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The Untold Story Paranormal Series Season 2 FULL by Mystery Archives · Mystery Archives Episodes

• 0:22
  Can a soul or the essence of an entity become trapped inside of
• 0:27
  an object? Could one channeling enough
• 0:30
  energy, dedication, and care into something allow an
• 0:34
  otherworldly presence to possess it, attracting spirits like
• 0:40
  moths to a flame? We have covered haunted objects
• 0:44
  here before, such as Akiku the Doll, among others, but this
• 0:49
  story is too infamous to not be given the time of day, and
• 0:54
  although it has been told many times, perhaps you will learn a
• 0:57
  detail or two that you've never heard before.
• 1:00
  This is the untold story of Robert the Doll and the
• 1:04
  malevolent monstrosity that stares at the world from behind
• 1:08
  its beady little eyes. At first glance, most people
• 1:21
  tend to agree that although dolls of all sorts can be creepy
• 1:24
  to say the least, there's something particularly unnerving
• 1:28
  about the doll that has become known to the world as Robert.
• 1:32
  But behind the initial feelings of unease at first glance lies
• 1:36
  many tales of accidents, tragedy, and misfortune, all
• 1:41
  supposedly at Robert's hands, far too many within his presence
• 1:46
  to just be a string of awful coincidences.
• 1:49
  But if an evil force supposedly lives within the confines of
• 1:53
  this century old child's toy, to come to recognize and understand
• 1:57
  just what it could be, we must first tell its story.
• 2:01
  And to tell Robert's story properly, we must first start at
• 2:04
  the very beginning. As with many legends, there are
• 2:08
  multiple versions of the origin story and how Robert the Doll
• 2:12
  came to be. Having read through most if not
• 2:15
  all of them, I'll be sharing with you the most agreed upon
• 2:18
  origin for accuracy's sake in the beginning, and we will
• 2:22
  explore other theories and origin stories later.
• 2:25
  In this video, the years 1904 and a man named Thomas Otto is
• 2:31
  on a trip in Germany. Whether it was for business or
• 2:34
  leisure, we can't say, but during his trip, he decided to
• 2:39
  pick up a gift for his young grandson's birthday to take back
• 2:43
  home with him to the States. As he perused various shops
• 2:47
  throughout his time there, he stumbled across a toy that he
• 2:51
  believed would be the perfect fit for the young boy.
• 2:54
  Perched on display behind a pale glass window sat a doll.
• 2:59
  The doll was about the size of a young child and was accompanied
• 3:02
  by a small dog doll as well. Knowing that his grandson was
• 3:06
  lonely on the large family estate and was very fond of dogs
• 3:10
  as well, Thomas believed he had found what he had been searching
• 3:14
  for and quickly purchased the toy.
• 3:17
  In due time he would find his way back to the United States
• 3:20
  once his trip was over, bringing his precious cargo with him,
• 3:24
  Making his way back to the family estate located in Key
• 3:28
  West, FL to greet his family after months abroad, Thomas, in
• 3:33
  an act of innocence and excitement, gifted the toy to
• 3:36
  his grandson Eugene for his 8th birthday.
• 3:40
  As soon as Eugene laid eyes on the gift he had received, he
• 3:44
  became ecstatic. With no other children his own
• 3:47
  age in the home or nearby, he now for once had his very own
• 3:51
  friend. His own best friend and one that
• 3:54
  could accompany him wherever he went.
• 3:57
  Sitting at around 3 feet tall with his little dog, Eugene
• 4:01
  named his new friend Robert. But Robert of course needed
• 4:05
  clothes to fit for years of adventures to come.
• 4:09
  So Eugene's mother Maria quickly found just what he was missing.
• 4:13
  A small sailor's outfit that had once belonged to her son but had
• 4:17
  long since been outgrown. After placing Robert in his new
• 4:21
  clothes, the two were off to play and soon became
• 4:25
  inseparable. Wherever Eugene went, Robert
• 4:29
  accompanied him from hours of play inside and outside of the
• 4:33
  house to the dinner table and bedtime.
• 4:37
  His new best friend was everything the young man wanted
• 4:40
  and much more besides constant companionship.
• 4:44
  Eugene began to confide in the doll, often speaking to him as
• 4:48
  if he was a person and his own right.
• 4:51
  His parents, who were first just as elated as their young son was
• 4:56
  at his excitement over his new toy, began to grow concerned
• 5:00
  over how close their son was to the doll.
• 5:03
  But they would initially write off the behavior as most would,
• 5:07
  since lonely children with their imaginations still very much
• 5:10
  active will typically invent imaginary friends or adventurous
• 5:15
  stories to fill the void or lack of friends and real adventures
• 5:21
  within their daily lives. But over the months since Robert
• 5:24
  had arrived, they noticed a bizarre shift in Eugene's
• 5:28
  personality. He began to grow extremely
• 5:31
  possessive and obsessive over Robert, who would lash out at
• 5:35
  his parents, sometimes violently, if the doll was not
• 5:39
  in his sight at all times. It would soon appear that
• 5:43
  Eugene's obsession with his cloth companion and shift in
• 5:47
  behavior wasn't the only strange activity that was taking place.
• 5:52
  One night as she tucked her son into bed, Maria overheard Eugene
• 5:56
  whispering to Robert, something that at this point had become a
• 6:00
  daily occurrence. But as she closed the door to
• 6:03
  his room and began to walk away, she heard a deep, guttural voice
• 6:09
  respond to her son. Shocked and terrified, she
• 6:14
  rushed back into her son's room, only to find him laying with the
• 6:17
  doll. As per usual, when she asked him
• 6:21
  just who was speaking, he simply answered Robert.
• 6:27
  This scary happening wouldn't be the last.
• 6:30
  About a year into Robert the Doll inhabiting their Key West
• 6:34
  estate, the Ottos noticed yet another shift in their son's
• 6:38
  behavior, but this time it was almost the exact opposite of
• 6:43
  what the initial shift had been. Eugene had gone from a quiet and
• 6:47
  shy but charming young man to a belligerent, angry, and
• 6:52
  possessive boy. But now he had become one that
• 6:56
  was meek, full of anxiety, and constantly seemed like he was
• 7:00
  walking on egg shells. He had now also taken to violent
• 7:05
  fits on occasion, as if something was trying to overtake
• 7:09
  his body and soul. The guttural voice that Maria
• 7:14
  had heard a year ago could be heard much more frequently now,
• 7:18
  and just as frequently, almost nightly, it became commonplace
• 7:23
  to hear what sounded like glass breaking and constant commotion
• 7:28
  coming from Eugene's room. Upon hearing the turmoil, his
• 7:32
  parents would rush to discover the source.
• 7:35
  Upon opening their son's door, they would find his furniture
• 7:39
  dumped upside down. Other toys of his would be
• 7:42
  smashed or in pieces, and Eugene would almost always be in the
• 7:48
  corner of the room in his bed, petrified, while Robert the doll
• 7:54
  would be in his usual space nearby.
• 7:58
  Upon asking just what had happened, they would be met with
• 8:02
  an all too familiar answer. At this point they would ask
• 8:06
  just who did this? Eugene and his answer would
• 8:09
  always be Robert. Noticing the activity becoming
• 8:14
  more and more intense and being a God fearing woman herself,
• 8:19
  Maria was deeply disturbed by what was taking place in her
• 8:22
  home and what was taking place to her family, particularly her
• 8:27
  son. Besides the nightly terror that
• 8:30
  now plagued them, she was very much disturbed by this guttural
• 8:34
  voice that she kept hearing. Knowing that her son had not yet
• 8:38
  matured, she knew that there was no way his voice could reach
• 8:41
  that deep level of tonality and malice that she often heard.
• 8:47
  At times the voice would even shout and speak over Eugene and
• 8:52
  unless he was exceptionally good of ventriloquism, something was
• 8:56
  horrifically wrong. It was if the devil himself now
• 9:00
  occupied the walls of their like a stain or a liquid, the
• 9:05
  presence had slowly seeped in and permeated throughout their
• 9:10
  lives. One night, as per usual, the
• 9:15
  family settles down to sleep as the clouds spiral and the moon
• 9:19
  now haunts the sky above them, gleaming down overhead.
• 9:24
  The family's peace is shattered by the horrific screams of their
• 9:28
  sun and the echoes of the sounds of things being broken.
• 9:35
  Wide eyed and terrified, Eugene's parents rushed to their
• 9:38
  son's aid, Lantern in hand. The closer they get to his room,
• 9:43
  the louder the low and horrible voice becomes, and the louder
• 9:48
  the screams of Eugene become as well.
• 9:52
  The deep voice that had been growing louder suddenly was
• 9:56
  silent like the winter's snow as hands touch the doorknob.
• 10:01
  Quickly overcoming their fear for the sake of their boy, the
• 10:05
  couple throw the door open to find their son huddled
• 10:08
  underneath his sheets. His room was almost completely
• 10:12
  destroyed. Most of his belongings were in
• 10:15
  pieces or tatters from what was left of his toys to his
• 10:21
  furniture to even his clothes. Poor Eugene was shaking in the
• 10:26
  corner of his room opposite his bed.
• 10:29
  And Robert, along with his beady eyed companion were in his bed
• 10:34
  staring at them all silently. By this point, Maria knew that
• 10:39
  whatever Robert was or whatever inhabited him was truly evil.
• 10:45
  But unsure of how to handle the situation or what exactly they
• 10:48
  were dealing with and a fit of rage, she grabbed the doll and
• 10:53
  rushed to the attic, casting Robert and his canine companion
• 10:58
  into the darkness above. This would remain his home until
• 11:02
  a better idea presented itself as to what to do with him.
• 11:07
  The low groans and screams and breaking ceased in Eugene's
• 11:12
  room, but would frequently be heard in the attic.
• 11:16
  With having such a large estate to care for, the family did have
• 11:20
  a team of servants to care for the property, but their loyal
• 11:24
  crew, having experienced the strangeness themselves, up and
• 11:29
  quit. The servants soon became a
• 11:32
  revolving door with new faces almost always coming and going
• 11:37
  just as quickly as they started. Despite his banishment to the
• 11:41
  attic, alongside the occasional crashing sounds and yelling, the
• 11:46
  family said that they would also hear Robert walking around, the
• 11:50
  pitter patter of his small feet often being heard echoing all
• 11:55
  throughout the house, especially at night when he seemed to truly
• 12:00
  come alive, so to speak. As the years passed, and despite
• 12:05
  all of the childhood trauma and fear inflicted on him by the
• 12:09
  demonic doll, unbeknownst to any rational mind, after his parents
• 12:14
  passing, Eugene would choose to take Robert back into his
• 12:18
  possession as an adult. Perhaps he did this to ensure
• 12:22
  that Robert wouldn't inflict terror upon anyone else.
• 12:26
  Maybe he felt like he had the most experience dealing with him
• 12:30
  and therefore he was the most equipped to handle anything that
• 12:33
  could possibly happen as a result of his presence.
• 12:37
  Eugene, in his adult years became an artist and would later
• 12:40
  marry and have a family of his own.
• 12:43
  He kept Robert propped up in the window of his art studio, known
• 12:47
  as the Turret Room, which overlooked his front yard.
• 12:51
  And then Eugene's wife was said to disapprove of Robert's
• 12:55
  presence in the house and demanded that he be gotten rid
• 12:59
  of or banished into the attic or basement.
• 13:02
  For a short time this took place, but naturally Robert
• 13:06
  didn't take kindly to this and apparently began to make threats
• 13:10
  towards her by visiting her in her dreams and verbally telling
• 13:15
  Eugene that if he was not moved back, horrible things would
• 13:20
  happen to his family. So eventually Robert was placed
• 13:24
  back in the turret room. Aside from this, I couldn't find
• 13:28
  any additional information on the happenings that took place
• 13:31
  during those years inside the home.
• 13:34
  I would hope and imagine that perhaps Robert had gone dormant
• 13:37
  during this time, especially since Eugene did eventually have
• 13:41
  children of his own and hopefully didn't allow them to
• 13:44
  be compromised by having such a thing in the house.
• 13:48
  There were, however, reports of passerby's, school children and
• 13:52
  neighbors feeling a strange presence when passing by the
• 13:56
  house on a daily basis. Others would say that they could
• 13:59
  see Robert move, but in the blink of an eye, he'd be back to
• 14:03
  where he was sitting. Eugene Otto would continue to
• 14:07
  spend the rest of his life painting in the turret room with
• 14:09
  Robert the Doll until his death in 1974.
• 14:14
  However, this bizarre legend does not stop with his death.
• 14:19
  Upon Eugene's passing, his family sold the house to a woman
• 14:23
  named Myrtle Reuter. Upon moving into the home, she
• 14:27
  noticed sitting in the window of the turret room was a small doll
• 14:32
  with a sailor's uniform. She thought this to be strange,
• 14:36
  since the Otto family had not left any other belongings behind
• 14:40
  when they'd moved, but regardless, she decided to keep
• 14:44
  it. Myrtle soon began to realize
• 14:47
  that there was something different about this doll.
• 14:50
  Upon house cleaning, she would typically notice that he moved
• 14:54
  around the room, seemingly by himself.
• 14:58
  At night, she would hear what she described as small footsteps
• 15:03
  all throughout the house. Guess who would visit her?
• 15:07
  Claimed too, that Robber would move of his own volition and
• 15:11
  that his blank expression would change to one of rage if anyone
• 15:16
  discussed him in a negative way. Myrtle would eventually reach
• 15:20
  out and speak with the widowed Annette Otto, who would confirm
• 15:23
  her worst fears that something otherworldly inhabited Robert
• 15:28
  the doll. After dealing with his antics
• 15:31
  for years, she finally decided to reach out to a local museum
• 15:36
  and would donate Robert in 1994 to the 4 E Martello Museum in
• 15:42
  Key West, FL, where he remains today.
• 15:45
  But as with each previous relocation, his story does not
• 15:49
  end here either. Placed inside his own glass
• 15:53
  display for the public to see him each and every day, one
• 15:57
  would think that perhaps Robert's antics would cease.
• 16:00
  He was of course a natural source of curiosity and would be
• 16:04
  seen and admired by many people daily, but you would be very
• 16:08
  wrong. Staff at the museum have claimed
• 16:12
  to find Robert in various positions within his case as if
• 16:16
  he was attempting to break out of it or had been out of it
• 16:19
  prior and had just re entered it.
• 16:22
  The Phantom footsteps as previously claimed by all three
• 16:25
  families has also been reported, as well as the dolls expression
• 16:30
  changing from neutral to nasty in an instant.
• 16:35
  The afflictions first started with the staff themselves, from
• 16:40
  horrible bouts of rare diseases to relationship breakdowns and
• 16:45
  marriage failures, as well as unique instances of psychosis.
• 16:50
  Over the years, the Curse of Robert the Doll began to take
• 16:54
  shape and become a well known phenomena, but it would soon
• 16:59
  spread to many others besides the staff themselves.
• 17:03
  Many people upon visiting Robert's exhibit finding him
• 17:08
  strange to say the least, but often mock him, berate him, or
• 17:13
  just laugh at his appearance. Little did they know that they
• 17:17
  would be inviting the wrath of something otherworldly.
• 17:21
  Shortly after their visit, droves of people began to
• 17:24
  experience shockingly similar happenings to that of the staff,
• 17:29
  varying in intensity, almost as if their punishment was being
• 17:34
  tapered to fit their crimes. From less serious experiences
• 17:39
  like paranormal activity beginning in their home,
• 17:43
  horrible luck and job loss to name a few, to much more serious
• 17:48
  experiences like exotic disease diagnosis, rare cancers,
• 17:54
  relationship disintegration and others.
• 17:58
  Car accidents, falls, and even untimely death.
• 18:04
  Eventually, a warning would be added to Robert's exhibit
• 18:08
  explaining the alleged curse and the proper etiquette To approach
• 18:12
  him with, whether that's to observe or take a photo is to
• 18:17
  not offend whoever or whatever inhabits the Dahl itself.
• 18:22
  Over the decades, an entire wall has been dedicated to the
• 18:26
  letters people have dropped off or sent the museum if they
• 18:30
  weren't able to come in person, begging for Robert's
• 18:33
  forgiveness, hoping to end whatever horrible situation they
• 18:37
  found themselves in after their visit.
• 18:41
  To this day, there are over 1000 letters, with more continuing to
• 18:45
  be added each and every year. But could there be more to this
• 18:49
  legend? As I mentioned in the beginning
• 18:52
  of the video, there is another origin story that could explain
• 18:56
  just what inhabits the doll and how it got there.
• 19:00
  I will also add several elements that I found interesting
• 19:03
  relating to the case itself. The alternative origin story
• 19:08
  says that a young woman of Bahamian descent gave Thomas
• 19:12
  Otter the doll as a retaliation for a misdeed.
• 19:16
  As to why this would have taken place is not known, but
• 19:20
  speculation has led many to believe that the girl, or
• 19:23
  perhaps a relative, had been a member of staff at some point or
• 19:27
  another at the family's Key West estate.
• 19:31
  The retaliation was that the doll had been imbued with a
• 19:34
  spirit that had been conjured using voodoo, and by trapping
• 19:38
  the entity within the doll, making it its vessel, it became
• 19:42
  aware of its surroundings and knew what it was sent there to
• 19:46
  do. Although with many details in
• 19:49
  this case, lots of details can't be corroborated due to the age
• 19:53
  of the story itself, but there are a few details that I managed
• 19:57
  to dig up that are interesting. The doll itself appears to have
• 20:01
  been manufactured by the Stife Company, a German family company
• 20:05
  that was headed by German designer Richard Stife, the
• 20:09
  original designer of the beloved teddy bear.
• 20:12
  And the original design of the doll in particular and others
• 20:15
  that were similar to it were not designed as toys, but rather
• 20:19
  stage props for the time. So it's hard to say if Robert
• 20:23
  was ever intended as a toy in the 1st place.
• 20:27
  The family tree of the Ottos also has conflicting information
• 20:31
  in regards to birth and death dates as well as names, but I
• 20:35
  did my best to corroborate this information and I'll be linking
• 20:39
  the info in the description below.
• 20:41
  Today, Robert continues to be on display and his antics continue
• 20:46
  to persist. He seems to be just as powerful
• 20:50
  as he was all those years ago. The museum keeps a catalogued
• 20:54
  record of all ailments that have been reported as a result of
• 20:58
  offending him for future reference.
• 21:01
  His reach also continues to expand as his legend grows and
• 21:05
  becomes more and more well known across the world.
• 21:09
  Robert the doll has been the inspiration behind many books,
• 21:13
  movies, and podcasts as well as a local legend in Florida.
• 21:18
  And this lesson truly applies to anyone and everyone.
• 21:23
  Have respect when you meet someone because you never truly
• 21:27
  know who or what you could be dealing with.
• 21:31
  And please, if you find yourself at the East Martello Museum in
• 21:36
  Key West, FL and you happen to come into contact with the
• 21:40
  entity known as Robert the Doll, be respectful because if you're
• 21:45
  not, you may just pay the ultimate price.
• 21:51
  After a flood destroys their home, a family is forced to
• 21:55
  relocate to a new home, which they believe is going to be a
• 21:58
  fresh start for them. However, it turns out to be a
• 22:03
  fresh new hell instead. From demonic attacks,
• 22:07
  nightmarish visuals, and terrifying manifestations, this
• 22:12
  is 1 haunting story you won't want to miss.
• 22:16
  This is the untold story of the Smurl Haunting in Pennsylvania
• 22:21
  and the monstrous creature that stalked its walls.
• 22:30
  The timeline of events is rough at best, but I've done my best
• 22:34
  to make the most coherent retelling of the story, so
• 22:38
  please keep that in mind. Raging floods as a result of
• 22:43
  Hurricane Agnes have destroyed the homes of many families, and
• 22:48
  one such family was the Smurls. The Smurl family consisted of
• 22:54
  Janet and Jack Smurl and their four young children, Heather,
• 22:59
  Shannon, Karen, and Dawn. With their home destroyed in the
• 23:04
  Wilkes Barre, PA area, feeling as if they had been uprooted and
• 23:09
  tossed about like the rushing waters that took their house,
• 23:13
  the Smurls decide to temporarily relocate to West Pitzen, where
• 23:18
  Jack's parents currently lived. After explaining the situation
• 23:23
  and staying with the couple for a short time, they were
• 23:27
  surprised and ultimately blessed when Jack's parents proposed an
• 23:31
  idea to them. They had found an old duplex, a
• 23:35
  bit of a fixer upper, also in West Pitzen.
• 23:38
  The two of them could live on one side and Jack, Janet and the
• 23:42
  kids on the other. That way they could look out for
• 23:46
  one another and of course, spend more time together.
• 23:50
  Not in a position to or wanting to say no, Jack and Janet humbly
• 23:55
  accepted their offer, but all too soon they would be
• 23:58
  confronted with the question, was this blessing truly a curse?
• 24:04
  With Jack's parents paying for them all to move into the new
• 24:07
  house, they soon find themselves rehomed and living in the newly
• 24:12
  purchased duplex located on Chase St. there in West Pitzen.
• 24:17
  Although the home would need some work, the neighborhood
• 24:20
  seemed friendly and inviting. A good place to raise a family
• 24:25
  collectively puts their efforts into repainting, retooling, and
• 24:30
  other repairs, but in no time, the slightly rundown home was
• 24:34
  feeling fresh, vibrant, and modern, making the Smurls feel
• 24:40
  ever more at home and hopeful for the future.
• 24:44
  However, this would not last forever, for it seemed that each
• 24:48
  time they banged a hammer, each time they drove a nail into a
• 24:52
  wall, and with every drop of paint they woke something up
• 24:56
  within the house itself, something that perhaps had been
• 25:00
  slumbering there for quite some time.
• 25:04
  During this time, small episodes of strangeness began to
• 25:08
  manifest, seeming rather benign at first.
• 25:13
  Tools began to disappear, only to reappear hours later in
• 25:17
  different spots. Old stains that covered the
• 25:21
  walls began to seep through the fresh coats of pain, and several
• 25:26
  appliances in their kitchen had mysteriously caught fire even
• 25:31
  though they were unplugged. Along with these oddities, the
• 25:35
  family would also begin to smell awful odors that overwhelmed the
• 25:39
  entire house, like an omnipresent floating cloud of
• 25:43
  rotting meat that hungover them, only to disperse mere moments
• 25:48
  later after being detected. But despite these weird events,
• 25:53
  the family didn't really think much of it.
• 25:56
  They were just thankful to have a roof over their heads.
• 25:59
  Jack and Janet continue to rebuild their lives.
• 26:03
  Jack, fortunately, had since gotten a better job than the 1
• 26:07
  he had had previously and was promoted.
• 26:09
  During this time, he was also able to coach his daughter's
• 26:13
  softball team. The children had reacclimated to
• 26:16
  a new school and were getting good grades, and Jana had become
• 26:20
  pregnant with baby #5 and also helped organize an anti drunk
• 26:25
  driving group at the local high school.
• 26:28
  And Jack's parents were doing great as well.
• 26:31
  But all of this positivity, unfortunately, would not last.
• 26:37
  By 1974, things began to change for the Smurls.
• 26:42
  It began when Mary Smerl, Jack's mother, suffered a heart attack.
• 26:47
  This led to the entire family struggling to make ends meet,
• 26:51
  and whether it was a result of the renovations or something
• 26:54
  else, something paranormal had began to manifest and make
• 27:00
  itself known. It began when Janet began to
• 27:03
  hear the voice of her mother-in-law, who, shortly
• 27:06
  after her heart attack, was now at home and recovering, doing
• 27:10
  what she could to help her. She would hear her name being
• 27:13
  called out from Mary and would rush to her aid to help her with
• 27:17
  anything and everything that she could possibly need.
• 27:21
  But the strange thing was, Mary at times would either be
• 27:25
  unconscious, sleeping, or wouldn't have had called for her
• 27:29
  at all. Attributing this bizarre
• 27:31
  phenomena to stress at first, she writes it off.
• 27:35
  However, Mary soon starts experiencing her own
• 27:39
  strangeness. She too, as if the words had
• 27:42
  come from Janet's mouth herself, would hear her name being called
• 27:47
  only when confronted. Janet would have no idea what
• 27:50
  she was talking about. But that wasn't all, of course.
• 27:55
  The stains that had previously been painted over and were
• 27:58
  thought to be covered began to seep through yet again, and new
• 28:03
  stains began to appear as well, with several appearing on the
• 28:07
  hardwood floors of the home. As the days progressed, the
• 28:11
  oldest small child soon began to experience the presence as well.
• 28:16
  She would often be woken up in the dead of night, frozen with
• 28:20
  fear and unable to move. She would see translucent
• 28:25
  figures standing above her or at the edge of her bed, staring and
• 28:30
  watching her. And although it wasn't exclusive
• 28:33
  to the midnight hour, the activity seemed to pick up at
• 28:37
  night. Often when Jack was at work or
• 28:41
  gone. Janet began to have violent and
• 28:44
  sickening encounters with a being that she couldn't see.
• 28:48
  She began to be molested by an unseen force.
• 28:53
  These interactions left her hysterical feeling violated and
• 28:58
  unclean, trying to come to terms with what was happening to them.
• 29:02
  The family's luck continued to worsen.
• 29:06
  Additional appliances, including ATV set, went up in flames,
• 29:11
  causing smoke and fire damage to the home on several occasions.
• 29:17
  And then, like the TV, the other appliances were not plugged in
• 29:21
  in order for the family to save money, which makes it all the
• 29:25
  more mysterious. On top of this, several water
• 29:29
  pipes, which are fairly new after the family had initially
• 29:33
  renovated the home, began to leak, not only causing water
• 29:37
  damage to the house, but adding to their financial woes as well.
• 29:42
  The string of bad luck would continue for the Smurls, and by
• 29:46
  1977, the activity in the home became much more aggressive.
• 29:52
  The family's radio began to turn itself on and off, typically a
• 29:57
  strange hours and almost always when the family was trying to
• 30:01
  sleep. The sinks in their bathrooms
• 30:04
  began to turn themselves on, pouring what little money they
• 30:08
  had left literally down the drain, and their toilets began
• 30:13
  to flush by themselves. Along with this activity, the
• 30:17
  sounds of footsteps began to be heard all throughout the house
• 30:21
  and even on the insides of the walls.
• 30:24
  Drawers began to open and close by themselves and coupled with
• 30:30
  these happenings was again the stench of rotting mean but the
• 30:34
  family would begin to describe as the dead smell.
• 30:38
  Except instead of dissipating almost as soon as it was
• 30:41
  detected before or in one particular area of the house,
• 30:47
  the smell would permeate all throughout the house and would
• 30:50
  linger for minutes or sometimes even hours.
• 30:55
  Up until this point, besides seeing things being moved,
• 30:59
  dealing with the stains, pipes and appliances, Jack hadn't been
• 31:03
  targeted, so to speak, by whatever paranormal force that
• 31:08
  was now fully awake within the Smirrel residence.
• 31:12
  But one night when he was trying to get some sleep after a long
• 31:15
  day's work, his side of the sheets were pulled from his body
• 31:20
  and the sensation of dozens of hands touching and grabbing him
• 31:27
  ensured that not only was he not going to get the rest that night
• 31:30
  due to sheer terror, but that perhaps his wife had been
• 31:34
  telling the truth. Janet, shortly after moving into
• 31:38
  the house, had become pregnant and this time had given birth to
• 31:42
  two baby girls, expanding the Smurl family to six children.
• 31:48
  Shortly after the twins were brought home.
• 31:50
  It seemed like whatever presents that had been woken up was
• 31:54
  making itself known. It became more aggressive, more
• 31:58
  vindictive, as if it was jealous or hated the living.
• 32:03
  One morning, while the majority of the children were at school
• 32:07
  and napping and the rest of the adults were out, Janet was
• 32:11
  headed to the kitchen to pour herself a freshly brewed cup of
• 32:15
  coffee. As she turned around the corner,
• 32:18
  her blood ran cold. Standing in the middle of the
• 32:22
  kitchen with a stain seeming to materialize directly underneath
• 32:27
  it. It was a translucent figure with
• 32:30
  hollow eyes frozen in place upon seeing it was if she blinked.
• 32:36
  Whatever this creature was, was gone.
• 32:40
  Was this what was responsible for the multitude of paranormal
• 32:43
  happenings within their house? As time progressed, Janet again
• 32:49
  would continue to hear her name being called out when no one
• 32:52
  else was there, over and over and over again.
• 32:58
  Strangely, as it was before, in the beginning, the voices would
• 33:03
  often sound like her mother-in-law, Mary, and even
• 33:07
  after double or triple checking sometimes to make sure she
• 33:10
  wasn't losing her mind, Mary would be nowhere to be found.
• 33:15
  Janet truly was alone. Other strange things that were
• 33:19
  heard during this time would be heard from the other side of the
• 33:22
  duplex. Couples do argue and some fight
• 33:28
  that just tends to happen to most unfortunately, but these
• 33:31
  fights were something else. Jack's parents began to hear
• 33:36
  yelling and screaming, sometimes even items breaking coming from
• 33:41
  the other side of the duplex where Jack and Janet lived.
• 33:45
  These fights became so violent that not only did they think
• 33:49
  their marriage was collapsing, but they began to become
• 33:52
  concerned for Janet and the children's safety.
• 33:56
  One night, Jack's father couldn't take it anymore.
• 34:00
  He walked from their front door to the other side, and with the
• 34:03
  fight still raging, he threw the door open, only to be greeted
• 34:10
  with silence. The entire family was asleep.
• 34:16
  Not knowing what to make of this discovery, he simply left
• 34:21
  bewildered. But the supposed audio of the
• 34:24
  fights would continue. Shortly after the bizarre
• 34:29
  discovery, Mary would experience something that almost gave her
• 34:33
  another heart attack. 1 evening while her husband was still at
• 34:38
  work and she was alone on their side of the duplex, she began to
• 34:42
  hear her name being whispered and it sounded like Janet, but
• 34:47
  it was right within earshot or several feet of where she had
• 34:51
  been. Weirded out as most of us would
• 34:53
  be, she began to make her way towards the voice that was
• 34:57
  calling out to her and that's when she saw it.
• 35:01
  Standing in her living room with a stain seeping underneath its
• 35:05
  feet was the same translucent being that Janet had claimed she
• 35:10
  had seen just a short while ago, and terrifyingly, its mouth was
• 35:17
  mimicking Janet's voice and calling out her name.
• 35:22
  Frozen in terror at first with her heart racing, Mary ran to
• 35:27
  the door, exited, and immediately went into Jack and
• 35:31
  Janet's door, absolutely petrified with fear.
• 35:35
  The talks that followed this event in particular is what led
• 35:39
  to most of the individual experiences being laid out in
• 35:42
  the open for everyone to know. They would all come to the
• 35:46
  realization that whatever force that was in their house was not
• 35:51
  friendly. Shannon Smerl, who was only 7
• 35:54
  years old during this time, would be the next target.
• 35:58
  One day as she casually walked through the kitchen and into the
• 36:02
  dining room, a large glass light fixture fell and crashed into
• 36:08
  her, cutting her and raising the alarm bells for the entire
• 36:12
  house. Again, it seemed like the
• 36:15
  paranormal being or force hated life and now was possibly trying
• 36:21
  to end it if the opportunity presented itself.
• 36:25
  Scared but strapped for cash, they were all seemingly stuck in
• 36:30
  what was supposed to be their fresh start, but instead at this
• 36:33
  point was becoming their fresh hell.
• 36:37
  Shannon would continue to experience strangeness of her
• 36:40
  own as well in her diary, and later she would recount that
• 36:45
  oftentimes she would wake up and find herself floating above her
• 36:48
  bed, literally levitating several feet above her bed.
• 36:54
  Some nights while floating, she would suddenly be thrown across
• 36:58
  the room and into a wall with so much force as she thought she
• 37:04
  would be crushed. The climax of these attacks on
• 37:08
  Shannon happened one night when she woke up to find herself
• 37:12
  floating once again, but instead of being let back down or
• 37:16
  smacked into a nearby wall, her door was flung open and she was
• 37:22
  thrown out of her room and down the stairs.
• 37:26
  Her parents heard this happen and rushed towards the screams
• 37:29
  of their little girl to find her absolutely hysterical and in
• 37:34
  pain. Fortunately, however, she would
• 37:37
  be OK physically after this event.
• 37:40
  In particular, another unfortunate sold out would be
• 37:44
  targeted in the Smirrel duplex was the family's German
• 37:47
  Shepherd, Simon. Simon would be found floating in
• 37:51
  the air, confused and concerned. And this new development in
• 37:56
  activity was not just exclusive to Shannon or their beloved dog.
• 38:02
  Alongside the intensified attacks on Janet, she too would
• 38:06
  begin finding herself woken up in the middle of the night,
• 38:10
  floating in the air and sometimes horrifically without
• 38:14
  control of her body. She would then also be
• 38:18
  assaulted. However, Jack wasn't always gone
• 38:21
  at this time. Frequently at this point he
• 38:24
  would be home and sleeping beside her, but could never seem
• 38:28
  to wake up, as if he was being kept asleep or in a state of
• 38:32
  paralysis. Why the events took place.
• 38:36
  Coupled along these intense and abhorrent manifestations came
• 38:41
  activity that was plain creepy. Not a day would go by without
• 38:45
  the family hearing scratching noises coming from within the
• 38:49
  walls or deep drawn out breaths coming from behind them, feeling
• 38:55
  the exhale upon their necks, making the hairs on their entire
• 38:59
  body stand on end. Jack, at times, after a hard
• 39:03
  day's work, would like to unwind and decompress by watching some
• 39:08
  TV in the living room. On occasion he would fall asleep
• 39:12
  to whatever was on before eventually waking back up and
• 39:16
  making his way to bed. However, this night he found
• 39:21
  himself awake and coherent but unable to move, as if he was
• 39:27
  paralyzed or stuck in some kind of a glue trap, like an insect
• 39:33
  unable to break free. He glanced around the room,
• 39:36
  trying to discover the source of his distress.
• 39:40
  It was here that he was met face to face with this being, this
• 39:45
  demon that seemed to be plaguing their lives.
• 39:49
  The creature grabbed him from the back and slammed him onto
• 39:53
  the floor, began repeatedly bashing his head into the
• 39:57
  hardwood below before disappearing.
• 40:01
  After this, Jack didn't watch TV to unwind anymore.
• 40:06
  As a matter of fact, no one could unwind.
• 40:10
  They were petrified at whatever was taking place in the house,
• 40:15
  unable to afford to move between all the adults, and seemingly
• 40:19
  stuck between a rock and a hard place.
• 40:22
  Scared and unable to figure out what to do, they began to seek
• 40:26
  help wherever they thought they could find it.
• 40:29
  It was now winter and the family, besides their daily
• 40:32
  duties, spent most of their time indoors.
• 40:37
  While watching TV one afternoon, they saw an interview with Ed
• 40:41
  and Lorraine Warren, world renowned paranormal experts and
• 40:45
  demonologists. Not being particularly religious
• 40:49
  and unsure of where to turn, they decided to reach out to the
• 40:53
  couple and were surprised when they made contact.
• 40:57
  After speaking with them for some time, the Warrens agreed to
• 41:01
  come to their house to meet in person with the Smurls and to
• 41:05
  investigate. And within a week, that's
• 41:07
  exactly what they did. After an initial meeting with
• 41:11
  the family, hearing their testimonies in person, and after
• 41:15
  exploring the home the Warrens decided seems genuine and it's
• 41:19
  worth investigating, they begin their usual process of bringing
• 41:24
  in their team for an extended period of time to document and
• 41:29
  Mull over potential solutions for the family.
• 41:32
  After several months of the documenting team living with the
• 41:36
  family and experiencing strange activity themselves such as
• 41:41
  furniture stacking on top of itself, along with several other
• 41:45
  previously mentioned happenings such as the stains and attacks
• 41:50
  on individual members of the home, the rain finally comes to
• 41:53
  the conclusion. After having a vision within the
• 41:56
  house that they were dealing with a total of 4 entities. 1
• 42:02
  was that of an old woman who she believed was not a threat to the
• 42:05
  family but was simply being held against her will within the
• 42:09
  home. One was a younger woman who was
• 42:11
  angry and resentful and could be violent, and the other was a man
• 42:17
  who took the life of his wife and his lover and had been
• 42:21
  hanged in the same spot 100 years earlier by a vengeful
• 42:25
  crowd. The final entity was that of a
• 42:29
  demon, and this demon not only was strong in keeping the other
• 42:33
  three spirits under its heel of control, but would use them to
• 42:37
  strengthen itself and wreak havoc upon the family to sow
• 42:42
  discord, anxiety and fear, all things to which you could feed
• 42:48
  on and continue to grow stronger.
• 42:51
  After reaching this conclusion and having gathered sufficient
• 42:55
  information, the warrant spoke to Father McKenna, who was a
• 43:00
  Vatican sanctioned exorcist and had worked with them over 50
• 43:04
  times on separate cases in the past.
• 43:08
  So he was no stranger to the demonic.
• 43:11
  But after his arrival and attempted exorcism, the activity
• 43:16
  only increased in aggression and hostility, and for whatever
• 43:21
  reason it was not tied to the home anymore, but rather the
• 43:25
  family members themselves. Jack began to experience
• 43:29
  horrific visions of the creature at work, as did his father, and
• 43:35
  alongside the continued paranormal activity taking place
• 43:39
  at their home, their daughter Karen fell seriously ill with a
• 43:43
  fever that the doctors couldn't diagnose at the time and almost
• 43:48
  died. Several of the other girls were
• 43:50
  also visited by the sickening presence at night, as Janet also
• 43:56
  was and continued to be. The demon also began to
• 44:00
  physically attack the family more often, causing stinging
• 44:04
  scratches and cuts on their bodies at random times, as well
• 44:09
  as deep and bruising bite marks. Still trying to help the family
• 44:14
  rid themselves of this creature and fearing for the families
• 44:17
  continued torment, the Warrens convinced the Smurls to allow a
• 44:21
  second exorcism to take place, and McKenna again would visit
• 44:26
  and conduct a second exorcism months later in the early
• 44:30
  spring. During this exorcism ritual,
• 44:34
  Evps were recorded which when played back after the fact,
• 44:38
  would reveal multiple entities laughing at and berating them
• 44:43
  for their efforts. Ed Warren would also be choked
• 44:47
  during this visit and would be incapacitated for multiple days
• 44:51
  after. Unfortunately, the second
• 44:54
  exorcism also failed, leading to even more violent manifestations
• 45:00
  of evil. Trying to get away from it all
• 45:02
  for even just a few days, the family went on a camping trip to
• 45:07
  the Pocono Mountains, but the demon would follow them there as
• 45:11
  well, tormenting them wherever they went, allowing for no rest,
• 45:16
  no decompression, and no peace. Upon returning to their home
• 45:22
  following this trip and getting even more desperate, they
• 45:26
  decided to reach out to a local TV show called People Are
• 45:30
  Talking to see if anyone could possibly help them.
• 45:33
  They did however, remain anonymous during their interview
• 45:37
  and this call for help however went unanswered.
• 45:41
  But the demons seemed to retaliate against them for it.
• 45:44
  Janet would once again be hurled against a wall and Jack would
• 45:48
  experience something truly terrifying and new as he woke up
• 45:53
  in the early morning to get ready for work before the sun
• 45:57
  had come up. A light rain tapped the glass of
• 46:00
  the windows outside as he dressed himself and began to
• 46:04
  gather his things for his work day departure.
• 46:07
  He came down the stairs and was greeted by a disgusting and
• 46:12
  horrid creature. Standing in front of the door
• 46:15
  was a monstrous being whose head almost touched the ceiling.
• 46:20
  It resembled a horrible amalgamation of a man and a pig
• 46:25
  standing upright on 2 legs. It screeched and rushed towards
• 46:31
  him, but as he fell backwards onto the stairs, hurting his
• 46:35
  back, the creature stood over him face to face, snarling
• 46:41
  before it disappeared. This manifestation disturbed and
• 46:45
  rattled Jack to his core. The same morning, shortly after
• 46:49
  Jack had left for work because although terrified, he still had
• 46:53
  to provide for his family if they ever wanted to have a
• 46:56
  chance of escaping this hellscape of a home.
• 47:00
  Janet was woken up a short while later by a hand reaching up
• 47:04
  through her mattress and grabbing the back of her neck
• 47:08
  and pulling her towards it and choking her.
• 47:12
  After these events, horrific snarling noises like that of a
• 47:16
  pig could be heard coming from inside the walls.
• 47:21
  The time was now August of 1986, and the Smurls felt that the
• 47:26
  risk of ridicule did not outweigh the need for their
• 47:29
  story to reach a wider audience so that somehow, somewhere,
• 47:35
  someone could possibly help them be freed from this torment.
• 47:38
  They would soon be granted an interview with the Wilkes Barre
• 47:41
  Sunday newspaper, but instead of someone reading and immediately
• 47:46
  coming to their aid, their home quickly became a tourist
• 47:50
  attraction instead. The press, skeptics and curious
• 47:55
  onlookers alike began to visit the house and camp outside of it
• 48:00
  at all hours of the day and night, with some particularly
• 48:03
  weird people even coming up and staring into the home's windows
• 48:08
  themselves. Some of their neighbors who had
• 48:10
  seen and heard strange things coming from the small residence
• 48:15
  began to turn on them. They believed that the family
• 48:18
  was concocting some kind of a story to try and make money.
• 48:22
  Eventually, however, despite the torment inside and outside of
• 48:26
  the home now that they were experiencing, the Smurls would
• 48:30
  be contacted by a medium by the name of Mary Alice Rinkman, who
• 48:35
  offered to meet with them. Upon meeting the family and
• 48:38
  walking through the home, it was also Mary's conviction that
• 48:42
  there were 4 entities within the house. 3 Human spirits and one
• 48:47
  who had never been human, thus corroborating the Warrens
• 48:50
  beliefs about the situation as well.
• 48:53
  She would however take things a bit further.
• 48:56
  She identified the old woman by the name of Abigail, the
• 49:00
  murderous man as Patrick in the violent and I'll tempered spirit
• 49:05
  as Patrick's wife. And the 4th entity, of course,
• 49:09
  could not be identified by name, but was indeed a very powerful
• 49:13
  demon. The press coverage, despite the
• 49:16
  ridicule and the positive acquaintance of Mary, also had
• 49:20
  pushed the Scranton Catholic Diocese into action as well.
• 49:24
  They offered to take over the investigation and the meantime
• 49:28
  the Warrens had not given up on the family, but rather had
• 49:31
  reached out to several more priests and had arranged for a
• 49:35
  mass exorcism to be conducted with four priests taking part as
• 49:40
  well as multiple prayer groups alongside this.
• 49:44
  Now Bishop McKenna came in for a third and final time and
• 49:48
  conducted an exorcism on the House for the family and
• 49:52
  fortunately the ritual, at least for a time, seemed to work
• 49:57
  because following it there were no disturbances for about 3
• 50:01
  months. But as winter set in that year,
• 50:05
  just before Christmas of 1986, Jack would again see the
• 50:10
  creature that had tormented him for all of those years.
• 50:15
  This time, however, it beckoned him to allow it to take over.
• 50:20
  But clutching a rosary in his pocket that had been gifted to
• 50:23
  him by the church, he prayed as hard as he could.
• 50:27
  And thankfully, this time the demon vanished, never to be seen
• 50:32
  again. However, the putrid smells and
• 50:36
  violent manifestations would return and continue day in and
• 50:41
  day out, frustrated, hopeless, and exhausted.
• 50:47
  The smirrels by this point had finally saved enough to be able
• 50:51
  to leave this dreaded duplex on Chase Street and decided they
• 50:55
  needed the closest thing to a fresh start as they could get.
• 50:58
  So when they finally did move, they moved to a completely new
• 51:02
  town, one where the ridicule would not find them.
• 51:07
  But like the terrible patterns shown before, the demon did not
• 51:11
  seem to be tied to the property, but rather the family.
• 51:15
  The activity started back up almost as soon as they had moved
• 51:19
  in and laid their heads to rest in their new home.
• 51:23
  It would take some time, but in 1988 the church finally
• 51:27
  sanctioned 1/4 exorcism, but this time at their new
• 51:31
  residence. And this finally seems to have
• 51:35
  given the family peace. A few things I would like to
• 51:39
  mention, however, are these. From my own personal experience
• 51:43
  and many other stories I've researched, it seems like
• 51:47
  renovations, particularly on older homes, can wake up dormant
• 51:51
  spirits or hauntings. Perhaps this is what happened to
• 51:55
  the Smurls? It's hard to tell if the
• 51:57
  assaults were one or multiple demonic entities, but if they
• 52:01
  did truly exist, how did they get in the home to begin with?
• 52:06
  And my guess is that the collection of negative energy
• 52:08
  attracts them like moths to a flame.
• 52:12
  Perhaps they enjoy or feed off of humans suffering.
• 52:15
  This would only make sense to me considering that they hate
• 52:18
  humans, refuse to bow to them in the beginning.
• 52:21
  Perhaps once they're embedded in one's life, they continue to so
• 52:25
  said, suffering to exploit and grow stronger, ultimately trying
• 52:30
  to take the human's life and their soul back with them to
• 52:34
  hell. I would also like to mention
• 52:36
  that scratching on a person and inside the walls as well as
• 52:41
  disembodied breathing are all signs of demonic infestation.
• 52:45
  And for one reason or another, having actually experienced this
• 52:49
  personally, seeing the manifestation of a pig like
• 52:52
  demon or a creature, as well as hearing pigs snarling coming
• 52:57
  from within the walls is considered to be a serious or
• 53:01
  incredibly strong sign of a very strong demonic infestation.
• 53:06
  As far as the initial activity, the seeping through of the
• 53:09
  stains, the sinks turning on, toilets flushing on their own,
• 53:14
  and leaky pipes, those initially could be written off as poor
• 53:18
  skill when the work was initially done.
• 53:21
  But it seemed like with this story all of these things were
• 53:24
  working perfectly fine for months before they all of a
• 53:27
  sudden almost at the same time began to go wrong while costing
• 53:32
  the family money that they didn't have.
• 53:34
  And money at the time seemed to be their main issue as well as
• 53:38
  the paranormal. So perhaps the demon knew and
• 53:41
  exploited this to add to the misery it was feeding on.
• 53:44
  But truly at the end of the day the conclusion is yours to make.
• 53:49
  Was The Smirrel haunting legitimate or just another tale
• 53:52
  concocted for money or inside the broken minds of individuals
• 53:57
  who claimed to have experienced it?
• 54:00
  Let me know down in the comments below.
• 54:02
  They would eventually release a book about all they had
• 54:05
  experienced called The Haunted in 1988, but financials or how
• 54:10
  successful it was was never released, at least not from what
• 54:14
  I could find. But what I do know is this.
• 54:17
  It's extremely important to examine a situation from all
• 54:20
  angles just before diving into it.
• 54:23
  Although a place might seem like a fresh new start, it could
• 54:27
  indeed be your fresh new hell. And those renovations that you
• 54:31
  think are going to improve your quality of life could awaken
• 54:35
  something that has been watching and waiting for a new host to
• 54:39
  attach itself to and feed upon until it can wear it down, rot,
• 54:45
  and eventually drag it back to the depths from where it came
• 54:50
  from. When you think of the paranormal
• 54:54
  realm, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
• 54:58
  Is it a haunted place, a person who's being tormented by unseen
• 55:03
  forces, or an object like a doll that has seemingly taken on a
• 55:08
  life of its own? Or perhaps a little of all three
• 55:12
  and more? But if you consider that a
• 55:14
  vehicle could be haunted, considering if objects could be
• 55:18
  haunted, it seems possible to me that this story may just
• 55:22
  convince you that something inhabits this vehicle, in
• 55:25
  particular, something malevolent.
• 55:29
  This strange tale over the decades has seemed to take on a
• 55:32
  life of its own, and not only has it been requested, but
• 55:36
  deserves its very own rendition. Here on Mystery Archives, this
• 55:40
  is the haunting story of James Dean's cursed car and whether or
• 55:44
  not it continues to plague the lives of those who possess its
• 55:49
  parts. James Dean, both in the 50s, at
• 55:54
  the height of his fame and even today, is widely considered a
• 55:57
  Hollywood icon. Born James Byron Dean in 1931,
• 56:03
  he was born into a humble background in Marion, IN, the
• 56:07
  only child of Mildred Wilson and Wynton Dean.
• 56:11
  Growing up he excelled in school both academically and
• 56:15
  athletically, playing varsity baseball and basketball, as well
• 56:19
  as becoming an avid student of drama.
• 56:23
  His efforts would eventually land him at UCLA in 1949 after
• 56:28
  his high school graduation, where he began to truly pursue
• 56:31
  his passion for acting. He had first started out as a
• 56:35
  pre law major but would soon switch his major to drama.
• 56:40
  His first role in college that truly made him consider becoming
• 56:44
  an actor was when he was selected out of a group of 350
• 56:48
  other actors to portray Malcolm in the play Macbeth.
• 56:53
  Shortly after this he also began acting in James Whitmore's
• 56:57
  workshop. Although he loved acting, his
• 57:01
  father didn't and his choice of major would soon alienate the
• 57:05
  two from each other. But refusing to give up on his
• 57:08
  dreams, James would drop out of UCLA in January of 1951 to
• 57:14
  pursue a full time career as an actor.
• 57:17
  It was during this time that he began to pay his dues so to
• 57:21
  speak, first starring in a Pepsi commercial, then landing a
• 57:25
  series of walk on roles in various movies such as Fixed
• 57:29
  Bayonets, Sailor Beware and Has Anybody Seen My Gal While
• 57:34
  struggling to pay the bills. Whilst chasing his dreams, James
• 57:38
  also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios where
• 57:42
  he would eventually meet Rogers Brackett, a radio director and
• 57:46
  agent who offered him professional advice and guidance
• 57:50
  to assist him in furthering his career.
• 57:53
  Brackett would open a major door for James, a starring role in
• 57:57
  the Broadway play See The Jaguar, which would indeed
• 58:00
  continue to open many other opportunities for the aspiring
• 58:04
  actor. Moving from walk on roles in
• 58:07
  movies to several television appearances and soon a major
• 58:11
  role in a major film, he would finally receive his big break in
• 58:15
  1953 where he starred in the movie East of Eden.
• 58:20
  It was here that his complexity as an actor and improv skills
• 58:24
  were finally able to shine. Almost immediately after East of
• 58:28
  Eden premiered, Dean would quickly pick up another and an
• 58:31
  even bigger role in Rebel Without a Cause, as well as
• 58:35
  another film called Giant. Following soon after.
• 58:39
  Rebel Without a Cause is what seemed to make Dean a cultural
• 58:43
  icon, becoming not only an admired actor to many, but a
• 58:47
  heartthrob as well to thousands. In 1954, shortly after East of
• 58:53
  Eden had concluded being filmed, James began to take an interest
• 58:57
  in auto racing. He purchased several vehicles
• 59:00
  for the hobby including a Triumph Tiger T110 in a Porsche
• 59:05
  356. James competed in his first
• 59:08
  professional event at Palm Springs Rd.
• 59:11
  Races held in Palm Springs, CA where he achieved first place in
• 59:16
  the Novice class and 2nd place for the main event.
• 59:20
  He continued to race and would race at Bakersfield a month
• 59:24
  later where he would take first in his class and 3rd overall.
• 59:29
  Really taking to the motorsport, he hoped to compete in the
• 59:32
  Indianapolis 500, but his busy filming schedule unfortunately
• 59:37
  made this impossible. His final race would occur in
• 59:41
  Santa Barbara on May 30th, 1955. During this race he was
• 59:46
  unfortunately unable to finish due to a blown piston.
• 59:50
  His racing career was then placed on hold by Warner
• 59:53
  Brothers, the studio in charge of the film Giant, until filming
• 59:58
  was finished. Dean would finish his scenes and
• 1:00:02
  while Giant was in post production.
• 1:00:04
  With the ban lifted, he decided that he would race again,
• 1:00:08
  however, this time he wanted something stronger and faster.
• 1:00:13
  On September 23rd of 1955, James purchased a new 1955 Porsche 550
• 1:00:20
  Spyder and brought it to the legendary Flim Flammer George
• 1:00:24
  Barris to have it personalized before his next race.
• 1:00:29
  During the customization process, he chose Tardon seats,
• 1:00:34
  the number 130 emblazoned upon the hood, and the name Little
• 1:00:38
  Bastard painted on the back just underneath the Porsche emblem on
• 1:00:43
  the engine cover. Almost as soon as his car was
• 1:00:46
  done being customized and James began to drive it around, there
• 1:00:50
  was a series of omens that should have alerted him that
• 1:00:54
  something wasn't quite normal with Little Bastard.
• 1:00:58
  Later that day, on September 23rd, James was driving his new
• 1:01:02
  car around Los Angeles, where he met up with British actor Alec
• 1:01:07
  Guinness to show him his new toy.
• 1:01:09
  Almost immediately, Alec became very wary of the car.
• 1:01:14
  In his personal diary, he said this in regards to seeing it for
• 1:01:17
  the first time, and this is also a summary of what he told James
• 1:01:21
  himself in person that day. The sports car looked sinister
• 1:01:25
  to me. Exhausted, hungry, feeling a
• 1:01:30
  little ill tempered in spite of Dean's kindness, I heard myself
• 1:01:34
  saying in a voice that I could hardly recognize as my own.
• 1:01:38
  Please never get in it. If you get in that car, you'll
• 1:01:42
  be found dead in it by this time next week.
• 1:01:45
  After being told that his car seems sinister and that he would
• 1:01:49
  be found dead in it by this time next week, all James did was
• 1:01:53
  laugh. Exactly one week later, on
• 1:01:57
  September the 30th, James Dean and Rolf Voutreich, a former
• 1:02:02
  Luftwaffe pilot and factory trained Porsche mechanic, were
• 1:02:06
  at Competition Motors in Hollywood preparing Little
• 1:02:10
  Bastard for racing that week at the Salinas Rd. races in
• 1:02:14
  Salinas, CA. The intent was for Dean to
• 1:02:17
  transport the car via a trailer to Salinas behind his 1955 Ford
• 1:02:23
  Country Squire with his photographer Bill Hickman.
• 1:02:27
  But before it could be raced, the car needed some break in
• 1:02:31
  miles on it to make sure everything was in working order.
• 1:02:35
  Rolf suggested driving the car to Salinas to break in the
• 1:02:38
  engine and familiarize himself with his new vehicle.
• 1:02:43
  He would also ride with him. After having a cup of coffee
• 1:02:46
  across the street from Competition Motors at 1:15 PM,
• 1:02:51
  the group departed for Salinas at 3:30 PM.
• 1:02:55
  Patrolman OV Hunter said he stopped and rode Dean a ticket
• 1:02:59
  just South of Bakersfield, CA for driving 65 mph and a 55.
• 1:03:06
  Hickman, who was towing the trailer, would receive a ticket
• 1:03:10
  for 20 miles over the speed limit because he was towing a
• 1:03:13
  trailer in which the maximum speed allowed would have only
• 1:03:16
  been 45 mph. The crew would then stop at
• 1:03:20
  Blackwell's Corner on Route 466 for drinks.
• 1:03:24
  Here they also met up with Lance Ravendlow and Bruce Kessler, two
• 1:03:29
  other racers who would also be competing in the Salinas Rd.
• 1:03:32
  races. Once they had departed at about
• 1:03:35
  5:15 PM, Dean and Hickman drove W towards Paso Robles 1/2.
• 1:03:41
  An hour later, a black and white 1950 Ford Tudor Coupe was headed
• 1:03:46
  E on 466. The vehicle was being driven by
• 1:03:50
  a 23 year old California polytechnical student, a man
• 1:03:54
  with a strange name of Donald Turnip Seed.
• 1:03:58
  Donald made a left on Route 41 and as he crossed the center
• 1:04:02
  line, Dean, who was travelling around 85 mph, tried to avoid
• 1:04:07
  him. However, despite his best
• 1:04:10
  efforts, the two vehicles collided head on.
• 1:04:14
  The Ford coupe upon the collision slid 39 feet down
• 1:04:18
  Route 466 and the westbound lane.
• 1:04:22
  Dean bore the brunt of the collision but stayed within the
• 1:04:25
  car. Voutirage, however, was thrown
• 1:04:28
  from the Spider and was laying on the shoulder multiple feet
• 1:04:31
  away from the scene. Upon the arrival of emergency
• 1:04:35
  personnel. With Little Bastard completely
• 1:04:38
  totaled, they would have to pry James from the mangled vehicle
• 1:04:41
  using a crowbar. An unconscious and dying James
• 1:04:45
  Dean was then placed into the ambulance along with a heavily
• 1:04:49
  injured Rolf. The closest hospital was 30
• 1:04:53
  miles away, and as the ambulance rushed towards Paso Robles War
• 1:04:58
  Memorial Hospital, they too, as if they had been stricken with
• 1:05:02
  the worst luck imaginable, would also be involved in a car
• 1:05:06
  accident. Despite the horrible
• 1:05:08
  circumstances surrounding the initial accident, the ambulance
• 1:05:12
  did eventually make its way to the hospital roughly 45 minutes
• 1:05:16
  later, and although it would take months of recovery, Rolf
• 1:05:19
  would live. But despite the emergency crew's
• 1:05:22
  best efforts, Dean, however, would be pronounced dead on
• 1:05:26
  arrival at 6:20 PM. His final cause of death upon
• 1:05:31
  autopsy would be determined to be a broken neck, an internal
• 1:05:35
  hemorrhaging as a result of the crash.
• 1:05:38
  He also had sustained multiple broken bones, including his
• 1:05:42
  legs, arms, and jaw, as well as multiple severe external
• 1:05:48
  lacerations. Donald Turnip's seat, however,
• 1:05:52
  despite his vehicle also being totaled, walked away with barely
• 1:05:56
  a scratch after his death. James Dean would be nominated
• 1:06:01
  for two Academy Awards in 1956 and 1957 for his roles in East
• 1:06:07
  of Eden and Giant. He would also become the first
• 1:06:11
  actor to posthumanously win an Academy Award for one in 1956,
• 1:06:17
  seemingly being cut down in his prime at the young age of 24.
• 1:06:22
  Dean's death was an unprecedented tragedy, but the
• 1:06:25
  story of Little Bastard, despite being crumpled in the crash,
• 1:06:29
  would be far from over. A man by the name of George
• 1:06:33
  Barris purchased the wrecked Porsche remnants for $2500 later
• 1:06:38
  that year, likely with the intent to host some sort of an
• 1:06:41
  exhibit with it and to sell tickets.
• 1:06:45
  But after he purchased it, while transporting the remains, upon
• 1:06:49
  arriving at his shop, the car slipped off the trailer and
• 1:06:53
  broke the leg of his mechanic once it was secured in one of
• 1:06:57
  the shops garages. In approximately 1 month's time,
• 1:07:01
  while Barris was arranging for the first exhibit to open, the
• 1:07:05
  garage housing, the car mysteriously caught fire and
• 1:07:09
  burned to the ground. Even more mysterious, upon
• 1:07:14
  surveying the damage, the Porsche had sustained no damage
• 1:07:18
  from the fire itself. Barris would eventually arrange
• 1:07:22
  for a second exhibit, which was held at a local high school in
• 1:07:26
  conjunction with the California Highway Patrol.
• 1:07:30
  But this showing, too, was unexpectedly cut short.
• 1:07:33
  When the car was surrounded by onlookers and students, it
• 1:07:38
  suddenly fell off of its display and broke a young student's hip.
• 1:07:42
  Getting an eerie sense that something was off with this car,
• 1:07:46
  Bears then began to sell its parts.
• 1:07:49
  He would sell the engine to a man named Troy McHenry and the
• 1:07:53
  drivetrain to William Eskrid. The two used parts to build cars
• 1:07:58
  of their own and had even once raced one another, and both
• 1:08:02
  would experience horrendous accidents during a street race.
• 1:08:08
  Troy would lose control of his vehicle, veer off the street and
• 1:08:12
  slam directly into a tree. The impact would kill him
• 1:08:17
  instantly, and shortly after Troy's tragedy, William, who was
• 1:08:26
  casually driving his vehicle containing the drivetrain of
• 1:08:29
  Little Bastard, suddenly had his wheels lock up for no reason,
• 1:08:35
  and upon turning while experiencing this, the car began
• 1:08:38
  to roll, leaving him critically injured in the crash.
• 1:08:43
  He, however, despite his injuries, would live while
• 1:08:48
  parting out what was left of the car.
• 1:08:50
  Barris would also sell two of the Porsche's tires, which had
• 1:08:54
  been untouched since the accident that claimed Dean's
• 1:08:57
  life. After selling the tires, he also
• 1:09:00
  installed them on the customer's vehicle at his shop.
• 1:09:04
  However, upon driving home both of them, not one or the other,
• 1:09:09
  but both simultaneously exploded, causing the driver to
• 1:09:15
  lose control and drive off the road.
• 1:09:18
  They would fortunately regain control of their vehicle and
• 1:09:22
  despite being shaken up, were unharmed.
• 1:09:26
  George Barris, after selling what parts he could, will
• 1:09:29
  continue trying to arrange exhibits for the remnants of the
• 1:09:32
  car to be shown. The 3rd and final exhibit that
• 1:09:37
  was set to happen was going to be held by the Los Angeles
• 1:09:40
  Chapter of the National Safety Council as a traveling display.
• 1:09:45
  However, the truck driver who was hired to transport Little
• 1:09:48
  Bastard to the exhibit on a flatbed truck, a man named
• 1:09:53
  George Barkas, would be involved in an accident while heading
• 1:09:56
  there. He would be ejected from his
• 1:09:59
  vehicle and would land to the side of the flatbed, and whether
• 1:10:03
  it was a failure of securing the remnants or something more
• 1:10:07
  sinister, he would be crushed and killed when the Porsche
• 1:10:11
  rolled off the flatbed and onto him.
• 1:10:15
  There would be other mishaps as the twisted Porsche would be
• 1:10:18
  loaned out to various exhibits across the country in the years
• 1:10:21
  to come. But when it was on loan to a
• 1:10:24
  safety exhibit in Miami, FL in 1960, following the conclusion
• 1:10:29
  of the exhibit, as it was being hauled back to Los Angeles, the
• 1:10:33
  truck that was carrying what was left of the vehicle would once
• 1:10:36
  again be involved in a fatal crash, killing the driver.
• 1:10:41
  What remained of the Porsche, known as Little Bastard vanished
• 1:10:44
  from the scene that day. And to this day, all these years
• 1:10:48
  later, it has never been seen again, nor has any of its parts,
• 1:10:53
  despite collectors and enthusiasts alike willing to put
• 1:10:56
  up big money for even a genuine scrap of its remains.
• 1:11:01
  But before we speculate on what could have happened to it, I
• 1:11:04
  would first like to give my take on the bizarre activity that
• 1:11:07
  surrounds this now infamous legend.
• 1:11:10
  To me, if there was ever something that could be
• 1:11:13
  considered cursed, this once prized Porsche of James Dean
• 1:11:17
  very much fits the bill given all that we've learned.
• 1:11:20
  But just why would it have been cursed and how?
• 1:11:24
  These are questions that I've pondered while researching this
• 1:11:27
  topic. There of course doesn't seem to
• 1:11:29
  be a proper answer or even a real speculated one that would
• 1:11:33
  genuinely make sense that I could find.
• 1:11:36
  There doesn't seem to be any crazy occult ties to anyone he
• 1:11:39
  was involved with, but one theory that I did come across
• 1:11:43
  could possibly explain why. But of course this is just a
• 1:11:47
  theory, I don't want people getting mad at me.
• 1:11:49
  James Dean decides being an acclaimed actor by the young age
• 1:11:53
  of 24 was most definitely a heartthrob with the ladies.
• 1:11:58
  It's been rumored that among his various affairs with rich and
• 1:12:01
  powerful women, he also had multiple escapades per week.
• 1:12:05
  The theory I came across was this.
• 1:12:08
  Could it have been possible that some star, crossed lover or
• 1:12:12
  fling of Deans could have placed a curse on him?
• 1:12:15
  Curses of course, like anything paranormal in nature, are
• 1:12:19
  subject to a sense of belief in these kinds of things, or so
• 1:12:23
  most think. Perhaps Dean broke the heart of
• 1:12:26
  the wrong person, with Dean hitting the big time and also
• 1:12:29
  taking up car racing in between films or the filming of those
• 1:12:33
  films. Perhaps one of his girlfriends,
• 1:12:36
  rather jealous or heartbroken or both, placed a curse of sorts on
• 1:12:41
  him, either on him or something to do with his new found love
• 1:12:46
  for Motorsports. How this would have exactly
• 1:12:49
  imprinted specifically upon the newly purchased Porsche of 1955
• 1:12:54
  goes far beyond my expertise, but it is the only explanation I
• 1:12:58
  could find that would remotely make sense aside from a horrible
• 1:13:03
  string of unfortunate coincidences.
• 1:13:06
  And strangely enough, the man who hit Dean having the name of
• 1:13:10
  Donald Turnip Seed. Turnip Seed, in my opinion, is
• 1:13:14
  all too close to turnip speed. It's kind of weird, don't you
• 1:13:18
  think? With all of the darkness
• 1:13:20
  surrounding this car, Rolf had a very tragic ending as well.
• 1:13:25
  Upon his post rec recovery, he began to receive horrible
• 1:13:29
  letters from James Dean's fans blaming him for the actor's
• 1:13:33
  death. This eventually led to a
• 1:13:35
  terrible drinking problem as he felt responsible for what had
• 1:13:39
  happened. He would eventually move back to
• 1:13:41
  Germany where he experienced many lows, including multiple
• 1:13:46
  divorces and his final marriage, however, seemed to be at the
• 1:13:51
  lowest point in his life, having been depressed for years coupled
• 1:13:55
  with other psychological problems stemming from the guilt
• 1:13:58
  of the accident with too much alcohol in his system.
• 1:14:02
  In 1969, Rolf attempted to end his fourth wife.
• 1:14:06
  He stabbed her 14 times with a kitchen knife while she slept.
• 1:14:11
  Afterwards, he attempted to take his own but failed.
• 1:14:16
  He was however arrested and would spend a lengthy term in a
• 1:14:20
  mental institution instead of prison.
• 1:14:23
  This would also be his last and final divorce.
• 1:14:27
  He would for a short time bounce back as both a Porsche mechanic
• 1:14:32
  and would also be a racer himself once again, but again as
• 1:14:36
  well he succumbed to psychological issues, falling
• 1:14:40
  back on hard times. In July of 1981, he signed a
• 1:14:44
  contract for 20,000 Deutsche Marks for a feature in ATV show
• 1:14:49
  discussing the accident and the death of James Dean.
• 1:14:53
  As he contemplated what he was going to discuss, he would
• 1:14:56
  become heavily intoxicated and later that night he would crash
• 1:15:01
  his Honda Civic into the wall of a residence and Kupferzel.
• 1:15:06
  Ironically, like James, he too had to be cut from the wreck.
• 1:15:11
  It would be pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
• 1:15:15
  Now, where exactly could the remains of the Porsche have
• 1:15:18
  gone? The most likely explanation in
• 1:15:21
  my opinion, had to have been bystanders who witnessed the
• 1:15:25
  crash, and my guess is that perhaps they didn't know exactly
• 1:15:29
  what they had, but rather saw dollar signs.
• 1:15:33
  This could perhaps explain why it didn't show back up.
• 1:15:35
  Perhaps people who owned the parts and or the vehicles with
• 1:15:39
  the parts didn't know what they indeed possessed.
• 1:15:43
  But what also makes this strange is that they've never shown back
• 1:15:47
  up at all. There is one transaxle that was
• 1:15:51
  rumored to be from James Dean's car that was found in a wooden
• 1:15:54
  box in rural Massachusetts, but from what I could find, it has
• 1:15:59
  yet to be confirmed as genuine. It was either that people didn't
• 1:16:03
  know what they had, or something terrible happened to them as
• 1:16:07
  well and what remains they did possess or parts that they had
• 1:16:11
  put in their cars could have ended up scrapped somewhere,
• 1:16:14
  never to be seen again. Although I don't want to
• 1:16:17
  persuade you one way or another. With all the strange, dark and
• 1:16:22
  terrible events that surround the Porsche 550 Spyder known as
• 1:16:26
  James Dean's little bastard, one certainly has to consider that
• 1:16:31
  there is something otherworldly or cursed surrounding this case.
• 1:16:35
  But is it a curse, Is it something evil?
• 1:16:38
  Or is it just a horrible string of coincidences?
• 1:16:42
  Let me know down in the comments below.
• 1:16:45
  Either way, this is 1 car I have absolutely no desire to see, let
• 1:16:49
  alone ride in one that contains any piece of it.
• 1:16:53
  When a family moves into a new house, they discover its
• 1:16:57
  gruesome past and are met face to face with a grotesque horror.
• 1:17:03
  They must choose to fight or let their ever growing fear consume
• 1:17:07
  them. Will they make it out alive, or
• 1:17:10
  will evil triumph? This is the untold story of the
• 1:17:14
  terrifying Snidecker family haunting, better known as a
• 1:17:18
  haunting in Connecticut. Evil entities, spectres of
• 1:17:25
  another world that create misery and sow discord to engorge and
• 1:17:30
  strengthen themselves. Are they simply figments of the
• 1:17:34
  human imagination, A byproduct of the human condition if you
• 1:17:38
  will? This story, as well as many
• 1:17:40
  others that have been covered here on this channel, begged the
• 1:17:42
  question, do evil beings from another world truly exist?
• 1:17:47
  I'm not here to convince you either way.
• 1:17:49
  All that I ask is that you draw your own conclusions because
• 1:17:53
  this story, like others, will make you truly wonder just what
• 1:17:58
  could be lurking in the shadows. The day is a cold 1.
• 1:18:03
  Snow drifts down from the sky and covers everything in a layer
• 1:18:08
  of frozen powder. But colder still is the life
• 1:18:12
  altering news the Sneidecker family has just received.
• 1:18:17
  Their son Philip has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's
• 1:18:20
  lymphoma at the age of 14 and unless something short of a
• 1:18:24
  miracle takes place to put the disease into remission, he will
• 1:18:28
  die in less than six months. He is already deteriorated from
• 1:18:33
  a strong and healthy boy to a ghost of his former self.
• 1:18:38
  For Phillip to undergo experimental treatments, he has
• 1:18:41
  to see a specialist located over 300 miles away from the family
• 1:18:45
  home and a hospital located in Connecticut.
• 1:18:50
  As his treatments begin, the family soon realizes that the 8
• 1:18:54
  hour daily round trips are unsustainable not just for the
• 1:18:58
  family members taking Phillip, but more importantly to Phillip
• 1:19:02
  himself who is becoming weaker as a result of the cancer and
• 1:19:07
  the radiation. Wanting to do anything they can
• 1:19:10
  to lessen the burden and get their son closer to his doctors
• 1:19:14
  to give him a fighting chance, Alan and Carmen liquidate what
• 1:19:18
  is left of their assets as Alan puts in a transfer to move to
• 1:19:23
  another site with his company and into the state of
• 1:19:26
  Connecticut. As Alan handles the children at
• 1:19:29
  home, Carmen heads to Connecticut to attempt to find a
• 1:19:32
  suitable place to live for her family.
• 1:19:35
  But with two adults and four children all together, this
• 1:19:38
  isn't the easiest of tasks to accomplish given their budget.
• 1:19:43
  After dozens of appointments and dozens of refusals, the
• 1:19:47
  situation was becoming bleak. That wasn't until she happened
• 1:19:51
  to drive by another house. As she contemplated what the
• 1:19:55
  future held, Carmen happened to drive by a large house with a
• 1:19:59
  four rent sign hanging in the front yard.
• 1:20:02
  Upon inquiring, she made her way inside to speak with the owner
• 1:20:05
  of the property, and although renovations were still taking
• 1:20:09
  place and it would be a short while before the home was ready
• 1:20:12
  to live in, she was allowed to take a tour.
• 1:20:15
  Almost immediately, she fell in love with the home.
• 1:20:19
  It's freshly laid hardwood flooring and inviting interior
• 1:20:23
  seemed to call out to her, and with four bedrooms, 2 upstairs
• 1:20:28
  and two downstairs, and plenty of room for everyone, it seemed
• 1:20:32
  like the perfect fit. And more importantly, it was
• 1:20:36
  just minutes away from the hospital, which was the primary
• 1:20:40
  factor. Of course.
• 1:20:42
  Fearing that the large size of the house would be far outside
• 1:20:45
  of their budget, Carmen decided to cut to the chase and ask the
• 1:20:49
  property owner just how much the rent would be.
• 1:20:53
  And as if a gift from the universe itself, it just
• 1:20:56
  happened to fit their budget perfectly.
• 1:20:59
  After a handshake the first day, before too long, the terms are
• 1:21:04
  inked and the family begins to move in.
• 1:21:07
  Finally, after all of these months of struggle and worry,
• 1:21:11
  they have now secured a fighting chance for some kind of normalcy
• 1:21:15
  for the entire family and an even better chance for their son
• 1:21:19
  Philip to beat his cancer. Several weeks later, as the
• 1:21:24
  children are staying with relatives, Carmen and Alan begin
• 1:21:27
  to move things into the house. Just seeing the home for the
• 1:21:31
  first time, Alan agrees that his wife did a great job given the
• 1:21:35
  situation and that the house would be a good fit for the
• 1:21:38
  family. That wasn't until the couple
• 1:21:40
  looked into the basement. A small room was now present
• 1:21:44
  that Carmen hadn't seen on her initial walkthrough, perhaps one
• 1:21:48
  that was being renovated at the time.
• 1:21:51
  As her and Alan opened the door and walked into it, they began
• 1:21:55
  to notice strange tools that they had never seen before laid
• 1:21:59
  out on several tables as well as the sink located in the back of
• 1:22:03
  the room. As the snow falls outside and
• 1:22:07
  the whispers of the winter wind make themselves heard, the
• 1:22:11
  Snideckers unveil a hideous revelation tucked in the
• 1:22:14
  basement of their new rental home.
• 1:22:16
  A home that they've moved in in order to give their son a
• 1:22:19
  fighting chance against cancer, appears to have previously been
• 1:22:23
  a Funeral Home 1 where the dead have been prepared for burial
• 1:22:28
  in. And unbeknownst to anyone, some
• 1:22:31
  of the old tools and saws were still present now in the room as
• 1:22:36
  they come to this realization. Shocked and angry with herself,
• 1:22:41
  Carmen initially refuses to bring the children there,
• 1:22:44
  especially Phillip. But after being talked down by
• 1:22:48
  Allen, who told her to consider their situation, the fact that
• 1:22:52
  they had already signed an agreement, that they had spent
• 1:22:55
  every last penny on Phillip's treatments, the move and the
• 1:22:59
  rent, that even if it was a Funeral Home, no one likely died
• 1:23:03
  there, and Carmen finally relents and agrees to continue
• 1:23:08
  with the move. In process, the two vow to hide
• 1:23:11
  the morbid past of the home and its contents from their
• 1:23:15
  children. They contact the landlord, who
• 1:23:18
  removes the embalming and preparation equipment but leaves
• 1:23:22
  several tables and a deep freeze that might be useful to the
• 1:23:25
  family. And several weeks later, the
• 1:23:28
  rest of the family moves in as Philip and the other children
• 1:23:32
  wander from room to room examining their new house.
• 1:23:37
  Carmen begins to mop the floors to prepare to bring in the
• 1:23:40
  furniture to complete their move.
• 1:23:43
  But as she fills the bucket with soap and hot water and begins to
• 1:23:47
  mop where the items will go, she experiences an omen of sorts.
• 1:23:52
  As she mops from side to side, the steamy and soapy water began
• 1:23:57
  to congeal and turn into a thick and dark red substance, like
• 1:24:02
  that of dead blood as the liquid smears all over the hardwood
• 1:24:06
  floor. Within an instant.
• 1:24:08
  As she blinks, things seem to be back to normal.
• 1:24:12
  Attributing the bizarre vision to intense stress and
• 1:24:15
  exhaustion, she tries to write the experience off and continues
• 1:24:20
  mopping. Meanwhile, Philip has wandered
• 1:24:23
  into the basement stairwell and begins to descend the stairs,
• 1:24:27
  feeling an icy and cold presence overtake him the lower he gets
• 1:24:32
  into the basement. As his eyes scan the room, he
• 1:24:35
  feels an ominous presence staring at him when suddenly he
• 1:24:41
  hears a voice call out to him from a specific room, and this
• 1:24:46
  voice knew his name. Scared and unnerved, he makes
• 1:24:51
  his way back upstairs and greets his mother in the kitchen.
• 1:24:55
  He tells her that they need to leave immediately because he
• 1:24:58
  doesn't feel like any of them are safe.
• 1:25:01
  Carmen initially wrote off the feelings of her son due to him
• 1:25:05
  having his illness, adjusting to a new environment, and believing
• 1:25:10
  that it was an inner voice, not a physical one that he was
• 1:25:13
  hearing. But she would realize that she
• 1:25:16
  indeed was very, very wrong. As the days grow more difficult
• 1:25:21
  and long, the family began to turn to their faith for
• 1:25:24
  guidance. Reaching out to the priest who
• 1:25:27
  had married the couple. Alan and Carmen have him pray a
• 1:25:30
  prayer of healing over Philip, hoping to assist in his
• 1:25:34
  treatment, but despite their best efforts, he is only
• 1:25:37
  continuing to get worse. By this time, the entire family
• 1:25:42
  has moved into the former Funeral Home, including the
• 1:25:45
  other children, but no one has told the children that it was
• 1:25:49
  indeed a Funeral Home. Philip, unbeknownst to the rest
• 1:25:53
  of the family, had figured this out on his own.
• 1:25:56
  Carmen would eventually attribute his discovery to him
• 1:26:00
  being so close to death. At the time, she believed that
• 1:26:04
  the veil between life and death had become so thin for her boy
• 1:26:08
  that he could see what no one else could and know perhaps what
• 1:26:12
  others didn't. Working to provide as best as he
• 1:26:16
  could, Alan had long since gone back to work, leaving Carmen to
• 1:26:20
  run the strange and new house with their family and sick son
• 1:26:24
  on her own. He would be home on the weekends
• 1:26:26
  until his transfer was finalized because despite the horrors of
• 1:26:31
  having a cancer ridden child, the bills unfortunately never
• 1:26:35
  stop. As the days progress, the
• 1:26:38
  strangeness within the home begins to reveal itself from the
• 1:26:42
  shadows. The youngest daughter of the
• 1:26:45
  Snideckers is playing with her toys in her room as the wind
• 1:26:49
  whistles outside. As she talks with the dolls and
• 1:26:52
  places them within their dollhouse, a figure grazes the
• 1:26:56
  background of her room. When the little girl looks up
• 1:27:00
  above her dollhouse, she sees the figure of a woman with pale
• 1:27:05
  skin and sunk in eyes. Screaming, she races to her
• 1:27:10
  mother as fast as possible. Carmen comforts the poor girl,
• 1:27:14
  who is shaking as she grips her mother.
• 1:27:17
  Wanting to comfort her, Carmen goes upstairs to try and dismiss
• 1:27:21
  her daughter's fears, and despite her searching, nothing
• 1:27:25
  seems out of the ordinary. Believing that Philip and his
• 1:27:28
  brother were playing tricks on the poor child, Carmen angrily
• 1:27:32
  rushes to find and confront them.
• 1:27:36
  But despite her rage, the boys swear that they never told her
• 1:27:40
  the secret that Philip had discovered and that neither of
• 1:27:43
  them had played any tricks on her whatsoever.
• 1:27:46
  Bewildered, Carmen sets them straight and heads back to the
• 1:27:50
  kitchen to cook the family dinner.
• 1:27:53
  The only piece for her seems to come at night when the children
• 1:27:56
  are fast asleep in their beds with the crisp air holding an
• 1:28:00
  ever present moon above their home.
• 1:28:03
  Despite believing that all of her children were fast asleep
• 1:28:06
  and with the house being so calm, her boys in the basement
• 1:28:10
  room were not getting much sleep at all.
• 1:28:13
  The boys are often woken up by the sounds and then visuals of
• 1:28:18
  someone or something moving behind the closed door.
• 1:28:22
  At first they thought it was simply shadows or their minds
• 1:28:26
  playing tricks on them when one or the other would be the only
• 1:28:30
  ones awake, but now that it was both of them, they were seeing
• 1:28:34
  the exact same thing and experiencing the same exact
• 1:28:38
  chill creeping up their spines. The two would then continue to
• 1:28:43
  confide in one another, as brothers often do, about all the
• 1:28:47
  things they had experienced individually.
• 1:28:49
  Once the bizarre specter had dematerialized, the days grew
• 1:28:54
  longer and more stressful as time wore on.
• 1:28:58
  Philip was knocking on Death's door and his lack of sleep was
• 1:29:02
  not helping His treatment for the frigid nights brought the
• 1:29:06
  icy touch of death and the wandering apparitions of another
• 1:29:10
  world into theirs. Soon the boys can no longer take
• 1:29:15
  it. They approach Carmen to explain
• 1:29:18
  what they've been seeing and that there's been a man in what
• 1:29:21
  they now call the lab room and their room in the basement.
• 1:29:25
  Carmen, as per usual, whether it was to cope with the mounting
• 1:29:29
  pressures and responsibilities of their daily lives or to try
• 1:29:33
  and convince them to negate their fear or both, wrote off
• 1:29:37
  the boys as having nothing more than overactive imaginations.
• 1:29:42
  Reminding Philip that he was very sick and this could play a
• 1:29:45
  role in him seeing something that perhaps wasn't there.
• 1:29:49
  However, that would still not explain his brother experiencing
• 1:29:53
  the exact same thing at the exact same time.
• 1:29:57
  Another typical day in their new lives.
• 1:30:00
  Carmen begins cooking dinner for the family, and up until this
• 1:30:03
  point she hasn't had an experience that she's recognized
• 1:30:07
  as anything truly paranormal that wasn't stress related or
• 1:30:12
  something else that she could write off entirely.
• 1:30:14
  She had just set all the dishes out on the table for her family,
• 1:30:18
  and as she starts to make her way to the deep freeze to grab
• 1:30:21
  the protein she'd be cooking for the family's meal, she hears
• 1:30:24
  slight movement coming from the dining room.
• 1:30:27
  As she grabs and then sets the meat down in the kitchen, she
• 1:30:30
  goes to examine what the sound was.
• 1:30:33
  All of the dishes are gone without a trace, as if she never
• 1:30:38
  placed them down at all, feeling as if she was losing her mind.
• 1:30:42
  Carmen can't so easily dismiss this experience because she
• 1:30:47
  knows she set that table. Meanwhile, Phillip's younger
• 1:30:51
  brother Bobby was down in their room.
• 1:30:54
  He knows something strange is happening in the house that they
• 1:30:57
  can't explain given the apparitions and the noises the
• 1:31:01
  two of them have heard and experienced together, along with
• 1:31:05
  whatever their younger sister had seen, but this experience
• 1:31:08
  seems more personal. He begins to hear what first
• 1:31:11
  sounds like whispers coming from the lab room and sees the
• 1:31:15
  apparition of a man behind the closed window door.
• 1:31:19
  He can't make out any features other than a general outline and
• 1:31:23
  his size, but the closer he gets, the more audible the
• 1:31:27
  whispering becomes. And this man, this thing is
• 1:31:32
  slowly muttering the name Philip.
• 1:31:36
  Feeling that sense of terror overtake him, fight or flight
• 1:31:40
  takes over the boy and he quickly runs upstairs where he
• 1:31:43
  bumps into his mother. Having just had her own
• 1:31:46
  experience, she's not sure what to say to him, so taking his
• 1:31:50
  hand, the two make their way to the basement and towards the lab
• 1:31:55
  room where the whispers had been coming from.
• 1:31:58
  After a tense couple seconds, Carmen opens the door only to be
• 1:32:03
  met with silence. Although she believed in the
• 1:32:07
  spirit world, she up until this point did not believe that it
• 1:32:11
  could interact with the world of the living.
• 1:32:14
  But given what her kids have been telling her and what she's
• 1:32:17
  just experienced that very night, she wasn't so sure
• 1:32:21
  anymore. She had to consider the prospect
• 1:32:24
  that her house may just be haunted.
• 1:32:28
  Alan would arrive the following morning to spend the weekend
• 1:32:31
  with his family. At the same time a winter storm
• 1:32:35
  began to set in as he arrived. After speaking with his wife and
• 1:32:40
  knowing that Philip has made the other children aware of the
• 1:32:43
  macabre past of the home, he finds it important to address
• 1:32:47
  the issue as a family, believing that the information could
• 1:32:50
  perhaps just be adding fuel to overactive imaginations.
• 1:32:55
  At the breakfast table, he does just that, finally addressing
• 1:32:59
  the family that they indeed were living in an old Funeral Home,
• 1:33:03
  but that there was no reason for the children to be scared, that
• 1:33:07
  there were no monsters lurking in the shadows and no specters
• 1:33:11
  of otherworldly beings watching them.
• 1:33:14
  Although Philip and his brother argue that they've seen and
• 1:33:17
  experienced the same things and they have indeed been very real,
• 1:33:22
  they are once again dismissed. Allen would then pull Philip
• 1:33:26
  aside to ask him that despite the entire situation with him
• 1:33:31
  being the oldest, if he could please set an example for the
• 1:33:34
  rest of the children and not scare them with ghost stories.
• 1:33:39
  Philip's cancer treatments continue day after day, slowly
• 1:33:43
  draining the remaining funds the family has left.
• 1:33:47
  Meanwhile, he continues to see and experience even more
• 1:33:51
  paranormal happenings within the home.
• 1:33:54
  His mother attributes this to his illness and the interactions
• 1:33:58
  between his body and medications he's been placed on, despite
• 1:34:02
  knowing that her other children and even herself have had their
• 1:34:05
  own experiences. Another bizarre development
• 1:34:09
  recently has been that most, if not all of the family's
• 1:34:13
  crucifixes that have been placed all throughout their home have
• 1:34:17
  started to go missing, with no indication as to where they
• 1:34:21
  could have gone. The nightly disturbances have
• 1:34:25
  also become regular by this point, with Philip and his
• 1:34:28
  brother seeing the man in the lab room ever more frequently,
• 1:34:32
  as well as hearing and seeing other apparitions circling them
• 1:34:37
  as they lay in their beds. This night is no different.
• 1:34:42
  The boys wake up their parents screaming in terror that the man
• 1:34:46
  is back after sweeping the house and ensuring that everything is
• 1:34:50
  locked, that there was no way anyone could have possibly
• 1:34:53
  gotten in. Alan, being very wary of being
• 1:34:56
  woken up almost every night, forces the boys to go back to
• 1:35:00
  bed again, dismissing their experiences.
• 1:35:05
  Tired of not being believed, the boys began to leave the lights
• 1:35:09
  on in their room and talk amongst themselves to comfort
• 1:35:12
  one another as they would slowly but surely begin to fall asleep.
• 1:35:17
  Convinced that Philip was seeing things due to his medication and
• 1:35:21
  then influencing the younger children, his parents requested
• 1:35:24
  that he be examined for any possible interactions by his
• 1:35:28
  doctor and after a series of tests, the doctor would conclude
• 1:35:32
  that nothing Philip was on could be causing such things.
• 1:35:37
  The only other possible answer was a psychological problem.
• 1:35:41
  Alongside his cancer, Allen was now picking up every hour he
• 1:35:46
  possibly could, as well as any side work that presented itself
• 1:35:50
  to try and keep up with the mounting debt the family was
• 1:35:53
  being buried in. On any given day, A2 inch stack
• 1:35:56
  of bills, either late or termination notices could be
• 1:36:00
  found on the kitchen counter. While sorting through them, he
• 1:36:04
  was shocked to find an electric bill almost twice its average.
• 1:36:08
  To him, the children sleeping with the lights on because of
• 1:36:11
  ghost stories was not only causing them to lose sleep, but
• 1:36:15
  now it's costing the family money they simply didn't have.
• 1:36:20
  So to counteract this, and of course feeling as if he was
• 1:36:23
  justified in doing so, he goes to each one of their rooms and
• 1:36:27
  removes all of their light bulbs except for one at night.
• 1:36:32
  However, the lights that used to make them feel protected and
• 1:36:36
  bring them relief would soon contribute to a new supernatural
• 1:36:41
  horror. Sleeping in their room in the
• 1:36:44
  basement, the Schneidecker boys are suddenly woken up by the
• 1:36:48
  flashing of their overhead lights.
• 1:36:51
  Glancing to find the source, they see their little sister
• 1:36:54
  flicking the lights on and off, and despite there being no light
• 1:36:58
  bulbs in their sockets, they are still flashing on and off.
• 1:37:03
  Running towards her, the youngest brother chases her up
• 1:37:06
  the stairs, but she's just too quick for him to catch her.
• 1:37:10
  Instead, he runs into his parents when he exits the
• 1:37:13
  basement door, but strangely, his mother explains to him that
• 1:37:18
  she's been asleep in her room for hours now and she would know
• 1:37:23
  because she had tucked her in and had been near the basement
• 1:37:26
  ever since. Not believing her at first, he
• 1:37:30
  rushes upstairs to soon find her fast asleep in her bed.
• 1:37:35
  He is now even more freaked out because whatever this thing was
• 1:37:39
  could take the form of a family member.
• 1:37:42
  Meanwhile, as his brother comes to terms with this hideous
• 1:37:45
  revelation, a voice begins to call to Philip once again from
• 1:37:50
  the lab room, waking him up. Getting sick of living in fear,
• 1:37:56
  Philip finally decides to confront whoever or whatever has
• 1:38:00
  been calling out to him and approaches the room.
• 1:38:04
  Upon opening the door and stepping inside, he is meant
• 1:38:08
  face to face with the entity that has been calling his name.
• 1:38:13
  The apparition appeared to him as a man with dark red, almost
• 1:38:18
  blood filled eyes began to whisper to him things about the
• 1:38:22
  home's past. After this freezing winter's
• 1:38:26
  night, Philip began to undergo a radical change in personality.
• 1:38:31
  He began to pull away and isolate himself from the rest of
• 1:38:35
  the family, insisting that he be left alone in the basement and
• 1:38:39
  that his brother Bobby move upstairs, making Bobby feel
• 1:38:43
  alienated from their once close and confiding relationship.
• 1:38:49
  Despite these personality changes, a miracle seemed to
• 1:38:52
  take place, one that the family had been praying for since the
• 1:38:57
  very beginning of their struggle.
• 1:38:59
  After months of daily treatments, Philip's blood labs
• 1:39:03
  finally came back normal. His cancer was in remission, but
• 1:39:08
  surprisingly, he almost doesn't seem to care at all.
• 1:39:12
  Later that evening, as the family prepares to celebrate the
• 1:39:15
  good news, they also welcome a guest for the first time since
• 1:39:19
  they had moved. Their niece Teresa would be
• 1:39:22
  temporarily living with them and had just arrived from New York.
• 1:39:27
  Her parents had been separated and undergoing a messy divorce,
• 1:39:31
  so to help her make the best of the situation, they've allowed
• 1:39:34
  her to stay with them. Not having seen the family in
• 1:39:38
  quite some time, Teresa begins to get reacclimated with them,
• 1:39:42
  but soon notices that Philip, who she had previously been very
• 1:39:46
  close to, was missing from the party.
• 1:39:49
  She would eventually find him in the basement and also notice
• 1:39:53
  that something was very different about him.
• 1:39:56
  He seemed darker, more angry, and not at all like the boy that
• 1:40:00
  she used to know. He would eventually confide in
• 1:40:04
  her all the paranormal activity he and the others had
• 1:40:07
  experienced in the house it's past and that his parents did
• 1:40:12
  not believe them. This made him feel extremely
• 1:40:15
  isolated and alone and that the activity had not simply gone
• 1:40:19
  away, but had continued to get worse each and every night.
• 1:40:24
  His experiences as he explained them to Teresa ranged from
• 1:40:28
  scratching on his door and inside his walls, to his name
• 1:40:33
  being called, to seeing the apparitions of figures
• 1:40:37
  surrounding him, hearing, whispering and also seeing and
• 1:40:41
  hearing a man in a suit with blood red eyes call out to him.
• 1:40:47
  And that this man would also visit his bedside every single
• 1:40:50
  night and tell him things that his parents had said about him,
• 1:40:54
  negative and terrible things. He would then encourage Philip
• 1:40:59
  to take action and to hurt his own family.
• 1:41:03
  Shortly into her stay, Teresa began to observe that the hatred
• 1:41:06
  and malice that was dwelling within Philip that seemed to
• 1:41:10
  make itself a part of the family's daily routine.
• 1:41:14
  Fights and screaming matches soon became a daily occurrence,
• 1:41:18
  especially between Philip and Allen, with Allen seeming to
• 1:41:22
  resent Philip for the family's financial situation and for
• 1:41:26
  Philip feeling isolated and not being believed about what he was
• 1:41:31
  experiencing. According to Philip's diary,
• 1:41:34
  every night when he was trying to sleep, this creature, this
• 1:41:38
  demon, would visit him and push him harder and harder to commit
• 1:41:44
  unspeakable things. He got to the point to where
• 1:41:48
  Philip wouldn't even leave his room.
• 1:41:50
  He wouldn't argue back against this entity and day after day,
• 1:41:54
  night after night, it pushed for him to hurt his family.
• 1:41:59
  Philip will continue to confide in Teresa that alongside this,
• 1:42:03
  he began to see other people within the basement who were
• 1:42:07
  dead and buried as if they were trapped there by the man in the
• 1:42:11
  suit with the blood red eyes. And this entity would continue
• 1:42:15
  to threaten to do things to Philip if he did not listen and
• 1:42:20
  do as he was told while explaining these newer
• 1:42:23
  developments to her. Without warning, he suddenly
• 1:42:27
  attacked her, grabbing her arm, trying to harm her, breaking
• 1:42:32
  free, and rushing up the stairs and into the arms of her Uncle
• 1:42:35
  Alan, she watched Phillip essentially be exiled back into
• 1:42:39
  the basement. And with that, their
• 1:42:42
  relationship began to disintegrate.
• 1:42:44
  Upset at not only what had happened between her and
• 1:42:47
  Phillip, but the strange behavior and dysfunction that
• 1:42:50
  was taking place within the house, Teresa wept in her bed.
• 1:42:55
  She would eventually be gifted A rosary by Carmen, who believed
• 1:42:59
  that it would help comfort her, and she wore this to bed that
• 1:43:02
  night as a necklace of sorts. However, she would quickly
• 1:43:07
  discover that instead of comfort, this holy object made
• 1:43:10
  her a target instead. Fast asleep, Teresa was suddenly
• 1:43:15
  woken up by the sensation of her blankets being pulled from her
• 1:43:20
  body. She opened her eyes to find
• 1:43:23
  Philip staring at her, a crooked smile, just before he attacked
• 1:43:27
  her, striking her several times in the face.
• 1:43:31
  Her screams, thankfully quickly warrant to Carmen and Allen, who
• 1:43:35
  subdued Philip immediately. Philip, after this unpredictable
• 1:43:39
  series of incidents, was then removed from the house due to
• 1:43:43
  his violence upon the arrival of law enforcement and medical
• 1:43:47
  personnel. He seemed to have no
• 1:43:49
  recollection of what had taken place and was screaming and
• 1:43:53
  crying as he was being forcibly removed from the home and sent
• 1:43:57
  away for a mental evaluation. Alan and Carmen, after securing
• 1:44:01
  the rest of the children in the house, followed the ambulance to
• 1:44:05
  the hospital to sign the necessary paperwork to have
• 1:44:09
  Philip committed for the evaluation.
• 1:44:12
  But just before he was led into the hospital, he issued an
• 1:44:15
  ominous warning to the both of them.
• 1:44:18
  He said Mark my words, now that I'm out of the house, it'll be
• 1:44:23
  after you and it will get worse. Shattered by what had taken
• 1:44:28
  place, the snydecker's somber drive home turned into a long
• 1:44:32
  one given the distance and the weather that they were braving.
• 1:44:36
  By the time they arrive back home, it's time for Alan to head
• 1:44:40
  to work. After dropping off Carmen, he
• 1:44:43
  departs for the day, wanting to sleep but too stressed to.
• 1:44:48
  Carmen sits on the edge of her bed, crying and contemplating
• 1:44:52
  what her son had said. What if this all truly was real?
• 1:44:56
  What would they even do? Where does one begin to fight
• 1:44:59
  something they can't see? She decides to head down into
• 1:45:03
  the basement to Philip's room to see if she can experience
• 1:45:08
  anything whatsoever. After several minutes, despite
• 1:45:12
  not seeing anything, she does begin to feel a massive drop in
• 1:45:16
  temperature, so low to the point to where she can see her breath.
• 1:45:20
  She also soon begins to shake with fear she can't describe.
• 1:45:25
  Fighting these feelings, she issues a challenge to whatever
• 1:45:29
  could be lurking there to show itself, to prove that it was
• 1:45:33
  indeed real, that it truly did exist.
• 1:45:37
  But despite her challenge and waiting half an hour, she sees
• 1:45:41
  nothing. So she heads back upstairs to
• 1:45:44
  her room to take a shower, to try and relax herself enough to
• 1:45:48
  sleep. Meanwhile, Alan had been driving
• 1:45:52
  in the dark, heading to work for the day.
• 1:45:54
  During his drive, he was worried about his son, his family, and
• 1:45:59
  leaving them behind for the day in such a raw and emotional
• 1:46:02
  state, but he would have no way of knowing that these weren't
• 1:46:06
  the only problems he had to worry about.
• 1:46:09
  After his long drive, he finally arrives at work for the day and
• 1:46:13
  begins. He hopes to be distracted from
• 1:46:16
  his lack of sleep and family problems.
• 1:46:20
  As Carmen runs her shower and the rest of the children's
• 1:46:23
  sleep, a horrific presence begins to manifest within the
• 1:46:28
  house. As she's washing herself, the
• 1:46:32
  shower curtain suddenly covers Carmen's face, catching her off
• 1:46:36
  guard, out of breath, and begins to smother her.
• 1:46:41
  At the same time, Teresa's startled awake.
• 1:46:45
  She's being strangled by the rosary she's wearing.
• 1:46:48
  She screams, pulling out her neck and eventually frees
• 1:46:52
  herself from its stranglehold. She then runs towards the
• 1:46:56
  muffled screams of her aunt coming from her bedroom,
• 1:46:59
  seemingly having no other choice after seeing her being strangled
• 1:47:03
  by the shower curtain, she pulls it off of her as fast and as
• 1:47:07
  hard as she possibly can. The two then share a moment of
• 1:47:10
  sheer terror and trauma, both having experienced things that
• 1:47:15
  they can't explain. However, unbeknownst to the two
• 1:47:18
  of them at home, Alan is about to experience an attack of his
• 1:47:22
  own. While working at his job site he
• 1:47:25
  begins to hear his truck turn over despite his keys being in
• 1:47:29
  his pocket. Glancing out to figure out just
• 1:47:32
  what this could be, he watches his truck begin to move towards
• 1:47:36
  his small work building. And then, as if someone had
• 1:47:39
  their foot on the gas, it began to accelerate to a high rate of
• 1:47:44
  speed and before he could run out of the way, the truck
• 1:47:48
  smashes directly into the building and straight towards
• 1:47:51
  where he was standing. Back at the house, Carmen and
• 1:47:55
  Teresa are still in shock when suddenly the phone rings.
• 1:47:59
  However, there is nothing but a muffled laugh coming through
• 1:48:04
  from the other side. Feeling a burning sensation on
• 1:48:07
  her ear, Carmen immediately drops the phone to find that
• 1:48:11
  it's partially melted. Starting to scream, she finds
• 1:48:16
  herself frozen as she glances towards the ceiling after she
• 1:48:20
  sees something out of the corner of her eye.
• 1:48:23
  Teresa then sees it as well and begins to scream.
• 1:48:27
  A black cloud of some kind now floated above them.
• 1:48:31
  The two are absolutely mortified by the sudden and horrendous
• 1:48:35
  manifestations of supernatural evil that are taking place and
• 1:48:39
  realize that Philip was right. This force, this demon, has
• 1:48:45
  taken over the entire house, Running out of the room and
• 1:48:49
  frantically into another. They rush to gather the rest of
• 1:48:52
  the children, but with a snowstorm raging outside and a
• 1:48:56
  demonic storm raging inside, they seemingly have no escape.
• 1:49:01
  Carmen is unsure of what to do. She then receives another phone
• 1:49:05
  call, this time picking up another landline in the home.
• 1:49:09
  It's Alan on the other end. He explains just what had taken
• 1:49:13
  place and that he was waiting for the authorities to arrive,
• 1:49:18
  even more shocked and scared now that this entity has now
• 1:49:21
  attacked all members of the family and has left the home and
• 1:49:24
  attacked Alan as well. Since all the events seem to
• 1:49:28
  take place roughly during the same time frame, she's convinced
• 1:49:31
  that the demon will follow them wherever they go to try and
• 1:49:35
  escape it. So although it is the middle of
• 1:49:38
  the morning during a winter storm, she makes a phone call to
• 1:49:41
  the only person who she thinks can help her in this desperate
• 1:49:45
  situation. She calls the priest who had
• 1:49:47
  married her and Allen and had blessed Philip before his cancer
• 1:49:51
  was in remission. Thankfully, for their sake, the
• 1:49:55
  Father picked up on the other end and promised to head to the
• 1:49:58
  home as soon as possible. Given the road conditions, it
• 1:50:03
  takes him several hours to arrive, but thankfully he does.
• 1:50:08
  First things first, the father wanted to speak with Carmen and
• 1:50:12
  figure out just what exactly was taking place, and after
• 1:50:16
  discussing anything and everything, they can think with
• 1:50:19
  him, hoping for an answer to fix their situation.
• 1:50:23
  Albeit it's never that easy. The father's response leaves
• 1:50:27
  them stunned. He tells them that he does
• 1:50:30
  believe them, but if that they simply ignore the presence, what
• 1:50:34
  it's been doing, it'll go away. This is the first time her faith
• 1:50:39
  has failed Carmen. She's bewildered by his answer.
• 1:50:44
  How can you just ignore something that's tried to take
• 1:50:46
  your life, your family members lives this very day alongside
• 1:50:52
  everything else that has been building up to this point.
• 1:50:56
  In her opinion, she couldn't. So once he left, she rushed to
• 1:51:01
  seek other, less conventional options to find the answers that
• 1:51:06
  she desperately needed. While digging through a phone
• 1:51:09
  book and multiple newspapers to try and find anything she could,
• 1:51:14
  she stumbled across an article about a husband and wife team of
• 1:51:17
  so-called demonologists and we're set to give a lecture at a
• 1:51:21
  nearby university. After several additional phone
• 1:51:24
  calls, she makes contact with Lorraine Warren, which, after
• 1:51:28
  discussing the prospect of the visit with her husband, Ed,
• 1:51:32
  agreed to come and visit Carmen that day to evaluate her
• 1:51:35
  situation. After their arrival in a brief
• 1:51:38
  interview, Lorraine starts to survey the house using her gift
• 1:51:43
  of discernment, the supposed extra sense that allows a person
• 1:51:47
  to discover the true nature of a situation, a person's character,
• 1:51:51
  or in this case, a spirit or haunting.
• 1:51:54
  Whether it was something good and godly or something grotesque
• 1:51:59
  and not of God. She's almost immediately drawn
• 1:52:03
  to the basement. With no knowledge of the home
• 1:52:06
  prior, she makes her way towards the notorious lab room and soon
• 1:52:10
  begins to sense a plethora of beings.
• 1:52:13
  A sense of horrible depression and doom began to fill her
• 1:52:17
  entire soul. Among the many human spirits she
• 1:52:21
  felt, she felt something else, something sinister and
• 1:52:27
  sickening. There was a demonic force
• 1:52:29
  dwelling within the basement. She would later describe the
• 1:52:33
  feeling as if there was a doorway to hell itself located
• 1:52:37
  in that room. To remove any such spirits
• 1:52:41
  within the house, the Warrens informed Carmen that the
• 1:52:44
  Catholic Church would have to authorize an exorcism and send
• 1:52:47
  the appropriate personnel to make this happen, a process that
• 1:52:51
  could take weeks or even months. To try and expedite the process,
• 1:52:56
  the warrants contact their lead researcher, a man named John
• 1:53:00
  Zappos, to come in and document anything and everything that
• 1:53:04
  could be found so that a proper report could be submitted to the
• 1:53:08
  church. John, along with his crew,
• 1:53:11
  temporarily move into the home to try and document anything
• 1:53:14
  that they can find that'll help prove beyond a reasonable doubt
• 1:53:18
  that an exorcism is indeed needed to be performed to help
• 1:53:22
  this family. During their time there, they
• 1:53:25
  relied on video, audio, and photographic evidence to
• 1:53:29
  document their findings. At the Warren's advice, so that
• 1:53:33
  the demon could not isolate any one person in the family, the
• 1:53:37
  entire family moves their beds into the living room to sleep
• 1:53:40
  together at night and protect one another.
• 1:53:43
  Thankfully, with the researchers also temporarily living there,
• 1:53:48
  at any one given point in time, there was always an additional
• 1:53:51
  person with a member of the family.
• 1:53:53
  However, with Philip gone, the entity begins to pursue the next
• 1:53:58
  most vulnerable person, having suffered intense stress from the
• 1:54:02
  entire situation. Given that her son was in the
• 1:54:05
  psych ward, her family dynamic was in tatters and the bills
• 1:54:10
  were forever continuing to pile up.
• 1:54:13
  That person was Carmen. Carmen was also stricken with an
• 1:54:17
  overwhelming sense of guilt for not believing any of her
• 1:54:20
  children, especially Philip, about what they had experienced
• 1:54:24
  during the entire ordeal, and it seems like perhaps the entity
• 1:54:28
  exploited this within her for all that it was worth.
• 1:54:32
  As the family discussed potential findings with the
• 1:54:35
  Warrens as well as their researchers around their
• 1:54:38
  fireplace in the living room, Carmen was suddenly flung
• 1:54:41
  backwards as everyone gathered around her.
• 1:54:45
  Their faces switched from those of concern to horror as her
• 1:54:50
  throat began to bulge and swell and her face began to contort
• 1:54:56
  and twist. She would later describe what
• 1:54:59
  she felt while experiencing this, She said.
• 1:55:02
  I felt as if I was in a dark hole, like a well, surrounded by
• 1:55:06
  black figures who I couldn't make out their features.
• 1:55:10
  I felt pure despair and hopelessness to the point where
• 1:55:15
  if I stopped breathing, I knew I deserved to.
• 1:55:18
  Rushing to her aid, but not being qualified to perform an
• 1:55:21
  exorcism themselves, the demonologists and their crew
• 1:55:25
  asked for the rest of the family to bring anything sacred to her
• 1:55:29
  to be placed upon her. Teresa rushes to find the rosary
• 1:55:32
  that she was gifted by her in the same 1 Carmen believed would
• 1:55:36
  protect her. This was placed upon her in an
• 1:55:38
  effort to combat whatever was attacking her.
• 1:55:42
  After hours of praying and pleading.
• 1:55:44
  The group's prayers along with the rosary placement seemed to
• 1:55:47
  work at least temporarily, breaking whatever spell Carmen
• 1:55:51
  was under as she came back to waking life.
• 1:55:55
  She had no idea how long she had been out of it and the rain.
• 1:55:58
  Warren told her that she had been under attack for the last 8
• 1:56:02
  hours as they had prayed over her.
• 1:56:05
  The experience seemed to last mere minutes to Carmen, yet they
• 1:56:09
  were the longest minutes she had ever experienced.
• 1:56:13
  It took several more weeks, but eventually the researchers
• 1:56:16
  alongside the Warrens were able to attain enough evidence and
• 1:56:20
  their view to provide the church.
• 1:56:23
  But they too, just as the family by this point, were beyond worn
• 1:56:27
  down. At night they slept on
• 1:56:29
  mattresses alongside the family all together in the living room
• 1:56:33
  around the fireplace. Their mattresses would breathe
• 1:56:38
  and alternating breath to their own, not only waking and scaring
• 1:56:42
  them, but behaving as if they themselves were living,
• 1:56:46
  breathing creatures being laid on.
• 1:56:49
  Although they had researched and dealt with dozens, if not
• 1:56:52
  hundreds of paranormal cases, they believed what they
• 1:56:56
  experienced in the Snydecker home in Connecticut was by far
• 1:57:00
  the strongest demonic presence they had ever come into contact
• 1:57:04
  with. close to what was supposed to be the final night, head
• 1:57:08
  researcher John Zafis made the mistake of leaving the safety of
• 1:57:12
  the living room when he was suddenly woke up out of a sound
• 1:57:15
  sleep. He went and sat in the kitchen,
• 1:57:18
  unable to go back to sleep. Within minutes, he felt as if he
• 1:57:22
  had been placed in a freezer. All the warmth quickly left his
• 1:57:26
  body and he began to see his own breath hang in the air.
• 1:57:30
  Having experienced this before, he knew he was being targeted.
• 1:57:35
  As fear began to overtake him. He began to call out to anyone
• 1:57:39
  and everyone that was sleeping just feet away in the living
• 1:57:43
  room, but was met with no response.
• 1:57:46
  He rushed to the living room where he began to see the
• 1:57:48
  mattresses breathing, but everyone who laid upon them was
• 1:57:52
  completely unresponsive. He then hears the basement door
• 1:57:56
  creak open. As he slowly walks to where he
• 1:58:00
  can see the entrance to the basement, he sees a man wearing
• 1:58:04
  a suit with a contorted face and blood red eyes.
• 1:58:10
  The experience terrifies John so much to the point where he runs
• 1:58:14
  into the living room, shaking his crew awake and telling them
• 1:58:18
  that he has to get out. Having only spoken about the
• 1:58:22
  situation a handful of times since then, he would go on to
• 1:58:26
  say I have never, in the decades upon decades of investigating
• 1:58:30
  the paranormal, experienced something to that degree of evil
• 1:58:35
  since that night, and I pray I never do again.
• 1:58:39
  Days after John vacates the home, the Warrens finally
• 1:58:42
  managed to convince the Connecticut diocese to grant the
• 1:58:46
  family a priest to determine if an exorcism would be granted.
• 1:58:51
  Exorcism in the Catholic faith, especially these days and Even
• 1:58:55
  so in the 20th century, are only conducted an absolute secrecy
• 1:59:00
  and are extremely rare. To be granted evil must be
• 1:59:03
  proven to be present beyond a reasonable doubt through a
• 1:59:07
  variety of methods, and rarer still is performing an exorcism
• 1:59:12
  on a building or place rather than a person.
• 1:59:16
  A priest by the name of Father Frank soon arrives to execute
• 1:59:20
  the Church's orders and conduct an investigation on their
• 1:59:23
  behalf. Having viewed the evidence given
• 1:59:26
  to the church by the Warrens, he also listens to the Snydeckers
• 1:59:30
  about their experiences and towards the home.
• 1:59:34
  By the end of the interview, the family cannot tell if the Father
• 1:59:37
  will be for or against advising the church to grant them what
• 1:59:41
  they so desperately believed they needed.
• 1:59:44
  Several agonizing weeks would go by until word was received from
• 1:59:48
  the church, and to the family's relief, they decided to grant
• 1:59:52
  them an exorcism. Another priest by the name of
• 1:59:56
  Father Richard was sent to conduct the ritual.
• 1:59:59
  Upon arriving during an exceptionally bad snowstorm,
• 2:00:03
  Father Richard is almost immediately drawn to the
• 2:00:05
  basement. As he descends the steps with
• 2:00:08
  Carmen behind him, he turns to her.
• 2:00:11
  His stone face, which has been relatively void of emotion,
• 2:00:15
  turns into a grimace, almost as if he sensed that there was
• 2:00:20
  something truly evil lurking within the shadows.
• 2:00:24
  Within seconds, he asked to step into the lab room and to close
• 2:00:28
  the doors behind him so that he may begin.
• 2:00:32
  As he starts to flick droplets of holy water into the space,
• 2:00:36
  the energy in the house seems to become darker and the air
• 2:00:41
  heavier. Despite feeling a malevolent
• 2:00:44
  presence surrounding him, Father Richard continued with the
• 2:00:48
  ritual. He went from room to room
• 2:00:51
  conducting the exorcism in exalting God's blessings until
• 2:00:56
  finally he was in the living room in the presence of the
• 2:00:59
  Sneideker family as well as Ed and Lorraine Warren.
• 2:01:03
  Now, several hours in, as he was making his way towards the
• 2:01:07
  ritual's conclusion, the demonic presence that had plagued the
• 2:01:11
  family all of these days since they had first arrived at the
• 2:01:15
  beginning of this harsh winter in Connecticut refused to be
• 2:01:18
  ignored and was ready for a fight.
• 2:01:22
  Seen by everyone present, all objects in the room that weren't
• 2:01:26
  nailed down were being sat in began to shake and be thrown.
• 2:01:32
  Books, Knick knacks, statues, and ornaments shattered as the
• 2:01:38
  snow and ice slapped the windows outside of the house.
• 2:01:42
  The more they prayed, the more they seemed to provoke the
• 2:01:45
  entity and the more intense the activity became.
• 2:01:50
  Amidst the turmoil and again witnessed by everyone, Teresa's
• 2:01:54
  lifted into the air by what she would later describe as massive,
• 2:01:59
  unseen hands and is choked. It seems as if the entity is
• 2:02:04
  attempting to shock and break the prayers of those present,
• 2:02:09
  but Father Richard refuses to give in.
• 2:02:12
  Then within the blink of an eye it was if whatever had been
• 2:02:16
  stalking the walls inside of the Schneidecker home and was gone.
• 2:02:21
  And despite the mess that now surrounded them, they could not
• 2:02:24
  be more relieved or thankful for their new found freedom.
• 2:02:29
  Several days after the exorcism, they started the process of
• 2:02:33
  selling the house, not only to try and put their past
• 2:02:36
  experiences behind them to move forward, but to also not take a
• 2:02:41
  chance of the door that they believed they closed.
• 2:02:44
  With the help of their faith being reopened and reigniting
• 2:02:48
  their own personal paranormal hell, Philip would be released
• 2:02:53
  from the mental hospital about a month later after the exorcism
• 2:02:57
  had transpired. He not only seemed to be in
• 2:03:00
  stable condition, but appeared much healthier and was truly
• 2:03:04
  happy to see his family again. His cancer, thankfully, would
• 2:03:08
  never return. What happened in the
• 2:03:11
  Schneidecker home is open to interpretation.
• 2:03:13
  Those who believe them believe the exorcism to be a resounding
• 2:03:17
  success, while those who don't believe see it as some kind of
• 2:03:21
  attention grabbing hoax. The warns themselves back then
• 2:03:26
  and even now, long after their own deaths, continue to be
• 2:03:29
  polarizing figures, with some believing them to be legitimate
• 2:03:33
  demonologists and paranormal experts, with others believing
• 2:03:37
  that they were charlatans, nothing more than profiteers of
• 2:03:41
  people's fears. As stated in the beginning, I'm
• 2:03:45
  not here to convince you one way or the other.
• 2:03:48
  My job is to provide as many details as I can of what
• 2:03:51
  happened with the particular case, and the rest is up for you
• 2:03:55
  to decide. Some additional details I would
• 2:03:58
  like to add, however, are these. After investigating the home,
• 2:04:03
  the Warrens did launch a large media campaign promoting the
• 2:04:06
  homes majorly possessed. Whether this was for good or bad
• 2:04:10
  intentions, I can't say because I simply don't know.
• 2:04:14
  Philip, unfortunately, would later develop a drug habit and
• 2:04:18
  would also later be diagnosed with schizophrenia.
• 2:04:22
  Whether this was a result of drug use or something that was
• 2:04:25
  there all along, we'll never know, but it did not appear to
• 2:04:29
  be his condition prior or even after his stint in the mental
• 2:04:32
  hospital. The story would go on to inspire
• 2:04:35
  a dramatized documentary with altered names of the family and
• 2:04:39
  with hidden interviews of the family in 2002 known as a
• 2:04:43
  Haunting in Connecticut. It would then again be
• 2:04:46
  popularized in 2009 when the horror film The Haunting in
• 2:04:50
  Connecticut was released. Upon moving out in 1987, the
• 2:04:55
  Schneideckers did not experience any other paranormal activity in
• 2:04:58
  their lives, and subsequent owners of the home say they
• 2:05:02
  haven't experienced any activity either.
• 2:05:05
  This is perhaps due to the successful exorcism of the home,
• 2:05:08
  or the demons simply existing within the minds of those
• 2:05:12
  involved. Again, the interpretation is up
• 2:05:16
  to you, but part of me still wonders.
• 2:05:20
  Could hell still be locked away within the basement of that
• 2:05:23
  house, watching, lurking, and waiting for the right person to
• 2:05:27
  stumble upon its locked door and to pry it open again?
• 2:05:32
  Could the blood red eyes of the demonic man in the Sioux still
• 2:05:35
  be lusting for more souls? If so, this is 1 door I pray
• 2:05:41
  stays locked for good.