Sightings - The Terror
Episode Date: October 12, 2026Spooky season is here, and something is lurking in the night. Can you survive a bite in the dark? Or will you begin to... change? Story Music tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Sightings is a R...EVERB and QCODE Original. Find us on instagram @sightingspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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For centuries, the full moon has carried a warning.
Lock your doors.
Stay out of the woods and beware the howl and the night.
Because somewhere out there, something hungry may be hunting.
But the greatest terror isn't an attack in the dark.
It's what happens if you survive.
Welcome to sightings.
I'm McLeod.
And I'm Brian.
And before we dive into this month's situation,
terrifying spooky season stories.
We have some bittersweet news to share with all of you, which is that this month's episode
is going to be the last episode of sightings.
Oh no.
At least for the time being.
Yeah.
It's been so awesome to all of the support you guys have given us and just hearing how much
you enjoy the show and look forward to the show has meant a lot to us.
Our skeptical gecko's believer beavers are agnostic narwhals.
You know, thank you all for listening to us, making us one of the biggest shows that came out.
a couple years ago.
And yeah, we just have so much other stuff going on that just need to be able to focus on
other things right now.
And you never know, though.
I will say that.
You never know.
Yeah, we're not kicking it out the door as a possibility forever.
Yeah.
We'll probably, we might come back to something in this vein at some point.
So it keeps in your feeds.
You never know you might get a surprise.
If not, though, hop back and take a look at the two years of episodes that we'll be
we've done. Can you believe that, McLeod? It's been two years. I can't. Time is flown. I can't believe
that this, like, we can chart the sightings podcast over the course of two years of my life, two years
of my children's lives. I know. I know. And, yeah, we've got lots of our favorite episodes
out there for you. The Pharaoh's Curse ones, one of our favorites. Oh, yeah. Black Forest Haunting.
I know McLeod, you love Valiant Thor. I love Valiant Thor. I love Valiant Thor. I love
sleep entities. I love the phone calls from the dead. I love a lot of them. Yeah. So glad that
You're here for our last episode, listeners.
So we've got a really spooky one for you.
So dim those lights one last time.
And now, are you brave enough to venture into the dark before Halloween?
What about on a full moon?
Because something's lurking in the dark tonight.
Find out what?
On this episode of sightings.
This episode is brought to you.
by Quince.
McLeod, it is finally fall.
Thank goodness.
Thank goodness.
Sweater weather is my, like, will be the name of my memoir.
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And that's what Quince does best.
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And bam, there it is, right on Quince.
I know I keep talking about the pants I've gotten from Quince, but they're really good.
And they're, like, so cozy and so perfect for fall.
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Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too.
And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was sightings.
It was us.
And that's the best way to support the show.
Well, it's 8.7 p.m. Friday night.
I'm in my parents' old storm shelter, which I haven't been in since I was a kid.
I have a flashlight, two gallons of water, food for a few days, a first aid kit,
this recorder to keep me from getting lonely.
Oh, and a pair of handcuffs in a chain.
So, yeah, I think it's safe to say things are going really well for me.
Sorry, I'm just...
Maybe making light of this is better than the alternative, which is that I'm down here to find out if I'm going to turn into a werewolf, which, you know, I don't really believe.
Like, really, I don't.
I'm not a werewolf.
It's just, um, God, never mind.
I'm just going to focus on this recording, this record, you know, all formal and stuff in case I go all dog-brained and can't talk to anyone anymore.
So, uh, right, my name is Eric.
I'm 38 until a few months ago I was married, had a house, white picket fence, all that shit, until my wife decided she didn't want to be my wife anymore.
Which, you know, that's not fair. There was more to it than that. But point is, she kept the house. My company downsized right around the same time, and now I'm sleeping in the same bedroom I had when I was 17.
My parents say they're happy. I'm home, and my mom even found some of my old baseball trophies and put them on the dresser before I moved back in. I wasn't even that good at baseball.
My team was pretty good, but I kind of sucked.
But anyway, didn't have the intended effect, mom.
But I'm fine. Seriously, I'm great.
My parents are great.
My little brother is great.
I mean, he's 19, still figuring things out.
So he has an excuse for still being at home, unlike me anyway.
Since I moved back, I haven't been sleeping well.
Lots of thinking, racing, mind, that kind of thing.
So I started going on walks.
And we have a lot of, I guess my parents have a lot of land, most of it old woods and pastures.
So, you know, I grew up learning all the trails, every creek.
And it's come in handy, you know, until I started drinking a little bit too much and forgot some of the turns and ended up in an area I didn't recognize a few nights ago.
I don't know, I figure I was something like a mile from the house, maybe more.
And I was heading in the direction I thought I needed when I realized something was following.
me. At first I thought it was just a dog, like a really big one, or maybe a coyote, but this was just
like too much, too big. Like dogs, you usually can't, like, hear their footsteps, right? Right?
So maybe like 20, 30 yards behind me, I spun, and I shined my phone light at it, and I was, like,
I don't know, this is where it gets stupid, because, I mean, it was big. And all I could see was
the light and its eyes standing there between two trees.
And then it moved, not toward me, but up.
Like, it stood up, like on its back legs, like a person.
And it stepped toward me.
And I remember running and then, like, things got fuzzy.
Like, I mean, there were, there's, like, flashes because I was hyperventilating.
I was panicking.
and something slammed into me from behind,
and I remember it had this smell like a wet fur or mud or like musky, like gamey almost.
I don't know.
And then there was this pressure on my shoulder, like this insane pressure.
Like, ugh.
And then I woke up in the woods at sunrise the next morning.
Like I got just passed out, I guess.
and my shirt was bloody, and my shoulder there was this bite,
like it's like a deep animal bite.
It still kind of kills.
And when I got home, my dad drove me to the hospital,
and I told everyone it was a dog.
And they did the usual.
They cleaned the wound.
They gave me antibiotics, a rabies booster.
But there was this one doctor.
He kept looking at the wound, you know, like, huh,
eyebrows all scrunched up because it wasn't right.
And he asked if I was positive, it was a dog.
And all I could say was, I don't know.
What else?
Like a wolf?
We don't have those around here, as far as I know.
So I decided it had to be a dog,
and my drunk brain had just made up the crazy parts.
So anyway, cut to why I'm here.
I just couldn't stop thinking about that moment.
It stood up.
And yesterday, I looked at the calendar on the fridge,
which shows moon cycles, and tonight, full moon.
See, see where I'm going with this?
God.
I can't even say it without sounding insane
because it's insane, because it is insane.
And I think I'm probably insane.
But, you know, it's a full moon
and I just couldn't stop thinking about it.
You know, the what if of it all, you know?
And I've got nothing else going on,
so if nothing else, it's going to be a good story.
So here I am, just in case,
in the safest spot I know.
I mean, this shelter is like solid concrete.
There's like a little ventilation duct in a steel door that I've locked.
I also bolted this chain into the ground and I hooked the handcuffs around them,
but I figure I'll wait until I feel something or whatever before putting that on.
And, you know, so far, nothing.
I mean, my shoulder's killing me, but that's about it.
So, uh, there.
Uh, in 12 hours, I'll listen back to this and realize this divorce.
finally broke my brain, and I guess that would be a relief.
Okay.
End of missive.
I'm going to try and sleep.
I'll check back if anything happens, which it won't.
Okay, it's, what, it's 938, and something might be wrong.
Like, not Werewolf Wrong, just, I, um, I don't feel.
good. I don't know if it's a fever
or what, but I'm sweating like crazy
even though it's cold down here.
When I think
the bite opened back up,
and I can't really see it that well,
because the main part of it's behind my shoulder,
but there's blood coming through the bandages.
God, my jaw hurts too.
And it's not like a little.
It's like really bad.
It's like when I had my wisdom teeth out,
except it feels like that in
all my teeth. It won.
like they're loose or something.
I mean, they aren't, they aren't loose, but, ugh,
oh, my gums are bleeding.
Okay, um, is this like sepsis or something?
Does sepsis do that?
I'm panicking, just see.
Oh, deep breaths.
Ow, deep breaths make my shoulder hurt.
Shit!
Sorry, my finger hurts too.
It's like my fingers are, like something's wrong with my fingernails, like something's...
Like, like pushing up.
Oh, shit.
Shit, okay.
Breath.
Ouch.
Ah!
Okay, maybe I'm gonna put the cuffs on, like just like as a precaution or something.
Oh god, this is ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
Oh, there, okay.
Right there.
Done.
Just in case.
Uh, so here I am officially chained to the wall just in case and my shoulder hurts and my jaw hurts and my nails hurt like a mother and...
Wow.
Oh, that's weird.
I can hear, like, someone's TV?
like inside the house
except that's like
what like a quarter mile
maybe it's
wait
yep
that's uh
that's the game show that dad watches
he's laughing
and mom and
she just asked him if he's hungry
it sounds like they're just standing right
right outside or no uh you know
it's like there must be a vent somewhere in here
or like the ground is somehow carrying the sound
I don't know that's all
It's just...
Oh, okay, so what happens now?
I don't know.
All I know is what I've seen in, like, movies.
That's it.
So if anything we're going to happen, which it isn't,
I'm just sick.
I mean, does it happen when the moon comes up?
Because that's not to like 11 or...
Or does the moonlight have to touch you?
Because there aren't any windows in here
and the store's nice and solid.
and um i mean like i don't know how big i would get or strong like are these chains enough i just got
these cuffs at like the army surplus doors i just i can't i just i can't i just wait there's a car
someone's coming down the access road i can hear the gravel the engine that's nate's
car. Oh no, no, no, no, damn it. What is he doing out here? Okay, maybe he's just going to drink by the creek.
He goes with his friends. That must be it. He'll drive right past. He'll, no, Nate, don't.
Come on, man. Damn it, he's right outside the door, even though I told him I was fine.
Nate, I'm fine. Go home. He's not listening. He's not listening.
He said, Mom's freaking out because I disappeared and my phone is off, which of course it is, because I lost it that night.
And he said he's worried I'm having some kind of breakdown because of the divorce and thinks I came down here to hurt myself.
Okay, I can see how this would be concerning, but he's wrong.
I'm not going to hurt myself.
I'm trying not to hurt him.
Go away, Nate!
Ah, my hands are getting worse.
I can't...
My fingers can't bend right, I think.
Oh, God.
A nail just came off.
God, it hurts.
Can you hear him?
He just said he's not leaving me here.
I'm fine!
Oh, God, he used to follow me everywhere when he was a kid.
I'd come home from college and he'd just latch on.
I can hear him.
breathing like through the door and it's inside my head he's not right he's not right
on top of it he's to the left five feet six feet how do I know that there's something
else no no no no no no why would I need to hear his heart stop messing with the
door I think he's trying to pry open what is that like a crowbar Jesus late
Stop!
Oh shit!
He slipped.
He cursed him.
Oh no.
I can smell blood.
That's what it is.
He cut something.
I can smell it and...
Oh, Nate!
My mouth, I'm like drooling.
This isn't happening.
Nate, listen to me, okay?
I was attacked, okay?
In the woods, something's bitten me, my shoulder, and now,
Nate, it stood up, okay?
It stood up on like two legs and tonight's a full moon,
and nothing was supposed to happen, but I think something happened.
So, go! Run!
Brown, he's looking for another way in.
I don't think there is one.
I mean, there's like a ventilation duct, and he can't fit through that.
I...
There's blood in my mouth.
I think I'm...
I'm biting my tongue.
I...
A spare key.
Oh, God.
Dad hit a key and a rock.
If she finds it...
Nate!
Everything's too loud.
The blood...
It's still there.
I can smell it.
You can't close my mouth right.
I can hear him.
I'm to find a way in.
He found it.
The key.
I hear it.
Yes.
Open the door.
No!
Nay, I'm serious.
I'm still cuffed.
Even if he opens the door, I can't reach him.
And he'll see.
see. The chain will work. I'm okay. He'll see. He's okay. Even if... Oh, no. The bolt, the anchor bolt is
moving. No, I drilled that six inches into the concrete. No, no. Come here. I can smell you.
Sightings will be back just after this.
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Come back, everybody.
You like that one, McLeod?
I am actually sweating bullets.
Sweating silver bullets?
I'm sweating silver bullets.
You put me through my paces for the last one.
A lot of hyperventilating.
Yeah.
No, I thought it was a fun one, though, because everyone likes werewolves, right?
Not what, you said everyone likes werewolves?
Well, no, everyone knows werewolves.
Kind of like Eric's sort of like, uh, new generally about werewolves.
What's the deal just generally before we go, is this like based on anything or just,
this is just sort of a fun romp with established werewolf lore?
Well, I have this friend who, no, this is just, I made this entirely up.
It's, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of taking the lore that we all know so well and kind of
taking it to the next level a little bit.
Yeah.
And what's really interesting about werewolves, though, is that the things that everyone know,
Like the things like the full moon that the bite leads to transformation, the silver bullets, things like that.
Almost none of that is like actual original werewolf lore.
Okay.
Well, so it begs the question for me, what is original werewolf lore?
Well, most of it is just kind of the idea that a person can transform into a wolf.
Gotcha.
Or an animal.
Like shapeshifter stuff.
Yeah, kind of shape shifting style.
Like, werewolf legends go way back.
There's even a shepherd who transforms into a wolf in the epic of Gilgamesh.
Holy cow.
So wait, so like basically werewolf legends or something akin to, like, wherewolves go back as far as we have stories.
Exactly.
Wow.
And then there's the Greek story of lichen, which is about a cruel man who's turned by Zeus into a wolf.
And that's where we get the word lycanthropy, which is what people refer to when they refer to werewolf stuff.
Then in 16th century Europe, werewolf beliefs were on the rise, I guess, and were associated with witchcraft and Satan.
And more of like this idea that like you're willingly giving yourself over to the wolf a little bit.
You are releasing your inner beast kind of.
Yeah, yeah.
I think the point is that in most of the original stories,
becoming a wolf was like not an infection situation.
It was transformation as either punishment or some kind of magic or someone's willingly giving themselves over to become the beast, so to speak.
Gotcha.
Whereas in 20th century lore, once we started having movies about werewolves coming out, that's where most of the things that we recognize in popular culture with werewolves started to come to light.
Right.
And it's the idea where a werewolf is kind of a victim.
He's bit or he's cursed.
He's just a hapless dude who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and has this situation kind of thrust upon him.
Right.
And the bite itself was actually first introduced in a 1935 movie called Werewolf of London.
Then, I guess the big one, Universal is the Wolfman in 1941, that set most of the other rules, like the things like the Silver Bullet, the full moon, those kind of things.
Oh, wow.
And it's all Hollywood, and yet it's kind of stuck, you know.
I wonder why is that?
Like, what makes it?
Well, you know, I think from a movie standpoint, I think the moon gives the curse kind of a schedule.
You know, and it builds the tension because of that.
We know the moon is coming.
We're fearful that the guy won't figure it out in time or whatever.
And also, the moon is kind of naturally associated with madness.
That's where we get the word lunatic.
So it's kind of fun.
And for the bite and the silver, I think horror loves good rules.
Sure.
You know, you can't shoot them with a normal thing.
You know, it's like Dracula.
You've got to kill him with a stake through the heart.
Right.
The World Wolf, you've got to shoot him with a silver bullet.
It's all this kind of fodder for ways that the other characters can mess up, you know, in trying to stop him.
You know, it's something I encounter all the time as I'm writing my own horror project.
Right.
Figuring out those rules and how to milk them.
But I guess the big question here is, is there anything to any of this, you know, to likeanthropy or werewolves or any of it?
Are you aware of anything?
No, I'd say like metaphorically.
We did do that one episode.
You remember the Monster of Morbach.
Yeah, in Germany.
Yeah.
So that kind of was a 20th century story that kind of seemed to be influenced by werewolf lore a little bit.
in terms of things that are verifiable, obviously no one has captured a real werewolf.
Sure. Yes.
But there is something called clinical lycanthropy, which is where people genuinely believe that they are turning into an animal.
So it's like a form of psychosis.
Yes. And it's super rare, but it is documented.
And as I was writing this, I'm kind of wondering, like, I mean, the only thing that we actually had to go on was like his fingernail fell off.
You know, in terms of otherwise, could this all have been happening in his head?
Right. Well, he could have been just like.
worrying his fingernails like in a in a kind of manic state yeah and what I think is kind of fun is like you know his mouth is bleeding because he's biting his tongue could all of this been you know some kind of psycho yeah I was like I found myself imagining a version of this in which like Eric is played by Jason Siddakis and like he's just like a guy who's actually just going through like a horrible breakup who thinks he's turning into a werewolf and like and he's absolutely not but he's absolutely not which is very interesting
I think, you know.
Yeah.
Well, I think as it kind of goes to show that, like, it's just this kind of story.
It's so enticing that it's just fodder for so many variations and so many different takes on it.
Yeah.
It's fitting for the last episode of the show, you know?
Because, like, this whole show, all the episodes we've done have been about how these kind of really compelling supernatural stories or encounters could kind of shift over time.
And the stories can kind of change.
And it's like, one person tells it, then another person tells it.
they add this cool thing.
And it's just, do the juicy bits survive?
And you keep adding better pieces.
And eventually everyone knows the rules like we have now with werewolves or Dracula or, you know, things like that.
Like a generational game of telephone kind of.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Thank you, Brian, for sending us off on such a kind of like exciting final bit.
I really enjoyed that one.
Of course.
And listeners, I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
But we do have one more extra special listener story coming your way.
right after this.
All right, welcome back, everyone.
We are at our final listener story.
Perhaps ever, we'll see, McLeod.
Hopefully not, but...
I loved this one.
It's one of the longer listener stories we've ever had,
but just the sheer volume of things that have happened
to this person is incredible.
Okay.
So this is Joni.
I sent this story in,
and McLeod, let's get some music going.
All right.
Here we go.
My name is Joni. I'm 67 now, and strange things have been happening to me since I was six years old.
I grew up in rural Pennsylvania in a pretty normal house. It wasn't especially old, and as far as I know, there was nothing unusual about it.
But some of my earliest memories are weird things in that house. Doors opening on their own?
Specifically the closet door and the attic doors. I would always shut them and come back later to find them open again.
I'd even be lying in bed and hear them opening on their own, even though no one was there.
It would scare the crap out of me.
And it wasn't just me.
My mom and sister would hear footsteps at night and assume it was me walking around.
They'd always ask if I'd been up and all I could do is tell them I'd been in bed.
It wasn't just footsteps we heard either.
Every once in a while we'd hear what sounded like crashing somewhere in the house or garage,
and we'd run to look with bats in hand and nothing was there.
No broken glass, no people, nothing.
I guess you could say my family kind of got used to it,
but I know I never really did.
One night when I was 16, I was home alone and singing to myself as I emptied the dishwasher.
I was in a chorus at the time, so I sang around the house a lot,
and while I was doing that, I heard a woman calling my name.
Joni!
At first I thought it was my mom, but then I remembered she wasn't home.
I guess I kind of sloughed it off, figuring I was hearing things.
But a minute later I heard the voice again, even clearer this time, almost like it was in the room with me.
I got so scared I ran next door to make my neighbor search the house.
He found nothing.
But the noises weren't the worst part of that house in Pennsylvania, not by a long shot.
The worst was what happened one night when I was 17.
By then I was sleeping in a room in the basement.
My mattress was in a corner, and on the other side of the wall was a utility area with this large oil tank.
and that tank room was connected to my room with this open doorway that had a curtain in it.
So one night I was lying in bed when I heard a bang in the tank room.
I'd been sleeping down there for months and never heard anything like that before,
especially since there was no other windows or doors in that room.
After the bang, I heard a strange shuffling sound in there,
and as I lay frozen in bed waiting to hear the sound again,
all of a sudden I felt my mattress move down by my feet.
It was like someone had just put a knee onto the bed.
Then the mattress dipped again, even closer to me.
When it happened again, I realized something was slowly crawling onto the bed
and sliding itself between me and the wall.
Oh my God, what was going on?
I was so freaking scared I didn't dare turn to look at what it was.
Honestly, I didn't want to know.
I just kept saying the Lord's Prayer over and over as quickly and quietly as I could.
Once the thing, whatever it was, crept up so it was almost completely behind me, it stopped,
and it felt like it stayed there forever.
Then, finally, the mattress started moving again, like the thing was moving back down towards the edge of the bed.
I was completely panicked, so I still didn't move.
But the second it was off the mattress, I screamed bloody murder.
My mom came running downstairs, and I was so scared I could barely explain what happened.
I don't think she really knew what to make of it, and I can't really blame her.
But I know what I felt, and after that night I couldn't sleep in that room without a light on.
Eventually, I moved out and got married, and hoped everything I experienced as a kid had been tied to the house I grew up in.
But the encounters continued.
My husband and I would hear scratching inside the walls of our house.
At first we assumed it was mice or something, but then closet doors started opening on their own,
just like they did when I was a little girl.
Then I started hearing what sounded like people mumbling somewhere in the house.
I also would see big dark shadows out of the corner of my eye,
but by the time I looked up, the shadows had disappeared.
It was all very strange and unnerving.
There were also bigger things.
We had a framed picture hanging on the wall in the living room
that just flew off the wall on its own one day.
And I don't mean it fell off the wall by falling straight down.
It flew all the way across the room.
How in the world? That is another one of those strange things I absolutely could not explain.
Then, one day when our kids were little, I was in the kitchen and felt someone tug on my shorts.
I thought it was one of the kids, and I remember looking down only to realize I was alone.
But something or someone had definitely tugged on my shorts as if trying to get my attention.
The strangest thing, though, involved a plant.
We had this big house plant, some kind of palm that was a few.
few feet tall near the TV in the living room. One night my husband and I were sitting there watching a show
when the plant suddenly snapped in half in the middle. When it happened, there was no one near it. It just
flopped over. But that's not the crazy part. When we went over to investigate, we realized there was a
human-sized bite taken out of the stem. And as much as we looked around, we couldn't find the missing
peace. We talked about that for months. Years later, after my marriage ended, I moved in with Jay,
and of all the places I've lived, his house had the most activity. From the very first time I walked in
his house, I felt uncomfortable and got a very weird vibe that something about the place was wrong.
And sure enough, a few months later, strange things started happening. And Jay noticed them too.
We heard lots of weird things there. We'd hear random banging inside the wall. We'd hear random banging inside the
I hear voices talking, sometimes coughing, sometimes moaning.
One night I was lying awake in bed with Jay asleep beside me,
and all of a sudden I heard a man say,
boo!
As clear as day.
The windows were closed, the TV wasn't on.
What was this?
A ghost with a sense of humor?
After enough weird things happened in that house,
I started keeping a log of them.
And as the months went by,
Things got even creepier.
One night Jay and I heard the sound of screaming coming from somewhere inside the house.
It was muffled, but unmistakable.
We looked everywhere but never found the source.
Then one afternoon, my then three-year-old grandson was visiting.
I'd put him down for a nap in the bedroom, and when he woke up, he was terrified and said he saw a strange man in the bedroom.
He even called him a ghost.
Mind you, he was only three, and had no idea that we'd been encountering.
strange things ourselves. And maybe he was just imagining things, but it seemed too strange to be a
coincidence. Then came the final incident at his place, and it's the one that scared me the most.
One night, Jay and I were having my three grandsons sleep over. We had a great time, and the two
oldest were sleeping in the guest room. I had a nest camera in there, because you know how little
boys can be. And as Jay and I were downstairs watching TV, we heard.
heard this huge bang upstairs in the room they were sleeping in. I ran up to check on the boys,
but both were asleep, and nothing seemed to have fallen over. Hoping for any explanation,
we checked the camera footage, and right after the bang, we heard a man's voice on the video.
It was a truly terrifying, guttural growl, and it said only two words,
Get out!
Pretty soon after that I did.
Jay and I split up and I moved into a new place of my own.
I still don't have any explanation for any of this, other than it happened.
Sometimes I wonder if something has followed me since I was a little girl.
How could I not?
Since the same kinds of things seem to happen over and over wherever I live.
I've also had people use the word sensitive for me,
as in I'm sensitive to the supernatural.
And I don't know what I think about that.
I definitely can't talk to the dead or identify what's in a room.
All I know is for most of my life I've been hearing, feeling, and seeing things that just can't be explained away.
And some of the time, there were other witnesses.
Still, I know how it sounds.
And that's one reason I don't share my experiences with everyone.
But I'm 67 now, and this has been happening to me since I was six.
I don't really feel like I need to convince anyone anymore.
So far, nothing has happened in my new apartment.
No doors opening, no voices, nothing climbing into bed.
Not yet, at least.
Because after 60 years of this, I know better than to assume it's over.
Oh, 60 years of being haunted.
But like, also bringing, it seems like bringing haunting to those around you.
Like, it's, I agree it does.
feel like it's, I'm sorry to say it, but attached to her, not a place.
Kind of does, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, which is kind of weird to say because, I guess, spoiler, Joni is my mom.
Oh, Joe.
What?
Whoa.
Thanks, Mom, for sending in this story.
Well, so, Brian, have you ever experienced any of the things that?
I have not seen the things that she's mentioned in the story, but I can say that I've heard
about these stories when they happen.
I also experienced some things of my own.
in these houses.
Sure.
So, which I will not go into, because I'm going to save my stories for me sometime.
But I can corroborate that, you know, she's had her fair share of just bizarre experiences that, you know, have affected my nephews.
You know, she mentioned, like, he saw someone in their house that was not in the house.
Did you see this video in which a person said, get out?
I did.
And it was there.
And it was weird.
You know, I don't have an explanation for it.
Yeah.
What's wild to me is that all of this has happened to her.
And it's just moving from house to house, which is why I wonder, you know, I think the two explanations that she posited are the ones that kind of make sense, which is that number one, either something is following her.
Right.
I will say, you know, she simplified some things in the story in terms of like the amount of houses she lived in.
She did live in a few houses like where nothing happened.
So it's not like every single place she's ever lived or been.
something's happened to her.
Yeah.
So maybe then it's kind of like as she said, it's not like she's being followed.
She's just sensitive.
Things that other people don't notice in these houses she does notice.
Which makes sense, I feel like, because she just does have this ability to sense things that are beyond.
I can't say, though, like the house where the human bite mark in the plant.
Very bizarre.
And terrifying, you know.
Someone did die in that apartment.
The previous tenant did die in that apartment or house.
I don't remember which it was.
But there was no weird things in her childhood home.
And to my knowledge, no weird things in Jay's house that could explain what's going on here.
I just wonder if there's just kind of a baseline supernatural happening all over the place.
And only a few of us can pick up on it, you know?
Maybe.
It's possible.
Yeah.
And so is this sort of like what has sparked your lifelong fascination with like paranormal stories?
I wonder.
I wonder.
You know, I think for me it kind of came with, I always loved, you know, the kind of Spielberg movies, you know, the ETs, the close encounters, the poltergeist kind of stuff. But then also growing up, we would watch Unsolved Mystery. So I just kind of ate that up when I was a kid. And I think when I decided I want to work in the film industry and write movies, it was a natural, like, I want to write kind of genre, supernatural, fun kind of movies like that, you know?
Yeah. Thanks, Mom, I guess for. I can say, though, that something.
I think it didn't end up in the story that my mom sent in.
She has this mirror, like, this old, like, antique makeup table that has, like, a mirror on it, basically.
Okay.
And multiple times, she says that she saw, like, this kind of wispy mist coming out of the mirror, which would terrify me.
Yes, same.
That mirror is in my basement at this very moment.
Oh.
It's sealed up in as much cardboard as we could get around it.
So it never sees the light a day.
But yeah, so it's just these stories and her experiences and my experience, it kind of just infused our lives over the years.
And definitely has shaped who she is and I think shaped who I am in a weird way as well.
She instilled in you a sense of wonder and curiosity.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And, you know, I have to say, like, what's really interesting about, you know, all of these stories that we've done, be it listener stories, be it, you know, the bigger produced stories that we did.
It's just this sense of wonder about the unknown and the supernatural and the paranormal in general that, you know, I think just keeps us all curious and itching to, you know, could one day you have one of these experiences yourself?
In my mom's case, I think she's had her fair share.
Yeah, I'll say.
So thanks, Mom, for sending this in.
And thanks to everyone else who sent in stories, whether we did get to them on the show or we didn't.
We got so many really amazing and exciting stories from you guys that cover the spectrum from aliens to ghosts to things climbing up light poles or walls in your house.
It just, we loved seeing all of them and we loved bringing them to life.
And we hope that we hope that you don't have terrifying experiences more.
But keep telling your stories because, you know, maybe one day it'll become canon like werewolves.
You never know.
Yeah.
And if you need some more nightmare fuel or just spooky fuel for your Halloween season,
go check out Genevieve Manion of My Victorian Nightmare's new podcast about Edgar Allan Poe,
the life and death of Edgar Allan Poe, which features me as Edgar Allan Poe.
Well, look at that.
Perfect time, perfect time to recommend it because it is spooky season,
and there's nothing spookier than Edgar Allan Poe, huh?
That's right.
That's what got me into all this, is I loved the works of the works of
beggar Allen Poe growing up. Yeah, no, those are classics. So I'll be checking that out, and we hope you do two listeners. If you need your McLeod fix, you need some McLeod in your ears, go do it. Otherwise, go back and listen to the other episodes that we've done over the years. Hopefully you'll find something that you maybe didn't listen to before or you listen to it again and hear a new perspective on it. Yeah. But again, thank you so much for joining us for these two years. And also thanks again to the amazing team that we had working on this with us, our sound designers and our composers who wrote some really awesome.
some music for this show.
Absolutely.
But it takes a village to do this, the people at QCode who help put this together.
Chase, our co-producer on this, McLeod, thank you, as always, for being incredible.
And thank you guys again for just listening and making this as big a show as it was and giving us a lot of really great memories.
Yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself.
I don't know if I can add to that, Brian.
You just nailed it.
Yeah, how about we get some credits music going then for the last time.
And now we sing our new theme song.
Sceptical get-go.
and believer beavers
agnostic narwhals
alien fevers
that was good
that was good
why didn't we do that the whole time
then maybe we wouldn't have had to go away
all right thanks everyone
bye
sightings is hosted by
McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley
produced by Brian Sigley
Chase Kinzer and McLeod Andrews.
Series music by Mitch Bain.
Mixing and mastering by Pat Kickleiter.
Artwork by Nuno Sarnatas.
Sightings is presented by Reverb and Q Code.
If you like the show, be sure to subscribe
on your favorite podcast platform.
