Otherworld - Episode 82: Them: Part One "Meet Us"

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

After a young Norwegian woman named Solveig experiences a series of frightening events in her college dorm, she calls her mom in hopes of finding reassurance and comfort. To her surprise, Solveig's mom reveals that she has been experiencing the same things herself, and even more. Solveig's mom urges her to take a train to visit her in the Norwegian countryside, where she will explain the situation in more detail and introduce her to a mysterious 19-year-old girl who has apparently become involved in it. This is Part 1 of an ongoing series titled "Them" To hear bonus episodes and videos of Otherworld, sign up for the Otherworld Patreon Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter 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 is the first part of a series that I've been working on for almost a year and a half, which is pretty much as long as this show has existed. I started working on it right about the time that I started the show. The person you're about to hear from reached out by sending in a very condensed, simple version of their experiences. I started talking to her thinking it was going to be an average interview, but she slowly began opening up, telling me more and more of her story as we went along. And the entire thing ended up being very big.

That first interview ended up being six hours long. And I continued to do interviews for this series. I think in total I have over 25 hours of audio. It turns out this story was not some kind of one-off occurrence. It was in fact something that took up years of this person's life. And in the case of her family, even longer than that, this series for me really tested the boundaries of my own beliefs and skepticism. During all of this, my mind was constantly being stretched

and oscillating between both of those feelings. Some days I would completely believe it. Some days I would be telling myself, there's no way. Like, this is just too much. This can't be real because it's too much. Like, whatever part of your brain controls belief and skepticism was exhausted by the end of all of this. It felt like I had run a mental marathon.

And the interesting part of this story is that I know the person you're about to hear from feels exactly the same way as me. Belief is an interesting thing. People love to ask me about my own beliefs when it comes to the paranormal and whether or not they've changed since I started the show. I don't really have a good answer for that. I don't think my personal beliefs matter. And what I often tell people is that, look, these things that we call paranormal, they're constantly having a major on the lives of people around us, having an impact on our world, and even the course of history, whether or not you want to believe in them. And I think this story in particular is one about how these things can really take over and impact a person's life very suddenly. This series

is called Them. This is Part One. The title is Meet Us and you're listening to Otherworld. Is this Bobby? Yes, it is. At its core, the science, you can't argue. I'm not worried about all the science. Up in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happened. I'm literally, I'm gonna 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 Solvai and I'm 29 years old. I'm from Oslo in Norway. I think in general it's most people here, it's like not very accepted to believe in the paranormal stuff.

Like, spirituality in general is not a very common theme amongst Norwegians. I would say that Norwegians are generally quite timid and shy, at least compared to Americans. We have this thing called Yantelhoven, which is kind of hard to find a good way to translate it, but it's called like the law of yamte. And it's basically just this law that says that you're not supposed to think

that you're any better than anyone else. And I think that's kind of sums up the general Norwegian person in a way. Like we don't want to take up too much space or like demand too much attention. And I guess maybe that's also why the whole spiritual stuff isn't very, or at least as of yet, has been like, like a big thing here. You're kind of frowned upon.

So my mom was always different. When she was a teenager, she became more of a hippie. And she got into, she became quite spiritual. Her grandfather, who had passed away, visited her. And ever since me and my sister were kids,

she's always been working with spiritual stuff. She would have, do terror reading for clients, and she also does astrology. I remember she would always encourage me and my sister to be ourselves and to sort of have a wild imagination. So this story I'm going to tell is quite long, so I'm going to try and it's kind of difficult to know where to start because as things have been happening, I've been sort of looking back and realizing that there's maybe some happenings along

my childhood, for example, that I think could be connected to it. So maybe I'll just start with telling about this story that happened when I was four years old, I think. and I was in bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and I just stood up in my bed and I saw this, it looked like a woman who kind of looked angel-like.

She was very, very bright. She was just emitting this extremely bright white light. And I just remember standing in my bed, looking at her and I wasn't scared or anything. It was kind of as if there was some part of me that knew who she was somehow and feeling kind of safe, I guess. Yeah, in 2012, I went to this house in Spain at this art school I went to Owens. And this house is very close to this mountains called Montserrat.

every month, I think on the 11th of each month, people gather by the foot of the Montserrat Mountain to look for UFOs because there's apparently been a lot of sightings there. And so I went there with, I think we were around 20 people who stayed in this house together. So we went to this UFO gathering and most of the people there didn't really take it seriously

and neither did I really. We were just kind of going for the fun of it, I guess. We thought they were kind of crazy, I guess. Like we were all joking about it. We were kind of joking about making these tinfoil hats and showing up in the tinfoil hats. But then I'm glad we decided not to do that because that would kind of be a bit disrespectful

to the people who, who apparently meet her every single month. And yeah, we did end up seeing some strange things, but I think maybe it was too subtle for people to really believe in it. I don't know. But I do remember people kind of reacting to it and thinking it was interesting, but it's not really something we talked that much about after it happened.

This place that I'm talking about in... Spain is very strange. Like this specific house, a lot of people go there and have strange experiences, like even people who are normally very skeptical and aren't really into the paranormal have really vivid, intense dreams. Lots of people have sleep paralysis. It's a very strange place with very intense energies, I think. I was sharing a room with my friend. I would always have trouble falling asleep because I just felt like there was, I don't know, this type of intense presence there that would make me feel a bit freaked out. So I was listening to an audiobook to help me fall asleep and eventually I fall asleep but then in the middle of the night

I wake up because suddenly the volume on my phone goes all the way up and then all the way down again. And it keeps going all the way up and all the way down several times. And I just remember being really freaked out and kind of had to take a moment to look around, I guess, to see if there was, for some reason, my friend was like messing me. with my phone, but she was sleeping in her bed next to me. And I had this Samsung galaxy. So I guess it was just some old Samsung headphones that came with the phone. And I don't, I don't even think they had the volume adjuster on the cord. I think you had to do it on the phone. There was no logical explanation for why my phone was doing this. So I remember just sitting,

watching the screen of my phone and seeing the volume thing go all the way up and all the way down again several times. I just remember being really freaked out and feeling like something in the room was trying to communicate with me somehow or that something was demanding my attention. so I think I even said out loud, okay, you got my attention now, can you please back off and leave me alone? And then it stopped and I don't think I got much sleep that night because I was still kind of shaky from that whole thing. And then the second thing that happened during that same trip was, um, On this particular day, I was taking a nap in my room and I was sitting, sort of half sitting, half laying down in my bed.

And I just remember feeling really tired. But at the same time, I couldn't fully go to sleep. It was like I was kind of in this trance like state where I was being pulled into sleep. Or I don't know how to explain it, but it was like I couldn't fully fall asleep. I also couldn't keep my eyes open. So I just kept dosing off and waking up again. And I would dose up for maybe 10 seconds and then wake up for 10 seconds. And that would just go on for maybe 20 minutes.

While this was going on, I kind of remember filming myself. While I was in this weird trans-like state, I guess. Yeah, I have no idea why I was filming myself. But I remember after I woke up. up again and I found this video on my phone and watched it. It just kind of, I kind of creeped myself out because it didn't feel like something I would have done. Normally, it's just, it's a very strange thing to do to, to film your own face while you're falling asleep. I don't know if I was, yeah, I really don't know why I was doing that.

I sort of understood while it was going on on some level that it was really strange and that I wanted to document it maybe. That's sort of the only explanation I can find for it. It's just a very strange thing to do. And it was very weird looking at that video. Because I was the one doing it, but it kind of felt like something made me do it, if that makes sense. Like, yeah, I just don't understand why I would,

why I would do that. It's just a very weird thing to do. A month later, in the beginning of October, I'm back home in Oslo and I'm in my apartment at the time. I lived in this student housing building, so I had a tiny apartment which was basically just a bedroom and then I had a private bathroom as well. I remember in the night, maybe around 10 in the evening, I start feeling like someone is standing in my hallway, like the small hallway between my bathroom and my bedroom. It's this very intense presence and I can visualize what this being looks like inside my mind. So I could see what this being looked like inside my head and it looked like a small man.

Like he would maybe reach me to my shoulders and he had short dark hair and neutral grey clothes or something and I just remember that he had these very big extremely intense eyes as if he was just like really, really staring. at me. It's hard to explain, but, for example, when you think, you hear your own thoughts, sort of. But that's different from when you hear someone else speak. It just felt like it wasn't coming from me. If that makes sense, I don't really know how to explain it, but he didn't look like any people I know.

and he just also kind of there was something about him that didn't seem human and I think that's why I didn't feel like it was just my imagination yeah I could see him with my mind's eye I guess which I had never experienced before and it was like it was like a person that was, how do you say, compromised, like, compressed, probably. Yeah, compressed, yeah, yeah, as if he was compressed. His eyes were so intense.

And they felt it was as if he was insisting on something with his eyes, sort of, it was a very, it felt like a very insisting presence. I remember that I wasn't really scared. I just felt kind of annoyed because it felt like he was invading my private space. And I even went to look for him several times because I felt so strongly that he was standing in my hallway. And it felt like he just kept moving out of my sight every time I went to look for him. Yeah, so I remember thinking that was really, really strange and just, I'll just. unlike anything I had ever really experienced before.

And then around midnight, I tried to go to bed. And I end up in this kind of trans-like state, which was very similar to that time in Spain when I was filming my own face while falling asleep. I fall asleep or I dose off for maybe 10 seconds, and then I wake up again for 10 seconds. and then I fall back asleep for 10 seconds and wake up again. And that just kind of goes on for, I think, a few hours at least.

Again, there was this feeling of not really having control as if something was kind of pulling me into this strange trans-like state. Every time I dozed off, I would hear this knocking in the wall right next to my bed. and I knew that nobody was, because that wall was connected to my private bathroom, so I knew for a fact that nobody was in that room, because my apartment was locked and everything. But I kept hearing that knocking every single time I dosed off. At this point, I'm kind of starting to freak out a bit.

But I was also just really curious because I had never experienced. anything like it before. And I wake up the next day and I just remember feeling like there was this really intense electric energy in my apartment. That electric energy just felt like it was going through my body, sort of as if I could physically feel it and that it was almost like this pressure in a way, that it felt kind of hard to breathe properly and my heart was speeding really fast and I actually went around and pulled out all electrical devices because I just felt like everything was kind of amplified

and it just felt too intense to be in there so I think the reason why I kept unplugging every electrical device in my apartment was because I just felt like there was this static kind of and yeah as if it was moving through my body and just making everything feel really intense if you were to say that we have an energy body which i believe that we do um maybe the feeling was that usually that's something i had like contained within my physical body but at this point it was like it was that the boundaries had dissolved maybe and everything was like going directly into my field and that's why everything all of a sudden felt extremely intense.

I got dressed and I just left and I went for school or I went to school and as I was walking up the stairs to school I just have to sit down outside of the entrance and I have, I think I kind of had a panic attack or I start hyperventilating because I guess I hadn't really processed what had happened the night before and it just, I guess I freaked out a bit because I really didn't know what it was and it was just not similar to anything I had ever experienced before. So I call my mom and I tell her about the man standing in my hallway and the weird trans-like state and hearing the knocking in the wall. And she tells me that she has experienced something similar and that she has also heard this knocking. That doesn't come from a person or it doesn't come from, often comes from, often comes from, from a room where you know for sure that there's, that there can't be any, any people. She, she was, she was at work, so she only had 20 minutes to give me a short run through of what

was going on, which was also interesting. But she basically ended up telling me that she and this other girl, who's my age, who worked at the same gym as my mom, who's, who's, his name is Sarah, had also had similar strange experiences and that she believed that these were aliens contacting us or multidimensional beings trying to contact us, which I remember just felt really overwhelmed. I just felt really overwhelmed by hearing that. I didn't really know what they think.

That's probably not what you were hoping to hear from your mom when you called her. No. I just wanted to try to understand what had happened, and it felt like the answer she gave me just filled me up with even more questions or made me even more confused, and it just sounded very unbelievable, basically. But yeah, she gave me a very short version of a story that turned out to be very long, but essentially that Sarah had contacted my mom because she knew my mom was a yoga instructor

and she wanted to learn some meditation techniques. And since they worked at the same gym, they just decided to meet in the yoga room and practice some breathing exercises together. They, so they were meditating together and I think she just taught Sarah some very like basic breathing exercises. There's this exercise called fire breath where you just breathe really quickly and intensely, which is like a very basic breathing exercise. But for Sarah, this just made her completely feel like she was disappearing or that

she was like, she just lost time and space. Later that day, at least I think it was the same day, my mom receives five empty text messages from Sarah. And she asked Sarah what those messages were about or if she had tried to text her or what was up sort of. And Sarah was just really surprised because she hadn't texted my mom. And also in her phone, there were no messages being sent from her. Like she couldn't see these empty messages in her phone.

They were only appearing in my mom's phone. And then they don't really think much more about it. They just assume that something strange happened, like some technical or maybe she, yeah. They just don't really think much more about it. and then they they meet again, but this time there's also a third person present, and the three of them are meditating together. And at this point, I think Sarah had just bought a new phone. So neither my mom or this other woman had a phone charger that would work for her phone.

So her phone was out of battery, and all of their phones were lying in the other end of the while they were meditating. I think right after they finished meditating, Sarah's phone starts calling my mom's phone, even though Sarah's phone is out of battery and it's all the way in the other side of the room. So none of them are physically near their phones. But they're just so surprised by this happening

that they don't even think about picking up. They all agree that this is really strange. and don't really know what to make of it. And so they all go home and this was, I think, exactly a week after my mom received the five empty text messages for the first time. And at the exact same time, just a week after, at 2117 in the night,

she receives five new empty text messages. And again, the messages don't. show up in Sarah's phone. She hasn't sent her any messages and it's just really surprised. And at this point, I think they're both kind of starting to think that something is going on because the fact that it's one seven days apart and it's at the exact same time at 2117. And plus the phone call thing is just too much that has happened that just makes it seem like it's not just a coincidence anymore. And then my mom and Sarah,

they keep kind of meeting and practicing some meditation together and Sarah keeps having this intense feelings of losing time and space while she's meditating. Like she's been sitting for 45 minutes, but she feels like it's only been like 10 minutes that has passed, which that can be normal when you meditate and you get into it. But as far as I understood it,

just felt like, she just basically lost time and space. After a while, like, my mom again gets text messages from Sarah, but now the text messages have started containing words, or it's just one word, but it's repeated seven times. And it just says coming seven times. What did it say? It said coming, as if someone is coming.

Like someone is arriving or yeah And what kind of phones did they have at the time? Well, they both had iPhones and I think since Sarah had bought a new phone I guess maybe she had an iPhone 6 or something. So is this all part of the stuff that your mom told you when you called her? Yes, but in a short version

Yeah, she told me about receiving strange phone calls and receiving text messages that nobody had sent and she also told me that these text messages eventually started talking about me and that I, me and Sarah were going to be very important to each other. already then they told her that me and my sister would also be a part of it and that we would also sort of play important roles in whatever this is but that it would be many years before that happened

did you see the text messages yeah I've seen them she showed me them because what happened was I called her and she told me a short version of the story I just told you, like as much as she could within 20 minutes before she had to rush back to work. And then I was just kind of stuck there in school without, I couldn't really tell anyone because it's just too crazy to,

yeah, I didn't fully understand it myself. So I just kept it to myself and my mom agreed to come. and meet me in Oslo the day after. And at this point, I don't want to go back to my apartment. And the school I went to at the time was open 24 hours. So I just slept in school.

And then I wake up and I go straight to meet my mom the day after. And we meet at this restaurant or cafe, which luckily was completely empty. because I think it would be kind of strange to have this conversation with a bunch of people around. And she kind of tells me the story a bit more in depth. She tells me about Sarah, who's my age, and we grew up in the same city, but we never met about these beings. them Sarah calling

Sarah's phone calling her phone they hear as if there's someone on the other end trying to communicate something that doesn't sound human. It's just this kind of fast-paced it kind of sounds like fast-paced

breathing that kind of goes up and down in tempo. It's as if they're trying to make themselves understood, but it's like they're not really getting through somehow. And eventually during that phone call, they receive an SMS. So that's sort of the first time they realized that they could communicate with them through having them on the phone and then asking them questions and they would reply by sending an SMS.

She also said that she was not surprised that this happened to me. She said that these beings said that we were meant to be working together. Yeah, and all of this was a lot to take in, of course. It's almost hard to remember what I felt or what I thought. I just remember I started crying while we were talking about it because I just felt really overwhelmed by everything. So it was a mix of feeling extremely overwhelmed, kind of scared, but also really curious and excited at the same time.

I mean, you probably reached out to your mom hoping she would calm you down. Yeah, I did. Or at least just like, oh, it's maybe it's probably just someone looking after you or just giving me a very, something that would be easier to sort of understand and digest, I guess. And then she ended up telling me this really big story that made me feel extremely confused, but also very curious and wanting to find out more. Am I understanding this right? So you have this strange vision.

You call your mom. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a couple weird things happen and you call your mom in hopes that she'll calm you down. Instead of that, she tells you that the same things are happening to her and this mysterious girl named Sarah, who's your age,

that you don't know of. It's some yoga girl named Sarah. Yeah. She also tells you that she's been getting text messages from otherworldly beings that say that you, her, and Sarah are destined to do something together? Yes. Yes. That's basically it's they...

Was it weird? I mean, wow, that's a lot. It is. I mean, it's like every kid gets scared of a monster under their bed. Yeah. You call your mom, be like, mom, there's a monster under my face. bed and your mom's like, I know the monster. And I've been talking to him.

I've been talking to him with somebody from my gym for years. Me and the monster have been waiting for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot. Yeah. And it was, it was, it was, it was a lot for me as well because I, I am quite a private person and I'm normally someone who, it takes me a while to get close to someone. Yeah, so it was definitely strange meeting her for the first time after hearing all that stuff

and sort of having this, yeah, all this strange information that I didn't know what to think about, really. Yeah, it was all extremely strange. And so we quickly made plans for me to come and meet Sarah. Because at the time my mom lived in this really beautiful house on the countryside in Norway, like a couple of hours or an hour and a half outside of Oslo. I agreed to come visit my mom and also meet Sarah who would be there. and this was like the most intense day of my life.

Like, so much stuff happened that day and that night. Yeah. The story is a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It's a long story. And I'm not even halfway, and it's been an hour already. So, yeah. All right, we have to take a break for some ads. but we'll be right back with the rest of the story.

So this is, I think this is October 12th when I go to my mom's house and meet Sarah for the first time. I was just feeling confused and as if I really didn't know what to expect. I was still quite skeptical about what all of this meant. and, well, I was wondering who she was and what she wanted, I guess, because of course my first thought was that she, of course I thought that maybe she had tricked my mom or that she was the one who was sort of sending those strange messages or I guess I was a bit skeptical and kind of just, but still tried to keep an open mind and just see what would happen.

But of course I think it was very strange. And also just, yeah, it's very strange when your mom suddenly starts to hang out with this random person who's your age. Like, it is very strange. So of course I was skeptical and kind of unsure about what to think and who this person really was and why they were sort of in my house or...

Yeah. So what were your first impressions of this girl? Well, I think what I kind of reacted to was maybe just that she seemed very normal. I guess maybe I was expecting to have a feeling of something being strange about her or something being like... Yeah, she just...

seemed like a very normal girl who was around my age but came from a very different or not necessarily a very different background but just we were just living quite different lives so i i wasn't sure if we really had had that much in common or if we could really relate that much to each other so you're you're like an art school person and she's like a crossfit person right is that yeah kind of yeah Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't normally hang out with a person like that. No, and that's the thing.

Like, we grew up in the same city. We didn't go to the same schools or anything, but we never met. Like, we never really crossed paths. And I guess that's because we just had different interests and we weren't really into the same stuff. Like, it wouldn't, yeah, I don't think I would naturally be someone she would hang out with either.

It's just like, Yeah, we just didn't really have the same interests and didn't hang out with the same type of people, basically. I think I just went in there feeling a bit strange and a bit awkward. And it's really strange when you're kind of told from beforehand, like, okay, you're going to meet this person. And she, you and her are going to be very connected to each other. like it's a very absurd way to try and start a friendship or like it's it's very strange and it's hard to kind of act natural around someone when that's the starting point i guess yeah so the first thing that happens is we're eating dinner so it's me and sarah my mom and

my mom's partner at the time. We're sitting by the dinner table and there was this big, just like a big jug of water in the middle of the table. Sarah was getting up from the table to go to the kitchen to get something and as she's getting up, this jug of water just falls over, which she hasn't like jerked the table or anything. It just falls over. And this keeps happening with things containing water. When Sarah walks past it, it just tips over, which was really strange, but I remember finding it extremely,

of course, extremely strange, but also very exciting. It was almost as if she was doing it, but she didn't know, or like she had some type of control, or I guess some type of power almost that she didn't know how to control. The water glasses that we were drinking from on the table and then vases containing flowers,

like all sorts of stuff as long as it had water in it would just tip over as she walked past it. Her and my mom experienced water manifesting in strange places. Like in my mom's office, for example, there would all of a sudden just be like a puddle of water in the middle of the floor. And there were no pipes that would make sense of it or make it seem logical. It was just manifesting out of nowhere. So that was the first thing that happened that day.

And then we move after having dinner. We sit in the kitchen. And me and Sarah are sitting on this bench in the kitchen that's up against the wall. all of a sudden we start saying the exact same thing at the same time and we start moving our bodies in the exact same way at the same time which I know that mirroring a person you're speaking to is quite normal but this was more than that this was like it just seemed like we were one consciousness split into two bodies and we were just like yeah

it was really, really strange and we were just we just started laughing a lot because it was so absurd and I think it went on for maybe half an hour. What were you guys saying? We weren't really saying anything specific.

It was just when I opened my mouth to say something, she did the exact same thing at the same time and we said the exact same thing. It was just as if we were like hyper-connected And, yeah, it was really absurd. Just random things, but all three of you? No, just me and Sarah.

But my mom and her partner were there, like, just kind of in the room with us watching and just being really amazed by what was going on and how we were just kind of like these twins who are just extremely connected to each other. How many times would you say that happened? in a half hour? It happened almost consistently for half an hour, that we were just like this, yeah, like one consciousness split into two bodies. Like saying things at the exact same time?

Yes. So that went on for around 30 minutes. And the bench were sitting on. is up against the wall that's sort of facing the garden, if that makes sense. Like it has these two windows on each side of the bench. So there's one window next to me and there's one window next to Sarah behind us. And all of a sudden the windows start fogging up, which was also really absurd. and then we see that there's an S written on the window,

and the S is like appearing as we're looking at it. So there's an S written on the foggy window next to where I was sitting, and then there's an S for Sarah on the window next to where she was sitting. And this kept happening a few times throughout the night that the windows would fog up, Like all of a sudden in the hallway, the windows would fog up and there would be written an S and an S for Sarah and Sordweig. And then they were also drawn these two hearts that were like drawn into each other. And at the same time, the chandelier in the kitchen started rotating or swaying out of nowhere, which happened a few times during that day. it kind of seemed like the chandelier going off was kind of a sign that something was happening

or something was about to happen or yeah I don't know and then there's just all this small strange things that keep happening like all of a sudden in the bathroom upstairs I go to use the bathroom and there's my mom's jewelry some of like two pieces of my mom's truly have been put on the next to the sink and shaped into two hearts and suddenly this chair that was standing up against the wall in the bathroom is suddenly in the middle of the room and yeah sarah walks past these this vase containing three flowers and then all three of them fall out it's getting kind of late so my mom and her partner goes to, goes to bed and me and Sarah sit up for a while longer and we're just sitting in the living room. So me and Sarah are sitting in the couch and then we decide

to go to bed around midnight probably and we blow out the candles and turn off the light. And as we are just about to exit the room, the light turns out. back on and the chandelier on the other side of the room starts swaying. I think at this point I was kind of past the excitement and had maybe moved into just being really scared and freaked out. And so me and Sarah are just standing in the living room looking at each other being like really confused and also I think we just said to each other like, okay I guess we're not going to go to bed.

after all. So we just stand there in the room and the chandelier is like going really fast and then slowing down and then going really fast again. So it's like... How fast does it... Like how many spins?

How many spins are we talking? It was just spinning continuously. But it would slow down and then speed up again. So it would like change in its pace, I guess. This is so... You didn't mention any of this in your email. You told me there was more. It's such a long story.

You told me there was more, but I didn't realize it was like this. This is... No. This is all one day. This is all one day. And this is... I'm only halfway through what happened that night. You could see me.

I keep putting my head in my hands. Yeah. I mean... Yeah. It's also funny to me, too, because it's... There's this layer to it. where like I couldn't imagine my dad calling me and saying like, oh yeah, there's this guy from the gym that's your age that you need to meet,

let alone the alien stuff, like going over and like having to hang out with some guy from my dad's gym. And then this stuff is happening, it's like, yeah, it's mind boggling. It's also funny. It's fun. There's something funny about it. Yeah. Speaking of dads, my dad doesn't know anything about this at all. I don't think he would handle it, to be honest.

What about the partner? Who's this person? He was there for us? Yeah, they're not together anymore. But he was there and he's also seen a lot of stuff. He hasn't had experiences himself, but he's been a witness to a lot of stuff going on. But he's an extremely private person,

so I'm not sure he would, yeah, I'm not sure if he would be open to doing an interview, but... What was he saying during all of this? He was just like kind of shaking his head in this belief and just saying it's completely unbelievable, but I'm seeing it. So he was just, yeah, basically saying I can't believe this, but I'm seeing it with my own eyes. so it's happening but um i think this uh i don't i think he wasn't really comfortable with stuff going on which is most people wouldn't be but also because he saw how scared me and sarah got a few times um so i think he was really kind of skeptical of whether this was a good thing I guess, because we were really, really scared that night.

There was so many intense things happening. Yeah. So what happened that night? Yeah, like I said, the chandelier is swaying. And then me and Sarah had been sitting next to each other at the dinner table. And then suddenly the chair I was sitting on falls down. I just remember us both kind of screaming because we were, we, first of all, we weren't really expecting that to happen and it was just kind of scary seeing that whatever we were kind of in

contact with was able to physically move objects and quite big objects. So my chair falls down and we put it back up. of course seconds later sarah's chair falls down and we put it back up and then a few moments later both of our chairs fall down at the same time when they fell down and when they were lying on the floor they were like lying very close to each other like there was no distance between them which was also kind of strange at this point we're both really scared and my mom's come comes running down the stairs because she's heard us scream. And we just tell her what's happened.

And she kind of, we're all laughing because I guess that's the only thing you can really do. It's like, yeah, this strange, you don't really know how to react. So I guess what's normal to react in those situations is to either start to cry or to laugh. And yeah. So we were just kind of laughing. And she goes back up to bed again, but kind of tells her to, tells us to just let her know if we need some support or anything. And then we go out of this living room and into the next room where all of a sudden this deck of Oracle cars that belong to me.

me and were in my apartment in Oslo, falls down from the ceiling. Wait, the cards were... Wait, they... The cards weren't physically in that house. They were in my apartment in Oslo, in a totally different city. And they just fall down from the ceiling as if they're appearing out of nowhere. But they're physically in the room now? Like, they were in your apartment in Oslo, then suddenly they're here in your mom's house,

falling from the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. I wish people could see my face. Yeah. Okay, so what did you guys do? We each picked the card and sadly I can't remember what my card said. I have it written down in this notebook that I, of course, can't find.

I know that I have it somewhere, but it's just... But yeah, so we each pick the card and then... Sarah's phone calls mine again without her being near it. I'm there with her, so I see that she's not touching it. Her phone calls mine and we go to sit in the kitchen again. So we're sitting on this bench in the kitchen that has the windows behind it. And we're on the phone with them and we just hear all of these high-pitched, high-frequency. noises. A part of it is also the feedback that you hear when two phones call each other in the

same room. There's this feedback sound. I don't know if you heard that before. But yeah, that sound, but also just like these sounds that are very unpleasant to listen to. And when the sounds would get too loud, we would tell them it's too loud. It's too loud. and usually the volume would go down immediately, which was kind of interesting. I don't know if that's just what happens when there's a feedback and you speak, that it just kind of kills it.

No, it would be the opposite, just FYI. Yeah, okay, yeah. The more input would make it louder. Okay, yeah. Yeah, so I guess that's kind of interesting then that it just kind of, the sound stopped once we said it's too loud. What did it sound like?

It's difficult. I have some sound recordings that I can show you, but if I'm supposed to, if I'm to try and explain it, I think it sounds, to be honest, for me, it kind of sounded like what I thought outer space would sound like, if that makes sense. Like if you were going to, in a sci-fi movie, make this sound of outer space, that's what I kind of would have imagined. It kind of sounds like it's a metallic sound and it's like it's increasing in frequency almost while you listen to it. It's like going louder and louder or lighter or lighter. So the next thing that happens is that we at this point we know that we can ask. them questions and they answer by text messages. So we ask them what they want. And they reply by just saying, meet us. And that's also maybe an important detail to get in there,

is that they would write to us in Norwegian. But the Norwegian would be kind of strange. Like it was as if they didn't fully know the language. So there would be no commas or, Yeah, no punctuation. And the grammar would just be kind of off. And usually, at least in the beginning, the text messages would just contain a few words. So, yeah, when we ask them what they want, they say meet us.

And they also say that they want us to go outside. And I just remember being Sarah looking at each other, being really, really, scared and just very hesitant about going outside and also feeling like just not really having any idea about what this meeting would be like, what they look like or what they really want with us or if they could potentially abduct us or anything. You know, you've heard all these stories about alien abduction. So I guess that's also something that I had in the back of my mind. So we're basically just really hesitant to go outside.

At this time, it's like 1 a.m. maybe and it's completely dark. It's in the countryside, so there's no streetlights. And it's also in October, so it's quite cold. But as we're sitting there, I hear as if someone's tax. the window with the finger behind me and I look at the window and there's no one there. So we just kind of understand that it's them knocking on the window, just emphasizing that they want us to come outside. So we grabbed these small flashlights and we get dressed.

We were both wearing our pajamas, so we weren't really dressed for a cold October night, but we put it on our coats and we just grab onto each other's hands really tight and we go outside. So we go around the house, into the garden. Behind the house is quite a big garden and then below the garden is a big field. and then below the field again is this lake. So we go around the house into the garden and we kind of stop and they're still on the phone and we're just like, okay, we're outside now. Is this it sort of?

And they tell us by texting us to keep going, like go further. So we go a bit further. and then we stop again because we don't want to, we kind of want to stay close to the house. I'm extremely scared and I don't think I've ever been more scared in my entire life than what I was in that moment. Yeah, they tell us to keep going and we keep going and eventually they tell us that they want us to go down to the water.

So we make it down to the water. And as we're standing there sort of on the beach in front of the lake, I feel them touching me. And it feels like someone with a very long finger is like poking me on the side of my body below my ribs. And I scream, of course, because, yeah, I guess I don't have to explain why. but and then Sarah feels the same. She also feels them touching her. But we still don't see them. They're not, we're not like physically seeing beings there,

but they're on the phone with us. They're texting us and they just touched us. And then they tell us that they want us to go into the water, which none of us were really wanted to do. both because it felt unsafe and also because the water is really cold. This is like late fall, early winter in Norway. But we take off our shoes and we just kind of get our feet into the water. And we're still holding each other's hand really tight.

And the flashlight just flies out of Sarah's hand. lands on the other side of the beach. And we're standing in the water and suddenly it feels like someone is, or like this really strong magnet almost, is pulling at our hands and pulling us further into the water. So we're being pulled further out into the water. At this point, I'm really scared and it's starting to feel a bit unsafe. or it feels like they could potentially drown us if they wanted to, you know.

It's like, yeah, it's quite scary, but they keep pulling us a bit like that. So eventually we stand with water like up to above our knees, I think, and that's where we sort of refuse to go any further. And we're just standing there in the water, and I think we stood there for maybe 20 minutes. and nothing really happens. So we decide to go up to the house again. And when we get back to the house,

my mom has noticed that we're gone and she's really upset and scared and is worried that they have sort of taken us with them or something or that something has happened. So we just tell her about what has happened. And I think she sent them... Yeah, this sounds so absurd. but I think she sent them a text just kind of telling them that that was crossing the line

to make us go into the water and all of that stuff and sort of scare her. Like they should have at least told her maybe so she knew that we were safe. When you're texting them and when you've been on the phone, who is whose number are you texting? and who is calling and where are these coming from? So it's all going through Sarah's phone. So she just texts Sarah saying that was crossing the line. Yes.

When my mom would text Sarah's phone, the messages that weren't meant for Sarah, if that makes sense, that were meant for these beings that we were communicating with, they didn't show up in her phone. They just, I don't know how to explain that, but it's yeah

this is one of the strangest stories I've ever heard yeah it is this is so unexpected I mean it's like you know obviously when I hear something like this

I have to consider like is something else going on was this somebody pulling a weird prank or like yeah I don't even like aside from the logistical reasons why it would be like impossible. I don't even know what the prank would be like.

No, I know. And of course, that's also something I thought before I had all of these experiences with seeing things like fly through walls and appear out of nowhere. I also thought when my mom was telling the story, like maybe Sarah's doing this. Maybe she's the one sending the messages

and somehow has hacked her phone to make it call without seeming like she's calling or something, but there's just, first of all, after getting to know her, I don't think she would be a person who does that type of stuff, but also there's just been so many other things that are completely unexplainable that have happened. I've also experienced texting with them, and then I'm about to write my question, and then their reply even before I get to write it, in the message field. It's like a telepassage. Yeah. And like why? What would be her end game there?

Even if she, she would have to be like the next Houdini level. Why would she do it to impress a random lady from her gym instead of using these skills to become a multimillionaire? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I... That's why it's also hard to tell this story in sort of a linear time. a line because there's so many layers and there's, it's just such a long story as well. I don't worry, I have a lot of time. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to hear more.

Yeah, I mean, that night hasn't ended yet. Oh, my God. Are you serious? That brings us to the end of part one. will be back soon with the next part of this series. I am so excited and also nervous to be putting this whole thing out. I was completely overwhelmed when Solvi started to reveal the extent of this experience to me. I mean, you have to realize she was one of the first people to ever email the show. When I talked to her, I had only made a few episodes of Otherworld.

Back then, I thought I was making a miniseries. I did not even think this was going to be my job. So needless to say, I was surprised and in way over my head. And I could only imagine how much more extreme that same feeling must have been for Solvi that day when her mom dumped all that information on her. You know, even though back then I maybe wasn't fully ready for it, I was also very honored that Solvi was telling me. telling me this story because she hadn't told anyone the full thing before.

And as I got to know her, I saw how much she still struggles with this whole thing and is processing all of it still to this day because it's really complicated. And I really wanted to do my best to help her tell this entire complicated story. It's been a challenge for me, and I'm very excited for you all to hear it. There is so much going on in this one. I'm sure people will have lots of questions and thoughts. If you don't already, trust me, you will. So for that reason, I'm going to be doing some Patreon episodes in between these main ones

where I just discuss the series, answer questions from people, and share my thoughts. I'm also going to be releasing some extra stuff later on. So if you want to tune into those, they'll be available at patreon.com slash otherworld. Like I said, we'll be back very soon with the next part of this story. This has been Them, Part 1. The title is Meet Us, and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. The theme song is by Cobra Man.

The soundtrack of this episode is by Juliana Barwick. Also featuring music from Treyer, Tryon de La Torre. This episode was edited by myself and engineered by Theo Sheaer. Our artwork is by Cold Sacks Studios. Production help by Nikki Kate Delgado and Haley Pearson. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review and telling your friends. Like I said, if you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld,

you could become a patron at patreon.com slash Otherworld. Our social media is at Otherworld Pod. Thank you to the team at Odyssey, J.D. Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman, Leah Reese Dennis, Rob Morandi, Eric Donnelly, Matt Casey, Moor Curran, Josephina Francis and Hillary Shuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free 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.