The Confessionals - RELOADED | 246: The Wax Man

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

In Episode 246: The Wax Man, we speak with Jeff, who has been tormented by a dark entity in his childhood home for as long as he has lived there. The home is very old, with a macabre history: in the 1800s it was used as the town funeral home because it had the most space for mourners to gather. Jeff can recall seeing over 50 historical pictures of dead people from that time period laid out inside his home. For some of his experiences, he was alone, but not all of them - his childhood friends have also been able to confirm some of the encounters that he remembers. Upon their confirmation that the events were real (and Jeff wasn’t just suffering from an overactive imagination), he decided to come on The Confessionals and share what he has seen in his family home not only as a child but also as an adult when he moved back there with his own family.Become a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinCome Meet Tony:1. Smoky Mountain Bigfoot ConferenceTickets: https://bit.ly/3l1wZHR2. LIVE SHOW in Gatlinburg, TN!Tickets: https://bit.ly/3IC4IkxWatch Expedition Dogman: https://bit.ly/3CE6Kg0Tony's Studio Equipment: linktr.ee/mystudiogearSPONSORSGET EMP Shield: empshield.com Coupon Code: "tony" for $50 off every item you purchase! Listen to this episode for more information! Link: bit.ly/3YaMD1NGET SIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsGET Hello Fresh: hellofresh.com/confessionals60 Promo Code: "confessionals60" for 60% off plus free shipping!!!Get Emergency Food Supplies: www.preparewiththeconfessionals.comCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletterSOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIDiscord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelAre you a military veteran struggling with thoughts of suicide?Contact Watchman Readiness Corps for REAL help. A veteran-run organization that is designed to help through hands-on survival training.Website: wrc.vetEmail: [e-mail]: [phone]Instagram: wrc_survivalFacebook: colbywrcvet

Merkel. Media. I guess it's time to go back in time. Are you telling me you built a time machine? Out of a Delorean? Time is but a stubborn illusion. I have a lot of memories of the past. People are time traveling within themselves.

Time travel is possible. This was all circulating around the base that, A giant had been killed, but no one was supposed to talk about it. Reach up underneath the door, curl up to grab it, and then disappear. When he came over to me, dude, he slithered over to me. And this giant comes out of the cave, and they're all frozen. And he starts running and firing at this giant. With a giant move, he's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast.

And spears, Dan, holds him up like this. somebody else shoot them in the face shoot him in the face they basically decapitated feel something and look over and there are too small push and because i know i'm seeing okay i reload it welcome to the show everybody you're listening to the confessionals i am your host tony merkle thank you for being here if you've had an encounter or a story you'd like to share with me on the show go ahead and shoot me an email or go to the website the confessionalspodcast.com hit the contact section and you can reach me that way as well either way works for me just get a hold of me and if you want more shows every week we have a member show on thursdays and you can access that by being a member on the website so if you want extra shows

every week and you want to hear all the previous member shows and all the future member shows go to the confessionals podcast dot com hit the join button and become a member today and if you want to prepare for an emergency and you want some extra emergency preparedness food we got a great deal for you all you got to do is go to prepare with the confessionals dot com that's pre-reepernationers.com that's pre- prepare with the confessionals.com and you can get some emergency preparedness food if that's your thing. And now I have to tell you guys, we are getting the show out a little later than usually. Usually I put the show out late Monday nights, my time, even though I say Tuesdays. But last night, work got me. They kept me out late. They really just, it was work and it did stuff. And so I had

to just go right to bed when I got home. I was exhausted. And I woke up early this morning. I started working on the show more. And here we are recording, trying to wake my voice up. Hopefully it's not too bad. We have Jeff coming on the show today. And Jeff has some good experiences to share. He grew up in a haunted house. And the house he grew up in was one of those houses in the neighborhood that was a little bigger than the other houses. And in the old days, like the 1800s, the neighborhood, the people in the town would use his house as the place where they held funerals and wakes. And so there was a lot of dead people in this house. And he even said that when he was going through photo albums, he just saw dead body after dead body after dead body. But he was haunted and tormented as a kid.

And then when he moved back into the house as an adult with his own family by a black wax man like entity. That's the best he could describe it. He has great stories. So let's get to Jeff right now. All right. Today we got Jeff coming on the show. Jeff, how you doing, man? I'm all right. I bet yourself, sorry. I'm doing good. I'm doing good. So, dude, you have a lot of different experiences that you've been through. And you have quite the resume here. I mean, I'm looking at the email and stuff. And anything, I think, did you go to school for theology? I did. Yeah, I was a student at Tennessee Christian. And I have a degree in theology with an emphasis on pastoral care. Okay, cool. And I see that you were in the military, the Marines. So thank you for

your service. I got a lot of respect for our military. You know, we talk. about some, you know, conspiratorial things on the show and things like that and, you know, covered 9-11 stuff. But throughout all the stuff that we talk about on the show, my respect for our troops always remains because whether I agree with the decisions that our government makes to send our troops into places or what our government does, our soldiers always hold the most respect for me because you guys are just following your orders and doing what is, you know, needed by the government. So thank you for your service, man. I really do appreciate it. Yeah, it was the best four years of my life, I'd have to say. So, yeah, it's four years I missed out on, man.

I almost signed up. I was going to, my goal right out of high school was to join the Navy. I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I graduated high school in 2003. And that was the height of the, you know, the conflict. This was just starting. And I chickened out, you know, you're 17 years old and I got scared. And I didn't go and I had several friends that did go. I had one friend that actually became a Navy SEAL. I had a couple friends that became Marines. And, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, as I was getting older and stuff, I started regretting more and more. But, well, I've got two adult sons that have not served. And I mean, one of them is a, is a law enforcement officer here in Indiana. And another one is a, I went to, to college and got a degree in therapy. So he's, he's a, he's a,

an occupational therapist. So, I mean, it's, it's really one of those things that's, if it's for you, it's, if you'll know it. If it's not, then you'll question it. So, yeah. Well, my wife always says that it's probably a best that I didn't go into the military because she says that, not so much anymore, but especially throughout my 20s, she's like, if you were actually trained to kill people, I fear that you actually would have. Like, she's like, sometimes, you know, the military isn't best for some people. And she's like, you're pretty nuts in your 20s. Right. Yeah. So, you know, I understand that. Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. But anyways, I say all that to just kind of build up a foundation for as to who you are as a person going into this stuff.

Because you spent most of your life keeping these experiences to yourself because it was one of those things where probably you didn't want to be made fun of, but also you probably weren't sure as you got older, whether you actually experienced what you thought. And it wasn't until you started listening to my show that you started connecting with old people that you went through these things with, and they confirmed with you, right? Yeah, that's absolutely right.

Yeah, I really was embarrassed. It's one of those things where you think, no, that can't happen to me. That's not something that's real. I was an only child. I mean, I'm an only child. So as an only child, you learn to use your imagination really well. And it's hard sometimes to look back

and think as a four or five-year-old. what was real and what was just you filling that silence. Yeah, I can understand that. So why don't you just start walking us into these experiences you had and stuff? Let's just start with the, in the beginning of the timeline, chronological order. What are some things that happened to you? Well, I grew up in a house that was, it was an older home, built in the late 1800s. And it was the nicest house in the area for a long time.

an old Polish neighborhood on the on the west side of south bend Indiana and it was you know built by by my family and it was it was an oddly shaped building it was it had three front doors it had sort of a weird front porch that was very long and then it kind of opened up into a square and there were the way it was explained to me was that doors were cheaper than windows at that time so they put in three doors and it created a an airflow so the house could have some some ventilation. So that's just kind of the way it was built. So there was a door that led into the dining room, a door that led into the living room, and a door that led into what I would refer to as the front room.

That's where we used as our sitting room, TV and all that. But when I was younger, I can remember distinctly, I remember relatives that were, I was told that they were relatives later on because I would describe them to my mom and my aunt, my aunt and my great uncle who raised me. So, you know, dad wasn't around, but my great uncle was there and he was a good strong male role model. But I would describe these people that I would see in the house. And I mean, they wouldn't talk directly to me. They would always be talking about us.

and about things that were going on in the house. And it was just, it seemed really odd to me. So I would mention it to my mom or mention it to my aunt. And they would, they'd ask me to describe them. I'd describe them and, you know, they'd show me old pictures. And I'd pick them out of lineup. You know, I'm four and five years old. And I'm picking these people that I'm seeing in the house.

And I'm seeing them as clear as I'm seeing any other human being. It's not like there's any type of, you know, it didn't look or appear like what you would think a ghost would look like. It was just, they were people and they were not supposed to be there. So I noticed it. But, you know, I always told, I was told that one was a great aunt of mine and one was a great uncle of mine that had passed away in the 60s at young ages. And they did look young. They looked like they were in their 30s to me, about, you know, 20s or 30s. And, you know, it was just, it seemed very commonplace.

And at the same time, it was the weirdest thing in the world because nobody else was saying anything about them. I remember distinctly, it was my fifth birthday. I got a puppy for my fifth birthday. That's how I remember the day so well. But that night, it was when things kind of kind of get dark for me. And it's really... It really took years for me to kind of come to grips with the fact that this wasn't just a nightmare event because it kept happening over and over and over again. And it was a span of decades.

It wasn't just, you know, when I was five and six. This happened to me until I moved out of the house at 18. And then it happened to me again when I moved back into the house in my 20s after I got out of the Marine Corps. But there was a, there was a, the best I can describe it is, is if you take like a, there was, I remember a wax figurine when I was younger that I'd gotten from somewhere. I don't know where I picked up, I think it was a museum of science and industry or something in Chicago, but it was a wax figurine and I had just, you know, doing what kids do, I had scraped the features all off of it and it looked just like this black mass. It was, I think it

originally started out as an ape or something or maybe a, or, you know, early human, or what they would call an early human, but it just was this kind of form. And that's what I saw. I had heard something in the hallway. It was bedtime. Lights were out. I wasn't ever a kid that wanted a night light on, so things were dark. And I can remember that there was some weight. It sounded like somebody walking up and down the hall. And it was in my bedroom. My bed was out in kind of the middle of the room a little bit, you know, with the headboard against the wall, and I'm facing the door.

I get the covers pulled up, and I'm just kind of, you know, wondering what this was. And I see this mass that was darker than anything around it. The moonlight shining through the window just, it seemed to almost absorb any light source that was around it. You know, there was a light downstairs in the kitchen. bedrooms upstairs, so there was light downstairs in the kitchen that give a little bit illumination to the hallway. And this thing was black.

It was so black. And it freaked me out. I mean, I pulled my covers up over my head and, you know, just pretended like I didn't see it and went to sleep. And that was the first time I can remember seeing this. But I would see this thing about once a week, and it would be the same kind of situation. I'd be, you know, getting ready for bed. be laying in bed trying to fall asleep and I'd hear this thing in the hallway and it would it would be

there would be weight to the steps and there were a couple of times where my mom even yelled upstairs you know get back to bed what are you doing up you know like they heard it downstairs moving above their heads so it really for I mean it was it was something that really bothered me really freaked me out I was terrified of it. And I can distinctly remember this, this, it was one time, it was probably the, I don't know, maybe a couple of months after the first time I saw it. You know, school had just started and I was in bed earlier than I normally would be. And it's still that August, you know, early September, it's still light outside a little bit. And man, it was coming down the hallway like I was used to it coming down the hallway and I would just, I would feel the hairs on the

back of my neck stand up and I would feel just this dread and terror come over me. And I just, I wasn't going to hide my head this time. For some reason, I just determined in my, in my mind, I was just going to, I was going to watch this thing pass and see where it went. So I kind of huddled the covers up around my neck and, and, you know, gave myself a big hug. and this thing passed. And I think that was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. It noticed that I saw it.

And it turned. And it just rushed into the room in this foul odor and terror. It was just like this cold and you could just feel. It was like, you know, how you really feel somebody's angry at you sometimes? I mean, you can just kind of feel that palpable. It's almost like you can feel that. that anger. And I mean, it just anger, dread, whole nine yards just just right at me.

You know, and I'm, you know, like I said, I'm a little boy. And I shot those cars up over my head and I just started to pray. And, and man, it was, it never, in all the years, it never touched me. I never felt a physical touch. But I did feel like physical weight on the bed. and I can remember feeling like two fists coming down on both sides of me and just hitting into the mattress and just staying there for a good 10, 15 seconds. And then all of a sudden it was just gone. It was, you know, the room kind of went back to normal.

The smell went away. And it was a, it was like, you know, nothing ever happened. And I did. I went down, man, I ran downstairs. And I told my mom what was going on and she looked at me and I'll never forget. And it was at that point where I really realized that, you know, she didn't believe me. That there was, you know, she might have believed the other stuff. She might have, you know, kind of thought it was cute that I was, you know,

able to pick out a relative out of a, you know, a photo album or whatever. But any of, as far as anything negative was concerned, she had no belief whatsoever that there was anything negative in that house. She looked at me and said, Jeff, it's not the dead ones that can hurt you. It's the lied ones that can. And I'll never forget that phrase. I probably told my kids that, you know, when they were little. So I just, you know, I started to deal with this on my own. You know, if I had been born in a different era, I probably would have been diagnosed with ADHD or whatever.

You know, back then it was just, you know, in the 70s and 80s, you were just a hyperactive kid. kid. So I was a hyperactive kid. And my mom, you know, put me into taekwondo lessons at age eight. So, I mean, I learned to defend myself rather young. And I got into wrestling really big. Football, I actually played a year of college football. So, I mean, it was a huge part of my life. Athletics were a huge part of my life. Working out was a huge part of my life. you know Jiu-jitsu after Taekwondo became

kind of as you know got my black belt in Taekwondo and became a pretty good wrestler and it was just sort of the natural progression I mean I started studying

other other martial arts and man it was probably I was probably maybe 12 years old I'd say and this had been going on for forever you know these

these these probably once a week maybe once every other week sort of episodes i mean it got to a point where i i just started to get so angry about it that i started to become defiant in a way that i wouldn't i wouldn't back down i mean and that seemed to egg this thing on it it seemed to like make it worse. The smell would get more rancid and the cold would get more bone showing and it just it would stay in the room longer, just like almost like storming around the room. And it was at that point where I started noticing that it would be able to have impact on objects in my room.

Posters would flutter off the wall a little bit and papers would fly off my desk and pencils would roll across the floor. it could manipulate physical objects. And that scared the crap out of me. I didn't, I mean, at that point, I had never seen anything be able to, to affect the physical world, I guess. It was just, I mean, it was there, it was palpable.

I know that I could hear it, I know that I could smell it, and I know that I could feel that, that energy off of it. But I didn't think that it could actually impact things around me or me. So it became a thing where I became aware that there might be some danger. So I switched rooms. You know, I was a, you know, younger kid, but I still had a little bit of, you know,

my mom would listen to me a little bit. Like, hey, I'd like to switch bedrooms. So I switched bedrooms and that didn't help it. I think that it always, there were a couple of times where I got out of bed to follow to see where it went. Our attic was in a very odd place. It was like you came up to the top of the stairs and immediately to your right, there was a doorway that headed back to the opposite direction. And that was the attic. It was sort of a horseshoe-shaped attic.

And it went into the attic every time. It didn't go downstairs. It went right into that door. and, you know, if it was open, I would slam it and lock it. And, you know, it just, I don't know, it just seemed like if it was physical, then I could keep it in there for some reason. That was just my rational, you know, the way I rationalized it. Yeah. But, but yeah, I mean, that kept up and also kept up seeing, you know, kept up seeing the other relatives.

and there were knocks and things like that. I can remember sitting watching TV and watching somebody walk up onto our porch and walk all the way down to the door that we used as our front door, which was the furthest one away from the steps. So that you would walk all the way along the side of the house, and sure enough, there's this, there's, you know, knock on the door, I go to open it and there's nobody there. When I was 14, I remember finding this book upstairs in the attic that kind of gave me a little bit better history of the house.

Apparently, the house in the 20s and 30s was used to show bodies, like for wakes and funerals. There were probably, I don't know, maybe 50, 55, 60 pictures. They were all black and whites. They were all very old photographs of different people. And most of them were not relatives. I think I was able to identify later on in life. I grabbed that book and kind of did some research on it. And there was only three relatives that were in the book.

The rest were just people from the area who had people pass away and their house maybe wasn't as nice or didn't have the room that we had. had to show or that that house had to show their relative. But there were some weird pictures. Like there were a few that were sitting up in chairs, sitting on a couch with all their relatives, kind of taking a picture with them all around them. That's weird. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It was very weird. It was just, it was really strange. That's what they did back in those days, though, right? It wasn't it like when you had somebody that died in your family, you would take pictures with almost like your last family picture or something like that? I feel like I heard that before. Yeah.

And the more research I did on that, the more I found that it was very common. But it's still not any less creepy. Oh, for sure. Yeah, that doesn't seem like something that I would want to do with, I don't know. But yeah, there were some that were there were coffins that were leaned up against one of the corners of the house. and yeah that it just I don't know it just seemed really odd but at the same time it kind of it kind of all built up now one thing that I did notice in a lot of these pictures and I don't know if it has any correlation to that to that thing that I always saw upstairs and that I encounter

but there as you got to be as the photographs became more recent like in more recent history. There were photographic anomalies in a lot of them that were this black spot. That just, and it wouldn't, it would be in roughly the same place in the room, regardless of where the picture was. And I don't know if it had anything to do with maybe light coming in through one of the windows or anything like that. I mean, I, I'm not a photographer.

I don't know how to explain anything like that. but it was there in probably the last 20, 15 to 20 pictures in that book. So, you know, I had that. And, you know, I just attributed, you know, because, you know, my mind, as a young kid, I'm thinking, okay, people, dead people were here. So that thing upstairs has got to be maybe a dead person that attached itself to the house and doesn't know how to get out or doesn't, you can't get out, you know. can't move on, I guess you'd say.

But I don't know, it's, to be really honestly, that that thing probably had a bigger impact on my attitude as a kid than any other outside influence outside of like parents, school, things like that. But, I mean, there wasn't any bully that could have done anything that would have scared me any worse than that thing did every, every week, you know. Yeah. So, you know, it was one of those things where I always thought, well, if I get strong enough, you know, if I'm able to defend myself well enough, then I'll be able to defend off whatever this thing is. So I kind of, I mean, as crazy as that sounds, as a kid's logic, I think that, you know, that was word of my head. was, you know. So in my teenage years, I had some other experiences that were just kind of really

weird that were outside of the house. And I had never had any kind of experience outside the house. You know, I mean, I would spend the night over at friends' places. It wasn't like, you know, this was something that followed me around. It wasn't something that attached to me. I don't think I have any sort of ability to see spirits or to, you know, to see spirits or to, you know, to communicate with spirits. I don't find that that's the case. But I went on a couple of, I just,

you know, with buddies from school, you know, that was probably 16 years old. You know, with friends from school, 16, 17 years old,

we're all just kind of hanging out. And we want to go explore a couple of these old buildings that are in the area. And there were some really neat ones. I mean, you got to remember South Bend was the home of Studebaker. So the Studebaker,

automobiles and the Singer Sewing Machine factory, all those places were still standing at that time, but they were abandoned. And they were still relatively safe to go into. I mean, I think a few of them were used for warehouse space up until the late 90s, early 2000s. So they were serviceable buildings. It's just that they were, you know, they were really, really creepy. You know, we went in just for, I think, kind of the scare factor. But there are probably seven of us that didn't take it that way.

We were just sort of, we were more curious about the, you know, what was left in them. You know, what state were they in? Like, Studebaker closed pretty abruptly. So were there cars that were still on the line that were not assembled? You know, we just kind of wanted to see those things. So we went in, and of course, they're all cleaned out, for the exception of a few things that were left. But, you know, we're just walking around and looking at these things. We ended up going up to a school that had been closed down for a while.

I think it was closed probably 20 years by the time we had went into it. And the building isn't even there anymore. They destroyed it. But we went in and some really weird things happened in this place. And all seven of us. I mean, I'm talking there's, we've talked about this. of this day. There's a good friend of mine that's a state trooper. Another good friend of mine that's a 26-year Air Force vet and the easing law enforcement as well. These are level-headed

people that don't just, you know, they don't just let their imaginations get the best of them. you know and all of us recount the exact same things and we were just you know we were kind of floored we were like yeah I thought that was just me I thought that I just heard that but in the school we heard a lot of things kids laughter um we heard singing and the song was God bless America and all of us kind of almost said it at the same time we were all sitting around after I had you know, after I decided that I wanted to kind of, you know, share this, we got together with those guys, and we all agreed that that was the song. It was God Bless America, and we heard it like there was a class that was singing it upstairs.

So we all kind of, you know, stopped and listened really hard, and then we all looked at each other, and we all started walking toward where we were hearing this. And it was on the second floor, so we went upstairs. And, man, it was just, it was the most eerie thing. There were still desks. There was still writing on the chalkboards. There was very little that had been disturbed in an irreverent way. So, you know, it was just, I don't know, there were still books inside some of the desks.

And we all kind of, you know, collected ourselves and we were getting ready to go. We were walking out of the building. And a water fountain, you know, they kick on to cool the water. This water fountain kicks on. And there's no electricity in this building, man. There's nothing that would have, that would have let this thing, you know, do anything mechanical. So all of us at that point in time stopped and we just, we turned around, we're looking at this thing. And one of my buddies just, he walks up to it and he depresses the, the button and water comes out. There's no pump. If there's no electricity, the pump isn't going to work. So water comes out for about five seconds and then it just stopped. And, you know, there was no more

noise from it. No water came out of it. We couldn't, there was no way to recreate. create it. We, you know, it was, it was wired into the wall. It wasn't something that, you know, there was a plug underneath it. So we couldn't check that out. But it just, it was very, very odd. We basically at that point, just kind of wrap things up. We had to grab our things and our flashlights and, you know, we left the building. But it's something that all of us remember very distinctly to this day. And everything is, is, everything sort of lines up. up with all of our, with all of our memories of it. So, oh, and the two of those guys that were there with me used to come and a house sit for my mom and my aunt when they would come and visit me.

Like if I was in California, you know, with the Marine Corps and, or, you know, wherever I was, they would come and house sit for me and they hated it. They absolutely hated it. They, they said that they would hear knocking, the TV would turn off on its own. They would, they, they had all they would have fits they just didn't they didn't quite know you know what was going on but uh they did not feel comfortable in that house i'll tell you that much um but um you know that was that was sort of how things went you know through like my teens but um man when i would when i went into the marine corps um yeah i i moved out of that house i played a year of college football, things did not work out well. I was pretty angry about all that. So, you know, the school

actually just, they pulled the plug on their football program is what ended up happening. And I, you know, gotten upset about it. I need, on a snap decision decided I was going to join the Marine Corps. And it was the best decision I think I ever made in my life. I loved, I loved serving. I know that they're like, you know, we had talked about. I, I did. understand that, you know, there are a lot of things that, uh, that I don't think I would agree with, you know, in a, in a philosophical manner or even a political manner, but I mean, I served under a Republican president and a Democratic president. So, uh, you know, you couldn't have had two different ends of the spectrum, but, you know, all in all, um, I feel that, uh, I feel that,

you know, we were looking out for the best interest of the, of the country and, and that we were doing the job that we were that we were told to do. And I think we did it with honor. And, you know, I got to see the world. I, you know, I got to see 22 different countries in four years. And I don't think I ever would have been able to do that had I not, yeah. Had I not joined the Marine Corps, I don't think I never, I ever would have been able to travel that much. So, um, Japan was was, was really awesome. That was actually my favorite deployment. We deployed to Okinawa Japan. Okinawa is a tropical island, so it's absolutely beautiful there. A lot of history, and I love history. I like, I just kind of like the whole, you know, it kind of seems,

seeing, you know, where this world has been. And, you know, I think it gives you a little bit more perspective on things that are going on right now, and it gives you a little more perspective and hope for the future. So Japan was probably one of those places that I enjoyed most. The temples, I did end up going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and seeing Ground Zero and seeing the memorials that they have set up there. And it's humbling. It's very humbling.

But I inadvertently did some things that I don't think I did. should have done. And there are temples there in Japan that you shouldn't take any kind of photography and you shouldn't take any pictures of. And, you know, you don't get a great overview of the Japanese language when you're given your liberty briefing. They tell you, you know, hey, if there's a sign that says no Americans loud, follow the sign. It's because they don't speak any English. It's not because they wouldn't disrespect you. It's just that they literally do not speak any English and they will not understand what you want. So, you know, respect their wishes and you just don't go in. But as far as temples are concerned, there's all kinds of signs, and they're all in

Japanese. And, you know, when you walk into a temple and you see a mat by the door there, you know that you should take your shoes off. So, you know, that's what I did. But I think taking some pictures in places that I shouldn't have. I think I just invited some very negative things. Man, I had nightmares. I can remember there was a, there's, I don't remember what it's called, but there's a forest in Japan that is sort of a magnet for suicides. And there's also a shrine that's pretty near there.

We were a couple of buddies and I were on Liberty and we were going to go on a tour of this forest and we just all had this really bad feeling about it and decided not to. So we went to this temple instead and it was a shrine temple, whatever you want to call it. And it was just really beautiful. I mean, it really was beautiful. It's very simple. The artwork was really, really beautiful. But it just didn't seem all that. It just had a very negative, very negative vibe to it.

And I had, and all of us had some really, really messed up dreams after this. I had this dream about this old woman. And she was just, she was, she was very angry and it seemed like she was trying to manipulate me into coming with her. And she kept telling me that she had my son. I've got your boy. I've got your boy with me. And you have to come with me. I've got your boy.

And, you know, I can remember, you know, waking up and making a phone call, the middle of the night in Japan, I made a phone call back here to the States to my now ex, but to my wife back then, I was like, hey, is Gage all right? Is he doing okay? And she's like, yeah, she's fine. It's middle afternoon, you know, here. And so, yeah, he's, he's, he's. perfectly fine. Everything's good.

But it just had me terrified. And the next night was more insistent. The next night more insistent. And finally, I ended up going to the chaplain about it. I sat down as like Jack. I said, this is what's going on man. And he was a great

guy. Absolutely, you know, one of those naval officers that I'll always remember. But you know, Chap Tillman looked at me and he's like, hey, he's like, this is what I want you to do. I want you I want you to go back and I really want you to just pray. Pray over your room, pray over your bed, pray over your pillow, you know, make physical contact with it and just, you know, lay hands on and pray.

And I grew up Catholic, so that was out of my comfort zone. That was very much out of my comfort zone. But after that moment, and I actually, you know, trusted him and I did the things they had said and those dreams stopped, I think that was, you know, now that it looked back on it, it was probably one of those moments where God was heavily involved in it and kind of used that to sort of, you know, draw me in a little closer to him. Because I started going to church pretty regularly after that, you know, whenever we weren't in the field, I would go to services. Things ultimately broke down pretty hard with my wife, ended up in divorce.

Um, but, you know, it, it seemed like through those times, that was when I, I started to kind of ground my faith. Um, I, I, it's kind of, you know, I mean, the whole divorce thing was, was horrible. Catholic church is just not the place to, to, uh, to, to, to think that you're going to get a, a, a warm reception after you, you know, divorce your wife. So I just kind of got soured on that and decided that I was going to, that God didn't belong in, that the Catholic Church didn't have a corner on the market of salvation. So I decided I was going to start going to church. I went and talked to this guy. It was a Marine legend. His name is Lieutenant Colonel James Coffey. The guy was, I don't know if you ever heard of The Walking Dead.

Have you had any? Okay. So First Battalion, Ninth Marines, they were sort of the loosely, what happened to that unit was sort of loosely what Apocalypse now was made, you know, around. But he went in with the battalion. He was a lieutenant at that time. He went in with the battalion of Marines. He was a staunch atheist. This guy was a staunch atheist.

atheist. But one nine got trapped behind enemy lines without resupply for quite a long time, no communication. They were cut off. And he said that, you know, the Senator Colonel's coffee, just, you know, he put it this way. He said, you know, he says, I went in there with a firm grasp on the fact that God did not exist. He says, I walked out of that jungle, knowing that Jesus Christ was real and knowing that that he had a plan for my life. So after sitting down and talking to this guy, you know, for a couple hours, he just looked at me. He said, you know, he says, I really think that you've had some really bad things going on in your life. He says, even from a child, from childhood, you've had some really negative things surrounding you.

He said, things are going to go pretty rough for you until you realize that, that, God's got a plan for you and you better get in line with that plan or else things are going to keep going to wrong because, you know, his hedge of protection isn't going to, isn't going to cover you if you're, if you're not in line with, with, you know, what he's, what he's got planned. So it just, I don't know, one of those conversations that you always, that you'll remember. And he was, that was the reason why I decided I was going to start taking those courses. It was, you know, back then we didn't really have a whole heck of a lot of education. opportunities on base. It was mostly the Christian colleges had had satellite campuses because, you know, they wanted to, it was kind of a dual ministry. They would have people there for services and to run services along with the military chaplains. And they would also be able to provide

some educational opportunities for Marines and sailors that were stationed on those posts. So that was what I was able to do. I was able to take classes. and how I got my degree. And, you know, I mean, it was just, it really was a huge blessing to me, actually. I was able to go ahead and do that. And it also, you know, it provided means for a career later on because I became a drug and alcohol counselor. And that education really helped me to not have to take some of those courses over again. so um but you know i mean those um like the time after i i mean pretty much shortly after that i

graduated um uh i had probably seven or eight months left in the marine corps uh i was divorced at that point um i moved back home after i got out i moved right back into that same house that same house I'd had a lot of problems with. And, man, I'll tell you what, those problems just still persisted. That thing upstairs was still there. And it was probably more frequent. It was probably twice, three times a week that I would see this thing as a grown man. It didn't, I don't know, it didn't frighten me as much simply because I think I kind of recognized it.

And I think by that time, I knew that. that, I don't know, I just, I kind of had this, the, the, the knowledge that, you know, that my faith was stronger than this, than this thing. If that makes any sense, I don't, it, in my head, it makes complete sense. I mean, my faith was stronger than, than this, than this being, wherever this was. So, I move into this, into the same house. I start coaching high school football and wrestling, and I am finishing up classes so that I can, you know, have my certification. And I would have, it was, it was a small private school in northern Indiana.

I would host the offense, you know, every, I don't know, I would say probably twice a month for just a, a sleepover. I would get pizzas. I would rent movies. We would spend probably an hour or so. We would probably spend an hour or so going over the, you know, the playbook, you know, talking about scouting reports, things like that for other, you know, teams that were coming up. And then we would just have fun. I would let the kids be kids, you know, goof off play video games, you know, watch movies, eat pizza and, you know, throw a football around in the backyard. It was, you know, it was, you know, good fun. And I would have kids every single week that would come up to me and tell me that the TV

was turning off on its own. I had one kid tell me that he wanted me to call his mom because he had, he had wandered off into one of the side bedrooms and threw a sleeping bag on the floor. And he said that there were two people standing in the room. talking about what was going on in the house, talking about the, the, the, all these, all these kids that were in the house and, um, they didn't, they didn't understand why they were there, but, you know, he's, he's freaked out. So I mean, I called his mom and, you know, it's, it's funny because I'll see these, I'll see these guys, you know, every now and again, and they're all adults.

And if anybody had a weird experience in the house, they always mention it every time we run into each other and like, like, hey, coach, you know. Man, you remember that time when? And like, yeah, I did. I remember I called you, had to call your mom. So it was, you know, it was just, you know, things like that. It was, it didn't seem to be overly negative, but man, you knew they were there. You just, you really knew that it was there.

I never let any of the kids stay upstairs. I didn't, I didn't want, I even, you know, as I was a parent, raising my kids in that house, I never put my kids' bedrooms upstairs, never once. I just didn't want them to have to deal with the same stuff that I went through. My bedroom, of course, was upstairs, and, man, I'll tell you, it was, it was, the only other person that had any experience with that thing was my ex-wife, and, man, she was, she was terrified. she would not she

whewf man I was I was out of town and it was my weekend to have the boys and she just

she stayed at the house with the boys until I got home at like three in the morning and she was outside she was outside on the front porch

waiting for me to get home she said she wasn't going back in there apparently she had had some kind of experience where she slammed the door on that thing she slammed my bedroom door on it and the door just she said in her words she thought it was going to come off the hinges it was just pounding so hard on that door repeatedly over and over and over again and then all of a sudden just stopped now she is not one I mean we really didn't have a great relationship post-marriage, our divorce was pretty rough. She would have no reason to lie to me, or she'd have no reason to make something like that up. So I take her at her word. Although I've

never had that kind of experience, but I never tried to slam a door on it either. So, you know, the only thing I did was I would wait for it to go into the attic. And, you know, after it was in there for a little while and I felt like the the I guess the coast was clear so to speak you know no no smell no cold I would go and I would I would close that door but um man it just it was it was one of those things where I I can't you can't explain it there's no I don't know any rational explanation of it but uh yeah that that that was completely completely um you know one of those those situations where somebody else confirms something that, you know, has happened to you, and it just sort of makes it all the more real.

But, yeah, so other people had had some experiences in that house as athletes and into my ex. And, you know, come to find out, as I was moving my mom out of that house, you know, I moved out of the house, you know, moved into an apartment. And, you know, my mom was moving out of that house. It was just, it was too much. It was six bedrooms. You know, my aunt had passed away. You know, my uncle had passed away.

There was nobody there but her. So it was just too much. It was just too much house. So we were moving her into an apartment. And she told me that there was so much activity going on that she couldn't deny it anymore. So we sat down and had a, had a talk over a cup of coffee and she told me that she was hearing things moving around. She would go upstairs and she would pack boxes.

And, you know, she had a card table set up because she had, you know, she wasn't, you know, she's older. So she set up a card table upstairs for her and she would pack boxes on this card table while sitting in a chair. And then, you know, she would do a little bit at a time, you know, as, you know, where she had energy. So she said. said she would go back upstairs and she would find things that she absolutely positively knew that she had packed unwrapped and sitting on that table and at that point um you know she's

sitting there she's you know in tears she doesn't know what to do and i i start telling her all the things that happened to me up there and she finally she goes you know she says i i knew that there was something but i didn't want to admit that it wasn't something that had, you know, that was one of our relatives. She was, I didn't want to admit that there was something there that wasn't one of us that was looking out for us. You know, she wanted to believe that it was something that was, that any activity in the house was something positive. Sure. And, you know, man, she found things that were of great sentimental value to her broken. And she knew that they were not, that they were in safe places,

that they were packed away nicely. And, you know, she found quite a few things like that. You know, when I say quite a few, I mean, to her, that would, five, five or six was a lot to her. Because there were things that, you know, her parents died when she was very young. Her mom died when she was 12. Her dad died when she was like eight months old. So, I mean, I never knew my grandparents at all. And these were things that had belonged to them.

So it was, it was very, it was very, it was. It was unsettling to her. So we ended up getting out of that house very quickly. Actually, I sold that house for way under what it was worth just to get out from under it. We wanted to get away from the house, get and let somebody else deal with the issues. And consequently, I will say this. About three weeks ago, I got a phone call, and it was from the real estate agent that we had dealt with. She actually became a good friend of ours.

she told us she goes she goes hey she says i don't know you know if this means anything to you or not she goes but they can't get anybody to rent that house for longer than three or four months at a time so i was like yeah i said you know that doesn't surprise me a bit not even a little bit but they have had a problem for the last you know three years where they can't i mean they've renovated the whole house i mean everything was was all redone and and and and basically modernized. And man, I tell you, I don't think I would have wanted to be in that house during any kind of construction.

That would not, I don't think that would have gone well. So, I mean, they even, they removed walls. It was, because there were, there were some bedrooms that were pretty small. But, man, I, Tony, I'll tell you, I don't think you could have paid me enough money to stay in that house during your construction. Yeah, I mean, that's what usually happens. happens, right? I mean, when places are haunted and they have activity and people go in and they start renovating, a lot of crap happens. Yeah. Yeah. I, like I said, couldn't pay me enough money.

But, yeah, I was living in an apartment and I had finished up my certifications and everything. And I was working in the addiction recovery business, which, man, I really loved it. I, my kind of first, you know, glimpse into that was my ex. She had a drug problem. That was a closet drug problem. And I didn't understand it. I didn't know. I had no idea how to help her.

I didn't know even what she was going through. So, you know, it really helped me to understand. Now, it didn't make anything better between us, but it did make things more easy for me to understand and to comprehend and to be. have a little more grace for her, I think. But I was working in a rehab center that was right next door to a funeral home in crematorium. It had train tracks running right behind it.

I mean, immediately behind the property. The building itself was built as a geriatric hospital. and then it was used as a sanatorium where, you know, during the tuberculosis outbreak, they had tuberculosis patients there. So the property was pretty old. And even though it was a, it was a good-sized building, we had a men's dorm and we had a women's dorm and there were common areas, of course, that were in between. we had a in like the whole basement um was a huge gym um weight room gym you know set up um and of course there was the the ramp that had to come down to the basement because of you know that was where they they would take bodies out and and that so um they had these big doors and a

a ramp that that was fenced off at the time but you could see that the drive went to the road so it went straight out to the road and I met somebody I've met one of the most interesting people I think I've ever met while working there she was she was my immediate boss and man she was she was an air force vet she was an older lady and she was just as hard as nails. Absolutely as hard as nails. This woman just she, she didn't take any, any, guff off anybody. And she had one of the biggest hearts you'll ever see in a human being. But she didn't take any crap, man. And there was a, I don't know, there was a point in time or she just looked at me one night, and she, you know, because I was working overnights in the building,

and, you know, she was there up until probably, you know, nine or ten o'clock at night, and I would start at seven. And she always stayed later. But, um,

she looked me and she says, Jeff, she said, do you, I don't know, this is going to sound like really off the wall, but do you believe in ghosts? And I just kind of looked at her and I said,

well, I guess, why do you, why do you ask? She's, well, I want you to look at this. And she pulls up some of our C.

CCTV feeds and some recorded, some of the recordings of different camera angles that we have in the common area of the girls dorm. And I'm not kidding you, there was a full body apparition that appeared in the middle of the room and moved towards one of the girls' rooms, stopped, and then went back into the middle of the room, and then just was gone. she she saw this and she's like i don't know what to make of this i have absolutely no idea what's make of this so she starts doing a lot of research on it and a couple months later she is full-blown got herself a ghost hunting kit and she's she's sitting in in you know some of the

the rooms down in the the lower floors of the facility and she's doing evp session and getting EVPs. You know, she was, she went and bought, she bought some high-tech equipment. She purchased some really high-end stuff because she was getting a lot of things that she couldn't explain on her cell phone or things that she had picked up from Walmart,

you know, just digital recorders. So she, you know, invested in some really good stuff. And, man, it was really interesting. You know, she saw these, you know, she had some of the stuff captured on video. She had some of the stuff captured in still photography. She had EVPs. And the director, I'll never forget, Dr. came in and told her that she had to destroy all of that

because it violated somehow violated HIPAA regulations. Because she was taking pictures of inside of a facility. that she could, you know, she possibly could have caught, you know, a, you know, I don't know, an image of one of the residents that were there because of, you know, I mean, it's a, it is a drug rehabilitation. There, we did have, we had a couple of very famous people come through, you know, and, and it's anonymity is huge, you know, they, most of the people there, I don't think we had, but maybe one or two people that went through the program.

that were from, you know, in the state. Most were from the coast. They were either from the west coast or the east coast and they would come to the middle of the country and, you know, they do their rehab and, you know, move on with their life. But, you know, it just, it was really one of those things where, and I personally experienced a lot of things in that, in that building, you know, hearing voices. In the cafeteria, you know, I'd be walking through just, kind of, you know, there's not much to do as a counselor at night. So, you know, if somebody's up and they're in the detox wards, you know, I would go up and talk to them and things like that. And the detox area was really where a lot of the activity would happen. And, you know, you can,

there's a lot of theories behind that. I mean, a lot of fellow counselors would tell you that, you know, there's a lot of negative energy there. There's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, people who are, a lot of young people who are dealing with a lot of very painful things and their bodies are going through a lot of pain and, you know, that they can project a lot of things, you know, almost a, I don't know, a poltergeist type activity. You know, you have 17, 18 people that are going through a withdrawal situation all at once and all in the same place. Weird things are going to happen. You know, that's the overall consensus. But, man, it doesn't make it any less strange and it doesn't make it any less, you know,

frightening when you're walking down a hallway and you hear your name, you know, called from a room that's empty. And, you know, you stop and, like I said, I can take care of myself. I'm not a small guy. And, you know, people have been known to get violent, you know, in places like that. You know, there have been, I think that's, you know, some of the reasons why I was one of the people that were chosen to work overnight is because, you know, if there were any, any issues that, you know, there'd be somebody there that could at least handle themselves, you know, and not

harm the resident at the same time as not allowing the resident to harm anybody else. So, you know, that's been, those things are, you know, they're always going on. And I mean, I've got people that, friends that still work at that facility. I've left. I've actually, I'm in nursing school now, and I worked at a couple of hospitals and assisted care facilities, long-term care facilities, and those are really, it's weird. You know, I mean, hospitals and care facilities, you would think, yeah, there's going to be a lot of, there's a lot of death that happens there, but man, there's a heck of a lot of life that goes on there, too, you know, hospitals, babies being born, things like that, I think that,

I mean, I've probably seen probably, I don't know, five or six deaths that were, that were just horrible, you know, in the ER and things like that. And I don't think anything that happened in those situations is even remotely as frightening as, you know, hearing a disembodied voice. I don't know I don't know my rationale is that man if I can see it and you're it's right in front of me I'm doing everything I can to help

you know keep this person alive the nurses and the doctors are all working and you know there's I don't think there's there's very little time to think about you know anything else but your job

but when you're you know kind of walking down a hallway and there's nobody there. And you hear clear as day your name called or, or, you know, a full sentence spoken. And there's nobody in that room. It scares the crap out of you. For sure. Absolutely.

I mean, if I had something saying my name, like imagine something like just saying your name and your ear just like, Tony. Like that's terrifying. Man. And, you know, that ruins your whole night, man. That just wrecks your whole night because now you're thinking about that. And, you know, you've got the rest of your shift to work. And now you've got, I don't know, Casper that's following you around that wants to have a conversation with you. Yeah, but you don't know if it's Casper or not.

You know, it may not be so friendly. Yeah, it may not be. But, you know, it's those type of things. God, one thing that happened pretty recently, man, I was at a hospital and I was going in to interview for a, you know, for a, I've got to interview for clinicals a lot of times just to kind of, you know, get my foot in the door. I mean, interview for positions to get my foot in the door so that I'll have clinical opportunities in the future and internship opportunities in the future. So I went in and this is a really old hospital and it's in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. And they converted one of the parts of this hospital into a, it's now they use it for rehab, for rehabilitation, physical rehabilitation.

Like one of them is a hand clinic and the other one is for, occupational therapists to come in and work with patients. So I was walking down there and there's this long carpeted ramp and it was just, it was a really cool building. I didn't look like probably from the, you know, 30s or 40s. And the inside was very much modern, but the outside was not. And they had kept it very historical looking. But I'm walking down this hallway and I turn on to the,

this, you know, carpeted, long carpeted ramp. And I see this, this woman that's walking in front of me. And she's very attractive. I noticed that, you know, she was an attractive woman. And she was in a nurse's outfit that looked like it was from the 50s. Okay, like with the hat on, the little white, you know, cape jacket, the skirt. And I noticed, and I even noticed what really made me, me just, what really caught my eye was the fact that her black leather shoes were spit shined to perfection.

And if you're a Marine, man, you notice that. That's something that takes, that took a lot of time and technique to learn how to spit shine a pair of leather shoes. So I was going to comment. I was going to comment on her, a complimenter. So she goes into what looks like, she turned this corner and the door to the clinic that I'm going into, is closing. I grab the door and I open it up and I walk in and there's the reception desk and there's nobody else there except for the receptionist and a couple of patients that are sitting in these chairs. I looked around. I stepped back outside and I looked down the hallway and she's nowhere to be found. So I walked back in and I asked the nurse. I said, hey, where did that, where did the young

lady go that that was in the uh the nurses costume the the old-fashioned nurses costume and she's kind of gave me this blank stare and i was like you do know how i'm talking about right she says no honey i don't know what you're talking about i said well did she just walked into this office she goes the door swung open and then closed and i thought and then you walked in she says i thought maybe you had the wrong door. And I mean, my jaw just dropped. I couldn't, you know, it's one of those things where you just, you get this cold, chill up your spine, and you just realize that you've seen something and you know you've seen

something that is not there. And, man, it was just, it was one of those, God, you know, just tack that on to the, to the, you know, the weirdness. But, you know, and I know that, you know, nurses and, you know, nurses and, you know, And, you know, AIDS like myself and, you know, students, we are typically on night shifts because it's just better, it's better for class schedules for you to be, you know, free and available during the days. So I'm in, I'm in these places a lot at night. And I've seen, I've seen Shadow Men going into rooms and then, you know, within eight hours after that. you know, the person, the patient dies.

It's weird. You know, and talking to, talking to patients in their last stages, you know, when they're, when they're getting ready to get to pass, I consider that to be one of the greatest honors that I have, you know, in the healthcare profession. I really do believe that that is, that's an honor to me to be able to be with those people and to kind of hold their hand through it and help them to understand that we're going to make them as comfortable as we possibly can and that it's not something that they have to fear. But, you know, there are times where, man, they are just, they're talking to people that are not there.

They're telling, I've had one patient tell me that my aunt wanted to tell me, hello. And that kind of hit me because, and I, you know, I didn't think about it much. And then she started talking about Barbara. You know, about 25 minutes later, she starts talking about Barbara. She says, Barbara, I never knew you, but you seem like a very fun person. And she's, she's going on and on and on. And my aunt's name was Barbara.

And, you know, you can't keep thinking that these things are just, coincidence. You know, it's, it, this woman, you know, she's telling, she's talking out loud to somebody that isn't there and she's using, you know, my aunt's name. And then she, you know, you know, had 20 minutes earlier, it tells me that my aunt wants to tell me hello. And, you know, here, here I'm in there, you know, kind of basically just, I don't know, for lack of a better term, just being her sitter at that point in time, you know,

just making sure that she's not pulling out IVs and that, you know, that she's, that she's comfortable and, you know, in her last, last hours, you know. Sure. But, but, man, it's, it's, I think that there are, there's some, some cool aspects to, to all this. And I really, like I said, I'd hidden all of this for a lot of years. I just kept it, I kept it to myself. I didn't quite know what to, to make of all of it. And I think I got to the point where I was old enough where I didn't really care what people thought about me with their opinions weren't my primary concern.

And I started to look things up. I started to look up, well, you know, has anybody else had some of these experiences? Has anybody else seen this thing? What could it possibly be? That mass, that black, man, evil. It's just, you could just feel the anger and the hatred and that coming off. of that thing that I've dealt with as a kid. And I found that there are other people that describe almost the same thing.

And, you know, it just, it kind of was a little bit, I don't know, it gave me a little validation made me think it wasn't crazy and that maybe, maybe me talking about it would give someone that same kind of validation that I got from it. yeah absolutely i mean that's exactly why we do the show right i mean to share people's stories i mean yeah it's good for you to talk about it and get it off your chest and it's good for people to listen to for even just entertainment values sake but uh the idea of you sharing your story and giving somebody else either peace of mind or confidence to come forward and start talking about things that they thought they were going crazy about i mean that's a huge deal yeah it really is man um yeah i i

I really, I don't know. I kind of gone through from, you know, things happened to me as a kid all the way through to as an adult. And now that I voice it, it just seems, man, it really, it does seem like there's just a lot of stuff, man. It just, when I was getting things together and just sort of organizing my thoughts and putting things on paper, I kept second-guessing myself. Like, do I really want to say that? Do I really want to admit that that happened? Because, man, it just makes you sound like a lunatic sometimes.

I don't know. You know, I've got, since I have started looking into things and I've reached out to a couple of friends that, you know, that experience some of these things as well. in that house. I've talked to relatives, and I've got a cousin who is far older than I am, but used to stay in that house a lot. He refused. Once he hit like 12 years old, he refused to go there.

He absolutely refused to. He said that he kept getting scratched is what he would always say. He would say that he goes, he told me, he said, man, he said, every time I slept in that bedroom and that was where I was, my bedroom. he said every time I slept in there he was I would I would have these huge scratch marks down the backs of my legs he said my mom would always yell at me because you know she would think that I was you know being reckless on my bike or something she he said that he just would always have some sort of physical mark every time he stayed over at that house so you know there there's a lot more I think that that had been going on there than anybody was willing to talk about and um I can't help but think that there was some connection between all of those, all those bodies. There were so many of them, Tony. It was like, I'm telling you, there was 55 or 60 pictures.

And I'm sure that there were more that weren't in that book. And, I mean, I hesitate to think that, you know, that those are, you know, the spirits of actual human beings that are trapped here. Because, you know, I don't know if that, I don't know. I, you know, we're always taught, especially, you know, if you are a Bible-believing Christian, you believe very straightforward about heaven and hell. And I think that admitting that there are things that you can't explain, truly, truly makes you question your belief system.

And I mean, I understand it. There were a few papers that I wrote, you know, I understand that, you know, ghosts are mentioned in the Bible, spirits are mentioned in the Bible, as well as witchcraft is mentioned in the Bible. There's so many things. There's a reason why, you know, the Israelites were told to stay away from certain nations because, you know, their ways were not of God. And I mean, I get that.

But that doesn't mean that those things don't exist today. And that those practices aren't impacting the world around us today, you know? You know, it's one of those things where, you know, like you said, it doesn't mean it's not happening today. And the way I look at it is, you know, if it made its way into the Bible, it's probably because it's meant for, it's meant to be read by people. you know, 2,000 years later. And the reason why the Bible and God in the Bible demands that people don't do certain things, it's not because it's not possible. It's because it's very possible, but it's not good for us. And, you know, I always use the reference of 1st Samuel chapter 28, where Saul goes to the witch of Endor. And when you read it, it says that the witch summoned

that's dead spirit or the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel. It doesn't say that he talked to a demon or it was all made up. He had a conversation with Samuel and that's a prophet of God. So like clearly there are certain things that are possible. And like you said earlier, just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it's not happening. Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable. to admit that something has happened in your life or is happening in your life because it doesn't truly line up to what you feel you believe,

theologically speaking, doesn't mean it's not real. Sometimes it means that we just need to adjust our lenses and say, it's happening. I don't understand how it's happening, but it is happening. And I may never get an answer to it as to why it's happening. But one thing's for sure, this is happening. You know what I mean? That's right.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I, you know, man, I can, you know, today I was talking to my, I've got a little girl, a little daughter. And she's, she's 10. And, you know, she is, she's at that point where she was really super curious about some things that my mom had said in the past, you know, and, you know, she was around. and she remembers my mom being upset about, you know, things that were going on in the house when we were moving her out. You know, she remembers those things. So, you know, she asked me a question the other day. She's like, Dad, she's, do you think that if I have a guardian angel or if there are angels that are our guardians,

she says, don't you think that God puts in there to guard us against specific things? She goes, like the fallen angels and the demons that the Bible talks about. Like, well, that's a pretty intelligent question. I mean, it just kind of, God doesn't do things for no good reason. And, you know, if we do have angels that guard us, and if we do have angels that are, I mean, I'm not saying that we each have an individual guardian angel. I don't quite think that that's how it works. But I mean, it's set very, you know, there are, you know, scriptural references where angels, you know,

come to the aid of humanity. And, man, you know, they're guarding us against something that is, you know, out to destroy and out to shake our faith and to, you know, make us question. So, you know, it kind of, I don't know, when you have your 10-year-old, that looks at you and, you know, it says something like that. And I'll tell you this, though, if my little girl tells me that, you know, something is happening to her at night, I'm going to be more inclined to believe her, you know. Yeah. I may not, I may not admit, yeah, hey, you know, this, that's probably, that's probably a monster underneath your bed. but, you know, I think there's better ways to communicate it. Right. Right. I wouldn't, I don't think I'm going to say something like that. But I mean,

I'll definitely give it some credence and I will, you know, be, I think I'll be as supportive as I would want, I would have wanted at that age, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you could just hold her hand and walk through it with her, you know, be like, Daddy believes you. And, uh, I'm going to do the best I can to help you and let's, you know, study this together and try to understand what's going on. And we may not understand at the end of the day. And that's going to be okay because I'm here with you, you know, you being a Bible guy and stuff. I mean, there's, if you just read the book itself, you know, the book that Christians, you know, quote unquote, say they believe in, right? There's a lot of things in there that are weird. And we don't, to this day, understand how it is

possible or outside of God possible. But it says it in there and people say they believe that what the Bible says is true. And so you got things like talking donkings where dudes are like a dude is arguing with his donkey. Like the donkey is arguing with the dude and nobody thinks this is weird. Yet when you come forward and you say, I've had paranormal experiences happen in my house, your average American Christian would be like, oh, come on. You know? It's like, do you really believe the Bible that you say you believe? Because when you read it, it's really weird. You know what I mean?

I mean, there's a lot. Yeah. I mean, just reading. And we're not even talking about, you know, Revelation yet. It's not even, we're not even, you know, talking about the symbolism in revelation or whether, you know, I mean, there are Christians that believe that that is, you know, word for word, what is going to happen in actuality. They don't believe the symbolism aspect of it.

you know, if you take all that in consideration, we're talking about dragons and, you know, creatures that are just beyond horror. And I think that, and, you know, that goes back down to, you know, talk. I have mentioned, you know, this in passing to a couple of people in my church. And, I mean, I've worked in youth ministry for some years. And you kids come up with questions, especially around Halloween, especially around Halloween. They come up with questions that are so to the point, but they have huge answers. And I mean, man, you know, there's there are no simple answers to it. There's no simple way of quitting it.

And I think that the more that you study and the more that you, the more that you study and the more that you learn about scripture and the more that you learn about God's relationship to humanity and you know how God operates the answers get even bigger so

trying to help a child understand you know things and then you have the parents like you said that would just completely dismiss any of it I'm sorry but you know My parents didn't allow me to watch horror movies. You know, that wasn't something that they would have given me permission to at 10 and 11 years old.

But, I mean, if you don't think that your kids are going over to their buddy's house and watching The Exorcist or, you know, all these other movies, you know, I mean, The Conjuring, whatever, then you're, you've got your head in the sand. You know, kids are curious and they're gunned, you know, and it's the thrill of being scared, I think, you know. There's a lot of curiosity that comes out of life in your early ages as a kid. And as the parent, as an adult in the room, for me, it's personally, this is how I view it. It's to teach them it's okay to be curious about the world. You want to be curious about the world. You want to pursue life and try to understand the weird details of life. But in that process, you have to keep an open mind and at the end of the day, be okay with being wrong.

because that's how you're going to learn. Right, right. I absolutely think that is correct, man. I can't tell you how much this, how this feels to be able to kind of speak this out loud, you know, this whole, this whole situation has been something that I've, like, I don't know, I've, I just kept it hidden, man. It was, it was a matter of embarrassment, I think, so for so long that I got used. used to it being there. You know, I got used to tucking it away. And, you know, especially those

things that happened as I got older. Because, you know, as you get older, you're supposed to be more mature and you're supposed to be able to handle things a little bit easier. And I'll tell you what, I did not handle those dreams very well when I was in Japan. And I think that they definitely had something to do with the site that I was at. I think that, I think I just, you know, unwittingly did something that I, you know, that I wasn't supposed to do and came in contact to something that I wasn't supposed to be in contact with. So. Yeah, well, I think that's the course of life at times, you know, we go through life and we mess up. We do stupid things that, you know, we pay for later on, whether it's physically or spiritually or, you know, whatever. And, you know, it's just

literally the process of life. That's the way I look at. I really keep a very laid-back approach as to how life goes for me. I mean, it's life. I can't predict it. I do my best and we roll with the punches. And for the next generation, we keep bringing it back to kids, but for the next generation of kids, I think one of the most important lessons we can teach our children is to be flexible in life. And that's with everything politically, societally, where the world's going. And even, you know, with the paranormal things, if you can successfully teach your children to just be a flexible person, know what you believe and there's certain things you don't waver on, but in general, just be a flexible person willing to bend and maneuver through life and not be so stuck in your ways.

That is going to be huge for the future generations because we've never experienced a world like we experience now. It's only going to get faster and it's only going to get harder to navigate through it. Information is so fast moving and so much more out there than it was when we were younger. Our children are going to have a much, much harder time navigating through this world if they don't remain flexible, you know? Absolutely. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more with that. I mean, you know, the, just the mass amount of information that's available to us right now. And it's only getting, it's only getting more available. It's not like we're pulling back on any of this. You know, I mean,

you could go into the conversation of AI and everything else. And, you know, there's, that integration, I think is going to be very real for future generations. And I think that's going to create some opportunities. But at the same time, I think it's going to, man, you can't help but look at it and say that it almost removes the need for God. And I hate even saying it. But the technology, the more technology advances, the more human being is sort of see themselves in that God role.

And, you know, I think that it's, that's a huge mistake. You can't, I don't think there's, there's a way that you can make a bigger mistake. You know, I've got a degree. And, you know, people ask me, well, you know, what'd you learn? You know, what'd you learn in, you know, gaining that degree? And I said, well, I learned a couple of things. I learned that there is definitely a God. and I'm not him.

And, you know, from there, you know, it's just you have to have, you know, your faith is, is a, a relationship between you and God. And that's, it's pretty much, you know, pretty much how you have to deal with life, you know. It's all about the relationship. And I think that when we add that technology in that sort of, of, I don't know, maybe, you know, tries to take the place of that relationship is where, you know, it's kind of where we go, where we kind of, you know, fall off the path. Well, I mean, if God is who he says he is, then people need to stop worrying so much about

the AI factor and how it integrates into the future. Because if God is omnipotent and all-powerful and all-knowing, then things happen his timeline, whether you like it or not. And so if you don't think that the integration of AI is a good thing for society and you think that God looks down on it, well, if it's happening, it's happening because God's allowing it. And that's where people kind of get, you know, caught up with, you know, really walking out that faith they have in God. And, you know, it's just one of those things where, like I said before, I'm very laid back about my life and how things unfold. I'm very laid back.

about it. And it's just like, I don't really worry. I'm very interested about a lot of things. I do get worked up about some things. But at the end of the day, it's just like, whatever. Like, it's out of my control, you know? And so it's like, you know, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. And I'm just going to roll with the punches and see where this goes. And, you know, maybe, who knows? Maybe it's going to be fun in the process. I don't know, dude. I was, I was young when the Terminator came out, man. that was you know that was that was that was something I saw in the theater that was that was real for me so

you know all the sky net and everything else man it just I don't know you get 80s kids and I think that we have a different we have a different mindset I mean we we grew up

thinking that by the time we were old you know there would be flying cars and you know we grew up thinking that technology was going to advance far faster than it has, and now we're all kind of stressing out about how technology is advancing. So, I mean, it's weird, dude. It's kind of one of those things where you sit back and, you know, you've got to wonder, you know, where our heads are collectively sometimes. Yeah, I mean, but we are really far advanced in technology now. And we're, it's only a matter of time. And we have predictive programming now.

they're talking about implementing that into law enforcement. There are some law enforcement's agencies that I don't think in this country, but I'm pretty sure it's Canada, that they actually use big data to predict crime. And even my full-time day job, I'm a truck driver by day, and my own company uses big data to predict who's going to have the net, who's most likely to have another accident. And just like a year ago, I was, my son was, or no, it was maybe two years ago. I don't remember. I remember my son was just a little baby. He was really not sleeping well. And we had a cat that was really sick. And it was a Friday. I remember I didn't sleep a whole lot. The son was, my son was really a handful. We were dealing some

things there. And then that Friday, my wife had to take the one cat and put him down after we've had him for, you know, years. And it was a rainy day. I was in an area that I wasn't familiar with. They took me out of my territory that I normally run. I was in North Philly. I'm backing into this junkyard looking thing with my tractor trailer. I can barely see in my mirrors, rain pounding on my mirrors, and I catch a metal pipe that's sticking out of the back of a pickup truck. And I just caught it a little bit and scratched my trailer.

It didn't even bend the pipe, didn't damage anything, but I reported it. And my boss pulls me in the office next week and he said, hey, I just want to let you know that I was going to actually pull you into the office and let you just kind of talk with you and see how you're doing. doing because your name came up as somebody who might be likely to have an accident soon. And I did. That's crazy. Wow. It is. So we're here. We're there. Technology is advancing. Trust me. I fell victim of it. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, I moved, I just recently moved my family, we are actually just, you know, me and the kids went ahead. We moved out to a small farm,

man. And I'm really enjoying how life is slowing down. And I mean, I've got, I've got, let's see, like eight acres of woods and another 10 acres of pasture. And then there's a couple acres in the side yard and the, you know, acre in front of the house. And I mean, it's, it's a big problem. It's not huge, but it's a big property. It's bigger than I had. I mean, I'm talking, you know, an old Polish neighborhood, which if you think of like, think of like Chicago. That's sort of like the imprint of what that side of South Bend looks like. You know, the houses are all close together and everything. But, you know, I mean, I've got two horses and I just adopted a blind cow and his seeing eye donkey last week. That sounds like a comedy. It does, man. It's like, but this is life. You know, this is, this is where it's, this is where it's at, man.

My kids love it out here. You know, it's, I love it. You know, I went out, you know, before you called, you know, before the interview. And, you know, I, you know, messed with the horses a little bit, making sure they were okay. Because we had some storms passing through. So, you know, made sure the horses were good. And, you know, of course, I got the blind cow who I've got a kind of lead. So I just grabbed the donkey and, you know, he, you know, she follows the donkey wherever the donkey goes.

So I'm leading the donkey up. And it was like, you know, here I'm, I'm leading the donkey. The donkey's leading the cow. And then there's chicken. And I've also got chickens and ducks. So there's chickens everywhere. And I just thought that I was like, you know, this is actually pretty cool, man. Yeah.

Yeah, that's really cool, man. Being able to slow down life a little bit is always a good thing. Yeah. But, Jeff, I'll tell you what, man. I really do appreciate you coming on the show and just sharing your stories and chopping it up a little bit with me. It was a good time talking to you, man. Thank you. I appreciate it, Tony, man.

I really enjoy the show, and I enjoy the opportunity to be able to get this off my chest. Well, that's the show, everybody. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy it, please share the show with your friends. That's the best thing you can do to help the show grow. Just share, share, share the show. because that gets it in front of other people who will fall in love with it just like you. And until next week, friends, stay safe, take care, and remember the truth will set you free.

But first, they'll piss you off. Bye.