Episode 1 - Trial Run "Here We Go!"

In their podcast debut, lifelong friends Tina & Suzanne dive into the supernatural experiences that have shaped their lives and friendship for nearly three decades. 

What starts as a test run around the kitchen table quickly unfolds into a deeper conversation about ghosts, spiritual sensitivity and encounters that neither of them can fully explain away. 

Tina shares her earliest paranormal memory - a mysterious glowing light and barking dogs moments before learning of her grandmother's death - and reflects on how that experience may have opened her to sensing spirits throughout her life.  Together, they explore beliefs about loved ones visiting before death, whether spirits carry energy or intention, and why some people seem more sensitive to paranormal activity than others. 

The episode also features eerie stories involving haunted apartments, phantom perfumes in cemeteries, doors opening on their own, objects moving, shadowy figures and encounters witnessed by multiple people. 

Blending humor, skepticism, fear and curiosity, Episode 1 sets the tone for a podcast that explores the strange, unsettling, and deeply human experiences that stay with us long after they happen. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Episode one, our inaugural test run. We don't know what we're doing. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. But we're gonna try this out and see what uh happens. So we want to record some of our experiences with the supernatural because we have a lot and lived through a lot. Maybe figure out why, but sometimes I don't think there is a why. So we'll just talk about what happened and remember when it happened and how it happened. So I think probably for a little uh backstory, we have Tina present. And we have me, Suzanne, and we have been best friends for uh 27 years, I would say. Is it 27? And yeah, um because you hated me 28 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

28 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Well, yeah, probably because I got married in 97. Right, and then right after that we had the Seinfeld party, which started the ball rolling. Um but I would say from knowing Tina this long, she has a sensitivity to the supernatural that I don't have. I have a little bit, but she's got the shining for sure, and I don't. And she has stuff, follow her around, and she has a lot of experiences, and I just have like you know, once in a while I'll I'll see something or feel something, but she has stuff like living with her.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Like to the point I don't even it doesn't even scare me.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't phase her and it's just like oh chalk it up, it's another story. So we wanted to start recording these so we could remember them when we're old and we have no memory. Um so I I would say do you want to talk about um like the first experience you can remember when you were little?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

I just remember it was the night that my grandma passed away, and it was about 20 minutes or so before my dad had called to say she had passed away. And I was sleeping with my mom, and it was about 20 minutes or so. All of a sudden, the dogs were barking. They were on the bed, they were barking, but they were like barking up at the the light, but the light like the light bulb had like a soft glow, like someone had slowly turned the light off, but it was such just a glow, and it was just a weird glow, and I just remember it was like that for a few minutes, and then the phone rang, and that's when my dad called to say that my grandma had passed away, and I truly believe that was my first encounter with a spirit or a ghost, but I know I know it was my grandmother coming through.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

So, had you known she was sick or that this was happening? Was she in the hospital?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yes, was I think she'd been in the hospital for a week or so. I you know, um, I think I I was in the third grade, so I don't remember like a whole lot, but I knew she was in the hospital. I knew she was really sick, but I just I like still to today, I can still see our two dogs on the bed barking up at the light. The light switch was not on, the light switch was off, but it was glowing, and this was probably like one or two a.m. So why were you sleeping with your mom? Did you usually sleep with your mom? No, it was because my grandma was passing away, and you didn't want to be alone. I think my mom knew, obviously, her age compared to my age at that time, that it was probably gonna be that night from speaking with my dad. And were you you were close? Yeah, I just wanted to um I wasn't as close at that time as I would have been like I was with my grandpa, but it was just such an eerie feeling that night, and I can still remember every ounce of it. Just the second the phone rang, the light went away. The light was gone.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

So she kind of came to say, Hey, goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

I'm I'm moving on, and that's what I think. I think she came through to check in and be like um on the other side. Yeah, like one last look at her family. You know, she came in to take one last look at her family, and then you know, she was um she was moving on. And it it's funny too, because I remember when my grandpa was passing away, he would always look up into this corner, and I it was like just a white um sheet type thing where he was at, and it reminded me like of like I felt like it was a connection with him and my grandma, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

My grandmother did the same thing when she was passing away, she kept looking up in the corner and saying the name of her aunt, and so I I do believe that people come to um escort us to the next life when we die. So I believe that he probably was seeing her or somebody he cared, somebody who cared about him.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I just like I just always connect it. I and I I don't know if it's like the white because of the the the um the light bulb that night and the and the color the way it was like glowing, but white for me always seems like a core memory for you. It like started it all. It yeah, it's but it has stayed with me, but then over time I think maybe that helped me be able to accept things I'm seeing or hearing or feeling or knowing who it is that is there now. Because I feel like you know sometimes we know who it is.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Oh, you can. You can totally tell who it is, like you can feel if it's somebody you know, like even if you can't see them, you can feel their personality. I feel like I can feel if it's male or female, or I can feel if for lack of a better term, if they're good or evil, like if it's malevolent, or if they're good, or you know, if you just have that creepy feeling, or if you feel kind of comforted. Um I think you can you without having to see them, we have a sixth sense in us that we can we can tell something's there and maybe what their intentions are. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I think that I feel like if you're afraid to not feel it, that you're missing out with who could possibly be there.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Do you think if you uh kind of close that door in your mind and you're skeptical that you push it away?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

I think you push it away, but then sometimes I think the ones that I feel are not good are the ones that will push further.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Because I think that sometimes I'm desensitized and I don't feel it, and then but sometimes I wonder why some people um get more and more experiences, whether they believe or whether they don't believe. I'm not explaining that well, but like why are some people more susceptible to it than others?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

And maybe it's just because maybe you're afraid of who's going to come through or maybe could I I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

If you don't feed it, does it starve? Do you know? If you don't give it energy, can it not come through?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

And if that's a good question. I don't know. That is a good question, and maybe that's it. Maybe if you don't feed the energy that's there, then it can't it can't fully show itself to you to where you can feel it or sense it or smell it. And when I say smell it, I just mean like memory smells.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

I sometimes wonder if if spirits can produce a smell because I swear sometimes I've gone into a room and smelled a perfume that I know wasn't there or I know isn't mine. Oh have you had that?

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Well, the perfume when we walked up to the cemetery uh like two years ago when we were walking back home, and all of a sudden my two nieces and I could just smell this overwhelming smell of perfume. The your dad's cemetery? Oh no, we walked up to the cemetery in town. Oh, and there was a young grave that my niece was reading, and I fully to this day know that that whoever that girl was that she was reading, her headstone, followed us home because we were walking back home and you could just this overwhelming smell of perfume. Was it a young person?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

But I mean, was it like but I mean was it like somebody who lived in the last 20 years? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Oh it definitely was not like an older woman, like it wasn't like a pioneer, it was like somebody who would have worn perfume now. And it wasn't like an and and no disrespect, but it wasn't like an older lady perfume, it was like exclamation white diamonds. What was it Lori Ingalls always stole from her line? Lemon Verbena, lemon verbena. No, it wasn't, it was um, it was like a very floral, but it just the smell came out of nowhere. But interesting, I got home that night and I just I knew someone was in my house, and the next day I was feeding my cats, and I could not, for the life of me, find Stormy, my cat Stormy anywhere. Like I was frantic that he somehow got out of the house. About an hour later, I finally found him and he was hiding under the couch. He literally had to climb. I don't know how he got under the couch, but then he finally came out, and I don't know what it was, something just clicked in my head, and I just said, Hey, um, I know you followed me home yesterday. Uh I I'm thankful that you thought it was nice to come and hang out with us, but you've um You gotta go. You you've upset my cat. So that's where I gotta draw the line, and and you've gotta go, you've gotta go. But what was crazy was I can't remember if it was that day or the next day when my niece um had called and said, Hey, you're never gonna believe the backstory on that headstone I was reading. And it kind of turns out that it was related to someone right on the corner next to me. It was the weirdest, and I think possibly that's why she followed me home. Oh, was because her family literally is on the corner from me. And she's like, Hey, hey, I'm close to my family. But when you say, you know, like the perfumes and that, that's that just clearly right then and there.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

And I do think that animals have um they can see and feel that stuff more than we can. Oh, without doubt, yeah. So your cats for sure. I mean, especially, I mean your cats are skittish anyway, but like if Stormy, who is the least skittish of them all, was afraid and under the bed under the couch under the couch, you know. I mean there's something there.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you think about get under a bed, no big deal, but to have to literally kind of push yourself under the couch, something really upset him, really scared him. But what was funny was after I said that, he was fine.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

So she was cool. She was like, Oh, okay. I think she was well, it was nice to see my family. Thanks for letting me hang out for a moment.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, and I think she was like, Oh, I didn't mean to scare or upset anyone, you know. Yeah, but it was such, but to this day, I will never walk up to that cemetery again. You haven't been back. I have to drive by it sometimes. But you didn't get out and go walk through. No, I would never, never will I get out and walk through again.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

I think that's another story that we have to touch on one of these days are cemetery like any stories pitch hikers or yeah, but um what if you could bring home a different friend?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I mean, anybody that wants to come home with me and hang out with me, I'm not a f as long as they're cool and nice and I will leave when you say leave. Frightened.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

But you have someone in your house right now that won't leave.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Nope. But I think it's two separate people because there's like the episodes I've told you about with the rabbit, but then there's the other episodes with my headphone moving and dangling, um the the couch pillow. I mean we should save that though. Yeah, we need to go into that other than another.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

I think we need to do more of your backstory because I think there's a reason that you have all these hitchhikers that most people don't have. So after you like you lived in your house, you know, when your grandma died, and then you moved and you didn't have any experiences really in that house. No, but then your brother built a house and there was weird stuff going on there.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

It was going on there while he was building the house. They, in fact, once the house was built, they actually had someone come out and do a blessing on the home. And then my mom and I lived with him for about a month while our apartment was uh we were waiting for our apartment to be built, and you would be sitting there at the kitchen table, and the TV down in the living room would come on full blast, like no the remote control was down there, and you actually had to go down three steps, so you could clearly see nobody had walked over and turned the TV on, nobody had you know any of this other stuff. And that scared me. Sorry, go on. Um uh sorry, we just got sidelined by my son. Okay, the TV turned on, the TV would turn on full blast, but the remote was down on the table, like no one was there to turn it on, and why would it come on full blast?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

But to back up a little bit, you had the house blessed before all of that? My brother did.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Before you moved in, yes, they had lived there for probably a year or two before we moved in. We moved in with them just for one month, and they had activity before you guys moved in. Yes, yes. The same thing when and like their fire alarm would go off all the time, but it was always late at night, early mornings. Um, they even had the fire department come out and look, there was no nothing wrong with the fire alarm. Um, you know, you could feel animals jump up on your bed, but there was no animals there. Um just so many weird things. Uh when it was being built, someone fell and got a concussion. And I think that's why they had it built. But then when my mother and I moved into our apartment, I think we took whatever it was with us.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

And for some reason they felt more attached to us, and then that's when we're gonna be able to do it. And then your brother was like, Oh, hey, thanks for taking this away. We it's been quiet since you left.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Oh, pretty much, yeah. He's like, Whatever it was is gone with you guys. Thanks for taking it off our hands.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

And then that's when things really ramped up, was when we so you moved into the apartment and you started having stuff happen in your first apartment. Right. Like what happened in the first apartment?

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Um, are you talking about like 11A or 11b? The first one you live. Sorry, it was we didn't have anything happen until we moved into 11b.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

So you don't feel you didn't notice it in the first one, but your brother was like, Oh, it's gone. You're like, oh, maybe it's just gone. Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

But I think it had come with us, but then for some reason, when we moved into the bigger apartment, that's when it really took off.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Or do you think something was already there?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Could have been, and that's I mean, that's just it. But it was weirdo because nothing was happening at my brother's apartment anymore, or my brother's home. Nothing was happening there at all anymore. And then once we moved, it just seemed like everything started up, but like it was showing itself more and more in different ways, which kind of getting into it, you were able to see some of the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

And that's where I met you was when you had moved into your second apartment, and Aunt Tina and I met. Um, we worked at a hardware store together, and that's where we became friends, and so then um I started going over to her house, and we would she would tell me things that would happen, or I would I actually saw some things with my own eyes that you can't explain away. You're like, that should not have just happened. I that really just happened, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

And I think for me, it's like, oh yeah, no big deal, but for Susanna, it's like, what the hell? I'm getting out of here, and I'm like, Oh, it's okay, it's all just our ghost. Yeah, that's just Fred, you know. But I I mean I remember your face with the whole um I'll let you tell the story of the door down the line.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

We would we would play Fonko every month, and um one night it was Tina was the hostess, and so the way her apartment was set up, it was quite a big apartment. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, um, kitchen, dining room, living room, and they had a sectional that was curved, and the recliner that I was sitting in was uh parallel to the hall. So she would always lock up their cat, Tabby, uh, whenever we played bonco because Tabby would get nervous and didn't want to be around or or would get underfoot, or anyway, she would be back in the back room while we played, and everybody had left. I think I was the only one still at your house, and that's right. It was probably I don't know, 10:30, 11 o'clock at night. And I'm sitting in that recliner, and the one of the bedrooms was straight down the hall in my peripheral vision, and I hear a noise and I look down the hall, and I literally see the doorknob to this room turn, and the door which had been closed, opened, just opened, and there was nobody in there, and the cat comes walking out just down the hall, like rancing down the hall, like hey, what's going on, everybody? Somebody let me out of the room, yeah. But and I would think, oh, maybe the door just came unlatched, or but I literally watched the door handle turn, yeah, and the cat come out.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, the look on your face was I'll never forget it. It was so pricey.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

I was like, what the heck just happened here? Is there someone in there? There's nobody in there, and the room was pitch black.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, because the only people in the house were you and my my uh flowing eye.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

And the cat had been in there since 1937 because we didn't want her to get in. And so the light was out, and um, I don't know, she was probably just like, hey, I'm done, let me out. And yeah, her friend let her out, that's or maybe she was bugging this bugging the ghost, and the ghost's like, get out.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Oh, that's a good yeah. Maybe our our our our friend that was staying with us was like, I can't take any more of this cat. Get out, get out. She's been in here whining at me the whole time that I'm playing Bonko. Get out, get out, get out of my room, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

The other thing that I saw, and I think these were the two only really active things that I saw. I had feelings there, but the two things that I saw with my two eyes was once again, I'm in the recliner and Bonko was over. It was your seat. Was it and maybe it wasn't even Bonko, maybe I was just hanging out. I think it was a Bonko night. Maybe I was just at your house, and they they had a big entertainment center against the wall. This was you know, before the days of big flat screen TVs. And there was a big entertainment center, probably seven feet tall by seven feet wide. It was big, and it had glass doors that hooked by magnets, and I mean, what would you call the the little clasps that that they're like the golden, the little golden thing? So it would hook it, you know, the hinges, I guess. Yeah, like it. And so this glass door was hooked into the entertainment center, and I'm sitting there, and you know, we're just talking, minding our own business. And this glass door flew straight out of the entertainment center, about three, four feet out into the middle of the living room, and then crashed down. And it was not like gravity just pulled it down and it slid down the front of the entertainment room. It floated out into the living room and then went down. Went straight down. That scared the crap out of me. Uh because there was no way there.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

I mean it's like they literally unhinged it, moved it out, pulled it out, and dropped it down. Right. And what's crazy is the glass didn't even break. No, it didn't. It didn't even break at all. Nope. It's like they wanted us like, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yeah, I'm here, no one's paying attention to me. Or they were like, go home. Yeah, go yeah. Uh Suze, you've been here long enough. We're gonna need to have you leave. I need to go mess with the printer in the back bedroom. Oh my gosh, yeah. We have so many stories to share.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Yeah, and the the printer would well, that's another story. That's another story. Yeah, the printer would always go off in the night, but I would say one more story, and you should probably tell this one, but that you had a picture of your niece on the wall. Oh, yeah. And you would come home from work every day.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

I'd come home from work every day and it would be moot. It would literally be moot. But I mean a good 15 feet. Yeah, oh yeah, it wasn't like just moved to the side. I'd come home sometimes, it would be on the table off the shelf. Yeah, it was on a shelf. And the picture would be down on the table.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Or in the middle of the floor.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

In the middle of the floor, in the living room, or just anywhere, yeah. It was it it wasn't like the picture just because it was on a shelf.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah, it was on a shelf in the dining room, and it would be in the middle of the living room floor, 15 feet away.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Right. See, and that's another thing about that apartment. Like, so many things would be moved, but nothing ever broke. But it's like things were moved, but not just like fell, like they were physically, but then it got to Point with this picture where I started taping it because I'm like, I'm not, I I I'm not losing my mind, I know I'm not, and even still, I would tape it and I would come home and it would be out into the middle of the floor, it would be on the kitchen table, it'd be on the kitchen. I mean, and it what's funny was it was always sitting right side up. So, what are the chances of this thing always falling and landing perfectly upside? And there's no way it could fall and land up in the living room floor.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

That picture every time.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Every time it was that picture.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

I don't know. There was something in your dining room though, because do you remember when your mom came home from work? Yeah, opens up the door, and when you open up the front door, you're looking directly into the the dining room, and there's a man sitting at the dining room table. Right. And she's like, I'm out of here. What the hell? And she shuts the door, and then she's like, Wait a minute, there should not be anyone in my apartment. No, and how many seconds in between?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

I don't think it was maybe five, maybe six.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

She opens the door back up, he's gone, and she goes and walks through the whole apartment, nobody there.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

No, no, I it you know, and I know this is a side note, but I remember being at work one day um when we were in the original building before they built the new one, and I remember where my desk was in the back of the check-in desk. I remember I looked out and there was a lady standing there. Oh, and she waved at me. Oh, and I went up to say something to Sharon to be like, Who is that?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I don't remember this story.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

And Sharon was like, What lady?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

That just gave me tears.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I remember I was um I don't know if you remember my desk was in the back corner. And if I leaned out like this to my left, I could see up to the lobby, and there was a lady standing there, and she waved like this. I was like looking right at me. And then when I went up to ask Sharon who it was, she just checked in. Sharon's like, I didn't check a lady in. My whole body is one big goosebump right now. I looked over that whole entire lobby. That lady was not there. I even went back to the lab, she was not there. Even my shins. Yeah, she was like, Oh my god, and she gave me just this warm smile. It wasn't like a crazy but you didn't recognize her. No, no, no. And she just put one hand up and waved. And then I I looked back and then I got up to go up to to ask Sharon who it was that she had just checked in.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Because did you think she was like, I thought she was a patient, yeah, and like wanted to talk to you, or just a patient waiting to check in, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Then I went up to be like, who, you know, that person, did I know them? Were they what was it? Were they nice? I'm all worked up, I'm talking too fast. And then and then I could have swore I had told you this.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

You may have, but I can't remember because it's freaking me out.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah, I mean, this would have been back clear back before uh 2010.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

But then they built the new clinic and you had stuff happening.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Oh those were a whole other story, yes, way worse. Oh my gosh, like you would hear like wind by your ears, you'd hear your name be called and there was no one there, you'd hear doors shut when you were the only one in the building. Yeah. I hope you join us on this journey because we have so many stories to share with you. And they've been locked away for far too long, and it'll be a great journey for all of us to share and just know what what's going on here.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Should we say that's the end of our first episode of this? Thank you, and thank yourselves, because we're probably the only ones that are gonna be listening to this.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

And not only that, the ice machine just scared the crap out of me because I'm like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Okay, perfect. All right, well, we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

We will ghost at you later.