Somewhere in the Skies - Bonus Feed Drop: Best of Jim Harold's Campfire

Episode Date: October 2, 2022

On a special bonus feed drop, we bring you down the dark path and through the woods to Jim Harold's Campfire. Podcasting legend, Jim Harold, shares this exclusive "Best of" episode of his acclaimed podcast, Jim Harold's Campfire. You'll hear some of the spookiest stories of the paranormal, supernatural, UFOs, cryptids, and so much more. These are stories told straight from the mouthes of those who experienced them. So sit back, grab a log, and join us for this Halloween special of Jim Harold's Campfire! To learn more about all of Jim Harold's work, visit: www.jimharold.com Buy Somewhere in the Skies coffee! Use promo code: SOMEWHERESKIES10 to get 10% off your order: https://bit.ly/3rmXuap Ryan is now on Cameo! Book your video today at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan’s book in paperback, ebook, or audiobook: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at: https://bit.ly/3rJpbd7 Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2022 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Using the code fresh start. Refresh your wireless with Visible. Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply, limited time offer subject to change. See Visible.com for plan features and network management details. Hey guys, Ryan here. And welcome to a special Halloween feed drop of Jim Harold's Campfire. This is by far one of my favorite podcasts to listen to you during the spooky season.

It's true stories of paranormal phenomena, ghosts, UFOs, and so much more. This episode is a Best of Collection, curated exclusively by Jim Harold himself, just for somewhere in the sky's listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe or follow Jim Harold's campfire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcast.

And be sure to check out all of Jim Harold's other shows, including The Paranormal Podcast. You won't believe what happened to me, and crime scene. You can find all of these shows. shows on your respective podcast apps or at jim herald dot com. But for now, grab a log, get comfy, and get ready to be spooked at Jim Harold's campfire. Welcome to our gathering tonight. Here we share stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. Welcome to this special edition of Jim

Harold's Campfire. I am Jim Harold. So glad. to be with you and to be featured on the feed of this August podcast. And if you've never heard the campfire, what we do is we share true stories from real people about their strange experiences, could be ghosts, could be cryptic creatures, UFOs, or my favorite, the stories that don't fit a category. They're called head scratchers. And we're so glad to be with you today. And what we've done is we've put together a sampling of some of our best stories from the last year to give you.

you an idea of what the show is all about. So if you enjoy what you hear, I hope that you will subscribe to Jim Harold's Campfire, except no imitations. The show's name is Jim Harold's Campfire, and we thank you so much. And I hope you enjoy these incredible Campfire stories from the archives of Jim Harold's Campfire. Next up on the Campfire is Lily calling from my home state, Ohio, and we are so glad to have her with us. Her mom, Jen, told her about the show, and Lily has become a loyal listener. So, Jen, we appreciate it very, very much. And that's what happens. You know, when you see things span a generation, a daughter tells a mother, a mother tells a daughter, a sister, an uncle, whoever, or a friend tells another friend. And then,

not only do we get more listeners, we get more great stories like the one we're about to hear from Lily. Now, Lily has worked in a healthcare environment and I'm fascinated by these kind of stories. We've had stories in hospitals and things in the past, and I can't wait to hear this one. Lily, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us from Ohio and tell us what happened. All right. Well, thanks for having me, Jim. So, yep, like he said, this was in Cleveland, Ohio. At the time, I was working in a very large hospital downtown. I'm a respiratory therapist, so we do all kinds of stuff. At the time I was working in the ICU, we managed the ventilators, the life support machines. So, and when these patients have to, you know, real, real critical ICU patients,

if they have to be transported to like x-ray CT scan, you have to have a respiratory therapist accompanying you with the portable ventilator. So on this day, I was helping, assisting getting a patient to the CAT scan, and I'm rolling the portable ventilator. And so we roll into where the elevators are. And there's on the right, there's a large cargo elevator. And then on the left, there's a couple of smaller passenger elevators.

And we are going to, we're taking the larger elevator and the doors open. And we back in. So like I kind of go in first with the nurse at the head of the bed. And at the same time, there's a small group of people loading into one of the passenger elevators. And then so, you know, we're backing in into the elevator. And I'm at the, I kind of have like my back against the wall of the elevator. And then there's other group of people, there's probably like five or six people getting into the passenger elevator. And they walk in and at the back of that group of people, I see.

someone who looks very familiar. It was me, essentially. And I'm like, I'm looking at this person and I'm just like staring and we're making eye contact. So like we're staring at each other with the same expression like, am I seeing?

Am I really seeing this? What's happening? And then the door to the, to the cargo, the big elevator that I'm on with a patient and a couple of nurses and the doctor and everything, it starts closing and, you know, it's sliding shut and I'm like leaning as far as I can to the side to maintain eye contact with this other me because I'm just so like weirded out and I'm like, what am I looking at right now? And I'm leaning, lane, the doors finally shut and, you know, we go down to the basement and, you know, we get the patient where they need to go. and everything. And this whole time I'm thinking,

and that was like, that was really strange. So, so I, let me make sure I understand and make sure the listeners understand. You were loading a patient

for transport onto a freight elevator, essentially they are. Across the hall is the passenger, the passenger elevator, where you would just normally go up and down the floors if you weren't transporting somebody. You're transporting, you're facing out towards the passenger elevator.

you're looking and you see yourself looking back at you. Yes. Wow. This myself looking back at me is at the rear of this small group of people, like five or six people. So it's like, you know, it's not like I'm looking at a mirror image or anything. There is a, you know, a group of people. And that's why I was kind of like bending over as much as I could to, you know, get the most time. viewing of this other me that I can because I'm just so weirded out.

It was like the weirdest thing I wasn't expecting it to caught me off guard. It was strange. So yeah, yeah, super weird. So it doesn't end there too. So that eventually, you know, the day's busy and everything. I kind of, you know, stop thinking about it. And then at the end of the day, I, you know, I clocked out. I walk with the usual group of people I do to the elevator to go to the parking garage, to go home.

We go into one of the small elevators across the way from the freight elevator, the cargo, the big one. At the same time, there are a group of workers still on the clock rolling a patient into the cargo elevator backing in. And I go into the passenger elevator, the smaller one. And I'm at the back. And I can see across the way into the cargo elevator, the big one. And there is this person standing at the back of the elevator, rolling the portable ventilator. And it's myself again. It's like another.

And then the door to the big elevator starts closing. and this person in the Cardo elevator, the very similar person to me, leaning over, leaning over, trying to get, like trying to get the best look of me in the passenger elevator as they can until the door shut.

Same thing, I'm just kind of staring at. I'm like, this, that's another me staring at me from across the way. And, you know, I'm just, I can't look away either. Like, we're making eye contact. and just kind of staring with no expression in each other. And, you know, finally the now elevator I'm in, the small one, the passenger one,

that I'm in with a group of my coworkers and we're going down to the parking garage. I just kind of was taken back for a second thinking, okay, that's, this was in the same day. Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, this was just maybe five or six hours earlier from when I was leaving working. I first of all, of course, I wasn't expecting the first thing to happen. And then I see it again. So I'm like, okay, did I just see my doppelganger?

Did I have a, it seems like, well, I was about to say, it seems like the first time you looked into the future and saw yourself in the passenger elevator. and then when you were actually in the passenger elevator, you were looking back in time and seeing yourself transporting the patient. Yeah, that's exactly it. Wow. Wow. You know, everything, you know, it was like, you know,

the same group of people. I kind of, you know, I didn't pay attention to many details or anything, but it was the same kind of circumstance, the same kind of, you know, they backed into the elevator. There was the same amount of people transporting the patient and so on. And, you know, the first time, when I went down with the patient earlier, when I saw the meat, I'm like, oh my God, did I see my doppelganger? I thought that was bad luck to see your doppelganger. And then, well, then when it

happened later on in the day, I'm thinking, well, was this just something I somehow managed to be in two places at once? Was this a glitch in the universe? You know, I, it could be really, I was, To this day, I'm still, you know, bamboozled by it. I get it. I get being bamboozled. The closest thing I've ever heard to that, or one of the closest things, I've heard a couple things. But the one that comes to mind was a campfire story. But there were years separating it.

And basically, the story was this, and you may or may not have heard it. It was a young man who remembered when he was a little boy, he was running through the hall and went by his kitchen. And he saw a hooded figure who it was. appearing to make a peanut butter sandwich. And he ran away, right away, because it scared him. He's like, who's this person in a hoodie in my kitchen making a peanut bar sandwich? Fast forward several years later. He's minding his own business.

He's in the kitchen. He's a teenager. He's making himself a peanut butter sandwich with his hoodie on. And he looks and he sees this little figure run through the hole and then run away just as fast. That's it. That's exactly. Except it was years later, not hours later, but it's the same principle, same principle. Yeah, exactly. And I always thought, I don't know, I heard this thing in like the, you know, the stories I've read or heard or things like that.

I've always heard people say that they think that mirrors are portals. And I thought that was interesting, but then I always thought that elevators were portals in some kind of way, because It's like a closed-off tiny space where, you know, things can happen. You have that anxiety being stuck. I don't know. That might sound weird to some people. But that's what I always thought, too. And I thought that before this whole weird story happened.

You freak me out. You freak me out so much. I'm in my spooky studio, and it's soundproof. But I do have a window here that I have open and I'm looking out in it's nighttime. And as soon as we go off the phone, Lily, I'm going to close the window. I'm afraid of what I'll see. I don't know what I mean you know yeah I mean you know my mom who introduced me to you know she was always very spiritual she still is and I that you know you know piqued my interest kind of passed down to me and everything so that might be why that happens and but you know I've had various other interesting things happen like that this was probably the worst I think so Lily this is an instant Campfire classic story, all-time great story.

And thank you so much for joining us tonight on the Campfire and sharing it with us. Oh, absolutely. Thanks for having me. It was fun. Mary is on the line from Austin, Texas, and we're so glad to have her. She's been listening, I think, for about a month now. Mary sent me her story, and I read it and my jaw dropped. I'll say no more.

I don't want to ruin. it. Mary, thank you so much for sharing this story with us. I was kind of like, whoa, when I read it. So tell us, tell us what happened. It's a head scratcher. Okay. So this took place back in about 2006, 2007. So my son at the time was probably two, two and a half, three. I can't remember exactly when, but he was at that stage, you know, where he was just starting to talk. And he was at that stage, you know, where you can have adult conversations around the little kids and they don't really know what you're talking about, right? So this will be good to know later on in the story. So just a little background at this time in my life.

I had a corporate job. I was traveling all the time. And I live in Austin. So you're forever connecting through Dallas to get back home. And so I would always arrive home late at night. And so I'd have to drive home late at night. Well, on the way home, my guilty little pleasure was listening to Coast to Coast, George Norrie. Sure.

And so it scared me to death because at the time, I was a new mom, anything scary, anything was just, it really scared me. And I would be up at night if I listened to it, but I just was so intrigued by it. And that was the only time I had to watch it. So this one particular night, I was driving home, and George was talking. about reptilian people. And I had never heard of this before. Of course, after that night, I googled it and did all kinds of research. And, you know, I mean, he was presenting some pretty good, compelling evidence that, you know, they're out there. And, you know, he was claiming that there were famous people and that politicians that were actually reptilian and that people had witnessed them changing their form and that

that could shape shift and, you know, and there were eye account witnesses that were saying this. And so I was, you know, taken aback a little bit. Sure. So that night didn't get much sleep. Went to work the next day, didn't have to travel. So that night, and this is where our story gets good, my husband and I and my son at the time were having dinner at the dinner table. And so I started telling my husband about this, what I heard from Joy. about these reptilian people.

And, and, you know, like I said, my son at this time was, you know, at that age where we could have these kind of conversations. And I didn't think he really knew what we were talking about. Yeah, he was only just a, he was like a toddler, wasn't he? He was a toddler. Like, he was sitting there and, you know, I think he was on his little booster stool, you know, just eating his peas and carrots. And, you know, he really wasn't engaging in our conversation whatsoever, right?

So I was like, okay. So and my husband, I have to tell you, huge, huge skeptic, right? And so he was like, oh, my gosh, you know, this is ridiculous. And so he was, he was saying like, okay, well, if there are reptilian people and they've been here, because George was claiming they've been around, you know, for a very, very long time, why haven't they gone on and taken over our world or why haven't they shunned them themselves to us? because obviously, you know, they've been around for a while. And all of a sudden, my son, who can barely form words, he looks straight at us and says, people not ready yet. And it stopped us and our tracks.

And we look at him and we were like, well, what do you mean people not ready yet? And he just went back to eating and did not say another word about it. We tried to probe him later, you know, like with questions about what did you mean by that? Like, how did? And he never acknowledged it anything. And so I have no idea why he would say that. And it was just really, really. You said this place was steps from the water.

We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now.

Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Spooky. Yeah, I got to say, when you emailed in the story.

It's one of those stories where, oh, gosh, I hope she makes it on the show because, and I want to have everybody come on the show. But there are remarkable stories that you go, oh, gosh, I hope nothing goes wrong with the equipment or I hope they don't end up having an appointment or whatever the case may be. I hope we got to get this on tape. I guess I'm dating myself, but tape anyway, digital tape. But the thing is, two-year-old, you're talking about reptilians. why have they not revealed themselves and out of the mouths of babes people not ready yet? And I got to say, I'll be honest, we've done shows on the idea of reptilians. I personally am skeptical of it.

I don't think they're lizard people running around. Exactly. But the thing I love about the campfire, even if it's something you're skeptical about, you'll hear a story and I'll make you go. Hmm. And then scratch your head. Right. And I always scratch my head. Like, why would he say that?

You know, why does he? You know, and I've always believed that children are very connected when they're young to other realms. And, you know, so I don't, I don't know how he would have known to say that. And was it in his own voice? It wasn't like a people not ready. Oh, yeah. No. It was in his cute.

little two-year-old voice. And that's what made it even kind of cuter and scarier. Yeah. It would make it scarier. If it were some guttural Satan voice, it wouldn't. Yeah, that we would have gotten some sage and a priest and all that stuff. But it's really funny because now anything that happens in our family that is supernatural, spooky, you know, just unexplained are catchphrases. People not ready yet. And you were telling me off there that you. your son, he's almost all grown up now and a pretty hardcore skeptic. It is. So he's 15 now, just about to turn 16. And it's really funny that he has turned into the biggest skeptic of anything supernatural.

So, you know, I had an energy healer out to the house. There were some ghosts or spirits that are in our house. They're not malevolent or anything. And she did some energy healing, like with some magnets on him. And then we tried to bring. say gen he's like get that hoogie boogie out of here i don't believe in any of that and he just i mean and it's just so funny that he would you know after he said that at two three years old that now he is just like he's a very um scientific kid right they can't be explained by science or rational explanation he's

not going to believe in it so Neil deGrasse Tyson would be proud he is a big fan of his yeah well mary thank you so much for giving us an instant campfire classic. What a great story. People not ready yet. The title of today's show, but hopefully people are ready for the campfire. And thank you for being a part of it. Thank you for letting me tell my story. Subscribe or follow Jim Herald's campfire today wherever you get your podcasts. Please read and review too. It helps so much. Thanks. Now, back to another great campfire story. Next up on the show is William from Montana and his sister Genevieve, who was a caller a while back on the show, told him about the show. So we appreciate that, Genevieve.

And William, we're so glad to have you. And you're going to tell us the story about, wow, this is a big story. 65 million years of fate looking forward to it. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened. Hi, Jim. I appreciate your time. Yeah, this story is a little out of the realm of what I normally hear on your show. It's not necessarily spooky or supernatural, but it is an event in my life that really

kind of solidified my belief that there is a not necessarily a larger power in the universe, but that, you know, things do definitely work in mysterious ways. The story has some sensitive information in it. So I am going to leave out a couple of details just to protect people's privacy. Sure. But it all starts about, I mean, over a decade ago at this point, over outside of a small town in eastern Montana. And at that point in time, I was doing some volunteer work in the summer with a nonprofit paleontological organization for anyone that might not. not know paleontologists study extinct life forms.

And we were, this particular crew, we were working in the Hell Creek formation of eastern Montana working in late Cretaceous sediment. So that's about 65 million year old sediment between 65, 67 million years. And this particular group had gotten in touch with the Make a Wish Foundation. And we had a child come from overseas whose

wish, he had terminal cancer, and his wish was to come to a real dinosaur dig. And that was something that he had always wanted to do. So his parents flew out with him

and we met him, drove him out to our base camp. And this is about as remote of a location as you can get in the United States. Just absolutely beautiful, but incredibly isolated location. So it was definitely a challenge from the get-go. He was primarily using a wheelchair at that point. So getting him around this terrain, we knew was going to be a very difficult challenge.

But we had put in a lot of time before he came out, trying to make our current dig site as accessible as possible. We were working on a triceratops skeleton at that time. They were the ones with the big frill, the three horns. You always see them fighting T-Rx and heliore. And so they were super excited about that. That was one of his favorite dinosaurs. and we were just, you know, ecstatic at the opportunity to, you know, try and give this child something very memorable with his family. So they come out and they were going to be with us for about a week and a half, if I remember correctly.

Like I said, this was quite a bit of time ago. So some of the details are a little fuzzy. But let's just say they were going to be with us for about a week and a half. and immediately as soon as they get there the next day, it is just torrential downpour. And anyone who's familiar with dirt roads in the western states, specifically Montana, the top soil is made of what's called bentonite

and it's a shrink swell clay. So when it gets wet, it's worse than driving on ice. It's like driving on ice that you also sink into. Sure. So very little amounts of rain make the terrain basically impossible to drive over. And it was an incredibly hot, dry summer. The second that boy in his family got off the plane, it rained for several days straight.

And this was just very heart-crushing for all of us there because, we would have people come out and visit our dig sites and, you know, things like this happen. It's very unpredictable. And there's a lot of logistical challenges in paleontology. But there was something very special about this particular child. They had come all the way from Europe to be with us. And this was his wish. And there was just this sinking feeling of disqualification.

appointment that, you know, we could have, they could have done anything, really, and they chose to come out here with us, and we weren't able to provide them with the experience that they had wanted because of the weather. And, you know, we tried to make the best of it. And, you know, we would take them around the ranch and we would have little fires and play music and play board games and show them fossils that we had around our base camp. And you could just tell that he was, you know, even though he hadn't even been to the dig site yet, he was just having the time of his life. And his parents were so appreciative and grateful. And it was just kind of a very strange, magical time of uncertainty, you know, with kind of, it just you could feel that there was a lot riding on this experience. and we were just dead set on getting this child something special. And so finally, the weather broke. And we knew that the roads were, to our normal dig site, were completely impassable. They were, you know, two tracks out through the badlands.

We knew that it was going to be impossible for us to physically get this child where we wanted to take him. And so we looked at some of our maps. and ended up finding another location that we'd been to several times before, but none of us had ever found anything. But at that point, their time with us was almost over. We're like, we got to get this family out in the field no matter what. Right. Even if it's, yeah, we just got to do something.

So we load them up in the trucks and we end up driving them to this dried up riverbed. Like I said, we'd been there a couple of times before, never found anything. anything, never really devoted much time to it after that. It just didn't seem like it was producing fossils. And we drove him out to this riverbed and we're like, yeah, we're just going to walk up and down, see what we can find, not expecting anything really. And like I said, this child was in a wheelchair. So that made it very difficult for him to navigate the terrain. And pretty quickly, his father just picked him up out of the wheelchair, put him on his back,

and was hiking him through the dried up riverbed. And eventually, the father got tired of carrying the boy and just laid him down on his back, on his side, inside this dried up river bed. And they were just picking through stones looking. Most of paleontology is just picking up rocks and looking at them.

And is it bone? Yes. Cool. Is it bone? No. Throw it. You know, so we were all doing that, just kind of enjoying the beautiful sunny day. And our big, you know, one of our big code of ethics was, you know, we don't lie to people.

So if it's a rock, we're going to tell you it's a rock, you know. And so he is picking up little pebbles and looking at them, you know, all excited. Is this a bone? No. Is this a bone? No. Is this a bone? No.

And then he brushes something in the side of the riverbank. And he calls over the lead paleontologist and he says, hey, what's this? Is this bone? And she bends down and looks at it. And it is. Just a little thing, just a little tiny something sticking out of the side of that riverbank. You know, probably about the size of your thumbnail. And so we get some picks and brush and we'd clean.

it up a little bit and it's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and the more dirt that we're pulling away from it, the bigger it's getting. And that little boy ended up finding the very tip of the nasal horn of a complete triceratops skull. How cool is that? Buried in that riverbank. And that moment, there was just this gut feeling. that we all had, that everything had happened for a reason, and that, you know, it's my firm belief that 65 million years ago, that dinosaur died where it did, so that 65 million years later it would rain when it did,

so that that boy's father could carry him until he, he was too tired to carry him and set his dying child down on top of it for him to find and have this incredible experience. And we named the dinosaur after him and we put it up in the local museum. The skull is still on display in there. And that is one of the stories that gets me through very hard times. and really, you know, compels me to have faith in the malevolence of existence. And, well, maybe I said that wrong. Benevolence of, when you said that, we didn't know, unless I have my synonyms mixed up and my anonyms.

And you're like thinking about the benevolence of existence. Yes. It's one of those stories that, you know, is just everything lined up so perfectly for it to just utterly convince. me that there was no way that that was a random event. And yeah, that's something that I will remember till the day I die. I love that story. I love that story. And again, I say this time and time again, I'll say it yet again.

Well, people think that when you talk about the supernatural or the kind of things that we talk about fate and those things are always bad and always negative and always darker energy and always, you know, we've had cases recently. We talked about harbingers of doom. And I think that scary, spooky stuff does happen. But I also think there's the other side where some way, someone, something, somewhere decided that bone needed to be there. So that boy, 65 million years later, yes, could pick it up and experience the joy of a very unfortunately short lifetime. And one other thing we want to get in before we leave Will here. Will says Genevieve, you need to call in and tell your three little pig story.

And I'm intrigued. So please do sign up and tell that story. And Genevieve, thank you. And thank you, Will. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Maggie is on the line from Richmond, Virginia. And I got to tell you, she sent over her story.

And I'm excited about this one. I love it. Maggie, thank you for joining us tonight. I know your mom, Cheryl, told you about the show and encouraged you to listen and call. And thank you, Cheryl, and thank you, Maggie. And please tell us this great story. Well, thank you for having me. So this happened in about the year 2003.

I had just moved to Richmond, Virginia, with my family, my parents and my two brothers. And this was the summer where we found something odd happening in our neighborhood. So we moved to the suburbs and became quick friends with the neighbors. and we had one friend of ours who we were really attached with. She was great and around our age. My older brother was about 14. I was 11 and my little brother and her were about 8. And we started to explore this creek that was at the bottom of our street.

And we would walk through the shallow, muddy water there weekly. We got really used to just being outside that whole summer. And we spent our summer walking the same path one way down this creek. and then we were to turn after a couple hours of being down there. But one day, my brothers and our neighbor friend walked the normal path down the creek. And imagine probably walking 20 minutes in shallow water and you come to this small clearing. And it's in the neighborhood so you don't expect anything. I don't remember this clearing really being there.

But today, the clearing actually had a huge, old gray kind of Victorian stone house and we had never seen it all summer. Right. It just popped up. Huh. Yeah. And so we look up and we're looking at this house and then we realize at the edge of the creek, it's probably two, like a two or three foot climb up and down the creek is a little hill on the side.

And there's a boy there staring at us and he's kind of in like this gray black Victorian era clothing. Huh. And he is wearing like high socks. black shoes. And this is like Richmond, Virginia and summer. If you've ever lived in Virginia, it's humid. And we're thinking, what is he doing? He's just looking at us, looks as amazed as we are, that we're in his area. We have been there all summer. We've never seen him. We've never seen this huge stone house behind him. It's multiple stories high with like pointy tops. And he's standing there and he picks up this cat that's standing next to him. Like he went over to go get his cat. And we kind of

look at him and he looks scared so we don't say anything and we're kids. We don't know what to do. And he turns and starts walking away. And we look around and then we see his mom at the door. It has this huge doorway to the opening of the house. It's kind of an archway with French doors. And she's staying there with her arms crossed. She's also in Victorian clothing, super dark, long dress, the kind that puffs out. And she has her arms crossed. looking stern at him, calling him over to come back, but we can't hear her. But he's acting like he could hear being called back. And so he goes inside, but all of a sudden, it's like within five seconds, he was standing in front of us. And then we blink. And he's up on the second floor

balcony staring at us. Like he just zoomed inside somehow. Yeah. And so then we're looking at this house and it's like totally out of place. We're used to just normal suburban houses. It has like, multiple pointy tops to it. And we think that is so weird and we're afraid now because we're going to do the neighborhood and there's this mom that's mad at us for being in their backyard basically. Sure. So we leave and we come back a couple days later and we come to the same clearing. The house is not there at all.

Oh, boy. Yeah. And we're, we know the path. There's one way in and one way out of the creek. You just follow it. And we look it around. and the clearing is there. And we look to the side and there's a tree there now.

And it has stone steps wrapped around the base of the tree. Oh. Oh, boy. Yes. You guys, you saw into another time, it sounds like. We think so. It was just too weird. And why would stone steps be wrapped around any tree in the neighborhood just left there?

Very weird. Wow. That is why? Now, what did your friends say about it? I mean, do they recall it in the same way that you do? Well, it's funny. We didn't talk about that for years because we just, as kids, you know, you care about one thing and then you move on. You care about something else.

So we go on our adult lives not thinking about this in the slightest. And now we're all in our late 20s. And we get together for a party a couple years ago. And we all are sitting around talking about, you know, funny things that happen, weird stories. I can't explain. And one of our, I think it was the neighborhood friend. She brought up, well, do you all remember the house in the creek? And we were all shocked.

We thought that was our own individual, you know, like, dream. We didn't remember that actually being true because we never talked about again. Right. So we're all telling the story and we're like, yes, that's what he was wearing. Yes, he was going to pick up a cat. And yes, his mom was mad. And then he was standing up in the second floor balcony staring at us. And then, yes, we all are.

remember seeing the stone steps wrapped around the tree. And so I did something actually before calling in. I asked my brothers and my friend to just for like to give yourself 60 seconds and draw the house like you remember before I do this call because I need confirmation. I'm not calling sounding crazy. And they all draw a sketch of the house and they're all the same. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that is so wild. That is so well. Now, did you ever think of now that you're older? Have you ever thought about maybe going back and doing some research to see what that house was and when it was there? That would make sense, yeah, because there's a place called the Midlothian Mines here in town and there's some local spots where it's definitely been developed and then things torn down and past history. And it's definitely something going on back there because it felt. When we were looking at that kid and looking at the mom and looking at the house, it felt like it was some kind of wartime. It was dark. It was just a grim situation. You could tell there were no men around. Like that woman was left alone with her son and she was in a bad situation. So it definitely felt like we were looking at something real in that moment. Well, if you do some more research, please do let us know because I'd love to find out the facts and figures behind that actual place. And the thing is, is that.

that I don't know if you've ever thought about it this way, but as strange as it was for you, it was probably strange for the boy too. Now, I don't know how close you were, but he would think, you know, what are these, who are these kids in these odd clothes, you know? What kind of clothing is that?

Yeah, you didn't know about basketball shorts back then. Yeah, it's like, what are they wearing? You know, I mean, you had to think that maybe in the reverse it was kind of spooky for him. and maybe he was seeing your side of time as well that something had temporarily opened up. That is so wild. Yes. Oh, they had seemed more scared of us, really, than we were of them.

We were just confused. They were actually looked terrified. Oh, man. I'll tell you, I really believe, Maggie, that the nature of our reality is so different than we understand that I don't doubt these things unleashed. This reminds me a little of the roadhouse saloon story that we've shared so many times over the years, that you're kind of out of time, you're out of space, you're not where we're supposed to be. Years ago, one of our longest time listeners, Sandy had a story where she was walking and she kind of walked back into time for a short period of time and then she came back. And I think these things happen because I think our reality is somehow layered or there's things we can't see or multiple dimensions or maybe,

maybe all the time in the world exists at the same time, but we're like on this one track and we can't see it to either side of us, below us above us or to either side. Another example of that is we had a call a couple years ago, I think, a young man remember being a little boy and being very frightened because he walked into his kitchen. Is this the way I remember? He walked into his kitchen and he saw a hooded, figure making a sandwich like a teenager and he didn't understand what it was and it scared the heck

I'm because like I don't know who that is and then several years later this same boy had grown up he was teenager he was minding his own business he was making a sandwich and wearing a hoodie and he saw this little figure go through the hallway and he couldn't figure out what it was then it clicked he saw myself. So I'll tell you, it's a strange world and we're living in it. But I love to share these stories. Maggie, thank you so much. And thanks to Cheryl for telling you about the program.

Thank you, Jim. You're listening to Jim Harold's Campfire. Norm is on the line and he is in law enforcement. And hats off to our good folks in law enforcement. We appreciate everything. They do. And Norm, you know, I'm sure in the process of his work interacts with many people every day. This may have been one of the strangest. Norm, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened. Sure, Jim. I appreciate the opportunity to tell my story. I think like most people who have had an encounter, they typically don't tell people just because they don't want to sound crazy.

So this situation never quite sat well with me because I don't. didn't want to sound crazy as well. I spent a lot of time over the years thinking about it, kind of figure out what exactly happened that night. And after going over it, trying to unpack it and make it make sense, you know, a million times I just kind of gave up until I kind of discovered podcasts. I know you're a big fan of astonishing legends and it wasn't until I listened to them. And their three-part series on black-eyed kids that this all kind of came full circle and clicked and made sense for me. So a little bit of backup about me. I am a state. state trooper in one of the states over here in New England. I've been a trooper for almost 15 years.

I got on 2007. The incident I'm looking to share today happened back in 2009. It was summertime, like a new trooper. I was out there trying to be proactive, stop cars. I was up on a highway, doing some motor vehicle enforcement, and it was the third car of the evening that I had stopped. I've never been big for, you know, getting people for speeding just a couple miles over. You had be doing at least 15 miles an hour over the speed limit for me to even consider stopping you. And this car was coming. It was doing 87 miles an hour. And I remember thinking to myself, oh, I got a good one. So I waited for the car to pass me. I pulled out behind it, hit my lights. I didn't even get the 30 miles an hour on the highway to try to catch up to it or even turn on my

sirens and the vehicle immediately pulled over. No big deal. I thought to myself, all right, That was easy. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's not. You know, one of the things that hasn't sat well with me over the years that I've thought about over and over again is what I didn't do next. You know, as a police officer, I guess you could say it's cop 101. It's drilled into you from day one. When you pull over a car, you call dispatch. You tell them where you are. What you're doing, what you call on the plate you're out with, quick vehicle description. That case, you know, something bad happens. Help knows where to come. For some reason, I didn't do any of that.

And that's never sat well with me. And I'm not sure what the reason is behind it. Maybe it was just, well, let me get on with the story. We'll see if we can figure it out. So like I said, I go to pull over this vehicle. It pulls over immediately. I pull up behind it about 20 feet like I always do. And the second I put my car in the park, all the hair on my arms and neck stood up on edge.

It was like an immediate flight or fight response. And I didn't take that physiological response lately. I'm kind of a book nerd. So I literally had just got done reading the book called Gift of Fear by Gavin Becker. And the premise of the book is trusting your gut. It was recommended me by my field training officer when I first got on, told me it was an important read. It was something that can save your life.

The premise of the book is just trusting your gut. And, you know, it makes a difference. So when all the hair in my arm and back in my neck stood up just from stopping a car with no apparent reason, I paid attention. You know, I started scanning the car, watching for traffic, trying to figure out, you know, what is my body trying to tell me? What can I not see that's here? And nothing really stuck out to me. So I put the cars in park. I'm getting ready.

All right. I got to make my approach. You know, there might have been a little bit of cockiness, a little bit of new cop arrogance about me at that point. Now, to kind of put it further in perspective, at this point, I'm 27 years old. I'm in the best shape of my life. I could do push-ups forever. I'm pretty fresh out of the academy like a year and a half, six foot tall, 210 pounds, wearing a bulletproof vest, armed with a sidearm, 32 rounds of ammunition,

a taser, pepper spray, a baton, you know, there's no reason for me to have been freaked out or nervous for any reason whatsoever. Right. I get out of my vehicle, I begin the approach. And from the second I make my first step, it just feels like I'm wading through water. It feels like this 50-pound block weights on my feet. Like every fiber of my being was just screaming at me. Don't go to this vehicle.

Don't do it. But again, you know, it's my job. I stop the vehicle. I got to fall through. Well, I'm still not completely ignoring all these physiological responses. I'm scanning. I'm watching for traffic. I'm looking for anything on the side of the road.

I'm looking for furtive movements by the operator, something being thrown out the windows. He's trying to hide something. And these are all things we kind of normally do, but because of my reaction, I'm really looking now. Right. So I approached this vehicle.

I get to the back window of the driver's side, and I'm looking in the whole back of the car is just packed full of stuff, bags. There's nothing that I can see. I got a good visual of the backside of the operator. He's motionless. The driver's side windows down. His hands are at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel.

And he's just sitting there and he's, I can only assume, waiting for me to interact with him. So I take another step closer. I'm now at what we call the B pillar of the vehicle, which is the pillar between the front door and the rear door. And that's kind of where we stop. It's like a tactical thing we do because it gives us an advantage. The operator can't see us. Doesn't have a direct line of sight of us. So if they decide they want to try to hurt us or do something, it's more work for

them. Right. So as I step to that B pillar, I see the operator just slightly lean forward, kind of look down and just cock his head slightly in my direction. So he knows him there. You know, he doesn't turn, look at me. He doesn't acknowledge me. He says nothing. He just kind of slightly caulked his head to acknowledge that I'm there. And now also, why I'm at this window, I'm looking for anything still. I'm smelling the air, obviously, see if he's a drunk driver. you know, was there any narcotic smell in the air? And the only thing that I picked up on was this horrific smell coming from within the car. It just smelled horrible.

And, you know, I hope the audience forgives me. I'm probably going to sound a little stereotypical and maybe a little off. And that's not my intent. I'm just doing my best to describe what I was relating it to. So where I worked is a lot of farm communities. I know a lot of farmers. and for some reason I start to size him up, obviously. And I'm thinking, all right, this guy's a farmer.

That's what this smell is. Like he's been stomping around in the barnyard. Right, you know, and that's my thought. And then, you know, I start sizing him up, like I say, I take notice of his clothes. I'm looking at him. I'm like, all right, white male, probably 30s. And I'm thinking, all right, this guy's maybe 5, 7, 5 foot 8, 150, 160 pounds of best. there's no reason why physically

I should be scared of him that I can see so far you know there's nothing crazy going on right um I got this bad smell and then I noticed his clothing again never really picked up on this before until having listened to stuff after it looked like he dressed himself from the Salvation Army like he looked like he did all his shopping at a thrift store

and there's nothing wrong with that but again that also kind of reinforced my idea that this guy might be a farmer I know farmers, they work outside, they destroy their clothes. They really don't, sorry about that, they really don't care, you know, what they're wearing if they're just ground animals and doing what they need to do. So that was my, my sizing him up. So I feel like, all right, he knows him there. And all this happened in a couple seconds.

This isn't like five minutes of me standing there in silence. And I finally decide, all right, it's time to interact with this guy. So I introduced myself and again, I'm just going to throw out a fake name. my name is Trooper Mann with the state police. Do you know why I stopped you this evening? Now, again, he's sitting in his car, hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel still. His head is just slightly cocked in my direction, and he just turns a little bit more so he can catch me out of his peripherals, but he's not looking at me. And he just gets this giant, creepy, Cheshire cat grin on his face.

And he doesn't say a word. So I repeat my face. myself. Sir, trooper man with the state police, do you know why I stopped you this evening? Silence. Not a word, not a move, no motion, just a big, creepy grin. Sir, I noticed you were doing 87 miles an hour tonight. The speed limit 65. Is there a reason for your speed? Is everything okay? Silence. No response. Just a creepy grin. Sir, I can tell you we're in a hurry. I just need your license. Registration insurance. We'll get on your way as soon as we can.

Silence, no response. Big creepy grin. This guy doesn't move a muscle. Doesn't make to reach into his glove box to get any paperwork. Doesn't motion for a wallet, pull out an ID. Nothing. He is a statue. He just is looking down slightly out the car and grinning.

I can't see his whole face because of the way he's kind of positioned himself. So now I'm kind of thinking to myself, all right, is this guy being passive aggressive? Is he just trying to give me a hard time? Is he a sovereign citizen and doesn't believe I have the authority to stop him? So he's just kind of going through the motions. I didn't know what was going on. So at this point, I'm trying to determine what my next best course of action is. So I'm thinking, all right, maybe if this guy's not going to help me identify him or even work with me, I'm going to ask him to step out of the vehicle to the back of the vehicle. I'm going to take him into investigative detention and then figure out who he is and why I got this horrific feeling in my stomach and all the hair

standing up on the side of my arms and back of my neck. Right. So I tell him, sir, you know, I understand you're upset. It's never fun getting stopped by the police. If you're not going to give me any identifying information, I'm going to ask you to step out to the back of the vehicle with me. Now, when I said this, this is the first time he gave any indication that he was hearing what I was saying, almost.

He, his hands were still a tenant to him a steering wheel. he pulled himself forward by using the steering wheel like two or three inches and then he turned and he looked directly at me and when he looked at me his eyes were completely black there were just voids oh boy now i i literally put my hand on my gun i didn't draw it i took two or three steps back without even realizing it next thing I know, I'm standing in the middle of a travel lane on a highway. Oh, gosh. It's 10.30 at night. thankfully, traffic was, like I said, it's a rural area. It wasn't that busy. And he is just staring at me with these black eyes and this giant Cheshire cat grin on his face, not moving, not doing anything. And I continued to back up. I got all the way back to my car. I corrected myself

to get back to my car. I got in my car. I put it in drive and I'll throw myself under the bus. I probably did 90 to 100 miles an hour all the way back to the police station. I was, I was so freaked out by what I saw. I didn't even realize my emergency lights were still on, red and blues flashing all the way down the highway for another miles. I pulled into the back parking lot of the police station, still didn't realize my lights were on. I sat in my car, like what just happened? A co-worker of mine came out, knocked on the window, scared the crap out of me and it's like, hey, your lights are on everything okay. And yep, sure enough, I shut my lights off. Yep, I said everything was okay. And that was my experience.

Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right. So I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, sky coin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel. level advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Wow. Now, something people might ask, I think I know the answer, but it wasn't like somebody, you know, people who may be on drugs or something, their eyes may, you know, the pupils or their eyes may get large and dilate or whatever. It wasn't anything like that. It was the whole eyeball, right? It was almost like there was no eye. They were just like, gosh.

way I could describe it is black voids. It was the most unsettling thing I've ever seen. And like I said, I thought about it after because I made some what could have been fatal errors as a young trooper. Like you always call in the play. You always tell the troop what you're doing and where you are. I didn't do any of these. And I don't know if it's because of that flight or fight response that kicked in when my car went in park or if it was something else or if it was just pure, stupidity. I honestly don't know. But it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, the most terrifying thing that has happened to me on this job ever. And I've done some pretty, pretty involved things. Yeah, I mean, being a cop that long, you know, trooper, I'm sure you've come into some dangerous and scary situations

with very kind of, you know, quote, normal people, let alone some kind of whatever a black-eyed kid is. Who, man, what a story. Well, Norm, thank you. so much for your service to your state and your community. And thank you for sharing a campfire instant classic. Thanks, Jim. I appreciate the opportunity. You're listening to Jim Harold's Campfire. Sylvia is on the line from California. Now, I got to say, she is a huge supporter of our shows. She's very much a supporter of our video efforts that we do on YouTube. Check that out at YouTube.com slash Jim Harold. But she is just one of of our star spook taters. We call our video viewers, and she's certainly up there. She's a star in that

regard, and we appreciate all of her support. And she has a campfire story for us. And it takes back to kind of childhood years and looking forward to it. Sylvia, thanks so much for all of your support. And thanks for being a part of the show. Tell us your campfire story. Hi, Jim. Thanks for having me on. So my younger brother and I were visiting, I think it was back in August, and the subject of first childhood memories came up. So we took it all the way back to when he was two and I was six. We lived in this house that had a field outside the kitchen window. Now, I never liked that field.

It just always gave me a bad feeling. And then one night, I honestly can't remember if it was a dream or real, but I saw an evil scarecrow with glowing red eyes in that field. Yeah. Yeah, it was creepy. And I always just got the feeling that, you know, like I never told my mom about it, never told anybody about it because I always got that feeling like nobody's going to believe you anyway. So it just, it gave me that kind of feeling. Now, fast forward 20 years later, discussing first memories with my brother, he said one of his first memories was getting a bath in the sink that overlooked that field. And he told me that he never liked that field.

And so, and I didn't say anything after he said that, but I said, why? And he said, I don't know. it just gave me a weird feeling. And so then I kind of paused for a second. And I asked him, did you ever, you know, do anything in that field? And so he kind of pauses and kind of looks little sheepish. And he says, well, I don't know if it was a dream or not. But I swear one night I saw a scarecrow with glowing red eyes.

My mouth dropped. I even think I said, I think I said, shut up. You did not. And we never discussed this. Like he was two at the time and I was six. And honestly, you know, it's not like we were talking much because he was so young. So yeah, I was. That is creepy.

To get that validation so many years later now, who knows what you were seeing? It could have been a ghost. It could have been an evil square. It could have been an alien. Who knows what it was. But you both were seeing something for sure. And that's the way that your mind's thought of it. look like an evil square crow. Wow. And then I even wonder if it could have been something of a

darker energy that was projecting itself in that way. Did you ever think of that? I have. I've wondered, now, I go to that spot or drive by that spot quite often. It's in our childhood hometown. And we don't live in that house anymore. But driving by a couple weeks ago, I saw that they are building on that land. So I'm keeping my ear to the ground to see if maybe they find something that shouldn't be there that has, you know what I mean? Like something bad happened there. Yeah. You know how all these developments have like names?

It could be like evil scarecrow acres. Oh my goodness. That would actually be really cool. I don't think somehow that'll work for the marketing department. Probably not. I would live there. But you know, we're kind of into the stuff. That's right.

Me too. I'm with you. Man, that is just amazing. So you remember seeing this evil scarecrow all your life never told anybody about. Didn't you tell your parents or anything? And then your brother 20 years later says, you know, the only weird thing, you know, I saw what looked like an evil scarecrow with red eyes. Same report.

That is amazing. Wow. Yeah, I was shocked. And he was shocked too. He's like, oh, God, I don't think we should be talking about it. Do you think that's kind of helped spur your interest in the supernatural? Oh, yeah. We both of our parents are super, well, my mom was.

She passed away recently. I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you. But both of our parents were super sensitive in that way. My father was or is super superstitious. I always laugh at him, but I get a lot of my superstitions and then a lot of my sensitivity from my mom. So we kind of grew up with that kind of tall, you know, floating around. So it was always fun.

Oh, well, very cool indeed. Thank you for sharing that story of the evil scarecrow. Thanks so much, Sylvia, for all your support. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. Well, I hope you liked what you heard fascinating stories. And as I often say, Jim Harold's Campfire is a continuum of different types of stories. Scary, spooky stories, heartwarming stories, stories that will tug at your heartstrings.

the whole litany from ghost stories to UFOs to things that don't fit in a category, head scratchers. I hope that you enjoyed the journey you took today. And I hope you'll join me in continuing the journey of listening and collecting these great stories. Just go to your favorite podcast app and make sure that you follow or subscribe to the show. And if you like what you hear, also a rate and review would be most appreciated to. We thank you so much.

and we thank this August podcast for allowing us to be a part of their feed. I hope that you enjoyed the show. And as we always say on Jim Harold's Campfire, stay safe and stay spooky. Bye, bye, everybody. I hope we talk again soon. You've been listening to Jim Harold's Campfire. Tune in again next time for more stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things. You can't reason with the sun.

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