The Confessionals - RELOADED | 81: Terror With A Smile

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Matt comes on the show to share about his time as a child living in his mother's haunted house. As time went on he experienced your typical haunting noises to seeing poltergeist activity happen more than one would like. But it all culminated to an experience that was unexpected and petrifying when an unnatural head appeared outside of his room and showed him more attention than he could handle.Hurricane Helene Relief Efforts List: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/helene-reliefSasquatch and The Missing Man: merkelfilms.comMerkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.comThe Confessionals Members App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZBecome a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinAFFILIATESGo Silent with SLNT Faraday Bags: https://alnk.to/clXuRY5EMP Shield: empshield.com Coupon Code: "tony" for $50 off every item you purchase!SPONSORSSIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsUNCOMMON GOODS: uncommongoods.com/tonyGHOSTBED: GhostBed.com/tonyCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletterMAILING 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_theproducer

Merkel Media I guess it's time to go back in time Are you telling me you built a time machine Out 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 to kill but no one was supposed to talk about it. Boney fingers 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. The giant comes out of the cave and they're all frozen. And he starts running and firing at 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 pulling at my leg and I look over and there are too much that it's bush and I touch air couldn't breathe and I couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster okay I reload it welcome to the show everybody you're listening to the confessionals I am your host Tony Merkel and thank you for being here if you've had an encounter or story you'd like to share on the show go ahead and shoot me an email or you can go to the website, the confessionalspodcast.com, hit the connection section, and you can reach me that way as well. Either way works for me, just get a hold of me. Now, I want to let you guys know this week's show is Matt coming on, and Matt has a lot of different haunting experiences that he's had throughout

his life in a particular house that his mom bought. It all started with minor little things and kind of grew in severity as time went on to a point where he eventually had the main event of things that he saw happen in this house. I'm really excited to bring on Matt. tonight. And after we bring on Matt, we're going to have a special guest appearance from Wes German for a few minutes. We're going to sit down and chat with him about some up and coming things. So let's get to it right after this. Okay, tonight we have Matt coming on and Matt email me a few months ago, actually, and he has some paranormal experiences that he had together in one home that kind of led up to this more bigger episode that he's going to get into tonight. But first off,

Matt, how you doing, man? I'm doing pretty well. Good. Very good. So we were talking, and you're just in the Chicago area. And when you emailed me, you emailed me about a house that I think you grew up in it, right? Yeah. Yeah, I spent most of my growing up years in that house right up until just before I started high school when we moved out. Gotcha. Okay. So these experiences that you're going to share tonight happen in this house.

And there are several experiences that you had that kind of led up to an escalation of one more major experience. So why don't you just start talking to us about, you know, what are some of the things you experienced as a kid growing up that led to this main event? Okay. Well, I mean, I guess probably the best way to start is my mom bought this house when we were six, when I was six, sorry. And it's a Cape Cod style whole. There's definitely like a lot of things to understand. It's like the description of the house to follow through with what happened to me. And it has this large living room in the front of the house where on the one side, you can walk through and go to the kitchen. And in the opposite corner of that is a little hallway

where my Bob's room was, and another bedroom and a bathroom. And if you come back up to the front of that living room, you'll see like the stairway going upstairs. And a lot of the big thing that started kind of a few months after we moved in is like footsteps that you would always hear someone walking around no matter what you knew whoever was everyone was in the house and you would always hear footsteps if you everyone was downstairs you can hear someone walking from bedroom down the hallway upstairs and it's same thing if you were upstairs you can hear someone down in the kitchen downstairs it was constant like throughout everything And even like how you were saying earlier about how to the escalation point, even after that, the footsteps kept going.

And that was creepy enough. But as I got older, things started kind of be more different and more direct towards me. I don't know if it's because I was the youngest one in the house or out of my siblings. I spent the most time in the house. There was like me, my older brother and my older sister. both of them. My older sister was probably in her late teens, and my brother was in his early teens in high school, so they were never around. And every now and then, it'd be kind of like a weird thing with someone left the light on, or we have like an attached garage, and that door would be left open. Or, like, it would always kind of start a fight between us.

And so my mom would be like, you know, who left all the upstairs lights on all day while no one was home? Well, none of us. So it was continuous, kind of weird things like that. I can't believe one of you left the garage door open. Well, no one left the garage door open. We did have like another fridge in there to go and get drinks from, but it was always open the door, close the door, open the door, close the door. We were really, my mom was really meticulous about like saving money and energy bills. So from there, in that living room,

we had like the main TV in the house, which we only had two at the time. While you're sitting on the couch, you can, like, kitty corner, like peripheral vision, like, see into that to the guest bedroom. And you'd always feel this weird feeling of, like, being watched.

And no matter what, your eyes automatically go to that room. So, like, if that wasn't creepy enough, it kind of changed to, like, seeing, like, a shadow. of a person it sounds so typical but like darker than the room itself

passed right by the door and go like to the back corner of that room and it it got to the point where it was happening so often I just stopped watch TV downstairs I would just always go up to my room I spent all my time by my room

and usually when like something like that would happen I was always by myself in the house like it didn't I wasn't alone all the time, but like whenever my mom would go out and it would always be on the weekends. Like, of course, my older brother and sister are gone anyway. So, but, so being in my room all the time, like, the hearing everything downstairs was, like, footsteps and such.

Like, it kind of escalated a little bit more. And I would never go investigate it. It would always be just play my Game Boy in my room until I pass out and I wait. up my mom so many ways so we're all good and sometimes even in my room my bed was actually under the attic access so you would hear footsteps in the attic and then I would see the like the door for the attic it was one of those you just kind of like push it up and slide it over I would see just a corner of it come up and then it would slam down so it was like I don't know where I can go in the house like I could

actually escape what was happening. So, like, I was just always, always terrified to be alone, and I hated it. But, you know, it's just kind of one of those things you had to deal with when you're younger, I guess. My mom kind of played it off as, like, you're just letting your mind play games on you. Just relax, like, go to bed and, like, all the doors are locked. No one's in the house. We live in a good neighborhood.

You know, our neighbors are really close with, like, they're right across the way. Like, if anything happens, just call them or run over there, which I would never do anyone because it would be way too embarrassing because my best friend and we were around the same age as my neighbor, so I'm not going to tell him I'm too scared to be at home alone because I'll never hear the end of it. But when you're upstairs and from my room, like I can stare straight down, like down my bed and then out the door of my room down the hallway and I can see where the stairs go to go downstairs and then in front of that is like my sister's room, like her door. and you can hear someone walking up that hall so it's constantly like always like

leaning up like sitting up in bed and looking down the hall and then nothing turn the lights on grab the flashlight there's no one home go back down you know lay back down relax like just try to convince myself that like this isn't happening yeah kind of like ignore it as best as I could I mean and it was it was constant like in you know

being I don't know between the ages of six and 14 and having this constant thing like happened to you like you

I got used to it but then like I can never really fully brush it off it could always always be something like was that noise just what normally happens or is something actually going down

like downstairs like do I need to run downstairs an investigator, do I just need to stay up here in my room and just calm myself down? To go back, I'm sorry, the attic door thing would happen all the time, especially when I was younger. And it got so bad that, like, my mom actually thought that we had, like, a rodent problem or something, like a squirrel would be able to pick up the attic. But, so, of course, my older brother gets his BB gun and investigates the whole attic nothing and my mom's boyfriend went up there and checked for all types of holes or anywhere like anyone could any like rodent or animal or could

get in because you would think it would have to be something huge to make as much noise it was happening in that attic and there's nothing and and we even had the like siding replace the whole roof replaced, like everything was all new, and there was no way something could have, like, made its way in without noticing, you know, like, kind of, like, if it already looked like it was broken and garbage, like, you can kind of guess that, like, an animal can make its way in, but when it was all brand new, like, there's no way you would notice right away if there was a huge gaping hole. And that didn't make anything better, because I would just tell myself, oh, it's got to be an animal. It's got to be something

that's happening, not just like something paranormal. And back then, I mean, I would have never thought that anyway because there's no way it would even stayed in that house if I actually thought it was a ghost. Well, so, hold on a second. So this stuff is happening around you and even with this stuff happening around you, you weren't really thinking ghost.

No, no. Up until the point where, like, I would have seen, like, the shadow in that gas bedroom on the first. floor. And that's when it kind of like piqued, like that interest in like, okay, well, like, what could this be? And then trying to talk about it with my family, especially my siblings, you know, my brother would be like, oh, it's just a ghost in the house.

He said nonchalantly. So you didn't believe him or at that point you did believe him? No. No, of course I didn't believe it. My older brother, so like, okay, you know, like, you're just trying to get me scared. Like, I'm not, I'm not going to pay attention to you. there's no way. Right.

No way it's a ghost house. There's no way it's haunted. Like that's in movies. You know, all the scary movies you want me to watch anyway because we shared a room at that point. So it was just, it was ridiculous what I had to put up with my older brother.

Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, so you're experiencing these things in the house, like, you know, what sounds like footsteps and the attic door opening and closing. And,

but those are all things that, you know, if you're looking to explain away and find an alternate source, of explanation, you definitely could do that. I mean, you know, how many times you hear people say that, oh, it's just a house settling, you know, that that's the explanation or a draft in the attic that maybe is opening or closing the door. And I was going to ask you about that. But, you know, it seems like if there's a new roof and things like that on the house, it doesn't seem like

having a draft would be, you know, an option there for an explanation. No, no, there's no way. We never, we didn't have any of those sides vents, like up in the peak of the roof anyway, to, like, cause any sort of draft I could do that. And besides, like, the door sits down in the two-by-sixes that, you know, the stringers that run across to hold the ceiling up and, like, in the bedrooms. So, like, that draft would have to be hard enough to, like, get down through, like, the two-by-six and lift up the three-quarter-rich plywood to then let it slam back down again. And it was not like it was even, it was always from one corner.

and you could tell because like the trim that like on the ceiling that held that piece of plywood up in that corner where it was getting slammed it was like starting to get loose so it was I don't think I actually put that in the email now is probably a big thing that I should have told you about but that's what like started like the escalation so a few months of just kind of dealing with with like the footsteps and the attic door and you know kind of always being when I'm downstairs watching TV and seeing something moving in that back bedroom or you know like hearing some faint whispers like in the house and and that could I could definitely contribute that to like it could be wind or like the house settling because how like fate it was but like from over watching TV to like pausing it if someone just say something you know like you know that feeling yeah for sure I did I hear something else coming from a different part of the house.

But from there, I'm in home. Everyone's out of the house. I'm pretty sure it had to be like a Friday or Saturday night. And I'm watching TV downstairs. And then I just get that weird feeling of being watched. So then I just took TV off, go to my room.

You know, at that point I'd finally got a TV in my room. It was awesome. So I'm, you know, playing Sega, you know, probably Sonic in my room. and I get thirsty. So like I said before, we had an attached garage and there's a fridge with, you know, pop and juices and stuff like that in the garage.

So I walk all the way downstairs, you know, go across the living room. You've got to go through the kitchen. And after the, when you're going through the kitchen, after that there's like a small little, like family room. We have a small fireplace. And from there, you can get to the door to the attached garage. So I go in and get my drink.

I come in and I close the door to the garage. And as I'm coming back in the kitchen, every single door, drawer, appliance door, everything is open. I didn't hear noise, anything. And I mean, every drawer in the fridge, we had these tall pantries, decks of the fridge, they had pull-out drawers, all those drawers were open. The oven was open. The racks in the oven were slid out.

The bottom drawer on the oven was open. Like, I'm surprised they didn't fall over. But I mean, like everything. And I flipped out. I slammed all the drawers. I put everything as close as close to get back together as possible. I grabbed the cordless phone. I ran back up to my room, slam the door behind me, lock it.

Like, that's going to help. And I immediately call my mom. And I'm like hysterically crying. And she's telling him, and she's not even paying attention to what I'm saying. And telling me to calm down. If it's really that bad, like just call the cops. And she hung up the phone. she hung up the phone on you

yeah way into the future is kind of one of those things like remember when I was terrified and you just hung up on me and she's like you know oh no of course I don't remember that like yeah I'm sure you do

wow that was and actually my like talking about doing this interview with you and being on the podcast and talking to my sister she brought up the same same thing. Her and my mom were decorating for some holiday. My mom's one of those people that

has decorations for every single holiday. Like for the entire house, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, you know, everything. So they're putting up decorations and we had a big bay window in the living room and they're putting the lights up in the window and they heard this huge crash sound come from the kitchen. And she said all the cabinet doors and drawers were open. Not the appliances, she didn't remember, but all the cabinet doors and drawers were open. But the weird thing from having to hear to me is that she actually heard the sound. I didn't hear any sound. And from by the front window to the kitchen and then from the kitchen to the garage,

it's pretty evenly spaced out. Like there's not many different walls to block the sound from happening. So what happened to me was silent, which is probably even more creepy. But like for what happened to her and my mom, there was just this huge sound and then everything was open. And it was in the middle of the day. Yeah, that's trippy. I mean, so that loud bang that she heard, do you think that was maybe all the doors opening up simultaneously?

Or maybe all the drawers with, like, the utensils and stuff in it opening. Yeah. Like, that's, like, that's kind of what, like, trips me out the most about it, is that I had, like, the oven door and the shelves in the oven open, and I heard nothing still. I mean, maybe I was completely not paying attention to anything and just worried about getting a Pepsi. But it's just so strange to me how those were almost the exact same thing, but then almost differ so much. And because, like, so what was the intention?

And it's not like, you know, a truck was driving down the street or something and the house shook a little bit. And that's what you heard. Like, no, like, everything was open and pulled out. Let me ask you a question. Now, I think you said that in order to get... get to the garage, you had to go through the kitchen, right? Correct. Okay, so from the time that you exited the kitchen and went into the garage to the time that you got back into the kitchen, saw all those doors and everything open, how long are we talking here, roughly? Five to ten seconds, maybe a little

bit longer. I mean, we're talking a matter of maybe 12 steps there and back. Did you have, I don't expect you to remember this if you don't. But do you, do you remember closing the door behind you to go into the garage or do you leave it open? I left it open. Okay. So you're home alone and you're in there. Let's just say 15 seconds. All right? That's generous, right? Okay. So generally, generously speaking, you're 12 years old. You go through the kitchen, you go into the garage, and you get yourself a juice box or whatever it was. And you go back in the kitchen and everything's open. So about 15 seconds of time period, you left the door open,

you didn't hear anything, and all of a sudden it's all changed around. I would imagine that if somebody was at home trying to play a prank on you, you still would have heard them because the door was open. And it would have taken a lot longer than just 15 seconds. Absolutely. Every drawer open quietly and open all the doors.

You know, and, you know, the oven and the fridge and, you know, like the vegetable drawer and the fridge and everything like that was open. Wow. Okay. So, I mean, that seems like a pretty freaky situation for a kid to go through. I mean, I don't care who you are. There's something off about that. And as long as you're, you know, probably five years old or older, you're going to think there's something crazy going on here. You know, so I can't imagine how you felt. And I imagine, you know, I would have called my mom too. So these things are going on in the house. You're experiencing these different types of things. When you saw the shadow figure and stuff, How long of a period of time was it that you actually laid eyes on it? And I think you said it happened multiple times, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And it even happened, you know, after like kind of like the big climax thing that happened in the house. But it, from first happening to the kitchen, it was probably like about a year. Because, I mean, it would happen like every few months. Like, you'd see the shadow. every few months. And then, and then it went from just not being downstairs at all to being in my room whenever I was home alone to then going downstairs to go, you know, go to the garage and get a drink and coming back and find the kitchen a disaster. And when you saw, when you actually

laid eyes on it, how long was it though? Like, I mean, are we talking about a few seconds or was a standing there for minutes and you're just staring at this thing freaked out? No, no, no. It was very quick. And it would almost be like it would know that you were going to look at it. and then just that far back enough in the room so you can't see through the doorway. Like, you can't see that corner of the room through the doorway. And from the couch and, like, the angle you're looking at it at. I got you. That makes sense.

And, I mean, I've seen, I wouldn't say shadow figures, but I've said this before, in my old apartment that I used to live in, the way, the where I sat and my, you know, everybody has their favorite spot in their living room to sit and watch TV. And I had a chair that I love sitting in. But you can see down the hallway on an angle, though, so you really couldn't see the whole hallway front on. And my wife had pictures lined up down the hallway and, you can see reflection when somebody walked by. And consistently, almost every time I sat down in that chair, whether she was home or not, the last picture down the hallway, I would see a reflection.

Like somebody walked out of my bedroom and was going into the bathroom. And I consistently would see that. And I don't know what ever happened with that. I just know that that was happening. And there was times I'd walk back there to see if she was back there. Nope, she's not back there. And so I was just like, well, there's something freaky going on here. But, you know, what are you going to do? I mean, I'm not going to, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? There's nothing I can do about it. Yeah, I mean, so it's just like, it's just the fact that there's something creepy going on here. I wouldn't even say it was creepy because I really wasn't freaked out about it. I mean, maybe the first couple times, but eventually, I mean, you know this, I'm sure. It happens so many

times. You just kind of like, yeah, it's what happens, you know? It's just like whatever, you know? Yeah, like, usually the point where you're just brushing it off. And exactly. For me, especially it happening being alone, like, yeah, I could brush it off, but it's still just that uncomfortable feeling. It's like, I'll just go to my room. Like, I don't need to watch the big screens. Like, I'll just go to my room.

Yeah, I get that. I absolutely get that. You know, it's just one of those things where I think people just get numb to it and they just, you know, gloss over it. Now, when it comes to the attic door opening, that's something I think I wouldn't get numb to. I think even if I tried explaining it, I worked up some kind of, you know, rationale in my mind that, okay, it's probably this. Every time it happens, I'd probably be freaked out because, I mean, if my door to the studio here just opened by itself and closed by itself, I don't care how many times

that happens, I'm going to have a problem with it. You know what I mean? So you always just go run up and grab the door and open it like someone's going to be there messily. Yeah. Well, yeah, I wish I could have done that. But even if I stood on my bed, I wasn't tall enough to push open the attic door and see what was going on. And that's what I was going to bring up, the fact that this was in your room, right, the attic door. Yeah. Do you ever get to sense that something was singling you out at all in the house?

I mean, you said your sister experienced something similar, but that's as far as I know. and maybe you know more, but that's one time. You've experienced so many different things here so far. Did you ever get a feeling that maybe something was paying attention to you more than everybody else in the house? Yes, but then again, trying to get any, like my brother or sister and my mom to talk about anything like that is like pulling teeth for some reason. So even when I was younger and trying to talk to them about it, it was always, you know, like,

oh, you're just a kid, you're just scared of the dark. You know, go back to bed or, you know, go do your homework kind of thing. And so then, yeah, absolutely. It felt like it was singling me out because I didn't have any anyone else's experiences to go off of, okay, so like, oh, this has happened to you also? Like, no, I had none of that. So it was all just me. I got you.

And it was pretty terrifying, you know? Like, and like now, what? 14 years later, it's kind of one of those where it's like, oh yeah, it's just that thing that happened to me and my old house, you know, like in, but in my head, I remember everything. Because it's just one of those things. It's just, I'll remember it to the day I die. It stuck with me. Yeah.

Like, especially the kitchen and then the next, where I was going to go is, so. from being home alone and then going to bed, there would be like the others. So from, you come up the stairs and then you hit a walk. So you could either make a left and go to my sister's room or a right and you can walk down the hallway and open my door and go to my room. So I would always, I always sleep with my door closed. Always have, always will.

and it probably is from this and always hearing someone like walking that hall in front of my door whenever I'm trying to go to bed. And it happened the same time as with the issue with the kitchen. So when I went up back to my room,

you know, after I got hung up on my mom, of course. I'm trying to go to bed and it sounds like someone's pacing my hallway. It was, oh man. I got goosebumps just talking about it. It's so scary, I guess, as a word. I can't think of anything else to say.

It was just one of those, like, you honestly think someone's in your house and trying to hurt you. And being so young, it was just, it was just terrifying. Sorry, I don't have much more to say. Like, it just kind of, like, I want to say, like,

captivates you to, like, that's all you think about whenever you're home, like, what's going to happen next? What's going to be the next thing? Especially after you just had to deal with your entire kitchen exploding open. Yeah. And the biggest thing that happened is, and at that time, I wasn't even home alone. It was a weekday.

And my, this is a, you know, like, I was maybe 12, 12 or 13. So my sister was staying practically living with her boyfriend, so she was never home. And my brother was either a junior or senior in high school. Had to be a junior, sorry. And whenever my brother would come home, he always would, like, jump up the stairs, like, skip steps. So, like, he would jump three steps at a time, and you can almost time it, like, when you would start to see him, like, come up the stairs. because we had this bookcase in between the stairs and there was like a small little playroom off the hallway like before you got to my door.

And if you were walking up the stairs, when like the floor for the upstairs starts, you couldn't see you over. We didn't have a railing there. We had like a bookcase and had like shelves on each side of it. And it was about, oh, maybe about three feet tall. So you had to get almost to like the third or fourth step, you know, like the second or third step from the top before you'd actually like start seeing someone's head come over, like the bookcase and you can watch them walk up the stairs,

at least from my bed. And so when my brother would come home, you know, you can hear like the back door slam and then him walking through the house and jump the stairs, you know, jump, jump, jump, and he'd start to see his head and then he'd come upstairs and come into the room. and one night my mom and her boyfriend are home and they're sleeping

and it's probably maybe like 11 and I'm watching TV in my room quietly because even to this day I'm a night all I don't sleep really well and I hear my brother or at least what I thought was my brother jumping up the stairs so like immediately shut the TV off

put the blanket over my head you know, pretend I'm sleeping because I don't want him to out me to my mom and then I'm going to be in real trouble. Right. And I didn't hear it coming in my room. So I take the blanket off and I'm looking down the hall and I'm looking at the bookcase and I don't see anyone's standing there or anyone's head like just poking over the bookcase. And then I hear just stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stop, stop, stop, stop, like someone's running down the stairs and almost like putting all their body weight into each step. they're taking down the stairs and just pounding every step all the way down to the first floor. So I waited.

And then I heard jump, jump, jump again. And you're thinking, okay, I know by the fourth jump, I'm going to start seeing, you know, my brother Mark's head come over the bookcase. And it would stop right there. And I would see nothing. And then again, pounding all the way down the stairs. So at this point, I just kind of like, okay, you know, I yell out, you know, like, okay, Mark, you scared me come in the room you know like you know this is over like you got me just just let me be

and then it would jump up the stairs again and stop and then it pounded all the way down so at this point i just honestly think it's my brother screwing let me i'm trying not even paid attention and then finally the loudest it was jumping up the stairs i look back over and at this time timing like it doesn't go back down. It felt like maybe 30 seconds, almost a minute I was waiting. It could have been shorter. But in staring at the stairs, from where like the floor meets the bookcase and then the stairs are behind it, flat against the floor, this face comes like straight out, like, if its ear was dragging on the floor and you can just see his head come past the bookcase, and it's just staring at me. It had no mouth.

Really, like, I'm trying to think of an example. I can, I don't know if you've seen Wolverine Origins. Probably not. It was a terrible movie anyway, but they tried to make, you know, you know, Deadpool looked differently, but he had these, like, super sunken eyes. And they made him look, like, really big, because I think they, like, cut his eyelids off or something, and his mouth was shown shut. So all I can see is these giant sunken eyes looking at me. And we stared at each other maybe 15, 20 seconds, and just, like, nothing.

Like, just dead, locked eyes to eye. and then it smiles. But like full ear to ear, huge buck teeth, like smile. And I was trying to explain to my girlfriend, like, what its smile look like. And the only thing I can come up with is if you've seen those, like, dog tree commercials where it looks like they put the fake dentures in the dog's mouth and they're just these huge buck white teeth, that's what like that's the kind of teeth it had and it completely faded out it completely vanished and about 15 minutes later I hear the back door open and close and my brother jump up the stairs

come into the room and I'm just laying back in bed eyes wide open he paid absolutely no attention to me he lays down and goes to bed so he wasn't even home So there's no way that it could have been him with a mask or my eyes playing tricks on me. Like, I know I saw this thing. And even to this day, there's still a lot of, like, memories and stuff like from the childhood, even like parties or, you know, like sometimes like my aunt would be like, oh, you remember the bike I got you when you were 11? No.

A lot of what I remember about that house and the house that we lived in. before that, I really don't, but I, like, completely, like, my brain stops and focuses on that face, like, every time I'm trying to think back about something, because, like, it's just, it's there. I wish I was good at drawing. I could draw something and send me a picture, but I'm not. I don't know. It still, like, haunts me to this day, thinking about it, about it. If this thing shows itself to you. And I mean, as far as you know, as far as I know, nobody else has been shown anything in the house other than you. So you're experiencing this and it shows itself to you. It singles you out. And on top of that, all the other experiences, I can definitely, uh, I get the

vibe that it paid at least it paid more attention to you than anybody else. And that could scar anybody, really. This face that you saw, you said that it had the dark sunken. I think you said it was dark. What I picture is black eyes, like just these black empty whole eyes looking at you. And just this weird looking face. I remember in the email you said the skin was tight and the nose was small, you know, no mouth. How did it smile at you with no mouth? How did that whole thing work? So as it, you know, it's like you have kind of like a resting face and you start to smile and your cheeks kind of curl up when you smile. It started that with its face and then the mouth appeared, like open from the center out to, like, you know, the half-moon shape to its ears.

Or where its ears would be. but it just had this perfect half-moon shape and this massive teeth. Like, this guy's dentist was awesome. It was just like from out of nowhere. So, like, you saw the cheek movement and then full mouth appeared. Okay. So do you think that we're dealing with supernatural things here? Okay.

So who knows what could happen? I mean, this freaking face appeared before you. Do you think that this is something where it didn't have a mouth and as it starts smiling, the mouth appeared? Or do you think maybe that there was a mouth there, but you just couldn't see maybe it was tight-lipped or something? I don't know. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.

I'm just trying to draw a picture here as to possibilities of what was going on there. Because what you just told me is something that similar to what I heard in another story that was told to me on an old member show from the website. And this guy talked about, he encountered, he didn't, to be honest with you, I don't think he really knew what he encountered. I think initially he told me it was a Bigfoot, but then what he described, I think he was like, I don't know if it's Bigfoot or Dog Me, I don't think he really understood totally what he experienced.

But what he did experience was this thing, staring at it. at him. And then he said it smiled. And he said, the smile went from ear to ear, this giant grin. And he actually sent me a picture off the internet of some other, you know, creepy looking face with a giant grin. He's like, this is the grin that I saw. And so you're not the first person that's told me that they saw something completely out of the ordinary, completely freaky, and then it smiles at them. And it's weird that these, these types of things happen where people experience scary, paranormal, supernatural type experiences, and whatever it is that's freaking you out smiles at you.

Did you get a sense that it smiled at you from the standpoint of trying to scare you? Because I'm sure it scared you. Or do you think it smiled at you like it was familiar with you? What kind of vibes did you get when that happened? I don't even... That same feeling you get, like, if you're arguing with somebody and they're extremely calm and just kind of give you that look and just a small smile.

Like they already know they won the argument and you're just arguing for no reason. So like they have the upper hand on you and you just at that point kind of feel like I should just shut my mouth. I wouldn't say it was like anger or like in like trying to hurt me. I mean, absolutely scared me

but it was kind of one of those like, I'm smiling at you because I know I can do this to you and get away with it. I got you. That's the feeling. So, I mean, this thing, and you only saw a head, right? Like, you didn't see any other part of the body or anything like that. Not even a neck.

And like I said, like ear to ear smile, if I could see the ears. It was just the face. No ears, you know, just chin, mouth eventually, then the nose and the eyes and the forehead, no hair, just the face. And flat against the floor. what color was the skin? It was semi-translucent. So, like, you could almost make out what was behind it,

but then, like, kind of dark enough in form so that you can actually, like, make it out in the darker, well, from the, like, a little bit of ambient line coming in from the one window that goes over the hallway from that little playroom. so you can totally see features, but it's not like bright enough to, you know, like as someone have all the light on or something like that. But from the skin color, it's more of like a translucent white.

Okay. Now, I actually did a show with somebody else early on, and this guy told me the story of where his mom was like kind of, I don't know, she was like an on-call exorcist, okay? Like, I titled the show, The Emergency Exorcist. It's episode nine. And this guy shares a stories of where his mom would be called by people from their church. And she would go and, you know, pray and stuff like that.

But like, she was kind of, I don't know what else to call her, but an exorcist. All right. That's what she was. And I think it was the first story. I remember the episode. All right. So you remember that episode. So the first episode or the first part of the show, I think it was where he said that she

went into the house and on, I think he said it was on a staircase was this, this lady's daughter. And then I think there was like a head. I think he might, I can't remember if he said it was like attached to her behind him. Or like right behind its shoulder or her shoulder. Yes, yes, yes. And it, when it would talk and move its mouth, she would say something. And it was just like this like floating head. And so, I mean, like, that's something that I've heard before on the show.

I heard it off the show. Like these kind of things happen. And I don't quite understand why it's just ahead. I mean, why not a whole apparition? Why just ahead? It just gets me. I don't understand why. I don't understand it.

And actually, I think I started listening to your show maybe right around December. And then I started binge listening all the past episodes. which I wish there were more as I'd listened to Amal. But when I heard that episode, that's what kind of like I immediately started talking to my girlfriend about, like I should write in and tell him my story

because it was the head that just thinking about that, immediately I remember the face I saw. And it was like, okay, well, I need to tell Tony this. that, like, from that episode is the reason why I wrote to you. Wow. Okay. Well, it's interesting because that episode popped up in my head and, you know, the patrons get to listen live and stuff. And one of the patrons mentioned that episode, too. And I was like, wow, it's, it's funny. We're all thinking about the same thing right now. But, you know, it's definitely a creepy, eerie experience. I mean, you got a face looking at you with dark, deep black sunken eyes, tight skin.

And, you know, it's just no mouth and then a mouth appears. So I guess that's your, that's what you're standing on right now, right? Like, I'm trying to draw that picture out and stuff because, I mean, you say there's no mouth and then it smiles. So it's like, it didn't have a mouth. And then it smiled and then the mouth appeared as the muscles of the cheeks started smiling. Correct.

Unless it was, you know, sucking in its lips so that you couldn't see the lips. then yeah, the mouth just appeared. Gotcha. And let me ask you this. Was the mouth, once it appeared and you see this smile, and you mentioned about the teeth and stuff, was the smile abnormally large? Huge.

Huge. I mean, like, from nose to the bottom of its chin, I mean, like, from, like, the widest part, I mean, at least three inches, two inches, and then, you know, gradually getting smaller as it's arching up in the smile. I had a feeling you were going to say that.

I had a feeling you were going to say that. Why is it? Well, because, like I said, I've heard of these kind of stories before, and more often than not, when somebody says it's smiled at them, the smile is abnormally large. And it's something that sticks out in a person's head.

Like, you would think that the black eye sunking in was probably the most defining feature of this thing. but the fact that it's smiled at you all of a sudden takes the attention away from everything else because it's a creepy experience and now this creepy experience that you're having is smiling at you and the smile is more often than not that I I've heard several accounts I can't count and probably can count them on my one hand you know some let's just say around five times I've heard this where somebody says they saw a face or an apparition where it's a full body thing and it's smiled at them and when it smiled at them, the smiling went from ear to ear.

And it's just something I had a feeling you were going to say. That's crazy. I mean, I haven't heard any other story, even somewhat similar to my story with the smile, you know, especially pertaining to the smile. And I'm, you know, kind of a podcast, paranormal, supernatural, junkie. And I listen to every show, everything out there. excuse me, and I haven't heard anything about like something smiling like that. I know you said you had an older show, like a member show?

Yeah, I call that. I'm going to actually be releasing some of the old member shows as public shows because the people that were members on the website paid for that. And I think that they should have the opportunity to hear that whenever they want. So I'm going to make them public shows gradually. But I'll probably make that one of my first ones I released. It's like a two-hour show. And this guy goes into this details of,

of getting lost in the Smoky Mountains and what happened to him out there. And he ran into this thing. He had lots of different weird experiences that night. But he saw this thing. And I think he said it was a full body apparatus or maybe I can't remember all the details. But I remember him saying that it's smiled at him. And when he, when he's telling the story, he's breaking down. And he started crying because it affected him that much. Just like how you, when you were telling the story and stuff, you started getting the goosebumps and things like that. Like this guy, like when he started describing the face and that it smiled at him, you could hear it in his voice, it brought back all those memories and it started scaring him again. And so this is something that

definitely I've heard before. And that's just one story that I can recall because I actually interviewed the person, but I've heard other people, you know, recount similar things. You know, and this guy was saying Bigfoot or dog man, like, that's the only thing he could describe it as. He's like, I don't like, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but like I got the sense that he wasn't totally sure what he saw, but it was something crazy. And so, I mean, it just makes you wonder what these things are. I'm just in general, you know, you hear these, these things where the lines get blurred. Like, people are going to say, UFOs are UFOs, bigfoot's big foot, and ghosts are ghosts. But then you hear these parallels that match between different stories and it makes you wonder

what's really going on here. Yeah, that's, I don't know if I would always be more comfortable having that happen out in the woods somewhere and not in your bed in your house. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's like, you can actually go home and get away from that, not that it happened at your house and you're a kid and you can't move out and you're stuck there. And nobody's believing you, your mom hangs up on you when you talk about it. Yeah, exactly.

It explodes and your mind hangs up on you. It's just, wow, that's insane. I'm still blown away that you've heard about this before because I haven't. Well, I mean, you're a listener of the show. So just keep an ear out for it. I have no idea when that's going to get released. I mean, I have so many shows that need to get released. But when it gets released, the title of it is something like lost in the Smoky Mountains

or something like that. Like he got lost in the Smokies for a night. And he describes what happened to him that night. And, you know, when you see that pop up, you'll know that that's that. the show. I just wrote it down. I'm definitely listening to that. That's for sure. So, I mean, Matt, you had this experience and you've heard my show. You've heard tons of different experiences that people have had with, you know, Bigfoot, Dog, Man, Ghost, UFOs, aliens, you know, whatever it is, right? But these are your particular experiences. And you saw a face.

It appeared before you. It smiled at you. And it had unnatural features like the black eyes. eyes that are sunken in. Like, you know this wasn't just your brother goofing around. Like, this was something paranormal. With that said, you know, you went through your entire life after this and leading up to this moment and you remember this thing and you racked your brain about it. What's your conclusions as to what that was? And because everybody has their own ideas and there is no wrong answer to this. But what you experienced, let's just call it a ghost for generic terms, okay? The ghost you experienced.

What do you think that, what do you think's going on there? I mean, what are your thoughts on it? I mean, you know, some people think that, you know, ghosts are demons. Some people think that ghosts are, you know, leftover spirits for that, that, you know, of a family member or somebody that lived in that house or leftover energy. What are your thoughts in that topic, man? You know, I do kind of, you know, total line of, like, a ghost is it could be many different things, you know, like somebody who lived in the house who is attached to it and is still there.

Or it could have been something demonic just trying to, you know, torture me being the youngest of the family, probably the most vulnerable. Or some sort of energy that can manifest itself in certain ways and lift objects and move things around. And it's kind of, like you said, conclusions in my head, I mean, I don't have a conclusion. I still don't know exactly what it was. But if I had to put a name on it, part of me wants to lean more to the, you know, ghost as in ghosts, like someone who won't move on and is stuck in the house,

or there's the other part of me that maybe it was more towards the demonic side. For like the, mostly for the reason that, like, it just felt very pointed to me. and I don't think I think if it was just a spirit that wants to be in that house it would have been doing it a lot more to my other family members and I know like my sister

had just recently told me about what happened to her but that was just one thing and everyone would hear the footsteps but nothing on the lines of actual like apparition like actually showing itself to me like I haven't heard anything like that from my family so I guess I really don't know

right well i mean earlier in this interview just a few minutes ago actually you said that you're a paranormal junkie did this did this kind of start that or were you like that your entire life or was this something that kind of pushed you into you know becoming a paranormal junkie or is this being a paranormal junkie more recent no it definitely from that point on i i don't i i really don't know why it sparked this huge thing because you think for how bad it scared me i never want to see something like that again. But that's mostly all I'm interested in as far as what I listen to, what I watch, entertainment-wise, you know, I mean, next to ghost, it's Bigfoot. And now Dog Man is what I really want to get into. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, I'm into all of it,

all of it equally really anymore. I mean, I definitely find an interest in a lot of these things. And like I said to you earlier stuff, one of my biggest pushes right now is trying to understand the parallels between these different categories and stuff because they're definitely parallels. And a lot of times people are trying to deny those parallels. They don't want to admit that they exist. And I'm just, I'm kind of geared differently because I don't really care what the answer is. I just would like to have the answer. I don't care if aliens exist or they don't exist.

It doesn't bother me other way. I just want to know. You know what I mean? like that's that's just where I'm at right now with things like yeah is is bigfoot uh you know a flush and blood you know a hairy monkey walk around the woods or is it you know this paranormal alien that came from galaxies away or is it nephalum or is it more of a spiritual uh supernatural ghostly thing i don't care what it is i just want to have the answers you know i mean i have my own personal opinions as what's going on with bigfoot but you know until we all you know

have 100% proof of a body or something like that you know that's i mean i mean i have 100% proof of a body or something like that or if it has a body, you know, we're never going to know. But I just, that's why I don't really care what anybody has to say when it comes to their own opinions and stuff, because right now, everybody's opinion is valid because we don't have the answers for anything. Everybody wants to pretend and think they have answers, but nobody really has answers. And so, until then, everybody's, everybody has, you know, valid points to share. Yeah, everyone's guessing. Exactly. And, and pretty much all you can do is tell your own story because, I mean, every person's individual, I mean, experience, not story, but it is very unique in its own different way. And I don't know, like, at that point, it's just so strange to think, like, from how many people have experiences even similar or less than mine. And even from people I've talked to through friends and meeting people, there's always, always like that thing that happens to them stays with them for the rest of their life.

So, and you can tell when someone's telling you the story that, like, how true it is, just from their emotion, their body language, your facial expression, everything. So, like, you know, like, whatever, how small or big their experience was, it's completely affecting them. So, like, it had to be true. Why would all these different people lie if, you know, ghosts aren't real or demons aren't real, or dogman or Sasquatch or, you know, there's something to it, but no one has that, like, that final connection to, like, hold down the truth of what exactly it is. Right.

Yeah. No, I get it. Absolutely get it. Well, Matt, listen, man, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your experiences and stuff. I mean, I probably would be pushed into paranormal investigation and being a junkie myself. I had that. For me, I haven't had a ton of experience. I've had experiences.

I've shared them on the show, but nothing that I consider really crazy, crazy. But here I am hosting a podcast, letting other people share their experiences. And I appreciate you coming on and talking about it, man. Thank you, Tony. And that story you told about your grandpa and the angels, I mean, that one, like, practically moved me to tears. and it was just awesome. I love your show, and thanks for having it out with the people like me.

Absolutely, man. Anytime, anytime. So you take care, man. And if you ever get back to that house and stuff, let me know what happens. I don't think I'll be doing that. All right, man. Take care. Well, that's the show, everybody.

I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy it, there are three things you can do to help support the show. One, you can go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating and review. Two, you can go to Patreon.com forward slash the confessions and become a patron of the show. And last but not least, you can go ahead and share this show around on social media. Go ahead and share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat. I don't even know what a Snapchat is, but I come from the era of landlines, so what do I know?

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