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I was born in nineteen sixty seven, the year that Roger Patterson shot the

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famous Bigfoot film. I was a
suburban ten year old living in a medium

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sized Midwestern town with no knowledge of
the film when my family moved to the

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country. The year spent on our
land in the adjacent two thousand acre wildlife

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refuge gave me a great appreciation for
nature. I know that if you sit

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quiet enough for long enough and listen
closely to the natural world, it will

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always amaze you. The years following
my childhood were spent outdoors as much as

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possible. I've hiked and swam,
and climbed and kayaked, bikes, be

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lunked and backcountry camped on five continents. The world's deserts and rainforests and too

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many mountain ranges to me and have
been my playground. It taught me two

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things. Don't look at the sky
full of stars and tell yourself there is

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no other life in the universe.
And don't look at a planet full of

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unexplored places and say that things like
Bigfoot can't exist. Although I would never

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have denied their existence, it didn't
mean that I expected to see one.

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The topic has always interested me movies
and books and articles and web sites and

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the like have always drawn me in, But to see one never thought about

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that. My girlfriend, Carrie didn't
have the advantage of a lifetime in the

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wild. Hers was a much more
conventional story. She graduated early from high

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school and zoomed through college and got
married and had three kids and explored nothing.

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Three years ago, when we met, I opened those doors for her

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and discovered that she had a natural
inclination for the wilderness. It paved the

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way for a lot of wonderful adventures
together. Even while we were climbing mountains

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in the dark to see the sunrise
or swimming in the lagoons of extinct volcanoes,

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Carrie never looked at the sky and
thought the same things that I did.

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She only giggled at the prospect of
Bigfoot, and once she even suggested

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that I exercise a little caution about
that topic when speaking in certain circles,

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saying we wouldn't want others to think
you're as crazy as I know you are.

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The irony of that statement would come
back to haunt her. The Pacific

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Northwest may not house the largest forests
on Earth, but it certainly does not

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fail to impress. It's been a
favorite place of mind for a long time.

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The Redwoods are unparalleled, so it
was inevitable that Carrie and I would

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eventually hike there. We took six
days off from our responsibilities, put back

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packs on our shoulders, and got
on a plane. The first day was

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spent gathering a couple of items that
aren't allowed on airplanes. I learned a

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long time ago to pack light and
never check a bag. There's nothing worse

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than arriving at base camp five days
before your climbing gear does. On bigger

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trips, we may ship supplies ahead, but on a little adventures it is

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easier to buy a folding knife and
one fuel sell for your camp burner after

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arrival. In addition to this,
we grabbed some fruit and smoked meat and

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fish, and a few other items
to keep us going over the next few

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days. After a good night's sleep, we ventured out for the first day.

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The unseasonably warm weather carried hints of
smoke from the fires burning to the

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north. The smell was constant,
but it wasn't overbearing. The sky was

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a surreal shade of orange draped over
intermittent fogs and a constant smoky haze that

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left us feeling like we had onto
a movie set. It was unlike anything

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we had ever seen. We hiked
in northern California for four days, a

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total of forty two miles, with
only rare encounters with other hikers. Most

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visitors to our national parks and wild
places rarely go beyond half a mile into

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the woods. Safer for them and
better for me, was my opinion.

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On our fifth and final day out, we decided to take the trail that

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I had been on twice before.
It's eight miles of not too difficult trail

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that ends in a nice mile stretch
along the Pacific coast. We started early

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in conditions that hadn't changed in days. It was smoky and warm, and

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it was orange. Having done well
with our rations, we nibbled periodically on

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whatever was left, knowing that our
next meal would likely be in an airport

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restaurant. Several miles in, at
what was roughly the halfway point, came

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across two bull elk. That's not
uncommon to see Roosevelt elk on many of

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these trails, and as long as
you stay aware and give them adequate space,

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it usually works out. These elk
had decided to bed down twenty yards

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from each other, directly in the
middle of the footpath. We held up

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behind a ten foot diameter redwood that
was about the same distance from the elk.

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Milling around for a bit, we
talked, and we made enough noise

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that the boys definitely knew we were
there. They didn't pay us any attention,

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though they were more interested in soaking
up any light that made it through

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the hazy canopy above. Because there
didn't seem to be any immediate danger,

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we waited and watched them a bit, and we contemplated an alternate route around

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them. Four years earlier, I
had come across some females and yearlings while

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on this trail, and that ended
with me and my hiking partner sitting ten

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feet up in a tree and holding
on for dear life while a bull smacked

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the trunk below us for an hour. He was definitely making a statement that

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I didn't care to have these two
bulls repeat. Changing course in the redwoods

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isn't as easy as one might think. Often, if you leave the trail

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is to go straight up or straight
down, and you simply don't step over

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down redwoods unless you're Paul bunyon and
worse. Sometimes it's fifteen feet up and

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then fifteen feet back down through heavy
foliage that includes ferns as big as cars.

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And I've walked to within ten feet
avelt more than on one occasion before

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they reveal themselves. Everything is that
big out there. I decided to try

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and make the bulls uncomfortable by getting
down on one knee and moving closer.

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I had moved in several yards and
they were now looking right at me,

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but discomfort wasn't the expression on their
faces. It wasn't working, so I

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began to shuffle back a few feet
when they simultaneous turned ninety degrees and abruptly

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stood up. I no longer had
their attention. Carrie stepped forward and put

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her hand on my shoulder, and
as the elk leaped off the path and

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disappeared into the forest, crashing and
breaking branches as they ran, I turned

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and looked at her, and at
that moment a strong smell wafted it in

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and overpowered the smell of smoke.
It was curiously familiar, but everything was

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happening so quickly that I didn't process
it. Carrie's grip on my shoulder got

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suddenly tighter as her hand began to
tremble. When I looked at her again,

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what I saw scared me. Her
eyes were wide and her face had

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gone nearly white. She could see
something that I couldn't. I didn't stand

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up, but I turned back and
looked to where the elk once lay.

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And then it happened, with a
sort of grunting sound and a tremendous leap,

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A huge hair covered thing sprang from
the ferns below the footpath and landed

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not thirty yards in front of us. It was absurdly large, way bigger

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than either of the bull elk that
had stood there moments before. I knew

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exactly what I was looking at.
There was no doubt in my mind.

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I was staring at the same thing
Patterson filmed all those years ago, massive

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and very dark brown, standing on
two legs, attached to these giant feet,

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and it was staring at us.
First it looked at Carrie, and

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then at me, and then back
at Carrie again, and over and over

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for what seemed like an eternity.
I was frozen in fear. I wanted

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to run, I wanted to scream, or to cry, or at least

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close my eyes, but I couldn't
do any of those things. Carries grew

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up, tightened to the point that
she was causing me pain, and then

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she let go. She didn't step
away, she remained directly behind me.

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And then my girl friend did something
I would never have imagined. I felt

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her open the top compartment of my
pack and remove one of the two apples

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we save for the coast trail portion
of our height. The apple sailed over

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my head toward the beast that was
staring at us, and it fell short

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and rolled off the trail and out
of sight. Well this seemed to anger

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it, because it huffed once and
then a second time, even harder.

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I whispered again, and Carrie replied, what throw the other apple, and

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throw it hard, I said.
She reached for the apple, and I

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saw the beast squint its eyes.
The look we were getting was far more

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intimidating than when it first landed on
the trail. Carrie chucked the second apple

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hard, and time crawled as I
watched the apple sail toward the creature in

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slow motion, heading straight for its
head. It was definitely going to hit

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it. For a second, I
wondered how angry being hit by an apple

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would make it, And then,
with little effort and amazing speed, it

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reached up and caught the apple about
a foot from its neck and pushed it

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into its mouth, all in one
fluid motion. I was so taken aback

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that I fell from my knees and
was now sitting sideways on the ground,

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and Carrie dropped to her knees next
to me as we watched in amazement while

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this bigfoot chewed the apple, huffed
again in our direction, turned in the

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same direction that the elk had gone, and with two big steps, disappeared

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silently into the forest. It took
several minutes before either of us caught our

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breath and snapped out of it,
but neither said a word. We communicated

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by watching each other's breathing and nodding, and after a bit I gave her

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a gentle smile and she answered with
one of her own, and we clasped

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hands and very quickly walked the last
three and a half miles to the trailhead.

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We didn't speak much on our journey
home or for the next week.

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Eventually we discussed it. I had
to know what made her think to throw

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the apples. She smiled and said
the Dixie Cryptied guy. Oh no,

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no, no, no, no
no, don't blame anything on the Dixie

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cryptied guy. Okay, all right, let me give back. The Dixie

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Cryptied Guy told a story about a
grandpa who gave a bigfoot his grandson's squirrels,

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and it seemed to work for them. We still occasionally talk about what

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happened that day. We've even shared
the story with a few friends and family.

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Neither one of us expected for that
to happen. We both hope it

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never does again. It's so far
from our normal reality that it's hard to

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process. I never tell anyone exactly
where it happened. I don't want people

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to go out there looking for these
things. The woods are dangerous enough without

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running around trying to find something for
four or five times your size. And

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my advice is to enjoy the stories
and watch the movies, but hope that

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you never make contact. Whatever man
touches he destroys. Maybe the Bigfoot have

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figured that out, and that's why
they're so elusive. Oh that is that

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is such a I don't even know
how to describe that story. It's a

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feel good story, scary at first, and then Carrie, his girlfriend apparently

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was quick to think and heard a
story that we had done on this podcast,

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and it gave her an idea of
what to do, and she chunked

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in an apple. I think this
is wonderful, man, what a great

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story. Thank you so much.
The man didn't he gives his girlfriend's name,

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so I assume it's okay to say
his name. I probably shouldn't do

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this, but his name is Bernard. And this guy's an adventurer. I

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mean, this guy's a real he's
a real endorsement. He does all this

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stuff all the time. How many
cottoness did he say you? It probably

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had a lot to do with him
keeping as cool with the elk and with

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this bigfoot creature. There's a wonderful
story, Bernard. Thank you for sending

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it. I enjoyed reading it so
much. Thank you. Okay, this

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is kind of a weird podcast.
I have a Bigfoot story, a collection

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of short stories by one man who
is relating stories he heard when he grew

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up about different things. Don't I
think one of them is about a bigfoot

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that the rest of them are just
oddities that are very interesting and I love

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reading it. And then we have
a story about a Ouiji board, which

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is kind of far fetched because so
many things happened to this young boy or

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young man in one day. That
it's you have to suspend disbelief and just

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enjoy the joy the story. I
hate using that term because some politicians have

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used that term, but you really
do have to just kind of open your

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mind and listen to the story for
the sake of the story. I'm not

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saying it is or isn't true.
I don't make judgments on any of these

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stories, but I'm gonna read it
for you anyway. All Right, thank

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you for joining the podcast. Let's
get on with it. Hold on to

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the old weaves. This isn't the
most exciting bunch of stories, but they're

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very interesting. All right, here
we go. Okay, here's the email

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that I got that has several stories
in it that are I'll just read you

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what he writes. Here are a
few short tales, and they're true to

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the best of my knowledge. You're
welcome to use my name. The other

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names are from people long gone or
they had nicknames, and I hope you

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can use these stories. Only one
is about a booger s squatch and it's

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a second hand story. But I
notice that you sometimes like to tell stories

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about other things that go bump in
the night. So here we go.

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The first story where is titled coach
Whips. My mother used to tell us

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about a cousin, and I can't
recall the old gal's name, but let's

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call her Myrtle. Myrtle was walking
out under some trees and a pair of

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coach whips snakes. Those are black
racers, and they probably have other names.

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They dropped from the tree and one
encircled each of Myrtle's arms. The

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snakes bit her and constricted so strongly
that a male relative, I think his

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name was Uncle Jim, had to
sever the heads of the snakes to force

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them to relinquish their grips. From
then on, each season, when coach

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whips shed their skin, Myrtle's skin
would peel along her arms where the snakes

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had attached themselves. When I was
in my teens, a pair of the

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same breed of shiny black reptiles took
up residence under our house. My mother

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knew they were non venomous, but
was having none of it. She was

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typically a very gentle, especially toward
elders, children, and animals. However,

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because of the old family tale.
She was terrified of this particular breed

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of snake. As I was about
to step out the door, one of

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them raced out in front under the
house near the front porch, in hot

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pursuit of a toad. I ran
back in to fetch my shotgun, and

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I got back to the porch around
the same time as a snake. It

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had missed its last meal, but
paused to raise its head, likely at

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my noise. The shot severed the
thing's head. The snake's mate got into

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a red oak tree in the backyard, and that one had startled my mother.

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I again took up my shotgun while
she pointed out where the equally startled

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snake had fled to the branches.
The shot killed that one, but its

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death grip and some handy branches left
it high in the tree well. I

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didn't care. It was summer and
I was prone to be sunburned, and

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I went in. I was recovering
from one of the second degree blisters on

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my chest and shoulders and back at
the time when I fired. The kick

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from the twelve gates slammed into the
pocket of my right shoulder. It removed

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the top layer of flesh in the
shape of the butt of the shotgun,

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and it hurt noticeably. But in
the end I'd been peeling like myrtle supposedly

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was. Unfortunately it did not become
a seasonal event. I'd finally learned to

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avoid the sun. Okay. The
next one of his tales is called Faye

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Lights. Faye is a I think
it's a Celtic word for fairy. My

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00:17:38,559 --> 00:17:45,000
mother related this story as her grandmother
Campbell and Pearl had told her. I

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heard it from my mother Eloise and
Pearl. When my mother was about three

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years old, around nineteen thirty,
she became deathly ill with diphtheria. Her

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mother, my Grandma Pearl, and
her grandmother, great Grandma Sarah Campbell's stayed

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up with her when the fever reached
a critical point. Grandma Campbell was an

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herbalist in a country doctor, and
at the time all the other measures and

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available remedies exhausted. All they could
do was bathe her in cool water and

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give her SIPs of water. They
lived in a very small house or cabin,

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and there were only a few windows, and they had my mother and

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little Eloise on a bed near one
of the windows to do everything. They

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could to cool her fierce temperature.
They'd all be giving up hope. In

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the wee hours of the morning when
a light appeared in the window above Eloise.

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The light was a blue and white
orb and it hovered for a moment

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and then traveled to each window,
clearly orbiting the little home. After the

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third orbit, the light again paused
at Eloise's window, and then neither winked

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out or sped away from the window
so quickly as to appear like it did.

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Pearl described it as when you turn
off the TV and the little light

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shrinks down to that one little point
and then it's gone. Those were the

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days of TV sets with picture tubs. The light was the last visual bit

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as the tube cooled. When the
light was gone, Little Eloise's fever broke,

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and by dawn she was drinking cups
of water and was able to eat

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a little. Maul had a tough
life of work in raising her children,

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her siblings first and then her own, and she managed to do it all

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with a grin and genuine love for
all of her charges. She had her

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own light about her and could calm
the most stressful situation and see with absolute

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clarity. Though she typically withheld advice
and allowed us to make our own stumbles.

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Maybe it's in my mind, but
when I look back at our regular

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conversation, I recall the times that
she bit back her instinctive comments. Perhaps

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she didn't feel worthy of giving advice. She was brilliant, but other folks

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had could vincet otherwise. Or maybe
she feared that knowing the outcome would be

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like cheating. This short tale is
called the Original Golden Globes. Dad used

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00:20:12,079 --> 00:20:17,119
to tell us about a neighbor in
Carmona, Texas who had a talent for

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finding gold nuggets and old coins.
Dad was born in nineteen twenty four,

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00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:26,920
and I never asked whether this was
a story from one of his folks or

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one he'd heard directly. But either
way, it's had time to grow some

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00:20:30,839 --> 00:20:33,599
moss. It may have come from
his grandparents, who lived in Stryker,

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00:20:33,759 --> 00:20:38,799
Texas. The man who was the
subject of the tales would go off into

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00:20:38,839 --> 00:20:44,759
the woods, particularly the piney creek
bottoms, and he would emerge with gold,

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usually a small nugget, sometimes a
small coin, invariably worn and of

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no clear providence. When asked where
he'd gotten the gold, the man would

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say that he followed the lights and
where they paused and then winked out,

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He did and immediately find the treasure. The man was never wealthy. He

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didn't produce the gold often enough to
do more than live comfortably. He did

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not have to work more than rural
living required at the time, and spent

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most of his time hunting and fishing
and cracking out stories. Dad said that

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00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:22,880
many people tried unsuccessfully to track the
man when he'd slip off into the woods

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00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:26,519
to look for the lights. No
one else saw the lights, and speculation

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00:21:26,839 --> 00:21:32,920
was that the man had either discovered
or stolen a small hoarde and visited it

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00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:38,079
from time to time to withdraw what
was needed. This next tale is called

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00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:45,000
Man Stories. My buddy Man told
me this story in the fall of twenty

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00:21:45,079 --> 00:21:51,440
twenty two. He was ninety two
then and a Korean War veteran. He's

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00:21:51,519 --> 00:21:55,400
ninety three and he's still going better
than me at the age of fifty nine.

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00:21:56,559 --> 00:22:00,400
He got the nickname Man when he
was sixteen. Fellow had hired Man

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00:22:00,519 --> 00:22:06,559
and a buddy to remove some armadillos
from near his home. Man took hold

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00:22:06,599 --> 00:22:11,839
of the creature's tailed and pulled while
his buddy held the toast sack man eventually

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00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,319
yanked up the critter and tucked it
away in the sack, and the temporary

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00:22:15,319 --> 00:22:21,079
employer proclaimed that only a real man
could do that without getting a scratch.

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Man is a wealth of information,
and he shared several tales of my mother's

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00:22:26,039 --> 00:22:30,880
family who lived in Groveton, Texas. He used to deliver groceries to my

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00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:36,680
Grandma Pearl back in the nineteen forties. And his favorite tale other than the

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00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:41,759
ones about the Moon Mullikan, also
a contemporary of my Dad, is about

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00:22:41,799 --> 00:22:48,079
Bud and Carol and the Coon Dog. Bud had an exceptional blue hound.

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An acquaintance from Houston moved from the
area for work and offered Bud a trade

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00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:59,000
he take the dog for his girlfriend, Carol. Bud readily agreed, and

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00:22:59,039 --> 00:23:02,839
he and Carol hit it off immediately. It was the start of a long

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00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:07,400
term marriage founded on love at first
sight. About a month after the trade,

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00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:11,799
the acquaintance had to move back to
the city and he offered to return

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00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:15,119
the hound to Bud, and Bud
told him, I'll take the dog,

283
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:19,359
but you ain't getting my gal.
The city dude was happy to get back

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to town and hire pay in.
Bud and Carol and Blue settled down in

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their own blue heaven. Now,
Carol was from Wisconsin or Illinois or one

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00:23:30,319 --> 00:23:36,359
of those Yankee states, and Man
would say, signs vitriol simply his information.

287
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:41,160
All she wanted was an old Texas
cowboy, and that's what Bud was.

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00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:45,839
She was exotic as far as Bud
was concerned, and they were both

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00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:52,359
small stature like a matched pair.
Okay, The next story is called one

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00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:56,960
Other Story because he earned it.
Like most combat veterans, Man doesn't speak

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00:23:57,079 --> 00:24:02,640
much about the gory parts of war, though his definition of trauma is different

292
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,880
than the current one. He spoke
about an incident at the end of the

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00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:11,160
fighting. Everyone was frozen in place, looking at the enemy, ready for

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00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,759
the battles to start again, but
they didn't. The armistice held, and

295
00:24:15,839 --> 00:24:19,519
after a few days he saw a
soldier approaching from the enemy lines. He

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00:24:19,599 --> 00:24:23,519
got the man halted and turned out
the man was an officer who had been

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00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:29,839
educated in California, and he spoke
English. The man offered a bottle of

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00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:33,559
wine and spoke with Man and some
of the other troops. They shared the

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00:24:33,599 --> 00:24:38,079
bottle. Of course, Man made
the officer take the first drink. The

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00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:41,920
officer told them that he'd heard that
the peace was true, and he hoped

301
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:45,720
that it was. He wasn't sure
if the man was a Korean or a

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00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:51,759
Chinese national, but he concluded with
I sure hope the man got back over

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00:24:51,839 --> 00:24:56,319
here. I think that was what
he meant by visiting us and offering us

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00:24:56,559 --> 00:25:00,200
wine. I think he said he's
hoping he came back to the United States.

305
00:25:00,279 --> 00:25:04,079
But anyway, let's move on to
the next story. This is called

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00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:10,319
Bartholomew's Bigfoot. Back in the summer
of nineteen ninety, I worked for the

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00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:17,039
Sheriff and the People's Republic of Northern
Virginia Soviet of Arlington. It was a

308
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:21,160
jail gig from seven pm to seven
am, so we had time to visit

309
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:26,240
with our coworkers between rounds and other
duties, especially after lights out. I

310
00:25:26,319 --> 00:25:32,359
was working the fifth floor with Bartholomew. We'd hired on around the same time,

311
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:34,880
so we'd known each other for a
few months. He and I were

312
00:25:36,039 --> 00:25:41,000
what the inmates and many of our
local coworkers called country asses. He was

313
00:25:41,039 --> 00:25:45,680
from Central Alabama and I was from
East Texas. Bartholomele had a great sense

314
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:49,799
of humor and was always joking with
the other members of the shift. He

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00:25:49,839 --> 00:25:53,400
was serious about the job, he'd
just liked to have fun, and I

316
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:59,960
wholeheartedly agreed it was the best way
to approach life. One night I returned

317
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:03,519
from around during of which all our
charges had been asleep or close enough,

318
00:26:04,039 --> 00:26:08,839
and we sat and talked about our
lives and our experiences. Because a person

319
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:12,559
may be known as a comedian by
his fellows does not mean that he is

320
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:19,400
frivolous of mind or foolish. Bartholomele
was certainly no exception. On that night,

321
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:25,519
we'd been talking about monsters, UFOs, and ghosts and hats. I

322
00:26:25,559 --> 00:26:29,640
told him about my collection of books
on the origins of monsters and myths.

323
00:26:30,279 --> 00:26:34,599
Always found that knowing the origins of
vampires and werewolves and bigfoot and and boogers

324
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:40,519
and lake monsters and aliens made them
more interesting, rather than the reverse.

325
00:26:41,759 --> 00:26:44,640
Eventually, he looked at me in
the eye and he said, I want

326
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,640
to tell you something. Everybody thinks
I'm joking when I tell this story,

327
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,240
but I'm not, and I'm trusting
for you not to laugh at me.

328
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,759
I assured him that I understood that
he was serious, and I would take

329
00:26:56,839 --> 00:27:00,920
him at his word. As always, He said that there wasn't much to

330
00:27:00,039 --> 00:27:03,640
it, but he'd seen a bigfoot
when he was in his teen years.

331
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,640
We were both in our early to
mid twenties at the time of this telling.

332
00:27:08,799 --> 00:27:12,039
He had been out in the woods
hunting and he hadn't seen anything all

333
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:17,000
morning. He was perched on a
log at the foot of a large tree,

334
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:19,759
and he explained that his family was
poor and had to hunt where they

335
00:27:19,799 --> 00:27:25,440
could, mostly on the land where
they had the owner's permission. He said

336
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:29,839
it got quiet and he started to
feel uneasy. He started to look around,

337
00:27:30,799 --> 00:27:34,240
and then he saw it. It
was peering from around another large tree,

338
00:27:34,279 --> 00:27:37,880
pretty close to him, and it
was screened by some of the brush.

339
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,640
He said it just watched him,
and it didn't move, and it

340
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,920
didn't make a sound. I noted
that his eyes grew distant as he spun

341
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,880
this yarn, and he said it
was big, mikey, like nothing else

342
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,359
in the woods. He said that
he got scared, and he shook some

343
00:27:53,559 --> 00:27:57,279
and even considered shooting it. Yet, even though it scared him, he

344
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:02,039
just didn't feel like that was the
right thing to do. He brought his

345
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:04,880
gaze back to the present. I
didn't know it was some kind of animal

346
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,519
or some kind of person, but
it felt more like a person like it

347
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:12,960
was intelligent. He said that he
watched for a moment, but when he

348
00:28:14,039 --> 00:28:18,200
glanced down at the shotgun and then
looked up again, the creature was gone.

349
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,720
He said that he too, was
soon gone from those woods. We

350
00:28:22,759 --> 00:28:26,519
talked a little more about it,
and I had no reason to doubt him.

351
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,559
I granted him a little and then
I asked him if that was why

352
00:28:30,599 --> 00:28:34,160
he moved to the city. It
was an attempt to lighten the mood.

353
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:38,039
But he looked at me with a
neutral expression, and he said, yeah,

354
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,759
I missed my family, but I
can't live out there anymore. I

355
00:28:41,799 --> 00:28:45,359
had to hunt until I left home
and food his food, but I stayed

356
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:51,119
out of them woods. Then he
lightened up a little and smiled. Now,

357
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:53,960
white people catch enough crap when they
tell these stories, And can you

358
00:28:55,039 --> 00:28:59,359
imagine what a brother goes through?
Well, I couldn't tell nobody, he

359
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:03,559
said, I knew that. When
his accent returned, we were back to

360
00:29:03,599 --> 00:29:07,960
a lighter conversation, and it was
his turn to make the next round.

361
00:29:10,079 --> 00:29:15,839
That was an excellent, excellent,
excellent little series of stories, and I

362
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:22,359
want to appreciate it's Mikey Mikey is
the writer, and I got this recently

363
00:29:22,799 --> 00:29:26,720
and I just kind of just stumbled
on it and I read through a couple

364
00:29:26,759 --> 00:29:30,759
of these and I thought this is
so interesting. I really want to get

365
00:29:30,799 --> 00:29:33,720
it up. So now you have
Mikey's stories. Mikey, thank you for

366
00:29:33,759 --> 00:29:37,759
writing these. These are really good. I love these. These are just

367
00:29:37,839 --> 00:29:41,160
well told stories. I didn't have
to do anything to this email. I

368
00:29:41,279 --> 00:29:47,440
just read it pretty much cold and
didn't I didn't edit or change a comma

369
00:29:47,559 --> 00:29:49,720
in this thing. It was really
good, So I appreciate you, brother,

370
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:56,079
thank you for sending it. This
is a story about a Ouiji board.

371
00:29:56,160 --> 00:30:00,799
Now, I know y'all have heard
a lot of stories about Ouigi boards,

372
00:30:00,799 --> 00:30:04,240
and you think you know everything about
a Wigi board, namely to stay

373
00:30:04,279 --> 00:30:08,079
away from them. Even Neoma,
who took a look at this thing,

374
00:30:08,559 --> 00:30:12,359
she even says she had an experience
that she's going to write for us a

375
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:21,039
with a Ouiji board. I think
I remember playing with a Regiuigi board maybe

376
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:25,920
once or twice when I was younger, and of course with me, nothing

377
00:30:26,039 --> 00:30:29,319
happens, so I don't have anything
to report on a Wigi board. I

378
00:30:29,359 --> 00:30:32,759
thought it was kind of stupid,
but some people have really cool, not

379
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:37,359
cool dark experiences with Wigi board.
So I'm going to read the stories kind

380
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:41,039
long, but I think it's pretty
good. She said this would be good

381
00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:44,400
for just one podcast, but I'm
going to include it with these other stories.

382
00:30:44,839 --> 00:30:48,240
All right, Here we go.
Imagine a dark, secluded wood with

383
00:30:48,519 --> 00:30:55,079
secret paths that wind and twist down
into an eerie hollow, were still pools

384
00:30:55,079 --> 00:31:00,079
of black water reflect an ominous moon. Picture a group of unlucky teens wandering

385
00:31:00,119 --> 00:31:06,480
down these paths and finding themselves lost, clinging to each other and jumping at

386
00:31:06,519 --> 00:31:11,599
every snap of a twig underfoot,
while their flashlight batteries slowly drained until the

387
00:31:11,599 --> 00:31:18,279
beams of light offer little more than
a lightning. Bug murmuring in the distance,

388
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:22,519
faint and unidentifiable, raises heart rates
to a primordial frenzy, joining the

389
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:29,799
environment melody of frogs and crickets and
nightbirds and bats around the bend. The

390
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:36,079
murmuring becomes clearer, and their fear
rises. It's chanting. The glow of

391
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:41,359
fire burns brightly through open patches in
the dense vegetation, and they move closer,

392
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:47,440
and the forest thins and before them
is an open field. They did

393
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:53,119
not know existed until that moment.
Outside of a badly written horror movie,

394
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:57,960
that's rarely how it works. More
often than not, you encounter the strange

395
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,799
and supernatural in your everyday life when
you least expect it. Generally it goes

396
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,599
unnoticed. Once in a while,
you might get an inkling of something nearby,

397
00:32:09,519 --> 00:32:15,000
something you got too close to without
seeing it. Goosebumps up and down

398
00:32:15,039 --> 00:32:17,759
your arms, or raised hairs on
the back of your neck are indicators of

399
00:32:17,799 --> 00:32:22,640
those moments. Maybe those are the
cases that drive you out to search for

400
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:29,720
it, pray that you never find
it. We were a diverse group of

401
00:32:29,799 --> 00:32:35,880
guys strung together by circumstance. Often
find myself comparing my life to the movie

402
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,519
The Sandlight. You might have seen
it. It's one of the best representations

403
00:32:39,559 --> 00:32:44,839
of youth Back in those days.
I was like the new kid Scott,

404
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:49,119
small, slightly off socially, didn't
have many friends to begin with, and

405
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,599
usually the last one to get the
joke. Sometimes I laughed just to feel

406
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:57,799
like I was part of the gang. Ours was a group of high school

407
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,440
kids, mostly juniors and seniors,
and at sixteen, I was the youngest

408
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:07,079
because I started school when I was
four. That was before they changed the

409
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,200
rule and made it mandatory to be
five before September of the school year,

410
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:15,000
before you started. The other guys
were always getting me in trouble. They

411
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:20,400
had more freedom, their curfews were
later, and some of them didn't even

412
00:33:20,559 --> 00:33:24,599
have restrictions at all. As usual, I was led blindly into a trap

413
00:33:24,759 --> 00:33:30,480
to get me to disobey my parents. My best friend Buck, he had

414
00:33:30,519 --> 00:33:35,160
asked me to sleep over at his
house. It meant we could stay up

415
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,519
as late as we wanted and eat
chips and dip and drink popa all night

416
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:43,480
long. So of course I was
in. Buck's favorite movie was Top Gun,

417
00:33:43,519 --> 00:33:46,559
and since we didn't have many movies
on videotape, that's how we watched

418
00:33:46,559 --> 00:33:50,799
them back then. I knew we'd
be watching it for the one hundred and

419
00:33:50,799 --> 00:33:54,960
fifth time. After that, we'd
probably watch Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee.

420
00:33:55,559 --> 00:34:00,799
It was a perfect guy's night.
Buck always showed his best behavior to

421
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:05,960
my mother. Because of this,
Mom loved him. Most of our moms

422
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,840
were that way, though, they
all seemed to adopt each of us as

423
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:14,400
their own. We asked permission and
Mom said yes, and all the arrangements

424
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:17,840
were made, or so I thought
with Mike's arrival, my idea of a

425
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:22,840
good time quickly disappeared. He had
a way of egging Buck into bigger and

426
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:28,679
better things, or to BBD as
they called it. The Bigger better deal

427
00:34:29,039 --> 00:34:31,719
was a stick that always ended up
with me at the short end of it.

428
00:34:32,559 --> 00:34:37,320
And then Eric and his brother Dave
they showed up. Eric was by

429
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:42,320
far the most introverted member of our
group, and that he generally talked the

430
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:45,159
least, and when he did speak, it was usually for his own selfish

431
00:34:45,199 --> 00:34:51,480
gains. He was a schemer.
Dave was a polar opposite. He was

432
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,039
the loudest, the most crass,
and least caring member of the party.

433
00:34:55,440 --> 00:35:00,079
As usual. As soon as Eric
got there, he started hounding him to

434
00:35:00,119 --> 00:35:02,840
contact his older brother, Roger,
who was in college at the University of

435
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:07,920
Vermont studying genetics. We all looked
up to Roger. He had his own

436
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:13,960
apartment, had the best music,
and the most importantly, Roger was a

437
00:35:14,039 --> 00:35:20,159
dungeon master. Secretly, we all
counted on Eric to Pesterbuck into calling Roger

438
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,800
so that we could get a game
going. Although I didn't think any of

439
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:29,199
us was self aware enough to realize
that at the time, our characters were

440
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:35,360
an extension of ourselves. Buck was
the paladin because he always strived for perfection,

441
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,920
and Mike was the shifty chevalier.
I guess that's how you say that.

442
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:43,559
I guess that's how you pronounce that. A perfect match for him.

443
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,960
And Eric was the ranger. He
was quiet, reclusive and Dave was a

444
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:52,400
loud and obnoxious board And as for
me, I always had to play the

445
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:58,639
cleric always. Okay, I'm gonna
stop reading this. Is this like the

446
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,119
Dungeons and Dragon I'm kind of lost
on what game this is. Maybe some

447
00:36:02,199 --> 00:36:07,119
of you guys know. You can
let me know in the comments. Is

448
00:36:07,159 --> 00:36:09,880
this Dungeons and Dragons or something else? I never played those games, so

449
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:13,239
I don't know what they're talking about, but I want to keep reading.

450
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:19,039
Oddly, this is how I made
it into this ragtag group of guys.

451
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,719
Eric and I had an art class
together, and one day I heard him

452
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:28,679
talking about playing D and D.
Okay, that's Dungeons and Dragons to another

453
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,480
guy in our class. He was
begging for another drawing of his character,

454
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:37,920
and that guy, Derek, was
an incredible artist worthy of doing comic books.

455
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:42,039
Eric was describing his sword and how
he wanted it to look in the

456
00:36:42,159 --> 00:36:45,400
drawing, and when I decided I
had to get in on the conversation.

457
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:51,639
Dungeons and Dragons, I ask man
always wanted to play that game? Eric

458
00:36:51,679 --> 00:36:55,880
and Derek were quick to share how
awesome the game was, adventures and monsters

459
00:36:55,920 --> 00:37:00,400
and of course, dragons. Derek
pulled out out his art book and flipped

460
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:06,480
through the page after page of incredibly
drawn at dragons and warriors and maidens.

461
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:09,920
Oh, the maidens. They looked
great. His artwork felt like he could

462
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:15,000
step right off the page and into
the real world. Derek said that he

463
00:37:15,079 --> 00:37:19,519
didn't have a game going at the
moment, but Eric said that the game

464
00:37:19,559 --> 00:37:22,480
he played was always going, and
they needed a cleric. And that's how

465
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:27,440
I'm at these guys. I was
the last in the group, but somehow

466
00:37:27,559 --> 00:37:32,719
most desperately needed. When Eric finally
relented and called Roger, we were all

467
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:37,159
disappointed to find that he had other
plans. A friend was in town from

468
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:42,079
Chicago, and we were so sure
that he'd say yes that we all had

469
00:37:42,119 --> 00:37:46,039
crammed into Mike's mother's car and we're
circling the neighborhood near Roger's house so that

470
00:37:46,119 --> 00:37:51,360
we could be close by when he
gave us to go ahead. Now we

471
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:55,320
were driving and looking for something to
do. Mike and Buck quickly began to

472
00:37:55,360 --> 00:38:00,960
think of some other trouble that we
could get into. Buck suggested that we

473
00:38:00,039 --> 00:38:05,440
call Kelly. Kelly was a girl
from school who we sometimes hung out with

474
00:38:05,519 --> 00:38:08,760
in secret. It wasn't that we
hid from her, or even that we

475
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:14,079
were ashamed of her in any way. It's just that Kelly was well,

476
00:38:14,159 --> 00:38:17,880
she was different. She was an
introvert who seldom left the confines of the

477
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:22,280
TV room in the back of the
school library, where the school's broadcast equipment

478
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:28,639
was housed. We often played cards
there. We talked and joked and went

479
00:38:28,679 --> 00:38:34,079
on and on about our dungeons and
dragons adventures. Kelly would laugh at us

480
00:38:34,119 --> 00:38:37,480
and add her own comments that made
her cool in our eyes, even if

481
00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:43,320
she was a tied eyed girl who
shared lots of stories about her hippie parents.

482
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,320
She had mentioned once that it would
be cool if we all hung out

483
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:51,760
together outside of school, and she
even assured us that her parents would be

484
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,039
cool with it too. So that
night, Eric decided it was time to

485
00:38:55,079 --> 00:39:00,480
put the imitation to the test.
We headed toward the other side of town

486
00:39:00,559 --> 00:39:06,199
that was known as the new North
End, we passed by Ethan Allen Park,

487
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,480
which was dark and creepy looking under
the setting sun. Long shadows crawled

488
00:39:10,519 --> 00:39:15,679
from the tree line like fingers,
ready to grasp anyone who got too close,

489
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:20,199
and if I had been more aware, I might have recognized the foreshadowing.

490
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,960
The miles of trails that penetrated those
woods led to an old stone tower

491
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:31,159
that overlooked the city. Kelly's house
set at the end of Ethan Allen Parkway.

492
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,800
She was glad to see us,
and she was excited to finally have

493
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,039
us all hang out together. Her
friend Mary was there, who we already

494
00:39:39,079 --> 00:39:44,559
knew, and we were quickly introduced
to a new girl in the school named

495
00:39:44,559 --> 00:39:49,079
Amy. She had moved there so
recently that she hadn't been to class yet.

496
00:39:50,119 --> 00:39:52,360
We pulled together our money and we
went to buy some chips and a

497
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:58,440
few two liter bottles of soda before
officially beginning our evening of fun. It

498
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:02,159
started with several hands of hearts,
followed by spades, which was typical of

499
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:06,760
what we did when we hung out
at school. And we laughed and we

500
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,480
shared stories, and we gossiped,
and we laughed some more. Somewhere between

501
00:40:10,519 --> 00:40:15,159
the discussion about someone being interested in
someone else, and a conversation about the

502
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:22,039
roles of wizards and magic and dungeons
and dragons. Kelly and Mary began to

503
00:40:22,039 --> 00:40:28,400
get excited and exclaimed that they knew
magic. They informed us that they were

504
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:32,000
witches or wickens and they could do
spells of all kinds. Well, it

505
00:40:32,039 --> 00:40:37,679
all sounded so crazy to us,
so naturally we didn't believe them. There

506
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:42,760
was a back and forth and involved
a lot of nah, okay whatever,

507
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:47,920
mixed in with several no you can't, Yes we can. Before someone said

508
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:53,039
all right, you all prove it. In frustration, Kelly said, okay,

509
00:40:53,119 --> 00:40:58,000
I'll show you. I'll prove that
I'm a witch. It would be

510
00:40:58,039 --> 00:41:04,159
the turning point of the night.
Kelly showed us the art of casting spells.

511
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,480
She outlined the rules, of which
there were only a few, and

512
00:41:07,519 --> 00:41:12,400
then proceeded to work on one.
As we all watched and listened, she

513
00:41:12,519 --> 00:41:16,000
told us that she and her family
were white witches. Now I don't contone

514
00:41:16,039 --> 00:41:21,079
this on any levels, so I
won't go into great detail here. I

515
00:41:21,079 --> 00:41:24,679
will only say that she explained that
the spell had to include a statement about

516
00:41:24,679 --> 00:41:30,519
no harm coming out of any castings. No harm to anyone and no harm

517
00:41:30,559 --> 00:41:35,639
to anything. She asked us for
ideas that she could choose from in order

518
00:41:35,679 --> 00:41:39,440
to work into her spell. We
had all kinds of ideas. Make somebody

519
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:45,320
bark like a dog, turn Buck
into a frog, and create bags of

520
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:51,760
money. They were all rejected,
since we all jokingly considered Kelly a mooney.

521
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,079
We eventually agreed that her spell had
to have something to do with the

522
00:41:54,119 --> 00:42:00,960
moon. It was ten pm when
she finished her spell. Ran outside to

523
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:04,159
see what she had done, but
the moon wasn't even out that night.

524
00:42:05,519 --> 00:42:08,320
She hadn't proven anything. We all
had a good laugh and went back inside,

525
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:13,639
expecting to move on to another subject, but Kelly was embarrassed, I

526
00:42:13,679 --> 00:42:16,840
think, and unwilling to let it
go. She was determined to prove to

527
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:22,039
us that she was a witch.
I've got a ouiji board, she stated,

528
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:28,199
and that brought us all into a
loud clamor. We were all talking

529
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:32,000
on top of each other, and
some were expressing excitement while others were showing

530
00:42:32,119 --> 00:42:37,840
fear. I didn't know what a
ouiji board was. As the youngest member

531
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:42,440
of the group, I really was
less experienced than almost everything. But after

532
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,239
a lot of bickering, Buck,
who was amused, said bring it out.

533
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:51,840
An uncomfortable feeling began to form in
my gut as I watched Kelly and

534
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:57,199
Mary run around the house finding in
lighting candles while systematically turning off all the

535
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:01,159
lights. Something was telling me this
wasn't going to be good. And when

536
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:05,760
Kelly produced the board, we cleared
the middle of the living room and she

537
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:10,159
put a pillow from the couch on
the floor to set on. She seated

538
00:43:10,199 --> 00:43:14,519
herself on one side of the board, and she told us that a boy

539
00:43:14,599 --> 00:43:17,679
needed to sit opposite her. It
works best if a boy and a girl

540
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:22,679
do it together. Buck jumped at
the chance to get in on it,

541
00:43:22,119 --> 00:43:27,639
and the rest of us moved closer
to watch. And Kelly placed the planchet

542
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,800
on the board and put her hands
on it, and Buck followed her lead

543
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:35,960
and did the same, lifting her
fingers. She showed him how to be

544
00:43:36,159 --> 00:43:39,440
in only light contact with it,
and then she said it was important not

545
00:43:39,519 --> 00:43:44,920
to push the planchet and reiterated that
he should barely touch it at all.

546
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:49,159
Well, I thought this was a
joke. I'm sure most of us did,

547
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:52,440
but even so, we remained quiet
and watched as Kelly spoke first to

548
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:55,639
the board and then looked up to
the ceiling and asked something to come and

549
00:43:55,719 --> 00:44:02,079
talk to us. Several minutes passed, then nothing happened. Buck was smirking

550
00:44:02,119 --> 00:44:07,239
at Kelly and chuckling to himself.
He kept pulling his hands away from the

551
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,280
board as if to call bull on
the whole thing. Kelly, who was

552
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:15,400
getting increasingly upset with him, warned
him that pulling his hands away from the

553
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:20,440
planchet without first saying goodbye or intentionally
moving it to the word goodbye on the

554
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:24,920
board was dangerous. Buck's grin faltered
a little, and he laid his fingers

555
00:44:25,079 --> 00:44:30,360
back on the board. The planchet
jerked as if he had fallen into it.

556
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:36,559
I clearly saw it happen as if
it was in slow motion. It

557
00:44:36,639 --> 00:44:39,440
happened so quickly that I had to
question if he even managed to touch it

558
00:44:39,519 --> 00:44:45,719
at all before it moved. It
jerked again and slowly fell into an early

559
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:50,800
rhythm of forming a figure eight in
the middle of the board. I watched

560
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:54,719
Buck's fingers move a fraction of a
second behind the action, as if he

561
00:44:54,760 --> 00:45:00,039
were struggling to keep up with it. Likewise, Kelly's fan were ever so

562
00:45:00,199 --> 00:45:06,039
slightly behind the piece, and the
porner was definitely moving on its own.

563
00:45:07,639 --> 00:45:12,639
Kelly started asking questions, and the
planchet gave us answers. With whom are

564
00:45:12,679 --> 00:45:16,920
we in contact? Kelly asked,
The planchet slipped out of its figure eight

565
00:45:17,039 --> 00:45:22,440
and slid with a sinister scraping sound
to the letter B, another scrape to

566
00:45:22,559 --> 00:45:27,880
E, and finally a third scrape
to N. After that, it went

567
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:32,239
back to the figure eight motion Ben. Kelly asked, is your name Ben?

568
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:37,360
With another long scrape, it moved
to the word yes at the top

569
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:43,440
of the board before returning to the
figure eight. Love was in awe of

570
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:46,920
what I was seeing, and both
Buck and Kelly wore expressions of shock and

571
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:52,480
surprise. They turned and looked at
the rest of us while the planchet traveled

572
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:57,360
its little path, and their fingers, ever so softly followed a millisecond behind.

573
00:45:58,679 --> 00:46:02,800
Kelly continued to ask the spirit questions. His name was Ben. He

574
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:07,159
was six years old. He had
died in a stream in the woods while

575
00:46:07,159 --> 00:46:13,280
he was out with his parents.
Several times he said that he wanted to

576
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:19,280
play. Kelly kept trying to keep
Ben in question and answer mode. She

577
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:23,039
asked for more details about his death
and who his parents were the planchet was

578
00:46:23,039 --> 00:46:29,119
speeding up. Maybe Ben was agitated
by the questions when he only wanted to

579
00:46:29,199 --> 00:46:34,079
play, and made circles around the
board so fast that it no longer scraped,

580
00:46:34,119 --> 00:46:38,119
but instead made a continuous swishing sound. It was moving at twice the

581
00:46:38,159 --> 00:46:43,840
original speed, and something was happening, and we were all well aware that

582
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:49,960
this was not normal. Even Kelly, who we all thought had seen all

583
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,440
this before, was beginning to display
apprehension. She paused her questions for a

584
00:46:54,519 --> 00:46:59,480
moment, but managed to maintain her
contact with the board, and whether her

585
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:02,480
head turned suddenly to the right.
She asked, Ben, what do you

586
00:47:02,559 --> 00:47:07,280
mean by it you want to play? And with a loud crack, all

587
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,960
the candles went out at once as
the pointer shot across the room and slammed

588
00:47:12,079 --> 00:47:16,400
into the kitchen cabinets. The girls
led out a terrifying scream, while the

589
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:23,079
guys were all shouting holy shit.
The room was completely dark now, Not

590
00:47:23,199 --> 00:47:29,880
even the street lights outside were visible
through the windows. The cabinet doors were

591
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:34,760
opening and closing in loud bangs.
Someone made it to the light switch,

592
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:38,800
but only the kitchen lights came on. The living room lights were all lamps,

593
00:47:40,159 --> 00:47:44,480
so we were all sitting in the
dark, staring through the kitchen doorway

594
00:47:44,559 --> 00:47:49,599
at a room in complete disarray,
and the cabinet doors were still visibly swinging

595
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:52,719
to a stop, some half open
and some close, some wide open.

596
00:47:53,559 --> 00:47:57,840
And as a unit, we jumped
from the floor and piled together onto the

597
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:05,239
couch. Everyone was Our faces were
twisted expressions of cold fear. The same

598
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:10,400
question was repeated several times. What
the hell just happened? Kelly smiled with

599
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:15,320
some trepidation. See I told you
I was a witch, she said.

600
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:22,679
Suddenly everyone was talking at once.
Nervous giggles and hysterical laughter punctuated every sentence

601
00:48:22,679 --> 00:48:30,119
and phrase. I kept asking myself
now what I wanted to go home?

602
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:32,840
I was too shaken and afraid of
what I had just witnessed to stay there

603
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:37,880
any longer. But how could I
go home? I was supposed to be

604
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:42,440
staying the night at Buck's house.
Mike had the only car, so even

605
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:45,039
if I left, I probably wasn't
going to have a ride. Well,

606
00:48:45,039 --> 00:48:49,599
it was close to midnight by now. Kelly said her mom would be home

607
00:48:49,679 --> 00:48:52,239
soon and that it would be okay
if we all stayed the night. Well,

608
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:57,440
that wasn't okay with me. I
had no desire to spend another minute

609
00:48:57,519 --> 00:49:00,480
inside that house. I knew what
I had seen was evil, and I

610
00:49:00,519 --> 00:49:06,519
wanted no part of it. I
found the courage to accept the humiliation I

611
00:49:06,599 --> 00:49:10,440
knew was coming, and I faced
the group, bracing myself for laughter and

612
00:49:10,519 --> 00:49:16,159
teasing. I said I'm leaving.
I gotta go. I expected a shower

613
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:21,639
of insults, but instead Dave stood
up and said, I'm going with you.

614
00:49:22,679 --> 00:49:24,519
Well he didn't know it, but
at that moment, Dave was my

615
00:49:24,639 --> 00:49:30,159
hero. No one made any side
comment, so with nothing left to say,

616
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:35,079
we both turned and headed for the
door. I was never happier to

617
00:49:35,079 --> 00:49:38,159
hear the clicking of a door closing
behind me than I was that moment standing

618
00:49:38,199 --> 00:49:44,119
outside of Kelly's house. As we
walked down the driveway and breathed in the

619
00:49:44,159 --> 00:49:50,159
cool night air, the smiles returned
to our faces. I hadn't realized that

620
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,559
we were supposed to have a full
moon that night, or were we It

621
00:49:53,639 --> 00:49:58,519
was definitely a full moon. In
fact, it was abnormally bright outside.

622
00:49:58,559 --> 00:50:02,079
Even for a full moon. It
was more like daylight. The moonlight the

623
00:50:02,079 --> 00:50:06,880
moon was huge and easily filling half
the sky, and it was directly over

624
00:50:07,039 --> 00:50:10,480
Kelly's house. We stood there,
staring at it until the light came on

625
00:50:10,639 --> 00:50:15,599
in our heads. No way.
We both cried. The spell that Kelly

626
00:50:15,639 --> 00:50:20,760
had cast earlier that night had called
upon the moon, and it seemed like

627
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,880
the only answer. Dave and I
walked down Hope Street and out of the

628
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:30,199
development. We made our way to
Ethan Allen Parkway that was to take us

629
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:35,880
to the Avenue. We knew we
had at least a six mile walk ahead

630
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:38,480
of us, and it was past
midnight, but we had just had the

631
00:50:38,519 --> 00:50:44,760
scare of our lives and the alternative
was not an option. We walked on

632
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:49,079
and we kept repeating that there was
no way that Kelly's spell had anything to

633
00:50:49,119 --> 00:50:52,880
do with the moon. Now that
was impossible, We decided to test out

634
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:58,320
her spell formula to prove for ourselves
that it couldn't be. It was a

635
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:02,840
perfectly clear night, naturally clear.
We decided what better way to test her

636
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:08,840
spell casting than to call lightning.
It is what magic users and clerics do

637
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:15,480
in dungeons and dragons, They call
lightning. I put together the spell I

638
00:51:15,519 --> 00:51:20,159
had learned earlier that night, repeated
the safety words that no one would be

639
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:23,840
harmed in any way, and I
began bringing the spell to closure. I

640
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:29,280
raised my right hand, fingers outstretched
and pointed up to the sky, and

641
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,639
as I was about to finish speaking, I raised my left hand, fingers

642
00:51:31,679 --> 00:51:37,159
outstretched to another point in the distant
sky, and my hand came to a

643
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:40,760
stop, and I uttered the final
words as a bolt of lightning shot across

644
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:46,079
the sky from my right hand to
my left hand. Feeling like the kids

645
00:51:46,119 --> 00:51:50,519
who had just busted a window and
didn't want to get caught, we muttered

646
00:51:50,559 --> 00:51:54,360
a few unintelligible words to each other
and we turned and ran. It was

647
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:59,679
as if the sky itself would give
chase to us for having done such a

648
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:04,519
thing, and neither Dave nor I
were in the best shape. We were

649
00:52:04,559 --> 00:52:08,159
definitely the guys to be picked last
in a neighborhood ball game, but at

650
00:52:08,159 --> 00:52:15,199
that moment we were Olympians. We
ran the length of Ethan Allen Parkway and

651
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:17,679
most of the way up the avenue. I was never so afraid in my

652
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:22,119
life. It was all crashing together
in my mind, everything that happened that

653
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,880
night, the Luigi board, the
candles, the cabinets, the moon,

654
00:52:27,159 --> 00:52:32,079
the lightning that I myself had called
for. It had all happened when we

655
00:52:32,199 --> 00:52:37,840
had run as far as our supernaturally
fear fueled bodies could carry us. We

656
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:43,000
were gasping for an air with each
breath and begging it to fill our spent

657
00:52:43,039 --> 00:52:47,719
and empty lungs. It felt like
I would never breathe normally again. We

658
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:52,800
had made it to our high school, Burlington High on the Avenue, and

659
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:57,239
we were far enough now that we
thought we could move slowly. Once we

660
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,440
could breathe normally again, we began
to talk about all that happened, and

661
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:07,320
then Dave confided his reasons for wanting
to leave with me. For a while,

662
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,360
he was in foster care, where
he had a supernatural experience of his

663
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:16,159
own. He believed that the people
he lived with were possibly satanic. Once

664
00:53:16,199 --> 00:53:21,119
he got trapped in his bedroom when
a dresser moved across the floor on its

665
00:53:21,119 --> 00:53:24,280
own to block the door. He
kept a teddy bear on that dresser,

666
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:29,079
and the teddy bear that he loved
was floating across the room toward him with

667
00:53:29,159 --> 00:53:36,199
its eyes glowing bright red. That
confession bonded our friendship. It allowed him

668
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:38,840
to open up and tell me more
of his demonic encounters over the years.

669
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:44,440
Since I couldn't go home that night. Dave said that I could stay at

670
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:47,679
his house, and since Eric was
staying at Kelly's, I could sleep in

671
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:52,239
his bed. We got past the
high school and we're now passing the lake

672
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:58,360
View Cemetery that ran between the school
and Saint Joseph's Orphanage, and by now

673
00:53:58,519 --> 00:54:02,159
Dave had stopped sharing his che y
aldhood stories. We were almost to the

674
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:07,239
orphanage property when he had glanced over
my shoulder to something behind me for maybe

675
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,760
a third or four time. Well, that was freaking me out enough that

676
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:15,320
I finally had a look for myself. Mentally, I was thinking to myself,

677
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:21,559
what the hell now? And I
turned around. It was a small

678
00:54:21,679 --> 00:54:24,679
craft, too small to be an
airplane, hovering over the woods behind the

679
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:30,159
Orphanage. It couldn't have fit more
than one person, and I guessed it

680
00:54:30,199 --> 00:54:34,719
to be about the size of a
hand glider. It wasn't Saucer's shape,

681
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:38,159
but it did look like it was
metal, and it had wings. It

682
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:43,599
was snub nosed and looked like it
ended abruptly after what might have been a

683
00:54:43,599 --> 00:54:50,000
cockpit. There was hardly anything to
it except for its wings. Clearly,

684
00:54:50,039 --> 00:54:54,119
this thing was pacing us, flying
parallel to us. As we reached the

685
00:54:54,159 --> 00:54:58,599
building, we realized that it was
going to fly behind the building, so

686
00:54:58,679 --> 00:55:01,719
we sprinted the three hundred feed er
so to the other end, and when

687
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:06,079
we got there, all we could
see was the red glow of whatever was

688
00:55:06,119 --> 00:55:09,360
making the wings move. It was
flying away from us, and then suddenly

689
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:15,480
a shot off and was completely gone. After everything else we had experienced that

690
00:55:15,639 --> 00:55:19,519
night, this did not scare us
at all. We were both kind of

691
00:55:19,559 --> 00:55:23,840
excited by the idea that we might
have seen a UFO. Yes, it

692
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:29,519
was a crazy night. Dave's mom
and sister were already asleep when we got

693
00:55:29,559 --> 00:55:31,280
there, so we didn't bother to
ask if it was okay for me to

694
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:35,920
stay the night. Dave said he
would deal with it in the morning.

695
00:55:36,679 --> 00:55:43,199
Now of sheer mental and physical exhaustion, we both passed out. Saturday morning

696
00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:47,079
was no less crazy than Friday night. Dave explained what had happened the night

697
00:55:47,159 --> 00:55:52,239
before to his mother. He gave
her a lot more information than I had

698
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:57,480
expected. She was surprisingly cool about
the whole thing, and it turned out

699
00:55:57,519 --> 00:56:01,920
that she was into supernatural stuff and
even admitted to being a witch when she

700
00:56:02,039 --> 00:56:06,559
was a young girl too. While
I was thinking, who the hell,

701
00:56:06,599 --> 00:56:10,480
are these people? What did I
get myself into? Kelly and her friend

702
00:56:10,559 --> 00:56:15,800
Mary, and now Dave and Eric's
mom all witches? Man? This was

703
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:20,199
too much. When Eric, Buck, and Mike showed up, they told

704
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,199
us that they met Kelly's mom and
that she was pretty cool. And then

705
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:28,599
Dave went into full storytelling mode and
laid out everything that had happened to us

706
00:56:28,679 --> 00:56:31,960
after we left the house. Of
course, he embellished everything to make it

707
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:37,519
all more dramatic. I didn't see
a need for that. Living it was

708
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:43,639
drama enough for me. Weirdly,
they believed everything except the UFO story.

709
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:46,519
It was the simplest, most real
thing that had happened to us that night.

710
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:51,880
It flew, and it made noise, and it was probably far more

711
00:56:52,119 --> 00:56:58,480
explainable than a super large moon casting
spells and conjuring lightning on a perfectly clear

712
00:56:58,599 --> 00:57:04,280
night. Eric and Buck told us
how Kelly's mother backed her up about being

713
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:07,800
a witch. They were all witches. She even shared some stories of her

714
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:13,119
own and made them want to prove
now whether or not the Ouiji board was

715
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:19,480
real. They questioned if Kelly was
moving the planchet herself, maybe she had

716
00:57:19,519 --> 00:57:22,719
planned the whole thing and her Mom
was in on it, and the next

717
00:57:22,719 --> 00:57:24,840
thing I knew, we were scrambling
to see who had enough money to buy

718
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:30,280
a Ouiji board for ourselves. Well, I had fifteen bucks on me and

719
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:35,079
I had earned working part time for
my stepfather. That was another aspect of

720
00:57:35,119 --> 00:57:37,760
me being a part of the group. They were always asking me for money,

721
00:57:38,360 --> 00:57:42,480
and at that time I really didn't
notice the fact. I was too

722
00:57:42,519 --> 00:57:47,280
excited to suddenly have so many friends. Mike had gone home after dropping off

723
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:52,360
Eric and Buck, so we had
to walk the seven blocks to Castler's Toys.

724
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:57,320
They sold Halloween mask Here around had
tons of magic tricks and costumes and

725
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:00,719
games and toys, and it was
where we well. I bought all of

726
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:06,880
our dice for Dungeons and Dragons.
We found a Ouiji board with the other

727
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,280
games, and it boasted that it
was fun for all ages, acceptable for

728
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:15,280
ages seven and up, and it
only cost twelve dollars a ninety five.

729
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:21,639
We made our purchase and rushed back
to Dave and Erics to see what we

730
00:58:21,679 --> 00:58:25,800
could summon. It was much cheaper
version of Kelly's board. It was cardboard

731
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:30,559
coated and wax with a plastic pointer. We decided that it would do,

732
00:58:30,719 --> 00:58:37,079
and Dave and Eric's mom warned us
against using it, and foolishly we ignored

733
00:58:37,119 --> 00:58:40,360
her. We all gathered around the
board and tried to get it to do

734
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:45,119
what we had seen at Kelly's house, but it wasn't working. And then

735
00:58:45,159 --> 00:58:50,079
someone remembered that Kelly said it works
best with a boy and a girl touching

736
00:58:50,119 --> 00:58:54,159
the pointer. We had to con
Dave and Eric's younger sister into playing the

737
00:58:54,199 --> 00:59:00,400
board with us. Mostly we made
jokes and pushed the planchet around our shs.

738
00:59:00,559 --> 00:59:06,400
Clearly nothing was happening. Eric decided
he had had enough and he stood

739
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:08,320
up and headed out of the room, saying, this is a bunch of

740
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:13,639
bull crap, and magic is too
unless you can make lights turn on and

741
00:59:13,719 --> 00:59:17,960
off by themselves. We were all
sitting on the floor, just as we

742
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:22,559
were at Kelly's house. No one
was near the walls, no one that

743
00:59:22,679 --> 00:59:27,360
was even close. As Eric said
those last words of his statement, on

744
00:59:27,559 --> 00:59:31,159
and off by themselves, he reached
up to tap the light bulb hanging from

745
00:59:31,199 --> 00:59:35,599
the center of the room. In
the instant before he touched it, it

746
00:59:35,679 --> 00:59:40,280
lit up so brightly that it exploded
in blue glass everywhere. He jumped back

747
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:45,239
from it, The loud pop made
us all jump, and then we turned

748
00:59:45,239 --> 00:59:49,639
to the Ouiji board and the porner
was beginning to turn in that familiar figure

749
00:59:49,719 --> 00:59:53,199
eight pattern on its own. Well, that was it. We were done.

750
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:58,079
Dave, who was closest to it, kicked the porner across the room.

751
00:59:59,159 --> 01:00:00,639
We gathered up the board and put
it back in the box, and

752
01:00:00,639 --> 01:00:05,199
we decided on the spot that we
were done with everything to do with Wigi

753
01:00:05,239 --> 01:00:07,599
boards, and we took it outside
to throw it in the trash, but

754
01:00:07,639 --> 01:00:13,599
that wasn't good enough, and then
we decided to burn it. Dave and

755
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:17,320
Eric's mom reminded us how danger it
was not to say goodbye when getting off

756
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:21,599
the board, but it was a
little too late for that now. And

757
01:00:21,639 --> 01:00:23,960
then she told us that the only
person who could destroy the board was the

758
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:28,599
one who bought it, and with
that she handed me the lighter and pointed

759
01:00:28,679 --> 01:00:32,880
me in that direction. I was
afraid. I was really afraid. It

760
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:37,599
was a stupid piece of cardboard and
wax, but it was somehow ruining my

761
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:42,639
life. My views of the world
had already altered greatly in the last twenty

762
01:00:42,679 --> 01:00:46,320
four hours. I knew now that
magic was not only real, but now

763
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:51,719
that I was introduced to demons and
spirits and wigi boards and God only knows

764
01:00:51,800 --> 01:00:55,159
what else. Lighting that board up
would be a pleasure. Now. I

765
01:00:55,239 --> 01:00:59,000
leaned over and held the lighter to
the board, and I held it there,

766
01:00:59,079 --> 01:01:02,079
waiting and watching for the flame,
waiting for the wax to melt away

767
01:01:02,159 --> 01:01:07,519
so the cardboard could ignite and incinerate. But nothing happened. No matter how

768
01:01:07,559 --> 01:01:12,320
long I held the flame to the
board, it would not burn. It's

769
01:01:12,360 --> 01:01:16,719
not burning, I yelled to the
others. Well we tried everything. Eric

770
01:01:16,719 --> 01:01:21,519
went upstairs and grabbed a bottle of
lighter fluid, even soaked it in the

771
01:01:21,599 --> 01:01:25,599
stuff, and it wouldn't burn.
It sat there, smoking, in defiance

772
01:01:25,679 --> 01:01:30,960
of all natural laws. It took
thirty minutes just to get it to slowly

773
01:01:30,159 --> 01:01:35,559
smolder, and then, ever so
faintly, the flames began to lick across

774
01:01:35,639 --> 01:01:39,239
the edge of the board and it
was finally catching fire. Thank God,

775
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:44,719
I thought. I celebrated a little
bit as I watched, and then Dave

776
01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:47,440
said, Brian, look at the
flames. He pointed at the blue light

777
01:01:47,519 --> 01:01:52,559
that was now beginning to engulf the
board. They're following you, man,

778
01:01:52,679 --> 01:01:57,199
Look, the flames are following you. Dave's mother told me to move to

779
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:00,199
the other side of the barrel.
To my total horror, the flames were

780
01:02:00,239 --> 01:02:06,360
acting like a porner, arcing and
bending. I moved around Eric and Buck

781
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:09,480
and then passed by Eric's little sister, and the blue flames followed me whenever

782
01:02:09,519 --> 01:02:15,320
I went. There was absolutely no
wind. Didn't matter if I stood still

783
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:19,039
or jumped from one side to the
other. Wherever I went, the flame

784
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:24,920
arked and pointed directly at me until
the board burned up. This was my

785
01:02:25,039 --> 01:02:31,360
introduction to the supernatural. Many more
encounters would follow. About a year later,

786
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:37,000
I had an encounter with a dog
man in Shelborn Beach, and at

787
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:40,199
that time I made the comment,
perhaps we summoned the creature there at night.

788
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:45,440
Now, maybe you can understand why
I felt that way. That night

789
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:50,599
when this all started, we were
playing with fire, well witches and Luigi

790
01:02:50,679 --> 01:02:54,880
boars and then actual fire. I'm
a full blown born again Christian who wears

791
01:02:54,880 --> 01:03:00,400
the full armor of God, and
I believe everything happens for a reeon the

792
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:04,880
Lord blessed me, yes, bless
me. With these crazy, fearful,

793
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:09,159
and maybe dangerous experiences in my life. I learned that magic is real.

794
01:03:09,519 --> 01:03:15,480
There are demons and spirits and fallen
angels, which is do have power.

795
01:03:15,159 --> 01:03:20,719
All these things are real, but
they are evil and seductive. It all

796
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:23,880
boils down to who you give credit
to. It's not your own power,

797
01:03:23,920 --> 01:03:30,119
no matter what you think, it's
all a lie. God explicitly tells us

798
01:03:30,239 --> 01:03:35,559
not to play with such things.
Do not speak to witches, diviners,

799
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:39,559
or those who talk too familiar spirits. This is a warning for your safety,

800
01:03:39,679 --> 01:03:43,960
so that they do not consume you. And consume you they will,

801
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:49,199
if not spiritually, perhaps literally.
You see, none of these have power

802
01:03:49,239 --> 01:03:52,000
outside of what the Lord God has
given them, and he is the one

803
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:57,400
who makes all the rules. So
if you can believe in magic, or

804
01:03:57,440 --> 01:04:01,559
in spells, or in ghosts or
demons or spirit or even UFOs, then

805
01:04:01,679 --> 01:04:06,639
ultimately you have to come to the
conclusion that the Lord God is worth believing

806
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:11,519
too. I don't know about you, but it's for me and my house,

807
01:04:11,639 --> 01:04:15,679
we will trust the Lord. Whoo. That was a long, kind

808
01:04:15,679 --> 01:04:20,719
of a rambling story. This guy
had like crazy this this was a crazy

809
01:04:20,960 --> 01:04:25,480
night for this guy. But it
was written pretty good and it was kind

810
01:04:25,480 --> 01:04:29,760
of an engrossing story. Every paragraph
I went through I wanted to go man,

811
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:31,880
what's gonna happen next? So it
was good and I think it was

812
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:36,119
worth putting on this podcast. I'm
recording it. I'm looking at my timer

813
01:04:36,159 --> 01:04:40,920
and I'm at forty three minutes.
I messed up a few times. I'll

814
01:04:40,920 --> 01:04:45,760
probably probably edited out five or six
or seven minutes of it. But whoa,

815
01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:48,199
that was long. Anyway, I
appreciate the guy sending it. This

816
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:53,559
was a great story, and thank
you for sending it. Hey, Hey,

817
01:04:53,599 --> 01:04:57,039
once again, thanks for tuning in
on this podcast. I appreciate you

818
01:04:57,079 --> 01:04:59,960
so much. If you thought it
was any good, hit the thumbs up,

819
01:05:00,079 --> 01:05:02,360
leave a comment, maybe even subscribe, and come back for more.

820
01:05:03,079 --> 01:05:06,079
I would appreciate it if you did, but only if you liked it.

821
01:05:06,639 --> 01:05:11,000
We'll see you guys on the next
podcast. Thanks a lot.
