Otherworld - Episode 94: The Taotaomo'na

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

While living in Guam and working as a lifeguard, Connor has a terrifying experience in his room that the locals say might have been an encounter with their ancestral spirits, the Taotaomo’na. 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] or 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 story comes from a guy named Connor. He is a surfer from San Diego, and I think that will be very obvious as soon as you hear his voice. Years ago, Connor wound up moving to Guam to work as a lifeguard at a hotel. Guam is a very small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's about 1,500 miles east of the Philippines. Despite its small size, Guam has a lot of history. It's home to an indigenous group called the Chimoro people who have lived there for thousands of years. Guam was also the site of a lot of very, very intense warfare during World War II.

It was a U.S. territory before the war and then was invaded by Japan days after Pearl Harbor. Then the United States launched an assault to recapture Guam in 1944. even though this is only a 210 square mile island, it saw a lot of terrible violence during the war because of its strategic significance. That being said, this story takes place long after all of that. Many years later, when Connor finds himself at a party hearing about a cool job opportunity

where he could be working at a lifeguard at a hotel in a very far away island. I'll let him take it from here. This is episode 94. The title is The Tatumona's, and you're listening to Otherworld. Is this Bobby? Yeah, 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 happening. I'm going to die. It's limbs were just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them in it. My name's Connor. I am 32.

I'm a barber. I'm from San Diego. I'm very active in the San Diego recovery community. I've been sober for just a little over five years. And I like surfing and doing jiu-jitsu, and I'm not doing that stuff. So actually, the way I got sober was I was following a meme page, and he was making all these jokes about, like, ha-ha, don't do drugs with, like, memes and stuff. And I messaged him one night.

And I was, like, at 3 a.m. I was like, hey, do you want to get a cup of coffee tomorrow? And he was like, do you really want to get a cup of coffee? And I was like, no, like, I need to get sober. And so we met up and he took me to the rooms. And I got sober with him. And, you know, he changed my life for no reason. And that's kind of the big thing about recovery.

For me is, like, you were given something freely. And in order to hold on to it, you need to give it back. And so I get so obsessed with myself. And the best way to not be obsessed with myself is by helping someone else. And that's the biggest thing in my life is to be able to help others. That's really what I like about. My trade is I got into the industry because I was really bad at school, and trades are important.

And now I'm staying in the industry because I get to be of service to people. I get to make people feel handsome or pretty, and I feel so good when I get a good haircut. It's nice to be able to give people that feeling as well. I love being sober. I love, it's like this weird little secret society, and there's these little sayings that we say that you might hear a random person at a coffee shop say something about it, and you know, oh, that's a friend of Bill's, Bill W, the founder of A.A.

And like me and my partner, we were talking about it the other day. We were driving back from sushi, and she was like, do you think A.A. is a cult? And I had to think about it for a sec, because it's such an inside. joke with people in the rooms because everybody thinks we join this cult when we get sober. And the only reason I said, no, it's not, is because we all collectively decide to believe in a higher power greater than ourselves of our own understanding, not a group consciousness understanding. And I think that's the only thing that really separates it from a cult. I don't know if you've seen that like meme where it's like the worst part about getting sober

is becoming religious. it's not because it's not a religious program. It's a spiritual program. So when you think of like a higher power, when you think of God something greater than yourself, it doesn't have to correlate with something that's been written by someone that many people understand. It could be the ocean.

You know, that's the energy greater than yourself. It's something to remind you that you are not the all-seeing power of the universe, that there are things going on outside of our control. So when I think of God, I just think of like either there is or there isn't. And I'm just one person on earth. So how would I have the power to say that there is not? You know what I mean? So let's see, it was back in, it must have been like 2013.

I was living in Santa Barbara in this tiny college town, Ila Vista, which is like a big party capital of the city. It's like just this small neighborhood. It's like a square mile and it's just packed with college students. I did the college try and I failed pretty quickly, but I didn't want to leave the party yet. I don't want to leave the party at 10. So I just found a way to make it work.

My parents were kind of like, hey, well, we're not just going to pay your rent for you to party up there. So figure it out. And I did. I couch surfed a lot. couldn't really hold a job so paying rent was still hard but I had a lot of friends that would let me crash on their couches and um one of those times uh I was at this random party like I don't even know where it was but I ran into this dude I grew up with down here in San Diego and we were like

catching up you know having beers and like talking and I was like you know what are you doing up here and he's just like oh dude I'm kind of cruising California. because I'm about to move to Guam. I got this job lifeguarding for this hotel. And I was like, oh, that's so sick, dude. Like, good for you, man. And he was like, yeah, you should cruise, man. It would be so fun.

And, like, you know, like, fucked up at a party. I was like, yeah, dude, I'm down. Like, I'll move to the other side of the world, whatever. And we, like, party the rest of the night. And I went home. And then, like, the next day, he had messaged me. And he was like, hey, dude, it's really cool to see you. I don't know if you're actually serious about it, but if you are, here's a link for that hotel.

They are always down to hire off-island workers. It's actually like a really big draw to their hotel because the tourists from Korean, Japan, like to have some of their kids be able to practice their English with Americans. They seem to really enjoy learning English. So having English first language speakers at the hotel was a really big draw for them to come visit. It was almost like a word of mouth thing. And I had a background. I have a background.

I've grown up surfing and playing water pol in my whole life. So I'm very comfortable in the water. So a lifeguarding gig seemed like no big deal. I messaged the company. I had a Skype interview. And then two months later, they'd sent me a plane ticket. And they give you a hotel room to stay at three meals a day. cafeteria and then like a minimum wage on top of it. So it's really like all you really got to do is just

show up and work and everything else is paid for. And like I said at the time, I was couch surfing and just partying. I didn't, I didn't have much going on for me. So it seemed like a no-brainer to be able to get to travel and go to this like tropical place. So yeah, I moved out there. And first of all, it was a total culture shock. Like a lot of the signage and stuff is in Japanese and Korean. Guamam is a really small island. The area the hotel is in is like in this tiny village

called Tamuning, located as Tumon Bay, where all the major hotels are. And outside of there, there's a few military bases. Outside of that, there's not too much on the island. You know, there's roads, there's a couple two-story buildings, but they have severe weather, so it's tough to get like a lot of stuff developed. But I was in total culture shock,

you know, I moved from Santa Barbara to the South Pacific and into this island chain of Micronesia, the Mariana Islands, which is like where the Mariana trenches. It's like the deepest part of the ocean. It was just a trip, man. It was so sick. It felt like I was in Hawaii back in the 50s. Like it was just green and beautiful and slow and um they take us to the hotel and like take us up to our rooms and there's like this tiny wing of the hotel that's like a few floors and they have all the off island workers working or living there and um i bring my bag up and i put it on the bed that's vacant and they're like oh yeah you have a roommate his name's j j um he's really cool you guys will get along i was like okay cool i like new i like new people like and they give us a tour of the hotel and it's like

like a full water park right next to the beach like it's so sick like it's like a kid's wet dream like you can go down a water slide into the pool get out grab your snorkel and run into the water and go scuba. It's so sick. And I was just like, holy hell. I can't believe I just signed up for this on a, fuck it, let's do it. And now I'm in this tropical paradise. And so we're walking around this hotel and I see this chiseled man, just like the buffest, fittest dude. And they're like, hey, Connor, this is your roommate JJ. And I was like, oh shit, right on. Like, sick. Maybe I'll get buff because we're living together. I introduced myself. He's like, hey, I'm JJ. He's from Korea. His English is probably better than mine. And we keep doing like a tour. And then we go and have dinner that

night. That was kind of my first day there. I was super jet lagged and kind of fell asleep immediately. And then I kind of got into the routine. You know, you wake up, you have like a meeting with everybody who's on the schedule that day. Okay, you guys are working here. You guys are working there. and you just kind of go through your shifts and you work five shifts a week, you get two days off, and in those two days you can go like hike, snorkel, surf, you can do whatever you want, really.

While I was there, I ended up getting pretty close with like the locals that I worked with. I had kind of made this point of like, hey, I'm going to know people from America my whole life, but I'm never really going to be able to get close from people from Guam, you know? I just kicked it with the local. And they just like took me into their wing. Hey, you got the day off. Cool. We're going to this beach. Are you working the night shift? No. Cool. We're going to go to Chomoro village and like get dinner and try to talk to girls or like take me to a house party where I was like the token white dude. And it was awesome. And getting to know the Chamoros, that's the native people of Guam. They're like the most loving people I've ever met. They just immediately meet you.

As long as you, like, you know, introduce yourself, you're very respectful. Boom, they hand you a plate of food. You're in. One of the things I got to know while I was out there is they have these giant trees, these Tautamono trees. And the way it was explained to me, it's a way to connect to their ancestors. That's what they called their ancestors, like Tatamonos, the trees, their spirits. I just found it, like, very interesting that there was almost the same word for, like,

ancestors and these trees. So getting to know the culture out there was really interesting to me. I'm pretty spiritual dude, and I do believe in like ancestors watching over you, angels, stuff like that. And one of my buddies out there, this dude Tristan, he lived like pretty deep in the, like the inland of the island where it's a real jungle. And he talked about there's these huge rocks all over his family's property that would just kind of move from now and then they'd just be a little different places and he'd say, oh, that's just like Taltamona's doing their thing.

I don't know, it just was cool to me. I didn't really try to break it down. I just like, hey, I'm in some, I'm in an old country, super spiritual people. You know, who am I to say that's not a thing? All right, we'll take a quick break, but we'll be right back with the rest of this episode. Yeah, so I would just,

I would just be doing my thing. I'd be working, then going out with the boys, working, going out with the boys. I did that for a while. And some days I would just kind of blow my weekends. I'd be so hung over. I would just kind of sleep the day away. And it almost became a little bit like a groundhog's day for me. So in the hotel, the wing we lived in, there was two floors of, it was like a, there's a few floors,

but there is only two specific floors that all the off-island workers lived in. And I was on the second floor and they had given us a heads up of like, hey, if you need anything for your room, the floor above you guys is just like storage. If you want a different desk or whatever, it's just like a bunch of bed frames, cabinets.

It's just a bunch of that stuff above you. Feel free to go up there and grab a lamp if you need it. I was like, okay, cool. whatever. But then like, every now and then we would hear these, like, it almost sounded like two kids racing in the halls. Did you ever do that when you were like a kid? You would race the hotel hall. It kind of sounded like that, like just these little feet running back and forth in that hallway. Or like you could hear like someone jumping on a mattress. And I just remember being like, dude, why would there be kids up there?

One of my other co-workers was like, oh, no, that's like, those are ghosts, like these little kids. You'll hear them from time to time running back and forth. It is what it is. And I was like, ha-ha, cool. But it was just brief moments. It wasn't like they were running in the halls for like 30 minutes. It was like you'd hear him run one way and then you'd hear him run back. And that happened always at night.

always at the end of a night. We just knew nothing was up there except old furniture. So it was like, oh, okay, like that's actually kind of creepy. One day, like a normal day, just like anything else. Me and JJ, we would get off work and we would just kind of watch TV together. And if he got off work first, he had the remote. And we would watch like these like, um, almost like Korean soap operas.

Like, they were so much more over the top than American soap operas. The pauses and the violin music. And it was like pretty entertaining. Obviously, I had no idea what's going on because it's in Korean. But that's what he would watch. And if I would have TV on, I would watch, like, Comedy Central. So I'd watch like South Park or like Colbert Report, stuff like that. Or The Daily Show, I don't remember which one.

But anyway, so. we get off, we go eat dinner, go to bed, whatever. So yeah, one night was just like the rest of them, you know, we get off work, we go eat dinner, have a couple beers, go back to our room, and I had the remote, so I just turned on Comedy Central and just kind of fell asleep. It was like a very big part of our friendship was just watching TV together, laughing together. And so I just kind of dozed off that night. And all of a sudden the TV turns off. And it kind of bolts me up, wakes me up, because just the sound difference.

And I'm like looking for the remote to kind of turn it back on just so I could fall back asleep. And so I'm kind of reaching around my body to like where the remote would be. And it's just not there. And I sit up to get a better look. where it could be and it's not in my bed and I look up to the desk and it's right there and I remember being like okay that's weird because I would have needed to like reach my hand to turn it off there's no way the remote just was used even if JJ had used it I would have seen him walking

back to his bed but because I was looking over to my left at the remote I could see across the room, I see JJ in his chair faced away from me so I can only see the back of him. And at this point, I'm like, I'm wide awake because the remote thing is really weird. I have no idea why it just turned off. And I was looking for it. And so I'm awake and I look over and I just see JJ. Like, I can just see his back. And JJ is a fit

dude. His back is a V. And I'm looking at him in this chair and he's sitting with his with his feet on the edge of his seat and his elbows wrapped around it. So he's just curled up in this ball with his head like like his neck is relaxed looking down. So I can only see his shoulders and his back in the top of his neck. And I remember being like, what the hell is he doing? And just looking at him. And you know, it's like, your eyes adjust in the dark so you can see pretty well even though it's dark. And he doesn't sleepwalk or anything. So him to be in his chair in the middle of the night is so odd. And JJ is like sitting in his chair but like curled up in a ball.

Like he's really tight. And his head is just hanging down low. Almost looks like he's trying to stretch his back out. But I have, he looked so frail. Like I could see his shoulder blades. I could see his ribs, like in the back. It just, it didn't make sense for him to look that skinny. He's such a buff dude.

But your brain isn't really on in the middle of the night. So you kind of move past details into a bigger picture. It didn't slow me down to think something was weird. I can't really see his head, but I can see a bit of his neck. And it's just like, just, like, just. inches swaying back and forth, but slowly, like, almost like he got bad news and he's processing it, just muttering to himself quietly, but loud enough where I can hear him muttering. I think it was Korean. It could have, it could have been Chamorro. I don't really know. I'm sure he dreams in

Korean, but I can't pick out what he's saying. He didn't sound mad, but almost like disappointed. like he got some bad news. And he's just so tight in this ball. And I remember looking at him and being like, man, I should get him back in his bed because he's going to feel sore in the morning. I remember getting from bed to like putting my feet on the floor and kind of like giving my feet on the floor and kind of like giving

myself a second to like have my body start working and just looking at him and just thinking like hey i got it i'm just going to say something and i was like hey dude j j go to bed man it's the middle of the night and nothing and i said it again you know j j j dude you're sleepwalking like get in bed bud and at that point he kind of uncurled himself and kind of put his feet on the floor but then he was still kind of leaning forward like his elbows were on his knees like um you know like you're waiting like you've been waiting somewhere for a while and um he just stayed there still just muttering to himself i couldn't understand anything he was saying and i was just like you know it had to be Korean or something and um i was like okay i'm gonna get him in bed so i get up and as i was like up and as i

I'm walking, you know, it's the middle of them. It's like walking to the bathroom. Like you're barely lifting your feet. You're just slowly walking. And I can't take my eyes off of him because it looked so much not like him. And at this point, my brain is kicking in. And I'm like, why is JJ so skinny? That doesn't make sense.

And that doesn't make sense is now clicking in my brain. And it's almost weird because like when you're when you're walking, your head is moving a little bit. You know what I mean? Like left, right. Your head moves a little bit. And as I'm slowly walking up, he's moving a little bit. Like almost like if you have a flashlight on something and the flashlight moves a little bit and the shadow moves a little bit with it. Like it's just a little amount of movement, but it's enough for me to pick up.

up on it. And I get up to him and I just kind of put a hand on his shoulder like a comfort. Hey, I'm here kind of thing. And I remember touching his shoulder and just feeling shoulder blade. Like nothing else. It was just bone. And it, it didn't feel warm. It didn't feel cold. It just felt like solidified air. Like, the room temperature, and I was touching this shoulder blade and looking at it and being like, why is it so bony? Like, I've grabbed his shoulders before from behind and like felt his muscle, you know, he's such a, such a jacked dude. And at that point, I looked down at his shoulders. to where my hand is on his shoulder.

And as I'm looking at him and I'm taking in this just bony body, I see right past him, is JJ in his bed, sound asleep. And I just like had this falling feeling, this immediate feeling of like, I'm not touching JJ. This is something else. I looked down at my hand again and it was still on this shoulder. I'm looking at JJ sleeping in his bed, and my eyes are going back and forth between the shoulder and JJ sleeping. And my head is just freaking out like, okay, who is this?

And why are they in my room? I just had this feeling of falling. Just like an impending doom, everything is wrong. That's all the feeling I can feel. It took me everything not to fall down. right there because I was just so petrified. Feeling and looking at this person I thought was JJ, but it's not because he's asleep in his room.

And so all that I could do, I couldn't make a noise, I couldn't move, but I knew somehow I needed to turn on this light to give, to wake JJ up so he could help me. Somehow I was able to move my free hand and grab the string on the lamp. And the second I clicked it on, there was just nothing in the chair.

Like, I must have blinked for a couple seconds because the light turned on in the middle of the night, and it was super bright. And there was just nothing in this chair. And JJ wakes up in the middle of the night because I'm turning a light on, and he's just, like, so confused. He was just like, Connor, what's going on?

And I was just like speechless. I was just staring at him, shaking. I was like, were you just in that chair? What were you just doing in that chair? You know, trying to get him to be like, yeah, I was in the chair. It's all in your head. Just trying to come to the easy solution of what the fuck just happened. And he just looked at me and he was just like, Connor, I'm sleeping.

What's up? like so calmly that it was almost more scary. Like, I don't know how to explain it. He was just like, yo, I'm sleeping. What are you talking about? And it all just kind of hit me. I didn't know how to say it to myself, but I had the emotion of like,

you just were touching like a ghost. and I didn't know what to say to him. I didn't want to explain all of that. So I just turned the light off and just bolted from the room. No explanation. As far as JJ knows, I turned on a light in the middle of the night to stand over him, ask why he was sitting in a chair,

and he said he wasn't, and turned the light off and left the room. I bolt out of there And right across the hall is this This girl I was kind of dating at the time And her room didn't ever really lock So I was able to push the door open And I just walked in fast

And Was just talking like a million miles an hour It's this fucking ghost I just saw this I was touching this ghost And I'd You know And she's just like Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

slow down, you're okay. I was like, I'm not okay. I'm very far from okay. And I try to explain to her what just happened. And she's just like, you know, she has wake up brain where she just is like, uh, okay, just lay down. Like, let's calm you down. We like lay down.

And she kind of just goes back to bed immediately because she just woke up. but I'm like I've been awake now I had the most terrifying moment of my life and I just stared at the ceiling for like four hours unable to process what just happened I just didn't get a lick of sleep that night I don't even think I slept in our room for like the next you weeks I was so tripped out I didn't want to go in there I would change my clothes and leave that was the only thing that's time I was in the room. So that next day, we go to our morning meeting and I looked like shit because ghosts and one of the locals was just like, yo, bro, long night. And I was like, yeah, but not a fun long night. And we're walking to our stations and I was kind of telling him the story and he just kind of like chuckled. Before I can even get into details, this guy asks me, oh, was the, was the chair facing his bed? And I was like, yeah. He was just like, yeah, bro, like, that's a tautomono. And he kind of started laughing. He's like, yeah, dude, like, don't leave a chair

facing your bed. That's like open invitation for something to come and sit down. And that was more unsettling, hearing like a rule of thumb for him. Yeah, of course that happened. You had a chair face in your bed. Duh. And I was just like, oh, okay. And I just went to my shift and just tried to be focused at work, but obviously I couldn't because I was just so shook. It made me feel sane that what happened happened but it also made me feel insane because it was like that really happened and i guess he went and told a couple other people what happened and ward got back to j jay who was like yeah connor did wake me up in the middle of the night how did you know that and they tell him and then we're going to lunch and jj comes up to me he's just like hey dude heard what happened last night.

I was like, yeah. And he was just like, so you just left me there? And we just kind of started laughing. He was just like, he was laughing, but he was mad. Like, he was like, dude, some spirit was just checking me out and you just bailed on me. And I just had no explanation. I was just like, dude, I was so scared. I'm so sorry.

And, yeah, tell Tom Tomonos, man. So that was maybe month four of my six-month contract out there. I was shook. I didn't go into my room for a long time other than to change my clothes after that. I finished my contract and I came back to the States. I went to barber school. And even to this day, like if a chair is facing me, I'm, I need to turn it. if I go to someone's room and there's a chair facing their bed,

I give them a heads up. Like, hey, you should probably move that chair when you go to bed. And that probably sounds crazy, but I don't care. I had had a full spiritual experience from that moment of like there is an afterlife. I don't know what it looks like or what it is. but I know that there's our energy somewhere and somehow maybe it can ripple back into our reality or not. I don't know how to explain it, but it honestly, it was really scary,

but it kind of gave me a little bit of peace knowing that there's something else. Okay, thank you so much to Connor for sure. sharing that story. If anyone has a chair facing their bed right now, I'd say maybe go turn that thing around for good measure. This has been episode 94. The title is The Tautumonas, 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 artwork is by Coldestack 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. 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, Morriccurran, Josephina Francis, and Hillary Schuff.

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.