Otherworld - Episode 125: The Light of Door County

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

While on their usual weekend drive to the family home in Door County, Wisconsin, Susan and John suddenly find themselves engulfed by a mysterious and blinding light. 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. A while back, we got an email from a girl named Zoe, who is from Chicago, and she emailed saying that nearly 30 years ago, her parents had a crazy experience while driving to their family's cabin in northern Wisconsin. Zoe's parents never spoke about this event, and she only found out about it from her dad when she was much older. Her mom, on the other hand, refused to talk about this incident and would get very upset whenever Zoe brought it up. Of course, this only made Zoe and myself even more curious to speak to her mom and find out what exactly happened to her on this night almost 30 years ago.

Eventually, Zoe's mom ended up agreeing to speak to me about it. I'm pretty sure that is most most of the night. mostly due to Zoe nagging her about it, so thank you to Zoe for that. And when I ended up hearing about this from her mom, I found the whole thing to be very bizarre. It takes place all the way back when her parents just started dating, and they were heading out for the weekend to make a drive that was very familiar to them, driving from the suburbs of Chicago out to Door County, Wisconsin. a drive that was normally very uneventful and routine for them, but this time, things were different.

This is episode 125. The title is The Light of Door County, and you're listening to Otherworld. Hello? Is this Bobby? At its core, the science, you can't argue with it. I'm sorry about all the science. Up in the sky.

It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm going to die. I'm like, if limbs were just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute. My name is Susan. I'm from Libertyville, Illinois, in the Midwest. I'm 55 years old. I work at a school and have been for 25 years, nice little private school.

And that's pretty much all about me. I'm divorced. I'm a mother of three children. I live alone with my three pets and my college students when they're home. Back in when I was in my 20s, I was dating a guy from high school. We ended up getting married. His parents had a cabin in Door County that we would travel to all the time whenever we could, especially before they retired there.

It was kind of our getaway, especially before we lived together and before we were married. So it was something that we did. We were used to our trip. We would go Friday night, spend the weekend, drive home Sunday, any type of weather. We'd been blizzarded in there. nothing scared us. We would get in the car and go at a moment's notice.

So I was working, gosh, at a mortgage company right down from, in Libertyville, right down from where I worked, family friends. The mother who owned the company was the best man and Zoe's godfather, actually. So full circle there. So we really just spent

weekends being regular 21-year-olds. We'd just like to hang out and be in love and together, however we could. I lived with my parents, he lived with his parents. So our getaway was Door County, and that was when we really got to know each other and spend weekends together. Growing up in Libertyville was privileged.

We both grew up in Libertyville, we both went to the same high school. He was a year older than I was, but we ran in the same circles together. So, but it was, it was great. My 20s were fun. We were married for a few years before we decided to have, start having kids, and then that's when Zoe came along. All of this happened before Zoe. For people like that are out east, or county is like the Hamptons of the Midwest, I think is what people call it.

A lot of people from Chicago, it's their summer home. So it's Lake Michigan. You could sail there from, you know, Waukegan Harbour. which is very close to where I am. It's a nice little summer getaway. You'd run a cabin, water sports, hiking, really good breakfast places, little quaint shopping. It was probably just a regular, we're going up to Door County this weekend. Nothing special. Like I said, it was a habit of ours. It was a pattern. We always went to Door County for the weekend. So we packed up Friday night, hit the road after work, so we probably left around five or six. So it would be dark for some of our

trip. We always stopped for dinner in one of the quaint little towns, towns like Egg Harbor and, you know, little places like that. It's about a four-hour drive. We would have not lived together yet. I don't think we lived together. So he would have come and picked me up from my parents' house. Oh, it would have been an old MX6, a Mazda. It would have been John's mom's car that he had passed, you know, she had passed down to him. So a little two-door sedan. I do think we probably would have around five or six after work. We would have hit the road before it got dark just because we wouldn't have wanted the whole trip in the dark.

But then excited, excited to go have dinner and spend the weekend alone in Door County. So it isn't the best drive, the best road, I guess, when you go to Door County. And once you get through Milwaukee, the road gets really rough and just really loud. So I'm sure we have the music up very loud. just because you think you have a flat tire when you're driving down this road.

It's just so badly the concrete on it. It's not paved. It's weird. So we're driving, hating the road that we're on, I'm sure, with the music up loud, looking forward to stopping at Connie's diner to have their fabulous soup and then heading the rest of our way, you know, to the cabin for the night. And usually when we would get there at night, we would sometimes we would run to the grocery store, run a movie at that point.

You rented movies. But that, that didn't happen. So we're driving and we finally stopped for dinner. It's the cutest little diner where you can sit at the counter or maybe, maybe three tables. The soups were great. And sometimes we'd have a burger then with it. But that would be our dinner stop for the night.

And then after filling our bellies, we would get back in the car and, Usually there's a gas station too that at that point, if we had to stop and fill up, we would stop and fill up there just because it was one that would have the snacks. And there are these, they're called cowtails that I always have to get. So after the gas station and we've gotten our snacks, I'm sure I was eating one of my cowtails. And at this part, it is just a two-lane highway that we're driving on. The cars come straight at you.

There's no median or anything in between. You're going, you know, speed limits probably 45, but then you'll hit a stop area where there's a little small town. It'll drop down to 15. So we knew that these little towns were coming. It was our usual ride. There's no streetlights. You can't even tell if there's a house or a farm right off the road unless their house lights are on. So pitch black.

It is just a drive that we've taken, so we weren't nervous, maybe looking out for deer. but just cruising along, enjoying ourselves, music still up. So we were driving along, and I don't remember if we pass the power plant yet or not, but there is a nuclear power plant that we drive past on our way. From the road, all you see is the driveway to it. Like I always ask John, what is that? Because there are concrete barricades. You can't pull in, but you know that it's there.

So I always ask, what's that? and John said it was a nuclear power plant. I don't remember if we had gone past that point or not yet, but we were around. I mean, we drive past it every time. And then out of the darkness, we'd see a light coming towards us that we think is a train.

But then we're talking about it and there's no train track over there. And I do remember asking him, does that look like a train? And both of us were, We're kind of besides ourselves because there's no train tracks across the road. It's coming closer and closer. The light's getting brighter and brighter.

And at us now, where it was off to the right. It was a solid light. Like I know the metro train kind of moves whenever you're waiting for somebody at the metro. It kind of moves back and forth. This light didn't. It was a round white light. We couldn't see anything behind it. all we could see was this headlight, very large, bright headlight, that all we could assume was it was a train.

Because it was low. It wasn't like it was high up in the sky. And we were on a really straight portion of the road. It seemed like it was off to the right. John and I both did look at each other and asked, is that a train? Because we don't ever remember a train being on the right. I think there is a train on the left sometimes, or you follow along train tracks. But this was on the right.

And the only thing in the daytime that you see on the right is maybe one farmhouse up a slight hill. John had made this drive since he was a baby. There's no train there. So we were very confused. And then when it started coming towards us, that's when we realized, no, this is not a train. So just one single light, off in the distance, coming closer and closer. And then it somehow got in front of us. It was in the middle of the road.

And it was just so bright. It's coming closer and closer. We were screaming, not knowing if this was going to hit us or what was going to happen. It was almost like instantaneous. It was a little light, and then all of a sudden it was all we could see was light. Once it was right in front of us, I know I was screaming for John to stop. He stopped and I was stop and screaming. Like, I remember us full screaming.

We didn't pull over. We just came to a complete stop in our lane, in the road. If there was no one else around, if there had been any cars behind us, they would have hit us. We just stopped. Otherwise, it was going to hit us, whatever it was. I mean, it was right in front of us. All we could see was light.

That was all I could see. It had to have been our whole car enveloped in this light. I couldn't see anything else. I couldn't see behind it. I couldn't see sides of me. It was just a light. we're screaming and the light is right is right in front of us. And the brightness of it and the largeness of it.

And yeah, we were screaming at top of our lungs. I mean, I don't think I've ever screamed like that, except for me giving birth to my twins. We were just pure screaming, not knowing what else, however else to react. That was all we could do was scream. And then that's it. I don't remember anything else other than hearing a scream and the brightness of the light.

And that's the last thing I remember. The first thing I remember is the TV was on and there was a Menard's ad playing. And I opened my eyes and I look over and John's in the chair, like we both woke up at exactly the same time. I'm in the living room. I know where I am just because it's John's parents. house. But I am confused as to how I got there. And I mean, it's obviously morning. The light streaming in. When I woke up, I was sitting on the couch and like sitting, not laying down. And this is, this isn't, we didn't sleep on the couch when we went to Door County. We had a

bedroom that we slept in. We slept on a bed. It would be unusual for us to sleep in the living room. And I was sitting up. And then John was in the chair, which is another weird thing. we would be sitting on the couch together if we were watching TV or something. And the TV was on. I do know that the TV was on. And I do remember John standing up and walking over to the credenza when we were talking and just not remembering how we got there at all. One second, we're screaming.

And the next second, I'm waking up from what seems like a dead sleep. with the brightness from the outside. When I opened my eyes, it wasn't the bright, bright light from what I remember the night before. If we were in, like I knew where we were, the Menards commercial was playing on the TV, which neither of us liked because of the save big money at Menards. It was just old and corny and we didn't like it. But that was the first thing that we woke up to.

That helped us realize we were in Wisconsin and we had made it to door. County hearing the Menards commercial. We didn't know when when we woke up we were both surprised that we were there. I think that's when we were both like, how did we get here? I'm on the couch and John's on the chair next to the couch. I mean, I was sitting. I wasn't sleep. Like I wasn't laying. I do remember waking up in a sitting position. It didn't feel like any time it passed, which was, but it was bright outside. Like it was the light. from outside, I think that woke us up and the TV. We both were wearing what we had traveled in.

So we didn't change. And yet we weren't tired. I think that was another thing we were kind of weird about, like, why aren't we tired if we had been up all night sort of thing, you know? But it was, it was weird. John had woken up at the same time I woke up. I mean, I just remember both of us just looking at each other and being like, what happened? How did we get here?

And we just kind of went over like, what happened first of all? And I think John's first question to me was, do you remember crossing over the highway? And I don't. And then we realized we don't even know like, where's the car? Where's our stuff? We checked the time. It was probably 9 o'clock in the morning. There, a lot had time had passed.

We don't remember any of that at all. And that's when we started worrying about the car. Just because we don't remember pulling it in the driveway, unloading our stuff. And it was. The car was in the garage and our stuff was inside, not up in the bedroom, where it would be where we would carry it, but right inside the door. Like, we had just gotten there. I was really scared and really freaked out. Once we realized the car was in the driveway and our stuff was inside, I was freaked out.

We both looked at each other and tried to remember really hard how we got there and then talked about stopping in the road. Like you remember stopping in the road. And I think I acknowledged, yes, I remember stopping in the road and the light, but I did not want to talk about it. I did not want to acknowledge that it actually happened. I didn't want to write it down. Do you know? I've never told anyone in my family even. We never talked about it again.

I wanted to black it out like it didn't happen. I just, I remember looking at John and just saying, we're never going to talk about this. I don't ever want to talk about this. And he kind of agreed and was just like, okay, let's go to breakfast. our regular breakfast spot was Piggly Wiggly, right in Sturgeon Bay, and we got up and we went to breakfast. I can't imagine what anybody else at Piggly Wiggly thought,

because I doubt we talked. I think we were just in shock. There's a whole night that I don't know what happened to us. I don't know how we got home, how our bags got inside. I don't know any of that. I don't know why I fell asleep on the couch. I don't remember any of that. And we really never talked about it again.

I'm sure we went to the grocery store and got our movies for the weekend and went back to the cabin. And I do remember saying we're never driving at night again. And John agreeing, okay, I'm cool with that. We'll never drive in the dark. And every other time that we've ever gone to Door County after that, which was probably in the 50 to 100s, we always left on Saturday morning, first thing. which caused some issues with for us as a family. I mean, just because John's parents had retired there and sometimes there were things that we had to do on the weekend

and I refuse to go on Friday nights. It was always, sometimes we'd have to leave at 4 o'clock in the morning on Saturday morning to be there on the time that we had to be there for whatever family gathering on that Saturday, I would not drive to Door County at night ever again. And even when my kids would go after the divorce, with John, I made sure they went on Saturday morning. I wouldn't ever let him even take just him and my kids without me.

That's how afraid I am. I will not drive to Door County at night, ever, ever again. The time that this must have happened must have been around 9 o'clock, I would say, because the whole trip should have taken us four hours. It could have even been a little bit after 9. and I remember being still at least a half an hour away from the house. We probably should have gotten to the house. I would say probably around 10 would have been our goal.

So from 9 until the next day, 9 a.m., that's a whole night that is completely unaccounted for. When I wonder or think back about what could have happened. Well, and I do, I think something happened to the whole car. Do you know? I don't think something happened to us and not, not the car. Those are country roads.

If we blacked out because of something that happened, we would have been in a ditch or against a tree. And we weren't. The car was in the driveway, in the garage. We were in the house with our stuff. we would have remembered something. We would have remembered having to cross that four-lane highway. That is, you have to be alert for that. I mean, that's a four-lane highway so that two lanes going one way and two lanes

going the other way. And you're cutting across it with just a stop sign. Like, you have to be alert. That didn't, that part of the trip we were not awake for or did not happen like it would have every other time we drove there. I don't remember that part at all. I can't tell you one thing that happened during that time from the minute we saw the light to the minute I woke up.

All right, we have to take a break, but we'll be right back with the rest of this episode. So after talking to Susan and hearing her version of events, I obviously wanted to speak to her now ex-husband John, aka Zoe's dad, just to see if he had any additional information about the night. His version of this story was pretty much the same, but I did notice one big difference in his recollection

in terms of where they woke up in the morning. I was a little concerned when I first heard this, thinking it might be an issue that they remembered things completely differently. But as I continued to listen to John explain things, I realized that their stories actually did not conflict with each other. it just turns out that John woke up somewhere completely different from Susan quite some time before she woke up and ended up in the same room with her by the time she woke up.

I don't think she ever even knew this until now. For me, it added an entire new spin on that part of the story, and I thought it was so interesting. So here is the conversation that I had with John. I'm John Murphy from Chicago. I think I'm 55. We had just gotten married. We were on our way to spend the weekend together in Door County, Wisconsin.

But when we were driving, it's just dark farmland. There's no lights. And that's when we noticed way off in the distance, a tiny little light. And I remember sort of talking about it. And it kind of kept getting closer, but it looked. like, I thought it was just maybe a truck, 50 miles up the road or 10 miles or whatever my sight of vision is. And it kept getting closer and closer until it looked like an oncoming headlight of a freight train, like coming right at us, until it was literally right in front

of us and all you could see was light, like engulfing the whole car. But I think we both like screamed, like as it was about to hit us, because I think we thought it was going to hit us. But I just don't remember being scared until the last second when I thought we were going to hit it or it was going to hit us. If I would, I don't remember anything about getting out of the car or stopping the car. I mean, literally the last thing I remember is the light coming right at us and then I have no recollection until waking up the next day. I remember waking up the next day. I remember waking up the next morning, like in my parents' master bedroom, like on the bed. Like the bed was completely made.

I didn't get undressed. I think I woke up with all my clothes on. I felt like it was one moment to the next from the light to waking up in the bed. But I do remember just laying there for, it felt like a couple of hours. And my head hurt so bad. I really had a bad headache. And I don't remember thinking about the moment like the night before. I think like I maybe was in shock for a couple hours, just like laying in the bed.

I do remember being alone and just laying in bed. And I don't think I was trying to recall what happened the night before. I think I was just trying to figure out like something didn't feel right or something was different. And we didn't like drink the night before. a hangover or anything like that. And maybe we did. I just don't have any remember. I don't remember anything after the light.

But I'm assuming we didn't. But it just, my head hurts so bad. But I think when it stopped hurting is when I walked out to the main room. Susan was on the couch of the rocking chair or vice versa. But I think I sat down. I think I was just staring at her. until she woke up. But I don't know if I woke her up.

But I do remember that moment, like when we were in the main room. And that's when I started piecing stuff together in my head that, wow, that, did that really happen last night? Or it hit me that I was sort of remembering bits and pieces until I started clearly remembering like the last moment of the light coming at us. And then I don't remember specifically, like, when she woke up or what we talked about. But I kind of remember saying, do you remember what happened last night? And I think she just went, don't talk about it.

We're just not talking about it. She just kind of freaked out. And I went, okay. And then, of course, I think I prodded her a little more. Like, do you really realize what happened last night? I was trying to get her memory of the story to coincide with what I was remembering. Like, did I really remember that right? And I think we just talked about it for a minute, like where she just confirmed, yes, something came at us last night.

That's all I remember. Let's never talk about it again. I think we just went on with our weekend and tried not to really think about it that much when she woke up because I don't think we talked about anything, which is really, really weird. and she kind of confirmed this like last week when we talked because she said, John, don't you remember? We went out to breakfast and we didn't even say a word to each other. We didn't even speak. And I'm like, yeah, you're right.

So I don't know if she woke up and I just said, come on, let's go to breakfast. Or like two zombies, she woke up and I just, we walked to the car. And the normal thing to do is just go out to breakfast when you're in Door County. There's not a whole lot to do there except eat and have fun. And I just could tell she didn't want to talk about it. But when I finally brought it up, that's when she made it clear that, yes, it did happen, but let's never talk about it again. And of course, every few months I would tease her a little bit just to get her reaction.

And I think we both just forgot about it and never really discussed it again. But when Zoe got older, I remember telling her the story maybe when she was seven, eight or nine. And that's kind of when me and Susan started talking about it again. I'm sure the kids asked her about it and stuff when I wasn't around. If I had to say in my gut what that light was, my gut and my brain is telling me that that light was something, something not from this planet. I don't know why it came at us. I don't know what it did with us.

I don't know why it took us. But it did something with us. And, yeah, no memory of any sort of impact or crash. I just remember, for some reason, as clear as a bell, waking up on that down comforter with all my clothes on the next day. What scares me most is the lost time. And just wondering, do you know, I don't, I don't know. If I let myself really go crazy about it, wondering if, you know, if there was an alien abduction of some sort, if I was tested on, if, is there possibly part of me somewhere else that's not here is just, that's what scares me the most, I think.

I love my kids. I love my family. I want to be with my kids and family. I had the thought of, I don't know, sometimes I can go down into the deep webs where, you know, they say it's hereditary. Abductions are hereditary. And then I wonder, should I talk to my family about it? Has anything like this happened to my siblings or my parents? But I think it would be too weird for them.

They'd think I was crazy. So it's not anything I ever felt comfortable bringing up with my siblings or my parents. I mean, it wasn't like I forgot 10 minutes. We're talking 10, 12 hours that I have no memory of, none at all. Sometimes I get scared. I live alone now. So something could happen to me in the middle of the night and I would never remember I know or no.

So I do often wonder if it's happened again and I just don't know that it's happened again because I'd be in my bed sleeping and wait. up in my bed so I wouldn't know. So that I get scared about, that maybe it wasn't just a one-time thing. But that's when I let my thoughts get creepy, I guess. I try not to, I try not to go there. Okay. Thank you so much to Susan and John for speaking to me. First of all, I thought it was wild how John's version of that night ended up changing things a little bit. Like I said, I first was a little concerned when they had different versions that they were recalling, which does happen sometimes.

I mean, this is a 30-year-old memory that's normal, but it can also be an issue. However, as he explained waking up in bed and what he did after, I realized that the stories lined up perfectly. It's just that Susan woke up and John was sitting in that chair and she assumed he was there the whole time. In reality, he woke up quite some time before on top of the bed in his clothes with a headache. He laid there trying to figure out what happened and then ended up wandering downstairs to look for Susan. I thought that was so interesting, especially the fact that these two maybe never talked about this together and we're just realizing it right now.

What happened to them with this bright light floating towards them on the road is so terrifying to me. Maybe the fact that I grew up around there adds to it because I know how boring driving around the Midwest can be. No offense, of course, but I think Midwesterners know that everything is completely flat. The scenery tends to look pretty consistent from place to place, and there are not to many surprises waiting for you around the corner when you're driving around Midwestern roads, especially not an inexplicable floating light. And Susan made it clear to me that this light approached them to the point where they stopped the car and the light fully consumed them. It's also maybe worth noting that this potentially occurred very close to a nuclear power plant,

which is an odd detail. It's so strange and it's crazy imagining that happening while driving on a familiar Wisconsin road. You know, I hear people toss out insane theories all the time in attempt to rationalize or explain away the things that get discussed in this show. I think any explanation you could possibly come up with to explain such a long period of amnesia in two people and seeing this light which, I guess would be a hallucination, if you wanted to explain it away. Anything that could cause both of those, I think, would surely have a severe impact on their ability to drive home, especially down a

dark road. I think if something like that did occur, they would have probably woken up in the car crashed into a tree or something like that. And I'm certainly glad that is not the case. As they explained, after waking up, Susan and John quickly tried to move on with their weekend. I've said this since the beginning of this show, that this is a very common reaction to experiencing something paranormal like this. When it actually happens to people, I think it's so disorienting that pretty much everyone wants to quickly get back to their normal life as fast as they can. that's really what interests me most about this stuff is how many otherwise normal people have very abnormal moments in their life that they pretty much keep to themselves.

One last thing before we go, Zoe told us that she was apparently born around nine months after this happened, and for that reason, she jokes that maybe her parents were abducted by aliens and she was some kind of result of this. Her dad was not positive on exactly how long before Zoe was born this occurred, but he thinks it might have been pretty close to that. So who knows? However, Susan and John do have five children.

So if that is true about Zoe, I would certainly have a few questions about the rest of the siblings. Thank you once again to Zoe. Susan and John are speaking to me. This has been episode 125. The title is The Light of Dork County, 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 Juice Jackal and North Americans. This episode was edited by myself and engineered by Theo Schaefer. Our associate producers are Nikki Kate Delgado and Haley Pearson. Our artwork is by Coltysak Studios. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you could become a patron at patreon.com slash Otherworld. Please show us your support by subscribing,

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on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.