National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 88 ft. Creeps and Crimes

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Today’s stories include haunted cabins, fake moose, symbolic dragonflies, probable alien abductions and a whole lot of yapping. 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 at: 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! Thank you to the week’s partners!Hollow Socks: For a limited time Hollow Socks is having a Buy 2, Get 2 Free Sale. Head to Hollowsocks.com today to check it out. #HollowSockspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Everyone and welcome back to National Park After Dark Trail Tales edition. And it's a very, very special one because we have two of our bestest podcasting friends, Taylor and Morgan, from creeps and crimes. Oh, my goodness. Hello, hello, hello, girls. We're so happy to be here. Yes, thank you for having us. We're so happy to have you guys here. And we're happy to dive into some creepy stories because both of our audience are showing up today for some stories.

what are you guys bringing? Okay, so we've got a little bit of a mix. We did do a call out in our last week's episode and we said basically, please, please, anything that happened to you creepy in the woods, we need it. If you were abducted on Lovers Lane by aliens, bears, a person, just send it in, please. Thank you, God, in the middle of the National Force. And they did deliver. They showed up and they showed up.

Oh, they really did. They did. And we did bring you one extra one that we had done back in 2021. It was one of our first creepy account episodes, which is kind of what we call our our trail tail. Hold on. I'm glitching. One second. Let me get my brain to recount, right?

Back in 2021, we did a creepy account, which is like our version of listener stories that you guys do too, and that we're on the episode right here all doing. And it was so good. It was so creepy. It scarred everyone, all of us. And so we just needed to bring it to you guys and get your professional opinions about what happened in this crazy story. Oh, now I'm very intrigued. Okay.

I'm scarred easily. Oh, no. Sorry. This was probably the first creepy account that had genuinely scarred the both of us. So I'm glad we get to reread it. I don't even really remember it. We did it, what, in 2021 or so? 2021.

So it was volume 8. So that was eight months into the podcast. Wow. Well, speaking about the podcast before we start sharing stories and stuff, tell us a little bit about your origin story. and how you created creeps and crimes and what the show's all about. So Taylor and I were college roommates at the University of Tennessee. After college, we were like, hmm, what's a way that we could force ourselves to be together at least once a week, which then ended up into twice a week? And then three times a week.

And we were like a podcast. Taylor had always wanted to start a podcast. And I was the biggest yes man. So she was like, do you want to start a podcast? I was like, sure. Why not? Like absolutely sure. So we started in October of 2020. We both currently live in Knoxville. So usually we will record together in the studio that Taylor's in. We do two releases publicly a week. Thursdays is a paranormal conspiracy, true crime. And then our Tuesdays are a little like, we call them the bestie bonus. So they are kind of a catch-all between pop news and Reddit stories and everything and in between.

So we are everywhere that you find your podcast. Yeah, we have. You can come listen to us. You can find us anywhere. Yes, please do. I personally have been, I'm one of those people who really loves chatter in the background of like my everyday life. And most of the time it's an audio book or something.

But when I really need to like, I want to pay attention, but I also need to be focusing my mind on something else, like researching for the show or whatever else, I have been just filtering through all your bestie bonuses and just like. having you guys on all the time. I am so honored. Don't embarrass? No way that you listen to us talk like crazy forever because we are a very big banter heavy girl chatter podcast. So if that's not what you're into over here, we won't we won't force that upon you here. But if you do come over to our show, just be prepared. And I can't believe you could actually work while me and Morgan are just yap, yap, yap, yap, yav. No way.

Yeah, I just, I really enjoy it. And it's also not like a complete departure from Cassie and I, because obviously we have our moments and stuff, but we don't have that type of segment where it's just chit chatting. I mean, we do a lot of stuff on Patreon and stuff with live streams and things like that that are more laid back. We have book clubs where we can just kind of like shoot the shit. But to have a segment of the show totally dedicated to that, we don't. So I'm like, I need to go catch up with some. some other friends. And that's where I listened to you guys. That way, our TBB segments was something that we wanted to do for years. And everybody kept telling us, don't flood the feed. Don't do it. Don't do it. Well, we did it anyway. And everyone loves it and we love it. So if you're thinking about it, just pull the trigger and do it. And a great place for them to start is you guys are going to be coming on our TBB in the intermission between this episode releasing and the part two that'll be on our feed. So you guys are going to get to dip your toe into our crazy evil magic laboratory going on over there.

I'll be yapping with you guys. Yeah. And before we, I know, like keep not talking about yapping. Here we go. Can't stop. Just before we get into the trail tales for today, your main episodes, not the TBB, but your main episodes, do you guys do like one story or do you split stories or is it like a creep and a crime every?

main feed episode, like tell everyone what the layout is. So Morgan does every Thursday a creeps episode and I do a crimes episode. And we, there are sometimes where we link up or they're like a big case that I do. I end up having to pull her into it because I'm like, hey, queen, if you don't come in with me on this, it's not only going to be taking up four entire episodes. It'll take up 14. And before we know it, it'll be a year. Yes.

Those are my favorite text to get because I'm like, you mean I don't have to do my own notes? Or there's like a true crime case that sometimes has like a crazy conspiracy in it. And I pawn that conspiracy off to Morgan in a pretty little box under the guise of like, I'm not doing this as a true crime host. But my conspiracy friend, she can do whatever she wants and talk about whatever she wants legally because it's a conspiracy. So that's a really fun way that we do it too. but yes, every Thursday primarily is going to be a creeps and a crime episode. Cool. Awesome.

Can I ask, do you guys have any favorite conspiracies? Oh, man, don't get me started. Okay, wait, just to preface it, though, I feel like we do need to, like, say that we are not, like, huge conspiracy theorists. Like, majority of the time, we will discuss a lot of things and then sometimes we poke fun or, like, find the holes through them. We also like letting our minds go there. Like we'll take it there and just dip our toes in it and be like, okay, we all need to touch grass for a second. We're like, yeah, let's get back to reality. But that's one of our favorite things to do.

I think my favorite conspiracy theory is hollow earth. Oh. I know little to nothing about this. Do you? So it's basically that there is this, I don't want to sound like a crazy lunatic. This is the craziest one of my favorites. Admiral, I think his name was Admiral Nelson, Bird or Bird Nelson or something. He was a pilot in the United States Air Force.

And he was on some mission, like in Antarctica. I don't know what he was doing or like down towards South America. And he had this, he comes back from this mission. He has this big journal and it's filled with like his experience that he flew into this hole in Antarctica and landed inside the earth. and it had like just like this big glowing sun and there's these different kinds of people there. And he comes back and then the next like 15 years he's trying to tell a story. But he's like constantly getting discredited and like removing his titles and stuff like that. But yeah, no, it's basically a big theory that there isn't another earth through Antarctica, inside of us.

It's so funny that you say that because I came home. My husband is really into conspiracy YouTube videos. Oh, yes. And I can vividly remember walking into the living room watching him watch this conspiracy theory. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? And then we actually, on a group trip, we went to Antarctica last year. Oh, that's so fun.

Are we going to find this spot? So you went through the Drake Passage? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Was it bad or did you get like good? Oh, no. Oh, no. We got the worst weather of the entire season.

Guys, how did you make out alive? That's all I ever hear in my head when I think of the Drake passage. There's literally another person that wasn't even with our group. They just happened to be filming the dinner. Like when we're all like sitting for dinner, we're in over 30 foot swells. Everything is chained to the floor. But obviously like plates and dishes are going everywhere. and they happen to just be like panning around, they catch me at the perfect time.

I get flung from my chair. I get ejected from my seat. No, my gosh. No, that's my biggest fear being in the ocean like that. I don't, props to you guys. Yeah, I would love to go to dance in Dorka, but I'm going to need a flight there first. Yeah, no, it was. At night, you had to push yourself into the corner of a bed and hold on underneath.

So you would have to like strap yourself in with your arm so you wouldn't be thrown off of it because the boat would be rocking up and down and side to side. And you would literally get thrown off the side. I had to like wedge my leg into so I wouldn't roll over. I mean, was it? Literally meanwhile, me and Cassie are sitting side by side getting like work back and forth and up and down. And I'm trying to read the fucking butcher's blackbird like this. Oh, my Kindle. She had thrown that away at that point. It is out of the door. We're not reading that today. That is so funny.

But yeah, was it worth it? Yes, for sure. Oh, my gosh. It would be cool. I mean, there's only a select two people that have, you know, get to go to Antarctica. I mean, I truly think you guys, like, I respect the hell of your dedication to do the things that you love. I wish I had that much love and power to push through something. I would have jumped off the boat into the swells.

I just wouldn't have been able to answer that. That would have stressed. When you saw the swells you would not have. They were so scary to look at. They are calling me home. Like, I see Elsa, Mouan, like everyone's out there. I'm going in with them. I cannot be on this boat anymore.

I'm impending doom. Like my past life from the Titanic that I don't even know about would come out in like full blown panic mode. Seriously, that would so make me so stressed out. But damn, y'all, that's a great story. Y'all are going to be able to talk about that for the rest of your lives. Yeah, it was very memorable for sure. Reading your Kindle.

Me and Morty don't have anything like that. We've been hung over in the Las Vegas airport once and that was gone. And we thought there was a bomb threat. Oh, yeah. Was there? Yeah, well, they like made an announcement and they were like, please evacuate the airport. And so I'm like mid on the toilet. And I jump up.

I like pull my pants up. I come sprinting out. I mean, my heart is beating out of my chest. And I run right to Taylor, who's casually sitting there with their headphones and, you know, scrolling her phone or whatever, looking outside. I'm like, dude, like, we have to go. She was like, no, you didn't hear the second one. They just said, just kidding.

They literally came out. No, we're good. Just kidding. Yeah. False alarm. I did not hear that one. They did not share that one of the bathroom. But yeah, that's the majority of it.

We're not. We used to be outdoorsy girls, but we're sitting girls. We're sitting girls fair. Come hang with us. We'll change your life. Honestly, I would love to go on a hike with you guys. It would have to be a small one. It would have to be really, really small.

And like a lot of breaks where I can have like a granola bar and a little sippy poo and then keep going. But I used to be the president of my hiking club in high school. Outdoor seat. That's why I belong here. I knew we'd be best friends. A queen in our midst. You guys didn't know it? I had to force everyone to vote for me.

Take us on a hike. Yeah. We would be so lost. We'd have to call DWRA. Like, it would be so bad. We're ready for it. Let's get into the stories. Here we go.

Let's do it. Before this episode's four hours long. It will be. That's our magic power. Well, my first story that we have that our listeners wrote in is titled Close Call on the Cog Railway. which is exciting because that's in our home state in New Hampshire. I was going to ask, do you guys know where that's at or what that is? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we've ridden the cog. What is she? Written the cog, we've been on it. It's a train that goes all the way to the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, which is the tallest peak in New Hampshire and known for the worst weather in the world. And I think this was the first cog railway of its kind in the entire world. Is it kind of like the incline? The incline.

Yeah. Yes. One of those like Chattanooga. Yeah. On Lookout Mountain and Chattanooga, they have one. Oh, yeah, yeah. I haven't been on it, but I've heard of it. Do not go on that thing.

That's so funny, though, because we have an incline in Pittsburgh that goes up to Mount Washington. I wonder if that was like a play on what's happening in New Hampshire? Like, did they just feel that? I don't know. Anyway. All right. Well, their story says, hi Cassie and Danielle. I've been thinking of writing in for a while and your recent request for prank stories gave me the motivation I needed to send in this trail tale.

This story takes place last spring in White Mountain National Forest. I wanted to take advantage of an unseasonably warm March day to have a peaceful hike up Monroe and Washington before the auto road and summit Cog Station open for the season. And for people who don't know, Monroe is the neighboring peak of Mount Washington and you can hike over. to Mount Washington and the auto road is the road that you drive up to get to the summit of Mount Washington. Okay. Yeah, there's like kind of a thing in New Hampshire. You'll see a lot of people with stickers that says like this car climbed to Mount Washington,

but they just drove up it and a lot of hikers and stuff kind of look down on that. Oh, it's tea. I got it. That is tea. Honestly, you guys should do TVBs on this, like on the tea within the hiking, outdoorsy, climbing up a giant mountain world. Like, that's actual pipe and hot goss that you guys have on your hands. Truly. We know a lot. We have a lot of secrets. Ooh, uh, yeah. My day started at 3 a.m. with a pre-dawn drive from Boston to the Cog Railway parking lot. My plan was to take the

Aminoosic Trail up, tag Monroe, then go back across the ridge to the summit of Washington, and take the jewel trail back down to the parking lot. I've done that exact same thing. so I know exactly what you're talking about. The beginning of the trail was the classic white mountain conditions of sticky, wet snow with intermittent post holes. As many people know, the presidential range is famous for its wind weather. But this day was the polar opposite. As the sun came up, the temperatures quickly rose into the 50s with a refreshing gentle breeze.

Above tree line, the snow suddenly gave way to a bare wind-swept boulder field. I made my way up Monroe as the sun lit up the surrounding peaks. and then headed back towards Washington. The summit cone of Washington was completely bare and only had a handful of people. I tagged the sign like everyone does and hung around taking in the relatively warm weather. On the summit, I got to chatting with a few fellow hikers who came up the jewel trail and they admittedly recommended against it. Apparently, it was an absolute mess of hip-deep post holes and down trees and was just getting worse in the heat.

Instead, they recommended descending along the Cog Railway. I decided they were probably right, so I took their advice and started down the summit cone along the tracks. Very quickly, the snow depths started to increase again as I descended. Rather than putting on my snow shoes, I opted to turn lemons into lemonade and glissade my way down by boot skiing. This was fun as hell. However, I worked up quite a sweat.

I was down to my base layers in the beating sun and my sunglasses were perpetually getting dripped on by sweat. Eventually, I gave up bothering to even wipe them and just resigned myself to looking through the greasy sun screen streaks. I've been there. Same. I was the worst place to ever be. It's like, this is fine. I'm fine. I got into a rhythm and let myself just enjoy the moment.

About a mile from the end, I was suddenly snapped back to reality. I stopped dead in my tracks and my blood ran cold as I stared into the trees in front of me. There, on the edge of the trail, 15 feet from me was a moose. I had seen a few moose in the whites, but never this small. I know how big they can get, so my only logical conclusion was that this one was young. Now looking back, I definitely got my bear and moose wires crossed, rather than trying to get space between us, I went into make myself known mode. I got to work trying to spook this thing back into the trees like an idiot. I was doing everything I could to scare this little guy away. I started yelling

at the moose and clacking my poles overhead and it was not working. The moose just stood there looking at me, absolutely frozen. I kept shouting, hey moose, and flailing around like a car dealership, wacky tube man for the longest 30 seconds of my life. Oh my God. Perfect visual. Get out of the way, moose. Get out of here, booze. He's like, are you seducing me?

Like, what is happening? Like, are you dancing? Are we? Do I need to get some bills? Is this a courtship thing? What's happening? Plot twist, he starts wiggling back. Yeah, he stands on his back legs and his arms are up.

Then it dawned on. me, this moose is a little too still. I took my sweaty sunglasses off and took a few steps closer. To my disbelief in my sleep-deprived sweaty state, I was yelling at a fake target practice moose. Oh my gosh. After a second of dumbfounded silence, all I could muster was a quiet, it, what the fuck? Oh, I can picture this so good. It's the only response that I could muster if I was in this position. I just hope someone saw you doing this.

No, me too. I pray if you're out there and you saw this unfold, we need your perspective. Imagine this comes across our TikTok or like Reels algorithm here in a few days. It's like, saw this person standing out in the middle of the woods, dancing like a noodle. I don't really know what was happening. Then it clicked, I'm standing along the Cog Railway, one of the biggest tourist attractions in New Hampshire. Immediately I could picture the train. I imagined a tourist who never goes into nature, exclaiming that they see a moose in the woods.

The whole train would crane their necks at the chance of seeing a real moose, rushed to snapping pictures while the Cog staff giggle amongst themselves about their moosey secret. Hats off to the Cog Railway pranksters. I don't think I was your intended target, but you got me good. And yes, maybe moose just aren't real. Drew. So we have a joke. I don't know if it's a joke, actually. I would take it pretty seriously.

Yeah, that moose aren't real. And we say that because we have never born and raised in New England, and especially up in the whites, this area is just kind of like renowned for moose and moose are everywhere and be careful driving because you're going to hit a moose and we have yet to encounter a moose in new england we've seen them around the country and other places but we've just never seen them here so we're like they even exist like yeah that's so anyway hilarious we have one equally just like we know it's they're obviously real this exists but ours is that south dakota isn't real and that's because wait hold on okay Please continue, but we might get into a fight.

Okay, wait. So here's my thing. I'm born and raised in East Tennessee my entire life. I've never lived anywhere else. I've traveled everywhere else. I've gone a million places. And I have never, in my entire life, not once have I ever met someone from South Dakota. I've never seen a South Dakota license plate and all the places that I've ever been.

And so I'm my conspiracy theory that I came up with like years and years ago. at this point, I'm like sticking with it. Like, I will stand behind at one point. We did. We made merch on can. We have listeners. We have listeners write in and be like, hey, writing in from South Dakota, which is a real state, by the way? Like, they'll address us immediately for a sentence. I mean, so many people in South Dakota have come out of the woodworks to like absolutely back. And we exist. Like, we're here. Like, but my conspiracy theory is is that half of the state is used as like government laboratories, like the real area, Area 51 is in South Dakota. And there's like two little corners of South Dakota beside major highways that they have to have like a human population. So we think

that it's real. Obviously, that is not a real belief of mine. But that is like the fake story I've taken in my head. And I've tried to convince everyone of it. It's my version of birds aren't real as South Dakota is not real. Okay. And yours is moose aren't real. So I'm glad they can agree on one thing, about things not being real that we just stick with. Are there moose in South Dakota? No. Period. So there's no moose in South Dakota, so then they're both not real.

They're not real. Right. There's our overlap. There's our pen diagram coming together. Right there. Right there in the middle. You see it? Okay, me too.

Yeah. Yeah. We love South Dakota. Okay. So have you been? Yes. Is it real bad? then.

Did you guys go up to the mountains or what, like, what have you guys done there? We went to the Badlands, yeah. Yeah, it was one of my favorite parks that we've visited. It was super underrated. And I actually saved South Dakota as one of my last states because I was like, what's in South Dakota? It's not real. You know, like, why would I go to South Dakota?

And then I went there and I was like, why hasn't anyone told me about South Dakota before? It's all the front. There's just these weird little, like, towns. by the highway and yeah my brother studied geology and he did like a semester in south dakota also in the winter like it was brutal um and then his girlfriend at the time now wife went and visited him sometime around the spring and they were on the badlands and she tumbled down one of the mountains not a scratch on her but there's just like a video you can see like her trail coming down like the dust path and then she's just laying there and she's like ow gosh she was totally okay

It is all like a roaded rock that I guess you could just like slip in. She sure did. She slipped and slide right down that thing. Yeah, she sure did. Well, one day let's meet in South Dakota. I'll bring a moose. At the music launch. Great.

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That's why you rack. Okay, so this one is titled, I saw an effing, I saw an effing S-dub. And an S-dub or is a, I don't know if you guys say it over years. I feel like we said it once and people got really mad at us, so we try not to. It's a skin jogger. Yeah. Yes. Ash and Elena, call them flush pedestrians.

Yes. Flesh pedestrians. Yes. So S-dub, yes. And this is written in from one of our besties, which is what we call our listeners, from our Reddit page where we do a lot of like, we do every submission you can ever do is on a Reddit thread as well. And this is from user professional underscore year underscore 39. And they did tell us in their email that they are using she-heer pronouns. So it says, Hi, Besties. I heard your plea for creepy accounts for March. So here is mine. I also emailed

it for you if you want any more info. A little backstory. This story happened when I was an angsty teenager around 16. I would hang out with some not so great people in terms of their beliefs, etc. I was the crazy liberal friend, LMFAA. We would constantly drive around on school nights as we do in Iowa. Hi, Bessie from Iowa. I don't know if I've ever met anyone from Iowa. Maybe it's not real. Could be. I don't think I have either. Let's add that one to the list of not real things and places. We would constantly drive around on school nights as we do in Iowa, but none of us had good working vehicles. So it would always be my friend's parents' cars. We will call her D. D was my best friend at the time. A little over a year and a half younger than me, my sister's age, but I still loved hanging out with her.

For the sake of privacy, all names are fake. Now on to the story. It was late one night, probably around 11 p.m., when Dee, her boyfriend Colin, our friend David, another random person that I can't even remember, and I were all driving around. We were in Dee's dad's truck, a big Ford F-150. Real hick town of us. They said that. I didn't say that. Normally I was the driver, but because David was back in town, he, God forbid, David comes back in town.

Immediately he gets to sign the driver. Like, I hate that for you, David. Yeah, that's fun. The D.D. Driver David. Normally I was the driver, but because David was back in town, he was the driver of the truck. To give you a visual, David drove, the rando was in the passenger seat. I was sitting behind David on the driver's side, and Colin and D were next to me. As I said, we were driving around in the dead of night, specifically on a sketchy gravel road, a little ways away from my house, which is in a small neighborhood in the middle of nowhere country.

We were speeding fast, running the gravel road stop signs, and having a good time. Until the high beams caught a glimpse of someone or something, walking on the right side of the road. As we sped past them, we all stared and gawked. Did you guys see that? Someone had said. And yep, we all sure did. Just another reminder, we were miles away from any houses in the bum fuck of nowhere. And there was just some random person taking a nightly walk in the pitch black. We were trying to reason with why someone would be out for a walk, but we couldn't. No one could think of like a cousin walk. That wasn't on anyone's radar, guys. I could think of one reason. It was late August slash early September. It

was either hot as fuck or cold as fuck, which is so true for Tennessee. I didn't know the Iowa was in Tennessee. I told David that we needed to turn around because whoever it was could have gotten in an accident or been hurt. But we never saw any vehicles or really anything for the past few miles. We ended up turning around in a bumpy tractor entrance and started slowly driving to approach the thing. As we got closer, she came into view, a short, grayish-haired, stubby, chunky old lady. We pulled up, David pushing on the brakes because we turned around, she was now on my, oh, because we turned around, she was now on my side of the truck. I rolled down my window and said, hey, are you okay? The lady turned to face the truck and was about 10 feet away.

She just stared at me. sweat on her wrinkly forehead, mouth slightly open, either stuck like that or mouth breathing. I swear her eyes were a gray mixed with a glowing fucking red. She crept to the truck wobbling. Cripped? She crawling on the grounds only on her toes and fingers. I am freaking out. She also never described me with a wrinkly forehead.

Any of these descriptors, just so. clear should never be used to when speaking about me. Sweat on her wrinkly forehead. Okay, I'm going to get Botox immediately. Like, just stop talking. I'm embarrassed. Oh, God. So her eyes are gray mixed with a glowing fucking red.

She crept to the truck wobbling on her thick legs. I'm sorry. You are doing this woman dirty right now. Imagine this is someone's me ma'am. Like this is my grandma. This is literally my mama. So what is everyone talking about her like this right now? What is that?

Safe lives. That's right. And it sounded like she was saying something. What? Do you need me? What? Do you need help? I said again as she got closer.

I started to hear her clearer. At least I thought I did. It was like a low grumble, not human like. Almost like a sound someone would make if they had rabies, a low, deep gurgle like she was drooling. I could almost smell her. It smelled like she was rotting. Again, another descriptor to never use on me, genuinely, but I'm terrified. Okay, so she's rotting.

She's got wrinkly forehead. She smells horrible. She's gurgling and drooling. And our bestie that's writing this in says, David, go as I leaned out the other side of the truck trying to roll at my window. I was scared shitless of whatever that was. A mimic, an S-dub, a spirit. I don't fucking know. But that feeling that crept over me was worse than watching the conjuring for the first time.

We sped away, kicking up dirt beneath the tires, all screaming at the top of our lungs, not even believing what the hell we just saw. None of us even dared to look back. We just left that old lady or old thing in the dust. It was pretty hard to even breathe after that. We were all stunned yet kept driving. We decided to go to the highway, though. Fuck a gravel road. We even called David's dad, someone from the area and told him about it. We told him the name of the road that we were on and he told us a long story of a little girl who had died in a tractor accident and how people claim to see things, feel things, or even accidentally get hurt when driving through that dark part of the road. He might have been just messing with us. That story might not even have been connected to that old lady, but something just wasn't right or human about that night. Even my friend who did not believe in the paranormal knew that the piece of the puzzle was not fitting.

To this day, I have no clue what we saw. Yeah, I may be dramatic about my storytelling, but I truly do. The scriptants are crazy. You're me writing this. I may be dramatic about my storytelling, but I truly do think we saw an S-dub. There's no way that an old lady would be walking that late at night with no lights or houses in sight. Anyway, hope you read this on the pod. Love you, girls. Best to me.

Okay. Let me just say that if this is somebody's grandma with dementia and they, like, walked away from their house, like, I feel really, really bad. However, the fact that there's no houses in sight or lights or cars or cars. It's like, that was a little concerning. I don't love that. Don't love that. I don't know. And the fact she had red eyes.

That part. Gray and red. And a weekly forehead. Sweaty. Yeah. I mean, all the descriptors. So many descriptors. You crack me up, friend.

Whoever wrote that in, we love you. You're hilarious. You're welcome back anytime. You want to come right into a story. I love the descriptors. Thank you. And this, for the record, that wasn't the one that was supposed to be traumatizing. That's not, no, guys, no.

That's child's play. Child's play. Creeps over here. Okay. We don't dabble much in that world. Welcome to it, friends. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes.

Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all. day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic,

a deep end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer all day play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit Red Bull.com slash bright summer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. All right. Well, my story is titled Polter Mom.

Hi, Danielle and Cassie. My name is Carrie. Feel free to share. I found your podcast after starting my first full-time job at an architecture firm and quickly became a daily listener, even though true crime, nature, and spooky topics were very much not my thing. I've always loved travel documents. memories and history. Still, your podcast became part of my workday routine and I'd call my mom

every day to talk about the episodes. Ironically, everything I avoided was exactly what she loved the most. Her favorite episode was about the Hot Springs in Arkansas with the ghost and mob scene, a favorite destination for my parents. Oh, fun. I did that one. A long time ago. A while ago, yeah, that was cool. Like Al Capone and Hot Springs, Arkansas with all of the mobster lore that's going on over there. Yeah, have you guys been there? Oh, no. We've never been, but Al Capone, anything mobster is like my favorite thing on the planet. Like, that's my drug of choice. Well, you should go to Hot Springs because that was his Arlington Hotel. His stomping grounds over there. Maybe we will. And any excuse to get to a hot spring,

honestly. I really, really want, we've revisited that park a couple times for various reasons, but that park is really unique because it's super small and it's in a we just to preface we have not been there. We actually did a live during COVID when like moment house was a big thing for like live streaming live shows. We went to the Crescent Hotel and did a whole thing there. But we were just like just far enough away from Hot Springs National Park to not make it during that trip. But the park is really cool. It's really small. But of course there's tons of like mob and wilds. history like that, but the bathhouse role of how they like repurpose a lot of their old historic bathhouses are really cool. So if you're there, if you do have the time to go there,

I would totally encourage it. Oh, well, I'll be there for sure. Yeah, we'll be there. Okay. Back to the story. Around that time, my mom was battling stage four breast cancer. She fought for almost four years and never lost her determination, spunk or humor. She passed away in April and one of the first things I missed was calling her on my drive home. After a quiet few weeks, I wondered if there were new NPAD episodes, and when I started listening again, they brought more comfort than I ever expected. Danielle, your episodes about signs and grief especially meant so much to me. My mom was very spiritual, and she always told me that our sign was dragonflies,

something we'd associate with each other since I was young. Fast forward to May, my boyfriend, now fiancé, were apartment hunting. Even during my mom's final weeks, we had been looking together, dreaming about where I might live next. After she passed, I didn't want to move. Too much had changed already, and I couldn't imagine living somewhere she hadn't seen and loved to. Oh, God, totally feel that. Just when we were ready to give up, we stumbled upon in 1960s townhome that somehow checked every box, in budget, close to work, and available exactly when we needed it.

When we toured it, the owner turned out to be incredibly, warm and walked us through every renovation, memory, and quirk of the place. In the dining room, I saw a nail in the middle of the wall and casually asked what used to hang there. She said, oh, I used to hang a dragonfly there when I lived here 20 years ago. Oh. I immediately froze, turned to my boyfriend, and started to tear up. I couldn't believe it. After years of tenants, even a brief stint as an Airbnb, the nail was still there waiting for that exact moment. I'm usually pretty skeptic of mediums, but my mom saw one that predicted her death to the month and year. So I thought, why not? I asked that same medium if my mom had anything to say about the move. She said,

you have her full blessing. She loves you, and she's haunting all of us. We've lived here going on two years now, and I love it. I see dragonflies constantly, and any time something strange happens, light flickering, weird sounds, etc. My family calls it a polter mom. like a polter guys. Oh, that's so good. I love that. It makes us laugh and reminds us she's still with us. Danielle, maybe you have a polter Ian or a polter dad as well.

I've attached photos of the Dragonfly and my mom in Hot Springs, Arkansas, climbing a staircase with her oxygen backpack. I told you she was determined. Thank you for making such an amazing podcast. You make me brave enough to go on my first ever hiking trip to Sedona and Grand Canyon last year, and I loved every minute of it. all the best, Carrie. Oh, I'm going to cry.

That was such a beautiful story. Thank you guys for letting us be apart and hear that one too because, wow, that was such a powerful, beautiful story. That the dragon fly on the nail? You're kidding. I would have flown through the wall. After 20 years. Polter mom, I love to.

Yes, guys, I think that you and your family, Carrie, right? Yeah. Carrie, I think that you and your family need to, like, make a logo for Poulter Mom with a like dragonfly on the back of it and you guys put some merch out. Like truly that is such a great. I love that you guys wear it to family reunions on her birthday, all the things. That is such a Yeah. That would be so nice. Yeah. We're big. So we selected these stories. We usually sprinkle in sign stories here and there. At first when my partner passed away, it was like kind of full-fledged. I kind of went balls to the wall. Because I am usually the person who chooses the tree.

trail tales a lot of the times. And so I was like cheating the system a little bit. I'm like, oh, what? Another science story? That's crazy. How'd that get in here? I have no idea. But yeah, so we sprinkle them in and we know that you guys have like a resident medium that you work with. We do. We are big. Tell us. Everything. So me and Morgan are very, very spiritual people. Like that's kind of how we even got to the place that we are with the podcast. It was one of the bigger things that happened. We don't talk about the like the real origin story of it publicly. Yeah, because we don't ever want to speak that back into existence what happened.

But me and Morgan over the years have always been like very spiritual people. We've always had like signs and all the things. And when we, one of the things that helped us start the podcast was that I had a medium that I saw and her name is Susan and she became like one of our best friends. She comes on the podcast all the time. we love having her on. She genuinely has like changed our lives and changes so many people's lives when she gets to do readings with them. She is so, she's a angelic psychic medium. So that means she only works within white light, which we would never ever recommend anything further

than that, only because that's our expertise in anything in our experience, anything beyond that we don't have any like comments on because we've never experienced it ourselves. But she's very protective about and careful about when giving you a reading, like telling you the things that you are ready for and also listening to your higher self when they're like, that's enough. She's going to lose it. Yeah, don't blurt that one out. Yes. And she, I recently went through a really horrible loss on my end.

I lost my son. I was 20 weeks pregnant with him. And I found out I have incompetent cervix. And we talked about it in depth on the podcast that, um, I had him on October 15th. And so it just like kicked off this entire new grief journey for me. I actually got so many beautiful DMs about you guys after and coming over to your show and like just feeling like there was a community within people that have podcasted and gone through something like that and being able to come back onto it. Because that was a harder part too.

But Susan, when she gets with me and Morgan, she's just, yeah, she'll tell us everything, you know. And we've told her you can tell us anything. But she does even such a good job with someone who she's very comfortable with me. Like there's things too where I'm like, hey, I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready yet. I'm not yet ready yet. And she like, she does so well. And we only recommend her because we've experienced her and she's phenomenal. But if anybody would like a reading with her, she is our girl. We can give you guys her information because if you guys ever want to do one, She's phenomenal. She's the best.

Amazing. I had a medium tell me once that I'm a medium junkie. She's like, I hear you're a medium junkie. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I've been to. I'll be talking to everybody. Yeah. Because it's like, you know, as much as I believe and, you know, like I will die on that

hill that I am a believer in life beyond physical death, whatever that means. And I still, though, like, it's like, okay, I don't want, I want to go to other people to make sure I'm getting kind of like the same threat of information. Like, I don't want to keep coming back to you because even though I do, sometimes I have two people in particular I really like going to. Yes. That like know me now as a person. But especially early on when I'm like, I'm really seeking this information. I'm latching on to it. I don't want to just take their word for it. I want to see if all these other people are also saying the same information because then it feels more validating and like real. So I went on a rampage. Like I saw so many psychics and mediums, not so much psychic stuff. It's not like I really want to know psychic information. It's more of connecting with my loved ones. But yeah, so for a long time, I was like here, there and everywhere in the medium world.

Yes. Happily connect with her. Yes. You should check her out. She's like our girl that we keep. I had seen like multiple other mediums, but I decided that I, me and her, I felt the most comfortable like letting my gates open for her.

And so one of the benefits that we get from going to the same medium is that we allow her to go deeper to places that we would never let other people. So we've done past life regressions with her. We've done. I mean, anything woo-woo that could ever be done, me and Morgan have done that thing. love doing like hypnosis everything have you done akashic records no no we have not and i'm scared next do it next that's like one of the things i've been wanting to build up my ex the thing that i'm not

going to overrule with my talking yeah as much as we get on these mics and like say all this shit we're scurdy girls we're scurdy cats of everything including like what's within ourselves Yes. We've really tiptoe around with that kind of thing. Like the other night we had something happen with this and we acted like it never happened. We literally were like. Oh, like the neon thing sign? Yeah.

It just, she, I just keep watching my back while we're recording. So, yeah. We'll let you know if anything happened. Yeah, please do. I'm like really scared of what's happening behind me actually. I've been watching like the creeps and right above my head the entire time. Okay. Who's next?

It's me. Morgan with the big one. So this one is titled The Cabin in the Smokies. And this is written in by Caitlin using she her pronouns. And it says, and this is from 2021. Lovely, lovely ladies. My name is Caitlin. You can totally use it. I just found your podcast through TikTok and I am binging the heck out of it. You might be done begging for stories by the time you get this email five years later. We're still begging. But it's always, but it's always been the weirdest, most terrifying thing to happen to me. So I just had to share it with you. My husband, Jamie and I met in early 2014 after online dating for a few months. Immediately, we hit it off and he moved in with me only after a few dates. He's an over-the-road truck driver and was living 45 minutes away at the time, and it didn't make sense to keep both home since all his home time was now with me. We live in northeastern Tennessee about two hours away from the super touristy home of Dolly Parton, Pigeon, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Oh, don't get me started.

Danielle, just a sense of your subject. Yeah, wait, we're with you. We are on your side 100%. I didn't know. You got, yeah. You just came here blind. A legit national park and you came into a tourist trap? You came into a county fair on steroids.

It's like a Willy Wonka ass. Yeah. With the scariest people you've ever been around in your entire life. It wasn't even, I think I was still just in shot. I don't know. I really. It's a culture shock. Yeah, it is.

I've just never experienced anything like that. And of course, yeah, going in blind. Well, long story short, I went down there for one specific reason. I went there for my birthday to go to the Titanic Museum because I'm obsessed with the Titanic. It's my Roman Empire. Stick your hand in the water. Yeah, the whole thing. Well, the year before I went all the way, I went to Ireland to go to the Titanic Museum in Ireland. I've been there. I've been there. Yeah. It's amazing. So I was like, well, I'm kind of burnt out on like big travel. So I'll just like go to Tennessee. And then a couple people were like, I told them and they were like, huh, okay. And I was just like, yeah, whatever. I just like love the Titanic. I don't know what you're like weirded out about.

Yeah, I figured out real quick as soon as I got there. It was alarming. But anyway. Did you live or die on your Titanic in the museum? Oh, died. Yeah. I died too. Rest of these.

Maybe one day. Sorry. If I ever go back. Okay. But don't get me wrong. We love it there. We decided pretty early. on in our relationship that we would try to get away to one of the many rental cabins in the

Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg area as often as we could. The first place we stayed for was it for us, a tiny one-bedroom cabin with a hot tub set just outside of Wears Valley. We knew instantly that this is where we would always return every time we wanted to get away. But unfortunately, the second time we went to book it, it was completely booked for months out, so we had to find a different location. Damn it. Big mistake. We found another seemingly quink. cabin with a different company that looked to have everything our other cabin featured, one bedroom, hot tub, et cetera. So we decided to book it online and we should have known better than to try and stay

there by what happened next. Later on that same day, we received a phone call from a blocked number. It was a woman who stated she was a booking agent with the cabin company. My husband asked if there is a problem with our reservation. His cards declined all the time because he's all over the US using them and it often looks like fraud. And she said no, but wanted to know if we were totally sure that we wanted that cabin. Confused, my husband cross-referenced the name of the cabin with her and assured her that that was the cabin that we had chosen. She then asked if we had ever stayed in that cabin before and we told her no, that we had

never even used their company before. My husband asked if there was an issue with the cabin and we got the awkward, oh, no, no, no, no, no, everything's fine. She then reminded us that they did not have a refund policy if we chose to leave early. Weird, but okay. And we let it go and moved on. So many red flags in this. lady. I know. So many red flags. She needs to be fired from her position at this company because there is

no way that she's doing good marketing for them. Yeah. It's like there's no, no, no, there's nothing wrong with this cabin. But just so you know, there's absolutely no refund under any circumstances. And you're sure, right? You're sure that this is the one you want. This is the right one. It's like, you really want to stay here? Have you ever stayed here before? No, girl, I'm not sure anymore. Our trip was a little over a month away. And by the time it arrived, we had long forgotten and about the weird phone call. We received an email with instructions to our cabin in our unlock code since most cabins have keypad, keyless entries.

The problem with looking at cabins online is that you only see the cabin itself in the inside and not the surrounding property. When we approached our rental, we were shocked to see it looming high on the mountain side with an incredibly sharp behemoth of a driveway to get to it. My husband drove a large GMC truck, and the driveway was so difficult to maneuver

that in order to go around the curves in the corners, I had to get out and tell him how far he could back up and pull forward as he made what felt like a 72 point turn. The sun had set behind the mountain, so even though it was only around 4.30 in the afternoon, the cabin in the road were shrouded in darkness. There was only a small red-bulbed porch light which gave the cabin an ominous feeling. It literally felt as though the small rustic cabin was a large doom and gloom castle leering over us, daring us to go in. We finally made it to the front of the cabin, and when we came to the stop, we both just sat there, in the truck, unmoving, and stared at it. My husband has always been sensitive, but chooses to ignore it as much as possible. He says, quietly, I don't want to sleep here.

I look over at him, and he's staring at the front window. I asked him why, but he shakes his head and proceeds to get out of the truck and starts moving our bags to the door. Okay, pause. If Aaron looked at me inside, I don't want to stay here, and I'm like, okay, why? And he's, like, getting out and unloading the car, I'd cry. I would crash out. I think it'd be like a two-fold reaction. It's like, no, you're going to tell me why before we move or I'm running out the door

like in front of him. Like there's no in between of how I'm going to react in that moment. But also me having to get out and tell him where to drive would have quite literally put us both off the edge of that cliff. The way that we would have gotten an argument about the 75-foot turn, that would have drove me crazy. I literally would have been like, we need to leave. This is what she was talking about.

We need to go. We put in our code in the door and we hear the beep, beep, beep, beep, from our four-digit number and then the light turns green. We hear the deadbolt click over and we go inside. The first thing we notice is that it's cold. It's the smoky mountains in April. So, yeah, it's generally on the colder side of the year, but not this cold. The cabin is literally, see your breath, kind of cold. We immediately flipped on all of the lights in the place, found the thermostat, cranked up the heat,

and then we did the standard walkthrough of the space and looked at everything, turning on the lights as we went, and the next thing we noticed was that despite having nearly every light on, the cabin was dark. Corners on the bedroom and living room were still somehow left completely unlit. Normally on our getaways, we booked the cabin for one thing and one thing only. I'm sure most people understand what I mean, but we had no desire to be together here. Neither of us tried to start anything while we put our items away. We quickly agreed to go out to dinner instead of cooking the food that we had brought with us and we would only come back to sleep and then we would spend the whole next day away from the cabin out in town. For anyone who hasn't been to Gatlinburg,

it's also a bear country, like big time. It's the kind of place where if you leave your car unlocked, you're going to come back to find a black bear in it. But we know this, so my husband always brings a gun with us just in case. It always stays by the door and we usually never need it. But when we arrived home late from eating and walking the strip, I noticed him grabbed the gun and put it next to his table by the bed. I remember making a crack about how useful a gun was going be against a ghost. We didn't sleep that night. Literally couldn't. It wasn't that there were noises or whispers, but just this constant feeling of being watched. That's worse. I told my husband, while getting ready, that I didn't even feel comfortable getting undressed for bed.

We both ended up sleeping in our jeans, refusing to change or shower. Y'all committed to not get undressed. And I'm going to sleep. Just my jeans? Straight in the jeans. Socks and jeans? Oh my God. I'll never go to see. That's when you know it's bad. That's what you know it's bad. I think I've done that one time in my life. And I think it's because I was blacked out and didn't even know. We couldn't get him off. They were skinny jeans. They were just too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. High waisted skinny jeans. Good luck. Exactly. When I faced him in bed, I could feel eyes burning into my back. And when we tried to spoon, it felt like a weighted blanket had been thrown over us from head to toe. My husband finally

admitted that. That's nice though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My husband finally admitted that he could feel a very angry presence there. He said it felt like an older gentleman, upset about the constant stream of people coming in and out of his home. We left the lights on and agreed to wait until morning before we left, not wanting to deal with the driveway in the dark again. Right. The sun was barely up before we were throwing our clothes and personal items into our suitcases. We stacked them in the kitchen by the door before returning to strip the bed and double check for any left behind items. I carried my phone charger back out into the kitchen and was tucking it into my pocketbook while my husband was watching me. I stood up when he remembered the gun by the bedside table. I then walked

with him to the bedroom door and waited for him when I felt a whoosh of cold air blow against the back of my head. My hair moved. I felt it and my husband saw it. Exhausted, nerves fried and terrified, I screamed, stop it. We're leaving already. Can't you see that we're leaving? And that's when we heard it. The sound that still to this day haunts my nightmares. Beep, beep, beep. Beep, beep, the electric keypad. We froze, me in the living room, him in the bedroom, only the doorframe between us, staring at each other. We heard the sound of the deadbolt click over from locked to unlocked, recognized the squeak of the door as it swung open and the bang from it hitting the kitchen counter. My husband immediately racked the shotgun and surged past me, fully expecting to round the corner and see a bear making its way into the cabin.

But there was nothing. just a wide open kitchen door. Wait, hold on. They thought a bear. Wait. Don't the bear with its claw. You think I come in a like one, two, three, four. Round, go.

Count. Honestly, they're so like that. I've seen bears do crazier shit. Like in Gatlinburg, the bear is there or so, I don't know what the word I'm wanting to use here. They're habituated. Yes. Yeah. I wouldn't even doubt it that they can pick up a cell phone and dial somebody. Y'all, my sister-in-law and her husband got married up and so they got married like on the edge of the National Park because I don't know what the laws are, but there was a law or something. And we, it was just like really small. And we drove home, did the reception and we're unpacking all the leftover like cake and food that we had and taking it upstairs.

and there's like a line of 20 people, you know, going up the stairs, going back to the car. We come back and my husband's grandmother sitting in the passenger seat of the car, the trunk's open, there's a bear sitting in the back of the trunk eating the wedding cake. I'm not joking. I swear with on everything, that is exactly what happened at my sister-in-law's wedding. Thank God the wedding was over, so it was the leftover, so I'm not going to get to have it on their one year. But, like, these bears are crazy. I was going to say if I had my wedding cake and I had just bought it and the wedding hadn't happened yet and I saw a bear, I would go after it.

I would go into that wedding cake. Like, you know how much effort I put into this? Yeah. Like, you are not ruining this. Do you know how many tastings I sat through and you just did this to my cake? Like, are you joking? How dare you? I didn't even taste the buttercream.

Oh my God. Wait, and also one other question. This guy has a shotgun. It's not a handgun. That's what I was confused too. So, because, yeah, now it's, I'm racking the shotgun. But I think at the very beginning they said handgun. Yeah.

But they did say that he normally leaves it leaned up against the front door, not bringing it to dead. So maybe they just said gun at the beginning. Yeah, is shotgun or something like that. That's heavy duty. So husband racks up the shotgun and he runs past. passed her, but there was nothing there, just a wide open door. Keeping the gun in his shoulder, I watched him quietly moved to the door out of it and watched him search around outside, and I stayed where I was. What felt like eternity passed before he came barging back in, yelling at me

to get the bags. We each grabbed as many as we could, refusing to make a second trip and threw them into the truck. He slammed the door behind us, and we heard the deadbolt click back over again, from unlocked to locked. I looked at his hand, poised, just above the button with the key emblem on it to lock the door. I didn't touch it, he said. Who gives a shit? I said, let's go. We scrambled into the vehicle and he nearly floored it down the driveway. I still have no idea how he didn't crash or go off the side of the road while going down the driveway, but we made it to the bottom and we didn't look back. But that's not the end. Here comes the kicker. We were paid in full for four nights, almost $1,000 and barely made it one night.

My husband went to call the booking agent back before remembering that it was a blocked call. no return number. We made it home safely, and after a few hours, he shot off an email to the company's customer service and left a scathing review of the cabin on its page. He explained everything, the menacing look at the place, the feeling, the door, even the weird phone call. We knew we weren't getting a refund, but we were going to stop anyone else from staying there. The next day, my husband receives an email from the company apologizing for our troubles, and they gave us a full refund for all four nights and comped us another four nights stay at a different cabin of our choosing. No, thanks.

My husband was livid because they had also removed his review. He asked him why we were getting a refund when the booking agent told him over the phone that it was against policy and to tell them to shove the additional free stay up their asses. It gives me shivers when I think about their response. They stated that they understood if we didn't want to use their company anymore, but that they didn't have phone agents. And there was absolutely no way someone from the company contacted us as every aspect of the company was handled online and through email. We still have yet to make sense of who called us and why, and no, we have never returned. We continue to stay at our first cabin multiple times a year up until COVID hit and the owner sold it. We are now too scared to book anything else and haven't stayed in a cabin there since.

Being as sensitive, my husband has always been involved with the paranormal and as much as he hates it. I usually tend to bring out that side of him since I'm a believer. Please feel free to trim it down, but I would love to hear you read on the show. I hope you guys are staying safe, healthy. Look forward to 100 more episodes. All the love and spookiness, Caitlin. That gave me actually. chills. I forgot about the ending. I forgot about the ending too. I forgot about that. I remember the

beep, beep, beep. Because I remember that. I forgot about the ending. I hate that. So like it feels to me like it's someone that like was living. Like that wasn't the spirit. That was in the house that called them. I think it was like someone else that had dealt with the spirit like in the past maybe. And I don't think they're like alive. I think it was a spirit. But it wasn't like the menacing old man or who like trying to warn. Exactly. Yeah. About it. Could have been mimicking a worker to trying to get you to not come, like, because it doesn't want you there. Remember it was like, don't worry, we're leaving.

Okay, good. The door's unlocked. Yeah, literally one, two, three, four pound. There's a door bitch. Like, there's the door bitch. Showing you out. Yeah. It's like, especially because it happened right after she was like, we're getting out of here,

we're leaving. And it was like, yeah, you are. And whip the door open. Oh, my God. That's an angry spirit. I really do. I've had a couple of like paranormal things happen and I always feel like I want more, but that's too much. I know. Yeah. That's just too much. Where we got to call it, you know. Yeah. Scary. Hate that. Hate that for you, Caitlin. Glad to hear it the second time. Oh my God. It was so good. It felt like I was young again.

Felt young again. Brings me back. Well, my next story is titled, Was I abducted or just delusional? I can't wait. I'm very curious because I don't know how you confused being abducted or not. I guess abducted by aliens. Abducted by aliens could be confusing. Okay.

At first I was thinking abducted by a person and I was like, I feel like you would know. I hope we're leaning towards the alien track. Yes. Same. Hello, ladies. I have been listening to your wonderful pod for about two years now, ever since a coworker put an episode on one day to help us pass a very tedious afternoon shredding mushrooms. Don't ask.

I think I have fungi PTSD now. Shredding. Shredding them. Yeah. Like at the job. Not eating that. Like at first, I was like psychedelics, but it sounds like they're just cutting up mushrooms. No, yeah.

First I was saying like shredding, like shredding the slopes. Like you're like, I thought that was like slaying. I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe maybe they're a chef and they were just chopping up, shredding up. They did say don't ask. Okay, we're not going. We're just going to speculate. I have so many questions, though. Anyway, suffice to say, I was hooked from the first listen and your stories, as well as your laughter and authenticity, have become a very appreciated staple for long drives

and long work days ever since. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'll begin by confessing that this story does not take place in a national park or even out in nature, but as I know, you both love a good paranormal or alien leaning tale. Yes. I thought there'd be no better people to share it with than you and all the other discerning NPAD listeners out there. I'll let you all be the jury on this weird 100% true and decades spanning mystery. Well, you got a four-person jury now. Let me tell you something. I was born for this. Let's go. Note that I'd love to share my real name, but I'm not entirely sure that'd be wise, all things considered. So for purposes of anonymity, let's call me Ellen.

Okay, Ellen. Okay, Ellen, pop off, Ellen. The year was 1992. I was 23 years old and working as an assistant manager at a bookstore. I was single, kind of a nerdy loner, and living by myself in my own little apartment. It was definitely not an exciting life, but I was happy enough with it. And looking back, how amazing it was that I could afford my own little one-bedroom flat on a retail clerk paycheck, how times have changed.

One night I awoke, or did I, suddenly from a very deep sleep lying on my back in seemingly suffering from sleep paralysis as I was unable to move at all besides my eyes. The worst. I sleep paralysis, have either of you experienced sleep paralysis? It's so scary. to me. Have you ever had it? No, I haven't either. I've had it since I was a kid. Every now and again, like at least once a year for sure. But I've only ever had it one time. And it was after we did something we shouldn't have done in the house. And I didn't cleanse the house after we did it. And I had it.

Oh no. Horrible. And but we, I mean, my husband, he did it behind mine and Morgan's back while me and and Morgan were doing a scary case. He turned on a show that or a movie that I had. I don't allow to be watching my house. And I got attacked. Oh, no. Yeah. Sleep paralysis is nothing to fuck with. No.

Yeah. Have you guys done any episodes on sleep paralysis? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. How old was it? It was like in a single digits. It was at the very beginning.

However, we definitely, like, we come back to it often. Yeah. A lot of our creepy accounts deal with sleep paralysis from our listeners. Okay. Very interesting. because I have to not, I'm not going to get super into it, but two things that I'm like, I'm just very interested in the sleep paralysis world, although I have never experienced it myself. I have two.

So my dad and my partner passed away, but shortly before each of them independently passed away from one another years apart. They both had sleep paralysis experiences, very memorable ones, like very shortly before their deaths. Whoa. Scary. Interesting. Scary.

That is interesting. We'll talk more. Yeah. Because I have questions about that. Me too. Okay. Well, moving forward in the story, they said, I was filled with terror. The room was dark, so moving the space around my bed with my eyes revealed nothing.

But I remember a decidedly horrifying feeling that I was not alone. Then everything went black. The next thing I was aware of was being reclined in what felt like a dentist's chair. I still could not move. Oh my God. Strangely, I was no longer terrified, but rather just oddly detached. The space around me that I could see with my mobile eyeballs was a uniform matte gray color with no light sources visible. About five feet in front of my face suspended from an unseen ceiling was what looked like a flat screen TV.

I could see myself on that screen, particularly the left side of my neck. There were two white tubes, the thickness of a pencil and about three inches long, each extending out of my neck, one capped off with a red marble-sized ball, and the other capped off with a blue one of the same size. Then everything went dark again, and I was told, without audible words, so telepathy, I guess, that a procedure was about to begin and to not be afraid. My vision returned, as if I was a medical student observing my own operation, I saw, but thankfully did not feel, the round margin of my left cornea being cut with a fine scapple and peeled back and a shiny tool that looked like long, thin forceps pushing into the opening into my inner eye,

depositing what looked like a dark gray lentil-sized pellet within. I saw the foreseps retract and my cornea being reattached. I should note that, Not once did I ever see what or who was using the instruments. After my eye was finished, I felt something akin to having a heavy bowling ball placed over my lower abdomen for a few seconds, then darkness again. I awoke the next morning in my bed as if it was just another day. Of course, it was just another day, right? But what a crazy dream I'd had, I thought to myself. A dream so vivid and intense that my left eye was even a bit red and irritated,

which I figured was because I'd been rubbing it in my sleep. Being an Occam's razor kind of girl, it was the most logical answer, right? A few hours later, I was at work and telling my boss, who was also a good friend about my crazy dream. She, being far more woo-woo than me at this point in my life, looked at me across the table of discounted books and said, with much gravity, are you sure it was a dream? I mean, what you've just described sounds like you were abducted by aliens. I agree. That'll take you a back. I agree. Pretty quick. Yeah. I feel like a lot of alien accounts

you're being tested and operated on and people talk about just kind of being experimented on. The detail, though, that this listener remembers is vivid. It's very vivid. And usually that's not the case. Yeah. It's like very foggy. And then a lot of people will have to do like hypnosis to try to recall what had happened. So I wonder if that came like over time or if they like woke up and remembered everything. Yeah, because I feel like a lot of accounts I've heard is they remember being on a table and then they remember being back in there. And then they're back in their spot. Like it's very disjointed. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know what to do with that question. I was an open minded young woman but had never spent much time pondering such stories or consuming literature or media

about aliens or being kidnapped by them. It was just a dream, surely just a dream. Well, the rest of my life just bumbled along after this as lives tend to do. I met the man I'd go on to marry a few months later. Jobs and adventures came and went. I became a mom, lost my parents, suffered through a divorce, and then amazingly met my soulmate. And through it all, over the span of some 30 years, I'd have at least seven eye exams. The first few exams after the dream, I jokingly asked the optometrist, so you see my alien implant in there? And always, I'd be met with an unamused silence, which I attributed to the weirdness of my question, and the doctor probably thinking, I'm not paid enough for this. It's like, just let me look at your eye. No, there's not an alien implant in there. That is something

that out we go to the same doctor taylor and i do and he's just like so you start our shenanigans that we'd come in there with like we would go in with something like this and he'd be like really open your eye let me see he's like all right let me look at it you cry i'll check it out i need a call taylor tell her to come in and look at her eye too and he knows i sit you with your printed off google sheet of everything to remind you to bring up to him because every time we go through the doctor i'm like don't forget that you need to tell him about this thing that happened the other day and she's like okay That's so nice. It printed Google.

One time she's met me in the parking lot with seven pages printed out of things that we had discussed just like over time. And I- That's my girl. I just handed it to him and he's like, this looks like Taylor. I'm like, yeah. Yep. It is. The last few exams I gave up on asking my silly questions, not wanting to get that scathing luck.

I feel like that's a fair question after your experience. I do, too. In September of this year, my husband and I moved downsizing like crazy to transition from a three-bedroom house in the burbs to a tiny awkward cabin in the woods. In the flurry, I lost my vision glasses. As my prescription was expired anyway, a new exam was in order. Said exam was scheduled and was going just fine. I didn't ask the cringy question, didn't even think about it. The doctor finished and brought up images of the interior of my eyes commenting,

on how healthy my macula was looking. You've got great circulation and it all looks really good, but I'm curious. See this back here? She asked pointing out a small dark shadow among the spidery capillaries in my left eye. It appears to be a scar. Have you ever sustained an injury to your eye that would cause this? Having completely forgotten about my abduction dream, I answered honestly, no, I've never had anything worse happen than an eyelash fallen or briefly lose a contact.

I said puzzled at what the cause of the scar might be. It wasn't until I was driving home that it hit me like a ton of bricks. Holy shit. Did I just get confirmation that there really is or was something in my left eye after all these years? Needless to say, it's still really weirding me out. So that's my story. Really curious what you guys think. Did I get haunted except by the little gray dudes instead of a ghost?

And I was wondering if eye doctors are required to swear an oath before they graduate that they will dutifully report any bits of tech they see in people's eyes. That might explain why they were always so humorless about my alien implant. They're mandatory reporters. They're like, man, what impan? We see nothing here. Yeah. We see nothing as they send it to the FBI.

Or wait, how do you say them? Optomologists. Is that it? Optimologists are really the men in black in the doctor world. They are. They're like, zoop. Took it away. No one would suspect.

Delete your memories. Yeah. Maybe me and my scar have been on some weird watch list for decades. Well, thanks for reading. And remember, enjoy the view, but watch your back, even when you're sound asleep in your own bed, because maybe dreams aren't always just a dream. I love that. Let me tell you, 100% take this to Reddit, our adopted bestie because we're here with your residential friends.

So we are going to recommend right now you take this to Reddit because there are entire Reddit communities. There's one specifically that Morgan Covered a Case on out of like the Stonehenge area where these people share the craziest stories like this where they can remember more. And I wonder if the reason why this person remembers every detail is because what if there's a camera? We're getting really crazy. Everyone hang on. Oh, wow. Buckle in. Buckle in.

What if that was a camera that's attached to their brain? And so that's why they can remember every detail from above their body. Remember, that's what they said, that I could see everything from like a different, like a third party situation. Interesting. And they could never see that person because they were looking through the eyes of another person. Whatever that dot is. That's fucking crazy. thinking of like because the ophthalmologists noted like oh you're this eye is like doing really

well it's doing really well it's really healthy but what is this back here oh I feel like it's some advanced tech that's like repaired something some sort of like enhancement and yeah yeah yeah that's a good that's a good thanks thank you for reading for sharing that with us that's a good that's a good one loved every second that's a really good one yeah wow plot twist it's a chip. Norrelink or whatever. And I love also that Ellen, you know, she's like, so this happened in 1992. Ellen will never forget.

No. And then this development happened last year. It's like this has been the longest unfolding. Yeah. I think something happened. I think aliens are involved in this. Yeah, for sure. I do think you are.

And I think we need to put our in the witness protection program. Like, yeah, for real. Eye doctors are. Yeah, like this person's on to you now, Ellen. Yeah, I see why you used a fake name. I would too, Ellen. The aliens are listening. They are.

It's just so interesting because it's like I feel like if they were to do that, they'd be like coming back in to check in of like how things are going. Maybe they don't have to because they can see. They normally do. But they normally do come back and check in like the places I was telling you about near Stonehenge, they would get multiple visits. But the fact that it's like a scar, like there was a surgery done, it's like you don't remember when they came and collected whatever is left.

Like what if they were saying the technology? That was like your last visit. Like maybe as a child, like they were coming in and out. And they had taken it out that last time. So that was them returning. That was the return visit. Yeah. We're sending Ellen down a spiral.

Sorry, Bestie. Sorry, babe. Ellen, I'm going to be spiraling with you probably for return. I get this for the rest of my life. Just so we're clear, Ellen. Okay, so this last one is titled Statue Man and a Thirsty Campsite Ghost. This is from Miranda using she-her pronouns. Hello, besties, fellow UTK alum here, Go Big Orange.

Let me say I'm obsessed with you guys. I came over from and that's why we drink and I have been binging every episode that you have put out ever since. I have two little mini creepy accounts about my camping slash hiking adventures around the exceptionally creepy, in my opinion, Tennessee wilderness. So here we go. The first thing happened when my boyfriend at the time and I were hiking in Middle Tennessee. We had the trails to ourselves and really didn't encounter anyone that day. Still, he decided nature was calling. I insisted that we go a ways off the trail for him to pee. So we walked about 40 to 50 feet into the woods where to our shock,

we saw a man, standing still as a statue, facing the other way. We both stood frozen for a second, really just shocked to see anyone at all, much less this far off the trail. We looked at each other as if trying to decide whether or not we should just get out of there or make our presence known. My boyfriend decided to call out to the guy so as not to startle him. The man still did not move. He was completely still, it's the moose from the cog or whatever it was. The statue or the what was it? Moose target practice. The target moose. We waited a minute and my boyfriend called out to him again. Still, no movement at all. We looked at each other and I think it hit us at the same that something was not right here at all. We took off running back to the trail and didn't look

back. I still have no clue what to think about that day or what that man was doing 10 plus years later. It still gives me chills to think about it. The other happened the first week after our freshman year ended. So when I say we were broke college kids, I mean we were broke. We drove out to a a lakeside campsite in the middle of nowhere outside of Cookville. Cookville's like where Tennessee Tech University is for anyone who doesn't know. And it's about not really the halfway point. It's closer to Nashville between Knoxville and Nashville. There's a lot of good trails there.

Actually, I don't know if you guys have ever been over there. A lot of waterfalls. Yeah. And good lakes and like long, flat, you can go forever. And then they have some that are super hilly. I really like it over there, actually. When we arrived there, we had not a dollar to our names in less than an eighth of a tank of gas. Our plan was to stay until payday.

What I don't think we thought about ahead of time is that being that it was 2012, our phones had absolutely no service at all. So no music, no calls, no text, no nothing. On top of that, we were the only people at the campsite. Needless to say, with no money, no gas, no service, and no witnesses, I was certain. I was going to die on that camping trip one way or another. One late, late night when we were sitting at the campfire in the silence of total isolation with no music or any other sound pollution, the sound of pouring water came suddenly out of nowhere. We were so confused and began looking around for the source of the sound with just our flashlights.

We followed the sound to the next campsite over and found that the water pump had somehow been turned all the way on, full blast. These were the kind of big old rusty metal pumps where you really had to crank the handle up in order to get the water to turn on. I don't think that there is any way that pump could have naturally been cranked on to all the way on on its own.

And there was literally no one else at the campsite, point blank period. So was it a ghost or a mass serial killer from the from out of the lake all of Friday the 13th, I still don't know. But being that I live to tell the tale, I have to imagine that it was a ghost. Still, maybe the creepiest thing that I've ever experienced to this day. I hope you all enjoyed these little minis and more of the stories, stay out of the creepy ass Tennessee forest babes.

Love you. Both of those things have something in common, which is seemingly like unsuspecting kind of normal things, but happening in a time and situation that is just totally inappropriate. Like someone standing really still is not that crazy. They're meditating. Yeah. They're doing their thing.

They're whatever. What's happening? You know, who knows? But to have it happen in the middle of the woods off trail and not have any sort of response from them is creepy. And then having something turn on is like whatever. but then just being like out in the middle of nowhere. By yourself, yeah.

By yourself. And there's just, I don't know. There's, I think something about having really normal things happen to you in those types of situations are almost even scarier than something crazy. Yes. Yeah. I agree. Because it's like, then you're in this weird mental like what like? You're like always watching your back.

Yeah. Yeah. Like maybe that's okay. But it just seems really weird. And like now I don't know what to think and I'm confused. And now I'm just ultra-creas. Well, yeah, and it's like being in your house when like the something happens and you're like, oh, okay, well, I have cats.

So I'm like the cats must have done something. But then like what happened with me and Morgan in this light the other day, it was just going, we were looking at the remote anyways. And nothing was happening across the room from us. Across the room. And it like doesn't have settings like on the thing. It's only control by remote. And it was going crazy.

It was just going crazy. And like we, the first thing we're naturally thinking is, oh, the cats did, are we sitting on the remote, like what's going on? And then when you realize like, oh, shit, no, like, that could there have been a shortage in the wall? Yeah. But like, it's even as simple as when your faucets turn on or a light starts flashing in your house and it doesn't even blow it just randomly decided. Like, everything about that is so eerie. And the fact that it was dead, silent, no sound pollution. You're the only people out there. You're probably hearing some rustling around from like a crazy squirrel or something, a raccoon who's looking about. And

But like then the water out of nowhere, like that's not the sound you're expecting. No. It's kind of, it's like similar to the thing that like scarred me the most as far as scary movies. It'll just always stick with me is that scene in the sixth sense where all the cabinets are open up. Yes. The sixth sense movie period. Yeah. In general, but just something about that moment of like everything was normal.

it pans away and then all of a sudden like every single cabinet and drawers open. Yeah. Like again, having a cabinet open isn't inherently scary. But that fucked me up. No, yeah. No, me too. Me too. That whole movie, everything about it.

Oh. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us for Trail Tales today. It was really fun. Guys, thanks so much. We had such a great time. Yes. Thank you for having us. I love these stories.

I'm serious. Ellen's story. I'm going to think about it. It goes in the Hall of Fame. Like I actually want Ellen, if you hear this, can you send that to Crips and Crime so I can read it also? So we can relive it again. A year from now. Yeah, Ellen, give updates.

Give like an updated version. Yes. When you say that's probably the most. We've gotten some alien abduction stories or question mark stories written in. But I think that that is probably the most memorable one we've ever gotten. It's the proof. You know? It is.

Yeah. She came with the facts. She had the receipts from the eye doctor that I cannot pronounce the real scientific name for. Optomologists. I don't know why I can't say it either. Dr. Op. Dr. Op. Well, the fun is not over for anybody on Apple subscriptions or Patreon.

We do extended TrailTale editions over there. And this time around, we are hearing from you guys. Your personal stories are our bonus stories. So we're really excited to hear them. Well, thank you, everyone, for tuning in to this Trail Tales episode. If you want to hear more and you want to hear more of all of us collabing together, we are going on creeps and crimes next week. And you can hear a lot more from us all together. And we have two episodes that will be coming out with you guys. Yes. We're so excited for you guys to do a TBB with us. We got some juicy stuff that

we want your advice on for some of our besties. Some input. Oh, we're doing an advice call. You guys, well, we're going to do an aims slash advice column. So am I missing something? We've got some submissions for you guys that people send in. And then there's like three advice column ones that we pulled just in case we needed some extra time. Perfect. Amazing. Block my whole day. We're ready. We'll come hang out with us. We will see you soon. If you want to hang out and hear these bonus stories. You can find that on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. But we'll see you next time. in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. See ya. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale of your own you'd like to share,

you can write to us at NPAD Stories at gmail.com or visit our website at NPADpodcast.com. Bonus trail tales and content are available to Patreon members and Apple subscribers. Follow the show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X at National Park After Dark. And if you prefer to watch our episodes, you can find us on YouTube at National Park After Dark. And as always, if you enjoy the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions,

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