“The Face in the Dark Wasn’t Human—And It Was Watching Us” Tyler's Ghost Story

[00:00:02] Welcome to Tell Me A Ghost Story. The late night call in podcast where we delve into the world of the supernatural and explore the eerie and unexplained. I'm your host, Michelle Newman. This podcast features true stories from our callers that will send shivers down your

[00:00:32] spine and leave you questioning the existence of the afterlife. So grab a cozy blanket, turn down the lights. Hey Michelle, it is your old pal Tyler from Texas calling in to share one of the scariest experiences I've ever had in the supernatural realm.

[00:00:56] This was a long time ago. This was 2007. I was in the Northwest Territories of Australia. It's called Arnhem Lands, which is the Aboriginal lands on the Colbert Peninsula. And it is an incredibly remote, rough region, every bit as rough as Africa.

[00:01:16] And in this case we were hunting an invasive species up there or I guess an introduced species, water buffalo and then there's these wild cows called Banting. And that is 100% moderated and controlled by the Aboriginal community and they allow

[00:01:31] certain people to come in and hunt these animals and they get the meat and it's a whole cooperative. And I was there filming, photograph this and they were very stern about not taking any photos and I don't know if you've heard that concept of the Aboriginals believe that

[00:01:50] a photograph actually stole a part of their soul and they said look Tyler this is very serious as we're driving by the villages don't even have your cameras out, don't even let them see them because they just get sort of upset or they feel disrespected.

[00:02:03] I said yeah no problem, I kept my cameras away. We went into these communities, got to meet people it was really cool. And then we went out to this camp which is a camp is a loose term basically these tin shacks with screens around where the windows are.

[00:02:21] It's very hot out there, it's very rugged, there's barely like one little solar generator. This is an area where there's the 20 foot saltwater crocodile so you don't go into the ocean or anything like that.

[00:02:35] Anyways you've been out there for a few days and they had told us these stories about dream travel and these different Aboriginal spirit practices, dream walking and things like that where if you're sort of these spiritual visits and obviously with a colonial

[00:02:52] past there are situations where the Aboriginals were not treated so well and being a Westerner out there is just something I've always been aware of and should just be respectful of the present culture and all that kind of stuff.

[00:03:06] So anyways we go to sleep one night and I'm sleeping peacefully as one does in the remote region and I wake up to the most horrifying scary sound I've ever heard. And as I hear this noise I see a face in the window in through the screen about

[00:03:36] 10 feet across the room for me and I sat up jolted up in bed and could see the face and I grabbed the knife off my bedside table in my flashlight and I whispered to

[00:03:51] my friend Corey who was in the shack with me and I whispered to Corey you know did you hear that and he doesn't respond all I hear is the click of the shotgun as he cocks it and aims it

[00:04:07] at the window and after you know a few seconds or whatever we kind of we work up the courage to get up and we both shine our lights and these are you know high powered flashlights he's got a shotgun

[00:04:20] I've got a knife and we go outside and keep in mind this was a beach and so there's sand everywhere and both of us are fairly experienced hunters and trappers right so we know how to track things

[00:04:33] and there are zero tracks not a single footprint not an animal's footprint no burge nothing just untouched sand and we do probably a 25-yard radius sweep looking for tracks we went down to the

[00:04:51] beach to look for tracks and all this kind of stuff nothing needless to say we didn't sleep much the rest of that night and the next morning we go into the mess hall and you know these rough

[00:05:03] Australian guys are like oh I heard some activity over there and they heard the scream too and so because I thought to myself oh maybe I was having a bad dream and I like imagined the screen but

[00:05:16] Corey heard the noise too and that's why he needed the shotgun at the window and then the other guys the hosts the outfitters heard it as well we had like triple confirmation that there was this

[00:05:27] scream but we found no tracks and obviously we were a little shaken up but these Australian guys were like oh yeah that's definitely like an angry Aboriginal spirit just just fucking with you guys

[00:05:38] and you know and then thinking back you could hear the pleasure in that screen of scaring the shit out of us and you know Corey and I don't really keep a necklace in touch you know we've

[00:05:52] since gone on different paths but whenever I do see him he still agrees that that was by far one of the scariest experiences we've ever had and uh yeah it definitely is something I will absolutely

[00:06:06] never forget and hopefully I don't ever experience that's another reason for me never to go camping next message hi Michelle it's your friend Tyler calling in again to follow up on my other

[00:06:28] ghost story some people have one but I have two the neighborhood I live in is called Oak Cliff in Dallas it's an old historic neighborhood and so at the time it was a two-story house with four

[00:06:42] units so two upstairs and two downstairs and then the owners had a downstairs basement and there was a street that basically drove straight towards our house it was a cross street it was during the middle of the week I was at my creative studio at the time working

[00:06:59] and I get a message from my landlord that said hey Tyler something terrible has happened don't come home and he just sent me a photo of you know some police tape and some stuff like that I got the the eyewitness account from my neighbor across the street

[00:07:15] and this car I think it was a an old like Chevy trailblazer like an old 90s SUV or something started about a mile down the road picking up speed blew through two stop signs went through

[00:07:28] our stop sign going about they estimate 85 to 90 miles per hour and slams into our downstairs neighbor's parked car so it's parked parallel with house flips both cars into our building kills all three people instantly smashes the front facade of our building and literally spayed

[00:07:51] sprays blood and guts everywhere all over the building all over the side there were pools of blood on the sidewalk just instant carnage and death from what we've gathered I don't have the full story but from what we piece together from conversations and people in the neighborhood

[00:08:08] that there was a love triangle going on between a 80 something year old man and two 60 something early 70 year old women and whether they were aware of this love triangle or not is unknown

[00:08:25] all that we know is that one of the women was driving a car with him in it and this other woman and from what we know it was sort of well if I can't have you I'm taking you all out sort of situation

[00:08:40] so I come home to find to see this scene of wreckage there's still police around and they're asking me questions and all this kind of stuff and trying to figure it out so of the five units

[00:08:53] in the building mine was the only one that didn't get damaged I think I had one cracked window or something and it was you know cracking the foundation it was a whole there were conversations

[00:09:03] about are we going to have to demolish the building so everyone else loses their home essentially because it was condemned as a police team anything any of the units were damaged

[00:09:16] they couldn't live in because of insurance and all this so mine was mine was deemed okay to live in but there was no power because all the power had been knocked out at the time I was a struggling

[00:09:29] freelance photographer I didn't have you know anywhere else to go for a period of about a month I don't know I guess you'd call it glamping right camping camping in my own apartment

[00:09:45] with no power or running water so if I wanted to use the toilet I'd have to go downstairs go outside of the neighbor's house fill up buckets with the hose you know fill up the back of the

[00:09:56] toilet whatever and at this point they had boarded up the front of the house and I had caught people trying to break in a couple of times I just you know continued to feel you know just there's

[00:10:12] like a weird vibe there I was the only one in the building at night there's all these weird sounds I'm still paranoid like it was that noise someone trying to break in I came outside one night

[00:10:25] and there were three kind of teenagers two one younger girl who was probably like 14 or something and then you know an older guy's right 19 um and you know they they were in the dark I couldn't

[00:10:40] see who they were but they were out in the front and I came outside and I shined a light on them and all of them ran except for this little girl they were Hispanic and you know a Mexican American

[00:10:49] and I said hey you know just sorry but obviously we've had people trying to break in and she had put flowers down and she was lighting one of those prayer candles and she said well sorry and I

[00:11:02] don't know I'm trying to trespass or whatever but this was my aunt and her brother or cousin I didn't really ask a bunch of questions so I don't know what their exact relationship was but they

[00:11:12] were obviously related and he was like come on let's go we need to get out of here and she was like no I want to like this and he was like leave it that lady was crazy anyways and I was like well

[00:11:23] what do you mean and he said oh she was in the Lucame and she was in a san aria and all this kind of stuff there's a place in our neighborhood called the chango botanical which is kind of like a

[00:11:33] I don't want to say like a witchcraft store but like a lot of charms and good luck fortunes and herbs and like weird totems and things like that and so apparently this lady was kind of into the

[00:11:44] occult and so over the course of the next few weeks things just started to get weird and weird I would wake up in the middle of the night I felt like something was just crushing my chest

[00:11:56] just pressing down on my chest I would wake up my heart racing my hair would stand up on end but just murderous evil vibes and you know it started off as just that I was like oh no I'm just

[00:12:09] whatever I'm being paranoid and being scared I'm here by myself whatever but I start to hear weird noises you know things falling off the counters cabinets slamming I mean waking up feeling like

[00:12:21] I was being I want to say like spiritually assaulted but I don't I don't know what else you call it right it's it's not a physical it's a physical sensation but it's not one that obviously

[00:12:32] you can see eventually the power was turned back on just in my unit and all the other units were being renovated I was sitting in my living room and watching a movie or something and I heard the

[00:12:48] cabinets in the kitchen just opening and slamming and opening and slamming and I well I heard the slam I didn't know what it was and I went into kitchen and saw it one more time it opened and

[00:12:58] slammed shut and I was like fuck this I'm like I'm out and so I you know just started to pack my stuff up that night I'm not gonna you know stay here I called a friend and and it got to the

[00:13:11] point where I was there was this sort of non-denominational priest and I just said hey man wow this is sound weird but did you you know if I chance to exorcisms or blessings or can

[00:13:24] we this is like a holy water situation there's something weird going on here like there's this lady that this guy pretty much said was a witch she murdered these two other people her guts were splattered around the inside of my apartment and I feel like maybe she's haunting

[00:13:42] because I'm the only one here and he was like yeah man I mean we can figure something out and you know I'll come by whatever and next week and that's next week how about like tomorrow anyways I go back

[00:13:56] the next day and it's kind of dark and I pull into my driveway and like I want to give this one more shot and then go in just just see if anything happens and as I pull into my driveway

[00:14:07] all the lights and the downstairs turn on just and as I see that of like a figure walks by the window and I'm just holy shit I am not going in there and I'm like about to start my car to get out of

[00:14:26] there and then a guy walks out the front door and then he walks up and he's like hey man my name is Keith uh I just moved into the place downstairs you just wanted to come say hi I was like oh

[00:14:39] okay so you're human that's good and uh so I I didn't mention to him all of this stuff and the fact that like tomorrow the Unitarian priest was going to show up to bathe the witch blood off my walls

[00:14:55] didn't mention that to him and and basically everything stopped it was like once there was another person there uh it she moved on or decided you know hunting two men was you know not as good

[00:15:11] as one I don't know but there were no issues after that um but for you know three to four weeks there I was the uh I was the solo uh in Habiton and it got it got pretty dark and yeah I just I didn't

[00:15:26] I didn't experience anything else so yeah good old good old Keith just the uh wholesome Kansas boy moved in downstairs and he she was like you know what he's a good guy I'm gonna take off saved by the Keith thank you Tyler for telling your stories today

[00:15:46] sometimes we all need a little bit of Keith in our lives that's all we have this week folks do you have a ghost story call 701-484-2666 that's 701-484-2666

[00:16:12] or go to tell me a ghost story dot com and leave your story there thank you to all the callers who left messages this week go ahead and leave me a five star review wherever you get your podcast

[00:16:26] I'm your host Michelle Newman signing off see you next week