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hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] yup that's finite that's it that's it that's the episode
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see you later keep it weird keep it weird they're like girls like shut the [ __ ] up and tell me a story
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whatever I have a ponytail in my hair and I tell you a story I do weird [ __ ] like this with it yeah they're like I'll
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like be talking and I'm just like and then the guy was like and I just do like this a lot we can post it I just like
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I'll be doing like this or like sometimes I'll do a little bit of this and I'm just like yeah you know
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I'm quiet because I'm taking photos and we actually just talked about this I cannot multitask nope uh I can't do two
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things at once we just had that conversation I also pulled my hair if I'm concentrating on something I cannot
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do something else I can't listen to you I can't nothing that's funny because ow God damn
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the tangles in my hair just ripped a piece out wow [ __ ] my hair brought to you by that
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um I can multitask I can multitask in the sense that like I can have a lot of things going on at once and I can take
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care of them I think it's a it must just be like a focus thing I can't focus um okay or like maybe it's a hearing
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thing I don't really know how to describe it eventually because I can't listen to Somebody while I'm doing
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something else if I'm going to pay attention to somebody or I need to hear something I need to focus
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on that thing okay otherwise it's just like yeah because earlier I was playing her
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the Andy Milonakis song because I got it on Tick Tock and we love the anti-milanova song and she's just
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staring at her phone like so intently and I'm just like jamming to the Andy Milonakis song and I was like hello and
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she was like oh sorry I was reading something and I was like were you reading something super interesting so
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you were like no no and I was like [ __ ] it's Andy Milonakis it can be something
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totally not like interesting or kneading of my full brain power but if I am reading something
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I'm not gonna hear you it's just the way it is facts about you yeah that's why I
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need to like when I go downstairs I put my phone away and I really don't I try not to look at
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it again because if I won't be able to pay attention to anyone else if I'm even reading the smallest of things even the
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the breaking headlines yeah can't do it huh that's weird sorry I was just looking because my wave looked small but
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I'm I'm fine you're good I'm fine you're good it's my narration today so I just wanted to make sure that my waves were
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waving that you could hear her beautiful voice all you audio production people out there
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um so I have a haunting for us today yay and it is the haunting actually it is our research assistant Dave it's his
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favorite haunting oh it is the haunting of Doris bither oh I'm ready which that's a fun that's a fun name in your
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mouth Doris bither Doris bither so it all starts in the summer of 1974. oh your time my time your time to
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shine it's not like super 70s but I mean it is because it's like in the middle of
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the 70s but it's not super 70s feeling oh okay but it starts in the summer of 1974 two paranormal investigators and
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UCLA students Barry Taff and Carrie Gainer were approached in a bookstore by a woman who overheard their conversation
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that they were having about the Supernatural and she went up to them and she was like listen I have a friend who
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needs somebody with you guys this kind of expertise now the friend in question was Doris bither she was a middle-aged
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mama she was a single Mama of four kids and boy was she going through it she claimed that she and her family were
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under attack from unseen entities in their Culver City California home now according to Doris the attack
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started a few months earlier and they included among other things objects moving on their own random and
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inexplicable foul odors in the house unusual noises with no point of origin typical and most distressingly and this
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is like a little bit of a trigger warning moment multiple physical and sexual assaults that were increasing in
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frequency and intensity as time went on oh yes that escalated quickly all right it did yeah so all of those things were
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of interest to these two paranormal investigators who were just vibing in a bookstore a moment previously so they
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got permission from their supervisor at the UCLA parapsychology lab Thelma Moss I like how you said UCLA did I say it
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weird then UCLA UCLA it's very nice I had to say UCLA parapsychology lab how Alexis would have said it oh my God
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thank you for the compliment see in my had I felt like it was giving Sandra Lee oh there you go cocktail time you could
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have said UCL la la la la la la so yes Thelma Moss they're per provider I was gonna say their provider their
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supervisor at UCLA gave them permission okay okay and once they got permission Barry and
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Carrie headed out to Culver City and they started what would become a 10-week investigation of what has now become one
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of the most well-known and most controversial Poltergeist cases in American history Barry and Carrie coming
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to you live Marion Carrie they're Anne Carrie they were almost Barry and Jerry oh and Barry and carrier somewhere scary
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so in the summer of 1974 like we know Barry Taft was enrolled at UCLA and he was studying
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psychophysiology which is a pretty broad field of study it focuses on like the Mind Body Connection okay and when he
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wasn't studying or taking classes he worked as an assistant at the UCLA parapsychology lab which was like a
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niche little offshoot from the University's larger neuropsychology program so much psychology all the psych
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all of it and the neuropsychology program like the big whole it was kind of like a big hole program that had
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these tiny little programs under it like an umbrella yes it was headed by Dr Thelma Moss so throughout the 1960s and
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70s there were new religious movements and occult practices that gained a lot of popularity across the U.S and that
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gave rise to what were previously little-known or short-lived academic programs like the UCLA app I can't say
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UCLA anymore UCLA UCLA lab that were built around scientific or pseudoscientific study of paranormal
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phenomena I like it so Barry found out about the UCL program I literally can't say it I'm sorry that I did that to you
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I think it was my fault UCLA program as a teenager and that was when he was volunteering for study on Psychic
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phenomenon according to him this experiment when he was a teenager it involved being handed a set of Dr Moss's
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Keys who would later become his uh like the head of the lab there so he got a set of her keys and he was asked to
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provide information gleaned only through psychometry this supposedly Supernatural
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ability to learn information by touching inanimate objects oh Isn't that cool that's fun right I want to try it that's
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really fun I'm into it yeah yeah so he claimed that among other things uh he correctly identified the name of Dr
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Moss's deceased husband and the name of her best friend actress Shelley Winters oh wow which also he might have just
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known but yeah I don't know I don't know I don't know how he would know the name
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of her deceased husband yeah I mean this was in the 70s still right yeah so he couldn't have just Google just Google it
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so exactly now I'd be like all right the only like Shelley Winters I was like well maybe there was like a newspaper
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where like they got lunch together yeah the deceased husband interesting interesting so it was the start of
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something big for Barry and it kind of sparked his interest in this whole world of the Paranormal all right Barry so
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after enrolling at UCLA he lobbied hard to get a position as a research assistant in the parapsychology lab and
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by 1974 as we know he did he got accepted as a part-time lab assistant but he did claim that most of his time
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was spent quote unquote in the field conducting research and it was at UCLA that he met fellow
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student Carrie Gainer who was an undergraduate philosophy student and Carrie also had developed a strong
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interest in the Supernatural so they kind of teamed up together I like it me too being spooky yeah it's giving Sam
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and Colby I'm into it you know yeah so that brings us to August 1974 where Barry and Carrie were in a Los Angeles
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bookstore loudly discussing the Supernatural and loudly ghosts loudly and proudly being like
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parapsychology Spirits Poltergeist what else freaking doors seances I love it it's fun that's what they did
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that was their conversation that was an audio clip of their conversation yeah just so don't ask us how we got it yeah
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I can't tell you where it was an amazing research assistant he's got it readable
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I told you this was his favorite case he went back to the past for it hell yeah I
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did so yes they were loudly having that discussion previously uh inserted in here and that's when they were
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approached by a middle-aged woman who said like I said earlier her friend Doris bither was having a paranormal
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activity in her home for months and at this point she was very very desperate for help with the situation but at the
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same time she was also afraid to seek help from traditional organizations because I'm sure she was worried people
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wouldn't take her seriously of course now according to the friend Doris and her three sons quote claim to have seen
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semi-transparent apparitions of roughly human shape and size in their home they had also seen objects move across the
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room on their own and had experienced other supernatural phenomena that they could not account for no explanation
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not super fun in their case no no so their interests were peaked so the two men bury and Carrie gave Doris his
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friend their information and later they arranged to go out to Doris house to conduct a preliminary interview hmm so
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when they pulled up to Doris's house on the evening of August 22nd 1974 they were surprised by what they saw Barry
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recalled this house was a little Shack it was twice condemned by the city she shouldn't have even been living there oh
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so already it's like got creepy Vibes now once inside Barry and Carrie sat down with a noticeably anxious Doris and
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started their interview now from the moment they began asking her questions it was clear to both of them that she
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was not comfortable talking about her personal history so they tried to make the like a decision to keep the
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interview focused on the Paranormal Activity occurring in the home and not getting like a ton of background
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information now Dora's elaborated on the experience that they already had learned about from
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her friend at the bookstore and then she told them about the worst aspect she believed was a haunting according to her
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on more than one occasion and this is a trigger warning it's like sexual assault
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more than one occasion she had been sexually assaulted by an unseen entity both while she was alone and while her
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children were home oh like in front of them what the [ __ ] super [ __ ] up she told them quote the two smaller ones
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meaning like the apparitions held me down and one big one attacked me I hate this I know a lot in response
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Barry said later we just froze Carrie and I looked at each other and I rolled my eyes back and put my hands on my head
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and thought Oh my God this woman's psychotic wow his words not bad there you go I was gonna say quote Yeah quote
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so at that point which you can understand why he might think she was like you know she was in a you know a
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different state of mind yeah she was losing it a little bit so at that point Barry and Carrie were pretty sure that
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she was experiencing some kind of symptoms of mental illness so they referred her to a Psychiatric clinic at
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the UCLA neuropsychiatry department and they left assuming that that would be their last interaction see that's
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interesting that it started off that way it is it's interesting that they didn't
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immediately be like Poltergeist let's go like you know they they were like you know what we're sure this seems like you
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might have some mental illness that's going on and we should get you help because I tried to and I said they tried
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to get her help that was nice especially in the 70s honestly but about 10 days later Barry got a
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phone call from Doris claiming that since the two men had last visited the Paranormal Activity at the house had
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gotten even worse and was now being experienced by her friends and her neighbors oh wow so when she mentioned
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that there were other Witnesses outside of the home their ears kind of perked up
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again a little bit so they did agree to go back out for a follow-up interview so a few days later they were back at
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Doris at Doris's house on Braddock Street and they were immediately hit by a terrible odor as soon as they walked
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in the door Barry said it smelled like decomposing organic matter Rotting Flesh a very sour nauseating smell
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sorry I was fighting that so hard and as the three of them stood there talking in the kitchen all of a sudden a
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cupboard opened on its own and a heavy frying pan came flying toward them and what Barry described as a ballistic Arc
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oh wow also very nice way of describing that a ballistic uck wow he's a scientist that's uh sounds painful yeah
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I don't think it hit anybody luckily would have been would have been painful exactly but imagine you don't believe
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this woman and then you walk in you're like wow it smells like [ __ ] in here like she trying to trick us but then a
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cupboard moves on its own and something comes flying out of it yeah I'd be like wow okay it'd be like we doubted this
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woman too soon down the wrong path I guess and I guess they said the frying pan moving of its own accord was
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evidence enough for them that the violent assaults Doris had described on her previous visit including one where
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she claimed a fuse box was torn off the wall and hurled at her by an unseen Force why are they so mad I don't know
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but it proved to Barry and Taft that regardless or excuse me that's the same person Barry and Carrie that regardless
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of the cause there was indeed something happening at Doris's house and it was worth investigating formally wow can you
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imagine you're just standing there very it's very Sixth Sense yeah that it's just like Angry that's the thing I'm
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like what what's your problem I don't know so in any investigation paranormal or otherwise the biographical
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information about the victim is usually pretty critical in solving the problem or understanding why it happened to
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begin with but in the case of Doris bither little is known about her life before the Poltergeist activity began
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other than vague allusions to a traumatic personal history okay so it seems like she may have been haunted in
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more ways than one and isn't there like a a belief system that like trauma can attract this kind of I think there is
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yeah like like demonic activity and all that good all that good stuff all that terrible stuff yeah I've heard that
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because I think like somehow the Demonic force or whatever whatever have you like
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praise upon that weakness kind of thing okay and can sense it maybe yeah or like
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attach itself to you in some way yeah if those things exist it makes sense that that would be what they would be
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attracted to yeah so Barry said Doris was very evasive and somewhat cryptic regarding her
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background so much so that she refused to even tell us her age which we knew was older than ours but not by how many
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years huh so literally they literally didn't even know how old she was wow but what they did learn which I do wonder if
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she like didn't want to give them too much information because she was like almost like when you go get like a tarot
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reading or a psychic reading yeah you're gonna want to relieve like um kind of reveal anything that's going
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to help them yeah you want to keep it up to them maybe that's what she was doing
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yeah that could be it and she could just be like the first like she could be just
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being smart and being like you don't need no [ __ ] about me yeah I'm private just figure out my house [ __ ] figure it
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out so what they did learn mostly from observation was that she was very poor and had an unstable employment history
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she had four children at the time three boys age 10 13 and 16 and they lived with her on the condemned house and on
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Braddock Street and she also had a pre-teen daughter who was living somewhere else at the time of the
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investigation now they also learned really quickly that she was a heavy drinker and she
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drank she seemed to drink daily oh man now during their time in the house quote the investigators observed poor
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relationships between Doris and the children and there was fighting among the siblings oh this sounds so sad of a
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house it sounds super sad and just like a very chaotic yeah and just like the fact that they're living in a condemned
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houses yeah that's all Bad News Bears now among the most heavily criticized aspects of the bitter case is Barry and
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Carrie's failure to collect any personal biographical information or to press Doris for any additional details about
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her life writer Benjamin Radford Radford wrote where a trained psychologist or social worker might have seen a troubled
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woman needing help TAF and Gainer saw a golden opportunity to research a real haunting
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would just like see that but they also they did try to provide her help they don't think that's necessarily a fair
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overview no that's absolutely true now Barry he explains the lack of information as a simple matter of
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protecting the case he said had we even attempted to secure the type of background information we currently
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collect such as medical psychological family psychodynamics prescribed medications as well as recreational
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drugs and alcohol usage Doris surely would have shown us the door from the outset so he agreed like we wouldn't
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have been able to do this investigation and we tried to get her help and again you can only push so hard exactly I do
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want to see what's going on in this house yeah and she wanted their help like she was asking for your help so so
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basically she was a very private woman and they weren't willing to lose out on investigating the case by pushing her
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boundaries yeah I get that I get she set up boundaries don't push him I get that
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no in the years since more information about Doris has come to light that gives a little more insight into her State of
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Mind at the time of the investigation and possibly some explanation for some of the activity that she claimed to
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witness it should be said that most of the information learned after the investigation came from Doris's son
00:19:32
Brian Harris who Barry Taff points out also struggled with addiction and he did contradict himself a few times during
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the interview but this is what we do know Doris was said to have been born in Illinois in 1940 to a very dysfunctional
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family and according to the accounts of the those who knew her she had a really really hard life from the beginning as a
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teenager she started experimenting with drugs and alcohol to escape her abuse of
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home life and she was generally just a rebellious teenager who was acting out more often than not and because of that
00:20:06
her parents kicked her out of the house while she still was a teenager oh and she was forced to fend for herself so
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you can kind of see how she became a product of her environment yeah absolutely no there isn't much about her
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life that is known after she was kicked out of the family I guess between Illinois and California there were a
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couple of marriages that didn't work out and eventually she had the four children
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and then ended up in Santa Monica where she was living just before she moved to the house on Braddock Street in Culver
00:20:35
City the war the one that we're at now now the majority of the Paranormal Activity occurred in the house on
00:20:42
Braddock Street but the sun Riot and Harris claimed that there were quote some psychokinetic events and even the
00:20:49
occasional Apparition even before the family moved to Culver City oh damn so this may have been something that
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followed I was going to say so it followed them and later we'll see that it may follow them when they leave this
00:21:01
house so the haunting activity they said became uh excuse me began somewhat suddenly just a few months after they
00:21:08
moved into Braddock Street it started with a weird inescapable feeling of being watched and then things escalated
00:21:16
from there again objects were moving on them or by themselves a lamp flew across
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the room at one point and at that time Doris and her children hadn't experienced any violin activity but that
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changed one evening a few weeks later when Doris was sexually assaulted by an unseen entity in her bedroom in her
00:21:35
interviews with Barry and Kerry she said that whole thing wear two smaller entities held her down and one big
00:21:41
entity attacked her that's horrifying to think about that is literally mind-blowing just being held down by
00:21:49
entities is because you think of like sleep paralysis yeah what that feels like how scary that is but then to add
00:21:55
that onto it I can't even imagine because like sleep paralysis you kind of know that your body's doing it oh like I
00:22:01
guess no you don't oh you don't yeah but I mean like she was seeing two things hold her down like do you see something
00:22:07
hold you down when you have sleep problems a lot of times you see something in the room coming at you
00:22:12
while you're being held down or at least that's what I always see I hate that yeah but I'm just saying like she saw
00:22:19
the things that were holding her down and saw the thing attached yeah no that sounded like another level yeah no but
00:22:25
the uh from that point forward the activity escalated more and more and then it started to involve the children
00:22:31
in various ways according to Brian Harris there were times when they were quote slapped by an unseen hand in the
00:22:37
middle of the night oh and he specifically recalled an incident involving quote one of the boy is
00:22:43
bumping into an invisible person in the hallway oh no like you bump into a person but
00:22:51
there's no person there oh that like I don't like that one and interestingly Doris and all three boys describe their
00:23:01
experience in the house as having been with a male Spirit they never saw a physical manifestation
00:23:07
but they all alluded to it being a male presence okay which is I I definitely think you can kind of pick up on that
00:23:14
yeah I would say so but interesting that all four of them felt the same way on that yeah that is interesting and it
00:23:21
seems like obviously there were multiple entities so it's like a bunch of dudes haunting this place oh oh I don't know
00:23:28
it's like I don't want anyone haunting me really except for David Bowie yeah really all except I feel that so
00:23:37
according to Brian Harris not long after moving in Doris received a knock on the
00:23:41
door on the front door one afternoon and she opened it and this is a quote she discovered an old Mexican lady possibly
00:23:47
in her 70s or 80s who had come to deliver a message to the new occupants he said the woman told his mother you
00:23:53
need to get out I used to live here in This Old House back when it was just a farm and I was a little girl there's
00:23:59
something very evil here this place is haunted and you need to get out oh no um yeah I just went too much so the
00:24:11
woman just turned around and left without saying anything else and a few months later that's when everything
00:24:17
started that [ __ ] is straight out of a horror movie hate hate hate low than tired I
00:24:23
always love someone coming to the door being like saying you gotta get the [ __ ]
00:24:29
out of this house because I lived here once there's some [ __ ] in here you're gonna die if you don't get out of this
00:24:34
house and I love in the movie when the family goes thank you so much and that does not leave that house because that's
00:24:41
what it sounds like here I'm like what the hell it does I think this family could not have gone anywhere else no I
00:24:46
was gonna say in this situation it's totally different but in the movies you're like get out of there and also
00:24:50
it's like if somebody comes up to your house and is like I lived here once and it's haunted you need to leave you're
00:24:54
not gonna pack up and leave no like I realized that before I get 100 comments of like how stupid I am that I don't
00:25:00
know that I was like let me get ahead of that real quick because I mean in the movies when
00:25:07
you watch her you're always like why the [ __ ] don't you get out of the house exactly but this is real but here you're
00:25:12
like you're like all right but that's still really scary but still and also you said something we were just saying
00:25:17
about horror movies this uh became a horror movie oh it did I think it's uh I'll say it later I think it's the
00:25:22
entity so once Mary and Carrie were convinced that there was more to Doris's story
00:25:28
than they originally thought and they got that permission from Thelma Moss to conduct the study on behalf of the lab
00:25:34
they began that 10-week investigation now similar into the investigation into Doris's personal history the story of
00:25:42
the paranormal investigation at the house on Braddock Street is light on the details with the exception of one
00:25:48
well-documented incident I guess in a lot of ways Doris's description of the activity in her home
00:25:54
was similar to countless other stories of haunted houses and haunted people at the time you got the yucky smells things
00:26:02
moving on their own weird noises yeah violent assaults by unseen hands and given the commonality of those
00:26:09
experiences it is worth noting that Doris's report came less than a year after the release of The Exorcist over
00:26:16
all of these things also happen yeah it's worth mentioning yeah yeah you gotta give the both sides here you do
00:26:23
gotta be Devil's Advocate and you decide dear listener so what set Doris's story
00:26:28
apart though from the more run-of-the-mill hauntings were the less common reports of the violent sexual
00:26:34
assaults which I guess is sometimes referred to as um spectral rape or spectrophilia oh I've never heard of
00:26:41
that before I have not either but I'm glad that there's a name for it because you say sexual assault and you're like
00:26:46
well it's it's even more than that yeah yeah like what's happening really here it's scary
00:26:51
now Doris claimed that on multiple occasions she was spectrally raped by the invisible entities of three men the
00:26:59
largest of whom the kids came to refer to as Mr who's it Mr who's it sister who's it shut the [ __ ] up isn't that
00:27:09
absolutely terrifying Mr who's it Mr who's it like w-h-o-s-e Dash it I don't know why but I don't like that
00:27:19
at all no I hate it like there's nothing innately menacing about that but somehow it is
00:27:26
it's the most menacing in my body like it's not like classically menacing but when you listen you're just like no yeah
00:27:33
no no that sounds terrible when you put it into the yeah in context it's called exterior yeah I'm glad that we just have
00:27:40
skeletal skeleton skeleton just went home to his family and that's great you know I hope he stays there oh he was
00:27:46
nice though yeah she started talking about her closet the other day and I got real freaked out I was like is it
00:27:50
skeleton come back no I've missed skeletal I know one's Top Hat yeah he just seemed awesome he did well he's
00:27:57
with his friend every time we talked about skeleton I just pictured somebody being like wow every time you know
00:28:02
correct he feels very Jazzy he does this is the top part yeah and like the way he
00:28:07
poses yeah you know but in these events Doris claims that she was held down pushed and even thrown across the room
00:28:14
and then assaulted by at least one of the attackers very tougher in 2014. according to
00:28:21
Doris's testimony this event took place on several separate occasions each time leaving behind large and distinct black
00:28:28
and blue wounds especially around the ankles wrists breasts and groin area of the inner thighs oh so she was literally
00:28:35
covered in black and blues and that's like very classic like areas where you would have producing after an assault
00:28:42
after being held down and yeah assaulted yeah so given The Sensational and lurid
00:28:49
nature of the assaults it would be very fair to say that they were the aspect of
00:28:53
the case that kind of elevated it above the more common reports of hauntings and
00:28:58
Poltergeist activity I'm just like oh yeah like things are getting thrown around and you know it's smelly in here
00:29:04
right it's like it's up to the end yeah but it is worth noting that these attacks were only experienced by Doris
00:29:11
and her sons so there were no witnesses to the assault outside of the family okay and there wasn't any documentation
00:29:17
of the physical evidence that had been left on her body she just said what had happened okay but I'm not doubting her
00:29:23
I'm just saying there's no evidence if you look for it it's not there just the reality yes now according to Barry the
00:29:29
physical and sexual assault stopped altogether once the invested investigation began and there were a
00:29:35
large number of people coming and going at the bitter house okay so I don't know
00:29:39
if maybe the ghosts noted like the the demon Spirits noticed that there was people
00:29:46
and we're like we're not going to be able to get away with this I don't know like and what do you shame
00:29:51
is that and what the I don't think they had that I don't know I don't know about
00:29:55
that I think more people there to help her yeah perhaps you know yeah I guess so despite the abrupt and kind of
00:30:02
curious end of the physical and sexual assaults upon the introduction of potential Witnesses Barry and Kerry
00:30:08
maintained their belief that Doris really was experiencing what she said a genuine Poltergeist activity in 2011
00:30:15
Barry wrote that Doris's case quote was not in my professional opinion the result of spectral rape but rather a
00:30:21
disturbingly real Poltergeist outbreak oh and he kind of became like um The Unofficial spokesperson for the
00:30:30
investigative team and he claimed the real focus of the investigation was the moving objects and the frequently
00:30:37
reported balls of light that manifested around Doris during this time okay because I mean Barry and Carrie they saw
00:30:46
one of those pans fly out of yup okay so they were like we want to investigate the moving flies on its own and like the
00:30:54
foul odors and stuff that honestly makes more sense to me and it makes me feel like they were at least there to really
00:30:59
get the the real deal here because they were like we witnessed with our own eyes
00:31:04
this pan fly out of this cabinet so we're gonna follow this and not what the other stuff because we that we're not
00:31:10
there for that we've never seen exactly I think that's a smart way to go about it so at the time of the investigation
00:31:16
the UCLA parapsychology lab was among the most underfunded programs on campus and because she herself was skeptical of
00:31:24
Doris's claims Dr Thelma Moss refused to direct any resources substantial resources toward the investigation
00:31:31
so because of that Taft and the team of mostly student researchers relied on pretty basic techniques for collecting
00:31:38
their evidence they did you know traditional photography temperature gauges I believe it's a geiger yeah I
00:31:46
think it's a geiger okay a geiger counter and that can detect uh differences in radiation levels and of
00:31:52
course sound recording equipment that's the whole gamut of what they had okay yeah at first they tried to communicate
00:31:59
with the entity quote asking spirits to create sounds or manipulate lights in response to questions
00:32:05
now they occasionally got responses to their questions but Taff admitted quote the answers we received could not be
00:32:12
confirmed and never really made any sense so they made other attempts to communicate with the spirits and they
00:32:18
relied on Doris's friend who claimed to be psychic candy and actually Candyman candy candy
00:32:27
she was the one who originally approached Barry and Carrie in the bookstore while they were talking oh
00:32:33
okay clip above candy cane candy cane it's Rusty Nail now aside from occasionally screaming out quote that
00:32:41
there was something in the corner not that she could see but sense these attempts at communication were also
00:32:47
pretty unsuccessful okay unfortunately unfortunately unfortunately so in an attempt to document the presence the
00:32:54
investigators started taking photos with their Polaroid cameras there were a bunch of photos taken but the images
00:33:00
didn't really show any kind of ghostly presence but then as they were assembled in the
00:33:05
kitchen Doris's friend candy shouted it's right in front of my face Carrie turned quickly directed the
00:33:12
camera toward candy and took two photos that the investigators claim are evidence of the entity's presence in the
00:33:18
home I'm going to show them to Elena right now but I'm going to make sure that we post them so you guys can see
00:33:23
them no we're not going to you can't see them you can never see them oh okay yeah all right and interesting this
00:33:33
photo which I'll talk about in a second is supposed to be um the control photo that they took
00:33:40
and I think that thing across her face is like a scratch on the photo I don't think it's
00:33:44
The Entity that's interesting okay so we'll talk about those according to Carrie the two
00:33:50
images in there are two images in the series that show candy who is slightly obscured by what she said the entity was
00:33:58
and she claimed it was right in front of her at the time that the photos were taken and then the third image that I
00:34:03
just showed Elena was the control image and it's included for comparison it shows an unobstructed image of candy
00:34:10
just after the entity photos were taken but as writer Kenny Biddle points out there is an obvious problem with the
00:34:19
control image in that the other two photos were taken using the camera's flash thank you I was literally about to
00:34:26
point that out and the third was not yeah obviously he writes in the two entity photos we
00:34:32
can clearly see the hard Shadows cast by candy silhouette both hard Shadows are consistent with the use of a flash bar
00:34:39
on the Polaroid camera which features single-use bulbs five on each side however the quote unquote control image
00:34:45
is dark overall in a nutshell the three photographs were not taken under the same conditions making comparisons
00:34:51
difficult or impossible and invalidating their use as quote-unquote controls I was just going to say that invalidates
00:34:57
the control completely it does because when you showed me I was like that's the same day the same day same place it also
00:35:04
to me it doesn't look like the same place because they even took it at a different angle it feels like yeah well
00:35:09
daily step back it's hard because you guys will see it once we post the images it to me it doesn't look like she's in
00:35:16
the same room yeah that's what I was thinking because it really looks like two different photos yeah because in the
00:35:20
third photo which is the control photo there's like a Ouija board in front of her if you look closely you can see like
00:35:27
a curtain and like some I think what's wood paneled walls but the curtain in the photos that she claims the uh ghost
00:35:34
is in front of her the spirit or whatever there's different curtains ah and she seems like there's like another
00:35:39
lamp behind her it just doesn't look like it's in the same room at all yeah it's a little strange but Biddle also
00:35:45
notes and he's the one that's like I don't know about this that in addition to the use of The Flash and the two
00:35:50
original photos of Candy the images are Overexposed that is another thing that it looks like they just look different
00:35:57
they do look like something was done there and because they're Overexposed it caused caused the overblown yellow Hue
00:36:04
that investigators claim as evidence of the entity to be present in those photos
00:36:08
versus because it's like blown out it looks like the first two photos look blown out completely and the third one
00:36:14
just looks like a dark bad photo exactly so Barry Taff admitted on multiple occasions that they were not very
00:36:20
familiar with the cameras and made mistakes with the settings quite often during the investigation and he did say
00:36:26
it rendered most of the photos useless regardless of their content I mean at least he admits it and I do imagine in
00:36:33
the 70s I mean even now it's hard to take into like a hats off to photographers because I don't know the
00:36:39
settings for a camera that like make like I don't know what to do with exposure what to do with like any of
00:36:44
that stuff no so in the 70s I'm sure it was even harder because you're like I don't [ __ ] know what any of this does
00:36:50
and the camera when you were like a Polaroid camera hadn't been around forever yeah yeah
00:36:55
so according to him as we spent more time there we began observing balls of light so now we're moving on to
00:37:00
something else he said what we call corpuscular masses of light oh I like that I know that looks like muscular
00:37:07
masses of light that look like plasma which is the fourth state of matter ooh he's getting scientific I was just gonna
00:37:14
say let's talk science the word corpuscular I like it's one of those that could go real
00:37:21
wrong oh real fast like because it's got pus in it yeah when you think like pustule
00:37:28
yeah like a pustule is not fun but but corpuscular is just on the other side of that it's a high brow yeah you know you
00:37:37
know this was you know words thank you for tuning in but while many of the things Doris claimed to have
00:37:45
experienced before the arrival of the investigators were never really witnessed by anybody outside of the home
00:37:50
Taft claims that the balls of light that manifested around Doris were seen by many people on the investigative team
00:37:56
interesting in a summary note prepared by Barry and Carrie they described the orbs of light as quote displays of small
00:38:03
rapidly moving balls of light on several occasions which occurred in the presence
00:38:07
of a woman in her mid to late 30s Doris the lights were reported to change their
00:38:12
motion size and intensity in response to the investigators requests and to the occasional emotional outbursts of the
00:38:19
female agent Doris attempts to photograph the lights were reportedly met with no success on most occasions
00:38:25
although in a few rare instances the lights were captured on film as curved arcs of light akin to the trails that
00:38:32
can appear in photos of lighted objects I'll show you a picture in a minute okay
00:38:37
so given the lack of other tangible evidence the orbs of light quickly became the focus of the investigation
00:38:43
and would go on to be the most heavily documented and most controversial aspect of the bitter case
00:38:50
so they were determined to capture the orbs on film and about halfway into the investigation the team decided they were
00:38:57
going to set up several cameras in Doris's room because that was where the orb-based activities seemed to be the
00:39:03
heaviest okay so at first nothing happened but the team kept checking in and sure enough
00:39:09
the orb activity increased in intensity years later Barry Taft described the lights as quote moving pulses pulsing
00:39:17
flashes of light lime green in color three-dimensional in nature which were not stable in size or luminosity
00:39:25
now eventually I guess the lights became so bright that they illuminated the entire room
00:39:31
damn isn't that crazy and during one of those incidents Taft says the orbs collected in the corner of the room
00:39:37
forming the shape of the upper torso of a very large man he said it was an apparition made out of
00:39:45
not bathed in lime green light oh I I like how he worded that yeah that he was made out of not babies not beads like
00:39:53
the light made him lime green light according to Taft two of the assistants at UCLA quote big hulking guys passed
00:40:02
out because they were so traumatized by what they were seeing their brain just wouldn't accept it holy [ __ ] right so
00:40:08
while the first experiment with the orbs yielded some results the orbs proved really really incredibly challenging to
00:40:15
capture on film and when they did capture the orbs in a photo there was nothing else in the photos that would
00:40:21
allow for perspective to really show the trajectory or the true identity of what
00:40:27
it really was okay and so they realized that they needed to alter their approach
00:40:31
in order to properly document these orbs so Taff and his team devised a new plan
00:40:36
and he describes that in his final report writing our fifth visit to Doris's house resulted in large-scale
00:40:42
magnification of all phenomena we began by duct taping large black poster boards
00:40:47
up on the walls in the ceiling of the bedroom all of which were numbered and identified with a magnetic orientation
00:40:54
white duct tape was placed between the dark panels that formed a grid Network a grid Network like graph paper therein
00:41:02
providing us with a reference for further attempts at photographing the lights black poster board were also used
00:41:08
to seal off all light entrances into the bedroom that rendered the environment almost pitch black wow so basically they
00:41:15
set up like a [ __ ] hypothesis here and really executed a science experiment there you go you know I like it they had
00:41:23
a hypothesis they did the scientific experiment on it boom and that's science for that
00:41:33
you're welcome science with Ash that's how it works so it was during this visit that Taff and
00:41:39
his team managed to capture a now pretty iconic photo of Doris sitting on her bed
00:41:44
with an arc of light streaming over her head from what they say is one of the orbs traveling through the frame and I
00:41:51
can see it you got it this one yep so in his description of the event and the photo more specifically Taft notes that
00:42:00
had the streak of light been a projection from a light source rather than an independently moving object in
00:42:05
the frame The Arc would have bent when it hit the corner of the room where the two walls met an angle yeah in his
00:42:12
report he described Doris as quote cowering on the bed beneath the lights that were flying around her in a mad
00:42:18
Fray okay so that's his take on it and I can see what he's saying about the corner
00:42:22
there definitely I get what he's saying about the corner she's I don't think she
00:42:27
seems to be cowering very much she just kind of looks like she's looking at it she's holding like the side of her head
00:42:32
and she looks like she's looking back at something yeah and it almost to me looked like she was like moving her hair
00:42:38
like out of yeah or she was like covering her ear yeah exactly but photoanalyst Kenny Biddle who is a
00:42:46
bit of a skeptic on this case points out the photo does not in fact show bitter cowering but instead sitting on the bed
00:42:52
looking if anything a bit uninterested as the other team members sit idly I don't think you can say she looks
00:42:58
uninterested well I think that's the thing I don't think any of us can look at this very grainy black and white
00:43:04
photograph where you can't see her face that's the thing you can't see or take anything from it
00:43:09
she's sitting there she's looking that's all I can tell you is she's looking back
00:43:13
at something that looks like she's looking at the light but I can't say whether she's interested
00:43:18
uninterested sick healthy sad happy scared I can't say anything so I'm not gonna she's sitting there she's looking
00:43:28
at something exactly now Biddle also points out while Taft described having hung black poster board with duct tape
00:43:35
threads around the room to adequately document the phenomenon and do the scientific experiment the picture
00:43:40
clearly shows bare walls with no hint of poster board or tape that's what I was gonna ask because at first I was like oh
00:43:48
maybe like because it's black and white we can't really tell that those are like
00:43:51
covered but then there's like decorations on the wall yeah that you can see you don't see any of that yeah
00:43:56
that's the thing now according to TAF a few days after they set the room up with
00:44:01
the poster board but before they started taking pictures they got a call from Doris who said or who asked that they
00:44:07
return as soon as possible and he said when they arrived at the house they discovered that the poster board they
00:44:13
hung had all been torn down and that's when they got this photo now it's very convenient Doris claimed that it
00:44:21
happened one afternoon while she and the kids were out of the house also convenient okay but Taff even
00:44:26
acknowledges the possibility that she had torn everything down in order to bolster her claim and get some more
00:44:32
attention Okay if this is what that was so after 10 weeks of an investigation in
00:44:37
Doris's home Thelma Moss came to the house to witness what Barry and Carrie had claimed was happening because she's
00:44:43
like you're spending a lot of time on this what are we getting out of here but during her visit to the house she
00:44:49
didn't witness anything unusual at all now until that point the majority of the activity Doris claimed to have
00:44:55
experienced had been relayed to the investigators after the fact with no way to verify the accuracy of their claims
00:45:02
so given that Thelma Moss hadn't experienced anything unusual during her visit and the best that Barry and Carrie
00:45:10
could come up with was a couple blurry photos she pulled the plug on the project and the investigation yeah I
00:45:17
don't blame her I don't either I think she was like listen this is supposed to be legit and like you guys aren't really
00:45:22
getting a lot here and you've been here for 10 weeks like this isn't worth it no
00:45:27
so the investigation into Doris feathers haunting came to an abrupt and unceremonious end
00:45:33
now by the time investigators had exited Doris like Doris's life excuse me she had managed to save enough money from
00:45:39
working part-time jobs to move from the house on Braddock Street to a new house elsewhere in the city well that's good
00:45:45
but she didn't leave a forwarding address with Taff or his team of investigators
00:45:50
so luckily by the time Doris had started working with writer slash director Frank
00:45:55
de Felida D felita it's hard to say he was working on the fictionalized account of her experience a movie called The
00:46:02
Entity and it would later be adapted for a film starring Barbara Hershey I think as
00:46:09
Doris um but at that point he helped Barry Taff and Carrie Gainer get in touch with
00:46:14
Doris for a follow-up interview oh that was nice of him it was so she claimed that things were quiet in her new house
00:46:21
for a few weeks but not long after moving the activity had started up again uh-oh and by the time the investigators
00:46:28
reached out to her she claimed it was affecting the houses on either side of her oh talk to those people talk to them
00:46:35
so they arranged a visit to Doris's house that brought and they brought some basic recording equipment with them to
00:46:41
document the interview according to Taft the three were standing in Doris's living room just chatting when all of a
00:46:47
sudden a vase flew off a nearby table and landed right next to where they were standing oh damn much like the frying
00:46:55
pan now obviously frightened by the flying vase the trio turned toward the direction it had come from and realized
00:47:01
they were not alone in the room oh Taft claims they began hearing heavy breathing getting closer as they stood
00:47:07
there motionless followed by a kind of shuffling coming in their Direction he said quote we could hear a footstep
00:47:15
another footstep and then a drag oh and then all of the sudden the reel-to-reel recorder that Carrie had been running
00:47:22
was turned off by an unseen hand and they decided right then and there to conclude their interview and get the
00:47:30
[ __ ] out of that house but they were recording when that happened yes okay that's what they said
00:47:36
oh I don't know whatever came of roll the tape I don't think they ever did because according to Taft doors did move
00:47:42
again a short time later and this time to San Bernardino and the Paranormal Activity supposedly continued but they
00:47:50
lost touch with her a couple months later when she moved to Texas Jesus and she didn't leave any contact information
00:47:55
that time either so Barry Taft said the last time I ever heard from Doris bither
00:47:59
was around when the film came out in 1983 and she was at a screening at Fox with all of us I think she felt
00:48:06
threatened by all this attention but on another level I think she appreciated that we were trying to help her come to
00:48:11
grips with what was going on this is wild it's crazy now in his assessment of the case skeptic Benjamin Radford wrote
00:48:19
quote as is often the case with haunted people the introduction of Psychics paranormal investigators and other
00:48:25
self-styled Ghost Hunters escalated and arguably exacerbated by their situation so he's saying like I don't know I think
00:48:32
it all kind of got worse when she got attention yeah I mean you can see that happen in cases totally so but
00:48:39
regardless of whether someone believes Doris but there's a count of spectral rape and demonic assaults and everything
00:48:44
else that she went through in her house everyone who knew her or came into contact with her during this period
00:48:49
agreed that she was a very fragile woman who was desperately just seeking any kind that's really sad so no matter what
00:48:56
it's really unfortunate yeah now unfortunately some people feel like what she found was two opportunistic college
00:49:03
students who were hoping to make a name for themselves and become like big time paranormal investigators Allah exactly
00:49:10
the Warrens and I guess they and like those people feel like when Barry and Carrie had gotten all they could from
00:49:17
her they walked out of her life and never really offered much help or explanation for her experiences oh yeah
00:49:23
now sadly she died from respiratory failure in 1999. oh wow at the age of 59. oh she was young and according to
00:49:31
her son Brian she was plagued by paranormal harassment until the day that she died wow so I don't know what I
00:49:38
think about this case wow I don't that picture with the light is really interesting but I don't know
00:49:45
if there's a way to make that happen that's the thing I don't know if it's like because it almost there's like a little
00:49:53
other part of the of the picture where there's like a slight bit of light in there yeah on the top of the arc like to
00:50:00
the to the left to the left it's like an upside down Arc yeah and I'm like with something shined at the camera that made
00:50:07
some kind of reflection that didn't need to be bent in that corner because it wasn't directed towards that corner
00:50:12
exactly I don't know I don't know how those cameras work um I wish there was just more evidence
00:50:17
than what we got yeah I wish there was some you know throw a [ __ ] tape recorder on let me hear some stuff
00:50:25
exactly you know tape recorders back then yeah just I don't know I don't know I think the lack of evidence here kind
00:50:32
of makes me feel like maybe they were just hoping to make it big and they I saw this as an opportunity yeah but the
00:50:41
fact that her son said that she was he was or she excuse me was haunted until the day that she died and like this
00:50:47
activity even started before that house yeah but then I was in my head I'm like why
00:50:54
would they leave the second house when the when the Curious Paranormal Activity started
00:51:00
yeah that's true like you just suddenly decided to leave yeah I don't know there's a lot to think about in this one
00:51:07
there is so let us know what you think yeah interesting and we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it
00:51:14
weird but that's so weird that your house is that [ __ ] haunted because that's so scary it's so scary so scary
00:51:22
and don't keep it so weird that you take advantage of somebody who's experiencing
00:51:24
a genuine haunting okay I love you so much bye [Music] thank you