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Posts tagged paranormal
Photo taken a few months after the Lutz family fled the famous Amityville house. There were no children in the house at the time this picture was taken.
The expansive story of the Hodgson family began on a late August night in 1977. Peggy Hodgson, a single mother of four, claimed to witness what would be the first of many strange and seemingly unexplainable occurrences. Occurences that seemed to center around her two oldest daughters, and more specifically her middle child, Janet Hodgson. What Peggy later told investigators, is that she witnessed a chest of drawers in the girls’ small bedroom slide, on its own accord, across the room and come to a stop in front of the pair of girls.
After moving the dresser back to its original position, Mrs. Hodgson was shocked when yet again, the chest slid across the room. Only this time, due to the force of some invisible weight, she was unable to move it. This incident was then accompanied by a disembodied knocking sound that would continue nearly the length of the entire fourteen months.
Two journalists fro m:The Daily Mirror” are dispatched to the house. They witness, but are unable to capture any tangible evidence of small objects floating in mid-air and being thrown around the living room.
Shortly after the floating object incident, the Society for Paranormal Research, or SPR, are contacted and two members by the name of Morris Grosse and Guy Lion Playfair are first to jump at the opportunity to investigate. After a short time of investigating in the home, both men are convinced that something genuinely paranormal is taking place. Loud noises of knocking, banging, and scratching in addition to the erratic movement of furniture, the major activity presented in the case, continue to escalate. SPR come to the conclusion that they are dealing with a particular kind of entity, one that they believe either manifests or feeds off of psychokinetic energy: a poltergeist.
One of the more shocking accounts, as retold by Grosse, details the destruction of the girls’ 300-pound fireplace in October of 1977. He explains having heard a loud banging, followed by the feeling of shaking. By the time he reached the girls’ bedroom, the fireplace had wrenched itself out of the wall, ripping a solid metal pipe in half. The only two witnesses present at the time were Margaret and Janet Hodgson, who claimed to have been sleeping.
London University is contacted and a student of experimental physics is sent to the house to test the girls’ ability to influence metal. Within a short period of time Janet managed to bend a spoon completely in half without ever coming into contact with the object itself. The investigators now believed most of the activity to be centered around Janet, who appears to be less and less frightened of the strange events as they continue to occur.
In late November, three months into the investigation, the now familiar disembodied knocking became persistent to the point of being categorized as intelligent. Grosse attempts to communicate with it, asking it to answer questions by rapping once or twice on the wall. The response that follows is a succession of 53 distinct knocks, all recorded on nearby tape recorder. It is around this time that Janet begins to fall into what Grosse describes as a trance-like state. She is said to have developed phenomenal strength while acting out violently towards herself and others. In order to prevent injuries, Janet is restrained.
On November 26th a doctor visits the house and injects Janet with 10 mg of Valium, sedating her. Half an hour later she’s found in her bedroom, on top of a dresser, kneeling on a wide clock radio with her head hanging towards the ground, legs in the air.
Graham Morris, photographer for The Daily Mirror, sets up a remote control camera in the girls’ bedroom that can be activated from anywhere in the house. Once activated, the camera would proceed to take a photograph every 4 seconds. He captures what appears to be a series of photographs of Janet being forcefully pulled out of her bed and thrown across the room to the foot of her sister’s bed.
In an even more controversial turn of events, Janet then begins to speak in a deep voice, like that of a man. Grosse begins asking Janet a series of questions, all of which are answered by “the voice”. Doubting that the voice is anything but a clever ventriloquism act, Janet’s mouth is filled with water and taped over. Grosse challenges the voice to continue. It does.
During an interview done by both investigators, the voice refers to itself as a man by the name of Bill, a previous resident of the home who had died of a hemorrhage in a chair on the first floor. Months later, Grosse is contacted by a man by the name of Terry Wilkins. Terry’s father had lived in the Hodgson’s home prior to the family, and had died of a hemorrhage in his favorite chair on the first floor. His name was Bill.
In July 1978, Janet is admitted to Maudsly Hospital for extensive psychiatric testing. Two months later she is given a clean bill of heath and returns home to a seemingly quiet house. Almost as quickly as they had begun, the strange happenings of the Hodgson home had finally ceased.
The Münster of Bern is the Gothic cathedral in the old city of Bern, Switzerland. The stained glass windows of the cathedral are considered the most valuable in Switzerland.
The “Dance of Death” window located near the choir on the south side nave. The first Dance of Death plays originated during the Black Death of the 14th Century and remained popular during the 14th and 15th Century. By 1425, the figures from the plays appeared in the cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris. The figures on the Münster window were done by Niklaus Manuel between 1516 and 1519.The stained glass window in the Cathedral is an excellent example of this theme. The window shows death, in the form of a skeleton, claiming people from every station in life. The Dance of Death served to remind the viewer that death will happen to everyone regardless of station or wealth.
(Source: Flickr / _madolan_)
A brief look into the history of EVPs is outlined here as some background information to help explain how paranormal research on EVPs got to where it is today. The great inventory Thomas Edison is generally credited with being the first to conceive that a device could be created to hear and speak with spirits. In a 1920’s newspaper interview he said someday it may be possible to have such a device. This is considered a remarkable comment since Edison himself never really showed any interest in the paranormal or supernatural, nor express any deep spiritual beliefs. At the same time other great inventors such as Gueglielmo Marconi (wireless radio) and Nikola Tesla (famous for his work with electricity), perhaps in cooperation with each other, also began work on devices that they believed could communicate with the dead. In the late 1920’s through 1930’s several psychic researchers claim to have heard voices on recorded radio broadcasts that were not part of the broadcast not could be accounted for by anything in the surrounding area. During World War 2 Swedish and Norwegian radio operators reported hear unfamiliar voices. They assumed it was the Germans. But after WW2 when capture German records were searched no evidence of Nazi activity on those frequencies at that time could be found. The actual credit for having first recorded an EVP goes to Fredrich Jurgenson. In 1959 Fredrich Jurgenson, a Swedish film producer, was supposedly recording bird songs in the Swedish Alps (he would later admit he was out trying to record the voices of the dead). He claims not to have heard anything unusual during the recording but heard many voices upon playback. He claims to have heard his own mother’s voice calling his name (some accounts say he heard his mother’s voice telling him he is being watched!). Jurgenson recorded hundreds of voices over his life time and played them at many symposiums and conferences. His recording still remain unexplained to this day. Through the 1960’s and 1970’s researchers, especially in England, claim to have recorded thousands of voices. In 1982 engineer George Meek and psychic William O’Niell built a device call the “Spiricom”. They claim it allows two-way real-time communication with spirits. This claim is still under heavy dispute. Today, with the advent of digital records and reliable, professional grade sound editing software, paranormal investigators around the world continue to record and analyze unexplainable voices.
House of Blue Lights | Indianapolis, Indiana.
Since torn down, the “House of Blue Lights” was originally built in the early 1900s by Skiles Edward Test, a wealthy Indianapolis real estate tycoon. At this time, he owned much of the land that now makes up northeast Indianapolis. In addition to being extremely wealthy, he was also known for being a bit of an eccentric. As such, a number of rumors concerning him floated around. While many were undoubtedly false, he did do some rather odd things. One year, in the late 1940s, Test hung some blue Christmas lights all along the house and in the surrounding trees. He enjoyed them so much he decided to leave them up permanently and turned them on each night for decades. Thus the house’s infamous nickname.
Test also had a three story guest cottage with an elevator and a two story bath house, complete with a diving board attached to the top level of the building. The diving board hung over an olympic size solar heated swimming pool. He was a noted animal lover and owned dozens of cats. Rumor has it that he once owned 150 cats at a time.
There was also a series of tunnels running from the house to various locations on the property. One such tunnel led to the cellar of his mansion. Another tunnel connected the mansion’s cellar to the detatched garage and care taker’s house about 200 yards away.
Some of the legends of the house included his wife being buried in a glass coffin and interred beneath the swimming pool. The legend goes that when his wife died, he placed her in the glass coffin and kept her in his living room, surrounded by, yes, blue Christmas lights. After a period of time, he buried her in the back yard and installed the pool over her grave. This particular legend, however, proved to be false.
One other legend is that a curse supposedly hung over the property. If you trespassed, Test’s spirit would haunt you until the day you died. Another legend describes the frequent appearance of blue Christmas lights in the windows of the mansion, even long after it has been abandoned.
Children become, while little, our delights,
When they grow bigger, they begin to fright’s.
Their sinful Nature prompts them to rebel,
And to delight in Paths that lead to Hell.
— John Bunyan, “Book for Boys and Girls” (1686)
On March 10, 1918, Therese Neumann was partially paralyzed after falling off a stool while attending to a fire in her uncle’s barn. She sustained more falls and injuries during this period. After one particular fall she claimed to have lost much of her eyesight. In 1919, she was blinded completely. Bedridden, she reportedly developed horrible bed sores that sometimes exposed bone. Therese reported that her eyesight was restored on April 29, 1923—the day Therese of Lisieux was beatified in Rome. Therese Neumann had been praying novenas in advance of this day. On May 17, 1925 Therese of Lisieux was fully canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church. Therese Neumann said the saint called to her and then cured her of her paralysis and bed sores. On November 7, 1925 Neumann took to her bed again, and on November 13 was diagnosed with appendicitis. While prepared for surgery, she convulsed violently and stared at the ceiling finally saying, “Yes.” She asked her family to take her to the church to pray immediately. She then announced that she had been cured of all traces of appendicitis. Therese would later apparently develop the stigmata. She said that on March 5, 1926, the first Friday of Lent, a wound had appeared slightly above her heart, but that she had kept this secret. However, she did report a vision of Jesus at Mount Olivet with three Apostles. On March 12, she said she had another vision of Christ at Mt. Olivet, along with the crowning of thorns. She also claimed that the wound above her heart reappeared on this day, and she spoke to her sister about it. She claimed the wound also reappeared on Friday of the following week. By March 26, she was claiming the same wound accompanied by a vision of Christ bearing the cross and a similar wound on her left hand. Blood was observed on her clothing, and she no longer attempted to keep the information to herself. On Good Friday, Neumann according to her own testimony witnessed the entire Passion of Christ in her visions. She displayed wounds on her hands and feet accompanied by blood apparently coming from her eyes. Blood poured from the wounds, however - according to Neumann-critic Josef Hanauer’s book The Swindle of Konnersreuth - onlookers did not actually see the bleeding in action, only the blood itself. However, according to author Albert Paul Schimberg, many persons outside of her immediate family observed her wounds bleeding. By 3 p.m. that day, her parish priest Fr. Josef Naber was summoned to give Neumann the Last Rites. By 4 o’clock, her condition improved. The wounds on her feet and hands were observed when she was bathed. On Easter Sunday, she claimed a vision of the resurrection of Christ. For several consecutive Fridays after that, she stated she was experiencing the Passion of Christ, apparently suffering in her own body along with all his historic agonies. She especially suffered the Passion on Good Fridays each year. By November 5, 1926, she displayed nine wounds on her head as well as wounds on her back and shoulders. According to several sources these wounds never healed or became infected and were found on her body at death. From the years of 1922 until her death in 1962, Therese Neumann apparently consumed no food other than The Holy Eucharist, and claimed to have drunk no water from 1926 until her death. In July 1927 a medical doctor and four Franciscan nurses kept a watch on her 24 hours a day for a two-week period. They confirmed that she had consumed nothing except for one consecrated sacred Host a day, and had suffered no ill effects, loss of weight, or dehydration. Montague Summers in the “Physical Phenomenon of Mysticism” speaks of her supernatural ability to survive for long periods without food or water. He supported this claim by citing an article about Therese Neumann in the January 5, 1940 “The Universe” which said the peasant woman refused German ration cards saying she had no need of food and drink. During some of her Friday trances, she would utter phrases identified by witnesses (including priests) as ancient Aramaic. She was also said to have been able to understand Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
In 1982, photographer Chris Brackley took a photograph of the interior of London’s St. Botolph’s Church, but never expected what would appear on the film. High in the church’s loft, seen in the upper right-hand corner of his photograph, is the transparent form of what looks like a woman. According to Brackley, to his knowledge there were only three people in the church at the time the photo was taken, and none of them were in that loft.
According to London Paranormal Database Records, “Mr. Brackley was later contacted by a builder who recognized the face of one that he had seen in a coffin in the church.”
