S1 Ep52: The Little Old Man

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Upfront payment of $45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 months, or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Above 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. 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, The Little Old Man. As most of you know, we took a little break at the end of 2025 after some simultaneous losses in both of our families. Yeah, and speaking of simultaneous, there have been a few minor but odd coincidences and synchronicities, you might say, which we may talk about at one point. But one of the wild things that happened, we were just one episode away from the first year of the Astonishing Dead Letter office, or DLO, as we like to call it here in Blanket Fortiana. Yeah, we were 51 episodes in when we decided to go on hiatus, choking there on the final episode. But tonight's DLO is episode 52 of this weekly show. So that marks the official end of season one. So what you're saying is that it's technically a season finale. Yeah. Okay, I'll go with that. Yeah. All right, the second season, though, or the second year of The Astonishing Dead Letter office will start next week, then, with the next episode, technically. Yes. Yeah, okay. Yes, it will. So when you subscribe to Astonishing Legends, you not only get 26 episodes of our 11-year-old main show spread throughout the year, but also 52 episodes of The Dead Letter office. That's 78 new shows a year from us, as long as we can keep it up. And then maybe a holiday gift basket of leftover summer sausage with those crackers and the cheese triangles. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Part of that means we depend on you guys sending your stories in. So if you have one you've been waiting to write down, get it into us, please. Yeah, indeed. Please email it to deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.com. Speaking of which, tonight's episode is a great season finale for the first year of these. Okay, so what's this one about? Well, we're heading to Athens, Ohio for this one. It's a place I've actually been because it is the home base for the folks that produce and ship all of our merch. That's right, yeah. And I've been there to visit our friend Craig, Abnormal Allies, who runs that whole operation. I am a huge fan of Athens. It's a very cool town. I don't know, it just feels like it has a lot of history. As we always say, Ohio sometimes corners the market on spooky stuff. And tonight's dead letter actually comes to us from a listener going by the name of Spooky Gladstone. It's right there in the name. It could be, that sounds like a really fun shop of curios and tchotchkes. But when I said, you said Athens, I looked at the story here. I thought of the birthplace of the band REM, Athens, Georgia, also University of Georgia, I believe. And you have a personal connection to Athens, Georgia? My dad, Athens, Georgia. Yeah. Yeah, he was born there. Yeah. Well, Spooky shares a story about her daughter, who was an anthropology major who moved into an apartment that used to be a church. Okay, now there we go. We've already got the setup. Yeah, exactly. I know what's happening here. So spiritually speaking, though, that's a heavy roll of the dice, what you're going to get. You know, repurposing a sacred place, okay, it's practical, sure. But then you have to wonder if the previous tenants, seen or unseen, ever really moved out. In this case, it seems they didn't. What started as phantom knocks at the front door quickly escalated into a visual manifestation that is not easily categorized. It wasn't your standard Victorian ghost, and it certainly wasn't a trick of the light. But it was distinct enough to terrify a devout roommate right out of the building. But what makes this letter stand out to us isn't just the fear, it's the validation. This is one of those rare cases where the story doesn't end when the witness moves out. Oh yeah, this is a good one. My daughter attended Ohio University after high school graduation. She majored in anthropology and history with a museum study certification. She put herself through school by working up to three jobs at once. I was sad we couldn't help out more, but it made us that much more proud of her. It also taught her discipline with time and money that served her well since. After her second year, she rented an apartment with some friends. It was in a renovated church. The building was small with only three or four apartments that would accommodate three or four people each. Things were pretty quiet at first. However, one night a knock was heard on the main door that the building shared. No one from their apartment had ordered delivery or had company coming. But the knocks kept coming, so my daughter went up to answer. When she opened the door, there was nobody there, and the sidewalk was deserted and quiet. Annoyed, she turned to walk down the stairs back to her apartment and saw something small dart across the doorway. She only caught a glimpse, but it looked like a tiny, very old, crouching man. She dismissed it as a trick of the light, or the cat, or something else mundane and ordinary. Everyone living in that apartment would eventually learn it was anything but mundane. Every one of the residents in the apartment would see and be terrified by this entity. But one of the ladies was particularly affected and disturbed by this thing. She was a staunch Catholic, and she would see this thing crouched under her desk chair, and it terrified her so much she left on break and never came back. She told my daughter she noticed this thing would bother her more when she wasn't wearing her saint's medallion necklace. Which I found interesting. Eventually, it became so bad that they had to call on a priest to come and do a house blessing. He told the ladies he stays really busy around town doing these blessings as Athens is quite haunted. They also brought in a friend to sage the apartment as well. After that, the apartment was quiet and back to normal. Fast forward to today. My daughter, after graduating early from OU with previously stated four-year degrees, worked and saved to attend Bath Spa University in Bath, England for a year to earn her master's degree in heritage management. Afterwards, the History Center in Athens, where she interned while attending OU, hired my daughter as collections manager. She is still working there. The History Center itself is also quite haunted with footsteps, slamming doors, phantom voices, and giggling coming from no one. She manages the interns now and heard a curious story. One of the interns' friends lives in my daughter's old apartment. Sometimes they see a funny-looking, tiny old man thing hiding under chairs or darting about the rooms. I've tried looking on forums for what this entity could be. I've also sent a few emails in the past with no response. Whatever it was, it had an impact on her. It also helped me not to dismiss people's personal experiences or strange happenings. The Unexplained awaits. We'll return to the shadows momentarily. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care's always there. Download the app at your app store or hhc247.org. Now, back to the show. Okay, so this is a super interesting story. We've got Spooky's daughter in this story, Spooky Gladstone. And her daughter is somebody who was studying anthropology and history. And these are disciplines where you're trained to look at evidence and culture and human behavior. So you get an expertise in observation. Yeah, exactly. If only she had a minor in psychology and another one in sociology. Yeah, there you go. This is plenty. Look, I think it does lend to some credibility in that, yeah, this is somebody who studies how groups of people behave and social mores and norms and blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Yeah. But just also curious about history. And perfect for not only the career she was going into, but I think as somewhat of a trained observer. Right. Again, that lends credibility to the story. Now, the other thing I think we definitely have to touch on is, you know, we always have talked about on Astonishing Legends and even on The Dead Letters now, and we sort of joke about it, but how spooky Ohio is. But that's because, you know, when we started Astonishing Legends, we'd like look up and say, oh, we've got to cover this. We've got to cover this. Okay, where did it take place? Ohio. Okay, well, all right. Well, that's cool. Let's see what you got. And then three weeks later, it's like, this story is insane. I've never heard this. All right, what's the location? Ohio. It's like it just kept happening. I know. Is it actually more haunted than none of their states per capita or what's going on there? Because as we always joke about it, it's like you trying to make that turn into the driveway of some establishment, and there's always somebody crossing the sidewalk. Oh, yeah. I used to call it a perfectly timed pedestrian. That's right. And then is that, okay, now is that happening? Are you counting that against all the times when you'd make that turn and no one's there? Yeah. But I am curious, seriously, about, is there something about the Terra itself? Yeah, is there something going on in Ohio? And is there something specifically going on with Athens? Right. That's a really good question. And so we mentioned this a little bit in the cold open, but I have been to Athens. But not only have I been there to visit the guys who are in charge of our merch and do all our merch for us, as well as some other companies, through connections that our friend Craig had, I was able to tour the university. Oh, cool. Yeah. So, and on top of that, my son was with me at the time, and he was younger. You know, he's 16 now, but it was pretty awesome because we went to, like, a mechanical shop that had a press, one of those, like, 10-ton presses or whatever. So we, like, you see the YouTube channel, we got to do that. We got to put, like, weird stuff in it and turn this thing on and watch it get squished. So there were a lot of different machines, and it was really fascinating, and we just had a great time. And I was on the campus proper, and if you look at Athens, you find that the bulk of the campus, it's surrounded by the Hocking River. So that is, it's sort of nestled in there. Across the river is the ridges, and the ridges is a place that I felt like we had to mention because in terms of weirdness in Ohio, this was a former asylum that has a lot of stories, and now it's part of the university. And it's interesting because it has what's called a Kirkbride architecture because the architect designed these, and I can't remember what year, what decade it was, 30s, 40s, something like that. He designed it. It's sort of like when you look at it from the sky, and if you go on Google Earth and you look up the ridges building that's in Athens, Ohio, you'll see it. They describe it as like a bat unfurling its wings, which it kind of is, which, of course, is, ooh, it's a bat. By the way, I love bats. I think bats are awesome. But the thing about this is the reason that Kirkbride designed it that way was because the idea was that all of the people who were there for whatever reasons, mental health reasons and other kinds of illnesses, should all have access to light and air. And, you know, that's a common theme, as you know, because you've toured and stayed in asylums. Well, if there was any tuberculosis patients, certainly because that was the natural thought then was, hey, their lungs are bad. They need fresh air. Any time of the year, too. Well, so what's interesting is the ridges, the Athens Lunatic Asylum, has a series of stories connected to it and connected to the university. And again, this is just in Athens. This obviously is not in the building that Spooky's daughter lived in. But, you know, there is room 428 there, which is haunted at Wilson Hall. So haunted that, as you like to say, the institution took steps to eliminate it from accessibility. It is locked and no one is allowed to stay in this room. So people are, I always wonder in that case, like who lives next to room 428 or across the hall from it? Yeah. I guess you can't even open the door, but it's because of strange goings-on in that room. Yeah. And these are all stories we could drill down on, but it's not the crux of tonight's episode, so we'll save that. But you can look it up. Look up Wilson Hall, room 428 in Athens, Ohio. There's also this crazy pentagram theory that suggests that the cemeteries all around Athens make a pentagram. These haunted cemeteries too, they're all haunted, five of them, and it draws a perfect pentagram. Although when I see that, I've seen a lot of things about pentagrams in cities. You could overlay a pentagram if you do this, but like to me, most of our cities in the US anyway have a kind of circular nature to them. And it's already kind of a clock dial and there's people that died over here in the 12 o'clock region and there's people that died over here in the three o'clock region. And so it's like, I don't know, the pentagram, you could probably draw a lot of pentagrams if you picked where things are located as a city grows. I mean, you know, I don't know, it's just a thought, but there is a whole thing that suggests, oh no, Athens is really messed up. These haunted cemeteries that encircle the city form a pentagram around the whole city. We have a link to that. You can take a look at it and see what you think yourself. There are a lot of crazy stories there as well. Or is it just a pentagon? You know, like I said, if you fill in the lines, does it have any more symbolism? One thing I will say is that many people may not know this, but every city planning, there is forethought that goes into it. It's not just willy-nilly. However, I do also like, on the opposite end of that, what's called the Medina effect with Medina in the Middle East, where you have a natural formation of a town or just a collection of abodes, which turns into a small hamlet, into a village, into a city, and there's no planning. And so nobody can ever find any other location. You have to go so many houses over then ask the next person. Yeah. And then they'll get you a little further and you continue that until you find your destination. But no, all the cities, you know, famously also, you know, Washington, D.C. and some of the earliest cities in the United States, there's a reason the way it's laid out and it's heavily symbolic. And if you want to go rabbit hole, then yeah, it's a Masons and blah, blah, blah, and the Illuminati, this and that. But yeah, there's, you can also lay something over and find meaning to seeming randomness. But what I would say is that, yeah, there's a purpose. There was an idea to begin with that. But is it pentagram and what does that mean? And pentagrams, as we all know, not necessarily evil, or there is a deeper symbolism in it because look at the symbols for the United States and it's a star. Right. It's just a very common kind of thing. But it's interesting and I think all cemeteries are haunted. There's dead folks in there. The other thing that's interesting about this pentagram theory is the center of the pentagram theory is Wilson Hall, which is where room 428 is. Well, there you go. That's right in the middle. And then it just makes me think of Scatman Crothers and The Shining. And then there's always that one room and you're right because I did wonder about that and as we've come to know, human-made walls contain nothing, but there is a centralized, perhaps, location because we talk about 30 pontefract, there's activity next door in the council housing next door. Look at Greyfriars. There is activity across the street in the apartments, people report. That's right. So it does bleed over, pun intended. So, yeah, it's just, I'm not surprised about that. I do also note the river, the water. That's right. We're talking about Atchison, Kansas and the river nearby and the types of rocks. I think it all factors in, but yeah, there certainly could be hot spots. And as far as cemeteries go, yeah, some are going to be more active than others, I think, for supernatural reasons. Yeah, and there's two more things we have to mention about Athens. Also, you know, we've covered spiritism and spiritualism a lot on Astonishing Legends. And when spiritualism was really a big deal, there was a family in Athens called the Koons family who were particularly obsessed with spiritualism. And they said that they had been told by the spirits that they needed to build a spirit room where people could come and experience all kinds of strange things, you know, table tipping and people floating and bizarre events. And so they did that. They made this room and they built it into their house on Mount Nebo. There's lots of Mount Nebos in the U.S., but this particular one is pretty much due north of Athens by a couple of miles, maybe four or five miles. And so that's also connected to Athens. And it has to be mentioned if you look it up, K-O-O-N-S, the Koons family spirit room. The other thing that is interesting is, of course, the story of Margaret Schilling, who was at the asylum, which is now, as we said, part of the university. And she was a resident there and she, I guess, wandered off and got locked into a part of the building that was disused and they didn't find her. And she locked herself in a room accidentally and then she froze to death. And so when they finally found her several weeks later, I think it was 42 days, she was found by a maintenance worker on the top floor of this area that wasn't been used or that hadn't been used. She was found undressed, which they think was connected to hypothermia and paradoxical undressing. And when they found her, what was left of her was naked and she had, of course, decomposed a little bit. And so they took pains to remove her and give her a proper burial and that sort of thing. But where she fell left a mark on the floor that is still there to this day that it's one of those things where they tried and tried to remove it and couldn't. That story is told as, you know, the stain and when we were doing research for this episode, there's a lot of stories about it that are sort of dehumanizing. We don't wish to add to that. But it's still a compelling story, this idea that where she lay left this spot on the floor that cannot be washed away and is still there. Yeah, as we know from our first episode, Hollywood Ending, you either dry up or you liquefy. So it sounds like she had liquefied a bit and it's not unusual to me that there would be a lasting stain. But what's kind of interesting is that there is a shadow of her. So she leaves behind in this world some mark of presence that she was there. Yeah, that's right. So it's kind of gross, I know. But like the fact is that she is remembered in this way. I don't know if she wanted that, but that's what happened. And the fact that she was not found, I think from your notes here, our research, there was nothing that characteristic about her. She seemed to be pretty normal, you know, had some mental or emotional challenges here and just got herself locked in. Yeah, and she was a low-risk patient. She was allowed to go wherever she wanted as long as she was back by a curfew. They apparently thought, well, she might have just gone home because a lot of patients who were that low-risk would apparently sometimes just be like, you know what, I'm going to go home and be with my family and they never really tried to stop them. There was another suggestion that she might have been deaf and couldn't hear people calling out for her when they were looking for her. Right, right. But it's not super clear how soon they went searching for her either. But coming back to Spooky's daughter story, they were just setting the stage here. It's the context of Athens, Ohio. It's not just your average haunted town. It has a lot of history behind it. There's another suggestion that it's the 13th most haunted town in the United States or something that was supposed to be connected to a British list or something. Oh. But when I looked into that, that had been apparently pretty thoroughly debunked. I think Mysterious Universe did something on it or Ancient Origin. Everybody was just like, we can't find that British list. They couldn't verify that. So that seems to be made up. What's the current period? But it's not like there's not enough stories here. We've got the pentagram of cemeteries. We've got room 428. We've got poor Margaret Schilling. We've got just all kinds of crazy, the Coons Spirit Room. Yeah. There's a lot going on here in this town. So now we have Spooky's daughter who has moved into a renovated church. Some people say, oh, well, that's a sacred space. You shouldn't be surprised if strange things are happening in the church. It's a place like we've talked about in other episodes. It's a high-traffic place. People are in there. They're distressed. They're happy. They're married. There's funerals. There's all kinds of things that go on in these places. So you think, oh, well, maybe that's what the haunting is or you might expect a haunting. But for me, Forrest, and this is what I want to ask you because I feel like you're the local homunculus expert. Hey, watch it, buddy. What do you mean by that? I don't know. This thing is frightening. This is a frightening idea to me. I don't get kind of freaked out too much anymore by things that people experience. Right. But a little tiny old man skittering about in your house and small enough to fit under the legs of a chair, it's like, what is that? Because the next thing you're doing is rationalize. Oh, this is a real-world thing. Okay? So what is it? What could you mistake for that that's bipedal and small and looks like an old man? I mean, if it was a rat, it wouldn't be on its back legs or have that, like, I can't imagine what you might mistake this for. And we've heard other stories about these kinds of things. I don't know what to call it. Like, if it's the fae, if it's a gnome, if it's, what is going on here, you think? There's a lot of connections. As I always say, that's how I derive some meaning to all these is to make connections and parallels and similarities to find some kinds of patterns here. And, well, first of all, it's the idea, as you say, that there's something small. I mean, it's not, of course, anything that's non-human sized, I would say. Something giant is scary. Something really small can be scary, too, like the homunculus idea. Also, in that it's not a fully formed adult being, whatever it is, that's just miniaturized, that is not natural. Okay, it's not seeing a playful child spirit running around. Even if it's Sally with the hair bow and the little puffy dress running around, that can also be scary, but something that is miniaturized is frightening and under your desk, and it's not George Costanza. Right. But it also reminds me of, we talked about this quite a bit because it comes up quite a bit, is the idea of some kind of gnome character skittering about. Right. And part of it is, again, you ask folks, there's something within the human psyche, I think, that shapes and motion and what it looks like or even the colors or the configuration of a creature can set us off. Like, okay, a lot of people don't like insects, but what is it about spiders that sets people off and the fact that it has eight legs or too many legs? Yeah. There's something about that, but specifically spiders creep a lot of people out and they're fine with other bugs or snakes or anything else creepy and crawly, but there's something about that configuration of a creature and this little creature, especially if it does resemble an old man skittering around, that's different than seeing a ghost cat. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Or seeing something else that is equally scary, but this has an extra oomph of scariness. Right. But we're talking about the motion and one of the, I've mentioned this episode before of X-Files is the episode titled Folia Due, where a telemarketer thinks that his boss is a cloaking large insect and it sees it as a shadow skittering about and the way that they present that is extra frightening. Right. Because it's kind of a shadow being of sorts, but insectoid, it turns the coworkers into these zombie-like automatons. It just bites you and takes you over. So, but the way the motion was depicted was unsettling. And so, yes, I can understand this all being frightening and the woman just like goes on a break and just never comes back. Like, I've had enough of that. Our friend of the show, Amelia Cotter, if you remember, talked about her uncle, I think without hunting or just walking, but seeing something with a traditional gnome get up scurry about and there was the flutter of leaves behind it. Yeah. And that skittering, flurring. Yeah, I'm not good with that. That's what bothers me about roaches. Yeah, they move too fast. Fast, yeah. And especially when they come, and they'll also just come right at you, bro. They'll come right at you. They will. Like, if you're going to run, at least run in the other direction, but when it runs towards you and it's going Mach 5, I am not down with it. Yeah, it's not supposed to be doing that. Spiders don't bother me, by the way. Most of them, anyway. Well, thank goodness these entities don't, they don't bite, as far as I know, but it just seems like bad mojo. Like, it's not the friendly ghost that inhabits, like, oh, he used to take, he used the caretaker at the church and he used to go around and put the candles out of the tapers and the, you know. It's like, oh, no, but that's a tiny man. What is the tiny man? Here's the other thing. I tell you, I'd rather be bitten by a brown recluse than a tiny old man. Well, that's, yeah, it's frightening. So we have, we have that in our notes here, the folie à deux phenomenon where people are just convincing each other from local lore that there's something there. And then, of course, you expect it to see it and then you see it. And that's the explanation for that is that your mind's now feeling in the blanks. But there's separated and corroborating witnesses and stories that are happening in this location. Yeah, and that's the interesting thing because the current tenants are still seeing something. And then on top of that, Spooky's daughter is at this history center that's haunted. Right. You know, it's interesting because she's gone from experiencing something to now being, I guess, a steward of this facility that is also very haunted. But knowing all we know about Athens at this point, that's not surprising. I'm curious where this history center is. If it's, you know, for all we know, it could be at the Ridges or some other part of the university or whatever. But it's like all of Athens has got something going on. So that's pretty much, which I think it's interesting that Spooky did not mention that in the letter. But I agree. Do you know why it's called the Ridges? Is that just a geographical feature? Yeah, I think it is a geographical feature. I think it's because it's up on a hill. And I guess it overlooks the area where the university is now, the Ohio University campus. But that name, according to our researcher, wasn't adopted until after the hospital closed in 1993. So the university may have done that as a rebrand instead of being like, oh, yeah, okay, so what office are you looking for? Oh, yeah, that's in the Athens Lunatic Asylum across the river. I was like, no, it's in the Ridges. Go to the Ridges. But whatever you do, don't go to room 428 in Wilson Hall. But of course, I don't know if that room is actually in the Ridges or on the other part of the campus. Yeah. But still. No, that's, and of course, that's exactly the room I want to go to. Yeah. And I would sleep overnight in there, but I would want infrared cameras on me the whole night in case something happened. What about you, sir? Would you take that dare? I haven't done anything serious in the field since ye old Sally House. Right, right, right. But this one would be low on my list of desire. I understand that. I think there's something about it being physical and less ethereal. I'm less freaked out if it's not solid in a way, even though something that's not solid and sentient is theoretically should be scarier than something that's living in the same reality with us. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's different ways to look about this that this story evokes. Like I said, so we've discussed location. Maybe you're expecting to see something because it's so notoriously haunted. The apparition itself, which is just uncanny, just weird, not natural in that, yeah, it's a tiny old man. And you get the vibe too. Like I said, if it was friendly, I've heard of other ghost stories. I can't remember what old hotel this was, but there's a, you know, even a curmudgeonly old guy that was the manager or the owner or the caretaker. And people will say like, the TV will turn on or change channels on its own. Right. And it's like, oh, that's just George. He didn't, yeah, he just likes to do that. He likes to mess with people and he'll turn up the volume or turn the TV off. And it's like, yeah, he's just, he's just having a laugh. And that's friendly, you know, in a way, like it's disturbing because that shouldn't happen, but you're not freaked out by it. This is like people getting a vibe of like something that good. So we have that aspect of it. And then also something in our notes here, the residual vibe of a lot of people receiving poor treatment, you could say, lots of lobotomies, lots of restraints, lots of people. Hundreds of lobotomies, might even been a thousand, I think. I can't remember where the figure was, but yeah, there was a lot. Just a lot. So we have that amped up, just a lot of bad emotional energy there, adding fuel to the fire. There's also in this aspect, another trope you could say of, it reminded me of two stories. One in a recent DLO, our good friend Veronica, who sent in a story, there was, I think there was a knock at the door and the way that her house is, that there's a really long driveway to get to it. And, you know, it's like, oh, well, that's the UPS guy. It's got to be because nobody comes, unless you're going to go visit intentionally, nobody comes down that driveway. Maybe you're lost or something, but that rarely happens. And you go to the door and there's nobody there. And then it's just like, well, that's okay. That was, and then the time it would take, somebody would be driving away from the door up the long drive and there's no one there. So it's that phantom knock at the door. That's disturbing. The other story I like that fits in, I think with the snowy conditions, many of us are experiencing is a story that maybe, I don't know if we, we got to it in one of our Halloween episodes, but it was another listener story. I hope if we haven't, I hope we get to it on a DLO was, I think this woman, when she was younger and I think, you know, the kids were like 10 and 12 and like her little brother was there, maybe eight to 10 years old. But as folks used to do, the parents went out for dinner and they left the kids there, which was fine back in my day. It's okay. You're not going to get a CPS cold idea, but they left to go to a dinner, an adult dinner party, and the kids were alone watching TV and they hear a knock. I think they see a shadow or something. It's one of those old doors, if you remember, Scott, where the three small windows, I think with colored glass. Oh, sure. At the top. Yeah. They see some kind of something passing between the porch light or a shadow of some sorts. They like, oh, well, who would be visiting? It also kind of remote suburban house where like not many people would drive by or come knocking for directions or certainly no Grubhub at that point or Uber Eats. And it's like, well, that's weird. And they go to the door and no one's there. But for something to pass in front of that window, it had to be very tall, like unusually tall, like six and a half feet tall. And they go there. There's nobody there. The other weird thing is that a big snowstorm had kicked up and there's no footprints in the snow on the doorstep. So things like that, like it doesn't add up and it was very disturbing. So that knocking in our notes here, it's an invitation trope. Yeah. I love from the notes and that it's asking permission to come in. It gets you to open the door. Right. And not that you're inviting it in, but it's that it must knock first. Well, a tiny crouching old man skittering about your home is a pretty frightening idea. And it's remarkable that Spooky's daughter is now a curator of a history center that is haunted. It's pretty amazing that residents of that apartment are also still seeing that creature, whatever it is. We would posit that may rule it out just being some kind of garden variety critter because, I mean, I don't know about you, but I feel like most folks know when you live with something like that, there's a lot of other clues like mouse poops or whatever. It eventually comes to light. You figure out, oh, okay, so that's what it was that I saw the other day because, you know, this roll of toilet paper has been chewed up or the food on the counter has been knocked over so it's a rodent or whatever, but there's nobody's finding anything like that. And if you did, you'd be like, oh, that's what it was. This is different. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, well, if you have a story like this or any other kind of encounter you'd like to share, send it to deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.com. The Astonishing Dead Letter Office is hosted by Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess and is executive produced by Tess Feifel. The show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendel at VW Sound. The theme is based on the Astonishing Legends theme by Judson Crane at Founder Music, arranged by Alan Carissia, who composes all the other music in the show. Tommy Beaver Design created the logo. The announcer 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 deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.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. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC 24-7 dot org. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC 24-7 dot org. HHC 24-7 dot org.