Episode 320 - Mysterious Mount Vottovaara | Time Slips, Megaliths & Giants?

Deep in the wilds of Karelia, Russia there is an unassuming Mountain with a mysterious secret. It is called – Mount Vottovaara, aka ‘Russia’s Stonehenge’ where mysterious stone stacks frame the solstice sun. Cameras fail, compasses spin, the air feels heavy and time seems to warp. Sámi lore calls it a sacred portal to “other worlds.” Modern hikers report lost hours, eerie orbs, and phantom figures on horseback. Plus we have listener stories that include time loss during a close call with fae in the forest, a spontaneously combusting violin, and a paranormal cold war era political drama over ‘The Pumpkin Papers’. Watch the Video Version here. Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at [email protected] New Episodes are released every 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:21Corinne Vien?

  Bonjour.

• 1:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Bonjour. Comment ça va?

• 1:24Corinne Vien?

  Je suis excitée.

• 1:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh la la la, excitée.

• 1:29Corinne Vien?

  Excitée. Je m'appelle Karine.

• 1:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Je m'appelle Sabrina.

• 1:33Corinne Vien?

  And this is Two Girls One Ghost.

• 1:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I didn't say it in French, but Two Girls.

• 1:39Corinne Vien?

  Two Girls One Ghost. I've never taken a French class. I have no idea if anything is appropriate.

• 1:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fantas- would be deux filles, une fantasma? Yeah, Two Girls One Ghost.

• 1:52Corinne Vien?

  You're asking the wrong person here.

• 1:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Deux filles, une fantasma. It's hard to whisper that.

• 1:58Corinne Vien?

  I wish I knew French. It sounds so nice.

• 1:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You did pretty well.

• 2:00Corinne Vien?

  I had a moment where I had the fear that like, maybe that meant I'm horny or something because I was like, wait, why do I know this? Was this like some slang someone taught me once?

• 2:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I wish we did have knowledge of another language and aside from Piglet and then could just do a whole episode like that.

• 2:16Corinne Vien?

  Wouldn't that be cool?

• 2:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It would be. We need to talk about a new podcast, Watcher Cook. Hot diggity hot dog damn. If you wanted to be aroused in like a female empowered. Wow, I'm like so motivated. I feel so strong. Watcher Cook is a podcast by our friends from National Park After Dark, Danielle and Cassie, and it is so good, you guys.

• 2:43Corinne Vien?

  I texted them last night and I said, I could kick a door down. I'm fired up.

• 2:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Corinne Vien?

  It is so good. They basically for years have been collecting stories through their research with National Park After Dark about these women who played incredible roles in history and just like the things that they did and the movements that they created. And they're basically highlighting just some incredible women on their podcast.

• 3:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Some you've heard of, some you haven't. Most you probably haven't. It's the history class that I wish we had growing up. And now we have it as adults or wherever you are, whoever you are, whatever age you are, you can listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts. It is so good.

• 3:20Corinne Vien?

  It's so good.

• 3:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And so well researched.

• 3:22Corinne Vien?

  Want to live in the planet that Wonder Woman lives on, where it's just women.

• 3:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Corinne Vien?

  It's just such a good podcast.

• 3:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's so good.

• 3:29Corinne Vien?

  Ah, women are awesome.

• 3:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fired up.

• 3:33Corinne Vien?

  Fired up. And if anyone tries to shoot fire at you, as in bullets, the woman who, there's a woman who created.

• 3:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like a flamethrower.

• 3:43Corinne Vien?

  Well, it was a woman who created the bulletproof vest. So there's another female fact for you. Protecting people all the time.

• 3:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is such a random thing and I think it's like my family lore and it's all BS, but from childhood, my grandmother and my mom told me that my great grandmother invented that little like, like when you slick down a piece of hair and curl it on your forehead. They like swore to me that my great grandmother invented that. I'm like, no, she didn't.

• 4:08Corinne Vien?

  Oh, interesting. I have no idea.

• 4:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I just know that that's not true.

• 4:12Corinne Vien?

  Definitely a part of hairstyles in the 50s, but it's also a huge part of like black culture.

• 4:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know.

• 4:18Corinne Vien?

  So I'm not sure.

• 4:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, so like my family just created a fake lie.

• 4:24Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God.

• 4:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yep.

• 4:26Corinne Vien?

  Well, my dad told me that my family came over on the Mayflower and I told everyone in my first grade class and they told me it was a lie when I was us to bring in real facts about it.

• 4:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We were all lied to as kids.

• 4:35Corinne Vien?

  Yet another grudge. If we were, if we weren't already over the key lime pie incident, I'm bringing in the Mayflower.

• 4:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, one thing that is pretty cool about my grandmother. So my grandmother married pretty late. Like my great grandmother married pretty young. She was 18 and was like matched with a man who had already come to the US, United States. So she like immigrated over to marry him and start a life in New York. But then my grandmother didn't like marry until she was 30. She went to grad school. She like won all these awards and traveled the world. And like the more I learned about her, it just like makes me so sad that she's not with us anymore because I would love to just like pick her brain. She was like, she was such a strong, independent woman.

• 5:18Corinne Vien?

  Taking her own current through life.

• 5:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 5:21Corinne Vien?

  Which is a really hard thing to do at the time. That's incredible.

• 5:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anywho, we're here to talk about ghost stories and like some weird creepy things that happened in the universe in the world. And Corinne today has a story for us.

• 5:31Corinne Vien?

  I do. And we're going to venture into the woods of Russia.

• 5:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 5:36Corinne Vien?

  You mentioned a lot on the previous episode of the Bennington Triangle about the triangle of death, the death zone.

• 5:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yep.

• 5:43Corinne Vien?

  And we're going to head to a place called Death Mountain. It is a place where the land is cloaked in myth. There are geological anomalies, whispered legends, and possibly giants.

• 5:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like we're really priming everyone for the spring and the summer to get outside. But also at the same time, like terrifying you all to maybe stay inside.

• 6:05Corinne Vien?

  Right. Go and listen to National Park After Dark as well because they have, that's all they do here.

• 6:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's all they do.

• 6:10Corinne Vien?

  Here, like as if they're with us always.

• 6:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They are. They are.

• 6:14Corinne Vien?

  Cassie and Danielle, we love you. Okay, this is Mount Vodavara. It's a seemingly unremarkable rise in land. Like it's a, it's a, it's a petite.

• 6:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What a sad way to describe a place.

• 6:24Corinne Vien?

  It's a hill. I mean, when you look at photos of it, the elevation doesn't seem super high. Like, you know, if you were driving by,

• 6:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Just one of those mountains.

• 6:31Corinne Vien?

  It's just like a hill out the window, you know? It's just one of those regular ass mountains.

• 6:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  As there are many in the, in the world.

• 6:38Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. It's just 417 meters above sea level. So not the most giant mountain, but definitely one that you would enjoy and breathe heavy on a hike, right?

• 6:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 6:49Corinne Vien?

  But the climb to its summit, you'll find is a little different than just an unassuming, ordinary mountain.

• 6:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's what happens. The most unassuming mountains are always the, uh, most assumed.

• 7:02Corinne Vien?

  Assumed.

• 7:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know where I was going.

• 7:05Corinne Vien?

  Well, to get here, also, there's no road, like, right up to the mountain. So you really have to consciously put some effort in to get to Mount Vottovaara. And when you do summit, you'll find yourself surrounded by these twisted, dead trees, these pine trees that are over 100 years old, and these ancient stone formations that appear impossible.

• 7:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ooh.

• 7:27Corinne Vien?

  The way that they're constructed or presenting.

• 7:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like hoodoos. I love when, like, the hoodoo rock formations always look so...

• 7:34Corinne Vien?

  Yes.

• 7:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like drip castles.

• 7:36Corinne Vien?

  There's also an eerie silence where it seems to be that the whole area is dead and the only sound is the wind against your skin. Some call it a sacred place. Others believe that this place is cursed, but all agree it is utterly unlike anywhere else on earth. So let's begin as we usually do. We like to look at the history of the land and why places could possibly be the way that they are and why we're talking about them on Two Girls One Coast.

• 8:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Psychologically analyze places.

• 8:05Corinne Vien?

  This stupid little piece of land, this is not even any good.

• 8:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It goes to a lot of therapy because so many people think it's unassuming, but it's like, I should be assumed.

• 8:14Corinne Vien?

  The most assumed. We see you, Mount Vottovaara. We see you.

• 8:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We acknowledge you.

• 8:18Corinne Vien?

  So Mount Vottovaara lies in the Republic of Karalea. I'm sorry, I'm probably butchering these names, but it's in northwestern Russia and it's actually, it's pretty close to the border of Finland. So it's Russia's massive, right?

• 8:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, huge.

• 8:32Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, it's a very northwest part of Russia. The area is rugged, it's really remote, it's very sparsely populated. Like I said, there's no road that even leads to Mount Vottovaara. And the region has just vast forests, glacial lakes, and just seems to stretch endlessly. And I feel like when I was doing the research on this, there was an attempt at making this sound scary, but I thought that sounded really peaceful.

• 8:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It does sound really peaceful.

• 8:58Corinne Vien?

  Right?

• 8:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It kind of reminds me of like, I'm picturing in Sound of Music, like the hills in Austria and just like this open stretch of land, lots of greenery.

• 9:07Corinne Vien?

  Right. Yeah, I think people are like, the lakes never end and there's dense forests and no people around. And I'm like, perfect. That's what I want to escape to. I want to go there, Mount Vottovaara. So quite a majestic place. Geologically, the mountain is part of the west Karalian upland, and its origins trace back over 2 billion years. The bedrock here is some of the oldest bedrock on Earth, and it's shaped by this like violent past of earthquakes and tectonic plate collisions and all that good shit, ancient seabeds. And the most significant shaping event in recent geological history was this earthquake that happened 9,000 years ago. And I do find it interesting because a lot of what happens here, people keep being like, well, it's from the earthquake. Like they blame the earthquake constantly,

• 9:52Corinne Vien?

  even when it feels much more paranormal. They're like, the earthquake from 9,000 years ago. And you're like, really? Okay.

• 9:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like everything, we can't blame everything on that.

• 10:01Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Corinne Vien?

  So this quake is believed to have heaved stones and cracked the land, leaving behind jagged cliffs and surreal otherworldly landscape. Despite the unique features of Mount Vottovaara, Vottovaara remained largely unknown to the outside world until 1978, so very recent. And that year, Soviet geologist Alexander Gutsletsev

• 10:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Confidence.

• 10:25Corinne Vien?

  Stumbled upon its summit during a survey. And what he found stunned him. There atop the mountain were hundreds of boulders, some weighing several tons. And when I say hundreds, I should actually say thousands. They were balanced, many of them balanced delicately on one another. And there's, I'll show you pictures in YouTube, but there's like little tiny stones and then a giant massive boulder on top of them. It's wild. And it definitely appears to be this like sort of deliberate, maybe ritualistic arrangement of stones. But these things are massive, right? And so many of these stones, known as seeds, they sit on these small support rocks and they're balanced in a way that defy both erosion and random placement.

• 11:07Corinne Vien?

  And also it's on a mountain and much of the mountain top and where these stones are, it's not flat. So it's not like someone-

• 11:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They think some, like a group of people potentially did this on purpose?

• 11:18Corinne Vien?

  Some people believe it's a group of people who did it on purpose. Some people believe it's giants. And a lot of other people are like, it's the quake from 9,000 years ago.

• 11:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 11:28Corinne Vien?

  Sure.

• 11:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting.

• 11:28Corinne Vien?

  Whatever helps you sleep at night.

• 11:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We talk about this a lot, but I think anytime we can't explain something, our desire is to find a rational reason. And then when you can't, I think society and human throughout time has used gods and powers like beyond ours to explain the unexplainable.

• 11:51Corinne Vien?

  And it makes sense because we're all, we're all grasping for answers, even us at the end of the last episode. We're like, what the fuck is life?

• 11:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Climbing Mount Vatavara, you're grasping for air, gasping for air.

• 12:01Corinne Vien?

  Gasping for air and questioning what is reality? Okay, so these stones are massive. They're all kind of like precariously placed, balanced on these little tiny stones. There's a lot of like weird stuff happening around. And the mountain also is a mountain, so it's not flat. And so a lot of them are kind of like on this incline and it feels almost impossible to be able to put it exactly where it is and somehow get it to balance without it just like, you know, toppling over.

• 12:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sure.

• 12:25Corinne Vien?

  These rocks clearly to most people who would look at them, do not feel like scattered debris or just the result of tectonic plates shuffling about and upturning some stone. That would feel very bizarre and it would also be bizarre that it is only happening right here.

• 12:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 12:41Corinne Vien?

  So some are-

• 12:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Especially at the top of the mountain.

• 12:44Corinne Vien?

  Right. Yeah.

• 12:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like, why not everywhere else around the mountain and on the mountain, just on top?

• 12:49Corinne Vien?

  And it's not like it's the only hill in a vast valley.

• 12:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's other mountains.

• 12:54Corinne Vien?

  There are also pools of water created, and there's one watering hole that you cannot blame an earthquake for this watering hole. It looks like a pool. It is perfectly rectangular. I read somewhere online that they've like never tested to see like how deep down the depths of it is.

• 13:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's the first thing I would do.

• 13:12Corinne Vien?

  Right. I don't know if there's any truth to that, or if like just not enough people have been interested in studying it, that they've, they've gone there since it's somewhat more of a recent discovery.

• 13:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Discovery, yeah.

• 13:21Corinne Vien?

  But the stones are fitted so tightly that it does keep all of the water here. So it's like a water reservoir, which makes total sense. And you're going to Peru soon.

• 13:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 13:30Corinne Vien?

  And I don't know where in Peru you're going, but this reminded me of two places in Peru that I've been. One is Machu Picchu, and the way that like they have

• 13:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Corinne Vien?

  created like systems and stuff.

• 13:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Corinne Vien?

  And the other, are you going to Cusco?

• 13:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 13:43Corinne Vien?

  Okay, you have to stop here. In Cusco, there's this stone wall. The stones are so perfectly carved to fit together that not even a piece of paper will fit between the rocks. So they were so meticulous with creating and building their stone structures to not need mortar. I think about it constantly, and I went there when I was like seventeen or sixteen or something.

• 14:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'll take a lot of pictures.

• 14:07Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. So this, this is reminding me a little bit of that.

• 14:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 14:10Corinne Vien?

  So just like very meticulously placed.

• 14:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is happening because we have no evidence of like an actual group of people who have created that. The somewhat belief is that this happened naturally, which is why people question that it actually happened naturally. Cause like, how?

• 14:23Corinne Vien?

  No, wrong. There is evidence of a group of people who lived here.

• 14:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, I'm wrong.

• 14:27Corinne Vien?

  Still, people are saying.

• 14:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Shut up, Sabrina.

• 14:30Corinne Vien?

  Earthquakes. My point is just it's weird when people are like, it's the earthquake from nine thousand years ago. It's like, no, it's maybe probably the native people. Or if you want to believe in the legend of giants, like perhaps it's the giants, but whatever it is, it's definitely not the earthquake, is what I.

• 14:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right, right.

• 14:43Corinne Vien?

  That's the one thing I'm gonna say it's not.

• 14:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  With certain.

• 14:46Corinne Vien?

  With certainty. Yeah, okay, so immediately.

• 14:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I said with certain.

• 14:50Corinne Vien?

  Words.

• 14:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm just.

• 14:51Corinne Vien?

  Are words.

• 14:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Corinne Vien?

  It doesn't matter. We get it.

• 14:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But thank you for correcting me. You understood what I was saying.

• 14:56Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I did. So the question that immediately arose was, are these formations nat- natural? It wasn't, but there is an indigenous group of people who did spend time here on the mountain. It makes a lot of sense that it would be them to do this in some sort of like ritual. Or if we want to go the paranormal route, there could be a paranormal explanation for it. But archaeologists have debated over the origin of these stones and how they were created. Some say it's a result of post-glacial rockfalls and effects of an ancient earthquake. But others are like, nope, there's consistency in shape, orientation, the balance of these stones. This is clearly evidence of human manipulation. And in a very Stonehenge way, and even in a very like Machu Picchu way, several formations align with celestial events.

• 15:41Corinne Vien?

  So during the summer and winter solstices, sunlight pierces specific gaps between the stones. And the alignment suggests knowledge of astrology and different celestial events and the meanings of them. Did I say astrology?

• 15:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 15:55Corinne Vien?

  I meant astronomy.

• 15:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 15:57Corinne Vien?

  Okay. So yeah, very intentional with the understanding of the stars and celestial events when placing these stones together, which did make me a little bit sad because I was like, a lot of that has been lost to time.

• 16:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because we know too much now. We're focusing on the wrong things.

• 16:12Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Eliza Kelly is so incredible to talk to because she knows so much about that. But like, for me to know that there's a celestial event, something going on with the stars or the moon or something significant in the sky, like, I need an AccuWeather push notification to tell me.

• 16:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We need Eliza to tell us.

• 16:27Corinne Vien?

  We need Eliza to tell us, which she does because we follow her on social media and she posts stuff like that.

• 16:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes.

• 16:33Corinne Vien?

  Many researchers suggest that Vodavara, Mount Vodavara, seems to have been some sort of ceremonial site used by early cultures.

• 16:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 16:41Corinne Vien?

  Some people link it to the Sami people, which is this indigenous group of reindeer herders in the region.

• 16:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hmm.

• 16:49Corinne Vien?

  And if you've ever watched the movie Klaus, my favorite Christmas movie that I talk about every year, and I'm mad at you, Sabrina, and everyone else who still hasn't watched it.

• 16:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think I've seen it now.

• 16:59Corinne Vien?

  Have you? Oh, it's so good.

• 17:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's so cute.

• 17:01Corinne Vien?

  Okay, remember the like little girl who doesn't speak the same language as everyone else? And she's going to school. She's Sami.

• 17:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 17:09Corinne Vien?

  Yes.

• 17:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 17:10Corinne Vien?

  Right? Klaus is great.

• 17:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's a great movie. Half Christmas is coming up soon, so if you need something to do, watch Klaus.

• 17:16Corinne Vien?

  There you go. All right. So the Sami people did spend time in this region. And they have oral traditions that speak of sacred mountains where shamans could speak to spirits and gods. And these people would also navigate shaman stairs, quote, shaman stairs, which are these stone steps carved directly into the cliffs, leading to nowhere. So it's basically like the stairs to nowhere, leading into this void. But yeah, it's believed to be this sort of spiritual pathway. And it's also thought like that these stairs either lead to heaven or like to the, well, we're saying heaven from our point of view, but just like to, to the other world of.

• 17:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Other side.

• 17:53Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, to the other side, or leading to some sort of like portal where you can access other things, other knowledge. So this is very important to note because not only are these rock formations aligning with celestial events, but the mountain itself seems to also be this sort of like a liminal space, this access point between worlds. And so it would make sense that this would attract the Sami people or the shamans from this culture to kind of look to this mountain for knowledge or access to other worldly beings.

• 18:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is such a dumb thought, but if you think of us, we're kind of ants on a larger scale. Do you think ants have legends of like the anthills that have access to other universes?

• 18:38Corinne Vien?

  I don't know. That's so crazy.

• 18:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What's the ant version of podcasts that are happening right now that only the ant community can watch and observe?

• 18:47Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I want to know the drama and like orcas and whales and stuff. Like what's the gossip? What are the legends? What are the lore?

• 18:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What's the 411?

• 18:55Corinne Vien?

  We know that stuff goes on. I mean, there's a group of orcas that wear dead squid or like jellyfish's hats for fashion. Things are happening way beyond our understanding.

• 19:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We're such little tiny pea brain idiots.

• 19:07Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Also, in my research, I didn't really find too much on this, but I also, I'll admit, I did not do a deep dive. But the podcast Ninjas Are Butterflies, which you've probably seen on TikTok, they have a lot of.

• 19:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I've never heard of this, but that's their title.

• 19:20Corinne Vien?

  Ninjas Are Butterflies. Yeah.

• 19:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Obsessed.

• 19:23Corinne Vien?

  But they cover like a lot of stories like this. They're actually, I really like their stuff. They did an episode where they were saying that the Sami people here believed that the stones were carried up there, carved and sculpted by giants. And these giants weren't just like the normal giants that like we might think of. They were almost like fallen angels. So like these beasts sent down, maybe as a punishment from the sky by these other gods. And that the giants lived here, maybe still live here, carried the stones up there, possibly descended into a cave system, a tunnel system, or spend time coming to and from via portals that could so easily exist here, based on the weird energy and things that people have experienced.

• 20:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It reminds me of that small island. It's part of Micronesia called Non-Madal. And there's like all of these legends because in order for the structures that exist on this island to have gotten there, it's like the technology that they had at the time feels impossible. And like the people of the culture talk about the giants that came similarly from like, were sent down from heavens by other gods.

• 20:28Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. So to your point, it's like very possible that it was just a group of indigenous people in the past.

• 20:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Corinne Vien?

  But the local lore and legend is that it's something more, something otherworldly. And that's sort of what's happening here. And I, so what I did find in my research was that the Sami people believe that spirits inhabit the rocks. And that these massive boulders, like this is such a sacred place to them because there's all these massive boulders that could inhabit these spirits or do inhabit these spirits. And the shamans can communicate with said spirits.

• 20:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it makes sense to me because like if my pendulum could be inhabited by a trickster spirit, why not? And like if trees are spirits.

• 21:08Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 21:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why can't rocks be?

• 21:10Corinne Vien?

  Rocks can be. You could be a rock and another everything everywhere.

• 21:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  With some googly eyes on.

• 21:16Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 21:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I have always struggled with where to put eyeshadow, but I just discovered Thrive Cosmetics new Focus Eyeshadow Palette. And it has changed the game because it has four essential shades. And then it's each labeled with where they go, like the lid, the crease, the fine or highlight. And now I have the perfect eyeshadow routine every single day.

• 21:38Corinne Vien?

  It's so great. It's such a good cheat sheet. And then even if you don't want to do the full routine, I love their brilliant eye brightener because I just slap that right on. Like I wore one of the shades of that to a little seance we did the other day.

• 21:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Spooky. Also their Liquid Lash Extension Mascara, I'm wearing it right now. It's so good. And all their products are 100% vegan, cruelty free, and made with clean, skin-loving ingredients that work with your skin, not against it. Every time I use it and I'm around my mom, she's like, ooh, will you do my makeup for me?

• 22:07Corinne Vien?

  Someone asked us the other day if we had our makeup professionally done when we were wearing a bunch of Thrive and we're like, wow, no, but thanks.

• 22:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Toss, toss.

• 22:12Corinne Vien?

  So get your new everyday favorites with 20% off your first order at thrivecosmetics.com/tgog. That's thrive cosmetics spelled C-A-U-S-E-M-E-T-I-C-S dot com slash T-G-O-G.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Born from the intensity of a night in the Eternal City. Introducing Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Masculine-leaning but unisex, Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at macys.com.

• 22:57Corinne Vien?

  Okay, so we have these stones, but then we have the forest. The trees at the summit are not like the trees in the valley below. Many are stunted, they're leafless, they're bent into these really strange, like scraggly, twisted arm shapes.

• 23:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm picturing the like trees in the woods of Visiter of Oz.

• 23:17Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, they kind of are like that.

• 23:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or Prince's Bride.

• 23:20Corinne Vien?

  Like the serpentine, like almost. The tree trunks are gnarled, blackened. Sometimes they look like they're scorched. Worched by something despite there being no sign of a fire.

• 23:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 23:30Corinne Vien?

  And so then botanists have obviously been asked about this. And they believe the phenomenon is due to the altitude and exposure. And combined with the residual damage from the ancient earthquake of nine thousand years ago. Which who am I to say that that's wrong? Botanist, sorry for the tone of my voice.

• 23:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sorry for the toot.

• 23:49Corinne Vien?

  Sorry for the toot. But basically they're like, you know, it's the earthquake and weird shit and just like it's cold and barren up there and that's just the way things grow. So basically the answer is that's just the way it is.

• 23:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yep.

• 24:00Corinne Vien?

  But other people are like, hmm, I don't know. The vibe is off here. There are reports that the air is very different. You would think that it would be thinner because you're up high, but instead it's heavier. It's charged, which reminds me a lot of the Bennington Triangle that you covered in the last two episodes. And people describe the energy as being very oppressive. Compasses will spin, birds will avoid the area and within this dead zone on Death Mountain. Sounds seem to behave oddly, almost as if the mountain is absorbing everything itself. Which is so bizarre because there's also not a bunch of like lush trees and landscape to absorb the sound. It just exists in this sort of like weird portal.

• 24:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it's also just anywhere where a compass doesn't work properly makes me question what's going on. Because like clearly there's something different in the energy and the magnet, like it, because the compasses work with magnetism.

• 24:54Corinne Vien?

  Right, it's the geomagnetic.

• 24:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, so like something is clearly different and skewed in this place.

• 25:00Corinne Vien?

  It reminds me of so many places that we've covered before, like the talk of land, uh, landlines. The talk of ley lines or even just like, you know, the places where people walk sideways or they go to like become spiritually recharged to places like Joshua Tree, like Sedona and places like that. Yeah, where like there's something a little bit off, but like this is, this is off, not in a good way. This is off and like, uh, we feel bad here.

• 25:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 25:24Corinne Vien?

  Oh, also, um, some of the, you know, how I was talking about how there's like a bunch of glacial lakes in the area. On Mount Vottovaara, the water sources, the lakes have no life in them. There's no fish or anything like that. And so then, again, geologists have done, like, extracted some samples and done some testing. And apparently it's something with like the levels of phosphorus that they believe are making it uninhabitable. But again, it's just like another thing, another thing where like, life struggles here.

• 25:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It reminds me of like, is it still water that's supposed to be like deadly?

• 25:58Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, that stuff always freaks me out.

• 26:01Corinne Vien?

  It's scary and locals call this place a cursed forest. Other people believe it's the place of spirit activity. And like I was mentioning before, there's some anomalies quite similar to other places in the world. So Mount Vottovaara is known for that sort of like peculiar magnetic anomaly with the compasses frequently malfunctioning near the summit. GPS has also become super unreliable and sensitive equipment similar to when we're doing our paranormal investigations, like cameras, recording devices, they all seem to malfunction, go dead, not operate appropriately. So scientists attribute these effects with the iron-rich rock and possible residual seismic activity underground, again with the fucking earthquake.

• 26:41Corinne Vien?

  But the strength and irregularity of the magnetic field here could, could defy easy explanation. For some paranormal researchers, the anomaly is key and they believe that Mount Vottovaara sits atop a kind of earth energy grid, so ley lines.

• 26:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 26:57Corinne Vien?

  So I was like, well, I want to figure out specifically which ley lines and what this means. So I went to maps.laylines.net. I clicked on a shit ton of ley lines because it was kind of confusing. I zoomed in on Vottovaara, Russia, and yeah, there are ley lines. What do they mean? I couldn't figure it out.

• 27:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do they intersect? Because I feel like when we were at the Conjuring House, that was such a big part of the conversation where they're like supposedly two ley lines intersect here, which opens up some energy portal.

• 27:26Corinne Vien?

  Every option. I didn't. I clicked on like maybe 20.

• 27:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 27:29Corinne Vien?

  And there was one that went through, but if I had clicked on all like 150 options or something on that website, I'm sure there probably was something that intersected, but there was one that like went like directly through it.

• 27:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting.

• 27:42Corinne Vien?

  So I don't know. I wish I did. Someone who knows how to operate that map or knows more about ley lines.

• 27:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 27:47Corinne Vien?

  Please let me know. And it's also like, this is a remote area of Russia. So it's not like it was somewhere in London or like the US where like, people are constantly researching this. And so I couldn't find articles that could explain it for me.

• 27:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 27:59Corinne Vien?

  I was left to my own devices and my devices failed.

• 28:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They didn't fail. You're just, it's still.

• 28:04Corinne Vien?

  They were limited.

• 28:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They're still calculating.

• 28:07Corinne Vien?

  Right. I'm still processing, generally, I guess, in such places with ley lines intersecting or ley lines passing through. Energy said to concentrate or be concentrated, creating conditions ripe for spirit activity. Spirit contact, dimensional slips, and even time distortion. So this is reminding me so much of the Bennington Triangle too. The whole time you were talking about it in the last two episodes, I was like, oh my God, Mount Vodavara is so much like that.

• 28:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 28:33Corinne Vien?

  Okay. And this now brings us to some strange paranormal stories. A growing number of hikers, mystics, paranormal investigators, people just curious about Mount Vodavara, they have made journey to the mountain over the last few decades since it first kind of made its way into the mainstream. And some are drawn just because they're curious, but others seek enlightenment, which I think is interesting, given that it has bad weird vibes. But I think just because of like where it is, how the Sami people also sought sort of like spiritual connection here. There is obviously still people who are like, maybe tap into the better, better energy. But not all return with clear memories. There are stories, many shared online or in hushed forums,

• 29:18Corinne Vien?

  about visitors experiencing lost time, which also reminds me of episode 35 when we did the Howbachu Forest. Cause when people enter the clearing, it's just like boom, they have no memory.

• 29:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Corinne Vien?

  Or they're just like entering these huge time slips.

• 29:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Corinne Vien?

  Hikers report taking what feels like a very brief walk, or just going up to the summit and then finding that actually hours have passed. So they still feel like they have their own consciousness and like their stream of consciousness is still going at like a normal clip, but hours have passed. So there's no like blackout. It's just. What happened to time? Like they walk through a wrinkle of time.

• 29:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It just makes me question because I don't even necessarily know what my question is. But I guess it makes me think about how when, if you were to go to a different planet, like if you were to go live on Jupiter or like even like in another galaxy, time would move differently. Like say you went to, let's use Jupiter as an example. Like you went to Jupiter and you came back to Earth. The time that passed on Jupiter would be very different than the time that passed on Earth. And like people on Earth would be way older than you are.

• 30:22Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like, can that exist? Can that exist though, within Earth itself? Are there places where time does move differently?

• 30:35Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I don't know physics, like physics wise, if that's even possible, because I guess time is based on the rotation around the sun. So I don't know, but like, it sounds like that is what's happening.

• 30:46Corinne Vien?

  It's all so confusing.

• 30:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I wish I was smarter.

• 30:49Corinne Vien?

  Me too, but also I'll say this, even the smartest people in the world who are, are trying to explain these things, a lot of it is still just theory. So.

• 30:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hard to calculate in like hard fact.

• 31:02Corinne Vien?

  All right. So hikers have said that they feel like only minutes have passed, but actually their watches show that they have been gone for hours. Several witnesses claimed to see lights floating amongst the stones. There's like glowing orbs that are unexplained. Some are white. Some people say that they have this like bluish hue to them. And they hover silently and then they vanish. One account from 2016 tells of a small group who were camping overnight near the summit. And then they awoke to find that the firewood that they had arranged at their campsite was now in a perfect circle. And apparently there had been some like strange symbols drawn in ash and there was.

• 31:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What?

• 31:41Corinne Vien?

  Tents moved. But again, like I'm very uncertain. This is like one of those hard places to research because there's just not a ton of information about it. So you're like, what is creative writing and what is true accounts?

• 31:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. And I think that's the case with like most paranormal or a lot, I wouldn't say most, but a lot of paranormal things that are more legend and lore. Because you can find factual history about like a building, right?

• 32:05Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 32:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And if there's murders or crimes that have happened there, you can find newspaper articles and whatnot.

• 32:11Corinne Vien?

  Right. And even with the paranormal experiences, oftentimes they'll be like, okay, well, here's 20 reports of people seeing the same thing.

• 32:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Corinne Vien?

  But with this, it's really, we're really limited. So it is hard. But people have also reported on some ghostly figures, that they'll see these pale forms moving around the rocks. So it does make me wonder if the orbs in these like full-bodied apparitions are like one in the same and people are just seeing different versions of the spirits.

• 32:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What if this is just like a fairy mountain, like the fae live there?

• 32:37Corinne Vien?

  That would be so cool. Or just the spirits that inhabit the rocks. Sometimes they just like come out of the rocks and show themselves.

• 32:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Corinne Vien?

  Which is also like another thing, why are they showing, can you choose how you present yourself? Because I feel like a rock spirit, can't you just be anything? Do you have to be a human?

• 32:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or are they creating their human form by mimicking each person who comes to visit? They steal one little, like jeepers creepers, where'd you get that skin?

• 33:03Corinne Vien?

  Hmm.

• 33:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Um, or where'd you get those eyes, I should say, but they are mimicking.

• 33:06Corinne Vien?

  Skin is so much creepier to say.

• 33:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Skin is creepier. They're just picking and choosing their favorites.

• 33:12Corinne Vien?

  They're studying, studying everyone's face.

• 33:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like the, um, movie The Watchers.

• 33:17Corinne Vien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  With Dakota Fanning. We've talked about that a lot lately because we've been talking a lot about the woods.

• 33:22Corinne Vien?

  We're weirdly drawn to the woods again. It's because we've been inside for winter, so we're like really thinking about.

• 33:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Let's get outside.

• 33:28Corinne Vien?

  What's outside? What is it like out there? I forget.

• 33:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I forget.

• 33:32Corinne Vien?

  Let me research it instead of walking outside. Some people also believe that these are not necessarily spirits, or maybe they are. But there's a lot of talk of aliens here.

• 33:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yep.

• 33:45Corinne Vien?

  Alien watchers, abduction, sightings of UFOs, explanations for possible lost time. And the air many claim changes on the summit. It's not just colder, it's not just denser. It also feels like time is moving more slowly, sounds muffled. And there is this almost like constant sensation of being watched. So what is watching?

• 34:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm not sure.

• 34:09Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 34:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  See, this is, okay, if we were. If we were to pause being podcasters for just like a year, I would love to study the similarities between different mountain ranges and like rock formations that have similar experiences, like the Bennington Triangle and Glastonbury Mountain, the Appalachian Mountains, the Adirondacks, like even like superstition mountains, like all of these different things. They have so many similar characteristics and experiences that it's like, why? What is it about them? Can you study rocks from them? Can you go deeper into the ley lines and energetic fields and measure, like quantify those measurements to try to understand some similarities?

• 34:54Corinne Vien?

  Greg and Dana Newkirk need a suggestion box because they go places.

• 34:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We have a suggestion box for Greg and Dana Newkirk and it's called our group chat where we text them.

• 35:03Corinne Vien?

  We just constantly like brain dump, brain dump.

• 35:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, because they do cool shit and we want cool shit to happen.

• 35:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, and we want to do cool shit with them.

• 35:12Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 35:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We want them to adopt us.

• 35:14Corinne Vien?

  We've talked about that a lot. So despite its eerie reputation, Mount Bodavara has also become a pilgrimage site for sort of modern spiritualists, neo pagans, and also the UFO enthusiasts, obviously. Surprisingly, no Bigfoot talk here. Oh, scoffing. On solstice days, some travel to the summit to meditate or to conduct rituals, which I'll bring up Peru one more time. I've told you this in Peru, I don't know if they do this every solstice, but I was there for the summer solstice back in, I don't know, many years ago. And it was so cool. We had gone through the sun gate and we're sitting like right at the top of Machu Picchu, like looking down onto the site.

• 35:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 35:51Corinne Vien?

  And there was this like man in a big white robe with like this huge staff and all these people in like white robes. And they were, they were doing a ritual, which like we couldn't hear.

• 36:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 36:00Corinne Vien?

  Because we weren't like, but we were observing it. It was so cool. And we got there like in the dark before the sun rose because it started with the sun rising. So like the sun is like barely peeking over the mountain, starting to like move and hit the actual site, like the ruins of Machu Picchu. And you're watching this like huge, tall man like do this. Yeah, it was, I don't even know what I. Saw, but it was still one of the coolest things that I've seen.

• 36:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Beyond even just the mysteries that we're pontificating about right now, there's so much in our world, in different cultures, in different societies that we can observe and we can learn about that I want to learn. Like, I think is so fascinating. Like, I wish that I could just observe everyone in all the different cultures.

• 36:43Corinne Vien?

  You could be a god, and then you can.

• 36:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I look forward to the afterlife for that.

• 36:47Corinne Vien?

  You want to be the watcher.

• 36:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't want to be god. That seems like too big of a responsibility. I'll just be like, a little like, plebe who runs around.

• 36:56Corinne Vien?

  I want to be a plebe.

• 36:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I want to be a plebe. A poor spirit who has access to everywhere.

• 37:01Corinne Vien?

  A fairy, a forest fairy.

• 37:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I could do that, too.

• 37:04Corinne Vien?

  The Sami people, for their part, continue to treat the mountain with respect. And while much of their ancient lore was lost under Soviet oppression, what survives suggests that they considered such places very sacred and spirit inhabited places.

• 37:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 37:19Corinne Vien?

  Or spaces, I should say. Today, there are no fences around Vottovaara. There is no official protection. There's no like hike out at sunset, hike in at sunrise or whatever. There's, there's no restrictions to spike calls from scientists and some historians to put in some effort to preserve this site, since obviously there's, you know, like, we can say everything that we want to say about the energy of the place, but like, there are such clear, like, thousands and thousands of rock formations. And it'd be like having no access point almost to Machu Picchu, right? Where it's like, okay, here's this place that's very culturally significant and shows the clear work of people of the past.

• 38:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That you want to preserve.

• 38:02Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, but anyone can go up there. Anyone can touch the boulder. Anyone can push rocks down.

• 38:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like going to the Louvre and Mona Lisa's not protected and you can just literally like touch her.

• 38:10Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, that's basically what it is. So there's, there's a big call for this to be better preserved, but it remains unguarded. But at least it's not the easiest to get to. Mount Vottovaara defies easy explanation. It's a convergence of geological wonder, ancient mystery, and paranormal intrigue. And whether this is just a natural marvel, the result of a 9,000 year Old quake, the Sami people, the place where giants existed or exist. Mount Vodavara remains an enigma.

• 38:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 38:40Corinne Vien?

  That's Death Mountain.

• 38:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Death Mountain.

• 38:42Corinne Vien?

  Death Mountain.

• 38:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It is interesting because I feel like in the stories, there don't seem to be many stories of death. It's not like people are going up there and dying.

• 38:51Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 38:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's just like-

• 38:52Corinne Vien?

  No one's like going missing, they're just missing time.

• 38:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it's like, almost like flora and fauna can't thrive up there.

• 38:59Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 38:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So it's not death, but lack of life, which I guess could be called death.

• 39:04Corinne Vien?

  I feel like it's one of those places where like, I'm not encouraging anyone to go since obviously there's, there's a call for it to be more protected and for it to be like studied more and preserve what's very likely to be some early Sami culture present, but it is interesting just how divided people seem to be with their experiences there, where some people feel like it's really off. It's really scary. It's they're being watched.

• 39:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 39:27Corinne Vien?

  And other people feel extremely connected to the other side.

• 39:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe it's a little bit of also like what you bring into it, like what-

• 39:34Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You're seeking.

• 39:36Corinne Vien?

  But also it makes me wonder if the mountain chooses.

• 39:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Scary. I don't know. It does make me now want to, because I feel like we've done a couple of paranormal investigations in haunted homes. And yes, we've done, you know, we've used Ghost Tube or done some like paranormal activity and interaction in cemeteries. But like, what about a mountain? What about a, and I'm not saying let's go to Mount Vodavara, but like, what about Mount Washington?

• 40:03Corinne Vien?

  I was just gonna say, I always talk about Mount Washington, how easy that would be for us to just like, spend a day hiking one of the trails in Mount Washington, spend the night at the hotel.

• 40:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 40:12Corinne Vien?

  Best of both worlds.

• 40:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. I'd be curious. Stay tuned, maybe we'll do it. I wasn't really sure what the story was about, so I picked two stories. One is about a Russian grandmother and then another is about an eerie forest experience.

• 40:29Corinne Vien?

  Let's start with the forest and end with the grandma.

• 40:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 41:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So this is from our listener Briar, and it's called Eerie Forest Song. Hi guys, I'm a fairly new listener, although I've popped in a few times over the years. I've been loving your Appalachian episodes and realized it sort of sounds familiar to some stuff that happened to me and my best friend. However, I live nowhere near the Appalachian Mountains, more like the opposite side of the country in northwest Oregon. This story takes place about four to five years ago, but lives on in my mind, and I'm sure in my friends as well, rent free. So let's dive into the story. Growing up, I would go to my great grandma's 20-acre forested land quite often. It's nestled up on this mountain, has beautiful views, and I was sort of a wild only child, so I ran around the entire property with a pack of dogs, practically doing patrols.

• 42:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was very used to this forest. I practically knew all of the ins and outs, and I had made different forts in every corner. When you're an only child with the company of just dogs in the forest and reading books, you tend to let your creativity run loose. At least I did. Anyway, along these years, I made a new friend through this 4-H Animal Club who I'll call Rosie. She quickly became a good friend of mine, and crazy enough, she lived a mile or two From my great grandmas. She also was nestled up on a 20 acre property that was butted up against BLM land. What's BLM?

• 42:51Corinne Vien?

  It's the Bureau of Land Management. So I think it's just like US federal land.

• 42:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, well, that makes sense because Briar said, so that was free for us to explore as well.

• 42:59Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 43:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. For a while, whenever I would go to her place, we would work on this one area, building forts for each other, practically making a village. Anyway, we both read a lot of books and also believed in fae and all sorts of folklore stories. And even though we believed this and had our superstitions, we both felt as if we were always being watched there. The area where we were making forts was about a mile or 800 meters away from the house. I did track, so meters is easier for me to gauge distance now. We weren't necessarily far from the house, but there's a lot of brush, trees and briar bushes all around, and it was usually wet since we're in Oregon. Anyway, this presence that we felt never seemed negative, but there was a stream that ran off the side quite close to where we were building forts. And for some reason, we were both very drawn to it.

• 43:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And one day, we decided to hike down to the stream to see how far it would take us, because what's the worst that could happen? Anyways, we did not come unprepared. Since we both believed in fae and all that jazz, we brought a pack of crackers and extra salt to put on it in case anything were to mess with it. Fairies don't like bread or salt.

• 44:02Corinne Vien?

  I didn't know that. Interesting. Wow.

• 44:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We also brought two knives, and I had a necklace with an iron pendant, which was to ward away fae. We marched off, starting at our fort village, and it was a wet, cold hike, but it was so much fun. We balanced on logs that had fallen across the stream. We found so many nooks and crannies where the creek was especially pretty. It was fun. However, the deeper we went into the forest, the more and more we felt watched. Note that this stream is practically in a little valley, so there are steep forested areas all around us. On top of these hills is where we felt watched. I swear I could see shadows running across, following us as we delve deeper and deeper. Rosie, my friend, agreed. We were both on edge, and this was only 30 minutes into our hike. Oh, and whenever we would start talking about these suspicions, leaves would start falling.

• 44:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it was weird because they only seemed to fall when we would talk. About whatever was watching us.

• 44:54Corinne Vien?

  That is strange. It's like the forest spirits are trying to give a warning.

• 44:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. I also like to think that like something was keeping an eye on them. They're two young kids.

• 45:03Corinne Vien?

  Hmm. Maybe it was the trees.

• 45:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It could have been the trees.

• 45:06Corinne Vien?

  Hey, watch what you're saying because you don't want to call upon something darker in these woods.

• 45:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. Regardless, we kept walking. For some reason, we really wanted to see what was at the end of the stream. An hour passed. We got deeper and deeper. We kept feeling more and more watched. And not only that, I was in front at the time and started to notice that everything, like the leaves and trees, even the cracker I was about to eat, started to get a shimmer, a shine, like it was sparkly. It was as if glitter was spilled everywhere on the nature. We both started to get really uneasy, but still thought light of it. That was until we split up for a moment for a restroom break. Rosie went up to the side of one of the hills to go behind a tree, and I found a nook of a dead tree that I had to jump down into next to the stream. When I went down there, I heard singing, a literal song, and it sounded like a middle aged woman,

• 45:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  and it was beautiful. But I was so confused. Why was someone singing? Who was this? It's definitely not my friend, and it sounded nearby, close to me. I looked around, nothing. But I felt these prying eyes even more intensely now. When I looked up at the side of the hill, I swear I saw shadows on horses or something, like a whole line of them, just looking down. Had they been following us this whole time? It was weird. I didn't get a bad vibe from the singing, but I sure did with those shadow creatures. The singing almost made me feel safe, and when I tried to picture it in my mind, a maiden with very long chocolate brown hair came to mind. It was very specific. The shadows seemed to disappear, and when my friend came back, she also seemed a bit distressed,

• 46:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  saying that she felt watched and swore that she was seeing shadow people as well. I told her about the song, and she seemed utterly shocked, and it had only happened moments before, but stopped right before my friend came back. Regardless, who were the shadow people? Why were they watching us so intently? It felt as if we were being hunted. It felt like we were close to a veil of some sorts. And there was like a mist along the field of grass. Was it from the fae? When we saw this field with mist, we decided we should not go there. So we stayed in that spot for a little while where the stream had expanded with a sort of small pool. Everything felt so whimsical. We both were baby witches at the time, still kind of are, but we had less knowledge than we do now.

• 47:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  However, both of us had strong intuitions and strange dreams as well. We even shared dreams at the time. That was probably one of the reasons why we grew so close. I'll share some of that in another email, but back to the story. So we made it to this little place and felt safe. We didn't feel watched here, which was strange because the entire tide leading up to it, we definitely were being watched. Then, right before we were about to leave, I'm pretty sure we saw a man. I don't know what to tell you, but he was like a middle aged man. I don't think it was a hunter. And we were deep in the forest. I don't know, it was strange, but we decided to head as quickly as we could back to Rosie's house. We had no service. My phone was practically dead and of course our fight or flight kicked in.

• 47:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So we decided to choose flight because how would two 14 year olds fight off a man or even some kind of spirit or whatever it was? So we headed back up those rolling forested hills as fast as we could as if mountain goats or something. And once we finally got home, I thought maybe we were gone for two and a half hours, but it was more like four. I don't know, it was a very crazy experience and this forest felt nothing like the forest just down the hill, a tiny bit at my grandma's house. There was a vibe off of it, which makes me wonder if this is like the government land. Is it government land because they know that something's going on there?

• 48:31Corinne Vien?

  Exactly.

• 48:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like no one else can have it?

• 48:32Corinne Vien?

  Area 51.

• 48:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. A year or two later, I found out that there used to be a native tribe up there and there was a chief named Crooked Finger. And that's why the main road is called Crooked Finger, not just because it has a million corners. So yeah, that was a really crazy day. I have no idea who was singing, but it sounded so real. There was definitely something supernatural or otherworldly happening here. I wonder what you two think. Stay safe and happy ghosting, Briar.

• 48:57Corinne Vien?

  Happy ghosting, I like that. Gosh, I don't know, the women singing, the weird vibes, the trees releasing leaves to warn you or silence you.

• 49:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know.

• 49:08Corinne Vien?

  It does feel like there's something, like there's something off about that place.

• 49:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And like, seeing shadows of horses and like men on horses, like,

• 49:16Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 49:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It almost reminds me of the Night Marchers, like this like tribal militia of ghosts.

• 49:22Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. It's also one of those things where it's like, maybe none of this is connected. Maybe it's just like a place that has a bunch of activity, like there's just a lot going on on on this land, which just sounds like there's a lot of land in this space that's like not overly populated. There's not houses on houses on houses.

• 49:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Twenty miles of open land.

• 49:41Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, that sounds nice.

• 49:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, now we're gonna end with Russian grandmother, who is so magical.

• 49:48Corinne Vien?

  Ooh, okay.

• 49:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is from our listener Pamela and it is called Spooky and Strange Stories. Hello. Good evening, ladies. Pamela sent this email in 2019. I saw your podcast advertised on Stitcher for the upcoming offerings to enjoy Halloween. I am hooked and I've been staying up until three or four in the mornings, listening to as many episodes as I can. I thought I would share experiences with my family, so I'm gonna tell you about my grandmother. She was a very shy, quiet woman who was small in stature, but made a very big impact on everyone she met. Born in 1905, she resided in rural northern Wisconsin until her death in 1989. She and my grandfather had four children, three daughters and one son. I grew up knowing that my grandmother had certain skills.

• 50:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  One of the earliest stories my mother told me was of my grandma and her violin. My mom, the eldest, told me that my grandmother would play her violin and immediately go into a trance-like state.

• 50:43Corinne Vien?

  Ah.

• 50:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Nothing would faze her when she would get like this. My mom said the house could have burnt down around her and she would have continued playing, unnoticed the fire.

• 50:52Corinne Vien?

  I love this.

• 50:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My mom said that she grew to hate the violin and apparently my grandfather felt the very same way. One day, he became so angry, he took the violin, threw it out the front door, and as it spun across the ice, it eventually came to a stop. After a few seconds, my mom said that they watched it combust and burst into flames.

• 51:10Corinne Vien?

  What?

• 51:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They all watched stunned. I think it was probably the friction of the violin on the ice, but my mom was not convinced. Another story regarding my grandmother's special skills is during the Algar Hiss Trial in December of 1948. Whittaker Chambers was an American writer editor, a former member of the Communist Party and Soviet spy from 1932 until his defection from the Soviet underground in 1938. He became increasingly disturbed by Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, which began in 1936. So a lot of history here, but it leads up to something very interesting. Upon the murder of a high-ranking spy and a disappearance of another who were disillusioned with Stalin and the Purge, Chambers began to fear for his own life. Ignoring several orders to travel to Moscow,

• 51:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  he began to conceal documents from his sources. Rules of microfilm photographs of documents were kept to prevent the Soviets from killing him and his family. These were stored in a dumbwaiter at the home of his relatives, and Chambers admitted publicly to being a former spy.

• 52:11Corinne Vien?

  Wow.

• 52:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  In August of 1948, Chambers was called to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee, where he gave names of people that were part of the underground. Of course, this was huge news, and discussions were on all the radio shows. As Chambers said he had documents proving all of this, discussions were even on the small-town radio stations where my grandmother lived. As people called in to join in on the talks, my grandmother called and said that the evidence was hidden inside of a pumpkin. Of course, they thought my grandmother was calling in as a prank, but she kept calling back, reiterating that the documents of proof were in a pumpkin. She wouldn't let it go. By this time, the radio host was getting sick of her and hang up on her, not even allowing her calls to go on air. On December 5, 1948,

• 52:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The Evening Star of Washington DC published an article that stated, "Armed with a subpoena, investigators visited the Westminster, Maryland home of Chambers, where they found the small cans of film hidden inside a pumpkin."

• 53:09Corinne Vien?

  I can't even describe the feeling that just went like from my throat, down into my heart, and down into my stomach. Because that is-

• 53:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So specific.

• 53:16Corinne Vien?

  So specific. Also, it takes a certain amount of bravery to call in with the information. Because what if you become a suspect?

• 53:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think they like lived so far away, though. But these documents have now been known in history as the Pumpkin Papers.

• 53:34Corinne Vien?

  Oh, oh my god.

• 53:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, then when I was in eighth or ninth grade, my grandmother called one evening and begged my mother to keep us all together that evening as she was fearful that something terrible was going to happen to someone in the family. She made my mother promise to call her first thing in the morning to report in on our status. My mother spoke to her sisters, who said that my grandmother insisted that they all come to her house and stay the night. She wanted everyone together to know that they were safe. My uncle also received the same phone call we did and promised to call the next morning. When Grandma was this insistent, no one asked questions. Everyone just did what she said. So, after all the phone calls were returned the next morning and everything was okay, Grandma still felt uneasy. Her fears were not unfounded. Because as she came to find out, and as we all came to find out that morning,

• 54:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  the evening prior, my mother's cousin and her daughter were tragically murdered. Now, for some more meat of my story, as if we haven't already gotten to the meat, this happened after my mother was married and out of the house. The only two children left at home were my mom's youngest sister and their brother. This particular evening, both my aunt and uncle were at a dance at the high school. My mom's other sister, who detailed this story, had stopped by the house to visit my grandparents with her new baby. Now, I've never known my grandfather to be anything other than brave. When he was a kid and too small to help with the farming, he would go and pick blueberries in the woods, miles from their house, for his mother to can and use over the winter. He would be given sandwiches and packed up for two days with buckets to fill with blueberries,

• 55:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  a loaded gun and ammo in case he came upon a bear and was sent off. For days. He was also a great hunter-

• 55:09Corinne Vien?

  What a way to grow up.

• 55:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  He was also a great hunter, fisherman, and carpenter. Always watching a penny, when they decided to add on the house, he was on the lookout for a bargain. Now, near this house, there was a community of Native Americans living, and apparently they had experienced a few fires that damaged some homes. Some of the wood that was unaffected in the structures were for sale, and my grandfather advised not to purchase any of this wood because he felt it would bring nothing good with it. But, it was added to their home. And as it was, strange things began to happen. The barn, garage, and pump house doors and lights were often found open or on after being- Locked up and off for the night. This particular night, as my aunt stopped by with her baby for a visit, she said my grandfather came out of the bedroom with his gun, was angry. She had never seen him like this.

• 55:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She still had her baby in her arms, turned and ran out of the house and down the driveway. She didn't know what was going on and she felt scared. My grandmother called her brother-in-law, who lived on the next farm, and my great uncle came over, and he too felt frightened. He insisted my grandparents and their son and daughter all stay overnight at their house instead that evening. But my grandfather refused to leave and insisted my grandmother go and wait for their son and daughter to return from the school dance. My grandmother then called the priest and asked him to come out to the house, bless and perform an exorcism on it. The priest came out and with him came the police chief and a mayor. They were all wondering what was going on. I love this idea that the like, police chief and the mayor are like, a little nosy, wanted to check it out.

• 56:35Corinne Vien?

  It feels like a fictionalized, like scripted TV show, right? Like Riverdale.

• 56:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Once there, the priest refused to step foot in the house while the police chief and mayor also refused to get out of the car for they had terrible feelings. My grandfather never spoke of the events in the house that night when he was alone, but he said it was the worst night he had ever spent in his entire life. So I don't really know what happened. I don't know if these things tend to be inherited or not, but I have seen things in my eldest daughter. When she was small, her uncle was stationed in Germany and his wife was expecting their first child. One night, she added to her prayers. For God bless her new baby girl cousin. Next morning, we got a call. And sure enough, a baby girl was born at around the same time that my daughter was saying her prayers.

• 57:21Corinne Vien?

  Oh my gosh, this is so cool.

• 57:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She also told her Sunday school teacher that she had a baby brother. I had not delivered at this time and I did not know the sex of my baby. When my father was dying of cancer, it was not unusual for me to run over to his home at night because there were many false alarms. The evening he died, I called my mother first and then I called home to let my husband know. He asked what time my dad had passed. And I told him, he said to me that he had let the kids stay up a little later that night as it was a weekend and no school was the next day. And during her prayers, our eldest daughter, once again, asked God to bless her granddad, who was now in heaven. I told him and apparently the time she was praying was the exact same time my father had passed.

• 58:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My last story is after my dad passed away. We wanted him buried up north with his twin sister who had died when they were two and a half years old. He was to be buried in a cemetery that someone had donated to the church years ago and was set quite a distance off from the main road. Due to the weather and pipeline construction that summer and a gravel road, the trucks needed to dig the grave were too heavy to go back there without sinking. So my dad was put in cold storage. And my kids like to say he was a popsicle. He was put in cold storage until spring and I received a phone call and said that they could get back in there and we were able to be there in two days. So my husband liked to leave at 2:00 a.m. when we took that 350 mile drive up there. This visit was no different.

• 58:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  After the burial, lunch with my mom and a drive back, this was all done within a 24 hour period. When we got home, our phone rang. Now, I would not wake up during tornadoes, nothing, so I could not believe that my husband didn't hear the phone ring. I heard it and I answered it. And I hear, "Hi." I asked, "Who am I speaking to?" The voice on the other end said, "Oh, how soon they forget." It was my dad.

• 59:14Corinne Vien?

  What?

• 59:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I told him it couldn't be him as we just buried him earlier that day. And he was like, "Did you look in the casket?" I told him, "Of course I didn't look in the casket." And then he said jokingly, "Then you'll never be too sure, huh?" He hung up. I stood there with the phone in my hand.

• 59:30Corinne Vien?

  What?

• 59:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Called to wake up my husband. He insisted that he never heard the phone ring. I really have no idea. Did I speak to my dad? Was this something else? Was my dad playing joke on me?

• 59:41Corinne Vien?

  Do you get one phone call when you die, just like when you're arrested?

• 59:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Who knows? Maybe.

• 59:47Corinne Vien?

  Or it's like, you get to choose from these five things. What do you want? And a phone call is one of them?

• 59:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm also curious if this is like very similar to what her dad was like in life. But this is, this is from Pamela. We got a whole family history of hauntings.

• 1:00:01Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God. Pamela, your family is very powerful.

• 1:00:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Very.

• 1:00:07Corinne Vien?

  I don't even know what to say, but I don't have to say it because I bet your family already knows what I'm thinking.

• 1:00:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You're that in tune. The pumpkin thing, the pumpkin papers is wild.

• 1:00:17Corinne Vien?

  Because that's like, there's no relation to those people, right? It's just.

• 1:00:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I wonder if there's records of the radio. Because she was on the radio at least like once, but then she kept calling and then they were like, we're not putting you on air.

• 1:00:30Corinne Vien?

  I want to know the conversations that the radio station had afterwards. Yeah. Oh, my God, that pumpkin woman who used to keep calling that was screening your calls. And then it's like, what are people's reactions? Because I feel like people can either be amazed or terrified of that person, you know?

• 1:00:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 1:00:47Corinne Vien?

  Or both. I don't know. Maybe in love. Am I in love with your grandma?

• 1:00:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I am. And your daughter is so magical and in tune.

• 1:00:55Corinne Vien?

  I know. And how sweet that Pamela's finding things out from her daughter, just adding to her prayers.

• 1:01:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Corinne Vien?

  Like, just adding in good intentions or just like

• 1:01:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Corinne Vien?

  in a conversation, just adding little bits and details here and there. But she clearly doesn't understand. Or maybe it doesn't seem remarkable to her because she doesn't understand like how impressive it is. That what she's

• 1:01:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Corinne Vien?

  what she's experiencing is not like just known by everyone.

• 1:01:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, that's why I'm curious, Pamela, how old your daughter is now? And if she remembers, like, what is she seeing? Did she get a visit from your dad? Did she get a visit from the baby girl who was born? Like, is she astral projecting? What is the visual or the information that she's getting in these moments?

• 1:01:42Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What's the download?

• 1:01:43Corinne Vien?

  Tell us.

• 1:01:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Tell us.

• 1:01:45Corinne Vien?

  Tell us everything.

• 1:01:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  All of you, tell us everything. Spill your secrets, paranormal or not. Email us at [email protected]. I really want to do it like a non-paranormal episode, but like just really fucking creepy, weird things that have happened in your life.

• 1:02:00Corinne Vien?

  In anyone's lives?

• 1:02:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, that's a good, I mean,

• 1:02:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Corinne Vien?

  because it doesn't always have to be paranormal. It's just, this is a podcast of strangeness.

• 1:02:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, unusualness. Things that leave you petrified. Or questioning, itching, scratching your head, being like, huh?

• 1:02:17Corinne Vien?

  A mystery, if you will.

• 1:02:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes. So email us all of that. And if you want episodes ad-free and one week early, plus bonus content, plus campfire stories every Tuesday, join us over on Patreon. It's a good time.

• 1:02:30Corinne Vien?

  Thank you to Jamie for editing and producing our podcast. And thank you to all of you.

• 1:02:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We love you.

• 1:02:35Corinne Vien?

  And we will. See you on the other side.

• 1:02:42Speaker 04

  Very spooky.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

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