Speaker 1: This encounter took place in a small town on the
Speaker 1: coast of northern California. A friend and I decided that
Speaker 1: we wanted to grow a garden on his property. The
Speaker 1: trail to get there was half a mile through some
Speaker 1: thick pine forest and huckleberry bushes. The garden itself was
Speaker 1: trellised on the hillside with a small man made pine
Speaker 1: that we used to water the plants. My friend and
Speaker 1: I would ride our dirt bikes to check on it daily.
Speaker 1: One day in midsummer, we decided to camp there with
Speaker 1: another friend. My two friends pitched a tent, but being outdoorsy,
Speaker 1: I made a shelter underneath a fallen tree. I used
Speaker 1: the branches to close off the back of the sides,
Speaker 1: and I had a large branch for a door. Also
Speaker 1: had a blanket. Knowing it would get chili that night.
Speaker 1: Before going to bed, I had the thought to leave
Speaker 1: my writing boots on to protect against any would be
Speaker 1: critters trying to get frisky. Mountain lions and the occasional
Speaker 1: bear are a thing, although they are rare, Better safe
Speaker 1: than sorry, I thought, keeping my feet. Toward the opening
Speaker 1: of the shelter, we talked about our day and what
Speaker 1: we had planned for the garden. The three of us
Speaker 1: fell asleep. I woke up some time later to something
Speaker 1: heavy walking right next to my shelter. It shook the
Speaker 1: ground when it walked, as if it wanted to make
Speaker 1: a point and say that it was the biggest thing around.
Speaker 1: My immediate thought was that a big bear was rooting
Speaker 1: around the camp. That is until I noticed it was
Speaker 1: walking on two legs. As if that wasn't alarming enough,
Speaker 1: it started looking into my shelter. I froze stiff, and
Speaker 1: I could hear it breathing and sniffing as it made
Speaker 1: its way inside through the door that I had made.
Speaker 1: I had a big branch pulled in to block the door,
Speaker 1: but this thing didn't seem to care. I had a
Speaker 1: three three rifle laying next to me, but the thought
Speaker 1: of protecting myself with it never crossed my mind. I
Speaker 1: was too stunned to move or think straight. The sniffing
Speaker 1: and probing went on for what felt like hours, and
Speaker 1: just when I thought it would finally back out and
Speaker 1: leave me be, I felt its giant hand grab my
Speaker 1: leg and tug on it, as if trying to see
Speaker 1: if I was a piece of wood or something else,
Speaker 1: and when it grabbed me, I screamed like a pack
Speaker 1: of stuck pigs. I must have scared it as bad
Speaker 1: as it scared me, because it let out a high pitched,
Speaker 1: horror stricken scream, and it took off toward the woods,
Speaker 1: ripping the top off my buddy's tint along the way. Well,
Speaker 1: we were terrified. All three of us had heard and
Speaker 1: seen it. We stayed as quiet and as still as
Speaker 1: we could until the first light showed over the mountains,
Speaker 1: and then we got to our bikes. No sooner had
Speaker 1: I gotten to my bike and got it moving when
Speaker 1: a baseball sized rock hit me in the side of
Speaker 1: the head and it knocked me off my bike. My
Speaker 1: buddy behind me stop and helped me back up, and
Speaker 1: we hotailed it out of there and we never went
Speaker 1: back to that area again. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: My name is Cameron Buckner. This is the Dixie Cryptid
Speaker 1: YouTube podcast, also known as the what If It's True Podcast.
Speaker 1: On any podcast app that you're using, just do a
Speaker 1: search for Dixie Cryptid or what If It's True podcast
Speaker 1: on your Apple podcast app Spotify. Any podcast app you're
Speaker 1: using should be right at the top and you can
Speaker 1: follow along. I'm gonna tell you something about the audio
Speaker 1: only podcast. People complain about the ads that run in
Speaker 1: my videos on YouTube. I have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: That I do have a little control. There is a
Speaker 1: little button when I upload a video that I can
Speaker 1: place ads, but they YouTube never uses it. I spent
Speaker 1: four or five years doing that, just placing my own ads.
Speaker 1: But the ads if I place three in a one
Speaker 1: hour long video, they're still going to put six. But
Speaker 1: here's what I want to tell you. If you go
Speaker 1: to the podcast app, if you look me up on
Speaker 1: the podcast app, you may have one ad interrupt your
Speaker 1: listening experience. On a podcast app, there are not near
Speaker 1: as many ads on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker. You can
Speaker 1: listen on on the Spreaker app. S p R e
Speaker 1: A K e R. You can download all these apps
Speaker 1: for free. Starting account doesn't cost you anything. Look up
Speaker 1: all the podcasts you want to listen to look mine
Speaker 1: up first, and you won't get interrupted with ads. I
Speaker 1: don't know why people don't use it. I use it
Speaker 1: all the time now. I watch a lot of YouTube,
Speaker 1: but I only watch that for visual stuff. This podcast
Speaker 1: is an audio podcast. The stuff you see running on
Speaker 1: the screen is just stuff I have to put in
Speaker 1: there simply because YouTube is a visual platform. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: just want to drop that. What do they call them hacks?
Speaker 1: That's an ad hack. Go to Apple podcast or Spotify,
Speaker 1: or I use Podbean the pod Bean app. It seems
Speaker 1: to work really well, but it really doesn't matter. These
Speaker 1: podcasts are streamed anywhere. So anyway, enough of that, onto
Speaker 1: the story. I think I've got six or seven in
Speaker 1: this podcast. I certainly hope you guys enjoy it. So
Speaker 1: all right, here we go. When my son was four,
Speaker 1: we went Noword to visit my aunt and uncle. At
Speaker 1: the time, they lived on a beautiful property spanning eighty
Speaker 1: are not too far from Huntsville, Ontario. My uncle was
Speaker 1: born and raised in rural Quebec, and he grew up
Speaker 1: in the woods among the wildlife. Later, as a young man,
Speaker 1: he lived and worked in logging camps in Ontario and Quebec.
Speaker 1: Their property was a nature lover's dream. Deer routinely wandered
Speaker 1: into their backyard, along with bears and other wildlife, and
Speaker 1: a host of other birds and smaller wildlife. It was
Speaker 1: one of my favorite places to be on this visit.
Speaker 1: It was winter, and we were sitting around in their
Speaker 1: living room as the woodstove chugged out heat, and the
Speaker 1: conversation worked its way around to strange things my uncle
Speaker 1: had seen and heard in the forest in his lifetime.
Speaker 1: He began telling a story about a deer hunting trip
Speaker 1: that he took part in many years prior. Near North Bay, Ontario.
Speaker 1: He and his hunting partner had come up dry since
Speaker 1: it was getting dark, they were heading back to the
Speaker 1: warmth of their lodging and a hot meal. As it was, though,
Speaker 1: they got somewhat off the beaten path and ended up
Speaker 1: taking the scenic route. It was dark by that point
Speaker 1: and they were cold and miserable, when all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they heard the sound emanating from the woods. They
Speaker 1: could only be described as an angry monkey scream. My
Speaker 1: uncle and his buddy froze solid when it went off again,
Speaker 1: only louder. By this point, they were starting to mentally
Speaker 1: take inventory of what animals could have made that sound,
Speaker 1: but they came up empty. They stood there for a minute,
Speaker 1: facing out into the dark woods. The ensuing silence was
Speaker 1: every bit as scary as the noise they had just heard.
Speaker 1: They decided not to wait around for an encore and
Speaker 1: instead to double time it back to their cabin, where
Speaker 1: not one more word was said about this incident. Now,
Speaker 1: my uncle never once mentioned the word sosquatch or even
Speaker 1: and heinted at it. But given his location at the
Speaker 1: time and the sheer ferocity of the sound, and the
Speaker 1: fact that it froze him, a seasoned hunter in his tracks,
Speaker 1: I would not discount sosquatch. In August of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: I took my son to visit my aunt and uncle
Speaker 1: again on their property. While we were there, we had
Speaker 1: a great time exploring the woods and walking down to
Speaker 1: the beautiful beach about a mile away. But in typical fashion,
Speaker 1: my internal clock went into overdrive and the first day
Speaker 1: there I found myself awake at four am. Well, I figured,
Speaker 1: rather than lying beds doing about being awake, I'd go
Speaker 1: downstairs and do some painting until everyone woke up. This
Speaker 1: house did not have air conditioning, so they routinely left
Speaker 1: windows open to create a cross breeze. Between that and
Speaker 1: the shade from the huge trees all around, the house
Speaker 1: was always at an nice temperature, even when it was
Speaker 1: sticky out. And there I was in the dining room
Speaker 1: table with my watercolors in front of me, beside a
Speaker 1: huge open window, listening to the birds in the forest
Speaker 1: as they began to wake and go about their daily routine.
Speaker 1: Outside it was washed with a silvery blue pre dawn light,
Speaker 1: and except for the birds, everything was quiet. I was
Speaker 1: painting away happily, when all of a sudden I noticed
Speaker 1: that even the birds had stilled. I felt little of it,
Speaker 1: and I kept on painting until in the distance I
Speaker 1: heard the distinct sound of wood hitting hard against another
Speaker 1: piece of wood. My head shot upright and I listened.
Speaker 1: There were three knocks, and then a pause, and then
Speaker 1: a couple more, and then a short, distant, lyrical whood
Speaker 1: sound that started low and went higher towards the end.
Speaker 1: No freaking way, I thought to myself. I immediately realized
Speaker 1: my son would be furious with me if I didn't
Speaker 1: capture the sounds, so I reached for my cell phone
Speaker 1: and turned on the video. Even though there was another
Speaker 1: faint moan in the distance. When I played back the recording,
Speaker 1: the only audible sound was that of my rather excited breathing.
Speaker 1: I told my son at breakfast what I'd heard, but
Speaker 1: he thought I was kidding with him to this day,
Speaker 1: I'll never be convinced that what I heard that morning
Speaker 1: in the twilight was not a sisquatch. The wood knocking
Speaker 1: was intentional, and the whooping sound was like nothing I'd
Speaker 1: ever heard before or since. Keep doing your good work.
Speaker 1: Your non judgmental approach and fantastic accent make you one
Speaker 1: of the best on YouTube. And my son and I
Speaker 1: love your channel. Sign Nancy, that was a really nice compliment.
Speaker 1: Not many people compliment my accent, but I can't change it,
Speaker 1: and I just roll with it. And there's plenty of
Speaker 1: people that talk like me. So we go through life
Speaker 1: not understanding each other. Hay yack, Get all right. Thank
Speaker 1: you Nancy for the story. This was great. Thank you.
Speaker 1: My encounter occurred in the summer of nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: I was thirteen years old at the time. My cousin Jim,
Speaker 1: and I decided to go camping near my home, located
Speaker 1: in the southeastern corner of Mecklenburg County in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: in an area of woods that is known as Colonel
Speaker 1: Francis Bady Park. This section of the country was remote
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, with sparse development. The woods comprising
Speaker 1: several hundred acres included a beautiful section where several large
Speaker 1: creeks converged with a mature section of hardwoods and pines.
Speaker 1: There's a high tension power line extending through the eastern
Speaker 1: corner of this track, which I now realized may have
Speaker 1: been the pathway for our visitor. The land was bordered
Speaker 1: by planet fields on two sides and a road on
Speaker 1: the other two sides in some development. Essentially, it was
Speaker 1: an oasis of hardwoods surrounded by fields. By the age
Speaker 1: of thirteen, I was already an accomplished camper, having camped
Speaker 1: in the wilderness areas for week long stretches with my
Speaker 1: father since I was six. I was accustomed to being
Speaker 1: in the woods at night, having taken several frog gigging
Speaker 1: trips with my father to remote ponds throughout Union County,
Speaker 1: where we would spend hours tromping around the darkness up
Speaker 1: to my chest and water. It was not unusual for
Speaker 1: us to encounter snakes, deer, raccoons, and other wildlife. Jim
Speaker 1: and I hiked about two miles and made camp in
Speaker 1: a clear area of hardwoods just above a waterfall in
Speaker 1: the creek in the center of the track. Accompanying us
Speaker 1: was my dog, Alicia. She was a German shepherd who
Speaker 1: was fiercely loyal and followed me everywhere. Back then, there
Speaker 1: were no leash laws, and she patrolled my family's seven
Speaker 1: acre home site religiously, chasing off all manner of animals.
Speaker 1: She was accustomed to the wildlife in our area, and
Speaker 1: it was common for her to wake us up after
Speaker 1: cornering a possum or a raccoon on our patio late
Speaker 1: at night. After exploring the area all day, we settled
Speaker 1: in for the night with a knight's fire. Sometime late
Speaker 1: in the evening, we were both awakened by my dog.
Speaker 1: Lesha was making a weird combination of noises, sort of
Speaker 1: a mix of whining and growling. She came in the tent,
Speaker 1: pacing and cowering between us. She had never done anything
Speaker 1: like that before, and it baffled me. She couldnot be consoled.
Speaker 1: Lesha would bark incessantly at strangers, dogs or wildlife, or
Speaker 1: she would chase them off without hesitation. But I had
Speaker 1: never seen her behave the way that she did that night,
Speaker 1: nor did I see her act that way again after.
Speaker 1: As we sat awake pondering what was causing her reaction.
Speaker 1: There were noises out in the woods. The first one
Speaker 1: that got our attention was a tree falling. We heard
Speaker 1: distinctive cracks and then the sound of a massive tree
Speaker 1: hitting the ground. It was a familiar sound to me
Speaker 1: because we would push over rotten pine trees and kill
Speaker 1: pine beetles for the fun. This usually required at least
Speaker 1: several boys to slowly push a tree at its base
Speaker 1: until it began to sway, and then push into each
Speaker 1: sway until the momentum caused it to break near the
Speaker 1: base and fall. It wasn't an easy feet but we
Speaker 1: would get it done. Dead or rotten tree fall and
Speaker 1: living tree fall has distinctively different sounds. When the dead
Speaker 1: tree falls, the cracking is dry and quick, there is
Speaker 1: no resistance. But when a healthy tree falls, you hear
Speaker 1: the moisture in the wood protesting. You hear the tearing
Speaker 1: of the bark and the trunk resisting as the fiber split.
Speaker 1: Several of us would never have been able to push
Speaker 1: over a living tree, no matter how hard we tried.
Speaker 1: The tree we heard was green, it was alive. The
Speaker 1: sound of hitting the ground was heavy and dense with
Speaker 1: moisture and shook the earth under our tent. When I
Speaker 1: heard it break in the middle of the night, in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere, I got a shiver. I knew
Speaker 1: that whatever had made this happen was something big, and
Speaker 1: my dog was afraid of it. I shared my concern
Speaker 1: with Jim, and we began to hear distinctive footfalls in
Speaker 1: the dry leaves. The foot falls were heavy and they
Speaker 1: sounded like a person slowly walking. The footsteps grew fainter.
Speaker 1: We heard another living tree fall, and then silence. It
Speaker 1: took some time for my dog to settle down, but
Speaker 1: she never barked or chased after whatever it was. We
Speaker 1: did not go to sleep at all after that, and
Speaker 1: we couldn't wait for daylight to get out of the woods.
Speaker 1: I still live in this area and frequently travel through
Speaker 1: that section of woods. Because it has now been converted
Speaker 1: into a public park, I have continued to camp and
Speaker 1: hunt in and around this area for as long as
Speaker 1: I can remember. That particular area was, for many years
Speaker 1: prior to the park's establishment, my favorite deer hunting area
Speaker 1: due to the abundance of the animals. The northern section
Speaker 1: is surrounded by farmland and the entire track is intersected
Speaker 1: by several creeks which now form a big lake. In
Speaker 1: all my time in the woods, I have never encountered
Speaker 1: anything that would explain what we heard that night. I
Speaker 1: recently became interested in the Bigfoot phenomenon, and I've been
Speaker 1: researching accounts in folklore. This unusual childhood experience remains vivid,
Speaker 1: and it is now quite evident to me that sosquatch
Speaker 1: explains everything we heard. It is, in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: only creature that would have had that kind of effect
Speaker 1: on my German shepherd, and the only creature that would
Speaker 1: have had the ability to push over a massive, green
Speaker 1: living tree. I grew up in a small town outskirts
Speaker 1: of Cincinnati, Ohio. My father and I lived in an
Speaker 1: old log cabin situated in the middle of the woods.
Speaker 1: He used to always cut trees for heat in the winter,
Speaker 1: and on the weekends I would help him load the
Speaker 1: truck and whatnot. Our white German shepherd named Duke was
Speaker 1: my favorite companion. He was beautiful and in the winter
Speaker 1: he would come busting out of the woods on either
Speaker 1: side of the trail and look like a majestic wolf.
Speaker 1: He was my best friend. One day, my father, Duke
Speaker 1: and I were walking the creek after a day of swimming,
Speaker 1: when we came up on a set of tracks that's
Speaker 1: about ten years years old at that time now. I
Speaker 1: asked my father if they were dukes. He said, no,
Speaker 1: they weren't. They were from a feeline, probably a big
Speaker 1: bobcat or something of that nature. Well, put it out
Speaker 1: of my mind and we continued on. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how much longer this was, since when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: time really does fly. But Duke and I were outside
Speaker 1: of the log cabin, playing in the yard as kids do,
Speaker 1: when all of a sudden, Duke got so close to
Speaker 1: me that I couldn't walk without tripping over him. That's
Speaker 1: when I looked up at our long gravel driveway and
Speaker 1: I saw what made those tracks. It was a massive
Speaker 1: eight foot long black cat slinking its way from us
Speaker 1: up the long gravel driveway. I know things seemed larger
Speaker 1: when you're a kid, but this thing really was big.
Speaker 1: I never saw its face, just its long, slender body
Speaker 1: and its tail whipping left to right. I know a
Speaker 1: cat when I see one, just like everyone else in
Speaker 1: the world does. It had the grace and agility and
Speaker 1: stealth of an assassin. My German shepherd was a good size,
Speaker 1: maybe eighty pounds, but this cat dwarfed him. That's what
Speaker 1: I realized. Duke had saved my life. If I had
Speaker 1: been out there alone, that cat would have easily killed me.
Speaker 1: If you search the internet for black panthers living in
Speaker 1: North America, the answers you will get or that they
Speaker 1: flied out don't exist here. But I know what I saw.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a pet that got too big to
Speaker 1: keep and was set loose. In the nineteen eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: people had a thing for exotic pets intended to let
Speaker 1: them loose when they got too big. All I know
Speaker 1: is that I saw a monster panther that day, and
Speaker 1: my German Shepherd saved my life. I'll never forget that day.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget that cat or my dog, Duke. Thank
Speaker 1: you for reading this. Signing off. In two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: I lived in an old house with a couple of
Speaker 1: acres and a swamp nearby. It was in southeast Georgia
Speaker 1: and Bullock County, about an hour northwest of Savannah. There's
Speaker 1: a ditch between my property and my grandmother's property that's
Speaker 1: four feet deep. Red swamp maple grows on both sides
Speaker 1: of it, and you wouldn't know it was there unless
Speaker 1: you're paying attention when you're passing it from the road.
Speaker 1: It runs in a tee from the front of the
Speaker 1: property back to the swamp behind the house, and then
Speaker 1: into a vernal pond that dries up every summer. It
Speaker 1: hadn't rained, so the ditch was dry as a bone.
Speaker 1: Our family reunion was held at my grandmother's property every
Speaker 1: April and has been held every year there for sixty
Speaker 1: five years. My brother and I and our families were
Speaker 1: always last to call it a night. It was getting
Speaker 1: late when we heard a strange sound outside. One of
Speaker 1: my brothers said it could have been a screech owl.
Speaker 1: We left it at that and said our goodbyes, and
Speaker 1: I headed for bed. I had become disabled the year before,
Speaker 1: and I used a wheelchair. I could stand, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't walk for because the cartilage in both of my
Speaker 1: hips had worn out. I had learned that sleeping on
Speaker 1: the couch was easier to get out of than getting
Speaker 1: out of my bed, so I'd taken to sleeping in
Speaker 1: the living room. I never left any lights on because
Speaker 1: the windows faced east and west, and the yard light
Speaker 1: lit up the interior of the house enough for me
Speaker 1: to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: There were three windows in the living room, each three
Speaker 1: feet wide and five feet long. These were old windows
Speaker 1: that my dad had removed and rebuilt, and were made
Speaker 1: of that thin old glass that looks like it's melting.
Speaker 1: The window that faced west was five feet off the ground.
Speaker 1: That night, it was just me and my pug, Blinky,
Speaker 1: who was then eight years old. He was a good
Speaker 1: little watch dog, and he sounded like he was ten
Speaker 1: feet tall when he went on alert, even though he
Speaker 1: only weighed twelve pounds. I just laid on the couch
Speaker 1: and blink. He laid down on the floor beside me.
Speaker 1: I was almost asleep when all of a sudden, an
Speaker 1: ungodly scream came from the ditch. It sounded like the
Speaker 1: one my brothers and I had heard earlier, but it
Speaker 1: was closer and louder and wilder this time. I started
Speaker 1: to sit up when Blinky sailed up to my chest,
Speaker 1: knocking my breath out of me and banging like he
Speaker 1: was a huge dog. He barked for a good five minutes.
Speaker 1: His fur was bristling like I'd never seen before. He
Speaker 1: wouldn't let me sit up, and he kept jumping onto
Speaker 1: my chest every time I moved him down to my legs.
Speaker 1: I found my big flashlight, which I kept between the
Speaker 1: couch and the cushions, and I shined it out into
Speaker 1: the swamp maples, shining it back and forth and then
Speaker 1: up and down the tree. Blinky finally got off me
Speaker 1: and I was able to sit up. I turned off
Speaker 1: the flashlight, using my furniture as a support. I went
Speaker 1: into the bathroom with Blinky following me, looking through the
Speaker 1: window in the bathroom outside, but I couldn't see anything.
Speaker 1: I was still afraid. That night, Blinkie and I slept
Speaker 1: in my master closet with the interior door shut tight
Speaker 1: and lock. I've heard a black panther before. There's one
Speaker 1: in the Pennsylvania Zoo that screamed right at me, so
Speaker 1: I knew what I heard wasn't a panther. We had
Speaker 1: bobcats and foxes on the farm, and it wasn't either
Speaker 1: of them. We don't have porcupines and raccoons and possums
Speaker 1: don't scream like what I heard that night. I don't
Speaker 1: know what Blinky and I heard, but I've never been
Speaker 1: so scared in all my life. Blinky passed away in
Speaker 1: my arms in twenty sixteen at thirteen years old, and
Speaker 1: I moved to the Arizona Desert last year. There are
Speaker 1: no trees here, and that means that there's nowhere for
Speaker 1: any large animals or mystery creatures to hide, or so
Speaker 1: I'm told. Now, I just have to be aware of rattlesnakes, tarantulas,
Speaker 1: and bark scorpions. Oh that was a great story, but
Speaker 1: I'm so sad about your pug, Blinkie. We have a
Speaker 1: little pug. Her name is Lily. Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: love that dog. She's a stinky little thing and she's
Speaker 1: a snorty snorter. You know how pugs are. They're just
Speaker 1: little footballs and their faces are all alienike. Have you
Speaker 1: ever looked in a pug's mouth. They have the weirdest
Speaker 1: skull structure of any dog I've ever seen. But it's
Speaker 1: one of the oldest breeds in human history that I think.
Speaker 1: They come out of China, but they're the I want
Speaker 1: to just tell y'all, if anybody's looking for a family pet,
Speaker 1: a pug is the absolute best family pet you can buy.
Speaker 1: I love labs. I have a little pit bull mix.
Speaker 1: We have a hairless Mexican Terrier. He's a great dog.
Speaker 1: And all of our dogs are good, but that pug
Speaker 1: she may or may not be my favorite. But if
Speaker 1: you're looking for just a family pet, a dog that's
Speaker 1: good with kids, it's a lap dog that's lovable. I
Speaker 1: mean their faces are shapes so that they just can't
Speaker 1: hardly bite you. They're a great dog to raise with
Speaker 1: a family. So anyway, that's my dog advice for the day.
Speaker 1: Thank you to the writer for the story. I thought
Speaker 1: it was good. Thanks. In July of two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: I moved to Murphisboro, Tennessee, to begin graduate studies in
Speaker 1: the biology program at Middle Tennessee State University. It was
Speaker 1: during the tail end of a recession, and I had
Speaker 1: been working for a surveyor who could only pay me
Speaker 1: for three days a week, so I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of money. I drove around downtown Murphisborough and was
Speaker 1: overtaken by a nostalgic mood. This quiet, old downtown neighborhood,
Speaker 1: in the tree lined streets leading up to the old
Speaker 1: courthouse on the Square was where I had lived ten
Speaker 1: years prior to this. I ran these old streets in
Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen ninety nine, with their turning leaves
Speaker 1: the orange and yellow of the sugar maples leading up
Speaker 1: to the square. I would be attending Navy Officers Candidate
Speaker 1: School at the beginning of the next year, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to get in shape. A decade later, I had
Speaker 1: come to take advantage of the educational opportunity my service
Speaker 1: had afforded me. I saw a four rent sign at
Speaker 1: an old building on Lydall Street, just a block from
Speaker 1: the campus. I walked into the open front door. There
Speaker 1: was an apartment on either side. I walked up the
Speaker 1: creaky wooden stairs to find two more apartments up top.
Speaker 1: The door stood wide opened to one of them. It
Speaker 1: was dirty. Animal feces was on the floor. A large
Speaker 1: old window was open, letting in the ninety degree air.
Speaker 1: While this could have been a sign to run away,
Speaker 1: to me, it was a sign that the rent might
Speaker 1: be cheap. I called the number on the sign out
Speaker 1: front and was told to drive up the street to
Speaker 1: the owner's law office and sign the rental agreement. I
Speaker 1: chose apartment three upstairs, across the hall from the one
Speaker 1: I had walked into on my initial visit. It had
Speaker 1: just been repainted and the floors were swept. A small
Speaker 1: air conditioner did what it could do to cool the
Speaker 1: large rooms with the old drafty windows, but I didn't
Speaker 1: mind the heat too much. Air Conditioning in the summer
Speaker 1: has always given me chills. Some friends helped me move
Speaker 1: my belongings down from Nashville. Everything I owned at the
Speaker 1: time could be carried in two loads in the bed
Speaker 1: of my Ford Ranger pickup truck. I settled into my
Speaker 1: new apartment and in a couple of weeks classes began,
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed being back on college campus, pretty girls,
Speaker 1: thought provoking conversation, not being on a tight work day schedule.
Speaker 1: There was a learning curve also as a graduate student,
Speaker 1: I had earned extra money teaching biology labs. I had
Speaker 1: forgotten statistics, and my first lab found me teaching students
Speaker 1: about the tea test, which I did not recall having
Speaker 1: ever heard before this lab. Incidentally, it was invented by
Speaker 1: the head brewmaster at Guinness in the early nineteen hundreds
Speaker 1: as a way to do a statistical quality control on
Speaker 1: batches of that fine stout. Some days I would walk
Speaker 1: back home between classes and take a nap. I've always
Speaker 1: been a napper, but rarely do I fall into a
Speaker 1: deep sleep, definitely not enough to enter a dream state.
Speaker 1: I was surprised to suddenly be awakened by a loud whistle,
Speaker 1: sharp like when someone puts their thumb and finger in
Speaker 1: the edge of their mouth and really blows. I looked
Speaker 1: outside and saw that the school two doors down was
Speaker 1: letting out, and cars lined up the street waiting to
Speaker 1: pick up their children. Other kids were running down the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: Shortly after this, I was asleep one night when again
Speaker 1: I was awakened by that whistle. I rose up and
Speaker 1: the only sound in the room was a steady hum
Speaker 1: of my fan. I looked out the open window by
Speaker 1: my bed, but I didn't see anyone walking around in
Speaker 1: the darkness. The hair on the back of my neck
Speaker 1: stood up a little, and I didn't sleep well for
Speaker 1: the rest of that night. A short time later, I
Speaker 1: was out in the front yard smoking a cigarette and
Speaker 1: talking with my neighbor. She, with her husband and daughter,
Speaker 1: lived in apartment one downstairs. The other two apartments were
Speaker 1: still empty as IRA call. Now. This doesn't have much
Speaker 1: to do with the story, but I believe it bears
Speaker 1: pointing out that she was a witch. She always wore black,
Speaker 1: but this, being Murphers Burro goth was always in style.
Speaker 1: But one day I had seen her and her husband
Speaker 1: walking across the backyard slowly ceremoniously. Her husband was a
Speaker 1: normal enough ponytail guy who worked at the bunny bread
Speaker 1: plant in town. Or maybe it was Pillsbury, I can't remember,
Speaker 1: it's irrelevant. She carried a round mirror with a candle
Speaker 1: and a pentagram made from dried weeds on top of it.
Speaker 1: They walked to the dilapidated woodshed out back. Hours later,
Speaker 1: I walked out and found the mirror and pentagram of weeds.
Speaker 1: It was still setting in that shed when my girlfriend
Speaker 1: and I moved out to our apartment several years later.
Speaker 1: I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. Talking with
Speaker 1: my neighbor, who was sitting in the arm of a
Speaker 1: dogwood tree on an overcast November day after general pleasant trees,
Speaker 1: she asked me if I had ever experienced anything strange
Speaker 1: in the house. No, not really, I said, why do
Speaker 1: you ask? Just wondering, she said. I was about to
Speaker 1: walk back inside when I said, you know, there is
Speaker 1: one thing I think it's strange. You get the whistle
Speaker 1: don't you, she said. Suddenly a shudder ran over me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, My daughter gets the whistle too. She said
Speaker 1: she's learned to ignore it. We said about talking some more,
Speaker 1: and we talked about supposed haunted houses in downtown Murphisboro.
Speaker 1: My neighbor told me about one house she had heard
Speaker 1: about with a child's handprints that couldn't be painted over.
Speaker 1: She heard that they just kept bleeding back through. Oh
Speaker 1: that's creepy, I said, and then walked back inside. Either
Speaker 1: that night or the next, I was sitting on the
Speaker 1: hardwood floor in my living room working on a project
Speaker 1: for a class. Not having an overhead light, I had
Speaker 1: set the lamp in the floor next to me so
Speaker 1: I could see while I glued leaves and stems to
Speaker 1: some thick paper. The light at this low angle cast
Speaker 1: a room in a new perspective, and looking up, I
Speaker 1: saw it. In the corner on the wall next to
Speaker 1: the kitchen door were two small handprints. It appeared to
Speaker 1: be two right hand prints from a child, and my
Speaker 1: jaw dropped. I ran down to my neighbor's apartment and
Speaker 1: got her and her husband to walk up. I didn't
Speaker 1: tell them what for, I just said you're not going
Speaker 1: to believe this. My neighbor reacted as expected, with a
Speaker 1: string of expletives signifying incredulous surprise. They walked back downstairs,
Speaker 1: still dumbfound by the prints on the wall. I finished
Speaker 1: my work for the night and I went to bed,
Speaker 1: and I rationalized the hand prints as being from a
Speaker 1: child who had left an indelible mark in a workman's
Speaker 1: fresh plaster many years ago. Well time went on, and
Speaker 1: I would occasionally show the handprints to friends who came
Speaker 1: over to the house, a curiosity in an old house
Speaker 1: that would elicit a reaction of creepy surprise, but little more.
Speaker 1: Also don't remember getting the whistle anymore by this time.
Speaker 1: A year later, in November of twenty ten, I was
Speaker 1: taking a course in statistics and had a mild romantic
Speaker 1: interest in a pretty girl in the class. She came
Speaker 1: over one evening before a test to study. Heated up
Speaker 1: some frozen chicken nuggets, and we sat on my bed
Speaker 1: studying and watching TV. After a while, we got tired
Speaker 1: of studying and just talk for a while. I poured
Speaker 1: her a glass of wine and I had a beer.
Speaker 1: Around eleven o'clock, she went home. I took her wine glass,
Speaker 1: and I set it on the counter by the sink,
Speaker 1: and I went to bed. I woke up sometime in
Speaker 1: the night and walked to the kitchen to get a
Speaker 1: drink of water, and there it was, the wine glass,
Speaker 1: sat upright on the kitchen floor, eight or ten feet
Speaker 1: from the sink, in the middle of the doorway where
Speaker 1: the handprints were. Now. Maybe I was preoccupied with my
Speaker 1: date that evening, but for whatever reason, I didn't think
Speaker 1: anything of it. I was just glad the glass hadn't broken.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I got up and made my oat meal,
Speaker 1: heating up the water in a little red camping cup.
Speaker 1: After eating, I washed my travel mug for coffee, and
Speaker 1: I sat on the counter and began washing my spoon
Speaker 1: and bowl. The travel mug fell off the counter somehow,
Speaker 1: traveling halfway across the kitchen. It struck me as odd,
Speaker 1: but then again, things could easily fall off around it
Speaker 1: edge of an old enameled countertop if placed too close
Speaker 1: to the edge. So I walked onto class with my
Speaker 1: coffee in hand. I think I had to teach labs
Speaker 1: that day, because I didn't come back until four or
Speaker 1: four point thirty that afternoon. As I walked up the sidewalk. Levi,
Speaker 1: who lived downstairs, and our friend Jason were sitting on
Speaker 1: the points drinking a beer. Over the course of that day,
Speaker 1: I thought about the wineglass being moved across the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and to some extent, my coffee mug flying across the counter.
Speaker 1: I told them what had happened, and was met with
Speaker 1: the dude that's weird reactions that I had expected. I
Speaker 1: sang a few bars of the Twilight's On theme and
Speaker 1: then suggested that we go up to the booro and
Speaker 1: get some beers. They agreed that was a good idea.
Speaker 1: So I walked upstairs to drop off my backpack, and
Speaker 1: my draw dropped and chills ran all over my body.
Speaker 1: When I walked in the door, the little red cup
Speaker 1: that I had heated water that morning was now sitting
Speaker 1: in the kitchen doorway, exactly where the wine glass had
Speaker 1: sat the night before. I ran back downstairs and I
Speaker 1: got my buddies to come up. We all looked at
Speaker 1: each other in disbelief, and then we walked back downstairs
Speaker 1: and went to the bar. I don't recall if it
Speaker 1: was later that evening or the next, but Levi and
Speaker 1: I were sitting up in my apartment. It may have
Speaker 1: been the same evening, because I remember I was a
Speaker 1: little scared to be there by myself. I sat at
Speaker 1: my desk, which was right beside the kitchen door, right
Speaker 1: across from the handprints. Levi stood in the kitchen doorway.
Speaker 1: We drank beer and talked about girls and guitars and songwriting,
Speaker 1: and are usually topics of conversation, but we also talked
Speaker 1: about the unexplainable events of the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: And that's when I saw it move. A metal yard
Speaker 1: stick was leaning up in the corner where the handprint
Speaker 1: and swere five feet from where I sat. I looked
Speaker 1: in the corner and the yarchstick began to shake vigorously.
Speaker 1: I grabbed Levi and pointed to the corner. The yardstick
Speaker 1: shook for a couple of more seconds, and then it stopped.
Speaker 1: At this point, the kitchen door, which was always open,
Speaker 1: slammed on Levi's back and shoulder. We looked at each
Speaker 1: other because this was just too odd. But as soon
Speaker 1: as he pushed the door back, it slammed again. I
Speaker 1: don't recall for sure, but it may have slammed a
Speaker 1: third time. We both stood in the doorway, jumping and
Speaker 1: leaning hard into the door, trying to make it close again,
Speaker 1: just to see if Levi could have jarred the door
Speaker 1: causing it to close. We never got it to move.
Speaker 1: After a while, Levi went downstairs to go to bed
Speaker 1: because he had to go to Worth. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I crawled into my bed, but sleep was hard to
Speaker 1: come by. The Next day, I was talking to a
Speaker 1: girl who sat next to me in my medicinal plants class,
Speaker 1: and I told her about the strange events that I
Speaker 1: had experienced. She told me that this sounded like a
Speaker 1: spirit that was about to manifest itself and it could
Speaker 1: be in a terrifying form. Well, this was not encouraging,
Speaker 1: since I thought perhaps this was just a friendly ghost.
Speaker 1: She suggested that I burned sage to clean the house.
Speaker 1: Without going into a long sidetrack as to why, I'll
Speaker 1: just say that I already had a bundle of sage
Speaker 1: in the house. I went home that evening and sat
Speaker 1: on the front porch with Levi's roommate, who was named Mike.
Speaker 1: After a beer, we walked upstairs and we lit the sage.
Speaker 1: Only the kitchen light was on, and I don't recall
Speaker 1: why I didn't turn on any of the other lamps.
Speaker 1: I walked through the apartment with the sage and making
Speaker 1: up a cleansing ritual as I went. There's nothing but
Speaker 1: love here, I said, I bring nothing but love, but
Speaker 1: I live here. I pay rent. You don't belong here.
Speaker 1: And then Mike interjected, but if you're here, show yourself. No, no,
Speaker 1: I never want to see you. I have nothing but love,
Speaker 1: but you need to go wherever you're supposed to go.
Speaker 1: I pay the rent here, I continued to say. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: Mike went back downstairs, and I sat alone in the apartment,
Speaker 1: and the aroma of the sage strong throughout the rooms.
Speaker 1: I went to bed that night and slept well. I
Speaker 1: slept well from then on. There were no other ghostly occurrences.
Speaker 1: Those events so many years ago left me with a
Speaker 1: good ghost story to tell. But the event has also
Speaker 1: left me with something more. When someone I love passes
Speaker 1: away and friends and family attempt to comfort us by
Speaker 1: talking about the afterlife, I tell them, I know we
Speaker 1: live on past our earthly bodies. Don't say this based
Speaker 1: on faith. I know it from experience. I learned that
Speaker 1: ghosts are real on Lytle Street, on those overcasts. November
Speaker 1: days many years ago. The building still stands with its
Speaker 1: quadruplex of apartments, creaky wooden floors and stairs, but it
Speaker 1: has been completely renovated now with modern windows that keep
Speaker 1: out cold drafts and modern cabinets and countertops. No one
Speaker 1: I know lives there any longer, but I would like
Speaker 1: to stop by one afternoon and strike up a conversation.
Speaker 1: I want to ask, do you ever hear a strange
Speaker 1: whistle at night? Okay, I think that's going to do
Speaker 1: it for this podcast. I certainly appreciate you finding me
Speaker 1: out on the podcast network, whether you're listening from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbeam,
Speaker 1: any podcast app a good five star review if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed it would be a huge help to me. If
Speaker 1: you can find that in the app. I can never
Speaker 1: find it, but some people leave me review and I
Speaker 1: would appreciate that it helps my podcast grow and helps
Speaker 1: me keep doing this. Gives me a lot of encouragement.
Speaker 1: So thanks for listening, and we'll see you guys on
Speaker 1: the next one.