2025 Halloween Special

New stories intermingled with remastered stories and several poems read by Brian Prime. This episode is a gift to all autumnal souls who love Halloween. Please enjoy!

For more information about Ritual Reverb visit https://ritualreverb.com/

For more information about ESA visit https://esangp.bandcamp.com/

For more information about Ginger Khan visit https://www.instagram.com/ginger_khan_/

For more information about Mari Kattman visit https://marikattman.bandcamp.com/

Poems:

"The Haunted House" by Felicia Dorothea Hemens

"Haunted Houses" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Ghosts" by Elizabeth Jennings

"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

Void Signal Intro/Outro by Processor. 

Ambient soundtrack for this episode by Skull Cultist.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:39

Hello again, and welcome to Void Signal. This is the Halloween special, and it's gonna be a mixture of a couple of new stories with a couple of remastered older stories, and then a couple of poems read by yours truly, along with a reading of The Raven. So I hope that you enjoy it and that your Halloween is enhanced because of it somehow. I wanted to say a few words if I could, really quick, about the stories themselves. While I'm a skeptic myself, I've also experienced some things in my life that were extraordinarily strange. Events that left such an impression on me that I heard the stories of others with renewed empathy. I'm not here to tell you what to believe. These stories are the experiences of those who shared them. I hope you enjoy them and that you have a good time. My gratitude to all contributors. Our first story is by Vara of Ritual Reverb. I met Vara after becoming involved in Glomfest and had the pleasure of working with her, and she's a clever, knowledgeable, and quick-witted person. Here's Vara's story.

SPEAKER_02: 1:47

Hi, I'm Vara Pappas, co-founder of Ritual Reverb, a creative agency for all things music. If you caught Glomefest, you've already seen my work. I named the festival, built the brand, designed the merch, drove the campaigns, designed the website, and ran the socials. The whole identity was crafted by us. If you dug that vibe and you're looking for visual support on your next album or promotion, look us up on ritualreverb.com. Okay, so Brian asked if I had any ghost stories, and he had no clue what he was in for. First, usually comes the question: do I believe in ghosts? Honestly, even after all that I've seen and experienced, I can't give a definitive answer on that. What I can say is there are things that happen that current science can't explain. I can also say from experience that these things can and will react to our energy and how we deal with those situations. So, ever since I was a kid, strange things happened to me. My earliest memory of this was in the house that I grew up in in Virginia Beach. It wasn't a very old house. It was a two-story that was built in the late 70s or the early 80s. When we moved in, it still had all the 70s vibes: wood-paneled walls, shag carpeting, sickly wallpaper patterns in brown, orange, and green. My mom did her best to brighten it up with fresh wallpaper and linoleum with a more neutral palette. The first thing that happened in that house that really shook me was a voice in my bedroom. I'd hear a little girl screaming for help all the time. Sometimes it sounded like it was coming from the air ducts, and the vent in my room was right next to my bed. I pressed my ear against it, straining to hear the words, but they were always garbled. I could just tell they were desperate cries for help. And then the books started. I loved reading, so my room had a big bookshelf. More and more books would fly off the shelf and hit me, usually in my head. And I do mean fly completely across the room. I got really fed up at one point and I stared down the shelf and dared it. I watched as a book inched towards the edge. I narrowed my eyes and said out loud, don't you dare. And right then it launched itself across the room. That was the first time I bolted out of there. Part of me wondered if I was somehow causing it. My mom always brushed things off as tricks of the mind, so I thought maybe if it's my mind, I can control it. I'd sit there staring at my alarm clock for hours, trying to move it just a centimeter with my mind. But nothing ever happened. Meanwhile, every night when the lights went out, I'd see millions of points of light swirling across the dark, moving in patterns like birds when they migrate in swarms. I had asked my mom about it, and she said it must be how eyes adjust in the dark. And I believed her because it was the only thing I could remember every time the lights went out. The final straw came when I was a teenager. By then I had a three-disc CD player on that same bookshelf. One night the tray slid open on its own. The changer lifted and began to spin. I told myself it was a glitch. The second time it happened, I was listening to a CD and the drawer just slid out, carousel spinning again. I freaked out and hit the power button, and it stopped. The drawer slid itself back in. But the third time, I was sitting in the room minding my own business when the tray started opening and closing, the disc carousel spinning endlessly. I couldn't take it. I ran up and unplugged it from the wall, and it didn't stop. It kept going. Watching the drawer open and close, the CD carousel lift and spin, it felt like it went on forever. I could feel panic creeping across my face, and I fled the room. After moving away from that house in Virginia Beach, I didn't think much about what happened there. I wrote it off as childhood imagination. People say kids are closer to past lives or alternate dimensions, and I figured maybe that explained it. Then I moved to Savannah, Georgia for college. Like most new college students, I was moving into the dorms. My first day there, the seniors, who were resident advisors or RAs, told us that not only was the city extremely haunted, but so was the dorm. I laughed them off in disbelief. I thought, surely, they were merely trying to scare the freshmen. The dorm was a retired hotel, originally built in the 1960s, and is currently called Oglethorpe House, though the students lovingly named it O House. Savannah is unlike anywhere else in the United States. Its historic architecture has been preserved by the Historic Preservation Society tied to the art college. Walking through the downtown feels like stepping back into the 17 and 1800s. The city is dripping with southern Gothic charm, the kind New Orleans tries to claim but can't even match. Its history is as colorful as it is grim. During the American Revolutionary War, the city had become the southernmost port in the country, which led to it being a prosperous town into the 19th century. However, the 19th century brought much hardship, not only through the Civil War, but through the spread of yellow fever. It hit the town in three major waves from 1820 to 1876, with a combined death toll of nearly 3,000. Living there, I heard many ghost tales and had many hair-raising experiences. But the Piste de Resistance happened at O house. The wildest thing that ever happened to me there started one night when I was just trying to get some rest. My roommate loved entertaining constantly, and I hadn't had quiet in days. I finally asked her to take her friends out for the evening, and she agreed, except instead of leaving, she and her trio sat up on the balcony right outside our window, drinking and laughing. It was noise, but at least the room was mine. I lay in the dark, the blinds pulled tight, just a sliver of light leaking in from outside. I stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep. That's when I noticed a small circle of light on the ceiling. Perfectly round. It wasn't from the window, the angle was wrong. The light didn't seem to touch anything. At first I thought maybe it was just a reflection from a watch or something shiny, but then it began to grow slowly at first. Then larger and larger. By the time it had spread five feet across the ceiling, my chest was tight and I had no explanation. And as I'm starting to panic and fight for air, suddenly the entire room lights up. Blindingly, shatteringly blinding light. The kind of light people describe when they talk about God. It burned my retinas, and then it was gone in an instant. Darkness. Only the weak streaks through the blinds remained. I leapt out of bed, convinced my roommate and her friends outside had had to have seen that. I threw open the door and I asked in shock, Did you guys see the light? They stared back at me blankly. What are you talking about? They retorted as they shook their heads, confused. Before I could argue with them, a scream split across the other side of the balcony. Someone ran down the hall and tore down the stairs in an absolute panic. Later I found out who was tearing down those stairs. They'd been in a friend's room where a group was, and cliche as it sounds, they were playing with a Ouija board. They all swore the marker moved on its own when no one was touching it. But that wasn't what sent my neighbors screaming. They'd gone next door to their room looking for a rational explanation with the Ouija board, thinking somebody was pranking them. They opened the door to find an empty room. Empty. Except for the silhouette of a man standing against the wall with his hands pressed to it. That was the sight that sent them running. And the timing? It was the exact moment my room filled with that blinding light. I had so many experiences at Ohouse. Sometimes I'd hear babies crying, other times the unmistakable sound of marbles rolling across the floor. But everyone in the building would hear taps. The story the students gave her was that she was a prostitute back when the dorm was still a hotel. Her presence gave itself away by the sharp stiletto sound of heels clicking across the ceiling above your head. This could even be heard on the top floor. Hence her name, taps. I didn't take her seriously until one night living with a new roommate. My roommate felt tormented hearing taps pace around every night, the heels striking right over our heads, and I tried to reassure her. I tried to tell her it was probably girls sneaking into the boys' room upstairs. One night the sound was relentless, my roommate was shaking, and so I convinced her we should go upstairs and settle this once and for all. We found the room directly above ours, knocked, and a guy answered with a soda in his hand. His friends were sitting behind him cross-legged on a large carpet, playing video games. The first thing I noticed was the carpet, thick, wall to wall. There was no way high heels could have made those sounds through it. As I stood there staring at the carpet, trying to make sense of it, my roommate turned pale and bolted down the hall in tears. I just stood there with the weight of it sinking in. There was no earthly reason we should have heard heels above our heads. After Savannah, I had a long stretch of quiet years, no encounters at all while I lived in California. But then I moved to Texas, and that changed. I ended up in a small apartment complex that I shared with my best friend. He lived in a two-story on one end, and I had a one-bedroom on the opposite end. At first glance, it seemed like a sweet little place. It had a garden out front, a fenced backyard. I dreamed it might be my first real home, maybe even where I'd finally get a dog. But the apartment itself felt cursed. Sure, it had the usual apartment curses. Hearing every word and every footstep from the upstairs neighbor. But then there were the not so normal ones. Like a plague of roaches pouring from the air ducts, or waking up to find trails of blood streaks on the walls left behind from ticks crawling up them. Every so often, I'd see what people call a sleep paralysis demon. A shadowy silhouette of a man in an old-fashioned cowboy hat. He was always in the doorway of my bedroom, and only when I was falling asleep or waking up, I told myself it was just my imagination. Until one night, all of that changed. Thanks to what seemed like a harmless date. To preserve his identity, I'll call him Joe. We'd met through a dating app. After a few normal dates, he came back to my place. We didn't hook up, nothing like that. It was innocent. We just liked spending time together. That night we were lying in bed talking, sharing stories until we both got tired. We rolled over to sleep, and that's when I saw him. The shadow man standing in my doorway. I closed my eyes, hoping he'd go away. But when I opened them again, I saw him charge at me and split into two. One half rushed straight at me, the other toward Joe. Suddenly I was being strangled by darkness. Not metaphorically, literally. I couldn't breathe. I thrashed against it, terrified, trying to fight him off. I put my hands around what seemed to be hands around my neck, and then he was gone. I turned toward Joe to find he was convulsing. His body jerked, gasping for air like he was seizing. I grabbed the blanket, wrapped him tightly to keep him safe, and held on until finally he took one massive gulp of air and went limp. He was asleep. I sat there shaking, not understanding what had happened. The next morning, as I walked into his truck, Joe stopped me. He said, Can we talk about what happened last night? My stomach dropped. I asked him what he meant, and he retold the exact same story. He'd seen the man in the doorway, watched him split into two, and then remembered nothing except being strangled by Shadow. That was the first time I ever experienced validation for one of my experiences. I brought him back inside, thinking maybe we could find some rational explanation online. While I grabbed my iPad, Joe dropped to his knees and started praying. I'd never been religious, so I didn't know what to do. I started Googling sleep paralysis, shadow people, but my results weren't about ghosts or tricks of the mind. Over and over, there was only one word that showed up in every search result: demons. I didn't know what to believe. It felt like a storybook answer, and yet what else explained it? Joe prayed and I read. And I thought back on everything. The voices in Virginia, the lights in Savannah, the footsteps in Ohhouse. And I just thought, whatever this is, it's gotta go. So I tried every solution. I even found a priest to cleanse my apartment. I went through rituals, I accepted Jesus, sat through teachings, learned every method I could to banish it. And in the end, of course, I packed my bags and left that cursed apartment. I can't tell you if it was ghosts, demons, alternate dimensions, or a glitch in the matrix. I will likely never know. What I do know is choosing to embrace good and rejecting whatever darkness had attached itself to me physically and energetically worked. Since then, I've walked through York, one of the most haunted cities in the world, and into centuries-old ruins across Europe, and I've been untouched. No shadows, no voices, no light shows, just history and the lives that came before us. And honestly, that's how I like living my life. Full of stories, but without the fingerprints of something that doesn't belong.

SPEAKER_04: 19:07

Our next tale comes from Jamie Blacker of ESA or Electronic Substance Abuse. Jamie has been a friend of mine for some time, and his music has soundtracked countless hours for me over the last 20 years. Here's Jamie's stories, including a brand new one at the end.

SPEAKER_00: 19:27

Hi, this is Jamie from ESA, and I guess I'm gonna tell you the story of where I grew up. Um I'm speaking to you from a studio in West Yorkshire right now, which is near a town called Huddersfield, um uh which is where I was born. And we moved as a family when I was around about 18 months old to uh a small town called Howden. Now Howden is not known for anything in particular other than the fact that it has a disproportionately large uh minster which you can find online, Howden Minster. I think it was uh I think it dates back to like 1100s. I don't know much about the Minster other than um it had a couple of fires, which when I was a kid I was almost sure that I heard a story that a circus came to town and the church didn't want them there. So the circus people uh burnt the church half down. Whether that's something I've just made up, I don't know. But it definitely had a couple of fires. So it was always kind of like in repair mode, right? Um now we moved to a house that was called Five Church Side, which um was as the name suggests directly the side of the church. And the proximity of the house to the church was probably about ten to twelve feet, maybe a maybe a little wider. Um the side door of the church. So all that row of houses, uh including mine, was basically built on well, you can imagine consecrated ground. You know, it's all there's gonna have been, you know, users burial area for, you know, at some point between the eleven hundreds and you know when we moved in, which is like I guess nineteen eighty-two. God, that sounds old. So Five Church Side was uh a big townhouse. Um it used to be an inn. Um I believe that was in eighteen forty-nine. Uh as per my update discussion with my parents yesterday, just to get my details right. So it probably dates back prior to that, but it was definitely an inn uh at 1849 and then uses a townhouse after, maybe before as well. So I don't really have a lot of memories of that house that don't involve the knowledge that it was haunted or that there was just something really weird in that house. There was always an accompaniment to our family. Um so I'm gonna go through uh a list of the kind of experiences that I had, my parents had, my brother had. Um and I may I do apologize because I may flit around in a timeline because as my discussion with my parents about this last night, um, it's really difficult to remember when things happened in the timeline of living there. We lived there for 17 years, I believe, maybe sixteen years. Um but I think I was around about eighteen when I moved out. So around about sixteen, sixteen years. Um so I do apologize if I kind of like flit back and forth. Now the early days, uh living in the house, I don't remember a great deal because I was very young. Um so a lot of the early stuff is gonna just be uh experiences that my parents have told me about. One of which being that I would basically sit in the middle of the room talking to someone. Um when my parents would ask who am I talking to, I'd be like, you know, the old woman or the old man. Definitely not a Steve who's five years old who plays catch from down the road or anything like that. Um one of my earliest experiences um of anything kind of like weird was basically being laid in bed and hearing the piano tinkle downstairs in the study. Um it was then moved to the green room later on. That's not backstage, it's just it was a green room, right? Um but I would be in bed, trying to get sleep, and you know, you'd hear the piano tinkling away. You know, not playing back or anything, but just a couple of notes, and you'd be like, Okay, here it goes. No, I don't know if the experiences were connected, but I also remember hearing um what sounded like somebody ascending the stairs. Um, and then a few minutes later I would hear someone breathing next to me. Now, I remember the breathing feeling like it was an old man. That's the character that I associated with. Um whoever was stood next to me. It felt kind of old, um not threatening, but not particularly nice and a little bit unhealthy. And at the time, and I do I do remember this kind of brain this kind of function of thinking I I was sh I was shitting myself. Uh, but also thinking I'm just gonna get through it. Because there's nothing I can do. This is where I live. Like th this is the only place I've known, right, from being young. So you just gotta get through it. So yeah, there'd be um this breathing going on and then, you know, it would just slowly disappear, and I could finally get to sleep. In that bedroom, there was always um a kind of a projection on the wall that was a projection made out from the street lamp outside, which was probably I don't know, reflecting something from the minster, but there was always a screaming face on the wall. Every night for eighteen years. Uh sorry, sixteen years. Now that's very subjective. You know, you can make, you know, p faces out of anything if you try hard enough. Um but that's uh just something I always remember. Just a screaming face, long narrow mouth, and that was my good night image. Um I'm just gonna walk you through some of the experiences that my parents had. Maybe I was too young to have been around unconscious through all this, but um they were in bed one night in their bedroom and they would hear a baby crying, and my dad got up to find where this baby is and just couldn't find it anywhere. Walked around the whole house, walked around outside, could still hear it when he was outside. And then come back in and you're looking for all the cupboards and wardrobes and all the little like uh hideaway places you get in those old townhouses, and there were a lot of little hideaway places, and it was weird. Um, but couldn't find this crying baby. And then obviously that just disappeared. Um I'm trying to work up in like severity and extremity, like the impact of experiences a little bit. Um, but if I don't quite manage that, I I do apologize. Um couple of other things. Uh we in the living room we would have a draft come in through the through the room at like ten o'clock every night. Uh sorry, not every night, but it would be, you know, at the same time. You know, every few days you get a draft and the curtains moved. And on one occasion we had a bible box in front of the window, the main window, and uh that slowly opened up. Uh from a dad's portrayal of it, he just thought it must have been like one of our cats inside this b Bible box, but um there was nothing in there that he slowly closed again. Like the draft thing you can kinda kind of explain. Right, maybe there's an explanation there, but um like a bible box opening and closing very very slowly is um probably not as explainable. Now, this happened in a living room, and this was uh the location of probably the most threatening experience, and it happened to my dad. And by the way, just as a caveat, my dad is uh is a really kind of cynical person. He's an atheist. Yeah, most of the experiences did happen to my dad. Um my mom not as much, even though she's much more open and I guess anxious and a a worrisome person. Um but a lot of this happened to my dad, and I always felt like it was maybe either picking on him or uh trying to like communicate with him as like the ruler of the household. I don't know. Um but uh this particular experience, my mum was ill with like a mild flu or a bad cold or whatever upstairs, and my dad came down to living room to sleep, ill on the couch, and he woke up to have two hands round his neck, applying pressure, uh basically feeling like he was being strangled. Obviously, you know, waking up at a cold sweat, and I don't really know what happened, and I talked to him last night and he um he couldn't really tell me how long it was for. You know, we're talking probably about twenty years ago here. Um maybe longer, maybe thirty-five years ago. Um but then it released, I guess. He must have done, because he's still around. Um now we had many people come into the house uh during the time we were there, and my mum had friends come round and and all of them would or most of them would kind of, you know, say it doesn't feel great in in in a polite way. But my mum had a particular friend called Jean who came with her father. Um and there's a couple of stories there. Her father couldn't stay in the house. Maybe he was particularly sensitive, but he couldn't stay within the house. He had to leave and apparently he was quite sick when he left. And Jean I don't think it was the same occasion, maybe a different occasion, but she was in the bathroom and she saw an old lady walk past um from like we had like second bathroom. There was a first bathroom and then this weird little second bathroom where my dad used to shave. And it was horrible. Like just gross feeling. Now not long after I experienced the same thing. I don't know how old I was, I want to say like twelve maybe. Um, but I saw the old woman as well. Uh just kind of drifting through from one bathroom into the next. Which was nice. Speaking of things that were actually seen rather than like heard or felt. My mum saw uh kind of uh somebody in armour walking down the hallway. I can't remember if she said if they were if they were walking away or walking towards her. I think walking away and then just disappeared down the corridor, the hall, whatever you want to call it. So, I mean that was like a blast from the past. I mean, that's you know, we're talking, you know, I don't even know when people wore armor. I'm guessing like 1300s, whatever. Um, so that was something that my mum actually saw. Uh, another notable experience would be um when we heard my brother coming downstairs, or we thought it was my brother, left through the inner door. We had two doors, like the inner door and the outer door, to get outside. Um, basically open the inner door, close it, open the outer door, close it, and then five minutes later we actually heard and saw my brother coming down the stairs. So whatever had come around the first time was not my brother, basically. We just kind of presumed it was, because there was nobody else in the house at the time. Now we decided to move from this house when I was around about fifteen, I want to say. And we moved to a different property called uh Hailgate. Five I think it was five as well, five Hailgate. And um we did that because we wanted to downsize, the house was too big. I don't know if we were having financial problems or whatever, but we were basically wanting to downsize. So we left that house and it was virtually impossible to sell um to the point where we ended up coming back and living there again, because we just couldn't sell it. But I'll come back to that in a second. I started to experience things happening at the new property not long after moving there. And when I say experiencing things, kind of mild stuff, like the um the bathroom taps would come on, right? The sink taps or uh the bath taps. And I remember seeing a picture upside down as well. Not particularly, you know, nothing cinematic, like in a horror film where you see a picture of Christ upside down. It was basically like uh like a landscape picture or something. Now whilst we were living at the other property, my dad was doing work on Five Church side. Um, I guess just little odd jobs, making it more sellable, things like that. And this is one of the most notable uh experiences that I think he's ever told me. When he was there on his own, he was basically backing up the two flights of stairs. And he was kind of rolling up the the plastic vinyl transparent covering that you roll up on stairs. Um and then when he got to the top of the second flight of stairs, he kind of backed up and he hit something or, you know, something pushed against his back, and he knew it wasn't the wall, because the wall was probably, I don't know, another six, eight feet away. Um and then he realized it felt like two hands basically applying pressure down on him. So he basically This is what he told me. He basically had a conversation and he was d you know, he decided to communicate and tell this um this thing that we would be coming back, we can't sell the house, um, you know, the family's gonna be moving back to to Five Church Side And eventually it let go. Now, I don't know if that's just because we'd lived there for so long, it didn't want more uh like a different personnel within its environment. But it's an interesting line of dialogue. So we moved out of this house when I was about seventeen No, about eighteen. And um I don't know much more about the house afterwards other than the fact that um two prison wardens bought it after us, a couple. Um and my mum and dad used to have a shop in Howden and they came to visit my mum and dad and said, you know, we've got the house now, we can't go back seas. But uh did you ever experience anything in that house? And then, you know, my mum and dad had to be honest and be like, Yep. Um so it was obviously doing things to the couple as well afterwards. So at least it's some sort of validation that we weren't all crazy. Now I want to kinda come into um the current and explain kind of how this has impacted me in general. I think there's two things I want to mention. The first one is um I I still have a lot of nightmares about that house. Like we lived in a lot of houses, you know, after that and you know, moved around. Lived in a lot of places. But I don't have dreams about them. And you might suggest that, you know, you have a lot of dreams about your childhood house, because that's when you had most experiences, but I dream a lot about that house. And they never good dreams, they're always there's something ominous, there's something going on. Um it's always very cold feeling, and it was a cold house. Like my only memories of the house is that it was cold, and I never felt comfortable, and I always thought there was somebody there, and I always felt like something was about to happen. Now I spoke to my brother about this probably about two years ago, and he said the same thing. He said uh you know, that he was also having nightmares about the house. And I said to him, Is it about a particular room? Like are the majorities of your nightmares about a particular room? And I don't remember if he said yes or no, but basically my most of my n nightmares were based in a room in which I very, very rarely went into. Basically, the outside of the building, we had a pantry, um, you know, and we called it the outbuildings. And then upstairs from that pantry um was like some more just really uh dilapidated uh rooms with holes in the walls and things like that. And I guess when it wasn't in it was used to kind of barrel keep and you know bring down the barrels, things like that. So I rarely went into that room. But I have a lot of nightmares about it. Like even now. Like we're talking, you know, I've been out of that house for uh thirty no, twenty-eight years. Twenty-eight years. I still have nightmares about that room. And it I still get a very uncomfortable feeling whenever I think about it. And if my um if I allowed my imagination to go wild, I would feel like something happened in that room that I've kind of just put away. Just put in a box. You know, something when I was very young, maybe. I don't know, but I feel like there's somebody in there. That's how I feel when I think about it now. And it feels like an old woman. But I want to just kind of register this in and really kind of put across my my way of thinking, and that is that I I am not religious, and I would I would probably consider myself an atheist, and I'm I'm very cynical. I always think there's an explanation for everything. But I can't explain those experiences. The only the closest thing I could do to explain it is that you know, when you're alive, you're giving off lots of magnetic waves from your brain, yeah. And when you're experiencing something stressful, like I don't know, a suicide attempt, or you know, someone's trying to get you, or you know, just something that presents itself as like a really severe emotional state, then you're giving off more kind of energy from your brain, right? And it just kind of gets captured and it might get replayed. That's the only way I can describe the things that happened to us. Because I I I struggle to connect with the notion that there can be an actual interaction between like a spirit and somebody that's current. But all I can say is it's f it was fucking scary. Like there was the sense that I can't do anything about it, I've just gotta get through it. I we don't have anywhere else to live. Um you know just just hold your breath and and deal with it till it's over. Because it all it's always there's some it always ends, right? An experience. Um But yeah, I'm not even gonna try and pretend that it didn't frighten me. And I think even now, I think more so now, as an older person who's had experiences that developed fear from, um, I think it would affect me a lot more now than it did do when I was a child. With regards to how this has impacted me as a person, I don't know. I mean Brian asked me to kind of cover this, and I just don't know if it impacted me whether when it comes to inspiration for the music. I just don't know. I mean, it it all comes from somewhere, right? I mean I didn't have the gr the greatest childhood. I was bullied, I was very different, and I was I felt very irrelevant and very ugly and very pointless when I was a kid. And not a lot of that was due was due to school, basically like uh social situations. But living in a house that felt mildly threatening all the way through my childhood, I guess it's gonna have some sort of impact. And as far back as I can remember, I've always liked dark stuff. Or I've always felt inclined towards dark stuff or connected to it, whether it be movies or music or imagery. Um it's just always been there. And if that's connected to the house, then maybe something good came out of it, 'cause I've managed to make reasonably decent music out of it. Um but I just don't know, it's a simple answer. So I'm gonna wrap this up uh by bringing us into the current. About two months ago I had a dentist appointment in Howden, 'cause my dentist is still at Howden. And I wanted to go visit the property um and kind of like give it a knock on and speak to the owners and just be like, you know, this is my child at home. Um spent, you know, a really long time living here when I was a child. I'd love to see and reconnect with the house. You know, fully expecting them to be kind of like, who the hell are you? Go away. But I just wanted to kind of give it a shot, even just knock on the door, even just to see them open the door, even just to see like the entrance, right? And I got there and I walked up to the door and I walked away, and I walked up and I walked away, and I just couldn't do it. Like I could not reconcile with reconciling that house. And it sounds really dramatic, and it's probably more dramatic than it needs to be, but yeah, I just I just didn't want to be there. I I I had thoughts of kind of entering the house and having whatever was in there kind of go uh oh hey, he's back. Let's reconnect. So I couldn't do it. And I wish I could give a more uh climactic ending, but uh yeah, maybe one day. Um but not for not for now. So that is my story of Five Church Side. Uh if you think it's all complete bullshit, I won't blame you in the slightest. If you're a non-believer or less open, um all I can tell you is the things that Mim and the family experienced and uh yeah, I guess happy Halloween. So I have uh a mini story for you, and I have a couple of facts, um ghostly facts. Um the story um basically it's from before I was born. It's a story that's passed down from my mother. Um, it's when she worked as a dental nurse um in a business in Eldersfield, which is where I was born. I want to say this was very early, no, it would have been very late 70s, I believe. Um so when she worked uh as a receptionist in this business, um, they had a lot of problems with kind of dental appliances flying about the room angrily, um, things getting lost and then turning up in the weirdest of locations, just things being thrown around, banging, all that kind of like very typical cliche, poltergeist behaviour. So they ended up getting a priest in very Netflix movie-like, I know, very insidious-like, I know. But they did generally get a priest in to kind of bless the property. Um, and initially they sat around a table and discussed what's been going on, and apparently the light bulb, which was directly above them, directly above the table, dropped out and ended up on the floor underneath the table. So suggesting that the light bulb kind of went through the table, um, the light bulb was unbroken. So it was kind of like a sign, I don't know, I'm here or whatever. And so the priest went about kind of blessing the property. You know, whether these things happen now, I have no clue, but I think they were more common in like the 60s, 70s, 80s, whatever. Um, so these films that are kind of like show these scenes, they probably are built on a truthful premise. Um, but when this priest um went about blessing the property, apparently the door to the property opened wide and slammed shut as if something was leaving. Um and they never heard anything ever again. But upon further research, they found out that um a man had killed himself on the front step of that business um long time ago, which kind of um does fit in with the whole poltergeist um idea, which they're usually spirits that are angry because they can't move on, and that's um very connected suicide, I believe. I'm not an expert, but that's things I've heard. So, yeah, that's my little story. What a couple of little ghostly facts, um, just kind of uh touching on my recent trips to Asia. So in Thai culture, if you go to a hotel, uh, you should ask the blessing of whoever's been in that room uh before you enter. So you open the door, uh, you ask for the blessing, say, you know, is it okay if I stay here? I'm gonna be here for a couple of nights. Um and you know, you you continue your stay. And the idea being that, you know, a lot of these hotels, some of them are very old, um, but also there's a lot of history anyway from the land that you're supposed to ask for the blessing of the people that have lived there, stayed there before before you continue your vacation. And otherwise, there could be some weird stuff going on. Now, what ties into that is the fact that apparently you should never answer the door, somebody knocks at it at a hotel. Um you should always, you know, go and check through the keyhole, spy hole, or whatever you want to call it, see if there's anybody there, i.e. the staff. If there's not, you should never open the door because apparently that is letting whatever in in, and you know, things can go strangely for you. Um, and where this is weird is the fact that when I stayed in Thailand both times, um two hotels out of the many I stayed there, we would have knocking at the door, and it would be two knocks, clop, clock. Uh, and you know, you go to the spy hall, nobody there. So obviously, didn't answer the door. So that's one of my facts from Asian ghostly culture. The one is from Vietnam Vietnamese culture, is that if anybody, if you hear anybody calling your name um outside or whatever, you should never answer it. Um, or you should never turn around, sorry I should say. Um, because turning around acknowledges it, and you know, then that's kind of a letting in, it can attach itself to you. Um, and this is why people still think things like curses exist. Um apparently you can answer it and say, who's this? Just in case it is your mate asking you, you know, where you've been. Um, but if nobody answers you, um, then you don't turn around, you don't look in the direction. Which I also found really interesting. Um whether these when it whether any of these little legends from cultural history have any uh you know factual uh connection, I don't know. But it I just find it really interesting how everybody um those different cultures have different kind of stories and um perspectives on ghostly behavior. So there's something out there for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 47:58

Tom Elsberg, or Ginger Khan, is the former frontman for Swedish synthpop act priest. He shared some thoughts on the subject of the supernatural or and the otherworldly. Tom is a thoughtful, grounded, and authentic human being. Here's the Khan to tell you his story.

SPEAKER_01: 48:19

Hi. My name is Tom Osperi. And this is my story. I grew up in an old mining town. You know, one of those towns that's been around forever. Just the actual mine itself is over 700 years old. And the town that sprung up around it was called Thalun. Countless of generations of workers have lived there. All of them, of course, leaving behind their own mark, not to mention their earthly possessions, and of course, their homes, which were inherited by the next generation of workers and the next, and so on and so on. Now the old workers neighborhood is where I grew up. It was called Elspori. In a way, it's almost a cliche version of what you picture in your head when you picture Sweden, at least nowadays. Wooden houses, some of them really small, all interconnected with relatively tiny streets, and painted in that classic red colour which you see all over Sweden, that just so happens to be named after my town, Fallen Red. Now, back in the old days of the mine, this was not a pretty neighborhood by any stretch. The entire town was covered by this thick layer of smoke emanating from all the ovens, melting down the ore from the mine. Nothing could grow there. Like, imagine Mordor, that's how it looked. And those wooden houses, back then, they were basically all black. Black from just the general soot in the air. The whole neighborhood was plagued with drunkenness. There was a bar on every corner, a lot of random street violence. Not to mention the fact that people died like flies in the actual mine. Churning out copper to fill up Sweden's war coffers during the 16th, 17th, and 18th century. Now, with all industries, sooner or later things start slowing down. Either because the thing you're producing has become obsolete, or because it's not profitable anymore. And of course this happened to Fallen and it's mine as well. The smoke disappeared, and Fallen reshaped itself into another version, and another, and another. By the time I came into this world, Fallen was a hodgepodge of different historical eras built on top of each other. And growing up in such a place, a few times, both during my childhood and even into my early twenties, I got to experience firsthand just how much of a presence people that have lived in such a place can leave behind. My earliest memory of experiencing something out of the ordinary is from when I was around five. I came into my room, this was during the middle of the day, and I came upon an old man and a slightly younger woman just standing in my room. I don't know why, but for some reason I didn't feel any fear. I was just confused, like, who were these people? Why are they in my room? And he just stood there, looked at me. Now I noticed that they weren't really in the room. They were sort of a part of it. Like the line between the walls and the air and them. It was just one thing. And they flickered like light, vibrating almost. Now the old man he had a really stern look. He looked like a principal, almost. A stern father figure. The woman had a softer, sweeter approach. She looked like she wanted to comfort me or greet me or it's hard to tell. I'm also not entirely sure what happened next. Did they just disappear? Did I leave the room? Like I said, I was around five. Now I understand that a story like this, emanating from the memory of someone who was a small child at the time, might be easy to dismiss as just something that, you know, you think happened to you as a kid. But this was not the last time I would see this odd pair. They stopped appearing in the middle of the day. Usually when I saw them, it was at night. Once again, I totally understand how anyone that hears a story about someone seeing effectively ghosts at night could easily dismiss it as being a dream. But I've never had reoccurring dreams. And never any dreams as clear as these were. I rationalize things even when they're fantastical. Especially when they're fantastical. But for some reason, I didn't want to rationalize this. Or I couldn't rationalize it. Sometime in my later teens, I mentioned to my mother that I had been seeing things at home off and on during my childhood. She later mentioned this to our landlord who knew exactly who they were. They were the old owners of the house. He knew them by the description. The description which I had given to my mother. I think that the reason to why I choose to pretend like this didn't happen for such a long time was because I was really, really scared. Because that initial fear that had escaped me when I was a kid. It really took hold later on. When you see what I saw, you don't get to choose your reaction. And my reaction was apparently to just decide that I was not gonna have a reaction because this was not happening. This did very little to keep my two house guests away. Though as I came into my twenties, their appearances started becoming more and more rare. And towards the end, they weren't even figures. They were just a vibrating shimmer in the air. Until around when I was 24, which is the last time I saw them. Now, even with our landlord telling us that they were the old owners of the house, I still don't know what I saw. I don't really care either, to be quite honest. But I do know one thing. No matter how sure you are of yourself regarding how you would react when seeing or experiencing something like I did, there is nothing to prepare you for that guttural feeling when you know that what you're seeing does not care if you believe in it or not.

SPEAKER_04: 56:40

Mary Catman is a talented, charming soul who produces absolute bangers. She's an inspired and driven talent who is a force to behold. Here's a story from Mary.

SPEAKER_03: 56:53

Hello, Void Signalians. This is Mary Katman Shear. And isn't it lovely the months before Halloween in September when it starts to get a little bit cold outside? And we start to anticipate all the wonderful, spooky, lovely moments that we appreciate that are about to come for us. I especially appreciate it because I am very pale and I love when the summer obligations start to go away and I can put my sweatshirt on and cozy out by the fire with my family and enjoy all the wonderful fall treats and fall activities that come. Anyway, let's get to the ghost story. But before I tell you the ghost story, I just want to preface this by saying if you've had a paranormal experience in your life, I don't think it was an accident. Personally, I had this many, many years ago, and I've had a lot of time to reflect. I think that paranormal experiences are an invitation for you to explore what is not seen, what is unknown, what is a mystery of death, and where we go afterwards. I think that all of these little experiences in life lead us down chasing intrigues that are appropriate for our development and growth as humans, as souls. And I think that they are not to be seen as scary, but maybe to be seen as an invitation to open a door. Michael story starts 20 years ago in high school at the time. Uh, we lived in a house that was my second house with my family. And it was a three-floor house. So we had a basement, a first floor, and a second floor in the house. And there were times, you know, throughout me living there where, you know, I would maybe fall asleep in the first floor living room area, and I could just hear her like walking downstairs at night. And I thought, oh, that must just be my mind playing tricks on me. But little things that would happen over the years that kind of made me think, hmm, that's a weird sound. I'm not sure what that is. But this story was undeniable. So I used to get off the bus before I had my car and I wasn't yet 16, maybe 15. I would get off the bus and I would come home. And oftentimes when I was that age, my parents wouldn't be home. And they both worked entrepreneurial jobs. So they kind of had their own hours and they were in and out at all hours. Um, and I came home from school as normal one day. I'd always drop my bag on the floor and go look for something to snack on, maybe popcorn or something. And then I would sit on the couch and watch an episode of whatever was on TV. Um, and on this day, I did just. As I do every day from school, come in, drop my bag, get a snack, sit down, watch a show. So on this first floor that we lived on, I was sitting in the living room, and the room next to the living room was a computer room. So my dad used to go in there and work on stuff at night, and very quickly became my room because when we finally got a computer, it was like all the rage, and I wanted to be on it all the time. And uh so in this room we had a computer, one that stands on its own, you know, computer tower, not a laptop or anything, with a keyboard, you know, everything. Uh and then there was a desk it was on. Um, and so I was watching the TV one day and I heard like typing in the room next to the one I was in. Uh and uh I was like, oh, is my dad home? Like, is he on the computer? Like, what is this? So I get off the couch, go home and look in. Nobody's here. Okay. Well, I guess I must have heard typing on the keyboard. I don't know why I heard that. So um I uh went back and sat on the couch again and I was watching the show and I heard typing again. I was like, okay, maybe it's my ears are just playing tricks on me. I lower the TV down and I go into the room where the computer is, and again, nothing. So I said, This is so strange. I feel like I'm hearing this typing. Um so this time I wanted to be a little more strategic about it because my mind was reeling. I'm like, I keep hearing this typing and I don't know what it is. So I confirmed there's nothing in the computer room. I decided to do something ridiculous and I sort of hid outside the doorframe. So, you know, where the door closes, I kind of put my body up against the wall. And I was like, I'm gonna sit here for a minute and listen. And sure enough, the typing started. And I looked in the room really fast and it stopped when I looked in. Um and yeah, I had confirmed at that moment that whatever was typing in there was not there. Like it was uh, I don't know. Like it to this day, I have zero idea. And once I hid my body outside of the door frame and heard the typing and looked in and saw nothing, you had better bet I bolted myself from the house. And I waited uh outside on the steps until my dad came home and told them what had happened. And uh yeah, I knew at that point there was something in the house that I couldn't see, and it was I don't know what it was doing. I don't know why I ghost me typing, and I don't know why I had that experience. But what I can tell you is that from all the little strange things that have happened to me in my life has led me down, you know, many routes of research and trying to figure out these kind of weird things that happen to people and what they may be. I can offer you a theory. I don't think that anything that you ever experience that is paranormal or you see a UFO or something like that. I don't think those things are happening far from where we are. I often question a human's capability to understand space and time. I do think that there are many universes, and I do think they are simultaneously overlapping with ours, whether or not we can perceive them or not, um, whether our eyes or our ability to perceive vibration is probably pretty low. And I think sometimes we have moments where we can, and I think that's when we observe what we are seeing. But I don't think those things are happening separately from us. I think we're probably surrounded by a lot of different energies we can't see all the time. Um, and sometimes we're lucky enough to catch just a beat of a different world around us. Anyway, I hope you liked my ghost story, and I hope that you have one of your own because it was very enlightening for me. And I hope that you all enjoy the fall season and all of the mystery as the seasons change and all the beauty of the trees, if they're changing near you, they are changing near us now. Uh and I hope that you enjoy the spooky mysteries of what we don't know and how fun that is. And yeah, happy Halloween, everyone.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:59

That's it for stories. I'd like to read you a favorite poem or two of mine, and then close out this little program with a reading of the Raven. I hope that you have had a good time so far. If so, please consider visiting voidsignal.net or patreon.com slash void signal and sign up for the Patreon. You get some extra stuff to listen to, and it helps keep the Void Signal flowing. As little as two bucks, and all the tiers are the same. Thank you for listening, and happy Halloween. Felicia Dorothea Heemans was an English poet from the Romantic era. She's the author of a number of poem collections, but I chose her poem The Haunted House for this episode. Seeest thou yon gray gleaming hall, where the deep elm shadows fall, voices that have left the earth long ago still are murmuring round its hearth, soft and low. Ever there yet one alone hath a gift to hear their tone. Guests come thither and depart, free of step and light of heart. Children with sweet visions blessed, in the haunted chambers rest, one alone on slumbering lies, when the night hath sealed all eyes, one quick heart and watchful ear, listening for those whispers clear. Seeest thou where the woodpine flowers o'er yon low porch hang and showers, startling faces of the dead, pale yet sweet, one lone woman's entering tread, there still meet. Some with young, smooth foreheads fair, faintly shining through bright hair, some with reverend locks of snow, all, all buried long ago, all from under deep sea waves, or the flowers of foreign graves, or the old and bannered isle, where their high tombs gleam the while, rising, wandering, floating by, suddenly and silently, through their earthly home and place, but amidst another race. Wherefore, unto one alone are those sounds and visions known. Wherefore hath that spell of power, dark and dread, on her soul a baleful dower thus been shed? Oh, in those deep-seeing eyes, no strange gift of mystery lies. She is alone where once she moved, fair and happy and beloved. Sunny smiles were glancing round her, tendrils of kind hearts had bound her. Now those silver cords are broken, those bright looks have left no token, not one trace on all the earth, save her memory of the mirth. She is lone and lingering now, dreams have gathered o'er her brow. Midst gay songs and children's play, she is dwelling far away, seeing what none else may see. Haunted still her place must be. Through the open doors, the harmless phantoms on their errands glide with feet that make no sound upon the floors. We meet them at the doorway, on the stair, along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, a sense of something moving to and fro. There are more guests at table than the hosts invited. The illuminated hall is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, as silent as the pictures on the wall. The stranger at my fireside cannot see the forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear. He but perceives what is, while unto me all that has been is visible and clear. We have no title deeds to house or lands. Owners and occupants of earlier dates from graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands, and hold in mortmain still their old estates. The spirit world around this world of sense floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense, a vital breath of more ethereal air. Our little lives are kept in equipos by opposite attractions and desires, the struggle of the instinct that enjoys, and the more noble instinct that aspires. These perturbations, this perpetual jar of earthly wants and aspirations high, Come from the influence of an unseen star, an undiscovered planet in our sky. And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud throws over the sea a floating bridge of light, across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd into the realm of mystery and night. So from the world of spirits there descends a bridge of light connecting it with this, over whose unsteady floor that sways and bends, wander our thoughts above the dark abyss. Those houses haunt in which we leave something undone. It is not those great words or silence of love that spread their echoes through a place and fill the locked up, unbreathed gloom. Ghosts do not haunt with any face that we have known. They only come with arrogance to thrust at us our own omissions in a room. The words we would not speak they use. The deeds we dared not act, they flaunt. Our nervous silences they bruise. It is our helplessness they choose, and our refusals that they haunt. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Tis some visitor, I muttered, tapping at my chamber door, only this and nothing more. Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow, vainly I had sought to borrow from my book's Circe of Sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore, for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore, nameless here forevermore. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before, so that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating: 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, some late visitor, entreating entrance at my chamber door. This it is, and nothing more. Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer. Sir, said I, or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore, but the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, and so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, that I scarce was sure I heard you. Here I opened wide the door, darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, and the only word there spoken was the whispered word, Lenor. This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, Lenore. Merely this, and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning. Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. Surely, said I, surely that is something at my window lattice. Let me see then what thereat is, and this mystery explore. Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore. 'Tis the wind, and nothing more. Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, in there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopped or stayed he, but with mine of lord or lady perched above my chamber door, perched upon a pust a palace just above my chamber door, perched and set, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, though thy crest be shorn is shaven, thou, I said, art sure no craven, ghastly grim, and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore. Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's plutonian shore. Quoth the raven, nevermore. Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore, for we cannot help agreeing that no living human being ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door, bird or beast upon the sculpted bust above his chamber door, with such name as nevermore. But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only that one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther than he uttered, not a feather than he fluttered, till I scarcely more than muttered, Other friends have flown before. On the morrow he will leave me as my hopes have flown before. Then the bird said, Nevermore. Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, doubtless, said I, what it utters is its only stock and store, caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore, till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore, of never, nevermore. But the raven, still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door. Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking, fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, what this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore meant and croaking nevermore. This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing to the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core. This and more I sat defining, with my head at ease reclining on the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er, but whose velvet-violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er, she shall press. Ah, nevermore. Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen sensor, swung by Seraphim, whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. Wretch, I cried, thy God hath lent thee, by these angels he hath sent thee. Respite, respite, and Nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore. Quoif, O quaff this kind Nepenthe, and forget this loss Lenore. Quoth the raven, nevermore. Prophet, said I, thing of evil, profit still, if bird or devil, whether tempter sent or whether tempest toss thee here ashore, desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted, on this home by horror haunted, tell me truly I implore. Is there, is there balm in Gilead? Tell me, tell me I implore. Quoth the raven, nevermore. Prophet, said I, thing of evil, profit still, if bird or devil, by that heaven that bends above us, by that god we both adore, tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aden, it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore, clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenor, quoth the raven. Nevermore. Be thou word our sign of parting, bird or fiend, I shrieked up starting. Get thee back into the tempest in the night's plutonian shore, leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken. Leave my loneliness unbroken, quit the bust above my door, take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door. Quoth the raven, nevermore. And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid busta palace just above my chamber door, and his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, and the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor, and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted nevermore. Void signal intro and outro courtesy of processor. Visit processor the number two.bandcamp.com for more processor or search processor anywhere you get music. Ambient background sound for this episode, courtesy of skull cultists. Visit skullcultist.bandcamp.com for more skull cultists, or search skullcultists anywhere use the closest.