You have been led to believe that everything you have experienced isn't real, that there's
an explanation.
But what if they're wrong?
What if something reached out to you from beyond?
Let me tell your true stories.
Let me tell them until they all believe.
Hi guys, welcome back to Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories,
have titled Haunted Neighbors.
This is quite a different story today.
I really enjoyed this one, and I know you will too.
Let's not waste any time getting into the true experience sent in by Mason.
Hi, my name is Mason, and I'm from a southern state in the United States.
First of all, I love your podcasts and the way you bring stories to life.
I'm hoping you tell my story, and I hope that others who may have experienced something
like this would comment.
A little background first.
I have worked from home since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
After a year, my company had decided that working from home had people calling off less
and boosted productivity, so here I am.
Also, this works so much better for me as I tend to be a little reclusive.
I am not married, nor do I want to be.
I like being alone.
I guess I never really was very interested in interacting with other people very much.
So I live in a decent neighborhood.
There are a lot of retirees around me, which makes it even better for me as it's very quiet.
I've developed a sort of a friendship with my one neighbor, Hank.
He's retired, and he and his wife Sheila have lived here for about 20 years now.
I have lived here close to 12 years.
Over this time, we have helped each other with different projects around our homes.
He likes to jokingly complain about his wife, and I actually enjoy our banter.
About once a week, usually on a Friday evening, he will call.
He'll let the phone ring two times, and then hang up.
This is our code for meat at the fence.
He's quite the character.
He's usually waiting there with a six pack of beer, and we talk away the evening sun.
We made the beers last too, if we were in a mood to.
We talked about nearly everything.
Though I enjoyed our time together, I was always glad to get home and have my silent
time.
Being around other people seemed to exhaust me sometimes.
My work desk is positioned at a window so that I could work with natural light.
I can see Hank's front and side porch from where I sit.
I always see the comings and goings of the mailman, the delivery men, and visitors.
There wasn't much that I missed.
And let me say, I am not intentionally staring at their house, but I can peripherally see
movement from where I sit, and naturally, I look to see what is happening.
One day I saw such a movement and looked over towards their house, and there was a man standing
on the side porch.
Just standing there, as if he had knocked and was waiting for them to answer.
I went back to work.
Next time I looked over there, the man was gone.
And I went on with my work day.
Friday came around, and my phone rang twice.
So I headed out to the fence.
We decided to sit in the lawn chairs on his side of the fence tonight, and we began our
weekly routine of guy talk, and yes, that included gossip.
Somehow the subject came up of delivery men, and I mentioned the guy I saw waiting on his
side porch.
The side porch, Hank said.
Why would a delivery guy be there?
They always go to the front porch.
Well, I don't know, I said, but he waited, and I assumed you got your package.
Well, what delivery service was it, he asked.
Honestly, Hank, I didn't pay close enough attention.
If I recall right, he was wearing all blue, I believe.
Hmm, Hank muttered.
Strange.
Well, no mind.
He'll be back because he never left the package.
Right, I said.
No worries there.
They'll always come back.
The Monday workday went as usual, nothing different.
But that Tuesday, I noticed that guy in blue again standing on the side porch at Hank's.
Again, just standing still, waiting.
I seen Hank and Sheila's cars were there, and that meant they were definitely home.
I reached for my landline phone and gave them a call.
Hello, Hank said.
Hey, buddy, that delivery guy is standing on your... and then I could see that the guy
was gone.
Uh, never mind.
But that delivery guy was just there a second ago, Hank.
Can you guys hear if someone knocks at that door?
Well, of course we can hear Mason.
We aren't feeble yet for crying out loud.
Hey, Hank, why don't you put up a sign on that door telling him to go to the front door?
Oh, yeah, okay.
That's a fine idea, Hank said.
A little while later, I saw Hank out there taping it up to the window part of the door.
So another Friday came around, and we met at the fence and parked ourselves in my yard
this time.
Hey, Hank, you ever get that delivery?
No, no, we never got any delivery yet.
The wife says she hasn't ordered anything, and I know that I haven't either, so this
guy... he must have the wrong house.
That's likely why he hasn't come back.
Yeah, I said, that makes sense.
And we finished the night off early.
That night, as I settled in for sleep, I heard a scraping sound in my kitchen.
I did not have any pets, nor do I have rodents as far as I knew.
That was my first thought, though.
A mouse, or even worse, rats.
Damn it, I had to get up to investigate.
I could still hear it.
What the hell?
I turned the light on, and it stopped.
Damn it, I thought, that's definitely some kind of rodent.
And then I just went back to bed.
The next day, Saturday, I went and bought the hardware and the poison treats for rats
and mice, set it all up throughout my home, and figured the problem would be solved within
a week or so.
I was sadly mistaken about it being rodents, and what happened next.
I can tell you, it just blew my mind.
Sunday night, that same week, I heard the scraping sounds again.
I lay still and tried to determine exactly where it was coming from, as it seemed closer
than the other night.
It seemed to be in the bathroom area.
I sat up, and in the dim light of my hallway, I saw something shadowy, and it ran past my
room.
The figure I saw, very briefly, was small, like maybe a 20 pound dog size, and there's
no way that's a rodent, at least not from where I live.
And it scrambled out of sight when I raced to the hallway and hit the lights.
It went into the bathroom.
Got you now.
I walked ever so slowly down the hall, creeping up to the bathroom door.
I put my hand at the edge of the door frame, at the height of the light switch on the other
side of the wall, and then, as fast as I could, I switched on the light, and I see nothing
in there.
No way, I thought.
Actually, I said it out loud.
No fucking way.
That thing was too big to not be in here.
There's nowhere to go in here.
Okay, I thought.
I could chalk it up to maybe I was dreaming.
I must have fallen asleep and thought I had seen the figure in the hall.
Yeah, that kinda made sense.
The next week, during my lunch break, I caught a glimpse of that man on Hank's side porch
again.
I ran to the door to yell over to him, and by the time I got to the doorway, the man
was gone.
Now.
Nope.
Not possible, I thought.
Now I started to wonder if he wasn't a delivery guy.
Possibly another neighbor?
I would let Hank know that I saw him again, and apparently the guy had no interest in
Hank's sign to go to the front door.
During this week, I experienced little shadow figures again, only this time, it sat itself
in the kitchen.
Like in the archway to the kitchen.
I could see it by the corner of my eye.
It was evening, and I could only tell that it was there.
Try as I might to see it better, without turning my head, I could see no details.
Then I quickly turned my head, and just as quickly, it ran down the hall.
For long, it was back.
Just sitting there.
I am not the kind of person to be scared easily, and I was definitely not afraid, however
my curiosity was what was killing me.
I needed to see this thing.
And I did not even think this was any kind of paranormal thing.
I had never in my life given that sort of thought to anything like that.
It kind of crossed my mind now a little, but not quite yet.
It played the whole hide and seek sequence over and over again during that week, and
finally I had decided to put up a camera in the exact area it was appearing.
I had it now.
I would finally see it.
In the meantime, Hank and I took a trip to the hardware store near town.
Guy shopping, that's what Hank called it.
So we guy shopped, and Hank asked if I could lend a hand on a small project at his house,
and of course I said yes.
Keep in mind this store is a small town store, not super wide, brightly lit aisles like the
big chain stores.
As we walked down the aisle, with the shovels in it, I saw one of the little black figures
dart across the aisle in front of us.
I jumped and yelled, did you see that?
Did you?
Hank startled and yelled, what the hell's wrong with you?
You're like to give an old man a heart attack acting a fool like that.
But Hank, listen, remember I told you about the thing I saw in my house?
Oh yeah, yeah, your little shadow rat.
No, but yes, well, I just saw it here, right there.
And I pointed.
Boy, he said, you done lost your mind.
You spend too much time alone.
A woman, that's what you need.
They keep you on your toes with no time for such foolishness.
You know that's a rat, right?
They come up from the creek now and then.
That's all it is, Mason.
You'll see on your camera.
You'll see.
Hank was wrong.
The next time I saw one, I was on my couch, and I could peripherally see it sitting near
the kitchen again in perfect view of my camera.
Got you now, you bastard.
I jumped up and it ran off.
I reviewed the footage.
My heart nearly stopped beating.
There was the exact spot it was sitting a moment ago.
And there on the video was nothing.
Nothing but the kitchen floor.
No critters of any kind.
Hmm, now what I thought.
As I turned and shut off my desk lamp, I noticed something at Hank's.
Was that?
Was that someone standing on his side porch?
I peered into the darkness, straining my eyes.
And holy shit, it was that guy dressed in blue, just standing there, in the dark, facing Hank's
side door.
I reached for my landline phone to call Hank, and suddenly the side porch light came on.
The guy in blue never moved when Hank came out.
Hank stood there, and then reached for something on his chair.
When he did that, the guy in blue looked directly over at me.
I knew he couldn't see me, but I swear he did see me.
He saw me.
And it gave me chills.
I could be feeling guilty for spying, but it was bothersome.
Damn it, I would love to hear what this was all about.
And then Hank went back in the house, leaving the guy out there, and then turned off the
porch light.
I went to call Hank, but then remembered, Sheila doesn't like phone calls after dark.
She thinks it's rude.
The guy in blue was gone, and I was left with a flood of curiosity that I would have to
live with until tomorrow.
And perfect enough, tomorrow was Friday.
It was fence talk day.
I went to bed, and when I rolled over, I glanced at the door to my hallway, and peering in
at me, I saw a figure.
At this time, it was taller, man-sized, and only peeking in at me, I could make out a
head and one shoulder, and when I gasped at the sight, it was gone, and it didn't pull
back behind the wall.
I mean, it was simply not there.
Another dream?
I thought not.
I jumped up and searched my entire house, checked every window, all my doors.
No possible way that was an intruder.
And what I hated to think of was that, if it wasn't a human intruder, then what was
it?
The next night, at our fence ritual, we had some light talk about the weather, and then
I said, how long you gonna keep me in suspense about the guy in blue?
Hank caulked his head at me, genuinely confused.
Say what now, Mason?
What do you mean?
Hank, last night, I saw you talking to him on the side porch.
Hank still looked confused.
Hank, I saw you turn on the light and come out.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying, Mason, but there wasn't no man in blue on my porch.
I left my reading glasses out there on the chair, and wasn't anyone there but me.
I stared in his eyes for the truth, and I could see he was not fooling me.
He was serious.
Hank, I said.
Hank, I saw you outside last night, and standing directly in front of you was that man.
That man I have seen for weeks now.
Now, I'm not trying to argue with you, but you know me, and you know I'm dead serious
right now.
I saw the man, and I know for a fact that man saw me too.
Hank just sat there, sipped his beer, had a good stretch, and said,
So what do you suppose then, Mason?
You think it's a ghostie or something?
Well, I told him about the tall figure I had seen last night in my hallway.
Hank did not seem convinced.
Hank seemed very doubtful about the whole thing.
Hank, I need you to believe me.
Your opinion has always been valued by me.
You know that.
You do know that.
Hank kept sipping his beer, raising his eyebrows, taking deep breaths.
I don't think he knew what to say, and finally he said,
Well, Mason, if you say you saw it, then I suppose I have to give some thought toward
it.
But you know, I don't go for all that spooky creepy shit.
I lived my whole life without any ghosts, and I would prefer not to start now.
I started to interject, but he held up his hand.
Hold up, Mason.
Let me finish.
I'm not an unreasonable man, and I have lived through a shit ton of scientific breakthroughs
in all my years.
Things we have now, we never even dreamed of as kids, not even in our science fiction
books.
Now, I do suppose it's possible there are things we don't fully understand, what they're
calling the supernatural.
I can see that I suppose I can understand that.
I mean, I heard tales when I was a child of my grandmother haunting her old house, but
you see, I had never seen her.
So I don't know that I really ever believed in it.
All this, including your strange visitor, is just a bit too much all at once for my
brain.
I need a couple days.
He finished his beer and bid me good night.
The next week, I kept seeing the tall figure.
Once at the end of the hallway.
Once in the kitchen.
Again, no details.
And again, it never ran like the little shadow figures, the tall one just disintegrated,
like at will.
I didn't feel anything ominous from these visits.
If anything, my curiosity is what was killing me.
What did it want?
And why now?
I had lived here a long time, with no crazy activities before.
I was in my side yard, pulling weeds from my flowers one evening, and I happened to
glance over at Hank's, and that man was on his porch.
Shit.
I did not have my cell phone with me.
I yelled.
Over.
Hey, hey buddy, what are you doing over there?
Hey, hey, I'm talking to you, hey, hey you.
Just then Hank came out.
He probably heard my shouting.
Man in blue took advantage of the open door as Hank stood midway between the door and
his house.
The man in blue walked right into Hank's house.
Hank, Hank, he's in your house.
He went in.
I yelled it as I was running towards his house, screaming and pointing like a lunatic.
Hank looked a little unnerved and said, are you sure?
Are you sure you saw him go inside?
Yes, yes, I saw.
I saw it.
We went in the house, searched every room.
We didn't find anything.
We sat at the kitchen table.
Hank said it was a good thing Sheila was at Bingo.
She would not take kindly to any of this nonsense.
We sat there throwing ideas around.
Nothing made sense though.
I decided to call it a night.
Hank said he would be fine being alone tonight.
He didn't feel there was anything crazy in his house.
I wondered though, did he really believe me or was he placating someone who might be losing
his mind?
Someone who was seeing dark figures in his house at night?
Someone who lived alone with little human contact?
No matter I thought, time to get home and start the nightly ritual of shadow watching
and strange noises.
As Hank was walking me across his yard toward my house, we both just stopped.
Hank muttered, what in the holy hell?
His voice trailed off.
My house was like a choreographed light show.
Every light in my house was turning off and on and not all at once.
It seemed too perfect a pattern to be an electrical issue.
Some lights would be on and then others off, all through the house.
I don't know how long we stood there watching.
Before long a patrol car pulled in front of my house.
I met them at the curb.
Is this your house?
Yes, officer.
I'm Mason.
I'm officer Reynolds and we received a call about a possible emergency at this address.
Yes, sir, I understand, I said.
I see why someone would call.
Are you having electrical issues here?
No, sir.
No, none that I know of.
Is there anyone else inside, Mason?
He asked.
No, sir, I live alone.
Hmm, okay, well, this is a first for me, he said.
I would suggest we hit the main breaker.
Just shut it all down and maybe you can stay somewhere else tonight, just for safety's
sake.
Maybe you can call, maybe get an inspection.
Yes, sir, I said.
The cop and I went inside the house and shut it all down.
There was a strange, terrible sound inside as we were leaving.
We both stopped moving.
The officer had his hand on his gun.
What the hell was that, he asked.
I'm sure I don't know, sir.
Can we just get out of here?
My pleasure, he said.
Before the officer left, he leaned in close to me and said,
You might want to call your clergyman along with the electrical inspector.
Good luck.
Hank was waving me over to his house.
He said, You aren't staying in there tonight.
Come on, let's go to my study and you can bunk in there on the godforsaken daybed my
wife insisted on putting in there for crying out loud.
I realized as we walked inside the study that I had never really been in this room.
The door was usually shut.
I may have caught a glimpse of it here and there over the years, but I never actually
had been inside.
Hank sat at his desk and I couldn't sit quite yet.
I was pacing as we were talking back and forth and then I noticed that on every wall in this
study there were pictures of Hank's life, the cars he once drove, the landmarks he had
visited, the dogs he had loved, pictures of him and Sheila in their younger years in various
places, vacations.
I was barely listening to Hank rattle on about how Sheila spends a fortune at bingo and how
tomorrow he would just definitely go over and check out my house for any electrical
issues.
He was quite skilled with electrical issues.
I was focused on a picture on the wall, a man standing nearly sideways looking at the
camera.
I plucked a picture from the wall and set it on his desk and said, Hank, who's this
man?
And if that picture were in color, Hank, would his clothes be blue?
Hank stared.
Yes, yes, they would be blue and that's my brother Carl, my long dead brother Carl.
I didn't know you had a brother.
Hank explained how he and his brother had been really close as kids and then complete
opposites as adults.
They didn't even speak anymore by the time they were in their late 20s.
This picture was the last time he had seen his brother.
Hank, this is the man.
This is the man on your side porch, the very same man I saw come into this house.
Hank was too upset to talk anymore.
After a long silence, he said good night.
It was a restless night, to say the least.
The next day after Hank said it was safe to turn on the breaker, all seemed well at my
house, even peaceful, I might add.
The next few nights passed without incident.
No shadows, no noises.
The absence of it all kind of worried me, but never again did I have anything happen
in my home.
Even stranger, at least to me, was I never seen the man in blue again, or rather Carl,
I should say.
It all stopped as suddenly as it all began.
During our many fence times since then, we have had lengthy discussions on these happenings.
The only thing we could come up with was that the incidents at my house seemed to be driving
me to go to Hank's house, especially that last night, so that I would see the picture
of Carl.
Since Hank could not see him on the porch, we figured that Carl wanted Hank to know that
he had been there.
And as it turned out, it seemed that Hank thinks he knows the reason.
Hank said that when Carl died, the only people that would go to Klingon's house was himself
and an old friend of Carl's, and they found a note.
It was in their mother's handwriting, and you could tell it had been handled a lot,
worried over.
And it said, You have to go to Hank's house.
You have to tell him you are sorry.
You have to be family again.
Do this, Carl.
Do this before it's too late.
She was pleading with her son to make things better.
When Hank told me about the note, it kind of wrapped it up for me.
I think the whole experience changed Hank, changed him in a way that was good though,
good for his soul.
Thanks for considering my story for your show.
Oh man, this story gave me all the feels, scary and heartfelt.
I do agree though with you Mason.
I definitely think the activity at your house was meant to scare you into going to Hank's
so that you could see the picture and identify Carl.
I wish we knew more about Carl and Hank's relationship, but from the gist of the story,
I am assuming Carl died and left unfinished business with Hank.
And the note from their mother practically begging him to go to his brother.
It would seem Carl was going to honor his mother's wishes, even after death.
It is touching to think he came back as a gesture of peace between them.
Great, great story Mason.
Thanks so much for sending it.
And I have to say, if I was seeing the things in my house you saw in your house, I don't
know that it would have drove me to my neighbors.
It probably would have drove me to put a for sale sign in my yard.
But way to go with the bravery there.
So okay guys, don't forget tier 2 is now open over at Patreon so that you can subscribe
to all my shows and not miss a beat.
There's a lot of great stories over there that's going to be available to subscribers
in the shadow files.
Once you subscribe to tier 2 you will have full access to every show I produce here at
Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories.
Also if you have an experience you would like to share, send it to My True Story at MyYahoo.com.
Thanks, thanks so much for spending your time with me today.
I appreciate you all so much and as always, peace and love and bye for now.
Thanks for being here today.
I hope to see you next time on Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories.
Will your experience be the next one I tell?
Send all communications and stories to My True Story at MyYahoo.com.
In the meantime, leave the lights on.