Jim Harold's Campfire - The Ghost Who Rode Shotgun - Jim Harold's Campfire 762

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

A haunted delivery route, a strange object in the Montana sky, a code word from beyond, and a chilling doppelgänger sighting all come together around the Campfire this week. These stories move from the deeply eerie to the strangely comforting, with moments that make you question whether the other side is closer than we think. We’ll also hear accounts of watchful spirits, impossible lights, signs from loved ones, and a goodbye from a beloved pet that feels far too meaningful to dismiss. It’s a wide-ranging episode full of those unsettling little details that stick with you long after the fire burns low. Stay Spooky! VIRTUAL CAMPFIRE GROUPJoin our FREE online community at ⁠https://virtualcampfiregroup.com⁠YOUTUBE 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

You're driving down the highway. You look over at the passenger seat. And what do you see? A ghost. Up next on Jim Harold's Campfire. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. Now, it's one thing to see a ghost maybe when you're at a static location. Like if you're in your house or something, that could be kind of spooky.

I think it would be even more spooky, though, if it happened while you're driving. We're going to talk to Michael about it. that. Michael from Oregon is back on the show. We appreciate it very much. Glad to have him with us. Michael, welcome back to the show and tell us your story. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I got to start the story with saying that when I was like three years old, somebody in the family had left some methadone out and I had gotten into it. I don't remember much of it because I was only three. Just remember drinking it, passing out, and then waking up to a bunch of eating. T's around me. I say that because I think that that's the reason I'm still seeing spirits and

ghosts and stuff. You think it gave you some kind of sensitivity? Yeah, I think that it just the whole thing with the veil and all that, that I never lost that from when I'm young. So, well, this starts with me. I, uh, driving a box truck for, for this company that delivered like janitorial supplies and cleaning stuff like that. So there's a lot of these stops around here that they're about 50 to 100 miles apart. And it's just a regular box truck that I drive. They don't allow passengers unless it's somebody that works with the company. and I'm just,

my stepson had brought home some flowers from his friend's house, a real beautiful arrangement and said, my friend's mom said that I should give these to you, talking to his mom. Interesting. So he sets them on the table. We think nothing of it, you know. And so I went work the next day,

and that was on the weekend. So we're at like on a Monday. And I'm just driving along and out of the corner of my eye. I noticed that somebody's sitting in the seat next to me, in the passenger seat, which there shouldn't be anybody in the cap with me. And I've seen things like this before at previous jobs when I worked at like a records center, and I kind of just gotten used to it at this point. I do make the point that if I notice something out of my vision or out of the corner of my eye,

to look directly at it, to make sure that it's there. And it's not like my contacts messing with me or something like that. Right, right. So I did, and sure enough, there are somebody just sitting in the seat, and he was just looking at me the same way. I was looking at him, like, who are you? And what are you doing here, kind of a thing? I wasn't really spooked because, like I said, at this point,

this wasn't the first rodeo I've been in. I've seen these spirits and ghosts before, so I kind of just let them do what they're going to do and figure out their stuff. And I went throughout my day. He just sat there and rode with me. When I went and did stops and was offloading, he'd be there with me. Go back to the warehouse and he'd be at the warehouse with me, watch me load my truck,

kind of like I was trading somebody. And then about three days of this, and I'm sitting at home talking to my wife, and she notices that I'm kind of distracted. And she is used to this sort of thing with me at this point. She goes, what is it? What do you see? And I tell her, I said, this guy's been following me around for like a week now. It's been, she's, what does he look like?

I said, well, he's an older gentleman. He's like 75, 85, 85, like a grandpa. Yeah. And he's just, he's watching us right now. He's like at the end of the table right there. And he's just looking at me. So then she thinks about for a minute and it clicks. Like a light goes off.

And she goes, it's the flowers. what are you talking about it's the flower she said um landon brought those from his friend's house his friend's grandfather had passed away those were from a funeral and they just had so many flowers and so much stuff that the mom had said hey you know yeah bring these you know to your mom as soon as she said that i just stood up and i yelled out at him in his room you got to get these flowers out of out of here, man. They came loaded. Wow. Wow. So he comes out and he, everybody's used to this, lives with me. So he calls his friend up and gets a, tells her what's going on. We FaceTime. And I say, hey, you got to describe him because, you know, maybe it's not him, you know.

Right. So she describes them and it's him. And I tell her the same thing. Like I described what he's wearing all that. She pulls out the brochure thing that you get from the funeral. And the picture that they had of him in the funeral brochure was the same exact guy. I had described the same exact guy to a T all the way down to his pants, shirt, all that. Dang. And then, yeah, after that, I kind of just, we threw the flowers out. I kind of just said it in my head that, you know, this is what happened.

I didn't rob your grave or anything, so it's okay to move on or go to wherever you need to go now, but you don't have any ties with me, so you can stop coming to work with me. And then after that, I had never saw him. Wow. Wow. So this happens, you know, relatively frequently. you get these like attachments and things and you see these these people because of your sensitivity it sounds like right yeah yeah and it's always full on like i'm seeing you right now wow and that's the

thing is is that you had the affirmation here it wasn't like well it could a quarter make maybe been that guy you had a picture you know a description and then a picture and you could say yeah that was the guy and then you don't have any way of shutting us off this just kind of happens is that right the only way that I've been able to have on and off switch with it because I worked in that record center and they had medical records, death records, cold case files, all that sort of stuff is I've, my mind always has to be completely blank. I can't be thinking of anything. There's got to be nothing up there. And usually that's when it's active. That's when I'll notice stuff. Interesting. Interesting. Well, please keep us updated. I appreciate it. I mean, I think these spirits are around us. I think just, you know, just like we can't see most of us, at least, you know, don't see ghosts every day. It doesn't mean that they're not around or whatever remnants that folks are seeing. It's like, for me, ultraviolet light, but, you know, but it doesn't mean it's not there. And the same with ghosts for most of us. And, you know, your theories as good as any is that maybe this exposure, you know, when you were young, maybe it changed the chemistry or something.

Who knows? Who knows? Well, Michael, thank you so much for being on the campfire. I appreciate it and stay spooky. Stay spooky. Welcome to the campfire. I am Jim Harold and so glad to be with you today. And if you've been with us for a long time for the whole 17-year run of this show, thank you so much. If you're new, welcome aboard.

This is where you can hear real people tell their real stories of the people. paranormal, the supernatural, the weird, and the strange. And best of all, they're all true, and they're in their words. Welcome to our campfire. And before we get on to the next great story, which I promise you is coming up very shortly, I want to tell you about another free podcast you might enjoy wherever you're consuming this content. And that is the paranormal report. That is the show I do each and every week with my wife, Dar Harold. And we cover all the latest news. And that graphic there kind of tells the story. Could be cryptic creatures, could be ghosts, could be aliens.

And there's a lot of that in the news lately. We cover all those topics and more, if it's paranormal, if it's strange, if it's bizarre, you can pretty much be assured we're going to cover it. We actually argue a little bit back and forth, a little bit different than this show. You know, here I'm kind of laid back and so forth. Over there, it's Jim unplugged. And more importantly, Dara unplugged. And she adds so much.

and she has a different perspective because, you know, she's relatively new to this paranormal world. And I love the takes that she has, even though many times I do not necessarily agree with them. So you get to hear us have a little bit of back and forth and it's a lot of fun. I hope you'll check it out. It's the paranormal report. And you can find that wherever you find the campfire. And now on to our next great campfire story. Next up on the Campfire's return caller, Brandon, and he has seen something very strange in the skies.

And before we get started, Brandon, I have to commend you on your background. Excellent choice. Oh, eight. I. Oh, that's right. You got it. That's right. So tell us what you saw in the skies.

Yeah. So this happened not this last Saturday, but the Saturday before. I should have looked at my calendar to tell you the date, but just two Saturdays ago. I was in a little town here in Montana over on the North Dakota border. I was out with some friends. We were having dinner. People always ask, you know, I've told a story a few times, were you drinking? I had one drink, so I was sober.

And I just decided that I was bored and was going to potentially walk back home, which was about a mile walk. So it was probably 10.30 at night. I put my headphones on and I just went for a little stroll. And I was probably, I don't know, three quarters of a mile away from the bar slash restaurant we were at. I'm just walking along. Something catches my eye above me.

Look up and I'm standing underneath a street light in an alleyway. And between myself and the street. light. I would say it's 15 feet above me. There's an orange ball that's softball size is what it looks like. I look up at it and my first thought just instantly is hummingbird. But I mean, I know it's not a hummingbird. It was probably 30 degrees out. It's nighttime. It's bigger than a hummingbird too. And it has wings on each side of this ball. So the ball is orange. I don't know if I said that. But it's an orange ball, softball size. It's got wings on. each side that are just fluttering super fast. So immediately after thinking, you know, ruling out,

it's not a hummingbird, thought it was a drone. Maybe somebody was just flying a drone over me. So I took my headphones off, looked up at it, but it was dead silent. I've flown drones. I've had them fly over me. I've never come across a silent drone before. Maybe it's out there. But then generally there's like a, I don't know. I mean, if you've flown a drone, you've heard it. They make a noise. Yeah, you definitely make a noise. You know, We had somebody in our neighborhood who was flying a drone, and at first I thought it was like one of those blow-up things a kid has off in the distance, like the tents, what do they call, bounce houses, those things.

And I heard the thing. And then I realized, it's not on here, it's up there. And there was one flying over me. So they definitely have a sound. And I have a little teeny tiny, like it's so small it's not even regulated drone. and they do make just all they make definitely a noise i've not heard one that doesn't make a noise right so i make eye contact with it well i say that i don't know maybe that's not the right term i don't know if i had eyes but it's a ball softball size orange it's got wings on it that are flatter

that are flapping real fast so i take my headphones off look at it and this is when i realize it makes there's no noise and then the wings for a lack of better term disappear i don't see them anymore Now it's just an orange ball and it starts flying erratically, but still 15 feet above me. It's doing what I would call a figure eight, just that type of erratic pattern. You know, it's just not like if you're operating that as a drone and I've flown them too from my phone. I mean, that thing is going to crash. Like you can fly a drone all however you want. And then I remember its wings went away.

and like I said it was softball size orange I would say the top quarter of it kind of started to emit this white light but it wasn't light that shined out like a flashlight it was just that's very hard to explain but this orange ball

has had a little bit of white in it now and it's kind of flying erratically and then it just shoots off very fast towards the northeast sky and I mean it it was so small and so fast it just vanished from my sight at that point. So I'm like, okay, well, that's weird. So I put my headphones back on. I decided I'm not going to go home. I'm going to go back to the restaurant. My friend James,

I'll call him James, and I wanted to tell him about it. So I go there and I immediately, I say, hey, James, you're not going to believe this. Listen to what I saw. And I proceeded to tell him the same story. I just told you, well, I end up staying at the restaurant for another, I think about two hours. So now it's probably going on 1 a.m. And the place where I was staying at that night was, like I said, a mile and a half, two miles away. So I had a bicycle there and I got on my bicycle and I was just going to ride it back home. I'm going down what they call the truck route in town. Pretty busy road.

And this is where the pictures that I sent you, this is where I snapped those pictures. So as I'm riding my bike, I just, I don't know what happened. I stopped and I looked up to the northeast sky. And that's when I see this orange column of light that's in the exact same direction that this, I mean, I'm going to call it an orb, for lack of better term, where it went up in that direction. And now it's an orange column of light. Yeah. They're pretty remarkable pictures. As you're talking here, we're going to, in post, I'm going to add, we're going to flash up some of these pictures.

But you can continue with your story. I just want people to be able to see it. Right. So it's the column of light, which you'll see in a picture, is not connected to the ground. It's just a stationary column. I can't even begin to judge the height of this column of light. I'm not sure. It's quite a ways away.

And where I live at, sometimes if it gets cold enough, and it's not just here. I've seen it like in Ohio, for example. If the temperature seems like to me, if it gets down around zero and it's humid out, you'll see light reflection. You'll see these light columns in the sky. I've seen them before. But you're always, you can always, you always see them from the source, from wherever that light is.

I live in the oil field, so orange sometimes when it's cold and humid enough, these flare, gas flares, they'll emit a column of light that goes up. But it's always, you can always find its source. Right, from the ground. It's not just floating in air like these pictures we just saw. Right. Exactly. And that's what. And then, so I did make note of that.

And I also made note of, I know the area very well. There is not an actually an oil well right there that ever flares. So I ruled out it didn't come from like. gas flare. I don't know. I think it came from that or that that that orb went that direction and now it's this column of light. So I mean, that's that's pretty much the story. I guess it's not too dramatic, but it was just very strange. And I'm glad that I told this my friend beforehand and then got these pictures. And I do remember as I stood there for a while, I would say that column of light was in the sky for, I mean, I looked at it for a good five to ten minutes. And I noticed, so it's in the

northeast sky. I noticed in the northwest sky, a few, two more columns of light similar to that, starting to almost try to come through, but weren't bright enough. I did take pictures, but I'm not going to send them to you because you really can't tell. They're just like a blur. But I did notice a few more of those same columns of lights in a different direction. But yeah, the whole thing was very odd. The fact that this thing is right in front of me, hovering above me, it seems to notice that I've noticed it, the way it reacted and how it responded and then took off. Yeah, it was a very, and then I had just this super strange feeling afterwards after it's all said and done. I'm kind of standing there. It's about 2 a.m. probably 1.30. I'm not

sure. And I just had this overwhelming sense that everything was going to be okay. Like everything in my life was going to be okay. I was getting a little bit deep now, but there was just this weird sense of peace that came from it. So a lot of people might might kind of associate that with something negative, but it sounds like maybe you associated it more with something positive. Well, that's, I don't know the answer to that question because I don't know what this thing was. I could have felt one way, which I did feel that one way, but that doesn't necessarily, in my opinion, mean that it was, that it's a positive energy or energy. entity or I'm not sure. So I don't really know the answer to that, but I just know I had a sense

of, of peace, like a weird confidence boost. And there were some weird things that happened that night, too, while I was at the restaurant, I was playing cool with some friends and just some odd things happened there. Yeah. So that's, that's it. Well, Brandon, thank you so much for taking time to be on the show and to send along those pictures. Do you, you have any speculation as to what it was? I don't because I feel like the time that we live in now, the veil is thinned between maybe our dimension and another dimension. So if I was to judge strictly on that opinion, I would say that it maybe was some sort of entity. But I think with the advancement of AI and technology,

I just, it's hard to tell what's true anymore, even on YouTube or videos, you know, what's real and what's not. So I'm, I'm just going to leave that open to other people's opinions, what other people, you know, what you might think is or someone else. Fair enough. I just don't, I don't know the facts on it. I don't know. I'll be honest with you. I don't think any of us really know. You know, I think we can make educated guesses and things, but I don't think anybody really knows.

but I think a big part of it is sharing these kind of experiences. And by the way, I just want to make this point. You know, people think this show is only about ghosts and that kind of stuff. And we certainly get into all of that. That's a big part of what we do. But if you've got a UFO experience, we'd love to hear your story, too. Jimherald.com slash campfire. Jimherald.com slash campfire.

Brandon, thank you so much for sharing. Thanks for sending along those great pictures. And folks, if you're in our virtual campfire group at virtual campfire group. I'd love to hear what you think it is. Thanks a lot, Brandon, and stay spooky. All right, thank you, Jim. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick.

BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2-600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario.

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 for hours.

They don't move on. They manifest. They're not a demographic group. They're fans. Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Rebecca is on the line from Vermont. She's been listening for a few years.

We appreciate it very much. And we thank her sister, Jen, who told her about the campfire. And Jen, thank you so much and stay spooky. And see, folks, that's how it works. Family members, tell family members, friends, tell friends. And then we hear great stories like the one we're about to hear. about Rebecca's mom. Rebecca, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. So please tell us your story. Sure. So this is a quick little story I have

about my mom. So just the backstory, my father passed away in 2009 and my mom passed away in 2019. So she had been diagnosed with cancer. So we had a good year to kind of close things up with her, which was good. And her death was a good death. So that was all great. And everything is good with those things. So in, let's see, 2022, a friend of mine mentioned that a psychic medium was coming to our town. Her name was Maureen Hancock.

and she is in the New England area. She's a median slash comedian, so it kind of lightens the mood a little bit. And she was lovely. So my sister and I decided to go, not because we had anything we needed to address. We're, you know, feel good with how we've left things with our mom and her dad. But we decided to go for fun. So that was in, the show was on April 30th of 2020. On April 24th of 2022, my sister and I were having a conversation about going to the show.

And Jen says, we should come up with a code word so that if mom comes through or dad comes through, we can prove that it's real. So we were kind of going back and forth about what the code word could be. And we had settled on owl. And I do have a screenshot of that conversation if you'd like me to share it. Oh, sure. Please go ahead and show us. Okay.

So this is just a back and forth with my sister Jen and I talking about coming up with a code word. She says, let's try owl. I say, sure, let's try owl. She says, mom, come visit us. Use owl. So again, that was the 24th of April. The show was on the 30th. Mm-hmm.

fast forward to the show. We arrive and it's one of those shows where there's a big crowd. You know, everyone is in like an auditorium and Maureen's on stage and she just starts kind of channeling and calling on people. And some amount of time into the show, she starts talking about something that sounds like it might be related to our father. He died after our motorcycle accident. So my sister and I kind of perk up.

And then she kind of narrows in and starts talking about our mom who had, again, had cancer. So she had pulled up that cancer diagnosis. And then started talking about how when my mom had died, she was reunited with my dad. And it had been 10 years since he had died and that she just couldn't believe that she had found him again and that he was her spirit animal. So I do have an audio clip of that if you'd like to hear. Oh, yes. Please do share the audio clip with us. Okay.

So this is from the show. I'll kind of explain it a little bit after if there are questions, but I'll just hit play here. He's the love of my life. I miss him so much. And you see how am I happening. It's my spirit animal, you know. I'm like like, oh.

I can just see. And I did the same novels. And sweet God, tell me. So I say funny things sometimes that I think I'm joking. But it's like all of a sudden an owl popped in front of my face. We told her, we, again. We told her we were coming and we said, Mom, the secret word is owl. We called it out.

We called it out. Wow. Wow. Wow. So this psychic, she came up with this image of an owl, and it matched perfectly with what you asked your mom. mom. Correct. Yeah. And that was a week earlier. So it was pretty cool. We got some great chills. Later on in the reading, she actually came up with our mom's name. She's like, oh, by the way, who's Carol? And we're like, oh, that's our mom. So it was great. And Jim, I got to tell you, it was one of those moments. So I'd always have said, I believe in the afterlife. I believe in spirit.

I believe in energy. But I can tell you, I didn't actually fully believe it until that very moment. Right. And it was that pivotal moment in my life where it was like, all right, I definitely believe this now. Yeah. Because how would have she known? And she could have picked any animal. She could have picked a bear.

She could have picked a giraffe. I mean, anything. And then she just happens to pick an owl. Boy, that really, that's really something else. That's something else. Well, what a great revelation for you and your sister and everything. And it's just a great thing. Thank you so much for sharing it.

Thanks for being prepared with those clips. That wasn't beyond. That was pretty cool. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for sharing your story. Thank you, Jen, for telling Rebecca about the show and stay spooky. Next up on the campfire, she's been listening since 2020, and she has one of my favorite kinds of stories. And I'm not going to tell you what that is.

She'll tell you in a minute. Stephanie is here from Alabama, and we're so glad. Stephanie, tell us what happened. Okay, so in the house that we were renting, I was about 10 or 11, and I have three other siblings. I'm the oldest, and I have a brother and two sisters. and I shared a room with both my sisters and my brother had his own room. And one day, as I was walking down the hall, I was passing his room because his room comes right before ours.

And it was still daylight, but his blinds were down. And so it wasn't dark in there, but I just remember how it looked, kind of dusky looking. And as I was walking past his room, I thought my youngest sister, who would have been four, probably around four at that time, I thought she was just standing there in his room, facing the doorway, just standing there. And it was enough that when I thought I saw her as I was walking past, I just stepped back to look to see if that was actually her, because it was kind of weird that she would just be standing there the way I was picturing. It was enough that I, you know, at the corner of my eye as I'm walking past that I could see her silhouette because I know what she looks like or what she looked like then. And I was like, okay, but she wasn't there when I stepped back. So I was like, okay, maybe I was just seeing things. But it was enough for me to remember years going later because I,

Never even shared it with anybody at all because I was thinking, well, maybe I just saw something and it wasn't really her. But I thought I saw that she was also wearing a particular nightshirt, and this is going to be important, I thought she was wearing a particular nightshirt that used to be mine and it was handed down to her. And this nightshirt, because we didn't have like a whole lot of clothes. So I definitely remember it. It had like three cats on it, and it said cozy on it. And that's what I thought she was also wearing. So years later, I don't say anything about it. And we move into a different house.

And at this time, I can't remember how old she was, but my youngest sister, she shared a room with my other sister. So they shared a room together. My brother still has his own room, but this time I have my own room, too. And one night, she had woken up just randomly to someone standing at her window, and she confirmed that this was not a dream. And she's had night terrors before, but she confirmed that this was real. She knew it was real.

And that's also what made it scarier when she was realizing that this is not a dream. And I did get her permission to share this. But she said that there was someone standing at her window. And when that person turned around, she said it looked just like her. Oh. Yeah. And all she did, this thing just pointed at her. And all she could do was just get under the covers and just call out for my dad until, you know,

And finally, I believe that he did eventually go in there, but she was just terrified. And I didn't know about this until I feel like it might have been the same week where she thinks that because of this part, I don't remember, I do remember being told, but she thinks that she told my dad too about it. And he was like, well, tell Stephanie what happened. And when she told me about it, I just remember feeling really angry that something was in her room trying to scare her. Because that's what it felt like. Right. Right. And so my instinct was, because I'm a Christian, to pray over her room.

And whatever it was, I just said that you're not welcomed here. because whatever it was, it just brought fear on her. So she hasn't had any issues with it since. Like, never seen it again, whatever it was. Well, some years later, she's retelling this story to me and my family. And she left out a detail that she didn't tell me when she first explained the story about this, what happened. he said that this person was wearing that night shirt with the cats that cozy and I said what say that again and she told us and I was like and that's when I shared with her what I thought I saw

um those years ago in the other house when I thought I saw her standing there and I just thought Maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, but I also saw that she was wearing this night shirt. And when I told her that she just cried, like, she just got really emotional. And so I don't, I felt like it was a doppelganger kind of situation. Yeah, it sounds like it. Do you have any idea what the genesis of it might have been, or was there a lot of angst in the house, or was there, you? You know, sometimes we hear that with kind of poltergeist weird activity. Anything like that or just?

I don't know, and I don't know why her in particular. And she's the one that seems to have the issues with night terrors and nightmares and stuff like that. And I didn't even know that until I was talking to her recently. It's not something she actually really shared until recently. So I had no idea. And as far as angst in the house, I mean, my parents ended up divorcing. but in that house where I originally thought I saw her, there wasn't much going on there.

It was more in the other house. Yeah, interesting. So, yeah. Well, Stephanie, I'll tell you, the doppelganger thing, you know, that's one of those things that really surprised me when I started doing this show, because I knew I'd heard of doppelgangers, obviously. Mm-hmm.

I had no idea. And so many people see them. sometimes people see them visually like you did some people hear an audio description one time one of our callers she felt that her husband was in bed with her and it turned out to be maybe a doppelganger which is terrifying oh i remember that yeah that was that was really scary that was i think in germany uh it was a military family stationed over there so i mean this doppelganger thing is real i don't know what it is. I don't know what's behind it, but it's fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing that story and for listening all the years of years. I really appreciate it. Stay spooky.

All right. You too, stay spooky. This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why Loreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands, championing diversity. With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions held by women. Diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit Loreal.com to learn more. Paranormal experiences can happen anywhere, any time. And Emily is a testament to that because she had an interesting experience while dog watching.

And we're going to hear all about it. Emily, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us tonight. I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, and thank you for having me on your show. I kind of want to preface by saying that I am a sociologist. I'm a PhD. And so the way that I process things is a lot more logical and practical. So I try to figure out, you know, I did all of the, well, it was probably this. It was probably that beforehand. But this happened probably around 2017, 2018. I have a really good friend from high school. And when I was living in Albuquerque at the time working on my Ph.D. And when I would come back in town to visit my parents, he would often be the holidays.

So he would be out of town. And he'd ask me, hey, well, do you want to stay at my place and dog sit for me while you're here? And it worked out perfectly. So I always said yes. and I came for, I believe it was a Thanksgiving break, and I was dog sitting his two dogs, and I also happened to have like a really bad cold or the beginnings of the flu at the time. And so I started that particular dog sitting trip with kind of loading up on Iquil trying to get myself to be better in time for Thanksgiving. And so, um, so I took some nightquil, went to bed, wasn't feeling great, went to bed. Um, and normally, um, the dogs

would sleep in a kennel, but I would put the kennel in the bedroom with me, um, because they seemed to be more calm whenever there was, uh, you know, a person around. Um, and so I put the kennel in the room with me and I could not sleep because they were barking and they were growling all night and I just, I could not figure out why they wouldn't stop. And, um, so I was like, well, I need to get some sleep. I'm not going to get better if I don't get a good night's sleep. So I moved the little kennel into the living room. And once I moved it into the living room, all of the noise stopped. They immediately went to bed. They calmed down. They went to sleep. Didn't hear them the rest of the night. So I thought that was a little strange. But then I also started to notice that I was,

once they were out of the room, I started to have a feeling like I was being watched in the, in the room. And that was really strange to me. I'd never felt that before, even though it wasn't my house. Like, I always felt comfortable there. And so I was just really kind of, it was eerie, and it kind of threw me off. But again, I just blamed it on, like, an overdose of NyQuil, like, trying to get better. And so I, you know, I just, you know, just dealt with it and went to sleep. And I didn't sleep the whole night steadily. I kept waking up and having this eerie feeling that somebody was in the room with me. So the next day, I was a little bit hesitant about having to continue to spend the night there, but I had already, you know, committed to watching

these two dogs and I wasn't going to leave them. So I, um, since what I would normally do, when I would come back in town is I would try to schedule like all of these like lunches and coffees and stuff with old friends and family members just to try to maximize the amount of time that I had to catch up with everybody when I was in town. And there was a friend of mine who I had not had an opportunity to fit into my schedule. And I said, you know what? I'm going to invite him over to just hang out and watch movies because I want to be in this apartment by myself. And it was probably not the right thing to do, but I was not honest with him about why I was asking him specifically to watch movies.

And so... Come on over! Exactly. Exactly. Come over. We'll watch movies. It would be great. So he came over.

And so I forgot to say that the friend of mine that I was dog sitting for, he has a husband, but they don't have any pictures of themselves on the wall. There's pictures of their kids and the dogs, but there's nothing that would give anybody who doesn't know them. any clues to who they were, right? And so I mentioned that because it's important in a little bit. So my friend comes over, we're watching movies, and he starts just kind of looking around.

Like, he's just doing his head like that and looking in different places. And I'm like, what's going on? And unannounced to me, he's sensitive. And he never, he never told me that. And he said, well, he wants to know who you are. And I said, what do you mean? he wants to know who I am, who? And he's like, the man who's in this apartment. And I just felt like chills ran down my spine when he said of that because it was, you know, a confirmation that what I was

feeling was there was something there. And then, um, so I said, well, like, I don't understand what you're talking about. And so then my friend said, well, the two guys who live here, he knows they belong here. They, they live here and this is their house. But he wants to know why you're here. And so the fact that, you know, my friend didn't know who the owners of the house were. He didn't know if they were together and that there was two, you know, two men that were living there. And he was able to identify that to me. It just kind of really shocked me. And so I said, well, you know, I'm going to be honest with you.

You know, I kind of wanted you to come hang out here because I had to dog sit. And I didn't want to be here with myself because, you know, I was feeling this kind of way the night before. Right. Right. And he says, yeah, he was watching you because he was really curious. He wanted to know who you were. And he wanted to figure out why you were in his home and why you were, you know, what, what's your purpose here? And so he, he just, you know, I said, well, just, you know, tell him, I'm watching the dogs. Tell him to leave me alone.

Like, I mean him no harm. And he's like, oh, he's hearing you. He's listening. He knows what you're saying. And I was just really shaken by that. But then he started describing the person to me, and he said, you know, he's a younger kind of lanky, tall guy. He's got a pockmark face. He had a lot of – the way he described him is that he had a lot of characteristics of somebody who had had issues with drug use and, you know, had kind of lived a hard life because of that.

And he said, I'm not sure if he died from an overdose or if he died by his own hand. but I can tell from his justice spirit that he, you know, it was a really tragic ending. And, you know, there was a lot of pain behind that. And so, you know, I felt really empathetic about that. And, you know, just kind of was like, you know, well, this, you know, it's not my house. I'm not going to try to tell you, kick you out or whatever. But, you know, I'm not here to do you any harm. I just want to watch the dogs.

And so my friend, and so that was it. And so my friend leaves. And I was like, okay, I need to sleep here still. I have one more night. I was going to leave in the morning. That night I slept in the living room, just to be safe. But I didn't have any other experiences in the living room. And it was everything, everything, the rest of the time that I was there felt normal and it felt calm again. Like, I didn't have that feeling of being watched anymore. So in the next day, I'm driving back to Albuquerque. And I'm just sitting, you know, on that drive, just kind of thinking, like,

well, would the right thing for me to do, would that be to tell them what I experienced in their house or should I just kind of keep it to myself? Like, I don't want to scare people that have to stay in that house by letting them know what my experiences were. Maybe this is just like a one-off and, you know, they're not feeling these kinds of things. And so I was going back and forth. And finally, you know, close to about the time I was arriving in Albuquerque, I said, you know what, I'm going to be honest. I'm going to call my friend. I'm going to let him know what happened. And so I call my friend. I started explaining what happened to me explaining the experience that I had and what my friend had told me. And he was just kind of, he was just really, really silent. And then he was like, and I was like, you know, am I scaring you? Like, did I, should I not have told you? I'm so sorry. And he's like, well, no, he's, you know, we were just kind of hoping that he would, you know, kind of be quiet and leave you alone when we were out of town. So you got the affirmation. You got the affirmation there.

Yeah, but it was just kind of like, so not only was it affirming, but it was also, so you knew all along that he was hearing. And you didn't tell me. Yeah. It was one of those situations. But luckily, maybe about a year later, they finally bought their house, so they moved out of that condos. I didn't have the dog sit in that house anymore. But, yeah, it was just a weird experience. There's a lot of those experiences out there, a lot of kind of strange experiences, and we're so glad that everybody out there and you shared yours with us.

Emily, thank you so much for being a part of the campfire and stay spooky. Stay spooky. Thank you so much. 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 2000. There's one way to do it. Jimherald.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 quoth. 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

and running a little family-based media operation, just things going on in our lives, 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 have 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. Alexia is back from Washington State. She's been on the show a couple of times before.

Glad to have her back. We love to hear from our return callers. And Alexia has a story about a strange light. She's going to tell us all about it. Alexia, welcome to the show and tell us what happened. Thank you. So this happened last summer, I think last June. I had gone to bed early one evening. It was about 9 p.m. My husband, he was still downstairs, watching. TV. And I was kind of in that state we're about to fall asleep, kind of half asleep. And I realized I had to go to the bathroom. So I opened my eyes. I didn't even lift my head off the pillow. I was still laying down and I just opened my eyes. And I saw this really incredible thing in front of my face.

It was, I've been thinking about how to describe it because it's like indescribable, but I will do my best. It was about the size of a small little bug, just a few inches in front of my face. And it was just random squiggles. Like it didn't look like anything. It wasn't like, oh, this was just like a firefly or something. It didn't have any features, like no head, no body, no wings. It wasn't symmetrical.

It was almost two-dimensional. Huh. Yeah. And it was so bright, brighter than anything I've ever seen, like, brighter than a neon light. It was so intense. and I remember looking at it and thinking like, I don't even know how to describe this color, but it was maybe like blueish, whitish,

if I had to say a color. And probably maybe the best way I could describe it is like when you have those sparklers on Fourth of July and you're just kind of waving it around and you make random designs. Yeah. And they just, they're, yeah, it's just random.

squiggles, like, almost like a ball of string or something, but it was just so random. Yeah. So I was mesmerized looking at this thing, like, what is it? And I was very curious. So I reached out to touch it. And as soon as I reached out, it disappeared. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, and I was like, almost like I was in a trance, like a snapped out of a

a trance like what was that and I knew I was like this is too much to process right now I can't even process what I just saw um so I was like I'm just going to like just keep going like normal I went to the bathroom I laid back down I went to sleep and and nothing else happened that night yeah and then I woke up the next morning and I told my husband and I was just trying to process it and I just I had no clue what it was because it was just such a otherworldly experience. Wow. So I mean, do you have any sense of what you think it was? Do you have any theories?

So that's what's interesting is when I saw it at first, I had no clue. And then a few days later, I was with my counselor and I said, I have a crazy story to tell you. And I told her what happened. And she said, I don't think it's crazy. I think it was your baby coming to visit you because a month earlier, I had lost a baby. And I didn't even make that connection. So I think she was like coming to check on me.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. but it could be Yeah so yeah it was definitely definitely a rough time Well of course of course

But that you know that would That would make sense to me That would make sense to me I mean I believe our loved ones Whether they're fully grown Or if they're they're just babies You know That they can get their message across some way

And I'm glad that your counselor had that insight Wow Yeah me too So do you overall Do you find it to be a comment comforting experience when you look back on it? I do, because at first I just, I was so confused by it. But now that I make the connection that maybe it was like the life force, I don't, I don't really know, you know, no one really knows what goes on on the other side.

But I think it was some sort of like spirit or life force because it was so bright and so intense just felt like this, this energy. And that's why I couldn't really describe it in like our world descriptions. Yeah, it was a beyond description kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, again, the spirit world is amazing. And I do believe our loved ones, young and old, come to us to get a message to it. And maybe the baby was just saying hi, Mom, and wanted to check on you. Thank you for sharing this very personal story.

Next up on the program is Jill from Michigan that stayed up north. And we are so glad to have her on the show. And it's thanks to her husband Pete, a very smart man. He's a big fan of a campfire and told her about it and got her into it. And she said, you know, I have this story. I think I want to tell. And Pete said, go for it. So thank you, Pete, and stay spooky.

And Jill, thank you for joining us, particularly with a story like this, which, you know, is very meaningful. and very personal. We thank you that you trust us to share it on the show. Please tell us what happened. Thank you. And thank you for allowing me to tell my story. I want to start out by giving you just a little bit of family history and dynamics.

My brothers, my three brothers, older, they're older than me, grew up in the 60s and 70s. And typically that period of time evokes feelings of dad goes to work, mom takes care of the kids, and he comes home and mom has dinner on the table and we all sit around and talk about how our day was, but that wasn't us. Our life was pretty chaotic because our father was an alcoholic. He was barely worked, and so we were pretty poor.

and but the worst part was he was very verbally abusive to my brothers, myself, and my mom. So, yeah, we didn't sit around the dinner table thinking about what we did during the day. We were always too afraid of which one of us is he going to pick on next. So, yeah, family life was not normal, but that's beside the point. So I don't want to say luckily, but kind of. He passed away at a very young age of 46. And I don't want to say that we celebrated, but we were relieved to not have that

stress in our lives anymore. Unfortunately, two years later, mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. And we thought we were going to lose her. But she's a fighter, and she fought it. And one. Oh. And so for the next 15 years, you know, unconsciously, my brothers and I, even though we were raising our own families, we would always be together as a family as much as we could.

Any given day of the week, we would be at mom's house. And for sure, on Sundays, because every Sunday, all of us would gather together, at moms, and it turned out to be 16 of us. But once again, mom was always there taking care of us. Wow. And she did during our rough period of time with dad. Wow. And she was there taking care of us and bed dinner for all 16 of us.

Oh, man. Wow. We just absolutely adored her. She was just our angel on earth. again unfortunately 15 years after her breast cancer a diagnosis she found out that the cancer had metastasized to her bones

she slipped and fell and cracked a vertebrae and the cancer has spread up her spinal cord into her head and brain well the doctor told us that she can no longer be alone, that she needs 24-hour care, so she'd probably have to go into a nursing home. My brothers and I said, there's no way we're putting our mother into a

nursing home. She's our angel. And so we got hospice involved. We got all of the equipment to take care of somebody 24 hours a day, put into her home. And between my three brothers, one of my sisters-in-law, and myself took care of her for 24 hours a day from May until July. During that period of time, something weird was going on. I don't know if you want to say weird, But I lived in that house since I was five years old. And never had I heard morning doves outside. But all during that period of time, whenever we'd go outside, there would be morning dubs out there cooling.

And it was like, it was so comforting in a way that, you know, their cool was just very comforting. And it was like, wow, what is, you know, what is this all about? about, you know, we've never had these. So anyway, the other, along with many other wonderful things, if you can say that, taking care of your sick mother, but it was, none of us have any regrets. But we had the hospice aid that came in every day was so wonderful. And she always commented on how much love we had for our mother and how we took care of her. She had never seen anything like that before. So she one day brought us a cassette tape. This was the 90s. So it was before CDs and everything, but she brought us a cassette tape with spiritual songs by

B.J. Thomas. It was wonderful. All the songs on it were great. But we all fell in love with one particular song called Going Home Where I Belong. So we would play that tape over and over and over again. And then, unfortunately, the day came when the nurse told us, today is the day. Mom's going to pass. So we gathered everybody together except one of my brothers. I'll call my brothers by their initials, J.P.

was working out of town. And again, this was before cell phones. I don't remember how we got a hold of him, but we did. And he was on his way. So we told mom, you know, he's coming. So there was my brother, T.J. D.L., my mom's mom and her sister surrounding mom, and we were listening to the BJ Thomas tape. And I thought I was. heard, oh, I backtrack just a little bit. T.J. said, as you can imagine, this was extremely intense. And so he said, I got to go outside, catch some air, and I'll wait for JP. So he went outside, and soon I thought I heard them come in the door.

But they were coming in the room. as it turned out when they walked in the door the house was filled with smoke they thought they thought the house was on fire so they went searching everywhere upstairs down the basin everywhere trying to find the origin of the smoke the house was just filled with smoke and so I could tell however that mom was going to pass any time now because I could tell by her breathing So I'm in the other room yelling, get in here. Where are you?

What's going on? Get in here right now. And so they gave up looking for the smoke. And they came in. And coincidence has it. And we all know what you say about coincidences. Absolutely. Too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

Yeah. The song, going home, where I belong, came up. just as we were all gathered around her. And we heard it enough that we all started singing it to her and saying, it's okay, Mom, you can go home where you belong. And she took her last breath. And as she took her last breath, the smoke left the house. Wow.

there was no fire there was nothing on there was nothing smoking there was nothing it odd smoke had everything to do with her passing it had to my goodness my goodness what a powerful story and what a it sounds like a great woman and she raised a great family kudos to you guys were stepping in and taking care of your mom the way she took care of you um thank you So, I mean, there was never any source of that smoke identified. There was nothing burnt, nothing, just to fill the full of smoke and then it dissipated. And it, yeah, it was almost, you know, like in the movies you see like smoke or something, then it goes inside of somebody or something.

It was like, it was just bizarre. It gives me chills just thinking about it. You know, she, I don't know if, I don't know if it. It was the Holy Spirit coming to get her because we were praying by singing that song with her to her, telling her, it's okay, you can go home. That song is beautiful. It talks about, you know, heaven is beautiful, but living here is too. But if I choose, I will go home where I belong. Wow.

And I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, this was 1994, and my brothers and I talk about it to this day is like, what was that? Yeah, that's a great story. And it's a very powerful one. And yeah, I don't think it was a coincidence. Jill, thank you so much for sharing this very personal story today on the campfire. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you very much. I love when we have returned callers, particularly when we have some. someone who came and told the story, and then there's an update, and they give us the update,

because sometimes things are open-ended and we never find out the second half of the story. But we're going to tonight. Amanda's here from New York again, and she's going to tell us the continuation of a story that she told us a while back. Amanda, welcome back to the show. Thanks for following through. If you could, could you recap a little bit of that first story that you told us maybe for new people or people that didn't catch that episode, and then we'll go from there and you could tell us what happened. Sure. Thank you for having me back.

So as a brief recap, just over a year ago, I called in with a story. A year and a half ago, my father died unexpectedly. And five weeks after that, I got married, six weeks after. And so it was, you know, like a very bitter, sweet time. Sure. I had asked my dad for a sign that he was with us. And we got married in our backyard, surrounded by woods, and we hung paper Chinese lanterns throughout the trees and had 36-hour batteries in them to illuminate them.

And so as I was asking my dad for a sign, I realized five weeks later, one of those lanterns with 36-hour battery was still lit. And so it stayed on until I went out, acknowledged it, thanked my dad, and then it was out. right after that. That's amazing. That has to be some kind of a record because a 36-hour, a day-and-a-half battery lasts for five weeks. That tells you there was something else. There was something else powering that and sounds like it was your name.

Yeah. My dad. So I have the lantern hanging over me right now as we speak. I couldn't bear to leave it outside in the elements. So now we fast forward to January, just two months ago. and my son turned 30, so I had a party for him, his girlfriend and I did. And I ordered the same lanterns, the same batteries, and we hung them throughout the house. As you said, I'm in New York, so it's snowy and dark and gloomy, so we wanted lots of color.

So when the party ended, I had a chat with my dad and said, you did this with a lantern once. same lantern, same 36-hour batteries. If you could just give me another sign and keep one lantern lit, that would be really great. So I left all the lanterns hanging for a week. One of them remained lit. The rest went out. So it was a repeat of what had happened outside after the wedding. So I took the lanterns down and the one that was still illuminated.

I took the battery out from inside and laid it with all the dead batteries that were not illuminated. And as it was lying on the table and I was thanking my dad and acknowledging that message received and thank you for coming through for me, I watched as the battery slowly went out. So I thought that was really a nice continuation. And then the second part of this follow-up was, a couple weeks after that, I had forgotten to take the lanterns down from one small doorway that I had hung them from. So, you know, I taped them up to the doorway, so when people walked through the lanterns were over their head, if that makes sense. And I'd forgotten the one doorway, and I got that winter crud that everybody seems to have.

And I was just sick and not motivated to do anything. So I left him there and as I said, I was sick and my husband left the country to visit his oldest and I got even sicker. And the kind of sick where it was a little scary, had trouble taking care of myself, couldn't take care of the animals, had to have someone come take my dog for a few days. And my husband was offering to come back and I didn't want to ruin his trip, which had been so planned for for so long. So I said, nope, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay. But I really wasn't okay. And I just, one night was feeling very sick and scared and sorry for myself. And I just wanted to talk to my dad. I just missed my dad. And so I just was crying. And I was like, Dad, I just wish you were here. And I just wish I could call you. And this really sucks and it's really hard and I miss you. And then I walked into another room and I heard kind of a, like a gentle thud sound behind me, and I turned around, and one of those lanterns

that had been hanging in the doorway was now on the ground. And it had been hanging there for almost a month at this point without moving, without falling. So I just, like, thanks, you know. To me, that was his way of saying, I'm here, you're not alone.

Everything's okay. So I felt a whole lot better after that, I have to tell you. Well, very cool. It sounds like your dad found a way to get his message across. Yes, he sure did. And thank you for sharing this,

and thank you to everybody who has shared the story about signs from a loved one, because I think it can be very comforting for folks. Absolutely. Again, it's a real thing. Amanda, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you for sharing your story tonight on the Campfire. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. Next up on the Campfire return caller, Rosella is here. about someone very special. Rosella, I know particularly these kind of stories can be difficult to share. Thank you for sharing yours and tell us what happened.

Thank you. So I have a pet named Sadie and we called her Sadie Lady. She was just a beauty queen to me if you could think of beauty queens as dogs. But she just, she was very gorgeous. I actually have a, I have a picture of her. Oh, how beautiful. Really, really gorgeous. And she was just the love of my life.

And I mean, I still remember bringing her home like the day after Christmas. And it was just such a big, wonderful thing. Our first pet together, me and my husband. And, I mean, she did live like 13 and a half years. But the last three years, unfortunately, of her life were very, very sad. We bought this home three years prior to her death, and she has just no quality of life. She could hardly really walk. She was, I think that in the end, she was pretty much almost deaf and possibly blind.

But we never really knew when we took her to the vet. He's just like, you know, it could be this, it could be that. But she had severe doggy dementia, if you could call it that. That's what the vet described it. And it was just so sad those last three years, but the last few months, she would literally start to cry out around pretty much 12, 30, 12 o'clock at night. It just seemed like white when you were almost like falling asleep or you had gotten into bed. She would start to scream this off-cream from downstairs. I mean, coming from a pet, you know, and then they can't, they don't have a, you know, a voice to vocalize and talk so it was like the only way.

and when I asked the vet, he said, I think she's just waking up so confused. She probably doesn't know where she is, who she is, what's going on, or she could be in pain. So we really never knew she was on a lot of pain pills from arthritis and everything. And her body was really starting to shut down. And my husband and I had a lot of talks about putting her down and he would not. I even had his parents call him. I had the vet call him and try to say that she was suffering.

I just could not watch her suffer like this anymore. He thought his concept was God will take you. And it just got so bad that she couldn't go to the bathroom. She couldn't eat. She couldn't drink. So the last day, my family, I have two kids, our little family we spent the whole day on the floor with her, just trying to hug her and hold her

because she didn't really know what was going on. and we just spent a few pretty much hours doing that. And then it just was so painful. And then my husband put her into the back of her Honda pilot, and he took her to the vet why I stayed with the kids because they were very obviously upset. Of course. You know, it's, yeah, the only pet that they've ever really known,

and it was just so sad. And, well, my husband left the next, like, day to go to his family, which he had planned already, like it was for, I think it was for spring break. And I was left with our other dog, Gidgett, who was a Yorkie poo. One of those little yorky poos,

and they weigh like, you know, 10, 8 pounds. Right. But whenever Sadie in the past would cry out, Gid would be the one who would come and, like, get us, or she would come and bark and go right towards Sadie. So she knew that whole. routine and everything. So we were going, we were lying in bed and I'm like, you know, watching a movie just by myself because I was late, you know, along couldn't sleep.

Unfortunately, you know, just lost a dog, so I'm grieving. And then I'm just trying to distract myself with a movie. The kids are gone. My husband's gone. And then all of a sudden, I heard it. I heard Sadie's scream from downstairs. And so she always resided downstairs in the family room and you had to go down like kind of like our stairs in our in our house like curved you know like along all the old fashion houses right so we would flip the lights on onto the main kind of like you know that we have a big foyer to the stairs and just run down the stairs um run into that family room and we had a light that was like a push light so it punched the light kind of on in a hurry and then I see that the dog is not there

And I remember that the dog is not there. And Gidgett and I had kind of like exchanged a look when she looked at me in the bed like, that's Sadie. Yeah. And our eyes just met and I'll never forget that look like before I ran downstairs. Because without a thought, I had not, I just didn't think about it. I heard her cry. And both of us were like, Sadie needs us. You know, so I would go down there and we would comfort her and everything, just like the pattern that we always did to

kind of tried to get her to stop, like, being upset, trying to stop screaming. And it just never occurred to me when I was flying down those stairs and then hit the light on that that room would be empty. And I just completely forgot about it. And Gidget, my dog is looking at me from the floor as I'm trying to both, like, we're both, like, looking at each other. Like, dog to human, trying to register. What is, what's happening? because she's not here anymore physically. The room is empty.

And all of a sudden, my heart just swelled up with just like, I just felt like, oh, my God, she's here. She's saying goodbye. And I felt so much guilt for all the years that my husband would not put her down, that those years that she was suffering, and I couldn't do anything about it. And, like, my husband and I had so many fights. I tried to convince him that I just thought it was best to not let her suffer anymore, and I didn't want the kids to see her suffering so much. I buried and carried so much of that guilt inside for years, and I think she knew. I think she really knew.

And I would sit on the floor, and I would tell her a lot during those three years. I'm sorry. I'm trying. I'm sorry. And I think she really just knew, and she was coming back to say goodbye. like I'm with God, I'm okay now, I'm not suffering, and goodbye to me as her, as her dog mom, you know, I always called myself Mama. And I just, I just said, I'm so sorry, you know, I said how I felt to her and I'm like, I love you so much. I tried. I really, really tried, but he wouldn't do it. And I'm sorry, but I'm glad you're not suffering anymore. And I know you're in a better place. but I will always miss you so badly.

And I just fell to my knees and I was crying. It's still hard to talk about it, but yeah. Because it was such a powerful moment too. And that scream, I'll never forget that screen. And you could hear it through the whole house. Like, it was crazy and being alone, but the way that Gidget looked at me like a little dog and just looking at me, you know, I'm like, oh my gosh,

it's, you know, Sadie meets us. and then having her look at me so confused, like, Mom, tell me what's going on, you know? Because where is Sadie when she was trying to help? And I didn't know what to tell her, but I just felt like it was weird that just Sadie was just like in that room. I mean, that was her room, that was her place for three years, suffering that she could hardly move.

So it kind of made sense, like I'm going to come back for last saying goodbye. and I'm going up where I'm going to just be happy. I'm going to be happy again, Mom. And I wanted to come and say, it's okay. I know you tried. I'm done suffering and I love you. And I think to Gidgett too, I think she was doing it to Gidgett too, because Gidgett would run when we would run.

Until we pounded on that light, she would just be right at her side, like, do something, do something, you know, kind of how they look at you, like, I know something's wrong. Yeah. Yeah, it's almost sad when. a dog is sick because sometimes they might not understand what's going on. Our one dog, Rambo, anytime he has any kind of little stomach upset or something, he looks so sad and he kind of looks at it's like, like you said, do something. It's like, well, we're trying.

It's hard to get across. We're doing, yeah, they think, you know, you can do anything. And we can only do so much. But, you know, our pets are very special. They are. And Sadie sounds like she was extremely, extremely. special. And you were and are a great, I think you called it mom dog. Dog mom. I got mixed up. Dog mom. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for all the folks out there, have pets and take care of them. Because we hear these stories of so many people who have animals and they don't take care of them. And that's reprehensible in my book. So for those of us who take good care of our four-foot's, kudos to you. They are like their baby.

I think they know. Exactly. They're members of the family. They're members of the family. They let the kids do all these things to them too. I mean, the kids used to ride them like horses. Yep, that's, we had a dog by the name of trouble, and our kids wanted to ride him like a horse. He was a kind of a mutt, part German Shepherd, part beagle, I think, but he was a pretty good size dog.

Great dog. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And he wouldn't, he wouldn't get upset at all. he just let them do it. And we said, don't ride him like a horse. And he didn't mind. I think he loved everything.

Yeah. Yeah. She would just let them do anything and be like, whatever, it's okay. It's our kid, you know. That's right. That's right. They know. They knew.

I was particularly worried when we brought Cassandra home in trouble was there because he was, what would have he been at that point? About a couple years old or a year and a half old. He had gotten all the attention. I'm like, oh, you know, it's a baby. And is he going to be jealous? And I'm like, yeah. He couldn't have been better.

He was a real angel, a real angel. That's really great. Rosella, thank you. Thank you. And we thank Sadie. And thank you for being a part of the show. Once again, stay spooky. Stay spooky.

Thank you. Next up on the campfire is Dave from Washington. And he ended up storing some stuff in his garage. But he may have ended up storing more than he bargained for. Dave, welcome to the show. thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. Tell us what happened. Oh, thank you, Jim. So about, let's see, four years ago, one of our family members, he committed suicide, and he had, you know, he had some rough times. He was actually a

former veteran and kind of just selling hard times, and they kind of left him behind. He got injured and he got divorced and just a lot of stuff hard on him. And, uh, Like I said, he committed suicide. And so he was a big gun proponent, and he had a safe full of all his guns and stuff. And the family wasn't able to take it home due to the laws of the state. So we offered to, you know, hold on to him and stuff for him. And so we ended up storing them in our garage at our last residence. And we bought the safe, but the guns are theirs for whenever they come back and grab them,

if they can figure that out. But so we had them in the garage and I usually would work out in there and stuff. And like the very first night that I had them in there, I was working out probably about eight or nine at night. And my dog likes to come in and kind of hang out with me while I work out. And she'd never done this before ever, but she was just following something from each corner of the room, like back and forth, back and forth for a good two, three minutes. And I was like, okay, what's that? And I didn't initially go to that thought, but I just kind of watched her and there was nothing there. She was seeing that I could see.

No bugs or any kind of thing like that. So I was like, okay, that's weird. So a couple weeks after that, and before I should display it. So the way the safe is, it has got kind of like one of the kind of the hand crank, like a shipwheel kind of thing to open it. Right. And my wife, since we bought the safe, my wife had wanted me to change the code so we can get into it and everything. and so I changed the code and I was sitting in the living room and all of a sudden I hear clunk like someone's trying to open it and I'm like oh man uh-oh yeah I'm like huh okay and I'm a big coward

and I'm like no I'll check that out in the morning uh and uh so I go and check in the morning and the code don't work I couldn't use I couldn't open it again Uh-oh. So I'm like, okay, now I started to kind of get like, okay, I think something's going on here. And I'm like, well, I think he still wants to be able to get to his gun. So I'm just, I left the code because it came with a key, Tost. He were able to like open it up. Right.

And so I left the code alone, didn't hear that again. And they can't, you know, it just, and for a couple weeks, you know, went on. And like, working out in that gym late at night, I'd always kind of feel like a little bit like I'm kind of watched. He didn't quite feel like you're alone. And I, like, I, um, and I just. kind of felt like he was there so I kind of from time of the time I just kind of talked to him like hey we're gonna take care your guns you know I know these are important to you like we'll make sure they're you know they're safe and stuff and

the very last thing that kind of happened was another late night was playing games in the living room and I was started to head to bed and I was walking kind of near that garage door and on my left side ear I hear very tiny tiny whisper hey Dave I like I stopped for a second. I'm like, did I hear that? And then all of a sudden, hey, Dave. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, hey, I see you. I hear you, man. Like, you know, at that time, we were getting ready to kind of move out and stuff. So I was like, you know, like, I don't know if you're going to come with us with the items, but, you know, just take care and, you know, go over where you need to go.

And that was the last kind of encounter with that. And I mean, we have the guns in the safe at the new place we're at. I get our master bedroom and there's been nothing since. So that's interesting. That's interesting. Well, you know, I do believe that energy can carry over with objects. I definitely think that's a thing. And it sounds like maybe that's what you experienced.

And that one part that you told about being when the cabinet was in the garage and he didn't want to go, I don't blame you because the thought is, maybe that's a human. And if they're after guns, they're probably gun people, which means that they probably have a gun. So I could totally understand where you're coming from. I do want to say this, because any time the topic of suicide, and what a sad story about a veteran. We value our veterans. And many of them do come upon hard times. So all our best to our veterans. And thank you all for your service. But when we talk about when the topic of suicide comes up, I always mentioned the 988 Life And I'll just read from their website here. Using the 988 lifeline is free. When you call text or chat, the 988 lifeline, your conversation is confidential. The 988 lifeline provides you judgment-free care talking with someone can help save your life. And it's at 988 lifeline.org if you want to check out their website, 988 lifeline.org.

And I'm seeing here they have ability for call, text, chat, or deaf. slash heart of hearing is the way that they have it listed out on their site. So certainly, if you're in distress, please do use that resource or if you know someone who is in distress. We want you around here for a long time. Dave, thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate it. And thank you for sharing your story on the campfire and stay spooky. Stay spooky, Jim. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the campfire. I appreciate it very much. And I hope that you will share the show with a friend.

That's so important because we don't have those big marketing budget. We are a modest operation, but we have you. So please, today, right now, in fact, if you're someplace where you can do it safely, you know, don't do it while you're driving, that's for sure. Be safe, first and foremost. Text your friend a link to this episode. Someone who loves the spooky and may not be familiar with the campfire. I think it's so important.

And that's part of the reason we really wanted to get on YouTube in a big way is because a lot of people get scared by that word podcast. Ooh, podcast sounds complicated. But a YouTube video? Yeah, I know how to use YouTube. So text them a YouTube link. If they're a Spotify person, text them a Spotify link. If they're an Apple person, text them an Apple podcast link. Whatever you think they're most likely to consume.

If they love this kind of content, because we think we, our storytellers do it better than anybody. We don't need spooky music. We don't need fancy productions and all of this stuff. I mean, I find it's pretty chilling when you hear about somebody who's driving along, minding their own business, and there's a ghostly passenger. I don't think that needs any kind of zuzzing up. I think it's good the way it is. And I guess it is.

We've been doing this for 17 years. Thank you for being along on the ride with us. We'll talk to you next time. Stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-bye.