Episode 550: Listener Tales 84 | Morbid

Hey weirdos, it's Ash.

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You guys, I tried my mochi ice cream the other day and I was lifted off of this planet into just another galaxy entirely.

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It's literally like a little sweet ice cream dumpling.

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I loved it. I tried the cookies and cream flavor, and I still have the mango flavor to try.

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Some very big news today, weirdos.

Are you ready? Of course I am.

So a year and a half ago, I released my very first little book baby.

They call it a debut.

A day butt. A debut.

It's a debut. A debut.

It was The Butcher and the Wren.

And you guys made my legitimately wildest dreams come true and made me a New York Times bestselling author, which those words don't even feel like they should be coming out of my mouth, but I am eternally grateful.

And now, truly, truly, truly, because of your enthusiasm and support, support i am so fucking excited to announce there will be a sequel party a sequel called the butcher game and it's coming out september 17th i'm quite literally so excited i'm gonna die so close we're so close to it sorry it's ready to go ready to go it's gonna be out there so let me so the butcher game picks up right where the butcher and the wren left off so if you have not read the butcher and the ren yet what are you doing oh my god go get it get it go read it go listen to it go do something like that ingest it i'm gonna spoil

it so so stop listening now if you have not read that book go read it and then come back to me okay but also go get the sequel on september 17th but this time we are going to some new territory we are headed to massachusetts baby i love it there we're headed Added to the Berkshires specifically, where our ruthless serial killer, Jeremy Rose, has now fled New Orleans and is on his way up to Massachusetts to evade capture.

Dr. Wren Muller, being astute as hell, you know her, she sees that there is a fresh trail of bodies that seem to be calling her back to the case.

But by following that trail, is she going to walk right into Jeremy's trap?

Maybe. I don't know.

This one is a truly twisted cat and mouse game, and I mean it.

You've been warned.

this one's twisted and it's going to culminate in a violent clash of past and present where Wren is prepared to sacrifice everything just to bring Jeremy to justice I'm literally so excited this one, we got, it's longer guys, it's longer, it is twisted I'm telling you, but what's really cool about this, besides you know being really exciting that there's a second one coming out our friends at Barnes and Noble are offering exclusive signed copies for a limited time.

So head to the links in the podcast episode show notes for more details and we'll share them out too.

There's also going to be a fun poster for this one too.

We did that for the first book.

Oh, I can't wait to see it.

I know. I'm very excited about it.

So pre -order now wherever you like to buy books and receive a signed poster with your order.

So head to thebutchergame .com to claim your free poster while supplies last. There's not going to be an endless amount as much as I would love for that to be.

I can't thank you enough for being on this truly incredible author journey with me.

You guys rule you made this happen.

And I hope you love all that's to come in the Dr. Ren Muller series.

Yay! I said what I said!

A series. A series.

Hey weirdos, I'm Elena.

I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.

it's listener tales which means it's brought to you by you for you from you and all about you bitch yeah yeah hell yeah brother we're excited about this one this seems like a crazy wild fun fun, spooky Listener Tale.

It's giving unhinged.

Especially with the first one that you have queued up.

I saw that one and it was the first in the little folder and I was like, we're doing this one.

Thank you. You're like, yep, that's it.

I was like, I don't even know.

I'm not reading any further.

We're doing this one.

This is it. Should we just start?

I think we should. All right, cool.

This one's called Listener Tales.

My dead grandma saw me me give my first blowy welcome to the show welcome to listener tales all right now you see why i was like okay you were like i can't argue this all right i'm so sorry it's loading you should be sorry how dare you that's so weird it's never done that before how dare you our internet's being a little like kooky crazy it is and then it was like do you want to take a tour and i was like i use google docs i don't want to take a tour of google docs i'm good i was just gonna ask of where Google Docs I guess I thought they were just asking like do you want to take a tour just period

of anywhere like do you just want to go on a tour like sure I guess tourist alright it says hey Deb Deb you read that right and hopefully I'm making it through your amazing gatekeeper skills you did you did at this point with a subject line like that I don't think you really have the ability not to read this one again you're right correct and yes sadly it's completely accurate if I've made it through the gatekeeper hello my amazing morbid weirdos hey hello if you're reading this it's time for the standard poopoo in the in the pantaloons and shitting all of the dicks you guys can call me claudia and feel

free to use that name as it's not my real one hey claudia hey claudia my dead grandma already knows what i've done so there's no reason to bring shame onto the living members of my family as well if my dad ever heard this story he may join his mother on the other side immediately i love the gallows humor in this i also apologize in advance for the grammatical errors that i inevitably will make because this is a long one but well worth it i promise and grammar is hard especially with adhd also i would put a fuh it if i could a fuh i'll try to attach it as a word doc you did but i learned it but i

learned back when you could do the cool palm tree border and printers made of rapid fire I heard noises.

The palm tree border.

That was like the first computer class I ever took in like third grade.

We did the palm tree borders.

Wow. And I thought that was groundbreaking.

That's nuts. But Claudia says, I'm old and without kids to show me how to work this newfangled technology crap.

I loved it, too, that your first computer class was in third grade.

Yeah. My first computer class was in high school.

Well, yeah, because you're 10 years older than me.

That's wild. That's crazy.

I'm a new member, relatively speaking.

I found you not that long ago, but I work eight hour shifts with you in my ear.

So I've definitely been plowing through the episodes rather quickly.

I do want to admit the first time I turned in, I had just had words with a coworker because, you know, coworkers are jerks sometimes.

And I was in a horrible mood.

That first time I listened for about two minutes to you guys laughing and joking and shut it off and went, nope, not for me.

And I moved on. Trust the process here.

I know I sound like a douche.

You don't. You were going through it.

No, it's fine. You didn't want to hear us laughing at you.

Yeah, fuck that. At that moment, I needed my ears to be filled with angst that can only be satisfied by singing along to the entire jagged little pill album.

I'm not going to hold that against you.

If you know, you know.

A few weeks later, while in a much better mood, and none of my coworkers had annoyed me, I listened and I was immediately and completely hooked.

Yeah! You were in the right mind frame and that's okay.

We accept that. So I wanted to say with 100 % scientific certainty that the only reason that anyone wouldn't like your show is because they're fucked in the head at the time they listen.

and like I said that shit's official I did a case she did I mean Claudia did a case study that's fair I we're gonna use this forever that's science I work in production and it's very loud and I have no interaction with the people around me all day long even though I can clearly see them it's just too loud to interact and you have to be continuously moving it's so weird to be in a room full of people and still be basically alone and for somebody like me who loves to word vomit on people on the daily, it's very hard to not have that connection.

That is really strange.

Yeah. To see people all day.

But not talk to them.

And I don't like a loud environment.

Oh, this would destroy me.

No, it stresses me out.

But that's where you guys came in.

And we have imaginary conversations all the time.

And Ash, you and I do tell the same jokes often.

Hell yeah. I love how you both say fuck a lot.

It makes me feel like I've truly found my family and how you're empathetic and really care for the victims. I love the caution that you approach your listeners with, but it still gives the details that you know we're looking for.

I mean, this is called morbid, am I right?

Precisely. You're right.

I truly feel like I hang out with my friends all day while I'm at work, and I have to thank you for saving my sanity with what little there is left of it.

Aww. I love you. Gee whiz.

Gosh. This is so nice, Claudia.

That was so nice, Claudia.

I know. Okay, I think that's enough gushing, and I'm sure you want to get to the part where my dead grandma sees me giving a blowie, and hell, I can't blame you.

It's a pretty freaking awesome story now that i now that i don't feel the overwhelming level of shame that i did for many many years whenever the memory popped in my head instant cringe oh that being said if listeners have their kids listening with i'm like i hope you don't that being said if listeners have their kids listening with them earmuffs y 'all earmuffs y 'all this this mentioned's bobbing on on the knob earmuffs y 'all earmuffs y 'all all right back to my story my grandmother was like my mom we were together all the time for most of my life and i was definitely her favorite that's the best

when i was 17 she lived in florida and i lived in new york i'd recently moved back up to new york to be with my boyfriend because you know teenage hormones and shit make you do dumb stuff you know like when you'd be on the phone and you'd say you hang up no you hang up no you hang up and then you would end up falling asleep on the phone together because it was just so nauseatingly fucking adorable yeah that shit absolutely except i always hated the phone so you'd be like you hang up and i was like okay okay click i love that i definitely did the no you hang up which is so stupid but adorable just

fucking hang up but adorable young lurve we'll call him dave mostly because that's his actual real name and guys don't get slut shamed you probably get high -fived for this story so fuck him we'll use his real name hell yeah also saw it don't worry everybody claudia sent us an image where dave consented to his name being yeah so don't worry i wasn't allowed to talk to dave on the phone after nine o 'clock so me being a young fucking macgyver badass i went to radio shack and i picked up a phone line splitter wow you are taking it back i never experienced a phone line splitter holy shit that's pretty

pretty that's like badass you are my god i wow did you ever do a whole of a phone line splitter i think i tried to once or i think um peppa tried to make one happen in our house i remember that being a thing because then like do you get your own phone line yeah you're able to like split the phone line but so like only calls will could be like coming to you where like other call like could it could make you be on the phone at the same time in the house but like with different people i think that was the idea okay yeah i don't know about this this is foreign wow but in our home office i attached

the splitter behind the desk and bought my own awesome cordless phone you know the kind with the metal antenna that telescoped out yes oh my god yes one of those bad boys i bought with my allowance take that mom and your dumb phone rules side note those last two sentences other than being complete run -ons make me sound so freaking old yes young yes Yes, youngsters.

I did happen to get my internet in the mail on a CD.

Yes. You're speaking to Elena Sol.

She's fist pumping.

I talk about that all the time.

The AOL CDs where you get like 20 free hours of AOL.

Yeah. On a CD. That shit was gold.

Yeah. That was like Charlie getting the golden ticket.

You would open that shit and be like, yeah.

That's wild. That's internet.

That is wild. Yeah.

So one of the evenings after my parents went to bed and I was using my MacGyver sneaky sneak cordless phone in my bedroom talking to Dave. Dave. We were on the phone and I'm sure gushing about our pure eternal love or some crap like that.

I started sobbing hysterically out of nowhere.

I could not even get any words out, and it was to the point that Dave was terrified because he thought something happened.

He thought something was happening to me.

I was overcome with all -consuming grief suddenly.

I felt my heart breaking into a thousand pieces and I could barely breathe.

It was a dark, cold, snowy January evening when a huge flash of light illuminated the entire sky, so much so that my boyfriend on the phone three miles away from me saw the light and yelled what the fuck was that i was able to sob out the words that was my grandmother she just died whoa i have to go my dad's my dad's going to call me now and i hung up the crazy part was i had no reason to think that's what was happening at this moment but i knew i could feel her almost like if you've ever seen the movie powder and he touched the deer he could feel it dying slipping away into darkness darkness.

That's what I felt.

I felt my grandmother leave this earth, and when that white flash filled the night sky, I knew she was gone.

I'm not kidding you.

I haven't - Can you see the goosebumps on my arm?

Yes. Holy shit. My God.

I'm so sorry. That's awful.

Also, taking it back to Powder as well.

I don't know that movie.

Sean Patrick Flannery is in that movie.

Hey -o. Yeah. I quickly turned off my phone, and just like I had said, two minutes later, Wow.

Wow. That's just bonkers that you knew.

The next day was Martin Luther King Day, so we actually didn't have school.

And thankfully, though, because I was so distraught, Dave came over to console me.

Remember when you were just a ball of anxiety and hormones all at once?

Well, the consoling started turning into the heavy petting, and then somehow, even though I was the one grieving, I ended up being the one In the kneeling position I'm literally obsessed with you I'm cackling I guess he was just trying to Wipe away my Definitely if you have kids earmuffs I guess he was trying to wipe Wipe away my tears with his penis But I digress I'm screaming And then mid -mouth hug I felt it Mid -mouth hug No not mid -mouth hug And I don't mean it was anything from my boyfriend i mean i felt a presence and it was overwhelming and filling the entire room so i stopped mid -stroke

with a mouthful of man meat i'm having a mental panic attack realizing that i can feel my grandmother's recently departed spirit in the room with us and there was no denying it what is happening then no then somehow it got worse dave gasped oh my god she's here here.

Shut up. Shut up. I feel like you need to put your man meat away because I can't do this.

Shut up. The feeling and presence was so overwhelming that even he could feel that she was there.

Hopefully she wasn't there to critique by technique because holy heaven, did everyone else know that you're not really supposed to blow?

Damn you, Catholic school sex education failing me again.

then no no stop the next sentence oh my god this is just kidding this is the best listener tale we've ever read are you guys ready so there i am cranking out some raspberries on the skin flute but my dead grandma was secondhand cringing with embarrassment for me i wish i could tell i wish i could tell you i wish i could get through this i wish i could tell you what what happened after she made herself known but i'm pretty positive that i blacked out from sheer embarrassment and emotion i can tell you that for a very long time afterwards i did have to do a ghost vibe check to make sure that gra to

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Give your memories the showcase that they deserve.

Hey there, my weird weirdos.

I want to take a minute to recommend another podcast called Who Took Misty Copsey?

In September of 1992, 14 -year -old Misty Copsey leaves the Washington State Fair with her best friend and is never seen again.

Her body is never found.

At the time, Washington is home to prolific serial killers like the Green River Killer, which leads to different theories on who's responsible for what happened to Misty.

over the course of eight episodes host and cold case investigator sarah kalin speaks with misty's friends and family looks at police records and different anonymous tips to try to figure out if misty's disappearance is the work of a serial killer or someone who knew her no suspects are ruled out after 33 years sarah kalin hopes to answer the question who took misty you guys are going to love this if you listen to morbid we know that you love a cold case and we always tell you A cold case is never cold.

So definitely give this a listen.

Definitely look into the case.

Listen to Who Took Misty Copsie wherever you get your podcasts.

If I had stopped there and written that there were stories where Ghost Graham saved my life and my husband's life, you guys would have said, damn it, why didn't you include them?

plot twist i did yes even though my grandmother had seen her jezebel granddaughter in action she clearly thought i was still worth saving because there are numerous occasions where the only way that i'm still alive is due to her angelic intervention when my grandmother originally passed away the movie titanic had come had come out right around that time and the celine dion song my heart will go on always made me cry fast forward a few years later i'm driving like a maniac like i I always did, my little geo tracker, which was basically a soda can with wheels and a diaper for a convertible top.

So, you know, really safe.

One night I'm driving this death trap down a three lane highway that all lanes go in one direction.

It's absolutely pouring, but I'm still driving fast because I'm young and I'm dumb and I'm indestructible.

Obviously. Suddenly, Celine Dion, my heart will go on comes on the radio.

It's been a few years.

So I just got chills immediately.

It's been a few years.

So it's not one that they play often, but still until any time I hear it, it brings me back and immediately makes me tear up and think of her.

With tears filling my eyes and the rain coming down so hard, I have to slow down a little bit.

And then the chorus hit and I really started crying and couldn't see, so I had to slow down even more.

I'm in the left lane and out of a side street, a car turns into my lane, going the wrong way, headed right for me with its headlights blinding me.

There's a car to my right and a a guardrail to the left of me so with nowhere to go i had to slam on my brakes with the slick road conditions i started to skid and he did the same and we both propelled toward each other uncontrollably and i closed my eyes waiting for impact but it never happened with the sound of the wipers on full speed and the heavy rain hitting the windshield i opened my eyes slowly and the chorus sang out again you are safe in my heart and my heart will go on i just got chili i got the He had skidded to a stop so close to touching that I could no longer see his headlights

Wow You could barely fit a piece of paper between our cars, but we never actually connected Holy shit If that specific song had not come on the radio at that exact second causing me to cry, forcing me to slow down I would have plowed into him at 80 miles an hour in my little tin can of a car You would not be writing this story No way, and what a fucking shame that would be wow that song and my gram brought me a few seconds or bought me a few seconds and saved my life and possibly the other drivers as well wow another instance with me driving down a three line three lane highway there are a lot

of them in my area so it was not that crazy and i was on the multiple times a day but i was driving along coming down a hill with a bend to the left there was a light that had just turned green the first lane had a car in it the second lane had an 18 wheeler and the third lane from what i could see was empty so i was coming around the bend i couldn't see around the 18 wheeler but went to go into that third lane so that i could pass the rig that was still just starting to get moving the wheel was violently jerked out of my hand and pulled back to the left keeping me in the second lane i thought

i hit something like one of those potholes that makes your car shake and your spirit leaves your body for a moment oh yeah but no i was physically not able to turn the steering wheel to go around the right side of the 18 wheeler i slammed on my brakes trying to figure out what the heck was happening was my wheel damaged did it fall off.

I ended up staying behind the big truck and as we just started going to go past the light I saw it.

There was a motorcycle stalled in that right lane still sitting at the light.

How I was approaching the turn the 18 wheeler was obscuring the view of it and if I had passed around that right side of the truck at 65 miles an hour on the blind turn I likely would have killed the motorcyclist and possibly even myself.

But I know that my grandmother pulled the wheel from my hand and didn't allow me to go into that lane again she saved my little trollop ass again damn her little angel wings must get tired then again a few years later she saved not my life but my husband's and an entire plane full of people damn one day i was driving along and i got a visit a vision so strong i had to pull over it was of my husband on a plane and i could see him taking off and a few minutes after they were were in the air the plane was malfunctioning and it was starting to fall from the sky sorry alina i'm having a moment alina that's

like one of her biggest fears yeah so vividly he called me and i answered the phone and he told me they were going down and that he loved me this was not just a daydream or something i was imagining it was what was going to happen it was very clear i also saw myself gives give my husband's eulogy and be at the church with his casket oh my god whoa jesus Jesus Christ. The truly terrifying part was that my husband was away on business currently and was scheduled to fly the next morning to come back home.

I called him immediately, frantically telling him to go rent a car or ride with the trucks that would be bringing the gear back, that he should travel with one of them, but do not get on that plane because you're going to die.

Understandably, my husband was clearly startled because he answered the phone while at work to his wife yelling, you're going to die, and was taken aback and jokingly said, okay, crazy lady, I gotta get back to work.

And he had to go. After we hung up the phone, I realized how I sounded like a raving lunatic.

He still had many hours of work to go before he was able to get back into his hotel room.

But when he did, he called me as soon as he got there.

Once we started chatting, he did not bring up my cuckoo phone call at all.

I think he was hoping that I'd forgotten about it or maybe if we ignored it, it would go away.

Clearly not the best for relationships, but hey, hey, we're human.

It had been a long day and he said he'd call me in the morning before he was heading out.

I barely slept that night because I knew the next day I was going to be a widow.

Oh my God. You poor thing.

I have a crazy fear of flying just like Elena.

Oh man, I'm sorry. But I never projected it on my husband.

I could only assume that's what he thought I was doing as he called me from the airport that morning.

And I told him one last time, don't get on that plane.

He told me not to worry and that he would be home in just a few short hours and I would see that it was all going to be okay.

My husband has flown hundreds of times for work.

He flies all over the world and planes don't bother him even though he's been in one that's been struck by lightning before.

How fucking crazy. I would never get on a plane again but hey that's me.

Don't worry they have like all these systems that like disperse the lightning, the electricity out on the wings of the plane and out into the atmosphere.

Listen to our omen episode.

You did a really good job explaining that.

Because it made me feel better.

Yeah. So he told me that he had to shut off his phone as they were about to take off.

I told him I loved him and we got off the phone because I could see my pleas were not going anywhere and I didn't want to totally freak him out anymore on his flight.

When we hung up, I cried and I screamed to my grandmother to save my husband's life.

I begged her with everything I had in me to watch over my husband and make sure that plane never took off because they were all going to die.

I said, Graham, do not let that plane take off if you love me at all.

Do not let it happen.

Again, I saw all of it play out so So vividly, and I saw him call me as the plane was going down to tell me goodbye.

I knew it was inevitable.

His flight was at 930 a .m., and I was a sobbing mess in my bed pleading with my grandmother to save him.

At 956, my phone was ringing, and it was my husband's name on caller ID.

My heart shattered, and I stared at the screen not knowing if I was even strong enough to answer this call.

Could I be strong enough to hear his final goodbye?

Right before it went to voicemail, I reluctantly answered, knowing my life was about to crumble.

I sheepishly said, hello.

My husband replied immediately and loudly, I will never doubt you again.

What? Oh my God, what happened?

He told me that as soon as the doors closed, he was filled with dread for the first time ever while flying.

The plane began to back up and all the power shut off.

Everything turned off.

It came back on and they tried again.

Seven times they tried to back up and seven times the power shut off completely.

My husband flagged down a flight attendant and asked what was happening because he wanted to get off this plane.

People in the next row heard him and immediately chimed in that they wanted off too.

In the next few minutes, everyone wanted off.

When the power came back on, they were able to taxi back to the gate and let everyone off.

He called me to tell me he was going to rent a car and drive the 8 hours back home because he was not getting onto a plane today.

Holy shit. My grandmother did it.

She made sure that plane never took off, and she saved my husband's life and all the other passengers' lives.

Wow. I have chills that are just like consistent chills.

I have chills that have chills.

Yeah. They're not going away.

Wow. I know the first story was totally funny and embarrassing, and I'm great goofing during that one.

But I do get serious when thinking about how if I didn't have my guardian angel grandma myself or my husband, I might not be here.

That's unbelievably crazy.

It really is. is and I believe it so those are just some of my crazy stories honestly there's so many more but I don't want to take over a total listener tales episode although I probably already did no thank you for this I love it I've included pics of me and my fur babies mandatory am I right hell yeah correct don't read their names because people will know who my embarrassed ass is I'm not saying them but those are great names though yeah those are fantastic they're great names my very alive husband husband and myself and my BJ boyfriend, Dave, from back in the day 20 years ago.

Those pictures were included.

I also included a screenshot where I told him I was going to send this story in for a listener tail.

And not to worry, I would change our names.

And he told me not to change his because how else was he supposed to get famous?

You will notice, though, he did not ask what story because he damn well knew what story because even 20 plus years later, you don't forget ghost gram watching you get dome.

Thanks, weirdos. Stay weird, but don't take it away ash uh keep it weird but not so weird that your grandma sees you to do your first blow job because that's absolutely terrible and you'll never move on i'm literally obsessed oh my god claudia is a queen that was that is among the best listener tales we've ever received that was so funny and also raspberries on a skin flute and also that was like so touching and so sweet and so amazing.

And, like, you took us on a journey, Claude.

You really did. I love.

Like, you really did.

And, oh, my God, you and your husband are beautiful.

I know. And the wedding pictures.

Yes, I'm obsessed. Oh.

Why? That was amazing.

That was amazing. I'm obsessed.

I'm obsessed with you.

I'm obsessed with it all.

And grandma's so pretty.

Ghost grandma. Grandma's beautiful.

Did you see grandma?

Seriously, ghost grandma for the win.

Seriously. She's working overtime, that gal.

can we can we talk about your visions you're fucking like damn that vision that's the fact that like as soon as in for your husband to suddenly be like you know what i went off this plane and then for everyone else to be like say too like because a lot of people will ignore that they won't ignore they won't listen to their gut yep so it's like your grandma was being like no everybody get the fuck off grandma was working ot yeah seven times i'd be like i'm opening the window i'm getting i'd be like catch me you are getting me off this plane or i'm causing an international incident that will make

me at that point seriously like oh what a wild wild all the way through so i guess what we will do now how do we follow up on that uh we'll go to the next one is listener tales you weirdos perfect like that and this listener's name is josh oh and you included some photography because you're a photographer and holy shit wow that That first one is so eerie.

Your photography is so vibe -y.

So cool. I love it.

The bicycle one, the trike.

Okay. I dig this a lot.

Oh, the book. I dig this.

Wow, you're really talented.

Damn, Josh. This is great.

Damn, Josh. Damn, Josh.

All right. It says, hey, Ash and Elena.

First off, I love the pod.

Thank you. My name is Josh.

Hi, Josh. Hello. I'm a photographer from Toronto, Canada.

We love Canadians. And poutine.

i've always been drawn to supernatural and true crime stories so naturally this podcast drew me in right away me and my girlfriend have been listening together for the past year and you two normally join us on many trips up to our cottage oh i love that this might be a little bit of a tale but it's one of my favorite stories that i have to this day i would say that i've had more than the normal amount of supernatural things happen to me the childhood house that But it was a chill spirit to the point where when I never felt threatened, but things definitely happened that couldn't be explained.

That's kind of how we felt in our house.

Yeah, exactly. My mom's house she grew up in was the opposite.

That spirit was a dick.

It would do things like turn on the gas stove in the middle of the night.

Oh my God. Or hold a pillow down over my sleeping grandpa's face.

That sounds like a demon. Yeah, that's a demon. Lots of stories there too, but this one is still my favorite.

This one takes place in a more than spooky location, an abandoned asylum.

To give you a little bit of a backstory, my good friend Matt and myself are photographers.

Again, phenomenal photography.

If we can share your photography, we'll reach out and ask because I would love to share it.

It would actually be perfect to use for this Listener Tales episode post. So we'll reach out and make sure that you're cool with it, but we would love to share it because he's killing it.

My good friend Matt and myself are photographers.

photographers we've gone on a couple of photography trips to shoot abandoned buildings in places that are left to decay through time i love that kind of photography too it's like decaying abandoned buildings i love that shit a lot of the places have quite a bit of history behind them and more often than not it's not pretty i'm talking about abandoned hospitals asylums churches morgues these aren't you're saying a morgue isn't pretty no i'm just kidding what are you trying to say these are the kind of places where spirits tend to overstay their welcome this particular occasion we were headed to

letchworth village in upstate new york this place was heaven for us at its peak letchworth village consisted of over 130 buildings spread out over many acres of land it was closed off to the public as most of these abandoned sites were but as usual that didn't stop us party we did our research party we did our research and hopped in the car bags packed and a list of spots to hit along the way this sounds like a fucking awesome awesome trip.

I was like, I kind of want to plan a trip like this.

Let's go. Letchworth opened in 1911 and was there to give care to the mentally impaired, epileptic, and poor children.

Oh, that's sad. Not sure why the last one ended up there.

But hey, to each their own.

History is rough. Now, the history in this place was dark.

When I say dark, I mean like wearing a blindfold in a basement cellar with all the lights turned off while being covered up by a burlap sack dark.

Holy shit. Due to inadequate funding and improper care of the residents, including children, there were reports of patients being found unclothed, unbathed, and neglected.

So sad. These places are always so horrifying.

Just so bleak. There was a ton of abuse towards patients and staff, which included incidents of, trigger warning here, this is going to get a little rough, everybody.

So skip over if you don't want to hear it.

Including incidents of rape, beatings, and testing done on patients.

and I'm sure there were many more things that happened on these grounds that would make you sick to think of.

Despite the doctors doing testing on these patients, there was one good thing to come out of this place.

It's where they developed the vaccine for polio in the 1950s.

Oh, wow. It's a pretty good thing.

I would say so. This test vaccine was given to an eight -year -old boy who was given the dose and when he experienced no side effects, it was then administered to 19 more child patients.

These experimentation trials were the first step towards a better polio vaccine vaccine, and the doctor was praised for his efforts.

But just think if it didn't work and had some horrible side effects.

I bet it would all be swept under the rug and more testing on innocent children would have continued.

Anyways, I'm starting to get distracted because of the history here, but let's get back to it.

After about eight hours of driving, we pulled up to the area the village was close to.

Since it was fenced off and abandoned, it had been overgrown and not well maintained.

It was a bit of a trek to get to.

We parked the car in a discreet location and grabbed our bags hopped the fence and started our hike into the forest after about 10 minutes of walking we stumbled onto our first building this sounds fucking awesome really it sounds like a movie the excitement and anticipation grew as we made our way closer to the decaying structure windows shattered and a front door swinging back and forth in the wind paint chipping off the walls and moss growing on the roof it was perfect exactly what we hoped when we first looked into this place once we got inside it got even better it was like everyone here

just stood up from what Yeah, you can just, you're there.

stuck in an asylum was a chilling experience.

We could have stayed here all day and explored, but seeing as the sun would eventually go down, it wasn't a spot we felt like spending the night.

We continued exploring the various buildings, each one a little different, and spent hours shooting and wandering around the grounds.

We decided to stop and have a smoke out in front of one of the buildings.

Bad habit, I know, but we're just chatting about the exploration while going through the photos on our cameras.

Looking off into the distance towards the north, this is important later, we can faintly see two figures walking towards us.

Judging by the speed they were moving, it didn't seem to be security or anyone that made us feel like running, so we stayed put and waited until they got closer.

It took about 10 minutes for the couple to make their way close enough to us to make out who they were.

To our surprise, it was an elderly couple, husband and wife, who were going for a walk together as they normally did through the grounds of the village.

This didn't seem odd to us at the time, so we chatted with them for about 15 minutes while standing outside.

They said they didn't know much about the area but frequently walked around here.

We on the other hand knew a shitload about the grounds so they were more than happy to hear a little history lesson on the village from us while we talked.

They explained that they had walked together here for the last 20 years or so and enjoyed hearing about the grounds they spent so much time on.

We chatted a little more and then said our goodbyes and as they continued to walk away from us at the speed of an 80 year old couple we waited and watched I watched them walk south out of our view as we were trespassing and breaking into some of these buildings.

Once they were gone, we turned and walked in the opposite direction to put some space between us and headed north into the next building.

I remember they went south.

This was exactly the same as the last building we were in, so decided to head out and keep walking to see what we could find.

As we turned to start walking, we noticed that off in the distance, to the north again, we could see faintly two figures walking towards us.

I looked over at Matt and said in a surprised voice, hey, there's another two people coming towards us.

We were both a bit shocked by this, as the grounds were closed off, but neither of us had had any idea how shocked we were about to be in a few minutes.

We continued walking towards the figures, and once we got closer, we realized it was the same old couple we had run into 15 minutes ago.

There's no way that's them.

It can't be. We passed them and waved briefly, saying hi, ha, you again to the couple and watching them walk off once again into the distance.

This is when it got weird. Both Matt and myself were looking at each other with confused looks on our faces.

Just a few minutes before, we had watched this couple walk off into the South, out of view.

But somehow, they made a full loop of the grounds and were walking in the same direction they originally came.

These grounds were big.

Hundreds of acres big.

In order for this to make any sense, they would have had to have gotten in a car as soon as they were out of view the first time, sped through the closed off overgrown roads parked gotten out and started walking towards us again from the north as i mentioned before the couple walked the speed you would imagine an 80 year old couple to walk slow as fuck they wouldn't have been able to run no sprint all the way around to end up where they did i think it was a good 15 minutes matt and i sat there trying to figure out how this was possible running every possibility through our heads but none of them

made any sense It would have been hard for us two 30 -year -old guys at the time to cover the amount of ground this 80 -year -old couple did in 15 minutes.

The creepy thing about Letchworth Village is that when it closed down in 1996, it was extremely overcrowded.

It's said that many of the patients just mingled into the surrounding areas and blended into society.

I looked over at Matt and asked him if he remembered how old the couple was, and after some quick math, we realized that they would have been in their early teens when Letchworth was in its prime oh that gave me chills they said they had been walking around these grounds for the last 20 years or so which would be the amount of time the grounds have been abandoned for i remember turning to matt and saying to him what if they've been walking around these grounds for the last 20 years because they never left oh my god i'm lobbing so hard right now the hair on my arms and neck stands up when i think

about saying that to him dude my arms i just got full chills I feel like my back has chills.

We decided this was when we were going to call it a day.

Fair. And head back to the hotel for the night.

I recall Matt saying to me on the way that if we run into this couple again, he's going to lose his shit.

Especially after thinking that they were patients who never left the grounds.

Every so often, I'll have to call Matt when explaining this story to someone so he can verify what happened and tell the exact same side of things.

But every time I tell it, the hair stands up straight when I get to the part about running into them for the second time.

time. Thankfully, we didn't run into them or any security on the way out and made it back to our car waiting outside the forest we walked in from earlier that day.

To this day, I wonder about that old couple and still can't make any sense of the whole situation.

Were they patients?

Were they ghosts? Are they still wandering around there today, years later?

I guess we'll never know, but I got one of my favorite stories out of it and I'll have that forever.

That's all for now.

Maybe I'll write again, maybe I'll write in again about the time we got separated in another asylum and had to backtrack alone through the tunnels underneath the building in the pitch black looking for a very expensive camera that got left behind.

Oh, my God. Or the time we walked into an abandoned morgue and could visibly see the breath in front of your face in the middle of summer and 30 -degree weather.

That's for another time, but if you guys read this one, that'll be enough for me.

Once more, love the show, love you, too, and keep it weird. But not so weird that you, you know what?

Fuck it. We don't need to bring that old couple back for a third time.

That was great. Wow, Josh.

gosh also I want to hear those other stories so yes please yeah please write those in and also we are definitely going to reach out because I people need to see these photographs they're so cool the bike one is my favorite the bike and the book yeah the book is really so we'll we'll definitely reach out and make sure that you're cool with that so we'll give you credit and all that but we love to share them for you so that story haunting needs to be like it needs to be be part of a movie or it needs to be a movie like that's that whole thing is just so chilling i could definitely it when you were reading

it i was like picturing it as a scene in a movie yeah i could see it in my head 100 oh that was so good oh i wonder who they were i know the idea that they're like patients that never left it's so sad i know but they're just like you know holding hands walking together yeah i'm like oh no it's interesting damn am.

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Hey, Ash. First let me say, you bitches get me through my every fucking day.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

I listen to the podcast, love it, while I'm working, and I believe with every fiber of my annoyed, sick of stupid people being that the two of you are what keep me from punching people in the face daily.

I love that. So thank you for keeping me out of jail and for the abundance of gruesome, horrifying, hysterical, what the fuck just happened episodes that you provide.

Enough with the mush.

Let's begin. in. As you may have guessed or not, I have no idea because I don't have a psychic fucking bone in my body.

I don't particularly like people, with the exception of a very elite few of which you are both included.

So, you're welcome.

The honor is all yours.

Honestly, you're part of my little elite few as well, girl.

I love it. Same. And I tend to not be a talker, so this shouldn't be too long.

If you need it feels to be edited for content, please feel free to do that.

It's all pretty relevant.

We will not. I'll start this story by saying I have no fucking idea what the the fuck i experienced love those kind of stories i know same i don't know if what happened to me has happened to others or if there's a logical explanation for it any thoughts you have on the experience would be most welcome and i'm sure hysterical anyway here's my story i was extremely pregnant and feeling like a beached walrus minus the mustache and laying in my bed and my husband who was not pregnant and felt perfectly fucking fine and is now my ex that's a whole other shit show was sitting next to me chicken chicken

scratching in a tablet probably making a list of things to do the next day or writing what he considered poetry or something equally as lame.

You're an icon and I love you.

You are an icon. The bedside lamp was on and was the only light on in the house.

Our bedroom was very small, basically room for the never fucking big enough bed and about a foot and a half of space around the bed to walk.

And that was it. Don't fucking judge.

We were just starting out.

Hey, I feel you. I feel that.

We all had that bedroom.

Yeah, absolutely. So we're in the bed.

And at the time it felt like I was in that semi -sleep state where you're on the verge of sleep but you're not actually asleep yeah yeah as i'm laying there i saw at the foot of our bed a boy about 10 years old he had a dark complexion and thick hair possibly middle eastern he was wearing a white button -up shirt and dark pants he was in a he was in a very crowded outdoor marketplace huh like you would see in um marrakech marrakech or someplace not that i've ever been there but i do watch television i watch the tv you know and he He was looking about as if lost or searching for someone in the crowd.

He looked in my direction a couple of times but never spoke, at least not to me or that I could hear.

Thank God he didn't seem threatening because I doubt if I would have been able to get my pregnant fattery out of the bed or out of the door fast enough, but I digress.

While I was looking at the boy, for some fucking reason not questioning why or how he was there, in my bedroom, because that's not at all creepy.

You were pregnant. You don't question a lot of things while you're pregnant.

You get a free pass at that point.

But while that was happening My husband nudged me with his elbow And fucking annoyed I looked at him He put an index finger to his lips As if to say shh And then pointed at the boy At the foot of the bed Oh Oh my god Like My first instinct Was to Was to crank him in the fucking mouth And be like Did you just shush me?

But then I thought Wait Is he seeing that kid too?

Why isn't he grabbing him up And throwing his ass out the door?

Be a fucking man and protect your pregnant wife throw that kid out the door but as one does in these situations i didn't do or say any of that i simply looked back to the foot of the bed and continued watching this strange boy like it was a perfectly fucking normal occurrence that we do every fucking day of the week next thing i knew i was waking up the next morning but wait there's more when i got up the next day my husband already left for work so i didn't get the chance to mention the odd occurrence to him i shrugged it off as just a weird ass dream went through my daily routine went to work

i was working the afternoon shift. I won't regale you the details of my daily routine because that would truly be a but not so weird that moment.

For some reason during our lunch break my co -workers, ugh people, and I got into conversations about dreams. I shared the dream quote -unquote that I had about the boy and how very real it felt to me in my dream and how my husband saw him too.

They half jokingly said I should ask him about it when I got home from work.

The rest of the work day was extremely hectic because my life is a shit show and work is part of it and I forgot all about the boy and my dream.

I went home and started preparing dinner.

Insert hysterical laughing, because me, cooking.

Anyway, the Hubs came home and he went straight to the shower as instructed, and then sat down to watch TV until dinner was ready.

We didn't really have any conversation to speak of, and as I said, I'd forgotten all about the boy and my dream.

Out of the blue, my husband said to me, you know this house is haunted, don't you?

Side note, I can neither prove nor debunk the existence of insert entire mega list of paranormal beings here.

So I'm on the fence i just want to put that out there please read on after a moment of surprise i asked him what do you mean why do you say that if you just read that in somewhat high -pitched frantic voice good job you nailed it i'm gonna do it again what do you mean why did you say that why he said to me didn't you see that fucking kid at the foot of our bed last night i love that you got this is so casual i love it like i love that it's just like so much time has passed and then you're just like he's like by the way you saw a kid at the end of our bed last night i meant to mention that earlier

And when I asked, i .e. interrogated, he proceeds to describe in great detail the boy I saw and what I thought was simply a dream.

He described the boy, what he was wearing, the marketplace, everything.

That's the other thing.

I'm like, you had an entire portal open up in your house.

That's the thing. Because like I've seen, like I believe that I've seen spirits before in figures, but never in a place that they're in, in a setting.

Yeah, that's, picturing that is really cool.

That's something altogether different, I feel.

Yeah. Yeah. And I also just can't believe that you were like, well, nighty night.

Yeah. This is a marketplace in my room, I guess.

Yeah. Poppy off. And they wrote, what the actual fuck?

Exactly. Now, I don't know if what I experienced was a shared dream, a spirit of some type, a portal that we had the opportunity to look through to another place, just a dream, a temporary loss of the last shred of my fucking sanity, or if there's some other explanation, but I cannot explain how my husband was able to describe exactly what I saw if he didn't see it also can somebody please explain this to me even after i divorced this asshat we've had at least two other shared dreams wow where it's the same dream just from our respect our respective perceptives say that three times fast fast ash

i hope you're reading this one because i love when you trip over your own tongue it is very endearing and makes me feel not so alone you're welcome friend.

You just knew. These experiences don't scare me, but I often wonder what they are and why they occur.

Thank you for reading my lame ass story.

It's not lame at all.

No. After hearing the other listener's story, mine is really not on that level.

It is. You saw a whole ass portal.

In your room. And your husband saw it too.

And then you also had two other shared dreams from your respective perspectives.

I've never had a shared dream.

I was trying to say it three times perspective perspective perspective perspective perspective perspective perspective perspective but you have never had a shared dream i don't think i don't think i have either i've had dreams that like were premonitions yeah but i've never had a shared never a shared dream no that i know of anyways i am do you ever still think about the girl that wrote in the tale yes and yeah the entire the dream world and she would always go back there no i'm literally obsessed with that and I think about it like once a month, I think.

Same, same. At least. Yeah.

Anyways, okay, sorry, let's finish this.

If I am a fangirl lucky enough to get my story in a Listener Tale episode, please feel free to use my name while I bottle my tears of joy as a creepy memento.

Don't worry, I don't plan to send them to you or anyone.

I'm weird, but not send people I don't know my bottled tears weird. Don't keep it that weird. Love you both and love the podcast. Love you.

P .S. I know Elena is an accomplished author.

Aw, thanks. Congrats.

So please don't judge the horrendous grandma.

Girl never. not my fucking forte i also said grandma yeah grammar i would never judge your horrendous grandma but then it says keep it weird bitches and i don't know if you said we could use your name or not yeah she said please feel free to use my full name it's sheila feather sheila sheila feather is a cool you are sheila feather love you're the best and i love rule i love your attitude i could feel it you added a little bit of spice and i love that i love a spicy and i I also love that you guys don't get mad when I stumble over my words.

Thank you. I love that.

Thank you. Thanks for mentioning the whole author bit and I didn't pay you to do that, so thanks.

Like, your check is in the mail.

I appreciate it because the sequel to The Butcher and the Wren called The Butcher Game Yay!

is coming out on September 17th and you can pre -order your copy at thebutchergame .com so go claim your free poster because there's only going to be a certain amount of free posters while the supplies last, so go get it.

Is it ever going to be a tinyurl .com ever again?

I feel like we need to make it a tinyurl.

Can you talk to your people?

I'll talk to my people.

Okay, thank you. Because I want to say tinyurl .com slash the butcher game.

Yeah, I also want that.

I like that. But go get your copy of it because that's going to be the theme from here on out.

Somebody go get it or she's reading like a thriller.

This one's longer too.

That's my input. So get on it it's really good i've read some of the chapters uh so my next one is aliens just aliens love that title fantastic um it says hi ladies i have a listener tail in the attached please let me know if the doc doesn't come through you know what it came through uh listener also wants to be called betty betty betty i i think i know why hey betty i think i also know know why hello ladies of maybes i like it so writing this in is way outside my comfort zone i'm not a sharer when it comes to regular type life events let alone the bonkers bizarre and creepy particularly not this experience

as you'll see it's pretty unbelievable but it happened and your listener tales provide a fun place for people to talk about experiences that we can't always talk about elsewhere it's practically a community service i like the way you look at that i love I love that that's how you look at it because that's how I always look at it.

You can tell us any of your weird, crazy experiences because no judgment here.

Never. I listen to your podcast all the time and The Listener Tales are probably my favorite.

Wow. We don't get that a lot.

We don't. However, while I've decided to finally put down in writing what happened, I'd prefer not to share my name.

So please call me Betty.

You got it, Betty. I almost said Belly.

Belly. Betty. She said, please call me Betty.

Not Betty. And I said, okay, Belly.

I'm from Canberra, which is the actual capital of Australia.

Oh, shit. I did not know that.

And she said, please tell the world.

Here we are. I live a couple of hours' drive from the, thank you so much for the phonetic, Uro -Bodell -Shire.

Ooh, boy. Uro -Bodell -Shire.

Yeah. Uro -Bodell -Shire.

There it is. The southeast coast of Australia.

This area is gorgeous and remains one of my favorite places in the world.

It's so peaceful and beautiful and calms my soul no matter what's happening in my life.

I love that. So you can imagine how best pleased I was when one night it was overtaken by aliens.

Damn. My family have regularly gone up to this area for weekends and holidays as why wouldn't you?

Every Christmas, my family would rent a house somewhere along the coast and we'd stay there for a couple of weeks.

My friend, let's call her Dee, would come and stay with us for the second week of our stay and had done for years.

The last time this happened, Dee and I were 16 and had well and truly started our teenage nonsense.

One night, the house was full of two families and younger children, so we did what any teenagers do and swipe a couple of beers and a flashlight from my parents and headed down to the beach, just a short walk away.

Being a regional area, as far as we could tell, we were the only people on the beach, slowly sipping on our beers, which weren't going down so well as they were warm and nasty.

But when you're 16, you're like, it's fine, I love this!

so there there we were sitting on the sand near the waves under the moonlight chatting away d was in the middle of explaining an ongoing drama with her friends at high school while she chatted away i was watching a light way out in the distance on the water it was an orange light and looked like it belongs to a belong to a passing ship nothing unusual i kept watching the light on the horizon as my friend rabbited away after 15 to 20 minutes however this light had gotten bigger like it was closer perhaps and i realized it was not sitting on the water but significantly higher up hard to tell when something

is so far away but guessing at least 100 meters off the water so it was no longer looking like a ship or a boat after staring at this for a while i interrupted d's and then adrian said story with do you see that indicating the light in the distance yeah she says and forgets about adrian and becomes equally as focused on figuring out this strange orb we both stared at it for several minutes waiting for it to explain plane itself it was certainly bigger than anything that belonged to a plane or ship and it just moved weird still confused and not thinking about it I decided to pick up the flashlight

and flashed at this mysterious light well fuck the moment I turned on the flashlight and pointed it at this thing it immediately responded what to our flashlight and to us I would have shed my pants it moved from far out in the horizon to about a hundred meters away from our heads in the snap of your fingers There was no sound No clear acceleration or deceleration It just moved several kilometers To a dead stop right near us In next to no time All of a sudden there was this large bubble of light Meters away Dee and I got up and bolted We turned towards the dunes Away from the beach and just ran When we

got to the top of the dunes We both paused and dared to look backward It was still there Just chillin It was big and made of light Like the light you might see from a street lamp but it had a clearly defined outline, no metal opening or features, just opaque light.

It was just about the size of a double -decker bus.

Its shape is hard to explain.

It could have been changing shape slightly, or it could have been slowly spinning and revealing different sides.

I couldn't tell. At one point, it looked like an imperfect sphere, and at others, more like a rounded banana or sausage.

Either way, it just hung in the air soundlessly, slowly moving across across the water, just where the waves were breaking.

About 50 to 70 meters off the water.

Maybe it was exploring?

Now that I think about it, we really should have done a better job hiding, rather than standing on the highest point of the beach, gaping and frozen.

Eh, what are you gonna do?

At this point, we had time to think.

What the fuck was going on?

Is it looking for us?

Can it already see us?

Did it think our torchlight was one of its own and excitedly sprint to greet us, only to have to explain oh shit, thought you were someone else?

It's like when you wave at somebody, but they're not waving at you.

And it's just like, oh no, no, this is weird. But we had no idea.

But for the next maybe 30 minutes, we just clung to each other on the sand watching this thing float in the air.

After a while, it slowly moved upwards into the sky and we could still see its glow beaming from behind the clouds.

But we got cold and tired and headed home.

When we got home, we didn't tell my family as they would have not believed us and instead just went to bed.

Years later, I told my best friend about this experience, but she's still highly skeptical and told me i only thought i saw something what a bitch she wasn't there that's not right fuck you it says yeah i didn't say it she did fuck you says betty luckily she has many other qualities and is still my best friend to this day but as you can imagine this is not a story i share with people since this experience i've kept a casual eye on other encounters that might be similar to mine but there's not a lot if anything this has made me more skeptical about other people's experiences and definitely youtube

videos as soon as i hear things about saucers and metal count contraptions i'm like nope that's not what aliens look like wrong though in truth i can't say exactly what i what it was that i saw but i saw it and it was something extraordinary though terrifying at the time i'm only up to about episode 160 on your podcast but catching up fast i like how you describe the unknowns in your stories and theorize on possibilities so ladies please feel free to tell me your thoughts would love to know And they don't know what your maybes and explanations could be.

While you're baking your noodles, let me add this.

A few days later, Dee's father and stepmom, unexplained expectedly, paid us a visit.

They had to give Dee the awful news that her mom OD'd a couple of days before, ending decades of struggles with heroin.

Oh, that's awful. Dee was very close and protective of her mom and was devastated.

Related? Probably not.

But that was two big events that happened very close together.

Thanks for reading, ladies.

I know how much you love Australia.

so hopefully I have provided you with another tidbit to add to your basket of creepy Australian tales.

Keep it weird. Love, Betty.

Betty, I think you guys saw aliens.

You saw an UFO. I think so.

And I do feel like people's experiences with sightings can be different because I don't think all aliens come from one planet.

No, I think we're seeing all kinds of different ones.

Yeah, they all have different places where they live.

But I don't know what other explanation there is for that.

No, you saw aliens.

Like, you saw aliens.

I mean the government said they're real Betty you saw aliens you just deal with it you just did you just saw them deal with it Betty yeah I don't know how I feel I'm very I'm very in the middle of if I'd like to see aliens or not I want to really yes for like a hard 100 % you need to see it yeah wow I want to see it I feel like we've had experience you don't want to see them I'm not sure I don't want to and I do want to I I want to see them but like not get abducted, please?

Yeah, I don't want to get abducted.

You're like, let me be clear on that.

Yeah, let me be clear.

I'm a homebody. I don't like going anywhere.

So, like, I don't, you won't catch me out.

So, you're not going to catch me in an alien ship.

I also don't like flying.

So, that's many issues for me there.

I'm also a Capricorn, so don't touch me.

Yeah, no. None of this is going to work.

I want to see them, though.

From the distance. And just give a little wave and be like, sorry.

I feel like we've seen UFOs together.

Like driving, I feel like we've seen things.

I've seen some weird things that I can't.

Yeah. And John's seen something.

At least one thing that he's positive is like an UFO.

That's a crazy story.

You should actually—I feel like he's not going to come on, but— I should have him tell the story.

Have him write it down at least so we can read it.

I'll have him pop on and maybe tell the story if I can force him to.

We'll have to bribe him heavily.

We absolutely will, but it's okay.

I'll think. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, we'll figure it out.

But yeah, I think Betty saw a motherfucking alien.

I think so. So you can be comforted in that fact, Betty.

Yeah. And I'm sorry about your friend's mom.

That's really terrible.

That is really sad.

And to have all of that to process in a very short span of time is horrible.

That's a lot to process for 4D.

Yeah. Oof. Alright.

But you're right. We love Australia.

Yeah, we do. We love our Australians.

In 1920, a broke immigrant in Boston became one of America's richest, most infamous men practically overnight.

He swindled the modern equivalent of a quarter billion dollars and etched his name into history as the mastermind behind one of the most notorious scams ever, the Ponzi scheme.

Hosted by Maya Lau and featuring award -winning comedian and actor Sebastian Maniscalco, this is Easy Money, The Charles Ponzi Story, an Apple Original Podcast podcast produced by at will media follow and listen on apple podcasts let's finish it off with one more let's do it we have listener tales the disappearing lady in the ditch and a possible spirit stalker also yeet you're welcome ash thank you hello you beautiful baked potatoes that is how i identify thank you i was just gonna say i will not insert anything anything else i am a beautiful a beautiful baked potato i am a beautiful butterfly

i am a beautiful baked potato with sour cream i love it i used to despise podcasts until one day i found yours that's wild thank you and it's basically the only one i consistently listen to i tried listening to other ones but it just felt wrong the other true crime ones are too monotone or depressing plus it made me feel like i was cheating on you guys in a way if i listened to a true crime podcast us that wasn't you which i know you encourage us to listen to other people but i don't care i only want you lol like i won't don't make there's so many other good ones though they're like give them

a promise but thank you that's so kind anyway you guys keep me company on car rides to school every single night while studying for my exams med school baby hell yeah working hard now so that everyone i love doesn't have to later lol what a badass that's queen behavior or king behavior and basically anytime i'm doing anything i .e cleaning out my car cleaning the house walking breathing etc it's safe to assume that if i'm awake i have headphones in and morbid is playing that's so nice i love that you guys feel like the big sisters i always wanted so thank you we are below i have attached a double

space puttafa for your reading pleasure even though i literally write creatively for fun i am not a good storyteller so i apologize if we end up bouncing back and forth a bit i'd like to one day write in about my truly horrifying experiences such as the time my possibly possessed neighbor threatened to kill us broke into our house and tried to kidnapped my uh two -year -old at the time brother but every time i sit down to write it i have to stop before it's night time otherwise i will get nightmares and i can't sleep so for now we're sticking with this less spooky tale oh i want that one too i want

both hope you enjoy and my babble is not too chaotic to understand mama i'm a gemini nothing is too chaotic to understand this happened recently around two or three weeks ago mid end of august though it's not my spookiest experience it is my most recent let me start by providing some background i attend college near my house and commute every morning to my classes on this particular morning i remember being in a rush i had slept past my alarm which in turn had thrown off the rest of my usual morning routine i took a five minute shower which i had not thought to be possible for me previous to that morning

threw lunch together and ran out the door i arrive every morning around six to study for a a few hours before my morning class, so it's usually still dark out when I leave in the mornings around 5 .15.

You could literally never catch me doing that morning routine.

Early. I give you a high five.

To get to the campus, I take a lot of back roads surrounded by cornfields and farmers to get there because there's less traffic, and I prefer to avoid the congestion when possible.

I drove past a red barn, as I do every morning, and today there was a woman clearly upset with her car halfway in a ditch across the street from the barn.

Oh, damn. She was standing by the back of the car holding her phone to the air as if she couldn't get signal.

I found this weird, even though we were in an area surrounded by cornfields.

I always have pretty decent reception.

I blast morbid on the Bluetooth speaker on my way to school, LOL.

But we probably just use different phone companies.

As a young female, I've always been told to be careful in situations like this, as it's sometimes a tactic used to hurt or kidnap people.

We've all heard those stories where a lady or a child pretends to be hurt, and a guy comes out of nowhere and hits you over the head with something, thing and you pass out or you die or maybe that's just me since i watch forensic files with my mom all the time but something felt really off i passed her fairly quickly speed limit in the area is 45 miles an hour as i drove by her we made eye contact for a brief moment and i swear time slowed and chills immediately ran down my spine my gut started twisting into knots and i felt an indescribable heaviness i felt like if i didn't stop i would deeply

regret it or something bad would happen i got the terrible feeling that this woman was in danger i quickly estimated in my brain that the probability of getting kidnapped raped or murdered if i were to turn around and asked if she needed help she was the only other one out there and i'm absolutely certain that there weren't any other people or cars but just to be on the safe side i decided i'd stay in my car pull up to her with my window rolled down a slight crack and ask if she needed help i turned around in the big driveway of the red barn across the street as i got closer to the ditch i realized

she and the car have completely vanished that's what i would shit myself again it was bizarre as it couldn't have taken more than two minutes for me to turn around and get back to that ditch an eerie feeling came over me but i decided i was probably just paranoid and should forget about it so i unpaused morbid and continued on my route to school everything that day went fine nothing out of the ordinary the next morning however things got weirder Once I drove by the barn again, there was another car in the ditch. It wasn't the same kind as the woman had, and nobody was outside the vehicle.

The lady's car was a dark color.

This car was white.

It looked too clean to belong on these roads, honestly.

I don't know much about cars, but it looked nice to me.

All the windows were completely tinted, so dark you couldn't even see by the driver's side window, which is illegal where I live.

I also noticed there was black writing on the side of the car, but I couldn't read what it said because of how far away my car was, and the speed I was going totally wasn't speeding winky face winky face never never don't speed be careful this time I drove straight by it and didn't even consider stopping my gut was screaming no run to me I'm not quite sure why I just got a terribly gut -wrenching wave of anxiety so I kept going because kindness is for dead people and I have an exam that morning and I wanted to study anyways everybody in these stories is having like gut intuition yeah that's the theme

Skipping to the end of that school day, my friend Peter always gets there to study with me and walks me to my car because we park next to each other.

After class, we had walked to our cars and were just chatting, putting our books away, etc. when a white car with tinted windows and black lettering on the side pulls in and parks in the spot directly next to mine.

My friend found this odd since there were tons of open parking spaces surrounding us.

We park way out in the back lots to avoid all the congestion getting out.

Yet this car chose to park right next to me.

I was internally freaking out a little bit now as this was the same car that I'd seen in the ditch earlier.

I asked Peter if we could go back inside the building and he saw the look on my face and knew something was off.

He walked me back inside the building and I told him what happened.

We looked out the window and saw the car pull out of the spot, roll down the driver's side window slightly as if it rolled painfully slow by my car, and then out of the lot.

What? That's fucking weird. Oh, I hate that.

Peter walked me to a campus police car and explained the situation to the cop.

We ended up leaving and the officer told us that the next, sorry, the officer told us the next morning that though he saw the encounter on the security footage, he really couldn't do anything, which I knew and I didn't expect him to.

I just guess I wanted somebody to know, I guess.

It made me feel safer at the time, but looking back, maybe it was a waste of time.

No, I wouldn't have known what to do either.

Yeah, I feel like I would have done the same thing.

I think you did the right thing.

After that, I didn't see either cars, but weird things have been happening.

The next morning, I was loading my own car for school, lunch, endless piles of books, scrubs, etc. I typically have to make three or four trips back and forth from my car in the mornings because I always forget things and am obsessed with being dreadfully overprepared.

Anyways, as I made my way to the car for the first time that morning, I noticed that the driver's side door was ajar.

This was weird since I park in the the garage, and my father leaves even earlier than I do to get to work in the mornings.

He parks right next to me, and with the way that our garage is set up, he would have hit my door with his car if it were left open when he pulled out.

It threw me off, but I brushed it off and assumed maybe I just left it open the previous day and somehow my dad got around it, or maybe he needed something for my car and grabbed it before he left, forgetting leaving the door open.

I shut the car door and went back inside to get my laptop bag.

When I came back out, the driver's side door was open again.

I walked around the car cautiously, using the flashlight on my phone to shine under it and around it quickly, making sure that I was the only one in the garage.

I was hit with the overwhelming feeling that I was not.

I swear I felt like I was being watched.

Slamming it shut and locking it this time, I went inside to grab my lunch. When I came back, the garage light was off.

This is a fucking horror film.

Yeah, it literally is.

feeling around in the dark i found the switch and turned it on only to find that the driver's side door was open again at this point i was quite scared but also just pissed off oh fuck off i found myself groaning to nobody in particular you're annoying i feel that i'm too young to be this over it but whatever i'm an old spirit i yelled something along the lines of leave me alone you most certainly are not welcome here so get the fuck out or i will get a shovel and in a frying pan and beat you until you're dead twice.

That's badass. Damn.

Now this is not where the weirdness ends.

All the uneasiness and gut feelings I had before have ceased.

I no longer feel like I'm being watched, but now the people around me are experiencing weird things.

Oh, you threw it onto everybody else.

It's like it follows.

For example, a family friend was over and she fell, quote unquote, and broke her ankle.

She was outside in the yard and she said she swore she felt a hand push her down onto the concrete.

Oh, damn. Her ankle was red and swollen from the the way she landed on it.

But do you want to know the scariest part?

Yeah. She showed me her side, and there was a swollen red mark that looked like an inflamed handprint.

Wow. I don't know what's been going on.

Maybe I just have an overactive imagination or I'm thinking too much into it.

But ever since seeing that woman in the ditch, things have been weird. Wow.

And that's it. I don't like that.

I'm worried for you.

At all. And just, I hate the fact that, like, as you locked eyes, you immediately felt weird. And then that's when all the weirdness started happening.

It really is like an It Follows kind of vibe.

It's like she passed something to you.

I don't like it. And then you were like, I'm not into this.

I don't accept this.

I don't claim this.

And then it went on to everybody else.

Very scary. That was a fun batch of listening tales though.

Yeah, these were spooky and fun.

I love a spooky ookie moment.

I think we needed some spooky ookie moments because we have had some really, really rough cases lately.

So, we figured a good, you know, spooky, fun, chilling Listener Tale episode was due.

It was. And I loved it.

Thanks so much, guys.

You rule. Yeah, so we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't write in your spooky tales to us because, holy crap, we love them.

Write them in. Bye -bye.

Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen ad -free on Amazon Music.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery .com slash survey.

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[Listener Tales: Ghostly Visions, Portals, and Unexplained Encounters]-[Episode 550: Listener Tales 84]

📋 Summary

Unveiling the Unexplained: Highlights from Morbid's Listener Tales

The Ghostly Witness

The Asylum Loop

The Bedroom Portal

The Alien Encounter

The Stalker in the Ditch

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript