Have you ever stopped somewhere during a road trip and felt something off?I'm exploring some of the strangest roadside encounters shared on Reddit.
Stories of gas stations that seem to disappear without a trace to unsettling fast-food restaurants where the employees didn't seem... human.
Were these time slips? Glitches in reality? Unexplained moments from sleepy travelers?👁️ What do you think these people experienced?
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I recently did an episode on time slips when you're at a
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place that's not really there, but it was there a long time
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ago. And after that episode came out,
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there was a bunch, and I'm saying a ton of different
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stories that show us that these things, these events are way
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more common than you think. You ready?
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My name is Edwin and this is Paranormal Club.
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I used to love going down the road, like I just have this old
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like it's a 2003 suburban. I used to drive up and down the
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5 freeway in California, like go to San Jose, then Hayward back
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to Los Angeles. And I'm telling you, it wasn't
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that long of a ride, but like it was relaxing when I did it that
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late and it was really cool. And along those stops like that
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you see on the 5 freeway are a bunch of gas stations, a lot of
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areas for you to, you know, pull over, rest a couple hours, keep
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driving. And these are the kinds of
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stories that I'm going to tell you about today.
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Stories of people who were driving out relate and
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encountered something bizarre, places that weren't there, or
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people are acting a little too strange.
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Here we go #1 the Speedway of the future.
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This isn't some type of Mario Kart scene or anything.
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This is a Speedway like one of those gas stations slash like
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AMPM 711 kinds of things where you pull over, put gas, and get
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a hot dog while you're at it. This case, there's this woman,
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she's driving down on the freeway.
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It's 2:00 AM, and she pulls over.
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And as she's there, her cards declining, which sucks.
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I mean, we've all been there, right?
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It's just won't go through, Won't go through.
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Luckily, she had cash with her. She goes in there and she
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notices something strange. The woman that was like the
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attendant from that spot kind of recognized her and was like,
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like, actually finished her sentence saying, I thought you
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were quitting. She was like, that was weird.
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And then she drove by that same spot, this time during the
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daytime. There was nothing there.
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There was no gas station. However, a year later,
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construction was starting at that same spot.
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She's like, huh, OK, so they're going to build something there.
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But it turns out it was that Speedway that she had seen that
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year before. How do you explain that?
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Did she go into the future crazy?
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Anyway, number 2 is the Georgia SR376 time loop.
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I'm interested in in knowing how people from Georgia talk about
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their highways and their freeways.
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In California it's more like the six O 5, the five, the four O 5,
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stuff like that. In other places I heard about
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like in in Colorado, I remember hearing I or Interstate, I
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forgot, but there's different ways.
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I'm curious to know how you say SR376.
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Is it 376? Is it I don't know it's 2007.
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This woman named Maria and her are driving down from Florida to
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Georgia after a funeral, which is, you know, the pretty sad
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devastated, but they need still needed to pee, right?
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They need to go to use a bathroom.
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So they finally see this like exit.
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It's unmarked. But they get out and they happen
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to find a gas station and they're like, thank goodness,
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right? So they go and they find this
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dimly lit gas station. It's covered in dust.
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It looks really old, but hey, as long as the toilet works, you're
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fine, right? Well, the attendant that was
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there were just staring. I'm like unblinking looking at
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them or looking past them, not looking at them again.
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Like this the Gen. Z stayer kind of thing, which I
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experienced recently and I was very confused.
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I'm like, why did it not answer my question?
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Why can't they make conversation?
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It it? I actually got it.
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I got that millennial thing there.
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I'm like, why does this piss me off?
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I remember asking because we're at this coffee shop and I was
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asking if my cousin was working there, like because she she
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works there. But like if she was working
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there at the time and she just looked at me, I'm like, is she
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here? And she was like, it was so
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awkward, man. Anyway, this is how they were
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looking at they were, they were staring, right, not a Gen.
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Z person. But also they noticed that along
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with that that weird attendant there, there were like strange
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brands of products there. You know how back then they used
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to canned food a little bit differently?
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Labels were like different, not like now, but they were more, I
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would say like matte colors, like like you can kind of tell
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like old logos and what what they look like.
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They were weirded out by it. So they freaked out.
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They left and they drove straight down the road for 15
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minutes and it's and they passed another gas station.
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Turns out they thought it was a different one, but it was the
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exact same one they pulled over. They're looking at it.
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They see the same attendant there staring back at them.
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I don't know how this story ends.
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It's a Reddit post. I mean, it's one of those that
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you find on there that you know, people say that they
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encountered. Are these things real?
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I hope not, but still creep me out.
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Number three, the 1950s Tennessee phantom rest stop.
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I call them rest areas in California call rest areas.
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But there was this actually rest stop might be like a gas station
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kind of service thing too. Anyway, there was a severe
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thunderstorm and a mother and a son are driving along and
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they're they pull over, they hide in there.
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They want to protection and the attendants were wearing this
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like these old suits. And I imagine these being kind
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of like the whole The Office kinds of things, like, you know
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how in the early episodes, Michael Scott is wearing this
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like older style suit? That's what I imagine.
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However, they're also like the rest of the staff.
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They were like way too excited, like way too enthusiastic, which
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I find really creepy. I actually, I remember thinking
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about Disneyland employees back in the day and how weirded out I
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felt when they were so excited about stuff like, of course,
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come on, come on in, honey. And I'm like, just like normal.
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I don't know why would that that creeps me out for some reason.
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It's really like high energy, enthusiastic people really,
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really put me like on guard. But they, the staff were like,
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they were actually freaking out when the mother and son were
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able to leave the place because their car had gotten stuck.
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They were like freaking out about it because they were
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leaving. And they actually did get to
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leave. They were going to pass by it.
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So of course you can't even I can imagine this right?
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Them being like, Hey, we're going to pass by that gas
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station again. We're going to pass by that gas
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station. The, the, the weird one turns
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out in that whole exit that they explored or whatever, there was
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no gas station at all. What happened anyway #4 We have
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the dancing cashier of Central Texas.
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Now, this is an interesting story here.
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There is a driver who's driving through Central Texas and it's
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around 2:00 AM, pulls over to this like, like mechanically
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operated gas station. The ones where you like, you
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pump your own gas. You actually somebody pumps it
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for you because sometimes a lot, a lot of people didn't
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understand it. So you pay the attendant, they
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do it for you. But he goes and he sees it.
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This is really old place. And it's this dimly lit store,
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like a little shop, like a again, like a little convenience
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store at the in the gas station. And as he's approaching, he sees
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the attendant, his eyes are closed and he's dancing to this
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like off tempo. He's not dancing properly to
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this music that's like upbeat ragtime.
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Let's see if we can find some music here with a like ragtime
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ragtime music royalty free. Make sure it's from it's
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licensed so we don't get strike. But it's just like, and he's
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doing this, it's it's weird. So the guy's like he doesn't
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know whether to laugh or not, I assume.
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I don't know. But he's like, hey, the
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attendant snaps out of the dancing.
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He kind of like, that's awkward, right, Being caught dancing like
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that. But why wouldn't you notice a
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car that's approaching you, your gas station, right?
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And he starts staring blankly, like opens his eyes, start
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staring. And then he just kind of freezes
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in place like a robot. The driver left the cash, he got
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his gas left. Sounds like something I would
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do. It like, that was weird.
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Here's the money. I'm out.
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He came back months later. The gas station had been
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replaced by this empty grass lot #5 the NPC Taco Bell in
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Illinois. A group of friends are driving
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down the road and they stopped by a Taco Bell Pontiac, Georgia
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right off of Interstate 55. They noticed something that was
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really weird about. It turns out that the workers
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were talking amongst themselves, but like in weird, like words
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that didn't make any sense, as in sentences that aren't really
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sentences, they're just words. They're kind of interacting, but
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not like at like with each other.
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They're like, what's going on? Right?
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Like, are we on camera? They were like, what the heck is
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happening? And they try to like, I guess
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what they defined it as is the NPC, like non playing characters
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and non player characters in, you know, video games where like
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Grand Theft Auto, like those characters are just moving and
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you can get in their way and they're just kind of keep
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walking where you are. You know, they were like that.
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It was weird. But then once he realized that
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this isn't a prank, they freak out and they run away.
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And that's where the story that I mean, we're left at that what
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happened that it vanished like all these other places.
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That's creepy. Anyway, number six, the regular
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at the non existent gas station. Check this one out.
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For months around 2013 and 2014, there was this woman who was a
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regular morning customer at this gas station in Martinsburg, WV.
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She was talking to the cashier, Carroll.
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I recognize the other regular commuters.
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It was like a regular thing, right?
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You can kind of spot the people that go to the same place at the
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same time. Years later, she's driving
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around the area. And she thought that the lot was
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completely overgrown. Locals and the property owner
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later confirmed that the lot had never been developed.
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No gas station had ever existed there, and the space was
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actually just the wooded area where homeless people would camp
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out. So weird #7 the ominous warning
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in the unmapped town. So we're driving down this road.
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It's 4:00 AM. You're running low on gas.
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Real anxiety, you thing, right? It's late, we need gas.
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The driver pulls into this tiny unmapped town.
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The gas station attendant is really tall and thin.
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Man was like he was handed a $50.00 bill, but he's like, no,
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I can't accept that. But instead he gave him a hat
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and he was like, you don't want to be out here at this time of
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night looking like that. Not sure if that was his accent,
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but driver said that he didn't even know that the place
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existed. The tenant said, well, it
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doesn't. Do you get that?
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It's like he's like, why didn't even know this place was
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existed? Doesn't creepy give them 2
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gallons of free gas from a can? Told them to flee immediately.
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The driver tried to find the town on his return trip had
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completely disappeared. Never existed #8 the 1960s T
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Berry gum rejection. It's 1996 and the family is
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driving through Savannah, GA. He stopped at this rural gas
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station. And where they're sharing, it's
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like where they're sharing where they're selling like glasses of
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orange, like jugs, glass jugs of orange juice and also gas.
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But the mom tried to pay. So she hands her a $10.00 bill,
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$5.00 bill. And the guy's like, no, that's
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fake. I can't accept that.
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But he started getting this like old school phone, like a
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switchboard to call the police on them.
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They're like, what? So the family ran back to the
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car, forgot all about it. Decades later.
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Is this is the weird part here. The mom found the gum and her
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mother's hoarded belongings, confirming that the packaging
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was genuinely from the 1960s. That's where she had gotten the
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gum from from that trip. I just realized something.
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She stole the gum. Shouldn't pay for it.
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OK, anyway, we just discovered a crime way later #9 the awkward
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Georgia time slip. Not awkward awkward Ackworth.
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Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
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Man stopped at a gas station in awkward Georgia and immediately
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noticed that the prices were shockingly low.
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The gas was just $1.03 per gallon.
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Unheard of inside. None of the tobacco products had
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modern warning labels like they they have to by law now.
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It would have been a massive like legal thing to not have
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them. And they all had old designs
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from like an era long ago. Realizing that he might have
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slipped back in time isn't that weird.
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You realize that that you might have slipped back in time to
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like 2000. He became completely freaked out
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and left. I think that's what I would do.
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I would freak out and leave and that's it.
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I want to stay around to investigate.
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Sorry if there's something you want to figure it out from that
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era, but I'm not your guy. I would probably just leave and
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and that's it. Call it a day, move on.
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And the number 10, now this one I saved for last because it's
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probably the creepiest 1 and it's not a single event.
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This is something that you can encounter down like long empty
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roads when you're at a gas station.
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And this involves the Black Eyed kids or the Black Eyed children.
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If you're interested in finding out more about the Black Eyed
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children, like a deep dive, actually the very first story
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ever told about the Black Eyed children and what started it
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all. I have an episode on that in my
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podcast, Horror Story, which I'll link to so you can check it
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out in the description. But basically, I'll tell you
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just the gist of you probably heard of the Black Eyed
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children, but what they are, they're they're kids that
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usually like a gas station, an old like a highway late at
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night. If you're pulled over, they'll
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come up to you, sometimes knock on your window and they'll ask
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to be let in. Sometimes they need a ride, they
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need to get somewhere, they need money that something so that you
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can let them in. Well, you shouldn't let them in
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ever. These things, they follow this
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rule where they can only go into your car if you tell them that
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it's OK. So don't do that.
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I also heard this from like, vampires.
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So don't just don't let strangers into your car, period,
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right? But anyway, the thing about
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these kids, as her name says it is that their eyes are
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completely black. Like solid black.
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People describe feeling like there's this like imminent
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danger, like something's about to happen, something's about to
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go down. So you need to get out of there
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and you need to trust that feeling and get the heck out of
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there. Just a warning, I guess I use
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this spot for that, but there are a bunch of stories on this
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and if you're interested in finding more stories or
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encounters with the Black Eyed children, I can make an episode
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on that. But it's they're really out
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there stories really needs an open mind because there's a lot
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of stuff out there that you know can get be made-up, not be real.
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I have to think about this stuff, which brings up some of
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the questions right about all this.
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All these encounters that we heard of at gas stations and
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then Rd. trips late at night. We have the issue of
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psychological versus paranormal. These people, these encounters
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were said to be of people who are driving down late at night,
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down the road. Well, it's 2:00 AM, four AM
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You're tired. Are you imagining these things?
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Has it ever happened to you when you're like drought driving and
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you don't realize how far you've gotten?
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You just kind of zoned out for a little bit.
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And if you're in a new place and that's scary, but it's it, can
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it be something psychological? Is your brain tired and you're
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believing something that never happened?
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Also the whole time, are these time slips?
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Are they actually time slips or are we seeing a remnant of the
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past or of the future? I think most importantly out of
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all these stories are the ones that actually that are mentioned
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in the time slips episode. These show us that these events
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are way more common than we think and they don't always have
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to be like this. Like Eloquent really build out
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story of an event like this, like the whole Versailles
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incident. Sometimes they happen to regular
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people who are just trying to make it to another side of the
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part of town and encounter these really weird things.
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Another thing that I noticed while I was doing the research
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for this episode through Reddit and all these other like alleged
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true accounts and websites, I started thinking just like
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letting my mind roam right? Just take this lightly here.
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But could they be aliens practicing?
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Have we encountered some of these spots where like something
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just doesn't seem right? The unknown areas in town, could
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they be fictional? Could they be placed there for
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us to like step in and kind of interact with these things?
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Or have you ever met people that are just so strange that you're
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like that girl with that that woman who said like that guy is
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not real at the back of the plane?
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Is that possible man? Like anyway, there's also this
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theory that I found. It's called a simulation theory.
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Also the the NPC kind of thing, the NPC factor, the whole Taco
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Bell incident where entities either act like broken robots or
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ominously self aware programs correcting a mistake like
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glitches in the matrix or when you see something that just have
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you. I just interrupted myself there,
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but have you ever seen an airplane not moving in the air?
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It's very common. If you live like around LAX, you
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can see them really slow down and sometimes they don't move.
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Like they're just kind of there and I'm like, how are they
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staying there? Obviously they're probably
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moving, but they don't look like they're moving.
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It's really weird. Anyway, they call it like that.
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These aren't ghosts, but they're manifestations of a holographic
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universe simulation. That's, you know, when you catch
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it and it's wrong. Something like something's
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floating, somebody's walking backwards, something just isn't
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right. It just tries to correct the
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glitch to keep going. Now I got to say about the whole
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time the, the, the Taco Bell thing, I used to work at a Taco
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Bell and I'll tell you it was boring.
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Some days we're just really boring.
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We'll just look at people like cars stop by the, the, the
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Burger King next door. Or we would just be like looking
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at them like actually used to trade, like we used to like give
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them tacos and used to give us whoppers.
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Not sure what the, what the deal there was, but we used to do
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that. I don't want to get anyone in
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trouble here. We used to do that.
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We were just really bored. So when somebody would come in,
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we would just be like kind of excited.
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Wait, we would be we would be like overly enthusiastic because
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we got a customer. No, I don't think it was overly
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enthusiastic. I think we were just like, oh,
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cool customer. I was just trying to think there
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like with the whole overly enthusiastic, like wow,
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somebody's here. But no, we were still, we were
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just whatever. We're like, OK, cool, here's
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your food. Thank you for coming.
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But it it, we might have acted like that.
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Like, yeah, we try to pray, play like pranks on people.
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Sometimes they were just really bored.
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Like one time there was a set of ducks, like a like a, a guide
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duck and a girl duck. And they would hang out by the
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drive through and we'd just like, play with them like, as in
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would toss them like crumbs and then, you know, crush up some
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stuff and like some of the tortilla chip things and we'll
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see if they eat them. And they used to come by often.
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They were just that bored. It used to be like, oh, the
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ducks are here. We used to go out and be like,
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oh, cool, they're here. Yeah, man, good times, but also
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really boring times. So they kind of, they could have
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been playing a prank. Who knows?
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So if we think of these things as glitches in the matrix or
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dimensions kind of crossing over each other and we're right at
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that fault line, maybe, I don't know, like the the idea of
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liminal spaces in the middle of the night.
00:18:31
Imagine a gas station, it's dark out.
00:18:34
All you see is lights in the distance.
00:18:36
Could they be playing a trick on our minds?
00:18:38
And also how stable is a reality that we go through every single
00:18:44
day? Something to think about.
00:18:46
All right, well, that's all I got for you this week.
00:18:49
Thank you so much for showing up here to Paranormal Club.
00:18:51
Remember, subscribe if you haven't already.
00:18:54
As always, thank you very much for listening or watching.
00:18:57
Keep it scary everyone, see you soon.