Otherworld - Episode 110: Never Ending Road

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

This week’s episode explores stories from individuals who have mysteriously experienced unexplainable lapses in time or space while driving. Samantha and her kids set out on their usual 3-hour drive, only to discover it had inexplicably taken 9 hours. Meanwhile, Nora and Marissa traveled down a familiar alley that should have taken just 30 seconds, but it felt like they were driving for hours. Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter For business inquiries contact: [e-mail] If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your story at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. This episode contains multiple stories from different people, but they have some very key similarities. They both involve driving and they also involve experiencing missing time or some type of glitch, you might say. I am really fascinated by this type of story, but it's also something that could be incredibly hard to explain to people. One moment, everything is one way. Suddenly, it's completely different, and it's easy to sound like a crazy person when you're desperately trying to explain what occurred

and you're the only one that experienced the thing that happened to you. This first story comes from a woman named Samantha, and it happened back in 1992 when she was a young mother serving in the military and living in Augusta, Georgia. long before anyone had cell phones or GPS in the car, which is fairly relevant to this story. And it happened on a very cloudy winter day

when Samantha set out to do a long drive that she was very used to doing. I'll let Samantha take it from here. This is episode 110. The title is Neverending Road, and you're listening to Otherworld. Hello? Is this Bobby?

Yes, it is. At its core, the science, you can't. argue it. I'm not worried about all of a science. Up in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm going to die. I'm like, it's limbs were just like wrong.

Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute. Hi, my name is Sam. I'm from Conway, South Carolina. My childhood is a bit of a puzzle piece. I grew up in England. I was born in England. My parents were divorced. I was sent here when I was four.

I lived with my grandparents who I did not know for two years. And I was sent back to England. My father remarried. And I lived there until I was 11. And then I came back and that's why I don't have an accent anymore. I guess my childhood was not great. I got shuffled around a lot. I wish it would have been different.

So my children were spoiled for that reason because I didn't want them to have the childhood I have. Like, I want my kids to grow up and look back and go, you know, I had the best childhood because everybody's childhood is broken, and I did not want them to have that. So, but I think some of those things that happen to you when you're growing up help make you the person you are, if that makes sense. I moved out when I was 15 years old because, you know, at 15, you know everything. So I did that.

Got married and had a baby very early when I was 16. as you do. I went into the military when I was 17, had another child, and I was stationed in Fort Gordon, Augusta, Georgia. That's about a three-hour drive from Charleston, and I started driving down on the weekends when I had weekends off, and I would work part-time, usually working as waitresses in bars and and things like that, but just so I could, you know, make quick cash and make money. I want to say this is probably around 1993, and my kids would have been like two and four at the time.

I would take my children with me and I would take them to their grandparents' house for the weekend so that they could visit, but then it would kind of free me up so I could work and make money. So I know this drive, like the back of my hand, because I did it all the time. It would take about three hours. I have this weird thing that I do when I drive. It's kind of like when you try and beat your GPS. I knew how long it would take me to get to each part. I still do it to this day, and I would just watch the clock all the time.

But the clock in my car was not like a digital clock. It actually had hands on it because this was a really old car. So I knew it took me like two hours to get from Charleston to Columbia. And then just under an hour to get from Columbia to my home where I lived in Augusta. because I lived kind of a little just outside of it. So it's about a three-hour drive. And this was a Sunday. I went and picked my children up from my husband at the time's parents' home.

And it started snowing. We don't usually get snow here. And they were like, oh, don't go. There's a snowstorm coming. You're not going to be able to drive. You're going to have the children in the car. And I was like, I have duty tomorrow. I can't call out from the Army.

So I have to go. I stopped at my mother's house and my mother knew I was on the road and I always call my mom when I would get back home because this was before everyone had cell phones. So just outside of her house, probably 25, 30 minutes maybe, there's a rest area. There's not another rest area until right outside Columbia, which is the two-hour drive mark. So I got my children, got on the road, and I left in the morning. So it's daylight, but it's snowing. So it's kind of like it almost looks like it's becoming evening. It's just like kind of a weird light out size, not bright sun. Wasn't driving very long, but I started getting sleepy, like as soon as I started driving. I'm like, okay, I'm going to stop at this rest area. get a cold drink. So I get to the rest area. I got out the car. It was snowing outside. It was really cold. My children were sleeping in the back. So I got a cold Dr. Pepper and I stood outside in the cold and I smoked a cigarette. I'm trying to wake myself up. And that's it. There's nothing bizarre that I remember. No, I don't even think there was anybody at the rest area, to be honest, because, I think when I got there, I think I was the only car.

I got back in the car, started driving. I fell awake now. I'm not sleepy anymore. I actually felt fine and I'm refreshed and start driving. I think I drove for maybe five more minutes. And then I saw a sign that said Columbia next six interchanges. And the next sign that I saw was the Columbia sign. I feel like I had only been on the road for 20 or 30 minutes.

I'm like, confused because how did I get here? I just started driving. I have not been driving for two hours. I have not. I had just left. When I saw the sign, I realized that I'm at my two-hour mark. And I looked at my clock in the car, and it said what I thought, where I knew I was. The time, I didn't drive for two hours.

So I was so confused of how I got there because my clock in the car stayed the same. My clock still reflected that it's just a little after 9 a.m. in the morning. And I left at 8.30. I didn't drive two hours. So when I got home, my husband came out to the car and was upset and yelling and where have you been. They were wondering if I had gotten to an accident or where did I go. I'm really baffled by what happened. I don't understand. My husband was freaking out and where have you been?

And I was like, what do you mean? So when I get home, it's still like this kind of dusk outside. Usually this drive takes me three hours. It took me nine. I don't know how I got from Charleston to Columbia. And I don't know where six hours of my time went. And he was really upset, like really upset, saying, You know, you've been gone all day and where have you been and where did I take his kids and that kind of thing.

But I was like, my children are in the car and they're sleeping. I didn't go anywhere. I just drove here from Charleston. To me, it's still 1145 a.m. in the morning and I don't know what he's talking about. He was so upset, so upset. after we kind of argued back and forth about it, and I realized he was actually really upset and he wasn't joking.

And then the phone rang and my mother called me. When my mother called me, she was, where have you been? We've been upset. We thought you were in an accident. We had already called the police. Then I realized it wasn't a joke anymore. I remember asking my mom what time it was.

was. And I want to say it was like 5.36 o'clock p.m. And then when I spoke to my mother, and then I'm confused because I was like, no, I just drove right here. It shouldn't have taken me nine hours. I didn't stop somewhere for six hours. And even if I did stop somewhere, my children wouldn't have been asleep for nine hours in the back of a car. Because I don't know if you have children, but two-year-olds and four-year-olds, they may nap in the car, but it's not going to be a nine-hour nap. You know, and this was a period of time in my life when we were really bad off for money, so gas in my car was important.

I would always know how much gas it took to get to Charleston to get back, and when I got home, it was the same amount of gas. So I didn't drive off of my course. I didn't go anywhere. My car wasn't sitting somewhere running for six hours. That didn't happen. The clock in the car is still reflecting the time that in my mind I think it is. So I have no explanation for those things at all. My children were still asleep. They definitely would have woken me up. None of that makes sense to me. So yeah, spoke to my mom on the phone. And then I went outside and I did look in my car. and the clock reflected 530.

So I was like, now I'm losing my mind because I know what I saw. I don't have an explanation for that. I have no explanation for where I've been. I don't know why I was missing. I didn't know I was missing at the time. I think after laying in bed that night and kind of after the argument has all settled down and I'm kind of thinking like going through this. this, like, this is so bizarre. I don't know what happened. Where did I go? I talked to my father on the phone

because they had been worried. They thought maybe I got into an accident. I'm on the side of the road somewhere. And then as I'm talking to him, he was like, well, what happened? And I told him, I was like, no, I got really sleepy. And I stopped, you know, that rest area that's like right at, you know, right outside Charleston, I stopped there and got a drink. And, you know, stayed outside. I smoked a cigarette, I get back in the car, I'm in Columbia. I don't know how I got to Columbia, South Carolina. And I was like, the time in my car said that I've only been driving for 30 minutes, and that's how I feel. And now I've been missing all this time. Once I get back home, and I realize that it's been like nine hours. And my dad said the same thing happened to me. That's the same thing that happened to me.

Okay. So I'm just going to jump in and go over this again because it's very confusing. In fact, the whole point of this story is that it's confusing. Samantha was driving from Charleston, South Carolina, to Augusta, Georgia, taking the interstates because of the snow and passing through Columbia, South Carolina on the way. This normally takes her about three hours, and she does this all the time. On this day, she left her mom's house in Charleston around 8.30 a.m. with her kids in the car. She felt a little sleepy shortly into the drive, and she pulled over at a very familiar rest stop to get. ate Dr. Pepper and smoke a cigarette. Sounds wonderful. This rest stop is only about 15 minutes away, so she's barely began her drive. She finishes the cigarette, drinks the Dr. Pepper, gets back on the highway, and starts her drive. She says that she's only just gotten back on the road, starting to begin this big drive, had maybe driven about 20 minutes or so, and then all of the sudden, she's in Columbia, which is two hours away. Samantha is obviously very surprised. Samantha is obviously very and confused by this.

She checks her clock, and the clock says that it's sometime a little after 9 a.m., which makes sense to her. She feels like she's only been driving for about 30 or 45 minutes, yet suddenly she's in Columbia, which is two hours away. So at this point, time is lining up correctly for Samantha, but space is not. She seems to have jumped forward and then suddenly found herself much further away than she should be, based on the amount of time,

it feels like she's been driving. That being said, I think it's easy to probably brush it off and say, okay, maybe my clock is broken or something, and I zoned out when you're by yourself, and one little weird thing happens, it's easy to brush it off. So she continues on. She drives to Augusta, and when she arrives, her husband is freaking out, asking where she's been, and he says that she's been gone for nine hours. She looks at her clock and it says Exactly what she thinks it should be About 1145 a.m. The time it should have been.

The husband looks at the clock And says it must be broken They continue to fight They go inside And they're still arguing about this Samantha is baffled and confused She's insisting She's only been driving for three hours

She ends up talking to her mom Who also says that she's been missing for nine hours Which is of note Because like I mentioned Samantha's mom saw her leave that morning at 8.30 a.m. Then Samantha extremely confused, goes back out to her car to check the clock again, and now suddenly that clock has jumped forward and now says 5 p.m. Once again, her husband and her saw the clock before saying 1145. Now it's suddenly 5 p.m.

and 9 hours has gone by. So, what should have been a 3-hour drive, felt roughly like an hour and 30 minutes for Samantha, but in reality, it took her nine hours. At first, space was not lining up, but time was. Now, time and space are not lining up in a very major way. I talked to Samantha about all this for a very long time. We went over it over and over again because it's so confusing and there are so many variables of what could have happened.

I ran so many ideas and explanations past her. I think for me, the most important detail of all of this is that her two kids were sleeping in the back seat the entire time. If she had been driving around in a fugue state aimlessly for nine hours, surely these kids would have woken up at some point and had something to say when they got to the dad's house. But they were asleep the entire time. They pulled into the house and woke up like nothing had happened.

kids don't nap for nine hours, especially not in the morning right after they woke up. I just think that's a very, very weird detail and makes it hard to explain this away. Also, her gas matched up with having driven three hours. If she drove for nine, she would have run out of gas. And in terms of refilling it, Samantha told me that they were really tight on money back then, so she would have definitely noticed if she had refilled her tank and bought an entire new tank of gas. I hope that explains it. This is just a really, really weird situation,

and it gets a little weirder. I will let Samantha explain that. My father had a similar experience happen two or three years before this happened to me, and it really happened the same way. So my father lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He was retired military. He used to work on the weapon station.

This man always had it together. He always had a schedule. He always, you know, even when he got out the military, he was still military. He did two tours in Vietnam as a Marine, and then he went into the Air Force and retired out of the Air Force. But military never left him. So he was always together, always had it together. but he worked a civil service on the weapon station. And I would say it's like a 20-minute drive from his house to the weapon station.

So he got in his car to do his like 20-minute drive to work. And he said as soon after he got in the car and started driving, he got really, really tired. He said he rolled down the windows and he turned the air conditioner on. It was also wintertime. It was cold outside. and he was trying to wake himself up because he got really sleepy while he was driving. He said it just kind of came on all of a sudden. So when he gets to work, they're asking him, where have you been because you're late?

He ended up being like three hours late to work that morning. They said, we've already called your wife. You know, she's said that you were on the way to work, that you left on time. So she's worried. So he called my mother. and my mother's like, where have you been? And he said, no, I just drove straight to work. When he got to work, he said he didn't remember driving there. He did not remember driving. So his 20-minute drive ended up taking like three hours. And he has no explanation for where he went,

why it took him so long. He didn't pull over anywhere. He didn't stop anywhere. He made his coffee in the morning. He got in his car and he drove to work. That's his whole story. That's it. He does not know what happened. The story is so similar. Like we got really sleepy and then bam, hours are gone. But my father got really, really obsessed with like alien abductions and stuff like that because he was really, really convinced that that's what happened to him. I think because he didn't have another explanation. And that's where he went. So for the rest of his life, he would watch like alien shows. He got really interested in paranormal stuff and just trying to figure out what happened to him. He had a lot of different theories, you know, like portals and wormholes. And

I know when I would visit, he would always have like stuff on TV or he would record specials. My mother still has all these VHS tapes that my dad would record over to watch shows that he would never watch again, but he has probably like 50 VHS tapes because he used to record like military stuff. And then it turned into UFOs and aliens and ghost things. My dad was a really smart, smart guy. He fluently spoke seven languages. He had one of those brains that, almost like a photographic memory, that if he read something, he always remembered it. So I think for this to to him and he couldn't explain it, really baffled him. So he, for the rest of his life, kind of searched for an answer to figure out what happened

to him because, like I said, he, ex-military, always everything's scheduled and planned, and then this happened and he has no explanation for it. I got off the phone with my dad. I did kind of hear him out and listen to his theory. don't think that I really accepted that that was the answer and that what that's what happened. Because in my 19 year old brain and I'm like, eh, maybe, I don't know. I think I'm just going to let this one go without trying to figure it out. But went to bed that night.

Next day, everything's normal. Carry on with my life. All right. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right. So I ended up talking to Samantha for quite some time. after she finished telling me that first story. It turns out Samantha has had quite a few spooky things happened to her

since this major incident. I have no idea if they're connected to that first experience she just shared with us. But the story you're about to hear is one that I liked so much that I just thought I had to include it in the episode. I got out the military the following year in 1994. I moved back to Charleston. one of my really, really good friends. She ended up living with me for a while.

I rented this big house. And this starts the beginning of going down this long rabbit hole that I have. So she and I were really, really close, and her name was Brittany. And she lived with me for probably six months. And then she got her own place. And she moved down. We still remained really, really close. Brittany was a wild child.

There was nothing you could tell me that she did that would surprise me ever. So she went out with some of our common friends. I think she was supposed to come over the next day, but my friend called me and said, yeah, you know, we were at this bar and she met this truck driver, and she got in his truck and she left. And I was like, what? Okay.

Well, you know, she's probably at home. Well, she wasn't. and the next day later on that afternoon she called me and she said yeah I'm in Florida I have five dollars to my name and I lost my shoes I was kind of like what so I went and I bought her a bus ticket and it was for the following day and she would just get a bus back to Charleston I went to the bus station the next day for the bus she was supposed to be on waited the bus got there. As people are getting off, I'm realizing I don't see her. And she was not on the bus. I sent her the bus ticket. She did not get on the bus. I called the number back that she had called me from. And this guy

answered the phone. And, you know, hey, you know, my name's Sam. My friend Brittany called me from your number. She didn't get on the bus. So he told me, yeah, she didn't want to wait until tomorrow. She wanted to leave right now. So she made me take her to a rest area on the interstate so she could hitchhite. And that's not out of character for Brittany. Brittany was a beautiful blonde bombshell. She was definitely going to get a ride when she hitchhiked. So from that point, then now we don't know where Brittany's at because I'll say now it's

been like two or three days that have passed and Brittany's not back. So now that's unusual because even when she, you know, she was wild and kind of would go off and do these things. We always knew she would always come back. So the roommate that she ended up having was a girl that used to work with us named Chris. And Chris called me. Someone had gotten killed on the interstate and they came to the house to ask if they

could take fingerprints off of her car. So apparently what happened was she got hit by a car and then the car hit her into the next lane. and she got hit by an 18-wheeler and it drugged her. And they couldn't identify her. At this point, it's been a couple of days. And we've already called, and we've been looking for her because now we can't find her.

But yeah, the police showed up to get fingerprints to match the person that got killed on the interstate. And it was Brittany. And I think that was my first experience with having somebody that I knew and was close to that died. I've never experienced that before. that was a complete heartbreak. It's so like that person's not going to answer the phone anymore.

They're not going to come over anymore. It was really hard. It was really hard for me. I want to say it was probably three months had passed. I can talk about her and not break down, and I'm finally kind of feeling a little better. I'm still missing her, but just as the grief process goes,

I was laying in my bed. I used to lay on the right side of the bed. I had this weird black wicker chair in the corner. I don't know why it was the ugliest thing. And I was laying on my left side, so kind of facing that way, and I was sleeping. And I woke up, like all of a sudden woke up. You know, as if you feel somebody watching,

you or something, I just kind of startled, woke up. And when I woke up sitting in that chair was Britney, flesh and blood, it was Brittany. What is really striking to me about seeing her was the look on her face. And her eyes were really wide open. And I've never seen that face before, never seen her make that face. And it was scary. She was sitting there. And I probably stared at her for maybe 30 seconds. And then I realized like, nah, you're not dreaming. And I closed my eyes immediately. And I was like, Brittany, you were scaring me. Please leave. And then after a few minutes, I opened my eyes and she was gone. Her eyes were so wide. And it was just terrifying. and it's not a great memory to have.

This is my first experience with somebody, like, you know, taken from my life. Did she come back to, you know, let me know that, you know, she's okay or, you know, she's still around? But then why did she have that look on her face? So it was just really, really scary to me. But that was my first paranormal thing that happened. Well, I'll tell you, my husband, can probably attest to this as well for years and years and years and I do want to say that it started after this episode with Brittany. I wake up between two and three o'clock every night for no reason

as wake up. So this gets kind of crazy. I have dreams about people I don't know, missing people a lot. My husband's a police officer. And we would talk on the phone while he was on duty, you know, and he had moments in time to talk because he works night shift. And we're on the phone talking and he had gotten a call. And he was like, hey, I got to go. I'll call you back later. And I'm like, okay, it's nighttime. I went to sleep.

And then I have this dream. I wake up at my usual 2 o'clock in the morning. and I felt this overwhelming urge to call my husband. And I called my husband and he was like, hey, everything okay? Because, you know, he told me he was on a call and he couldn't talk. So if I call him back, something's wrong. He was like, hey, everything okay? And I was like, I just had this dream that there's a kid in water.

There's water somewhere where you're at. That's where that kid went. I can't explain it. And then there was like a moment of silence. And I was like, hello? And he said, yeah, we just pulled his body from the water. I was, like, stunned. And this was a little kid.

I think he was like six or seven. He was at his grandmother's house, and she didn't lock the door. And he walked out, and he walked right into a pond, and he drowned. And then when my husband gets home the next day, and he was like, what was that even about? I don't know. I had this dream and then there's this kid and he's next to water. And I woke up all of a sudden and I just had to call you and tell you. I don't know.

I think over the course of my life to have all these different things happen to me, I cannot dismiss that there is something on the other side or something there, the veil that we cannot see behind. But my husband grew up religious, just grew up different from me, but very skeptical about any kind of things like that, you know, seeing like, you know, a ghost or anything like that. But explaining my missing time to him and he knows me and he knows I'm not making it up. Like he knows me. And he has no explanation for what happened to me. He's like, that's just really weird. And, you know, I told him, you know, my dad thinks I was abducted. He was like,

maybe you were. But yeah, he's definitely a believer in this stuff now. Still, there's no explanation for it, but he never discounts anything that I will tell him. If I tell him, I have a dream, he's on high alert and he knows. Thank you once again to Samantha for sharing her stories. This is really such a weird one with so many layers of confusing details. Every time I heard it and thought about it, I couldn't stop scratching my head. thinking of possible explanations, but her kids being in the car sleeping the whole time makes it extra baffling to me. Additionally, the length of time, I mean, nine hours is a very long time. It's not exactly easy to zone out for that long and drive aimlessly, especially

when you have two sleeping kids in the car. On top of that, it's extra bizarre that her father apparently experienced almost exactly the same thing when he was young. Thank you so much to Samantha for sharing that story. The next one comes from two friends named Nora and Marissa. They both worked together at a restaurant at the time this took place, and it sounds like a very rowdy restaurant that served a lot of people who were spilling out from the bars. Something happened to these two one night on their way home from work. I thought this story would be a good match for Samantha's because these two sort of experienced the opposite of what Samantha did. I'll let them explain.

My name's Nora. I'm 29. I am from Olympia, Washington. It's like a college town about an hour south of Seattle. I'm probably more of a skeptic. I've always been more of a skeptic. But I've always left room for the possibility of something. So I know that it could happen to me at any point, basically.

It hasn't happened aside from this, so this happening definitely kind of shook me. I was working at a diner that stayed open until 3 a.m. All the bars closed at 2. So we were open after the bars. We would get a lot of the downtown rush. I worked at this restaurant for close to six years. This happened probably in the fourth or fifth year that I worked there. It was small town.

everyone came out a lot of bros from the military base nearby, a lot of punks, a lot of college kids, after bar crowd. It was a pretty wild environment. There were a lot of fights. You know, the cops had to be called sometimes. People got kicked out every night, not some nights every night. And so weekends were especially crazy. And closing together was always kind of like the respite at the end of just a haunted evening all around.

and everyone else that worked there had worked there for also a long period of time. So everyone was really tight. So we would kind of close. It would take a couple hours. Count your tips, mop, sweep. And then we would sit outside and smoke and kind of all drive home together. At the time, I lived next to one of my coworkers. And so we would sort of drive and drop everyone off on the opposite side of town

and then end up back at our house because I, I was the one that drove. And it was kind of the nicest part of the evening. It's like after all the craziness is done, you do just get to drive home with your friends and fuck around for a couple minutes. Just talk about everything weird that happened that day. Everyone would pile in my little car. We would start with the farthest away.

It's a small town. Really, the farthest you can get is 15, 20 minutes away. I am Marissa. A lot of us would either. walk downtown from our neighborhoods and then, you know, work and like grab a ride with one person or two people or whoever, like kind of cram in the car. Nora was always the one who drove because she lives in a different part of Olympia. So she always drove downtown versus, I guess, like, walking to downtown to work. And she would, she would take us home most of the time.

We, like, valued that too because it's like that time to decompress. And like a recap of the night of like all of the crazy stuff that would happen. These would be like, Friday and Saturday nights at, you know, four o'clock in the morning. I lived on Roger Street, which is on the west side of Olympia. And our other co-worker lived, I think it was foot street. And it was like not even two blocks down south of Roger Street. And so we would like go up to the west side of Olympia, like drop one person off and like just scoot around. And it was really when I, like, I could walk to this person's house and.

Five minutes. We're really, really, really close. And we would just kind of scoot around. And we've done that a bunch of times. My friend Mike lived the farthest away. He was on the west side, which still was, you know, maybe 10, 15 minutes at 5 a.m. There's no traffic. Behind this specific house, it sort of was a big drop down off of the main road. A lot of those roads have guard rails, but it is quite a drop. And he lived at a dead end. So the only way out of the dead end, aside from turning around and going out the same way, would be to go past his house, swing a left, and go out through the alley. Once you get through the alley, you end up back at the main road. In the neighborhoods in Olympia, everything is like a grid usually. And some streets have alleys in between them. That alley and most of them in that neighborhood, it's even more open than the neighborhood. because it's like everybody's chaneling fence and backyard and it's open.

And like maybe there's a tree and maybe there's somebody's rosebush. And there's like a little shed or a garage lining that alleyway for the houses there. But yeah, usually we could flip around and take that. It's not a terribly long street at all. Like it's just a quick cut through. Like a full minute sounds crazy. A full minute of driving down that alley or even down if we turned around and went back down the street. A full minute sounds like way too much time.

before you get to the intersecting street and, you know, make a right and another right. After we dropped off Mike, it was just Marissa and I left in the car. When we turned down the alley, I started driving and I didn't stop driving. It was like pitch black. I had my lights on, but it didn't matter. And the second we started driving on it, it fell off. So I had a pit in the bottom of my stomach. I remember just feeling kind of sucked in

to everything going on around me. It was almost like there was white noise happening in my brain. It felt like there were blackberry vines and shrubbery and bushes all around us. There's nothing like that. It should have just been houses on each side. And it was just a pit of despair in my stomach. She turned and we were in dark, unpaved, blackberry bramble everywhere.

All you could see were like the car headlights, really, and like nothing. I couldn't tell you which direction we were going. I couldn't tell you what was even in front or behind us. It was just like thick, heavily wooded, blackberry bramble and things like that. It was so scary. It was just so scary. it felt like we were driving for years. In actuality, it felt like it was about 45 minutes to an hour.

But if you told me that I was driving for days and that days had passed in that amount of time, I would have believed it because it felt so fucked up. It should have taken 30 seconds, no more than a minute to drive through that alley. And we were just driving. There was nowhere to go to. and we were just driving, and there was nothing.

If we had actually been going the direction that it felt we were going for that amount of time, we would have driven off the edge of a goalie. It didn't make any sense. We were just silent, and it felt like it was forever, and it was super unpaved and, like, bumpy, but we didn't hit anything. We didn't run anything over. There was nowhere for us to turn off,

or nowhere for to us to get out of where we were. Underneath us, the sensation of being on completely uneven ground, like shaking in the car on uneven ground, we were like, oh my God, what is happening? Wait, am I understanding this correct? You drop off your friend in the suburbs and then go to turn down a tiny little alley that you normally turn down to get back to the road,

but then suddenly find yourself driving through the wilderness, for 45 minutes, like, or like a black, dark void. But for 45 minutes, is that correct? Yep, exactly. And is there even like 45 minutes worth of space to be driving around there, like, between the houses? Is there even that much space? No, there isn't, which is why it was so crazy.

Nora drove a little, she drove a little boxy cyan, very low to the ground. Did she tell you this? I don't know what she did, but she drove a name. blue, older, little boxy cyan, stick shift, really low to the ground. But it got darker. There were things like brushing up against the side of the side of the mirrors. And it was so uneven and so bumpy. It was just dark and we could only go one way and that was it. And it felt like it lasted for so long. driving down that alley should have taken no more than like 45 seconds. It felt like forever.

It felt like it was happening forever. Whether it's because we were scared, I don't know. But it wasn't the kind of forever where like we could understand and be like, why is this taking so long? Because we were not asking each other questions when this was happening. We both just had the sensation afterward. We realized we both had the sensation of like,

this is taking like when is this going to stop? Especially because there was no clear direction of where we, were going. Like, we couldn't see what was happening. But it felt, yeah, it felt like we would have ended up out of Olympia for sure. Like, we were not anywhere near the west side of, like, let alone in the same town anymore. It felt like, yeah, it felt like an eternity. I keep talking about this pit that I felt in my stomach and it was more of like a full body wave. I felt like I was in quicksand or slow motion or passing through something where my body felt frozen, not only frozen in fear, but in the moment. And I don't think that my mind fully caught up until I really saw what was

happening around me. It took a moment of thinking, why are there branches? Why are there blackberry vines? why does this car feel different driving down this road? This is not how it feels. It's just not how it feels. There were no lights. There are no street lights. It really is such a dead end. And I'm used to just sort of pulling through.

It was so dark. I would say as soon as I started having the full body feeling of being sort of stuck and sunken, we just went from being silent to being terrified. Marissa and I turned to each other at the same time. It was almost like we snapped out of it. And we were both just like, we have to get out of here. This is fucked up.

I'm scared what's happening all at once. I don't remember what any of the words we said were, but they were all that sentiment. So I slammed it in reverse. And the second I backed up, we were out of the alley. It was like we were never in the alley. It never happened. The second I started backing up, it was houses again.

It was like we had never turned at all. to go down the road. There was nothing there was nothing there out of the ordinary. And I've driven down this alley probably a hundred times. And I probably think that if I had just turned down and driven down again, it would have been fine. It would have been the same alley that it should have been the whole time. All of a sudden, we were just kind of on the road where we were supposed to be.

We were just out. Like, that was it. I just kind of remember hitting more things with the side view mirror. and then like being out and then being like, what was that? Like, what was that? As soon as we left, it was sort of unpacking that moment together. It was a lot of what just happened. Did that really happen?

How did that happen? And we have to go home because we can't be in this car anymore. I mean, I really have driven this road hundreds of times. I worked with Mike for years. He would walk to work. I would drive him home every weekend. It was what we did. There should have been nothing different about driving down this road, but something happened.

And I don't know what was different about it. If I really had continued down the way that it felt like we were driving for that amount of time, I would have driven off of the edge of a cliff. There's no way around it. We've talked about it since a lot. And every time we talk about it, kind of the only thing that we both know for sure is that it felt like ours. We were in disbelief.

We were like, what was that? And we talked about it amongst each other. I think we tried to tell one of our coworkers, and they were like, ha, ha, like you guys, okay, like, you know, sounds great. And that's what happens when you tell a story like that, especially since, like, there was no, we didn't have like an encounter with anything. It was just like we were supposed to be one place. We immediately were in a completely different, what felt like a different world.

It felt like forever, but when we got back to where we were supposed to be, it had only been a minute or two. You know, it had only been, like, I didn't get home super late. It was like, oh, now it's 5 o'clock in the morning. Like, where were we? It was kind of exactly where we were supposed to be. Mike was one of the people that I told, and he was one of the people that was just sort of like, damn, that's crazy. I don't think anyone really took us seriously when it happened.

I have driven down it again. I will say that after that happened, every time I dropped Mike off after that, I would back up down his street. I didn't go down it for a while. And the next time I did, it was in daylight. I didn't want to do it at 5 a.m. again. And even going during daylight,

it sort of brought me back to that moment. And it sort of reminded me that it did happen. I have gone back. I think Nora has too. I have gone back in that neighborhood since then. And I've driven my home too because we've gone home together. And I've been like, well, maybe if I turn down here or like maybe if I'm here, like maybe it was like in someone's backyard. Like we're in someone's but it wasn't.

It's because it's not. And people who have lived in that area or like in neighborhood like it like there's no way that it could have been. like that. So I've gone back several times and have tried to find where we may have ended up. Daylight and at night and I couldn't figure it out. It is a slope. It is a hill all the way down. And then it's West Bay. It's water. So even if we ended up in like some of the like wooded area that goes down, we would have like rolled. We would have like been going down the hill or like going up or been. We both have revisited that on our own on our own time and in our own cars or whatever. times. Like, we could not figure it out. I've never heard anyone else tell a story like that. And I

choose not to share it with everybody. Like, I've been with my partner for a couple of years. And I told them for the first time when Nora told me that she was doing this podcast. And he just was kind of like, all right. Okay. Wow. You know, he pulled out like his like extra special map app and was like on his phone and like trying to see. And I was like, I've done this. I've done this before. I've revisited this. I've tried to check everything. So yeah, he was kind of like, well, this is here. And I'm like, yes, but we would have hit trees and rolled if we ended up somehow, ended up beyond a guardrail. And I don't think we would have just driven out. What I perceived was that we were where we were supposed to be and it just turned into something different. That's how it felt.

Like that's like what my, but we have been trying to tell ourselves that we must have just turned somewhere or like we, but she grew up there and I lived there and there isn't anywhere to go. I mean, it makes you think about people who have no kind of stimulation or way to pass the time. They can literally go insane. I mean, there's a reason that solitary confinement is so fucked up. It's because there's no way to track anything, no passage of time. The only thing really is being stuck in your head. And that's sort of what it felt like.

I was so in my brain and so out of my brain at the same time. I initially referred to it as part of the backroom's phenomenon. I've also heard it called a liminal space, and I still sort of feel it's adjacent to that. It feels like such a mundane event that to just explain it to someone who doesn't understand and no one can understand because they weren't there, it feels so insignificant. I don't personally know anyone that has an experience like this or an explanation. So my only explanation is that this place at this time was pulling me towards something. It felt like purgatory in terms of do I get out of this or do I stay in this forever?

I know it happened. I've got my dearest friend who is there too. She knows we have each other. If I was alone, I think it would really, I would be like, am I actually crazy? Like, am I, like, is there something wrong? I think I would be scared there was like something wrong with me. But I'm lucky to have had somebody with me when this happened. It makes me so uneasy to think about.

And I'm going to visit Nora in April at the end. So, yeah, in two weeks, I'm going to visit her. I haven't seen her in a while. Yeah, I haven't seen her in a couple of months. And I would love for us to like to try and go back together. I feel like it's only right that we try to do that again. And I'm sure the same thing will happen that happened to me. When I went back and I was like, there's literally nowhere for me to go without hitting this guardrail or being in this person's backyard.

It just doesn't make sense. Like I don't remember us getting to this curve. I know. We didn't turn. I know. There was no turning. And then it's one second of an alley. The video is not even a minute long yet.

I'm going slow. Very slow. Here we are. Okay, thank you to Nora and Marissa for sharing that story. It took me so long to fully understand what happened to them. I spent a lot of time on Google Maps and on Zoom with them going over this. My first instinct when they explained it was they must have accidentally drove into some kind of nearby forest or trail area.

But the thing is, I've looked at the maps, I've seen videos of this place, I've seen pictures. As soon as you drive off the road where they were, it's basically like a straight drop into a very steep ravine. It's also super thick with trees. They would have immediately been in a horrible accident if they drove into the woods by mistake. Also, there are guardrails up blocking pretty much every single single. entrance to the wooded area that I could find around the neighborhood. Even so, these girls described driving for a very long time going deep into the woods and then all of the sudden,

when they try putting it in reverse, they instantly find themselves back on the road where they started. That is just so weird and certainly wouldn't happen if they had been driving through the forest or a nature trail for 45 minutes. I don't even know what happened here. is just a very, very weird story. I'd love a logical answer to this. I'm sure they would as well, but they have not found one yet, and neither have I.

As you heard at the end, they've even went back to the original place recently together and checked one more time. They still have no idea what happened. I am not really sure what these types of experiences are. I think I'm mostly fascinated by the fact that these people experience them and then they have to move on and continue living their life,

even though they pretty much never forget what happened to them in this situation. It's very hard to explain a story like this to somebody who wasn't there experiencing it themselves. And like I said, oftentimes when you do try to explain it, the person listening might end up looking at you like you're a complete lunatic, as you do your best to explain. For that reason, I am extra grateful to... Samantha, Nora and Marissa for sharing these stories. This has been episode 110. The title is Neverending Road, and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted

by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by North Americans. This episode was edited by Haley Pearson and engineered by Theo Schaefer. Our artwork is by Cold Sack Studios. Nikki Kate Delgado is our associate producer, Production Help by Haley Pearson. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about Otherworld. If you want to hear bonus episodes, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash Otherworld.

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And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us your story at Stories at Otherworldpod.com.