Season Finale: The Jingle Man

0:00Hi, my name is Mira Pataston. I'm an author and I'm an activist and GoFundMe is my go-to platform for fundraising. The first GoFundMe I did was to raise money for a chat book or a collection of poetry and essays and short stories. So we started to go fund me and our goal was 7,000. What I've learned is so special about GoFundMe is that it's a whole collection of people offering anything from like four dollars to four hundred dollars and each time you get a ping that someone donated even if it is just four dollars it's so exciting. So if you have a goal and you get there you can keep making it bigger and bigger and bigger. We did go past our goal. It was amazing. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com That's GoFundMe.com GoFundMe.com

1:00Every day the world gets a little weirder and a lot more awesome. Cool stuff daily takes a look at everything from mining and space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI is basically changing everything. It's all the cool stuff you didn't know you needed to know. Join us for cool stuff daily as we take a quick look at science tech and the wait what stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner. Subscribe to cool stuff daily now because the future is happening fast and it's way too fun to miss. What would you do if the thing haunting someone didn't begin in an old house successful but in the darkest moments of their life? How would you explain it if strangers unknown to each other all describe the same terror arriving with the cold? What if the most disturbing paranormal accounts weren't built of frightened you at all but were simply people trying to tell the truth and if something unexplained found people when

2:04they were most alone would you call that coincidence illness or something else entirely? Now I'm not sure we'll find any answers to those questions tonight but I do know you're about to hear one of the darkest dark paranormal funnale's ever. Live from Liverpool the dark Hello everyone and welcome to our season funnale for the dark paranormal. Now like many of the changes that have gone on this season our finale tonight is different to any of the funnale we've done in the past. Now allow me to get the usual things out of the way because this episode warrants not just a trigger warning but something more. So don't forget if you've got your own

3:11paranormal experience you can find the link in the show notes where it says submit my experience that will take you directly to the site or go to the darkparanormal.com forward slash submit my experience and if you wish to join our wonderful community over a patreon in my opinion the best paranormal community out there the link is also in the show notes where you can gain a free week at our highest tier which will give you full access early add free access to anything on the main feed and access to our entire back catalogue of dark bites. That is the show that has only four patrons it runs 30 minutes and length and runs each and every week of the year even on the downtime between seasons and as you know one is literally starting at the end of this episode not only that but you will gain access to our community chats and you can also gain access to our newest episode after dark which is a 30 minute piece of meter camera no editing discussing

4:13what we spoke about in the previous week. Again the links in the show note will go direct to patreon.com forward slash the darkparanormal. Now I've been doing this show long enough to know the difference between a story that's meant to scare you and a story that's just is what it is. No craft in it no structure built to unsettle you at the right moment just someone sat down finding the words they can find and trusting you with them. Tonight is different from anything I've put in front of you before and I want to take a moment before we go anywhere near the content to be straight with you about what this is and what this isn't. The following accounts plural came to me through a support a real one for people who have at the lowest point of their lives tried to leave this world.

5:17I'm not going to dress that up or talk around it these are survivors and somewhere in the middle of that surviving in the middle of therapy and medication and the slow hard work of still being here something else started happening to them. Something that appeared to come with cold weather something that they all without comparing notes started calling the same name. Every person you're going to hear from tonight was approached by the people supporting them carefully and with the full knowledge of what this show is and they've been asked if they wanted to share they didn't have to there was no pressure and every one of them said yes I think about that I think about what it takes to say yes to something like that from where they were sitting and I have to

6:18say I have a lot of respect for it. I also want you to know that every one of these people is still being supported this isn't a goodbye this isn't someone falling through a crack whilst we watch these are people in care with people around them who made a choice to be heard on their own terms so why am I sharing this well because this show exists for one reason to go where the paranormal actually lives not the cleaned up version not the kind that makes for a comfortable 30 minutes before bed the real kind the kind that shows up in the lives of people who are already carrying far more than most of us ever will understand if the darkest corners of human experience are exactly when something unexplained chooses to make itself known and I've come to believe after everything this show has

7:21brought to my attention that may well be the case then it would feel like a betrayal of everything we do here to receive something like this and keep it to myself these people have trusted me with something precious and now I'm trusting you with it so please hold it in the same way in case you haven't picked up by now there is a heavy thread throughout each of these experiences to do with people wishing to take their own lives and I say that both as a trigger warning and also to give some sort of context to what you're about to hear so if any of that you would find upsetting I pray do not listen to this episode and if you choose to I know you will listen with the compassion these experiences deserve and so if you're still here we'll begin

8:25the first voice you're going to hear from tonight is someone who describes themselves right at the start as not really a writer I want you to hold on to that because what they put down on the page unpolished uncertain searching for the right words carries something that no amount of craft could manufacture this is someone still early in their journey still finding their footing still not entirely sure what they believe about what's happening to them but they showed up they wrote it down and they want you to hear it I'm not really a great writer so I don't know if this will be any good they asked me in group to write about my encounters I don't know if this is helpful they tell me I'm sick but the other gals in the group think we're all cast like some sort of

9:27punishment or something for trying to end our lives which I've tried twice now the first one on new years a while back the second time was two years later the second time was 12 days before Christmas I heard about the group after the first time doctor said I should try to talk to them I did and it helped for a little while but they said I had to stay sober well I can't sleep sober I'm not the only girl who says that too they said I can't use anybody's name not even mine so this might get confusing we all do fine for a while then we stop sleeping I get nightmares that keep me up most of the girls in the group say they hear ringing and that's what keeps them up I don't know I've never heard the ringing just the nightmares

10:29our nightmares are all the same though naked people hold us down and tear us open we only can't sleep when it gets cold some of the group even stop coming to meetings in the spring and summer but then when the cold comes back the members do too the doctors think it's like a seasonal change or whatever I think it's him he wants us not like other men either it's different he wants the men and the women here he wants us to die so he can be born that's what the older girls say they tell us stories from when they were little old stories about him and his victims he needs us to die so that he can live for a little while he needs us to die so that he

11:31can live for a little while they say just long enough to be born and curse someone else I don't remember seeing the naked people the first time but the second time they were there they would appear and disappear they would follow me I know the group says it's in my mind but I remember the second time and I remember them holding my hands and making me injure myself with sharp implements doctors tell me I'm trying to make it not my fault I don't know maybe they're right I'm backing group again because I got caught drinking this Christmas Eve I just wanted to sleep if I'm drunk I don't have the nightmares but they say it's the wrong way to do things so now I'm starting again no TV no internet for a while too

12:32I don't know what else to say and I hope this is what you wanted now listeners that short sharp introductory of the five we have is a very interesting gateway which alludes to what we are going to be dealing with on this episode I think you can tell already it's a very emotionally intense episode and we move on to our second submission but this one was so intense that I'm not able to read it fully I've broken it down into bullet point form so you can still have the general gist of where this is flowing again this second account shared with full consent follows a pattern consistent with every other account but it does contain details I'm not comfortable reading aloud out of respect for the person and for you but here's what you do need

13:37to know the contributor had a long history of self-harm beginning in childhood following a series attempt to take their own life they experienced prolonged sleeplessness during cold months during that period they began hearing ringing consistent with every other account you'll hear tonight they describe visitations from the same figures described by the others naked gathered present in the dark they believe they were chosen not cast chosen and they interpret that differently from the rest of the group they are currently under the care of the same support network responsible for bringing the accounts to the show they wanted their experience included and that wish is being honored here in the safest way I know how but what stays with me about this

14:42one and our leave it here is that same word chosen whatever the jingle man is whatever this thing wants not everyone who encounters it experiences it in the same way and I'm not sure which interpretation frightens me more our third account arrives with a different energy where the first was uncertain this one is angry understandably honestly justifiably angry this is someone who doesn't want to be in a support group they don't want to be talking about their feelings they don't believe in the jingle man and they want you to know that clearly what makes this account remarkable isn't belief it's a fact that despite every resistance despite every refusal

15:45to accept the framework everyone around them is using the the experiences are still identical the ringing the nightmares the winter same as everyone else but belief it seems is not a requirement I hate doing shit like this but the group says I need to get better at communicating how I feel before I blow up and get arrested again I think they're full of shit if people would just leave me the eff alone I could just shut up and stay calm but the doctors say that's not true one time I tried to hurt myself just one time and now I'm being punished for it for the rest of my effing life there are people here who have tried hurting themselves over and over again but they say they're less angry so they get a free pass on everything I hate this I'm not going to

16:50hurt anyone unless they try to hurt me that's legal and fair so why are they keeping me here I don't want to die anymore I don't think I ever really did I think I just wanted the ringing to stop so I could sleep and I don't believe in the stupid effing jingle man I don't know why I'm still here yes I have those same nightmares like everyone else on the group yes I hear the ringing like everyone else and yes it's worse at winter time but I don't want to die I hadn't slept in almost two weeks I wasn't thinking straight so I was stupid and I tried to end my life I couldn't even do that shit right I woke up in hospital and they tell me I have to talk about it every day how does that help anything that just makes me feel helpless I don't believe in the jingle man I just believe in the nightmares and the ringing and I just want to go home I think from all of

17:58the submissions that this group have provided me this one hit me the most because it a genuine shout from somebody who feels trapped it's a shout from someone who is experiencing what everyone else is yet is determined it would appear to not put a name on it no I'm not saying that's right or wrong and I do believe in the power of belief and in regards to what's healthy in this exact situation I am most certainly underqualified to tell anyone and with that we move on to our fourth submission today's episode of the dark paranormal is brought to you by progressive insurance fiscally responsible financial geniuses monetary magicians these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds because progressive offers discounts for paying in full owning a home and more plus you can count on their great customer

19:04service to help you when you need it so your dollar goes a long way visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance progressive casualty insurance companies and affiliates potential savings will vary not available in all states or situations today's show is sponsored by better help do you know the 8th of March is international women's day a day to celebrate women everywhere recognizing just how much they do each and every day I lost my mother at a young age with some would say is misfortune but it got me to know my man who brought me up as a better person and the strength she's shown shone through in my sister who she brought up also and she's now the strong matriarch of a family of her own and believe me the absolute seeming ease that she holds together her family can be so easy to overlook as we sadly still have that stigma of well that a woman's job that's what a mother's meant to do etc but the emotional well-being of the women in our life can easily be overlooked and therapy offers a safe space that they can take care of

20:09themselves in a way they deserve and gentlemen just stop and think about those unseen expectations they wake too daily their happiness isn't just a good thing it's essential and therapy can help create balance set healthy boundaries and support overall well-being for everyone better help therapists to work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US a quick questionnaire will help identify your needs and preferences with over 30,000 therapists better help as the world's largest online therapy platform your emotional well-being matters so find some support and feel lighter in therapy sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com that's better h-e-l-p.com suffering from seasonal irritants as the pollen count rises support your immune system with quick silver scientific history aid a targeted blend of nutrients and botanicals designed to help maintain healthy histamine balance and everyday comfort quick silver scientific history aid works with your body's natural response to seasonal environmental challenges so you can feel your best all season long get 10% off and free shipping at tryqs.com slash

21:14podcast again that's tryqs.com slash podcast for 10% off and free shipping these statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration this product is not intended to diagnose cure or prevent any disease now although our third experience was the one that struck me the most viscerally this fourth account is the one that stayed with me the longest after i first read it because there's a grief sat underneath this one that the writer never quite names directly but you'll feel it a young person who lost the only person who mattered to them and then found themselves alone well alone with something they couldn't explain what strikes me is the moment the ringing begins not at home not in the dark in isolation in a cell with no windows no way to measure time i thought about this one a lot about what it

22:16means that this thing whatever it is seems to find people when they're most isolated sometimes i don't believe i'm really here i think about all the things i thought i was going to do and i remember why i'm here right now i never had anyone in my life except my big sister she kept me after mama ran away but i left all that up i had to prove i was scared of nothing it started easy carry this back here drive for this guy stand outside and do let anybody follow us in easy money i knew it was bad every time but i didn't care i got paid and i got laid it's that simple nothing better but the job's got bigger bigger job bigger money sometimes we'd steal a car

23:17sometimes it was drugs but that one night i got left behind when everyone else ran away the cop showed up i kept my mouth shut and that's how i ended up in july guess i thought it was where you always end up so i pretended not to care then that christmas they tell me my sister had been shot it was a random thing wrong place wrong time and that's when i was scared because no one else was thinking about me and i couldn't help but wonder if somehow i'd caused it if i brought all of that crap too close to home to her the other guys knew i was scared even though i was hiding it they started telling me things telling me she shot herself she was all alone

24:19and that's what she turned to i would get into fights over it and they put me in the bin god say it cools you down and you get a lot of time to think when you're alone like that and that's where the sounds started first the doctors thought it was head injuries after many fights but then they tell me i'm not sleeping anymore i couldn't tell there are no windows in the bin so i didn't know how much time had passed then my nose started to bleed all the time and then my teeth started falling out the doctors were afraid i would starve i told them i was hearing ringing sounds and i couldn't tell if i was asleep or awake at times they asked me when it started on i said i didn't know they let me out of the bin and my cellys were all trying to scare me

25:20they told me they heard that i was hearing bells and i was alone because the jingle man was going to take me away the night before my release hearing they shouted this effing song at me over and over again i screamed at them to stop then i woke up in the med center i'd had a fit and both my arms were broken and wrapped up they told me i'd done it to myself that i thrown myself against the wall until i broke my bones obviously i miss my hearing my release hearing and the doctors take me somewhere else i get to this new place and there are some old people young people white black all kinds and they put me in this group and there are even girls that and they want us to talk about the sounds and hurting ourselves

26:22but they let me leave and i live at home like regular people i take pills and i go to group and the people there tell me were cursed to hear the devil till we die i don't want to believe them but sometimes i wonder if they're right i wonder if we are being punished for hurting the people we love and sometimes i even have nightmares on christmas about my big sister she comes to stand over me while i'm asleep then she holds me down and screams at me and i know she wants me to fight back but i won't if she wants to hurt me i'll let her if she wants me dead like her i'm ready it's kev now and i feel i must reiterate at this point everyone you're hearing from on this episode are all receiving the medical care that they require

27:25they've volunteered their submissions they're fully aware of what they've agreed to in terms of giving their experiences for use on the show but as you can tell from that last experience we are dealing with very very dark material but that last experience if we keep our mind as hard as it can be in the paranormal sphere it does make me think if this entity this jingle man has the ability to shape shift into someone you would recognize if it believed it would cause the most harm both mentally and physically and from a sheer theoretical standpoint that may mean we've already heard of the jingle man we've just never attributed that name to him because if he has the ability to shape shift into people we know then arguably the plethora of

28:27experiences that we've received where someone has had a nightmare about a loved one or gone rogue if you will we may have already ran into this entity several times before now our fifth and final account is in some ways the most grounded of them all this is someone who found the jingle man through creepypasta that internet horror story site and they'll be the first to tell you how ridiculous it sounds there is a dark humor running through this experience that I found myself grateful for given everything we've just covered but underneath the self deprecation is the same story the same cold the same ringing the same figures and something the others don't quite offer away through I'll let them tell you about that themselves

29:28I've had a weird life so it doesn't surprise me that I've ended up here foster homes abuse of boyfriend's addiction ending my life was just another checkbox on my list of crappy chores I know that now I was a hooker before I was even a junkie how messed up is that the guy I was with got me hooked on drugs so payment was drugs no that's not true I got me on the drugs he just made it easier to get the drugs see we can't blame others for the messed up choices we make and we also can't stay feeling sorry for ourselves for too long it's just as poisonous as anything else it's actually kind of funny to me now okay so I've no idea why the computer keeps trying to fix what I've wrote let me just type it how I want if I have to keep going back to make the format changes I lose my

30:31train of thought anyway sorry for the format issues group says you want to know about our curse well the funny thing is I found out about all this from dumb little creepy pastors online it makes me laugh now what a dumb thing to get obsessed over what a dumb reason to try and end yourself twice I smile about it now though stupid girl stupid choices stupid ghost stories stupid nursery rhymes stupid ethnic name the jingle man they said I let my boyfriend overdose police love that one but then in jail I guess the guilt got to me and I tried to end myself again I waited to light out and I waited till my cellmate fell asleep I tore up my bedsheet and tried but I must have made too much noise anyway I woke up on suicide watch and the doctors started me on

31:36therapy I got my appeal and my acquittal and then I was back out looking for jobs or whatever I found a place but I couldn't sleep at night so I started scrolling online out of boredom and like I said before I found creepy pastors I found him dumb little Christmas horror stories I stopped reading once the nightmares started though that seemed like a pretty normal response to me then a few months later it got colder and the ringing started at first I was pretty sure that I was just scaring myself but then I started dreaming whilst awake hallucinating or whatever you call it it was always the same I would be alone it would be cold the ringing would start and I'd see them appear first out of the corner of my eye and then right in front of me I turned around and

32:37they were there too or I'd switch off a light or something can I'd be surrounded strangers naked covered in blood screaming get me with no sound maybe that's what the ringing actually was then it got worse I lost track of time I'd wake up somewhere I'd never seen before and I'd began hurting myself then I started seeing them forcing me to do it like I'd blink and they were forcing my hands to cut into my side or whatever I was always at patient first getting stitches or whatever was needed and that's when I saw it the nurse walked away and I saw my chance to slip right back into my old crappy habits I stole painkillers pills full relapse the master part was when I was high the ringing stopped I could sleep no more nightmares

33:39so I decided to make the ultimate decision one more time I woke up on suicide watch again but this time the doctors referred me to different support groups it was like AA but for freaks people who believe the bogeyman is chasing them figures I would be involved in something so ridiculous but I got clean the nightmares stopped I still hear the ringing though but only in the winter I guess it's something to manage like diabetics checking their blood sugar or whatever and so that's my pity party story I hope it helps someone else out there I don't know if any of this jingle man curse crap is real but either way that is help if you want it and that is the last of our experiences I'll sit with you here for a moment before we go anywhere else because I think you've earned that

34:44I think we both have five people five lives I knew nothing about before that email landed in my inbox five accounts of something that has no clean explanation arriving from people who are already carrying more weight than most of us will ever carry and yet here they are surviving things that would have broken many of us choosing in the middle of all that to be heard I've been thinking about what connects them not just the ringing or the figures or the cold although all of that is consistent across every single account in ways that I find genuinely difficult to explain away what connects them is something quieter than that every one of these people at the moment this thing arrived in their lives was alone really alone the kind of alone that had a weight to it

35:50and in that weight something appears to have came now I've no earthly idea what this jingle man is and I'm not going to stand here and tell you these are proof of things because that's not what this shows for and it's not what these people deserve what they do deserve is to be taken seriously and I hope tonight whatever you believe whatever framework you use to make sense of what you've just had I hope you felt that they were but I will say is this in all the time I've been doing this all the stories all the encounters everything that arrived in my inbox from every corner of the world I've never felt as certain as I do tonight that I was right to keep going this show exists for a reason sometimes the paranormal doesn't arrive as a curiosity sometimes it arrives in the darkest place a human being can find themselves and if that's where it lives

36:57if that's the territory we're really dealing with then I think we have a responsibility to go there carefully respectfully but to go there so for every one of these people who shared tonight a massive thank you and I mean that in a way I'm not sure I have the words for to everyone listening if anything you heard tonight resonated in a way that goes beyond the paranormal reach out to someone there are details in the show notes for several areas in several countries you don't have to be alone with whatever you're carrying paranormal or not and one of the strongest things you will ever do as a human being is ask for help now reverting to the paranormal before we end this episode and this season it interesting for me that I'm not sure whether we may have opened a can of worms in regards to

37:59this jingle man or whether we are literally telling experiences from a group that may have whipped itself into a sort of foliage you or be it one that strangely contains identical similarities to the next experience now we are going to leave it there I appreciate this is an episode of contention and I thank you all for joining me through this and I do mean through this now if you haven't already the date to mark down in your calendars now if you haven't already hit subscribe wherever you're listening to the show because then you will not miss our debut episode for the next season season 24 coming your way on Friday April the 17th and if this season itself is anything to go by I am beyond looking forward to it myself don't forget if you have your own experiences that link is directly in the show notes

39:05and we cannot wait to receive them remember this is a fluid show so even though we have next season set out the right experience will find its way in we've proven that from show one as ever a big thank you to each and every one of you who listens to the show if you want to give our free week trial a patreon ago whilst there will be no dark paranormal for a few weeks the link again is in the show notes and with almost 200 hours of patreon only content to binge in the back catalog of dark bites now is probably the best time to do so and so until Friday the 17th of April stay safe take care and remember whenever you're discussing the paranormal always try to leave some of your disbelief at the door and I'll speak to you next time right here on the dark paranormal

40:06you Every day the world gets a little weirder, and a lot more awesome. Cool Stuff Daily takes a look at everything from mining and space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI is basically changing everything. It's all the cool stuff you didn't know you needed to know. Join us for cool Stuff Daily as we take a quick look at science, tech, and the, wait, stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner.

41:07Subscribe to cool Stuff Daily now because the future is happening fast and it's way too fun to miss.