Episode 532: Listener Tales 82

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey Weirdos, my name happens to be Ash and I'm Elena.

And this is morbid.

It is, yeah, that's actually listener tales, which is still under the morbid branch. And it's brought to you by you, for you, from you, and all brought you, whee.

There it opened, Lost it. You know what's fun about these listener tales today? They're from the 90s. I picked up what you were putting down there.

I knew you did. Were you going to do that? I was. That's why I was waiting. I was like, I didn't even see you, like, doing the bop little thing.

It was the 90s. Yes, I also just polysantode in here, and it smells so good, it does. We needed a cleanse in this.

Not like a cleanse of our bodies, but like a cleanse of our souls. Yeah, it's been a crazy ass day. what a day. Yeah, it's been a dizzle.

It's been a dizzle information overload, truly, but you know what we cleansed?

Yeah, and it's 2024. And we're in a place of move on from all that shit. We're in a place of just be cool, don't be all like uncool. That's just our vibe.

It's also the countess's vibe, and if you don't get that, then I don't even know what you've been doing for the last six years. The countess, the countess. We're going to see her.

I can't wait, but you know what, what? Let's talk some listener tales from the 90s. And I think we should start with one that I'm a little excited about because it looks horrifying.

Oh, it's called the reason I hate camping. yeet, I'm scared because I also don't like camping, same.

So I'm very excited to hear this one. I also love any kind of like summer camp horror, like Throw me in a summer camp. Yeah, it's giving Friday, the 13th.

Yeah, I'm always for it. So this one says, Hello beautiful, spooky besties. I'm sending this listener tale for the second time because the first time honestly sucked, so I rewrote it and hope it's good enough this time.

I bet it was great the first time, too, I bet it was. If so, we're our own worst critics, you know? If so, I will be listening to the episode on my way to the store to get my new pants, because I will have, for sure, shitted. Well, get in the car, baby.

Get some nice pants pantalones. Morbid is by far my favorite podcast, and, you said, favorite in, Like the British Way, the OU, and I love that, and I've listened to every damn episode.

Aside from catching up on listener tales, I explained that in my double space 14 font, put a foot for your reading pleasure. Oh, I'd tell you girls to cut out any parts you think suck, but I know you bitches won't, so fuck it.

Read the whole damn thing, my dudes, we will. I have attached a few photos of me and my sister. I'm the younger one, significantly shorter one, who's also in the story.

We are younger in these photos than in the story, as as it's all we have left after a house fire took everything from us. When I was nine, Oh my god, I'm sorry, I'm sad, I'm so sorry.

But this picture is beautiful, it is as well as a photo of us now. I also attached a photo of my pup. Oh, hell yeah.

My pup, Kyle, I love that. come on, Kyle, Kyle and my cat named Goose.

Oh my God, I love the name goose for any animal that is not a goose. that is absolutely not a goose. I love it.

Sorry if all the quality sucks. I'm sending this from my cell phone because my teenage son has kidnapped my laptop. Love Erin No. Everything looks great to me, looks phenomenal to me.

Your cat is so beautiful, I want a gray cat so badly. But then I would have four cats, and telling people that I have three cats is already enough. Looks for me, I love your animals, I love your animals and you and your sister are so cute.

I love you and your sister, I love Kyle and I love Goose. So hello weirdo, fellow weirdos, excuse me, please excuse the inevitable spelling and grammar mistakes as I'm writing this on a tiny little cell phone screen.

Oof, ouch, my name is Erin and my sister's name is Cassandra. We are both part of this spooky tale, and you're welcome to use our real names. Should this be creepy enough to use for listener tales? This is a little long, but worth it.

I promise it's actually not even long, it's pretty damn short, at least I think it is. I haven't finished writing it yet.

So fuck it, we'll see how long it is. At the end, you went back and forth to so many different places. That journey you just took yourself on was really fun.

You know, you were like, No, actually, it's fucking medium, how about that? You were like, you know what fuck it? It's as long as it is.

Okay, and it's not even that long yet because I haven't finished it. Yay, I guess I did space it far apart, so it's easier to read.

I got you girls, I'm no writer, so sorry if this sucks. actually, I'm not fuck it.

Good for you, don't apologize to anyone. Yeah, 2024. I'm no amazing writer like you. Elena AW. Thank you.

Untrue. You are the Butcher and the Wren was incredibly amazing and I can't wait for book two. Oh my goodness, just you wait. Thank you so much.

It's heating up in these parts. Just you wait. I hope you both realize what a light you bring to such terrible and spooky stories, and what an amazing job you do bringing humor to your listeners. And I love how much you speak on the family of victims and do what you can when you can to help. Wow.

That was really nice, thank you. I've been here since the Panda Sandwich of 2020, that's probably the best one that I've heard, the Panda Sandwich of 2020..

And although I refuse to listen to the listener tales, I've recently started binging them after I ran out of episodes to listen to. And have come to truly enjoy them. Gotcha, dare I say they are my favorite? Now, I'm telling you, I'm telling you the girlies who get it get it.

And it's like, whenever somebody is like, the amount of times we have read in a listener tale. I used to avoid these like the plague, and now they are my favorite. Give them a chance. That's the thing. You guys are the scariest, yeah.

And the funniest? Yep, so it's like, I don't know why you guys don't want to listen to you, I don't know because you guys rule.

So it's like, these rule, they're fun listener tales love you, they're scary, you should love them.

Yeah, and I'm glad that you do know, I'm glad everybody's coming around here. Uh, so it says I have a certificate in criminal psychology. Hell yeah, you do.

And I'm fascinated by what makes these terrible twat waffles tick. I liked that whole sentence, what makes them do what they do? I'm also an advocate for the legalization and monitoring of sex workings in Canada in order to protect and help these women stuck in hard times and hard places in life. You're lovely.

You are. I spent half my life in BC and with the Highway of Tears so close. I feel like we could do more to protect all these women in our country, especially those who society and the police see as less important. Agreed, You are badass, and I wholeheartedly agree.

A little about me and my sister, she goes by Kat. We grew up in Ontario, Canada, and we're full blown latchkey kids. What, even whatever? Our parents? My mom worked three jobs, and dad was an abusive alcohol alcoholic, I'm sorry.

Luckily, was only part of my life for the first 10 years before. My badass mom packed us up in the middle of the night and yeeted us the fuck away from him. Hell yeah, mama, good for her. It was a different time in the nineties, you two babes, know.

So we were very often left unsupervised in my mom's defense. I, the baby of the family, had three older siblings, and my oldest sibling is eight years older than me. It was her understanding we all took care of each other because we led her to believe this. But me and Kat often were left to do whatever the fuck we wanted most of the time. So anyways, here my little story.

I know it isn't as crazy as a lot of the other stories you tell, so maybe this one can be a bit of a palate cleanser between some truly awful tales. Nope, we're starting off with it, okay?

So here we go, let's get in the way back machine all the way back to 1999. Even though it still feels like the Nineties was just a few short years ago, it really does. Things were different. In the Nineties. Me and my family lived in a house in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. That was at the end of a double cul-de-sac.

It looked like boobs from an aerial view.

Behind the houses was a large green belt. I'm not sure what it that it's, if it's called the same thing in the states. But essentially, it's a plot of protected land that can't be built on. Conservation land is what we call it. There was a large field, and at the back of the field, on the other side of the green belt. From my home, there was a small area of trees with a tiny creek that ran through it. 99 of my time outside of school was spent here, day in and day out, building forts from sticks and mud with my sister and a few other neighborhood kids. Ah, the nineties.

So much fun. A lot of the older kids in the area used this place to smoke and drink and destroy every gosh darn stick fort we build, some of these forts took weeks to build. I wish I had photos, they sound awesome.

We would go inside to eat, sleep, and that's about it. Damn, damn, do I miss the nineties? Same the summer before I turned eight and Cat turned 12. Our birthdays are in September. Virgo.

Babies so innocent and dumb. We decided it would be a fucking splendid idea to grab my parents tiny two man tent and pitch it in the field. Right up against the woods at the back of the green belt. Why? good fucking question.

Kids be dumb, yo. Our house was within eye shot, so our mom let us do it. Because, again, nineties. Me and my sister, along with two of our friends who were close to our age, crammed ourselves into this tent made for two with snacks and flashlights. And that's about it.

So prepared, we did bring a small diary lock to lock the zipper because, of course, that will keep us safe in a gosh. Damn, I love how big a diary lock. If anybody remembers those tiny, tiny little locks. And they were like, this'll stop them. And you could also probably just like, break it open with your sheer force, you could literally just rip that open.

We told ghost stories, ate junk and had no plans on sleeping that night. Here's where it gets fucked. And probably why to this day. I hate, I fucking hate camping. Your girl's down with a camper, so she's got four walls and locks. But even that is pushing it.

Funny thing is, I married an avid outdoorsman and go Abs, and he absolutely loves camping. But luckily, our four year old daughter didn't fall far from the tree and is always down to go pamping. Ooh, I call it glamping. This was before everyone aged six and up had a fucking cell phone, so we heard some movement outside our tent. We were freaked.

We tried to stay quiet and pretend we were asleep. Bright idea, little dumb asses. I didn't say that you did imagine you little fucking idiot.

Good idea, you little fucking idiot. Well, then we started to hear ripping sounds, think nails on a chalkboard, because that's what it sounded like. In our terrorized state, nobody wanted to move to see what was going on.

So I, the youngest in the group, peeked my sweet little head out of the blankets to see what was happening. Whoever this maniac was, because we never found out, slipped a huge butcher knife up inside the rain cover of the tent so we could see what he was using to terrorize a few little babies. What the fuck, oh my God, then he's, you're telling me? This isn't as fucked up as some of our other tales.

Girlie, it certainly is. Then he started vigorously shaking the tent, pulling the poles out of the ground and allowing the tent to drape over our tiny little bodies. When I say we were freaked, I can't even explain how scary this was. The man, I'm guessing, man, because the voice started whispering, Hear kitty, kitty, kitty and poking us with the huge knife. Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough for us to feel it.

What the fuck? We stayed silent, aside from our tiny whispers that we just couldn't hold in. This went on for a good 10 to 15 minutes, then it stopped, it just stopped.

We laid there for what felt like eternity, just to be sure the man was gone. My sister slowly unzipped the tent and we all flew out of there like bats out of hell. Someone sure lit a fire under our asses and bolted back to the cul-de-sac and to our respective houses, not looking back even once. Oh my god. Luckily, our front door was unlocked. 90s and me and my friend, my sister ran to bed the same bed. Because, fuck, no, we were not sleeping alone after that. No.

We never told anybody about this what? We were afraid we wouldn't be able to camp out again if our parents knew you want to go camping again, she said. But like, what the fuck, kid?

You weren't going to camp out again after that, anyway, that's what I'm saying, girlfriend. It very well. Could have been one of the neighborhood boys fucking with us, but none of the boys ever hinted towards their involvement or even mentioned it. And also if that was one of the neighborhood boys fucking with you? They have deep psychological problems.

Yeah, they've been arrested for murder. Hondo P Most of the time, when the boys fucked with us, they were more than happy to brag about it. Now that I'm a grown adult with my own two kids, I sometimes wonder how we all survived growing up in the 90s.

I could never allow my young kids to camp out alone in a field, no matter how close to our house it was. Hell, I don't even like when they asked to camp out in the living room. Because it's further than my bedroom from my bedroom than their bedrooms are, and closer to the front door than my bedroom. I feel you so hard on that, yeah.

We had a lot of crazy times in this house, like the time my school went on lockdown due to a man with a gun outside the school screaming and yelling, telling a teacher in the school to come the fuck out and meet their fate. All because his kid was suspended for bullying. Apple tree, you know? And the school failed to call my mom and tell her what was going on.

So when she got home at 6pm and no kids had been home yet, she was freaking out, Oh my god, your poor mom. Or the time me and Kat ran away, took a ferry to a little island near our home and spent the day there.

Then getting home, my dad was on the phone with the police reporting us missing 90s, though they probably would have told him to wait 24 hours anyway. I love that you all just went on the ferry together.

We're like, let's go to a little island, like, see you later. And telling my drunk ass dad, we followed a man onto the ferry who we thought was him. He was drunk. He believed us.

Incredible. Or the time my oldest sister did my makeup and hair and made me wear her clothing. Because she wanted to go to the Fire Hall, a teen hangout spot where there was dancing and live music. But you had to be 13 and I was only 8..

The fuck, it's just me, little 8 year old girly at the fire hall, at the fire hall. What did you do this weekend?

I went to the fire hall and the idiot kids there paid me money to say bad words.

Here's $5.

Say fuck, say fuck, 10 bucks, say shit.

I walked home alone because they put up places, not my vibe. Of course, not at 8 years old. Damn, we were dumbass kids.

You need some good cash, though, anyway, that's all keep it weird, but not so weird that you decide to camp in the middle of a field, in the middle of the city. With no protection and no ability to defend yourself against a creepy man in the dark with a knife, Love you bitches. Xoxo, Erin.

Love you too Erin. I'm glad you made it Erin. I love you Erin forever. Very glad Erin is still here with us everybody because....

They paid me to say bad words. Erin for the win. Why didn't you and your friends ever give me money to say, shit what, you're a bad sister?

I'm a bad sister, I never brought you to the fire hall, I know what the hell, sorry.

You never brought me anywhere. Erin. I don't know why you thought that that tail was going to be a. It was in a weird way. It was hilarious, but also terrifying. Oh man.

Deeply, deeply terrifying. That was really funny, though. Wow.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop around, She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, now it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt. Force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police cover up, if you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover up to prevent one of their own from going down.

Everyone had an opinion and after the 10 week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case. In Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

All right, and my next one is ListenerTale. The time the Lord and Savior broke into my house, Oh, I gotta hear this one. Hi my fellow weirdos. I did all the good stuff.

In my double-spaced 14-point putt-a-fuh. So just read that it's a crazy listenertale, for sure. I also included the newspaper article from the story and a photo of me and my quote-unquote mom friends who just can't get enough of y'all. Also a photo of my husband and I and the kiddos and the pup. I really want you to understand my vibe, I suppose.

Happy reading. Oh, look at you guys, I love your vibe. Your 4th of July pick is great. What I'm assuming is Halloween is absolutely iconic.

Oh my god, the kids are so cute. The puppy is incredible. look at him just standing on his back feet like that. your puppy looks like there is a Victorian child locked in it.

I love that that does happen, I love that for your puppy, I love that for us. I want to know your puppy's name, but the name tag is blurry.

But the way that they're standing is iconic. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, and honestly, I'm never going to get past this Halloween costume iconique. It's everything right in the world.

You and your husband, by the way, because you guys can't see this. Her husband and her were the fairy godmother in Cinderella for Halloween, and he was Cinderella. It's pretty amazing, absolutely, I was obsessed amazing, love that a lot.

Okay, let's see we have hi my weirdo dudes. Cue the gushy I love you man stuff, I love you that we should all totally be best friends stuff as you do.

Love you guys in all capacities and within my group of mom friends. Drinking wine and saying, Oh shit, have you listened to? The new episode of Morbid Yet? is pretty much the highlight of our suburban lives. That's so cool.

I love that you can use my name and all names associated within this tale. Because it happened a million years ago, in nineteen hundred and ninety three. I love nineteen hundred. I love it when I was eight.

Wow, also, by the way, while we were reading that last one, because that was nineteen, ninety nine, that was twenty five years ago. Yeah, I hate that. Yeah, I googled it because I can't do mental math. I also have to say I was also eight in nineteen, ninety three.

Hey, that's cool. What's up girl? I just want to say I wasn't alive. Yeah, I wasn't alive. So let's all move past that real quick.

But I was on my way, actually, I wasn't. you were not. I was a star in the sky, maybe.

But perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, and perhaps I think I was going to say, potentially you were, and perhaps I think they you guys liked it. Thank you, all right.

I also included the newspaper article from When this happened. It is, it is on the front page in my small town. This was big news. Also included are a few photos, a double spaced puttapha and the article. Since it serves as proof that this batchit story I'm about to tell you actually happened.

And it wasn't just a figment of my overactive eight year old imagination. My name is Danny with an I, and my father is Danny with a Y. Just to make things confusing, I think it's iconic bit of a backstory.

I won't apologize for the length of this all because I know you will not accept it anyway. No, we will not. no, we won't. I grew up in Boulder Creek, California, not Colorado, like everybody usually assumes I would have.

I said, Creek, there is a creek attached to it, not just Boulder, it's in the Santa Cruz Mountains or Santa Carla. If you get nasty, I said, If you get nasty, if you get nasty, it's just if you know, are you going to get nasty?

I grew up a couple of miles away from Big Basin State Park, which is home to some of the oldest redwood trees on Earth. It's beyond beautiful. My family homestead consisted of eleven and a half acres of forest on a hill, with two houses on the property, which my family owned one, and my parents best friends own the other. Oh, I love this. It was beautiful and incredibly private.

We technically had neighbors, but they were literally few and far between. It was a long hoof up and up or down the mountain to go to a neighbor's house. As serene as all of this was, it's also a wonderful area to be getting away with some shit. And there were a handful of drug shacks and meth labs up in our mountains. Sometimes we would play the game firework or meth lab explosion.

Oh, that old game, I know I played that too. No, I actually haven't. Our house in the forest was an a-frame house. I love those.

Yeah, with a gable-pitched roof that had all glass windows in the front that surrounded our front door and 20-foot ceilings. Danny, you're speaking my language. It was built by an artist in 1979, and it was my hippie parents dream home.

It sounds gorgeous. I hope it's still in your fam because that sounds iconic. Everything about you is just iconic. And I can't stop saying it, it's true. Danny with an I, Danny with an I, and Danny with a Y.

So hold on to your butts now, guys, I'm holding. In the wee hours of the night. On Thursday, December 16th, 1993, my little eight-year-old self lay asleep on the couch in the living room.

First mistake, true. Looking out into the forest with all the windows. I had been homesick with the flu all week, so the couch was where I had been posted up. All of a sudden, I was woken up to a tap-tap-tap on the glass and looking at me through the windows. Vast in the light from the neon porch, light was the most terrifying mountain man I had ever seen.

Oh God, long hair, beard and old Army fatigue jacket. He taps on the window again and we lock in a gaze. He sees me and I see him. He has the biggest blackest eyes I've seen to date.

Oh, then he waves as if he knows me and turns the handle on my front door. Ah, it's unlocked. Because, of course, it is nice parenting.

I didn't say that you did. And he lets himself inside. Oh my god, I'm so upset. Right now, standing on the super 70s hippie tile of our foyer is this man? And I am paralyzed.

Oh my God, No. He turns to me and outstretched his arms and says, Don't be afraid, child, I am Jesus. you must follow me. I promise you he's not.

No, he's definitely not. I know this. That's so scary. I yelled for my dad as loud as I could, which was only like a quivering whisper.

My dad Danny and my mom Elaine hear me and came running down the stairs with our dalmatian. Or, as your youngest likes to say, domilation, how cute is that? isn't that so cute? Max in t-shirts and zero pants on either on by either of them. Those are some parents right there.

Hell yeah, everyone in my house sleeps naked, except for me, and I still can't do. And still to this day, I can't like, what if somebody walks in your house and saying, they are Jesus?

I digress. So my dad says, Who the fuck are you and what do you want? The man then informs him that he is in fact Jesus the follower, and that we must follow him. This is really scary, this is the most upsetting thing ever.

My dad grabs a broom that's leaning against the wall in the hallway. Gotta do what you gotta do. And with Max grinning and baring his teeth at this mountain maniac, my dad shoves the broom handle into the man's gut and tells him. Follow his ass back up the road. I think it's important to remind you all that my father has no pants on. Full-blown Donald Duck in it, full-blown Donald Duck in it.

Just being like, follow his ass back up the road.

This is amazing. I have this memory forever and now you will all have it too. Thank you so much for that gift. I'm happy that's a good one.

Dani We didn't earn that gift, we really didn't. I appreciate it, though, the way you just bestowed it upon us. Happy 2024, be cool and you're doing that.

You are cool. My sister now emerges from her room. She was 21, but was still living at home at the time. She's wrapped up in a sheet because she, too, sleeps naked and just screams, Get the fuck out. She has little to no idea that she was speaking to Jesus at the time.

So your family is so reckless, and I love it so much just talking to Jesus like this. She just comes out naked with a sheet and she's like, Get the fuck out, no one's fearing this. They're just like, Fuck you.

This dude listened to the bro man, my sister, and yeeted himself out of my house as one super pissed off Jesus. My dad heard him ranting and raving all the way up the hill as he stood outside at 2 a..m with no pants on, proudly defending his family. I truly love my hippie dad and always will, I always will as well.

So now what we call the cops and wait, the nearest police station is something like 10 miles away. It's a long wait. While we're waiting for the cops. Jesus decides to take himself on a little adventure to our neighbor's house over the ridge.

It's probably about a 10 minute walk for any sane person, but I don't really know how long it took for Jesus. Their house is locked properly, like normal people, so he breaks into their home and begins to ransack it. He's pissed off and breaking and smashing everything in their home.

That's really scary, that's so scary. My neighbors are terrified at the noise and lock themselves in their rooms and scramble to get their gun. It's the woods, everybody has guns.

Makes sense. While they're locked in their bedroom, he finds their car keys. And Jesus take the wheel. He steals their little blue Honda CRX. Miss Danny just said, Jesus, take the wheel.

Jesus, take the wheel. You're hilarious Danny with an I I love Danny. Meanwhile, the police arrive at our home, they're taking our statements.

When they get the call about my neighbor's house and realize how close it is, they call for backup and say they'll be back to finish our statement. As soon as they check out what's going on across the ridge, the officer drives over to their place. He arrived so quickly that my neighbors thought it was still Jesus and they fired their gun.

Oh my God, in the air, in the air, out their bedroom window to try to scare whatever burglar man off of their property. Everyone was okay, but like, fucking chaos, right, right? The cops announced themselves and had to calm down our neighbor, who was apologizing profusely to the police. As he told my dad about the whole thing the next day.

Can you even imagine shooting at the cops and living to tell the tale? I can't, not many people can me either. This shit was bananas.

I remember hearing the gunshots and thinking, Oh my God, they killed the cops. That wasn't the case. But I have full-blown anxiety now as an adult, and this may just be the night the seeds of my anxiety were planted. You know what I'm going to go with? yes.

Yes, it was. Meanwhile, where's Jesus? He's taking the nice five-mile drive down to Boulder Creek. This is amazing to me because this guy was high as fuck, so high. His pupils were the size of nickels.

That's why his eyes were the blackest you've seen to date. Yeah, that was his pupils. The drive from my house to Boulder Creek is a narrow, two-lane, windy road, and I'm shocked that he didn't end up driving into anything or anyone. When he did make it to Boulder Creek, he stopped the car in the middle of the two lanes down. Uh, sorry, when he he Jesus Christ, when he did make it to that Jesus Christ, not me, not you. And the star of the story.

When he did make it to Boulder Creek, he stopped the car in the middle of the two lanes, downtown Strip. He then decided it would be a good idea to pop into Joe's bar for a beer and a game of pool. Jesus can do as Jesus pleases. Yeah, he was spreading the word, Joe's was not open.

No, but the owner and bartender Virgil and the owner Karen were still inside, closing up for the night. Virgil and Karen obviously like. This is just right. When the bartender tells him that they're closed behind the glass of the front door. Quote-unquote, Jesus gets pissed.

He walks across the street, uh, into a restaurant at the time called the Old Basham's House. That had tons of antiques and decorations on the wall and a plethora of antique guns. He then steals an antique machine gun off the wall. And he now gets back into my neighbor's. Wow, I just got super Boston back into my neighbor's. That was wild. I don't know what happened there.

That was a soul back into my neighbor's, I don't know what kind of soul that was. Honda CRX gets into position and drives it through the glass front of Joe's bar. The only thing that stopped him from going all the way through the back was the pool table. He drove the 75-foot length out of the bar. Oh my God.

He gets out, dusts himself off, points the gun at the bartender who was ducking with the owner behind the bar and demands a beer. And also a game of pool. Oh my, he throws an actual fit, throwing glasses from the bar when they again tell him, no. Which, honestly, if you're ever in this situation, just give the ducking man a glass of beer and be like, go play pool. I'm actually leaving for the night, he says. He's a millionaire and can pay for the damage, right?

So Virgil being the sweetest bartender ever, he was also a family friend who has since passed R.I.p Virgil, R.I.P. He poured him a beer and he let him sit and drink it.

Honestly, the safest thing to do in that situation. Good for Virgil. So now all the police backup has arrived at my house and the neighbor's house when all their radios go off all at once. About the new incident in downtown Boulder Creek. The whole side of our mountain was lit up in red and blue lights as all but one officer left to go to this new incident.

As the last officer is talking to my father on the front porch, my mom, sister and I are all huddled on the couch. With the most what the actual fuck looks on our faces I've ever seen? We don't see much action on our quiet mountain. And this was a lot for anywhere, this was a lot. Yeah, my dad comes in after what seems like forever, he has pants on now.

Oh, okay, that's what made me laugh. And he says he has to go with this officer to possibly identify the person that they have in custody in downtown Boulder Creek. My dad gets there with the officer, takes one look and was like, Yep, that's Jesus, that's him.

It turns out Jesus wandered down from a secret meth lab in the woods to our house after a drug dealer and him had gotten into a big fight. Man, this just keeps unraveling. You're also so lucky to be alive. Yes, holy shit.

Absolutely like everybody in this situation, everybody is. We were just the first porch light he saw. He was arrested and held on 10K bail, and the daylight broke.

I remember that all of us were just shooketh. Karen, the owner of Joe's, was set to have their annual Christmas spaghetti feed that Friday at the bar, which she still had. Because the whole community came together to help clean up the damage. Oh my God, I love this. The families that were in need that she adopted still got their gifts that year, too. A bright spot in the story.

I did, however, get to enjoy my 15 minutes of fame at school when I recovered from the flu. Because I had the tale that everyone wanted to hear. Hell yeah, you did, Dani. Joe's bar has since rebuilt, and I've enjoyed a cocktail or two there in my adult years. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in Boulder Creek. Oh, fun fact The video for Fight Song by Rachel Platten was partially filmed in Boulder Creek, and the bar she's at in the video is Joe's.

Oh, I want to see it, I do, too. Still, to this day, they have a sign in their bar that reads Not a drive-thru bar. That's hilarious. I love that.

Good humor can get you through anything, I suppose it sure can. Oh yeah. Years later, when I was 15, my mom and I were at the Boulder Creek Art and Wine Festival. My mom points to a man and says, Do you know who that is?

My mom was the local mail carrier and knew everybody, so I was like, no, who? Usually the answer was, Oh, that's so-and-so, and you know, so-and-so's mom, but this time my mom looked at me seriously and says, That's Jesus. She then yelled over to him and forced, Oh, my god, this mom is a Queen. She then yelled over to him and forced him to come over and apologize for traumatizing me when I was eight.

And the apology was almost more traumatic than him trying to turn me into one of his followers. Oh my god, aw, he was drunk and crying and it was sad. aw, so he's, I mean, you can tell this guy was going through it.

I mean, he endangered a lot of people that night. That's not okay, but it's like if he was still going through it in this kind of vibe that long after, it's like that guy was struggling. Yeah, definitely.

And it's sad that it doesn't sound like he got the help that he needed. Well, I was going to say it doesn't look like he got better. No, it was honestly sad. I forgave him that day.

He had a problem. But the legend of my anxiety will live on forever. I now live in the damn suburbs and I lock my fucking door at night. I have now, unironically, I have now unironically, a bearded husband, an eight-year-old and a six-year-old boy. And I don't think they would be able to handle mountain life lol.

At least not the one I lived. No, I don't think many of us would, I couldn't. I have many other stories, like ones about trying to get onto the Lockheed Martin property that was just up the road from us. As a teenager. And all the weird lights we used to see in the sky over it.

But that's for another day. Send them on, send it to us. It's like a send it to Daryl thing, but different but to us.

So that's my tale. If you read this on the podcast, I have some depends prepared for myself and my three mom friends. Because they will all excuse me. We will all collectively shit our pants.

Shout out Taryn, Michelle and Amber Taryn, Michelle and Amber. get some depends Taryn, Michelle, Amber and Dani with an I hell yeah.

Thank you two for all that you do, and for my 40th in a couple years. My gal, pals and I are planning a trip to Salem. Hell yeah, to pay our respect to our witchy, free-thinking sisters of yesteryear. Hell yeah.

So, you know, come hang with us, lots of love to you guys and yours and keep it. Weird, but not so weird that you tell your 8-year-old girl that you're Jesus, and therefore you're at 2am. All the love and less sinister vibe vibes, Dani.

Oh my god, I'm obsessed with you also while you guys are in Salem if you haven't gone yet, which you definitely have, so never mind, oh the ha yeah.

But anybody else that goes to Salem, go to the Black Veil shop of Drear and Wonder. Or actually, maybe not, because she said, Didn't Dani say a couple of years, hold on and this was January, What did you say?

Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah, so maybe you haven't. okay, great, so if you haven't, it's going to be so much fun, yeah. Go to the Black Veil shop of Drear and Wonder.

Go to Emporium, tell them we sent you, is it Emporium 32? I always get the number wrong. Yeah, it is.

32 32 Yep, um, oh, go to Housewitch. Oh yes.

It's like, um, like, German house, yep, there's all kinds of great things to do. Somebody go, oh, have dinner at Ledger, oh my goodness.

Yeah, and have the food is stupid. The Brussels sprouts, the Brussels sprouts, the Brussels sprouts, and they make a mean espresso martini.

Everything there was ideal, it was so good, so good. Also nocturne, that's another place.

Oh, and nocturne? Yeah, nocturne is awesome, so you've got, and there's probably some that we're forgetting. You know, you've got a lot of, a lot of places to hit. And happy birthday in a couple years.

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole and I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time. The impact on victims and what's left once a facade falls away? We've covered stories like a shark tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills. An active lawsuit filed by Larry King. And no real product to push.

He then began to prey on vulnerable women, instead selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. you can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

All right, so Dani, you rule your family rules. That was hilarious and also horrifying, and also sad, but also uplifting at times. So thank you for all that. It was all of the above. So let's talk about a local Boston listener tale.

Let's do it, don't squeeze. is this? don't squeeze my charmin like toilet paper?

I think so, don't squeeze my charmin a haunting, let's see it says, Hold on.

I'm going to open the puttapha, do it. Hi Ash and Elena, Hi, my name is Amy.

No need to change my name because there are probably 400 AMys in the Boston area, so I'm not really outing myself. I've changed everyone else's name in the story, though, just for privacy's sake. Thank you both for being such great storytellers and for giving people like me, who reluctantly call themselves believers in the paranormal, a platform to share our tales. You're welcome, thank you for sharing them with us.

I've pasted my story below and attached it as a puttapha. I've been meaning to share this story with you for a while. But this summer, two things happened that made me finally get off my butt and do it. One, my former roommate from the story and I finally got together for the first time in about 10 years, reminiscing and laughing about the absurdity of these events. And two, when the T shut down this summer, I had to drive to work in Harvard Square, along with half of Boston's north shore. Every day, Waze would send me on a slightly different route through Medford and Somerville to avoid traffic. But no matter which street I started down, I would somehow end up driving by the house.

In this story, the first time it felt like an odd coincidence, by the third time it was creepy and weird. And I felt like the house was still trying to tell me something all these years later, oh, I want to know exactly where it is. This story takes place in what was once the most densely populated city in America, Somerville, Massachusetts.

Somerville We love a Somerville moment. Somerville for my non-Bostonians. Somerville is kind of Boston. Kind of not, it's not.

Perfect way to describe it, though. Kind of Boston, kind of not everybody that's not from Boston will tell you that they are in Boston when they're in Somerville, but you are not. But that's why it's kind of Boston, but kind of not. It's the next city over from Cambridge. And 20 plus years ago, when this story takes place, it was still up and coming, as they say.

Rents were fairly cheap, and the streets were filled with a mix of local townies. Think Whitey Bulger meets Italian mafia and 20-something transplants looking for a decent place to live? That was a walkable to the T, with bars and restaurants nearby. My two roommates, I was going to do this whole thing with, like the full-on Boston accent, but I'm not going to assault your ears. Why? Because I thought about it when I was like, bars and restaurants.

I think you should do it. My two roommates, let's call them Caroline and Jamie and I, lived on the first floor of a fairly typical flaw.

Flaw, flawless family house, or, as we massals call it, a triple deca, triple fucking deca, triple deca kid. By fairly typical, I mean, each floor had a separate apartment.

Our apartment had three bedrooms, mine was a converted dining room, a pink tiled bathroom from the 1920s. Oh, I love it. And a kitchen that was mostly a big open room the size of a bedroom with just a table, a freestanding oven and fridge, and a microwave. On a cart against the against the firewall wall.

It was connected to a vintage yellow and green tiled Butler's pantry. I'm loving this. Containing the sink and all the kitchen cabinets, there was a back door to the driveway in the corner of the kitchen that we used as our primary entrance. Our landlord had added exciting enhancements like industrial jade green carpeting and metallic sponge paint to the wall. I want to know who the fuck said, Let's sponge paint this wall? people love a sponge paint.

Oh, I hate it, I know it used to be the thing I know. Oh. There were self-proclaimed ministers living on the second floor who held regular religious services and sometimes let people live in our shared basement.

Oh, that's fun. It was quirky, but the rent was cheap, the ministers were nice. And except for the one time she called the bomb squad to diffuse a suspicious package, our third floor neighbor kept to herself. Except that one huge time, this is very Somerville.

It is honestly, it was 1999, and cell phones weren't really a thing among young and poor graduate students. So my roommates and I communicated to each other with notes left on a large, think the size of an average flat screen TV whiteboard. That one of us had salvaged from the neighbor's trash. We had propped this monstrosity on top of the microwave and left each other. Basic, sometimes passive aggressive, notes about bills due, or who needed to get their old food out of the fridge, etc. Roommates.

I've never had a roommate. It's an experience, yeah. Keep in mind that my roommates and I were fairly friendly acquaintances, more than friends. O.of.

That sounds like a fucking nightmare. My only roommates were like actual friends, yeah, and that I was the only link between the two of them. Ooh, we got along and hung out sometime together sometimes, but weren't long standing BFfs or anything.

Maybe that awkward formality that comes from sharing a living space with relative strangers is the reason it took each of us so long to admit that our apartment was a spooky nightmare. We'll never know. We moved in at the beginning of June. I was working at a magazine for the summer and had started dating someone long distance. My roommates were living similar young, 27 something lives, and we often talk, walk to Davis Square to grab.

I love this, I love it. Yeah, I'm like, we're all just like, Oh, we get doughnuts from there, sometimes we do. We often walk to Davis Square to grab beers together, bagels on weekend mornings.

Life was good, Caroline, and I had just come from a horrible living situation with another person the year before. So I initially chalked up the odd feeling I'd get here and there to in the apartment as leftover trauma for my previous living situation. And the feeling of wooziness in the front hall was attributed to that crazy metallic sponge paint on the walls, combined with old, uneven floors, making me feel like I was in a fun house. I get it.

Fast forward a few months. The long distance boyfriend had stayed over for a weekend visit. I took him to the airport around 5am the following Monday. Before we left home. He wrote a quick thank you to my roommates. We love a thankful king.

We do. He wrote a quick thank you to my roommates. On that giant whiteboard in the kitchen. I returned home less than an hour later. It was still quiet house. Everything was as I had left it, except that the whiteboard was no longer propped up on the microwave.

It was laying face up about eight feet across the room. I could not, for the life of me, understand how a heavy, particle board backed whiteboard could land face up across the room. But I told myself that writing the thank you note had made the board unstable and caused it to fall. You know something? Somehow, that note was different from the other notes we wrote to each other all the time.

It was heavy with importance. Yeah, you know, I wanted. it was heavy with gratefulness. yeah, with gratitude, with appreciation.

I went about my day and tried to convince myself that I was just being dramatic. Needless to say, I never mentioned it to my roommates. But a week or so later, Caroline and I were sitting in the living room watching TV, while Jamie was eating her dinner at the kitchen table. We suddenly heard Jamie say Oh. Followed by a few rapidly escalating oh's and ah's and Holy shite, and then a loud crash.

Like, what the fuck happened? Jamie? Caroline and I ran down the hall to the kitchen, only to find the whiteboard once again lying face up on the floor. In the same location as before. Only this time, Jamie had watched it slowly rock itself. One corner at a time, off the top of the microwave and then literally fly across the room. That's absolutely terrifying.

It was then that we all came clean to each other. About the weird experiences we'd been having in the house. The feeling of someone standing over our shoulder in the bathroom, the odd feeling in the front hall, in the front closet. Caroline came to us a few days later to tell us that someone had just called her name in the hallway goodbye.

Some weeks after that, when Jamie's boyfriend Curtis was spending the night, her printer turned on at 2am and started printing. Only there was no paper in the printer. They got into a fight over whether or not they should put paper in to see what the messages would, what messages would come through. Curtis won, and no paper was ever added. I would be team Curtis. Oh, fuck that.

I would have been like, put paper in that shit. We know Jamie's room would sometimes take on the odor of manure, oh God, while Caroline's room always smelled like fresh flowers.

So they did not fuck with Jamie? No, I was convinced that the ghost was an old woman. Weeks passed, Caroline got a job offer in Vermont and moved out.

Curtis moved in. Weird things kept happening, but nothing was too traumatizing. And, as I said in the beginning, the rent was cheap and the location was good, heck, we even had the rare luxury of off street parking.

Oh, wow, I mean, you don't give that up. So one night, when Jamie's college roommate was visiting, I was woken by a blood curdling scream coming from the bathroom. Gosh, after a night of bar hopping in Boston. The poor girl had come back to our apartment and was brushing her teeth at the sink when the medicine cabinet door began repeatedly opening and closing on its own.

I get that that's like, pretty scary, but like, you don't need to scream about it, like, you're in my house. Don't be annoying. I feel like that was like too much.

That was pick me behavior, that was pick me behavior.

We're just like, I don't know Jamie's college roommate, I don't know, can you tell? We grew up in a haunted house. We're like, that's nothing, get over it.

Jamie consulted a friend of hers who had done some casual ghost hunting on the South Shore. As a teen. She's always had an interesting mix of friends. His advice was that we had to take the house but take back our house and tell the ghosts that we live there now. And it had to leave us alone.

His exact words were You need to tell the ghosts this is my house, leave me alone. I think you have to say it nicer, I feel like you should. Curtis, Jamie and I all agreed that we weren't anywhere close to being ready to confront this spirit.

Yeah, we just went about our lives with the minor inconvenience of feeling like we were sharing our home with a fourth unseen roommate. I feel that one day I was getting ready to meet friends at the local second run movie theater to see, ironically, the sixth sense. Remember when there were second run theaters when you could see a cheap movie like six months after its initial release? Oh, that shit's awesome.

I didn't even know that was a thing. Yeah, I think this particular movie was popular enough that it took more, like 10 months, to get the cheap theater, but I digress. So there I was getting ready to go. I changed my clothes, brush my teeth uneventfully and sat down on the toilet to go to the bathroom.

I was just finishing up my business and was about to reach for the toilet paper when it happened. So it is charmin. The freaking toilet paper roll started unrolling on its own before I even had a chance to touch it. That's kind of nice. And no, for you debunkers out there, this was not a single turn.

Like, maybe you just knocked it with your elbow situation. The roll just kept rotating until the paper hit the floor and started accordion folding in on itself. See, that's like, nice, because they're like, Oh my gosh, here you go, I got you.

Yeah, but also please don't be in the bathroom with me. No, and also I can, I can get my own toilet paper, definitely.

And also like, that's bad for my plumbing, so like, let's calm down exactly, and also toilet paper is expensive, so can we not?

Can't. There's a lot here. Yeah, at first, I just watched it unroll in disbelief. I'm just picturing you sitting on a toilet, just being like, just watching it unroll.

Like, just in silence, like a full minute of just watching this, like accordion in on itself, like furrowed brow. And then, for some reason, I started getting pissed. I mean, seriously, couldn't I have some privacy on the toilet? At least? I've since had three kids and realized the answer to that rhetorical question is actually no.

But I was young and naive, then this was the last straw, nobody was going to squeeze my charmin. I mustered all the courage I could and channeled one my one summer of acting camp to confidently declare This is my house. Leave my toilet paper alone.

The first attempt at taking it, I love that that was your last straw. It's my toilet paper. The first attempt at taking back my power. Slash bathroom came out as more of a shaky squeak.

But then I said it again, more strongly, and then yeeted out of that house as fast as I could. Iconic, unbelievably, that really was the last spooky thing to happen to me in that house. Maybe it's because the sixth sense transformed my feelings on the ghost a bit. Maybe they really are just kind souls that have unfinished business. And I should have been more, should be more empathetic.

Maybe it's because I had started dating my now husband by then and was spending less and less time in the apartment. Or maybe the ghost actually listened to me and started respecting boundaries a bit more. He went to therapy. We all moved out the following summer, and the house has since been renovated and turned into condos. I've done some stocking on Zillow.

It's currently on the market for nearly 1 million. If anyone's looking for a new place to live, damn in Somerville. Either way, after the odd driving routes this summer brought me face to face with the house again and again, I feel like maybe the ghost is still trying to send me a message.

So if anyone buys a first floor condo in Somerville in the next few months, that you end up discovering is haunted. Make sure you keep paper in your printer or whiteboard in your kitchen. And maybe you can finally get to the bottom of this mystery. Thanks for listening and, as always, keep it weird. I loved that one.

I really loved that, that was so much fun. Amy, you guys are fucking funny, you are, and you know what?

I stand by it. Jamie's college roommate needed to take it down a notch. Yeah, absolutely. I think that girl was just a guest.

She was, Yeah, it was just Jamie's college roommate visiting. Oh yeah, exactly. So, like, you can be honest with us.

Was she a lot? She was a pick me? Was she a lot? Absolutely, she was a lot.

She was, It's okay, it's alright, she's grown out of that. When your college friends come to visit, or, like, you know, like, when other people's college friends come to visit and you're just like, Oh, things are getting weird.

I used to get in so much trouble for expressing my feelings. Oh boy.

Anyways.

Anyways, my next one is called The Listener Tale. Neighborhood U.FO, summer of 1995.

Let's go, it says, Hello there. I am a longtime listener and have wanted to share the story for quite some time. But I am lazy, so I never got a lot.

Goodbye. I never got around to writing it until now. Yay for being sick with Covid and being so bored, locked, isolated in my apartment. While we have an unusually warm fall bummer attached. You will find my story, well, not mine, but my neighborhood story from a strange summer in 1995.

I hope that you enjoy it. I save it as a put a foot. 14 font, double spaced. Sorry if there are any spelling or grimmers grimmer. I know. Thanks so much and hope to hear from you lovely ladies. Also again. Ash was not born during this, but I was on the way.

I think we're on the way, right? Yeah, well, in the summer of 1995, I wasn't, you weren't, but I was. I was about to be on the way. That's true, I was 10.

Wow, that shit goes crazy, that does go crazy, Caleb would say. All right. Well, the neighborhood UFO story. I absolutely love the podcast.

Thank you thing. And I thought you would both enjoy hearing this account from the summer of 1995 from a little town in Michigan, when multiple neighbors all saw lights in the sky. I love that my name is Billy, you can use my name and any other names, my pronouns are he, him?

Thank you to quote this, to quote Sophia from The Golden Girls Picture It, Michigan, 1995. I already love you, Billy. I grew up in a very small town in Michigan, dirt roads, lots of fields and farms.

At night, the only light came from the moon and stars. I kind of love that I do, too, sounds kind of beautiful. My direct neighbors were my aunt and uncle and three cousins.

To say that the area was conservative is an understatement. Any mention of paranormal things were laughed at and shunned, and the same goes for anything queer related. But I digress and moved away the day after graduation. Good for you, man, love that for you.

When the lights were first spotted, it came from the neighbors. The husband, Joe and daughter were outside at night, bringing in groceries, and they both saw three orange lights. They were above their cornfield, off in the distance. That's where I want to see spooky UFO lights above a cornfield. Always the lights just sat there, not moving.

There was not any sound, the lights were about a hundred feet or so above the corn. I love that, they're just like hanging out over the corn.

It has juice, juice. Can't imagine a more beautiful day.

When I tried it with butter, everything changed. That's the best part of it. Yes, I know all the words anyways. They moved into the house and when Joe looked back outside, the lights were higher in the sky and moving away very slowly toward the south. He got his wife and they watched them until they were past the woods and out of sight. Joe said that they were three lights and a triangular shape they always are.

He did not see a craft or object that they were attached to you, but said they stayed in the same shape as they hovered and then moved. This, of course, made it into the neighborhood gossip, but it was joked about, but not taken very seriously. Oh, Joe, poor Joe. About a week later, my father and uncle were returning from a quick trip to the store, and they saw three orange lights above the woods on what would be my uncle's farm. They stopped the truck and watched, like the previous time, as Joe and his family had witnessed.

The lights just hovered, they didn't move, and there was no noise. The lights then quickly moved off and out of sight. My uncle, who was driving, drove the rest of the way to his house with my dad, and when they pulled into the driveway, the lights were hovering above my uncle's barn. The barn sat back, probably about a thousand feet from the house.

Oh, I love this, and I just picture a cow being lifted up in a beam.

That wasn't a really good cow impression. I was. Yeah, I was just gonna let it go, and, you know, the thing was that I, like, really tried. It's not always, they're not always gonna be hits. No, you know, moves gotta be kind of deep.

It doesn't needs to be from within. Yeah, I know what. My dog, Sydney, is half-cow, I'm pretty sure, and she can do a sick cow impression she can. It's actually pretty fucking crazy. It's wild.

But anyway, they both got out of the truck and stood there watching. My dad said that he saw the lights were on a triangular object. The object was so dark that you could only tell it was there because it was darker than the night sky. My uncle said that the shape was quote like, if three yellow school buses were in a triangle. Ooh, I had to put that in because it still makes me laugh to think that that is how he came up with the size. As I said before, Country folk.

My uncle and father went into the house to get my aunt and mother, when they came out, it was gone. So my mom and aunt, as well as me and my cousins, made fun of them and asked how many beers they drank on the drive. Later that night, the electricity in the neighborhood started acting very strange. We had gone back home and the lights would get extremely bright and then darken, the TV would go dark and then come back on.

That happened occasionally, it was the country, and when it was really hot or storms were happening, electricity would act weird. My mom called my aunt and she said the same thing was happening there, but that my aunt and my uncle's phone kept ringing. When they would pick it up, it would be really loud, static. As my mom and aunt were talking, another neighbor picked up.

We had party lines back then, when the entire neighborhood was on a single phone line. So you could have to pick up the phone and listen to see if other people were already on a call before making your call. Whoa, I didn't even know that was a thing. That's why.

Country, party lines, party lines. But she heard my mom like, Oh, hey, Joe, I think he's the phone. Excuse me. This is important. That's so wild. Can you imagine having to, like, have a private conversation?

That's a real country and you just never know. yeah, you never know. Well, I guess nobody could, like, cook a scheme up. If I was a kid, I would just be listening to that party line 24-7.

Absolutely, I'd be Harriet. The spying. It was already done. Everybody's gossip. Oh my god, it would be so easy to do prank calls.

Oh yeah, that's fun. Oh man, can we time travel? Yes, back to Michigan in 1995. We'll figure it out, we will.

But as my mom and my aunt were talking, another neighbor picked up.

If they were having issues with the electricity.

I don't really remember any resolve to it. I think it was just the neighborhood woman talking. But I do remember that my dad seemed quite tense about it. But he didn't say anything for the next two to three weeks. Multiple neighbors saw the lights either moving through the sky or hovering in various spots. My cousin, who was five years older than me, who was 19 at the time, said he saw the lights move across the field. While he watched from his bedroom, another neighbor said that his cows, I can't even do it.

I tried again, it got better, this time did it, so I feel like you're on the right track. Oh, hopefully, he says. Cows again.

Yeah, cows, you can just say that.

Cows and horses would start acting really strange and make lots of noise at night, then he would see the lights. On Fridays, all the neighbors would usually get together at someone's house for cards and socializing. I fucking love this, right? I'm obsessed with this.

We kids would play and there would usually be a fire, everybody sat around. I love how, like, that's so kind and nice. The talk was soon of everyone seeing the lights, having electrical issues, phone issues, and barn animals and pets acting weird. One neighbor said that his entire family saw the lights over their barn and then the object craft whatever hit their house with.

What they said was the brightest spotlight, that it was so bright you couldn't even see Whoa. Then it just went off and the lights were gone. That's the only time I heard of that happening. I wish I could tell you something exciting, like missing time, crop circle, seeing grays or the lights chasing people, but really, that was it.

I still pretty exciting to me, I love it. For about a month, the lights appeared, almost everyone in the neighborhood talked about seeing them, and then as soon as it all started, it just stopped. I like to think that our neighborhood was just so boring that the aliens thought, Nope, not intelligent.

Life here and moved on, but I digress and all of this. My mother and I never saw the lights. I think the aliens were just like everything seems all right here.

So let's move on. They're like, you know what, this is a chill individual. They seem like they're getting along town. Yeah, just move on.

Today, no one talks about that summer or the lights. My father and uncle have both passed away. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

They are the only two that ever continued to talk about it, but they would never say UFO. Just the lights. I like that better, it's way more eerie. I personally am a believer in the paranormal. I lived in a very haunted house in my early 20s, and my father and a few other relatives visit me in my dream.

Oh, I love that, what I call a check-ins from time to time, I love it. I hope you enjoyed this and it would be really cool if it made it on the pod.

Thanks again for all that you do and for creating a community that is safe for all people of every background to share their experiences. From Billy Billy. I'm so glad that everybody feels that way. Oh, and say, cow again.

No, okay, that was a little lateral. I feel where it's supposed to come from, but it's not. It's not, it's hard. You don't have, like multiple stomachs.

Don't cows have multiple stomach? No, that's definitely not where it's supposed to come from. I think they have, like, a deep, there's this, like, very like.

But guys, this was a great episode of listener tales. If I do say so myself and I can, because this is all about you guys. So you created a great episode. Yeah, brought to you by you, for you, from you, and all about you, and we are obsessed with you. Love the 90s tales, keep them coming because those are really fun and nostalgic.

Yeah, if you guys want to send in a 90s tale, just put it in the in the, in the title line subject line, that's what it's called. And in the meantime, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it, but not to where that you don't send us your 90s tales because I really want to hear them. Because I was only alive for like, three years of the 90s, and I don't remember any of it. Don't go camping, don't pretend you're Jesus breaking into people's houses.

Don't take somebody's toilet paper and unravel it, and don't be strange. Lights that don't tell anybody what you're doing. No, you get a party. lights that don't tell people what you're doing. Get a party line, yeah.

Okay, bye.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery Comm Slash Survey.