Sightings - Under Cover of Night

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Are you afraid of the dark? You will be after hearing this month's eerie stories! Story Music tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Support this episode's sponsors! QUINCE: everyday essentials that last. Free shipping and 365 day returns at quince.com/sightings THE PERFECT JEAN: forget your khakis and get the perfect jeans for 15% off with code SIGHTINGS15 at theperfectjean.nyc/SIGHTINGS15 BETTERHELP: match with your therapist for 10% off at betterhelp.com/SIGHTINGS MOMENTOUS: supplements you can trust. Get up to 35% off your first order with code SIGHTINGS at livemomentous.com Sightings is a REVERB and QCODE Original. Find us on instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@sightingspod⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. You might be tempted to let Taco Bell's new Lux value menu go to your head. Because 10 indulgences for $5 or less makes you feel fancy. Like you might think you need cloth napkins. Well, you don't. Just use the ones that come in the bag. Don't let the lux go to your head. Sometimes the dark feels like nothing more than the absence of light.

A quiet cover for sleep. But when the sun goes down, certainty goes with it. Shapes lose their edges. Sounds travel farther than they should. And the familiar becomes unfamiliar in an instant. Because under cover of night, the unknown no longer has to hide. And all it takes is one glance into the darkness to realize you were never as alone as you thought. Welcome to sightings.

I'm MacLeod. And I'm Brian, and we are excited to be back with you for another month of eerie listener stories. For this episode, we're exploring all things that go bump in the night. So grab your flashlight, pull those covers tight, and see if you can survive the dark. Right here on sightings. This episode is sponsored by Quince. I don't know about you guys, but to me, a great wardrobe is one with pieces that work together and hold up over time. That's why I love Quince.

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash sightings for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash sightings. Welcome back, everyone. Welcome to another listener story episode, which, as we know, is McLeod's favorite to do still. You know what? It is my favorite. It is. And it's awesome to hear from, like, the listeners and, like, kind of real stories.

It's just fun. Oh, it absolutely is. We got five of them this time, which is the most we've ever done on listeners stories episode. All right. I'm going to need some water. You can't get too parched, McLeod. When I was 12 years old. This will be an ASMR episode.

You know, I'm sure people would listen to it. Somebody would be like, ah, get it out of my ear, get it out. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Well, I don't think Terry from Michigan, who sent our first story. would want it ASMR-I's. I'm not going to tell you anymore. It's Terry from Michigan. Okay.

So let's get some music going. When I was 12 years old, I had this friend named Derek, whose house I'd sleep over at almost every weekend. This was the mid-90s, so our big thing was staying up late in his living room with the TV guides spread out on the coffee table, circling all the horror movies that it'd be on T&T or USA or whatever channel was doing their midnight movie marathon.

Derek's parents were pretty chill, about letting us stay up. His mom would make us popcorn around 10. His dad would peek in around 11 to make sure we weren't being too loud, and then they'd head upstairs to bed. Derek's older sister was already in college, so it was just the three of them in this big colonial house in the suburbs. The living room was perfect for our movie nights. It had this huge sectional couch that Derek would claim, while I'd set up camp on the floor with sleeping bags and pillows. We'd have our stash of snacks within arm's reach, and we'd watch whatever scary stuff we could find until we eventually passed out. But here's the thing about Derek's house that always bothered me. The basement.

The entrance was right off the living room, just this plain white door with a brass knob. I'd asked Derek about it the first time I slept over, and he'd gotten really quiet and just said, we don't go down there. Not I don't go down there, or my parents don't want us down there, but we don't go down there, like it was a family rule or something. Of course, being 12-year-old boys, I tried to dare him into going down a few times. I'd joke about it, saying, maybe there was treasure down there, or his parents had a secret arcade set up they were hiding. But Derek never took the bait. He'd just changed the subject or turn up the TV volume. After a while, I stopped asking. Everyone's got weird things about their house, right?

My family had a shed in the backyard that my dad kept padlocked for no real reason. No big deal. This particular night I'm telling you about was in October, probably a week or two before Halloween. We'd demolished a party-sized bag of Doritos and were working through our second two-liter of Mountain Two. Oh, wow. Around two in the morning, Derek started nodding off on the couch. He was fighting it for a while, doing that thing where his head would drop and then he'd jerk awake, but eventually he was out. I could hear him snoring softly over the TV. I wasn't tired yet. The movie was getting good, and I was wired on caffeine and cheese powder.

I turned the volume down a bit so I wouldn't wake Derek or his parents and settled in to finish watching. That's when I heard it. At first I thought it was part of the movie, just a subtle sound, like something shifting its weight. But then I realized it was coming from below me, from the basement. I muted the TV and listened. Nothing. Just the house settling, I told myself. Old houses make noise, but my heart was beating faster.

I looked over at Derek, still asleep on the couch, and thought about waking him up, but what would I say? Hey, I heard a noise. He'd probably just tell me I was being paranoid and go back to sleep. But I heard it again. It wasn't a creak or a groan. It was more deliberate than that. Like something being dragged across the floor, just a few inches then stopping. I stared at the basement door, which was maybe six feet away from where I was sitting. In the flickering light from the muted TV, I could see the gap at the bottom of the door, just a thin line of empty space. And then, I swear to God, I saw something move back there.

I tried to wake Derek up, but he just shifted on the couch and kept sleeping. So I grabbed one of the pillows and threw it at him. It bounced off his head and he made this annoyed grunt, but his eyes didn't open. How was he sleeping through this? The sounds continued down there, and every instinct I had was screaming at me to run upstairs, wake up Derek's parents, get out of that room. But I didn't move. I just sat there staring at that basement door, watching that thin gap at the bottom to see if something moved again.

Then the doorknob moved. I saw it turn maybe a quarter inch, then stop, then turned back. I was terrified, of course, and Derek was still sound asleep. The doorknob turned again, a full rotation this time. I realized the door wasn't locked, and whatever was down there could come up if it wanted to. But it didn't. Instead, I heard footsteps, not coming up the stairs, going down them, or at least moving deeper into the basement. And then, silence.

I sat there barely breathing, listening as hard as I could. Nothing, just normal house sounds. I should have left it alone then and there. I should have climbed into my sleeping bag, pulled it over my head, and waited for morning. That would have been the smart thing to do. But I was 12 years old and frankly kind of dumb and too curious for my own good. What was down there? Why didn't Derek's family ever go into their own basement?

I thought about trying to wake him again, but something told me he wouldn't, even if I dumped water on his head. Whatever was happening, I was dealing with it alone. So I grabbed the flashlight we always used during sleepovers and walked to the basement door. The knob was cold when I touched it, colder than it should have been. I pressed my ear against the door and listened. At first, nothing. Then I heard it again.

Breathing. I guess since I heard breathing, I knew it wasn't a ghost or demon because they don't breathe, right? I thought it would be cool if it was a raccoon or giant rat or something, and if I caught it or scared it away, it would be an awesome story. So, I opened the door. My flashlight found a light switch on the wall next to the door. I tried it with my free hand. Nothing happened. I flipped it again and again, dead. So I called out into the dark, but the breathing didn't stop or change, just kept going at that same slow pace. I took the first step down. The stair groaned under my weight and I froze, expecting to hear Derek or his parents wake up. But nothing. Second step. Third step. With each one,

the temperature dropped. By the time I was halfway down, I could see my breath in the beam of the flashlight. The breathing was louder now, echoing slightly off what I assumed were concrete walls. I still couldn't see the source. The flashlight just showed more stairs, more darkness beyond them. When I reached the bottom, my foot hit concrete. I swept the flashlight around, trying to get my bearings. The basement was bigger than I expected, stretching out in multiple directions. I could make out shapes, boxes stacked against walls,

what looked like an old washer and dryer in one corner, some kind of workbench. And in the very back, where my flashlight beam didn't quite reach, Something was moving. I took a step forward. Then another. The breathing was coming from back there, from whatever was moving in the darkness. Who's there? I said. My voice cracking. Stupid question. Whatever was down here wasn't going to answer.

I moved closer. My flashlight extended in front of me. The light showed more of the basement now. It was unfinished, just exposed concrete and support beams. There were water stains on the walls and the floor was dusty, like nobody had been down here in years. That's when I saw the eyes. They were low to the ground, maybe three feet off the basement floor, and they reflected my flashlight beam like an animal's eyes would. But they weren't an animal's eyes.

They were too large, too far apart. And they weren't moving, just staring at me, unblinking from behind one of the support beams. The breathing stopped. In that moment of silence, I became aware of other things. The air smelled wrong, not musty like a basement should smell, but sweet and rotten, like fruit that had gone bad weeks ago. And I could hear something else now, a wet sound like something dripping. I kept the flashlight pointed at those eyes. They didn't blink. They didn't move. They just watched me. Then I heard movement to my left. I swung the flashlight over and saw nothing, just more basement. But when I looked back to where the eyes had been, they were gone. I backed up,

trying to keep the beam moving, trying to see everything at once, but the basement was too big and there were too many places to hide. Then something touched my shoulder. I screamed and whipped around, but there was nothing there, just air. But I'd felt it. Fingers, or something like fingers, resting on my shoulder for just a second. I decided then to get the hell out of there. My foot hit the bottom step and I almost tripped, but I ran up the stairs and I didn't look back. Didn't check if something was following me. I just ran, taking the steps two at a time. And when I got to the top, I slammed the door and turned to the lock. Something hit the other side of the door, hard Then again, then again, each impact rattled the frame. I backed away pointing the flashlight

at the door like it would somehow protect me. After the fourth impact, the sounds stopped. I stood there breathing hard, waiting. Then I heard movement on the other side, going back down the stairs. Derek was still asleep on the couch, and I spent the rest of that night pressed against the far wall of the living room watching that door, the flashlight in my lap. Every time I started to convince myself I'd imagined it, I'd remember those eyes. When Derek finally woke up around eight, he found me sitting there still awake, still watching the door. I tried to tell him what happened. He listened, and when I finished, he laughed, now you know why we don't go down there. I don't know if he meant it or not. Maybe he thought my

mind was playing tricks on me and there was nothing in the basement at all. Or maybe there was and his whole family was terrified of it. But I still think about that night sometimes, about what I saw or didn't see in that basement. Even though Derek and I stayed friends, I didn't go back to his house after that. And I didn't go in my own basement either. These days I live in an apartment. fourth floor no basement this like tracks so much for me of like I feel like I've felt this before

or I've done this before like or I've certainly I don't think I've ever had an experience where I was certain that it was like real but I've certainly like even in my own house now going down the stairs I don't have a basement but like going down the stairs like I can imagine so vividly

like something appearing out the window across the room Or suddenly, like, going down the stairs, looking around, seeing nothing in the dark, and then turning around to go back up and they're just being something right there. Well, that's the power of the dark, isn't it? Yeah. And basements, the power of basements. Power of basements, absolutely. I think that they are, you know, fodder for horror movies all over the place.

I pick the story because the moment it started and I saw that it was a sleepover and they're, you know, reading the TV guide to find the movies. playing late at night. That was my childhood. Right, right, right. So I'm like, yep. Oh, yeah, definitely, like, trying to, like, catch the scary films. Yeah, and I just, what I resonated with me about this story, yeah, it was creepy. But also, it's less about, was there something in the basement?

I don't know necessarily because he'd been, like, jacked up on Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew and Doritos. And watching horror movies. And, you know, he's a kid, and maybe his imagination got the best of him. But, you know, like, and the thing that his friend said about, like, oh, yeah, that's why do we don't go down there. Like, it's not like they were keeping a hostage in their basement, you know, probably. Right, right, right, right. Like, could there have been, like, a raccoon in the basement?

Or, you know, could there have been nothing and it's just, you know, that's what was cool. It's like, it doesn't matter necessarily if there was something in the basement. Yeah, it's such a relatable kind of. Because it's terrifying, just being alone in the dark in a weird, unfamiliar place. and basements are like the definition of weird, unfamiliar places. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the quintessential, it's like the quintessential, like, fear of the unknown story, like basic, simple and, like, so effective because I think we've all been, Terry.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I feel like I've been in that situation a lot. I didn't hear things in the way that he did, though. I mean, I don't think I would not have been brave enough to go down to that basement after hearing things like he did. Yeah, I don't know if I've been brave enough. would either. But kids are kids are kids and as he said kids are dumb so. But he's okay. You know. All right. So we will have a quick ad from our actual sponsors and then also probably one for padlocks. You should buy them.

That's an appropriate choice. Yes. Padlocks. So McLeod, I know that we scare the pants off you every single episode. Every episode. I have no pants now. Wait, is this the lead-in to the perfect gene ad? Because I legitimately love it. I've got. my pair from the perfect gene. That's right. Guys, with the perfect gene, you can say goodbye to stiff cardboard denim and hello to comfort. Seriously, these jeans stretch like you wouldn't believe, like I'm just doing deep lunge squats all day long, and they look fantastic. I mean it, I get compliments, mostly from my wife, but that's the most important compliment I could get. Plus, the perfect gene has a massive range of sizes with six fits, waists from 26 to 50, and lengths from

26 to 38. So assuming you aren't big foot, these will fit you perfectly. And for a limited time, sightings listeners can get 15% off their first order, plus free shipping at theperfectgeen. Or Google the perfect gene and use sightings 15 for 15% off. That's 15% off for new customers at the perfect gene.n.yc with promo code sitings 15. So forget your khakis and get the perfect Gene. We are back, everyone. McLeoddy, you ready to go? Story number two. Can't wait. I'm seething. Yeah, this one's Mike. This one's actually not a ghost story. It's creepy, but, well, it's kind of ghost. I don't know. I don't know what this is. So let's, that's all I'm going to give you. Okay. There was something timeless about growing up in West Newbury,

Massachusetts, a small wooded town tucked near the New Hampshire border. It was the kind of place where childhood felt like it belonged in a movie. Fireflies at dusk, bikes skidding across gravel roads, and long summer days that stretched deep into the night. My parents raised five of us in a modest 1,100 square foot ranch home, with only one bathroom, one hallway, and a shared sense of chaos. It somehow always worked. My twin brother and I shared a bedroom, which made for a tight fit,

but also meant we had a built-in best friend, sparring partner, and co-conspirator. Our room had bunk beds to maximize the limited space, and since I was the older twin, by a whopping three minutes, I claimed the top bunk as my rightful throne. That top bunk was everything. From up there, I had a view of the whole room, and more importantly, a clear line of sight out the window. We didn't have air conditioning,

so summer nights were a steamy affair. We'd sleep with the windows flung open, hoping to catch even the slightest breeze, and fall asleep listening to the chirps of crickets and the low resonant croaks of frogs from the pond across the street. The sounds were a kind of natural lullaby, familiar, grounding, and oddly comforting. Some nights we would lie in our beds and just stare out at the trees beyond our house, a room bathed in soft moonlight.

West Newbury was quiet, wooded, and alive with wildlife. We saw a deer in the yard regularly and raccoons rustling through the bushes. But one night, the woods gave us something else that to this day we've never forgotten. It started like any other hot summer night. We were sweating through our sheets, too hot to sleep. That's when we saw the lights, strange, soft glows moving outside our window. We sat up and rushed to the window expecting to see a plane or maybe a helicopter hovering above the trees. But it wasn't either.

There, directly above our house and just above the treetops, floated a massive triangular object. It had lights on each corner, soft, steady, and strangely dim. It didn't move like a helicopter or sound like a plane. In fact, it didn't make any sound at all. That's what really struck us, how utterly silent it was. The night around us stayed still, the only sound coming from the frogs and insects, completely unbothered by the strange object floating silently above them.

We watched in silence for several minutes, our faces pressed to the screen. It was huge, far bigger than anything that should have been flying that low and that quietly. No wings, no rotors, no engine hum, just a perfect black triangle gliding slowly over our yard, as if it were searching for something. Then, without warning, it tilted slightly, shifted direction, and disappeared into the night. We turned to each other, eyes wide, not quite sure what we had just seen. We didn't panic. We weren't afraid, really, just stunned.

We didn't talk about it much that night. Maybe we didn't know how to. It wasn't like we saw aliens or flashing beams of light. It was just something we couldn't explain. Something that didn't fit. And yet, a week later, something else had. happened, and it changed how I remembered that night forever. It was another hot, airless evening. I was asleep in my usual spot on the top bunk, the sheets clinging to my skin. Something woke me

up. I'm not sure what it was. A noise, maybe, or just a shift in the atmosphere, but it was loud enough to stir me. I laid there for a minute trying to drift back off, but then I heard something again, this time closer, in the room. And that's when I saw it. Just a few feet from my bed, standing beside the dresser was something, a figure. At first I thought it was a person, maybe my dad, maybe my brother. But within seconds, I knew it wasn't. It was tall and thin.

And while it had the shape of a human, it wasn't one. It had no clothes, no hair, no identifiable features that I could see in the faint red light. It just stood there, unmoving, staring at me. I froze. I was wide awake of that, I'm sure. I felt every bead of sweat on my forehead. My heart was pounding in my chest so loud I could almost hear it. In a moment of pure primal fear, I did what any terrified kid might do. I yanked the sheet over my head like it was a force field. The thin cotton cocoon was all I had. I laid there for what felt like forever, sweating, shaking,

and completely silent. I don't remember falling back. back asleep. I just remember being afraid to move. Eventually, I peaked out from under the sheet, and the figure was gone. The next morning, I checked with everyone in the house. No one had come into our room. My brother had slept through the entire night, and no one could explain what I saw. I still don't know what it was. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was a trick of the light in my tired brain. But I know how real it felt. I know the fear. I know the heat, the stillness, and the way the air in the room felt different. And I know that I've never forgotten it, not in 40 plus years. Some memories fade, some you question over time. But some, especially the ones that shake something in your bones.

Stay with you forever. It feels like an alien story to me, doesn't it? Well, you know, if I had just read the second half of it where he woke up and there was something standing in his room, it reminded me of the episode that we did about the Hatman. Yeah, yeah, like a sleep entity. But since a week before, he saw the UFO over his house, I'm like, mm-mm, mm-mm, that's aliens.

Yeah, and the whole kind of like tall, thin, no clothes, bald. Like, that all sounds like the classic alien body. But that makes me now wonder if, you know, maybe he got abducted and didn't know it, you know, kind of thing. You think he got abducted? I don't know. Is there something I'm missing here? Well, no, no, no. But, like, you know, like, a lot of people who get abducted don't know that they got abducted.

Because they're, like, memory wiped or something? Yeah. Or just, why would an alien come into his room and stand that? I don't know. Unless they were, like, doing something. I mean, I don't know. Why do, like, take your pick of alien. story and like

why do they doing? I'm like Kelly Hopkinsville which is one of my big like beefs with Kelly Hopkinsville I was just like what are they doing? Like why are these little clawed beings crashing their intergalactic ship

and then just like running screaming at a cabin with their claws. Yeah we shouldn't we shouldn't ascribe yeah lodging to alien. I mean I think it's like intelligence like that

it's like I feel like the explanations for like alien visitations are like almost like scientifically or must be if they're to the extent they're real

or we believe they're real they must be more more complicated to grasp than simply like oh we came down here for fuel

or oh we're running experiments like I feel like it's more mind messy than that where it's like time is like

there's some sort of dimensional overlap and it's like they're there sort of but not really and like

Like, is my... You're smart, McLeod. I don't know if I'm smart. Because, like, to your point, why is this alien coming to, like, stand in his bedroom and look at him? I dig that. And I just, all I know from the stories, I'm glad that I did not have his childhood experience. Yeah. I feel like I can more imminently explain away the figure in his room than I can.

The, like, the object they saw in the sky. Mm-hmm. Like, that made no sound. But the two of them together, I mean, certainly seems to be more than a coincidence. So, well, let's actually jump to one more quickie of the story here before we hop to another ad break. So we're going to go to Mexico, McLeod. Awesome. We got Fernando from Mexico.

That's so cool. Yeah. I think this is our first story for Mexico. All right. Growing up in our house, my parents would tell us stories of the supernatural in Mexico. Some they'd even experienced themselves, like how my grandfather was stalked by a black dog with red eyes when riding home at night on horseback, or how my father's aunt was a known witch who practiced black magic and never aged, even in death. This story happened to my oldest brother and my mother.

When my mom was pregnant with her firstborn, her family would constantly bless her and protect her from strangers. In her small town, brujas would try to take babies and use them as sacrifice for eternal youth or to gain favors from whatever dark entities they served. My goodness. What town did you grow up in? I know. This is terrifying. Terrifying. Fast forward. Thankfully, hopefully, away from those brujas. My brother is born. My father would leave for work in the nearby city, so my mother was often alone at home with my brother. One day she kept noticing an owl. Oh, the owls, they're back.

Mm-hmm. One day, she kept noticing an owl sitting in a tree just staring. at the house. Owls are common in Mexico, but this one seemed different. It never got scared of people and kept watching the home. My mother told her parents. Her dad shot at it, but the owl didn't budge. It just flew away into the brush. As the days went by, the same owl kept showing up getting closer to the house each time. My grandmother started putting a cup of water at the front door and laying salt around the doorways. This seemed to stop the owl from coming closer until they forgot to put everything out. My grandparents were away, moving the herd of cattle, and would be gone for a few

days. Exhausted from caring for my brother, my mother forgot to salt the doors and leave out the cup of water. She remembers that night. For some reason, she felt like something was draining her energy fast. She would start falling asleep anywhere. This time, she passed out on the living room floor. She doesn't know what jolted her awake, but it must have been her mother's instinct. My oldest brother was crying like he was scared or in pain. My mother ran to the room and there it was, a woman disheveled, standing inside. The owl was right outside the window, staring at my oldest brother. My mother panicked, ran to get the shotgun, and fired at both the woman, and the owl. The woman was hit but wasn't phased by the gunfire. The owl was hit too, but it wasn't

phased. Instead, the woman climbed out the window. The owl screeched at my mom, and she remembers that sound. She said it wasn't like a bird screech. It tried to sound more human, like someone screaming in pain but attempting to sound like an animal. The woman ran off into the brush. The owl followed. After the incident, my mom took my oldest brother and went straight to to her aunt's farm a few miles down the road. They rode her horse down the dirt road, and my mother said she saw the same owl again, ahead of her, looking at her from a tree. But this time, the owl had human eyes, and they were red, staring right at her. My mom arrived in the dead of night and woke her aunt and uncle in a panic, explaining everything. My mother's aunt

did the same thing, put a cup of water at the front door, and salted the doorways. Her uncle stayed up that night and sat by the door where my mother and brother would sleep. Nothing else happened, but my mom never forgot those eyes. Oh, got to shake that one off. I know, we got bulletproof owls. Yeah, much like Kelly Hopkins. Very first episode, the bulletproof owls. And we also got the bulletproof woman.

It's all come full circle. Bulletproof woman in your house. Yeah. Wow. But this is like, this like it is the first like what feels like home intrusion or like home invasion of likes of an entity. Because like usually it's like something's in the home already or something's just like in your room. But this is like something breaking in and like throw in like a little baby. And like it like coming for it.

I'm like, no. No. Uh, good story though. Whoa. Also like whenever like an animal has human eyes. What a freaky visual. I think eyes in general are creepy. Like, they were in that first story, too, when he was in the basement.

He saw those eyes. It's just eyes are like a thing. I mean, I guess they're the gateways to intelligence, you know. Or to pure terror. The gateways to pure terror. So, Fernando, a thank you for sharing your mother's terrifying story. Yeah, that was a great story. I'm glad everyone's okay.

And now an ad from our actual sponsors, no joke this time. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Ah, February, the season for flowers, candy, stuffed animals, and of course, lots and lots of talk about relationships and dating. But no matter where you are, married or dating or single or just focusing on you, you're right on time. Because with BetterHelp therapy, you can find your way and see more clearly where you want to be. Because we're all just trying our best to figure things out as we go, aren't we? I know that sometimes for me it helps to just take the pressure off myself just a little bit. BetterHelp's easy questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and matches you with a fully licensed U.S. therapist that's right for you.

And if it's not the perfect fit, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from any of their tailored recommendations. So if you want to try BetterHelp for yourself, you can sign up right now with 10% off at betterhelp.com slash sightings. That's better, h-E-L-P.com slash sightings. All right, welcome back, everyone. McLeod, we're going to continue our tour around the world for sure of Mexico. Now we're going to India. Heck yeah, this is awesome. I know.

This is our first submission from India as well. This is Priya from India. So let's get some music going. I was born in the U.S. But decided to move back to India to pursue a career medicine. This incident happened in my last year of med school during my internship. My first rotation was in community medicine. This rotation was supposed to go on for three months, and we were assigned to a rural hospital and basically told to go crazy, you know, do doctor stuff. Rural India is

different compared to rural America. It's a lot less cosmopolitan, a lot of villages and farms, and sometimes a few weird superstitions here and there. I don't really job. I don't really job. I don't judge, so if you sleep better at night by hanging some leaves off your door or painting your door red, that's fine. The hospital is a small concrete building, which has patient rooms, a small pharmacy near the waiting area, and an equally tiny office for the director next to the waiting area. But behind the hospital was this forest. And I'm not talking the type of forests you see in the states. This place is dense and lush. If you go deep enough, it can get dark, and it is loud. It shocked me how loud the forest could be during the day.

Since it was creepy and rural, us girls didn't usually stay for night duty, so most of us left to head back to our college at sundown. But there was a midwife who stayed overnight in case women from surrounding villages came to give birth. Trust me, that happened a lot. Sometimes the midwife needed assistance, so we girls made a schedule to decide who would stay with her in the night. Tonight, it was my turn.

I still remember how off the whole place felt at night. Remember, this place is rural. If middle of nowhere had a name, this would be it. You just feel like something is watching you. I was staying in the bunkhouse alone since I was the only girl there aside from the midwife and was on call in case I was needed, but it was too hot to sleep, and I watched some old movies to pass the time. Outside I heard some of the boys playing a cricket match,

and the night watchman listening to his old radio. A totally normal night. Then I heard someone knocking. I assumed that must have been either the midwife or the head nurse. I paused my movie and just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, I waited for a bit. I heard the knocking again. I called out, who is it?

No answer. They knocked again, this time a bit more aggressive. In hindsight, I should have known that wasn't normal. but I got up and walked towards the door. I didn't open it, though. See, we have this rule during night duty. Do not go out unless someone comes and gets you. We even had a whole seminar in the beginning with the director of the hospital telling us

that during the night, you'll be fetched if a patient comes. And if it's not the night guard or peer, do not open the door. So I was getting pissed off because no matter how much I called out a question, the person who knocked didn't say anything. and though I didn't open the door, I did place my hand on the handle. Who are you? I asked. No answer. What are you doing outside? Is there a patient? No answer yet again. Eventually they stopped and it went quiet. I couldn't even hear the insects outside.

Then they started to bang on the door. Whoever was out there was banging so damn hard I was afraid the hinges on the door would burst right off. I grabbed onto the handle and held on tight. Though it was a hot night, I felt goosebumps all over me and had this horrible, horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe it was adrenaline, or maybe my body was trying to tell me something. As a woman, I didn't feel very safe already, but this was something else. The pounding continued for a good five minutes, and then it stopped. Please leave, I cried. It was the first thing that came to mind, and I just blurted it out.

Then I grabbed my phone and called one of my mail friends who was in the bunkhouse next to mine and asked him point blank if he and the other boys were screwing around with me. He said no, and that all of them were watching the cricket match this entire time. I asked if someone had knocked on his door and he said, Yeah, but they didn't answer it. Well, that was definitely weird. So I told him what happened. He offered to come and get me, but I said no,

because what if someone dangerous was outside? I don't want someone to get hurt because I was too much of a coward. So instead he said he'd call the night guard to come and escort me to the clinic. After five minutes, I heard the familiar steps of the night guard. He was a nice middle-aged guy and wore these old military-style boots which made a very distinctive sound. He knocked on the door with his flashlight and called out my name. I had all my stuff gathered at this point and was ready to hightail it out of there. and when I opened the door, I must have looked like hell. He asked me if I was okay, and I told him about the knocking. He told me not to worry when he dropped me off in the clinic and went to check the perimeter.

Meanwhile, I told the midwife what happened to me, and she got this weird look on her face. Soon the night guard returned, and the midwife asked if he saw anything. He said no, all he found were some footprints heading back to the forest. The midwife looked spooked when he said that, and the night guard was equally scared, too. He sat down, his hands trembling as he took a sip from his cup. Then the midwife explained that the footprints weren't heading towards the forest. They were coming towards the bunk houses. The night guard and I looked at her confused,

and she explained that sometimes things come out of the forest in her village during the night. Things called Churels that have their feet on backwards. I'd heard of Churals before. They're like the Indian version of a bogeyman. They were women who had been violently murdered or died tragically and sought revenge against the men who hurt them. The midwife then told me I was lucky because the churals don't hurt women.

She said the churrel must have knocked on my door because she assumed men were there and the reason she left is because she heard my voice. The next day the head nurse took all of us to a local temple and had us blessed. I was still spooked and I'm sure some of the guys were too but we tried to shut out what happened and move on.

I still don't have a logical explanation for this. It could have been a human. It could have been an animal. God's only know what it was. I just know that I will never work somewhere like that ever again. Brian, I am loving stories from other parts of the world. I hope we get more of them, yeah. I know what I'm hearing about folklore that I've never encountered before.

Like I never heard about Churals. I had to really start looking these up because I'd never heard of this and they are pretty terrifying They're cool terrifying Yeah they sound super freaky I mean like the idea of something that you kind of recognize Like it's just a woman but her feet are backwards

And you're like like Just like some detail that is so wrong But like just like a single thing Is kind of like Yeah So scary Here hold on I want to Google and look at like Yeah like there's so many drawings

That make them look so like wickedly scary Well they're apparently Certainly shapeshifters is what Wikipedia says, at least. But what's really compelling to me about them that's different than a lot of, well, I guess it shares some things with other lore is the idea that they are women who were wronged in some way. And then they're like spiritually resurrected. Which like is common across many cultures. But they come back for revenge, particularly against men. It sounds like.

Like I made a movie called like the Resolka, which I guess got changed into the siren or whatever, which is essentially essentially essentially. about, it's like, that's a balkan folklore about something very similar that's kind of like a woman who haunts a body of water typically, who died tragically while like love Lorne or love lost or something. Yeah. Well, they, this one seems like a pretty creepy version. The feet is such as, like, just such a salient detail that I just like, oh. I know, I know, right?

And Priya, though, what an incredible experience. Like, I can understand. I can feel your, like, the sense of kind of, like, fear and spookiness. I mean, like being out kind of in the middle of nowhere. The only woman in your bunk. Yeah, exactly. And whether it was a, you know, whether it was a, uh, Trell or an entity of any kind or just some crazy person who might have just been pounding on the door that night, you know,

is frightening enough, uh, as is. Yeah. Well, thank you, Priya, for sharing this one. Um, this was really cool and really unique. Uh, we got one last ad for you guys. And then we're going to be back with one final story, also international as it happens. By this point in the year, routines are real, not aspirational. And when it comes to supplements you're taking every day, trust really matters.

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head to live momentous.com and use promo code sightings for up to 35% off your first order. That's livemometus.com promo code sightings. All right, welcome back. McLeod, we got one more story. You got it in you? Yes. Well, we're going to go to Canada this time, not too far afield. This one's from Matt.

And this is a weird one. So that's all I'm going to see. All right. Cool. Let's get weird in Canada. Yeah. is interesting, though I'm a scientist and a skeptic at heart, I count three events in my life that I can only describe as supernatural. I'm loath to use that word, but it's the only one that fits.

Two happened when I was young, still in a grade school, and perhaps I can explain them away as the overactive imagination of youth. In truth, I don't believe that, but the third, the third was different. This happened in the autumn of 2008. I had just finished my PhD, and my newlywed wife and I had recently moved into a lake house a bit south of Petersburg, Ontario. After the past year of living in a major metropolitan city, we were thrilled to find such a picturesque country home that we could actually afford to rent, albeit just barely. Situated on a gently sloping hillside above the lake, we would spend the evenings on the porch watching the family of raccoons preparing for their nightly escapades, the occasional canoe or kayak paddling by.

Silence only interrupted by the occasional fishing boat or jet ski. We arrived at our new home in late summer, and it wasn't long before the days shortened, and the nights took on a chill. The air filled with the scent of wood smoke and the promise of coming snow. The splendorous display of autumn colors had waned, and the few leaves remaining on the trees were brown and withered. It was late fall, and winter was near. Though my wife and I were enjoying the solitude of country life,

we decided to drive down to Coburg. I hope I'm saying that right, a small town on the north shore of Lake Ontario to get away for the evening. We had dinner and took a stroll through the couple blocks that made up to downtown and called it a night. Rather than take the highway, we decided to explore some of the back roads and take a more meandering route through the countryside. We got into our battered Subaru and hit the road, driving north on country roads through the gloaming that follows sunset, almost but not quite dark. We passed hay fields and harvested crops, old oaks and maples, standing sentinel in the fields, bare branches stretching up to the cloudless sky.

It was a November night made for the movies. There should have been an owl. They're back. There should have been an owl hooting and a full moon. For all I know, maybe there was, but that's not what I remember about the night. I was driving and we were rocking out, singing along to our favorite Canadian bands, Apostle of Hustle, Broken Social Scene, Elliot Brood and the like. I remember feeling the warmth of the car's heater, being warm and full and comfortable, laughing together, happy in the way of newlyweds

who still can't believe they were lucky enough to find each other and fall in love. As we drove, our headlights illuminated the paved two-lane country road and the grasses dying along the shoulder. We drove up the small hills and the rough-hewn fence posts would dip and disappear out of sight

until we crested the hilltop. Miles and miles of fence-poles. and barbed wire of hayfields and trees, working farms and fallow fields. We were laughing about what I have no idea when I saw something ahead off to the right side of the road near the fence line. Or rather, there was something I didn't see. My wife had noticed it too. Our laughter died and we both stared ahead at the animate darkness near the fence. It was maybe 50 meters ahead of us when we noticed. I'm not sure if the car slowed, but time certainly did.

We watched as a piece of darkness, the size of a small dog, floated near the fence line, its shape, morphing, changing as we watched. It moved in a way that my brain still can't fully comprehend, shifting and moving directions while completely changing its morphology as it floated in defiance of gravity, and defiance of everything I knew about the physical world. But what was most disturbing was its color. I can only describe it as an absence of light.

The headlights did not illuminate it. Rather, it was as if it were a moving, mutating piece of utter darkness. No reflections, no indication of a three-dimensional shape, no interaction with the physical world, just darkness in a form I could not comprehend. It was a while before my wife and I spoke again. I looked at her in the passenger seat. She was pallid, staring straight ahead.

I couldn't resist. I had to know if she'd seen what I had seen, and so I asked. She nodded, but was reluctant to talk at first. I think we were both trying to take it in, wrap our heads around what we had just seen and experienced. But I needed to know I wasn't alone, that I wasn't the only one that had seen whatever that was, who had been utterly gobsmacked by the strangeness of the thing. She had seen it too. had seen and felt the same wrongness.

Eventually, we tried to make sense of it, to explain it away like a bad dream. Perhaps we said it was a crow or an owl, some kind of bird. We are both biologists. We've logged thousands of hours in the field studying animals. What we saw was not an animal. No crow, no owl, no bat,

no creature moves that way. Perhaps, we thought, or hoped, it was a plastic bag caught in the wind, a reasonable explanation, and the one I'm sure I would give to anyone who told me this story. Except I had seen it, and my wife had seen it, and that was no garbage bag or errant birthday balloon. It was something else entirely, something that had form but no dimension, at least no dimension that we understood and no color that we could perceive. Putting the event to words, the whole thing seems so benign. we saw something dark along the roadside. But like I said, it's not so much what you see, it's what you feel, and what we felt was unnatural.

It was like getting a glimpse behind the curtain at a magic show. We had seen something we were not supposed to see, something that wasn't supposed to be there. We sensed its wrongness, the feeling that this was something that didn't fit in this world. We don't talk about it often, as if to do so gives credulous. to the thing, allowing it to metastasize in our thoughts. Or perhaps it's because we got a glimpse of something we weren't supposed to see, and though we were lucky enough to pass by unnoticed, talking about it and calling attention to the thing may,

just possibly call its attention back to us. Oh, man, Matt, you're not just a biologist, you've got away with words, sir. Great vocabulary. That's what I liked about. Like, it just, it brought a lot of gravity to what was a simple sighting, it seemed. You know, just weird, dark thing on the side of the road. Your point is well taken, Brian, that, like, what is unique about this story and I think about Matt's insight is that it's like some things, some of these, a lot of these stories on their face are kind of easy to dismiss. Are not terribly, like, you know, it's Priya, ultimately what happens, somebody knocked on.

the door and didn't respond. Before that. Shadow in your room. Shadow in your room. Swearing you felt fingertips on your shoulder. I don't know. It's like how much do we trust our human senses to tell us when something just is wrong, like, doesn't fit. And maybe it's like beyond our eyes, beyond what our sense, our traditional five senses can tell us.

Our intuition, so to speak. Yeah. It's what makes all these stories resonate because it's not necessarily about, you know, the hand on the shoulder. It's about that sense like, this is not right. Right. You know, this is something terrible is happening to me, and this is so terrifying. I also really liked in the story how Matt kind of just put us in his headspace as he's

walking through, trying to rationalize it and like shooting down all the things that it couldn't be. Because I was like, it could be, it's like, oh, it's a balloon. Yeah, I know. And he literally shot down my first two. My first two is like, it's like a party balloon or a trash bag, like a plastic bag. He really worked through it and he's like, I cannot explain this. And I think that's why these stories resonate with everybody because everyone has, you know, maybe you didn't have something

standing in your room, but everyone's had that experience where like you feel like you aren't alone, or you feel like you hear something on the wind or just whatever it is where you just, something just tickles the back of your neck in a weird way. And it's kind of a universal thing, I feel like, and that's why these stories are so enticing and so resonant for me, at least. Maybe for hopefully for everyone else. Yeah. I, you know what? Honestly, like I almost like the more obtuse stories more.

Like the ones that are just kind of like harder to penetrate. And are just like kind of more like this kind of like general, what's the word I'm looking for? Abstract sense of foreboding and terror and like. Yeah. Well, you hit the nail on the head, Matt. Thank you for sending that. And I guess this is a perfect segue into reminding all you awesome listeners. if you've experienced anything, it didn't have to be something standing in your room or, you know, creepy hand or something like that.

Send it our way. We are at Stories at sightingspodcast.com. You can also find us on Instagram at sightingspod. Send us a message on there. We're collecting the stories and putting them together for you guys and just love going around the world and just seeing all these weird, creepy, unsettling things that have tormented you guys. But, yeah, again, we'll be back next month with some awesome new stories. McLeod, any parting thoughts for everyone? No, just keep it coming.

These were awesome. I really enjoyed this. Absolutely. So thanks again, everyone. We'll see you in a month. And until then, stay spooky. All right. Bye, everyone.

Bye. Sightings is hosted by McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigley, Chase Kinzer and McLeod Andrews. Written by Brian Sigley. Series music by Mitch Bain. Mixing and mastering by Pat Kicklater of Sundial Media, artwork by Nuno Sarnadas. For a list of this episode's sources, check out our website at sightingspodcast.com. Sightings is presented by reverb and cue code.

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