Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown

by Stefan Petrucha

  Cemetery caretaker Matt Franson likens himself to the boatman, who carries the dead across the river Styx. In Greek mythology, the ferryman is named Charon, or Kharon. It was a tradition to put a coin in the mouth or on the lips of the dead, to pay the ferryman. Charon would then take them across the river that divides the world of the living from Hades, the world of the dead. People buried without coins were believed to have to wait on the shores of the river Styx for a hundred years.

  Roman poets called the river Styx, but the Greeks and later Dante in his Divine Comedy, refer to the river as Acheron.

  Chapter 7

  The Best-Laid Plans

  “I’m going to tell you something about me I’ve never told anyone before.”

  Once we finished with “The Cemetery,” it was time for Thanksgiving. For the first time since we started, we had two weeks off from the show and school. I went to a great vacation in warm, sunny Puerto Rico and came back rested and relaxed. It turned out I’d need that extra calm for our next case. While it wasn’t the most mysterious, it wound up being the biggest pain of the season. Ultimately, the investigation had to be abandoned. The episode sat on a shelf for months until we could figure out what to do with it.

  It began with a lot of promise. Lauren, a Penn State freshman, had approached PRS about an apparition that she and her friends had seen in her dorm room. She’d been regularly playing a spirit game called 100 Candles that seemed related to the activity.

  The game, which has a rich history, is played at night in a room lit by a hundred candles. Each player takes a turn telling a ghost story. After each story, the teller blows out a candle. After one hundred stories are told, the players are left in complete darkness, supposedly surrounded by one hundred spirits. Even though Lauren said she was really frightened, she didn’t want to stop playing. For me, this should have been my first warning sign. Most clients, in my experience, who frighten themselves into a problem, then refuse to step away, aren’t really taking the situation seriously.

  I was on the lookout for special cases for the show, and this one sounded like it would provide a good opportunity to explore an issue that interested me: how certain games can open up doorways that people aren’t prepared to deal with. I’d been interested in that ever since learning that the true story behind The Exorcist (book and film) involved such a game. There, a spirit board was at the center of a possession.

  With Lauren on her own, away from home for the first time, there was also a strong emotional aspect. The fact that it was right there on campus was also appealing. I was thinking this would be another laid-back shoot, like “The Cemetery,” where we could focus more on the case. Wrong.

  The trouble began right after we shot the case briefing in the school library. Serg told me he wanted to drop out of the case to study for his midterms. He was one of our main cast members, so I didn’t know what to do with that. Heather and Katrina weren’t available in some of the later episodes, but Serg’s absence was the first. And I felt it was way too early for someone to sit out.

  Apparently it concerned the producers, too. They even filmed Serg studying—which didn’t make it into the final cut, for obvious reasons. Unless a ghost was looking over his shoulder, I don’t imagine it was very interesting.

  As it turned out, that issue was nothing. After one day, our client bailed out completely.

  During my initial interview with Lauren, she did seem impressionable to me, that she was someone who frightened easily. She described how she woke up one night and saw a woman sitting on her roommate’s bed. The woman shook her head, and then disappeared. About a month later, it was back, propped up on its elbows, looking at Lauren.

  Some of her friends reported similar experiences. One said they saw a face in the window. Another, Matt, claimed he caught a glimpse of a white wispy form in the corner of his eye. It vanished as soon he turned to look at it. Lauren said she was at a point where she wanted to change to a new room.

  Despite the descriptions, I had reason to think there might not be too much to this. Like many freshmen, Lauren had been on a haunted tour of the campus, which detailed all the purported ghosts and spooky locations at Penn State. Add to that the candle game, and they were creating a very spooky atmosphere for themselves. Still, her fear was real, and I related to the fact that her parents didn’t believe her.

  If this game was scaring her, why keep playing? Then again, lots of people who can’t sleep for days after seeing a horror movie will go back and watch another. The rush of adrenaline is exciting. In this case, Lauren was also under social pressure in a new environment.

  By now I was more accustomed to planning out the days with production. After the client interviews, we’d have a psychic visit. This is actually the first time we used a psychic on the show in person. I was introduced to Shaurie by one of the producers, and although she seemed very nice, I didn’t feel that she was the right fit for this case. To be honest, I don’t think a psychic at all was the right fit for the case, which I’ll explain later. That night we’d play the game ourselves, then go back to Lauren’s room for Dead Time.

  Before we took the case, one of our producers, Autumn, whom I trust very much, made it clear to Lauren that we’d need her for the entire weekend.

  For some reason, though, once things got started, Lauren seemed to think we’d only talk to her once or twice, take a look at her room, and that’d be it. When we tried scheduling her for a particular time, she became upset. She complained that she wanted to go over to a friend’s for a sleepover to watch a Dexter marathon. I was a little perplexed when I heard this. “Doesn’t she say that this is a terrifying experience for her and that she can’t sleep in her dorm? If that’s the case, then why does it feel like she couldn’t care less what we do?” I vented to Eilfie.

  In my years running PRS, I’ve had similar experiences. I’m sure anyone who’s put together a club or organization, especially in college, runs into the same sort of thing. Some people say they want to be involved, say they’re serious, and then drop out.

  To be fair, she was our youngest client to date. (We’d worked with children, like Matthew in “Sixth Sense,” but there the clients were his parents.) I assume she was feeling social and emotional pressure and just really not equipped to handle the commitment. Obviously I no longer hold any grudge toward Lauren and hope she’s doing well, but I gotta tell you, at the time, man, I was pissed.

  Though Lauren did not appear in the sequence, we went on with the psychic walk-through. It wasn’t a standard part of the show yet. Our first nine episodes have no regular psychic. Shaurie came in from Pittsburgh and before the case, she gave me a reading that to be quite honest, was completely off. Nevertheless, I had agreed to try her out.

  Concerning this case, Shaurie did have some hits. Eilfie took her to the second floor of the dormitory for a walk-through. With the cooperation of some students, there were five or six empty dorms. No one told her where Lauren’s room was, but eventually she chose it. Inside the room, Shaurie sensed there’d been a death involving a female. That’s not particularly impressive. It was a girl’s dorm and she knew it was supposedly haunted. It’s kind of like walking into a grocery store and sensing food.

  More specifically, though, Shaurie “saw” a maroon car and two young men named Michael and John. The implication was that these guys had driven off with the girl and there’d been a car accident in which the girl died.

  To follow up on that possibility, Heather, Katrina, and Eilfie headed to the local police station and did a computer search for any accident involving the names or the car color. Nothing came up. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, I suppose. The accident could have been older than the database—but for us it was likely a dead end.

  By the time they returned, it was dark enough to play 100 Candles with the team. Our setting wasn’t ideal—a forest near the campus, surrounded by cameramen—but it was still fun.

  Katrina told how one night, as a child, her sister saw a girl on Katri
na’s bed who looked exactly like her. When she went downstairs, Katrina was already there. They went back to check, but the bed was empty.

  Josh described a night when he was out driving—he tends to drive fast—and out of the corner of his eye saw an elderly woman crossing the street. She wasn’t just any old woman; she was glowing blue. Seeing the apparition made him slow down. A few seconds later, he missed hitting a herd of deer that leapt across the road in front of him. If he hadn’t slowed down, the crash could’ve killed him.

  I shared two of my experiences. One was seeing a grinning monster at the foot of my bed. I began the second story by saying, “I’m going to tell you something about me I’ve never told anyone before.” As a kid I had a bunk bed and my brother Jordan slept on the bottom. One night, I heard someone very clearly in the bed below, counting, “one . . . two . . . three . . .” When I looked, there was no one there.

  Between us, we told ten to fifteen stories. They were all short, but each had shape: a beginning, a middle, and a surprising ending. Even in a few sentences, they got that spooky feeling across. It doesn’t take much. The shortest ghost story in the world, well-known among horror writers, is only one sentence: The last living man in the world was sitting on his sofa when a knock came at the door.

  Despite the cameras and the campus lights, the atmosphere did get a bit creepy. I could see the game’s appeal, but nothing particularly unusual happened.

  While we were playing our game, back in the dorms the case was about to fall apart. Our psychic, Shaurie, sat down with Lauren and gave her a reading. She told her about the death she’d sensed in the room. In response, Lauren burst into tears. She was absolutely terrified.

  I sat down to talk with Lauren. She still seemed very stressed out. Yes, she said, she was upset about the psychic, but she was also upset about school, her boyfriend, and all the things she wanted to do that weekend, which she felt we were taking her away from. At that moment, I wanted to yell at her, tell her that she was the one who invited us there in the first place. Before the investigation started, we explained the process in detail. But during the entire time we were there, it seemed as if she were expecting us to come in for an hour, use our proton packs to sweep up the ghosts and be out of her hair in time for her TV marathon sleepover.

  I was in college very recently, so I got it. But college is also about taking responsibility for one’s actions. In Lauren’s case, she was spending time playing occult games for the thrill of being scared. The problem was, the game may have worked and she invited something in. She wanted it gone, but was hoping it would mean not having to face any consequences or hard work.

  In thirteen years as a paranormal investigator, I have seen this type of client over and over. They want you to take care of their problems as quickly and as conveniently as possible. But they’re not actually willing to put any work into correcting the mistake themselves. As we say in PRS, we can only help a client if they’re willing to help themselves. She wasn’t yet ready to tackle the problems, so I realized there was very little we could do to help her at that time.

  We’d wanted to do a Dead Time with her in her room and then play 100 Candles with her. The idea was that we could talk her through the process, maybe make it a little less creepy. But because it became such an issue, we decided the best thing to do was back off the case.

  The next day, I did speak with Lauren once more. After a night’s sleep, in the light of day, she said she felt better. In fact, she no longer wanted to switch rooms. When I asked why, she explained that she tended to run away from her problems and now decided to face them. So that was a positive result.

  As far as the apparitions went, they could well have been caused by anxiety, but I didn’t know for certain and wanted to err on the side of believing her. Since the game was the source of a lot of her fear, or at least that’s where she was projecting it, I cautioned her to stay away from it.

  Meanwhile, we’d decided to start working with Jamie Hernandez, a counselor whom I’d met at UNIV-CON. Rather than comment on the case, her role would be more to support the clients emotionally. So, after I spoke with Lauren, she met with Jamie.

  There was some concern that Jamie looked too young to be our “older person,” but I always felt she was amazing. We all did. She was very empathetic, very helpful to the clients. In the end, it didn’t matter. After the first season, she became pregnant and moved on. I’m only sorry she’s not in more episodes.

  In a very short while, Jamie managed to talk Lauren through her feelings and help her feel more empowered and safe in her room. By way of good-bye, I gave Lauren a St. Benedictine medal and told her we’d be there if she ever needed us.

  And that was it. Lauren dropped out of any further shooting. As of the time of this writing, I never saw nor heard from Lauren again. One of my investigators did do a follow-up with her a couple years after the case. She reported that things were fine and that she had moved past that time in her life. That made me feel good. Wherever she is now, I hope she has a wonderful and haunting-free life.

  At the time none of us had any idea what else to do, so we moved on to the next case. Two months later, in February, after I saw a rough cut of the episode, we realized there just wasn’t enough to make it work. Fortunately, with all that time to think about it, I’d had an idea.

  Since the case had taken place on campus, and had a ghost story theme, rather than focus on Lauren, why not open it up and make it about all the things students were afraid of? We could check out the truth behind campus ghost legends and even talk about some of my early cases with PRS.

  As a result, we wound up shooting a lot more sequences. For example, the episode begins with me on a phone interview with the media talking about my motives for becoming a paranormal investigator.

  To get more into the nature of ghost stories, I interviewed Penn State professor Simon Bronner, an expert in urban legends. He had an absolutely awesome house. I remember the basement had a huge library, with a big desk covered with old books.

  He put our 100 Candle ghost stories in the context of urban legends, which are similar to myths and folklore, only modern-day. Basically, it’s a local story told over and over and believed to be true. More often than not, they’re complete fiction, but every now and then they have a germ of truth.

  A university, he explained, is a perfect place for urban legends to thrive. Every year a new, large population moves in and has to figure out how to live in an environment that’s basically unknown to them. The stories, mostly told by freshmen, give them a place to put their fears and concerns. Sharing them with other new people gives them an opportunity to bond.

  I thought the whole idea of communally shared stories was a great opportunity to use Heather’s documentary skills. She went out and interviewed all sorts of students about the campus ghost stories they’d heard. The same tales came up again and again, with small variations. Watching the collected clips really creates the sense that these legends are a strong part of the campus culture.

  The most popular was, and is, the legend of Frances Atherton, wife of former university president, George Atherton. Mr. Atherton was buried on campus outside Schwab Auditorium. Since his wife isn’t buried beside him, a rumor spread that her bones were kept in the attic of the building across from it, Old Botany. Stand by Atherton’s grave at midnight, and look up at Old Botany, the story goes, and you’ll see Mrs. Atherton peering down at him from the window.

  I decided to check it out, and see if we could find those bones. Built in 1887, Old Botany is one of the oldest academic buildings on campus. These days it’s an administration building. Part of the rumor is that there is no access to the attic, and that it was sealed off. At first this seemed true. The campus employees I spoke to had no idea how to get up there. There wasn’t even an attic on their floor plans.

  As we were filming, though, we caught a lucky break. Someone listening in came up and said, “No, the attic entrance is in one of the offices.”

  I f
ollowed him to the office and there it was, an entrance in the ceiling right above a bookshelf. We thought about getting permission, or at least help to move the shelf, but I said, “Screw this, I’m going up there to take a look!”

  I climbed up on this professor’s bookshelf, got into the attic and . . . nope, no bones. Scratch one part of that urban legend.

  I thought it was the perfect place for Dead Time, though. It had a great atmosphere, and there were other stories about activity. While I don’t think Frances Atherton was there, our experiences that night made me think somebody else was.

  Early on, I felt blasted by heat. Shortly after, Josh, trying to speak to any spirits present, asked, “Can you make this lantern go out?”

  And the lantern died.

  Just as we’re examining the lantern, my headset gave off some loud, wild static. Then it also died. We’ve had batteries drain in a few locations, but here, it seemed to happen in response to a direct question, making it pretty dramatic.

  I’ve never found an explanation, but Old Botany remains a good source for activity. It’s so “reliable” that at UNIV-CON the last few years we’ve held public sessions there with consistent success. Aside from inexplicable hot and cold spots and recorded voices, in September 2008 one of our guest investigators, Chad Calek, psychic Chip Coffey, and I were in the basement there with about twenty-five UNIV-CON attendees. Behind Chad was a narrow room, almost like a tunnel. It was empty, but all of us definitely heard something moving back there.

  I sometimes wonder if it’s an area where spirits congregate because they know we’re trying to contact them.

  The ghostly legends of Penn State provided the perfect backdrop to talk about the early PRS cases, since they took place on campus. I’ve already discussed the Cindy Song case, which first gave us national attention, and one of our very first investigations, involving Betsy Aardsma, who’d been killed in the Pattee Library.

  When we went back for this episode, five years later, we asked if we could investigate again at the library, but the school turned us down. They’d let us film there, but only if we didn’t mention Betsy Aardsma. For whatever reason the library didn’t want the building to have the reputation of being haunted. Maybe it was the permanent marker those witches had drawn on the floor.