Cryptids of Reddit || Scary Reddit Stories || Ghosteas || Paranormal Podcast

Late night bites with friends? Already hard to beat. That first too hot bite of fries you couldn't wait for, followed by ice cold Pepsi. Now that hits different. Suddenly, the energy kicks back in. The night goes longer. And the laughs don't stop. Because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun, and more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi Zero Sugar today. Hello. Look what TJ Maxx dragged in. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. We are digital. We are downloadable. We are streamable. The fashion event of the year is certified fresh. Pull yourself together. We have work to do. Critics say it's smart and witty and the perfect sequel. That's all. Get runway ready for The Devil Wears Prada 2 on Disney Plus and Hulu. Rated PG-13. Hi, Ghosties. I'm Macy. I'm Macy. And I'm Natalie. And something I love about Reddit is the community aspect of the site. When you've had an unusual experience, you're sure to find somebody in some sub somewhere that can relate to you in a way. This is especially reassuring and interesting to the broader public for people who have spotted cryptids. Oh. When you've had a horrifying encounter with a creature that doesn't fit the mold of what you've learned about in biology, it can feel as though you're going insane. But not on Reddit. So for National Park Week, which happy National Park Week. Aw. I've pulled several stories from a handful of subs that detail some spooky encounters with something science hasn't been able to explain out in those woods. At least not yet. I don't know why I never even thought of this being like a big thing on Reddit. Oh, yeah. I mean, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm sure. I'm so serious when I say you could have the most niche, unusual. I do Potter and Frogs. Yes. And there is a community for you on Reddit. Is there a group? Right now, I need y'all to tell me. Is there a group of people that make pottery for frogs? Let me know. It's possible. I bet there is. And I'm sure they're on Reddit. Why is that the first thing that came to my mind? I don't know. But I like it. I like the image. Reddit. I know. I've, I've, by listening to other podcasts and stuff like Two Hot Takes, I'm like, there is a, a community out there that is a bunch of people. And I don't ever get on Reddit. I don't ever look. I do. I know you do. I love Reddit. I know. In fact, last night, I spent a very long, I fell asleep scrolling through Reddit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I make. I'm, you know, I'm always kind of on the fence on the cryptid talk. So I'm intrigued. I'm interested to see what you've brought today. Some good ones. Okay. Pretty good ones. But our tea today was a gift from one of our dearest friends. It is a Disney tea. It has a piglet on it. It's very cute. It's Brave Little Brew Strawberry Mango. Yep. It's so cute. And she got it at Disney. Yep. She lives at Disney, basically. So she was like, oh my gosh, I saw some teas and I had to get them for you. So shout out. And thank you so much. Very cute. It was a very cute gift. All right. I'm excited. Let's go. That's not bad. More mango than I was expecting. Really? I was expecting strawberry to be the, like the, the punching flavor in there, but I got a lot of mango. It was like strawberry on top with the mango coming in. Like swooped in there. Yeah. Tastes like gum. It's pretty good. It does taste like gum. And it is good. It is good. I like it. I'll, I'd definitely drink it again. I'm excited to see the other flavors. Yeah. Because it came in a set. But we'll move on to our first story. It was from r slash crawler sightings from 15 days ago. As of August 1st, I think is when I found this one. Crawler sighting, Fairhope, Alabama. My boyfriend and I spent the weekend at a horse ranch Airbnb. The home was beautiful and had a hot tub outside, maybe 15 feet from the front door. My boyfriend knows I'm afraid of the dark. But we decided to go out on our first night and chill in the hot tub for a bit. We got in and everything was all right. I was feeling uncomfortable in the dark as always. It was around 8:30. We were in the hot tub for maybe five minutes before he looked over to our vehicle and saw it first. It was looming over the front of our car. And when he saw it, it ducked and hid. After that, he discreetly told me the car play was still on. So I would look too. I didn't see it because I wasn't aware it was there at the time. A couple minutes later, I saw something. It moved out of the corner of my eye, so I looked to my left and saw it kind of run behind a tree, maybe 20 feet away from the hot tub. After I saw it, I was beyond terrified and he could tell I had seen something, too, and asked if I was ready to go in. I quietly told him I was cold. So, yes, after we got inside, we locked the door. He asked if I'd seen something outside, too. And that's when we exchanged what we had seen and where we both gave the exact same description to each other. A pale yellowish colored creature. Seven or eight feet tall. Long limbs and starved looking. It had a longer face and head shape. The next night, we got home after dark, quickly and quietly went inside, and he saw it on multiple occasions, very close to the front door window. I felt like I was being watched the entire stay. All windows and the door remained locked and the blinds shut. We heard noises frequently at night coming from outside. We've done a fair share of research, but want some more opinions on it. Did you have any comments from this one? I didn't write down any, no. Oh, my gosh. But there were comments. How long did they say that they stayed? At least a couple days? I don't know if the weekend, so maybe two or three days. Oh, after the first sighting. I'm gone. I'm gone. I'm sorry. I know that if you spent a lot of money on something, like, you're just going to suck it up. Like, I would feel like my life was on the line, and I'd be like, well, pack it up. There's no price I wouldn't pay to just survive. I am the type of person who'd be like, no, we spent our money. I know. I know. I know you are, and I couldn't. I couldn't. That is so scary to me. Also, the fact that the boyfriend saw it and was just kind of casually. If Ryan saw something like that and didn't immediately be like, run! Like, he was trying to stay discreet. I guess. And fight about it. I guess. He did want to acknowledge it outright, you know? Grab my arm and just be like, let's go. I'm cold. Ha ha ha. And then, like, run. Yeah. Like, run and lock the doors. Ooh, that is so creepy. I feel like at that point, if I saw something like that, I would rather somebody will see it first before I. True. Like, I'm like, okay, maybe I'm seeing something. True. Like, maybe they'll see it, too, or maybe I'm just crazy. Or maybe from their perspective, it was just like, you know, I'm seeing things, and it's kind of just like a trash bag in the wind, and it caught on a branch. Or like some kind of, like, deer or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Through a reflection somehow or something. That is true. I don't know. That's a good point. But either way, very creepy. I. Watched the entire time you're there. Yep. Stay out of the woods. There you go. That's the answer. Just stay home. Yep. Just stay home. Yes. Our next story comes from r slash cryptid encounters from 21 days prior to me finding it. It's called Stay in the Streetlights. I already don't like it. Yeah, you're not going to like this. Hi, r slash cryptid encounters. First ever post, but I'd like to preface this by saying these stories are 100% true. I have witnesses. I even have audio proof of the sound we heard. Anywho, without further delay, for obvious reasons, I don't want to give my exact location away, but I'll tell you that I live in the upstate of South Carolina, about 45 minutes away from downtown Greenville. But don't let the proximity to civilization fool you. These lands are cursed. Oh, no. The specific area I grew up in was a seasonal habitat for the Cherokee. They would specifically come here to hunt game and make pottery. There's good clay in the surrounding creeks. My neighbor. Crevated his creek and found broken pots, tools, and animal bones in piles. They did more digging and found the remnants of a settlement. It's a beautiful valley in the daytime, lots of green, especially in the summertime. But at night, something about it makes you uneasy. There's a certain heaviness to the air. It's almost too dark at night. When I was a kid growing up, I heard my mom tell stories of hearing strange things in the night. Babies crying from places they shouldn't be. People calling for you in places they don't go, especially in the middle of the night. I always took it as her just trying to keep us inside after dark. To be fair, we do have a problem with coyotes, or we did, rather. The rapid development of the area kind of pushed out everything except the deer. Her story. When I was about eight or nine, I was jumping on the trampoline with my brother and my friend. It was about ten o'clock on a weeknight in the summer. We had jumped ourselves tired and were lying on the trampoline just looking at the stars, when suddenly, my dog starts going absolutely bonkers and hollering as loud as she possibly could. We peek over the trampoline and watch as she tucks tail and runs back to her doghouse, on the other side of the yard. The crickets stopped. I mean, they just all shut up in unison. There was no sound, except for us breathing, in cars on the highway a mile and a half away. We all got a pretty uneasy feeling, as even then, we knew when the bugs stopped talking, so should we. We all got quiet and listened. I glanced over the frame and stared across the field about seventy yards or so to the road, and behind the road was a tree. The road was a thick tree line of some family land. A shadow was walking on the road. At first, we thought it was a man, he was awfully tall, and he walked kind of funny. The knees didn't look right. He also moved extremely fast for his cadence. One step was about five feet or more, covering ground fast. We all watched this thing, and I guess it felt our eyes on it, and it stopped. In a second, it went from upright to all fours. It was low to the ground, maybe two or three feet off the ground, and it just stayed there. I didn't see any face. I didn't see any defining markers of any kind, just a show. But I could tell whatever it was, it was lanky. It was long and stringy looking. We all stared at this thing, and we could tell it was staring back. I whispered to my brother and friend that on the count of three, we get out and we run. This thing started to move closer. We would blink, and it was closer. Every time we took our eyes off of it, even for a millisecond, it got closer and closer. I counted to three, and we all bolted off of the trampoline, running the 30 yards to the back door. We made it inside and locked the door behind us. We immediately told my parents what we saw, and they dismissed us being scared kids, overactive imaginations. This was our first experience with this thing, and because we had acknowledged its presence, it took it as an invitation. The following months, we would be playing in the backyard like we always did, except this time, we made sure mom had all the lights on for the backyard. We even had my dad put up an extra light on the corner of the house next to the trampoline, just to have that extra security. But sometimes, we'd peer down toward the barn, and we'd see a shadow peeking around the side. Those glowing green eyes were hard to miss. You'd stare at it, and it would stare back. But it never came any closer. I don't know if the light saved us, or if our large group, three to seven of us, would be a deterrent. Second story. As we grew up, our friend group got larger. We got into things most bored teenagers in small towns do. Smoking, drinking underage, swiping cigarettes from mom, etc. We started sneaking out in the middle of the night to hang out and be bad. We called it a snick, or a derivative from the meme, I'm a slithery, little sneaky snake. We also called Weed, W, in place of W, as a codename for smoking. I love that. I can't. Oh my god. That's so funny. Okay, anyway. One night, we all snuck out and linked up at our friend's house. We will call him Tom for now. Tom lived with his great-grandmother about a quarter mile up the road from us. It was quiet as it usually is, bugs chirping, a train off in the distance, a car speeding past on the highway way off. You could actually hear the cars that far away. That's how quiet this neighborhood is. We would walk, or we'd ride our bikes at night. Our buddy, who I will just refer to as Joe, was poor and didn't have a bike, and he had the furthest walk out of all of us. He had about a mile to go down a really dark road with no streetlights and woods surrounding it on most sides. We all got to Tom's house around midnight or so, after all our parents went to bed. It was me, my brother, Tom, Joe, and our other friend, who I'll just call Chief, that was his nickname. We're sitting on the porch, a concrete pad with some metal outdoor furniture on it. His great-grandma was deaf as all get out. You could yell at her in the same room, and she wouldn't hear you. We're sitting there smoking weed, and we start doing our usual antics. We would play fighting sticks, which was just us finding the nearest fallen branch and beating the ever-loving piss out of each other in sword fights. I was on the porch watching them play when Joe looked at his phone, let out a big yawn, and said he wanted to go to bed. I offered to walk my bike with him to where his road turns off and where I turn onto mine, meaning he would have about quarters of a mile walk by himself up the dark road. He said yes, and my brother tagged along. We left Chief and Tom to keep hanging out as Chief lived at the bottom of Tom's Hill. Me, my brother, who I'll call Henry, and Joe walked toward home. I was walking my bike, as was Henry, and Joe was on foot. We chatted it up, talked about music we were listening to. Joe rambled on about Escape the Fate and Falling in Reverse and how much he liked the older albums than the new ones. Then we heard it. A snap in the tree line to our right. We kept walking, though. We assumed it was some critter moving about in the woods. No big deal. We kept talking as we did. I swear, I kept hearing what I thought was an echo of what we were saying. The thing is, those woods soak up sound. They don't throw it back at you. There was nothing in those woods to send your words back to you. Maybe it was the W, and I was just hearing things. Then Joe stopped talking and stopped walking. We all stopped dead in our tracks. He turned towards us and asked, Did you hear something? In the dark, pitch, black, dark. I could still see his eyes, and they looked different. He wasn't an easy guy to scare. Then we all heard Joe's voice calling from the woods. Every hair on my body stood up. It wasn't the words, but the shape of them. The wrong spacing, the breath of it was wrong. It was like one of them parrots trying to copy a sound they just heard, but it sounded just like him. Joe turned and looked back down the road toward Tom's house, and if I had to guess, he was contemplating just staying there for the night. But his grandma would kill him if she woke up and he wasn't there. So he went home anyway. I watched him start walking down his road as me and Henry got on our bikes and sped down the road to our house. We got in the garage, shut it behind us, put our bikes up, and went to bed. just wait till it's early in the morning and like sneak back in. I don't know. That's just so scary. It is scary. Little known to us, Joe had a pretty eventful walk home. He told us the following afternoon that on his walk home, he kept hearing footsteps behind him, breathing. He would turn around to see nothing there. He would stop and the footsteps would stop. He started to pick up the pace, not running, not trying to show fear. Then he heard Tom whisper to him, a whisper he felt in his ear. There was nobody and nothing around. He turned and ran the remaining distance to his house. And once he got into the floodlight of his grandma's carport, he felt better. But the steps he heard as an echo behind him were now a full on sprint. He ran as fast as he could to the door, opened it and got in. As he went to shut the door, the floodlights had gone off. They had turned themselves off. These things were sensitive to the slightest movement and I swear a bug on the ground 100 yards away would set it off. But Joe had only been inside maybe three seconds and then he saw it. It was crouching down low, maybe 15 feet outside the door in the dark. The shadow of it was enough to put the fear of God into him. He saw the head turn and it turned wrong, further than a human or any known animal should be able to turn. He shut the door and deadbolted the locks. He crawled into bed. And for the remainder of the night, he heard Tom outside asking him to come out for a cigarette. There are more of these kinds of stories if anybody's interested. It's late and I think I'm going to sign off for the night. Let me know if anybody would like to hear more about it. Oh my gosh. Well, your friend outside your window at night. Well, honestly, at that point, like I'll just deal with the consequences of sneaking out. I know. I know. After hearing all that, it's not that bad. I'd rather grandma be really mad at me and be grounded for the rest of my life. Yes. Then I have to deal with that. That is whatever that was. They are so lucky to have made it home. Oh my God. That is so freaky. I hate that feeling. I could feel it as you're saying it of like you're trying to run to a spot and like open the door fast and get behind and feeling makes me feel so sick. I hate it. Oh my gosh. Moral of the story, kids, don't sneak out at night and always let your adults know where you are. Maybe don't. That's really scary. Oh, that's sickening. See, these are the kinds of things like this is why I never, ever did anything bad. Yeah. So I was like, we lived in the middle of the woods. Yeah. If I sneak out and like go down the driveway, what if something or someone is there and nobody knows where I'm at? Nobody knows where I've been and everyone's asleep and it'll be hours before anyone knows where I've been. Before anybody realizes that I'm gone. That is a great point. And that is horrifying. Yeah. If you ask me, August is the perfect time for a reset. School is starting back up. Autumn is just around the corner and we're beginning our spooky season celebrations. The best place to start on that reset is with your wardrobe. And today's sponsor, Quince, is the place to go. Quince can help you clear out that crowded closet and fill it with the right pieces that make you look and feel incredible. They specialize in effortless, high quality essentials that are beautifully tailored and built to last. 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Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash ghosties. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash ghosties. The perfect lunch combo. That first bite of your favorite sub, followed by ice cold Pepsi. Add a couple of friends and now that's next level. Suddenly, the laughs get louder, the stories keep flowing, and the food tastes better. Food deserves Pepsi. Okay, but moving on, we have another story from r slash cryptid encounters. It's from about two months ago, maybe three at this point. Can someone shine some light on this? I've been trying to find potential answers for years. I still have no idea what I saw that night, and that is the part that bothers me the most. I'm not saying I know it was a cryptid and I'm not trying to claim I saw some movie monster or anything like that. I'm saying I saw something that I cannot explain. And even after thinking about it for years, I still can't explain it. I'm not saying I saw something that I cannot make it fit into anything normal. This happened around three years ago while I was at work on night shift. I work in a remote mountain area, around haul roads, heavy equipment, and wilderness. This is not in town, not near a normal road, and not somewhere random people would just be walking around at night. It was out in an industrial mine area, surrounded by bush and mountains. I know the area, I know the roads, and I know what animals are common around here. I grew up in this town and spent plenty of time in the bush, so it's not like I'm someone who panics every time I see a deer or a shadow. The thing I saw crossed a haul road in front of the truck. The road is not small, it is wide enough for two haul trucks to park side by side on it. That is one of the details that makes it so hard for me to explain this away. Whatever this thing was, it crossed that road in about two strides. Not a bunch of small steps, not running across like a deer, two big strides across a road that is wide enough for two haul trucks. It was bipedal, that is the biggest thing. It looked like it was moving on two legs. It did not look like a deer. Elk, moose. Bear, or any normal four-legged animal crossing the road. I know animals can sometimes move weird, and I know bears can stand up, but this did not look like that. It looked like something that was already built to move upright. I remember seeing it cross and immediately feeling like something about it was wrong. The color was also strange. It was kind of deer-colored, like tan or brownish. That almost makes it more confusing, because if it had been black, I could maybe say bear. If it had been obviously a person wearing dark clothes, I could maybe. say some worker or trespasser. But, it was this natural tan color, almost like an animal, except the body and movement did not match what I would expect from an animal. That is what keeps messing with me. It had a color that made sense for wildlife, but the way it moved just didn't. After the truck stopped, I got out and looked around, because I wanted to know what it was. I was not just sitting there, trying to scare myself. I actually tried to find a normal answer. I had the work lights from the truck and a 10,000 lumen headlamp, and I still could not see anything. No deer. Standing there. No bear. No person. No tracks or clear sign that gave me an easy explanation. Whatever had crossed was just gone. Or at least, I couldn't find it. There was also a smell. And this is another part I don't know what to do with. It was not some harsh smell that stayed in the air. It was more like I caught a quick whiff of it, and then it was gone. The best way I can describe it is like skunk mixed with mold. Not exactly skunk, not exactly rot, but something musky and gross in a weird way. It was quick, but I noticed it. I do not know if it was connected to what I saw, but it happened around the same experience, so it stuck in my memory. Ever since then, that area has felt different to me. When I'm in the area, the hair on the back of my neck still stands up. Sometimes, when I'm out of my truck working, I get this strange feeling like I'm being watched. I know that could just be my brain remembering what happened and making the area feel worse than it is, but it still happens. It's not like I think about it every second, but when I'm out there, especially at night, I can feel it. The part that makes this even weirder for me is that I can't feel it. The part that makes this even weirder for me is that I'm not the only person around here who's had strange experiences in the bush. I grew up around this town, and I've heard other people talk about weird stuff, too. People have talked about hearing things, even hearing something whisper their name out in the bush. I'm not saying that proves anything, but it makes the whole area feel harder to brush off. There are enough stories and enough strange feelings that when something like this happens, it does not feel completely isolated. The closest cryptid-type explanation, if I had to compare it to something, would be something Bigfoot-like, or Predator-like. I say that because of the size, the upright movement, the remote area, the weird smell, and the feeling afterwards. I'm not saying that's what it is, for sure. I'm just saying that's the closest category I can think of when I try to compare it to known stories. It did not feel like a pale crawler or anything like that. It was not pale or crawling. It was tan, upright, and moved fast across a wide road. And that is why I'm stuck. Every normal explanation explains one or two details, but none of them explain the whole thing. I should also point out that from where I am at work, it's about a 50-minute drive to the actual Frank's Slide location, which is one of the most haunted places in Canada. So this could as well be just a paranormal experience. I'm trying to envision, like, a big road. What entity or cryptid or thing do we know that is that long to where it can do, like, two strides across a road? Like, that's huge. That is a huge thing. Even, like, deer or, like, elks or whatever. Is it elk or elks? Whatever the plural is for that. Like, it's not going to take them two steps. They'd go, like, one, two, three, four at least, you know? Or if they're, like, leaping, it could be two. Yeah, but this person said they were standing on two legs and it went boom, boom. Yeah. That is so unsettling, and I'm scared. My first thought was a Bigfoot-like creature of some kind. Yeah, but that's really. That's really tall, though. Mm-hmm. I mean, Bigfoot's really tall. Yeah, but I don't know. So you're saying no Bigfoot? It doesn't feel Bigfoot-ish to me. It feels just. I want to say more like crawler territory from the way it was described, like, standing up and long and thin, you know? Yeah, but the tan, like, hide-like, you know? It could just be regional for the crawler. Like, it's just in the sun more. I don't know. Like, it's just darker. In the mountains of Canada. Well, they did have one comment that I found interesting to add into it. It says, Okay. It says, This is a thing. The mine cave thing, too, also, like, feels crawler-y, but it wasn't crawling. It wasn't, like, pale. You know what I mean? But it doesn't necessarily have to be. But maybe you say regional. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if there's just, like, different shades of the crawler there could be. I mean, anything's possible, right? I don't know. That's just. Let us know in the comments what you think. Are you moving more towards crawler, or are you thinking more Bigfoot? Maybe these are cave-dwelling Bigfoot? I don't know. Let us know. Interesting. But we have another story from r slash cryptid encounters from about two months ago, titled My Encounter with a Cryptid, the Sunflower Deer. I don't believe in the paranormal. I've never believed in anything. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or aliens, anything associated with things like that. And all of that changed last year. When I fell to terror, I never thought possible. It was last April, 2025, and my contract with the Navy had literally changed. I was officially a free man. When I moved back to Louisiana, my best friend asked to come look over his new land that he'd just bought. And I agreed. He bought about 65 acres out of a 120-acre parcel. The plan was to split up and come out for two days, exploring as much as we could to ensure there were no hidden structures, homeless people camping out, dead bodies, things like that, you know? Whoa, whoa. Okay, the plan was we're going to split up and explore and maybe hope there's no dead bodies. Yes. Oh, my God. There really are just different types of people out there that have no fear. Brave souls. Oh, my gosh. Not us. I wouldn't even do this in a group setting. I would do this in a group on the back of like a golf cart or like a four-wheeler or like a gator or something. And it's going to be broad daylight when we do it, too. Yeah. And we're going to have a drone following us. There will be a camp set up and we'll have home base. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Five acres? Like, that's big. Yeah, it's a lot. Hmm. So we split up and made our way out. First night, nothing happened at all. It was actually extremely boring, to be honest. I set up camp, made a fire, ate some food, canned beans, and went to sleep. When I woke up, there were some tracks just outside my camp that weren't there the night before, but I kind of just figured it was a coyote, a hog, or something. I'm very well known to be a deep sleeper. You have to be to sleep on an aircraft carrier. So I just brushed it off and went on with the day. The entire time I was surveying the land, I felt like someone was watching me. At first, I thought it was Jordan, my best friend and owner of the land, trying to make sure I was actually doing what I was supposed to be doing. But later in the evening, I found a small creek and stopped to take a break and cool off in it. Every time I put my head underwater, I knew something was watching me. And it definitely wasn't Jordan. Again, I just tried to brush it off. I've dealt with anxiety and panic attacks for the last couple of years due to something that happened in the Navy. So I just figured I was being paranoid. When the sun was starting to go down, me and Jordan met back up to discuss everything we've seen. He told me he found the foundation to some old shack and I told him about the creek. I asked him if he had some weird feeling about being watched. And to my surprise, he said he did as well. It was never said out loud, but we both sort of just silently agreed that we were not going to sleep at the same time. I told Jordan that I'd stay up, which he seemed relieved at. I don't think he slept at all the night before. I was sitting on a rock with a flashlight. A Henry 3030 Lever Action and an American Tactical 45 ACP. As I've mentioned before, I was in the military, but I wasn't special forces or anything like that. I was an IT that worked with radios and frequencies. But I was a redneck Cajun that grew up around guns my entire life. So I was no expert, but I definitely knew what to do. The first hour went by and nothing out of the ordinary happened. A twig snapped here or a squirrel scurried across a branch. But that was it. That is, until I heard a weird banging noise. It was like I was in the middle of the night. like a lighter version of two bucks knocking their together. At first, it started, then a minute later, then 30 seconds, and soon enough, it was constant and getting louder and louder. I was starting to panic a bit, so I fire once that direction, not trying to hit it, but to scare whatever it was and wake up Jordan, to which both worked. Jordan was awake and the noise stopped. He grabbed his gun and aimed it in the direction I shot and was currently aimed. Then the noise started back again, but so, so much louder. It was legitimately deafening, and Jordan dropped his gun and fell to the ground covering his ears. I was barely holding on and only because of some hearing loss. I kicked out a big light and I saw it. I genuinely have no idea how to describe this thing, but I'll try my best to. It had a body like a deer, but all of its proportions were elongated and longer than they should have been. It was either whitish brown skin or fur. I couldn't really tell. Now for the part that's terrified my dreams since that night, its face. It had no buck antlers, but its head was extremely disproportionate to its body. It was extremely small and circular, bulging eyes and a ring of black hair that went around its entire head, reminding me of a sunflower. It was by far the most terrifying thing I've ever seen or heard. I wish I could describe it better, but maybe one day I can get an artist to draw it better than I can describe it. I remember thinking, I'm going to die here. So I fired my rifle at it and hit it, and it was obviously hurt by the noises it made. So I kept firing until I was empty, and it started to run off, and I switched to my pistol and just kept firing. After, we heard it cry from pain pretty far away. Jordan and I left everything in the woods and ran to our trucks. By the time we got back, we were exhausted, terrified, and utterly shaken to our cores. We tried to explain how it looked to our friend and family, and my brother Beau called it the sunflower deer, which he made up on the spot. Has anyone ever heard of this before? It's been a year, and I don't go into the woods anymore. I thought at the beginning, sunflower deer was like a thing. I thought they were like, yeah, I saw the sunflower deer, you know, the infamous cryptid that everyone knows about. It's just something they made up, or a name they made up. What is that? Do you know anything about it? No, I have no idea what this is. It's in Louisiana. That's too close. That's all we know. That's too close for me, personally. No, and I literally googled- I mean, it's like a six-hour drive, but still. I looked up, like, the sunflower deer, and the only thing that was bringing up was like, deer love to eat sunflowers. Yeah, something sweet. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Could it have just been a deer with some kind of, like, mutation? Or like, a mange of some kind? The way the fur was around its head? But why was its head so small? That's the thing. Like, its head was small, and its eyes were bulging. So I'm thinking, like- Like a Jimothy situation? Who? You haven't heard of Jimothy? Jimothy? Like Timothy, but with a J? Yeah, the raccoon. Jimothy. Oh, where his, like, spine is too short? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, so like- Like he doesn't have a neck? Yeah, something like that. Could it have been born just with, like, a smaller skull? Or, I don't- You know what I mean? Yeah. But the way it was so boldly, like, coming at them- And what was it hitting its antlers on? Was there more than one? I don't know. Either way, I'm really unsettled. It unsettled them so badly that they emptied both of their weapons- And never went to the woods again. Bro, that is so me. I am, like, famously, like, afraid of guns, anti-gun, I'm like, I've never even shot one. I don't want to touch one. But when it comes to these types of stories, I'm like, come and take it. Like, get after it, man. Like, don't let it near you. You've even told me, what is that? It's like, always sunny meme. It's like, and so I started blasting. Yes, yes, that's how I feel in these stories. And so, like, me never having even shot a gun. I've held a gun, like, a couple of times and been like, ooh, I don't like it. Yeah, they're scary. Go for it, man. Whenever something like that's coming at you, yeah, sure, have a gun. Oh, that scares me so bad. I'm, like, sweating, though, girl. I know, it freaks me out, because it's just, like, in the woods. It said, come and take it. Because, really, really, if something like that's coming at me, I've never shot one before, like, a gun, I'll pick one up. I don't know, like, that's, what else do you do? Because are you going to, like, hand-to-hand combat with that thing? I don't know, yeah. I don't know. And you're right, though. The way it was, it was continuing to come up to them. Like, it wasn't afraid. Yeah. And it was watching them. It had been watching them before. For the last two days. Like, I could write it off as, like, oh, maybe it had. It had some kind of, like, rabies or something, and that's why it wasn't right, and it was coming after them. But for a couple of days, it took it time to stalk and watch them. They said there were tracks that could be a coyote or hog, so smaller tracks. I mean, coyote and hog tracks are very different. Yes. But, I mean, if it was some random unknown animal or animal with some kind of genetic mutation, it could have weird feet. Yeah. Oh, now I'm just kind of sad. Who knows? Who knows what it is. That's horrible. So, if you're in Louisiana and you've ever seen the sunflower deer or anything like it, please, please let us know. And if you have any theories, too, because very creepy. Mm-hmm. That first bite of your favorite sub, followed by ice-cold Pepsi. Add a couple of friends, and now that's next level. Because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun. And more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger, multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. But our next one comes from r slash Cryptid Encounters. Once again, this one is from seven years ago. So, well, vintage. It's called Something in the Woods Need Help Identifying. This story is 100% true, and I'm writing it here to warn other people and let them know that there's definitely something out there. And to this day, I still don't know what it was, nor have I gone into any woods or forest whatsoever. If you don't know what it is, let me know in the comments. If you don't believe me, that's completely fine. Just read this as a fun story. But for those of you out there with an open mind, or you've seen something yourself, just know you're not alone. And just typing out and remembering this account is causing me to shake with anxiety and fear. First off, I'm a girl, and I live in North Carolina in the United States. I was 15 at the time of my encounter and was definitely not a believer in anything supernatural, paranormal, or anything of that sort. It happened while I was at a local summer camp. There was absolutely nothing. There was absolutely nothing special about that day. No weird lights, people, animals, sounds, nothing. It was just the same camp schedule as I'd grown used to in the past two weeks I'd been there. My age group had just finished lunch and was able to persuade our counselor to let us play a game called Scatter down by the lake. It's like a giant hide-and-seek game in the woods. Now, we'd played this at least 20 times before that day, and nothing weird had happened to any of us. And we all grew up playing in the woods, so it's not like we had an aversion or fear of it. But for some reason, that day, when our counselor shouted, Scatter! And I ran to find a hiding place, it became a whole new ballgame. I had run as far as I could while still being able to see the lake, as were the rules, and had found a huge old uprooted tree that I'd decided would be the perfect hiding place. So I laid down as close as I could against the ground and waited. I'd been there for about five minutes when I suddenly heard a voice calling my name in a weird, dreamy-like voice. And not just any voice. My mom. Now, me and my mom are extremely close, thick as thieves, so I'd known her voice anywhere, and I would swear on my own grave that it was without a doubt hers. But I knew it couldn't be her. She was 20 miles away at work. And even if it had actually been her, and she'd come to pick me up early, the voice wasn't coming from the lake. It was coming from further out in the woods, beyond the border of the camp. I knew I should have run away from this strange, mimic mom voice, but I couldn't. It was almost hypnotic. It messed with my thoughts and gave me doubts like, well, it could be mom, or what if she's hurt, and I have to go help her. All these things were flooding into my mind like someone had broken a dam I didn't know was there. Until they finally overwhelmed me, and emotions got the better of me, and I took off running in the direction the voice was coming from. I ran as far as I could with only this strange voice as my guide. I couldn't have run for more than five or seven minutes when I got to a clearing. And the voice suddenly stopped. When I entered the clearing, and didn't hear my mom's voice calling me anymore, could I finally think clearly again. And started to have little alarm bells go off inside my head saying, "You idiot, or that is not mom," and "Run." But I couldn't run. I didn't know where to run. I'd gotten so far away, I'd lost sight of the lake by camp, and had absolutely no idea where I was. I was completely exhausted to boot. With no other options than to sit and catch my breath, I did just that. No sooner had I sat down, more warning bells went off in my mind. I quickly did a 360 survey around the clearing and noticed a strange noise. It wasn't the continuation of the voice before, no, it was that distinct sound of chattering teeth. Like, if you were cold, only there was no one else around, and it was the middle of June in North Carolina. There's no way someone could be cold. And that's when I heard it. Leaves and sticks crunch on the edge of the small clearing, and I realized something was watching me. And then whatever it was, moved on. moved fast in circles around the clearing, almost like it was circling prey, and it was at that moment I knew whatever it was had led me out there, away from the rest of my group, exactly like the predator my instincts had been screaming at me that it was. Without any other option other than to try and escape, I took off in the direction I thought I came from and sprinted as fast as I could, all the while hearing the chittering of teeth and sticks crunch behind me. I didn't know what to do. I didn't dare turn around to see what it was chasing me, I knew that if I did I would slow down and I absolutely would not. It felt like a lifetime running away from this thing before I finally saw the lake, and even though I didn't think I could, I ran faster than I ever have in my life when I broke the tree line and ran to the lake where I knew my friends were. At that point I felt safe enough to stop and look back and see just what had been chasing me, but when I did, I only saw a fleeting form running back the way I had come from, and the distinct sound of chittering teeth. When I finally found my counselor who was a seeker to find all of us, I was hysterical with fear and hugged her as tight as I could. When I finally calmed down, she tried to get me to tell her what happened, but I just asked, were you calling my name? Before she even said anything I already knew the answer. After all, it'd been my mom's voice that led me away from everyone else. But what she replied with was so much more bone chilling to me. She told me, no one called for you, we didn't know where you'd gone, everyone is still hiding, the game isn't over yet. Oh my god. The teeth. The chittering. The teeth. It's way too much. That reminds me of like the Fleshgates stories that we read long time ago, like our very first like mimics in Fleshgates. I don't even remember. Very long time ago. They, a lot of people say that they'll hear like when they have like mimics or Fleshgates or something like it in the woods, there's a chittering. All around them. I don't like that. I don't like that at all. I feel deeply unsettled by this information. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Wow. It's just, I'll never get over it. I'll never get over just the absolute, it, the absolute terror that brings to my mind something using a voice of a person you love, you know, as bait. Because like they said, like that's my mom, like we are best friends. I know her voice. It's just so diabolical. I was talking to Ryan the other day because he famously does not watch the pod. He's never seen a single episode. Has never watched it. I asked him the other day or I mentioned something. I was like, oh yeah, like a mimic. He's like, what's a mimic? You don't want to know. And I said, oh, okay. Well, and I started to tell him, he was like, yeah, nevermind. Nevermind. I don't want to know. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. Because I was like, imagine you're at home and you hear me call your name out like, hey, Ryan, can you come here? And you start to get up and you realize like, wait, Natalie's at work. And he was like, okay, okay, okay. No, don't, don't, don't. I was like, yeah, yeah. So even worse in the woods, luring you out far away. Like it's one thing to go to your bedroom. Like, you know where you are in your bedroom. You can, you can get out. I'd rather hear it in the woods than in my home. All I'm saying is, well, yes. Okay. That's, that's horrifying. But if I were out in the woods and something lured me far away and I couldn't find my way back. And you're lost. Like at least if I get to my room and I realize, nope, I can turn around and walk out the door and I know exactly where I am. That is true. But like in the case of this story, OP was totally lost and turned around and just hoped they were going in the right direction. That is so scary. I feel very unsettled. And the circling too, like a shark just. And you know what's worse? You know what's worse now? What? On Friday, we have an episode from listeners that's coming similar to this, right? Because we're keeping it all on theme. Yeah. A little bit. I don't like it. I really don't. Well, I'm not, I'm not excited. You, you'll be excited. It's not exactly, it's adjacent. It's adjacent to this. It's not cryptids. That is very exciting. And you're going to want to watch it. So please like this video if you liked it, share it with your friends if you feel compelled to do so and subscribe for more. Our listener stories is not exactly, but it's an adjacent topic and it's very fun. You're going, I'm serious. You're going to love it. Okay. Everyone's going to love it. All right. Make sure you comment down below. Let us know what you think of these stories. And if you have any questions, what you think, because some of these, we don't have answers. We almost never have answers. We don't like, we're very curious what, if any other people have had encounters like this, if you've seen or heard other people talk about things like this and what your thoughts on it are specifically the sunflower deer. Sunflower deer is very intriguing to me. Yeah, me too. You can follow us on social media. It's at ghosties pod. Make sure you're checking us out on YouTube and Spotify for video. If you want to see our faces and our Natalie's mostly reactions they're hilarious. Go check out our video. You can follow us on Patreon. If you'd like to, it's patreon.com slash ghosties. We've got a live coming up. You can help us pick topics and have our extra bonus episodes. Hear us chat, be in the group chat. It's a good time over there. I like Patreon. Me too. Other than that, we will see you on Friday. Goodbye. Hey, I've got the campaign brief ready built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape approved. 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