Encounters x350 - Haunted Forests, Campgrounds & Appalachia

We love a peaceful walk in the forest, but sometimes there’s more than wildlife lurking between the trees. We’re venturing into the woods where cryptids, spirits, strange entities, and unexplained phenomena wait in the darkness, and these listener stories make the great outdoors feel a whole lot creepier after sunset. Stories include: One listener encounters a terrifying, unnaturally tall deer-like creature in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A strange stick doll found after a tragedy at a campsite triggers a streak of bad luck. A skeptic hears a child laughing in the Mississippi woods and later discovers the remains of an old home nearby. A correctional officer sees a mysterious figure moving through jail surveillance footage. 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.

• 1:01Speaker 01

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• 1:52Corinne Vien?

  Hi.

• 1:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hello. This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 1:55Corinne Vien?

  Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 1:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We are your Ghostesses. That is Corinne.

• 2:00Corinne Vien?

  Hello.

• 2:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm Sabrina.

• 2:01Corinne Vien?

  Gonna move my mic over so I can not be away from my mic as I face you.

• 2:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So everyone can hear you. We are days away from the spookiest time of the year.

• 2:10Corinne Vien?

  October.

• 2:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  October. September's got its spooks, too.

• 2:14Corinne Vien?

  I'd argue it starts in August.

• 2:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I argue it's all year round.

• 2:20Corinne Vien?

  And at the very least, if you want to be picky, we'll say July 5th.

• 2:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sure.

• 2:23Corinne Vien?

  And on.

• 2:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Corinne Vien?

  Because the next holiday to come is...

• 2:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's important.

• 2:26Corinne Vien?

  Halloween. As spooky lovers.

• 2:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I guess Halloween.

• 2:30Corinne Vien?

  Some people like Labor Day. Get a day off.

• 2:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's Labor Day. Why don't we have the day off for Halloween? That feels rude.

• 2:36Corinne Vien?

  Respect the dead. Come on.

• 2:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Truly. And respect the costumes.

• 2:39Corinne Vien?

  That's so spooking. If only I could go back in time and tell my middle school and high school self that. But times are changing for the better. And we're all learning.

• 2:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Back when we used to dress really slutty. Is that what you're saying?

• 2:51Corinne Vien?

  No, I just feel like I like made some choices that I would never make today.

• 2:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like what?

• 2:56Corinne Vien?

  Like one time I dressed, like, don't cancel me. I was like 14.

• 3:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 3:01Corinne Vien?

  But like dressed as someone who was pregnant and I was like smoked, like had a fake cigarette and like made choices like that for my costume.

• 3:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We did some things in high school and college where, yeah, it was questionable.

• 3:12Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. I was like, why did I do that?

• 3:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anyway, we're respecting the dead and the costumes, and we're also respecting another place today. Appalachia and the woods. Because if you see something, no, you didn't.

• 3:25Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, that's the opposite of see something, say something. Say nothing.

• 3:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Say nothing. Run away.

• 3:28Corinne Vien?

  Put it to yourself. Put your head down, tail between your legs, and walk away.

• 3:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So yeah, in honor of such a fantastic time of year and theme, we are gonna talk all about our favorite place slash the most terrifying place, Appalachia, or just generally things that are lurking in the woods.

• 3:47Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I think I just went more woods.

• 3:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I did both.

• 3:51Corinne Vien?

  It's hard to not have Appalachia come up when we're doing American stories because it's such a huge region. It takes up like half the US, basically.

• 3:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then also, since we've been covering Appalachia more, the amount of emails that we get is...

• 4:02Corinne Vien?

  That's true.

• 4:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And also, it's concerning how many people have encountered a not deer. And creatures that just abnormally stand on their hind legs and stare at you or chase you at the same speed that your car is moving.

• 4:17Corinne Vien?

  That is true.

• 4:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I do not like it.

• 4:19Corinne Vien?

  You're right. I never really thought about how odd it is that there are that many people just who've emailed us. Just the amount of people who know that we exist, which is a small group.

• 4:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which is a fraction of the human population. The ghost population, they all know.

• 4:33Corinne Vien?

  We're quite popular over there.

• 4:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  With the dead.

• 4:36Corinne Vien?

  And that's all that matters.

• 4:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Beetlejuice loves us. I wish that counted. I'm gonna start with one from Appalachia because that's what I said I was gonna do.

• 4:47Corinne Vien?

  This is also great because I'm curious how many people are gonna listen to this episode driving to get some last minute camping in and...

• 4:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Falls.

• 4:54Corinne Vien?

  Some nice fall foliage hikes.

• 4:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Leaf peep.

• 4:57Corinne Vien?

  Head on into the woods.

• 4:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  While you're looking at the leaves, there's something else looking at you.

• 5:02Corinne Vien?

  You hear another set of footsteps walking behind you.

• 5:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's exactly what's gonna happen in this story.

• 5:07Corinne Vien?

  Really?

• 5:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Okay. This is from our listener, Amber Lee. What we saw in the Appalachian woods. Hi, Sabrina and Corinne. My name is Amber Lee. I'm a newer listener of y'alls, and let's just say I'm absolutely obsessed. My fiance is actually the one who introduced me, and now I pretty much always have it playing. I honestly can't think of a better place to share this story than with y'all. My cousins and I are completely okay with you using our names if you decide to read this. I did ask for permission. So my story happened about 14 years ago when I was 15. It's something my cousin Caitlin and I both experienced. And even after all these years, we still remember the fear we felt as if it were yesterday. That summer, I was asked to go stay with my aunt and three cousins so I could help watch them while she worked.

• 5:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I was really excited about it because it meant I got to spend the summer with my cousins and stay in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.

• 6:01Corinne Vien?

  Which are so beautiful.

• 6:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which I later found out was part of Appalachia.

• 6:04Corinne Vien?

  Yes. Oh, but the morning mist.

• 6:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, beautiful. They look blue. The only thing I was warned about before going was that we would not be near town.

• 6:14Corinne Vien?

  Dun dun dun.

• 6:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That I would have to occupy my time with whatever was in the house and whatever was outside, which, in this house, were the woods. Being in the woods was always a normal part of my life. I spent part of my childhood living on the Catawba Reservation in South Carolina in a neighborhood surrounded by woods. So most of us kids spent a lot of time out there climbing trees, exploring, playing in the creek. Beautiful. Great.

• 6:38Corinne Vien?

  That's something my childhood too.

• 6:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Before that, I lived with my grandparents, whose house was also surrounded by woods. So being outside, playing in the woods was just my normal life. I was used to it. But no matter where we lived, the rules were always the same. Do not go into the woods at night. And even though my family has always been very open to the paranormal, it was a part of how I grew up. Do not go into the woods at night.

• 7:00Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, free, free rein during the day. I feel like that's an important distinction because when we talk about the woods and Appalachia and just like the creatures, the murderers, like all that's scary, part of me is also feeling guilty because I'm like, well, going outside and being in nature, and every time I've ever gone on like a hike or a walk or something, I feel so much more connected to myself and grounded and like...

• 7:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do it during the day.

• 7:22Corinne Vien?

  Peace. At peace. But that's the distinction. It's night versus day.

• 7:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes. I never thought this rule had anything to do with the supernatural. I always thought it was because of the real dangers, like people. So since we were not close to town and there wasn't much else to do around the trailer, exploring the woods was actually one of the first things I did that summer. A few weeks before the night happened, I went into the woods near the trailer twice during that day to explore. And the first time I remember, I did feel a little bit uneasy as if someone were watching me, but the second time was worse. I'd been in the woods for maybe 10 or 20 minutes, walking around and exploring. And I remember stopping to look at the tree because I thought maybe it'd be fun to climb. But right then, when I was standing there looking at it, everything suddenly went completely quiet. No birds, no bugs, no wind, nothing.

• 8:09Corinne Vien?

  That's how you know.

• 8:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Just silence. And then I heard footsteps. It felt so unnatural that I immediately turned around and ran straight back to the trailer. After that, I never went back into those woods again.

• 8:20Corinne Vien?

  I have a question for people who've encountered mountain lions. Does the same thing happen? Do all of the animals and everything stop because a predator is near?

• 8:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Could. I don't know.

• 8:29Corinne Vien?

  Is it just paranormal predators or actual...

• 8:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  All predators.

• 8:33Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, all encompassing.

• 8:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know.

• 8:35Corinne Vien?

  Although some could argue we are predators.

• 8:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, we are the scariest of the scariest.

• 8:40Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  When I first arrived that summer, I had been told to sleep in my cousin's old bedroom because they refused to sleep in that room, though no one really explained why. The window in that room faced the woods and was mostly covered by a large thorn bush. During my first few nights there, I started hearing tapping on the window late at night. And at first, I convinced myself it was just branches hitting the glass. But the tapping would come in groups of three or four, and sometimes it sounded deliberate. When I eventually asked my cousin Alyssa why they didn't sleep in that room, she casually said, oh, because the tapping freaks us out. I had never told her about my experience having the tapping, but I had been hearing it too. So after that, I also didn't want to sleep in that room and started sleeping in either the living room or my aunt's room.

• 9:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The night this happened, the oldest of my cousins, who was just a little younger than me, was spending the night somewhere else. So it was just me, my cousin Caitlin, and her little sister who was already asleep. And as context, the trailers were set along the side of a hill. When you drive up the road, the neighbor's trailer sat slightly lower on the hill, and then my aunt's trailer was just a little further up. The neighbor was a close family friend, but he wasn't there for most of that summer. So that night, Caitlin and I were inside the trailer when their dog, Spot, started barking to go outside. Normally, we would just let him out and wait for him to come back to the porch, but for some reason that night, we opened the door, let him out, and walked out onto the porch with him. To this day, I still do not know why we did that since we normally do not do that, especially not at night.

• 10:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was already dark outside, and the area between the trailers was lit by a mix of porch light and the neighbor's outside light, which kind of blended together to create this dim yellow light across the yard. Spot immediately started running toward the edge of that light toward the neighbor's trailer. And that's when we noticed a deer standing near the edge of the light, close to the neighbor's trailer. And at first, it looked like a normal deer. Its head was down, like it was eating. And we could see its body in the light, but it wasn't fully facing us. When I noticed Spot starting to go toward it, I started yelling at him because I didn't want him bothering the deer. And that is when the deer stood up. And the way it stood up is something both my cousin and I still remember. As the deer stood up, it looked like arms began to form.

• 10:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They didn't suddenly appear. It was more like they were always there but stretched out as it rose up. The same way a person looks taller when they stand up after sitting down. The motion itself was unnatural.

• 10:58Corinne Vien?

  Ew, I hate this. And I'm also shocked that we don't see more from wildlife cameras and like deer cams that people set up.

• 11:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like they feel like they know.

• 11:05Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  When it finished standing, it was facing us, but the face no longer looked like a deer's face. It looked like a mix between a deer and a skeleton. You could see the shape of the skull in its face, but the rest of the body still had normal deer fur. Its legs were long and stretched out like deer legs, but the whole thing looked incredibly tall, like six feet or taller, though it's hard to judge exactly because it was standing slightly downhill near the other trailer. And again, everything felt like it slowed down. We were just standing there staring at it. Everything went quiet. And then suddenly it took off, running behind the neighbor's trailer disappearing into the darkness. The moment it ran, we started screaming for Spot, who turned back towards us and ran back. The three of us went inside the trailer together. And after we got inside, we went into my aunt's bedroom, where her

• 11:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  younger daughter, my youngest cousin, was sleeping. We all climbed into the same bed, turned on a movie, and stayed there until my aunt came home. Spot also didn't leave the bed, stayed with us. The only time he moved was to lift his head and growl.

• 12:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sometimes he would growl towards the bedroom door. Other times he would poke his head up and look toward the window and growl. Every time he did it, I felt terrified all over again, because Spot was not one to growl at anything. He hardly ever barked, let alone growled. I remember praying that he wouldn't have to go back outside for the rest of the night. Spot also was like, please hold it in. Poor baby. After the night we saw the deer thing, the tapping on the windows seemed to get worse. One night, I even heard what sounded like voices outside. And at one point, I also was so sure I heard my aunt calling that I called her and asked if she had come home early, but she wasn't home. She was at least an hour away. What makes this story even stranger is that Caitlin and I didn't talk about what we saw again for almost two years, at least not to one another. We did tell others, but most

• 12:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  didn't believe us. And the only person who really believed me was my mom. Then, almost two years later, Caitlin and I were sitting on my grandma's porch with family, and the story somehow came up. And without realizing it at first, Caitlin and I started describing the exact same thing. And that is when everyone finally believed us, because we hadn't talked about it to each other in two years.

• 13:13Corinne Vien?

  Wow.

• 13:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And even now, 14 years later, we still agree on the same thing. The way the deer stood up, the way those arms seemed to form as it rose, and how everything we were looking at was not natural.

• 13:24Corinne Vien?

  We've never done a full episode on Not Deer, have we? Or like an actual research segment? Is this just one of the things that comes up all the time?

• 13:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  All the time. I guess not. Yeah, I don't think we've done a research episode on it.

• 13:35Corinne Vien?

  Because I feel, because I'm almost, I want to know more, because I feel like so many of the Not Deer encounters, it's like, and sorry, we did do research and I'm just remembering nothing about it. But I'm like, so much of it is, the scary part is the encounter with this creature that seems so unnatural, and its awareness of you.

• 13:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The way it looks at you.

• 13:55Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. But then I'm like, well, what, what is it?

• 13:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, it does.

• 13:59Corinne Vien?

  What does it want?

• 14:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's hard also because, especially in these regions, like, is there a blending of flesh pedestrians? Or is it its own entity? Or is it a shapeshifter? Yeah, we, I don't know.

• 14:10Corinne Vien?

  Are these different species able to mate with one another and create different mutated cryptids?

• 14:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's the problem with all cryptids and creatures like this. We don't really know what they want. Like even Bigfoot, we don't know what Bigfoot wants.

• 14:23Corinne Vien?

  I need more character.

• 14:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Development.

• 14:26Corinne Vien?

  Character development. I need them to study who their character is.

• 14:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's holes in the story.

• 14:31Corinne Vien?

  What are their intentions?

• 14:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What do they want? Just to scare us? Because, uh, mission accomplished.

• 14:37Corinne Vien?

  Before you step foot on my stage, you need to be able to answer those questions about your character.

• 14:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Corinne's interview with a Not Deer. Coming soon.

• 14:44Corinne Vien?

  Or else I'm gonna be like, excuse me, wait, let's pause. Have you thought about what your childhood was like?

• 14:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We should have like a late night show, like Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon, but it's interviewing cryptids.

• 14:55Corinne Vien?

  That would be so great.

• 14:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Uh, one day.

• 15:00Corinne Vien?

  One day.

• 15:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's on our vision board.

• 15:02Corinne Vien?

  Never say never. It could totally be possible for us. We don't know what's gonna happen. I got an email. I got an email. It feels like it's for me when it's from Vermont.

• 15:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, it's for you.

• 15:14Corinne Vien?

  We got an email called Witchcraft out of Vermont State Park.

• 15:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cool.

• 15:18Corinne Vien?

  Obviously, I have to read it.

• 15:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Of course.

• 15:20Corinne Vien?

  Hi, I wanted to start off by saying that I love your podcast. I struggle with OCD and I'll play it daily, which helps me tune out my own thoughts.

• 15:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, we replace them with creepy thoughts.

• 15:31Corinne Vien?

  Yes. I listened for a while before I realized Corinne was from Vermont. That's shocking, because I feel like I find a way to bring it up every other time.

• 15:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Episode one.

• 15:40Corinne Vien?

  My jaw dropped when I found out. Not to mention that I live across the river from Littleton.

• 15:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No way.

• 15:47Corinne Vien?

  So pretty close to your O G stomping grounds. So for some background, I worked for a state park as an attendant. I won't say exactly where to keep some privacy for my old coworkers who are still employed here. I want to know so bad, so you need to privately message me. Because my family, like, I grew up camping.

• 16:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We have the inside scoop.

• 16:07Corinne Vien?

  Tell me, have I been there?

• 16:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We won't tell everyone else.

• 16:10Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, we promise. It was a very fun job. You get to be outside in the middle of the day, in the forest, and our job mainly consisted of mowing and firewood and roadwork, trailwork, et cetera. I loved this job. But as you can imagine, it's quite physically demanding and it could get pretty tiring at times. I quickly grew close to two of my coworkers. I'm still in contact with them to this day. One of my coworkers was very in touch with the spiritual aspect of things, and I would describe them as being a medium. I wonder what that's like, being a medium in the woods? Like, does it tune everything out for you? Or are you suddenly tuned into like, different types of spirits? Like, the forest is talking to you now.

• 16:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting. We'll add them to our interview list. Our late night show. Interview with a forest witch.

• 16:53Corinne Vien?

  The forest witch.

• 16:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Forest medium.

• 16:55Corinne Vien?

  They have had a plethora of experiences throughout their life, and we'd always chat about spooky nonsense while working, which I adored. Okay, so now let me get into the story. And there's going to be content warning for depictions of suicide. Some small details are being excluded just to protect the family's identity. After a day of work, I got home after a 40-minute drive. I was decompressing from the day. I was doom scrolling on my phone. I was laying in bed. And I got a snap notification from my coworker. Their dad volunteered for emergency services in the town that we worked, and he had to rush to the park due to an emergency. They were unsure of what type of emergency it was, but just gave me some forewarning that the following workday, this might come up. So in my mind, I thought,

• 17:39Corinne Vien?

  okay, possibly a lost camper, maybe a fire that had gotten a little out of control. Worst case scenario, someone crashed on the curvy road. I arrived the next morning and I pull into the office. The energy was suffocating.

• 17:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, no.

• 17:53Corinne Vien?

  A camper that we had all known had died that night by suicide.

• 17:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, so heartbreaking.

• 18:00Corinne Vien?

  Again, I'm not going to go into detail out of respect, but my coworkers who responded to the emergency and the campers around the site were all incredibly traumatized. Even those who were not directly involved immensely affected. It was so heartbreaking and mentally draining, and the effects spread through the rest of the summer. That campsite held a lean-to, which was torn down and closed the rest of the season. Okay, now here's where the creepiness starts. In the following week, me and my spooky coworker went to the lean-to that was closest to the one that we no longer used to clean it up after campers were staying there. So while we're chatting and we're grabbing supplies, I walked to the other side of the structure. Inside was a little doll that looked straight out of the Blair Witch, just hanging from the wall.

• 18:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like the stick dolls?

• 18:44Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. It was made from plant material, almost like a vine, and not one that's found in our area.

• 18:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ooh, ooh.

• 18:52Corinne Vien?

  Because I could see myself like, doing it as like a little craft, or like, doing it as a prank.

• 18:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But something that doesn't even come from the land.

• 18:58Corinne Vien?

  Something that's brought in. I yelled at my coworker to come check it out. She came rushing around the corner and told me, do not touch that. She told me, without knowing the intention behind it, she wanted to remain careful while removing it. And this experience has been up there with one of the strangest things that I've seen. Me and my coworker decided to keep what we found between us. But here's the creepier part. She took it home. She planned on burning it. She sat for about 20 minutes pouring lighter fluid on it. This was dry plant material, but it would not catch. She could not burn it. We had wondered if someone was maybe using it as protection and their energy was coming off of it, but the fact that it could not be destroyed ruled out that possibility. So

• 19:41Corinne Vien?

  then there's three of us now who knew about this. And all three of us had incredibly bad luck, starting directly after this incident.

• 19:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  After trying to burn it?

• 19:52Corinne Vien?

  Uh huh.

• 19:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And after moving it.

• 19:54Corinne Vien?

  Mm-hmm. To keep it short, basically, all of these bad luck things, uh, were long-term relationships that ended, family health issues, relationship issues, mental health issues, everyone struggling immensely. I'd like to say we got it to stop, but we didn't. Everyone wrote it out to the end of the park season, and my luck got a lot better as I didn't attend this year. But my coworkers who did stay at the park, it's the same for them, and they're still struggling. The other part to this is that there's a young family member of the deceased who's had encounters and still speaks to them. But that's not my story to tell. But to summarize it, it is not a happy haunting. I feel as though the two events must be connected. With the timing, it just seems like it has to be. The incident was

• 20:39Corinne Vien?

  not in any media, but I feel deep down that someone was drawn to the energy in the park and almost used it to magnify their own bad intentions and energy. I don't know. I don't know much about witchcraft, but I do know that this doll was made with the intent to hurt others.

• 20:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's so upsetting.

• 20:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. See you on the other side, Natalie.

• 21:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Witches, how do we reverse this?

• 21:03Corinne Vien?

  Help.

• 21:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I, that makes me so sad, because clearly the loss is so upsetting and so heartbreaking and impactful to so many people. And that alone leaves an energy on the land.

• 21:14Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 21:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But for then someone to come in and put more negativity there, or like, maybe that wasn't their intention, I don't know.

• 21:22Corinne Vien?

  I don't know. Just it not burning and stuff, and then the string of bad luck, it's...

• 21:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I'm like, what, what would happen if they left it there? Was that supposed to be like a protective thing? I don't know. Someone send a witch to the woods to fix the bad juju that's happening to all of our, all of our friends.

• 21:38Corinne Vien?

  The fact that it's not just like a few weird things, or like a quick string of bad luck, like that it's just following them, does make me feel like it was something really dark.

• 21:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And that Natalie has been able, because she's had distance from it, is, it's not impacting her as much now.

• 21:53Corinne Vien?

  Right. I guess one thing that Natalie didn't answer is, where is it now? If it couldn't be burned?

• 21:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's a good question. Bury it.

• 22:00Corinne Vien?

  What happened to it?

• 22:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Natalie, we have a couple of questions. One, where? We won't share that with everyone else. But then two, where's the creepy entity?

• 22:08Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Creepy thing.

• 22:09Corinne Vien?

  Where's your crone?

• 22:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The crone of Catskills.

• 22:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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• 22:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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• 23:26Speaker 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,

• 24:08Speaker 00

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• 24:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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.

• 24:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, wait. I'm so excited about this story. It is from our listener, Smokey, who goes by they/them for anonymity. But it is like a medium who is an archaeologist, and a ghostly thing reveals a massive archaeological find.

• 25:16Corinne Vien?

  What?

• 25:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Okay, that's my tease.

• 25:18Corinne Vien?

  Okay. And also, I love the name Smokey for a woods story. Smoke of the bear.

• 25:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hi, how's it going, ghostesses? Let me begin by saying that I considered myself a skeptic all my life until this unfolded. In my mid-20s, I took a job with the Federal Forest Service in Mississippi, where I prepared areas for future timber sales. Over the winter months, it's not rare for most of the senior staff to take leave while the technicians continue projects. During one such winter, I was tasked with driving alone to the furthest part of my forest to collect some data on trees for a proposed sale. It was cold, lonely. It was repetitive work, measuring tree diameter, height, species, you know. It all gets very repetitive when all the trees are the same size and same species. I was alone, an hour or more from help in the middle of the woods.

• 26:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And even though that could be creepy, I never, never felt spooky vibes or anything. In fact, I love this job for letting me keep my own little naturalist hobbies, like birding, which I got to do while I was working.

• 26:18Corinne Vien?

  Oh, so fun.

• 26:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I listened to endangered red-cocketed woodpeckers while hiking through the woods all to myself. It was my own little heaven. During the winter months in this forest, the witch hazels bloomed too, hinting at the coming spring, even through the cold winter mornings. So all this is to say that I wasn't new to the woods at the time of this story. But still, I could not explain what happened. A long, winding gravel road got to the edge of the unit I'd be working in that day. I hiked down to an older, overgrown road to a handful of data collection sites, which, this is pretty standard, as we won't upkeep the roads inside of sale units in between timber sales. So you end up hiking along the remains of an old forest road. Right in the middle of this patch of woods, the furthest from the road, the furthest from my truck,

• 27:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was continuing data collection until, behind me, way too close for comfort, I heard a child laugh.

• 27:11Corinne Vien?

  Ew, in the middle of the, like, that's impossible.

• 27:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I turned around.

• 27:15Corinne Vien?

  You're so deep in.

• 27:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Terrifying. I turned around, saw no one. But it was so confusing, because it sounded like a kid playing, like that infectious laugh that kids have when they're having a great time. I was so startled, because I had been doing this work alone for almost two straight months and never heard anyone else in the woods with me. But here was this child laughing, literally right behind my shoulder, but no one was there.

• 27:40Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my god.

• 27:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Now, some of our-

• 27:42Corinne Vien?

  That's so disturbing.

• 27:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Now, some of our units do back up to residential sites or rural residential sites, so I thought maybe it was a kid from a nearby house playing near the woods. But then I remembered the Forest Service owns all the land that touches this specific unit, except for one side, which has a massive farm field. Basically, meaning that the closest house to that spot was no less than 2 to 10 miles.

• 28:06Corinne Vien?

  Unless they're riding on the back of Bigfoot and going on adventures together.

• 28:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Whipping right past you, through dense pine plantations and rough terrain. So I call out, asking, "Who's there?" No one's there. No one answers.

• 28:19Corinne Vien?

  Ugh.

• 28:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Had I really just heard a kid's laugh?

• 28:21Corinne Vien?

  Ooh, I had the heebie-jeebies to this whole thing.

• 28:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Was I hearing a ghost? Was it the fae? And remember, I was a skeptic, so all of my skeptical instincts kicked in. And I remember trying to rule everything out. One, wind was moderate that day, but the treetops made a sharp clacking sound when wind blew them into each other. But I listened. I was hearing that. That's not what I heard.

• 28:40Corinne Vien?

  Well, and also, like, this isn't your first day or first week out there. Like, you're used to the sounds of the woods.

• 28:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But you're trying to rule out everything.

• 28:48Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 28:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Two-

• 28:49Corinne Vien?

  But it's so out of place.

• 28:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Birds can be great mimics, but I had never heard a bird mimic human laughter, not that well in Mississippi. And I didn't see any starlings in the area either. Three, if anyone was moving around those woods, it would've been easy to hear with all the dry leaves on the ground. There was nothing. I was not able to explain it, and I was content to leave. So, fast forward-

• 29:12Corinne Vien?

  Content or eager?

• 29:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Eager, probably. Sprinted out of there. Fast forward over a year. I'm still working as a Forest Service technician, but I got assigned to work with our archaeologist who was finishing up a survey. During their surveys, archaeologists dig holes along a grid looking for cultural artifacts. Now, this was well over a year after the above experience, when I heard the child laugh. So we pull up to the exact same unit, a year later. And I only had a vague sense that I had been here before, but throughout that day, that sense got even stronger and stronger, until I ended up in almost the exact same spot that I heard the laugh. As the archaeologist and I continued to dig, we got to the area where I had heard that laugh, and ding, our shovels hit brick.

• 29:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  By the end of the day, we uncovered a large antebellum house site, its cistern and nearly intact brick sidewalk.

• 30:05Corinne Vien?

  No freaking way.

• 30:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I heard that child.

• 30:10Corinne Vien?

  Why did I think this whole time it was like some weird creepy cryptid? I never even considered that this used to be like a family property, and it's the ghost of a little kid just like hanging out of their house?

• 30:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Corinne Vien?

  What a find.

• 30:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I thought the closest house was two and a half-plus miles from me. How could I possibly have known that I was in the front yard of a house from 170-plus years ago?

• 30:35Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my god. Ooh, ooh, I literally, I have chills.

• 30:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Isn't this the coolest story?

• 30:39Corinne Vien?

  And like, where are the dinosaur ghosts? Can they bring us to cool places too? Like, where's your house, dinosaur?

• 30:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So, that's my story. I hope you enjoyed. While I was with the Forest Service, I'd regularly listen to the podcast while hiking around and doing my work. So thank you for being part of my many, many nature walks with me. Stay spooky from Smokey.

• 30:56Corinne Vien?

  This is the best story.

• 30:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know.

• 30:58Corinne Vien?

  This makes for a great story at like, any dinners you're at, anytime you're meeting new people.

• 31:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Corinne Vien?

  Like, small talk at a wedding.

• 31:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This might be the one that I start to pull up now, when people are like, "I don't believe." And I'd be like, "Well, let me read you a story."

• 31:12Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, because I feel like a lot of times, people who don't believe, they're thinking of ghost stories as fitting this like, one specific narrative. But like, that is-

• 31:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So cool.

• 31:21Corinne Vien?

  That's so cool.

• 31:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A child's laugh in that spot, and then a year later, you find the remains of a house and a property where a child laughed and enjoyed a life.

• 31:33Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, that is, that's one of the coolest.

• 31:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  One of my favorite stories.

• 31:36Corinne Vien?

  That's such a good pull.

• 31:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was very excited.

• 31:39Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my god. Okay, well, we're gonna venture all the way over to the West Coast to Lake Tahoe area for this one.

• 31:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fantastic.

• 31:46Corinne Vien?

  Hi, ladies. I want to preface this story by saying that I have been a lifelong skeptic of everything paranormal.

• 31:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We welcome you, too.

• 31:53Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. And we've said it before, and we'll say it again. Sometimes the scariest emails are the ones from people who claim themselves to be skeptics. Like skeptics of what? Because-

• 32:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because you just experienced some crazy paranormal shit.

• 32:06Corinne Vien?

  What are you, what are you trying to explain away? Okay. Not to say I don't believe the perceived experiences of everyone who've had weird things happen to them, but I've always thought that there must just be some reasonable explanation for some of the stories of people who've heard bumps in the night.

• 32:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do agree that there should be some reasonable explanation, but we have not been able to find the reason yet, which is why it's paranormal. But I think that science will be able to explain it.

• 32:31Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, accepted.

• 32:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, that it is scientifically proven to be ghosts.

• 32:36Corinne Vien?

  I mean, how do you believe in physics, but you don't believe in ghosts?

• 32:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Good question. Good question. What about gravity? Also confusing.

• 32:45Corinne Vien?

  Also invisible.

• 32:48Corinne Vien?

  But something happened to me about two weeks ago that has completely shattered this previous worldview of mine. Since then, I've been obsessively researching anything that this could possibly be, or anything similar to my experience, but I have yet to find anything like it.

• 33:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Love it.

• 33:02Corinne Vien?

  In this endeavor, I stumble across your channel and I think, okay, this is the best place to share my story, in hopes that maybe somebody will have something similar to share.

• 33:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ooh.

• 33:13Corinne Vien?

  I love this. We came up in like the research of trying to figure out what's going on. Okay, to begin, my family owns a cabin in Northern California near Lake Tahoe. Our cabin is less than a mile away from one of the Donner Party camps where people starved to death

• 33:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yikes.

• 33:29Corinne Vien?

  and resorted to cannibalism.

• 33:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I have that on my list to cover. Or did you cover it?

• 33:33Corinne Vien?

  I don't think I covered it.

• 33:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, I think it's on my list.

• 33:35Corinne Vien?

  I covered Boone Island in Maine, which had cannibalism, if that's what you're thinking of. Not sure if the Donner Party thing is relevant to the story at all, but being so close to one of these horrific events has always creeped me out nonetheless.

• 33:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Very creepy.

• 33:48Corinne Vien?

  I grew up coming to this cabin and I have nothing but great memories there. That was, until recently. I was there only with my mom and her two dogs for the week. She had a couple of weeks off of work and my job is remote, so she invited me up to the cabin for some quality mother-son time. And our third night there, my mom had gone to bed and one of the dogs was scratching at the door to go to the bathroom. I know the backyard of our cabin faces protected forest land, so basically it's just woods for miles. So I let my dog out. I walk out with him, as I normally do, so that he could go to the bathroom and I can keep an eye on him. Instead of meandering on out as he normally would to go do his business, he sprinted straight off into the forest, barking.

• 34:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No.

• 34:33Corinne Vien?

  My immediate reaction was, oh shit, he's an animal or something to go chase after.

• 34:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 34:39Corinne Vien?

  So I then ran after him.

• 34:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Into the dark woods.

• 34:42Corinne Vien?

  As I went af- it's so scary. As I went after him, he was nowhere to be seen. And then about 50 yards away, I stopped to call out for him. I did so a couple of times. And as I was about to call out again, I heard a sound that I have been unable to rid my memory of since. I've tried so hard to explain it to people and I failed every single time. The best way I can explain it is a cross between a distorted human scream and like a croak of a toad.

• 35:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What?

• 35:14Corinne Vien?

  It was so horrifying, such a weird combination, that sounded familiar but so wrong at the same time. The worst part was that it wasn't some far-off cry. It was extremely loud. It sounded like it was right behind a close tree. It was aggressive and in no way trying to disguise itself. It was so close, so loud, I didn't even think to freeze. I just started running back to the cabin immediately.

• 35:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Good, good instinct.

• 35:38Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. And this is when the weirdest thing of this whole experience happened. After running for about 10 seconds, the air around me started to feel really thick and heavy. And an overwhelming tiredness came over me and time seemed to slow. And it was like, whatever it was, was actively trying to keep me from getting back to safety.

• 35:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do hate that part.

• 35:58Corinne Vien?

  I didn't hear the sound again, but I knew whatever it was that had made that sound was also the one causing this feeling. Every part of me wanted to collapse and fall to the ground and take a rest.

• 36:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's very Poppy Field in Wizard of Oz.

• 36:10Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Well, it's also reminding me of just like, not to bring up Bigfoot, every chance I can, but like some of the stories, especially of kids who get lost in the woods, they describe the hairy man carrying them and it's all, there's a lot of like, them napping and like sleeping and like gently opening their eyes and seeing this hairy creature.

• 36:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Corinne Vien?

  So I wonder if there is some sort of like magical ability to suck away the energy.

• 36:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 36:34Corinne Vien?

  Induce sleep. Or is your, is it your body, your fight or flight kicking in so hard that like your brain is trying to make you blackout? So you don't remember what's going on. Because every part of me wanted to collapse and fall to the ground. The last thing I remember, I'm trying with every bit of energy I have to keep going. And I don't know how, but somehow I made it back. Not remembering much about what happened, but that feeling that hit. I immediately ran. I woke up my mom. I'm crying. I'm trying to explain to her what happened. She's asking about the dog. I admit, I had forgotten about him.

• 37:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I was just gonna ask you, what happened to the dog?

• 37:09Corinne Vien?

  He writes, don't worry, he did come back to the house too. He was waiting by the front door.

• 37:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Just abducted by aliens for an hour.

• 37:16Corinne Vien?

  To this day, my mom thinks that I had some sort of abnormal episode and that I was imagining the whole thing.

• 37:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  See, this is why you're a skeptic. You grew up with it.

• 37:24Corinne Vien?

  You grew up with it. But I could have never imagined that sound or that sensation. I'm convinced something out there was trying to hurt me. Again, I've researched so much and I've found nothing similar to this. I don't know if it was some sort of singular entity, or if anyone else has had a similar experience, but please let me know. All the best to you girls and all the people's stories that you share on the show. It has certainly made me feel less crazy from Connor.

• 37:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Connor, you are not crazy. And from a, I'm gonna approach this with you skeptic-wise.

• 37:54Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  If we wanna rule it out, listen to every animal sound in Tahoe. Cause like what, coyotes and stuff sometimes sound like screaming ladies?

• 38:02Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 38:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like, listen to different sounds of animals that you know are in Tahoe that have screams to rule it all out. If we're going skeptic approach first. Once you've done that, let's all agree, yeah, it was something paranormal.

• 38:15Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. And if there are, are there any bodies of water near you too? Cause I'm thinking about like, some of the birds. You know, like if someone heard a loon for the first time, they'd be like, what the fuck is that?

• 38:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But the like, woman scream with the like croaking of it.

• 38:29Corinne Vien?

  Also, when you go to the paranormal side, I'm not sure that this will quite align with what you've described, but if you search the Sierra Nevada sounds, you can hear some California Bigfoot calls that have yet to be debunked and are attributed to Bigfoots in the area.

• 38:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. And then let's just look up what cryptids are in Tahoe. Cause it very well might be a cryptid.

• 38:52Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Well, now I wanna look that up.

• 38:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, go do a little Google.

• 38:56Corinne Vien?

  Cryptids in Tahoe.

• 38:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Probably a lot of them.

• 38:58Corinne Vien?

  Whoa, you have your own Tahoe Tessie. They have their own lake monster. Did we know this?

• 39:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Tahoe Tessie?

• 39:05Corinne Vien?

  Tahoe Tessie.

• 39:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I like the alliteration.

• 39:08Corinne Vien?

  You know, it makes sense because, of course.

• 39:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Does Tessie scream and croak?

• 39:12Corinne Vien?

  Some skeptics say that it's a large sturgeon. Stop blaming everything on a sturgeon, you guys.

• 39:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wait, you said body of water is, what if the Tessie has a scream and croak?

• 39:22Corinne Vien?

  Hmm. Well, if Tessie is related to.

• 39:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Nessie.

• 39:26Corinne Vien?

  Nessie or Champ in Vermont, New York, then it would be more echolocation, like, like the clicks, dolphin-like.

• 39:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anyone speak dolphin?

• 39:37Corinne Vien?

  Hmm.

• 39:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Where's Dory when you need her? Yeah, we don't have answers for you, but I think we would all agree. Everyone here probably would agree. Something paranormal.

• 39:47Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, but people hearing the description of that call, I wonder if some people are gonna be like, oh, that is exactly what, what I heard.

• 39:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We'll report back. Connor, if we hear it from anyone, we will let you know.

• 39:56Corinne Vien?

  This is our investigation.

• 39:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is our call to action.

• 39:58Corinne Vien?

  Our new goal.

• 39:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  In the comments of this episode, let us know if you have any theories on what this was. And until then, I have one more story, but don't worry, it's not the last one if you're a Patreon member, because if you are a Patreon member, we have a bonus story this episode, also Appalachia Woods themed, that will be available for Only Phantoms the day this is coming out. My mom just got herself a Whisker litter robot and it has changed everything for her. I feel like she has so much more time. She has three cats. So what I love about Whisker litter robot is, one, it saves you time. You're not scooping litter every day. And two, they have different models based on how many cats you have. They have litter robots for a household

• 40:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  with one cat or up to five cats. Litter robot bundles actually make it easy to get fully set up while saving you money. And I love their app. You can stay notified on completed cycles, when the litter and drawer levels need to be changed, or when the unit needs attention with real-time insights from the Whisker app. You like add a profile for each of your pet that's using the robot and it monitors their weight. It lets you know who's gone to the bathroom how many times. And I know my mom has used it and it's like helped her catch UTIs in one of her cats. So get the litter box off your mind today with 10% off a Whisker litter robot at whisker.com/tgog. That's 10% off at whisker.com/tgog. Raise

• 41:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  your hand if you struggle with gut health. Me. And did you know, most Americans actually struggle with gut health? So if you've ever dealt with bloating or that sluggish, irregular feeling, that's usually your gut asking for something, which is why I and so many others have been taking K-Post. K-Post is a more advanced prebiotic fiber that you can't get in your diet. It's the type of diversity that your gut needs that you're just not going to find in a normal day of eating. K-Post is an award-winning daily gut health supplement based on the prebiotics originally discovered in human milk. It has three times the benefits of your typical fiber, helping charge whole body health beyond just the gut, including supporting immunity, healthy metabolism, and so much more. I started taking K-Post

• 42:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  two weeks ago and I feel like my gut health has improved so much. It's fantastic. For a limited time, you can receive 47% off your first order, plus they are including free gifts valued at $62. So go to trykpost.com/tgog. The discount will be automatically applied. That's T-R-Y-K-E-P-O-S dot com slash T-G-O-G. With their 30-day money-back guarantee, you can try it completely risk-free.

• 42:35Speaker 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,

• 43:17Speaker 00

  this is what I believe, 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.

• 43:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is also Appalachia. It is from our listener Grace and it is called, "I covered a night shift as a correctional officer and something followed me home in Appalachia." "Hi, my name is Grace. I'm 22. I've been a fan of your podcast for two years now and would love to share my story. I've never really been a firm believer in ghosts, but I've always leaned toward enjoying the stories more than really believing in them. Although I did grow up in some creepy houses, but I never had a moment that made me really fully think this is real, until this night. And since then, things have been different. We should do a skeptic to believer."

• 44:12Corinne Vien?

  Oh, that's a good, that's a good one.

• 44:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  For context, I grew up in East Tennessee, deep in Appalachia. It's the kind of place where everything is quiet, surrounded by mountains and woods, where nights get really dark and really still. There are a lot of older homes, a lot of land, and a lot of stories that get passed around. People there grew up hearing things, seeing things, and you kind of learn to not question it much, or well, not even bring it up. I finally feel safe enough to share this now because I just moved to Florida. And since moving, I have not had anything happen at all. But when this happened, I was working-

• 44:47Corinne Vien?

  My brain just went like, "The real horrors are the people of Florida." Cause I was like, "Florida man, Russells."

• 44:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's where bath salts, didn't the cannibalism bath salts happen in Florida? Yeah. Okay, so when this happened, I was living in Appalachia, working as a corrections officer, and I usually worked the day shift, but this was the first and only time I got pulled into night shift. So for context, there is a lot of death that happens in this jail, especially recently with the fentanyl epidemic getting into the facility despite everything we've tried to stop it. So yeah, this jail has had a real body count within its walls.

• 45:24Corinne Vien?

  Oh, so scary.

• 45:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So sad. Our job involved doing-

• 45:28Corinne Vien?

  Sorry, not to like go on like a drug tangent, but I feel like, like even in our time of being younger and youth and like fentanyl was like just starting to be laced into things, I feel like just trying to be a young adventurous recreational young adult is like the scariest-

• 45:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So dangerous.

• 45:48Corinne Vien?

  You just don't-

• 45:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know, I know too many people who have died.

• 45:52Corinne Vien?

  Well, cause like normal, like, "Oh, you wanna study for college, your upcoming like test, and you just try to get some-

• 45:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Corinne Vien?

  Pills to help with that, and then like you're dead. It's so terrifying.

• 46:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so our job involved doing hourly rounds. Every hour, we physically walked through each assigned pod, visually confirmed that every inmate was there, scanned a checkpoint mounted on the wall. This scanner was proof that we completed our round at the correct time, and if it wasn't scanned, basically didn't count. In between these rounds, we monitored everything from a central station. We controlled doors electronically, we watched cameras, and even watched one another. So our male counterpart would do his rounds while we watched him on camera, and then when we did our rounds, he would watch us on the camera. Basically, the point being that there was always someone observing.

• 46:39Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, yeah, good. Safety.

• 46:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And there are videos.

• 46:42Corinne Vien?

  Oh shit. Okay, I had to pull up this email so I can see.

• 46:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So most of my pods were single cell units, where inmates were locked down and everything stayed quiet. But there was one area called GX, which was different. This had an open day room, and that pod always felt off. So at first, it wasn't even me who noticed anything. My coworker, Lexi, pointed out that when I went into GX, there was a white blob on the camera that looked like it was following me, which I laughed it off. But after that, I couldn't shake the feeling. And every time I walked into GX, it felt like someone was awake, watching me, even though I could clearly see everyone was asleep. I would shine my flashlight across the beds just to confirm, and I'd see mouths open, eyes closed. I even annoyed inmates with how often I checked,

• 47:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  but still, something didn't feel right. It felt like something was pushing me through the pod, like I didn't belong there. Then, one night-

• 47:38Corinne Vien?

  They're better than me. I would wake up every inmate and be like, "I'm scared." Guys, something's happening. We all need to be awake and figure out what's going on.

• 47:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do you guys feel this too? Then one night, I was watching the cameras. Now, we have heat signature cameras that would outline anything that registered as a person, which helped differentiate movement from light or shadows. And I'm-

• 47:58Corinne Vien?

  It's just like high surveillance.

• 48:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's smart. I'm glad they have it. I'm watching the GX camera when I see a white thing moving freely across the room, and the system boxed it like it was a human figure. I watched it move all night. After that, every round into that area in GX felt worse. I rushed through it, I scanned the wall checkpoint, got out as fast as I could. When shift change came, and Lexi came in to relieve me, who she had never worked nights before, I joked with her about how creeped out I had been all night, and she laughed it off. Shift change was 5:30. Count usually happens around 4:00 or 5:00 AM, so it doesn't interrupt breakfast. So I stayed on the cameras while she went to go do her count. Everything looked normal at first. She went into

• 48:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  GX, started scanning and counting and radioed it in, but right as she radioed in, I saw it again. This thing appeared from the top of the wall, floated down, and sat on the bunk closest to the door. Sat on the bunk. This bunk was actually occupied, and I even told the inmate about it the next shift in a joking way because I was so shaken, but you know, I was trying to cope. Not my proudest moment. At the time, Lexi had no idea what I was seeing. Her scan failed on the first attempt, which sometimes happens, so she had to turn around, go back, and as she passed the bunk again, the figure that had sat on the bunk got off the bed and followed Lexi into the darkness.

• 49:18Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 49:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That is when I knew it wasn't something random. This thing was intentional, and it followed her. When she came back from the count, I was so freaked out that I immediately showed her the video and her face went completely white. I could tell it scared her badly, and that she didn't want to go back into that pod after seeing it.

• 49:34Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I wouldn't want to either.

• 49:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But what messed with me the most is what happened after. So I still had to go back into GX one last time to complete my final count. This is all happening in one night, too. Which, this was policy. I had to confirm my starting and ending numbers matched, but I didn't want to go back in there after what I saw. When I stepped inside GX, it was freezing. And this is June, around 5:00 AM in a poorly insulated jail where it's normally warm and humid, but it was cold. And then I felt something touch my shoulder, and I heard, clear as day, a voice say, "You shouldn't have done that."

• 50:11Corinne Vien?

  Excuse me?

• 50:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Immediately, the temperature went back to normal. I jumped, I scanned, I left quickly, and I even woke up a couple of inmates accidentally with how fast I was moving. I finished my shift, I left, I don't even remember the drive home. It was a 12-hour shift, I was exhausted mentally and physically, and when I got home, I lived in a camper to save money, and it had this built-in radio system that I'd never used. I wasn't even sure the radio worked because I never used it. I'm winding down, trying to go to sleep, when out of nowhere, jazz music starts blasting through the speakers. Not static, not a radio station tuning in, but a clear clip of New Orleans style jazz. I got to the radio immediately, and it is off. Like, there was dust still settled

• 50:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  on the buttons. I panicked, I ran outside, and from there, I could hear the music getting louder inside the camper, and then suddenly, it stopped. Complete silence.

• 51:04Corinne Vien?

  This is like a good spirit that's just making their presence known, or if this is like some weird, like a threat, like you shouldn't have done it, and then they're like that axe murderer from the 20s when jazz music was, it's like, "I'm hunting you now."

• 51:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I mean, it does sound like there's been a lot of deaths in this facility. It probably is someone who's died there. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the "you shouldn't have done that" was like about, like, talking to themselves about taking a drug or doing something. I don't know.

• 51:33Corinne Vien?

  Shouldn't have committed the crime. You shouldn't have done that.

• 51:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know.

• 51:37Corinne Vien?

  I'm into my jazz theory now, because now I'm remembering about like the murderer who did, like, they would play jazz music at night, too. Everyone was advised to play jazz music to keep the murderer away.

• 51:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause they didn't like jazz music?

• 51:47Corinne Vien?

  Cause he loved jazz music or something, so it was like-

• 51:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wouldn't that want him to come?

• 51:52Corinne Vien?

  No, I think he like wrote in. I'm misremembering a bunch, I'm sure, but I think he wrote into newspapers, like, "If you play jazz, like-"

• 51:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'll leave you alone. It's crazy. Okay, so since that night, I've had small things happen that I never used to. Nothing constant, but it was enough to notice. So I really do believe that that spirit came home with me. Like I said before, prior to this, I really only had one or two minor experiences, nothing that I really fully believed in, but after this night, I am a full believer. I've been holding on to this story for years, and it happened when I was 19, and I'm 22 now. I've attached the videos from that night. I would love to hear what you think. It still genuinely unsettles me to this day. Sorry for the audio and the clips. I was honestly just overwhelmed and trying to capture everything as it happened. The first video was taken earlier in the shift around 3:00 AM, when I first noticed something was off, but wasn't

• 52:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  too alarmed yet. And the second video is what confirmed it for me. Thanks for reading. See you on the other side. From Grace.

• 52:47Corinne Vien?

  Okay. Should we watch the first one?

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Oh, there it is.

• 52:54Corinne Vien?

  Do you see it? Just kind of like floating across?

• 53:01Speaker 04

  Uh oh, she's going back for it. There it is, there it is. You see it? Look.

• 53:10Speaker 04

  And there's nobody there.

• 53:17Corinne Vien?

  First thought, I was like, "Oh, what if it's the light reflection from her cellphone?" But when she comes back, you can-

• 53:24Speaker 04

  Wait, that one, even more.

• 53:25Corinne Vien?

  Ooh!

• 53:26Speaker 04

  Hold on.

• 53:26Corinne Vien?

  Ooh!

• 53:27Speaker 04

  Wait, that looks so much more. Look. You can see it's sitting there, and it gets up. Like, you see more of a body there.

• 53:36Corinne Vien?

  Oh god, when it's sitting, and then it becomes more like orb-like, but it's not even an orb, it's like a little-

• 53:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like a fae.

• 53:41Corinne Vien?

  String. Yeah.

• 53:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, that's one.

• 53:44Corinne Vien?

  Cause when she was walking back, at first I was like, "Well, is her phone shining or something?"

• 53:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 53:48Corinne Vien?

  But she was, you can see her, like with the two-

• 53:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Angles?

• 53:53Corinne Vien?

  Angles of the camera, like, the phone is on her.

• 53:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like the other one.

• 53:57Speaker 04

  Look, shit you not, there is a fucking demon. See that little white thing? There's nobody right there. There's nobody. No one's in the hallway.

• 54:09Corinne Vien?

  I'm sorry, I could never have this job because I wouldn't keep it to myself. I would be broadcasting it throughout the entire prison. I would set up projectors and be like, "Someone explain this."

• 54:18Speaker 04

  There it is. There it is.

• 54:21Corinne Vien?

  Who was using a makeshift Ouija board at lunch today?

• 54:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm also just so curious-

• 54:25Corinne Vien?

  If someone's something-

• 54:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  About the inmates here, what they experienced. They have to sleep here all night.

• 54:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, it's so interesting.

• 54:32Corinne Vien?

  What is it?

• 54:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What is it?

• 54:33Corinne Vien?

  But that I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have done that.

• 54:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have done that. Places are haunted. People are haunted. Appalachia is haunted.

• 54:43Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 54:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The woods are creepy, and so are you, and we love you.

• 54:47Corinne Vien?

  And if you want another story, do you want to tease what your next one is?

• 54:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, sure. I'll tease. I'll give you a little teaser.

• 54:52Corinne Vien?

  Because on Patreon, we have a full-length bonus episode every single month that's available, but we also pull two extra stories per month from encounters to share with our Patreon listeners.

• 55:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, teaser. I'll just read the subject line. Appalachia, apparitions, visions of snakes and skulls, a creepy baby doll, and more.

• 55:14Corinne Vien?

  Wow, there's a lot. Okay.

• 55:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Got a lot. So yeah, see you over on Patreon, but if not, we love you, and we hope that you love us. Say it back. And that, you want to know how you say it back, is you rate and review us, or you tell all your friends, family, strangers, anyone who you can possibly tell, anyone who's willing to listen about our podcast.

• 55:34Corinne Vien?

  Thank you to Jamie Ryan, who edits and produces our podcast. We could not do any of this without Jamie.

• 55:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, we cannot. And thank you to all of you.

• 55:41Corinne Vien?

  And we will.

• 55:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  See you on the other side.

• 55:51Speaker 01

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