Oops! All Haunted Schools! | Your Urban Legends 106
/Ooops! That’s a lot of haunted schools! Haunted school trips, haunted school theatres, haunted turrets that no child should be crawling up into! Be unruly, be ungovernable, give children nightmares!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of child endangerment, warfare, death, murder, suicide, hanging, and execution.
Housekeeping
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And we are here to share more urban legends with you. Julia, something about springtime Urban Legends hits different. Other people might say, oh, April, you mean the least spooky month? The flowers are popping up. And I'm like, they have been waiting underground for months.
JULIA: Think about it, plants are just zombies.
AMANDA: They are saving their energy, they are bursting up in new forms. Have you ever thought about the fact that all that plant comes from one little seed? It's terrifying.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And I'm so glad to be here with you again, sharing more urban legends.
JULIA: A real Kaiju situation, if you think about it.
AMANDA: If we're lucky, and I think about that one, I look at my crocuses.
JULIA: And you say, oh, you're like, gonna grow into God's silver size.
AMANDA: Maybe it's because of spring, Julia. I'm springing forward in—in— in my in my clocks, in my energy, in my fits. Can we spring into an urban legend, are you ready?
JULIA: I'd be happy to. Amanda, I have one to start us off. This is from Charlotte, she/her titled, Was it a Hell Beast or just the boiler?
AMANDA: Okay. A common question.
JULIA: Very much raised by the Home Alone movie, if anything. That's what I think of when I think of boilers. I'm like, oh, the scary boiler downstairs, like in Home Alone, I get it. Charlotte writes, “Hi. Firstly, just wanted to say that I'm a returning listener. I found you in mid 2019 when you kept me company on my long commutes to my job and kept me awake for the return home (working events means LOTS of late nights- 2 am onwards).” As the perfect time to listen to a spooky podcast in my humble opinion. “Unfortunately, I changed jobs to one closer to home, which meant I didn't get to listen to full episodes on the journey, and life got in the way of me catching up. But I am glad to report that my job has now evolved and involves more travel and loan office work. So I'm enjoying having you keep me company once again, and I'm almost all caught up. Your urban legends have been my favorite episodes, and I finally have time to sit and write up a few stories that I think you'll like.”
AMANDA: Hell yeah. Thank you. We will never say where you been, we'll only ever say welcome home.
JULIA: Exactly, Amanda. You know, we're just happy that people are listening to the show. It doesn't matter if you took a couple weeks break, a couple years break, hey, you're back and you're listening, and we're happy about that.
AMANDA: Get to the stories, baby.
JULIA: Yes. Charlotte continues, “when I was at junior school at (ages 7 to 10, not sure what the US equivalent to that is), part of our school was a fairly old building, and there was a tiny turret at the top of one of the buildings, which was accessible through a hatch in the ceiling. The school was smart enough not to leave a ladder up to the hatch, and if I remember right, there was a padlock on each of the bolts keeping it closed.” That seems safe to me. I appreciate that. Okay, the idea that a child could potentially crawl up into the turret is never a good thing. However, it seems like they did pretty good precautionary work to make it, so that children weren't crawling up into a turret.
AMANDA: You know, Julia, I'm just now realizing that all of the trap doors and like attic stairs and stuff or basement doors where I'm like, why is it locked from the outside, that's so scary. Because that's where you have to get into it from. It would be worse if there was like a deadbolt on the inside of the attic door, from the attic side. And I have definitely been like, oh, no, what are they keeping up there? But the answer is just like, no, no, this is what you have to open to get to it, so.
JULIA: But what are you keeping inside? Ooh.
AMANDA: An attic wife?
JULIA: Why is there a lock on your attic door to begin with, that's the real question. In this case, it's to keep small children out.
AMANDA: That's at least a reason.
JULIA: “The ceiling was also really high, at least to me as a kid, so we couldn't reach it, even if we tried. The story was that the school was used in World War 2, and that the turret was used as a bit of a look out, and that there was a ghost of a soldier up there. Though it was never quite clear on how he died or why he was still there.” Well, you know, sometimes the ghost is still there because the ghost is still there. We don't need a reason, the ghost is still there. However, how he died is also an interesting question. “Looking back, the turret was 90% brick, so not sure how effective it would have been as a lookout, but it kept us kids from trying to climb up there to open the hatch. I tried to do a bit of research, but I can't find anything on what the school may have been used for during that time, or if anyone indeed died there. The other story from that same school was the Hell Beast who lived in the basement of that same building.” Which is a very haunted building.
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: “I remember when I was eight-ish, going with a couple friends to the end of the hall, where the stairs went down into the basement. Again, the school was smart enough to block it off a few stairs down with a large metal gate, also locked. But if you stood in just the right spot, you could see two bright red eyes staring at you from the dark.”
AMANDA: Was it the [5:25] of the boiler maybe?
JULIA: Who can say. “I'll admit I wasn't brave enough to go any further than the top of the stairs. I wasn't risking there being actually a Hell Beast. As a child, I was definitely Team Ignorant. Again, the beauty of hindsight is that it was probably just the boiler or some other piece of equipment that the school used, but why let common sense get in the way of a good story? Just a couple of other little ones. I know how much you love a good, creepy child story. Here's one, maybe two. I'll let you decide. So for context, I have two brothers, one older, one younger, and we call my dad's parents grandma and grandpa, and my mom's parents nan and granddad. We lost my grandpa when I was around 6. My older brother was around 8, and my younger brother was around 4. Now I don't remember for certain which of my brothers it was. But I believe it was my younger brother, because he was the one of the two who would sleep talk.”
AMANDA: Hmm, always creepy.
JULIA: Always creepy. Sleep talking, especially among children, always gonna be extremely creepy, and I'm not a big fan of that. “But not long after we lost my grandpa, my mom heard my brother talking, scratch that, laughing in his room after going to bed.”
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: “She obviously went in to see who he was laughing with, only for him to say it was grandpa. My mom's not overly into the supernatural, but does believe so quite rightly, left him to it.”
AMANDA: Oh. My mom said, okay.
JULIA: Now I don't know if that would be my instinct as a parent who believes in the supernatural, but I'm also not going to tell you you did anything wrong, so.
AMANDA: I'm— I guess I would have expected her to say no, honey, like, you know, and to kind of deal with it in a respectful, age appropriate way. But also, I'm very into being like, okay, very well, everyone's safe here. Moving on.
JULIA: Fair enough. Fair enough. Whatever, whatever you said.
AMANDA: Whatever works.
JULIA: “Now, when I was around 12 or 13, we visited my nan and granddad, who had moved away from our childhood home. I remember looking out of the glass doors in their back garden and seeing my grandpa sat on their garden bench just looking over at me, smiling.”
AMANDA: Ohh.
JULIA: “I knew he wasn't meant to be there. It wasn't the right side of the family, or even in a house that he had ever been to, but he just sat there for a while, and then I looked away as someone called me, and when I looked back, he was gone. I told my mom, and she just said, you must have needed him, like that was the obvious answer.”
AMANDA: Mom is unfazed. Mom is like, I have birthed children, and nothing you can say or do is gonna surprise me at this point.
JULIA: I gotta— you know that's the distilled confidence that I would appreciate in a parent, is definitely there. “I've never seen him since, even when I desperately wished I could, but I know that he's there. I'm not sure if that makes me a creepy child,I'll leave that to you. Now, I can't say I've ever had any other experiences, and my family has never reported anything, but my dad isn't a believer in the supernatural, so who knows? I hope you find this interesting, and it gives people a little hope that even if you don't always see them, your loved ones are near. I do have a couple of teeny, tiny little other ones, like the witch in the woods, which I'm pretty sure was a legend that we created, and the music in the bar when everything was off, which I'm happy to send in if you do another short and spooky episode.” I would love those. Please send those in. We do need to do another short and spooky one, so start filling our coffers, you know? “Thank you for reading. Stay creepy, stay cool. Charlotte.”
AMANDA: Thanks, Charlotte. Thanks for writing in.
JULIA: You're not the creepy child in that situation. Your brother might be the creepy child in that situation, if only because sleep talking is creepy, and particularly a laughing child sleep talking is creepy.
AMANDA: Arguably the creepiest of all time.
JULIA: I would say so. Now, Amanda, what have you got for me? What's going on? What's happening over there?
AMANDA: Julia, I too, have a haunted school, but this time, it's a haunted College, and it's in New Jersey.
JULIA: Ah, the most haunted of the states. I don't know if that's true.
AMANDA: Certainly the the air is the most haunted with smells of sulfur when you're leaving New York City. But Angie wrote in, My Haunted College—WITH DATES (because I know you love those).
JULIA: We do. We do.
AMANDA: “Hey, spirits team, you've been keeping me company working at the library since January of 2022. Your lovely voices have kept me company as I unpack and stick barcodes and spine labels on new books. I finally caught up on the backload of episodes. And to celebrate, I am writing in with a story. I've also included relevant pictures and news articles at the end of this email, and as a content warning, there are mentions of murder and suicide.”
JULIA: Gotcha.
AMANDA: “So I graduated from the College of New Jersey in 2017. During my time there, I heard stories of two separate hauntings on campus. The first is the ghost of a young man that haunts Wolf Hall. Travers and Wolf are two 10-story towers that house the majority of the freshman class. Now I somehow ended up in a different residence hall my freshman year, so I forget exactly which floor is the haunted one. I think it's eight maybe? But what I do know is there's one floor that has the unusual ghostly activity you might expect. Flickering lights, creepy vibes, etc.”
JULIA: Wolf Hall does have the energy of a very haunted sort of dormitory.
AMANDA: “My first year at TCNJ, the towers actually lost power, forcing many disgruntled freshmen to find somewhere else to spend the night. I later heard rumors that people were messing around with a Ouija board and trying to contact a spirit when the power went out.”
JULIA: That's not a good plan. First off, college students all around the lands who are listening to this, if you are living in a notoriously haunted dormitory, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, don't fuck with a Ouija board, just don't do it.
AMANDA: Unless it is a play to try to get some amount of your room and board back. Maybe you can say to the dorm, hey, so we lost power due to haunting, therefore, I don't want to pay full price for my dorm.
JULIA: See how that works out.
AMANDA: I don't know.
JULIA: Listen, report back if you end up doing that.
AMANDA: You can try. “So there are several versions, allegedly, of how this ghost came to be. One during a drunken game of hide and seek gone wrong, a freshman climbed into the trash chute and fell to their death.”
JULIA: You know what the thing is about a lot of like high schools and college stories about hauntings, is when you tell a story like that, I say, extremely believable, I can see that happening.
AMANDA: I can't see that happening. And I can also say a mom being like, did you know a kid died? Don't do it.
JULIA: Die.
AMANDA: “The second possible origin story for this ghost, after a night of partying with allegedly some substances, a young man died, and his friends, not wanting to get in trouble, stuffed his body down the trash chute. This version allegedly has the important detail that his remains were found feet down, therefore, quote-unquote, “proving” that someone else was involved, and it was not an accidental or intentional fall. And then the third one being that somehow, for some way, this person was murdered and not like an accidental death, and then dispose of down the trash chute.”
JULIA: I've watched enough like CSI and Law & Order and police procedures in which deaths happen, where disposal down the garbage/ laundry chute is common.
AMANDA: “Though, I'm unable to confirm that the body of John was stuffed down the trash chute.”
JULIA: Oh, he has a name.
AMANDA: “There was indeed a freshman who went missing in March 2006. “Traces of blood were found in the dumpster. And unfortunately, his body was found about a month later at a local Pennsylvania landfill. A quote-unquote “John Doe” eventually came forward, confessing to the young man's killing. However, a cause of death hasn't been officially determined, and the investigation remains open, albeit cold.”
JULIA: Since 2007?
AMANDA: 6.
JULIA: That's worse by a year.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Damn.
AMANDA: Damn. Brutal.
JULIA: This is why we're not a true crime podcast, because our reactions to this sort of thing are just like, well, that's fucked up.
AMANDA: That's sad.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: “Our second, and probably more active of the two ghosts, is another murder victim.”
JULIA: Listen, we did the content wording at the top we know that it's— it's murder heavy, this one.
AMANDA: “Our second and probably more active of the two ghosts, is also the victim of a crime. This ghost is that of a young woman who makes her presence known in Kendall Hall. Kendall is the home of TCNJ theater, as well as the Communication Studies Department and the school's TV studio and radio station.”
JULIA: That's how you know it's haunted, because there's a theater there.
AMANDA: There are so many chaotic New Jersey, creative teens and early young adults in this one building. And of course, there's going to be a chaos of ghosts.
JULIA: Of course.
AMANDA: “So there are a lot of different versions about this young woman and how she ended up dead. The official story is that this woman named Sigrid was bludgeoned to death by a mystery killer. Her body was found on the stage on September 4, 1977.”
JULIA: Dramatic and also true?
AMANDA: Dramatic and also true.
JULIA: Whoa.
AMANDA: “It is unknown why she was in Kendall hall that night. People have theorized that she was practicing the piano, and that's why the school later moved pianos to the residence halls and no longer keeps one in the theater.”
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: “But as an English Education Major, I didn't spend much time in Kendall, other than the occasional performance or guest speaker event. Well, I definitely got weird vibes myself, and would power walk past the building with my eyes down, obviously avoiding glancing in windows so I wouldn't see like, I don't know, a weird shadow.”
JULIA: Fair.
AMANDA: “My friend, we'll call her R, was very involved in musical theater and has plenty of stories.”
JULIA: Oh, hell yeah. Give them to me.
AMANDA: “According to her quote. This is a quote within a quote. Okay, we have first person reporting here. "Sigrid likes her music loud. Music would just come on the intercom randomly, but that could easily have been a prank, not necessarily ghostly. The less easy to explain stuff was when music would just get turned up all of a sudden, at random, and it didn't seem to matter what device it was, either. It happened with stuff that was wired into the building, but also CD players that were just plugged in and nobody was near. This is before there were wireless remotes, phones, iPods. This happened to me at least once, where all the plugged in stuff would could just be power surges, but my iPod wireless speaker, no way.”
JULIA: Doesn't make sense.
AMANDA: “That's the weirdest thing that's happened to me, personally.”
JULIA: I'll have to ask electrical engineer why that would possibly happen, besides the answer being ghosts.
AMANDA: Well, in this universe, Julia and on this podcast, I'm gonna go with the ghost answer.
JULIA: Also, just an aside, I love that all of these ghosts have very specific names.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Like one. I appreciate that we're honoring the actual, like, real life victims, and not the like hypothetical. We think this was a woman named Mary who died in the 1700s, now these are like, actual victims. But it also makes it more real, I guess, in a way, by giving them very specific names. And I love that as a detail to a ghost story. Don't love that these real people died.
AMANDA: Yeah, it is, again, the, you know, the mission of the show, I think, in the project of why we care about these stories, that a death is a— is a— makes a void, and then you have to come in and fill it with you know theory or memory or ritual. In a lot of ways, this is kind of dealing with mortality and dealing with this real thing that really happened in this place.
JULIA: Yeah, absolutely.
AMANDA: So to conclude, Angie's email, she has a couple other anecdotes from her friend R. “R has also heard the piano playing late at night when the main stage was closed and all locked up. But she chalked it up to someone possibly having keys. Her friend, quote, had a really weird thing happen, though. She and everyone in the building were all in the black box theater during rehearsal, and the stage lights started strobing. No one was in the control box.”
JULIA: That's not good. One, for the lighting itself, and two, in the sense that it's very spooky.
AMANDA: That's extremely spooky. And having worked a fair amount with lighting equipment, I don't think that would happen.
JULIA: Weird.
AMANDA: And then Angie continues. “Finally, R finished recounting her events by saying, quote, I'm in this weird place where I don't necessarily believe in ghosts, but I also have the mindset of, yeah, Sigrid's cool. She just likes her music loud, and that's chill. Kind of like, how in Ireland, people don't necessarily believe in fairies, but still build roads going around fairy trees instead of cutting them down.”
JULIA: Yeah. You know, like, I think there is a certain aspect of it's like, I don't believe in, like, the ghosts that other people talk about, or, like, oh, you know, the haunted battlefield, or the woman in white that everyone reports and like all the ghost hunting shows and everything like that. I think there's like, a staunch difference between that and like, the phenomenon that you experience, that you're like, this is obviously a thing that is happening to me. And therefore I have accepted that, but it's not like necessarily ghosts in your head, it's just like the name of the phenomenon that is happening to me is Sigrid. Now Amanda, I love that we are accidentally kind of creating a theme here, because I do have another school related story for you.
AMANDA: Hey.
JULIA: But before we hit on that, we gotta go grab our refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
[theme]
AMANDA: Hey, everybody. It's Amanda. Welcome to the refill. I'm so glad to have you here, and particularly glad to have our two newest patrons on board. Thank you to Mia Pabley and Eric from The River is a Bird. So grateful you're here. Remember, though, Apple is now imposing a surcharge on Patreon subscriptions made on the IOS app. So it is 30% more expensive to become a patron in the Apple IOS app than it is on any other kind of app. So if you join on a computer, if you go to patreon.com in your web browser, on your phone, all of those you will be able to become a patron for as much of your money going to support the show as humanly possible. So thank you to those who have joined and our supporting producer level patrons,Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah). And our legend level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. Join them and get all kinds of goodies, like a brand new—we just posted it last week, and it was a good one y'all. Bonus urban legends episode over on Patreon. You get ad-free episodes. You get all kinds of goodies, like custom tarot readings, and you can even request a custom minisode of your choice, if you are a legend level patron. So come on over. We need you there at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. We are also in need of your Urban Legends. We are filling our coffers back up for the year to come. So if you have been meaning to write in, if you want to send us a voicemail, we would love your emails and voicemail short or long. But for voicemails, sort of two to three minute range is really where we're going. So you can dial us if you are in the US using the number in the episode description. Or if you just want to send us a voicemail or photos of your pets or an Urban Legend, write to us spiritspodcast@gmail.com. There is so much going on at Multitude all the time. It never stops, which is wonderful. And if you like Spirits, you are really going to love Join the Party. This is an actual play podcast with tangible worlds, genre pushing storytelling and collaborators like me and Julia, who make each other laugh each week. GM, Eric Silver and our emphatic players myself, Julia and Brandon Grugle, welcome everyone to the table, whether you have never gone to a game store or picked up a 20 sided die and you're like, what does that mean? Or if you are a long time TTRPG player, you are welcome here. You can also hop into our current campaign, which has all of the drama and excitement of a Superhero High School. It's told using the game Masks, and we teach you everything you have to know about the game to enjoy the story. So come on over, join our party, folks. Go to jointhepartypod.com or look up Join the Party in your podcast app. That new superhero campaign is our current season, Season 5. We are sponsored this week by Wildfang. Who very kindly helped support our Portland live show. They offer statement clothing to make you feel like your most powerful self. It is a queer run and woman founded business that offer coveralls, suits, blazers, button ups and more, in sizes, extra small to 4x. Button ups also are my favorites. I love their cropped button up in particular, and they are specifically made so that people with boobs or people who are wearing binders don't have like, a gap in the middle of your button up shirt. Honestly, so good. They have no fake pockets either. All of their blazers and pants have whole ass pockets. Amazing. We love Wildfang. Thank you so much for supporting the show. If you went to the Portland live show, you can bring your ticket to the Portland store for a discount throughout the month of April. And if you are just listening and you're like, oh my God, I want a floral print suit in my life, go to wildfang.com. This show is also sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy can definitely feel like a big investment for me. It is probably the biggest thing I spend money on, apart from rent and like my internet and cell phone bill, and it's expensive y'all. Traditional in person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session, which adds up very fast. And so if you are somebody who feel like you would benefit from talk therapy, if you are looking into it, if you are thinking about going but something like cost, or the fact that the cost might differ month to month, or that you can't necessarily go during the traditional hours that a therapist might be around, and you need mornings or evenings or weekends or different time each week. BetterHelp is a tool I want you to know about. They have over 30,000 therapists. They have served over 5 million people globally, and it is all online. You can join a session with a click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life, plus talking about the cost of it all. With BetterHelp, online therapy, you can save, on average, up to 50% per session, because you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, that's it. Your well being is worth it y'all. Visit. betterhelp.com/spirits today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterH E L P.com/spirits.
ASHLEY FLOWER: Some mysteries can be solved by looking at the facts, but in some cases, answers lie in the unknown. I'm Ashley Flower, and each week on my podcast, So Supernatural, we explore some of the world's most bizarre occurrences and unravel their possible explanations, no matter how strange. Because sometimes to get to the truth, you have to look beyond what we know to be reality. Listen to So Supernatural now, wherever you get your podcasts.
AMANDA: And now back to the show.
[theme]
JULIA: Amanda, we are back, and I gotta ask you, what cocktail/mocktail/drink creations have you been enjoying lately?
AMANDA: Julia, I had a beer shot combo party, where I invited my local friends here in Brooklyn to curate a combination of one beer and one little mini serving of liquor. And it was so much fun. I have to say, I think my favorite would be Julia approved, which was an Allagash Brewing Company Triple, which is like a very, like, sweet, boozy, full bodied, like light beer, and Fernette.
JULIA: Wow.
AMANDA: Which was an incredible combo. I ended up putting the Fernette in the beer, which I don't typically do with the beer shot combo. And it was so good to sip on, it was—
JULIA: Damn dude, that sounds incredible. I love that.
AMANDA: It was really good.
JULIA: I don't love a Fernette shot, but I don't mind it in other stuff, because it does kind of taste like if you added—and I mean this in the best way possible, if you added, like, sweet toothpaste to malort.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But hey, it's not bad.
AMANDA: That's fine.
JULIA: I know the way I just described it sounds awful, but that isn't what it tastes like, and it's really not that bad.
AMANDA: I loved the creative exercise of curating these combinations, and I would recommend it to anybody. Please sip responsibly. Multiple of us split each beer and liquor combination.
JULIA: Incredible. I—at the time of recording this, we were at an Oscars party last night, and there were multiple very silly pun names for each of the cocktails that coincided with one of the Best Picture nominees. But my personal favorite was they made green jello shots in syringes for The Substance and just labeled them The Substance. And hey, I loved the substance, and I liked those jello shots.
AMANDA: Demi Moore was robbed, sorry. Sorry.
JULIA: In a real moment of irony too, by giving it to a 25 year old. Yeah, yeah. Well, at least she got the Golden Globe, so that's something.
AMANDA: That's true.
JULIA: That is something.
AMANDA: Julia, I heard you have another school related urban legend for me. we're gonna make this one oops all schools, because I have another after that as well.
JULIA: Oops, all schools. Well, our next part of, Oops all schools comes from Moon, she/they titled, Am I the Entity inside the Mirror, plus superstitions about telling scary stories.
AMANDA: Oh, Okay.
JULIA: “Hi, Amanda and Julia. Greetings from Perth, Australia. My name is Moon, and I'm a longtime listener that took a break. Life got in the way, yada yada yada, and have recently gotten back into the podcast.” I'm loving this a theme as well.
AMANDA: Oh hey. Incredible. Welcome back.
JULIA: “I forgot how fun this podcast is. I'm determined to catch up soon while listening to the urban legends episodes, I've been itching to send a story of my own, and I think I have finally thought of one worth sharing. You guys love haunted school stories, and this is school adjacent, so I hope you all like it enough to share it on the pod. So I'm originally from Mongolia. I moved here as in here being Australia as a teen, and my story is based in Mongolia. In Third Grade, my year group went on a year end trip to a rural district and stayed at a summer camp of sorts to experience life outside the city.”
AMANDA: Ohh.
JULIA: “The place we stayed was made for school kids to come and live for 3 to 7 days. So obviously, there were a ton of urban legends associated with it. Dorms, school aged children, a place where children continually come and go like of course, the most popular one was about mirrors.”
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: “The dorm rooms, each housed a few kids, and I believe we were assigned a room, but nobody wanted to stay in the rooms with the mirrors. This is because it was said that if you sleep in one of the beds that has a mirror hanging at your head, it will steal your soul, trap you in the mirror, and an entity from inside the mirror will switch into your body.”
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: That's spooky. I do not like that. “This was so well known that I heard about it before I even went on the trip. Needless to say, nobody wanted to have their soul stolen, and this scared me quite a lot about the trip.”
AMANDA: Now, if you were assigned one of those rooms, could you perhaps take the mirror off the wall?
JULIA: Hmm, I guess it depends on how the mirror is hung, right? Like, if it's kind of like bolted on there, no. But if it's just like hanging from a wire, perhaps?
AMANDA: I was picturing a more kind of artful, like statement mirror that's sort of hung as if it's a painting. But if this is a, you know, like a glued or bolted to the bathroom wall situation, then, of course not.
JULIA: I was thinking like college dorm room, where it is not easily removable from the wall. But I could be wrong. Now, this is where it gets interesting, Amanda.
AMANDA: Okay. I'm ready.
JULIA: Because Moon continues. “The weird thing is, I don't remember much from my stay there, to the point where I still can't fully tell whether or not I even went. Though my parents confirmed that I did.”
AMANDA: That is very odd.
JULIA: “I was going to end it here, but I just realized while typing this that a vague memory is coming back to me.”
AMANDA: Oh my god. Real time reporting, real time unveiling the memories.
JULIA: “An image in my mind of a dorm room, a bed with a locker at the head of it. I remember thinking, thank goodness there is something placed here already so there's no chance of mirrors and soul stealers. I remember sleeping on that bed. I was safe. Then a few days later, I remember checking the back of the locker for whatever reason. Perhaps I saw something glint, and realizing there was a mirror hanging right behind it. And I don't remember much else other than that from my stay.”
AMANDA: That is very scary.
JULIA: It's very scary.
AMANDA: So we think the mirror was like on the wall, and then the locker was in front of the mirror on the wall. Not that there was a mirror mounted inside the locker, like door?
JULIA: I think, I mean, that's what I'm picturing. But I don't know what the style of the locker is, so I'm not entirely sure. But I feel like if you were like, went and hung your stuff up in the locker, you would have seen the mirror when you first got there.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: But I could be wrong.
AMANDA: That's why I think maybe it was just in front of the mirror on the wall.
JULIA: I don't know. That's wild. That's wild.
AMANDA: When I think about dorms, I think about, like, the same thing repeated over and over again. And so I would be surprised, like, every room comes with a mirror, and then this one, someone had just, like, adjusted it or rearrange it to be like, I'm not fucking with that mirror, I'm putting a locker infront.
JULIA: So maybe, maybe Moon was safe.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: For a time, and then realized that the mirror was there. And in realizing that the mirror was there, something happened.
AMANDA: I have a real shiver, that's legit, pretty scary.
JULIA: Well, she continues. “Now, I don't know whether this is an actual memory. A child's overactive imagination making up false memories, or just a bad nightmare. I hope dearly that it was a nightmare or my imagination. Regardless, the entity probably didn't steal my soul, since I'm still me, or at least I think I am.”
AMANDA: Duh.
JULIA: “And if they did, I wouldn't know. So no use of worrying about it, I suppose. Unless the real me is trapped in that mirror far, far away.” In that case, hmm. “Anyhow, this is the reason I have an aversion to mirrors to this day.”
JULIA: Yeah, because your weird mirror self doesn't want to go back to the portal that they came from.
AMANDA: Yes, Julia. What have you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, and then you and your reflection moves at different times.
JULIA: I know. The mirror dimension wants you back, and that's why you're like, I can't look at the mirrors.
AMANDA: That's kind of my all time worst fear is, is having my mirror self move independently of me.
JULIA: The—Moon continues with, “I've mostly convinced myself over the years that I was just being silly, especially since you can't really avoid mirrors. But I never ever look at a mirror at night if I can help it. I will either stare purposefully away from it or face it directly when I pass one. Somehow the in between what I'll see when the mirror is just in the corner of my eye, in my periphery, is what I'm scared the most of.” Again, that idea of the mirror self moving when you're not moving, or vice versa. Ooh. “PS, as a sort of unrelated side note, I'd like to suggest that you guys do an episode about superstitions, regarding telling urban legends, if you haven't done so already. For example, when I was a kid and my classmates and I would tell scary stories, it was forbidden to laugh. To laugh meant that the story will happen to you. Possibly because the ghost/monster/bad thing will become angry that you're not taking it seriously. You don't know how terrified I was of accidentally laughing then. And to be honest, I still somewhat adhere to this. If you did laugh, you were supposed to immediately knock on your teeth three times with your knuckle and spit three times in a direction away from where you were facing.”
AMANDA: I believe.
JULIA: “I'm very interested in whether there are different superstitions that others believe in. I love the pod, and hope you guys have a lovely day. Much love, Moon.” I actually kind of love this. If you have a urban legend or a superstition around the telling of scary stories that like there is some sort of ritual to it, please, let me know, I'm very curious about this now.
AMANDA: That'd be tight as hell. Love it.
JULIA: That would be.
AMANDA: Alright, Julia, you want another cute shorty, all about schools?
JULIA: I love some school stories. Tell me more. Tell me more.
AMANDA: This is from Quizz, two Zs. They/them. Titled: Lipstick stains, Haunted Theaters and Creepy kids.
JULIA: Hell yeah. Bring it on.
AMANDA: “Dear spirits. Hi. It's Quizz again. I recently wrote you with an urban legend, but I just remembered a new one, and had to share.”
JULIA: Incredible.
AMANDA: “When I was in Fourth Grade, I was in my school's production of The Wizard of Oz. I was Oz.”
JULIA: Aww.
AMANDA: “Whenever we did a play for the last week of practice, we went to this old Playhouse to practice and then actually perform. The first day we were there, our director Jenny told us that the Playhouse was haunted by the ghost of an old woman named Courtney, who used to own the theater.”
JULIA: Courtney does not seem like an old woman's name to me.
AMANDA: Courtney is the ghost story name equivalent of iPhone face.
JULIA: It's like, it's too 80s and 90s, you know what I mean?
AMANDA: Courtney cannot have been dead long enough to, like, give me a good ghost story.
JULIA: Yes, exactly.
AMANDA: “Now me being the creepy kid I was, was already a little notorious for traumatizing other children with scary stories.”
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: “I decided to change up the tale just a little bit. If you asked me why the Playhouse was haunted, I would say that a young actress named Courtney tragically fell from the rafters.”
JULIA: Why was Courtney in the rafters?
AMANDA: “For some reason there were also lipstick marks all over the theater. On mirrors, walls, curtains, and I'd say they were from Courtney.”
JULIA: Why—don't be kissing on curtains?
AMANDA: So I thought that this maybe was like a sticker? Maybe this is like a sticker for decor? Maybe it was Valentine's Day, that's a thing people do?
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: I don't know.
JULIA: But I'm picturing like, actual lipstick marks. Because, like, you know, some—in some theaters, people will leave those on mirrors, or will leave them on, like, walls and stuff like that as a mark of, like—
AMANDA: I was here.
JULIA: —Joan Jett was here. You know like—I don't know why Joan Jett was my first thought. But Joan Jett was here—
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: —you know? So that's my thought. But then I'm a little thrown off by on the curtains as well. Don't— don't be kissing on no curtains.
AMANDA: No, I just get like, like, fuzz on your lips. No, thank you.
JULIA: Yeah, sticky.
AMANDA: “My friend Ashley and I would usually sit in the third to last row in the audience whenever Jenny was talking, because that is the furthest back we were allowed to sit. Back there, Ashley would hear weird noises, and occasionally, both of us would see a silhouette of a figure sitting in the very back row. One that most definitely did not belong to a parent, volunteer or another actor. We never saw who it was.”
JULIA: Ooh, I don't—I don't love that.
AMANDA: “Additionally, the people who had upstairs dressing rooms where the hallways were pitch black, swore they sometimes saw or heard weird things up there. My favorite thing though, is that backstage. “There was a really, in retrospect, creepy sign that said, quote, “quiet as a mouse." So I guess trying to remind people backstage that, yes—
JULIA: Be as quiet as a mouse. You know, there's microphones going on and people performing on the stage, that makes sense.
AMANDA: Julia, here's the [37:26]
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: “The sign included a picture of a mouse with huge, long, hairy human legs walking and raising a finger to its lips.”
JULIA: Don't like that. I don't like that. That sounds like the—like, really wild, like, holiday cards that they used to have during Victorian times. Or just be like, Santa riding a cat, and then the cat's like, eating tiny mice as it goes by. Like—you're like, what is it—who was this for? What was happening here?
AMANDA: Wait, I have never heard of this.
JULIA: I don't know. I think that might be a little bit of a over exaggeration of what's going on. But like, you know, there's pretty wild like, Christmas cards from back in the Victorian days.
AMANDA: Amazing. Well, Quizz offered to find a photo of this sign. And I—
JULIA: Please.
AMANDA: —I feel like I'm kind of—I'm kind of betraying myself a little bit by asking, but like, at this point, I do have to know Quizz, so I— I'm gonna need a photo of that.
JULIA: So when searching for Victorian Christmas cards, the first one that pops up, Amanda, and I'll share my screen with you real quick, is a mouse riding a lobster.
AMANDA: Ohh. So we have all kinds of animals riding all kinds of animals.
JULIA: Yeah, look at this one, the beetle dancing with a frog.
AMANDA: And then another insect is holding up like a gem.
JULIA: Yeah, it looks like a ring, maybe? I'm not sure.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: But you know this— this was a thing. This was the thing back in the day. Here's a bunch of animals going on a feast, you know?
AMANDA: Well that's— that's just a normal animal carrying a roast of another smaller animal, that—that'll happen.
JULIA: Sure, while following— while following an owl marching through town.
AMANDA: Man.
JULIA: Here's a bunch of children riding on bats. Merry Christmas.
AMANDA: If we ever thought that we were the weirdest iteration of humans—
JULIA: We're not. We just simply aren't. We're simply not.
AMANDA: We're not.
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: Quizz concludes their email with the final fun fact of, “Ashley once had a nightmare about the mouse and Courtney teaming up to kill her.” So, you know, shout out to that backstage mouse and Courtney, the theater owner.
JULIA: I mean, I also would be probably emotionally scarred by that mouse if I was living in that lifetime. And was also a influentially small child.
AMANDA: You know, Julia, one of the things that makes mice so quiet are their little, tiny feet and their little, tiny little little toes, like scampering. Big, hulking human legs, hairy human legs, those are not gonna carry you anywhere near as quietly as a mouse.
JULIA: That is true. That is true. I think we should all embody giant scary mice from the Victorian Era.
AMANDA: Personally, be unruly, be ungovernable.
JULIA: Being unruly, be ungovernable, give children nightmares.
AMANDA: Julia, to celebrate the fact that we were recently in Portland doing an incredibly fun live show in front of an audience of conspirators. I have a Pacific Northwest related story from Cat, she/they.
JULIA: Ooh. Okay, hit me with it.
AMANDA: So “this is titled, “I made it snow in Arizona. Also a Haunted Holiday Inn and a PNW doppelganger.”
JULIA: Hell yeah, bring it on.
AMANDA: “Hey, spirits. I love your show, and it makes my daily commute so much better. Through listening to your catalog, I'm currently on 186 Mythological Dogs.” By the way, I would also name Cerberus Spot.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: “I have learned that I've actually had many more spooky encounters than I've previously believed.”
JULIA: Great.
AMANDA: “And the first is when I made it snow in Phoenix, Arizona”
JULIA: Explain yourself.
AMANDA: “Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my step dad's family, who I've always referred to my grandpa JR, because he hated being called Junior. “
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: “He was Native American, and although I can remember all of his traditions, the ones I always loved and was involved in was the snow dance that he invited my stepdad and me too. In West Coast Washington State, snow could be hard to come by, but I always knew that whenever I spent the night, I would grab the ceremonial drum before bed, and my grandpa would sing and dance while I played a beat with him. The next morning, there would always be a layer of sparkling white covering the ground.”
JULIA: That's a beautiful story.
AMANDA: “Fast forward a few years. My grandparents moved to Phoenix to get away from the constant chill and gray of the Pacific Northwest, and I was desperately wanting a snow day from school. I called my grandparents on the phone and asked them to perform the snow dance and send it to me. Now to this day, we're not quite sure what went wrong. Because either I didn't play the drum or maybe the ritual only affects the location in which it's performed.”
JULIA: Sure.
AMANDA: “But the next day, sure enough, it was Phoenix and not Washington, that woke up to a blanket of snow.”
JULIA: That's wild.
AMANDA: “Arizona, by the way, hadn't even been expecting rain on the forecast the previous night.”
JULIA: That's wild.
AMANDA: Shout-out, Grandpa JR.
JULIA: Hot damn.
AMANDA: “My next story is a follow up to one of your more recent urban legends episodes. I believe the haunted hotels one.”
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: “In which Amanda says that it's never a Holiday Inn that is haunted. I would like to tell you this is false.”
JULIA: Yes, tell us more.
AMANDA: “Now, I never stayed there, and frankly, I don't think I want to. But I was in San Antonio last year for a convention, and my family and I decided to take ghost tour.” Because why not?
JULIA: Why not?
AMANDA: “It was a fascinating experience, and everyone in our group experienced something that day. There's so much more spooky stuff out there than just the Alamo, including other murder hotels, a government building in the historic Red Light District, a hanging tree and much more. But the Holiday Inn is what I'm here to write about. The Inn was established in the previous city jail on a very narrow alley.”
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: “And many of the other buildings in the alley are abandoned.”
JULIA: Okay. So when we say, oh, you know, it's never a Holiday Inn that's haunted, I'm talking about one where, like, you know, it was built on a stretch of land that had nothing, and then, or, like, used to be, like, just trees, and then they built the hotel. Saying, like, oh, it used to be a jail, and now it's a Holiday Inn. Of course, it's haunted. We're going back to our roots by talking about the spaghetti warehouse of it all, you know?
AMANDA: I want my holiday inn to be constructed out of cinder block on a stretch of land that was previously a meadow down the road from a gas station that you really can't walk to. And maybe, if you're lucky, a couple miles from a Dunkin Donuts. That's what I need my Holiday Inn to be doing.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. It can't be a former jail. It just cannot.
AMANDA: It cannot. It cannot. I mean to—to their credit, “Cat does acknowledge that it is from the jail that the hauntings came."
JULIA: Oh yeah.
AMANDA: Yes. “Particularly because the gallows were kept inside the building on, I believe, the 5th or 6th floor.”
JULIA: Cheesy, creezy. Oh my god. Okay.
AMANDA: “So I heard this story once, but it made a real impression on me. We were standing in a dark alley while the story was being told, and that creeped me out, because I felt like we were being watched.But the legend goes basically that two brothers were out playing by a stream when a man happened upon them. He attacked one of the brothers while the other one got away. And the one who ran found a sheriff, who then rode back with the brother to the area, thinking that maybe the boy was mistaken and there was a bear or something else. But when they arrived at the spot, they did indeed see a man and the remains of the other brother. Probably, wisely, the sheriff decided to retreat until he could get back up to then go and apprehend the man, which eventually they did.”
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: “The man spent some time in the jail and then was hanged from the gallows inside the building.”
JULIA: Makes sense.
AMANDA: “Now, normally those hanged were hooded, and there are some other rights I don't remember about like final words and things like that, but this man didn't get any of it. and he was hung with his face visible for all to see. And after he was dead, the noose was framed and kept displayed in the lobby of the jail, as well as later, the Holiday Inn.”
JULIA: Okay. the choice was made by Holiday Inn corporate that said, Yes, we approved this historical like presentation within the lobby of our hotel that includes a noose, for some reason.
AMANDA: I simply can't endorse this corporate decision. Normally, Julia, we're all about rehabbing an old building, bringing its past into the present, not this one, not a jail. Not a jail and not a noose. Never won.
JULIA: Hey, bad.
AMANDA: Cat continues, “it is presumed that this man haunts the building.”
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: “But don't worry, it's not a ghost doing the haunting. It's demons.”
JULIA: Ohh.
AMANDA: “Guests at the hotel report being dragged through their rooms, report something trying to throw them out of windows, and a whole other variety of not great things.”
JULIA: I'm—
AMANDA: “Eventually the parent company—”So Holiday Inn corporate Julia, begin if you will. "Told the hotel they were no longer allowed to display the noose because it was too morbid or something. So it was, in fact, moved to San Antonio City Hall, where it does reside today. I have no idea. However, if that changed the hauntings.”
JULIA: Well, Amanda, according to the Google reviews for Holiday Inn Express San Antonio, North Riverwalk area, 3.4 stars.
AMANDA: That's pretty on par for Holiday Inn.
JULIA: Honestly, not bad. I think it's mostly for the location. The Location looks very nice. Again. I can see why. They maybe rehabbed this jail in order to make it into a nice Holiday Inn Express.
AMANDA: Do any reviews mentioned a haunting?
JULIA: Right. There is a two star Trip Advisor review from Chris from Oxford, who wrote this—when did he write this? One second, I'm just pulling it up. This is from 2010, so take it with a 15 year old grain of salt. “But Chris from Boston, Lake New York, said, two stars. I stayed at this hotel for one night of a business trip. I arrived in the late afternoon and was given a room on the fifth floor. It is about five blocks away from the river walk area, and although it does not seem like a long way, it is when you're walking by unhoused people and they are asking for money.” Chris, first off, already judging you a little bit.
AMANDA: You give me your life story and blame poverty on the individuals, and I don't love that.
JULIA: Yeah. “I walked home by myself around 9:30 pm and I would not recommend it.” Whatever. “When I arrived back at the hotel in the dark, I noticed that my 5th floor room was the only one with lights on. When I asked the hotel clerk if I was the only one up there, he immediately expressed concern and asked me, what happened?
AMANDA: Ohh.
JULIA: “Come to find out, two weeks prior, there was a lady on her honeymoon who had experienced her leg being lifted up in the middle of the night while she was sleeping next to her husband. The clerk went on to tell me that the usual haunting occurs on the 3rd and 4th floor. I thought he was pulling my leg in anticipation of Halloween. After arriving in my new reassigned room on the 1st floor, I checked the windows and found them to be wide open. This is an old building, and the windows are ceiling to floor without screens. Needless to say, I did finally get to sleep that night.” Traveled on business, value, two stars, location, two stars, service, five stars, rooms, three, cleanliness, one.
AMANDA: Listen, that's tough. And I guess he appreciated the concierge being honest with him, because it sounds like they had a whole conversation about that lady in her honeymoon.
JULIA: And they did move him to a different hotel room, so I guess service, a+. Damn dude. Well, he was on the fifth floor, and that is what Cat said. I like that the clerk, though, said the hauntings are usually only the 3rd and4th floor, though.
AMANDA: Sir, I put you on the non haunted floor. Okay, non haunting—
JULIA: I promised.
AMANDA: —non haunted, that is what you requested, okay? Incredible. Well, thank you again, Cat for bringing this to our attention. They did conclude their email, “saying significantly less creepy, but I definitely have a doppelganger that both myself and my family members have seen. It's not really that exciting, except to say that it was constant. As soon as I turned 16, my family and I started seeing a girl that looked exactly like me, driving the same car I did, frequenting the same places I did. It was always from a distance, we never interacted. So it was just like alternate reality? We'll never know.”
JULIA: I need to know more about that. I need to know more about that.
AMANDA: “Stay creepy, stay cool. Cat”. So, Cat, we gotta get back in touch.
JULIA: Um, okay. Well, you know, next time you're traveling on business and I guess see a doppelganger in your hotel room. I'm combining the two, we're just making it happen.
AMANDA: Or your newly wedded spouse suggests you spend your honeymoon in a Holiday Inn in a former jail. Remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Later satyrs.