Encounters x346 - Why Not to Use a Ouija Board

We always tell you not to play with Ouija boards... and then you send us stories that make us want to ignore our own advice. We're reading some of the wildest spirit board encounters in our inbox, featuring familial hauntings, lingering entities, terrifying mimics, and enough "absolutely not" moments to make you swear off the planchette forever. Stories include: A Halloween Ouija session takes a terrifying turn when a notorious entity answers through the board and seems strangely connected to one participant. A childhood game with a Ouija board hidden in a church attic leads to a decades-long, inter-generational haunting by a mysterious entity known as Abigail. Sleep paralysis, a creature with rotting breath, and a figure hiding beneath the bed all begin shortly after a teenage Ouija session. A sleepover experiment unleashes unexplained illness, disturbing dreams, a protective grandfather spirit, and a Ouija board that mysteriously reappears after being destroyed. Watch the video version here. Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at [email protected] New Episodes are released every Thursday and Sunday at 12am PST/3am EST (the witching hour, of course). 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! 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

  This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey, everyone. This is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced government sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe, while your neighbor says,

• 0:44Speaker 00

  I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org/gettingbetter. Because your beliefs are yours, and theirs are theirs.

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• 1:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hello. Do you want to play a game?

• 1:54Corinne Vien?

  Depends on which one, right?

• 1:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ouija boards.

• 1:56Corinne Vien?

  Ones that we have told you not to play.

• 2:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But have done it ourselves.

• 2:02Corinne Vien?

  And are in boxes full of stories.

• 2:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Of them. My gosh, so many.

• 2:08Corinne Vien?

  This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 2:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Two Girls, One Ghost. We are your ghostesses. That is Corinne.

• 2:13Corinne Vien?

  Hi.

• 2:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm Sabrina. This is an encounters episode where you email us your personal haunted experiences, and then we read them back to you and wonder, well, actually, we thank ourselves that we're not as haunted as you.

• 2:27Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, that's really what this is about. It's feeling better about ourselves every week.

• 2:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And thank you for letting us do that.

• 2:33Corinne Vien?

  We've themed it Ouija boards.

• 2:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do you want to go first?

• 2:35Corinne Vien?

  There are so friggin many.

• 2:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So many. I really tried to find, I was like, ooh, maybe I'll find a funny Ouija board story. And then I didn't because there were just too many good scary ones.

• 2:45Corinne Vien?

  Oh, yeah. I wanted to read as many as I could, so I picked three, like, kind of shorter-ish ones.

• 2:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Great.

• 2:51Corinne Vien?

  Just to try to pile them in.

• 2:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I have two, and then we have an extra one on Patreon for the Only Phantoms tier. It's a benefit if you're over there.

• 3:01Corinne Vien?

  Okay, this is from Rashawn. It's called Ouija Board on Halloween Night. A bit of backstory, it was my senior year of high school, so it was about seven years ago. I was already interested in the paranormal and hadn't really had any experiences until this Halloween night. Yeah, on Halloween, of course.

• 3:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Perfect time to use a Ouija board, or the worst time.

• 3:21Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 3:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Depending on how you view things.

• 3:23Corinne Vien?

  And how you use it, and who you use it with.

• 3:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And who you're contacting.

• 3:28Corinne Vien?

  Okay, so Rashawn is contacting spirits alongside a couple of their friends, Diane and Lee, or Leah? I'll say Leah. I designed up, we were going to have a small party at my friend's house, Trace. And Trace had moved to our school for senior year. He had moved from Missouri, and he and his mom would be cool with us having a party there. This was the first time that I had ever been to his house, and it would be the last. So, school had ended, and we all drove over to this place to get started on our costumes. I was a scarecrow, Leah was a vampire, Diane was Mrs. Incredible, and Trace didn't dress up.

• 4:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Trace was himself.

• 4:06Corinne Vien?

  Party booper. The night started great. We had some drinks, and we were just enjoying some music and board games. And his mom made us pizza, and she started telling us how she was a witch. I have an aunt who studies Wicca, and so I was kind of interested in what his mom was saying. She showed us her room that had an altar and idols in it. And fast forward a couple hours, we're all pretty drunk, and his mom mentions that she has a Ouija board.

• 4:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why do I feel like lowkey this is the type of mom you and I are gonna be?

• 4:36Corinne Vien?

  I'm not gonna let the teens get drunk.

• 4:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, but we will be the ones with like, hey, we have a Ouija board in our office over here.

• 4:44Corinne Vien?

  Everyone's just like peacefully watching paranormal activity, trying to get scared. And I'm like, you want to really get scared? Come here. Come find what I set up in the basement for all of us.

• 4:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A seance circle.

• 4:54Corinne Vien?

  Mommy's not leaving. I'm playing too.

• 4:57Corinne Vien?

  You're down there? We're playing picture game.

• 5:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I've been trying for years to get Corinne to do it.

• 5:03Corinne Vien?

  Noah walks in, Fox, Sabrina's here. Guys, everyone go home.

• 5:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Weird shit's gonna happen.

• 5:10Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, he has to move schools.

• 5:13Corinne Vien?

  I knew enough at this time about Ouija boards that I didn't really want to mess with them. And his mom told us that everything was gonna be okay. She does it often. And this should have been a red flag to me. His mom said that she needed someone to put their fingers on the planchette, one person to take notes, and then the others can observe.

• 5:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  To be fair, though, if if someone says they have a lot of experience, have done it a lot, I would feel more trusting than someone who's like, I've never done this. Oh, my gosh, what's gonna happen? I don't know the rules.

• 5:41Corinne Vien?

  Leah volunteered to do the planchette, so I sat at the table next to his mom. I offered to take notes, sitting across from them. And Trace was just laying there on the couch, parallel to the table, his back towards the table, so he couldn't really see what was going on. Diane was standing by the end of the couch, looking at the table. His mom went over the rules and what we could expect. She said that she would do all the talking, she would ask the questions. She opened up the session, she started saying hello, asked if anyone was with us. The planchette sat there for a minute. She asked a few more questions, and it slowly started answering them. I don't remember what was said, but you could feel the tension in the room rising. His mom asked a question, and I don't remember what the question was, but the planchette then started moving over to the letter Z, and it stopped there.

• 6:27Corinne Vien?

  I could feel my stomach drop. I knew where this was going. After a few seconds, the planchette moved from Z, this time stopping on O. I looked at his mom. I looked at Leah. I saw their facial expressions. Leah looked shocked, probably because this thing is working, and his mom started to look concerned. The planchette started to head back to Z.

• 6:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Nope.

• 6:47Corinne Vien?

  Stopping on it, and then quickly back to O. And his mom said, nope, we need to end this conversation in session. I was in shock. I could not believe it. His mom put the board away, asked if we were okay. We said yes, we were. And she started to explain to us what had just happened. She told us that the demon had visited us.

• 7:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The Ouija board demon.

• 7:07Corinne Vien?

  The one behind that name. I know you guys know who I'm talking about.

• 7:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Z O Z O.

• 7:12Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, just say it out loud, string it together. She said that any time that she has tried to use the board when Trace was home, this demon would come through. Diane and I didn't stay the night there. Diane's mom wanted us home by midnight, so we left around 11:30. Trace was a nice guy. He was funny, he was smart. And I'm not really sure why that demon seemed to be connected to him or his family, or maybe the board. But after that, I did not go to his house. And after senior year, we lost contact. I'm not sure if this was the only paranormal thing that had happened in his house or not, because we didn't really talk much about paranormal stuff. But I was the only friend that really found this stuff interesting as a teen. So, the situation stuck out to me, but I didn't get to talk about it after. I'm not sure what the others thought of it.

• 7:56Corinne Vien?

  Anyway, that's my story about the Ouija board and the talking demon.

• 8:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Damn.

• 8:00Corinne Vien?

  See you on the other side, Rashawn.

• 8:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So, here's my theory about this Ouija board demon, who we won't repeat his name. I think it's a fun joke. It's like an inside joke that the spirits have on the other side. Do I think that there are some negative entities who use it for malicious intent, for sure? But I think.

• 8:21Corinne Vien?

  You don't believe in the actual demon itself?

• 8:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, I think because we've put so much energy to it, it probably does exist. But I think a lot of encounters are possibly spirits pulling pranks.

• 8:31Corinne Vien?

  They're like, are you thinking that because of singular time that we use the Ouija board and it went Z O Z O? And I said, if this is you, you can't hang out anymore. And it was like, never mind. It was just a joke.

• 8:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I mean, yes, but then that was when we went to the Salem Ouija Board Museum with Becky Gallantine. But also because if I were a ghost, I would do that. If I saw the like phone lines for Ouija boards ringing, I would run over there and be like, I have a plan.

• 9:00Corinne Vien?

  I understand that, but I am curious about it only showing up.

• 9:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  When Trace is home?

• 9:04Corinne Vien?

  When Trace is home.

• 9:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe Trace has a funny little jokester guardian spirit.

• 9:09Corinne Vien?

  And I do wonder if Trace's mom actually, because it was Halloween and it's like fun or whatever, like, ooh, should we play the Ouija board? But also just like the way that she set it up and just like the seriousness of it, which I appreciate that it was serious. But like, it wasn't like, oh, we're gonna do like a fun little game or whatever. I'm almost curious if she was testing it out to see.

• 9:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, if the same entity would come forward?

• 9:31Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Because Trace is home. Well, now there's more people, and it's not just me and Trace.

• 9:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting. I would love to hear from Trace and his mother.

• 9:39Corinne Vien?

  He seemed like he didn't really care. He's just laying there on the couch.

• 9:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Part of his life.

• 9:43Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 9:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, well, I have a story that is very much about a bad spirit coming through after using a Ouija board.

• 9:52Corinne Vien?

  Yep. How would they often go? At least the ones that get emailed to us.

• 9:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we are gonna call this listener Margot. It's called Bad Spirit, Abigail. Hello. I hope this finds you well. For some level of anonymity, wow, that was a hard word to say. And I feel like Nemo.

• 10:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I would appreciate if you called me Margot for these stories. This is a long one, but most of my extreme experiences come from this. I hesitate to call her a ghost, so let's say entity. Personally, I call her Abigail. Also, for anonymity of my loved ones, I'm changing all of their names, too. Abigail has not always been her name, and I don't think the form I know of her has always been her form. I'm actually not sure if Abigail was ever human, but I am hesitant to call her demon, but I don't know what she is, and I don't think she's good. I don't think she's ever had a good intention in her entire being.

• 10:47Corinne Vien?

  This is so interesting. Wow, what a lead up. What an introduction to who Abigail is.

• 10:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Also, I'm gonna keep calling her Abigail, and I'll use she/her pronouns because she always comes to me in a feminine form, but I can't say for sure that this thing always presents feminine. I'm going to tell you about the incidents with Abigail. And again, I can't say for sure that every instance was her, but I just have a feeling. I'll title each incident, so it's easier for you to understand. But here we go. Abigail's origin within my family. So this first story is one that has been passed to me from my mom because, well, it's from before my time. I'll write it out from the best of my memory, from when my mom last told me about it. And I am hesitant to retell the story because she gets emotional when she talks about it.

• 11:31Corinne Vien?

  Oh, her mom. For a minute, I was like, Abigail does?

• 11:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, Abigail gets sad. It doesn't sound like this ghost-

• 11:37Corinne Vien?

  I've changed.

• 11:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Has emotions or empathy. Every time I ask my mom about the story, she'll get jumpy for a few days after, and I don't want to have to ask her again, so I'm just gonna tell it from my memory. So I'll call my mom Anne. Her and her family are from a small town in Iowa near Fort Dodge. My grandparents used to be active enough in the church that they would help out in the church and volunteered a lot. My grandpa would make things for the church, such as pews and part of the structure that held the bell. Fun fact, he and my grandma did a road trip to Austin, Texas, to retrieve the bell for the church when it was purchased.

• 12:07Corinne Vien?

  Ew, spooky.

• 12:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Kind of fun. It's a road trip to get the bell.

• 12:11Corinne Vien?

  A giant bell. Well, now I just think about the bell in Widows Bay.

• 12:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, so now I'm thinking of Notre Dame and-

• 12:18Corinne Vien?

  Two different vibes, church bells.

• 12:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They were religious, but quiet religious. Like, they weren't pushy or didn't wear it on their sleeves. They were very much like internal introspective religious. They valued the community, but didn't harp on religious aspects like I've seen other grandparents do in my time. My grandma went to church, one of several in town, but I don't remember my grandpa going with us when I was a kid. Either way, my grandparents took their young kids to the church on a day without a service happening to help do some work. I assume my grandpa was making some repairs. He was a skilled electrician. He did some carpentry. And my grandma was likely helping too, but I'm not sure with what. The point is, my grandparents were busy. They had four kids. I think two of them were there, but maybe all four. But I know for a fact my mom and her brother James were there. She was around 10 at the time.

• 13:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So their parents were busy, and my mom and her brother James had free reign at the building, as they had many times before. This time, though, they decided they were going to go up in the attic. And I don't know why they picked the attic. I asked my mom once, and she told me about how it had flooring and storage, instead of telling me why they decided to go up there specifically. But so we'll just go with their kids. They go up to the attic.

• 13:26Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 13:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They found a Ouija board. In a church, keep in mind.

• 13:30Corinne Vien?

  In the church attic.

• 13:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They were young. It looked like a board game in the church of an attic. And obviously, they decided to use it or take it out and play with it because they thought it was safe. They start asking all kinds of things, and we're getting answers back. They asked stuff like, when was mom born? And they'd run back down to go confirm the date with my grandma, and they were consistently amazed that the board was getting it right every time.

• 13:53Corinne Vien?

  That's a lot of stairs.

• 13:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Also, to like take your hand off the board every time and go down.

• 13:58Corinne Vien?

  Spirits just patiently waiting, like-

• 14:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like a wait line music, elevator music is playing.

• 14:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But as we know about Abigail already, it's not gonna be great.

• 14:09Corinne Vien?

  No.

• 14:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think spirits like this have a lot of patience. As the questions went on, they started to feel more and more uneasy about how accurate whatever they were talking to was. So eventually, they stopped playing. My mom said that it was starting to freak her and James out, which is why they felt like they needed to stop and step away from the board, but apparently, nothing big happened to make them stop playing immediately. They left the board in the attic, and when it was time to go home, they went home. Apparently, they had a regular evening. Their mom was unconcerned with their afternoon with the Ouija board. It should have been an uneventful night. But when my mom went to bed in her room that she shared with her younger sister, she laid down, like always, and closed her eyes. The room was dark. Her sister was across the room tucked into bed, just like she was,

• 14:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  when suddenly, her bed started shaking violently, so hard that the frame rattled and fell to the floor.

• 14:58Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 14:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She screamed. She sought comfort with her sister. Eventually, the bed stopped moving, but instances like that continued to happen into her teens and adulthood. She told me that she would feel her hair being pulled, she'd been scratched. She has told me that people who would be sleeping normally in the room with her would suddenly stop breathing for extended periods of time to a point where she would get concerned. She started having nightmares. She felt watched frequently. She felt eyes on her, and she felt imminent danger, like whoever was watching was stalking her and meant ill intent.

• 15:28Corinne Vien?

  Wow.

• 15:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Occasionally, if she got scared enough to run from the room where she felt it, she would hear heavy footsteps behind her as if it was chasing her.

• 15:36Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 15:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She always attributed these instances to the thing that shook her bed after she played with the Ouija board. And now, my family, generally speaking, is pretty sensitive to the paranormal. Like, everyone I've asked in our family has had an experience. There are people who I won't ask or can't ask, but it is not uncommon at all in my family to have experiences with spirits. My mom did not attribute all of the haunting she experienced to this entity, but enough of them that my mom believes that she was haunted by this thing for a very long time, all stemming from that night in the attic at the church where she used the Ouija board. And I have my reasons for thinking that this entity is the one that I currently call Abigail. I don't know what my mom called it at the time. I don't think she named it.

• 16:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She's more of the type of pray to God, hope it goes away, not investigate, name it, specify its identity type.

• 16:23Corinne Vien?

  She seems like the type that goes into a church attic and plays the Ouija board.

• 16:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, and then gets haunted and is like, sorry, God, please stop. Oops.

• 16:32Corinne Vien?

  Forgive me.

• 16:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so the next story. My mom believes the entity that I call Abigail affected my dad while she was pregnant. So again, my mom was haunted by this entity that she believe attached to her after playing with the Ouija board. And one instance she told me was that while she was pregnant with me, my mom and dad were engaged at the time. I am my mom's only child, but my dad has three other children. My mom got pregnant while they were engaged and they were living together. She was up late one night because she was uncomfortable from the pregnancy, which, you know, there wasn't much for her to do but lay there and wait to fall asleep and get more comfortable. My dad snored, kept snoring, then he paused. My mom had been with my dad long enough to know his rhythms and his pauses, and she knew what he sounded like when he slept, whether he was in fine health or when he was sick.

• 17:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That night, while my mom is waiting for this discomfort to pass, she's listening to my dad's saw logs, when suddenly, he stopped. The room was silent. She looked over to see if he had woken up, but he was just lying there, as he had been. His eyes were not open. He hadn't changed positions, and his chest wasn't moving. So she sat up a little more now concerned. When his hand came up and he starts swiping at his nose, like he's pushing something away, suddenly, he takes a massive breath in and then starts snoring again.

• 17:45Corinne Vien?

  Like something was strangling him or taking the breath out of him?

• 17:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It made her uneasy, but she laid back down and just laid there and watched him. And this kept happening. He would be sound asleep, and then all of a sudden, he would stop breathing for a concerning amount of time and like swat at his face like he was pushing something away. Not just like rubbing his nose, but truly with force pushing something away, like as if someone was like pinching his nose closed.

• 18:07Corinne Vien?

  Dang.

• 18:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then he would start snoring again. She said that she never saw him do this before, and it freaked her out so much that she started praying. Eventually, it did stop, and she passed out, probably from the stress of it and energy expenditure from praying. And so I have also seen my dad sleep plenty of times. He is notorious for falling asleep in a recliner and spending most, if not all, of a night there. He's not the type that moves much in his sleep. I mean, if this man passes out, he snores loudly, and he is out for the night. My mom remembers that night well enough that she's told me about it several times. She always likes to end it by saying that she saw the same thing happen to me a few times when I was a baby, too.

• 18:47Corinne Vien?

  Ooh.

• 18:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like the pushing away.

• 18:49Corinne Vien?

  That's so scary as a baby, too, like to have your child just like stop breathing for some time?

• 18:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Horrifying. She is certain it's the same entity that attached itself to her because she saw it happen with other people when she slept in that room, like when she was growing up, where people would sleep in the room with her and also stop breathing.

• 19:04Corinne Vien?

  So is it the room or is it her?

• 19:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, this is, now she's in a different room.

• 19:08Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 19:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So I think it's the entity that followed her.

• 19:10Corinne Vien?

  It's just whoever's with her.

• 19:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My mom is certain it's a demon, but again, I feel differently. So now, this next experience is called "The Time My Mom's Demon Chased Her Out of Her Apartment." So my parents split up not long after I was born, not because of the entity, they had bigger problems, but maybe the entity didn't help.

• 19:28Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My mom moved us into an apartment that wasn't terribly far from my dad's place, and I was still a baby when this took place. But this is the story that makes my mom shake and go distant in her eyes when she tells it. It's the one that stresses her out the most. My mom had just gotten off work, picked me up from the babysitter, and I was in a car seat. She was juggling me, a purse, and a diaper bag as she came through the door into our narrow apartment hallway. She was just trying to get inside and go about her usual evening routine when she heard a loud growl from down the hall. She stopped in her tracks and looked down the hall. All she saw was a table. She had decorations on there. She said there was a lamp on and a bust of a man. She also had a doily on that table and probably a couple of other knickknacks.

• 20:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And again, it was exactly as she had left it that morning, but that growl was still rumbling down the dim hall. Before she could decide what she wanted to do because she was standing there holding a baby in a car seat weighed down with bags in a tight hallway, something flew off the table, crashing onto the floor right in front of our eyes. It was that bust of a man. It was a gift someone gave her, maybe her mom? I don't know, but it was special to her. Her mom and her sister had busts from the same set, though my grandma's had already broken by this time. And it had been sitting on a lacy doily next to a lamp in the middle of the table. So it wouldn't just fall if it got bumped. No, it was literally picked up off the table, thrown as the growling is happening down this hallway. And it lands on the floor and shatters into pieces.

• 20:53Corinne Vien?

  And busts are heavy.

• 20:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, my mom jumped at the sound. I think she said I was crying when she heard the growl get louder. So this growl was louder and louder than my cry. Every time I started to cry, the growl got heavier and louder. And then she heard heavy, fast footsteps coming down the hall towards her, but was not seeing anything. She turned.

• 21:13Corinne Vien?

  This kind of reminds me of the Smurl family possession of just like hearing the growling and

• 21:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 21:17Corinne Vien?

  It's just like being at all times of the day and night.

• 21:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's horrifying.

• 21:22Corinne Vien?

  Being in the walls, being in the hallways.

• 21:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She sprinted out of our apartment and said she stayed outside until someone could come check the apartment for her. I believe my dad came over to check and he didn't find anything. She was certain, again, that it was a thing that was attached to her because of the way it chased her. She said it was loud, like an elephant coming down the hall. It was the same sound that when she would leave her room as a kid and she heard footsteps chasing after her, it sounded the same.

• 21:46Corinne Vien?

  Ooh.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey, everyone, this is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced, government sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe,

• 22:32Speaker 00

  while your neighbor says, I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org/gettingbetter. Because your beliefs are yours, and theirs are theirs.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon fall drop because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in store and online now at lululemon.com.

• 23:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Part of me thinks maybe it was something attached to the bust or the set of busts because my grandma's piece also was shattered similarly. And then my aunt had put it in her son's room. And every time I saw that, I always felt like it was watching, no matter where it was in the room. So I don't know, but whatever it was, it was definitely creepy. So now, this is another encounter when Abigail became a mimic. So my mom hasn't given a specific story of seeing the entity that attached itself to her early on, but she did tell me once that she saw it and it was a gray being with thick, long limbs. I don't know when or where she saw it, but probably in childhood. She was vague. Again, anytime she talks about this, she gets very uneasy. So we lived in that apartment from the last story for a couple of years, but then we moved west to Texas briefly.

• 24:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We came back to Iowa about a year later, so I could spend more time with my grandparents. And I don't remember Abigail being an issue when I was in Texas. But when we moved back, things changed. We settled in Des Moines when I was maybe seven. I had trouble keeping friends because we were always moving, so I only had brothers and male cousins to consistently hang out with or look up to. As such, I wasn't the girly girl my mom had hoped for. I didn't wear dresses unless she made me. I hated when she did my hair. I was more of a tomboy. And I also tried really hard to get into sports, but I was so bad at them that it never stuck. I was desperate to be one of the boys because I was desperate to fit in with my much older half-brothers, who I only saw a couple of times a year, and all of my cousins. So as such, the time I was forced to wear a peachy pink dress with ruffles

• 24:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  and white eyelet hems to go see my paternal grandparents for Easter was not only memorable, but pictures had to be taken. We had moved a lot since then, but my mom used to have a picture of me in that dress somewhere in her room. And I would occasionally see it after we moved into the Des Moines apartment. She had a few pictures of me like that, dressed up in stuff that she wished I would more enthusiastically wear on my own. It was then, when we were living in that Des Moines apartment, where the pictures were visible on my mom's dresser, that the entity who was attached to my mom decided that it wanted to start to look like me.

• 25:20Corinne Vien?

  Which version of you?

• 25:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Instances like what I'm about to describe happened on more than one occasion, and they were relatively harmless, but they were very jarring for my mom. She told me that the first time she noticed it, she was in the living room watching TV. It was a weekend and I was out with other kids my age at the playground. She was relaxing. She had a stressful job back then, and I'm sure the piece was nice. But she's sitting there when movement to her right caught her attention. In that apartment, the hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the bathroom was just off the living room. And the couch was set up where you could see the hallway in full view if you turned your head to the right. So when she saw movement, she turned her head. And that is when she saw me walk from the bathroom to my bedroom. At first, it didn't even register to her that it wasn't me or that I was outside because it looked just like me.

• 26:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Until she realized that whoever it was was wearing that ruffled, pink, peachy dress that is in the photo on her dresser.

• 26:12Corinne Vien?

  Something that she would never wear on her own.

• 26:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That person's blonde hair was done up in a little half ponytail, and that's exactly how my hair was in that picture on her dresser. The entity was gone by the time she realized it couldn't have been me and because I would not have been caught dead in that getup unless she forced me to wear it. She said she even got up and looked in my room, but no one was there. I came home from the park later on, and she pretended nothing happened. She did eventually tell me about it later because I started having experiences and telling her that I had seen a little blonde girl in the same outfit. And so she finally told me that she had had those experiences too. But here's when I finally remember seeing Abigail. Now, I've always been sensitive and I've experienced things all my life, but I didn't have any big experiences with Abigail until I hit puberty. The closest possible experiences I may have had with her as a child

• 26:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  was when she was just my mom's attachment. And I had a thing about closets. I was certain that if the lights were out, I would see someone watching me from the depths of my open closet doors. If they were closed, I could still feel the presence, so shamefully so that I slept in my mom's room until it was embarrassing to do so. That being said.

• 27:16Corinne Vien?

  No shame.

• 27:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No.

• 27:18Corinne Vien?

  I have, as an adult, gone into my parents' room and been like, alright.

• 27:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Also.

• 27:23Corinne Vien?

  We're camping out tonight.

• 27:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You have an entity literally lurking in your closet.

• 27:27Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 27:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, go sleep with your mom.

• 27:29Corinne Vien?

  I watched E.T. and moved in with my brother in his room.

• 27:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Years, right?

• 27:33Corinne Vien?

  When I was 12, I finally felt enough shame when people were coming over and I was in middle school.

• 27:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Corinne Vien?

  That it like, it wasn't because I was ready to go back in my room. It was, I was terrified.

• 27:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Corinne Vien?

  Moving back in my room.

• 27:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But you did it.

• 27:46Corinne Vien?

  But I did it strictly because I didn't want to be made fun of.

• 27:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 27:49Corinne Vien?

  But I would have shared a room with Christian until he kicked me out.

• 27:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So yeah, I don't know if that was Abigail or something else, but there's this energy in my closets, in any closet, in any house, that I felt. And I even still feel it when I'm at other people's homes. But it wasn't as scary if I was sleeping with someone else. I remember that in the apartment we lived in for several years in Des Moines, I felt like the spirit in the closet of my room was very tall. And it felt like a man. I would see him leaning on the doorframe, watching from the closet. And every time I tried to sleep in my room on my own, he would kind of want me to see him. It was unsettling at the best of times and terrifying at the worst. So I would often sleep in my mom's room. I would also see him in my mom's room, a black silhouette watching in the closet. But I would just roll over and snuggle into my mom. But my mom did leave very early in the mornings.

• 28:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So when I was old enough that I could get to school best by myself, she often left even before I woke up. On those mornings, I would leap off her bed, run to the door because I was certain some gray hand would shoot out and grab my ankles when I got off her bed. Just her bed. Again, my mom described seeing this thing with gray, thick arms.

• 28:53Corinne Vien?

  Ew, I hate, this is so gross. It's like it's a corpse. It's dead.

• 28:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm-hmm. So I believe that was Abigail. After I hit puberty, I really pushed myself to sleep in my own room. But I would sleep with the lights on, and if my mom had to work late, I would sleep in the living room until she got home. I truly didn't spend alone time in my room unless my mom was home. Now, one day, not long after I started my first monthly, I stayed home sick from school. Not only did I not feel well because it was my first period, also my puberty came with onset depression due to a chemical imbalance. So I was hormonal, fatigued, unrelentingly sad despite not having a really good reason to be. That's a very good reason to be.

• 29:27Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, puberty rocks you.

• 29:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So this day, I stayed home. While I was in the kitchen, which was right behind the living room, in view of the hallway that led to the bedrooms, I saw movement. I turned my head and I saw a flash of blonde hair in a pink dress rush down the hall, away from me. I thought, no, that's weird, but I kept making my soup. Then I sat down in front of the TV to watch Maury while I had my lunch. Eventually, I saw that same movement out of the corner of my eye again. I turned, there was that flash of pink again. It went straight into my room. And even though I was a preteen, I was still kind of scared of my room unless I had someone there to pretend to be brave for me with me. So I really felt my heart skip when I saw that. I was on edge all day. I kept seeing this girl and she kept like growing with me. She was as tall as I was at whatever age I saw her.

• 30:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But she always had pretty blonde hair, even after mine turned brown. And she always wore frilly, ruffled feminine dresses, even as I got into darker clothing. Her style never changed, but she always matched my height.

• 30:25Corinne Vien?

  Always prepared to mimic you.

• 30:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm hmm. As I got older, my depression got worse and eventually seeing the girl became more and more frequent. And that is when my mom started to tell me all the stories she had about this girl and a thing that attached to herself when she was a child. I think she told me it to teach me not to play with Ouija boards. And she probably wanted to reassure me that I wasn't crazy, which I do appreciate. At this point, I hadn't named her yet. I just dealt with her being around, but I really didn't like the feeling of her. But she never hurt me or rushed at me, so I kind of just lived with it. But then she moved to Texas with us. Just before I turned 14, my mom's job moved us to Texas. At first I was excited. I was obviously nervous about moving into the prospected high school and I was anxious to move away. But I thought Texas would be a cool place to live.

• 31:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We visited the state to apartment hunt, found one, and then the next week, the week of my birthday, we moved. The road trip down started off great. I enjoyed it. I liked the drive. I liked being with my mom. My grandma came with us to help us move. It was an adventure. One night, we stayed in Sulphur Springs, Oklahoma. It got late. I went to bed tired, but hopeful. But then I woke up grouchy and upset about everything. I don't even remember sleeping poorly. I don't remember having bad dreams. I just remember waking up and realizing this was one of the worst days of my life for no apparent reason. My mood did not improve as we drove through Oklahoma and into Texas. In fact, the closer we got to our new home, the worse it got. Despite my feeling impressed that the grass was so green in February, that feeling of dread and anger was unexplainably thick and heavy.

• 31:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I genuinely felt like this was a sign of how life was going to be in Texas for me.

• 31:59Corinne Vien?

  It's so tough. This is already such a big transition and then to just like have that. It's like, is it anxiety? Is it something else looming over you?

• 32:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anyway, we got to the new apartment. Our furniture came that same day in a big moving truck and I walked around, taking in the place I'd be living in. And as I went to my room, all of a sudden I was struck by the smell of excrement. Looking back, I think this was Abigail making me aware that she was a malicious spirit. I was now vulnerable because I was in a new state. My mom was working a lot of hours and Abigail had bad intentions. Not even a week later, my mom was at work. I was home alone and I was taking advantage of being home alone by dancing and singing to myself. I was spinning and singing. I'd done a poorly done ballet style leap and landed in the living room with a hard thud. The hallway to our bedrooms was at my back. I came down pretty hard, harder than expected. And it took a second from the shock to wait and see if pain would sneak up my heel to tell me if I was hurt.

• 32:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was standing there still and silent for a second or two, when I heard another thud of a similar footstep land right behind me. Startled, I whipped around. I looked down the hall. It was so much darker than it had been moments ago.

• 33:06Corinne Vien?

  Ooh, I hate how loud it is and how close it is. Like it always feels like the thuds in the walls and the halls and walking down like it's breathing down your neck.

• 33:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  As I looked for a sign of anyone or anything that could have made the noise, I heard directly in my ear, my own voice whisper my name.

• 33:25Corinne Vien?

  Nope.

• 33:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I ran out of the apartment, sat on the porch for over an hour, waiting to be brave enough to go back into the apartment. So then I started to see the entity around more after that. I saw glimpses of a girl who again was my height, with my childhood blonde hair, wearing heinously frilly dresses disappear around corners. I felt like I was being watched. I felt her presence around all the time. She seemed to be flitting between me and my mom. And my mom also started seeing her more and more than she had previously. As more time passed, we moved from an apartment to a house. And the spirit didn't really bother me there, but I was also getting more comfortable with my spirituality in that house. And I honestly think she was bothering my mom way more than me in that house. But it was after we moved out of that house into a rental house that I became reconnected with the spirit.

• 34:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My mom had gotten remarried in this timeframe and she left to go visit my aunt. As she was leaving, my mom said she saw the thing that was attached to her around, but that my aunt's protective spirits took it away. But she finally felt safe because of my aunt's protective spirits. And because of that, the attachment was getting weaker in energy. There was a point when I felt like I had made something of a truce with the ghost. So at this point in my life, I started losing a lot of people, like my grandparents passed away and my depression got worse. And this is when I started to wonder if I had misjudged the spirit. Although I wonder if the spirit saw this, took advantage of it and was like, I'm your friend. I got it in my head that maybe it was a friendly spirit and

• 34:49Corinne Vien?

  But why would you think that?

• 34:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I opened up to her more. I called her by the name that came to me when I first started opening up to her, which was Abigail. Whenever I felt her around, I would address her. I would talk to her. I would say, hello, Abigail. Or hello, I know you're there and that's okay. I thought maybe if I talked to her, the imminent danger that feeling that I got when she was around would go away.

• 35:12Corinne Vien?

  One could hope.

• 35:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I started to see her more and more, brief glimpses. And then I got used to Abigail. I would often see her or feel her. I wasn't talking to her all the time, but I would say hello to her every time I felt her. And I would basically narrate what I was doing nonchalantly. Like for example, if I was loading dishes in the dishwasher, I'd go, hello, Abigail. It's pretty sunny out today. I'm glad I have the blinds closed. It's pretty bright when the sun reflects off the sink. We should really rinse these dishes better when we're done with them. You know, just easy mundane things. My best friend at the time was coming around more and more and she even felt Abigail around too, but she didn't like her. She also found her to be upsetting and creepy. There was one night where my best friend spent the night and we stayed up late, talking, snacking, watching movies. And when we went to bed, we felt Abigail around.

• 35:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we talked about how it felt, but I was careful to tell my friend that Abigail didn't mean us harm, that she was just there. But my friend for sure didn't believe it. She felt sick to her stomach and she was so much more tired than she actually had been. Eventually we fell asleep. The next morning when we woke up, we had things we wanted to do that weren't at my house. So I went and took a shower and my friend hung out in the living room, waiting for her turn because she was going to shower after me. When I got out, I needed to dry my hair and I was going to take my toothbrush and face wash to my mom's bathroom to do it in there while my friend showered. While I was drying my hair, I had my bathroom door open so the mirror wouldn't be foggy. I was trying to get my bangs right when I heard my best friend scream my name. She sounded like she was hurt and it also sounded like it was right outside my bathroom door. So immediately I turned off the blow dryer and looked out. My friend's not in the hall, but I definitely heard her and she screamed my name.

• 36:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So I thought she fell or got hurt and the sound just traveled weird. So I went and found my friend, but she was fine. She looked at me confused.

• 36:49Corinne Vien?

  Oh, this is so like baby crying in the woods, summoning you, making you react before you can think.

• 36:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I said, did you just scream? And she said she didn't, but that she thought I had just screamed. She told me, I just heard you screaming for help. I thought you were hurt.

• 37:05Corinne Vien?

  That's so freaky.

• 37:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. So I definitely did not love that experience my best friend and I had with Abigail mimicking our voices and purposely sounding distressed to get a rise out of us. But again, I had been getting used to her and I wasn't sure that she meant any harm, but I had my limits. After that incident, I started to feel my bed shake at night, which that's how all these hauntings started. It felt like there was something climbing up onto my footboard and sometimes onto the end of my mattress.

• 37:31Corinne Vien?

  It kind of amazes me that she hasn't used a Ouija board yet to try to

• 37:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, after her mom's like warning to not.

• 37:37Corinne Vien?

  I know, but like this is like, maybe you need to close it out again, make contact and close.

• 37:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  One night, we had this big thunderstorm that knocked out our power in the middle of the night and I woke up to a crash of thunder. There was no fan sound and the power was out. And because it was Texas, the room immediately started heating up despite the fact that it was after midnight and raining. And as context, I can't sleep with my legs uncovered, so my legs were out of the covers. I tried to go back to sleep until I felt my bed shaking. It's dark. It's thundering. My bed starts shaking. I opened my eyes, I looked, but it was just darkness down there. So I tried to calm myself, but then I felt it on the end of the mattress. I felt the mattress compress. The room felt warm, too warm. I couldn't move a muscle. I was in paralysis. I felt this thing crawl up the side of my mattress until someone was laying right next to me on the bed.

• 38:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I remember I felt like I could barely breathe. My eyes were wide open and I couldn't see anything. The one way I was able to make myself calm down was I told myself that this thing, that Abigail was just like me, a younger version of me. That she too was uncomfortable in the thunderstorm in the moment and was scared as well.

• 38:44Corinne Vien?

  There are way too many examples of this not being true.

• 38:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I managed to squeak out the words, good night. And all of a sudden, I felt a hand cover my nose and mouth.

• 38:56Corinne Vien?

  But literally, yeah, because like you're swatting it away, like her mom's experience of watching everyone.

• 39:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That was my worst experience with Abigail and there are so many more. Thanks for reading, Margot.

• 39:07Corinne Vien?

  My god, there's no end. Is Abigail still with you, Margot?

• 39:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  For sure. And it's started from a Ouija board in an attic of a church.

• 39:16Corinne Vien?

  Good lord.

• 39:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And she's playing a long game.

• 39:18Corinne Vien?

  The most haunted places.

• 39:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I am impressed, like Abigail clearly, like the intentions are weird. Because it's playing such a long game, but for what purpose?

• 39:28Corinne Vien?

  I don't know, but it's being pretty aggressive and it's following and

• 39:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But it's been years and years and years, like what does it want? Just to instill fear?

• 39:36Corinne Vien?

  Perhaps, perhaps it's like getting enough.

• 39:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I agree with Margot though, like the way that she was like, I don't think it's ever been human.

• 39:44Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 39:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And that I don't think it's ever had any good intentions.

• 39:47Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, it doesn't seem like it.

• 39:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, which scares me like what is the, what is that with the spiritual realm?

• 39:51Corinne Vien?

  For Margot to be like, oh, it's, it's fine. It's just a little girl, but like Margot's making that up.

• 39:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Gaslighting herself into believing it.

• 39:58Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 39:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because it's easier.

• 39:59Corinne Vien?

  It's like, how is this happening still?

• 40:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know.

• 40:02Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 40:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then also if you are going through like a really hard time in life and this entity is like a common appearance and showing up and showing up, like you almost do befriend it. Because there's comfort in what you do know when there's so much in your life that you don't know.

• 40:15Corinne Vien?

  Well, and too, it does feel like maybe that is what's helping it not escalate even more. Assigning its actions to something that's not nefarious and not scary. And sometimes she's thinking, it's like, oh, are you just scared of the thunder?

• 40:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, but then she said that and then immediately put it hand over her mouth and tried to like suffocate her.

• 40:36Corinne Vien?

  I don't know.

• 40:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey, everyone. This is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced government sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe, while your neighbor says,

• 41:24Speaker 00

  I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org/gettingbetter. Because your beliefs are yours, and theirs are theirs.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon fall drop, because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in store and online now at lululemon.com.

• 42:11Corinne Vien?

  Well, the shaking bed is certainly scary, and I have one called, I thought it was my sister under my bed.

• 42:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, no, that doesn't sound fun. That sounds scary.

• 42:21Corinne Vien?

  My family and I grew up in Philadelphia and have been in a lot of haunted houses, so I have a lot of stories, but I will focus on one house for now. My mom had just gotten serious with her new boyfriend and moved me and my younger sister into his house. It's an old row house built in the 1920s. Me and my sister were excited because we each got our own room for the very first time, and the first year or two, nothing happened. But then I decided to play with a Ouija board with a few new friends. I know, it was stupid, but I was 15. I was interested in the occult. Nothing happened during the session, so we just put the board up and we forgot about it. A few days later, I had my first experience with sleep paralysis.

• 43:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Weird that it happened like all of a sudden, like two years of nothing and then...

• 43:03Corinne Vien?

  Well, it was two years of nothing because they hadn't played the Ouija board yet.

• 43:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right, I know. Like that's, that like literally just one second, one experience with a Ouija board.

• 43:13Corinne Vien?

  Yep. I was laying on my stomach and I could feel something on top of me. I could hear its raspy breathing. I could feel the clog gripping my hair on my scalp.

• 43:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Claw?

• 43:23Corinne Vien?

  Mm-hmm. As this thing brought its face closer, I could smell its rotting breath. I was terrified. I couldn't move at all. Somehow, I was able to calm myself down enough to go back to sleep and convince myself that this was just a nightmare. It happened a few more times and it was terrifying. A bit of time passed and I was showering after the day, and I heard my sister walk in. I rolled my eyes because she never cared about privacy. It always annoyed me. I yelled at her to hurry up and get out. I could hear her wrestling around as I was washing the soap out of my eyes so I could look at her. As I opened my eyes, I saw her hand on the shower curtain and I watched it shoot back. And then I heard the bathroom door slam shut. I was mad. I started yelling as I'm drying off.

• 44:06Corinne Vien?

  I threw my clothes on as fast as I could. I left the bathroom to go look for my sister, and I found her downstairs in the kitchen with my mom. I was yelling about privacy and space when my mom cut me off to ask what I was talking about. I told her what happened and she shook her head, saying, well, that's impossible because my sister's been with her the whole time.

• 44:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 44:24Corinne Vien?

  And that is when I started to feel like there was something else in the house. A few little moments happened...

• 44:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's when you started to feel it, not the night that a clog robbed your hair while you were sleeping?

• 44:33Corinne Vien?

  Yep. A few little moments happened after that, hearing someone call us when it was impossible, footsteps around the house, but the scariest thing happened a few days later. My sister likes to play the prank of hiding under my bed and then jumping out to scare me, so I didn't really think anything of it when I got home from school and saw her scurrying under my bed.

• 44:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't like where this is going.

• 44:53Corinne Vien?

  I rolled my eyes, saying, I saw her, and I heard her giggle. I huffed. I walked past my bed, went to my desk to go do homework, and occasionally I just keep hearing her little giggle coming from under the bed, until I heard our front door open and my sister and my mom get home from my sister's sports practice. I froze, staring at the wall from my bed as my heart starts pounding. I slowly turn and could see a hand poking out from under the bed. I found the courage to run out down the stairs. I told my mom what happened. She ran up to check my room, and then nothing was in my room anymore. I look under my bed and I see the Ouija board.

• 45:38Corinne Vien?

  It's been taken out of the box. The pieces start to connect and I realize, ooh, I know what I did.

• 45:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I mean, it literally all started after using it for the first time.

• 45:49Corinne Vien?

  There was a bookshop with a little occult section in the back, so I went there the next day. Clutching my tip money from my job, I told the lady what was going on and asked her what to do. She gave me a bunch of herbs. She gave me a stick of sage for free. She was really just so nice.

• 46:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So nice.

• 46:02Corinne Vien?

  I went home. I followed all of her instructions, and after doing everything she said, the activity stopped. And just so you know, I threw out that board, and I have never picked up a Ouija board again since. Thank you for reading, Gia.

• 46:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, yeah, that's definitely a story that will make you be like, okay, reason number 3005, why I should not use a Ouija board.

• 46:23Corinne Vien?

  No.

• 46:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And here's reason 3006, which my story is also very similar to that one.

• 46:30Corinne Vien?

  Ooh. It's always crazy when it's like, nothing happens for a couple of days, so you think...

• 46:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, you're in the clear. All good.

• 46:35Corinne Vien?

  It was just fun with friends.

• 46:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was just gathering energy. You opened the door and that's all it needed. This is from my listener, Felicia, who, very similar to your last story, had a shadow man that we may have brought upon ourselves.

• 46:47Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 46:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hey, my name is Felicia. I've been listening for a long time now and wanting to email this story that is mine and my best friend's. So, to get started, my best friend and I met our fifth grade year when she moved into our little town in Oklahoma. We clicked instantly, like sisters. Like honestly, I say she is my soulmate and best friend form, and we have been friends ever since fifth grade.

• 47:09Corinne Vien?

  That's so sweet.

• 47:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, 15 years, like us.

• 47:11Corinne Vien?

  15 years.

• 47:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My best friend, Adina, lived right in front of the cemetery in our town, and we were joined at the hip. I was always at her place or she was at mine, and when we would stay at her place, we'd stay up late and go to the backyard to see if we could talk to any ghosts, because we were the spooky kids. I mean, she lived in front of a cemetery. Of course we were. We would always see something, because her backyard, there was the cemetery. We saw shadow people, apparitions. Well, one night, when we were at my childhood house, we decided to do a Ouija board. My dad caught us making our own Ouija board and told us to throw it away, that he didn't want it in the house at all. But we were 12 or 13, so of course we said, yeah, we'll throw it away and didn't. And I don't remember what we asked or said, but I know it scared us, so we stopped playing and we threw this board away. We did do what my dad asked.

• 47:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But the next day, we came into my room and the Ouija board was back, so we buried it in my backyard. The next day, it came back.

• 48:03Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my god.

• 48:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was in my living room, behind my dad's chair. We were terrified, so we burned it, and yet again, it came back, but it wasn't even burned. It was in a bathroom cabinet this time, so we left it there. To clarify, we never said goodbye, as we didn't know the rules of the board. But now that's three times they threw it away and it came back. They buried it, it came back. They burned it, it came back. Well, the first time they just threw it away. Now for the scary part, as if it's already not scary. Adina, her cousin who we'll call Sam, and I were out at my house, and we snuck out and we were laying on the trampoline in my backyard, talking, watching the stars, you know, just being teens, when all of a sudden we start to hear someone walking in my neighbor's yard. And our backyard had a privacy fence, but there were one or two boards that our neighbor's dog had eaten through and were taken down, waiting to be repaired. So you could see into my neighbor's backyard. So we all sat up on the trampoline.

• 48:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Adina, Sam, and I all looked at each other, thinking, oh, it's probably just my neighbor walking through the backyard late at night. We look over though, and through the fence, there was this dark black figure with red eyes that we could see through one of those missing pieces of the fence. And it seemed to be looking right at us, like it positioned itself specifically in that spot so we could see it. We were terrified. We couldn't move. We just sat there whispering, tried to figure out what to do and how to get away without drawing more attention to ourselves. So I started to say we should go inside, and as I say that, something physically pushed the entire trampoline while we were on it. We sprinted off the trampoline, but still tried to be quiet because we didn't want to make my parents. We ran inside. The next day, we went back outside to see if we were just imagining things,

• 49:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  and there were little drag marks on the ground from where the trampoline had been pushed.

• 49:38Corinne Vien?

  Ooh, I hate that. Trampolines are so scary to be on too.

• 49:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And they're heavy.

• 49:43Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 49:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like you can't just like easily move them like that.

• 49:45Corinne Vien?

  And it's like something could be underneath you.

• 49:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 49:48Corinne Vien?

  You still have to try to get off and get over the springs and like you can't, it's not a quick exit.

• 49:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We were also freaked out but didn't know what to do, and the activity in my house never stopped. Though my parents never had anything happen to them, my brother and my best friend and I always experienced things. To this day, we both remember it vividly, among a ton of other things, like the time we played the board, and Adina got this weird look on her face, like a blank stare, and started drawing on the back of the board, like in a trance. I started shaking her, thinking she was messing with me, and she snapped out of it and had no memory of what had happened. We never talked about or messed with a board again. While Adina and I were just talking like three or so years ago about how she feels like there's something that follows her, and I said, I wouldn't be surprised, because that one time, I'm pretty sure she got possessed for a few minutes, and she looked at me like I was crazy and asked what I was talking about.

• 50:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I was like, you don't remember doing that? You don't remember playing with the board and you started drawing on it? She had no memory, even though we talked about it after it happened.

• 50:44Corinne Vien?

  Ooh.

• 50:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read our story. I'm sorry it's long. Hope it was worth a read. Keep up being spooky, Felicia.

• 50:52Corinne Vien?

  I hate stories where the things come back for you.

• 50:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Agreed. And I feel like that's very common with Ouija boards.

• 51:00Corinne Vien?

  Yay. I have one that's also similar.

• 51:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Great. That's the thing is when Ouija board horror stories happen, they have so many similarities.

• 51:10Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. The Ouija board's like coming back for you, I feel like is kind of a classic characteristic of some of these horror stories.

• 51:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's on brand.

• 51:17Corinne Vien?

  It is on brand. You try to get rid of it?

• 51:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:20Corinne Vien?

  Sorry. Same with haunted dolls. They'll walk their way back to you.

• 51:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Literally walk their way back to you.

• 51:24Corinne Vien?

  Okay, this is from Cara, who recently was recommended our podcast from their friend Cryo.

• 51:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Thanks, Cryo Pyramid Scheme.

• 51:32Corinne Vien?

  Starting off, I've always been rather intuitive. I can feel energies, and I've been this way since I was a child. I even had absolutely insane dreams as a four-year-old that a four-year-old should frankly not be having, but that's a story for another time. This story starts with a Ouija board bought from Toys R Us.

• 51:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Lovely.

• 51:50Corinne Vien?

  It took place when I was thirteen to sixteen years old. Upon purchasing the Ouija board, my mom had very strict rules for my brother and I. Number one, it stays stored away outside. Number two, we had properly closed the Ouija board out when we were done speaking to spirits. Number three, do not ask the spirits how they died. And number four, when the Ouija board is stored away, a Bible needs to remain with it at all times.

• 52:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting. Okay.

• 52:15Corinne Vien?

  So my brother and I followed the rules. That is, until I had a friend spend the night who was very intrigued by the Ouija board and all things spooky. After my mom, my brother and I went to bed, she brought out the board into the house to play with it.

• 52:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You have a theme here, two spooky mom stories, the first one and this one.

• 52:32Corinne Vien?

  Wait, no, no, no, the mom didn't do it. Her friend did.

• 52:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, I thought you, okay. Why did I hear?

• 52:37Corinne Vien?

  There was a sleepover and everyone was asleep and then the friend, the friend goes and grabs it.

• 52:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I heard that the mom grabbed it whenever it was.

• 52:44Corinne Vien?

  No, no, she like stuck around, like even everyone was asleep.

• 52:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Geez.

• 52:48Corinne Vien?

  The next morning, my mom informs me of what occurred and she is not happy in the slightest. For the record, she did not blame me, but she said that she would be talking to the friend because this was uncool. This is where things started to get freaky. Almost immediately, over the following days, I felt an energy shift in our home. Things felt heavy. My family started to grow ill. Our cat's fur started to thin out. They started having bald spots.

• 53:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Poor baby.

• 53:12Corinne Vien?

  I was getting constant headaches, nosebleeds, and truthfully, that wasn't uncommon for me, but they were more severe than usual. I went to bed one night and had the craziest dream that I'm convinced was actually an astral projection.

• 53:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Damn.

• 53:25Corinne Vien?

  I was standing in the middle of my bedroom, looked back behind me, saw myself sleeping in bed. And everything was just so insanely clear and it felt so real. And then I looked up into the doorway and I saw this unfamiliar man standing there. He was middle aged, a bit bald, not menacing, not scary at all. So I simply asked, who are you? To which he replied, I'm your grandfather and I'm here protecting you, your mother and your brother from a demonic entity trapped in the bathroom.

• 53:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, grandpa.

• 53:55Corinne Vien?

  Then I felt myself quite literally and violently get sucked back into my body and everything went black. I woke up the next morning and remembered everything. So immediately I jumped out of bed. I ran to my mom's room. I shook her awake. She's conscious enough to kind of understand and I tell her that there was a middle aged man in my room. I described what he looked like and my mom's face drained of color.

• 54:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  One thing I really love about the story is how safe of a space it is to talk about paranormal things with, with mom.

• 54:22Corinne Vien?

  Yes. Now is the time to say, I have never met my grandfather. My mother never really knew him either. My grandfather died when my mom was four months old. At this point in my life, I hadn't even seen a photo of him because my mom kept photos of him stored away. So after my mom's face drained, she dug around. She pulled out a large family photo where I truthfully recognized almost nobody. But there he was. I pointed directly to the man that I had seen. And sure enough, it was indeed my grandfather.

• 54:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I love this.

• 54:52Corinne Vien?

  It turns out my older brother previously went to my mom and told her things were not right in the bathroom and not to use it between the hours of midnight and six AM.

• 55:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Creepy.

• 55:02Corinne Vien?

  Okay, well, why the bathroom? My theory is that the demon was trapped there due to a cross hanging right outside of the bathroom door. Almost like the bathroom was its prison. Honestly, I can't blame the thing for being pissed off. I would have been too if I was cooped up in this tiny little smelly place, but I digress. I'm only going to touch on this lightly because I have a strong bond with cats and this is sad. My ten year old cat, Smokey, was fine one day and then the next day just could no longer jump on the counters.

• 55:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Smokey.

• 55:27Corinne Vien?

  Almost had no energy. And so we took him to the vet and by that time he was beyond saving. The vet just could not figure out what had happened to him. And so our decision was to allow him to rest and I was so heartbroken naturally.

• 55:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So sad.

• 55:41Corinne Vien?

  After this, my mom asked my brother to get in touch with some of his friends who knew how to properly dispose of Ouija boards. Luckily, my brother and I have always been kind of strange. We were definitely a part of the emo scene in the two thousands to two thousand teens. So finding friends who knew about paranormal things was not really difficult at all. The Ouija board was broken, burned, disposed of in separate locations, but still, activity was present in the house.

• 56:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting.

• 56:09Corinne Vien?

  And here's.

• 56:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  At least grandpa's there. At least you know he's there protecting. Yeah.

• 56:14Corinne Vien?

  Here's where things get creepy. Our house went into foreclosure and as my mom and I were cleaning out the pantry, all the way tucked in the back of all the items that have been there for years was that Ouija board, fully intact. We still get chills talking about it today.

• 56:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 56:31Corinne Vien?

  To this day.

• 56:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The chills on the back of my head.

• 56:33Corinne Vien?

  But we did dispose of it again and we haven't had an issue since.

• 56:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, they moved out of the house, didn't they? So maybe it's back in that same house and the new owners are gonna find it.

• 56:43Corinne Vien?

  We found this Ouija board.

• 56:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 56:45Corinne Vien?

  That being said, I looked into the details of our old home and nobody stays there very long before moving out. So it makes me wonder if that spirit is still there.

• 56:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, probably.

• 56:55Corinne Vien?

  From Cara or Cara.

• 56:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm just glad that grandpa is there. And also good on grandpa to be like, hello, I am your grandfather. I am protecting you, your mom and your brother from the demon in the bathroom.

• 57:05Corinne Vien?

  Intentions.

• 57:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 57:07Corinne Vien?

  My identity was pretty clear. And it's also, it's like, I'm curious what her brother experienced beyond just being like, something's not right in the bathroom. Because he gave a timeframe. He was like twelve to six. No one go in there.

• 57:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I have to pee in the middle of the night.

• 57:19Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 57:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which also makes me wonder if the friend used the Ouija board in the bathroom.

• 57:23Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 57:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I don't know. Maybe they know.

• 57:26Corinne Vien?

  Also, like, what a weird move to do it alone. Like, your friend's asleep, you're at their house, you go outside to go get where the Ouija board.

• 57:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 57:35Corinne Vien?

  Like, it's stored to go get it. Bring it in.

• 57:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Was she like entranced by the spirit? Maybe she had a dream where it was like, come, talk to me. And she, in a trance, went and got the Ouija board, brought it back in, used it.

• 57:48Corinne Vien?

  Opened it up. Very creepy.

• 57:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So, yeah, Ouija board stories are horrifying, but also really fun. So please email them to us. And if you want another one, great, you're in luck. There's a bonus, one other story on Patreon. And let me tell you, it is a scary one and it comes back to the Ouija board demon.

• 58:07Corinne Vien?

  Alrighty, full circle.

• 58:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But yes, please email us any of your paranormal experiences, [email protected]. That's also in the show notes. If you are like, wow, you said that too fast. We have episodes one week early and ad free on Patreon, plus bonus episodes, plus bonus encounters every other week available on Patreon. We have campfire stories where you can share your ghost stories with us live on Zoom every Tuesday. We have witch class, book club, so many other things. It's a good time over there.

• 58:33Corinne Vien?

  It is. And shout out to Jamie Ryan, who unfortunately has to sit through every single haunted episode that we create. Whether she wants to or not, but she does an amazing job editing and producing this podcast. Thank you, Jamie.

• 58:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we love all of you. Thank you for joining us.

• 58:47Corinne Vien?

  And we will see you on the other side.

• 58:58Speaker 01

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