Ghost of The Appalachian Trail, Creature Encounters In The Backwoods, and more Listener Stories
A man sees someone who might not exist on the Appalachian Trail. Someone is lead into the forrest by strange lights, and one woman smells something decomposing coming from a closet on her campus…
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SOURCES
https://www.wave3.com/2018/10/11/louisville-man-known-gnome-bandit-caught-hiding-attic/
https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Wallowa_Lake_Monster
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-09-sp-20443-story.html
TRANSCRIPT
Every now and then I get an email from one of you guys that sends shivers down my spine. This was one of those emails.
It comes from Angel, who writes
When I was 12 I used to go hunt for animal bones in my neighbors woods. It was my favorite thing to do in a town where there wasn’t much to do. I would bring my sketchbook to draw everything I found.
I was really good at finding bones, like abnormally good. And some people wondered how I did it, but the truth is. I had help. Let me explain
It sounds strange, but sometimes when I was out around sundown, I would see lights in the woods, like little glowing orbs. I would follow them and they would always bring me to bones. they were usually small and bird or other animal shaped. I honestly didn’t think much about it, i thought maybe they were light bugs or something.
but one day I had an odd feeling but I went to the woods anyways and saw a much larger light, floating around the edge of the woods. this time I followed it through the trees to an abandoned house and I found bones not of an animal but a human skull.
I screamed and ran out of the woods immediately my neighbor saw me running and said “hey sweetie,found any good bones today?” I was upset, and I told her about the skull.
She got this panicked look on her face and she called the police. What I eventually ended up learning is that Thirteen years ago a boy who lived in the abandoned house had disappeared in those woods and they hadn’t found him. They believe he had taken his own life. His parents moved out of the house shortly after.
I still see those lights in the woods sometimes but I never follow them. I’m afraid of what I’ll find sometimes I even hear him calling me asking me to help him. It terrifies me still
Welcome back to heart starts pounding a podcast of horrors, hauntings and mysteries. Today is one of my favorite types of episodes, where I get to celebrate you guys, the community, and all of the very, very scary and disturbing stuff you guys are living through.
Today, we have tales of backwoods horror, of haunted houses, and of scary individuals, but these stories were all sent in from you guys, who continuously prove to me that the truth really is stranger than fiction.
Now, if YOU have a terrifying story you’d like to share with me, you can send it via crow to the rogue detecting society. Our house ghost Jinx checks the mail every few days.
But of course, you can also send it via the form on our website if your crow is sick or something.
I think you guys are going to like this one today, and actually i think our listener Jeff is really going to like this one, who let me know that he listens to the show at his job being a groundsman for a cemetery.
To which I say, Jeff please let the spirits know I send them my best, and lets get back into it.
So you guys know that appalachia is very, very scary. If you don’t, listen to our episode on Terrifying Appalachian folklore. But I know we have listeners who live there, and who have hiked the appalachian trail, and every now and then one of them will reach out with something they’ve experienced. This is one of those stories, from our listener Paul. He writes:
So I'm originally for Nashville, TN. In 2008, after high school I would hike parts of the Appalachian trail in my free time. I planned a weekend camping trip with some friends and I went up a day early so I could hike a longer part of the trail and have my friends pick me up at the end to take me back to my car. It was on this trip where I had a …I guess a strange encounter.
Now, I had heard many of the ghost stories and tales about strange things in the Appalachian mountains growing up, but never really believed them.
On this trip, I was hiking a popular part of the trail south of Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee, when it started torrentially raining. The rain quickly turned to a full-blown storm with very high winds. I took shelter under a small rock overhang, because the wind was so strong I was worried about being hit by a falling tree or branch. Normally this sort of pop-up storm is over as quickly as it came, but this storm lasted for a few hours.
After the storm had finally passed, I didn't have time to make it to the hiker's shelter before dark so I set up my tent just off the trail and figured I'd get an early start the next morning. I normally didn't like to solo camp unless I’ve made it to a hiker's shelter, I wasn't so much worried about bears or other wildlife, but I just always felt better in the shelters.
The next morning As soon as there was a pale light in the sky I packed up and started hiking. I was much closer to the shelter than I had originally thought, it was still pretty dark out when i saw it. These shelters are rustic and meant to provide quick limited shelter for hikers on the trail.
This shelter had three stone walls, a fireplace, a roof, and a wooden floor. There were large logs just outside the shelter that were set around a metal campfire ring. I quietly approached the shelter and saw two other hikers were sleeping inside. It was a man and woman with very nice sleeping bags and expensive hiking gear.
Since it was still so early and I hadn't slept well, I decided to lay down to get a little more sleep. I ultimately decided to sleep outside the shelter because I didn't want to wake up the couple sleeping inside. I put down a tarp and got cozy in my sleeping bag a few feet from the campfire ring. I must have been exhausted because I was asleep almost instantly.
But then I was startled awake by the smell of smoke and the heat of a fire on my face.
I sat up quickly to see a fire burning brightly in the campfire ring with a man sitting on one of the logs across the fire from me. I sat up and said "good morning", to which the man gave me a slight nod, but his gaze never lifted from the fire. There was a small pot near him, and I assumed the man was cooking his breakfast.
As I sat there, I was wondering to myself how he was able to start a fire and start cooking without waking me at all. I also noticed how odd the man's clothing and gear seemed to be. Now, as I said before, I was just out of high school and pretty much all of my hiking and camping gear were secondhand or from a thrift store, but the man's gear looked almost antique. Something you'd expect to see in an old sportsman's catalogue.
I sat there awkwardly for a few moments then rummaged through my pack, grabbed my toothbrush and toiletry bag and headed to the outhouse that was a few yards into the woods behind the shelter. After I was done, I made my way back. I thought about if I was going to say anything to the man or just leave him be and get back on the trail, but when I came around the shelter he was gone.
He wasn't just gone, everything was gone, his camping gear, his pack and the strangest thing the fire was gone. And I’m not just saying the fire was out, it was gone. There was no smoke, no burning embers, not even fresh ash. I placed my hand in the firepit and it was still wet from the rain the day before. At first, I thought I must have been dreaming, or at least in the stage between wake and sleep when you're not sure if you're still dreaming or awake.
But No, I had felt the heat of the fire, smelled the smoke, felt the slight sting of smoke in my eyes when I awoke, it had happened. I checked the shelter, the two other hikers were still asleep, for a split second I thought about waiting for them to wake up and ask them about the man, but I decided against it. I finished the hike and told my friends about what had happened. I had seen a ghost on the Appalachian Trail.
You know what they say about if you see something strange in appalachia? They say no you didn’t.
So Paul, I don’t know who that man was you saw at the campfire, but I think for the protection of everyone listening, you didn’t see anyone at all… (yes you did, it was a ghost)
Would you believe that wasn’t the only horrifying camping experience I got? I can. I’ve never gotten a camping story from you guys that didn’t make me lie awake staring at the ceiling at 3am.
Because apparently, when you enter the woods, you enter the food chain, so just keep that in mind. This story comes from Michaela.
I’m not quite sure how to start this, because I still get shivers when I think about it today, but about a year ago, I was on a camping trip with my family. We were at Wallowa Lake in Oregon, and it was a really lovely trip aside from one thing.
Surrounding the lake on one side was lush forest and the second day we were there, I decided to go explore what was in it. Just outside of our campground there was a little path that lead into the green and dense vegetation. I stayed on it for a while and then proceeded to hike off into the trees (because that was definitely a smart choice).
By this time it was about three in the afternoon so it wasn’t as bright as it would have been when I first started my climb. Finally after some time of trekking, I found a more open spot and started looking around. Along the evergreen shaded hillside was a series of giant boulders. As I made my way over to one I saw something that caught my eye.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed that it was a leather shoe, and a very nice one. But only one. I thought that was old but I kept on going. Not long after, I found another shoe, but not the matching one. It was a similar kind and still leather, but it was more boot like than the last. Weird. Because you obviously tell by now that I don’t have the best sense of what is sensible and not, I keep on going.
As I got further up the hill I saw more missing articles of clothing. First the shoes, then there was a glove but it was missing a finger, like it had been ripped straight off. after that a large work boot. All strewn around and tattered like a wild animal had gotten to them or something.
The one thing they all shared was that they were all leather. I still don’t know what significance this has but I didn’t forget it. Now I was a little freaked out but I kept on walking a little further, past all of the boulders
And After some time, I managed to find a perfectly circular little meadow with white and purple wildflowers littering the ground. It was honestly so pretty and peaceful and I stayed there for a while, reading my book Until the late afternoon when I spotted some deer roaming in the trees.
I watched them for a while, just taking in the beauty of the scene, and then I noticed the many birds singing, perched on the branches above me. I continued reading, perfectly content. At one point I look back up though, and I realize the deer and birds are gone.
The meadow is silent. That’s really odd to me because the animals were there the entire day. I kept reading despite the obvious peculiarity of the situation, but I started getting a really strange feeling. Suddenly I heard a rustling in the bush on the other side of the meadow.
I passed it off as a deer at first but soon I recognized that it was far to heavy sounding to be a deer. There it was again, closer now. I sat completely still, unable to move. Something felt very wrong. I had to go. Now. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins and I ran the fastest I ever have.
Down the hill, past the boulders, into the campground. I didn’t see what it was that was stalking me but something told me I didn’t want to. That night at the campfire I was recalling my story for my group when one of my uncles went dead silent. He said two words that I’ll never forget, something that many people in the area know about but are too afraid to discuss with one another.. Skin walker. The site was quiet. There was no humor in his voice when he said it. And I think he might have been right.
So I wanted to add a little note here to Michaela’s story, because I looked into the area after she sent me this. And while I couldn’t find local indigenous lore about skinwalkers, I did find a story from the local blackfeet and Nez Perce (Purse) tribes talking about the Wallowa Monster that resides in the area.
Now, this creature is said to live in the lake, at least according to an 1885 article where a local is describing an encounter with the creature. It was described as having a snake like body and hippo like head, and was around 80 feet in length. And it was so well known to the tribes in the area that they refused to go in the water because of it.
And it seems like the creature has been seen a few times throughout history, even earning the nickname Big Wally, with the most recent time being in the 80s when two men saw it.
Big Wally has never killed anybody It does seem like it mostly lives in the sea, but who knows, something does seem afoot at Wallowa Lake.
Ok, this next email is recent, and was sent to me by a listener named Heidi, she writes:
In the fall of 1999, I was a freshman at Michigan State University, living on the third floor of the South Wonders dorm with a good friend of mine from high school. During a heat wave in mid-September, everyone in the dorm began complaining of an unpleasant odor while walking towards the cafeteria located between the north and south buildings.
Students who ventured to the basement to use the laundry room or study in the adjacent large, creepy room (formerly a snack bar, but now just filled with tables and chairs – used for studying or blood drives) said the odor was even stronger there.
My roommate and I left for an afternoon Sociology class, and by the time we returned 90 minutes later, it was an absolute media circus by one of the dorms. local and non-local news crews were on the scene with their cameras and vans. We parked and locked up our bikes and took a walk around the complex. By the service entrance, we passed by a man dressed in white coveralls and booties with a respiratory mask hanging around his neck taking a smoke break. He looked haggard, and we asked him what was going on. He didn’t say much, but he did warn us that it was gruesome.
It turned out, after days of resident and graduate advisors receiving countless complaints from the students, a dorm assistant manager was dispatched to the basement to track down the origin of the smell. Inside of the study lounge, behind a locked door, was a small storage room that housed a commercial cooler used during the basement’s snack bar days. Tragically, the body of 23-year-old Neftali Valdez Greene Jr. was discovered inside of the closed cooler. He had previously graduated from the school and wasn’t a current student. By all accounts, he had potentially been there for weeks.
While we were out there, anyone who had a window facing the circle drive at the south building’s entrance had opened their windows and removed the screens to observe the media action outside. The resident advisors frantically ran from floor to floor ordering those students to close their windows, fearful someone could tumble out and they’d have another tragedy on their hands. This was before cellphones but I can’t imagine what it would be like now with everyone able to film and take pictures. It felt like complete chaos.
And as the day turned to evening, everyone started to speculate whether the death was a murder, suicide, or accidental death. The circumstances as we knew them at that point just seemed too strange for an accidental death or suicide. The dorm had been locked down and we had to show ID’s to come and go. It just didn’t make sense that someone who didn’t go to our school wound up there.
The news crews were camped out for days, but even after they left, none of the Wonders Hall residents felt like their questions were answered regarding Greene’s death. We felt like our RA’s had more information than they were sharing, and that just really scared all of us.
And then, following week, more distressing news came to light. It was revealed that Greene had attended a controversial church in the area, called Immanuel’s Temple Community Church which was in Lansing. This church had a really controversial past. It was the same church that Dimitrius Underwood attended.
He was an NFL player who sliced his own neck at his girlfriend’s home in Lansing after screaming that he was not worthy of God and he wanted to be saved and meet God. He luckily survived and was committed to a mental health clinic.
After the event, his mother blamed the church. She publicly called it a cult and warned anyone who was thinking of joining. One of the rumors circulating campus in the days following the discovery of Greene, which I’m not sure if this is actually true, was that he was found with a bible against his chest. That was never officially reported or substantiated.
Ultimately, the police ruled Greene’s cause of death suffocation, and manner of death accidental.
And one thing that has crossed my mind in the last 15+ years,, is I don’t recall ever hearing about toxicology results, or any sort of investigation as to why Greene found his way to the Wonders dorm. How did he manage to get into the dorm, find his way to a secluded (and locked?) storage room, and voluntarily climb into the cooler? After all, Greene was no longer a student and by all accounts never lived close to the Wonders complex while he attended MSU, so I don’t know why he would have been in that specific dorm. And furthermore, was there a coincidence between Underwood’s incident and Greene’s untimely death? I don’t think we’ll ever know.
Though the case was officially closed, Greene’s case remains a mystery for those of us that were *literally* so close to the incident back in 1999.
This is another one of those stories that I dug into a bit more, and it turns out there WAS a toxicology report done on Neftali, and it was ruled that he had no substances in his system. Which adds more to the strangeness of the situation, but I also read that he had been found sleeping on campus before, but it doesn’t really explain why he was in the cooler, doesn’t feel like somewhere you would choose to sleep…. We may never know what really happened
Our next story takes place on a ranch, and I don’t know what it is about ranches. My husband was raised on a ranch and I just think freaky things happen there. When you have a bunch of animals all mixed together, I feel like it attracts other, scarier animals
And sometimes, even things from an entirely different world. Like this story from Ulises. He writes:
When I was 6 years old, I was living in Mexico with my grandma in her ranch. I was born in the US, but was raised in Mexico with my grandma. I grew up with my grandma, my older brother and sister.
In Mexico, and in general on a ranch, we have to tend the animals, and no matter how young we are, we all have a job. My job was to take care of the goats and walk them to a pasture about a mile away.
I lived in a small town, so we all knew each other and there was no danger, so it was safe for me to do these chores even as a young kid.
One night It was getting a bit late, so I walked the goats back home to the ranch. I started counting them, one, two, three. I counted through the whole group and realized I was missing one. I let my older brother know and we went back to look for the goat, it wasn’t safe out there for a goat by itself at night, we had to find it.
At this point it was dark, and we didn’t bring flashlight, so only the light of the moon was guiding us. We looked everywhere for the goat, calling out it’s name, offering it food, and we just couldn't find it anywhere. We were going to walk back home, when behind a tall bush or something, I heard the voice of my sister. She sounded panicked., I'm back here come grab me, I need your help. She was saying
Me being young, I thought she was there and told my brother that she needed help and we should go grab her. As soon as my brother heard the voice, he lost all of the color in his face. He tensed up and said in a low voice, we need to leave now, that's not her.
Together We ran back home and sure enough, my sister was with my grandma in the kitchen. I asked her if she was by the pasture and she said no, that she had been with my grandma the whole time. My grandma agreed that she was by her side.
And if that wasn’t strange enough About 5 minutes later, the goat that was missing walked by as if it had been home with the other goats.
I have no idea what was behind that bush that night, but if it weren't for my brother. I don't know what would have happened to me.
I also, don’t know what was behind that bush, and I’m glad you didn’t stick around to find out. I don’t want to be that person that says if you hear your sibling crying out for help you should run away, but I think if you take a beat to try and figure out if it’s really your sibling or a creature sent from the underworld, that’s fine.
Ok, I have one more for you all today, sent in from a listener named Olivia. And Olivia had a story about something strange in a house. It’s a story that proves sometimes a ghost isn’t the creepiest thing haunting a place.
Olivia writes:
In 2018 a good friend of mine asked me dog/house sit for her. She owned a cute cape cod style house right next to a high school. She had 2 dogs… Charlie, extremely old and had a hard time getting around. He was he reason she begged me to dog sit for her, instead of asking her niece.)
Charlie was 15 years old and needed help going outside. So I made it a point to go back to her house on my lunch break from work to let him out. The First couple of days were normal and the dogs and I set into a routine.
On my 3rd day I left for work and saw a car in the drive backed all the way up to the privacy fence. I figured it was one of her friend's sons who went to the high school right next to her house. That’s really all I thought about it.
I went back on my lunch break to find Charlie had an accident on his bed. So I cleaned him up, put his dog bed in the washer and moved it to the dryer before I left to go back to work.
I got back from work that night, and I went to get Charlie’s bed out of the dryer. However when I open it up wasnt there. That’s when I notice the washer door open and sitting in water is Charlie’s bed.
I Freaked out because I swore I had put the bed in the dryer. But maybe I was rushing and I didn’t pay attention. No I REMEMBERED grabbing a dryer sheet and putting it in the dryer. Anyways, Charlie needed his bed so I finished another wash cycle. And just went about the rest of the night.
The next day came and I went about my routine. I look outside and the car is still in her driveway. Once again, I think maybe it’s the highschooler, so I head to work,
but that afternoon, when I came back for my lunch break and tried to go in the front door I couldn’t get it to open. I figured (the other dog) might have been playing and a toy got wedged… weird but it’s happened with my dogs at my own house before. So I decided to go in the side door. I walked in turn the corner to the living room and see the reason the door wouldnt’ open.
the coffee table had been placed in front of it. I went over to move it and saw that The side table had been moved to block a path to the hallway and Charlie was lying on blankets instead of his bed that I had cleaned for him the night before.
I don’t know what was going through my head, but I knew the dogs didn’t do this. No dog is going to rearrange the furniture to perfectly block the door and the hallway. I RAN out of the house with the two dogs, Put them both in my car, called the cops and the friend I’m house sitting fors sister, Holly
The cops came pretty quickly and went through the entire house but they found nothing. They did inform me however that the man that lives across the street is actually being searched for because he skipped out on bail. Everyone in our town at the time knew him as the “Gnome Bandit.” He had stollen so much property in the area, skipped out on his bail and was now wanted by the police.
So they asked me to keep an eye out for him as well. Um…ok? While I’m searching the house for poltergeists I guess I’ll also keep an eye out for him.
Holly I and I are outside after the police leave discussing the whole “Gnome Bandit” situation. Eventually, We go inside and I find Charlie’s bedding back in the washing machine sitting in water again.
The unease I have at this point is insane. But part of me is thinking the police searched the house and didn’t find anything or anyone. It’s also Kentucky so I went and brought my gun over so I knew if anything really bad happened I’d at least be able to protect myself.
The next day was same routine, I was feeling much better about the situation, but When I got back on my lunch break my jaw hit the floor.
Things were moved all over the house. The kitchen table was moved to block the side hallway, the coffee table was in front of the front door again. Side tables moved to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms stacked with stuff on them.
I called the police and Holly again. Freaked out I stayed outside the entire time, this time when the police came, they were not so gentle. Holly and i were on the driveway when we heard police start screaming from inside the house.
A couple minutes later they walk out with a man. He was around 55 years old, with a full beard and a receding hairline. I had seen this guys picture before, it was the freaking “Gnome Bandit” and he was covered in insulation!! The cop then told me that he was found in the attic, but the reason they didn’t find him the first time was because they didn’t see that the attic had a small area where it dropped down a little further. He was tucked away in there like the episode you did about the Denver Spiderman.
I was so mad. I ended up asking the cop if I could ask this Gnome Bandit and question… Holly ended up just yelling at him, asking why he was in there? He said “bc if I stayed in my own house they’d find me eventually.”
I asked him why he was moving stuff around the house? He just got this wicked look on his face and said “I thought I could scare you into not coming back so I wouldn’t get caught but after the first time I enjoyed hearing you squirm. You and Holly had such a nice conversation about me yesterday.”
With that he was arrested AGAIN. I never went back to that house. I read a book last month, a thriller and someone ended up being in the attic. I didn’t sleep for 3 days. This whole thing still messes with me to this day.
My worst fear is someone being in my home without me noticing. I mean here I have jinx and gordy but what are they going to do? No, it feels like people are the real danger in this situation.
I ended up looking more into this story as well, and I found the article from when this happened. and get a load of this. The article reads.
“the notorious Louisville gnome bandit is back in handcuffs after a second manhunt.
Thursday, Barton Bishop was arrested after falling out of the attic of a home where he was hiding in the Upper Highlands. He was taken into custody.
Louisville Metro Police posted about his arrest on Facebook, saying tips led them to his hiding spot.”
UMMM if by tips you mean our girl Olivia calling in MULTIPLE times swearing there was someone hiding in the house messing with her, then yea! Sure! Sounds like it was tips that lead you there..
This goes to show that sometimes the scariest things happen when you least expect it. When you’re out on a hike, when you’re walking to class, or when you’re watching your friends dog. But then you look over and see that one piece of furniture is moved just ever so slightly. And you think to yourself, am I just losing my mind, or did that table just move. And little do you know, there’s a man, two stories above your head, watching you.
Please keep sharing these stories with me. And if you’d like MORE listener stories, I’ll be reading some of the ones that didn’t make this episode on Footnotes, our weekly after show available to the high council tier on patreon, where I share more from my case file on each weeks episode. Recently, I shared ghost photos from the port arthur jail, I shared the alaskan triangle mystery that didn’t make the episode, and I talked about another theory for spontaneous combustion that includes ley lines, youre definitely going to want to cach those.
Anyways, that’s all I have for you today with this episode. Join me here next week for another episode of Deathbed Confessions! That’s right, I think we did one about two years ago, and I’m really excited to tell you guys about what I found.
Until next time. Check your crawl spaces, oooOOOooo