Spectral

Today's podcast will feature three stories that all feature people who had wild encounters that defy explanation. The first story you'll hear is called The Sailor, and it's about a sailor who wakes up from this very vivid dream, and he feels like there had to be some sort of deeper meaning to it. The second story you'll hear is called Practically Family, and it's about a late-night phone call from a trusted friend that ultimately leads to this impossible mystery. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Bridge Patrol, and it's about two security guards who see something while patrolling a bridge, and to this day, no one can explain the events that occurred next when they actually investigated. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, go ahead and offer it to meticulously and very carefully detail the follow-button's car for them. But when you take possession of their car, just fill the car with water and then leave. Okay, let's get into our first story called The Sailor. On the night of August 30th, 1892, a 20-year-old man named Benjamin Trudeau climbed into his bed inside of the Deer Park Life Saving Station, which was a small government building right up the coast of Lake Superior in Michigan. Benjamin was a member of the Life Saving Service, which was a precursor to the U.S. Coast Guard, and he was currently working overnight as a surfman, which was basically like a lifeguard, but specifically for ships that were out on the lake. He was there with a bunch of other surfmen who were all taking ships, either sleeping, patrolling the beach, or staying awake inside the station in case somebody came looking for help. Benjamin had just finished a four-hour beach patrol, which had been pretty uneventful, but at the same time he was still walking around for four hours on loose sand, and so he was pretty tired. And so now that he was back at the station, he had a little bit of time where he could basically take a nap, and so he set his alarm for four hours later, which is when he would need to be awake in the station to take on another shift, and then he told his fellow surfman that he was going to close his eyes for a minute, and then he climbed into bed and fell asleep. A few hours later though, Ben shot up in bed and began frantically looking around the room, he was covered in sweat, his heart was racing, and after a second he realized that okay, he's okay, he's in the station, he's safe, and what had just happened to him was just a dream. He had had a terrifying nightmare, but it felt so real that it really took him a second to understand that that's all it had been, just a dream. In this dream, Benjamin was walking along the coast of Lake Superior, like he did during his nightly beach patrol, and it was dark out and there was this awful thunderstorm, and the rain was coming down so hard that Benjamin could barely see, and in fact he almost felt like the impacts of the individual raindrops almost hurt his skin like they were acid striking his skin. Then suddenly, through this wall of rain right in front of him, this man who Ben didn't recognize kind of stumbled into view, and this man was wearing very nice clothing, like he was on his way to a party or something, but you know they're down at the coast of this lake, and it's storming out like it didn't make any sense. But Benjamin, he just stared at this guy and didn't say anything, and the guy looked right back at Benjamin, and without saying a word, he just reached out and really aggressively shook Benjamin's hand. And then, as Benjamin is watching his hand be shaken around by this guy, this guy with wild eyes turns, and he points out to the lake, that's right next to them. And even though he didn't say anything, he pointed with this level of urgency, like there's something out there, something bad, and you need to pay attention to whatever it is. And so Benjamin, he turned, and his hand still being shaken by this guy, and he looks out, but it's just a wall of water. He can't even see the lake, and he has no idea what this guy is trying to tell him, and it was at that point that, you know, Benjamin sat up and he was awake again. Now, objectively, Benjamin understood that while this dream definitely was creepy, it wasn't really terrifying, you know, it was raining and storming, and a random guy came up and shook his hand and pointed at the lake, like that's not terrifying. But for some reason, for Benjamin, it just felt so real that that was the thing that made it so unsettling. It felt like he really had been out there and really had this interaction. Now, Benjamin was not the type of guy that would, you know, find meaning in dreams. He basically chalked dreams up as just that, just dreams. But there was something different about this dream. He felt almost intuitively like what had just happened in his dream was a warning that that man, whoever he was, was telling Benjamin something, and it had to do with the lake, but he didn't know what it was. But as Benjamin thought about this, he knew how sort of crazy that sounded, and he figured that maybe he was just kind of caught up in the immediacy of having just had this dream that really the only reason he felt like it had weight is because it just happened. So maybe if he just went outside and got some fresh air and let some time pass that he would, you know, let this dream fade into the ether and he'd go back to normal life. And sure enough, when he got outside and got some fresh air, he did feel better, but he did still feel like that dream meant something. And so he just walked down to the coast of Lake Superior, where he was in his dream, to the other surf men who were down there doing their own patrol. And there, you know, there was nothing unusual happening. The lake was so calm, and Benjamin, he went up to one of the surf men and just kind of told them about this dream, and he was almost joking about it. He's like, yeah, you know, it felt so real that like I almost feel like it was a warning of some kind, but yeah, it's just a dream. And the other surf men who were listening just for like, yeah, that's crazy, crazy dream, huh? And that was it. Following day around noon, Benjamin and his fellow surf men were hanging out inside the life-saving station, when all of a sudden, this guy comes stumbling into the station, and he looked awful. He was soaking wet, he was covered in all these cuts and bruises, and he was visibly shaking so much that it almost looked like he was about to collapse right there onto the floor. Benjamin immediately asked the guy like, hey, what's going on? What's brought you here? What's happening? And the man who clearly was struggling to just breathe at this point sort of composed himself and just said, I was out on the lake last night on a ship that sunk. And as soon as he said that, Benjamin was like in total disbelief because if a ship sunk on Lake Superior, the life-saving service that Benjamin was a part of was supposed to know because they patrolled the lake and tracked the vessels out on the water. So it seemed sort of impossible that a ship could sink, and his crew, the surf men, would somehow not even know about it, and then, at the same time, Benjamin is thinking this, he couldn't help but go back to that dream he had had. It had happened last night, and it just seemed like this guy was warning Benjamin about something out on the lake. It just seemed way too coincidental that this guy's here the next day talking about a shipwreck out on the lake around the same time frame. The survivor of the shipwreck explained that the ship had been really far out on the lake, probably too far away from shore for them to even see, and he said that he and several other people had made it onto a lifeboat, but the boat had capsized, and he had spent hours and hours swimming to shore, and he had just gotten here and that's why he'd come in and he was soaking wet and so tired because he had just swam all night, and he said he didn't know about any of the other survivors or if there were any other survivors. All he knew is that he was here and he has no idea what else happened. And so Benjamin and the other surf men immediately gave this man a blanket and some food and some water and then they quickly sent out a fleet of boats to go search the lake to hopefully find other victims of the shipwreck. That evening and all through the night, Benjamin and his co-workers sailed rescue boats back and forth all across Lake Superior looking for survivors, but all they could find were four dead bodies. But the man who had swam to shore and told them about the shipwreck said there had to be more people out there. He said there had been 27 people on this ship, including him when it had sunk, which meant a lot of people were still definitely unaccounted for, so while some of the surf men continued to search out on the water, Benjamin and a small team decided they would actually search the coastline itself and see if anybody washed up on shore. So early on the morning of September 1st, so now the surf men have been out searching for people for over 24 hours at this point, Benjamin and his team were walking down the coastline and they looked up ahead and they saw what appeared to be two people laying on the sand. So of course they ran up to them and unfortunately they discovered that it was a man and a woman who were lying face down in the sand and they were not breathing. They were dead. And so Ben, he knelt down next to the man and he began rolling his body over to get a look at him. And when he did that, two things happened. When he rolled him over and actually got a look at this guy's face, he saw immediately that it was the exact same guy from his dream. The guy who had shaken his hand and pointed out at the lake, it was him definitely. And as he's having this revelation, he's sort of kneeling there and shock. The man's body, he's sort of rolling it over and as it completes the rollover, the man's limp hand falls directly onto Ben's hand. like a handshake. Ben would later learn that the ship that sunk out on Lake Superior the night before was called the Western Reserve, and apparently it had sunk during the exact same time that Ben had that nightmare. And the man that Ben saw in his dream, the man that had been pointing out at the lake and shaking his hand in the dream and then Ben found on the shore dead, who then in his death flopped over and put his hand in his hand all over again, was a guy named Robert Minch, and he was part owner of the Western Reserve ship. For the rest of Benjamin's life, he believed that Robert's spirit had actually visited him in that nightmare to warn him about the shipwreck that was literally happening right then in there, that he was shaking his hand and pointing out at the lake like, hey, go out there right now, there's something horrible happening, a ship is sinking, people need your help. But when Benjamin woke up, despite really feeling like this meant something, this dream was a warning, he didn't actually go out and search the lake. And so as a result, the ship sank. In fact, of the 27 people who were on board that ship that sank, 26 died, including Robert the owner. The only survivor was that man who swam to shore and told them after the shipwreck had already happened. Our next story is called "Practically Family". Late at night on October 26, 1968, a 72-year-old woman named Ethel Harris was sitting in her living room in Toledo, Ohio, when her phone rang. And the first thing she did when a rang was looked at the clock. It was 10.30 pm, like this is not when people called her. And so worried something was wrong, she got up and she answered the phone and she said hello. And on the other end of the line, somebody said back, "Hey, sis." And Ethel immediately knew who this was. It was not assembling, despite the greeting, "Hey, sis." It was someone that was very close with her and her husband Dawn. In fact, this person who she was speaking to was Dawn's best friend, a 59-year-old man named Lee Epps. And for decades, Lee and Ethel and Dawn had lived next to each other. They were neighbors. And basically, every day, they were at each other's houses together. I mean, they were super-duper close. But Lee had eventually moved to another town, and so they didn't see each other as much. But they did get together a fair amount, and also Lee, very regularly, would call the house and just check in. And so Ethel's thinking, "Okay, it's a little bit late, you know, 10.30 at night, but it's Lee. So clearly, he's just calling to check in." But before Ethel could really even respond to his greeting of, "Hey, sis," because that's what he called her, "Sis." He just kept on talking. It was as if Ethel wasn't even there. He was just sort of delivering a message. He was like, "Hey, sis, I'm feeling really bad. Like, I've never felt this way before, and I really need your husband Dawn to get in touch with me the moment he gets back, and then Lee hung up. And Ethel, after, you know, the phone call died, she was really confused, because one, you know, it seemed like a sort of normal ketchup call, but he's saying something that sounded really serious, that, you know, something's going on with him. But also, too, what immediately stood out to her was, how did he know Dawn wasn't there at the moment? Like, he wasn't nearby. How could he have just guessed that Dawn wasn't home right now? Because Dawn wasn't. He was out. He was going to be home soon, but he was out at the time he said it. It was like he had this knowledge that he was going. And so it just seemed odd that he knew that piece of information. And so because she was sort of confused by this call, and worried about Lee, you know, considering what he said, she tried calling him back. But Lee didn't answer. She tried several more times, never heard from Lee. And then eventually, her husband, Dawn, he came home, and she explained to him like, "Yeah, got this weird call from Lee." You know, he said, "You know, he wanted you to get in touch with him as soon as he came back, because he's not feeling good or something. I don't really know." So Dawn's like, "All right, that's weird." So he tries calling Lee, and Lee doesn't answer. And so at this point, Dawn, he's like, "Ethel, go over it again. What exactly did he say? Did he sound scared? Did he sound confused? What was he talking about?" And Ethel said, like, "I don't know. He just sort of stated that he just didn't feel good, and he had never felt this way before, and he just really wanted to talk to you, Dawn." But again, he mentioned you were out of the house. I don't know how he knew that. And he said, "The have you call when you came back. That's really what happened. I don't understand it either." And so because Ethel and Dawn really didn't know what to make of this, and just given the fact that maybe Lee could be in trouble, they were like, "You know what? Let's just drive over to his house in the other town, and just check on him. Just make sure he's okay." So they hop in the car, they drive to Lee's house, and Lee's not there. And so even though it was late at night, Ethel and Dawn really were worried about their friend, and so they began knocking on neighbor's doors to see if anybody knew where he was. It would take a while, but eventually one of the neighbors said that Lee actually was at the hospital. And at this, you know, Ethel and Dawn, it's like their worst fears are confirmed. Something really is wrong with their friend, and so they went to the nearest hospital, which is called Mercy Hospital. And when they got there, they learned that yes, Lee was admitted to the hospital, but unfortunately he was dead. And this on its face was of course shocking news for Ethel and Dawn. I mean, they did not expect to find out that their friend of many decades was, you know, abruptly and sort of inexplicably dead, but that was far from the most shocking thing they learned. When they spoke to the medical staff about what actually happened to Lee, they would eventually tell Ethel and Dawn that after some complications, Lee ultimately passed away at precisely 1030 pm the previous night. His actual time of death exactly coincided with the moment Ethel got that phone call from Lee, where he said to her, "I just don't feel right. I've never felt the sway before. Please, when your husband Dawn gets home, have him call me." Ethel and Dawn have no way to prove this, but they believe that that phone call was actually Lee's spirit, his soul, trying to talk to his best friend one more time before he passed away. The next and final story of today's episode is called Bridge Patrol. On the morning of September 10th, 1987, police constable Dick Ellis walked into an interview room in a police station in South Yorkshire, England. Inside of this room was a table and sitting on the other side of this table were these two security guards, one was named Stephen Brooks and the other was named David Goldthorp. And from PC Ellis's perspective, his first impression of these two guys is they were like big, burly, tough-looking men, he could tell they were both visibly shaken, like something had really rattled both of these guys. However, before Ellis could even sit down and begin asking basic questions about what was going on here, these two security guards just launched into this totally crazy sounding story. The men told Ellis that the night before they had been patrolling this construction site where workers were building a six-mile stretch of highway and bridge that were called the Stocksbridge bypass. And it was these guys' job to basically patrol the site and make sure no thieves tampered with any of the equipment. Now, at this time of night, there was nobody at the site, no workers, nothing like that. And so really, it was the security guard's job to make sure nobody entered the site and either tampered with equipment or tried to steal anything. Now, the night had been very routine and quiet until around midnight. It was at that point that David and Stephen, these two security guards, had reached the bridge, the half-constructed bridge portion of this bypass. And as they're walking along the highway and they see the bridge out in front of them, they stopped because they saw clearly there was a figure standing on this bridge. It almost looked like a man who was wearing a long jacket, like a cloak or something, and he appeared to be staring down below the bridge, down towards the valley, underneath what the bridge was actually going over. Like this man clearly had not spotted these security guards. And so naturally, they began calling out to this guy, you know, asking him, like, hey, what are you doing here? What's going on? This is a private construction site, like you need to go. But the guy on the bridge didn't react. He just kept staring down to the valley below. And so at that point, as the two security guards are now walking in the direction of this guy, one of them lifts up his flashlight and shines it at this man. And when he does, the beam of light appears to just go through this man's body, like his body isn't solid, and the light just passed right through. And as soon as they did that, both Steven and David just stopped, shocked at what they're seeing, aiming this light at the sky. And as they're doing this, the figure appeared to kind of turn and look at David and Steven. And they were so unsettled and terrified by it that instead of protecting the construction site, they just turned and ran. And they went to the police. Now, after PC Ellis had been told this story, he did not believe in any way that what they had experienced was supernatural. He's thinking, okay, clearly, you saw some guy, and, you know, maybe he shouldn't have been there and maybe it was a trick of the light or something, or maybe that wasn't a person at all. And you just thought it was, like, who knows, but there has to be A logical, rational explanation here, and so feeling kind of annoyed that he was called in to deal with this. Alice looks at these two guys and he's like, "Look, this is not a police matter. Why don't you guys, if you're so shaken up by this, you know, go talk to the church or something. Like this is not something we can help you with." And at that, the two security guards just said, "Okay," and they got up, and they left. And Alice truthfully didn't think about this at all. It was like, "Okay, great. That's done. I don't got to deal with that." And he went on with this day. But later that day, Alice got a call from his boss being like, "Hey, did you tell two security guards who came in here to go talk to the church about some ghosts they saw at a construction site or something?" And at this, Alice had to kind of explain what had happened and how he had sort of flippantly told them to, you know, go see the church if they really thought they saw a ghost. But his boss was like, "Well, they took you literally, and they are currently at the local church, those two security guards right now, and they are refusing to leave unless the church helps them with this ghost situation." And so Alice's boss told him that, "You just need to go to the church, get these two guys to calm down and leave. Go do that right now." And so Alice is like, "I can't believe they took that seriously. Okay, fine." So he hops in a scruzer, he goes to the church, he finds these two guys who are still totally shaken up, and they're pleading with people to take them seriously. Somebody needs to go out there and see what's on the bridge, see what this could have been, and Alice is like, "Guys, I will, tonight, go to the bridge, I will check it out. I'll see what's going on there, if you leave the church, and you don't come back, leave these people alone." And at this, you know, David and Steven, they're totally relieved, they're like, "Oh, you will. Oh my gosh, great. We'll leave. Thank you. Let us know what you find." And they left the church. And so they left, and PC Ellis is like, "Okay, great, I guess tonight I'm going to go look in for ghosts." And so that night, around midnight, PC Ellis and his partner drove over to the construction site, specifically they went to the bridge. They got on the road that actually went underneath this unfinished bridge, and they camped out on this lower road, looking straight up in front of them was this bridge. They're basically just going to monitor this bridge, because that's where the security guards claim to have seen this figure, this ghost. You know, they're going to stake out this bridge, see what happens, call it good. Now at first, nothing happened on this bridge. Ellis and his partner just sat there, staring bored up at this bridge, waiting for, you know, the time to pass by so they could leave. But at some point, Ellis noticed movement up on the bridge and so did his partner. Now they couldn't quite tell what it was, and they couldn't even see if it was still moving around anymore, but clearly something had moved on the bridge. And so for a couple of seconds, Ellis and his partner are just staring really intently up at the bridge, waiting to see something else happen, but, you know, nothing else did. And so Ellis is like, well, I got to go up there and check, because, you know, maybe there is some guy who's trespassing on the construction site, and that's what the security guards saw. Like I got to go up there and see, because from down here, you know, we really can't see too well. And so Ellis told his partner to just stay put in the car that he, Ellis, would go up on the bridge and have a look around. So Ellis, he got out of the car, all he had was a flashlight, and he began walking over to the bottom of this bridge. And there was actually a ladder, he would have to climb up to the actual bridge. Because remember, they're on the road below this bridge. And so Ellis, he gets to the ladder, he begins climbing up the ladder, and as he's going up, you know, he's kind of staring up, you know, almost expecting somebody to poke their head over, but, you know, it's quiet, no one's looking over the edge. And eventually, Ellis gets to the top, and he climbs onto the bridge, and again, it's this unfinished bridge, there's no traffic up here. And he looks roughly in the direction of where he thought he saw movement when he was down in the car looking up here, which also happened to be roughly the area where the two security guards had described seeing the figure that their light had shown through. And sure enough, Ellis looks, and he sees there's this cloaked figure standing a little ways off of the side of the bridge, apparently just looking down towards his police car. And Ellis, at first, he's kind of shocked, he can't believe that like there's some legitimacy to the story these guys had told, and he couldn't help but be kind of frightened for a second. But then Ellis raised his flashlight and shined it at this figure, and as soon as he did, he just laughed. Because all it was was a plastic tarp wrapped around some construction equipment. Like that's what the security guards clearly had seen, and you know, when they shine their light, I mean, it's a clear plastic tarp here, you know, the light could theoretically go through it, you know, you can kind of see how they would think, oh my gosh, it's a ghost. And so Ellis is like, this is all this was. This was nothing. I knew it was nothing, and now I know it's nothing. And so after doing a cursory walk around the bridge to, you know, make sure nobody was up there, and you know, he looked around, there wasn't anybody there. Ellis went back to the ladder, climbed back down, got in the car with this partner, and explained to him that this whole thing was a joke. And of course, there's no ghost, there's no criminals, there's nothing. This is no big deal. Now, Ellis and his partner could have at this point, just left and gone home, but they had told their boss they'd come out here for at least an hour, and you know, they'd only been here for maybe 30 minutes at this point. And so the two of them decided, you know what? Just because we said we would, let's just stay here a little bit longer and make sure nobody goes on this bridge. You know, we'll give it another, you know, 30 minutes or so. And so Ellis and his partner just kind of sit back in their seats and settle in for this last little stretch of their shift. However, about 20 minutes into this final 30 minutes, Ellis is still just sitting there, his windows open, and he's just kind of doing nothing, waiting around. When suddenly he's hit with this unbelievably cold gust of air that comes into the car through his window, and it's kind of like sudden, like he's being hit with this gust of cold air. And then at the same time, Ellis began feeling this incredible pressure on his chest, like it was so intense, he thought he was having a heart attack, and he wanted to say something to his partner, but it was like he couldn't even move, he's like frozen, he's getting scared, he doesn't know what's happening, and as much as he wanted to like yell out and get his partner's attention to help him, he suddenly had this overwhelming feeling that there was someone off to the side staring at him, someone right outside the car. And even though he didn't want to look, he found himself slowly turning and looking out his open window, and right there immediately outside the door is this man standing practically pressed up against the window, his torso is inches away from Ellis's face, just standing there inexplicably, like this guy snuck up on them, they didn't even hear him. And so Ellis at this point, he breaks out of his sort of trance, he screams and gets his partner's attention, and then he pushes open his door, and he jumps out to confront this person who's snuck up on them, but there's no one outside the car. And so Ellis, he turns to his partner and he's like, hey, did you just see what I just saw? Did you see that guy? And Ellis's partner, who's totally ash and faced, just looks at Ellis and he's like, yeah, I did see him. And so after looking around for a couple more seconds, Ellis climbed back into the car, and then he and his partner debriefed what had just happened. And Ellis's partner would tell Ellis that from his seat, he actually had a better vantage point than Ellis did to seeing this guy. I mean, Ellis was basically right on top of this guy, but his partner was a little bit farther back and had a better angle. And he would tell Ellis that at some point he had turned and seen the guy standing there, and the guy he was wearing this old coat, this long coat that sort of looked like it belonged in the 1800s or something, and the partner would say like, he didn't hear this guy approach, he didn't know how he got there. But at some point, he said the guy in the coat, the guy outside, crouched down just enough that he was looking in the car in the direction of Ellis's partner. And Ellis's partner said he was staring right at the guy, but the guy, he had no face. Ultimately, Ellis and his partner would return to the station that night, and they would file a report about what happened to them. But they would simply describe it as inexplicable phenomenon, and after filing it, they basically hoped they would never have to talk about it again. Except that wouldn't be possible. Because shortly after filing that report, the construction was finished, and so the highway and the bridge were open to the public, and pretty much right away, people started dying on that bridge. Like a crazy high number of people, just inexplicably would get in these fatal accidents on the bridge, and this bridge was not like especially hazardous. It was a beautiful, brand new bridge, I mean, there really should not have been this many accidents. But it was not just that so many people were dying on this bridge inexplicably. Now, also in tandem with all the fatal accidents, were all the independently reported sightings of this dark figure standing on the bridge that had no face. So the leading theory amongst people who believe what's happening at this bridge is basically paranormal is that the construction of this bridge and the highway disturbed a gravesite, and that that has led to all the tragedy and death that has followed. But they've never actually been able to prove if there really was a gravesite where this bridge or the highway was built. The two security guards, Stephen Brooks and David Goldthorpe both quit their jobs. As for Ellison's partner, they've never changed their stories, and they also have never found a reasonable explanation for what they saw. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. purposes. The Mr. Bowling Podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Bowling. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bohn and Cole Lacasio, research and fact-checking by Shelley Schoo, Samantha Van Hoothse, Evan Beamer, Abigail Schumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano, research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear, audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacasio and Jordan Stidem, production support by Antonio Monada and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Clogston Keiner, theme song "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Bowling Podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Bowling Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Bowling YouTube channel that very same day, and trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Bowling. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it, I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.