Tales of the Unexplained / Open Lines

Hosted byRichard Syrett

Tales of the Unexplained / Open Lines

About the show

Paranormal podcaster Jim Harold (related video) joined guest host Richard Syrett (Twitter) to share some of his latest stories from the world of the strange and unexplained. "I've had multiple cases over the years where people have talked about mysterious figures coming to their rescue... I think it's real," Harold admitted. He recounted a tale told to him by Allen from Texas who was on a road trip with his family when their vehicle's rear tire exploded causing the car to flip over several times. Allen was thrown from the car and after regaining consciousness saw a man in his mid-forties emerge from a gleaming white semi-truck. The man comforted Allen and told him not to worry about his brother, Harold reported, noting Allen watched his brother-in-law pass through the man on the way to help him. No one else, except Allen's sister, saw the man, and Allen's brother died at the scene, Harold added. "[Allen] thinks that this man... was probably his guardian angel, and he even thinks that it may have been his late brother coming to him in another form to comfort him," Harold said.

Another curious stranger story involved a man in a brown suit who stopped to help Gail and her brother after he got his foot caught in the spokes of the bike they were riding together and tumbled over. As they were yelling for help, a grandfatherly man stopped and asked if they needed assistance. Gail did not actually see the man help her brother out of his painful situation but he got free from the bike nonetheless, Harold explained. When she went to thank the older man he was nowhere to be found. Forty years later, that same grandfatherly man stopped to help Gail out of another difficult circumstance. The man had not aged a day, Gail does not remember him helping directly but the situation was fixed, and he once again vanished before she could thank him, Harold revealed.

Harold related a scary tale about then college student Madge who moved into a room in an old house during the 1980s. According to Harold, Madge thought it odd the side door had a bar across it and multiple locks, and someone had fashioned homemade bars across the windows. Her first night there Madge had a nightmare about an evil force on the other side of her door which prompted her to purchase a lock the next day. A housemate named Val awakened her one night complaining about a man who had followed her into the house and was hiding somewhere inside. Everyone got up to look but found no sign of him, Harold disclosed, pointing out Val continued to see this man but no one else did. On their last day as residents, Val told Madge the man was in the backyard behind a tree. She went to check and found no man and no tree in the backyard, only a stump where a tree had once been. Madge's landlord confessed to her one of serial killer Ted Bundy's victims lived in her room, Harold continued. The landlord also revealed Bundy used to hide behind a tree in the backyard. Harold speculated that Val was seeing a replay of the tragic event that happened at that house.

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Open Lines followed in the second half of the program. Sharon in Massachusetts told Richard about a time in early 1960s when she was seven years old and encountered a stranger waiting in his car near where she had emerged from the woods. Sharon described the stranger as handsome, dressed in a suit, and sitting in a Chevy bubble car. The stranger told her he had been asked to pick her up and bring her home, and when that ploy did not work to get Sharon in the car, he offered her candy. "He jumped out the driver's door, ran around the front of the car, I threw my books and I ran like a jackrabbit," Sharon recalled. Later, she discovered that man was a young Ted Bundy.

Daryl from Rio Rico, Arizona, phoned into the 'Haunted Doll' hotline. He recounted living in a duplex with his mom and siblings in San Jose in the early 1960s when his mother's boyfriend brought them a doll he had gotten from a carnival. The doll was three feet tall, with dark hair, and its eyes closed when it reclined, Daryl remembered. "It kind of freaked me and my sister out... I had to turn the doll around so its face was against the wall and my sister would put it in the closet," he said. One night the siblings were in their room when the bathroom light switched on and something started opening drawers and making noise. The doll appeared in their bedroom doorway wearing curlers in its hair, Daryl claimed. "We don't know what happened to the doll, it ended up disappearing somewhere," he admitted.

Spencer in Charlotte, North Carolina, shared another haunted doll story. The dolls in question came from a trip to Goodwill, where Spencer's sister found a Mystery Machine toy with Scooby Doo characters inside. "I can't tell you why but I always got a weird feeling from it," he said. Spencer reported hearing scurrying sounds at night and finding furniture rearranged. One night his sister started screaming after seeing outlines of the characters' shadows on the hallway wall. Spencer himself witnessed a little brown dog run past his door, which he recalled was odd since his family did not have a dog.

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