Printers, the Most Haunted Appliance | Your Urban Legends 119
/You know, we don’t have to scar children with stories of how they’re going to be eaten in the woods. But also, if we didn’t, would we have as many wonderful listener submitted stories to read in our Urban Legends episodes? Also, what is the most haunted appliance in your house and why is it your printer?
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, family member death, decapitation, mental health struggles, child death, cannibalism, gender dysphoria, drug use, parental illness, drowning, and spousal death.
Minneapolis Spotlight
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Housekeeping
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Send in those urban legend emails!
- Submit Your Urban Legends Audio: Call us! 617-420-2344
Find Us Online
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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
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 made it to a whole new quarter, Julia. You know that we've grown up on a microphone when I am saying happy Q2, baby.
JULIA: Wild to think that so much of our like, business is the correct term for it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But the idea that we were like, we're going to start a podcast. And now I'm like, at the quarterly meeting, we have to talk about the like, business talk. I never thought I was going to have to do business talk in my life. But here we are.
AMANDA: You know, and what better business to do business talk about than the very serious business of holding space for the imaginations that help us wrap our brains around our own mortality?
JULIA: That is true.
AMANDA: That's basically what we do.
JULIA: The amount of time that we get to spend in not just the imagination, but also the real life experiences of people who send us their urban legends and their spooky stories.
AMANDA: Now, Julia, bit of business we have to get to before the rest of the episode.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: So we have told you before here on the main feed on Spirits Podcast that we occasionally save urban legends that we think are like particularly, I would say, juicy in that they have a lot of conversational potential. Like ones where we're like, girl, what are you doing? Or like, girl, what happened to you? Those are sometimes ones that we save for the monthly bonus urban legends episode over at patreon.com/spiritspodcast.
JULIA: That is true.
AMANDA: What we have not yet done before is have a guest exclusive to the Patreon. And you know, Julia, that your husband Jake, of the best accent I've ever heard and incredible humor and empathy and warmth, and also an electrical engineer and someone sensitive to the paranormal, was on an episode of our Patreon. And within, I would say, four hours of it being posted, we had maybe three or four comments being like, why isn't Jake on the show immediately? I have to say, people, like, it's not up to me. If you want to hear this and if you want to weigh in and potentially get Jake on a main episode of Spirits, you gotta join the Patreon for a free trial, even. Give it a go, see how you like it.
JULIA: If you submit stories that you specifically want Jake to hear, I will get him on the podcast, on the main feed.
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: We will make that happen for you and he will give you his honest feedback about whether or not he thinks it is building related or spiritually related.
AMANDA: And you know what? Genuinely, folks, I trust Jake with that distinction. If I was having a big issue, I'd call Julia and say, Julia, wait, Jacob, come on over, both of you, because I need you both right now. So you can send us that at spiritspodcast.gmail.com or at spiritspodcast.com/contact.
JULIA: We will record after business hours so that Jake can be on the podcast. That's how serious we are.
AMANDA: Julia, we haven't had a nighttime recording since before Episode 100.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And I'm willing to make it happen.
JULIA: Every once in a while we'll have an Australian guest on and that's the only reason we'll ever record after like 6 p.m. nowadays. But–
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: I love it for us.
AMANDA: I love it, and maybe for an upcoming anniversary, I don't know, we're rounding the corner on Episode 500 here, Julia. Might have to go back to the olden days when we actually get a little bit sloshed.
JULIA: Might be a thing we have to do. We'll see.
AMANDA: But in the meantime, we have a full episode of gorgeous urban legends for you folks. I'm warning you once again, we are scraping the bottom of the soup pot. So we do need your emails. Send them over spiritpodcasts.gmail.com. You can also attach photos of your pets or plants. We love those. And as Julia said, if you want Jake to look at yours specifically, put Jake in the subject line. Speaking of our bonus, I had a little bit of a grandma ghost anecdote that I wanted to share from Tira, she/her, who was one of our submitters for the March bonus episode.
JULIA: I'm ready for it.
AMANDA: Tira says, I had a granny ghost in my childhood home. We moved into that house when I was about 10 and it was a split level with a lower mini one-bedroom apartment area. What we might call joy like an in-law suite.
JULIA: Yes. Usually it's called like a mother-daughter, I believe, in the modern building parlance. See, we want Jake on this so that he can confirm that these are the correct terms.
AMANDA: He's a building inspector. He can tell us how to inspect the buildings for electrical problems and ghosts.
JULIA: It is true.
AMANDA: Originally, my dad promised me that I could have the downstairs bedroom and that whole area to myself if I wanted. Amazing, right? I lasted one night.
JULIA: Uh-oh
AMANDA: The entire time I was down there, I felt like something was watching me. I laid in that bed for hours that first night trying to sleep, knowing, knowing that there was something in the room with me. The next morning I asked my brother to switch rooms and it turns out my dad knew that the previous owners who were in their eighties when they sold the house to us—
JULIA: Uh-oh
AMANDA: -had one of their mothers living in the apartment area. You want to guess what happened, Julia?
JULIA: She died down there, didn't she?
AMANDA: She sure died in that room. Yep. I said, dad, that's a deal breaker. Whereas my brother was totally fine with it. And we switched rooms.
JULIA: That has only happened to me once, Amanda, and I have a very distinct memory of it where we were, my mother and I were at a like garage sale, but it was like an estate sale because we were going through the house, right? And I remember going into one of the bedrooms and turning to my mom and being like, it feels like someone died in here. And she's like, stop. And like is going through stuff. And then the owner walked through with someone else and they're like, Yeah, you know, and here's where mom passed. And I was like, and my mom was like, okay, shut up, shut up. We're buying this singer sewing machine and we're leaving. And we did.
AMANDA: Your mom, math teacher, by the way, not the most, like, would say woo-woo person I've ever met in my life.
JULIA: More of a skeptic, I would say.
AMANDA: Love that she was like, okay, fair enough.
JULIA: She said, you know what? Sometimes when you're right, you're right.
AMANDA: So, Tira continues. While we lived there, my brother always talked about weird things happening to him in that space. Things that had been secured, falling off the shelves with no particular explanation. His analog clock stopping randomly. And an armchair even being turned in a different direction than how he left it.
JULIA: That's spooky. I also am curious what time was the analog clock stopping? Because if it was during the witching hour, could be a demon in the disguise of a granny.
AMANDA: It’s possible
JULIA: Very possible.
AMANDA: Ghosts seem pretty harmless as far as I knew and didn't really do anything else to any of us. So maybe she was just wandering through her space down there trying to work through someone else's stuff that had been inexplicably put in her way.
JULIA: She's redecorating for your brother who has no sense of taste apparently.
AMANDA: So, Tira finishes off by saying, hope you enjoyed my personal haunting stories. If you want to hear more about some town legends, like our high school theater haunted by a janitor or one of the other three famously haunted buildings in my hometown, let me know. Stay creepy, stay cool, Tira.
JULIA: I need to hear about all of the haunted buildings in your hometown. That's what these episodes are for. That's what they're for!
AMANDA: And, Julia, I was recently informed that, there is a new feature. If you're listening to the show on Apple, they're, they can actually, like, we can embed links to locations in an episode. So what I would love to do is, use an Urban Legends episode so that you can zoom in on a map on the locations of where people are talking about. Obviously, be careful with your personal information, but if you're talking about, like, a college you used to go to or, like, a swimming hole that has a demon in the bottom, I don't know, send us the place name and we will link it for the podcast.
JULIA: Or our previous episode where we had that haunted state park. That would have been a great option.
AMANDA: Remember the quarry from like early early days?
JULIA: Mm-hmm. Now, Amanda, I have a quick it's technically not even a hometown urban legends, but rather a episode feedback is the type of message we got here. This is from Alana. She/her.
AMANDA: OK.
JULIA: And the email is titled Girl with the Green Ribbon or Pink Hot Loop.
AMANDA: Pink hot loop I think I'm supposed to know what it is?
JULIA: “You'll understand when I read it. So, hi, Amanda and Julia. I was just catching up on episodes and listened to the green ribbon episode and thought I would share an anecdote. Now, I don't remember hearing the story itself until fourth grade, but before that, I did hear it referenced frequently. I went to day camp every summer from the age of three or four, and during those early camp years, hot loops were quite popular.” Now, I googled this, think it's like those chokers that we wore like during the 90s, Amanda. Do you know what I'm talking about? They were like either fabric and stretchy or they were like plastic and stretchy.
AMANDA: Yes, and they were so back for a bit and made me feel like a ghost because I was watching fashion happen again for the first time in my life.
JULIA: She continues, the cool older girls would wear one around their neck and obviously I needed to emulate the cool older girls. I picked out a bright pink one and put it around my neck, though I may have taken it to the extreme. I refused to remove my fancy necklace all summer, not for swimming, showers, bedtime, or anything else. Eventually after the school year started I had to take it off.
JULIA: Hot loops are not meant for such long-term wear, fading and becoming otherwise kind of gross.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: This continued for multiple summers. As each summer began, I put on a new pink hot loop. I do not remember exactly how many summers I wore my pink necklace for, but I do remember my parents and grandparents and other adults teasing me each summer that if I took it off, my head would fall off.
AMANDA: Wow! Shocked that the girl with the green ribbon had made its way among so many of your relatives. That's very cool.
JULIA: This was brought up especially whenever anyone tried to tell me to get rid of it and I absolutely refused. Yeah. So I guess for a few summers I was the girl with the pink hot loop rather than the girl with the green ribbon. That has now been replaced with a gold necklace that I have worn almost constantly for 15 years but it doesn't quite cover my neck the same way. Thanks for the awesome podcast. Stay Creepy. Stay Cool.
AMANDA: Alana, listen, it's super possible that you yourself have become an urban legend. You don't know for a fact that counselors and campers at your day camp are not talking about the girl once who wore the pink necklace every single summer until one day, maybe, did someone convince her to take it off? Did someone pull a prank? And then she was never seen from again.
JULIA: You never know. Honestly, you could be an urban legend that those camp counselors were telling kids after you quote unquote graduated from camp.
AMANDA: Listen, Julia, in a world set on demonizing women, queer folks, trans folks, and anyone who looks a little bit different, you might as well be the cryptid that the world is making you out to be, okay?
JULIA: 100%. That is so true. You have to be the cryptid that you wish to see in the world. Wait, I just thought of a Tumblr post that I wanted to read for you as a result of that.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: The post says, “in high school, we had a bit that we called quote unquote, the orb, where at night we put a bunch of glow sticks in a fishbowl in the middle of the road. And if a car slowed down to look at it, our friend would come out from behind a tree in his gorilla suit.”
AMANDA: Incredible
JULIA: So I'm just saying you should be the urban legend you wish to see in the world.
AMANDA: Yes!
JULIA: Am I saying you should like hinder traffic? No. However, imagine how funny that would be.
AMANDA: Unless traffic is like a vehicle belonging to ICE, and then maybe you should hinder it.
JULIA: Whatever you gotta do.
AMANDA: You know, if we're desensitizing these people to all kinds of protest tactics, has anyone tried a Sasquatch suit? I'm just saying. Like, it might be... might be worth a shot.
JULIA: Just saying. Just need a little gorilla costume and then just take off running into the woods at night.
AMANDA: Great.
JULIA: Best advice I can offer you as a listener here.
AMANDA: Well, Julia, speaking of lore and people disappearing into the night, do you want to see an email that I unearthed from our archives?
JULIA: Yes, I would.
AMANDA: This is from Marley, she/they, and it is titled, Victor Hugo Hates Me.
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: See what I did there?
JULIA: Yeah. That's good.
AMANDA: I tried. Hello, Spirits. I am back with another story, arguably a lot creepier and cooler than the last two I shared four years ago. That was 2020, so at this point, six years ago. Good job, Marley. I'm also not entirely sure that I haven't sent this in before, but I'm gonna say that if I have, it's the ghost of Victor Hugo trying to discourage me.
JULIA: Sure, a thing that we have all experienced before.
AMANDA: We know my feelings about certain literary pervs and their stump fetish, so. Picture this. In 2015, I was a young 19-year-old au pair living in France. I think the house I lived in was in fact haunted by Catholic guilt, which is another story.
JULIA: That is always true of a lot of houses.
AMANDA: I was living my best life and visiting Paris at Christmas time every girl and growing up she/they's dream. Anyway, I was out and about in Paris with my other au pair friends as this was our last hurrah before several of them went back home. We spent the night before walking around and enjoying the Christmas market on the Champs-Elysees. I woke up early the next morning and took the Metro to Notre Dame, my favorite landmark and also relevant to this story, had a coffee and then met up with friends for lunch near Victor Hugo's home.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, I don't want to assume that everyone in the audience knows exactly what an au pair is.
AMANDA: Great point.
JULIA: Can you like, it's like a live-in nanny in a different country? Is that correct?
AMANDA: I think the idea of an au pair is like a European childcare professional who like lives with a family. And as far as I knew, I didn't know anyone with an au pair, but I knew people who knew people who had au pairs helps teach the kids other languages. So before like language immersion preschools were a thing, rich people would be like, oh, my German au pair is going to like teach German to my children.
JULIA: Gotcha. A quick Google says it is a young adult who lives with a foreign host family. So it's almost like a foreign exchange situation.
AMANDA: Yeah
JULIA: But you do child care in exchange for free room and board. That makes sense to me.
AMANDA: I mean, hopefully wages, but that makes sense.
JULIA: Yeah, they also make wages, like, like there's a minimum stipend that happens as well. But also it's mostly a like cultural exchange experience.
AMANDA: So, Au Pair Marley continues, after lunch we decided to visit Victor Hugo's house. So we showed our passports to get in for free. It's very cool to be under 26 in Europe and walked on in. Most of the visit passed without incident, but there's one room that had always kind of given me the creeps. Do want to guess which room, Julia?
JULIA: The bedroom. It's usually the bedroom. Or the basement.
AMANDA: Victor Hugo's bedroom.
JULIA: Yeah! There we go.
AMANDA: For starters, everything in the room, barring the hardwood floor and tapestry ceiling, is red, bright red.
JULIA: Uh-oh. blood red one would say.
AMANDA: The walls are covered in fabric, which takes away a lot of the outside noise. But when I was in there, I can't describe it except to say that things were dead silent. I was with my friends in the same room, but I couldn't hear them whatsoever. Also, apparently, I took a panoramic photo of the room according to my photo library, but I have literally zero recollection of taking that photo. So either I did and forgot or something else did?
JULIA: I don't love that. That's not great. I mean, sometimes, you know, your phone's in your pocket and it starts taking photos because it rubs up against your skin somehow or...
AMANDA: Or your Connor story in that short directed by Nia DaCosta and your fat ass makes it seem like you're being haunted.
JULIA: I don't know what you're talking about, but incredible.
AMANDA: Okay. Julia, I have some homework for you.
JULIA: I think if you have the photo as evidence and you just don't remember taking it, that's pretty wild.
AMANDA: So, that was a little bit weird. But the rest of the tour proceeded as normal and on our way out, which is down a pretty old staircase, we started talking about our favorite Victor Hugo works. Aside, I was undiagnosed, odd, DHD at the time, and I'm enthusiastic about all things Notre Dame related, so this was great for me.
JULIA: Squad, squad, squad.
AMANDA: I kind of wouldn't stop talking about how much I love the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And right before I reached the landing on the stairs, something fully pushed me over the banister.
JULIA: Over the banister? What?
AMANDA: There wasn't anybody behind me on the stairs. I didn't trip or stumble and fall. There's no way that I could have missed two steps and a small landing on my own.
JULIA: Dang.
AMANDA: My friends were so confused because even though they were ahead of me, I fell again over the banister and landed in front of them—
JULIA: Jeez.
AMANDA: -rather than at the back of the pack like I had been and would have remained if I just like stumbled.
JULIA: That's wild. Dang.
AMANDA: I am wondering if Victor heard me and got mad that I didn't talk about anything else he'd created, which as a theater kid, I do know another of his works particularly well.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: I got up and assured everyone that I was just fine and we walked from there to the Arc de Triomphe and from there to the Eiffel Tower. Note, long ass walk.
JULIA: I was gonna say, that's a lot of walking after falling over a banister.
AMANDA: But yeah, that's my paranormal story at Victor Hugo's house in Paris, which I haven't told many people before because who would believe me?
JULIA: Aww!
AMANDA: Anyway, thanks for your wonderful podcast. I've been listening since early 2017. Stay creepy, stay cool, Marley.
JULIA: Oh, my god, wild. Marley, I'm sure Victor Hugo wasn't mad at you that you didn't mention Les Mis. It's probably fine. It's probably okay. You're allowed to hyper-focus on whatever you want.
AMANDA: It's very true as a kid, I certainly would like, fantasize about like jumping over the banister, like a cool skateboard team, but that is not a thing I've ever done. And I have no other explanation for that.
JULIA: Me either. Dang. That's wild.
AMANDA: Stay safe, girlypop, and if you want to write in about how the last year and change has treated you since this message, I would love to hear.
JULIA: Wow. Dang. Do we have time for a real quick one, Amanda? Okay, this is from Vesper who wrote in about the haunted car situation, you might remember.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes.
JULIA: They write, today I shall explain my family ghost visits and my trauma about being in the forest after sunset, among other things.
AMANDA: Let’s go.
JULIA: Because as you might remember, Vesper was like, I could tell that we were being haunted, because I've been haunted before and I was like, please explain.
AMANDA: Babe, we need that. We need that detail.
JULIA: So, they write, I will start with explaining the trauma part, as I like to call it. At least we're joking about it, that's good. I think I was about six when my grandparents first actually told me about Baba Yaga. I did hear the Hansel and Gretel story before that, but the way my grandparents talked about her was different. It was mostly my grandpa who would tell me about her while we were walking in the woods. Terrible time to tell a child about Baba Yaga.
JULIA: He would say that I shouldn't stay too far back or I would get lost and find her hut. There, she would lure me in with sweets and whatnot, after which she would boil me alive and eat me.
AMANDA: Ahhh!
JULIA: Other times it would be that I shouldn't wander too far ahead or the same thing would happen or that I should never walk alone after sunset in the forest no matter what my age was or she would find me and of course eat me.
AMANDA: I both completely understand the utility of folklore in teaching kids appropriate boundaries. We've talked about this many times. And also, Julia, I'm shocked that society is shocked that sometimes we want to get stomped on by orc mommies because the idea of an entrancing woman in the forest giving me dessert and then keeping me in her house, you know what? Some days that's appealing. Not gonna lie to you.
JULIA: There is a way that we can, I think, teach children not to run away from their adults in the woods without being like, there's a woman out there that's going to eat you.
AMANDA: Yeah, murder you and put you in her soup stock?
JULIA: Truly we could just tell them, don't go too far away or you will get lost and I will never see you again.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And I think that would be frightening enough for a child without the creation-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -of a boogeyman character.
AMANDA: But there's animals that might hurt you by accident.
JULIA: So Vesper continues, now onto the very lovely ghost visits from my family. initially scarred now, lovely family ghosts. Great. It all started when I was around seven years old after my grandma on my dad's side passed away. At first, it was only visiting me in my dreams. And don't get me wrong, I never remember my dreams unless they are from their visits. That's really beautiful, actually.
JULIA: It started with just my grandma coming to me in my dreams to calm me down from days when I was still mourning her. After this, it escalated to family members that I knew before and was close to them. Later on, when I was 12 and started to question if I was queer or not, the visits then started happening during the daytime and I was able to feel them around me. So not dream daytime visits, but rather like the feeling of people comforting and being around you. That's beautiful.
AMANDA: Beautiful.
JULIA: They would mostly appear around me during stressful times and when I was having panic attacks. Nowadays, seven years after it all started, I get my visits from them when they want to just check in on me or help me get through some gender dysphoria and still the panic attacks. Also, every time I go to a graveyard, I can feel if the ghosts are distressed. That seems stressful to me.
AMANDA: That does. What do you do if they are?
JULIA: I, they don't say, but they do finish with, don't know why this started happening, but for me, it is a gift that I really enjoy. So I'm glad it really is like still an enjoyable experience, despite the fact that if you go to a graveyard, it seems like stressful one to me. They finish with love the podcast, keep doing what you're doing. I'm also attaching pictures of my family for you to enjoy, which are pictures of cats.
AMANDA and JULIA: Yay!
JULIA: Oh, it's a cat and a dog.The dog has real like church-grim energy. I don't know how else to describe it, but it's very cute.
AMANDA: One of these days, Julia, when I have the money and the space, I'll adopt a leggy big fella and make sure that they're comfortable.
JULIA: There's also really good picture of the dog which has like a light up collar. it looks kind of like a ghost and I'm into that. That's adorable. I did not get names of the pets, unfortunately, or else I would share them with you.
AMANDA: Extremely good. Thank you, Vesper. Adorable family. This is very much a church group, Julia.
JULIA: Yes, that's a church-grimmed dog if I've ever seen one.
AMANDA: All right, well, with those adorable images to carry us off, Julia, why don't we pop into the kitchen for a quick refill?
JULIA: Let's go.
REFILL
AMANDA: Hey, everybody, this is Amanda and welcome to The Refill. I am so excited that I get to thank our long-time supporters on Patreon. You would not make this show without your support on Patreon. And if you out there, you right now, have just four bucks a month to spare on Spirits making this happen and getting a brand-new Urban Legends episode every month, you should join us too at patreon.com slash Spirits Podcast. And if like me, you are a little bit iffy on making another monthly commitment. You can also sign up, by the way, for a full year of support at a substantial discount. patreon.com/spirits podcast. Thank you so much to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Scott, Anne, Matthew, Lily, and Wil. And our legends, that's right, our legend-level patrons, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Audra, Sarah, Bea Me Up Scotty, Morgan, Rikoelike, Chibi Yokai, and Michael.
Huge news out of Multitude this week, y'all. I am so excited to share with you that we have a brand-new member show. That's right, a sibling podcast at Multitude, our podcast collective, where every single one of them are about different subjects, but they share the same tone. If you like Spirits, if you like that we are irreverent and hopeful and researched and funny, but also take really seriously the things happening in the world, you are gonna love Dreaming Against the Machine.
This is a brand-new podcast about envisioning a realistic and hopeful future. That's right, realistic and hopeful. Every single week, the show's host, journalist and astrophysicist, Dr. Adam Becker, will have an earnest and entertaining conversation with a guest about possible futures through the lenses of history, science, and culture. In a world where we all know tech oligarchs and their power fantasies are driving visions of the future, this show, Dreaming Against the Machine, aims to take back the terms of the public conversation about what our world can and should be. I'm so excited about the show and it makes me feel so good to listen to it. And I know you're going to love it. New episodes come out every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
And finally, we would like to shout out another business in Minneapolis that is benefiting immigrants, protesters and activists. And if you are a podcaster who want to help shout out more of these wonderful folks, small businesses, mutual aid efforts that are doing the work on the ground in Minneapolis, we have a link for you, bit.ly/mnpodcastads.
We are spotlighting this week, El Burrito Mercado. They are a wonderful business that is both a restaurant and a grocery store selling homemade food, groceries, and other Mexican goods to folks who are originally from Mexico and neighboring countries and now making their home in Minneapolis.
They are working with the nonprofit Neighborhood House Minneapolis to feed their neighbors being impacted by ICE raids, either folks who have family that have been detained, folks who are less able to work, go out, go grocery shopping out of fear of persecution, and anyone else, no questions asked, who needs support and something to eat. So, if you would like to help them, you can go bit.ly/burritomn, all lowercase, and buy a gift card. In the recipient field, just put the email address in the description, giftcards@neighborhoodhousemn.org, and you're basically buying a gift card to benefit Neighborhood House, which will then spend money with a local business to feed local families. You are doing all this from the comfort of your own home.
Thank you very much, and please let us know on social media if you do this so we can thank you. We really appreciate it. And listen, if you're in Minneapolis, go give him your business, give him a visit. I hear it's delicious.
They told us it was a weather blip [28:12], just a glitch. It was a drone. Now it’s just AI, I guess. The explanation keeps changing. But the stories don’t go away. “The video we are currently showing you is [28:23] are flying through the air are real.” My name is Payne Lindsey and this is High Strange, an investigative podcast about real encounters. “Images of that rotating thing captured by US Navy aircraft.” Credible people, “We have clear things that we do not understand how they work.” And talk to scientist, military witnesses, pilots and people who saw something they can’t unsee. “There was no other explanation for what we saw that day.” “I remember those faces and they weren’t human.” This isn’t a show about belief, it’s about curiosity, skepticism, an investigation into the unknown. High Strange is available now wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen for free on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.
End of Refill
JULIA: Amanda, we are back and hey, what have you been drinking lately that you've been enjoying?
AMANDA: Julia, I'm gonna go ahead and do something that I don't typically do on the show, which is shout out a product that has not yet sponsored us, but really should, and just give them a full ad read, okay? As discussed earlier, I have been enjoying getting stoned and drinking a plain seltzer. However, I have also tried recently the CANN, C-A-N-N, brand of THC seltzers, and they are fucking delicious. I love the flavors.
JULIA: Nice
AMANDA: It doesn't taste like weed. There's different sizes. There is a roadie can, Julia, that just has two milligrams of THC, AKA Julia-sized.
JULIA: That's perfect.
AMANDA: There are spritzes that you can share at like a party. And then there's high boys with like a higher dosage. I love that they make these various options interesting and like available to whoever needs them for whatever purpose you're chilling with. The Yuzu elderflower is my favorite flavy. I think you would really like that one, Julia. There's also a ginger lemongrass that is super, super refreshing. Grapefruit rosemary. That's a Julie drink if I've ever heard one before. I love this shit. Sponsor me, please. Okay? I want, I want these things and our audience does too. So, folks, if you are intrigued, tag Drink Cann on social media because I want them. I want them.
JULIA: I will say, I'm glad you bring up Julia-sized because a peek behind the curtain for the audience, you and I shared a 10 milligram seltzer yesterday.
AMANDA: You were out for the count.
JULIA: I usually don't do even half of that. I usually do about a third and I was a little high when you left my house. was like, whooo!
AMANDA: If you just wanted a two-milligram roadie, they got you.
JULIA: Exactly! That's perfect! That sounds great! 2 milligrams is like the perfect amount of seltzer for me.
AMANDA: How, what have you been drinking, Julia?
JULIA: You know what, Amanda, it's starting to feel like rosé season for me. And I know it's a little early, but we got like a hint of fall spring and I'm like, I need chilled, beautiful, crisp rosé right here right now. So I am excited for it to be crisp rosé season. And I'm also excited for it to be cold brew season soon. Not that those two are connected, but man, I just am ready for my cold drinks again.
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: Alright, Amanda, are you ready for a, let's say long distance urban legend story?
AMANDA: Yes, please.
JULIA: So this is from Nicola, they/he titled the guardian spirit that followed me 1400 miles. A little content warning at the top before I get into this email. It deals with like serious parental illness. So just a heads up about that. So, they write, hello, if you're reading this, means I finally remembered to send the message. I've been a long-time listener having discovered the podcast during the pandemic. I'd listen mostly on long drives when visiting my folks. It turns out music isn't enough to keep a person awake for a 14-hour drive.
AMANDA: That's what we're here for, make you snort with laughter a little bit and then look in the rear-view mirror and hope that everyone's okay.
JULIA: Anyway, I heard y'all asking for urban legends and decided it was time. So here is the story of the guardian spirit that followed me 1400 miles.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: I grew up in central Louisiana. I was born in a not so small town of Phoenix, Arizona, but we had to move because my mother was dying. She had contracted MRSA from the hospital after a botched gastric bypass surgery. And all of my dad's family lived in central Louisiana.
AMANDA: Oh, my gosh.
JULIA: You'll be happy to know that my mom is still alive, but given the situation, it makes sense for a spirit-sensitive kid with a dying mom to need a guardian.
AMANDA: No kidding. Wow. Well, that's just okay, but what a setup.
JULIA: Note, I am still spirit sensitive. Shout out to the long-fingered creature peeking out of my kitchen that I chased out two months ago. Now I am going to need to hear more about that at some point, but for right now we have to continue. My first memory of the ghost was not long after we moved into my childhood home. It was way bigger than what we needed, but it had great oak trees in the front yard, a carport, a pool, a garage out back that was perfect for my dad's projects. So we ended up turning one of the extra rooms into a computer room. Remember when we just used to keep the computer in one room and not in our pockets all the time? That's my most millennial hot take.
AMANDA: I do, you know, there were real pros to it.
JULIA: I truly am like, maybe we should go back to having a room that just the computer stays in and does not come back out.
AMANDA: We should try it, Julia. Like, what else have we got?
JULIA: That's kind of what I have, which is, you know, my office is my computer room nowadays, but still. They continue; This was the time before laptops are really a thing. So the computer I had was set up with a monster of a monitor, kind of like a child's arm length deep. So there I was in the computer room, all alone playing some educational video game some door-to-door salesman had gotten my parents to buy.
AMANDA: Hehehehehe
JULIA: When I saw a girl out of the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around to find nobody there. However, little me was having absolutely none of it, so I booked it out of the room, my little black desk chair rolling towards the cabinets on the far wall as I searched for my parents. After calming down, little me felt bad for running away. She was a ghost, yeah, but she was a kid just like me.
AMANDA: Awww!
JULIA: She must have been a couple years older than I was at the time, so like max 10 or 11.
AMANDA: That’s really cute.
JULIA: Now, I shit you not, she was in a long white nightgown and had black hair down to her tailbone.
AMANDA: Sorry, is this that creepy movie what the woman's mouth is a big circle?
JULIA: What the woman's mouth is a big circle. Do you mean The Ring? Are we talking about the ring?
AMANDA: Thank you.
JULIA: Okay, cool. Just making sure we're on the same page. Sometimes you say stuff and I say, think I know what you're talking about, but I gotta be sure.
AMANDA: Thanks, Jules. I'm so glad you know my particular language.
JULIA: They continue, I hadn't really been able to make out her face, but I got the feeling that she wasn't going to hurt me. Little me then had the bright idea to leave a pen and paper out for her to write on.
AMANDA: You're so smart.
JULIA: I distinctly remember it being part of a kid’s stationary kit because it had my first initial on it.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: I picked out the pink pocket notepad with its matching pen and waited for her to answer the question I'd left. I don't remember what I asked. Probably something like, who are you or what's your name? A few days go by, but every day I'd glance out of the corner of my eye to see if I could spot her. There was never anybody there, sadly. However, one evening I checked the notepad and there were scribbles on it!
AMANDA: Woooh!
JULIA: I was convinced it was from the ghost. For whatever reason, I kept it entirely to myself, as if I was going to scare her away if I told someone about her. Years go by, and I saw her around the house a couple times more. I even think I heard her whisper my name while I was listening to music after school. Now, this especially startled me because I had my earbuds in. Real ones know what a Zune is.
AMANDA: Wow, we do.
JULIA: But the whisper was so clear that it was as if she had spoken directly in my ear.
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: Just like the first time, I bolted out of the room, then chided myself later for not trying to talk to her instead.
AMANDA: You know, I am just like always awed by the empathy of kids and how they're like, you know what? I can't startle her, can't scare her, want to make sure she's okay, want to make sure she's comfy. Like, that is so beautiful.
JULIA: It is, really is. So they continue. There's something I've neglected to tell you. That's because I didn't connect it to the spirit until much later. Every night I would hear a radio in the ceiling.
AMANDA: Was there a radio in your ceiling?
JULIA: What makes me think that there was a radio in the ceiling, you might ask?
AMANDA: I'm curious.
JULIA: It was because every night I would hear muffled voices, specifically with the cadence of a talk show host. You kind of know what that in terms like if you thought of talk show host in your brain, that's what I'm picturing.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Now, at first, I thought it was my parents watching TV late at night. But every time I would get up and check to see if they were awake, given their bedroom was right across from mine, the lights would always be dark and the house would be silent. This was every night for years. Then eventually I asked my mom if she heard it, too. And to my surprise, she had. She informed me that she had also checked the attic for a radio, but had never found one. I made an offhand comment about it maybe being a ghost trying to lull us to sleep when she said she knew a ghost haunted us and that that might be the case.
AMANDA: She's like, oh, honey, no, no, this is happening.
JULIA: She said the ghost had even told her her name, Laura.
AMANDA: Laura!
JULIA: To say that this was shocking was an understatement. Not only was the ghost girl real, now I had her name.
AMANDA: Shit.
JULIA: Now, the radio kept on playing, there would still be cold spots, and I heard my name whispered at least one more time. But lulling me to sleep was not what got her the Guardian Spirit title. That comes from the last time that I saw her.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: It was sixth grade. I was an awkward kid, so this was my first time having someone over that wasn't a adult curated play date, which is a great way of phrasing that. I started to tell my new friend about Laura when I remembered the notepad. I went running inside to look for it and happened to glance inside my parents' bedroom as I turned into mine. There she was, standing by my mother's side of the bed, the girl in white cast in a golden glow. This time, I could see her face. There was no blurriness or fog preventing me from seeing her fully. She looked serene, content almost, like her work was done. It felt like now I had my first friend. She felt safe to move on, and I've not heard or seen from her since. I like to think that she moved on to some kind of afterlife and is happy.
Now you might ask, how did I know this spirit wasn't local? How do I know that she followed me from Phoenix? That's because I wasn't the first one to see her. I'd occasionally visit my grandparents in Arizona, though they were actually our neighbors who basically adopted my family. Like they had a welcome home sign when I came home for the first time as an infant.
AMANDA: So cute.
JULIA: They lived at the base of South Mountain, which is actually a floodplain. So surprise, surprise, if it rains in an area that doesn't get much rain, the ground freaks out and doesn't know how to absorb it. So you get flash floods.
AMANDA: For sure.
JULIA: This happened a few years after we moved out, and it was after they rebuilt the house that I was visiting. We were swapping ghost stories, though it was more like my papa was telling me stories and I was soaking up the spookiness like a sponge. South Mountain has a bunch of ghost stories attached to it.
The one he told me was about a woman who walked off the trail and had gotten lost only to be found by a man and his horse. And in proper cowboy fashion, he led her back to safety. In response, I mentioned my girl in white and he said he wasn't surprised at all. He explained that one time he'd stopped by to see me, and when he entered my bedroom, there was a girl in white sitting on the edge of my bed.
Apparently, Laura had followed me 1400 miles and watched over me for 11 years. And I got the feeling that she'd passed from a flash flood, just like the one that had torn apart their neighborhood. I've now realized this is a bit on longer side, so I'll wrap this up here. But if you want to hear more about my ghost interactions as an adult, like said spidery fingered kitchen dweller, let me know and I'll write in. Stay spooky, but also stay safe.
AMANDA: Damn, that's a good email!
JULIA: Yeah, yeah, that was really sick. And yes, I would like to hear more about the spidery-fingered kitchen dweller.
AMANDA: I erased that from my brain just so I could sort of like exist in a comfortable little bubble for a few minutes where that didn't exist. But yes, now I'm ready and I do need to hear more.
JULIA: Okay. Good. Well, hopefully they will write in with more for us. Now, Amanda, listen, I love a written email. Of course, they are one of my favorite things about doing this show, but I also love when you bring me a voicemail. So do you have a voicemail for us this episode?
AMANDA: You know I do, Julia, and it is a good chunky one.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: I will give a quick content warning at the top that this does discuss the death of a spouse. As always, the number for our voicemail line is in the episode description. And if you're in the US, you can call. If you're outside the US, just email us a voice memo, spiritspodcast.gmail
VM: Hi, Spirits, long-time listener. Really enjoy the ghost stories. I had one, I hauled off on sending it because it involves dreams and I know that like hypnagogic visions or dream visions are a little questionable, but how about like several years of dreams that then transfer to another person?
JULIA: Whoa.
AMANDA: Are we into it?
JULIA: I'm into dreams transferring to another person. That sounds cool.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
VM: I'm a widow, but before my late husband died, for years, in the apartment we lived at, he would often go to bed before me, and then when I would come in, maybe like an hour later after he'd fallen asleep, he would be sort of struggling and talking in his sleep. And then I would shake him awake or touch him on the shoulder and say, “Hey, having a nightmare.” And he would open up his eyes and say, “Ugh, I was fighting with the ghosts again” and roll over and go to sleep.
JULIA: Uh-oh! Fighting with the ghost again?
AMANDA: As always, Julia, there's one word in a given sentence that really takes it over the top. And for me, this one is again.
JULIA: I think fighting is also an interesting one.
AMANDA: Fighting is interesting.
JULIA: Famously, Jake is not like, he doesn't talk much in his sleep or anything like that, but Jake will laugh in his sleep and it is like a little bit disturbing. And like occasionally I'll be like, I can't tell if he's laughing or he's like sobbing in his sleep. And so, I'm like, do I wake him up from the funny dream or do I wake him up from this nightmare situation? Like, I don't know which one's worse in this case.
AMANDA: Jake's single amber flag.
VM: And then this would happen maybe every few weeks or months for, again, like two or three years when he died. you know, like things are very liminal, lots of sleep deprivation, lots of grief, lots of sensory change. And so, I held everything kind of with a grain of salt. But I started having strange things happening. I had gotten a hygrometer, which is a humidity measure for during the COVID times to make sure that our humidity was in a pretty safe range for everybody's, you know, ears, nose and throat wellness, and suddenly, regardless of what I show at the fitness statue, the hygrometer would read 66.6 degrees Fahrenheit and 66% humidity.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: So…
JULIA: That's a spooky number for it to be, certainly.
AMANDA: And if it was just like the factory setting where it was making sure that all the lines worked, it would be eights, not sixes.
JULIA: It would be eights. You're absolutely correct, Amanda.
AMANDA: Come on.
JULIA: I don't like that.
AMANDA: My skin is crawling. Okay.
VM: My printer suddenly started having this error come up where every single light would flash randomly in no order. And I would take a video of it and then go online and try and check what's this error message mean with all the help desks. And there was absolutely no record of that kind of or signal coming out of the printer.
JULIA: I will say, printers are the most haunted electronic you can have in your household.
AMANDA: That is absolutely correct. I have never in my life met a device that foils my patients more than printers.
JULIA: I do think that printers are just inherently demonic. We took a step too far when we created printers.
AMANDA: Yeah, many cultures at similar times, but first the ancient Chinese said, the printing press? That seems about right. And then at some point HP or whoever said, what if we all had little printing presses in our homes? And then the ghost said, my guy, this has gone too far.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And they made sure that any home printer is going to be the most erratic and haunted and yet somehow still in 2026 necessary part of adult life.
JULIA: 100%.
VM: And then my cat started changing where it normally perched and it started to perch on top of the collection of witchy books that I had, specifically about curse breaking that I picked up around, well, the 2016 election, started standing on top of that cluster and staring at me with great intensity.
JULIA: Not the staring at you with great intensity.
AMANDA: You know, Julia, that for a cat owner to say, staring at me with great intensity, it was truly very intense.
JULIA: You're like, what is wrong with you if that's the case?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Something's wrong.
VM: Then the last thing [47:26] that happened was I went to sleep and then I had a strange dream that I never had before since, where I was in a farmhouse and walked up a flight of stairs. And when I was on the landing, suddenly a person crashes through one of the upstairs windows onto the landing, doing like a tuck and roll and jumps up in a martial arts stance. And I hear the front door of the space open and someone else starts pounding up the stairs.
All of sudden they start fighting me and a Keanu Reeves moment from my I know Kung Fu and I'm able to toss them to the floor. And they look at me and they say, “Wait, where is-,” and then say my husband's name. And I stare back at them and I say, “Wait, are you the ghost that my husband's always been fighting about?” And they both look stricken and run away from me in the dream. And after that, I investigated like talking to the ghosts and then having them moved on in a spear crossing ceremony. And then since then, my hygrometer went back to reading 73 degrees. Anyway, that was my inherited dream from my husband. Thanks for having the show. It's fun to listen to. Have a good day.
AMANDA: Lord, you did it. You you fully processed those ghosts out of here. You dueled the ghosts through this grief liminal transition situation. Good God!
JULIA: Wow. That's so incredibly sad, but incredibly like moving in a way, you know what I mean?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Where it's like, yeah, you're processing your own grief and then also helping ghosts process their grief and helping them move on. That's beautiful and sad and incredible. Damn.
AMANDA: Yes. It's rare, Julie, that someone writes in and we're like, it seems like you got this handled, man, slash do you want to share any notes with us? But that's what I'm left with.
JULIA: Truly, usually we're like, we gotta give this person advice. you know, I would react the same way, but you know, in hindsight, no, you got it handled.
AMANDA: You Kung Fu fought your way out of this predicament and thank you for sharing your journey truthfully.
JULIA: Wild. Love that. Incredible. So good. I don't think I want to follow up with any other stories because that is so like... I'm feeling a little shaken in terms of how great of a story that was. So, Amanda, think we have to call it there because Nellie, whoo boy!
AMANDA: Julia, I think you're right. That's about where we're going to leave it for today. Folks, please send in your emails, send in your voice memos, whether you call our line or email us, spiritspodcast@gmail.com. You can attach all the plant and pet photos you want.
JULIA: And remember, if you send us in enough Jake targeted emails that you would like him to hear and react to and answer your questions on the podcast, let's say if we get like six of them, I'll have Jake on a future Urban Legends episode to react to those.
AMANDA: I would truly love nothing more. Y'all don't even know the goodness that awaits us. So, folks, thank you once again for listening, for sending them in. I am so excited for the springtime. And Juliet, next time you find yourself being bullied by Victor Hugo's ghost for not giving enough love to Les Mis, remember-
JULIA: Stay Creepy.
JULIA: Stay cool.
AMANDA: Later Satyrs.