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True Paranormal Nightmares | Multi-Creator Storytelling Compilation · Mystery Archives Episodes

• 0:00
  This video showcases multiple fantastic narrators and creators
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  here on YouTube and features a story by yours truly.
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  These creators I've had the pleasure of getting to know over
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  the last several years. I hope you enjoy their stories
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  and appreciate the differences between us all, but remember
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  that we all share the commonality of passion for
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  storytelling. Today we will be weaving tales
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  that explore various strange and paranormal topics.
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  Thank you so much for your time and please give these creators
• 0:32
  some love. Make sure to share, subscribe,
• 0:36
  and leave us a comment below. Now let us begin.
• 0:41
  When police arrived at the house in Bothell, WA in 2012, they
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  found a message burned into the living room wall. 3 letters that
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  were in this black soot D i.e The man who called the police
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  was standing in his driveway barefoot, hands blistered.
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  His girlfriend was still screaming inside.
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  He told police that something had been living in the house
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  with him for eight months and that it wanted them dead.
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  His name was Keith Linder, and eight months earlier he had no
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  idea what was waiting for him in that house.
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  OK, so on a cool afternoon in February 2012, Keith Linder
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  stood in the driveway of a modest two-story house just
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  outside Seattle, WA. The house was in Bothell, a
• 1:43
  quiet suburban neighborhood where people knew their
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  neighbors and, you know, the kids rode bikes in the streets.
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  But, you know, just a little foreshadowing, which I hate to
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  do. Bothell is spelled BOTHELLI.
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  Just thought I'd tell you that. So Keith was 48 years old.
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  He worked in technology, you know, the tech field.
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  And he was finally moving in with his girlfriend, Tina, after
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  years of dating. This felt like a new chapter to
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  him. The rents was reasonable.
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  The landlord seemed nice. The house had three bedrooms, a
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  finished basement, and a backyard with a fence.
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  It was perfect. And Keith was also deeply
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  religious. He'd grown up Baptist, read his
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  Bible every morning, and made sure that before he even
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  unpacked the furniture, he placed a cross in every single
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  room. One in the living room above the
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  TV, one in the kitchen, one in each bedroom, and he kept 3
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  bibles in the house at all times.
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  One of them was on his night stand, one of them was on the
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  coffee table, and one of them he kept deep in the basement.
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  Tina thought it was a little much, but she didn't say
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  anything that that was just Keith.
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  And as they move in, the first month is totally normal.
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  They painted the walls. They hung up pictures.
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  Tina planted flowers in the backyard.
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  Keith set up his Home Office in one of the spare bedrooms.
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  Totally normal. In fact, everything just felt
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  right. But then, early March, Keith
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  started hearing something at night.
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  It sounded like this scratching, almost like something that was
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  dragging its nails across wood and it was coming from inside
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  the walls. So logically, at first, of
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  course, he thought it was mice, so he set traps.
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  But nothing ever got caught, and the scratching continued.
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  And it always happened at the same time.
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  Right around 3:00 AM, Keith would wake up and there it was.
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  Scratch, scratch, scratch. Sometimes right behind his
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  headboard. So he would turn on the light
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  and it would stop. So he turned the light off, and
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  within minutes it would restart again.
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  And one night in late March, Keith woke up just after 3:00 AM
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  to use the bathroom, and when he walked past the living room, he
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  stopped. The cross above the TV was
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  upside down. Literally, like in a movie.
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  And the Bible on the coffee table was open.
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  And he always kept it closed. He always did.
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  So he checked the nail on the wall and it was tight.
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  There was no way that that cross could have flipped on its own.
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  So he tries not to scare himself too much and he goes back to
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  bed. And when he wakes up the next
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  morning, he tells Tina and she said, maybe, you know, he had
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  bumped into it and didn't even realize.
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  And Keith really didn't argue, but he knew something was off.
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  Then in early April, Keith came home from work and found every
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  cabinet in the kitchen. Wide open Upper cabinets, lower
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  cabinets, the pantry. Tina wasn't even home, and when
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  he called her, she said she'd been at work all day.
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  That night, he set up a camera in the kitchen, and at 3:17 AM,
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  it happened again. Keith woke up to this loud bang
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  from downstairs, so he ran to the kitchen.
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  Every cabinet again was open. He checked the footage, and what
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  he saw made his stomach turn. At exactly 3:14 AM, one cabinet
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  door slowly started to open, then another, then another,
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  opening one by one in sequence. No hands, no wires.
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  Then at 3:17 AM, one door slam shut so hard that the camera
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  shook. So, as you could imagine, this
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  is hard to believe, right? But Keith ended up showing the
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  footage the next day to Tina, and she watched it twice.
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  She didn't say anything at 1st. And then she said maybe it's the
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  house settling. Everybody always says that it's
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  settling, which is true. Houses do settle and they make
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  creaks and all this stuff. And then she said maybe there's
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  a draft. And Keith kind of just stared at
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  her. A draft does not open cabinets
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  in sequence. A draft doesn't slam a door hard
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  enough to shake a camera. But.
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  Things got worse a week later. Keith was just sitting on the
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  couch watching TV when he felt it move.
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  Not a little shift, the entire couch slid 3 feet across the
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  floor. He jumped up and looked around,
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  of course, and no one else was in the room.
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  The couch had just literally moved on its own, and when he
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  looked down at the floor, he could see the drag marks in the
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  carpet. Yes, once again, this is a real
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  story. Later that day, Tina saw the
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  Marks and she could not explain them obviously, but she also
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  didn't want to talk about it. Just like most people, if they
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  can't control it, they don't even want to think about it.
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  So she started staying at her mom's house just a few nights a
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  week to kind of get it out of her mind.
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  But you know, she said it was because her mom needed help with
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  something. But Keith knew.
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  Keith knew she was scared, and so was he.
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  And in May, Keith woke up to this new thing.
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  It was a smell, something burning.
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  So he ran downstairs and he found his Bible on the coffee
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  table, smoking. Not on fire, just smoking like
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  someone had almost held a lighter to the back of the
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  cover. The edges were singed black and
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  when he picked it up it was warm to the touch.
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  He threw it in the sink and turned on the water and right
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  there, right there, that's when he saw it.
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  On the wall behind the couch, written in what looked like dark
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  soot. 3 letters D i.e. But Keith didn't notice in that
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  moment what else had changed in the room while he slept.
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  So just imagine seeing D i.e. What would you do?
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  Well, let me know in the comments because Keith called
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  the police and they came. They took photos.
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  They asked if he had any enemies.
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  Keith said no. They asked if anyone else had
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  access to the house. He said no and they wrote up a
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  report. It says D IE1 of the officers
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  told Keith that it looked like it was just a prank, maybe some
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  kids broke in, but Keith had checked every door and window
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  before calling. Everything was locked from the
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  inside. So they left and Keith knew what
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  they were thinking, that he had done it himself.
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  That's when Keith started posting his videos online.
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  The cabinet footage, the couch moving photos of the burned
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  Bible, photos of the writing on the wall.
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  And the comments, of course, came flooding in.
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  Fake, fake, fake staged Attention Seeker, a popular
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  ghost hunting channel, did a breakdown video calling Keith a
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  fraud. So, Keith.
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  Reached out to local paranormal investigators and most of them
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  just ignored him. So he contacted priests and one
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  of them came to the house, looked around for 10 minutes and
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  said that they did not sense anything evil.
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  He suggested that Keith go and see a therapist.
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  So Keith called the landlord about an exorcism and the
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  landlord said no. While all this is going on, Tina
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  moves out in June. She packed her things while
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  Keith was at work and left a note on the counter.
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  Keith knew what that meant. She believed him, and she
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  couldn't handle it anymore. And now Keith was alone in this
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  house. He'd sit on that couch, the same
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  couch that slid across the floor, and realized he had no
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  one to call, nobody who believed him at all.
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  The police thought that he was staging it.
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  The Internet thought that he was a liar.
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  Tina was gone, the priest wouldn't help, and whatever was
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  in the house with him knew it. Keith wasn't scared of ghosts
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  anymore. He was scared of losing his
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  mind, of becoming the guy everybody laughed at.
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  So he prayed harder. He slept less, he ate almost
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  nothing, and he lost 15 lbs in just two months.
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  His hands would shake when he tried to type at work.
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  His boss would ask if everything was OK at home and Keith just
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  said yes. But it wasn't, because every
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  night at 3:00 AM, the whispers came back and the activity got
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  worse. He'd come home to find furniture
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  now fully rearranged. He'd hear footsteps walking
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  circles around his bed. At night, he'd wake up to the
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  sound of someone whispering his name, and it always happened at
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  3:00 AM. Always.
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  Then one night in July, Keith was lying in bed when he heard
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  it, his name whispered right next to his ear.
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  He didn't move, he didn't open his eyes.
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  He just laid there, waiting for it to stop.
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  But then he felt some. It was this pressure that was on
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  his chest, like someone was pressing down on him.
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  He couldn't breathe. He tried to move his arms, but
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  they wouldn't respond. And then he heard it again,
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  louder this time. He, he, he, he forced his eyes
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  open and he looked at the foot of his bed.
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  And that's when he saw something standing there, watching him
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  sleep. And what it was, well, it was a
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  shadow. Tall, dark, humanoid, but wrong.
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  It had no features, just a shape, and it was staring at
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  him. Keith screamed, and the shadow
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  didn't move, it just stood there, watching.
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  Let me know in the comments right now if this is when you
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  would move or if you would have already moved.
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  Because at this point, the thing leaned forward, closer to
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  Keith's face. And that's when Keith ran.
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  Literally. He grabbed his phone and he ran
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  out of the house barefoot. He sat in his car until sunrise,
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  and when he finally went back inside, he found something new
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  on his wall. Not D i.e. this time.
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  Something worse. Written in that same black suit.
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  It said I'm not done. So Keith didn't know what to do.
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  His lease wasn't up until 2013. He'd already lost Tina.
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  He lost credibility, and nobody in Seattle would help him.
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  He was completely alone. He was broke.
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  He was terrified. And whatever was in that house
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  knew it. But then in August, Keith woke
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  up to find a message in his inbox.
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  You've got mail. It was from a man named Steve
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  Mara, and the subject line read You're not crazy, but you are in
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  danger. Steve was a paranormal
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  investigator from the UK. He'd been researching cases in
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  the Pacific Northwest and came across Keith's videos.
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  He said he had seen a lot of fakes in his 30 years of
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  investigating, and he said that Keith's videos looked fake too.
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  They looked fake, but there was something about them that
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  bothered him, little details that didn't add up if Keith was
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  staging everything. Steve said he had investigated
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  over 300 cases and only twice had he seen activity like what
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  Keith was documenting. Both times the people involved
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  ended up in the hospital, so Steve wanted to come to Seattle
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  with his partner Don Phillips, and they wanted to stay in the
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  house for a few days and see for themselves.
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  And if Keith was telling the truth, they would help him, but
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  if he was lying, they would expose him.
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  And Keith said yes immediately. And then Steve and Don flew in
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  on August 23rd, 2012. They brought EMF meters,
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  infrared cameras and audio recorders.
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  They set everything up and told Keith just to act normal.
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  Just go about your day and they would, you know, monitor the
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  equipment and see what happened. And the first night, nothing
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  happened. Steve and Don sat in the living
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  room watching the meters. Everything was quiet.
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  They told Keith that that was normal.
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  Most hauntings don't perform on command, so Keith went to bed
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  around midnight, and Steve and Dawn stayed up at 3:11 in the
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  morning. Steve looked down at his watch
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  and yawned. He was about to suggest that
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  they call tonight when every single EMF meter in the house
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  started screaming all at once. So Steve and Don jumped up and
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  grabbed their cameras. Their meters were spiking.
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  The readings were off the charts.
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  And then they heard it. A loud crash from the basement.
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  So they ran downstairs and found books scattered all over the
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  floor. An entire bookshelf had been
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  emptied. And the books weren't just on
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  the ground, they were thrown. Some were 15 feet away from the
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  shelf. Steve and Don checked their
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  cameras. The footage showed the books
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  flying off the shelf, 1 by 1. No hands, no wires, just flying,
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  which is impossible, right? And then we get to the audio
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  recorder. They heard something, a voice.
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  It was faint, but it was clear. And it said get out.
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  They played it back for Keith the next morning, and Keith's
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  face went white because the voice on the recording sounded
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  exactly like Keith, and over the next three nights they recorded
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  more voices. Don was in the basement
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  adjusting a camera when he heard scratches right above him.
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  He looked up at the ceiling and saw something dark crawling
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  across the beams. This is getting crazy and scary,
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  he said. It was something that moved
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  wrong. He backed out and then wouldn't
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  go down there again, and when Steve asked what he saw, Don
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  just shook his head. He said he saw it and that was
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  enough. On the fourth night, every light
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  bulb in the house shattered at the same time.
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  All of them, living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom,
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  basement. Steve and Don were standing in
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  the dark with glass all around them.
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  And that's when they heard it again.
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  The whispering Keith, Keith, Keith, over and over and over.
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  On the 5th day, Steve and Don packed up their equipment and
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  left, and before they got in their rental car, Steve turned
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  to Keith. He put his hand on Keith's
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  shoulder and his voice was quiet, almost like he didn't
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  want the house to hear him, and he said quote, In 30 years I've
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  never seen anything like this. It knows your name, it knows
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  you're alone, and it's not going to stop.
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  Keith then asked what it wanted and Steve didn't have an answer.
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  He just got in the car and he drove away.
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  So Keith ended up moving out in September 2012.
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  It's like the house won. He broke his lease and paid the
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  penalty. He didn't care, he just needed
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  to leave. He moved into a small apartment
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  across town and tried to rebuild his life, but it wasn't over.
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  He still heard the whisper sometimes.
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  He still woke up at 3:00 AM for no reason, and on those nights
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  he would check his walls just in case.
• 19:08
  And his health started to decline again, migraines this
• 19:11
  time, plus anxiety and insomnia, and he would have these panic
• 19:16
  attacks in the middle of grocery stores.
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  His doctor couldn't find anything physically wrong with
• 19:23
  him, but Keith knew whatever had been in that house had broken
• 19:27
  something inside him that could not be fixed.
• 19:31
  So Steve Mara and Don Phillips published their findings in a
• 19:36
  report called The Bothell Hell House.
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  They included photos, video, and audio evidence.
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  They concluded that the activity in Keith's house was genuine and
• 19:48
  possibly demonic in nature. The report got some attention in
• 19:53
  paranormal circles, but most people still did not believe it.
• 19:59
  The house in Bothell is still there.
• 20:01
  It's been rented several times since Keith left, but tenants
• 20:05
  never stay long. Some leave just after a week or
• 20:08
  two, others make it a month or two.
• 20:11
  The landlord eventually stopped asking why people kept breaking
• 20:15
  their leases, and he just started offering shorter rental
• 20:19
  terms. Keith Lender still lives in
• 20:21
  Washington. He wrote a book about his
• 20:23
  experience. He does interviews sometimes and
• 20:27
  he always says the same thing. Whatever was in that house
• 20:31
  followed me. I still hear it, I still see it,
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  and I don't think it's ever going to leave me alone.
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  And the last thing written on Keith's wall before he moved out
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  was I'm not done. The house in Bothell is still
• 20:47
  there. You can look it up.
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  The address is public. The landlord still lists it
• 20:53
  online if you want to stay there.
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  But if you decide to stay there, just remember what that demon
• 20:58
  told Keith before he left. I'm not done.
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  May 18th, 1953, Manila City Hall in the Philippines.
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  Mayor Arsenio Lakson sits across from an 18 year old girl in a
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  holding room. She is trembling, pale and
• 21:18
  terrified. For 9 days she has been
• 21:20
  screaming in her jail cell that invisible creatures are biting
• 21:25
  her. The guards think she's insane,
• 21:28
  the doctors are baffled, but Mayor Laxon is here to see it
• 21:32
  for himself. He reaches across the table and
• 21:36
  takes her hand. And then right in front of his
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  eyes, fresh bite marks appear on her neck.
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  Human teeth marks, deep bleeding.
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  He's still holding her hand. She couldn't have done it
• 21:49
  herself. Within 15 minutes, more marks
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  appear on her finger, the one he's holding.
• 21:55
  The mayor, the doctors, the reporters in the room, they all
• 21:58
  see it happen and nobody can explain it.
• 22:01
  Her name is Clarita Villanueva, and over the next few days, her
• 22:06
  story will make international headlines as the first
• 22:10
  documented case of demonic possession in Asia.
• 22:15
  What's going on guys? I am Mr. E Files.
• 22:19
  I tell stories of the mysterious, twisted and
• 22:22
  paranormal. I just want to give a huge shout
• 22:25
  out to Mystery Archives. He literally is helping younger
• 22:28
  channels like mine grow. So for that, let's just hit the
• 22:32
  like button. What do you say?
• 22:37
  Clarita grew up in Bacalod City in the Philippines, and by the
• 22:41
  time, sadly, she was just 18 years old, both of her parents
• 22:44
  were dead. You see, weirdly, her mother had
• 22:48
  been a fortune teller involved in what locals called
• 22:52
  witchcraft. And when she died, Clarita was
• 22:55
  left alone with nothing. No family, no money, and no
• 22:58
  education. So she did what thousands of
• 23:01
  desperate women did in 1950s Manila.
• 23:04
  She went to the capital looking for work.
• 23:07
  She found a job as a maid and it didn't pay much, but it was
• 23:11
  enough just to survive. And then she fell in love.
• 23:15
  She met a man who promised her the world.
• 23:18
  So they got married and she finally felt like she found
• 23:21
  someone who truly wanted her. That is until she discovered
• 23:27
  that he was already married. So heartbroken and jobless at
• 23:31
  this point, Clarita did what she had to do to survive.
• 23:35
  She became a club dancer and then, sadly, when that wasn't
• 23:39
  enough, she turned to St. work, if you know what I mean, and by
• 23:42
  early 1953, she was homeless, sleeping on street corners in
• 23:47
  the Malat district of Manila. But on May 6th, 1953, while
• 23:53
  sleeping on the sidewalk, Clarita allegedly offered
• 23:57
  services to a plainclothes police officer.
• 24:01
  So she was arrested on the spot for vagrancy and then thrown
• 24:05
  into Bilibit Prison, a 300 year old colonial jail in the heart
• 24:11
  of Manila. Guys, I want you to think about
• 24:13
  this. She was only 18 years old.
• 24:16
  She was alone and forgotten, and three days later, something
• 24:22
  found her. So three days later, May 9th,
• 24:25
  1953, at 10:00 PM, Clarita and other inmates had just finished
• 24:30
  praying the rosary, A nightly ritual in that prison.
• 24:34
  So she was laying in her bunk, you know, trying to fall asleep,
• 24:37
  when she felt something land on her chest.
• 24:41
  It was heavy, it was cold, and it was breathing.
• 24:45
  So she opened her eyes and she saw nothing, but she felt it,
• 24:50
  you know, sitting on top of her, like pinning her down.
• 24:53
  And then it bit her, a sharp pain, like fangs, you know,
• 24:57
  seeping into her arm. So Clarita screamed, and the
• 25:01
  guards then rushed down to her cell to see what was going on,
• 25:06
  and they found her. Just imagine looking at a woman
• 25:08
  in a prison cell thrashing, you know, clawing at her own body,
• 25:13
  yelling that they were biting her.
• 25:15
  So the guards obviously looked around.
• 25:17
  They looked at the situation. And then to break the tension,
• 25:21
  they laughed. And they thought, you know,
• 25:23
  another crazy inmate just looking for attention.
• 25:26
  But then they saw the marks. And these weren't old marks by
• 25:31
  any means. These were fresh bite marks,
• 25:34
  human shaped, on her arms, her neck and her legs.
• 25:37
  And they were deep. She was bleeding, impossible to
• 25:41
  self inflict, especially the ones on her back and on the back
• 25:45
  of her neck. Think about it.
• 25:47
  That would be impossible to do. How could you bite yourself in
• 25:51
  the back of the neck? And obviously, with all of this
• 25:53
  going on, Clarizo was hysterical.
• 25:56
  She described what was attacking her, though, and she said,
• 26:00
  quote, it was a very big dark man with curly hair all over his
• 26:06
  body. And then there was another one
• 26:09
  with an angelic face and a big mustache.
• 26:13
  So there were two creatures, and they were invisible to every
• 26:17
  single person but her. And they came back every single
• 26:22
  night. And over the next 9 days, things
• 26:26
  tremendously escalated. So Clarita would scream, she
• 26:31
  would rife in pain, laugh as if being tickled, and then suddenly
• 26:35
  cry out in pain as new bite marks appeared throughout her
• 26:39
  body. Her cell mates literally watched
• 26:42
  it happen. They saw the marks in real time,
• 26:46
  like invisible teeth sinking into her flesh.
• 26:50
  But then the craziest part, Guards, doctors, nurses,
• 26:57
  everyone who came to help her saw the exact same thing.
• 27:02
  They saw the marks being made at that moment, at that second and
• 27:07
  it astonished everybody. So at this point, Dr. Mariana
• 27:12
  Lara, the chief medical examiner for Manila, was called in and he
• 27:17
  examined Clarita multiple times. He confirmed the bite marks were
• 27:22
  real. They were human shaped, too
• 27:25
  large and round to be self-inflicted, Dr. Lara said.
• 27:29
  Quote. These are other worldly.
• 27:32
  They're too large and the pattern is wrong.
• 27:35
  Human bites are elliptical. These are perfectly round.
• 27:40
  So clearly his mind was blown and that's when psychiatrists
• 27:44
  were brought in and they diagnosed Clarita with
• 27:48
  hysterical psychoneurosis. I hope I said that correctly.
• 27:52
  And that is a mental condition that mimics possession.
• 27:57
  And then, of course, there were others that said she had
• 27:59
  epilepsy and she was biting herself in these dissociative
• 28:03
  states. Now, given this diagnosis,
• 28:07
  still, none of them could explain how she was biting the
• 28:10
  back of her own neck or how the marks would appear while doctors
• 28:14
  were holding her hands and watching it in real time.
• 28:18
  They thought it was some sort of magic trick.
• 28:20
  How could that possibly be a magic trick?
• 28:23
  Or could it be? I'll let you decide in the
• 28:27
  comments. But before you do, listen to
• 28:29
  this. Because then, then there was
• 28:32
  other stuff, the things that couldn't be explained by
• 28:35
  psychology. Clarita would drink from empty
• 28:38
  cups when guards refused to give her water.
• 28:42
  She became violently aggressive toward religious images, trying
• 28:46
  to smash a statue of the Virgin Mary in her cell.
• 28:50
  And also, a really crazy part of all of this, remember, she's 18.
• 28:55
  Is that she spoke in languages she didn't know.
• 28:59
  Clarita only spoke Tagalog and Vizian.
• 29:02
  I hope I said that right, Vizian.
• 29:05
  But during the attacks, she would scream insults in perfect
• 29:10
  English. So of course, you know this type
• 29:13
  of situation happening. The news spread very fast.
• 29:17
  I mean, local papers picked up the story and then international
• 29:21
  wire services came in and through the front pages of all
• 29:25
  these magazines in papers would be girl attacked by invisible
• 29:29
  fangs. And that became a global
• 29:32
  sensation in 1953. And Mayor Arsenio lacks on, you
• 29:37
  know, he was a skeptic, a tough politician who did not believe
• 29:42
  in ghosts or demons. He decided to go and see it for
• 29:46
  himself. So I'm going to take you to May
• 29:50
  18th, 1953, nine days after the attacks.
• 29:54
  Mayor Laxon was furious. This story was making Manila
• 29:58
  look like a city of superstitious fools.
• 30:01
  He was convinced it was all just a magic trick or a hoax.
• 30:05
  So he ordered Clarita to be brought to his office in City
• 30:09
  Hall, and he wanted doctors, reporters and officials present.
• 30:15
  He wanted to expose the truth once and for all.
• 30:18
  So everybody agreed. So they went, and they got
• 30:21
  Clarita. And Clarita was brought in.
• 30:24
  She was shaking, she was pale, and she was barely able to stand
• 30:28
  up. At this point, Mayor Lacson sat
• 30:30
  down next to her. He grabbed her by her hand
• 30:34
  firmly so she kind of would stop shaking and that's when he
• 30:37
  looked deep into her eyes and he just said show me.
• 30:43
  And that's when 5 minutes went by. 10 minutes went by.
• 30:47
  He started to get impatient and think it was all fake, but then
• 30:51
  15 minutes went by and something happened.
• 30:54
  All of a sudden 15 minutes in, these fresh bite marks appeared
• 30:59
  on her neck, then on her index finger, the one that the mayor
• 31:04
  was holding. Mayor Laxon, A skeptic, watched
• 31:08
  it happen. He felt her hand twitch.
• 31:11
  He saw the skin redden and swell.
• 31:15
  And he watched the teeth marks from like something was biting
• 31:19
  down hard. But there was nobody there.
• 31:22
  So the doctors in the room examined the marks immediately,
• 31:26
  you know, tried to figure out exactly what this can be.
• 31:29
  And they confirmed that, yes, they are fresh.
• 31:31
  They did happen that minute. And they confirmed that the
• 31:34
  matches were human bite patterns.
• 31:37
  So clearly, at this point, Mayor Laxon was actually visibly
• 31:41
  shaken. And he told reporters, you know,
• 31:44
  quote, I don't know what this is, but it's real.
• 31:50
  I saw it. She could not have done this by
• 31:53
  herself. He even joked darkly to this
• 31:56
  creature, whatever it was. And he said, if you're going to
• 32:00
  bite people, go bite President Carino instead.
• 32:04
  I'm guessing that was his opponent at the time.
• 32:07
  So Clarita, at this point, she is still in this like, trance
• 32:10
  like state, whispering in Tagalog.
• 32:14
  Akra Rin, I've been rocked in cockatin.
• 32:17
  You too. They want to bite you.
• 32:20
  And over 100 doctors, psychiatrists, journalists and
• 32:24
  officials observed Clarita over the next few days.
• 32:28
  And guess what? Not a single one can explain it.
• 32:32
  They had no medicine, no answers.
• 32:35
  Psychology had no answers either.
• 32:37
  And the attacks were only getting worse.
• 32:41
  One doctor, though, Doctor Ramos, was particularly vocal.
• 32:45
  He was convinced the Clarita was faking it, so he confronted her
• 32:50
  in her cell, accusing her of making all of this up for
• 32:55
  attention. So Clarita, who was in the
• 32:58
  middle of an attack, turned and looked at him.
• 33:01
  And her eyes were different. They were cold and empty.
• 33:06
  And she spoke slowly. You will Doctor Ramos kind of
• 33:12
  shocked a little bit, but you know, he he laughs it off.
• 33:14
  But then the next day, at that exact hour, Doctor Ramos
• 33:19
  collapsed, heart attack dead. Nobody could explain it.
• 33:24
  I mean, he was healthy, no history of heart problems at
• 33:28
  all. And it was at that very minute,
• 33:30
  that moment, that all the doctors stopped calling this a
• 33:34
  hoax. Mayor Laxon desperately reached
• 33:38
  out to the Archbishop of Manila and the reactor of the
• 33:42
  University of Santo Thomas, the most powerful Catholic
• 33:46
  institutions that were in that country, and he begged them to
• 33:51
  perform an exorcism, but they refused.
• 33:54
  The Catholic Church did not believe in public exorcisms
• 33:58
  anymore. It was too medieval, too
• 34:00
  embarrassing for the church. But word of Clarita's case had
• 34:05
  reached someone else, someone willing to step in where the
• 34:09
  church wouldn't, and it was an American evangelist named Lester
• 34:15
  Sumrall. Lester Sumrall was in Manila
• 34:18
  building a Protestant church, the Manila Bethel Temple, and he
• 34:23
  heard about Clarita on the radio and he said that later the Holy
• 34:28
  Spirit wouldn't let him ignore it.
• 34:30
  So for three days he prayed and he fasted, he begged God to send
• 34:35
  someone else, but nobody came. So on May 19th, Sumrall went to
• 34:42
  Bilbid Prison and asked to go and see Karita.
• 34:47
  So the guards, they went, and they brought her to A room.
• 34:51
  In the moment she saw some raw, she screamed.
• 34:54
  I hate you, she shrieked in perfect English, by the way.
• 34:58
  And remember, Clarita only spoke Tagalog.
• 35:01
  Some Raw immediately began to pray.
• 35:04
  He called in the name of Jesus and commanded the demons to
• 35:08
  leave. And that's when Clarita
• 35:10
  convulsed and she started thrashing.
• 35:13
  Her voice even changed deeper, guttural cursing, some raw in
• 35:18
  ways that made the guards even step back.
• 35:21
  Not a joke. And then suddenly she went quiet
• 35:24
  and everybody thought it was over.
• 35:28
  But it wasn't so Some are all returned the next day and the
• 35:33
  day after that. And each time the attacks grew
• 35:36
  more violent. Clarita would laugh, scream, and
• 35:39
  then fall unconscious. Fresh bite marks would appear
• 35:43
  during the prayers, as if the creatures were fighting back in
• 35:47
  some way. And on the third day, May 21st,
• 35:50
  1953, some are all gathered, a group of Christians in the
• 35:54
  prison, and they sang hymns, they broke bread together, and
• 35:58
  they prayed for hours. Finally, Summerall stood over
• 36:02
  Clarita and declared, In the name of Jesus Christ, I bind
• 36:08
  every power of the devil and command you to be free from this
• 36:13
  moment in the name of Jesus. And suddenly Clarita sat up, her
• 36:19
  eyes cleared. She pointed out to the window.
• 36:25
  He went that way, she said. He's gone.
• 36:29
  She was right. From that point onward, the
• 36:32
  attacks stopped immediately, permanently.
• 36:35
  Clarita was examined again and again.
• 36:38
  No new marks, no more screaming, no more invisible fangs. 3 days
• 36:42
  of prayer succeeded where 9 days of medicine and psychology had
• 36:47
  failed. Clarita Villanueva was released
• 36:50
  from prison shortly after. The international press covered
• 36:54
  the story extensively Girl Freed from Demon Possession and it
• 36:59
  became a global headline unless there some RAW wrote a book
• 37:04
  about it called Bitten by Devils, The True Story of
• 37:08
  Clarita Villanueva and it sold 10s of thousands of copies and
• 37:12
  launched his ministry across Southeast Asia.
• 37:16
  He claimed 150,000 people converted to Christianity in the
• 37:22
  Philippines as a result of Clarita's story, and in exchange
• 37:27
  for his involvement, Mayor Laxon gave some RAW a permit to build
• 37:31
  his church, the Manila Bethel Temple, which today is called
• 37:36
  the Cathedral of Praise, which over 24,000 members attended.
• 37:41
  But here is where it gets complicated.
• 37:43
  In 1967, fourteen years later, Clarita Villanueva appeared at a
• 37:49
  government office in Nuevo Ekaja requesting help recovering
• 37:54
  royalties from people who profited from her life history
• 37:58
  because she was poor, forgotten, and people had made money off of
• 38:02
  her suffering. And whether Sumrall ever paid
• 38:05
  her anything is truly unclear. So of course, you know, skeptics
• 38:09
  point to this and say the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
• 38:13
  It was fake, that Clarita and Sumrall fabricated it all for
• 38:17
  fame and fortune. But here is the problem with
• 38:20
  that theory. Well over 100 doctors, officials
• 38:24
  and witnesses, including skeptical Mayor Laxon, watched
• 38:28
  the bite marks appear in real time.
• 38:30
  Medical examiner Dr. Mariano Lara documented it officially,
• 38:35
  and not one single person involved in it could ever prove
• 38:39
  that it was a hoax. So when most people say they're
• 38:42
  battling demons, they mean trauma.
• 38:46
  They mean addiction and depression.
• 38:49
  Clarita Villanueva battled demons, literally.
• 38:53
  These invisible creatures with fangs that bit her in front of
• 38:57
  doctors, mayors and reporters. And for nine days, medicine
• 39:01
  could not help her. Psychology could not explain it.
• 39:04
  The Catholic Church refused to intervene.
• 39:08
  But when an evangelist prayed over her repeatedly, somehow the
• 39:14
  attack stopped. So skeptics will say it was mass
• 39:16
  hysteria, mass delusion, A publicity stunt.
• 39:20
  Believers say it's a miracle. But here's what nobody disputes.
• 39:25
  A teenage girl, homeless, forgotten and powerless, faced
• 39:29
  something that terrified everyone who witnessed it.
• 39:32
  And somehow, she survived. And in case you want to really
• 39:36
  see this in real detail, in 2019, a Filipino horror film was
• 39:40
  made about Clarita's story, and in 2023, her case was featured
• 39:45
  on national television in the Philippines.
• 39:48
  Over 70 years later, and people still can't explain what
• 39:52
  happened in that jail cell, but Clarita can.
• 39:57
  She battled demons and she won. It was New Year's Eve and
• 40:15
  Shannon Rodgers was sitting in the living room with her son
• 40:18
  Jamie, getting ready to countdown for the new year.
• 40:21
  Shannon had a glass of champagne and Jamie had a glass of his
• 40:25
  favorite sparkling water. They toasted, clinked glasses
• 40:29
  and began the countdown. 10987 654321 Shannon hugged her son
• 40:49
  and wished him a happy New Year. But when she looked at her son,
• 40:54
  when she looked at his face, he wasn't smiling anymore.
• 40:58
  In fact, Jamie looked terrified. Jamie looked over his mother's
• 41:03
  shoulder and said Mommy, what's that behind you?
• 41:16
  Usually when I research a case I'll watch various YouTube
• 41:20
  videos and read online articles. I'll read books if there are any
• 41:23
  available. But in this case I came across
• 41:26
  the Series A Ghost Ruined My Life by Eli Roth.
• 41:30
  I've only watched the 1st 2 episodes and I have to say
• 41:33
  they're pretty creepy. I was particularly intrigued by
• 41:36
  the Shannon Rogers story. It had everything a good ghost
• 41:40
  story should have. So I watched the show and made
• 41:44
  notes for my script. But when I researched further
• 41:47
  into the case, I found an interview with Shannon on the
• 41:50
  YouTube channel CIRC Universal. It's a great interview,
• 41:55
  definitely worth a watch. I'll link it below for you to
• 41:57
  watch for yourself. The first thing I noticed was
• 42:00
  how different Shannon looks on the podcast, even though it was
• 42:03
  a few years later. She looks younger, healthier,
• 42:06
  and generally much happier. But she did give reasons for
• 42:10
  that during the interview. So when asked about the show and
• 42:14
  whether she regretted doing the show, she kind of had mixed
• 42:17
  emotions. Obviously the show opened new
• 42:20
  doors for her and gave her more options to explore career wise,
• 42:24
  but in her personal life, it wasn't really a positive
• 42:27
  experience. For starters, a few of the main
• 42:31
  scenes in the show were depicted very differently to how they
• 42:34
  played out in real life, and Shannon would say there really
• 42:38
  was no reason for them to do this, as the true story was
• 42:41
  pretty terrifying in itself, if not scarier.
• 42:44
  So I think what we'll do for this episode is I'll go through
• 42:48
  the haunting scene by scene telling the story, then any
• 42:51
  parts that Shannon said they'd got wrong, we'll talk about what
• 42:54
  actually happened. Here we go.
• 42:58
  In 2011, single mother Shannon Rodgers moved into a house in
• 43:02
  555 Sydenham Rd. Southwestern USA with her
• 43:06
  three-year old son Jamie. In familiar fashion, it was her
• 43:09
  dream home and a fresh new start almost.
• 43:14
  The house itself was very large and spacious, with plenty of
• 43:16
  room for Jamie to play, but it was also slightly outdated or
• 43:21
  retro as Shannon would put it, and in desperate need of some
• 43:24
  TLC. This was reflected in the rental
• 43:28
  fees, which were questionably low.
• 43:30
  And of course, I'm sure we can all have a good guess as to why
• 43:34
  that might have been. Shannon had a job as a bartender
• 43:37
  three days per week, so finances were tight.
• 43:41
  All in all, she felt very lucky for the opportunity.
• 43:44
  The house had a good energy with mostly positive vibes.
• 43:48
  It was almost as if it had fallen into her lap.
• 43:51
  I guess some things are just meant to be.
• 43:55
  On the day of moving in, she had some help from her daughter
• 43:58
  Madison Rogers and Madison's boyfriend Ed.
• 44:01
  In an interview, Madison said when you pulled up, the house is
• 44:05
  a beautiful neighborhood out by the lake, peaceful, very nice,
• 44:09
  full of nature, perfect place. When they started to explore the
• 44:13
  house, they found that the previous tenants had left lots
• 44:16
  of their belongings behind, including an old guitar.
• 44:20
  This is important to the story, as we'll find out later on.
• 44:24
  So as they started unpacking boxes and finding places for
• 44:28
  their belongings, they started decorating the Christmas tree at
• 44:31
  the same time. Because, you know, priorities
• 44:34
  and all that got to get the Christmas decorations up before
• 44:37
  anything else. Among their own belongings, they
• 44:40
  unboxed the Christmas musical box, which played a cute
• 44:43
  rendition of Oh Christmas Tree. They pondered on a place to set
• 44:47
  the musical box and decided that it looked perfect.
• 44:49
  On the mantelpiece in the living room they also found this
• 44:53
  hanging Christmas pendulum decoration, which they hung in
• 44:56
  pride of place at the front centre of the Christmas tree.
• 45:00
  Now I think that this pendulum was already at the house when
• 45:03
  they moved in, so it must have belonged to the previous owners.
• 45:06
  Well, that's what I presume anyway.
• 45:08
  Madison and Ed had gone home and Shannon was unpacking boxes in
• 45:12
  the kitchen, finding places in the cupboards and drawers for
• 45:15
  plates, dishes, cutlery, etcetera.
• 45:17
  So as she's packing everything away, she hears Jamie talking in
• 45:21
  the living room. It sounded like he was speaking
• 45:24
  to someone, but she could only hear his voice.
• 45:29
  She knew he was in there alone, so who the hell was he talking
• 45:32
  to? She stopped what she was doing
• 45:34
  and listened intently. She could clearly hear Jamie say
• 45:38
  no, no you can't do that, we live here now, this is our
• 45:41
  house, we can share OK? Shannon walked into the living
• 45:46
  room just out of curiosity to see what Jamie was doing.
• 45:49
  You know there was no real cause for concern at this point,
• 45:53
  although that was about to change.
• 45:57
  So she walks in and sees Jamie sitting facing the Christmas
• 46:01
  tree. So his back is to her and he
• 46:03
  seems to be talking to someone over by the tree, but there's no
• 46:07
  one there. So now Shannon's kind of
• 46:09
  thinking, OK, this is a bit weird.
• 46:12
  She asks Jamie who he's talking to and Jamie doesn't respond.
• 46:16
  He just sits there still facing the Christmas tree.
• 46:19
  He doesn't turn and acknowledge Shannon, he just sits there
• 46:22
  giggling, mesmerized by something which is creepy as
• 46:26
  hell. That's when Shannon noticed that
• 46:29
  the pendulum decoration that they'd hung on the tree was
• 46:32
  swaying back and forth on its own.
• 46:35
  Jaime had been sat on the floor the whole time and there was no
• 46:38
  breeze in the house. In fact, none of the other
• 46:40
  Christmas decorations were swaying at all, only that one.
• 46:45
  Shannon said that she's definitely a spiritual person
• 46:48
  and not long after moving in, she could definitely feel a
• 46:51
  presence around the house. She'd found out from the
• 46:54
  landlord that an old lady had lived in the house and had
• 46:57
  passed away years ago. Shannon said she felt that her
• 47:00
  spirit was still there because it was her home, but her
• 47:03
  presence was very comforting and welcoming.
• 47:06
  She really felt at peace with the presence of the old lady.
• 47:10
  She never actually saw an apparition of her, but she got
• 47:13
  the sense that she was a short, stocky old lady with greyish
• 47:16
  blonde hair, and she was kind of gearing off this aura of pride
• 47:20
  like, this is my house, I did this all on my own and I'm very
• 47:23
  proud. So at this point, nothing else
• 47:27
  had been mentioned about anyone else dying in the house, which
• 47:31
  may or may not have been true, technically speaking.
• 47:35
  As we're about to find out, one night just before Christmas,
• 47:39
  Shannon and Jamie were sitting on the floor in the living room
• 47:41
  eating Christmas cookies and drinking milk while talking to
• 47:44
  Shannon's mother on the phone. Everything at this point was
• 47:48
  still relatively peaceful and normal for now.
• 47:53
  Madison said in the interview that she didn't really believe
• 47:56
  that there was a spirit in the house at this point and wasn't
• 47:59
  fazed by the little things that were happening.
• 48:01
  She didn't take suggestions of the paranormal seriously.
• 48:06
  Well, let's just say Madison very soon changed her stance
• 48:10
  where that's concerned. Now this next scene, personally,
• 48:14
  I found really creepy because of what happened, but also because
• 48:18
  of the way the scene was filmed. It was New Year's Eve, it was
• 48:22
  late in the evening, and once again Shannon was sitting at the
• 48:25
  living room table with Jamie. Shannon had a glass of champagne
• 48:29
  and Jamie had a glass of his favorite sparkling water just
• 48:32
  before the New Year countdown. They were getting ready to
• 48:36
  celebrate the new year, talking about all the things they wanted
• 48:39
  to do together in the New year, setting little New Year's
• 48:43
  resolutions, things like that. And midnight was fast
• 48:46
  approaching, so they got ready to begin the countdown.
• 48:51
  10987654321 Shannon popped a cork and gave Jamie a big hug.
• 49:09
  It was a very happy, special moment between a mother and her
• 49:12
  little boy. She wished him a very happy new
• 49:16
  year. But when Shannon sat back and
• 49:19
  looked at Jamie, she noticed that his expression very quickly
• 49:23
  went from one of joy and happiness to one of worry.
• 49:26
  Literally one second he was smiling and the next he looked
• 49:30
  like he was about to burst into tears.
• 49:33
  Obviously now very concerned, Shannon asked Jamie what was
• 49:37
  wrong, to which Jamie simply responded.
• 49:40
  Mummy, what's that behind you? As he looked over her shoulder,
• 49:46
  a chill ran down Shannon's spine.
• 49:47
  As you might expect. She turned and looked through
• 49:51
  the archway between the living room and the dining room.
• 49:53
  From where they were sitting, she could see into the pitch
• 49:57
  black dining room. I mean, it was literally pure
• 50:00
  darkness. It's a very ominous scene.
• 50:02
  She could say absolutely nothing there.
• 50:06
  Jamie was looking increasingly scared.
• 50:09
  His expression had gone from worry to pure fear.
• 50:13
  They sat there just staring into the darkness, when without
• 50:17
  warning, the room was filled with an awful loud banging sound
• 50:20
  which was emanating from all around.
• 50:23
  Then the lights started flickering on and off all around
• 50:26
  them. They huddled together,
• 50:27
  absolutely petrified. Shannon just didn't know what
• 50:31
  was going on. She didn't know what to do.
• 50:33
  She'd never experienced anything like this before.
• 50:36
  Then, as quickly as the banging had started, it fell silence and
• 50:40
  the lights stopped flickering. But Shannon got the impression
• 50:45
  that the entity wasn't finished with them yet.
• 50:48
  And she was absolutely right. The eerie silence was
• 50:52
  interrupted by the sound of that music box on the mantle when it
• 50:56
  started playing on its own. This was followed by a deep,
• 51:00
  guttural growling sound coming from the dark void.
• 51:03
  Both Shannon and Jamie were frozen with fear.
• 51:06
  Just absolutely terrified. Shannon clutched Jamie tightly
• 51:10
  in her arms, but there wasn't much more she could do than
• 51:13
  that. How do you protect yourself from
• 51:15
  something you can't even see? After this experience?
• 51:18
  Shannon would say. This wasn't the same spirit as
• 51:21
  the elderly woman. This was different.
• 51:24
  Things started getting really rough as I walked through the
• 51:27
  house. I could feel that the energy was
• 51:30
  different. It wasn't the same.
• 51:32
  I knew that the old lady was still there, but I knew
• 51:36
  something else was watching me. Shannon could never have
• 51:41
  predicted what was about to happen next.
• 51:44
  One afternoon as Shannon stood at the kitchen window sharpening
• 51:47
  a kitchen knife, reflecting on the New Year incident, she
• 51:50
  looked up and out of the kitchen window and she saw the ghostly
• 51:55
  apparition of a long haired man standing outside, partially
• 51:58
  obscured by a tree. Shannon couldn't believe her
• 52:01
  eyes. In her state of disbelief, she
• 52:03
  managed to cut her finger with the knife.
• 52:06
  She gasped from the pain and looked down for just a second to
• 52:08
  inspect the wound. When she looked back up shortly
• 52:11
  after, the man was gone, nowhere to be seen.
• 52:15
  While she was sending to her wound and applying a dressing,
• 52:18
  Janan heard Jamie laughing and playing in the hallway.
• 52:23
  She entered the hallway to find Jamie laughing, spinning around
• 52:26
  in circles as if playing with someone.
• 52:30
  Shannon asks Jamie what are you doing?
• 52:32
  To which Jamie responds, We're playing.
• 52:35
  That's creepy, as Shannon could clearly see that Jamie was on
• 52:39
  his own. I mean, she knew he was on his
• 52:41
  own, there was nobody else in the house, but she could clearly
• 52:44
  see that he was completely on his own.
• 52:47
  And yet here he is saying we're playing.
• 52:50
  Who the hell is we, Jamie? But as Jamie ran upstairs
• 52:54
  towards his bedroom, Shannon noticed something even more
• 52:58
  disturbing. Wet, bare footprints on the
• 53:01
  floor in the hallway leading into the dining room.
• 53:06
  Slowly and apprehensively, Shannon approached the dining
• 53:08
  room, genuinely terrified of what might be lurking around the
• 53:12
  corner. When she first peeked around the
• 53:15
  corner, the first thing she noticed was the rocking chair,
• 53:19
  which just happened to be eerily rocking back and forth on it's
• 53:23
  own. Because that's completely
• 53:25
  normal, isn't it? Now, if that wasn't not Murfiel
• 53:29
  enough, what she saw next might very well be.
• 53:34
  Standing just a few feet from the rocking chair stood a young
• 53:37
  girl, dripping wet from head to toe.
• 53:40
  Her hair was drenched, her clothes were soaking, and her
• 53:44
  skin was a pale blue. Let's just say she didn't look
• 53:48
  very much alive. But then, in an instant, before
• 53:52
  Shannon's very eyes, the girl simply disappeared into thin
• 53:56
  air. Shannon said.
• 53:58
  There was this little girl standing right there, just
• 54:00
  staring at me. Straight face, just glaring at
• 54:03
  me. She looked drowned, and then she
• 54:06
  was gone. I was kind of in shock that my
• 54:08
  son was interacting with the spirit.
• 54:10
  It was alarming. And yet I can definitely
• 54:13
  understand why Shannon was so disturbed by this experience.
• 54:17
  It's one thing seeing an entity, it's another thing entirely for
• 54:21
  the entity to be interacting with your child.
• 54:25
  One afternoon, shortly after Shannon was doing some laundry
• 54:28
  upstairs, folding the clothes and putting them away in the
• 54:31
  cupboards. She walked into Jamie's bedroom
• 54:34
  to put some clothes away. And what she saw in Jamie's
• 54:37
  bedroom scared the absolute shit out of her.
• 54:41
  Sitting on Jamie's bed was a man who was facing the window with
• 54:45
  his back to Shannon, so she couldn't see his face.
• 54:48
  But as he turned to face her, she instantly recognized him as
• 54:52
  the same man she'd seen standing outside by the tree.
• 54:56
  Shocked and terrified, Shannon mustered enough courage to ask
• 55:00
  the man. Who are you?
• 55:02
  The man took a second before responding.
• 55:05
  I'm sorry, I didn't want to hurt anyone.
• 55:08
  Tell my sister she can have my guitar.
• 55:11
  The entity then appeared to pull the revolver and shoot himself
• 55:15
  in the head, almost as a reactment of his own suicide.
• 55:19
  So this is one of the first examples of the episode straying
• 55:23
  far away from the true story as told by Shannon herself.
• 55:27
  In the podcast, she said that there never was an entity who
• 55:31
  shot himself. And this is the part that upset
• 55:34
  Shannon the most about the episode because she was very
• 55:36
  clear with the producers about what really happened.
• 55:40
  This is what Shannon said really happened.
• 55:43
  But, and it was his brother and it did not happen there.
• 55:47
  He did not shoot himself. So when I watched, I was
• 55:49
  supposed to do the watch party when the show aired that day on
• 55:53
  October 6th or 8th, whatever it was at their house.
• 55:56
  And luckily I woke up and watched it and I was horrified
• 56:02
  out of because I respect my friends.
• 56:04
  I don't, and I mean this because it didn't happen there.
• 56:07
  He didn't shoot himself. It was like out out, you know,
• 56:10
  one or two hours. It was far away and it happened
• 56:12
  completely differently. And for them to show that when I
• 56:16
  saw it, I just told myself, I'm sorry, we don't need to watch
• 56:18
  this tonight. And I explained to him and I was
• 56:20
  like, I felt so bad, like it was my fault, but I signed
• 56:22
  contracts. So it didn't happen that way.
• 56:26
  It did not. I didn't I, I, yes, I seen a man
• 56:30
  pretty sure it was him, like I, I was, I tried to talk sitting
• 56:34
  on the edge of my son's bed. The bed wasn't the right way.
• 56:37
  He was looking to his left at the window because the bed was
• 56:40
  along the wall and he's had his hands on his knees.
• 56:42
  He looked panicked, but he didn't pick up a gun and shoot
• 56:47
  himself. You know what I mean?
• 56:47
  That was so I mean to explain that was hard on me to my
• 56:51
  friends, right, because that was a very it was like the year
• 56:54
  anniversary of it happening too. When they like it was a year, a
• 56:59
  couple year. I don't remember.
• 57:01
  I don't remember, but it was an anniversary of it happening.
• 57:04
  Shannon was well aware that there was more than one spirit
• 57:07
  in the house and she just couldn't help but wonder why the
• 57:10
  hell this was happening to her. She had this nagging instinct
• 57:15
  telling her to just start doing some research on the House.
• 57:19
  She really needed to understand what's going on and what she was
• 57:22
  dealing with. So Shannon did some digging
• 57:25
  around online and found the obituary for a man named Bill
• 57:28
  Remini, who was 29 years old. He was a gifted guitar player
• 57:33
  and was survived by his only sister, Denise.
• 57:36
  She also did some research about drownings at the lake next to
• 57:39
  the property. Almost instantly, it popped up
• 57:42
  with an article about a little girl who had drowned at the lake
• 57:45
  a few years prior to Shannon moving in.
• 57:48
  It was a memorial video and in that video, Shannon said it was
• 57:53
  that child to a tee, the same appearance, the same size.
• 57:57
  There was absolutely no denying it.
• 57:59
  It was her. She said that the spirits and
• 58:02
  the energy in that house wanted her to know that they were
• 58:05
  there. It really felt from this moment
• 58:07
  onwards, it was open season in the house.
• 58:11
  Here in the episode, Shannon takes the crew around the house
• 58:14
  to talk about her experiences. She describes an encounter where
• 58:19
  she walked through the front door and was confronted by a man
• 58:22
  with a grey skeletal face. She described the sensation of
• 58:26
  squeezing on her heart. As she's talking to the crew,
• 58:29
  the lights in the hallway start to flicker.
• 58:32
  I mean, this is actually happening while they're filming,
• 58:34
  which was pretty cool. Shannon said she was in shock
• 58:37
  when she found out how many spirits were in that home.
• 58:41
  She got talking to one of her friends, who is a psychic
• 58:43
  medium, who said that when a suicide occurs, it can trap
• 58:47
  other spirits in that place. The spirit of the man needed
• 58:50
  closure, and once that happened, he could go.
• 58:54
  Once he was gone, anything negative attached to the house
• 58:57
  would go with him. Theoretically speaking.
• 59:00
  That friend, the psychic medium, well, let's just say we'll be
• 59:03
  seeing a bit more of her later. So in the episode, Shannon
• 59:08
  decided to track down the man's sister and take the guitar to
• 59:11
  her, which was gratefully received.
• 59:14
  The man needed his family to know that he was sorry and asked
• 59:17
  that they forgive him. After this, the man's spirit was
• 59:20
  gone. Now, I'm not 100% sure how that
• 59:23
  specific detail tied into the real story, but that's what
• 59:26
  happened in the episode. So Shannon was under the
• 59:29
  impression that once his spirit was gone, the other spirits
• 59:33
  would leave too. Well, if that was the case, I'd
• 59:36
  end the episode here. But Shannon was wrong, very
• 59:41
  wrong. One night when Shannon was
• 59:44
  putting Jamie to bed, he said, Mama, there's something in here.
• 59:49
  Believing that the house had now been cleansed, Shannon
• 59:52
  responded, Don't worry honey, there's no monsters in this
• 59:55
  house. Shannon kissed Jamie on the
• 59:57
  cheek, said good night and went to her own room to lie down on
• 1:00:01
  the bed and get stuck into a good book.
• 1:00:06
  As Shannon was about to fall asleep, she heard what sounded
• 1:00:09
  like a low rumbling sound and it was coming from Jamie's bedroom.
• 1:00:14
  There is a lamp in Jamie's room which projects moving light
• 1:00:18
  patterns on the wall, but these light patterns somehow appeared
• 1:00:22
  to be acting quite strangely. Shannon walked into Jamie's room
• 1:00:26
  to find him wide awake, mesmerised by the lights.
• 1:00:30
  She turns to see a dark entity standing in the corner of
• 1:00:33
  Jamie's bedroom. Shannon takes Jamie and runs to
• 1:00:36
  her bedroom and shuts the door. Knocking sounds all around.
• 1:00:40
  The door starts to rattle and bang.
• 1:00:43
  So this is another part of the episode that Shannon contests as
• 1:00:47
  not being entirely true. She never actually saw the
• 1:00:51
  entity inside the house. She saw it outside in the
• 1:00:54
  outhouse. And while the show says she
• 1:00:56
  described it as a demon, Shannon said she never called it a demon
• 1:01:00
  at all, more of an elemental. We'll discuss that encounter a
• 1:01:05
  bit more later on. Shannon did say, however, that
• 1:01:09
  the feeling in Jamie's room was intense.
• 1:01:12
  There was something in there and it was wanting to hurt her son.
• 1:01:16
  Reflecting on this encounter at the time, Madison said to her
• 1:01:20
  mum, that's creepy, but Are you sure you weren't dreaming or
• 1:01:23
  something? She admits that at one point she
• 1:01:26
  genuinely did think that her mum was going crazy.
• 1:01:31
  Well Madison, you'll find out for yourself soon enough, mark
• 1:01:36
  my word. The activity in the house was
• 1:01:39
  starting to increase dramatically.
• 1:01:42
  Shannon recalled how she had no way of leaving that house.
• 1:01:46
  Rent there was really cheap and there was problems with her
• 1:01:48
  rental history. So All in all, unless she
• 1:01:52
  happened to buy a lucky Lotto ticket, she was trapped.
• 1:01:56
  She was struggling to sleep, and it was starting to affect her
• 1:01:58
  relationship with her friends and colleagues.
• 1:02:02
  She'd always described herself as a social butterfly but was
• 1:02:05
  now becoming a recluse. And to be honest, if you see the
• 1:02:09
  difference in Shannon's demeanor during the show and then a few
• 1:02:12
  years later after she left the house when she's talking on that
• 1:02:15
  podcast, honestly, it's chalk and cheese.
• 1:02:18
  She's like a completely different person at this point.
• 1:02:22
  Shannon took Jamie to her mother's house and called in the
• 1:02:24
  help of her friend, that psychic medium I mentioned earlier.
• 1:02:28
  So another minor discrepancy between the show and the true
• 1:02:31
  story. In the show, the medium is
• 1:02:33
  depicted as a woman of Asian heritage named Megan, but in
• 1:02:37
  reality, she was a red haired woman from Mississippi named
• 1:02:40
  Marsha. There you go, minor details.
• 1:02:44
  Shannon and Megan or Marsha produced a concoction of red
• 1:02:48
  brick dust mixed with cinnamon, thyme and crushed egg shells,
• 1:02:53
  and that night they conducted A seance to call out the entity.
• 1:02:57
  Initially, Shannon thought that the seance had cleansed the
• 1:03:00
  House of the entity, but once again, Shannon was wrong.
• 1:03:07
  As Shannon and Megan or Marsha, I'm just going to call her
• 1:03:11
  Marsha because, well, that's her name.
• 1:03:14
  So they sat at the living room table that night drinking a few
• 1:03:17
  vodka waters, which by the way, sounds absolutely fucking
• 1:03:20
  disgusting. Is that literally just diluted
• 1:03:23
  vodka? The only thing on this planet
• 1:03:26
  that could possibly taste worse than vodka is watered down
• 1:03:30
  vodka. Seriously, that's fucking gross.
• 1:03:33
  Anyway, they were drinking and smoking, although Shannon wasn't
• 1:03:36
  usually a smoker. Then Shannon started to display
• 1:03:41
  some quite concerning behaviour. She started to laugh maniacally,
• 1:03:46
  then flicked a lit cigarette at Marsha.
• 1:03:50
  Now speaking after the fact, Shannon had absolutely no
• 1:03:54
  recollection of this incident. In the show, Megan leaves the
• 1:03:58
  house and tells Shannon she can't help her.
• 1:04:00
  But in reality, Marsha stayed the night and slept on the sofa
• 1:04:04
  right by the front door. There's a scene here in the
• 1:04:08
  episode where Shannon is sitting at the living room table and
• 1:04:11
  books start flying off the table and then a kitchen knife slides
• 1:04:14
  off the side. But I don't think this really
• 1:04:17
  happened. Well, if it did, then she didn't
• 1:04:20
  mention it in the podcast. So it seemed that the portal had
• 1:04:23
  in fact been closed. Unfortunately for Shannon, the
• 1:04:27
  entity was still trapped on her side of the portal and it was
• 1:04:32
  making life hell. Attacks had become physical
• 1:04:36
  during an interview on the show, so this is actually happening on
• 1:04:39
  the show again. Shannon's phone starts ringing,
• 1:04:42
  although she swears she turned the volume off completely.
• 1:04:46
  So she gets up and turns the volume down to silence and it
• 1:04:50
  starts ringing again immediately.
• 1:04:53
  Coincidence. Maybe?
• 1:04:56
  Madison and her boyfriend Ed came to stay with Shannon for a
• 1:04:59
  while as their lease had ended and they'd both been laid off
• 1:05:02
  from their jobs. Madison wasn't concerned about
• 1:05:04
  the haunting, she was excited to be staying with her mum.
• 1:05:08
  The house started to affect Ed almost immediately, you know,
• 1:05:12
  like his behaviour started to change instantly.
• 1:05:16
  The first night they were in the house, Shannon was awoken by
• 1:05:18
  strange sounds coming from downstairs, so she went down to
• 1:05:22
  investigate. She found Ed sitting at the
• 1:05:26
  table, acting bizarrely, like he was kind of talking to himself
• 1:05:30
  in a strange language and not scratching at the table.
• 1:05:34
  This entity acts quick. It usually takes weeks or even
• 1:05:37
  months for possession to take place, but this is happening
• 1:05:40
  pretty much immediately. Even Madison said she'd never
• 1:05:45
  seen him acting this way and things were about to get much
• 1:05:49
  worse. In the show, Shannon is attacked
• 1:05:52
  and levitated from her bed by an unseen presence and Madison is
• 1:05:56
  dragged out of the room by her feet.
• 1:05:59
  But in reality, Shannon said she was pushed from a chair.
• 1:06:02
  Like forced backwards and pinned against the wall.
• 1:06:05
  And Madison? She was pushed down the hallway.
• 1:06:08
  I do kind of understand why they changed the I mean not that
• 1:06:11
  being pushed out of a chair and pinned against the wall or being
• 1:06:15
  launched down a hallway aren't scary enough, but are supposed
• 1:06:19
  to be acted out on screen. It was probably easier and more
• 1:06:22
  effective to do it the way they did it anyway.
• 1:06:25
  Madison admitted at this point that she had gone from
• 1:06:28
  questioning her own mother's sanity to being absolutely
• 1:06:32
  terrified of that house. Madison begged her mum to leave,
• 1:06:37
  but Shannon had no way of leaving.
• 1:06:39
  As already discussed, she simply couldn't afford to leave.
• 1:06:43
  However, Madison and Ed did leave Shannon at the house.
• 1:06:47
  And honestly, personally, I just couldn't have left my own mother
• 1:06:51
  in that situation. How could you sleep at night
• 1:06:54
  knowing that your own mother is in that house alone or couldn't?
• 1:07:00
  Well, Shannon was determined to fight back.
• 1:07:02
  She began screaming at the entity, demanding for it to show
• 1:07:06
  itself. And what do we say on this
• 1:07:08
  channel? Never challenge an entity, ever.
• 1:07:13
  The entity responded to Shannon's outburst by banging on
• 1:07:16
  the walls and doors all around her.
• 1:07:19
  This soon brought the fear back to Shannon.
• 1:07:22
  Those screams of fury was soon replaced by whimpers of fear.
• 1:07:27
  Now in the show, the entity then shows itself to Shannon in the
• 1:07:31
  downstairs hallway. But in reality, as we've already
• 1:07:34
  discussed, she never actually saw the entity in the house.
• 1:07:39
  Instead, she saw it outside. Now, I would try to describe
• 1:07:44
  what Shannon saw, but it's probably best that I let her
• 1:07:48
  describe the encounter for herself.
• 1:07:52
  OK, it's head. OK.
• 1:07:52
  It was we went into the back when someone came to my house
• 1:07:57
  from Houston because they were like something is going like
• 1:08:00
  really bad. I'm like yeah, yeah, I was.
• 1:08:01
  Well, she came up and I never went in that backyard ever.
• 1:08:05
  And so we walked to the we had it was like an old Chapel almost
• 1:08:08
  this workshop in the backyard, a little steeple and stuff.
• 1:08:10
  But and before I moved in, there was like a black tape cross on
• 1:08:14
  the front. I wonder why?
• 1:08:16
  But I never went back there. But I was wanted to show her.
• 1:08:19
  So we walked back there. As soon as we open the door, she
• 1:08:22
  sent it to my right. It's a big wooden door and I'm
• 1:08:24
  swinging it open. A little bit of light comes in
• 1:08:27
  and we see a head about about this big like black velvety with
• 1:08:31
  a muscular body like of a man body of like cat ears.
• 1:08:37
  And he was like, I don't know, it's hard to say perch like this
• 1:08:41
  is looking at us. And it was like we lost it like
• 1:08:44
  when we looked at each other because we know what we see.
• 1:08:46
  Nobody can ever try to say it was anything else.
• 1:08:49
  And we like freaked out, shut the door and it took us about in
• 1:08:54
  the course with what we do. We're going in.
• 1:08:56
  So we went to the carport because I left all my stuff in
• 1:08:58
  the carport because like I said, I didn't go back there.
• 1:09:01
  So we got a big shop broom handle and I can't remember what
• 1:09:06
  else it was a rake or something. And then we were we were going
• 1:09:09
  to go in and like see what was going on because when you see
• 1:09:11
  something like that, you got to figure it out.
• 1:09:13
  Like we know what we see. We both saw it and we were
• 1:09:16
  shaking like leaves. So we get the get back there.
• 1:09:20
  We got the courage up to open it up.
• 1:09:22
  And the guy was subleasing from, you know, he had like a mattress
• 1:09:25
  standing up in there and a couple things.
• 1:09:27
  So they have like an old like switch to turn on the, like
• 1:09:31
  almost like a power box to turn on the electricity.
• 1:09:34
  But like, we got scared away, you know, scared because I hit
• 1:09:37
  the mattress on accident and she jumped.
• 1:09:39
  But anyways, we freaked out. We finally got the guts to go in
• 1:09:42
  again. And then there's nothing there.
• 1:09:44
  There's nothing in there. And so we're like, dude, no, we
• 1:09:48
  know what we've seen. So we step out after like
• 1:09:50
  clearing the place and we look, you know, as far as scanning and
• 1:09:53
  like there was nothing there. There's no way for something to
• 1:09:56
  jump out or get away. And the windows open and we're
• 1:09:59
  sitting there talking like, and then all of a sudden this like
• 1:10:03
  house cat this big comes running out of there and jumps off into
• 1:10:07
  the tree, like over the fence into the into the tree line and
• 1:10:10
  disappears. And it was not a cat.
• 1:10:12
  It was not a cat. And that was one of the scariest
• 1:10:14
  things I've ever seen in my life.
• 1:10:15
  I was out of there. After that, I was done.
• 1:10:17
  I'm like, no, wow. And I've never said demon.
• 1:10:21
  I never said it was a demon, I think, or elemental.
• 1:10:24
  I don't know. But I don't know.
• 1:10:26
  But it was not like anything want to ever see again.
• 1:10:30
  But it was funny. I was doing a residential and at
• 1:10:34
  the time my tech guy, he was saying, and you got to hear
• 1:10:37
  this. I was talking to, you know, the
• 1:10:40
  homeowner's father. And he was telling he used to
• 1:10:43
  live in that same little tiny neighborhood that couldn't have
• 1:10:46
  been more than a like 50-60 houses.
• 1:10:51
  And he was like, this was right there by the water and he had
• 1:10:55
  was without knowing what happened to me and my story was
• 1:10:58
  describing and being in that neighborhood as a kid and seeing
• 1:11:00
  exactly the same thing. So that was really cool.
• 1:11:03
  Like someone else was able to validate and describe exactly to
• 1:11:07
  a tee that what I was, you know? So there you have it.
• 1:11:12
  And if that's true, then yeah, that would have been absolutely
• 1:11:16
  terrifying to me. It does sound a little bit far
• 1:11:19
  fetched, but then if I described my own personal experiences to
• 1:11:23
  people they'd probably say the same thing, so who am I to
• 1:11:27
  judge? Eventually, after 22 months of
• 1:11:30
  suffering the effects of the haunting at 555 Sydenham Rd.
• 1:11:34
  Shannon admitted defeat and went to the only place she could.
• 1:11:38
  She took Jamie and moved in with her mother.
• 1:11:41
  Shannon would describe the experience of featuring on the
• 1:11:44
  show as one of those things that seems like a great idea at the
• 1:11:47
  time, but then you regret doing after.
• 1:11:51
  Now I'm not entirely convinced that she really, truly feels
• 1:11:55
  that way. The title of the show was A
• 1:11:57
  Ghost Ruined My Life. Maybe a more suitable title
• 1:12:01
  would have been A Ghost Changed My Life, probably for the
• 1:12:04
  better, but I don't suppose that would have poured in half as
• 1:12:08
  many viewers. Following the experience,
• 1:12:11
  Shannon pursued a career in paranormal investigations, and
• 1:12:15
  I'm not entirely convinced that she would have seen the same
• 1:12:17
  level of success in her new career had she not appeared on
• 1:12:21
  the show. Now the show made out that
• 1:12:23
  Shannon toured the country helping people with their own
• 1:12:25
  hauntings, which I suppose is kind of true.
• 1:12:29
  She helps people to find out what's going on at their
• 1:12:32
  property and how to deal with the situation, but she never
• 1:12:36
  says that she can make a haunting stop or make an entity
• 1:12:39
  leave a property. Shannon now hosts investigations
• 1:12:43
  around the country and owns her own company.
• 1:12:47
  I really hope you enjoyed the episode.
• 1:12:49
  If you did, please, please, please smash the like button,
• 1:12:52
  subscribe to the channel, and leave any thoughts in the
• 1:12:55
  comments section. As always, thanks for watching.
• 1:12:59
  I'm your host. Severed Soul.
• 1:13:06
  One of the most memorable encounters Ryan ever had
• 1:13:09
  happened while he was engaged. His fiancee's family owned an
• 1:13:14
  old Texas House built in the 1860s.
• 1:13:17
  Only three families had ever lived in it, and the most recent
• 1:13:20
  owner was an older woman who they had nicknamed Edith the
• 1:13:25
  Kitchen Ghost. OK, so we know where this
• 1:13:28
  story's going. Nobody knew much about the
• 1:13:30
  families before Edith. The first time Ryan stepped into
• 1:13:34
  the house, he was overwhelmed by a rush of sensations.
• 1:13:39
  Goosebumps shot up his arms, he smelled fresh baked goods, and a
• 1:13:44
  cold chill ran down his spine. But more troubling was the
• 1:13:48
  sudden wave of pain, heat, dizziness, and the sharp taste
• 1:13:52
  of ash in his mouth. His fiancee's mother noticed his
• 1:13:56
  face turn pale. As Ryan stared through the
• 1:13:58
  living room, past the dining room, and into the kitchen
• 1:14:01
  doorway, he saw what looked like a hand resting on the frame.
• 1:14:07
  And then, in a blink, it vanished.
• 1:14:10
  At that very moment, every cabinet in the kitchen swung
• 1:14:13
  open. The family barely even reacted.
• 1:14:16
  Apparently, this was normal. I can categorically state that
• 1:14:21
  this is not normal. And if you ever experience
• 1:14:24
  anything like this in your own home, call the Ghostbusters.
• 1:14:28
  About a year later, when his fiancee's family left to work
• 1:14:32
  out of state, Ryan moved into the house with her.
• 1:14:36
  Big mistake, Ryan. From the moment he arrived, the
• 1:14:39
  place was restless. The house creaked and groaned
• 1:14:42
  whenever he was alone. The smell of baked goods would
• 1:14:45
  drift through the rooms, only to be replaced by the acrid sense
• 1:14:49
  of burning and the taste of ash. He didn't understand the source
• 1:14:54
  of the burning smell until one night when he was alone.
• 1:14:58
  He heard what sounded like small footsteps in the attic above
• 1:15:03
  him. Oh that's creepy shit Ryan, get
• 1:15:06
  out. Don't stay there.
• 1:15:07
  Just tell your fiance you can either stay or come with me, but
• 1:15:11
  I am leaving. The attic access was in a hall
• 1:15:14
  closet right across from the bedroom he shared with his
• 1:15:17
  fiance. At first he assumed it was just
• 1:15:20
  animals up there, but before long the noises became more and
• 1:15:24
  more human sounding. At around 3:00 AM, he heard a
• 1:15:28
  child's giggle coming from inside the closet.
• 1:15:32
  Now children's giggles are 100% where I draw the line.
• 1:15:35
  Probably wouldn't even pack my bags.
• 1:15:37
  I'm leaving in whatever I am wearing.
• 1:15:40
  Ryan unlocked the three latches on the door and opened it. 3
• 1:15:44
  latches. Yeah, that's a red flag.
• 1:15:48
  Inside were only blankets, fans, school bags, and the steep
• 1:15:52
  staircase leading into the attic.
• 1:15:54
  Don't go into the attic, Ryan. Don't do it.
• 1:15:56
  There's nothing good up in the attic, I can tell you now.
• 1:15:59
  Curious, he moved everything aside and climbed up.
• 1:16:02
  Oh for fuck's sake, Ryan. The moment he touched the
• 1:16:05
  stairs, the smell of burning intensified.
• 1:16:08
  The taste of ash coated his mouth, and he could feel his
• 1:16:12
  whole body growing hot out with every step.
• 1:16:15
  So this is where things get really creepy.
• 1:16:18
  At the top, he found an extra bedroom and bathroom completely
• 1:16:23
  charred. The walls, the furniture and
• 1:16:26
  belongings were all black. Children's toys, half melted,
• 1:16:30
  sat scorched on a bed. The attic had clearly been
• 1:16:33
  destroyed by an intense fire decades earlier.
• 1:16:37
  As he explored, breathing became more and more difficult.
• 1:16:41
  When he turned to leave, a small, white, almost featureless
• 1:16:45
  face stared at him from the stairwell.
• 1:16:48
  He blinked and the figure vanished.
• 1:16:51
  He rushed towards the stairs, only to hear them giggles and
• 1:16:55
  the tiny sound of footsteps behind him.
• 1:16:57
  Something collided with the door just as he slammed it shut.
• 1:17:03
  Slowly, the burning smell faded. The taste of ash disappeared,
• 1:17:08
  replaced by sweetness. Fresh cookie scent drifted
• 1:17:11
  through the hallway. When he finally walked into the
• 1:17:14
  kitchen for a drink, he turned from the fridge to find once
• 1:17:18
  again every cabinet was open. The dishes rattled inside them,
• 1:17:23
  then fell silent as the stove top burners clicked on by
• 1:17:27
  themselves. Backing out of the kitchen, he
• 1:17:29
  turned towards the living room and that's where he saw an old
• 1:17:33
  woman sitting calmly on the sofa, smiling at him before
• 1:17:37
  fading away. When Ryan explained everything
• 1:17:40
  to his fiancee's family, they simply told him, Ryan, you
• 1:17:43
  should never have gone into the attic in the 1st place.
• 1:17:47
  After they left again to work out of state, Ryan returned and
• 1:17:50
  attempted to cleanse the House of whatever negative presence
• 1:17:53
  lingered, but the darker side of the haunting still remained.
• 1:18:04
  Juani was around 9 or 10 years old when her family moved to a
• 1:18:07
  neighborhood in West Virginia, just across a massive bridge.
• 1:18:11
  They were moving in with some close family friends and a few
• 1:18:14
  of their relatives. The house itself was fairly
• 1:18:17
  large, 4 bedrooms including an office, a basement, 2 bathrooms,
• 1:18:22
  and an attic that doubled as a walk in closet.
• 1:18:25
  Yeah, you'd need a pretty large house with that many people.
• 1:18:29
  So to reach the room that Bonnie and her mother shared, you had
• 1:18:32
  to walk through the upstairs bathroom and then through the
• 1:18:35
  walk in closet. And that room also connected to
• 1:18:38
  yet another bedroom through a second door.
• 1:18:41
  When they arrived, they were told that the previous owners
• 1:18:44
  had practiced some kind of voodoo, though Bunnie never knew
• 1:18:48
  exactly what that meant. What Bunny did know, however,
• 1:18:52
  was that the place was full of dolls.
• 1:18:55
  Baby dolls, dull heads and even Barbie's hanging.
• 1:18:59
  OK, yeah, that is Creeper. Outside the room that she and
• 1:19:03
  her mother stayed in, four pencils were taped to the wall.
• 1:19:07
  Each pencil had a yarn head and a name written on it.
• 1:19:11
  What the fuck Is this some kind of, what's that film?
• 1:19:14
  Hereditary. This is definitely some kind of
• 1:19:17
  Hereditary shit. No one remembered the exact
• 1:19:20
  names, but Bunny and her mother were warned by the family not to
• 1:19:24
  remove the pencils, but something just felt wrong and
• 1:19:29
  they took them down anyway. Now, the bedroom door almost
• 1:19:33
  never stayed shut, so they used the book to wedge under the door
• 1:19:37
  so it stayed cracked instead of swinging wide open.
• 1:19:40
  One night, most of the adults went out to a local bar, leaving
• 1:19:44
  only two adults, Bonnie and another small child.
• 1:19:48
  Bonnie stayed in her room watching her iPad.
• 1:19:51
  She accidentally turned it off and didn't know the password, so
• 1:19:55
  she tried turning on the TV. Nothing.
• 1:19:58
  So she was left alone in silence and decided to read her favorite
• 1:20:02
  book. She remembered how unnaturally
• 1:20:05
  quiet the house felt, like it was too quiet.
• 1:20:09
  After about 10 minutes of sitting there in silence, her
• 1:20:12
  bedroom door suddenly flew open with force, sending the book and
• 1:20:17
  all its pages scattering all over the floor.
• 1:20:20
  Bunny broke down crying instantly.
• 1:20:22
  It terrified her so deeply that she still thinks about it to
• 1:20:25
  this day. Later she was told the toddler
• 1:20:28
  might have used the bathroom and pushed the door open, but the
• 1:20:32
  speed and force didn't match. Bonnie knew this was complete
• 1:20:35
  bullshit anyway. She never saw the kid and there
• 1:20:40
  were other experiences after that.
• 1:20:42
  Toys would move from where she'd left them, and she refused to
• 1:20:45
  shower with the frosted glass doors closed because she could
• 1:20:50
  often see the outline of a figure standing outside them.
• 1:20:53
  And then it would disappear when she poked her head around the
• 1:20:57
  door. Her family moved out only a few
• 1:21:00
  months later, not because of the haunting, but because the
• 1:21:03
  relationship between the families became untenable.
• 1:21:07
  Still, that house left a mark on her childhood that she'll never
• 1:21:11
  forget. Andy never considered himself
• 1:21:19
  religious. He didn't believe in angels,
• 1:21:22
  demons, God or the devil, But he did believe that dark entities
• 1:21:28
  existed. What they were, however, he
• 1:21:30
  couldn't say. So when he was around 5 or 6
• 1:21:34
  years old, his family moved into their first home, a beautiful,
• 1:21:39
  decent sized house in a suburban neighborhood in Pennsylvania.
• 1:21:43
  Andy was the oldest of four siblings, and by the time he was
• 1:21:46
  8 or 9, the strange experiences began to form into vivid
• 1:21:51
  memories. He and his younger sister would
• 1:21:54
  both see glowing red eyes staring from the shadows of
• 1:21:57
  their shared closet, obviously terrified they would run
• 1:22:01
  screaming to their parents about rats with red eyes.
• 1:22:06
  Their parents dismissed it as childish imagination, nothing
• 1:22:09
  more than the usual monsters under the bed phase.
• 1:22:13
  Why don't parents ever believe their children?
• 1:22:15
  If my kids were telling me they were seeing spooky shit in their
• 1:22:19
  bedroom, I'd at least go and investigate with them to show
• 1:22:23
  them that there's nothing there. Anyway, not long after this,
• 1:22:27
  both of the children began hearing their names being called
• 1:22:30
  by unfamiliar voices coming from the basement.
• 1:22:34
  OK, so if one kid was hearing the voices, maybe, just maybe,
• 1:22:38
  you could suggest that they were hearing things.
• 1:22:41
  But when both kids are hearing the voices, that's some creepy
• 1:22:45
  shit. They slept on the upper level of
• 1:22:47
  the two-story house with the half finished basement below.
• 1:22:52
  Admittedly, their parents were concerned, but could still offer
• 1:22:55
  no real explanation. Well, eventually their mother
• 1:23:00
  began experiencing similar things.
• 1:23:02
  Yeah, you're going to believe them.
• 1:23:04
  Now. As a devout Christian, she
• 1:23:06
  confided in the family's pastor, who suggested cleansing the
• 1:23:10
  house. They prayed and drew crosses
• 1:23:12
  with olive oil on the walls. Instead of helping, this only
• 1:23:17
  seemed to provoke the activity. I've heard of putting crosses up
• 1:23:20
  around the house, but I've never heard of drawing crosses in
• 1:23:23
  olive oil. If you've ever heard of that,
• 1:23:25
  let me know in the comments. So the red eyes returned and the
• 1:23:29
  voices continued. Shadowy figures appeared at the
• 1:23:32
  edges of the children's vision and at night seemed to move
• 1:23:36
  across their rooms. Andy and his sister would scream
• 1:23:40
  and hide under the covers until their parents came running, only
• 1:23:43
  to find nothing there. OK, well, at least their parents
• 1:23:47
  were running into check on them, unlike some parents who just
• 1:23:51
  tell their kids to shut up. Objects began falling, moving,
• 1:23:55
  or shaking on their own. Lights flicked on and off, and
• 1:23:59
  doors opened and slammed shuts on their own.
• 1:24:02
  Chairs scraped along the floor with nobody anywhere near them.
• 1:24:06
  It was literally the full catalog of ghostly activity, the
• 1:24:10
  kind of shit you'd expect from ATV Show, only this was
• 1:24:13
  unfolding in real life. Their mother tried her best to
• 1:24:17
  comfort them, believing that something truly was happening,
• 1:24:20
  although their father remained slightly more skeptical.
• 1:24:25
  Ha ha, Well, that was until one night when everything changed.
• 1:24:31
  Andy came downstairs crying about the monster sitting on the
• 1:24:34
  basement steps. His father tried to reassure him
• 1:24:38
  that there was nothing there and he was just imagining things.
• 1:24:41
  As he spoke, the basement door suddenly slammed shut and Andy's
• 1:24:46
  dad felt a force shove him down the stairs.
• 1:24:49
  Traumatized, he climbed back to his feet and the two of them
• 1:24:53
  left the basement and locked the door behind them.
• 1:24:56
  That evening, they prayed together as a family.
• 1:24:59
  The activity continued on and off for years.
• 1:25:03
  Multiple attempts to cleanse the house, even with the help from
• 1:25:06
  their pastor, made no lasting difference.
• 1:25:09
  Cold spots formed and the disturbances intensified.
• 1:25:13
  Around age 12, while home alone in the basement where the
• 1:25:16
  computer sat and they heard a violent crash.
• 1:25:20
  Every shelf in the room had been forcefully knocked down.
• 1:25:24
  He ran outside and waited until his parents came home, terrified
• 1:25:28
  to re enter Yet. I know exactly how that feels,
• 1:25:32
  Andy. I remember doing exactly the
• 1:25:33
  same thing once when I was a kid.
• 1:25:36
  Their dogs barked at unseen things, shadows moved along the
• 1:25:40
  walls and disembodied voices whispered in the darkness.
• 1:25:44
  The whole family experienced the disturbances, but Andy and his
• 1:25:49
  sister seemed to bear the brunt of it.
• 1:25:51
  As he got older, Andy began reading Bible verses aloud to
• 1:25:55
  fend off what he called the demon.
• 1:25:57
  It never truly worked, but it made him feel slightly less
• 1:26:01
  helpless. One night remains burned into
• 1:26:05
  his memory, a tall, shadowy figure standing across the room
• 1:26:09
  near his sister's bed, visible only by the dim glow of the TV.
• 1:26:13
  It seemed to notice him awaken when it looked directly at him.
• 1:26:18
  He dove under his covers and froze, hiding under his blanket.
• 1:26:22
  He could hear it breathing and feel its presence looming over
• 1:26:26
  him until he eventually passed out from fear.
• 1:26:30
  When Andy was 14, his grandparents who were caring for
• 1:26:33
  his cousins both felt ill and unfortunately, shortly after
• 1:26:37
  this, his grandmother passed away.
• 1:26:40
  His grandfather and the cousins moved into the house with them.
• 1:26:44
  Before long, they too noticed the strange things.
• 1:26:48
  The family avoided the basements and the upstairs hallway as much
• 1:26:52
  as possible. Some nights, all of them would
• 1:26:55
  huddle together in a single room, listening to footsteps,
• 1:26:59
  movements and unexplained noises echo throughout the house.
• 1:27:03
  Another pastor visit brought temporary relief, but Andy
• 1:27:07
  believed the constant family stress and dysfunction kept
• 1:27:10
  whatever was there stirred up. Things only got worse as time
• 1:27:15
  went on. His parents eventually divorced
• 1:27:18
  and his mother fell into, let's just say, bad habits.
• 1:27:22
  Andy and his siblings later moved in with their father to a
• 1:27:25
  townhouse. Andy carries the trauma to this
• 1:27:28
  day. He still dislikes the dark,
• 1:27:30
  avoids attics and unfinished basements, and is certain
• 1:27:34
  something malevolent lived in that house.
• 1:27:37
  He rarely talks about what happened except with his sister
• 1:27:41
  who remembers the same things. Sharing the story now is his way
• 1:27:45
  of finally letting the memories breathe.
• 1:27:52
  Rebecca was about 9 years old and her younger sister was 6.
• 1:27:56
  Their parents were downstairs watching TV while the 2 girls
• 1:28:00
  headed upstairs to get ready for bed.
• 1:28:02
  It was dark both outside and inside the house, and the only
• 1:28:06
  light switch for the stairway and upper hallway was on the
• 1:28:09
  first floor. Rebecca walked ahead and had
• 1:28:12
  just stepped into the upstairs hallway.
• 1:28:15
  Her sister was still a few steps behind her on the staircase.
• 1:28:19
  Rebecca reached for the light switch, and just two seconds
• 1:28:22
  before she turned it on, both girls saw it.
• 1:28:26
  The moment the light came on, the thing vanished.
• 1:28:30
  Rebecca's sister later said she saw it rush past her on the
• 1:28:34
  stairs. Rebecca saw it in the hallway,
• 1:28:37
  gliding upwards from the first floor, shooting up towards the
• 1:28:41
  2nd floor, straight towards the attic, which happened to be
• 1:28:45
  Rebecca's bedroom. It moved extremely fast and both
• 1:28:50
  girls were terrified. They ran back downstairs to tell
• 1:28:53
  their parents, but in typical fashion on this channel, their
• 1:28:57
  parents dismissed it as probably being their white cat.
• 1:29:01
  Except the cat had been downstairs the entire time.
• 1:29:04
  Whatever they saw didn't look like an animal anyway.
• 1:29:07
  It was white, low to the ground and about the size of a
• 1:29:11
  basketball round, but stretched slightly because of the speed it
• 1:29:15
  was moving. It wasn't solid.
• 1:29:17
  It looked like white, semi transparent smoke, yet bright
• 1:29:21
  enough to be clearly visible in the dark.
• 1:29:24
  There were no features, no face, no limbs, no hair.
• 1:29:28
  Just a glowing cloud like shape that shot up the stairs faster
• 1:29:32
  than anything they'd ever seen. Neither Rebecca nor her sister
• 1:29:36
  ever saw anything like it again. Her sister believed the sighting
• 1:29:40
  happened around the time their grandfather passed away, though
• 1:29:44
  Rebecca wasn't so certain. But even now, she still wonders
• 1:29:48
  what that white shape really was.
• 1:29:56
  In 1984 to 1985, when Michael was about 14 or 15 years old, he
• 1:30:01
  lived in a small older house in Spokane, WA with his mother and
• 1:30:05
  her partner. The upstairs was a converted
• 1:30:09
  attic divided into two narrow rooms.
• 1:30:11
  At the top of the stairs was a small space he used as a living
• 1:30:15
  room, and through a door an identical space served as his
• 1:30:18
  bedroom. The ceiling sloped on both sides
• 1:30:21
  so steeply that only a three foot strip down the centre
• 1:30:24
  allowed him to stand upright. But that made me claustrophobic.
• 1:30:28
  Their rescue dog wanted absolutely nothing to do with
• 1:30:31
  the attic stairs. Now, Michael assumed that the
• 1:30:34
  dog had simply had bad experiences with previous
• 1:30:37
  owners. But every time he tried coaxing
• 1:30:40
  him up the stairs, the dog would cower and whimper.
• 1:30:43
  Well, one day, determined to show him the room, Michael
• 1:30:47
  carried the dog up himself. The moment they reached the top,
• 1:30:51
  the dog panicked, whining, yelping, flattening himself to
• 1:30:54
  the floor. Then he lost control of his
• 1:30:57
  bowels, bolted back down the stairs, and ran straight out of
• 1:31:00
  the house. Now Michael brushed it off.
• 1:31:03
  He never felt anything threatening in the attic, so he
• 1:31:06
  wasn't overly worried. Well, about a week after moving
• 1:31:10
  in, he started waking up at around 3:00 AM almost every
• 1:31:13
  night. Why is it always 3:00 AM?
• 1:31:15
  Is that the witching hour? I think that's the witching
• 1:31:17
  hour. Each time he heard faint
• 1:31:21
  classical music drifting through the attic, he assumed it was
• 1:31:25
  coming from neighbors or from downstairs and didn't think too
• 1:31:28
  much of it. And then came the night he left
• 1:31:31
  the door between his two attic rooms open again.
• 1:31:35
  At around 3:00 AM he woke to the music, but this time there was a
• 1:31:39
  soft glow coming from his little living room area.
• 1:31:43
  When he stepped into the doorway, he saw his stereo
• 1:31:46
  turned on, turned to the local AM classical station.
• 1:31:49
  The volume was turned down to almost nothing.
• 1:31:53
  Well, that night he slept with the lights on and the door shut.
• 1:31:57
  Well, the following morning the stereo was back on the FM
• 1:32:01
  station he normally listened to as if nothing had happened.
• 1:32:05
  But nearly every night after that, he continued waking up to
• 1:32:09
  the faint sound of classical music coming from the stereo.
• 1:32:13
  Well, since the attic never felt threatening, Michael decided to
• 1:32:17
  treat whatever was happening as harmless.
• 1:32:20
  As a gesture of goodwill, he began tuning the radio to the FM
• 1:32:24
  version of the classical station before bed.
• 1:32:26
  With the volume set low but higher than the ghost preferred,
• 1:32:30
  it felt like a small compromise. A couple of months later they
• 1:32:34
  moved out and at the time his mother told him the rent had
• 1:32:38
  gone up. Yet years later, she admitted
• 1:32:41
  the real reason. She was terrified of the ghost
• 1:32:44
  in her bedroom. She said the curtains and doors
• 1:32:47
  would open and close all night long.
• 1:32:49
  Michael considers himself a skeptic and still tries to
• 1:32:52
  convince himself that he must have been sleepwalking or
• 1:32:55
  something. But even now, he isn't sure that
• 1:32:59
  explains everything that happened in that attic.
• 1:33:02
  And that's the end of the stories.
• 1:33:04
  Thanks for watching this episode.
• 1:33:06
  If you enjoyed it, please smash the like button and subscribe to
• 1:33:09
  the channel. Thanks for watching.
• 1:33:11
  I'm your host, Severed Soul. What would you do if the devil
• 1:33:27
  himself offered you the deal of a lifetime?
• 1:33:32
  That is what today's story is all about and this story is
• 1:33:36
  called. I made a deal with the devil and
• 1:33:40
  survive. I made a deal with the devil and
• 1:33:43
  kept my soul. But my deal might not be over
• 1:33:46
  like I thought. This is my story.
• 1:33:51
  I was once a dutiful soldier in a perpetual war that seemed
• 1:33:55
  never ending. I was always at the front line,
• 1:33:58
  taking big risks and never getting injured, gaining the
• 1:34:02
  nickname The Iron Man. But one day everything changed.
• 1:34:07
  A peace treaty was struck. Unfortunately, it came at a
• 1:34:11
  great cost. New political powers rose from
• 1:34:15
  the treaty. Soon our country was being run
• 1:34:17
  by figureheads of the country we once fought against.
• 1:34:21
  It seems they won the war, but with pen and paper.
• 1:34:25
  There was so much corruption in many areas of this new
• 1:34:28
  government and the people had no more fight left in them to try
• 1:34:31
  to stop it. There was no money for veterans,
• 1:34:35
  no jobs for the lower classes, and no social assistance as the
• 1:34:40
  politicians were pocketing the country's money.
• 1:34:43
  I, along with the majority of the country, was having trouble
• 1:34:47
  finding work. Our economy was suffering and
• 1:34:50
  the job market was abysmal. I had no home and rarely had
• 1:34:55
  food. One day I came upon an apple
• 1:34:58
  tree that stood at a crossroads. Being hungry, I went up to the
• 1:35:04
  tree and plucked an apple down from it.
• 1:35:07
  I sat down to enjoy this brief moment, hoping the apple would
• 1:35:11
  give me some strength to carry on to the next day.
• 1:35:15
  As I took my first bite, I noticed a dark shadow travelling
• 1:35:19
  along the ground, the hair on the back of my neck standing up.
• 1:35:25
  I slowly lifted my head to see an eccentric looking man
• 1:35:28
  standing before me. A strange man wore a green
• 1:35:33
  jacket and leaned on a golden walking stick adorned with
• 1:35:36
  sapphires. The man looked quite dignified,
• 1:35:41
  but then I realized he had two goat hoos for feet.
• 1:35:48
  I jumped out of fright, dropping the apple as I stared down at
• 1:35:51
  the goat hoos. I went to grab my rifle from my
• 1:35:54
  back when the strange man started to speak.
• 1:35:56
  I know what you are in need of. Said the man.
• 1:36:00
  I stood there frozen for a moment.
• 1:36:03
  Out of curiosity more than anything, I stopped to listen to
• 1:36:06
  what the strange man had to say. The man in the green jacket
• 1:36:10
  leaned forward on his walking stick and smirked as he
• 1:36:13
  continued to speak. I will give you money and
• 1:36:17
  property as much as you can squander away in your lifetime.
• 1:36:23
  I shook my head as I tried to make sense of the situation,
• 1:36:26
  stammering in response. Who?
• 1:36:29
  What, what are you talking about?
• 1:36:33
  The man in the green jacket ignored my questions and
• 1:36:36
  continued. However, he paused for a moment
• 1:36:41
  to add some sort of flair for the dramatic, waiting to see if
• 1:36:43
  I flinch at his words. Before I give you everything
• 1:36:47
  your heart desires, I must know if you are fearless.
• 1:36:52
  I don't want to be giving away my money to a coward.
• 1:36:56
  The strange man questioning my bravery got my attention right
• 1:36:59
  quick and I snapped back at him. A soldier in fear.
• 1:37:02
  How can those 2GO together? I can handle any test of
• 1:37:05
  bravery. The man grinned wide and
• 1:37:09
  answered. Very well, the look behind you.
• 1:37:13
  I turned around and suddenly a large Browning bear appeared,
• 1:37:16
  barreling towards me. I shouted for a moment out of
• 1:37:19
  surprise, confused with his bear came from, but quickly my
• 1:37:23
  training kicked in and I grabbed my rifle and aimed.
• 1:37:27
  The man must have seen the smile on my face as I took aim and
• 1:37:30
  shot the bear in the snow, it fell down motionless.
• 1:37:34
  The strange man grinned ear to ear and said.
• 1:37:38
  Very good, you do not lack courage, but there is one more
• 1:37:42
  condition that you will have to fulfill.
• 1:37:45
  I was beginning to put together who this man was, the goat feet,
• 1:37:49
  the sudden appearance of a bear right on cue.
• 1:37:52
  And now he wants to make a deal. I realized I must be talking to
• 1:37:57
  a demon or the devil himself, so I quickly interrupted to make a
• 1:38:02
  counter offer. Standing tall, I spoke with
• 1:38:05
  conviction. As long as I can keep my soul in
• 1:38:07
  salvation, then I will consider your offer, otherwise I'll have
• 1:38:12
  nothing to do with it. The devil's face became
• 1:38:15
  emotionless as he leaned in closer, inspecting me up and
• 1:38:19
  down, taking a long whiff of me as if I was some sort of meal.
• 1:38:25
  He spun around and began to pace slowly, playfully, whirling his
• 1:38:29
  walking stick around. The man came across as some kind
• 1:38:33
  of demonic circus ringleader with the way he moved and spoke.
• 1:38:37
  His face went from emotionless to uncanny as he smirked and
• 1:38:40
  began to speak. They count her offer.
• 1:38:44
  How intriguing. The devil grinned and stared me
• 1:38:49
  in the eyes as if trying to dig a hole into my soul.
• 1:38:52
  This clearly was a fun game for him and he was playing with me
• 1:38:56
  like a cat plays with his prey. He continued.
• 1:39:01
  How about this then? For the next 7 years, you are
• 1:39:05
  neither to wash yourself, nor comb your hair, nor cut your
• 1:39:09
  nails, nor prey. I will give you a jacket and a
• 1:39:13
  cloak, which you must wear. If you die during these seven
• 1:39:18
  years, you are mine. If you stay alive, you are free,
• 1:39:23
  and I will bestow all the riches upon you to last a lifetime.
• 1:39:27
  I pondered for a moment, thinking about how desperate I
• 1:39:30
  had been in the past few months, and I thought about how many
• 1:39:33
  times I had faced death in the war and survived.
• 1:39:36
  I was the armed man, after all. I decided the odds would be in
• 1:39:41
  my favor. I nodded at him and said all
• 1:39:44
  right, you have a deal. The devil held out his hand.
• 1:39:48
  I leaned in, pausing for a moment, wondering if this was a
• 1:39:51
  mistake, but quickly he grasped my hand and that was that.
• 1:39:55
  The deal was done. The devil took off his green
• 1:39:58
  jacket and gave it to me, saying whenever you wear this jacket
• 1:40:02
  and reach into his pocket, you will find a handful of money.
• 1:40:07
  He then walked over to the dead bear and with a burning hand,
• 1:40:10
  ripped off its belt, transforming it into a cloak.
• 1:40:14
  He wrapped it around my shoulders and said this shall be
• 1:40:17
  your cloak and your bed as well. You are to sleep on it and you
• 1:40:22
  are not allowed to lie in any other bed.
• 1:40:24
  The devil grabbed my jacket and put it on himself.
• 1:40:27
  As if it was some sort of. Symbol of the deal.
• 1:40:30
  He smiled at me with malicious tone as he told me another
• 1:40:34
  condition. One last thing.
• 1:40:38
  Your name for these next seven years will be Bearskin.
• 1:40:41
  That is the name you'll go by, no exceptions.
• 1:40:45
  I furrowed my brow and began to walk up to him in protest.
• 1:40:49
  Wait a minute, you keep adding things to this deal.
• 1:40:52
  But my protest was without merit as the devil smirked and turned
• 1:40:56
  and disappeared right before my eyes.
• 1:40:59
  I sighed and mumbled under my breath.
• 1:41:01
  Bearskin. What a stupid name.
• 1:41:05
  I then shoved my hands into the pockets of the green jacket and
• 1:41:08
  found that the promise was really true.
• 1:41:11
  I felt piles of paper inside and pulled out a handful of them to
• 1:41:14
  see dozens of $100 bills. I gasped for a moment.
• 1:41:20
  Part of me thought this whole exchange was some kind of hunger
• 1:41:22
  induced illusion, but no, I really did just enter a deal
• 1:41:27
  with the devil for my soul. Oh, what did I do?
• 1:41:30
  I cried out to myself. But it was too late.
• 1:41:34
  The deal was struck. I decided that I had to play the
• 1:41:38
  devil at his game. I would keep my soul pure and
• 1:41:41
  not let money taint it. I began to travel so I could do
• 1:41:46
  good in the world. I didn't buy any material things
• 1:41:49
  for myself, only basic food and shelter, and I gave money to
• 1:41:52
  others in need. I didn't want to get comfortable
• 1:41:56
  at anyone location, so I stayed at hostels, shelters, or cheap
• 1:41:59
  motels. I figured if I did good deeds,
• 1:42:03
  my soul would stay clean and if I kept on the move I would have
• 1:42:07
  a better chance of not dying during these seven years.
• 1:42:10
  The first two years my appearance went from OK to
• 1:42:13
  somewhat acceptable. By year three, I smelled like a
• 1:42:17
  rotting corpse and looked like some kind of Cryptid bear
• 1:42:21
  person. I was covered in dirt, hair was
• 1:42:24
  overgrown and matted, and my nails were long and curling.
• 1:42:29
  I was a mess and it was getting harder to be accepted around the
• 1:42:32
  general populace. Everyone who saw me ran away,
• 1:42:36
  but because I gave back to others I was always able to get
• 1:42:40
  by and find some lodging and food.
• 1:42:43
  This was a 7 year war that I was determined to win.
• 1:42:47
  In the fourth year I arrived at a growing town in the east.
• 1:42:52
  The only option for lodging was a motel that was being
• 1:42:54
  renovated. Half the rooms were still run
• 1:42:57
  down and unsafe. The owner would not let me rent
• 1:43:00
  A room, though he told me it was because I would scare away
• 1:43:03
  patrons, so I reached into both pockets and pulled out piles of
• 1:43:07
  money for him, throwing it on the counter.
• 1:43:10
  The owner's eyes grew wide as he agreed to let me stay, but I had
• 1:43:15
  to stay in one of the dilapidated rooms.
• 1:43:17
  I also had to promise not to let myself be seen, saying he would
• 1:43:21
  charge me for any business lost if I scared away patrons. 1
• 1:43:24
  evening as I sat on the dingy bed, I began daydreaming about
• 1:43:27
  my future when I heard a loud sobbing in a nearby room.
• 1:43:32
  I had to stick with the plan, I had to help those in need and I
• 1:43:35
  knocked on their door. An old man answered, his cheeks
• 1:43:38
  tear stained and the sound of his sobs still lingered.
• 1:43:42
  As he saw me. He jumped out of fear and was
• 1:43:44
  about to run away when I spoke. It seemed that a human voice
• 1:43:48
  coming from my tussle of hair and dirt made the old man
• 1:43:50
  curious, so he stopped to listen.
• 1:43:53
  I asked the old man what is wrong?
• 1:43:56
  Why all the tears? The old man went on to explain
• 1:43:59
  his story. He recently lost all his money
• 1:44:02
  in a business deal, even lost his house.
• 1:44:05
  The motel was the only place he could afford to keep a roof over
• 1:44:08
  the heads of his daughters and himself, and they barely had one
• 1:44:12
  meal a day just flipped between them all.
• 1:44:14
  The motel being upgraded meant the new owner wanted them out as
• 1:44:17
  they couldn't afford the upgraded rooms.
• 1:44:20
  The new owner threatened to call the police and have them
• 1:44:22
  arrested if they did not pay up or leave.
• 1:44:25
  I smiled at the old man and put my hand into the green jacket
• 1:44:29
  pocket. If that is your only problem, I
• 1:44:32
  have money. I said as I handed him handfuls
• 1:44:34
  of bills. Take it, get back on your feet
• 1:44:38
  and help your family. The old man's eyes began to
• 1:44:41
  swell up as he softly cried tears of happiness.
• 1:44:45
  He smiled up at me and said. Thank you for your generosity.
• 1:44:48
  Please come to dinner tonight with my family so I can repay
• 1:44:51
  you for your kindness. All I have to offer is my time
• 1:44:54
  and appreciation. I smiled and nodded at the old
• 1:44:58
  man, accepting his invitation. When dinner time approached, I
• 1:45:01
  knocked on his door. The old man answered and
• 1:45:04
  joyfully invited me inside. He went on to tell me how his
• 1:45:07
  daughters were so thankful for what I did for them.
• 1:45:10
  I followed the old man into the kitchenette.
• 1:45:12
  Just as he was about to introduce me to his daughters,
• 1:45:15
  one of them screamed out of fright and ran out of the room.
• 1:45:18
  For a moment I forgot what I look like.
• 1:45:21
  That scream reminded me again that people see me as a monster.
• 1:45:25
  I hung my head down and told the old man that I would just head
• 1:45:28
  back to my room. I started to turn around and
• 1:45:31
  leave when another one of his daughters called out to me.
• 1:45:34
  Wait, please don't go. What you did for us and we're
• 1:45:38
  strangers to you. Clearly you are not a monster
• 1:45:41
  and we want to prepay you for your kindness.
• 1:45:44
  Please have a seat, I want you to stay.
• 1:45:47
  She stood there smiling kindly, her eyes held a pure sincerity
• 1:45:50
  in them. Her words and demeanor relaxed
• 1:45:53
  me and I took a seat at the table with the old man and the 2
• 1:45:56
  remaining daughters and his kind hearted daughter smiled as she
• 1:46:01
  passed me one of the dishes of food.
• 1:46:04
  My name is Adriana. She said.
• 1:46:06
  I mumbled back. My name is Bearskin.
• 1:46:10
  The other daughter at the table began to chuckle.
• 1:46:12
  She had been staring at me with a look of confusion.
• 1:46:16
  She scoffed and began her barrage of questions.
• 1:46:19
  Who would name their child that? How do you even have money?
• 1:46:22
  Why don't you get yourself cleaned up?
• 1:46:24
  You look like an animal. The old man shot his daughter a
• 1:46:27
  look at disapproval as he shushed her.
• 1:46:30
  Quiet you. The old man looked back at me
• 1:46:33
  and said. I'm sorry.
• 1:46:35
  She can be incredibly blunt and doesn't know how to be tactful
• 1:46:38
  with her words. His daughter folded her arms
• 1:46:41
  across her chest and began to pout.
• 1:46:44
  Daddy, I'm just being an honest person.
• 1:46:47
  I don't see the point in lying. I looked over at her and nodded
• 1:46:52
  my head in response. Honesty can be very hard to come
• 1:46:56
  by. There are so many corrupt people
• 1:46:58
  in this world. It's nice to meet someone has
• 1:47:00
  the ability to tell it like it is.
• 1:47:02
  She smiled at my response. We continued idle conversation
• 1:47:07
  as we finished the rest of the evening's meal.
• 1:47:09
  Their family won my heart that night and I ended up spending
• 1:47:12
  the next year in that town. During that year, I helped them
• 1:47:16
  get situated into a home, get the father's business back, and
• 1:47:19
  pretty much became a part of the family.
• 1:47:22
  I had become especially close with Adriana.
• 1:47:25
  She was a very kind soul and was determined to repay my kindness
• 1:47:29
  with her company. As we spent more time together,
• 1:47:33
  I found myself starting to have romantic feelings for her.
• 1:47:36
  After five years of living with this deal, I decided to just be
• 1:47:40
  spontaneous. We were having a picnic at a
• 1:47:43
  nearby pond, enjoying the scenery, when I just blurted
• 1:47:46
  out. Adriana, would you consider
• 1:47:49
  marrying me? I know it was a huge leap to ask
• 1:47:53
  her to marry me when I look like this, but after the way my life
• 1:47:56
  had gone over the last five years I figured why not take a
• 1:47:59
  shot at happiness. I have been dealing with
• 1:48:02
  rejection and disgust this whole time so I could easily handle if
• 1:48:05
  she said no. Adriana sat up and moved her
• 1:48:09
  hands to grab mine. Even though they were in
• 1:48:11
  disgusting state she didn't seem to care.
• 1:48:14
  She smiled up at me and surprisingly responded with yes
• 1:48:19
  that would be lovely. There's so much bad in this
• 1:48:22
  world. I know you're a good man and you
• 1:48:24
  truly care about my family. I smiled and pulled an old ring
• 1:48:28
  off one of my fingers, snapping it in half as I tried to explain
• 1:48:31
  my one caveat. I still have to complete this
• 1:48:34
  journey I'm on. It is difficult for me to
• 1:48:37
  explain why, but I must leave for a bit to finish this.
• 1:48:42
  She looked up at me concerned. How long will you be gone?
• 1:48:45
  She asked. I shook my head and told her I
• 1:48:49
  have two more years left. If you are OK with waiting, I
• 1:48:53
  want you to keep half this ring and I'll keep the other half.
• 1:48:55
  When I get back I'll get you a proper ring.
• 1:48:59
  She began to cry softly and I wrapped my arms around her.
• 1:49:03
  I told her I must go help more people.
• 1:49:06
  I have a situation hanging over my head and I don't want you or
• 1:49:08
  your family to get hurt. I promise I will tell you
• 1:49:12
  everything if I return. If I do not return after two
• 1:49:17
  years, then it is because I have died.
• 1:49:19
  She nodded, continuing to cry, and took the half piece of ring.
• 1:49:25
  I travelled the country for the next two years, doing good
• 1:49:27
  wherever I could. Finally, the last day of my
• 1:49:31
  seven years came around, so at dawn I went back to the apple
• 1:49:34
  tree at the crossroads and waited for the devil to show up.
• 1:49:38
  Fairly quickly the wind began to howl and the shadow fell across
• 1:49:41
  the road again. I looked up to see the devil
• 1:49:45
  scowling at me angrily. He threw my old jacket at me and
• 1:49:50
  demanded the return of his green jacket.
• 1:49:53
  I stood tall, proud of surviving the last seven years and doing
• 1:49:56
  good all along the way. I held up a finger to the devil
• 1:50:00
  as I made my demands. Now hold on, we haven't
• 1:50:03
  finalized our deal yet. You added more to the deal
• 1:50:07
  without giving me a chance to counter last time.
• 1:50:10
  So my final demand is you have to clean me up, take the last
• 1:50:14
  seven years of filth and growth and make me look as I was.
• 1:50:19
  The devil scowled and raised his hand up, snapping his fingers
• 1:50:22
  and suddenly I was back to looking like myself again.
• 1:50:26
  My skin was clean, hair and nails trimmed, and clothing was
• 1:50:30
  fresh. I looked even better than I had
• 1:50:32
  before. Now you owe me my riches.
• 1:50:36
  I announced the devil. The devil grit his teeth and
• 1:50:40
  reluctantly snapped his fingers as he said.
• 1:50:43
  There, now your jacket will always provide you with the same
• 1:50:47
  wealth as my green jacket did before.
• 1:50:50
  He then snatched up his green jacket and in an instant
• 1:50:53
  disappeared. Seeing the demon gone, I smiled
• 1:50:57
  and let out a breath of relief. Finally, my life is my own
• 1:51:01
  again. I said to myself as I walked
• 1:51:03
  away from the crossroads for the last time.
• 1:51:06
  I quickly travelled back to the town where Adriana was, hoping
• 1:51:10
  with all hope that she would still be there waiting for me.
• 1:51:14
  When I knocked on the door, I looked so different from before
• 1:51:17
  that no one recognized me. The old man thought I was a
• 1:51:20
  businessman and invited me inside.
• 1:51:23
  I sat down with the father and the three daughters.
• 1:51:25
  The two daughters fawned over me.
• 1:51:27
  They started pouring me wine while serving me fine foods to
• 1:51:30
  eat and doing everything that they could divide from my
• 1:51:33
  attention. Adriana, however, would not
• 1:51:37
  raise her eyes to look at me and did not speak a word.
• 1:51:41
  She was dressed all in black and that's when I realized she
• 1:51:44
  thought I was dead. The father began conversation
• 1:51:48
  assuming I was there to discuss a business opportunity, but I
• 1:51:51
  interrupted him and told him Oh no, I'm here to get my bride so
• 1:51:55
  we can get married. When the two other sisters heard
• 1:51:58
  this, they jumped up and ran into the bedrooms to put on some
• 1:52:00
  fancy dresses. Apparently, each of them thought
• 1:52:03
  I was here to arrange a marriage and that they may be chosen as a
• 1:52:06
  bride. Their father went to his study
• 1:52:08
  to grab some paperwork he had regarding his daughter's
• 1:52:10
  dowries. As soon as I was alone with
• 1:52:13
  Adriana, I brought up my half of the ring and dropped it into a
• 1:52:16
  glass of wine, which I handed across the table to her.
• 1:52:20
  She took the wine and began to sip on it.
• 1:52:23
  Suddenly seeing the half ring in her glass, her face changed and
• 1:52:27
  she began to smile. She took her half, which she
• 1:52:31
  wore on a ribbon around her neck, put them together and saw
• 1:52:34
  that the two pieces matched perfectly.
• 1:52:37
  I looked adoringly at her and said, It's nice to meet you,
• 1:52:40
  Adriana, my name is Jacob. The journey is finally over.
• 1:52:46
  She smiled wide and stood up, embracing me, and we kissed.
• 1:52:51
  In the meantime, the two sisters came back beautifully dressed,
• 1:52:53
  their hair and makeup done just right.
• 1:52:56
  When they saw Adriana and I kissing, they began to fume and
• 1:52:59
  cry. My sister's eyes seemed to flash
• 1:53:01
  red and she walked out of the room for a moment, but her walk
• 1:53:05
  seemed off, like a marionette being controlled by strings.
• 1:53:11
  I felt the air in the room shift, something was wrong.
• 1:53:16
  I looked around the room trying to figure out what was going on.
• 1:53:20
  Suddenly Adriana's sister can running back in screaming with a
• 1:53:24
  knife in her hand. I couldn't stop her in time and
• 1:53:27
  she began attacking Adriana with quick movements over and over.
• 1:53:31
  A scuffle ensued and I pulled her off Adriana, throwing her
• 1:53:34
  against a wall, knocking her unconscious, but it was too
• 1:53:37
  late. I scooped up Adriana, she had
• 1:53:41
  lost so much blood, it was everywhere, so much damage in
• 1:53:45
  only a few seconds. I yelled at the other sister to
• 1:53:49
  call for help, she got scared and ran out of the house.
• 1:53:53
  The father came running into the room after hearing all the
• 1:53:55
  screaming. Upon seeing the bloody mess and
• 1:53:58
  his daughter laying there lifeless, he began to clutch at
• 1:54:00
  his chest as he too fell to the ground.
• 1:54:04
  I felt like I was in some weird fever dream surrounded by death.
• 1:54:08
  I ran to the phone to call for help.
• 1:54:10
  As I was speaking with emergency services I heard Adriana's
• 1:54:13
  sister wake up and start screaming.
• 1:54:16
  What did I do? What's that?
• 1:54:17
  No what did I do? I ran back into the room, tried
• 1:54:22
  to subdue her until police showed up as she saw me panicked
• 1:54:25
  and ran out the front door. I ran after her but couldn't
• 1:54:28
  catch up. I watched as she ran into the
• 1:54:31
  road and straight into traffic, and suddenly a large truck
• 1:54:34
  appeared out of nowhere, slamming into her.
• 1:54:38
  I stood outside for a moment in complete shock of everything I
• 1:54:41
  just witnessed, and suddenly I felt a cool chill, the hair
• 1:54:45
  raising on the back of my neck as I watched a shadow crawl
• 1:54:49
  along the ground, the familiar shadow as I had seen two times
• 1:54:54
  before. I turned around to go back into
• 1:54:57
  the house, but there he was, leaning on his walking stick,
• 1:55:02
  grinning at me, the green jacket and goat feet mocking me.
• 1:55:07
  I became red with anger and I began to yell at him.
• 1:55:11
  What did you do? The devil leaning close,
• 1:55:14
  growling out to me. Can't you see I now have three
• 1:55:19
  souls instead of just your 1? He then disappeared in the blink
• 1:55:23
  of an eye. I lost the love of my life that
• 1:55:26
  day and remained forever scarred. 3 people died and their
• 1:55:31
  souls damned, all because I made a selfish deal.
• 1:55:37
  I never forgot their faces, they haunted me. 10 years have passed
• 1:55:44
  and yet I recognized her like it was yesterday.
• 1:55:48
  The sister who ran away. I saw her standing outside my
• 1:55:52
  apartment last night and she was wearing a green jacket.
• 1:55:56
  That familiar jacket. I thought I escaped with just
• 1:56:01
  heartbreak, but it would seem there's no true escape from the
• 1:56:04
  devil. I'm not sure what kind of deal
• 1:56:07
  she made. And This is why I'm currently
• 1:56:10
  recording my story. I don't know what will come of
• 1:56:14
  me tomorrow. This might be my end.
• 1:56:19
  If you enjoyed the story, don't forget to like and subscribe.
• 1:56:23
  What would you do if a loved one came back from the dead?
• 1:56:30
  But they weren't quite themselves anymore.
• 1:56:35
  Something was wrong. That is what today's story is
• 1:56:39
  all about. This story is called My brother
• 1:56:42
  died, but then he came back and everything was wrong.
• 1:56:48
  I wish I was still oblivious to the truth.
• 1:56:51
  Go back and live in ignorance. I didn't know all this stuff was
• 1:56:56
  real. Witchcraft, necromancy, magic.
• 1:57:02
  Why would anyone think that was real?
• 1:57:05
  I guess I should start from the beginning with the people who
• 1:57:09
  brought this hell upon me. My parents.
• 1:57:14
  A few years before I was born, my father had a different
• 1:57:17
  family. He was married previously before
• 1:57:21
  my mother. He used to tell me how wonderful
• 1:57:24
  his first wife was and how happy she made him, but all she ever
• 1:57:28
  wanted was a child and they were struggling to conceive after
• 1:57:32
  years of trying. One day his wife came home with
• 1:57:35
  a sapling of a juniper tree. She began to tell him about a
• 1:57:38
  woman who sold her an old Italian Strega spell to help
• 1:57:42
  her. He never believed in such
• 1:57:44
  things, as most people don't, but he didn't protest if it made
• 1:57:49
  her happy to try Huey magic. It wasn't hurting anyone.
• 1:57:53
  So he smiled and told her to do what she thinks is best.
• 1:57:57
  He never knew all the details of what this spell entailed.
• 1:58:01
  All he remembered was her planting the sapling in their
• 1:58:03
  backyard and she would go out and prick her finger at it
• 1:58:06
  monthly, letting a drop of blood land in the soil under it as she
• 1:58:11
  cared for the tree and help it grow.
• 1:58:13
  One day it grew mature enough to bear fruit, which apparently she
• 1:58:17
  had to eat. My father always said he
• 1:58:20
  believed it was because the tree brought her happiness and she
• 1:58:23
  was finally not stressed constantly and that's why they
• 1:58:27
  were able to finally become pregnant.
• 1:58:30
  She told him she had to eat the berries every day through the
• 1:58:33
  pregnancy as she was instructed by this old woman who sold her
• 1:58:36
  the spell. My father didn't really think
• 1:58:39
  much of it, he just agreed. Eventually the day came when my
• 1:58:43
  brother was born. This was both the happiest and
• 1:58:47
  saddest day of my father's life. He told me something went wrong
• 1:58:52
  during childbirth and she died. On her deathbed, she begged my
• 1:58:57
  father to bury her with the tree.
• 1:59:00
  He told me she was rambling about it being very important.
• 1:59:04
  Normally he wouldn't have listened to a drug induced
• 1:59:06
  rambling like that, but it was her dying wish.
• 1:59:10
  Since it's technically not legal to just bury someone in your
• 1:59:13
  backyard, My father did what he could.
• 1:59:16
  Before she was cremated. He had locks of her hair and
• 1:59:18
  pieces of her nails trimmed off so he could bury them under the
• 1:59:21
  tree. He also spread her ashes along
• 1:59:23
  the base of the tree as well. Now he found himself to be a
• 1:59:27
  single father to a boy, a boy who needed a mother.
• 1:59:31
  It just so happened, however, in the hospital he met a nurse, my
• 1:59:36
  mother. She was there for him to the
• 1:59:38
  grieving process as a friend. But soon they started developing
• 1:59:43
  romantic feelings and eventually got married.
• 1:59:46
  I was born shortly after that. My father loved both his
• 1:59:50
  children very much, but my mother felt like he showed more
• 1:59:54
  love to my brother than me. Looking back on it, I don't
• 1:59:58
  think he was ever favouring him over me, but my mother got in my
• 2:00:02
  head about it. Anytime he would ask my brother
• 2:00:06
  to join him to do something, my mother would point it out to me.
• 2:00:10
  She would say things like see he prefers his first child, he
• 2:00:15
  still loves his first wife and he still hasn't gotten over her
• 2:00:19
  for us. I don't know why, but I started
• 2:00:22
  to believe her. I guess it was just between me
• 2:00:26
  being young and impressionable and her constant barrage
• 2:00:29
  reminding me that it was less important than my brother.
• 2:00:33
  I think I became conditioned in believing whatever thing my
• 2:00:36
  mother spewed out at me at the time.
• 2:00:39
  My mother would be hostile to my brother.
• 2:00:42
  She often would give him trouble and pick on him when my father
• 2:00:45
  wasn't around. Some days would be worse than
• 2:00:48
  others, but. The worst day of the year was.
• 2:00:50
  Always on his birthday, that was the day my father would spend
• 2:00:54
  hours talking to my brother about his birth mother.
• 2:00:58
  My father would look so happy when he spoke of his memories
• 2:01:01
  and that made my mother's very sad at first.
• 2:01:04
  Then the sadness would turn to anger that carried on all
• 2:01:08
  through my life until the day it happened.
• 2:01:13
  The worst day of my life. The biggest mistake I ever made.
• 2:01:19
  It was my brother's 18th birthday when it happened.
• 2:01:23
  My father surprised him with the news that he was going to pay
• 2:01:26
  for his college, his apartment, and he bought him a new car.
• 2:01:30
  I don't know what my parents finances actually look like.
• 2:01:33
  Looking back, I shouldn't have listened to my mother, I should
• 2:01:37
  have talked to my father, but my mother was quite good at
• 2:01:41
  manipulating me at this point. After the party, my mother
• 2:01:45
  pulled me aside and told me that there would be no money left for
• 2:01:47
  me after this and she convinced me that my father only cared
• 2:01:51
  about his son getting a good start in life.
• 2:01:54
  I got so mad when she told me this, but I was mad at my father
• 2:01:58
  and my brother. My mother then told me she had a
• 2:02:01
  plan, she was going to make sure that I had a future too.
• 2:02:05
  I agreed to help her without knowing the details.
• 2:02:08
  That was a mistake. The next day my father was at
• 2:02:12
  work and my mother was helping my brother pack his things for
• 2:02:15
  college. She called me over and told me
• 2:02:18
  to put the large totes Outback by the tree.
• 2:02:21
  She looked me in the eyes and told me this is very important,
• 2:02:25
  I need you to stack all those totes on top of one another.
• 2:02:29
  She winked at me and I did as she asked.
• 2:02:32
  When lunchtime came around, my mother made us all lunch and
• 2:02:35
  called me and my brother downstairs.
• 2:02:38
  It's such a nice day out today, let's eat outside.
• 2:02:40
  My mother exclaimed, she was looking so happy and not being
• 2:02:45
  so mean to my brother for once. So we agreed.
• 2:02:48
  My brother was enjoying this day, feeling like he had a
• 2:02:51
  mother who cared about him. These kind of days were rare so
• 2:02:54
  we both would usually tend to just do whatever my mother
• 2:02:57
  wanted to keep her in a good mood.
• 2:02:59
  We sat outside and had a nice lunch, talking about the future
• 2:03:02
  and just all around. It was so far a really good day.
• 2:03:06
  My mother wandered over to the tree as she inspected the totes.
• 2:03:10
  She called my brother over and they looked like they were
• 2:03:12
  inspecting the boxes. My mother looked up at the tree
• 2:03:15
  and pointed to it as she reminded my brother of his
• 2:03:18
  mother who was buried under it. She told him he should kneel
• 2:03:21
  down at the tree and tell her goodbye, Tell her about how he's
• 2:03:24
  going off to college and so that's what he did.
• 2:03:28
  My mother called me over quickly and she pulled my arm to move me
• 2:03:30
  behind the boxes. She made a motion with her hands
• 2:03:33
  telling me to push the totes down onto my brother.
• 2:03:36
  I didn't realize this was her plan, I just opened my mouth in
• 2:03:40
  shock and shook my head and whispered quietly.
• 2:03:43
  No I won't. My mother scowled at me and
• 2:03:47
  whispered back. You will do as I say.
• 2:03:50
  She grabbed me by the arms and slammed me into the totes,
• 2:03:53
  causing them all to follow my brother there.
• 2:03:56
  Was that so hard? She smirked as she spoke to me.
• 2:03:59
  Now go check to see if he's dead.
• 2:04:02
  I just stood there in total shock, my face lost all its
• 2:04:05
  colours. I couldn't believe what just
• 2:04:07
  happened. My mother walked back into the
• 2:04:09
  house swinging back and forth and she looked quite happy with
• 2:04:12
  herself. Everything was moving in like a
• 2:04:15
  slow motion. I had no idea that this was the
• 2:04:19
  plan. I didn't want to kill anybody.
• 2:04:23
  My heart was pounding out of my chest as I began to
• 2:04:25
  hyperventilate. Then I thought, well, well,
• 2:04:28
  maybe he's in dead. I, I, I could still call for
• 2:04:31
  help. I began to pull the totes off of
• 2:04:33
  him and reach down to try to feel for a pulse.
• 2:04:36
  I didn't know what I was doing, but I saw blood pooling all over
• 2:04:39
  the ground around his head. I began to cry and I ran into
• 2:04:43
  the house looking for my phone. Suddenly my mother appeared,
• 2:04:47
  holding both my phone and my brother's phone in her hand
• 2:04:51
  looking for these. She smiled as she spoke.
• 2:04:55
  She sounded like a maniac. I know she had problems, but not
• 2:05:00
  until now did I ever realize just how twisted her mind was.
• 2:05:04
  Everything came rushing at me like a light switch.
• 2:05:07
  All my memories came flooding all the time.
• 2:05:09
  She convinced me I wasn't good enough and that my father didn't
• 2:05:12
  love me as much. It was like watching her be so
• 2:05:15
  happy about killing another human being just gave me a
• 2:05:17
  sudden moment of clarity. You're a monster.
• 2:05:21
  I screamed at her. Give me my phone, we might still
• 2:05:24
  be able to save him. I lunged at my mother and tried
• 2:05:27
  to grab my phone. She shoved me to the ground and
• 2:05:29
  scowled at me. You're lucky to have me for her,
• 2:05:32
  mother. She grunted back.
• 2:05:34
  You clearly don't have it in you to take care of yourself, to do
• 2:05:37
  whatever it takes to get ahead in life.
• 2:05:39
  I began to cry and I looked up at her.
• 2:05:41
  Why are you doing this? I didn't want this.
• 2:05:43
  I would rather be poor than kill somebody.
• 2:05:45
  Now give me my phone. She towered over me, her face
• 2:05:49
  seemed contorted in an inhuman way.
• 2:05:53
  You have no idea the things I have done to make sure we both
• 2:05:56
  had a good life. You're weak.
• 2:05:58
  I clearly have more work to do before letting you out into the
• 2:06:01
  world on your own. She scowled at me.
• 2:06:04
  If she spoke. I jumped up and tried to tackle
• 2:06:08
  her. She was stronger than I
• 2:06:10
  realized. I wasn't making a dent and
• 2:06:12
  trying to fight back. So weak, Tisk.
• 2:06:16
  Tisk. She shook her head back and
• 2:06:18
  forth. She chuckled, then threw my
• 2:06:20
  phone down. Fine, call the cops, but I'll
• 2:06:25
  just tell them the truth. You push those boxes onto your
• 2:06:29
  brother, you're jealous of him. Always happen.
• 2:06:33
  Nah. I saw it all.
• 2:06:35
  I grabbed the phone and I looked up at her.
• 2:06:38
  She was always good at getting into my head.
• 2:06:40
  I sat there for a moment in shock and I asked her.
• 2:06:44
  Would you really rather see me in jail?
• 2:06:47
  She went down, her eyes meeting mine as she spoke.
• 2:06:51
  Yes, look how weak you are, I can have another child, or maybe
• 2:06:57
  I'll just keep the money out of myself.
• 2:07:00
  Go ahead, call them with your fingerprints all over all those
• 2:07:03
  totes. I haven't touched them at all
• 2:07:05
  today. I also saw you pulling them off
• 2:07:07
  of them. She pointed down at my knee.
• 2:07:10
  You even have his blood on you. I looked down at my clothes and
• 2:07:15
  I realized I did kneel in his blood.
• 2:07:19
  All my thoughts were rushing through my head at the moment I
• 2:07:22
  imagined myself being arrested and rotting in jail.
• 2:07:26
  I started to bawl my eyes out of the thought.
• 2:07:29
  I looked up at her and I mumbled.
• 2:07:31
  Fine, I won't call but I won't have any further part in this.
• 2:07:36
  She grunted at my response and grabbed my arm to pull me up.
• 2:07:39
  Oh no you will and I need you to deal with the body and you'll
• 2:07:43
  help me clean up or I'll call the police on you.
• 2:07:48
  She pushed me to the door. Come on, we need to put him in
• 2:07:51
  his car and load up his things in there with him.
• 2:07:55
  I was a puppet, lost in grief and shock.
• 2:07:59
  I began to just move, not even wanting to.
• 2:08:01
  I just seemed like my body took over on autopilot.
• 2:08:07
  I was crying the whole time. My mother would shove me every
• 2:08:10
  once in a while when the crying got too much for her.
• 2:08:13
  She was very careful not to touch anything and made me pack
• 2:08:16
  up his car until it came time to move his body.
• 2:08:19
  She had me pull his car up to the back gate and we dragged his
• 2:08:22
  body to the car and then noticed that she was wearing gloves for
• 2:08:26
  this. She really was going to set me
• 2:08:29
  up, I thought to myself. She had to be my phone and told
• 2:08:33
  me to follow the route that she put in there and she'd follow
• 2:08:36
  behind in her car. I got in the car and did as she
• 2:08:40
  ordered. I kept looking at my brother's
• 2:08:43
  dead body sitting in the passenger seat.
• 2:08:47
  I'm so sorry, I cried out. I don't want to do this.
• 2:08:51
  She's making me do this. Not like you can hear me anyway.
• 2:08:56
  Trailed off, began to cry. As I pulled up to the
• 2:08:59
  destination, I realized my mother's plan.
• 2:09:03
  A car made it over its last hill.
• 2:09:05
  The sun was beginning to set, the red and pink rays falling
• 2:09:09
  down onto the bridge in front of us.
• 2:09:12
  It was clear she was going to have me help her drive his car
• 2:09:15
  off the bridge. I pulled off to the side of the
• 2:09:19
  road and looked through the rearview mirror.
• 2:09:20
  She pulled it behind me. She got out of the car and
• 2:09:24
  instructed me what to do next. Main tote hit his head.
• 2:09:30
  She had me stack it up behind him in the driver's seat as we
• 2:09:32
  moved him into it. This bridge had dirt paths to
• 2:09:37
  the side for walking trails. We're going to be driving his
• 2:09:41
  car into the water from the top of one of the paths.
• 2:09:45
  We emptied a toe to some of his things all over to make it look
• 2:09:48
  like everything fell out. She had me start the car and she
• 2:09:53
  started throwing heavy items through the window and piled
• 2:09:55
  them around his feet so his dead foot pressed onto the pedal
• 2:09:58
  hardener to start. Driving onto the edge.
• 2:10:02
  I watched his car crashed off into the edge of the river under
• 2:10:06
  the bridge. My mother then threw his phone
• 2:10:09
  into the water and told me to get in her car and go home.
• 2:10:13
  When we got home, my mother began to clean up the backyard.
• 2:10:16
  She pointed to the tree. There was a pile of blood laying
• 2:10:18
  there. Go grab a shovel and dig up the
• 2:10:22
  dirt and bury the blood. She barked orders at me as she
• 2:10:24
  went inside. I grabbed a shovel from the shed
• 2:10:28
  and looked as she said. As I finished burying it, the
• 2:10:33
  final tear fell on the fresh dirt I packed on top of the
• 2:10:35
  area. Suddenly I saw the tree go up in
• 2:10:40
  flames, but it wasn't on fire. The fire just burned just on the
• 2:10:46
  outside of the bark, like the tree was being encased with
• 2:10:49
  fire. Suddenly I heard a call with a
• 2:10:52
  big black Raven flew out from the flames of the branches.
• 2:10:56
  I just saw it for a moment but I swear its eyes were burning red.
• 2:11:00
  Maybe it was just a reflection but what's happening?
• 2:11:05
  I'm trying to rationalize a bird with fire red eyes when this
• 2:11:09
  tree is literally up in flames in front of me.
• 2:11:12
  I reached out my hand, just completely confused as to what I
• 2:11:15
  was looking at. As I went to try to touch the
• 2:11:19
  flame, the bird flew off and the flames just vanished.
• 2:11:23
  And just as the flames vanished, my father returned home from
• 2:11:26
  work. My mother had set out dinner and
• 2:11:29
  was acting completely normal. None of what happened phased her
• 2:11:33
  one bit. My father asked where my brother
• 2:11:37
  went and I couldn't help it, I started to cry.
• 2:11:41
  My mother raised an eyebrow at me, giving me a look before she
• 2:11:44
  told my father a lie that she concocted.
• 2:11:48
  Oh, he was so excited. He left a day early for college.
• 2:11:51
  He said he would call later when he gets settled in.
• 2:11:54
  My father looked over at me crying and gave me a reassuring
• 2:11:57
  hug. It's all right sweetheart,
• 2:11:59
  you'll see him on holiday break so you'll get used to him coming
• 2:12:02
  and going soon enough. He kissed me on the forehead,
• 2:12:05
  which just made me cry more, but still my father said, would have
• 2:12:10
  liked to see him off. He nibbled at his food a bit,
• 2:12:14
  looking a bit upset when suddenly my mother spoke up.
• 2:12:19
  Why don't you head over to the campus tomorrow and visit him,
• 2:12:22
  Make sure he's all settled in, dear.
• 2:12:24
  My father smiled at her idea and nodded his head, agreeing that
• 2:12:28
  he would do just that. My mother looked over at me with
• 2:12:32
  a look in her eyes as she spoke. It gives us girls a bit of time
• 2:12:37
  to get together and have girl talk.
• 2:12:39
  I can help her calm down and get her head on straight again.
• 2:12:43
  There was something sinister in her voice as she spoke.
• 2:12:46
  Seems I was the only one who noticed though.
• 2:12:49
  In the morning my father packed up a bag and headed out to visit
• 2:12:52
  my brother. I watched as my mother waved
• 2:12:55
  goodbye to him and he drove off. She turned back around and came
• 2:13:00
  inside to find me there. Now you have a day to get over
• 2:13:04
  yourself and not blow this for both of us.
• 2:13:07
  Cry your little heart out and by the end of tomorrow this stops.
• 2:13:10
  You need to toughen up and get over yourself.
• 2:13:14
  I went up to my room and just laid in bed grieving for my
• 2:13:17
  brother, worried my father would be the one to find his car and
• 2:13:20
  body on the drive there. We didn't take the freeway so he
• 2:13:25
  may not be the one to discover him.
• 2:13:26
  I told myself. I hate that She also may have
• 2:13:30
  put my father down that path as well.
• 2:13:33
  Why is she so cruel? I've never noticed how evil my
• 2:13:36
  own mother was. Eventually I fell asleep and
• 2:13:40
  when I woke up it was dark out. Great, now I'm going to be up
• 2:13:44
  all night. I mumbled to myself as I got up
• 2:13:48
  and looked out the window at the tree.
• 2:13:51
  The memories of what happened flashed before me and I began to
• 2:13:54
  feel the panic and sadness again.
• 2:13:57
  I just don't understand how she's so calm and OK with what
• 2:14:00
  happened. I whispered to myself.
• 2:14:04
  Suddenly I heard a crash downstairs.
• 2:14:06
  I walked towards my door to open and go check, but I found myself
• 2:14:10
  frozen in place. My heart started beating
• 2:14:14
  heavily. I felt the panic starting up
• 2:14:16
  again. I'm scared of her.
• 2:14:18
  I'm too scared to go to my own mother now.
• 2:14:22
  Before I knew it, I grabbed a chair and used it to prop it up
• 2:14:25
  against my doorknob to lock myself in my room.
• 2:14:28
  I went and sat at my window sill, looking out at the tree
• 2:14:30
  again. Hopefully she doesn't call out
• 2:14:34
  to me. I whispered to myself.
• 2:14:36
  I need to find a way to get away from her.
• 2:14:40
  I'd heard her moving around downstairs as I sat quietly.
• 2:14:44
  I didn't want her to know I was awake.
• 2:14:48
  Suddenly, I saw that Raven again, just pecking at the dirt
• 2:14:51
  under the tree, a spot that I dug up to hide the blood.
• 2:14:57
  The Raven didn't seem to notice me, but I did finally see that
• 2:15:01
  yes, its eyes were red, slightly glowing.
• 2:15:08
  My heart began to beat again. Something about it scared me.
• 2:15:13
  I wanted to understand what was going on.
• 2:15:18
  I quietly slid the chair away from my door and tiptoed
• 2:15:20
  downstairs. I looked over at the kitchen,
• 2:15:24
  saw some movement in there, and I quickly grabbed my jacket and
• 2:15:27
  keys and snuck out the front door quietly.
• 2:15:30
  I took a breath as I closed the door, ever so softly praying
• 2:15:34
  that she didn't hear me. I tiptoed down the steps and
• 2:15:37
  peeked around the side of the house, looking for the bird.
• 2:15:40
  But then I saw it. My blood turned cold, felt my
• 2:15:47
  stomach drop, and pure, utter terror ran through me.
• 2:15:52
  I saw him. I saw my brother.
• 2:15:55
  But he wasn't my brother. He was dead.
• 2:16:01
  Definitely dead. He was walking around, his water
• 2:16:05
  soaked skin was grey and looked like it was beginning to peel
• 2:16:09
  off even behind keeping holes of sludge black flesh.
• 2:16:14
  His eyes were red like the bird's eyes, it looked so
• 2:16:18
  lifeless. What the hell is going on?
• 2:16:20
  I thought to myself. And I saw what was in his hand.
• 2:16:25
  My mother. He was dragging her lifeless
• 2:16:29
  body. Her neck was crushed, her head
• 2:16:31
  was bent completely to the side, looked like it was just dangling
• 2:16:36
  there. Her skin on her neck was still
• 2:16:38
  intact, but like a piece of rubber holding her head, and as
• 2:16:42
  it hung there, my brother dragged her from her arm with
• 2:16:46
  great ease over to the tree. He grabbed her head and yanked
• 2:16:50
  on it, letting loose the skin and it just exploded, blood
• 2:16:53
  everywhere on the tree. I slipped back around the
• 2:16:56
  corner, gagging and trying not to scream at the same time.
• 2:17:01
  I started searching my pockets for my keys when suddenly I saw
• 2:17:04
  a huge reflection of light hit the fence and heard the
• 2:17:07
  whooshing sound of a fire starting up.
• 2:17:10
  I peeked around the corner once more to see the tree lit up in
• 2:17:12
  fire again, like it had been that one day.
• 2:17:16
  So I wasn't crazy. This actually did happen.
• 2:17:20
  I watched the trunk of the tree open up this time, and my
• 2:17:22
  brother shoved my mother's body inside of it.
• 2:17:26
  A tree looked like it was eating her.
• 2:17:28
  My fingers finally felt the cool metal of the key ring in my
• 2:17:31
  pocket as I quietly ran to the car.
• 2:17:34
  I got inside, locked the doors and started it up, quickly
• 2:17:37
  taking off from the house. I looked back in the rearview
• 2:17:41
  mirror and I saw him. He was running in the road.
• 2:17:44
  He saw me leave. This can't be my brother, I kept
• 2:17:49
  telling myself. I grabbed my phone and opened
• 2:17:52
  the map to go back to the bridge.
• 2:17:54
  I have to check his car. I have to see if he's still in
• 2:17:57
  there. I speed off to the bridge, try
• 2:18:00
  to get some answers. I was faster than last time.
• 2:18:03
  I was probably speeding and not realizing it.
• 2:18:06
  Surprised I didn't get pulled over.
• 2:18:09
  I slowly pulled up to the side of the road again and looked
• 2:18:12
  around the car for any sort of weapons.
• 2:18:14
  All I found was a little knife we had in the gold box for
• 2:18:16
  emergencies. I grabbed it.
• 2:18:20
  Better than nothing I thought. I made my way down to where the
• 2:18:24
  car crashed into the river. I saw one of his totes floating
• 2:18:27
  around, some clothes, random things.
• 2:18:30
  Pulled up my phone and turned on the flashlight, trying to look
• 2:18:33
  into the dark water. And there I saw the car from the
• 2:18:38
  shore. I saw my light trying to look in
• 2:18:40
  and see if his body was still in there.
• 2:18:43
  It was a bit too far away. Carefully began to balance
• 2:18:47
  myself on some big rocks that were in the water.
• 2:18:50
  Shining the light down further into the car, I could finally
• 2:18:53
  see the driver's seat and there it was nothing, his body was
• 2:19:00
  gone. I felt my stomach drop again.
• 2:19:04
  What the hell is going on? I asked out loud.
• 2:19:07
  I felt a panic attack coming in again and I was trying to get
• 2:19:10
  off this rock before I fell in when suddenly I heard the cawing
• 2:19:13
  of the Raven. It flew right at me and I
• 2:19:16
  slipped and fell into the water. Dropping my phone, I watched as
• 2:19:20
  the light from my phone illuminated but looked like my
• 2:19:22
  brother's swimming up from the bottom of the lake.
• 2:19:26
  I screamed and began to panic, trying to pull myself out of the
• 2:19:29
  water, my foot slipping between two rocks and getting stuck.
• 2:19:33
  I kept pulling and pulling as I watched him slowly get closer to
• 2:19:35
  me. His rotten form sent a shock of
• 2:19:38
  adrenaline through me as his features became clear.
• 2:19:41
  Look horrible. He was a he's a monster.
• 2:19:44
  Finally, my foot slipped out of my shoe, which was still
• 2:19:47
  embedded between the two rocks, but I didn't care.
• 2:19:49
  I just started to run. I ran back to the car and got
• 2:19:52
  inside. I locked the doors as I began to
• 2:19:54
  speed away. What am I going to do?
• 2:19:57
  I need a plan. I started rambling to myself.
• 2:20:00
  There has to be some way to stop this thing from chasing me.
• 2:20:04
  I thought about going back home and trying to destroy the tree,
• 2:20:08
  but it can't be burned and I don't know how to chop a tree
• 2:20:10
  down and mumble to myself. So I tried to run through the
• 2:20:13
  options of what to do. This is some magic thing, right?
• 2:20:18
  The tree, my father said his wife brought it from a witch or
• 2:20:20
  something. I was about to call it to my
• 2:20:22
  phone to Google breaking curses, but then I realized, right, my
• 2:20:26
  phone's in the water. This is a small city we're in.
• 2:20:29
  I don't know of any witches that live here.
• 2:20:32
  Screw it, I said as I spend the car around.
• 2:20:35
  I decided to try the local church.
• 2:20:38
  The church must have some kind of protection, right?
• 2:20:41
  If witches are real, then the church and all that crap is real
• 2:20:44
  too, right? It must be.
• 2:20:46
  I was talking to myself like I was a mad woman trying to logic
• 2:20:49
  some kind of reason and solution out of the situation.
• 2:20:54
  I drove straight up to the church doors and I ran for my
• 2:20:57
  car to get inside but they were locked.
• 2:21:00
  Of course. It's after dark in this city,
• 2:21:02
  nothing's open late. I decided to try and see if
• 2:21:06
  anyone was there again, pounding on the door and screaming for
• 2:21:09
  help. Kept looking behind me watching
• 2:21:11
  for the bird or my brother to come walking up at any moment.
• 2:21:15
  I was hysterical at this point. I started screaming.
• 2:21:19
  Help me in please. I was crying and pounding my
• 2:21:24
  fist on the door when suddenly I heard a latch move.
• 2:21:29
  Someone was there unlocking the doors.
• 2:21:32
  Well thank God I called out. I need asylum or something
• 2:21:36
  there. There's something evil out here,
• 2:21:37
  I need help. I began to ramble, but no one
• 2:21:41
  opened the door. I paused for a moment, thinking
• 2:21:44
  Something fell off and I slowly reached down for the handle of
• 2:21:48
  the door. I pressed on the handle, it was
• 2:21:51
  unlocked now. I slowly opened the door and
• 2:21:54
  peeked my head inside. Suddenly, the Raven came
• 2:21:57
  barrelling at me and started to Peck at my face.
• 2:22:00
  I screamed and ran back to the car, driving off.
• 2:22:03
  There's only one other place I think I can go now.
• 2:22:05
  I started rambling to myself. I began to drive into the heart
• 2:22:09
  of the city, towards the police station.
• 2:22:12
  I wasn't too far away, maybe a couple blocks.
• 2:22:16
  I started to speed up, trying to get there quickly.
• 2:22:19
  I glanced into my back mirror, and then I saw him.
• 2:22:22
  He was sitting in the back seat. When he realized that I saw him,
• 2:22:27
  he began to grin at me, his arms beginning to move out towards
• 2:22:31
  me. I panicked, slammed on the
• 2:22:34
  brakes and grabbed the knife and stuck it in one of his arms.
• 2:22:38
  I didn't hear him react though. No sound, nothing.
• 2:22:43
  I quickly jumped out of the car and I began running the rest of
• 2:22:46
  the way. I began screaming at my brother.
• 2:22:49
  Stop, I'm I'm going to turn myself in, I swear I'm going to
• 2:22:52
  go tell the truth. Please let me set things right.
• 2:22:56
  I was just screaming into the empty streets as I ran.
• 2:22:59
  I didn't see him following me, but that didn't mean that he
• 2:23:03
  wouldn't just pop right out of a dark corner and grab me.
• 2:23:06
  My heart was racing as my eyes darted back and forth, running
• 2:23:09
  as fast as I could with only one shoe.
• 2:23:13
  Eventually, I did make it to the station.
• 2:23:15
  I began to bang on the glass, screaming to the overnight
• 2:23:18
  clerk. I need to confess, Let me in,
• 2:23:22
  it's trying to kill me. I need to confess I killed him.
• 2:23:24
  I need to confess I probably look like a crazy person to this
• 2:23:29
  clerk. She radioed in for other
• 2:23:31
  officers to come to the front. She looked a bit frightened at
• 2:23:34
  me. They all came barreling out
• 2:23:36
  front and opened the door. Hands up, hands up.
• 2:23:39
  Do you have any weapons on you? I lifted my hands up as they
• 2:23:43
  told me to do. No, no, I don't have anything.
• 2:23:46
  I said back to them. They slowly moved towards me,
• 2:23:49
  their Tasers drawn and began to pat me down.
• 2:23:52
  They looked suspicious at me but placed me in cuffs and pulled me
• 2:23:55
  inside and placed me in an interrogation room, flicked on
• 2:23:59
  the cameras and told me my rights.
• 2:24:02
  I waived the right to a lawyer. I quickly said I have to confess
• 2:24:06
  now before this thing kills me. I began to ramble and I told
• 2:24:11
  them the whole story. As I spoke I felt the weight
• 2:24:14
  being taken off me, felt like this must be what I was supposed
• 2:24:17
  to do to get my brother to stop chasing me.
• 2:24:20
  I think I was doing the right thing.
• 2:24:22
  After I was done talking the officers went to go get me some
• 2:24:25
  water. They handed me a pen and a pad
• 2:24:27
  of paper and told me to write it all out, which is what I'm doing
• 2:24:31
  here right now. And as you read this paper,
• 2:24:37
  you'll notice a big line follows past the last letter, like
• 2:24:43
  something distracted the writer. And then one more line is
• 2:24:48
  written. The bird.
• 2:24:53
  It's here. And that is the end of the
• 2:24:57
  story. If you enjoyed this story, don't
• 2:25:01
  forget to like and subscribe until next time.
• 2:25:06
  For years, scratch that, centuries, the idea of
• 2:25:10
  spontaneous human combustion has instilled both interest and fear
• 2:25:14
  into the mind of onlookers. And how could you blame them?
• 2:25:17
  The what if factor is strong with this one.
• 2:25:20
  The mere idea is baffling in its own right.
• 2:25:23
  I'm sure we've all enjoyed a stiff drink of whiskey.
• 2:25:26
  Man, does that burn. Or at least some awful heartburn
• 2:25:30
  following a binge of food that tastes so good but bears hearts
• 2:25:34
  consequences now times that by 1000.
• 2:25:36
  And that might just scrape the surface of the horrible
• 2:25:39
  nightmare that is spontaneous human combustion.
• 2:25:42
  So what even is it exactly? Spontaneous human combustion is
• 2:25:46
  the alleged medical phenomenon that sees the human body self
• 2:25:50
  destruct by internal fire. Downright terrifying and insane,
• 2:25:55
  am I right? The body is guilty of a variety
• 2:25:58
  of strangeness. What is this too far?
• 2:26:00
  The populace remains divided. Paranormal enthusiasts cling to
• 2:26:04
  the idea as a perfect example, as a baseline to other
• 2:26:08
  otherworldly fringe phenomenon that span far past our agreeable
• 2:26:12
  perception of normalcy, while scientists argue a simple
• 2:26:15
  explanation in the WIC effect to quell the hype, yet finding
• 2:26:20
  shortcomings in the explanation to completely debunk the
• 2:26:24
  obscenity. Let's take a deeper dive with
• 2:26:26
  the idea of spontaneous human combustion still for debate.
• 2:26:29
  Let me present the evidence, put the case on trial, and you be
• 2:26:33
  the judge. Spontaneous human combustion, as
• 2:26:45
  divined by Nicholas Kluger and Vervi Kuljonen in the journal
• 2:26:49
  article Spontaneous Human Combustion in the Light of the
• 2:26:52
  21st Century, found on the National Library of Medicine's
• 2:26:55
  website, refers to a situation when a human body is found with
• 2:26:59
  significant portions of the middle parts of the body reduced
• 2:27:02
  to ashes. Much less damage to the head and
• 2:27:05
  extremities in minimal damage to the direct surroundings of the
• 2:27:09
  body. Typically, no observable source
• 2:27:11
  of ignition is found in the vicinity of the victim.
• 2:27:14
  In a bad smelling oily substance is noted, although it has been
• 2:27:19
  annotated constantly throughout history.
• 2:27:21
  Pop culture has helped revive the medical oddity, with one
• 2:27:25
  specific author accredited with helping bringing back
• 2:27:29
  spontaneous seam combustion into the limelight, Charles Dickens.
• 2:27:33
  Yes, A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens is accredited as
• 2:27:37
  bringing the idea back into the minds of the public with his
• 2:27:40
  1853 novel Bleak House. Within its pages Dickens uses a
• 2:27:46
  strange medical phenomena to take care of one of his
• 2:27:49
  characters, described as an old sleazy alcoholic.
• 2:27:53
  Alcoholism being a constant characteristic and victims of
• 2:27:56
  spontaneous and combustion. Mr. Crook reducing him to a mere
• 2:28:00
  heap of ashes upon the floor and a dark greasy coating on the
• 2:28:04
  walls and ceiling. Dickens choice of death was met
• 2:28:08
  with much scrutiny by the public who perceived the idea as pure
• 2:28:11
  lunacy. This is quite the reaction
• 2:28:14
  considering the public who now ridiculed him cocked at his work
• 2:28:17
  10 years prior, having no reason to fret at the tale of Ebenezer
• 2:28:21
  Scrooge being visited by not one, not 2, not even 3, but 4
• 2:28:31
  ghostly visitors. Dickens defended his choice of
• 2:28:34
  death relentlessly, clinging to his apparent deep historical
• 2:28:37
  research, being able to cite dozens of famous cases well
• 2:28:41
  verified by doctors judgement of the times, leaving his naysayers
• 2:28:46
  with this final verdict. I shall not abandon the facts
• 2:28:49
  until there has been a considerable spontaneous
• 2:28:51
  combustion of the testimony of which human occurrences are
• 2:28:55
  usually received. Dickens does not stand alone in
• 2:28:59
  his pop culture references with his use of spontaneous human
• 2:29:02
  combustion. Others have found both
• 2:29:04
  traditional and other interesting ways to adopt the
• 2:29:07
  concept into their work, blending the lines of potential
• 2:29:10
  fact and fiction. Like Dickens, authors Herman
• 2:29:14
  Melville and Nikolai Gogol have used both spontaneous human
• 2:29:18
  combustion in a traditional sense in their respective works
• 2:29:22
  Redburn 1849 and Dead Souls 1842.
• 2:29:26
  More modern adaptations have seen a shift in the strange
• 2:29:29
  medical happenings. Lethal Factor superhero Johnny
• 2:29:33
  Storm, AKA the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four series,
• 2:29:38
  embraces the concept of spontaneous human combustion,
• 2:29:41
  putting a new twist upon the idea, using this unfortunate
• 2:29:44
  circumstance as a positive claim for a unique superpower.
• 2:29:48
  Returning to its traditional sense, author Joe Hill takes the
• 2:29:52
  phenomenon to a new extreme height, letting us know that if
• 2:29:56
  one case of spontaneous human combustion is terrifying, try a
• 2:29:59
  world infected by the idea. Within Hill's novel The Fireman,
• 2:30:04
  spontaneous human combustion fills the void for an
• 2:30:07
  apocalypse. Elliptic fate.
• 2:30:09
  Characters within the book are infected by a horrible plague
• 2:30:12
  virus called Dragon Scale, which reacts to a person's stress
• 2:30:16
  level. I know people who wouldn't even
• 2:30:18
  last moments, let alone days. When an infected person becomes
• 2:30:22
  too anxious and or overwhelmed, they erupt with a fire until
• 2:30:27
  they settle into an ashy death. Can an inescapable death become
• 2:30:31
  any more terrifying than this? Let's talk about some alleged
• 2:30:37
  cases. The case of Doctor Irving
• 2:30:39
  Bentley actually happened in my hometown.
• 2:30:42
  Over the past 300 years, there have been more than two hundred
• 2:30:45
  reported cases of alleged spontaneous human combustion.
• 2:30:48
  If we look back even further to medieval literature, we find
• 2:30:52
  what is often claimed as the first account of a recorded case
• 2:30:56
  of spontaneous human combustion, Polonus Vorstus.
• 2:31:00
  Henceforth, since Vorstus, each case has shared the following
• 2:31:04
  characteristics as originally described in the book Medical
• 2:31:08
  Jurisprudence 1821 that was revisited when cited by LA Perry
• 2:31:14
  in 1938 in the British Medical Journal.
• 2:31:17
  Victims are chronic Alcoholics, usually elderly females.
• 2:31:22
  Their bodies had burned spontaneously.
• 2:31:25
  Their hands and feet usually fell off.
• 2:31:27
  The fire caused little damage to the surrounding areas.
• 2:31:30
  The combustion of their bodies left a residue of greasy and
• 2:31:33
  feted ashes, as well as a horrid smell.
• 2:31:36
  Let's take a deeper dive and look at some of the most
• 2:31:39
  prominent cases over the years, starting with Forstus Polonis.
• 2:31:43
  Vorstus is widely referred to as Subject 0 in this phenomenon,
• 2:31:48
  with his best known recording occurring almost 200 years after
• 2:31:52
  the set event. But hey, some have put their
• 2:31:55
  faith into far less in this wild game of historic telephone we
• 2:31:58
  play. Vorstus's 1470 case is widely
• 2:32:02
  known for its 1641 recording in Danis physician Thomas
• 2:32:07
  Bartholin's book Historarium Anatomicorium Rariorium, which
• 2:32:12
  was a strange collection of medical phenomena.
• 2:32:15
  In his narrative, he explains that Vorstus was an Italian
• 2:32:20
  knight living in Milan, Italy in 1470 when his case of
• 2:32:24
  spontaneous human combustion took place following a night of
• 2:32:27
  drinking. Before his untimely demise, he
• 2:32:30
  was drinking large amounts of wine, which was not out of the
• 2:32:33
  ordinary for him. Sometime during his consumption,
• 2:32:37
  but before his combustion, he felt a strong fiery pain begin
• 2:32:41
  to grow in his chest, throwing him into a coughing fit.
• 2:32:45
  His coffee erupted into what was described as a vomit of flames
• 2:32:50
  that eventually consumed his entire body into a burst of
• 2:32:53
  fire. If this doesn't scream foul
• 2:32:56
  play, a hex in an evil court wizard, I don't know what else
• 2:33:00
  does. However, the fact that this
• 2:33:03
  strange medical experience became an historic occurrence
• 2:33:06
  causes us all to wonder what exactly our bodies are capable
• 2:33:10
  of if we flash forward to the 18th century.
• 2:33:14
  We discovered the 1725 case of Nicole Millet, recorded by
• 2:33:18
  French author Jonas DuPont in his 1763 Diacridis Corporis
• 2:33:25
  Humani Spontaneous, his collection of cases and studies
• 2:33:29
  on the subject of spontaneous human combustion.
• 2:33:31
  What is significant about this case is the theory was used as a
• 2:33:35
  defense and alongside A testimony, helped to prove her
• 2:33:39
  husband's innocence. Her case goes like this.
• 2:33:42
  Millet's husband, an innkeeper, was awoken one night to the
• 2:33:46
  smell of smoke. When he rushed to the source, he
• 2:33:49
  found his wife Nicole reduced to ash, and oddly enough, the straw
• 2:33:53
  bed which she was laying upon in the surrounding area remained
• 2:33:57
  unscathed. All there remained of Millet was
• 2:34:00
  her skull and some bones from her lower back and legs, a
• 2:34:04
  constant characteristic among cases.
• 2:34:07
  She was allegedly an alcoholic. As if her death wasn't
• 2:34:10
  traumatizing enough, her husband would stand trial for murder and
• 2:34:14
  was initially found guilty. With much ambition.
• 2:34:17
  He fought the verdict claiming the death was caused by
• 2:34:20
  spontaneous human combustion, which was backed by the
• 2:34:23
  testimony of surgeon Doctor Cloud Nicholas Lacat, who had
• 2:34:27
  been staying at the end the same night, leading to Mr. Millett
• 2:34:31
  being acquitted. At the later end of the 19th
• 2:34:33
  century, we find the case of Matilda Rooney.
• 2:34:36
  Rooney's case occurred on Christmas Eve 1885 in the small
• 2:34:41
  farming town of Seneca, Illinois.
• 2:34:43
  Just prior to her event, the rooneys in a farmhand shared a
• 2:34:47
  pleasant evening of relaxation, whiskey drinking and friendship
• 2:34:52
  to bring in the holiday. Sometime after the farmhand at
• 2:34:55
  parted for the evening and Mr. Rooney had settled in for the
• 2:34:58
  night, Misses Rooney spontaneously combusted while
• 2:35:02
  sitting alone in the kitchen. The fire was overwhelming,
• 2:35:05
  consuming all of her body, only leaving behind a few bone
• 2:35:09
  fragments, All while the fire stayed confined to her body,
• 2:35:12
  leaving the rest of the room untouched.
• 2:35:14
  Unfortunately, the deathly occurrence didn't end there.
• 2:35:18
  Her husband, who rested in another room in the house,
• 2:35:21
  succumbed to suffocation from fumes of his deceased wife's
• 2:35:24
  body. The 1966 case of Doctor Irving
• 2:35:28
  Bentley is the catalyst for my interest in spontaneous human
• 2:35:31
  combustion. Growing up in Countersport, PA,
• 2:35:34
  more than 30 years after the event, I constantly heard
• 2:35:38
  whispering debates about the true possibilities of Doctor
• 2:35:41
  Irving Bentley's death. Convincing me that even almost
• 2:35:45
  500 years after Polonis Vorstus, with all the advancements in
• 2:35:49
  medical discoveries, we still wonder about the true
• 2:35:52
  possibilities of the human body caught in the fringe between
• 2:35:55
  fact and fiction. Doctor Irving Bentley was a
• 2:35:59
  family Doctor Who served the Countersports area between 1925
• 2:36:03
  and 1953. After his retirement, he lived a
• 2:36:06
  typical quiet small town life in his two-story home on N Main St.
• 2:36:11
  Since the gas meter for his home was located in his basement,
• 2:36:15
  there was a spoken agreement with North Penn Gas Company that
• 2:36:18
  they were allowed to enter his home when needed for a meter
• 2:36:22
  reading. This was all fine and dandy
• 2:36:24
  until 1 fateful morning on December 5th, 1966.
• 2:36:28
  On the morning of December 5th, Don Gosnell, like any time
• 2:36:32
  before, let himself into Doctor Bentley's home around 9:00 AM
• 2:36:37
  for his usual meter reading. Upon reaching the basement, he
• 2:36:40
  was overwhelmed by what he described as a sickly Swedish
• 2:36:43
  smell. Following his nose.
• 2:36:45
  It led him to an ominous pile of ashes in the middle of the
• 2:36:48
  floor. Tracing the trickling ashes from
• 2:36:50
  above, his eyes landed on a large hole in the ceiling and
• 2:36:54
  circled by glowing embers. Gosnell rushed to the room he
• 2:36:57
  knew as the bathroom, shouting out Doctor Bentley's name in his
• 2:37:01
  pursuit, hoping for a response that unfortunately never came.
• 2:37:05
  When he arrived, so did the hideous truth.
• 2:37:08
  Doctor Bentley had been reduced to ash, leaving behind only his
• 2:37:12
  charred lower leg and a slippered foot.
• 2:37:15
  Oddly enough, his Walker that he used to get to his master
• 2:37:18
  bathroom remained unscathed, tipped over next to a large hole
• 2:37:23
  burnt into the floor. Although the paint on the wall
• 2:37:26
  was chartered black, it never blistered.
• 2:37:28
  All involved with the case believe that Doctor Bentley
• 2:37:32
  being a smoker may have caused the fire, but Albert flustered
• 2:37:35
  at the fact that his Walker remained unscathed in a fire hot
• 2:37:39
  enough to reduce Doctor Bentley to mere ash.
• 2:37:42
  After his discovery, Gosnell ran a block to the North Penn Gas
• 2:37:47
  Company office, where the local Volunteer Fire Department, the
• 2:37:51
  Potter County Deputy Coroner John Deck, and local mortician
• 2:37:55
  Richard Lindholm were all contacted and summoned.
• 2:37:58
  Once the smoke had settled, the deputy coroner delivered the
• 2:38:02
  following statement. Looks like Doc Bentley was
• 2:38:05
  smoking his pipe, the pipe toppled over and spilled over
• 2:38:08
  the tobacco, and in the meantime he fell asleep.
• 2:38:12
  When he woke up, he was on fire because some of the flannel
• 2:38:15
  nightshirt pieces fell on the floor as he went to the
• 2:38:18
  bathroom. Ultimately, though still highly
• 2:38:21
  debated, Dr. Bentley's death did not get labeled as a case of
• 2:38:25
  spontaneous human combustion, rather the verdict of accidental
• 2:38:29
  death. Let's talk about some theories.
• 2:38:36
  How does scientists try to make sense of all the talk of this
• 2:38:39
  outlandish death? Well, by the way of the Wick
• 2:38:42
  effect theory, this theory is the highest regarded and most
• 2:38:46
  commonly approved amongst the science community.
• 2:38:49
  The basis of the idea is that the human body essentially acts
• 2:38:53
  like a candle, with its body fats and oils acting as the
• 2:38:57
  candle's Wick. The body's oils are absorbed in
• 2:39:00
  the victim's clothing and hair. Then by way of an ignition
• 2:39:03
  source as simple as a cigarette, the individual is set ablaze.
• 2:39:08
  Believers of this theory also argue that because the fire
• 2:39:12
  being so concentrated to the human body, it explains itself
• 2:39:16
  for the lack of additional fire damage to the room in which it
• 2:39:19
  occurs. Author and biology professor
• 2:39:22
  Brian J Ford adds this to the argument.
• 2:39:25
  When a person is ill, they sometimes naturally produce
• 2:39:28
  traces of acetone in the body, and acetone is highly flammable.
• 2:39:33
  I experimented with of the scale model humans using pig flesh
• 2:39:37
  that has been marinated in acetone.
• 2:39:39
  They burn like insanitary bombs. Alcoholism can cause people to
• 2:39:44
  produce acetone, as can many diseases.
• 2:39:48
  My conclusion is that unwell individuals produce high levels
• 2:39:52
  of acetone which accumulated in fatty tissue and can be ignited
• 2:39:56
  perhaps by a static spark or a cigarette.
• 2:39:59
  This ties in well to the previously conceived notion.
• 2:40:03
  Mentioning similar characteristics among alleged
• 2:40:05
  cases focusing on the alcoholic aspect, whiskey burns, but not
• 2:40:10
  quite like this. Those who oppose the WIC effect
• 2:40:13
  theory find credence in their argument for the possibility of
• 2:40:17
  spontaneous human combustion by claiming the blatantly obvious.
• 2:40:21
  They argue that the human body must achieve a temperature of
• 2:40:25
  3000°F to be reduced to mere ash, as seen in almost every
• 2:40:30
  case. To put this into perspective,
• 2:40:33
  the cremation of the human body happens between the temperatures
• 2:40:37
  of 1400 and 1800°F. Moreover, they claim that the
• 2:40:43
  Wick effect theory does not provide enough proof and it's
• 2:40:46
  argument as to why the fire stays contained to the victim
• 2:40:50
  while many house fires that result in total loss structural
• 2:40:53
  damage start from fires much smaller than the volume of a
• 2:40:57
  human body and from there spread to consume the entire home.
• 2:41:01
  So what do you think? Is this just another one of the
• 2:41:04
  universe's greatest mysteries, or is evidence from each alleged
• 2:41:08
  case being embarrassingly omitted?
• 2:41:11
  Even if the source of ignition and fuel can be poorly
• 2:41:15
  explained, what do you of the well contained fire that seems
• 2:41:19
  to only feed upon its victim? Will we ever really know the
• 2:41:22
  truth? Or will it forever remain one of
• 2:41:24
  the world's strangest medical phenomenons, lost among the
• 2:41:28
  annals of history? From Dracula to Bill Compton,
• 2:41:34
  Nosferatu to Edward Cullen, over the centuries vampires have
• 2:41:39
  proven to be transformative. What was originally an
• 2:41:42
  animalistic monstrosity worthy of a pitchfork, torch wielding
• 2:41:45
  mob ready to stake it where it stood has since become a unique
• 2:41:50
  option for a high school love interest that sparkles in the
• 2:41:54
  sun with the rise of vampire based romance in the early
• 2:41:58
  2000s. Talk about range.
• 2:42:01
  But what's all the fuss about? How exactly did the modern
• 2:42:05
  belief of vampires come to be? Just how far back do we have to
• 2:42:09
  traverse the Wheel of Time to find its planted roots?
• 2:42:13
  And better yet, is it possible that this fictional nightmare
• 2:42:17
  has a true chance of a real existence?
• 2:42:20
  Let's dive in, zip through the archives of lore, and find out
• 2:42:23
  just where the modern belief of the vampire originated from.
• 2:42:27
  But first, join me in the comments section and let's
• 2:42:30
  discuss our favorite vampires. I'll go first.
• 2:42:33
  My favorite vampire of all time is Kurt Barlow.
• 2:42:38
  Ring a bell, anyone? Before we begin, this video is
• 2:42:49
  directed towards the modern perception of the vampire based
• 2:42:52
  off literature and pop culture influenced by Eastern European
• 2:42:56
  folklore. They'll still pay homage to
• 2:42:58
  earlier inceptions of historical recordings of vampire like
• 2:43:02
  figures in My omission of other examples is not for ignorance of
• 2:43:06
  knowledge, just for the sake of the direction.
• 2:43:09
  Feel free to share all vampire folklore examples in the
• 2:43:12
  comments below. I'd love to cover them in a
• 2:43:14
  future video. For as long as the sun is hung
• 2:43:17
  overhead, and from the first time it's settled, the existence
• 2:43:20
  of light in the absence thereafter as created
• 2:43:24
  uncertainty would cling to the light of the day because it is
• 2:43:27
  known and fear the darkness for that which lurks in the cloak it
• 2:43:31
  provides with the evolution of life, the companionship of
• 2:43:35
  humanity. In the formation of the earliest
• 2:43:37
  civilizations, these shared fears developed in the short
• 2:43:41
  sighted reasonings that acted as answers to the unknown.
• 2:43:45
  The Sumerians of Summer, the earliest known civilization,
• 2:43:48
  spoke of the Edamu, or the Akamu, one of the first
• 2:43:52
  incarnations of vampire like beings.
• 2:43:54
  The spirit didn't just settle simply for one's blood, it
• 2:43:58
  played higher stakes. It fed upon one's soul.
• 2:44:01
  If this isn't terrifying enough, it was unobstructed in its
• 2:44:04
  pursuit with the ability to defy the laws of physics by moving
• 2:44:09
  through walls and once inside, use psychic control to hold a
• 2:44:13
  household hostage as it consumed all within.
• 2:44:16
  Staying within the ancient world, other areas of
• 2:44:18
  Mesopotamia tell stories of female demons, such as the
• 2:44:23
  lilito and lamb Stew that feasted upon the blood of
• 2:44:27
  children and also filled the void as an explanation for
• 2:44:30
  stillbirths and unexplained illness.
• 2:44:33
  In Greek mythology, stories of the lamia existed, a creature
• 2:44:37
  guilty of seducing and consuming men.
• 2:44:39
  If we step back and take a wider view at the common themes of
• 2:44:43
  these stories, we've learned that they all share a similarity
• 2:44:47
  that we still hold the same concern for today, death and
• 2:44:50
  what just happens when we pass on to whatever the afterlife may
• 2:44:54
  hold. Though these early examples of
• 2:44:56
  life or blood suckers serve a purpose to the society that they
• 2:45:00
  existed within, the modern perception of the vampire traces
• 2:45:04
  its roots closer to modern history in an area dubbed the
• 2:45:08
  Cradle of Vampire lore. Eastern Europe.
• 2:45:14
  The Eastern European countries that make up the cradle Vampire
• 2:45:17
  lore commonly referred to Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and
• 2:45:23
  Romania. Alongside real life influences,
• 2:45:26
  folklore from this region gives an explanation for mysterious
• 2:45:30
  deaths and unexpected disease outbreak, all while building the
• 2:45:33
  foundations of traditional vampire tropes.
• 2:45:36
  Of the real life influences, we find Elizabeth Bathory, better
• 2:45:40
  known as the Blood Countess of Hungary, who you might know from
• 2:45:45
  the story of the woman bathing in the blood of virgins to
• 2:45:47
  preserve her own beauty. Additionally, the story of the
• 2:45:51
  Romanian Vlad Dracula, better known as Flat the Impaler were
• 2:45:56
  simply Dracula, meaning the son of Dracula.
• 2:45:59
  Dracula is best known for his inspiration for the most known
• 2:46:03
  influence for the modern vampire Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's
• 2:46:08
  novel Dracula. Although even before Stoker in
• 2:46:12
  the actual Dracula, another influence existed that inspired
• 2:46:16
  the perception of Vlad Dracula, the Romanian folklore vampire,
• 2:46:20
  the Stragoy. This stragoy originates from
• 2:46:23
  medieval Romanian folklore and with it a majority of long
• 2:46:27
  standing terrifying vampire tropes.
• 2:46:29
  Even the meaning of the words stragoy comes as a frightful
• 2:46:33
  twist. Adding in the translation of
• 2:46:35
  other neighboring countries, it only gets worse.
• 2:46:38
  In Romanian the word is related to strega, which means scream,
• 2:46:43
  in Italian or Venetian which and in French it is related to the
• 2:46:48
  word streak which means a bird woman who sucks the blood of
• 2:46:52
  children. Over all, in Romanian folklore,
• 2:46:56
  a vampire is simply a stregoy that possesses a bat, just as a
• 2:47:01
  werewolf is a stroy that possesses a wolf, as defined by
• 2:47:06
  the 1882 novel Dental Nailable Papyri, Romena in the Momentary
• 2:47:12
  by Ted, or Burrada. One becomes a vampire in the
• 2:47:15
  following ways, by being the 7th child of the same sex in a
• 2:47:19
  family, by leading a life of sin, and by dying in any of the
• 2:47:23
  following manners, dying without being married, by execution for
• 2:47:27
  perjury, by taking one's life, or by dying while being cursed
• 2:47:32
  by a witch. Furthermore, once becoming a
• 2:47:34
  stagoy, 1 gains the superhuman abilities of transformation into
• 2:47:39
  an animal and invisibility at the expense of a lustful desire
• 2:47:43
  for blood that can be paid by physically draining victims by
• 2:47:47
  biting them, or more tactful, through psychic absorption,
• 2:47:51
  giving all the more reason for this terrifying folklore to have
• 2:47:55
  some sort of defensive measure. According to Romanian folklore,
• 2:47:59
  to kill a strogoy, the following measures must be taken.
• 2:48:03
  Its body must be exhumed, it's heart removed and cut in 2A nail
• 2:48:08
  driven through its forehead in a clove of garlic placed under its
• 2:48:11
  tongue. These methods would be tried and
• 2:48:14
  true during the 18th century vampire panic, however
• 2:48:19
  outlandish as they sound. Some other methods for killing a
• 2:48:22
  stragoy include additionally smearing its body and pig fat
• 2:48:27
  from a pig killed on a certain gypsy holiday, as well as
• 2:48:31
  bearing the body face down so it would be forced to head towards
• 2:48:34
  the afterlife. Enough about the Stragoy, let's
• 2:48:37
  talk about the vampire panic in the literature that developed
• 2:48:41
  from it that helped to shape the modern perception of the
• 2:48:43
  Vampire. The Habsburg Empire, whose
• 2:48:49
  capital city was Vienna, Austria, is one of the greatest
• 2:48:52
  reasons why we see the modern vampire in such a way.
• 2:48:56
  Although the empire did not start the vampire panic of the
• 2:48:59
  18th century, it had a direct hand in spreading the hysteria
• 2:49:03
  in the early 18th century. The annexation of the Ottoman
• 2:49:06
  Empire's territory in the Habsburg's farthest E brought
• 2:49:10
  more than just land expansion with him.
• 2:49:13
  Disturbing whispering, hushed gossip in alarming stories
• 2:49:17
  quickly spread amongst the empire of creatures that lurked
• 2:49:21
  in the night, bringing a new sense to the word nightmare.
• 2:49:25
  All of which was convincing enough for the Habsburg Empire
• 2:49:28
  to send a military scouting party to investigate the
• 2:49:31
  distress. What they found was terrifying,
• 2:49:34
  to say the least. Nick Groom, professor of English
• 2:49:38
  Literature at the University of Macau and the author of The
• 2:49:42
  Vampire, A New History, had this to say about the Habsburg
• 2:49:45
  military investigation in the 1720's.
• 2:49:49
  The military is sent to investigate what's going on, and
• 2:49:51
  in 1725 there's a report sent back saying that a body had been
• 2:49:56
  exhumed and staked and then cremated because it was
• 2:50:00
  terrorizing the local community. He also states that during this
• 2:50:04
  time in 1725, the word vampire made its written debut.
• 2:50:09
  Thereafter, there was no controlling the frenzy as the
• 2:50:12
  fascination with the concept of vampirism rapidly spread across
• 2:50:16
  Europe, leading all walks of life, carrying out
• 2:50:19
  investigations into alleged cases.
• 2:50:22
  With it, we gain medical explanations and common traits
• 2:50:25
  associated with vampirism we still subscribe to today.
• 2:50:29
  Prominent characteristics associated with vampires comes
• 2:50:33
  from the exhumation of 1's body after death.
• 2:50:37
  When one dug up a suspected vampire to make sure it never
• 2:50:40
  walked the earth again, Signs of natural decomposition were
• 2:50:44
  rudely mistaken for signs of continued life.
• 2:50:47
  These vamp hunters most certainly found hair and
• 2:50:50
  fingernail growth, receding gums that made the deceased teeth
• 2:50:54
  look that more terrible, and open mouths filled with blood
• 2:50:58
  providing credence to the idea of blood suckers.
• 2:51:01
  Others might have found even more frightening, quote UN
• 2:51:04
  quote, evidence of life beyond death tied to a common medical
• 2:51:09
  ignorance of premature pronouncement of death that only
• 2:51:12
  added the insanity when an extremely sick, belligerent
• 2:51:16
  drunk or a coma stricken individual was buried well
• 2:51:19
  before their time. When these vamp hunters cracked
• 2:51:22
  open a deathbed, they might have found the signs of struggle,
• 2:51:26
  broken and bloody fingernails and desperate claw marks on the
• 2:51:30
  lid of their coffin. But by the mid 18th century, the
• 2:51:33
  Habsburg Empire made medical determinations debunking the
• 2:51:37
  vampire panic of Europe, providing logical reasoning why
• 2:51:41
  vampires were nothing more than folklore gossip and held no real
• 2:51:45
  threat. Pellagra, A dietary deficiency
• 2:51:48
  from corn heavy diets that can cause extreme sensitivity to
• 2:51:51
  light and rabies, was offered as an explanation, which makes
• 2:51:56
  sense as a widespread outbreak of rabies occurred in the 18th
• 2:51:59
  century during the height of the vampire panic.
• 2:52:02
  Still, this reasoning did not settle the popularity of
• 2:52:06
  vampires and they soon found a new medium to eternally exist
• 2:52:10
  upon literature. Obviously, without the lore in
• 2:52:15
  the quote UN quote true happenings, the idea of the
• 2:52:18
  vampire would not have existed. However, this alone may have
• 2:52:23
  sizzled out, becoming nothing more but lost grumblings of the
• 2:52:27
  past. What we should truly pay homage
• 2:52:29
  to for the modern incarnation of the vampire is without a doubt
• 2:52:34
  Gothic literature from the 18th and 19th centuries.
• 2:52:37
  Nick Groom, who we talked about earlier, and Stanley Stepanik,
• 2:52:42
  an assistant professor in the Department of Slavic Languages
• 2:52:45
  and Literature at the University of Virginia, explain it best.
• 2:52:49
  The vampire became more than just the idea of a night terror
• 2:52:53
  to be blamed for unexplained death due to the lapse and
• 2:52:56
  understanding of the spread of illness.
• 2:52:59
  What the vampire became was a symbol to explain a multitude of
• 2:53:02
  questions we all share and face as human beings.
• 2:53:06
  Groom explains the vampire as a sort of thought experiment that
• 2:53:10
  professionals across disciplines reflect upon in the respective
• 2:53:14
  moment in history as a way to understand things like the
• 2:53:17
  spread of infection or capitalist exploitation.
• 2:53:21
  Stepanic adds that vampires mere human existence, explaining
• 2:53:25
  issues and anxieties. Let's dive in to some of the
• 2:53:28
  most influential vampire based pieces of gothic literature.
• 2:53:32
  I'll leave it up to you to analyze surface level details
• 2:53:36
  that help tell an underlying narrative relevant to their
• 2:53:39
  time. Heinrich August Olsonfolder's
• 2:53:42
  1748 poem Dare the Vampire is considered the first vampire
• 2:53:46
  poem. In it, a vampire narrator
• 2:53:49
  seduces an innocent maiden. John Paulidori's 1819 the
• 2:53:54
  Vampire is considered the first vampire story.
• 2:53:58
  The mysterious aristocrat Lord Ruth Fenn seduces a young woman,
• 2:54:03
  drinks her blood, and then disappears.
• 2:54:05
  This story adds the rich aristocrat trope to the long
• 2:54:09
  list of vampire traits. Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula.
• 2:54:15
  Although not the first, it is the most famous and influential
• 2:54:19
  vampire story, popularizing many vampire tropes including
• 2:54:24
  survival and destruction, aristocracy and vampires.
• 2:54:27
  Being from Eastern European origins.
• 2:54:30
  The story follows the infamous Count Dracula, a vampire with
• 2:54:34
  supernatural abilities he uses to prey on the innocent.
• 2:54:38
  He was inspired by both Flat the Impaler and Countess Elizabeth
• 2:54:42
  Bathory. Not literature, but still
• 2:54:45
  essential to the formation of vampire tropes.
• 2:54:47
  The 1922 film Nosferatu. To say it was inspired by
• 2:54:51
  Dracula would be too kind. It was a blatant RIP off but
• 2:54:56
  serve the purpose of introducing us to the vampires vulnerability
• 2:54:59
  to light. Thereafter, the 20th century saw
• 2:55:03
  vampires transforming from animalistic predators to more
• 2:55:07
  human like beings. This transformation happened
• 2:55:11
  over time with a long list of literature, TV and films that
• 2:55:15
  helped to show vampires in a new light.
• 2:55:17
  But none was more influential to the development than Anne Rice
• 2:55:22
  in her 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire.
• 2:55:26
  This novel alone introduced to the world that vampires to be
• 2:55:30
  just like us, gossip driven and self loathing.
• 2:55:34
  It also lessened physical vulnerabilities and made them
• 2:55:37
  more superhuman in both their abilities and appearance.
• 2:55:41
  Vampires now had super speed, heightened senses and lustful
• 2:55:46
  beauty, being only vulnerable to daylight fire in the death of
• 2:55:50
  the first of its kind. This being the vampire that we
• 2:55:54
  all desire to become. Rice's influence did not stop
• 2:55:57
  there, it influenced the preceding transformed work.
• 2:56:01
  The early 21st century when the vampires became a desirable star
• 2:56:05
  crossed love interest, starting with the TV show Buffy the
• 2:56:09
  Vampire Slayer that ran from 1997 to 2003.
• 2:56:14
  Featured main protagonist Buffy Summers who happened to be a
• 2:56:18
  quote UN quote Vampire Slayer. Crazy, who would have guessed
• 2:56:22
  falls for a vampire named Angel to the same theme.
• 2:56:26
  HBO's True Blood series based off Charlene Harris's Sookie
• 2:56:30
  Stackhouse book series features multiple human vampire
• 2:56:34
  relationships. Later in the mid 2000s, a new
• 2:56:37
  vampire romance born between vamps and teens, made popular by
• 2:56:41
  novels such as The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith in The
• 2:56:46
  Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyers.
• 2:56:49
  Although it seems that vampire romance completely outshines all
• 2:56:53
  else in modern times, it is easy to forget that during the rise
• 2:56:57
  of this niche, another ran parallel vampires as unsung
• 2:57:01
  heroes. The 21st century also delivered
• 2:57:05
  us three Blade films that featured 1/2 human half vampire
• 2:57:09
  superhero, as well as multiple Underworld films that told the
• 2:57:14
  story of an endless vampire werewolf war in The Return of
• 2:57:18
  Buffy the Vampire. Slayer's Angel in a New Light in
• 2:57:21
  the main role in the show. Angel as a private detective
• 2:57:28
  despite modern medicine completely debunking the
• 2:57:31
  possibility, pop culture twisting vampirism in every
• 2:57:35
  aspect, and our understanding that for the past 300 years
• 2:57:40
  Gothic literature has used vampirism as an allegory for
• 2:57:44
  deeper societal struggles, we still can't help but obsess over
• 2:57:47
  the idea of true existence, and with good reason.
• 2:57:51
  Just when we think we have it all figured out, stories of
• 2:57:54
  alleged true encounters make us question our understanding of it
• 2:57:57
  all. Here are some stories for you to
• 2:57:59
  chew upon. Stigoi folklore tales of two
• 2:58:02
  prominent tales from the 17th and 18th century.
• 2:58:06
  First, that of Croatian Gior Grande, and secondly the Serbian
• 2:58:11
  peasant Peter Baljevic. Accounts tell that Gior Grande
• 2:58:16
  lived longed after his death in 1656, for nearly two decades to
• 2:58:20
  be exact, where he terrorized the villagers of Istria nightly
• 2:58:25
  until his eventual beheading in 1672.
• 2:58:28
  Who? Just as daunting is the case of
• 2:58:30
  Peter Blajosevic, who after his death in 1725 returned from the
• 2:58:35
  grave to kill nine of his fellow villagers, one of which was a
• 2:58:39
  son. Blajojevic case is said to be
• 2:58:42
  the most well documented case during the vampire panic, with
• 2:58:46
  each of his alleged victims claimed to have been fed upon by
• 2:58:50
  Blajosevic the night prior to their deaths.
• 2:58:53
  When Blajjevic's body was exhumed, it showed clear signs
• 2:58:56
  of vampirism, which we know now as clear signs of the body
• 2:59:00
  naturally decomposing, though at the time worthy of a stake
• 2:59:05
  through the heart. Afterwards, the killings oddly
• 2:59:08
  ceased. Just as Eastern Europe is
• 2:59:10
  regarded as the cradle vampire lore, Louisiana serves America
• 2:59:15
  equally. So here among many, we find the
• 2:59:18
  stories of Jacques St. Germain, a goose delic range in
• 2:59:22
  The Carter Brothers. I'll cover each briefly with the
• 2:59:25
  intent and deeper dives in the near future.
• 2:59:27
  Saint Germain story far exists outside this one isolated
• 2:59:31
  incident, Louisiana just being a short chapter of the alleged
• 2:59:35
  eternal man. In the early years of the turn
• 2:59:37
  of the 20th century, this international man of mystery
• 2:59:41
  appeared in America's Deep South, in the town of New
• 2:59:44
  Orleans, leaving behind his former home in France.
• 2:59:47
  Harry brushed elbows with the city's rich socialites, throwing
• 2:59:51
  lavish parties fully catered in him.
• 2:59:53
  The sole entertainer, St. Germain told stories across
• 2:59:57
  history as if he was there to live them.
• 2:59:59
  He never ate and notably only sipped what was presumed as red
• 3:00:03
  wine only adding to his mystical characteristics.
• 3:00:07
  He claimed to be the descendant of the Count of Saint Germain, a
• 3:00:10
  famed 18th century adventurer, musician, and alchemist, among a
• 3:00:15
  plethora of other things. If his claim wasn't enough, his
• 3:00:19
  striking resemblance was uncanny, and life might have
• 3:00:22
  continued on as is if not for one fateful November night.
• 3:00:26
  On this night, a young woman was found injured outside of Saint
• 3:00:29
  Germain. Remains home after having jumped
• 3:00:31
  from the second story balcony to escape his clutches after he
• 3:00:35
  tried to feed on her. After taking the young woman to
• 3:00:38
  the hospital, the police paid Saint Germain a visit the next
• 3:00:42
  day. Their knocks were unanswered, so
• 3:00:44
  they let themselves in, finding a nightmare waiting.
• 3:00:47
  Saint Germain was nowhere to be found, but what was made the
• 3:00:51
  young woman's outlandish story sound not so crazy.
• 3:00:55
  The police found uncountable blood stains on the carpet and
• 3:00:58
  furniture throughout the home. No food or eating utensils and
• 3:01:03
  large corked wine bottles filled with a mixture of human blood
• 3:01:07
  and wine. Saint Germain was never found,
• 3:01:10
  leaving those to wonder if he truly was a vampire.
• 3:01:13
  For all we know, he might still be rubbing elbows at lavish
• 3:01:16
  parties with the rich socialites of today.
• 3:01:19
  A goose delic range was a serial killer who roamed the Louisiana
• 3:01:23
  Knights of the early 1900s, where he claimed the lives of
• 3:01:26
  over 40 victims. Each of his victims shared the
• 3:01:29
  traumatizing characteristics of dismemberment and being drained
• 3:01:33
  completely of their blood, leading those to believe that
• 3:01:36
  delic range was anything but human and more likely a vampire.
• 3:01:41
  It would take the unlikely pair of a Roman Catholic and food to
• 3:01:45
  priest duo to finally bring the man down by driving a stake
• 3:01:49
  through his heart. The same stake that was sold at
• 3:01:52
  an eBay auction in the early 2000s.
• 3:01:54
  Although I can't find a final selling price, I'm sure it was a
• 3:01:57
  competitive bid. I mean, who wouldn't want to
• 3:02:00
  claim that they own a real vampire heart like Delic Grange,
• 3:02:04
  John and Wayne Carter terrorized Louisiana by instilling fear
• 3:02:08
  through gruesome acts that could only be explained as other
• 3:02:12
  wordly They acted and operated during the Great Depression,
• 3:02:16
  feeding on victims they kidnapped and held captive in
• 3:02:18
  their home. They were eventually ousted in
• 3:02:21
  1932 when one of their victims escaped.
• 3:02:24
  Following the victims lead, 2 police officers visited the
• 3:02:27
  apartment in the 800 block of Royal St. at the corner of Rowan
• 3:02:32
  in Saint Anne that she had escaped from.
• 3:02:34
  When they arrived, they found four of their men and women
• 3:02:37
  bound to chairs, fed upon and fighting for their lives.
• 3:02:41
  In another room, police found two decomposing bodies wrapped
• 3:02:44
  in white sheets. The victims told the police that
• 3:02:47
  two brothers, identified as John and Wayne Carter, who had
• 3:02:51
  abducted them, left every day at Daybreak and returned to the
• 3:02:54
  evening to feed on them. On this information, the police
• 3:02:58
  decided to stake out the apartment with eight police
• 3:03:00
  officers waiting to ambush the two brothers.
• 3:03:03
  When they returned they did just a sew and to their surprise,
• 3:03:07
  despite their a small stature of only 5 foot 6 inches tall and
• 3:03:11
  160 lbs, the two brothers put up a hell of a fight wouldn't
• 3:03:16
  finally subdued. The two brothers begged the
• 3:03:19
  police to end them then and there because they were
• 3:03:21
  terrified of their own blood lost knowing that if they were
• 3:03:24
  not put down they would only crave feeding again.
• 3:03:27
  The Carters would be executed. And depending on what accounts
• 3:03:30
  you subscribe to, the short of it is that when the brothers
• 3:03:34
  crypt was visited only a year later, both of their bodies had
• 3:03:37
  vanished, paying credence to the belief that they were indeed
• 3:03:41
  vampires. So what do you make of it all?
• 3:03:44
  Vampires once a catch all to explain the ignorance of medical
• 3:03:48
  understanding, disease and widespread illness in a
• 3:03:52
  projection for her own fear of death.
• 3:03:54
  Then an allegory for an abundance of philosophical,
• 3:03:58
  psychological, and societal struggles transforming through a
• 3:04:02
  creative lens. Overall, the idea still captures
• 3:04:05
  our attention for its ability to be more than just human,
• 3:04:09
  fulfilling our own desires to be immortal.
• 3:04:12
  It also reminds us that the world is wide, human history is
• 3:04:16
  short. We are now, but what before?
• 3:04:19
  What after? Is it possible that vampires
• 3:04:22
  could be more than just a paranormal thought?
• 3:04:24
  Do they only exist because we allow them to?
• 3:04:27
  Or is there a true possibility, like our ignorance to reality
• 3:04:31
  once more, that we as human beings did not have everything
• 3:04:35
  figured out and vampires live just outside our sense of
• 3:04:38
  reality? The house stood quiet under the
• 3:04:54
  heavy tropical sky, it's 10 roof shimmering in the heat.
• 3:04:59
  In early 1998, five friends moved into this modest rented
• 3:05:03
  bungalow, expecting a peaceful life in the Bush.
• 3:05:07
  Instead, they would endure a waking nightmare and a dark
• 3:05:11
  twist of irony. Humpty Doo is the local sling
• 3:05:14
  for upside down chaos, and soon their world would be turned
• 3:05:19
  upside down by an unseen force. One steamy January evening, a
• 3:05:25
  monsoon thunderstorm rolled in. The roommates gathered on the
• 3:05:29
  back patio to watch lightning fork across the horizon.
• 3:05:33
  With rain drumming on the corrugated metal roof, Thunder
• 3:05:37
  soon rattled the windows, and none of them realized that
• 3:05:41
  inside the house, another kind of storm was about to begin.
• 3:05:45
  That night, amid the den of the storm, one of them heard an odd
• 3:05:50
  rattle overhead, something different from the rain.
• 3:05:54
  When the downpour subsided, they ventured into the kitchen and
• 3:05:58
  froze. A handful of small pebbles and
• 3:06:01
  seashells lay scattered across the floor, glistening wet.
• 3:06:06
  It was as if the rain had rained down straight through the
• 3:06:09
  ceiling. The ceiling, however, was intact
• 3:06:12
  and the windows were shut. A chill soon crept over the
• 3:06:16
  friends. How had the stones fallen inside
• 3:06:19
  the house? In the days that followed, the
• 3:06:23
  mysterious disturbances escalated.
• 3:06:26
  At first it was little things, faint thuds and empty rooms.
• 3:06:30
  Objects found moved from where they had been left.
• 3:06:34
  And then one afternoon, a wine bottle launched off the
• 3:06:37
  countertop and shattered against a wall on its own.
• 3:06:41
  Soon it was happening constantly.
• 3:06:44
  Knives, glass shards, bottle lids and even kitchen pans were
• 3:06:49
  all hurled through the air without warning, often aimed
• 3:06:53
  directly at the occupants. There was no pattern to it.
• 3:06:58
  Whether it was morning or noon or the dead of night, something
• 3:07:02
  would crash or fly across the room at terrifying speeds.
• 3:07:07
  The house mates soon lived in a state of siege, hearts pounding
• 3:07:11
  at every unexplained thumb. They would tiptoe through their
• 3:07:15
  own home, never knowing exactly when the next object might
• 3:07:19
  explode into motion. On several occasions, a sharp
• 3:07:23
  knife would suddenly impale itself into a wall, having
• 3:07:27
  missed a person's face by mere inches.
• 3:07:30
  What could possibly be doing this?
• 3:07:32
  There was never anyone else present, only an invisible
• 3:07:37
  assailant with a cruel sense of aim.
• 3:07:40
  Soon, the haunting took an even stranger turn. 1 morning, one of
• 3:07:45
  the friends found something new waiting on the coffee table.
• 3:07:48
  Plastic letter tiles from their Scrabble game arranged into a
• 3:07:53
  single word fire. A day later they discovered Carr
• 3:07:58
  spelled out on the kitchen counter with the same letters.
• 3:08:02
  Next came skin laid neatly on the window seal.
• 3:08:07
  Each word sent a bolt of dread through the household.
• 3:08:10
  It was as if something was leaving cryptic messages, one
• 3:08:14
  chilling word at a time. At first, the friends were
• 3:08:17
  merely perplexed. Fire car skin?
• 3:08:23
  What could these mean? But the puzzle pieces soon fell
• 3:08:26
  into place and filled them with another new fear.
• 3:08:31
  Two months before the paranormal activity began, their close
• 3:08:34
  friend Troy had died in a horrific car accident.
• 3:08:38
  He was burned to death when a can of paint thinner exploded in
• 3:08:42
  his vehicle. The realization hit like an icy
• 3:08:46
  wave. These eerie Scrabble messages
• 3:08:49
  seem to allude to Troy's terrible fate.
• 3:08:52
  The atmosphere upon the realization in the bungalow grew
• 3:08:55
  somber. Could it be Troy's restless
• 3:08:58
  spirit reaching out to them? The possibility was oddly
• 3:09:02
  comforting at first, the idea that their friend might be
• 3:09:06
  nearby in some form. But that hope quickly turned
• 3:09:10
  into terror. The violence of the disturbances
• 3:09:14
  was unlike anything gentle Troy would ever do.
• 3:09:18
  Why would his spirit hurl knives and smash bottles at people he
• 3:09:21
  cared about? 1 morning, As if to confirm
• 3:09:25
  their suspicions, the word Troy appeared on the living room
• 3:09:30
  floor. Any doubt that something
• 3:09:32
  otherworldly was at play vanished within that moment.
• 3:09:37
  Yet the question remained, was this really Troy's ghost, or
• 3:09:41
  something else using his name, Something more sinister?
• 3:09:46
  The mixed signals, personal messages intertwined with
• 3:09:49
  malice, left the French trembling and uncertain.
• 3:09:54
  By now, word of the strange haunting had begun to spread
• 3:09:57
  beyond the little circle of friends, curious neighbors.
• 3:10:01
  Then local journalists and paranormal investigators showed
• 3:10:05
  up to see the phenomena for themselves.
• 3:10:08
  Must arrive skeptically, joking that the tenants must be
• 3:10:11
  imagining things. But even hardened reporters and
• 3:10:15
  investigators left the house pale and shaken, their
• 3:10:19
  skepticism shattered by what they had witnessed first hand.
• 3:10:23
  Objects flew or crashed in front of their eyes.
• 3:10:26
  With no one nearby, ATV news crew set up cameras in the
• 3:10:30
  living room, determined to capture proof of the
• 3:10:33
  poltergeist. But the entity wasn't about to
• 3:10:36
  make it easy. Equipment malfunctioned.
• 3:10:39
  Inexplicably, cameras that have been working fine would suddenly
• 3:10:43
  power down or record only static at the crucial moment.
• 3:10:48
  It was as if the poltergeist refused to be caught on film,
• 3:10:52
  playing a twisted game of hide and seek with its observers.
• 3:10:56
  Frustrated, one cameraman commented that every time he hit
• 3:11:00
  record, the house fell eerily silent, only for the chaos to
• 3:11:04
  resume the minute the cameras were pointed away.
• 3:11:08
  The next morning, the residents found a new message spelled out
• 3:11:11
  on the floor and neat Scrabble letters that said no cameras.
• 3:11:16
  The entity had spoken, seemingly mocking their attempts to
• 3:11:21
  document it. This chilling intelligence, a
• 3:11:24
  sly awareness of their actions, sent a fresh wave of fear
• 3:11:28
  through everyone. The Humpty do Poltergeist, as it
• 3:11:32
  was now being called, clearly did not want an audience.
• 3:11:36
  The weeks turned into months. The assault on the household
• 3:11:39
  continued relentlessly, and the list of witnesses grew with each
• 3:11:43
  passing week. Eventually, over 30 different
• 3:11:47
  people would see some manifestation of the haunting.
• 3:11:51
  The five friends were exhausted, frazzled, and desperate for
• 3:11:55
  help. Late one night, after a
• 3:11:58
  particularly violent day, they huddled together and made a
• 3:12:01
  plan. If this was something demonic or
• 3:12:05
  evil, perhaps a religious intervention could cleanse the
• 3:12:08
  house. They felt that they needed an
• 3:12:11
  exorcism. Not long after, the house mates
• 3:12:14
  awoke to a ghastly sight that seemed to confirm their worst
• 3:12:18
  fears and the Gray light of the dawn.
• 3:12:21
  They found a symbol crudely arranged on the ground in front
• 3:12:24
  of the house, stones and pebbles laid out in the shape of a cross
• 3:12:29
  alongside A3 pronged Trident. The implication was terrifying.
• 3:12:35
  A cross for Christianity, a Trident almost like the devil's
• 3:12:39
  pitchfork. Even the earth outside their
• 3:12:42
  door now bore the mark of some presence claiming its territory.
• 3:12:46
  That same morning, the shaken residents contacted local
• 3:12:50
  clergy. 2 priests, 1 Catholic, one Anglican, agreed to come and
• 3:12:56
  bless the troubled house. The priests arrived on a
• 3:12:59
  sweltering afternoon, armed with Bibles, holy water and faith.
• 3:13:05
  The friends gathered around as the clergyman moved from room to
• 3:13:07
  room, murmuring prayers. At first the house was still.
• 3:13:13
  The only sounds were the priests, low Latin incantations
• 3:13:17
  in the buzz of distant cicadas in the heat.
• 3:13:20
  Then all hell broke loose. Without warning, a Bible flew
• 3:13:26
  out of one of the priests hands, hurled by an invisible force.
• 3:13:31
  It hit the wall and fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
• 3:13:35
  It's pages were torn clean out. The priest gasped in shock.
• 3:13:41
  An instant later, the other priest let out a cry.
• 3:13:44
  An unseen hand had grabbed his arm and twisted it brutally
• 3:13:48
  behind his back, forcing him down to his knees.
• 3:13:52
  He strained as if wrestling with an invisible attacker, veins
• 3:13:57
  bulging, his face contorting in pain.
• 3:14:01
  The housemates looked at one another in horror, unable to do
• 3:14:04
  anything. The clergyman staggered back,
• 3:14:07
  clearly overwhelmed. Their holy intervention had only
• 3:14:11
  angered whatever had lurked there and fear for their lives.
• 3:14:16
  They quickly fled the house, one nursing an injured arm and the
• 3:14:20
  other clutching his tattered Bible.
• 3:14:23
  Following their departure, the house fell eerily quiet, but the
• 3:14:28
  damage was done. The entity had made its point.
• 3:14:33
  No human, it seemed, could ever tame it.
• 3:14:37
  In the aftermath of this failed exorcism, the owner of the
• 3:14:40
  property turned on the tenants. The landlord was convinced that
• 3:14:45
  they must have been the one destroying the house with all of
• 3:14:47
  these antics, and with that conclusion, he moved to have
• 3:14:52
  them evicted. A legal battle ensued, dragging
• 3:14:55
  this bizarre haunting into the public eye.
• 3:14:59
  When the case went before a judge, the testimony about
• 3:15:02
  flying objects and dozens of eyewitness accounts was so
• 3:15:06
  compelling that the courts sided with the tenants, ruling that
• 3:15:11
  they were not responsible for the damage and that an unseen
• 3:15:14
  force was to blame. The official judgement
• 3:15:18
  astonished the community. By this point, however, the five
• 3:15:22
  friends had reached their breaking point.
• 3:15:25
  Less than a month after the court ruling, they'd packed up
• 3:15:28
  their belongings and left the house for good.
• 3:15:32
  They had lasted 5 months in the grip of the poltergeist. 5 long
• 3:15:37
  months of fear, sleeplessness and chaos, and they could take
• 3:15:42
  no more. On their final night in the
• 3:15:45
  bungalow, as they loaded the last boxes into their cars, the
• 3:15:49
  humid air felt unnaturally still.
• 3:15:52
  Not a single object moved inside the house.
• 3:15:56
  It was as if the entity was watching in silence, content now
• 3:16:00
  that its victims were conceding defeat.
• 3:16:04
  When the Sunrise Friends fled McMahon's drive, leaving behind
• 3:16:08
  the accursed place that had nearly broken them After their
• 3:16:13
  departure, an eerie piece settled over the property.
• 3:16:17
  The landlord made repairs, patching up holes and walls and
• 3:16:21
  replacing shattered windows, and gave the house a full
• 3:16:24
  renovation. Strangely, or perhaps not
• 3:16:28
  strange at all, once the original tenants were gone, the
• 3:16:32
  paranormal activity ceased entirely.
• 3:16:35
  The Humpty Dew poltergeist vanished as mysteriously as it
• 3:16:39
  had arrived in the newly quiet rooms.
• 3:16:43
  There were no flying knives, no more phantom messages or raining
• 3:16:48
  stones. Whatever force that had
• 3:16:50
  terrorized the little blue bungalow seemed to have also
• 3:16:54
  moved on. Yet the tale of what happened in
• 3:16:58
  the remote NT home would not be so easily forgotten.
• 3:17:03
  The ordeal left unanswered questions that haunted everyone
• 3:17:07
  who experienced it. Was it truly their friend's
• 3:17:11
  restless spirit crying out, or something far more sinister?
• 3:17:16
  To this day, the Mcminn's Dr. Haunting remains a disturbing
• 3:17:19
  enigma. A lesser known case, perhaps the
• 3:17:23
  one of the best documented and most chilling hauntings on
• 3:17:27
  record. The surviving witnesses, dozens
• 3:17:30
  of them, can attest to an encounter with the unexplained
• 3:17:34
  that defied logic and shook them to their core.
• 3:17:38
  And for the five friends who lived through those months of
• 3:17:40
  horror, every so often in the dead of night, memory plays
• 3:17:46
  tricks. A faint patter on the roof or a
• 3:17:50
  flash of a shadow will make their hearts race once again.
• 3:17:54
  They will never forget the entity, the unseen presence that
• 3:17:58
  came without warning and left without a trace, save for the
• 3:18:02
  enduring fear that it could one day return and wreak havoc on
• 3:18:08
  their lives once again. Thank you guys so much for
• 3:18:18
  joining me in this showcase. Please go and subscribe and show
• 3:18:21
  everyone in this video some love.
• 3:18:23
  I know we'd all greatly appreciate it.
• 3:18:26
  And I did also want to remind you guys that you can purchase
• 3:18:28
  any of my books, which each contain 10 real and terrifying
• 3:18:32
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  notoriousoccultfigures@mysteryarchives.myshopify.com. You can also
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  support.medirectly@patreon.com/mystery Archives.
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  There you can gain access to all my content and AD free and more.
• 3:18:49
  Other than that, everyone, I still have several more videos
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  for you for the remainder of 2025 and I wish you all nothing
• 3:18:55
  but the absolute best. This has been Cody here at
• 3:18:58
  Mystery Archives. Make sure to stay safe out there
• 3:19:01
  and take care. I'll see you next time.