Halloween Listener Stories VI

No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet, so Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the $1 slice work. Now Hank's has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at m365copilot.com slash work. I don't know.

We're doing something upstairs or something else going on, so we haven't had a chance to just sit there and listen to the weird thumping noise in your basement. Well, some night we'll have to have a girls' night where we just sit in the basement with a TV off of waiting. It's going to get weird. I'm Paige. And I'm Megan. And this is Spooky Science Systems. Hello, you're listening to Spooky Science Sisters, a podcast where we present to you a science-based and probably very giggly discussion on all things strange and unusual.

We are very excited because Halloween is just around the corner, which means it is time for our sixth annual Halloween Listener Stories episode. But before we get to this year's stories, hey, guess what, Paige? What? We wrote a book. Yay! Yay! In case you forgot. And in case anyone else forgot. And we are going to keep reminding people because, hey, we're pretty proud of the fact that we wrote a book. But it is called Spooky Science, It's Dissecting the Mysteries of Ghosts, Cryptids, Aliens, and Other Oddities.

If you have said book and you enjoyed it, or I guess also if you didn't enjoy it, but I want to know less about that, please go and review it on your platform of choice if you are able because it really helps us out. And, you know, it's also fun to see what some people say. And other than that, the only other thing we have going on is, and I think this usually comes out on Halloween Day, so this will have happened last night, but you will be able to watch the recording.

But on October 30th, which is next Thursday, as of when I'm talking to you right now, we are doing Skeptical Inquirer Presents, and we are going to be talking about some spooky monster science, specifically focusing on vampires. It was a virtual event. And you can watch it. through their website, and we will put a link to that as soon as we have one so people can refer to that if you want to see what that was all about.

But the plan is talk about vampires, talk about monster science, have a little bit of a silly, spooky time because it's the day before Halloween when we're doing it. So, yay. Yeah, by the time this comes out, we will be done with the first round of book marketing events. I don't, we don't know what next year is going to look like, but... Yes. Yeah, there's one thing scheduled for next year so far. Well, so far. Yeah. But yeah, we're kind of done with the main push of book events unless we hear from somebody else. But yes.

Anyway, before we get to the stories, Paige, has anything spooky happened to you recently? No, not really, except I feel like, Megan knows this, but I've been like a little bit of like a, I don't know, nightmare. Sort of just like a manic mess the last couple of months. And I feel like the last like two or three weeks, I have finally gotten some time to just like sit and like read and, you know. And so it's like the first time in a while where I've just kind of like sat in the basement and like not had TV going or, you know, whatever.

And I swear to you, that like thumping sound has gotten louder and it has become more frequent. And like maybe it's just because I haven't noticed in a while because I've really not spent much time down there. Yeah. But being down there these like last couple of weeks, it's like, I asked Elliot yesterday, like, do you think we're ever going to figure out what that is? And he's like, no, I've just like fully committed to it being a ghost. It's like, yeah, I have no idea. Yeah.

Because remind me, you haven't been able to link it to any sort of like on or off cycles with your heating or cooling system, right? We've tried to like pay attention to that. And it seems like it happens like all year, no matter like whether, even if we don't have like the running. Yeah, yeah, because like the, yeah, because ducks can sometimes sort of still knock around some as like they're cooling or as they're heating up after they've been used. But yeah, if you're not, if it's year round and it doesn't depend on heat versus cold and you can't find a cycle. I don't know.

It's like so loud too. So that's pretty much it. I mean, nothing new really. It's just, I had kind of like not really heard it in a while. So when I started hearing it again, I was like, damn it. Yeah, I should reshare the video you took of it years ago. Yeah, have you been over yet and heard it? I can't remember. No, I haven't been over to your house and heard it. I would like to. Yeah. It's just funny because I think every time I'm there, because obviously I've been to your house since this started a bunch of times.

But yeah, it's just, I don't know, we're doing something upstairs or something else is going on. And so we haven't had a chance to just sit there and listen to the weird thumping noise in your basement. Well, some night we'll have to have a girl's night where we just sit in the basement with the TV off of waiting. It's going to get weird. That's all I got. What about you? Nope. I don't have anything spooky other than general life spookiness. Yeah. I'm excited for Halloween though. That's about it. Yay, Halloween. Okay. So are you ready for our listener stories? I'm ready.

I feel like we've got some good ones this year. I haven't read all of them. I've really only read like one or two, but. Okay. I've read nothing. So to remind people how this works. That's on purpose. Okay. This is not poor planning on my part. Yeah. I opened them this year because there was like a lot of text. So I was trying to like trim some things down a little bit. But otherwise, that's all I did. You took one for the team and looked ahead of time.

But after our first couple years, and I think after we got our feet underneath us a little bit in terms of being comfortable talking about debunking ghost stories and hauntings and all this stuff, we decided to start doing the Halloween listener stories episodes as basically on the fly debunking. So we don't read them or don't read them closely ahead of time. And then it's sort of we think on our feet through what might be going on in each of these scenarios or we just enjoy whoever's story because they've debunked it themselves. So we're ready. I'm gonna read the first one. Yay.

So this one comes from Jennifer, who this is her third time submitting a story. So Jennifer is just living a very spooky life over in Scotland, I think. So I was like, really just like rub it in more that you're having a better time than us. Thanks, Jennifer. No. I'm gonna get a message about this. It's fine. We're very happy, Jennifer, and not jealous at all. Okay. No, we're jealous, but we're still happy for you. We can be both of those things. It's true.

Okay, so Jennifer says, this happened in my early teens when I was on holiday with my family on the Isle of Wight down in England. We were visiting Carisbrook Castle. I'm positive. I'm probably pronouncing something wrong here. Anyway, we were visiting Carisbrook Castle and I had wandered off on my own. I remember walking down a narrow corridor into a fairly small bedroom, then starting to walk towards an information board on the other side of the room, but I didn't make it across. I must have been about halfway there when I was suddenly overwhelmed by extremely strong feelings of dread and sadness.

Like I couldn't bear to stay even a second longer and practically ran out of there, almost colliding with the man who was coming up the corridor. I didn't stop until I reached the far end and when I did, I remember looking back and seeing the man I passed peering into the doorway of that room as if he was thinking, what the fuck is in there? There had been no one else in that room when I was there. Nothing particularly spooky about it. No noises that I can remember. So to this day, I don't really know what triggered those feelings.

Of course, the castle has ghost stories associated with it as all castles do. Just like rub it in a little more that it's so great with all the castles. Megan's very upset about the castle. Listen, I just want to go do spooky things in castles. It's not fair. But this was in the middle of the day. Plus, I've been to many other castles and other types of purportedly very haunted locations. Great for you, Jennifer. But even if they felt creepy at points, I've never felt like I had to get out like I did that day at Karisbrook. I mean, I usually love this stuff.

What do you think might have triggered such a strong feeling? I'm in my 30s now, so there are many details about that holiday that I can't remember, but I'll never forget that feeling in that room. Spooky. Spooky. I was going to be a dick and just be like, well, Jennifer, you maybe just started puberty. Extreme feelings as a teenage girl all of a sudden. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, could be. I'm just kidding. And I do not think that was what was going on. That could be it. That's the one. Instant. Instant strong feelings. That's definitely how that works. Yep.

I feel comfortable being silly about this one because I know Jennifer knows what's up. Okay. So, honestly, I have little to no idea. Well, I do have a couple ideas. Puberty is not one of them, though, right? Puberty is not one of them. I'm just in a silly, goofy mood. Okay, so my first idea was maybe there's something environmental going on in that room. It's a little weird that, you know, halfway across the room, you're okay, and then all of a sudden you're not.

Although I guess, like, you know, it could just be coincidence that it was about the halfway point as you were walking across the room whenever this occurred. I know that the evidence is a little bit mixed, but I think really strong electromagnetic fields can produce feelings of dread and, you know, feeling upset for people. But, you know, we're in an old castle, so... Right. I guess it might have some weird old wiring or something like that going on, but it seems a little less likely. What do you think? I have, like, no thoughts.

I mean, sure, I had those thoughts, but, like, sort of, it seems to me like those are unlikely options. So I don't know that I have, like, a good idea of what happened here. Yeah. So the other thing I was thinking about possibly environmental is, like, maybe you were in the room long enough for, I don't know, some kind of mold in there to trigger some kind of reaction. I think it's, like, 25% of people are pretty sensitive to certain types of mold that can create, like, neurologic symptoms. So do you feel like you're sensitive to mold?

Because it could have been something was growing in there and it just kind of got to you, like, almost an allergy type thing after a little while. I also thought she's pretty young at this point, and even teenagers tend to be a little bit more likely to have hallucinatory experiences. So it is sort of possible that, and, like, hallucinations aren't just, you know, visual or hearing things. They can be, like, weird sensations. So I don't know, maybe just some weird thing happened in your brain at that moment to really freak you out, or I don't know.

There's obviously medical things that can cause, like, feelings of dread and stuff, but, you know, you were a teenager, it wasn't like... Does she, I don't think so, say, like, when the feelings stopped? Oh, no, she doesn't. So that would be a good follow-up as did it stop the second you left the room or did it kind of linger for a little bit? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really spooky one.

Yeah, because, like, if it's, like, a mold thing, right, or, like, presumably it's not gonna, like, linger for a long time after you leave, but it's also probably not just gonna stop while you're still in the room. I feel like the reaction time would be sort of similar to, like, having an asthma attack or something like that. Like, it takes a little while for it to work its way out of your system, but, you know, you wouldn't really know because you're probably freaked out from the experience, so you're gonna feel weird for a little while after anyway. So, yeah, I don't know.

My best guess is, like, something hallucinatory. I would also guess it's something environmental, but, like, I just don't know that I have the answer for, like, what that would be. Well, that's why it's a good Halloween listener story because we're looking for the ones that can't be explained. A lot of times you hear, you know, it's very similar things over and over again, and, yeah, it's good to hear ones that I don't know what's happening. Something weird happened to you, Jennifer. That's what you get. I would just know when it stopped.

Like, if it stopped while you were still in the room, then I think the environmental idea is, like, probably not what, like, not the answer. Yeah. I don't know. That's a good one. I don't know. We had some ideas. It is what it is. Okay. So, Paige, you are going to do the next one. Yes. So, this one is from an anonymous listener, and they did give us permission to trim it up a little bit because it is a long one, but I tried to keep as much intact as possible without, like, changing the story.

But they also mentioned that all names and relationships throughout the story have been changed. Oh. Intrigue. All right. Surrounding the town in which this story takes place are winding gravel roads that seem unremarkable by today's standards. But years and years ago, they were vital routes between forgotten homesteads and outposts. Some take five minutes to cross, and some take much longer. Some run parallel to gentle hills of pasture, and some contain sharp slopes into rocky valleys with caves and creeks. Some host modern homes that out-of-towners have placed to avoid city taxes, and some contain remnants of the past that refuse to die.

In all of these respects, the road I once lived on was the former. After graduating from college, I returned to my rural Appalachian hometown out of nostalgia and necessity. I, along with three other roommates, settled on what seemed like a steel, a two-story home located on that aforementioned road for only $500 per month in 2019, no less. A natural spring on the property meant no water bills. Sure, our commutes were longer, but sacrificing convenience for the sake of saving money was worth it, or so we thought. The house was incredible.

There was an annoyingly large indentation in the ground and the front of the house by the road that made mowing a bit annoying, but we didn't mind it. Everything seemed perfect, but our first weekend in that house truly set the tone. From the oppressive darkness came a terrifying thunderstorm that resulted in a downed tree that cut off power and blocked our way back to town. There was no cell phone service, so without our Wi-Fi, we were effectively cut off from civilization. Then, less than a month into our stay in that house, I received a phone call from one of my roommates, Robert.

He was panicking and speaking quietly. He became the first of the quartet to experience the place alone. I excused myself to hear him faintly repeat a singular sentence. Someone was in the house. He communicated that he heard someone walking around upstairs, their feet creaking on every floorboard. He heard them tiptoe toward the stairs as he was in the kitchen. He grabbed a knife and barricaded himself in a closet as he listened to them descend to the first floor and walk out of the house through the back. Fortunately, our roommate Kayla was due home in just a few minutes.

Robert raced toward her while he was still on the phone with me. He told her everything he had just told me. They got in the car and waited for me in town before either of them would reenter the house. That evening, our fourth roommate, Ian, was informed of the situation. Ian inhabited the only room upstairs. We told him we glanced at his room to see if anything had been stolen but encouraged him to inspect further. He did. Nothing was gone. To our detriment, the sounds of disembodied footsteps became a regular occurrence that taunted anyone who remained home alone.

First it was Robert, then it was Kayla, then it was me. Ian would not talk about what transpired when it was finally his turn, but after that night, he spent the majority of his time in the garage where he would often doze off. Further exploration of the house's attic, basement, and a little loft in the garage uncovered dusty boxes of vinyl records, CDs, and VHS tapes that contained gospel music. Beneath the porch, we found a small statue of an angel. As ominous as it all was, when we asked the landlord about it, he informed us that he used to be a pastor.

He further stated that he simply did not feel like boxing it all up and taking it with him. Also in these spaces were historic photos of the house. We learned it used to be a one-room cabin that doubled as a post office. And as the years went on, the house was continuously built upon. The history nerd in me was fascinated. I held on to the non-religious memorabilia for a time and took it upon myself to do further research into the area at night after work. One night, which is like totally what you would do, Megan. What would I do?

So you found like a bunch of photos of your house like in the past and you had been hearing weird sounds like you absolutely would go research to figure out like who used to live here. Oh, yeah. You've done it. You did it to my childhood house. I did it. That was one of our first episodes and I was like, I'm going to figure this shit out. I did not figure it out. One night, after I heard Ian enter the house through the side door and ascend to his room, I intended to step outside for a cigarette.

On my way to the back door, I heard footsteps race away from that spot on the porch. Whoever it was ran around to the front porch. I rushed to the front of the house and peered out the window only to see nothing. I did not tell anyone about this experience as our collective anxiety was already high. Only a couple months into our stay, Ian abruptly moved out. Things were peaceful for several months. Before we knew it, we had been in the house for nearly a year. By that time, Robert was ready to move out and move on, as was I. And Kayla met a guy.

The two chose to remain at the house together. They got married, had kids, and purchased the house. They stated for a time that the ghostly occurrences were few and far between and seemed limited to the sound of footsteps. All of that changed when they started to remodel the house. Their daughter screamed in the middle of one random night during one of their projects. Kayla and her husband rushed to her room only to see her gripping a pillow and crying beside her bed. There was something in here, she cried. She went on to explain that she woke up because she felt something tickling her arm.

When she woke up, she noticed a shadowy black thing beside her. It was crouched down with its featureless face near her face. When she pulled back, it stood up straight and walked out of the room, into the hallway, and out of view. Kayla told me about it several days later. Because I suffered from sleep paralysis in my childhood, I encouraged Kayla to look into it. Reluctantly, she believed that her daughter was likely experiencing the same thing, despite the very real horror in her child's eyes. Over time, the episodes became less frequent and then stopped altogether.

Kayla did some digging and learned that the tenant who lived at the house before we moved in all those years back was named Peter. Kayla reached out to Peter. She asked him if he experienced anything strange in the house. And he described waking up in the middle of the night only to see a shadowy figure in the far corner of the room. What he saw terrified him so badly that he moved out and forfeited his security deposit.

Eventually, as Kayla assimilated into the nearby community, she would come to learn that years before she ever stepped foot in that house and years before Peter did, there was a devastating car accident on the property. The passenger was ejected and went face first into a large rock. That rock stood where the indentation in the front yard was, the indentation that we all took turns mowing over for months. After the accident took place, the rock was destroyed and hauled away in pieces. It had been absent from the land before anyone in this story lived on the property.

The traces of the boulder probably existed in some stream or valley. Whether or not the house is haunted seems irrelevant. It is an old structure with quirks, various hands in its various periods of construction, and at least one tragic event on its land. In that respect, it seems like it has more similarities than differences with any other given house. Nevertheless, this story reminds me of our tendency as human beings to connect dots that don't even exist on the same plane. Two things can be true at once. Correlation does not equal causation.

It makes me wonder how many well-known haunted places fall into a similar identity with similar circumstances. To me, the most frightening part of this story are the footsteps. I admit that many were likely misheard auditory stimuli from the house settling or something along those lines. I'm more inclined to believe this because the footsteps mostly seemed to manifest when the house was at its quietest, when somebody was alone. However, not all of the footsteps fell under this umbrella. Some of them were potentially from real people.

In the months between Ian leaving and my decision to leave, we learned through the local grapevine that further down the road was an encampment of a few people on a neighboring property hiding deeper into the woods. Let's put it this way. These people were not camping because they enjoyed the outdoors and their records were not squeaky clean. Did I hear one of those campers on the porch? Was all of our fear derived from paranoia induced by anonymous lurkers in the woods that we did not consciously pick up on was all of that fear what led us to trying to connect unrelated incidents?

This entire story is like Paige's worst nightmare. I know. I know. When I was like going through it, I was like, oh, someone lives in the attic. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, Lord. That's really spooky and really well written. So it's very creepy. Yeah. It's like such a good story. So thank you to the listener who shared this one with us. Yeah, it's so good. It's so good. Yeah. Do you have immediate thoughts about what's going on here? I mean, I sort of feel like it's already covered to be honest. Yeah.

You know, I just like to me, there's so many different things that this story touches on. Like, I think it could be a mix of multiple things. Like, do I think it's likely that this child was probably dealing with some like sleep paralysis issues, sure. Those are like pretty common and not usual for kids to have crazy nightmares. Right. Yeah. So like, I mean, that seems like a very real possibility. Yeah.

I have to imagine that like some of the footstep sounds and I think it's mentioned in here, it's like some of it is probably just, you know, like random, like misheard sounds throughout the house. A lot of it is probably at some point they just like freak themselves out enough that like every sound sounds like a footstep, you know. But I think it's like a mixture of things.

Well, which is basically the entire point that this person is trying to make that basically any house you could create a haunting just through a bunch of sort of unrelated events that all happen to happen in the same house. I was going to say like I have I guess it's like seven-year-old house so it's, you know, way more brand new than this one was. Like I hear footsteps in my house. I've talked about it before and I've been able to debunk one set of them.

Like yeah, we hear weird things that sound like footsteps even in this house that I assume are just something like shifting around in the HVAC system or like it's the house just slowly settling because it's still pretty young so that's, you know, still happening maybe a little bit more. I don't know. Well, and this sounds like it's like a pretty remote area. Maybe some of it's just like little critters on like the roof or in the walls or in the house. Yeah, and I, so I've lived in a lot of older houses including the one that we lived in in Sylvania.

My family lived in in Sylvania, Ohio was a pretty old house like probably almost a century old and I'd be home alone. I remember being home alone and freaking myself out because I felt like I could like hear things creaking around upstairs all the time. But it was like, no, it was just the house settling and it was old and it was, I don't know, probably windy outside or something like that. Yes.

My other thought though is that at least the first time, at least when Robert had like the original freak out and called them home, I'm like pretty sure someone was actually in the house. I feel, right, yes. I also think the porch story could be like somebody on the porch. Yeah, so those two like, yeah, sound like, I think they probably were actual people. I was thinking somebody was in the house before we even got to the end part where you mentioned, you know, there were people living potentially on the property next door that could have been coming over.

Like before I knew that was an option already presented, I was like, yeah, I think someone might have actually been in the house when Robert had his initial encounter or experience and then everything else after that is like, well, now everybody's all freaked out. Right. So they're like super vigilant and like maybe some of those other sounds were other people but like, yeah. but like what an awful way to start at a new place like you're there the first couple days the power goes out you're like totally removed from everyone and then like, uh-oh, now somebody's in the house. I have goosebumps.

And the other thing I thought is like it might have not been, you know, somebody who was like homeless or from this neighboring property coming over. Like it's a rental. The landlord. It's, well, very possible it was the landlord or very possible it was a previous tenant who had a copy of a key that they weren't supposed to still have and like, I don't know, forgot something and I covered went back to go see if they could grab it. I don't have no idea. Could be. Very good story. It's a very good story. Yeah.

Long story short from my end, I think Robert really heard somebody in the house and then everything after that was sort of like built around this spooky experience. Yeah. I agree. But Paige's worst nightmare that someone is secretly living in her house. I also think that the porch was somebody too. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And like maybe that was an animal but like I think something was there. Yeah, that could have been an animal running across the porch for sure. That's a good one. Okay.

I am doing the next one which listener Erin sent this but it is her friend Rose's story and Erin is a real one. she is super awesome. She sent us these really cool which I have to give you a couple of them still. I've been hoarding them. She does these like little fancy wax seals that you can order. They're super cool and she sent us some recently so we were very grateful for that but she sent us this story and this was the result of her bullying her friend Rose into typing it up and letting her send it to us. Good job, Erin. Thank you.

We encourage that people bully their friends to get them to submit their scary stories. Just kidding. Okay, here we go. When I was 19 I joined AmeriCorps basically a domestic version of the Peace Corps. They assigned teams of us to non-profits that need extra hands for big projects and one of the conditions is that the non-profit has to figure out how to house the team for the duration of the project. The non-profit I worked with then had arranged housing through a Catholic church. Attached to it was an old convent that was refurbished but currently decommissioned.

Part of the space was being used by some Franciscan friars who we got to know pretty well. They cooked meals for us, told us stories in the evenings and generally treated us like family. Like, living the dream here because, like, Franciscan monks, like, isn't their cooking supposed to be great? Or do they make beer? Couldn't tell you. I think it's a thing. I think they either make beer or they're, like, there are ones where you can go buy, like, bread that they've baked that's supposed to be really good.

I might be, this might be a different type of monk but it's definitely some sort of Catholic person situation. Uh, okay. Now while we were there we all started to notice that nighttime felt off and unsettling. Sometimes we'd hear what sounded like breathing in the hallway or distant laughter. Multiple times we felt there was something watching us and none of us wanted to be alone in the convent after dark. I know it's such a tired trope but we asked the friars about the convent space and they told us there had been a fire decades earlier in which a few of the sisters had died.

The building had been restored afterward but the convent itself never reopened. I don't know why but I felt drawn to whatever that presence was. One night I decided to just try talking to it asking if there was someone there and saying that I wanted to help. I felt stupid after and went to bed. Now here's what you need to know about the sleeping layout. Each of us had our own room with a shared bathroom between every two. The rooms were furnished really basically with a twin bed a nightstand and a bookshelf with some basic things like a bible and a couple hymnals. All real basic.

Every night before bed I'd lock both doors. So I went to bed and the next morning when I woke up lying in the center of the floor was a delicate embroidered cloth which I later learned was probably a devotional linen. Nuns often make them by hand have them blessed and use them as prayer cloths or to sanctify a space. The thing is even if the room hadn't been as bare as it was there was nothing it could have even fallen off of. It was dead center far from anything else.

I asked my team later if anyone had snuck into my room as a prank and everyone denied it. Even months later after the prank would have grown cold enough to admit to it was really clear nobody had any idea what I was talking about. I'd love for there to be an alternate explanation because it sounds so silly to say a ghost gave me a doily once. There's our episode subtitle right there. That's like what's the book when you give a mouse a muffin a moose a muffin when you give a mouse a cookie mouse a cookie and moose a muffin right?

I don't know what the moose gets but I'm pretty sure the mouse gets a cookie. I'm looking it up.

Yeah it's when you give a moose a muffin apparently there's also if you give a pig a pancake and if you give a cat a cupcake so that if you give a universe has expanded but this is if a ghost gave you a doily okay anyway it sounds silly to say a ghost gave me a doily once but I have no idea where it came from or how else it could have gotten there spooky and like she said like the perfect weird haunted place set up yeah for sure I hate to just say that like it feels so much like a prank to me right yeah especially because they had recently like been told the story about the fire and were freaked out yeah I didn't even honestly I didn't think about that at first but yeah it does kind of seem like it probably was just somebody messing around that's what it seems like I mean the only other thing I could think is maybe it came from the bookshelf and like I don't know I don't know if she mentioned there were windows or anything that could have maybe like blown it off but it just feels very much like a prank yeah yeah that was the other thing I thought is yeah we don't know if there were windows or a fan in the room but yeah I thought that maybe especially if it's some sort of devotional linen and I guess they said there was a fire but I don't know there's probably people staying there like not just these people but probably people who are staying there who are associated with the Catholic church in some way because the Franciscan priors are still there right and I wonder if it was like tucked between the bed frame and the mattress like somebody like keeping it safe sort of just tucked right next to their mattress in case they wanted to like grab it and pray at night or like they did pray at night and then they just tucked it down there and then when they left you know it was shoved under there they forgot about it and it just happened to survive you know having new sheets put on it a couple times for the next person yeah and then it just sort of like let loose one night yeah and like you know she pulled the sheets out because she was rolling around or whatever happened and it finally shifted out enough because she moved because there was a fan because there was a draft whatever that it sort of just floated out yeah to the middle of the floor which I know she said you know it's far away from anything else but again any type of breeze and like such a delicate piece of fabric I would kind of think it would be pretty easy just like pick up or yeah to like move around even like even just like opening or closing a door sometimes is enough yeah you know so the piece of cloth was already in the room you just didn't notice it and because yeah people don't notice or it was a prank I feel like those are the two options yeah that's what I think but also a ghost gave me a doily once is a great story it is a great story yeah I don't I don't think I have anything else to say about that one but I liked it I did too all right I think we just have one more yeah and this one gets debunked so we have no work to do here oh excellent I love that for us but this one is from another listener Will and he says I wanted to send in a story that happened to me I ended up figuring out what was going on but I was very confused for a little while I was sitting out in the office of my house when I started to hear and feel the floor vibrating it got louder and I realized it was coming from below me in the basement I immediately thought oh my god my furnace just burst into flames or something so I threw open the basement door turned on the dim single bulb and pushed through the spider webs the furnace wasn't on the noise got even louder but I couldn't tell where it was coming from then I put my hand on the metal ductwork above me and the pipes were all rattling but the furnace was completely off even more confused I go upstairs and start running through any other ideas that was when I heard a beeping noise start which of course gave me a jump of adrenaline now I'm thinking some carbon monoxide alarm is going off I follow the noise into the bathroom and there is the culprit earlier that morning I started my robot vacuum while doing dishes and had forgotten about it this is not one of those intelligent ones that navigates this one furiously rams into something and changes direction until it finds something else to strike the vacuum had gotten into the bathroom closed itself inside and grabbed a hold of the bath mat seemingly in a rage it smashed into the tub and then redirected onto a floor grate where it became stuck still dragging the bath mat from here it attempted to escape bashing itself off the grill of the floor vent over and over again the sound and vibration of the strikes had magnified through the thin metal ducts and made it sound so loud especially when I checked it from below I know now to shut the bathroom door when I set it off to frantically bounce around in search of dust this is my favorite that's such a good one I don't know man the robot vacuum thing really got me this was like a really good year of stories I feel like we say that every year but this was a particularly good year of stories it's so good this is not one of those intelligent ones this one furiously srams into something and changes direction until it finds something else to strike frantically bounce around in search of dust that's a great one though and yeah that I love that that was debunked and I love that that was what it was yeah and I also like who hasn't done something just like this before you know well I literally a couple episodes last episode or a couple episodes talked about how the subwoofer in my family room because of like the sneaky soundtrack of a spooky show like made me think that there was someone walking around upstairs in my house I can't remember if I've told this story before but when I was young I had like one of those Barbie horses that if you like pulled back on the like the reins or whatever it would neigh at you neigh yeah and I was like a mess as a kid like my entire room was a disaster all the time and to pretend I cleaned it I would just shove everything in my closet and close the doors and one day I shoved all the stuff in there and apparently it like bent the horse's neck but I didn't realize it until I was going to bed that night and it was just in the closet neighing at me why is that it really scared me and then and then I found out what it was so that's a good one that's so good well yeah that's Halloween listener stories 2026 yeah thank you to everybody 2026 2025 what year is it I just expected it I was like yeah no I've lost it I'm skipping the last two months of the year it's 2026 now all right well that wraps up this year's Halloween listener stories if you liked this episode hit subscribe and share with a friend check the show notes for links to all of our social media accounts our discord server and patreon if you have any questions about previous topics or ideas for future episodes email us at the sisters at spooky science sisters dot com as always thank you for listening stay spooky and happy Halloween spooky science sisters is a proud member of the evergreen podcasts network for more information or to check out other shows please visit evergreen podcasts dot com I will speak I will speak next time to subscribe to Sunday podcast to