Spooked - The Yellow Balloon

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

When Richard moves into an old farmhouse next to a big cornfield, he’s pretty sure that it’s haunted. And the ghosts… well, they’re not exactly friendly. He wants to know: how does he protect himself from supernatural forces? Thank you, Richard Haynie, for sharing your story with us. Produced by Chris Hambrick, original score by Leon Moriomoto, artwork by Teo Ducot Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

But grabbing hands, grab all they can. All for themselves, after all. You're listening to Spooked. Stay tuned. Know this. Everyone wants something. They want love. They want respect, money, fear.

Everyone. Even the fallen. Even the lost. And the ties that bind, they cross over, these obligations, these needs. Everyone wants something. And someone from the other side. The demand

is something you are not willing to give. How do you say no? Spook starts. Now. Okay, so some people they can't help it. They're like magnets for the things that go bump in the night.

And Richard Haney. Richard Haney, the ghosties, they've got his number. for real. Spooked. I was a senior in college, and I needed a place

somewhere between campus and this internship that I had. I go and check out this farmhouse in the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. There's a smokehouse, there's a barn, and there's a garage.

I meet Brian, who's the son of the owner. The price is good. but I couldn't put my finger on it. My intuition was telling me there was something off about this place. I said, has anything strange happened here? Anything odd? I get a funny feeling from this place.

And he said, no, no, everything's fine, nothing odd. And I take his word for it. I said, well, if you'll have me, then I'll move in. There were already a few people that lived there. Two guys and Brian's girlfriend, Kathy, lived there also. my internship was with a TV station in Reading, Pennsylvania, and I would do live TV, and I would come home a lot of times 11 or midnight. I would pull in and face the house.

We had one bathroom on the second floor, and there would be somebody upstairs in the window. I would think, oh, great, somebody's up, somebody I could talk to because I'm usually really amped up from doing this live stuff. And then I'd get in the house, and everyone would be in bed, asleep. And I was like, okay, and this happened five or six. six times. My room was on the first floor. It was right off the living room. I would be sitting in there working at my table. In my peripheral vision, I would see somebody go by my window on the right

hand side, so they would be on our front porch. And I would go out and look broad daylight, and there was no one there. Maybe it was a branch of a tree and a shadow was catching my eye, and I just dismissed it after a while. We were in the outskirts, in the farm. farmland surrounding Fleetwood. And we didn't have any neighbors that would just come walking up to your house. It wasn't that kind of area. My nearest neighbor was about a quarter mile away. Cornfields across the street.

And this happened many times. And I would be home alone. I had been living at the farmhouse for about six months. And one night I wake up. It must have been like 5 a.m. I'm usually a very sound sleeper. But I wake up and I open my eyes and there's a man standing right by the window looking at me.

He's tall, about 6'1, 6.2. He's got a beard and glasses and he's wearing dark clothes. Now, one of my housemates, Milton, lived on the second floor. I thought maybe it was Milt. I did say Milt is that you, because Milt was tall. He had a beard in glasses. But looking closer at him, it was not Milton. And right away, I think, oh my God, we've got a burglar or something,

and we're in a very isolated area, so this could be very dangerous. I said, look, take whatever you want, just don't hurt anybody. And there was no response. He didn't move. He didn't do anything. just continued to look at me. Now I'm thinking, am I awake? Am I dreaming this? I pinch myself. Like, oh, I can feel that. I'm awake. And I look at him and I scan from his head. I get down to his waist and I can't see any legs. It's like he fades out. And I think, oh my God, this is a

ghost. So I say to him, what do you want? Why are you here? He doesn't speak to me. He turns to his left and appears to walk to the middle of my room and he fades out. My first feeling was fear. Oh my God. I have a ghost. I just saw a ghost and I wanted to jump out of bed and turn on the lights. A moment later, I realized how stupid that is to turn on the lights.

That's not going to do anything. and then I had this sense of knowing. That's the only way I can describe it. I just know that this is his house. And then I was calm. And I said, okay, no big deal. And I went to sleep. I was brave that night.

And then in the morning I'm more afraid than I was that night. And I talked to my housemates over breakfast and tell them, Hey, you guys, I think I saw a ghost in my bedroom last night. Brian and Kathy kind of scoff at it. And then Milt, he was a gentle giant. He didn't say anything, but once the others had left, he pulled me aside and told me that he would see silhouettes in his bedroom, moving on his wall, but then there would be no one there, just the shadow.

And he told me he didn't want to say that in front of the others because he knew they'd pick on him. What's comforting for me to hear that he saw something. to. Something was going on. It wasn't just me. So I called my mother. I think I saw a ghost last night. And my mother hits me with the question. She says, well, is this the first time you've seen something? And I said, well, and then I told her the story of this orb that I saw in my bedroom as an eight-year-old. I woke one night and there was something in the room. It was about two feet high and egg-shaped, and it was hovering off to the right side of my bed.

And it gave off light. It was, you know, lighting the room, actually. Like static on the screen. That's what it looked like. Like molecules were dancing. I just remember being so afraid. And if something is in my room that doesn't belong there, it must be a monster or a vampire.

Oh, my God. That's the first thought I had. I was totally fearful and I pulled the blankets over my head. You'll be safe there. I didn't know what else to do. And I stayed there for a while until it got unbearably hot.

When it got uncomfortable, it came out and it was still there. That was even scarier. I thought it would go away. I just wanted it to leave, whatever it was. And it was still there. I went back under the blankets again

and then I'm really scared now. Like, oh, you know, I thought maybe I was dreaming or it wasn't really there and it was there. and a few minutes later I came out and it was gone. And her first question is, well, Why didn't you tell me?

And I said, Mom, even as an eight-year-old, I thought no one would build. Well, my mother says that Giving into fear is giving power to whatever is there. So don't be afraid. Which was the best advice ever in dealing with something like this. Have no fear of this.

You're in control of this realm. One thing she did do, my mother was hardcore Catholic, she sent me a crucifix. And I did put it up. I thought, well, this couldn't hurt. A couple weeks later, a friend of mine, Amy, and her fiancé, come to visit me on a Saturday afternoon at the farmhouse. And everybody's in the house. We're all in the huge country kitchen. And as soon as she walks in the door, she panics.

She gets flustered, her face goes red. And she says, Rich, can we, can we go to another room? can we go to your room right away, please. And I said, yeah, sure. I'm like, not sure why she's acting this way. So the three of us go to my room. I'm like, what's the matter? And she says, you have a man here, a Pennsylvania Dutch man that doesn't belong here.

He was in the kitchen when I walked in, leaning against the cupboards with his arms crossed. And he smiled at me as I walked in. I'm like, oh my God, you just saw my man. man, you just saw the guy I saw a few weeks ago. She says, if there's anything in a house, she'll see it. She's always been able to see spirits. It was interesting, and I was like,

well, my God, why didn't you ever tell me this? She goes, well, it's not the kind of thing you tell people. You keep it to yourself. She told me that she was not expecting it. She had her guard down, and it really scared her. She says, well, I need to use the bathroom. So she goes upstairs and I hear an exclamation like, oh my God.

And she comes running down the stairs, pulling her pants up. And she says that we have three spirits in the house. She said that there was the old guy that I saw. There was also a middle age, like a 30-ish male and also a young male, maybe late teens, early 20s that she saw. and the two younger ones were the ones coming into the bathroom while she was there. She saw their hands and they moved the door and they came in. They were like leering at her.

She just said, no, this is not good for me. I'm getting out of here. We're all like, what the heck? And she goes outside and, you know, I talked to her on the front lawn with her, her fiancé. And she's like, look, I can't stay here right now. This is too creepy. But I want to come back. We're going to find out what's going on here.

Everybody was like, yeah. they were all down with it, you know? Like, okay. It was like we're doing investigation about the place where we live, sure. So we had an agreement right there. And then she left. I think she wanted to get away from there right away.

I was not surprised to hear from her that there were three entities in the house and they were like varying ages. So I said, oh, it's a generational thing. This family has been here, you know. Amy returned the following Saturday, and when she arrives, it's a beautiful early afternoon. It was like one o'clock. She comes into the kitchen, and everybody's there at the house.

I told them that she was coming. It seemed like she was prepared. She had her defenses up, and she was ready to deal with whatever was there. I did not know what she intended to do, but I was open-minded. So she says, well, I was. I'd like to do a seance and try to get to the bottom of this. And we're all like, well, okay. And the other people in the house agreed to do it.

We all gathered around in the living room. There was a fireplace, an Indian carpet, and a couple of couches. We sat on the floor. And Amy says, if we all join hands, I'm going to try to communicate with whatever's here. But whatever you do, don't break the circle. Because, you know, that's our protection. We're all together. And we're all like, okay.

We start the seance and Amy takes a few deep breaths and seems to go into a meditative or trance state as she prepares herself. And then she says out loud, uh, whoever you are, show yourself. Tell us who you are. Tell us what you want. It seemed like her face was changing color.

It was like blushing and parts of her face were turning red. And the weather changes. It turns on a dime. Suddenly it gets overcast. It gets dark out. The wind picks up. There's lightning and thunder. Suddenly there's a storm.

It got dark real fast. It was almost nighttime in the middle of the day. We all saw that she was making something happen. And I was intrigued. I thought, oh, wow. You know, we're going to get some answers here. Something's going to happen. One of my hands is with Brian, who's the son of the doctor that owns the farmhouse.

And his hands are clammy. His hands are sweating. He's really nervous. As this thing starts to build up, Brian panics and says, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like this. And he just lets go of me and Kathy, his girlfriend. He broke his handhold with both of us. And he raised his hands up by his head, and he gets up and walks. out of the house. Amy's like, oh, why did he do that? Oh my God, you know, he's done a terrible

thing. She was a bit upset, though. I think it left us vulnerable in some way that maybe I don't understand. When Brian goes outside, nobody follows him. We're all just kind of like, we can't believe he's done this. What a jerk. We're all kind of mad at him, like, for doing this. That was like the one instruction she gave us. I'm like, oh, well, I guess we're stopping. And I have to go to the bathroom. So I go up the stairs. And when I get to the top of the stairs, I call everybody and say, hey, everybody, come take a look at this. There was a hallway carpet that we had rolled up. It's lying down. Now, if it had fallen, it would have made a sound. But it's lying down at the top of the steps. And then I look up the hall, and we have

a carpet runner that goes all the way up the hall, about 25 foot long. And it's been flipped over. It's upside down. Not partially around it, just totally upside down, perfect. The phone is off the hook, and the phone book has been rifled through. Like, somebody's like been turning the pages. We didn't hear a thing, and we're right downstairs from this. I thought it was a reaction caused by Brian breaking the circle. I felt like, oh, because of him doing that, this is our result. I graduate from college and I get a job at a TV station in California. I move into a place.

I've got a junior one bedroom, a living room, a kitchenette slash kitchen area, and then a bathroom, you know, tub and shower. Nothing fancy, but, you know, it's cool. I'd been there for like a year at least. And I'm out partying with some friends. I come back to the place and it's like two in the morning. I turn off the TV, I'm ready to go to bed, and then I'm listening and I can hear what sounds like breathing. It's like, what the hell?

There's something here. And it seems like it's coming from the kitchen area, and I'm trying to locate whatever this is. And I'm thinking, is there like a rodent that's dying, and it's in its death throws behind my refrigerator? So I had a tripod, and I extend one of the legs and had a spike at the end. I start poking around behind the refrigerator. There's nothing there. And I'm looking around. Then I kind of narrow it down.

I had a trash can in the kitchen with a lid. And it seemed like the sound was coming from there. I'm a little bit afraid. But I'm still trying to be strong and deal with whatever's here. I opened the trash can. And sure enough, now it's louder. I'm looking in there. I don't see anything.

So I start picking the stuff. out and I get to the bottom and there's nothing to be seen. But the sound is still coming from there. And I go, okay? And I just decide, I know what I'll do. I put all the trash back in. I get a zip tie. I seal the trash bag.

And I take it downstairs and throw it in the dumpster. And go back to my place and now it's quiet. I go to bed. It made me wonder if something from the farmhouse had attached itself to me and followed me. cross-country. I think whatever it is, it's not good. It's something maybe not actively malevolent, but just like a negative energy.

And I didn't want it. In the morning, now it's a Sunday. Once again, I was seeking answers, you know. I knew there was a church right down the street. I go to the church and they're just finishing a service. And I walk in and there's a minister and he's talking to a couple of old ladies. He greets me, I'm like, hi, you know, introduce myself and we talk a little bit.

He goes, what can I do for you? I said, well, I had something odd happen, and I just need to talk to somebody. And I thought I needed help. He takes me to his library. And we sit down and I talk to him and I tell him what's happened. And he asked me the same thing that my mother said, well, is this the first experience you've had? And I was like, well, no, it's not. And he asked me, for examples of other things.

And I told him about, you know, being a little kid and seeing things and, you know, the farmhouse and all that. He goes, you know, think of yourself as a sighted person in a blind world. I thought that was a beautiful way of putting it. And he put me at ease. But I still had some anxiety. I wake up one morning and I'm lying in bed on my back. And sun's out. I'm just still like kind of half asleep.

I have the sensation of being pulled down the bed. Like I'm sliding down towards the foot of the bed. But I'm moving, not of my own volition. I could feel my skin against the sheets. I'm moving. And I sit up in bed and my feet touched the floor. And the end of the bed is at the back of my thought. eyes. So my legs had been dangling off the bed. That was really weird. I did not like that.

My neighbor, a woman that lives down the hall, I never told her what happened to me. But I knew her, and we were good friends. Maybe a month or two later, she says to me, Richard, the weirdest thing happened. I was in bed and something had me by my ankles and I was sliding down the bed. So I sat up and I saw this little man. He was maybe three feet tall and he looked old and his hands were wrinkled. And he was kind of brownish green and we made eye contact. I said, and then what? She said, well, he ducked.

And I said, well, what did you do? She goes, well, I started praying. And then I tell her my story and maybe I shouldn't have because she is now really freaked out. Another couple of weeks go by. She says she's on her way to work in the morning, and she opens the elevator door. This thing, this little man, comes running out of the elevator and runs past her. So he's wearing like a brown robe, like a monk's robe, the tie around the waist. But he's really short.

I think it was the same thing that was in her bedroom. He said it runs past her and goes around the corner and runs up the hall. She said she just stood there for 30 seconds or so, and then shook her head, got on the elevator, and went to work. And I was thinking, well, if it went around the corner and up the hall, where'd it go? Did it go into my place? You know, I live up the hall from her. This is what made me spring into action. I wanted to find a way to defend myself or even protect people that I care about.

I don't want to be a carrier. If you think of it as like, you know, it's some kind of. an illness and you could bring something near your family or something like that. A little while after that, my friend Holly calls me and says that she wants to go over to Marin and go to a crystal

event. I equated it to a crystal Tupperware party, you know, a house party where they're going to have crystals. And I think she might not have had a ride. So I agreed and then I picked her up and we went to this event together. We get there and the guy's got all these crystals and he's selling them. There are 10 or 12 people, and he's got a woman there that he says is a medium.

Oh, okay. He introduces this woman. If you'd like, you can talk to this woman here who is channeling this man from 18th century Russia or something like that. We go to the living room, and he's got a fireplace going, and he's got like a pit, you know, like a horseshoe-shaped couch system, you know, it goes out about 10 feet and it wraps around the room. And so we can all sit around the fireplaces at one end

and then we're all on either side of it, you know. So the woman's across for me and she starts doing this trance thing where she gets into some kind of a state and then starts talking like a man. And then says, everyone can ask a question.

And I'm first. And I go, Let's say you have something attached to you, something spiritual, you're not sure, and it's like an entity of some sort that's attached to you and you want to get rid of it. How could you get rid of something like that? She says, well, think of it like it's in a balloon. It's attached to a string that's attached to you, and all you have to do is cut the string and let it go away. It'll fly away.

So I say, okay, well, I'm done. Thank you. I pass. I said, next. The person to my right, they can go. and they start talking to this woman and I'm like, I'm not interested in anything that they're talking about. I'm going to try this right now. I close my eyes and I start imagining this yellow balloon

with a ribbon string that comes to my navel. It's off on like a 45 degree angle. Whatever this is, I've put it in the balloon and the string is there attached to me. And I'm trying to imagine scissors cutting the string, but it just doesn't work for me. In my mind, it brings me out of it. So then I thought, well, what else could cut string?

And I think, oh, well, fire could cut a string. I still have my eyes closed this whole time. So I'm thinking, okay, so here's the string going to this balloon, and the fire, I think of a candle being somewhere along that 45-degree angle of string, and it's burning, and it burns through the ribbon, and now the balloon starts to fly away. We had the room kind of subdued lighting with the fireplace. It was kind of dark in the room.

But through my eyelids, the room got bright. And at that moment, I hear a whoosh. And everybody goes, whoa. And I opened my eyes. It seems like the flames from the fireplace had leapt into the room about maybe four or five feet. Like a tongue of flame had come out. And as I opened my eyes, I see the flame go back into the fireplace. The owner of the house, he looks at me, said,

did you just do that? And I'm not sure I said, maybe. And it was kind of weird, you know, and maybe I did do that. Or maybe it was a reaction to what I was thinking. But I felt like I'd accomplished something. Like I did get rid of whatever might have been attached. It feels good. So I haven't felt the need to do that again.

Thank you, Richard. For sharing your story with the spout, we feel so lucky that you confronted the darkness so spook didn't have to that original score was by Leon Morimoto it was produced by Chris and sure you've reached the end but it is never the end

because spook stories they never died if you like your storytelling in the light from real people talking about their amazing lives with the funky score because everyone should always have a soundtrack Check out the stunning podcast, Snap Judgment, storytelling with a beat. Spook was brought to you by the team

that pops every single balloon they see. Please, flee in terror. For Mark Ristich, Anna Sussman, our chief spookster is Eliza Smith, Chris Hamburg, Annie New Inn, Marissa Dodge, Renzo Goryo, Leon Monimoto, Jacob Winning, Tiffany Delisa, Ann Ford,

Eric Ghanes, Sonok Han. Original score was by Lauren Newsom. My name is Glen Washington, and if you see a red miss coalescing the shape of one of the dark's minions, know that it is already too late. Your feeble existence has come to an end. It will be small comfort to realize that what you should have done was to follow my simple advice in the first place to never, ever, never, never, never. Never, ever, ever, ever.