Jim Harold's Campfire - She Saw The REAL Freddy Kreuger - Jim Harold's Campfire 763

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Movie night takes on a life of its own when a familiar horror icon seems to appear far outside the TV screen, and that’s just the start of the strangeness on this week’s Campfire. APPLE PODCAST DIRECT PLUS MEMBERS: We are having technical difficulty posting the ad-free version for PLUS members. We hope to have it posted within the next several hours and apologize for any inconvenience. From a quiet presence that may have been watching over a young family to a treasured object that seems to return at exactly the right moment, these stories walk that fine line between comforting and deeply unsettling. We also hear about a flash of impossible light tied to a loved one’s memory, a bizarre book-related coincidence, an intense out-of-body experience, and a doppelganger sighting witnessed by more than one person. The episode wraps with a chilling visit to a Titanic exhibit where history, haunted objects, and the echoes of tragedy may have all collided in one very strange place. It’s a Campfire packed with the kind of stories that don’t end neatly, and end with a question mark not a period! STAY SPOOKY! NEWSLETTERGet Jim’s weekly free newsletter and a free Campfire ebook at the same time. Go here: https://jim-harold.kit.com/campfire-ebook 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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Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for Calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. She says she saw Freddie Kruger in real life. Up next on Jim Harold's Campfire. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. Well, next up, we have a return caller. Lauren from Colorado joins us, and she has. What I would say is the definition of a head scratcher.

Put your head around this one that you're about to hear. And boy, it's scary. Lauren, welcome back to the show. Tell us what happened. Thank you for having me, Jim. I have listened to your show for a while now, and I don't think I've heard a story that sounds anything like this. I have it rained down. So, like, if you see me looking at my papers, I'm just trying to stay on track. Okay. So, yeah, this story happened when I was around six or seven. It took place in South Georgia in a teeny tiny town named Argyll. and my stories never changed.

So let's see if anybody can help me figure out what this was. So my granny and I were notorious for pulling all-nighters. And I don't know if you remember, but back in the day, like AMC, had a TV channel. And on the weekends, they would just do marathons of like horror movies. Right. And so that was kind of like, yeah, that was kind of our thing that we like to do on the weekends. I wasn't in school. you know, so we stayed up all night and watched scary movies. So on this particular night,

um, I just remember us doing our same routine. Um, we were watching Chuckie, I think is what it was. And I told her, you know, I was like, hey, Granny, like, I'm hungry. Can you go make me some hash browns? And so she goes in the kitchen. She's making it in the hash browns. Um, once those hash browns were done, I took them and proceeded to go in her bedroom. And the only way that I can describe this to you and to the viewers is to imagine how a projection screen looks like on a wall. How if somebody's playing a movie onto a blank wall, the picture kind of takes up most of the wall. But what I saw would be almost a projection. screen the size of the whole wall. So from the floor to the ceiling, from one side of the wall to

the other, this wall was covered. And what I saw when I walked into the room with my hash browns in my hand was Freddie Kruger on the wall. Wow. And all the, and I just remember this so vividly, he was like propped up on a bar like this so your viewers can see. He had his hand like this under his chin and he was just tapping his claws like the the knives on his right he was doing just like this he was looking at drumming his fingers yeah for for the people on audio he's drumming his fingers and kind of like smiling looking ominously at lauren very ominous almost like he was drooling in a way like i i don't that that's just the only way that i know how to describe it and so my first instinct is like oh my gosh there's freddy

Kruger life size on her wall. And it was almost as if the air was like punched out of my stomach. I couldn't scream because I was in such shock, but I dropped the plate of hash browns like on the floor. They went everywhere. And I just took off running out of her room to go into the kitchen and tell her that there's something in her bedroom. And I just like, I couldn't even get anything out. I was just looking at her trying to say something. And she's like, what's wrong with you. And I finally just let out this blood curdling scream. And I was like, there is something in your bedroom. And I'm not going back in there. And she went in the bedroom. The hashbones were on the floor. There was nothing on the wall. And I have no idea how to explain what that was. I just remember

leaving her house. And we lived on a plot of land with my parents' house behind her. So it was maybe like a 12-second walk. So I just ran across to our house, and I remember it had to be at least like 5 or 6 a.m. because the sun was coming up, and I can remember, you know, seeing the sunrise and everything. And it's just one of those things that I've never forgotten. And I know it happened. It was real.

I saw it. Right. And I don't doubt that it was real. Let me ask you this. Now, had you seen, Freddie, Kruger in movies up to that point? Or was that a new thing to you? Seeing him, did you realize who he was? Yeah, like, I knew who it was. Yeah, for sure. I knew that he didn't mean, like, he wasn't a good son and that if I didn't leave, like, he may have tried to grab me

through the wall. Like, I know that sounds crazy, but his intentions weren't good. He looked like he wanted to grab me or he had been waiting on me. I don't know. But it was actually kind of funny because I wasn't scared of these movies as a kid. Like I knew who Freddy Kroger was, but it wasn't anything like. Right. You knew it was a movie. You knew it was a movie. You knew it wasn't real life. Let me ask you this. I want to throw this out here. Just a part, again, I don't have an explanation. I'm just a guy that does podcast. But I have a possible explanation. I want to get your thoughts on if it's something you've ever thought of. Are you feeling over the concept of tulpas? I don't know what that is. Okay. A tulpa is a thought form.

In other words, it is the idea, not that you're imagining something, but you actually, in your mind, create something that's real. Have you ever thought that maybe through watching these movies and having that mindset? Not that you imagined it. It was real, but it was something that actually you generated with your mind. I have no idea. I mean, that's a good, a good, reasoning behind it, it's possible.

I mean, I was six or seven when it happened. But nothing like that ever happened against to me. Yeah. I don't know. It reminds me a little bit of my wife. When she was a little girl, she had a Winnie the Pooh on her, I think it was Winnie the Pooh on her wall. And she swears and she said she wasn't dreaming that it came down and danced for her

one night. Oh my gosh. And I totally, I mean, and again, that's not scary like Freddie Kruger, but it's kind of, you know. Kind of the same thing. Yeah, same kind of general idea. So, yeah, look this up, T-U-L-P-A, Tulpa, T-L-P-A, and see what you think, because I'm trying to think what this could be. I don't doubt for a minute that you saw it. It just, to me, it strikes me as one possibility.

Of course, there are other possibilities. But that's just one that strikes me. So anything else like that afterwards, or this is like the only time something specifically like this has happened to you? Well, not in her house, but like when I was even younger than that, I would say maybe like two or three. I know this is going to sound so bizarre, but I'm pretty sure it was a Carnival Cruise commercial

that used to come on back in the day. And every time it would come on, these blowfish would come out of the screen and like float in the air and then a hand would come out and try to grab me. And then I would scream and tell everybody, do you not see this thing in the living or trying to get us? And I was the only one that could see it. But her house, she told me, you know, sometimes the cabinets would open by their stuff. But as a kid, I didn't really register that it actually might be true. I thought that she was just joking with me, but now looking back on it, the house could have been haunted.

Interesting. Well, you know, Lauren, I don't know if you know about our virtual campfire group at virtual campfire group.com. It's a free group we have associated with this show and everything. But folks, go there and put your opinions of what this could have been that Lauren has seen. Maybe we'll have generate some ideas better than mine of what she saw. Lauren, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for being on the show once again and stay spooky.

Stay spooky, Jim. Thank you. Welcome to the campfire. I am Jim Harold and so glad to be with you. And what a story that was. You know, there are so many things under the sun that are just weird and strange. And that's what we've been examining here for the last 17 years. Things you can't quite get your head around. Head scratchers, I call him. And this is Jim Harold's campfire. And welcome to it. That's where, real people like Lauren come on and say, hey, this very strange thing happened to me. Don't know what it was, but it happened. Here it is. Let me share my story. And we're appreciative to all of our storytellers and to you for tuning in. And speaking of tuning in, I want to give you another free podcast we'd like you to tune into. I think you're going to like it. It is called the paranormal report. That is the show that I do with my wife, Dar Harold. And I think she brings a

great perspective to it. And it's available for free. wherever you get the campfire. It's in audio and video. You can find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, so forth and so on. And I think you'll like it every year, every year. Every week, we do a review of the news of the paranormal. Now, when we say paranormal, we're the Big Tent philosophy, includes UFOs, includes cryptids, includes ghosts, and other just strange, strange stuff.

Hope you check it out, wherever you get this program. And now on to our next great campfire story. Now, I told you guys, the way this works is you listen to the show, you watch the show, and then you text a link to a friend, a family member, perhaps, and then they come on and share great stories. I've got proof. My proof is Monica. That's exactly what happened with her. She's brand new to the campfire.

Just recently started listening thanks to her daughter, Megan. And thank you so much, Megan. stay spooky. I really appreciate it. And that's the way the calculus works. She told her mom. She's now here as a storyteller. And she's going to tell us a thrilling and chilling story that actually spans over a number of years. Monica, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you again, Megan. And tell us what happened. Well, growing up, I was always interested in, I always had my Ouija board out and was very interested in paranormal. I don't know if I just had an openness about it, but my daughter is the same way.

So what happened was I grew up in what's now Silicon Valley, but was Valley of the Heart's content before because it was all agriculture. And my husband and I bought our first house in the South Valley, which was all ag at one time. Okay, so we moved in there, had our first child, ended up with three children, and my husband used to go to work from, like, he was in the ag business, and he went to work from about midnight to early morning. So I was by myself with the three kids all night long. So I started just getting a feeling that somebody was in the room with me. And just like every night, it was like, you know, something feels not scary, not scary, but it's just something, I just felt like somebody was in the room with me.

And our bedroom was set up or there was a little hallway that you could come into. And one night, at middle of the night, my husband's gone. And I look over at the closets and there is a gentleman. standing there. Oh, gosh. And it did not freak me out at all. He had coveralls, not from our era. He had coveralls. He had a straw hat on. He had a piece of wheat in his mouth. And he had his knees crossed. He was just standing there watching me. Okay. Happened multiple times. And you never had the thought of like there's a living person in my house. You always perceived this as a spirit, right?

Exactly. Always as a spirit. Because I felt what I determined was that he was helping me out. He was probably his land that he farmed at one time. And our house happened to be on his ranch. And that he was watching over me because I had those three kids all under the age of four alone at night. And he was making sure I was okay.

So there was never any fear or, nothing. I mean, I just trusted him. And so that lasted for a while. And then he eventually faded away. And, but it was just, it was kind of a nice feeling because, you know, I, you know, you're by a year of a woman, by yourself. Yeah, he was a protector, definitely, a protector. Okay. So, um, then about six years later, we moved over to, um, the Central Valley of California, which is the breadbasket of the world. And so more our house development was built on an old peach orchard. And we moved in, bigger house than we had before, newer.

It wasn't a brand new, but it was newer. And my husband was working more normal hours by then. So he was home. But so about a month after we moved in, we had a walking closet that had to, you know, a French door that only connected at where the knobs were. Okay. And so one night I heard this rattling, a rattling of the closet door. It woke me up. And I'm thinking, wow, that's kind of strange. And next night happened again. and same exact time. I mean, say it was like 2.11 a.m. every night it was the same exact time. That door would rattle. So, and my husband thought I was crazy.

He said, you are crazy. You know, he doesn't believe any of my stories, but he's crazy. He said, I was crazy. And that I was imagining it. And I said, no, I'm not. Because then it ends up that my daughter, who had her room next to R, once in a while we'll hear somebody walking in her room. Oh, man.

So anyway, we finally, after this going on, now, and there were no windows open, no doors open, no breezes going through the house. You know, I tried to tell myself, well, Monica, there must be a reason for this. and there just wasn't, you know, the wind coming through our house. We were at the back of the house and there wasn't anything that could be doing this that I could think of. And I also, this one I also would feel, you know how when a cat walks on the end of your bed when you're in bed over your blankets and you can feel the cat walking? Well, I would feel that too, some sort of movement and then maybe somebody's sitting on the bed. And I thought, oh, okay. And so this went on for a couple weeks.

Finally, it woke my husband up. The closet door woke him up one night. And so I proved to him that I wasn't crazy because he heard it. And I said, see what, you know, what? what's going on. And for some reason, I did not have the same feeling from whatever was in my room or in my house as the person in our first house in the Silicon Valley. Not that warm and fuzzy feeling. No, I did not get that warm and fuzzy feeling. It just, it kind of scared me. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking this person owned this land. And somebody

forced him to cut down that peach orchard because they wanted to develop it with homes. And he's, man, so he's going to get back some of the people living on his property. Now, I never had a vision of him, but it was just the things that happened. And so that kind of connect, that I started thinking about what happened in San Jose with the agriculture. Here we are in another agriculture area. My husband works in the agricultural business. And I thought, this is kind of a connection here, except the second guy wasn't, yeah, I didn't have the warm and fuzzy. In fact, he scared me enough where I started researching, how do you get rid of ghosts

in your house? Right. Right. And lights would go off and on once in a while also in that house. And so I just started searching, well, how do I get rid of this thing going on in my house. And the best solution I had was to stand in a room and to scream at that person and say, I don't want you here. No, I'm, I did do this. I screamed. You know, not, not life-threatening screams, but yelled, I don't want you in my house. Get out of my house. You don't belong here. I have kids in

here. So I did that a few nights. And that was the end of the closet door shaking. Huh. So I don't know. And since then, I felt like I've closed myself off from being open to some of these phenomenons that happen. And I haven't had one lately, but it kind of runs in my family, which the females in my family have had experiences. Right.

Well, I do believe some people are more sensitive. I don't think there's any question. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, some of the things that have happened to my sisters, my nieces, and I totally believe it. And when I, and people, you know, when something comes up and people say, tell them your ghost story, people look at me like, because, you know, I'm not, I'm not really a, I mean, I like to laugh and I'm, but I'm not an over-the-board crazy person or anything. I had a very, um, a job that I had to be really, I had to, you know, maintain myself and

job and everything. So they would look at me and think, nah, that can happen. I said, yeah, it can happen. And it did. Maybe I missed it. Did you say something about there being pressure on the end of your bed? Something sitting on the end of your bed? Yes. Almost like, you know, a cat walking across, an animal walking across, and then would sit on my side at the end of my bed. Yeah. So, and I'm, like I said, I don't know, I just didn't feel the same way with that experience as with that first experience. And I think that's true. I mean, people think that all of the paranormal, I think there are like two camps, one paranormal. Everything that's paranormal is a demon and then there's the other kind. It's all universal love and light, love and light. Yes. I think it's like here. I think you got some of the nicer spirits and maybe.

Maybe some of the nice. Yes. So nice spirits. I think you went into both of them. Well, Monica, thank you for telling your story. I appreciate it. Big thank you and to stay spooky to Megan because she made it all possible. And Monica, stay spooky to you too.

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That is amazing. Megan from Mississippi is here, and she has a Jot story. Jot is just one of those things. things. There was a book out several years ago called J-O-T-T or J-O-T just one of those things where things kind of appear and disappear for some unknown reason. We don't know what it is. And Megan's going to tell us one of those kind of stories. Megan, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you. I actually bought that book after listening to your interview of the author. This was after this story happened. But yeah, but it happened in 2009.

in the summer of 2009, and my husband and I had gone to Germany. Now, this is the first time I had ever gone to another country across the Atlantic, away from everybody. And, of course, I'm from Mississippi. I've been to all over the United States, but I've never been across the pond, I guess you could say. So we were going, his family is from Germany, and we were going for a big birthday celebration, and we were traveling all. all around Germany, visiting family and different castles and having a great time. Well, it was during the Father's Day weekend I was going to be gone. And it was going to be like one of the first Father's Day that I wasn't going to be near

my dad. And me and my dad always had a special relationship. I love my daddy. And he had just recently gotten diagnosed with leukemia. So I was, I don't know, I was just feeling kind of melancholy and, you know, sad and just kind of worried because, you know, what if something happened? And I can't get home. I can't get to my family.

So I had brought a cross, and I've got it right here. I don't know if you can see it. Oh, yes, we can see it. Yeah. But he gave that to me for Christmas. It's one of my favorite crosses that he's given me. So I was wearing this cross on the trip. So near the end of our trip, we went to Olsen, Germany, and we went to a farmer's market.

And farmers markets are huge. It's not as big as the Christmas markets, but just, you know, streets and alleyways full of all kinds of things. Had a great time. Well, halfway through the farmer's market, I look down at my necklace and the cross isn't on it anymore. I have the necklace, but I don't have the cross. And I am just like, it's a sign. There's something wrong. Oh, my gosh.

I lost my cross. You know, all these things, just anxiety. And I'm like, I don't know where. it is. And I told my husband, and he's looking at the farmer's market going, oh, baby, we're never going to find, there's no way. Because we've been going up and down all these streets. And I was just crestfallen. So we're making our way back. They have a family house in the middle of town. So we're making our way back. And he's got his arm around me, and I'm just kind of sulking and, you know, pouty and sad. And I'm like, I can't believe I lost my cross is my favorite cross,

my daddy gave it to me, and I'm looking down and just being mopey. And we go down this alleyway. I don't even remember ever going down this street when we were there. And I'm just looking down at the ground in between these two cobblestones is this cross. And I was like, oh! And I was like, Derek, there's my cross. And he was like, what? I know.

I was like, I don't, like, I was like, the Lord, a Spirit. I don't know. The universe brought it back to me. And I was like, and the little class, one part of the class had come undone, but it was right there, just in the middle of this little alleyway, Cobble Street. And so yeah, that's my Jot story. That's so cool because you lost it in one place. You walked, you continued to walk throughout, and then you looked down, and there it was. And there it was. And just in the middle of a German town, just, you know, I just, I'm just so happy. Like, it was just. just one of those things.

Like, I'm just so happy that we found it. I am. And dad was okay, and of course. So, yeah. Well, that's excellent. That's excellent that you found it. And I think that the universe or God or spirits work in mysterious ways and get those things back to it. And my, my, my Deutsch is a very shlech, but that's good.

Oh, that's good. That is very good. No, no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's about the. extent of my German, although I took the equivalent of two years, but it's been many decades ago and I've forgotten it all. Well, I think your accent is better than mine, so you're doing good.

There you go. There you go. Well, it's funny because anytime I talk to an international speaker and they're speaking English, they'll say, oh, well, I apologize for my English. And I say, well, you know, your English is way better than my fill in the blank. Oh, exactly. That's amazing. Amen.

I wish we have more, just a little side. I wish we had more emphasis on foreign languages and more of us were multilingual. But then again, I could go off on my own and study it, and I'm not doing as much of that as I should. Well, Megan, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing this story. It's great. And, you know, we've had things in our family like that you thought they were gone forever and they just showed up.

And I think that does certainly happens. That's why Jot has struck such a chord. Thank you for being on the show, the longtime support, the Plus Club membership. Stay spooky. Stay spooky, Jim. Next up, we have a repeat caller, a great supporter of the shows. I'm talking about Brandy from Kentucky, and we're so glad to talk with her again. And we have a story about her dad.

And Brandy, thank you for joining us. I know that something like this is very personal and very difficult. So please feel free to tell your story. We appreciate you sharing this. Thank you. So hi, happy to be here. Hello. I, hello. So this story happened in 2022, and this was prior to my mediumship experience. So my father was murdered by his farm hand in Ohio.

Oh, I'm sorry. Wow. Totally unexpected. There was some sort of big fight. And he was shot, but, you know, he lived on life support for two days after after he was shot. So I was living in Virginia at the time, and I was in an interview for a very big job. And my phone just kept ringing and ringing, and I picked up the phone, and it was my aunt, my father's sister. And I thought, okay, you know, she just keeps calling. So I had to pause the interview because it just kept ringing. And I thought, okay, something seriously wrong.

Picked up the phone, and she, you know, broke the news to me. And I went home immediately because I had to drive from Virginia to Ohio really quickly. and I ran home, you know, and I was like, I have to take a shower. Like before I hit the road for nine hours, you know, I'm going to have to just like take a minute to breathe and have some self-care and just have a moment. So I get out of the shower and I'm just sitting on the edge of my bed, you know, thinking to myself, like trying to process everything. And I had my hair back in, you know, like a messy bun because I didn't wash my hair. And I have my hair back in a messy bun. And I'm sitting on the edge of my bed.

and I feel something pull at my ponytail. And I thought it was my cat because she likes to play with my hair whenever I'm sleeping. So I turned around, you know, and I was like, well, that was weird because there was no cat there. And I thought, oh, well, that's weird, you know. So I just go back to, like, thinking and it did it again. And I went downstairs and I told my mom, you know, I said, Mom, I just felt somebody touched the back of my head. And she said, oh, that was probably your dad because it. And she was right because anytime that he would see me, we didn't see one another very often as I got older,

but whenever he would see me, he would put his hand on the back of my head like this, you know, and just be like, I can't believe that you're my daughter. You know, I'm so proud of you. And I would be like, Dad, my hair. Dad, my hair. Like, I have a wedding photo of him with his head on the back of him. And I was like, Dad, you're ruining my veil, you know, stop. And that he would always do that.

So I make the drive to, he was in the hospital in West Virginia. I live in a tri-state now. So the area where he was murdered is the West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio tri-state. So I drove to the hospital that night, and he was in the trauma unit, you know, like a brain injury trauma unit. Sure. And it was really, really late or early in the morning. You know, I think it was maybe 2 a.m. by the time that I arrived at the hospital. And I was just sitting there with him, and his nurse came in.

And his nurse was a man who said that he'd worked at the hospital for about 11. years. And as I was sitting there, the lights in my dad's room kept coming on, and then they would go off. And they would come back on, and they would go back off. And I thought, well, at first, I just thought that they went off because it was a trauma unit. You know, the people need to sleep. So they just turned off all the lights. But then they would keep coming back on. His nurse came in, and he said, I said, do the lights always do that? And he was like, it's only been this room since your dad got here. He said, it hasn't happened in any other room that. the light keeps coming off and going on. And I was like, wow, that's really weird. I said,

it must be him. And he said, well, do you want to hear something even more strange? And I said, yeah, he said, his call light went off twice last night. And he said, in the 11 years that I've worked here, I have never had a patient on life support have their call off, have their call light go off. Wow. Yeah. So. And then about a few months after he passed away, I was at my house, and I was eating something and I had a little jar with a lid, but I didn't screw the lid on all the way. And as I was eating it, I thought, oh, you know, my dad would really love this. This is so good and it just would have been right up his alley. And as soon as I said that, the jar to that lid flew across the room.

Oh, wow. You know, and I thought, oh, that must be him, you know. Unfortunately, I haven't had any contact with him since then. I haven't felt his presence or anything, but I really do believe that he was in the room with me during that time. Well, first of all, again, I'm very sorry. What a horrible thing to happen. And thank you for your willingness to tell the story because I could understand why it would be uncomfortable, just getting the circumstances of everything. So thank you for that.

But it seems like his spirit was very strong and he really wanted to get the message across. And I'm wondering, for example, with that nurse, if he thought, hey, if I do this, word is going to get back to Brandy. I'm going to keep showing her that I'm still around. That's what it sounds like to me. Is that you doing that? Yeah, it is because we hadn't seen one another for probably a year in person prior to that happening. And there was a lot in our past, you know, that he felt guilty for for not being there for me as much or not showing up for me as much.

He and my mom were very young whenever they had me and he was kind of in and out of my life. So at one point I was reading Dylan Thomas. him, a poem by Dylan Thomas while he was in the bed and he had no brainwaves. You know, this was, we were just getting ready to take him off of life support and he didn't have any, anything going on. But as I was reading the poem to him, he had tears running down his eyes. And, you know, and I asked the nurse, I said, do you think that he can hear me? And he said, well, regardless of his body can hear you, I know that his spirit is in this room. So I think he can definitely hear you. Wow. And I respect with those healthcare people have to say about these things because they see it a lot.

You know, unfortunately, they see a lot of people at this stage and see a lot of people pass. So when they say something, I take notice maybe more so, you know, just because they have that experience and many of them have told me over the years they've seen things that, you know, don't make sense, but yet they happen. Well, Brandy, I'm sure your dad's still with you and he certainly kind of showed that. And thank you for sharing this story today on the campfire. Of course. Thanks for having me again, Jim. Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fans. And they're

here with me on Spotify. Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip. They stay fast. hours. They don't move on. They manifest. They're not a demographic group. They're fans. Spotify advertising. You're among fans. You know, personal effects of loved ones,

loved ones who have passed, they can be very powerful. And today we're going to have just such a case. Sue's going to talk to us from Washington State. And Sue is brand new. And as I was telling Sue, before we hit record, you know, many

times I'm used to doing this and people say, my only listen to listen five years. I've been listening to 10 years, 15 years. So when I hear somebody's new, I'm like, yes. And I love to hear of our long-time listeners. But I also like to hear that we've got new people coming in and the campfire love is being spread and more people are joining us so we can hear great stories like this one. Sue, welcome to the show as a listener. And thank you for diving in right away. I know there's people have been listening for years. They've got stories. They're a little apprehensive about coming on. be like Sue and sign up at Jimherald.com slash campfire. Sue, thank you for joining us and please tell us your story.

Well, thanks, Jim. I'm excited to be here. My story centers around my dad. He passed in 2014. And he married my mom when I was five. He was our mailman, as it turns out. And they met. And I have two older brothers.

And it was very exciting to have my dad join our family. family and he and I were just best buddies for his entire time with us. And he had been very sick when he passed in 2014, but we just miss him a lot. And he was a pretty quiet guy and no flashy things, even though my story has a lot of flashy to it. When my dad passed, he had things that my brothers and I asked my mom if we could have. And there were some things that she was fine with. And there were some other things that she wanted to hang on to. And so one of the things I had asked about was his money clip. He kept a wallet, but for his bills, he used a money clip and kept that in his front pocket. And it's just kind of a special memory of dad getting his dollar bills out. And

And she told me she wasn't ready at the time. And so I really didn't think about it much. About a year, year and a half later, I was visiting. We live in the same town. And I was visiting her. And she said, come on back to my room. And so I went back. And she handed me a little white jewelry gift box that has like the white lid cardboard, kind of made out of cardboard. And the lid comes off. And so she handed it to me. And as I, uh, I also want to add that her bedroom was fairly dark. She had dark panel walls and the curtains closed. So it wasn't very bright in the room. And when I took the lid off, I immediately saw the money clip. But at that same time, the room exploded in the brightest light I have ever seen. It was like a starburst where it started in the center and just pushed out. here in Washington State, we have Bon Marchet that turned to Macy's.

And in Spokane and in Seattle, on their downtown buildings, they at Christmas time have a huge starburst. And that's just my first thought when I saw this. Was it just shot from the middle out so bright. You couldn't see anything else in the room. And then it went away. And the money clip was sitting there. And I've had things happen in my life that are sort of paranormal. And I would tell my mom about it.

She was always very kind and just like, oh, okay, Sue. So I didn't know quite what to say. And I turned to her and I said, did you see that mom? And she was like, yeah. And I don't know if she actually saw what I saw, if she was just, you know, appeasing me or she saw something different. We haven't talked about it since then. But, but yeah, that was my story. And I actually have, I've kept the money clip. It has the same amount the cash that he had. I just, it's not anything fancy. It was just this little money clip right here.

Oh, cool. And I keep it with me in my purse. Always as just a reminder. But I just thought, I will say before my dad passed away, I said, you know, how will you come back that I'll know that you're back? And he was just like, no, nothing. No. And I'm like, oh, come on, dad. He was a golfer. I'm like, you know, will you be at the golf course? Like, no, no. And they had a fan, a ceiling fan. And he goes, oh, come back as a ceiling fan. And I'm like, okay. So I just feel like he came back in a big way. And it sounds like that light. It wasn't just like a little reflection of sunlight or something like that. It was like you said it kind of lit up the whole place basically, right? It was like radiant. Yeah, the whole room. I mean, I had the box in front of me and I couldn't see that.

It was just. Wow. And it wasn't even like, oh, I mean, she lived in a mobile home park so there weren't like traffic going by. It's not even like something like that. The curtains were closed and the whole room. was just illuminated. And I do believe that.

I've said this before, that I believe that our loved ones come back in ways that are very specific to us. That money clip to anybody else would be just like, oh, it's a money clip. It's nothing special to you. It's everything. Yeah.

So the association with that, I definitely believe they see things and they know things that will connect with us and they get through and away. For me, for my uncle, it was something with a mechanical claw machine, one of those things that you go and get, yeah.

I mean, it's just, it could be the most off-the-wall thing, but they know what will make an impact and they use it. And I think that's what your dad did. Sue, thank you so much. I know you're new around here. Really appreciate it. I hope you continue to enjoy it and tell your friends. And of course, stay spooky. And I have my speak-setsuit on.

She's off to a great start. She's off to a great start. Thanks again, Sue. Thanks, Jim. Bye. Just a quick word before we get back to the great campfire stories and really have enjoyed the show this week and every week. But if you want to get the full catalog going back all the way to 2009, there's one way to do it. Jim herald.com slash plus.

Jimherald.com slash plus. And there you can go back and listen to all of the great episodes that we've done over the years. And something we're doing now is we're doing our remastered series. So we're going back with the Camp Fire and the paranormal podcast. We're re-editing them to take out any external ads. We're cleaning up the audio so they sound better than ever. And the only way you can get those remastered episodes is through the Plus Club. Another thing we're doing brand new.

It's called the Spooky Studio Net and is for Plus members only. Dar and I do this kind of networking meeting with our members. and we've done two of them one in the morning, one in the evening, and we're going to kind of alternate like that, where you come on and you just say, hey, I'm so-and-so from thus-and-so place to weather's like this. This is what I've got going on. We'll have trivia. We'll have maybe a question of the day. It's a lot of fun, and people are really enjoying it, and you can only get access to it if you are a plus club member.

And we actually release the super secret URL on our behind the scenes podcast, which is also a Plus Club exclusive behind the scenes. If you're not listening to it and your Plus Club member, make sure to check it out. It's behind the scenes with Jim and Dar where we just talk about life. It's not necessarily paranormal. Just what goes on and running a little family-based media operation, just things going on in our life, just stream of consciousness for 20 or 30 minutes. every couple of weeks behind the scenes. And you can get that wherever you get your other Plus Club shows.

But you have to be a member first. Jimherald.com slash plus. Jimherald.com slash plus. We have great deals. Apple Podcasts, their system, if you go with them, they have a free trial. If you go with our supporting cast version, we have these big discounts, you know, $5 off your first month. or what is it, is it $30 off your first year if you decide to go with the year.

So I'm telling you, they're great deals. They're available. If you've never checked out the Plus Club, please do go check it out because I got to tell you, yeah, we have some ads on these shows. But they don't do anything near what they used to do for us. We only can continue to do this as our full-time pursuit because of our Plus Club members. So first, thank you, Plus Club members. And secondly, if you're not one and you can afford it and you love our content and want to see it going, that's the biggest way you can support us by joining our Plus Club at Jimherald.com slash plus. I thank you so much for your consideration. And now next story up.

Jerry is on the line from Arizona. He's been listening for many years. We're so glad to have him on. And he's a relatively new Plus Club member. So we appreciate that because that makes these shows possible. And, you know, we have these jot stories of things turning up in odd places. And this actually, and I'll talk about it a little bit later, it reminds very specifically of another story like that we had years ago. But I'll let Jerry tell his story about things that turn up in unusual places. Jerry, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened. Thank you, Jim.

Thanks for having me. This happened in the summer of 97, and I'm judging based on when this book came out in paperback. I was an avid reader. I used to go to bookstores all the time, and I went to this large chain bookstore. I saw this book. They have display tables towards the front of the store where they try to push the books they want to sell most. Sure. I saw this book with a distinctive yellow cover, and the book was called the Taylor of Panama.

and some people might not have heard of it, but it was a popular book because they made a movie with Pierce Brosman. So it was, I think it sold quite a bit. And I read the description and it sounded interesting, but I didn't want to spend $6.99 for a book. That was a lot of money in those days. It doesn't sound like much today. Yeah, I wish books were $6.99 now, yeah. But I grew up, I grew up paying a buck 50 for a paperback. So $6.99 was, that was a bit much. I thought, I'm going to hold off on that. Now, as a background, I lived in Phoenix and half for 40 years, but I'm originally from Chicago. So I would go back to Chicago every summer to see my parents when they were around this particular summer.

I went back to see them, and this occurred right by their house in Chicago. And I would go from time to time around the corner. I would go down the street, usually to buy lottery tickets at the little store there on the corner. this one day I came out, and I should also mention that where this is located, it's on a very busy street, or just my parents are on a side street, but around the corner is a very busy street. It's car, lots of traffic. On this particular, it must have been a midday, midweek, because there was nobody around. Typical, right?

I'm the only one there. And also I should mention the sidewalks there on this particular busy street were like double the width of a normal sidewalk. It was a very wide side button for some reason. I don't know. I turned the corner to go down this busy street. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, I see an object way out almost by the curb where all the cars were parked sitting with them. What is that? You know, I kind of looked at it.

I walk over there and it's a book. And I'm thinking, well, what the heck is a book doing out here? You know, I mean, it's an odd placement of something. I look around. I'm trying to see, does this belong to someone? Is someone coming to get it? You know, I don't know. And the book is face down.

I walk over there. I turn over the book and imagine my shock disbelief when that title on the book said, The Taylor of Panama. Which is the exact book that I have been interested in and have been looking at in the bookstore. So I was like in a state of like frozen shock. I mean, I didn't know what to do.

I thought I was being prank. Is this a hoax? Is somebody going to come up a corner? Right. Right. Is the real one going to pop up and say, hey, what the heck are you doing? Grabbing my book. I mean, I didn't know what to do.

I was just kind of standing there for a while. So I took the book. I mean, I took it home and I read it. And I like to read on the planes. I read it on the plane coming back. And I finished it when I got home and ended up giving the book to a used book sale. And people have asked me over the year, I said, well, was there anything

distinctive in that book? Was there anything special or meaningful? Was there any special message? Does it know? It was just a typical spy thriller book that you read in an airplane. It was there was no hidden meaning. For me, it's just this extraordinary coincidence

that I just happened to be 2,000 miles away that turn to corner, there's a book. And the other odd thing is that I put it completely out of my mind. It was so shocking and so bizarre. that I only just told my family about this a couple of years ago. What job, my memory is you had a caller or two that had weird things happen with books or the one guy that had a bookcase that moved or something like that. Yeah, the bookcase that fell down is his wife, I think she may have passed, unfortunately,

but this is very early on. Basically, they went to stay in this apartment in Hungary or some Eastern European place, and there was a huge bookcase, and she's a huge bookcase. and she insisted that the bed be moved and they all thought she was crazy and they moved the bed and that night that bookcase huge heavy

old time furniture full of books felt exactly where the bed would have been where her husband would have been and somehow she got that but I'll tell you the story reminds me of is I don't know if you remember this one and I may get some of the details wrong

because a lot of times when these kind of stories come up I just remember what I remember but as best I can tell, there was a gentleman who there was a picture of him like in third grade or something that he took and he remembered. Like school pictures, you remember we used to go and get, I don't even know if they do it anymore. You get dressed up and they've got the little thing with the American flag behind you or for a while in the 70s. They had those funny ones where they had double exposure of you and stuff. You know what I'm talking about, I'm sure. And anyway, or it was a class picture, one or the other, he was like in a totally different city, like hundreds of,

of miles away, and he looked down, you know how they'll have waste baskets, and he looked down and his school picture was in the waste basket. Oh, I remember that one, yeah. Yeah, isn't that crazy? That's what that reminded me of was your story. Is it something from the universe kind of give you a wink? Did you have maybe a past ancestor who was very fond of books? Did you ever think of that?

No, about that. people asked me what I did and I took the book and read it and then people say, well, maybe you were a participant in somebody else's ghost story. Maybe somebody left the book there. We're going to come back and get it. And then the book disappeared. And they're going to go to Jim and say, hey, there was the time I left the book on the saddle. I can't disappear.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but what are you going to do? I mean, there was no identification or anything. It's not like you could give it back to the person. So you might as well. It was kind of meant for you. Yeah, that is wild.

And maybe it's like, you know, the secret, you know, the idea that you can manifest stuff. Maybe somehow you manifested that book. I mean, it just, again, it spoils things, a head scratcher, right? It smells things that points to the universe being very strange. Now, what the explanation is, ah, that's the question. And I don't have an answer. I don't have an answer 20 plus years in doing all these different shows. and I suspect if I do them another 20, I still won't have an answer.

But what we do have are great stories. Jerry, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking time and being such a great supporter, listening and Plus Club and so forth, and stay spooky. Thanks, Jen. Stay spooky. Next up on the campfire is Loua from Texas. Now, she has a story, you know, out-of-body experiences,

something that really interests me. My wife, Dar, had one when she was a kid. And she says, don't know what it was, but I had it. It happened. It happened to Lua, too. And it, in fact, might run in the family. She's going to tell us all about it. Loua, welcome to the show.

Thank you for joining us. And please tell us what happened. So this happened. It's been over 10 years now. But I had moved back home with my dad after just something very traumatic. And so there was a lot going on at the time. but it runs in my family, the whole coming out of the body thing. So I was already kind of familiar with it.

It had never happened to me, but my dad many times. So he had already kind of prepared me for things that would happen, I guess, or things to look for to confirm that, yes, you truly were out of your body at the time. And so let's see. I was talking on the phone to a friend. This is the only thing that I could think could be connected to this. I was talking to a friend, and we were talking about someone who was into witchcraft. And she, I don't know, she was apparently a very powerful witch.

And so I ended the phone call. I laid down in my bed, and I turned the lights out. And as soon as I laid down, I sleep on my belly. As soon as I laid down and the lights were off, I felt like something had crawled up onto the bed onto my back and pushed me into the mattress. Like so hard, I, like, could not breathe. Like, my face was in.

And so after it let go, after I felt like the pressure release, I sat up because I was so scared. By what had just happened. And when I sat up, I was looking at myself laying down. So I was out of the body. Yeah. And at first, I just was so scared. I didn't know what to do.

And I just kind of looked around my room. Everything felt just like our physical world. Like by body, it wasn't like I could feel everything. And I was just sitting on top of my own. myself, my sleeping self. And one of the things my dad had always said to look for when you come out, he said that all the clocks, all time will disappear. There'll be no markers of time. So he said in that realm, right? Like in that realm, there is no need for time like that, you

know, like we keep time for this and that. So the first thing I did was I reached for my cell phone. and when I tried to turn it on, it wouldn't turn on. So I couldn't see, like, the time. And then I had looked, I had this clock on the wall, like an old school clock. And I remember when I was, like, looking for it, I felt frantic because I was like, where did it go? It was just there. But it was not there anymore. So that's how I knew.

Yeah, I was out for sure. Did you feel that pushing sensation, pushing you into the mattress? Do you think that was your own personage? escaping? Do you think that was you pushing on your body? I don't know. It didn't feel, it felt scary. And I would think that if it was me, I wouldn't feel so much terror. Right. Yeah, that sounds terrifying. That sounds terrifying.

So was it just the one or have you had more subsequently? This is the only one, but when I did come out, a lot of freaky stuff happened. Tell us a little bit of. about that if you would. So after like I sat up in the bed and I realized I'm out, um, I figured, okay, well, what do I do next? So I, I tried to go through the door because I'm like, well, if I'm like a soul right now, you know, that I probably don't have to open the door, but that was not true. It was very physical. Like I had to open the door. And then, um, I, at the time I was living with my dad. So I saw his light on under his door and I

could hear him talking. So I was trying to knock on the door. Like, please help me because I was so scared. But he didn't respond. And then I just felt very strongly not to leave the house that I needed to stay within because I had never done this before and it was dangerous to journey outside. So I was like, okay, I have to stay inside here. So I was like, okay, I'll go downstairs, see what's happening down there because one of my sisters was home. And when I went to go down the stairs, I didn't walk down the stairs. I flew down the stairs. I, like, floated.

So it didn't make sense. Like, the rules were different. I was like, how come I could not float through the door, but I could float down the stairs, you know? Right. And then I was looking for my sister. Like, the lights were on downstairs. It was just a lot of crazy stuff.

Like, I remember opening. the garbage can and like all this like dark mass like this energy came out and I was like so scared I'm like you know what I'm not I'm not going to do any of these things and it was just very simple things like you know opening the fridge looking at this and that and then I was just exploring my house and I went to open the front door um because I was just curious you know I felt not to but I was like I want to see why like what's out there that I'm not supposed to you know to to venture out i don't know and see but when i tried to open the door i couldn't it was locked like it wouldn't let me so i wasn't able to so so you just came back into your body or

how did it kind of wrap up um so i ended up at the time it felt like i was trapped in my house like there it felt to me like hours and hours like such a long time i did so many things in that span of time. Eventually, I ended up going upstairs. I was looking for my sister because she was home, but I couldn't find her. And then as I got back up the stairs, her room is at the end of the hall for mine. It was like a long hallway. And her door just opened all of a sudden. And she was there standing there. And I was like, oh, hey, like, I've been looking for you. I'm so glad to be with someone else. Like I'm so scared right now. She was not taught.

She wouldn't talk to me. I was just like, what's wrong with you? And then I realized, like, as she was getting closer to me, it wasn't my sister. It looked like her, but it was like, the face looked like deformed, you know, like, it was scary. And then I just remember, like, feeling terror and like I needed to get away from her. And then she just started, like, charging at me. So I closed the door. Do you feel this was all your perception or do you think you were like launched into some alternate reality?

I feel like it was maybe both, a mixture of both. And my sister was home that day and like later when I talked to everyone about like what they were doing at the time and everything, you know, they were like, oh, I was just in my room. So the thing with my sister, I don't know if that was just like something mimicking her or. or like something evil that was in the house. But yeah, that was scary. I ended up just closing the door. And like she was like scratching at the door trying to get in. And I was so scared.

I just went on top of myself. And I like laid and was just hugging myself and just begging to be let back in because I was so scared. And then I felt it was like immediate. It was like a sinking feeling. And when I opened my eyes, I like looked at the door and my sister wasn't scratching at the door anymore. And my clock was back and I turned on my phone. And that whole ordeal when I looked at that time was seriously like maybe 15 minutes. But when I was out of my body, it felt like it was hours.

It felt so long. So I assume based on your experience, it did not sound pleasant. So I'm assuming that you're kind of glad that this happened and happened again. Yeah. My dad, it happens to him all the time and his experiences, I don't know, they seem very different from mine. So I'm okay with not coming out again. Yeah, I don't blame you. And any theories as to what happened?

Do you think you know what happened? I don't know how or why, like what was triggering. I don't know if it was talking about like that person who was very much into this stuff or maybe all the trauma. that had just happened to me. I was more open than maybe I was before that. And it runs my family. Yeah. Well, Loua, thank you so much for sharing.

I mean, I wish we had answers, but I think it is valuable to share these experiences, particularly for people who have had similar ones and they can say, ah, it's not just me because I know there's people out there who have had those. And if you have had one, please come on a show. Jimherald.com slash campfire. Loua, thank you so much and thank you for being a part of the campfire. Stay spooky.

Thank you. Stay spooky, Jim. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system.

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Jimherald.com slash campfire had to think there for a minute. Jimherald.com slash campfire. That's where you can sign up to tell your story. Like Leah has done multiple times. This time, I believe this has to do with a

student and some strangeness that ensued. Leah, welcome to the show and tell us what happened. Thanks, Jim. Yeah. So I just remembered this one after the last time we spoke. We hung up and I was like, oh, I have another

quick one. So this happened a few years ago when I was teaching. We had an overnight trip to Philadelphia. We're New York City School, but we take the seventh graders to Philly in the spring, like end of the semester celebration. And we were, I think, just checking out of a hotel, getting ready to go to our first sightseeing excursion for the day. And most of us were on the bus. There were a couple of buses. And we were checking, making sure all the kids were on. And one of my colleagues says we're ready to go. And I had noticed I saw a student run back into the building with another teacher or in front of another teacher to grab, like he forgot his shoes or something in the room.

So I said, oh, wait a second. we have to wait for Johnny because he, I just saw him go in. And she said, no, he's not in there. He got on the other bus. And I was like, oh, he must have gone in after you saw him get on the bus. And thankfully, one of my colleagues behind me who, I think the two of us were like the most level-headed staff on the trip. So I was grateful he saw it too.

We were both, we both said, no, he's in there. forgot something and he went in right in front of the other teacher who went in. And so the colleague who said we're ready to go calls another teacher on the other bus and says like, just want to confirm that this student is on the bus so we don't leave without him. And he was on the other bus. And it was just so weird because we just saw him go. Both of us saw him go in the building. I tell you, this is the one.

Leah, that has maybe surprised me the most in the years I've been doing campfires, the idea of doppelgangers. And how often it happens, how convinced folks are. And again, you had independent verification and affirmation through that second person. And you mentioned this person was very level-headed, such as yourself. So to have two people say, you know, one person could be, oh, well, maybe it was a kid with a similar hairstyle, similar clothing, there's whatever. but two people saying it, two level-headed people saying it, they must be. And I often wonder if it's a ghostly thing or if it's a time slip thing or somehow we're going into an alternate reality, a slightly different reality.

It's very close, but it's just a little bit different. What do you think? Or do you have an opinion? I don't know. I will add the two. We were so convinced that we saw him that we had the teacher FaceTime the other bus so that we could see him with our own eyes. Oh, wow.

Like, we, it, it was so weird. And I, I'm not sure why, like, the idea of doppelgangers to me seem a little malevolent or like, something about it. Yeah, something about it's kind of sinister. And I'm not sure, like, what purpose that would have been for them. in that moment, like, because it's not like the student was getting left behind or anything like that. Right.

So maybe we both went into this alternate reality for a moment and we just saw something else. I don't know. Yeah, it's a puzzlement. It really is. And I was aware of doppelgangers before I started this show, but I had no idea how many people. And sometimes I do think it can, I don't know about this case, but sometimes I do think it can be sinister, like kind of the prototype. typical case we hear a lot of times as well. I thought my spouse came home. I heard them in the

foyer. I heard them shuffling around. It sounded like them because, you know, everybody has a unique sound like you can hear somebody walking in your house, a family member, and you know who that person is. And this mimicked the sound and everything. And then, you know, my spouse walks in 30 minutes later and says, hey, how are you doing? It was a tough day at work. And it's like, well, what do you mean? You were just here 30 minutes ago. And I'm like, no, I wasn't. Yeah. That's why I love the campfire. I don't know.

You know, I think some of the best campfire stories, Leah, they end with a question mark, not with a period. And this is one like that. Leah, thanks for coming back and sharing your story today on the campfire. Hope that you share more if you have them and stay spooky. Thanks, Jim. Stay spooky. He is back. Gary is with us.

He always has such fascinating stories. And this latest one is about experience he had at a tourist location and he's going to tell us all about it. Gary, always look forward to speaking with you. You always have such interesting and sometimes creepy stories. So tell us about this one. This one here actually, as I think I mentioned you before, is when I was younger, I had a lot of creepy, spooky, ghostly encounters for some reason. And it might have been as big as of where I lived.

But as I've gotten older, the time span between spooky things becomes much longer. And this last thing that happened has probably been two years or so. since I've had anything of any significance. But this just happened in February of this year of 2026, where I was away on business. I was at a convention in Kansas City, Missouri. And while I was there attending to business and dealing with clients, before leaving, I just happened to notice.

And I can't remember whether I saw it was mentioned to me or I saw it on television or something local. They had mentioned that there was a local venue doing a Titanic disaster fully immersive experience. And I thought, that is cool. I've always been fascinated by the whole Titanic situation. A lot of people lost their lives, very unfortunate. But I thought, this is very cool.

And it was not very far. It was only a few blocks away from my hotel. And I had some downtime where I, you know, other people who were sitting at the bar and doing whatever. I said, I'm going to, you know, get down there, get an Uber, go down there, which I did. So where it took place was a very old, um, old train station called Union Station, like I say, in Kansas City, Missouri, which I found later had a lot of history, a lot of interesting history. But when I went there, I just went there

for the exhibit. So I got to the exhibit, and as it turned out, you had to go into the basement of the bowels of this structure and went down an escalator and went into the basement and bought my ticket. And it was reasonable. So I'd go into there, and they had, they said they had like over 200 artifacts from both the Titanic as well as other ships from that era, Carpathia. There were a few others. And so walking through it, there was nobody there. There was a handful of people, maybe six or seven or eight people were walking around. And they had things behind glass and plexiglass, you know, a deck chair, a hat, the ship log,

things like that. Very interesting. So I went through, did all that, and was in a bit of a hurry. so I wasn't going to spend three, four hours there. But as I went through this, I got to a section where I walked in this door, I walked in and it appeared like very pitch dark. And as my eyes got used to it, I noticed, okay, there's like these big white spots on the ceiling, a high ceiling, very large wide room.

And okay, I'm saying, okay, those are supposed to represent stars in the sky. That's cool. And as my eyes got used to the darkness, I realized, weird. On the floor here, they have replicas of, the lifeboats that were deployed from the Titanic when it sank. And there was a sign saying, get on a lifeboat. So I got on a lifeboat alone. There was nobody else there.

And I look up. Next thing I know, there's a few other lifeboats around me. And it was supposed to imitate feeling what it felt like for the survivors that were in those lifeboats, sitting in the ocean, looking up at the stars. And suddenly I realize the Titanic appears up right beside you. and it's just struck the iceberg and it's about the sink. And I'm thinking that is kind of a creepy thing, but very cool. And you just see the ship there as it's kind of listing going down

and the stacks are starting to collapse. And up in the sky, you see the Morse code messages that were sent by the Titanic to other ships, the Carpathia being one of them and other ones. And they were saying, well, we're four hours away, were six hours away, we're eight hours away. And these are steamships, so they don't go very fast. Right.

They said, we'll see you in six hours. That's not going to cut it. People are going to be dead and drowned by then. So that was kind of cool. I just sat and took that in. Very cool. And so once I got out of there, it was gut-wrenching, but interesting. I get out of there and I thought, okay, that's got to be it.

But there was one other thing. It was an opportunity for an extra $10 for a VR or virtual reality experience. I had never done that before. And so they said, just put these goggles on, this headset, and it's going to feel like you're actually on the Titanic, walking up on the deck, walking below deck, going through the state rooms, going down the corridors. And I said, got to do that for $10.

So I did that. Went in, and sure enough, it was just like you're on the ship. Right. You know, fantastic. And I don't know if you've ever done something like that before. Yeah, I'm familiar with it. Yeah, I'm familiar with VR. and I tell you, you can know that you're physically sitting on your couch,

but it doesn't feel like it. No, I know exactly what you're talking about. No, no. And because of the motion as you're on the ship and the movement as you're sinking, because suddenly you're on the ship and it starts, you've hit the iceberg, and you see the water's filling up in the corridors. And next thing you know, you're standing at the base of that grand staircase. There's like the carved oak staircase that's in the movies, you know,

where and where that big clock is. And you're standing there and suddenly the ship starts to list and the water's coming in. And what I found out afterwards is they actually have spotters, meaning because, I don't if it's the equilibrium in your ears, but suddenly you're like dizzy and you're ready to fall over because the ship's sinking. Yeah. And they have people behind you ready to catch you and you have to sign a release. Yeah.

So anyways, I did that. It was very cool. And near the end, you actually. you're going in a submarine, you go to the bottom of the ocean, the bottom of the North Atlantic, and you watch as the Titanic is breaking apart and sinking and finally crashing on the bottom. Wow. And that was kind of it. Then you walk out and I said, that was so cool.

I'm so glad I did that instead of sitting in a bar having a drink. So as I left there, I exited, it was going to get my Uber. I really had to go use a bathroom. And I saw a men's room and I was just a little distance away from the exit of the exhibit. So I go in there and there was nobody else around. Nobody else was inside the men's room. So I'm in there, standing there. And suddenly I noticed that somebody walks in.

So I noticed, I didn't want to just turn around a stair at them. So I kind of side-eye them, look over. And I said, well, that's cool. How did I miss that? I see a guy, a gentleman, middle-aged gentleman, wearing like old-fashioned period clothing, which I'm assuming is like from the time of the type. And I think, that's kind of cool.

Maybe I missed a room where I should have gone in. They probably thought they were, yeah, like they were actors and stuff forth. Yeah, an actor. I'm John Jacob Astor. Exactly, exactly. So he's there with this tweet or whatever coat and pants, and he's got a big black top hat. And so he's standing there, so I'm kind of looking there sideways. And I see that he suddenly opens his jacket, and he pulls out a pocket watch with a gold chain on it, holds it up to his face, looks at it.

kind of looks away, looks at it again, puts it back on his jacket, and then proceeds to walk over to the toilet stalls. I can't remember how many of the door, but he goes to the toilet stalls. I finish up, I walk over to the sink, which is near the toilet stalls, so I kind of look over. The toilet stalls are all open. There's nobody there. I think, where did this guy walk to?

Is there a secret exit that he walked out of? And I thought, that's kind of bizarre. You know, where did he go? Did he stealthily sneak out some secret thing? That was strange. I kind of made my eyebrow raise. So I left. On leaving the structure,

I go back up the escalator to get out of the basement. And as I'm going out, I clear as day hear the sound of churning water. It's almost like if you're in a swimming pool or you're splashing around a new jacuzzi, like you're splashing water, like you're treading water. And I'm thinking, that's cool they've got a

obviously a speaker to you know market this this exhibit with this splashing sound but there was no speaker and then I hear you know and a low voice again and again I think I'm cursed with this kind of thing I've had this happen

a few times in my life with these voices is that I hear this voice like it's I was either a boy or a young man kind of like saying cold I'm so cold cold

cold oh all right but again my mind is saying this has got to be being fed through a speaker to just promote

this exhibit but there was no nothing else there were no speakers there was not I thought maybe there was a water wall because this water

splashing sound was constant none of that was like I get to the top I'm standing there looking around that is bizarre I, you know, afterwards I thought maybe I should have gone back to the exhibit.

First of all, just to ask them saying, no, did you have period actors walking around that I missed? That would have answered that question. I didn't. I wanted to get back to the hotel at a meeting to go to. But when I went back to the whole hotel afterwards and thought about it, I decided to Google this location. And that's when I found out that it had a history. So Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri, it was, it was kind of neat. It was built between 1911 and 1914 and it opened.

So it was being built at the time. 1912 was when the Titanic went down. Isn't that kind of a neat coincidence? So there was, yeah, so there's that. And then the other thing is I found out that in 1933, they had something called the Kansas city massacre occur right there on the steps, the outside steps of this. Oh my. And what happened was that there was a criminal.

It was a fugitive that they had captured. And the FBI was there. There were all these lawmen there. And they were escorting them and putting them on a train to take him to jail. And this goes a bad guy. So they were about to put him on the train. And out of nowhere, this crime family pulls up. with their vehicles, vehicle or vehicles,

and they've got these Thompson submachine guns and started shooting everybody. Oh, wow. So they ended up killing four of the lawmen, including FBI. And they ended up, I don't know whether they got the crossfire, but Frank Nash, the criminal they were trying to break free, got shot and died as well.

Huh. So a lot of energy there. Now, no, let me ask you this real quick. In terms of the actual exhibition, you mentioned artifacts. So they had actual artifacts that came from the Titanic. Is that correct? They, yes, they did. Now, I don't think the debt chair that they had was from another ship from the same era.

Right. So I think what they had was some small things, nothing huge. I think things maybe that they had, I don't know if it was some paper items, whether it was a ship log or tickets from the ship. I guess my point, because I figure some things were recreations. obviously. There would be recreations as well in there. Yeah, and some similar, from similar ships of the same era.

But then if they actually had even a few things, did you ever think that there was a haunted object situation? And maybe they carried the energy of some of these people who were lost in the Titanic. Funny, you should ask, because I did, and one of the things that I saw, which was in a plexiglass case, was a life jacket. that was, I don't know if it was from the Titanic or another ship, but it said that it was an actual life jacket that was used, and it was very crude. It was a very crude thing, but it had good buoyancy. And I remember just staring at it thinking, you know, if this thing could talk,

you know, if they can't tell a story back in the day. It's amazing when you go to these places and things and you see these artifacts. I mean, I think about here in Cleveland, we have the Cleveland Art Museum, which many people don't know. was literally one of the top few art museums in the world because it was built when Rockefeller was here and a lot of wealthy people in Cleveland was kind of a boomtown, industrial boomtown. So they have these huge endowments. So, I mean, it's right up there with the Louvre, believe it or not. You look at these artifacts and certainly, you know, more recent ones, relatively recent ones from the area you're talking about.

But you see things going back hundreds, maybe a thousand years and you go, these were made by. real people who lived just like you and me. And it's just, you know, and you wonder if they hold that residual energy, you say, that there's something that is permeates. And the other thing that was interesting, too, was besides the Kansas City Massacre and the fact that this structure was built

right during the time of the Titanic sinking, it was in the midst of being built. And then, lo and behold, all these years later, they have the exhibit in the basement. And here's the kicker, too. The additional thing was I found out that prior to it being constructed, the reason why it was constructed was that there was a much smaller train station there before that they used during the 1800s.

And it was either 1903 or 1904, somewhere around there, they had a major flood with lots of rushing water into the basement and into the thing. And I don't know whether anybody drowned or not, but I'm thinking when I heard that splashing sound of someone treading water and they're saying, C C Coo Coo, Cold, was that? I'd have been then, yeah. I might not have even been connected.

Was it then? Or was it the, it was a Titanic existence? Or was it, you know, it was very cool, though. It was like, yeah, it's. As we know from your previous stories, these things exist. It sounds like you're certainly tuned into them. Thank you, Gary. All is great to talk to you.

Thank you for being on the show and stay spooky. Thank you. You too. Take care. Thanks so much for joining us today on the Campfire. I appreciate it very much. I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did, and a big thank you to all of our storytellers, because as I tell each one of them, as we're getting ready to record, we wouldn't have a show without them.

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Stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-bye.