Latest / Hidden Creatures: Stories, Sightings, and the Search for What Hides in the Dark / Episode 4: Haunted Diner with Steve Armstrong

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Episode 4: Haunted Diner with Steve Armstrong · Hidden Creatures: Stories, Sightings, and the Search for What Hides in the Dark

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Hidden Creatures, Stories Sightings, and the Search for What Hides in the Dark.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_04: Join us as we explore mysterious encounters, legendary creatures, and unexplained stories from around the world.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: From eyewitness accounts to local folklore, we'll follow the clues in search for the truth behind the unknown.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_04: Some stories may be unsettling, eerie, or hard to forget.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: Listen for discretion and advised.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Something is out there.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Join us as we step into the shadows and follow the trail of the unknown.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is Hidden Creatures.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to the Hidden Creatures Podcast.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: This is your host, Lori Chen.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: And as always, with me, my co-host, Kristen Jones.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: Hi everyone.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for joining us today.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: We have a return guest, the incredible Steve Armstrong, and he's back with a story.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: If you remember last time, it was a happy story.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: It was a good story.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: Today, Steve has a different kind of story for us.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Listener discretion is advised.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um wanted to tell you about a night.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some uh some group of my friends, there was multiple vehicles.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's at least 10 of us there.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I've tried to remember who all was there, but um it's hard.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's again, you know, this was I was in high school when this happened, so this was probably 1988.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Somewhere right there, 1988, 1989.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: This was, and I don't remember the whole story about it.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: There was, and I've looked, tried, and tried and tried to find it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: And if anybody knows the full story about this place, I would love to hear it.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: But there was a it was an old diner, or at least that's what we were told it was an old diner that was off of uh Randall Mill and Loop 820 in uh Arlington, Fort Worth, right there.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's a school in that area right now, so I always wondered if they tore that down and built the school over it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Ha ha, terrifying.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: But uh this was this the story was that uh a group of bikers had uh come through one night and and there's people in the diner and they came in there and ate.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, as the stories from the 40s and 50s, bikers would just go crazy and just start killing people, right?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's uh that's what they said happened.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: They you know killed everybody that was inside over the years.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: It had been used as um a site for you know satanic rituals or seances and things of that nature.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, so we're doing what any any group of teenagers would do.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: We hear a story like that, we're like, hey, let's go.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that's so that's what we did.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: We got there, uh, there was no parking lot.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: We all just pulled over the side of the road, and uh everybody had a flashlight.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we're you know, it's it's of course about midnight.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: There was no parking lot, uh, so we're all just pulled over the side of the roads.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: We were basically in the grass.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody got out of the car.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: We all had our own individual flashlights, and uh, and everybody turned their flashlights on.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: We were giggling, laughing, you know, like teenagers do when you're doing something stupid.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh made our way toward the uh the building.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, the doors had long been ripped off, windows are all broke broken out, no light anywhere to be seen.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: If you knew that stretch of uh Randall Mill uh back in, especially back in the 80s, it was uh it was dark, very dark.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's still pretty dark today, but uh but it was it was really dark then.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um made our way to the to the to the building and you know one by one went inside, flashlights on.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, sure enough, to true to every you know, rumor we heard about it, there there was little altars with you know black candles and all these kinds of drawings on the on the wall.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Symbols, things you know you would you know equate with uh the satanic panic that was you know back in back in that time.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um def definitely some dead animals uh laying around, whether they they were you know sacrificed or just came in there and died, you know, it's hard to tell, but I mean there was definitely some bones laying around.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: And and there's evidence that you know some kids had also been in there drinking and you know, you know, probably beer bottles, um cigarettes and stuff like that.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but we're all cutting up laughing, you know, and and as as you tend to do, and I don't I you know we always tended to do do these things right around midnight, you know, because that's the witching hour.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And um at one point every single flashlight goes out at the same time.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: All ten people had a flashlight, every single one of them.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: And there were there were swearing, cussing, you know, like people we we were all freaking out, pushing, shoving, uh getting out, you know, trying to get out the door.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: We made our way back out of the building and and up to where the cars were.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Every flashlight came back on at the same time.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and that was enough.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: We were like, okay, I'm not going back in there.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that was enough.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so we we did.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: We got back in our cars and and I believe we went to Denny's and talked about you know how scared we were and what possibly could have caused it, you know, over and over again for probably the next two hours at the at Denny's.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_04: That is terrifying.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_04: That is terrifying.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: So after this that night, you did you guys talk about it anymore?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: I talk I've I've tried to talk about it to to to the people that were there, and everybody swears, and anybody who I thought would have been there that night swears that they weren't there.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: Or maybe they blocked it out.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean maybe.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you, and I did what I didn't mention because it was I mean, it it had a a feel of the of of just dread and despair.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, you could you you walked around and you're and you know, we were laughing about it, cutting it, yeah.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean I just felt yuck.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_04: Was there any sounds besides the sounds that you guys were making?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: If there was, you we didn't hear it over um I ever I think everybody's just trying to to be boisterous and and and cut up a little bit to uh if they were feeling as what the way I was uh fight trying to fight it off, you know.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_04: So that's understandable.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: But it did, it felt it just felt yucky.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's the only way I could really just yeah.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: How long do you think you guys stayed?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we were in there, maybe ten minutes.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: When did the bad feeling start?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Almost immediately.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it was it's you're you're looking around and you see these you know places where it's it's you know, I believe that there are people who use who use the darkness to to justify doing what they do, but and then this felt this felt like something was there.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: There was something too.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: There was a just a sense of dread, just whatever, if it's from the people who were murdered there, you know, back in the in the 50s or 40s, or some of the darkness that's happened in that place since.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean you could feel I felt darkness.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_04: Have you had any other paranormal experiences after that?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um yes, I can.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um I did um before I did um the the truck driving, I did pest control.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: I did commercial pest control and we did kitchens.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: We always would go in because I had I had a set of keys to almost every restaurant in town.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um this restaurant doesn't exist anymore, so you know it's a steak and ale over you know off of uh Little Road in Arlington and um I was there, it was like two or three in the morning by myself doing you know, doing the treatment, and you know, you're walking around doing your thing, and you again you walk into a spot where you just feel dread.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just I felt like I was being watched.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I was looking over my shoulder, just like you know, I was calling out to say, is anybody here?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and just just you know, it kept coming back anytime I'd walk through this one part of the restaurant, I'd just get that cold, dreary feeling.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, so much so that I packed up all my stuff and I I left.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the next month, when it was time to go do service at restaurant again, I I made up an excuse and I had somebody go out there with me.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not kidding you, he got to the exact same spot that I had, and he and he said, Ugh.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Do you just do you feel that?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Yep, yep, matter of fact, I do.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I never went back.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: I told my boss the next day, I said, I'm not going back in that restaurant again.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's probably the most uh most I've ever experienced something to that effect.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, if we we would, you know, teenagers, we we went and sought out, you know, we went out and did Goat Man's Bridge and Denton.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: We went and did that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um can you tell us about that one?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: We it's been popping up on our radar, and we're a little hesitant to go out there, honestly.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we did, you know of course, you know, we had been told a little slightly different variation of that story.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: And they we called it Hangman's Bridge.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, instead of Goatman's Bridge, but uh this one I have found lots, lot, like you said, lots of information on.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't remember who it was.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Me and a me and I think it was a girl I was dating, uh, uh just went out there just because we I liked doing all this crazy stuff, you know, like the this the urban legends has always been an interesting, so you guys will definitely have a listener in me.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: We drove out there, you know, you're supposed to go, you get on there, you turn the light headlights off, you're right there at midnight, and you honk your horn three times, and you know, uh I we saw a light.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: A light came on.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, you know, I I turned my car on in reverse and and spun out of there.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, you know, I've justified that over the years is if I if I was a person who owned that land, I would definitely be out there messing with kids who came out there at midnight to so but but I mean you know the the legend is that that's what happens is you see you know you hear the you hear the sounds, and uh we didn't hear any sounds, but we did see the light came on it came on, and it was enough to to scare us and and and make us go away.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't stick around.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: Steve's a survivor.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Tell the story, don't be the stupid exactly.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um Callaway Cemetery over off of um 157.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard anything about the the the It sounds familiar and it's uh they always called it Dead Man's Tree, and you know, again, the legend is a lot of lynchings, you know, that kind of thing.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the and the the big branch you know comes out over the road.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we the what the story we'd always heard is if you go out there at a certain time of year and and you put your hand on the tree right at you know midnight, that is supposed to be you're sealing your own fate and you're going to die within 24 hours.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I did that and I didn't die within 24 hours, but you know, I've I've since done a little bit of research on that one, and it's kind of the same thing, the lynchings and the story.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you go pull your car up underneath the tree, turn your headlights, turn your car off, and you hear the sound of a of a hanged man hanging you know from the from the the tree.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: I did not hear that, but yeah again, that's a that's a creepy, creepy cemetery, especially in the middle of the night.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh and back in the 80s again, yeah.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's a lot more stuff over there now than there was back in the eighties.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Did you go out there alone?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody dared me to.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can say no.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: Or you can say you did.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, I did.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And as a matter of fact, I to I actually went back one time and showed somebody.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was during the daytime, and I said, That's the tree right there.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: As we were talking about it, and they didn't they'd never heard the story.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, I was living off Trinity at those apartments over off uh um right there off Trinity, uh right out in 360.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it was right around the corner.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I drove somebody out and said, Yeah, that's the that's the and showed them that's the tree.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's about the extent.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we may have to recruit you um as a part of our podcast team because we're too scared to go to the goatman bridge.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, we don't like the whole demonic aspect of the goatman's bridge and the half demon, half goat.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_04: And that's scary.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: We had to talk about what we would do and what we wouldn't do, and there's certain things like the voodoo, and it's just not but you know, cryptids and paranormal and you have UIP all day long, you know.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't know, the goat man.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: I have a really bad feeling in my stomach when I hear that story.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: What you and I just have a I have a very bad feeling about that place.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: I and I've never been.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the story itself, the lynchings and those kinds of things are awful, obviously.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: But they are absolutely I don't want to be followed by demonic things and bringing it into my life and that kind of thing.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: So we're just gonna ask Steve to go for us.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, he can record while he's there.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Strap a GoPro to my head.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'll send you the mic.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Steve, I appreciate you taking time.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, thank you so much for joining us.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: If you ever remember any other stories, or if you have anyone else who wants to share, um, that's what this podcast is all about.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: Most of the time, people are telling us stories that they haven't told anyone, and it's been a nice kind of therapy to get it out there.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds like you take people with you when you go, so you have your support group when you go most of the time.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, every time I hear a story like that, I get goosebumps.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: And what really gets me is how these encounters echo things people have been reporting for centuries.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: Ghost stories aren't new, they've always been part of the human experience.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: And what our guest described, the flashlight flicking on and off, that's one of the oldest patterns in ghost folklore.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_04: People used candles, lanterns, torches long before flashlights existed.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_04: And those would flicker on or dim at the exact moment someone felt a presence.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_04: It's almost like whatever's happening interacts with energy first.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: Steve described that heavy feeling of dread that shows up in ghost accounts from every culture.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's not fear of what you see, it's fear of what you sense.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_04: There's a word for that in old folklore.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_04: A foretoken.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: It's the idea that your body reacts before your mind understands what's happening.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: People in the 1800s wrote about a feeling or a weight on their chest, or sudden coldness right before an apparition appeared.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_04: And today, people describe the same thing, a sense of dread and the instinct to freeze.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: Kristen, if I know you, you have done some research on this, and we'd love to hear all about it.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: The idea of communicating with the dead is thousands of years old.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_04: Ancient civilizations, including Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Mesopotamians, had beliefs about spirits and practices intended to communicate with or appease the dead.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: In ancient Greece, for example, traditions surrounded necromancy in which people sought information from the deceased.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_04: Certain locations were believed to be places where the living could communicate with the dead.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: During medieval Europe, reports of ghosts were generally considered in the form of a soul seeking prayers, a trapped soul, a demonic entity, an apparition sent as a warning, a deceased person appearing to deliver a message.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_04: Stories of hauntings became part of folklore, religious writings, and local traditions.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_04: By the 1800s, ghost hunting began to resemble what we recognize today, and spiritualism became enormously popular in the United States and Europe.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: People believed that the dead could communicate with the living through mediums.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_04: People began experimenting with seances, Ouija boards, spirit photography, and mediumship.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_04: And they began to actively document evidence of the supernatural.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: One of the strangest developments of the Victorian era was spirit photography, where photographers claimed that photos could capture spirits that weren't visible to the naked eye.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_04: Skeptics eventually demonstrated ways photos could be manipulated or double-exposed, but the concept left a lasting mark on a paranormal culture.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: Skipping along to the 1970s, movies and books dramatically increased public interest in the paranormal.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: The Exorcist was released in 1973, The Imityville Horror was released in 1979, and Poltergeist was released in 1982, which helped establish paranormal experiences as mainstream entertainment.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_04: Then came the explosion of paranormal research groups, or as we affectionately call them, ghost hunters.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_04: And today, technology plays a major role in these investigations, including equipment such as EMF meters, digital thermometers, audio recorders, and thermal imaging cameras.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: That reminds me of Steve's story and how all of their flashlights turned off when they were inside the abandoned diner, and then they all turned back on the second they left the property.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever happened out there for Steve and his friends that night reminds us of why these stories have lasted for thousands of years.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: Something keeps touching the edges of our world and people keep feeling it.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: We'll leave this one with you to decide what you believe and how long you'd stay in an abandoned building if your flashlights went out.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: These are the encounters as they happen, told by the people who live through them.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Whether they reveal the unknown or simply deepen the mystery, that's for you to decide.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: And if you've had a paranormal experience you'd like to share on this podcast, email us at hiddencreaturespodcast at gmail.com.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Until next time, stay safe and don't wander too far alone in the dark.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: We have plenty more thrilling stories to share with you.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe one day we'll share your story too.