Real Ghost Stories For Long Drives - Mixtape Vol. 8 (Encore)

[00:00:05] There was a spirit of an old woman in the closet, trapped in her closet, screaming, you can't get rid of me. Welcome to Tell Me A Ghost Story, the late night call-in podcast where we delve into the world of the supernatural and explore the eerie and unexplained.

[00:00:36] I'm your host, Michelle Newman. This podcast features true stories from our callers that will send shivers down your spine and leave you questioning the existence of the afterlife. So grab a cozy blanket, turn down the lights.

[00:00:55] I'm Paige from Los Angeles. When I was a kid, I'm originally from Washington, D.C. We took a school field trip to Gettysburg. And this is in eighth grade and I was suffering from a horrible bout of depression. The first real bout of it of my life.

[00:01:24] And I was really struggling to be around people and even to like interact with my classmates. I was also not the world's most popular person, to put it mildly.

[00:01:41] So the thought of spending time with my classmates on a fucking field trip to Gettysburg Battlefield, you know, it wasn't super appealing to me. But I went. Anyway, I feel like it was in winter. So it was cold and rainy.

[00:02:08] Me and our bus full of these middle schoolers, you know, arrived at the battlefield. And we were taken on this really long tour all around, you know, the major parts of the battlefield, like little round top. We've been studying the Civil War in eighth grade. And so, you know, in some ways it was, I guess, instructive to be there.

[00:02:33] But for the most part, I just felt really sick and cold and isolated. But there's one part of the battlefield called the Devil's Den. And the Devil's Den is this sort of group of rocks forming kind of like a punch bowl shape that was a pretty significant part of the battle.

[00:02:57] And basically, the Union troops had been stationed at the top and there were Confederate troops that were advancing. And there was a multi-day battle in the Devil's Den. And a lot of people died. It was one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War. So I went there, you know, and they're talking about all of this history. And I suddenly felt this presence.

[00:03:25] I don't know how to describe it, but it felt like there was this heavy weight around me. And it felt horribly, horribly sad. I felt so struck by the fact that I was standing amongst the dead in some way.

[00:03:43] I felt like I could hear the echoes, the distant echoes of this place and the people that had died there. And I cried.

[00:04:04] And when I tried to explain it to anyone, you know, it was the weird girl, right? But when I got home, I learned that the Devil's Den was a place even before the war that people had their suspicions about.

[00:04:32] That it was haunted by a giant snake or a giant entity. And it was so evocative, a place that the Civil War photographer Gardner, I forget his name, but something Gardner, staged a really infamous photograph of a soldier, a Confederate soldier dead in the Devil's Den. And it's incredibly haunting.

[00:04:58] Even looking at that photograph, I feel it now. Wow. This misty weight of death echoing across time. So yeah, that's my goal.

[00:05:28] Thank you, Paige, for your story. You mentioned this briefly. Locals believed that the crevices between the boulders were home to a large snake. People started calling this snake the Devil. Thus, the rock formation it inhabited became known as the Devil's Den. Hey, Michelle, it's me, Rock, again.

[00:05:56] So I have a scary story to share with everyone. So I remember living with my ex in Ontario, California. This happened before when everything was semi-farmland. And this happened on Vineyard. And I remember coming home one night from the club. And this was around before Halloween. And it was me, my ex, and two friends of ours.

[00:06:24] And so we get to the apartment. And we see a woman crying on the sidewalk. And she has long hair. And she's just crying hysterically. Her cries are echoing throughout the whole neighborhood and on the street. Surprisingly, on that night, it was a full moon. And it was starting to get a little colder. And there was a mist forming. So one of the girls, her name was Karen, said,

[00:06:53] I don't think it's a good idea to pull over. Something doesn't feel right about the girl. So me and my ex and another friend were like, I don't think why not. Like, what's the issue? Maybe she's lost. Maybe, you know, someone dumped her on the side of the road because she was super moaning. So I told my ex, I'm like, go ahead and please drive over. Like, something just doesn't feel right with her. Like, I need to console her and see what's wrong. So as we pull up, we get out of the car.

[00:07:25] And Karen says again, I don't know, guys. This doesn't feel right. It just feels really odd. And it feels really weird. I don't know. I just can't put my finger on it. So I approached the lady. And I said, hey, are you okay? Do you need a ride? I was like, did you get dropped off or something? And she just starts bawling her eyes out even more. So I'm like, okay, that's really weird. And I see my friend Karen. She's just running to the car.

[00:07:53] She's like, at this, I'm going to go to the car. And you just hear the car door slam shut. And she's like, hurry up and get in the car. And I said, no. And so my ex started running. Like, he just started gunning it to the car. And he was like, nope, nope. Something doesn't feel right. He's like, I'm just going to go to the car. So it was just me and my friend. So the woman starts crying louder and louder as I'm standing right next to her. And so I kneel down to look at her and wipe, like move her hair out of her face.

[00:08:24] And she starts crying even harder. And as she looks up, she looks like she was struck in the head. She was bleeding. And she started cackling. And she started laughing so hard. I was looking at her. And I said, what? I was like, why are you laughing? Like, I was just so confused. And mind you, I was the only sober one out of everybody else.

[00:08:52] Everybody was drunk. But they sobered up the moment that they saw her. So my friend, she starts running towards the car. And she's like, I'm out of here. I cannot. This doesn't, this isn't right. Like, we should have listened to Karen. And I'm like, why is everyone running? And this woman just keeps laughing. And she gets up. She starts standing up. And she starts saying, everybody left me. I'm alone. And I'm cold. And she's like, just starts laughing hysterically.

[00:09:22] And then she just disappears right before my eyes. And my friend that jumps in the car, she looks back. And she says, did this woman just really disappear? She just disappeared right in front of her eyes. Like, what the hell? She's like, hurry up, Brock. Get in the car. Get in the car. And we were only, like, around the corner from the apartment. And it just kind of puzzled us. So we went into the apartment. And we were all kind of freaked out, trying to process everything that was going on. We all saw what we saw, correct?

[00:09:51] And everybody was just kind of, like, frantic, like, hysterical. Everybody was just like, you know what? We just had a long night. I told everybody, let's just go ahead and stay over. Because who knows? If you guys were to leave right now, maybe she'll come back. So we all, like, slept that night in the apartment because we were all scared. So we all huddled up on the floor because we were just so tired and just shooken by the experience that we had.

[00:10:21] So the next day, as we're walking up, and we were talking about, like, oh, it's really crazy. You know, we saw the woman and how, like, the fact that she said that she was scared and that she was lonely. Just really didn't, couldn't make any sense of that. And as we were walking, this gentleman and this lady was like, how dare you disrespect my wife like that and this and this and that. And he's like, you know, she just passed away.

[00:10:51] It just hit us. Like, we were like, wait. I described her exactly from head to toe what she was wearing. It turns out it was her husband and her sister. And I told him, I was like, well, she's kind of confused. She wanted to know where she was at, why she was alone, why no one could see her. And apparently this woman had gotten, she was unalived by a drive-by, by a gang,

[00:11:18] and she was so happened to just walk home from work one day. And as she was walking towards her house, she got in the middle of these gangs and took a couple blows to her head. So I told her husband, I said, you know, I said, just light a white candle. Make sure you tell her that that you're going to be taking care of everybody. He was kind of relieved, and her sister was relieved to hear what we had to say.

[00:11:50] Thank you for your story, Rock. One question, though. Why do you think she was laughing? Was she just relieved you could see her? Or do you think it was something else? Hey, Michelle, it's Dave. It's your fault again. So my grandmother was in a living apartment connected to our house, so I saw her every day until I was a teenager. And then she moved in with my aunt for the last six months before she finally was gone at 97.

[00:12:20] Wonderful, saintly old lady who loved everyone, didn't do much but pray and watch TV because she was super old when I was a kid. Well, hopefully we all get there someday, right? Anyway, she passed away. House burned down. New house goes up. And we were convinced every time something strange happened. No, it was Donna. You know, non-Italian for Grandma. So one time my dad's cat goes missing, and I said, oh, you know, Grandma's haunting the place. And he said, sure, right. Ah, fine, the cat.

[00:12:49] The cat showed up on the front step the next day, no problem, after like a week or two. Amazing, right? And then one day I'm out. I'm out in the boot, and I wanted to go to a parking lot. There's a five or six-story, I don't know, multi-level parking lot at my job. You know, I can imagine in the daytime, for the most part, it was pretty well lit, except there was some tree overhang. But I drove over to the side of the parking lot where a lot of our co-workers said they wouldn't park. And I got out of my car, and I'm like, okay, what's going on? Because I'm curious about the paranormal, you know?

[00:13:19] I was in my mid-20s and pretty stupid. So all of a sudden, I knew something was behind me, and I was terrified. I can't explain it, and someone who doesn't believe in the paranormal would tell me I'm crazy or making it up. But I hopped in my car. I drove home like the devil himself was chasing me. I go home, I shut the door, I locked the door. At the time, I was still, you know, upstairs in my current house waiting to find a wife. Set the alarm. We all go to bed.

[00:13:49] Two in the morning, the alarm goes off. But there's no evidence of forced entry. It just looks like something had pushed on, someone or something had pushed on the back door. And something else had pushed the back door back, so it didn't open. But it moved just enough to set the alarm off. Almost like something unseen was trying to get in, and Nana was holding it out with all of her goodness and love. I can't explain that any better. Years later,

[00:14:20] my youngest daughter was in the house sleeping in an upstairs bedroom, and she said, you know, sweet old lady said hello to her and smiled at her, and she saw a picture of Nana, and it was the lady she had seen. So, you know, she was at the time five years old. Who knows? Thank you, Dave, for calling in again with another great story. No one messes with Nona.

[00:14:49] Next message. Hey, Michelle. This is Chelsea from Los Angeles, and I have a ghost story that I want to share with you. So, I grew up in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, and there's many ghost stories there. Everyone who lives there has a ton of ghost stories. When I lived in this house, when I was, like, in elementary school, I lived in this house

[00:15:19] with my mom and younger sisters, and I felt a ghost in the house. And I would tell my mom. I would, like, be in bed, and I would feel a presence or, like, hear something. I would tell my mom, and of course, she was like, it's fine, there's no ghost. And I remember specifically this one time, I, like, I was home alone, and I literally heard footsteps. And I was so scared, I, like, go onto the hallway,

[00:15:48] and there's, like, no one there. And I just remember telling my mom, and she never believed me. So then, like, at the end of middle school, we moved to another house in, like, a different location. I didn't want to move. I was, like, away from my friends, and it was a different town. We were moving in with my mom's new boyfriend, who I didn't really know. So I was like, I don't really like this house. But I remember when I went in the house, I remember feeling just way more calm.

[00:16:18] Like, okay, this sucks, but it feels like there's no ghost in here, literally. And then, my mom's friend and her son moved into our old house, like, a few months later. And my mom later told me the story that there's one night when her friend heard her son playing, like, in his room late at night.

[00:16:47] She would, like, hear some things, like, a few times. But there's one night when she was like, why is he awake? He's, like, a little boy. She heard jumping on the bed, playing with toys. She wasn't like, there's someone else in the house. It was, my son is playing. And, she went into his room and he was completely asleep. And so, her friend was telling her, there's a ghost, it's like a haunted house. And, I felt

[00:17:17] way more validated after that. And then, she did the right thing, which is what you do in Hawaii when you move into a new place or you, like, have an event. A lot of people will hire a Hawaiian priest to come and bless the place. So my mom's friend did that and all was well. Thank you, Chelsea, for your story. Vibes are the hardest thing to explain and the easiest thing for others to dismiss. When the vibe is off,

[00:17:47] it's off. Get out of there. Hi, my name is Jasmine. I'm calling from Portland, Oregon, but my story actually takes place in Wellington, New Zealand. This was about seven or eight years ago and I was working and living abroad and so I moved in with a couple other travelers and we had this kind of funky apartment that was technically

[00:18:16] four stories. The first floor was the garage and then the second story was actually the entrance to the house and it just had, it was a small skinny house so it had just two bedrooms which was me and my friend Leanna and a shared bathroom and then the third floor was the living space, the fourth floor was the other two bedrooms and there was actually five of us that lived there and we became

[00:18:45] very close. We were attached at the hip so we all went out one Friday or Saturday night, we're back home from the bars, we are at our dining room table, all just gabbing about whatever's on our minds when Leanna starts talking about different experiences that she's had with mediumship. Like her friend's grandma passing away

[00:19:14] and the grandma, you know, visiting Leanna in her dreams and like telling her things but it's not all in her dreams like she's like woken up and had someone like face to face with her like body lying on top of her body you know, nose to nose and she brought it up because it was happening again to her. So she was having experiences in the house that we were in and so then this brought up other

[00:19:44] people talking about their experiences and even things that happened in the house that we were living in. one of our friends, one of the group, Kiva, was like deathly terrified. In fact, she kept telling Leanna to stop telling the stories because she was so scared. We had to walk her up to the fourth floor, tuck her into bed. She had her purse still on her shoulder. So, you know, the next day, then Kiva decides she

[00:20:14] buys some sage. Sage, I was kind of like on a witchy vibe at the time. So I was like, I can cleanse this house for us. So she goes, she buys sage. Don't worry, I don't use sage anymore. I know better now. And so the next day, next evening, I go throughout the house, I start at the top floor, make my way down, planning to end with Leanna's room. You know, just kind of like build up the energy, build up my own confidence as I'm trying to cleanse the house, you know,

[00:20:44] like only positive spirits may remain, stuff like that. And so I get to Leanna's room last and I'm like a little nervous, but I feel confident. But I remember thinking to myself, like, should I open up her closet doors and specifically, you know, cleanse the closet? And I was like, no, Jasmine, it's smoke. It can travel. You don't need to actually open up the closet. It'll be fine. So I don't do it. Okay, this is

[00:21:14] important to the story. Because then we all go to sleep. It's the next day and our next evening, we're all done with work. We're sitting around the table once again, chatting, yapping it up. And someone remembers and says, oh, Leanna, you know, how did you sleep last night? And she's like, I don't want to talk about it. And we're like, what? What do you mean? And she was like, I probably just, you know, I'm intolerant to milk. I'm sure I just, you know, I ate something bad and that's

[00:21:44] why I, you know, whatever happened, happened. And we're like, Leanna, what happened? She said that she was woken up and terrorized in the night because there was the spirit of an old woman in the closet, trapped in her closet, screaming, you can't get rid of me. And, you know, everyone's like, oh my gosh, Leanna, and I have my hands on my face. I am gobsmacked. I didn't tell anyone

[00:22:14] that I didn't do the closet because I genuinely thought, oh, the closet will be fine. It's smoke, it's air, it can get into the closet. And so, you know, when they saw my reaction, everyone was like, what, Jasmine, what? And so I told them, you know, that thought, that I didn't listen to. And Leanna was so mad at me. And so then, who had to light the sage bundle and then go

[00:22:43] back down to Leanna's haunted room, open up that closet where I know there is a spirit who yelled at her last night and saved it for her. And that was me. I did it because I am so brave. It wasn't the last of the ghost stories that we experienced there, but Leanna started to get a little bit more peace and quiet for sure. There was a ghost that we named Sally that we thought lived on the stairs. And to make her happy,

[00:23:13] I would play that one, what song is it? So Sally can wait, she knows it's too late as you're walking on by, whatever, you know, from the people who sing Champagne Supernova. I can't think of their names at all right now, but that's fine. So yeah, that's probably one of the more interesting ghost stories I have, but I do have some mediumship abilities and have experienced some other things, so maybe

[00:23:42] I'll call in and talk about that sometime. But yeah, that is my ghost story, and it is a good reminder that if you are doing any kind of cleansing, if your intuitive voice says you should probably cleanse over in that corner, be sure to listen to it, unless you want to be terrorized by an old lady ghost yelling at you at probably 3 in the morning. Thank you, Jasmine, for your story. That song you were thinking

[00:24:11] of is Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis, you know, that band with the famous feuding brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher. Weirdly enough, I've found several articles, including one by the BBC, talking about how Noel would go out of his way to tease and torment his brother Liam by moving furniture around and pretending to be a ghost. That's all we have this week, folks. Do you have a ghost story?

[00:24:40] Call 701-484-2666. That's 701-484-2666. Or, go to tellmeaghoststory.com and leave your story there. Go ahead and leave me a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. Was something particularly scary in this episode?

[00:25:10] Or maybe you've had a similar experience? Leave your comments via our Spotify page. Thank you to all the callers who left messages this week. And as always, I'm your host, Michelle Newman. Signing off. See you next week. A minute.