What's that at the bed. It's spooky, joky, I'm really sure it's dead. It's coming this way.
Wait a minute, help, I'm ghosted.
By guys that says please, Oh hey boo, it's me Roz. I am so excited for a listener episode. It has been months I have missed doing these. I'm so happy that I got to do this, and I of course I want to do more, so, like always, please send me your ghost stories to ghosted by Roz at gmail
dot com. Put in the subject line listener episode or something like that, and just give me a couple of little bullet points of what your stories are and I'll look through them, and you know, maybe I might not choose you this next time, but maybe i'll look at it later, because you know, I want to have like different kinds of stories every episode when I can, and let's do it. I'd love to do it once a month, but you know, we'll see how it goes. Hopefully hopefully,
I don't know. Send me stories, send them in and we'll figure it out. I was joined today by Katherine Martin and Kelly and this is one of my favorite ones we've ever had. These stories are stupendous, So we're just going to get right into it. Go to patreon dot com slash Roz dres Fales for a bonus episode and bonus little video of me this week. Check it out link in the description. All right, time for some listeners on with this show. Hello Katherine in Brooklyn, New York,
New York, United State. Dates. How are you?
Oh my god, Roz, it is such a dream come true to be talking to you, Dah. You are an icon in our household. Me, my husband, our rabbit, our cat all sit in and listen to you every week.
Everyone gathers around, all the animals. It's like snow white.
A little bit.
Wow.
Well, I am so honored. And from what I read from what you've set me, there's also a ghost in your house?
What is up with that? Okay, So we moved here. We've lived in this apartment for about five and a half years, and when we moved in, we were like,
vibes are great, vibes, check out, it's all good. But then we started noticing, like, so they painted our walls and the finish that they used in the paint as eggshells, so you can like see any marks on there and I started noticing in weird places, like greasy handprints on our walls, and so, okay, so when you walk into our apartment, the you walk in and there's a hallway immediately to the left that goes to our bathroom, and then there's like a little entryway, and then the kitchen
is off of that, and so you can stand at the kitchen sink when you're doing dishes and you can kind of like see this just blank wall to your right. And I started seeing this like woman, of course in the typical stereotypical white dress, but her hair was in a bun, and she would like have her hands like folded in front of her, and she would just kind of like emerge from the wall. Make sure I wasn't trashing her apartment, watch over things which you.
Just like come out of the wa You would watch her come out of the wall.
Yeah, Well, so I couldn't look at her. It's that thing where you can't I couldn't look at her full on. It would be out of the corner of my eye, and I would just like be doing the dishes and I could see her kind of come out and and so I'm like I'm always the one in my marriage, I'm the one with much more active imagination. So I told I didn't say very much to my husband, but then he came to me and actually said, hey, have you seen this woman coming out of the wall?
And I'm like what.
And our cat would always go over to this wall and like to the wall like like they do because they can see everything. So I don't know. So that happened pretty frequently the first year.
But does that woman listen to my podcast? Very important?
He does, so, okay, so I will tell you. I will tell you. So if I'm listening to you on my on my lap and I'm like carrying you with me from room to room, I can feel like when when you do the EVPs or ev please, I can feel like it feels like somebody comes into the room to be like I got to see if this shit is real.
Oh my god. I wonder if EVPs sound different to a ghost. They're like, oh my god, my voice sounds so terrible. When I'm recorded.
It's like quality control. They're seeing how well it actually worked.
Yeah, oh my god. Have you ever tried to do any kind of like ghost hunty stuff there? Have you ever tried to record her.
I've tried, but like stuff hasn't really ever come through, Like I don't know, and I've tried some of those apps that are just I don't know, they feel kind of silly. But so we've had we've had the handprints, so we named her ghost Hand and so as we've lived here throughout the years, like it kind of feels like so our building was built in nineteen twenty six, and it infrequently feels like we have somebody new just popping by to check in on their old apartment. Like
sometimes we'll wake up. Our bedroom is at like the very end, so it's you know, entryway than living room and bedroom, and so sometimes we'll wake up to like noises in our living room and our rabbit and our cat will be in our bedroom with us, so we'll have to like be like hey, quiet out there. I have really strict rules of like I don't want to be touched or woken up, like don't wake me up for ghosts. These are my rules for the ghosts, like
don't touch me, don't wake me up. And so one time I did wake up and it felt like someone was like kind of exploring in my room and it wasn't sleep paralysis. I wasn't afraid. I like slightly wiggled my toes to make sure it wasn't sleep paralysis. And
then all of a sudden, like our rabbit. His whole little station is in one corner of our bedroom, and I literally heard in my head, holy shit, they have a rabbit, And like walking over there, I'm like, either I'm dreaming this or somebody's in here checking things out.
But our rabbit will.
So this is not trying to turn into a podcast about rabbits, but our rabbit. When rabbits get scared or annoyed, they'll thump their feet really loud, and it's like to warn you of danger and stuff. So he'll like thump his feet if there's noises going on in the living room. And one time I we woke up and our iPad had been completely turned off, was like turned on at like three am, blaring music like this jazz station. And I again, because I have these rules, I get really
annoyed when I wake up. So I stomped into the living room and turned off the iPad and glared around in the dark, and I was like, it is not party.
Time if you just glared around in a circle. You're bound to make eye contact whether you can see her or not. Do you write just the one lady?
So okay, so we have also seen we named this we name this other guy Tom as in like a peeping Tom, because we'll be like Tom, Oh my gosh, that would be amazing if it were my space Tom.
Just the man that looks over his shoulder and smile.
Yeah, in a white T shirt, a white crew neck T shirt. Yes, yes, No. So like we'll be in the bathroom, like getting and dressed to take a shower, and you can like see somebody like poke their head around and then like, oh shit, they saw me, and then like yeah, yeah.
I know.
So east hands are definitely his. I'm sorry, Oh you're right. It has to sorry not to be lude or anything, but the greasy hands are his. I know that for sure.
Yeah, that wouldn't beat You're right, because that doesn't track with ghost hands. She's like making sure we're not messing up her apartment.
Yeah she's oh no, she's not ghost hands. Well I don't know who knows, but yeah, maybe she just really loved curly fries or something and her hands were greasy all the time, and you know, she lets she leaves a trail behind.
Could be very well, could be she. I was a couple of mornings ago. Actually, I was playing the you know, the the like soul version of the Golden Girls theme song. Oh what's his name? Oh yeah, it's so it's like, I don't know it's it's kind of old, but it's this guy. His name is Aaron. I don't remember it, but you should look it up. It's amazing. In his video, he like ends it snatching his wig off.
It's amazing.
Yeah I know that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was playing that and singing along with it, and all of a sudden we heard this loud crashing in our bathroom and I went in there and all of my shampoo bottles had been knocked off the shelves into the bathtub.
Weird.
Yeah, not the bunny, not the bunny. No, it was the greasy hand peeping tom.
Yeah. Yeah, I had to. I did have to tell them we're fans of the Golden Girls in this house, and if they weren't, then they could leave.
WHOA, So how often would you say? Things happen?
It kind of comes and goes. So as I feel like, as we're getting into spooky season, Like there's been more like oh, I think I saw somebody out of the corner of my eye, or like also, I've recently had where I've walked out of the bathroom down that hallway and I've seen and my husband was talking to me and he was watching me walk out of the hallway and we both saw this orb go past me and it was kind of like someone was like, oh, sorry, I gotta get right past you. Sorry, like like down
the hallway. Yeah.
Wow.
So it doesn't see what you guys are like, I mean, you've been there for what do you say, five years? It's not like yeah, too bad.
No, I mean, so I don't allow I don't allow scary stuff. I've had some vibes where it feels scary and it's felt like somebody's there because they think I'm like energetic buffet. They're going to feast on.
That.
They want to, you know, try to make me scared, and so I don't allow that crap, and I kick people out if I think they're being scared, they're trying to be scary, or they're trying to be like Poulter icy, or if I feel like this is ros I'm a huge nerd. But the author Neil Gaman, he wrote this book called The Graveyard. The Graveyard, Well, shit, what's it called? Uh? The Graveyard Book? And it's like the Jungle Book, but
it's a kid raised in a graveyard by ghosts. And in the story, like the kid learns some of the ghost tricks and one of them is raising the fear level in a room. And I was like, you know, that feels real because because you can be like in a room when you feel like there's a ghost in there, and you can feel like the fear level raising up. So I'm just I just sit up and I'm like, stop it. I need to sleep.
Oh oh interesting.
I don't know if it's for them or if it's just for me, you know, of me telling my brain to like stop it and calm down, and you know, you know, maybe I'm the one doing all these mind tricks on myself.
But yeah, wow, Okay, So it's like you figured it out, You figured out how to coexist, and it does it sounds like not that bad of a ghost like it sounds it sounds kind of amazing where you have all this activity, but you guys, you know, get along. You know your boundaries for the most part, they respect them. It's it truly is like a roommate situation.
A little bit. And you know, it's funny because, like you've mentioned on your show about like people in New York not really talking like they're they're no ghost in New York. But I think it's partially like a lot of these buildings are old, the walls are thin. You can like hear your neighbors walking around sometimes, so if you hear other noises, you might just be like, oh,
that's my neighbor. And also, like everyone is so you're so like surrounded by people all the time that like the last thing you want to do is think that there's some embodied like disembodied person also living in your apartment with you.
Sure, well, yeah, I'm sure that. Like, for example, if you lived out in the middle of nowhere all by yourself and you felt what feels like a human is in your room, that would be crazy. But if you're around people all the time and then you're like in your apartment and it feels like there's someone in the room, it might just be like I've already done that, like that, I've run around so many people today. I don't like I don't know, maybe you wouldn't process it the same.
Yeah, and I have talked to friends about like what we've experienced, and a lot of them have said they felt the same things, especially once that live in older buildings, of feeling like people are just popping in to check it on their old apartment.
So creepy. But yeah, okay, well, but this is not the first time you've lived in a haunted home.
No, no, So, So I did grow up in so like most New Yorkers, I'm a transplant, and I did grow up in Indiana in a very small town, and I lived in a Victorian home from let's see, we moved there when I was ten, and then I moved out shortly before I got married. But yeah, so we moved there from like a like a more like a mid century home that was like built out of stone, and then we moved into this Victorian home that has like original sighting and original windows and the upstairs has
the original floors. And so I was sharing a bedroom with my brother at the time, and then our baby brother was like in there's this like little sitting room out outside of our bedroom, and then my parents' bedroom and my baby brother was like kind of there in
a crib. And when we first moved in, it was kind of all the normal haunting things of like you could hear somebody walking up the stairs or walking up the basement stairs, and then of course nobody would be there, and then like you could hear somebody walking around that like sitting room area upstairs, and you know, like there were lots of weird creeks and noises. And my mom was always just like it's just an old house. You just have to get used to it, Like it's just
an old house. But like weird things would happen where Like so I was ten, my brother, my next youngest brother was nine, and then my baby brother he was like a toddler, and so me and my brother and then my mom all the time would fall down the stairs, just like like like fall down the stairs. And so I remember like one time I was going down the stairs and I was like, I'm going to walk very carefully.
Maybe I'm not used to living in a house with stairs, And next thing I knew, I was just like falling down the stairs.
And so like that was.
Happening, and there was always kind of this feeling of
like you were being watched. My brother and I would walk home from school because I'm old enough that it was still considered safe to do that, and we would hear so the front door to the house was right beneath our bedroom, and he could hear somebody knocking on the front door, which was really weird because we had a doorbell, and so nobody would ever be there, And it was always at the same time after we got home from school at like I don't know, like three
fifteen or something. So we got to the point where like one of us would stay up in our bedroom window and the other one would go downstairs to check just to make sure that, like in running downstairs, the person hadn't already walked away, but nobody was ever there.
What happened on those stairs, I don't know.
So this is truly just the beginning. So my toddler that was in that sitting room would like suddenly start having a lot of nightmares and like waking up and pointing out through his crib saying that and like talking about seeing red eyes.
Oh yeah.
So then my brother and I that were sharing bedroom, we got we got older, and my toddler brother was getting older, so he took our room, and then we took there's this other room off of the dining room that I guess was some other version of a sitting room. It like it one of the walls that was to the dining room was open, and so they were like in the process of like putting in the wall and a door, and that was gonna be our bedroom, and
raws that room is just horrible. Like so when we first moved down there, we would hear like the dining room table was like the mail spots. We could hear the mail being sifted through in the middle of the night, and like hear people walking around and the dining room
chairs kind of creaking and being moved. And then we also would have like simultaneous exploding head syndrome and we'd be woken up by it and it would sound like someone had jumped from the second story down to like our level, and you could hear like all the like stuff on the first level like shaking, like a big crash, like love like this big crash, waking us both up from our sleep.
Oh that's not exploding head syndrome. That is something I know.
Yeah, And it's kind of like the whole time this was happening. So so when this stuff started happening, my parents, who weren't religious, that weren't religious, like went and had the house blessed, and stuff kind of calmed down. You could still kind of feel like you were being watched, but like we stopped falling down the stairs, we stopped hearing footsteps coming up the stairs, we stopped hearing the knocking on the front door. But then it's like it
just took a break. It's like it just like clocked out and like then clocked back in, like after it had rested, it came back stronger. What kind of Yeah, this Lutheran priest where my mom and my stepdad got married, they weren't really a part of that church, but because he had married them, he agreed to come and bless the house.
Yeah that goes so okay. That wore me out, but just way, I'm just gonna take a little nap and I will be rested and ready.
To go one thousand percent. Like truly, it was just like a little just like a little break, and it came back stronger. By that time, Like you know, the wall for our bedroom had been finished and stuff, and so and we were getting older and so things were happening, like in our room while we were trying to sleep.
There's this like one part that is supposed to be a corner, but it's actually diagonal because it's the backside of a fireplace in a different room, and you can just like feel like I've never ever felt so much hatred in my life being like projected towards me from that corner, and we would have like both we would
both have like horrible nightmares. I would hear like like someone like drumming their fingers like on the wall next to my head, and then I would I would be so I've always been a side sleeper, and I would be like woken up by like feeling a hand yank me over onto my back and I could feel like the fingers in my shoulders.
No, yeah, do you know what the history was?
So I am a research queen, and.
So I okay, okay, So first of all, before I tell you about the history of this house, let me tell you the weird synchronicities. So when we moved there, we inherited a bunch of like family antiques. Basically, my mom got several photo albums and we were looking through them, and my great great grandmother. My family didn't grow up
in this town. And at the time that my great great grandmother was alive, it was a it was like a day trip, like you take the train to this cute little country town, you know, and spend the day there. And then it's like a whole ass thing that people would do. And she is dressed up. She and her friends were dressing in drag actually as boys and in front of the next door neighbor's house.
Oh my god.
Yeah. And that how our house that we lived in during that time was like in the town known as like the party house. So that and then my husband, he and I we actually met in high school and because it's Indiana and everybody he gets married to twelve we so so we're high school sweethearts. Yeah. Yeah, But I found out that his aunt was a hospice nurse for these two sisters of the family that owned that house and took care of them in that house in
the eighties as they were as they were dying. And then my husband's mom would even go in and like visit them.
Weird.
Yeah, And then this is just like a fun, little, fun, little side fack for me. But I don't know if you heard about that that vocal coach, that was the vocal coach for Debbie Harry here in the city, and she recently passed away.
Yeah okay, yeah, go ahead, he.
Got like pushed yes purposefully by a pedestrian.
Yes.
So she's actually from my tiny ass town in Indiana and her grandparents were the family that owned my house. Yeah. Yeah, so all of that, and so I looked. I started like trying to do as much research as possible, and you know, found out that like you know, they the land was you know, stolen from the indigenous people around eighteen oh three. The township was made sometime in the eighteen thirties, and I found a map, so I thought that the original owners were this German family and that
the house was built in eighteen eighty five. But then I found a map from eighteen eighty that was the same plot of land and the same like it had the same structures for the house, and the house was still there and it was owned by a mister W. C. Smith. And I couldn't find any other information until I found this newspaper article from eighteen eighty five, and all it said it was one of those little like gossip things that they used to do in the newspapers, like back
in the Victorian era. And all it said was missus W. C. Smith will be attending her daughter's funeral in Minnesota with her grandson.
Mister W. C.
Smith will not be accompanying her due to his absence in the forests of Minnesota. And that was all it said. And then this German family moved in and they were the owners until the eighties.
I guess what does that mean?
So basically, mister Smith went hunting, well I'm assuming went hunting in the forests of Minnesota, got his got himself lost, and never came back. And then when their daughter died, the wife just moved up to Minnesota and left the house.
Ah. Yeah, his goes to somehow in the house.
Well, that's what I've wondered if like, because it's always this presence is also always felt male. Like I've talked to my brother about it, and then my baby brother is he's you know, gotten older, and we've all agreed like, okay, this this has always felt male. It's always felt like it's always felt like a bully, is what it's felt like.
Like Like at the same time that that like stuff that was happening to us when we were asleep during the day, like we'd be watching family, we'd be watching TV as a family, and the channel this was back in the days of cable, so the channel would change to like one of the non input channels, and it would be all staticky, and then the volume would turn all the way up, all on its own.
Okay, that's mister W. C. Smith, right and so.
And then like the ceiling fans, So the ceilings are you know, those high ass ceilings, and the ceiling fans were on those extension poles, and the ceiling fans would start.
Swinging terrifying, just a full on helicopter propeller on the loose.
Yes, yes, yes, so I so one time during one of the TV episodes, I got really pissed because it felt like a bully, and so I got really pissed and I was like stop it really loud, and it stopped after that. But like, I don't know, things always just like have come and gone like that.
That's why you can deal with the ghosts in your Brooklyn apartment because.
Well, yeah, because I was traumatized as a child totally.
Because I would be able to put up with the greasy hands and the lady out of the corner in my eye. Well, you know, I have to hop on another call, but I thank you so much, and I believe don't you have even other stories to tell?
I mean, I do.
Yeah, I have to do this again sometime.
That would be so lovely. You were literally a huge light in our lives and we just love you.
Love it.
There's a ghost in my house.
I am now joined by Martin in Los Angeles, California. How are you, Martin?
I'm wonderful. Ross how are you?
I'm so good. Well, we just worked together.
I know you.
We work together.
You.
I actually talked about it on the show. You are the reason that I got to talk to Chris Pine about ghosts, because because you happened to be talking to Chris Pine about ghosts, which was very strange that that that came up, because I wanted to talk to them about it, but I didn't want to bring it up. And then you spit on his lap like Harry Styles did. No just kidding, did you see that? He went viral? He was great. But then it turns out you've got some ghost stories.
So I have one specific ghost story, and I think I think the way, the way I talked to you about it was that I was never a huge believer in ghosts. I've always been a believer that there are forces that somehow communicate with you. I don't want to sound even more crystally, but anyway, I'm not afraid of that.
Well.
Well, the reason we got into the conversation with Chris Pine was that that I was talking about a time when I was like seven years old and I was having a dream where I was choking on marshmallows and I woke up and my pillow was in my mouth and I couldn't breathe, and I was panicking, and I kept sucking the pillow into my mouth more and I was and I was I was basically dying and uh and I was just like trump fighting and trying to get this pillow out of my mouth and I couldn't
do it. And a voice, I heard a voice, and it said, let go. It'll be okay.
Let go.
And I thought in my head, at seven years old, I think, well, I guess I'm going to die now. And so I stopped breathing. I went, I breathed out, and the pillow came out of my mouth and so this voice kind of saved my life. So that's where that's where the things started from. So I've always had like this sort of idea that there's you know, forces or something out there, you know that talks to you.
A ghost was like a guardian angel or what do you think that is?
Yeah, I kinda, yeah, I guess I would look at it that way, or you know, I don't know that I'm quite that religious or anything. I don't know that I associated with a religious thing, but yeah, a guardian of some sort. So that's how we got into the conversation.
And then we got into the conversation about ghosts, and I said, I never really I never really believed because I never had an experience with that kind of phenomena until I'm in Chicago in nineteen ninety four with three of my friends and we had this swanky apartment in Boystown in Chicago, and it was a four bedroom, three baths apartment. It was awesome, and one of the rooms
we had as a music room. And so one night, you know, as we are artists, we do stupid things like sit around and sing songs on a piano and stuff like that. And so my friend Kirkland was playing a song that and I said, oh, that's a pretty song, and he's like, oh, I wrote this for my friend Stephen, who died some years before nineteen ninety four. So cut to I think the first incident was Deborah, Daryl, and myself the other roommates were out on Halstead and we
were going to get some pizza. So we called Kirkland. And this was before cell phone, so I think I'm still used. I don't know how I got a hold of him anyway, So we called him and and I said, you know, you don't want to know your pizza, blah blah blah. And then he goes, oh, who's with you? And I said, oh, it's me, Deborah and Darryl, and he goes all of you. I said yeah, and he goes okay and I and then we hung up. And then when we got home, I asked him why did
you say that? And he goes, well, because there was noise in here, and I just assumed it was one.
Of y'all, or does somebody break in.
No, he just thought he thought he heard somebody rustling around in the house and it was like the thirteenth floor of an apartment there's no way anybody could get in there unless I guess spider Man. But so, uh so that happened, and then then Kirkland. Kirkland was like, I can't find my check book and uh and we're all like, well, we don't touch your check I don't even know where your check book is. Why would I know, you know? So he said, well I don't know. He said, well,
I don't know what you know. I don't understand. So and then like a week later he found it and it was in his medicine cabinet there and then yeah and uh then uh then all this stuff started with Kirkland. And then Kirkland went into the He came to my room one night and he's like, what you know what you guys? Can you stop moving my coffee tree? My coffee coffee mug tree?
Oh, like, are those things that you like hang coffee mugs on?
Yes, thank you. I didn't know what it was either at the time. I was like, coffee mug tree an'tone with a fuck a coffee tree? Why would I Why would I move it? So anyway, so he usually had it on the side of the sink and it would move to the other side and none of us was moving it.
So at what point did you guys go, Okay, this might be a ghost.
The when it became obvious to us as something with going on was when stuff started happening to all of us. Like everything was centered around Kirkland, and Kirklin was like, he's Kirklan's like the businessman type, he's you know, so him you know my checkbook And I was like, okay, whatever. But then the rest of us started having stuff happen. Like I was home one night and I kept hearing someone's like like someone like, this is a big apartment.
So like if my roommate, Debo, was on the other side of the apartment, so if she yelled my name, I would hear it kind of off in the distance. I wouldn't. It wouldn't be loud, you know what I mean. So I kept hearing someone calling my name, and so I went to her room and I'm like what. She goes, She's like, why, why, what's going on? I'm like, why do you keep calling me? She goes, I haven't called you? So that happened?
Would you say me? Could you tell if it was like a female voice or whatever.
It sounded to me? Like it sounded to me like her. Oh my god, like it sounded to like it sounded like Deborah. That's why I went to her room. I mean, we were the only two people at the time, but you know, it sounded like her. So that's why I went to her room. And she said, that was not yelling you. Great. Then one time I was home by myself. This was the weirdest thing that happened to me personally.
I was in so our living room where the TV was, and is on the opposite side of the apartment as well, so that's on my side of the apartment. And then there's a long galley walkway like a gallery like you would have art there, Like I don't know how long it was, maybe twenty five feet. It was a huge apartment anyway, So, and then at the other end was the kitchen and Deborah's room, and the kitchen was a
galley kitchen. So I was sitting there watching the TV, which would make the kitchen in my right peripheral vision. And I was sitting there and I saw I saw something something walk from the kitchen to the back door where all the garbage stuff was for people to pick up. And I looked over and then there was nothing there. So I'm like, okay, that's fine. I just a little something. And then I started watching TV again. It happened again. What and I was like, okay, I'm getting a little weirded out.
Then.
But I was like I walked down there, nothing was there. You know, you know how you do? Uh, nothing was there. Everything was fine. So then I got back to the living room and I start watching television and then I noticed something. Something's different over in my riper. It wasn't someone walking, but there was something different. So I turned and there's a light on and I go to the kitchen and the refrigerator door is open. Stop it, I know, right, So I told I told, I told her, I told everybody.
It was like, this is kind of weird, as anybody else had weird shit happening into them. And my friend Daryl said, yeah, I was watching TV and the refrigerator door was open, and I was like, that happened to me.
That's when I don't pay the electric bill. Like a ghost can do that because there's no consequences. They're not going to be eating that food. Like that's exactly I'm sorry.
Well wait till I tell wait till I get to the end of the story, because you're going to know why the refrigerator door was open. Okay, So then I talked to Debora and well, we were all talking together, and Debra said, Okay, I wasn't gonna tell anybody because I thought this was too bizarre and I didn't want
to anything. I was stupid. But she was home one night by herself in her room and writing or reading or something like that, and she had this music box that was real old and was broken and it started playing.
Those are so creepy when those air play.
And she just blew it off, I guess, I mean, she didn't blow it off, but she didn't tell us about it. So we're all like thinking, like, what the
fuck is happening, Like why is this happening? And we were thinking and thinking and thinking, and we were just like, well, you know, this all kind of started around that night that we were, you know, singing music and stuff like that, and Kirkland played this song for his friend Steven and and he's like, We were all like, you know, maybe it's Steven, you know, maybe somehow we got him out
here again. And we started talking about yeah, and then we started talking about, like, you know, the things that were happening, and he was like, you know, he's like Steven would always move my shit, and like I'd have someplace that I kept my shit and he would move it somewhere else and I wouldn't be able to find it. And then and he would always leave the refrigerator door, like he'd sit there with refrigerator door open, trying to
think of what he wanted to eat. Oh my god, instead of thinking about what he wanted before we opened the door. And we were all like, yeah, it's him. So we all decided that we were going to have that We were going to uh not stage, but we were going to go through all the whole house and all of us were going to say, Stephen, you're dead. You need to move on to the next phase of your life. We love you, and we we're glad you visited us, but you need to move on to the
other side. And I kid you, not everything stopped.
Did you know him? You personally?
I did not know him. The only person that knew him was.
Kirkland and interesting, I want to know how the checkbook got in the medicine cabinet.
That's what he said. He said, that well, I mean, Stephen would move shit around, just like move stuff.
And how long did you guys live there before this night that you guys were singing the song?
This was the first year that we lived there, but it was well into that we moved there. We moved into that place in April of nineteen ninety four, and we moved out like April of nineteen ninety six, so it had to be like late ninety four, early ninety five.
Oh my god, this is a good story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Yeah, it was. I mean, it was really kind of this like that's what I mean, Like I I was not a believer, but that whole thing and the fact that it affected all four of us, yeah, really, I
mean it could have been I guess it could. Maybe it was another spirit that was just being mischievous and acting like they were Stephen because we were talking about I don't know, it's possible too, but just the specificity of the things that Kirkland said he would do when he was alive, and the things that happened to us during this incident, you know, I don't I don't know how because we never talked about it until afterward.
You know, Oh he was like, you know, still be in a roommate and like hanging out with his peers.
That's kind of yeah, yeah, you know, we were. It was we had a very like that apartment was very full of like we just moved to Chicago because we were all going to try and get in the Second City and all stuff. So it was filled with a lot of excitement and a lot of joy, creativity, hope, you know what I mean. And I think that I think that in this happening, while we were all having this good time singing and all that stuff, I think it kind of just maybe brought him in. Maybe he
was needing that. I don't know, but yeah, it was. It was these were things that I could, like, I just could not explain. Wow, you know, I can't. I can't explain them away. And that's why I believe in ghosts. Now, I don't know that I I don't know that I believe the ghostsert everywhere all the time. But I do think that there are spirits. And I almost have gone back to that incident when I was that I told you about when I was seven. I've almost gone back
to that and thought, hmmm, maybe a guardian spirit. You know, maybe maybe there are people around me that have passed that are keeping me from you know, from harm.
Oh I totally believe that.
Yeah.
But also it's interesting, like, you know, the traditional belief of ghosts is someone dies in an area and then they're stuck around in that area. But then when you hear stories like this, it's like, yeah, they could I don't know, they could get conjured up and then just kind of hang out until you tell them.
To leave, or be attached to a person. You know, maybe he was very attached to Kirk.
Yeah.
I wonder if you ever played that song ever.
Again that I don't know. We never played it again in our house. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it was. It was very interesting. It was like this happened. This occurred like over a few months, like all these things, damn. And it took us a while to be like, oh wait a minute, is anybody else having these you know, m you know, because when you're happening to you, you're kind of like, come on. But then when everybody else was verifying it.
But when you say that you saw something in the kitchen, do you was it? It was just out of the corner of your eye. Right, Like you didn't see actual details of a person.
No, it was like because it was dark in the kitchen, it was dark in that area. Yeah, but the thing I saw was even darker than that, just like move. But I could tell it was a person. It had a humanoid form, but it wasn't. It wasn't. There wasn't. There weren't any details.
WHOA Well, Martin, thank you so much for telling the story.
Oh, thank you for having me. I'm glad to tell you. I love telling the story. It's my favorite.
I've been ghosted too, Kelly in New York City. How are you?
Hello, I'm doing well.
How are you. I'm happy with you.
I'm doing so great. I am really excited to hear about this. Quite the tale you sent me, and yeah, let's hear about it.
Yeah. I'm going to try to be as concise and clear as I can. But it's a story that has some twists and turns. Yeah, so just for clarity and the sake of storytelling. It does have sort of two parts to the story, one which takes place.
In two thousand and nine, and then.
A series of events in twenty nineteen which just sort of changed everything I understood about what I'd seen in two thousand and nine. But yeah, so I was on a Natural and Cultural ecology field study program based in Australia, which was an incredible study abroad experience.
And.
We you know, so as part of this, we would go on camping trips and just explore all the amazing different environments.
That Australia has to offer.
And a.
Handful of very generous Aboriginal elders.
Accompanied us on a camping trip in which we you know, we were really just trying to disconnect and to be present with the world and to learn a little bit from them about, you know, their worldview and way of seeing things. And so I think I was already sort of set up to be more in tune with things. We weren't allowed to take, you know, cameras or cell phones or even watches. So it was just really about being present in the environment where we were.
Sis I could do that.
It was incredible, It was incredible.
Yeah, And you know, we had stopped on our way at a coastline. And it's far enough in the past now that I can't remember exactly the names of everywhere we went, but we had stopped at a coast and you know, I it was irresponsible of me, and I knew that I wasn't supposed to like take anything like shells or corals from the from the beach, but I couldn't. I was naughty little twenty year old, and I took a coral and I had it in my bag.
I'd kind of forgotten about it.
But yeah, at night, we would just sort of, you know, sit around, we would have a fire and they, you know, the elders would share with us of you know, not the Eastern Treek stories that are that we weren't allowed to hear, but you know, some of their dream time stories that you know, we were allowed to share with us.
And you know, I think one of the main things, and I can't speak for their cosmology, but one of the main things that stood out to me and learning from them was just this real sense that the lines between man, nature and dividity are much more fluid than you know, the cultural background that I come from.
And so I was very enchanted by all of that.
And so, yeah, they would tell us stories from the dream time and you know, just about various how why the why the crow is black or you know, why the.
You know, just various stories to explain things about the ecology of the world.
And so when they say, like don't take any shells or coral or whatever, was that for a reason like that or that was There were a lot.
Of stories that they would share about you know, there are certain spirits and like I said, I can't speak or for the worldview because I am I'm naive and I'm not a.
Part of it.
But from what I gathered, it's you know, there's certain rules about how you just relate to the natural world. Amongst them being you know, there were I remember one.
Story that stood out to me.
It was about water water holes were only women were allowed to swim that you know, we're sort of protected and if if a man or were to go into that watering hole, there might be some type of spirit entity that came and sort of protected the water. There's there's just there are a lot of rules but that have been developed over you know, so many years of of the evolution of culture and nature together which have worked to support healthy relationships between.
Man and the environment.
So I think among them, I don't know what maybe the if there was a deeper ecological purpose, but yeah, they're also there are different like territories that would be aligned with, you know, different groups of people, and you weren't necessarily supposed to take shells or corals from one area and relocate them to another.
Got it? Okay?
Yeah, anyway, I'm sort of chripping over my words just because I don't want to act like an authority on things that I'm not.
But from what I what I've learned, these are the bits.
I gleaned right right right now, I get it.
But anyway, so I went to bed that night and I just had the most vivid dream I've ever had in my life with from it was just this water that was like swirling and pooling in everybody that I was studying with, and just this very dramatic dream and the water started taking the form of all of these different creatures. And you know, I wouldn't be surprising to have a dream like that after being exposed to these amazing stories and myths, so that in itself wasn't you know, surprising.
But I woke up from this dream and there was this figure standing outside of my tent, and at first I thought that it was just one of the other kids that I studied with. You know, there were only a few, uh, you know, there are only it was mostly girls.
On the trip. So I saw this man standing outside my tent and I was like, oh, is that like Steve?
Is that you know?
I was trying to figure out who it was and also just checking to make sure that I was awake, you know, pinching myself and saying, my name is Kelly.
I'm in Australia.
This is what I'm doing.
Like, I was awake and I saw this thing, and the more I looked at it, you know, I wasn't I wasn't scared at all.
I was more just curious.
And as I looked at it, I realized that it wasn't actually a solid form, but it it almost had the appearance, if you know, a full moon were coming through the leaves and creating a really convincing form that your mind might be playing a.
Trick on you.
So I thought, Okay, well, maybe this is just the moon coming through some leaves. But then I continued to look at it and it was well, one, there was no moon. There was no bright moon in the sky that night, you know, might have been a little sliver. But also we were the area where we were camping, you know, there were some eucalyptus trees, but they were very sparse and there was no there was no tree above my tent that might be casting these shadows.
And so as I continued to.
Look at it, I just noticed that also it wasn't it wasn't shadow, but it was like emitting light, like the light was coming from it. And so I, yeah, spent some time laying there just trying to get to the bottom of what this thing is I might be looking at, and eventually just let myself fall back asleep, and in.
The morning.
I asked some I asked one of our elders.
And gods, you know, like this crazy thing happened to me last night, and they did ask me, you know, well, have you taken anything from any of the places that we've stopped, Like, have you have you moved any any piece.
Of these of nature.
I forget exactly how I asked.
But yeah, I was like, you know, I did take this coral and he was like, oh, you know, like of course that explains the dream about the water. You know, when you do that sort of thing, this, you know, some representative of the territory. The people that I had taken that from came back to retrieve the coral.
And I was like, oh my gosh. I mean, in some ways, I will say it like did slightly encourage me to want to do more irresponsible things because I was like, I want to see what else I can see? But no, definitely I was called out.
For sure, and damn it was like tapping its foot like I believe you have something that belongs to us.
I mean, that's what it sounds like. And you know, it makes sense. It all made sense, and he totally. It was like the first thing that they that he asked of me. But I will say, and to me, you know what, what just I had forgotten about this sort of for you. And then in twenty nineteen, my little brother passed.
Away, So what happened to the coral?
Oh? Well, then we drove again.
And when we got back to that area, I threw it out the bus window. But this is the thing that to me is crazy.
You know, I might be I might you know, be reading into things and making connections where they don't exist. But I then ten years later, in twenty nineteen, I'd totally forgotten about this, and my younger brother passes away tragically, and you know, I'm at home with my parents and I'm mourning and as many people have, you know, signs or symbols from loved ones who passed away, this incredible rainbow appeared in the sky blah blah blah.
So I took a picture of this rainbow. It was very significant to me.
And when I posted it on my Instagram, a friend of mine who had been in Australia with me, commented, oh, like the rainbow serpent, which was one of the.
Things that we learned about from our elders over there. And when she said that, it just brought back this memory of that time.
And I went into my little brother's room and he didn't have many things on the wall of his room, but he still had a note that I had written him during that trip I had taken to Australia, and with it he had a boomerang that I had painted of the rainbow serpent.
And I was like, wow, Like ten years later he had this.
On the wall. And when I read that note and looked at the date he had written that note to me, ten years to the day before the day that he I had written that note to him, I'm sorry, ten years to the day before the day that he passed away, and I'm like, well, this is it's sort of like an I was just feeling this sense of coincidence and I'm thinking about that spirit that I had seen, and so I went back to my journal. We kept meticulous
journals on our trip, like field journals. And when I went back to look for the entry the night that I wrote in my journal about seeing the spirit, that I had seen that spirit to the day ten years
before of when my brother passed. And so the more that I like looked into this journal and the connections to the experiences that I was having, then like I turned so that you know, I was just doing this research work and going through it and you know, really digging into my brain about like is this real?
Is am I just creating connections that aren't there?
And you know, for the most part, this journal was very We were also taking notes on ecology, so we were doing a lot of you know, more scientific note taking about various plants and animals and all that sort of thing. And so I this by now it was probably like, let's say, my brother passed away on the eighth of March, so I had written about seeing the spirit March eighth, two thousand.
And nine I turned.
Then by the time I was reading all this, it was probably March fifteenth, So I decided to turn to March fifteenth in my journal. And it was so strange because every other day in that journal it was like, you know, yeah, an entry about the spirit, but also this meticulous note taking, and on that page I had just, for some reason I don't remember doing, colored the entire thing and like pastel rainbow and written everything is real.
And this was like right as I was digging into this being and feeling like is any of this real? And somehow, on the day I was looking at it ten years before, I had just written this little note to myself.
And so I mean, while the initial explanation of somebody coming back to retrieve a quarrel makes sense somehow, also to me I had this whole new, strange vision of like, is there somehow like is it possible that that was.
Him somehow coming to see me? And then this note that I had left on his on his wall, or that he had left on.
The wall that I had written him for all those years, was also some way of him like communicating or winking at me that that was.
That that was him. I really don't know, but at the time, it all just it felt beyond coincidence. It all just felt beyond coincidence. And you know, I don't know how time works, and I I don't know if that would be possible, but.
Yeah, and I never would have thought when I first saw that thing standing outside that that.
Was you know, my little brother. But to think back on it, could that have been you know, him when he was twenty four instead of fourteen. Like maybe it's hard for me to say now because I.
Can't I can't look at it again, but yeah, so it takes it sort of gave me a sense of peace and that grief too, and I I did sort of allow myself to believe that.
That that might have been him.
Wow, yeah, that is like so my mind is like so blown.
But I know it's a lot.
It's like complex, and I think if if you weren't there with me, as I got like go through this journal, it all seems very like disconnected.
But it really was just the this this note on his bedroom wall.
Felt like his final, my final connection to him. And then as I just unraveled the timing, it just all seemed so crazy that it was like ten years to the day and and yeah, nothing like that has ever happened. Again, I couldn't explain it, but yeah, and then just it also felt like it just felt like notes to myself in the past in the future that then I'm I'm like, okay, this this all feels convincing.
To me, but is it real?
And then I flipped to that day and it's just this this deliberate message that says everything is real.
And I'm like, what, God, Yeah, that is so wild. I mean, I absolutely believe that that could be an explanation for that. I mean, I've heard so many stories that are really bring into question the idea of time and space and how it can all get twisted around or be signs from the future or yeah, I don't know, it's a beautiful story. Either way, it's like, that's like such a gorgeous story.
Well, yeah, I had never thought of things that way, but.
Yeah, And I don't know if it's.
If it's comforting or disturbing, like to think about messages from the future, but in some ways it is comforting to know that, like if that were him, that you know his spirit lives on and that there is something something waiting for us on the other side, whatever it might be.
I mean, I remember there was a story early on in Ghostead that was told to me by this comedian actress Jilly, and she was saying that she had an experience where she's saw a little toddler and then like later her sister had a little boy and it like looked she realized that that was him a couple of years ago, that like the ghosts that she had seen of this little toddler was like actually him from the future, like going back in the past like it. Stuff like that.
Yeah, it happens. Yeah, so I think that's what it was.
But you know, both of them are are nice things to believe, So yeah, get it to the mystery of the universe what it really was.
Yeah, well, Kelly, I so appreciate you telling me this story. I love to thank you so much.
I hope I didn't ramble on too much. It's it's a lot of twists and turns, but no, oh.
My god, it's perfect. Thank you so much to Catherine Martin and Kelly Hey. That could be email me at ghosted by roz at gmail dot com with the subject line, listener, episode, and some bullet points of what your ghost stories are about or an alien story, or a bigfoot or a near death experience, or any of that kind of shit. I want to talk to you about it. Hey, you subscribe to the show, Please subscribe, Follow it, Rate it five stars on Spotify Apple podcasts. Leave me a nice
review on Apple Podcasts. Leave it. You can leave a ghost story for me to read on the show in a five star review on Apple Podcasts. My Patreon link is in the description of this episode. Okay, I will talk to you next week. I hope you're enjoying your Halloween season. I love you all, both living and dead. But if I didn't ask you to haunt me, don't haunt me. Came back.
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