Sightings - Under The Covers: Listener Stories

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Sometimes childhood fears are imaginary, and sometimes they’re something much, much darker. Find out why as we bring to life three incredible listener stories. Story Music tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG 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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go bump in the night. But what if some of those childhood fears weren't imaginary at all? What if the strange things we glimpsed in the dark were real and still waiting for us to remember? Welcome to Sightings, the series that takes you inside the world's most mysterious supernatural events. Each week we bring you a thrilling story that puts you at the center of the action, followed by a discussion that dives into the accounts that inspired the story and our takes on them. I'm McCloud. And I'm Brian, and it is the last Monday of the month, so we are bringing to life some

brand new, spine-tingling listener stories. So delve with us into three childhood memories that will leave you chilled. Were they innocent cases of childhood imagination? Or something much darker? Find out on this episode of Sightings. Welcome to sightings! It's that time again where you guys freak me out or just otherwise move me deeply. They're not all freaky.

No they aren't. Last month we had... Remember the Oreo story? Of course I'll never forget the Oreo story. We have gotten so many comments about the Oreo story and how people were just bawling. For those of you who didn't listen, Oreo is a dog. It was not about the sandwich cookie. Although I would love a sandwich cookie haunting. Please, if any of you have a listener story about haunted food, send them to us. Yes.

We wanna be the first podcast to do a show about haunted food. Somebody's just gonna write that scene from, from Beetlejuice where they eat the shrimp cocktail. We'd be like, wait a second. I think I've seen this before. Man, well, we've got three really great, spooky, compelling stories for you guys.

All of these have this unique theme that they all happened to our listeners when they were kids. Okay. Yeah. That's why we had our fun opening where it's, you know, it's a childhood imagination or is it something a little bit darker? Although some people do say that children are just more open to the other side. They can see past the veil more readily because they don't have as many preconceived blocks.

That's very true. Are any of your children able to- Able to see dead people? Yeah. Not that I'm aware of. I think they've started to become aware that they dream and so she'll tell me dreams, but none of them are supernatural, I don't think. Well, maybe that's for the best.

Yeah. But our first story here comes from Jacob from Colorado. Your neck of the woods, right? He grew up about five minutes from where I grew up, so pretty cool. Okay, once again, I'll put on my Brian Siegley accent. Oh, hello. There you go. That's the one.

So let's get some music going. I should find some fancy music for me on this one. But here we go. Jacob from Colorado. I'm going to begin my story with a little context. I grew up in Monument, Colorado, about a stone's throw away from where Brian grew up. My dad was stationed as a physician at the Air Force Academy, and we found a very pretty 1980s construction brown house in a great neighborhood in a great location.

We settled in, and for a while not much happened. But then, oh here we go, the shoe is dropping. The strange things started up. Sometimes when my brother and I were in the playroom in the basement, the electronic toys would randomly sound off or move across the room when we weren't looking. It got so scary for us that my brother and I stopped using the playroom alone. That is true. I don't know about the moving on their own thing, but like, kids toys have a mind of their own. They just go off whenever they want. It's... I think they're all... they've all been possessed. Oh no, no, no. You're gonna give me nightmares. Let's get the music back on.

Because here we go. It's getting intense. Then, things got decidedly more violent. My brother and I kept falling down the stairs and telling our parents we'd been pushed. Even though no one was there to push us, that's terrifying. Then we were playing on the deck near my dad's charcoal grill and all of a sudden the ash release on the bottom opened, spraying ash into my brothers and my eyes. And it wasn't just my brother and I. My mom also said that when she cleaned the playroom, toys she swore she'd put away would find themselves back on the floor in minutes, even if my brother and I weren't there. One night my parents had a full wine bottle in the center of the table that somehow pushed itself all the way off the edge. No one was close to the bottle

at all, and all of us saw it happen. The thing that left the biggest impression on my mom and I happened when my brother was leaving for his first time on the school bus. We were watching him go when all of a sudden the window screen popped into the house and the fire alarms all simultaneously began blaring. My mom began to panic and started running to try and find a source of smoke, but there was no fire or smoke at all. To this day, I am convinced that I got to meet the ghost who was doing all this. Oh boy, this just keeps escalating.

Like most kids, I hated taking naps because I didn't want to miss out on the action, so one time I was playing on the floor of my room instead of napping. I specifically recall that I was playing with my Darth Vader and Obi-Wan action figures, and I looked up to find a man in my room who I did not recognize. He wasn't ghost-like at all. He looked fully material. He was shorter than my dad and had a silver, high-and-tight haircut and goatee. Like any kid, I got scared. But the man said there was no need to be scared of him.

He wouldn't hurt me. Liar. The dude was probably the one who pushed me down the stairs. Thank you, Jacob, I was about to say. I then began talking with him, and while I don't remember most of the content of our conversation, he did tell me his name was Bill. Then I looked away at one point,

and when I looked back, he was gone. Then I looked away at one point, and when I looked back he was gone. I told my mom about the visitor, and she investigated my room to make sure nobody had broken in. The window was locked, she had been in the house the whole time, nobody had come in or out. From then on I never materially saw Bill again, but the strange occurrences continued, and Bill became the default explanation for everything that happened. Bill would take my toys out of the play chest for me, Bill would slam my books shut, Bill pushed the silverware off the counter, and Bill would open the oven when nobody was home.

Eventually my mom got fed up and got scared of the house and worried her kids would get hurt. She even called the local Catholic church to see if they did exorcisms, even though we're Protestants. Eventually she had a Native American shaman who was a patient of my dad's come to the house when my brother and I were at school. She never told us the details of what the shaman did, but from then on, we had to have salt along all of the window sills and in front of the exterior doors in the house.

And after that we never had another problem with Bill again. Eventually we saved enough money to buy a house just down the street where my parents live to this day. And maybe it has nothing to do with the haunting, but when we were moving out, the landlord replaced the carpet in the basement and found a huge 10 foot wide pentagram? What? Painted on the concrete? Complete with strange symbols and everything? Uh, wow. Wasn't expecting that. It would make a good story if it had something to do with the ghost, but I think it was just some edgy teenagers messing around when the house was

being built. You sure about that, Jacob? I'm pretty sure that's Bill. Sounds like ol' Bill. It's a little too coincidental. I think that would freak me out just finding a pentagram, but... Yeah, haunted house guy pushing me down the stairs, coming and hanging out, like, Hey, I'm Bill in my room, and there happens to be a pentagram. This Bill is no good. Pushing kids down the stairs, throwing ash in their face.

You know, he sounds mischievous, but then he takes it too far. He's petty. Well, he's a grown man. When I was reading this, I was like, oh, it's like a kid. It's clearly a ghost kid who's being a bully. That's a grown man? Bill. I did message back and forth with Jacob a little bit after he sent this in. He did provide some supplemental information that should be fun.

Really? Yeah. He said he did some research to try and find out who Bill was. Okay. None of the owners of the house were named Bill. Their old landlords passed away though, so he doesn't know if any of the old tenants were named Bill. But Monument, at that point, I guess it still is a smallish town, North of Colorado Springs.

He looked into newspaper articles trying to find anything related to a Bill-ish town, north of Colorado Springs. So he looked into newspaper articles, trying to find anything related to a Bill, who might've died in that area. He couldn't find anything about Bills or Williams in the neighborhood. He says there was a motorcycle accident on the major East West thoroughfare, about 300 yards from the house,

involving the death of a man who I guess looked similar with the kind of goatee and the high and tight, but he brings up the point, there would be no reason for him to be in the house and the victim had a different name. So maybe Bill was making up his name. That's an interesting theory. Call me Bill, because if I told you my name was Lucifer, you wouldn't trust me. No offense to any Bills out there, but... Yeah, no, this was great. Jacob, thank you for sending this in. All I can say is I am glad my parents didn't pick that house. Yeah, I'll say.

When we moved to Colorado Springs. Also, when my dad also worked at the Air Force Academy. So, small world. There you go. All right, let's take a break. Okay. And now, buh-duh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh, this show's brought to you by Salsa.

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Lawrence did say, quote, try an Australian accent. I dare you. Ha ha. Lawrence is a little cheeky. I mean, challenge accepted. Man, I haven't done like a decent Australian accent. Someone would probably say my entire life. So Australia, we're sorry. Let's get the music rolling. And here we go.

Let me start by saying I'm a pretty big skeptical gecko. Sometimes annoyingly so, which is perhaps why this memory is stuck with me so well. I would have been about eight years old and living in Darwin, which is right on the tippy top of Australia. It's basically next door to Indonesia, so it's a very warm tropical climate. My bedroom was at the back of our humble little two bed brick house. It had been raining when I went to bed and I remember listening to the frogs singing and the big, heavy drops hitting the tin roof. We had a little spa out back, which was fairly close to my window, and I'm guessing spa... Is that like, maybe that's just like a jacuzzi or something?

That's what I think it is, yeah. Like a hot tub, okay. So I had developed an almost supernatural ability to hear the faintest splash in the water because frogs would often jump in but couldn't get out. And finding them dead or exhausted from trying to swim all night would make me so sad. So whenever I'd wake up to a splash, I'd try to go outside and rescue the frog. Good man! Good for you, Lawrence.

Anyways, on this particular night, I woke to a splash and I remember laying in bed listening for rain, in case that was the splash that worked me but there was no rain so I hopped up and went outside to rescue the frog from the spa. To my surprise there was no frog so I turned to go back inside but stopped for a moment to look up at the stars. It was either a new moon or it had already set because the stars were so clear and I just stood there gazing, feeling small in a really lovely way. Then I was sucked up into the sky!

No, no, just kidding. Haha. Good on you, Lawrence. But this is when the weird things happen. Okay, so there are some weird things. I saw a light moving across the sky towards me, or at least from my perspective that's how it looked. It seemed like a star but with a fiery blue tail, like a really impressive rock burning

up on entry kind of tail, except it wasn't moving very fast at all. And as I kept watching it started to turn. It went to the left, then right, and I was frozen just staring at it, until it got to what felt like it was right above me, and then it stopped moving altogether. I think at this point I was starting to feel frightened but curious, and I'm not sure how long I stood there staring at this thing just holding position in the sky overhead. Maybe five minutes passed before it started moving again, and I followed it until it disappeared behind some trees and I couldn't see it anymore. I went back to bed and remember pulling the covers up over my head, which in a tropical climate with no air con is really something.

I imagined if aliens did try to come into my room, as long as the covers were over me, they couldn't see me. While I was under there, I wondered what I'd do if I heard another splash that night, and thoughts like that raced around my head until I eventually fell asleep again. The next night I went out and gazed up and saw nothing weird at all, just the stars. I rarely tell this story, but it's always remained clear in my mind, even if I still skeptical gecko myself about it. Maybe I'm just remembering incorrectly, and though I still skeptical gecko myself about it. Maybe I'm just remembering incorrectly.

And though I've never seen something like it again, I often think of it when I'm gazing at the stars and sometimes wonder, is something gazing back? All right. Lawrence, thank you for bringing a little levity to the listener's stories. Yes. You know what? I fully support people messing with me. But even then, the elements of the story, you're a kid, you hear weird things outside, we've got what sounded like a shooting star until it decides to start playing tag in space. You know the thing that resonates with me most about this is, and I think that a lot of us probably have some story, whether it's connected to the supernatural or not,

of there's a loss of innocence aspect to the story. This came out of this desire to help others, to help creatures in a bad position, to help frogs out of the jacuzzi, out of the spa. But it led to a kind of frightening experience that forced him to second guess going back out the next time he heard a splash, you know, to question whether or not it was worth going out there to help again.

There's something very real about that. Yeah, and that like childhood innocence of, you know, hiding under the covers and hoping that you wouldn't be seen. I did that too. I used to have, okay, here's a weird, weird aside, but I used to have this recurring nightmare that the assistants from Double Dare, if you remember that show, that game show,

that somehow in my room suddenly there was like door windows that would open, which didn't exist in my room, but in the dream they were. And the Double Dare assistants would be standing there and they'd be like, quick, quick, hide, because the banshee's coming. They'd be like, we have to open the doors, or we have to open the windows. And I would wrestle with my sheets and they would always be stuck together and

I wouldn't be able to pull them over myself. And then I would always wake up right before the banshee would come into the room. Well, I never saw the banshee, but it was always like, it's coming, it's coming. And the double-decker folks were there. But I could never get under the sheets. But I always say, I thought if I could get under the sheets, then I would save, but I could never peel the sheets apart to get under them.

Now you know something embarrassing about my childhood, Lawrence, and all of you thousands of listeners as well. There you go. But Lawrence, thanks again for sharing this. It was a really fun story and I just love that the mystery of it all and the humor, you know, the cheekiness of it all. So, listeners, we will be back with one more awesome story in just a moment. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cashback, in just a moment. Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N rakuten.ca. And we're back.

We got story number three now. It is from Tom from Michigan. Got a little bit of pre-story blurb here. Oh, pre-story blurb. Like a lot of people, he says, he's been listening to the podcast for a long time, he loves the podcast. Thank you for loving the show. If you love the show, please give us five stars on Apple.

Yeah. But he says he's really never shared this story publicly. Oh, wow. It seemed too fantastic to believe. He's been kind of embarrassed to share for most of his life because he didn't want to get labeled. And he's a pastor. Really? So he's never really felt get labeled, and he's a pastor. Really?

So he's never really felt like it's an appropriate story to share. But as he's gotten older, he cares less about such things. Cool, well first, before we go, I just, I want to say thank you, a special thank you to Tom for your bravery in sharing this story and choosing to share it with us.

That's very cool. Absolutely. And so I will do my best to take good care of your story. All right. So let's get the music rolling. Here we go. I hate spiders. They always have freaked me out.

I knew I shouldn't have watched that movie Arachnophobia, but I couldn't resist and watched it with my brothers when I was about 14. And it was just as creepy as I thought it would be, in spite of John Goodman's comic relief. So I went to sleep more than a bit creeped out that night. I thought I could feel the sensation of something crawling across my feet every now and then, but just chalked that up to the creepy feeling that movie left with me. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't just a feeling, because it turns out the next several nights

were the most terrifying I have ever experienced. It started the next night when I heard my name being called from my parents' room. I got out of bed and walked over to their room, peeked in, and woke both my parents up to find out what they wanted. They told me to go back to sleep because no one had called me. But when I went back to bed, that strange sensation of something crawling across my feet came back. It was unmistakable. But when I sat up to look, nothing was there.

I couldn't help but picture that big spider from the movie crawling around in my bed, but I was finally able to fall asleep. Chw. That spider is so big and so creepy. I don't know if I'd be able to fall back asleep if I was imagining that crawling around in my bed. I've had nightmares about spiders and stuff too, about giant spiders and scorpions and things. Who hasn't? Who hasn't? Yeah, I guess so. But I woke up later to the sound of scratching on the screen of my window. I thought at first maybe there was a tree branch moving in the wind dragging across it making that metallic scratching noise. But then I remembered no tree was close.

So I got the courage to lift up my shade. The noise stopped and there was nothing there. Things would only get more difficult in the coming nights. The next night, without warning, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, but only on the left side and only in one thin strip, like an icy finger was beneath it. My heart was racing and when I opened my eyes it looked like the walls were bubbling, but only in my peripheral vision. If I looked directly at the wall, it stopped in that area, but continued in the periphery

of my vision elsewhere. Plus, my pillow felt like a stone under my head, even if I tried to fluff it. I had no idea what was happening. And that is when something grabbed my leg. Involuntarily, without any of the muscles engaging, my right leg was dragged sideways in my bed a whole 45 degrees. That startled me to no end, so I slept downstairs for the rest of the night and finally got some decent rest.

But it came back again the next night. The walls bubbled, my pillow felt like a rock, the hairs of my neck stood on end, and something grabbed my legs and moved them in my bed. Again, the night ended with me sleeping on the couch in the living room. A few nights later, I managed to fall asleep in my room, only to wake up in the middle of the night with my legs suspended in the air. They dropped back to the bed as soon as I was awake, and as I lay there, trying to make sense of what just happened, I felt a small footstep on my blanket at the fo-

Okay, sorry, freaked out, gonna re-read it? They dropped back to the bed as soon as I was awake, and as I lay there trying to make sense of what just happened, I felt a small footstep on my blanket at the foot of the bed, then another just in front of it. Something was walking on my bed coming toward me. Terror and adrenaline was pumping through my veins, and after a few steps, when it was about at my hip, I shot up in bed to see if I could catch whatever it was. And while there was nothing physically there, there were two indentations on the blanket. I ripped the blanket off my

bed and ran downstairs again to the couch, but this time it followed me. Because as I tried to sleep on the couch, I kept hearing this weird rustling noise from the corner between the couch and the love seat. It was almost like paper being crumpled, and after what felt like hours, I turned on the light to see if anything was there, but there was nothing. No papers, just a clear corner of the room. The final night is when I saw it. I was sleeping in my bed, and I had one of those dreams where you fall and startle awake before you hit the ground.

And when my eyes shot open, there was a short dark shadow figure frozen in its stride, as if it did not expect to be seen. And it slowly faded away. After that, all experiences stopped. And I really don't know what to make of those many nights of terror. I don't know what to make of those many nights of terror either. Other than it was terrifying. Yeah. What freaked me out was when something was walking on his bed.

Yeah. With like the whole something grabbed my leg, I was like, okay, maybe it's like restless leg syndrome type situation, but the walking on the bed, that was like, ooh, ooh. And this guy's a priest. So I think we take him at his word that this happened. So my goodness. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Tom. Yeah.

I'm amazed you haven't shared this with anybody really, because I guess you said publicly, so probably amongst friends, I would hope. Because how do you not tell people this to try and help you process? I just told you guys about my double dare dream. This is maybe one of the more chilling stories that we've been sent. If not, I mean, the Alexa one was pretty bad. I was not happy about that one.

But this rivals that and might beat that in terms of just being really upsetting. Sorry, this happened to you. I understand why you became a priest. Yeah. There you go. Oh man. This. There you go. Man. This is an interesting episode. This is like a whole episode of breaking format.

We had pre-scripts and post-scripts and jokes in the middle. This was fun. I just picked these three because they were all childhood stories and you're right, that all of them also had that element of kind of breaking the mold ever so slightly. Yeah. So.

It's just been really fun to see how these listener stories have been evolving over the season. Oh yeah, absolutely. And we look forward to receiving lots, lots more. So please send us your stories if you have encountered anything strange, creepy, unnerving, monsters, aliens, time travel. If you have a time travel story, send us that. What? Time travel stories?

I didn't know anybody had time travel stories. I'm just saying I hope someone has one, because I would love to do one. But yeah, send us those stories at sightingspodcast.com. Or, of course, find us on Instagram at SightingsPod. You or of course find us on Instagram at sightingspod You can send us a message on there or leave comments on there or on Spotify as well And like leave us a review on Apple write us on Apple every little bit helps I know it's a bother sometimes like I have a hard time getting in there and clicking the stars on things

But it really does help and the cloud is time for you to ask where we're heading next week. I refuse It'll be a surprise. I'm staying with Tom. He needs my help. And McCloud, it's time for you to ask where we're heading next week. I refuse. It'll be a surprise. I'm staying with Tom. He needs my help. He needs me right now. Well, I do need to say, though, that we are actually going to do a themed month. A whole month?

A whole month. It's June Gloom. June Gloom. We're going to be doing a series of creepy, kind of ghostly stories for the month of June. Cool. It's like Christmas in July. Only it's ghosts, not Santa.

That's right, ghosts, not Santa. So next week, we're actually heading to Kansas for an encounter with some actual ghosts. Okay. I'm not gonna say any more than that, but it is a good one. I don't know of any famous Kansas ghost stories, so this will be a learning experience for me. This one's pretty awesome, so I hope you're ready to be scared out of your wits. Am I ever?

But listeners, you can come back and find us same time, same place, right here on Sightings. Please join us, because I don't want to be alone. Sightings is hosted by McLeod, Anders, and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigley, Chase Kinzer, and McLeod, Anders. Series music by Mitch Bain. Mixing and mastering by Pat Kickleiter of Sundial Media. Artwork by Nuno Cernatus.

Sightings is presented by Reverb and Q-Code. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you're first to hear new episodes every week. And if you know other Supernatural fans, tell them about us. We'd really appreciate it.