Radiolab - Haunted

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

In an episode we first aired in 2014, we meet a man named Dennis Conrow, who was stuck. After a brief stint at college, he’d spent most of his 20’s back home with his parents, sleeping in his childhood room. And just when he finally struck out on his own, fate intervened. He lost both his parents to cancer. So Dennis was left, back in the house, alone. Until one night when a group of paranormal investigators showed up at his door and made him realize what it really means for a house, or a man, to be haunted. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moonEPISODE CREDITS: Reported by Matt Kieltywith help from  Andy MillsProduced by Matt Kieltywith help from - Maria Paz GutiérrezOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Matt KieltySignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [e-mail] support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Hey, I'm Lut of Nasser. This is Radiolab and your podcast feed a day early because it is October 31st. We're celebrating Halloween by bringing you a ghost story for the occasion. There aren't a lot of radio stories out there that will genuinely spook you, but also make you laugh out loud. And this one, oh man, does exactly that. We first released it exactly 10 years ago today, reported by our now senior producer, Matt Kilty. This was one of his first stories, actually. It's about exactly how far first stories, actually. It's about exactly how far one man is willing to go to understand his haunted house. This story is both a trick and the perfect fun-sized Halloween treat. So here you go yourself doing something.

Okay. If there's anybody in here, my name is Brittany. I'd love to be able to talk with you. And you take that moment and step back from it. Are you here? And you realize... Come through to us. What the f*** am I doing? What just happened? Was this real? And I think that was one of those moments.

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. I'm Robert Krowich. This is Radio Lab and today on the podcast, a ghost story. Really? We're going to do a ghost story? Yeah, it's Halloween, dude. Well, you don't even know what we're, just listen.

All right. Let's listen. Okay. Okay. This one't even know what we're... just listen. Alright. Just listen, okay? Okay. This one comes from our producer, Matt Kielty. Yeah, so I first heard this story from a buddy of mine. Do-do-do-do-do-do. His name is Dennis Conroe. Dennis?

Andy. Hey, what's up, dude? That's producer Andy Mills. You guys are all buddies. Mm-hmm. Total buds. Anyways, the story? Alright, well Dennis.

Yes. It's about a lot of things, but in particular, a house. So let's start with the house. When did you move back in? Well, let's see. I was probably, I don't know, age 20. Dennis had been going to college. Yep.

By the way, what did you study? Creative writing. Okay. But I just kind of got bored there, kind of stopped going to class. And I think once my parents realized that, they weren't very happy. I would assume so. And so, yeah, I was kind of asked to come back home. Back to a town just outside Kansas City.

A little town called Grandview. Did you grow up in this house? I did. I did. And the house was... Fairly old. Yeah, it was about 105 years old at the time. Two-story White House, nice little porch, awning over it.

Typical farmhouse style. And so you were at your parents' home back, what, in your old bedroom? Yep, in my old childhood bedroom. Yeah, so there was always a sense of, like, I need to get out of this house. It's holding me back somehow from things. So he got a job? Worked a job and got laid off. And one year turned into two and then three?

Then four and then five? It was not a great time to be there. In what way? Just that I felt like I was still 16. He says he'd overhear his mom telling people on the phone. Well, you know, he's never gonna move out, is he? And then she started circling classifieds. Jobs for typists, printing press, sales rep, typesetter.

I don't know, I think everything in my life, however I mean for it not to to sort of moves at my own snail's pace. Eventually. I was fairly old, like 27 maybe. Actually, he was 28. After eight years in this house, Dennis gets a steady job, finds his cheap apartment. This ratty six-plex apartment. He starts packing up his things, but right when he's set to move out, to finally leave home. My mom got really sick.

Dennis' mom had been in remission from breast cancer for like nine years, but that summer, her doctors told her that it had returned. And had spread quite a bit. So I said to her, like, you know, do you want me to be here or do you want me to go? And she was like, well, you know, if this is my time, she wants to go knowing that her kids can take care of themselves. So Dennis moved out. About five months later, his mom died.

Yeah, she went pretty fast. About a month or so after my mom died, my dad found out he had stage four prostate cancer. Wow. And he was really too sick to take care of the house and just being a guy by himself at that point. Now Dennis pretty much had to come home. I'd take care of him. Three, four times a week. And as he got worse, he had said to me like, hey, let's try to find you a house to buy so that I can teach you how to, like, do all of the kind of stuff that one has to do. You know, that men know how to do things, like change out plumbing, all this kind of

stuff. And so we put an offer on a house. But that fell through. And before they could find something else. The cancer from his prostate spread to his brain and the last week of his life he was really not there. I can remember one day, you know, like maybe a week or so after he had died. Dennis was walking through the empty kitchen.

And there was so much stuff, there was so much stuff. Papers all over the place, junk mail all over the kitchen floor, down in the basement, tools all over the place. You know, I had this moment of, you know, here are his tools and I, and now I have them in my hand and, you know, I just remember picking up this claw hammer and just crying because Because this is now my hammer. This is now my house. This is now my problem. But a few days pass and he starts thinking,

Okay. I can handle this. Yeah. Just gotta get in there, clean it out, sell it. Clean and flip. That was the plan. So, at the age of 32, moves back in. There was all this just junk in the basement. Puts that stuff on the curb.

Sale after sale after sale. And one day he finds himself standing in the downstairs bathroom, looking at the nasty floor tile. It was just horrible. His dad had meant to replace it before he died, but you know, he couldn't finish. And my thought was like, oh, I'll just do this one bathroom so it looks pretty good to sell. The problem was, his dad had never showed him how to do any of that stuff.

It was at that point that I was like, oh, YouTube. Now hold the tile in one hand firmly and begin with your ceramic tile nippers. So he went online, learned how to tile, do some plumbing, and he redid the bathroom. And turned out pretty good, it was kind of fun. And then the next thing I knew I was taking wallpaper off of the kitchen. Well that's gotta go. Hardwood floors, insulation in the attic, glass block windows in the basement. And pretty soon... That turned into the whole house.

How long did that take? Five years. Actually, it was six. Wow. And he says the whole time he was doing this renovation, at night... I would have these dreams where my parents just kind of came through the back door and it was just like, oh, what are you doing here? Oh, that's right, you're dead.

And then I would turn my back and then they would have somehow undone all of the things that I did. Oh, they had brought the house back to where it was, what state it was in when they were alive. Yeah. Huh. And I probably had this dream, I'm not kidding, like at least a hundred times. Wow. Night after night after night. It just kept going on and on and ultimately kind of drove me crazy. And so one day, after yet another one of these streams,

Dennis is finally like, all right, I'm selling it. Puts it up on the market, starts waiting for a buyer. And then something strange happens. Well, something kind of strange. I had made this friend and she came over for the first time. Was that just like a date? Lady friend? Yeah, it was a lady friend. Was that just like a date? A lady friend? Yeah, it was a lady friend.

And so Dennis was giving her a tour showing her all the improvements until she was in the kitchen right by the basement door in the kitchen when she was like, oh, there's some kind of weird presence here. And I was just like, uh, okay, well, that was kind of a sign that was not going to last fast forward a few years. Didn't really think too much about it. Until one day Dennis's releter is having an open house. No one shows.

So she was in the house by herself. And Dennis starts getting these text messages from her. Like, dude, your house is haunted. Like, I can hear people walking around and... She texted that there was definitely something weird going on. Right by the basement door. Wait, that's the same spot? Yeah.

Yeah, I was like, ah, that's kind of weird. But then here's the crazy thing. Not too long after this, Dennis bumps into an old friend of his and he's like, hey, funny thing, two different people, two separate occasions, had come over to the house and they said they felt this weird presence. And she was like, wait, right by the basement door? Oh, get out. Yeah.

I was like, okay. So, I've got Heather, I've got Stacey, I've got Carla, all three who say they feel this weird presence. Would you consider yourself a bit of a skeptic about such things? I would say so. Rationally, I'm just going to say no. So, you don't believe in ghosts? No.

All right. What happened next? Well, this also happened to be right at the time that I sold the house. Dennis had finally put in some pen to paper, signed a contract, packed up all his stuff. And so Carla, the girl that first felt this thing. The girl he went on a date with, they stayed friends. Said to me like, you know, I'm really curious about this. Would you mind if I call like these ghost people

to come and like check out this place? And I was like, well, sure. I don't care. You know, it's like, why not? So very shortly, in a few minutes actually, we are bringing paranormal investigators to find out what's in the basement. You know, I'm just kind of walking through the house. I think I got this on tape of just me walking through the house. I'm like, well, you know, this is probably a waste of time, but I'm still kind of curious about it.

Yeah, it's Friday night. What else you got to do? Right. It's a Friday night, mid- else you got to do? Yeah. Right. It's a Friday night, mid-November. Around 6 o'clock. I can see some cars parking on the street, so I go downstairs. People start filing in. Maybe 10 people. We all have different specialties.

Larry's our tech guy. About four techies, two sets of clairvoyants. Chantal's the psychic. She's very gifted. Who are all these people? Can I get you to just say your name? My name is Brittany Elaine. Well, they're part of the Kansas City Paranormal Investigators Club, or some kind of thing. And pretty much right off the bat.

When you guys came in, you were saying like you could talk to people, or like you could get... But when we first got here, we both saw a woman looking out the window at the top. So what did she look like? I didn't really see what she looked like. She had long hair. It was like gray and she was wearing one of those weird old timey dresses. Dennis was like, whatever. They set up cameras in the basement and in the kitchen.

And the clairvoyants decided they wanted to try to talk to this woman or maybe any other spirit in the house. So Brittany, who was like the ringleader of the night. She sort of explained how she does things. She was like the best way that she could get them to talk to them was through flashlights. Huh. Yeah. So what they do is they take a few flashlights, turn them on, and then they unscrew the tops

of them just enough so that they turn off. And then they just kind of set the flashlights that are now off in the room by themselves. And the idea is that if the ghost or the spirit wants to communicate, they can just sort of touch the top of one of the flashlights with their ghosty finger, and that'll turn it back on. When it's barely connected, all they have to do is either push or pull a tiny bit of energy. I see. So it's the...

It's not that... It's the easiest for them to do. And it was like, okay. I guess we can. So she took three flashlights and we all sat in this dark room in a circle. Okay. And... Brittany sets the flashlights in the middle of the circle by themselves. No one's touching them.

And she says... There's anybody in here? My name is Brittany. I'd love to be able to talk with you. Can you turn one of those lights on? And we sit there, and we sit there. Are you here? Then all of a sudden this light kind of barely blinks on. And then she said, okay. Thank you.

Please turn it off. And then it goes off. What we can do with these lights here is if I can ask. And then she says we have three lights here. The one you just turned on will call yes. please turn on one more and that will be no so if you could do that for us that would be wonderful and then a second light comes on no way are you like scanning the room like looking for somebody who has like a little switch or something yeah but like we didn't pay these people

so they have no reason to fake this I suppose but you know I just keep a little switch or something? Can you hear that? Footsteps. And they're going towards the kitchen. And I could hear dishes rattling on the countertop in the kitchen. No one's in the kitchen? No one's in the kitchen? No one's in the kitchen. If you're in the kitchen right now, can you turn one of these lights on? And so they sit and stare at these three flashlights. And then-

I am at this point leaving the room. What happened? Well, actually, everyone in that room died except for Dennis. Oh, God. I have no idea why I he invited you into this building. They did not die. What happened to them? They're actually, they're fine.

It turns out that there was a guy downstairs in the basement, one of the techies, walking around, pitch black down there, and he just like bangs his head into like an air duct and the sound is reverberated throughout the whole house. Scared him a little bit. It was very Blair Witchy. Yeah.

Anyhow, the techies decide that they want to get the three psychics down in the basement by themselves. And so, you know, these three women go down in the basement by themselves. We kind of hear them downstairs talking, but we don't really know what's going on. That was interesting. They come back upstairs. All right, how'd it go? And they said...

The girl was downstairs. She was definitely down there. The old woman that they first saw when they got to the house house and they said that she was standing down in the basement next to where the old furnace used to be and they told Dennis that she said that she'd lived here for a long time and Dennis was like wait a second. He knew that back in the 30s or something a woman had lived in this house who was kind of not all there and one day she had gone down into the basement and thought she was picking lice off of chickens and throwing them into this big furnace that was downstairs in the basement at the time

She got a little too close to the furnace story goes caught herself on fire and then died there. I guess in the basement But then there was another man downstairs who showed himself to me, but he won't talk and he just completely disappeared. What did he look like? He was bald. He was about Rick's height, but it wasn't Rick. Did he have a build like me? Yeah. A lot like me? Not a lot, but similar. Definitely. If I were to show you a picture of my father, would you have any sense if this was him?

If I saw a picture of him, yeah, maybe. I found this the other day. Dennis goes and gets this photo of his dad that he had that was left over from his memorial service. Yep, that's the man I saw. Really? Yep. Wow. Let's pause this for just a second. Like, you know, she's very hesitant at the beginning.

Just like, well, you know. All right, I should jump in here really quick and just tell you that this was actually the first time that Dennis had ever listened to this tape. Really? Yeah. And the reason is cause for a long time he didn't want to listen to it. Why?

Well, I think part of it had to do with this moment because... This is the point where my skepticism kind of kicked off. And part of it had to do with what happens next. That's coming up when we return. This is Radiolab. Let's get back to Matt Keelty's ghost story and we'll pick up with our main guy Dennis Conroe having just heard from the ghost hunters that they encountered a spirit in the basement of his home who looks remarkably like his dead father.

Yep, that's the man I saw here. So he's here? Yep, he's here. Can we try to talk to him? We can try to talk to him. You think he's here. Yep. He's here. Hmm Can we can we try to talk to him we can try to talk to him he's in the basement or here or Can we go upstairs and just talk to him yeah, so

You know I hadn't really told them a whole lot about what the different rooms in the house were But they led me upstairs to what was his room and to the corner of the room where his bed was. And they had no idea that that used to be his room. They had no idea. And I said to them, okay, well, if he's going to talk, he'll just talk to me. All right, Dan, are you here? I need you to turn on a light, if you are.

Thank you. Thank you, Dan. We're gonna call that yes. If you could turn that one off now. And turn on the no light. Any other light? Please? And turn on the no light any other light please I Need to know that you're here Thanks, yeah You want us to leave um dad would you like these people to leave? And just talk to me?

Yeah, that's okay. Ah... Dad, I want to know, are you in a good spot? Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Dad? Yes, alright, good. I'm glad to hear that. Okay. Everything off.

Everything's off, almost. Almost. Alright, thanks. Okay, I'm going to ask you this, you know, this mod here too. This mod here too. And the other of the three flashlights lights up. Yes, she is here. Hi Mom.

If you're both here, I love you very much but I can't ask them all. I just guess I have no questions. But I said, well, have you been able to see the things that I've done to the house? And both of the lights lit up very brightly, yes. And then... So, I've lived here for six years. I've redone the house. I've done a lot of things. Yeah, I said...

What do you think? Are you happy with this? Are you happy with the things I've done with the house? And they both lit up very brightly, yes. And, uh... I said, are you proud of me? Are you proud of what I've done? Who I am? How I'm doing? That's very bright, yes. It means a lot to me. So, and he asked, do you live here? And he said no, and then he left.

And then, one of the psych- said, well there was a guy down in the corner of the basement who wouldn't really show himself, but he showed himself enough, and then turned his back and then left. Well, they said that he went upstairs. And I said, describe that man. I don't know. He looked if I knew who I was. That's right. That's... That's him. Yeah. I'm going to leave you guys. I know that you've been haunting my dreams a lot.

I bought this house. And I know it's very important to you. It's important to you, and it's a bit of an important meeting. But, I'll see you in a bit. We leave. Alright? Yeah. Alright. Okay. I think you need one. You did, you guys. Yeah. You did it.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You did it. Yeah. You did it. So that's where it ends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I call it being exactly like that. And yeah, I kind of teared up a bit.

And keep in mind that this was the first time that Dennis had heard this tape, and so we played it back to him because we just wanted to see, like, how he remembered that experience. You know, I guess part of my fear of listening to it was that it would change it and that it would be a different experience. It would be a little more hokey and it would be a little more unclear what was happening. But listen to it again. It was as I recalled it being. Jared Sussman So in the end, does he believe he was actually talking to his dead parents? Jared Sussman Well, no, no. I ended up actually calling this guy who explained to me how this whole

flashlight thing works and that there is a perfectly non paranormal explanation as to what's going on with the flashlight. It almost feels bad manners at this point to have a practical explanation, but I'm very curious to hear it. Well, what's going on is, um, you turn the flashlight on and when you turn the flashlight on, the bulb gets really it. Sure. Well, what's going on is you turn the flashlight on. When you turn the flashlight on, the bulb gets really hot. Then you take the top of the flashlight and you unscrew it just enough that the flashlight flickers off.

So the flashlight's off and the bulb, it got really hot, so the inside of the flashlight also got really hot. There's this little piece of plastic inside the flashlight that when it got hot it expanded and now as the flat since the flashlights off that piece of plastic it starts to cool down and starts to contract and when it contracts it pushes these two tiny bits of metal together these two little bits of metal come into contact and that's your circuit so the circuit opens the light bulb it goes back on oh then it warms again and it gets hot yeah and so the little piece of plastic it starts to expand it pushes the light bulb, it goes back on. Oh, then it warms again and cools again. And then it gets hot, yeah, and so the little piece of plastic, it starts to get hot, it starts to expand,

it pushes the two pieces apart. And these people chose this flashlight because it had that particular property? Yeah, do you think it's like a con or something? No, I don't think so, no, I don't think so. I mean, I even talked to Dennis about this. He's like, I think they're just trying to make sense of randomness.

I mean, I don't think they necessarily know that this flashlight does this thing, and therefore they can manipulate people. Well, here's, I don't think they necessarily know that this flashlight does this thing and therefore they can manipulate people. Well, here's why I don't think it's a con. Because in this case, it's such a, it's such a strange coincidence that whenever he wants his mom and dad, his ghostly mother and father, to approve of him and congratulate him and honor him with a yes, I mean it's random, he could get a no, but he gets a yes. It's just chance. And you told Dennis all this.

Yeah, I told Dennis because you told me to tell Dennis. It's true. It's true, I forced him. Okay, so when you told him, what did he say? Well, on one level, it didn't phase him. Dennis basically said, look, I know. I know that the way that the world works is the way that the world works. People don't come back from the dead.

People don't talk to you through flashlights. But he also said that he's not not gonna let go of that experience. He wants to have it both ways. I guess so. I guess I want to have both, yes, this didn't happen and yes, this absolutely happened. I understand that. Yeah. Because even if you are the world's biggest skeptic, if you don't believe in ghosts, like

there really aren't that many ways to talk about these sorts of things, these sorts of things that we all feel, you know, guilt for for the things that we've done in our past, the loss of those who we've loved, that like ghost stories kind of seem to stick around because they are an experience, albeit like a metaphorical experience, but an experience that lets us talk about these things that we can't adequately talk about. You know, that feeling of being haunted. And so did he eventually sell the house, move out? Yeah, yeah, sold the house, moved out. No more dreams of his parents haunting him?

Well, it's been odd in the time that I've sold the house. Now I thought the dreams would stop. And now, the dreams are that I am the one haunting the house of the new people. Where I will just walk in. Really? And just be like, hey, I'm here. And aren't you like going around repairing things?

Nope, I'm just like being somewhat shocked at what they've done to it. It's like it never stops, you know. Thanks Matt. No problem. Matt Kielty. I'm Jad Abumrad. I'm Robert Krowich. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm David and I'm from Baltimore, Maryland. ProWitch. Thanks for listening. Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bresler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyanam Sambandhan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Rebecca Lacks, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari, Sarah Sandbach, Ariane Whack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster.

Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton. Hi, this is Ellie from Cleveland, Ohio. Leadership support for Radiolab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, Assignment Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.