Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown

by Stefan Petrucha

  Meanwhile, coexecutive producer Alan LaGarde, along with other crew members, had moved to State College to get things prepared for the series. It was already strange knowing we were going to be followed around by a documentary crew. It was even more bizarre knowing that ten to fifteen people would be living nearby for four months because of us.

  I first met Alan at a restaurant in downtown State College. He originally came from news broadcasting, which reassured me that they were looking for authenticity. I learned later that in his early twenties, he’d run an entire news station. That was something I could identify with. I’ve often found myself reminded how young I am to be an authority figure. After all, there I was, a twenty-three-year-old among seasoned filmmakers, producers, and crew in their forties. Alan had a professorial air and a genuine ability to listen. I felt like I had a mentor in him, someone I could go to for honest advice.

  As for the cases, most didn’t pan out, but we did find a few that seemed worth hitting the road to examine further. A scout team went out, consisting of: Alan; our “test” cameraman, David Miller, now a coexecutive producer; our new adviser, Joyce; and me.

  At one point we thought we had our first case. It involved a woman and her dilapidated home near Harrisburg. When she called us, she was crying, really frightened. There was an empty apartment in her house, where she heard footsteps and voices. I think it was a blessing that she eventually got cold feet and dropped out. It was a pretty dull case. Looking back, we easily explained most of the phenomena. At the time, though, we were under the gun and really upset.

  Next we scouted a case in Pittsburgh. The woman, who’d attended UNIV-CON, was very cool, but while the activity had been intense about ten years ago, the most recent was minor, and months old. During our last conversation, though, she said she felt her house was haunted because her entire family was cursed.

  “Even my sister is haunted,” she said.

  I asked what she meant and she went on in incredible detail about what was taking place at her sister Helen’s home. Helen Isenberg lived in Blairsville, near Pittsburgh, which was on the way back to State College. With nothing really to lose, we decided to pay her a visit.

  Once I saw the location, I didn’t need any further convincing. I know I’m blowing my own horn, but there’s a certain gut instinct all good investigators have. Helen’s house was down a lonely road in the middle of farmland. Across from it were several acres of corn stalks withering before the coming winter. The house itself stood on a large plot of land. The only other structure in sight was a neighboring house Helen also owned. I just knew we had a great investigation on our hands.

  I also immediately recognized Helen. Like her sister, she’d attended UNIV-CON. Due to her experiences in the house, she had an avid interest in the paranormal. She and her son, Justin, had come to the conference to learn more.

  Helen had a motherly quality. She seemed kindhearted, sincere, and loving, but her face was etched with pain. Her youngest son, Chris, had passed way six months earlier from a drug overdose, in May, on Mother’s Day. The property also had a history: A man had once drowned in the pond there.

  She claimed the second house was the epicenter of the activity, so we toured that first. The family had originally lived there, until she opened up an assisted-living business for the handicapped. When the business needed more space, they’d moved to the other house.

  But here she said they’d seen shadow people, objects had levitated, and doors had slammed. The house was used for foster care. She’d taken on foster children from the state, providing a sort of halfway shelter until the kids found a home. Many refused to stay in the house alone because of their experiences. Some even claim to have been attacked.

  Her late son Chris, in particular, had seen the shadow figure often and called him the Dark Man.

  All this happened over the course of several years. Children came and went. The house would sit empty until a new group arrived. Helen felt that this proved it wasn’t just the children passing down stories to scare the newcomers. She was convinced something evil was present, and worried it might have kept Chris from moving on. I wondered what made her think that, but she was very hesitant to elaborate.

  After spending a few hours with her, I could tell she was withholding things. Having a client hold information back wasn’t new. It’s actually common. People are afraid they won’t be believed about more extreme activity. There are also often big emotional issues involved that are tough to admit to, and family secrets as well. With Helen, I got the sense this went beyond a simple fear of being embarrassed. There was something more going on here, and the challenge of trying to find out what it was excited the hell out of me. Furthermore, I was convinced that Helen’s belief that the house was haunted was genuine.

  I was sympathetic to her pain, but as we left, I got in the car smiling. We had our first case.

  STANDARD EQUIPMENT

  Our producers use their own cameras and microphones, but PRS has always tried to document cases ourselves. Over time, the equipment available to us has become more sophisticated, but it generally consists of the following:

  Camcorders: Team documentarian Heather Taddy always uses one for interviews and general coverage, but other team members sometimes use them during investigations, particularly in large sites where our stand-alone cameras can’t cover everything.

  Audio Recorders: Aside from interviews, phone conversations, and director’s logs, audio records are used during EVP sessions, where we attempt to contact spirits. Sometimes what seem to be responses are only heard on playback, while other times, sounds we hear at the time don’t appear to record at all.

  Monitor System: To cover as much of a site as possible, PRS uses several stationary video cameras that are wired to a central set of monitors in whatever location has been established as our technical headquarters. The camera feeds are recorded via computer hard drive. Serg keeps track of these during Dead Time, but they generally run for the length of our investigation.

  Walkie-talkies: During Dead Time, everyone is in communication using walkie-talkies.

  Motion Detectors: These devices, often used in security systems, flash a light when something in range moves. We’ll typically set these up in areas where there’s been a lot of reported activity. In several episodes, during Dead Time, they’ve gone off when nothing visible (as documented by our cameras) was present.

  Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Detectors: This handheld device measures levels of electromagnetic radiation. Common household items from radios to refrigerators always generate an EMF. Normally, these aren’t dangerous, but high levels have been shown to influence the electrochemistry of the brain, causing disorientation and other feelings that can be mistaken for paranormal activity. If electrical causes are eliminated, it’s a possible indication of a supernatural presence.

  Thermal Cam: Rather than light waves, this visually records temperature differences. In an episode from a later season, “The Glove,” the thermal cam revealed a handprint on the wall, even though we’d documented through surveillance that no one had placed their hand on that spot.

  Chapter 5

  Finding My Footing in a Rocking Boat

  So you’re asking a pagan to cover for a Catholic?

  In the days leading up to the first shoot, more and more people trickled in to State College. Aside from the crew, producers from NYC and LA arrived to oversee the production. With twenty or thirty extra people running around, it was overwhelming, not to mention crowded.

  The first day of filming went by in a daze. The first official “scene” involved Sergey, my dog, Xander, and myself. Neighbors near the townhouse I rented on Marjorie Mae Street gathered to wonder why twenty filmmakers had descended to film us playing catch with the dog. Everyone was very good about the commotion, aside from an aspiring filmmaker neighbor, who suddenly stopped talking to me the moment the show was announced.

  As they filmed, the producers asked about the upcoming investigation, and my thoug
hts on our trainees, Heather and Katrina. The footage didn’t make it into the episode, but I did get to see it. It’s interesting to see now how we looked back then.

  Later that day, we filmed the briefing at the Penn State HUB building. Production wasn’t the only group with a lot of people. Usually, PRS had five investigators for a case, but here we had eight. Several members of the “old” PRS crew were there, including Ryan Heiser and Lance Cooksing.

  Lance was a well-liked, very social guy with a great sense of humor, who’d joined along with his best friend. He was going through his own spiritual evolution and eventually converted to Catholicism.

  Ryan Heiser, who also appears in “The Devil in Syracuse,” is titled in that episode by his last name to avoid confusion. He was well-rounded, and also very religious, part of the Newman Group, a Catholic organization. We weren’t terribly close, but he asked my advice once, while he was debating whether to continue with his political science major, or to join the priesthood. He’d always struck me as someone keenly interested in a spiritual path, so that’s what I suggested—and what he chose.

  If, even in slight way, working with PRS or talking to me helped him make that decision, it makes me feel good. Being a priest was something I’d considered. I thought the priesthood could use someone who’d seen what I’d seen—and remained open-minded. Now, in a way, I didn’t need to go that route, because Ryan would.

  He also helped with a bad taste I had for religion when my friendship with Adam ended. I remember shortly before we got the green light for the pilot, investigating a haunted boat in Philly with Ryan. We got to talking about the fact that I couldn’t accept that all paranormal activity was demonic. Because he was open, accepted my opinion, and still wanted to go into the priesthood, it helped me.

  So I get very sentimental whenever I see “Dark Man” and “Sixth Sense.” We were a great team, together for a long while, and I’m saddened by the lost opportunity. Had the series started six months earlier, I’d have had more experienced people to work with. By fall 2006, many were preparing to graduate and had to leave the group to focus on school. As we filmed that briefing, I realized PRS was changing. I was embarking on a new adventure with new faces.

  I told everyone about Helen’s late son, Chris, who reported seeing a dark man, or a dark shadow, and how she worried that his spirit was trapped by whatever was there. People didn’t want to stay in this house, Helen said, and activity happened every night. She was also worried about her surviving son, Justin. Paranormal or not, she needed help moving on from her grief and fear.

  The next day, bright and early, we headed to Blairsville. As usual, I called the client during the drive, only this time a cameraman was covering me. Apparently, when Helen told Justin we were coming, it freaked him out. I wasn’t clear what upset him, but it seemed he was experiencing things he hadn’t even shared with his mother.

  As we reached the house, it was like arriving on a film set for a horror movie, creepy and isolated. As an investigator, that was exciting, but things were about to get very different in ways that weren’t quite as interesting. For the pilot, the crew had just hung back. The process had suddenly become more earnest, and I had no idea what to expect.

  Four Seasons International and Go Go Luckey were our production companies. They did Laguna Beach and The Hills. They were famous for changing the way documentary TV was made. Their work was very cinematic, but . . . they’d never done anything involving the paranormal before. We were totally new to each other, and things would have to be worked out along the way.

  The second I got out of my car, a producer I didn’t know rushed up to ask what I was doing.

  “Going to see my client.”

  “We need you to wait until the cameras are rolling so we can film it.”

  About forty-five minutes later I was dozing off in the car when the same producer tapped at the window. I was taken to a production van, miked, then brought to a production meeting to discuss the day and the flow of shooting with the director.

  “So . . . how long until we start investigating?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes tops?” another producer said.

  At the first meeting, they wanted to hear my plan for the day so they could prepare to document the investigation. What would I do at 5:00 P.M., 5:15 P.M.? How would Dead Time be set up? Who would be where? They also had suggestions.

  “Maybe you and Joyce should have a discussion about the case before going in?”

  “What about having Katrina do an interview?”

  I was used to working with a notepad and a gut instinct. Between all the comments, schedule charts, walkie-talkies, and monitors, I felt like screaming. How could I break down the day? You can’t schedule the unknown. Glimpsing something paranormal is always a shot in the dark. Production, though, needed some idea of what to do so they could set up shots and figure out when to give their crew breaks.

  I tried my best to give them what they needed. After all, it was as if we were starting together all over again. I think it was an hour before I was told to go to the front door and ring. Helen was waiting.

  Once we were settled in the kitchen, I began the interview. She told me that Chris, born in 1987, started seeing what he called the Dark Man at five years old, but the experience lasted his entire life. She said that Justin would know more about that. As she explained that it was Justin who’d found Chris’s body, she choked up.

  I gently asked about the drug overdose.

  “It was prom weekend,” Helen said. “He was really tired and couldn’t sleep, so someone had given him something. He went to his room, must have taken it, and just never woke up.” On Mother’s Day morning, she went in to wake him up, but didn’t realize he was dead until Justin tried to rouse him.

  I repeated my question for her from our first meeting. Why did she think he was still there?

  She explained she’d had a dream where she saw him, and his eyes had gone all dark.

  “That is not my son,” she told herself. “That is not my son.”

  Helen wasn’t convinced anything paranormal was going on. She just wanted to make sure her son wasn’t there, that he was at rest. I had the sense there was more going on here, but I didn’t know yet what it was.

  After that interview, our new adviser, Joyce, asked Helen about Justin, why he was upset we were there. She explained he did believe in the paranormal, but didn’t want to be involved. “He’s afraid something might happen.”

  As I tried to get my bearings on the case, the producers asked Joyce and me to sit down to discuss the interview. As we did, they kept stopping us, asking us to talk about this or that, discussions they felt they’d need for the edit. I tried to stay focused, but I wasn’t used to any of this. It got to a point where I wasn’t saying anything that was on my mind.

  I don’t think for a minute they intended to be disorienting. Like me, they wanted a great investigation. But it was too much for me. My thinking was getting fuzzy.

  Finally, Alan asked us to follow him out to the old front porch.

  “I can tell all this input is distracting you,” he said. “Just go back in there and do whatever it is you want to do. We’re just here to follow you. All right?”

  I couldn’t describe how thankful I was. “Sounds great.”

  Things got easier for me after that. We split up into teams to tour the site and hear about the different phenomena reported over the years. Helen took me to a room with an old Victrola, explaining how one night it started playing by itself. Katrina and Heiser spoke with Ray, Helen’s husband. The death must have been hard on him as well, but he didn’t show us much emotion or care to interact, which of course we respected. He did describe hearing heavy breathing, and footsteps. Whenever he went to check out a strange sound, there’d be nothing there. “It’s always like hide and seek,” he said.

  In the basement, Helen explained they’d had some activity in a small room. Her friend Delores was grabbed around the arm there. Delores later told Joyce
and Eilfie that the resulting mark started as a sort of hole, and then became a rash. She also reported that a man had drowned in the pond on the property.

  I’d heard that story when we first spoke to Helen. Then she’d told me that a patient of hers, suffering from severe schizophrenia, committed suicide on the property. Repeating the story for us on-camera, Helen described him as quiet and a little intimidating. He also had a box he kept with him at all times. It was never out of his sight. What was in it? She had no idea. One night, he left his bed and drowned himself in the pond. His box went missing at the same time.

  Ray described the weather at the time, saying it was a drought season, so someone wanting to drown himself would have had to walk to the center of the pond.

  “And he wanted to take that walk,” he said.

  This was around the time Chris was five years old, the same age his experiences began, according to Helen. I asked if she felt if the entity was related to the suicide.

  “I don’t know. It seems to fit in, but I don’t know.”

  I pushed for more information about this patient, but Helen was reluctant.

  Originally, we planned to hire a diver to go down to the bottom of the pond and search for the box. That was a great investigatory opportunity that was now affordable thanks to the show. It was less than twenty feet deep, so I had high hopes we’d find it. At the last minute, though, Helen decided against it. She never gave us a reason.

  I felt confident the clients were being truthful about their experiences, but there seemed to be something else going on. There had to be something more to this Dark Man and its relationship with Chris. Could Helen’s patient have abused Chris, either physically or mentally? Unfortunately, we never found out, but there were things we could research.

  To verify the timing of Chris’s experiences, I asked Eilfie if she’d found any records of the suicide. She had found one, a vague newspaper account, and the article did have a date. If it were correct, the death did occur when Chris was five—the same year he began seeing the Dark Man.