Jim Harold's Campfire - The Ghost Had To Go - Jim Harold's Campfire 770

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

This week on Jim Harold’s Campfire, a young woman enters a darkened theater hoping for a paranormal encounter and gets more than she bargained for. We also hear about a mysterious whistling spirit that seems to follow one listener from home to home, and a ghost in a hurry who really wants to go to the bathroom. These are only a few of the true ghost stories and unexplained encounters shared in this episode. From haunted houses and playful spirits to bizarre events that challenge our understanding of reality, this Campfire is packed with creepy personal experiences that will leave you wondering what may be waiting just out of sight. VIRTUAL CAMPFIRE GROUP Join our FREE online community at ⁠https://virtualcampfiregroup.com⁠ HAUNTED GARAGE SALE Hope to see you soon at this fantastic event on August 1st! Check it out at https://ClevelandHauntClub.com YOUTUBE CHANNEL Be sure to subscribe to Jim’s YouTube channel at: ⁠https://youtube.com/jimharold⁠ JOIN JIM’S SPOOKY STUDIO PLUS CLUB You 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! MERCH Go to ⁠https://jimharold.com/merch⁠ to get your Jim Harold T’s, sweatshirts, mugs, hats and more! BOOKS Get 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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The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Haunted theater, a giggling ghost and a whistling ghost. And that's just for starters on this edition of the Campfire. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. You know, over the years, whether it's the paranormal podcast or this show, the topic of haunted theaters keeps coming up. And I believe there's something there.

There's a lot of energy in these theaters. And in, you know, show business in general, we're talking about, you know, kind of type A personality. with a lot of emotion. And we've got a great person to talk to us about her experience. Caroline, she's a new listener. She actually heard about us from that great podcast, Uncanny that we were on a few years ago. Danny Robbins, Dr. Kieran O'Keefe, just tremendous folks there. And you never know where people will find the show from.

So we're so glad to have her, and she's going to tell us about the theater world and haunted theater and all that good stuff. Caroline, welcome to this show. Thanks for joining us. So glad you found us. Tell us what happened. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Jim. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so my story, it actually takes place almost 20 years ago. So I'm dating myself a bit by saying that I was in high school about 20 years ago.

But I had moved to upstate South Carolina with my mom because she took a job, a teaching job, at what was her alma mater, where she got her bachelor's degree, which is this really beautiful, old. Historic Women's College in upstate South Carolina. And I say it's really beautiful because it's, you know, all of the buildings are like original from when it was founded in the mid-1800s. You know, it's a lot of beautiful green space. They've got these big towering old oak and magnolia trees everywhere. So it's quite picturesque. It has a lot of, you know, history that you feel.

And of course, as you might expect, a lot of people say it's pretty haunted. And my mom actually had experiences there when she was in college. Like she told me that when she would go do laundry in her dorm hall, there was a little boy ghost that would sit on top of the washing machine while she did laundry and talk to her. So, you know, it's just it was full of stories that I heard from a lot of different people. I myself am a theater kid. So I, you know, even though I wasn't going to school there for college, they had a lot of great programming for people my age. So I spent a lot of time on the campus and talked to a lot of people about all these different things. But one of the most kind of known ghosts that they have on this campus was in their theater. It was thought to be the ghost of a woman who they named the theater after. Her name was Hazel, and she was basically this woman who championed all of the arts programming at the school. So, you know, they named the theater in her honor. But all the people that I spoke to before I had my own experiences, they shared that she was not really a friendly ghost.

She was, yeah, she was, I don't want to say she was like scary necessarily, but she was a bit mean, a bit territorial and a bit, you know, opinionated, I guess is what I'll say. So, you know, I, my experience actually happened. I had two experiences that I think kind of validate each other. They were months apart, but they really affirmed kind of the each other to me. So the first experience I I had been doing a summer camp there between my freshman sophomore year of high school. And that meant that I was like living on campus and I was taking class every day in that theater. And, you know, I'm someone who's always loved ghost stories and the paranormal. So I was really curious and kind of like almost anticipating that something would happen to me. But, you know, at a certain point, I was like, okay, nothing's happening. I need to take matters into my own hands.

So one day, I know, just like delinquent child thoughts, I guess. But one day we had class in the theater and I had this idea. You know, when class ended, everyone was going to lunch. I was like, oh, what if I accidentally leave my backpack behind? Because if I do that, I have to go back alone. So that's exactly what I did. And, you know, to get to this theater, it's on the same. the second floor of kind of like the main administrative building on campus. So you have to go up

this long flight of stairs. And then you're basically in the lobby of the theater. But there was also a hallway that led down to the stage door. So, you know, so I went back. I went up the staircase. I went down the hallway and I went through the stage door, which leads you directly onto the stage. But as soon as I opened the door, I realized all of the lights were out in the theater. And I hadn't, expected that. I probably should have, but, you know, in my childish mind, I thought, oh, the lights are all going to be on and I'm just going to walk in and get my bag and explore a little bit. But, you know, the lights were off. So it immediately filled me with more fear or almost dread than I planned on experiencing. Sure. And the moment that I put, you know, I stepped through the door

because I was like, I have to get the bag. There's no way out of this. So the moment I put my foot on the floor of the stage, I immediately felt a presence. And it wasn't like, oh, there's something in this room. It was the feeling of someone standing right in front of me, like inches away from me. And you could say that maybe it was, you know, I was inferring from a lot of the stories I had heard, but I really strongly felt like it was a very tall woman standing right in front of me. and just looking in my eyes, like focused, laser focused on me, you know, giving off this energy of what are you doing here. And I wasn't sure what to do in the moment, but again, I was like, I have to go get this bag. So I mustered up all the courage I had and I, you know, slowly put one foot in front of the other.

and every step that I took, I felt her move with me in sync. So it was as though she was standing right in front of me walking backwards. Oh, man. It was so palpable, this feeling of like she's not taking her focus off of me. And she's following every step. I mean, the closest, you know, exam, it's kind of like the feeling of when you're, like a predator chasing its prey. That was really what it felt like. Yikes.

Yeah. So I felt that, you know, I continued forward, but I felt it every single moment. And until I got to my bag, I picked it up and I turned around, which when I think about it now, I'm like, I can't believe I turned around in that situation because it was so overwhelming. But, you know, I think I was afraid if I walked backwards, I was going to fall over or something. So I turned around, but the energy stayed there, like right behind. me this time. You know, now it's it's following me from behind. And that feeling didn't let up. So I made it to the stage door and I opened it and I'm like, okay, now I'm in the light. Like,

I'm sure that's all in my head. It's just, you know, I was making this up. It's, it's just me. I'm just being scared, you know, and it's probably not real. But as I kept walking down the hall, the feeling never went away. And it's, it's so hard to explain how palpable it was because it was so like there's no question in my mind that there's something behind me following me this entire way. And it really didn't change until I got to the top of the staircase. So as I started down the stairs, I started to feel a bit of distance between myself and this presence, but it was still watching me. And when I got to the bottom of the stairs, you know, again, I think that insatiable curiosity came back. And I was like, I just have to look. I just have to look. I just have to

to look and see. So I very quickly whipped my head around to look up at the top of the staircase. And the moment I did, I saw this tiny gray mist just shoot behind the staircase and disappear. And the moment that happened, I felt like released, basically. I suddenly felt like I wasn't being watched anymore. And it was very distinct because, you know, this was like the middle of the day during summer school. So this, the lobby level of this administrative building, there were a lot of people around. Like, when I looked up and saw this miss, there were other people, you know, nearby. So the feeling of being, being watched was very different than just being in a room of people. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. And, but I didn't say anything to

anybody about that because I was the only person who experienced it. And it wasn't until months later when I was rehearsing a play in that same theater. You know, we were doing like a dress rehearsal and at the end of the dress rehearsal, our director asked for everybody to come, you know, sit on the edge of the stage. I'm going to give you notes. There had been people up in the lighting and sound booth, you know, which sits above the audience where they, you know, run all the lighting and sound cues for plays. That's where all of the lights and everything were controlled from.

So, you know, as we're all sitting on the stage, getting ready to get our notes in the booth, they're starting to close up for the night. They came down. So there's nobody in the booth. And we're sitting there and the director starts giving notes. But then all of a sudden, I noticed that the lights are slowly dimming. But again, that can't happen unless someone is up in the booth controlling the lights. And, you know, it was like maybe 16 of us in this room. And at first I thought, I'm like, am I just like, am I just really tired?

Is this just in my head? But they kept dimming and dimming and dimming all the way until they were all the way out. And then we sat there for maybe like five seconds in silence. It felt a lot longer. But and then the technical director got up and basically just like gruffly was like, it's the ghost. Like he was someone that had had multiple experiences. So he just immediately was like, I know what this is.

It's just the ghost doing its ghost thing. And then I. realized that later that night when I got home, I was like, wow, all of these people have these experiences all the time. So they're very unfazed. And so it's a matter of fact. Yeah. And so in the moment, I didn't really attribute it to anything. And then later I was like, whoa, that that couldn't, that was like physically impossible for that to happen. And then it made me think about my previous experience and be like, well, maybe that wasn't in my head, you know. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's great. That's great. So you think that you got up close and personal with Hazel?

I think so. I mean, I felt, and again, because I was like 15 at the time, it makes sense, but I really felt a strong sense that she was just like the authoritarian. Like, what are you doing in my room? Like, what are you doing in my theater? You delinquent child. You're here to do something that you shouldn't, you know. Like she called me out for what I was actually doing, which was pretty, you know, sneaky, just being like, oh, I'm just going to leave my bag. create an experience and she really kind of humbled me.

And it's funny because a lot of times in these experiences people say, oh, it was a friendly ghost and it was just stopping by to say hi. But Hazel was basically kind of reading you the right act and saying, what are you doing in my theater? What are you doing in my theater? Well, I'm glad you're in our podcast. I thank you so much for joining us tonight. So glad you found us.

I appreciate you telling the story. I always have been a big believer in the idea of haunted theaters. There's so much energy. Good, bad, happy, sad, played out on the stage by people who are very enthusiastic, very emotional, very vibrant. Just make sense to me that some of that energy stays behind. Thank you so much for being on the show and stay spooky. Thank you so much, Jim. Stay spooky.

Welcome to the campfire. I am Jim Harold and so glad to be with you. And I am so excited about today's show. we have many, many great spooky stories, ghostly stories from people who have experienced strange things, real people, the people that I love to talk to every week on this show, and we've been doing it for years. I want to tell you about a couple of cool, cool things coming up for fans of the spooky. If you follow us at all, Dar and I, we do live streams on my YouTube channel over at

YouTube.com slash Jim Herald from time to time. and we'll be doing a live stream for Summerween. Yes, Summerween. Friday, July 24th at 7 p.m. Eastern. That's Friday, July 24th at 7 p.m. Eastern. We'll do our usual chats and we'll bring people in. We'll play games. We'll have trivia.

We'll do some giveaways. It's going to be a great time. I hope you'll join us at 7 p.m. Eastern on Friday, July 24th. And then the following weekend, I hope you'll join us again. Again, if you're in the region, the Ohio region, I would say, there's a huge event that's been going on for years here. I've never been a part of it, always wanted to. And this year, we're going to be doing a live campfire recording. It is the Haunted Garage Sale and Hearst Cruze in.

That is Saturday, August 1st, 2026. Again, that is the Haunted Garage Sale and Hearst Cruise in Saturday, August 1st, 2026. and it starts, let's see, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern. It is going to be a great time. I can tell you, this is a super popular event. It was so popular that they filled a baseball stadium here, one of the local minor league baseball stadiums. They had to move because it was too big. And it's going to be a sparkling new facility, the Ross Expo Center. I think you'll enjoy it. And later in the show, we're going to have the chief cook and bottle washer of that event with us briefly to tell us a little bit more about. about it. So live campfire recording, you got to check it out. The website is Cleveland Hauntclub.com. Cleveland Hauntclub.com for more info. And I hope to see you there. Maybe even you could tell your story on the air. Well, we have a lot of people who have told their stories on the air, and here they are. Oh, we're in for a real treat. We've got double the callers, sisters. Michelle and Jamie from Washington State. We're so glad to have them.

and we appreciate it very, very much. And there they are, they are. And they have some stories about their aunt's haunted home, and they're going to tell us all about it. Guys, thanks for joining us. I feel very blessed here to have not one but two great callers. Tell us what happened. Well, thanks, Jim.

So my sister and I grew up in a little town in central Washington called Wapato, and our aunt moved into the home about 19. 181, 82, somewhere in that range. The house was built in 1965. And when she first moved in, nothing happened until, Jamie, you can take over. So I, the times these stories happened were between like the ages of 8 and 11. And my grandmother had passed away. And my grandfather and my aunt were I was pretty much spending time with them.

they were kind of my babysitters. So my friend and I were playing Barbie dolls in the extra room, and we, you know, we're dressing them up, brushing their hair, and then we got called to eat lunch, and we went out and ate lunch, came back, and all of our Barbies were hanging off the top of the shelf that was on the wall just by their hair, and they just dropped to the floor. And we took a look at each other and ran out of that room screaming. And my aunt and grandpa were in the kitchen, and there was nobody else. there. So that was pretty wild. My aunt came back in with us. We looked around, picked everything up,

but couldn't explain it. And, you know, just in general, you would hear footsteps. You'd hear somebody walking around the house. And my grandfather had a very distinctive walk because his hips were bad and he used crutches. And so it wasn't real quick, you know. And my aunt most of the time was either at work or outside. So oftentimes you'd hear somebody walking and nobody'd be there. A second time, my job was to kind of feed the chickens in the summer and I would spray down their pen to keep them cool. And this particular time, I went outside in my white kid shoes and I knew I'd get in big trouble if I got those all muddy. So I took them off by the, in the middle of the yard and walked over and sprayed down the chickens, collected all the eggs, did my business. And I came back

to put my shoes on and they weren't there. So that was kind of weird. Yeah, it was me and grandpa. He was inside. So I walked all over the yard thinking, well, maybe I didn't take them off where I thought I did, but they weren't there. So I ran across the driveway, got in the house with Grandpa and said, do you know if anybody took my shoes or did you come outside? And he said no. But he came out there with me and we're looking around the yard. And I kind of got frustrated and I was like, get me back my shoes. And they came whistling through the air. And one flew past my face and the other one like hit my back.

Oh man. You want your shoes. You got them. Yeah. And there is an ADU above the garage. And it had like a deck where there was a basketball hoop on the front of it. And most of the time it was kept locked because nobody lived there. But that's where the shoes came from the general direction.

And, you know, grandpa couldn't really go up the stair. So he's like, do you want to go up there and look around? And I was like, no. No, thank you. But I did. And the door was locked and there wasn't a soul up there. So it was weird, you know. And the final story I wanted to tell out of several was as I was a little older and moodyer,

you know, I wanted to be by myself a little more. And a stray dog had showed up at the house and he was my bud. And so we walked all the way to the end of the pasture, which was a little bit. a couple acres away from the house. And we're just hanging around. And then all of a sudden he started growling that real low, like, you know, cranky growl that dogs get when they don't know what's going on. And his hackles stood up. And then he took off running. He yelped and just took off running. And then I was like, what? So I was looking for a person or an animal and nothing was there, but I could see or hear, I couldn't see anything. Sorry, I could hear something walking

towards me through the grass. And so I bolted with the dog and the whole way I could hear somebody behind me running. Oh, that's creepy. And we got to the concrete. Yeah, we got to the concrete and I could still hear the footsteps on the concrete. And then they stopped right about 10 feet from the door. And that was just, that was the only time I was really terrified, honestly. Because it felt like it was going to get me. So those are my three stories. I know Michelle has them to add in. Yeah, Michelle, tell us, tell us your stories. So then our grandfather passed away. So when my aunt moved into the home, as Jamie said, she moved in with our grandma and grandpa. And our grandma passed away in 1986. And then our grandpa passed away in 1990. And that he passed

away in February. But that winter before, he would talk about seeing faces move in the walls. So he'd hear the kitchen table and he'd see faces move. And I was 19 at the time, so I'm like, yeah, whatever old man. I mean, like, you know, you just don't think, okay, are there really things? And then he'd always talk about hearing fingers, like drum on a table. Oh, man, that's creepy. Even though he was only at home because, like Jamie said, I was away at college. Jamie was at school.

Our brother was at school. And then our aunt worked. So it just was, you know, no one else was there. So then he passes away. So I came home from college. And so on the day of his funeral, we had his funeral. And then we had a memorial at the house. So all the family came back to the house.

And Jamie and I took our aunt's dog for a walk. And so we were walking down the road and we're about a quarter mile away from the house. And this man comes out into the road and waves his arms like this and yells, Michelle, you have a phone call. And so I said to him, or I yelled back, Jamie and I are walking the dog, take a message. And the person waved their hands again and said, Michelle, you have a phone call. And so I yelled back, I'm walking the dog, take a message.

And so the person walked in. So Jamie and I keep walking back. We get to the house. And I said, who called me? Nobody answered the phone. Huh. Nobody answered. The phone had even rang.

It had even rang. Oh, that's weird. So we were trying to figure out who had called, like, who was yelling my name and who had called me. So I just talked it up like, okay, that was really weird. But maybe someone came and left, you know, because people were coming and going. So that summer, I chose to live with my aunt instead of live at home with my parents and Jamie and my brother. And my aunt had told us, told me, prior to moving in, Michelle, there's some weird stuff going on in the house. Since grandpa died,

there's some things that happened. So she said the vacuum cleaner would turn on, even though it was unplugged. And then our cousin saw a full-body apparition walk in through the front door. He was watching TV in the front room, and this person just walked in the front door. So she's like, there's going to be some weird things that happen. And I was like, okay, what could really happen in this house. So my very first night, I move in, drive my stuff back from college, move in, and I'm watching TV in the front room. And my aunt's bedroom is, you walked in the back door and there was a kitchen, dining room, and then my aunt's bedroom, and then you went in and there was a living room and then the other two bedrooms and the bathrooms. So I'm sitting in a chair facing the front

door where my cousin watched the full body apparition come in watching TV. And I'm, and I'm I fell asleep in the chair. And I woke up to this hand drumming on the coffee table between the two recliners. Oh, boy. The drumming again. Yep. And I looked over and I saw this hand move. And then I thought to myself, there's nobody there. I'm the only person here with my aunt. And I sat up in my chair, gym, and behind my head were three huge knocks on the wall. Boom, boom, boom. And I did, jumped up out of the chair and my aunt had told me that they played music on the pipes. So all of a sudden it was like, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, on the water pipes. I was so scared.

I ran in and woke up my aunt and I was like, what is going on in this house? And she's like, I told you, Michelle, it's the ghost. And I slept on her floor that first night. I was so scared. I got to tell you, I don't blame you. I would be absolutely terrified, absolutely terrified. So, I mean, what do you think it was? What do you think was going on in that house?

Well, and so after that, we had more experiences. So my friend came to visit, and my brother and I were playing basketball in front of that ADU. And my brother threw the basketball up. And when we landed on the deck, so we were both racing to go get it. And the basketball flew up and over and scared my friend half to death because we saw it fly up off the deck. like someone picked it up and through it. And then the last thing that happened in that ADU is when I went back to college at the end of that summer, my aunt, I had stored some of my college stuff up there. And my aunt went back.

And every single one of my pictures on one of my bins, Jim, had been spread out all around the floor, like in a semicircle. Like someone had sat there and put out every one of my college pictures. Oh, wow. So, well, we look at the history of that. property. It was an orchard. I mean, there isn't a lot of anything that has it. As we were talking about these stories with my mom, my mom shared that someone who lived a little further down the road also had experiences. She would see people in her home, hear voices. And that was about a quarter mile away from the house. So you would think it was on that side of the road. And then my

mom also shared that the first year after my aunt moved in the house, she and one of her friends was walking on Thanksgiving, and a man came out and yelled at her that she had a phone call. So we found about this just as we were preparing for this. But who's there and why that happened? We truly can't find out. And when my aunt sold the house in 1994, a few months after the new owners bought it, they called her and asked her if there was anything unusual that ever happened in the home. Yeah, plenty, plenty unusual happen. Wow, what a story.

And what, I mean, that sounds like one of the most active places we've ever had on the campfire in terms of just general strange happenings and the phone call and all of that and the knocks and the tapping and apparitions. Go ahead. Yeah, and it was like there was some intelligence, like, hauntings because they interacted with you. And then I think there was some that were just, like, replaying, like, the phone call one maybe. I don't know. You know, it seemed like there was more than one spirit.

And I really don't think it was our grandma, our grandpa. Like, it didn't feel like it was them trying to come back and connect with us. So I don't think it was them. And I agree with Jamie. You would get scared, but I didn't feel like they were trying to do something harmful. I think they just were letting us know they were there. Yeah, we're here. We're here.

And throwing the shoes back, too. Throwing the shoes back. Yeah. And I was so glad that they finally had experiences because it wasn't just me because everybody was like, oh, the little kids. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that's one of the coolest things is when you have multiple people experiencing something.

So you get that validation. You know, hey, it's not my imagination. It's not just the wind or, I mean, it is. Something's happening. Something's happening here. What it is isn't exactly clear. Well, thank you both. Thank you both. I appreciate it very much. And I thank you again for being on the show and stay spooky. Thanks, Jim. Thank you. Thank you. Well, she's been listening for a few years now. She is here to tell her story and is about a whistling spirit. Melissa, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Can't wait to hear about this. this whistling spirit. Tell us what happened. Hi, yeah. Thank you.

So it starts off when I was 16 years old. It was the first time I had experienced this spirit. I was alone at my parents' house, and it was the evening. And I had always experienced kind of like paranormal things going around the house. So I was always a little paranoid. So I was downstairs. I made sure all the dogs were down with me. and I had music playing on my speaker. The first thing that kind of like threw me off for the night was I heard like behind the music. Alyssa. And that kind of, that kind of freaked me out for a minute, especially.

I didn't really hear it with my ears. It was like inside of my head that I heard it. So I was almost like, all right, I could just be, that could be nothing. I could be crazy. Like, we're going to ignore it. Right. And so I'm just downstairs. I'm like reading a book.

I'm just existing. and from upstairs, well, the way that my house is laid out was, it was a two-story, but from the living room was just a really high vaulted ceiling, and you could see up, and it was essentially a catwalk with a loft. So when someone's walking upstairs, you can see them. So you can hear really well from the second floor. So towards where my bedroom was, every night, I'll backtrack, every night, I would go to bed and call my dogs up to come sleep with me, and I would whistle.

I would go and they would all want to one or two, however money would come up and they'd sleep with me. Well, I'm downstairs with all the dogs. And from the area of my bedroom, I hear, Ooh, almost like it's mocking you. Yeah, like it was, exactly. And I was, like, blood ran cold. I'm, like, stuck to the spot. And all there was for me to do, because I'm not going upstairs.

I'm not going to investigate that. So I just stayed where I was and waited for my family to come home. and that was actually the last time in that house that I heard any whistling, there was other experiences, but no whistling. It wasn't until I moved into my first apartment with my sister that I started hearing more. And it was always when my sister was at work and I was alone. But it was pretty consistent. It was almost daily, if not daily, it was definitely weekly. I'm a bit of a whistler, so I would always be in the house doing two. I'd be like, and maybe you shouldn't whistle indoors.

I know that's a superstition, but I do. And so if I'm, you know, in the kitchen, doing the dishes, whatever, I'm in a carpeted apartment. There is no echo, but like a couple seconds later, I would hear from down the hallway. So it would just, like, come right back at me. Wow. And I'd be obviously horrified because, wait, I'm definitely alone in the house. Like there's no one here, I hope. Not expecting to hear that.

But yeah. And that happened pretty consistently for weeks, months. I couldn't even say how long. It felt like an eternity. But it wasn't until I got to the point where I would never be like wearing pajamas around the house. I was never comfortable at home anymore. So just get ready for the day. Whether I'd work or I was off, I would just be dressed.

And the second, it wasn't an if, it was a when. Like once I heard the whistle, like the, like whatever it wanted to do to me that day, I would just get up and I would just bolt out the door. Like, I'd go on a drive. And I ended up, like, telling my mom, like, how, like, horrified I was all the time. I never wanted to be a home. I was always just, like, driving around. Like, it'd be in the middle of the day, like 11 a.m. Like, why am I so scared?

But she actually happened to have a rosary that was blessed at the Vatican. And she gave it to me to make me feel better. and once I started getting it around the house, I actually stopped hearing any whistling. So whether it was a placebo, it really worked, it worked for me. If it works, it works. Now let me ask you, any thought of who or what it was?

I don't know who. I assume it was a spirit. It was, like I will say, like in the house that I was at as a child. Like there was, it was eventful consistently. So I do think my mom. mom always would say, like, that she thought that I had some kind of, like, light, she would say, like, maybe spirits would, like, pick me out in a crowd, that type of thing. But I know every house that I lived in, there was always some action going on. So I think it just followed me from the

house to the apartment. Interesting. Interesting. And no whistling lately? No, no whistling lately at all? No. Actually, when I had my son, I, and I was moving out without my sister. It was just me and him, I, like, decided, like, you know what, I'm not going to entertain. Like, I'm actually just going to, I'm not going to see anything or hear anything ever because I don't want to be paranoid and, like, also have my kid with me. So since I made that decision, I actually have not had any experiences, which is great. And I do believe, and I'm not saying it's in every case, but I do think that we have agency. And I think sometimes if there's something bothering us and we kind of stand up to it in some way, I think that it can sometimes go away and respect that. And I do think that there might be more sinister energies that are more resistant and those kind of things.

I would never say that that can't be the case. But I do think sometimes it's just kind of like, cut it out. Yeah. And I will say like when I was in the apartment, I never felt like it would be daytime or nighttime. And I would never be scared unless like there was the whistling. I was getting something. It was never like a feeling of dread at any other point. It was just like maybe it's not malevolent, but it is.

scaring me. So I don't want to be near it, you know. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. And stay spooky. Stay spooky. Thank you. Our friend Alan is back. He's very active over on our virtual campfire group over at virtual campfire group.com. Make sure to check it out. We're having a great time over there. There's thousands of people like you over there. Best of all, it's free. It costs me personally thousands of a year to keep it up. Just renewed it for one year and it gets expensive. But it's worth it

because we build a great community of great people with no spammy ads, no AI, none of that nonsense. Just people talking about their stories and their thoughts on the shows and the paranormal because of great people like Alan. And speaking of great, I think he's got a campfire

classic brewing here. This is a head scratcher. I love it when I saw it and like, this is my kind of story. Alan, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened. I thinks for having me on. Okay, so my last year in high school and my dad, we moved across town. It's a very small town.

We moved to cross town. And the house he bought, there was this well in the backyard, wooden covered well. And, you know, well in the backyard, no big deal. So anyway, you know, I move out, you know, my sisters have some kids and everything. And my mom started getting super worried that at least one and probably all. all the grandkids are going to somehow fall in this well. So dad's like, okay, okay, we'll get it filled and we'll get a cement cover put on it. And so, you know, he called the guy, and this is a couple years later.

And he calls the guy and the guy goes in the backyard and it's a big backyard, but it's, you know, it's not like the back 40 or nothing. And he comes back around. He tells him, dad, he's like, I can't find this well. And dad's like, I mean, it's right there. But okay, I'll go around back and show you. Sure. Goes back around there.

No well. I live in that house now. actually. There's no well, no sign of a well ever having been there. Nothing. Just. So it just kind of disappeared. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like I get that, you know, some people say, well, you know, the wood rotted and then the well clavs and then every took it. But and when I'm, I live in the house now and it's been 20 years. So maybe that could have happened by the time I moved back. Right. Right. But not in the time when dad went to have it covered up. It was a couple years and most. And plus, remember, he's been mowing around it every summer. And I think this was

like towards spring when he's going to have it filled. So maybe he hadn't seen it for a couple of months, but that's not long enough. It just doesn't disappear. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing, the first thing I thought of, and I think you even mentioned it in your email to us is Mandela Effect. You know, Mandela Effect. Yeah, I got front row seat to the Mandela Effect. Yeah. And his stuff does, it does seem to happen where you remember one, something one way. And then all of a sudden, it just totally goes away. You know, Jimmy Church, the great radio host,

tells a story about a house. And I hope I'm not misquoting it. So, Jimmy, if you're out there and I'm misquoting it, please correct the record. But my general sense was he had told his friends about this great house. And he basically took them to look at it

and it wasn't there. So it was a whole house that had disappeared. If I remember correctly. And that's been from a few years ago when I talked to him about that. So if I got it wrong, I'm sorry, Jimmy. But this is the thing. People say, you know, things were there and then they're not there.

What explains it? I don't know. I can see like, I remember seeing this, my own eyes, but I can remember when dad telling me the story, like you put the idea of the well on my head and I have a false memory, but I mean, he saw it. You know, my mom saw it. We all saw it. So. Yeah.

But it was there and it's gone. But it's not just like he saw it. He saw it. And him and his wife, your mom, talked about it. And they said, we've got to call some guy to close this up. I mean, it wasn't just like, oh, I saw that back in the woods there one time. And, oh, it's not there. Maybe I'm mistaken.

I mean, they saw it, they thought about it, they talked to it. They took the step to call somebody. I mean. Yeah, and it was, I mean, it was like in the backyard proper. Like when you'd mow the yard or I'd mow the yard, we'd have to mow around it. So, you know, it was a physical. So you remember it too. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. Remember Claire's day. Yeah. And when I was telling my wife, I'm like, I'm going on the campfire to talk about it. She's like, oh, don't forget about the cars. So she's long said our backyard's haunted and the kids even get a funky feeling. But when dad bought the house, there's also, I believe there are five, we'll call them antique automobiles. There's five junkyards.

Cars in the backyard by the tree line. And the guy said, the cars don't go at the house. I'm going to come back and get them. There ain't, no problem. We won't leave them alone. They just kind of sat there for months and, months and months. And then one day we noticed that, hey, those cars are gone. But it's been a pretty big operation. There's not a whole lot of ways in or out. Yeah. The guy would have come and got him. It would

have made a lot of noise. And plus, around here, you'd knock on the door or call the day before, you know, you don't go mess around somebody's backyard. Yeah, you might get eliminated. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm pretty courteous. So, I mean, I guess it's possible they snuck back there. I be no reason to sneak anyway. There was and removed them or I don't know. But yeah, I kind of almost forgot about that though she reminded me. So they just disappeared

like they were never there? Just gone, yeah. No ruts in the yard or nothing. Well, that's why I was going to ask you was there any dead grass, was there any indication that they'd ever been there? No rats, no tracks in the grass, nothing. They were just I was like, I mean, I guess it's possible. I don't see how

somebody would have heard them or there would be some of But so now I get kind of worried every now and now. Like I'm going to be walking to the backyard one day and then there's going to be a well back there and everything else is going to be different. Yeah. You know, that's one of the scariest. And I know there's been books and maybe movies about somebody who like something like this, but with their life. You know, in other words, they go to work one day and they come back home and nobody knows them. And, you know, that whole, that's one of the more frightening things to feel like you switch reality and nobody knows who you.

are and those kind of things. I wouldn't even trade up. And here's the thing is that there's that quote I talk about all the time in the show, and I think these two examples are perfect instances. Not only is the universe stranger than we understand, the universe is stranger than we can understand. Yeah, it's hard to wrap my mind around. I mean, did something go back in the timeline? And I don't know.

It's weird. And the thing is, you know, like I said, it's a mine bender, but, you know, I still got to pay the electric bill and pay the water bill and put food on table. You still got to cut the grass. You still got to work your job. You've still got to do the things you've got to do. But still the weird world. Yeah, it still turns out of one of those weird things now, you know.

Yeah. Thanks for exploring it with us, Alan. And again, everybody, join Alan and me over at the virtual campfire group.com. It's free. Alan, thanks again for being on the show. Stay spooky. Stay spooky. The first ever all-electric 26 Subaru Trail Seeker is the EV for the trail obsessed.

With up to 444 kilometers on a full charge and DC fast charging from 10 to 80% in about 30 minutes in ideal conditions. Plus, ample ground clearance and symmetrical all-wheel drive make the 2026 Trail Seeker the most capable EV Subaru has ever built. Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. Our buddy Marcia from the virtual campfire group from Tennessee is with us and she's going to share a family story. She says she's like a lighthouse. She just seems to attract these kind of paranormal goings on. She's got more stories worse in the future.

But first she's going to tell us our first one, this one, and I can't wait. And Marcia's so great over in our virtual campfire group. always good for a laugh, always good for a great insight. We really enjoy her darn eye over there, and we're so glad she joins us on the campfire tonight. Marsha, welcome to the program and tell us the story. Well, thank you. I'm glad to finally be able to get on here. I've been threatening to do it for a long time, and I guess I'm going to finally do it.

So, first of all, let me tell you about the layout of the house. You would go up the back steps, and as soon as you go through the door, immediately to the left would be the bathroom. You go down the hall just a little bit would be dad and mom's room. And they had a door that swung into the bathroom from their room that they always kept locked on their side. Well, dad was outside one day and he, you know, nature called and he had to go. And as he was going up the back steps, someone ran past him and bumped into him so hard. It nearly knocked him off the steps. And as he was, you know, getting his orientation back, you know, somebody ran into the bathroom and locked the door and he thought, well, dang, you know, it's an emergency.

I guess I'm just going to wait. And he waited and waited. So he went and knocked on the door and dad being dad, he's like, can you okay in there? You need me to call somebody, ambulance, plumber, anything. And when he got no answer, he thought, okay, this is something serious. So he went in through his bedroom door and there was no one in there. the door was locked on the inside of the bathroom and the other door was locked on their side, there was no way anyone could have gotten out.

Wow. Huh. Yeah. So it was a ghost? We're assuming because he saw actually no one run past him. He didn't actually see anyone. He just felt it. And we don't know who it could have been.

I mean, there was no one else. Really, I mean, there was a few of us there, but we were all out front. And he was the only one out back. And we don't, we don't have any explanation for it. It was the first and only time that ever happened. Wow. Thank God. I mean, was there a lot of paranormal activity around that house?

Oh, Lord, yes. I mean, it was a hotbed of activity to, as a matter of fact, I mean, I wouldn't know for certain, but it seemed like there was some kind of portal or something by dad and mom's bedroom door. You could walk past it at night and you could just feel something. I don't even know what that something is. And to be honest, I'm not sure I really want to know. And there was something definitely there. There were so many things that happened in that house that I just got used to it after a while.

And other people would be terrified. They'd be like, I don't even want to look at your property, much less beyond it. I wish I knew the history of the home, but I don't. That's what I was going to ask you. That's exactly what I was going to ask you if you guys knew the history, if there had been like some tragedy there or something wild. But hmm, that's something else, really. There might have been a fire there.

Now, I don't know if anyone died there. But the earliest record that I could find was in a city directory, and it was 1896. and it listed who lived there and whatnot. But the earliest record that the city themselves have is 1900. So I'm starting to think a fire destroyed, at least part of it, and they had to rebuild. Something happened there, but I just don't know what. We could call this episode The Ghost Who Had to Go. And patiness, too, waited all day.

guess for him, and then in they went. Wow. That's, and I have not close to that, but I remember, I grew up in a house that was built around, well, I don't know when it was built, but it was definitely there in 1900. We think it was built in the 1880s. It was like, one of these you would see in an urban area, A-frame-style house. Very modest house. But originally it had been two apartments.

Okay, and then there was a little hallway that connected the two apartments. So I think, you know, basically had three rooms in each side. We used to say, I'm going to go over on the other side. And there was a little hallway with a little bathroom off to the side. And one day I was about 11 years old. And I was going through that little hallway. And I swear I saw somebody pass me. But it's like when you see by the corner of your eye, you don't see who it is.

you just see it's a figure, it's a person. But the thing was is that even at that age, I knew where every, I think my dad was at work. Maybe my dad and uncle were at work, or at least my dad was at work, I think. I knew where everybody in that house was at that moment. There was no one that should have been in that little tiny hallway. And a lot of times when things like that happen,

you don't really know how to process it at that point. And sometimes it just happens so fast. You're not even able to be scared until, later when you really think about it and you're like, ooh, I don't think I like that. Yeah. Right. When you have to live with it. Yeah.

In 1980, you know, there were no paranormal podcasts. I mean, in search of was about it for me. So, I mean, I just remembered that was weird, but then you go on and live your life. You know, I went and watched cartoons or whatever I was doing at 11 years old. You don't really think about it. And I do find that with people. When they have experiences, a lot of times on the show, it's not like they drop everything they're doing. It's just like, wow, that was weird. Now I got to go pick up the groceries.

You know, I mean, you have to live your life. You do. And that house that we lived in, if we were to stop over every single thing that happened, we would have never got going again. Because, I mean, it was, and there, I do want to eventually look up the history of that home, um, because we think that there might have been a murder there, because that's another story for another time. Yeah. My grandma would hear phantom gunshots. Oh, my Lord. And yeah, so, I mean, there might have been some shady stuff going on.

Could be, could be. Yeah. Unfortunately, the home has burned, so, you know, we don't have it with us anymore. But at least I can go back and check. Well, I hope that you will come back on the show and tell us more about these phantom gunshots. Marcia, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Always a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you for your great energy in the virtual campfire. You're coming on to our spooky studio nets that we've been doing, and your great voice there always have a fun thing to say. And I don't know if you know, we're going to have a summer ween live stream coming up. So I hope you'll be a part of that too. And thank you so much for everything and stay spooky. Thank you.

Bye. Rebecca's on the line from Virginia. There she is. You see her right there. She's been listening for a few years. We're so grateful for that. And she said, it's time to tell my story and tell it she's going to do.

So I'll let her tell it. Rebecca, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. You know, without storytellers, we don't have a show. So I appreciate you and all of our storytellers. Tell us what happened. Okay, so this was probably a couple years before COVID. There was a farmhouse.

in a town near where I lived at the time. And I was always drawn to it. I absolutely loved it. Well, the opportunity came that it was up for rent. So my boyfriend and I, we decided we're going to try to rent it. So we did. And, you know, the first night you're in a new house, you don't have all your stuff in there. So we had an air mattress on the floor, basically.

He had to leave to go somewhere. And while he was gone, I kept hearing stuff. upstairs that sounded like furniture moving. Like, you know, how, like, it'll sound like a dresser scooting across the floor or something. Yeah. So, I mean, I didn't think anything of it. I thought, okay, this is a really old house. They said it dated back to like the 1700s.

So I just, I felt stupid, but I was like, if anything's here, you know, I'm nice. Just let me, I love this house. Let me stay here. We'll be cool. So, and nothing ever bothered me. And normally I do get freaked out. For some reason at this house, I never did. But one year for Fourth of July, one of our friends wanted to have a big Fourth of July thing because it was on a farm and have fireworks and this and that.

So her family came. And it was a bunch of elderly people. So when I came out of the house bringing food, I sat down to talk to a bunch of the little ladies. And they said, so do you know the stories about this house? And I was like, well, I've heard, you know, a couple things. Well, the stories matched up exactly with what they told me. And they said that it was a slave owner's house. And he did have slaves.

And the weird thing about it is if you walk in the cross space, it was like a big cross space under the house. There was like shackles under there. And I mean, it was crazy. And the story was that the daughter got pregnant by one of the slaves. And this would be a little bit of a trigger warning. Like it broke my heart to think about it. But supposedly when she had the baby, the man put the baby in the big fireplace.

Oh, my Lord. Is what they said. Yeah. Oh, my Lord. And the thing about it is is they said that after all this happened, he locked her in her bedroom upstairs. He wouldn't let her out for barely anything. And I'm like, well, what would she do up there? You know, that whole time, what would she do?

And what got me was I never told anybody about me hearing everything that I had heard over the couple of years that we had lived there. And they said, well, from what we were told, she just stayed up there and she would rearrange her bedroom. Oh, the furniture. And I was like, I said what? Like, that would explain the sounds of furniture moving. Well, they said, yeah, they said if she doesn't like something, like anybody that's moved in here, if she doesn't like what you put in that room, you'll find it broken. Huh. And then it hit me.

We have found numerous things broken in that room. Oh, wow. And for whatever reason, this is something like out of a scary movie, but for whatever reason, and that is the only room in that house. I'm talking thousands of flies. Like, you know how you see like on Candyman, all the bees? Yeah.

That's what it would make you think of with all the flies. And, I mean, it was so creepy. It was just so creepy. It never freaked me out, though. I mean, it really, it honestly didn't. but not long after that, my daughter saw a man. And I'm assuming it was probably the owner of the house. She said that he was dressed in like old-timey black pants, white button-up shirt,

and had one of those moustaches that kind of like flips up, you know what I'm talking about? Almost like a handle bar mustache. Yeah, that. And he had on like this old-timey-looking black hat, and it looked like he was like smoking a cigar. But her best friend that was there, she flipped out because when my daughter came and told me about it, her best friend got visibly shaken. And I was like, what is wrong with you? She said, I saw the same man, but I didn't want to say anything because I figured y'all would think I was crazy. Wow.

And I was like, oh, well, to make matters even weirder, one of them. one of my good friends, she was one of those like boudoir photographers or whatever. Yeah. Well, because it was an old farmhouse, but it had been updated. It had a gorgeous bathroom. She would take pictures in my bathroom. Like some of her clients would come there and have their picture taken. Right, sure.

Well, sometimes the shower door, she would do those silhouette-looking pictures. Yeah. Sometimes the shower door would kind of come open a little bit. well, she didn't know anything about anything we had seen, heard anything. She calls me one night and she's like, Rebecca, your house is haunted. And I said, in my mind, I'm like, duh, but I said, why do you say that? She said, I'm editing my photos. She said, I swear on everything swearable, I swear on my life.

I did not do this. She sends me a picture. And it was of the shower, like you couldn't see the person that was in the shower, but it was of the side of the shower where the door would close. There was a hand on the the shower door like it was holding it shut. Yikes. And I was there that day. I saw everybody that came in and out.

Nobody. Like these were very, I guess, boozy, as you would say, girls. None of them would have gothic looking black fingernails like that. And the way the hand was, the person would have had, have been standing like in half inside the wall the shower door the the shower the cow rack would have had to have been going through their body for them to be standing there for their hand to be positioned that way my i mean it was so creepy it was so so so creepy but um i i don't know i've just i was always drawn to that house and it never freaked me out it but one of my friends that is

very sensitive to things like that. Every time she came there, she's like, I'm telling you, every time I leave, I feel like somebody's watching me from upstairs. Wow. Now, you're not there anymore, right? You're not at that place anymore, right? Unfortunately not. The owner sold the property, and I don't know why I was so drawn to it.

I don't know why. I mean, I actually kind of got, went into like a depression when we had to leave there. And I still, I would give anything to go back. But, I mean, he sold it and there was nothing we could do about it. Well, I mean, you know, with the tragedy of slavery, one of the worst things that's happened in human history, it's no wonder that these places that were part of this have this energy or whatever left behind. Now, did you think it was like more of a residual haunting that it was kind of a replay or do you think it was more like it was where it was sentient? It knew what was going on. What do you think?

I almost feel like it was kind of like a replay. Honestly, I really do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in that kind of negative energy, the horrible stuff you were talking about, the shackles and the underground there. Yeah.

I mean, there's bound to be bad, bad energy going on, and all that sadness and tragedy going on. So, yeah, wow, wow. What a story. We've had a night of stories tonight, just amazing. Rebecca, thank you for joining us on the campfire. Thanks for listening and stay spooky.

Thank you. Stay spooky. There's a huge event in Northeastern Ohio about this time every year and I've always wanted to be a part of it and finally I'm going to be a part of the haunted garage sailing cruise in and we have it on the line today

with the man who makes it all happen. He's the chief cook and bottle washer. Jeff Hartz, he is the president of the Cleveland Haunt Club. And Jeff, this event, the Haunted Garage Sale has just grown by leaps and bounds so popular that a baseball stadium couldn't hold it. Tell us about the event and what's coming up this year, and I'm so glad to be a part. Yeah, this will be our 11th annual haunted garage sale and Hearst Cruze in, and we started out

with humble beginnings in Bay Village in a park. and we've outgrown three different locations. As you mentioned last year, we headed at a minor league baseball stadium. But we had such a large crowd that we had a three-mile backup on the highway, I-90, that runs right by it. And so we basically decided we needed to move it to a bigger location. And fortunately, in August, they opened the Ross Expo Center at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio. And so we got the date of August 1st, and we're really excited to have the event there. And it's all going to be indoors this year.

We're not going to fight the heat or the rain or the wind. And so it's going to be a wonderful day. And we're really excited to be here to talk to you about it. Now, in addition to the campfire recording that we're going to be doing there, what else can people expect what kind of vendors? I know the hurses are a big part of it. You've got a band. Tell us a little bit about what people can expect.

Well, we have 145 different vendor spots, and we've got some really unique, amazing vendors that come from points all over from several states around us. And there will be custom artwork. There'll be classic Halloween pieces. There will be music. There will be, you know, such a wide variety. It's hard to really put your finger on. it, but you just got to come out and check it out.

And it's going to be one of these things where you're going to want to look at every single booth because you never know what you're going to find. And the beauty of it is it's like a Halloween flea market. So you're going to find things at like garage sale prices, things that you won't be able to find anywhere, or maybe that one piece you've been looking for for years. And you may just find it here at the haunted garage sale and hers cruise in. Yeah. And I think it's a great kickoff.

for the Halloween season. You know, it's one of those things where you really, you know, people like us, spooky people love this time of year because it's starting to get into the mind. You're starting to see this stuff in the stores and no better place to kick it off at the haunted garage sale. And for folks who aren't familiar, it's west of Cleveland. I think it's about 40 miles west of Cleveland or so. But it's an easy driving distance in the whole region.

And you were telling me, you get as. people as far away as New England to be at this, right? Yeah, we have attendees that come from all over. As I had mentioned before to you, when we were off the air, we've had some people came in from Connecticut for it. And so, you know, they're so passionate about it that they came in that far. And it's just to find a unique thing like this where you can come in for a very affordable price.

It's only $5 to get in. And there's a wide variety of vendors. We're going to have themed vehicles from different movies like the Scooby-Doo van and the supernatural car. We're even going to have the Green Goblin Head from the movie Maximum Overdrive is going to be there for the Green Goblins Mobile Museum, which is amazing for fans of that movie. And, you know, we're going to have these unique hearses in our Hearst Car Show outside. And we even have our host band called the Erie Invaders.

and they're amazing. They play a rockabilly kind of surfer music, which is a great background for our event that provides the mood for our 14 food trucks that we're going to have outside. So everybody loves food trucks. Here you're going to have a nice variety. They're all unique, all different types of food.

And so we've really tried to create a unique event that is grown every year. And I know you're very proud of your support of St. Drude and proceeds of the tickets. going towards to help St. Jude? And I think that's a great thing. Yeah, the $5 is to go to charity. And we've benefited a few charities over the years, but we really latched onto the skeletons for St. Jude's because of their Halloween theme and the fact that it goes to children and 100% of their money goes to the charity. It's you don't wonder where it's going at. And so a couple years ago in 2022, we, were the number one fundraising group in the country. We raised more money than any other group.

And so we're very proud to do this. And we're looking to raise over $25,000 for St. Jude's this year for the Cleveland Horn Club. That is awesome. So Saturday, August 1st, be there. Tell folks the details where they can go on the web to find more and how we can be a part of the Honda Garage sale. Yes. This goes on from 10 to 4. As you mentioned, at the Ross Expo Center. And so if you'd like to find more information, you can go to Cleveland Hauntclub.com or check us out on Facebook. If you go to the groups and look for a Cleveland Haunt Club, you'll find us,

and you can find more information about our club, our various activities. And we're busy throughout the year doing things like ghost tours. And like last month or a couple weeks ago, we were actually at the Mansfield Reformatory for a movie and a ghost tour. and then we have field trips and different things. So I know you're going to want to check us out for this event, but follow us throughout the year to see the different things that we do.

Very good. Well, it's taken us a little while to get connected, but I'm so glad we did. I'm so honored to be a part of it. I hope everybody joins us at the Honorable Sale on Saturday, August 1st. Yeah, we finally got you, Jim. We finally got you. Save you.

And thank you guys and make sure that you're there. We want to see you. want to see you and stay spooky. You know, we really love it when we hear from return callers, especially when they're great guys like Steve from Alabama. There he is. And I don't want to spoil a story, but this sounds like a fun one, a very interesting one. Steve, welcome back to the show.

Tell us what happened. Thank you for having me. You may or may not recall, I'm a retired dermatologist and most surgeon. Back in 1995, I bought land to build an office. And then in 2006, 2007, I had a couple of partners joined, so I had to extend the office. We added a wing onto it. And almost immediately after adding that wing, we started having crazy electrical things happening on that part. And my contract was fantastic.

He would get right out there and fix them, but never had a really good reason for why these things were happening. He even brought a consultant in, and they never could figure out. So that just kind of became the new normal. Fortunately, after a couple years, that kind of died down. And then, fast forward again until 2013, that's the year after I had my first paranormal experience and kind of changed my perspective. I came in the office one Saturday around noon to catch up on work. And the door I came through was a side door. It's a big heavy metal door.

And as I was opening, I heard a little girl on the other side of the door, cough, giggle, and then run down the hall. Huh. And I had a lady that cleaned part-time that had a four-year-old daughter. She often brought in with her. So I figured, you know, they were here. And so as soon as I got in, I went to find the lady and let her know I was there, so I didn't scare. Well, as I'm walking down a hallway, I passed the nurse's station.

And one of my nurses is setting in there with her back to me. And, you know, I say hi. And she almost jumped out of her skin. And she asked me if the office manager put me up to scaring her. And I have no idea what you're talking about. I just got here. I haven't talked to anybody. And she said a few hours earlier, she and the office manager,

were there and they heard the door or the employee door on the other side of the building slammed shut so they called out the man nobody answered they went over and checked and the door still shut deadbolt locked they looked out in the parking lot only their cars were there so i told her i don't know anything about that i just i'm looking for the cleaning lady because i heard her little girl and my nurse says well nobody's here but me the cleaners haven't showed up yet so i knew what i'd heard so i said well i'm going to go find her so i check every school inch of the office, upstairs, downstairs, you know, in cabinets, closets, and there's nothing. So I figured she's outsmarted me, but I'm just going to go ahead and do my work.

She'll get bored and come back out. So about six hours later, I was finished up, and I still hadn't heard anything. So before I went in the halls and went to the stairway and, you know, hollered out, said, you're getting ready to go. I'm going to lock up, turn all the lights out. Would you please come out? Nothing. So I drove home.

I figured that as soon as I got home, the alarm would probably go off, let me. me know somebody was there, but that never happened. And the next day, nothing happened. The next week, nothing happened. So the week after that, one of my other employees whose parents cleaned for me periodically, she came up to me and said, my dad thinks he's losing his mind. And I'm like, okay, what's going on? Why's that? And she said, they were here cleaning last night, and dad heard a little girl giggling behind him. Oh, man. She said, you know, my dad, he's real hard to hear. And so it had to be loud and distinct for him to notice it. He couldn't find her. He got his wife. They searched that wing and couldn't find anybody. And so I told her, I said,

well, either your dad's not crazy or he and I are both equally crazy. And then I shared what had happened with me. Because up to this point, nobody but me and the nurse knew about that. So from that point on, over the rest of the time I was there until I had to retire, just randomly, either myself or an employee or sometimes even a patient would hear a little girl giggling in an empty room or they would hear like a chair moving, like somebody was on the floor playing with toys. Every time you went in, though, there was never anybody there. Occasionally, we would hear whistling and, you know, no source for it. So then a few other things that occurred. My wife worked with me as a surgical assistant, and

she was in a room cleaning instruments one day, and she hollered out. I went back to see what was going on, and the stool that I normally sat on during my surgeries, the top of it was spinning around. and you can't spin it, you know, other than actually with your hand making it move, you can't bump into it and make it in. And then another time we were having a meeting with the nurses and there was a Coke can. It's probably about half full that was sitting on a counter. And as we're talking, it just slides over nice and slow about 12 or 14 inches and stops. And then we also had one time, I went into see a patient and my nurse practitioner. was working with. And when I walked in, they were both staring at this wall that had a handheld

mirror that was hanging on it. And the patient said, what's up with that? And the mirror was swinging back and forth. He said, it's been doing that for a while, Doc. What's going on here? And I said, I got no idea. I've never seen that happen before. And, you know, after they left, you know, I tried slamming the door. I tried bumping in the walls. I couldn't get the mirror to move any on its own. and then in hindsight, I kind of wonder if maybe there was some activity on the original part of the building, but I just wouldn't acknowledge it because that didn't exist at that time. There was one of my surgical rooms that when I was doing procedures, and when I'm doing it, I've got my scrubs on, I've got a heavy lab coat on,

got my lute or magnifiers. I'm really close to the patient because I'm usually taking things off the face or reconstructing it. And in the middle of the surgery, I feel somebody tugging on my shoulder from behind. So I turned to my right. I figured a nurse had come in to get my attention. Right. And nobody's there. So the nurse I'm working with gives me this kind of quizzical look, and I just shook it off.

And later that day, I said, I don't know what happened. I just felt somebody tugging on my shoulder. Well, after that, for the rest of the time that I would work in that room, and again, it was totally random. It might be a few months in between. But I would feel that exact same thing, just a nice, slow tug or occasionally be a big yank. and after five or six times, I eventually just quit looking. I try to tell myself I must have a muscle spasm or an impinged nerve or something. Right.

That's the only room that ever happened in, and it never happened to anybody other than me. So I had no idea who this little girl would have been. The people I bought the land from, never had children. The only other history I know about the land was it was a sweet potato patch for years. And back in the Civil War, there was a temporary Confederate camp there, for a short time, but no idea who it was. Just seemed like we had a playful little girl ghost that wanted to get our attention periodically.

So if I remember right, you built the whole thing in two different phases, but this was all new construction, right? Right, right, yeah. First part was built in 1995, just basically a rectangular brick building, very vanilla, nothing fancy about it. And then the attachment in 2006, 2007 was just a mirror image of that, just tied in like a T. But yeah, there had not been any,

buildings on that land that I know of prior to me building it. It's a mystery, but the fact that other people experience this giggling ghost, I mean, it wasn't just you. And I always say, you know, when you get that validation from a second or third party, multiple people, there's a there there, there's no question about that. It's interesting to me, you're a man of science, your doctor, physician, and you, you did change, you, you say, you changed your perspective because of your paranormal experiences. right? Yes, sir. I sure did. Yeah, it was something that never came up, obviously, in my studies.

It didn't come up growing up or with my, you know, I'm a conservative Christian. We never talked about it. It just, you know, wasn't a part of my life. And then all of a sudden it was, and I had to rethink things a little bit. Very cool indeed. Doctor, thank you for joining us tonight and stay spooky. You stay spooky, Jim. Thank you for all you do. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone.

The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day.

In theaters, July 31st. Next up on the Campfire, she's been listening for three years. She is a storyteller. She's a plus club member and really appreciate that. That's full participation, Michelle, full participation. I appreciate it very much. And you have a story, I believe, about a beloved pet. Please tell us because I think these stories are so important. Yeah. And, you know, this is a combination of a paranormal story and a head scratcher too. And she's something really interesting that if it didn't happen to me, And I believe a lot of things. I really do. I'm probably a pretty gullible person. But if it truly didn't happen to me, I might not believe this.

But this started back in 2020 during the height of the pandemic in May. My beloved dog, Wrigley, who we had for almost 11 years, got cancer and was ending her journey. And, yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. I was absolutely devastated, of course. worse. But, you know, it was time to put her down. It was what was best for her. And I was absolutely, like I said, devastated this dog. I've had many dogs in my life. I'm a huge animal lover.

But this dog was my sole dog. Absolutely, no question about it. It followed me everywhere, always together. She was very loving to my family, too, so that she wasn't aggressive, but she was very jinflips when my husband or my daughter would come by me. Again, she wouldn't be aggressive with him, but just, you know, kind of, hey, that's my mom. Like, move over. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My dogs are like that with Dar. They're very much like, ooh, she's the number one. I joke and I say, I said, when she leaves and they come back, I said, your Lord and Savior's back home. They like me. They love her. But go ahead. Yes, yes. And we really loved everybody, but especially we were very tight. So like I said, I was devastated when I put her down. And I cried. And this is.

no exaggeration. I cried every day for about two years for this dog. Oh my Lord, I'm sorry. Yeah. At some point on a daily basis, I would cry. So anyway, I was pretty distraught. Fast forward a month after she passed. And I woke up in the middle of the night to feeling pressure on my feet. And so I lifted the covers and Wrigley was down at my feet and she was rolling over like she wanted her belly rubbed. And I just remember screeching and bawling. I mean, I was just absolutely crying. I was so excited and I was petting her and loving her. And it was just an amazing experience for me. And I, quote unquote, woke up, came out of the covers and I was like, oh my gosh, Wrigley was here. And I knew I wasn't dreaming because when I put my hand down at the end of the covers, it was wet. So the

Oh, wow. The crying that I had been doing because I was really overwhelmingly crying hard, was, you know, showed up his form of wet sheet at the bottom where my feet were. So I was completely convinced that I had an interaction with her. And I told my husband about it the next day. My husband is such a doll, but my husband is also a scientist. And he was like, oh. You can be a doll and a scientist at the same time.

Go ahead, Michelle. I mean, he usually doesn't, you know, say, oh, you know, I don't think that would happen or anything like that. But he was very kind and like, oh, you know, that's really neat. But I could tell the back of his mind that he was kind of like, hmm, I wonder if that was a dream. But, you know, that was fine. I went on about a couple weeks later. I had another experience with her very similar. And I just was so thankful that I got some additional time with her.

Well, a couple months goes by and my husband the next day wakes up from when, after we had gone to bed. and said, you won't believe this, but Wrigley came to me last night. And I was like, oh, really? Oh, wow. That is cool. I heard the sound of her collar, and I know I've heard other storytellers on here before, say something similar, but heard the sound of her collar, got up and went into the loft where she used to have her crate that she'd like to sleep in. And he's like, I absolutely 100% saw her. So she came back to even say hi to dad. So that was pretty neat. This is where the story kind of turns crazy.

About a year later, I had an appointment with a psychic. Now, this is something I typically do every year. I do like to have readings done. And I had asked the psychic, hey, do you have anything for me from my dog Wrigley? I'm just missing her so much. And she said, you know what? She's going to come back to you. and you'll know for sure when you see her eyes, but she's coming back to you.

And I said to her, oh, that's really nice, but I am so distraught, I will never get another dog again. So that's not going to happen, but it was comforting, and I thanked her and kind of went on with things. So that was 2021. In March of this year, so six years after Wrigley passed, my husband was like, can you please go get me some hands? towels for the bathroom. He wanted some new hand towels. And I was like, absolutely. So I went to home goods.

And I'm not a person. I'm going to preface this with, I'm not somebody who has garden items. You know, I don't have garden statues. It's just not something that I'm particularly interested in. So it's not something I ever look at. But I walk into the home goods store. And on my right, there's like this huge garden section. And then straight ahead is where all like the hand,

towels and that kind of stuff is that I was going to. Well, as I was walking into the store, out of the corner of my eye, I glanced over at that garden section, and I saw a statue that looked kind of like my dog, and I'm kind of far away from that point. So I'm like, that's crazy. So I walk over to the statue, and Jim, I'm telling you, my heart came absolutely out of my chest. Not only did it look like my dog, but I was like, this is my dog. It wasn't something that looked like, oh, it's a similar size. Right. It's a similar position.

You know, it was 100% the exact size of my dog, the exact position of my dog. Every feature of my dog was in the statue. And when I looked into her eyes, the eyes of a statue, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is Wrigley. And so I picked up the statue and I was just like carrying it under my arm and my heart was beating out of my chest. Oh. And I'm walking down towards the towel section because I'm like, okay, I focus. I got to get these towels for my husband. And a woman stops me and she says, what do you have there?

And I had it tucked under my arm where you couldn't see the front of the statue. Her head was underneath my armpit. It was just her butt was sticking out. And she's like, what do you have there? And I said, this is the statue of a dog. And she just was looking at it. And I said, I know this is going to sound crazy. But I'm telling you, this is my dog.

And she's like, honey, that statue was meant to be yours. And I've been to home goods multiple times. No one's ever stopped me and asked me what I've had in my hand, you know. Right. What do you have there? And it was kind of validation that, you know, what I was feeling was, absolutely, you know, the authentic. I was so excited to get home and show my husbandness and tell my husband. But he was on a conference call. And so I put Rigley, the statue of Rigley, in the backyard,

and I went and ran to do a couple more errands. I came home. Again, my husband's a scientist. I walk in the door and he says, where did you get that statue of Wrigley? And I said, Yeah, I was going to ask you, do you think that looks like her? And he's like, you could not have sent a picture into a company and had them create a replica. No, absolutely not. And when, like I said, when I looked into her eyes is when it truly struck my soul, like, oh my gosh, this is this is Wrigley. And he felt the same way. And it's not something my husband typically, you know, would believe in or, you know, a

agree that something like this is probably pretty outlandish, you know. And so it just validated everything that I've been feeling. And then I'm telling the story to my parents or daughter. They're like, oh, that's so crazy. That's really nice. I send them the photos. Once I sent the photos, they all call. Yes, immediately.

And we're like, oh, my God, that is her. I mean, it is just, I know it sounds crazy, but I'm telling you that she did come back to me. The psychic was right. All I had to do was look into her eyes and she found her way back to me. I want to throw something out to you. Do you think the woman who asked you, do you think she was a human or do you think she was an angel sent to give you validation? You know what? I have thought about that and I 100% do believe that it was an angel sent to give me validation. I have never had anyone stopped me? I have good taste. I mean, you know, I picked out some pretty cool things in home goods before, but no one's ever stopped me and said, wow, what is that or what are you got

there? And she put her hand or her hand, yeah, on my arm and was like, honey, that was meant to be yours. And I felt that in my soul. Like, I felt like that was the validation that maybe I'm not insane and my dog really came back to me knowing I wouldn't get another dog again, came back to me in a permanent way in a statue. You know, I have kind of a similar personal story. Yours is more dramatic. But a number of years ago after my mom died, I was shopping at the dollar store for some office supplies, lest anybody think that I'm wealthy or anything. Ha ha. I was shot. That shows you, there used to be a gentleman out there who would always say, Jim, Jim Harold, he's a millionaire. He can afford all this fancy equipment. I'm like, ah, contrary, mind fair, a contrary, you're totally

off base. So, but so yeah, the wealthy guy supposedly shopping at the dollar store for envelopes. But anyway, I saw this woman who looked just like my mom probably in the early 90s. Now, my mom passed away in 2013, unfortunately. This was after that. So much so that if I had been in a store at that time and had seen her, I would have been sure she wore the same kind of tennis shoes. She wore the same kind of jacket. She had her hair the same way. She had the same glasses. She had the same height.

She had the same built. Everything. It just looked exactly like her. So, anyway, I... And you know, what's interesting is I forgot to add that what I thought at least was very interesting. Again, I don't peruse the gardening section. It's not my forte.

It's just not something I do. But when I, after I grabbed the statue, I was like, looking around, every single thing in that garden section, they were gnomes, rabbits, frogs. It was the only dog. There was no other animal around either. That's interesting. That's interesting. And that also stuck with me because I was like, it was put here for me. There's no doubt about it. It wasn't like there were five wrigglies. It was just this one dog statue sitting there waiting for me. I almost asked you that. So I'm glad you mentioned that. I'll finish the little anecdote that I had because it kind of ties in a little bit. So anyway, I saw this woman.

I'm like, oh my God, that looks just like my mom. But, you know, you got things to do and so forth. So I went on and grabbed my envelopes and whenever I needed index cards. I walk up to the cast register. Lo and behold, who's in front me is this woman? And I see her face and it's like, well, it's not a one-to-one match. It's not my mom's face. But she looked like she could be a sister.

She looked very similar. And I'm standing there. All of a sudden this woman turns around and she has a, you know, 16-ounce bottle. or 20 ounce bottle of Pepsi in her hand. She said, could you open this for me? Now, obviously, she was going to pay for it. She wasn't shoplifting. And I said, sure.

And I opened it for her. I've been going to stores a long time. I've never had anybody ask me anything like that ever. And I don't know. I mean, you would think maybe if it were really a sign, it would look exactly like her. But all the coincidences. And then she turns around and asks me to open her pop,

as we say. Right, 100%. Yeah. I thought it reminded me a little of your story. Your story's more dramatic and a great story. Well, I mean, that's got to make you feel great. That's going to make you feel really great that Wrigley came back to you. And I assume you have this Wrigley statue to this day.

I do. And I will have it forever. And that's the best part because I can't lose her again. And it's something I will cherish for the rest of my life. What a nice heartwarming story. And love conquers all. even supposed death. Michelle, thank you for being on the show. And thank you for all your support and stay spooky. Stay spooky. Thank you, Jim. Thanks so much for tuning in to the campfire.

I appreciate it. And if you love what we do, there's more at our Plus Club, Jimherald.com. Plus, you can get all the back catalog going back all the years. Plus hundreds and hundreds of other episodes of other shows that we do. And that's what keeps us going. So thank you Plus Club members. Jimherald.com slash plus. Jimherald.com slash plus. Also, please tell a friend about the show. That's how we get the message out there. That's how we get these great stories.

We spread the love. Text a link to this episode to a friend who loves the spooky. Also, that's Summerweene live stream on YouTube free and open to everybody. That will be July 24th at 7 p.m. Eastern. July 24th at 7 p.m. Eastern. And then the following weekend on Saturday. August 1st, the Cleveland Haunt Club's haunted garage sale and Hearst Cruise, cruise in. Very cool.

Very cool. Looking forward to being there. And you can check out of that information at ClevelandHantClub.com, ClevelandHontclub.com. ClevelandHontclub. We thank you so much. We'll talk to you next time. Have a great week. Everybody.

Stay safe. And you know the rest. Stay spooky. Bye-bye.