When I Was 4 We Lived In A Haunted House - What Is That! Episode 66

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Get comfy, listen in on one of my earliest ghost stories.

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00]: This story starts with a ghost experience in 1965 in Pontiac, Michigan.

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I was four years old. Pontiac has a rich Native American history.

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: My childhood neighborhood was developed from the 1920s and 30s.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Our house didn't look like a place where a ghost might live,

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_00]: but someone or something from an earlier era was there.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_00]: The house had two staircases boarded up.

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It felt like someone wanted to protect the people living in the upstairs and downstairs.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Our family lived downstairs, and a lady with a parakeet lived up.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_00]: My bed was pushed up against the wall that housed the boarded-up staircase door.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Lucky me!

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: One night in the dark, I opened my eyes to the sounds of footsteps.

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_00]: They started coming from the top of the staircase,

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_00]: behind the boarded-up door, going all the way down, getting closer to me.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I became frozen, lying there with my head on the pillow, unable to move.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And the footsteps got closer and closer until it felt like they were

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_00]: right on the other side of the door.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I waited, terrified, thinking the door might fly open.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I was paralyzed with fear.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember holding my breath, certain that someone or something

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_00]: was standing on the other side of that door watching me.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I could feel a presence, but I couldn't see anyone.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_00]: The footsteps stopped, then slowly turned around and began walking back up.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Once they were gone, I jumped out of bed and ran to my parent's room,

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_00]: carrying my pillow and blanket.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_00]: In the morning, my mom woke me up asking why was I on the floor?

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I told her everything, and to her credit, she didn't dismiss my story as a dream

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_00]: or my imagination.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: She believed me.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_00]: See, in our family, there were lots of stories about apparitions

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and psychic experiences on both sides of my family.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Life went on, and soon another night came.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: When I woke up suddenly startled, the footsteps were back.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_00]: The same slow descent.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: What was on the other side of that door?

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: It happened a few more times.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Until one night, the footsteps started at the bottom of the stairs

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_00]: instead of the top and went up, and then they came back down,

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and they paused again, and they went back up again.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: That was the night I couldn't take it anymore.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I begged my mom to sleep with me.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_00]: The next night we snuggled together in my tiny bed.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't take long before it happened again.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: The next day, my mom told me it was okay that the footsteps belonged to a woman who had died

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: before.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: She was stuck and was trying to move on but was harmless.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_00]: My mom explained that she would try to help the woman find peace from a Catholic priest,

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: but after that, I wasn't afraid anymore,

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and it seemed at some point that the footsteps stopped,

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and my mom made it known to me that it's okay.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00]: There are people moving on that have passed away

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: and sometimes need help on where to go.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_00]: That's where my curiosity about the afterlife began.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I looked up this house on Google Maps.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I noticed something strange.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Is there someone standing in the window?

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Take a look at the zoomed-in image and tell me what you see.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_00]: At first, I thought there's a shirt hanging on a hanger.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It starts to look like a woman facing to the left

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00]: that's a man standing to her left, but he looks like a giant.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_00]: His head would be taller than that window sill.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Could it be dummies or something for Halloween?

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't look like a real person.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought about writing a letter and say,

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I used to live in this house.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell me what's in that window?

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Wouldn't that be curious?

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the end of this story, Unsettling and Spooky.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00]: If you have a ghost story of your own,

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: email me, Kate at WilderTalk.com.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Like and subscribe, hit that notification bell,

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and happy manifesting.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_00]: See you next time.