The Unrest Podcast
The Unrest Podcast
Real Life Haunt: Eric
Real Life Haunt: Eric
We hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving. This episode is all about our favorite place Charleston, Eric has been a long-time ghost tour guide around the historic city and with that comes a lot of spooky encounters.
He tells us a few interesting experiences that he has had while sharing the city with tourists and a touching story that really left him knowing that there is life after death.
If you have a story that you think our audience would like to hear email us at theunrestpodcast@gmail.com
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Real Life Haunt: Eric
Transcript
00:00:04 Speaker 1
The unrest E unrest E Unrest podcast podcast.
00:00:09 Speaker 1
Podcast podcast.
00:00:11 Speaker 2
Hello and welcome.
00:00:17 Speaker 3
Back to the unrest podcast.
00:00:19 Speaker 3
I'm Kaitlin, stansell
00:00:21 Speaker 4
And I'm Madeline green.
00:00:23 Speaker 4
If you haven't already, please please subscribe to the Unrest podcast so you can stay up to date on all of our many spooky stories and real life haunts that we love to share with you each week.
00:00:36 Speaker 4
Besides last week.
00:00:37 Speaker 4
Because it was Thanksgiving and that's a spooky.
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Story in itself, if you have a A.
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Crazy family, but we don't do Week 8.
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No, we have great families, but I was sick so it was a little bit of a spooky Thanksgiving for me.
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'cause I didn't really get to enjoy it.
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But that's OK, no fun.
00:00:57 Speaker 3
How was yours?
00:00:58 Speaker 4
Mine was great. As you know we have a very diverse family, so on my mom's side her sisters used to travel. They married men from.
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All over the world.
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And so I have cousins that are adopted.
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I have a lot of my family live in Dubai, so it's always fun to kind of come together and see how their year has gone because they do spend time in other area.
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And I mean, you know, North Carolina we.
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Just don't get.
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Get that diverse there in the Union Grove area.
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That all you'd tell is that it's coming, yes.
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No, that's awesome I'm I'm sure it's so fun.
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To hear every.
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Year, you know what they've been up to and and you know what else.
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I love to hear about real life haunts and we have a great win.
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This week, no.
00:01:49 Speaker 4
Yeah, tell us more.
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Well, this one is real close to home.
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I talked to Eric, he has been in Charleston for quite some time now.
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And I actually found him because.
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Back in the pandemic 2020, he runs this. This company called Charleston Pirate Tours. UM, if you don't know, Charleston has a lot of fun pirate history and just a lot of history in general. If you've heard our podcast before, we've talked about it a lot. Anyways during the pandemic.
00:02:25 Speaker 3
He was sharing some video stories of experiences he's had on these tours and just some interesting tidbits about Charleston history and that kind of thing.
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And I like put that back in my memory and I was like OK, I'm going to talk to him at some point for the podcast and I finally got to catch up with him and he shares a couple of great stories.
00:02:48 Speaker 3
Two of them focus on this alleyway called Philadelphia Alley and just some like interesting experiences.
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That happened there, and also one sort of personal story to him about an experience that just was really touching to him and sort of really justified that there is life after death so.
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A listen.
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Yeah, Philadelphia Alley, whenever I give a tour and I don't take people there every night, it just depends on if I've got time number one and #2 how crowded the alley is because, well, there's a lot of people that that go in the alley, but they really.
00:03:34 Speaker 5
They have kind of a skewed.
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If you will idea of what the alley actually is.
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It was just a shortcut between 2 streets but.
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It's been given a lot of names, like Bloody Lane and Douleurs Alley, but a good friend of mine who wrote a book called Dueling in Charleston.
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His name is Graham Long.
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He's he's one of the guys down at the Charleston Museum.
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In fact, far as I know, he runs the place and.
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He, uhm, he wrote a book called Dueling in Charleston years ago and and I ran into him at a book signing.
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I happened to be there for another completely different thing and he was there as well.
00:04:16 Speaker 5
So and I congratulate him on his book and I said, well, I gotta ask you, how many people were shot in duels in Philadelphia Alley and he said I can't find any record of anybody ever being shot in that alley or I do whatever taking place.
00:04:31 Speaker 5
And yeah, well I well I should say I better clarify that can't say nobody was ever shot in the alley, but he said I can't find a record of any.
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Tools in the.
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Alley, but like I say, it's not like they ran an ad in the paper saying, you know tomorrow 3:00 o'clock be there you know, duel in the alley.
00:04:46 Speaker 5
I mean wouldn't like to run an ad in the paper, so I mean it's not.
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Because it's not recorded, doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen.
00:04:53 Speaker 5
I mean, I've been doing research and history stuff for a long time and and and there's so many wild tales about Charleston and it's just hard to keep up.
00:05:04 Speaker 5
And and I try to dispel what things I know I can dispel and I can't.
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And sometimes I just tell people I can't confirm it or tonight, then it happened.
00:05:13 Speaker 5
But yeah, that alleyway is a very creepy alley.
00:05:16 Speaker 5
I've had some strange experiences in there and and just the background on those videos you watched.
00:05:24 Speaker 5
Yeah, Charleston turned 350 years old in 2020 and so or I should say, South Carolina.
00:05:31 Speaker 5
Did I mean it would just happen to be Charleston? Was the first settlement, but but the colony began in 1670. It was 250 years old in in 2020, so.
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My wife Sabrina and I had decided early on is sort of a commemorative thing to do these.
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So three to five minute little snippets of video. You probably turn out maybe one a week, two a week, you know just about different historical things and try to spread them out over the year of 2020.
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But then we had a a pandemic at us and they shut everything down.
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So instead of doing 1.
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Or two, a week after we didn't have anything to do for three solid months, we were turning out three or four.
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Today there's about 60 of them on our website, so if you go to our website charlestonpiratetour.com and you go down to the pull down the drop down menu where it says Captain's blog, you'll find over 60 of those that's homages history. Some of them are good stories, some of them are kind of funny. We've got.
00:06:34 Speaker 5
Blooper reels I mean, we, I mean cool.
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Trust me, we have plenty of bloopers and so we figured we may as well laugh at ourselves and have some fun with it.
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So we did a couple of those and threw them in there too.
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But two, the craziest things that I've had happened to me on the street, happened in those out in that alley, and the one that I think you may have heard or saw.
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There's a small little step there in the alley.
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It's sort of a stoop and there's a bricked up door there because.
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This building today is the Queen St Theatre.
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And I guess it was a warehouse ages ago like most of those large buildings are in that part of town that will warehouses, and so that was one of the back entrances to this.
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This building and it's been bricked up as long as I can remember and so I mean, one night I was standing there and I was just talking about some.
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You know, general weird things about the alley and showed him a picture that I had that a guy had taken in the alley on one of my tours back in probably 2007.
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And father was standing there talking.
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There was.
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This is pretty good sized group and it.
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Was a lady that had her daughter.
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And I'd say the daughter was maybe 10 or.
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12 years.
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Old and so I wrapped up.
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I said folks were, you know, this is, you know, this was our last stop tonight.
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I wanna thank everybody for coming yada yada and I said if you want me to, I'll get you out of the alley.
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And points you back to where you can get.
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Back to where you where.
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You need to go, I can.
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Give you directions and so as we turn.
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To walk out of the alley, the.
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Lady caught up with me with her daughter and said.
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Uh, my daughter wanted to tell you something 'cause I was watching her during the last few minutes of that while I was there and I could tell she was all of a sudden just captivated by something big smile on her face almost.
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Her eyes lit.
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Up and her big smile on her.
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Face, and almost like she was giggling.
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So I said, OK, I said she wants to tell me something.
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I said which one tell me sweetheart, you know I looked at her and she didn't say anything she just did.
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You're smiling at me.
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And her mom said, well, I'll tell you if she won't, she sees things.
00:08:42 Speaker 5
And I just retorted right back, well, I do too sometimes and she said no, you don't understand.
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She sees dead people.
00:08:50 Speaker 5
I said, OK, I I have come across this before I've heard about this before and I said I've known people that have claimed to be able to do that.
00:08:59 Speaker 5
Communicate with with Debbie.
00:09:01 Speaker 5
Well she said no.
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I'm telling you now.
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Since she was young, I mean real young.
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When she was like oh, just don't start talking, she would ask us sitting around in a room.
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Who is that?
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Over there sitting in.
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The corner and we look honey.
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We don't see anybody and she described something relative.
00:09:18 Speaker 5
But she never met her life.
00:09:21 Speaker 5
And and she would describe them right down to what they were looking like.
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Up to the.
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Point, you know, while they were in the prime of their life.
00:09:29 Speaker 5
And they would go find a picture and they go through photographs, old family photographs.
00:09:33 Speaker 5
It would you see them here?
00:09:35 Speaker 5
Oh yeah, that's him, right?
00:09:36 Speaker 5
There and point.
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Him out in the picture.
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I said, well, it's fascinating, I said, I appreciate you.
00:09:40 Speaker 5
Sharing that with me.
00:09:42 Speaker 5
I said, well, what was it you wanted to tell me tonight and she said I thought you'd like to know why you were standing there talking to us I saw somebody walk through that bricked up door behind you stood there and watched you for a few minutes and they just smiled and shook their head and they just walked down the aisle and disappear.
00:09:57 Speaker 5
I so appreciate you sharing, uh and but the other one that really blows a lot of people's minds and and I could kick myself for not being able to recover this e-mail.
00:10:10 Speaker 5
That the guy sent me the next day after this tour that I had given same place.
00:10:15 Speaker 5
I stand in the same place and there are bright St lights in this alleyway on just lamppost.
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And so it's a well lit alley.
00:10:23 Speaker 5
It's not like there's any shadows and things can work in the shadows of this alley, so.
00:10:29 Speaker 5
But on this particular night I had wrapped up on tour and I was helping working with my friends at Bulldog Tours that weekend, 'cause I worked with them.
00:10:38 Speaker 5
Gosh since 2007 I don't work much with them. Now I've kind of pulled back a lot because I'm frankly I'm just getting old and tired. And since that pandemic hit.
00:10:49 Speaker 5
I've just kind of pulled back from a lot of stuff that I was doing and so.
00:10:54 Speaker 5
On this particular night, I was helping him out three for about 13 years.
00:10:59 Speaker 5
I did their haunted jail tour in the old District, Jail on magazine St and I could keep you, you know, enraptured with stories out of there for two hours.
00:11:07 Speaker 5
Pictures to back them up, but.
00:11:11 Speaker 5
But I was working on the week I was working on the street that weekend and it was a Saturday night, had ramped up and I said well folks, we're done.
00:11:19 Speaker 5
You know I'm going to get us out of the alley and I look at my watch and I said no, we'll just wait a minute, folks, I said, we've got 5 minutes to kill.
00:11:25 Speaker 5
You know our.
00:11:26 Speaker 5
Two are supposed to be over 10. It's 955. Let's just have a little bit of fun.
00:11:30 Speaker 5
So I said I'm just going to throw out some names as a few hotels and bed and breakfast Inns, and they're scattered all over town here.
00:11:37 Speaker 5
There's no way we get to any.
00:11:38 Speaker 5
I'm on Vulcan tour tonight.
00:11:40 Speaker 5
In fact, a lot of minute parts of town that are.
00:11:42 Speaker 5
Off limits to Balkan tours.
00:11:43 Speaker 5
I said I tell you what I'm going to name a few places and if I mention somewhere and if any of you are staying in any of these places.
00:11:50 Speaker 5
Well then let me know and I'll be more than happy to tell you a story about where you gonna spend the night tonight.
00:11:54 Speaker 5
Give you something to think about tonight when you leave.
00:11:57 Speaker 5
So I just rattled off a half dozen different places I could think of off top of my head, and nobody made any noises or anything.
00:12:03 Speaker 5
Nobody looked at me and waved her hands.
00:12:05 Speaker 5
Oh that's neat.
00:12:07 Speaker 5
And then I mentioned the embassy suites on meeting St.
00:12:10 Speaker 5
Well, as soon as I said that I had a couple it was standing really right in front of me and they had two kids, probably about 6-8 years old.
00:12:17 Speaker 5
I don't know.
00:12:18 Speaker 5
So anyway, soon as I said that this lady looked me straight in the face and she just shook her head and said Lord have mercy.
00:12:23 Speaker 5
That's where we're staying.
00:12:24 Speaker 5
I said, well, good man.
00:12:25 Speaker 5
Let me tell you a story about where you gonna spend the night tonight.
00:12:28 Speaker 5
In September in 2003, it was a world famous cardiologist. Her name was Doctor Anna Fletcher and Doctor Fletcher from Brussels, and she was in Charleston at A at a conference at the Medical University of South Carolina.
00:12:43 Speaker 5
And she was staying at the Embassy Suites and she checked out the second night she was there and she never.
00:12:51 Speaker 5
Went back to the hotel.
00:12:52 Speaker 5
And when she got back to Brussels, she told a lot of people what had happened and somebody wrote the story down in the book.
00:12:58 Speaker 5
It's been published.
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It's in a.
00:12:59 Speaker 5
Book I I.
00:13:01 Speaker 5
Think it's in Ed Macy book his ghost story book.
00:13:04 Speaker 5
I think it's in it.
00:13:07 Speaker 5
And she told about what happened.
00:13:09 Speaker 5
Well, she she flew in and I'm sure she had spent a long time on an airplane flying from Brussels.
00:13:15 Speaker 5
When she finally got to town.
00:13:17 Speaker 5
It was sort of.
00:13:17 Speaker 5
Late she got.
00:13:18 Speaker 5
Checked into the hotel she just hired, she grabbed a quick dinner.
00:13:22 Speaker 5
Got back to the hotel.
00:13:24 Speaker 5
Got ready for bed once she got the lights out she said it was so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.
00:13:31 Speaker 5
So she turned on light in the bathroom, which you know a lot of people do that to turn a light in the bathroom, crack the door just enough to leave a.
00:13:39 Speaker 5
Little bit of.
00:13:40 Speaker 5
Light to shine out across the room in case they have to get up in the middle of the night.
00:13:45 Speaker 5
So that's.
00:13:45 Speaker 5
What she did got a.
00:13:46 Speaker 5
Good night's sleep.
00:13:47 Speaker 5
Well she got.
00:13:48 Speaker 5
Up the next day went to the first day of the conference.
00:13:51 Speaker 5
And she said by the end of that conference that day, she said that jet lag.
00:13:54 Speaker 5
Was just kicking me.
00:13:56 Speaker 5
So she said I ran and grabbed a quick dinner, went back to the hotel and all she wanted to do is get.
00:14:00 Speaker 5
Another good.
00:14:01 Speaker 5
Night's sleep, 'cause he just back at the hotel, got ready for bed, turn on the light in the bathroom, cracked the door, crawls into bed, fall, sound asleep.
00:14:10 Speaker 5
Around 3:00 in the morning.
00:14:11 Speaker 5
She just woke up.
00:14:13 Speaker 5
Well, you know she roused it up like a lot of people.
00:14:15 Speaker 5
Doing she just.
00:14:16 Speaker 5
Rolled over trying to go back to sleep.
00:14:18 Speaker 5
But she said, I noticed it was something moved and just off the foot of my bed.
00:14:24
So she said.
00:14:25 Speaker 5
I kind of rolled back and looked out across the the end of the bed into the dark and said suddenly this guy in a Gray uniform stepped right up to the foot of my bed.
00:14:36 Speaker 5
He stepped right out of the.
00:14:37 Speaker 5
Dark and there he was.
00:14:40 Speaker 5
And she said, I sat straight up in bed.
00:14:42 Speaker 5
There's a guy standing at the foot of my bed at 3:00 o'clock in.
00:14:44 Speaker 5
The morning in my bed in my hotel room.
00:14:47 Speaker 5
And she said he leaned over to get a better look at me.
00:14:51 Speaker 5
And when he was leaning over all his life in the bathroom now sort of laid his whole upper torso up.
00:14:57 Speaker 5
And that's when she made a rather startling discovery.
00:15:00 Speaker 5
She said this man is not alive.
00:15:03 Speaker 5
Because it looked like something had blown half this man's head off.
00:15:06 Speaker 5
So she said she screamed and went racing to the door.
00:15:11 Speaker 5
And as she went racing to the door.
00:15:14
She said he.
00:15:14 Speaker 5
Jumped between me and the door and I literally ran through.
00:15:19 Speaker 5
And she got down in the lobby screaming for help.
00:15:22 Speaker 5
Well, somebody came out to see what all the commotion was and all she could tell this member of the night staff I'm not going to stay in this place or something in my room.
00:15:30 Speaker 5
You have to Get Me Out of here.
00:15:31 Speaker 5
She was just hysterical.
00:15:33 Speaker 5
So here's some of the night staff went up to the room.
00:15:36 Speaker 5
She said I never went back in.
00:15:37 Speaker 5
I stood outside the.
00:15:39 Speaker 5
And they're in there poking around, looking around, ma'am, there's nothing here, she said.
00:15:43 Speaker 5
I don't care what you don't see now I know what I did see earlier and I'm not staying in this place.
00:15:49 Speaker 5
So they graciously gathered my things and brought them all to me, my luggage and everything.
00:15:54 Speaker 5
And they took me across the street and set me up in a nice room at.
00:15:58 Speaker 5
The Francis Marion hotel.
00:16:00 Speaker 5
And I always joke and I always joke when I tell this story.
00:16:03 Speaker 5
I said they didn't bother to tell her it was.
00:16:05 Speaker 5
On it.
00:16:05 Speaker 5
Too well.
00:16:06 Speaker 5
Anyway, she said I spent the rest of my night sitting up in that room, just terrified with every light on that I was going to see this man.
00:16:13 Speaker 5
Thank you.
00:16:15 Speaker 5
Well, look at that family and I said I hope you all have a lovely evening there tonight that woman.
00:16:19 Speaker 5
Said we out
00:16:19 Speaker 5
Of there in the morning, I said.
00:16:21 Speaker 5
Ma'am, I'm sorry now.
00:16:22 Speaker 5
I didn't mean to chase you out of your hotel room and her husband started laughing.
00:16:26 Speaker 5
He said.
00:16:26 Speaker 5
Oh no, not you, not chasing us out there.
00:16:28 Speaker 5
We've been there all week.
00:16:29 Speaker 5
Our vacation is over.
00:16:30 Speaker 5
We're going home in.
00:16:31 Speaker 5
The morning I said, well, you ought to be good for one more night.
00:16:35 Speaker 5
Well, this is on a Saturday night.
00:16:37 Speaker 5
Well, I went in and worked on Sunday night. I had a 7:00 o'clock tour. I guess I got there somewhere between 63645 and walked in.
00:16:45 Speaker 5
It was a lady named Tracy that used to work with us there and she was behind the counter.
00:16:50 Speaker 5
She saw me come in and she grabbed this piece of paper and was just waving it at me and she said would you come get this?
00:16:55 Speaker 5
There's a phone number here this.
00:16:57 Speaker 5
Got called, he's all excited.
00:16:58 Speaker 5
Wants to tell you about something he said he was only two.
00:17:00 Speaker 5
Or last night.
00:17:01 Speaker 5
I said OK, so I went back in the office and I dialed this long distance number and the guy answers the phone.
00:17:06 Speaker 5
I said this is Eric Lavender.
00:17:08 Speaker 5
I gave you a tour last.
00:17:09 Speaker 5
Night, and I understand you want me to give you a call.
00:17:11 Speaker 5
And this guy starts life and he said, man, I am so.
00:17:13 Speaker 5
Glad you.
00:17:14 Speaker 5
Called I said we were the family with you last night.
00:17:17 Speaker 5
Staying at the embassy suites.
00:17:19 Speaker 5
I said oh please tell me something didn't chase y'all out of that room.
00:17:22 Speaker 5
He said no no no no.
00:17:23 Speaker 5
We had a wonderful time in.
00:17:24 Speaker 5
Fact we can't wait.
00:17:25 Speaker 5
To come back, he said, but I'm gonna tell you, we had something weird happen and we had to.
00:17:30 Speaker 5
Call and tell you about it.
00:17:31 Speaker 5
He said they got up that morning before daylight packed their car.
00:17:35 Speaker 5
He said we drove all day long.
00:17:38 Speaker 5
He told me over the phone and he sends me an e-mail the next day pretty much verifying everything I'm telling you from this point forward and I then the e-mail got lost in a computer crash tables again.
00:17:51 Speaker 5
'cause this is probably about 15 years ago now.
00:17:54 Speaker 5
So anyway he said so.
00:17:57 Speaker 5
He said we got home a few minutes ago.
00:17:59 Speaker 5
He told me they lived in Tennessee the way he described, but he said if you drew a line between Chattanooga and Nashville somewhere about halfway in between just north of the Alabama State line is where they lived.
00:18:11 Speaker 5
He said we walked in the house while ago.
00:18:12 Speaker 5
We dropped her luggage.
00:18:14 Speaker 5
Long down the road.
00:18:15 Speaker 5
I'm fixing my wife and myself, something to drink.
00:18:18 Speaker 5
We could fix him.
00:18:18 Speaker 5
I'm fixing up some ice water in.
00:18:20 Speaker 5
The sink kids are.
00:18:21 Speaker 5
Getting something to drink out of the refrigerator.
00:18:23 Speaker 5
We just got arrested few minutes before we start unpacking everything he said while I was fixing the water, I noticed there was.
00:18:31 Speaker 5
A message on the answering machine, just one.
00:18:35 Speaker 5
So he said while I was fixing our water, I just.
00:18:37 Speaker 5
Reached over hit the.
00:18:37 Speaker 5
Play button on the answering machine.
00:18:40 Speaker 5
It said as soon as that message started.
00:18:43 Speaker 5
It freaked us out.
00:18:45 Speaker 5
He said.
00:18:45 Speaker 5
It freaked out the.
00:18:46 Speaker 5
Kids so bad they ran to the room.
00:18:48 Speaker 5
He said my.
00:18:48 Speaker 5
Wife just poured her water out and poured herself stiff drink to calm her nerves.
00:18:52 Speaker 5
And said, you've got to hear this message.
00:18:56 Speaker 5
Well, at this point I'm sort of intrigued by it.
00:18:57 Speaker 5
I said, OK, he said you might not believe it.
00:19:00 Speaker 5
I said I don't know, try me.
00:19:02 Speaker 5
Well he laid the telephone by the answering machine.
00:19:06 Speaker 5
And hit the play button.
00:19:07 Speaker 5
This is what immediately came over the telephone.
00:19:10 Speaker 5
Anybody here staying at the Embassy suites on meeting St?
00:19:13 Speaker 5
Oh Lord have mercy, that's where we're staying.
00:19:16 Speaker 5
Well good man let me tell you a story about when you're gonna spend the night tonight, September.
00:19:19 Speaker 5
2003 is the world famous cardiologist. Her name is Doctor Anna Fletcher. She is from Brussels and she's in trains. My voice on his answering machine for the night before we're standing in the alley.
00:19:30 Speaker 5
Now when his play for a few seconds, he said, I think that's fun.
00:19:35 Speaker 5
So we think about that.
00:19:37 Speaker 5
I said, well, I don't know I.
00:19:38 Speaker 5
Said how'd that happen?
00:19:39 Speaker 5
He said, that's why we're freaked out.
00:19:41 Speaker 5
He said you made an announcement last night at the beginning of that tour and we all hated your announcement and this is true.
00:19:47 Speaker 5
This is a long time ago before we had these fancy telephones.
00:19:50 Speaker 5
We've got today.
00:19:52 Speaker 5
This is back around 2010 2011.
00:19:56 Speaker 5
And I made the announcement.
00:19:57 Speaker 5
I said folks go.
00:19:58 Speaker 5
Got your little flip phones with?
00:20:00 Speaker 5
You how about taking out of your pocket?
00:20:01
Flip it open and.
00:20:02 Speaker 5
Flip it off.
00:20:03
I'm not.
00:20:04 Speaker 5
I mean it could.
00:20:04 Speaker 5
Just be kind enough to turn off your phones that way.
00:20:07 Speaker 5
It's not going.
00:20:07 Speaker 5
To ring in the middle of the tour and I'll remind each and everyone of you at the end of this tour to pull out your phones and turn them back on so you don't miss anything.
00:20:16 Speaker 5
He said I pulled out my phone and turned it off and it was in my pocket, turned off.
00:20:20 Speaker 5
I'm standing under a streetlight and everybody around me is I could reach out and touch.
00:20:25 Speaker 5
And it was not a single phone that I saw anywhere in anybody's hand, but either way, that story I told them at their hotel was waiting on them on their aunts machine.
00:20:35 Speaker 5
350 miles away from that alley when they got home, the.
00:20:38 Speaker 5
Next day as a true story.
00:20:41 Speaker 5
You go back to my childhood.
00:20:42 Speaker 5
Well see.
00:20:43 Speaker 5
I was born in Gaffney and.
00:20:46 Speaker 5
And I've been.
00:20:46 Speaker 5
I came down here a long time ago.
00:20:48 Speaker 5
I was a state employee.
00:20:49 Speaker 5
I was a parole officer for 20.
00:20:51 Speaker 5
Years and has a long time ago 'cause I've.
00:20:53 Speaker 5
Been out of.
00:20:53 Speaker 5
That business since 1997 I think.
00:20:56 Speaker 5
But anyway, we always used to just go up to the mountains, you know, drive up the mountains in in the fall to go buy apples.
00:21:03 Speaker 5
That was just a thing, you know.
00:21:05 Speaker 5
We just my mom and dad, my two brothers.
00:21:06 Speaker 5
We piled in the car.
00:21:07 Speaker 5
We drive up in the mountains.
00:21:09 Speaker 5
Go buy apples and drive up there.
00:21:10 Speaker 5
You know the.
00:21:11 Speaker 5
You know drive at Blue Ridge Parkway. You know, just enjoy the sights. The changing leaves and all this kind of stuff. Well, we had gone up there and I was around 910 years old.
00:21:22 Speaker 5
And there was a pull off on one of the roads and there's a valley and there's a range of mountains over there and we pulled over and we got out.
00:21:31 Speaker 5
My dad, you know, he said, I bet you would get a kick out of this and we all walked over and there was a sign that said the Brown mountain lights. There's a there's a range of mountains outside of Morganton, NC.
00:21:44 Speaker 5
It's called the Brown Mountain range and there is this particular mountains.
00:21:48 Speaker 5
It's it's kind of a funky looking thing.
00:21:51 Speaker 5
And the legend is that there were two warring tribes.
00:21:54 Speaker 5
I can't remember if.
00:21:55 Speaker 5
It was the.
00:21:55 Speaker 5
Cherokees and it's what Apache?
00:22:00 Speaker 5
But it was another smaller tribe.
00:22:02 Speaker 5
There were Cherokees and another tribe as the legend goes, got into a heated battle somewhere on that mountain.
00:22:10 Speaker 5
And they were, you know, just dozens and dozens of stilt fatalities in this battle.
00:22:16 Speaker 5
And the legend is the women.
00:22:19 Speaker 5
Went looking for their men.
00:22:22 Speaker 5
From the tribe with torches.
00:22:25 Speaker 5
All up and down the mountain trying to find their bodies.
00:22:30 Speaker 5
And I was standing there just watching and literally I could see what appeared to be torches going up and down that mountain.
00:22:37 Speaker 5
Now there are no roads on this mountain.
00:22:39 Speaker 5
There's no houses on this map.
00:22:41 Speaker 5
And it's just a legend.
00:22:43 Speaker 5
And and then there's other versions of the story.
00:22:46 Speaker 5
Is that what they are?
00:22:46 Speaker 5
The lost child that people were looking for with torches?
00:22:50 Speaker 5
I mean, there's all kind of crazy stories about it, but that's the one that seems to be the most plausible that has more of a.
00:22:56 Speaker 5
I guess you might say based in more history, but either way I actually saw those.
00:23:01 Speaker 5
Lights going up, bouncing around the side of that mountain.
00:23:05 Speaker 5
And there's no explanation for it.
00:23:07 Speaker 5
I mean, there's a lot of people have speculated what it could be scientifically, but I don't think anybody ever agreed on any of it, but.
00:23:14 Speaker 5
But I was hooked.
00:23:16 Speaker 5
And ever since then, growing up.
00:23:18 Speaker 5
I mean people.
00:23:19 Speaker 5
When I was growing up kids, you know my buddies and say, well, you know I'm reading a new Batman comic book or one of these other comic books.
00:23:26 Speaker 5
So what do you do?
00:23:27 Speaker 5
You read any comic books this week?
00:23:28 Speaker 5
I said, no, I don't read comic books.
00:23:31 Speaker 5
I read Ghost Story books and I and I and I just grew up that way.
00:23:35 Speaker 5
One of the very first things I did when I relocated.
00:23:41 Speaker 5
This is way a long time ago before there were organized tour companies once a year around late October, met up mid to late October.
00:23:51 Speaker 5
I think it was the Charleston Preservation Society or the Historical Society would do ghost tours.
00:23:59 Speaker 5
They would just do a ghost tour and I mean they went everywhere.
00:24:02 Speaker 5
I mean there was no limitations or no regulations or anything and man it was A and I was one of the very first things I did when I got down here because I.
00:24:11 Speaker 5
Knew the haunted history of Charleston.
00:24:14 Speaker 5
Now I don't even know.
00:24:15 Speaker 5
The only story I remember them telling.
00:24:18 Speaker 5
I remember they told the story of the first time I heard the story of Lavinia Fisher, who who goes has to jail and I can verify that 'cause she used to follow me around when I worked in that jail, I got pictures of her and.
00:24:34 Speaker 5
But of course they told the Outlander story that has absolutely no basis in truth, that she was a serial killer.
00:24:40 Speaker 5
She never killed anybody.
00:24:42 Speaker 5
She never kill anybody.
00:24:43
Give me.
00:24:43 Speaker 5
She was.
00:24:44 Speaker 5
She and her husband were executed for Hwy robbery, which really and truly there's such thin evidence that they actually committed the crime.
00:24:53 Speaker 5
I doubt they would be convicted today, but either way it's neither here nor there.
00:24:57 Speaker 5
But but after that you know I just I just started was way too busy to try.
00:25:01 Speaker 5
To get.
00:25:02 Speaker 5
More involved with with tour stuff and then tour companies began to pop up when I got out of law enforcement.
00:25:10 Speaker 5
I said, well, I need to do something I'm too young.
00:25:12 Speaker 5
To retire, so I became a tour guide.
00:25:15 Speaker 5
That was in 2007. I had done some other odds and ends and decided I want to do something a little more fun.
00:25:22 Speaker 5
And you know, I went to work at Bulldog and John Laverne hired me.
00:25:28 Speaker 5
And I think we might have had when I got when I went to work with him.
00:25:31 Speaker 5
There might have been 15101520 guys at the most. I think he's probably got 60 or 70.
00:25:36 Speaker 5
Guys now, but of course he's branched out and there's a lot more variety of things, but I was just doing strictly ghost tours and then I started getting into more historical things and and then I started doing pirate stuff and started really doing a lot.
00:25:50 Speaker 5
You know extensive research and what actually took place with pirates, and you know just kind of kicking Hollywood the curb about things that happened around here with pirate stuff, but that's kind of my background.
00:26:02 Speaker 5
If you will process has got some really strange history, you know it really does got some dark history and some.
00:26:09 Speaker 5
Ugly history and and I guess.
00:26:13 Speaker 5
If you you know if you believe in the paranormal stuff then I can I.
00:26:20 Speaker 5
I think it's just.
00:26:21 Speaker 5
It just lends itself to that.
00:26:23 Speaker 5
Based on some of his dark history, some.
00:26:25 Speaker 5
Of his quirky
00:26:26 Speaker 5
History that it just sort of lends itself to that and a lot of people have, you know, have had some horrible ways.
00:26:34 Speaker 5
Going I mean.
00:26:35 Speaker 5
Lord, listen, we've had earthquakes fired, wars, hurricanes, tornadoes.
00:26:42 Speaker 5
I mean, there's a lot of opportunity for people to have lost their lives in some horrible, tragic way.
00:26:48 Speaker 5
And I mean, if you ever go through graveyards or cemeteries.
00:26:53 Speaker 5
It's kind of sometimes easy to spot some of these deaths that were really somebody wasn't really prepared for that death.
00:27:01 Speaker 5
If you ever notice when you've gone through a cemetery or graveyard, you might see a grave marker that looks like a a Corinthian column like you would see holding up a big porch.
00:27:12 Speaker 5
But if you look at the.
00:27:12 Speaker 5
Top of it is broken and there's a rehanging on it that is a symbol of somebody who died unexpectedly when they shouldn't have.
00:27:23 Speaker 5
When our daughter she's.
00:27:24 Speaker 5
23 Now when she was three years old, my wife Mom passed.
00:27:30 Speaker 5
And so she might have been four.
00:27:32 Speaker 5
I can't really spend a long time ago.
00:27:34 Speaker 5
Now when you're my age, you.
00:27:35 Speaker 5
Forget these things she.
00:27:37 Speaker 5
Was three or four years old when she passed away.
00:27:40 Speaker 5
It was the first time she'd ever experienced.
00:27:43 Speaker 5
A death of someone that close.
00:27:45 Speaker 5
But she was really, really, you know, resilient with it.
00:27:48 Speaker 5
I mean she was good 'cause she knew that she was.
00:27:50 Speaker 5
She had.
00:27:51 Speaker 5
Not been in best of health, but anyway.
00:27:55 Speaker 5
Her father that happened well.
00:27:59 Speaker 5
She she got through it pretty well.
00:28:01 Speaker 5
Well her.
00:28:02 Speaker 5
Birthday is in May and the following May.
00:28:05 Speaker 5
After her pass.
00:28:06 Speaker 5
Thing all she wanted for her birthday was one of.
00:28:09 Speaker 5
These big wooden swing sets.
00:28:13 Speaker 5
Yeah, I'm sure you've seen these things come.
00:28:15 Speaker 5
In fact, there's companies that's just specialize in those things.
00:28:19 Speaker 5
Well, I found one.
00:28:20 Speaker 5
I think I bought it at Lowe's.
00:28:22 Speaker 5
I had to order it and I had to rent A truck to go.
00:28:25 Speaker 5
Get the thing.
00:28:26 Speaker 5
It must have been about 100 and 5200 pieces and about 9.
00:28:29 Speaker 5
1000 screws so.
00:28:33 Speaker 5
So I got it and and I and I got the backyard where I was going to build it.
00:28:37 Speaker 5
Just pristine, you know, because one of the things that I wanted to make sure of where I was putting it.
00:28:43 Speaker 5
'cause we live on the Isle of Palms.
00:28:45 Speaker 5
Our yard, you know, gets in, especially in the fall.
00:28:51 Speaker 5
That's when the the sand spurs come up in late August and early fall.
00:28:56 Speaker 5
And if you've ever experienced him, you will never forget your first time.
00:28:59 Speaker 5
Believe me, so I want to make sure all these were out of there and so I put down this pre-emergent stuff that kills them off and I just really groomed the lawn and I started building this thing.
00:29:10 Speaker 5
Well, it took me weeks to build it because.
00:29:13 Speaker 5
That's when my wife and I were both working in radio.
00:29:16 Speaker 5
I was working in advertising sales and so was she and we both worked for a radio station group HERE in town.
00:29:22 Speaker 5
And so I'd work on it in the evenings.
00:29:25 Speaker 5
When I get off work.
00:29:27 Speaker 5
Well, you know Ariel she come out.
00:29:29 Speaker 5
Is it ready yet?
00:29:30 Speaker 5
Is rent no sweetheart, I'll let you know when it's done.
00:29:32 Speaker 5
I'll let you know when it's done and this is your birthday present.
00:29:35 Speaker 5
It's not your birthday yet.
00:29:37 Speaker 5
Well, I got it finished.
00:29:39 Speaker 5
Probably I don't know.
00:29:41 Speaker 5
A week week.
00:29:42 Speaker 5
Before her birthday.
00:29:44 Speaker 5
And her birthday was on a Saturday that year.
00:29:48 Speaker 5
I finished it up.
00:29:50 Speaker 5
And I kept telling her what ready for to play.
00:29:52 Speaker 5
On it I said no, not quite.
00:29:54 Speaker 5
Sure gotta do more little more tightening on.
00:29:56 Speaker 5
These screws and whatnot.
00:29:59 Speaker 5
Well, but when I was done I was out there 1 evening I.
00:30:02 Speaker 5
Was just making.
00:30:03 Speaker 5
Sure that the yard was still good around it.
00:30:06 Speaker 5
'cause I didn't want to get into all those stickers and get him in her shoes and her socks and in her feet and all that their hands if she.
00:30:12 Speaker 5
Fell out swing.
00:30:14 Speaker 5
Well, I noticed that there was something growing out of the.
00:30:16 Speaker 5
Well, and I didn't.
00:30:18 Speaker 5
I couldn't figure out what it was.
00:30:20 Speaker 5
It's about as big around as my thumb and it was about 3 inches out of the ground.
00:30:24 Speaker 5
Oh well, that's interesting.
00:30:25 Speaker 5
What where was this?
00:30:27 Speaker 5
I just lasted long, didn't pay any attention 'cause I knew.
00:30:29 Speaker 5
When anything was going to hurt nothing.
00:30:31 Speaker 5
Well, you know a couple of days later I went back out there just to kind of look around because I wanted.
00:30:36 Speaker 5
I keep looking like I was working on it, 'cause I didn't want her on it till it was her birthday.
00:30:41 Speaker 5
Well this thing that.
00:30:42 Speaker 5
I saw was now almost 2 feet high.
00:30:45 Speaker 5
It was like a big dark green.
00:30:49 Speaker 5
Oh, I thought it was bamboo, but it wasn't because.
00:30:52 Speaker 5
It was smooth.
00:30:53 Speaker 5
Oh, this is weird.
00:30:54 Speaker 5
I don't know what this thing is and it just kept growing well, I didn't go back in the yard again for a couple three more days and then it was.
00:31:02 Speaker 5
Her birthday and.
00:31:03 Speaker 5
I told her I got her out.
00:31:04 Speaker 5
Of bed at my.
00:31:05 Speaker 5
Sabrina and I got her up.
00:31:06 Speaker 5
I said, sweetie, it's your birthday and your swing set.
00:31:10 Speaker 5
Outback is done.
00:31:11 Speaker 5
You can go play on it and she went.
00:31:13 Speaker 5
Ripping through the house and out the back door, and I told Sabrina, said, well, let's go out there.
00:31:18 Speaker 5
She's let's, let's see what she likes.
00:31:20 Speaker 5
So we went out there.
00:31:22 Speaker 5
And she was on this little swing thing, and back and forth, back and forth.
00:31:28 Speaker 5
And now this thing it was growing out of the ground is.
00:31:31 Speaker 5
Almost 3 feet tall.
00:31:33 Speaker 5
It is a sunflower, bigger than both of my hands put together, and I said this is this is weird.
00:31:42 Speaker 5
And Sabrina said, did you plant that I said, no, it just came up.
00:31:46 Speaker 5
I've never seen a sunflower on this island and I've been out here a long time.
00:31:51 Speaker 5
I've never seen the sunflower out here.
00:31:54 Speaker 5
And some flowers you know you gotta plant them.
00:31:58 Speaker 5
Here it was.
00:32:00 Speaker 5
And so we're both standing.
00:32:02 Speaker 5
Just amazed at this beautiful sunflower growing up right beside the swing set.
00:32:06 Speaker 5
And the blossom was facing the swing set.
00:32:11 Speaker 5
And while we were just sitting there looking at and talking Ariel, you know, just run out.
00:32:16 Speaker 5
She just said, oh, isn't that pretty?
00:32:19 Speaker 5
Those were grannies favorite flowers.
00:32:22 Speaker 5
Her house she used to have artificial sunflowers all over that house.
00:32:27 Speaker 5
She would have envases she had him in little little containers, and I mean big tall artificial sunflowers area used to get out and play with them and they would March around the house with him that sunflower stood beside that swing set.
00:32:42 Speaker 5
For the entire summer.
00:32:45 Speaker 5
And it stayed there.
00:32:48 Speaker 5
And as as soon as summer came.
00:32:50 Speaker 5
To a close.
00:32:51 Speaker 5
It she was getting ready to start, you know, 5 year old preschool or 4 year old, four or five year old preschool, whatever it was.
00:32:58 Speaker 5
And so you know she wasn't going to be able to get out there.
00:33:02 Speaker 5
And play like she was every day on it.
00:33:04 Speaker 5
But that sunflower stood there every day that she played on that swing set for the entire summer.
00:33:09 Speaker 5
And when she got into, she started preschool.
00:33:13 Speaker 5
It wilted and died.
00:33:15 Speaker 5
And not 1 sunflower ever grew back in that spot.
00:33:22 Speaker 3
Well, first of all, Eric is just an incredible storyteller.
00:33:26 Speaker 3
I mean, you can just tell that he is so good at his job and giving towards or Charleston.
00:33:32 Speaker 4
But I just.
00:33:32 Speaker 3
Love hearing these experiences that he's had himself on these tours and even just the personal story with his daughter and the sunflower.
00:33:42 Speaker 3
I mean, as he said, you know.
00:33:43 Speaker 3
It's just.
00:33:44 Speaker 3
It's touching they aren't scary, but they're kind of like touching stories.
00:33:49 Speaker 4
I agree, I love though how you know we've gone on so many of these tours and stuff but to hear set like we haven't been as lucky to have experiences.
00:34:00 Speaker 4
So to hear you know, a few actual experiences that people have had.
00:34:05 Speaker 4
It's just really neat, and I mean the story about the voicemail, like it gave me chills.
00:34:11 Speaker 4
It kind of freaked me out, but I mean, I know people would say like, well, maybe they accidentally called their house or whatever.
00:34:18 Speaker 4
But like, no, you know if you accidentally do the.
00:34:20 Speaker 4
Or not, and it's just a.
00:34:23 Speaker 4
That's a really neat story, and then the one yet like you said with the sunflower.
00:34:26 Speaker 4
I mean, how sweet is that and how you know almost it just brings you some peace to kind of even.
00:34:33
If even if it's a.
00:34:34 Speaker 4
Instantly we see things exactly, even if it's a coincidence.
00:34:37 Speaker 4
It brings you peace and I think I think there's nothing wrong with that.
00:34:42 Speaker 3
Yeah no I I love that so much.
00:34:44 Speaker 3
It reminds me of you know like how people say they see Cardinals or red birds and it reminds them of a family member and they see it as them like visiting the.
00:34:54 Speaker 3
And you know, I don't.
00:34:57 Speaker 3
I don't care what you think you know if that's something that brings you Peace of Mind about you know what happened to your loved one and then being gone I mean that's just so touching and personal and.
00:35:10 Speaker 3
I don't know, I just love it like it warms my heart kinda, you know, and I think it's just a great example of not everything.
00:35:17 Speaker 3
Paranormal has to be spooky either.
00:35:20 Speaker 4
Exactly, and I think I tend to like that kind of spiritual paranormal thing better than the the spooky stuff, but.
00:35:29 Speaker 4
You know, I mean.
00:35:31 Speaker 3
Then they're like evil, demonic, scary ghosts, right?
00:35:35 Speaker 4
As I sit here and look, I'm we're on like a Skype call and it's dark behind me and I'm like what if I see something behind me?
00:35:45 Speaker 4
But to be completely off topic, something that brings me peace is how about this gamecock statline?
00:35:50 Speaker 3
Wow, I I really haven't.
00:35:53 Speaker 3
Dwelled on it a lot because.
00:35:54 Speaker 3
I'm still so shocked.
00:35:56 Speaker 3
That we won.
00:35:59 Speaker 4
Totally off topic, but of course it if you've listened to our podcast.
00:36:03 Speaker 4
Me and Caitlin both went to the University of South Carolina and when we went there, we were very good at football and I I always say it's because we were there because as soon as we left we were very bad.
00:36:15 Speaker 4
So to see our Gamecocks kind of beating a few.
00:36:19 Speaker 4
Top tier teams.
00:36:20 Speaker 4
It definitely warms the soul and brings peace.
00:36:24 Speaker 3
No, that was a great Thanksgiving blessing.
00:36:27 Speaker 3
I don't.
00:36:28 Speaker 3
I don't care about being sick or any of that through it that really made it great.
00:36:34 Speaker 4
Anytime you can see the Clemson Tigers lose, it's a.
00:36:38 Speaker 4
It's a good day for me.
00:36:40 Speaker 3
Not to Outkast or Clemson fan listeners here, but no Gamecocks, sorry.
00:36:47 Speaker 4
And if you have a story that you'd like to share with us, or you can share with us your favorite football team, uhm, you can e-mail us at the unrestpodcast@gmail.com.
00:36:58 Speaker 3
Or I guess what we are on.
00:37:00 Speaker 3
Social media just.
00:37:01 Speaker 3
Like everyone else in the world, we're on Facebook.
00:37:03 Speaker 3
We're on Twitter or on Tik T.O.K.
00:37:05 Speaker 3
Even Instagram so follow us in all of those because we like to do fun things.
00:37:10 Speaker 3
And we like for you to join in.
00:37:13 Speaker 3
And you can also join our Facebook group if you haven't already.
00:37:17 Speaker 3
But until next time.
00:37:18 Speaker 4
I even did a read.
00:37:19 Speaker 4
It, but I don't know how to do it.
00:37:22 Speaker 3
Maybe we're not super active on Reddit or Twitter.
00:37:23 Speaker 4
Until next time.
00:37:27 Speaker 3
But until next time till next time.
00:37:28 Speaker 4
And in.
00:37:31 Speaker 3
Unrest in peace.
