1
00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:12,960
Speaker 1: It was just after dark in two thousand and eight,

2
00:00:13,359 --> 00:00:16,519
and I think it was July. My nephew and I

3
00:00:16,559 --> 00:00:18,839
had spent the day swimming at the stream just at

4
00:00:18,879 --> 00:00:21,160
the edge of the campground that backed up next to

5
00:00:21,199 --> 00:00:25,199
the river here in the Ozarks. About half an hour

6
00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:28,800
before dark, we decided to start fishing. We fished in

7
00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:31,640
peace with the noise of the campground behind us for

8
00:00:31,679 --> 00:00:34,600
about an hour or so, and by the time all

9
00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:37,920
the daylight faded and night took over, I was finally

10
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:41,439
starting to get some nibbles from the fish. I had

11
00:00:41,439 --> 00:00:44,280
my swim trunk still on, so I decided to wait

12
00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:49,159
across the shallow stream. I had an led headlight that

13
00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:52,679
could change the three different colors. I had the white

14
00:00:52,759 --> 00:00:55,600
light on as I crossed the stream, and I found

15
00:00:55,640 --> 00:00:59,000
a little sandbar to stand about knee deep in the water.

16
00:01:00,079 --> 00:01:02,200
Was about twenty five feet from the far side of

17
00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:04,959
the river bank, which was nothing but thick forest and

18
00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:08,920
a steep hillside. I settled into my little spot and

19
00:01:08,959 --> 00:01:12,319
I flipped my headlight to the red led light, and

20
00:01:12,439 --> 00:01:15,319
I cast my line into the water near some logs

21
00:01:15,439 --> 00:01:17,799
I had noticed on the other side of the river bank.

22
00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:21,319
As soon as my bait hit the water with no

23
00:01:21,480 --> 00:01:24,239
warning at all. Something smacked the water three feet in

24
00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:27,319
front of me. It could have been closer, so close

25
00:01:27,359 --> 00:01:29,599
that I felt a hard thud on the river bottom

26
00:01:29,640 --> 00:01:32,599
with my feet, and I turned my head to look

27
00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:35,159
back at my nephew, only to see him drop his

28
00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:38,640
pole and start running back to his mother at the campsite.

29
00:01:39,439 --> 00:01:42,760
I snapped my head back towards the direction from whatever

30
00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:46,599
this thing was had come from. Hey, I shouted into

31
00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:49,599
the trees, and I flipped my headlight onto the bright

32
00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:53,239
white setting and grabbed my hand held flashlight, dashed in

33
00:01:53,359 --> 00:01:56,480
my front pocket of my swim trunks, and drowned the

34
00:01:56,519 --> 00:01:58,799
trees with light, trying to get a glimpse of what

35
00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:02,760
had thrown such a hit heavy object at me. I

36
00:02:02,879 --> 00:02:05,959
was scanning the woods and was overcome with the distinct

37
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:10,120
feeling that I was very vulnerable, that I was being watched,

38
00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:12,759
and I decided that I didn't want to stand there

39
00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,840
alone any longer. And I have to say that that

40
00:02:15,919 --> 00:02:17,759
has never happened to me. And I grew up in

41
00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:21,120
Saint Louis. It can be a violent city to live in,

42
00:02:21,159 --> 00:02:23,719
and I was kind of a rough kid. I never

43
00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:27,800
backed down from a confrontation, so I quickly waded back

44
00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:30,280
across the river bank, making sure not to turn my

45
00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:33,879
back on the direction I thought it had come from.

46
00:02:34,599 --> 00:02:37,080
Later that night, we heard a pack of wolves tear

47
00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:40,400
through the night with their howls. It was close enough

48
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:43,960
to make your skin crawl. Then we heard the coyotes,

49
00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:46,719
and I mean we heard tons of them, and it

50
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:50,400
sounded like they were following the wolves. I mentioned this

51
00:02:50,479 --> 00:02:54,080
because I have heard people discuss that wolves follow bigfoots

52
00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:58,599
and coyotes follow wolves. All I know is that I

53
00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:02,000
have camped all over these Missouri woods. There are some

54
00:03:02,159 --> 00:03:05,680
spots down here in these Oozar Kills that seemed mysterious

55
00:03:05,719 --> 00:03:08,879
as all get out, and there's no telling what's yet

56
00:03:08,879 --> 00:03:14,319
to be found. We all have those friends that we

57
00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:17,919
would be better off without, and my friend Charlie was

58
00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:20,759
that friend. To be fair, I was that friend to

59
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:25,439
him too. The adrenaline Russian excitement that we brought to

60
00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:29,159
each other's lives were too fun to resist. We were

61
00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:31,719
usually in trouble one way or the other when we

62
00:03:31,719 --> 00:03:35,199
were together. In fact, after some of the hot water

63
00:03:35,319 --> 00:03:38,800
we got ourselves into it's a miracle that I'm still

64
00:03:38,919 --> 00:03:42,960
on this side of the grass. We were best friends

65
00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:47,280
for almost thirty years. Our favorite pastimes were fishing, hunting,

66
00:03:47,319 --> 00:03:50,599
and shooting anything from bows and arrows to guns to

67
00:03:50,680 --> 00:03:54,479
homemade spud launchers which made great mortars for boats on

68
00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:58,919
a lake. We used giant slingshots to launch water balloons

69
00:03:58,919 --> 00:04:01,680
at water skiers, and we put open cans of cat

70
00:04:01,759 --> 00:04:05,000
food in the cars of people we did not like man.

71
00:04:05,039 --> 00:04:07,280
That is one of the foulest odors to ever get

72
00:04:07,319 --> 00:04:11,400
sucked into a person's nose, especially on a hot summer day.

73
00:04:12,719 --> 00:04:15,439
We love turkey and deer hunting, and Charlie's mother and

74
00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:19,199
stepfather owned sixty acres in Kentucky and we got to

75
00:04:19,319 --> 00:04:22,560
use that land. And on top of that, we had

76
00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:26,040
permission to hunt almost all the properties surrounding that form,

77
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:30,160
which was almost two thousand acres. We both had three

78
00:04:30,160 --> 00:04:33,560
wheelers to start with, but later in life we graduated

79
00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:37,600
to quads. Those Honda two fifties were awesome to play on.

80
00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:42,439
There was one form we were prohibited from hunting. It

81
00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:45,600
was the Sherman Farm. It was on the other side

82
00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:48,120
of the highway. But Charlie had a different take on

83
00:04:48,279 --> 00:04:52,439
that property, as it once belonged to his grandfather and

84
00:04:52,519 --> 00:04:55,079
when the government cut the highway through the county, they

85
00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:59,079
divided his grandfather's farm, which resulted in two thirds of

86
00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:03,639
the property because coming inaccessible. In order to access it,

87
00:05:03,800 --> 00:05:07,120
his grandfather needed to cross the land of the Sherman family,

88
00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:12,079
but Sherman Senior would not allow it. Well, it didn't

89
00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:16,240
take long before Charlie's grandfather started to struggle, and soon

90
00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:18,800
after that he had to sell his land to the Shermans,

91
00:05:19,079 --> 00:05:21,519
the family who cut him off from his own property.

92
00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:25,040
He was offered ten cents on the dollar, but not

93
00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:28,600
having any other options, he took the deal just to survive.

94
00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:34,199
In turn, some twenty plus years later, along came to

95
00:05:34,439 --> 00:05:39,160
yahoos As Charlie and I were often called running carefree

96
00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:42,279
all over the county, and as you can probably guess,

97
00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:46,360
we did not respect the boundaries of the Sherman family farm.

98
00:05:47,079 --> 00:05:49,120
We discovered that we could ride our hon to two

99
00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:52,920
fifty three wheelers under the highway through a drain culvert

100
00:05:53,079 --> 00:05:55,839
and pop out on the creek on the other side,

101
00:05:56,199 --> 00:05:58,680
giving us a route into two hundred acres of some

102
00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:02,240
of the most adrenaline to off road trails we could find.

103
00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:07,560
The property also held a good population of bucks and gobblers,

104
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,360
but when we hunted that farm, we would cross the

105
00:06:10,439 --> 00:06:13,360
highway by foot right over the top so our rides

106
00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:18,040
wouldn't be found. It was during turkey season and we

107
00:06:18,079 --> 00:06:20,680
had already hunted quite a bit that week, and we

108
00:06:20,759 --> 00:06:24,720
decided to sneak into the Sherman family's land anyway to

109
00:06:24,759 --> 00:06:27,160
fill up a couple of bread bags with some spike

110
00:06:27,279 --> 00:06:30,319
mushrooms and others that grew over on that side a

111
00:06:30,319 --> 00:06:34,360
lot better than around Charlie's mom's place. And while we

112
00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:36,879
were there, we decided that we would try to call

113
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:39,160
in a tom or two with some words of love

114
00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:43,480
from our turkey callers. The next morning, we snuck over

115
00:06:43,519 --> 00:06:47,079
the highway and into the woods. Almost like clockwork, the

116
00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:50,879
gobblings started. But the bad thing was that the gobblers

117
00:06:50,879 --> 00:06:52,920
were on the other ridge and we had to cross

118
00:06:52,959 --> 00:06:56,920
an open bottom to get there. We slipped into ninja

119
00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,560
mode and got our outlaw butts into gear and ran

120
00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:02,439
over to where the birds were calling, and by the

121
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:06,639
time we got there everything was quiet. We knew we

122
00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:08,839
had to get them worked up and excited, so we

123
00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:11,680
put out three decoys on an old logging road and

124
00:07:11,720 --> 00:07:15,079
we hunkered down against a couple of trees. We slipped

125
00:07:15,079 --> 00:07:17,560
a couple of callers under our mouths and fired up

126
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,360
some love songs and promised those times the time of

127
00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:26,360
their lives. But the reply was not what we expected.

128
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,079
A couple of seconds after we finished our calls, six

129
00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:34,399
bullets of flu right past our heads. Charlie and I

130
00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:37,480
looked at each other with wide eyes and pale faces,

131
00:07:37,879 --> 00:07:40,439
and sat as still as we could, letting our camo

132
00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:43,720
do its job, and not wanting to give away our position.

133
00:07:45,279 --> 00:07:48,399
We were turkey hunters and woodsmen, and I cannot tell

134
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:51,040
you how many times I have called other hunters to

135
00:07:51,199 --> 00:07:54,279
me and had them within arms reached before I said

136
00:07:54,279 --> 00:07:57,160
something to them, just to scare them into learning a

137
00:07:57,240 --> 00:08:00,319
lesson about the difference between a real gobble and a

138
00:08:00,319 --> 00:08:04,319
turkey callar. But this time was different, though, this was

139
00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:08,920
about survival. I looked over at Charlie and I wondered

140
00:08:08,959 --> 00:08:12,240
if we should make ourselves known, when from behind us,

141
00:08:12,279 --> 00:08:16,399
in about half the distance as before, came six more shots.

142
00:08:17,399 --> 00:08:20,519
They whizzed past our heads again and sent us both

143
00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:24,040
to our feet, tearing down the old logging road, and

144
00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:26,160
we ran as hard as we could go, and we

145
00:08:26,199 --> 00:08:28,720
got around the ridge, and we stopped to catch our breath,

146
00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:32,759
but whoever it was, caught up to us in no time,

147
00:08:32,919 --> 00:08:37,559
and since six more shots flying right past us, we

148
00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:41,240
were off again, running for our lives. The highway was

149
00:08:41,279 --> 00:08:43,919
only one hundred and fifty yards away, and if we

150
00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:48,120
reached it we would be home free. But as we ran,

151
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:50,399
we looked to our left and saw an old man

152
00:08:50,480 --> 00:08:53,840
dashing between the trees. He was keeping up with us.

153
00:08:54,840 --> 00:08:57,840
We knew it must have been the Sherman senior and

154
00:08:57,879 --> 00:09:00,000
that he would cut us down if he got the chance.

155
00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:04,000
With a last ditch effort, we tore down the ridge

156
00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:06,120
and right up to the fence and over to a

157
00:09:06,200 --> 00:09:10,200
large drop off alongside the highway. We had never come

158
00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:13,399
out of that area before, but six more shots rang

159
00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:16,159
out from behind us, and we didn't get a chance

160
00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:18,559
to even think about it, And so we took a

161
00:09:18,639 --> 00:09:21,240
leap of faith and we jumped, and we slid down

162
00:09:21,279 --> 00:09:24,360
that rock cliff on our asses right to the shoulder

163
00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:27,679
of the highway, and without so much as looking for

164
00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:31,559
oncoming traffic, we ran across all four lanes to the

165
00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:35,159
concrete runoff that ran next to the porch of Charlie's

166
00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:40,519
mom's farmhouse. We told her what happened, assuming that Sherman's

167
00:09:40,559 --> 00:09:44,039
Senior had probably already called the sheriff on us and

168
00:09:44,159 --> 00:09:47,480
expecting him to roll up any minute. And we begged

169
00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:49,279
her to say that we had been sitting on the

170
00:09:49,279 --> 00:09:52,879
porch all morning with her, but instead she tilted her

171
00:09:52,919 --> 00:09:56,159
head and she looked confused. You ought to go talk

172
00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:58,519
to the fellow who was just here. He left just

173
00:09:58,559 --> 00:10:01,919
a minute ago. She said, what do you mean, who

174
00:10:02,039 --> 00:10:05,799
was it? Charlie asked, it was Sherman Junior. She said,

175
00:10:05,879 --> 00:10:10,200
matter of factly, he came to talk to me. Well,

176
00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:13,360
our hearts fell out of our chests. We knew we

177
00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:16,080
were in for it, thinking that he wanted to confront

178
00:10:16,159 --> 00:10:20,120
us about our trespassing. But Charlie's mom said that the

179
00:10:20,159 --> 00:10:22,679
man was running for office and he had come by

180
00:10:22,759 --> 00:10:25,559
to try to earn her vote, and she told him

181
00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:27,639
that she could not vote for a man whose family

182
00:10:27,679 --> 00:10:32,000
wouldn't even allow her son to hunt their property. In return,

183
00:10:32,279 --> 00:10:34,879
Sherman Junior looked at Charlie's mother in the eye and

184
00:10:34,919 --> 00:10:39,360
apologized for his father's stubbornness. He said that since the

185
00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:42,919
farm was now his, we would be happily given permission

186
00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:47,320
written permission to hunt the property, and Charlie's mother asked

187
00:10:47,360 --> 00:10:50,679
him if something happened to Sherman's Senior, and Junior replied

188
00:10:50,919 --> 00:10:53,799
that he had passed on just a week ago, and

189
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,000
then she handed us a piece of paper with the

190
00:10:56,039 --> 00:10:58,879
written permission to hunt the land we had just been

191
00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:03,080
chased off of. Charlie and I looked at each other.

192
00:11:03,559 --> 00:11:05,720
Neither of us wanted to say it out loud, but

193
00:11:05,799 --> 00:11:09,799
we were both thinking it. The ghost of Sherman ran

194
00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:14,480
us off his property. Since that day, Charlie and I

195
00:11:14,559 --> 00:11:17,759
only ventured over the highway a few more times. There

196
00:11:17,759 --> 00:11:20,279
were never many birds to speak of over there, and

197
00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:25,080
the mushrooms had all vanished. The Shermans pushing dead trees

198
00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:27,919
and brush up along the creek to keep the ATVs

199
00:11:27,960 --> 00:11:31,080
out of the property, and we stopped sneaking over there

200
00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:35,159
and instead hunted birds on our side of the line.

201
00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:39,679
And I must conclude that ultimately Sherman Senior's ghost won

202
00:11:39,960 --> 00:11:42,919
in the end. I guess the reputation of the two

203
00:11:43,039 --> 00:11:46,519
yahos was so bad that even in death, that old

204
00:11:46,559 --> 00:11:52,159
crow didn't want us out there. Something happened on a

205
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:54,639
fishing weekend that I went on with two of my

206
00:11:54,799 --> 00:11:58,759
friends that we have never been able to explain. We

207
00:11:58,759 --> 00:12:01,240
were camping in the woods alone. The sand was Sincto

208
00:12:01,440 --> 00:12:05,519
River at a place my friend Bobby Sea called Van Lakes.

209
00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:09,559
It was a property owned by Louis Berger that was

210
00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:13,039
pretty creepy at night. It reminded me of a Louisiana

211
00:12:13,159 --> 00:12:18,639
swamp with birds and cypress sneeze and blackwater and unidentified noises.

212
00:12:19,919 --> 00:12:22,240
That was the first thing that set us on the edge.

213
00:12:22,799 --> 00:12:26,039
It was an unidentified tree knocking somewhere in the woods,

214
00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:28,799
and there would be two or three knocks, then there'd

215
00:12:28,799 --> 00:12:31,720
be a long pause and there'd be three more knocks.

216
00:12:32,159 --> 00:12:36,080
Nobody lives out here, Bobby said, ominously. I don't know

217
00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,759
who could be doing that. By the end of the day,

218
00:12:39,799 --> 00:12:41,759
we were running out of bait, and we were a

219
00:12:41,799 --> 00:12:45,200
twenty minute drive from the closest bait store. Me and

220
00:12:45,279 --> 00:12:47,759
Joe take the truck and go for more bait. Bobby

221
00:12:47,799 --> 00:12:50,559
said we should be back in forty five minutes or so.

222
00:12:51,799 --> 00:12:54,440
It was my job to stay and keep fishing. We

223
00:12:54,519 --> 00:12:56,960
had seven poles out, so it was going to be

224
00:12:57,080 --> 00:13:01,279
a big job. Ten minutes minutes after they left, it

225
00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:05,159
got quiet. I didn't mean in things quiet down and

226
00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:08,120
got peaceful. It got so quiet I could hear my

227
00:13:08,159 --> 00:13:10,919
own heart beating, and it stayed so quiet that my

228
00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:13,720
heart went from beating to pounding. And then the hares

229
00:13:13,759 --> 00:13:15,840
began to stand up on the back of my neck.

230
00:13:16,519 --> 00:13:19,080
And then I heard something moving in the woods around me,

231
00:13:19,559 --> 00:13:22,159
and I told myself it was Bobby messing with me.

232
00:13:22,840 --> 00:13:25,879
They probably set the whole thing up. That's what I figured.

233
00:13:26,799 --> 00:13:28,759
They'd pretend to go off and buy more baits so

234
00:13:28,759 --> 00:13:30,799
they could jump out of the woods and scare me,

235
00:13:30,919 --> 00:13:33,200
and I figured i'd get them before they got me.

236
00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:37,240
I moved out a little ways as quietly as I could.

237
00:13:37,919 --> 00:13:40,440
Hidden as I was in the shadows of the trees,

238
00:13:40,519 --> 00:13:43,039
they wouldn't have been able to see me. And I

239
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:45,600
stopped and stood there for a minute and I listened.

240
00:13:46,759 --> 00:13:49,840
I was barely allowing myself to breathe at this point,

241
00:13:49,919 --> 00:13:52,320
trying to figure out where they were hiding and how

242
00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:55,360
they were going to jump out at me. And then

243
00:13:55,399 --> 00:13:58,320
I began to hear something up in the trees moving around.

244
00:13:59,279 --> 00:14:02,000
I could tell it big, but I couldn't quite pinpoint

245
00:14:02,039 --> 00:14:04,559
where it was at, and I couldn't see a thing.

246
00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:07,639
And at that moment, one of the fishing poles got hit,

247
00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:09,879
so I eased back over to it and I reeled

248
00:14:09,879 --> 00:14:12,919
it in. There was nothing on the line, but as

249
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:15,919
I stood there baiting the hook, I noticed that everything

250
00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:19,000
went back to normal. All the normal sounds of the

251
00:14:19,080 --> 00:14:22,279
night were back, and I was thinking to myself, what

252
00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:27,200
the heck, while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief. So

253
00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:30,039
whatever it was, it was gone, and I was just

254
00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:34,080
getting comfortable with the idea when it all went quiet again.

255
00:14:35,639 --> 00:14:38,080
That was enough to get me moving, and I started

256
00:14:38,120 --> 00:14:40,519
reeling in the lines as quickly as I could and

257
00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:43,600
gathering up the poles. I wanted out of there so

258
00:14:43,759 --> 00:14:46,600
badly that I didn't even notice when the normal sounds

259
00:14:46,639 --> 00:14:50,159
came back again. I was picking up the last poll

260
00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:53,440
when Bobby and Joe came walking back up and started

261
00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:56,840
asking why I had stopped fishing, So I told him why.

262
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:00,759
About the time that Bobby started telling that there was

263
00:15:00,799 --> 00:15:03,279
nothing in these woods to be afraid of, it got

264
00:15:03,399 --> 00:15:07,679
quiet again. We all felt it. Our heads were spinning

265
00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:10,240
as we all looked in every direction, trying to figure

266
00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:13,200
out what kind of predator was out there scaring nature

267
00:15:13,399 --> 00:15:18,320
into silence. Now, Joe, who was a natural born Chicken

268
00:15:18,559 --> 00:15:20,879
was the first one to start insisting that we all

269
00:15:20,919 --> 00:15:23,679
get the heck out of there. I was in total

270
00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:27,720
agreement with him. Something was out there, and every sense

271
00:15:27,759 --> 00:15:29,879
I had was telling me that I didn't want to

272
00:15:29,919 --> 00:15:34,039
meet it. Bobby wasn't convinced until we heard what sounded

273
00:15:34,159 --> 00:15:37,799
like a big tree being pushed over. Trees get old

274
00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:41,000
and they do fall, but generally the falling part doesn't

275
00:15:41,039 --> 00:15:44,279
happen until the wind blows, but there wasn't any wind.

276
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,919
There was just this long, creaking, sighing sound of breaking wood,

277
00:15:49,279 --> 00:15:52,679
and then it fell over with a crash. Well, that

278
00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:55,200
was the last straw, and we all broke and round,

279
00:15:55,279 --> 00:16:00,200
leaving our poles behind. The truck was one hundred yards away,

280
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:03,039
and we climbed over each other getting in and screaming

281
00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:06,519
go go, go, go go, and the tires reoster tailed

282
00:16:06,519 --> 00:16:09,360
dirt and gravel behind us as we fishtailed into motion.

283
00:16:10,879 --> 00:16:13,000
No one said another word until we got back to

284
00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:16,000
the main road, and Bobby and Joe wanted to know

285
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:19,080
more about what happened while they were gone, So I

286
00:16:19,159 --> 00:16:22,159
repeated my story, and I tried to add any details

287
00:16:22,159 --> 00:16:24,840
that I might have missed earlier, and then I asked

288
00:16:24,879 --> 00:16:27,519
them flat out if it was them messing with me.

289
00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:31,159
Of course, both of them denied it. Would they have

290
00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:33,679
left their poles behind if it was all a joke.

291
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:37,559
A couple of days later, when the sun was shining,

292
00:16:37,799 --> 00:16:40,799
Bobby and I went back to get those poles. Oh,

293
00:16:40,879 --> 00:16:44,360
Joe didn't go with us. It's been forty five years

294
00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:48,120
since that day. We've never told our story to anyone.

295
00:16:48,879 --> 00:16:51,600
After listening to your channel for a while, I started

296
00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:54,720
to think that we dodged a bullet that night. Now

297
00:16:54,759 --> 00:16:57,039
I didn't see what it was. None of us did,

298
00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:00,559
But these days I'm kind of glad that I didn't

299
00:17:00,639 --> 00:17:06,960
see it. I grew up in Maryland. Now I'm not

300
00:17:07,039 --> 00:17:09,519
a great storyteller, but there were a couple of things

301
00:17:09,519 --> 00:17:12,200
that happened in my past that took me from skeptic

302
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:15,119
to believer, and I'd like to share them with you now.

303
00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:20,440
The closets in my bedroom had louvered doors. That wall

304
00:17:20,559 --> 00:17:23,279
was opposite of my bed at the foot, so I

305
00:17:23,319 --> 00:17:26,720
faced them when I laid there at night. It wasn't

306
00:17:26,799 --> 00:17:30,160
until I was sixteen that I noticed anything strange about them.

307
00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:34,240
It all started one night, just out of the blue.

308
00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:36,440
I began to feel like I was being watched through

309
00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:39,839
the slights in those doors. I'd be lying in bed,

310
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,279
reading or listening to music, and the hairs would stand

311
00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:46,559
up on the back of my neck that since you

312
00:17:46,599 --> 00:17:49,559
get when you know someone's watching you. It would wash

313
00:17:49,599 --> 00:17:52,640
over me and I would find myself wanting to turn

314
00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:55,839
and look at the doors. In my head, I would

315
00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:59,240
argue with myself that no one was there, how could

316
00:17:59,319 --> 00:18:02,839
anyone be there? But that feeling would not go away.

317
00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:06,000
Sometimes it would be so strong that I couldn't even

318
00:18:06,079 --> 00:18:09,880
force myself to look at those doors. This went on

319
00:18:10,039 --> 00:18:13,079
for several nights, and I finally got some posters and

320
00:18:13,119 --> 00:18:15,519
I hung them over the louvered part of the doors.

321
00:18:16,519 --> 00:18:19,240
I thought the problem was solved, but I wish it

322
00:18:19,319 --> 00:18:23,400
had been that simple. Right after I covered the doors

323
00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:25,799
and the posters, I began to wake up each morning

324
00:18:25,839 --> 00:18:29,240
to find them open. They weren't standing wide open, they

325
00:18:29,279 --> 00:18:31,799
were just cracked, but it was enough to make me

326
00:18:31,880 --> 00:18:36,440
aware that someone had opened them. The doors were solid,

327
00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,640
and I tested them out on several occasions, and no

328
00:18:39,720 --> 00:18:42,759
matter how hard I pulled, once they were light, they

329
00:18:42,759 --> 00:18:46,799
would not open unless I turned the handles. To make

330
00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:49,960
matters worse, my dog chesters stopped going into the room

331
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:52,640
at all. Even if I tried to force him in,

332
00:18:52,759 --> 00:18:56,640
he'd fight and struggle against me the rest of the day.

333
00:18:56,759 --> 00:19:00,279
Anywhere else he was fine with me. It was only

334
00:19:00,279 --> 00:19:01,960
when I tried to get him to go into the

335
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:05,480
bedroom that he fought me. And it started only after

336
00:19:05,519 --> 00:19:08,880
the closet doors started opening on their own in the night.

337
00:19:10,799 --> 00:19:13,240
This went on for about a month before my brother

338
00:19:13,359 --> 00:19:15,720
moved out on his own and I jumped at the

339
00:19:15,799 --> 00:19:19,160
chance to move into his bedroom. I can't tell you

340
00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:21,799
how excited I was to get away from that bedroom

341
00:19:21,880 --> 00:19:25,880
and those closet doors. Except now. Chester was fine with

342
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:29,240
my old room, but he wouldn't go into my new room.

343
00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:33,400
And dogs have instincts about these things, and I trusted

344
00:19:33,519 --> 00:19:37,960
Chester's instincts. The closet doors in the new room were

345
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,880
solid wood, there were no lovers, and again I tested

346
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:45,119
them and they could not be open without turning the knobs,

347
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:48,400
and it didn't stop them from opening on their own

348
00:19:48,599 --> 00:19:52,880
every night. No one believed me about the closed doors

349
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:56,480
until my girlfriend, who would eventually become my wife, stayed over.

350
00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:58,680
She woke me up in the middle of the night

351
00:19:58,759 --> 00:20:03,559
frantically saying, it's open. I just watched it open. Whatever

352
00:20:03,599 --> 00:20:05,920
followed me from one bedroom to the other at my

353
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:10,000
father's house stayed there when I eventually moved out, and

354
00:20:10,039 --> 00:20:12,680
then I had my own place and it never happened again.

355
00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:18,119
I had another incident, and it happened when I was eighteen,

356
00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:21,839
and it was an actual ghost sighting. I was driving

357
00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:25,400
to my friend's house in my nineteen ninety four Chevy pickup.

358
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:29,799
Not of nowhere, my passenger seat headrest cover flew off

359
00:20:29,839 --> 00:20:33,519
and hit my windshield. At the same time, a ghostly

360
00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:37,160
figure of a woman appeared in the crosswalk directly in

361
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:40,279
front of me. She had no feet, but she was

362
00:20:40,319 --> 00:20:43,519
wearing a dress and was completely white, and I could

363
00:20:43,559 --> 00:20:46,640
see right through her. So I slammed on my brakes

364
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:50,079
and then she was gone. It was a long time

365
00:20:50,079 --> 00:20:53,400
before anything strange happened to me again, but lately I've

366
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:56,240
had an ongoing experience that I don't know what to

367
00:20:56,279 --> 00:20:59,559
do about it. We have three kids who all sleep

368
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:02,960
up stairs, and my wife often works from home. She

369
00:21:03,079 --> 00:21:06,480
tells me that she hears footsteps upstairs when the kids

370
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:09,000
are all at school. Now I have to admit that

371
00:21:09,079 --> 00:21:13,440
I've heard them too. It isn't your typical house creeks

372
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,599
and groans. It sounds like a grown man walking from

373
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:20,240
room to room. And on top of this, on most nights,

374
00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:23,319
my kids will come downstairs because they claim they can

375
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:27,559
hear someone breathing up there. Well, I hate telling my

376
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:30,200
kids that there's nothing to be afraid of, but I

377
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:33,880
don't want them to be scared. But I have seen things,

378
00:21:34,119 --> 00:21:36,440
so for me to say that would be lying to them.

379
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,559
I'm a thirty one year old Army veteran and I'm

380
00:21:40,599 --> 00:21:43,839
an avid hunter and fisherman. I walk around in the

381
00:21:43,839 --> 00:21:46,279
woods at night for fun with no fear at all.

382
00:21:46,799 --> 00:21:49,200
But when I think about what's going on in my house,

383
00:21:49,599 --> 00:21:52,400
the hairs start standing up all over my body and

384
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:54,839
I get a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

385
00:21:55,799 --> 00:21:59,440
Some things in this world can't be explained and they

386
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,640
should not be messed with. All right, I appreciate you

387
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:07,359
all listening and joining me on this podcast. I've been

388
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:10,759
busy the last week. This is I've missed about seven

389
00:22:10,839 --> 00:22:14,400
days of putting a podcast out because I've been working

390
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:17,640
on other things. But I'm trying to get these done

391
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:21,240
as quickly as possible. It actually get a few done

392
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,839
in a row so that I can upload those more

393
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:29,319
consistently through the next few weeks, so there's no commentary.

394
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,279
You don't get to hear me run in my mouth,

395
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:34,599
which is fine. I'll keep doing that at some point

396
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,119
when I have time, but on this one it wasn't.

397
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:39,920
I just want to read the stories so that you

398
00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:43,559
could enjoy them. And that'll do it for now, and

399
00:22:43,599 --> 00:22:46,279
I'll see you guys on the next podcast. I sure

400
00:22:46,319 --> 00:22:47,640
do appreciate you. Thank you.