National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 104: Illegal Collections, Haunted Dreams & Men in Windows

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

Today’s stories include ghost brothers, illegal collections, haunted dreams, men in windows, dissipating apparitions, and Cassie almost killing a listener. Outsiders Only bonus stories available for Patreon and Apple Subscribers! For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials: Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdark Support the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thanks to this week sponsors! 3 Day Blinds: For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/NPADFabletics: Shop now at Fabletics.com/NPAD to get 70–80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIPHarvest Hosts: For 20% off your order, head to Unique RV Camping at Farms, Wineries, Breweries, & More with Harvest Hosts and use code NPAD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Cassie. I'm Danielle, and you're listening to Trail Tales edition of National Park After Dark. You are. This is the episode where you write into us about your stories in the outdoors or haunted places or wherever they may be, stories that you think that we would find interesting, and now we are reading them back to you. And if you're listening and you think that you have a story that would be good to share on the podcast, you can write into us at NPADpodcast.com. And let's get into some trail tales. Can I go first? Sure. Okay. Mine is titled The Nystrom family's third man factor story. I've been going back to listen to older episodes after I became an outsider. I was listening to spirit or science, the third man factor, and I knew I had to write in. When I was five years old, my half-brother Tyler died by suicide at age 20. Yeah, we are starting with

the heavy shit. Being so young, it was a hard, concept to grasp and we had been very close before he left for college. We recently found an ancient video camera from the early 90s in our attic with some forgotten tapes of him and his amazing laugh. Soon after his death, he started to visit me. He would tell me stories, read books, and play with me in my room after my parents had gone to bed. While this may sound like an active imagination of a five-year-old, I would relay the stories he told to my parents who were speechless at some of the facts that I shared. There was no way I could have known about some of the things that he shared. A few harmless memories, like sneaking us into the garage to eat cookie dough, out of the tub my

my mom kept in the fridge, or sledding when the pond was frozen over. But others, the others, were purely Tyler. He told me about how he used to sneak out of the house. Our house is one story and set in the woods outside of Seattle. It was built in the early 60s by a local architect, which is a long way to say the windows are unique. They swing outwards with an L latch and are pretty skinny, so Tyler would wiggle his little teen ass out the window, then use a screwdriver to close the latch after him. He stored that screwdriver in the eaves above the window, hidden away for only him to know. Tyler told me this story when I was about seven or eight, a few years after he was gone. I was still not tall enough to reach the eaves, so I told my parents I wanted to look. They walked outside with me,

probably not fully convinced we weren't reaching into a wasp mess. But there it was, a screwdriver, untouched. They had never known how he would sneak in and out, but there it was, irrefutable, physical proof. His visits continued for years, but became less frequent as I spent less time in my parents' house. He would show up more during times of stress or family holidays. He was never a sad spirit, but seemed happy to get more time with his family. Tyler came to visit me, in spring of 2025. It had been a while since our last talk, and I had kind of figured he was gone since his mom had passed in 2019. But there he was. He asked me about everyone. He asked about our dad. He said, it's been nice to have mom with me, but you still need dad there with you. Hug him for me.

I'm not crying. You are. In late 2024, our town went through a freak bomb cyclone. Trees were down everywhere. One was on my parents' house. but missed their bedroom by a few feet. Tyler said he was there that night of the storm. He made sure that we were safe. I will always miss my brother, and I'm so comforted that he is always watching out for us. You are more than welcome to share this on the pod,

or just read it and know that there are no such thing as coincidences. I may have been haunted, but it's a privilege sometimes. It is a privilege. Thank you for sharing that story, And you just have such a special relationship with your brother that has just continued your whole life in such a cool way. Like, imagine being those parents and having your child be telling you this information and then there's physical proof to back it up. This is probably from all of the stories that I can remember the most, like, vivid visitation that I've ever heard. Well, detailed.

Detailed, but also to be like, yeah, he visits and has conversations with me. You know, I feel like a lot of the visitations that we've heard have been either like kind of blurry dreams or like a feeling or like a quick voice or like a couple words. But these sound like full questions, full conversations. And it feels like it's very much like, yeah, he's just here visiting. And I know he's here. And it just feels a lot. these visitations feel stronger than I think many of what we've heard before, which is really, really cool. Yeah. And I know that they said it's kind of tapered over time, but he still pops in every once in a while. Yeah. I think it's just really cool that.

That's really, really cool. Even if they're not as strong and intense, they are still around. Yeah, there's a comfort in knowing that they're here, especially in times when they're really needed. Yeah, like bomb cyclones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's a big moment. Okay. So my first story is titled The Man in the Windows. Hey there, Cassie and Danielle. My name is Lindsay, and I live in the great state of Wisconsin. Shout out to the Midwest. I have been a listener since late 2021, but listened on and off for many years until I had to quell the burning desire to listen to every single episode of yours from the beginning. The stories that you two tell are compelling, and I love the intro and atmospheric music that starts off each and every story. I told myself that whenever I catch up, that I would finally

submit the trail tale that has been lingering in the back of my mind. So now that I finally made it to the present day, it's time to tell you all a ghost story from a complete skeptic, aka my dad. The story starts on a spooky, chilly Halloween night at my parents' place in Iowa. They were living in a sizable suburban neighborhood, so after a long evening of handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, my mom and I retired to the living room and started chatting while eating some of the leftover candy. We started talking about ghosts and supernatural things. It was Halloween, after all, when my dad walked in on the conversation. Simply put, my dad is an absolute non-believer when it comes to all things supernatural.

He has never been interested in talking about ghosts, spirits, or anything of the like. He would routinely make fun of my mom and I while we watched ghost adventures, usually leaving the room if he saw that we had it on. I kind of don't blame him, though. Zach Bagan's is very dramatic. As a kid, he would always reassure me that ghosts weren't real. Scoff at any mention of them, you get the idea. I love a skeptic.

Do you? I just think it's fun when skeptics have experiences. Yeah, and they're like, well, maybe. And they're always kind of like a little reluctant, I think. I mean, everyone's entitled to their own beliefs, of course. It's just when I think I have a I take issue with skeptics when they try to put others down for their beliefs. Right. That's where I get.

It's like you can believe or not believe whatever you want, but don't make fun of me. That's fair. That's a fair feeling. I just think like when it's not coming to something that's like as deep as that of like shaming someone's beliefs, but just being like there's no such thing as goes, that's wild. that's crazy. But then having an experience that you can't explain. And I feel like we get stories like that a lot where it's like, hey, I'm a skeptic and this happened to me. Maybe you have an explanation, but I cannot think of anything. I think it's just, I think it's fun to be like, I have a response to that. And it's always welcome. Welcome to the side over here.

Welcome to the dark side. When he walked in on my mom and I talking, I anticipated the usual scoff and a few words about how ghosts aren't real. Imagine the look of disbelief on my face when he decided to sit down, join the conversation, and drop a ghost story of his own. When my dad was a kid, probably around seven, and living in Kansas, he would regularly go on trips with my grandma down to the Grand Lake of the Cherokees. This lake is a large man-made reservoir situated in northeastern Oklahoma in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains on the Cherokee Reservation. This particular trip, they decided that they were going to stay in a vacation rental, which happened to be a mobile home. According to my dad, they arrived at the trailer late one summer night.

I'm sure they were tired from traveling and ready to get inside and kick back for the evening. Unfortunately, as they stepped inside, they were not able to relax at all because the mobile home started violently shaking. Not only was it violently shaking, but my dad reported that he saw a man's face in all of the windows. Yes, not just one window, but all of them. face. And it was the same exact face. I can't even imagine the sheer terror of being inside of a shaking building with duplicates of a creepy-ass man's face in all of the windows. New fear unlocked. I never considered that as a possibility. Me either. I do want to pause here and provide a disclaimer.

I have repeatedly asked my dad for more details on this event, like what the faces look like, how hard the trailer was shaking, literally anything else. But either from trauma or stubbornness, he refuses to elaborate. All he can confirm is that, yes, it was the same face in all of the windows. Plot twist, there's only one window. Yeah, so I guess it was only one face in one window. So, markedly less. Scary. Scary.

My grandma grabbed my dad and ran out of the trailer, noting no one on the outside of the trailer as they ran. and they left. I'm not sure if they found somewhere else to stay or just drove home, but my non-believer, spooky hating dad, went through something like this and is apparently just chill with the whole thing. If my grandma was still around, I would have loved to ask her about her version of the story. Thanks for listening to my dad's little tale. I wish I had more to tell you, but the fact that my dad just dropped this on us one night is just mind-blowing to me. Maybe one day I'll pry for more details from him. Maybe. Enjoy the view, but watch out for the skeptics in your life. You never know when they might just surprise you with a spooky tale of their own.

I guess my question is if he doesn't believe in ghosts, what did he think all of these same faces were? And the shaking of that. Yeah, I don't know. But she did say he was around seven years old. So maybe I don't know. He just didn't think about it that much of like what it actually could be. Yeah. I'm not sure.

It clearly stuck with him, though. Yeah. I think your dad got haunted. All right, well, moving on to my next trail tale. This one is titled, I Could Be Arrested for This Trail. Hello, wonderful ladies, just like everyone else who writes in, love the podcast. I recently discovered it and have been binge listening to catch up to the present since. I wasn't going to write in until after I caught up, but I just listened to the Resurrection Pleistocene Park episode and thought you'd be interested in hearing my collection of body parts from endangered speech.

species, feel free to share this story on the podcast. I've left out all identifying details because this story could literally very well end up with U.S. Fish and Wildlife banging down my door with a search warrant. Well, not really, but maybe. Are we going to get arrested? Are we going to be? Are we going to get arrested? Are we going to get called to testify against you? Because I don't want to. That's why I gave you this story. I don't want to be involved. All right. Let's see. that this is about. That's right. I have a collection of body parts from endangered species. That may be a slight exaggeration. I'm not talking femurs, skulls, eyeballs and jars, etc.

But I have cheetah fur, bobcat toenails, Florida panther whiskers, a paragon falcon, foot slash leg, black bear fur, a two-toed sloth claw, a manatee tooth, orangutan fur, manatee skin, stingray barbs, a red wolf tooth, and green sea turtle skin. in. There's probably more that I'm forgetting. I haven't looked through the entire collection in a while. I even have a wallet made from manatee skin, a clutch bag made from stingray

leather, and a necklace made from a Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle shell. I guess some backstory is probably warranted. Yeah, I have a lot of questions. I'm calling Wes. Calling the police.

I'm calling U.S. Wilder. Okay, Wes. Wes is the police. Wes is the wildlife police and he's probably pissed. I would. We need to know why. That's a lot of things to have also. Yeah.

Like where did you get all this? I guess we're going to find out. Okay. For the last 25 years, I have had the privilege of working as a wildlife rehabilitator, a zookeeper, and an aquarius across multiple states for various organizations at several zoological aquariums. facilities. In all of these roles, I got to work hand-in-hand with so many amazing animals, from sharks, stingrays, and sea turtles to manatees and dolphins, great apes, and smaller primates, and pretty much every species of bird of prey and mammals native to the southeastern United States. Eagles, falcons, hawks, brown and red foxes, bobcats, panthers, bears, otters, raccoons,

etc. Can I stop bragging? I mean, it's cool, but I'm jealous. Danielle's very jealous right now. That's why I'm calling the police. Not because you shouldn't have these things, but because you shouldn't be bragging like this. Yeah. With all the things going on with NPAD, I value my time off. So the last thing I want to be doing on weekends

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I've been looking particularly for some long, flowy, floor-length curtains that help absorb the sound in here. And I have so many choices with three-day blinds. thousands of options that fit any budget or style. Plus, they've been in business for over 45 years and have helped over 2 million people, so they're a brand you can trust. Right now, get quality window treatments that fit your budget with three-day blinds. Head to 3-dayblinds.com slash N-P-A-D for their buy-one, get-1-50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, and drapery.

For a free, no-charge, no-obligation consultation, just head to 3-dayblinds.com slash N-P-A-D. One last time, that's buy one, get-1-50% off when you head to the number three, D-A-Y-Blines.com slash N-P-A-D. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low, no-frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at no-frills.ca. All of the items, except the wallet clutch and necklace, I'll get to those later,

have been collected by myself from animals I've had the chance to work. with, and it's all been done ethically and humanely. Cat whiskers and nails are shed, fur is shaved during medical procedures, manatee teeth are shed, stingray barbs fall out, etc. The one thing I won't have in my collection, bird feathers. Almost all birds in the United States are protected under the Migratory Bird Act, and it makes it illegal to possess any part of a migratory bird, feathers included. Don't even think about bald eagle feathers. Those are even more highly regulated. Co-workers and friends have said it's a really weird collection and that I'm weird for having

it. To them, I usually say, we'll see who's laughing when I'm the only one with the DNA of these animals to bring them back from extinction. That's why the podcast episode reminded me of my collection. Going all Jurassic Park on us. It's like, I will be the last holdout for these species. It reminds me of like the seed, you know, that like seed vault in Norway or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, you have a animal vault in wherever you are.

The manatee and shark skin bag, wallet, and turtle shell necklace were all confiscated by the USFWS and donated to a facility I worked at for educational purposes. Somehow, some way, they managed to migrate into my collection instead. I know this is already long, but I wanted to touch on one more thing you brought up in the podcast episode, Deextinction. If you aren't familiar already, you should look it up. Elvis taxins, they're essentially species that have gone extinct, but then later reemerge in the fossil record as very similar species. The Algebra Rail is an example. It was a flightless bird on the island of Algebra that went extinct 136,000 years ago due to sea level rise. An almost identical bird, re-question mark emerged on the island about 100,000 years ago. The white-throated

rail is the descendant of that second species and still inhabits the island today. I've been racking my brain for some stories of my adventures to share, but almost all of them would be from the perspective of an animal care professional, not necessarily in the wild, although I did come face to face with a 14-foot crocodile in the Everglades once. If I hear about my collection on the pod when I catch up to the present time, I'll consider it a sign to share another story. Until then, enjoy the view, but watch your back, or you might end up. in my collection. Oh my god. Oh. That took a turn. That took a turn at the end. I appreciate it though. I like I like your humor. Yeah. And I like I won't call anyone on you. The beginning had me concerned.

I don't know. Yeah. At first I was like, wow, this is bright. They're anonymous too, right? Yeah. Smart. Smart move. Um, okay. So my second story is. It's titled Passed Out on the Trans-Canada Highway, and then I added a little, like, subtitle to this story after I read it initially. AKA Cassie almost killed us. Me? Yeah, you. The only Cassie I know. I wouldn't do that.

How did I just kill you guys? Let me tell you. I want to know. Hi, ladies. I love listening to your podcast. It's my go-to for my 50-minute commute to work or when I'm out on my mom. morning five kilometer walks. Recently, my partner and I went on our annual trip to visiting Thunder Bay, Ontario. We lived there for eight years and have moved away two years ago, so now we

venture 16 hours by car to visit for two weeks every year. This time, I kept my NPAD episodes for the drive home. We were about three hours from our house on day two of our commute. We began to listen to the new episode, Die or Amputate Your Arm. We were both excited to hear a new side of Aaron's story as we have watched the movie and heard lots of side notes about his experience. What I was not expecting was my partner to be squeamish with the details. I've heard so many people say I traumatize them with the details I gave in that episode. Yeah, it's like, do you want the gory details? Do you not? I thought you liked this. Yeah, we thought you liked it because every time we're like,

oh, well, just like you get the idea right. And people are like, no, we want to know everything. And then we tell you everything and then you get sick. Pass out. My partner was driving while we were listening and I mentioned that the arm breaking content was making me feel nauseous. My partner laughed at me. Next up was the detailed event of what Aaron felt while amputating his arm. Here I felt okay.

I had settled in more. All of a sudden, my partner cranks the sound off. I look over and he says, I need water. I'm going to pass out. And he's driving. And he's driving. I quickly grabbed my water and lift it up to his mouth. Maybe 10 seconds after he says he's going to pass out, the car, towing a teardrop trailer,

starts to veer off to the left, crossing our double lane. I quickly grabbed a hold of the wheel from the passenger seat as he starts to drift off. Thankfully, his foot was positioned on the brake, so as he drifted out of consciousness, his foot slowly lowered onto the brake. I steered us off of the highway onto the shoulder, I threw the car into park and quickly jumped out to get my partner's door and bring fresh air into the vehicle. After a minute or so, he came back to and jumped out of the car with zero recollection of what had happened. After getting him some clothes to change into, giving him some sour candies and ice cold water, he jumped back into the passenger seat and I kept us on our travels. The whole way back, we talked about how lucky we were in that instance.

One, we were lucky he could voice it to me. Two, there were no other cars in either lanes near us and we drifted off to the side. Three, his foot landed on the brake instead of the gas. And four, if he had passed out 30 seconds later, we would have drifted into a rock wall instead of the potential ditch. After a trip of rock climbing and scrambling, paddleboarding Lake Superior, mountain biking, and hiking 60 kilometer trails, we agreed that we were not testing our luck for a while after this incident. One minor suggestion would be to add a disclaimer to skip or prepare for the gruesome details if people get queasy. I have since finished the episode while on my morning walks with earbuds in.

I'm excited for more episodes to come, whether it be survival, ghost, silly happenstances, or wow moment stories. Enjoy the view, but watch out for your driving partner. Wow. Okay. Didn't you give a boarding? I am forgetting. I do not remember if I gave a warning. If I did it, maybe it was at the beginning of the episode, but not like right before.

So I will note that because in all honesty, when I read the book and like listened to this, for me, I didn't even think of it as an issue or being squeamish or anything. Like it truly just didn't, it didn't occur to me that it could affect other people. And this way, and that's so scary. And I'm so happy that you guys are okay. and I'm glad that it worked out and you were able to handle it and like take care of him in this in this moment and the fact that you're towing a trailer. I mean, that could have gone really, really horribly and I'm very, very happy that you're okay.

Yeah. On the other end of that. I am so flattered. I am so flattered. Am I the best storyteller in the world? Yes. I have never. You affect people.

I didn't know I could do that with my words. or my storytelling. I don't want to do that. But like the fact that you felt my story so deeply the way that I was telling it that you had such a physical and emotional reaction, I'm kind of flattered. Yeah. I mean, it's a compliment, really. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to put anyone in a dangerous situation.

But I did my job. Okay. So I was racking my brain. I'm like, I feel like this has happened before with something. And it did, but not because of your. amazing storytelling. Thank you. It was because of our really shitty audio in the beginning.

Because I don't know if you remember this, but I remember where I was when I read this email. I was still living in Washington. And it was when, like, ads. Yes. The ad, because we didn't do any host read ads yet. Like, we weren't at that level yet. So what we did was just do auto inserted ads. And their volume was so different than ours.

and our volume was all out of whack. It was always way too quiet, especially when Cassie speaks because she has such a soft, angelic, meditative voice. Thank you. That when it switched and the auto-inserted ads would just start abruptly, like mid-sentence, it was the Wild West back then. Like, it was just, you never know when an ad was going to come up. No.

These little footstep transitions didn't exist yet. You're welcome. You guys are lucky, actually, is what we're trying to say. But somebody said that they were driving in their car and they could barely hear us. So they had their volume cranked up almost all the way. And then the ad came on and it gave them like, what's it called? And it like burst your ear. Like the actual name.

We injure people in this one. We're very sorry. Listen with care. Listen with care. We should have that as a disclosure. So funny. Okay, your turn. Glad you guys are okay.

Yeah. Truly, truly, though, very glad you guys are okay. All right, my next story and last story is titled Old Homes, Gravestones, and Haunted Dreams. Hello, Cassie and Danielle. My name is Suke. Go ahead and use it. A few months ago, a friend recommended this podcast to me, and now I'm hooked. Ever since I heard my first trail tale episode, I knew I needed to write in with my family's favorite ghost story.

My trail tale takes place on my grandparents' farm on Maryland's Chester River, a part of Chesapeake Bay. This is my go-to paranormal story for campfires and sleepovers, so I thought it would fit in here. Before I tell you the story, you need to hear some background about my family's farm. My grandparents live on it today, but it's been in the family for a very long time, from when they first settled here in the late 1600s. My grandparents live in a house dating back about the same time. We call it fittingly the big house. It's tan and brick with a large wraparound screen porch that's the best place to sit on long summer nights. But here's what you need to know for the story.

The house was built with a wing for servants with smaller rooms and a back staircase that leads directly to the kitchen. It also has larger rooms where the family would have lived with a much larger and grander staircase at the front of the house. Oh, and it's about 50 feet from the centuries old family graveyard. My grandmother and some of our friends were staying out at the house there to catch up, take walks on the river shore, etc. One of her friends was driving in very late at night, so my grandmother told him he should let himself in through the back so he could get some sleep. He'd never been to the house before, so she gave him directions to go up the old servant's staircase to find his room.

He arrived at the house after midnight, parked his car, and headed up the back staircase, just as my grandmother told him. He went directly to his room, and he fell asleep. In the morning, he headed back down the stairs to the kitchen, where my grandmother and her other friends greeted him and offered him breakfast. However, something had visibly shaken him. With a panicked expression, he was sweating. This was especially strange for him,

as his friends knew him as an easy-going guy who was not one to let his nerves get the best of him. so my grandma asked him to sit down and tell him what had him so spooked. He explained that the night before, he had an awful dream. In his dream, he was being shown around the house by a man and a woman wearing colonial-style clothing. They led him around the house, giving him a tour of the rooms. He listened and followed them patiently as they led him through the library, the dining room, and the wide porch. However, eventually the couple showed him down a long haul with a single door at the end. Something about the hallway and the door made him uneasy.

All of the other doors they had passed through over the course of the tour had been open prior to them walking through, and this one was shut and dark. The more his dread of entering the room mounted, the more the man and the woman, but especially the woman, cajoled him to enter it. He explained to them that he had enjoyed their tour, but he just couldn't go through the door and couldn't explain why he was afraid. The woman was now trying to physically push him towards the door. At this point, he woke up in a sweat and the dream ended. Telling people about the dream calmed his nerves, and the man laughed at himself for being frightened of the nightmare while they ate some breakfast and had a much-needed cup of coffee. My grandmother then asked her friend if he would like to take her on a real tour of the house.

They left the kitchen and entered the large hall with the main staircase. When my grandmother's friend saw the two portraits hanging over the house. the grand stairs, he gasped, yelling, that's them, those are the people from my dream. Remember, this man had not seen the house before and hadn't come up the main staircase. He had gone directly up the back to his room and down the same way for breakfast. My grandmother led him through the house, but he didn't need a tour. He knew which door led to the library and the bedrooms because he had seen them in his dream. The only thing missing was the hallway with the door.

It wasn't anywhere in the real house, and he couldn't remember how he had gotten to it in the dream. But the story doesn't end there. My mom and dad were staying at a different house on the property and met up with my grandmother and her friends several days later, where they were, of course, regaled with the tale. This is where my mom remembered something important. The people in the portraits were Mary and Richard, our first ancestors. to come here from England. They are also buried in the family graveyard behind the house. The very night that my grandmother's friend had had that dream, though, the gravestones were being repaired, meaning that Mary's gravestone was actually fully pulled out of the ground and was in pieces.

Coincidence? There's no such thing? Most of my family has always seemed to take it as fact that the farm is haunted. To this day, my little sister Lucy still compliments the portraits every time she goes up those stairs. And although we like to think of ourselves as level-headed and rational, there are way too many spooky stories affiliated with this place. From my aunt's experience with hauntings in the library, to my cousin's tall tales, to my sister's insistence on the presence of a mule ghost in the barns, everyone seems to have a story. Something about this one though, with the haunting dream and proof at the end has always given me chills in a different way. I've heard this story told by many different family members, even my grandmother herself,

but every time it leaves me with the same question. What could be on the other side of that door in his dream? Why did my ancestor's spirits want him to enter so badly? I'd be curious to know what y'all think. Thanks for listening to my story. My whole family loves the podcast so we'd all be thrilled. if this makes it on. Remember to always enjoy the view, but watch for ghosts messing with your dreams, Suki. Well, my initial feeling is I don't think it's anything bad because it's your family.

I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I would be curious how they died if there's anything, if there's any type of bad history or dark history in their death. But for the door, I kind of wonder, since it's as old house, is it possible that there could have been a door there at some point in time? in the house. Like if there's anywhere in the house that there maybe once was a door and like through renovations, it's been lost or whatever. Like if you have old blueprints of when the house was first built, if that's even a thing, I don't know.

But yeah. And where could it have gone? And like maybe there's maybe there's a body in the wall. A body? Yeah. I don't know. Or some like family heirlooms. That would be cooler.

I don't know. The dream felt so dark. The dream felt so dark and he was terrified and he had a really bad feeling about this door, which makes me feel like there's something in the walls. I feel like it's something important. Or in a secret room that you don't know exists. You want to know what we think. I think, at least, that you should just like go rip that wall down in your physical home and see what's there. It sounds like they don't know which wall it is though because he couldn't remember how he got there in his dream.

So start knocking on the walls and feel for something hollow. Yeah. Yeah, start there. Okay. Well, report back, please. If you do go down that route of home demolition, we would love to know. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low, No Frills prices delivered.

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Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Okay, so my last story is titled Two Girls, One Indigenous Apparition. Hey ladies, my name is Erica and I'm happy to be here sharing a trail tale with you. And first, thank you for your dedication to the craft. This podcast has thrown gas into a dim flame in my heart. It has made me want to travel, learn stories from history, and spend as much time in nature as possible. I love that. Ever since I was a young girl, I have had a handful of unexplainable things happen around me.

Things I would categorize as supernaturally. I don't talk about them very often. They're almost never well received. I've had experiences that I kept secret from my family for years only to later get confirmation from my mom that my first home was in fact haunted. Those realizations were validating, but they also made me feel a bit isolated in my experiences. Most of the time when I try to open up to people, I am met with wide eyes and silence with the obvious undertone of disbelief. So I tend to keep these things to myself, but I was happy to find a safe space to share one of my experiences with you girls and your listeners. My story today is set in my hometown, Wenatchi, which is a small city in central Washington's high desert.

It's a place known as the Apple capital of the world. It's the birthplace of the cosmic crisp apple, which, if you haven't tried one, do it. And it's where the foothills of the Cascade Mountains meet the Columbia River. The skyline is defined by a well-known trail named Saddle Rock Trail, To the indigenous Wenatchi Piscuasa people, it's known as two bears. The name comes from a legend in which a grizzly and black bear were fighting for the love and respect of their mutual husband, the coyote. Eventually, coyote got tired of their fighting and turned them both to stone. Those two stone bears are what we now see as the saddle rock skyline, and that's where my story takes place. Well, technically, it takes place in the parking lot, just over a decade ago.

My ride or die best friend got married last month and she's the other character in this story. So it felt like the right time to share it as a little dedication to her and our friendship. We'll call her G. One late summer night when we were in our early 20s, G and I were doing something we had done together many times. We were driving around looking for somewhere to park to smoke weed. We ended up at the Saddle Rock Trailhead parking lot. This is a very popular hiking spot and we'd both been here probably. hundreds of times since we were kids.

We pulled up and parked facing the entrance so we could see if anyone was coming up the road. We were the only car there. We rolled down our windows and turned the car off and were just sitting there talking for a few minutes, I'm sure, about boys. We hadn't smoked yet when one of us noticed someone walking towards the car and brought it to the other's attention. We both stared out of the windshield trying to mentally comprehend what we were exactly looking at. At this time, there was only a couple of street lights in the lot.

and one of them was directly in front of us. We are watching this tall male figure with long hair walking straight for our car. We couldn't see very well, but we could absolutely see his silhouette. We were completely frozen, just watching. And then when he stepped into the glare of the streetlight, we watched as he literally dissipated like dust in the wind. He was legitimately just poof, gone. It was like something you see.

see straight out of a movie, except it wasn't a movie. We had watched it happen in real time. Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. We just sat there, completely silent, trying to comprehend what we had just witnessed. And then one of us finally said something along the lines of, did we just fucking see that? We confirmed that yes, without a question, we had both seen it. After we came to our senses, we high-tailed it out of there. And to this day, we have absolutely no explanation for what we saw. We didn't tell anyone after it happened. Honestly, it took us a long time to circle back and talk about it again with one another. We never felt like we were in danger. It didn't feel threatening. It just felt like something was telling us that we were not welcome there,

and we took that message seriously. Thanks for reading my trail tale, enjoy the view, but keep an eye out for apparitions in the night. You never know who or what is watching you, Erica. Whoa, that is such a crazy experience to have. I will say I would prefer that over an actual man, like belining it to my car in the middle of the night in an empty parking lot. Yeah. And it's just really cool. That's what I would prefer if a man is walking towards my car who is creepy and in the

middle of the night that they would just dissipate and just dissolve into the wind. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of here. I just think it's cool because with so many of our stories and people who recounts having some sort of paranormal, paranormal experience, especially visually, you know, seeing something out of the corner of their eye or a shadow or, you know, you're second guessing yourself. It feels like this, I'm sure it wasn't a long period of time, but long enough that they saw him, they saw him walking towards the car and then saw him disappear all in one go. instead of just a flash of something or, you know what I mean? It just feels so much more detailed and unique as of an experience. And I'm just waiting for something like that to happen to me.

I feel like it will at some point. I mean, I had that one experience when I was in Evergreen in my Evergreen house. That's true. But it wasn't. You saw a family by your bed. I did see a family by my bed. And they took a step towards me and then they disliked. appeared. But I wasn't fully like it was at night, you know, it was dark. The only time I've

ever seen anything was when you were like astro projecting at the end of your bed in Yosemite. I should write in a trail tale. You should write in a trail tale. I wasn't with it. It was it was you or something looking like you. Yeah. It was my alter ego. But our sad, I was sad or scared or something, though. It wasn't happy and nice. No, it wasn't. It was weird, though, because I remember what happened. We were staying, I know I've told this on the podcast before, but we were staying in you.

We were staying outside of Yosemite and we were staying in a yurt. And we both had different beds. And I was facing away from you in my bed. And I woke up in the middle of the night and my very first thought was like check on Danielle. like something is watching Danielle, like, for some reason. It wasn't like fear for me. It was like specifically I was thinking of you. And I rolled over and it was really dark and my eyes were like trying to adjust.

And I was like, I remember like really straining my eyes because I saw that you were sitting up at the end of the bed. And I was going to be like, hey, are you okay? And I was really straining my eyes. And then I saw that you were still laying in your bed. And then you were also sitting up. in your bed at the end of it. And I was like, and for whatever reason, me was like, oh, there's not a creepy person like staring at you in bed. So like all as well. And I just like turned back over and went to bed. Yeah. Which is like, thanks for like, oh, it's just you.

It's just two of you. Two of you. That's cool. I'm sleeping. Yeah. It's just, again, I find it so interesting just kind of putting together what that was like. And, also the timing and everything, that was, how many trips have we been on together? How many times have we slept in the same room, tent, yurt, train, bus, whatever the hell, you know, like we've just been together so much traveling and everything. And that's the only time something like that has happened. And that was in the thick of me experiencing a bunch of other different, like, weird, paranormal, extra sensory type of things and also going through like the hardest year of my life. And for you to see me like outside of my body, it's like I felt like I want it to be outside of

my body. Like it's just so strange, you know. That it happened that I experienced this during this time with you. Yeah. And like the thought of you being like check on Danielle like something's wrong. it's like, yeah, she wants out. She wants it out of here. You got out of there. I got out of there for a second and I don't recall it, but. There was longer than a second.

I was straining my eyes looking at you for like at least a full minute. And you didn't say anything? I don't know what it was. Like in the middle of the night, I was looking. And at first I saw you. And then I was like, she's sitting. But like your head was down. Like it kind of looked like your head was.

Yeah, like maybe crying or something. And so I was like straining because I wasn't sure if it was like a trick of the light. Yeah. And then I looked back at you and I saw you like very clearly laying in your bed and like your head on your pillow asleep. So I looked back and then I saw you again. And I was like, this has to be like a trick of my eyes right now. But then I was like, I see it. And then I was like, I don't know.

It's like your body's right there. She's fine. It's so weird because I feel like that's kind of my reaction to a lot of things when I experience things. I'm just like, okay, all is well. And it's just like, go back to bed. It would take a lot, I think, for you to have a stronger reaction than that. I mean, even when I've seen you get attempt to be robbed in France and get chased down by a wild Zibu in Madagasc. scar and both of those times you reacted of course but you were not you were just so calm even like

when somebody was chasing you trying to rip your phone out of your hands aggressively yelling at you and like screaming at you that you were a bitch and whatever you were just like weaving in and out of people trying to get rid of her like super silently and you're like I gotta go I'm out here. You weren't like, help, help. You weren't freaking out. Same thing with the wild Zeebo incident. You were just like. I'm definitely a silent reactor. Yes. I've realized. And it's because like, and I think it's in those moments when something is happening that there's a lot going on in my mind that I'm not like able to verbalize in the moment because I'm like in survival mode of like I'm processing in my brain what needs to be done that I'm not speaking anything because I don't need to

like I'm just like okay this is what I have to do true and the and the lady screaming at me I was like my first thoughts were just like this woman is not in her right mind there's nothing I can say right now to deescalate she is angry at me we accidentally made eye contact my only option here is to like leave this situation and she chased me down But then she saw a car. Remember, she, like, hopped in someone's taxi. Yes. After that, and they, like, were trying to kick her out.

And I was just like, she's not with me anymore. A taxi that had another passenger. They just happened to be at the stoplight. Yeah, they just stopped and she just, like, ran and jumped in their car. Yeah. And we're like, we gotta get out of here. Yeah. She's your problem, no.

Yeah. I didn't feel calm in that situation, though, to be fair. I was like, I, that woman looked like she would have tried to, like, actually physically. touch me like either to grab my phone or to hit me or something like that and so i didn't feel calm i was just trying to get out of the situation oh yeah no and even with the zbo thing and there's other instances too over the years that i know you're not totally fine outwardly out it's just outwardly you're very calm cool and collected whereas i have a different type of reaction and it's usually not great

Anger, usually. Anger. But okay. Great. I think we're done. Well, thank you, everyone, for writing in. Yeah, those are, we're done with our regular ones. We do have two more trail tales for our subscribers.

So if you're on Apple or if you're on Patreon, we do have two more. And mine is titled, Did I Accidentally Kill an Owl or a Shapeshifter? And mine is titled, Grand King. Canyon Grandpa Rescue. All right. Well, we'll see you guys over there. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back.

Bye. Bye. Thanks for joining us for another episode. We hope you learned something new and have another location to put on your list. If you want more MPAD content, make sure to follow along with our adventures on all socials at National Park After Dark. For more stories just like this one with the added bonus of exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to our YouTube channel. And if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and

subscribe on your favorite listening platform. Hey everyone, welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Cassie. I'm Danielle. Oh, sorry. Are we lagging? You can start over. I didn't say anything after I said, welcome back to National Park. Oh, okay, go ahead. Start over. Hey, everyone, welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Cassie. I'm Danielle. And we do this for a living. I think your dad got haunted. Okay. I'll just get to you. Sorry. I thought you were going to respond. It's a point. Sorry, I just like, the bluepers for this one are going to be wild. Don't buy bluepers. This is a crazy one. He's like, okay, this entire fucking episode is bluepers because you guys haven't fucking spit it out. It's like, I have a 30 minute trail

Blueprint. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low No Frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at nofrills.ca.