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That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosetta stone dot com slash RS10 today. Welcome to other world. I'm your host Jack Wagner. I'm particularly excited for this episode. Since starting the podcast, I've been waiting for a story to come in from Mexico or Latin America in general. Mexico specifically has such a rich and intense connection to the supernatural, with many specific legends that have been passed down through generations. And as a nation, there seems to just generally be a stronger belief in a spirit world or outside forces that intertwine with the physical. For that reason, and the fact that we make this show just two hours from the Mexican border, I've been eager to do some episodes that take place in Mexico. And I figured we would have gotten more submissions now than we have. However, we finally got a really exciting one about something very strange happening to a person in Mexico. But the person this happened to is not for Mexico. They are in fact from Scotland of all places. And this happened to them while they are visiting Mexico and the United States for the very first time after finishing a job at a summer camp. I did not expect our first Mexican other world episode to be coming from a Scottish camp counselor. But then again, I think that kind of unusual perspective is what makes for some of the best episodes of this show. This story ended up being one of my personal favorites. It's somehow completely terrifying, but also a little funny and heartwarming at the same time. I also just really liked speaking to this person about their experience and hearing the story. This is episode 90. The title is "The Long Road Home" and you're listening to Other World. Hello? Is this Bobby? Yes it is. At its core, the science, you can't argue. You don't have a story about something in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happened. I'm literally, yes I'm going to die. It's when we're just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the light even if it takes a minute. Hello, my name is Simon. I'm 23 years old. I live in Glasgow, Scotland. I'm currently a bartender and I'm going to be going into studying my masters at the University of Glasgow. The open Scotland is great because, well, I mean, we have, like, everyone has like their nearest castle. It's quite funny in terms of ghosts and things. They're more of like an annoyance than a, they're like, oh my, like, this place is haunted, like, we're good. It's just like another thing. But it's like, um, no, Scotland's lovely, especially. I live, well, I grew up between Glasgow and between, like, the Highlands. So I was able to get a mix of both the city life and the country life, which was great because Scotland is beautiful when it comes in terms of nature and then also just in terms of cities as well. So I, for the past couple of years, worked as a camp counselor in Maryland and it was like my first time in America and I was stationed, I guess, and I camp in Maryland and I was like, I've never heard of this state. It's going to be interesting. And then it turns out I had, like, Baltimore and Hairspray, all that sort of stuff. So it was a camp for boys and they were, you either got really, really polite ones or like, this is like my fourth home, which is what I kept said to me. So like, you've got that kind of really nice or really spoiled child. And then like, they would ask me things like, do you have technology in Scotland? Like, do you live in a, like, a cabin? I'd be like, yes, this is my phone. And they'd be like, you didn't get that to come here? And I was like, no, we have these. I remember a child, and by a child, I mean, a 13-year-old asked me if we had Halloween in Scotland and I was like, we invented it. I don't know what to tell you, but for the most part, for the most, but like, I've, some of my best friends live in Maryland. I really loved working at the summer camp and then helping a lot of the international staff kind of get settled and making sure they were comfortable getting paid properly, had social security numbers. I really am passionate about making sure people are comfortable in their workplaces. But like afterwards, we have like, I have got like enough time with my visa where I can travel America for a month. So I done like, Texas, Vegas, I've done LA as well. And I had deferred my, my masters for like, this September coming for this next year because I wanted to keep traveling. And I wasn't ready to get back to real life. I just thought I finally got this time where I can just do and go whatever I want. And I'm going to take full advantage of that, like, not. It's like, when am I going to have this chance again and this time again to do this? And I, I've just always wanted to see Mexico. I've got a friend who lives there. I was going to, I went to go visit him. That's when I flew to Mexico City. Mexico City was lovely. So I went for Independence Day. And, you know, I'll never, like, I keep saying this to everyone I recommend, like, going to Mexico to like, the people in Mexico have, were nothing but like, so kind and so generous and so, like, lovely. And I like, I've never been somewhere that feels so, like, kind. Like, everyone seemed to be kind of in it together. And it just felt very, it felt very not Scottish, but just very, like, everyone in this country is kind of banded together a little bit. And it just felt quite lovely. And everyone was more than happy to help. But I also realized that I was in a new country by myself that I'd never been to. And I ended up getting a travel buddy, someone I knew, I knew not, but not really, from the job in DC, just to say DC. I'm going to call him Roy. We had the same route, the same route in Mexico. And we were going to travel together because I just thought I don't want to do this alone, especially in a place I've never been to before. Roy was like, a very outgoing person. We don't talk anymore. But we'll get to that. He always wanted to go to the best club in Mexico. So he wanted to try the best food. And then I started to realize that he didn't know any Spanish, like, past Ola. And we were going to Mexico for a few months. And you didn't learn any Spanish. And he was like, well, no, I just thought it's big English. And I was like, okay, right? Because I had learned enough Spanish to get me by. And it only strengthened my time there. But he was quite arrogant with hospitality workers, things like that, hotel staff. And I kind of took that on note. But I always put it to the back of my head because I just thought I don't want to be traveling alone. And he came up with the idea after Mexico City to go to Puerto Escondido, which I'd never heard of. All I knew that I didn't really know too much about Mexico. In terms of geography or where to go, I just knew that I wanted to go to Oaxaca next. But we decided to do Puerto Escondido for like a few days. So it was like a 15-hour bus journey, which I've been traveling for a few months in America at this point. I can handle a 15-hour bus journey. At least it's not a greyhound. So we had the time of our lives in Mexico City, enjoyed Independence Day. And then we went down to Puerto Escondido, and we met up with his friend from back home, and I'll call her Nora. I had booked a hostel for the three of us because I knew that we were going to meet in this ghetto that I'd not met before. And we got to the hostel, and they start freaking out about the rooms, and then they cancel our hostel, which was really annoying. They didn't ask me, they just canceled it, and I was like, "Oh, you canceled my reservation, too? Great." Roy and Nora, then booked us a really, really sketchy hotel. It's far away from the beach, it should get like imagined. And at this point I was like getting kind of sick of them, because they were just, they were being very horrible to like this stuff in the hostel we canceled. And I walked in on them like having sex in our room, and I was like, "Oh, this is my holiday, this is my thing to travel." And they're kind of ruining it a little bit. But anyway, Puerto Escondido is an amazing town. It's lovely beaches. I've done a turtle saving sanctuary there, so, but that's why I wanted to go more than anything. I wanted to, they have these lovely, kind of, they save these turtle legs from poachers and things, and then we farm them, keep them in safe environments, and then release them out into the water and make sure that they get that they're safe, which I just thought was a really lovely thing to do. And it made me feel like I was doing something while I was traveling, like I was helping someone or something. Roy and Nora didn't want to do this, because they were, not their thing. It was not their thing. But it was nice to have that time alone with the turtles. Anyway, I get back to this sketchy hotel one night after doing like the turtle saving sanctuary, and they're like, "We're going to go to a party and zapulite beach," like it's just off zapulite beach, which is a nudged beach. And it's like maybe an hour or so drive away from Puerto Escondido. And I've had a few nights of relaxation. I'm ready to party a little bit. So they're like, "Okay, we found someone who's got a car and they're going to drive us." And they're like, "Great. Roy and Nora are like dangerously sociable people." And it sounds really like if you have a car, you will be driving them after meeting them for like 10 minutes. So do you know, I mean, like those kind of people. And I was at this per boy who I had agreed to like drive them, I guess. I thought he was kind of cute. So like, he wasn't going to be drinking at the party. And I was like, maybe I won't drink either because I don't know. I had been traveling a while. So I was like, you know, like he's cute. So there was four of us and we were driving. The drive there was like an hour long. We took the main road and then after a while, went on to basically a dark road because that's, I guess, the road we had to take to get to this kind of beach area. And that road was about 20 minutes, half an hour long to drive on that road. And on that dark road, I remember driving past like, there was like a, you know, when on the side of the road, when they have like a, like a cross, it was a cross, it was very distinct because it was painted white and it had three yellow flowers painted onto it. And then there was like an abandoned moped. So that sort of thing, just, I guess, distinct looking trees, all that sort of stuff. Just, but that they were only distinct looking trees because they were the only trees, like in a while, if you know what I mean. So it was, it was not nothing really just a road of nothing. Like, I can't really explain anything. It was just the plains, you know, a bit of greenity kind of thing. Like, on the way they are, just really wasn't taking note of too much, except I guess the cross that I saw and the skirt. So we get to this party and it's like an abandoned building almost. And it's kind of just off from the beach, not too far away. People are clothed, though, even though it's just off from any other beach, I do need to see. But I think that it was heavily tourists who were at this party. It was a kind of weird setup. You would order your drinks and then you would wait, like, upwards of half an hour to get your drink. You would just wait, like with a ticket. And I was like, this is about weird. It was just like, it was like an average club, except that it was outdoors, really. And everyone was recording it. Like, everyone had their camera phones, all that sort of stuff. So it was, it was very touristy. Like, maybe halfway through the party, I was like, yeah, I'm not feeling this. And I don't, I'm not, I'm not drinking, and neither is this guy. And this guy was like, oh, I was thinking about maybe going back. And I was like, oh, same. And I was like, we could go back and we could go to the hotel or whatever. And he was like, sounds good. So we said to Nodan Roy, we're leaving, what are you doing? And they said that they're going to stay. And I said, well, good luck getting home, suppose. As of luck, they have each other. And it was like, I just felt like I deserved, I deserved to, to leave them there, a little bit. I get it. Yeah. We all get it. Yeah. Okay. I just hate coming across this look at that, but they, they needed. Yeah. So me and this guy, let's, I'll go with my name. Let's call him Peter. We ended up leaving the party and getting, and we got onto the car. We had been driving for about 10 minutes. I was actually really relieved to be leaving these two, to be leaving Roy and Noda behind, like, I can't even describe how I've never met people that are so like, iridimably just not nice. And like, they just, there was just like, I always look for the nice and people, but there's just nothing, there's just nothing to them. And as they, right, well, fuck them, I'm going to have a good night with this Peter guy. So I was like, actually kind of happy and like, we were just having that weird small talk in the car. And it was like 10, 10 minutes or so into the drive and we're on the dark road. So there was no, there's no other cars there. It was like, pitch dark. There's no streetlights or anything. And we hear a thud under the car. And we looked at each other. At first, I thought, oh, pothole or some just uneven road. And he said it felt like we were driving over something. So we just agreed, okay, we'll get out because we, we'd drive in for like maybe 10 more seconds. We were like, no, we should get out. So I get out of the passenger seat and did the cars, yes, still facing towards the way we were driving? He's keeping mind like the only light is coming from the car, the way we were driving. And I see kind of like a lump of just some, like a lump in the darkness on the road. And I think, oh, like we've had, we've had like an animal or like, this isn't, we've had something and it started to feel really, really, really bad. Because I've never, like, that's never happened to me before. Like, how could we be, like, we, how could he not have seen that come in? And then he takes out his flat, his, like, phone flashlight. And all I'm thinking is like, what is that? Like, what have we had? And like, whatever is, I really, really hope it's not that because this has never happened to me before. And I just, I've just spent like the past couple of days saving turtles, like, imagine a, like, I think when we had something, it's, that's not a fun thought. So I'm walking towards this, and there's no light on it yet, because the car is facing, it's still facing the way that we were driving. And I just see a kind of lump in the darkness on the road. And I was like, fuck, we've had, we've had like a dog or something. And I remember, like, getting a little teary-eyed because it was, it's just like, upset, I guess, about the whole thing, is like, I was having, you know, I was having like a decent night so far, and this had happened. And Peter, the guy who has a flashlight onto it. And I was looking into Spain because that's what was facing us at the point, it's back. And I thought we've, we fucked this thing up with our car, because it's Spain looked like it was coming out of its back. And I was thinking, I was like, just this pet of dread in my stomach of we've not only we killed something, but like we've kind of just messed up its body. The entire body was black, and by what I mean by its spine was coming out of its back, is that its back was disjointed looking, its back had jags coming out of this, like, of where the spine would be. And I, I thought, whatever we've done to this with our car, we've messed its spine up and it's all messed up inside its body and it's trying to come out. And it was like just such a horrible pet of dread in my stomach of like, like, I've done such a horrible thing. But then I started to realize that that's how its body was, like, that's, that that's not how it's not been messed up. Its body looks like that it has not hardened spikes, but it's got, like, jags coming out of its back. Like, that's just part of how its body is. And the creature, the animal starts to kind of move. And I'm thinking, like, I'm just sorry for relief of thank God. Thank God it's alive. Like, I didn't really care at this point what it was. I was like, it's alive, that's all that matters. And then when that feeling of relief passed, I started to think, oh, it's like a mutated dog or like a mutated goat. Something like that, or even some kind of black fox, I don't know. And then it faced us and its eyes were piercing yellow. Like, it could like, like, it's almost like if someone had two flashlights inside its skull, the eyes were that yellow. Its fur was so sharp, but it was like pitch black. The animal itself was pitch black, like, as dark as the rest of the night. But my mind is going in slow motion, almost at this point, because I'm looking at this thing, I mean, as far as like, really, really sharp. And it has yellow eyes and like, like, points coming out of its back. So I remember being like, what the fuck is that? Like, what is this? I've never seen anything like this before. Peter was just speechless. He just couldn't vocalize anything. I think he was startled more than anything that he had had something. You know, see, if you've ever been in like, like an almost an accident or whatever, if you're in the car and something that feels life-threatening happens, you know how that, for those couple of seconds, you're just kind of in silence. It was almost as if he was in that for way too long. Like, he couldn't. He was in total shock that he had to hit something. And I was just happy that it was not dead. And we watched as the thing began to kind of move and it started to face us. And I was just thinking this all time, it was a mixture of relief, confusion, and still dread in my stomach of know what is going on. Like, I have no idea what I'm looking at. And it begins to rise. It begins to stand up on its hind legs. Almost as if a goat would, like, when a goat kind of picks up almost like that, but it doesn't go back down. It stays on its hind legs. And it's about... It's like a four foot-ish, tall, I would say, about four foot. And at this point, I had gone over closer and Peter had held back holding the light. And it didn't seem to mind it, like, up until this point that we had a light on it. I was just like making, like, my number one goal was making sure that whatever this was was okay. And then it just lets out this scream up. Just, it wasn't a scream, it was more of a shriek. And it was like, I was listening to someone find out that their whole family had been killed. It was, I've never heard anything like it before. It was dreadful to listen to. It's just so many feelings of confusion. And I have no idea what's going on. This has all happened pretty fast, like within two minutes. And it was like screaming at us almost. It was doing this horrible, horrible noise. Like, see, when you hear, like, foxes cry, kind of like that noise of just red, like, I don't know, like, I've never heard anything like it before. I just remember thinking we should go. Like, we should get back into the car because this animal is okay. But I don't want to get involved any further because this is not, I have no idea how to deal with any of this. So, we just give each other a look at, let's, let's go. We're good. We're good. It's alive. Let's keep driving. So, we get back into the car and Peter is still in just this. I'm, I guess, a status shock. Like, he doesn't understand what he just saw. And neither do I, but I'm processing it differently than he is. He's just in pure silence and driving. And although I'm not talking to him either, I, it feels like he doesn't want to talk about it. And it feels like all I wanted to do was discuss what just happened. And his eyes were on the road. He wasn't looking at me. He was almost as if like a robot just driving. Like, that's all he was tasked to do, to just drive. And he didn't want to even think about what he just saw. My mind is doing cartwheels at this point and trying to process things. As we're driving away, I can still hear it screaming. And it's just like, I gave him this look of what the fuck? What the fuck was that? And he, he looks at me and he just looks back at the road. And I remember we seen the abandoned skitter, we drove past and I was like, okay. And then we drove, we kept driving and then we drove past the crucifix, the cross that was on the ground. I was like, okay, right. We're getting somewhere familiar here. And I remember like nodding to sleep almost a little bit. And then I woke up again and we drove past the skitter again. And I just immediately thought, okay, everything that just happened was just a dream. We're fine. And then I looked to him, I, like, I'm really trying not to sing crazy to this her boy at this point. I was like, hey, did we get out of the car earlier and see that really weird looking animal with the yellow eyes? And he said, yes. And then I asked him how long I'd been asleep for. And he said 20 minutes. Like, I looked around and we were still driving on the dark road. And I was thinking, it just doesn't make sense that we're still on this road if we had been driving for that long before we hit the animal. So we had been driving on this road for 50 minutes. It should have only have taken us 20 minutes to half an hour. It didn't make sense that we were still here. All right, we have to take a break, but we'll be right back with the rest of Simon's story. Mom, Daddy, you should shop Amazon for back to school and save some money. See, I'm currently obsessed with superheroes and need all the superhero stuff. Superhero launch box, superhero backpack, but next year it'll be something else. Maybe dinosaurs? I don't know, I'm not a fortune teller, but I can tell you not to spend a fortune in shop low prices for school on Amazon. Okay, good chat. Amazon, spend less, smile more. No matter what you're going through, you are never alone. Join me on my podcast from The Heart with Rachel Braithin every Friday. Each episode is like sitting down with your best friend for a cup of coffee. From self-care tips to inspiration for healing, this podcast offers the chance to return to nature, return to community, and return to who you are at your core. Straight from my heart to yours. Listen to and follow from The Heart with Rachel Braithin on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. The Land Down Under has never been easier to reach. United Airlines has more flights between the U.S. and Australia than any other U.S. airline, so you can fly non-stop to destinations like Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, explore dazzling cities, savor the very best of Aussie cuisine, and get up close and personal with the wildlife. Who doesn't want to hold a koala? Go to united.com/Australia to book your adventure. So I was very confused, and then we drove past the cross and the road, and he said, "That's the fifth one of that I've seen." And I said, "What do you mean?" He goes, "We keep driving past these crosses and they all look the same." I said, "That doesn't make sense because we're on the way here, we only drove past one cross." And then, as I was saying, this doesn't make sense. We drove past the abandoned scooter again. I could just feel almost everything coming out of my throat. I just wanted to throw up, because I was like, "Am I in hell? Am I in hell for hitting an animal?" What's going on? I looked at the time on the radio, the car, and it didn't make sense that we were still on this road. I was adding up all these time numbers that he was telling me, and I was like, "I just said we shouldn't still be on this road, did we take a wrong turn?" He said, "No, because it's a straight road. You can't go off of this dark road or else it's not a road anymore." So, by the end of all, we had been driving for about two hours of ish on this just-start road. We had driven past the cross and the scooter. I lost count, but it kept driving past, but it wasn't continuous. It would be driving through nothing and then seeing the cross again, seeing the scooter again. That's when I start to get scared, actually scared for the first time in this whole night of just this feeling of claustrophobia, almost, of being trapped inside a loop. We just keep going forward. There's no other way to go. So, how do we get out of this loop that felt like- I first tried to convince myself that maybe there was more than one cross that we'd driven past, and I didn't see it on the drive-in. But when I lost count of the amount of times, we had driven past the cross and driven past the scooter. That's when I started to realise that something wasn't right, like, with- with time. And that- I was so completely overwhelmed and just- I wanted to throw up. So, I asked Peter to stop driving the car, and I had to get out of the car to get fresh air. When I got out of the car, it was, of course, pitch black, except from the delight of the car. And in the distance, I saw a car coming towards us, which- which was great. Like, it was- the feeling was just- someone else's here were fine, were good, and as the car got closer, I started to realise that it was the exact same colour and make of car that we were driving. It was, like, the same white car. And I thought that my mind didn't really think too much of it at first, because I just thought it's another car, great. And then the car stopped, and I saw the passengers and the driver door, they both opened, and two silhouettes got out. And the- the guy coming out of the passenger seat walked to the back of the car as if he was looking at something to the back of the car, and the guy who came out the driver seat was standing still at the car and flashing a light towards where the passenger was. And that's when I realised that something was- something was messed up. Like, something time had messed up on this road, and I was looking at- I was looking at me and Peter finding the animal. As if I was watching a movie of us from, like, an hour ago or whatever. And my mind just couldn't handle it at this moment, so I just got back into the car, and I told Peter, "I'm okay, let's just go home." And he's starting the engine up again, and I look out of the window and in the darkness, and just the nothingness, the Mexican nothingness of the- what was off of the road, I just see two yellow eyes in the distance looking at us, and Peter drove away. And I was- I just- and I've never had this experience before, but my mind had already decided we're going to take all of this in, but we're going to think about it later. We're just going to- we're just going to get hope- we're going to get you home Simon first, and then we're going to- we're going to analyze these thoughts. But yeah, this is my first time deeply analyzing all of this, which is bringing back a lot of memories. And we drove for maybe 20 more minutes, and we passed the cross, and we passed the scooter two more times, and then it wasn't like- it wasn't climactic or anything, we just got off the road, the dark road just stopped, and we got back onto the main road. Even though I knew that I was- I was driving past new things, I kept expecting to see the scooter or the cross, I kept on expecting- my eyes were not coming off the window, like I just kept waiting to see the cross and waiting to see the scooter, and waiting to be trapped and not look again. And I find myself like even like now I'm back home sometimes waiting to see like the scooter or like the cross just instinctually, because I don't know, like trapped on that road, it just felt like an eternity. It was- it was just- it was so- there's no other word for it than claustrophobic, even though that I'm in an outside space, I just feel so trapped and a loop. And we drove back to Puerto Escondido and more or less, and silence. We get back to the hotel and I just shut my bedroom door in his face, and I was like, I- I need to think about everything that happened tonight. I think this was not like this- I did not have a good time tonight, and I'm sitting in my room and I'm like, that was us on the road, like the car and the people I saw was us looking at the- at the animal, almost- almost as if I was someone when we found the monster or the animal, it almost as if someone from a distance had been filming that, and then it was- it was like I was watching a movie in real life of what we had done, but like at a distance, and I couldn't wrap my head around it and still can't. It just- I just knew that what I was looking at was us, and I was just sitting in this hotel where I'm thinking about all of this, and I just couldn't get back- I just couldn't sleep because I didn't understand- I didn't understand anything that happened. So, Roy and Noda get back the next day, and at this point, me and Peter had had breakfast, and we just kind of- we were trying to talk about other things, but I think I had made a joke about like, I had made a joke about last night, and he didn't find it very funny. So, I kind of- we stopped eating breakfast, and I was like, fuck this, and then I started to be like, where is Roy and Noda? Like, why are they not here? And then they got- they got back to the hotel, still drunk, at like 10 in the morning at this point. They immediately could tell that like, the vibe wasn't there, because they were like, oh my god, did you and Peter like, have a good night? And I was like, no. No, we did. And I just thought, Puerto Escondido, you've been great, but I need to keep- I need to- I need to leave these people. So, I called my friend so, and like, I was meant to do a lot more travel in the drawing era, and he said, you can just stay at my house, and we can do day trips and things like that. And that's what I did. And I remember our bus to the next destination came. This was a couple days later, Roy and Noda said to me, all right, this is our bus. And I said, no, guys, this is your bus. They watched as my friend Saul, a very, very fit swimming instructor, drove up in a jeep, shirtless, and picked me up, and I waved them out the window goodbye, and I never saw them again, and I never will. So, I'm living in Playa del Carmen, which is an hour away from Hankin. That's where my friend Saul lives. This whole thing has been playing on my mind, and I don't- I've not had any answers yet, so I just- I just ask him, oh, hey, when I was in Puerto Escondido, I saw this, like, I think it was like a dog, but like, it didn't seem like it, and like, I'm not too familiar with, you know, the wildlife here. And I explained what I saw to Saul, and he chuckled because he was like, well, that's a chubacabra. And it's just like this thing that goes about, and it, like, drinks, hoes, or goats, bloods, and all that sort of stuff. And it- when I went to do some research, and I looked at pictures, there were similarities to what I saw. It did look- it looked a bit alien. There are, like, illustrations. There are, like, drawn pictures, more or less. It was a lot, like, smaller in the pictures, I thought. It was a lot, um, skinnier and more kind of panther, like, almost like it was on all fours, and it was all, um, although it was smaller in the pictures, it seemed like more of a threat, whereas what I saw on that road seemed more like, it's just a creature maimed in its business. And to me, that horrible, horrible scream, what I interpreted it is just- that's just the noise it makes. Like, I never interpreted it as a threat or anything like that. I just interpreted it as- that's- that's the noise that animal makes. Well, the whole point of me travelling was to find myself, Genji, uh, and I remember this whole experience. I was like, you know, I didn't find myself, but I definitely find out who- I found out who I wasn't, and I wasn't someone who's gonna let people like Ryan know that, like, keep me from seeing what I want to see and doing what I want to do. I wasn't gonna let one weird, weird knight kind of keep me from enjoying the rest of my travels. So, I was a swimming instructor in the mornings, so I was sitting on the beach, watching him take his swimming class, and enjoying a margarita, like, some kind of soccer mom, like, and doing some chippacabra research on my phone, and looking at it and being like, this is so silly, because every time I look at this, every time I research this, I can just hear it screaming in the back of my head, like, I can hear- I can still hear it scream, and if I keep doing this, and if I keep on, like, if I keep on ruining my time away, I'm just gonna keep hearing the scream, so I decided to put the phone down and enjoy my time and Mexico. I think, honestly, being able to reanalyze all of this. I've left- I have more questions now than I did before, because I've been able to deep dive into it, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that having something like this happened to me, I'll probably never get an answer for it, but I don't know. I guess that's what makes it more interesting, and that's what's gonna keep this probably the weirdest and biggest thing that's ever happened in my life. It's gonna- I'm never gonna not think about it when I think of four moments of my life. This is definitely up there because it shaped me to be more inquisitive, I guess, and beaver, when it comes to weird situations and creepy situations, and I'm not so afraid of the dark anymore either. All right, thank you so much to Simon for sharing his story. I know I joked around about the first Mexican story coming from a Scottish person, but I think the most interesting part about this is that Simon is a complete outsider who had absolutely no idea what El Chupacabra is, or that it even existed. In fact, when he told this story to me, it kind of seemed like in the aftermath of all this, part of him was thinking that he may have just seen some kind of terrifying animal native to Mexico that he simply hadn't heard of before. Needless to say, there is no animal in Mexico or anywhere that matches that description. Either way, him having not known about this before is so striking to me and adds an entire new layer onto this already incredible story. That, in the time loop, him and Peter experienced makes this so bizarre. I really enjoyed speaking to Simon. He seems like a very kind and sweet person. He's also so naturally funny even when he wasn't trying to be. I also thought it was very telling that he clearly views Roy and Nora as the real villains of this story because they were rude and unkind to people. Even though he encountered this terrifying creature, the creature was still not the real villain to him. And even though it was so terrifying seeing this thing, he was still experiencing guilt about potentially hurting it. I think that says a lot. Finally, I just want to say, we're always looking for stories from other countries, from other cultures and places. But, of course, all the stories you hear on this show are submitted by listeners. So, if you have a story, send it in to stories@otherworldpod.com. Simon actually wasn't even a listener of the show at the time. His friend is, and the friend basically made him send the story in. I'm so glad that they did. If you have stories from Mexico, Latin America, or anywhere, we want to hear them. Send them on in. Thank you so much to Simon for sharing this story. This has been episode 90. The title is The Long Road Home and You've Been Listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackle. This episode was edited by Theo Krantz and engineered by Theo Shafer. Our artwork is by Cold Sex Studios. Our associate producer is Nikki K Delgado, production help by Haley Pearson. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about Otherworld. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you can become a patron at patreon.com/otherworld. Our social media is @otherworldpod. That's on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Thank you to the team at Odyssey. J.D. Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Burman, Leah Reese Dennis, Rob Miranda, Eric Donnelly, Matt Casey, Laura Kern, Josephina Francis, and Hilary Shuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld Now for free on the Aussie app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us your story at stories@otherworldpod.com. [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
