Skinwalker - Classic

Once upon a midnight scary,

demons, ghouls, ghosts, and fairies gathered round the sacred tree.

I saw them, and they saw me.

At first, I thought to steal their rights,

then learned

I

was their sacrifice.

You've passed over to Spoot.

Stay tuned.

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Support for Spooked comes from Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, a green business celebrating 50 years, offering organic, sustainable, and vegetarian options.

Come and do your holiday shopping with Rainbow Grocery, now available through DoorDash. Use code Rainbow20 at checkout for up to $20 off.

Let me tell you. about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges.

From sleepless nights to stress-filled days, mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends delivered discreetly right to your doorstep.

You can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code spooked for me. The epic euphoria gummies are perfect for those days when you want to chill and hit the reset button.

What makes these different is how they've paired THC and other cannabinoids with herbs and adaptogens. You're just not going to find gummies like this anywhere else.

No pesticides, no BS, and they can ship to most states in the US.

Best of all, not only does Mood stand behind everything with the industry-leading 100-day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SPOOT.

So head to mood.com. Browse their amazing selection of functional gummies and find the perfect gummy for whatever you're dealing with.

And remember to use promo code spooked at checkout to save 20% on your first order.

Okay, so I'm 12 years old. Sit next to my little brother in church.

My pastor works himself up to a head of steam, wipes away the mop of his brown, blondish hair, waves his hand in front of the congregation. Brethren!

brethren, you think you know the story of the flood?

Well, today,

I'm gonna tell you the secret history, the truth that's been hidden from you.

I'm thinking,

secret history, huh?

The Lord sees the evildoers inhabiting his land, and he tells Noah, the only good man he can find to build him an ark.

Noah obeys.

Takes Noah a hundred years of hard labor, but he does it. At God's command,

all the animals and all the world start filing into the boat two by two. They saunder,

slither, crawl, hop, and pass, right past all the wickedness onto this strange vessel erected miles from any water. And Noah,

with his three sons and their wives, follow the animals inside. And the Lord pulls shut.
the door behind them and then finally brother

the rains come

For 40 days and 40 nights, the skies open up, washing away every single soul whose evil heart hath offended the Lord Almighty.

And Noah's ark floats above their wretched corpses. A cleansing of sin, brother.

Granting Noah and his children the chance for a new Eden. After sailing for a full year, They walk off the ark onto a reborn world, untangled,

unsullied.

Noah dances in joy at the good Lord's grace, whooping and hollering before collapsing into a deep slumber.

But then, brethren, brethren, the unthinkable happens, horror of horrors in his sleep. This good man is defiled.

Violated, sodomized by one of his own sons.

And sin re-enters the world.

Enraged the Lord Almighty, he smites Noah's offending son Ham with the curse, brethren, a curse, a curse so powerful, we still see the stain, the mark, burn into the skin of Ham's descendants today.

Do you wonder where Negroite's skin came from, brethren?

From that evil deed perpetrated by Noah's own child. Make no mistake.

From that day forward, he and all his children and all all his children's children, the African race, were cursed by the very hand of God.

I look down at my skin

and I don't feel cursed.

I feel angry. I feel

furious, certain that either he's lying about that book or that book is full of lies.

Either or

cursed.

I know the beauty of my grandmother's unlined ebony skin. I sit hours under the summertime sun, hoping to darken my tone to match hers.
Cursed.

And I wonder,

as I snatch my little brother's hand and pull him down the aisle, out of the door, past the people pretending very, very hard not to see us, I wonder

why they are so afraid.

My name is from Washington. Lies are curses, and curses are lies.

Spook starts

now.

Now,

so here's the deal. When we started making spook those many years ago, I wanted to find one certain kind of story.

I wanted to tell you about skinwalkers, indigenous warlocks, witches, shapeshifters.

I've heard whispers around campfires, around back rooms, dark conversation, and I told my producers, we've got to nail this down. We have to.

But sometimes

these stories are hard to find. We scoured the country, the globe, our community, the internet, and it seemed like we'd never find someone.

willing to tell us their story because sometimes just speaking about this kind of magic, magic,

this sacred mystery,

it's forbidden.

And that's why I am so excited to introduce you to our storyteller, Lee.

You probably want to hold on to a loved one's hand right about now.

Spooked.

So she would tell us stories that

scared the crap out of us, to be honest.

There would be a fire going.

We turned the TV off.

And of course, we're already full from dinner and we're having other snacks.

As any native would say, their grandmother makes the best fried bread.

Well, guess what? My grandmother did make the best fried bread.

And I would ask her to tell us true ghost stories.

And her reply is, they're all true.

When I asked

about more of what a skinwalker was, my My grandma would tell me stories of my grandfather. One in particular was when he was out in the mountains

up in the hills not too far from where we were currently at that time.

My great-grandfather, he was a sheepherder and there was always somebody that was willing to buy that wool. It was a way to survive, a way to live.

At this time, he did have

issue with of his neighbors down the way.

I don't know how it started, but there were sheep that were either missing or that were killed. And

my great-grandfather would take his sheep out to the mountains to graze.

And it was evening, he was getting ready to head home. Something caught his attention.

It was a noise, almost like a drum beat.

Somebody chanting or singing.

And so he crawled up over this hill and he was able to see that there was a fire.

He saw one person sitting next to the fire. My grandfather recognized him right away.

A neighbor down the road.

I think there were accusations of stealing sheep

and things like that.

I think as he went over the ridge and he saw his neighbor

naked sitting around a fire, I don't know if he understood the words that were being said, but he knew in his head that it was bad.

I know it was not a common sight to see that.

But he knew that his neighbor was what we call a witch.

Although my grandfather never saw him shapeshift, he never saw anything

supernatural, you would say,

he knew that his neighbor was involved in that black magic.

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The Who's Down and Who Newville were making their list, but some didn't know. Walmart has the best brands for their gifts.
What about toys? Do they have brands kids have been wanting all year?

Yep, Barbie, Tony's, and Lego. Gifts that will make them all cheer.
Do you mean they have all the brands I adore? They have Nintendo, Nespresso, Apple, and more. What about?

So the who answered questions from friends till they were blue. Each one listened and shouted, from Walmart? Who knew? Shop kissed from top brands for everyone on your list in the Walmart app.

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Support for Spooked comes from Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, a green business celebrating 50 years, offering organic, sustainable, and vegetarian options.

Come and do your holiday shopping with Rainbow Grocery, now available through DoorDash. Use code Rainbow20 at checkout for up to $20 off.

Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges.

From sleepless nights to stress-filled days, Mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends delivered discreetly right to your doorstep.

You can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code spooked. For me, the epic euphoria gummies are perfect for those days when you want to chill and hit the reset button.

What makes these different is how they've paired THC and other cannabinoids with herbs and adaptogens. You're just not going to find gummies like this anywhere else.

No pesticides, no BS, and they can ship to most states in the US.

Best of all, not only does mood stand behind everything with the industry-leading 100-day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SPOOT.

So head to moot.com, browse your amazing selection of functional gummies, and find the perfect gummy for whatever you're dealing with.

And remember to use promo code SPOOT at checkout to save 20% on your first order.

How he came came with that conclusion, I don't know, but in his head his neighbor

had something to do with his sheep.

He left pretty quick, hoping that he wasn't seen.

He was worried that his neighbor would maybe get to him first somehow.

So he was scared. He was scared because he knew the

the power or the abilities that his neighbor had

but I guess he felt empowered because he had that knowledge of of what he was doing he could later on confront him which he he did

and so my grandfather approached this neighbor and he said to him I know what you do

And as he did that, his neighbor's eyes just grew just huge.

And he was scared because he knew that my grandfather knew that he was involved in black magic

and so his neighbor was very surprised very scared because it is said that if somebody knows who you are they've also known what you've done Because in order to be a skinwalker, apparently, you have to kill somebody close to you.

This neighbor asked my grandfather, begged my grandfather, please don't tell anybody. I will give you sheep.
I will give you this. I will give you what I have.

My grandfather just...

I don't know why he made this decision, but he told people

He told neighbors, he told his wife, my grandma, he told people in the community.

And according to my grandmother, that neighbor, he got very sick right after that,

and he ended up passing away.

Well, I think every culture has what they consider the boogeyman.

I would hear different things from different people, but one thing that was always consistent was that they are real.

And that there were people that used black magic.

And for me,

that was scarier than a ghost.

Because a ghost, I was always told, couldn't hurt me, whereas a skinwalker could actually physically hurt hurt you.

After dinner, we're pulling our mattresses out. We would lay and have our mattresses set up on trampoline and make it as comfortable as possible because you're going to be out there all night.

Although it was summertime, it would get cold sometimes. So you made sure you had your blanket or your sleeping bag.

and you're just laying there and it's silent.

There's no

traffic, there's no train, there's no airplanes that you hear.

Just the big black sky and tons tons of stars. More stars than I've seen in my entire life.

It's perfect scene, perfect spot to tell ghost stories. My dad would come out and he lay down with us.

My dad told us about one of his experiences that happened to him when he was 19 years old.

And he was in the Midwest actually. It was not even on the reservation.

He was serving a church mission and he was there in the wintertime in the snow.

My dad goes on to tell the story that he was driving from one town to another, and his companion, his partner, was asleep. And it was actually in the middle of the day.

He said it was cold, it was gloomy,

and as he was driving,

he recalls having this feeling of just fear and dread that something was wrong.

At that moment, he said from the right side of the road he saw a man

jump over the fence on the side of the road and

run right to the middle of the road.

My dad slammed on the brake, slid,

stopped right where this man was.

And this man, who he describes as being covered in fur,

and he put his hands right on the hood and looked at my dad right in the eyes.

And my dad said that he looked very sad,

very tired.

Just in the moments of looking eye to eye,

he could tell that

that man was not a normal man.

The man, after looking at my dad in the eye, ran away, jumped over the fence, and took off again.

And he didn't know what to think of that, but he said it really messed him up because it wasn't just some bum that was in the middle of the road.

He said they were out in the middle of nowhere.

So my dad finishes telling us about his experience. And of course, we're scared because

my dad telling us we believe every word that he says. And we ask, is there anything else? Has anything have you seen anything else?

And so he goes into telling his dad's story, Grandpa's story.

He goes on to tell us that

our grandpa, when he was younger,

probably his early teens,

when he's about to

perform a ceremony, a ritual, a rite of passage for a young man to become a man.

My grandfather was outside of what we call a kiva made out of adobe, and it has a big ladder coming out of the top where you enter and exit.

And he was going to perform this ceremony in there, but for some reason, he was outside of it.

All of a sudden, he feels this same feeling that my dad describes to us:

just an overwhelming sense of fear and dread.

He didn't know what it was, but he felt this feeling that something was wrong,

and that's where this man just came out of nowhere

who was dressed in hides

animal fur

He approached my grandfather

and this man was tall He was very dark

His hair was very messed up. He was dirty, But what he describes that

I still think about when he tells me this is the man's eyes and his face.

How, just looking at him, you could tell this man was miserable.

He was sad.

He said something in my grandpa's language about wanting to die.

They

exchanged looks and my grandfather left. He ran away.
I don't know what happened after that, neither does my dad,

but it did change my grandfather because he knew that person was, in his words, he was evil. And he felt like he was a witch.
And he felt that he needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

What scares me the most about hearing my grandpa's story

is my dad

is his belief that it was the not just somebody that looked like the man that he saw

but that my dad in his head he believes that it was the same person

But how was that possible from somebody from the early 1900s to meet my dad across the country in the 70s?

He told us that story because he was wondered if something like that would happen to us.

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Try Zinn's mojito, spiced cider, and espresso martini nicotine pouches. Find them at select retailers, available while supplies last.
Zinn After Dark. Bring on the night.

Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
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Now the hard one is trying to decide what to binge next.

Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges.

From sleepless nights to stress-filled days, Mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends delivered discreetly right to your doorstep.

You can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code spooked for me. The epic euphoria gummies are perfect for those days when you want to chill and hit the reset button.

What makes these different is how they've paired THC and other cannabinoids with herbs and adaptogens. You're just not going to find gummies like this anywhere else.

No pesticides, no BS, and they can ship to most states in the U.S.

Best of all, not only does Mood stand behind everything with the industry-leading 100-day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SPOOT.

So, head to mood.com, browse your amazing selection of functional gummies, and find the perfect gummy for whatever you're dealing with.

And remember to use promo code SPOOT at checkout to save 20% on your first order.

What I've always been told is stay clear of them.

Meaning, don't try to conjure them or call them by whistling at night. Don't walk alone at night on the reservation.
Don't drive at night alone on the reservation. Because if you do

this skinwalker will make itself known it'll chase you it'll follow you home

stay as far as you can away from anybody that you think may be working in black magic

A couple summers later, I was 14 years old. This summer I spent with my grandma helping her around the yard, planting things, watering her plants.

Ernie would be the one working the hardest. He was a neighbor.
When I say a neighbor, he lived about three or four or five miles away. My grandma would always pay him to do things around the house.

Grandma would call out, hey, can you take Ernie home?

And of course, I didn't have a license. I didn't have a permit.
However, I did have experience. experience.
So I step inside and I grab the keys,

load it up. My dog jumps back with Ernie in the bed of the truck.
My brother's right there in the front seat with me.

Off we went.

Take him home.

So it was getting dark. It wasn't dark yet, but the sun was going to be setting soon.

So we dropped him off.

I take a different route home,

one that would be faster. And we're on the dirt road.
Very covered in washboards. I mean, nobody really maintained those roads.
but perfect weather

75 degrees just enjoying the evening. Windows roll down.

Put my hand out and enjoying the air.

You're driving and you put your hand out the window and just the wind in your hair. Grandma's old truck.

And listening to the only radio station that comes in from Holbrook, Arizona. And a lot of times you'd be playing oldies.

My brother was next to me. He was just enjoying the same thing as well.
My dog in the back.

Although it was the most traveled road in that area, there was nobody else out. And as we were driving,

I recall seeing something on the side of the road that caught my attention.

Possibly a sheep. Because out there's a lot of different sheep, a lot of free roaming.
It's better be safe than sorry and slow down and not hit a sheep.

And so I do slow down.

All of a sudden, I feel

this feeling of dread. It just

I don't know how else to explain it. Just dark, empty feeling that something was wrong.

When I look in the mirror, I see

what I thought was a sheep.

So it was like almost like uncurling, crouching, stretch out, and just stand up straight.

It was tall and it was very thin.

And it had

long arms, it had long legs.

It had fur on its shoulder, had fur on its arms, had fur on its legs.

And I see

whatever this was running towards us, just running towards trucks

and I'm already going 30 miles an hour

and I see its arms swinging, these long arms and long legs taking big strides.

At this point I was speeding up.

I was going to the point where I was like 65 miles an hour on a dirt washboard road. So I was fishtailing.

And this thing is keeping up.

This thing has the pace so so strong so long that it's able to keep up

and I was thinking that because I could see it come into view every once in a while because I was fishtailing, trying to keep control of the truck.

I've never been so scared in my life. Where so many things are going through my head

and thinking, is this real? I'm thinking, is this really happening? Is this thing going to kill us?

My dog was barking. I've never heard my dog bark that way.
The way the pitch in his bark.

I can tell he was scared or he was angry.

He was everything.

My brother also is crying, and he's saying, It's coming up on your side.

I looked in the mirror and it was very close.

And I didn't know what was going to happen.

I sped up

and I went as fast as I could in that old truck.

At that moment, we were going around a bend. A car was coming towards us and had his lights on.

As we passed each other, I felt this just instant relief, like whew.

Like I could breathe again.

Like whatever was chasing us was gone. I don't know if it was if it hid.
I don't know if it went to go chase after the other vehicle. I have no idea.

I just know that I didn't see it in my mirror and I felt just this

relief that it was gone. And I was still speeding towards grandma's house because I knew I had to get home.
I couldn't be out there. There was whatever was out there was out there still.

We drove back to my grandma's house as fast as we could.

And I told my brother, as soon as we park, you run out and get into the house.

Jump out, slam the door shut, past the porch,

into the house. And so we all got inside and slammed the door shut, locked it,

made sure it was locked, double-checked it, closed the windows.

And as we get back, my grandmother there, she's attending to the fire. She saw saw how scared we were and she said,

what's wrong? What happened?

We told her briefly what had happened. And grandma said, yeah,

stuff like that happens around here.

My brother and I looked at each other like, oh my gosh, this is real.

So all those stories that we heard growing up of the boogeyman or skinwalkers,

for us, it became a reality.

And it messed me up for a bit. I'll be honest.
I was scared to go back out there and see grandma. I was so scared

to just step foot outside at night.

We used to sleep on the trampoline at night with the dogs out there. Those days were over.

It was four or five years later, my dad came home. I'm already in bed.
I am laying down, but my room is next to the living room.

So I hear everything.

And something was wrong.

He was talking to my mom.

and

crying

and telling her about what had happened to him as he was coming back from Phoenix

that he was driving

on Interstate 17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff and it was right when he got to the the pine tree so he had made it up higher altitude altitude

and he saw on his right side,

up on a little ledge or a hill, the same man that he saw when he was a missionary.

He said it almost made him crash. And he describes him as being the exact same.

And being able to see him with enough light in his headlights

to know that.

Wearing the same

animal skins or hides, having no shoes, being tall, dark, and dirty.

But one thing he did mention, he mentioned those eyes again. He mentioned how tired they looked and how sad they looked.

And that's how he knew it was the same person by looking in his eyes.

And to hear your dad crying in another room,

it scared me.

I didn't go out there. I didn't know what to do.
It was a new experience hearing my dad cry

and thinking how your dad is a big, tough guy and has gone through a lot. You don't ever see him cry.
And for him to be crying, I didn't want to see that. I didn't know how to react to it.

I don't know how what I could do to help him.

So I just stayed there in my room.

I wonder if it is the same person.

If it is the same thing.

If what I saw,

what my dad saw twice,

and what my grandpa saw,

I wonder if it's the same person.

There's a trend here, not a good one.

And I have three sons. I wonder if, or when,

they'll have their experience.

Big thanks and big love to our storyteller Lee.

And thanks to your granny and your grandfather and your dad and your great-grandfather for sharing your stories with us too. Stay safe out there.
Drop us a line if anybody ever comes back.

The original score for that story was by Leon Morimoto.

It was produced by Annie Nguyen.

Yes, yes, yes, you've heard from other folk.

But if you have a personal story that spooked you, where you touched a force, a power, a being that was not supposed to be there, where you had a relationship with the mystery, send us your story.

Spook at snapjudgment.org. There is nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener.
But don't tell me you saw a ghost. Everybody saw a ghost.
Yet if you have a real story, let us know.

Spook at snapjudgment.org. And if you like your storytelling and the bright light of day, subscribe to the amazing Snapjudgment podcast because it might just change your life.

Spook was brought to you by the amazing team that never assumes a shape that is not their own, except, of course, for Mark Ristich.

Mark has many, many forms. There's Anna Sussman, our chief spookster.
It's Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick, Annie Nguyen, Lauren Newsom, Leon Morimoto, Renzo Gorio, Tale Decock, Marissa Dodge,

Aaliyah Yates, Zoe Ferrigno, Bretta Weber, Jacob Winnick, Sonic Khan, Tiffany DeLiza, Ann Ford, Fernando Hernandez, and Flo Wiley. The spook theme song is by Pat Lucini Miller.

My name is Kim Washington. Follow me on the Twitter, the Instagram for a whole different type of story.

And yes, evil comes in different shapes and sizes. There is no foolproof method for keeping the dark side at bay, but you don't need to throw out the welcome man either.

My advice, my recommendation is simple. It goes like this: here:

Never,

ever,

never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever

turn out

the lights.