Doppelgangers in North Carolina

Cynthia of the North Carolina Foothills saw her first apparition at age 3. So did her daughter. In fact, most of the strange paranormal things she sees have been corroborated by someone…usually in her own family. Listen to her family ghost stories now:

Then, listen to part 2 here:

About the Guest: Cynthia

Cynthia’s first experience with seeing spirits was when her Sicilian grandma and great Uncle Tony came down from the attic in a shaft of light to talk with her when she was 3 years old. Then, an angel tapped them on the shoulder, and said it’s time to go. The same thing happened to Cynthia’s own daughter at the same age, but she found it scary. When her daughter cried out, Cynthia ran into the room and had a feeling as though she was passing through static. Was she passing through the ghost of a family member?

In her formative years, she lived in the Adarondack Mountains, very near to where Dennis Rader, aka the BTK killer, was active at the time.

The book Cynthia recommended in this episode was Open Mic For Animals: Evidential Fairy Tails by Shannon Spring.

Cynthia’s Family Ghost Stories

Living near the Ramsour’s Mill Battle site, the area around Cynthia’s current home is a hotbed of paranormal activity. So active, in fact, that a ghost literally started speaking to her in the middle of this interview! In the first part of her interview, she details several unusual paranormal things she’s observed and interacted with there.

Strange paranormal things Cynthia has seen that have been corroborated by others

• Cynthia’s toddler daughter also received a visit an angelic grandmother figure, just like Cynthia did at that age.
• The ghost of a young boy runs into the road in front of both her car and her husband’s car.
• She sees “things” (big black blobs) that cross the road as well at night. They almost look like a cross between a turkey and a tumbleweed. They like to hang out in the empty house across a road. A group of high school students saw one once, and freaked out that an animal had gotten hit by a car.
• She sees elementals that look like old, very tall figures that live in the trees behind their house. They have deer-head-shaped heads, with deer antlers, and they communicate through crows, or telepathically through pictures. Since they act as guardians of the land, Cynthia leaves them offerings for it so it protects their chickens. They also see this creature crossing the road, and sometimes waving to them from the tree line.
• She also saw a scary Not Deer, with one eye, on the other side of the highway. She tries to avoid that one.
• She also often witnesses time slips, but these happen mostly in Colonial Williamsburg, VA. She describes the time slip as walking by something that feels out of place in time, and everything looking melty and not quite right, and they only last a brief time. Her husband corroborated her time slip at the governor’s house, and they both saw several dark shadow figures walking out of an archeological dig site there.
• As a kid, Cynthia often visited an open-air living history museum called Old Cowtown in Wichita, KS. There, she saw cowboy ghosts and spirits of saloon ladies. She thought they were costumes, until she realized her brother couldn’t see them. In the grand tradition of not talking about ghosts in the Midwest in the latter part of the 20th century, her mom told her she wasn’t supposed to talk about the ghosts…but it’s likely Mom could see them, too. A lot of the women in Cynthia’s family have inherited psychic gifts.
• A doppelganger trying to imitate a family member knocking at the door. Her husband also saw it, and he knew it wasn’t actually her when she spoke without moving her mouth.
• A ghost that manifests as a little girl in the dressing room of her family’s favorite haunted theater. She suspects the entity is more of a thought form than a spirit. The Ghost Radar phone app goes wild in the theater, with words from a ghost named Dr. Wilson, who simultaneously appeared on multiple security cameras right before a power outage occurred.
• The spirit of a young man named Phil, who was in a fatal accident nearby her daughter’s work. His spirit helps her mechanic daughter find missing tools and parts at her garage, in exchange for her telling his story.

Isn’t it interesting that someone else in her family shared nearly all of Cynthia’s ghost experiences? We guess that’s just what it’s like to have a family full of open, intuitive, and receptive individuals.

The Lake Lure Inn

Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, stars of “Dirty Dancing,” stayed at the Lake Lure Inn during the film’s production. So did Becky’s family last week. For more historical insights, visit the inn’s official page here.

Is The Lake Lure Inn Haunted?

Becky’s young son heard a ghostly little boy giggling in their room in the night. Later, the hotel’s staff corroborated his story; there’s a little boy ghost who has been seen by other guests, not just Becky’s super-haunted family. And they recently caught the ghost on camera in the dining room!

The hotel’s dining room is purportedly the most haunted part of the old Inn. A photographer recently took a photo of an ice sculpture, and inadvertently caught the transparent apparition of what appears to be a little boy.

We think it’s probably so active because of the giant antique music boxes, player pianos, busts and statues, all of which give the hotel lobby a highly anthropomorphized feel.

As for Lake Lure itself, Becky refuses to swim in its muddy waters. She’s paranoid about the extremely unlikely event of an encounter similar to the swimming pool flooding scene in Poltergeist. We can’t say whether or not there was a cemetery under the land that Lake Lure sits on now. It wasn’t uncommon, however, to flood entire communities when these lakes in the region were created. Maybe we’re just being unnecessarily fantastical. If you have information about what’s really under Lake Lure, let us know if it’s as spooky as our imaginations suggest!

More Episodes About Angels

• My 5 Best Dead Friends Are Ghosts of Celebrities
• The Possessions in D-Hall Dorms

Most Dangerous!

Today’s Most Dangerous segment is about (no, not Becky’s driving, but) the most dangerous animals that can come out of your toilet! Oh, the terror! For your own safety, we advise peeing standing up. These devices can help you achieve that goal, if your anatomy isn’t accommodating. Don’t get bit!

In the follow up episode, we guess the most dangerous foods people actually eat. Our money says you’ve eaten one of these risky dishes, and probably recently!

Tell us your family ghost stories

Have you seen an apparition that someone else in your family can corroborate? We love to host joint interviews that include multiple family members! We’ve simultaneously interviewed several couples, and some mothers and daughters. So wrangle up your siblings, parents, children, or great-great-step-cousins-twice-removed, and apply to tell your family ghost stories on the next episode of Homespun Haints, for another spooky day!