Four Dark Figures: Hauntings in the Midwest

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Do you want to hear true paranormal stories? Stories that will terrify and stick with you? Well, that's why we're here, right? So if you like True Scary Story, you're gonna love Monsters Among Us. It's a podcast where you get chilling true stories from real people every week. Like there was one from Julie who drives past a car accident and then realizes that a spirit has just joined her in the passenger seat. And then an anonymous caller shared an eerie story about a time slip after seeing three strange entities in the woods.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00] So whether you're a skeptic or a true believer, this is the perfect podcast to fuel your fascination with the paranormal and send shivers down your spine. Listen to Monsters Among Us podcast now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_01] And I look up and I see these four figures. The face area was so dark. I just couldn't see a face even when the headlights went in that direction. I kind of looked at him and I'm like, did you see that?

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_00] In homes across Iowa and Illinois, Aiden has faced chilling encounters with the paranormal. From terrifying sleep paralysis to unexplained footsteps and face-to-face meetings with the unknown. My name is Edwin. My name is Edwin. And here is Aiden's true scary story.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_01] My name is Aiden. I'm originally from Illinois. A little small town called Warsaw. It's right across the border from Iowa. When my mom was a teenager, they would play the Ouija board in my grandparents' house. They've had some interactions here and there.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_01] Light flickering, running up the stairs, knocking on doors. But as far as I know, they've said goodbye. Everything's been fine. When I was little, we weren't as well off as most other people. We kind of found ourselves jumping back and forth from house to house. I was living at my grandparents' house at this time.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_01] My dad told me a story right before I was born. 2003 to 2004. He was staying in the house with my mom. They were really young. He would have this clock on top of the TV. When he woke up in the morning, he could see what time it is. He said he'd always wake up and the clock would be flipped.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01] Turned totally around to where the time and everything he couldn't see. It got even more interesting when he said that sometimes he'd be in the bedroom and you would hear like legitimate running up the stairs. Mind you, this is an older country house.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_01] The stairs are going to be kind of loud when you're running and walking up. When you run up the stairs, you go down this hallway. There's one room at the top of the stairs. And there's two rooms. If you go down the hallway, there's one to the left and one to the right. You'd hear the door slam upstairs. He'd come downstairs, ask my grandparents, were you guys coming up and down the stairs?

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_01] My grandparents never really ever go up the stairs. My grandma would go up and down occasionally when she's cleaning something or whatever. And I don't remember the last time my grandpa's ever actually been upstairs. But that kind of brings it to my experience now. This would have been around 2009, 2010. I would have been four or five years old.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01] I had this room where you go up the stairs of this two-story country house. You would go down the hallway to the left and that would be my bedroom. I know even as a kid going up and down them stairs, I would always have to turn the light on. Because I always felt this weird energy. Like it was almost ominous.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_01] Something was definitely watching you type. So even like at night, I'd have to turn the light on to go up the stairs. Even now, I would always sleep with my parents. I never really knew why. My mom would always tell me that I would be scared. And that I would go and sleep in their room with them. I guess now this makes sense.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01] Because after what I've seen, I'm almost 20 years old now. And this still scares me to this day. My grandpa, I would always go out with him on these late night drives. He had this air freshener hanging from his mirror. It was like a grizzly bear with red eyes. It always freaked me out. It kind of made fun of me for it a little bit.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01] I try not to think about it. It's pretty traumatic. There was this one night where I was having this dream. Like I said, it's a country house. You go outside. There's going to be an open field to the east side of the house.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01] Large open cornfield. You can see quite a distance. I want to say a quarter mile distance probably. But in my dream, this looked different. There's a gravel road that runs along the end of this cornfield. You can see it run along. But in my dream, everything was very, very dark.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_01] Like if you're in a really, really dark space, like your eyes are covered. It was the blackest black like I've ever seen. I go outside. There's this tree line all of a sudden. This doesn't look like my grandparents' house. I can look back in my dream and I'm like, okay, well, I'm at the front porch of this house. I'm looking off. You see the trees.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01] You see the outlines, but you can't see the trunk of the tree. You're not seeing the leaves. It's just the whole outline. And they're all black figures. Like it's so weird, but you can only see like the sky. It's just a lighter color. Just barely let you see it. So I'm looking out there. And then I see these figures running along this tree line.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_01] You see these red eyes in the distance. Glowing red blood color of just bright, bright red. Just running and running. And you can tell that they're big bears. They're running along this tree line.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01] And then they run up close to me. They're running and running. And then all of a sudden there's tons of them. Maybe 40, 50. These dark figures, they were all bears. With the red eyes. You could not really see their facial features. You could tell that they had their heads. The little round ears. They're on all four legs.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_01] And they were all dark, dark black figures. And in my dream, I'm scared. So I'm kind of making my way back into the house. Into the front door. And I'm looking out the window. And I can still see them emerging up to this house. One had just put its paw on the porch. And then that's when I woke up.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_01] It was so scary. I don't understand. I was trying to process the dream. But when I woke up, I realized I couldn't move. All I could do was look around my eyes. I could hear myself breathing. And I'm trying to like scream almost. Because I'm like, why can I only see with my eyes and move my eyes? And I can't move the rest of my body.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01] And you could hear like the nastiest snarl like of a bear. It's mad. It's growling. And you could hear the huffing and puffing echoing down the hallway like it was coming from where my room was. And everything just went quiet. There was a hallway light on.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01] The door was barely cracked open to where you could see the light come through. But the room was still very dark. You see this black cloud like mist emerge through this door. And pop up into this figure. It was a bear just like I'd seen in my dream. And it was the darkest dark I've ever seen.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_01] Piercing red eyes. You could see its ears. You could see its head shape. You could hear it breathe. And just like huff. And I was seeing that real heavy animal like breathing. It just stood there. At the foot of the bed. And its two piercing eyes are just sitting there staring at me. I don't know what this thing wanted from me. I think it just wanted to scare me.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_01] I just sat there and stared at me. And this thing. And this thing. I want to say it's about ceiling height. It got down. And you could hear. Its two front paws. Hit the floor. Like there's an actual animal in there. And it just got down. And it's about to sit down. And you could hear it breathe.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_01] And huff and puff. And it had gotten up. About a foot away from my face. You could see its claws. That were on its paws. Just kind of. Go onto my mom's hand. And it reached like. Way in. And all I could hear was like this exhale. Just huff. After that it disappeared. Gone into thin air.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_01] I still can't explain it to this day. Right after it left. I can move. I tried waking my mom up or whatever. And telling her like. Hey, hey, I seen this. In my dream or whatever. And she's like. Oh, it's okay. Just. Go back to sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning. I want to say I probably didn't sleep for. A couple hours after that. And. Finally I'd fallen asleep and.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_01] Told her about it. The next morning and. My grandparents. They're kind of skeptics when it comes to. Ghosts. They're not. Total believers in that kind of stuff. My dad. And mom. They have their own separate stories. They've seen things so. They're kind of like. It's okay. It's just a dream. It's okay. It was. Horrifying.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01] I've never seen anything. As scary as. That night. Oh my. Kind of getting the chills now. Just talking about it. Because I can see it. The energy upstairs. The energy upstairs does not feel right. When you go downstairs. Everything's fine. You know. There's family. The energy's cool. It's. Uplifting. It's. It's. It's. It's.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_01] It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. There's. Rumors about this house. Kids would tell me like. Oh. There was this. Guy that. Hung himself. Down here. And.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_01] I don't know if they're trying to scare me. Or. That's. Creepy. But. Okay. In that house. I can't say I've ever really seen anything in that house. But like. You would definitely feel a presence. Downstairs at night. And you would hear these weird clicking noises. Or. Tapping on things. It was always. Cold. I don't know if that's just. Basement being a basement.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_01] Or. That place. It was always eerie. Nothing was really like. Crazy. Crazy in that house. But it was off. Fast forward. We moved into the second house. This one. Pretty big house. It had an upstairs attic. That was finished. That my parents would sleep in. And. I slept downstairs.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01] This is an older house. So. You know. You got your wood floors. Big. Big dining room. Decent kitchen. The basement was really old. And unfinished. I never actually found out. How old this house was. But. I'm assuming. It's. At least built. Probably early. 1900s. Kind of by the way. The woodwork was. It's really simple house.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_01] I had this night. Where I was just doing my own thing. In the living room. I was up. Really late. Let's say it's a weekend. I'm a kid. Everybody in the house. They were asleep. It was probably. 12 o'clock. One o'clock in the morning. At least. I was just kind of sitting there. Watching TV. Sitting on the floor. In the living room. All of a sudden. You hear. These footsteps.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_01] I mean. This is a good sized dining room. It's wood floors. It's echoey. I hear these footsteps. Coming towards me. And they sound like. These large. Work boots. You can hear. The heel hip first. And then the front of the foot. One step after another. It was loud. Like. I had thought. My dad had came in. Or something. After a work shift. Because he worked.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01] At a foundry. At that point in time. So he had. Really large. Work boots. They were steel toe. Work boots. And. It was like loud. And I was like freaked out. I ran upstairs. And the moment. That I realized. I looked into my parents bed. And both of them. Were there sleeping. I was freaked out. My prior experiences. I have seen things. I had seen that one thing.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01] And I have heard things. I want to say. That was the second. That holds a crown for second. Right there. It was. Horrifying. You just hear something. Like approaching you. But you can't see it. We had our last house. This was. 2014. To 17. There was a four. Four way intersection there. A really small one. And it was at the corner.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_01] Of this intersection. It's just a nice. Two story house. Older house. Really creepy basement. And how it was built. And how it was built. I would sleep. Upstairs. And my parents slept. Downstairs. But you walk in. The stairs are to your right. The first thing you see. Other than. The living room to your left. And then straight down that hallway. That leads to the kitchen. And then their bedroom.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01] To the left of that hallway. I had some weird. Weird things happen. Like. I'd be sleeping at night. All of a sudden. I had this little speaker tower. I would wake up. And. It would fall over. There's no. No way. This thing just. Falls over.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01] Just to make sure. I had this done. Like. A second time. Like. I made sure this thing. It was standing up. I made sure like. There's nothing around it. Nothing to make this thing fall over. I went to bed that night. My phone was on this. It's almost like. It's almost like. My body just. New to wake up at that. Moment in time. But right when I. Woke up.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01] I just watched this tower. Straight up this fall. Right over face first. It shattered my. Screen protector on my phone. It freaked me out. I ran downstairs. Being a little. Told my mom. I'm like. Mom. Mom. My. Speaker tower. Like it just. Fell over. I don't even know what's going on. Like. It just fell over all of a sudden. And.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01] It's freaking me out. He's like. Okay. That's fine. You can sleep down here. With me or whatever. I don't even know how to explain that. That was the weirdest thing. Fast forward again. Here in Iowa. Cedar Rapids. I went to. The well-known. Granger house. This thing is known for.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_01] Being haunted. You hear things at night. Kids run in. Things being moved. You hear. The clang. The knock. At the horse barn door. You hear that open. And shut. I was kept to go first. So I go there. I'm there with my aunt. And. We stayed there. Before the night time. We had this guy. Kind of showing us around the house.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_01] He's like. I got these ghost readers. And everything. This is like. What we found in this house. These weird figures. That you can see. They're like. Shadowy figures. You can see them in like. The corners. Of the house. It's a little like. You'd hear the water turn on. Like. When we were in there. How does the water just. Turn on while me and this guy. Are like. Just talking. Everything in this house. I swear. They just. Kept original.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_01] In the 1800s. They're said to be like. The first settlers of Iowa. In that region. They had some things happen. The Grangers. And their kids got sick. And they had died. Mr. Granger. And Mrs. Granger. They. Ended up passing away from. Some illnesses. At the time. We go out to. The horse barn. We're looking around. They've got the carriage still in there.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01] And the chain links. We're talking. And then all of a sudden. You hear. The door. Shut. Behind us. And it's like a big. Old barn door. You could hear them like. Kind of slap against the wood. When you close it. That's what we heard. We heard the door shut. And those things like. Slapped against the door. Nobody's there. Nobody's around the door. And we're. And we're kind of looking at each other like. Okay. This is a little weird.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01] Like. What is going on here? We keep going on. We go into the night. And we're kind of just sitting in this living room in this house. A couple of my aunts. With the spirit box. And. We were trying to make out some words. It was kind of hard to make out some words under that. But we heard a couple names. David. Or like. How is he? Or where is he? But.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01] The weird part was. The little boys room. Which is. Upstairs. It's a two-story house. You go up to his room. It's the first one. To the left of these stairs. They kept a piece of hair. Of his in there. Which. The spirits make attachments to things like this. I think. That little boy is still in that house. We slept in that room.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01] Me and one of my aunts. Before we had went to bed that night. We had decided that. We were going to put a flashlight down. We were going to ask the spirit. If they could dim this flashlight. Oddly enough. The flashlight. Like actually. Dimmed. We set it down. Facing up towards the ceiling. And you could actually watch it. Dim down. And it got so low to the point. To the point. To the point. To the point.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_01] To the point. That.

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_01] That. That. That. That. That. That it. You know.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_01] Two million. Left means. To the point. Of the many. Of the valet things left.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01] driveway. It was pitch black outside. It was dark. My headlights were on, all that kind of stuff. This driveway was very, very dim. Had the two brick pillars at the end, but it was super dimly lit, but lit enough to where you could see enough down there.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01] We come around this curve. We're listening to this music. We're like, we're into it. And I look up and I see these four figures. They look like if they were newish clothes, like just like a sweatshirt. The thing that weirded me out though that I noticed is they

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01] were all the same height. And each and every one of them, all four of them were just staring right at the vehicle. You could tell they're staring our direction, but the face area was so dark. I just couldn't see a face. Even when the headlights like went in that direction, I paused, like I shut the music off. I kind of looked at him and I'm like,

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_01] did you see that? There were four kids standing there. They looked like maybe they were trying to scare us or whatever. And he kind of turned back around. He's like, no, I didn't see that. He turned around to look at the driveway and nobody was there. Of course, like I'm thinking I'm crazy now because he's not seeing this. Oh Lord. Don't make me feel like I'm crazy.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_01] Now he's like, dude, I didn't see anything back there. I don't know what you're talking about. I think they're just kids trying to scare us. They're just standing at the end of the driveway, but not even a couple of minutes later, we turn around. I'm like, I want to go back. He's like, I don't believe you. I'm not seeing nothing or whatever. And there's this dip down from the road

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01] right next to these people's house. There's like four or five trees just in a perfect line. We're driving by. I see it again. And it's just one of them this time. Maybe I want to say about like six foot tall standing there with, they had their hood up over their head. I could not see their face again. They just stood there behind that tree just barely so I could see them poking out.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_01] I'm like, look, now there's something there. And he looks over and then this thing is gone. It had literally just disappeared. I had looked over there for a little bit. I didn't see anything run away. I seen nothing. We had went past his house four or five times after that. And I seen

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_01] nothing and neither did he. I did not know how he could not see that. To me, they were clear as day. They looked like they were just kids trying to scare us. But no, they were gone. Even when I looked back and

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_01] he's at the four that were there the first time he looked back, they were gone. You would have thought he would have seen one run off. You thought he would have seen the four if he would have just looked back and seen them. But no, didn't see them whatsoever. It is totally impossible for them to just not be there when he looked back right after I said that and them just not be there. Like,

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01] you're not moving that fast without somebody seeing you run across the driveway or through the woods or something like that. Like, there's just no way. There most definitely was something there that day. I'm still thinking about that. Is there a meaning to this? Why did I see four all about the same height

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_01] beings just staring at me when I went around this corner? I'm still trying to figure it out. I don't know why. I've seen what I've seen. I've had some pretty interesting moments for sure. When I see these things, they are like random. Like, they just happen. Like, it just, all of a sudden in that moment, something wants me to see it. And then I just don't see it again

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00] after that. Like, I don't understand. To share your story with us, fill out our form over at truescarystory.com. And if you want me to read your true story instead, I am looking for submissions

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_00] for my new podcast, Paranormal Club. Just email me at edwin at scarystory.com. That's E-D-W-I-N at scarystory.com. And type in Paranormal Club in the subject line so I know that it's for that. And if you haven't checked it out yet, it's available on YouTube and wherever you're listening now. This episode was edited and sound designed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell of VW Sound, with additional production by me, Edwin Covarrubias, and the Scary FM team. Thank you very much for listening.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_00] Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.