugged in our bags that still sat by the door, knowing that she was about to try and scare me, like she always did. A few seconds later, I heard slow footsteps on the

stairs on the other side, and Janine emerged with a serious annoyed look on her face. As she came down the steps, she asked, why didn't you let me in? I asked her what she meant, and she told me that she tried opening the door again, and it led up, but I kept holding it shut and didn't say anything, nor did I let her open the door, which is why she went through the other side. I immediately felt chills. I told her I had barely gotten to this side until about 15 to 30 seconds before she came through the other side. And when I opened the door, she was the one who wasn't there. She said she was pulling, but someone else was definitely on the other side, the door closed. I told her to stop trying to scare me, and we both did not relent,

chalking it up to the other one taking a joke too far. So we set up the cabin with name tags and such, and then we went up over to the second side to do the same. While setting up, now within each other's sights, we heard the door on the first side open and then shut with a massive slam. Janine and I looked at each other with wide eyes as we heard footsteps on the cement floor, then footsteps on the wood stairs leading up to the balcony, each step sounding with a creek. We watched the balcony where someone would have appeared by this point, but there was nothing. Janine yelled, hello, and I felt my heart start pounding as no one answered. We quickly finished the last of our tasks before racing out of the cabin. We checked the other door and it was slightly open. We look

inside, no one. Our other friends came out of some of their cabins so we knew that it wasn't them. Janine and I tried to shake it off and continue doing our other tasks to prepare for the arrival of the confirmation students. That night, we took the students to the cabins and assigned them to each. Everyone got ready for bed and then chose their beds. Janine and I chose the bunk closest to the door and across from the balcony. Janine asked me to take the top bunk and, after a bit of protest, I agreed despite eating the top bunk due to my fear of heights. We turned the lights off and everyone settled in and fell asleep. I fell asleep no problem.

But then at 3 a.m. on the dot, I woke up in a cold sweat, fear paralyzing every bone in my body. At this time in my life, I was never usually one to wake up multiple times in the night, and typically I slept very deeply. Not even loud noises would wake me up. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but they ended up flying open. I looked around in the dark, and my eyes finally landed on a very dark corner in the balcony. My eyes were completely still and focused on this corner. I knew if I tried, I was able to move, and I didn't feel like I couldn't breathe, so I know that this wasn't sleep paralysis, but I felt like I was tied to that position regardless. I felt a level of fear throughout my body that I've never felt before. And as a self-proclaimed scaredy cat, it was a truly unsettling fear that had my very being terrified to the core. Though I couldn't see exactly what was in the balcony corner, I knew one thing. It hated me, and it hated everyone in this cabin. It thought that this was its home and it wanted us out. This went on until about 3.30 in the morning, me stuck, staring, hoping and praying that I actually

didn't see whatever it was. Finally, I forced myself to say a Hail Mary, a Lord's Prayer, and a Glory B, and I felt the heavy feeling lift. I got myself to move and snuck into Janine's bed and she immediately let me into her bed when I told her something was scaring me. The next morning we were talking about it and she told me that she also felt a lot of the something staring at her after I'd gotten into her bed until about four in the morning. She said she had vivid, weird dreams about the balcony and whatever was there when she eventually

did fall asleep, which a few others sleeping in the cabin said they also had. Being teenagers, we started joking about it until a religious chaperone seemed genuinely disturbed. He grabbed another chaperone, Kristen, who was known to be very religious, but also in tune with the spiritual paranormal realm. Kristen sat us down and had us tell her what was going on, and we started with what happened when we first arrived. After we told her everything, Kristen made us take her to the cabin where she pointed exactly to the spot

that I had been stuck staring at for all that time, and she said, he's right there. Oh my gosh. I felt chills rolled down my spine as she continued to explain to me that it was convinced we were there intruding on its home, and it targeted me since I was the first one to cross into its living space when I went to initially open the door and crossed through the balcony. Kristen decided to do a small exorcism and she pulled out her Bible.

It wasn't quite as dramatic as the movies, but weird things did begin to happen. I felt sick to my stomach as the temperature turned ice cold and whispers filled my head. I saw one of my hair ties fly up from the ground and hover midair. I could feel the spirit's anger as she expelled it from the cabin. Kristen went up to the balcony and cleansed the area with holy water. Steam started to rise from where she blessed. The foundation of the floor started shaking. It was terrifying and I just remember being so thirsty and tired after this whole ordeal.

Then, just like that, it was done. I no longer felt terrified just being inside the cabin. And that night, I slept peacefully until the morning prayer bell the next morning. I have never spoken about it with Janine since and it feels like a distant, dream at this point. I used to be a huge skeptic about the paranormal and supernatural stuff. And I wanted none of the ghost stories to be real as I was very easily scared. Now, I'm still a little skeptical, but I've had different paranormal experiences. But thankfully, they have all been friendly ones with relatives who have passed away. And that's their story. Oh my gosh.

The whole time I'm like, get the holy water out. Get it out. I know. Get it out. There's something about like religious places being haunted that feels so much. Yes. Like more intense. Yeah. Like it's a, yeah. Yeah. Like there's something just hanging out there anyways waiting to come in. Yeah. And it's like, what is it about this church camp that would draw this spirit? Matt worked out a camp in Texas that was a Catholic camp. Okay. And then became like a non-denominational Christian camp. And they always said that there was weird stuff going on. and like really supernatural, scary stuff, but not even, not just like, oh, there's a ghost of like the old man that used to work here, like something demonic at the camp.

Yeah. Like, did he see anything or what were the rumors there? I have to get the specifics from him. I should have talked to him about it before, but I'll get the specifics from him. Phone of friends. I'll phone a friend. Wait, maybe he'll come in. Matt, wait, I have a question. Real quick. He's scared. That camp you worked at in Texas, that was Catholic, that was like, haunted. What was the deal with it? I'm popping out for our celebrity. Your celebrity. Wait, come sit. Crazy. Tell me about the dragon one again. The dragon one. So there were like these adult

football coaches in Texas who were there for a retreat. And so one of them was like in the shower. It's like, you know, we had like showers away from the cabins like at night. So one of them's away. He says he sees this like dragon like sort of spirit figure thing. So he literally runs screaming like out of the, like through the woods like with a towel. A dragon, that feels kind of like demonic spooky. Yeah. Ooh. Very demonic spooky.

Weird things would happen like we had a ropes wall, like ropes course wall. And nobody was climbing it. There was like stuff sitting at the top and like someone was sitting like below it. And there's like no way. Somehow like this heavy thing falls off the top and like hit someone on the head and like knocks them unconscious. we had one like kid who everyone thought was like possessed

who like tried to drown this like girl in the river Did they try to do it exorcism? Because was it still a religious camp? It was still, well it was like it was weird. So like depending on the week you were there. So like some weeks it was religious and some weeks it was not. Some weeks it was Catholic. Some weeks it was Protestant.

So it was quite funny. Were the Catholic weeks more haunted? I would be curious to do a case study. Catholic weeks were maybe less haunted? I don't know. Maybe because priests were there. So the demons were in hiding. I don't know. Fair. There was weird. Yeah, there was a kid who like scratched everyone. And then like whenever the name Jesus was said, he would like freak out. Oh, so actually was maybe possessed. Yeah, yeah. If you ever seen like the passion of the Christ and there's the, those weird kids who were possessed like at the end,

it was like the only time I've ever seen anything like that where there's like nothing in the eyes. It's just like black. Yeah. When they would do like a salvation night and then like across the river, We live in the middle of nowhere, hill country in Texas. Actually, very near where all the floods were that killed, unfortunately, the school campers. Same exact area. There were, like, all of a sudden, like, lights would show up, like, in the woods. There's, like, no houses, but there were, like, weird lights, like, across the river. It was very bizarre.

Do you think it was haunted because the camp was religious, or do you think there was, like, something on the land there before? I think it was for sure haunted because it was, like, a Catholic camp before. That's what we were saying. That's what Morgan and I were saying. No, thank you for your insight. So there you go. Yeah. And now, Morgan.

You guys should have seen my face off camera. My job was dropped the whole time. The demon in the shower? No. That's scary, especially when it's like a football coach running and screaming. Clearly, like, you'd think I'm not a guy that would probably react lightly. Like, it's legit. And the shower when you're, you know, very vulnerable, just closing your eyes, washing your hair, doing stuff.

Like, no. Ooh, that's really creepy. Did you ever go to a religious camp? I never went to a religious camp. My mom was like very, my parents were very, no camps, not a lot of sleepovers until we were like older like 15, 16. I'm just like now kind of realizing this. Like we were very kind of like monitored with who we would stay with. But the school, I think it was in like sixth grade in Minnesota. We went to this camp, Camp Miller. And it was just like one night. And I got good vibes. there. Yeah. But no, no religious ties at that camp. So, right, right, right. Again, I wonder if it is, ugh. If anyone's gone to a religious camp, let me know. Well, you almost wonder, like, hearing the stories about these kids that, like, scratch people and just like, you wonder if the parents send them to these camps in hopes, maybe a little exorcism that has performed on Timmy. Priest intervention will happen. Yeah. Ooh, I know, and that gets into really dangerous territory real fast. Absolutely. Yeah.

Oh, that's insane. Yeah. I cannot even imagine seeing Holy Water steam off of a deck. I'm just, I'm going to sit with these for quite some time. But that's how you know it's working. That's how you know you're at a good camp. And the people there are like actually effectively getting rid of the demons. I would feel better being at that camp with that girl there or that woman there, the chaperone.

Oh, I love her. Get rid of the demons. Yeah. Can she come to my house? I'm going to email this. Can she her back, Sarah? Come over? Wow.

Oh, that was spooky. Okay. That's all I have for today. our listener stories. And once again, if you guys are listening and you have a story that you've always wanted to send me, you can check out heartsidespounding.com. We have a form there. And you can send us any paranormal encounter that you've had. Other stories, too. Like, honestly, we've had really interesting stories from listeners on, like, close encounters with, like, scary people and predictive dreams. Like, anything that you think would be good on the show,

please send it to us. I know. I'm so, I love these episodes. I'm just, like, so fascinated by them. We still need to do the psychic dinner. Oh, yeah. The psychic, you, like, go into a room privately with a psychic and each have your own turn. And then after you have due dinner and, like, talk about it. Because that I'll get into. Haunted House. I got to, I still need some time for the haunted house we talked about.

Oh, yeah. Which one was that one that were? I was in Kentucky. Oh, yeah. We have a lot that we have to do. Tuberculosis asylum. Oh, the Waverly Hills. Yeah.

We definitely have to do that. It's a big one on my list. It's so crazy because it's like I want to do it, but I'm so. so, so scared, like genuinely scared. Just do it scared. That's what I do. Just be scared, but like, do it, you know? I think you could.

I think if we were there... I don't want anything to attach itself to me, and how do you prevent that? I don't think it would, because that, like, Waverly Hills is... It's like tuberculosis patients. Okay. It's not necessarily anything demonic. Or not even necessarily anything evil or bad. Yeah, because I've heard in New Orleans.

I really want to do a good New Orleans trip and tour and see, like... everything there, but people are like, do not accept anything from someone. If someone offers you something, do not accept it. So I need like the rules so that if I do buck up and have the courage, that I do it kosher. I mean, the nice thing with New Orleans is so many people there are so knowledgeable. You can get a really good tour guide, like just hire someone really knowledgeable at the area to make sure that like we're safe. But I think we could do it. I think that'd be fun. That'll be our little side quest at some point. Okay, I'm ready. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me here at the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters.

Thank you for having me. I need a shirt with that on it. I know. Yeah, I have to get you like a, we have these really cool notebooks that's a rogue detecting society. Let's go. I'll get you one. Okay. That's all we have for this week. Join us next week here again for another episode and I'll see you guys next time. Bye. Bye. Heartsearts pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Hearts arts pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our associate producer is Juno Hobbs. Sound design and mixed by Red Room Creative. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grace and Jernigan and the team at WME. Have a heart pounding story or a case request. Check out heartsartsprounding.com.