The Women Are Plotting

Our Scariest Ghost Stories Will Make You Keep the Lights On

• Etienne Rose Olivier, Jane Gari, Heidi Willis • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Three women share their most terrifying paranormal encounters and discuss how these experiences shaped their beliefs about the afterlife and energy that persists beyond death.

• Did Einstein believe in ghosts?
• According to Pew Research, how many Americans have seen a ghost?
• Is The U.S. or the U.K. considered the most haunted country in the world?
• Heidi had an encounter in a New Orleans bathroom.
• Jane witnessed something horrifyingly otherworldly in a field in Kansas
• Heidi experienced extreme poltergeist activity for six weeks
• Jane found protection from another ghost given to her by her a then-deceased relative
• Can you set boundaries with ghosts and paranormal activity?

Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all social media platforms.


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Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

Etienne:

Welcome listeners. This is Women Are Plotting. I'm Etienne Rose Olivier, and I'm here with my friends and co-hosts Heidi Willis and Jane Gari . Today's episode will be talking about our scariest ghost stories. Now I have a fun, interesting fact for today's episode. I asked chat GPT to tell me how many ghost hunting television shows have ever existed, and it couldn't pin the number down, saying 20 to 30 major series. It listed 14 popular reality ghost hunting shows and my favorite title that I'd never heard of was Fear Factor Paranormal Edition, which ran back in 2012. It described the show as being a paranormal spinoff of the classic reality competition show where participants faced paranormal challenges. Whatever that means, Heidi, what is your fun or interesting fact for today?

Heidi:

So my interesting fact is Einstein actually believed in ghosts as well. Yeah, it's kind of funny the smartest, most logical man in the world believed that ghosts were real because he knew that energy was constant and couldn't be destroyed. So, yeah, so he believed in ghosts

Etienne:

oh wow, wait.

Etienne:

So do you think that he actually thinks that these are like spirits of the dead, or is it more of like a multiple universe,

Heidi:

the energy

Heidi:

doesn't die.

Etienne:

I was thinking more multiple universe situation. But okay, energy doesn't die, I like that.

Heidi:

Yeah.

Jane:

I love that

Heidi:

don't you? Yes, yeah, I love that fact too you? Yes, yeah, I love that back too. I forgot about reading. I think I read that in his biography, but I'd forgotten about it, and so, rediscovering that I was like oh, I love einstein even more

Jane:

and he played the violin.

Heidi:

I know

Jane:

extra rando, fun fact.

Etienne:

And his hair was so cool.

Heidi:

Yeah

Etienne:

I love that hair.

Jane:

What a badass he was.

Jane:

Just smart.

Heidi:

So himself too, Just silly. Anyway, that's the fun fact about what is yours?

Jane:

I'm still just basking in that fact and it makes me feel better about myself because I think I'm pretty smart. I'm not Einstein smart, but if he believed in ghosts, then I feel in good company and makes me feel less crazy. My fun fact is that, according to a Pew Research study, about 18% of Americans claim that they've seen a ghost. So it's not.

Heidi:

That's not very fringe.

Jane:

No, that's like nearly one in five people

Heidi:

have seen

Heidi:

one

Etienne:

Wait have seen one or believed in, they believe in ghosts or they've seen one.

Jane:

No, claim to have seen or been in the presence of a ghost.

Etienne:

Well, that okay, I wasn't paying 100% attention. I thought you just said believed in. Maybe that's why there's so many ghost hunting shows.

Heidi:

Really it is. It's popular because if you've seen one or experienced one, you're interested in it, because once you experience it, you're just like I gotta solve this mystery. What is this? And that's why you get sucked into these stupid paranormal shows, because you're thinking maybe they'll find the evidence.

Heidi:

You know, they'll figure this out finally,

Jane:

or you just never want to see one again. I mean it could go the other way.

Etienne:

I feel like that was my experience. I never wanted to see it again.

Heidi:

Well, I was petrified of ever seeing one. I thought if I ever see one I'm going to die of fright. So even during the worst hauntings I would keep my eyes just sealed shut because I was like I don't want to see you. I don't want to see you. So when I actually first saw my first ghost in New Orleans, it was just so random. She looked like she was just a customer going into the bathroom and I follow her thinking, oh, maybe it's a multi-stall bathroom. I open the door Nobody's in there, it's a single stall. It's a multi-stall bathroom. I open the door Nobody's in there, it's a single stall, nobody's in there. And I watched her go through the like go in the door. The door closed behind her and, yeah, she totally disappeared. So it was so crazy because she looked like a normal person.

Etienne:

Really.

Etienne:

So she didn't look like she was in some strange garb or olden times like situation in here.

Heidi:

 Nope. I didn't notice anything being out of the ordinary. She looked like a regular person. So when I opened the door and there was nobody in there, I just closed the door and I was kind of in shock, like. Okay, maybe there's a hidden door in here I'm doing, you know, I'm doing, you know, I'm doing taking care of going to the bathroom and washing my hands and I'm like, well, maybe, maybe I saw the wrong door, maybe there's a different door I saw, even when I came out and looked back at that it was the only door. Yeah, so that was crazy. Went almost my entire 40 some years I think it was 45, 45 years dreading ever seeing the ghosts and finally saw it and it was just looked like a regular person and I didn't die of fright.

Etienne:

You were 45 when this happened

Heidi:

yeah, yeah, around 45

Etienne:

oh my god, that's crazy I was not,

Jane:

didn't you ask

Etienne:

yeah wait, ask what

Jane:

heidi

Jane:

didn't you ask the people at the store about it and didn't they tell you that other people had seen?

Jane:

that too.

Heidi:

No, no, they had no idea that there was any kind of haunting. Yeah, they were just like I don't know. I'm like, okay, well, I just saw something, but it's new orleans like it's so freaking haunted. If you ask anybody, do you have a ghost?

Heidi:

they're just like, yeah, probably

Etienne:

yeah, I would feel like new orleans and like new york city would probably be the most, just because of they're so old

Heidi:

well, another fun fact I found out was somebody did a study of confirmed haunted locations and they came to the conclusion that the us is the most haunted country in the world, with uk right behind it

Etienne:

wow, I wonder if it's because we have more people like why would probably be more than the?

Heidi:

uk more locations, more space, but yeah, more than the uk

Etienne:

damn all right america number one, for an interesting reason there

Heidi:

We're the most haunted country. I immediately started thinking. I'm like, yeah, there's been a lot of trauma that's happening in this in our past, so well,

Etienne:

yeah

Heidi:

I think there's a few ghosts who are disgruntled or don't know.

Etienne:

Maybe in the South a little bit.

Heidi:

Yeah, a little bit

Etienne:

there might be some reasons for some Southern ghosts.

Heidi:

There's a lot of trauma that happened. I mean, look at Gettysburg. I mean people go there and they are like, if you don't believe in ghosts, go to Gettysburg. Just saying, go there, hang out at night.

Etienne:

Like in the field.

Heidi:

I mean.

Etienne:

I assume it's a field. Oh my God.

Heidi:

Yeah, go there at night. You will quickly believe in ghosts, that there's something.

Heidi:

Yeah, yeah

Jane:

I mean, I live near some battlefields from both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War in South Carolina and I went to a Revolutionary War battlefield the Battle of Camden is not that far from my house and I was on my way home from somewhere with my daughter, but she had ridden separately because it was a sporting event, so she was on the school bus and I was driving home by myself and it was twilight and I thought, oh, the Battle of Camden, the battlefield's right here. I'll just check it out real quick. I'm by myself. And I pulled off the side of the road and I got out of the car and I looked at it and no one else is parked there and it's a pretty rural area. This entryway to that battlefield park. There's a couple different entrances. This one was like just very desolate, let's say. And then I immediately got just all hair standing on end. I'm like what am I doing? I ran back to my car. I was like I am breaking all my rules, like why would I do this? You know, because I felt it. I felt like some, some energy and I was like I gotta get the fuck out of here.

Jane:

And then, when I was out at my dad's house in kansas. At the time he lived in the southeast corner of kansas where I don't know if you guys ever bleeding kansas there were a lot of skirmishes between yeah, um, western pushing settlers and Native Americans, and so I did not know that my dad lived in that area and my stepbrother and I were hanging out. He lived on seven acres and there was a barn and we were hanging out in the loft and I had brought some marijuana with me out to Kansas because I was at the age where that just made everything better and we just like got really high in the barn and I would chalk it up to just like, okay, we were high, but it was. I think what it did is it just made us more open to this experience and because we both saw the same thing and it wasn't like we had taken a bunch of acid or something like that, like we literally had a couple of puffs on a joint it wasn't anything nuts but all of a sudden it just felt—it was the dead of summer. We were both freezing, just freezing, and we're looking out into the field because we had the doors of the barn open and we're up in the hayloft just like looking out, we're like it's so beautiful here.

Jane:

But then all of these people were just like just walking, just just walking. And when I say all of these people, I'm talking like 200 and something people. And I saw it and I just thought,

Etienne:

holy

Jane:

all right. I was like this is this weed is laced, or something like that. But I knew it. I knew it wasn't because my boyfriend at the time used to grow it, so I knew that and I had smoked that particular strain before and it was not nuts, and I just was not going to speak and my stepbrother taps me on the shoulder and he goes hey, do you see that? I'm like shut up, don't say it. I just didn't want him to say it out loud because I thought if we don't voice it it's not really happening.

Jane:

But they were just walking towards us and kept walking towards us

Etienne:

Walking towards you, not just

Jane:

Walking like in this line of just hundreds of people just walking towards us in between the barn and my dad's house, and they just kept coming and they weren't doing anything menacing, but definitely you could tell old timey clothes and they were definitely like shimmery looking and I was like oh my God. And he just was like run and I don't know. But there was nowhere to run, but like through where we were seeing them, because it was like the worst game of Hellscape, red Rover, I guess you could imagine. So I just closed my eyes and ran like a wild Muppet to my dad's house, just screaming, just screaming like Kermit the Frog when we're back, running like a crazy person. And we just screamed all the way to my dad's house and then he opens the door because he was just like he saw us running and screaming because it was only like I don't know, like nine o'clock at night, he goes.

Jane:

What the hell are you guys doing? And my stepbrother's response we wanted ice cream. There's no way he didn't know that we were not high Like he could tell we were high. I think he was like, whatever, just have some ice cream. But because I was 21 and my stepbrother was 19 and he just rolled his eyes, you know, because I'm like how am I going to explain to my father what just happened? We just ran through all these people Don't you see all the people.

Etienne:

So you didn't ever tell him what happened, or did you?

Jane:

No, and I should have, because my dad told me later that he saw a ghost in that very house. That house that he lived in was built in 1861.

Etienne:

And wait. What year did this

Etienne:

stuff happen. That's a massacre.

Jane:

That is a good question and I don't know. I feel like this is highly Google-able.

Heidi:

This is a good segue into saying that you don't have to have an older house to have a haunting, because the house I grew up in highly haunted from day one and it was brand new. This cute little thousand square foot ranch that my mom bought when I was 10 and my sister was 8. And the first day we move in there are boots stomping and pacing the length of the house.

Etienne:

Oh God, it's only a thousand square feet.

Heidi:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was pacing the length of the house and there's like a foot of space in the attic so they're not walking in the attic and we would run outside. Nobody would be on the roof, and it was everybody heard this. Everybody Family members would come over. It would happen during the day. And it was everybody heard this. Everybody family members would come over. It would happen during the day, happen at night.

Heidi:

It was crazy

Etienne:

oh my god

Heidi:

yeah, so we would hear that all the time lights would go on and off. But the scariest one was okay. So there's two instances that happened. First one I was all by myself and I was recording music off the radio you know, like the top 10 at 10.

Heidi:

So I was recording a song and I went to the kitchen and I was making myself dinner and I wasn't paying attention to what was going on, but I did clock that the song had stopped and somebody had started talking. So somebody was talking and I didn't really pay attention to what they were saying until they said my full name.

Etienne:

No

Heidi:

oh yeah, first, middle, last, and, and then it was a pause and the song started again and I'm like and I thought, did I win something? So I'm immediately like I won something. So let me rewind it and listen to it and see what this guy was talking about before they said my name. And then the song started again. It was a song throughout the whole thing.

Etienne:

Oh, it gave me chills.

Heidi:

So that was when I was by myself and I could chalk it up to. Okay, I imagine that you know whatever.

Heidi:

The next incident that happened was finals studying with one of my girlfriends and we were the only two in the house. It was finals in the winter, so that's important to know. So the windows were all closed up and had plastic on there for energy efficiency and everything was solidly closed up, and she's at the kitchen table behind me and I'm at the stove making ramen noodles and we're chatting back and forth and the only way I can describe it is if a giant tried to whisper, so it's really loud, but it's also a whisperer. Said my name, heidi, and I keep talking. I'm still stirring the ramen noodles. I haven't turned back. I'm still stirring the ramen noodles. I haven't turned back, I'm just still talking.

Heidi:

Right, she's grown quiet. My friend has, and it does it again. And I just whip around and I see her face. She is gone, ghost white, and she just says it knows your name. And I'm like, oh shit, she heard it too, so I can't think it's just in my head, right? So yeah, we got knives out, like that was gonna protect us. We went outside thinking, okay, maybe it's boys messing with us. But no, there was nobody around. There was some ghost. Knew my name

Etienne:

where were you living?

Etienne:

where was this house located?

Heidi:

This is in iowa, central iowa

Etienne:

okay

Heidi:

where I grew up oh my god

Etienne:

well wait, could it be like one of those poltergeist situations where your house was built on like indian burial grounds?

Heidi:

possibly because we were

Etienne:

dudes one big dude's burial ground

Etienne:

like

Heidi:

yeah yeah, yeah, the guy with the boots pacing. But yeah, that was interesting place to grow up in. I know because I lived there from age 10 till when I left at age 18 to join the air force

Etienne:

so eight years of

Heidi:

uh-huh

Etienne:

ghostly experience, so you never saw him, though, you just

Heidi:

no, no, I guess just the sounds. Sounds something breathing in my enough, something breathing in my ear, yeah,

Etienne:

Something breathing in your ear that close.

Jane:

Oh my God.

Etienne:

How the hell did you? I don't know if I could be alone in the house ever

Heidi:

it was intense sometimes.

Heidi:

Yeah, and everybody had their individual experiences in there. So, like my sister had her own experiences, my mom, yeah.

Etienne:

Oh, my God.

Heidi:

Yeah, it was a crazy place

Etienne:

that was frightening. I was 24 when I saw my ghost. I was visiting my aunt. I was staying with her for a month. It was April of 1996. It's like I know exactly what month it was and I think I'd been staying with her for like two weeks at this point and I was staying in the guest room and she had this awesome guest room that had like the best. I wish I knew what kind of curtains these were. These were like the best blackout curtains I've ever. Ever. The room would be black there was no.

Etienne:

You didn't know being in there. If it was day or night, you would not know. And I was over 21. And this was the first time I hung out with my aunt where I was, like, able to drink, and she was kind of a big drinker. So we would literally have a bottle and a half of wine every night, with whatever we were eating, and I would go to bed totally blastedly drunk and I mean I wouldn't blackout, but I was so drunk.

Etienne:

And I'd always have to. When I was drinking that much, I'd have to get up early in the morning, or even three or four in the morning, to go pee. This particular morning it was six o'clock in the morning. I opened my eyes. I felt like I had to pee, so I opened my eyes and again, I should have mentioned that this was a very small room. This was a very small room like literally just the tiny little bed and a dresser, and not big at all. And across the room, as soon as I opened my eyes because I was going to get out of the bed I see a woman floating in the air and she's dressed in like an old-timey nightgown, you know the kind of nightgown that goes all the way to the ankles.

Etienne:

And she's definitely floating.

Etienne:

She's definitely beyond where the corner of the room should be you know, Like I don't know how that's possible.

Etienne:

But I mean, I'm seeing this and I'm like, oh my God, and like I slam my eyes shut and I'm squeezing them. I'm squeezing them so tight and I'm like fuck, I just kept thinking I'm going to open my eyes and she's going to be right there. Like that's what I kept thinking. Yeah, that's going to be in my face. Like why? And she looked mad at me

Heidi:

oh shit

Etienne:

She like what are you doing here? Was that look on her face? Like what the fuck? You know?

Etienne:

like I'm like oh shit, oh god,

Heidi:

you don't want an angry

Etienne:

I know I'm like I have to pee so bad, oh fuck, what am I gonna do? And like I'm lucky I didn't let my bladder go like how did I not pee the bed? And my aunt hurt because this this upstairs is her house was so tiny, so tiny. I literally could have just said her name in a normal voice and she would have heard me that's how small this upstairs area was. And I didn't. I laid there with my eyes screwed shut and holding on to my pee for like an hour.

Heidi:

Oh, my God

Etienne:

An hour, an hour.

Etienne:

I finally was like, was like I can't, I can't, I gotta go pee, like do it anymore, I'm like I don't care if she's there, I gotta go run, run. You know like, and I open my eyes and I didn't even look. I opened my, but I didn't look that way. I was like, get out really, really fast, it'll be fine. And I peed so fast and then my aunt was already downstairs. I'd heard her get up, use the bathroom, go downstairs. I heard all of this and I didn't get up. I was still scared.

Etienne:

And I go down and I tell her what happened and she's like, oh, that's your great-grandmother

Jane:

oh my

Etienne:

And I'm like what? What? She's been dead the whole time I've been alive.

Etienne:

I think she's like, yeah, I think she just like protects me and stuff, like stuff's happened around the house. And you know like, she told me about a story, about how her ex-husband got angry with her one time when they happened to be hanging out in the basement, and suddenly, out of nowhere, he looked like he was about to like grab my aunt is how she put it and suddenly he got thrown backwards and he looked fucking petrified and he ran out of the house. She never asked him what happened, but she thinks it was my great grandmother's ghost who was protecting her. So that was her big like she's like, but I've never seen her. And I'm like she's like you're so lucky you saw her. I'm like she was pissed, like she was not happy to see me. I don't want to see her.

Etienne:

Take it back, like take it back,

Heidi:

take it back, take it back.

Etienne:

I don't want to.

Heidi:

Oh my god, he's like the guard, the guard ghost.

Heidi:

Well, like a guard dog

Etienne:

yeah when I told her like how angry she looked, my aunt was like well, you know, you look just like your mother and she didn't like her, she didn't like your mom and I'm like great, so she thinks I'm my mother. So guess who never slept up in that bedroom again, and I slept during the day. I was taking cat naps during the day. I would stay up all night. I wasn't going into that bedroom. My fucking cousins, who lived also in New Jersey, wanted to have a seance in that room and I'm like you're fucking out of your mind. You guys go up there at the Ouija board. I'm not going.

Jane:

That's against the rules.

Etienne:

But here's the thing I was 100% I mean I was at the time like 100% atheist. I said this is not funny, that I'm the one that sees the ghost. Y'all Like that's not cool. Don't do this to the atheist. Like let somebody who believes in like stuff happening when you die to see the ghost Not me. It fucked with my head forever, Like forever. It's still fucking with me

Heidi:

oh my God

Etienne:

And I never saw her again. I was there for another couple weeks and, yeah, didn't see her again. Would not go into the bedroom by myself. I made sure my aunt was at least upstairs in her room or in the bathroom, doesn't matter. If I had to go get stuff out of that room because I had to keep my clothes and my suitcase in there, but not sleeping in there, no,

Heidi:

that's so funny that the ghost hated your mom

Etienne:

not surprising

Jane:

you look just like her.

Etienne:

I mean, we'll hear stories about my mom on the podcast, so it'll make more sense later. But yeah,

Heidi:

yeah

Etienne:

I can't imagine what my mom did to my grandma. You know it's her grandmother. I don't know what she did to her, but my mom made friends, influence people wherever she went.

Etienne:

So

Jane:

oh, wow

Etienne:

sorry

Jane:

I mean, I had a bedroom scary ghost too, but I had no choice but to live in this bedroom. But before I tell that story, I just want to correct myself with the bleeding kansas thing, because I did look it up. So bleeding kansas refers to the period of violent conflict in the kansas territory. That happened between 1854 and 1861, the year that that house was built. But it wasn't a conflict between Western moving settlers and Native Americans. It was a conflict stemming from the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the debate over slavery, ultimately foreshadowing the Civil War, because the skirmishes that happened were between pro-slave and anti-slave movements.

Heidi:

Yeah

Etienne:

oh, thank you for looking at it. I'd never even heard of this, like at all.

Jane:

Well, I would hate for someone to be listening and they're hearing someone say that I'd be like. That's not what it is, so we know.

Heidi:

Jane, factors

Jane:

we know now

Heidi:

Fact checks herself

Jane:

and they get a fact check us. But the same side of the family, my father. He saw a ghost in that house, which didn't really surprise him that much, because he grew up in a haunted house and then that house on Long Island was then taken over by my aunt and uncle and then I lived with them. I mean, I grew up hanging out in that house. Every single person on that side of the family has had an experience in that house that they can't explain, and I've had many. So we could have a series of podcasts just on my experiences in that house, but I'm going to narrow it down to one that was really frightening. There were many that were frightening, but this one was probably the most frightening.

Jane:

I moved into that house for my last year and a half of college because I had nowhere else to go. I couldn't afford to live on campus and that house happens to be a block and a half away from the Long Island Railroad and I didn't have a car. So it was like perfect. I could still go to Stony Brook University and get on the train and take it all the way out to Stony Brook and everything was going to be fine. I could just walk everywhere and take trains. So the first night I'm spending the night there. They have a finished attic. This house was built at the turn of the 20th century and it has those half moon windows up in the attic a la Amityville horror. And they finished the attic kind of. It's not really well insulated Maybe it is now but there's a little sitting room, slopey ceilings everywhere. Two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom.

Etienne:

Oh wow, they even had a bathroom Damn.

Jane:

They did have a bathroom but, like I said, slopey, slopey ceiling.

Jane:

So you were like duck, so it was perfect for me because I'm short. And my cousin, who at the time was 16, she had the other bedroom up there and there was a free bedroom that their grandmother not the one that we shared, but the one on her other side of her family. She used to have the other little room up there until she died, but she was a sweet, sweet woman, so I wasn't freaked out about being in the dead woman's bedroom until that first night.

Etienne:

oh no,

Jane:

I was

Etienne:

Did she die in the bedroom?

Jane:

I don't know, I don't think so. She lived in there until she died. I think she might have died in the hospital. But I'm in the room just trying to mind my own business and go to sleep and you know, you just feel someone staring at you and I look at the doorway and the entire doorway is filled by the shadow of definitely a masculine figure. So just imagine a man just silhouetted. So it just looked like a shadow, just shadow man Just standing in the doorway. Definitely there's no face or anything, but definitely look at me.

Jane:

You know I could feel it and I just did the same thing. You guys were like just shut your eyes, I'm like I'm just tired. At first I was in denial. I was like I'm just tired. Then I opened my eyes. Still there, still feel it.

Jane:

I could feel it.

Etienne:

Oh God, you were brave enough to open your eyes again.

Jane:

I

Jane:

did.

Jane:

And then I just said the Lord's Prayer over and over and over again for a long time, a long time. I thought that that would help me. It stopped me from hyperventilating, maybe. But again, my cousin is in the other bedroom, but it's down this little hallway and then there's a room between us, a little sitting room between us, and the attic fan is on because it's summertime, and I'm like trying to say her name loud enough for her to hear me. But who can hear anybody over the drone of an attic fan, you know? And all that could come out was Kate, you know. Just trying to say her name loud enough for her to hear me. But who can hear anybody over the drone of an attic fan, you know? And all that could come out was Kate, you know, just trying to say her name and just nothing. Because all I could do is just mutter the Lord's Prayer over and over again. I just shut my eyes. I just kept shut. I was like I'm just going to do this until I go to sleep.

Etienne:

Oh God.

Jane:

I barely barely slept and every time I cracked my eye open, just it's just still standing there,

Heidi:

oh my god

Jane:

And I also had to pee and I'm like, nope, I'm just going to sit here, I'm just going to go to sleep and maybe it'll go away. So in the morning it wasn't there anymore, but I was super freaked out about it and there's a happy ending to this story. If we're allowed to have happy endings, it would get spooky before. I'll say the spooky before the happy. So the spooky is I go downstairs to have breakfast and my aunt, uncle, have five kids and one of them had that bedroom for a hot minute after his grandmother died and then retreated and resigned himself to sharing a room with his brother and he said how did you like the room?

Jane:

and I was like

Etienne:

he didn't say it like that, like he knew

Jane:

yeah, he did he's like did you like that?

Jane:

he goes. I used to have that bedroom. He's like I didn't like it and I said, uh, why didn't you like it? And he said well, there was this kind of shadowy figure that would just like stand in the doorway and just I swear he was just watching me sleep and he was creepy as fuck and I'm like like awesome, same dude. So I couldn't even just be like I was tired, you know, because now he sees the same thing. And then another night, like months later, my uncle was drunk. Now, my uncle grew up in that house, right, because it was my Nana and Poppy's house. The grandparents I did share with that cousin and my uncle when he was younger had that room. He gets drunk and he was like I don't know how you sleep in that room every night and he was just like when I was in that room. And then he proceeds to tell me about the shadow man, you know, and I said you know what the Anyway? But I never saw the shadow man after that first night and I think this is why.

Jane:

So the next morning I went downstairs, heard my cousin tell me his creepy experiences and then I was like I don't know if I can live here. Like I'm sitting here trying to plan, like are there any friends I can   live with and still go to college? Because this is some, I don't think I can live like this. And

Jane:

I was really upset, but how am I gonna say I can't live here 'cause ghost? You know, it sounds so stupid when you say it out loud. I went back upstairs and in the room, in that little room on the bed, was a house coat Well, like one of those bathrobe slash house coat for a short, fat person, and it had Hawaiian flowers on it. And I'm like what on earth? But it was very deliberately spread across my bed like a blanket and I said where did this come from? And so I started asking all my five cousins like did you put a house coat, like a rando house coat, on my bed? And they're like no.

Jane:

And then I asked my aunt, and all the color drained from her face and she said show me, show me, show me. And I was like well, you can come up and see it. I'm like it's got tacky Hawaiian flowers on it. And she looks at it and she starts crying. She's like this was my mother's, the dead woman who used to be in that room. She said we gave away all of our house coats.

Jane:

Where did you get this? And I said I just came in here and it was spread out like this. So I just thought you wanted me to have it. And she goes well, I guess she wants you to have it and she just was like crying. So this woman she was very sweet, she was always whistling and just always in a good mood she died of natural causes in her sleep. I just don't know if it was in the hospital or in that room, but regardless I do know that it was a peaceful passing. But and I was like OK, thank you, sass is what everybody called her. I'm like I am going to sleep with this like a blanket over me every night and I never saw that stupid shadow thing again.

Etienne:

Oh, you think, maybe

Heidi:

she was protecting you,

Jane:

I think

Etienne:

or some kind of a

Jane:

yes

Jane:

She was like use this, it'll kind of invoke my positive whistling energy and it'll keep Shadow man at bay.

Heidi:

Yeah

Jane:

and I lived there for a year and a half, and when I went to move.

Jane:

I was like I want to take my tacky house coat with me. It's gone,

Etienne:

shut up

Jane:

nowhere,

Etienne:

no way,

Jane:

never, never found it. I was gonna pack it and I was doing something else. Went back nothing. Nobody knew where it was oh, just gone.

Etienne:

Oh, you gave me chills.

Etienne:

They're still there

Jane:

I asked my aunt. I said where did you do with Sass's house coat? And she said nothing. It's been on your bed this whole time. And I said it's gone. And then she just smiled sadly and said I guess she knows that you don't need it anymore,

Etienne:

oh Lord

Jane:

because you're moving, you know but yeah

Heidi:

that is a heartwarming end to what started off as like that could have been really scary.

Heidi:

Yeah, like seeing a shadow man every night

Etienne:

yeah

Jane:

yeah.

Jane:

I was like I can't live like this

Heidi:

I can't imagine.

Heidi:

So mine does not have. Well, I guess it's happy ending that I don't have this ghost anymore, but um,

Etienne:

oh god

Heidi:

Yeah, I can't even imagine what your life would have been like, because I was highly haunted for six weeks at Hollins University one summer.

Etienne:

Just for Sorry six weeks is a long time,

Heidi:

it was an eternity.

Heidi:

It felt like an eternity my first summer there. I stayed in the French house and was taking pictures and there was like an orb of light that you couldn't see with the naked eye, but you could see it in the camera. So that happened that first summer. But everything was quiet, like everything was great. So I had such a great time. I wanted to get that same room in the same building that following summer. So my second summer, first night, back in my room in the french house, something sits down on my bed, like you could see the depression and everything, and I was like, okay, it is good night time, so I turned off the light and I was just like

Etienne:

wait, wait

Heidi:

I just didn't like I turned off the light and just was like okay, it's bedtime, like I'm just going to ignore what just happened.

Etienne:

No, no, no

Heidi:

yeah. So it kept doing stuff like that. It would shake my bed at night. It started touching me Like you could feel brushes against my skin, and the whole time I'm like please go away, please go away, please go away. And like keeping my eyes closed, because I could feel it in the room too and I could feel that it wanted to show itself to me and I was like, absolutely not, this is before New Orleans. In fact, the New Orleans ghost happened like two or three months after this particular story happens, so it was really soon after. Like, oh, okay, now I finally saw one, all right, didn't die.

Heidi:

But throughout this whole summer I was like absolutely not, I don't want to see you because I'm still thinking I'm gonna die of fright. So I could tell it wanted to contact me or I don't know, wanted me to interact with it, and I just wasn't having it like no. One night I feel like a disembodied hand go across my stomach, underneath my breasts, and like cross over my middle section. Oh, yes. So I'm like all right now. Yeah, this is getting too insane and I turn off my light and I'm like, um, like, in the fetal position on my side on my bed, facing the wall, and it felt like not any hands, it felt curved, so it was almost like a beach ball was shoved into my back and I got knocked into the wall

Etienne:

oh my god

Heidi:

yeah, yeah.

Heidi:

And then so I ended back on my back side and I'm like just shaking right, like I'm laying on my back with my eyes squeezed shut, because I just I don't want to see what's happening, like I don't want to see what's weird, Because I could feel it at my feet and it started moving up my body, Like this presence, and by the time I got to my stomach I passed out from fright, Like completely passed out.

Etienne:

Oh, my God.

Heidi:

Because the next thing I know I'm waking up the next morning and I'm like all right, I got to do something about this thing. So I got on amazon and got every ghost busting kit I could find

Etienne:

are there

Heidi:

that's really

Jane:

what they sell them.

Heidi:

Yes

Jane:

like a proton pack

Heidi:

no

Heidi:

, no, no, like.

Heidi:

You know what I'm saying, like, like a banishment ghosts yeah, it had sage. It had sage. It had some oils, a prayer, a candle, salt to put around your bed, crystals. It had everything. So I did it all. I saged the crap out of the place. I put salt around my bed which helped with the shaking. It wasn't shaking my bed anymore, but you could feel the presence, like it never left my room. You could feel it. It was hanging out in the corner.

Etienne:

Oh God.

Heidi:

People would come to my room and they would like, yeah, I can totally sense it, they would sense it. And everybody keeps asking like why didn't you move? Why didn't you move to a dorm? And I just kept thinking it's going to get better. Like I don't want to move.

Heidi:

All

Etienne:

this is not a bad boyfriend, this is sorry.

Etienne:

I mean, it sounds like a what is this technically? A poltergeist, I don't know.

Heidi:

Like I don't know, I don't know. So it got better, like it didn't attack me again, and I made it through the summer barely slept the whole time because I just was terrified the entire time.

Heidi:

But I made it through the summer and when I packed up my car I saged the crap out of my car.

Heidi:

When I got home, I saged our home because I was like this thing is not following me back to my house, like no way. And I had such trauma, like actual PTSD, from this incident that I had to take a year off from school. I was just scared to even go back to school and then when I did go back, I got a condo off campus that summer. So because I was just like, no, I can't, I can't do it, but talking to the people that had that same room that following two summers, nothing had happened, so I think it was something connected to me, yeah. So I talked to a psychic friend of mine. I asked her about it and she said, yeah, it seemed like it was somebody that knew you in life.

Etienne:

Oh God

Heidi:

and that's probably why they were mad that I wasn't acknowledging them or why it got hostile, because it was wanting me to acknowledge it and see it and, I guess, communicate with it. I don't know.

Jane:

Do you think it was Reed? He was touching you.

Heidi:

I know, I know I don't know, yeah.

Etienne:

Was Reed the name.

Jane:

Did you ever think that or no?

Etienne:

I don't know, was reed, the guy that you talked about, and

Heidi:

yeah, the best sex ever.

Etienne:

Yeah, but why? Would he be so like it seems kind of violent or

Heidi:

yeah, I know, I know, yeah, that's why I don't know it might have been my father. So oh,

Jane:

uh-huh,

Heidi:

because he, I think he died that year.

Etienne:

So oh christ oh, no,

Heidi:

yeah so

Etienne:

so not the best relationship with your father then?

Heidi:

no,

Jane:

okay

Etienne:

okay

Heidi:

no, um, but yeah, so it didn't.

Etienne:

So, if it really does it make sense then? Then Like what happened to you if it was him Does it fit,

Heidi:

I guess.

Heidi:

Yeah, kind of Like I'm sure he would have, yeah, gotten violent and hostile.

Etienne:

Oh my God,

Heidi:

it just felt like a really dark presence.

Etienne:

You're making me like grateful that my mother didn't come find me after she died. Oh my God.

Heidi:

Yeah, yeah, thankfully I haven't had anything that intense since. I'm so grateful, yeah, but I feel like it was meant to happen, because I'm a horror writer, so I could definitely um, right yeah. I can write from that place of just fear,

Etienne:

sheer terror

Heidi:

fear

Etienne:

sheer

Heidi:

sheer.

Heidi:

Yeah, because I've gone through it.

Etienne:

This sounds like a Stephen King short. You know what I mean. This is like a real book.

Heidi:

I mean I had friends trying to help me. One girl was a paranormal investigator. She kept saying why don't you record something? I was like fuck, no, because I just didn't want to have the proof. Now I kind of wish I had you know, I wish I had documented some of it.

Etienne:

Yeah, you could have had all the things that they have on those ghost hunting shows.

Heidi:

Yeah, oh yeah, because you could see it sit down.

Etienne:

Oh my God,

Heidi:

it was yeah, yeah,

Etienne:

damn

Heidi:

Well. In doing you know EVPs, which is electronic voice phenomenon, I can imagine I would have picked up something if I'd done some recording, but I was just so. I mean, I was so petrified like constant fear. It was the summer, from hell, like really from hell.

Etienne:

My God,

Heidi:

I don't know how I made it through. Well, I know how I made it through. Well, I know how I made it through. My friend had some weed, so I got high a few times and, like forgot about it. I was able to sleep those nights like for real.

Jane:

That would have made it worse for me Because, like with the story I told you about in Kansas, I felt like it made me more open you know because there were many times where, like I, would smoke a little bit and then you read somebody's tarot cards and have an experience during that reading that I feel like wouldn't have happened otherwise, and been able to see and feel and perceive things that I don't think I would have otherwise, or be in a place, and then back to the Einstein thing, to feel the energy that I think was there before you know, there'd be times where I'd go visit a historic place not knowing anything about it, and there was a time in my life where I wouldn't go to a museum unless I got high for a stone.

Jane:

This is going to make it so much better. Yes, go look at some stuff. And I remember going to the Planting Fields Arboretum for the first time on Long Island and walking around those grounds and taking a tour of the house and I kept hearing little kids laughing. There were no kids there that day. Coincidentally, that was the same place that I also did ayahuasca.

Etienne:

I was like is that the same place it's got to be?

Jane:

It

Jane:

is.

Jane:

It is. It's one of my favorite places in the world. It's so beautiful. There's so many different kinds of plants from all over the world Wonderful place to get high.

Heidi:

Yeah

Jane:

but definitely I would feel not a bad presence.

Jane:

It was good it was they were. And then you learn about the family and that they did have kids and they were happy and they were running around. I'm like, okay, that tracks. But I mean little things like that. But you say like that, seeing someone sit down on the bed like that happened to me when I was very little and it didn't scare me at all because it was my great-grandmother

Etienne:

oh yeah, that'd be different

Jane:

see, yeah she yeah, she didn't look mad at me like yours did she had been very sweet to me when I was very little and then she passed away.

Jane:

when I was six, I want to say, and I just remember, she'd sit next to me on my bed and I wouldn't, I wouldn't see her, but I would feel her and I would see the bed just kind of depressed next to me and then she would sing to me and I would fall asleep.

Etienne:

oh, my God,

Jane:

my mom would read me a story, because that was bedtime routine, and then I would ask her if I could wear Granny Mae's necklace, and she would let me, because it was the 70s and people didn't care about kids maybe choking having a necklace around their neck at night. And I would put this necklace around my neck and I would think about her and I would just kind of lay on my side and then she would come and hang out, sing me a little song and I wasn't scared at all. But if that happened to me now I would probably shit myself, like I just would be like what. So I think that that's sad, that sometimes, and even if it's a negative energy, it's like you're wondering okay, do they need help, like what's going on, because if that was a live person, you would just say, hey, boundaries man, you'd have a conversation. I'm like, could it work that way?

Jane:

I don't think I have the courage.

Heidi:

My friend said this is why I feel better about it. Like if any of that haunting stuff were to happen today, like I would feel more confident dealing with it Because now I know that we're more powerful, like we can tell the entities no leave. Like you know, I have these boundaries and no touching me. Because when I started taking mediumship classes, something grabbed me awake one morning and I was like absolutely not, you will not come and wake me, shake me awake. I have office hours. Like come find me. Seriously, don't mess with me while I'm sleeping. It petrified me. So yeah, my friend Candice and I, we set some boundaries and the ghosts they've been following it.

Etienne:

oh my God, that's, great.

Jane:

Set boundaries in this life and the next.

Heidi:

Yeah, boundaries matter in this life and the next. And that's our show You've been listening to the Women Are Plotting. If you have a story you'd like to share or have any comments, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at info@ thewomenareplottingcom, and, of course, you can find us on all the socials. Thanks and until next time. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

People on this episode

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Etienne Rose Olivier

Co-host
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Heidi Willis

Co-host
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Jane Gari

Co-host