WEBVTT 00:06.264 --> 00:18.018 [SPEAKER_00]: Paranormal experiences don't really work to a time scale, and therefore we invite you to listen to a dark miniser. 00:27.726 --> 00:32.491 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello everyone, and welcome to our penultimate mini-sode for Season 25. 00:32.932 --> 00:37.577 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's right, only next week's mini-sode to go before our finale. 00:37.937 --> 00:45.505 [SPEAKER_00]: And of course we have episode 9, coming out this Friday, which will complete our 369 trilogy for this season. 00:46.186 --> 00:52.369 [SPEAKER_00]: And sincerely, thank you for all of your feedback regarding this 369 series of Season 25. 00:52.929 --> 01:02.493 [SPEAKER_00]: People have riffully said, well shouldn't this be for listener experiences, whilst others have said, I did not know about the case, thank you for bringing you to light. 01:03.013 --> 01:19.901 [SPEAKER_00]: Now I personally enjoyed putting the dark paranormal twist on these should be better known cases, so we will carry it on for Season 26, but only the episode 4 and 9, so basically the penultimate midpoint part and also the penultimate episode. 01:20.421 --> 01:27.244 [SPEAKER_00]: Thereby we're still shedding light on what's gone before, however, we're opening up a slot of course for you wonderful listeners. 01:27.884 --> 01:31.267 [SPEAKER_00]: And as we've made that decision, it's now back on you guys. 01:31.908 --> 01:33.970 [SPEAKER_00]: That means a slot has opened up. 01:34.290 --> 01:35.131 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't get me wrong. 01:35.551 --> 01:41.577 [SPEAKER_00]: We had plenty of experiences, which were substitute experiences for season 26. 01:42.278 --> 01:47.523 [SPEAKER_00]: However, if you are sat on what you believe, could be that filling episode, so to speak. 01:48.023 --> 01:49.104 [SPEAKER_00]: then do send it in. 01:49.684 --> 01:58.530 [SPEAKER_00]: You can submit your experience by clicking on submit my experience in the show notes or go to the darkparanormal.com and click submit my experience. 01:59.391 --> 02:05.535 [SPEAKER_00]: And of course in the show notes you can also gain access to a week free trial of our Patreon at the highest tier. 02:05.815 --> 02:10.678 [SPEAKER_00]: Now I do say any episode what you can gain from Patreon and not going to in this one you should 02:16.222 --> 02:20.545 [SPEAKER_00]: Plus being a patron allows this show to keep going on these feeds. 02:21.226 --> 02:28.531 [SPEAKER_00]: And with the season and break happening soon, where there'll be no dark paranormal for a few weeks, now's the perfect time to check it out. 02:29.011 --> 02:37.077 [SPEAKER_00]: However, it is now time for our mini-sode, the penultimate mini-sode of the season, and a mini-sode which is very cerebral. 02:37.637 --> 02:40.179 [SPEAKER_00]: You won't receive any jump scares within this mini-sode. 02:40.599 --> 02:42.781 [SPEAKER_00]: You will walk away with questions. 02:43.521 --> 02:52.547 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you're anything like our team, those questions will range from, I don't get it to, I need to have a serious think about this. 02:53.228 --> 03:02.694 [SPEAKER_00]: And although when we choose the larger main episodes for the dark paranormal, that sort of response results in much longer conversations about whether the episode air. 03:03.840 --> 03:05.801 [SPEAKER_00]: with the shorter experiences. 03:06.461 --> 03:20.204 [SPEAKER_00]: If I hear one member of the team say, I just don't get it, but another team member seems totally confused by the episode and even more confused how somebody didn't get it, I smile and think that's a miniser. 03:21.025 --> 03:29.847 [SPEAKER_00]: And personally what I found brilliant about this miniser is it throws up something that I don't think we've discussed or touched on before. 03:30.995 --> 03:44.534 [SPEAKER_00]: and that is the fact that sometimes your level of knowledge in a non-paranormal thing can leave you convinced in the paranormal, which is what happens in today's episode. 03:45.656 --> 03:55.144 [SPEAKER_00]: So, no more from me, so please take 15-20 minutes to yourself and absorb this episode and see what you make of it. 03:56.005 --> 04:01.029 [SPEAKER_00]: As we listen closely, no pun intended to the infinite refrain. 04:03.371 --> 04:11.598 [SPEAKER_00]: Hi Kev, I've been a listener for about three years now, mostly on the long drive in between jobs as that's most of my day. 04:13.117 --> 04:24.707 [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't written in before because usually my life is pretty dull, compared to what you usually get set, but something happened this year that I just can't put down. 04:25.929 --> 04:27.410 [SPEAKER_00]: So I thought I'd send it to you. 04:28.704 --> 04:39.448 [SPEAKER_00]: My name is Duncan, and 44, self-employed as a piano tuner, based in shrubsha, and sometimes over the border into Wales when the diaries quiet. 04:40.308 --> 04:44.350 [SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing it 18 years, I trained under a man called Jeff. 04:44.990 --> 04:50.712 [SPEAKER_00]: Jeffs retired now, and I inherited a third chunk of his old client list when he stopped. 04:51.673 --> 04:55.994 [SPEAKER_00]: That's relevant, because the piano in this story was one of his. 04:56.735 --> 04:57.395 [SPEAKER_00]: Then mine. 04:58.337 --> 05:06.101 [SPEAKER_00]: For going on 11 years in total between us, the house the piano sits in belongs to a woman named Mrs. 05:06.181 --> 05:08.763 [SPEAKER_00]: Bats, out past based in Hill. 05:10.003 --> 05:17.127 [SPEAKER_00]: She's a widow, mid 70s, sharp as a tack, very well-spoken but exceptionally funnier with it. 05:18.188 --> 05:26.092 [SPEAKER_00]: Her husband, Ted, died about six years ago, not long after I took the client list from Jeff, so I never got to meet him. 05:27.362 --> 05:35.528 [SPEAKER_00]: The piano is no fright one, broadwood, decent age it sits in the hall against the stairs where you'd normally put a coat rack. 05:36.589 --> 05:39.651 [SPEAKER_00]: It hasn't been played properly ever since her husband died. 05:40.412 --> 05:42.934 [SPEAKER_00]: However, she keeps that piano tuned anyway. 05:43.594 --> 05:50.940 [SPEAKER_00]: Once a year, because, Ted liked the house to have, a piano that was ready, even if it was never touched. 05:51.941 --> 05:52.741 [SPEAKER_00]: I always thought it was 05:56.873 --> 06:02.918 [SPEAKER_00]: But tuning a piano that nobody plays is very different to tuning one that gets regular use. 06:03.999 --> 06:08.063 [SPEAKER_00]: One regularly played, kind of keeps itself roughly in check. 06:08.663 --> 06:12.247 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a string tension settling into a kind of rhythm with the playing. 06:13.388 --> 06:18.072 [SPEAKER_00]: However, one that just sits there gathering dust will eventually become uneven. 06:19.030 --> 06:31.316 [SPEAKER_00]: The felts on the hammers stay soft because nothing's compressing them, and that a normal boring fact about pianos, and I only mention that because it's the reason I noticed anything at all. 06:32.737 --> 06:43.202 [SPEAKER_00]: Back in March, doing the annual on the broadwood, I opened the piano up as usual, and the hammethelts were exactly what I'd expect it, soft, even, 06:44.261 --> 06:48.824 [SPEAKER_00]: The dust on the felt dampers told me no one had so much as lifted the foreboard in a year. 06:49.885 --> 07:09.960 [SPEAKER_00]: Except one hammer, the earth above middle sea, that one hammer had a groove worn into the felt, a proper groove, the kind of groove you only get from thousands of strikes over the years, not new where either, old where, going right back. 07:10.859 --> 07:26.968 [SPEAKER_00]: As if that one note had been hammered constantly while the rest of the piano remained untouched, I mentioned this anomaly to Mrs. Vance, however her face was worn which made me think I'm not going to push this anymore. 07:28.010 --> 07:32.752 [SPEAKER_00]: It was a mixture of both fear, confusion, and almost anger. 07:33.612 --> 07:37.933 [SPEAKER_00]: So I decided to just do my job and tune the dampy end up. 07:37.953 --> 07:47.617 [SPEAKER_00]: I tune the whole thing properly, I checked it twice as I always do, I packed up, I had a cup of tea with her like I usually do once a year because she is good company. 07:48.317 --> 07:51.618 [SPEAKER_00]: However, she seemed a bit off after my previous mention. 07:52.619 --> 07:53.199 [SPEAKER_00]: And I left. 07:54.319 --> 07:56.560 [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing else struck me as odd with that visit. 07:57.910 --> 08:03.575 [SPEAKER_00]: And I should say that because it's tempting with these stories to say, you've felt something the second you walked in. 08:03.855 --> 08:04.856 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I didn't. 08:05.456 --> 08:06.978 [SPEAKER_00]: It was your average Tuesday. 08:08.639 --> 08:11.021 [SPEAKER_00]: 10 days later, she rang. 08:12.162 --> 08:14.744 [SPEAKER_00]: She said the piano was out of tune again. 08:15.605 --> 08:16.365 [SPEAKER_00]: Just one note. 08:17.466 --> 08:21.590 [SPEAKER_00]: The F above middle C, saying it was badly flat. 08:22.450 --> 08:23.871 [SPEAKER_00]: But everything else was fine. 08:24.832 --> 08:30.877 [SPEAKER_00]: Surprised, initially, that she'd even bother to touch the piano that alone could spot its being out of tune. 08:31.777 --> 08:34.299 [SPEAKER_00]: I told her that's not really how piano's work. 08:35.260 --> 08:44.127 [SPEAKER_00]: A whole instrument can drift over a few days, but not one isolated note going noticeably flat, especially if the rest holds steady. 08:45.168 --> 08:46.669 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not tension settling. 08:47.350 --> 08:50.172 [SPEAKER_00]: That would be something physically off with the string or the pin. 08:51.268 --> 08:54.890 [SPEAKER_00]: So I went back out, expecting a slipped tuning pin. 08:55.370 --> 08:57.472 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a hurling crack near the pin block. 08:58.032 --> 09:00.754 [SPEAKER_00]: Something very ordinary I could point to and fix. 09:01.994 --> 09:04.816 [SPEAKER_00]: Back in Mrs. Vance's eye checked it. 09:04.996 --> 09:06.977 [SPEAKER_00]: I checked the pin, I checked the string. 09:07.778 --> 09:10.299 [SPEAKER_00]: There was no given the string the pin was fine. 09:10.659 --> 09:11.020 [SPEAKER_00]: Solid. 09:11.900 --> 09:14.362 [SPEAKER_00]: I checked the soundboard behind for any cracking. 09:14.982 --> 09:15.302 [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing. 09:16.523 --> 09:19.785 [SPEAKER_00]: So I retuned that single note in front of Mrs. Vance. 09:20.597 --> 09:25.303 [SPEAKER_00]: I checked it three times with my meter, dead accurate, and she agreed. 09:26.224 --> 09:27.425 [SPEAKER_00]: So I closed the lid. 09:28.166 --> 09:34.414 [SPEAKER_00]: She smiled and offered me tears she normally does, and wanted to show me something she'd planted at the rear of the garden. 09:35.673 --> 09:39.715 [SPEAKER_00]: I followed thinking it was a touch and usual I'd never been in the garden before. 09:40.536 --> 09:50.701 [SPEAKER_00]: As we walked towards the back of the garden and she's telling me about this wonderful bush that she's had planted, I had that note getting played clearly. 09:52.182 --> 09:59.966 [SPEAKER_00]: I saw a look cross her face and instead of addressing it she increased her volume and her fake smile. 10:01.077 --> 10:07.582 [SPEAKER_00]: and hurriedly led me to the back of the garden to show me some very basic plants. 10:07.602 --> 10:10.785 [SPEAKER_00]: I quickly made my excuses and she led me to the full door. 10:11.745 --> 10:19.672 [SPEAKER_00]: On my way out, I lifted the foreboard one more time out of habit, and I just plugged it once, just to hear a clean before I left. 10:21.233 --> 10:25.056 [SPEAKER_00]: It was going flat, not wildly, but clearly. 10:26.063 --> 10:32.646 [SPEAKER_00]: Given I checked everything and I tuned this machine just 40 minutes before this should have been impossible. 10:33.566 --> 10:39.169 [SPEAKER_00]: But she didn't spot the slight flatness in the note, smiled and opened the front door. 10:41.310 --> 10:45.112 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't tell her it was going flat, I don't know why, I just didn't. 10:45.132 --> 10:49.934 [SPEAKER_00]: I packed the car and I drove off, telling myself I may have misheard. 10:50.794 --> 10:52.255 [SPEAKER_00]: My own ear was tired. 10:53.167 --> 11:05.334 [SPEAKER_00]: which does happen after a long day of nothing but pitch, but something felt different. 11:05.354 --> 11:16.120 [SPEAKER_00]: I went back a third time in June, this time on my own initiative rather than getting a call from her, telling myself I wanted to rule out something with the room itself, 11:21.982 --> 11:26.326 [SPEAKER_00]: I told her I'd be round and they have the noon, and I met her getting out of her car. 11:27.147 --> 11:32.973 [SPEAKER_00]: She smiled and fumbled in her purse for a keys, and that's when we both heard it again. 11:33.854 --> 11:42.142 [SPEAKER_00]: That solitary flat F. Being hit once and hard from inside the empty house. 11:43.599 --> 11:46.160 [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to say, did you just hear that? 11:46.861 --> 11:53.044 [SPEAKER_00]: But I noticed her face held that worry some look, the one that had stopped me in my tracks last time. 11:53.604 --> 12:01.108 [SPEAKER_00]: So I decided to keep quiet as she turned the key in the door and let us both into the hall with the piano and it's lived down. 12:02.069 --> 12:06.731 [SPEAKER_00]: Mrs. Vant asked if I needed anything, I said no, I was fine and I bent down, 12:11.139 --> 12:15.784 [SPEAKER_00]: More to satisfy myself because I thought it would show something, but it didn't. 12:16.444 --> 12:21.710 [SPEAKER_00]: The humidity was fine, no worse than any other hallway in an old stone house. 12:22.891 --> 12:26.455 [SPEAKER_00]: I even swapped the string on that note for a brand new one entirely. 12:27.215 --> 12:33.442 [SPEAKER_00]: Just in case that old wire did have a fault within, but new string same result. 12:34.865 --> 12:38.586 [SPEAKER_00]: I gave it a week before going back to check rather than testing in the same visit. 12:39.467 --> 12:50.430 [SPEAKER_00]: In case my own returning was somehow disturbing it, but we clated flat by the exact same amount, nothing else moved. 12:51.231 --> 12:57.953 [SPEAKER_00]: The whole rest of the piano holding its tuning perfectly same as always, just that worn note. 12:58.872 --> 13:06.437 [SPEAKER_00]: Resetting itself to a specific pitch, rather than drifting loosely the way an untouched string normally should. 13:09.058 --> 13:15.483 [SPEAKER_00]: Mrs. Vanth brought me my tea and I felt the need to mention the worn felt on that one note again. 13:16.723 --> 13:23.087 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked if she was completely sure nobody had ever touched it even briefly after Ted passed. 13:27.391 --> 13:29.233 [SPEAKER_00]: much longer than she had the first time. 13:30.414 --> 13:40.141 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I asked if she'd ever hit that F. She laughed and said that F was the one note Ted could never get past. 13:41.543 --> 13:44.125 [SPEAKER_00]: She said he'd taught himself a bit as a young man. 13:44.825 --> 13:46.787 [SPEAKER_00]: Self-taught never had lessons. 13:47.648 --> 13:52.351 [SPEAKER_00]: And there was one particular passage in some peace he used to always try. 13:53.223 --> 14:00.350 [SPEAKER_00]: but he would always fluff it at that exact note, every single time, for years, decades even. 14:01.351 --> 14:04.113 [SPEAKER_00]: Right up until his hands got too bad to play at all. 14:05.495 --> 14:07.817 [SPEAKER_00]: She said this fondly, even left a bit. 14:08.958 --> 14:16.385 [SPEAKER_00]: She said the sound of him getting stuck on that same note over and over, used to drive our half-mad when they were first married, 14:17.654 --> 14:25.420 [SPEAKER_00]: still smiling, she said sometimes she's convinced she has that note when she cooks or is about the house. 14:26.401 --> 14:36.329 [SPEAKER_00]: I smiled back because it didn't feel like my place to let her know somebody was hitting this note over and over again, definitely over the last few months. 14:38.451 --> 14:43.335 [SPEAKER_00]: I finished my tea and told her I'd come back if it played up again and I left it at that. 14:44.445 --> 14:49.527 [SPEAKER_00]: She hasn't called since, and I don't know if it's held, or if she just hasn't mentioned it. 14:50.828 --> 14:57.751 [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't been back out that way, no other jobs on that road, and I'll be honest, I've not gone looking for a reason to go. 14:58.532 --> 15:12.598 [SPEAKER_00]: But apart from most definitely hearing those two F-notes struck by seemingly an invisible hand, what stuck with me more than any of this, if I'm honest, is something small that 15:14.770 --> 15:17.832 [SPEAKER_00]: and it's nothing to do with Mrs. Vance or that piano. 15:18.953 --> 15:26.399 [SPEAKER_00]: And you climb to Feust Street's over in the same part of Basin Hill, put me in for a first ever tuning back in July. 15:27.400 --> 15:31.903 [SPEAKER_00]: A different piano, a different family, no connection to Mrs. Vance. 15:32.884 --> 15:40.530 [SPEAKER_00]: It was an ordinary job, and at the end of it whilst I was packing away my tools, the lady asks almost as an actor thought. 15:41.446 --> 15:51.751 [SPEAKER_00]: Whether it would be normal for a piano to keep dropping out of tune on just the one note, no matter how many times you'd had it seen too. 15:53.232 --> 16:02.416 [SPEAKER_00]: She said she'd let go of her old piano tuner, as he couldn't seem to get a grip of the one particular note, so she'd stopped using him. 16:03.677 --> 16:07.538 [SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't asking about anything specific, she was just making conversation. 16:12.165 --> 16:16.008 [SPEAKER_00]: I, stupidly, in hindsight, asked which note. 16:17.349 --> 16:20.671 [SPEAKER_00]: She said she didn't know the note as she herself was not musical. 16:21.812 --> 16:30.117 [SPEAKER_00]: And then she walked over and pressed the F after middle seat for an unknown reason I felt a chill go down my spine. 16:30.838 --> 16:34.821 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked her how often she or a relative plays the piano. 16:36.041 --> 16:40.605 [SPEAKER_00]: And she said it's not been touched since her husband Ed died a year ago. 16:41.552 --> 16:44.453 [SPEAKER_00]: The similarities were too severe to ignore. 16:45.534 --> 16:47.094 [SPEAKER_00]: 18 years I've done this job. 16:47.394 --> 16:54.277 [SPEAKER_00]: I've had warped sound boards, mice within the actions, one piano with a wasps nest built entirely inside the lid. 16:54.697 --> 16:55.338 [SPEAKER_00]: But never. 16:56.078 --> 16:56.398 [SPEAKER_00]: Never. 16:56.978 --> 16:59.339 [SPEAKER_00]: Have I had one note on one instrument? 16:59.759 --> 17:00.880 [SPEAKER_00]: Behave like that. 17:01.920 --> 17:09.622 [SPEAKER_00]: And now I've had a second household, unconnected, mentioned the exact same thing almost in passing. 17:10.443 --> 17:13.103 [SPEAKER_00]: Like this isn't something worth remarking on. 17:14.044 --> 17:18.125 [SPEAKER_00]: But believe me when I tell you, this is not just rare. 17:18.865 --> 17:20.506 [SPEAKER_00]: It's borderline impossible. 17:21.686 --> 17:28.428 [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't help feel that it's neither Mrs. Vance's husband nor Ed, who are doing this. 17:31.308 --> 17:32.589 [SPEAKER_00]: it's something to do with me. 17:33.909 --> 17:42.974 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to know what, I experienced nothing at home, but I do feel like something is trying to get a message to me. 17:44.215 --> 17:45.436 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to hear your thoughts. 17:46.356 --> 17:46.796 [SPEAKER_00]: Duncan. 17:48.257 --> 17:53.220 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Duncan, thank you for providing us with our penultimate minisode first of all. 17:54.440 --> 17:59.163 [SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, I would say, my thoughts are literally just my thoughts. 18:00.293 --> 18:05.637 [SPEAKER_00]: And I genuinely do not know, or cannot confirm if something is trying to give a message to you. 18:06.417 --> 18:16.645 [SPEAKER_00]: If one of our listeners has a good theory about what could be happening to in regards to receiving a message that way, by all means do email us contact at thedogparanormal.com. 18:16.965 --> 18:23.450 [SPEAKER_00]: However, what I will say Duncan is, this is genuinely the first time I've ever considered. 18:24.110 --> 18:25.391 [SPEAKER_00]: How someone can have a 18:25.973 --> 18:30.055 [SPEAKER_00]: expertise in something that is not paranormal, I.e. 18:30.335 --> 18:45.123 [SPEAKER_00]: you being a piano tuner, and how you can spot something that you believe is proof of something else, due to what you witnessed in your non-paranormal work, and I think that's truly fascinating. 18:46.264 --> 18:53.468 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think many of us are experts in our field, so who knows how many messages we may be missing. 18:54.398 --> 19:01.461 [SPEAKER_00]: We will be back next week for our final mini-sode of Season 25 but until then stay safe and take care.