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 hi I'm Britt and my name is Alissa and this is skeletales and this is the podcast where we strive to answer the age-old question of is my dad grandma watching me that's right and we tell true tales of the strange unusual and paranormal heck yeah we do Brit what are we talking about this week well as I have mentioned I believe it was uh recently we are in the top 100 charts in the Philippines and so we decided like you know what I don't think we've told very many Filipino stories um so we are we're gonna throw that on the table and have fun with it yeah sometimes we just like to give ourselves a little challenge something to organize the chaos sure let's tell ghost stories our stories from this Philippines that sounds fun okay but before we get into this um you have been working very hard on uploading stuff to our new YouTube channel yeah right and I actually didn't even watch this video but I saw a comment roll in and I'm not sure if you're aware that that we got this but there is a YouTube video that Britt posted it's skeletales after party the curse of the crying Boy painting okay I've not seen this comment so that story was that a separate story that we told I don't even remember who we were talking to it was just like a little added bonus story because we didn't have time to fit it in the episode so I was like but I did the research let's tell it and so I just uploaded it to YouTube so there are unheard untold stories that have not been on the podcast that are living on the YouTube on YouTube so go subscribe over there if you haven't already okay well a comment just rolled in from a fella named Simon Barker and he says good day from time to time I search stories about the crying boy and yours was only four weeks old when I watched it this story is about my grandparents and I live in the same house now I found it quite amusing when I bought the house in 2013. I had a letter addressed to my grandpa father asking about the crying boy but since my grandfather passed years before I mentioned it to my mother his daughter and she told me the story oh my God so if you want to know what this is referring to the cursed crying Boy painting y'all should go listen to it on the YouTube channel that is amazing very very awesome I love this world I love the world I want to know if anything happens I know I know curious okay but back on task Britt do you want to tell us our first story of the day I do okay this one is news to me I came across it looking for haunted things in the Philippines or strange paranormal things and I came across a Filipino folklore about the Aswang have you heard of this before it's spelled it's spelled um a-s-w-a-n-g but it's pronounced as one I did in my research for this project come across but you hadn't heard of it before right that name I not heard it before I've not I don't know anything about it I didn't look into it um that was not the one that caught my eye I think of some of the Cryptids oh okay so this one has it all so according I should preface I got a lot of this information from a website called all that is interesting.com according to centuries-old Filipino folklore the Aswang combines the most terrifying traits of vampires were beasts and witches into a single Monster that inspires unparalleled fear to this day the trickiest thing about the Aswang is that it allegedly disguises itself as a human during the day it goes about among humans and picks out its victims to hunt at night considered to be a part considered to be part Vampire part which and part wear Beast the idea that the Aswang could be walking among you without knowing it is one of the most scary things about it that and it eats flesh primarily children and unborn fetuses no their favorite organs to eat are the liver and heart the Aswang allegedly has a probiscus-like tongue it uses to suck out blood or unborn babies from their mother's wombs it reportedly stalks the small towns of the Philippines during the night looking for its next meal the Aswang likes to confuse its prey with a tricky sound similar to repeated tick
 
 as it gets closer it gets quieter to fool you into thinking that the creature is getting further away sound familiar the when the sound is further away is it a banshee uh
 
 yes but and then also uh the other one from Colombia that is still Elsie bone how it when it sounds far away that's when you should be the most scared so it fools you into thinking that the creature is getting further away thus luring you into a false sense of relief although allegedly you may not know when you're near an Aswang during the day as it's also in its weakest State at that time this weakness means that they are unlikely to harm people during the day they're usually women and sometimes even described as beautiful with long black hair Alissa
 
 it's not just kidding just kidding it's not me I swear it's not because guess what there is some telling physical signs look for bloodshot eyes and their feet flipped backward they also they also hate noise and bright lights if you manage okay wait I do hate oh no thanks oh if you manage to get a look at their eyes your reflection will be upside down all right let me look at my location nope we're all good right side up okay I do have a wonky toe but not my feet seem to be pointed the right direction backwards it's on your heel I think that's where that the toe is headed it's trying real hard to do a U-turn so there are allegedly three varieties of Aswang the tick tick or the walk walk is named for the sound it makes while hunting and turns into a large bird the sigbin allegedly turns into something similar to a Tasmanian devil and the third variety is the oh boy managal which looks like a woman who can split itself in half and fly like a bat so this is I've never heard of this Cryptid before but it's so versatile I did not realize that uh that I heard about the menenogle my I'm not reading it so I don't know how to pronounce it has a lot of I think you pronounced it better than I do okay and I didn't realize it was a four so you're saying it's a form of that Aswang mm-hmm okay yeah okay okay so the night is their strongest time when aswangs gain their superhuman strength the Knight is reportedly also the time of day when they can shape-shift and change the appearance of other objects to trick humans in stories dating back to the 13th century have been around since the as one so this isn't an early occurrence like they've been telling these stories for a very long time so I was curious if I could find any first person stories of somebody who's actually come across one of these like vampiric were beasts and sure enough there were actually quite a few out there but this one I felt was um particularly juicy so this is from Jace and they say my mom was heavily pregnant with me when she was staying in a hotel in like
 
 I got this legaspi City with my dad and several of her best friends they occupied a large room with multiple beds late in the night they were awoken by a loud thud on the rooftop and followed by the grunts oinks pigs make my Tita said that it to my mom that it could be the aswangs looking for babies to prey on so they huddled together with my mom at the center my dad went to the Altar and armed himself with the dried palasbas after a long time they heard whatever that thing on the rooftop leave but they didn't immediately go to sleep but kept two people on guard while the other slept the next morning when the hotel guests went down for breakfast they found out that almost every woman in the hotel that night was pregnant pretty unbelievable right they all had the same experience as my mom they all asked the management if there were any nearby pigaries and the staff told them that there wasn't my second encounter was when I was in elementary school and I was playing with my three cousins on their PS2 we were playing WWE and the game continued until 11 pm my youngest cousin went to sleep by then but me and my two older cousins kept playing when it was about 1am my two Elder cousins went to sleep on the carpet while I was still arranging the consoles when I heard grunting noises outside [Music] I know how pigs sound since my grandpa has a Piggery too but we were staying at my tita's house which was in a populated subdivision I peeked through the window blinds of the living room and saw a pig-headed figure shambling away from our house it walked very unnaturally like its legs were broken or Twisted backwards I don't know how to explain it very well then it suddenly turned its head to the side and its eyes were red not the glowing type but like the color of the eyes of white rats I immediately hid between my two cousins and wrapped their arms around me I was crying by then and they hugged me tighter I don't know how I fell asleep that night the creature with its legs backwards that alone just why is that such a creepy thing like all the horror movies you put someone on like just crank those limbs the wrong direction throw them on all floors [ __ ] creepy pig head like yeah culturally I I hate that imagery I like so this can literally look like your worst nightmare whatever it may be it definitely like it has Endless Possibilities it's a shape shifter it's a shape shifter yes which as we know through history is also a common you know folklore to be around the world these shape-shifting witches why must all of these Cryptids and um folklore creatures be so hell-bent on eating children eating babies why are they all stuck in wanting to eat the babies it's the worst well originally a lot of these folklores it's to scare the kids right like don't do dangerous things don't go in your bodies of water don't you know wander too far from the house you know listen to your mother always um but this is for like pregnant women of like like a proboscis tongue that Jabs through your stomach and then sucks your little baby's life force it's so sad now because this has been around a long time and a lot of it originated in the smaller Filipino Villages a lot of people think that it was just used as sort of scapegoat for um you know having miscarriages or stillbirths or you know committing murder oh you know as one made me do it you know and or you know other kind of like the changeling like there's a sick baby but you blame it on the fairies or you know gosh I hate it I actually have a story of a and so when you said that name I did recognize that name and this was recent this was in February 14 2023 and it comes from ancient origins.net and it's titled alleged citing of the mythical mananangal in the Philippines causes public anxiety police yeah police in the Philippines are working to ease the fears of residents in a city where reports of a fearsome creature have been circulating this strange incident began last Thursday evening in the community of talisay where when two girls reported seeing a bizarre creature perched on a house according to the witnesses the creature had bat-like wings and was able to detach its body at the Torso which is a characteristic feature of the mythical creature known as the mananango in Philippine folklore the girls were shaken by the encounter and reported the sighting to the police the news of the sighting quickly spread and soon the entire Community was abuzz with Talk of the mananangle several days after the initial sighting reports emerged of another creature seen in a nearby town this creature was described as having a human body but a head that resembled that of a pig
 
 the reports have added to the fears and concerns of the community and local authorities began to take the matter seriously reports coast to coast in an effort to calm residents authorities held a press conference to address the issue they promised to investigate the reports and urged residents to report any unusual sightings or incidents to the police they also advise residents to refrain from sharing rumors and hearsay about the mananangle as this could cause unnecessary panic and fear meanwhile the two witnesses who reported the sighting of the men in angol are said to be receiving counseling to help them deal with the trauma of the encounter local authorities have assured residents that they are taking the matter seriously and are doing everything they can to ensure the safety and well-being of the community despite this rumors of the Mena nangal continue to circulate and many residents are still on edge fearful of encountering the creature in the dead of night oh February that was just a couple of months I know that was very nice there it is out there oh my gosh it sounds terrible I like it I don't know if I like that the girls are in therapy I like it's interesting that they included that detail like they were so terrified that they like dramatized yes I I didn't I don't know if I caught that it detached its torso from its body like that yeah and then just down the road they saw the pig-headed creature too this shape-shifting where bat creature oh man so that one I'd be like well maybe it was someone of the prank but it's very hard to prank removing your torso from the rest of your body I feel like that is like a magic trick that would be hard to pull off um so like you I was intrigued by the number of I guess they're Cryptids in Filipino folklore yeah there was one that really caught my eye called the Tomball t-a-m-b-a-l and according to primer.com.ph
 
 the tombow is the Filipino version of the doppelganger and it's a creature able to change their appearance to their human victims they cause their victims to get lost for days and take their place in their home mingling with family and acquaintances there are stories of the tombow killing their victims before taking their place the Tomball later fakes its death but the corpse quote unquote corpse it leaves would be a small tree trunk uh so someone dies their body just turns into a tree ah that would [ __ ] with me that'd be like wait what because one your loved one just turned into a tree trunk two you'd be like wait so that wasn't them at all that was a tomble this whole time where is my real loved one yeah that's a real nine [ __ ] on top of it all so I was intrigued by this but I and I wanted to find a real life story of this doppelganger because I think I I like a doppelganger it's fascinating yeah they're all kind of shape shape shifters with just a different grip grift is that what that's called if you're a grifter do you have a grift oh yes I don't know they have a different like because they're all shape shifters but they have like a different angle like a different strategy like they have they're like this is gonna be my thing they find their thing but they're all they're like the same at a campfire Circle they're like what what are you gonna do bat what do you pig yeah my feet are backwards that'll really get them tree trunk I got tree trunk hear me out
 
 I turned into a tree truck
 
 um so I found a Facebook post about someone's encounter with the Tomball and he says I was alone at my house today nothing out of the usual from the time that I woke up until after lunch my everyday routine since graduation has been to log on social media register for government IDs and find freelance work online as you imagine I was busy on my laptop my room's door has a narrow glass pane the top half of it's frosted effectively obscuring objects inside and outside of my room the bottom half however remains bare I've always hated that the pain has not been fully frosted it leaves me with little privacy it also allows me to see people walking outside at 3am when everyone is asleep I've learned to not pay attention to whoever or whatever shuffles its feet from outside my room I guess I've already been desensitized at around three in the afternoon I saw from my periphery someone slash something walking outside my room I ignored it as I have many times before I returned to creating proposals for potential clients about five minutes passed and I saw feet again sometimes the people slash things in this household can be annoying I paused and glanced at the bottom half of the glass pane I stared through it for a good three seconds before I went back to work but just as I was about to finish the sentence I saw walking Feet Again I paid no attention I did not want to I had work to finish and I was scared this was beyond the usual I tried my best not to care my hands were shaking or barely able to type word into the keyboard nonetheless I tried to retain my composure even as the person slash thing outside my room was already pacing back and forth at the time and then he she stopped it stopped right in front of my door it was standing there I had to look when I glanced I saw two legs it looked like a person's my whole body was trembling at this point I can handle ghosts but I would not be able to handle a human Intruder I mustered up courage to use my loud thundering voice to say Sino Yan who's there in parentheses then the door opened he looked exactly like me it was as if I was looking at a clone he was tall and had a prominent jaw he even had dark blue hair heck he was wearing the same blue shirt and gray Pat basketball shorts they say when your doppelganger appears near you you're in danger it can be means sickness an accident or even death what more if I met mine what do you want from me I said with a loud but shaking voice as tears streamed down my face it slowly walked towards me until I was face to face with it it smiled maniacally and leaned into my ear and it whispered no oh I'm a freelance writer hire me my email is Dave Gregory gmail.com
 
 such a disappointing ending
 
 I found this I was so into it and I was like oh my God this is so perfect the whole time and I was like [ __ ]
 
 [Music] oh proposave Bravo I'm pretty sure it was real up until that part I think he just made up an ending because he really got eaten and it's actually the Tagalog now writing the story or the uh the the doppelganger writing the story and it absolutely is when they went to interview him about this article all they found was a log they interviewed not even a trunk just a luggage that's what I forgot what they turned into they followed up they're trying to follow up just interview or they interviewed him but later when they reviewed the footage they realized they were just interviewing a tree trunk a log in the chair um okay oh it was good you have me going you have me going good Alissa all right I'm gonna sneak in one a quick story before you tell your next one okay um I got this story from Chris Benjamin and he says hi guys I'm from the Philippines one night I had to take the bus to go to work I work night shifts and it takes a three hour bus ride from my home to my work office in the Metro holy [ __ ] dude that's a commute you should listen to skeletals on your way sorry plugging the guys sharing the story share the story as I got onto a bus I noticed there were only five people inside the driver his assistant me and two other passengers the bus made a stop after 30 minutes to pick up more passengers three passengers came on two teenagers and one odd looking lady she wore a black dress and had a lot of jewelry on her a golden necklace and earrings that were shiny as hell too when the bus started moving again the driver's assistant came to check the passengers and give out tickets we're still kind of old school here so there's always another guy who comes to your seat and gets your pay for the fare and gives you a bus ticket as a receipt now that particular guy after giving me and the other passengers at the back their ticket got scared all of the sudden and frantically asked the bus driver to stop stop the bus when the driver asked why the hell do you want to stop the bus his assistant yelled in a scared voice she's gone the old lady in the black dress is gone where did she go the bus hadn't stopped to pick up passengers since the last pickup so where did that old lady go I knew something was wrong we had had a ghost on the bus
 
 was there any mention of a law or a trunk a tree trunk yeah right where she was sitting is a stick smaller okay a twig um I'm gonna plug Chris's uh YouTube really quick he's got a channel called creepy shorts27 where he shares other spooky stories as well and so he could listen oh wait no that wasn't his story he just told the story that's that's Chris's story but can you tell someone who commutes yeah Chris is the commuter but he also shares other got it creepy creepy nope creepy creepy short stories see that and she's so miserable because she's like black dress like blinging out big time like something that's gonna stick in your head of like oh she's odd I like that idea if I have a choice that would be one of my top ghost tauntings choices just be real eccentric forgettable and then just [ __ ] peace out and then people like watch everyone freak out yeah I love that idea okay so I have a another story from the Philippines written by someone who lived in Manila at one point and they say that when I was a child I used to see ghosts in our old apartment in Manila mostly they were just blurry figures of a person that is just passing by but one night while I was late night watch watching TV I saw a man standing in our stairs the man is wearing all black and I can clearly see his face I could even see that he is skin-headed he doesn't look menacing he is just looking but I was so scared that I peed my pants I told my mom about it but she wouldn't believe me my dad at that time is a delivery driver so I barely even see him and we moved to another town after a few years decades later while we are reminiscing about our life in Manila I told my family how I used to see ghosts in our old apartment my dad was shook and told us he used to see ghosts too he asked me why I did not say anything and I said I told Mom but she wouldn't believe me my dad said he used to see a black figure of a man on our stairs whenever he came home from work my younger brother told us also that he used to see the same man around our house that's when my dad told us the his history of that apartment and who he thinks the ghost is a few years before we moved to that apartment there was a tenant who committed suicide by hanging himself on that stairs he was a nursing student studying for his licensure exam and he rented that apartment alone so he could focus but due to the pressure from his father who was a military man and beat beat him he decided to end his life ironically I'm now working as a nurse and my brothers in the military we did not know this story until this year [Music] do you think that the ghost was that telepathically trying to get them into nursing and the military oh interesting yeah maybe the energy was still there and that was like what was drawing them to those things or something I don't know that's good that reminds me of the story of my family where my great-grandfather would come home from work at the jail or the prison out in Buffalo and see the old lady yeah in the house rushed by rushed by and sitting at the table I'm a night owl I should be seeing these ghosts you really should I'm quite disappointed at this point that you haven't seen one yet do I have to have the lights off maybe it's because the lights have to be off I have to walk in the house at night I'll just practice more of that and maybe I'll see someone okay get back with us yeah I'll get you now walking around in the dark yeah entering the house trying to surprise it yeah okay so another thing I I stumbled upon though too is that in the Philippines there is a book series called true Philippine ghost stories and apparently it was like their version of maybe Goosebumps although I never read Goosebumps but the scary stories you tell the dark and it was like cult-like and so there's a whole series of these books so to give you an idea of one of the stories are in these books is so were these true or these are just like Tails they're fictional but like very much I think they're very much that scary urban legends right yeah they're urban legends like the scary stories to tell in the dark did have some root in folklore a lot of those stories were like folklory that kind of he he reconfigured for a more modern audience so to give you an idea of the stories that are in this book this one is from uh Vice I found this on Vice and it's talking about the series and it tells the story of a couple spotted a restaurant by the road they noticed there were plenty of cars in the parking lot and thought it might be a good place to stop and take a break from their long drive inside however they were surprised to see the dining hall close to empty where were all the people from the cars parked outside tired and hungry the couple eagerly enjoyed a beef soup at this restaurant it was so delicious that they asked their server what the secret was she said it was all in the ingredients the couple left and continued their drive to the woman's grandparents house where they were to meet her grandmother and aunts when they finally arrived the family wondered what took them so long the couple said that they had stopped at a restaurant with really good food only to find out from the grandmother and aunts that customers who stayed in the restaurant past dusk never left because they were cooked into the meals
 
 followed the ingredients right that's what I'm asking you what's the [ __ ] thinker I mean everyone has secret ingredients now I'm gonna assume anytime there's a secret ingredient it is human human Soylent Green is human did you ever catch that flick from 1962.
 
 I and so that story was from the true Philippine ghost stories to me it very much sounds like scary stories to tell in the dark like oh I love it creepy stories uh there's a whole series of them but if we do have um some friends in the Philippines who are listening these books are making a comeback and they're looking for submissions interested storytellers can submit their entries conform to the following guidelines stories submitted should follow the theme of the book true Philippine ghost stories length of the story should be between 800 to 2 000 words the story should be written in English Tagalog or taglish and should not have been previously published elsewhere in part or in full and the stories can be submitted by email at tpgs2023 gmail.com and the deadline for submissions is June 30th 2023. so just in time heard it here first or maybe not maybe read the article before me but so I think it's fictional it sounds like they're fictional Tales but they sound so fun like I I want to reread this book now yeah there's several I don't know how many I didn't research it super thoroughly but there's several I feel like I'm looking at a picture of at least 10 what's the name of the series again it's the true Philippine ghost stories you know what I think it's all so maybe it isn't it's true never mind I take it back it's nothing true so maybe they are looking for similar first-person stories of their personal experiences so that was humans
 
 yes for sure um yeah so if you've got a story like that throw it in I'm looking at least like 12 I guess oh 18 21 this is a whole series and so it sounds like it might be a compilation of like Community sourced ghost stories Christmas present I know what I'm getting you yes um so yeah those are our stories from the Philippines I dug this episode this was really fun it's so interesting to hear the different stories from other cultures that I'm not super familiar with I love it absolutely me too if you have a story that you would like to share you can write it into our hot box at skeletalspodcast gmail.com you can also call our hotline 302-689 dead
 
 302-689-3323 leave a message over there even if it is just to say hey y'all what's up you can you can also say hey y'all what's up over on our socials we're on Instagram or on Facebook you can come check out our community on skeletals community on Facebook that was not very smooth but you got the gist we also have a merch shop podcast and on Etsy dot Etsy yeah word kill search but there is some really cool [ __ ] over there really is um and we already sort of plugged our uh YouTube which is fresh and spiffy and getting new stories and posts every day I posted a video of the Kansas City hotel EVP that happened over a year ago now but I hadn't posted that video well it's up now you can go over there and watch it that genuinely creeps me the [ __ ] out if you've not heard that audio you absolutely need to because it is scary and I know Brit isn't full of [ __ ] like at all like she just recorded the scariest thing I've heard probably on this whole episode podcast um I like share review uh we've loved some reviews and uh yeah is that all Britt no there was one very important thing that everyone needs to know okay y'all later taught you later good night good night
 
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