The Case of Donato Cervantes

Hello, hello, I'm Christina. Anna Carmen. And this is Espooky Tales, a podcast for all themes, spooky, haunted places, myths, legends, true crime sometimes in Latin America. Yes. Yes. And we are here today with a very, very fun episode in my humble opinion. But before that, we do have a listener story. And if you want to send us your story, please do. You can email spookytales.gmail.com. You can call the Spooky Hotline. You can leave it as a comment in any of our videos. You can leave it in a review. That's maybe five stars. A voice note? A voice note. You can send a voice note. There's a lot of ways to get it to us. We love receiving them. Okay. What is the listener's story? All right. So this is from Irvin, and this is an experience from his childhood in El Salvador. Here goes. I was about 10 years old when my family and I encountered what looked like a tall woman dressed completely in white in the mountains of Santa Ana near Metapan. She had long, wavy blonde hair that seemed to glow in the darkness, and the way she moved almost looked like she was floating just above the ground. My grandmother kept calling out to her, but she never turned around or responded. We followed her through the entrance gate of my grandparents' property, but she disappeared around the back of the house. My grandfather searched the entire property with his revolver and our Doberman, but there was absolutely nobody there. In the following days, my family asked the neighbors if anyone had seen anything, and nobody knew a thing. What makes this even stranger is that this happened in a remote, rural community where stories about paranormal encounters weren't uncommon. I also experienced other unexplained things around that same time in. That same area. Okay, so that was just describing their experience. I have questions before you get into the story story. Uh-huh. Blonde? A blonde corona? That's scary. Scarier. Yes. Okay, now here goes the actual story. I'm excited. The Woman in White, a true story from El Salvador. I love that they titled it. Me too. Perfect. An unexplained encounter in the mountains of El Tablon. I was about 10 years old when I witnessed something I still can't explain to this day. This happened in El Salvador, a small rural community called El Tablon in the department of Santa Ana. It's part of the municipality of San Antonio Bajonal, about an hour's drive from Metapan, where I grew up. Every weekend, my family and I would visit my paternal grandparents, Carmen and Jesus. They lived way out in the countryside, high up on a mountain, in an area where life was very different from the city. There was no running water in the community back then, and the electricity was unreliable. Almost every night, the power would go out for a few minutes before coming back on. We were used to the darkness. We were used to the quiet. But in places like that, when night falls and the lights go out, the darkness feels different. The roads are quiet, the houses are scattered, and you can barely see what's in front of you. And in that part of El Salvador, stories about strange and unexplained things weren't unusual. This particular night, my family and I had attended a Christian church service in the community. I was there with my grandmother Carmen, my mother Belén, and my little brother Gerson. who was only three years old. The service ended sometime after 10 o'clock at night. Way too late. Too long, too late. I don't like it. And we were making our way out of the church when someone approached us. They went straight to my grandmother and asked her a question that, at the time, probably seemed innocent enough. Carmen, are you expecting visitors at your house this late? My grandmother was confused. She didn't know what they were talking about. The person explained that they had just seen someone walking toward the entrance gate of her property. Someone dressed entirely in white. I don't remember every word that was said, but I remember what happened next. My grandmother immediately grabbed my hand, my mother took hold of my little brother, and we hurried away from the church toward my grandparents' house, which was only a few houses down the road. The house was on a hill, and as we turned toward the property, we saw the figure. It was already ahead of us, walking toward the entrance gate. At first, what stood out was how tall it was. It appeared to be a woman, at least from behind, and she was dressed in white from head to toe. But it wasn't just the clothing. The white seemed to gleam in the darkness. And I remember her hair. She had a long, wavy blonde hair that seemed to shine, too. I couldn't make out her face because I never saw her turn around. All I could see was her from behind as she continued toward my grandparents' property. Even now, one of the hardest things to explain is the way she moved. She didn't seem to walk like a normal person. To me, it looked as though she was floating, hovering just above the ground as she moved forward. I couldn't make out any other noticeable movements. She simply traveled in one direction, silently, as though she were gliding toward the house. My grandmother started calling out to her. Hey, you, there! Multiple times throughout the encounter, trying to get her attention. But the woman never turned around. She didn't answer. She didn't acknowledge us. She just kept moving. By the time we reached the entrance gate, she was already far ahead of us, deep inside the property. My grandparents' driveway was long, curving around the house toward the left and continuing toward the back. My grandmother kept shouting after her and we started running to catch up. But the figure was moving so fast that we couldn't close the distance. She continued around the house until she disappeared from our line of sight. and then we couldn't see her anymore. We rushed inside the house. My grandmother was panicking. She went to get my grandfather, Jesus, who was most likely already asleep. She told him what had happened, and he immediately got up, grabbed his revolver, and released our Doberman, which we kept to protect their property. My grandfather went outside to search. He looked around the house and walked through the property, checking the places where someone could have gone, but there was nobody there. No woman dressed in white, no visitor, no sign of anyone. Nothing. And the following days, my family asked the neighbors whether anyone had seen a stranger walking around that night. We wanted to know if someone had been visiting or if anybody had noticed something unusual. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody knew who the woman was. And nobody could explain how she had disappeared. I was only 10 years old and I didn't know what to make of it. I just knew what I had seen. I had to watch a tall figure dressed in white with long wavy blonde hair that seemed to glow moving toward my grandparents' house in a way that didn't look natural to me. And then she was gone. I know that memories can change over time. I know that darkness can play tricks on the eyes. And I can't claim to know what the figure really was. But I remember being there. I remember my grandmother grabbing my hand. I remember us running after that figure, watching her disappear around the house. And I remember my grandfather going out with his revolver and our Doberman to search the property, only to find absolutely nothing. What makes this experience even stranger to me is that this wasn't the only unexplained thing I witnessed around that period of my childhood. In that same part of El Salvador, I experienced other things that I still think about today. But that's another story that you should send to us. Yes. Oh, my God. To this day, I can't tell you who or what we saw that night. I can't tell you why the figure never turned around when my grandmother called out to her. I can't tell you why she appeared to float, why her hair and clothing seemed to gleam in the darkness, or where she went after disappearing behind the house. All I know is that my family and I saw something that night and we never found an explanation. And sometimes when I think back to that mountain in El Tablon, I wonder about one thing. If that was a real woman walking toward my grandparents' house, where did she go? Because we followed her onto the property. We watched her disappear behind the house. And when my grandfather searched the grounds, there was no one there. Not a single trace. To this day, I still don't know what we saw, but I know what I remember. And I have never forgotten that night in the Salvadorian mountains. Wow. First of all, Irving, you have a way with words. But yeah, no, I think it was a blonde Llorona, I guess. I guess. Interesting, though. Yeah, yeah. Like, why? Yeah, she always has long, dark hair. Or just a woman in white. Yeah. She didn't say she was looking for kids. That's true. She didn't say anything. That's true. She just kept them moving. And yeah, it was a really good story. And you said you had more experiences. So send them to us, please. Yes, thank you. And thank you for the stories that you will be sending in the future. That was wild. Okay, so we have a fun UFO alien case. I feel like it's been a while. It has. I have to say those are some of my favorites. I just love this idea that there's extraterrestrials out there and that they want to like take people for whatever reason and they're like one person is the chosen one who has these powers and no one else has them and so right that's like my favorite stories yeah because if i was an alien i would do that i would be like let's make this person like just one let's not help all the humans Like this person will be our messenger and special to us and fuck everyone else. Yes. Yes, exactly. So this is a story from Peru. In the 1980s, one man took Peru by storm when he shared his extraterrestrial experience, which included a miraculous healing. More than one. Donato Cervantes Cervantes was born in 1943 in the Chancayan sector of Huaraz, Peru. He was the eldest son and never knew his father. He began working when he was about eight years old and was forced to stop his education. He was a construction laborer beginning in his teens until about 18 years old when he began working as a car mechanic slash driver. By the time he was 22, he and his wife, Victoria, had five children together. Donato went about his life quietly, things were good, until he had an accident at 39 years old. This is when his first extraterrestrial experience took place. There are different dates and versions of this event from different interviews Donato gave over the years, his own website, and by his son, versions told by his son. In some versions, this happened in 1970, 1973, or 1975. Definitely sometime in the 1970s. The encounter happened in Huaricanga when Donato started working as a chauffeur. At the time, Donato had never heard of aliens and had no word to describe them. When Donato was driving and was in the middle of the road, he saw an intense light glow over the hillside. which then lit up the entire road and his car came to a complete stop. He got out to look at it when suddenly he was elevated into the sky. A bus turned onto the road he was on and whilst he was straight up in the air, like 20 meters or about 65 feet into the air. So he was in the air. Yeah, at this point he was like 60 some feet in the air. The bus is turning. He's in the air. As soon as the bus turned onto the road so that people could see him in the air, the light that was elevating him, it turned off and he fell from about 65 feet to the ground. There was a couple on the bus and they got out to help him because they saw this taking place. They saw him falling from the sky. Imagine you're driving and it's like someone falls. From the sky. I can't. I can't imagine. That'd be wild. And so they, because this was in a super rural area in the 1970s, they didn't have time to take him to a hospital. And the way his son tells it, he was taken into un campamento, which I imagine is like, I don't know, like a makeshift hospital. It sounds like like a camp. Something. Yeah. And he spent the night there. His arms were broken. His ribs were broken. He was very injured. Yeah. And he fell from 65 feet in the air. Right. As he lay there thinking everything was over, but he would not recover, he heard a voice in his mind. The voice or voices apologized to him, saying, sorry for dropping you. It was our fault. We're so sorry. We didn't see that bus coming. Yeah. So accountable, these aliens, for real. Yeah. But we are going to heal you. Very kind of them. He didn't understand what was going on, but the voice was peaceful, calm, and he believed that when it said it would heal him. He went to sleep and when he woke up, he was healed. When he woke up, the camp nurses, doctors, whoever was there, some sort of health care professional said, They were like finally ready to treat him to take a look at him because he was basically taken there and like, all right, we'll take a look at you later. This isn't life threatening is apparently what they thought, even though he fell from 65 feet. They probably just had limited resources or something. Yeah. Yeah. And so when he woke up healed, they were finally going to treat him. But he was healed. He didn't need treatment. He said. Yeah. So he had already left because he was fine. He was healed. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't know how the voices did it. All he felt was heat when they were like, we're going to heal you. Just like this extreme heat overtake him and then he fell asleep and then he woke up better, healed. But this would not be his last experience with the aliens, nor was it the experience that caught everyone's attention. After this experience, the people around Donato noticed unexplainable things. To give one example, when Donato started working for the Gobierno Nacional de Choferes as a driver mechanic, the national, I don't know. Chauffeur Association, something like that. Yeah. He had an encounter with the aliens that one of the engineers who worked with him witnessed. So one day he was driving with this engineer from Huaraz to Chacas, which back then was a six hour drive away. Because the sun set, it took them about six hours. But when I looked at the distance, it said two and a half hours. But that's like now with better roads and, you know. So they were like a couple hours away from Chacas when all of a sudden the car just stopped. They apparently had run out of gas. It was dawn by then. And they had left Huaraz in a rush without like their extra tank of gas. Normally, they were like very prepared, but they didn't have it this time. They left in a rush. And apparently during this time, it was very dangerous to stop in this specific area because there was some political unrest going on. In a podcast, Donato's son mentioned there was terrorism in the area is the word he used. So the engineer was like super anxious, nervous. He kept telling Donato, we need to go. We need to get out of here. We're going to die. We need to go. And the whole time Donato was very nonchalant. He's like, don't worry, man. It's all chill, bro. Yeah. Everything's going to be fine, bro. Like calm down. It's not a big deal. And then she was like. Why are you, why are you acting like this? He's freaking out. Yeah. Freaking the fuck out. And he's like, why are you saying, how do you know this? And he's like, well, I just know, I just know things. In his very nonchalant way. After that, suddenly the car started working again. But they didn't have any extra gas. Like there's no reason for this car to have turned back on for it to be running. It just started working. And the engineer was like, how is this happening right now? And Donato just told him, they keep me safe. And so there were little stories like this from his time working at this place and from throughout his life, really. Donato just getting out of situations in ways that don't make sense. This takes us to 1983, to what would become the most well-known encounter of Donato's. There are also different versions of this event and like of all the events told again by Donato himself. There's different versions told by his sons and then his wife. This version comes from Donato's youngest son. And there are some parts from Donato's official story on his website mixed in there. Yeah, we kind of combined them. Like joined them. Yeah, combined them. And Donato's youngest son, who is retelling this encounter, remembers his mom, Victoria, her version the most. The son's name is John. John. Okay, so they were the poorest family in El Barrio. Every day, Donato would get home around 1 or 2 p.m. for lunch. And this day in late June was no different. Donato got home around 1 or 2 p.m. He was a little dizzy. Suddenly, he lost his balance and fell. He put his arm out to catch himself, but he was near this window. But I don't know. I guess this was like very thick glass. And like it was like a window with like bars like the. Oh, yeah. So not a normal window. And so he put his arm out to catch himself and his arm went through this thick glass. He then pulled his arm out of the glass. It had made like a hole. The whole thing didn't shatter. It was just like a big hole for his arm to go through. And so when he pulled it back, his arm was getting cut more. Ugh. Yeah, more glass. Kind of a scene out of a horror movie, really. Like a de-gloving. Yes, yes. That's, yeah, that's the word there. Victoria saw this taking place and sent the boys to... get a car to take him to the hospital. And apparently the wound was so severe that it affected his tendons and his veins. This was worsened because they were in such a rural area that it was like a two hour drive to the hospital. When they finally got to the hospital, Donato was unconscious. When he eventually woke up, Donato asked his wife where he was. In the hospital, she answered. Antonato said he didn't want to be there. And he quietly said, my friends, where are my friends? And Victoria was like, what the fuck? What friends? What friends? What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. And he just kept saying he didn't want to be there. He wanted to leave. He insisted the doctors couldn't do anything. He ended up being sedated so he could cooperate. The doctor then told Victoria to get whatever was left of his arm from the glass and Like, why? She made the two-hour drive back. Did the rest of his arm? Yeah, there was, like, dry tendons stuck there. Oh, my God. Disgusting. Like, that's horrifying. Yeah. But the reason I'm like, why did the doctor say this? Is because when she got back, the doctor was like, yeah, we can't do anything else. Like, I don't know why you brought these tendons to us. Like, we can't. I know that. I told you to drive two hours to go get these. But actually, we can't use them. Basically. Yeah. So yeah, the doctor said there was nothing else to do. They had to amputate the arm. But Donato didn't want to. He kept saying he wanted to leave. He didn't want to be amputated and that his friends could heal him. He insisted and insisted on leaving. And so they did. He was not amputated, but Donato's arm was useless. And eventually the gangrene was spreading. Yikes. He could not drive. He lost his job. even though he insisted he could drive with his left arm. I mean, I don't see why not, but okay. I don't either, honestly. Victoria had to provide with whatever work she could find. She asked Donato again and again to just go through with the amputation, but he refused. The gangrene worsened. The smell was horrible. Oh my god. Can you imagine? No. No. The smell was horrible, but he insisted that his friends would heal him. And again, Victoria was like, what? Friends? Stop! Stop! Just stop! How did Victoria put up with this? I have to wonder. They stopped sleeping in the same room because the smell from the rotting arm was overwhelming. As was his pain, like any sudden move that she made, like to turn in bed, he was like howling because of the pain. Donato became depressed. Suddenly his kids were all being told, your dad is crazy. But he insisted he would be healed. At some point, Victoria and Donato's friends forced him to go to Lima to the hospital and he agreed. They were like, this has gone too far. This has got to stop. Yes. Yes. But he agreed only because he thought his arm would be returned to him after it was amputated in one piece. Then he learned that that's not how gangrene amputations work, at least at this time in this hospital. They told him that they would cut it in sections, like piece by piece. And so he wanted his whole arm back so that his friends could heal him later. He didn't tell anyone that, but he was like, I want my arm. After you amputate it, give me my rotting arm. And my friends will help me, okay? Yeah. Yeah. But Donato didn't think his friends could help heal his arm if it was in pieces. So he escaped from the hospital. And from his first encounter back in the 1970s, he knew he had to say these specific words to call the aliens. What do they call them? La clave is the word that John, his son, kept saying. So like this key. La clave. He had to say la clave. Like la clave was a phrase. Mm-hmm. Not the words La Clave. No, yeah. Okay, I was just making sure. No. Because that's something I would have thought. Like, oh, so all he had to say was La Clave. Anyway. So he knew what to say and he kept repeating these words. And he knew if he said these words, they would eventually come to heal him. Victoria found Donato back home hours later, deeply disappointed. She's like, what the. Fuck are you doing here? Yeah. With your rotting arm still. Yeah. So she then decided she could no longer help him. This man could not be reached. Another two months passed. His arm was still rotting. Everyone lost hope in Donato except his sons. They continued to care for him, changing his bandage every day. which apparently the smell was overwhelming for them too. They were like getting all these bandages. Poor kids. But he insisted that his friends would heal him. By now, it's October 1983 and Victoria's birthday, Donato's wife. Her birthday is coming up. So one morning near her birthday, she woke up to find him crying. And she told him, let's go to the hospital. And he said, no, again. And he was crying because he said his friends had abandoned him. And she's like, what friends? Yeah, wait. She told him her birthday was coming up and she would love it if he went to take care of himself and his arm. And he's like, we'll see. That's what she wanted for her birthday. Her present was for him to go get his arm amputated. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll see. Maybe. I don't know. No, we'll see about that. The answer was no. Instead, Donato went to a newspaper, the local newspaper, and they were like, what's up, sir? When he walked in. What's up, sir? And the rotting arm. He told them, I'm just here so you can take a picture of me and provide testimony that you heard me say by this time tomorrow, I will be fully healed. And they were like, get out of here. Go to the hospital. Your arm is literally rotting. Literally. Literally. But apparently they took a picture. And so he left that building. He left from there and he headed north. He walked about five kilometers. And one of his sons had been with him the whole time. At this point, five kilometers into heading north, the son is like, I'm going back home. I'm done. Like when Forrest comes, he's just like, I'm tired. Turns back around. That was the son. So he stopped following his dad. He went back home. Victoria's like, where's your father? The kid's like, I don't know. And I do have to warn everyone. Suddenly, halfway through the recording, I'm having mic issues. My mic is not working and I have to switch to my Apple. Not my Apple, my laptop microphone. And I don't like how that sounds, but I have no choice. Yeah, the show must go on. yeah as they say okay so by this point hours pass night falls and donato is not back yet it's been hours and victoria is worried the next day on her birthday october 6th 6th she looks at the window of this little bodega area in their house the very same area where he had the accident and she sees donato It's noon and she asks him where he's been and he tells her, oh, here and there. And she's like, oh, not this shit again. She's over it. He's very mysterious. Yeah. Ominous even. So she goes back inside. Sometime later, Victoria hears one of their sons scream and she runs to him and asks what's wrong. And he can't talk, but he points at Donato's arm. So she looks and sees that Donato's arm is fully back. And she faints. The rotting arm. The rotting arm is back. But it looks better. It doesn't look like his arm, actually. It's a new arm. Yeah. And there's like a burning smell coming from the arm. Oh. But it was like clear, pale, smooth. Like a baby's arm. That's unsettling. Yeah, that's probably why she fainted. And people were frightened. They started saying it was the devil's arm. And then everyone stayed away from him after that. I don't blame them. Yeah, and then someone contacted the local newspaper about Donato's new arm. And the same journalist that Donato had gone to the day before came back to see what was up with the new arm. Eventually, Donato shared what happened in the hours that he was gone, which was what the aliens wanted. They asked Donato to make this event known to all of humanity. Donato had heard the voices, or the voice, and it had said, we are here, Donato. The friends, the aliens, they had answered his call after four months. Took them long enough. Right? Yeah. Donato walked toward Chancos, about 40 kilometers from where he lived, to someplace he called Las Antenas. The voices had directed him to that spot, the same way that our GPS works now. They're like, make a left on... Basically. Somewhere, I don't know. On this hillside, whatever, I don't know. Yeah. In between these two rocks. Took a sharp turn. On the way, Donato ran into a friend who asked, what you doing? Donato told him he was supposed to climb El Cerro and his friend was worried because it was pretty late. It was around 11 p.m. By that point. And the friend knew about Donato's arm. Everyone knew. The gangrene, yeah. And so obviously they were even more worried because of that. And so they didn't want him to do it, but Donato didn't listen. And he continued on his journey. This is a real friend, not the aliens. No, no, yeah, yeah. Okay. Just making sure. Donato reached the top of El Cero around midnight. And there the voices said to him, you called and we are here. Donato asked them for help and they instructed him to undress. And even though it was freezing, he did. Once he was undressed, there was a light just like the one he had seen years ago. Then he was elevated into the light. As he was being elevated, the beings asked him what he most wanted, and he told them he wanted to meet his dad. Not his arm. In that moment, he forgot about his arm because, yeah, his one desire was to meet his dad. Kind of sad and sweet. Yeah. Donato heard his dad's voice, which was comforting to him because his arm was in unbearable pain. It was hot, like it was being burned. And he could see that his arm was being regenerated bit by bit. When they were done, he was slowly brought down and the beings said goodbye. And they said that they would be in touch again. The non-alien friend that Donato had run into... The human? The human friend. Yeah. I'm like the non-alien, the human friend, um, was worried about Donato. So the friend ended up climbing up, you know, El Cero 2 to find out what Donato was up to. And he held Donato down and was shocked to see that his arm was fully healed. Donato asked for a glove and said he has to go back home since the beings told him he had to keep his arm wrapped for 13 days. He was so happy that he ran and walked all the way home. That's a... Long run walk. Wasn't it like 40 kilometers? Something like that. He did an ultra marathon to go back. He would occasionally stop to cool his arm in the rivers and the creeks. When he got home, he noticed his arm was abnormally strong. When the journalist arrived, he asked who healed his arms. And Donato said, my friends from the celestial galaxy. This is the first time he kind of like names them. Yeah. Yeah. He also told the journalist that the beings didn't have names and only had the initials JC on them. And this is how he could tell them apart, even though the beings were identical. So, like, did some have the initials? One of them. Sorry. The one that talked to him is the one that had the initials JC. So, was there two of them? At some point, he says there's... More than two. Then he says there's two. Then he says by the end, there's only one that talks to him. Oh, okay. Yeah. Donato said the beings didn't want to abduct anyone from Earth, that they only had a message of peace and love. And he also said that they told him about the end of the world and the cause would be volcanoes. You know what? I could see that just because of like global warming and like more. But volcanoes don't reach everywhere. No, I know, but that could be one of the reasons. Yeah, I could see that in some areas. Yeah, yeah. Natural disasters is like the general picture, and then they just specify volcano, and the way I'm viewing it is what I mean. That makes sense, yeah. Apparently, after the arm incident, Donato possessed extraordinary abilities. Whenever Donato appeared on the radio, things would stop working. Same with cameras that he tried to use. The moment he touched them, they stopped working. He can't scroll TikTok. But that's one way to solve doom scrolling on the phones. Yeah. Donato was able to break stones with one hand, bend bolts without tools, lift heavy weights, and even heal some illnesses. Like, he was. Cured of prostate issues in his later years, and his fingers healed once in another accident he had, where he accidentally sawed his fingers off. He sounds a little accident-prone. Right? People from all over Latin America started to go to Donato because they believed he had healing properties. He himself would say that he was not a curandero, but he did try to help people as much as he could. Okay. Yeah. And the beings told Donato that they healed his arm for doing good and not for doing evil. And they instructed him to use this gift to help others. Okay. I mean, because even if it's one arm, you can do some evil with one arm with extra supernatural powers. One arm is enough. Yeah. Yeah. To do evil. Yeah. Yeah. And apparently people did feel better when they left after seeing Donato, but Donato himself would absorb their illnesses. And so John talked about a time when a family came to see Donato and their son was in a wheelchair. They spent the night there and the next day John saw them leaving without the wheelchair, but Donato spent days in pain after that. And throughout the years, Donato received many messages from his friends. His extraterrestrial friends, I should say. Yeah, specify. Right, his friends from the celestial galaxy. And here are a few of them in Spanish because I didn't translate them. No abandones el camino que tomases en un momento de desesperación. So like, don't abandon the path you took in a moment of desperation. Okay, stay on the path. Inspirational, yeah. El hombre nunca llegó a la luna, ni llegará. These extraterrestrial beings. They done debunked. They said we faked the moon landing. Yeah, that's what they said. And they were like, and a man will never get to the moon. Okay, I'm not sure how I feel about them anymore. Right. Okay, here's another one. No habrá tercera guerra mundial. You know what? Are you on their side again? I'm... They really back in with this one. They want you back. They want me back because I. Don't think that there's a World War III because World War II never ended. In a sense, parts of the world are still at war and never stopped because of U.S. imperialism, Western imperialism. And so... these superpowers in the world joined together to attack certain places again and again and again and interfere and destabilize. And so it just went more covert. It's just, you know, but yeah, so. I think they would agree with your theory. Let's see, where's other messages? Todo está vigilado en el espacio. They could see everything. Right, right. They're starting to sound a little like God to me. Okay, so then this is not like a message, I guess, but Donato asked them, where is hell? And they were like, Donato. On earth? Ahí donde tú estás, yes. No, no. They have me with that line. Okay, and then here's another one. The last one I wrote, but there was many more. I'm sorry. I wish you wrote more. I'm loving this. Los de arriba recomiendan buscar personalmente a Dios. Okay, look to God. They recommend. They lost me. They lost me again. Many were skeptical of Donato, especially the local doctors. The local what? The local doctors in his area. Oh, okay. And they called Donato a fraud. Curiously, according to Donato, if too many people lost their faith in him, his celestial friends would take his abilities away. And that's what happened. And this, yeah, it did. It did happen. He lost his powers because too many people were skeptical and ridiculed him. Oh. Yeah. And he, Donato, lived his last years quietly away from media attention. And he died on August 28th, 2013 in Huaraz, Peru. But his, as we hear and are talking about now, his extraterrestrial experiences live on. I will say I saw a picture of Donato's finger when he had that accident that it was completely sawed off or whatever. Oh, yeah. It's hanging by a thread. The picture is grotesque. It's just hanging there. I saw those too from his website. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, what are these? And then I was like, uh, uh. Should have warned you. Actually, I wasn't that bothered. Yeah, no, I'm exaggerating for comedic purposes. But no, it was quite literally hanging there. It is quite the picture. And then there's like a series of pictures of his finger healing. And like, so it's hanging there. And then at another point, it's like, it looks like black, like it was like, stitched back together but then there's another picture where it just looks completely fine like it was never just hanging there black yeah from like rotting you know uh so i don't know i mean obviously in the same age things things can be doctored but yeah it's a little odd Yeah. I don't know. I do think pictures like that could be doctored, but I guess Donato wasn't hurting anyone. Yeah. With his beliefs. Hopefully the people that went to him for illnesses, if they weren't able to be helped, actually sought professional medical attention for their problems. And hopefully I didn't see anything about anyone being hurt. I didn't either. Yeah. Whenever you don't know what to do in life, ask yourself, WWDD, what would Donato do? Or what would Donato's list of friends tell him to do? Yeah, actually, that's the one. You're right. WWCFHD. Something like that. Yeah. Whatever. Whatever. It doesn't matter. You get it. Yeah. Oh, there was another story that John told in this podcast. It'll be linked in the sources where he retells the story where we got it from and then combined it with Donato's own story. But when talking about Donato's healing abilities, John is telling the host of this podcast, like, yeah, the story you already said about the wheelchair family. With the son in the wheelchair family. But he's like, yeah. And like another time, me and my brothers, we were told to take care of the chickens. That was like our job. And we weren't paying attention. And three of the chickens like were run over. And we were fighting each other, crying, blaming each other. Like, no, they're dead because of you. No, because of you. And Donato was walking by when he saw them crying, arguing, fighting over whose fault it was. Because none of them wanted to admit it was their fault. Naturally. Yeah. And so he's like, does your mom know that the chickens are dead? And the kids are like, no, crying still. And then he's like, all right, we're just going to pick them up, clean them up. And he picked them up. And then when he was done cleaning them, they were back to life somehow. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he tells another story similar about their family dog that, um, Something happened, like it was an accident, the dog and the kids were distraught and Donato like carried it and he's like, I'm going to take care of it. And then he was back to life as well. So I don't know. I don't know. There's something there I fear. It's quite possible. I want to believe as they say in the X-Files. Yeah. Yeah. I want to believe as well. Yeah. Yeah. All right, I guess that brings us to spooky recommendations. Do you have any? Do I? No, I haven't. Well, like I was saying, I haven't been watching anything except re-watching Jane the Virgin. And I haven't read anything. But I will say, sort of a recommendation to be, if you have Adblocker, it's like a free Adblocker add-on from Chrome. You can watch Tubi without the ads. And Tubi has some really good Mexican horror movies. Oh, really? Yes. We've talked about Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo. Yeah. Even the wind is afraid. What a name. A Mexican classic. In a time when Mexican horror movies were more focused on like monsters like Tincas, Santo versus Las Momias de Guanajuato. Those kind of movies were popping. And then out comes Carlos Enrique Tawada, the director of Even the Wind is Afraid, Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo. And he just changed Mexican horror. He's called the father of Mexican horror for this reason because his movies take a really psychological, oppressive, haunting feel to them that movies didn't have at that time. And even The Wind is Afraid follows a group of girls in like a college. It's like, honestly, I think it's like a high school, like a girls' high school, or it could be a girls' college. I don't remember their ages exactly, but it's an all-girls school. The rules in the school themselves are there's no boys allowed. It's very strict. Okay, an all-girls school? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Of its time, I guess. And there's a girl who keeps having nightmares and she doesn't know that the nightmares are actually because there's a girl who died at the school, that the school is trying to keep hush hush on the low. They don't want the other girls to know. And she's having nightmares of this girl. And slowly these nightmares come to reality because they all, I think at some point, have like a haunting experience with her ghost. And in the end, it's not what you think it is, what happened to her. But it's a very fun classic movie. Holds up really well. Most of his movies do. Veneno para las hadas. Poison for fairies. Another classic. It's like, I don't know, The Craft, but scarier. Like scary. I don't actually watch The Craft. Oh, okay. I don't think it's scary. I think it's just fun, like a fun witchy group of girls. Yeah, but that's what I thought too about it. Yeah. And so Venero para las Hadas is these two little girls who are kind of both lonely outcasts. One of them is raised by her grandmother and she, the grandmother, tells her like horror stories every night, like of the devil and tells her every day, every night, you're a witch, you're a witch, you're a wizard, Harry. Eres una bruja, Verónica. That's where J.K. Rowling stole the idea from. I'm just going to go ahead. You know what? Probably. But this little girl befriends the other little girl, and I'm blinking on her name, and tells her she's a witch, too. And there's the scene in the movie where she's like, Soy bruja, pero... Like the things you do with the devil or the devil tells you to do, you can't tell anyone. And this little girl believes her, but it's like really this manipulative, creepy story where it takes a dark turn. She's not really a witch. But she makes the other girl believe she's a witch. um that yeah that's in such a good movie also on 2b um and then i want to say there's another movie of his also on there but i can't remember but i would say just those two are pretty uh good and worth watching and again on 2b. So So my recommendation is a book I just finished reading yesterday, actually. And it was just the most hauntingly beautiful book I have read in a while. Probably my favorite of the year, but we are only in October. But I'm talking about Our Cut of Salt by Dina Helm. And let me just read the description real quick. There is something haunting Nuhad's childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Although Nuhar has not returned to her home since the Nakba in 1948, she always held a place for the house in her heart. In return, the house did the same for her. After Nuhar passes away, her granddaughter Marina is determined to visit her grandmother's home after a lifetime of being kept in the dark about her culture and family history. Marina's mother Haifa, named for the city that was a loss to their family, reluctantly agrees to her trip, though she knows firsthand that some secrets are better left buried. But the house is no longer a home. It is a painful, festering wound that infects everything it touches. The more Marina digs into her family's past, the sicker she becomes. Despite noah's ghostly warnings hypha rushes to help her daughter as the three women converge in their ancestral home they must put the haunting to rest before the secrets of the past drown them all wow it was just beautiful amazing i cried um The ending was satisfying. Okay. It was just amazing. The house had its own point of view. Very cool. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, and of course, it's a heavy read because of the subject matter, right? Yeah. Very important, too. Okay, well... Is that the end of the episode? Yeah. Remember, what would Donato's celestial friends tell him to do? Yes. Stay spooky and we'll catch everyone next time. Bye. Bye. Spooky Tales is hosted by Christina and Carmen, produced and edited by Christina, researched by Christina, Carmen, and with the help of Dawn. Shout out, Dawn. If you're enjoying the podcast, consider leaving us a five-star review. We would really appreciate it. If you don't want to leave a five-star review, just don't leave a review, but don't leave anything lower than that, please. I'm just kidding. You can reach out to the podcast at spookytales.gmail.com. You can go to our website, spookytales.com, and fill out the contact form. If you want to support the podcast, you can join our Patreon, where we... send exclusive stickers, have bonus episodes. $ 8 members get an exclusive keychain. It's super cool. I got new ones and these ones are huge. 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