Ep 338: Your True Halloween Stories IV – Part 3

 
TRANSCRIPT available ON REQUEST
 
“And I’m trying to choke back the nausea from this incredibly intense smell. Why do they smell like death?”
— Astonishing Legends listener and friend "Z" talks about when she picked up two Uber passengers that were wrong in every way.

Description:

As we come to our finale for the 2026 Spooky Season, we’d like to present three more tales of terror, dread, and mystery, which came with sickening physical and psychological effects. In our first account of the evening, a friend and former coworker of Forrest’s we’ll call “Amy,” described encountering two seemingly typical girls who were anything but, while waiting in line for food before a movie at a Southern California mall in, Valley Girls from Hell. Our second report comes from longtime friend “Z,” who, picked up two young women while working as an Uber driver in LA and who gave her much more than just an extreme case of the collywobbles in, Destination Unknown. Our third and final story for the night comes from listener Mike. In 1988, Mike was out walking his dogs as usual through a cemetery in suburban Chicago when again, two outwardly normal appearing young women slowly drive past him in their car, and when he locked eyes with one of them, the effect upon him was deeply horrific, extreme, and lasting, in a segment titled, Dodging Demons. If you’re sensing a pattern here, so did we, which is why we’re grateful and honored to be speaking with paranormal investigator, researcher, and author, Michelle Belanger who will help us shed some light on what kind of bad mojo might be taking place with these awful encounters. 👿😈

 

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Best Friends Animal Society

Every October this show fills up with black cats, dogs nobody owned standing at the end of a dark road, and other familiars of one kind or another. So this year we went looking for an animal charity, and we found the Best Friends Animal Society. They've been at it since 1984. They run a sanctuary on nearly 6000 acres of red-rock country outside Kanab, Utah, with up to 1600 animals at a time – dogs, cats, pigs, you name it, and they're one of the most widely regarded no-kill animal organizations in the country. Their goal is no dog or cat killed in an American shelter for lack of a home. They call it Save Them All. And they're close. In 2025, more than two out of three shelters in the U.S. reached no-kill. Four million dogs and cats found homes. A record 83% of the cats that went into a shelter came back out alive. And a dog or cat is still killed in a shelter every 90 seconds, because there's nowhere to put them. Black cats especially. Best Friends says they’re usually the last ones out the door, and a Colorado State study found that an adult black cat waits three to six days longer than other colors to get adopted. Best Friends works with more than 5500 shelters and rescue groups nationwide, and in 2024, 87¢ of every dollar they spent went straight to programs and services. So folks, if the cats and dogs in these stories have ever made you want to do something, go to BestFriends.org/DONATE. A one-time gift buys meals, warm beds, and medical care. A monthly gift makes you what they call a Guardian Angel, and it keeps the help coming all year. Every black cat, or cat of any color, stray dog, or any other creature in a kennel tonight deserves a better life.

 

Suggested Listening:

Monsters among us podcast

Have you ever heard a true paranormal story that stuck with you for years? Like, you wish you could forget it… But you can’t? That’s exactly what you get on Monsters Among Us Podcast. Every week, real people call in and share their true encounters with the unexplained: ghosts, strange creatures, missing time… things that just don’t make sense. And here’s the twist: you hear these stories in the witnesses’ own voices. So it feels… a little too real. Like Julie, who drove past a fatal car accident, then realized she had a ghostly hitchhiker, the deceased victim. Or a caller who saw three strange entities in the woods moving in unison, then lost 8 whole hours without any explanation. Or Mack from Mississippi, who broke his back when he fell out of his tree stand, only to be nursed back to health by a maternal sasquatch… literally. The show is hosted by Derek Hayes, who pulls these calls together into something that feels like a late-night radio show you probably shouldn’t be listening to alone. It’s got that classic Unsolved Mysteries vibe, mixed with the eerie storytelling style of Art Bell. There are over 500 episodes already waiting for you, so if you’re into the paranormal, or even just a little curious, this is a deep rabbit hole.

So go check out Monsters Among Us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to check out their website: www.monstersamonguspodcast.com

 

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CREDITS:

Episode 338: Your True Halloween Stories IV – Part 3. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess. Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound. Music and Sound Design by Allen Carrescia. Tess Pfeifle, Producer and Lead Researcher. Ed Voccola, Technical Producer. Research Support from The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2026 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Unexplainable Phenomena, Haunted, Conversations, Creatures & Beings, UFOs & AliensForrest Burgess2026, paranormal, supernatural, haunted, Krystina, demon, ghost, Halloween, stories, true, possessed, possession, California, Michelle Belanger, 338, Uber, Chicago, Los Angeles, girls, Men in Black, MIB, Black-eyed Kids, Black Eyed People, Strange Intruders, David Weatherly, demons, Hot Dog on a Stick, Valley Girls, Mall Rats, Sherman Oaks, CAComment