Spooked - "The Long Road Home" from Otherworld

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

During a three-month trip across Mexico, a Scottish student named Simon and his friend were returning from a beach party when they accidentally ran over something with their car. They got out and realized it was some kind of large black creature. But as they walked closer and it began to stand up, they realized this creature was unlike anything they had ever seen before.The night only got stranger as they got back in the car and tried to drive back to the hotel along the long dirt road that was supposed to be a shortcut.This story contains explicit language, please take care while listening. This story comes to us from the Otherworld podcast, hosted by Jack Wagner! Otherworld features stories covering a wide range of topics including apparitions, near death experiences, missing time, UFOs, cryptids, clairvoyance and even some things that don’t quite have a name yet. If you love our show, we think you will like Otherworld too. You can listen to Otherworld wherever you get your podcasts! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

splookesters. This week, I am excited to bring you an episode from our friends at the show Otherworld. Otherworld features real people who have experienced something paranormal, something supernatural, or just something unexplained. The Washington Post called Otherworld, the paranormal this American life, because host Jack Wagner goes to great lengths to investigate the strange and the uncanny, and it's something he's stumbled into by chance. after realizing how many people in his life had experienced something that they couldn't explain and never told anyone about. Jack picked out this episode specifically for spook listeners. Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner.

I'm particularly excited for this episode. Since starting the podcast, I've been waiting for a story to come in from Mexico or Latin America in general. Mexico specifically has such a rich and intense connection to the supernatural with many specific legends that have been passed down through generations. And as a nation, there seems to just generally be a stronger belief in a spirit world or outside forces that intertwine with the physical.

For that reason, and the fact that we make this show just two hours from the Mexican border, I've been eager to do some episodes that take place in Mexico and I figured we would have gotten more submissions now than we have. However, we finally got a really exciting one about something very strange happening to a person in Mexico. But the person this happened to is not from Mexico. They are, in fact, from Scotland, of all places. And this happened to them while they are visiting Mexico

and the United States for the very first time after finishing a job at a summer camp. I did not expect our first Mexican other world episode to be coming from a Scottish camp counselor. But then again, I think that kind of unusual perspective is what makes for some of the best episodes of this show. This story ended up being one of my personal favorites. It's somehow completely terrifying, but also a little funny and heartwarming at the same time. I also just really liked speaking to this person about their experience and hearing the story. This is episode 90

The title is The Long Road Home And you're listening to Otherworld Is it Bobby? Yes, it is At its core of the science You can't argue It's no way

I'm worried about All the science It's almost frustrating That it's happening I'm going to die It's like it's slim We're just like wrong Everybody moves back into the light

Even if it takes them a minute Hello my name is Simon I'm 23 years old I live in Glasgow, Scotland. I'm currently a bartender and I'm going to be going into studying my master's at the University of Glasgow. The rope in Scotland is great because,

well, I mean, like, we have, like, everyone has, like, their nearest castle. It's quite funny. In terms of ghosts and things, they're more of, like, an annoyance than a... They're like, oh, my, like, this place is haunted. Like, we're good... It's just, like, another thing.

but it's like um no Scotland's lovely especially I live well I grew up between Glasgow and between like the Highlands so I was able to get a mix of both the city life and the country life which was great because Scotland is beautiful when it comes in terms of nature and also just in terms of cities as well so I for the past couple years worked as a camp councillor in Maryland and It was like my first time in America. And I was stationed, I guess, and a camp in Maryland. And I was like, I've never heard of this state.

It's going to be interesting. And then it turns out I had like Baltimore and hairspray, all that sort of stuff. So it's a camp for boys. And you either got really, really polite ones or like, this is like my fourth home, which is what a kid said to me. So like you've got that kind of really nice. or really spoiled child. And then, like, they would ask me things, like,

do you have technology in Scotland? Like, do you live in, like, a cabin? And I'd be like, yes, this is my phone. And they'd be like, you didn't get that to come here? And I'd say, no, we have these. I remember a child. And by child, I mean, a 13-year-old asked me if we had Halloween in Scotland,

and I was like, we invented it. I don't know what to tell you. But for the most part, For the most, like, I've some of my best friends live in Maryland. I really loved working at the summer camp and then helping a lot of the international staff kind of get settled and making sure they were comfortable getting paid properly, had social security numbers. I really am passionate about making sure people are comfortable in their workplaces.

But, like, afterwards, we have, like, I have got, like, enough time with my visa where I can travel America for a month. So I don't like Texas. Vegas, I'd done LA as well, and I had deferred my, my master's for like this September coming for this next year, because I wanted to keep travelling, and I wasn't ready to get back to my life. I just thought I finally got this time where I can just do and go whatever I want, and I'm going to take full advantage of that. Like, not, it's like, when am I going to have this chance again and this time again to do this?

and I've just always wanted to see Mexico I've got a friend who lives there I was going to I went to go visit him that's when I flew to Mexico City Mexico City was lovely so I went for Independence Day and do you know I'll never like I keep saying this to everyone I recommend like going to Mexico to like

the people in Mexico were nothing but like so kind and so generous and so lovely and I've never been somewhere that feels so kind. Like everyone seemed to be kind in it together and it just felt very, it felt very, not Scottish, but just very like everyone in this country is kind of banded together a little bit. It just felt quite lovely and everyone was more than happy to help. but I also realized that I was in a new country by myself that I'd never been to and I ended up getting a travel buddy someone I knew kind of not but not really from the job

in DC just outside DC I'm going to call him Roy we had the same route the same route in Mexico and we were going to travel together because I just thought I don't want to do this alone, especially in a place I've never been to it before. Roy was like a very outgoing person. We don't talk anymore, but we'll get to that. He always wanted to go to the best club in Mexico City. He wanted to try all the best, like, try their best food. I started to realize that he didn't know any Spanish, like, past Ola.

And I was like, you were going to Mexico for like a few months and you didn't learn any Spanish. And he was like, well, no, I just thought they'd speak English. And I was like, okay, right. Because I had learned enough Spanish to get me by. And it only strengthened my time there. But he was a very, he, he was quite. arrogant with

hospitality workers, things like that, hotel staff. And I kind of took that on note, but always put it to the back of my head because I just thought I don't want to be travelling alone. And he came up with the idea after Mexico City to go to Puerto Escondido, which I've never heard of. and I

all I knew that I didn't really know too much about Mexico like in terms of geography or where to go I just know that I knew that I wanted to go to Oaxaca next but we decided to do Puerto Esco andido for like a few days so it was like a 15 hour bus journey which I've been travelling for a few months

in America at this point I can handle a 15 hour bus journey you know at least it's not a greyhound so we had the time of our lives in Mexico City, enjoyed Independence Day, and then we went down to Puerto Escondido, and we met up with his friend from back home, and I'll call her Nora. I had booked a hostel for the three of us because I knew that we were going to be meeting this girl that I'd not met before, and we got to the hostel, and they start freaking out about

the rooms and then they cancel our hostel, which was really annoying. They didn't ask me, they just cancelled it. And I was like, oh, you cancelled my reservation too? Great. Roy and Noda then booked us a really, really sketchy hotel. It's far away from the beach as you could like imagine. And at this point I was like getting kind of sick of them because they were just, they were being very horrible to like the staff in the hostel. He cancelled. and I walked in on them, like, having sex in our room. And I was like, oh, this is like, this is my holiday. This is my time to travel, and they're kind of ruining it a little bit.

But anyway, Brito S. Condido is an amazing town. It's lovely beaches. I've done a turtle saving sanctuary there, so, but that's why I wanted to go more than anything. I wanted to, they have these lovely, kind of they say of these turtle legs from poachers and things, and then we farm them, keep them in safe environments, and then release them out into the water

and make sure that they get, that they're safe, which I just thought was a really lovely thing to do. And it made me feel like I was doing something while it was traveling, like I was helping someone or something. Roy and Nora didn't want to do this because they were not their thing. It was not their thing. But it was nice to have that time alone with the turtles. Anyway, I get back to this sketchy hotel one night after doing like the turtle saving sanctuary and they're like, we're going to go to a party in Zipolite Beach. Like it's just off

Subalai Beach, which is a nudist beach. And just, it's like a, maybe an hour or so drive away from Prettaire's Condido. And I've had a few nights of relaxation. I'm ready to party a little bit. And so they're like, okay, we found someone who's got a car and they're going to drive us. And I was like, great. Roy and Nora are like dangerously sociable people in this sense where, like, if you have a car, you will be driving.

them after meeting them for like 10 minutes. So, do you know what I mean? Like those kind of people. And I was this poor boy who I had agreed to drive them, I guess. I thought he was kind of cute. So like he wasn't going to be drinking at the party.

And I was like, maybe I won't drink either because I don't know. I was just had been traveling a while. So I was like, you know, like, he's cute. So there was four of us, and we were driving. The drive there was like an hour long. We took the main road and then after a while went on to basically a dirt road

because that's, I guess, the road we had to take to get to this kind of beach area. And that road was about 20 minutes, half an hour long to drive on that road. And on that dirt road, I remember driving past, like, there was like a, you know, when on the side of the road, when they have like a, like a cross, it was a cross, it was very distinct because it was painted white and it had three yellow flowers painted onto it. And then there was like an abandoned moped. So that sort of thing, just, I guess, distinct looking trees, all that sort of stuff. But that, they were only distinct looking trees because they were the only trees like in a while, if you know what I mean. So it was,

it was nothing really, just a road of nothing. Like, I can't really explain anything. It was just the planes, you know? A bit of greenery kind of thing. Like, on the way they are, I just really wasn't taking note of too much, except, I guess, the cross that I saw and the scour. So we get to this party,

and it's like an abandoned building almost and it's kind of just off from the beach not too far away. People are clothed though even though it's just off from my unitics beach I do need to see but I think that it was heavily tourists who were at this party it was a kind of weird setup you would order your drinks and then you would wait

upwards of half an hour to get your drink you were just wait with a ticket and I was like this is a bit weird it was just like it was like an average club except that it was outdoors really and everyone was recording it

like everyone had their camera phones out all that sort of stuff so it was very touristy like maybe halfway through the party I was like yeah I'm not feeling this and I don't I'm not I'm not drinking

and neither's this guy and this guy was like oh I was thinking about maybe going back and I was like, oh, same. And I was like, we could go back and we could go to the hotel or whatever. And he was like, sounds good.

So we said to Noda and Roy, we're leaving, what are you doing? And they said that they're going to stay. And I said, well, good luck. Getting home, suppose. Best of luck. They have each other. And there was like,

I just felt like I deserved. I deserved to leave. them there a little bit. I get it. Yeah. We all get it. Yeah. Okay. I just hate coming across just look at dick, but they needed, yeah. So me and this guy, I'll give him a name, let's call him Peter.

We ended up leaving the party and getting in, we got into the car. We'd been driving for about 10 minutes. I was actually really relieved to be leaving these two, to be leaving Roy and Noda behind, like, I can't even describe how, like, I've never met people that are so, like, irredeemably just not nice. And, like, they just, there was just, like, I always look for the nice in people, but there's just nothing, there's just nothing to them. And I was like, right, well, fuck them. I'm going to have a good night with this Peter guy.

So I was, like, actually kind of happy. And we were just having that weird. small talk in the car. And it was like 10 minutes or so into the drive and we're on the dirt road. So there was no other cars there. It was like pitch dark. There's no street lights or anything. And we hear a thud under the car. And we looked at each other.

At first I thought, oh, pop hole or some just uneven road. And he said it felt like we were driving. over something. So we just agreed, okay, we'll get out. Because we'd driven for like maybe 10 more seconds and we're like, no, we should get out.

So I get out of the passenger seat and the car's still facing towards the way we were driving. He's keeping mind like the only light is coming from the car the way we were driving and I see kind of like a lump of just like a lump in the dark. on the road and I think, oh, like, we've hit, we've hit like an animal or, like, this isn't,

we've hit something. And I'd started to feel really, really, really bad. Because I've never, like, that's never happened to me before. Like, how could we be, like, we, how could he not have seen that coming? And then he takes out his, his, like, phone flashlight. And all I'm thinking is, like what is the like what have we hit and like whatever it is I really really hope it's not dead

because this has never happened to me before and I just I've just spent like the past couple days saving turtles like imagine it like I think when like hit something like it's that's not a fun thought so I'm walking towards

this and there's no light on it yet because the car facing it's still facing the way that we were driving and I just see a kind of lump in the darkness on the road and I was like fuck we've had we've had like a dog or something and I remember like getting a little teary-eyed because it was just like upset I guess about the whole thing is like I was having you know I was I was having like a day recent night so far and this had happened and Peter the guy who has a flashlight onto it and I was looking at its spine because that's what was facing us at the point it's back

and I thought we've we fucked this thing up with our car because its spine looked like it was coming out of its back and I was thinking I was like just this pit of dread in my stomach of we've not only we killed something, but like we've done, we've kind of just messed up its body. The entire body was black and by what I mean by its spine was coming out of its back is that its back was disjointed looking. Its back had jags coming out of this, like where the spine would be. And I thought, whatever we've done to this with our car, we've messed its spine up and it's all messed up inside its body and it's trying to come out and it was like just such a horrible pit of dread in my stomach of like I've done such a horrible

thing but then I started to realize that that's how its body was like that's um that that's not how it's not being messed up its body looks like that it has not hard on spikes but it's got like jaggs coming out of his back like that's just part of how its body is and the the creature the animal starts to kind of move and I'm thinking like I just sigh of relief of thank God um thank God it's alive um like I didn't really care at this point what it was I was like it's alive that's all that matters and then when that feeling of relief passed, I started to think, oh, it's like a mutated dog or like a mutated goat, something like that, or even some kind of black fox, I don't know.

And then it faced us and its eyes were piercing yellow. Like it could light, like it's almost like if someone had two flashlights inside its skull, the eyes were that yellow. Its fur was so short, but it was like pitch black that the animal itself was pitch black as dark as the rest of the night. But my mind is going in slow motion almost at this point, because I'm looking at this thing. I mean, it's fur as like really, really short.

short and it has yellow eyes and like like points coming out of its back. So I remember being like what the fuck is that? Like what is this? I've never seen anything like this before. Peter was just speechless. He just couldn't vocalize anything. I think he was startled more than anything that he had hit something. You know how like see if you've ever been in like like an almost an accident or whatever if you're in the car and something that feels life-threatening happens you know how that for those couple seconds

you're just kind of in silence it was almost as if he was in that but for way too long like he couldn't he was in like in total shock that he had to hit something and I was just happy that it was not dead and we watched as the thing began to kind of

move and it started to face us and I was just thinking this whole time it was a mixture of relief confusion and still dread in my stomach of now what is going on like I have no idea what I'm looking at and it begins to rise it begins to stand up on its hind legs almost as if a goat would like when when a goat kind of kicks up almost like that, but it doesn't go back down, it stays on its hind legs, and it's about, it's like a four-footish tall, I would say, about four foot, and at this point, I had gone over closer, and Peter had held back holding the light, and it didn't seem to mind, like, up until this point that we had a light on it. I was just, like, making sure, like, my number one goal was making sure

that whatever this was was okay. And then, um, it just lets out the scream of just, it wasn't a scream, it's more of a shriek. And it was like, I was listening to someone to find out that their whole family had been killed. It was, I've never heard anything like it before. It was dreadful to listen to. Just so many feelings of confusion and, like, just, I have no idea what's going on. Like, this has all happened pretty fast, like, within two minutes.

And it was, like, screaming at us almost, like, it was doing this horrible, horrible noise. Like, see, when you hear, like, foxes cry, kind of, like, that noise of just dread. Like, I don't know. Like, I've never heard anything like it before. I just remember thinking we should go like we should get back into the car because this animal is okay

but I don't want to get involved any further because this is not I have no idea how to deal with any of this so we just give each other a look of let's let's go we're good we're good it's alive let's keep driving. So we get back into the car and Peter is still in just this, I'm, I guess, a status shock. Like he doesn't understand what he just saw. And neither do I, but I'm processing it

differently than he is. He's just in pure silence and driving. And although I'm not talking, talking to him either. I, it feels like he doesn't want to talk about it. And it feels like all I wanted to do was discuss what just happened. His eyes were on the road. He wasn't looking at me. He was almost as a like a robot just driving. Like that's all he was tasked to do to just drive. And he didn't want to even think about what he just saw. My mind is doing cartwheels at this point. And it's true. trying to process things. As we're driving away, I can still hear it screaming.

And I was just like, I gave him this look of, what the fuck? Like, what the fuck was that? And he looks at me and he just looks back at the road. And I remember we seen the abandoned scooter we drove past. And I was like, okay. and then we kept driving and then we drove past the crucifix the cross that was in the ground

and say okay right we're getting somewhere familiar here and I remember like nodding to sleep almost a little bit and then I woke up again and we drove past the scooter again and I immediately thought okay everything it just happened was just a dream. We're fine. And then I look to him.

Like, I'm really trying not to sound crazy to this poor boy at this point. I was like, hey, did we get out of the car earlier and see that really weird-looking animal with the yellow eyes? And he said yes. And then I asked him how long I'd been asleep for and he said 20 minutes. I looked around and we were still driving on the dirt road and I was thinking it just doesn't make sense that we're still on this road if we had been driving for that long

before we hit the animal so we had been driving on this road for 50 minutes it should have only had taken as 20 minutes to half an hour it didn't make sense that we were still here all right we have to take a break but we'll be right back with the rest of Simon's story. So I was confused. And then we drove past the cross and the road.

And he said, like, that's the fifth one of that. I've seen. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, we keep driving past these crosses and they all look the same. I say, that doesn't make sense because we've, on the way here, we only drove past one cross. And then, as I was saying, this doesn't make sense. we drove past the abandoned scooter again.

I could just feel almost like everything coming out of my throat. I just wanted to throw up because I was like, am I in hell? Am I in hell for hitting an animal? What was going on? I looked at the time on the radio, the car, and it didn't make sense that we were still on that. this road. Like I was adding up all these time numbers that he was telling me. I just said, we shouldn't still be on this road. Did we take a wrong turn? He said, no, because it's a straight

road. Like, you can't go off of this dirt road or else it's just dirt. It's just, it's not a road in. So by the end of all, we had been driving for about two hours of, ish, on this just dirt road. we had driven past the cross and the scooter like I lost count but like it was like it kept we kept driving past him but it wasn't continuous it would be driving through nothing and then seeing the cross again seeing the and the scooter again

that's when I start to get scared like actually scared for the first time in this whole night of just this feeling of claustrophobia almost of being trapped inside like a loop almost of we just keep going forward there's no other way to go so how do we get out

how do we get out of this loop that felt like I had at first tried to convince myself that maybe there was more than one cross that we'd driven past and I didn't see it on the on the drive-in.

But when I lost count of the amount of times, we had driven past the cross and driven past the scooter, that's when I started to realize that something wasn't right, like, with time. And that, I was so completely overwhelmed and just, I wanted to throw up. So I asked Peter to stop driving the car, and I had to get to.

get out of the car to get fresh air. When I got out of the car, it was of course pitch black, except from the light of the car. And in the distance, I saw a car coming towards us, which was great. Like, the feeling was just someone else is here. We're fine, we're good. And as the car got closer, I started to realize that it was the exact same color and make of car that we were driving. It was like the same white car. And I thought that my mind didn't really think too much of it at first because I just thought, it's another car great. And then the car stopped and I saw the passengers and the driver door.

They both opened and two silhouettes got. out and the guy coming out of the passenger seat walked to the back of the car as if he was looking at something to the back of the car and the guy who came out the driver's seat was standing still at the car and flashing a light towards where the passenger was and that's when I realized that something was messed up like something time had been. Time had been. messed up on this road and I was looking at me and Peter

finding the animal as if I was watching like a movie of us from like an hour ago or whatever and my mind just couldn't handle it at this moment so I just got back into the car and I told Peter

I'm okay let's just go home and he's starting the engine up again and I look out of the window and in the darkness and just the nothingness, the Mexican nothingness of the what was off of the road

I just see two yellow eyes in the distance looking at us and Peter drove away and I was I just and I've never had this experience before but my mind had already decided

we're going to take all of this in but we're going to think about it later we're just going to we're just going to get you home Simon first and then we're going to analyse these thoughts but yeah this is my first time deeply analysing all of this which is

and bringing back a lot of memories. And we drove for maybe 20 more minutes and we passed the cross and we passed the scooter two more times. And then it wasn't like with a... It wasn't climactic or anything. We just got off the road. The dark road just stopped and we got back onto the main road. Even though I knew that I was driving past new things,

I kept expecting to see the scooter or the cross. I kept on expecting, like my eyes were not coming off the window. Like I just kept waiting to see the cross and waiting to see the scooter and waiting to be trapped in that loop again. And I find myself like even think now I'm back, home sometimes waiting to see like the skitter or like the cross just instinctually because I don't know like trapped on that road it just felt like an eternity it was it was just it was so there's no other word for it than claustrophobic even though I'm in an outside space

I just feel so trapped in a loop and we drove back to Puerto West Condido more or less in silence. We get back to the hotel and I just shut my bedroom door in his face and I was like I need to think about everything that happened tonight.

This was not I did not have a good time tonight and I'm sitting in my room and I'm like that was us on the road like the car and the people I saw was us looking at the

the animal, almost as if I was someone, when we found the monster or the animal, it almost as if someone from a distance had been filming that. And then it was like I was watching a movie in real life of what we had done, but like at a distance. And I couldn't wrap my head around it and still can't. It just, I just knew that what I was looking at, was us. And I was just sitting in this hotel room thinking about all of this.

And I just couldn't get back. I just couldn't sleep. Because I didn't understand anything that happened. So Roy and Nora get back the next day. And at this point, me and Peter had had breakfast. And we just kind of... We were trying to talk about other things. But I think I had made a joke about, like, cross-it.

Like, I had made a joke about last night, and he didn't find it very funny. So I kind of, we stopped eating breakfast, and I was like, fuck this. And then I started to realize, where is Roy and Nora? Like, why are they not here? And then they got back to the hotel, still drunk at, like, 10 in the morning at this point. they immediately could tell that like the vibe wasn't there because they were like, oh my God,

did you and Pierre like have a good night? I was like, no. No, we didn't. And I just thought, Puerto Escondido, you've been great, but I need to keep, I need to leave these people. So I called my friend,

and And like I was meant to do a lot more travelling with Roy Nora. And he said, you can just stay at my house and we can do day trips and things like that. And that's what I did. And I remember our bus to the next destination came. This was a couple days later. Roy and Noda said to me, all right, this is our bus. And I said, no, guys, this is your bus.

They watched as my friend Saul a very, very, very. very fit swimming instructor drove up and a jeep shirtless and picked me up and I waved them out the window goodbye and I never saw them again and I never will. So I'm living in Pliadal Carmen which is an hour away from Cancun. That's where my friend, Sow lives. This whole thing has been playing on my mind and I don't, I've not had any answers yet. So I just, I just ask him oh hey when I was in Puerto Rascondido I saw this like I think it was like a dog but like it

didn't seem like it I'm not too familiar with the wildlife here and I explained what I saw to Seoul and he chuckled because he was like well that's that's a chippicabra

and it's just like this thing that goes about and it like drink cows or goats, bloods and all that sort of stuff and when I went to do some research and I looked at pictures, there were

similarities to what I saw. It did look it looked a bit alien. There are all like illustrations. They're all like drawn in pictures more or less. It was a lot like smaller in the pictures I thought. It was a lot

skinnier and more kind of panther like almost. It was on all fours and it was all, although it was smaller in the pictures, it seemed like more of a threat, whereas what I saw on that road seemed more like, it's just a creature minding its business. And to me, that horrible, horrible scream, what I interpreted it is just, that's just the noise it makes. Like I never interpreted it as

a threat or anything like that. I just interpreted it as that's the noise that animal makes. Well, the whole point of me travelling was to find myself phringy.

And I remember this whole experience I was like, you know, I didn't find myself, but I definitely found out who I wasn't. And there wasn't someone who was going to let people like Ryan know that, like, keep me from seeing what I want to see and doing what I want to do it. I wasn't going to let one weird, weird night kind of keep me from enjoying the rest of my travels. Soil was a swimming instructor in the mornings. So I was sitting in the beach watching him take his swimming class and enjoying a margarita, like some kind of sucker mum, like, and doing some chippaca research on my phone and looking at it

and being like, this is so silly because every time I look at this, every time I research this, I can just hear it screaming in the back of my head. Like I can hear, I can still hear it scream. and if I keep doing this and if I keep on, like, if I keep on ruining my time away, I'm just going to keep hearing the scream. So I decided to put the phone down and enjoy my time in Mexico. I think, honestly, being able to reanalyze all of this is left. I have more questions now than I did before because I've been able to deep dive into it.

But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that having something like this happened to me, I'll probably never get an answer for it. But I don't know. I guess that's what makes it more interesting and that's what's going to keep this probably the weirdest and biggest thing that's ever happened in my life. I'm never going to not think about it when I think of,

core moments of my life, this is definitely up there because it shaped me to be more inquisitive, I guess, and braver when it comes to weird situations and creepy situations. And I'm not so afraid of the dark anymore either. All right, thank you so much to Simon for sharing his story.

I know I joked around about the first Mexican story coming from a Scottish person, but I think the most interesting part about this is that Simon is a complete outsider who had absolutely no idea what El Chupacabra is or that it even existed. In fact, when he told this story to me, it kind of seemed like in the aftermath of all this, part of him was thinking that he may have just seen some kind of terrifying animal native to Mexico that he simply hadn't heard of before. Needless to say, there is no animal in Mexico or anywhere that matches that description. Either way, him having not known about this before is so striking to me and adds an entire new layer onto this already incredible story. That in the time loop him and Peter experienced makes this so bizarre.

I really enjoyed speaking to Simon. he seems like a very kind and sweet person. He's also so naturally funny even when he wasn't trying to be. I also thought it was very telling that he clearly views Roy and Nora as the real villains of this story because they were rude and unkind to people. Even though he encountered this terrifying creature, the creature was still not the real villain to him.

And even though it was so terrifying, seeing this thing, he was still experiencing guilt about potentially hurting it. I think that says a lot. Finally, I just want to say, we're always looking for stories from other countries, from other cultures and places. But of course, all the stories you hear on this show are submitted by listeners. So, if you have a story, send it in to Stories at Otherworldpod.com. Simon actually wasn't even a listener of this show at the time. His friend is, and the friend basically made him send this story in.

I'm so glad that they did. If you have stories from Mexico, Latin America, or anywhere, we want to hear them. Send them on in. Thank you so much to Simon for sharing this story. This has been episode 90. The title is The Long Road Home, and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man.

The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal. This episode was edited by Theo Krantz and engineered by Theo Schaefer. Our artwork is by Coltacac Studios. Our associate producer is Nikki K. Delgado, production help by Haley Pearson. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about Otherworld.

If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash Otherworld. Our social media is at OtherworldPod. that's on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Thank you to the team at Odyssey. J.D. Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Wiast-Berner-Ree, Eric Donnelly, Matt Casey, Laura Curran, Josephina Francis, and Hillary Shuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us your story at Stories Otherworldpod.com. It was the long road home from Otherworld. And yes, you can find more of... Otherworld episodes wherever you get your podcast.