August 6, 2024 • 25 mins
Love is in the air as Therésa tries to guess where people saw their first ghost or met their first love.
In the meantime, we hear the chilling tale of a ghost checking in on local tour guides on the streets of Philadelphia and a woman who can't see dead people but can feel them.
If you would like to reach out to the Haunting team and share your own ghost story, email us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Therésa (00:18):
Hello, my angels or devils, demons, mortals, reanimated ectoplasm, however
you identify. Welcome back to another episode of Haunting.
We're running into a little problem here at Haunting HQ
that I'm not entirely unfamiliar with. We're generating too much
at revenue. We're not sure how to spend it. All
(00:39):
material goods are of no use to me here, hence
the reworking of my entire brand. So we're in a
little bit of a "financial pickle," as my dad's tax
fraud attorney used to put it, different sides of the
same coin, though we're flush, whereas he was basically doing
dishes for the IRS.
AnyWho, I had the idea to donate our proceeds to charity.
Len (01:04):
(mumbles)
Therésa (01:06):
Okay? Len and I had the idea to donate our
proceeds to charity. Len pitched the American Cancer Society, but
I was thinking Camp Conflict, which is a summer program
I funded Maine where we manufacture safe adverse experiences for
privileged teens so they have something to write their college
essays about. It's helped a lot of deserving kids get
(01:27):
into bottom tier ivys.
So while Naomi prepares the oversized check, we'll meet James
from Philadelphia, who guides a ghost tour through the city
where he and his group - Honestly, you can probably guess.
Story A (01:43):
I work with Stephen DeMarco, another ghost tour guide. He's
my de facto mentor. Stephen's telling me this story. He
had three college girls. They had booked the extended tour.
One of them screams, "He disappeared! You didn't see that?
He disappeared! You were just talking to him, and now
he's gone." They're scared to death because they just watched
(02:07):
a man disappear in front of him. Spirits are here.
I don't know why, but they're here, and I'm all
for skepticism, but there are many things that can't be explained.
My name is James. I am a ghost tour guide
in Philadelphia, and we encountered a ghost on our ghost tour.
(02:31):
I give extended ghost tours in Philadelphia. It's about an
hour tour and they're eight different stops, all from the
colonial period. There's a lot of history to it. We
don't do flim flammory. We don't set up bluetooth speakers
that play scary music. We don't have actors pop out.
(02:52):
It's just me doing historical lessons and telling them about hauntings.
Sometimes I use gadgets on the tour. I used to
bring like an EMF detector or a spirit box, just
to see if they'd do anything, you know, shake it
up a little bit. One night, I'm talking about Alexander Hamilton.
(03:13):
All of a sudden, the spirit box goes off and
they point, they go, "look the thing turned red." And
I've found that I've been able to convince, I wouldn't
say hardcore skeptics by any means, but people who didn't
believe it and just kind of wanted to see what
the tour was about.
(03:35):
It was October 2021, right before the season really ramped up,
as we were heading deeper into the month towards Halloween.
It was brisk. It was a very small group they
had booked the extended tour. There was an older woman
(03:56):
in her late forties to early fifties. I'll just call
her Ma. She was tall and thin, kind of reminded
me of Allison Janney. She was nice enough, she really wanted
to be there. This was for her. Her daughter, who
was a woman about my age in her mid to
late thirties, blonde, a bit shorter. She didn't want to be there,
(04:17):
and that's okay, like she had no interest, but she
wasn't disrespectful. And then there was a youngest girl. She
was a teenager.
They were visiting from Washington, and they got the Philadelphia experience,
which is you're trying to cross the street and someone
nearly runs you over, and then that car who tries
to run you over yells at you. Welcome to Philadelphia,
(04:40):
was kind of all I could say.
I'm checking them in and I'm trying to confirm the
extended tour, and then Ma leans in then whispers in
my ear, "You know, I'm a clairvoyant. I can see
spirits around us." Okay, this was unprompted. I'm just kind
(05:04):
of trying to get all of this done at this point,
and I have stuff I have to say. I have
things I have to get through. But they were actually
very nice, especially Ma, who really wanted to be there.
I get through this standard tour and I'm continuing with
the extended tour. I go the extra mile. I bring
(05:27):
out some equipment. Maybe it works, maybe we hear something
on the spirit box. Sometimes we don't, and I move on
and I try to make it interesting one way or
the other. The middle one, the daughter, was on her
phone the entire time. She wasn't interested. This wasn't her
cup of tea. As my gear was going off and
I got more into the ghost stuff, the teenage daughter
(05:48):
kind of warmed up to it. She kind of started
to ask questions. She kind of started to want to
know about experiences that had happened to me. Part of
being a tour guide is personal experience. They want to
know what we've seen, what we've experienced. I show people
some orbs in pictures I've taken of a certain locations.
(06:12):
I talk about times the EMF point a bit nuts,
when the spirit box had a full conversation with me.
I always work that in. We're walking down Fourth Street,
Philadelphia towards Spruce. Those are very old buildings, and if
the streets are empty, which they just happen to be,
(06:33):
there's a lot of echoes, there's a lot of footsteps.
Some footsteps maybe people walking behind us and some not.
Basically I'm listening for anything, but it looked like just
your average night on Fourth Street. As I'm walking with
my lantern in hand, Ma leans in and she says, "You know,
(06:56):
there's a man following us." The thing I thought was
someone's jumped on. I've had homeless people try to jump on.
I've had people just visiting locations try to jump on.
Immediately I turn around, you know, I look for him.
I don't see anyone. It's just the three and myself.
(07:18):
And she says, "He is wearing jogging attire, he is
bleeding from his forehead and his nose is broken. He
died some time ago. His name is John, and he's
just checking on us." All this is unprompted. Now, I
approach this with skepticism. P.T. Barnum said, if they believe something,
(07:46):
let them believe it. And that's a paraphrase.
The thing I noticed about the daughter and the teenage daughter,
neither one of them seems surprised, and they weren't shocked.
They just sort of were like, oh well here it
is like very matter of factly. So I said, I
(08:07):
hope John enjoys the rest of the tour.
When I got into the Philadelphia market, Stephen was the
only one they're giving tours as such. He was my trainer,
he was my de facto mentor, so to speak.
My name is Steve, and I am a ghost tour
guide in the city of Philadelphia. Now I gotta go
(08:29):
forward a bit to when we're starting an Atlantic City ghost tour.
You know, they were doing a test run and they
wanted me to see how it would look, and you know,
give my own two cents about it. So I went there.
We're doing a practice and it's me giving Steven a tour.
This time, we complete the tour and we're walking back
(08:49):
down the board walk. I asked, Hey, has anything ever
happened to you on the tour, like, do you have
a personal experience? Stephen then goes into his story.
It happened in 2021. I had three young girls in
the early twenties walking with me. I just finished up
(09:12):
the standard tour and I had an extended tour. We're
on Third and Pine Street. It's kind of like the
older part of Philadelphia. At night they got street lamps
on and on that intersection, it can't get a little noisy.
I was just wrapping up the tour and this guy
crossing the street came over.He appeared to be in his
(09:34):
mid twenties. He looked like he was jogging through the
city because he had jogging shorts on and he was sweaty. Initially,
I thought he may have just been like running and
it was just kind of crossing paths. But what was
so off putting about him was that as he got closer,
I noticed a big bloody gash on his forehead and
(09:57):
it looked like there was blood running down his face.
My first reaction was, I thought that this guy got
into a fight. And then he said, "Oh, don't mind me,
I'm just looking in." It was very casual. Who says that,
you know? It just was weird, and so my gut
(10:17):
reaction was that this guy was like looking for trouble. Basically,
I just said, "Oh, I'm sorry, this is a private tour.
We love you to have you on the next tour,
you know, please check us out. And all he said, and
he shook his head, was "Oh don't mind me, I'm
just looking in." I'm thinking to myself, if he's on drugs
(10:38):
or anything like that, because he didn't seem all there.
So for a three second I turned to the three
girls and they're looking at the guy, and I turned
back and he vanishes. Boom. He was just gone. I
look back, and you could tell the girls were kind
of shocked. As I was telling him the story, James
(11:03):
interrupted me and said, wait a minute, that kind of
sounds like something that happened to me too.
I turned to him, I said, "Guess what, Stephen, his
name is John, and he's just looking in on the tour."
Stephen freaks out at this point, he goes, what are
you talking about? And I tell him the wholeMa story.
I see he's visibly freaked out. He goes, "No, you're lying."
(11:25):
He's like, well, how could that have happened? "Did the
college girls maybe posted on Reddit and the woman in
Washington maybe?" But I'm like, Stephen, "What you're trying to
give me as a skeptical explanation makes less sense than
us having a shared paranormal experience."
What do I think about John? I think that he
(11:47):
likes to just come back, and I think he really
does like the tour, So I guess we're doing a
good enough job.
Therésa (12:04):
Mortals kill me. You saw a ghost on the ghost
tour and we're shocked. Surely we expected at least the possibility,
But I get it, I once did sponsored content for
Glowgarden's Advanced retinoid eye treatment. And yes, even though I
was hawking it, I did not expect it to tighten
my under eyes so well, and at a pretty affordable
(12:26):
price point too.
Don't worry, that wasn't an ad. Glow Garden ended our
partnership after the surveillance footage from that food court bathroom
got leaked. They dropped the charges though, But if anyone
from corporate is listening and wants to get back in
the Therésa business, just email Len at Huntingthepodcast at gmail
(12:46):
dot com. I don't really have under eyes anymore, but
I still love the gesture. I digress. Point is we're
allowed to be skeptics, but in my opinion, a supernatural
experience is like falling in love. It comes when you
least expect it.
Right, right, right, or you chase after it obsessively, look
for signs where there are none, finally find it, only
(13:08):
to realize maybe this was a huge mistake, and then
pay a lawyer to help make it go away. What
about you, Len, Were you ever in love?
Len (13:16):
(mumbles)
Therésa (13:21):
You met your wife at a Kenny Chesney concert, that
really checks out. Naomi? Hate to break it to you,
but Phi-Delts Champagne and Shackles probably isn't love. You're right,
(13:41):
not for me to judge. Hey, how about this, everyone
sound off in the comments and tell us either where
you saw your first ghost or where you met your
first love, and later I'll try to guess which one
it was.
Anyway, so on one side of the spectrum we have James,
who's looking for ghosts but doesn't always find them, and
on the other side we have Miranda, who's never looking
(14:03):
but they always seem to find her.
Story B (14:09):
I just got hit with this bad, scary, terror. It
was just like, ugh, I gotta go. I gotta get out .
That's the only car there. It's raining, it's nasty, it's
pulled out, and I look over across from me. All
the plumps are empty, but there's a light. It's just
flickering above the plump directly across from me. And I
(14:31):
was like, nope, I gotta go.
My name's Miranda. I'm kind of like that kid from
the Sixth Sense, except I don't see dead people, I
feel them.
I lived in Columbus, Georgia in college, and it's known
for being a haunted city. There were battlefields and battles
(14:53):
there during the Civil War, so it's you know, the
stereotypical old timey ghosts that hang out there. I lived
in a one hundred and two year old house, and I would
notice things from time to time. I felt presences. It
wasn't one thing that I felt constantly each time it's
(15:14):
a little different.
Sometimes you walk into a room and that room would
be ice cold, you could see your breath, and it's summer.
Some days my dogs would get all spoofed, and my
dog was growling at me. She wasn't staring at me.
It was like she was staring behind me and just
like looking through me, growling, which is particularly spooky. And then
(15:37):
I had this one really awful experience.
I was getting ready to go somewhere and I'm doing
my hair and I hear this bang. They'd been doing
work near my house, so I just figured, Okay, it's
(15:58):
like seven pm., why are they still doing in construction? Just like bang, bang, bang.
It kept getting louder and closer, so loud you can
feel the vibration. It sounded like it was on my
roof just.
And I was trying to ignore it blow during my hair.
(16:20):
And then I heard my side door.
Open and footsteps.
It sounded like something ran from my side door through
my kitchen. Oh god, oh no, someone's in my house.
I just immediately freaked out, threw a blow dryer down,
(16:43):
didn't have on shoes.
I was like, I'm.
Getting out of here right now. It's all like someone
just broke in my house. So I go to run
out the front door, and the chain lock was locked.
I'd never locked that chain lock in my whole life.
I was like, oh god, oh god.
I threw it a front door.
I ran out, got in my car, and I drove
two blocks away and I called the cops. They came
(17:10):
and they checked out my house. No signs of forced entry,
nothing was touched. I was just scared out of my mind.
I definitely sensed something. It was a really bad feeling.
Most times whatever I'm sensing is not very ominous, but
this one was terror. I feel like it wants to
kill me or hurt me. I don't want to be here,
(17:32):
like it was really scary.
I had a friend in college and he said, oh,
your house is a portal for spirits. So he came
over and he brought some salt. He sprinkled it around
like my door frames and burned some sage and said
some stuff. I lived in that house for three years
and I didn't have any problems after that.
(17:56):
I worked in a trauma center. We had six trauma
base and trauma four was the biggest room, so that's
where all patients that were in the worst shape would
go because there's gonna be like twenty people in the
room trying to save lives as quickly as possible.
And in trauma four the lights would do this thing where
(18:16):
they would flicker, and a lot of people died in
frauma four. When the light would flicker, then they sayto
my coworkers, I'd be like, "oh, oh, guys, they're here.
Looks like whoever's coming trauma four is gonna die."
They all me like spooky, Miranda, like stop it, that's weird.
Like I'm just letting you know that I send it.
I'm not trying to be spooky. I'm just letting you
know they're here.
(18:37):
Every time I've sent something or seen that flickering light,
it's either somebody's gonna die.
Or somebody just die.
Even if I'm alone with the patient and they're about
to die, it feels like it's more than just me
and that one person there.
It feels like there's something else there.
(19:00):
Thank God, I.
Can't see whatever I'm sensing. If I could see it,
I would lose it. It already creeps me out one
hundred percent of the time. Every time.
I've seen people live that should have died, and I've
seen people die that should have lived, and there's not
a lot of.
Rhyme or reason.
One that I specifically remember was really bad. This person's young,
(19:21):
they have no health problems, but I have just like
an overwhelmingly bad feeling. And I said, something's wrong. They're
gonna die, and they're like, oh no. Their oxygen's saturation
was really good. It was like ninety nine percent the
best you can get to the hundred. And they're like,
it's fine, and I was like, it's not fine. And
then the lights flickered and they did end up dying.
(19:46):
There's a lot of lights in the room, but the
one flickering in the trouba room was the one that's
right over the patient bed. I have happened in ambulances
where the lights have flickered but I don't know it's landing,
just like, oh, something else is here. We had someone
that had been shot a bunch of times that was
already a losing battle. It was just too much. But
(20:08):
I definitely since that one too. There's always one light
right over the patient, and that's the one flickering. I
mean sure from a scientific sampoy the light flicker maybe.
Just bad wiring, but it's kind of coincidental and it's
only at certain times.
But I have noticed it in the trauma bay, I
noticed it in the ambulance, and then most recently, I.
(20:32):
Noticed it at the gas station. It was kind of
cold and rainy, and I was running late to work.
I don't have enough gasket to work, okay, So I
stopped at the gas station. I don't normally go to,
oh my gas, and all of a sudden, I got
this overwhelmingly bad feeling, just like a punch you and
(20:55):
you're kind of bad feeling. The first thing I did,
of course, was just look around, is somebody here? There's
nobody there, nothing going on, no other cars but mine,
and all the pumps are empty. But there's a light
above the pump directly across from me, flickering. I was like, nope,
I gotta leave, and.
(21:15):
I got out of their fronto.
It was just such a weird, bad feeling, and I
haven't felt a feeling that weird or overwhelmingly bad sense,
whatever it was, it felt.
Like someone was murdered there.
(21:36):
The next morning, I was getting ready for work and
I googled it and.
I with one hundred percent freaked out.
A few years back, a man's pumping gas at that
gas station and in the broad daylight, some guy in
a scream mask gets out and goes to rob the guy.
(21:58):
The guy but the pump was like.
Okay, well here's myself take a goat, and the guy
in the screen mask just shot him dead. Anyway, the
guy that was Killba's pretty young name was Kenneth. One
hundred percent think for that was him being like, get
out of this place. It's bad, it's dangerous. This gift
that I have, I don't want it, honestly, it's creepy
(22:22):
and I wish they would just leave me alone.
Therésa (22:36):
Oh I hear you, Miranda, but I'd give anything to
run into someone like you, or even better, that freaky
little kid from the sixth sense who could actually see
dead people. Do you know how frustrating it is to
not be perceived? I haven't gone this unnoticed since before
my first nose job. It's almost like if it weren't
for this podcast, that would just be no one drifting
(22:59):
through the inbetween mustering all my strength to fiddle a
light here and there. And for what the rest of eternity?
But let's get into the comments, huh! Reminder, the game
is first ghost spotting or first love! Okay, dog park. Easy,
first love. My grandparents' attic. Hopefully first ghost. The bar
(23:20):
at the Standard Hotel. Love. The bar at the Culver Hotel,
ghost obvi. My high school. Hmmm, could go either way.
I'm gonna say love. McDonald's play place. Ooh, ghost. Love
Shack Fancy sample sale. Huh. Ghost, probably me. Backstage at
a B52s concert. Ghost. Open secret, the B52s are all ghosts.
(23:45):
Okay, Well, I think that's a good one to end on.
I've got to get to a meeting with my caseworker, Sharon.
I don't want to jinx it, but I've been feeling
pretty good about my unfinished business lately, so don't be
shocked if there's no new episode next week. Just know
if I'm not here, I'll be vibing behind the pearly gates.
Len (24:02):
(mumbles)
Therésa (24:04):
kay, Okay, if you're a loved one has a supernatural
experience to share, reach out to Len at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and
you can be featured on a future episode. Happy Len?
(mumbles)
Okay, love you all Haunting fam, Kisses kisses, see you next
time or not wish me luck.
Credits (24:23):
If you have a Haunting story to share, please email
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com. Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts and
partnership with iHeartPodcasts.
Haunting was created and executive produced by Nancy Glass, Andrea Gunning,
Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus. It is hosted by Lauren
Lampkez as her character Therésa.
Haunting is directed by Aleah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan.
(24:46):
It is written by Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by
Nancy Glass, Trey Morgan, Ben Fetterman, and Kristin Melchiorre. Additional production
support by Todd Ganz. Additional voice acting by Trey Morgan
as the character producer Len Walker.
Editing and sound designed by Matt Delvecchio with additional editing
by Nico Aruoca, mixed and mastered by Dave Saia.
(25:06):
Operations and production support by Kristin Melchiorre. Haunting's theme and original
compositions were composed by Oliver Banes and Dorry Macaulay of Noiser
Music Library, provided by Mibe Music. Special thanks to Speakeasy
Sound Studios in Burbank, California.
Follow us on social media by searching for Glass Podcasts
or by visiting glasspodcasts.com. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts
(25:28):
and Glass Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, my angels or devils, demons, mortals, reanimated ectoplasm, however
you identify. Welcome back to another episode of Haunting.
We're running into a little problem here at Haunting HQ
that I'm not entirely unfamiliar with. We're generating too much
at revenue. We're not sure how to spend it. All
(00:39):
material goods are of no use to me here, hence
the reworking of my entire brand. So we're in a
little bit of a "financial pickle," as my dad's tax
fraud attorney used to put it, different sides of the
same coin, though we're flush, whereas he was basically doing
dishes for the IRS.
AnyWho, I had the idea to donate our proceeds to charity.
Len (01:04):
(mumbles)
Therésa (01:06):
Okay? Len and I had the idea to donate our
proceeds to charity. Len pitched the American Cancer Society, but
I was thinking Camp Conflict, which is a summer program
I funded Maine where we manufacture safe adverse experiences for
privileged teens so they have something to write their college
essays about. It's helped a lot of deserving kids get
(01:27):
into bottom tier ivys.
So while Naomi prepares the oversized check, we'll meet James
from Philadelphia, who guides a ghost tour through the city
where he and his group - Honestly, you can probably guess.
Story A (01:43):
I work with Stephen DeMarco, another ghost tour guide. He's
my de facto mentor. Stephen's telling me this story. He
had three college girls. They had booked the extended tour.
One of them screams, "He disappeared! You didn't see that?
He disappeared! You were just talking to him, and now
he's gone." They're scared to death because they just watched
(02:07):
a man disappear in front of him. Spirits are here.
I don't know why, but they're here, and I'm all
for skepticism, but there are many things that can't be explained.
My name is James. I am a ghost tour guide
in Philadelphia, and we encountered a ghost on our ghost tour.
(02:31):
I give extended ghost tours in Philadelphia. It's about an
hour tour and they're eight different stops, all from the
colonial period. There's a lot of history to it. We
don't do flim flammory. We don't set up bluetooth speakers
that play scary music. We don't have actors pop out.
(02:52):
It's just me doing historical lessons and telling them about hauntings.
Sometimes I use gadgets on the tour. I used to
bring like an EMF detector or a spirit box, just
to see if they'd do anything, you know, shake it
up a little bit. One night, I'm talking about Alexander Hamilton.
(03:13):
All of a sudden, the spirit box goes off and
they point, they go, "look the thing turned red." And
I've found that I've been able to convince, I wouldn't
say hardcore skeptics by any means, but people who didn't
believe it and just kind of wanted to see what
the tour was about.
(03:35):
It was October 2021, right before the season really ramped up,
as we were heading deeper into the month towards Halloween.
It was brisk. It was a very small group they
had booked the extended tour. There was an older woman
(03:56):
in her late forties to early fifties. I'll just call
her Ma. She was tall and thin, kind of reminded
me of Allison Janney. She was nice enough, she really wanted
to be there. This was for her. Her daughter, who
was a woman about my age in her mid to
late thirties, blonde, a bit shorter. She didn't want to be there,
(04:17):
and that's okay, like she had no interest, but she
wasn't disrespectful. And then there was a youngest girl. She
was a teenager.
They were visiting from Washington, and they got the Philadelphia experience,
which is you're trying to cross the street and someone
nearly runs you over, and then that car who tries
to run you over yells at you. Welcome to Philadelphia,
(04:40):
was kind of all I could say.
I'm checking them in and I'm trying to confirm the
extended tour, and then Ma leans in then whispers in
my ear, "You know, I'm a clairvoyant. I can see
spirits around us." Okay, this was unprompted. I'm just kind
(05:04):
of trying to get all of this done at this point,
and I have stuff I have to say. I have
things I have to get through. But they were actually
very nice, especially Ma, who really wanted to be there.
I get through this standard tour and I'm continuing with
the extended tour. I go the extra mile. I bring
(05:27):
out some equipment. Maybe it works, maybe we hear something
on the spirit box. Sometimes we don't, and I move on
and I try to make it interesting one way or
the other. The middle one, the daughter, was on her
phone the entire time. She wasn't interested. This wasn't her
cup of tea. As my gear was going off and
I got more into the ghost stuff, the teenage daughter
(05:48):
kind of warmed up to it. She kind of started
to ask questions. She kind of started to want to
know about experiences that had happened to me. Part of
being a tour guide is personal experience. They want to
know what we've seen, what we've experienced. I show people
some orbs in pictures I've taken of a certain locations.
(06:12):
I talk about times the EMF point a bit nuts,
when the spirit box had a full conversation with me.
I always work that in. We're walking down Fourth Street,
Philadelphia towards Spruce. Those are very old buildings, and if
the streets are empty, which they just happen to be,
(06:33):
there's a lot of echoes, there's a lot of footsteps.
Some footsteps maybe people walking behind us and some not.
Basically I'm listening for anything, but it looked like just
your average night on Fourth Street. As I'm walking with
my lantern in hand, Ma leans in and she says, "You know,
(06:56):
there's a man following us." The thing I thought was
someone's jumped on. I've had homeless people try to jump on.
I've had people just visiting locations try to jump on.
Immediately I turn around, you know, I look for him.
I don't see anyone. It's just the three and myself.
(07:18):
And she says, "He is wearing jogging attire, he is
bleeding from his forehead and his nose is broken. He
died some time ago. His name is John, and he's
just checking on us." All this is unprompted. Now, I
approach this with skepticism. P.T. Barnum said, if they believe something,
(07:46):
let them believe it. And that's a paraphrase.
The thing I noticed about the daughter and the teenage daughter,
neither one of them seems surprised, and they weren't shocked.
They just sort of were like, oh well here it
is like very matter of factly. So I said, I
(08:07):
hope John enjoys the rest of the tour.
When I got into the Philadelphia market, Stephen was the
only one they're giving tours as such. He was my trainer,
he was my de facto mentor, so to speak.
My name is Steve, and I am a ghost tour
guide in the city of Philadelphia. Now I gotta go
(08:29):
forward a bit to when we're starting an Atlantic City ghost tour.
You know, they were doing a test run and they
wanted me to see how it would look, and you know,
give my own two cents about it. So I went there.
We're doing a practice and it's me giving Steven a tour.
This time, we complete the tour and we're walking back
(08:49):
down the board walk. I asked, Hey, has anything ever
happened to you on the tour, like, do you have
a personal experience? Stephen then goes into his story.
It happened in 2021. I had three young girls in
the early twenties walking with me. I just finished up
(09:12):
the standard tour and I had an extended tour. We're
on Third and Pine Street. It's kind of like the
older part of Philadelphia. At night they got street lamps
on and on that intersection, it can't get a little noisy.
I was just wrapping up the tour and this guy
crossing the street came over.He appeared to be in his
(09:34):
mid twenties. He looked like he was jogging through the
city because he had jogging shorts on and he was sweaty. Initially,
I thought he may have just been like running and
it was just kind of crossing paths. But what was
so off putting about him was that as he got closer,
I noticed a big bloody gash on his forehead and
(09:57):
it looked like there was blood running down his face.
My first reaction was, I thought that this guy got
into a fight. And then he said, "Oh, don't mind me,
I'm just looking in." It was very casual. Who says that,
you know? It just was weird, and so my gut
(10:17):
reaction was that this guy was like looking for trouble. Basically,
I just said, "Oh, I'm sorry, this is a private tour.
We love you to have you on the next tour,
you know, please check us out. And all he said, and
he shook his head, was "Oh don't mind me, I'm
just looking in." I'm thinking to myself, if he's on drugs
(10:38):
or anything like that, because he didn't seem all there.
So for a three second I turned to the three
girls and they're looking at the guy, and I turned
back and he vanishes. Boom. He was just gone. I
look back, and you could tell the girls were kind
of shocked. As I was telling him the story, James
(11:03):
interrupted me and said, wait a minute, that kind of
sounds like something that happened to me too.
I turned to him, I said, "Guess what, Stephen, his
name is John, and he's just looking in on the tour."
Stephen freaks out at this point, he goes, what are
you talking about? And I tell him the wholeMa story.
I see he's visibly freaked out. He goes, "No, you're lying."
(11:25):
He's like, well, how could that have happened? "Did the
college girls maybe posted on Reddit and the woman in
Washington maybe?" But I'm like, Stephen, "What you're trying to
give me as a skeptical explanation makes less sense than
us having a shared paranormal experience."
What do I think about John? I think that he
(11:47):
likes to just come back, and I think he really
does like the tour, So I guess we're doing a
good enough job.
Therésa (12:04):
Mortals kill me. You saw a ghost on the ghost
tour and we're shocked. Surely we expected at least the possibility,
But I get it, I once did sponsored content for
Glowgarden's Advanced retinoid eye treatment. And yes, even though I
was hawking it, I did not expect it to tighten
my under eyes so well, and at a pretty affordable
(12:26):
price point too.
Don't worry, that wasn't an ad. Glow Garden ended our
partnership after the surveillance footage from that food court bathroom
got leaked. They dropped the charges though, But if anyone
from corporate is listening and wants to get back in
the Therésa business, just email Len at Huntingthepodcast at gmail
(12:46):
dot com. I don't really have under eyes anymore, but
I still love the gesture. I digress. Point is we're
allowed to be skeptics, but in my opinion, a supernatural
experience is like falling in love. It comes when you
least expect it.
Right, right, right, or you chase after it obsessively, look
for signs where there are none, finally find it, only
(13:08):
to realize maybe this was a huge mistake, and then
pay a lawyer to help make it go away. What
about you, Len, Were you ever in love?
Len (13:16):
(mumbles)
Therésa (13:21):
You met your wife at a Kenny Chesney concert, that
really checks out. Naomi? Hate to break it to you,
but Phi-Delts Champagne and Shackles probably isn't love. You're right,
(13:41):
not for me to judge. Hey, how about this, everyone
sound off in the comments and tell us either where
you saw your first ghost or where you met your
first love, and later I'll try to guess which one
it was.
Anyway, so on one side of the spectrum we have James,
who's looking for ghosts but doesn't always find them, and
on the other side we have Miranda, who's never looking
(14:03):
but they always seem to find her.
Story B (14:09):
I just got hit with this bad, scary, terror. It
was just like, ugh, I gotta go. I gotta get out .
That's the only car there. It's raining, it's nasty, it's
pulled out, and I look over across from me. All
the plumps are empty, but there's a light. It's just
flickering above the plump directly across from me. And I
(14:31):
was like, nope, I gotta go.
My name's Miranda. I'm kind of like that kid from
the Sixth Sense, except I don't see dead people, I
feel them.
I lived in Columbus, Georgia in college, and it's known
for being a haunted city. There were battlefields and battles
(14:53):
there during the Civil War, so it's you know, the
stereotypical old timey ghosts that hang out there. I lived
in a one hundred and two year old house, and I would
notice things from time to time. I felt presences. It
wasn't one thing that I felt constantly each time it's
(15:14):
a little different.
Sometimes you walk into a room and that room would
be ice cold, you could see your breath, and it's summer.
Some days my dogs would get all spoofed, and my
dog was growling at me. She wasn't staring at me.
It was like she was staring behind me and just
like looking through me, growling, which is particularly spooky. And then
(15:37):
I had this one really awful experience.
I was getting ready to go somewhere and I'm doing
my hair and I hear this bang. They'd been doing
work near my house, so I just figured, Okay, it's
(15:58):
like seven pm., why are they still doing in construction? Just like bang, bang, bang.
It kept getting louder and closer, so loud you can
feel the vibration. It sounded like it was on my
roof just.
And I was trying to ignore it blow during my hair.
(16:20):
And then I heard my side door.
Open and footsteps.
It sounded like something ran from my side door through
my kitchen. Oh god, oh no, someone's in my house.
I just immediately freaked out, threw a blow dryer down,
(16:43):
didn't have on shoes.
I was like, I'm.
Getting out of here right now. It's all like someone
just broke in my house. So I go to run
out the front door, and the chain lock was locked.
I'd never locked that chain lock in my whole life.
I was like, oh god, oh god.
I threw it a front door.
I ran out, got in my car, and I drove
two blocks away and I called the cops. They came
(17:10):
and they checked out my house. No signs of forced entry,
nothing was touched. I was just scared out of my mind.
I definitely sensed something. It was a really bad feeling.
Most times whatever I'm sensing is not very ominous, but
this one was terror. I feel like it wants to
kill me or hurt me. I don't want to be here,
(17:32):
like it was really scary.
I had a friend in college and he said, oh,
your house is a portal for spirits. So he came
over and he brought some salt. He sprinkled it around
like my door frames and burned some sage and said
some stuff. I lived in that house for three years
and I didn't have any problems after that.
(17:56):
I worked in a trauma center. We had six trauma
base and trauma four was the biggest room, so that's
where all patients that were in the worst shape would
go because there's gonna be like twenty people in the
room trying to save lives as quickly as possible.
And in trauma four the lights would do this thing where
(18:16):
they would flicker, and a lot of people died in
frauma four. When the light would flicker, then they sayto
my coworkers, I'd be like, "oh, oh, guys, they're here.
Looks like whoever's coming trauma four is gonna die."
They all me like spooky, Miranda, like stop it, that's weird.
Like I'm just letting you know that I send it.
I'm not trying to be spooky. I'm just letting you
know they're here.
(18:37):
Every time I've sent something or seen that flickering light,
it's either somebody's gonna die.
Or somebody just die.
Even if I'm alone with the patient and they're about
to die, it feels like it's more than just me
and that one person there.
It feels like there's something else there.
(19:00):
Thank God, I.
Can't see whatever I'm sensing. If I could see it,
I would lose it. It already creeps me out one
hundred percent of the time. Every time.
I've seen people live that should have died, and I've
seen people die that should have lived, and there's not
a lot of.
Rhyme or reason.
One that I specifically remember was really bad. This person's young,
(19:21):
they have no health problems, but I have just like
an overwhelmingly bad feeling. And I said, something's wrong. They're
gonna die, and they're like, oh no. Their oxygen's saturation
was really good. It was like ninety nine percent the
best you can get to the hundred. And they're like,
it's fine, and I was like, it's not fine. And
then the lights flickered and they did end up dying.
(19:46):
There's a lot of lights in the room, but the
one flickering in the trouba room was the one that's
right over the patient bed. I have happened in ambulances
where the lights have flickered but I don't know it's landing,
just like, oh, something else is here. We had someone
that had been shot a bunch of times that was
already a losing battle. It was just too much. But
(20:08):
I definitely since that one too. There's always one light
right over the patient, and that's the one flickering. I
mean sure from a scientific sampoy the light flicker maybe.
Just bad wiring, but it's kind of coincidental and it's
only at certain times.
But I have noticed it in the trauma bay, I
noticed it in the ambulance, and then most recently, I.
(20:32):
Noticed it at the gas station. It was kind of
cold and rainy, and I was running late to work.
I don't have enough gasket to work, okay, So I
stopped at the gas station. I don't normally go to,
oh my gas, and all of a sudden, I got
this overwhelmingly bad feeling, just like a punch you and
(20:55):
you're kind of bad feeling. The first thing I did,
of course, was just look around, is somebody here? There's
nobody there, nothing going on, no other cars but mine,
and all the pumps are empty. But there's a light
above the pump directly across from me, flickering. I was like, nope,
I gotta leave, and.
(21:15):
I got out of their fronto.
It was just such a weird, bad feeling, and I
haven't felt a feeling that weird or overwhelmingly bad sense,
whatever it was, it felt.
Like someone was murdered there.
(21:36):
The next morning, I was getting ready for work and
I googled it and.
I with one hundred percent freaked out.
A few years back, a man's pumping gas at that
gas station and in the broad daylight, some guy in
a scream mask gets out and goes to rob the guy.
(21:58):
The guy but the pump was like.
Okay, well here's myself take a goat, and the guy
in the screen mask just shot him dead. Anyway, the
guy that was Killba's pretty young name was Kenneth. One
hundred percent think for that was him being like, get
out of this place. It's bad, it's dangerous. This gift
that I have, I don't want it, honestly, it's creepy
(22:22):
and I wish they would just leave me alone.
Therésa (22:36):
Oh I hear you, Miranda, but I'd give anything to
run into someone like you, or even better, that freaky
little kid from the sixth sense who could actually see
dead people. Do you know how frustrating it is to
not be perceived? I haven't gone this unnoticed since before
my first nose job. It's almost like if it weren't
for this podcast, that would just be no one drifting
(22:59):
through the inbetween mustering all my strength to fiddle a
light here and there. And for what the rest of eternity?
But let's get into the comments, huh! Reminder, the game
is first ghost spotting or first love! Okay, dog park. Easy,
first love. My grandparents' attic. Hopefully first ghost. The bar
(23:20):
at the Standard Hotel. Love. The bar at the Culver Hotel,
ghost obvi. My high school. Hmmm, could go either way.
I'm gonna say love. McDonald's play place. Ooh, ghost. Love
Shack Fancy sample sale. Huh. Ghost, probably me. Backstage at
a B52s concert. Ghost. Open secret, the B52s are all ghosts.
(23:45):
Okay, Well, I think that's a good one to end on.
I've got to get to a meeting with my caseworker, Sharon.
I don't want to jinx it, but I've been feeling
pretty good about my unfinished business lately, so don't be
shocked if there's no new episode next week. Just know
if I'm not here, I'll be vibing behind the pearly gates.
Len (24:02):
(mumbles)
Therésa (24:04):
kay, Okay, if you're a loved one has a supernatural
experience to share, reach out to Len at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and
you can be featured on a future episode. Happy Len?
(mumbles)
Okay, love you all Haunting fam, Kisses kisses, see you next
time or not wish me luck.
Credits (24:23):
If you have a Haunting story to share, please email
us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com. Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts and
partnership with iHeartPodcasts.
Haunting was created and executive produced by Nancy Glass, Andrea Gunning,
Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus. It is hosted by Lauren
Lampkez as her character Therésa.
Haunting is directed by Aleah Welsh and produced by Trey Morgan.
(24:46):
It is written by Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by
Nancy Glass, Trey Morgan, Ben Fetterman, and Kristin Melchiorre. Additional production
support by Todd Ganz. Additional voice acting by Trey Morgan
as the character producer Len Walker.
Editing and sound designed by Matt Delvecchio with additional editing
by Nico Aruoca, mixed and mastered by Dave Saia.
(25:06):
Operations and production support by Kristin Melchiorre. Haunting's theme and original
compositions were composed by Oliver Banes and Dorry Macaulay of Noiser
Music Library, provided by Mibe Music. Special thanks to Speakeasy
Sound Studios in Burbank, California.
Follow us on social media by searching for Glass Podcasts
or by visiting glasspodcasts.com. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts
(25:28):
and Glass Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
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