Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 82: Listener Stories: Sleep Demons, Ghost Children, and more

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Real life horror stories coming straight from listeners. We dive into stories of astral projecting, creepy toys buried in a backyard, evil imaginary friends, and more. The Timekeeper: https://www.heartstartspounding.com/timekeeper I'm doing a live show with Annie Elise on October 3rd in Brea, California! Get your tickets here: https://improv.com/brea/event/serialously+with+annie+elise/13832333/ Want HSP Stickers? https://shop.heartstartspounding.com/en-usd/collections/all This episode is sponsored by Hero Bread. Keep the carbs out of summer without compromising flavor with Hero Bread. Get 10% off your order at hero.co and use code HSP at checkout. This episode is also sponsored by Quince, Luxury basics at affordable prices. Make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high-quality closet essentials. Go to Quince.com/hsp for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Subscribe on Patreon for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to ad-free listening and bonus content. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to ad-free episodes and bonus episodes when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror.

Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. As always, I'm your host, Keelan Moore. We are finally in spooky season. Can I say that yet? It's definitely not too early to say that, right? It's never too early, in my opinion. The rogue detecting society headquarters where I record this podcast basically came decorated for Halloween.

There was even a skeleton hand poking out of the front yard when I moved in. At least, I think that was a decoration. Usually here at Heart Starts Pounding, we look at the horrors of our world. But for today's episode, I'm going to turn the mirror on all of you and show you the scary stories that reside within our little community, the rogue detecting society. I've been getting creepy little letters from you all delivered to me here at the RDS headquarters and boy oh boy you guys are so haunted. I'm not kidding I'm ordering an exorcist to some of your homes because my god. I got stories of ghosts, of close calls with killers, of demons that attack you while you're asleep.

But mostly I got stories of children seeing terrifying things, which brings me to our first story. One that was sent in by a listener named Don. Don writes, This takes place back in 2017 when we bought our home. One night my husband was talking to our then three-year-old little nephew when all of a sudden he stared past him through the window that faced our very dark backyard. So my husband says, hey buddy, what are you looking at? Our nephew turns to him and goes, my friend. And my husband said, who's your friend? You know, playing along with the little kids game, but definitely freaked out.

To which our nephew responded, little Johnny. Our house is over a hundred years old. And over the years, we swear we've heard things or placed things in one spot only to find it later in another. About two years after that horrifying interaction with our nephew, my husband was digging up an overgrown garden box in the backyard when he found old little toys. Army men, those Fisher Price little guys. Yeah, we were a little taken aback by that one. I need to research the history of the home but I don't know where to begin. Okay, so you should definitely go down to town hall and try

to do some research on the house and actually while you're down there you should find the deed to your house and write little Johnny's name on it because it sounds like it's actually his house, not yours. We have a whole bunch of terrifying tales sent directly from you all that we're going to get into today, so buckle up. And as always, listener discretion is advised. This episode is brought to you by Hero Bread. Summer may be officially over, but I'm not ready for summer foods to go away just yet. The 100 degree days? Yes. The hot dogs, hamburgers, and sliders? Not so much.

Same goes for the bread that has become an essential part of all these summer favorites. Hero Bread, which as I've said before is pretty much the only bread I buy now. Hero makes a bunch of different fluffy and delicious bread products. Think loaves of bread, chewy tortillas, cheddar biscuits, croissants, and even Hawaiian rolls. But Hero Bread is built different. Their bread has no net carbs, zero grams of sugar, fewer calories,

has protein, and is high in fiber. My family all needs different things. My dad has to cut down on carbs. My husband needs to eat lots of protein. I'm trying to add fiber to my diet. And Hero Bread lets us all accomplish our goals, while also, I cannot stress this enough, eating delicious bread.

If you eat low carb, high fiber bread, you know that it can taste very strange. You know what I'm talking about. There's usually like an aftertaste from all the fake sugar that they put in the products. Hero Bread doesn't have that. It's actually delicious by normal bread standards. Believe me, you'll thank me later. And now we have a deal that is exclusive for Herzer's Founding listeners.

Keep the carbs out of summer without compromising flavor with Hero Bread. Get 10% off your order at hero.co and use code HSP at checkout. That's HSP at h-e-r-o dot c-o. So before we jump back in, let me just say, if you're new here, welcome to our community of the darkly curious. You'll find us here in the study of the rogue detecting society every Wednesday around 9 p.m. Central Standard Time or 7 p.m. for those of you on the West Coast of the United States. As we're entering spooky season, I want to remind you all, new and old listeners alike, of a project I produced

last year called The Timekeeper. It's a four episode horror audio drama featuring Judah Lewis of the babysitter franchise on Netflix, a horror movie franchise I love, Chandler Kenny of the Pretty Little Liars reboot, and Arjun Atalye of Are You Afraid of the Dark. If you're craving more horror going into October, definitely check it out. You can listen to it wherever you're listening now, including YouTube where there's a special visual component for each episode. It was so much fun to make and I'm very proud of how it turned out. I'll link all the episodes in the description or you can go to heartstartspounding.com

backslash timekeeper. Okay, let's dive in. Now, I've talked about this a little bit on this show, but I suffer from sleep paralysis. And I have a very specific sleep paralysis demon that visits me. It's always been the same entity, and for clarity's sake, I'll call him Walter. Sometimes I'll awake in the middle of the night and I'll feel Walter standing beside me. Sometimes he'll wrap his arms around me and squeeze all of the air out of my chest so I can't breathe. One time, and I'm not kidding about this, he dug his hands into my armpits. That was hands down the worst thing he's ever done, and that includes the time he just banged on my

door begging to be let in. Occasionally I'll hear from some of you about sleep paralysis demons that you've encountered, but every now and then I'll get a story about sleep that's unlike anything I've ever heard before and shakes me to my core. This next story comes from Lara. She writes, So I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this, but allegedly all of the women in my family are psychic. I'm not strictly referring to visions of the future, though we have them from time to time.

I mean that we possess the ability to perceive the imperceptible in some unique way. And that ties into this story that I'm going to tell you. Because today I want to tell you about the ability to perceive the imperceptible in some unique way. And that ties into this story that I'm going to tell you. Because today I want to tell you about some of my experiences with astral projecting. I'm sure being spooky folks you already know what astral projecting is, but in case someone isn't familiar it's essentially the act of the spiritual essence of a person leaving their physical body when they're asleep or

Entranced and being able to travel about on its own through the other side of the veil Give insidious a watch if you find this concept interesting. I Have this ability as far as I know. I'm the only one in my family who can do this. But here's the catch I can't control it. I can't consciously choose to do it. It just happens. I can remember dreaming when I was a child that I was flying above myself and seeing my body sleep below me. Those kinds of dreams are fairly common for children, however, it was the stuff I experienced as an adult that got truly terrifying. So I was in undergrad and very depressed.

I was drinking too much, I was experiencing a great deal of personal tragedy, and I was carrying this aura of distress with me wherever I went. I preface with my mental state because they say that dark entities are most attracted to preying on the mentally and emotionally vulnerable. That they can sense your pain and fear and are drawn to it. During this period of my life, I began astral projecting again, completely beyond my control. At first I didn't know what it was.

I would wake up and see my bedroom exactly as it always was, everything in its proper place. But as I lay there, I would realize that it wasn't quite my bedroom. It was a very skillful imitation of my bedroom. The colors and everything was just a tiny bit off. Eventually I would wake up and realize that what I had just experienced was a dream. At least I thought they were dreams. Gradually I realized while I was in this kind of parallel place I could move about. Sometimes I encountered other people there who would talk to me, but it still felt like a dreamland.

I didn't realize I was acting as my astral body. And then I started seeing something. A creature. A dark, demonic creature. Its limbs were far too long in proportion to its humanoid body. It seemed to be made purely of shadow. It was very tall and it could crawl up my walls and perch on the ceiling. Sometimes it had eyes and sometimes it didn't. I remember it being very, very thin. At first I would see it kind of observing me, just watching.

And at first I wasn't really afraid, though it was disturbing, because I didn't think it could touch me. But it could. One night, I had one of my astral dreams where it felt like I had woken up and was looking around my room. Everything looked in order, but then I noticed the color difference, and I knew where I was. I said out loud, I know this isn't real! And then the creature melted out of a bookcase up against the wall. It stood at the foot of my bed and just stared at me.

The next time I saw it, I awoke in the astral place, with the creature standing directly above me, staring down at me and that time I got really scared really really truly scared it was so close to me and it was so tall and I wasn't sure if it was an actual man who had broken into my home or if I was just dreaming and from there it got even worse I was in Europe in a hotel sharing a room with a close friend of mine. I hadn't had the sleep paralysis episodes in a while and was feeling pretty good. So my friend, I'll call her Bobby, and I went to bed. Nothing was amiss. I woke in the middle of the night and looked around and I saw that Bobby was sleeping soundly in her bed. I was trying

to figure out what woke me but I didn't hear anything unusual so I settled down to go back to sleep and then Bobby started stirring and sat up. She said something to the effect of, you're awake too? And I replied that I was. She sat at the foot of her bed and just started talking to me. It all seemed very normal, just two girlfriends chatting. And then she asked me a question. It was a question that she already knew the answer to though. A question where she knew the answer so well she would have never asked me it in a million years. So I stopped talking and I just stared at her. She looked like herself, she sounded like herself, she moved like herself. She looked at me, silently, as if asking why I had clammed up. I was immediately covered in a cold sweat as the horrible realization dawned on me.

The colors in the room were just a little bit wrong. You're not Bobby, I said. For a moment, Bobby said nothing. She just stared at me blankly. And then she smiled, a horrible, malicious smile that just kept growing and growing and growing until her mouth was twisted into a grotesque shape. And then she started laughing. This was not Bobby's laugh. I watched in horror as Bobby's

face literally melted off to reveal the entity that had tormented me back in the US. I started screaming at it. You couldn't trick me. I'm smarter than you. I'm not afraid of you. And then I gathered up my energy in my chest the same as I had before and I catapulted myself into reality. I woke up for real. The second I woke up, I woke Bobby up as well. Partially because I was terrified and partially because I wanted to make sure it was really her. She jolted awake and immediately yelled, something terrible has happened. Something terrible has happened. I know it. I just know it. She lunged for her phone and saw a message from her family member telling her that her

grandmother had just died. She packed up and left the next day. I'm happy to report that I haven't seen the creature or astral projected for many years now. I'm not sure if it's an element of my psychic ability that I'll ever want to touch again. The last time I astral projected though, it was really nice actually. Nothing bad happened. My astral body went and visited my mom's astral body while she was sleeping and we had a nice chat. I called her the next day and

she said she remembered it. Isn't that neat? Astral projection is something that I've never had any personal experience with, but Insidious remains one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. I do need to do a deep dive on it in general. I have so many questions. Like, does it exist on the same plane where Walter, my sleep paralysis demon lives? And what other things exist there? Like how did Bobby get the sense that something horrible had happened? Is there information that only exists there that we can access? I do tend to think that there's stuff we can only access while we sleep, and maybe it's because we travel to a different world when we sleep, or maybe it's because

sleep helps us access parts of our subconscious and our long term memory, things that we don't have access to during our normal waking hours. Either way, I do think there's things that we can only see while we're asleep. And apparently, I learned from all of you, there are also things that we can only see when we're children. I wanna take us all back to what I was talking about in the beginning of this episode, children seeing the scariest stuff I've ever heard.

This story comes from a listener named Molly. My story starts when I was around 6 or 7. It's an experience I will never forget and to this day it still creeps me out. I was at a friend's house, we'll call her Anna, for the day to play. My mother had dropped me off that morning and was going to pick me up some time after lunch. Anyway, Anna had always talked about her imaginary friend, Jessie. And I mean, always talked about her.

We would be playing and she would just randomly start talking to Jessie like she was in the room with us. Even at six years old, I never had any imaginary friends. I thought it was silly and I knew it was fake. Or at least I thought they were fake. So this day, I thought they were fake. So this day, I guess Jessie was wanting to play with us because Anna kept talking to her, saying we needed to let her sit next to us, etc. etc.

I being a kid started making fun of her and saying, Jessie's not real, it's kind of annoying to keep pretending she is. I didn't want to pretend anymore. And throughout the day, I kept denying Jessie and saying how I didn't believe in imaginary friends and stuff. Fast forward a few hours. Anna and I were looking for a book.

I can't remember exactly what the book was, but it doesn't matter. All that matters is her dad's office had a bookshelf that was one of those huge floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that required a rolling ladder. Side note, I should preface that her mother was the only one home with us and at that time in the day she was outside doing yard work and her dad's office was on the opposite side of the house.

Keep in mind that this was the early 90s so we were mostly unsupervised. So to look for this book we decided to start on the top shelf. She got in one chair and I got in another and we started looking on opposite ends of the bookshelf for the book. In the process, Jessie decided to make an appearance, I guess, and Anna said Jessie was upset because I was leaving her out. I finally broke down and just yelled, oh my god. Jesse is not real imaginary friends aren't real and not a second later I Felt a foot kick in my backside. I

Knew it was a foot. There was no mistaking that feeling I lurched forward and almost fell off the chair I looked over at Anna who keep in mind was probably eight feet away from me standing on her chair, and said, what was that for? Anna looked at me and said, what was what for? I said, you just kicked me. And without missing a beat, Anna jumped off her chair and ran into her room, and I heard her yell,

Jesse, stop that, You have to be nice. I remember having chills and thinking it had to have been Anna. There was no way she could have jumped off her chair, run over to me and kicked me and then run back to her chair to pretend to look for the book in the time frame that it had occurred, especially without me seeing or hearing her. It was impossible. I still don't know what I believe and I know I was very young, but I remember it clear as day. It was 100% of foot that

kicked me. I can tell you I never made fun of Jessie ever again. I never made fun of anything paranormal again and I never went back to Anna's house. I would also never went back to Anna's house. I would also never go back to Anna's house, so it seems like that was a good decision on your end. Seriously, every episode I do of listener stories, I have at least one person who writes in having a tale of an imaginary friend gone wrong. What is going on? More kids seeing terrifying things after a short break.

This episode is brought to you by Quince. I just bought some new pieces from Quince for fall, so it's perfect timing that this ad is this week. They didn't send them to me. I actually bought them myself because I've been so happy with the clothes I've gotten from them. This time, I wanted stuff that had a bit of a fun,

dark academia vibe. I'm feeling like smart, spooky girl fall. So I got a washable stretch silk tie neck blouse in forest green, a European linen long sleeve shirt in the color sand. And then I got these ultra stretch Ponte super wide leg pants in espresso, which are maybe my favorite pair of pants now.

They're very stretchy, they have these flared bottoms, so they make my legs look really long and I can actually move around in them. I love Quince because I can get luxury basics for my wardrobe at affordable prices, like their popular $50 cashmere sweaters. Not to mention the fact that Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes.

So I just especially love them for that. Make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high quality closet essentials. Go to quince.com slash hsp for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

That's quince.com slash hsp HSP for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q UI N C E dot com slash HSP to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash HSP. This next story comes from Amy, who writes, Hello, I have a story that I would like to share, which still gives me goosebumps to this day. For part of my childhood, I lived on my grandparents' farm in the middle of the English countryside. The house is a very large Victorian style farmhouse built by my ancestors sometime in the 1800s.

It's rather beautiful if I don't say so myself. The house has three floors, an upstairs, downstairs, and the cellar at the bottom, which hasn't been used in years. I have two siblings, an older brother and a younger sister. At the time we were living there, my sister was around four, I was seven, and my brother was about 10.

And we used to love playing hide and seek, as the house had so many places to hide. But the only place we weren't allowed to go was the cellar, as it was quite damp down there and the stairs down to it were extremely slippery. So one day, my siblings and I were playing hide and seek. I was the one counting while they went to hide. I counted to 100 and shouted, ready or not, here I come.

I started searching downstairs for around 10 minutes when I walked past the cellar door. The door was located under the stairs in the hallway. And as I walked past the door, I heard some little giggles of what sounded like a little girl. I stopped and pressed my ear up to the wood on the door, assuming that my little sister was on the other side. And as I pressed my ear there, I heard giggles again.

So I twisted the doorknob, but it was locked. I called out to her saying, are you okay? How did you manage to lock the door from the inside? But no answer. I started to worry as we weren't meant to be down there and I didn't know where the key was. As I turned to walk away from the door I heard her voice again saying, come on, I'm waiting, come and find me. So I quickly sprinted down the hallway to find my mom, but halfway down the hallway I came across my little sister. I stood there looking at her, my eyes wide. She asked what was wrong and I explained that I thought she was locked in the cellar and I heard a voice

down there. She just giggled and said, "'That was probably the little girl "'that lives here with us. "'I play with her sometimes,' and then skipped away like it was nothing. It was safe to say that I definitely put off playing hide and seek for a while after that. The house still freaks me out to this day 13 years on."

So I have a quick question for the group. Does anyone happen to have a child that I could rent to tell me if there's any ghosts in my house? I just need them to wander around for a little bit and tell me if they see anything. I mentioned this in the bonus episode I did about spooky children's games, but there's been some weird stuff happening in the upstairs of the rogue detecting society after I moved in. Maybe it's because I brought my 100 year old monkey doll named Gordy, but I think that's unrelated. I will say though, reading through some of these stories, it seems like sometimes when kids see people or spirits that we can't see, it's not always creepy. Sometimes it can be a little comforting,

like in this story from Riona. She writes, So for context, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he requested to stay at home rather than going into a hospice, so he was able to be around me, my mom, and my younger sister. He was staying in the back room of my house with a window facing the garden and the back lane. This story in particular happened about three days before he died, so he was just sleeping and we were all spending lots of time with him. At the time, my sister was two and a half, so she was too young to realize what was going on. And it's important to note that she wasn't much of a talker either. But that day, she looked at my mom and she told her that there was a man in a coat and

a hat by the back gate waiting for daddy. When my mom tried to ask her more about it, she just pointed to the back gate and repeated herself, and then went back to playing with her toys. No one else in my family saw anyone by the gate, at any point. We have some theories ourselves about who this mystery man was, but we think it might have been some old relative coming to help my dad cross over. But I would be open to hear any ideas you have on what it might have been some old relative coming to help my dad cross over, but I would be open to hear any ideas you have on what it might have been.

Okay, personally, I do believe that it was maybe someone in your family coming to help your father. I get way too many stories from listeners that specifically revolve around the time someone dies. Seeing strange visitors, being visited in dreams, even weird glitches in technology, it just happens way too much for there to not be something going on. I personally believe that my grandmother sent me a song

to play her on the piano a few days after she died. I really, really, really believe that there's something there. And I talk about it in the episode where I had the hospice nurse on but there's just a lot of strange things that happen close to the time someone dies. And actually I want to read you another one of those kinds of stories because this one really touched me. This one is from Lynette. She writes, Hi there. I have many stories, but lately I've been thinking heavily about my best friend and my grandfather who passed away. I used to question if there was an

afterlife and because of them I really believe there is. My best friend Amar passed away December 15th 2017. A truck hit her while she was riding on her motorcycle to work. For weeks after her passing, all I did was cry. I begged for a sign that she was okay, and I never got anything. Then, on January 8th, 2018, I saw her. It was my first day of college in Washington State. I was living alone since my husband was on deployment

and I have this tendency to sleep with a pillow over my face, but I woke up, pillow still on my face, but as I'm waking I hear someone run down my hallway and into my bedroom, turn on my lights, and sit at the end of my bed. I was slightly scared and in shock because I knew I was alone, but I sat up and saw Ammar at the edge of my bed, telling me to get up and get ready for school or that I'll be late. She was sitting there smiling at me and all I could do was stare back at her wide-eyed, unable to speak. I saw my Alexa tablet behind her and the time was 4.57am. Suddenly, I hear a man calling out to Ammar walking down the hallway. This man was very tall, dark-skinned, small afro, goatee, and he told Ammar that they

had to go. Ammar smiled at me again and walked away with the man. I've never seen that man a day in my life. Again, I'm sitting there completely in shock. And then, suddenly, I wake up. Pillow over my face and I jolt out of my bed to see the time is now 5.01am. My bedroom light is on, my hallway light is on, my living room light is on, and my front door is wide open. Everyone who knows me knows I cannot stand sleeping with any light on. I sleep in total darkness and living alone I never leave my front door open or leave all of my lights on. I couldn't explain what happened but I swear to you, my best friend helped me get up for school because my alarm was supposed to wake me up at 430 and I completely missed it.

But guess what? Three months after that situation, I was in Miami visiting family and decided to go see Amar's mom. I told her about the encounter I had, and she told me that Amar had an uncle die when she was very young from a motorcycle accident. She dug in her album and showed me a picture of the man and when I tell you all the hairs on my body stood up. I was looking at my best friend's uncle who she never met because he died years ago in Grenada. He was the one that came to my apartment and told Amar that it was time to go. I miss her so much. I think about her every day.

After that encounter, I had a dream with her that we were in a bright white room talking and sadly I don't really remember what was spoken but I did remember at the end she told me that that would be the last time I would physically see her again. She told me she had to cross onto the other side and told me to stop crying and Trust me. I begged for another dream with her. But like she said it was the last time I Don't know if there is an afterlife, but I think there's one one where all of our ancestors are just waiting to receive us And guide us back to wherever home is More after another short break.

I've said this before in episodes but I love when you guys hear an episode of Heart Starts Pounding and it reminds you of something that happened in your own life. And I don't know what it was about this particular episode, but the supernatural survival episode where I talked about the third man syndrome really affected a lot of you guys. A quick refresher for those who haven't listened to it, but the third man syndrome is when people

are in survival situations. Think dying of thirst, badly hurt, like maybe they just got in a car wreck and out of nowhere a supernatural being will show up and help them. We know that these helpers are supernatural because no one else sees them. EMTs, witnesses at the scene, they are totally invisible to everyone involved except the person in the accident. Sometimes these supernatural beings will say that they're EMTs or nurses, but other times they're someone more familiar.

This story is from Vivian. She writes, I think I've listened to all of the Heart Starts Pounding episodes at least three times, but re-listening to the episode where you talk about the third man syndrome, I just remembered a kind of related experience that my mom had about 25 years ago when I was still a baby. So when I was a kid, my family used to do summer vacation in Cape Cod every year in July.

We would sometimes take two cars, my dad driving in one and my mom driving in the other because we had lots of camping gear and had to fit myself and my two older brothers. Well, one year, I was in the car with my mom driving in the other because we had lots of camping gear and had to fit myself and my two older brothers. Well, one year I was in the car with my mom as a baby in a car seat and a truck slammed into our car causing the car to flip twice and slide across the highway. Where we were at on the highway had a tall bridge. And my mom told me when this happened, our car flipped back upright but was still uncontrollably sliding towards the edge of the bridge and she couldn't get the steering wheel to unlock for her to turn the car away from flying off the bridge. The crazy part of the story though is at the last moment when my mom was convinced we were

going to go off the side of the bridge because the steering wheel wouldn't budge, she looked up and saw her mother who had passed away when my mom was 18 years old. She had her hands up as if to say stop. Her mother then said something along the lines of, no, it's not time. And suddenly, my mom was able to jerk the steering wheel away from the bridge and skidded to a stop. My mom came out of all of this with a neck injury. It could have been so much worse. But I was somehow completely unharmed. The story always gives me chills and I've never shared it with anyone, but I wanted to share it here. I'm not religious, but I do believe

in the supernatural and paranormal. And my mom's experience makes me think that on some level, we have something like a guardian angel. I think I'm particularly drawn to stories like that. Stories that end on the note of, I don't know what I believe, but now I kind of feel like there's something more than just this. That there's some other side to this life beyond the veil. And maybe it's because that's how I feel a little bit. I don't know exactly what's going on.

I don't have a rule book and I have lots of questions about the universe, but I feel so much deep in my bones that there's something else going on that we can't see. Call it supernatural, call it biblical, call it religious. It doesn't really matter what you call it. I think that a lot of us can agree though that there's just something more than what we can actually observe on this earth. I don't know, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. But the more I read from you guys and the more I live my life, the more I become sure that I don't know everything, I guess.

I have one more story for you guys, and it's another third man's story. It came just in the nick of time to make it into this episode. So this one reads, I had just quit my job after five years of working there and it was a really rough transition. Anyways, I packed my stuff up because I was going to move from one state to another after I left the job and I took the closest highway to get to my new place. But it was weird in a way that it basically was four massive highways that all merged into one with a weird bypass weaving through it. I get to the juncture of the three highways and all of a sudden it was like I just went airborne. I had no tires on the ground. It was slow motion almost. I was alone and all of a sudden my dad's dad who died in 1981,

I was born in 1983 and never met him, suddenly is sitting in the passenger seat wearing his signature Irish cap and he says to me without really talking it was like he was psychic or something. Just stay down, protect your head, get in a ball, and trust me, this isn't how you go. It was so bizarre. I was in a 2015 Honda Civic and I hit a Jersey barrier, a metal barrier, and careened across two highways, landing in the middle of traffic. When I got out of my car, people were trying to get me in an ambulance because there was no way I could walk away completely unharmed.

Now, the craziest part of all of this for me is that the guy in front of me said that he saw a piece of paper fly out of my window right before I crashed, and I know that I had my windows down because it was a really gorgeous day. But when the police arrived, they said that there was not one piece of broken glass on the car so my windows had to have been up. And then the tow truck driver arrived and as he was towing my car away, he looked at me and said, I've done this job for 25 years and I have never, I mean never seen this level of sorcery. How did you survive that? I told him that I got

into a ball below the engine so it wouldn't push me and I covered my head and I just stayed like that. He said that we regularly pick up girls like you and wrecks like that with spatulas. Whatever happened here, take a good hard look at what made God himself turn your car in the opposite direction because you're ignoring his guidance. That listener said that later on in life she felt like God or the universe or whatever you call it was probably trying to prevent her from the horrible living situation that she was about to move into. Before we go, I just want to thank everyone who sent in stories because some of you shared some really intense and personal tales and I'm so grateful that you want to share them with me and the show. I've kept a lot of these stories actually for

future listener stories episodes so if you didn't hear yours today there is a chance that it will be featured in the future. And if you're still jonesing for more, if you were like, that was not enough listener stories, I agree. I will be sharing more of these listener tales with Leo in our footnotes episode, available to the High Council on Patreon. That will go up tomorrow and it features some ones that were honestly pretty hilarious that I'm very excited to share with Leo. Now I'll need more stories from you all for our next episode we do like this. So if you're new here and you have a story or if you're a longtime listener and you just haven't written in yet,

you can check out heartstartspounding.com and I said it last time, but it doesn't have to be supernatural. Did you escape a really scary situation? Did you have a run-in with someone who would later be named as a serial killer? Was your boss defrauding your company for millions of dollars? That's kind of spooky too. I don't know. Financial crimes are kind of scary. Let me know. Send it to heartstartspounding.com. Seriously, I'll accept all stories and I'm very excited to see all of the crazy stuff that's happened to you all. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kaylyn Moore.

Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grace and Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart-pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstardspounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.