Jim Harold's Campfire - Ghost Captured On Camera - Jim Harold's Campfire 773

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

A little boy shares a supernatural encounter and what turns up later seems to confirm his story. This week’s Campfire also takes us inside a beautiful house with a horrifying past and years of unexplained activity. We also hear about a mysterious girl who keeps appearing to one witness, an enormous silent object hovering above the treetops, a possible Bigfoot encounter, and a deeply moving experience. From unsettling hauntings to strange encounters and moments of unexpected comfort, this edition of the Campfire covers a lot of spooky ground. VIRTUAL CAMPFIRE GROUPJoin our FREE online community at ⁠https://virtualcampfiregroup.com⁠EVENTSHope to see you soon at one of Jim’s live events: https://jimharold.com/eventsYOUTUBE CHANNELBe sure to subscribe to Jim’s YouTube channel at: ⁠https://youtube.com/jimharold⁠ JOIN JIM’S SPOOKY STUDIO PLUS CLUBYou can get access to Jim’s entire back catalog of Campfire and a TON of exclusive content with the Spooky Studio Plus Club. Go to https://⁠jimharold.com/plus⁠ and signup to support the show and get access to our MASSIVE library of content!MERCHGo to ⁠https://jimharold.com/merch⁠ to get your Jim Harold T’s, sweatshirts, mugs, hats and more! BOOKSGet all SIX of Jim’s Campfire books here: https://jimharold.com/campfirebooks/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Right now, for a limited time, everyone's part of the Buick team, even you. Buick's Employee Pricing for You event is on now. Get a purchase credit of up to $3,168 on a 2026 Buick Envision. Surround yourself with signature Buick refinement from an available massaging driver's seat to an expansive panoramic moonroof and a stunning ultra-wide 30-inch diagonal screen. Don't miss Buick's Employee Pricing for you event. Visit buick.com.ca for more details. Strange hauntings on this edition of Jim Harold's Campfire.

Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. You know, we have storytellers, callers who call in him. They really make an impression on people, and they say, I want to hear more stories from this person. And we have such a person on the line. Clover is with us. Clover, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it very much. You have a story about your son.

Could you please tell us this story about your son? son and welcome back. Yeah, it's a nice quick, a true campfire story, at least for our family. So my son's a teenager now, but when he was little, he had a difficult time going to sleep, as most little kids do. And he's the baby of the family, so, you know, a little bit on the spoiled side, I guess. So anyway, for him, when he couldn't sleep, I was like, you know, I'll just lay down. with you or read lots of stories and then when he would start to drift off i would like slowly creep

out the room um which often backfired because he had like a internal sensor of when i would leave he could be like dead asleep and then i'd be like creeping out but he'd wake up i was like great so there's a lot of times because of that i would just give up and fall asleep in his bed and then wake up around you know two in the morning like where am i and then like creep back to my room um so this was one of those times. And gosh, this was like 13 years ago. So, you know, cell phones weren't quite as advanced as they are now, but you could still take a lot of pictures, you know. And one of his favorite things to amuse himself, he was like two or three, was to like to take lots of pictures, but it would fill up the memory on the phone, you know, on those old phones.

So I was like, man, so then there was a lot of times where I would just delete like five million pictures of a flower or a tree or something. Aw. So anyway, I left the phone sitting like on the dresser or something. And it was one of those nights where I, we both fell asleep together. And then it was about two in the morning. And all of a sudden he's like jumping all over the bed. And mind you, it's like pitch black, right?

But then I would just see these flashes of him taking pictures on the phone. And I'm just like trying to get my bearings. Like you wake up and you're not quite sure where you are because you're not in your bed. and it's pitch black and like this flashes are going off everywhere and kids jumping all over the bed. I was like, what is going on? So I flip on the light and then he wasn't really upset. He was a little bit shook up, but more excited than anything. And he was like, there's a scary man, scary man.

So he was trying to explain that there's a scary man chasing him around the room. And I'm like, you know, trying to get him calm down, not really thinking too much about him like, well, you had a bad dream or something. You know, but it was weird enough where I was like, you know, let's go sleep in my room. You know, I don't like to. Yeah. My imagination at that point was like, you know, the hair's like standing up a little bit. I'm like, let's just go sleep. Sure.

So anyway, I forget about it. We go to sleep. And then I'm making him breakfast in the morning and he's eating his toast. And then I remember it. I'm like, oh, man, here's the phone again. There's probably like 20 million pictures because he had been using the camera flash. and taking like a thousand pictures during whatever this incident was, you know? Right.

The reasoning is toast and I'm going through and deleting all these pictures one by one. And they're all black because, you know, there wasn't any light and there was black. And then I got almost the last picture and I noticed it wasn't black and I looked at it. And you could actually see like a ghost like man's face looking back at you. And there was like these big, big black eyes. You can see his nose, and then the starts of like a huge, ugly smile, you know, like those creepy smiles. Oh, man, he just gave me chills. But I posted it on your, the Jim Herald's website that you have.

Yeah, virtual campfire group. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. If anyone wants to see it, there's an actual ghost picture on there taken by a little boy. virtual campfire group virtual campfire group dot com. That is so cool. You know,

the thing is is that's what I love about this kind of community that we built. It's one of those things where, you know, we can go on and we can post our pictures and we can do these different things and talk about our stories. I mean, I think it is so awesome. And I thank you for, you know, for doing that,

for putting that on there so people can find it. So really appreciate it very, very much that you did that. And to all of our people over there. And folks, if you haven't gone over there, and I don't want to detract from Clover's story. Virtual Campfiregroup.com, virtual campfiregroup.com. That's a place where we can share our stories.

I think Clover will agree. People are very welcoming. They're very accepting. There's not spammy ads. There's not just kind of crazy AI posts like you see on other social media sites. So we wanted to create this and we have a small, it's a few thousand, I think three, four thousand people. But it's not as big as the Facebook group, but I think it's way better because it's just our people. And without all these intrusive ads and spying and stuff goes on with Facebook, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, that is so cool. Well, thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate everybody. Make sure to check that out and we'll try to elevate that in the group when this episode comes out so you can see it. That is just awesome. That is just awesome. It was funny because I showed him the picture too. And I was like, you know, is this the man?

And he's just like, yeah, scary man. And they act like it was nothing. He just kept eating his toes. Like, you know, of course it was. That is so awesome. I love it. So you're going to have to go over to virtual campfire group.com and see that picture, folks. I've been telling you go over there.

Now you've got a really good reason to do it. Do you have any theories on it? on Clover on who it was or what it was? You know, I really don't. I'd like to say it was a ghost. But, you know, that's just a general term. There's so many different spirit and beings out there. Yeah, it's definitely, I think, by the unusual smile

and how he was kind of like a trickster kind of entity with my son, not meaning to, like, harm him, of course. You know, so I don't know, that's a good question. Yeah. And I thank you so much for sharing your story. It's just awesome. I appreciate very much. Everybody go to virtual campfiregroup.com and check out Clover's picture.

And Clover, thank you, and stay spooky. Yeah, you too, Jim. Stay spooky. Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold and so glad to be with you once again. And we just keep on, keeping up. We have a lot of great storytellers today and so glad you're here. And if you don't know what we do here, what we do here is simply have real folks come on and share their real stories of the supernatural.

Could be cryptic creatures, could be ghosts, could be UFOs, could be head scratchers, whatever they are. They are amazing and they are real. And we're so glad to have you here with us. Now, if you've been listening for a while and you say, Jim, I want more. I want more. I heard somebody say they wish we could come out twice a week. I wish we could too. But believe me, the workload would make that impossible for us to do with our very small but mighty team.

But what we can say is we have our Plus Club at Jimherald.com slash plus where there are hundreds of episodes, thousands of stories, just waiting for you. and that is at Jimherald.com slash plus, Jimherald.com slash plus. Recently we were at the haunted garage sale, which was fantastic, absolutely loved it. So thanks to Jeff and Luna from the Cleveland Hont Club for putting that on. 15,000 people was amazing.

Anyway, we had people come up, say, hey, I'm a plus club member, I love it. Didn't have one person come up, say, I'm a plus club member and I hate it. Pretty much universally, people. say that they enjoy the Plus Club. I think you will too. Jimherald.com slash plus. Jimherald.com slash plus. And I will say this. We count on our Plus Club members to support this show and make it possible. If our Plus Club went away, so would the Campfire. So if you want to keep the Campfire burning brightly,

plus get access to all those shows. And by the way, new episodes, no ads. No ads and new episodes when you are a plus member. So you know what to do, Jimherald.com slash plus. Jimherald.com slash plus. We would greatly appreciate it. We like having a job. We love doing this show.

Please help us continue to make that possible. And now on to our first great, or second actually, our second great campfire story. Kelsey is from Tennessee. She joins us today. And actually she found the show before COVID. times. We find so many people found us right at COVID or right after. But Kelsey is one of the

long timers, and we're glad to have her on the show. And she said she's been meaning to call in for a long time about this story about her husband who lived in a haunted house in high school. And she's going to tell us all about it. Kelsey, welcome to the program. Tell us what happened. Thanks, Jim. Yeah. So actually, I think last week's episode, someone told a story about a very spooky whistle. that they heard in their house. And it kind of reminded me of one of the many things that happened in this house. But basically, my husband and I have been together since high school. So I met him when he was living in this house.

And this took place in a house that was on the Ohio River, like in the West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tri-State area to kind of give you an idea of place. And this house. had a really traumatic past. So my husband's mother actually grew up in the house also. So his grandpa bought the house for very, very cheap because, unfortunately, the family that lived in it before them, there was a double murder suicide in this house. It was really awful.

It was really traumatic. I'll spare the details of that happening. but when my husband's family moved into the house, they had to literally pack up all the belongings of this family that lived there and move it out of the house when they moved in. So it was very fresh. There were bullet holes in the doors. They had to replace the blood-soaked carpet.

Like, it was really intense. But it was a really beautiful home. It sat on the Ohio River. It was a gorgeous space. but after that, the house was never the same. This house definitely made me believe in the stone tape theory. So I have three short stories of there were many that happened in this house. And so the first one, this happened to my sister-in-law, so my husband's little sister.

The house had an incredible bathroom. It had like a jacuzzi tub, stairs leading up to it, mirrors everywhere. It was beautiful. And so she was taking a bath one day. It was daylight out. It was a weekday. Everyone was gone. It was just her in the house.

And they always had a ton of animals running and out of this house. So she was in the tub, and the dogs were kind of outside whining at the door because, you know, she was home alone and they couldn't see her. And so she kind of whistled at them to get them to calm down. And she said, so she whistled at them and not three seconds later something whistled back to her. her. Oh, boy. In almost the same tone that she whistled out in. Oh, boy. And it obviously freaked her out. She was maybe 16 at the time. Again, the only one in the house, I don't think dogs know how to whistle. So she said she got right up out of that tub, got dressed, and sat on the porch until her mom came home. I can't say I blame her. Wow. That's scary. I mean, part of you might think, oh, there's not

that ghost, put a human person in there, but there wasn't, so. No, no, because they had a lot of big dogs. You know, no one's getting past their big dogs. And, yeah, her and all the dogs went and sat outside after that. But yeah. And then, so another story from this house was one that I was there for and experienced also. So my husband's whole family bowled in a bowling league. And so every Saturday night, we were at the bowling league.

late. But my husband and I were usually the first ones back at the house because his parents and him bowled on separate teams and his parents took way longer to bowl. So we had gotten back to the house. It was me, my husband, and his little sister. And all the lights were off in the house. We turned the lights on and not a full minute before we stepped foot into that house, we heard this really loud crash and like scrape and then something hit the wall up. stairs. And they had this ceiling fan in the living room that no one, and again, his mom grew up in that house, and then he also grew up in that house. So they had been in this house for like 20 plus years. Right. And there was a ceiling fan in the living room that no one could ever find the switch for.

And so it had been running for like 20 years. And so it was very strange. And so we walked up into the living room. We look up and we see that that fan is coming to a slow stop. And, you know, fan blades, the way that they connect to the fan itself is through that metal hardware, right? Yeah. This fan blade, it was a wooden fan blade, it had been, it looked like someone grabbed a hold of it and broke it in half and splintered it from the base and then threw it across the room. Huh. It was bizarre.

We could not explain how it happened, and then the fan stopped running after that. It was really spooky. That happened in a time where a lot of the line. of strange things were happening. This was the type of home where, like, every time they talked about selling it and moving on, bad things would happen. That would, like, affect the sale of a home. That being just, like, a small thing that happened.

But it was very strange. And then, so another story that I think is really, like, the epitome of a stone tape theory for me is that, again, this house was on the riverbank of the Ohio River. So sometimes we would just camp on the riverbank for fun. Right. And so one night we were camping on the riverbank for fun. And like my husband's parents were also camping in their own tent down there. And my mother-in-law got up really early in the morning and went up to the house to use the bathroom. And so she was in the bathroom. And she said that while she was in there, she heard out of nowhere, and this had to have been like six or seven

in the morning, the most blood-curdling scream, like the most blood-curdling female scream she had ever heard in her life coming from the kitchen. And so she bursts out of the bathroom, goes downstairs to the kitchen, and there's nobody there. And it freaked her out all day long. And then she realized later that day that that was the anniversary of the double-murder suicide that happened in that house. And as just like a brief synopsis of that occurrence, the husband of that house came home and killed his wife in the kitchen

so that's where she would like that's where that would have happened and so my mother-in-law really believes that she heard that replay that day and she talks about it to this day as like one of the scariest things that's ever happened to her and she has experienced a lot of strange things in that home as a kid and as an adult

but yeah lots of strangeness. It's interesting to me, and different people will have different answers for this. But would most people, if they were presented with an opportunity to buy a beautiful house, but knowing there would have been some kind of great tragedy, maybe a violent situation like you're talking about, I'd be curious what percentage of people would take it and what percentage would not take it. And I'm not saying either answer is wrong or right. and it might be one of those things too good to pass up, you know, if it's just a tremendous, tremendous deal.

And then people could probably live in it decades. Nothing would happen. But then again, something like this. So you mentioned early on in the call that really makes you believe in the stone tape theory, this idea that, like, spirits and so forth, can kind of saturate spaces. So do you believe this was mainly a replay situation? Do you think these were sentient ghosts? What do you think?

It's really hard to say because there were things that happened in that house that felt like replays. But then there were things in that house that felt intentional and sentient also. You know, and I know from experience that a lot of people actually did not want the house because I was there when they finally. And also every couple that ever lived in that house historically ended in either murder or divorce. And my husband's parents ended up in divorce. And so when they were trying to sell that house, I was there when they would show it to people, right? And so we would, because we would have to take all the pets out of the house so people could, you know, see it in peace. And people loved the house.

It was beautiful. It was gorgeous. But every time a realtor would show the house. house and we would ask like what did they think blah blah blah they'd be like oh they really loved the house but they did they said they didn't feel right here they said something felt off here and so there was an energy in this house that people immediately sensed um even if they didn't know the story of what happened um there were very few people that because they used to have parties at this house all the time every holiday 70 plus people having a party in this house but

But once the night came, everyone cleared out of this place. People that did know the story of what happened there and people that didn't. Like, no one ever felt fully safe or secure in this house. It was a very interesting place. People had, even the people who visited it to maybe buy it, they had a feeling. They had a feeling. I believe they're places that are just haunted and spooky and stuff happens, particularly things like a great tragedy, like this horrible thing.

Yeah, I believe it 110%. Kelsey, thank you for sharing your story and stay spooky. Thanks, Jim. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager.

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Oh, I love this story. Jared from Alabama found out about us from the great astonishing legends. I'm sure you've checked them out, but if you haven't, please do. Scott and Forrest do a fantastic job. But Jared has one of these stories. Usually we hear a parent or an aunt or an uncle say, well, the little kid in the family. saw the ghost. But now we're going to get it from the other side.

We're going to get it from the little kid's side. Not so little now. Not so little now. Kind of sort of. Jared, welcome to the show. Tell us about it. So my aunt, she lived in an old house in Tennessee, kind of out in the middle of nowhere.

So it had been used during the Civil War era for like a hospital, whatever emergency was, they would just do it there, you know, because there was no anything around. So one day, we were up there visiting me and all my family, and apparently the kids started playing out and seat when I was one of the kids. Well, a few, you know, moments went by, and all of a sudden I was crying.

And my mom came to me. She was like and said, what's wrong? And I told her, and the crazy thing is I remember none of this. I remember absolutely none of this. But I told her that I was it and I was walking and I saw a soldier walk out of the room. And then when I looked down the hallway where he was at, he wasn't there. And I guess it scared me. So later on, we got back home to Alabama, and I told my mom, I said, I never want to go back there again.

And so I thought that was interesting. But, well, I forgot to mention this before I started. But this whole thing come up, we were up visiting my aunt in Tennessee, and they got to tell in some ghost stories. stuff. They had an experience somewhere on a battlefield somewhere. And that's like she's not, well, that's like when Jared saw that Civil War ghost at my house. And I looked there and said, wait, what? And she was like, yeah, do you not remember? I was like, no, I don't remember that.

And so my mom, my mom's like, does not believe in like, you know, it was ghost or anything like that. Right. But I said, I looked there and I said, do you remember that? She was like, yeah, I do remember. Like, you know, just like she thought about it. And she was like, yeah, I do actually remember that. You know, she said, it took me a second, but I did remember it. And it's just phrasing to me that something like, like, how much more do you suppress as a child experience stuff?

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like the fact that I don't remember any of it. and just how much, you know, do you suppress at a young age like that, experience and stuff like that. And I don't know why that is, but we hear that over and over and over again. Somebody else said, tell me a story, oh, my son, my daughter saw this, saw that, but they don't remember it anymore.

And I never thought about this way, but that word you use suppress. Is it some kind of defense mechanism? Is it some kind of filter? Is it just because we're taught not to believe in these things? So we can say somehow it goes to the back of our mind. it's very curious, because I do believe there's something about us when we're very young, when we're a kid, we're more sensitive to this stuff. Yeah, yeah.

We're like a ghost detector. And we become less sensitive as time goes on. I don't know if it's because it's something physiological, biological, biological, spiritual. If it's just it's taught out of us, I don't know what that is. But it seems to be true. And it's interesting that even you were like, because you would think, as somebody mentioned it, you would go, oh yeah, it did happen, but you didn't. Yeah.

You didn't. So it's totally blank. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, and it's just like, because I've, I'll listen to a lot of, you know, supernatural podcasts and stuff. And it's one of those things where like kids, you may not understand it as a kid, you know, so you're just like, oh, you know, and then, you know, sometimes it's just so traumatic that you're just like, yeah, I want to forget about it.

Yeah, erase it. And that's another thing. The interesting fact, though, is. that you listen to spooky podcasts, the Starvedere Legends, Campfire, whatever it might be. So maybe at some subconscious level. Right, right.

Yeah. You know, interesting, interesting. Yeah. Very good story, very cool story. Yeah. It's true. I'm telling you these things happen. Kids experience these things.

It's obvious. This stuff is not made up. Yeah. Do people occasionally make up a story? Sure. But for the most part, all this stuff, you know, this happens. I don't know what it happens. I don't know if we're seeing a replay.

I don't know if we're seeing dead people. I mean, but we're seeing something. We're seeing something. And thank you for sharing your something, Jared. Thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it. And stay spooky. Stay spooky.

I love when we get callers from overseas and Sharon is on the line from England. and we're so glad to talk to her, and she has a very poignant story about her aunt. Sharon, welcome to the show. I know you've been listening for a few years, so thank you for that, and tell us what happened. Hi, Jim. Yes. My aunt passed away when I was quite young. I was about 16, and she was always quite a spiritual person. She always read tarot and things like that.

I had a feeling that if anyone was ever going to come back and say hello, it would be her. And this happened probably a year after she passed. I had a dream, standard normal dream, and suddenly I turned around as she was in it. And she just looked at me and gave me a big smile and said to me, he felt very different than the dream I was in. She felt like she was inside my dream. It felt very different. And she said, oh, can I show you where I am now?

And I said, yes. And so she said, we can't talk. You're just going to have to follow all my instructions. And so that was the last time she spoke to me through her mouth. The rest of the time, she carried on talking to me, but it was all through her mouth wasn't moving. I could hear... Telepathy. It sounds like telepathy.

Yeah, yeah. So she could hear me and I could hear her. And all of a sudden we turned round and there was a door opened. And this door looked like it was made of bamboo type material. And we walked in into this massive room. And there was probably about 40 other people, if not some more, in this big room. And it was a lift. And the doors shut and all the walls and the doors were all made of this type, bamboo type, natural wood sticks.

And she said to me then, you know, don't talk to me, don't look at me or anything. I'll tell you when it's our turn to get out. And I said, okay. And the doors opened a couple of times. and every time it wasn't our turn every time the doors opened it opened onto this big landscape

this big rolling hills the landscapes looked the same but they felt different and one of the times that the doors opened there looked like in the distance there was a forest one side and a forest the other side of the doors and I could hear people

screaming and shouting and it looked like the it looked like the civil war you know when they all come over on horsebacks and the colours and everything right um it looked like that and they kind of went from one forest to the other and uh and some people got out on every different stop and then the doors opened at one point and she said you know we we get out now um and i said okay and then I went to walk and we didn't walk. We flew, but it was not like the snowman, but we kind of just flew just a couple of inches off the floor it felt we just glided out of this lift.

And again, the landscape was the same. It was rolling hills, beautiful. You know, the colours were incredible. And for as far as you could see, it was just, you know, nature and hills. and it was beautiful. And we kind of flew to the top of this hill. And she said, let's sit down here. And we sat down.

And as I looked across, I could see a really big old farmhouse. And it looked like the American farmhouses, the barns, you know, they're red, the red barns. Right. Sure. It looked like that. Yeah. And it was a beautiful. house and in the garden in the distance I could see loads of people it looked like they were having

a garden party there was people sitting you know under umbrellas and on tables there was children running around and the more I looked the more I realized that all these people were people I knew and they were people that had passed and hadn't passed as well they were just everybody, my whole side of that family were there. And the more I looked at the children, I realized that two of the children were me and my sister, but not the age we were, you know, when I had this dream, I was about 16, 17, but we were young.

You know, I was probably about 10. My sister was probably about 8. We were young and we were playing with other children, which I recognised to be my cousins. And I was really astounded, you know, I was really like, that's me. And she said to me, she said, I really need you to understand this. She said, it doesn't matter. Age and time don't matter.

And you are all here, and I don't miss you because you're already all here. And you can be any age that are. that I want you to be at any point. So it kind of felt like, she kind of said, that's all she said. And then she just said to me, do you understand? And I said, yeah. And then I woke up.

It was an immediate waking up. But that's the impression I got was that, yeah, that was her life now. And she's in this beautiful place with all her family and children and, you know, nieces and nephews and she's quite happy. And, you know, maybe I could be a child one day and she could be watching me play. And then the next day I could be the age I am now and we could be having a conversation as adults. That's it's very hard to explain.

It was like a very instant knowing. And she kind of made sure I understood it. And as soon as I said I understood it, I was awake. So do you feel this is a representation of what actually kind of happens in the afterlife? Do you think it was just a nice dream? What do you think? I don't think it was a dream only because we dream all the time, don't we? And I remember that.

I'm nearly 50, and I remember that like it was yesterday, you know, and I was about 16, 17 when that happened. So I don't, it doesn't feel like a dream. It didn't feel like a dream when it happened. It felt like I was in a dream and she came into it. And then she, you know, it was like, what are you doing here? What are you doing in my dream? You know, it didn't feel like she was the dream and that where we were, where we went was a dream. It felt very real.

That is an amazing, amazing story. I absolutely love it. And, you know, again, I'm a big believer in the afterlife. And actually, what you kind of described is kind of like somebody said, well, what would your idea of heaven be? And I've often said on the shows, I would love about a hundred year family picnic where we all get together and kind of reminisce, but also we introduce our family members, maybe to other people in other parts of their life that they didn't get to meet, you know? Yeah. You know, if there was somebody my age who was on the other side with me, I could say, well, you know how. I used to tell you about my neighbor, Rose. Well, let me come over and have you meet Rose, who was actually from England.

That's a real person. And I would introduce them to Rose and said, this was the lady who was always very nice to me when I was a child. This is my grown-up friend. I just think that would be so much fun. I mean, I hope there's a component of that on the other side where you do get to spend time with those who have passed. Hopefully many years from now to find out many years from now. But yeah, it's really interesting. Well, and I do believe, I believe there are different kinds of dreams, right?

I believe there's just the garden variety kind of dreams. It's just kind of rehash of things that happen in the day, some of the nonsense. Sometimes you get those really weird dreams that make no sense. And then I think they're dreams like this that are connecting us to something very, very much bigger, very spiritual. Yeah. It was very vivid. And how does it change your perception of the afterlife in terms of how you feel about it? I feel it's exactly that.

It was a very strange knowing. It's hard to explain, isn't it, sometimes when people have these experiences? It just felt like a knowing more than her kind of telling me. It just felt like, oh, yeah, I know this. That's fantastic. Yeah, it was lovely. Well, Sharon, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

And thank you for being a part of the campfire. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. One of our great members of our free virtual campfire group at virtual campfire group.com, you ought to be there if you're not, is Stephen. And he's going to join us with a couple of stories tonight. We're so glad to have him. Stephen, good to talk to you again.

I know you've been on the show before. Thank you. and tell us what happened. Hello, guys. So my friend and I, it was probably back when, it was probably like late summertime. My friend and I were playing video games, and I had to drop them off at home.

And so we just sporadically left the house. And my friend, I went out the front, like, my parents' backyard is half of a football field. So I opened up the door first, and I walked out, and then I turned back around, and my friend Spencer's face went completely white. And I looked at him and I was like, hey, what's wrong? And he couldn't say anything.

And I was like, dude, like, what's going on? And he pointed and I turned around. And there was a girl with black pig tails wearing a dress. And we completely freaked out. I don't really necessarily remember what her face looked like or anything. And then she vanished. So we ran from, like, from like part of the yard to where my S-10 pickup truck was. And we got into the S-10 pickup truck, and I was trying to grab keys out of my pocket.

And I was jiggling the handles to get in. And then we both of us hopped into the truck, and we looked at each other and, like, took a deep breath and was like, what was that? And then suddenly the back of the bed of the pickup truck bounced up and, and hit the ground again and she hit the top of the the roof of the truck and I tried to turn on the truck and wouldn't start

tried it again it finally started up and we quickly reversed out the driveway like totally freaked out wow yeah it was really intense so that was the first time this girl that I've seen

popped up before so the girl popped up you tried to run you and your friend tried to pop up in the trunk, a truck, and then the truck, the back of the truck lifted off the ground a little bit? Yeah, I would probably, I would say maybe by like, like maybe about six inches. Yeah, but that's a truck. Yeah, it's a truck.

It's like an old S-10 truck, yeah. Right, I don't remember those. The back of the bed and hit, yeah. It was wild. Wow. Now, the funny thing is Stephen said the second part is the more intense part. Whoa, let's hang on to our hats. Go ahead. So after, like, I've encountered this girl multiple times, like, around at my parents' house multiple times.

Yeah. So, like, here and there, I'll see her. She'll, like, tap on the windows and the house and stuff. And then, like, she'll vanish. So this next story was I house, sit my aunt's house out in the country. and my friend and I were going back out to my aunt's house after we picked up in and out and my friend was pretty skeptical about my story about her

and we went through the front door which I normally don't do I normally go through the garage of the house but I forgot the garage door clicker so we went through the front door and I opened up the front door and you know those Wi-Fi hotboxes that are like the size of like a I don't know like four inches with the battery pack on the bottom the Verizon Yeah yeah yeah

So I had that hanging up on a chandelier because that was like the best spot to get internet Because for whatever reason That was like the best area of the house to keep them Yeah So I had it up on a chandelier And as we were walking through their front door One of the Wi-Fi boxes got picked up

And tossed right past my face And it slammed against it and I saw that girl again and my friend was like, what was that? I was like, I'm telling you, this girl has been haunting me for so long and he completely freaked out.

Who do you think the girl is? Do you have any theories? I don't know, actually. I can't really put two and two together. I'm not too sure, to be honest with you. So it's very interesting. Does this continue to this day? Yes.

So my last, if I have time, I can tell you my last encounter. Go ahead. Go ahead. So my last encounter was also with my friend Spencer, and we were watching a horror movie, and somebody tapped on the front door at my aunt's house on the piece of glass. So, you know, we got up from the couch, paused the movie, looked outside the window. Nobody was there. So we're like, oh, okay, that was a little weird. So we turned on all the out, like the front lights outside.

to see the entire driveway and everything. And there was nothing there. So then, as we were doing that, we heard a tap on the glass door, which was in the back part of the house. And we looked back and we're like, what the heck? There's nobody there. So then as we were doing that, we heard loud running sounds across the house to the bedroom window and she tapped on the window.

And then after maybe about five minutes, I went to. go use a restroom, she started banging on the bathroom door, and I looked out the bathroom door, and there she was, and she vanished again. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Same girl with the black pig tails and the black lace dress. It was wild. Well, please keep us up to date. If you see her again, or if you get any theories about who she is, please let us know.

I mean, yeah, it's definitely weird. I don't really know who she is. Do you think she's more connected to you or more? connected to property. I had that. That I'm not too sure because I feel like she follows me everywhere. Sounds like, yeah. Yeah, because like all, when I was in Seattle, I saw her there too. So she must be connected to me somehow.

But I'm not, I'm not too sure. Interesting. It is very interesting indeed. Well, Stephen, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for being so active over in the virtual campfire group. We appreciate. Thanks for sharing these stories. Please do keep us updated.

Yes, we'll do. Stay spooky. Thank you. Have a good day, Jim. Next up is Ray from California. It's been on the show before, and I've got to tell you, I love this story because when I read it, I'm like, this is the definition of a head scratcher. Ray, welcome back to the show and tell us what happened. Yeah, Jim, thanks for having me.

So this story is a little short. I want to start by giving some background about where it happened. I live in the city right beneath Pasadena and for anyone that's ever been there there's a lot of these huge mansions a lot of kind of wealthy folk that live there you've probably heard of the Rose Bowl, Rose Parade Pasadenae in general, right?

Of course, of course. Okay, I think what a lot of people don't know and even I didn't know until maybe a couple of years ago it's got some like spooky history Jack Parsons, which was the founder of like JPL Labs, Jet Propulsion Laboratory owned by NASA now was into some like kind of weird creepy stuff he was in like a cult and he if you've ever heard of Alistair Crowley he was like a huge follower and like probably the biggest

believer in like the US wow didn't know that wow yeah he also hung out with Elron Hubbard the founder of Scientology and just was like a character right I guess he had to be at that time so anyway there's um he was like a really rich guy had like these rituals in his house and it was really unbelievable. Like if you really, you've never heard of it, you'd be like, no, that's unreal, but it's all documented. It's all really happened. Anyway, the only reason I want to give some background into that

is because this happened to me in one of those little towns, like these little driveways. Let me just explain what happened. I used to live in Pasadena, and I would go visit my father, lived in the city right below. Now, in order for me to get to his house, you have to drive through these, like, mazes of streets,

And in between these mazes, they're really low-lit, but there's these huge mansions that some of them are so big. You can't even see the house because the gates are so high. And you kind of wonder who's there. The weird thing about it, too, is all these giant houses, right, they're always empty. There's nobody ever there. There's nobody in the driveway. Some of them don't have gates, so you can kind of see them. And he kind of makes me wonder, like, who actually lives there?

Like, what's happening? They're like, does anyone live there? And most of the time, you know, I go up and down here all the time. I'm visiting my dad a few times a week. and I drive through here and I don't see anybody. I don't see anybody walking on the street, like nobody jogging, nothing. And that's why I like going through there

because it's kind of like a shortcut. Anyway, so there's this one street I turned through, gone through there two or three dozen times and nobody's ever there. There's no lights. It's just all stop signs. I'm just trying to paint a picture of what you see. And they have like street lights,

but they have like these tiny little street lights that like don't illuminate anything and there's only like three on the whole block. So it's really dark. Anyway, I turn down on the street. I always go down. And for some reason, there's like 50, 60 cars on the street part. I'm like, oh, this is out of the ordinary.

Maybe it's a party. And it's Wednesday at like 9 p.m. Like, I doubt it. And I just start going slower. And the whole time I'm on the phone with my sister. And I'm kind of telling her like, hey, like, I'm witnessing some, I'm feeling really weird over here. Like, I don't know what's happening. But like, at least you're on the phone with me if something happens, you know, where I

last was. And as I said that, I literally, I'm in like a big car, huge bright headlights. And I turned to the left. And there's a giant, one of those giant mansions, but with like no gate in the front. And there's like 60 to 70 people hanging out in the front yard. Like if they're at a party, think of little tables, but nobody's on their phone. I didn't see one screen light up. And there's no lights on whatsoever. Like they're hanging out in the dark. And the second I looked over, I just, kind of like got this feeling like oh i wasn't supposed to see this and everyone just looked at me i i like yelled at the same time almost and i just kept driving and i was like really scared and talking to my

sister and then i kind of just stopped replying to her and she's like what's going on and i made it like a block away or at the end of the block and i finally started replying like oh i don't know but i saw this weird thing just now do you want me to go back and like face time and show you what i just saw and she was like no after i kind of explained to what happened i was like i don't think i was supposed to see that let's just get out of here so we drove away but it still takes like 10 minutes to get out of these winding roads and back to the right this whole time i'm just driving like 10 miles under the speed limit just like kind of scared because i don't know what the heck i just saw but it kind of reminded me of that movie um the eyes wide shut movie if you've ever seen it

yeah just have all these people around and like i don't know it felt so off um it's not like a normal story but right it kind of reminds me we had a story a few weeks ago of a woman who was in the woods and then she saw all these people and hoods and things and all this weird stuff kind of like something it seems like it's out of place like just kind of weird and it strikes you as weird now do you think they were maybe some doing some kind of meditation or some kind of a ritual or something i thought about this a lot the thing is i don't know what what could you be doing in the dark like why would you not need light, even if you are doing that, right? Like, you couldn't see anything.

The only reason you could see them, I could see them, is because my car passed through with the, like, the headlights. But I wonder a lot. I don't know. I think of that movie all the time. I think of maybe a birthday party, but with no lights on. Like, none of what I thought made any sense. Yeah, and so weird. And that's the thing, is that there are just these things that we encounter,

and it's just kind of like, wait, two plus two is equaling seven here. It doesn't make sense. But then what is it? What do you do with it? I mean, I have a feeling, Ray, that the rest of your life you're going to question this and try to figure it out. I don't have any answers. I know there are places where weird things are done like Bohemian Grove, for example. If you've ever looked that up, familiar with Bohemian Grove, it kind of reminds me this word.

They burn this owl in effigy. And there's been famous people. Presidents, yeah, yeah. Presidents, yeah, Walter Cronkite. I think President Reagan was there, President Nixon was there. Yeah, it just makes you think, you know. Are these like secret societies that we don't know about and things going on. A cult, which means, I think, means hidden, if I'm not mistaken.

In this case, it was hidden. I was going to say hidden in broad daylight, but it wasn't daylight. It was just strange. And also just on somebody's front yard, like anyone could have driven by, but I think they know nobody really drives through there. I just like taking the back roads and I think that's how I stumbled upon it and yeah, sorry there weren't any ghosts or anything but it was just definitely.

So you got the definite feeling that you weren't welcome. No. The second everyone looked at me like I could tell and they were a lot older. They were like older people. I was like, oh yeah, I don't belong here. I'm just striving through. Maybe if you would have went in

they would have captured you Ray and you would have become one of them. I'm just kidding. I'm just messing with you. I'm just joking. Ray, a very interesting story and I love the stories that just make us think and this one makes us think. Thank you for being a part of the campfire today. Stay spooky.

Stay spooky, Jim. Thanks again for having me. I love the idea of having campfire storytell all over the globe. Chantelle from France is just such a person. We're so glad to have her on the program and she has a story about her dad. She's a plus club member.

We appreciate the support as I was telling her without the support of our plus club members, we cannot do what we do. So thank you, Chantelle, and thank everybody out there who is a plus club member. Please tell us your story, and thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's a bittersweet story, actually very sad, bittersweet. This takes place 34 years ago, and my father was diagnosed with cancer. and my sister and my sister was planning to get married and in about 16 months from that point

and, you know, my dad had like a 15% survival rate, so it was a serious case. And my sister wanted to know, do you want me to move the wedding up so that we can have it, you know, since your diagnosis is so serious? And he said, no, don't change your plans for me. Let's just keep it the way it is. So my dad just, you know, hung in there and never complained, dealt with his diagnosis. And you could just see the decline, though, within those 16 months. So my dad was a very kind of a serious guy, and he was an atheist and didn't really want to talk about faith at all.

but about 15 months into his illness, and now we knew it was going to be 16 months when he passed, but about a month before he passed, I had a very poignant conversation with him about faith and just said, listen, I know it's real. If you don't have to believe it's real, and that's okay. But I do know it's real and you can take the chance, and then I'll see you there, because I know it's real. real. You have nothing to lose. So, you know, we had this talk. Of course, I cried the whole time. We held hands. It was very sad and intense. But he said, now, was that so hard to do? And I was like, yeah, actually it was. But we finished our conversation. And that following month, my sister got married. And she had a wedding garden wedding. And back then, you know, well, It was very small, and the next day we got together with my dad and had a toasted champagne. He had a little swab of champagne.

And we listened to the cassette of the wedding, because that's how long ago it was. And my dad then had and got to shake his son-in-law's hand, which I know is really why he stayed alive as long as he did, because he really wanted to be there for that. So we all had a little time with my father before we all had to leap back to our jobs and to our cities where we lived. And my husband at the time said to my dad, do you mind if I pray with you before we leave? And he said, okay, well, I thought that was over the top, but I was totally for it. And after the prayer, my dad said, amen, which I thought was wild. So we left, and it was terribly sad. Everybody was crying.

The next morning, his sister, my aunt, she woke up, and she said to her husband, my uncle, Jim died last night, and he said, well, how do you know that? And she said, well, and I need to jump back. I'm sorry, I forgot one thing. And that is my stepmom at three in the morning said to my dad. dad, you can let go. Everybody's okay. Everything is fine. Now, you know, she's married. My sister's married. Everybody's doing okay. You can let go. And at 3.30 in the morning, she woke up. She fell asleep for that little time, and my dad had passed. So the next day, now back to my aunt, she woke up and said to

her husband that Jim died last night. And he said, well, how do you know? She said, well, I had this dream. The dream was on the wall, one huge wall, it was a clock and it said 3.30. And my dad came walking up to my aunt and she said, well, Jim, what are you doing here? And he said, well, I just came to let you know that I'm okay and that everything's all right. Well, she didn't know that my dad died at 3.30. But he came to her in that dream to tell her and they were very close. And it wasn't a until later that day that we found out all of us that he had passed and when he had passed, and then my aunt shared her story. And it was a story that just, you know, gives me a lot of hope because, you know, it's a big

deal to lose your parent. But it was comforting to know that he came back to let everybody know it was okay. And it's remarkable you see that he been. kind of initially it sounded like he was kind of resistant to this whole idea, but over time it seems like he came to accept it and then took this step to come back and share the story. And you use the word, and I think it's so appropriate. It's bittersweet in the sense that he's gone and it's a very sad thing and the way that all of it happened.

And that doesn't go away, but it seems to me reaffirming that he did reach out. and he did let you know, and you very much know, he's still around just in a different room, as they say. In a different room, but he's definitely always present. That's excellent. Chantelle, thank you for your support. Thank you for sharing the story. I know when people share these kind of stories about past loved ones and signs and so forth, it's difficult. It's difficult because, again, as much as we're heartened by the stories of connection and signs and so forth,

of worth, it still hurts. But I think it's so useful to so many people to share these kind of stories. And thank you for sharing yours today. My pleasure. Thanks for your program. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. I'm so happy because Amanda is back. She's a Plus Club member, loyal listener since pandemic times, and she has a UFO story, and I just want to say a note about that

before we get started. We thank Amanda, and we thank all of our storytellers, but I think sometimes people get hung up on the idea that, oh, that's a ghost story podcast. Yeah, it is. And it's a UFO.

story podcast and it is a big foot story podcast and just excuse the vernacular but weird as hell story podcast it's also the podcast

where I have a garbage truck outside taking my garbage so if you hear that I apologize usually we do a pretty good job of getting it out but Amanda's here

nonetheless we don't want to take her time up and she's going to tell us her UFO story and by the way you can tell your story whatever stripe of the unusual it is by signing up at jim herald dot com slash campfire

Amanda your time could start now because i just took up a lot of it tell us what tell us what happened thanks for joining you hi jim thanks for having me back so um this story i don't know if it falls under UFO head scratcher but um it was quite exciting so i live in new york in the mid hudson valley just 12 miles from the massachusetts border So literally where the Hudson Valley meets the Berkshires. And this area is quite well known for a lot of UFO activity.

And so my story took place probably the end of March. It was not winter anymore, but the leaves weren't on the trees. Everything was kind of stark and gray still. And a friend of mine and I had gone to a concert in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. which is very well known for some UFO activity, especially in the 60s. And we're driving home, and it's just dark, windy roads through the woods as you're coming out of the Berkshires. And like 10.30 at night, dark, no other real cards on the road, which was kind of unusual.

And I was driving and we're just talking. We didn't have the music playing or anything. We're just, you know, catching up. And I turned around this bend and at the top of the tree line ahead in the distance, there were these big bright lights and they looked almost like football stadium lights, you know, for night games. It was that level of intensity. But it was right at the tree line, like at top of the trees. So, you know, it went around a bend and then the road continued and the lights,

I just couldn't see them anymore. but I said, that's weird. That was so bright. What were those lights? And she's like, I don't know. So then we just kind of, you know, forgot about it. Drove a few more miles. And I know exactly where we were on the road because my husband used to work down the road where we saw the UFO. And there's a restaurant there. We used to go to all the time. I've been on this road hundreds and hundreds of times. So I'm very clear on where it happened. So we're driving. And we just, and we just, just turn this little bend and all of a sudden, at the treetops, like hovering right to the right side of the road just over the treetop is this massive thing with two rows of lights going across it. Now, I could not see the outer edge of the, what I'm just going to call it a UFO, just for lack of a better description right now, but I couldn't see the outer edges of the UFO because it was so dark and it's a back country road and not a lot of cars or anything. So, but there was, um, a solid line of lights, probably six to ten of them, very large, very, very bright.

And then just above that row of lights was a, another row of lights, but not quite as many. And it was just hovering there. And we didn't hear any sound. And I should say we were at a concert, but we hadn't had anything to drink or anything. And we're driving. And I was like, oh, my God, what is that? And I was driving. So I couldn't really like lean over and look too much. I said, what is that?

What is that? And she's looking out of the window. And she said, just drive. Just drive. Just drive. Just keep going. And I said, is this, do you still see it? Like, is that a UFO?

She said, I don't even want to think about it. I'm going home to an empty house. My husband's out of town. Oh, man. about it. Yeah. So I said, oh my God, what is it? Can you still see it? And I was excited. She was freaking out. She's skeptical, you know, and so to see her have that reaction was a little jarring for me. Sure. And so we, and it was so fast, Jim, you know, people I say, why didn't you get a picture? Why didn't you stop? It was so fast. It's just, and, you know, by the time your brain processes,

like, oh my God. And so she said, it has to have been a school or a big mansion where they're having a party. It's got to be a school lit up. It's not a UFO. It's got to be some big, huge building. And I was like, okay, okay. I don't know. Do you still see it?

She's like, no, because, you know, curvy road and everything. So then we came up to Catamount Ski Resort, which was just about a mile and a half past where we saw it. And I said, I'm going to turn around and go back because I want to see this. We have to know what this is. And she was just, please don't. Please don't turn around. I'm going through an empty house. I just, please, please keep going.

And so, of course, I did. I wasn't going to do that to her. Right. So we kept driving and we were both just like, what was that? That was insane. So I got home. you know, she had met me at my house, so she took off in her car. I came inside.

I told my husband, he's like, ah, it sounds like drones. I said, no, it was, it was so big and these lights were so big and so incredibly bright. I mean, when I saw it initially when we were driving, I thought it was, you know, high school stadium lights. Right. That's how bright it was. And I said, I can't imagine it was drones. I just can't.

We didn't see any movement. Again, it was very quick. So the next day, I was just, like, excited and freaked out. I needed answers. And so the next day, I drove that same route, went all the way to Great Barrington and back. And in that spot, again, I knew exactly where we saw it, because I'm still familiar with it. There was nothing there, Jim. There's no, even though it's the Berkshires, there was not a hill in that spot with a house on top or, anything. It was flat, no house, nothing, just this big thing hanging over the treetops. And I have asked her about it, my friend since, and I said, can you know, just tell me what you saw. And she describes it exactly the same way. So I don't really know what it was. But very intense. And I'm sure. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, it's just going to say, I did look online for several days after the local Facebook groups, you know, the community boards. I looked at the local papers. I didn't see anybody commenting about anything. So I really don't know what it was. Do you have any theories as to it was? Do you think it was some kind of aliens? Do you think it was a

military experiment? Do you think it was atmospheric? Do you have any theories, I guess, is what I'm asking. I mean, my theory is that it was a UFO. I'm not sure why the military would have something in this area at 10.30 on a Saturday night, it's a tree line hovering over a random road. Yeah, that would seem like an odd test. That would be a non-a-test. Well, I mean, you and everybody else, I mean, what do any of us know? We don't. We don't. That's why I think everybody is so interested in. everything going on. And let's hope we do find out. And I think people telling their stories

is at least part of getting to the bottom of it all because if enough people are telling stories about seeing these things, there's got to be a there there. So thank you for sharing yours, Amanda, and stay spook. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. You know, it's so great to know

that new people are discovering our shows all the time. And just such a person is Lori. She discovered us towards the end of last year. We're so glad she did. She's already a plus club member and already a storyteller. And we really appreciated. And she has, you know, I think some of the most impactful stories we have, our pet stories. And we have one of those from Lori.

Lori, thank you for joining us. Thanks for being a plus member, a storyteller. So glad you found us. Tell us what happened. Thanks so much for having me, Jim. So this is a story about my cat blue. Blue was named for her piercing blue eyes and for where we found. or she found us, which was in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We were on vacation with our family,

and we pulled up to our cabin with our two dogs. This emaciated, a desperate kitty comes running up to us, and so we take her in and feed her, start feeding her right away. We take her to the vet, make sure she's not chipped. We have an exam. We couldn't find her owner, so by the time we had to leave from our vacation. We took her home and she became our little kitty, coexisting nicely with our two dogs. A couple years later, I got a divorce, so she joined me and became a very happy condo kitty. She saw me through some very tough times. We were very close. She was super affectionate cat. Always, in fact, I used to tease that she was more like a dog because she demanded attention, always rolling on her belly.

And, you know, if I was working from home, she would sit on my keyboard and just demanded attention. Just an adorable cat. Well, the last year of her life, so she was with us for about 12 years. The last year of her life, she had developed a liver condition and was quite sick, throwing up, sometimes making some very painful meows. And I knew it was time to help her transition as hard as it was. I had the vet that comes to the house because I felt that was the most peaceful way. And so she transitioned as peaceful as possible.

But I just really struggled with grief and with guilt, wondering if maybe I would, if I did the right thing, you know, because cats can be very stoic where they seem really sick one minute. They can be just, well, she seems she seems fine. But I knew she'd been sick because she'd been struggling for about a year. Anyway, right away, almost immediately, I'd have three distinct visits from Blue. The first was, as I'm just falling asleep, I feel her jump on the bed, the end of the bed like she always did. And then another time I felt her like at the top of my head, she would lay on the pillow. behind me. I felt her there. So it kind of felt that her presence and that just the weight of another being there. And then finally was a very realistic dream where she came to me just as I was

waking up and I felt her a gentle headbut as she would do sometimes in life. And it just really felt like a thank you. And at the very least, just I'm fine, I'm well. And immediately after that, my grief ceased. I felt, you know, I woke up saying, oh, hi, Blue. And I just knew she had visited me and let me know she was okay. So I love that story. And I love the idea that, you know, our pets go beyond one of my favorite all-time stories in terms of this kind of thing and similar. is someone had to make that decision for a dog. And it's so tough. We had to do that with our dog that we had for about, oh, my gosh, I think he was about 15 years old.

And he was a larger dog. He was like part German Shepherd, part beagle, fantastic dog. And the thing was is when our kids were little, his name was Trouble, although he was anything but trouble. Because when we got him, I said, oh, you look like trouble. And that's, that kind of stuck. But the thing was, he was a great dog. And it was when our kids were small, they could try to ride him like a horse. He would not, you know, he was just great with the kids.

So anyway, the time came where he was getting ill and it just was unavoidable. This was the best thing for him. And it was so sad. So I could relate to this. So this woman had the same decision that you guys faced or that we faced, you faced, and many folks that have pets have faced. and she came home and she put the collar with the tags hanging down in the garage. And the thing is, is that now they've got different style tags and it's built into the collar.

But back in the day, most of the collars had the hanging tags. And the funny thing is, if you had multiple dogs or multiple cats, you could tell which one it was by the jangle. It's like a sound signature. But the thing was is that after the collar was put away, For like three or four days, she kept hearing the jangle throughout the house, almost like it was coming to say, you know, goodbye and so forth. So I really believe that. I believe that. I believe our pets lived on.

And you had mentioned to me offline that you really are enjoying near-death experience, accounts, and podcasts and stuff forth. And people have reported in a near-death experience seeing beloved pets. Yes, I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. So they're still out there. They're still out there. Yeah. I was thinking the other day, we don't deserve dogs and the same goes with cats. I mean, these are family members and they add so much to our lives.

They truly do. They truly do. Lori, I know you have another story. We'll get that another time. But I thank you so much. Thanks for your support. Thanks for sharing your story today and stay spooky. Thank you, Jim. All right. Thank you. Stay spooky. Well, you never know what you're going to see when you're camping. And Sue is still asking herself that question. years after this happened. Sue, welcome to the show. And thanks. I don't know exactly when this is going to air, but you joined us on our Summerween live stream. So thank you for that.

Yeah, so appreciate that. And folks, you know, keep an eye on that kind of stuff because we do those things from time to time. That was for everybody. That wasn't even our Plus Club. Then we do special things for our Plus Club as well. You can keep up with everything we do, virtual campfiregroup.com, virtualcampfiregroup.com. Great community, free community.

no catch, just to wait for you to keep up to date and everything you do and talk about stories like this one. Sue, yeah, camping. Strangeness ensued. Tell us what happened. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on again. This is a story I've told so many times over the years. So when I was in high school, back in the early 90s, we had an opportunity to go camping for a week in the Boundary Waters canoe area, which is the border between Minnesota and Canada. very pristine lakes. You can drink the water right out of them. I went every year during high school and on my senior year, there was a really large group of people that wanted to go. There was like 40 plus people and there's only like two or three adults. And 10 of us who are seniors, 18, were like, hey, can we just go off to this other lake and go camp there? So we didn't even go

with the main group to the main camping spot. So what would happen when? we got up there is we'd stop at an outfitter and get the canoes and the packs of food and stuff like that, the things that we didn't personally bring ourselves. And we would gather all that stuff together. And then you would canoe across the lake, carry your canoe and your packs and everything over land to the next lake, canoe across that lake, do that for about four to six hours and you're at your campsite. So you're way out in the middle of nowhere. It's just gorgeous. No city lights, no nothing. So we had started. It started out from the lodge with the main group, but we went off in a different direction. So we weren't anywhere near them.

We had a lot of fun. It was just a smaller group of people. We'd known each other for four years at that point. And we just, you know, had a few weird things happen while we were there. We had some things like, well, first of all, we forgot spring rope. That's what happens with a smaller group and no adults. I mean, we were supposed to be adults. spread. So the rope is important to string your

food packs up between trees so the bears don't get it. Right. That makes sense. We forgot that. So we rigged up a canoe upside down. And these were like flat or bottom canoes. They didn't have like the point that comes up or anything. And we stood that up upside down over the food packs and we made sure it was wedged in. And our alarm system was like the metal plates and cups that came with the camping deer. lay those out all across the top of the canoe. So if a bear were to try to get a bag, we would hear them bang on the ground and the guys could go scare the bear away. And nothing really happened with that all week. We did have some, a couple of times sitting

around the campfire, you know, late at night, we were telling stories about the supposed mass murderer who lives up in the boundary waters of the new area and kills campers and things like that. So we tell those stories to freak each other out. And there's a lot of fun, but we would hear noises back in the woods and we'd stop talking to listen and the noises would stop. And this happened several nights. And, you know, we were like,

okay, maybe we shouldn't be telling these stories. Let's talk about something else. And we would still hear the noises. And it's like, well, you know, it's probably something. We don't know what. It sounded kind of big, but like a bear would move around when you're quiet, not when you're talking.

Right. So we didn't know what that was. And another person had mentioned that they had seen someone standing up on a bluff across the lake. And they're like, yeah, but they might have been really tall. You know, like, I don't know what that was. But they thought it was a person.

We all thought it was a person at the time. But last night there, the fun started. We were separated into maybe three or four tents. I know I'd always brought my own tent, and I might have had someone else in there. The guys had a tent. There were only two guys and eight girls. A couple people who had never been up there before.

This was their first week. And it's late at night. we hear a plate slide off the canoe, just one, and then a cup, and then something else slides off the canoe. And all of a sudden, everything falls off the canoe. So the guys go running out of their tent banging pots and pans together, except there's no bear. We would have heard it running away. They would have seen it. Right.

You know, and like the canoe wasn't overturned. The canoe is still stable, so we just set everything back up and went back to sleep. Sure enough, 10, 15 minutes later, something slides off the canoe, one at a time. and then all of a sudden everything crashed to the ground. Guys go running out there again, banging pops and pans, and again, no bear. At this point, we're like, okay, this is weird. Our alarm system has worked really well all week. You know, we set everything back up.

We made sure the canoe is, you know, not wobbly. It wasn't windy. Anything like that? We're like, okay, let's try this again. Let's go back to sleep. Sure enough, 15 minutes later, it happens again. So this is the third time where everything is just falling off the canoe, you know, starting slowly at first, one or two.

And then everything. We're like, we don't know what's going on. Two of the girls at this point are crying. They want to go back to wherever the group is or back to the lodge. And that's, it's very dangerous. You're out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Sure. You can't just, you know, that's why we knew someone from our other group wasn't messing with us.

Because it's too dangerous to canoe like that at night. And we were just trying to think of anything else it could be. And we're like, we don't know. You know, we've got people crying. here now. So we separated into two tents. One guy in each tent and of course he's by the door so he can jump out

if something happens. But someone had to be at the back of the tent that meant and they're like Sue would you sleep back there? I'm like, oh, fine. So I slept at the back of the tent and I actually fell asleep right away and nothing else happened the rest of the night.

Like no other activity. And then in the morning our food packs were pretty scarce at that we'd eat most of the food. We had a loaf of bread or some bread left in one of them. And a bear actually did slide it out from under the canoe without making sound. So our alarm system didn't really work that last morning other than to scare us the night before. But it was just really weird.

We got back. We told everyone about it. And they're like, that's really, really strange, you know. But I've been telling that story so many times over the years. But I've been watching these shows and listening to the podcast and things like that. And I looked up Bigfoot in Boundarywater Canoe area. And sure enough, there are like a lot of stories around that region. And I'm not saying Bigfoot was messing with us that night.

But I'm just saying I never thought about it that way. I mean, someone had thought ghosts. It's like, what ghosts are going to be out of here? Right. Well, the ghosts of the mass murders, you know, victims maybe. But yeah. So it was just a very creepy camping experience. but at the very end I'll tell you that wasn't my serious time camping.

At the very end, I'll tell you that one. It's a little 20-second deal. Okay. Well, back to this one. Yes. I mean, it could be, and then we'll get the other one in there too. But the thing is that it's one of the possibilities, right, in the fact that there were so many sightings.

And we know from what the experts tell us if it's to be believed, and I think that it is, that Bigfoot, if it exists, is extremely intelligent. So it could be. And it was interesting. The other interesting part was when you were telling the stories. And it was, you know, you would hear it, then be quiet. And then you hear it and you'd be quiet. So you may have very well had an encounter with Bigfoot.

You never know. We just thought it was a creepy incident. And there were no bears involved. Yeah. So what else? be doing it of that size. So you said you had another small one for us. Go ahead. Yeah, so that wasn't the scariest time when I was camping. A couple years ago, I actually drove to Michigan in a camper van to see my son graduate high school. And I was in the middle of, you know, dark parking lot late at night

at a truck stop, and a truck pulls up, and they have their headlights on, and I have my windows open because it's hot. And I don't know what they're doing there. They're just sitting here. I hear a man and a woman talking and then I hear her say, but I gave you all my bullets. I set up and turned lights on and everything and pulled my phone out. Yeah, that might not be paranormal, but if you stick around too much with somebody that you might become a ghost. I decided to throw that in at the end. Yeah. There you go. Sometimes the living are a lot more scary than the dead. Sue, thank you for joining us, joining us and telling us these stories. Stay spooky. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Stay soon.

Okay. Yeah, good shirt, good shirt. Thanks for joining us on the Camp Fire. I appreciate it very much. Thanks to all of our storytellers, as I tell them individually, without our storytellers, we wouldn't have a show. And along that line, I'm sure many of you watching, many of you listening, have a story. Please share it at Jimherald.com slash Campfire. Also, if you want to support our work and get access to that archive, that shrub. treasure trove of thousands of campfire stories that you can't get on the free feeds, go over to Jimherald.com slash plus and join today. We have some great updated promo codes. They'll save you a bundle of money and it will support the work we do. We appreciate it very much. We'll talk to you next time. Have a great week. Everybody, stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-bye.