S1 Ep51: Spectral Hounds

You ever have one of those stretches where everything piles up, work, relationships, sleep, and you think, I should probably talk to someone about this, but finding a therapist who takes your insurance feels like impossible? Well, yeah. Wait a second. What, are you reading my mail? But listen, seriously, you know, the search does turn into a full-time job. You know, call after call, the long wait lists, or you finally find someone and they don't take your plan. Meanwhile, you're paying out of pocket or waiting months. It's not ideal. That's exactly why we want to shout out RULA. They make therapy actually accessible. RULA partners with over 100 insurance plans, so the average copay is about $15 per session. And depending on your benefits, it can be as low as $0. That's huge. Yeah, the one time when zero is huge, when it's about cost. But with RULA, it's not just about price. RULA has a network of more than 15,000 licensed therapists and psychiatrists across the country. 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And for those worried about logistics, there are no confusing tech hoops. RULA is a provider group that uses technology to make the process easy. But it's still healthcare. You're using your insurance, seeing licensed professionals, and getting care that's designed around you. If you ever thought, you know, I use insurance for my physical health, why not my mental health? RULA is built for that. Your mental health deserves the same access and the same coverage. Thousands of people have already used RULA to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's covered by insurance. Getting started is simple. Go to RULA.com slash D-L-O. They'll ask a few questions about what matters to you and then show you in-network therapists who match. After you sign up, they're going to ask you how you heard about them. Please support the Astonishing Dead Letter office and let them know we sent you. That really helps. Repeat after me. R-U-L-A dot com slash D-L-O. That's RULA dot com slash D-L-O. Start your search, schedule an appointment, and get care that fits your life and your budget. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget. R-U-L-A dot com slash D-L-O. Go check it out. Astonishing Legends Network. The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on the Astonishing Dead Letter office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, the Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests. When something unexplainable happens to you, it can make you feel isolated or alone. But trust us, you're not. For over a decade, you've been sending your strange stories to Astonishing Legends. And now it's time for our fellow legenders to hear them too. Join us weekly in Blanket Fortiana as we dig through your intriguing messages to the Astonishing Dead Letter office. Tonight's episode, Spectral Hounds. Well, this is a pretty great story for October. But before we get to it, because there's a Reddit component to it, we have to make that announcement that our friend Andy Tate makes on his amazing show, Let's Not Meet. And that's that the Astonishing Dead Letter office is in no way affiliated with Reddit or any other online message boards. We have to throw that in here because Luke, who sent us the letter, says right in it that he had posted it on Reddit as well. Yeah. And he also has a paranormal show, right? Yes. Yeah. And he has a paranormal show, Odd Trails. So if you like Let's Not Meet, if you haven't heard it, it's great to go to sleep to if you don't mind being creeped out. Let's Not Meet is not really paranormal, although there are some paranormal ones that are super weird, like people running on all fours, which always puts me over the edge. Oh, yeah. But there's some good episodes. That's more about where you've almost gotten kidnapped and stuff like that. Then Odd Trails is more of a paranormal one. And anyway, they're great shows. He's a great guy. Check those shows out if you hadn't heard of. And I will say with Let's Not Meet, there's often an element in there that is, I would say, about intuition. A lot of it's about intuition. Yes. And by the way, I got to voice one once. Oh, that's... Come on, Andy. If you hear this, I'm not even telling you we're doing this. But if this gets back to you, I want to read another story. Yes. No, it's so much fun. But like the story tonight, which is perfect for the spooky season. And one thing, it's pretty different from a lot of the dead letters we've already had. So that's refreshing and pretty cool. Yes, yes. But also, there is a natural nature gut feeling thing about this, that this is not normal or natural. The gift of fear. Exactly. So when you hear the story, you'll get that feeling, too, of that there are messages being sent along the way. That's all I'll save for right now. So Luke, who sent this in, he actually sent it in about six years ago, believe it or not. And not all the dead letters are this dead. But this is why we call it the dead letter office. Because we're like, we really have a lot of stories. And some of them have been sitting in the inbox for a minute. And even old inboxes that we don't even, aren't even active anymore. But we still have the email accounts. So that's why we call it the dead letter office. But the reason for the Reddit disclaimer is because it turns out Luke had posted this story on Reddit as well a while before he sent it to us. And it's when I went to look at the Reddit post that I realized it's like, because the story, when he sent it to us, that was six years ago. But then when I went to the Reddit post, it said it was a nine-year-old Reddit post. So that's about when I think this probably went down, which would make that essentially 2016 or so, probably. Well, his original post has interesting updates as well. You know, there's a lot of things this encounter might have been, but we'll get to that after the letter. Now, Scott, I believe it's your turn to read, sir. I'm a huge fan of the show, but also a huge skeptic. This didn't protect me from whatever we encountered that night. I posted my experience on Reddit and received many requests to do interviews for various paranormal TV shows, but declined as my brother and father didn't want to share their identities. I've included the story as I originally posted it on Reddit. I'll also link the Reddit thread as I've answered questions and provided more information as it became available. My brother, my father, and I planned on doing a short little 30-minute hike and then some shooting in the first clearing we found and even eventually spend the night somewhere along a suitable trail. We chose this little trailhead I'd encountered several times as it's close to a popular shooting location. As we walked along the trail, it got more and more dilapidated with a large drop into a rocky, dried-up creek on one side. After about an hour of hiking, we found no sign of a clearing. We did find waist-high poison oak and a worsening trail with no sign of use in many years. The only sign of activity we saw along the trail was a little stone bench and a beer can, which looked like it was from the 1950s. But we also saw a sign that said, campground, five miles. Perfect, we thought. We were more than ready to find a place to set up camp and get to the shooting. Two hours later, there was absolutely no sign of anything that resembled a campground. But we did find another sign that said, campground, five miles. We walked for what felt like another five miles and again found absolutely no sign of life. Rather, the trail basically disappeared into a dried-up creek. There was no split in the trail or other way to go. Along the way, nearly all of our water containers failed. It didn't seem ominous at the time. It was just those crappy water bags. While this area where the trail seemed to end wasn't particularly flat, it was beginning to get dark, so we decided to set up right there in the poison oak. We were so exhausted, we didn't start a fire or anything, but we did do a little shooting into the hillside. As soon as it was pitch black out, we started hearing howling. Loud and very close. Almost all night until about three in the morning, when it got dead silent. I woke up to hear rustling in the nearby bush, loud and fast. Hello, I shouted, as the rustling got closer. I popped out of my tent with my brother, who also woke up to the sound. Something had run directly towards our camp and had moved my dad's backpack about three feet from where he left it. With all of us wide awake, I grabbed my AR, assuming we were in serious coyote trouble. To this day, I really hope that's what it was. There was rustling all around us, like a whirlwind. I fired a few shots into the bush, which quieted the rustling. After about ten minutes, I got back in my tent, but couldn't even think about sleeping. Soon enough, something charged our camp again, and when I got out, rifle in my hand, my father's backpack had been dragged another five feet or so, and we were surrounded again with a whirlwind of rustling. Every bush was moving except one, which had two glowing eyes staring bright back at me as my headlight was focused on it. It didn't move at all, as what appeared to be semi-translucent and incredibly fast coyotes circled us. I fired two shots directly below those eyes, but there was no effect. All the moving ones scattered, but those eyes remained focused on me. So I fired another two shots, this time slightly above the eyes, assuming my rifle was not sighted in properly. Nothing. Just those bright eyes looking back at me. I fired again and again, to the left, to the right, assuming my optic had been seriously off. Nothing. My father and brother watched in amazement. I asked my dad to get his flashlight. I had bought him an SR-50 Intimidator, which has 800 lumens. As soon as he shined the light on the eyes, we heard a yelp, and the eyes disappeared. There was nothing in the brush. Obviously, none of us slept all night, and we hiked the hell out of there at sunrise. Now, I fully believe I might just have had a case of the heebie-jeebies, and maybe it was really just starving coyotes looking for food in my dad's bag. But none of us have been able to shake the feeling of that place, or the seemingly ghostly coyotes. Here's the thing I learned later. We had accidentally entered an Indian reservation. The veil between the living and the dead is thinner than this commercial break. Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. Let's get back to unraveling this dead letter. Thoughts? I have a lot of thoughts. I mean, there's a lot of things about this that play into stories that we've covered in the past. A lot of times we mention Terry Lovelace, and just this idea, oh, we're going to take a trip. Sometimes it seems like these trips are preordained in a way, or they're planted in your mind. Right? You need to go take this trip, and let's get out there and go do this thing. You might not even have all the stuff you need, but you're just going to go do it. That's something we've come across before, and then it ends up in a not great scenario. That was one of the first things I thought about. They had this simple plan. And this was a thing that they'd done before, and they were in territory that they had been to before. But for whatever reason, it was different this time. But the other thing that this reminded me of was episode 16 of Astonishing Legends, our main show. Back in May of 2015. Now, keep in mind, we just posted episode 319. So this was a long time ago, at least in terms of our operation. That was a story about Dr. Rich Goldstein going on a hike. It was called Are We Ever Alone? It's one of my favorite shows that we've done, actually, even though it was so early on in the game. Right. For a lot of factors, I think the credibility of the storyteller, the witness, not just the fact that he was an ER doctor. Still is, I imagine. But just the way he told it, the facts, the way the story is laid out, the tone of it. And you never really know exactly if everything's, I'm not going to say truthful, but accurate in the experience, right? Because we know eyewitness experiences sometimes, especially under high duress like that and stress, can change. And memory is a little different later on, but I see what you're talking about with the way the story unfolds, because I immediately connected with those elements as well, in that it starts off seemingly normal or average. And then there are little things along the way that are signs. And in both stories, it almost sounds like not perhaps warning signs, but something is ringing that bell inside that something's not right about the territory you're entering and to take caution. And both people, in both cases, they're fairly well prepared for what they're attempting to do. Of course, Dr. Goldstein was going to spend, I think, at least a couple of nights, a longer stretch. So he had more supplies, but just things not working right. With him, remember, he couldn't light the fire. Like, he tried and tried. That's right. But he was getting a feeling on the way in, which is very similar to what happened here. Yes. Like, as he was hiking up, the trail was feeling weird. Just things he couldn't quite put his finger on. And what Luke was saying, their water wasn't working right. It's like, really, all three of you are having problems with your water supply? These things are starting to come apart a little bit. Things are looking weird. You're not finding the things that you're used to finding. And you're still pushing through. You're still going, well, you know what? It's all super weird, but we're going to camp. Well, listen, it's nothing, like I said, you know, the skeptical, rational mind would say, this is all in your head. You're just imagining this. Because you're prepared enough for what you're going to be doing, and you're experienced. And so you should have nothing to fear, right? I mean, really, when you think about it, look at the logical elements here. You're not three days into a backpacking trip, and you twist an ankle, and you can't even get heloed out. You're just not that far off the trail. But there's an aspect of that. One thing I do want to say about the water is, like, he didn't exactly say what went wrong with the water containers if they leaked. Yeah, he just said they were failing. They were failing. Yeah, I'm not sure. So I don't, so obviously you could get the water out. I'm going to assume that they started leaking. Because, yeah, it seems like maybe there's some confusion there. He's like, well, we went to drink water, and we didn't have any. Quickly, there's a third story, the third one being mine, which also involves water at a weird hike, which mine was happening. The Montana story. Yeah, it happened at Bannock up in the hillside there above the town, not too far, supposedly, where the sheriff and outlaw, Henry Plummer, was hanged. That's an entire series from us, by the way. Forrest is throwing that away, but you can go on Astonishing Legends. It's two or three in-depth parts about Henry Plummer. Yeah, it's a three-parter. I feel like Western history, it's terrific because it's a great story, which has been told before, but it's not that well known. But I did not tell my story then because I did not realize what was happening to me, potentially, until years later. You look back at the telltale signs, perhaps, that something's not right, and then you start to put it together. It's like, okay, maybe that was out of the ordinary. Extraordinary in a way that is not just, well, that was weird or a coincidence. It's like something, there's a message there. With mine, I'm just up in the hills about maybe, you know, 500 to 1,000 yards at the very most from, you know, the road down below. And I had a sport bottle with me. I was well hydrated before I left. Drank that and then just being super thirsty in a really weird, disturbing way is all I can put it. Just like I drank that, it's like nothing. And then I started to get that feeling like, I've got to get out of here. I've got to walk down there. I could die. It was just a very odd feeling at the time, which didn't seem abnormal. It just seemed like the smart thing to do is to start walking down, get out of there. Yeah. The other thing about Dr. Goldstein's experience was that he heard crackling, swishing, and crunching sounds all around him in the bushes. He felt like he was being herded out of the area. I mean, it's an identical experience. And I want to say, Luke, if you hear this, I want you to listen to episode 16 of Astonishing Legends, Are We Ever Alone? Because I think a lot of it's going to resonate with you. But there's a lot of stuff that's common ground here. And that's the thing, Forrest, I love the most about doing Astonishing Legends and also the Dead Letter offices. When you tell these stories over and over, and I'm sure Jim Harreld has seen this too, you start to see these patterns of things that are happening to people that have never met each other. And have never heard these other versions of these stories, but they're telling the same thing, which is part of what I think makes this kind of folklore so pervasive in society and different cultures. It's because it's happening to lots of people who have never met or known each other and from different generations. And so what is that? What is that? Yeah, no, these things, maybe that is part of the quote unquote rules, the rules of the paranormal and that how these things unfold. And before I forget, it's now reminding me of another story that was sent into us. This one involved a woman and her boyfriend at the time who were on a car trip. And what's similar is that I think they were on a long car trip. They decided to go off the road to maybe sleep in the car overnight, just take a break. And they pulled, not to give away too much of the story, but I did really love the elements. But here's the thing. Let me just say something, Sarah, and you can leave this in. Let's make this next week's Dead Letter. Okay. Yeah. Don't give it up too much. Here's the thing. I mean, most people think we're producing these way ahead of time. And sometimes we are, but right now we're not. Let's make it next week's Dead Letter. So tease it very carefully. There's not many jump scares, but the setup, and it was just like, I got an overwhelming sense of the creepy setup. It became a night similar to this, let's say, where there was a lot of unexplained, like, what's around the car, things like that. Yeah. You get into these liminal places of sorts, and I think that's what they wanted into here. There are little signs, not even so much maybe like Dr. Goldstein's, which is more so forcibly, like, don't be here. Get out. We don't want you here. You're not welcome. Yeah, right now. And we're going to use our powers to make it painfully obvious to you, or at least very uncomfortable to where you will leave, because for whatever reason, either you're disturbing our energy or something bad is maybe it's a warning from something good. Right. Just reminded me of a great Halloween movie that's been overlooked by a lot of folks, but Jacob's Ladder. Oh, God. And just. That moment's such a spooky movie. One of the best lines in it. Creepy, creepy movie. Yeah, very creepy. I wouldn't say it's a horror flick. I guess you could. I would. Danny Aiello, who's a, like, massage therapist, who's working on Tim Robbins, is saying to him, because let's just say Tim Robbins feels like he's being haunted or chased or pursued. And one of the best lines ever, he's like, maybe the demons you think are chasing you are actually angels there to guide you. But when you resist the message, they seem to you like demons, like they're a negative force, but really they're trying to steer you into a better path. So in this case, what do we have? We've got the signs, campground five miles away, which I'll just say at the onset here, it's like, now that has got me really wanting to go check this place out. No, I know. All of this. I want to know, was there really a campground five miles away? It's just overgrown now? Because it sounds like it's just from misuse or just neglect. It's overgrown. But there was, is that an official, like, park service sign that's routed with the paint? You know, like. Right. Plus they passed that sign twice, which says one of two things. One, they're in some kind of liminal loop. Right. Some kind of time, space, jacked up situation. Not that they exactly came back to the same spot, perhaps, but they're in a different type of loop. Yeah, it's the same spot. Or, you know, they're just lost and they're walking in circles. But they're experienced in the woods and on trips like this. So them walking in a circle back to this same sign twice, that also says that something is possibly messing with them. Now, this is a thing that I know as an Eagle Scout. Yes. I haven't brought that up in a while. Get those skills out. One thing I know is that left to your own devices, out in the woods, if you're lost and you don't have a compass, you will walk in a giant circle. That's a proven fact. You know, where we also heard this, and perhaps you're forgetting this. I had a very lovely evening with my good friend Scott here when we attended the live performance of Radiolab. And this was at UCLA. Oh, that probably is where I learned it. All right, forget the Eagle Scout. Okay. Yeah. It's Radiolab. Tack that on as well. Old school Radiolab. The whole evening, yeah, just fast. That show has just fascinating topics like that. And what they highlighted in that one was the phenomenon, and I think it was demonstrated, this just would have been maybe the 20s or 30s because of the model of the car, is that I think, I don't know if they're brothers or scientists or amateurs, but they wondered if you blindfold somebody and just left them in a field, could they make it to the other side of a very large field? Right. That's right. So they had them start walking. Now it's all coming back to me. The concept is fascinating. It has something to do with the psychomechanics of your brain and maybe some of the chemicals, is that if you blindfolded and you set somebody, you point them in the right direction, right, not spinning them around, you just blindfold them and said, walk to the other side of the field, eventually you'll start to go in a circle that is counterclockwise. Now, here's the interesting thing. They then tried it with somebody blindfolded in a car, and it was like an old jalopy, like a Model A or Model T. And they said, just drive to the other side of the field. And what they noticed, they did the same thing. The person would start driving, I think, to the left and start going in concentric circles, counterclockwise, I believe. And there may have been something else that was all equally fascinating where it would go in the opposite direction depending on some other adaptation of the experiment. If you get like 1,000 people and 1,000 Model Ts, do you get that famous shot from like Koyaanisqatsi where wildebeest are all running in a circle? That could very well be. We're all just stuck in this loop. Yeah, we have programming that tells us innately. Basically, you know, we've talked about this before, what Charles Fort might call wild talents, which is a survival instinct that's instinctual, but not tangible in that it's hard to measure or maybe impossible. But it's like a psychic power almost that's ancient and in our DNA that has helped keep us alive as a species. So here, it's like, well, one, listen, you're well-provisioned for the day. You're well-armed. That's another thing if you're a Westerner out here, you have a lot of experience not to promote the practice. But where I grew up, you don't go out in the woods alone like that without being armed because— Self-defense. Well, yeah, there's bears and there's cougar. And not so many wolves so much anymore until you start, I think, getting into the Montana territories. But definitely, it's just a smart thing to do. You feel like at least you have some defense capability here. And coyotes generally won't attack adults like that. They would go after your food or anything you left out. Certainly bears obviously will. Even small animals will pick at it. But something dragged their back. So something was either that hungry or there was some other force that acted upon it, which almost seemed invisible. But getting back to the setup here and approaching this thing is that, yeah, you have the poison oak. That's just a natural, like, look, that's everywhere, you know, especially in California. Right, right, right. You're going to run into that. But just the old stone bench and the really old beer can. And then you start—is this a time slip? The first thing I thought was, like, are we in some kind of weird time portal here? Right. Some other time dimensional slip? I mean, there's old—you find old beer cans in the woods. Oh, sure. But, like, the last time I saw a beer can from the 50s on a trail, I was a child in Colorado. Yeah. And I would just—I'm going to say that was, like, 1975. Right, right, right. Like, a 50s beer can now? Yeah. It feels a little bit like, you know, they wandered off the grid in terms of reality. If they backtracked to get home again, which I suspect they did, I would have kept that beer can. But then are you keeping something that's a bad juju talisman? And sometimes you think that's the tiki thing you steal from the Brady Bunch on your Hawaiian vacation, and it brings you bad luck. But we do have a good friend of ours who's very knowledgeable about spirit and all that, who was on a, I think, a ghost hunt at an abandoned psychiatric facility, I think, or medical facility. And her son took home a wheel—speaking of Jacob's Ladder and the shaky gurney wheel—he took home a wheel. You know, kids do that. So he took home a wheel, like, from a gurney, and then weird stuff started to happen in the home. And she's like, okay, get that thing out of here. Yeah, that's— That's somebody we trust. That's like that time I grabbed that piece of the silver bridge. Nothing weird happened, though? It wasn't weird. It was just—it seemed like a run of bad luck. Oh. I wound up not keeping it. Yeah, exactly. Just put it back. The thing I always think about, like, with the old beer cans, and I'll say this, for folks who know our show and know the history of the show, my wife worked at Saturday Night Live for almost nine years, and I was—I got to hang out backstage during that time. And in the different dressing rooms—they call them dressing rooms, but they're really just holding hands for the cast or their friends while the show's on the air. They're not technically dressing rooms. But at the time, Horatio Sands, his dressing room had a little door in the back, and you would go back through this door, and inside there was, like, a little just vestibule-type closet, a leftover relic room with a hot water heater, and you could see the pipes and stuff, kind of like a hideout. Yeah. And in there on the hot water heater, on top of it was a pull-tab beer can. Wow. That someone had opened and just set it on top of that hot water heater, and for all of the people in all of the decades that probably had snuck into that room to, like, smoke a little weed or whatever else people were doing, no one ever messed with that beer can. And if I'm not mistaken, I could be wrong. I might get called out on this, but if I'm not mistaken, that dressing room used to be John Belushi's. That's right. Yeah. I remember you telling me about that. So just, like, but that beer can was in there. It's just sitting up there, you know, in the tab, you know, with the pull-tab. I love that that's respected. And nobody, it was like a sacred beer can that nobody touched. It may still be there, for all I know. I hope it is. Here's what I'm wondering, is that that hot water heater, I would imagine at some point had to be serviced or replaced. You know, they don't... Yeah, I don't think it was operable at the time that I saw it. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Okay. So they just shut that off. But it's nice to have hot water in your office if you have a sink. But the idea, though, that that's, people knew about it and it was respected. See, I like that you just kind of leave it there. You don't, like at the, those idiots at Goblin Park that you knocked over. That's like, yeah, it's been there for, you know, a million years. But you decide you're going to be the one who's going to knock it over. Okay. But approaching the can, and I wonder if I could task you with this, sir, is I gots to know. I have to know if there's a campground there or if there's two campgrounds, one five miles away and then another five miles. Are there two? I know roughly where they were. I figured out roughly where they were because of some references in the Reddit post. And also figured out the Indian reservation that was nearby or Native American. And I know different tribes feel differently about how they're referred to. But this was the Thule, T-U-L-E, not T-H-U-L-E. Yes. T-U-L-E reservation. Multiple tribes, several groups there. The Yokuts, which I've looked up YouTube videos to get all these words. And then Yalumni, I'm probably saying wrong, and the Wukchumni Band, Western Mono, and Tuba Tula Ball. But the majority of the tribe are Yokuts. There's lots of languages and history there. There's so many cool videos on YouTube of this particular reservation where they're like reintroducing beavers and they're having tribal ceremonies. It's just like a really cool area. But what's interesting to me about Luke and his family is like wandering into this area. And they're like, of course, maybe they're making a connection between that. I will say that in the tribal lore that I did find, coyotes obviously very significant, significant. Trickster. Yeah, trickster. But also just like a revered creature, a part of the culture that's to be respected. And there's lore connected to origin stories that go back to the coyote there. Yeah. So there's some idea if you're leaning into that and into the liminal idea of where Luke and his father and brother were, you know, maybe it could just have been about protecting the land or defending the land or, you know, that you shouldn't be here. This isn't your land or it's the wrong place for any kind of reason. And here's the thing that I think about too for sometimes because I think a lot of times people are like, oh, well, this is their land or this person's land or this culture's land or whatever. I think sometimes the thing that's wanting you to leave the land might not have anything to do with humanity. Right, right. Like it might just be like you need to get the hell out of here and you don't understand and you're never going to know the reason, but you need to leave. Yeah. There's a reason above our understanding or capacity to even understand. So it's operating at a higher level, but also a lower level, a lower vibration of sorts in a strange way, but just otherworldly. But I do want to know, yeah, it was, there actually a campground. And then when you get to that spot, like campground five miles away, and then there's no sign saying you've reached the campground. Usually there is. And that little post where you stick the money in. Yeah, it's just five more miles. It's just five more miles. That's the other aspect of the story. It's like just, just around that corner, just another corner. It's like, it's like in the first final tap when they are backstage and they get lost trying to get on the stage and they go around and they come up to this maintenance guy under there. And he goes, you're going to go up here and take a left. And it's just a little jog. And one of them goes, oh, we haven't got time for that. It's like, no, we don't have time to go for a jog. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, they're in a loop too. It's like that idea. It happens to all of us. And, you know, severance, the idea, it's just like all of these. Yeah. And culturally, that's a thing that I think we're all fascinated with. Also displayed, not even supernaturally, but in Goodfellas, remember, I think it was Lorraine Bracco, where she's supposed to go pick up a fur coat or something. And the guy goes, just a little further down, a little further down. And then she gets that feeling like, no, this is not going to end well. And that's what we're talking about, like just that warning sign of like, it all seems fairly normal, but she's getting the vibe. No, I need to trust my instincts on this. Trust your instincts. Here's the great thing about Scorsese in that case. You never know if he was actually going to have her bumped off. No. She was supposed to go get a mink. That's right. He's like, we got a bunch of minks. Go down there and get the mink, you know? Yeah, yeah. So you get to that one, and there isn't any, you know, what's going on there? Is there another campground? And then who would, when they were nice and new with the pit toilets, brand new, and the barbecue, you know, and the fire pits, is this a backpacking spot? What's going on there? That's what I want to know from an official standpoint, like a National Park Service standpoint here. So they're getting out here, and it just seems kind of just to fade into nothing, into disrepair. That is not such a huge warning to me, but definitely looking back on it, maybe a sign that you're entering into dark territory, as our friend Rich Haddam might write. Here's the counterpoint to that. If you're a camping nerd and a hiking nerd, you're like, oh, this is better. No people have been here forever. That's why you want to go. We're like off grid, you know? No, that's why if I was close by and had the wherewithal, I would go back in, just like the team in Predator with Schwarzenegger, and just like loaded, armed to the gills, loaded for bear, and just like, we're going to go in early in the morning. We're going to scout this all out. I want to know what's going on here. But seriously, I just want to know what's going on there, and what is it like on another day, perhaps with other people? Is the experience here just for them in this moment? Not that this place didn't exist, but was it exactly appearing or presenting in exactly that kind of way as they experienced, if you know what I'm saying? Was it that dilapidated usually for other folks? Do people usually camp there? What have they seen? We'll never know. Well, I mean, one of the first things that I thought about with, you know, the two eyes in the woods that he took shots at, and there was no effect, as they say in the military, it's like, this isn't working. I thought about the giant, like, dire wolf or whatever it was, it's Skinwalker Ranch, which took the shot and was organically injured but didn't react. You know, and in this case, what's going on, but then the thing that made it go away was the bright light. And for me, that comes down to the whole idea of how all of this stuff works, and it's the light and the darkness and the hunting for the positive energy and the negative energy. And the light is what chases away these malevolent spirits of dogs, but, like, they felt encircled. They felt herded, like Dr. Goldstein said in his story, and threatened and something. But the other thing about this is, in terms of it being spectral in nature and kind of translucent, that was the word that Luke used in his story. Maybe it was ethereal and not real or not solid, but by the same token, according to Luke and probably his dad and brother, too, who I would like to say are, like, they wanted to keep their identities concealed. I think I said this. These are very respectable, well-educated folks that have a lot of experience in the world, I would just say. And they didn't want to all come out because of their positions in society and in their businesses that they work in and that kind of stuff. So, these aren't rubes out here. Something moved the backpack over and over, twice. Something moved the dad's backpack. Now, I will say, if somebody's been camping a lot, did he have a Snickers bar in there? Is a raccoon going to go for that? Yes. But a raccoon is not a ninja. This is something else. There's, like, something happening here, something that they couldn't quite put their finger on. And that's the weird thing to me. It's like they knew it was happening. They could hear the noise, but they couldn't see anything. But then the eyes, the eyes that he shot at that had no reaction. And then, so, of course, we get back to all of the stuff. The black shook, you know, hellhounds, the bar guest. Tell us what the bar guest is. Well, this is a Northern English folklore idea. It's a mythical monstrous black dog with giant teeth and claws. And like other phantom black dogs, it can have fiery eyes. And in general, it's an omen of death. Hound of the Baskervilles. Along these lines, I actually want to go back to something that Luke posted as an edit on his original post from nine years ago and read it. And he writes this at the end of his original post. Okay, this is pretty scary. I found this researching ghost hounds. Quote, The American ghost hounds share some characteristics with the bar guest, and that some of them are not only guardians of the dead, but also portents of doom and even bringers of death in their own right. In some cemeteries, local folklore has it that any visitors should vacate the burial grounds before nightfall. If visitors are foolish enough to remain for as long as it takes the ghostly hound to circle the perimeter a mystical three times, they are sure to die before sunup. Holy moly. Yeah. So, I mean, there you have it. How many times did they get circled, I wonder? Yeah. Obviously not three. It might have been 2.5 and they got out. It sounds like it was more than three, but it's also funny to think like, hey, you know, from the spectral beast POV, it's like, hey, this isn't working. Which, okay, elements about what actually happened here. Firing rounds into the brush seemed to quiet it. Well, okay, first of all, 3 a.m. Here, we're back to 3 a.m. Biblically part, as the shepherds would say, part of the fourth watch, I believe. Yeah. Which would be 3 a.m. to keep watch over the flock from beasts like this. Not spectral, but real beasts that would kill sheep. That's also the KLF sang, 3 a.m. eternal. It's a really great song. Oh, yeah. I think it was the late 90s, so. Yeah, so considered the fourth watch of those protecting themselves and livestock. And so that's a significant element of the story. I do wish that they had looked at the footprints or tried to find any tracks in the morning. So I didn't hear about that. Oh, yeah, that's a really good point. Because some would have been left, I think, if something was dragging the bag off or even if there were drag marks from the bag. You know what I'm saying? If the bag just looked like it was picked up and just plopped with no footprints or dragging, that would be another telling sign. The other element I made a note of is that all the bushes were moving around them, rustling. They were feeling encircled by these racing, half-spectral, half-visible, half-transparent, coyote-like animals, canids, except for the one that had the eyes. Why isn't that bush rustling other than whatever's there trying to be silent but staring back at them? That is curious, the fact that many rounds from a .223 caliber rifle is having no effect, as you say. But the thing that got to clear was the bright light. Now, I do wonder, it's like, could that also be symbolic? Like you say, I'm totally willing to go down that road of the light shining in the darkness literally as being symbolic. Because that does have, I believe, spiritual as well as some supernatural power to it, sunlight being the best disinfectant and all. But perhaps it was just something more along the lines of physics in that it disturbed whatever this thing was. I mean, as any experienced bear hunter will know, you can often treat black bears, which are the more docile ones, with a flashlight. Or even the larger animals will get spooked by a light. Or they're attracted to it. But often, it's something unusual that they're not familiar with. And there will be a reaction, as there was here, which is to clear the beast, rather than bullets whizzing by in the brush. Right. Those aren't quiet, okay? So they make a loud sound that usually will disperse most animals, unless you have a very angry grizz coming at you, then good luck. None of that seemed to bother it until the lights. But also, the firing did quiet down a lot of the rustling. So there's some interesting elements going on here in that I think if it were real, natural, just coyotes, some other pack of wild dogs, feral dogs, it would have been something else. It would have been a different reaction here. And so, like I said, just firing it above, like, I'm sure the windage on his sights were not that off. Yeah. The scope was not that off, that he's missing every round, or there's not some kind of effect from the animal. Like, people who've been hunting, like, if you miss and get one close to the game, that'll spook them. They usually run off. So that's very strange. But leading up to it, again, the howling. And I wish there was some recording of that. And, you know, there's a lot of things I wish, because it's such a great, creepy story, I wish there was more evidence of. But the howling, and whether they thought it was coyote howling, or more like wolves, or more like dogs, there is a difference. If you're going camping and hunting, just, it's easy now with a digital recorder, just record everything. Just record all the audio. Well, as I say, somewhat flippantly, but also, I'm not being flip, is that I think one of the best defenses is to get some recording equipment, because there seems to be a shyness about being recorded or captured in that manner with media. Because what do they always say? What do they always say? Like, the camera wasn't working, or just ran off or stopped, whatever the phenomenon was, before you could get good evidence of it with video or recorders. But people capture what they think are Bigfoot howls all the time. That's right. Still pretty rare, if you watch a lot of Bigfoot shows like I have, but it's not a given. It's not guaranteed, but occasionally you get some very strange sounds that have been frequent enough in past history that you can now categorize them. So, as we near the end of our discussion here about this, there does seem to be a lot more paranormal vibe to this than just wild animals causing a little trouble with some interlopers here. Because, one, again, I always go by the vibe. It's like, you know, people who are experienced, and these folks certainly sound like they are. Or you've, in a lifetime, encountered most everything you're going to out there, especially in territory you're familiar with. So, this just sounds something otherworldly. The glowing eyes, another telltale sign, and just shooting at it. Rarely do we have a story, though, where people have actively fired at something and gotten a response, but had a yelp, like the bright light heard its eyes. Yeah, yeah. But I think there were warning signs, not really, but just things to raise the hair on the back of your neck and your arms as you were walking in. Just like, this is not a very inviting place, you know what I'm saying? Like, most camping trails, they're fun to get to. It's a nice hike. Even just remote scrub parts where you can, where shooting's allowed. You know, it's nature. But this just sounded all scruffy and uninviting, poisonous oak, just like not a great place to wander into. And perhaps that's on purpose by some unseen force. Well, Luke, this is a very cool dead letter. And frankly, as Forrest said, and I'm going to agree, we're not convinced you were where you thought you were at all. After all of the changes in the trail, your water running out, and then being surrounded by spectral hounds of some kind, we're fairly certain you and your dad and brother may have hiked into another realm. One that you couldn't get back to now if you wanted to. On the other hand, other folks may have also gone down that dead-end trail where you camped and never returned. So, welcome back. Folks, send your stories into deadletterofficeatastonishinglegends.com and we'll be back next week with a new episode. This is John Bolton. That's me. Stories are lightly edited for length, content, and readability, but otherwise presented as they're sent to us. We're always looking for more dead letters. So, if you have a story of your own you'd like to share, email it to deadletterofficeatastonishinglegends.com. Please include how you would like to be credited. First name only? First name last initial? Anonymous? A pseudonym? Let us know. Due to the number of emails coming in, we often cannot respond, but we do read them all. No part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright Astonishing Legends Productions. 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