Jim Harold's Campfire - Lady Ghost On The Road - Jim Harold's Campfire 766

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

More real paranormal stories from real people. There are eerie moments on the road, odd little signs that seem to show up at exactly the right time, and experiences that feel like more than coincidence. Some are spooky, some are surprisingly touching, and a few are just plain hard to explain. We’ll also hear about haunted places, vivid dreams, possible visits from loved ones, and encounters that leave everyone wondering what really happened. It is the kind of Campfire episode where the stories go in different directions, but they all have that same lingering feeling: maybe there is more going on around us than we realize. Also included is another apperance by Gary D In Canada. VIRTUAL CAMPFIRE GROUPJoin our FREE online community at ⁠https://virtualcampfiregroup.com⁠ YOUTUBE 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

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A late night ghost looking for victims up next on the campfire. Sit back. Relax and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. Next up, we have a newer listener. I am talking about Jamie from California. And if you're watching on video, you see them right there in living color. And the thing is, I got to tell you is, I was telling Jamie, especially these new callers calling in. I really appreciated everybody who calls in. I appreciate it because without these folks, without people like Jamie, we don't have a show. So thanks to all. are storytellers past, present, and future.

And if you've not been a storyteller, please sign up. I think everybody has a story. Jimherald.com slash campfire. And Jamie is going to tell us about, well, the white lady ghost. So I can't wait to hear this. Jamie, thank you for joining us. Tell us about the white lady ghost.

Okay. So I am almost. I'll be 60 in September. This happened when I was 19, I'm guessing 19 or 20. And I remember it vividly. I'm just the most normalest, simplest, simplest guy you'd ever want to meet. And this really, it kind of shocked me. And I was, me and a girlfriend that I had at the time broke up.

I live in Humboldt County, California. And she is from a rich part of San Francisco. Diego. So I drove down there to try to make amends with her, you know, how young guys will try to do. And on the way there, it was somewhere below Los Angeles. I took one-on-one the whole way, I believe. And I've tried to research this. And there's like four or five white lady ghosts on the highways of California. So I'm not sure exactly where I was. But, and this isn't a real long story. I'm driving. I had a 66 Volkswagen microbus. Cool.

It was back in my fall in the Grateful Dead days, you know? And I'm driving down the freeway, and there's a woman in the middle of my lane, all in white, with white hair, like a white nightgown. And I swore not to hit her. I'm like, oh, my God, there's a person lady in the middle of the road. and I swerve not to hit her. And I keep going down the road for another, oh, no, 10, 15 minutes. And there she is.

I see her right again, right in the middle of my lane. And this time, I wasn't falling for it. I just drove right through her. And she went right through my van. Wow. And, yeah. And then I kept going. And there she was again, three times.

but this time she was just on the side of the road just standing there. And so I was shook up. I've been driving for a long time and calm down, dog. And I pulled over to a gas station and I said, man, you guys wouldn't believe this. There's a lady in the middle of the road all in white. And they go, that's the white lady goes. She makes truck drivers crash and burn. You're lucky you're alive.

Wow. I'm like, wow. So they knew all about it in this little gas station on the side of in the middle of nowhere. and they said truck drivers frequently see her and frequently try to not hit her because, I mean, it looked like a real person. Yeah, I mean, that's your first thought. You know, you see somebody, no matter how they're dressed, you see somebody in the middle of the road.

You're not thinking it's a ghost. You're thinking this is a real person and I'm a good person and I don't want to hit them. That's my thought. That's my thought. I'm not, even with what I do, and this is so true. So many people I talk to about this stuff, you know, if there's a good. in bed and they're hearing somebody like rattling a door or something, they're not thinking a ghost. They're thinking somebody's breaking into my house. I think most of us go to the quote logical

explanation first. We don't think of ghosts walking in the middle of the highway. Correct. Yeah. I'm looking back, she was kind of old-fashioned looking, looking back on it, you know, the nightgown and the way it was styled and all that. And, you know, you don't see that these days, you know. Now, let me ask you a couple things. First of all, and I know this a long time ago, 1989, and I remember 1989, boy,

boy, I wish I were as young as I was in 1989. I was, I was 20 at the time. And but the thing is, is that you know, do you remember them saying, was the thought that this ghost tried to cause people to

crash? Like it really meant to cause harm or was it just a side effect? It did seem like she made, from what they said at the gas station, that she makes truck drivers crash and burn. Like, there's a history of it. Yeah. I was wondering, I mean, because I almost slammed on my brakes and swerved, you know, I could have crashed very easily trying to avoid hitting her.

And then the other thing is, the other thing is what do the other cars? Do you slam on your brakes? They, you know, you could have a pile up. You could have anything. The other thing I was wondering was if this ghost had like a bad purpose and it was in fact like spiritual and it was a ghost, is it possible it was aware of your state of mind? You know what I'm saying? That's kind of going a little far, but maybe it thought, oh, I'm going to pray on Jamie because, you know, here he's loved Lorne. He's, you know, he's heart sick and trying to make up with his girlfriend.

And boy, he'd be a good target right now. Do you ever think of that? I did. Plus, I've been up for a long time driving, and I was distraught. Yeah, I never thought of that, but yeah, that makes me good, good bait for something paranormal to happen for sure. Yeah. Well, but more so that not you, not you imagining or anything, and I don't believe that. What I'm saying is, is that, you know, if there is this white lady ghost out and the way Lady Ghost wants to cause people to crash, then it wouldn't be too far of a thought that it picks its victims based on their vulnerability. You're tired, you're heart sick, you're upset, probably, I mean, obviously you did a pretty good job driving, but probably you weren't at your best driving. So you'd be a great target to bait into an accident. See what I'm saying?

Definitely, definitely. Yeah. Well, the good news. Not just once. It wasn't just once. It was three times in the same amount, you know, in a very short amount of time. She wanted to let you know she was there. Well, Jamie, the good news is many years later, you're still here. No accident.

And you were able to avoid it. But it sounds like you'll never forget that story of the White Lady Ghost. I will not. I will not. Jamie, thank you for joining us on the campfire. I'm so glad you found us. Thanks for sharing your story. and stay spooky.

Stay spooky, Jim. Thanks. Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you. And we got things off to a great start with that story. And there is more to come. And there's certainly more to come with our very first podcast that we started. And I want to tell you about that one in case you don't know about it, because I know we have new people all the time.

It is called the paranormal podcast. And that one is one where I am. interview authors and experts about ghosts, UFOs, cryptic creatures, all kinds of weird stuff. And if that sounds good to you, you can find it for free wherever you find the campfire. For example, this week, I just released an episode with Richard Searrett. You know him from coast to coast a.m. And he just came out with a book called Tales from the Rock and Roll Twilight Zone about all these rock stars who met mysterious deaths.

maybe there was supernatural factors at play. Maybe there were paranormal factors at play. Maybe there was foul play. You can be the judge, but you can only find that on the paranormal podcast. So look for the paranormal podcast wherever you get the campfire. Now, there may be a little bit of confusion because we have the paranormal report, which I also recommend you check out. And that's with my wife, Dar, but this is the paranormal podcast.

And I started that one in July of 2005. And as far as I know, it's the longest running paranormal podcast on the Internet. So check it out. I hope you will check it out. And I know you're going to want to check out this next Camp Fire Story. Rebecca is on the line from the great state of Texas. And, of course, like so many people, she found out about us from Christine and M from, and that's why we drink.

Thank you, Christine and M, as always. Rebecca, you receive. signs, but maybe in a very unique way. Please tell us about that. I sure do, Jim, and thanks for having me. Thank you. I receive signs via found paper. So that's pretty cool. Tell us about it. Yeah. So it's mostly near my house on my street, but it's been other places, too, just random sidewalks or parking lots. Huh. Yeah. And so they, they. range in meaning to me like from, you know, just a general, like, positive three is my favorite number. Right.

To more specific ones. And we can kind of get it into whatever you want here. Yeah, yeah, you can tell us about. I want to describe for people who are just listening because most people still just listening. Explain the of which you're holding up for folks. Sure. And I listen too. But, you know, my favorite part of any Zoom is the show and tell aspect.

No, I love both things. Yeah. So I've got some Udo cards, a tarot card, an Ace of Spades playing card, a couple flashcards in children's handwriting, a little Valentine. Oh, how cool. Well, pick one of your favorites and tell us an anecdote about it or what happened with it. Pick one of your favorites. Oh, fabulous. Okay. So here we have a little kids flash card and the word gem is written on it, G.E. And a little gym stone. And a little gym drawing. And I found this when I was having just a really crappy day. And I came home.

I found it walking my dogs. Came home. I was talking to my mom on the phone that evening and told her about it. Because she's kind of woo-woo too. She's kind of like, oh, what does this mean about different things? Excellent. So maybe that's where I get it. But I told her about this and she said, oh, your grandmother, which is her mom, she would always call people a gym.

She would say, oh, you're such a gym. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that really was just such a sweet, I feel like a sign or kind of like a hug almost. Well, it's one thing if you found it and you guys speculated over it, but there was a direct tieback to your. grandmother, I think that that makes it extra special cool. Tell us about another one that you'd like to tell us. Yeah, sure. Well, they've gotten more specific as time has gone on. And one of the most recent ones I have is this index card on which is written, two people are better

than one. They can help each other in everything they do. And my husband and I have been married for about 14 years. And, you know, we make a great team, but we're both kind of stubbornly independent and don't like to bother the other person for help. And this came at a time when it was needed. I will just say that. And so it inspired us both really to kind of lean on each other more and really brought us a little closer. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, the universe, the universe communicates us to us in strange ways. But it's interesting. It's kind of locked on to you at this level.

But it seems like it works for you. And it seems like it really brings you meaningful messages. Do you have one last one you'd like to share with us? Ooh, let's go with, this is the most recent one. We've got a little, little sticky note that says, free puzzles, take one. and take one is underlined. And the day I found this, we were, we just had our kitchen remodeled,

but it was almost done at this point. And my mind was already racing on like, okay, what are we going to do next? We need a new roof. We, I want to do something with the yard. You know, and the take one was like, slow down, one thing at a time because homeownership and life are both full of puzzles. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. I find myself doing that too. I feel like sometimes it's like you can do all the things, but you can't do them all at the same time, right? Exactly. And sometimes we have to be reminded of that. I recently had a situation where I felt like I was reminded of it just health-wise.

It's like, hey, slow down a little bit. There's time for everything. as long as you don't try to do it all at once. Well, Rebecca, thank you so much. I appreciate it very, very much. That is very cool. And that's the thing that I love about the campfire. Now, we have had people have stories about finding books or one of my favorites

was, and we really don't know the meaning of this one. But this man found his childhood school picture in a trash can hundreds of miles from where he lived on a business trip, which was very weird. We don't know the significance of that. or he didn't at that time. But it just really too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence. But what I love about your story is that it's something different. And we've been doing this show since 2009 and there's always something new, always something interesting around the campfire.

Thank you, Rebecca. Thanks for listening. Thanks for sharing your story and stay spooky. Thanks, Jim. Stay spooky. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if, like what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old.

You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what it. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. We have a return caller. Shelly is back from Washington State, and we're so glad to talk with her again.

Now, she has a story, and we were talking a little bit offline, she said, I don't think you've ever had a story about this before. And I said, almost 17 years. April will be 17 years. I don't think we've ever had a story about. this on the campfire. So, Shelley, everybody's in suspense. Tell us what happened. Hi, Jim. It's great to be back, and I'm honored to be here and share the story with

everybody. So basically, this happened, this has happened over a course of years, but I'm a professional belly dancer, and I have a group of friends and community members who danced at a haunted venue. So basically, this is about the Lowell M Hidden House in Vancouver, Washington. The hiddens are an integral part of this community. They have a couple houses, and they have this old Victorian house downtown. And a lot of the belly dancers dance down there. I got my feet wet, you know, dancing in front of people down there.

It's been various different types of venues throughout the years, mostly restaurants. At the time, it was a Greek restaurant. Now it's actually a special event center, but the hiddens who have the house still own it. So it's still owned by the hidden family. And they were brick layers. They had a brick factory in Vancouver. So a lot of our old historic structures have hidden bricks in them. And I actually have a couple of hidden bricks out in my sidewalk outside, which is kind of cool.

So anyway, this all started. My husband and I went for a haunted walking tour with the Clark County Historical Society downtown. And we started and ended the tour at the Hidden House. So that was kind of interesting because the tour guide, I had to tell her some of these stories. But I'm going to share with you some of the stories that I have gotten directly from my belly dance community. So when it was a Greek restaurant, we would dance down in the restaurant area. So to give you an idea of what the layout was, you walked in through the door. There was kind of a foyer type area where you checked in.

And then you would be seated in one of the two rooms that were, I think, the old living room and parlor dining room areas. There were two rooms that were converted into seating space for the restaurant. Obviously, it wasn't huge. It was, you know, pretty small. And then the kitchen was behind it. And then there was a downstairs bathroom, which was really kind of a half bath. And then as you, from the foyer, you could go upstairs into, there was a bedroom kind of at the end of a hall. There was a long hallway.

And then there was this big room in the front that, I guess, in the old time, they had as a dining room or a family room or a living room upstairs, which is kind of strange, but it was this big open space. And that's where the dancers would get dressed to perform downstairs. And then when we were ready to perform, we'd go downstairs and perform and then go upstairs and obviously change. So it was pretty creepy upstairs. You went upstairs and you just kind of got a weird vibe. I never personally had anything outright happened to me other than that creepy vibe. I didn't really want to be up there by myself. But I have a few stories. So my dance partner, I'm just going to call her R, she was upstairs getting dressed one night. She was by herself upstairs.

She knew for sure she was by herself upstairs. And she was getting dressed and she heard the upstairs bedroom door down the hallway, unlatch, and creak open, like in a scary movie, basically. And then she was, you know, kind of stood there and listened. And then she's like, okay, whatever. So she went, she decided, well, I'm going to go down and investigate. So she went down there and she kind of peeked in the bedroom and she looked around and nobody was there. So she's like, okay, whatever. So she went back into the larger room and finished getting dressed or, whatever. And then she heard the door basically close and kind of slam shut. And she's like, okay, I'm done. I'm going downstairs. So she, you know, left and went downstairs because she

didn't want to be up there. So that creeped her out. I've had, you know, somebody else actually mentioned kind of the same, same exact story. She had the same, same experience. I also have another friend who was up there. And this was actually also by the Historical Society. They say they have a cleanliness ghost. So my, yeah, I'm like, that's the kind of ghost to have if you're going to have a ghost. But so my friend was upstairs and she was getting dressed again to go dance and she was by herself. And so she got ready to go and she went downstairs and danced. And when she came back upstairs, all of her clothes that had previously been strewn about all over the room were nicely packed in her open suitcase. So, yeah.

So she's like, that's weird. And she actually also told me a couple stories. The owner of the restaurant called the ghost his ghost girlfriend. And one night apparently somebody tried to break in. And I don't know whether they had it on camera or what, but the robber apparently tripped over something unknown in the room that wasn't there. and it freaked them out so much that they ran and they left. They didn't end up getting robbed. And he joked about his ghost girlfriend, you know, saving them from being robbed.

So that was kind of cool, too. So very helpful ghosts. So anyway, my friend who had the cleanliness ghost, there was another dancer, not even, you know, affiliated with her who told the same story. So she had the same exact experience with the ghost picking up her. things and neatly folding them in. Oh, that's pretty well. I need one like that.

No. Yeah. Diary would appreciate it. It's like I throw things about. She'd be like she'd be very thankful. You said you had another story too. If we had a moment, you wanted to share another quick one, right? Yeah.

So, yeah. I mean, I have, I actually also had an experience happened to us when we were at the historical society. And basically we were standing, standing in the kind of back room. The ghost tour people said, let's all adjourn in the back room. So we were standing there in the back room and we were just kind of standing there listening to the lady. And then all of a sudden she was talking about the original, it used to be a library.

It was a museum when we were there. It originally was a library, and she was talking about the original founder of the libraries in town. Her name was Eva Stan. And she was talking about how some of the staff would be there kind of late at night and the things that would happen. And then all of a sudden, as we're standing there, the lights started to flicker kind of on their own. Yeah. So I actually experienced that, which was pretty cool. And she kind of stopped after a minute because it kept happening.

and everybody's kind of looking around. And it kept happening and she stopped and she said, well, everybody say hello to Eva, please. Everybody says, hi, Eva. And then everything was fine. So that was even before we even got started on the tour and we went outside, that was just standing there getting ready to go. And I don't know if something happened because there was a couple,

it was around Halloween time. So there was a couple there who was dressed in like 1800s of ties. like totally decked out. So I don't know if that made her feel more comfortable or if she's just a very outgoing ghost that there were probably, you know, 15 or 20 of us there that, who experienced it. I love that. Well, thank you so much. And I can't get over that neat, neat freak ghost.

The ones like everything has its place. And I may be a ghost, but we're not going to have a mess in this place. Shally, thank you for joining us tonight and stay spooky. You're welcome. Stay spooky. Next up on the campfire is Melissa from Montana. You see her there. We're so glad to have her. And she said, well, I didn't know if this was a campfire story because it's more heartfelt.

And my thing is that the supernatural and the paranormal to me is a continuum, right? So we do have those spooky, oaky, scary, like, oh, my God, pull the cover up over my head stories. Yeah, that's a part of the campfire. And we always want that to be a part of the campfire. But we want this to be a part of the campfire as well. Melissa, thank you for joining us from Montana today. What's the, what, this is, we're recording this January 20th. What's the temperature out there today?

Well, this isn't our normal winters. I guess this has been normal for us the last probably five or six years, but it's, it's 25 out right now. Wow. You got us beat for six degrees Fahrenheit, six degrees Fahrenheit with the arrows point. it down. So we're getting the cold, we're getting this cold this time around. Well, go ahead and tell us. We have no snow either. So we have snow in the mountains, but no snow. And we have snow here too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Tell us what happened. Okay. So to kind of preface the story, I like to listen to podcasts. That's obviously how I ended up finding out about you. But I started out

with like Oprah's Super Soul Sundry and then the goop and we could do hard things. And then however it came about, you had gotten suggested as something that I might like and then ended up listening to you. But with those other podcasts, a lot of it's kind of like psychology or spiritual or self-helpy. And in one of the podcasts, they were talking about how if he had issues with your parents, and you didn't resolve those issues, you're going to play those out again with your significant others. And I just always listen to them regardless of whether they have anything to do with me at all,

just because I find it interesting. But I was like, oh, well, I feel like I'm pretty lucky in that way because me and my husband don't fight much. And if we do, it's like really stupid stuff, not anything dire. and I was like, oh, I wonder why that is. And then I was like, oh, you know, my parents didn't fight much. They had a great marriage. And my dad was a really nice, sweet dad.

I don't know, no issues there. And I was like, I just kind of said in my head my parents have passed. So I said thank you to them. And then also said thanks to my dad for being such a nice daddy that I was able to find a nice husband. Sure. Yeah. And that was while I was, I had my earphones in when I was listening. I got up early that morning.

I was just kind of stretching and listening to my podcast. And my husband was still in bed. So it's not like he even listened to the podcast. Not that it really helps put two and two with the story. And the other preface of the story is he basically only dreams of dead people. Oh my. Which is awesome because he goes fishing with his best friend and his dad like all the time. So it's like nice stuff and he never remembers that they're past.

In the dreams. His dreams? Yeah. So it's like if he does dream of a live person, we start like worry. But he has never like, he has never predicted anything or anything. and he doesn't think it's anything special. I think it is. I would love to go to bed and see my loved ones at night.

But he doesn't think too much of it. So that was that morning that I listened to that podcast. Didn't say nothing to my husband about it. That whole day goes by and we go to bed in the next morning. He's like, oh, I had a dream last night and I dreamt of your dad. And it's like, oh, well, that's, you know, weird. you know, like usually my parents don't pop into his dreams. And so he proceeds to tell me what it was about.

And, you know, when my dad was alive, he did his Medicare. So he's like, I was dreaming I had to go to his house to give him some Medicare paperwork or whatever. Yeah. And he was knocking on the door and he wasn't coming. So my dad or my husband looked in the window to see my dad like sitting at the table doing something not paying attention. So he had to, like, knock on the window. And it, like, startled my dad, which he did. He was really easy to startle the point where we would kind of make fun of it sometimes.

And it was probably not funny now looking back. We probably had some PTSD campaign in the Air Force and stuff. Like, one time we were at this museum and the alarm went off. Like, it was just like a minor alarm. And he just started punching the air. Oh, my mind. So, you know, it's kind of like prick foot of my dad from startling so easy. But so that was interesting because I don't know if my husband knew that or maybe we had told him, maybe he talked about him, but he said he startled.

And then he came to the door and answered the door and he gave him the paperwork. And my dad gave him a hug. And it's not like my dad was a big hugger. I mean, not that he wasn't a hugger, but it's like I wouldn't be necessarily. the normal interaction between my husband and dad. Right. Just to hug out of nowhere. And then he said, hey, wait, you know, give this coat to Melissa.

And I was like, okay, you know. So he was like, that was weird. But like to me, that was really, my dad would never let us leave the house without a coat. Yeah. If we did want to leave the house without a coat, we had to kind of like sneak out or go hide the You know, and he's always like, okay, you got coats and gloves and hats in the car and a shovel, you know, whenever you're traveling, whatever. Right. It was like you had to have a warm coat.

That was a big deal to him. So that made sense to me. And then also, I don't even know if this was around the time. It might have been a year two before, whatever. I wanted a car heart coat for Christmas and made my husband buy me win. And he hates this. coat. He hates it with a purple passion. You know, it's a manly coat, but I love how warm it is. And, you know, you don't feel nothing through a car heart. Not that this is an ant or whatever.

But so I love to wear my car heart. And he gives me crap about it all the time because he was like, we go to walk the dog. And I just look like a dude, all bundled up. But I love my car heart. But I think that's, I think it was significant because I think he was trying to say, let her wear a coat. I taught her to wear her coat. She's going to wear the coat. Let her wear the coat. Oh, yeah. Well, that's funny.

That's funny. So you think it was relating that definitely was relating back to that coat. You guys argue about that's fun. Yeah, yeah. But then also, that kind of goes to the same thing that I was thinking we only have a pitilied. And then that's not going to fight. It's just more like a, you know. Disagreement.

That's, that's me. We're a cute great girl. It's like, no. That's funny. Well, you know, I love these dreams. I do think that our loved ones come through in dreams, Melissa. And it sounds like your dad did it in his own way.

In a way that, again, I always say this. I think they come through in ways they're meaningful to you. The coat might not have that significance for somebody else, but you, you know, your dad was like, you got to wear a heavy coat reminds me of my father-in-law. You got to go, when you go out in the cold, you've got to dress well. you know um so uh it's a way of getting that across and then it was too much of a coincidence that he came to give my husband a hug after i just thanked him for being a nice daddy that i had

that nice husband so well it sounds it sounds fantastic you have uh had a great father and i believe he's still with you and a great husband that sounds like a pretty good deal melissa thank you for being on the show and stay spooky okay thank you a quick word before we get back to the campfire. You know, people say, Jim, I'm new to the show, but where are all the old shows? How do I get those? Well, I have an easy answer. If you'd like to access the full campfire catalog going all the way back to 2009, the place to go is Jimherald.com slash plus. As a spooky studio plus member, you'll get hundreds of classic episodes. And now we're also adding remastered versions of Jim Harold's Campfire in the paranormal podcast. We're going back,

removing all old external ads, cleaning up the audio, and making these episodes sound better than ever. But those remaster classics only available in the Plus Club. And we also have something brand new for Plus members called Spooky Studio Net. Dar and I get together with members for a casual online meetup where people can introduce themselves, share what's going on in their part of the world, answer a question of the day, play a little trivia, and just have some fun. We've done, I think three so far, and people are really enjoying it. Access to the Spooky Studio Net is for Plus Club members only. Plus Club members also get behind the scenes with Jim and Dar.

Our exclusive show where we talk about life, the business, you know, having a family-based media operation and whatever happens to be on our minds for 20 or 30 minutes every couple weeks. Again, only for the Plus Club. This is not to mention our interview shows exclusively for the... the Plus Club like Ghost Insight and UFO encounters in the other side and more. You can find all of this at Jimherald.com slash plus. Again, that's Jimherald.com slash plus.

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and want us to keep doing it and it fits your budget, please join the Plus Club. it's the single best way to support our work and keep these shows going. That's at jim herald.com slash plus. Thank you so much for your support. Stay spooky. And now back to the campfire. Lisa's been listening for a long time since 2012.

My goodness. Remember when 2012 was supposed to be the year that like the world ended or something? That's a distant memory. But Lisa's still here, still listening. And we appreciate it very, very much. we thank her for listening. And Lisa has a very personal story. And actually, I'll share later,

it has a connection to us in a way with Dar, having had somewhat of a similar experience. Lisa, thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening all these years and tell us what happened. Thank you for allowing me to be here. I'm excited to tell this story as I haven't told it to too many people.

Okay, a little back story. I was born and raised in Chicago. met my husband, got married, had my first daughter, and then we decided he was going to retire and we were going to move to Florida. So my second daughter was born in October of 98, we moved to Florida and near the end of December of 98. So somewhere around her fourth month appointment, we had to find a doctor because I didn't know, no anybody. So I ended up taking her to the doctor, and she was born a couple weeks early. She was supposed to be born around the 14th of October. She arrived on the 6th, and I had to have a C-section.

And she was healthy. I had a healthy pregnancy, great prenatal care. So I took her to the doctor. She was a little on the small side when she was born 7-1, but again, healthy. And I took her to the doctor, and he said, well, she's awfully small. And I stated that I'm only 5-2. My husband at the time was 5-7, 5-6, not very tall.

And he suggested that she may have cystic fibrosis, which, of course, put me into, like, total shock. Sure. Nobody in our family had it. Nobody in his family had it. I had no reason to believe she was sick at all. She was eating properly. So the plan was to take her an hour and a half away to Shands in Gainesville to have this test done. And 27 years later, and I'm still getting emotional.

So we took her to Shand. We were going to make the appointment. And it was going to be about a week or so later. So that's the hardest part waiting. Sure. And I at one point laid down to take a nap. and I, because I was upset, shocked, exhausted, laid down, and I had a wall that was just all windows that led out to the one eye in our house. House is brand new.

So I fell asleep and it's not uncommon for me to have dreams that are, that will indicate things to me, but not that often. And I fell asleep and I saw a butterfly in my dream flitting around outside the lanai. Something I've never seen before. So I opened up the door, went outside, and I'm looking at this butterfly. Before I knew it, it morphed into the Virgin. And she was standing above me. She was levitating. She had a gold veil on and a scepter in her hand.

She was absolutely beautiful. I don't even know how I could ever describe it. That's exactly what Dar says. That gave me chills, but go ahead. And so she looked at me directly into my face and smiled at me. And I stood there in like absolute shock and awe. And I woke up and I knew, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my daughter was going to be okay. Now, prior to us leaving from Chicago to come to Florida, we had already had her baptized in the Catholic Church.

So after, again, before getting to the appointment and me already knowing she was going to be fine, I just knew from the way the Virgin looked at me that my daughter wasn't going to have this. I was cleaning up around our laundry area. Brand new house. It was built. nobody other than the builders, maybe the people that delivered things had been in there. I was cleaning, and I'd already cleaned in there a few times, and I knew nothing was behind the washer dryer. So I'm cleaning around there, and I heard noise, like metal hitting metal. I bent down, picked up a piece of gold, and it was a sacred heart.

Wow. And I don't know to this day where it came from. It wasn't mine. It wasn't my husband. It didn't belong to either one of my daughters. But I kept it and I took it as a gift and a sign that my daughter was going to be fine. I knew she was. And sure enough, we went for the test.

It was fine. And she's 27 years old now, ready to have her own baby. So this brought back all those memories and all those feelings of how I felt. And it didn't feel like a dream. It didn't. I know what dreams are. It didn't feel like a dream. It felt like I had opened up all the night.

and walked outside and was looking at a butterfly, and then that happened. The parallels are amazing. I don't know if you know the story or not, and this was a sad story, but still, my mother-in-law was ill, very ill, and was at hospice at home, and we knew that she had just come home maybe a day or two before this. And we knew she, you know, there was, you know, a time coming when she was going to go. But we thought we had maybe two, three, four weeks, something. And this one particular night, she kind of shooed Dar away, said, you've got to go home. Cassandra was a baby at the time. And, well, a toddler, I guess.

She was about ready to turn two. And she said, you've got to go home. You've got a husband. You've got a baby. I had said, you know, hey, no problem. You spend as long as you want. You know, this is your mom. Your time with her is limited. You want to stay all night. You stay all night. I'll take care of Cassandra. And her mom's shoeing her away. Say, go home, go home to Jim and Cassandra. Like she didn't want her to be there. And so she came home and we did whatever we would normally do. You know,

I don't, frankly, I don't remember that evening other than she came home. And then we went to bed. And not so much these days I don't sleep as soundly as I used to, but when I, in those years, I, when I was out, forget it. That was it. So anyway, she woke up maybe two, three o'clock in a morning, something like that. I was dead to the world asleep. She looked over my shoulder and saw Mary. and she described her just as you described her indescribably beautiful

that she could just that indescribable she's so beautiful can't explain it exactly exactly what she says and I again I got chills because that that's what was so interesting is that it's exactly the same sentiment

so anyway she saw the Virgin Mary so no sooner than that the phone rings and this is in the days the old landline phones. And she picks it up. It's by her bedside table. And it's my father-in-law. And he says, she's gone.

And my wife isn't putting two-to-two together. She's like, what do you mean? Who's gone? What are you talking about? And she's, you know, groggy still. It's like your mom. She just passed just a few moments ago. And the significance is not only just seeing the Virgin Mary,

but the Virgin Mary was extremely important to my mother-in-law. She got roses for the Virgin Mary when she got married, all these different things. Yeah. That was her thing, was the Virgin Mary, right? So the fact that my wife, all the blue, saw the Virgin Mary, described her as much like you described her, and then her mom passed. You know, again, different sides of the coin, a very positive experience for you, a sad experience, but yet may be reassuring too, saying your mom's going to be okay. That's the way we took it.

But she comes to give us peace. Yes. Yes. When we needed it. And I, that was the last thing I expected to see was that. I've never forgotten it. And I can't describe how beautiful. I can't even describe how long it happened.

It was she was there. She was levitating. She smiled at me. And I knew in an instant that this was going to be okay. And it was. And I'm not, I was the only one. I couldn't tell. I told my husband, but he's a skeptic, very big one.

I, in the other hand, have had many experiences. I'll have to call in with more. But this is one of my favorite, my favorite most precious one. Well, thank you for telling it. I know it's very emotional even all these years later. But it turned out great. And it sounds like you're going to be a grandma. So congratulations.

on that. Thank you for sharing this very personal and powerful story. Thank you for letting me share it. Oh, I almost forgot one of the most important things you wanted to give out a shout out to your daughter. Go ahead and do it. I want to give a shout out to my daughter, Caroline, who lives in Canada and is expecting soon her first baby. Caroline, congratulations, and stay spooky. You stay spooky too. We have a repeat caller, a great storyteller, and a big supporter. He says he's listed almost every show we've ever put out, including all the Plus Club ones. I really appreciate that with our Plus Club. We have a lot of bonus shows there.

The other side, ancient mysteries on the air, ghost insight. And people forget about those. And there's still, I think there's some great guests and some very interesting people on there. So check it out of your Plus Club member, Jimherald.com slash Plus if you're not. And I guess that'll do it for my Plus Club commercial here. Paul just chimed in on how much he was enjoying the shows, and I thought that I would mention that. But Paul, welcome back.

I know you are a great animal lover, and you've told us many stories about your different pets and so forth. But this one is about you. And, you know, I think about bedtime is a time where he kind of like, let your guard down. You're like, relax. No matter what's happened during the day, hopefully, you can just kind of say, okay, this time is for me,

and no one will invade it. But something did. Tell us what happened. Yeah. So this was not quite a year ago, and I actually had honestly pushed it out of my mind until I listened to last week's campfire episode, and I realized, oh, my gosh, I haven't told anyone this story except for one person locally. So about a year ago, I was having some extensive remodeling done in my house. Basically, the entire summer, the second floor of the house was being remodeled, which includes three bedrooms and one of the two. bathrooms to other bathroom had already been done and they started on the east side of the

sorry they started on the west side of the house into those two bedrooms and then they were going to do the east side of the house and then finish off the middle and the east side of the house is where my bedroom is the the main bedroom the master suite if we will and of course because it was a quite an extensive remodel it couldn't be my bedroom uh while they were doing that so once they finished the west side of the house i moved my bedroom to the east side of the house And I was also getting entirely new bedroom furniture after 20 years. So I didn't move all the furniture over. I just moved basically the box spring and the mattress and the small table.

So I had something to put my phone on and the smart speakers in my bedroom. So the work on the master suite was away on for about three weeks. And so this other bedroom out on the west side was my temporary bedroom for those three weeks. And it was fine. It's a little warm in the room, but it's a little smaller. but it was perfectly fine as a bedroom because it was built as a bedroom. And so the first week, not a problem.

I slept in there, you know, soundly. And the second week, there was an evening, and you mentioned I am an animal lover, and I have three small dogs, or under 20 pounds, and they're allowed to sleep on the bed. It's a king-sized bed. I basically occupied the left side of the bed.

They've got the right side, and they spread out. And we were in there. I was sound asleep, and one of them woke up and barked. and that's pretty unusual for them. When we go to sleep, they sleep sounding through the night. And so the dog barked, and I woke up, I wanted to see what's going on. And there was a figure at the foot of my bed on the other side, on their side of the bed.

So I'm on the left side. The figure was at the foot of bed on the right side. And I was, as you might imagine, quite startled. Who's in my house? I have built kind of a fortress here. I've got a six-foot fence and camera. and the security system and all that stuff. And I can't figure out how did someone get in my house?

And this person was just, I've had to guess, they were late teens, early 20s, just kneeling on the edge of the bed, again, on the other side, the far corner from me, and just staring at me. Not maliciously, not, you know, they weren't trying to talk to me or they were just standing there looking. And I looked at the person. I thought, this person looks like me, but it's not me. It looks like a younger version of me, but it's not me. And my initial thought was dopleganger or something, but then I realized it's not enough like me to be me. So being quite startled and honestly afraid, the first thing I do is I call out to my, I

was as a smart seat speaker in the room, and I call it to the voice assistant and asked her to turn on the lights in the room. And the lights in the room were new and there were smart lights. and I was sure I'd send them up correctly, but they didn't come on. And so I thought, okay, maybe I used the wrong wording or whatever. So I asked her to just turn on all the upstairs lights, which is a thing you can do. And the lights didn't come on. And so I'm thinking, okay, something really weird is going on here.

Nothing is working. So I reached for my phone, which was next to me. And I pressed the button on it to invoke the smart assistant there, and I asked it to turn on the lights. And the lights did not come on. So I thought, okay, okay, clearly. something is really wrong here. So I decided I'm just going to unlock my phone and use the app to turn on the lights. And so I tapped on the phone screen and the phone screen would not come on. And I thought, okay, what is this? Everything electronic in the room is not behaving. And so I start to

move to get out of bed. But then I paused and I realize, and I should also say here, I mentioned that one of the dogs was barking. By this point, I saw all three dogs were awake and they were alert and they were staring at this corner of the bed. And my middle dog, who had been next to me, was now at my feet pointed at the corner of the bed. And then the two were spread out kind of evenly all were pointing at the corner of the bed. And so I thought, okay, I need to get up and I need to make my way to the light switch and turn lights on that way because, and I need to find who this person is and see what's going on here. And I realized I didn't have any kind of weapon or anything. But then I paused and I thought, when did I take my sleep mask off?

Because I sleep with an eye mask on. And I thought, I didn't take it off. Did it fall off? And so I reached my hand up to my face and my sleep mask was on. And I thought, okay, this is written. How am I seeing what I'm seeing? Right. And so I thought, okay, maybe this is some kind of weird dream thing.

thing, you know, and I'm going to pull the mask off and everything's going to be perfectly normal. So I pull the sleep mask off and what do I see? My dogs are awake and alert and standing in the same positions they were in when the mask was on, pointed at the same corner of the bed barking. The room lights and all the upstores lights are on. And my phone is exactly my hand where it was when I, when the sleep mask was still on. the difference was the phone screen was actually on there. And so I and by this point my left leg was already out of bed trying to be about to stand up. So everything around me, the entire room was exactly as it was when my sleep mask was on.

The difference was the lights were actually on and the figure was not there. And so if you can imagine for the next 15 minutes, 15 minutes, half hour or so I'm getting up walking around looking, searching the upstairs to figure out what did I see? What was this? Who was this? And I found nothing. Wow. Wow. But what I didn't understand and I still to this, they don't understand is if my sleep mask was on covering my eyes, how did I see everything as it really was? Yeah. Just the two exceptions of the lights didn't come on and the figure was not there. Everything else was exactly the same and I should say this is a room I don't normally sleep in so I don't have like memories of sleeping in there and of course the room had been redone and what I saw was exactly how

the room had been redone it was all current and all real except my sleep mask was on so I've I've thought about it and thought about and thought who who was this person because again they weren't malicious or anything right and it I realized I realized that it looked like a younger version of one of my uncles. Now, it's an uncle who I never met. He died, oh, 20 years before I was born. And I'd never known what he'd look like before, except maybe 15 years ago I had a dream in this,

and I went with a whole dream, but basically it was in a ballroom, and there was this guy standing up, leaning against a square post in the room. And I didn't know who he was, and he just stood there and stared and never said anything to me. and it was a few weeks later when my brother sent me a picture of some family pictures that he found that he digitized and one of them was my uncle and it was that guy from my dream.

Oh, wow. And this looked like a younger version of him. But again, I've never met him. I've never seen any pictures of him when he was younger. So I can't say for sure it was him, but that's all I can come up with. But that's my story. So do you think, I mean, you saw him in this one dream and then you saw him in this second episode, whatever it was. So do you think essentially maybe he came to visit you in a

manner of speaking twice? I think it's possible. I don't, the thing is I don't know why, because he wouldn't have known me. Again, he died 20 years before I was born. I have no idea why he would be there. The other thing I should say is my house, it was built 24 years ago. I was the first and only owner of the house. He's, and I'm in a completely different state. My, my uncle was born in West Virginia and died in West Virginia. And I was born in Michigan, and I live out here in the Pacific Northwest in the Seattle area. I don't know why he would be here. I mean, just out of curiosity, do you know much about your uncle?

Were there any maybe shared interests, anything? You know, people, you mentioned it looked like a younger version of you, so you must have some family resemblance. Was there anything that was outstanding about your uncle? you feel he may have resonated with you, maybe as opposed to one of his other nieces or nephews? No, the thing is, my father never talked about him. He didn't really talk about his brothers and sisters who had passed by the time I was a kid. None of, you know, at the time, all my aunts and uncles are gone at this point, but none of them ever talked about him. All I ever knew was his name and that he died young, you know, in his, he was in 30s.

So in terms of interest, I don't know of any commonalities there. So as we often say, some of the most interesting campfire stories end with a question mark, not a period. Paul, thank you for being with us once again and stay spooky. Absolutely. Stay spooky, Jim. Thank you very much. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool.

With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just live.

listen to music, they feel seen by it like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. You know him, you love him. He actually has been on the show several times lately, and he always has such fascinating

stories. I'm talking about Gary in Canada. He had those mysterious men on airplanes. and airports and the mysterious family. And then, of course, that harrowing story of when he was young and fell through the ice and the ghost, just all was fascinating. And we'll see what he has for us today.

Gary, welcome back to the show. Always good to talk to you. And tell us what you are there. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. Hope you're doing well. Doing well. Tell us what happened. Well, let's talk about this story,

which was kind of a strange thing. after I finished high school, graduated from high school, unfortunately I had to survey a long and hard four-year sentence at university. And graduated, got my diploma, got my degree, but unfortunately, the timing was bad because the economy was in the crapper. When I started four years prior, everything was great. There were jobs everywhere in my profession, and when I graduated, there was nothing. had dried up, so I was desperate. I had people looking for me trying to find me a position. And things I was offered was I could train to become a police officer, become the manager of fast food restaurant. And the one thing I almost took was to go behind bars at a penitentiary

and have conversations with the criminally insane and try to figure out what was going on in their heads. And given my background, I found that interesting because that whole realm. And I almost took that. But at the last second, a good friend of mine, his mother, working as an administration in a hospital was, you know, scrambling trying to find me something, anything. And she got in touch with me and said, Gary, I've got something for you. It's only six months. It's a six-month stint. But at least you could take this while you're looking for something else. And I said, well, what is it? And she goes, well, it's for the hospital, so you're going to be paid well. And so I went in to see what it was. And I thought maybe I'd be pushing a broom

or I'd be an orderly cleaning bedpans. As it turned out, it turned out to be a quite, quite an interesting position. At first, I thought it would be boring, but it was anything but boring. So what it was, was that she got me a position working for in a psychiatric hospital, aka insane asylum, which was built back in the 1920s. Really nice architecture. And she said, here's what you're going to do. You're hired to basically sit in the basement of this psychiatric hospital. It was built, like I say, 100 years ago. And you are, are going to be moving the information, paper information. They had dozens and dozens and dozens of cardboard boxes full of medical files,

psychiatric evaluations, and photographs with some of them as well of the patients. So what they wanted me to do was to go through those boxes and transcribe or move across from paper onto the computer, very simple. And that was one time I was happy that I took typing in high school. I thought it was a girl thing. and I was very quick in typing, and they knew that. And so they said, do you want it?

And I said, yeah, and it paid well. And they said, you're going to be sitting all alone in this damp little basement here, down the staircase, you're going to be all alone, and you can bring a radio, listen to music. And I think, that's cool. And I figured, okay, it's going to be pretty boring. But when they took me down there,

had kind of a spooky vibe right away, because I think it had two or three, light bulbs, and I noticed there was one kind of off in a dark corner kind of flickering a little bit. And I said, that's kind of cool, like a horror movie. So I'll go down there, and they set me up and they say, okay, here's what you do. You go grab a box, bring it over to the desk, and take the files out, go through them, and don't put every single word, but put the important stuff, the name of the patient, the years, the doctors that were attending to them, blah, blah, blah, and move that stuff

across, and then make a pile of the stuff you've gone through, put it aside, and once a week, Someone will come down there and pick that up and it will be incinerated. Oh, wow. And we'll have. So I said, that's fine. I'll do that. So I went, started doing that and, you know, nothing was, you know, was going through the file saying, this is interesting. I finally came, one day I came across a file of an individual had a very thick file.

And it was very, I don't know, creepy. This person had many things, multiple personality disorder. They were hearing voices in their heads. They had, you know, lashed out at people and not trying to kill people about attacking people for no reason. And they were brought in. And while I'm reading this, and this was a late one afternoon, all of a sudden I noticed in that dark recess or corner of that basement, that light that was flickering, started flickering like crazy. I said, okay, that's kind of a coincidence. And I'm sitting there.

And then I could have sworn I heard like the sound of an iron chain kind of rattling a bit. Oh, my Lord. And I'm kind of thinking, okay, wait a minute. So I turn my radio off, turn off the music, and I'm listening. I'm hearing like a chain kind of rattling. And then the next thing I hear is like a faint voice of somebody. It was a male voice, an older male voice, and it sounded almost the way it came across, almost sounded like, help me.

It was kind of like, oh, me, help me. Whoa. Yeah, it was strange. And so I hear that and, you know, it went away. Nothing else happened then. But I did go back to my contact in the hospital and said, you know, this is kind of strange. I, you know, I could swear I heard a chain and a voice, you know, in this corner. What's going on here?

And they kind of laughed and they said, look, just look at the job you're doing. you're all alone in the basement of a psychiatric hospital, not very well lit, and you're reading these disturbing files of people and looking at these photos, your mind is going to play tricks on you. You know that. You're going to start hearing things.

Do you want us to get somebody else? Does it bother you? Is it affecting you that bad? I said, no, no, I just wanted to mention it to you. And says, okay, well, go back to work type of thing. Carry on. Yeah, carry on. And I thought, okay, that's not bad.

hearing some noises. So anyways, it goes on. I'm getting through the boxes because a lot of these boxes are water-stained. Rats or mice have been chewing the corners, so they want to get this moved across as quickly as possible. Sure. So, yeah.

And as I got through this after, I don't know if it was several weeks or a month or whatever, one day there was a big storm outside. It was thunder and lightning and rain, and I'm sitting down there still working, and then wouldn't you know it all of a sudden lights flicker and there's a power outage. And what a place to be when the lights go out.

Yeah, that's creepy. So I'm sitting there in the dark, and I'm saying, okay, I'm hoping this is only going to take a few seconds or whatever. I can't move. I can't see anything because I'm in the bowels of this place and it's pitch dark. Can't see my hand in front of me.

And while I'm sitting there, hearing nothing but the thunder outside and just lightning, I hear that shame noise again. and I hear this kind of a grunting and heavy breathing coming in that same direction of that corner and I went oh crap and then I hear it started I hear this dragging noise of a chain being dragged and the voice getting closer as is kind of groaning noise and it's getting closer and closer and I'm cropping my pants and I'm thinking what do I do I can't get out of here what

So as it, I don't know, this whole time from when the lights went out until they came on and hearing that sound may have been, I don't know, 30 seconds, 40 seconds. It wasn't that long, but it seemed like forever this thing was getting closer to me. So all of a sudden, finally the lights come back on and I look up. There's nothing there, nobody there, but it freaked me out. So I ran out of there. I ran up the stairs, went back up into the hospital. and went back to my contact and said, you wouldn't believe what just happened.

And they, yeah, they just have a smile on their face. They go, come on. You had a power outage in a base, but you're all alone. If you'd have been there

with one other person or a group of people, you'd be laughing about it. And, you know, it's your brain. It's your mind doing this to you because you're reading this stuff. Again, we'll gladly get someone else to take over.

You know, it's not a difficult job. And I agreed. I didn't want to lose that job. I had nothing else lined up. It just kind of creeped me out. So I went back to work again and said, that's fine. No worries.

So I go back at it. And as nothing really interesting happened, I got through all those boxes, they kept picking them up, incinerating them, and then close to the end of that time, which was almost six months, I was getting near the end. And then while I was there transcribing,

moving yourself across, suddenly there's a stack of other boxes and stuff close to that corner where that sound and the flickering and the chain noise was coming from there's a big stack of boxes that i wasn't supposed to touch it was just storage of something it was archived whatever so suddenly i'm sitting there it's like five feet high it suddenly just collapses for no reason never had anything other it collapses and there's stuff all over the ground all kinds of crap something that's kind of weird so i decide to walk on over see what's in those boxes. Why did it fall over? Maybe the chewing of the mice and the rats had just, you know, compromise the structure of the box. So I go there and I'm looking and I'm looking down on the ground. So I get kind of get down on my knees and I'm looking down to what it is and kind of pushing it back.

And then out of nowhere, I feel a shoving sensation on my back of my shoulders and I go head first down on the ground on all fours. Oh, man. And I'm thinking, okay, it's someone came down there, not my confidence. They didn't have a sense of humor there. But I thought someone has come down here just, maybe was trying to touch my back and push me, and I turned around, there's nobody there. Huh.

And that's when I really started thinking, maybe there's some kind of an entity or something that doesn't like me down there or doesn't want me down there. Did they knock those boxes over? Was it a coincidence? Those boxes just suddenly just fell down because they were leaning or something, but that pushing sense is it.

pushing sensation from behind, that was kind of the final straw. That really put it over the top. Yeah, so once that happened, I went back to my desk. I kept an eye in that corner, and I finished up my work, and I went back and I explained this to this person, and they said, you know, what I ended up asking about, I said, from best of your recollection, or best to your knowledge, because of the long time that this place is, been in place, like for 100 years, did they ever do experiments or house or have patients down here? And I said, namely, there's that one corner where there should be all this activity, the sounds and everything in the flickering light. And they said, yeah, funny you should ask,

they said, yes, back in the day before there were so many changes, when they called an insane asylum and people were walking around in the middle of the night, and they really didn't take good care of them, they did have people down here that were down here. And as to whether there was experimentation, I don't know, but I know this place was used where patients were down here, left on their own. And that kind of, to me, thought, you know, maybe there was some kind of an echo or, I don't know. Residual energy of types. Residual energy of some kind that was kind of a stain in that corner where somebody was either shackled or, I don't know, they just weren't happy and they were trying to communicate just a very bizarre experience.

I wouldn't have the guts to go down there and do that, I don't think. Particularly maybe initially, you know, you turn on a radio or something, which I always thought was weird, but I'm the same way. If you turn on a radio or a TV or something, you feel less alone and if you're a little freaked out, you know, you feel better, which, you know, technically it makes no sense, but it does help. No, no. But the thing is, is that I think I could have started initially, but I think once that started to happen, I'd be like, I don't know here.

It got creepier as time when it was certainly did get creeper because hearing these strange noises and I think, what else could it be? Is there a radiator or something making some kind of a noise or something hissing or, you know, what can make that voice kind of a sound? Is it some pipes that have got some groaning or something or plumbing? But no, because it always sounded similar, kind of like, help me, but in a very pained and low grunty voice, like, ugh, ugh. So that last time you went, did you resign? Did you say, yeah, I'm done? Well, no, I was that last time when I got shoved from behind by something or someone, that was

near the end. I only had a few boxes left. And I just, I think what I asked. for was, can I get more lights down here? I think I had them bring down some other light sources to plug in, so it was brighter down there. Maybe I should have done that sooner. Right.

But after that happened, there was nothing else. And I was only there for another few weeks or a month because it was near the TLA. And I finished all those boxes. I had to sign, before I even started, I had to sign releases, like NDA's non-disclosure agreement, saying I could not talk about it because there were prominent people in those files. There's some people I knew. There were politicians. There were people that were famous for one reason or another.

There were criminals. There were, like I say, people that I knew through family or through business. But I had to shut my mouth and I had to promise for fear of being thrown in jail not to discuss this with anybody. Wow. But it was a wonderful experience when I look back on it now, but creepiest hell when it happened. Yeah, certainly. And, I mean, I remember I worked at, I had a very similar job, but it wasn't, it wasn't so spooky, but I had to, I worked for a classical music station and I had to take the logs of, you know, 30 years of logs of the orchestra, the local orchestras podcasts and type it into a database in the 90s. So I know exactly the kind of work.

Yeah, we've done similar jobs then in a way. Yeah, very, very tedious, but there weren't any candidates. There weren't any conducting ghosts or anything that I... My supposedly boring job was anything but boring. Absolutely. Well, your stories are never boring. We look forward. I know that you have more,

and we look forward to hearing them in the future. And Gary, always good to connect with you and stay spooky. Same to you, my friend. Amy is on the line from New Mexico. We're so glad to have her on the show. And by the way, may I say she has excellent fashion taste. Yes, the Campfire shirt there. Excellent. And you can get your own Campfire shirt at Jimherald.com slash merch. Jimherald.com slash merch. But we'll leave the plugs go for now because

Amy has brought to the table not only excellent fashion sense, but also one of my favorite kinds of stories, a head scratcher, but I'm not going to give it away. But I don't think we've ever in the almost 18 years of this podcast had this kind of a story. Hang on to your hats. Amy, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened. Hi, thank you. Thank you for having me.

So I'll give a little bit of setup. So this story actually happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was working for a biomedical research company. And I am in technology. I am not one of the very smart scientists, but I am in technology, and so is, you know, obviously the group that I'm working in. And I did call the friend that this happened to, and he has given me permission to use his first name.

So I will use his first name. So I, so we worked for this biomedical research company. And I was a software tester, and I worked with all of the software developers. and my friend Brett was actually in charge of all of the servers, all of the building access, all of the systems. So we had certain rooms, including the one that this took place in, that my group worked in, where you had to badge in order for the door to open. And you also had to badge out.

And so it was one of those things where, you know, it was a secure room. So in this room, these, there were, the setup was, they were cubicles. And they weren't just the regular cubicles where it was chest height and you could stand up and look over at each other. They went almost all the way up to the ceiling. And we had had this programmer who occupied a particular cubicle and she had these two potted plants. And they were sitting on top of the shelf in the cubicle. And on the shelf, this comes into play later. There's about a lip like maybe two inches or so. So when you put the pot up there, you know, you can't just swipe it off. You'd have to pick it up and move it. And so we were having some of the other

offices built out. And when we were having those offices built out, one of those was my friend Brett's office. So he had to temporarily occupy this cubicle space that the other programmer had left. And part of what he did was he was always taking apart different computers. He would have, he had the method to his own madness, but he always had his desk covered with computer parts and motherboards and hard drive, things like that. So one day, shortly after he had moved in and had spread his mess all over the cubicle, at the end of the day, we were all just kind of standing around talking. And I hadn't remembered the next morning, but he had just said, I'm going to come in late tomorrow morning.

I've got a doctor's appointment. And I said, okay, great. So our friend, our other coworker, had said, oh, you're sitting in this cubicle right now. Are you going to water the plants and take care of them like she did? And he was just flippantly making a joke. And he said, no, I don't care about plants. I don't care if they die. And I was like, oh, Brett, please water them.

You know, they're plants. They're nice. It's an office space. We have a little life in there. And so my friend, our mutual friend, she was always the first to leave and then I would leave shortly thereafter. And the other person left. And my friend worked very long hours. And so I came in early the next morning about 10 minutes after our mutual coworker did.

and she's sitting at her desk and she hears me open the door and she just calls out, I'm not cleaning that up. And I'm like, cleaning what up? And I looked and I'm like, well, there was dirt and pot shards. And I'm like, what the heck happened? And she said, I don't know. And so my friend Brett is a very grounded down-to-earth person. And I would say he's a skeptical believer.

He doesn't usually believe things. He, you know, he knew that I loved paranormal stories, but he just, you know, was kind of like, I'll listen to you, but he never had stories of his own. So it looked like someone had taken one of the pots off the shelf and picked it up over their head and smashed it on the ground. And there was dirt everywhere. It was all over the floor. There were pot shards. I mean, it hit so hard that there was actually dirt on his desk. and in some of the computer components that he had lying around. So my friend, our mutual colleague friend, she and I, it was just the two of us in the office. And we were standing there.

And both of us were like, I have never known our friend Brett to have a temper. Neither one of us has a temper. I mean, that's just not how we, you know, are. And I was like, well, you know, could it have been somebody from the cleaning staff or, the maintenance staff that was doing something and knocked it over. So I had forgotten that my friend Brett had said, hey, I've got a doctor's appointment and I was waiting for him to come in because my first thought is, oh my gosh, like, are you okay? What happened? You know, what's going on? Sure. I got a hold of him on the phone and I had told him about this broken plant all over the

place. And he was immediately like, is anything missing from my desk? Did it? And I said, well, it looks like your usual mess. I don't think anybody took anything. And he was very concerned. So he comes in. And of course, our mutual colleague, we had picked up some of the pot shards and kind of scooped the dirt out of the way. And he comes in.

And the three of us are really sitting around his cubicle, just scratching our heads, going, what is this? So, yeah. So the funny part was, is he was very concerned. And so he started looking into the building access to see who was in the building. We had a maintenance staff that was overnight. But in order for them to do any work, they would have had to have requested permission and shown the dates and the times that they were going to do work.

And there was no maintenance scheduled. There were no housekeeping or cleaners that had come in. And the funniest thing about the situation is, this building that we worked in. This was not the building that housed a lot of the laboratories. This used to be an old folks home. And they had taken that building and they had built it out. And they had turned it into the offices.

And then the company that we worked for had purchased it, you know, a few years after they had built it out. And people, including the overnight maintenance staff, would say, very curious things would happen. You would hear footsteps. You would hear voices. And you would hear all kinds of things. And so we don't know what the heck happened. But I did climb up on a chair and I had to look at the top of the shelf.

And there was a thin layer of dust up there. And you could see that the pot that had been broken, it looked like it had scooted about five inches. And then when it got to the lip, somebody, something. I don't know what, picked it up and smashed it on the ground. And the other pot had not been moved because I'd lifted it up to see, could something have mysteriously shook in the building or anything? And you would have seen that. There was nothing like that.

And still to this day, after 15 years, I do call this friend on occasion. And I ask him, I'm like, were you messing with me? Was it you? And he goes, Amy, nobody was in the building. I was the last person to leave that building. Nobody else was even there. Yeah. Yeah, it's what was really, so do you think maybe, what energy do you think may have broken those, those, that plant?

What do you think it was? What's your speculation? Just kind of the sense that I have and just the things that I've kind of wondered about is that was, you know, it was an old folks home. and that's where people went, you know, for palliative care. And I always wondered because there would be spots in the building, including the ladies' room, that would just have a weird feel to it. And I was always, I would go to the bathroom and I'm like, if you're in here, I don't want to see you. I don't want to see you standing behind me.

Like, just give me space. Nothing like that ever happened. But I always kind of wondered if maybe it was perhaps a deceased resident who loved plants in life and maybe took exception to his joke. That's the only explanation that I could come up with because, you know, the three of us went around. We were asking staff like, were you in there? Did something happen? Were you doing maintenance on the floor above us? And they were like, no, we weren't. And, you know, I don't think that all, none of those other people knew what had happened. And when we shared, they were kind of like, I don't know. But I, I, I,

honestly kind of have the sense. Perhaps it was a previous resident who really loved plants and did not like what he said. Well, it sounds like it was certainly something, the first haunted plant we've ever had on the show. Amy, thank you for all your support and thanks for sharing your story today on the Campfire. Thank you. Stay spooky. Thank you for joining us on this edition of the Campfire. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And thank you to all of our storytellers, because as I tell each and every one of them without their stories, there would be

no campfire. And on that topic, you can sign up to tell your story at Jimherald.com slash campfire. That's Jimherald.com slash campfire. And submissions are open now. Also, I would ask you to text a link to a friend to tell them about the campfire because, honestly, you know,

it's difficult for us to punch through with all the podcasts out there. But the way that we can do that is if you let a friend know, text them a link. A lot of times texting them a YouTube link is a good idea because a lot of people get put off by podcasts. Ooh, it's a podcast. Ooh, it's a podcast. Oh, it's scary. But YouTube, they're like, oh, I know what a YouTube video is. So that's a way, particularly if somebody's not real tech savvy, that's a good way to get through to them.

So please share a link, Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, whatever it is, whatever they're most comfortable with. to get them around the campfire. Maybe they'll someday tell their own stories. That's happened many times we have somebody that tells a friend or a family member. They become a listener. Then they present these great stories. Do you want more good stories? Well, if you do, tell a friend today.

We thank you so much. We'll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody. Stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-bye.