157 Year Old House | True Paranormal Stories & Spooky Folklore | Ep #57

0:04 Andy, how many ghosts do you have in your home? That's too many ghosts. Welcome stranger to Madam Strange Ways, where I, Madam Strange Ways, narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained. Whether you're a skeptic, A believer, or some secret third thing. Stick around after the story where I will share my strange thoughts and strange research about said strange story. Along the way, I'll also drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and screaming if needs must. Before we get to today's true strange story, however, the strangest of shout outs to my Patreon patrons TJ Hotter of the tapes of trepidation podcast, G Man music Ted Keith and Tori, thank you so much to my Feral Fiendish 5 for supporting the show.

1:01 Hear your name at the beginning of every episode, get a free sticker and get bonus Madam Strange Ways content like Madam Strange Notes episodes and a strange guided sleep meditation just for joining the Patreon at Patreon dot com slash Madam Strange Ways Perfect timing. Sounds like it's about to rain hellcats and hellhounds outside, so you know what that means. Settle in for a true strange story here with Madam Strange Ways. My 157 year old house by Andy.

1:55 I've never had anything unexplained happened to me in my life until I moved into my new house. The house is old, 157 years and has seen 20 plus families come and go since it was built. I've also recently confirmed through old records that at least two people have died inside the house. Back story aside, I don't feel scared in this house at all. I've never had the classic something is wrong moment that I've always heard happens. I actually love this house and feel nothing but comfort. However, I've had three specific situations happen that I legitimately cannot explain. And believe me, I want to.

2:40 First, I was grabbed from behind while doing the dishes shortly after moving in, like someone short was behind me, hugging my waist. It was light but unmistakable. I froze, and as soon as I gathered the courage to turn around, there was nothing there. I was alone. The second occurrence was probably the worst of them. I was making dinner one night in the kitchen with company and I mentioned out loud that I hadn't eaten this dish in a long time. Clear as day. I heard a male voice ask what's that from an empty doorway around the corner.

3:21 My guest immediately told me she heard it too. The most recent was actually reported by a neighbor. I was outside gardening and he was walking by. We said hello casually and he stopped for a second on the sidewalk and said, hey, this might be a weird question, but who's the woman that stands in the window upstairs? I see her sometimes when I walk by. That was a fun one to try and explain. Andy, how many ghosts do you have in your home?

4:01 That's too many ghosts. That's crazy. OK, Andy, first of all, before we get started, Andy, thank you so much for allowing me to Share your story on the show. Really appreciate it. But how many ghosts do you have? That's OK. We've got the little kid, presumably a kid hugging you from behind, right? Which is aw, that's sweet and also all sad. We've got the man who only shows up when there's food being made, which is a typical classic. And then we've got the woman in the window. No, I, the woman in the window is my least favorite out of out of all three of those ghosts. I don't like it. But it is good, however, that the vibes aren't bad, that the vibes are good in the house, and that you seem to be living in a, in a ghost hostel or a ghost hotel or a ghost halfway house somewhere where ghosts are hanging out, but you didn't invite them, but presumably they were there before you were. So really, who's who is the intruder? OK.

4:59 And typically when you hear that someone hears or sees multiple ghosts, especially so close together, typically you might call them a psychic medium or a spirit medium. It's the same thing. So basically someone who can communicate with the dead while us normies can't. However, that neighbor saw the window lady. That's the only reason we know the window lady exists is because a neighbor saw the window lady ghost and then that guest heard the hungry man ghost. So clearly it's not just Andy that are seeing these things. So maybe, Andy, maybe you're not the psychic medium here. Or are you? Because some say that psychic mediums make it easier for spirits to contact us.

5:41 Or I mean, I don't know, maybe they're like drawn to psychic mediums. Like they know who can talk to them and so they want to hang out near them. I mean, that's understandable. So Andy, are you a psychic medium or maybe a psychic large? I'll, I'll save myself out. No, wait, but hold on. I'm coming back. I'm going to be here for a little bit longer. Hold on a minute, because Andy shared two more stories with me over DMS that I want you to hear. I'm not sure if Andy has shared these anywhere else, but I'm going to call it. I'm just going to go on a limb and say it's exclusive content. Exclusive strange content. So Andy says there's actually two more situations that happened. The first was during the tail end of COVID. I think this would have been around 2022. At that time, I worked in a store that was temporarily shut down while there was a local outbreak. So I worked from home, attending meetings and speaking with team members over Zoom.

6:39 During one of those calls, I was talking to one of my employees about my house and some of its history, just casual conversation before I got to the real subject we were supposed to discuss. One of the items I found under an old floorboard was an iron key. I'm pretty sure it's from the 1800s. I kept it, obviously, and stuck it in a spot inside a typesetter drawer that I hung on the wall. Pause. Because I love typesetter drawers. I want 1. You know I love. I love little Knick knacks. Little tiny little things. I love them so much. Knick knack Paddywhack. Give me more Knick knacks and also a typesetter drawer to put on my wall. I want 1. I don't have one and I'm always on the lookout for him, but I'm jealous that you have one. Anyway, I can see it in my mind's eye. I can see your little setup with the iron key in the typeshedder drawer, and it feels so satisfying to picture. OK, all right.

7:29 Continuing. As I was speaking about the house, I felt something fly past me from behind my head. The employee stopped talking right then and said, I think I saw something just fly off your wall behind you. I got up and looked around and finally found the key lying on the carpet about 10 feet away from the wall. I can't in any way explain how that one single item could have chosen to remove itself from the wall, especially when it's the one thing in that collection of random items that belongs to the house, which is very spooky. But hold on, there's more. The second situation has happened a couple of times in the main downstairs bathroom, which used to be the main bedroom of the house. Interesting, I have had the very distinct feeling of a cat brushing up and dragging a tail against my legs. Now I do have two cats, but they weren't in the room at the time. I thought I could be wrong but found them both curled up on the couch asleep.

8:30 The first time I thought I was just feeling things. The second time the door was actually closed. So apparently I have ghost kitties as well, which honestly makes me smile. And it makes me smile too, Andy, I love the idea of ghost kitties. That's so cute. At least we know there's cats on the other side. That's a relief. But hold on, because the key flying across the room. What do you mean? You know what? It's time for the paranormal versus skeptical theories, which is something that we, the royal strange we do on the show. I like to not only talk about what paranormal or folkloric explanations there might be, but also the mundane, the skeptical, the naturalistic. We like to give both options.

9:11 Again, the strange royal we, there's just me. It's just, it's just me. I like to present both because as someone who used to be kind of cripplingly terrified and anxious about invisible things like the paranormal happening to me, what was really helpful was learning that I can feel afraid and not be in danger, and you too can feel afraid and not be in danger. And in order to feel like you can feel afraid and not be in danger, to me, what's helpful is to know that there are multiple explanations, that just because something is unexplained doesn't mean there isn't an explanation. Now, sometimes I sure don't know what the explanation is, but at least we know there are multiple options. And so in this case, we will be moving on to paranormal versus skeptical theories. So I do think a skeptic would have to wonder exactly how far the key really went.

9:58 Like, Andy, I know you said it was 10 feet, but was it really 10 feet? Or, you know, like, I don't know, do you do something in your job in which you do have to constantly, consistently eyeball 10 feet? In which case maybe it was 10 feet, but maybe it wasn't 10 feet, maybe it was 5 feet. I don't know. I'm not really good at distance. I would not be able to tell you with any sort of confidence how far 10 feet is. So Andy, maybe you are better at distance than me, but I think that a skeptic would have to ask that question. How far did it really go? But honestly, it's something that I think a normal skeptic would say is that did that even really happen? Not did Andy make it up? That's not the question, but more like, was the key previously knocked down from the typesetter drawer?

10:41 And then did the cats kind of knock it around 10 feet away from the wall from where it was? And then, I don't know, something else made it feel like something flew off of the wall. But then you've got your witness, you've got someone who saw it, so it wasn't just you experiencing it. But I do think that a skeptic would say, and I do also agree with the concept of Occam's razor, which is the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions is usually correct. Usually, but not always. So what I'm saying is I'm sure that there's many skeptics out there who would probably say that the simplest explanation for any undocumented paranormal activity is that it simply didn't happen at all in the first place. Which, you know, I don't love that take. I just, I don't love it, Boo. It's not, it's not fun. And it is a little bit disrespectful to people like Andy who have experienced these things. But believe me, I need you to trust me when I say when I'm reading people's stories to decide which ones to feature on the show.

11:34 I try to be extremely discerning and a little bit skeptical because the point of the show is to give you the truest and explained stories, things that could happen to anyone, things that could happen to you or me. So I don't feature stories that I think are made-up whole cloth, if that wasn't already clear. I've been kind of wanting to address that on the show for a little bit. So thank you for allowing me that tiny little rabbit hole going down that explanation. All right, so here's the thing for another actual skeptical theory. There have been instances of poltergeist cases. Poltergeist cases where the activity wasn't staged, but was naturally occurring. Like, no, not like actual poltergeists, like wind currents. I know this was driving me crazy because I know I researched a case where that actually happened, where there were wind currents coming in through the chimney and that was what was making things fly around the room. And they thought it was a poltergeist, but actually it was wind currents.

12:30 And I did a lot of research on it, and I know that it was around my research for the Enfield Poltergeist episode, or at least I feel very strongly that it was. But I cannot for the life of me find the original source of the story. If you know what it is, let me know about strangeways@gmail.com. But even if it was some sort of strange air current in the room that flew the key off of the typesetter drawer, why was it only the key that was magically thrown from where it was at? Because, you know, keys aren't like old timey, iron keys aren't light. So how did that happen, I ask you? As for the ghost Kitty, I do feel pretty strongly that a mundane explanation of that is just tactile hallucinations, like when your phone vibrates in your pocket. But oh, look at that.

13:13 Your phone isn't even in your pocket. It's across the room and it didn't go off at all. It's not like you psychically knew it was ringing. It's it's just a tactile hallucination. It's like that. I mean, I constantly, and I mean nightly feel the telltale presence of a cat jumping up on my bed only to look and there is no cat. I mean, sometimes it is Mochi, but while Mochi is in bed with me, I will also feel something like a cat jump on the bed and I'll think, oh, it must be Cleocatra. And then I look, no Cleocatra. Oh, OK, so maybe it's a ghost cat. Maybe it's the ghost of my past Kitty cat, or maybe it's a tactile hallucination.

13:57 And As for the original story in this episode that we heard at the beginning, maybe it's a mix of auditory and visual pareidolia. Pareidolia. Hold on. OK, Google, how do you pronounce pareidolia? What if it's pareidolia? That's pronounced pareidolia. OK, great. Pareidolia. Got it on the first try. Maybe it's anyway. Maybe it's a mix of auditory and visual pareidolia where and you see faces where there are no faces, like seeing Jesus on a piece of toast. Or okay, this, this is maybe not no, this is a great example. OK, You know those like dog, the memes of like the dogs where it's like fried chicken or goldendoodle and it's got pictures of fried chicken and then also pictures of stupid goldendoodles and you can't tell the difference.

14:48 Or my favorite, the the blueberry muffin or Chihuahua. And the blueberry muffins look exactly like little Chihuahua faces. They look exactly, exactly like it. It's maybe it's like that visual and auditory because you can have auditory pareidolia too. Like you hear something and you think it's something else and it's not, not a face necessarily, but you know, but again, you know, even if it was auditory pareidolia, the guest did hear the Hungry Man guy. She heard him. So you both heard him. So could it really be pareidolia? I don't know. I don't know. I don't have the answers. I sure wish I did. About moving on to the actual fun part, the paranormal stuff. I mean, honestly, Andy, you might just be a psychic medium. Honestly, you're drawing human and ghost cats both to you like moths to a flame.

15:43 Which paused, because did you know that moths aren't drawn to flames and actually really badly do not want to be anywhere near the flame at all, and their intent is to be nowhere near the flame. All right, here we go from sciencealert.com. We're going down a little rabbit hole. Here we go. Hold on to your butts. Insects evolved mechanisms based on the fact that throughout time the sky has been significantly brighter than the land. So when presented with a competing light source, flies, moths, beetles, and so on find themselves in an erratic spiral of continued course corrections, giving the illusion of an infatuation with your porch light. Contrary to the expectation of attraction, insects do not stare directly toward the light the team described, clashing with other signals for orientation like gravity. The mixed messages give the unfortunate animals Vertigo. It can trick Wasps into crashing into things and send dragonflies plummeting toward the ground.

16:38 Honestly, let's trick more Wasps. Dragonflies, I don't like it. Dragonflies, they can be spared, but let's trick more Wasps. Wasps are not being tricked enough, I say. Are you a wasp? Do you get Vertigo from flames and porch lights? Let me know madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Anyway, Andy, psychic mediumship. OK, the call might be coming from inside the house in which you are The house and the call is the call is your apparent spirit mediumship. Though Andy did tell me over DMS that things have been very quiet lately. Perhaps a little too quiet. So I'm glad for things to be nice and quiet for you, Andy, because we don't want anything to escalate to the point where the vibes in your house are thrown off. We want vibes to stay good and the ghosts to stay chill in a perfect world.

17:32 And Andy, OK, even if you're not some kind of medium, could it be, I don't know, Ley lines. Ley lines, like Ley, have you heard of them? Have you listening? Maybe not Andy, but you specifically, have you heard of Ley lines? I've mentioned them recently, but I realized I kind of don't fully understand what they are. So here we go. Here's another little rabbit hole. Wikipedia. Ley lines are straight alignments drawn between various historic structures, prehistoric sites, and prominent landmarks. This sounds so boring, but hold on. It's not just lines there, it's woo woo, so it's fun.

18:12 The idea was developed in early 20th century Europe, with Ley line believers arguing that these alignments were recognized by ancient societies that deliberately erected structures among them, along them, not among them. Since the 1960s, members of the Earth Mysteries movement and other esoteric traditions have commonly believed that such Ley lines demarcate Earth energies. See, I told you it was woo woo and serve as guides for alien spacecraft. You didn't even know. You didn't know that was where that was going at all, did you? Did you know? Let me know, manistrator@gmail.com. Did you know what Ley lines were going to bring up? Aliens. Are you an alien or a Ley line? Let me know Madam strangeways@gmail.com, it continues. Archaeologists and scientists regard Ley lines as an example of pseudo archaeology and pseudoscience, meaning they don't take it seriously even though it's really fun. OK, so then you know, I'm like, let me pull up. How do I find where the Ley lines are? I'm Googling how to find Ley lines and there's a site, it's pretty cool.

19:18 So like it's like this GitHub leyline Finder map thing. So I'm like, yeah, this is going to be great. I'm going to see if there's any leylines near where Andy is. And I'm actually don't think that I know where Andy is, but I just, I'm like, are there any in America? I'm like, I don't know if these are supposed to be ancient. I don't know how. Where are they? North America, maybe like in Central America. But anyway, I pull up this leyline Finder map to see where the Leylands are in the US, but basically anywhere in the world that you click on, it's like, Oh yeah, here's a Ley line. Dang. Oh yeah, here's a Ley line that's going to some old castle in Europe or something. Literally anywhere that you click in the world, it just draws a line from that place to an ancient prehistoric site or a castle. So I just, I don't know, I don't think that's how Ley lines work. So just like everywhere there's a Ley line. That doesn't seem right.

20:09 It feels like Ley lines are specific places. You see what I'm saying? So I don't know, either I was not using the map right or the map is not done well. If you know of a better way to find Ley lines, I'd be interested to learnmoreoutofstrangeways@gmail.com let me know. Maybe I don't know enough about Ley lines because I am just a lay person. I'm a I'm a lay, lay person like Layla Press. OK, All right, All right. I'll see myself out. But really, I will see myself out this time because because that's about it. I mean, of course, you could say there were multiple deaths over the years and I guess none of them are violent. And everyone that died there is really chill in the afterlife. But like, I just don't know.

20:56 What are the odds of that? What are the odds? But I think if I had to land on a theory, Andy, you might be a psychic medium. You might need to, you might need to hone your psychic medium skills. Anyway, I hope everything stays great in the house. I hope that you still love living in that house. But if you, if you, Andy, listen to me, if you meet another ghost, I'm going to need you to tell me about it because I'm going to need to do an update. If you meet a new character in the home, I'm going to need to know. So let me know Madam strangewayits@gmail.com. And if you listening, not Andy, no, you, uh huh. I'm talking to you. If you have a true strange story that you want to hear read on the show, I'm going to need you to e-mail that to me immediately, madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Right now, Right now, I am waiting. Not later, no.

21:49 No, not tomorrow. Not next week. Right now. Remember that you can feel afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me, probably. Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the unexplained. I'm running A1 Madam Show here, so please do me a strange solid and follow the podcast. Leave me a rating on Apple or Spotify, and maybe even join the Patreon at patreon.com/madam Strange Ways for bonus content. Madam Strange Ways is produced and narrated by me strangewaysthememusicisbymarina.ryan@marinamakes.co Cover art is by Andrea Chisel Roldan at Cult of Teddy on Instagram. Every strange story is shared with the permission of the author.

22:51 You can submit your own true strange story to madamestrangeways@gmail.com. See you soon, she said ominously. I froze, and as soon as I gathered the courage. Hey, hey, over here. Hey, you're still listening. You're hey, look, listen, you're still listening. Awesome.

23:35 I love that. I love to hear it. Here's the thing, if you're still listening, why don't you pop over to patreon.com/madam Strangeways, just, you know, just do just just a little, just a little look, see, just a little window shopping. You know, not only do you have access to Madam Strange Notes content where I just kind of talk about whatever strange things pop into my strange brain, but also you get a special, special strange guided sleep meditation by me. And don't you just love listening to the dulcet tones of my voice as I lull you to sleep? And not into a, not into a false, not lulling you into a false sense of security. No, no, no lulling you to sleep.

24:23 Doesn't it sound nice? Check it out, Madam Strange ways. Wait. Yeah. You can go to madamstrangeways.com. Also, you can go to patreon.com/madam. Strange ways. OK? Strange ways out.