Episode 311 - Appalachia | Lore and Superstitions (Part 1)

If you see something, no you didn't. If you hear something, no you didn't. We are diving into one of the most haunted places in the world: the Appalachian Mountain Range. These ancient mountains contain secrets, curses, beats, and cannibals. It's a place where you must rely on all of your senses to survive. In the first episode of a three part series, we warn you of the danger - the vast tunnel systems, the mad science experiments, and creatures like the Bone Lady and Flesh Pedestrians. But don't worry, we aren't leaving you hanging. The Appalachia is rich with culture and diverse groups who have spent centuries perfecting their wards against evil and sharing their superstitions. Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at [email protected] Encounters episodes are released every Thursday at 9am PST/12pm EST. Corinne and Sabrina hand select a couple of paranormal encounters from our inbox to read in each episode, from demons, to cryptids, to aliens, to creepy kids... the list goes on and on. If you have a story of your own that you'd like us to share on an upcoming episode, we invite you to email them to us! This episode is sponsored by Ollie, Nutrafol and Bilt. Give your pup a fresh start this new year by letting them taste test a personalized meal plan with Ollie! Head to Ollie.com/TGOG, tell them all about your dog, and use code TGOG to get 60% off your first box of meals when you subscribe today! Start your hair growth journey with Nutrafol. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code TGOG Start earning points on rent you’re already paying by going to joinbilt.com/TGOG If you enjoy our show, please consider joining our Patreon, rating and reviewing on iTunes & Spotify and following us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord. Edited and produced by Jaimi Ryan, original music by Arms Akimbo! Disclaimer: the use of white sage and smudging is a closed practice. If you’re looking to cleanse your space, here are some great alternatives! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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• 1:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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• 1:52Corinne Vien?

  Hi. Hello. This is Two Girls, One Ghost. Two girls, one ghost. And we are your ghostesses. That is fidgety Corinne over there. Yeah, sorry. And I am Wolf Leopard Sabrina. And I'm fucked up after that story we heard on Campfire Stories last night. I didn't sleep, did you? I woke up constantly. I slept like a baby. I was constantly waking up thinking I was gonna see that girl just like hovering by the side of my bed. So this is Campfire Stories from February 18th, 2025, which is a Patreon exclusive experience. But we had a listener. What was his name? Nia, Nia. Oh, my God. Nia came in and he was just so chill. He was just like, oh, this is my first time. Like, I have a, I have a ghost story for you. Yeah. And then he starts to tell us that he watched the movie The Ring when he was little.

• 2:38Corinne Vien?

  It scared him so bad that he started to have visions of the girl from The Ring, which he thought, you know, that was just like a nightmare, being scared as a little kid. But it quickly manifested into something else, and he has been stalked for years by the sleep paralysis demon that will literally like reach out from the ground, hug his waist and rip him down, his actual body, like into the ground. And the craziest part is that to this day, he finds long strands of black hair everywhere around his house. And it was around his bed. That's what fucked me up was because you, you asked him, do you still see her? Right. And he said, no, I haven't experienced her or seen her for a long time.

• 3:18Corinne Vien?

  The only weird thing is every once in a while I find a few long strands of black hair around my bed. The only weird thing. And he said it like, oh, this isn't scary. Like, this is just, I haven't seen her. This is the only thing that happened. So I was like, that is the scariest part of the story. All of us in Campfire Stories were jaw dropped. What the fuck? And it was the last story of Campfire Stories. It was like he's, he gave us that friggin' bomb of a ghost story. And then I was like, good night. Yeah, there's some sleep paralysis demon that has manifested as his terrifying fear of the girl in The Ring, Samara. But you know what? I had a, a worse dream. My dream, it was the biggest fight we've ever had. You and me? Yeah.

• 4:03Corinne Vien?

  What did we fight about? And I woke up like sad. Oh, I'm sorry, Sabrina. I really, honestly, I think- What was the fight? Do you remember the details? I don't remember the details, but I remember like the drama of you walked out of the room carrying the microphone, like trailing the cords behind it. And I was like, you're bringing your laptop and all of our cameras with you. Wow, that's really traumatic.

• 4:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was traumatic. And then you were like, well, we have to stop the podcast. And I was like, Crin, this is the first fight we've ever had. We can get through this.

• 4:31Corinne Vien?

  I'm so curious what we were fighting about, because I can't even conjure up an idea of what a fight would be.

• 4:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know. I have no idea. But that's not why we're here. And also, we're not fighting.

• 4:42Corinne Vien?

  Although now I'm like panicked. I'm like, stop being mad at me.

• 4:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Shoot, I shouldn't have told you. Now you're mad.

• 4:48Corinne Vien?

  Stop being mad at me!

• 4:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The fight is about the fight in the dream.

• 4:52Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God.

• 4:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why don't you remember the details?

• 4:54Corinne Vien?

  Oh, that's like when I was pregnant and it wasn't even a dream. It was just a waking intrusive thought that I made up in my mind that Brian smashed the wedding cake in my face when he didn't. And I was mad at him for days.

• 5:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  About something that didn't happen?

• 5:07Corinne Vien?

  No.

• 5:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There is some stuff that really does happen.

• 5:10Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  In a very specific, massive region of the United States and Canada. And technically, it crosses a border into property that is owned by France. So, in three different countries.

• 5:22Corinne Vien?

  The French Canadians. Also get a little dabble of this majestic and terrifying place.

• 5:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I'm going to go ahead and let you say it so that you remind me how to say it properly. And all of y'all, don't yell at me.

• 5:34Corinne Vien?

  Well, there's two ways. The majority of people and the people in the South, I think, say Appalachia.

• 5:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Appalachia.

• 5:41Corinne Vien?

  But in the Northeast, we say Appalachia.

• 5:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes, Appalachia. We will say it as Appalachia.

• 5:47Corinne Vien?

  We'll go with the popular vote.

• 5:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Today and for the next two weeks, so three weeks of episodes, we will be covering Appalachia.

• 6:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like we should do like ominous, really terrifying music.

• 6:03Corinne Vien?

  It's a very scary place.

• 6:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Where all of you in your cars right now start to hear your name being whispered to you.

• 6:08Corinne Vien?

  If you hear that, I don't know what to do, but no, you didn't.

• 6:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, you didn't.

• 6:12Corinne Vien?

  That's the rule of the Appalachia.

• 6:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  If you see some- Something? No, you didn't. If you hear something?

• 6:19Corinne Vien?

  No, you didn't.

• 6:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Part one of this three-part series is going to be about the history, some lore and superstitions. And we're gonna like dabble in some creepy things that we learn about Appalachia or the Appalachian Mountains. And then part two will be ghost stories and part three will be creatures.

• 6:38Corinne Vien?

  Creatures and cryptids. And then, of course, in our research, uh, cause I feel like there's three things we think about when we think about the Appalachian mountain range and the Appalachian Trail. It's ghosts, cryptids and murder.

• 6:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes.

• 6:51Corinne Vien?

  Some murders we found were pretty intertwined with hauntings, but they deserved their own spotlight. So hint, hint, sometime in the next few months. They'll get a taste of this.

• 7:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do feel like because the Appalachian Mountains are such a long, I mean, I'll get into specifics, but it's 2,050 miles of mountain range. That it kind of does encompass so much of the United States that I feel like so many paranormal stories can fall within the Appalachian category.

• 7:21Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, no, I've been in the mountains before many times, not even realizing like, oh, I'm actively like, if you don't think about it, it's kind of like the, in Massachusetts, there's another location, the Bridgewater Triangle. I feel like unless you're actively thinking, oh my gosh, I'm in the Bridgewater Triangle, you're just at a target.

• 7:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. But there are some areas that are a little bit more spooky and we'll just get into the history. Why don't we?

• 7:41Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, great.

• 7:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  All right. Stretching across 2,050 miles of land and sea, the Appalachian Mountains extend from Alabama, USA to a small island off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and it's called Belle Island. Like this is massive.

• 7:58Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, and ancient.

• 7:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And ancient. And I'm going to get into that in a second. It is the oldest mountain range in North America. And as we'll learn in the next three episodes, it is a place that blurs the line of reality, bends time and transcends through various cultures. And again, if you're unfamiliar with this region, although I feel like a lot of you are familiar, there is one very important rule that we stated up in the beginning. If you see something, no, you didn't. There will be a quiz at the end of this episode.

• 8:25Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, there's just two lines to remember to survive the Appalachia.

• 8:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So we're gonna do some quick facts and then I'm gonna do history, Corinne, you'll jump into superstitions and omens.

• 8:35Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, quick facts. The Appalachian Mountains date back some 480 million years ago.

• 8:43Corinne Vien?

  That number, I just can't even, like, it doesn't compute in my brain.

• 8:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's pre dinosaurs, pre Pangaea. Truly, when fish start appearing on Earth is when the beginning of the formation of these mountains begins because there's also

• 8:57Corinne Vien?

  Which is so wild.

• 8:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's collisions, there's eruptions, there's erosion, and then recolliding.

• 9:04Corinne Vien?

  Why am I suddenly scared, like, an asteroid's gonna come and completely kill the Appalachia like it did the dinosaurs? I'm like scared for it even though it's, I know that it's here.

• 9:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You're not worried about yourself?

• 9:14Corinne Vien?

  No, I was thinking in the past, but I was like, you know.

• 9:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so I'll just jump right into the geology because we're talking about it. The Appalachian Mountains are one of the most geologically complex mountain ranges on Earth. It formed, eroded, erupted, and evolved into the mountains we know today. And it starts some half a billion years ago, so 480 million years ago. One tectonic plate slid under another, creating a massive strata of volcanoes that over time eroded into basically like gravel. Then, 400 million years ago, those two same plates slammed back into each other, forming huge, really like jagged, scary-looking mountains. Then, again, there was another slamming of

• 9:55Corinne Vien?

  Oh my gosh.

• 9:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mountains 290 million years ago.

• 9:58Corinne Vien?

  Slamarama.

• 9:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  When the, what is now the African Tectonic Plate and the North America one collided into each other again. And this caused all of that gravel and previous jagged mountains to like roll and fold over each other and form the mountains that we know they are today. So they're not like really sharp mountains anymore, they're the rolling hills and...

• 10:22Corinne Vien?

  Another weird fact about the Appalachia that just kind of, I feel like speaks to how spooky this place is, is that it's no longer growing. It's like basically dead and like slowly, we're watching it like slowly die and wither away.

• 10:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's weird. Like the rocks?

• 10:37Corinne Vien?

  Well, yeah, it's it's on its descent.

• 10:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like it's getting it's shrinking like old age?

• 10:42Corinne Vien?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's weird. But if you're a rock nerd, the Appalachian Mountains are made of so many different types of rocks. And you can look at, you know, photos that have like the sedimentary, ingeny- ingenyous, ingenyous.

• 10:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 10:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And metamorphic. But it's also and like

• 11:01Corinne Vien?

  You need to go back to space and science class in high school.

• 11:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I really do.

• 11:04Corinne Vien?

  So do I.

• 11:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I really do. But these rocks are ancient. And we have talked about energy and crystals and how crystals carry energy. So think about all of these different rocks that have been here from beginning of time, that now are making up this beautiful, massive mountain range, and are holding on to history, holding on to energy, holding on to death of dinosaurs, death of so many creatures.

• 11:33Corinne Vien?

  It's seen the bloodiest of wars in America.

• 11:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Exactly. There are large gemstone deposits. So we're talking about lots of energy. And since then, weather has also shaped the mountains as they are today, like ice, rain, wind, has evolved so many different regions of the mountains. But I do have a couple more quick facts. And then we'll talk about the different regions of

• 11:56Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 11:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  the mountains. So the highest peak of the mountain range is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, and that is 6,684 feet and shrinking, apparently. The term Appalachia refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range. As of 2022, the population of people living in this region, Appalachian region, was 26.4 million across 423 counties and 13 states. The mountain range is home to the Appalachian Trail, a 2,175 mile hiking trail, which runs from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin in Maine. And it's estimated that roughly 3 million people hike that trail per year.

• 12:37Corinne Vien?

  Whoa.

• 12:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which is so strange to me.

• 12:41Corinne Vien?

  I know. I don't even like camping.

• 12:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I can't imagine you doing 2,000 miles.

• 12:45Corinne Vien?

  One day I will.

• 12:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So many people quit.

• 12:47Corinne Vien?

  That will probably be what I

• 12:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 12:49Corinne Vien?

  That will probably be what I do.

• 12:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do quit. So Kewa's hikers, residents, and visitors have encountered something otherworldly. Because when it comes to the Appalachian region, it is home to much more than hiking, much more than mountains, and much more than humans. It is home to numerous ghosts, rumored cave systems, real cave systems, cryptids, monsters, legends. We're talking ghost trains, Bigfoot, Mothman, the Apple Devil, which is like a baby Bigfoot who likes apples.

• 13:20Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 13:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know.

• 13:21Corinne Vien?

  Where is it? In New Hampshire?

• 13:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm not sure, but we could

• 13:24Corinne Vien?

  Seems like a place

• 13:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, probably.

• 13:26Corinne Vien?

  For an apple-loving Bigfoot.

• 13:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mysterious lights, the Wampus Cat, Smokehold, Ravenmocker, the Bell Witch, Tennessee Wild Man, the Grass Man, the Bone Lady, Spearfinger, and so much more.

• 13:37Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I'm so curious about the Bone Lady.

• 13:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know. Spearfinger is actually a very interesting one, too.

• 13:42Corinne Vien?

  Now, our list is bigger for what we need to research.

• 13:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So much.

• 13:45Corinne Vien?

  Many of these we have touched, though.

• 13:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We have, not in real life, but upon verbal touching. How does that sound weird?

• 13:52Corinne Vien?

  AKA, we did episodes on them.

• 13:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We verbally spoke and touched about them.

• 13:56Corinne Vien?

  We verbally touched.

• 14:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I hope we're verbally touching you right now.

• 14:02Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my god.

• 14:05Corinne Vien?

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• 14:48Corinne Vien?

  or fresh lamb with cranberries, you might be thinking, dang, my dog eats better than I do. And that is probably true when it comes to Ollie. So if you want to try it,

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• 15:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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• 15:58Corinne Vien?

  Are we still in your dream? Are we about to get in a fight?

• 16:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I really hope not. I wore a cute outfit for, this isn't a fight outfit. This is a, I feel very Kesha like, actually.

• 16:07Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do feel that way. I'm gonna tell you how you feel.

• 16:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Validate everything so that we don't get in a fight. Okay, so there might be some of you who are listening and watching and you're like, mm, I don't believe in any of that stuff. I'm not gonna argue with you, but you are wrong. And that's not an argument, that's just a fact. But it's okay. There are some more tangible, real, in your mind, I'm mad at you.

• 16:32Corinne Vien?

  Wow, you are starting a fight.

• 16:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Whoever I'm verbally touching right now, I'm sorry.

• 16:38Corinne Vien?

  Can you feel the energy?

• 16:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think if there's one thing I learned through researching this topic, it's to respect the lore, to respect the creatures, the superstitions that live upon this land. And if you don't,

• 16:52Corinne Vien?

  They'll come for you.

• 16:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And they're coming through me to you, touching you with words. Anyway, if you're smelling, here's something more tangible to frighten you. Because there is a lot of death and disappearance lurking in the Appalachian Trails and mountain region. The trail itself can be treacherous, weather is unpredictable, cell service is limited, access to aid is limited, and every year, people go missing without a trace in the Appalachian Mountains. On average, since 1974, there has been one murder for every four years. So every four years, there's a murder on average.

• 17:28Corinne Vien?

  Which feels like so many, but there has only been, what, like 15 murders in total or something since it's been opened?

• 17:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. And is that on the trail specifically?

• 17:36Corinne Vien?

  I think on the trail specifically.

• 17:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But yeah, in the next couple of episodes, we'll dive deeper into some of these legends, ghost stories, and cryptids. But I wanted to talk about the regions. So there are three regions that it's technically broken up into. People debate upon where the demarcations of each region is. But there's the Southern Appalachians, where winds have reached record-breaking numbers, like 231 miles per hour. The hiking trails are pretty far from civilization, which is maybe why people associate the southern area of Appalachia to be more of the Appalachian lore, legend area.

• 18:12Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because it is further from civilization.

• 18:14Corinne Vien?

  Right. Even though interspersed throughout this mountain range, which is a giant mountain range, there are some very huge cities with large populations.

• 18:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, but the Southern Appalachians is a great place to get lost or, you know, taken by some interdimensional beings. Then there's the Middle Atlantic States region, which is an area very rich with Civil War history and a lot of Civil War ghosts. There are a lot of old coal mines, and this area does have more access to civilization, generally speaking. And then there's the Northern New England Appalachians with extreme weather, and it's also home to the most isolated portion of the trail. So not the entire, not the entire trail in the northern area, but there's a portion of it that is the most isolated.

• 18:56Corinne Vien?

  Is it the section that's in Maine?

• 18:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm not sure. But I'm also, I think Mount Washington is part of the Appalachians. It has the coldest weather recorded up at the top of that mountain.

• 19:08Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, just a couple of years ago, the temperature at the top of Mount Washington reached colder than planet Mars.

• 19:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yep. So hike on up there.

• 19:17Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. And if you're a Patreon member, we did an entire episode about the hotel Mount Washington and some of the wild stuff that happened in and around that area to contribute to the hauntings. We've done, we've touched literally just Mount Washington, maybe three times on this.

• 19:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Is that Betty and Barney Hill?

• 19:35Corinne Vien?

  No, but they're not far away.

• 19:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so we've done a lot of Appalachian episodes.

• 19:39Corinne Vien?

  Yes.

• 19:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Regardless of the separate regions, the mountain range is unified through a shared history, culture and folklore. And today's culture around the Appalachians is a blended history created by native tribes, colonizers, settlers, white people, Europeans, and enslaved peoples brought to the area. Which I think is pretty cool. Like you can almost dissect a lot of these legends and superstitions and realize what culture it came from.

• 20:06Corinne Vien?

  Who brought it over.

• 20:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And who brought it.

• 20:08Corinne Vien?

  There's such a rich history of native people in the northeast section too. There were a lot concentrated in just this one region.

• 20:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes. So it all begins with the native people.

• 20:20Corinne Vien?

  Great.

• 20:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They were the earliest pioneers of the mountains who possessed the utmost respect for the land and the spirits that possessed it. Their beliefs have become the foundation for Appalachian lore and the superstitions and omens surrounding them to this day. And a lot of it was shared through song and storytelling. The Cherokee was the largest tribe in the area. They called the Great Smoky Mountains Chicanahay, which means land of blue smoke, because there's this mist that seems to like roll in and cover the entire mountains in a very ominous and spooky way.

• 20:54Corinne Vien?

  Probably inspiring Stephen King in his many novels.

• 20:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Literally the mist.

• 20:58Corinne Vien?

  The mist.

• 20:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. There are also a lot of different subgroups of the Iroquois tribes, the Lenai Lenape, Mohawk, and so many others. But the Cherokee are considered the primary indigenous people of Appalachia, deeply rooted in the southern region, settling back in the area back in like 12,000 B.C.

• 21:18Corinne Vien?

  Wow.

• 21:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. They were hunter-gatherers, living off the land, honoring the land and respecting it. Key words there. So they really believed establishing harmony with the spirits and the land. And there's a lot of legends that we've talked about here on Two Girls, One Ghost, that they do not like to talk about out of respect. So there's a lot of creatures that speaking their name is almost conjuring them up or showing disrespect to them.

• 21:47Corinne Vien?

  Yep.

• 21:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A lot of the superstitions come from Native American cosmologies, belief in powerful nature spirits, and that nature is a living, breathing entity filled with magic, which I believe too.

• 21:56Corinne Vien?

  This is again, just reminding me of campfire stories last night. We had a story from a reservation where there was a lot of strange beasts coming and knocking.

• 22:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Exactly. Many of their beliefs and legends they shared emphasized interconnectedness between humans and nature, and warnings of disturbing that order. Which, speaking of disturbing that order, that is where the settlers, European settlers, came in. I think the first groups were the Spanish and French explorers who came in the 1500s.

• 22:24Corinne Vien?

  Mm-hmm. And also, just to interrupt, this is gonna be like a fact with no real facts behind it, but part of the reason why there's so much debate as to how to pronounce Appalachia versus Appalachia, et cetera, et cetera, is that it's thought that there was a tribe that the French had first encountered, and they were calling these mountains something that sounded like Appalachia, and the French kind of-

• 22:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Had a problem pronouncing it and then-

• 22:50Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, added a little sparkle.

• 22:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Corinne Vien?

  And so then it just kind of like, as different groups settled it, it kind of morphed and changed.

• 22:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And evolved, yeah.

• 22:58Corinne Vien?

  But that's why people want to go back to Appalachia, because they feel that it's the closest-

• 23:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 23:03Corinne Vien?

  -to what the indigenous tribes had called the mountains.

• 23:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Called it, okay, that makes sense. But so these groups who came were coming and looking for freedom, like autonomy. Yes, they were exploring and probably trying to colonize for their countries, but they also were looking for some type of freedom from the countries that they felt were a little bit more controlling. So when they came across-

• 23:25Corinne Vien?

  They were saying, "Fuck you, dad," and moving it far away as they possibly could.

• 23:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. So when they found the Appalachian region, they were like, "Ooh, this is the perfect place for us to run free." And run wild, but it wasn't really theirs.

• 23:39Corinne Vien?

  No, and also they were wholly unprepared.

• 23:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes, extremely difficult to live in this region. So with them, they brought disease and disrespect of the land, leading to many natives being displaced, and even the erasure of entire tribes and cultures. But the mountain range remembers, and the people quickly learned the power it held. Cause greed is a hungry, ravenous, insatiable monster, perhaps scarier than any ghost in the region. But it is interesting because a lot of legends and some lore around this region seems to represent that greed. More and more people started settling here during the 16th and 17th centuries. There was a real fusion of various cultures because now it was the natives, the settlers, and then enslaved people from Africa that they were bringing over.

• 24:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And there was this like amalgamation of beliefs now blending into one another. These groups did heavily rely on each other despite also trying to push each other out. Because like you said, it was incredibly hard to live in this area.

• 24:41Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 24:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Survival was based on an ability to hunt, to fish, to farm. And so these traditions-

• 24:47Corinne Vien?

  Of which the white people had none.

• 24:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No knowledge. Right. So these traditions of farming and hunting and fishing and foraging were passed down. There's also so many plants, flora and fauna that are native to the Appalachians that the natives knew, they knew how to cultivate, they knew how to like use the medicinal properties that they passed on.

• 25:08Corinne Vien?

  And this is one of my little ADHD interests that I've gotten super into. But the indigenous way of gardening is so fascinating. And I am so like craving this summer to come because I want to try it. Because it's against the traditional way that we see where you like plow the beds and the sun is there. They utilize all of the land. So it's like the tree and then below the tree, there's all of these different things. So like you'd walk in, basically like you would walk into a forest and not know that you were actually-

• 25:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  In a garden.

• 25:37Corinne Vien?

  In a garden that would feed you and sustain you, which is part of the problem. Because then the white people came in and were like chopping the trees down, plowing all the shit. And it's like, you're getting rid of the food source.

• 25:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. You're ruining it.

• 25:48Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 25:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. And making it now harder for all of us to survive. Also, I read this book for this episode. It's called The Appalachian Folklore Unveiled. And it is by Darkness Prevails with Carmen Carry On.

• 26:01Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I like that name.

• 26:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know.

• 26:03Corinne Vien?

  Carmen Carrion.

• 26:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

• 26:06Corinne Vien?

  Yes, it does feel that way.

• 26:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But in that book, it mentions farming and gardening around the moon cycles, which I thought was interesting. Like, I think it was the waxing moon is good for planting, waning moon is good for harvesting.

• 26:18Corinne Vien?

  To be able to survive this area, you also need to be able to kind of open yourself up to kind of the supernatural elements of the area, too. It's not just this black and white.

• 26:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. You have to listen to the nature spirits.

• 26:33Corinne Vien?

  There's so much interconnectedness with nature and the soul and your own physical body.

• 26:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So a lot of these residents and like the history in the Appalachia has to do with overcoming adversity because survival was very difficult. And then surviving different groups of people coming in was really difficult. And a lot of these stories of overcoming adversity are told through legend and lore and superstitions, specifically in music and in storytelling and in poetry. And the Appalachian region is actually the birthplace of folk and bluegrass. And the banjo is the heartbeat of the region.

• 27:10Corinne Vien?

  Ba da dang dang dang dang dang dang.

• 27:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Is there a banjo in here?

• 27:13Corinne Vien?

  I was doing the chords from Deliverance.

• 27:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Is that the one with Leo?

• 27:18Corinne Vien?

  I'm thinking of the one, it came out a while ago. It probably was a movie from like the eighties, maybe?

• 27:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 27:23Corinne Vien?

  But it's a horror movie and it's about this group of guys and they set out on like a hike or camping trip and they get kind of lost in the southern part of, I think, the Appalachia. And they basically get hunted down by these really gross people who

• 27:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Damn.

• 27:37Corinne Vien?

  do really terrible things to them.

• 27:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That is not what I was thinking of and it is not what I have ever seen.

• 27:42Corinne Vien?

  Ba da dang dang dang dang dang dang dang. When you watch it, you'll never forget the banjo being played in the one scene.

• 27:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But like I said, the banjo is the heartbeat and because music was such a big part of culture and still is in this area, it's not uncommon to hear music emanating throughout the mountain when it's not actually really being played currently.

• 28:06Corinne Vien?

  Interesting. I'm so curious about what type of music, too, because, sorry to side tangent. Again, but when I went to the Boone Boone Plantation in South Carolina and did the tour there, there was a Gullah woman who was talking about kind of like when slaves were on that property and just how ingrained song was and how they would speak to each other through song, plan escapes through song. Right. And so I'm so curious about like how much song is just like stained in this land because that's also a way that they survived and helped each other escape was through music. Spreading messages. Yeah. Damn. That's so interesting. Yeah. What if you don't understand what the song is, but it's actually coded message? Right. Like we think it's the spooky scary song, but really it's a song to save you.

• 28:51Corinne Vien?

  Oh. The mountains are calling. Here's what I'll say. Don't go, don't go looking for the source of the music. That's true. Don't. Just keep wondering. Yeah.

• 29:01Corinne Vien?

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• 30:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So the stories today that we hear and we'll be talking about in the next couple of episodes, like the ghosts, cryptids, or mysterious tunnels, do come from a fusion of Native American folklore blended with Christian beliefs, a lot of fear of witchcraft, combined with African root work and spirits that came with them from their homelands. So I'm going to share like a couple little, small stories that are evidence of that. Okay, so there's a story of the Lost Colony, and not of Roanoke, it's a different one. And it's a Cherokee legend about a group of white settlers who disappeared in the mountains due to supernatural forces. And so some people are like, okay, is it like a story of how they wish things had happened, or did they wipe out a group of white settlers? Or, you know, can this be interpreted as

• 31:11Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  the lore version of something that actually happened?

• 31:14Corinne Vien?

  Maybe, but I just fully believe that there are beasts within this mountain. And if there's a group of 30 settlers, easy.

• 31:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Gone.

• 31:21Corinne Vien?

  Poof. They hear a baby crying in the woods, they all go to investigate, you're done.

• 31:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Don't investigate. There is an African legend that was told through the region that deals with trying to triumph over oppression and evil, which you can very clearly understand why, but it is the story of Anansi, a spider. And this spider is tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, but despite its tiny size, this spider is able to stay alive using his wits to outsmart those who could crush him and trick his oppressors into their own demise. So again, another legend that you can understand where it came from.

• 31:57Corinne Vien?

  He went up the water spout, but he didn't do it again.

• 31:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:00Corinne Vien?

  Just once.

• 32:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's also the story of the cannibal woman. It's basically a story of a woman who's depicted as a monstrous creature, but she turns into this due to her extreme hunger, which depicts the way of life in the Appalachians and the difficulty of surviving. And then you covered the moon eyed people in episode 261 of our podcast.

• 32:20Corinne Vien?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And that legend, just briefly to touch on it again, we'll link it in the show notes or in YouTube if you're watching, like it'll be like, hey, go watch this episode. The legend goes that there is a small group of pale-skinned, blue-eyed humanoid creatures that live in a cave system beneath the mountains that are nocturnal. And their eyes are so blue and so light that they cannot be in the sun, which is what turned them into nocturnal creatures. But there are some people who believe that the Moon-Eyed People actually represent the European colonizers. Other people believe the story predates their time entirely. And it has actually evolved over time because theory and legend of people living in the mountains in tunnels has evolved into a new version, which is more current, or I guess like the Moon-Eyed People feels very historic.

• 33:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It goes back in time. And then now today, there's another iteration of that story that's not called the Moon-Eyed People, and it feels more evolved into a whitewashed Western version, but also these mountains are massive, so who knows? But there's another iteration of this, that there is a complex tunnel system running beneath the mountain and trail that was rumored to hold a secret military base. And they were conducting experiments. Some people say on humans, some people say on otherworldly beings like aliens, or that they were creating monsters.

• 33:40Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And basically, in this laboratory, they created a bunch of Frankensteins, a group of people who hated their creators and fled. So they escaped the laboratory and they spent years and years in the mountains trying to hide from their creators and eventually escaped into a complex tunnel system that they now still to this day live in and hide in and spend time in and haunt and creep. And if you happen upon one of these entrances to the caves, it's recommended that you do not go in there.

• 34:16Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Whether people believe in the backstory of this sort of scientific experiment or not, I think one thing that we have to fall back on is the literal fact that there are still species of animals we thought were extinct that are Occasionally being spotted decades and decades, sometimes centuries later in this mountain range. So there is so much opportunity to remain hidden.

• 34:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or for aliens to repopulate certain species back in this area.

• 34:46Corinne Vien?

  Oh, yes.

• 34:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes.

• 34:47Corinne Vien?

  That was Kai's email?

• 34:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, yeah. Our listener went on a spaceship.

• 34:51Corinne Vien?

  Kin?

• 34:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Kin, yes.

• 34:52Corinne Vien?

  Kin.

• 34:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But we haven't seen Kin in a long time.

• 34:55Corinne Vien?

  No, Kin, are you okay?

• 34:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do you still like us? Also, these tunnels, and I think you covered this, and it might have not necessarily been in the Appalachian Mountains, but like you did like a missing 411 episode. And there are all of these legends and lore of people who have disappeared or walked into these tunnels and then gone missing from the rest of their group. Some people are never found again. Some reappear in wildly different, very far away areas of the mountain. And they're like, I don't know how I got here.

• 35:25Corinne Vien?

  Right. And oftentimes there are children that have no ability to actually traverse that terrain.

• 35:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wild, yeah.

• 35:31Corinne Vien?

  And have no evidence of them even walking like a foot in the dirt.

• 35:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 35:35Corinne Vien?

  It is so crazy.

• 35:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So those are some small examples of where you can like pinpoint where the stories came from, how they perhaps maybe evolved, or how they were inspired by previous legends from, you know, the native tribes. But there's also directly related to wars and bloodshed or murders or disappearances where in the middle region of the Appalachians, people see the ghosts of Civil War soldiers.

• 36:02Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 36:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And

• 36:03Corinne Vien?

  Think about how much cannibalism happened too with the early settlers.

• 36:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I love that that's where you jump to. Think about how much cannibalism there was.

• 36:12Corinne Vien?

  People were eating people over in Virginia. And so we thought, great place for our state capital.

• 36:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But yeah, so that's just a briefest, the briefest of brief recaps of the history of the Appalachians. And there will be more.

• 36:27Corinne Vien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Coming your way.

• 36:29Corinne Vien?

  Do you guys want to learn how to survive the Appalachians?

• 36:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do.

• 36:32Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 36:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause Corinne, you're getting ready to hike it.

• 36:35Corinne Vien?

  I am. I genuinely think, I don't know if I'll do the full thing, but I think one day I will do. Maybe I'll do like a state by state thing where I get to a certain, maybe this is my retirement project.

• 36:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's fun.

• 36:45Corinne Vien?

  Where each year I just do the trail for that one state and I just keep making my way.

• 36:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm curious how long it takes to do the whole thing because there's also a trail in

• 36:53Corinne Vien?

  I think it's two months, isn't it?

• 36:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Is it? There's a trail that goes through like Spain called the Camino that people walk and it's more of like a religious. I think anyone going on a long walk like that is a spiritual experience, but the Camino is, it's a pilgrimage of sorts.

• 37:08Corinne Vien?

  And Spain's also a hell of a lot smaller than this region.

• 37:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Corinne Vien?

  Okay, Appalachia. It is the heart of one of the most mysterious and storied regions of America. A place where folklore is more than just a story. It is survival. Where the mountains keep their secrets and those who listen closely might just hear the echoes of something otherworldly.

• 37:35Corinne Vien?

  The mountains' peaks and hollows have cradled generations of settlers, wanderers, those who call the wild home, as Sabrina covered. And despite encompassing many, many states here in America and hosting some of the most populated towns and cities, Appalachia has a ton of untouched land.

• 37:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And there's also like rumors of like cannibals living in there.

• 37:54Corinne Vien?

  I was literally, that was my next sentence. Was like, yeah, with all of the rural communities, there's so many talks of these wild men and cannibals. And basically these groups of actual humans that stalk the rogue hiker, find a camper, and you know, what happens, contributes to the missing people every year.

• 38:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Hey, Corinne's always said she wanted to go off the grid and live in the woods and

• 38:20Corinne Vien?

  Maybe I get absorbed.

• 38:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She loves Bigfoot and I feel like you're becoming, you'll be the leader of the cannibalism tribe.

• 38:26Corinne Vien?

  I'm the cannibalistic tribe version of, what's the movie that I'm thinking of where they dance around the maple and they burn the guy in the bear suit?

• 38:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Midsummer.

• 38:35Corinne Vien?

  Florence Pugh, yeah. Midsummer.

• 38:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 38:36Corinne Vien?

  Okay, I loved your thought bubble. It was so

• 38:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like what I did.

• 38:40Corinne Vien?

  Like fairy-esque. I was like, what are you conjuring up?

• 38:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was conjuring Florence Pugh.

• 38:47Corinne Vien?

  So if you live in these mountains, you must survive these mountains and all that comes with it. But along with the people who made the Appalachia their home came their beliefs, their fears and their traditions. But it goes beyond that because it's not something that they just created themselves. There are creatures in the woods. There are spirits in the woods. And sightings have dated back as long as humans have lived along these mountains. The Cherokee spoke of some of these strange beasts. You mentioned some of them, like the Wampus Beast, which is said to be this fearsome feline beast with glowing eyes and eerie, human-like scream.

• 39:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Meow.

• 39:23Corinne Vien?

  Cute.

• 39:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, don't be fooled by the name. Wampus Cat does sound cute, but no.

• 39:31Corinne Vien?

  No, but also the pictures of it, I'm like, is this just like a Jaguar? Do we have Jaguars still here?

• 39:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe.

• 39:38Corinne Vien?

  Hikers and campers have reported feeling watched, hearing unnatural growls in the night, and sometimes glimpsing a pair of glowing eyes just beyond the trees. The tribe also spoke of a shape-shifting Bigfoot with black fur and white eyes, able to take form as an animal or a human, baiting people to come closer and then feasting on their hearts.

• 40:04Corinne Vien?

  Good soup. You may notice some southern Appalachian homes were built with the haint blue color around doors and windows. And this is a tradition that is rooted in the belief that spirits cannot cross water. And so the pale blue that is painted here is basically a way of, you know, the spirit comes up to your house and they're like, whoa, no, I can't traverse this water source. I must turn around.

• 40:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 40:26Corinne Vien?

  Some other people say that it confuses them, not because it's a water source, but because it's the sky. It's the color of the sky. So they don't realize necessarily that it's a home. They're like, oh, no.

• 40:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That was actually a theme in when I did the possessions in India episode. There was that one town where they painted everything blue and white to represent the sky as well to confuse the demons.

• 40:49Corinne Vien?

  What episode was it that I did? There was a good chunk of haint blue covered in it, where it was like.

• 40:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Jamie?

• 40:55Corinne Vien?

  Was it like Tokolosh or something like that?

• 40:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 40:58Corinne Vien?

  I don't know. That was in Africa.

• 40:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know.

• 41:00Corinne Vien?

  I don't know. It was something about.

• 41:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But again.

• 41:03Corinne Vien?

  Some creature going through the keyholes.

• 41:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But this wasn't Afri- I think the haint blue was an African belief brought here.

• 41:10Corinne Vien?

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• 41:53Corinne Vien?

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• 42:37Corinne Vien?

  You can Google those if you want to know the real name of the creatures. They stalk their prey, they shapeshift, they throw their voices to try anything to lure you in. And when that doesn't work, they stalk your home, circling, knocking, crying. Staring at your windows at night. Whatever they can to get you outside. Sometimes your second floor, second story window where there's no way they should be that high up. No, but some of them are quite tall too. So the main rules of surviving in the Appalachia are if you hear something, no you didn't. If you see something, no you didn't. No, you didn't. Ignore the sounds of the crying baby. Ignore what sounds like a man saying hello. Ignore the sounds of a woman screaming. When you hear your name, ignore it.

• 43:22Corinne Vien?

  Ignore it. If you hear a whistle, ignore it and for the love of God, do not whistle back.

• 43:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That like gives me the heebie jeebies because uh, there's just so many things that you hear in the woods already.

• 43:36Corinne Vien?

  And if you're on a trail.

• 43:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'd be so on edge.

• 43:38Corinne Vien?

  It's natural to, if you're hearing someone like whistle, to just turn your head and look.

• 43:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 43:42Corinne Vien?

  Or if you hear your name. So in Appalachia, folklore and superstition run deep with many traditions passed down through generations to protect others against ghosts, spirits, and other supernatural beings and cryptids. We broke this down into a few categories. So how to avoid malevolent beings. Do not look over your shoulder if your name is called. If you hear your name in the woods or at night, but you don't see anyone, also, you shouldn't even look to see if you see anyone. Just turn around and slowly, calmly, go back to where you came from. Your home, your car. Do not look around. Also, do not run. They love a chase.

• 44:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The worst is if you're camping and that happens. Like, you're, you're stuck.

• 44:27Corinne Vien?

  Never speak of the devil at night. Talking about the devil or evil spirits after dark supposedly summons them and invites them to wherever you are. It's a good way to get their attention. So do you want the attention of the devil?

• 44:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe.

• 44:40Corinne Vien?

  If you don't, don't speak of them at night.

• 44:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe.

• 44:42Corinne Vien?

  Do not open the door at night for knocking sounds. So if there's an unexplained knock at your door, and you peek out the window and you do not see anyone, never, ever, ever open your door.

• 44:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do feel like our generation already feels that way without the creepy, like superstition part of it.

• 44:59Corinne Vien?

  In the middle of the day, if someone knocks on my door, I go down onto my floor and I lay there and I roll into a spot where no one could ever peek and see me through my windows, should they feel the need to see if I'm actually home.

• 45:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 45:12Corinne Vien?

  I'm unavailable.

• 45:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  If you really need me and you know me, call me.

• 45:16Corinne Vien?

  Call me, beep me if you want to meet.

• 45:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do not knock on my door.

• 45:20Corinne Vien?

  Bring back pagers. I want to be really unaccessible.

• 45:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You already are.

• 45:24Corinne Vien?

  I know. My phone is permanently on do not disturb. I check my phone once a day.

• 45:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 45:28Corinne Vien?

  Okay, always go out the same door you came in. If you use a different door, it's believed that you're allowing negative entities to enter.

• 45:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That one was really interesting to me because I, I feel like I usually do go in and out the same door, but I just was surprised by that.

• 45:43Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, because it almost feels like if we take the trickery associated with the hint blue paint color.

• 45:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 45:49Corinne Vien?

  I would assume that exiting and entering through different doors would be a confusion.

• 45:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Exactly.

• 45:53Corinne Vien?

  Tactic, and they wouldn't know where you are.

• 45:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 45:55Corinne Vien?

  So it would be a good thing to do.

• 45:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 45:57Corinne Vien?

  But it says not to.

• 45:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 45:58Corinne Vien?

  Which is also like something, like if I think of the advice of like how to avoid a serial killer or whatever, where it's like, change up your routine, don't have the same routine.

• 46:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 46:06Corinne Vien?

  So again, it goes against.

• 46:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Predictable.

• 46:08Corinne Vien?

  Don't be predictable.

• 46:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But in regards to the Appalachians, be predictable about which door you go in and out of.

• 46:14Corinne Vien?

  Yes, yeah.

• 46:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 46:16Corinne Vien?

  Dogs howling at midnight. If you hear a dog howling at night, especially at midnight, it's often seen as an omen of death or that there's an unseen spirit nearby. Some people pray or light a candle to ward off bad luck when this happens.

• 46:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's interesting how many things are omens of.

• 46:33Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, we did, again, there was a Patreon exclusive where we did New England superstitions, and there were just so, so many. And I know in your book, a lot of those were repeated, that were the same as the New England ones, which probably makes sense because it's all along the same mountain range and certain.

• 46:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There were a lot of like baby ones and a lot of apple related lures. It's interesting.

• 46:53Corinne Vien?

  And if you want to avoid bad luck, never sweep after midnight.

• 46:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which, if you hate cleaning.

• 46:59Corinne Vien?

  You shouldn't be sweeping after midnight because you should be too busy drinking your midnight margaritas.

• 47:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I actually, there was one iteration of that where it was, don't sweep after dark. So work until the sun goes down and go home and be like, I can't sweep.

• 47:13Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, you have to rest.

• 47:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 47:16Corinne Vien?

  There are plenty of graveyards along the Appalachian region, especially because you alluded to just how much war there was, the Civil War and all of that. So there are.

• 47:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's also many unmarked graves.

• 47:26Corinne Vien?

  So many, so many. But yeah, there's just heaps and heaps of dead bodies.

• 47:32Corinne Vien?

  So there's a few graveyard and death superstitions that you should know about. Hold your breath when passing a graveyard. Is this something you did as a kid?

• 47:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I did.

• 47:40Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, me too.

• 47:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That and over a bridge.

• 47:42Corinne Vien?

  I don't think I did the bridge one. It was just a graveyard. Some people believe that if you breathe while passing a cemetery, a wandering spirit may enter your body. So holding your breath prevents them from getting in.

• 47:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's a good one to follow.

• 47:53Corinne Vien?

  Never take anything from the graveyard. If you pick flowers, take a stone, or even a little bit of dirt from a cemetery, it's considered to bring you bad luck or to invite the spirits back home with you. Leaving coins on graves. A coin left on the headstone can appease the spirits and show respect for the dead, ensuring that they don't follow you home. You can also leave flowers and other various trinkets to help appease them. But on your way out, just another piece of advice, never count the tombstones, because it is said that that is also another way to summon the spirits back to you. Don't give them too much attention.

• 48:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. Also, the amount of time, depending on the size of the cemetery, the amount of time it would take to count every single headstone is time consuming.

• 48:36Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I mean, it might not be every, but just when you walk by, don't go one, two, three.

• 48:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, like you can't even do one, two, three?

• 48:42Corinne Vien?

  I don't think so.

• 48:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Definitely done that. Just because my brain like counts things.

• 48:46Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 48:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Corinne Vien?

  But if you don't do all those things, or if you just want a little extra protection, here are some folk remedies and protections against spirits and ways to ward off evil. So we talked about the paint blue paint that you can do. Don't sweep after midnight or after dark. You can also leave a broom at the door. So placing a broom across the doorway or flipping it upside down behind the door is said to prevent spirits from entering the house.

• 49:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which I've started to do. And I think I learned that when we were at the Conjuring House.

• 49:14Corinne Vien?

  Oh, maybe.

• 49:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause they had one above the door or by the door.

• 49:18Corinne Vien?

  Oh, yeah. It's funny because there's also this sort of witchcraft belief that if you take your broom and you flip it upside down when you have company, your company will soon leave.

• 49:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes.

• 49:28Corinne Vien?

  So it's like-

• 49:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which you are all about.

• 49:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, so you might be doing it for spirits, but I might be doing it for people.

• 49:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, kicking people out.

• 49:34Corinne Vien?

  Okay, time to go to bed. But yeah, so the thought is that some, some spirits will be so distracted counting the bristles on the broom that they won't come after you.

• 49:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The ghosts are like me, they can't help but count.

• 49:47Corinne Vien?

  They're, they're so distracted, it's just like overstimulated by the world 24/7.

• 49:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 49:52Corinne Vien?

  These spirits. Salt at the threshold, you can sprinkle some salt across the doorway and window sills to keep spirits and witches from crossing into the home.

• 50:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And witches.

• 50:02Corinne Vien?

  Although some could say if you do any of these things, you are a witch.

• 50:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. So you can't go into your own house.

• 50:07Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Some also place a line of salt around their bed for protection while sleeping. Never ever whistle in the woods, especially at night.

• 50:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Something will probably whistle back.

• 50:17Corinne Vien?

  Mm-hmm. Whistling specifically at night is believed to attract unwanted supernatural attention, including ghosts, spirits, strange creatures like lush pedestrians. There was a lot of talk about how Mothman has spent a lot of time in this mountain range. There's been many sightings as well. So you never really know what you're, what you're calling out to.

• 50:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No.

• 50:36Corinne Vien?

  Best not to. Horseshoes for protection. I think that this is something that we've.

• 50:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 50:41Corinne Vien?

  You kind of like learn a horseshoe is good luck.

• 50:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yep.

• 50:44Corinne Vien?

  So hanging a horseshoe above the doorway facing upwards, they said always facing upwards.

• 50:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So like this?

• 50:50Corinne Vien?

  Yes. It's believed to trap a good luck and keep evil spirits away.

• 50:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hmm.

• 50:55Corinne Vien?

  Carrying a silver coin or an iron nail, this feels very like vampire.

• 50:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:59Corinne Vien?

  Hunter. But many believe that silver and iron repel evil spirits. And then again, it says and witches. And carrying one in your pocket or placing one near your bed provides protection.

• 51:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hmm.

• 51:10Corinne Vien?

  You can also hang bundles of dried mullen near doorways or windows to ward off evil spirits and negative energy.

• 51:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:17Corinne Vien?

  And you can also place black walnut branches or leaves around the home to safeguard against malevolent forces. So I like these because the, some of these are very easy to do because it's like some of this stuff is already in your own.

• 51:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 51:30Corinne Vien?

  Yard or.

• 51:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Corinne Vien?

  Amongst the land. It's like to protect yourself against what's creeping on the land, you also have to seek out the land.

• 51:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The land will help you if you listen to it and respect it.

• 51:41Corinne Vien?

  Moana.

• 51:43Corinne Vien?

  Okay, and then placing mirrors around your home. This is something we talk about so often because it's thought that if you place two mirrors facing each other in your house, it creates a portal. So most definitely don't do that. I'm adding that one in.

• 51:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 51:56Corinne Vien?

  It wasn't listed though. It does say that a mirror facing the front door can reflect negative energy and spirits trying to enter.

• 52:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting.

• 52:04Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 52:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So it's like using mirrors to help you.

• 52:07Corinne Vien?

  Yes.

• 52:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause I feel like so much of the superstitions are like, cover them up or don't look into them at certain times.

• 52:14Corinne Vien?

  Right. So it says not to look at them at night, basically. In parts of the Appalachia, it's also suggested that you cover mirrors during a thunderstorm to prevent the energy from the storm from entering into your house or into anyone who looks in the mirror. So I'm like, could you be possessed by a literal thunderstorm? Or is it just?

• 52:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That would be so sick.

• 52:36Corinne Vien?

  Right? Because I'm like, that sounds kind of interesting.

• 52:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What if I came in and I only just went?

• 52:41Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, when you open your mouth, it's just like crackling thunder and lightning. Oh, that would be so cool.

• 52:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They're sick. It'd be sick for a day. And then after that, I'd be like, okay, can I have my voice back? Take your thunderstorm back.

• 52:54Corinne Vien?

  Okay. So while we typically avoid mirrors at night, it's also said and believed that if you look into a mirror during a full moon, it's believed to enhance divination abilities or reveal glimpses of the future.

• 53:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's cool.

• 53:08Corinne Vien?

  Yes. And being able to tap into your power like this and maybe get glimpses of the future and, and figure out what exactly is coming for you. That's a skill that could

• 53:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's witchy.

• 53:16Corinne Vien?

  Save you in Appalachia. So next week, we will introduce you to some of the spirits and haunted locations in Appalachia. But don't forget the rules. If you see something, no, you didn't. If you hear something, no, you didn't.

• 53:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's a good rule to follow. Maybe don't hike the trail.

• 53:33Corinne Vien?

  It's a mind your own business type of place.

• 53:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It is, it is. Keep in your lane. Stay in your lane.

• 53:39Corinne Vien?

  But then also you really need to rely on your community at the same time. It's such a delicate balance of maneuvering and navigating

• 53:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 53:46Corinne Vien?

  the spirits, the land, your own community.

• 53:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think a lot of it's also being prepared, being respectful, knowing what you're getting yourself into, knowing the history, knowing who was here before you. I think that's important anywhere in the world.

• 54:02Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. And also just an openness, because I feel like the people who go into places in Appalachia and they don't believe in something are oftentimes the people who have the scariest experiences.

• 54:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 54:13Corinne Vien?

  Because they don't know the rules, or they didn't heed the warnings, or take someone seriously when they were talking about, oh, like I, you know, I had something on my property, it would knock on my doors at night, or whatever. Listen to what people have to say. Just assume that it's real, it's true.

• 54:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 54:30Corinne Vien?

  Even if you don't believe it, deep down, follow, follow the rules.

• 54:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's better to just believe someone else's belief in a place that you were unfamiliar with, right? Like, why question it? Why put yourself at risk?

• 54:42Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, don't put yourself at risk.

• 54:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It makes me want to do, instead of doing a hiking the whole trail, it would be really fun to do a two girls, one ghost, like YMCA camping retreat, where we rented out an entire campsite.

• 54:54Corinne Vien?

  We've talked about this before.

• 54:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  With like log cabins in the Appalachias, where I admit, and I'm letting you know ahead of time, I would 100% be that person who

• 55:03Corinne Vien?

  I was just gonna say, I don't want to do it because I don't trust someone else to not go around and start knocking and like think it's funny.

• 55:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's what I would do. And then I would be screwed because the spirits would be like, you're mocking us, we're gonna get you. I actually, there was one thing that I, that I found about crows that I kind of thought was just, one, funny, but also, I think, confusing.

• 55:24Corinne Vien?

  Hmm.

• 55:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because it was basically saying that like, the, the number of crows that you see can signify different things. One thing could be good, one thing could be bad, and it's confusing. So I wanted to just read what they meant. And it almost feels like it encompasses everything we just talked about, about Appalachia, where it's a little confusing, a little uncertain, is something good, is something bad?

• 55:48Corinne Vien?

  It's a place that you're forced to trust your own intuition.

• 55:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. So if you see one crow, one singular crow, it is supposed to be an omen that bad news is coming your way. But if you see two crows, it means joy. And good luck. If you see three, it means there's a wedding coming. Maybe not yours, but in your life. Four crows signifies a birth or major change. Five could mean sickness. Six equals wealth. So you like, might think you see-

• 56:13Corinne Vien?

  The more crows, the better.

• 56:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Six, but it actually is five, right?

• 56:17Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 56:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then seven means there's a secret or a mystery. Eight means sadness. Nine is thought to bring love or passion. And then 10 crows means a significant change is coming. And if you see me with all million crows, it means run.

• 56:34Corinne Vien?

  Yes, you're screwed. Dun dun. Sabrina and her crows.

• 56:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I would love to be the crowning. Oh, actually, this one I really liked. If your foot itches, it could be a sign of a long journey ahead. If your nose itches, it's a sign that someone like company is coming. And then if your ear itches, it's kind of like the, is your ear ringing? Someone's talking about you.

• 56:55Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I like that.

• 56:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 56:56Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, so many of the ones in this book were the same as the New England superstitions too, which made me realize that it wasn't necessarily all the things that have been created and conjured based on living specifically in this place, but rather so many of the beliefs brought over by people. Well, melting pot-

• 57:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 57:13Corinne Vien?

  Of superstitions.

• 57:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Exactly, that have evolved and been spread throughout the US, through communities, through families, through generations, have been passed down. I mean, it's beautiful.

• 57:23Corinne Vien?

  And also Appalachia is terrifying.

• 57:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 57:27Corinne Vien?

  So next week and the week after, be prepared to be scared.

• 57:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I have a listener story.

• 57:33Corinne Vien?

  Oh, great. Me too. I forgot.

• 57:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I forgot that we have them.

• 57:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But to tantalize your ears, because we are touching you with our verbs.

• 57:45Corinne Vien?

  Words, with our verbs and our adverbs and our nouns and our adjectives.

• 57:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So I have a story from our listener, Mikey, and it is called Appalachian Encounter Story. I was stalked. Hello to my favorite ghostesses. I've recently been binge watching your podcast episodes on YouTube and have been loving your follower story videos. So I'm sending my own encounter with a video.

• 58:08Corinne Vien?

  Love this. Ooh, what's the video?

• 58:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  To start off, my name is Mikey and I used to work as a kennel attendant in Pennsylvania, near the Appalachian Mountains, where I also live and have lived my entire life. It just started ringing. Do you hear that?

• 58:20Corinne Vien?

  Someone's talking about you.

• 58:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, my gosh. Who are you? It better be good.

• 58:27Corinne Vien?

  Cue the fight.

• 58:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Where I worked was down at the base of the mountains, but it's still surrounded by woods. We don't get nearly as much activity here as the people who live further up the mountains, but we definitely have our fair share of critters and sounds and things that go bump in the night. So I worked as a kennel attendant for a dog breeder and my job was mostly outdoors and the property is surrounded by woods. I also worked the night shift. Lucky me.

• 58:52Corinne Vien?

  Lucky us. Unlucky you. Lucky us.

• 58:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. My dogs at work love to bark and howl for no reason, or most of the time they were barking at our resident kennel cats, which were next door, or a deer passing by. But this one night was like any other, except I felt like I was being watched. Obviously, working with animals, I was in fact being watched because the animals were looking at me and I knew that. But this feeling was different and it was like a feeling in my gut telling me something was wrong. It felt like I was being stalked. This was and still is a regular occurrence for me. Luckily, I am very well informed of the rules in Appalachia. So I decided it would be best for me to just go about my night and pay no attention to it. I locked my eyes to the ground and just kept on working. I do carry a protection on me, especially at work, a spell jar that I usually wear around my neck with crystals

• 59:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  in my pocket. As I was inside one of the outdoor kennels, I started hearing somebody calling out for one of my dogs by name. And of course, it was the dog whose kennel I was currently standing in. Another thing I should mention is that I worked alone.

• 59:52Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 59:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There was only one kennel attendant there at time and the only person there was my boss, who was disabled and rarely ever left her house. And I did not recognize the voice at all, nor could I tell where it was coming from. It sounded exactly how people usually describe the voices they hear in the Appalachia. Almost human, but not quite. The one thing I did know was that the voice sounded like it was getting further away, which around here usually means that it's actually getting closer.

• 1:00:20Corinne Vien?

  That's another thing. If it sounds really close, it's actually further away.

• 1:00:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, just terrifying.

• 1:00:24Corinne Vien?

  Nothing is quite as it seems.

• 1:00:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes. All of a sudden, everything went dead silent. The dogs even went silent. The cicadas stopped screeching. I knew I was in deep shit at this point. I was still shut inside of this kennel run and I didn't know what else to do, so I stayed frozen. And I tried to make myself as uninteresting as possible. All of a sudden, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps and they were circling me. I pulled up my phone and started recording. The video attached to this email is what I caught on camera that night. And I know for a fact this was not a deer. I would have been able to see the deer's eyes with my flashlight and the dogs would have been barking, because they love to bark a deer. Not to mention, it is fairly easy to distinguish the difference in footsteps from a four-legged animal to a two-legged person. It sounded like a wobbly human footsteps, like someone was drunk or had a limp.

• 1:01:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it was weird because it was like walking away. The footsteps eventually stopped. I walked calmly, yet swiftly, back inside to finish my chores for the night. And needless to say, I sped a tad while driving home that night. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I've attached the video. It's hard to hear, but if you focus, you can hear footsteps faintly. A day or two after this encounter, I was at work again when something growled at me from the tree line. I hope you ladies enjoyed. I absolutely love the podcast. Keep up the amazing work. Stay safe out there and I'll see you on the other side. With love, Mikey. And we'll play the video.

• 1:02:30Corinne Vien?

  It's like a little bit of time will pass and then you'll hear what almost sounds like a couple of steps being taken.

• 1:02:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, which is even creepier because it's like

• 1:02:37Corinne Vien?

  It's like they're trying to hide and then

• 1:02:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 1:02:40Corinne Vien?

  Close distance, maybe.

• 1:02:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And the wind sounds terrifying.

• 1:02:43Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And you can also Mikey's breathing. You can tell she is terrified.

• 1:02:47Corinne Vien?

  Okay, I'm glad Mikey made the distinction about it sounding not quite like a real voice, like close enough to a voice, but not really. Because at first I was like, oh, well, to do a positive spin, maybe it's like a deceased relative coming to visit the dog that they love so much.

• 1:03:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I thought you were gonna say that the dog learned how to speak.

• 1:03:06Corinne Vien?

  Maybe that too. I don't know. We did recently read about a cat that spoke.

• 1:03:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's true, but I feel like this is not that.

• 1:03:14Corinne Vien?

  No, this is.

• 1:03:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is the Appalachians.

• 1:03:16Corinne Vien?

  If a dog barks at night.

• 1:03:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, it didn't.

• 1:03:21Corinne Vien?

  No, it didn't. Don't go looking for spirits. I have an email. This is called Weird Happenings on My Family Farm in the Appalachian Mountains. Hey ladies, I just ran across your podcast a few weeks ago and I absolutely love listening to you guys. I do want to forewarn you, this consists of multiple experiences from myself as well as from other family members. So grab your blankets, get cozy and enjoy the stories.

• 1:03:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 1:03:43Corinne Vien?

  As some backstory, my family owns roughly 800 acres of land consisting of rolling hills and farmland in the southeastern part of Kentucky, right.

• 1:03:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Bragging.

• 1:03:51Corinne Vien?

  I know. That sounds really nice.

• 1:03:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Corinne Vien?

  Right inside the Appalachian Mountains.

• 1:03:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I found where we're gonna do our camp.

• 1:03:58Corinne Vien?

  Invite us over, Destiny.

• 1:04:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's our destiny.

• 1:04:03Corinne Vien?

  Oh my gosh, we were meant to be together. Most of this land was passed down for centuries and my grandfather added to the amount of land as years went on. So this first story is about an unknown animal and warning, there is talk of animal death.

• 1:04:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 1:04:17Corinne Vien?

  To begin, I want to start with a story that's not very scary, but still makes me scratch my head to this day. When I was about 10, and for reference, I'm 21 now, me and my cousin used to stay with my grandparents at their farm during the week while our parents were at work. We have grandparents straight from a fairy tale. Very kind, very soft spoken. It's the typical Kentucky family farm with its fair share of goats and pigs and cows and chickens.

• 1:04:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ah.

• 1:04:43Corinne Vien?

  Dream.

• 1:04:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Truly.

• 1:04:45Corinne Vien?

  This is our destiny. Ah, dream world. Well, this particular week, my grandfather, my Papa, kept finding mauled animals. If I can remember correctly, it was a few dead chickens as well as a couple of dead cows.

• 1:04:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This does remind me of Pi's story that she shared on Campfire Stories.

• 1:05:02Corinne Vien?

  To find dead chickens isn't so unusual as chicken hawks, opossums, coyotes, and the occasional stray dog could make a laying hen a fairly easy meal. However, finding a dead adult cow was extremely unusual because cows typically stay in a herd and protect one another, particularly the calves, which can make for an easy meal if there's a pack of coyotes and then they go for the baby. But not only that, if a herd of cows gets scared, they can easily trample humans, let alone small coyotes or large dogs.

• 1:05:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's also interesting how many animals are being slaughtered. It's almost like it's not about-

• 1:05:36Corinne Vien?

  There's two cows, too.

• 1:05:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like not about food source, it's about marking your territory.

• 1:05:40Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Because of the loss of these large animals, my Papa believed that maybe it was a bear. We get very few around these parts, but it does occasionally happen. Later that week, when I was getting picked up from my grandmother's, the chickens began to squawk and rustle as if something had scared them. And because my Papa believed that it very well could be a bear, he picked up his gun, he told us kids, stay inside, and he went down to chase this animal. And so I know my grandfather is not a killer in the slightest. He typically brings his gun to shoot a warning shot and scare whatever it is bothering his animals. And then he likes to cage and relocate some smaller critters that might get into the chickens. So a few short minutes later, you hear the warning shot, and my Papa scrambles through the door as if something was chasing him.

• 1:06:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 1:06:22Corinne Vien?

  My Papa exclaims that he saw a very large, bony, hunched back, dog-like animal with no hair and bowed in legs. He said it was unlike anything he'd ever seen before.

• 1:06:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like Dog Man?

• 1:06:36Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, or like a-

• 1:06:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  S W?

• 1:06:38Corinne Vien?

  Windy Boy?

• 1:06:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Corinne Vien?

  Or, yeah. He said it was hunched over on all fours, eating away at a chicken behind the coop. He fired a warning shot in the air and the animal looked over its shoulder and ran away as a dog would. But what startled my grandfather to run away himself was its bright, peering, yellow eyes that looked back at him before it scurried off into the woods, never to be seen again.

• 1:06:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, thank goodness it was never seen again.

• 1:07:01Corinne Vien?

  I know.

• 1:07:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It worked scaring it off.

• 1:07:03Corinne Vien?

  Now for my dad's story. My dad is an entrepreneur and he became physically disabled years ago from working in the blue collar industry, doing hard labor, which eventually led to irreversible back problems. Because of this, he was no longer able to get a normal job. In 2012, he ultimately decided to start his own stockyard business to sell animals and other small items. Him, as well as my cousins, decided to build a huge building with over 110 by five rooms to hold animals, waiting to be shown with a large center to show the animals. Picture a storage unit, but made of some old wood and half-walled barn doors lining the walls.

• 1:07:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sounds kind of pretty.

• 1:07:38Corinne Vien?

  It does. So this building, we would call the barn. It was roughly three miles down the gravel road and about 15 minutes from town, but only one mile from my parents' house. I have a lot of good memories in the barn, my birthday parties.

• 1:07:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I truly was thinking like this would be, it's almost like how people make wedding venues, that like rustic barn.

• 1:07:56Corinne Vien?

  I was thinking Footloose.

• 1:07:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Of course.

• 1:07:58Corinne Vien?

  Playing hide and seek with my friends. It was just such a wonderful place to hang out with people. The very back hall, however, always felt sort of creepy and heavy. Throughout the building, a couple creepy things have happened. One time, for example, my dad was building the rooms in the back hall with my cousins and my brother when the boys got hungry and decided to go to my dad's house to grab a quick lunch. My dad decided to stay and finish up a few odds and ends with a couple of the rooms. And the boys left and he spent some time building before he began to hear some footsteps. And then doors slamming every now and then. My cousins and brothers are always joking with my dad. So of course, he thought it was just them playing a little prank. Well, it continued for a little bit longer before my dad finally heard the footsteps coming down a side hall. So he hid around the corner as the footsteps drew closer so that he could pop out and scare them.

• 1:08:43Corinne Vien?

  He popped out and after he did, he saw nothing was there to greet him. Later on, he heard the boys pull up on their four wheelers and he met them outside and asked them if one of them had stayed to play a prank on him. And to their surprise, they said that they were all eating lunch at the house. No one else was in this building. And of course, other things started to happen, such as things going missing, footsteps, hearing someone walking down the hall, the occasional slamming door. So this prompted my mom to do some in-depth research of the property that we put the barn on. And she found out that this exact place that we put the barn was an ancient Indian burial ground.

• 1:09:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Damn.

• 1:09:20Corinne Vien?

  So after this building was completed, the auction business wasn't really booming during winter time. And because of all the weird things and the research my father started doing, he became really interested in haunted attractions. So three years later in 2015, he started a haunted house attraction inside of this barn.

• 1:09:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Stop. Tell me it still happens every year because we need to, oh, seriously.

• 1:09:42Corinne Vien?

  Can we be your cousins?

• 1:09:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You won't even know that we're there. You have so much land.

• 1:09:46Corinne Vien?

  No, you'll know I'm there.

• 1:09:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because you'll be with the cows.

• 1:09:50Corinne Vien?

  I'm gonna be waking up with grandma, what are we making for breakfast? I'll put the coffee on, greet the chickens, hug the cows. Okay, my parents still skeptical about the paranormal, didn't know too much about this. They truly did it so us kids could have some fun running around and scaring people. We didn't really think that the attraction would last long or be really that popular in the area that we live in. But because there isn't a whole lot for kids to do, it became very popular during Halloween time. We soon started to call our ghost Charlie. He would do fun and playful things like stealing stuff, casting his shadow across the walls. So we thought Charlie was really fun. But then a couple of years later, there were some grown adult workers running out of the barn, crying that they had seen a little boy in a plaid shirt, standing at the end of the back of the barn,

• 1:10:34Corinne Vien?

  staring at them and this sort of black distorted figure with red eyes on the

• 1:10:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, oh.

• 1:10:41Corinne Vien?

  At this point, we decided, yeah, this might not be a ghost. Something is feeling wrong. We called in a medium to see if they could see what was happening to our barn. And maybe we invited something worse than our fun ghost Charlie.

• 1:10:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. Especially when you make it a haunted house, like what are you welcoming?

• 1:10:58Corinne Vien?

  And people are coming in with the energy that is.

• 1:11:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fear.

• 1:11:01Corinne Vien?

  In energy that is easy to feast on if you're this stark entity.

• 1:11:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:07Corinne Vien?

  When the medium came with her team, we were skeptical of her. We had never thought of someone communicating with the dead. However, she knew things about every one of us that no one else knew.

• 1:11:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is cool. I want to know more about this medium.

• 1:11:18Corinne Vien?

  I know. Yeah, give us her name.

• 1:11:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And let us live on your land.

• 1:11:22Corinne Vien?

  What's for dinner?

• 1:11:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's rent free, right?

• 1:11:26Corinne Vien?

  She knew about my mom's health issues, about deceased family members, and about how a couple of us had spirits attached to us.

• 1:11:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Whoa.

• 1:11:33Corinne Vien?

  She convinced us pretty quickly that she was the real deal. And at the end of the night, she told us that the back hall did, in fact, have a demonic presence without being told anything about this hall. She also informed us that the whole property was haunted, not just the barn. And this is important later. While she walked the barn, her team walked around with EVP recorders, asking questions throughout the barn. Me and a group of people followed a man who we will call M to the back hall to listen to what he got on his EVP. Once at the end of the back hall, we got a response on the recorder stating, M is bad over and over. We were confused and we didn't know which M they were talking about because it was a common name and the EVP eventually went quiet. A few weeks later, M was on the news because he went to jail for manslaughter

• 1:12:18Corinne Vien?

  and was moving a body in a suitcase over state lines.

• 1:12:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What the fuck? Wait, this makes me think this is a great spirit.

• 1:12:27Corinne Vien?

  I know. Maybe the darkness was waiting for M because it's attached to him.

• 1:12:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Jesus.

• 1:12:32Corinne Vien?

  Like somehow knew he was going to be there. Remember how I said that knowing the whole property was haunted would be important later? Well, this is why. One night, me and my now fiance, we'll call him D, were at mine and my parents' house. My parents were out of town for the night and agreed to let him stay over. We went to go grab some pizza and then we came home to. Relax and eat and watch a movie. In order to understand this next part, I have to give you an understanding of how my house is laid out. It's like a big box with a living room on one half and a kitchen and a dining room splitting the other half. And then there was a small walkway to the kitchen and a small walkway to the dining room, separated by a wall that you could still see each room from the living room. Attached to the living room furthest from the dining room was a hall containing my bedroom and a bathroom. And attached to the dining room furthest from the living room was my parents' room.

• 1:13:16Corinne Vien?

  After eating, I decided I was gonna go clean up the living room while my boyfriend went to the bathroom. After a while of cleaning, I was walking from the living room into the kitchen. When I looked to the left and I saw Dee walk into the dining room. I figured he was planning on scaring me and I asked him what he thought he was doing. And I got no response. I asked again, no reply. Louder, I asked an additional time. And then I began to walk towards the kitchen when Dee popped out of the bathroom on the other side of the living room and asked, "What are you talking about?" Oh, I froze in fear. I told Dee, "Check the house." I had just seen him walk into the dining room. And after further inspection of the house, we could not find anyone else there. I feel like I have a thousand more stories to share with you, pictures, videos.

• 1:14:02Corinne Vien?

  But I'll leave it at this for now. See you, girls on the other side. With lots of love, Destiny. Send us your pictures and videos and invite us over.

• 1:14:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Seriously, I feel like you could be there for a minute and experiencing something paranormal there.

• 1:14:14Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I'll never get over her grandfather's first experience of seeing that like hunched over bony, hairless dog-like beast hunched over the chicken, just like feasting on it.

• 1:14:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And the yellow eyes staring at him and then running off into the wilderness.

• 1:14:32Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then running off towards where Mikey was and scaring Mikey from the first story. The same creature. I believe it's the same creature.

• 1:14:42Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, it's all, it's all so creepy. And now I'm just thinking, I'm like envisioning these poor cows.

• 1:14:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know. I mean, all of the wildlife in, although they probably, they have their own world order. They know what to do, what not to do, because animals have great instincts.

• 1:14:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Trust your

• 1:14:59Corinne Vien?

  It does make me wonder too, when it comes to these supernatural beasts and cryptids and creatures, if there is some sort of like glamour put over them, because oftentimes, when you encounter these types of creatures that I think that this is referencing, they can throw and mimic their voice and sometimes for a moment appear to be something else. You know, like there's all those stories of people seeing a man crawling and as it like crawls closer and closer to them, it starts to like morph into something else. This is calling out and seems less and less human. And so I am curious if the animals just see the thing for as it is, or?

• 1:15:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like the animals know. They know.

• 1:15:37Corinne Vien?

  They have to.

• 1:15:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like if there's anywhere in the, in the world where you could time travel, it's the Appalachians.

• 1:15:44Corinne Vien?

  Yes. There's an energy. And especially when you think about just how much the energy shifts and changes as you ascend a mountain top, like it feels different amongst the tops of trees.

• 1:15:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Corinne Vien?

  Something strange going on in the woods.

• 1:16:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And if you see something?

• 1:16:02Corinne Vien?

  No, you didn't.

• 1:16:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But if you did, email us.

• 1:16:05Corinne Vien?

  Cause we want to hear about it.

• 1:16:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We want to hear about it.

• 1:16:07Corinne Vien?

  But if you hear something.

• 1:16:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, you didn't. But email us.

• 1:16:10Corinne Vien?

  But email us.

• 1:16:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Please email us to [email protected] and stay tuned for two more coming up consensual.

• 1:16:20Corinne Vien?

  Consensual.

• 1:16:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Can, what's the word I'm looking for?

• 1:16:22Corinne Vien?

  Consecutive?

• 1:16:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes. Gosh. It's not consensual because you, you don't know what's coming.

• 1:16:29Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, but you choose to click play.

• 1:16:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Consecutively.

• 1:16:32Corinne Vien?

  Consecutive.

• 1:16:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why is that so hard?

• 1:16:33Corinne Vien?

  Consecutively.

• 1:16:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I need to go home.

• 1:16:35Corinne Vien?

  Too bad. We have to record more.

• 1:16:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Two more episodes coming out consecutively about the Appalachians and ghost stories from the regions and cryptids from the regions. So stay tuned, hold on to your butts and we'll see you soon.

• 1:16:48Corinne Vien?

  Thank you to Jamie for editing this episode and the podcast, all of our episodes. And thank you to you for emailing us, for coming here and supporting us, for sending us your creepy ass Appalachian stories.

• 1:16:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And thank you for letting us touch you with our words. We love you.

• 1:17:02Corinne Vien?

  And we will. See you on the other side.