The Confessionals - RELOADED | 454: The Inverted World

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

In Episode 454: The Inverted World, we are joined by Ashleigh from Australia for a two-part overtime episode. Ashleigh has had a life filled with the paranormal and bizarre. From "scribbled men" and the "black doorman" to out-of-body experiences, to what I at first thought was a dogman but now, with new knowledge that I've gained since our recording, I believe could have been a rake entity, for lack of better terminology. With all these things in her life, Ashleigh has been through a lot. Her most intriguing encounter in this first hour is when she slipped into an inverted world that was this world, but different. She describes what she saw and what happened, and her experiences are like talking with someone straight out of a "Stranger Things" episode!Please pray for Tony's wife, Lindsay, as she battles breast cancer. Your prayers make a difference!If you’re able, consider helping the Merkel family with medical expenses by donating to Lindsay’s GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/b8f76890Become a member for ad-free listening, extra shows, and exclusive access to our social media app: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinThe Confessionals Social Network App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZThe Counter Series Available NOW:The Counter (YouTube): WATCH HEREThe Counter (Full Episode): WATCH HERETony's Recommended Reads: slingshotlibrary.comIf you want to learn about Jesus and what it means to be saved: Click HereBigfoot: The Journey To Belief: Stream HereThe Meadow Project: Stream HereMerkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.comMy New YouTube ChannelMerkel IRL: @merkelIRLMy First Sermon: Unseen BattlesSPONSORSSIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsGHOSTBED: GhostBed.com/tonyCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] ADDRESS:Merkel Media257 N. Calderwood St., #301Alcoa, TN 37701SOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theconfessionals/Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelProduced by: @jack_theproducerOUTRO MUSICJoel Thomas - Head In The CloudsYouTube | Apple Music | Spotify

Merkel Media I guess it's time to go back in time Are you telling me you built a time machine kind of a Dolion 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. Beech 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 up this giant. With a giant moves, 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 him in the face. Shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated.

Pursons got closer, got sparsum, when he got about 15 yards away low his head on. Something pulling at my leg. And I look over and there are two small gray entities pulling it. And they're literally, I'm getting pulled off the bed. I reached my hand into this bush and I touch air. Couldn't breathe and I couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster. Okay. Reloaded.

Yeah. Welcome to the show, everybody. You're listening to The Confessionals. I'm your host, Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here. If you've a crazy wild experience, you want 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 it works for me, just get a hold of me. If you want more shows on a weekly basis, go to the Confessionalspodcast. com. Hit the join button and become a member. And as a member, you'll get Thursday's shows on the Confessionalspodcast.com and the castos app that are exclusive for members. you'll get the Tuesday shows ad-free, and you'll get access to overtime episodes for those Tuesday shows that go extra long. And today is one of those days.

Today is an overtime show where we have Ashley coming on the show, and then she's going to be joining us for the overtime. So if you want to get access to that overtime of today's episode, you want to become a member at theconfessionalspodcast.com. See you there. All right, friends. Listen, we have a great, great show coming up for you guys today. That's why it's super long. We have Ashley coming on. She's in Australia, and her and I spent hours.

I'm not talking like two, three hours. I think her and I spent about five hours in the phone total talking about tons of stuff. I mean, tons of stuff. And so today in this first part of the show, we're going to talk about the scribbled men. Now, what is the scribbled man? I don't know what it is. And she just kind of gave it a name. But she goes into that, the black door man.

She talks about out-of-body experiences where she felt floating. But I'm telling you, friends, this show, this first hour is incredible. The second hour is amazing because we go into like the inverted world. That's why I called the show what it's called. She had this weird experience where it almost was like she went into the upside down, kind of from stranger things. Very similar experience in my mind. When she's telling me the experience, that's what I'm picturing.

And I actually do believe it aligns up with a lot of things that I'm working on on the side for that new podcast that I keep teasing about over time. I promise you guys, it is coming. It's going to be awesome when it arrives. Just got to be patient and wait for it because I can't just slap something like this together. It has to be done the right way. And I'm trying to do it the right way, trying to see if people can come in studio, sit down with me and talk with me about their experiences on this whole new phenomenon that I'm

uncovering. So just be patient with that. Anyways, let's get to Ashley and her crazy experiences. I promise you, you're going to love this episode and you're going to love the overtime. Let's get to Ashley right now. All right. Today we got Ashley on the show. Ashley and her SpongeBob Cup. How you doing? Good. Thanks, Tony. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. So for people, maybe if they don't know, I'm sure they know by the accent, you're in Australia. And So I am. Good day, mate. Today's what? I mean, it's now Sunday your time, right? It's what, midnight your time? It's 106 Sunday. So I live in the future. Yeah. So what does Sunday hold for me? Is anything interesting happening yet? So you know, not so far. That's so far pretty

boring. Hey, you know, I was just thinking about this. I was just talking to Lindsay about this, I think earlier this week. When 9-11 happened, was that like 9-12 for you guys? it would have been yeah so sorry we didn't warn you guys in advance yeah it would have been nice for a little bit of a warning there like hey guys just let you know in about 12 hours sorry guys isn't wouldn't that be interesting if it could work like that though i mean it'd be kind of it'd be imagine if we somehow got the memories from you guys and we oh yes yeah better give him a call yeah exactly like yeah we better give them a heads up uh let them know i mean you guys if that if it worked like that i mean you guys would be on the frontier of everything

in the world like you'd be the epi-seller. I know, we'd world wrapped around our fingers. You would. You want the info? Well, it'd be great. All of a sudden, it's like the whole world's focused on Australia in that timeline right there. I mean, would that include China then, too?

I guess China's probably in the same time zone as you guys. I honestly wouldn't know. Yeah. Well, just down over here in Australia, it's just Australia and New Zealand, everywhere else is too far away. I believe it. I believe it. You're like in your own little world down there. But.

Yeah. We have Australian Eastern Standard Time. We've just got a time of our own. Really? Yeah, well, because I was looking up you, you're Eastern Standard Time, and we're Australian Eastern Standard Time. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't know that.

Yeah, when I say Eastern Standard Time, I'm not sure if everybody knows what that means, especially when I'm talking to somebody, like in Australia or something like that. But I've gotten pretty good where people in the UK are five hours ahead of me, people in Hawaii are six hours behind me. So, and if you're in California, Oregon, Washington, you're three hours behind me. So I kind of got it all figured out. I've been doing it long enough, you know, so. But, uh, all right. So today we have you coming on to share a lot of bizarre things that you've had in your life. And by the tone of your email, it seemed like you're, you're kind of, yeah, you want to share these stories, but you're also

like in search of like looking for answers and looking for, you know, have other people had these kind of experiences and things like that because you mentioned in the email that you even went to a doctor just to make sure you weren't crazy at one point. And you came back with a full clean bill of health, right? Yeah, that's the case. So I am a member. If anyone wants to leave any comments, shed any light, feel free. I'm absolutely willing to reply. And yeah, let's see how this goes. Awesome, awesome. And thank you for the support, by the way. I didn't know you remember. No problem, man. So this is, this is going to be fun because you've mentioned some things in this email that I've never heard of.

And I don't know if it's because that you came up with your own names for some of this stuff or if it's actually something that I just never came across. But we're going to start off with the scribble men. Now that right there, is that a name that you came up with? Yeah, because there's nothing else you can really call them. Okay. That's pretty much it. Yeah, That's just a name that I came up with myself. It's the only way I can describe it, I guess. Started out, I used to live on a banana farm on top of a hill, sort of two-story house when I was younger.

My little sister had just been born, and I had my bedroom downstairs, and mum and dad lived upstairs. And we just moved into this house, and if you can imagine walking in the front door, directly to your right is the staircase that leads upstairs. directly forward of you as a little sort of mudroom. Then you've got a bedroom and a laundry off to the right

and the back door to your left sort of thing. So that was my bedroom down there. My bedroom door sort of sat opposite the door that led outside. And straight from the get-go, I can remember being absolutely terrified of this room. I would have been four years old at this time. the first this is the earliest weird thing that happened but if you can imagine you're laying down in your bed a bit of moonlight coming into the window so you can sort of see the shapes of things and you know some areas of the room are darker casting shadows and other areas are a little bit lighter

and I remember the darkness moving or the shadows moving and it was almost as if the darkness from certain areas of the room would be sucked into one corner and gather. You can imagine if the darkness was smoke and there was a vacuum cleaner in one corner of the room or something, just the darkness sort of being or flowing towards one corner of the room. And at first, that just terrified me. I don't have super vivid long memories of this. I just remember lying in that bed, watching the shadows start to move and thinking, oh, no, it's happening again sort of thing.

After I scheduled this interview, I actually called my mum up and asked her, you know, why was I so scared of that room, mum? Do you remember me telling you anything why I was so scared of that room? And she just said, oh, yeah, you just said, the shadows moved and it scared you. Just so matter of fact, you know, oh, yeah, the shadows just moved and they scared you. So fast forward a little while, less than a year, and we moved into another place. And the moving shadows were still happening. So, you know, I'd be falling asleep.

We had a bunk bed in this new room where my sister was on the bottom bunk and I was on the top. And I'd be laying there at night and the shadows would start to move, gather into a corner. And after a while, they started to take the form of these small, small sort of short, stocky, man-shaped things. Like little, they weren't really, really clear. They didn't have very crisp outlines. It was as if you took a black pen to a white piece of paper and you just made a scribble patch.

If you just scribbled lines over one another, right? So you can see like some white paper through and it's lots of lines sort of overlapping. But if you can imagine those lines, if they were made out of like a combination of water and smoke, black water and smoke, and they would tumble and rive like a ball of worms. It's very hard to describe the motion of these things. So the darkness would gather into a corner. It had sort of trickle up the wall to the cornice at the ceiling and begin to form these little. scribble men. That's what I called them as a kid and it's what I call them now. And they would

sort of, they wouldn't be separated. It was almost one large mass of scribbling, writhing, black, smoky stuff. And they, yeah, like I said, not very crisp forms. You could see that they had arms and legs. You could see that they had a head, very short, stocky creatures. They were only as tall as the cornice on my ceiling, so maybe a hundred mil high. And they would march around the top of my cornice. And I would watch them terrified, like covered head to toe with my blanket, just my eyes poking out, you know. And yeah, so that's what these scribble men were. This would happen maybe once or twice a week. Then maybe it'd go away for a little while for a few weeks. or a month and I might have a few days in a row. It was sort of sporadic.

After a couple of years of that happening, they began to interact with me in a way. So this experience was also came with a certain feeling. As soon as the shadow started to move, a very overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety would come over me as a kid. it was a very deep sense of dread. You just sort of the feeling would come, the shadows would start to move. And I just knew like the scribble men are coming sort of thing. And yeah, so that happened on and off sporadically. It never like looking back as an adult anyway, it never was related to like having a stressful day as a kid or something and then, you know, something happening that night.

And yeah, so eventually they began to interact with me in a way. The anxiety or the dread would come, the shadows would move, they'd start marching around the ceiling. And because I was so terrified, I couldn't fall asleep. You know, I'm trying to fall asleep. I'd eventually fall asleep out of exhaustion. But sometimes, not every time, but sometimes when I closed my eyes, I was able to see in my mind's eye this same black. writhing scribbly mass, right? It was the scribble men. They could all, they could sort of like form into one mass and then break apart into smaller masses. And so I would be able to see this in my

mind's eye. And now this is going to sound really weird. But it would be a scribbling black mass in my mind's eye. And then in the center of that, it would open up like a clean void so I could see the white paper behind the scribbles, if you know what I mean. And it would be in the shape of a very simple cartoon palm tree. I know, just a palm tree, right? And then in my mind's eye, they would give me a red crayon. And that's not to say that I could like see my hand in my mind's eye holding a red crayon or anything, but I was, they would give me this coloring implement in my mind. and they would instruct me to, again, not even in words, it was just like a knowing that I had to colour this palm tree in without going out of the lines, you know, like kids stay in the line

and stuff. And they would be like really angry if I didn't do this fast enough. So in my mind's eye, I'd be trying to colour in this palm tree and they'd be like increasing this feeling of dread and anxiety. if I didn't colour the palm tree fast enough, they'd sort of like scrunched the palm tree back up and get rid of my red crayon and then they'd part open again,

make a fresh blank palm tree and get me to colour it again. And they would do this over and over until I was able to colour it fast enough and then they'd leave. And that's the scribblement. That happened. throughout my childhood, probably up until I was around maybe eight or nine.

As I got older, it became much less frequent. I was able to fall asleep faster and not think about it as much. And sometimes it would be long stretches of time without it happening. And yeah, I don't even know how else to... One visual that might help people imagine what it looks like, pardon me. I just recently watched a show on Netflix called Dark, and they have this portal that they have computer animated, obviously, and it's this sort of black riving, smoky-ish mass

with a glowing ball inside. Well, these guys didn't have a glowing ball inside, but that type of sporadic, almost fluid, but yet smoky movement, it almost looks alive, but it's not and it's writhing. That's a really good visual if anyone wants to Google that. Yeah.

So the Scribblemen. So it seems like, I mean, I imagine that you get the sense that they were trying to test you. Is that what you think they were doing with the whole coloring and stuff? I don't know if it was a test or if it was just a way to induce a feeling of anxiety and pressure, like or a, or a control thing. I honestly don't know. At the time, obviously, I wasn't thinking, is this a test or, you know, as a kid?

But looking back as an adult, I honestly think like they just wanted to cause fear and just this feeling of dread. It's really hard to describe. Honestly, if anyone has any ideas why little scribbly men would like a child to color in a palm tree over and over, feel free to shoot me some ideas.

Yeah, I mean, seriously, because it's very interesting because listening to it, it had, when you started talking about the palm tree and having to color it in, it gave me a sense of like testing. And we've heard that with people who talk about like, you know, being abducted and they're, you know, they have to, you know, pass certain acuity tests and things like that. Obviously, you don't have any memory of abduction. I'm assuming. I definitely don't have any memory of abduction. But it's funny. you say that occasionally this probably happened maybe 10, 15 times over the entire time I could see these things. Some people in the abduction experience describe what they call downloads of information, pitches, whatever it is. And I did sometimes experience what I would now call a download. And it would happen in the beginning just as the shadows began to move. And that feeling of dread would come over me, whether my eyes were open or closed, rapid succession of pictures and like very short video clips would flash through my mind so fast that I couldn't comprehend them.

It was like, and it was almost like there were photos of things, like some, like a document that had been photographed, a little short clip of like some cars on a road or something. it all seemed unrelated and I couldn't make any sense of it, but occasionally whilst lying down, that feeling of dread would come over, about a minute's worth of just these rapid succession pitches would flash through my head. These guys would come along, march around my ceiling,

that feeling of dread would sort of increase. I'd be scared, trying to close my eyes, trying to go to sleep. Occasionally they would do that palm tree test with me, and it's almost like, I guess, again, looking back now and trying not to come to conclusions and jump to conclusions, but it is almost like they were perhaps testing the dexterity of my mind, my ability to control this crayon accurately, or it could have just been, you know, like a pressure test, you know, like go, go, go, go, you didn't do a good enough start again, sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, I can totally see both perspectives.

It's interesting, the flashing images as well. They were so fast that you couldn't, you couldn't comprehend what you were seeing. Is that what you're saying? Like, you couldn't. Yeah, like, I couldn't recall specifically a picture now. But at the time, you know, like I could tell there was lots of pages of writing. Sometimes there would just be sequences of numbers, pictures of cities, aerial views of maps, things like that. slow enough that I could see vaguely, like quickly what it was, but fast enough that I couldn't

make any sense of it, you know, not slow enough for me to think, oh, okay, that piece of paper said something, you know, this address and oh, maybe that picture was that street or nothing like that. It was just super fast. And because of the feeling of dread and anxiety that came along with it, I don't think I would have been, even if I'd been older, I wouldn't have been able to process that kind of information. Yeah. I've heard of people having similar experiences and quite often, I've heard these kind of experiences happening and part of the imagery is like a cartoon character that pops up. Have you ever seen anything like that? No, I haven't seen anything like that, but these scribble men were somewhat cartoonish in the sense that they didn't

have a very solid shape, if you know what I mean? There were sort of just like fat little gnomes almost, you know, without the poignant hat. Yeah. But you could sort of see space in between the writhing mass. It wasn't a solid black outline. It was just, yeah, a form made up of scribbles. It's very, it's hard to describe. It's really interesting. And I understand it's hard to describe. it's hard to picture sometimes when you're the way you were describing this stuff just because it's yeah it's so the closest thing I've ever seen is that that portal thing on I've recently watched this just a couple of weeks ago and when that it's meant to be a black hole I think it's meant to be a representation of a black

hole which is kind of ironic because it's like glowing bright white on the inside but anyway you got to laugh at some some things like that and um But yeah, the way that they've animated it, it's like, it's like a very fluid in its movement. And it's like a, if you can imagine a ball of snakes, but the snakes are made of liquid, and they're just going nuts. That's, if anyone wants to, the best visual so far that I found is that depiction of a black hole or a portal or whatever it's meant to be on the Netflix series dark. Okay. Yeah.

And so that's like a TV series, like episodic? Like there's a bunch of episodes? Yeah. But I'm sure if you Google, you know, Netflix dark black hole portal or something like that, it'll pop up the representation. Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll have to check that out myself. Okay.

Well, that's the scribble men. And it's very interesting. Now, the black door man on the banana farm, what is that? So that's back in the same room where these shableness. would move where that's in that room I don't ever remember seeing them form those scribbly shapes, those scribbly men things, but the shadows would move in the same manner. But in that same room, and this, that I can remember anyway, this happened at least two or three times. But so the way my bedroom was situated, the head of my bed was against the wall

that's opposite to the door. So when I'm laying in bed, I can sort of, if my door was open, I could look out my door and I could see the back door. The back door was just a solid wooden door with one of those windows with the frosted glass. So you can see if someone was standing on the other side, you could see the shape of them, but you wouldn't be able to see who they were, if you know what I mean. And I only actually realized this as I got older, remembering it. But my mom would always shut my bedroom door. And obviously, the back door was also shut. But I remember lying there in bed and looking at my bedroom door and I was somehow able to see, I doubt it was with my physical eyes, it was more than likely in my mind's eye, but I could see a man standing at the

back door and I could see his hair and his clothes. And mind you, this is obviously through a shut bedroom door and then there's the shut back door as well with frosted glass, but I could see him as if there were no doors. And he wore brown clothes. just a brown t-shirt, brown slacks, and he had sort of short curly hair. And I remember as a kid making sense of this thinking, this must be my Uncle Tony. I have an Uncle Tony and he's got sort of short curly hair like that. He sort of wore brownish clothing. He's not a brightly colored man sort of thing.

And just being a kid thinking like, why is Uncle Tony standing at the back door? I couldn't see this guy's facial features at all. It was very in shadow. But I remember just being really scared of this man standing at the back door. But now, again, like I said, as an adult looking back, thinking, like, how could I even see him? He wasn't standing at my door in my bedroom. He was outside the house. But I could see through the doors and I could see him standing there looking at me.

And he just looked like a normal dude. He didn't have horns or any crazy shit like that, you know? Just a bloke standing. the back door. And we lived in on, like I said, on top of a hill, middle of a banana farm. No one's going to hike up there at nighttime and stand at the back of some bloke's door. Yeah. I have a hard time thinking that as well. It's, I think sometimes people have experiences with the paranormal and they want to explain it. And their explanation is more ridiculous than just believing that they had an experience that they can't explain. And I also think,

I think, I guess, even if it was just a random freak who decides to walk through banana farms at night, the stand of people's doors, even if it was just a random person, how did I see them through the doors? And I remember, as a kid, that just never occurred to me. Like, how was I seeing through the door? You know, four or five-year-olds, I just didn't consider, like, how strange that is. But remembering it as I got older thinking, how the hell was I seen him through the door? So that's why I kind of put it in the paranormal basket because, yeah, even if it was just a creep, I was waking up able to see him through doors.

Yeah, I mean, it would require some superpowers, which you might have, by the way. I'm looking at your list here and you might have some superpowers. So maybe that's the explanation. I wouldn't call this a superpower, a bit of a curse, really. I think honestly, this is going to sound very far out. and I know that for you to hear me say this and also the listening audience. But I was just preface it was saying, you don't know what I know. So I recently, I think superhuman powers is something that I'm going to be looking into

because some of the things I'm hearing shouldn't be possible yet. I think they're possible. It's kind of crazy. So cliffhanger, you got to. let's let's tune in next week to not hear that story because that story's coming down the pike. So I'm, I, it's, you know, I think, I think we're, I think human beings are interesting creatures. Let's just put that way. So this guy or whatever it was standing at the front door, did you get a sense that it was something, like some kind of entity, like along the lines of like a demonic thing or maybe like a residual energy or something like that?

I personally don't know where I stand on calling naming things. I think I've done a lot of reading and definitely had sort of been searching spiritually in my life. And what I've really come to realize is we don't know shit. And I get the feeling now looking back as an adult, it was some sort of intelligence or entity, I guess you could call it. I don't know what I would call it. Obviously, as a kid, I was scared of it. It was scary, this man standing there, but also confusing because he sort of looked like my uncle. So, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know whether to concentrate more on whether he could have been a ghost or a demon, or to concentrate more on why the heck I could see him through the doors, or if he was related to the moving shadows or anything like that. I just don't know. Maybe there is a connection to be made. So in the moment you said you're scared, but you didn't, like, that fear probably came from just the unknown more than...

More than likely, yes. I eventually after, I probably only slept in that bedroom, maybe three or four weeks. After that, I've refused to sleep down there and I slept upstairs on the couch. I'd say more than likely that had more to do with the moving shadows than the man at the back door. I only remember seeing him a few times. Yeah, it was pretty strange.

Yeah, definitely strange. But not as strange as your superpower of floating. What are you talking? So that's what I was pointing to and stuff when I mentioned that earlier. You said you may have hovered or floated. What is how, when, where, why? As a kid, I'm pretty sure I have. I had have I had what you would call an out-of-body experiences quite often. The first of which I can remember just waking up to this textured, sort of greyish-white surface in my face and sort of waking up and realizing I'm awake and then falling back into my body as a quite young child. And looking back now and being a painter as well, I spend a lot of time staring at ceilings

and I am almost certain I was waking up floating above my bed looking at my ceiling. And that dimly textured surface was the roller texture on the ceiling. I would also, what I'm pretty sure is like astrali project or go out of my body. And I would go to my school, my primary school. I don't know why, because I hated school. But I'd go there for some reason. And it would be as if I was there at the time I was sleeping. It was always nighttime.

There would be just a couple of lights on around the office where the security would do their round or whatever. And I just walk around the school. And in this state, after so many times doing this, I became, I guess, aware. And at the time I didn't know it was called lucid dreaming, but I suppose I was lucid dreaming, at the very least realizing that I wasn't actually there in my body.

But I was able to fly. And it was really strange. It wasn't like in normal dreams. where you're just flying through the air like Superman, it was almost like I had to concentrate on wanting to float, and then I'd have to take a run up and, like, jump into the air and begin to swim. At that point, the air would almost thicken to the viscosity of water almost or slightly less dense than water, and I was able to make myself fly.

And so with those experiences, which I'm certain I was asleep for sort of thing, or lucid dreaming or actually projecting or whatever term fits sort of thing, there was one time. And this may have been a dream. But if it was a dream, it was a very, very real and vivid dream, much more real than a lucid dream. and I was on my front porch. And I can remember just, and I was probably only about six when this happened. And there was three stairs that went down onto my front porch onto a little concrete pathway. And I remember thinking really, really deeply in my, as a kid, like as a six-year-old kid thinking weird thoughts, like, what is the reason that causes us to fly?

I remember thinking at that time, at that moment, imagine if the only reason we can't fly is because we think we can't fly. Because we're told we can't and we just believe it. And I'm standing there at the top of these stairs, right? Thinking these thoughts, looking down at the concrete, thinking, you know, like, what if I just stepped off here and I just knew I wasn't going to fall? and I vividly remember going to take a step off and just try to jump into the air, but at the same time I almost hesitated for a moment and at the last moment I decided to jump, almost like dive forward. So if you can imagine the ground here and I'm standing up the top,

I like sort of like made myself horizontal to the ground somewhat. And for about two seconds, I am almost certain I hovered for a moment. I didn't fall immediately. But as soon as I realized that I wasn't falling, I sort of snapped out of it. And I face-planned it onto this concrete. And that part was absolutely real. It's like, grazed my forehead and everything. And I remember just sitting up and sitting on the concrete as a six-year-old kid,

asking myself really deeply like, did that just happen or did I just imagine that? Did I just convince myself that I can fly and it happened? or did I just want that to happen? And I just, and again, you think about these things when you're an adult now and think, why was I thinking in that manner as a kid? You know, what six-year-old kid really, really ponderes the philosophy of, you know, like a society just conditioned me that I can't fly. So, yeah, they're the out-of-body floating experiences.

Well, I would say I was one of those kids myself. I remember sitting in my uncle's house and he had a picture of a revolver on the wall. And I remember, I mean, I was like, I had to be like five, six years old sitting there on his couch and, you know, the parents are out in the kitchen talking, hanging out, all the kids are running around. I remember sitting there looking at the gun, thinking about life and death and how like that gun could kill somebody and what does that mean? the idea of not existing anymore.

Like, like, it like take, it went down like this weird mind trail. And it must have been like every time I went to his house because I remember doing this. Like, I remember just like contemplating like these deep, dark thoughts of death and, and what is like, what is it, what was it like? What was it like? The consciousness that I have in my body was it existing somewhere else that I just can't remember? and like when I when this body's dead like there's there's there's there's part of like there's this like I didn't say consciousness in my head when I was a kid but like now I know to define that with this like there's this consciousness that that does it just die to or does it go somewhere else

and I just started thinking about all this kind of stuff like the fact that like there's something in this physical body that's looking through my eyes that identifies itself as Tony you know and it's like all these thoughts going through my head as a little kid and stuff. And I think, I think maybe the whole audience, including myself, we all did those things. And that's why we're here. We're just a bunch of weirdos, you know? But like, I just, I used to think about that kind of stuff as a kid. I used to think about the just like the fact that I was born in America. And, you know, I know you're in Australia, but I'm taught that America is the best country in the world. And then you

start thinking about, you know, these other countries that you hear about, like in Africa, these poor children that, you know, they have to go to the river to get their water for the day, all this stuff. And I'm like, what are the odds that I was born here? This consciousness, this thing that's looking through my eyes right now was born here and not, I think it's pretty fantastic. Kids, I think, have more of an ability than adults are willing to recognize to have those deep, almost multi-dimensional thoughts. I think adults sort of are conditioned to have a more linear thought pattern. But I think kids before they've been conditioned by society are able to really have those

deep thoughts, perhaps not with the language that we do as adults and not able to describe them as we can as adults. But I think kids are able to think and experience far more deeply than most people give them credit for. And I'd just like to say for the record, I don't think I'm Superman and I don't think I can fly. I do think it could very well be possible. But like I said, I just wanted to hear a quick disclaimer. I can no longer fly.

And that may have just been the most vivid dream that I woke up with a scratch on my forehead from. But yeah, just a quick disclaimer. No, no, no, no, you fly. Okay, I don't want to hear anything else. You're a flyer. It would be pretty great. I wish sometimes to look up at the sky and think, God damn, you birds have it good.

Yeah, that's something that, you know, I think a lot of people think about, you know, when they're younger is the idea of flying and things. I mean, and I had this weird memory as a kid, and I don't know what the point of this happening was or what, it's just this like fractured memory I have. When I was a kid, I remember taking a running start and jumping into my bathtub thinking that something was going to happen.

I don't remember what it was. I don't know if it was that. I thought I'd fly or what, but like, it hurt. I remember that. It hurt. I'm thinking it would. And I wonder if my mom remembers this because I do remember my mom, like, looking me like, what are you stupid?

But I just had this like, I remember, I remember thinking that I can do something that I couldn't do. And the result was pain. And so, but I do think, I think you're on to something. I do think you have a point that kids, kids are deeper thinkers than what we give them credit for. And as somebody who has a three-year-old turning four next week and I have a one-year-old, maybe I should be a little bit more conscious of that and try to cultivate the deep thinking that they have, even though they don't have the vocabulary to express the deep thoughts that they have to maybe cultivate it some other way.

and help them pursue the deep thought because I think maybe that's a healthy thing moving forward in their life to be used to thinking deeply on a philosophical level and not just, you know, the default of whatever society tells you as a kid you should be able to handle, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Anyways. Even just not shutting them down at the end, I suppose, you know, if a kid comes up and tells you, don't tell them it didn't happen, just say, well, that's pretty interesting, you know? Yeah.

That would be the way to do it. That just happened with my son yesterday. He said some things that I was like, pretty sure that's not true, but I think me and my son need to have a conversation. And I took him upstairs and sat him down and had him retell the whole thing to me. And once he had the ninja turtles coming out of the closet, I was like, okay. I was like, all right, I think, I think we're on a different topic now, son. So why don't you just go play. Thank you.

but it's good job i'm trying to do my part as the dad and just kind of let let the let him express himself and even if you know he's imagining things and making things up with his imagination i don't think that's a bad thing i think you know letting him imagine things and use that imagination is a good thing um but when his imagination is scaring him that's when i got to try to to protect him or make sure that's not just imagination you know so uh when when he wakes up saying that people are walking out of the walls in the middle of the night. I'm like, okay, we need to talk, you know, so. Uh, yes. You make sure. Just, yeah, listen to him. Yeah, I just want to make sure that, you know, this isn't, you know, is this real or is this one of your imagination things, you know,

so, um, all right. So let's talk about loss. By the way, this is going to be a long episode. Would you mind doing it over time with me? No problem. Okay. If you're willing to sit with me. I might need a bathroom break, but yeah, I'm willing. I mean, it's, you're in like the deep hours of the night right now. So I mean, just... Might as well get the most out of it, right? All right. So let's talk about being lost in the bush with the time warp and the dimensional travel or something like that. I mean, what are we talking about? I grew up for a good eight or nine years or so on essentially a caravan park that had a

residential section as well with those demountable houses that split into. You can put them on two trucks and send them away. And we had access to a beachfront. It was a beach resort sort of thing. And so I used to go and play all up in the sand dunes and the scrub all up near the bush. And I just loved nature. I'd be in there any moment I could. I'd wake up in the morning before my parents were awake and just go to the beach and not even tell them. I feel bad now. And I hope your kids never do that to you. But one time, I was walking along an area that's called the Gowanah Track. It was an area of the park where you could kind of rough it. And I put that in quotation marks there because it wasn't roughing it. It just meant that you didn't have a concrete

slab to put your caravan on and there was no power there. So it was real camping, if you know what I mean. But you were still a stones throw away from a road and a street light. So I wouldn't call it roughen it. But we called it the Gawanna track. It was a dirt track that sort of just went into this cleared but sort of forested and open area. And on the edge of this, was sort of the boundary of the park where the scrub for the bush began. And I used to walk up and down this track and play all through the scrub. And there was one area where there was a very small log across this creek that sort of ran along the boundary of the park.

And found this log, thought, heck yeah, usually I have to jump across there and half land in the water most of the time. So I've went to go and I think back now and I think, I'm not sure how I never found that log before because it wasn't hidden. I'd been up and down that water's edge hundreds of times, you know, like it wasn't a big area for me to play in. So I'd been there sort of thing. Anyway, I found this log. I thought, heck yeah, gone across this log. On the other side was a stand of what we call sally waddles. I don't actually know the proper name for him, like the botanical name for him, but they're just really thin, sort of scragly waddle trees we have

over here. They kind of got scraggly bark on them and they were fairly thick enough so that you couldn't really see through them maybe within 15 metres. You know, you couldn't see past them, but thin enough to walk through. And I was just walking through straight line. So I've gone across the log, just walked into the bush in a straight line. And I'd estimate after about maybe 30 or 40 meters, I've come out into a little clearing. And looking back now, I can tell it was probably a a teenager's smoking spot or a couple of broken folded up chairs and a couple of empty bottles sitting around and stuff. To the left through the bushes roughly 100 metres away, I could see just the roof and the corner edge of one house from the estate that was next door. And then

sort of on the right, the stand of Sally Waddles sort of twisted around. And I knew directly in front of me approximately 100 metres was the beach. So I had my bearings. I knew where I was as I stepped into this clearing, I noted that there was one of those little pieces of pink ribbon that the council uses to mark trees. And it was just tied to one of the Sally Wattles. And I grew up with my poppy and a farm and stuff. So I understood how to make my way through the bush and look out for markers and make my own markers so I could find my way back. And even though I'd only gone through the bush 30 or 40 metres, I saw this pink ribbon and I just noted to myself in my head, that's where I came in. So if I walk a straight,

line back out, that's where the log will be. So this was after school. It was probably around four o'clock. It was daylight saving, so the sun, you know, had a while before it went down. And my rule was come home by the time the street lights are on sort of thing. So I stepped in, seeing the pink ribbon, started looking around, seeing the house of the state next door. And I was just sort of poking around and the leaf litter looking for stuff. And I'd say within 10 to 15 minutes, it suddenly started getting really dark. in my head I thought oh shit well as a kid I didn't think oh shit I guess

I was only about 10 but I thought oh no it's getting dark I wonder if the street lights are on mom's gonna kill me if I'm not home so I was also thinking like how to get so dark so fast you know like I knew it was daylight savings I didn't have a watch with me or anything but I knew I should have longer than that but it's gotten dark pretty fast I've turned around to go and find that pink ribbon

and it's not there and it was right on the edge, bright pink ribbon, you can't miss it. You're not going to miss it. You know, it's not a huge clearing that I'm standing in. It's only maybe four metres wide and 10 meters long or something. I don't know what that is in feet, sorry, people.

It's okay. We'll figure it out. Yeah, get your calculators out. So I'm looking for this pink ribbon. And all of a sudden I'm starting to get like kind of panicked because it's suddenly so dark and I've just got this weird, feeling. Any other Australian viewers will know exactly what I'm feeling. There's a certain feeling you get in the Aussie bush sometimes and it's just like the bush is telling you to get

the fuck out sort of thing. I had that feeling at that time and I started getting worried because I'm thinking, where is this pink ribbon? I'm looking for this pink ribbon. After about five or ten minutes of like circling the clearing, looking at all of the trees on the edge thinking how am I not finding this pink ribbon, I decided, okay, I'm just going to choose the spot. I'm pretty sure I came in and just walk a straight line because even if I'm walking in at the wrong spot, I'm going to hit this creek eventually, even if it ends up being, you know, an extra 20 meters to go. So I'm walking in and I'm counting my steps. I have pretty long legs, so I'm counting how many meters I'm going in. And I'm getting the 50, 60, 70 meters and I'm thinking, ah, I've probably gone. I'm walking

along the creek and I'm going to end up walking, you know, a kilometer up the creek. So I've turned back, made my way back to the clearing. And I kept doing that trying to find the spot at which I came in to this creek. Because if you can imagine the clearing sort of here, I'm going to try, the creek kind of ran in an arc like that. So I'm trying to make this short area here, like the shortest route. And I kept thinking, I must be walking along the edge of the creek and just missing the creek somehow. What felt like maybe half an hour, 45 minutes, maybe even hour because I was getting pretty panicked by this state. It's getting darker and darker. That's the thing. It got dark in like 10 or 15 minutes. But then it stayed the same amount of

dark for like the whole time I was trying to find my way back to the creek. Eventually, I just panicked. Just this sudden panic came over me and I thought, I have to get out of here right now. Still couldn't find the ribbon. Everything looked, oh, and that's the thing I forgot to mention as well, when I couldn't find the ribbon, I looked over to see the house, right? Because I saw that little house from the next estate. And I thought to myself, well, if I can't make my way through the ribbon, maybe I should just run to that house because I knew my way around that estate and I'd be able to walk up and down the roads and, you know, back around my house.

And I've looked over to where the house was and the house wasn't there. I couldn't see the house through the bush anymore. And so that panicked me as well. I'm like, the ribbon's gone. Why can't I see the house? You know, and the scrub was too thick for me to try to walk through there. If I couldn't see the house and I didn't have a point to follow, I didn't want to walk in that side. So like I said, eventually I just suddenly started to panic and I thought, again, not as a kid thinking, fuck it, but screw this, you know.

I just started legging it into the bush at approximately the spot that I thought the ribbon should be. And then within 20 seconds, I've busted out of the bush. I've come back to the creek, the log's there, I've run back over the log, piss bolted home because the streetlights were on at the time and I thought, mom is going to kill me, you know, and I've gotten home, forgotten about it, had dinner. A week or so later, I've gone back to try to find that log and go back to that clearing, and that log's not there. I eventually made my way back across the river, though, the creek, sorry, and I found that clearing

again, and I could see the house again and that pink ribbon was still there, but the log was gone. And I don't know if you call that a time slip, a weird dimension thing if I was tripping out as a kid, but I don't know what that is. Yeah, that's weird. It sounds to me, honestly, and maybe because of the things I'm looking into right now, my mind goes this direction more than it would have normally. But to me, it almost sounded like dimensional type thing. Like, yeah, it, sounds like, almost like with stranger things where there's the mirror world of the upside down. Like,

I mean, because the way you described it was it's light and essentially it got dark fast. And the points that you're looking for that should be there weren't there anymore, you were in the same place, but it was different at the same time. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what it was that brought you out of that, but it does seem like you went into some kind of inverted world of subtype.

It's weird. Yeah. And like as a kid remembering when that happened, I remember being scared that I was lost and just being confused about the ribbon and the house. But yeah, like again, getting older and hearing other people's stories. Yeah, that's the impression that I get some sort of other dimension where the world was the same, like the trees were the same. The clearing was the same, but, you know,

maybe in that dimension, the caravan park and the other estate weren't there, you know? Either that or it was like it was a different time. Like I'd slipped into a different time for a moment, maybe before these estates were built. They aren't very old. Or after, after maybe, yeah, maybe it was like, you know, the apocalypse has happened.

There's no more houses or anything. And I was just standing there in the clearing. Yeah, it was really, really weird. that stuck with me for ages. I don't know if you're going to remember this, this kind of detail, but so where the house should have been, when you're standing there and you're looking, the house should be there and it's not there. Did everything else kind of look the same to you as far as like the size of the trees, the age of things? Or did it look different in the sense that, you know, I don't know what I'm trying to say. I guess the surroundings. I know what you mean,

because I know what you mean because if it was a time slip, then obviously plants grow at different rates. And so I know exactly where you go in there. And I would say, I think they were smaller. Because I remember when I first looked over at the house, the trees were taller than the house and the edge of the house was sticking out from the trees, right? And when I looked over and the house wasn't there,

I remember thinking like, oh, it was a different shape sort of thing. Not so much they're thinking, are the trees shorter right now, but looking over thinking like, where's the house? Like, I don't even know. So I think, but that being said, I know for a fact that the trees around the clearing were exactly the same because I did several loops around the clearing and like on the tree that the ribbon was on, on these trees, the bark kind of strips off and hangs in like sort of loose strands on these trees.

And it kind of gets these ring marks on it where the bark falls off and stuff. And I remember there was quite a big floppy piece of bark on this tree that the ribbon was on. And I remember finding that tree with the floppy bark and thinking, like, I'm pretty sure it was that tree with the big piece of bark hanging off it, but there was no ribbon anymore. So maybe it is more of a dimensional thing because the trees were the same around the clearing. I'm almost certain about that. Wow.

And now that I think about it as well, like I said, I'm pretty sure some teenagers use this. spot for a bit of recreational fun and there was some broken chairs and stuff like that and the chairs were gone as well or the chairs were more buried one of there was one of those plastic chairs and there was a couple of fold out ones I remember the fold out ones were more buried and I remember for a moment thinking that I must have stepped on them and stepped them into the leaf litter and just before I sprinted back into the woods and got scared and ended up finding the log again I remember turning back around and looking for the white plastic chair and it wasn't there and freaking out sort of thing and that's when i ran into the bloody forest found the log again and went home wow that must have been such a trip

holy crap it was it was really scary like uh and when when that feeling of dread came over when it got dark and i sort of realized the ribbon wasn't there the house wasn't there it was a really weird sense because i'd been lost in the bush before i'd my pop has properties and they butt up against other properties that I trespassed onto. And I've been lost in the bush before as a kid and then found my way back and being scared, like, oh, you know, like I'm lost in the bush sort of thing. But also knowing, like, I will find my way back. I'll find a fence.

I'll find this and having like a rational thought process. But this one was just straight away like, why is it dark? Why is the ribbon gone? Why is the house gone? Trying to keep rational doing my loops around the clearing sort of thinking, like, I just got to find the ribbon. I know it's here. I just got to find the ribbon. And then it got to that point where I was like, the ribbon is not here.

Run. Yeah. How old are you again? Probably about nine or ten maybe. Wow. That's got to be scary. That's got to be scary. It was pretty freaky.

And it's definitely given me, I'm extra cautious in the bush now. I don't make it obvious, but any time I'm walking through the bush, I think I'm very good at memorizing patterns on bark or odd. odd shaped leaves or odd shaped sticks and just mentally marking as I'm going. You know, like if I'm coming back the right way, I will see this stick next to that leaf sort of thing. And like it's really, it's definitely a heighten my senses in the bush. Yeah, I imagine. That's, that's terrifying to go through. In the moment, what were you thinking? I mean, at nine years old, were you thinking, oh my gosh, I'm in the middle of a time slip. Oh, what am I going to do? Like, or were you, Or you were just like totally. It's funny to say that as a kid, I loved fairies. I wasn't into like scary things or ghosts or like I had heard about them and stuff. But like for me, fairies were just the bees andies. I had always wanted to meet fairies. The good ones. The nature spirits. I was a I always loved the thought of being able to heal, being able to be in touch with nature and stuff. And I think at the time and I was also aware like there are bad fairies, you know, you hear the stories. You stemming to a fairy ring and they take you through to an

other dimension. So I had that concept as a kid. And I'd say, I don't, I'm not like saying like, oh, I specifically remember me thinking this on that day, but I'm sure as a kid, the thought would across my mind, like, have the bad fairies taken me or something? Because you hear all those stories that kidnap kids and, you know, take you into their world and stuff. And so that would have, if there was a process gone through my mind, that would have been it. Like the bad fairies, I've stepped through their ring or I've disrespected them. I had a deep understanding of like, at least with fairies and stuff, that it was a respect thing. You know, if you step into their area and you disrespect them,

well, they're going to take you into another dimension and fuck you up, aren't they? Oh, man. See, when I was a kid, the only fairies that I knew was Tinkerbell from Peter Pan out. It's like, fairies are cool, right? And then... Well, that's how I started, yeah, Tinkerbell and stuff, but then, you know, getting a little bit older and really loving fairies, you know, reading the folklore and stuff, anything I could get my hands on at my school library,

which is probably only what, two or three fairy tale books or something. But I had that understanding that there are fairies. I understood them as spirits of nature. There are good ones. There are bad ones. Even the good ones can be bad and the bad ones can be good. It's all about how you treat them. And yeah, so also grew up with a lot of the folklore and like the stories of the dream time.

My family, we've got quite a lot of friends and who we consider family in the local Gumbengue. people from where I'm from. And so I was also raised with a lot of that kind of folklore understanding that the bush is alive. It has spirits, that kind of stuff. That's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah, I don't know what to make of that other than something happened that was really

bizarre. And I kind of wish I could actually see what you saw. I wish I could have been there. Like, I know it might sound crazy, but like I hear these stories and like, hang. it, I wish I could experience something like that. That would be crazy. I know what you made. Even after being scared in my own life of things that I've been through, I listen to other people's stories. And even though I think bloody hell, that'd be scary, I also think, damn, I wish it could have seen something like that, you know? Right. I mean, that's the whole point of me doing these

documentaries now with Legion of Legends. It's just like, we're going to take, because before, initially it was me and my brother going out on like one-nighters and stuff. And we're still going to do that, but that's not going to be Legion of Legends anymore. We're going to to call that, I don't know, like, Merk Bros. Adventures or something like that. I have no idea. But, like, Legion of Legends is now a documentary format where we go out for like a week at a time to specific areas looking for the legends that we've heard about in the show. I would love to have a location to go to where people are experiencing time slips and dimensional travel and things like that. I would be there in a heartbeat. Heartbeat.

Well, if you're ever over in Australia, I'll, I can show you where that time slip happens and I can show you where places where people say the Yaois live and things like that. I'll be down. Let me know. I'm actually, we're planning on a trip to Australia whenever you guys decide to start letting people back in. I don't know when that's going to be. But I, as of right now, that's on pause.

But we did that one trip to the Burnberry Mansion in New York. We took listeners. And Creed, my brother-in-law, who organizes it all, he said that. you know, we could do anywhere in the world. So like we're talking about doing Stonehenge at some point and just tons of different places. So I mean, and if I'm going out of the country, I might as well do like some kind of like big event for people that listen to the show in those countries as well. So it'd be a whole different thing because it's going to be like we're taking people from from the states with us on this big trip. And then when we get to the location,

we're doing our thing. We're also going to do like these live events where the people that have come with us can be have like the behind the scenes look of what's going on and it's going to be a whole big thing yeah that'd be sweet yeah uh anyways i don't know when australia will happen but it would be fun to do that um so all right let's talk about yeah let's let's talk about the tall bald entity at the cages uh yeah because we just talked about the dimensional travel and i i i feel like i could spend all day just like brainstorming with you as to what could have happened there but there's so much other stuff to talk about. So let's talk about the tall, bald entity at the cages.

And for people, I better not say that. I'm going to let you take it away before I say something is going to get me in trouble. So go ahead. All righty. I had ferrets when I was younger. And so the cages were referring to at the moment are ferret cages. When I lived on that park, my room was actually sort of, it was connected to the house. but you had to sort of walk out the back door into this patio area

and then into another door to get to my bedroom. So after a while, because my sister and I was sharing that bedroom that the shadows were moving in, eventually my dad sort of converted this area into a bar room and then for his man cave. And then I sort of reached early teenagehood and he changed his man cave into a bedroom for me so I could have a bit of privacy from my younger siblings.

So thanks, dad, you're a legend. Get ready, Tony. It's coming. That's a good dad. is bro. Well, I'm already, I'm already sitting in my house that we bought six years ago with two kids. I'm like, it's getting kind of small in here already. I think we need to get another house. It's going to get smaller and they'll get bigger. Yeah, yeah. I'm in this room anyway. And a point of saying that is, yeah, it's not really connected to the, it's connected off the house, but you

like have to go in the back door to get back into it. So, and it's not a proper bedroom. It had one window in it and it was really higher on the floor. So the bottom of the window was probably at like the top of my head or just above my head sort of thing. And I was a pretty tall kid. I've been this tall since I was like 13 years old. I'm almost six foot tall. So it was a pretty high up window. And it was one of those really small bathroom windows with the frosted glass, probably two, two and a half foot across and a foot tall or something like that. I remember one night hearing footsteps coming up alongside of the house. house and they sounded deliberate and heavy like it's like some because it was grass outside and it sounded like

someone was purposely trying to step heavy enough to be heard at the time there were a couple of boys who also lived on this park who bullied me quite a bit and my first thought was you know is this this bloody wanker coming up the side of my house trying to scare me or just being a dick you know and so i'm laying and i'm listening to the footsteps come up and then i see the something passed by that window and it passes by fairly fast. I don't really see what it is, but I assume it's like someone walking and there's a street light that sort of shines light down that side of the house. And I assumed it must have been like someone shadow cast along the window sort of thing. I'm here on these footsteps. They walk around the corner, around the back of my house to where my ferret cages are and stop. And I'm listening. I'm

waiting for them to do something. They don't do anything. And so I get up out of my bed and there's one door that leads out to the back and it's one of those old doors with the four glass panels and I didn't have a curtain on it. It was just open like glass sort of thing and I've sort of piqued my head around the corner to see who was there and there was no one there. And I thought, oh, maybe I don't know what I thought to be honest. I just thought, oh, no one's there, you know, went back to bed. A couple of days later the same thing happened. I'm lying down, going to bed and I hear the footsteps coming up, see the sort of shadow just part of the way. by the window. It must have been someone's shadow past. They walk around the back. But this time,

they touch my cages. So my ferrets, if anyone's ever seen a ferret, they're like long rats, and they like to climb up the top of the cage, and then they sort of slide down the wire. That makes a very distinct sound, the sound of them climbing and then the sound of their claws. I'd heard them every day all night. I know the sounds of my ferrets pretty well. And so I've heard the footsteps come around, and then there's a latch. My ferrets were so strong they could actually lift up the top of the cages with their heads. So I ended up having to put a latch onto these cages so they couldn't lift it. But most of the time I wouldn't padlock it.

I'd just sort of click it shut and that was enough. Footsteps have come around and I've heard the latch be played with, like as if someone was lifting up the latch and just letting it fall, lifting up the latch and just letting it fall. And so I've gotten out of bed sneaking around. And this time in my head, I'm sure it's this asshole of a kid. is he's a couple of years older than me and I thought he's going to let my ferrets out.

I'm a very gentle person and I don't really like to get into fights but if you mess with my animals that's a different story. Yeah. I turn into a different person if you look at my dog wrong sort of thing. So I'm ready to burst out this door

and beat this kid if he's trying to let my ferrets out sort of thing. I'm sneaking around and my plan is to like just quickly look in it if it's him and then burst out the door sort of thing. and I stick my head out and there's no one at the ferret cage. And so I like come around a bit further to look. There's definitely no one there. I couldn't see any shadow.

So I stood there real quiet thinking, I'm sure I heard someone touch the ferret cage. I'm going to hear him walk off eventually. You must be hiding. I'll hear him walk off. I stayed up for maybe another 15, 20. Didn't hear anything. And that was that.

Maybe a week or so later, the same thing happened. I heard the footsteps coming down, very heavy, very deliberate. it. But this time when I, because by the time this third times happened, I'm looking at the window waiting to see the shadow go past, right? You know, the cast shadow. But this time it's like whoever or whatever it was was walking much closer to the window. So I could see their form through the shape, the frosted glass. And it just looked like a really tall, bald person. But their mouth was really weird. It wasn't like a normal face with a nose profile and a mouth. It was almost like a muzzle almost, but like a very short, squished muzzle, almost like Voldemort, but if his face was just a little bit more protruding.

And again, obviously it's foster glass. I can't see very sharp features. And it also looked like their ear was somewhat pointed because the way the light came down the side of the house, I could see like just like a really high. shadow along the edge of their ear. I can see like the shadow of rather sunken looking cheekbone and then just like sort of the shape of their head.

So they were bald, a weird shaped mouth. And this time when I'm seeing this, I'm like, oh. And it sort of dawns on me like, wow, this person's really tall because their head and like the top of their shoulders is in the window. And I'm almost six. At the time I was probably like 5, 9, 5.10. So I was only like 13. or something like that, maybe a little taller.

But I'm just thinking like, whoa, this guy's really tall. At the time I wasn't like, oh, he's got a muzzle and point it is. It was just like, he's tall sort of thing. Heard and come around the cage to the cages sort of thing. And this time, the latch is going off. And then the door handle to this old door starts going. But the door handle didn't actually work. It was just there for show, really.

You just closed it with a latch from the inside. and if that latch was closed you couldn't get in from the outside. And yeah, so I've heard the door go. And so I've like shut up from bed, gone to look out the door and then like hesitated because I'm like, hold on. Like what if it's who is this sort of thing? Like just sort of hesitated for a moment. And then I'm going to look out the door and no one's there again.

So at this stage I started getting pretty scared. And I actually told Dad that night, I'm pretty sure, was the first night. I went into the house and woke dad up and like, I don't know how you guys grew up, but you don't go and wake up your parents in the middle of the night unless there's something actually worth waking him up for. So this time I thought, yeah, go in and get dad. I've run inside, I've woken him up.

And I said, Dad, someone's out the back of my house. I think there's a man out the back of the house touching the ferretches. And dad's like, oh, it's probably just the ferret's climbing up and sliding down. And I said, no, I saw their shadow go past and I'm explaining. I heard them touching the cage. and then they touched the door handle this time, Dad. And so Dad's like, okay, you know, trying to get in the door. He's got up, he's walked out the back, looked around, couldn't see anything.

The latches were down on the cages. And he's like, you know, relax, nothing's here. So I'm like, oh, okay. The next day I actually went and took one of the kitchen knives out of the kitchen and had it like hidden under the edge of my mattress. Because at this stage, I thought it's either some random person or like it's one of these boys trying to scare me or I didn't know what I was thinking. In my mind, I just decided I needed a knife next to my bed. A few nights later again, it's happened for the fourth and last time.

But this time, they've come past, I saw just the shadow this time, not so much the form, they were further away from the window, I suppose. They've come around and touch the ferret cages. And also by this time, when I'd gotten the knife, sorry, I'd also stolen a towel from the bathroom. covered up the window because I just didn't want anyone to be able to look in the window. It was really freaking me out. And so heard the person come around. This time they haven't touched the cages and they've gone straight to the door. And it wasn't like a gentle test like they did last time just like, oh, is it unlocked?

This time they've walked around, stomp, stop, stop, grab the door handle and just freaking violently shaking this door like just as lucky would if you wanted to fuck with someone, if you know what I mean? Like just to scare him. And so I have shat bricks. I've jumped up, run straight into Dad. Dad, there's someone out the back. He's grabbing the door.

He's shaking the door. I'm really scared. And so this time Dad actually got up. He saw how scared I was. He freaking got up. He's busted out the back, ready to punch on with someone. And there's no one there again. And that was the last time it happened.

I slept with that knife until we moved out of that place. Tucked under my bed. Many times, Mom said, have you seen the brown-handled knife? No, Mom. I haven't seen the brown-handled knife. I'll let you know if I see it, Mom. Yeah, I'll give it back to you when we move, okay? Yeah.

Wow. So that happened four times, you said? Yeah. Okay. That's terrifying. And how old are you when this happened? I'd say 13, 14 was about the time that dad had converted that room for me. And then we moved out out of that house when I was about 15.

I was in that room for roughly a year, I think. Wow. That's one, it makes you wonder if that has happened before it was your room and, you know, just nobody that's there to experience it. But that is, that is terrifying for so many different reasons. So let's just talk about first the, the fact that somebody or something was trying to come into your home. I mean, did you think that in the moment that they were just, trying to break into the house or did you have a sense that they were trying to come for you?

Like I said, the first two times, I rationalized that it's one of those boys just trying to screw with me. They terrorized me a bit. They bully me all the time. A couple of times they took my bike from the bus stop and chucked it into the lakes and stuff. They were just the kind of people that just wanted to be a dick. You know what I mean?

And their parents let them stay out heaps late. And so for the first two times, even though the shadow was really high and it sounded, really heavy. I just told myself, no, it's definitely them just trying to screw with me. The third time that it happened, though, I definitely got the sense that someone was just like testing to see if the door was open. Maybe someone didn't realize it was a bedroom, could have thought it was just a rumpus room or something like that. And so the third time, I thought someone's trying to test the house and maybe come and rob us or something. But the fourth time, when they really, really shook the door,

I don't know, I just got to, I was just scared. I don't think I came to any conclusions about whether they were coming for me or trying to rob the house. I was just terrified. I was just terrified and running to daddy in the middle of the night sort of thing. Yeah, the first, when I saw the form of it when it was closer on that third time, I'm pretty sure it was when it seemed to be walking closer to the house. Like the first few times, it was probably maybe walking,

two or three meters from the side of the house. So when the light hit it, it just cast a shadow against the house. But on that third time, it almost seemed like it was walking much closer to the side of the house so that it was close enough to the frosted window where you could sort of see the outline of it, if you know what I mean, and like the main heavy shadows that were cast onto its face. And after I saw that, I was still thinking in my head, like, that person looks really weird. I wasn't sitting there thinking, oh, that's a demon or, you know, that's a, a whatever, you know, I just thought that's a creepy bald person. There's a bold person out

the back of the house. You bald people, what are you doing at the back of the house, man? You know, we're just like hanging around doing our thing, you know? Jeez, man. Yeah, I don't really know what I thought. I just was really scared. Yeah. And I think when I was getting older at that stage as well, you know, society has conditioned you a bit more and you want to convince yourself like it's just a person, you know, it's just a weird person. It's just a really weird seven foot tall person at the back of my house who goes invisible at the jump of a hat of something. You know, my kids are probably going to be some of those weird kids, I'd imagine, because they're going to be raised by a dad who's like, no, monsters are real

and steer clear of them, son. And, you know, they're not going to be conditioned to think that, oh, it's just in your head. And it's going to be like, no, that's, that actually can happen. So just be careful when you see something like that. And they're going to go to school. My daddy says, monsters are real. And then they don't have any friends, you know. We'll turn out. He'll turn out all right. We're us weirdos.

We turn out okay. Yeah. Usually the weirdos are the ones that are most successful later in life. So that's the way it works. But so you see this thing through the frosted window. You described what it looks like. Tell me, do you have legends of like, like, dogmen in Australia that you've ever heard of because, I mean, you talk about seeing a snout,

pointed ears. I mean, it's the way you described it was either like some kind of creature or maybe like, maybe it was like a person transforming from a werewolf state. I don't know. Like it just seemed. I don't know. It wasn't like a very, first of all, as far as I'm aware, we don't have any kind of dogman legend or anything like that in the native legends in Australia.

but that being said, the array of stories that you get between all of the different cultures throughout Australia, they're all of the same culture, but there are so many different dialects, so many different origin stories. So I wouldn't be surprised maybe there is some sort of folklore that would line up with that. But it did look a lot more human. Like I said, I don't know if anyone's ever seen the really old vampire movies, and it's like a, it looks like a Voldemort thing that has just very strong. small pointed ears sort of thing. It almost looked like that.

The muzzle, I hate to even almost call it a muzzle. Like I said, it's almost like how Voldemort is. How when you're seeing it from the side, it's just sort of flattened, no pointed nose that goes back into the mouth. It sort of just went out to the nose. And then maybe from the nose, it just fell down straight. So almost like a slightly protruded muscle, but I wouldn't call it like a dog face sort of thing. Maybe they were wearing just a mask because they knew COVID.

would night. Maybe, yeah, like maybe it was just someone in a mask on some stilts. Something like that. We know, we know COVID's coming in a few short years. We're just being planned ahead. That's, that's interesting. I mean, yeah, I'd be terrified too. Absolutely terrified. And so it only happens four times and it's done. That's interesting too in itself. Like, why? You know, why only four times? Like I said those times when I, especially the first two times when I was convinced it was those boys, I was listening to the footsteps coming around the corner like I'm there at the door, ready to jump out and get him.

And if it had been one of those boys, I should have been able to see him come around the corner sort of thing. So that's the main thing that's got me, like how fast they were able to disappear so soon sort of thing. Yeah, like I don't know. It could have very well just been a very weird human wearing a mask. either way. Get away from my back door, please. Yeah, and please explain your spiky ears, sir. Yeah, and why your ears pointy, you creep?

Weird, no. Yeah, that's interesting. All right, listen, let's wrap this up here for this first segment. We'll go into the overtime. For the listeners, we're about to get into the tree people, which is an ongoing situation, the shadow people ongoing situation. Her mom and has predicted her friend falling in love, but then she predicted the friend's death. I think I got that right. And then do you think you heard a Yowie out there, the dreams and how they're coming true, which I'm very interested in. UFO talk and other stuff too. So we're going to get into all of it in the overtime. Ashley, thank you very much for a very adventurous first hour. We went into dimensional time travel and I love it. I absolutely love it. No problem. Thanks for the time,

Tony. And catch you everyone. Well, that's the show, but I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy, please share the show with your friends. I don't care where or how you share the show. Just share the show. If you enjoyed it, that's the best thing you can do to help the show grow is to share the show. If you're a member, the Overtime segment is there waiting for you right now. It is a heater. So go to the Confessionalspodcast.com or the Castosap if you want to listen to the overtime as a member. I promise you, it's about two hours long and your jaw is going to be having rug burn from it hitting the ground so much during those two hours. I promise you, you're going to love it. Check it out. And also check out this clip that I'm going to play for you

from the overtime. Little wet your whistle kind of thing here. And until next week, friend, stay safe. Take care and remember the truth was such a free. But first, it'll piss you off. Bye. A couple months later, and this was the only time I ever saw it like this every other time. it was just standing at the doorway, you'd see it peek around the corner and it'd go back. But this time, if you're sitting on my couch, when you're sitting on the couch, you're facing the front door and there's a sort of a half wall and like that's where the hallway sort of wraps up around. And I was sitting there on my phone so I could see like with my peripheral vision like forward, if you know what I mean. And I could see this edge of this wall, this corner. And just every time I think.

about this one it makes me feel sick because it was so disgusting to look at like it came around the corner on all fours right it was like it was like it was able to bend its its legs in a really strange way that a human wasn't quite able to but it looked very spider-like it had its elbows sticking up and its knees sticking up and it was kind of like crawling around the corner and I've, it started to come around the corner and I have, oh, man, oh, I've like looked up from my phone and lady, my roommate's girlfriend was sitting next to me on the couch. She was on her phone as well, totally engrossed in what she was doing. I was only just scrolling.

I've looked up and seen this thing. Shocked me so badly. I've, like, dropped my phone and like, oh. And lady next to me is like, what's wrong, you know? And as I've done that, it's like, as I've like, realized it's there. it's like looked up at me. No facial features or anything, but I can see it's looking at me,

if you know what I mean. And it's like recoiled back around the corner. Oh. And I'm like in shock. I was like feeling sick. It was like it was disgusting. Like the way it moved was like disturbing. And I was in such shock.

I said, did you see that lady? It's like, please tell me you just saw that. And she said, I didn't see it. I didn't see it. And I said, it just tried to crawl around the corner. Like on it. fucking all four is oh just sorry but this like just the image of that in my brain it's really fucking gross like it's fucking disgusting man that was the only time it ever did that thank shit um

that happened and then the most intense thing that happened we were that wasn't the most intense thing my gosh like i'm sitting here scared for you for you