May 15, 2026

Real-Life Hauntings & Terrifying True Stories: Bloody Mary, Sleep Paralysis, Poltergeist Curse & Room 1046

Real-Life Hauntings & Terrifying True Stories: Bloody Mary, Sleep Paralysis, Poltergeist Curse & Room 1046
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(00:00:00) Real-Life Hauntings & Terrifying True Stories: Bloody Mary, Sleep Paralysis, Poltergeist Curse & Room 1046
(00:00:14) Introduction to Chilling Tales
(00:11:18) Unraveling Bloody Mary
(00:19:56) The Haunting of Sleep Paralysis
(00:37:17) The Poltergeist Film Curse
(00:53:10) The Mystery of Room 1046
(01:11:54) The History of Chain Letters
(01:27:38) Chain Letters and Their Legacy
(01:27:53) The Corpsewood Manor Murders
(01:43:49) The Herrmann Poltergeist Case
(01:59:40) The Media Frenzy Begins
(02:15:07) The Poltergeist's Final Show
(02:38:22) The Legacy of the Herrmann Case
(02:41:51) Conclusion: Fear and Folklore

Terrifying & True returns with a special collection of the most memorable real horror stories, urban legends, unsolved mysteries, paranormal cases, cursed media, and disturbing true crime covered on the show. This first compilation gathers seven chilling topics that all circle the same terrifying question: what happens when a story becomes too powerful to stay only a story?

From childhood mirror rituals to medical nightmares, from Hollywood curse legends to baffling hotel murders, from viral chain-letter fear to a brutal crime twisted by Satanic Panic, these episodes explore the strange borderland where folklore, fear, rumor, tragedy, and real documented events collide.

Inside this special Terrifying & True collection:
• Bloody Mary — A deep dive into the mirror-summoning urban legend, tracing the myth through Queen Mary I, Mary Worth, Elizabeth Bathory, sleepover folklore, and the fear of what might stare back from the glass.
• Sleep Paralysis — The terrifying real phenomenon of waking up frozen, unable to move or scream, while shadow figures, “old hag” entities, and nightmare hallucinations seem to enter the room.
• The Poltergeist Film Curse — A look at the tragic legacy surrounding the Poltergeist films, including real human skeleton props, on-set incidents, and the heartbreaking deaths that fueled one of horror cinema’s most famous curse legends.
• Room 1046 — The bizarre unsolved murder of Artemus Ogletree, who checked into a Kansas City hotel under the name Roland T. Owen and was later found tortured, dying, and surrounded by unanswered questions.
• The History of Chain Letters — From ancient curse letters and religious warnings to dime-letter schemes, internet spam, “share or die” posts, and viral fear, this episode uncovers why people keep passing threats and promises forward.
• The 1982 Murders at Corpsewood Manor — The disturbing true crime case of Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom, whose isolated Georgia home, occult imagery, and brutal murders became tangled in media sensationalism, Satanic Panic, homophobia, and local legend.
• The Herrmann Family Poltergeist Case — The famous 1958 Long Island haunting where bottles popped open, objects flew, investigators arrived, and a quiet suburban house became the center of one of America’s most discussed poltergeist cases.

Together, these stories form a haunted chain of belief: say the name, wake in the dark, fear the curse, enter the locked room, forward the warning, judge the outsiders, and finally watch the house itself come alive. This is a collection about the stories we inherit, the fears we spread, and the mysteries that refuse to die quietly.

This is Terrifying & True: a special collection of real-life horror, paranormal legends, unsolved crimes, cursed stories, and the strange history behind the things that still keep us up at night.

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🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
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The scariest stories are not always the ones whispered around campfires.

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Sometimes they begin as a childhood dare in a dark

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bathroom mirror. Sometimes they come in the middle of the night,

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when your eyes open, your body won't move, and something

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impossible seems to be standing beside your bed. Sometimes they're

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born on movie sets, inside hotel rooms, in isolated mansions,

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or in ordinary suburban homes, where bottles pop open, furniture moves,

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and witnesses swear they saw the impossible happen. And sometimes

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the horror isn't supernatural at all. Sometimes it's human cruelty, rumor, panic, greed, obsession,

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and the terrible things people do when fear gives them permission. Tonight,

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we're opening the case files on some of the most

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unforgettable stories from terrifying and true urban legends, real life hauntings,

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cursed films, unsolved mysteries, and true crimes that feel like

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they were written by nightmares. From Bloody Mary to Sleep Paralysis,

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from the Poltergeist Curse to Room one oh four six,

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from chain Letters to Corpsewood Manor, and finally to one

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of America's strangest real Poultergeist cases. These are the stories

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that remind us the line between legends and reality is

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thinner than we want to believe, and once fear crosses

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that line, it rarely comes back alone. So get cozy

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and we'll start with Bloody Mary. The legend of Bloody

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Mary is one of those eerie tales that has been

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whispered in schoolyards and at sleepovers for generations. You might

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remember hearing it as a child, the same story now

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circulating among your younger siblings and relatives. Rooted in a

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blend of urban myths and folklore, It's said that if

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you dare to stand before a mirror in the dark,

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enchant Bloody Mary three times, or sometimes thirteen for the

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particularly daring, the specter of a woman may appear. This

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isn't just an apple. She's often described as a ghost,

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a ghastly figure, sometimes covered in blood, with an expression

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twisted in rage or eternal torment. But who exactly is

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Bloody Mary. Well, that's where things get quite murky. Her

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origin story is not clear cut. Instead, it's a patchwork

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of history and horror. Initially, the legend may seem like

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a simple ghost story, but it unfolds into a narrative

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filled with darkness and terror involving witches, mysterious disappearances, and

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the brutal revenge of a bygone era. So now it's

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time to learn a little bit more about the scary

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reality of Bloody Mary, to find out where exactly it

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came from and why it's still not a good idea

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to repeat Bloodoody Mary three times in front of a mirror.

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One prevailing theory suggests that Bloody Mary is none other

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than Queen Mary the First of England, whose tragic life

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and untimely death might have trapped her spirit between the

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mortal realm and the afterlife, seeking to emerge through the

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mirror's glass. Mary Tudor, better known as Queen Mary the

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First of England, was consumed by her duties to her

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kingdom and her steadfast beliefs. Plagued by the political and

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religious turmoil that defined her reign, Some speculate that her

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restless spirit may be the one summoned by the incantations

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of Bloody Mary. Born into the tumult of Tudor politics,

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Mary the First Queen Regnant of England ascended the throne

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in a time fractured by religious strife. Her ascension marked

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the beginning of a reign that would be remembered for

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its zealous attempts to reverse the Protestant Reformation initiated by

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her father, King Henry the eighth. Mary's conviction to restore

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Catholicism as the state religion set the stage for a

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period of intense persecution, etching her name into history with

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the moniker Bloody Mary. Mary's reign was characterized by the

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Maryan Persecutions, a dark era during which over two hundred

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and eighty Protestants were executed. These executions were most commonly

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by burning at the stake, a method chosen for its

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public spectacle and the belief that it cleansed the soul

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of heresy. Historians recount harrowing tales of men and women,

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clergy and lay persons alike, who were condemned to die

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in for their refusal to renounce their Protestant faith. The

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infamous burnings, many of which took place in prominent public

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spaces like Smithfield in London, were designed not just to

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punish heretics, but to deter others from following in their footsteps.

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The memory of these events cast a long shadow over

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Mary's reign. The accounts of smoldering pyres and the smell

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of burning flesh forever associated with her efforts to unify

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England under the Catholic Church. Beyond the public and violent

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spectacle of her religious persecutions, another more personal tragedy colored

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Mary's rule, her desperate and ultimately fruitless desire for an air.

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Mary's two phantom pregnancies are well documented phenomena where her

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fervent hope and belief that she was carrying a ch

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child led to physical manifestations of pregnancy that ultimately ended

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in disappointment and confusion. These episodes, occurring against the backdrop

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of her persecutions, added a layer of pathos to her legend.

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Mary's deep yearning for a child was not just about

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continuing her line. It was tied to her vision of

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a restored Catholic England and England where her child would

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solidify the return to the faith she fought so hard

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to enforce. The absence of an heir left her throne

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and her religious campaign vulnerable, a weakness that her half

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sister Elizabeth would have no problem exploiting to usher in

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a Protestant England after Mary's death. Queen Mary the First

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of England is a complicated figure because of her harsh

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religious policies and personal sadness that she faced. When you

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take away the myths and stories about Bloody Mary, you

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see a woman who was really fighting for what she

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believed was right for her country. This fight was very costly,

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leading to the deaths of many people and eventually overwhelming

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Mary herself. Remembering her attempts and failures to continue her

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family line and strengthen her religion, adds a sad layer

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to her story. It reminds us that underneath the title

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of a queen, there's a person with struggles and disappointments,

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making the scary nickname Bloody Mary feel more real and

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even more tragic. As we dig deeper into the dark

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grave of Bloody Mary's legend, it becomes evident that the

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origins of this tale are as complex as the stories themselves.

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Among the many threads that compose Bloody Mary's backstory, one

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name frequently rises to the surface. Mary Worth, a woman

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whose life is shrouded in mystery and darkness. Mary Worth,

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often associated with the sixteenth or seventeenth century, lived on

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the outskirts of a village, her home nestled deep within

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the woods, secluded in solitary, Mary's presence stirred unease among

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the villagers. Whispers of witchcraft followed her, tales that grew

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more sinister with each passing year. It was said that

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Mary possessed knowledge of ancient rituals and dark arts, knowledge

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she used to extend her life and beauty through the

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most macabre means. The legend deepens with the disturbing disappearances

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of young girls from the village. Each disappearance was cloaked

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in mystery, with no trace left behind save for the

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whispered rumors that they were last seen heading towards Mary's

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secluded dwelling. The villagers, their fear turning to anger, accused

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Mary of using the girls in her dark rituals, an

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accusation that sealed her grim fate. In the dark of night,

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a mob formed their torches, casting long shadows as they

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marched towards Mary's home. They found her, so the story goes,

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in the midst of a ritual, surrounded by the trappings

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of witchcraft. Without trial, They pronounced their judgment, and the

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woods lit up with the fiery blaze of their vengeance

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as the flames in gold. Mary is said to have

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uttered a curse, vowing to return from death to seek

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retribution against those who dare to summon her spirit. Building

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on the myriad of tales that have shaped the legend

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of Bloody Mary, Elizabeth Bathory stands out with a story

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so dark it might just eclipse all the others. While

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figures like Mary Worth remain shrouded in mystery and Queen

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Mary the First carries the weight of historical tragedy, Elizabeth

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Bathory's life ventures into the grotesque, further complicating the search

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for the true identity behind the Bloody Mary myth. Elizabeth Bathory,

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often referred to as the Blood Countess or the Queen

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of Blood, was a Hungarian noble women whose existence is

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well documented, contrasting the speculative nature of other candidates tied

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to the Bloody Mary legend. Between fifteen ninety and sixteen ten,

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Bathroom was implicated in the horrific murders of at least

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eighty young women and girls, although folklore and sensational accounts

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have inflated this number to as high as six hundred

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and fifty. The brutality of these alleged murders is the

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stuff of nightmares. Reports suggest that Bathory engaged in unspeakable

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torture practices, sowing the mouths of her victims shut, mercilessly

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beating them, and using hot irons to burn their skin.

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Perhaps most infamously, rumors swirled that she bathed in the

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blood of these young women, believing it would preserve her

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youthfulness and beauty. The trial of Elizabeth Bathory brought forth

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a witness who claimed to have seen a diary maintained

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by Bathory herself, in which she tallied her victims. The

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number listed in this supposed diary far surpassed the official accusations,

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sparking further horror and fascination through the centuries. This element

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of personal record keeping adds a chilling layer to Bathory's legacy,

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suggesting a degree of premeditation and pride in her atrocities

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that is truly and deeply unsettling. Amidst the gruesome tales. However,

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some argue that Elizabeth Bathory was the victim of a conspiracy.

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They suggest that the heinous charges against her were part

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of an orchestrated effort to discredit her, possibly motivated by

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the significant debts owed to her by the Crown following

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her husband's death. This angle introduces a layer of political

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intrigue and raises questions about the reliability of historical narratives,

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especially those concerning powerful women. This backdrop of skepticism and

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horror makes Elizabeth Bathory a compelling yet controversial figure in

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the quest to identify the real Bloody Mary. Her story

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both contrasts and compliments the narrative of Queen Mary, the first,

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intertwining with the broader tapestry of legends that have captivated

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imaginations for generations. Regardless of the factual accuracies of the

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charges against her, Elizabeth Bathory's legacy has undeniably contributed to

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the dark attraction surrounding the Bloody Mary legend. So who

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exactly is or was Bloody Mary, you may ask, Well,

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that's the million dollar question. Wrapped in the tattered cloak

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of history, shrouded in the whispers of folklore, and energized

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by our innate thrill of fear, she endures a spectral

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figure whose name chills the air and frosts the mirror.

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The legend of Bloody Mary, far from fading into obscurity,

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thrives in the darkest corners of our culture's psyche, and

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is as robust and shiver inducing today as ever before that.

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Mary the First of England, with her heart wrenching history

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steeped in blood during her violent attempt to bring back

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Catholicism to her realm, is the original face behind the

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Bloody Mary narrative. Her infamous moniker Bloody Mary was earned

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as her rule was marred by the burning of over

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two hundred and eighty religious dissenters, an act that seared

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her name into the annals of history with crimson flames.

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Then there's the elusive and mysterious Mary Worth, cloaked more

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in dark rumor than hard evidence, swirling amidst whispered campfire

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stories and eerie sleepover dares. This Mary is said to

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be a witch, executed long ago for her vile practices,

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Her story a patchwork of sinister threads that make her

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as intangible as a wisp of mist, yet no less haunting.

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But let's not overlook the blood soaked gowns of Elizabeth Bathory,

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the nightmarish figure drenched in the crimson tales of youth

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and beauty, maintained through the most grotesque of measures, infamously

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dubbed the Blood Countess, her legacy is a macabre painting

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of at least eighty confirmed murders of young women. The

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grotesque folklore suggests she bathed in their blood, a fountain

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of eternal youth at a horrifying cost. A trial and

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supposed diary of Elizabeth Bathory filled with a horrifying list

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of victims adds a dark and serious tone to her story.

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The mix of historical figures associated with Bloody Mary makes

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figuring out who she really was both intriguing and mysteriously appealing.

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Whether you doubt the legends or think there might have

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been some truths to the tales, the miss of Bloody

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Mary's true identity is indeed fascinating. It draws in everyone

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who loves to explore unanswered questions and enjoys a good scare.

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The legend of Bloody Mary, like an eternal curse, found

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its way through time, morphing into a ghostly game known

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by children and thrill seekers worldwide. The ritual of summoning

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Bloody Mary before a mirror in a darkened room became

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a test of courage, a rite of passage whispered about

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in hushed tones during sleepovers and Halloween parties. Yet the

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question lingers in the air, as palpable as the chill

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that accompanies her invocation. What happens when Bloody Mary answers

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the call reports of avery. Some see a shadowy figure

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in the mirror, others a blood soaked apparition, and a

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few claims to hear a voice whispering dark secrets and

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warnings from beyond. The experiences, though varied, share one common thread,

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the eerie feeling that the legend of Bloody Mary and

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the spirit of Mary might just hold a grain of truth.

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Will you light the candle and call out her name?

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Or will you heed the warnings? Woven into the fabric

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of this ghastly narrative, Whether myth or reality, the tale

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of Bloody Mary endures a ghostly whisper in the dark

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that dares us to look closer, always questioning, always fearing

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what might stare back from the other side. Now, let's

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talk about sleep paralysis. An old occurrence. Sleep paralysis arises

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in the stillness of a moonless night, as the earth

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drifts from one day to the next. The most interesting

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and scary things that humans have ever experienced take place

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in this world, which is a gap between our actual

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reality and the dream world. Let's explore this mysterious nighttime

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phenomenon where the line between the real and the supernatural

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blurs and secret stories are passed down through the ages.

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In whispers, imagine that you are lying in bed and

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the moonlight is bathing the recognizable shapes of your room,

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except for your own breath. There's complete silence. All of

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a sudden, Your chest feels a weight that you can't see,

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and your limbs are and refuse to move. Even if

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you're conscious, the dream won't let go of you, seized

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by your own body, a captive inside yourself. This is

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the condition known as sleep paralysis. Under the cloak of night,

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when everything seems tranquil and the world is quieted down,

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an unseen storm bruise in the minds of the unsuspecting.

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That's when the serene night takes a turn. The heart

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kicks into a frantic pace, thudding against the chest as

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if trying to escape. There's an urge to move, to

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flee the stillness, to call out for anyone who might hear,

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but the movement is an impossible wish. The body lies

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heavy as stone, arms and legs betraying their owner, refusing

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to budge. Screams, get trapped in the throat, leaving only

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a silent plea for freedom. Suddenly, a weight presses down

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on the chest, making each breath a struggle. Shadows drift

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in the corners, forming shapes that seem to inch closer

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with every passing second, feeding the terror of being watched

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by unseen eyes. The desire to escape is overpowering, but

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paralysis holds firm, binding the body in an invisible grip.

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This harrowing state is the essence of sleep paralysis. It's

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a limbo between the worlds of sleep and wakefulness, where

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one is conscious but ensnared by the remnants of a dream.

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It's not just the immobility that horrifies. It's the vivid hallucinations,

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the lurking shadow men, or the ominous presence of the

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old hag that invades the room, amplifying the dread. The

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ordeal might last seconds or stretch out, warping time into

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a drawn out nightmare, but eventually it dissipates. Mobility returns,

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shadows retreat, and the oppressive weight lifts, leaving behind a

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racing heart and a mind swirling with questions. Sleep paralysis

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is a strange and spooky phenomenon. No doubt about it.

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But even in its eeriness, there's something deeply human about it.

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It's a reminder of the mysteries of our minds, the

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secrets of our sleep, and the thin line between the

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waking world and that of our dreams. It's a journey

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into the unknown that, while often scary, connects a us

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all to the shared experience of our own vulnerabilities. In

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the dead of night, when the sleep paralysis hallucinations begin.

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It starts, perhaps with a faint whisper, a voice that

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doesn't quite belong to the night. You strain to see,

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but your head is cast in stone, your eyes the

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only sentinels to the growing dread. Shadows flicker and converge

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into sinister forms that shouldn't exist outside the playground of nightmares.

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A figure, dark and menacing creeps into your periphery. It

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hovers a silent wraith at the foot of your bed,

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and you can feel its gaze, cold and relentless. Maybe

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this phantom creeps closer the air, chilling us with its approach,

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its features blurry and ever changing, like a storm cloud

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ready to burst. To some, these apparitions might speak in

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strange tongues, or remain quiet heralds of an ancient terror.

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The room around you might warp, walls breathing, and floors

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tilting into impossible geometries. There are no chains, no sounds

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of footsteps, but the unshakable feeling that you are not alone,

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that something other has come to visit in the witching hour,

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gripping you hard with ghostly fingers. As the minutes stretch

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into what feels like small eternities, the grip of the

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paralysis finally begins to wane. The specters fade into the

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calming embrace of reality as it begins to reassert its dominance.

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Limbs regain warmth and function, the weight lifts, and breath

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flows freely once more. Heart beats that once thundered in

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terror now settle into a rhythmic normalcy, and you are

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left with the chilling memory of an encounter with the unknown,

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a narrative of the night your waking mind walk through

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the valley of dreams and phantoms. While this tale echoes

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the ghastly scripts of folklore, science offers its explanations. In

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these moments, our most primal fears are crafted into hallucinations

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by a brain caught between worlds. The stages of sleep

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have been disrupted, and so the mind paints a haunting

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picture over the canvas of reality. But despite the terror,

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the light of day brings solace, a reminder that the

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spectral grip of sleep paralysis is but a temporary visitor

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in the night, and morning's warmth holds the promise that

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we are indeed safe and sound. Allow me to share

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with you a collection of unsettling anecdotes from individuals who

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have encountered sleep paralysis, Originally shared with BuzzFeed. These chilling

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accounts dig into the terrifying encounters of people who have

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experienced the unsettling phenomenon of sleep paralysis, shedding light on

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the mysterious space between being awake and trapped in a nightmare.

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Every night, Alice Lang would hold her breath fearing the

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arrival of dusk. In her sleep, a consistent, yet uninvited

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intruder would creep into her peaceful slumber. She would awaken,

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heart racing to the sound of heavy, deliberate footsteps inching

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closer to her bedroom. Paralyzed, Alice's eyes would dart frantically

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around the dimly lit room until they fell upon a

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chilling sight at her doorway. A towering, shadowy entity in

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the frame of a minotaur, wielding what looked like a

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shining knife. Each attempt to scream or move proved futile,

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and it was only when the sun peeked through her

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curtains that Alice truly woke, the monster gone, leaving her

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in a pool of cold, sweat and silence. Night after night,

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Rheanne would find herself in an all too familiar limbo

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between consciousness and sleep. A presence would stalk her, never seen,

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but deeply felt, a weight upon her chest that no

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light could reveal. Tethered to her bed, she would endure

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this invisible torment, gasping for breath until her only means

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of salvation, Her carefully practiced signal of rapid breathing was

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noticed by her partner. Only his gentle touch could shatter

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the specter's hold on her, guiding her back to the

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waking world, where she could finally draw a full, unburdened breath.

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Ting Deu's tormentor would always commence its haunting in the

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most unassuming manner. With Ting positioned on his back. Sleep

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would usher in a darkness that stretched beyond the room.

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A shadow would detach itself from the ceiling, a silent

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predatory force that would inch ever closer with each skip

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of Ting's heart. This specter, formless yet suffocatingly close, would

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whisper horrors into the void, until with a frantic jerk

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of the head, Ting would break the chains of paralysis,

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the room returning to its still undisturbed state. Amber's experience

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was uniquely unsettling, marked not by sight but by sensation.

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As she drifted into sleep, the murmur of distant conversations

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would weave into her consciousness, and an all too real

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feeling of another's breath against her skin would emerge. She

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would feel the dip of the mattress, hear the fabric rustle,

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and sense the warmth of another presence behind her, snoring softly.

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Yet when she'd manage to wrestle free from paralysis, she'd

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find her bed empty, the ghostly whispers and breathing gone,

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leaving her enveloped in a suffocating solitude that mocked her senses.

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For Marama, the hotel stay that began as a simple

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layover quickly descended into a waking nightmare. Pinned beneath invisible restraints,

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Her attempts to cry out for her partner were swallowed

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by some unseen force. With each imagined awakening, her relief

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would shatter as she'd find herself locked in a struggle

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against the one person she trusted most, fighting a suffocating

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assault on her life, his hands around her throat. It

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was only upon finally breaking through the veneer of sleep

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that she could breathe again, the horror of these false

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awakenings lingering long after the lights had turned on. Now

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that we've had our spooky fare with some first hand experiences,

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let's break down what science has to say about sleep paralysis.

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When we hit the hay every night, our brain has

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this neat trick it does. It sends out a signal

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that's basically a do not disturb sign for our muscles,

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keeping us from acting out all those crazy dreams. But

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sometimes our brain and body get their wires crossed. You

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start waking up, but that signal doesn't turn off right away.

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That's when you find yourself awake but frozen. It's like

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your body is still dreaming of being in bed, all

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cozy and asleep, but your brain is tapping its watch,

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ready to start the day. They just aren't on the

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same page quite yet. Now onto why it can feel

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so terrifying. Being frozen is one thing, but our brains

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can sometimes throw in extra special effects, like seeing shadows

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or hearing strange sounds. It's like your brain is trying

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to make sense of being stuck in this in between state,

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so it fills in the blanks with stuff from your

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dreams as well as your fears. It is, of course

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all in the mind, though these visions and sounds aren't real,

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but knowing that doesn't always make it less frightening in

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the moment. If you're wondering is this something I should

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worry about, the answer is mostly no. Sleep paralysis is

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more common than you might think. A lot of people

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myself included, have experienced it at least once in their lives.

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While it's not usually a sign of anything serious health wise,

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if it happens a lot, it might be your body's

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way of saying you need better sleep or less stress.

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Some tip to keep it at bay include getting enough sleep,

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sticking to a regular sleep schedule, and finding ways to

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unwind before bed. These steps might help your brain and

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body sync up better and reduce those unwonted wake up glitches.

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Dealing with sleep paralysis hallucinations can be very traumatizing, but

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there are some simple ways to handle them better. So

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let's talk about how you can cope the next time

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you're stuck in that weird half a sleep state. Firstly,

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try to keep your cool. I know it sounds easier

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than done right, but remember those scary things you might

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see or hear. They're not real. There just tricks your

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mind plays when it's caught between dreaming and waking up.

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Telling yourself this isn't real can help calm you down. Next,

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work on your breathing. When you realize you're in sleep paralysis.

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Focus on taking slow, deep breaths. This can help relax

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your body and might make the hallucinations fade away faster.

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Here's a sneaky trick for you. Try moving just a

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small part of your body, like your fingers or toes.

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It may sound amusing, but sometimes moving a tiny part

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of you can help wake up the rest of your

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body from the paralysis. Another thing you can do is

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make your sleep routine as steady as possible. Go to

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bed at the same time each night and get up

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at the same time each morning. Keep your bedroom comfy

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and just for sleep. This can help lower the chances

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of sleep paralysis happening. Also, watch out for things that

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can mess with your sleep, like caffeine or screen time

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before bed. Instead, try calming activities like reading or listening

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to gentle music to help your mind wind down, or

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maybe your favorite spooky podcast Naturally. If sleep paralysis keeps

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bothering you a lot, or if it's really stressing you out,

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talking to a doctor can be a good idea. They

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might be able to help you figure out ways to

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deal with it better, or check if something else is

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interfering with your sleep. Remember, even though it can feel

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very intense, very real, sleep paralysis is something you can handle.

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With some practice and a few changes to your bedtime routine,

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you can lessen how often it happens, or at least

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00:36:53.119 --> 00:36:58.480
feel in control when it does. So next time the

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shadowy figures visit, you'll be ready to say not tonight

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and guide yourself back to the dreamland or wakefulness with ease,

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happy dozing, My spookies. The Poltergeist film curse. Let me

435
00:37:23.920 --> 00:37:27.239
tell you a chilling story about one of the scariest

436
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:32.840
haunted house films ever made. The nineteen eighty two movie Poltergeist,

437
00:37:33.400 --> 00:37:36.880
directed by Toby Hooper of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame and

438
00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:41.320
produced by Steven Spielberg, this film tells the harrowing tale

439
00:37:41.840 --> 00:37:44.960
of a family whose home is invaded by vicious spirits

440
00:37:45.159 --> 00:37:49.880
that snatch their young daughter away to another world. But

441
00:37:49.960 --> 00:37:52.760
what's even more troubling than the eerie events in the

442
00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:55.960
movie and its sequels are the real life tragedies that

443
00:37:56.039 --> 00:38:00.800
seem to follow those involved with these films. The series,

444
00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:05.360
marked by several unexpected deaths and some really strange happenings

445
00:38:05.440 --> 00:38:09.119
during production, led fans to talk about something they call

446
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:15.360
the Poltergeist curse. Now, I'm not saying I believe in curses,

447
00:38:15.599 --> 00:38:19.280
but I can't ignore how unusually tragic the legacy of

448
00:38:19.320 --> 00:38:24.519
the Poltergeist movies has been. Here's a detailed look at

449
00:38:24.519 --> 00:38:29.079
this mysterious and somber history, starting with some odd facts

450
00:38:29.119 --> 00:38:34.159
that might just give you goosebumps. The saga of the

451
00:38:34.199 --> 00:38:39.360
Poltergeist films extends far beyond their plot lines, engulfed by

452
00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.719
a series of real life misfortunes and eerie incidents that

453
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:47.119
fuse the film's chilling narratives with an equally disturbing reality.

454
00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:51.559
The original movie acclaimed for pushing the boundaries of haunted

455
00:38:51.599 --> 00:38:55.719
House storytelling unwittingly set the stage for a series of

456
00:38:55.719 --> 00:38:59.480
events that would lead to talks of a curse, a

457
00:38:59.559 --> 00:39:06.320
notion both unsettling and intriguing, adding a layer of unease.

458
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:10.880
This dark legacy begins with the decision that might send

459
00:39:10.920 --> 00:39:13.960
shivers down your spine. Back in the days of the

460
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:18.599
original Poltergeist, the filmmakers used real human skeletons as props,

461
00:39:19.119 --> 00:39:24.239
a choice dictated by budget more than morbidity, since back

462
00:39:24.280 --> 00:39:28.440
in those times it was somehow cheaper than crafting a

463
00:39:28.480 --> 00:39:33.760
fake one. But as revealed in the docu series Cursed Films,

464
00:39:33.800 --> 00:39:38.280
some believe these human remains brought with them restless spirits,

465
00:39:38.599 --> 00:39:43.679
sowing seeds for unsettling occurrences both on and off the set.

466
00:39:44.599 --> 00:39:48.840
Further exploring the eerie anecdotes, An episode of e True

467
00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:52.880
Hollywood Story dedicated to the Poltergeist Curse paints a vivid

468
00:39:52.960 --> 00:39:56.639
picture of the peculiar mishaps that plagued the crew during

469
00:39:56.679 --> 00:40:00.880
the filming of Poltergeist II. The other side, it tells

470
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:05.199
of unexplained disturbances that wrapped an air of apprehension around

471
00:40:05.239 --> 00:40:10.039
the entire production, a production that daringly continued the use

472
00:40:10.719 --> 00:40:16.639
of real skeletons. Amidst this storm of unexplained phenomena. Craig T. Nelson,

473
00:40:16.719 --> 00:40:21.639
returning as Steve Freeling, shared a particularly spine tingling tale.

474
00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:25.360
He spoke of how his colleague Will Sampson felt a

475
00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:29.480
malignant force at play behind the scenes. Driven by a

476
00:40:29.559 --> 00:40:33.239
need to quell this darkness, Sampson, under the veil of night,

477
00:40:33.360 --> 00:40:37.320
performed an exorcism on the set. According to Nelson, this

478
00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:41.480
brave act seemed to calm the troubled waters, allowing the

479
00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:46.679
film to proceed without further unexplained disruptions. These stories weave

480
00:40:46.719 --> 00:40:51.159
a compelling, albeit harrowing narrative about the series. They elevate

481
00:40:51.239 --> 00:40:55.000
the Poltergeist legacy from simply a collection of horror films

482
00:40:55.280 --> 00:40:59.880
to a saga marred by mystery and misfortune, where fact

483
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:05.360
and fiction intertwine in the most unsettling of dances. One

484
00:41:05.400 --> 00:41:09.599
scenario in the terrifying Poltergeist film series stands out as

485
00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:14.840
particularly disturbing and tragic. It's about a young actress named

486
00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:19.639
Dominique Dunn, who played the role of Dana Freeling, the

487
00:41:19.719 --> 00:41:24.039
eldest daughter in the family haunted by spirits. Dominique was

488
00:41:24.079 --> 00:41:27.119
not just a rising star in Hollywood. She was also

489
00:41:27.239 --> 00:41:30.840
the younger sister of Griffin Dunn, a well known actor.

490
00:41:31.480 --> 00:41:35.360
Poltergeist was her big break, her first major film, but

491
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:40.840
tragically it turned out to be her last. Not long

492
00:41:40.920 --> 00:41:45.599
after Poltergeist graced movie theaters and captivated audiences with its

493
00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:51.719
ghostly tale, Dominique's own story took a dark turn, mirroring

494
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:55.880
the horror of her film in a real and devastating way.

495
00:41:56.880 --> 00:42:00.360
At only twenty two years old, her life was cut

496
00:42:00.400 --> 00:42:03.599
short in an act of violence that shocked everyone who

497
00:42:03.719 --> 00:42:06.960
knew her. The New York Times covered this tragedy in

498
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:11.000
November of nineteen eighty two, detailing how Dominique was attacked.

499
00:42:11.719 --> 00:42:15.440
She was strangled, leaving her unconscious, and despite being rushed

500
00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:18.320
to the hospital, she fought for her life on life

501
00:42:18.400 --> 00:42:24.199
support for five days before she finally passed away. The

502
00:42:24.320 --> 00:42:27.639
person behind this heinous act was none other than her

503
00:42:27.679 --> 00:42:31.519
former boyfriend John Sweeney, a twenty six year old chef

504
00:42:31.559 --> 00:42:34.639
at the time. In a twist that adds to the horror,

505
00:42:34.679 --> 00:42:37.719
he confessed to the act, claiming it happened during an

506
00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:42.519
argument about getting back together. What followed was a trial

507
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:45.559
that received a great deal of attention, not just for

508
00:42:45.599 --> 00:42:54.920
the act itself, but for the verdict. John Sweeney was

509
00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:00.599
convicted not of murder but of involuntary manslaughter, a ruling

510
00:43:00.639 --> 00:43:06.159
that outraged many, including Dominique's father, Dominic Dunn. Dominic, a

511
00:43:06.199 --> 00:43:09.440
writer known for his pieces in Vanity Fair, shared his

512
00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:12.719
grief and disbelief in an article he penned in two

513
00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:16.639
thousand eight, giving a voice to the pain of losing

514
00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:21.199
Dominique and the frustration he had with the legal system.

515
00:43:21.519 --> 00:43:25.519
Dominique's story is not just a chapter in the Poltergeist saga,

516
00:43:26.320 --> 00:43:28.840
but a reminder of the real life horrors that can

517
00:43:28.880 --> 00:43:32.599
strike in anyone's life, leaving behind a legacy of sorrow

518
00:43:32.679 --> 00:43:37.280
and unanswered questions. Her promising career and life were both

519
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:43.199
cut tragically short, leaving us to wonder what if in

520
00:43:43.239 --> 00:43:48.000
a tale as haunting as any ghost story. After the

521
00:43:48.039 --> 00:43:52.239
strange and sad story of Dominic Dunn, the Poltergeist series

522
00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:57.360
saw another eerie occurrence, this time involving Julianne Beck. Beck

523
00:43:57.480 --> 00:44:00.239
brought to life one of the most haunting characters in

524
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:03.800
Poltergeist two The Other Side, a film that left many

525
00:44:03.880 --> 00:44:08.119
trembling with fear, not least because of Beck's portrayal of

526
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:14.119
the terrifying Reverend Henry Kane. This character, a preacher with

527
00:44:14.280 --> 00:44:22.199
sinister intentions, became iconic, largely due to Beck's deeply unnerving performance. Sadly,

528
00:44:22.320 --> 00:44:25.719
this role would be his last, as Julian Beck passed

529
00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:29.360
away at the age of sixty just a few months

530
00:44:29.400 --> 00:44:33.480
after the movie was completed. Some people have pointed to

531
00:44:33.480 --> 00:44:36.280
Beck's death as another piece of evidence of the so

532
00:44:36.480 --> 00:44:41.119
called Poltergeist curse that seems to loom over those involved

533
00:44:41.159 --> 00:44:45.880
with the films. However, it's important to note, as reported

534
00:44:45.920 --> 00:44:49.280
by the Los Angeles Times, that Beck was battling stomach

535
00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:55.000
cancer diagnosed two years prior in nineteen eighty three. Knowing

536
00:44:55.039 --> 00:44:58.360
this adds an even more profound layer to Beck's portrayal

537
00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:04.079
of Reverend Kane. Imagine for a moment amidst his struggle

538
00:45:04.119 --> 00:45:08.199
with terminal illness, he delivered a performance that captured the

539
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:12.239
essence of fear and despair, making it all the more

540
00:45:12.320 --> 00:45:18.119
powerful and disturbing. Many, myself included, find that Beck used

541
00:45:18.119 --> 00:45:22.920
his illness to truly terrify audiences all over the world.

542
00:45:24.199 --> 00:45:27.639
The dedication Beck showed pouring his energy into such a

543
00:45:27.719 --> 00:45:31.480
dark and demanding role while facing his own mortality is

544
00:45:31.519 --> 00:45:36.039
both admirable and heart wrenching. It brings a sense of

545
00:45:36.079 --> 00:45:39.559
real human struggle to the forefront of the spooky legends

546
00:45:39.639 --> 00:45:43.840
surrounding the Poltergeist films, reminding us of the bravery and

547
00:45:43.960 --> 00:45:49.280
resilience of those who entertain us even in their own

548
00:45:49.400 --> 00:45:54.239
darkest hours. Heading into a deeper layer of the Poltergeist

549
00:45:54.320 --> 00:45:59.280
series mysteries, we stumble upon another somber tale. This time

550
00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:02.960
it's about Willis Sampson, known for his gentle strength and

551
00:46:03.039 --> 00:46:07.320
deep presence on the screen. In Poltergeist IWO the Other Side,

552
00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:12.159
Samson portrayed Tailor, a kind hearted Native American shaman, a

553
00:46:12.280 --> 00:46:16.360
role that mirrored his own Muscogee heritage. He stepped into

554
00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:20.239
this role hoping to aid the haunted Freeling family. However,

555
00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:23.360
a year after the movie's release, in June of nineteen

556
00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:27.039
eighty seven, when Will was only fifty three years old,

557
00:46:27.599 --> 00:46:32.400
he said goodbye to the world. Will's health had been

558
00:46:32.440 --> 00:46:36.320
wavering for a while. He had scleroderma, a disease that

559
00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:40.360
hardens the skin in connective tissues. This truly made his

560
00:46:40.440 --> 00:46:45.559
battle an uphill one, even as he gifted us with

561
00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:49.000
a performance of a man of healing. Behind the scenes,

562
00:46:49.039 --> 00:46:53.400
he sought healing of his own. You see, Will underwent

563
00:46:53.440 --> 00:46:57.880
a lung transplant, a surgery that seemed successful at first,

564
00:46:58.199 --> 00:47:02.360
but as days turned into weeks, his body struggled. He

565
00:47:02.519 --> 00:47:06.400
suffered from not having enough nutrition, faced down an infection,

566
00:47:07.039 --> 00:47:11.400
and eventually had kidney failure which no one could fully explain.

567
00:47:12.440 --> 00:47:16.039
This tragic mix led him into a coma from which

568
00:47:16.039 --> 00:47:20.360
he never awoke, his last breath, drawing a close on

569
00:47:20.480 --> 00:47:25.400
his forty three day fight post surgery. Before his role

570
00:47:25.440 --> 00:47:28.639
in Poltergeist, Io, Will had left an imprint on the

571
00:47:28.639 --> 00:47:32.360
hearts of many through his acting journey. His career took

572
00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:35.800
flight with his portrayal of Chief Bromdon in the acclaimed

573
00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:39.159
movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in nineteen seventy five.

574
00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:44.199
He stood tall alongside Clint Eastwood in the outlaw Josie Wales.

575
00:47:44.280 --> 00:47:47.400
Soon after, and he brought life to the big screen

576
00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:50.519
in the thrilling film and to many myself included a

577
00:47:50.559 --> 00:47:56.480
beloved Jaws ripoff Orca. Will Sampson's journey, both on screen

578
00:47:56.519 --> 00:48:00.039
and in his quieter personal struggles, touches us with it

579
00:48:00.039 --> 00:48:03.199
its weight and poignancy. It's another chapter in the book

580
00:48:03.199 --> 00:48:07.079
of stories surrounding the people who brought Poltergeist from script

581
00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:12.199
to screen. A tale wrapped in talent and shrouded by

582
00:48:12.239 --> 00:48:17.079
an unkind fate, the story of Poltergeist IIE is one

583
00:48:17.119 --> 00:48:20.199
that many fans and critics see as the darkest chapter

584
00:48:20.320 --> 00:48:24.119
in the series, not just for its eerie content, but

585
00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:28.199
due to the real life tragedies and strange happenings surrounding

586
00:48:28.239 --> 00:48:31.719
its production. At the center of it all was Heather O'Rourke,

587
00:48:32.239 --> 00:48:36.199
the talented young actress who, despite being diagnosed with Crohn's disease,

588
00:48:36.679 --> 00:48:40.360
courageously stepped into her role as Carol Ann for the

589
00:48:40.440 --> 00:48:45.000
third time. Zelda Rubinstein, known for her role as the Psychic,

590
00:48:45.119 --> 00:48:49.239
also returned, though they were the only main cast members

591
00:48:49.639 --> 00:48:53.320
to do so. Trouble seemed to follow the production from

592
00:48:53.360 --> 00:48:57.480
the start. The film's set was plagued by accident after accident.

593
00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:02.920
One such incident involving a malfunctioning underwater catapult that injured

594
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:06.719
a stuntman, and another accident saw the director Gary Sherman

595
00:49:07.199 --> 00:49:11.880
breaking his leg. The choice of Chicago's John Hancock Tower

596
00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:16.079
as a primary location added an eerie backdrop, given the

597
00:49:16.159 --> 00:49:22.280
tower's grim history. Of construction accidents. The spookiness didn't end there.

598
00:49:22.960 --> 00:49:27.320
During filming, Zelda Rubinstein claimed to experience a sudden psychic

599
00:49:27.440 --> 00:49:32.519
shock that tragically coincided with her mother's passing, adding to

600
00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:36.159
the supernatural aura. A photo taken of Rubinstein during this

601
00:49:36.320 --> 00:49:40.360
time showed her surrounded by an unusual halo of light,

602
00:49:40.840 --> 00:49:44.760
leading some to wonder if it captured the moment of

603
00:49:44.800 --> 00:49:49.320
her mother's passing. A special effects failure caused a terrifying

604
00:49:49.360 --> 00:49:52.159
moment when what was supposed to be a controlled explosion

605
00:49:52.639 --> 00:49:56.719
turned into a horrific blaze, endangering the lives of firefighters

606
00:49:56.719 --> 00:50:00.760
and trapping a maintenance worker inside. In a r heroic effort,

607
00:50:00.960 --> 00:50:04.559
a stuntman not only saved the trapped worker, but also

608
00:50:04.599 --> 00:50:08.760
salvaged the film and cameras. This bravery earned him high

609
00:50:08.800 --> 00:50:13.800
praise from the director. However, the most heartbreaking event occurred

610
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:18.480
away from set. Heather began experiencing severe health issues, which

611
00:50:18.480 --> 00:50:25.039
her family initially thought were complications from her diagnosed condition. Tragically,

612
00:50:25.079 --> 00:50:29.400
Heather's bright future was unexpectedly dim She was just twelve

613
00:50:29.480 --> 00:50:36.000
years old when she left the world in nineteen eighty eight. Sadly,

614
00:50:36.039 --> 00:50:38.440
it was discovered too late that she had a serious

615
00:50:38.519 --> 00:50:42.639
congenital intestinal problem. Heather passed away in the hospital from

616
00:50:42.679 --> 00:50:46.519
septic shock, leaving behind a haunting moment when her mother

617
00:50:46.639 --> 00:50:51.480
reported seeing an apparition of Heather telling her quote, I'm

618
00:50:51.519 --> 00:50:56.239
not coming back, even though her physical body was still

619
00:50:56.280 --> 00:51:00.280
in the care of doctors. The story of Poltergeist three

620
00:51:00.360 --> 00:51:03.280
is filled with more than its share of mystery and sorrow,

621
00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:09.119
concluding what many believed to be a cursed trilogy. Yet

622
00:51:09.159 --> 00:51:11.840
at its heart, it's a tale of a young star's

623
00:51:11.920 --> 00:51:15.639
bravery and a series of coincidences so strange that they

624
00:51:15.639 --> 00:51:21.599
blur the line between reality and the supernatural. The tale

625
00:51:21.639 --> 00:51:24.199
of the Poltergeist movies might as well be its own

626
00:51:24.280 --> 00:51:27.639
horror story, set against the backdrop of actual events that

627
00:51:27.679 --> 00:51:31.320
could make one question the line between fiction and reality.

628
00:51:31.760 --> 00:51:34.159
At the heart of these films lies a series of

629
00:51:34.199 --> 00:51:38.360
misfortunes so profound that they've sparked debates on whether the

630
00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:42.199
series was simply cursed or if there could be possibly

631
00:51:42.280 --> 00:51:46.400
any other explanation. From the outset, the Poltergeist series drew

632
00:51:46.440 --> 00:51:49.760
attention not just for its spine chilling narrative, but for

633
00:51:49.840 --> 00:51:53.840
the ominous cloud of tragedies that seemed to hang over

634
00:51:53.880 --> 00:51:57.599
its cast. The sudden and tragic deaths of several actors

635
00:51:57.639 --> 00:52:01.800
associated with the films were particularly harrowing, painting a grim

636
00:52:01.840 --> 00:52:05.719
picture that no script could match. Off the screen, the

637
00:52:05.800 --> 00:52:09.800
cast and crew faced numerous challenges, from accidents on set

638
00:52:10.039 --> 00:52:13.199
to a disturbing oversight that involved the use of real

639
00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:17.679
human skeletons as props, adding a macabre layer to the

640
00:52:17.679 --> 00:52:21.280
film's lore. But beyond the chills and thrills of the

641
00:52:21.320 --> 00:52:25.480
on screen hauntings, these incidents evoke a sense of profound

642
00:52:25.559 --> 00:52:30.239
loss and sorrow. While horror enthusiasts might find the tales

643
00:52:30.280 --> 00:52:34.880
surrounding the films intriguing, it's a stark reminder that sometimes

644
00:52:34.960 --> 00:52:39.119
reality can be as frightening as fiction, and perhaps it

645
00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:43.000
would be kinder if such tragedies remain confined to the

646
00:52:43.039 --> 00:52:49.880
realm of make believe. This saga leaves us pondering are

647
00:52:49.960 --> 00:52:54.159
these series of unfortunate events merely coincidental or is there

648
00:52:54.280 --> 00:53:00.000
something more sinister at play. It's a question that remains unanswered,

649
00:53:00.639 --> 00:53:05.000
leaving Poltergeist as a curious case study at the intersection

650
00:53:05.079 --> 00:53:11.840
of horror cinema and real life tragedy. Room one oh

651
00:53:12.079 --> 00:53:23.159
four six eighty seven years ago. In nineteen thirty five,

652
00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:27.280
Kansas City, Missouri, became the home of one of the

653
00:53:27.400 --> 00:53:33.280
strangest unsolved cases in American history. After a young man

654
00:53:33.400 --> 00:53:38.119
displayed peculiar behavior after checking in to the President Hotel.

655
00:53:39.039 --> 00:53:41.400
He was found slumped over in a pool of his

656
00:53:41.480 --> 00:53:46.880
own blood. His body showed signs of torture as he

657
00:53:47.000 --> 00:53:52.320
was bound with cords and stabbed numerous times. The man

658
00:53:52.480 --> 00:53:57.920
was still semi conscious, though, so the detectives asked who

659
00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:05.960
did this to him, applied nobody before falling unconscious and

660
00:54:06.079 --> 00:54:11.039
later dying in the hospital. After two years of the

661
00:54:11.159 --> 00:54:15.559
case running cold, the investigators believed they'd found what they

662
00:54:15.599 --> 00:54:20.559
were searching for. However, this discovery only left every one

663
00:54:20.679 --> 00:54:26.440
more puzzled and with many many more questions. On Wednesday,

664
00:54:26.840 --> 00:54:32.280
January second, nineteen thirty five, a lone man walked into

665
00:54:32.280 --> 00:54:38.280
the President Hotel at fourteenth and Baltimore Street in Kansas City, Missouri.

666
00:54:39.159 --> 00:54:42.400
He didn't have any luggage with him, but he dressed

667
00:54:42.400 --> 00:54:47.840
neatly in his black overcoat and appeared polished. The hotel

668
00:54:47.960 --> 00:54:51.679
staff recalled that he was well mannered and signed the

669
00:54:51.719 --> 00:54:57.719
register as Roland t Owen. Roland requested a single room

670
00:54:58.039 --> 00:55:03.360
on one of the upper floors, specifically an interior room

671
00:55:03.599 --> 00:55:09.000
without access to the outdoors. Witnesses later described him as

672
00:55:09.039 --> 00:55:11.400
being someone who could easily look like he was in

673
00:55:11.480 --> 00:55:14.639
his early twenties, or he could very well pass for

674
00:55:14.760 --> 00:55:19.000
his late thirties. Roland had dark brown hair and a

675
00:55:19.079 --> 00:55:23.880
noticeable scar on the side of his scalp, rising horizontally

676
00:55:23.920 --> 00:55:27.719
above his ear. He also had a cauliflower left ear,

677
00:55:28.440 --> 00:55:31.679
which is a deformity of the outer ear that's caused

678
00:55:31.679 --> 00:55:35.320
by blunt force trauma. This kind of injury is from

679
00:55:35.400 --> 00:55:38.880
repeated blows to the ear and is typically found on

680
00:55:38.960 --> 00:55:44.320
professional boxers and amateur wrestlers. The hotel clerk gave Roland

681
00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:47.079
a key to room one O four six on the

682
00:55:47.119 --> 00:55:51.239
tenth floor and sent the bell boy on duty. Randolph

683
00:55:51.239 --> 00:55:55.400
propsed to escort him. While the two chatted on the

684
00:55:55.440 --> 00:55:58.960
elevator ride, Roland told the bell boy that he stayed

685
00:55:59.000 --> 00:56:02.400
at the neighboring mule Bach Hotel the night before, where

686
00:56:02.440 --> 00:56:06.920
they had charged him an outrageous amount for his accommodations.

687
00:56:07.679 --> 00:56:10.679
When they entered the room, Roland walked through the short

688
00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:14.320
entryway and Randolph watched as he took out a black

689
00:56:14.360 --> 00:56:17.480
hair brush from his coat pocket, as well as a

690
00:56:17.519 --> 00:56:21.519
black comb and toothpaste. He then placed them above the

691
00:56:21.559 --> 00:56:27.000
bathroom sink. These were the only items he had on him.

692
00:56:27.719 --> 00:56:31.440
The housekeeper for the day, Mary Sooptik, was making her

693
00:56:31.519 --> 00:56:33.960
rounds at noon when she knocked on room one O

694
00:56:34.119 --> 00:56:39.039
four six. Most of the hotel guests weren't there during midday,

695
00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:43.360
so she was surprised when Roland opened the door. She

696
00:56:43.440 --> 00:56:47.320
said she could come back later, but Roland insisted she'd

697
00:56:47.480 --> 00:56:51.599
just go ahead. Once she was in the room, Roland

698
00:56:51.639 --> 00:56:54.119
asked her to not lock the door, as he was

699
00:56:54.159 --> 00:56:58.039
expecting a friend. In a few minutes, Mary noticed that

700
00:56:58.119 --> 00:57:01.440
all the shades were completely closed and the only source

701
00:57:01.480 --> 00:57:04.559
of light in the room was the dim lamp on

702
00:57:04.679 --> 00:57:08.440
the desk. Mary told the police that his face showed

703
00:57:08.480 --> 00:57:14.440
anxiety and uneasiness. While Mary was cleaning, Roland put on

704
00:57:14.559 --> 00:57:18.159
his coat, brushed his hair in the bathroom, and then left.

705
00:57:19.159 --> 00:57:22.000
He reminded her to still leave the door unlocked for

706
00:57:22.079 --> 00:57:25.719
the friend he was expecting. Mary would return to the

707
00:57:25.800 --> 00:57:29.440
room several times over the next few days, and each

708
00:57:29.480 --> 00:57:36.960
time she did, Roland's behavior grew stranger. Mary finished, and

709
00:57:37.039 --> 00:57:41.079
as she continued working throughout the hotel. She didn't see Roland,

710
00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:45.039
but at four p m. She stopped by room one

711
00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:48.960
O four six to give him fresh towels. The door

712
00:57:49.039 --> 00:57:52.760
was unlocked just as she left it, but the room

713
00:57:52.920 --> 00:57:57.760
was now completely dark. She could see from the light

714
00:57:57.840 --> 00:58:00.960
in the hallway, though, that Roland was lying across the bed,

715
00:58:01.639 --> 00:58:05.400
completely dressed. She also noticed a note on the desk

716
00:58:05.480 --> 00:58:09.880
that read, don I will be back in fifteen minutes. Wait.

717
00:58:11.039 --> 00:58:14.800
The following morning, on January third, Mary went to room

718
00:58:14.840 --> 00:58:18.119
one O four six at around ten thirty am to clean.

719
00:58:19.079 --> 00:58:22.280
She assumed Roland was checked out, so she used her

720
00:58:22.320 --> 00:58:25.639
master key to unlock the door that was now locked.

721
00:58:26.039 --> 00:58:29.400
When she entered, she found Roland sitting in the dark.

722
00:58:31.159 --> 00:58:34.960
This is when she realized that someone else had locked

723
00:58:34.960 --> 00:58:39.559
his door from the outside. Before she would say anything

724
00:58:39.639 --> 00:58:45.159
to him, the phone rang. Roland answered and responded to

725
00:58:45.199 --> 00:58:49.079
the caller, No, don I don't want to eat. I'm

726
00:58:49.119 --> 00:58:53.880
not hungry. I just had breakfast, And then after a moment,

727
00:58:53.960 --> 00:58:59.039
he replied again, no, I am not hungry. After he

728
00:58:59.119 --> 00:59:03.360
hung up the phone, Roland began interrogating Mary with questions

729
00:59:03.400 --> 00:59:06.920
about her did she work by herself on the entire floor,

730
00:59:07.760 --> 00:59:10.760
was the president a resident hotel where guests can live.

731
00:59:11.559 --> 00:59:15.760
Then he began complaining about the Mulebach Hotel's prices, as

732
00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:19.480
he did with the bell boy. Mary answered his questions

733
00:59:19.519 --> 00:59:22.480
and made small talk as she finished cleaning and gathering

734
00:59:22.519 --> 00:59:26.480
the soiled linens. Around four pm, she went back up

735
00:59:26.519 --> 00:59:29.480
to Room one O four six to deliver a fresh

736
00:59:29.519 --> 00:59:34.719
set of towels, but when she approached, she overheard two

737
00:59:34.719 --> 00:59:38.960
men talking. When she gently knocked on the door and

738
00:59:39.000 --> 00:59:42.559
announced that she had fresh towels, a loud and deep

739
00:59:42.639 --> 00:59:49.880
voice told her to leave, claiming they didn't need them.

740
00:59:50.280 --> 00:59:53.199
Mary found this odd because she knew they didn't have

741
00:59:53.320 --> 00:59:56.639
any towels, but she left the two men alone, not

742
00:59:56.800 --> 00:59:59.679
wanting to intrude on what sounded like a very private

743
00:59:59.679 --> 01:00:04.480
compan cosation. That same afternoon, the President Hotel checked in

744
01:00:04.599 --> 01:00:08.400
two more guests, whose statements would later contribute to the

745
01:00:08.480 --> 01:00:12.000
mystery of what happened in Room one O four six.

746
01:00:13.039 --> 01:00:16.840
Around six p m, thirty year old Gene Owen, who

747
01:00:16.920 --> 01:00:20.320
had no relation to Roland, arrived at the hotel and

748
01:00:20.440 --> 01:00:24.639
registered shortly thereafter. She had come from Lee's summit to

749
01:00:24.679 --> 01:00:27.559
do some shopping and meet up with her boyfriend, but

750
01:00:27.800 --> 01:00:30.480
she began feeling ill and decided to check into the

751
01:00:30.519 --> 01:00:34.920
hotel rather than driving the thirty minutes back home. Her

752
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:38.199
room number was one O four eight and shared a

753
01:00:38.239 --> 01:00:42.559
wall with room one O four six. Her boyfriend visited

754
01:00:42.599 --> 01:00:47.119
her around eight pm and then left around ten later.

755
01:00:47.519 --> 01:00:50.000
Jean told police that during the night of her stay,

756
01:00:50.719 --> 01:00:53.599
she heard a lot of noise. She said she heard

757
01:00:53.679 --> 01:00:58.480
men and women talking loudly and swearing. She almost called

758
01:00:58.480 --> 01:01:02.599
the front desk, but decided against it. The noise continued

759
01:01:02.639 --> 01:01:06.639
throughout the night. The other guest was a regular at

760
01:01:06.679 --> 01:01:10.239
the President Hotel. One of the bell hops described her

761
01:01:10.280 --> 01:01:14.960
as a commercial woman who frequented the hotel with male patrons.

762
01:01:15.719 --> 01:01:20.320
Charles Blocker, the elevator operator on the graveyard shift, escorted

763
01:01:20.360 --> 01:01:22.679
the woman to the tenth floor around two a m.

764
01:01:23.679 --> 01:01:27.079
She made inquiries about room one O two six, but

765
01:01:27.159 --> 01:01:30.199
couldn't find the man she was looking for, despite her

766
01:01:30.239 --> 01:01:35.400
reporting that he was very prompt in his appointments. After

767
01:01:35.480 --> 01:01:38.480
searching for hours and calling Charles up and back down

768
01:01:38.519 --> 01:01:42.320
the elevator, she finally gave up and left the hotel.

769
01:01:43.639 --> 01:01:46.719
Could she have been looking for Roland in Room one

770
01:01:46.760 --> 01:01:53.280
O four to six on the tenth floor. The following morning, Randolph,

771
01:01:53.519 --> 01:01:57.000
the same bellhop who escorted Roland the first day, was

772
01:01:57.079 --> 01:02:01.599
called by the telephone operator reported that the telephone in

773
01:02:01.679 --> 01:02:04.559
Room one O four six had been off the hook

774
01:02:05.280 --> 01:02:09.000
for ten minutes. When Randolph went to check it out,

775
01:02:09.440 --> 01:02:12.719
he noticed the do not disturb sign hanging on the

776
01:02:12.760 --> 01:02:17.039
door knob. He knocked on the door and Roland told

777
01:02:17.079 --> 01:02:22.159
him to come in, but the door was locked and

778
01:02:22.280 --> 01:02:26.480
Randolph didn't have a master key. He told Roland this

779
01:02:27.079 --> 01:02:29.159
and yelled for him to put the phone back on

780
01:02:29.199 --> 01:02:33.719
the hook, but he got no response, assuming he was

781
01:02:33.800 --> 01:02:39.199
simply just drunk. Randolph left. However, an hour and a

782
01:02:39.280 --> 01:02:43.199
half later, the telephone operator told Randolph that the phone

783
01:02:43.239 --> 01:02:46.079
in Room one O four six was still off the

784
01:02:46.119 --> 01:02:52.039
hook and had been the entire time. This time, Randolph

785
01:02:52.079 --> 01:02:56.239
took a master key up with him. Roland was lying

786
01:02:56.320 --> 01:02:59.000
naked on the bed, and the bell boy assumed he

787
01:02:59.119 --> 01:03:03.400
was passed out, Not trying to invade his personal space

788
01:03:03.800 --> 01:03:06.760
or be in there any longer than needed, he simply

789
01:03:06.800 --> 01:03:09.960
put the phone back on the receiver and locked the

790
01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:14.360
door after he left. But an hour later, at around

791
01:03:14.400 --> 01:03:18.320
ten thirty a m. The phone was again off the hook.

792
01:03:19.000 --> 01:03:22.920
When Randolph went a third time to investigate. What he

793
01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:28.760
walked into shocked him to his very core. Just within

794
01:03:28.920 --> 01:03:32.079
two feet of the door. The man was curled over

795
01:03:32.119 --> 01:03:35.320
his knees and elbows, holding his head in his hands,

796
01:03:35.639 --> 01:03:40.000
and the room was now splattered with blood all over

797
01:03:40.039 --> 01:03:45.880
the walls, the bed, and the bathroom. He immediately left

798
01:03:45.920 --> 01:03:48.119
the room, and his manager hurried to the room in

799
01:03:48.159 --> 01:03:52.360
his wake, but could barely open the door. Now Roland

800
01:03:52.400 --> 01:03:57.320
had collapsed on the other side. Police arrived to investigate

801
01:03:57.360 --> 01:04:00.119
and saw that the man had been restrained with cord

802
01:04:00.119 --> 01:04:04.920
wrapped around his neck, his wrists, and his ankles. It

803
01:04:05.039 --> 01:04:09.239
was a clear sign of torture as he had multiple

804
01:04:09.320 --> 01:04:12.960
knife wounds bleeding in his chest just over his heart.

805
01:04:13.639 --> 01:04:16.480
The man's skull had been fractured on the right side,

806
01:04:16.679 --> 01:04:21.079
and he was struck forcibly more than once, bruising braided

807
01:04:21.119 --> 01:04:25.280
his neck, suggesting strangulation was used as one of the

808
01:04:25.360 --> 01:04:31.920
many methods of torture. But Roland was still semi conscious,

809
01:04:31.960 --> 01:04:35.199
so Detective Ira Johnson asked who had been in the

810
01:04:35.280 --> 01:04:42.119
room with him. Roland replied nobody. After being asked how

811
01:04:42.159 --> 01:04:47.519
this happened, he said, I fell against the bathtub. They

812
01:04:47.599 --> 01:04:50.800
asked if he attempted to commit suicide, to which he

813
01:04:50.880 --> 01:04:56.480
mumbled no before falling unconscious. After he was rushed to

814
01:04:56.519 --> 01:05:02.400
the hospital, investigators noticed the blood on his body was dry,

815
01:05:02.440 --> 01:05:06.559
indicating the stabbing and cutting would have taken place well before.

816
01:05:06.599 --> 01:05:10.159
The bellboy went to room one O four six at

817
01:05:10.199 --> 01:05:13.400
seven in the morning, and when they searched the room,

818
01:05:14.320 --> 01:05:18.599
no clothes were found anywhere. The black coat he'd arrived

819
01:05:18.639 --> 01:05:23.440
in was gone, There was no shirt, no pants, and

820
01:05:23.480 --> 01:05:27.159
no socks or shoes. The closest thing to clothing was

821
01:05:27.199 --> 01:05:31.880
the label from a necktie. Also missing from the room

822
01:05:31.920 --> 01:05:37.280
were the toiletries, soap, shampoo, and towels, and anything that

823
01:05:37.280 --> 01:05:41.119
could have been the weapon was also nowhere to be found. This,

824
01:05:41.239 --> 01:05:44.679
along with Roland being bound by cord, set aside the

825
01:05:44.760 --> 01:05:49.199
possibility of suicide. The only things in the room were

826
01:05:49.239 --> 01:05:53.880
two empty water glasses, an unlit cigarette, a hairpin, a

827
01:05:53.920 --> 01:06:00.960
safety pin, and a bottle of diluted sulfuric acid. One

828
01:06:00.960 --> 01:06:04.119
of the glasses had a broken piece missing, and the

829
01:06:04.159 --> 01:06:10.119
other had four small fingerprints, possibly from a woman. The

830
01:06:10.199 --> 01:06:15.119
hotel guests were all questioned, but nothing was resolved. Since

831
01:06:15.199 --> 01:06:19.159
Roland had listed his hometown as Los Angeles. The detectives

832
01:06:19.199 --> 01:06:22.119
reached out to the LA Police, but there were no

833
01:06:22.320 --> 01:06:27.840
records of a Roland t Owen, and after finding nothing

834
01:06:27.880 --> 01:06:31.239
about him, they were beginning to think that a Roland

835
01:06:31.320 --> 01:06:37.199
t Owen did not exist. Tragically, they weren't able to

836
01:06:37.239 --> 01:06:40.519
speak to him because he had died from his injuries

837
01:06:40.639 --> 01:06:45.960
just after midnight on the fifth of January. A possible

838
01:06:46.039 --> 01:06:49.400
sighting of Roland on the night of January third was investigated,

839
01:06:49.400 --> 01:06:56.400
but eventually ruled out. One lead seemed promising after speaking

840
01:06:56.440 --> 01:06:59.880
to the staff about Roland complaining about the neighboring hotel's price.

841
01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:04.320
As detectives checked the register in the Mulebach Hotel and

842
01:07:04.400 --> 01:07:07.840
didn't find a Roland t Owen, but the front desk

843
01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:11.159
did recognize the man as staying in the hotel the

844
01:07:11.239 --> 01:07:14.679
night before he went to the President. His home address

845
01:07:14.800 --> 01:07:18.280
was also listed as Los Angeles, but the name he

846
01:07:18.400 --> 01:07:25.360
used was Eugenie K. Scott. Yet, after searching for this man,

847
01:07:25.719 --> 01:07:29.840
they realized this was just another false name, and after

848
01:07:29.920 --> 01:07:34.639
another name, Cecil Werner, arose through the search, the police

849
01:07:34.639 --> 01:07:37.679
were beginning to wonder if they would ever identify the

850
01:07:37.800 --> 01:07:42.000
John Doe. An announcement was made in the papers that

851
01:07:42.039 --> 01:07:45.000
the man who claimed to be Roland t Owen would

852
01:07:45.039 --> 01:07:49.880
be buried. Later, the funeral home received an envelope containing

853
01:07:50.000 --> 01:07:54.760
cash from an anonymous sender. The cash was just enough

854
01:07:54.760 --> 01:07:58.679
to pay for the funeral expenses and the burial. Along

855
01:07:58.760 --> 01:08:02.320
with this was a floral trie to Roland and a

856
01:08:02.400 --> 01:08:10.079
card that read Love Forever Louise. Even after this mysterious donation,

857
01:08:10.960 --> 01:08:15.840
the case went extremely cold. That is until two years later,

858
01:08:16.119 --> 01:08:18.560
when the Kansas City Police received a letter from a

859
01:08:18.600 --> 01:08:23.560
woman named Ruby Ogletree. She claimed a friend of hers

860
01:08:23.600 --> 01:08:26.359
saw the picture of Roland t Owen in a newspaper

861
01:08:26.640 --> 01:08:31.399
along with the description of the bizarre murder. When Ruby

862
01:08:31.439 --> 01:08:36.920
saw the picture, her heart sank. She positively identified the

863
01:08:36.960 --> 01:08:40.399
scars and other features and claimed he was her seventeen

864
01:08:40.439 --> 01:08:46.079
year old son and his real name was Artemis Ogletree.

865
01:08:46.680 --> 01:08:51.000
The detectives expected this lead to flourish new evidence, but

866
01:08:51.199 --> 01:08:54.279
it ended up leaving them with more questions than they

867
01:08:54.319 --> 01:08:58.720
had before. Artemis left home in nineteen thirty four to

868
01:08:58.840 --> 01:09:03.560
travel America and initially would pen handwritten letters to his mother,

869
01:09:04.399 --> 01:09:08.239
but in nineteen thirty five, Ruby began receiving letters from

870
01:09:08.279 --> 01:09:12.840
a typewriter after Artemis's murder, three letters were sent to

871
01:09:12.880 --> 01:09:17.000
her from some one claiming to be him. The sender

872
01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:19.600
of the letters also claimed he was leaving the United

873
01:09:19.640 --> 01:09:25.279
States and was off to Egypt in nineteen thirty six.

874
01:09:25.399 --> 01:09:28.960
Ruby tried locating him through the US consul in Cairo, Egypt,

875
01:09:29.359 --> 01:09:32.319
but they weren't able to confirm that an Artemis Ogletree

876
01:09:32.720 --> 01:09:36.840
had ever traveled there. Detectives were able to find out

877
01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:39.560
that Artemis had shared a room with another man in

878
01:09:39.600 --> 01:09:44.359
a different hotel in Kansas City some time before his murder.

879
01:09:45.039 --> 01:09:48.520
They wondered if this man was the Don Artemis spoke

880
01:09:48.600 --> 01:09:51.760
of and referred to in his note, and if Don

881
01:09:51.920 --> 01:09:54.960
was the rough voiced man who told Mary Sooptik through

882
01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:57.920
the locker door of Room one O four six that

883
01:09:58.000 --> 01:10:02.079
they didn't need any towels. The strange murder of now

884
01:10:02.279 --> 01:10:08.520
Artemis Ogletree leaves endless room for theories and speculation. A

885
01:10:08.600 --> 01:10:11.960
major thread in the case is the involvement of Don.

886
01:10:12.760 --> 01:10:16.680
It's believed the mysterious man beat and tortured Artemis to

887
01:10:16.800 --> 01:10:20.520
death in Room one O four six. But how did

888
01:10:20.560 --> 01:10:23.840
no one in the hotel see Don or hear such

889
01:10:24.239 --> 01:10:29.479
violence taking place? Many also believed Don did not act alone.

890
01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:33.439
On the night of the murder. The elevator operator Charles

891
01:10:33.479 --> 01:10:38.000
Blocker claimed the commercial woman was attempting to find the

892
01:10:38.039 --> 01:10:41.479
man and was looking all night. Could she have been

893
01:10:41.600 --> 01:10:47.199
somehow connected to Artemis? This theory is also backed by

894
01:10:47.199 --> 01:10:50.800
the four small finger prints found on the broken glass

895
01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:55.279
in the room. Additionally, the guest Gene Owen, who stayed

896
01:10:55.279 --> 01:10:57.960
in Room one O four eight, claimed to hear the

897
01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:02.439
loud voices of both a man and a woman. Although

898
01:11:02.439 --> 01:11:05.520
the police were able to identify their John Doe, this

899
01:11:05.720 --> 01:11:10.239
case still remains a baffling mystery, and everyone is still

900
01:11:10.279 --> 01:11:15.439
asking the same questions. Why was Artemis killed and by who?

901
01:11:16.479 --> 01:11:20.359
What exactly went on in Room one O four six

902
01:11:20.439 --> 01:11:24.439
that night? Who was Don and who was the anonymous

903
01:11:24.439 --> 01:11:28.680
donor Louise? Could she have been the woman whose voice

904
01:11:29.279 --> 01:11:33.920
was heard? When Artemis's mother Ruby watched as her seventeen

905
01:11:33.960 --> 01:11:36.520
year old son left and went to travel the country,

906
01:11:36.840 --> 01:11:40.279
she wasn't aware he would become entangled in one of

907
01:11:40.319 --> 01:11:45.119
the twentieth century's most peculiar crimes, a crime that remains

908
01:11:45.239 --> 01:11:50.760
unsolved eighty seven years later. The Mystery of Room one

909
01:11:50.800 --> 01:12:05.079
O four six. The history of chain letters, share or die.

910
01:12:05.279 --> 01:12:10.239
This message has been cursed. Once you open it, you

911
01:12:10.359 --> 01:12:14.520
must send it. Forward this to at least ten of

912
01:12:14.560 --> 01:12:18.920
your friends for good fortune. These are just a few

913
01:12:18.960 --> 01:12:24.000
of the messages you've likely received or scrolled past online.

914
01:12:24.039 --> 01:12:27.920
They are vastly common and come in various topics, with

915
01:12:28.039 --> 01:12:31.479
either of the two specific incentives too good to be

916
01:12:31.560 --> 01:12:38.359
true results or tremendously horrific consequences, and nothing in between.

917
01:12:39.279 --> 01:12:42.520
As you're hearing this, you're likely thinking you would never

918
01:12:42.680 --> 01:12:48.319
fall victim to such ridiculous messages. However, there's a reason

919
01:12:48.479 --> 01:12:54.199
you still see them today. People are continuing to forward them.

920
01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:58.720
These fall into the categories of people in desperate need

921
01:12:58.800 --> 01:13:04.079
of hope and prosperity, those who are easily persuaded and credulous,

922
01:13:04.439 --> 01:13:09.119
or those who think to themselves might as well, what

923
01:13:09.199 --> 01:13:13.960
could it hurt? These spam messages are more commonly referred

924
01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:18.199
to as chain letters, and though it might seem as

925
01:13:18.239 --> 01:13:22.840
if the Internet fabricated them, it's believed they began hundreds

926
01:13:22.880 --> 01:13:28.239
of years ago, hence the word letters. When it comes

927
01:13:28.279 --> 01:13:32.079
to the origin of the chain letter, many historians place

928
01:13:32.159 --> 01:13:35.159
it near the end of the first century, over two

929
01:13:35.279 --> 01:13:39.399
thousand years ago. It's believed the letter came from no

930
01:13:39.560 --> 01:13:44.960
less a person than Jesus Christ himself in heaven. Fifty

931
01:13:44.960 --> 01:13:48.319
five years after he had been resurrected and sent to heaven,

932
01:13:48.359 --> 01:13:52.359
a young boy found a letter beneath a rock. The

933
01:13:52.479 --> 01:13:56.119
letter was then copied and circulated for hundreds of years

934
01:13:56.159 --> 01:14:02.840
to follow, bearing the same strange warn He that copieth

935
01:14:02.960 --> 01:14:07.039
this letter shall be blessed of me. He that does

936
01:14:07.079 --> 01:14:12.039
not shall be cursed. Whether or not the letter actually

937
01:14:12.119 --> 01:14:15.760
came from Jesus Christ in heaven, it grabbed people's attention.

938
01:14:16.520 --> 01:14:19.880
Copies of the letter survive from as early as seventeen

939
01:14:20.039 --> 01:14:25.439
ninety five, proving that chain letters tug at people's superstitions

940
01:14:25.479 --> 01:14:30.920
and innate curiosity. The chance of receiving awful luck, being cursed,

941
01:14:31.000 --> 01:14:35.359
or even dying isn't worth the risk. Copying a letter

942
01:14:35.439 --> 01:14:40.560
settles superstitious minds. If there's a possibility of prosperity or

943
01:14:40.680 --> 01:14:46.039
religious enlightenment just by forwarding a message, humans are all

944
01:14:46.079 --> 01:14:51.079
for it. In the year eighteen eighty eight, chain letters resurfaced.

945
01:14:51.720 --> 01:14:56.119
A Methodist academy for women missionaries was struggling to financially

946
01:14:56.159 --> 01:14:59.880
support the business. They were up to their eyeballs in debt.

947
01:15:00.680 --> 01:15:04.560
The group leaders prayed for assistance from God, but they

948
01:15:04.600 --> 01:15:09.079
also knew they were desperate to try anything. A woman

949
01:15:09.159 --> 01:15:12.119
had heard of their troubles and offered a possible solution.

950
01:15:13.119 --> 01:15:17.279
If they could arrange a chain letter asking for small donations,

951
01:15:17.720 --> 01:15:22.000
they could quickly dig their way out of debt. Lucy Meyer,

952
01:15:22.319 --> 01:15:26.199
the head of the congregation, took this advice earnestly and

953
01:15:26.279 --> 01:15:30.039
created a letter that contained a solicitation to send just

954
01:15:30.159 --> 01:15:33.319
one dime and then send a copy of the letter

955
01:15:33.840 --> 01:15:37.479
to three friends. The goal was that the recipients would

956
01:15:37.520 --> 01:15:42.239
continue this chain and the dimes would quickly multiply. Lucy

957
01:15:42.319 --> 01:15:45.399
mailed off one thousand, five hundred copies of the letter

958
01:15:45.960 --> 01:15:50.319
and patiently waited, Likely doubtful of the scheme, she was

959
01:15:50.359 --> 01:15:55.600
surprised when responses began pouring in. Through the donations, the

960
01:15:55.640 --> 01:16:01.359
academy eventually raised six thousand dollars, with many recipients sending

961
01:16:01.520 --> 01:16:06.159
much more than a dime. Six thousand dollars may seem

962
01:16:06.279 --> 01:16:11.119
like a reasonable amount of money, however, when adjusted for inflation,

963
01:16:11.800 --> 01:16:15.680
that would be roughly one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars.

964
01:16:16.600 --> 01:16:20.520
Many others also used the letter as inspiration to join

965
01:16:20.600 --> 01:16:26.960
the missionaries. The chain letters seemed to be a huge success. However,

966
01:16:27.720 --> 01:16:33.479
a few complained of being targeted numerous times. They felt exasperated,

967
01:16:33.880 --> 01:16:37.840
and rather than discarding the letters, they wrote back, criticizing

968
01:16:37.880 --> 01:16:41.840
the ordeal and even making accusations that the Academy seemed

969
01:16:41.840 --> 01:16:47.079
to have an abundance of money already. The Missionaries named

970
01:16:47.119 --> 01:16:52.279
the chain letter a peripatetic contribution box, like a donation

971
01:16:52.479 --> 01:16:56.199
bin or a postal hat passing. They quickly grew in

972
01:16:56.319 --> 01:17:01.880
popularity in hundreds of other organizations and businesses began using them.

973
01:17:02.199 --> 01:17:05.880
The contribution box was seized upon in Britain that same year.

974
01:17:06.239 --> 01:17:09.720
In eighteen eighty eight, as a weapon against the infamous

975
01:17:09.920 --> 01:17:15.560
Jack the Ripper. The unknown assailant was terrorizing London, specifically

976
01:17:15.640 --> 01:17:21.439
targeting and brutally murdering prostitutes in the impoverished district of Whitechapel.

977
01:17:22.279 --> 01:17:25.560
The area offered a breeding ground for violent crimes and

978
01:17:25.640 --> 01:17:30.199
poor behavioral habits. In November of eighteen eighty eight, a

979
01:17:30.279 --> 01:17:35.319
woman named Missus Campbell oversaw a snowball collection to aid

980
01:17:35.399 --> 01:17:38.760
the Bishop of Bedford in funding a home for destitute

981
01:17:38.760 --> 01:17:43.760
women in Whitechapel. The chain letter requested donations, along with

982
01:17:43.840 --> 01:17:47.960
writing two copies, then adding your name and address at

983
01:17:47.960 --> 01:17:50.800
the end of each. The three letters were to be

984
01:17:50.880 --> 01:17:55.760
mailed to Missus Campbell Brookvilla, Bedford until there were fourteen

985
01:17:55.880 --> 01:18:00.800
names and addresses listed. If anyone couldn't continue knew the chain,

986
01:18:01.479 --> 01:18:04.399
they were asked to mail the letter to their returned

987
01:18:04.479 --> 01:18:07.960
letter office so they knew where the chain had been broken.

988
01:18:08.640 --> 01:18:12.199
If the instructions were followed, four hundred pounds would have

989
01:18:12.239 --> 01:18:17.640
been collected. However, early in the sequence, an ingenious lady

990
01:18:17.760 --> 01:18:20.960
accidentally changed the number of times for it to multiply,

991
01:18:21.239 --> 01:18:26.800
from fourteen to one hundred and forty, then another changed

992
01:18:26.840 --> 01:18:30.640
it from one hundred and forty to one thousand, four hundred,

993
01:18:31.399 --> 01:18:36.520
then to fourteen thousand, rather than the abundance of money

994
01:18:36.520 --> 01:18:41.239
going solely to Missus Campbell, though many other recipients accidentally

995
01:18:41.239 --> 01:18:44.159
mailed the letters to the Bishop of Brighton and the

996
01:18:44.159 --> 01:18:49.279
Bishop of Bradford instead of Bedford. Missus Campbell left the

997
01:18:49.359 --> 01:18:52.800
area for Scotland, but the letters continued to follow her.

998
01:18:53.199 --> 01:18:56.000
As late as April of eighteen eighty nine, she was

999
01:18:56.039 --> 01:19:01.520
receiving sixteen thousand letters a week. Messages were printed in

1000
01:19:01.600 --> 01:19:08.359
newspapers asking to stop the flow. However, it only continued snowballing.

1001
01:19:09.359 --> 01:19:12.560
A new variant arose, with doctor Campbell from the Bishop

1002
01:19:12.600 --> 01:19:17.920
of Banger, receiving thousands of donations. Meanwhile, Missus Campbell was

1003
01:19:17.960 --> 01:19:21.960
also receiving an overwhelming amount of letters from people wanting

1004
01:19:22.000 --> 01:19:26.199
to know if the appeal was genuine or just a scam.

1005
01:19:26.560 --> 01:19:30.079
Many other attempts were made to stop the snowball of letters,

1006
01:19:30.680 --> 01:19:35.479
but it's unclear when it truly ended. Chain letter fundraising

1007
01:19:35.600 --> 01:19:38.439
was used for an array of things in the eighteen nineties,

1008
01:19:38.439 --> 01:19:41.840
including to raise money for a bicycle path in Michigan.

1009
01:19:42.720 --> 01:19:46.039
In eighteen ninety eight, the New York World newspaper printed

1010
01:19:46.119 --> 01:19:49.079
chain letter forms to raise money for a Spanish American

1011
01:19:49.119 --> 01:19:53.399
War soldier's memorial. It read, do not break the chain,

1012
01:19:53.640 --> 01:19:56.239
which will result in honoring the memory of the men

1013
01:19:56.279 --> 01:20:01.000
who sacrificed their lives. Chain letters had their own incredibly

1014
01:20:01.039 --> 01:20:04.119
popular and soon caught the eye of a con man

1015
01:20:04.479 --> 01:20:09.520
who used them for a fictitious charity case in Las Vegas. Soon,

1016
01:20:10.159 --> 01:20:13.680
the growth of chain letters with a pyramid scheme payment developed.

1017
01:20:14.119 --> 01:20:18.760
Recipients were asked to mail dimes to previous senders removing

1018
01:20:18.840 --> 01:20:22.760
the top name and adding theirs to the bottom chalked

1019
01:20:22.840 --> 01:20:27.600
up as a get rich quick deal. After these circulated

1020
01:20:27.640 --> 01:20:31.159
throughout the US and Great Britain, the US Postal Service

1021
01:20:31.199 --> 01:20:35.000
had seen enough they declared the dime letter to be

1022
01:20:35.119 --> 01:20:40.079
a violation of lottery laws. Chain letters never went away,

1023
01:20:40.199 --> 01:20:43.960
though during World War One they were used by pro

1024
01:20:44.119 --> 01:20:49.399
German Americans to send a substantial sum to Field Marshal Hindenburg.

1025
01:20:50.119 --> 01:20:53.199
In nineteen seventeen, The New York Times reported them as

1026
01:20:53.279 --> 01:20:57.880
being a German plot to clog the United States mails.

1027
01:20:58.720 --> 01:21:01.920
The most devious scheme was the Circle of Gold chain

1028
01:21:02.039 --> 01:21:05.279
letter in nineteen seventy eight. It began in the San

1029
01:21:05.319 --> 01:21:09.800
Francisco Bay area and completed its own circle around the country.

1030
01:21:10.600 --> 01:21:14.439
Unlike the other letters, and to avoid postal enforcements, it

1031
01:21:14.520 --> 01:21:18.720
was passed around hand to hand at parties or small groups.

1032
01:21:19.319 --> 01:21:22.000
The only time the postal service was used was when

1033
01:21:22.039 --> 01:21:25.960
members would send the money to the top name. As

1034
01:21:26.000 --> 01:21:29.600
a participant, one would put up one hundred dollars, then

1035
01:21:29.680 --> 01:21:32.920
would pay the seller fifty dollars and mail the other

1036
01:21:33.039 --> 01:21:35.359
fifty dollars to the top name on the list of

1037
01:21:35.439 --> 01:21:39.279
twelve in the letter. After this, the participant would put

1038
01:21:39.279 --> 01:21:41.960
their name at the bottom of the list and sell

1039
01:21:42.000 --> 01:21:44.479
the letter to someone else who agreed to the same

1040
01:21:44.640 --> 01:21:49.039
financial transaction. Some people were reported to have received up

1041
01:21:49.079 --> 01:21:53.039
to thirty thousand dollars, while others received no money and

1042
01:21:53.079 --> 01:21:56.359
were one hundred dollars in the hole. It circled the

1043
01:21:56.399 --> 01:21:59.880
country from San Francisco to New York City, down south

1044
01:22:00.039 --> 01:22:04.279
in North Carolina, before heading back west towards Texas and

1045
01:22:04.359 --> 01:22:09.479
then California. It was even reported to have landed in Hawaii,

1046
01:22:09.960 --> 01:22:13.760
all through hand deliveries. The originators of the Circle of

1047
01:22:13.840 --> 01:22:18.800
Gold scheme were never prosecuted. While that chain letter system

1048
01:22:18.880 --> 01:22:22.079
traveled the country, it didn't quite beat the craze of

1049
01:22:22.199 --> 01:22:26.760
nineteen thirty five. After the Great Depression, Americans reverted to

1050
01:22:26.800 --> 01:22:32.119
the fascination with the dime letters. Springfield, Missourians created a

1051
01:22:32.159 --> 01:22:36.039
plan of chain letter stores. Beauty shops sold the letters

1052
01:22:36.079 --> 01:22:40.079
to their customers while administering facials and haircuts. A few

1053
01:22:40.159 --> 01:22:44.239
residents in Springfield even attempted a drunk chain, doubling their

1054
01:22:44.279 --> 01:22:47.199
crowd in size with each round of high balls at

1055
01:22:47.239 --> 01:22:51.239
a new bar. The originators hazily tried to figure out

1056
01:22:51.319 --> 01:22:53.960
how long it would take to get the entire city

1057
01:22:54.000 --> 01:22:58.640
of Springfield drunk in the end, though they all passed

1058
01:22:58.680 --> 01:23:03.600
out before complete reading their calculations. A few weeks later,

1059
01:23:03.920 --> 01:23:07.520
the chain letter market crashed and chain letter brokers fled

1060
01:23:07.600 --> 01:23:12.359
town with thousands of dollars. A Springfield newspaper wrote, sad

1061
01:23:12.439 --> 01:23:15.079
faced men and women walked around in a daze tonight,

1062
01:23:15.479 --> 01:23:19.279
seeking vainly for someone to buy their chain letters. In

1063
01:23:19.399 --> 01:23:22.560
July of nineteen thirty five, the US Postal Service was

1064
01:23:22.640 --> 01:23:26.399
left between two million to three million letters in the

1065
01:23:26.439 --> 01:23:31.159
dead letter offices. In the nineteen nineties, just before email

1066
01:23:31.279 --> 01:23:34.399
and the Internet replaced physical letters, one of the most

1067
01:23:34.439 --> 01:23:39.119
bizarre chain letters surfaced from an unknown source. It stated,

1068
01:23:40.039 --> 01:23:43.600
send one pair of pretty underwear of your choice to

1069
01:23:43.720 --> 01:23:47.000
the person listed below, and send a copy of this

1070
01:23:47.199 --> 01:23:50.920
letter to six friends. If you can't do this in

1071
01:23:51.039 --> 01:23:55.000
seven days, please notify me because it isn't fair to

1072
01:23:55.039 --> 01:23:59.439
those who have participated. You will receive thirty six pairs

1073
01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:05.399
of pretty panties. Although this seemed outlandish, the circulation of

1074
01:24:05.439 --> 01:24:10.119
this chain thrived. The Baltimore Sun reported several happy enrollees

1075
01:24:10.319 --> 01:24:15.720
who were mailed many, many pairs of underwear every week. Today,

1076
01:24:16.039 --> 01:24:18.880
chain letters are rarely sent through the mail and are

1077
01:24:18.920 --> 01:24:24.239
often referred to as chain emails or spam messages. However,

1078
01:24:24.760 --> 01:24:28.279
they are much more common today due to the unlimited

1079
01:24:28.359 --> 01:24:33.399
chain letter resources and unlimited mailbox space. They're sent to

1080
01:24:33.479 --> 01:24:36.560
a vast number of people and many times are just

1081
01:24:36.800 --> 01:24:41.319
used to amuse recipients. Late in the twentieth century, emails

1082
01:24:41.359 --> 01:24:44.720
were the go to for chain letters, but throughout the

1083
01:24:44.840 --> 01:24:50.560
years it's changed from emails to MySpace, to Facebook and

1084
01:24:50.640 --> 01:24:54.720
many other platforms. Many people who create them are just

1085
01:24:54.840 --> 01:24:58.840
looking for likes, comments, and reshares on their social media

1086
01:24:59.279 --> 01:25:04.760
to gain law larger followings. However, con artists lurk behind

1087
01:25:04.840 --> 01:25:10.319
the scenes, tugging at people's morality and trusting personalities. Spammers

1088
01:25:10.359 --> 01:25:13.880
may use chain letters to collect new email addresses to

1089
01:25:13.960 --> 01:25:19.079
send advertisements for their products or services. Others are much worse,

1090
01:25:19.439 --> 01:25:22.520
asking the recipient to donate money for a charity, but

1091
01:25:23.199 --> 01:25:26.279
the money actually just ends up in the sender's accounts.

1092
01:25:27.000 --> 01:25:30.479
Identity theft is also a great concern among chain letters.

1093
01:25:30.880 --> 01:25:33.880
People's personal data can be taken and used to perform

1094
01:25:33.960 --> 01:25:39.239
illicit actions on the recipient's behalfs. Both internet and physical

1095
01:25:39.279 --> 01:25:43.800
security can also be threatened, so why do people fall

1096
01:25:43.880 --> 01:25:48.439
for chain letters. It's because they leverage human emotions and

1097
01:25:48.479 --> 01:25:53.840
empathy children needing money for expensive operations, petitions for a

1098
01:25:53.880 --> 01:25:59.359
social cause, or any other charity cases. Monetary rewards are

1099
01:25:59.399 --> 01:26:02.119
often used us to pique the interest of those who

1100
01:26:02.119 --> 01:26:06.479
were in desperate need of financial help. Scammers lure them

1101
01:26:06.520 --> 01:26:10.640
with get rich quickly pyramid schemes and promise certain amounts

1102
01:26:10.680 --> 01:26:14.359
of money for each new recipient added to the chain.

1103
01:26:15.239 --> 01:26:18.159
They also play into people's fear by warning them of

1104
01:26:18.199 --> 01:26:22.239
a threat to their phones or computers, urging them to

1105
01:26:22.359 --> 01:26:26.720
strengthen their Internet security. Or they can make you fear

1106
01:26:27.159 --> 01:26:31.880
severe consequences by threatening bad luck and death if the

1107
01:26:31.920 --> 01:26:37.239
recipient doesn't do as they say. They often contained testimonials

1108
01:26:37.479 --> 01:26:40.600
that detailed the name of the past recipient who either

1109
01:26:40.640 --> 01:26:44.720
followed the instructions and were met with great fortune, or

1110
01:26:44.840 --> 01:26:48.560
didn't follow the instructions and were immediately struck by a

1111
01:26:48.640 --> 01:26:54.159
bus or died in some horrific fashion. The original chain letter,

1112
01:26:54.439 --> 01:26:58.039
dating back to the very first century, isn't far off

1113
01:26:58.079 --> 01:27:01.760
from what we see online today. The original warning of

1114
01:27:01.800 --> 01:27:05.039
a curse to those who do not copyeth and forward,

1115
01:27:05.760 --> 01:27:09.880
and many chain letters, messages, and posts are still used

1116
01:27:10.119 --> 01:27:16.239
for religious enlightenment and genuine, harmless prosperity. However, it's the

1117
01:27:16.279 --> 01:27:20.159
perfect market for fraudsters and con artists to thrive in.

1118
01:27:20.920 --> 01:27:24.119
You might not believe in being cursed or facing violent

1119
01:27:24.199 --> 01:27:29.239
consequences if you don't abide and follow instructions, but almost

1120
01:27:29.239 --> 01:27:33.439
everyone has shared a humorous chain post or simply shared

1121
01:27:33.520 --> 01:27:38.079
thinking why not, or might as well? What could it hurt?

1122
01:27:38.760 --> 01:27:44.399
Exasperating the hundreds of more recipients to follow, and perhaps

1123
01:27:44.520 --> 01:27:55.960
leaving others to wonder what if. The nineteen eighty two

1124
01:27:56.119 --> 01:28:02.479
murders at Corpsewood Manorville, Georgia, home to more than four

1125
01:28:02.560 --> 01:28:07.119
thousand residents. Chattooga County is located near the Chattooga River

1126
01:28:07.560 --> 01:28:11.119
and is about a two hour drive from the state's capital, Atlanta.

1127
01:28:12.000 --> 01:28:16.359
Charles Scudder and his longtime partner Joseph Odom will soon

1128
01:28:16.439 --> 01:28:20.279
construct the Corpsewood Manor on a forty acre plot of land,

1129
01:28:20.680 --> 01:28:24.960
but the story starts much earlier than that. On October sixth,

1130
01:28:25.119 --> 01:28:30.760
nineteen twenty six. Charles Scudder was born in Wawatosa, Wisconsin.

1131
01:28:31.520 --> 01:28:36.560
He attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. There he met

1132
01:28:36.600 --> 01:28:40.600
Helen Kilbourne Hayslette in college, and the two were soon

1133
01:28:40.680 --> 01:28:46.800
married on September tenth, nineteen forty six, but they divorced

1134
01:28:47.239 --> 01:28:52.840
soon after. Charles remarried Boratai Bunting, the daughter of British

1135
01:28:52.840 --> 01:28:56.520
modernist poet Basel Bunting, a few years later in the

1136
01:28:56.600 --> 01:29:00.279
nineteen fifties. The couple had four sons in an ended

1137
01:29:00.359 --> 01:29:06.800
up getting a divorce. Charles Scudden went to Chicago's Loyola University.

1138
01:29:07.319 --> 01:29:11.840
He became an associate professor for doctor Alexander Karchmar, a

1139
01:29:11.920 --> 01:29:18.600
neuroscientist specializing in the pharmacology department. Doctor alex described Charles

1140
01:29:18.840 --> 01:29:22.520
as being out of the ordinary. He had a pet monkey,

1141
01:29:22.960 --> 01:29:27.039
and frequently dyed his hair various colors, such as purple.

1142
01:29:27.920 --> 01:29:30.239
Charles had a love for playing the harp and was

1143
01:29:30.279 --> 01:29:34.359
invited to play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As owner

1144
01:29:34.399 --> 01:29:37.680
of the nineteen o four mansion on West Adams Street

1145
01:29:37.720 --> 01:29:42.359
in Chicago, Charles Scudder furnished the palatial estate with baroque

1146
01:29:42.359 --> 01:29:46.680
furniture he purchased from the Chicago Theatre. Charles hires a

1147
01:29:46.720 --> 01:29:51.319
man named Joseph Odom also known as Joey or Joe

1148
01:29:51.640 --> 01:29:54.760
in nineteen fifty nine to help with the care of

1149
01:29:54.800 --> 01:29:59.920
his four children. Joseph Odom was twelve years younger than Charles.

1150
01:30:00.880 --> 01:30:03.560
Joey dropped out of school in the fifth grade, and

1151
01:30:03.680 --> 01:30:07.640
he was known for his culinary skills. Joseph moved into

1152
01:30:07.680 --> 01:30:11.359
the mansion with Charles, his four children, and two English

1153
01:30:11.399 --> 01:30:16.159
Mastiff dogs in nineteen seventy six. Charles was growing weary

1154
01:30:16.279 --> 01:30:19.720
of living a routine life. He was tired of working

1155
01:30:19.760 --> 01:30:23.800
with students, the rush hour traffic, and his neighborhood. He

1156
01:30:23.920 --> 01:30:27.039
was still mourning the loss of his youngest son, who

1157
01:30:27.079 --> 01:30:31.600
had died in nineteen seventy Charles and Joseph both valued

1158
01:30:31.640 --> 01:30:36.199
simplicity in life. They disliked city life's bustle and preferred

1159
01:30:36.199 --> 01:30:39.560
to live off the grid. Charles Scudder writes about his

1160
01:30:39.680 --> 01:30:42.920
perspective when he bought the house in a castle in

1161
01:30:42.960 --> 01:30:46.520
the country. He claimed that after having a soul searching

1162
01:30:46.600 --> 01:30:50.479
conversation with joe they decided they wanted to live somewhere

1163
01:30:50.520 --> 01:30:54.880
with four seasons, no harsh cold winters, a plentiful supply

1164
01:30:54.960 --> 01:30:58.920
of water, wood for heating and cooking, and their isolation,

1165
01:30:59.359 --> 01:31:02.359
which was the most important thing of all. In the

1166
01:31:02.399 --> 01:31:07.079
foothills of the Appellachians, Charles discovered forty acres of land

1167
01:31:07.319 --> 01:31:11.439
that was surrounded by national forest. To acquire a sense

1168
01:31:11.520 --> 01:31:14.680
of the area and take a look around, Charles traveled

1169
01:31:14.680 --> 01:31:20.800
to Georgia. He said he saw hummingbirds, butterflies, great oaks, bobcats,

1170
01:31:21.000 --> 01:31:24.359
and the rolling mountain woodland, and as he put it,

1171
01:31:24.960 --> 01:31:30.000
I was hooked. In nineteen seventy six, on his fiftieth birthday,

1172
01:31:30.520 --> 01:31:34.399
Charles resigned from his job. He then sold his property,

1173
01:31:34.760 --> 01:31:38.880
gave away all of his electrical appliances, auctioned off all

1174
01:31:38.960 --> 01:31:42.479
of his furniture and possessions, and hired a moving company

1175
01:31:42.840 --> 01:31:45.920
to move the things he wanted to keep to Georgia.

1176
01:31:46.960 --> 01:31:50.560
Charles wrote, then joe and I plus my two English

1177
01:31:50.600 --> 01:31:55.439
mastiffs left for our kingdom. Charles describes the move by saying,

1178
01:31:55.880 --> 01:31:58.560
cutting ties that have taken a lifetime to form is

1179
01:31:58.640 --> 01:32:03.039
a draining experience, and throwing away professional security in all

1180
01:32:03.079 --> 01:32:07.319
its opposed conveniences and luxuries is like losing a piece

1181
01:32:07.359 --> 01:32:11.239
of oneself. But for me, the change was like crawling

1182
01:32:11.239 --> 01:32:16.479
out of an old, outworn skin. Charles and Joey departed

1183
01:32:16.560 --> 01:32:19.640
Chicago in the middle of a blizzard, got lost a

1184
01:32:19.680 --> 01:32:22.960
few times on the way, and when they finally arrived

1185
01:32:23.000 --> 01:32:28.399
at their destination, they weren't entirely sure where the property was.

1186
01:32:29.239 --> 01:32:32.720
They were content with waiting the storm out. After the

1187
01:32:32.800 --> 01:32:36.159
storm passed, they discovered the corpse of a horse on

1188
01:32:36.199 --> 01:32:40.520
a logging road and decided to name it Dead Horse Road.

1189
01:32:41.439 --> 01:32:45.640
Charles and Joey decided to call their new property Corpsewood

1190
01:32:46.199 --> 01:32:50.239
after taking a look around and noticing the haunting tree.

1191
01:32:50.479 --> 01:32:55.119
Forty five thousand bricks, three layers thick with a two

1192
01:32:55.159 --> 01:32:58.880
inch wide air space between the layers for insulation, were

1193
01:32:59.039 --> 01:33:03.800
used to build draining systems, and pipes for sinks were

1194
01:33:03.840 --> 01:33:07.479
installed on the first floor. They soon had a kitchen,

1195
01:33:08.000 --> 01:33:11.520
dining room, and a living room. Next year, they got

1196
01:33:11.520 --> 01:33:14.560
a roof over the two upstairs bedrooms and built a

1197
01:33:14.600 --> 01:33:18.159
three story chicken coop. The top floor of the coop

1198
01:33:18.279 --> 01:33:21.640
was known as the Pink Room since it was completely

1199
01:33:21.760 --> 01:33:25.760
pink and it was where they entertained guests. The first

1200
01:33:25.800 --> 01:33:28.880
floor of the coop was for poultry and food storage.

1201
01:33:29.319 --> 01:33:33.119
The second floor was for canned goods and their extensive

1202
01:33:33.199 --> 01:33:39.119
pornography collection. Building the house took six years. Joey loved

1203
01:33:39.119 --> 01:33:42.760
to cook and had a rose garden. They became friends

1204
01:33:42.800 --> 01:33:45.439
with the locals, and Charles used the fruit that his

1205
01:33:45.439 --> 01:33:50.359
neighbors gave him to make wine. Charles loved art, using

1206
01:33:50.479 --> 01:33:53.600
stained glass and paintings. He would decorate the house with

1207
01:33:53.680 --> 01:33:59.319
Satanic artifacts. He used stained glass to construct a Baphomet signal,

1208
01:33:59.760 --> 01:34:03.880
the symbol of the Church of Satan. Pentagrams were painted

1209
01:34:03.920 --> 01:34:07.319
on the jeep's doors. Charles claimed to be an atheist

1210
01:34:07.359 --> 01:34:11.159
who had the same belief system as Anton LeVay, the

1211
01:34:11.199 --> 01:34:15.680
founder of the Church of Satan and the religion Leveyan Satanism.

1212
01:34:16.119 --> 01:34:20.119
Many people believed Charles was foretelling his own demise when

1213
01:34:20.119 --> 01:34:23.239
he painted a self portrait in which he had five

1214
01:34:23.319 --> 01:34:27.039
bullet holes in his head with duct tape over his mouth.

1215
01:34:27.840 --> 01:34:31.479
Many visitors frequently got permission to hunt on their property,

1216
01:34:31.920 --> 01:34:35.960
and many of them enjoyed the couple's hospitality and, of course,

1217
01:34:36.479 --> 01:34:41.159
Charles's homemade wine. Kenneth Avery Brock was one of the

1218
01:34:41.239 --> 01:34:44.960
hunters who felt Charles and Joey were extremely wealthy, when

1219
01:34:45.000 --> 01:34:48.840
in fact, Charles claimed we live in a grand style

1220
01:34:48.920 --> 01:34:52.199
on little over two hundred dollars a month about seven

1221
01:34:52.279 --> 01:34:56.239
hundred and twenty dollars when adjusted for inflation in late

1222
01:34:56.439 --> 01:35:00.359
nineteen eighty two, Kenneth Brock moved into a t trailer

1223
01:35:00.479 --> 01:35:05.239
owned by Samuel West. Kenneth then told Tony about the

1224
01:35:05.279 --> 01:35:11.199
wealthy queer devil worshippers. They made a plan to rob

1225
01:35:11.319 --> 01:35:16.640
the couple. On the night of December twelfth, nineteen eighty two,

1226
01:35:17.199 --> 01:35:20.960
Kenneth and Tony drove to Corpsewood Manor with a twenty

1227
01:35:21.000 --> 01:35:25.319
two Remington rifle obtained from Kenneth's mother and made up

1228
01:35:25.319 --> 01:35:29.359
a lie about going rabbit hunting. They picked up Joey Wells,

1229
01:35:29.520 --> 01:35:34.880
Tony's nephew, and his date, Teresa Hudgens. They inhaled alcohol,

1230
01:35:35.039 --> 01:35:40.119
paint thinner and glue known as a tutelou. When they arrived,

1231
01:35:40.439 --> 01:35:43.399
Charles took them to the pink Room, where he gave

1232
01:35:43.439 --> 01:35:46.680
them some of his homemade wine while Joey was cleaning

1233
01:35:46.760 --> 01:35:50.760
up the place. Kenneth then supposedly went to sniff more

1234
01:35:50.840 --> 01:35:55.159
two dlou, but in reality he went to get the rifle.

1235
01:35:56.199 --> 01:36:00.720
Charles was drinking when Kenneth returned. When Charles saw the gun,

1236
01:36:00.960 --> 01:36:04.880
he didn't take it seriously because he was drunk and

1237
01:36:05.000 --> 01:36:09.640
said bang bang. He was then held at knife point

1238
01:36:10.039 --> 01:36:14.000
and ordered to hand over his money. Teresa and Joey

1239
01:36:14.119 --> 01:36:16.760
rushed to the car to try and start it, but

1240
01:36:16.880 --> 01:36:21.560
it wouldn't. Kenneth entered the kitchen, shooting four times and

1241
01:36:21.680 --> 01:36:25.680
killing Joey Odom. In addition, he killed the two English

1242
01:36:25.720 --> 01:36:30.560
Mastiff dogs. Charles was taken into the house while being

1243
01:36:30.640 --> 01:36:34.439
bound and gagged, and there he saw his dead partner.

1244
01:36:35.199 --> 01:36:39.000
Kenneth then took Charles to the library, placed him in

1245
01:36:39.039 --> 01:36:42.560
a chair, and removed the gag from his mouth. The

1246
01:36:42.560 --> 01:36:46.560
final words of Charles Scudder were I asked for this.

1247
01:36:47.920 --> 01:36:53.319
Then Tony West fired a close range shot at Charlie's head.

1248
01:36:53.960 --> 01:36:57.800
He was then shot once again, sending his body toppling

1249
01:36:57.840 --> 01:37:02.159
into the bookcase, and was shot three more times, also

1250
01:37:02.239 --> 01:37:06.319
in the head, much like the self portrait he had created.

1251
01:37:07.000 --> 01:37:11.079
They raided the residence for cash after the murders. They

1252
01:37:11.159 --> 01:37:15.760
tried to lift Charles's gold encrusted harp, but they couldn't

1253
01:37:16.239 --> 01:37:21.319
because it was misleadingly heavy. In Charles's black jeep, they

1254
01:37:21.399 --> 01:37:26.760
left with coins, jewelry, silver candelabras, and a gold plated dagger.

1255
01:37:27.720 --> 01:37:31.560
Two days later, the bodies of Charles and Joey were

1256
01:37:31.640 --> 01:37:35.640
found when their friend Raymond Williams visited the house to

1257
01:37:35.760 --> 01:37:40.079
let them know that a friend had passed away. When

1258
01:37:40.159 --> 01:37:43.399
Raymond saw the bullet holes in the kitchen door, he

1259
01:37:43.520 --> 01:37:46.840
made the decision to call the police instead of entering

1260
01:37:46.920 --> 01:37:50.800
the house. That same day, Teresa came forward to the

1261
01:37:50.800 --> 01:37:55.920
police and a man hunt began. Tony and Kenneth abandoned

1262
01:37:55.960 --> 01:37:59.319
the black jeep in favor of a less noticeable vehicle.

1263
01:38:00.079 --> 01:38:04.159
They stopped in Boneva, Mississippi, where they kidnapped Navy Lieutenant

1264
01:38:04.239 --> 01:38:07.960
Kirby Phelps, tied him to a tree, and stole his car.

1265
01:38:08.159 --> 01:38:11.439
While they were at a rest stop, Kirby Phelps was

1266
01:38:11.479 --> 01:38:16.640
shot twice and killed by Tony West. They traveled to Austin, Texas,

1267
01:38:16.960 --> 01:38:20.000
where they got into an argument over their strategy and

1268
01:38:20.119 --> 01:38:25.479
parted ways. On December twentieth, Kenneth Brock turned himself in

1269
01:38:25.479 --> 01:38:29.840
in Marietta, Georgia, and on Christmas Day, Tony West was

1270
01:38:29.880 --> 01:38:35.800
taken into custody. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, police discovered two human skulls,

1271
01:38:36.119 --> 01:38:39.880
three vials that were allegedly filled with LSD, a cult

1272
01:38:39.920 --> 01:38:43.560
tools and a cult library, and a large collection of

1273
01:38:43.600 --> 01:38:48.840
homosexual pornography. The Chattanooga County Sheriff's Office called Charles Scudder

1274
01:38:48.880 --> 01:38:53.279
and Joey Odom devil worshippers. Due to the First Amendment,

1275
01:38:53.640 --> 01:38:57.199
Sheriff Gary McConnell was unable to file charges against Charles

1276
01:38:57.199 --> 01:39:01.319
Scudder and Joey Odom because of their behavior and beliefs.

1277
01:39:01.680 --> 01:39:06.399
While the name Satanism may be quite misleading, modern practitioners

1278
01:39:06.439 --> 01:39:10.319
do not worship or believe in the devil as understood

1279
01:39:10.359 --> 01:39:14.199
in Christian mythology. When the trials started and the story

1280
01:39:14.319 --> 01:39:17.520
was covered by the media, Charles and Joey were referred

1281
01:39:17.520 --> 01:39:23.000
to as homosexual devil worshipers. The Satanic Panic, which was

1282
01:39:23.079 --> 01:39:27.439
extremely prevalent in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, turned

1283
01:39:27.520 --> 01:39:32.039
them into targets. The term Satanic panic was used to

1284
01:39:32.119 --> 01:39:36.479
characterize a belief that devil worshipers were abusing people through

1285
01:39:36.600 --> 01:39:41.159
rituals all over the United States of America. The defense

1286
01:39:41.199 --> 01:39:45.159
accused Charles Scudder of spiking his homemade wine with LSD

1287
01:39:45.680 --> 01:39:48.479
so he could have oral sex with Kenneth and Tony.

1288
01:39:49.279 --> 01:39:52.880
The wine was tested for LSD and other hallucinogens, but

1289
01:39:53.000 --> 01:39:58.079
the results were negative. The defense then tried a different angle,

1290
01:39:58.479 --> 01:40:02.359
claiming that Tony West would he was involuntarily intoxicated and

1291
01:40:02.439 --> 01:40:06.079
that Charles was motivated to do so because he was

1292
01:40:06.079 --> 01:40:10.960
a homosexual. According to the prosecution, Tony West admitted to

1293
01:40:11.000 --> 01:40:14.640
a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent that he and Kenneth

1294
01:40:14.680 --> 01:40:18.239
Brock had planned the murder and robbery a few days before.

1295
01:40:18.920 --> 01:40:22.159
West also told the GBI agent that he wanted to

1296
01:40:22.279 --> 01:40:26.239
murder Charles because Charles wanted to have oral sex with him.

1297
01:40:26.600 --> 01:40:29.439
Tony West said, all I can say is they were

1298
01:40:29.439 --> 01:40:32.279
devils and I killed them. That's how I feel about it.

1299
01:40:32.880 --> 01:40:36.560
They got in contact with doctor Alex the professor at

1300
01:40:36.560 --> 01:40:41.319
Loyola University who worked with Charles. He claimed that Charles

1301
01:40:41.359 --> 01:40:44.359
did not use drugs of any kind, he wasn't a

1302
01:40:44.399 --> 01:40:47.880
devil worshiper, and he would disapprove of drugs rather than

1303
01:40:48.000 --> 01:40:51.800
use them. Many others felt that because of Charles and

1304
01:40:51.920 --> 01:40:57.640
Joey's beliefs on certain things, their murders were justified. However,

1305
01:40:57.880 --> 01:41:02.359
everyone regardless of moral or religious leanings, was outraged over

1306
01:41:02.399 --> 01:41:07.000
the murder of Navy Lieutenant Kirby Phelps. After pleading guilty,

1307
01:41:07.079 --> 01:41:11.600
Kenneth Brock was given three consecutive life sentences due to

1308
01:41:11.640 --> 01:41:14.479
an error in the jury's gender makeup. The number they

1309
01:41:14.520 --> 01:41:17.760
had on the jury for women was wrong. In that trial,

1310
01:41:17.840 --> 01:41:21.239
Tony was originally sentenced to death, but because of the

1311
01:41:21.279 --> 01:41:24.439
miscount he was given a second trial where he was

1312
01:41:24.439 --> 01:41:28.399
found guilty of double murder and sentenced to life in prison.

1313
01:41:29.199 --> 01:41:32.239
Kenneth Brock is serving his sentence at the Coffee Correctional

1314
01:41:32.239 --> 01:41:35.960
Facility in Nichols, Georgia. At the Wilcox State Prison in

1315
01:41:36.039 --> 01:41:40.520
Wilcox County, Georgia, Tony West is serving his life sentence.

1316
01:41:41.680 --> 01:41:44.880
Joey Odom's ashes were scattered in the rose garden he

1317
01:41:45.039 --> 01:41:49.000
cherished so much during a private funeral at Corpsewood Manor.

1318
01:41:49.640 --> 01:41:53.479
Charles Scudder's ashes were transported by his sister to Wisconsin,

1319
01:41:53.920 --> 01:41:57.640
where they buried him in the family plot. Charles's sons

1320
01:41:57.720 --> 01:42:00.960
hired renowned defense a lawyer, Bobby l. Y Cook, a

1321
01:42:01.079 --> 01:42:05.119
native of Somerville, Georgia, to represent their claim to the estate.

1322
01:42:05.920 --> 01:42:09.920
Joey's sister claimed the estate because in Charles's will he

1323
01:42:10.039 --> 01:42:14.560
left everything to Joey. Bobby Lee Cook took possession of

1324
01:42:14.600 --> 01:42:17.920
the gold encrusted harp that Kenneth and Tony didn't take

1325
01:42:18.239 --> 01:42:21.279
the night of the murders due to its heft. Bobby

1326
01:42:21.359 --> 01:42:25.680
Lee Cook also has the statue of Mephistopheles. Bobby Lee

1327
01:42:25.720 --> 01:42:28.800
Cook passed away in twenty twenty one at the age

1328
01:42:28.800 --> 01:42:32.479
of ninety four after being a defense attorney for sixty

1329
01:42:32.520 --> 01:42:38.039
five years. According to many stories, Andy Griffith's character of

1330
01:42:38.079 --> 01:42:41.840
a Georgia lawyer in the TV show Mattlocke is inspired

1331
01:42:41.880 --> 01:42:45.439
by the defense attorney Bobby Lee Cook. The Chicken Coop

1332
01:42:45.520 --> 01:42:49.319
and Corpsewood Manor were destroyed in a fire January fifth,

1333
01:42:49.439 --> 01:42:53.399
nineteen eighty three. Still today, a small part of the

1334
01:42:53.479 --> 01:42:58.199
manor is standing. Many people who hear about this story

1335
01:42:58.239 --> 01:43:02.800
and go to the location report feeling in eerie sadness

1336
01:43:02.840 --> 01:43:10.159
and hearing gunshots, dogs barking, and Charles's dog Beelzebub's luminous

1337
01:43:10.359 --> 01:43:14.239
eyes in the dark. People who took things from the

1338
01:43:14.279 --> 01:43:17.960
house said they felt like they were being watched and

1339
01:43:18.079 --> 01:43:23.000
had bad luck, believing the objects were cursed in some way.

1340
01:43:24.680 --> 01:43:27.920
That is the story of the nineteen eighty two murders

1341
01:43:27.920 --> 01:43:32.520
of Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom at their home Corpsewould Manner.

1342
01:43:33.279 --> 01:43:36.319
Two men packed up and sold most of their life

1343
01:43:36.359 --> 01:43:40.159
to live in isolation, and were then later killed because

1344
01:43:40.199 --> 01:43:44.920
someone believed they had money and who following their deaths,

1345
01:43:45.199 --> 01:43:48.319
were belittled in the media for their beliefs and their

1346
01:43:48.399 --> 01:43:53.960
sexual orientation. Many individuals believed the killings were justified due

1347
01:43:53.960 --> 01:43:58.119
to their unusual beliefs, while others believe it was just

1348
01:43:58.199 --> 01:44:02.359
a botched robbery, and still yet others believe it was

1349
01:44:02.399 --> 01:44:15.600
a hate crime. The Herrman family poltergeist case. In early

1350
01:44:15.720 --> 01:44:19.960
February nineteen fifty eight, the peaceful routine of a suburban

1351
01:44:20.039 --> 01:44:23.840
family in Seaford, Long Island was suddenly shattered by an

1352
01:44:23.920 --> 01:44:29.199
invisible intruder. James and Lucille Herman lived with their two children,

1353
01:44:29.960 --> 01:44:33.520
thirteen year old Lucille and twelve year old James Junior,

1354
01:44:34.319 --> 01:44:38.079
in a typical ranch style house in a quiet neighborhood.

1355
01:44:39.239 --> 01:44:44.800
On the afternoon of February third, nineteen fifty eight, strange

1356
01:44:44.840 --> 01:44:49.359
noises rang out. As the Herman children returned from school.

1357
01:44:50.159 --> 01:44:54.199
Lucille Herrman heard a rapid series of pops echoing through

1358
01:44:54.239 --> 01:44:59.520
the house. Moments later, she discovered, to her astonishment that

1359
01:44:59.600 --> 01:45:04.760
several sealed bottles in various rooms had inexplicably popped open,

1360
01:45:05.319 --> 01:45:11.399
their caps scattered in contents spilled in the kitchen, bathroom, basement,

1361
01:45:11.479 --> 01:45:18.560
and bedrooms. No. Two bottles were alike, holy water, starch, turpentine, shampoo,

1362
01:45:19.039 --> 01:45:23.760
and other liquids all had burst open simultaneously. All the

1363
01:45:23.800 --> 01:45:28.199
bottles in the house are blowing their tops. Missus Harman

1364
01:45:28.319 --> 01:45:32.000
frantically told her husband over the phone that day six

1365
01:45:32.119 --> 01:45:36.439
bottles with screw on caps, from rubbing alcohol to bleach

1366
01:45:36.760 --> 01:45:41.039
to holy water, had opened on their own, ejecting their

1367
01:45:41.079 --> 01:45:45.760
lids as if flung by some unseen force. The family

1368
01:45:45.840 --> 01:45:49.399
cleaned up the odd mess in confusion. Since no one

1369
01:45:49.520 --> 01:45:54.239
was hurt and no further disturbances occurred immediately, they initially

1370
01:45:54.279 --> 01:46:00.560
wrote it off as a freak incident or a chemical coincidences. Herman,

1371
01:46:00.720 --> 01:46:05.359
an airline employee with a logical mindset, theorized that perhaps

1372
01:46:05.520 --> 01:46:10.279
unusual humidity or a chemical reaction had built up pressure

1373
01:46:10.520 --> 01:46:14.640
in the containers. But to his puzzlement, all the bottles

1374
01:46:14.640 --> 01:46:20.119
had secured twist caps, not loose corks. What natural process

1375
01:46:20.640 --> 01:46:26.399
could unscrew them. Two uneventful days passed, lulling the Hermanns

1376
01:46:26.439 --> 01:46:30.560
into thinking the episode was a one time fluke. Then,

1377
01:46:30.720 --> 01:46:34.520
on February sixth, just as the children arrived home from school,

1378
01:46:35.039 --> 01:46:40.680
the mysterious phenomenon recurred again. A half dozen household bottles

1379
01:46:40.720 --> 01:46:46.279
abruptly popped their lids and spilled their contents in rapid succession.

1380
01:46:47.039 --> 01:46:50.640
A bottle of nail polish, a container of rubbing alcohol,

1381
01:46:50.920 --> 01:46:55.319
a detergent, a bottle of bleach, some starch, even the

1382
01:46:55.359 --> 01:46:59.439
same holy water flask on missus Herman's dresser all suddenly

1383
01:46:59.479 --> 01:47:04.239
sprang over in an almost identical replay of the initial incident.

1384
01:47:05.239 --> 01:47:09.479
Startled and alarmed, the family began to realize something truly

1385
01:47:09.600 --> 01:47:14.840
bizarre was happening in their home. When the bottle lids

1386
01:47:14.960 --> 01:47:19.840
popped for a third time the following evening, Friday, February seven,

1387
01:47:20.640 --> 01:47:25.920
James Hermann's initial skepticism gave way to suspicion. He began

1388
01:47:26.039 --> 01:47:30.560
to eye his science loving son Jimmy, as a potential

1389
01:47:30.600 --> 01:47:37.239
prankster behind these cap popping capers. Perhaps, he theorized the

1390
01:47:37.319 --> 01:47:41.079
boy had secretly rigged the bottles with some chemical pellets

1391
01:47:41.159 --> 01:47:45.239
or homemade trick to scare the family, timing the pops

1392
01:47:45.279 --> 01:47:49.680
to coincide with his return from school. Determined to catch

1393
01:47:49.760 --> 01:47:56.319
the culprit, the father spent that weekend quietly observing Jimmy's

1394
01:47:56.520 --> 01:48:04.159
every move, searching for any evidence of tampering. On Sunday,

1395
01:48:04.279 --> 01:48:10.000
February ninth, James Herman's watchfulness was rewarded, but not in

1396
01:48:10.039 --> 01:48:13.840
the way he expected. That morning, as the family went

1397
01:48:13.880 --> 01:48:20.479
about their routine, several caps abruptly popped off bottles of starch, turpentine,

1398
01:48:20.760 --> 01:48:24.199
and holy water right in front of him, the bottles

1399
01:48:24.319 --> 01:48:29.119
rocking on the shelves as their contents spewed out. Mister

1400
01:48:29.199 --> 01:48:32.600
Herman had been keeping a close eye on Jimmy the

1401
01:48:32.800 --> 01:48:37.439
entire time, and the boy was nowhere near these containers.

1402
01:48:38.239 --> 01:48:42.199
How could the child have possibly engineered this from afar?

1403
01:48:43.199 --> 01:48:46.840
Baffled and growing fearful, the father confronted his son in

1404
01:48:46.920 --> 01:48:52.359
the bathroom, where Jimmy was calmly brushing his teeth. James

1405
01:48:52.399 --> 01:48:56.800
Herman angrily accused the boy of staging an elaborate hoax.

1406
01:48:57.680 --> 01:49:01.319
But before Jimmy could protest too much much, two more

1407
01:49:01.399 --> 01:49:04.960
bottles moved on their own, as if to testify to

1408
01:49:05.000 --> 01:49:10.439
the boy's innocence. Right before the father's eyes, a medicine

1409
01:49:10.439 --> 01:49:15.039
bottle slid across the bathroom vanity and plopped into the sink,

1410
01:49:15.680 --> 01:49:19.680
and a moment later, a shampoo bottle glided in a

1411
01:49:19.720 --> 01:49:24.720
different direction and tumbled to the floor. Both bottles had

1412
01:49:24.760 --> 01:49:29.760
been sitting securely on the counter just seconds before. Mister

1413
01:49:29.840 --> 01:49:34.199
Hermann's skepticism evaporated. He could no longer deny that an

1414
01:49:34.279 --> 01:49:38.920
unseen force was at work in his home. After checking

1415
01:49:39.000 --> 01:49:43.079
under the sink and around the bathroom for wires, magnets,

1416
01:49:43.359 --> 01:49:48.600
or any trickery and finding nothing, the deeply unsettled father

1417
01:49:48.840 --> 01:49:55.560
realized these incidents defied any conventional explanation, at least that

1418
01:49:55.680 --> 01:50:00.560
he could imagine. Unsure where else to turn, je Herman

1419
01:50:00.720 --> 01:50:05.000
reached out to local authorities. He phoned the Nassau County

1420
01:50:05.039 --> 01:50:09.359
Police Department, struggling to convince the desk lieutenant that this

1421
01:50:09.640 --> 01:50:15.239
was not a prank call. Detective Joseph Tozzi, a level

1422
01:50:15.279 --> 01:50:19.479
headed veteran officer, was assigned to investigate the Herman home,

1423
01:50:20.079 --> 01:50:24.199
though he suspected there must be a rational explanation or

1424
01:50:24.279 --> 01:50:29.760
perhaps a mischievous human hand behind it all. That same day,

1425
01:50:29.960 --> 01:50:33.800
patrolman James Hughes was dispatched to the house to take

1426
01:50:33.840 --> 01:50:39.640
an initial report. Hughes arrived skeptical, surely this would turn

1427
01:50:39.680 --> 01:50:43.239
out to be nothing more than an overwrought homeowner or

1428
01:50:43.319 --> 01:50:49.359
a practical joke, but within minutes Officer Hughes personally witnessed

1429
01:50:49.600 --> 01:50:54.159
the otherworldly activity and had a dramatic change of heart.

1430
01:50:54.920 --> 01:50:58.359
As the entire family gathered nervously in the living room,

1431
01:50:58.800 --> 01:51:03.560
a sudden crack echoed from the bathroom. Hughes rushed to

1432
01:51:03.640 --> 01:51:08.239
investigate and found that yet another bottle had overturned on

1433
01:51:08.359 --> 01:51:13.359
its own. He had just inspected that bathroom moments before,

1434
01:51:13.760 --> 01:51:18.880
and swore that everything had been in order. Even more shocking,

1435
01:51:19.479 --> 01:51:24.279
several bottles abruptly popped their caps and shot their contents

1436
01:51:24.319 --> 01:51:28.680
toward the startled officer, as if he were being deliberately targeted.

1437
01:51:29.560 --> 01:51:34.319
Hughes was astonished. He later admitted he briefly wondered if

1438
01:51:34.800 --> 01:51:46.279
the nutcase call might actually be real. Convinced now that

1439
01:51:46.319 --> 01:51:51.640
the family truly needed help, the patrolman radioed in a

1440
01:51:51.680 --> 01:52:00.600
perplexing report something unexplainable was occurring at the Hairman residence.

1441
01:52:00.680 --> 01:52:04.680
By the second week of February nineteen fifty eight, the

1442
01:52:04.720 --> 01:52:10.479
Herman home had become a locusts of unpredictable chaos. Detective

1443
01:52:10.520 --> 01:52:14.159
Tasi began around the clock vigil at the house on

1444
01:52:14.279 --> 01:52:19.319
February eleven, intent on observing the occurrence's first hand and

1445
01:52:19.439 --> 01:52:25.159
catching any possible hoaxer in the act. Initially, Tazi remained

1446
01:52:25.239 --> 01:52:31.239
doubtful and methodical, making detailed notes of each incident, interviewing

1447
01:52:31.279 --> 01:52:36.560
the family and neighbours, and systematically testing theories. But as

1448
01:52:36.600 --> 01:52:40.399
he spent day and night in the residence, the disturbances

1449
01:52:40.479 --> 01:52:45.920
only escalated in number and intensity, gradually convincing the detective

1450
01:52:46.319 --> 01:52:52.279
that something truly anomalous was unfolding. Over the next several days,

1451
01:52:52.640 --> 01:52:57.199
seemingly no room or object was safe from the inexplicable activity.

1452
01:52:58.119 --> 01:53:02.199
Small porcelain and plastic figures began to move and fly

1453
01:53:02.359 --> 01:53:06.840
about as if of their own accord, in some cases

1454
01:53:06.960 --> 01:53:11.479
hurling themselves with such force that they shattered on impact.

1455
01:53:12.399 --> 01:53:18.479
One particularly unsettling incident occurred on February fifteenth. While the

1456
01:53:18.560 --> 01:53:23.439
Hermann children and their visiting cousin, thirty four year old

1457
01:53:23.560 --> 01:53:28.439
Marie Mirtha, sat in the living room watching television, A

1458
01:53:28.479 --> 01:53:32.800
delicate porcelain figurine on an end table began to twitch

1459
01:53:33.000 --> 01:53:37.079
and wobble on its own, then suddenly launched into the

1460
01:53:37.119 --> 01:53:41.680
air in front of their eyes. The figurine shot about

1461
01:53:41.720 --> 01:53:44.640
two feet through the air and crashed to the floor

1462
01:53:44.920 --> 01:53:50.840
with a sharp report. Yet astonishingly, it did not break.

1463
01:53:51.800 --> 01:53:56.880
Miss Mirtha was flabbergasted. She insisted to Detective Tazzi that

1464
01:53:56.960 --> 01:54:00.399
neither she nor the children had been anywhere near the

1465
01:54:00.399 --> 01:54:04.039
figurine when it flew. They could not have touched it

1466
01:54:04.119 --> 01:54:08.720
even if they'd wanted to. This dramatic display left the

1467
01:54:08.760 --> 01:54:13.319
family badly shaken and provided the first non family eye

1468
01:54:13.319 --> 01:54:19.359
witness aside from police, to the poltergeist's antics. As the

1469
01:54:19.439 --> 01:54:24.119
days went on, the invisible assailant grew bolder, toppling larger

1470
01:54:24.159 --> 01:54:29.479
and heavier pieces of furniture, Lamps flipped over, end tables

1471
01:54:29.479 --> 01:54:34.680
were found mysteriously overturned, and in one case, a large

1472
01:54:34.680 --> 01:54:39.479
wooden night stand in Jimmy's bedroom up ended itself without warning.

1473
01:54:40.479 --> 01:54:44.439
A twenty five volume set of encyclopedias in the basement

1474
01:54:45.000 --> 01:54:49.079
was strewn about after the hefty bookcase that contained them

1475
01:54:49.840 --> 01:54:54.600
was found flipped upside down, dumping its contents. Even a

1476
01:54:54.680 --> 01:54:58.439
solid mahogany coffee table flipped over in front of witnesses

1477
01:54:58.920 --> 01:55:04.439
as if yanked by unseen hands. On one occasion, Detective

1478
01:55:04.479 --> 01:55:08.319
Tozzy and young Jimmy were walking side by side down

1479
01:55:08.359 --> 01:55:12.680
the basement stairs when a bronze horse statue weighing nearly

1480
01:55:12.760 --> 01:55:17.880
one hundred pounds came hurtling across the cellar and struck

1481
01:55:17.920 --> 01:55:23.239
the detective in the legs. Jimmy was several steps behind

1482
01:55:23.319 --> 01:55:26.279
Tozzy at the time, and no one else was down

1483
01:55:26.319 --> 01:55:29.680
in the basement. The sheer force with which the heavy

1484
01:55:29.720 --> 01:55:35.600
statue had flown was terrifying. Tozzi luckily suffered no serious injury.

1485
01:55:36.479 --> 01:55:40.039
The normally stoic detective found himself at a loss to

1486
01:55:40.119 --> 01:55:45.039
explain how such a thing could happen. Each new incident

1487
01:55:45.079 --> 01:55:50.640
had a random, capricious quality. Objects seemed to leap, slide,

1488
01:55:50.760 --> 01:55:55.039
or smash at different times in different rooms, with no

1489
01:55:55.279 --> 01:56:00.520
consistent pattern beyond one. Twelve year old Jimmy was often

1490
01:56:00.600 --> 01:56:05.319
nearby when trouble struck. In fact, a review of Tozzi's

1491
01:56:05.319 --> 01:56:08.920
notes showed that Jimmy was present or close at hand

1492
01:56:09.239 --> 01:56:13.119
in roughly three out of four incidents, a fact that

1493
01:56:13.199 --> 01:56:18.279
did not go unnoticed by investigators or by mister Harman,

1494
01:56:18.640 --> 01:56:23.800
who had already harbored suspicions about his son. However, there

1495
01:56:23.840 --> 01:56:28.560
were also disturbances that occurred when Jimmy was clearly elsewhere,

1496
01:56:29.079 --> 01:56:32.359
or even when the children were out of the house entirely,

1497
01:56:33.319 --> 01:56:38.439
and multiple independent witnesses had now seen objects move with

1498
01:56:38.640 --> 01:56:42.079
no one near them, seeming to rule out any kind

1499
01:56:42.159 --> 01:56:46.640
of trick that could be done by a bored child.

1500
01:56:47.239 --> 01:56:51.600
By mid February, the relentless parade of phenomena had the

1501
01:56:51.600 --> 01:56:56.560
Herman family nearing a breaking point for the first time.

1502
01:56:56.720 --> 01:57:00.680
They began to flee the house for relief, spent nights

1503
01:57:00.680 --> 01:57:04.920
with relatives on at least four occasions when the activity

1504
01:57:05.000 --> 01:57:10.079
became too intense. The children, who initially might have found

1505
01:57:10.119 --> 01:57:14.119
the odd bottle popping to be a curious thrill, were

1506
01:57:14.159 --> 01:57:18.960
now truly afraid to sleep in their own rooms. The

1507
01:57:19.039 --> 01:57:23.760
Harman's once comfortable home had become a nerve racking stage

1508
01:57:23.880 --> 01:57:29.079
for nightly outbursts of clattering noises and flying objects that

1509
01:57:29.159 --> 01:57:34.359
no one could predict or control. Even ordinarily mundane sounds

1510
01:57:34.840 --> 01:57:39.159
had put them on edge. The family described low rumbles

1511
01:57:39.239 --> 01:57:43.239
echoing through the walls like the whole house was almost

1512
01:57:43.279 --> 01:57:48.199
caving in at times. Detective Tazzi meanwhile was accumulating a

1513
01:57:48.239 --> 01:57:54.079
thick case file documenting each unexplained occurrence in precise detail.

1514
01:57:54.920 --> 01:57:59.560
By his count, Dozens upon dozens of incidents were logged

1515
01:57:59.600 --> 01:58:02.920
over the course of a few short weeks. Sixty seven

1516
01:58:03.119 --> 01:58:08.279
separate disturbances by the end of the episode. Yet despite

1517
01:58:08.399 --> 01:58:12.640
his careful cataloging of events and his dogged attempts at

1518
01:58:12.800 --> 01:58:18.239
rational investigation, Tozi was no closer to identifying a culprit,

1519
01:58:18.880 --> 01:58:23.720
let alone a cause. After roughly two weeks of this

1520
01:58:23.920 --> 01:58:29.319
inexplicable siege, word of the Herman House poltergeist leaked out

1521
01:58:29.399 --> 01:58:32.960
to the press. What had begun as the Herman's private

1522
01:58:33.079 --> 01:58:39.600
nightmare soon became public spectacle. By late February nineteen fifty eight,

1523
01:58:40.159 --> 01:58:44.359
news media from across the country descended on sixteen forty

1524
01:58:44.399 --> 01:58:48.960
eight Redwood Path in Seaford, turning the quiet suburban lane

1525
01:58:49.399 --> 01:58:55.560
into a carnival of reporters, photographers and curiosity seekers. The

1526
01:58:55.560 --> 01:58:59.600
strange case of the Long Island Poultergeist made headlines in

1527
01:58:59.680 --> 01:59:04.760
major newspapers. Journalists from the New York Times, Newsday, and

1528
01:59:04.920 --> 01:59:09.279
even the London Evening News traveled to witness events firsthand.

1529
01:59:10.359 --> 01:59:15.319
Life Magazine ran a photo essay titled House of Flying Objects,

1530
01:59:15.680 --> 01:59:20.199
A ghostly mystery plagues a family and baffles the Experts

1531
01:59:20.640 --> 01:59:24.359
and Time magazine published an article in its religion section

1532
01:59:24.680 --> 01:59:30.439
dubiously titled Long Island's Poltergeist. The Herman home was soon

1533
01:59:30.560 --> 01:59:35.640
besieged by television crews with bright lights and bulky nineteen

1534
01:59:35.760 --> 01:59:40.880
fifties cameras, hoping to catch the mischievous spirit on film.

1535
01:59:41.239 --> 01:59:45.199
In fact, the case became noted as perhaps the first

1536
01:59:45.239 --> 01:59:50.840
haunting broadcast on American television, with news programs airing footage

1537
01:59:50.880 --> 01:59:54.840
of the aftermath of incidents and live reports from the

1538
01:59:54.960 --> 02:00:06.119
haunted house. Wide eyed TV audiences across the nation watched

1539
02:00:06.399 --> 02:00:10.079
as the Harmans stood by a fallen bookcase in their

1540
02:00:10.159 --> 02:00:14.239
cellar or pointed out dens in walls and furniture from

1541
02:00:14.279 --> 02:00:20.640
airborne objects. The unseen entity, nicknamed Popper by the press

1542
02:00:20.680 --> 02:00:24.800
for its penchant for popping bottle caps, seemed eager to

1543
02:00:24.880 --> 02:00:29.840
perform for this wider audience, or at least the phenomena

1544
02:00:30.000 --> 02:00:36.359
continued unabated under the media spotlight. One visiting reporter, Dave

1545
02:00:36.479 --> 02:00:41.000
Kahan of Newsday even camped overnight in the house and

1546
02:00:41.119 --> 02:00:46.720
personally witnessed multiple disturbances on February twenty three to twenty five,

1547
02:00:47.439 --> 02:00:51.800
including an overturned dresser and a toppled lamp, which lent

1548
02:00:51.920 --> 02:00:58.359
further credibility to the Hermann's claims. Another journalist, John Gold

1549
02:00:58.439 --> 02:01:02.359
of The London Evening News was present in early March

1550
02:01:02.760 --> 02:01:06.800
and saw flashbulbs lift off a table and hurdle through

1551
02:01:06.840 --> 02:01:12.119
the air during his visit. The fact that skeptical newsmen

1552
02:01:12.199 --> 02:01:17.600
were coming away convinced that something unexplained was occurring only

1553
02:01:17.760 --> 02:01:24.319
fueled the public fascination. The Harmans, meanwhile, now faced not

1554
02:01:24.399 --> 02:01:28.560
only a mysterious disturbance in their home, but also the

1555
02:01:28.600 --> 02:01:33.720
overwhelming glare of public attention. It was worse than the

1556
02:01:33.760 --> 02:01:38.439
phenomena in some ways, mister Harman later said of the

1557
02:01:38.479 --> 02:01:43.000
crowds of gawkers on his lawn. Day after day, Their

1558
02:01:43.119 --> 02:01:47.680
yard and street were crowded with reporters scribbling in notepads,

1559
02:01:48.279 --> 02:01:54.840
photographers setting off flashbulbs, and neighbors and curiosity seekers peering

1560
02:01:54.920 --> 02:01:58.920
in hopes of catching a glimpse of moving furniture or

1561
02:01:59.119 --> 02:02:03.720
phantom figure. Some onlookers took it upon themselves to offer

1562
02:02:03.840 --> 02:02:08.760
help or interpretation, ranging from the well meaning to the

1563
02:02:08.800 --> 02:02:13.560
outright bizaarre. Letters and phone calls flooded in from far

1564
02:02:13.720 --> 02:02:19.039
and wide. Amateur sleuths proposed all manner of logical solutions,

1565
02:02:19.359 --> 02:02:26.520
while occult enthusiasts confidently offered supernatural diagnoses. The Hermans were

1566
02:02:26.560 --> 02:02:31.079
told that Martians had landed nearby and caused the disturbances,

1567
02:02:31.359 --> 02:02:34.640
that the house had somehow been built on an ancient

1568
02:02:34.800 --> 02:02:39.159
Indian burial ground, angering the spirit of a long dead

1569
02:02:39.279 --> 02:02:43.880
Indian chief, or even that the Russians were tunneling under

1570
02:02:43.960 --> 02:02:49.079
Long Island a prelude to an invasion. It was, after all,

1571
02:02:49.640 --> 02:02:52.800
the height of the Cold War and Sputnik had only

1572
02:02:52.880 --> 02:02:58.960
recently orbited the earth. Some callers screamed religious warnings, convinced

1573
02:02:59.000 --> 02:03:03.439
the family was being punished by dark forces. Anonymous voices

1574
02:03:03.560 --> 02:03:08.319
late at night shouted repent over the phone, or claimed

1575
02:03:08.359 --> 02:03:12.239
the devil's tricks were at work. The Hermans tried to

1576
02:03:12.279 --> 02:03:16.760
take it all in stride. They patiently listened to every theory,

1577
02:03:17.479 --> 02:03:22.319
no matter how outlandish, or politely endured lectures from self

1578
02:03:22.359 --> 02:03:27.239
appointed prophets. They even allowed a number of volunteer exorcists

1579
02:03:27.520 --> 02:03:33.119
and spiritualists onto their property. Ministers of various obscure sects

1580
02:03:33.520 --> 02:03:38.920
conducted impromptu prayer vigils on the front lawn, sprinkling holy

1581
02:03:39.000 --> 02:03:44.319
oil or chanting blessings. One self proclaimed holy man arrived

1582
02:03:44.359 --> 02:03:47.279
in a blue suit, knelt in the yard praying for

1583
02:03:47.359 --> 02:03:51.840
ten minutes, then solemnly stood and announced to the assembled crowd,

1584
02:03:52.720 --> 02:03:58.640
everything is all right. You have been forgiven. With that pronouncement,

1585
02:03:59.079 --> 02:04:04.479
he departed, yet Pauper remained as active as ever. The

1586
02:04:04.600 --> 02:04:09.720
carnival atmosphere was surreal. Each morning, Lucille Hermann would shew

1587
02:04:09.840 --> 02:04:13.439
people off her porch before sending the children to school,

1588
02:04:13.720 --> 02:04:18.800
and each night the family peered through closed curtains at

1589
02:04:18.840 --> 02:04:25.760
the silhouettes of curious strangers outside, all while wondering if

1590
02:04:25.800 --> 02:04:32.840
the next flying object would be aimed at them. Throughout February,

1591
02:04:33.000 --> 02:04:39.000
as the Poltergeist incidents continued, Detective Tozzi worked tirelessly to

1592
02:04:39.079 --> 02:04:44.479
find a rational source for the disturbances. Every possible physical

1593
02:04:44.600 --> 02:04:51.239
or environmental factor was examined. Structural engineers inspected the house

1594
02:04:51.399 --> 02:04:56.239
for shifts or subsidence, finding nothing amiss in the foundation

1595
02:04:56.800 --> 02:05:01.680
or framework. The seaford fired a apartment analyzed an old

1596
02:05:01.760 --> 02:05:04.840
well on the property to see if changes in the

1597
02:05:04.880 --> 02:05:09.760
water table or underground pressure might be causing the bizarre

1598
02:05:09.880 --> 02:05:15.359
bottle explosions. The wells water level had not changed appreciably

1599
02:05:15.920 --> 02:05:20.399
in five years. Tazzi inquired with the US Air Force

1600
02:05:20.439 --> 02:05:25.479
about aircraft flight patterns, suspecting that shock waves from passing

1601
02:05:25.600 --> 02:05:30.600
jets or sonic booms might coincide with the incidents, but

1602
02:05:30.760 --> 02:05:35.439
flight log showed no correlation, and in any case, the

1603
02:05:35.479 --> 02:05:39.680
force needed to knock over heavy furniture far exceeded any

1604
02:05:39.760 --> 02:05:44.560
rumble from distant planes. He reached out to radio engineers

1605
02:05:44.560 --> 02:05:49.239
at RCA to check for stray radio frequency or electromagnetic

1606
02:05:49.279 --> 02:05:54.439
interference in the neighborhood. Perhaps a powerful transmitter or radar

1607
02:05:55.039 --> 02:05:59.720
was triggering some reaction in the home. These tests, too,

1608
02:05:59.760 --> 02:06:03.600
toned up nothing unusual. A neighbor with a Ham radio

1609
02:06:03.720 --> 02:06:08.159
set hadn't used it in years, and no abnormal radio

1610
02:06:08.239 --> 02:06:13.079
waves were detected during the incidents. The local power company,

1611
02:06:13.520 --> 02:06:17.319
Long Island Lighting, set up a delicate ascilloscope in the

1612
02:06:17.359 --> 02:06:23.840
basement to monitor vibrations or electrical disturbances during the poltergeist's

1613
02:06:23.920 --> 02:06:28.319
peak hours. On a few occasions, the apparatus was running

1614
02:06:28.359 --> 02:06:33.359
when objects moved or bottles popped, but it registered no

1615
02:06:33.640 --> 02:06:39.840
unusual tremors or surges at those moments. Likewise, an aciligraph

1616
02:06:40.239 --> 02:06:46.279
vibration sensor recorded calm readings even as crashes were heard upstairs.

1617
02:06:47.359 --> 02:06:51.520
The idea of air pressure or drafts received attention as well.

1618
02:06:52.119 --> 02:06:55.600
Recalling a tip from a woman in Massachusetts, who had

1619
02:06:55.640 --> 02:06:59.079
written about furniture moving around in her home from a

1620
02:06:59.119 --> 02:07:03.920
strong downdren of her chimney. Mister Harman eagerly installed a

1621
02:07:04.039 --> 02:07:09.159
rotary turbine chimney cap to neutralize any weird air currents

1622
02:07:09.600 --> 02:07:15.000
in their fireplace, but Popper seemed unfazed. No sooner had

1623
02:07:15.039 --> 02:07:19.720
the workmen finished than a porcelain figurine launched itself twelve

1624
02:07:19.720 --> 02:07:23.840
feet across a room and smashed into a desk, making

1625
02:07:23.880 --> 02:07:28.720
a loud impact and denting the wood. That dent, in fact,

1626
02:07:29.239 --> 02:07:32.600
became one of the most tangible pieces of evidence. They

1627
02:07:32.720 --> 02:07:37.600
had shown off for news reporters and even captured on

1628
02:07:37.760 --> 02:07:50.039
camera for local TV. One by one, mundane explanations fell short.

1629
02:07:50.760 --> 02:07:55.479
The house was structurally sound. There were no underground streams

1630
02:07:55.600 --> 02:08:00.680
or magnetic anomalies beneath the foundation. A brookhete, a National

1631
02:08:00.760 --> 02:08:05.760
Laboratory physicist named doctor Robert Zeider, came with dowsing rods,

1632
02:08:05.800 --> 02:08:09.880
originally speculating that it could be underground water creating a

1633
02:08:09.920 --> 02:08:17.000
freak magnetic field, but geological surveys disproved this idea. Household

1634
02:08:17.000 --> 02:08:21.600
appliances and wiring were inspected for shorts or unusual outputs.

1635
02:08:22.439 --> 02:08:27.319
Everything was normal. Even the plumbing was scrutinized in case

1636
02:08:27.439 --> 02:08:32.720
water hammer or pipe vibrations were jolting the house. Nothing

1637
02:08:32.760 --> 02:08:36.439
of the sort was found. In fact, the neighbour's house

1638
02:08:36.520 --> 02:08:41.640
had worse pipe rattle and no hauntings. The caps and

1639
02:08:41.720 --> 02:08:45.840
bottles themselves were tested by police labs for any prank

1640
02:08:46.000 --> 02:08:51.000
substance that could cause a fizzing eruption. None was found,

1641
02:08:51.680 --> 02:08:56.399
and despite the elaborate measures taken, the incidents continued to

1642
02:08:56.479 --> 02:09:00.720
defy any predictable pattern that would allow to Tazi to

1643
02:09:00.800 --> 02:09:05.680
catch someone faking it. At one point, the detective dusted

1644
02:09:05.800 --> 02:09:11.399
certain vulnerable objects with a fine powder detectable under ultraviolet light,

1645
02:09:12.119 --> 02:09:17.159
hoping to see fingerprints or disturbances, but whichever pesky ghost

1646
02:09:17.279 --> 02:09:23.199
or human was responsible avoided those items entirely. Tazi grew

1647
02:09:23.279 --> 02:09:28.399
increasingly frustrated. By February twentieth, he admitted to being all

1648
02:09:28.560 --> 02:09:32.800
out of fresh ideas. In a report to his superiors,

1649
02:09:33.279 --> 02:09:36.520
The weary detective wrote that while he was not prepared

1650
02:09:36.560 --> 02:09:41.920
to declare the house haunted, he had exhausted every conventional lead.

1651
02:09:43.039 --> 02:09:46.119
It was around this time that he began to accept

1652
02:09:46.680 --> 02:09:50.720
that the Hairman case might exist outside of the scope

1653
02:09:50.920 --> 02:09:56.000
of normal police work, with the phenomena only growing more violent.

1654
02:09:56.560 --> 02:10:00.880
By late February, objects were not just moving, but often

1655
02:10:00.960 --> 02:10:06.079
flying dangerously at people. The Hermann sought help from spiritual

1656
02:10:06.119 --> 02:10:12.000
authorities as well. Being devout Roman Catholics, the family turned

1657
02:10:12.039 --> 02:10:16.399
to their parish priest, Father William MacLeod of Saint William

1658
02:10:16.439 --> 02:10:21.279
the Abbot Church, hoping a blessing or exorcism might succeed

1659
02:10:21.920 --> 02:10:27.079
where science had failed. Father MacLeod visited the home around

1660
02:10:27.119 --> 02:10:32.199
mid February and performed a simple house blessing, reciting prayers

1661
02:10:32.239 --> 02:10:37.439
in Latin and sprinkling holy water in each room. The

1662
02:10:37.439 --> 02:10:41.640
family joined in fervent prayer for deliverance from whatever evil

1663
02:10:41.800 --> 02:10:45.760
or energy was at play. For a short while after

1664
02:10:45.800 --> 02:10:51.399
the priest's intervention, Pauper's antics subsided, leading the Hermans to

1665
02:10:51.439 --> 02:10:55.000
feel a sense of relief, But the respite was brief.

1666
02:10:55.560 --> 02:10:59.520
The poltergeist soon resumed its mischief, almost as if to

1667
02:10:59.600 --> 02:11:05.119
show defiance. In fact, holy water itself seemed to become

1668
02:11:05.199 --> 02:11:09.399
a favorite target of the entity itself. The small bottle

1669
02:11:09.439 --> 02:11:13.079
of holy water in the master bedroom was found spilled

1670
02:11:13.199 --> 02:11:17.399
or knocked over repeatedly in those days, its screw cap

1671
02:11:17.520 --> 02:11:20.560
popping off again and again, as if to taunt the

1672
02:11:20.600 --> 02:11:25.479
priest's efforts. On one occasion, mister Harman dashed into the

1673
02:11:25.520 --> 02:11:29.279
bedroom after hearing the now familiar pop of that vial.

1674
02:11:30.000 --> 02:11:33.880
He found it on the floor and curiously noted that

1675
02:11:33.920 --> 02:11:37.920
the glass bottle felt warm to the touch, far warmer

1676
02:11:38.000 --> 02:11:41.359
than you would expect a bottle sitting at room temperature.

1677
02:11:42.439 --> 02:11:46.960
Such eerie details only reinforced the family's belief that a

1678
02:11:47.000 --> 02:11:51.600
malicious or mischievous spirit was actively operating in the house.

1679
02:11:52.479 --> 02:11:57.159
Father MacLeod, deeply concerned, prepared to escalate the matter to

1680
02:11:57.319 --> 02:12:01.880
church authorities. He reportedly saw permission from the diocese and

1681
02:12:01.960 --> 02:12:08.319
bishop to conduct a formal exorcism if the disturbances continued. However,

1682
02:12:09.000 --> 02:12:14.199
the church's involvement would eventually be overtaken as events got

1683
02:12:14.800 --> 02:12:20.079
out of hand. As the mystery reached its climax, late

1684
02:12:20.119 --> 02:12:25.199
February nineteen fifty eight saw the poltergeist activity crescendo in

1685
02:12:25.279 --> 02:12:31.600
both frequency and ferocity. On February twentieth, multiple disturbances erupted

1686
02:12:31.640 --> 02:12:37.399
in rapid succession. While Detective Tazzi stood watch, a figurine

1687
02:12:37.479 --> 02:12:41.439
once again launched through the air and smashed against a desk,

1688
02:12:42.279 --> 02:12:46.359
this time shattering to pieces on impact. A moment later,

1689
02:12:46.800 --> 02:12:50.439
a bottle of ink on a table abruptly exploded with

1690
02:12:50.520 --> 02:12:54.720
a loud bang, its screw cap flying off, and the

1691
02:12:54.760 --> 02:12:59.479
bottle itself hurdling several feet before crashing and splattering ink

1692
02:13:00.000 --> 02:13:04.399
cross the living room walls and furniture. A heavy ceramic

1693
02:13:04.479 --> 02:13:08.199
sugar bowl then lifted off the dining table and flew,

1694
02:13:08.600 --> 02:13:13.239
landing on the floor with a thud. These incidents occurred

1695
02:13:13.239 --> 02:13:17.319
in plain view of the Herman's and Detective Tazzi. The

1696
02:13:17.319 --> 02:13:21.680
sugar bowl notably took flight while Jimmy was nearby but

1697
02:13:21.840 --> 02:13:27.359
clearly not touching it. As Tazzi later documented, the escalation

1698
02:13:27.640 --> 02:13:32.119
deeply unnerved the detective. This was no longer just parlor

1699
02:13:32.199 --> 02:13:37.119
tricks with small bottles, but large objects moving with dangerous force.

1700
02:13:38.000 --> 02:13:42.720
That night, the Herman family packed overnight bags and sought

1701
02:13:42.800 --> 02:13:47.800
refuge at a relative's home, leaving Detective Tazzi alone in

1702
02:13:47.880 --> 02:13:51.840
the haunted house to monitor what Popper might do in

1703
02:13:51.880 --> 02:13:57.760
their absence. Interestingly, the poltergeist was inactive the whole night

1704
02:13:58.399 --> 02:14:01.720
while the family was gone, as if it had no

1705
02:14:01.920 --> 02:14:06.720
audience to play to, but when the Hermans cautiously returned

1706
02:14:06.760 --> 02:14:11.239
the next day, the phenomena resumed, as if on q

1707
02:14:12.520 --> 02:14:16.399
On the evening of February twenty first, the same sugar

1708
02:14:16.399 --> 02:14:20.119
bowl that flew earlier suddenly leaped from the table once more,

1709
02:14:20.680 --> 02:14:24.319
this time shattering into pieces on the floor as soon

1710
02:14:24.359 --> 02:14:28.399
as the family had re entered the home. Clearly, whatever

1711
02:14:28.520 --> 02:14:32.119
force was at work seemed tied to the family's presence

1712
02:14:32.520 --> 02:14:36.680
and possibly to the emotional energy in the home, a

1713
02:14:36.760 --> 02:14:41.880
pattern not lost on investigators. The nights of February twenty

1714
02:14:41.920 --> 02:14:45.960
fourth and twenty fifth marked the peak of Popper's mayhem.

1715
02:14:46.760 --> 02:14:50.720
On February twenty fourth, a thunderous crash from Young James's

1716
02:14:50.720 --> 02:14:56.319
bedroom sent Tozzi and mister Harman running upstairs. They found

1717
02:14:56.319 --> 02:14:59.960
that a large wooden bookcase, which had been standing firmly

1718
02:15:00.119 --> 02:15:04.399
against the wall, was now inexplicably face down on the

1719
02:15:04.479 --> 02:15:09.000
floor amid a tangle of books. No one had been

1720
02:15:09.039 --> 02:15:13.199
in the room at the time. The following evening, February

1721
02:15:13.239 --> 02:15:18.319
twenty fifth, saw a rapid fire series of events unfold

1722
02:15:18.399 --> 02:15:22.000
across different rooms of the house, almost as if the

1723
02:15:22.159 --> 02:15:32.560
entity was showing off its full range of tricks. While

1724
02:15:32.680 --> 02:15:36.920
Jimmy sat at his desk doing homework, his portable record

1725
02:15:36.960 --> 02:15:41.239
player lifted up off its table and traveled fifteen feet

1726
02:15:41.279 --> 02:15:45.560
across the room before coming to rest, startling the boy.

1727
02:15:46.479 --> 02:15:51.520
Almost simultaneously, in the master bedroom, a heavy statue of

1728
02:15:51.520 --> 02:15:54.680
the Virgin Mary flew a distance of about twelve feet,

1729
02:15:55.279 --> 02:15:58.600
striking the wooden frame of a mirror and clattering to

1730
02:15:58.680 --> 02:16:04.720
the floor. Downstairs, a glass centerpiece that usually adorned the

1731
02:16:04.760 --> 02:16:09.239
dining room table suddenly soared into the air and smashed

1732
02:16:09.279 --> 02:16:14.079
into a cupboard, splintering a piece of molding, before crashing down.

1733
02:16:15.079 --> 02:16:18.800
As the household rushed about reacting to each noise, a

1734
02:16:18.840 --> 02:16:23.159
globe from Jimmy's desk shot down the hallway at high speed,

1735
02:16:23.880 --> 02:16:29.640
narrowly missing Detective Tazzi's head by inches. Amid this chaos,

1736
02:16:30.159 --> 02:16:34.319
a Life magazine photographer attempting to document the scene was

1737
02:16:34.360 --> 02:16:38.719
astonished to see his camera flashbulbs slide off a table

1738
02:16:39.159 --> 02:16:43.120
and fling themselves against a wall, as if the poltergeist

1739
02:16:43.440 --> 02:16:47.559
were playfully sabotaging the efforts to capture it on film.

1740
02:16:48.360 --> 02:16:52.280
The house rang with crashes and thuds from multiple rooms.

1741
02:16:52.920 --> 02:16:58.760
Perhaps most unnerving of all unexplained knocking sounds began to

1742
02:16:58.799 --> 02:17:03.319
emanate from the wall. Loud, insistent raps that seemed to

1743
02:17:03.360 --> 02:17:07.520
have no point of origin, almost as if Popper were

1744
02:17:07.639 --> 02:17:13.440
literally knocking for attention. The Hairmans did not attempt any

1745
02:17:13.559 --> 02:17:18.639
kind of spirit communication, such as asking questions for knocks

1746
02:17:18.680 --> 02:17:23.040
in reply. They were too startled and frightened to play

1747
02:17:23.079 --> 02:17:28.280
parlor games. But the knocking added another layer of menace

1748
02:17:28.799 --> 02:17:35.159
to the already terrifying situation around them. Detective Tazzi was

1749
02:17:35.200 --> 02:17:39.479
alarmed by this new level of violence. Up until that week,

1750
02:17:39.680 --> 02:17:43.600
no one had been injured, and the incidents, while unnerving,

1751
02:17:44.040 --> 02:17:49.920
had almost prankish quality popping caps, minor objects tipping over.

1752
02:17:50.760 --> 02:17:55.799
But now the potential for harm was real. Heavy furniture

1753
02:17:55.959 --> 02:18:00.319
was toppling and hurtling across rooms. The family began to

1754
02:18:00.360 --> 02:18:03.000
fear that if the mysterious force could fling a one

1755
02:18:03.079 --> 02:18:06.639
hundred pound statue or send a globe flying at a

1756
02:18:06.680 --> 02:18:11.559
person's head, what might it do next. Tozzy himself later

1757
02:18:11.639 --> 02:18:15.280
admitted that by the end of February he feared someone

1758
02:18:15.319 --> 02:18:20.680
could get seriously hurt if this continued. Having run through

1759
02:18:20.799 --> 02:18:24.959
every scientific test and police technique he could think of,

1760
02:18:25.479 --> 02:18:31.920
the detective finally looked outward for help. Around this time,

1761
02:18:32.040 --> 02:18:36.000
the Hermann case caught the attention of an unusual team

1762
02:18:36.120 --> 02:18:43.120
of investigators the Parapsychology Laboratory of Duke University in North Carolina.

1763
02:18:44.079 --> 02:18:48.000
Doctor J. B. Rhyne's pioneering lab had spent the nineteen

1764
02:18:48.120 --> 02:18:56.120
fifties studying psychic phenomena, extrasensory perception ESP. Telepathy, and haunting

1765
02:18:56.280 --> 02:19:01.680
cases with an aim to find scientific explanations for the paranormal.

1766
02:19:02.559 --> 02:19:06.479
When doctor Rhyan's staff read the newspaper accounts of objects

1767
02:19:06.520 --> 02:19:10.040
flying around a Long Island home, they felt it was

1768
02:19:10.079 --> 02:19:15.479
a prime opportunity to study what they termed recurrent spontaneous

1769
02:19:15.520 --> 02:19:21.959
psychokinesis in real time. Ryan dispatched one of his top researchers,

1770
02:19:22.479 --> 02:19:27.799
doctor J. Gaither Pratt, to Seaford, to observe and assist.

1771
02:19:28.440 --> 02:19:32.120
Pratt arrived at the Herman home on February twenty sixth,

1772
02:19:32.440 --> 02:19:36.520
nineteen fifty eight, bringing a trained but open mind to

1773
02:19:36.600 --> 02:19:40.639
the chaotic household. He had been following the reports closely.

1774
02:19:41.440 --> 02:19:47.200
Pratt's working hypothesis aligned with Rhyin's theories. He suspected that

1775
02:19:47.239 --> 02:19:51.000
the disturbances might not be caused by a traditional ghost

1776
02:19:51.399 --> 02:19:56.920
or spirit, but by psychokinetic energy unknowingly generated by a

1777
02:19:57.040 --> 02:20:01.600
human agent in the household. In after case of so

1778
02:20:01.719 --> 02:20:06.760
called poltergeist's. Ryan's team had noted the presence of an adolescent,

1779
02:20:07.399 --> 02:20:12.760
usually female, coinciding with the phenomena, and they theorized that

1780
02:20:12.879 --> 02:20:18.360
repressed emotional tensions in a teenager could manifest as unconscious

1781
02:20:18.440 --> 02:20:23.520
telekinetic outbursts. In the Herman family, twelve year old Jimmy

1782
02:20:23.639 --> 02:20:28.639
fit the classic profile of the focus of poltergeist activity,

1783
02:20:29.040 --> 02:20:33.799
even though he himself appeared just as terrified and baffled

1784
02:20:33.799 --> 02:20:39.239
as everyone else. Pratt was careful not to jump to conclusions. However,

1785
02:20:40.239 --> 02:20:45.360
he also knew that historically poltergeist cases often ended up

1786
02:20:45.399 --> 02:20:52.920
being pranks or exaggerations. Once carefully observed. With the Herman's blessing,

1787
02:20:53.440 --> 02:20:56.440
by now, they were willing to welcome any expert who

1788
02:20:56.520 --> 02:21:00.479
might help. Doctor Pratt moved into the house for an

1789
02:21:00.520 --> 02:21:05.920
extended stay. He spent the next several days quietly monitoring

1790
02:21:05.959 --> 02:21:10.719
the family's routines. Notably, he devoted a lot of friendly

1791
02:21:10.799 --> 02:21:15.559
attention to young Jimmy, chatting with him, helping with homework,

1792
02:21:16.000 --> 02:21:19.719
even playing cards, both to put the boy at ease

1793
02:21:19.959 --> 02:21:23.559
and perhaps to see if calming the child's stress might

1794
02:21:23.680 --> 02:21:28.920
calm the phenomena. Strangely enough, During Pratt's first several days

1795
02:21:28.959 --> 02:21:32.879
in the house, Popper's activity came to a screeching halt.

1796
02:21:33.879 --> 02:21:38.200
The poltergeist that had so boisterously upended the home now

1797
02:21:38.280 --> 02:21:43.680
went silent and dormant, as if it refused to perform

1798
02:21:43.959 --> 02:21:48.760
under the scrutiny of the Duke scientist. From February twenty

1799
02:21:48.840 --> 02:21:52.760
sixth through the end of that month, barely a single

1800
02:21:52.799 --> 02:21:57.600
disturbance occurred, much to the frustration of the media camped

1801
02:21:57.639 --> 02:22:02.280
outside and to Pratt's own discipline appointment. He half wondered

1802
02:22:02.280 --> 02:22:06.399
if his presence had somehow exerted a calming influence on

1803
02:22:06.479 --> 02:22:13.319
the boy or the household atmosphere, quelling the phenomena. Pratt's colleague,

1804
02:22:13.479 --> 02:22:17.479
doctor William g Roll, soon joined him in Seaford as

1805
02:22:17.559 --> 02:22:22.920
February turned to March. Together, Pratt and Roll interviewed each

1806
02:22:23.040 --> 02:22:27.399
family member in depth, looking for any clues of fraud

1807
02:22:27.840 --> 02:22:32.920
or psychological triggers. They emerged convinced that the Hermans were

1808
02:22:33.000 --> 02:22:38.319
honest and genuinely distressed. The family was much too shaken

1809
02:22:38.479 --> 02:22:41.920
for it to be a colossal hoax, Pratt told a

1810
02:22:42.079 --> 02:22:46.920
United Press reporter, emphasizing that none of them seemed capable

1811
02:22:46.959 --> 02:22:53.600
of orchestrating such elaborate tricks. Pratt even suggested administering lie

1812
02:22:53.639 --> 02:22:58.360
detector tests to the family in order to silence the skeptics,

1813
02:22:58.760 --> 02:23:10.760
but mister and Missus Harriman ultimately declined. Just when it

1814
02:23:10.879 --> 02:23:14.639
seemed the mysterious force might have finally died out, the

1815
02:23:14.719 --> 02:23:19.520
poltergeist roared back to life in March. On March second,

1816
02:23:20.200 --> 02:23:25.440
nineteen fifty eight, exactly one month after the first bottle popping,

1817
02:23:26.239 --> 02:23:29.440
the Harmans and the visiting Duke researchers were all in

1818
02:23:29.520 --> 02:23:34.840
the house when a new wave of activity erupted. First,

1819
02:23:35.079 --> 02:23:39.200
a porcelain dish vaulted out of a kitchen cabinet and

1820
02:23:39.399 --> 02:23:44.040
smashed onto the floor in front of everyone. Moments later,

1821
02:23:44.600 --> 02:23:48.719
a night stand in Jimmy's bedroom flipped over completely, as

1822
02:23:48.760 --> 02:23:52.760
if tossed by an invisible hand. After a few days

1823
02:23:52.799 --> 02:23:58.000
of quiet, Popper was announcing his return with emphasis. Two

1824
02:23:58.120 --> 02:24:01.920
days later, on March fourth, another burst of chaos struck

1825
02:24:02.520 --> 02:24:06.799
A bowl of fresh flowers slid inexplicably across the dining

1826
02:24:06.879 --> 02:24:10.959
table and then leapt into the air, landing with a

1827
02:24:11.040 --> 02:24:15.840
crash in the cellar. Yet another heavy bookcase was found

1828
02:24:16.239 --> 02:24:20.239
turned end over end on the floor, Pratt and Roll

1829
02:24:20.440 --> 02:24:25.159
witnessed some of these final incidents, finally getting the direct

1830
02:24:25.319 --> 02:24:30.559
encounters they needed to round out their investigation. It was

1831
02:24:30.600 --> 02:24:34.079
as if the poltergeist had simply been waiting for them

1832
02:24:34.159 --> 02:24:39.600
to leave, only to decide begrudgingly to put on one

1833
02:24:39.799 --> 02:24:45.719
last show, even with the scientists present. The grand finale

1834
02:24:45.840 --> 02:24:51.200
came on March tenth, nineteen fifty eight. That evening, missus

1835
02:24:51.200 --> 02:24:55.559
Herman and the two children were preparing for bed. Mister

1836
02:24:55.639 --> 02:24:59.559
Herman was away on business, while doctor Pratt and doctor

1837
02:24:59.680 --> 02:25:04.840
Roll remained on hand in another part of the house. Suddenly,

1838
02:25:05.360 --> 02:25:10.559
a sharp popping sound rang out from the basement. Everyone

1839
02:25:10.719 --> 02:25:15.479
rushed downstairs together. In the cellar, they discovered that a

1840
02:25:15.520 --> 02:25:19.360
bottle of bleach, which had been sitting innocuously in a

1841
02:25:19.399 --> 02:25:24.680
cardboard box, had somehow blown off its plastic cap with force.

1842
02:25:25.639 --> 02:25:29.520
The bottle itself had tipped over, and bleach was trickling

1843
02:25:29.559 --> 02:25:33.079
out into the box. There were no witnesses to the

1844
02:25:33.159 --> 02:25:37.440
exact moment it happened, only the loud report had been heard.

1845
02:25:38.239 --> 02:25:41.639
But this incident fell perfectly in line with the others.

1846
02:25:42.520 --> 02:25:48.200
Pratt and Roll carefully noted the time and circumstances unbeknownst

1847
02:25:48.200 --> 02:25:52.399
to them at that moment, this would be Popper's final gasp.

1848
02:25:53.280 --> 02:25:58.399
For reasons still unknown. After March tenth, the disturbances simply

1849
02:25:58.559 --> 02:26:03.760
ceased completely. The Herman home returned to an eerie silence,

1850
02:26:04.200 --> 02:26:09.319
as if the mysterious energy had expended itself and finally departed.

1851
02:26:10.360 --> 02:26:14.079
In total, the Hermans had endured over two months of

1852
02:26:14.120 --> 02:26:19.959
intermittent terror, with sixty seven separate documented disturbances between early

1853
02:26:20.079 --> 02:26:24.559
February and March tenth. In that time, they had been

1854
02:26:24.600 --> 02:26:30.639
trailed by detectives, swarmed by journalists, prayed over by priests

1855
02:26:30.680 --> 02:26:36.639
and self styled mystics, and scrutinized by scientists and skeptics alike.

1856
02:26:37.680 --> 02:26:41.200
When it was over, the family was left exhausted but

1857
02:26:41.360 --> 02:26:45.799
grateful that their lives could return to normal. In the

1858
02:26:45.840 --> 02:26:50.479
weeks that followed, investigators of all stripes continued to knock

1859
02:26:50.559 --> 02:26:56.440
on the Herman's door, from academic researchers to professional debunkers,

1860
02:26:56.479 --> 02:27:00.200
each eager to analyze the case now that it it

1861
02:27:00.200 --> 02:27:05.440
wrapped up. By August nineteen fifty eight, five months after

1862
02:27:05.479 --> 02:27:09.760
the last incident, even doctor Rhine's Duke team had to

1863
02:27:09.840 --> 02:27:14.000
admit they were no closer to a definitive answer. They

1864
02:27:14.040 --> 02:27:18.680
had piles of data and eyewitness accounts, but no single

1865
02:27:18.799 --> 02:27:23.760
theory that could fully account for what happened. The Hermans

1866
02:27:23.799 --> 02:27:27.799
had grown tired of the spotlight and the endless questioning.

1867
02:27:28.879 --> 02:27:33.799
I don't think there is a definite solution. Missus Lucille

1868
02:27:33.840 --> 02:27:39.079
Herman told an Associated Press reporter that summer it was

1869
02:27:39.280 --> 02:27:42.360
just one of those things with no rhyme or reason

1870
02:27:42.440 --> 02:27:46.399
to it, but there was a definite physical force behind it.

1871
02:27:47.200 --> 02:27:51.600
Her husband, James, echoed that sentiment. It no longer mattered

1872
02:27:51.600 --> 02:27:54.680
to him why it happened, only that it was over

1873
02:27:55.079 --> 02:27:59.280
and his family was safe. In the wake of the

1874
02:27:59.319 --> 02:28:05.000
Hermann Altergeist, numerous theories have been proposed, but none fully

1875
02:28:05.120 --> 02:28:09.799
settles the matter. Investigators in nineteen fifty eight and later

1876
02:28:09.959 --> 02:28:14.680
poured over the evidence, splitting into roughly three camps of

1877
02:28:14.760 --> 02:28:25.159
explanation fraud or hoax, psychological, psychokinetic or paranormal entity. Skeptical

1878
02:28:25.200 --> 02:28:29.040
investigators have long suspected that the cause might have been

1879
02:28:29.079 --> 02:28:34.920
a human trickster, most likely young James Junior. As early

1880
02:28:35.000 --> 02:28:39.719
as the incidents themselves, Detective Tazzi and mister Hermann had

1881
02:28:39.799 --> 02:28:44.360
considered that possibility. Indeed, Jimmy was at the scene of

1882
02:28:44.399 --> 02:28:49.280
the action over seventy five percent of the time. Could

1883
02:28:49.319 --> 02:28:53.360
a clever twelve year old have staged all this stage

1884
02:28:53.360 --> 02:28:59.559
Magician Milburn Christopher, a prominent skeptic, later examined the case

1885
02:29:00.079 --> 02:29:04.920
and argued that many of Popper's feats could be replicated

1886
02:29:04.959 --> 02:29:10.520
with sleight of hand and misdirection. Christopher even offered to

1887
02:29:10.559 --> 02:29:15.000
come to the Herman home during the disturbances to investigate,

1888
02:29:15.719 --> 02:29:19.680
but mister Herman refused to let a magician in, perhaps

1889
02:29:19.719 --> 02:29:26.239
fearing such an offer implied his family was deceitful. Undeterred,

1890
02:29:26.360 --> 02:29:31.959
Christopher demonstrated for reporters how hidden accomplices and simple tricks

1891
02:29:32.040 --> 02:29:36.559
could mimic poltergeist effects. In one stunt, he had his

1892
02:29:36.680 --> 02:29:41.959
wife secretly flip bottles and create popping noises in another room,

1893
02:29:42.719 --> 02:29:48.239
fooling onlookers into thinking bottles were moving by themselves. He

1894
02:29:48.360 --> 02:29:52.959
also described using invisible threads to tug objects from a

1895
02:29:53.040 --> 02:29:58.920
distance and make them topple with no one nearby. Decades later,

1896
02:29:59.159 --> 02:30:03.719
skeptical reas researcher Joe Nickel obtained the original sixty page

1897
02:30:03.760 --> 02:30:09.520
police case file and noted telling patterns. Almost no incidents

1898
02:30:09.559 --> 02:30:12.159
occurred when Jimmy was known to be out of the

1899
02:30:12.239 --> 02:30:16.760
house or even just out of the immediate room, and

1900
02:30:16.840 --> 02:30:23.040
when detectives tried proactively testing certain objects like dusting bottles

1901
02:30:23.079 --> 02:30:30.360
with fluorescent powder, those particular items curiously never moved, implying

1902
02:30:30.479 --> 02:30:35.920
that a conscious perpetrator might have been avoiding traps. Nickel

1903
02:30:36.079 --> 02:30:41.319
concluded that every single incident could be explained by simple trickery,

1904
02:30:41.840 --> 02:30:46.159
such as a boy could effect given moments of distraction

1905
02:30:46.840 --> 02:30:50.959
and the chaos of the situation. Skeptics point out that

1906
02:30:51.040 --> 02:30:55.639
adolescents can bring not just angst, but also boredom and

1907
02:30:55.680 --> 02:31:00.000
a desire for attention. Perhaps Jimmy started with a few

1908
02:31:00.000 --> 02:31:04.840
few prank bottle explosions using some unknown method, and then

1909
02:31:04.959 --> 02:31:09.959
felt unable to stop as the situation snowballed beyond his control.

1910
02:31:16.360 --> 02:31:20.000
It's important to note, however, that no evidence of fraud

1911
02:31:20.200 --> 02:31:24.879
was ever found. During the events, The boy was closely

1912
02:31:24.959 --> 02:31:29.319
watched by police and family, even being subjected to stern

1913
02:31:29.399 --> 02:31:35.680
interrogations at times, and he consistently denied any involvement, sometimes

1914
02:31:36.000 --> 02:31:41.440
to the point of tears. The Hermann parents, detective Tazzi,

1915
02:31:41.799 --> 02:31:46.079
and later doctor Pratt and doctor Roll all ultimately concluded

1916
02:31:46.360 --> 02:31:50.879
that Jimmy did not appear to be consciously behind the disturbances,

1917
02:31:51.600 --> 02:31:59.520
and crucially, multiple incidents were witnessed by reliable third parties reporters, officers, cousins,

1918
02:32:00.079 --> 02:32:04.360
while neither child was near the affected object. These make

1919
02:32:04.440 --> 02:32:09.479
the hoax theory plausible in some instances, but difficult to

1920
02:32:09.600 --> 02:32:15.479
extend to every occurrence without invoking an almost superhuman level

1921
02:32:15.520 --> 02:32:21.360
of trickery and timing by a preteen. Another school of

1922
02:32:21.440 --> 02:32:25.079
thought views the Herman case not as a deliberate prank,

1923
02:32:25.520 --> 02:32:32.239
but as a psychological phenomenon, specifically a manifestation of subconscious

1924
02:32:32.559 --> 02:32:38.440
psychokinetic ability. Doctor Pratt and doctor Roll of Duke's Parapsychology

1925
02:32:38.520 --> 02:32:43.719
Lab favored this explanation. They categorized the events as a

1926
02:32:43.719 --> 02:32:49.760
classic case of recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis r s p K.

1927
02:32:51.079 --> 02:32:55.639
According to this theory, Jimmy Herman himself was the unwitting

1928
02:32:55.760 --> 02:33:01.520
source of the kinetic disturbances. In times of an emotional stress,

1929
02:33:01.559 --> 02:33:06.879
such as puberty, some individuals might unconsciously release pent up

1930
02:33:06.959 --> 02:33:11.760
psychic energy that can physically affect objects in their environment.

1931
02:33:12.680 --> 02:33:17.760
Pratt and Roll noted suggestive clues the poltergeist's focus on

1932
02:33:17.879 --> 02:33:22.319
bottles of household products used by missus Herman and on

1933
02:33:22.479 --> 02:33:28.559
items belonging to the parents, furniture in their rooms, religious objects, etc.

1934
02:33:29.319 --> 02:33:35.079
Could symbolically reflect Jimmy's inner feelings, perhaps anger toward his

1935
02:33:35.239 --> 02:33:40.840
strict father or dependency needs relating to his mother. In

1936
02:33:40.879 --> 02:33:46.520
a two thousand three retrospective analysis, doctor William Roll pointed

1937
02:33:46.520 --> 02:33:51.920
out that psychological evaluations of young James indicated he harbored

1938
02:33:52.000 --> 02:33:56.680
strong repressed anger toward his father, and the pattern of

1939
02:33:56.799 --> 02:34:03.120
targets mother's holy water father furniture might represent an unconscious

1940
02:34:03.200 --> 02:34:08.680
outlet for those emotions. The Duke researchers also observed a

1941
02:34:08.799 --> 02:34:14.360
tantalizing physical correlation. The closer objects were to Jimmy, the

1942
02:34:14.440 --> 02:34:19.040
more frequently they seemed to move, with effects diminishing at

1943
02:34:19.120 --> 02:34:24.159
greater distances. This distance decay of force fits a model

1944
02:34:24.239 --> 02:34:29.760
proposed by parapsychologists that psychokinetic waves emanating from a person

1945
02:34:30.280 --> 02:34:36.079
might weaken with range. Role even speculated in theoretical terms

1946
02:34:36.360 --> 02:34:40.799
that perhaps these psychic forces interact with quantum level energies

1947
02:34:41.399 --> 02:34:46.239
like zero point field fluctuations to momentarily suspend the normal

1948
02:34:46.319 --> 02:34:50.840
laws of inertia and gravity, allowing objects to move without

1949
02:34:51.000 --> 02:34:56.319
visible cause. Though such ideas venture far into the speculative,

1950
02:34:56.799 --> 02:35:00.840
the psychokinetic hypothesis does align with one one key fact.

1951
02:35:01.639 --> 02:35:09.239
Similar poltergeist cases have occurred worldwide, often involving adolescence under stress,

1952
02:35:09.280 --> 02:35:14.360
with no apparent fraud. In some well documented instances. The

1953
02:35:14.399 --> 02:35:20.520
Herman case itself spurred parapsychologists to investigate other contemporary incidents,

1954
02:35:20.959 --> 02:35:26.120
and the patterns were often alike. Still, mainstream science remains

1955
02:35:26.200 --> 02:35:32.120
highly skeptical of RSPK, as no controlled experiment has ever

1956
02:35:32.239 --> 02:35:37.239
conclusively demonstrated a person's mind moving objects at will, let

1957
02:35:37.319 --> 02:35:43.879
alone unconscious teenage angst doing so spontaneously. Pratt and Roll

1958
02:35:44.079 --> 02:35:49.040
conceded that RSPK was a working hypothesis rather than a

1959
02:35:49.120 --> 02:35:53.520
proven mechanism. It was simply the explanation that best fit

1960
02:35:53.639 --> 02:36:02.760
the peculiar constellation of evidence once outright trickery seemed less likely. Finally,

1961
02:36:02.920 --> 02:36:06.399
there are those who hold that the Hermann family truly

1962
02:36:06.479 --> 02:36:12.959
experienced a paranormal entity, a genuine poltergeist or spirit. The

1963
02:36:13.079 --> 02:36:18.319
very word poltergeist comes from German for noisy ghost, and

1964
02:36:18.520 --> 02:36:23.200
historically such hauntings were often attributed to troublesome spirits or

1965
02:36:23.200 --> 02:36:29.159
demonic forces. The Hermann case occurred in a devout Catholic household,

1966
02:36:29.680 --> 02:36:34.799
and even Time magazine mused that a diabolical force might

1967
02:36:34.879 --> 02:36:38.799
be at play. Many observers pointed to the pattern of

1968
02:36:38.840 --> 02:36:43.760
religious items being targeted, for example, the Holy Water font

1969
02:36:44.120 --> 02:36:47.799
and the Virgin Mary statue being flung, as if an

1970
02:36:47.879 --> 02:36:54.159
unholy presence was intentionally desecrating sacred objects. Some local clergy

1971
02:36:54.200 --> 02:36:57.959
and lay people indeed felt the family was under demonic oppression,

1972
02:36:58.719 --> 02:37:05.200
hence the calls for an exorcism. However, nothing overtly supernatural

1973
02:37:06.040 --> 02:37:11.799
like apparitions or voices ever accompanied the disturbances. The phenomena

1974
02:37:11.840 --> 02:37:16.959
were entirely psychokinetic. In classic parlance. This case had all

1975
02:37:17.000 --> 02:37:22.680
poltergeist and no ghost, loud physical activity with no clear

1976
02:37:22.799 --> 02:37:27.920
message or ghostly identity attached. If a restless spirit was present,

1977
02:37:28.360 --> 02:37:31.840
it kept itself to raps on walls and chaotic pranks

1978
02:37:32.360 --> 02:37:38.040
rather than delivering any intelligible communication. The Catholic Church never

1979
02:37:38.159 --> 02:37:42.799
formally declared it a demonic case, and Father MacLeod's attempted

1980
02:37:42.840 --> 02:37:48.920
blessing did not drive it away. Still, some paranormal researchers

1981
02:37:49.120 --> 02:37:52.680
argue that a discarnate entity could have been the cause,

1982
02:37:53.360 --> 02:37:57.600
Essentially a ghost playing poltergeist tricks. They note that the

1983
02:37:57.680 --> 02:38:03.239
occurrences stopped as abruptly as they began, after about five weeks,

1984
02:38:03.920 --> 02:38:07.840
perhaps when the spirit decided to move on. A spiritual

1985
02:38:07.879 --> 02:38:12.440
explanation is inherently hard to prove or refute. It boils

1986
02:38:12.520 --> 02:38:17.520
down to one's belief framework. To skeptics, invoking a ghost

1987
02:38:17.760 --> 02:38:23.040
is unnecessary when a teenager or trickery could be the source.

1988
02:38:23.840 --> 02:38:28.600
To believers, the very inexplicability and mischievous intelligence of the

1989
02:38:28.680 --> 02:38:42.239
events suggests an unseen spirit is at work. The Hermann

1990
02:38:42.239 --> 02:38:46.680
family poltergeist case remains one of the most famous and

1991
02:38:46.840 --> 02:38:52.239
well documented American hauntings of the twentieth century. In the

1992
02:38:52.280 --> 02:38:57.719
words of magician Milburn Christopher, it was the most discussed

1993
02:38:57.799 --> 02:39:03.879
poltergeist case of the century, generating countless newspaper stories, radio

1994
02:39:04.000 --> 02:39:09.200
and TV broadcasts, and magazine articles in many languages. It

1995
02:39:09.319 --> 02:39:13.520
also had a lasting influence on popular culture and the

1996
02:39:13.559 --> 02:39:18.840
scientific study of the paranormal. The intense media coverage and

1997
02:39:18.920 --> 02:39:24.520
public intrigue surrounding the Seaford happenings spark new interest among

1998
02:39:24.639 --> 02:39:31.479
parapsychologists in investigating poltergeists. Doctor Roll, for instance, went on

1999
02:39:31.559 --> 02:39:36.479
to study several other high profile cases with similar patterns

2000
02:39:36.479 --> 02:39:41.159
in the nineteen sixties and seventies, including a Miami warehouse

2001
02:39:41.200 --> 02:39:46.120
poltergeist in nineteen seventy one and the famous Columbus, Ohio

2002
02:39:46.280 --> 02:39:52.319
case of nineteen eighty four involving a teen girl. Each time,

2003
02:39:52.440 --> 02:39:56.520
echoes of the Hermann case were seen, and researchers continued

2004
02:39:56.520 --> 02:40:02.280
to refine theories of RSPK and environ triggers. It's widely

2005
02:40:02.440 --> 02:40:07.520
noted that the nineteen eighty two Stephen Spielberg film Poltergeist

2006
02:40:07.840 --> 02:40:12.319
took inspiration from the Hermann case, transplanting the idea of

2007
02:40:12.360 --> 02:40:19.079
a household under supernatural siege into cinematic history. Despite all

2008
02:40:19.120 --> 02:40:23.399
the analysis and speculation, the core mystery of the Hermann

2009
02:40:23.399 --> 02:40:29.239
Poltergeist remains unsolved. What really set those objects in motion.

2010
02:40:30.040 --> 02:40:34.639
We know for certain what was observed. Bottles popped open

2011
02:40:34.719 --> 02:40:39.799
by themselves, furniture overturned, objects flew through the air in

2012
02:40:39.879 --> 02:40:43.600
the presence of credible witnesses, and all of it centered

2013
02:40:43.639 --> 02:40:48.360
around a perfectly ordinary family with no apparent motive to

2014
02:40:48.479 --> 02:40:54.079
fake such chaos. Decades later, no definitive evidence has emerged

2015
02:40:54.319 --> 02:40:57.879
to prove it was a hoax, Yet no scientific mechanism

2016
02:40:58.159 --> 02:41:01.719
has been identified to explain how these events could occur

2017
02:41:01.920 --> 02:41:07.520
naturally or via psychokinesis. The case stands as a tantalizing

2018
02:41:07.600 --> 02:41:12.079
example of a boundary phenomenon hovering at the edges of

2019
02:41:12.159 --> 02:41:19.479
belief where psychology, physics, and folklore intersect. The Hermann family

2020
02:41:19.520 --> 02:41:24.319
eventually reclaimed their normal life and rarely spoke publicly of

2021
02:41:24.360 --> 02:41:29.079
the ordeal again. But for those tumultuous weeks in nineteen

2022
02:41:29.200 --> 02:41:33.360
fifty eight, their modest Long Island home was the site

2023
02:41:33.360 --> 02:41:40.600
of something truly extraordinary. The Popper Poltergeist case forces us

2024
02:41:40.680 --> 02:41:45.000
to confront the limits of our understanding, a reminder that

2025
02:41:45.040 --> 02:41:48.559
there are events recorded in our own time and place

2026
02:41:49.040 --> 02:41:54.959
which still elude explanation. And so the Hermann Poltergeist lives

2027
02:41:55.000 --> 02:41:59.319
on in legend as enigmatic now as on the day

2028
02:41:59.479 --> 02:42:03.879
at rock the walls of a quiet house and then

2029
02:42:04.479 --> 02:42:18.079
vanished into thin air. And that brings us to the

2030
02:42:18.239 --> 02:42:24.120
end of this special collection of terrifying and true A mirror,

2031
02:42:24.399 --> 02:42:29.239
a bedroom, a movie set, a locked hotel room, a

2032
02:42:29.360 --> 02:42:34.200
forwarded warning, a lonely house in the woods, a quiet

2033
02:42:34.239 --> 02:42:42.440
suburban home where the impossible came knocking. Different stories, different decades,

2034
02:42:43.000 --> 02:42:47.559
different kinds of fear, but each one leaves behind the

2035
02:42:47.600 --> 02:42:53.040
same uneasy question. What do we do when the things

2036
02:42:53.120 --> 02:42:59.440
we tell ourselves are just stories start leaving fingerprints in

2037
02:42:59.520 --> 02:43:04.399
the real world. Maybe Bloody Mary is only a dare

2038
02:43:04.879 --> 02:43:09.479
whispered in the dark. Maybe sleep paralysis is only the

2039
02:43:09.559 --> 02:43:17.120
brain misfiring between dreams and waking. Maybe curses our only coincidences,

2040
02:43:17.760 --> 02:43:22.840
chain letters are only manipulation, and hauntings are only folklore

2041
02:43:23.360 --> 02:43:28.959
wearing a new face, or maybe fear has always been

2042
02:43:29.120 --> 02:43:33.360
one of the oldest forces we know, and sometimes when

2043
02:43:33.479 --> 02:43:38.079
enough people believe in something, repeat it, share it, and

2044
02:43:38.319 --> 02:43:43.680
pass it on, it starts to feel alive. Thank you

2045
02:43:43.760 --> 02:43:47.760
for joining me on this very special Terrifying and True collection,

2046
02:43:48.600 --> 02:43:51.479
and remember we bring you a brand new episode of

2047
02:43:51.559 --> 02:43:56.840
Terrifying and True diving into true crime, folklore and everything

2048
02:43:56.920 --> 02:44:02.440
in between every single Monday. You're at Weekly Spooky, So

2049
02:44:02.639 --> 02:44:07.600
make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app Until then,

2050
02:44:08.440 --> 02:44:11.920
keep the lights low, keep your eyes on the mirror,

2051
02:44:12.040 --> 02:44:17.600
and whatever you do, don't forward the warning unless you're

2052
02:44:17.680 --> 02:44:27.920
sure you're ready for what follows.