Under the Surface

0:00Today's podcast will feature three stories that make you realize not everything is as it seems. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called On the Prowl, and it's about a local urban legend that quickly turns into a full-blown nightmare. The second story you'll hear is called Call Your Mother, and it's about a mother who is devastated after her son disappears. And the third, and final story you'll hear is called The Red Ghost, and it's about this horrifying creature that terrorized people for years on the Arizona frontier.

0:38But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to come on an all-expenses-paid trip to Venice, Italy with you. But the second you're both in a gondola pushed them into a canal. Okay, let's get into our first story called On the Prowl.

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2:02Visit Progressive.com to find a car insurance rate that works for you. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, price and coverage match, limited by state law. On the night of October 20th, 2021, two young couples were hanging out inside of a little home in the woods in Henderson County, North Carolina. The couples were Rachel and her fiancé Chris and their friends Autumn and Jake, whose home it was. Rachel and Autumn were in the kitchen preparing to dye Rachel's hair over the sink. Jake and Chris were in the living room discussing the very strange sightings of a Black Panther that had been reported all over town in recent days.

2:38So, North Carolina does have big cats, including Panthers. After all, their professional football team is named the Carolina Panthers. However, the Panthers in North Carolina are typically of the brownish color, not the pitch black variety like the panther that was apparently prowling all over Henderson County in recent days. Nonetheless, Chris was absolutely convinced that he had seen this black panther about a week ago when he was out walking his and Rachel's new puppy. He swore the panther had been following him in the tree line around his property and he had been afraid it was thinking about attacking his dog.

3:13Ever since, he told Jake he'd been nervous walking around his property outside and so he'd begun to carry a gun for protection. Jake was in the middle of telling Chris that he too was now carrying a gun around for the same reason when they were interrupted by Rachel calling for Chris from the kitchen. Jake and Chris got up off the couch and walked into the kitchen where Rachel told them that she'd been trying to show Autumn a YouTube video about how to dye hair at home when her phone had died. And so she asked Chris if he wouldn't mind going back to their apartment and getting her a phone charger.

3:43Now, obviously, Chris was not thrilled about going into the woods at night, you know, with this panther roaming around. But he loved his fiance and would do anything for her, and he had his gun. So he said he would go. And as Chris headed to the door to leave, Jake said, hold on a minute. He grabbed his flashlight and grabbed his gun and told Chris he would tag along and watch his buddies back. The two guys said they'd be back in a minute, and then they walked out the door. A light wind rustled the leaves of the trees as Jake and Chris set out on the little path that connected their two homes.

4:16They both stayed absolutely quiet as they walked because they wanted to make sure they could hear any indication of this panther being nearby. But all they could hear was the wind, some crickets, and an owl hooting in the distance. But about halfway down the path, Chris suddenly heard something coming from the woods and instinctively shot out his hand to stop Jake in his tracks. They both froze and then Jake raised his flashlight and shined it at the underbrush where Chris was saying he had heard noise. And for a second, all they saw were green leaves. But then, two eyes opened up and reflected back at them.

4:48The two men gasped and instinctively reached for their guns. But before they had to draw and do anything, this creature emerged from the underbrush, and it was just a raccoon. Chris and Jake laughed in relief and then continued walking down the path to Chris's house. They went inside, got Rachel's charger, and then they left and stepped back into the woods. But now, as Chris and Jake walked along this dark path, something just felt different. The crickets seemed to have gotten quieter and the wind had picked up. The owl that had been hooting before must have flown away because it was now strangely quiet, except for the sound of their footsteps and the wind in the trees.

5:23They were about 40 feet away from Jake's house when they suddenly heard a twig snap to their left. And so the two men turned to face the noise, and as they did, they heard another sound, a low, raspy growl. And so Jake aimed his flashlight at the bush where these noises had come from, and this time it was obvious it was not a raccoon. because the bushes were literally shaking like some enormous animal was inside of them. And so the two men looked at each other with wide eyes, and without saying a word, they both knew they were thinking the same thing. It's the panther. And so the two men drew their guns and they aimed it at the bush, hoping that this thing would just take off back into the woods, but it didn't.

5:59The bush continued to shake like whatever it was was going to leap out. And so the men just opened fire, and they kept on shooting until they heard a new horrible sound. and the second they heard it, they dropped their guns. It would turn out that was not a panther. After Chris and Jake had left the house, Rachel and Autumn decided to pull a prank. They had found some expired eggs in the fridge and they had decided they would go hide in the bushes near that pathway and pelt the guys with them. When Rachel saw Chris and Jake approaching, she tried to crouch down lower in the bush so as not to be seen, but as she did, she stepped on a twig.

6:35And at the same time, in anticipation of their prank, the women started to laugh. They tried to stifle their laughter, but that only made them snort and shake the bushes. And that combination of noises, the snapped twig, the stifled laughter which sort of resembled a short raspy growl, and the shaking bushes, signaled to the guys that this was no prank. This was the Panther, and if they didn't act, it might attack them. And so they drew their guns, and they began to shoot, until they heard Autumn scream out in horror. Tragically, by the time they had stopped shooting, it was already too late for Rachel.

7:09She had been shot to death. Law enforcement did an investigation into the shooting, and they declared it was just a horrible accident. Everybody was sober, and the two men were carrying their weapons legally. And so no one was ever charged with Rachel's death. And to this day, no one has ever gotten solid evidence that that Black Panther even exists.

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11:16On the morning of September 15, 2016, an 80-year-old widow named Rita Wolfensohn shuffled her way into her kitchen inside of a brick home in Brooklyn, New York. However, Rita was basically blind, and as she made her way into the kitchen, she walked past her table, and her foot caught a basket of newspapers in the ground, and it caused her to stumble and fall to the floor. And the second she hit the ground, she heard a pop. And the second she heard that pop, she felt a shooting pain in her hip, and she knew right away, very likely, her hip was broken. Now, of course, this is a huge problem if you break your hip, but for Rita in particular, this was a very, very serious problem.

11:52I mean, this was potentially life and death, and she knew it, and she also knew the reason this was so serious was all her fault. Rita lived completely alone and basically had cut off everybody in her life. For like 20 years, she had not interacted with virtually anybody in her life, by choice. And basically the reason for this all started 20 years earlier with her beloved son, Louis, who lived with her. But for some reason, 20 years ago, so basically right at the time when she cut off her whole family and all her friends, her son Louis just kind of inexplicably packed up and left her house without saying anything and that she never heard from him again.

12:28And so suddenly losing her son for reasons unknown sent Rita into this spiraling depression and the way she coped with it was basically cutting off the entire world around her and she just lived in this house totally isolated, totally alone. And so now here she is stuck on the kitchen floor with a broken hip, unable to get up or call for help and nobody, nobody is going to come by to help her. Nobody even knows she's in trouble, she's all alone. But despite basically being blind and knowing she's in this horrible situation, somewhere deep down redefines this inner strength. She knows that if she's going to survive this, she has to save herself.

13:03And so she kind of rolled over onto her other side, you know, despite the pain in her hip throbbing the whole time, she got herself onto her elbows and she began low crawling her way towards the coffee table in the living room that was right near the kitchen. And she finally got over there, you know, the whole time she's got this horrible pain on her side. She gets to the table, she reaches up, and she grabs her phone, which she basically never used because she didn't talk to anybody or take any phone calls, but she managed to get the receiver off the cradle, and she dialed 911. And so a few minutes later, the ambulance arrives at Rita's house.

13:34They come in. They find Rita. You know, she's still on the ground. They scoop her up. They put her in the ambulance, and they go to the hospital. And when they get there, you know, very quickly, they put Rita through a bunch of scans and tests, and they confirm, you know, Rita was already expecting, which is, you know, her hip is broken. However, after telling her about the fact that her hip was broken, the nurses and doctors told Rita that, you know, you're going to have to stay here for surgery, but then after you get out of surgery, you can't just go home. You know, you're legally blind, you're very frail, and you don't live with anyone, and you nearly died from falling on your kitchen floor because had you not been able to reach your phone, you would have starved to death.

14:11And so they told Rita that what she would need to do is move into an assisted living home where basically nurses and a medical team would be able to care for her on a day-to-day basis. Basically, she wasn't going to be allowed to move back into her beloved home where she'd spent her whole life. And for Rita, this news was just unbelievably devastating. I mean, not only because that was her home, you know, that's where she spent all her time, but also because it was the last place she had been before Lewis had left inexplicably. I mean, 20 years later, she's still dealing with the trauma of losing her son.

14:43And that house was kind of like the last memory of her son. I mean, his bedroom had basically been untouched since he left because she was so holding on to his memory. And so after the nurses and doctors left, Rita was left in the room all alone, kind of unsure what to do. And it dawned on her she would need to do something that for 20 years she had completely avoided doing. She would need to call her family. So she grabbed the phone and she still remembered the number of her younger brother, Joseph, and so she called Joseph up. Now, the reason she called Joseph is, you know, over the past 20 years, the one family member who had basically tried really hard to stay in touch with Rita after she cut everybody off was Joseph.

15:22And so she figured if there was anybody in her family who would not judge her for the silence and, you know, being cut off, it would be Joseph.

15:32and so a couple of seconds later a phone rang inside of a house pretty far away from the hospital but still in New York and this was Joseph's house and he was sitting on the couch reading a book and his wife was in the kitchen doing her thing and Joseph he answers the phone and when he hears Rita's voice he couldn't believe it you know he was shocked to hear her after so many years but immediately the feeling he had was relief you know he and his sister before you know Louis had left and kind of destroyed Rita's life, you know, Joseph and his older sister had been very close and it had really broken his heart when Rita had cut him off.

16:03I mean, he felt like if there was one person that Rita would have stayed in touch with, it would have been him. But he didn't judge her. You know, he was ready to hear whatever she had to say because obviously something big had to have happened for her to call him. And so he asked her, you know, what's going on? What's going on? And Rita would explain, you know, she fell and she needs help. And Joseph was like, I will be there as soon as I possibly can. And also I'll have my wife swing by your house to grab, you know, your toothbrush and some toiletries and a couple of things from home to make your stay at the hospital a bit better, but we're going to get through this.

16:31I'll be there as soon as I can. A few hours later, as Joseph was making his way to the hospital to see Rita, Joseph's wife was on her way to Rita's house to pick up her things. And so she pulled up in front of the house and she looked up at the big brick house and it looked the same as it had, you know, 10, 20 years ago. She made her way up to the door. She didn't knock because she knew nobody was home. And so she used the key that Joseph gave her. She unlocked the door, she opened it up, and immediately she was hit with this horrible smell. So Rita was basically a hoarder, and so she had lots of, you know, plates of food and all this stuff just kind of jammed inside of her house, and it was all rotting, and so her house really smelled horrible.

17:08Not to mention, Rita basically never went outside. Remember, she kind of was a hermit for the past 20 years. And so Joseph's wife was kind of bracing for a pretty disgusting living situation, but this was far more repulsive than even she had braced for. But she knew she had a job to do, you know, get in there and get some things for Rita. And so she kind of began breathing through her mouth only to avoid the smell. And so she stepped into the house, which again, you know, is piled high on either side of the hallway with newspapers and just kind of junk. And so she began walking through the house and she eventually turned toward a flight of stairs.

17:38She went up to the second floor and the second floor is the same as the first floor. You know, there's plates of food and junk and all this stuff. And she didn't know which bedroom was Rita's. So she just went to the first door that she saw and she opened it up, kind of hoping that maybe this would be Rita's bedroom. but the second she opened up that door, not only was she hit with more horrible smells, but she saw something in this room that she was not braced for. Something that terrified her to the point where she shut the door, turned around, and sprinted out of the house practically screaming, and then as soon as she was outside, she dialed 911.

18:14It would turn out Rita's understanding of what actually transpired 20 years earlier with Louis inexplicably leaving, you know, the event that basically caused Rita to shut down and cut her whole family off, her understanding of that was totally wrong. Rita had always believed that her son had just kind of stopped loving her or didn't like her anymore or something, like there was some sort of falling out, and that's why he'd just kind of packed up his stuff and left without even saying goodbye. But that wasn't true. Lewis loved his mother. He didn't just randomly abandon her, but 20 years earlier, when Lewis was 29 years old, while he was still living with Rita in her house, he died somewhat unexpectedly from natural causes.

18:54It's believed he had some sort of terminal illness that he may or may not have known about, and it's unclear if he even communicated that he was sick or that he had this illness to his mom, and so 20 years earlier, he went into his bedroom one night, and he passed away in his bed. And his mother, Rita, instead of going into his bedroom and checking on him, just didn't go into his bedroom, and instead convinced herself that her son must have abandoned her because he didn't love her anymore, and it sent her into this spiraling depression, and she cut off her whole family, when in reality, Louis had never left her house.

19:27He was still laying in his bed upstairs all those 20 years. And so when Joseph's wife went into Rita's house and went into that first bedroom she saw on the second floor, what she saw was Louis' his skeleton, still wearing a shirt and pants, laying in his bed, obviously deceased, and that's why she went running out of the house and called 911. And so in a very bizarre and morbid way, it was this discovery by Joseph's wife that would ultimately bring Rita back together again with her family.

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22:30The next and final story of today's episode is called The Red Ghost.