Spooked - The Haunting of Radio Centro

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

Everyone who works at Radio Centro knows it’s haunted. But Guillermo, the host on the station’s paranormal show “Tell it Tonight” is about to discover that he has psychic powers that make him susceptible to the station’s haunts.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I woke up falling from the sky. For certain soon I was to die, my piercing scream turned to a grin, a happy calm. And then, you're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned. My girlfriend at the time, she's got some friends. And they're all kind of woo-woo or whatever. But I don't mind a bit because I'm all in love, you know. And these friends are crazy.

They're crazy into this. taking over every bookstore, every health food shop, and every yoga studio in the country. It's called the secret, right? And the secret says there's this thing. It's called the law of attraction, purported to be a rule of the universe that says, whatever you think about, whatever you fill your mind with, you will attract. What you're supposed to do is visualize what you want. Then watch an amazement as your life attracts those things.

Okay, well, whatever. The book says a good way to do this is to create a vision board and a vision board is a board with pictures of all the stuff you want to attract and this is good to be a lot of work but I do it

I cut pictures out of magazines and stuff of what I want in my life and I tape them to a piece of cardboard just like they're supposed to I do it because she asked me to and I'm in love and then of course

I promptly forget about it completely because fads you know fads they come and go I forget about it until very recently so I'm cleaning a closet preparing to move away from that person who I made that vision board with those many years

ago and I look at it again faded piece of cardboard with pictures of sheet music cameras, cameras, microphones photos of black men bent over tables writing stories images of a stage show at the Kennedy Center, a drawing of a fancy dinner jacket.

So many pictures of someone writing something, sometimes with a pen, sometimes on a computer, and looking at this board, this board I made so many years ago, it occurs to me that everything, cardstock, every single image. I've bent over many a desk writing, the microphones, the cameras.

I have shoes exactly like that. I own a jacket identical to the one in the picture. We played the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where I got to tell stories on a stage with Quest Love and Black Thought from the Roots, The Law of Attraction, what you demand of the universe, you will call forth. And it is too late. Stage shows, I don't care about cameras, fancy jacks, I don't care about any of it, when so many be boss to me since making this art project,

so many relationships severed, broken, So many things I can never undo what you asked for. Spook starts. And down south. Way down south. Guillermo is a radio host in Halapa, Mexico. He works at Radio Centro, one of the biggest media companies in Mexico. The office is filled with little recording booths,

and Guillermo is broadcasting his show live. He's on air, he's talking to the masses. I'm going to let Guillermo take it from here. It would be around 10.45 p.m. I was hosting this show called Classics de Radio Centro, Radio Centro's Classics. And I was playing music in Spanish, 80s and 90s ballads. I was able to see who came up the stairs because the doors were clear glass. If someone went up, I could just turn my head and see who it was.

sometimes it was just a security guard. Let's hear this hit from the 80s. This is by Luis Miguel. The song is, Now you can leave. I was presenting this song when I hear someone coming up the stairs. I immediately cut the mics

so the sound won't bleed into them. I turned to look at the door, and see no one. I was certain I heard something on the stairs. I play a song, I get up, and walk towards a door, and what the hell? There's no one. But then I hear the steps again.

I'm right in front of the stairs, 10 feet away from it. I'm like, someone's walking up the stairs, but who is it? And then I hear upwards, then two or three steps downwards, then upwards. I say to myself, All right, let's see what's going on. I get out of the booth and get closer to the stairs. I walk back to the escalator.

Who are you? Do you want to play? Why don't you come on up? There's two of us. We can make it a party. I walk backwards and I throw myself on a nearby couch and stayed there. Waiting. Then I heard to hear how they're going to go.

Then I heard. someone running up the stairs, all the way to the top. I just froze. I just felt how my body froze up, because obviously there was something there. I'm completely sure that it's a ghost. I imagine that it was a boy who was playing on the stairs at that moment, maybe a six or seven-year-old running up and down the stairs. What I do is try to talk to him and establish a connection with him. To try to connection with

him, I'm totally afraid, trust me. But I'm curious, nonetheless, to find out what he wants, what he needs, how I can help,

why he's there. I told him, I told him, come closer and tell me what you want, but then it runs downstairs until I couldn't hear him again. I got up from the couch

and went to the booth again. But I didn't close the doors. I waited. He has to come back, I thought. If he's playing, he's got to come back. He didn't. After the incident, Guillermo asked co-workers if Radio Centro was hunted.

And they all said yes. Everyone who worked there knew it. Guillermo asked about the footsteps on the stairs. One of my co-workers told me, I think it's a young man. Some people have seen him. He's like 15. He plays a lot on the stairs.

Well, it must have been him, I said. He was really close to being in front of me, but I couldn't see him. There were many rumors that, right there at the station, there was a kid all soaked and wearing white clothes. There was also a lady and a man. Everyone knew that ghosts were roaming around. For many, it had become familiar to hear or see something strange to the point that they weren't paying attention to that

and just focusing on their work. They had stopped trying to focus on what that was. The ghost didn't stop Guillermo from coming in every day, playing music and working on radio spots. He loved his job. He started working for a famous long-playing show called Tell It Tonight. Tell It Tonight was all about the paranormal. Listeners would call in and share their stories of ghostly encounters

and ask for the host's advice. Tell it tonight had gotten a really good fame, you know. Tell it tonight had been on the air for quite some years. I'm talking about six or seven years. It was probably not the best job in the world, but it was the most exciting, not knowing what was going to happen that night. I was helping the host because you had to be running around recording all the listener's calls and you would have to chit-chat with the listener.

At the same time, you were setting the recorder, the effects, and the music bed, and then on to record another thing, pick up the phone from another line. It was stressful. But suddenly, one day, I arrived at my scheduled time and the host didn't come. This guy didn't show up. So what happened? He wasn't going to work there anymore. Well, that was a surprise to me.

I was stressed out. By default, Guillermo became the new host of Tell It Tonight. 11.1 minute here at Radio Central. I'm Guillermo Mesk, and this is Tell It Tonight. And it came in, and it burst of top. It was a show's signature.

It was the theme song from the Adams family movie. There was no operator. Back then, you were an announcer, operator, and you did everything yourself. And when it was your turn in the booth, you handled all the equipment, the listener phone line, the microphone, and then you went on the air too. So running the show on my own was stressful, with so many gadgets to operate myself. for Tonto and you

solo I had been running the show for only one week it was a Friday midnight I was finishing the show the national anthem was playing

to conclude the broadcast and the phone rings right at that time at midnight well I said given the time I thought it was

very strange and I answered Radio Centro Good evening and he tells me what's up, Guillermo? When I heard the voice, I jumped out of my skin, man. His voice was hoarse, yet soft and quiet at the same time.

That's the way he always speaks. It was a person that called himself Mr. X. Mr. X was a regular of the show before I became the host. I think he went on every week as a guest host who would answer the listener's calls. Mr. X helped the previous host to the show. He's a specialist in paranormal phenomena, special energy, shamanism, everything that there is to know about the subject.

He has had that gift for many years and has helped many, many people here in Halapa and in other cities. He didn't even. didn't even let me speak. I've been listening to you all week. I know that you're on the show now. I'm like, yeah? And you're probably going to need help.

I tell him, yeah, you said it, man. And then he said, how about you come tomorrow to my house? I live in a neighborhood near the radio station. We meet there, we talk in full about what the show is about, and I can tell you how to manage it. And I said, that's excellent. The next day, Guillermo wasn't feeling so great.

His body felt sore and stiff. But still, he didn't want to miss his appointment with Mr. X. So he went to the man's house. It was just a normal house. It was a one-story house with many rooms in a long hallway. We were in his mustard yellow living room. You see this house, and you don't think that Mr. X, a person who talks to ghosts lives here.

I'm sitting down, I tell Mr. X, you know what, I haven't been feeling well lately. I feel like I have a weight on my shoulders, a pain, like I'm carrying someone. He comes and stands in front of me as I'm sitting on his couch. It lays his hand on the back of my neck. Suddenly, I see that he's moving like, being given electroshocks, contracting his body, and he lays his hand again on the back of my head, and again, he contracts his body.

And he'll back to my body. And I asked him, what's hurting you? What are you feeling? He said, I'm feeling how open you are. Whichever energy passes by, you are pulling it towards you, be it good or evil. Mr. X said that Guillermo had psychic talents and that he was intrigued. He said he'd like to keep helping out on tele tonight as a regular guest host. Guillermo was thrilled and relieved to get some production help.

His guest show appearances would vary. Sometimes we would say, next week, how about Monday, Tuesday, and Friday? And then Tuesday and Thursday for the next one, we switched it around or just did it Wednesdays and Fridays. Thanks for being with us. here at 12.10 a.m. We welcome Mr. X. Remember that you can call us at 814-403. One night, Guillermo was at the radio station. It was just before Tele Tonight came on,

and he was lining up a few promos that would play on air. He was hosting this episode alone, without Mr. X. We ran some promos covering all the shows that people could listen to throughout the day. The last promo was the one for Tell It Tonight. I hit play to start the first promo, then the second. The third promo was about to play when the machine jumped. And we hear the organ like the music from the beginning of the promo. Nobs went up to maximum volume drowning everything out.

I get super hot like my temperature shot up. The audio is still loud. I turn down the speakers, I let the promo run, and when I hold onto the table to lean back and stand up to refresh myself, I started to feel very ill. In that moment, I feel as if someone is leaning on my back. I feel a chest against my back, and breathing right in my ear here on my left side, I hear it.

And with his hands, he started to squeeze my head. So I pushed myself up and backwards so I can free myself from this entity. I get up from the chair and I head to the double door booth. I open the door outwards and the other one inwards. I stand in the gap between those doors and tell him, Saltay. Get out of here.

Do me a favor and get out of here and never touch me again. You hurt me. You don't have the right to hurt me or touch me even. Get out of the booth and get out now. And I feel how he approaches me, lays his hand, on my stomach to push himself out of the booth. I was soaked in sweat. My shirt was literally stuck to my body

as if water had been sprayed on me from a hose filled with sweat. The temperature starts to get back to normal in the booth. I leave the doors open. I go in, unbuttoned my shirt, and take it off just to have my t-shirt on. I had a glass of water there, I remember. I grabbed the glass and splashed the water on my face.

I want to, I don't know, get out, get some air. I'm still in shock about what has just happened. There were three other production booths on that floor, and they all had transparent walls. From the other booths, two radio hosts are watching what's happening to Guillermo. And they call me from booth to booth. What happened? He says.

I mean, we saw everything. Are you okay? I said, no. I'm not okay. What happened? Well, someone just jumped on me, I tell him. Yeah, we saw that you were leaning down on the console. And we saw how you wanted to stand up and just couldn't

and thought that maybe you were just fooling around, so we wanted to wait and see. I tell them, you know what, stay locked up. Don't leave the booth and don't come over. Too much shit is going on. Don't come close. But what happened? I'll explain later.

Stay calm. Don't come out until it's time to leave, and we'll all go together. Okay, if you need anything, call me. They hung up, they continued. Then all I did was go back on the air. I introduced the show and turned off the mic. I went on with the music. I can't remember if it lasted 20 or 25 minutes.

I could not go on the air yet. I didn't want to. I was dazed. I decided to play an old segment of the show, I left the booth. I sat outside a bit more relaxed. It was very clear to me that it had been an attack, that it had been a being that was so strong, so angry, I felt it, the hate of this being. Then I let the call end. I went back in, finished the show normally, and left. This was on a Friday. I was really. I was really.

really freaked out all weekend. Whenever I heard a noise, I felt that this guy was coming again, wanting to hurt me. I stayed inside my house all weekend. I didn't want to go out. I think that's when I called Mr. X to tell him. Guillermo asked Mr. X to help him deal with the entity at the radio station. This one scared him. Mr. X agreed. He would come in and see what he could do about the entity. It's Monday and he comes. I'm in the control booth. In front of me, I have the console and the crystal wall.

And on the other side of the crystal wall is the guest booth, where Mr. X is behind one of the mics. Behind me, there's another crystal wall that divides the station owner's office and the control booth. So we're live. I'm chatting with Mr. X. We're in the regular show just like any other day. but in the meanwhile we receive a call from the audience.

I'm talking to this person and from very, very far away, I hear some banging. I heard boom, boom, boom. I heard them far away, so what I did was turn down the volume. Then I hear it very close. It stopped. Put my headphones back on and I continued talking to them. We were chatting again.

I hear again. Very insistently, such poundings. At that moment, I start to feel the same heat I began to feel when the attack happened. Mr. X, I look at him and he does a hand gesture, meaning behind you. So I turn back and see the crystal wall. The knocking is coming from the boss's office,

and he makes a gesture telling me to calm down. He signals me to wait to go on air. I put music on, he tells me to extend the cut, He's coming over. I know what those blows are. I also hear them, he says. I know who is doing the hitting. Mr. X could see that behind Guillermo,

behind the booth's wall of glass, that something was present there. And he came to my booth and told me, he's there, mad as hell. Can we get inside the office? Maybe I can cool him down and ask him what he wants. I tell him that's not possible, since the office is locked down and I don't have the key.

That is what you can hear, he said. It's here. I feel the heat. It's him again. I can assure you he was the one who attacked you. Get out of the booth. Leave me inside. I'm going to talk to him. I told him, okay, if you can, all right.

I left the booth. He turned off all the lights. They explained that when you want to see someone or decide, distinguish it, the darker it is, the better, because they see the plasma from the being. Then he turned off the lights quickly. I got out. I left something playing on the air. When he came out, he told me, he left, and if he ever came back, he won't bother us again. I talked to him. What happened? Well, it's someone that's very angry. He won't tell me why. He's got a lot of hate in him, and he's just looking for someone to take it out on. They did something

very bad to him, he says, because he's got a lot of hatred inside. You know what? He doesn't want me to help him. He just doesn't want to be helped and he doesn't want to get out of your boss's office and doesn't want me to go inside. The least I can do was ask him to keep a distance since we're not harming him and he's not harming us. He's an old person, about 60 years old, very tall, dark skin and a source. strong built, like one of these big rural farmers with sunburned skin. Imagine him a revolutionary

from that time. That's what his features and appearance were like. I think he talked to this being, not for that long, maybe five to seven minutes. Mr. X said, I already told him that I would help him out. I will look for him later for him to tell me what he wants, but for now I asked him to respect us. He simply said that he spoke directly to him and that he would call him later on to look for him to try to help him out, to see what he wanted and why he had so much hate, why he attacked people, and why he was so angry. Mr. X asked him, Do you want to talk to me? Do you want to talk? Can I help you in any way? Are you looking for someone or something? But Mr. X says he does. He does.

just received nose. The entity just kept on walking around the office, very angry. I don't know if he left that day. If he went to a different plane of reality, I'm not sure. But he didn't look for me again. Mr. X told me that there are

many ghosts like that. We just want to take it out on the first person they come across and they will hit them or throw stuff down or slam doors just to released their anger. This changed me for a while, because when it was about time to get in the booth for another installment of the show, I'd start imagining the smacking on the windows to a point that I'd hand-waved to Mr. X when we were on the air.

But Mr. X was like, no, no, take it easy. On a commercial break, he'd tell me, chill out, there's no one. I think I was like that for a month in which I'd arrived to the booth for the classical show and I'd play some music and get out of the booth. I didn't want to be locked down in the booth. I went in the booth just to give the hour and then I was out again.

It was heavy because for a moment I even considered telling the station director that I was quitting the show. I thought of saying, why don't you put someone else in charge of the show? I don't want to do it in. anymore. But after talking about it with Mr. X, he told me,

look, calm down. This happened to me when I got this gift. I wanted to run away from this and didn't want to see dead people like they say in the movie. And what happened to the other beings? When he told me about that, I asked him, how come? He said, there's people here that come out of curiosity. They listen and they stay. Like passers by then.

Exactly. It's like you're walking downtown and you see a shop window. You stop to look, like that. He says, some days we will have some people. Others we won't. Some days you won't even notice them here. Maybe on other days they will be sitting right next to you. Big, big love to Guillermo.

Thank you for sharing your stuff. story of the spook, translation for that piece, and the original score. It was by Renzel Goryo. He was produced by spook correspondent, Fernando Hernandez. Ever, if you call it, it will come. Be afraid.

The brand new 22 episode season dropping right now only at Luminarypodcast.com. Walk the dark path while you still can. Want to let the world know you're down with the dark side? Get this spook t-shirt for yourself or someone you love. at snapjudgment.org slash shop and understand we are hunting monsters

if you have a relationship something that changed you with something that should not have been there demons, ghouls, jinn, fairies, aliens, bigfoot, witches, shades, spectres, or maybe just that dude across the street with the glowing eyes. If you have a story

that you can't tell anybody else, spook at snapjudgment.org. There's nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener, spooked at snapjudgment.org. And remember, if you like your storytelling in the bright light of the day, subscribe to the incredible Snap Judgment podcast because it might just change your life. Spook was brought to you by the team that unplugs all their electronics every single night, except for Mark Ristich.

He's on Twitter till 4 a.m. railing at his enemies. And assessment, our chief spookster is Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick. Annie Nguyen Nguyenuette, Lorenzo Giorgio, Teo de Kott, Marissa Dodge, Aaliyah Yakes, Zoe Ferigno, Greta Weber, Jacob Winnic, Son of Khan, Tiffany Delisa, and Ford.

Fernando Hernandez Flo Wiley. The spook theme song is by Pat McCasney Miller. My name is from Washington, and you see the good in people. That's how it should be. Don't let them take that away, but also don't let them treat them. you into doing something against your better judgment wherever you go and whatever

you do please remember to never ever never ever never ever never ever ever