Episode 391 - r/Paranormal Reddit Horror Stories with Alexis Linkletter & Crimes of Reddit

Two Girls One Ghost

In this episode, Alexis Linkletter joins the show to share personal paranormal encounters and discuss her work in true crime. The conversati

Key takeaways

• Alexis Linkelleter experienced a tangible, earthy-colored shadow figure during a sleep paralysis episode in a historic Long Island home.
• A Reddit story describes a man's wife seeing an elderly woman in a nightgown, who was later identified via photo as his recently deceased great-grandmother.
• The hosts discuss the Monroe Institute and the CIA's historical interest in the Gateway Tapes for astral projection research.
• A terrifying Reddit post details a spirit named Elizabeth who caused a child to suffer two broken arms and facial trauma.
• The discussion explores the theory that consciousness may exist independently of brain activity, citing cases of awareness during brain death.

Main topics

• Sleep paralysis and shadow figures
• Reddit paranormal stories
• Astral projection and the Gateway Tapes

Notable quotes

I think humans are much scarier than any paranormal thing we can encounter.

Conclusion

The episode offers a thought-provoking look at how personal experience

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:02) Some evil thing happened here. Speaker 3 (0:05) Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. Speaker 1 (0:11) It's not a coincidence. Speaker 3 (0:13) One after the other. In the same house. Is this bad luck? Or something more sinister? Speaker 1 (0:23) The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. Speaker 2 (0:25) A long simmering, what took you so fucking long to get here? Speaker 3 (0:32) From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey-Raven. What Happened to the Harrisons is available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad-free. Speaker 4 (1:21) Hey, everyone. Welcome to Two Girls, One Ghost. It's very weird to do it by myself because usually Corinne says it and I whisper it. Speaker 1 (1:29) But Speaker 4 (1:29) today we are joined by a very, very special guest, Alexis Linkletter. Hi. Who we just started a new show together, Crimes of Reddit. If you haven't heard it yet or listened to it yet, are you like Patrick and living under a rock? What are you doing? But I'm very excited to have you join me as a special guest today on Two Girls, One Ghost. I am honored. I'm so excited. You have some crazy stories that you have shared with me about your life, but also I need you to tell everyone. We'll get there. But the story, I think you know what I'm going to say. The under the bed story. Speaker 5 (2:02) Oh, Speaker 4 (2:02) yeah. I need you to tell me about it. But first, will you tell everyone a little bit about you? Sure. So like Sabrina said, we were brought together by the universe, by the universe Speaker 5 (2:12) to co-host Crimes of Reddit together. But before that. Well, and during right now still, I co-host The First Degree with my best friend, Jack Vanek. And before that, I was hosting a podcast for Investigation Discovery called Unraveled, which chronicled all my reporting on the Long Island serial killer case. Speaker 4 (2:30) Which your reporting on the Long Island serial killer case is top notch. Like you are an incredible journalist. Thanks, girl. You even have a book coming out. Yes, I have a book coming out early next year called Between the Devil and the Tide. So check that out. Yeah. But yeah, we were brought together to do Crimes of Reddit. And we have been basically deep diving into the darkest corners of the internet on Reddit, finding stories that people have shared about kind of all sorts of crimes. We've got stalker stories, learning secrets about your family, confessions. The one we recently read about the woman who went to a party with her husband where they were like forcing. girls to eat strange things off tables. Like insects Speaker 5 (3:12) and eyeballs and bull testicle smoothies. Yeah. For money and then filming them. Really strange stuff. And I think that's exactly why Reddit is such an amazing place to mine stories. Yeah. Because like people are going there to spill their guts because they don't have anywhere to turn. And that's always about something strange because otherwise they tell their friends. Speaker 4 (3:31) And that's why we love Reddit because you can go to it anonymously and share stories. And also on Two Girls, One Ghost, we love Reddit for paranormal stories because traditionally or stereotypically, unfortunately, some people view the paranormal or paranormal experiences as very taboo or a lot of people don't have people who believe them. And so they can share their stories on Two Girls, One Ghost or on Reddit and still be judged, but anonymously. So it feels a little bit safer. So in honor of Crimes of Reddit and everything we're talking about in regards to Reddit, we picked a couple of stories about the paranormal from Reddit that we are going to share. But first, everyone needs to know, do you believe in ghosts? Yes. Okay, great. Perfect. Because if you didn't, I don't think we'd be friends. No. Speaker 5 (4:17) Yeah, I just think it would be really arrogant to assume that we understand everything about... Everything? About everything. And also just like... Physics. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think energy transfers in ways that we don't understand. Speaker 4 (4:32) Agreed. Yeah. You're in good company here. Yeah. I want to hear about your experience with the paranormal because I don't know a ton about it. But first, can you tell the story where I was a ghost? Where you are the most horrifying, creepy kid. Because we love creepy kid stories here on this podcast. Yeah. I even picked my Reddit story as a creepy kid story. But this might be one of the creepiest kid stories I've ever heard. Speaker 5 (4:55) And I wasn't a creepy little girl, I Speaker 4 (4:57) don't think. Yes, you were. Apparently I was. So Speaker 5 (5:00) I was like a sleepwalker. I Speaker 4 (5:03) was really doing really weird sleepwalking Speaker 5 (5:05) stuff. And apparently one day, I was like six or something, I snuck out of my bedroom sleepwalking. And my parents were asleep in their beds. And apparently I'd like crawled under their bed. And like, I was just screaming, like screaming bloody murder. Top of your lungs. Yeah. Like, cause I woke up under there and didn't know where I was. And my parents like probably stopped loving me. I don't know. So your Speaker 4 (5:31) parents are asleep in bed. Yeah. It's like in the middle of the night. Dreaming about butterflies. Who knows? Something peaceful. And they wake up to. their child blood curdling screaming and find you beneath their bed screaming. Creepy kid. You're right. That's horrifying. That's really scary. Terrifying. Yeah. That Speaker 5 (5:48) was me. That Speaker 4 (5:48) was me. Speaker 5 (5:49) Leave the groundwork for everything to follow. Yeah. Speaker 4 (5:52) And that's not your paranormal story. No. What's your ghost story? So I want to contextualize it first. Okay. I Speaker 5 (5:58) grew up in a really scary old house, like really scary, built in like, you know, 1860. Great. Like secret doors. Love. Weird basement stuff. What does that mean? Weird. Like it had like a coal room because it was back when like. Oh, that's cool. When it was like things were run with coal. Yeah. It had like a big room with like a stage and like taxidermy heads of animals. Like back from the 1800s, you know, like a really creepy. Oh, your family kept all of that in the basement. No, no. Those were mounted on the walls in a different room. But like the house was just, if I was going to see a ghost, it was probably going to be there. But I never saw ghosts the entire time I lived there. Not a single weird thing. And I was creeping around the house at night. Nothing. So yeah, I had never had any experiences until like last year. Like never in your entire life. Never. Until last year. Until last year. Speaker 3 (6:51) I Speaker 5 (6:51) was visiting my aunt on Long Island. Okay. And she lives in the house that was my grandmother's. So my grandmother passed away. My aunt lives in the house now. Okay. And it's like. another historic house on Long Island. It's like four stories and like colonial, interesting, interesting house. And my mom lived there. Speaker 4 (7:09) So Speaker 5 (7:09) the guest room was like her bedroom. Okay. Now she lived there at one point when she was growing up. So I was visiting with Matt, my husband, and no one has ever seen a ghost here either ever. Okay. At all. Not my aunt or my cousins who like live there and went to high school there. Okay. Speaker 4 (7:26) And how long ago did your grandma pass away? Speaker 5 (7:28) My grandma passed away probably eight years ago, but the house was originally, she lived there with her husband, who was my mom's stepdad. And he was a doctor and he like delivered like half my friend's dads on Long Island. Okay. And he died first. So he died, I didn't even know him. He died before I was born. Yeah. But again, no one's ever said anything, like there's never been any ghosts. Yep. So me and Matt are sleeping in the third floor guest room and it's like sort of a rainy night. And like in the middle of the night, I woke up. And I had complete fucking sleep paralysis, like complete sleep paralysis. And there was like something over me in bed. Was Speaker 4 (8:05) it leaning over? Yes. From the side? Like it Speaker 5 (8:08) looked like it was standing leaning over? I was sweating and like Speaker 4 (8:12) it Speaker 5 (8:12) was a strange, it was like a tangible figure though. Like, oh my gosh. And I couldn't wake my, I couldn't fully wake myself up. And like, I don't remember how long it lasted, but eventually I went back to sleep. But like. I remembered it in the morning. I'm like, that Speaker 4 (8:24) was fucking really weird. Do Speaker 5 (8:26) you Speaker 4 (8:26) feel like Speaker 5 (8:26) you fell Speaker 4 (8:26) back to sleep out of fear? Like your body just kind of shut down? It was just Speaker 5 (8:29) like, Speaker 4 (8:29) I was really disoriented. Speaker 5 (8:30) You know, like how sleep paralysis can be like fever dreamy. Yeah. It was like that where I was like hot and I like wanted to turn over on my side and couldn't. Speaker 4 (8:39) But Speaker 5 (8:39) I saw this thing and it wasn't like, it wasn't a human shaped thing. It was like, oh, it was tall, but it was like brown. Speaker 5 (8:47) green. It was like an earthy color. Interesting. And it wasn't like a human face, but it was like a shadow type figure. Sure. But like I couldn't make out a face or like the sex of the thing or whatever. Speaker 4 (9:00) What was your feeling? I mean, obviously it's disorienting and in the moment you're probably focusing on the fact that you can't move, but did you get negative energy from it? Okay. It was weird though because Speaker 5 (9:10) the presence was like very... Very there. Somebody Speaker 4 (9:13) hovering over you. But it was not Speaker 5 (9:14) scary. Like, you're in danger. Because, like, I fell back asleep eventually. The next morning, I was like, holy shit. Like, I woke up and I told Matt, my husband, like, what had happened. And he's like, I felt really weird stuff, too. Speaker 4 (9:28) We Speaker 5 (9:29) don't say this. This isn't something we say. This is something we've never experienced. Like, we don't really bullshit each other. Right. That's also good. I'm Speaker 4 (9:37) glad you don't bullshit each other. Well, just about Speaker 3 (9:38) stuff like that. Speaker 5 (9:39) We're not like over the top about like, ooh, this thing. We're not like... Speaker 4 (9:42) You're not like me where I'm like... Yeah. That earthquake that rattled my bed was a ghost. And then I find out it was actually an earthquake. Right. Well, Speaker 5 (9:50) it's just I know it was real because I'm an adult and I would not be wrong about this. Right. Like you trust Speaker 4 (9:57) yourself to know. Speaker 5 (9:59) And I've had a lot of dreams like that. Like I've had a lot of sleep paralysis, not like this. This was like temperature in the room shifting. Okay. Speaker 4 (10:07) But can we also talk about you've had sleep paralysis before? Yeah. Speaker 5 (10:10) Along with sleepwalking, I've had a ton of like sleep paralysis, restless leg syndrome, a lot of like sleep disruption. Okay. Now I get a lot of insomnia. Like I've always struggled. But this was the Speaker 4 (10:21) first time where there was like something there. Something Speaker 5 (10:23) with it, you know, other than like, and it wasn't a nightmare. Like it was definitely like I saw the trees moving outside with the wind. Yeah. And like heard the AC kicking on like I was awake. Yeah. But I couldn't like investigate the figure because I couldn't move and I couldn't even really turn my head. Speaker 4 (10:38) Yeah. I mean, we've read a lot of stories on our podcast about sleep paralysis. And there's also been a lot of studies where I feel like the scientific community is trying to gaslight the paranormal community where they're like, it's like a weird brain chemical mix up. Which maybe, sure, it's in some situations. But then there's just too many encounters with shadow figures or with entities standing in the corner for there not to be something more and something paranormal to it. Well, Speaker 5 (11:06) it could be like a portal opening, you know? Because like if the part of your brain, and like, it's funny, I learned about anesthesia. Like you don't really go to sleep when you get put under for surgery. Doctors just put a part of your brain to sleep. they just turn a part of your brain off. So I've heard stories where like patients, when they're getting surgery, they open their eyes and stuff, but they're still completely. Whoa, I've never heard Speaker 4 (11:27) that. Yeah. So it's, that is completely possible. Speaker 5 (11:30) The fact like, the fact that you can even be in a dream state that you sort of misfire and you, you wake up a little bit, can't move your body. Like that's just a switch in your brain that has been not, is misfiring. Right. Like, so I feel like with our senses, they say we only use. like so much of our brain every day. Like it could open some portal where you can see things that are there normally, but like maybe that thing would have been there and I never would have felt it. Well, Speaker 4 (11:56) I also think about, and this is the argument that I use, that there are animals that are seeing colors that we as humans physically cannot see. And then there's plants communicating, like we can't hear it. There's just so much that we as humans are limited to. Speaker 5 (12:12) Sabrina, I Speaker 4 (12:13) just went to a Speaker 5 (12:14) lecture. Speaker 4 (12:15) About birds? Yep. Did you see it on my Instagram? I saw this, yeah. Speaker 5 (12:18) So I learned that birds are one of those animals that their spectrum is like twice as large as ours as far as what they can see. So they're seeing the color indigo that could be everywhere in this room, but we don't have the ability to see it. They Speaker 4 (12:31) can see double the colors we can see. Speaker 5 (12:33) So imagine if there's like things in your brain where it's like, what about molecules? Like that we just can't see that exist, but we can't perceive them. We just can't see them. We are limited. Yeah. Completely agree. So what was so interesting about this thing on my aunt's house is that my aunt has lived there now for like 30 years. So I told her about it and I was like, hey, has anyone ever said anything about something weird on the third floor? And she's like, never. Like my