Encounters x286 - Hiking Horror Stories

Grab your bug spray and your bravery — this week, we’re heading deep into the woods. In this Encounters episode, we’re sharing spine-chilling stories of camping trips gone paranormally wrong from listeners just like you. What was that noise outside the tent? What was that bright flash of light? Who – and WHAT is lurking in the forest at night? Aliens? Humans? Bigfoot? Or something else entirely? All we know for certain is that we are not packing our bags and going camping anytime soon… but we know YOU are and it’s best to stay alert. Stories Include: Haunted Appalachia Trail tales A camper's dad sees a doppelgänger leading him into the woods — but she’s standing right beside him. Haunted bathrooms on the Machu Picchu trail, complete with a lurking shadow outside the stall. A man in the forest claims he’s been aboard the mothership — and offers a book about his alien travels. A woodland trail (or portal?) in Australia marked by creepy dolls, unreal sounding birds, and a cow-shaped spirit waiting in the trees. Whether it’s Bigfoot energy, inter-dimensional tricksters, or humans being the scariest things in the forest, this episode will have you rethinking your next hike. Stay safe, stay spooky — and maybe don’t venture off into the woods alone. Scooter LaForge tees (as seen on White Lotus and Sabrina). Instagram 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.

• 0:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm so excited. I'm getting my whole body MRI scan from Prenuvo in a couple of weeks.

• 0:05Corinne Vien?

  It's honestly so important. It's like one of those things where getting older and aging has provided me so many anxieties about like what's going on.

• 0:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I recently had some medical issues in my family and everyone in my family is like, let's just do everything we can to get ahead and take our own health into our own hands. Prenuvo's whole body scan is a radiation-free MRI designed to help provide a detailed, non-invasive look at your body in under an hour, and it helps evaluate across major organs and systems, including the brain, spine, abdomen, pelvis, and more. Prenuvo's whole body scan can help detect many cancers, aneurysms, and hundreds of other conditions. And they have memberships that bundle MRI scans, blood panels, and a personalized results review to track your health year after year.

• 0:47Corinne Vien?

  To learn more about Prenuvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenuvo.com/tgog and use code TGOG. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com/tgog. Terms and conditions apply.

• 1:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Receive $300 off Prenuvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenuvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenuvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenuvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider.

• 1:17Speaker 02

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• 2:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hi.

• 2:10Corinne Vien?

  Hello.

• 2:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 2:12Corinne Vien?

  Two Girls, One Ghost. And we're Ghostesses. That is Corinne.

• 2:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hi.

• 2:17Corinne Vien?

  And I'm Sabrina, and we are gonna venture into the wilderness. Oh, I dressed appropriately.

• 2:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is giving like really fun camp counselor vibes, but where the heck did you get that shirt?

• 2:28Corinne Vien?

  Okay, yes, this is a story to tell.

• 2:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because I've never seen anything like it.

• 2:34Corinne Vien?

  You have, on White Lotus.

• 2:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So in season three, they go to a full moon party.

• 2:39Corinne Vien?

  Oh, wait, I haven't seen season three.

• 2:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 2:41Corinne Vien?

  It's okay, you can.

• 2:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, I'm not giving away any concept.

• 2:44Corinne Vien?

  Mine, spoilers.

• 2:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, this is not a spoiler at all, I promise, for anyone who's listening. They go to a full moon party in Thailand, and they're wearing these alien shirts, and they're oversized, and I was like, I need that, and I need to know where it's from. And so I took to the interwebs and did my sleuthing, and I found it's this artist named Scooter La Forge. And so he has some shirts. They're all like custom made.

• 3:09Corinne Vien?

  So I'm wearing art.

• 3:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so we can't even get that exact same. They did have, I think, a couple of this one, but they're all like handmade.

• 3:18Corinne Vien?

  But they're all a little different, yeah, because I can see it, and it like, I know that it's the same, but it's also different.

• 3:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 3:24Corinne Vien?

  Oh, this is so cool.

• 3:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, so I couldn't get the exact one, but this alien option was available. So I got this, and then I also got a Joker one.

• 3:32Corinne Vien?

  Ooh, I have one that is Crisco. A can of Crisco. These are, ooh, ooh, the Joker one is creepy, Sabrina.

• 3:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So we'll link it in the show notes for anyone if you want. But yeah, I was like,

• 3:46Corinne Vien?

  Wow.

• 3:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What do I wear today? And I found this alien shirt. So we are gonna venture into the woods.

• 3:54Corinne Vien?

  Yes, we are.

• 3:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Into the depths.

• 3:56Corinne Vien?

  And how appropriate that one of our listeners sent us some things collected from the woods. And also, we have an artist right here. Here.

• 4:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is Josh.

• 4:05Corinne Vien?

  Josh made this for us. Thank you, Josh.

• 4:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  On Instagram X, @joshgx.

• 4:10Corinne Vien?

  Incredible.

• 4:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It is incredible. And it's good because it's like, you're next to me, I'm next to you.

• 4:16Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 4:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 4:17Corinne Vien?

  Not to confuse anyone. And then one of our listeners, sorry, unfortunately, we often lose the notes that come with the gifts because we're so excited. We read the note,

• 4:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then.

• 4:27Corinne Vien?

  Open the present, scream, and throw everything everywhere.

• 4:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Corinne Vien?

  And that happened here. So we have wheat from a crop circle, Lincoln, Nebraska.

• 4:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And Bigfoot fur sample from Oregon in 1971.

• 4:39Corinne Vien?

  So cool. What does it smell like?

• 4:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know.

• 4:42Corinne Vien?

  Let me examine.

• 4:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You are a scent oriented person.

• 4:45Corinne Vien?

  Interesting. These hairs are short. Short haired Bigfoot.

• 4:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  He had alopecia.

• 4:52Corinne Vien?

  And it's a little blonde, but it's appropriate because we have themed this encounters episode.

• 4:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Camping.

• 4:59Corinne Vien?

  Hiking.

• 4:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Woods.

• 5:00Corinne Vien?

  Terrifying things that happen to people when they go out into the woods. And we have determined we could do an entire episode.

• 5:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No.

• 5:08Corinne Vien?

  We could do a whole podcast.

• 5:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We could do, we are about to do a whole.

• 5:11Corinne Vien?

  We are doing a whole.

• 5:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We could do an entire podcast based on purely the stories you all have sent us on camping and hiking. And so this was really, really hard to narrow it down and pick. We picked six stories, but it was really hard.

• 5:23Corinne Vien?

  Which were, I mean, we're gonna do this topic a million more times.

• 5:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 5:26Corinne Vien?

  If you've listened to the podcast in the past, you know that this is like the 18th time we've done this.

• 5:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 5:30Corinne Vien?

  Topic anyway.

• 5:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Corinne Vien?

  And you had picked your stories first before I did. And in doing so, you couldn't release one of the stories who you gave it to me to read. You're like, what, put one in there? Should I start with that one? Because I didn't read it so that it would be a surprise.

• 5:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, do it.

• 5:46Corinne Vien?

  It's called Camping Horror Story.

• 5:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 5:48Corinne Vien?

  Let's see. Let's see what Sabrina picked for me.

• 5:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There were so many, like, I had to stop myself because it was one of those things where every story I clicked on, I wanted to read.

• 5:59Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 5:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So.

• 6:00Corinne Vien?

  I was trying to find ways to categorize, to like, put them into other.

• 6:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Into other future episodes.

• 6:04Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  How do I still read this?

• 6:05Corinne Vien?

  How do we rearrange all of our future encounters episodes? So we can just make all of them. It's kind of like how we all of a sudden became all Appalachia stories. We're obsessed.

• 6:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Appalachia's like potato chips. Can't have just one.

• 6:18Corinne Vien?

  Apparently you're all obsessed too, so.

• 6:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay. Ready campers?

• 6:22Corinne Vien?

  Ready campers.

• 6:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Everyone get your flashlights and your compass and let's hike out into the woods.

• 6:27Corinne Vien?

  Hey, girls.

• 6:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And ghosts.

• 6:29Corinne Vien?

  I'm a brand new listener and I've been binging all of your episodes when I get ready for. School in the morning. It's the best way to start off my day. To start this, I would like to stay anonymous. I've had social anxiety and I don't like being the center of attention, but I have been wanting to share this story. So, thank you. Okay, what should we call this person?

• 6:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Um, Bigfoot.

• 6:47Corinne Vien?

  B.

• 6:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, or B.

• 6:48Corinne Vien?

  B. Okay. Sorry.

• 6:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  BFF, BF.

• 6:50Corinne Vien?

  BF. I'm a senior in high school and I live in Utah Valley. Living in Utah is an interesting experience, to say the least. But I love the nature aspect of it. One of my favorite hobbies is to go backpacking with my dad and my dog. This happened not even a year ago. Me and my dad had packed up all of our gear to put in our car before church. After the service, we headed straight for the mountains. It took a while because my dad is very social and also he is the pastor.

• 7:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fair.

• 7:17Corinne Vien?

  We got to the trailhead and made sure that we had everything in our ginormous backpacks and also put the vests on my dogs. I'd like to add that my dog carries a gun. I'd like to add that my dad carries a gun with us when we go on these trips.

• 7:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I snotted, like I literally, if you zoom in, I think you would have seen snot fly from my nostril. And then I wiped it on my pants. So, sorry.

• 7:40Corinne Vien?

  He carries it mainly for bear and for moose. We've had a few scary experiences in the past, so you can never be too careful. The hike we were going on was a very thick and dense one. You could barely see anything due to these massive trees. Normally, this wouldn't scare me, but this time something felt off. It was oddly quiet and my dog had definitely sensed that something was up. I brushed it off and we continued the hike like normal. As we hiked, we only ran into one person and he was unusual. On this trail, if you were planning on camping out, you had to be about 70 feet from the trail itself. So, we'd been wandering around trying to find a good spot to set up for the night. And that is when we ran into this man. He had his campsite set up and was sitting at an empty fire pit, just staring at it.

• 8:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Also, the chances of just like randomly picking a place to go off trail to find a campsite and finding

• 8:31Corinne Vien?

  The same spot.

• 8:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  One person and it's the only person you've seen the entire time you're hiking?

• 8:37Corinne Vien?

  And I don't know the rest of the story, but I'll say in his defense, like This would also be really odd that like you pick the one place you're like in your solitude. You're completely alone and then two people walk up with dogs and a gun. I would also be acting quite weird.

• 8:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  From all perspectives.

• 8:52Corinne Vien?

  He had his campsite set up and he was just sitting in an empty fire pit, just staring at it. I don't think he noticed us walk up until my dog, being very friendly and having no social cues, ran up to him. The man jolted up and looked directly at us. I didn't like his eyes. That was the first thing I noticed. They were not kind eyes.

• 9:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oof.

• 9:12Corinne Vien?

  My dad said a friendly hello. The man nodded back and we continued walking past him. I mentioned to my dad that I thought he looked a little bit weird and we should hike a ways up so that we're not so close to him. My dad agreed. Once we were settled in and made a fire, we started to make dinner and it was pretty bland, but my dad always made dinner a fun time. He would bring hot chocolate mix for dessert and as I was sipping my hot chocolate, staring into the forest, I felt a sense of being watched and I did not like it. I got ready for bed and me and my dad decided that we would go to sleep early. So we got in our tent. We call it a coffin tent, seeing that me and my dad are both extremely tall and my dad being six, seven.

• 9:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 9:54Corinne Vien?

  We're really squeezed in there.

• 9:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Bigfoot. Your dad is Bigfoot.

• 9:57Corinne Vien?

  Holy shit. Also, like, imagine this guy alone in the woods in his campsite. Two people wander up and they are like seven feet tall. You're maybe the scary ones.

• 10:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I like how you're really, you know, seeing it from his perspective.

• 10:11Corinne Vien?

  Right? Cause it's like.

• 10:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do know where the story is going.

• 10:14Corinne Vien?

  You're like alien people? Sorry, not to call you an alien.

• 10:19Corinne Vien?

  I'm just trying to get, I'm just trying to.

• 10:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I called him Bigfoot. You called him alien. My gosh. We're so sorry, B.

• 10:25Corinne Vien?

  This is what you get for staying anonymous.

• 10:29Corinne Vien?

  I'm a light sleeper and I wake up to every noise and I always bring a pair of earplugs with me because of this. My dog huddled in the tent with us, sitting at the bottom of our feet and my dad was out cold and I was just starting to drift off, trying to ignore my dad's loud snoring, when I woke up to a flashing light in my eyes. I froze. There were flashes coming from outside the tent. Looked at my watch, three AM, frickin' witching hour, just my luck. I reached for my earplugs and as I'm taking them out, I hear twigs snapping and light footsteps around the campsite. At first I thought this has to be a dream, but now that I was hearing it, I knew that this was real. I look over, my dog is on point, staring directly at the door.

• 11:11Corinne Vien?

  The lights and the sounds stopped suddenly. I tried to look over at my dad, but his sleeping bag was covering my view of his face. So I assumed he was still asleep, although his snoring stopped. I fell back asleep, clutching my pocket knife. And the next morning I woke up to an empty tent. I could hear my dad outside making us morning coffee. I hopped right out of the tent and said, Dad, I had the worst dream last night, but also I don't really know if it was a dream. He stared at me and I recalled what had happened in the early morning. His face was blank. Normally, when I tell these stories, he looks very intrigued, but not this time. He softly said, that wasn't a dream. I saw the same thing last night. He went on to tell me that he had seen and heard everything too.

• 11:53Corinne Vien?

  He had his hand on the gun the entire time, fearing that there were people about to raid our camp. But there was nothing out there for them to raid, so why would they be here? We know it wasn't a park ranger because they have to announce themselves before entering. We hiked back to the car in silence. And while I was sitting in the car on the way back home, I realized that on our way down, we had passed the man's campsite, except it was entirely empty. No trace of him ever being there. Stay spooky, B. Shit. It's like real humans are creepy or anything. Truly. Yeah. This is so creepy. Okay, I'm sorry for trying to give that man the benefit of the doubt because it would be one thing for him to just like walk up and try to check you guys out again, but like to do it in the dead of night at three AM.

• 12:37Corinne Vien?

  Walking around your camp. He was either extremely sketchy or like makes me think he was on the run. Or he's an alien. Murder on the trail. I feel like that's the best place to hide is. I'm glad it didn't escalate to anything else. I know. I mean, this is also like. My camping is so scary. Not to bring up height again, but I feel like maybe that helped, right? Cause it was two people who are quite tall. They have a dog with them too. Right. And I wonder if he did see the gun. I'm sure he did, but like he still went to the campsite at three AM and was creeping around. Really, really scary.

• 13:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it's not like B or their dad said anything or made him aware that they were awake. Like, he just creeped.

• 13:17Corinne Vien?

  So I didn't know that you, like, I hadn't read this one, and I have one that's also creepily similar.

• 13:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, in honor of our series of Appalachia, I have one from Appalachia.

• 13:28Corinne Vien?

  Nice.

• 13:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And this is from our listener Marcus, and it is called Appalachian Mountain Region. Hello, my name is Marcus, and I found you recently when I looked up Appalachian ghost stories. And I had commented on the latest research-related one that evidently most of my camping experiences have taken place out in Appalachia. And you said I should email you.

• 13:46Corinne Vien?

  Hmm, yes, I did. Glad you did.

• 13:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Thank you for the research and your different spins on the legends. Like the devil sitting in the tramping ground and manifesting and relaxing versus it being an evil location that nobody should visit. I absolutely love learning new things about the paranormal or practicing witchcraft through your podcast. And you've helped me be less afraid and embrace my awareness of spiritual energy in the world around me. So now that my fangirling is done, here's a little backstory. My dad has been running an outdoor adventure youth leadership program out of the town in central Connecticut for the last 30 years or so. And the Appalachian region is evidently where most of the program's camping trips take place. So the stories I'm sharing are backpacking ones, but I have all different kinds from various camp settings, and I'll share more in a future email. So my name is Marcus, but I haven't always gone by that name.

• 14:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And some of these stories involve camping trips and tenting with girls. And in case you're wondering, what the fuck, why is this dude's dad cool with him camping and sharing tents with girls? It's because I haven't always gone by the name Marcus. So I heard this story on one of the most recent episodes released, 312, about the mother and daughter camping in Pennsylvania and experiencing something terrifying. I experienced something eerily similar. If you haven't heard of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon West Rim Trail, I strongly recommend checking it out. The scenery is astonishing and breathtaking, especially for being in northern and central Pennsylvania. It's rather remote. The tree line almost swallows you as soon as you get onto the trail and you leave the world as you know it behind. Like any other backpacking trip,

• 15:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  this trail comes with its own set of dangers. I've encountered rattlesnakes and black bears on this trail. And also at times when rain is inconsistent throughout the summer, you can find that your water source is completely dried up. And then you have to hike several miles down the trail just to get water. What I did not expect was to experience what occurred on the second night of a five-night backpacking trip in 2011. There were probably 10 to 12 of us in the group, myself included. We got into camp in a timely manner with plenty of daylight remaining. Our spirits were high as we set up our sleeping arrangements, collected firewood and got ready to take on the evening. I was tasked with water filtration. And so I asked another camper and a close friend, her name was Elise, to help me out because I didn't want to go wandering off from the group alone.

• 16:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I have never been interested in wandering off from a group while camping because I'm not keen on turning into a missing persons case.

• 16:10Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, okay, good.

• 16:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Elise and I didn't go too far, but in order to collect enough water for the whole group, we had to go probably about 25 yards away from the edge of the small campsite. That's where the stream became deep enough where we could scoop water into our gravity filters and actually get both of them set up at once. We could still hear everyone else chattering amongst themselves back at camp. But then we heard something else, a loud crash on the hill in front of us. We stopped what we were doing, looked at each other, looked towards the noise, and we saw nothing.

• 16:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But we also heard nothing. It sounded like a large rock had been thrown down the hill. It didn't tumble, though, which is what I thought was odd. And after that, there was no noise, nothing to indicate a large animal crashing through the brush or running off either. And admittedly, it felt like something was watching us. But by this time, we were likely 12 plus miles from the start of the 30.5-mile trip. And getting help would not have been an easy task. So we carried on. We didn't think much of it, or at least tried not to, and returned to the rest of the group. None of them had heard or seen anything, which I can't say. This surprised me because we were always a loud and rambunctious group. Pretty much what you would expect from a group of middle and high schoolers.

• 17:19Corinne Vien?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  For a little while after that, I still felt very watched, but I said nothing. We carried on with our typical afternoon and evening routine and I decided, I'll shake it off. Though I still felt watched and I admittedly avoided doing any more water filtration for the rest of that day. Then the sun set and the wilderness swallowed us up once again. Our sleeping arrangements at that time for backpacking trip had just shifted from dividing up and carrying a couple of five or six person tents to each of us carrying our own personal tent called Bug Bivvies. If you've never heard of it, picture bug netting on a frame with no canvas walls and a tent-like floor. Okay, so you're like, you can see everyone and everything outside.

• 17:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I like that because then you're protected from the bugs.

• 18:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I almost rather have a barrier.

• 18:05Corinne Vien?

  Me too, but for anyone who is like, I want to sleep under the stars and doesn't want to be exposed.

• 18:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, the ones we were using in two thousand and eleven were physically the lightest we possibly could carry as I had built in or add in rain tarps. So we could carry a couple of waterproof tarps along with us and find places to set it up for shelter. Three to four of us would be under a tarp and that was the case here. During this backpacking trip, I was under a tarp with Elise and another student Maggie. And even though I didn't really like being on the end, I tolerated it because most of the time the tarp came down low enough where I didn't feel super exposed to the forest. We'd done our group routine of having an evening meeting to debrief around the campfire and then we went to bed. Our next campsite was about nine-ish miles away and we wanted to knock out the major hills before the sun was too high in the sky. I remember talking to Elise and Maggie and then falling asleep, but at some point I remember waking up.

• 18:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't remember what woke me up, the silence or the rocks falling around the campsite. But suddenly I was wide, awake, the kind of awake where you don't want to move too much because you know something is off.

• 19:07Corinne Vien?

  Hmm.

• 19:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Something was moving around our camp, something big. There were some rocks in the campsite and I remember them moving around a lot. And these were not small little rocks wedged in the dirt. It would take major force to dislodge them, but something was succeeding in doing so. Next thing I knew, whatever it was that was doing this was standing right outside my tent.

• 19:26Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 19:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it sounded like it was making an effort to get into my backpack. All I could do was move closer to Elise and Maggie as close as possible and curl into a ball at the bottom of my sleeping bag. I didn't dare look at whatever this thing was. And I had every reason to believe that I would be waking in the morning with all of my food having been eaten. And the thought of having to survive off of dinner alone for the next couple of days, and that thought itself was daunting. I remember not wanting to look for fear of what I would actually see. And at some point, the noise stopped. But what stood out to me was that I never heard this thing leave. For all the noise it made, you would have think it would have made that much noise to leave as it did arriving.

• 20:02Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 20:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I didn't hear a single sound.

• 20:05Corinne Vien?

  That's because Bigfoot is an interdimensional being and it can just cloak itself or pop through a portal at any time.

• 20:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It went through your backpack and left.

• 20:14Corinne Vien?

  Ah, your backpack is immortal. That is cool.

• 20:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Kids book.

• 20:19Corinne Vien?

  That is a kids book.

• 20:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like Magic Tree House. I have no idea how I fell asleep, but somehow I drifted back to sleep. But here's the kicker. Upon waking up, there was zero evidence of anything in camp being touched. Not a single stone was dislodged, nothing from my backpack had been touched, and it didn't even look like it had been moved. Everything was still in its place. But the only thing that confirmed it wasn't a dream was the fact that Elise and Maggie had also woken up and been completely terrified the entire duration of the event. None of us said anything to each other because we were all too scared, but they also heard the entire thing. The rest of the campers and the other staff members and my dad hadn't heard a single thing that night. So when we asked them about it, they primarily suspected a bear. However, I've seen the kind of damage a bear can do, especially when they're really interested in getting into something.

• 21:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And so had it been a bear, my backpack should have been completely and totally destroyed. I had breakfast food items in my outer pockets, which included chocolate and apple cinnamon flavored rice cakes with peanut butter and jelly. Bears would have devoured that. So to this day, I genuinely don't believe it was a bear. Maybe it was a Bigfoot encounter, but there were no other smells or other things that people attribute to Bigfoot. To this day, it remains a mystery, but also one of the most terrifying nights I've had in the woods.

• 21:31Corinne Vien?

  Weird. It also reminds me of like people's stories where there's like mimics in the woods or just like the wild. Men or whatever that just

• 21:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 21:39Corinne Vien?

  Are checking.

• 21:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But that story and B's story that you read before this, it's like something just

• 21:45Corinne Vien?

  There's something off.

• 21:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Be nosey.

• 21:47Corinne Vien?

  But it's like, why?

• 21:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 21:48Corinne Vien?

  Because you can be nosey during the day.

• 21:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You could.

• 21:51Corinne Vien?

  It's easier to be nosey during the day when you can see stuff.

• 21:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  If you're a human, yeah.

• 21:56Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 21:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But if you have malicious intent or you want to steal something.

• 22:00Corinne Vien?

  Nocturnal vision.

• 22:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or if you have nocturnal vision and you're bigfoot, you do it at night.

• 22:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm so excited. I'm getting my whole body MRI scan from Prenewvo in a couple of weeks.

• 22:11Corinne Vien?

  It's honestly so important. It's like one of those things where getting older and aging has provided me so many anxieties about like what's going on.

• 22:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I recently had some medical issues in my family and everyone in my family is like, let's just do everything we can to get ahead and take our own health into our own hands. Prenewvo's whole body scan is a radiation free MRI designed to help provide a detailed, non-invasive look at your body in under an hour and it helps evaluate across major organs and systems, including the brain, spine, abdomen, pelvis, and more. Prenewvo's whole body scan can help detect many cancers, aneurysms, and hundreds of other conditions. And they have memberships that bundle MRI scans, blood panels, and a personalized results review to track your health year after year.

• 22:53Corinne Vien?

  To learn more about Prenewvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenewvo.com/tgog and use code TGOG. That's P R E N U V O dot com slash TGOG. Terms and conditions apply.

• 23:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Receive $300 off Prenewvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenewvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenewvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenewvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 23:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, story number two. This is another backpacking story, but this one takes place on the Cranberry Lake Loop in upstate New York. Unlike the West Rim Trail, Cranberry Lake is much wider and has a lot more foot traffic due to the close proximity of the trail to a river and the old logging town of Wanaquinn. Much of the trail was actually on old logging railroads, and when it wasn't the wider pass from the former railroad, it was narrow and more rugged. This was a much smaller backpacking trip. It was 2014, and many of the students who had grown up in the program and participated when I was younger had graduated high school and moved on to other things, or life had gotten in their way of them participating in this adventure program. So this was four students, including myself, one staff member, and my dad. So six total.

• 24:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We had been experiencing an unusually rough time with my dad's health this trip. We hiked the same trail for the first time in 2010 and did not have nearly as rough of a time of it. My dad was struggling to keep food down and was pretty dehydrated for a lot of the trip. And because of this, we took to him hiking 20 to 30 minutes of the trail while we waited and just hung around and talked with the other staff member, and then we would set off and meet up with him at some point down the trail. This made it where he felt like he wasn't holding the group up by having to hike a much slower pace. And we weren't struggling to maintain said slower pace. So I think this was another three to five day backpacking trip. Dad had set off hiking down the trail ahead of us while the other five of us stayed back chatting, having a good time. Eventually, we decided, let's get hiking to catch up with my dad.

• 25:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But when we did, he looked genuinely confused to see Elise with us. When we asked him what was going on, the story he told us still sends chills down my spine to this day. My dad had been hiking, and he came up over a small hill, and he saw Elise. Elise was walking off the trail into the woods to the right of the trail. He said he called out to her, but she didn't respond, just kept walking. So he hiked up to where he had seen her leave the trail and was a little perplexed to not see any personal belongings at the side of the trail. No backpack, no water, nothing.

• 25:53Corinne Vien?

  Oh, and the panic too, because he's responsible for her and she's just about to disappear into the woods.

• 25:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  He also didn't see her at this point, so he thought maybe she went off the trail to go use the bathroom or something. It was while he was waiting for her to return that the group with Elise came over the hill and hiked towards him. He immediately noted that the color of the girl's tank top was different from what Elise was actually wearing. But he also said he'd been waiting for a solid five to 10 minutes before we showed up. When he saw just how concerned we all were by this story, he immediately brushed it off, saying, it's probably just because I'm dehydrated. You know, I haven't been feeling very well this whole trip.

• 26:29Corinne Vien?

  Hmm.

• 26:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  He also theorized maybe it was a trail runner, which just happened to look like Elise. But why would she have gone off the trail?

• 26:38Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 26:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why wouldn't he have seen her again? The other unsettling detail was the fact that this individual had simply just vanished by the time he got anywhere near where he'd first seen them. And this forest was definitely not the thinnest plot of land in the world. So somebody would have had to walk quite a ways off the trail to simply vanish from sight.

• 26:55Corinne Vien?

  And also just the noise that it makes to go through, like, wouldn't he hear someone moving through?

• 27:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  After hearing this, I didn't particularly want to stay in the area, but the rest of the group wanted a water break. So we stayed for a few minutes before continuing on the journey. Fortunately, that was the only overly eventful occurrence of this trip and the rest of the time was spent enjoying ourselves. At a later point in time, I told him I truly do not believe that he saw a human being that day.

• 27:19Corinne Vien?

  Mm hmm. I agree.

• 27:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My dad dismissed my theory and absolutely insisted it must have been a human or it was because he was dehydrated. I firmly believe he encountered a mimic and I'm really horrified at the thought of what might have happened if he had followed this thing off the trail.

• 27:35Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 27:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  See you on the other side, Marcus.

• 27:38Corinne Vien?

  Those are the stories that freak me out most. It's like something trying to lure someone elsewhere.

• 27:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So the show From that I recommended to you a couple of weeks ago is so much like this. Like everything now that we talk on the podcast is reminding me about this show. It's also reminiscent of dark. It's reminiscent of loss. It like, it has so many elements of what is time? What is, what is reality?

• 28:01Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 28:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I will say for anyone who started watching the show because of my recommendation, I want to acknowledge the show is great. The acting is really throwing me off. No judgment. It just does take me out of the show a little bit.

• 28:15Corinne Vien?

  Okay, this is Ghosts in Machu Picchu.

• 28:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, I think I know whose story this is.

• 28:19Corinne Vien?

  You do, cuz they DM'd after seeing your post about Machu Picchu.

• 28:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And did you take this out of my personal folder?

• 28:25Corinne Vien?

  No, you didn't have it in yours.

• 28:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, then maybe there's multiple people because I put a Peru one, a Machu Picchu one in my personal folder, too.

• 28:32Corinne Vien?

  Well, this one was just chilling in our-

• 28:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was just trying to start a fight.

• 28:35Corinne Vien?

  Inbox. Hi, Gulls. I DM'd you last week after seeing Sabrina's post in Machu Picchu, hoping that she had a similar spooky experience to mine on the trail. So, here we go. My memory's a little foggy when thinking back to my mid twenties as a traveling, single gal, but thirteen years ago, my little cousin Hillary, who's like my sister, was wrapping up a year teaching abroad in Peru. She asked me to come down at the end of her stint and travel South America with her. And due to some bizarre events, I ended up with an obscene amount of Delta travel credits and could afford the trip to Peru.

• 29:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Nice.

• 29:09Corinne Vien?

  So I let Hillary plan the whole trip. We met in Santiago and traveled by bus north, stopping along the way in the Atacama Desert and other notable areas until we crossed into Peru and ended our trip in Cusco, doing a three-day Inca Trail hike up to Machu Picchu.

• 29:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do wish, and that's the one thing, if I were to do with my trip differently, I would have hiked.

• 29:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 29:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cuz we just took the, we stayed in Cusco, bust out there, took like the train and all of that stuff.

• 29:36Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 29:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The train was cool, too, but hiking is, would definitely be a cool experience.

• 29:40Corinne Vien?

  I didn't do the three day. I did the one day.

• 29:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 29:42Corinne Vien?

  And after doing the one day, I don't think I would do the three day.

• 29:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay. I do like that there are options.

• 29:47Corinne Vien?

  It's so hard. We were all just dripping sweat constantly. It was an incredible once-of-a-lifetime trip, full of crazy adventures and so much beauty. The pictures still take my breath away. The bus rides between stops were long, and one particular trip, Hillary and I were just so shot physically and emotionally. Emotionally, because Hillary's best friend Jay had come with us and was robbed at a bus stop after we left the Atacama Desert. The thieves were sneaky effective and managed to take off with both of her passports, her US and British, so she couldn't continue with us into Peru and had to fly back to Santiago and stay with Hillary's friends, so she wasn't totally alone.

• 30:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That is horrible.

• 30:25Corinne Vien?

  And see which embassy could help her the fastest.

• 30:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh my god.

• 30:28Corinne Vien?

  So we were up all night in a police station and god knows where, Chile, trying to file a police report in Spanish when a saint of a police chief stepped in and decided to help the three utterly lost gringas. Saint Patricio, sorry, Chief Patricio. He drove us to a small airport, helped Jay onto the plane, then escorted Hillary and I across the border, all while proposing marriage to me for my cousin's translations, which I politely declined.

• 30:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was gonna say, that's so sweet, but now I understand why they escorted you across the border.

• 31:02Corinne Vien?

  It could never work between the two of us. I don't speak Spanish.

• 31:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's only one, one reason.

• 31:08Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, it's a good excuse.

• 31:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Corinne Vien?

  It was harrowing to say the least, and Hillary and I were exhausted, and we were still hopeful that Jay could meet us in Cusco and be able to do the hike with us. But with our nerves already shot, we boarded the double-decker bus and drove along narrow, cliff-hugging roads through stunning desert mountains that seemed to stretch on forever. We were on the top of the deck, and we were in the front seats, so it felt like we were on the most terrifying roller coaster ride of my life, and we might Thelma and Louise this bitch at any moment. The whole ride, I flipped between total terror, complete wonder at the landscape, and exhaustion, but the last thing I could do was fall asleep. At one point, while clinging on to one another across our armrest and almost getting used to this death-defying ride, which did you experience going up Machu Picchu, because

• 31:55Corinne Vien?

  I was fricking terrified.

• 31:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's a switchback, especially when there's two buses passing each other, because the roads are not that wide.

• 32:02Corinne Vien?

  And they drive so fast.

• 32:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Corinne Vien?

  The bus slowed through a sharp turn, and it was like time slowed completely, and standing on the side of the road in the middle of fucking nowhere, and I mean nowhere, no buildings, truck stops, nothing, was a man. He was dressed in rags, with nearly shoulder-length blond hair and white skin darkened to a leathery brown, with piercing blue eyes that stared right into ours. The man looked like he was from another world, like he'd been living alone in the canyon for years. I can't emphasize just how much time slowed, and how Deeply it felt his eyes penetrating in mine through the window of the bus. After we passed the man, I quickly looked back to see if anyone else had seen this man who clearly needs help. But people looked out the window blankly as if they had seen nothing but rocks and canyons.

• 32:49Corinne Vien?

  I whipped my head back to Hillary, who was wide eyed. And at the same time, we said, did you see that guy? Now for the trail. Hillary and I were on the three day guided Inka Trail hike. We had a wonderful guide in Sherpas and we're with a group of absolutely amazing humans that I will remember for the rest of my life. Yes, Sherpa, I know. I'm not the campy type, whereas my cousin is happy sleeping on a burlap sack in the middle of the woods. Don't judge me too harshly. The ocean is nature where I am hardcore. I've sailed long distances in boats with all men in one bathroom. Your girl's not a princess, but this hike is challenging. The altitude is intense. I chewed the coca, yes, the same as cocaine, leaves and drank the tea to fight altitude sickness.

• 33:34Corinne Vien?

  And even as a marathon runner, it was very physically demanding.

• 33:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, the altitude is wild.

• 33:41Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. On the second night of camping, our location even had bathrooms. So I was really relieved, even just if they were holes in the ground and stalls. That night we sat around the fire after dinner and the guide told us ghost stories from the trail.

• 33:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's fun.

• 33:54Corinne Vien?

  He said that back in the seventies, when Americans and others had started to come hike the trail, it was far more self guided. And in this very location, there was a group of hikers that were attacked and murdered on the trail.

• 34:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's not something I want to hear.

• 34:07Corinne Vien?

  Is that a ghost story? Is that just a fricking horrifying? Yeah. No one knows who did it or why, most likely for money. And there was a legend that the campsite was now haunted. He went on to tell us how there was once a woman who claimed to be in the bathroom stall. When someone began banging on the stall and then hands reached under and over to grab her while she was going to the bathroom. That night, as my cousin and I curled up in our tent after peeing one last time and brushing our teeth. I said, as my stomach grumbled, ooh, I think dinner isn't sitting right. Oh no, she said, don't get diarrhea tonight. Here, you'll be attacked by the bathroom ghosts.

• 34:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh no.

• 34:45Corinne Vien?

  I'm fine, I said, trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince her. But I am not fine. I woke up an hour later to urgently need to get to the bathroom. I ran out of our tent into the cinder block building right. To a stall and the memory of that story not hitting me until I was hovering over the hole. And then I heard a moan.

• 35:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No.

• 35:04Corinne Vien?

  I saw feet in the stall next to me, but familiar shoes. And then I heard an all too humanly unflattering noise. And I realized, oh, this is my Australian friend from our hiking group. So we both finished doing our very unpleasant business and walked back to our tents.

• 35:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Together?

• 35:23Corinne Vien?

  I guess. Friends who diarrhea together stay together. It's like when you're out there, it just is.

• 35:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, then there's nothing you can do. So food is not settling in your stomach.

• 35:32Corinne Vien?

  An hour later, a punch to the gut again, waking me up, sending me right back to the bathrooms. But this time I was alone. I got to business and then I heard the shuffling sound of feet in the bathroom. Then what sounded like distant voices outside the building. And then a bang, two stalls down.

• 35:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, no.

• 35:51Corinne Vien?

  Hello, I said, no answer. It was dark outside and the bathroom had a very dim light. So at this point, all of my senses were sharpened and I swore I could hear breathing. Hola, I said, no answer. I'd like to say that I was scared shitless, but not because my business was not done. So I tried to pretend that I didn't hear anything and I quickly finished up. And then I began to see a shadow through the cracks of the wooden stall doors. I started pulling myself together and I looked under the door and I saw the dim outline of legs. Someone's fucking with me, I thought. I always had the brief thought that maybe this was a great opportunity for an actual attack. So I grabbed my flashlight in my hand, ready to beat any attempted attackers.

• 36:35Corinne Vien?

  Whoever this person is just looming outside of the stall for no apparent reason, I plan to surprise. So I reached forward with my feet firmly planted on the toilet. So it looked like I was still maybe going to the bathroom. I flung the door open cop style, showed my flashlight in that direction of the silhouette and even shouted. Ah. But no one was there. I hustled out of the bathroom and outside towards our campsite. And at that point, I paused. The sky was beautifully illuminated with stars like nothing I've ever seen, except out in the open sea. But it was quiet, too quiet. The woods we were surrounded by typically had all kinds of sounds, tree frogs, insects, owls. Now, dead quiet. Something felt so off.

• 37:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 37:20Corinne Vien?

  I literally dove into our tent, squinted my eyes closed, and was fast asleep. The next morning, my Australian friend and I joked about our delicate stomachs and night trip. And I asked her, did you go back to the bathroom at any point? And she said, yes. But that time, she dragged her boyfriend with her to stand outside of the door because she was alone. And she confirmed she definitely wasn't in there with me. The trip and getting to Machu Picchu was well worth all of the spooky shits. I'd go back there in a heartbeat if I could. See you on the other side, Kate.

• 37:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Your guide told that story for a reason.

• 37:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  People say it's haunted.

• 37:54Corinne Vien?

  When you're pooping.

• 37:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know.

• 37:57Corinne Vien?

  Alone.

• 37:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know. At least nothing more happened. Maybe they were just checking in on you, making sure you didn't fall in.

• 38:03Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Oh, God. So scary, though.

• 38:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, definitely making me more apprehensive. Not that I had any like hiking plans, but you know.

• 38:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is from Tesla, pronounced like the car. It is called My Camping Trip and the Mothership.

• 38:20Corinne Vien?

  Ooh.

• 38:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hi, Corinne and Sabrina. I've been listening to your podcast. I'm on episode 136 to be exact, but I am loving every second. I had to share something weird that happened to me while camping at Domingo Springs in Northern California. It was only the second time we'd camped there, and we went with our friends and their kids. At one point, my friend Mandy went to go grab drinking water from the nearby spring because it's not far from camp, just up the road. But she was gone for a while, long enough that her husband decided to go check on her. When they came back, Mandy was holding a book. She casually told us that there was a man camping across the field, and he stopped her. He had been out there for weeks. He had told her he had been on the mothership and written a book about his experience.

• 39:01Corinne Vien?

  Hmm.

• 39:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And that was the book she was now holding. We all laughed it off like, okay, sure, alien guy. And we went on with our night. Mandy is way nicer than me because I would not have stopped to talk to the guy at all. But later that night, I had to pee as usual when I'm camping, and I took my dog Buck with me. Afterward, I got back into our tent trailer, and I was lying there trying to fall back to sleep. When it happened, a sudden flash of green, blue light lit up the entire sky. It was bright, fast, and totally silent. The craziest part is we were deep in the woods, miles from the nearest town, and this light was not even in the direction that town was in. It lasted two seconds, but lit everything up.

• 39:42Corinne Vien?

  Well, it was picking him back up.

• 39:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No one else was awake, just me and Buck. And after the weird book guy, it all felt very connected. I know what I saw, and it was wild. I still wonder about it and think, what the heck was it?

• 39:55Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God.

• 39:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Lots of love.

• 39:57Corinne Vien?

  Why did they drop him off? Why not just keep him on the mothership? If you're gonna hang out with him for so long.

• 40:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And also, Tesla, after this experience, did you not want to read the book? Your friend Mandy has the book.

• 40:07Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, wait, what is the book?

• 40:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Can you find the book? We want the book.

• 40:12Corinne Vien?

  At first, I was like, because Tesla was like, oh, Mandy's way nicer. I'm like, or does Mandy lack some self-preservation skills? But hey, there is an alien UFO situation happening out here, and some guy is just like regularly getting abducted and is down for it.

• 40:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And wrote a book about it.

• 40:27Corinne Vien?

  We need to know what he said.

• 40:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And what he's experiencing. Like, he for sure.

• 40:31Corinne Vien?

  It seems like it's daily, too.

• 40:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, he's been out there for weeks. And it's like, he clearly has been dealing with aliens for much longer. This is not like, oh, this happened just this trip.

• 40:41Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 40:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  He wrote a book about his experience that he had years ago. And then everyone thinks he's crazy. And that's the thing with aliens and these types of like, otherworldly interactions is the stereotype is

• 40:53Corinne Vien?

  Someone is experiencing mental illness.

• 40:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Or like crazy conspiracy theorists. But maybe that's, those are the people we should believe.

• 41:01Corinne Vien?

  They're real. Oh, my gosh. Wait, where was this?

• 41:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  California, Domingo Springs.

• 41:06Corinne Vien?

  Now, we need to do a search in our inbox for Domingo Springs and see if there's a bunch of UFO or alien.

• 41:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like the last story, I was like, I'm never gonna go camping or hiking. And then this story, I'm like, all right, I'm going, I'm going.

• 41:18Corinne Vien?

  Okay, well, now you're not going to go, because I have summer camp stories for summer.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code hack. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code hack. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 42:24Corinne Vien?

  Hello lovely ghostesses. I hope you're both doing spooktastic.

• 42:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Always.

• 42:29Corinne Vien?

  It's finals week for me. I'm a freshman and I really don't want to work on my nine-page literature review essay for my stats project. So I'm deciding to listen to Two Girls One Ghost. I just finished listening to Encounters 120, which featured camping stories. It made me think about my own experiences as a camp counselor. And for background, I used to work at a very old, all-girls overnight camp in the woods of Pennsylvania. It's pretty isolated, but absolutely beautiful. I loved working there, but the camp is ancient, the surrounding area likely very haunted, or at least very creepy.

• 43:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm curious what part of Pennsylvania and if it crosses into Appalachia.

• 43:06Corinne Vien?

  Maybe.

• 43:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And should we have our Two Girls One Ghost summer camp there?

• 43:10Corinne Vien?

  There. As both a camper and a counselor, I always felt as though... I was being watched, but strangely enough, it always felt reassuring. When I was a brand new counselor for five, seven year old girls, I had a co counselor named Z. We were friends during pre camp, but long story short, we did not get along after that. Z and I would take turns staying in the cabin each night. On my first night with the kids, I was so nervous as much as I loved them. They were all so homesick since they were so young and every single one of the five kids woke up at midnight, just sobbing. After thirty, I know. Makes me never want to send that child to summer camp. After thirty minutes of getting them back to bed, I returned to my bed and I cried because I was so stressed.

• 43:54Corinne Vien?

  Then I felt a reassuring hand on my head as if someone was wiping away my tears, but I didn't see anyone.

• 44:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, this is a good story.

• 44:02Corinne Vien?

  My second story is a bit creepy.

• 44:05Corinne Vien?

  Thankfully, I was on my twenty four hours off when my campers, who were fourteen years old at this time, went on their overnight camping trip to an isolated swamp forest with no call service.

• 44:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Swamp forest.

• 44:16Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, creepy. That's where Bigfoot's live. This story deeply unsettled everyone who was involved. After the campers, about fourteen kids and five counselors settled in for the night in their tents, which again, thankful I was at home, not sleeping in nature's natural bed. They heard a strange sound. At first, I didn't think much of it, but around one fifteen AM, the noise returned louder this time and it sounded much closer. I should mention that there were five, six person tents set up for the campers and a few feet away were two tents for the counselors. The counselors didn't hear the noise for the first time, only the campers did. But when the sound came again, the counselors heard the creepy humming. There was very weak cell service.

• 44:59Corinne Vien?

  They were responsible for fourteen to sixteen campers near a creepy swamp. And to make matters worse, they discovered the source of the noise. It was a man with a long unkempt beard, dressed in ragged clothing, humming eerily.

• 45:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, absolutely not.

• 45:18Corinne Vien?

  The counselors froze. He had this tiny metal boat aimed directly at the campers tents. And to add to the creepiness, he was holding a gun. Oh my god. A rifle, like the one you use for hunting. It was around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning when this man sensed he was being watched. So he turned towards the counselors and he asked, have you seen my dog? He ran this way. Can I go find him? No, you cannot. The counselors were terrified and quickly called for our boss to come and pick everyone up. Thankfully, the campers and counselors spent the rest of their overnight trip in the boathouse. The second creepiest part of the story unfolded the next day when the maintenance crew went to go collect the cooler and the trash from the campsite.

• 46:04Corinne Vien?

  What they found was just a dog collar. No boat, no man, no gun, just a simple red dog collar. No one knows where that man came from, where he went. And we still wonder whether the dog he was looking for was real or just a way to gain access to a campground where little girls were. For sure. Mm hmm. Either way, I was grateful I didn't have to go on that trip and extremely relieved that my campers and everyone else returned safely. Yeah. I have many more stories to share, including creepy experiences in my dorm while home alone, my friend's possibly possessed moment at our best friend's 10th birthday sleepover. What? But for now, I should probably get back to my schoolwork. Sigh. Stay spooky, stay awesome. See you on the other side, Kiera.

• 46:49Corinne Vien?

  I feel like this is a story out of scary stories told in the dark. Yeah. It's like the story you tell is a warning to campers to be safe. Right. But like this happened. And it's a real man. Yeah. The humming, the like, oh, oh, god. Right, and he was humming so quietly that the counselors didn't hear. So it was almost like he was trying to coax a little girl out of the tent.

• 47:16Corinne Vien?

  And if you're looking for a dog, you're not going. Yeah, you'd be calling your dog's name. And you'd have a flashlight. You're not sitting in a boat directly looking at little girls' tents. Camping. Delicately humming. At 2:00 a.m. too. No, and hunting can't be an excuse either because you're, that's illegal. I don't know if this next story is going to make us feel better, but it's from Australia. So. Okay. It's further away from us. Oh my god.

• 47:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ah, that was scary.

• 47:51Corinne Vien?

  Josh, why'd you do that?

• 47:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Josh.

• 47:55Corinne Vien?

  How did that happen?

• 47:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  For the audio listeners, the painting that our listener Josh had made just slipped out of the stand we have on it and knocked over the Bigfoot fur and

• 48:08Corinne Vien?

  crop circle.

• 48:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wheat.

• 48:10Corinne Vien?

  Wheat. Oh, the timing of that.

• 48:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Spooky.

• 48:15Corinne Vien?

  Heart attack.

• 48:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is for, this is, this is for us. From our listener JM called Australian creepy camping experience. For this story, I will go by my initials JM and for my friend, we'll call MJ. I've been following your podcast for a while now and I enjoy listening in the car on the way to work. I'm from a small town in the south of Australia and this encounter is based in the wilderness. Or as Aussies call it, the bush.

• 48:41Corinne Vien?

  The bush.

• 48:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The bush. For as long as I can remember, it had been a tradition to go camp by the Murray River over the Easter long weekend. When I was younger, we would hang out around the campsite while my parents would have a leisurely time on a boat, taking part in the big fishing competition. Just off the campsite, past the gate is a long stretch of wooded area that has a walking track. One side, there's trees and a stretch of green paddock. And to the other side, the river follows the tree line. The walking path is raised above the ground and the deeper you go, you pass old obstacles speckled within the trees. Swings, monkey bars, tire paths, all old and rusted. Right in the middle of the path is a fence that you would need to jump to continue to walk to the very end of the trail. And I think it's important to mention that the whole campsite is fenced off and the gate

• 49:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  that faces the walking path had horseshoes right above it. I've always felt drawn to this area, which freaked my parents out because it was so close to the river. One day, a couple of friends and I walked out there on sunset and didn't come back for a while. We tried to take the shortcut back to camp and got lost in the field. An entire search party went looking for us that night. But that is besides the main story, but it's still important. For the past three years, I've taken my best friend MJ with me to this campsite every Easter. She is my soulmate and we had a Very weird experience the first time I invited her. First day, I was so keen to show her around and we felt like going for a walk on the track. And I really wanted to find the monkey bars, which is set located in the trees and at the very start of the path.

• 50:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So we sat on our way, looking in the trees for the monkey bars. But as we got a little further, I got confused. I was sure I was at the start of the track. But I decided, let's keep going. Maybe I was wrong about where the monkey bars are. Both MJ and I are pretty in tune with our surroundings and with energy. And as we continued to walk deep in the track, climbing over the fence in the middle, we passed a tree stump. And this stump was weird. It was right against the walking track, tall and angled weirdly. It almost looked like an old woman hunched over, especially with the bark that hung over what would be the head of the stump. As soon as we passed it, I had a sinking feeling. All of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I had a feeling that we should turn back. At this point, I thought about it too much and decided that I was being ridiculous.

• 50:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Until MJ spoke up, and she suggested we should go back to camp. Surprised, I turned and asked if she felt it too. Yes. We turned and went back to camp as fast as we could. As we came to the beginning of the track, there were the monkey bars. They were there all along at the beginning.

• 51:10Corinne Vien?

  What?

• 51:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Afterwards, we decided to consult my tarot cards. There was a card that jumped out of the deck as I was shuffling, the Seven of Swords. This represents deception and trickery. MJ and I had been too scared to take the track after that experience. But last year, we attempted again.

• 51:28Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 51:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And weird things happened again.

• 51:30Corinne Vien?

  What the hell?

• 51:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  As soon as we got to the gate of the track, we heard birds singing. But these birds didn't sound right. They're nothing like I've heard, and I've been here every year. They sounded like a recording of birds. Anyway, as soon as we went through the squeaky gate, the birds stopped, and so did the wind. The bush grew quiet. We didn't make it much further. We turned back and heard the birds once again the second we stepped through the gate. The next day, we tried again, but I think we were protected from venturing any further. One of the deadliest snakes in our area, the brown snake, happened to be laying all the way across the walking path at the very start. Paranoid, we did not attempt to go walking again. That snake was warning you. That snake saved you. Until this year. This year didn't feel as spooky. We'd make

• 52:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  jokes about the wind finally stopping and something jumping out of the trees, but one of the only weird things we encountered through the track was a small doll laying in the bark next to the track.

• 52:26Corinne Vien?

  Mm hmm, mm hmm.

• 52:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  JM, just stop. Just like every time you go on this track, something bad happens or is warning you. Like, how many warning signs do you need?

• 52:38Corinne Vien?

  Right. And it's also like, we've never covered forest spirits because there's so many different kinds, but like this does feel like some sort of forest folk, forest spirit with all the trickery, like.

• 52:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, making you get lost.

• 52:53Corinne Vien?

  Maybe time slips.

• 52:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 52:55Corinne Vien?

  Disguising itself as a tree, maybe.

• 52:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So MJ and I don't think much of this doll and we keep going. We make it over the middle fence, past the hunched over tree, and don't feel anything. We got to the very end of the track where there was a fork. This leads to a shortcut back to camp and a trail to another campsite. Before deciding to take the shortcut back to camp, we looked into the trees that surrounded the pathway to the other campsite. And behind one of the trees was a silhouette of a cow staring at us, standing completely still, but somehow beckoning us towards it. Needless to say, we did not. We turned around and took the shortcut. Thank you for having this platform.

• 53:32Corinne Vien?

  That's like the trick that they would do for me. It's like.

• 53:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Here's a cow.

• 53:36Corinne Vien?

  A cow. Ugh, but I really want to pet the cow.

• 53:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's from JM.

• 53:41Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God. The last part did remind me of, there was a video that was circulating around maybe a year or two ago of people filming like the tree line across the street from them.

• 53:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 53:52Corinne Vien?

  And there were all of these eyes just appearing in the woods at night and they were freaking out. They're like, oh, my God, what is that? Like flashing light on them, filming them. No, it was cows. It was like a group of cows got like loose from their pasture and were like roaming through the tree line and all just like looking up. The cows are big, they're. Tall, so it didn't fit, you know, like a normal deer height. So it was really freaky.

• 54:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That would be menacing to see.

• 54:19Corinne Vien?

  But, oh my God, how many times do you need to be told not to go back here?

• 54:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, that reminds me of when I had been in South Africa and it was a really cool experience. We were staying in Kruger National Park and we had booked like a bungalow in the middle of the Kruger National Park. And so we had gone on safari and they drop you off and take you to this

• 54:43Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 54:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  treehouse and we slept under the stars. It gets so dark, there's literally no one around you. There's a radio, the only thing that could connect you to if anything happened was a radio. And we shine the flashlight off the balcony and you just saw so many eyes lighting up because there's so many animals. But then you could hear like elephants knocking down trees, eating. You could hear hyenas. I mean, it was really cool.

• 55:11Corinne Vien?

  On at night because I think of like all the animals just going to sleep except for the predators. But like, no, everything's active.

• 55:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Corinne Vien?

  Holy shit, that's really scary.

• 55:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But it was really cool.

• 55:20Corinne Vien?

  The woods are a very scary place.

• 55:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They are.

• 55:22Corinne Vien?

  It can be some of the most peaceful moments you might ever have in your life and also some of the scariest.

• 55:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we want to hear more of your encounters. So if you like to go out in the woods, hopefully not to be a creepy person. If you have stories, please email them to us at [email protected]. And if you want episodes one week early and ad free plus bonus content, you can join us on Patreon. I'm really excited about this month's Patreon bonus. We're reading personal encounters from people who have done the gateway tapes. So that will be fun. Check us out over there.

• 55:54Corinne Vien?

  Shout out to Jamie Ryan, who edits and produces the podcast.

• 55:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And thank you to all of you.

• 55:59Corinne Vien?

  We love you.

• 56:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we will.

• 56:01Corinne Vien?

  See you on the other side.

• 56:10Speaker 03

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