THERÉSA: Hello, Hello, my hauntos Therésa here. Welcome back to another
THERÉSA: episode of Haunting. The podcast where we share listeners submitted
THERÉSA: stories of other worldly encounters with the great beyond. I'm
THERÉSA: excited to gab with you girls today because I've been
THERÉSA: having a little encounter of my own. As some of
THERÉSA: you may remember, I got saddled with a familiar, Merlin.
THERÉSA: Only he's not the slinky cat I was expecting. He's
THERÉSA: a massive, great horned owl. Anyway, I've been trying to
THERÉSA: make the best of it by accompanying Merlin on his
THERÉSA: hunting expeditions in the mortal realm. As a familiar, Merlin
THERÉSA: has access to both the physical and spirit world. It's
THERÉSA: nice getting to look down on everything from a bird's eye view.
THERÉSA: It reminds me of my dad's company jet, which we
THERÉSA: sadly lost access to after the indictment. So this one morning,
THERÉSA: Merlin's flying through the Poconos and there's this adorable nature boy.
THERÉSA: He's got his little binoculars and camera, clearly a birdwatcher,
THERÉSA: and he's like, obsessed with me.
LEN: [MUMBLES]
THERÉSA: Well, if he's obsessed with Merlin, he's obsessed with me.
THERÉSA: I'm basically Merlin. The crazy thing is he's so not
THERÉSA: my type, but there's something about him that's just so
THERÉSA: cute and wholesome. I can't explain it, but it might
THERÉSA: be love. I usually go for trust fund DJs or
THERÉSA: guys who say bet. This could be a really good thing.
THERÉSA: The only challenge has been communication. I had Merlin follow
THERÉSA: him back to his apartment in Philadelphia, perch outside of
THERÉSA: his window and tap on the glass. This seemed to
THERÉSA: really excite him, again because he's a huge bird nerd
THERÉSA: so I might need to get a bit more explicit
THERÉSA: with my messages. But I have a little romantic gesture
THERÉSA: up my sleeve I think should do the trick. I'll have an
THERÉSA: update on that later. For now, let's get started with
THERÉSA: our first story of the episode. This one comes to
THERÉSA: us from Nicole, an LA native just like me who's
THERÉSA: had her fair share of disturbing paranormal experiences.
STORY A: I'm Nicole and I was followed by something sinister on
STORY A: a trip to see a friend. I am born and
STORY A: raised in Los Angeles. I have always grown up knowing
STORY A: that my family has had a connection to the other side,
STORY A: whether it be psychic, whether it be seeing spirit, They've
STORY A: all had interactions. My grandmother specifically would see spirit all
STORY A: the time. She would have a woman that would walk
STORY A: up and down her stairs at her childhood home. This
STORY A: woman would sit on her bed and help my grandma
STORY A: brush her hair while she was sitting there. This was
STORY A: then passed down to my mom, who has always had premonitions.
STORY A: My mom has even been approached in the supermarket by
STORY A: people saying, are you aware that you have psychic abilities?
STORY A: These people are just drawn to her. That was also
STORY A: passed down to me. I was in sixth grade. It
STORY A: was the last year at my elementary school and there
STORY A: was a big Washington, DC trip that the sixth grade
STORY A: class would always take. Having been in LA this was
STORY A: cross country, it was far away, so it was the
STORY A: biggest deal. It was a class of thirty and every
STORY A: kid in the class ended up going on this trip.
STORY A: It was the trip. We were probably the most annoying
STORY A: group of kids for the other people on the plane
STORY A: because a red eye, you know, there's business people trying
STORY A: to fly to Washington, D C. for their meetings in
STORY A: the morning, and none of us could shut up. We
STORY A: were talking the whole time, laughing, yelling. We were probably
STORY A: driving everyone crazy. I don't think any of us slept
STORY A: on that plane because there was just this air of excitement.
STORY A: This may be hard to believe, but I was so
STORY A: excited for the history part. My grandpa was a history
STORY A: buff and my grandma was a docent at the Huntington
STORY A: Museum out here in LA basically a volunteer leading tours
STORY A: and everything around the Huntington Museum. So she just gave
STORY A: me a love for history that was shining through in
STORY A: sixth grade.
STORY A: Once we landed, we went to the hotel, we checked in,
STORY A: we were immediately shuttled to our bus. We went to
STORY A: the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, that whole area of Washington, D.C.
STORY A: We had a tour guide that lived there that would
STORY A: take us to all these monuments and all these museums.
STORY A: She knew everything about everything and as she would speak,
STORY A: I would notice that she'd always work in these tidbits
STORY A: about ghosts or spirits and things that she had seen
STORY A: or things that someone on her tour group had seen.
STORY A: I thought that was the coolest thing.
STORY A: One of the main highlights that we were all looking
STORY A: forward to was heading over to Colonial Williamsburg. As our
STORY A: bus entered the area, it felt like we were in
STORY A: a completely different time in space, like we were being
STORY A: transported into the seventeen hundreds. Our tour guide told us
STORY A: there were so many different spirit encounters that she had
STORY A: seen and that people that she led on tour groups
STORY A: had seen. We spend the whole day in Colonial Williamsburg
STORY A: churning butter, weaving baskets, making blankets, making candles. At the
STORY A: end of the day, our entire group was absolutely exhausted.
STORY A: It's dusk at this point, it's starting to get dark.
STORY A: Our big group was walking back to our bus. As
STORY A: we were walking, there's a man standing at this fence.
STORY A: He was in traditional colonial garb. He was wearing khaki
STORY A: capris with white socks up to his knees, black buckle shoes,
STORY A: a white blouse, a black overcoat, and a tri-corner black hat.
STORY A: I thought it was odd that he was wearing a
STORY A: black overcoat because it was the middle of May and
STORY A: it was so hot and humid out. But I noticed
STORY A: that this man was just glaring at me. Not just staring.
STORY A: He's glaring.
STORY A: In this moment, I could not take my eyes off
STORY A: of him. I'm just feeling this overwhelming sense of dread
STORY A: and this overwhelming sense of guilt. He was making me
STORY A: feel as though I had done something to disturb him
STORY A: or to upset him, and I could not look away
STORY A: from him. As I walk past him, he is moving
STORY A: his eyes along with me, but not turning his head,
STORY A: just moving his eyes to follow me and to watch me.
STORY A: As if I were the only kid in that entire
STORY A: group of people that were standing there. He just stared
STORY A: at me singularly, as if to say, I see you.
STORY A: My eyes are burning at this point. I've been maintaining
STORY A: this stare for so long. And then I blink, and
STORY A: then he was gone. I have a million thoughts running
STORY A: through my head. Why did he show himself to me?
STORY A: What did he want from me? Why was he glaring
STORY A: at me? I described this person to the people in
STORY A: my class. I told them what he was wearing. No
STORY A: one else saw this person. I knew what I had
STORY A: seen was real. I knew it wasn't made up. I
STORY A: knew it wasn't a hallucination. That feeling could never have
STORY A: been fabricated. I knew I had seen spirit. It wasn't
STORY A: until several years later that I had my next experience.
STORY A: I went up to Oregon to visit my friend. I
STORY A: was so excited because I'd never been to Oregon before.
STORY A: I couldn't believe how beautiful it was there. She pointed
STORY A: out her house from down the street. It was a
STORY A: very cute cottage model, with lots of vines growing on
STORY A: the sides of the house and a cobblestone driveway. Before
STORY A: we even got out of the car, my eyes were
STORY A: immediately drawn to something on the second floor. All of
STORY A: a sudden, I felt ill. I was nauseous, my stomach dropped,
STORY A: I felt feverish, but I had chills. I could feel
STORY A: the goosebumps all over my body. We unload the car,
STORY A: walk inside, and what looked very cute from the outside
STORY A: ended up being very creepy on the inside. The house
STORY A: had brick walls with nothing hanging on them, hardwood, creaking floors,
STORY A: and the house just looked old.
STORY A: We stayed in for the rest of the night, made dinner,
STORY A: and just sat together catching up. About ten o'clock we
STORY A: decided to go to bed. I fell asleep very fast.
STORY A: At some point in the middle of the night, I
STORY A: woke up and was very thirsty. I walked slowly down
STORY A: the hall, make it into the kitchen, pour a glass
STORY A: of water, and turn around to head back to the bedroom. Immediately,
STORY A: I feel the energy shift.
STORY A: I start to feel a darkness surround me and a
STORY A: very negative energy all over the room. I feel fight
STORY A: or flight take over, like my body is having this
STORY A: visceral reaction to the shift. It feels like a physical
STORY A: being is in there with me. It feels like someone's
STORY A: eyes are boring into my back. But I refuse to
STORY A: turn around because I didn't want to acknowledge that presence
STORY A: because of the evil that I felt with it. I
STORY A: can feel my adrenaline starting to pump, and I feel
STORY A: this energy getting closer and closer to me, so I
STORY A: start to run down the hall. I feel like I'm
STORY A: in danger. I jumped into bed and pull the covers
STORY A: up over me. I was thinking, do I need to
STORY A: leave this house in the middle of the night and
STORY A: find myself a hotel? Am I in danger still? I
STORY A: pull out my phone to distract myself, and I eventually
STORY A: feel the energy go back to being peaceful and calm,
STORY A: and ended up falling asleep.
STORY A: The next morning, I was very excited because we had
STORY A: a big day planned, going to tour Oregon State University,
STORY A: going on a hike, and then going to breweries afterwards.
STORY A: We're getting ready upstairs in the bathroom, and I mentioned
STORY A: to my friend that something weird had happened last night.
STORY A: I told her that I was in the kitchen and
STORY A: a dark presence came over and followed me back to
STORY A: the bedroom. She's quiet for a moment and gives me
STORY A: a look of oh no, this is happening to you too.
STORY A: She tells me there had been multiple experiences with this presence.
STORY A: Her and a friend had seen a pen levitate above
STORY A: the desk on its own, suddenly drop and roll onto
STORY A: the floor. She'd seen the same thing happen with a
STORY A: roll of duct tape at that same desk.
STORY A: She also told me that she had been locked out
STORY A: of her room before. Leading to the upstairs was a
STORY A: very old wooden door with paint peeling and an old
STORY A: style lock that required a skeleton key like you see
STORY A: in movies to be physically turned. How was she getting
STORY A: locked out when there was no one in the room?
STORY A: She told me that a man had died in that
STORY A: house a long time ago. They believed that that is
STORY A: the presence that I felt that was stalking about the house,
STORY A: and not to be too scared because they had been
STORY A: living there for many months at that point and that
STORY A: entity had never fully approached them before.
STORY A: I had a great rest of my trip and was
STORY A: left undisturbed and believe that in my first night there,
STORY A: this spirit wanted to test the limits and see how
STORY A: far it could push me. Since my trip to Oregon, I
STORY A: have had other encounters with spirit and the paranormal, but
STORY A: nothing has ever come through again that has felt as
STORY A: sinister and nefarious as that presence did.
THERÉSA: I actually took the same field trip from LA to
THERÉSA: DC when I was in elementary school. I didn't see
THERÉSA: a ghost, but I did see my history teacher hit
THERÉSA: on a Betsy Ross impersonator, which still haunts me to
THERÉSA: this day. We've got to take a quick AD break,
THERÉSA: but don't go anywhere because we'll be back in two secs,
THERÉSA: well technically four minutes, maybe less. I don't know. Ads
THERÉSA: are Len work.
THERÉSA: Ugh guys! Huge drama with Toby. Oh, I've decided to
THERÉSA: name bird guy Toby. I pulled up my social accounts
THERÉSA: on his laptop and cut the power so I could
THERÉSA: flash "Hey Cutie" in Morse code with the lights, but
THERÉSA: he just started seizing. How was I supposed to know
THERÉSA: that would happen? Once the paramedics left, I sent Merlin
THERÉSA: to his window to calm him down, and he threw
THERÉSA: ahead of garlic at him. Yeah, not cool at all.
THERÉSA: We're not vampires. Ignorant. Toby slept with the lights on
THERÉSA: the rest of the night. But I'm hoping once he's
THERÉSA: less on edge, he'll be curious enough to pick up
THERÉSA: a Ouiji board or organize a seance so we can
THERÉSA: have a proper rendezvous. I'm killer on a first date. Anyway,
THERÉSA: let's keep things moving. Our next story is from Jade,
THERÉSA: who spent an extremely unsettling night at the mercy of
THERÉSA: a pretty pushy spirit.
STORY B: I was reading a book quietly and it was totally silent.
STORY B: Everyone was sleeping, and I heard this thing running up
STORY B: and down the stairs. And suddenly it slammed against the door.
STORY B: The door actually shook, and I jumped up. What the
STORY B: fuck is this? Like why is this happening to me
STORY B: right now? I am actually quite afraid. I'm terrified. My
STORY B: name's Jade. When staying with my family, something was going
STORY B: bump in the night.
STORY B: I grew up with my mom in Washington State. My
STORY B: father lived in Las Vegas, and I would visit them
STORY B: once or twice a year. The summer around the time
STORY B: that I was seventeen, I was visiting my father and
STORY B: my stepmom in Las Vegas. I didn't have my own
STORY B: room in the house. The setup that we typically had
STORY B: was that my baby brother would sleep with my parents
STORY B: during the time that I was visiting, and I would
STORY B: take over the nursery as sort of a guest room
STORY B: for the duration of my visit. The outside of the
STORY B: house was pretty common for what you might see in
STORY B: a Las Vegas suburban area. It was a white stucco
STORY B: one story house. There was an overhang of the roof
STORY B: that kind of cast a shadow on the overall house.
STORY B: The bottom floor was the entire living area. Kitchen, living room,
STORY B: sort of a front room as well. In the middle of that
STORY B: living area, t here was a staircase that led up
STORY B: to a very small landing. The landing was surrounded by
STORY B: three bedrooms and a bathroom. But for being such a
STORY B: hot and sunny place, the house did seem to be
STORY B: a bit shadowy for some reason. The last night that
STORY B: I was staying with them, I was up in the
STORY B: nursery room and I was reading Brave New World by
STORY B: Aldous Huxley. Everyone had gone to bed before me around
STORY B: ten o'clock. My father and stepmom were with my baby
STORY B: brother in one room. My other little brother, who was
STORY B: about twelve at the time, was in his bedroom.
STORY B: They sleep with their doors open. I do not. I
STORY B: had just gone to the bathroom. I returned to the nursery.
STORY B: I closed the door behind me, and I'm continuing to
STORY B: read my book. I'm up late. I'm seventeen years old,
STORY B: you know, it was pretty typical of me to stay
STORY B: up till one or two in the morning. Everyone was
STORY B: sleeping and then from the bottom of the stairs, I
STORY B: hear something strange, and I realized that the noise is footsteps.
STORY B: The footsteps stop at the top of the stairs, and
STORY B: I hear them go back down. This continues maybe six times,
STORY B: back and forth. The nursery was directly next to the staircase,
STORY B: so I could tell that the footsteps were coming from
STORY B: the bottom of the stairs. This landing was quite creaky.
STORY B: I would have heard someone kind of coming out of
STORY B: their rooms and walking down the stairs.
STORY B: This sound did not start at the top of the stairs.
STORY B: This sound started at the bottom of the stairs from
STORY B: the living area. The footsteps almost sounded like a child
STORY B: barreling up and down the stairs, almost like when you
STORY B: hear kids kind of running around the house, very clumsy,
STORY B: very haphazard. So as a sidebar, my grandmother was very kooky,
STORY B: and she told me that if anything unexplainable or paranormal
STORY B: ever happened, the best thing to do is to ignore it,
STORY B: because if you pay attention, you'll feed into the energy,
STORY B: the activity will get stronger, or something like that. This
STORY B: is the only advice I had ever gotten about how
STORY B: to interact with a ghost, so it is in my
STORY B: head that I should just ignore these footsteps. Of course,
STORY B: I can't stop listening entirely because I am freaked out,
STORY B: but I'm choosing not to acknowledge it, call out to
STORY B: my family, or interact with anything whatsoever. I did go
STORY B: through the logical checklist of trying to figure out where
STORY B: this was coming from. I didn't think that it could
STORY B: be an intruder. The house had an alarm system, so
STORY B: if anyone had entered on the bottom floor through a
STORY B: door or the windows, the alarm would have gone off.
STORY B: I didn't think that it was anyone in my family,
STORY B: just because I hadn't heard them go down. Again, it
STORY B: was totally silent. I was reading a book quietly. Everyone
STORY B: was sleeping. When I was listening to this, I felt
STORY B: almost like a cat being up on its haunches, Like
STORY B: my hair stood up and I got goosebumps a bit.
STORY B: I think, honestly though, in situations like that, I freeze,
STORY B: and I'm kind of assessing the situation. I'm trying to
STORY B: kind of have the body language that I'm ignoring this thing.
STORY B: At the same time, I am listening carefully to track
STORY B: where these footsteps are going, how often they're coming up
STORY B: and down the stairs, just to A. figure out what
STORY B: it was, and B. try to think of an action
STORY B: plan as well of how I was going to get
STORY B: out of the situation, if I needed to take any
STORY B: action at all.
STORY B: The footsteps come back up and they stop, and I'm
STORY B: thinking to myself, maybe whatever's happening is done, and so
STORY B: I begin to relax. I go back to kind of
STORY B: pretending that I'm reading my book, when suddenly I heard
STORY B: what sounded like a grown man took both of his
STORY B: fists and slammed them against the door of the room
STORY B: that I was sleeping in. So hard that the door
STORY B: actually shook. I jump up off the air mattress and freeze.
STORY B: I have this thing in my head that I just
STORY B: need to ignore what's going on and it will go away.
STORY B: So I sink back down onto the air mattress. I
STORY B: continue to pretend that I'm reading that nothing has just
STORY B: happened and again, slamming on the door harder this time.
STORY B: The door shook, the wall shook, almost giving me the
STORY B: sense of don't ignore me. I'm actually quite afraid now.
STORY B: I am terrified. I can no longer ignore what's going on,
STORY B: and I decide to take action. I throw my blanket
STORY B: over my head for protection. I felt like if I
STORY B: were surrounded by something, I at least physically felt better
STORY B: if I was going to leave this room into who
STORY B: knows what's going on in the hallway. I flip on
STORY B: the bedroom light. I swing open the door, and the
STORY B: landing was empty.
STORY B: I flip on the hallway light. The stairs are immediately
STORY B: to my right, and I can see my family is
STORY B: still sleeping in their beds. My twelve year old brother's
STORY B: room is immediately to my left. His door's open, so
STORY B: I walk in, shut the door behind me, flip on
STORY B: my brother's light so that there's essentially a trail of
STORY B: light following me. I shake him half awake, and I
STORY B: tell him to scoot over because I'm sleeping in his room,
STORY B: and he half asleep kind of just rolls over, makes
STORY B: space for me. I get into his bed, pull his
STORY B: covers all the way over my face. It's Nevada, it's
STORY B: the middle of summer. I basically am suffocating myself, but
STORY B: I don't care because I'm so afraid of what has
STORY B: just happened. I'm laying in his room for about twenty
STORY B: minutes and I hear the bang. It's softer than when
STORY B: it was directly on my door, but it gave me
STORY B: the feeling of I know you're in there. The fact
STORY B: that it had followed me to my brother's room was
STORY B: really unsettling. My first thought was, what the fuck is this? Like?
STORY B: Why is this happening to me right now? And I
STORY B: do remember texting my stepmom the words: Are you awake?
STORY B: Which was unhelpful because then I heard her cell phone
STORY B: go off from downstairs in the kitchen. Her phone was
STORY B: charging on the kitchen counter. It wasn't anywhere near her,
STORY B: so she couldn't save me. When I talked to my
STORY B: family the next morning, nobody had heard anything. Nobody had
STORY B: been woken up. By what was going on. I seem
STORY B: to be the only person who heard it. I think
STORY B: that they believed me, but I think that they kind
STORY B: of brushed it off as maybe a one off thing,
STORY B: or maybe I was scared and I was kind of
STORY B: blowing it out of proportion. But in the months following
STORY B: they started to have the same experience. The banging started happening
STORY B: on my brother's door as well, so he would hear
STORY B: the footsteps running up and down the stairs, and he
STORY B: would hear the banging on his door when he slept
STORY B: with his door closed. They also started to hear the
STORY B: sound of muffled arguments coming from the top of the
STORY B: landing upstairs, almost like you're hearing two people fight, still
STORY B: in the house, but almost kind of far away. Because
STORY B: this happened so frequently and the banging was so aggressive
STORY B: and terrifying, they ended up leaving that house at the
STORY B: end of the first lease term. So after they had
STORY B: spent that full twelve months in that house, they moved
STORY B: into a different house because the vibes were very bad.
STORY B: Nothing has really ever happened in their new house.
THERÉSA: Jade's grandmother is right. We spirits do feed off of attention. Well,
THERÉSA: this spirit especially. If only I could get some from
THERÉSA: my mortal boyfriend. Men are so afraid of commitment.
LEN: [MUMBLES]
THERÉSA: No Len, nobody cares.
LEN: [MUMBLES]
THERÉSA: All right, let's take a quick break to hear from
THERÉSA: our sponsors.
THERÉSA: You guys, I have never been so entertained in my
THERÉSA: entire life or death. Toby or whatever his real name is,
THERÉSA: hired a priest to perform an exorcism on his apartment,
THERÉSA: like I'm some kind of Stage-five-clinger. But I realized from
THERÉSA: the other side, exorcisms are hilarious. I'm just sitting there
THERÉSA: watching this priest go completely insane with the Holy water
THERÉSA: and the Hail Mary's, and Toby is curled up in
THERÉSA: the corner whimpering. I thought about flickering the lights again,
THERÉSA: just so they'd feel like they were accomplishing something. The
THERÉSA: whole thing was a huge turn off. I was planning
THERÉSA: to have Toby killed in a mysterious owl attack so
THERÉSA: we could be together, but that whole charade just gave
THERÉSA: me the ick. I'll leave you to your weird little
THERÉSA: hobbies so you can die a virgin at eighty. Well,
THERÉSA: that's all I've got for now. I'll be scouring the
THERÉSA: underworld for more exorcisms to crash. If anyone has a
THERÉSA: supernatural story they'd like to share, a better one than
THERÉSA: Toby's who couldn't handle a few flashing lights, write to
THERÉSA: us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and you could be featured on an
THERÉSA: upcoming episode. Till next time.
STORY A: If you have a haunting story to share, please email
STORY A: us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com, and if you like what you hear,
STORY A: please like and subscribe. You can also follow us on
STORY A: social media by searching for Glass Podcasts or by visiting glasspodcasts.com.
STORY A: Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts and partnership with
STORY A: iHeart Podcast. Haunting is created and executive produced by Nancy Glass,
STORY A: Andrea Gunning, Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus, and it is
STORY A: hosted by Lauren Lapkuss as their character Therésa. The show
STORY A: is directed by Aleah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan,
STORY A: written by Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by Nancy Glass,
STORY A: Trey Morgan, and Ben Fetterman. Additional production support by Curry
STORY A: Richman and Todd Ganz. Additional voice acting by Trey Morgan
STORY A: as the character, producer Len Walker. Editing and sound designed
STORY A: by Matt Delvecchio and mixed by Dave Saia. Operations and
STORY A: production support by Kristen Melchiorre Haunting's theme and original compositions
STORY A: were composed by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay of Noiser.
STORY A: Music Library provided by Mybe Music. Special thanks to Speakeasy
STORY A: Sound Studios in Burbank, California for more shows from iHeart
STORY A: Podcast and Glass Podcast, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,
STORY A: or wherever you get your podcasts