Paranormal Nation

by Marc E. Fitch

  Two days later I received the precious Catholic medals in the mail from Richard. There were two sets of two, one for myself and one for my wife. He wrote in a steady, intense hand on a card, “St. Benedict holding the cross in one hand and the holy rule in the other. The Latin words mean, ‘May His Presence Protect Us in the Hour of Death,’ and on the reverse side of the cross, the initials mean “Be Gone Satan!”

  I brought my wife with me to look at CPI’s library of paranormal evidence. She’s a psychiatric nurse and has been working in an acute psychiatric hospital for five years. I wanted someone on “my side,” if you will, so that I would not feel outnumbered. I also wanted her opinion regarding the stability and sanity of those with whom I was working and what it was we were looking at. Besides, she wanted to personally thank Rich for the medals and, being that they shared similar religious views, wanted to talk with him.

  We met Bob and Rich at Bob’s house—a big, beautiful suburban home tucked away in community of other big, beautiful suburban homes and in view of a pond with a fountain spraying water into the air. Rich was already there; his Chevrolet Avalanche parked in the driveway looked brand new and just reinforced my opinion of him as an outgoing, charismatic 25-year-old in a 57-year-old body. Rich gave my wife a big hug and Bob introduced himself. The home was warm and roomy, more Seventh Heaven than Ghost Hunters, but on the dining room table Bob and Rich have assembled several lap-tops with speakers and editing software, digital voice recorders, infrared digital cameras, and plain old-fashioned pictures. Rich and Erin quickly seated themselves on the couch and got acquainted, talking about religion and spirits and viewing film pictures of sinister faces reflected in windows and mirrors, apparitions that looked like fog dancing across the floor of an empty house, and the ever-present spirit orbs that hover in a room.

  I sat down with Bob, eager to see what he had to show me and eager to find out a bit more about him, as he was the quieter, more scientific of the two. He showed me a picture taken at a wedding of him and several relatives standing together for the typical wedding photograph. In the middle of the picture, highlighted against a woman’s dark-colored dress, was a small dot of light. “See this orb right here?” he said. “It’s a demon.” Straining to see it, I was a bit disappointed in what he claimed to be a demon. It seemed a far cry from what I had come to expect. I had read about orbs, which have often been proven to be dust particles captured by camera or tricks of light off the camera lens. Even the Ghost Hunters on television didn’t put much stock in orbs. Bob could see that I was not yet buying into the idea. “I’ll show you,” he said. He digitally zoomed in on the picture, getting closer and closer to the orb until it appeared to take on a form of its own. “Do you see the face?” he asked, and indeed I did. It was a face like a jack-o’-lantern; a grimacing, menacing, smiling face that appeared to have pointed teeth. It seemed to be in motion, caught by the camera as it circled the wedding party. Then he showed me another picture of an orb and focused in the screen. It was the same grotesquely grimacing face as in the previous photo, but this was at his home and taken years before the wedding. “This,” he said to me, “was the demon that I saw when I was child. It took a human form and stood down the hallway from my room smiling at me with that very same face. I could see its eyes and I could see its teeth, and I was terrified. That is why I do what I do today.”

  This was what Bob had been holding back; this was what kept him drawn in contemplative silence. Terror had beset him as a child, and it would not let him go.

  Being a ghost hunter or paranormal investigator can be like standing in the middle of a war zone, a spiritual war zone that tolls casualties of the soul. If you lose control of yourself and surrender to fear, that fear will haunt you until you break physically, emotionally, and mentally. “I hope to one day write a book about it,” he said.

  I began to ask Bob about how belief plays into the paranormal. What I wondered was: if I’m sitting alone in my house and a book that appeared otherwise stable fell off its designated shelf, should I think “ghost” or just odd coincidence? Do the people who tend to believe that it was a ghost lead themselves down a dangerous path of skewed perception, thinking that everything in their life is somehow being influenced by the spiritual world?

  Bob explained that acknowledgement of entities empowers them; they play off fear and belief. Those who don’t believe in God or Satan are more easily susceptible to Satan’s works, as he can sneak into your life through the auspices of anonymity. Those who don’t believe in God are already susceptible to evil’s influence; however, those that do follow God are targeted by evil in an effort to break them down when they are at their weakest. And those who only believe in the spirit world but not in God are essentially playing with fire and opening themselves up to a myriad of forces beyond their comprehension. These are the people most susceptible to negative entities and hostile hauntings.

  To give me an example, he pulls up video on one of the laptops. Erin and Rich join us as Bob explains the situation. Tim, we shall call him, and his girlfriend were self-described Satanists, practicing and worshipping the anti-God. One night Tim saw something rise up from his neighbor’s chimney and flow into his body. He had, in essence, become possessed by a demon. He invited Bob to come to his home and try to help him. As Bob interviewed Tim he became aware that there was definitely something wrong. Tim didn’t appear normal. He kept nervously walking around the room, refusing to look at Bob, and becoming more and more agitated. When Bob explained to him that the only way he could be helped was to turn to God, Tim refused and stated that he didn’t believe in God. Bob apologized and told Tim that he would not be able to help him with this problem. The video on the computer, however, showed something very interesting. The camera was set in a corner of the room so that both Bob and Tim were visible during their conversation. Every time that Tim turned away from Bob, his eyes became big, black holes, which would then disappear when he faced Bob again. Erin and I watched the video several times over trying to see if it was somehow a glitch in the digital video recorder or some kind of play of light, but there was nothing we could find (not that we are experts, but just using common sense). It didn’t happen to anyone else in the video and it did not happen just once. It happened several times over and from different positions where Tim stood. It didn’t appear to be a play of shadow and light; rather, his eyes appeared to become deep, black holes, larger than his normal eyes. They seemed to create a cavity where once there were windows to the soul. Erin and I could not explain it rationally. “A demon’s eyes are black,” Bob told us. “Tim had invited us there hoping that the entity would attach itself to us and leave him, but it didn’t. He will be stuck with this for the rest of his life unless he gets help, but we can’t help him. The worst part, though, is that Tim and his girlfriend had a young child together.” I could see Bob’s child-safety consciousness shining through and began to wonder if maybe his profession as a child-proofer for new parents could be the result of his encounter when he was young.

  Bob and Rich went on to show us numerous photos. Some were like seeing the man in the moon—it’s there if you want it to be, but I couldn’t call it reality. Others were not so easy to dismiss; reflections of men in mirrors that were clearly not there, sinister faces appearing in windows and corners of rooms. They played for us electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) they had recorded in the house of a particularly distraught and haunted woman named Billie. EVP are voices and sounds that are recorded in empty rooms by voice recorders. Paranormal investigators believe that these recorders can pick up sounds and whispers not detected by the human ear or sounds that are whispered when no living person is there to hear them. Bob and Rich had left this recorder in a particular room of Billie’s house and then had left the room. What it recorded varied between what sounded like a car passing on a nearby highway to what sounded like multitudes of people crying and one particular bloodcurdling scream that erupted from nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. Some sounds I chalked
up to passing traffic; others I chalked up to “I don’t know what that was, but it didn’t sound good.”

  The saddest and most chilling piece of their evidence was a recording that was made of Billie herself sitting alone in a dark room of her house (her son had moved out because he couldn’t stand living in the house any longer). Billie is drinking and smoking a cigarette in the living room and she talks in the darkness to no one in a dead monotone voice. She sounded like the loneliest of the lonely, sad and intoxicated and barely alive anymore. But she spoke to something. “Was that you in the sunroom? I’ll put a paper bag on your head and cut out some eyeholes so we can talk. How many of you are there? Who is Nightmare Man? I don’t do anything because of you.” It sounded like the sad ramblings of a schizophrenic, but there were certain phrases such as “Nightmare Man” and her inquiry as to the number of them that particularly stood out as perhaps something more than mental illness. It was like the time Jesus asked the name of the spirit that had possessed the man at Gerasenes, and it replied, “We are Legion, for we are many.”5 That demon may have been Legion, but this one was Nightmare Man.

  During our drive home Erin and I discussed what we had seen and heard. I was particularly interested in her take on the recording of Billie. Erin had told me stories before from her work at the hospital, about children who see demons and witches coming after them, children scrambling on the ground and pointing to the ceiling, screaming in terror while there was nothing visible to any of the doctors, nurses, and mental health workers. She had described to me a young girl who, while talking with Erin, began trembling because there was a demon behind her, talking to her. These stories had always fascinated and frightened me and immediately conjured up the film The Sixth Sense in which a young boy could “see dead people.” But this wasn’t a film; it was real and documented, and nervous, frightened parents had turned to psychiatry to quiet their restless, haunted children.

  But I wondered, what if they can just see something that we can’t? What if these kids do have a sixth sense, like a dog that knows when its owner is about to have a seizure or the famous cat that stood outside the door of elderly nursing home residents just before they were about to die? What if psychiatry and drugs were just putting to sleep this part of the brain that allows them to see? Reality is basically the agreed-upon perception shared by the majority of the world, and the majority of the world appears to believe that visible ghosts and demons are not a part of reality. However, there are always people who have a different perception; people who think, function, and act differently from the majority—does this make their “reality” and experiences any less real?

  “The strangest thing,” Erin said, “was that she [Billie] appeared to be responding to external stimuli. She doesn’t sound schizophrenic, she certainly sounded depressed, but not psychotic or schizophrenic. It’s hard to say one way or the other.”

  Either way, if CPI could help her, who’s to argue?

  The night before I was to meet CPI at an investigation site, I was plagued by grotesque, somewhat vile dreams. Had all the research and curiosity caught up to me? Should I actually be worried? Everything that Bob and Rich had discussed with me had been serious, but serious in a cosmic, spiritual war sense. They operated in secret in a world that most people couldn’t imagine, wouldn’t believe, or would simply choose not to enter. Either way, that morning I was plagued by those dreams and one other rather mundane question: what do you wear to a paranormal investigation? For one, I wore the medals that Rich had sent me. I have said since the beginning of this work that I don’t believe one way or the other regarding the paranormal. I consider it journalistic integrity to not have all the answers but just to report—but better safe than sorry.

  Interestingly enough, my visit with CPI and a family that had been plagued by paranormal events occurred around the same time as a new horror film was being released, entitled The Haunting in Connecticut. It was based off Discovery’s A Haunting episode by the same name. The episode that appeared on Discovery was, by my own admission, fairly freaky. The Snedekers move to a house in Southington, Connecticut, that was the site of a former funeral home, only to beset upon by demonic forces so powerful that one of the investigators working with the Warrens quit the investigation after having a terrifying encounter with a fully formed demon. These demonic forces terrorized the family, forcing one older son into a psychiatric institution and terrifying two of the younger boys with late-night encounters with ethereal voices and haunting visions of the dead. After an exorcism by two priests, including Bishop McKenna, the Snedekers moved out, and in 1992 helped coauthor a book with the Warrens and horror novelist Ray Garton. They promoted the book on television talk shows and the house became an instant Amityville Horror, Connecticut style. The Snedekers no longer live in the home; they have moved to Tennessee to avoid the press. However, the current owners are not too happy with the infamy. They constantly endure onlookers and trespassers trying to get a view of a ghost or trying to get a piece of the house as a keepsake. The new owners have experienced nothing unusual and feel that the whole story is absolutely false, but still they must deal with the trespass of those who believe.

  So much of the paranormal is a combination of what you expect and what you don’t. The house we were investigating was not a sprawling Gothic mansion nor was it an isolated ancient farmhouse; but rather, it was a small cape located in a small suburb of Hartford on a steep hill lined with similar houses. It had a small, shrub-lined front yard; chopped wood was piled by the driveway, which held a late-model Infiniti J30. The back was a multilevel wood deck surrounding an aboveground pool. I really hadn’t expected a Gothic mansion, knowing how Hollywood loves to increase the amperage on any and all subject matter, but this was still not the typical haunted house. It wasn’t the Amityville Horror house with windows like eyes staring out into the night or the Connecticut Haunting house, formerly a funeral home housing the dead. In fact, strange as it may sound, it seemed a bit small to house spirits; I mean, they at least need room to haunt, right?

  Outside the house was a small, thin, scruffy man smoking a cigarette and walking a pint-sized dog in the yard. I introduced myself and told him I was there to meet Bob and Rich. He showed me inside and introduced himself as Joe, one of the owners. Inside I am greeted by the small yapping barks of four Chihuahuas and by Joe’s wife Kathy, who greets me at the door. Kathy is short and blunt, with an animated look to her that you can read like a book. She is of a particular breed of people who wear their emotions on their sleeve; one can see her thoughts splash across her face, but always with a tenacity that says she is ready to fight for those thoughts. A person who isn’t concerned what the world may think of her. I shake her hand and she smiles at me; her teeth are decayed and some are missing, but she is genuinely happy to see me and open with her home.

  The inside is surprisingly roomy and immaculately cleaned, decorated with an art deco flash mixed with a real-world, blue-collar sensibility. At a time when oil concerns are at their highest, the living room has a wood-burning stove that heats the house and would probably be featured in a Better Homes magazine. Perhaps Joe and Kathy have shocked my stereotype mindset with the interior of their home, but I find myself constantly taking note of all the little details and intricacies of their furnishings: marble countertops, hardwood floors, free-standing shelves with pictures in custom frames. I keep waiting to turn the corner and see two sober intellectuals reading Kant, but Joe and Kathy are more Lynyrd Skynyrd than Bach.

  Bob is seated at the dining room table with his laptop flipped open, examining a photo taken of an orb that manifested in a picture directly above their newest team member—a pretty, mystic-looking woman named Rose who has a shock of white in her otherwise auburn hair. Bob introduces me to her and tells me that she is “clairvoyant”—in other words, she has a special sensibility regarding the spirit world. Bob sits me down and shows me several pictures of the manifesting orb. “You can see it gathering energy from around the room,” he
says as he points out smaller dots of light that seem to be moving in the direction of the orb. “It needs to gather energy to manifest itself.” He then focuses in on the orb and again points out the face and what appears to be an arm. “This is a demon,” he explains, “that’s what we have here in this house.”

  Richard, on the other hand, is playing with the dogs, giving them treats and trying to calm their jitters. Joe and Kathy are standing in the kitchen talking with Rose, and I overhear a bit of conversation that catches my attention—something about one of her daughters being diagnosed as schizophrenic. I explain to Joe and Kathy why I’m here and what I’m researching and then begin to inquire about their story. I begin asking them about their daughter who was diagnosed with a mental illness. “She doesn’t actually have schizophrenia,” Kathy said. “She called me weeks ago from her father’s house and told me that she stopped taking her medicine a long time ago. She told me that she isn’t sick; it’s just this house that is the problem. She hasn’t heard any voices since she left.”