#249 MrBallen - Ouija Boards, Aliens Hijacking an Aircraft and Real-Life Horror Stories

26:49And around this time, around the time that the tapping has stopped, there's no more responses. Frank, their dad, comes home and he's surprised to see his kids awake in the kitchen. And he's like, what are you guys doing? And they're like, oh, you wouldn't believe it, Dad, it's Mom. We got the Ouija board out. We had a seance." They kind of explained the whole thing that happened, but they're so excited about it. And they're like, Dad, it's Mom. We were talking to Mom. We know it's her. It has to be her. And now Frank, you know, Frank also is in the process of going through what is this unbelievably bad situation for him.

27:21You know, he's lost his wife. He has to work all these extra shifts. He can't be around his daughters. He's worried about his kids. And he's seeing his kids light up and be so excited this idea that they're talking to their mom, that even though he does not think for a second that there's truth to what he's telling him, he doesn't think that there was tapping. He doesn't think their mom was in the house. He thinks that these are kids who've lost their mother, and they've come up with some coping mechanism, which is hearing, you know, random house tapping sounds, and they've convinced themselves it's their mother.

27:49And so, without any hesitation, he just goes, I bet that was your mom. That's wonderful. You know, she's looking out for you. She'll always be looking out for you. Your mom is, she's here with you now. She'll always be here with you. Your mom loves you. And the girls are so pleased. And they run up to bed, so excited to go tell their friends the next day. So they go to bed. And Frank, frankly, doesn't think much of it. He just is like, my kids are coping with a terrible tragedy. And if they want to do that, that seems harmless enough. So he goes to bed. Over the next few days, the tapping sounds would continue, except they would only be heard by the girls.

28:26Frank would never hear the tapping sound. The girls would, you know, they'd hear it coming from the basement, they'd call their dad, he'd listen, and they wouldn't, there'd be no more taps. It was like they would disappear when Frank showed up. But oddly enough, the tapping was no longer just happening at night and just in the basement. The tapping was sort of happening all over the house. You know, it would happen outside the front door, it was in the kitchen, it was in the girls' bedrooms, it was everywhere. It was like the tapping was, it was always that tap, tap, tap when they were talking to it, but it was like all over the house.

28:57But again, every time they'd hear it, Frank wouldn't be privy to it. He couldn't hear it. Frank's still telling himself that this is a relatively healthy coping mechanism, that it's not that big of a deal.

29:12But what ended up happening after about three days is the girls, they had convinced themselves that this is mom, right? This is a good thing. Well, by the third day, post-seance, when the tapping is happening a lot, the tapping had sort of migrated primarily to the girls' bedrooms. And it was also happening mostly at night now. So by the third day, it's sort of like all the tapping is happening in their bedrooms. And it's namely under their bed. Like they would hear the sound underneath their bed. And for the girls, they began to wonder why their mom would do that. Because it just sort of feels like almost stereotypically terrifying for a kid.

29:44Something's under your bed. And they began to get this feeling that maybe this isn't mom. Maybe our seance worked, but we didn't bring mom's spirit into the house. Maybe we brought something malevolent or just something other. We don't know." And so, they're starting to question if this is really a good thing or not. And that's what Frank picked up on. It's been a few days. Frank picks up on that. The girls no longer view this as a good thing and it's disrupting their sleep. And they would hear the tapping in the bed and Frank would come into the room. There'd be nothing there. He had no explanation, but the girls are really spooked.

30:17And so, it was at this point that Frank began taking a harder stance with this girl. So, around the third night, he just said, look, I know you're going through it right now, and I understand that you're dealing with a lot with your mom, but this isn't okay. Whatever you guys believe you're hearing with this tapping sound, I'm telling you, you have nothing to worry about in this house, but it's not happening, okay? You're working yourself up over nothing, and you need to stop it. And if you can't, I understand, but we're going to have to seek out professional help, like grief counseling or something, because it's not healthy for you all to be living in fear of a ghost in your house that, you know, it's just not okay.

30:56The girls are furious because they believed up until the third night that their dad accepted that the taps were real and that maybe it was their mom. And now he's sort of come out and been like, I don't believe you and, you know, forget about it or else you're going to go to therapy. And so it sparked, like, real issues between the daughters and the dad. You know, the dad's really trying to do his best, but there's real tension here. So following this confrontation, if you will, between Frank and his daughters or whatever you want to call it, the tension between them remained. And for the girls, they felt like they didn't have their dad's support anymore.

31:29And they started to really be fearful of even being in their house. Like they didn't even want to be home anymore. You know, it's like, it's terrifying when you're there, you hear these tapping sounds. And so over the next several days, so now we're looking at like, you know, a week after the seance. So about a week later, the girls are finding every excuse to sleep over at friend's house and just They're kind of jarring with their dad about, like, did the tapping sounds happen or not? But when they're home, they hear the tapping sounds. And so fast forward about a week, a week post-seance. And on this particular night, the girls didn't have a place to go.

32:04They didn't have a friend's house to crash at. Their dad was out working a late shift. And so they were there in their home that night, and there was nothing they could do about it. They had to go to bed and just deal with it. And the tapping is happening, you know, pretty consistently at this point. Not literally at this point, but it's happening all the time. And so they're just like, okay, we just got to get through the night, you know, whatever. So the girls are, they're having their dinner in the kitchen. Their dad is at work. And at a certain point, the tapping starts and it's coming from the basement.

32:33It's not the three rhythmic tappings. It's just this kind of periodic tapping that sort of was the precursor to they could ask questions and get those rapid responses. And Tina looks over at Karen and she's like, you know, dad doesn't believe us. And, you know, the last week, every time this would happen, like, he would never hear it. He doesn't believe us. Like, we have to look into this. Like, he's not gonna look into this. We have to. And so there's active tapping in the basement. The door to the basement's right off the kitchen. And Karen is starting to get the sense that Tina's saying, we need to go into the basement right now and go look.

33:06Because they hadn't done that yet. They had never really actually investigated the sound. Would you have gone down there? Yeah. Would you really? As a child? No. No. I'm sorry. As an adult, me now? Yes. As a child then? No way. No way. I'd probably send my wife down. You'll get in there. Shut up. And so, Tina, you know, is looking at Karen, who doesn't want to do this, but Tina grabs a knife off the kitchen counter, and she's like, we have to go into the basement. We get to see what's down there. And Karen, she doesn't want to be up here alone, and so she's trying to tell Tina, like, no, we can't go down there, but she's like, fine.

33:43And so she gets behind Tina, and Tina goes over to the door, and the tapping's happening downstairs. And they open up the basement door, and the tapping stops right away. As soon as the door opens, the tapping stops. It was going all up until that point. Tapping stops. And down the stairs, the girls go. They walk down into the basement, and the light in the basement was one of those pull-string lights you have to get to in the basement. And so it's dark in the basement, and they're, like, wandering through this dark basement to get to the pull-string. They get to the pull-string, they pull it, and they're both like totally on edge and they're looking around and they would later say, you know, on some level, we were like, there's got to be some logical explanation.

34:23Like for example, a raccoon like got into the house. Wouldn't explain the responses we're getting with tapping sounds. But as a human being, we will go to great lengths to convince ourselves that we are okay in moments of crisis. A lot of times before you kind of cross the threshold into, oh my God, this is a horrible crisis. your brain was like, no, everything's fine. Everything's good. Like it's just a raccoon and they're kind of hoping for that. But they get down there, they pull the light and Tina's got her knife and Karen's like tucked up behind her. And they're looking around the basement.

34:53And I told you before, there's like nothing in the basement. There's like a washer and dryer. There's a wood shelf with some tools on it over here, but there's not even storage down there. It's just like this vacant open space. There's nowhere to hide. And there's nothing down there. It is an utterly vacant space. There's going to be a hole in the floor or something. Well, they looked. They looked all around the basement and there's nothing there. They're looking for where a raccoon could have gotten in. But it's like, as they're looking, it's dawning on them that there isn't a clear answer here.

35:27We've definitely heard the tapping. Dad hasn't. We have. And we're down here at the source of the tapping in many ways. And there's nothing. And they've sort of mentally shifted to it could be malevolent. And so they're having this big fear response. They're like, okay, we can't be down here. This is just horrifying. And so they turn and begin going back upstairs. And as they're walking up, they notice there's writing on the inside of the stairwell wall leading up to the first floor. They're walking up the stairs. and right on the wall, on the basement steps, written in red is, I'm in your closet.

36:06Come find me. Oh, shit.

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39:01And so the girls see that. And obviously, they sprint out of the basement. They bolt out of the house. They were very friendly with their neighbor. They run to their neighbor. They're banging on the door. It's late at night. The neighbor opens the door. They're like, what's going on? The girls are hysterical. They're like, oh, my God, there's a ghost in our house. Like, there's writing on the walls. And, you know, the neighbor is aware of the fact that they've lost their mother and, like, understands that this is a very difficult time for them. And so, no judgment passed, has no idea what's happening, just says, get in the house, we're gonna wait for your dad.

39:31You know, you stay here and we'll wait for your dad, you know, and he'll know what to do. And so, the girls, they're just happy to be away from their own house. Frank, not that much longer, comes home and the neighbor sees him pull into the driveway, immediately flags him down and, you know, as gently as he can, he explains like, hey, so your daughters are with me, they're fine. I don't know what's going on in your house. They seem very spooked about something to do with writing on the walls, in your basement. I don't really know, but they're very shaken up. They're at my house right now. I just want you to know.

40:01And Frank is like, okay, like he knows what this is about. Like this has been going on now for a week. And really all he's thinking is, I guess I better plan for, you know, therapy or something. He goes inside and he searches his whole house and there's nobody there. He goes into the basement and sure enough, written on the wall, it does say I'm in your closet. Come find me. But it's written in ketchup. Like it's someone put it there, but you know, his first thought, as my daughters clearly put it there. You know, they're the ones sort of playing into this delusion here. This is like a really unhealthy thing they've done.

40:31And now they're like, you know, acting out this whole thing with the neighbor and it's becoming this big drama. Like this is clearly some huge, you know, grief response. And so he leaves the house not concerned in the least that this is like a real problem. He's thinking, this is an issue of my daughters, like my daughters are struggling here, and they need professional help. And so he comes back over to the neighbor's house, and he tells his girls, like, look, I know you're dealing with some tough stuff here, but, you know, enough is enough. We're going to start grief therapy, like, literally tomorrow.

41:08And the girls, you know, they did experience what they just experienced, and they don't even know what to make of it. I mean, now it's really gone from, you know, the sort of tapping sound in the house to something very concrete, like almost a threatening message left that clearly was designed for them to find. But their dad doesn't believe them. They feel trapped. Like, what do you even do? And so the girls are sort of resigned. You know, they've been worn down by this. And they're just like, fine. Like, we'll find that. We'll do therapy. And so the girls literally, like, I think it was the next day, started therapy.

41:40And wouldn't you know it, over the coming several weeks, there was no more tapping in the house. It was like everything went back to normal. Peace returned to the house, if you will. The girls were still terrified to be in the house. But even when they were alone, you know, the tapping was gone. And, you know, for Frank, he felt like, obviously, you know, you're in therapy now. You know, it's always been that. It's nothing more. It's just it's been in your head, you know. But it wouldn't stay that way. So one week after the seance is when the writing on the wall showed up. I'm in your closet, come find me.

42:13And that's what starts the group therapy session. The following three weeks, it's like peace in the house returns. So, at the end of those three weeks, so now effectively one month after first contact, if you will, the seance the girls had at the very beginning, about one month after. At this point, you know, they haven't forgotten. They, as in Frank, Tina, and Karen, have not forgotten about the tapping. They haven't forgotten about the weird stuff. But it's sort of, it's no longer a thing, right? And they've sort of returned to normal life. And on this day, This is like in October, I think, at this point of 1986.

42:46Frank had taken Tina and Karen and one of their friends, a girl named Kathleen, out to get some ice cream. And so they went out. This is in the evening time. They'd gone out. They got ice cream. They're just living their lives, sort of like moving on with life. And they come back to the Bowen household, where they were going to spend the next hour or so before Kathleen had to go home. And when they got home, Frank went up to the front step of his house, and he's about to open his door when he realizes that there's something off about his house. He looked into the window and he saw there was a couple lights on inside the house that he just didn't remember leaving on.

43:19But this is not like such a big red flag that he's like, oh my God, don't go in the house. It's more like, that's weird. You know, I don't remember leaving those on. He was pretty conscious, I suppose, of leaving his lights off and on whenever he left the house. And he sort of looked back at his daughters to maybe see if maybe they were going to say, oh, we left those on. But they don't even pick up on him thinking about this stuff. He puts the lock in and he puts the key in, he unlocks the door, he opens it up, and it gets even weirder. Because now he sees that there's a radio that's on that was on really quietly that he can now hear.

43:50And also a TV is on. TV's on in the back of the house. So, like, some lights are on, TV, radio. And he also couldn't help but feel like some of the furniture in the first floor had been moved, but, like, slightly. Only so much that, you know, if you lived in a place, you would notice the difference, but that's it. If you didn't live there, you wouldn't have picked up on it, but things seemed a little bit out of place. And so, Frank, he sort of turns to Karen and to Tina and Kathleen, their friend, and he's like, hey, did you guys, did you leave this stuff on? And the girls, by the way, at this point, they're seeing these things, and Tina and Karen are immediately back in that, oh, my God, it's happening again, you know, it's this thing, whatever it is, and they're like, we didn't do that.

44:30And so, they're immediately terrified. Kathleen has been fully read in by Tina and Karen. and they've heard about all the things they saw. She believes it fully. And so the three girls are, like, horrified. Frank doesn't really know what to make of this, because remember, he believed that his girls were sort of behind this delusion. That's what he would refer to it as. It's just a delusion. And therapy was the way to get out of this thing. So he's like, I think that's still true, but I also have to deal with the fact that this is hard to reconcile. They were with me. How could they have done this?

45:01And they seem genuinely scared. And so he hasn't really decided, as he's walking into the house, how he's going to react to this. He's like looking at his girls who are all scared, tucked up behind him, and sort of looking at the scene, like, what's going on here? And so he does this like half-invested search of his house, where he's not really sure how he feels about it. He sort of walks around the house, he turns off the radio, turns off the TV, turns on the lights, because now they're home. But there's nobody there. He searches the first floor, goes to the second floor, the girls are right behind him the whole time, because they're so scared.

45:30They go down in the basement, you know, and no one's down there, the house is quiet, No one's there. But after he finishes the whole search, he realizes there's actually one room that he hadn't checked yet. Just when he had first walked in, there's this room right off the front door. It's like the front sitting room that overlooked the front of the house. And just because he sort of half began the search, wasn't really planning it, he just sort of overlooked it. And so he has one more room to search. It's this front room of the house. And so he said, okay, I'm going to go search that room. And so again, he searched the whole house.

46:00Nobody's there. He walks into this front room. And when he walks in, he's basically looking at windows that overlook the front of the house. And as soon as he walks in, he sees written on the wall above those windows is the words marry me written in shaving cream. And he walks in and he's just looking at the words and he's thinking to himself, my daughters, I just don't feel like this was them. How could this be them? I would have noticed something like this. It just feels like this can't have been them, but he can't quite wrap his head around what that actually means. If you accept this isn't your daughters, then everything your daughters have been saying before might also be true.

46:37So he's like stuck with this almost existential crisis of like, what do you do with this? And he's just staring at the letters, and his daughters are, his daughter and friend are right, like literally up against his backside. And then he hears something. Over to his left, out of his eyesight, still in this front room, sort of tucked up against the back wall relative to how he's looking, was just a closet. And he hears the sound of the closet opening. And he knows his girls are right behind him. And so he turns and out of the closet walks this figure that's wearing a dress. They have clown makeup painted on their face.

47:10They have a hatchet over their shoulder. It's this man who walks out and he stares at Frank and the girls and he just points and he goes upstairs. And he starts walking towards them with this hatchet over his shoulder. And Frank, who, I mean, he's in complete fight or flight response here. He just like protects the girls and he's like, go, just do what he says. and they start going out of the front room towards the stairs that go to the second floor. And this, you know, dress wearing, hatchet wielding, makeup wearing maniac also was the dress of his dead wife. You know, he's staring at Frank intently got this hatchet and he just keeps telling him like, go, go up the stairs.

47:44And so Frank keeps the girls between, you know, the guy, he stays between the guy and the girls and he gets them to go up the stairs. And as soon as they get to the top of the stairs, Frank is still staring at this guy who's right in front of him with the hatchet. He tells the girls go into the first bedroom. And so Kathleen goes in, Tina goes in, Karen goes in, and then when Frank goes in, this guy with the hatchet is just sort of methodically slowly walking after him, like he's just taking his time. As soon as Frank goes in and all the girls are in with him, he slams the door shut and he holds it shut.

48:14And suddenly there's this struggle between, you know, the hatchet-wielding maniac and Frank to open this door. And so they're battling at the door, and Tina, the 15-year-old, immediately just turns, runs to the window, and jumps out of the second-floor window. leaps out of the house. She slams to the ground. There's screaming and all this chaos happening up in the room right above her. She just takes off to that same neighbor's house. And now she's in full hysterics, screaming that somebody's in my house, they're attacking my family. And the neighbor now consents. This is not some, you know, delusion these girls are having.

48:47Something horrible is happening next door. And so they call the police. Police show up, you know, a couple minutes later. And when they get there, they look up at that second floor bedroom where Frank and the girls were. and Frank is leaning out the window screaming that, you know, there's somebody in my house. They were right at the door. I don't know where they are. Like, they're gone. They're in my house. And so the police immediately, they get the ladder put up, and they get the girls and Frank out of the house, and they usher them over to the neighbor's house. And they're all safe. They're all fine.

49:14Traumatized, no doubt. But the guy never got into the bedroom and at some point took off. And so Frank and the girls were okay. And so Frank, Kathleen, the friend, Karen and Tina, they're all fine. They've been moved over to the other house. But now the police, they go in, you know, guns drawn to search the house for, you know, whoever this person is who broke into their house. And so in they go and they search the house. And, you know, there's no sign of any sort of disturbance of any kind. I mean, there's nothing there. No one's in the house. They searched everywhere. They did ultimately, though, find a hatchet that was leaned up against the back sliding glass door.

49:51And that door was partially ajar. And so, it sort of gave the impression that, you know, this person, whoever it was, is gone. And so, after, you know, the search of the house, the police are like, look, you know, we, Frank to Frank, they're like, we don't really know what to tell you here. You know, we don't know where this person is. You know, your description of them, unfortunately, it's sort of like you describe somebody wearing a costume. You know, we don't even know what they look like, realistically. They had clown makeup on, a dress. You know, we think they're a man. They could be a woman.

50:21We don't know how old they are. Like, we don't know what to tell you other than it seems risky to have you stay in your house. And so for right now, while we continue to investigate and try to figure out who this is, we want you and your family to just stay with a relative. Just don't stay at your house. What we're going to do is we're going to basically stake out your property and just assume that maybe this guy might come back and maybe we'll catch them then. And then in the interim, we're going to be canvassing the town and trying to figure out who did this to you. And Frank's like, fine. And so really, without taking anything from his house, he and the girls just, they leave.

50:54They go to a relative's house. And over the next few days, the police do canvas or they stake out Frank's property. And nobody goes in or out. It's just the vacant home that no one's going in or out of. There's nothing. Nothing's going on. And police are communicating that to Frank the whole time. Like, hey, you know, we've asked in town too, and no one seems to know who this could be. Again, sort of limiting with the description of this person. We don't really know who we're even looking for, but no one's gone into your house. And we think at this point, you know, they're probably not going to come back, but just for safety, you know, give it a couple more days before we let you go back in.

51:29And so this is, you know, a couple of days into this and Frank, you know, he, he and his girls, they had to leave pretty abruptly. And so they, they were not able to take any supplies with them. They had their toiletries and their pillows and all those things, all their nice things are, they're in the house still. And so it's broad daylight on the third day of this. And Frank's like, you know what? I think I can pretty much just go over there, run in the house real quick, and just get my stuff, bring it back, and then we'll have a couple more days and we'll move back in. And so he drives, Frank does, broad daylight on this third day of the stakeout.

52:00He gets to his property and he doesn't see any police anywhere. Doesn't see any cop cars anywhere. He's thinking, oh, maybe they're unmarked or something. I don't know. But there's nobody parked anywhere. It just looks like his house is here and no one's watching it. And he's like, okay, well, they're probably here somewhere. I'm just going to run in real quick, get my stuff and leave. And so he parks in his driveway, he gets out of his car, and he starts walking towards the front door. But before he even gets to the porch, he thinks he sees something moving in his house up on the second floor, that same bedroom where they had been.

52:30And, you know, he stops immediately because he's thinking, oh, wait a minute, what if they're watching my property from in the house? Like, they didn't specify how they were going to watch the house, and I don't want to just walk in there, you know, to potentially an armed police officer who's waiting for an intruder. I don't want to just barge in. And so I better like take a second and call them and really let them know that, hey, I'm here before I go in. And so he goes to the neighbor and he says, hey, let me use your phone. He calls the police and he's like, hey, you know, I know you're staking out my house, but can you just confirm that you have officers in my house?

53:02Then that's how you're watching it. Because that's who I think I just saw in the house. And they're like, no one's watching your house from in the house. They're outside the house. And Frank's like, well, I didn't see anybody outside the house. And the guy he was talking to was like, well, then you must have caught them at turnover. I bet right now the police officer who's supposed to be on duty probably just arrived and you must have got there right in that like couple of minute transition time, which unfortunately does happen sometimes, but we promise somebody's there. And what you ought to do is just go over there.

53:29And I bet right now there's an officer watching your property. Why don't you talk to them? And I'm sure they can go in and check the house for you if you want. And Frank's like, okay, that's weird because I definitely saw someone in the house, but I'll go check. And so he hangs up, he goes outside and sure enough, there's a cop that's parked right outside the house. He goes over to the cop and he sort of explains the situation. And the guy's like, okay, you know, no one's in your house, but, but I will, I will go in and look around before you go in and get your stuff. And so Frank stays out on the curb and the officer goes up to the house.

54:00Now, remember this house, no one's going in or out. And with the exception of a couple of minutes of turnover, when there's a little bit of a gap, sometimes this house is, is just vacant. Nothing's happening in this house. The cop walks up, and he gets to the door, and he unlocks it, and he opens it up, and he just cannot believe what he sees inside the house. There were pennies glued to the ceiling all across the first floor. Just like pennies? Pennies, like the coin, pennies. Glued to the ceiling all across the first floor. And there are all these, like, half-full champagne glasses sort of positioned all over the first floor, and the furniture has clearly been maneuvered and arranged in sort of bizarre ways.

54:38You know, it's just, it's totally inexplicable. And all the guy's thinking is, we've been watching this house. Clearly, somehow, someone's getting in and out of this house, or they're still here. And I don't know how that's possible, but we don't, something's off here, obviously. And so, instead of searching the house, he pulls out, calls in backup, and they do yet another complete search of this house. Like, they're going to tear this place apart and figure out how the heck someone's getting in and out and doing things inside the house with nobody noticing. Like, what's going on here? And they searched the whole house top to bottom, and it's a much more thorough search this time.

55:13And they cannot find anyone. There's no sign of anybody in the house, how they got in, how they got out. It's just this total weird mystery. And at the end of it, there were a couple of officers that were down in the basement, you know, that like blank basement. And they're just, they're standing there like frustrated. Like, how could this be happening? What's going on here? And one of them was leaning on the washing machine. And he's like, I just don't understand how we could have missed this. And as he's talking, the washing machine suddenly moves from his weight being on it, and he looks down, and behind where the washing machine had been, now that it's been moved, is a little cutout on the wall.

55:52And it sort of looked like it was where the vents of the washing machine and the dryer would go to, but he sort of moved it a little bit more, and he realized that there was a big enough cutout behind these two, the washer and dryer, that a person could realistically fit through the hole in the wall. And so they pull the washer dryer away, and they poke their head in, and they see with their flashlight, there's like a tunnel that's been burrowed into the wall in the basement. And crouched down in the corner, looking back at them, is this dude wearing a dress. Holy shit. And the dude in the corner, his name was Danny LaPlante.

56:28And I'm gonna tell you about Danny LaPlante, because this story, it takes a horrible turn. This is already bad, but it gets exponentially worse. So, Danny LaPlante was this 16-year-old kid, and he clearly had humongous issues, huge issues. Six months earlier from when he's discovered in the wall, he had had some sort of fleeting interaction with Tina Bowen, the 15-year-old. Apparently, he made some sort of move on her, and he felt rejected. Tina didn't recall it at all. They apparently went to school together, but she does not have a memory of interacting with this guy ever. You know, it's like, I didn't even know that he felt that way about me.

57:06but he felt spurned by her. He felt rejected. And the way he handled his rejection is he snuck into their house right after that. So six months earlier, burrowed a hole in their wall in the basement and was living in their walls. And what he was doing is, by the way, he did not have access to their whole house from that hole in the basement. He only had a little crawl space in the walls in the basement. He was leaving the crawl space all the time and just wandering their house with the family there. He was spying on the family 24-7. And then at a certain point, when the girls went downstairs and had that seance, Danny could tell they were having a seance to try to contact their mother.

57:46And all those tapping sounds he made were intentional. He was trying to pretend to be their mother to make them feel like it's mom. He was the one, he snuck into their bedrooms and was flicking the underside of their bed. Like, this guy was asking to get caught. He never did. But it was him pretending to be their mom, and then eventually he mixed it up and decided to be evil and pretended to be a malevolent spirit. So, this guy's completely psychopathic, right? So, he gets arrested, and he's put in jail. And 10 months later, as he's awaiting trial, he is given bond. He's given—he's allowed to leave jail.

58:21He's given bond. That's the framing, right? Yeah, bond. And while he's out on bond, he sneaks into another family's house. And for reasons that we still don't even understand now, he murdered three of the four people in that family after living in their walls. And now he's currently in jail, and he recently was put up for a parole hearing, and he was rejected. And during the parole hearing, they determined that he's arguably one of, if not the single most sociopathic member in the entire prison system. So that's the story of Danny LaPlante. Damn, how did he kill the other family? He drowned them.

59:02He drowned them? I believe the mom was strangled and the two children he drowned. Jeez. Yeah. And so if you look at this guy now, if you look at videos of Daniel LaPlante now, I mean, if you were to imagine somebody capable of doing that, that's what he looks like.

59:21So, not good, dude. how do you find this stuff well that one that one's pretty pretty well like publicized i suppose so that one know about that yeah but the the thing that and this is not like toot my own horn but i think that the the thing that i will do to stories that i think brings them to life a little bit is there are stories that are told you know by loads of people on loads of accounts and channels and movies and tv shows but a lot of time there's sort of like a formula for how each one gets told For example, this is completely random, but like, Roswell, New Mexico. I don't even have the story in mind, but the way that story is often told is, Roswell, New Mexico is like where aliens by the government are like kept, you know?

1:00:01And like, that's how you start the story, and then you sort of back into it. And that's how everybody tells that story. If I was gonna tell, and I'd never done this, a story about Roswell, I would start with some anecdote that led to this theory even existing. I would start with somebody's experience in real time that was potentially paranormal, and then I would begin to connect it to Roswell in some way. Maybe the government comes in after the fact, and, you know, suddenly the sighting this person saw, the government's asking questions, and it turns out it's the agents from Roswell, New Mexico.

1:00:33And so I like to find a way to tell a story where the payoff is only at the end. You know, it's like, especially in true crime stories, which we do a lot of, so many times when you tell a story like that, it becomes, one, fixated on the antagonist, the killer, because they're the most obscene, they're the most memorable in the worst ways. And you lead with, like, today, I'm gonna tell you the story of the murder of so-and-so. And so, going into it, you sort of already know what it's gonna, what the story is, and you're fixated on the killer. And so, the way I tell these stories, it's designed to be like you're in the POV of the normal people that are meant to feel relatable to you.

1:01:14The people who, like the Bowen family, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's all, that's it. And the other family that were killed, the Gustafsons, wrong place, wrong time. I want you to inhabit their point of view and have the killer be almost anonymous. This is a story where Danny LaPlante gets really named, but the killer or like the bad thing that happens always needs to feel like sort of this thing that always happens in a Mr. Bolland story. It's this ambiguous bad thing. It's the character in the story that I can relate to. I can feel their emotions. That way, by the time the bad thing happens, it's heart-wrenching.

1:01:47You're like, oh, my God. I feel for those people. You know? So, that story gets told a ton, but it's often told with, I'm gonna tell you the story of the guy in the wall. Man, we do a phenomenal job. Thank you. That was a long one. Holy shit. Living in the wall? Yeah. And you know what's crazy? Did this guy have parents? I think he did. He was a very... I don't quote, I want to say a very dysfunctional family, if you can imagine. But there's actually, these are far less good stories, but there's a shocking number of, because we researched this stuff, shocking number of people that have found people living in their walls.

1:02:28And honestly, it's usually, it's not like you can live in someone's wall. It isn't like your walls magically connect all over your house. That's not really how it works. But there are definitely instances, especially in like major cities of squatters finding their way into these apartment complexes and different people's homes. Actually, this is not even a full story, but there was a movie based on this, and I'm not prepared to tell this whole story, but there was this apartment complex, I want to say it was in New York, where there were all these people getting killed, just in this massive Section 8-style housing, people packed on top of each other, super big high-rise.

1:03:06All these people were getting killed, They were just turning up dead in their apartments. And, you know, nobody knew why. They just would be found dead in their apartments, sort of inexplicably. And it would turn out that the way this apartment was built was really, really cheaply, in particular, the way they insulated the walls between each of the different units. So, in essence, if you wanted to, there was a way from, I think, the basement where you could get into the inner workings of every single—you could get into the space between every single apartment. There was effectively, like, scaffolding very near.

1:03:40Oh, my gosh. And even worse than that, every single apartment, their mirror was just placed into the drywall. It wasn't anchored at all. And so these dudes began sneaking into people's apartments by just climbing inside of the wall, like this high-rise building, and punching open the mirror. Now they're in your apartment and killing the people in the apartment and then going back in through the mirror. Jeez.

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1:06:12As a hometown hero, you'll enjoy special perks through Neighbors Club, like earning rewards on every purchase, free trailer rentals and delivery, and exclusive savings on holidays that honor your service. And the best part? Once you sign up and verify through ID.me, it's automatic. No hoops, no hassles. So if you or someone you love is a hometown hero, visit tractorsupply.com slash hometown heroes to learn more. It's Tractor Supply's way of standing behind those who always stand for us. And there was the, I don't know if this one was true or not, but there was one about, in a way, it's sort of not heartwarming at all.

1:06:56It's bad, but it's the closest thing to heartwarming. I don't know if you have any heartwarming stories, John. This one is like, there was this guy who I want to say, this might be, I don't know if this is a true story or not, but it's a great, you can probably look it up. It's one of the more viral clips that's out there. And I think it's true. There was this guy who, he lived in the city, he was in New York, and I think he shot content for like a vlog or something. I don't think he was a big influencer or anything, but he was a type of guy who like filmed himself a lot. And there was this, someone put together a compilation of all these videos of him.

1:07:33Over the course of these vlogs he was doing, he was mentioning that he's like, man, it's the weirdest thing happened to me last night. Like my toothbrush was like on the other side of the counter, you know, little things that in the vlog, he's clearly not making a big deal out of it, but he's saying, he's like, that's so weird. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Like it just, here and there, he just mentioned that there were all these weird things happening. He lives alone. He lives in a big apartment building in New York. and he eventually starts to like question his own sanity. He begins to say to his followers or whatever you want to call it, he's like, I just, something weird is happening to me.

1:08:08Like I keep forgetting where I'm putting things. You know, I keep buying things and they're like disappearing in particular food and like weird stuff is happening in the kitchen. And so he eventually sets up a camera in his kitchen. It's a very small, like New York City apartment kitchen. New York City apartment kitchen. He sets up a camera. And, you know, over the first couple of nights, he's filming, nothing happens. He doesn't even know what he's looking for. Like, he's not going to, oh, someone's living in my apartment with me. He's just like, what? Am I sleepwalking? Like, what am I doing?

1:08:38And then there's this one clip that's gone crazy viral. It'd be easy to find. It's the middle of the night, and this cupboard opens. And this little woman, this little woman climbs out of the cupboard, and she's, like, looking around. And she goes over to his sink. She hasn't even got off the counter yet. and she squats down and pees in his sink. And then she jumps down, and she goes to his fridge, and she starts eating all this food in his fridge. And then she, like, goes around the house. She comes back with, like, a toothbrush, sure enough. And she, like, cleans her teeth, puts everything back, and then she goes back into the cupboard and puts everything back.

1:09:14And the guy discovered it, and he was, like, horrified. This is real, too? Well, I don't know that this... I've seen this video, and I believe it's true. And this guy did an interview for it. He was like, yeah, it turns out, in that cupboard, You could basically climb up, like, into the ceiling of the apartment and hide. But it was this woman who, and this is the heartwarming part, if you will, I think that she had no money, you know, she was down on her luck. She was this elderly woman who had literally walked into his apartment when he left the door open one day and just, like, magically found this hiding spot and had been there for a year.

1:09:48So he was living in this room for a year. It's, like, crazy. Holy shit, dude. You won't cover some wild shit. Yeah, man. Wow. Do you believe in paranormal stuff? Uh, I don't know. I sort of do. I think that the... What's happened is in virtue of constantly searching for stories that, you know, are credible enough that we would share them on our shows, you sort of are exposed to a lot of stuff that's clearly not true. Mm-hmm. Especially when it comes to, like, user submissions, a lot of that stuff. It could be true, but there's just no way I can prove any level of credibility. It's one person's perspective type of thing.

1:10:29But there are definitely some things that are tough to explain. And I think that where I go to is it's almost a cop-out to say, you know, paranormal doesn't exist only because all you have to do is just zoom out, Zoom out a little bit on our species. Zoom out a little bit on Earth. It doesn't matter what you think of how we got here or whether there's God, whether there isn't, or whatever your interpretation of existence and our place in it doesn't matter. It is undeniably the case that we are this little tiny thing in this vast space that we don't really understand. Even through every religion, We still don't really understand.

1:11:18Like, we don't really know with absolute clarity who we are and what we're doing here. We have good ideas, we have great theories, but it's undeniably part of the human experience that we were like, yeah, we don't really know. We think so. I believe this, but I don't really know. And so, because of that, why is it so outlandish to think that there could for example, like supernatural activity. I mean, there's... I told this story actually on the Storytime with Mr. Ball and the new show we've been doing. I told it to Tom Segura on our first episode. The shortened version of it is there's a story of this Mexican pilot who's this young civilian pilot who was learning how to fly just as a civilian.

1:12:04He's a 21-year-old kid, forget his name. and there was the day where he was going to fly solo for the first time. So, he shows up to the airfield. I think it's called Chimalacan, Mexico. I'm butchering the name. He shows up. He's done all his tandem or whatever you call it, flights with an instructor. Today, he's going to fly on his own. And the flight path that he was going to be on was very simple. Take off, do a couple of turns, come back and land, just show us you can do it, and then you're certified. So, he's not nervous. He gets in the plane, he takes off. He takes off, I think it was like 9.15 in the morning.

1:12:39I want to say this is in the 80s or 90s, I forget, but it wasn't super recent. He takes off and everything's going fine. And he begins making his turn. And then at a certain point, there's like this fog that rolls in and they were sort of aware of the fog, but the fog, like it really came in fast. And as he's entering this fog, he loses his visibility. And this is also at a time where the instruments in the aircraft were pretty rudimentary. Like it was basically dead reckoning. You're sort of looking out the window to see where you're going. This might even have been in the 60s or 70s now that I think about it.

1:13:12It was not recent. And all he's got is like his compass and like his altimeter, like he doesn't have much going on. And he's just sort of looking out the window and he's seeing where he's at. And he's like, okay, I'm good. He's like making his turn. But at a certain point, he knows he needs to begin to descend to land. And he basically knows where he is. He figures once I go below the fog, I'm going to see the runway and I'll land. But as he tries to descend, he realizes his craft, his airplane's not responding. You know, it's flying, it's steady, you know, it's not faltering, but it's not descending.

1:13:44And he tries to like pull the yoke to one side. It's not turning right. It's not turning left. He can't do anything. He's not panicking. But as this is happening, he realizes that, you know, the plane is not just leveled off. It actually is beginning to climb and he has no control over it. He's just going up. And so he goes over the radio. He's trying to tell, you know, I guess the air traffic control of what's going on, but he doesn't really even know what's going on other than he's lost control of his aircraft. He's in this big, you know, cloud of fog. He's sort of, you know, losing sight of anything.

1:14:14And then as he's rising, he begins to lose consciousness and finally just passes out. So he's riding up into the clouds with no control, and he passes out. And so, Raphael, pretty sure his name's Raphael. For the sake of this story, I'm going to call him Raphael from here on out. So, Raphael, he wakes up sort of abruptly, and he's like looking around, and immediately he takes stock of what's going on, because he just passed out in the cockpit a minute ago, and he's flying solo, pretty dangerous. And he sees that his plane's still flying. He's flying level, his plane's fine, and the mist is The fog is all gone.

1:14:51And he looks out his window and he sees that, you know, not only is the fog all gone, but he's actually over a very, you know, new-looking environment. He's flying over water. Now, in every direction, it's water. And, you know, he's really just happy that he hasn't crashed, you know? And he can't really picture how he got here. But as he's sort of taking stock and, you know, taking back control of the plane, and now he does have control of the plane again, he realizes there's somebody trying to talk to him on the radio. And they're like, hey, hey, Rafael, Rafael. Like, hey, what's going on, Rafael?

1:15:22And he's like, oh, my God. Like, I don't even know what to say to you. Like, I don't even know where I am. And the guy over the radio, it was air traffic control off the coast of, I forget where it is, some coastal city in Mexico. They're like, hey, I've been talking to you for the last hour or so. Are you okay? And is somebody with you right now? And Rafael's like, what? Like, no, like, it's just me. I fell asleep. I don't know how I got here. And so the air traffic control guy is very suspect of what's going on. And he's like, hey, do me a favor, turn around, come over here, you're going to land right here at whatever city this is.

1:16:01Come land right here, we're going to talk to you, okay? And so he's like, thank you, okay? So he turns around and he lands. And where he is, I think it's three hours away. From where he took off, where he lands is a three-hour flight away. Let's put it that way. I forget the name of where he lands. so he lands and as soon as he lands he's thinking like oh my god i'm getting so much trouble i definitely didn't pass my test like this did not go well he gets out of his his aircraft and there's all these people waiting for him like these like stereotypical like in suits like government officials they show it's what it looks like that's the way he reports it they and they take him and before he can even ask questions about what the heck just happened they're like hey you're gonna come with us.

1:16:42We're going to screen you and see if you're on drugs. And also, we want to give you a psychological test to make sure you're sane." And the whole time, he's like, what is going on? He's trying to ask questions. Nobody's given him an answer. It's these people in suits that have just kind of whisked him away to this hospital. And he gets to the hospital, and they give him a drug screening, and he's totally sober. And they have a psychologist talk to him who determines that he's shaken, but he's sane. And it's only at that point that they're like, all right, Raphael, we're gonna tell you what the heck's going on here.

1:17:17And he has no idea. He's like totally clueless what's happened here. So he took off at like 9.15 a.m. This is what they told him. They're like, you took off at 9.15 a.m. You flew up into the cloud and then no one could find you again. And then at about, I wanna say it was like, I forget the time exactly, but it was like an hour later or an hour and a half later, call it like 1030, 1045, air traffic control off the coast of Mexico, they picked up this blip on their radar flying in circles out over the water, and it was Rafael. And they're like, what are you doing here? The guy who was like, hey, are you alone in the cockpit right now?

1:17:53That guy, that same air traffic control, he got on the radio with Rafael and he spoke to him for an hour and they recorded his conversation. And at some point in this conversation with Rafael, that Raphael doesn't remember. There's a recording of this, I wish I could play for you right now, where Raphael, it doesn't sound like him, but he's the only one in the cockpit, and it's recorded on air traffic control. He says something to the effect of, this is not Raphael. We come to you from another planet. We're using his body as a microphone. You need to understand that your species is on the brink of destruction, that you're using nuclear weapons, you're about to turn on yourselves, and you're gonna annihilate yourselves if you don't stop.

1:18:36And if you don't stop, like, there are... There are... They end up and killing each other, or else someone's gonna have to intervene. It's sort of like the message, but it's... It's said through Rafael, and if you listen to it, even though it's in Spanish, it's... It sounds horrifying. His voice sounds deep, and it's, like, garbly, and it's... You can tell the air traffic control guy, as he's talking back and forth to him, he's unnerved by it. And then, magically, at, like, 10.30 or 10.45, when Rafael comes to in the cockpit, his voice totally changes on the recording. He's like, hey, what's going on?

1:19:09I just woke up. I just woke up. So Raphael has no memory of it, but there's a couple other anomalies that don't really add up. One, you have just the fact that there's a recording of the conversation where for an hour, this guy is getting this weird feedback from Raphael that sounds like another alien species talking to him. But also the plane itself, it's a three-hour flight to get to that body of water. and he had enough fuel in his plane. I want to say for like an hour's flight or two hours flight, it was less. When they recovered his plane, he had like three quarters full tank of gas. So just to get to where he was, even if he had flown straight, one, he didn't have enough time because it was 9.15-ish takeoff, 10.45 a.m.

1:19:53or whatever it was, he's found over the body of water. That's not three hours, that's an hour and a half. So it's less than three hours. So even a fast plane couldn't have got there in three hours. and the fuel was literally like too full to be there. And so the only way you can get this story, this is sort of dramatic, but it's good for the story. The story is not really widely talked about because it's like a very scrutinized story in Mexico because people are like, this is the best piece of evidence that something weird is going on. Like there could be aliens out there. This feels like proof.

1:20:27The story has been buried in an archive in this library in Mexico. and the way we got access to it, I kid you not, is we had to write a handwritten letter to this Mexican library to request to use the story in the recording, because it's the recording. That's the transcript in the recording. And then when we asked, they had to interview us to figure out what we were using it for. I swear to God. Are you serious? Yeah, and they were like, whatever you do, don't make a video about it.

1:21:00And here we are. And here we are. Yeah, so... Oh, shit. Right? How'd you find that one? So we have a pretty amazing team of researchers, and we have one, Sam, who's our Spanish language researcher. And so she will specifically read news sources that are Spanish language that we don't necessarily have access to. And she just found it. Yeah, I guess people were talking about it on the interwebs, if you will. Man, that is wild. Yeah, you know? Have you had any paranormal stuff happen to you? Yeah, I mean, I had the, I had, it's a long one. I don't know if you want to hear a long one. I have a long story.

1:21:43How much time have we got? We got, we got, we got all the time in the world. Yeah, so we, I do. I have like, I have one thing that happened to me that I, I don't even know if it's paranormal or not. I would say that it likely feels close. And in a way, people think it's like the reason I started doing Mr. Ballin, but it's totally coincidental. I have exactly one time that I had something strange happen to me. And it also happens to be one of the first stories I told on the internet that went pretty viral. But it's not why I do this. It's just happenstance. So when I was 16 years old, I was big into snowboarding.

1:22:24And I had these two buddies of mine who both were named Nick. and one of them, his nickname was Wolf, like the animal wolf. And so for the sake of the story, there's Nick and there's Wolf. And the three of us, we snowboarded together all the time. So I grew up just south of Boston, Massachusetts, and I lived in a town called Quincy. And it's, you know, Massachusetts is not known for its rugged mountain peaks. And so there's really nowhere to go snowboarding. But there was this place called Blue Hills. It's this little ski resort. It's literally a hill, hence the name Blue Hills. in Milton, Massachusetts.

1:23:00And, you know, they pump snow onto it. And it's, no kidding, just a little tiny hill. And we loved it. We were there all the time. Taught snowboarding there, you know. It was like, that was our place. In the winter, me, Nick, and Wolf were there all the time. And, but every winter from the time I was like maybe 12, so 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, the one big trip we would take is Nick, Nick's family had a cabin in New Hampshire up in the White Mountains. And for us, that was like the one time where we'd go stay at the cabin, and for like a weekend or a few days, we would go snowboarding at like real mountains in New Hampshire, which compared to Blue Hills in Massachusetts, these were like, you know, Mount Everest.

1:23:40It was amazing. And so we really looked forward to that trip every single year. But when I was 16, we had a trip planned to go up to this cabin, and their cabin itself, it's located up on this old abandoned ski resort, which matters to the story. Basically, they built all these little cabins. I think it's called King Pine was the name of the resort before it shut down. But there's all these cabins that were built for the ski resort. But then the ski resort shut down, and a lot of the cabins got demolished. Nobody really kept them, or they were sold off or whatever. But there was a few that kept their cabin on these old abandoned mountains.

1:24:15And there's really very little in the way of public service that goes up there. So the roads get all nasty and stuff. But it was cool to be living on the side of the mountain. But anyhow, we had a trip to go up there planned. And sort of out of left field, Nick's father passed away. It was, honestly, I think it was a heart attack, but it was very abrupt. And when we would go to this trip, this annual trip up to this cabin, it was always me, Wolf, Nick, and then Nick's mom and dad. And they were like this perfect couple. You know, they loved each other so much. They were so much fun to be around, just like the most motherly, fatherly group.

1:24:56And they loved that cabin, especially the dad. The dad, I don't think he built it, but he was like always, you know, he was very handy fixing it up. You know, he's a man's man, rugged guy. And so when I found out that Nick's dad had died, you know, I really didn't care about the ski trip, snowboard trip. I'm like, of course, we're not doing that. You know, how could we? It was like literally a couple of days away. You know, there's not a chance we're going to do that. And I remember I talked to Wolf separately, so not the guy whose dad died. And I said, hey, you know, just between you and I, obviously, we're not going to go, you know, right?

1:25:32And he's like, yeah, no way. But I ended up getting a call from Nick. And Nick is, he was always like a very stoic guy, sort of like a tough, quiet, reserved kind of guy. And he's like, hey, like showing almost no emotion or anything. He's like, hey, we're just going to go. We're going to go on the trip anyways. And I remember thinking that I actually really didn't want to because I'm thinking about how uncomfortable that's going to be. The absence of his father is going to be so obvious. But I also was thinking that, for all I know, this is their way of honoring his late father. He loved the cabin, and maybe it's one of those things where it's like he would want us to go, still do the trip.

1:26:18And so I called Wolf separately, and he sort of agreed that he's like, I feel like it's our responsibility to go and be supportive and just let this be whatever it is. You know, it's not meant to be a fun vacation. It's meant to be there for the family and just go. And so me and Wolf agreed to go with Nick. And the deal is it's going to be the three of us, the three friends, Nick's mom, like usual. And then she had two much older sons. They were in their 30s at the time, were 16. I hadn't met them before. I knew they existed, but, you know, the rumor was that they would be joining us at the cabin, presumably the night we got there.

1:26:55We were going to be there for three nights. They were going to join us. And so without even telling Wolf or I, we sort of understood that they're going there to sort of fill the obvious gap left behind by Nick's dad's absence. And so that's sort of what we think we're walking into. And so we, the day comes, just a couple of days later, Nick's mom comes and picks me up, and it's me, Wolf, and Nick in the back seat. It's a big SUV, and Nick's mom is driving, and the front passenger seat is conspicuously empty. That's where the dad would sit. And so up to New Hampshire we go. And at this point, I've embraced the situation, and I'm just looking to be a good friend.

1:27:38So is Wolf. We just go up there. It is what it is. So we go up to the cabin, and I'm just looking to be a good friend. A couple more points about the cabin that are sort of important for the story is the cabin itself is situated on a mountain. It's built on a mountain. If you think about how you'd build a level house on a slope, you've got to sort of put half the house, if you will, out on stilts to keep it up supported. And then the other half is sort of effectively built into the mountain, you know, to build something on a slope. I guess I hope that makes sense. And so that's how this one's built.

1:28:07Basically, half the house was sort of jutting off the mountain with big stilts and a big wraparound porch that went around the outside. and then sort of like a section of the house was sort of burrowed into the mountain. And when you drive up this mountain, you'd turn onto a little access road and you'd be approaching the house, sort of looking at it from a profile view. You'd see on the left side is the stilted side, and the right side is the side buried in the mountain. The door is right in front of you as you pull up to it. The door to get into the cabin, you actually have to step onto the wraparound porch and take a few steps, and then there's a door that leads directly into the side of the cabin.

1:28:43And once you step inside, you're standing quite literally between the kitchen on your right, where there's linoleum under your right foot, and on your left is this shag carpet where the dining room is. So you step in and you're straddling these two rooms. There's also sleigh bells that they kept on the door. So anytime you opened it, you could always hear it opening. And so you walk into the cabin and there's just like one big open room. It's called an open floor plan. It's a very small cabin. So kitchen over here, dining room here with a table in it. And if you just kept walking straight towards the back of this cabin, again, not very big, you'd enter the living room.

1:29:20There's no wall demarcating it. You just sort of get to a couch with a TV on the back of the cabin. And if you turned around in that back of the cabin and looked up, you'd see a lofted second floor. And basically at the backside of the cabin, there's stairs that go up to the second floor. So it's just a lofted second floor. That's where the mom and dad, that's where they would sleep. And then where we would sleep is when you first walk in and you got the kitchen on your right, you got the dining room on your left. If you walk like halfway through the cabin and you stopped and you turn right, you're now looking into the mountain that direction.

1:29:53There's a single hallway that goes straight down and then makes a tiny little left. And there's one bedroom that is where we would sleep. And when you go into that bedroom, you'd walk in. It's a corner-fed room, if you will, for our military days. and immediately on your right is a bunk bed. I would sleep on the lower bunk. Wolf would sleep on the top bunk. And then with basically all the remaining space in the room, it's not a very big room, was like a queen-size bed where Nick would sleep. And there was just enough space where you could walk between the queen-size and the bunk bed, a little row there.

1:30:27So all that will make sense once we get into the story or what really happens. So anyways, we get up to the mountain, we get to the cabin, we put our stuff down, and right away, even though it's midday, we head out to Aditash. I think that's the name of the mountain we went to, and we snowboard all day, and it's great. Even though it's a sad trip, it was wonderful to be out on the mountain. And then we come back, and at this point, we were told that the brother, one of the two older brothers was likely going to be there late at night. He was coming in from some trip he had, and so basically, he was going to get there, but it was going to be late at night, likely after we fell asleep.

1:31:07So there's no reason to stay up for them. And so we were at the cabin and the three of us are like, man, let's just like go to bed right now. It's like seven or eight o 'clock. Let's just go to bed and we can get up super early and like hit the mountain and snowboard all day tomorrow. It's going to be awesome. And so we go in our bedroom and the other two fall asleep like immediately, but I just like can't sleep. There's no reason for it. Just couldn't sleep. Maybe I was excited. And I had like a PlayStation 1 in there and I was playing like SSX Tricky, that little snowboarding game, just crushing video games.

1:31:38I just couldn't sleep. But finally, I'm like, all right, I got to go to bed. So I turn it off and I get into the bunk and it's truly pitch black inside this room. The room has, it's been built into the mountain. You know, it's not some secret room. It's just the way the cabin is constructed. There's no windows. You know, it's bunkered in the mountain. And so there's no light coming in and it's the middle of the night. And the only light in the room was just a digital clock that had a little red dial to a little red digital face. That was the only light in the room. But it's like truly like a pitch black room.

1:32:16And so I'm laying there and I still can't sleep. And my feet are closest to the door. And Wolf is the same orientation above me and Nick is the same orientation next to me. And I'm laying there. and at a certain point, I hear footsteps out on the wraparound porch. And I didn't hear a car approach. I also wasn't actively listening for sounds outside. I was trying to fall asleep. But I remember hearing these footsteps on the wraparound porch. And I think that I mentioned it before in another story. It's amazing what your brain will do. I've seen this in this particular story, and I've also seen it, you know, in the military where you're met with, like, overwhelming evidence that something bad is happening, but your brain is like, nope, everything is fine.

1:33:10And like, it's the middle of the night on a mountain, and I'm hearing footsteps on the wraparound porch. And so my brain immediately jumps to, oh, it's Nick's brother. It has to be Nick's brother. It's like two, three in the morning right now. We knew he was going to be here. I've never met him. And it's funny, my go-to thought was, I'm going to pretend to be asleep because I don't want to have a social interaction with this dude right now. Never met him before. It's like three in the morning. I was going to walk in and be like, yo, get up. Let's chat. Let's meet. He's not going to do that. But that's all I'm thinking.

1:33:42I'm like, all right, just do your best asleep impression. And so I'm sitting there and I hear these footsteps and they're out on the porch, which is elevated off the ground. It's pretty echoey, and it's silent in the house beyond that. And so the footsteps, they stop outside the door, the door that leads into the kitchen and the living room. And I hear the door open, and I can hear the sound of the sleigh bells on the door ringing. So it makes sense. The door's opening. He's here. And the first thing that I noticed that seemed off was I didn't hear the door shut again. I just heard it open. and the footsteps when they're out on the wraparound porch that is an elevated wooden platform makes sense that they would like echo in a sense or that you would hear them the cabin is not echoey there's shag carpet and it's like cement slab it's you don't hear people's footsteps but when the footsteps came into the cabin i continued to hear them like they were echoing almost like they were out on the wraparound porch and so footsteps wraparound porch, the door opens, the sleigh bells, the footsteps come into the cabin and they're like echoing through, echo's not even the right word.

1:34:53They're loud. Like I can hear like a thump with each step. And I'm telling myself it has to be one of the next brothers. That's all it can be. There's no other explanation here because any alternative is awful. There's no other good alternative. And so the footsteps are moving and I had this weird thought that I can only describe this way, it was almost like I could see in my mind's eye where they were in the house, whoever, whatever this was. It was like I was intimately aware, probably because I was having a fight or flight reaction and my brain was going crazy. It was like with every step, it was like I could see the feet like moving exactly where they were in the cabin.

1:35:32And I could tell as the footsteps, you know, hard stomped through the cabin, they stopped. And I knew they were stopping right at the point where you would turn and you would, if you wanted to, you'd walk down the hallway that led to us. There's no other, once you'd come down this hallway, we're the only room that's left, right? And so I'm picturing in my mind, like, okay, this has got to be an ex-brother, but like, what's going on here? Why do I have this weird thought about this? The footsteps stop at that point and they turn and they begin walking down the hallway towards our room. Our door's shut.

1:36:03It's pitch dark beyond the little red light in the room. And I, at this point, I'm starting to wonder like, okay, I don't know if this could be next brother. This just, this feels awkward. It feels wrong. The door's not shut. Like what's up with these footsteps being this loud? Is this an intruder? Is it, is it a, is it a predator? I don't know. Is it an animal that's come into the house? Like all these thoughts are going through my head and they're all bad. And I remember having this almost paralyzing fear come over me as the footsteps began coming down the hall. Because all I'm thinking is, in a moment here, invariably, it seems like the door is going to open, and I'm going to have to have some sort of interaction with whoever, whatever this is.

1:36:45Wolf and Nick are dead asleep, and I'm so scared with fear. I can't make a sound. I'm so scared. I'm so scared. And so, I'm laying there, and the footsteps come down the hallway, and then they stop right outside the door. So, it comes down the hallway, and it turns, and it's facing the doorway that's shut. And I'm looking towards the foot of my bed, the bunk bed now, and there's a space between the top bunk and where I'm laying. And so I have a little bit of a view on this door that's on the wall here. I can see the door, and the door opens inwardly, and it's so dark. But like my mind, I'm like, I know where the door is.

1:37:16I know like, even though I can't see it, I know if anybody comes in, they're going to be right there. And so I'm laying here, staring down through the slat in my bunk bed. The door opens, and this dark, tall figure walks into the room. and each step is like this thunderous boom as it's walking into the room. Like it's echoing through the whole house, it feels like. Like I'm amazed no one else has woken up to it. And I see it walk past, and I'm gonna explain this. I see it walk past the slats in the bed or that space in the bed. And the room is like pitch black. There's really no light coming in even when the door opened up.

1:37:52There's a tiny bit of light from the digital clock, but there's virtually no light. And I could practically perfectly make out a dark silhouette within a dark room. It was like I could see it clear as day, as if there was a light being shown on it, this tall, dark figure that walks past the bed. And I'm laying here, and my view is partially obscured by the top bunk over here. Like, I can see Nick on the bed there. I can basically see the whole room. But if you're standing real close to the bed, and you were to walk down the row, and you were taller than the top bunk, let's say, I couldn't actually see you unless I moved my head and looked up at you, right?

1:38:27So I'm laying here and this thing walks into the room. It turns at the foot of the bed and it begins marching down the space between where I'm laying and where Nick is laying. And it's so tall that from my perspective, I can only like see its thighs, if you will, like its hips would be above the top bunk. Like it doesn't feel physically possible that it's so tall and it marches right next to me and it stops. And I'm laying there sweating bullets. I honestly don't think I've been more scared in my life. I don't think I've ever been more scared. And all I remember thinking, I said it in the YouTube video that I told, and it became like a meme within my community of fans.

1:39:07I was like, very earnestly, I was like, all I could think was, please, God, whatever or whoever you are, don't bend down here and look at me, because it'll ruin my life to have to interact with you. But I'm laying there. All I'm thinking is, oh my God, like don't interact with me. Don't like, I know this is not your next brother. I don't know who or what this is, but it like turned away from me, almost like a military facing movement because it had marched down the way and it turned away from me. Now it's looking out over Nick's bed. I'm frozen, like paralyzed. I was helpless. He could have destroyed me.

1:39:46I couldn't do anything. And it like bowed forward into Nick. It like bent forward into Nick and then disappeared into the ground. Just was gone. And, you know, in a movie, let's say, I think you might be like, oh, now it's safe. Now the ghost melted into the floor. We can run away now. All good, everybody. Right. But like in real life, I'm like, where did it go? Where is it? That's not how, that's not normal. You know, there's so many questions. Like, what do I do now? And so I'm laying in bed wondering if it's going to like poke its head up and look at me. And again, it's like, this is horrible, horrible thing.

1:40:25And so I just laid there in bed waiting for whatever or whoever this was to reemerge. And I didn't move. And I'm like frozen solid, just so scared. And at a certain point when nothing happened in the room, I must have fallen asleep. That's the only explanation because it's like this gray area post seeing it to when I wake up. But I basically come to or wake up very shortly after this. I only could have slept for like an hour tops. And I realized that Nick and Wolf are both up out of the bed. It's just me. There's a little bit of light in there. And I can hear out in the kitchen the sound of Nick's mom like doing her morning routine.

1:41:00And I'm so relieved. Like there's the room is safe again. I'm up out of the bed and I go running. I'm sorry, Nick and Wolf, they're still in their bedroom. But I can hear Nick's mom. That's actually important. So I wake up. I hear Nick's mom. Nick and Wolf are still in bed. I know it's safe now. I pop out of bed, and I run into the kitchen, or I go into the kitchen, and I'm about to tell her. I had all these questions I wanted to say to her. I'm 16, but I'm a kid. I need some reassurance from an adult. But I instantly was like, wait a minute. She has just lost her husband a couple of days ago.

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1:44:36Go to shopify.com.srs. Shopify.com.srs. So I go in the kitchen and I'm like, shaken up because I know this happened. This was not like some fleeting dream. Like something happened. And I say to her, I'm like, hey, uh... And she's making coffee, doing her thing. And I'm like, hey, did your sons, your older sons, did one of them show up last night? And she sort of looked at me and she just didn't say anything. And I'm like, were they here? Did they stop by at any point? And she goes, no. And I just, I clearly had a reaction to that. She could see a reaction from me. I was like, let down. Like that was my one silver bullet.

1:45:18Maybe that was Nick's brother being really weird last night, you know? And she looks at me and she's like, John, it's okay. It was just my husband. I heard him last night too. And I got to tell you, that was not a reassuring thing to hear from a parent. It caught me so flat-footed because it's like I haven't even, I came out there looking like shit. I came out there looking like I had seen a ghost. I clearly was probing about something that happened last night. I'm asking, I'm doubling down on, was your son here? She just sort of said it. And I didn't even know what to do. And so, I just was like, I can't talk to her.

1:46:04I can't, I don't want to talk to her about this. I don't even know what to say or do. I'm just going to sit down. I began like drinking like 10 cups of coffee, just like doing anything to take my mind off this. And then not long after, Wolf and Nick came out of the bedroom and they came over and Nick's doing his own thing. And I pulled Wolf aside and I just told him outright. I was like, dude, this is what happened last night. And he's like, fuck, dude. I don't know what to tell you. That's horrifying. Sucks, dude. I don't know what to tell you. But I told him and I'm like, I'm telling you, I don't know what to make of it.

1:46:35And I said, that's what Nick's mom said. I think she's referencing whatever happened to me. And he was freaked out by it, but he's also like, I don't know, man. There's got to be an explanation here. And so I sort of took the stance of this is something I'm not going to understand, and I'm just going to act like everything's normal. Let's just have a normal day of snowboarding and assume that this is okay. Somehow or another, this is okay. And so we do our morning routine. We go snowboarding for the day. And pretty quickly, once I'm out of the cabin and we're snowboarding, it all evaporated from my mind.

1:47:11I forgot about it. Had a great day of riding. and then at the end of the night, when it was time to come home, the one thing I did do is I said to Nick and Wolf, I'm like, hey, tonight, when we're back there, because we have two more nights at this cabin, I'm like, can you guys just let me fall asleep first before you? Let me enter the slumber realm ahead of you. And they're like, oh, yeah, definitely. We'll definitely do that for you. And so we get back to the cabin, and I checked in with Nick's mom. I said, hey, tonight we're expecting your sons or one of them. And she's like, yeah, they're probably going to be here tonight.

1:47:48And I'm like, okay, these elusive brothers, I guess they're going to be here tonight. And so I'm in bed at like seven. I'm in my bed. I barely slept the night before, and I'm like just trying to go to bed. And I remember the one thing that I did that made it feel like more real is I put in the springs underneath the bed above me, I put a knife, like slotted into the springs, you know, to protect myself. But I'm like, nothing's going to happen. I'm fine. And so I lay there in bed and I cannot fall asleep because I'm doing that whole like, oh my God, I need to fall asleep before them. Like I can't be awake.

1:48:21And so it was impossible to sleep. And eventually, you know, Nick and Wolf were like, dude, we're going to bed. It's like midnight. We're going to bed. We're not just going to sit here until you do. And I'm like, fine. I'm like kicking their bed and like trying to keep them up. But eventually they fell asleep and once again I am alone in the room, wide awake. It's dark. With a knife. Oh, I got my stupid knife right above me. And I'm laying there and time was just going by. And at some point, maybe two, three in the morning, I remember hearing the sound of the steps out on the wraparound porch.

1:48:56And it was the same. It was like... It happened again? I'm laying there and I hear the sound on the wraparound porch. And because I've now had one experience the first night, this feels the same. And it just defies everything we think we understand about the way the world works, the way things work. And I was just instantly in that paralysis state, that, like, so scared, I can't move. Like, I'm dead. And I'm looking up at this fucking knife that I can't even move my arm to get, you know? And I'm laying there and I hear the footsteps on the porch. I hear the door. It opens, the sleigh bells. One other thing that I failed to mention the first night is another thing is as soon as the door opened and there were sleigh bells, I also heard a pot fall to the linoleum floor.

1:49:48That was the first night that did happen. It happened again second night. So it's like a mirror image. It's the same thing happening two nights in a row, like exactly the same. And then I hear these loud footsteps as, you know, this thing. I can see it in my mind's eye as walking through the house, the cabin. It stops, it turns, and begins walking down the hallway towards our room. And it's the same as the night before. I know it's not one of Nick's brothers. This is an intruder. I don't know what this is. And I'm horrified. The door opens up. And again, it's this tall figure that walks into the room.

1:50:21I see its hips, if you will, through the slot of the bed above me and mine. It's so tall, I can't see it. It marches past me next to the bed. And then again, same as the night before, I'm praying it doesn't look at me and ruin my life. It turns away from me and bows into Nick and vanishes. And so it's really the same thing in a row, the same thing two nights in a row, and not comforting, like worse. It only made it more real that it had happened again. And I'm still laying there wondering where it went. It isn't like, oh, don't worry, yesterday it vanished. It'll vanish today. you know like it was the same it was it was like replay and i again laid there could barely sleep eventually out of sheer exhaustion from snowboarding all day barely sleeping i did fall asleep and then i woke up at a certain point and again i hear nick's mom out in the kitchen this time that morning when i got out of bed and went in there i i didn't care at all about being offensive didn't care in the least i walked out there and i was like hysterical like i i don't even know what to say to you.

1:51:26Like, please tell me your sons were here. And like, I just tell her everything. And the whole time she's, she's looking at me and she's, she's a wonderful woman. She's so like motherly, so nice. She's just like, I can almost feel like she felt bad for me or something. Like she's listening to me. She's not dismissing me, but she's just letting me do my cathartic, like ranting about how terrified I am and what the fuck's going on here. I want to leave. And at the end of it, she's just like, John, it's really okay. It's just my husband. I heard him here last night. I heard him here the night before.

1:51:59It's fine. Like, that's what I'm hearing from the adult in the house. And it was just like, this is not all right. And I remember on that morning, we have one more night at this house still. And it gets worse, actually. Somehow it gets worse. I was like, I want to go home. I just want to fucking go home. I don't want to be here. But this is a trip that I have looked forward. I look forward, this is like the one big trip. Like my family didn't have a lot of money or anything. This was like a big deal to get to go do this big trip. This was awesome. And it was like all I talked about. And so the idea that I'd be calling my folks up, like, yo, drive to New Hampshire, pick me up and bring me home.

1:52:39Cause I'm seeing ghosts in the cabin. There's a fucking ghost. It just felt like too. And then it also, it was like, I don't know how this will be interpreted long-term. You know, am I being totally insensitive to the fact that I went here to support the family who's lost their dad? And I'm claiming a ghost scared me off. It just, it was a lot. And I grappled with it. And I remember I talked openly to everybody, to the mom, to Nick, to Wolf. I'm like, I'm just gonna stay. Like, I was like openly saying that I wanted to get the fuck out of here, but I'll just stay. It's one more night. I'll stay with you guys.

1:53:11It is what it is. it was a weird morning. It was so weird because she's like almost reassured to hear me confirming what she thinks she's hearing. I don't even know. It was like good for her. She wanted to talk about this and I didn't want to talk about it. And Nick, the son of the deceased, he's like, totally doesn't want to hear any of it. And Wolf is like very scared now. He's like getting worked up by, it was just a very weird thing. But anyways, we got one more night and And I'm like, God, just got to get through one more night of this awful experience. And so that day, after doing our weird breakfast routine, you know, we found out, one, that the brothers were not going to be stopping by after all.

1:53:49Turns out, you know, it didn't really matter, but they were not going to be stopping by. So that night, the one more night I had, I didn't even have like a thing to cling on to that could be the reason behind these sounds. But before his mom, Nick's mom, drove us to the mountain that day, we made a very small pit stop at this woodworking shop that was near the cabin. She was picking up a new coffee table that they were going to place in the cabin at the foot of the stairs that led up to the second floor of the lofted area. And she just needed me and Nick and Wolf to literally lift it, put it in the Jeep.

1:54:22And so we go to the woodworking shop, we get this new coffee table, this beautiful wood coffee table. We put it in the SUV, we go to the mountain, we do our snowboarding for the day. And I honestly was so checked out, I didn't really care. I just wanted to get time to pass. I just wanted to be done. We come back from snowboarding, we get picked up, and when we get back to the cabin, Nick's mom had us offload this heavy coffee table and walk it in, and we put it by the foot of the stairs that led to the second floor. And then we went to bed. And I, again, instructed Nick and Wolf, like, stay awake, let me sleep.

1:54:58But they didn't. They fell asleep. I'm awake in the room by myself. and I'm just furious. That was how I, anger was the feeling I had. I felt so mad that like I'm in this position. How can I be in this position? What have I done here? This is the worst. And so I'm laying there and sure enough, it's like three in the morning and I hear those fucking steps on the wraparound porch and it's like, I'm losing my mind. Like, I don't even know, there's no way to react to this. This is awful. And so I'm terrified. I'm looking at my stupid knife and the door, it opens. I hear the sleigh bells, the pot falls, the linoleum.

1:55:34It's the third night in a row. This is like crazy. The footsteps come into the cabin. But this night, something new happens. When the footsteps reach that point where they would turn and come down the hallway to where our bedroom was, instead of that, they kept walking to the very back of the first floor of the cabin. And again, it's almost like in my mind's eye, I could like see exactly where they were moving in the house based on how loud the thumps were or whatever. And it was really, actually, surprisingly way more terrifying when I figured out or when I could sense here that this thing was not going to be following the pattern.

1:56:14You know, as awful as the pattern was, come into the room, bowing to Nick, and I'm terrified all night. I didn't die at the end of it. Like, things were contained. But now it's like something new is happening. And it suddenly was like, this thing has the capacity to, like, sink into the ground. Like, what's going on here? And so, the footsteps go past that turn point, and it goes to the very back of the first floor, and there's a pause. And then I hear the footsteps going up the stairs to the second floor, where Nick's mom is. And so, I hear the footsteps, and it's, like, basically right above us.

1:56:44And at a certain point, the footsteps just stop. And I spent the rest of the night laying there, looking up at the bunk above me, waiting for this entity to float through the ceiling and, like, come down to me. because I bowed into the ground the day before. So it's like all night. I'm just laying there so scared. This is the worst night of the three. You know, I didn't hear any more sounds after that. At a certain point, I must have dozed off again because it's like I'm on fumes at this point. I wake up. It's super early, you know, earlier than the past two mornings I had gotten up. It's probably four in the morning.

1:57:20And Nick and Wolf are still asleep in their bed. It's still pretty dark, but I can hear something out in the living space. and it sounded like Nick's mom and it sounded like she was crying. Frankly, didn't fucking care. Just wanted to leave. Got out of bed and I went out there and it was like, I'm not even looking for explanations. I'm not looking to talk about this. I can just be done. I can go out here and we can just leave. And I go out of the hallway and I look over to the kitchen where I expect her to be and she's not there. She's over on the stairs like leading up to the second floor. and she's definitely crying.

1:57:57And I look over at her and before I can ask anything, she just goes, John, come here. And she's standing over that coffee table that we had put at the foot of the stairs the day before. And I walk over to her and she's crying. And I sense that she's not crying tears of sadness. She's happy. These are happy tears. And I'm getting ready to ask questions here, but she just stops me and points at the surface of the coffee table. And I look at the the coffee table and etched into the wood is the words, I love you. And she goes, I didn't write that. Holy shit, dude. What? And so I will say the conclusion to this story is this ended my relationship with everybody in the story.

1:58:43I didn't, this is it. That's the end of the relationship with these people. This was so traumatic for me. It was like, well, I'll just never talk to any of you again. Holy shit, dude. And I'm thinking, the answers for what could have happened range, pretty much. It's like, okay, let's go through the exercise of perhaps Nick's mom, in the state of grief that she is in, somehow picked up on that I had had some sort of nightmare or whatever, and took it upon herself to pretend that she too had seen a ghost or something, right? Mm-hmm. Why would you do that to me? One would be a question, but two, like I didn't give up that I saw anything on that first morning.

1:59:30It isn't like I walked out and said, Hey, last night I heard somebody walking around the cabin. Was it your son? I tried to ask as like diplomatically, I'm sure I had a look. I'm sure it looks scared. How could she have possibly thought? Oh, I know what this is. He must've had a thought that somebody was walking around the cabin last night. I'm going to capitalize on that. and pretend that it's my husband." And it was so immediate that she agreed with me and said, that was my husband, and it's okay. It's just... It doesn't mean it's not possible. In fact, if there's any rational explanation, it's that she, out of grief and sadness, did this to make it feel like her husband was still around.

2:00:08But even that, like, I don't know. I don't know if you could do it that quickly and that well. It's possible. It's certainly possible. But then it's like, what's the alternative? it wasn't me certainly wasn't me and I'm the guy that sleepwalks I'm the guy that has all the reason in the world to say oh no there's probably this was my mind but it's not it was corroborated that is wild you've never spoken to them again wolf a little bit nick zero of his mom's hero I mean the little bit is about the fact that I've told this story Yeah, yeah. Holy shit. And it's funny, like, the reason we cut ties, or I did, it wasn't malice.

2:00:54It was like, dude, we can't get over this. Yeah. This is not something I'm able to get over. Dude, we've had some stuff happen. Yeah? Yeah, we had Tim, who's behind one of these cameras here. He was there for it. Elijah, he's upstairs. He was there for it. So before I did the podcast thing, I was like basically throwing shit at the wall to see what stuck because I was so tired of tactics. And I was just done with it. And so one of my ideas was, oh, I know we're going to do like this reality TV survival scenario series or whatever, right? So first one I did was Tim was there. Like I said, Elijah was there.

2:01:43tim was one of the contestants we it was like hey you got 50 bucks or 100 bucks or something end of the world's happening we're going to bass pro and you have to buy everything you know that you would need to to survive on a time limit so And we rented this cabin, this old Civil War cabin out in this area called College Grove. It's like 20, 30 minutes from here. And this is Franklin, this area, this is front lines Civil War. There's a lot, yeah, yeah, lots of Confederate Union cemeteries around, lots of buildings where, you know, that were shot up, bloodstains on the floor, lots of ghost stuff around here.

2:02:30There's ghost tours all over town. Anyways, we go to this old cabin, a little bit of a back story. so it took my wife and i over a year to find a place to live here and when we were moving up from florida we just kept getting outbid by californians this is like the big migration oh really and uh we just couldn't afford it and so um i looked i looked at my wife and i was like i'm getting tired of putting in offers on houses and getting outbid like just the It's getting depressing. This is our seventh trip up here. Let's just go get a cabin out in the woods, enjoy Tennessee for the rest of this trip, and then we'll go and find some place to move in Florida that's out of the city.

2:03:21So we go to this cabin, run it. It's awesome. It's out in the middle of nowhere. It's in this cow pasture, like out in the rolling hills. Family owns it. It's an Airbnb family owns it. Who knows? The farm has been in their family for generations. I'm like, this is pretty fucking cool. It's like one of those old school log homes. And I woke up in the middle of the night, and I just kept hearing this banging on the roof. And I'm like, wake Katie up. And I'm like, what is that? Nothing. She didn't hear anything. She's like, maybe it was a squirrel. I'm like, no, there's no squirrel that makes this sound on the roof.

2:04:08And I'm like, all right, well, whatever. Maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe I had a dream or something, but who knows. So I don't really think much of it. Fast forward a couple of years, we're out there for this event. You know, we're doing the survival series. So we set up this cabin, and we put the Vigilance Elite sign up for some branding, and we're getting it ready to shoot the debrief because we're going to grab all the shit from Bass Bro, come back. They're going to present it. I'm going to grade the two consistence. And we're like trying to plug in the sign, and we're plugging in these lamps and trying to build this, you know, kind of a set.

2:04:46And none of the electricals make it sense, but it doesn't hit me. I'm like, that's weird. I plug the sign in here. Doesn't work. Plug the lamp in. Does work. Plug the sign in over there. It does, you know, and it's just weird electrical shit going on. but I don't really think anything of it. So we go out, go to Bass Pro. Bass Pro is probably an hour away. We do the exercise, come back. They're presenting all this stuff, like all the stuff that they bought with the budget. And we had only rented the Airbnb for, what, it was like for the day. And we're in the middle of this debrief. We're supposed to be out by 6 p.m.

2:05:30And I'm like, I'm facing the window. A similar cabin sounds like very similar to what you were in. Everything, it's one big room, right? Kitchen's in the room, dining room's in the room, TV, fireplace. And then there's a spiral staircase that goes up to a loft. But the loft isn't enclosed. You know, you can lean over the, you know, see downstairs. So it's all one big room minus the bathroom. We have this little table set up. and we start hearing footsteps and i thought the footsteps were were outside this shit's on camera oh really we're filming this stuff that's yeah there's a video up on our channel that shows this and um so you see me in the debrief and these guys are talking and you just see my face all of a sudden and i'm i like go like this and I'm looking out the front door, but I see my, I thought I saw somebody else's reflection, but it's, it wound up being mine while I'm hearing

2:06:42footsteps. And you just see my face go like, what the fuck? And then I, and then the reflection turns into my reflection, but on the camera. So the footsteps were upstairs. I thought it was the was the porch you know it's a wooden porch out there it's past six i figure this is probably you know the the the owners coming to say like hey guys we got a wedding coming up tomorrow you got to get the hell out of here oh my god we pull the camera footage and well first like then i look up all three of us that are on camera all look up at the exact same time and you hear these fucking footsteps and and i like i look at tim and adam and i'm like did you guys just fucking hear that my wife was there elijah was there behind the camera we had a marketer there that was behind every single person in the room is looking up going what the fuck was that we packed the shit up i'm like get the fuck out of here like right now but fuck this we're not even gonna finish get out of here so we load up all the camera shit load up the microphones put the furniture back i can't even remember did we go upstairs and even look

2:08:09he goes yeah so we pack all this shit up dude i did not even want to look at the cabin because there's a there's on the top in the loft which is where like the bedroom is where me and my wife were sleeping when i heard the man the banging on the roof there's a little window and you have to close this gate i'm like i'm not i'm not even fucking looking in that damn window i don't want I don't give a shit. I have guns. It's not going to kill whatever's up there. So we hightail it back to my house, immediately pull the footage. I'm like, pull the footage. Let's see what that shit was. On the footage, if I remember correctly, you do not hear the footsteps.

2:08:54Do you remember this? Do you hear the footsteps? We have it. We'll pull it. I'm going to have a question. So I'm going to have both of you step outside. I'm gonna bring each one of you in

2:09:16And this fucking place is haunted as fuck every time there's a footstep you can hear the Static in the camera, so be like God I

2:09:28I call my best friend. We're like, we're all blown away. We're like, holy shit, there's a fucking ghost in there. And I call my best friend later that night. And I'm like, hey, John, check this shit out. Listen to this. What do you think of this? I tell him the whole story. He goes, pull up. He goes, look, pull up the Airbnb. Pull it up right now. And just see what the reviews say. and i'm like oh great idea we pull up the fucking reviews dude and it is don't bang on the walls they bang back don't show up after dark because the entire place comes alive it was just review after review after review of people's haunted stories in that cabin haven't been back there sense fuck that like dude that's crazy i know i i could have swore i told you this i may have told you this in the last episode because i was like we should do john's episode at that fucking cabin when you when you came here but dude yeah the fact that there were those reviews that's crazy it's wild dude i was i will well when this comes we'll put uh we'll put the footage in in the episode so you can see it that's nuts i'd love to see that yeah but i believe in paranormal stuff it scares the shit out of me still today at 43 years old so that that see that would be to feel like oh maybe it was something maybe it was this but then to see the reviews that that's what confirms your nightmare dude yeah that's the thing i got more for you i'll tell you i'd love to hear it i'll tell you tonight at the uh at the campfire session but well hey man i really appreciate all the stories and uh it's good to get in the halloween spirit you know a couple days beforehand so thank you thank you for the sig dude you kidding me hey let's go let's go burn it down real quick let's do it thanks bro cool awesome thank you thanks bro

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