Ep. 150 Last Rites: The Smurl Family Haunting

• Smurl family haunting
• Smurl haunting
• Ed and Lorraine Warren
• Paranormal investigation
• Haunted house
• Poltergeist activity
• Demonology
• 1980s hauntings
• Supernatural events
• True haunting stories
• Real-life exorcism
• Possession
• Catholic exorcism
• West Pittston haunting
• Paranormal podcast
• Ghost stories
• Demonic hauntings
• Warren cases
• Horror true story
• Real paranormal cases

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, join us as we delve into our favorite
dark tales and paranormal mysteries.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Venture with us beyond the safe places that exist in daylight.
As we go beyond in the Shadows, true crime, paranormal hauntings, UFOs,
cryptids and unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories, past lives, reincarnation and
all the like are.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Just a few of the topics that we will tackle.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
If it haunts your fucking dreams, then it will be
on our show.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Do you know what the most in the world is?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
On the shuttles where you found me at you can't
see me in the deepest blacks when your heart starbus
and then you see their cracks, all these creepy things
that you why at track well, the defense be where
the actions act. So this enough you want it, UFOs,
all them ghosts. We got everything that you want.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
It won't do you know what the thing in the
world is? Hey, guys, Welcome back to episode one fifty
Beyond the Shadows.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
The milestone was sticking with us. Guys, Yeah, we appreciate it.
Welcome back Shadow family. By the way, you.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Forgot your part.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
This The que card wasn't held up high enough.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Sorry, my bad. I'll hold it up hire next time.
Ah got a couple of new ratings over on Spotify.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
But uh, last week on Apple we were only four
away from one hundred and let me let me check
the numbers real.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Quick, carry the one real quick, four four aways. Yeah,
so we're not mad at you guys, just you know, disappointed.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
It just means it was just horrendous weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
No big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
We can bounce if you don't like us, just say it,
bounce back this week, I guess with.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
A five are say it? All right? Paul? What do
we got in the news today?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
So I didn't write it down, but man, like a
big chunk of the eighties die this week, didn't that? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Man, it was a rough week.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan and Malcolm Jamal Warner. Yeah, I
think everybody knows, but if you don't. He was THEO
on The Cosby Show. A big part of me at
scot childhood.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, chunk of the childhood was you know, it's too
bad Cosby turned out to be such a piece of
ship because the Cosby Show was a great show.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well yeah, and not only that, it sounds like everybody
else on that show was great pretty pretty awesome actresses whatever,
but they were all real quality people.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, he payed theo It was Malcolm Jamal and
Jamal Jamal warned. I couldn't even get that.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
But he wasn't even natural when he drowned. Yeah, and
I just read that his eight year old.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Daughter was out there with him. That's the one that
they rescued. Yeah, so that's that's rough. And then I
just did it. Was it today that how cog.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Oh Cogan died to day? I didn't find it to work.
I didn't see it. Somebody told me. And obviously Ozzy Osbourne.
You know, I'm a I grew up a head banger.
I still love the hard shit. I love Ozzy. I
think everybody likes something from Ozsie either, Yeah, either from
his sabbath days or solo days or even even if
you were only introduced to him with The Osbourne's.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
The show. Ye, The Osbourne's was huge. That was It
was probably just as big as his music career. He
was like one of the first reality shows where they
actually went in deside to someone's home.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
It was entertaining. It was a good show.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I've only watched some of it a few few episodes
here and there. I wasn't watching it when it first
came out, but it was like, this is when reality
shows became a thing. Yeah, they could see that this
guy who was a super rock star, it was a
womanized or all this and that, and now they just
see him as annoying. Dad. You can't like figure out Yeah,
he can't figure out anything. You fried too, You can
see what those drugs had done to him.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
He sings in perfectly clear English. And you watch that show.
I would need subtitles. Sometimes the only only word I
could make out was sharing. It was just didn't they
put up? Sometimes I did, but I had like one episode,
wud be like him fucking with the VCR and he
couldn't get its work. But Sharon also otherwise, Michael.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Mumble umble.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
He was a nicon everybody.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, absolutely him and Hogan yep, absolutely yeah. And Malcolm
was Malcolm Jerman Warmer. I keep messing up his name,
Malcolm Jermaine Warmer Jamal Wow, I can't even get that
right anyways. So what do we got in the news?

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Bom So troopers received calls about a vehicle operating recklessly
on the southbound side of Suncoast Parkway in Brooksville, Florida,
at eight thirty am last Friday's not sat a nighttime thing.
This is the ask for No. Basically for me, that's
eight thirty. Nobody should have to be up at that hour.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
That's ridiculous. I ain't gone to bed yet.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
When they arrived, they found the reckless vehicle to be
a lawnmower, and the driver then pat passed from Citrus
County over into Hernando County. Thirty eight year old Christopher
Spain showed signs of impairment, including tiny pupils, dry mouth,
and nosy irritation. I wonder what he might have gotten in.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Dude, I have so many questions about this one.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
You think it's like poison ivy.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
There's so many questions on this one. First off, you're
driving a rhyming lawnmower. How fucking he erratic can it
be on the highway? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
How fucked up do you have to be to think
that's not gonna draw attention?

Speaker 1 (05:30):
But maybe if he started his mower and went down
the side of that he had his mower going there. Man,
Oh no, he just works here. You act like you
act like you belong. You gotta play the part drop
the mo deck. When you see the cops behind you,
throw up your arms like you. I rotated like rock
stuck in the mode deck.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I got a schedule. I gotta keep. Is this necessary?
My other question, he's gonna bust my balls. I gotta
make a living air man.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Uh. My other question is did he pay the toll
and how much did they charge him? Probably because it
was a toll road.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I didn't cover that, but he probably.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Ran it, you know, yeah, just say anything about it.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Chucked an handful of that grass.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
I've seen stories about like guys traveling on their riding
lawnmower before. I know that. Back in the day, there
was a guy who his brother was sick and he
rode his He couldn't drive anymore, so he rode his
riding lawnmower to see his brother and he went like
hundreds of miles on a ride lawnmower.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Things so that people think because it's not a car,
that they can escape the charges, But duy and all
that shit still exists, like even on a bike, it's
the same charges.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I told you. I think we talked about on
the show. The guy I grew up with got a
DUI on U or d WI that's what they call
it here in Maine, Ah, for riding a bicycle. Yeah,
they nailed it. What you just being a the cost
just being a dick? If that's again, you're not going
to hurt anybody on your bike. If anyone's going to
get hurt, it's you.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
You know, all you doing is telling that person next time,
drive a fucking car because the charge.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
It's the same. Yeah, why bother right? Because I mean
you're going out of your way to not drive the car.
That's what he was doing, going to have his way
to not drive a car because he knew he was drunk,
so he rode a bicycle and charge. That's just bullshit.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
It is so cops they pull him off. He's claiming,
you know, there's nothing wrong, but they find a small
blue star in his pocket covered covered with white poet

(07:36):
or usually what they say is, I don't you guys
put that that's not mine.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
That's they always say that's not mine. They always it
was in your pocket. So why they're talking?

Speaker 2 (07:46):
He repeatedly cleared his throat and sniffled through all questioning.
I still can't figure out what I don't know, he refused.
Field sobriety says he was booked for dui. Japan's National
Police Agency issued a warning in a recall for over
sixteen thousand toy guns that are in claw machines around

(08:06):
the country as available prizes. The reason for the recall
is that the toy guns are capable of firing real bullets,
called quote the real Gimmick Mini Revolver. The toys were
imported from China and come with eight plastic bullets. I
don't understand how anybody figured out this gun can fire
a real bullet unless they tried it.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
I guess maybe they're looking at it and be like,
this looks so realistic. I mean, if you look at
the gun, it's obviously a toy. Yeah, it's green, it's
got a blue you know, it's it's designed to look
like a toy. Yeah, but I mean it still looks
quite a lot like a gun, irregular gun obviously it is.
And yeah, it'll actually I wonder if the bullet actually

(08:48):
just blows up or if it would just shoot actually
shoot out because it's plastic from China.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
But they're not Selomu.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Sh right, you know, maybe it's did they do this
on purpose? We didn't mean in China.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
No, from my own personal You know, if there are
prizes in claw machines, nobody's gonna end up with one anyway,
because I've played those things. You cannot win a fucking
claw machine. It's impossible.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
My wife cleans house in them.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
I don't think of every gee.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
I can't get a goddamn thing out, no matter what
my son's like. Come on, listen, I'm not wasting my
money on that. Then his mom gets up there every
time gets something out of that fucking thing.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
We'll keep her away from Japanese.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
You no, hit right, he can't have nothing out of
there now. It's just too dangerous, son. We can't risk it.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Uh. This next story actually comes from China. So a
man named only as Lee was away on a business
trip when he comes across to vendor peddling what he
called a truth serum. Lee can't resist and purchases some.
Later on, during a work dinner with a man named
only as Wang, Lee puts a few drops of the
serum into Wang's drink. Lee was in the Wang. Wang

(09:58):
becomes sick but doesn't divulge any big truths. So in
the following months, Lee repeats the stunt two more times,
and both times Wang becomes sick. The third time he
becomes suspicious and gets his blood tested. When police raid
Lee's house, they find the Truth serum, which contains clonazepam

(10:19):
in xylazine, which are both potent central nervous system depressants.
Lee has been sentenced to three years in prison in
order to pay a fine of fourteen hundred dollars, and
the reason for his drugging is that they worked to
the same company and Lee was hoping to learn Wang's

(10:40):
secret plans so he could pass them off as his own.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Abusing that Wang.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
You gotta handle the Wang with more respect than that.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, you can't just mean Jack and the Wang like that.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Man, it's not gonna work out.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
No, it's not. But that I mean literally, he's just
trying to steal.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Shit for work, That's all he was trying to do.
So if I was Wang and I'd figured out what
he was up to, if I was a smaller Wang, right,
a more unimpressive Wang, is it be? So if I
figured out what he was up to, I would have
just pretended I was under the influence and spouted all
kinds of just gibberius to him to get him in trouble.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
You know.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, I was thinking about, like you know, pants was
Tuesdays mandatory lawn darts in the break room.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
How competitive does work have to be in China? I
don't know that you got to poison somebody to get
their ideas.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
I was thinking, tequila lunches on. That's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
You should pass that off. Yeah, it works out. I
think we've covered that story before.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, we actually had.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
There was one place, wasn't there. They were offering alcohol
to get the new people in.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Alcohol to get new people in. And there's another place
that was offering like paid time off for basically drunkly.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
You know.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, that's right. And they were in Japan.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
I think I think they were.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, so is that all our news? That's what we got. Well,
what story are you doing today? Bob uh So?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
We when I did uh the devil made me do it.
A while back, I said I was going to be
moving on to the Conjuring four story, which is coming
up this September fifth, that will be out. So there's
gonna be a bit of a spoiler here coming up.
So if you guys like to go in cold, you
don't even want to know what the story is about.
It's a good place for you to stop. Wait a

(12:33):
couple of seconds. Uh, okay, spoiler, So now we're back. Yeah,
and we're back. So the Conjuring four is titled The
Last Rites and it's about the smirl family haunting. So
that's what we're going to talk about this week.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Awesome bun, you can't wait, and we will catch you
over there.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know what. Jack and Janet Smirle both grew up
in Pennsylvania, raised in Catholic homes with strong religious beliefs.
They met in nineteen sixty seven and got married the
following year. Jack served in the Navy and would go

(13:20):
on to become a neuro psychiatric technician. They had two daughters,
Dawn and Heather. A very natural phenomenon then occurs that
begins their very supernatural Saga saga. In nineteen seventy two,
Hurricane Agnes would flood their home in wilkes Bury, Pennsylvania,

(13:40):
and send them looking for new accommodations. The following year,
October of nineteen seventy three, they purchased a fixer upper
duplex at three twenty eight Chase Street in West Pittson Pennsylvania,
so this puts them about an hour and a half
outside of Philadelphia all right. The house had been built
in eighteen ninety six and was the oldest one in

(14:02):
the neighborhood, and as such it needed a great deal
of work, but the Smurls were not deterred by the
work needed. Two months later, Jack's parents, John and Mary Smurle,
would also move into the duplex, so Jack, Janet, and
their kids would live on the left side, while Jack's
parents would occupy the right side. The family quickly made

(14:24):
a life for themselves in the new neighborhood, making friends,
joining the local Catholic church. They poured a great deal
of time and money into their new home, painting, refurbishing,
and repairing everything that needed it. The first year and
a half in the house went by largely without any incident.
All seemed to be going well. Jack got a promotion

(14:44):
at work, the kids were excelling in school, and everyone
was happy. Then small incidents began to occur. They got
the family's attention without raising major alarm bells. Tools being
used in the renovations would disappear, and then mysterio show
up elsewhere in the house. When the family lay in
bed at night, they would be awakened to the sounds

(15:06):
of loud bangs on the walls and in the ceilings.
Despite the abnormal frequency and volume of these incidents, the
family at first explained them away as the creeks, groans,
and loud pipes of an old house. And I've lived
in an oural house.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
They do make a shitload of noise, they do, Dude,
this is a new house and it makes a shit
ton of noise. I hear a lot of those knockings,
and I'm not so sure they're not something. But the
tool thing. Man, it happens to me all the time.
I set my tool somewhere and then they're not there.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
I'm positive, positive it's on the table, and it's disappears
when I'm using it. Tape measures in the refrigerator. That
type of shit so harder to explain away was the
strong smell of sulfur and rotting flesh that would occur
almost out of nowhere and overwhelm the house, only to

(15:54):
disappear just as quickly without explanation. Jack checked all the
plumbing throughout the house, searching for a leak or any
broken pipe that might explain the smells, but everything was
in good working order. Then in January of nineteen seventy four,
a strange, strange stain appeared on some brand new carpeting
that no one had an explanation for. Despite their best efforts,

(16:17):
they found themselves unable to remove it. When they thought
they had it cleaned up, it would just show up again,
time and time again.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Well, what happens in this house is fucking Jack's goddamn dunk.
He's a devil dog, Yes, a devil dog.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
The family finally gave up and just threw the carpeting out.
The bathroom had been completely remodeled with a new tub,
new sink, and freshly painted woodwork. Shortly after, the family
found the tub, sink in woodwork to have been severely scratched,
and it looked as though a wild animal had basically
clawed them through. On a separate occasion, Jack's TV just

(16:56):
burst into flames for no clear reason. By nineteen seventy five,
this is about a year after the family moved in,
oldest daughter Dawn, was telling her parents that she saw
figures floating around her bedroom at night, like above her bed,
by the walls, and like all over the boys.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
So this isn't just your everyday normal, a little bit
of Knox. Maybe see something in the corner. She got
shit floating above the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
So it started out as small ish stuff, and now
you're a year in, it's jumped up a notch like
it's stuff. Now you can no longer easily explain away.
And that's just it's just an old house. People float
around your bed, happen.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
The guy with the knife in the corner, that's just normal,
the old house. He wants your ignoring.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
So by now, as you see in many haunted house stories,
the family's fortunes had begun to take a turn for
the worse. They were now barely scraping by financially, and
although Janet told Jack that she wanted to move on
multiple occasions due to the strange events, he insisted that
all their money was tied up in the house, and
then moving just was not an option. Now, this is

(18:03):
something you see in Amityville. You see it in the
Conjuring One story, the paren family house. It happens all
the time.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
And I remember, sure the house, yeah you are, but
I mean they own the house. It could always sell it,
you could, yeah, you know. And then you have money
to buy a new house. It's called to put in
a contingency.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
So on top of all that, Jack's mother, then Mary,
she suffers a heart attack. Doesn't die, but she suffers
a heart attack. Nineteen seventy seven, Janet gives birth to
twins Shannon and Karen, and the paranormal incidents jump up
another notch. One of the bedroom walls developed a dark stain,
and the family set about removing it. They tried multiple

(18:45):
times to paint over the walls, but the stain would
always reappear in the exact same spot. They eventually gave
up and opted to install wood paneling in that room.
The family also began to notice a rocking chair moving
back and forth on its own, just a slight rock
at first, as though maybe someone had brushed by it
on their way past. The wind head said, it slightly rock.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
You know this stain thing that you hear in so
many different ones. Yeah, it never that never impressed me.
If it came through the paneling, then I'd be impressed.
But I mean stains and stuff I never got.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Where Well a lot of times they just do.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, I mean, I stain will resurface.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
It doesn't have to be a devil stain.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
But if it's like a dead body looking stain on
the floor, that's a different story altogether.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
If it's a chalk outline on the floor, it seems
arms and legs, and it's on the floor in the bedroom,
that's a totally different stain.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Jacks didn't do that.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
If it lights up under a black light, you get
a frock.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
So yes.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
So at first they thought it was like the wind
or somebody had brushed by. The rocking chair would be
just slightly rocking, nothing to raise major alarm bills. But
then it took on the unmistakable rock of someone clearly
sitting in it and rocking back and forth. Now that's
harder to explain, and that's creepy.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
You can't explain that shit. Nope.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Radios began blasting out music so often that the family
unplugged him, but the radios would continue to blast out
music even unplugged.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Sh it's real.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
The family began hearing footsteps coming from all around the
house at times when there were no human feet around
to be making them, not only at night but in
the middle of the day. They came from all over
the house, but occurred most often on the stairs, and
they also began experiencing ice cold spots throughout the house
that defied explanation. The surrounding room could be perfectly comfortable

(20:34):
with one random ice cold spot that would be there
one minute, gone the next, only to appear in another
room in the house. Drawers began to open and close
on their own, toilets flush when there was no one
in the bathroom. Jack began to feel unseen hands caress
him at times and developed the constant feeling that he
was being watched. Nice little lower.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
Her wife never touches me like this, happy ending any chance,
Janet and Mary, this is Jack's wife and mother.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
So they both reported hearing each other's voice calling out
to them to each other on multiple occasions when no
one else been No one had been making the call,
but both thought it was the other one calling out
to them through the wall. Mary reported hearing multiple loud,
profanity laced arguments between Jack and Janet through the adjoining wall,

(21:33):
but the couple would always deny that any had fight
had occurred at all. Janet was doing laundry in the
basement on one occasion when she heard a woman calling
out to her, possibly her mother in law, from next door.
She called out and asked the voice what they wanted,
but received no answer other than the continued calling out
of her name. But when she looked around to find
the source of the voice, she found out that she

(21:55):
had been alone the entire time. The years had now
passed and the activity showed no signs of relenting. It
was now nineteen eighty five, so they've been in the
house eleven years. One night, the family was all in
their living room when the dog, Simon, a German Shepherd mix,

(22:15):
was slowly levitated off the floor to a height of
several feet before being violently thrown up against the wall.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Now, now, you just pissed off everybody listening. Nobody gave
a shit until they messed with the dog, except you
do not fuck with the dog.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
You don't fuck with the German Shepherd, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
No especially.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
This was only the first of several occasions that Simon
would become the target of the attacks. On a separate occasion,
Jack was sitting on the top stair when Simon walked
along the upstairs hallway behind him. When Jack called out
to Simon to come back, however, he appeared at the
bottom of the stairs as though he had been down
there all along ghost dog. The family walk up to

(22:56):
the sounds of Simon barking and howling on multiple occasions,
and they went to see what was wrong. They would
find him sleepy, sleeping soundly. Excuse me. Simon was visibly
disturbed by whatever was going on in the house, appearing
agitated and on edge. When the family left the house,
they would lock all the doors with Simon inside, but

(23:18):
frequently when they came home, not only were the doors unlocked,
but they would be open and Simon would be outside.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Oh that's messed up. Yeah, you know, all right, this
is remind Simon's Let me let me interrupt your story
real quick. You remember, I don't know if you remember,
we had that little My parents got a dog. It
was a little shitsu and it was named uh Scoshy.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
I remember Scochy.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
You remember my parents remember our house was haunted, the
one I grew up in. We put that dog in
the basement because she was pissing around the house, and
my dad put her in the basement for when he
was gone, and the basement was the spookiest part of
the house. When they came home, that little dog had
chewed through the wall in the room she was in
through the dry wall, made a hole, went through that

(24:05):
hole upstairs to the hollow corp door and had chewed
through one side of the door in less than like
four hours. That dog wanted out of that basement.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Scared the shit out those tiny dog too.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
It was a really tiny dog. Yep. So I mean, yeah,
they do mess with that. They do mess with animals
for sure.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, I think. And what animals are I think way
more in tune, more sensitive than us, so they could
pick up more shitt than we can.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Especially cats. Cats seemed to me, they seem to know
like they're on a different plane. And they're dicks too.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
It can be so for the Smurls. Clearly the taro
was escalating. The family claims they reached out on multiple
occasions to the Catholic Church for an exorcism, but they
were rebuffed as the church required more evidence than they
were able to provide. The church did send out priests
on multiple occasions to perform blessings around the house, but

(24:59):
the did little to quiet the evil. One night, while sleeping,
daughter Shannon was pulled from bed and then violently violently
tossed down the stairs. She narrowly avoided serious injury. Around
the same time, Janet felt a dramatic drop in temperature
while she was in the kitchen. She then saw a
black human like form appear before her, with no discernible

(25:23):
features at all. It then disintegrated through the wall before
then appearing and terrifying Mary on the other side. On
a separate occasion, Janet was folding laundry when she felt
the temperature drop. When she turned around, she saw a
black mist that roughly resembled it resembled a human in shape.
The mist moved into the living room, where Janet summoned

(25:45):
the courage to follow it, but when she got there,
she found it was gone, so she ran over to
the other side of the duplex, where she found a
terrified Mary. Mary explained that a black mist had just
passed in from the wall of the house, cross over
to the other side for disappearing again. One night, while
Jack lay in bed next to Janet, he heard what

(26:06):
sounded like the voice of a young girl whispering his name.
When he turned to face his wife, he saw a
shadowy figure run up her side of the bed and
then disappear up her leg.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Up her leg.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Huh even the neighbors began to experience odd occurrences. Several
times they were reported to have heard strange screams coming
from the Smurl home when none of the family members
were there to have made them.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Is this the neighbor like the other side of the.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
No, so Jack's Jack's parents were the other side. No,
this is like neighbors not in the same house.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
You know, it's crazy because that seems to happen. A
lot of neighborhoods are haunted. It isn't a lot of times.
It's not just one house, It'll be several on the block.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, Like it could be like if the land was
haunted before the houses were.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Right, you know what I mean, which makes more sense.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yes, I don't give a shit about walls. Walls that
were built after whatever happened, they don't give a fuck
about They don't exist to them much.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
But in some like in the when I did the
Gravesend one like where there was a new addition to
the house, they didn't have any experience experiences in the
new edition. It was like a safe spot for him.
So I mean, it's like different with every one of them.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
I think it is. Yeah, So then on April twenty ninth,
nineteen eighty five, thirteen year old daughter Heather was due
to be confirmed the into the Catholic Church. While all
of the girls, including Janet, were finishing getting ready in
the kitchen, a heavy ceiling light, which was bolted into

(27:41):
the ceiling above the island countertop, began to shake violently
and then tore free of the ceiling and crashed down
to the island countertop, just barely missing one of the
twins that actually cut her arm. Jack and Janet would
both insist there was no possible way that light fixture
could have broken free on its own. Jack and his
father had hung the light that themselves drilling directly into

(28:03):
the hardwood with fourteen millimeter bolts. Jack and Janet were
having sex one night when a foul smell suddenly filled
the room. There's a bunch of yeah, bunch of places
you could take that joke. When I was writing that,
I was like, I should reword that.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
No, it's too much of a layout.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
I don't know what they were getting into. Jack became
paralyzed on the bed and Janet was violently thrown to
the floor. She was then lifted several feet off the
floor as well, and it would not be the last time.
So she's levitated in the air while he was basically
stuck to the floor. The children all began complaining about

(28:47):
the sound of flapping wings coming from their bedrooms at night.
They didn't dare turn on the lights. They just heard
the wings, flapping wings. Yeah, that's scary as shit, dude,
big time. So when the hauntings started, there was two kids.
Now the four kids, you got four terrified kids.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
It spanned over how many years so far? I mean
said it was like eleven years earlier.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Because it's swis still eighty five? Still eleven years wow.
So the family is getting desperate. The events in the
house were escalating and they felt they would be being
given the run around by the Catholic church, so they
reached out to the press and then everything turned into
a shit storm, as it always does. The story went
as viral as a story could by that technology of

(29:29):
the day. It was picked up by newspapers and TV.
Both local and national press descended on the town in
hopes of being the first ones to get the full story.
In twenty sixteen, a Halloween's story in the Pitts Pittston
Progress reporter Jack Smiles quotes neighbor Bill Watson was one
of the many in the neighborhood who had to deal

(29:50):
with the circus that came to town. Everything got out
of control. Watson said, CNN was here on my porch.
There was a camera crew from Germany in my driveway,
so many people I could hardly get my car out
to go to work. It wasn't long before the locals
began to resent all of the negative attention the press
was bringing. Some neighbors began to accuse them of stealing,

(30:12):
of being money hungry frauds, even though the Smirls hadn't
made a dime off of their story. Yet. Bricks were
holed against the house and through windows on multiple occasions.
Karen Smirl, who was only ten at the time, later
recalled to Sarahcinto of the Wilkesbury Citizen's Voice. I remember,

(30:33):
once it got out into the media, we had people
knocking on our windows and doors, bricks thrown through our windows.
People were always terrorizing us. She said. He was scared too,
but he was always the tough one. She's referencing her dad.
So with no help coming from the church or the press,
the Smirls were running out of options, Janet heard about

(30:55):
the Warrens from a college professor and decided to attend
one of their lectures Boom. She was impressed with their
knowledge of the paranormal and the occult, so she waited
until the end of the lecture and then approached the couple.
On January seventeenth, nineteen eighty six, the Warrens drove from
their home in Monroe, Connecticut, accompanied by a nurse and

(31:17):
psychic Rosemary Frousch.

Speaker 5 (31:19):
Fuck.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
You need some help with that, folks.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah, Scott's my pronunciation actpert. So it was bringing my
bringing my pronunciation guy here real quick. The Warrens began
by quizzing the Smirls about their family life, their religious beliefs,
the origins of their haunting, and any belief in or
practicing of witchcraft, Satanism, and specifically whether or not they

(31:44):
had ever used a Ouiji board. They even had the
family psychologically evaluated by professionals. By this point, the family
had lived in the house for thirteen years. Dawn was
now sixteen, Heather was thirteen, and Shannon and Karen were seven.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
So this is a point. If you've listened to me
and Ryan, you know where we stand on the Warrens
this story, man, I would at this point if I heard,
because I started researching this and I saw Warrens and
I stopped. Not because the story can't be true, but
this one they're like you said, they're what twelve years
in before for the Warren.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Show a long time.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
So yeah, if this was a Warrens like, oh, come
in and claim it's this and that they really put
in some put in some time, man, because this is
like twelve years.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
So if you watch the Conjuring movies, like I'm a
big error movie fan, the Conjuring movies are released in
the order that they happened in chronologically. So the Conjuring
one took place seventy two, seventy three, I forget Conjuring
two was the one in England. That was the Anfield Potageist.
That was seventy seven, seventy eight. The Devil Maybe Do
It was nineteen eighty one. We're now in nineteen eighty six,

(32:54):
so nineteen eighty six was towards the end of the
Warren's career. They were rapping about all attents and purposes.
They continued on sporadically into the the nineties, but their
heyday was ending.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
At this point, they'd had a huge bunch of hits.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
They did, they did so. The Warrens walked through the
house with a psychic and they determined an upstairs bedroom
closet was the crossover point for the spirits traveling between
the two halves of the duplex. Lorrain picked up on
the presence of four distinct spirits inside the home. She
believed that they were dealing with the presence of a

(33:28):
harmless old woman, a young, probably teenage girl with violent tendencies,
an older man who had passed away either inside the
home or on the property. But the fourth entity was.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Wait for.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
A demon. No, No, With the Warrens, there's always going
to be a demon.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Always.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Where am i at. Lorrain believed that the other three
spirits were being controlled and used by the demon for
the purposes of terrorizing the family and breaking their spirits.
The Warns concluded that the Smurls were one of the
rare cases where a demon attaches itself to a family
through no fault of their own. They hadn't done anything
to open a doorway, they were just one of the

(34:21):
chosen ones. Ed believed that the demon had laid dormant
for decades being awakened. Wakened by the renovations around the house,
the Smurl's faith and the oldest daughters, having reached the
age of puberty, Ed began to play Gregorian chants through
a speaker in the upstairs bedrooms. Then the Warns began

(34:43):
to pray together and the house began to shake and rattle.
The rain would later state that the items on the
dresser began to dance and shake as the temperature in
the house plummeted. After more prayer, Ed splashed holy water
and banished the demon from the house. All activity ceased
in that moment, and the Smirls breathed a sigh of relief,

(35:05):
But the warrants warned them that the activity was not over,
and they advised them to seek help from the local
church yet again. The warrants then spent several months months
investigating the haunting, as well as recording audio tape, making notes,
and taking photographs. They encountered frequent poltergeist activity, saw shadowy spirits,

(35:29):
and Ed even found a message scrawled into one of
the house's mirrors that read, you filthy bastard, get out
of this house now. When I read that one. It
reminds me of Amityville, where the voice says get out.
It ain't the same, but it's close, and it's sad.
It is a close close.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Either the demon, either Ed's got something to do with it,
or they just hate it.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
I can see bold. Yeah, if I find it so irritating,
you know, the demon would, they'd have to demons like,
I don't mind you guys being here, But Ed, shut
the fuck off the fuck Hell's Loreen sweet, let her talk?
You're a douche. H. One night, when the Warrens weren't

(36:16):
there and his own family had gone out for the night,
Jack was looking forward to some alone time. He was
laying on the couch watching a baseball game on TV.
He claims that a scaly sucubyss posing as an old
woman in young woman's in a young woman's body, with
red eyes and green gums, appeared and raped him on
the couch. In his own words, I hate to think

(36:38):
about her. Her skin was paper white, but was covered
in some places with a scaly surf, with a scay
surface that I mentioned, and then other places with open sores.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Wait a minute, was this happening to Smirl or Ed?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
This is smirl okay, the kind you think a leper
would have or something, And these sowres were running with puss.
She had long, white, scraggly hair, Her eyes were all red,
and the inside of her mouth and her gums were green.
Some of her teeth were missing, but those that she
had were vampire like. I don't remember feeling anything at
all other than panic and terror. Then then she fan,

(37:18):
it's just like that. Yeah, I mean it's one of
those ones. You don't brag it. He don't tell you, buddy,
you don't necessarily do not. We went a coddled it.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
I had a lot to drink that night.

Speaker 6 (37:36):
She's really nice, I like, she's got a nice personality.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
So when Jack shared this terrifying story with his wife,
it was only then that he found out she had
had a similar experience. She had been assaulted by an
unseen incubus in the master bedroom while she heard what
sounded like pig squeals coming from inside the walls. Her
husband lay asleep in the bed beside her, and she
was paralyzed. While the incident took place. The next day,

(38:16):
she was hesitant to tell Jack what had occurred. The
warrants determined that the sound of pigs squealing was a
sign of serious demonic activity. Ed believed the form of
a succubis had been chosen and the violations had occurred
as quote an insult to God in the creation of birth.
The majority of the evil seems to have been directed

(38:38):
towards the two matriarchs of the families, and this was
done to divide the families. On a separate occasion, Ed
himself was strangled by an unseen force, and then he
began to suffer from flu like symptoms for a period
of weeks. The family tried on several occasions to get
away from the house, even if just for a while,

(38:58):
like going on a camping trip. The evil would always
follow them in the form of floating black mists, strange noises,
and the distinct feeling that they were always being watched.
They realized that fleeing from the house would do them
no good, as the evil would surely follow them. The
church still resisted providing any help to the family, so
the Warrens brought in an old family friend, father Robert McKenna.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Don't you think they always say the evil would have
followed them. I'm taking the chance, you know, maybe the
evil would have followed you. We'll find out that maybe
the evil doesn't like Massachusetts, you know, maybe the evil
will stay in Main. Who knows exactly WHOA I can't

(39:45):
afford that taxes or what.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
We'll haunt the poor town. You can check out the prices.
So Father mchanna as an old school priest who didn't
believe in the more stringent rules placed on exorcisms by
the Second Vatican Council, and he refused to abide by them.
So he assisted the warrants in over fifty exorcisms. That's

(40:12):
kind of a big deal within the church. So by
this point in time, the church was really anal about
sending out priests for exorcism, and they required tons of
lots of hoops to be jumped through.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
What I know from movies.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, it's like most of the one most of us do,
but the Church didn't. It's not a not something they
do lightly. Father McKenna was a real priest, he was legit,
but he didn't believe in the more stringent rules, so
he would still do it, I think without the church's approval.
You know, he didn't believe in the jump. Well, I

(40:46):
sort of get if a family really is being terrorized.
Their church requires proof months and months and months. Does
the family really do if you see them getting terrorized?
If I was a priest with that power, by funk that,
let's just do this, which is why I'm not this
is why you were tossed. I'm pretty sure a priest

(41:08):
don't say fucked it.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
They might.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
So he performed an exoricism on the Smurle home, going
from room to room with his crucifix, rosary, and holy water.
He then performed the ritual around the perimeter of the
entire house as well. The exorcism did provide the family
a brief respite, but the evil did not stay quiet
for long. Before long, the wrapping on the walls, the
foul smells, and the levitating objects all marked the demon's return.

(41:38):
Father McKenna returned and performed a second exorcism not long afterwards,
and this too proved unsuccessful. Ed Warren believed the reason
the exorcism wasn't successful was quote God was not yet
ready to show his power over this evil. The Warrens
declared to hold the demon had on the smurl family

(41:58):
was one of the strongest we have encountered. The Smurll
Haunting was one of the few cases in the Warren catalog.
In fact, it is the only case they could find
where their involvement did not end a family's plight. The
Warrens did not solve this one. The Smurls declared themselves
exhausted by the whole thing, the haunting, the angry neighbors,
the press coverage, et cetera. But that did not stop

(42:20):
them from co authoring a book with the Warrens that
came out only a few months later, titled The Haunted,
One Family's Nightmare. The church sent a priest out to
live in the home with the family for a week
to try and document the phenomenon, but nothing happened while
he was there, and he left after only three days.
The family finally fled the house in nineteen eighty seven

(42:40):
and moved back to wilkes Bury, but just as they suspected,
the entity followed them to their new home. So a
man was studying in Rome to become a priest when
he read the book about the Smirll Haunting, and he
was appalled that the Church had abandoned them. So he
writes a letter to the Vatican addressed a Cardinal Ratzinger.
The Cardinal and then turned in turn, reached out to

(43:03):
a local church, and the same priest who had initially
refused to help the family then turned up to their
door go figure. He wanted them to know that Rome
had finally authorized an exorcism, and this fourth attempt proved
to be successful. After nineteen eighty eight, the Smirls reported
no further ghostly activity. The book was adapted to when

(43:25):
nineteen ninety one made for TV movie titled The Haunted.
It was made with the approval of both the Smurls
and the Warrens The Haunted. It was called The Haunted.
The Haunted was also a show, but.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, I know The Haunt. That was one of my
favorite shows. I don't think i've ever seen that movie.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
I was made for TV. It still exists out there,
and apparently it's pretty solid from what I read. I
guess some of the special effects haven't held up real well,
but I guess it's pretty creep I know. The Jack
Smirrel was played by Jeffrey de moon Or demonta same
guy who played Dale on The Walking Dead. If you
ever saw that, Oh, he's got quite a bit of stuff.
That's the only act I know from the.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Movie Ryan knows his horror movies too so big idea
of horror movies.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
As with most of the Warren's cases, the skeptics were
not convinced by the evidence of this particular case. The
Catholic Church maintains that none of their priests that went
out to the Smurll home saw anything supernatural. Janet Smirle
insisted that it was a Vaticant approved priest who performed
the three unsuccessful exorcisms on their home, a statement that

(44:28):
the church wholeheartedly disagrees with. Janet Smirle believed the reason
the exorcisms were not successful was that the evil would
move from room to room inside the house while the
ritual was being performed, even switching sides of the house
when need be to avoid being expelled.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
That's the damn problem with the duplex.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
I find that explanation to be just laughable. Would there
ever be a successful exorcism if it was that easy,
like on a checkerboard, I'm just gonna move spaces whoopside.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Miss me real close you, miss.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
I wasn't empty room over here. She took a show up.
That explanation is just laughing. Yeah, maybe it would never
be successful. But outside the part of the skeptics problem.
And I agree with this, and this happens with a
lot of the Warrens cases that outside of the family
and the Warrens themselves, there are no outside of observers
to corroborate any of this, just there never is. A

(45:30):
couple of the neighbors did report hearing sounds from when
the house when the Smirls weren't there. That was legit. Yeah,
I'll say what I think at the end skeptics. Skeptics
also point to a brain surgery that Jack Smirrell had
in nineteen eighty three, and they believe this could be
well be a reason for his hallucinations, you know, visions

(45:51):
he was judgment though uh no he wasn't, but that
is one of the possible explanations. Later residents of the
Smirle home at three twenty eight Chase Street have reported
no paranormal activity. So they left this house almost forty
years ago, thirty thirty eight years ago, and there's been
not a single report of report of anything since then.

(46:13):
But if the evil followed them, the Smirls, you know,
I would stay to reason. I guess the evil can't
be in two places at once the same evil. I
guess I don't know or can. Yeah, today, John, Mary,
and Jack Smurle have all passed, So Jack's parents and
Jack himself are gone. Janet and her now adult daughters

(46:35):
daughters all still live in the same general area. Daughter
Karen Smirle even works as a part time paranormal investigator today. Huh,
so that's it. That is last, writes the conjuring part
for the Haunting of the Smurle family.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
First off, before we discuss it, great job. We haven't
had a good haunting in a long time. Yeah, and
I like doing the hauntings. I did too when we
first started this show. I thought we're just gonna do
a haunting every week. There's not that many great hauntings
to do.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
It's hard to find a good one. A lot of
them are so laughable from the get go that you
just don't do them. You're like me, I'm sure you've
looked into something. You're like, that is just stupid. I'm
not covering that. It's not a case.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
It's funny growing up in a haunted house. You still
have a really hard time believe in some of these stories,
and sometimes you're like, yeah, maybe I'll just do the
story anyways, even if I believe it or not, because
we discuss it at the end what we think anyways.
But a good haunting is really hard to find.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
So I'll be honest. I have looked into this once sporadically.
I was familiar with the smirl Haunting. I haven't done
a big deep dive into it. And you know, before
studying this one, I was skeptical on it, mostly because
the Warrens were evolved. But as I started researching this one,
I'm not convinced. But I thought the Smirll Haunting was

(47:48):
a flat out fraud before I investigated. I would now
put it at a five on a one to ten.
The Warren's involvement doesn't make it not legit, you know.
I mean, the war the haunting had been going on
for eleven years before the Warrens ever got involved, so
they can't make the haunting not legit im and that
I'm not sold on it, but I don't. I'm not
convinced it's a fraud.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
That's the one thing we know about the Warrens. It
doesn't matter if the story's true or not. If something
was big and hitting the news, the Warrens were going
to show up.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
They were going to show up, and they were going
to make it bigger than it already was. They were
going to kill any credibility. It was going to go
from a haunting to a demon. And there was sure
a shit a book coming out, guaranteedable every time.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
So but I mean a lot of people believe the
Warrens and they believe that they were legit, and that's
not where me and Ryan stay. The Warrens.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Oh, I think the Warrens were all to make money.
They always were. Uh, they were all to exploit. And
I think that's what a lot of people think. The
Warrens were all to exploit. A big story, brought big press.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
And they showed up ed was there for every one
of them? I can't.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
I can't think of a single incident with the warren
showed up on a big story and said there's nothing here,
never never ever.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
And it's always a demon, just like you said. My
feeling on this one. I reached search this one. I
think I even started writing this one, and I'm glad
that I didn't do it, because you did way more
justice for it than I would have. But when I
read it, I thought, when you first started everything you said,
that's the great stuff for the haunting stuff. The stains

(49:15):
never do anything for me. But when the stuff starts
moving around and you're seeing stuff in the corners and stuff,
that's the haunting shit that really happens. But whenever they
get involved, it's always all of a sudden, it's a
fucking demon. So honestly, my thoughts this was probably a
legitimate haunted house because it's this isn't a story that
just popped up like the Amityville all of a sudden.

(49:38):
You know, there was murders there, but yea, all of
a sudden, the house is crazy goddamn haunted and it
wasn't before. And you know, but this was twelve years
but maybe more than that.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, they moved into seventy three the warrants.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
And six thirteen years. So I think it was probably
a legitimate haunting. I don't think there's any demons involved
or anything like that. I think it was probably just
your regular old haunting. And then when the a couple
of publicity and the warrants showed up.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
The thing I don't get. You know, I'm not there.
Every everybody's story is different, but the financials aren't an
excuse for me. You got four kids in the house.
If your house is really that terrifying that haunt, to
get the fuck out of there, come up with a reason.
Way you find a way. If you legit got raped
on the coach by a succubist, your wife is getting
raped in the bedroom, I think you'd flee the house
at all costs. Just yep, that's not saying it isn't true.

(50:32):
I just don't understand that. I know, I just I'd
find a way to get out.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
I think, I don't know. Maybe if you're in the
house for that long period, not the not with the
succubis and incubus stuffed, I think that's the ship that
came up with edon rain. I don't think that is
about all. So that all happened after the fact. I
think before that they stayed in the house because it
was probably just a regular haunting. And I've lived in
a haunted house. It's it will scare you, but it's

(50:58):
not enough to drive you out. Yeah, you know you've
been and you were in the house that we grew
up in. It was spooky, but it wasn't like terrifying
and the stuff that happened, wasn't you know? There's some
things that were really scary, but in general it wasn't
you know so and stuff might not happen for years
at a time, So I don't know. I on the

(51:19):
legitimacy of this being a haunted house, I'll put it
at like a six or seven. Legitimacy of the warrants,
I'm gonna drop it down to like a one or two.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Wars get involved now, yeap?

Speaker 1 (51:28):
So legitimate Honting house? Yeah, probably so, namen doubt it.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Guys, let us know what you think. Hit us up
on our socials and be on the Shadow.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Beyond the Shadows two o seven at gmail dot com
is our email.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Spotify you can comments onto the episode.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Yeah, we do a lot of comments. We get a
lot of stuff on Spotify. If you guys want to
chat with us about anything, you can comment over there
or email us any of our socials. We haven't been
super active on our socials lately. We need I need
to step that up. But uh, you guys can get
in touch with us any any which way.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Always like hearing what you guys think.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yeah for real, So maybe we should do a quiz
on this one.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
We'll do it. Yeah, we'll do a poll. We'll think,
we'll think it through. We haven't decided you have a
pole on this week's episode. Guys. Uh, just let us
know what you think.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
All right, guys, we're gonna head over to the firepit.
We will catch you over there.

Speaker 5 (52:18):
I guess you know what's homit is.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
You can't try to have fire pit all right, guys,
Before we start, I uh want to put the call
out there for some firepit stories from you. Guys. If
you have a story, it doesn't have to be paranormal,
but it certainly can be anything you talk about with

(52:42):
your friends around the firepit. Send them to be on
the Shadows two o seven at gmail dot com or
any of our socials and get your story read online.
Wait on, live on, get your firepit toll. I can't
even do a fire pit anymore. That Yeah, I know,
I'm super school all right. This one comes to us

(53:04):
from Jesse.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
Hello Shadow Family.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
My name is Jesse.

Speaker 5 (53:18):
I am thirty five years old. I live in Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona.
Hate it here. So I've been listening to your podcast
for a while now. I binged every episode. I recently
broke my classical and kind of was just healing. I

(53:41):
should have been listening to it then to what I
kind of took a break for a couple of weeks.
But I've been mean to put in these stories. I
have a lot of them, and some of them, you
guys are gonna I can already tell from what you've
found crazy in the past, this is going to blow
your mind. The first story I'll start off with as

(54:01):
just a simple ones and paranormal story. The folklore behind
it actually is Scandinavian, so I'll just tell the story.
My dad we lived in this house in Gilbert. I
grew up in Gilbert, Arizona, and I remember being at

(54:23):
home and talking with my dad and following him through
the house to the garage where he liked to tinker
around in his workshop out there. I didn't actually go
outside with him, so I was talking, following him and
talking with him through the house. And then when he

(54:45):
opened the door and closed it and went out, or
went outside and closed the door, I stayed inside and
I proceeded to go back through the house to the kitchen.
Now in this house, the kitchen or the master bedroom
is right next to the kitchen. The door anyway, as
I walked to through the house back to the kitchen.

(55:08):
My numes is a decent sized house. My dad all
of a sudden appears opening like he opens the he
comes out of the bedroom, the master bedroom, and I
am stunned. I was like, how the hell did you
get here? I just followed you outside For a long time.

(55:33):
I couldn't explain this. There's no possible way he could have,
like he would have had had teleportation abilities to be
able to get back to that room. And I know,
like I followed him. I heard his voice, you know,
I could even hear his footsteps, like everything about it
was one percent real and there before me. One of

(55:58):
these days, because I like all this fascinating supernatural stuff,
I was reading a book and I came across this
Scandinavian folklore about a precursor spirit called a var doker.
I think that's how you pronounce it v a r

(56:19):
d o g e r. So basically, it's a spirit
of yourself. It's like your spirit that that comes and
arrives before the actual arrival of the person themselves. So
I believe that I was following because my dad, after

(56:44):
coming out of the bedroom and me being stunned and
asking him and questioning him, and he was, you know,
a no nonsense kind of guy, so he was all
hissed off that I was asking him so many questions.
He went to the garage, he he he. So it's
like he went there twice. So I believe that I

(57:04):
was following a Vardoger originally, and then I came back
and saw my actual dad open up the door. It
was crazy. I don't understand it, and like when you
experience weird things like that, I mean, it wasn't it
wasn't sinister in nature. It didn't have any kind of

(57:25):
energy that I could feel. I just felt like I
was following my dad. It was there was no no
sense of danger, no negative energy. I just can't explain it.
But that's my first story.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
We're going to stop it on the first story. We're
going to save his other stories.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Thank you very much, Jesse for that story. And sorry,
but you're clavigal.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah that so there's so many different things that come
up when he says that.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
So while we were listening to the story, the first
thing I did was Google. So I wasn't familiar with that.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
I don't know that term at all, I didn't either,
and you're.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Still the story sounded to me like a doppelganger. Yeah,
And the first time I looked it up, as it
immediately says from the get go, not a dopelganger. That
not the same thing because it doesn't have the sinister connotations.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Well what I thought, all right, this is what I
thought a doppelganger was. A doppelganger was like, typically it
was your own spirit coming back to warn you or
something that was gonna happen. Like a dude was riding
along in his horse and buggy or whatever, and he
looks ahead and he sees himself, but he's waving himself
back like no, don't come, and then like a tree

(58:43):
falls in the spot where he would have been. That's
what I always remember a doppelganger being. And that's a
German term.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Yes, it is the vedozier, assuming both me and Jessea
pronouncing that right, is the spirit or precursor that precedes
a person's actual arrival. Just like what he said, Yeah,
so nothing negative about it, nothing sinister, as I think
a double ganger does have sinister knity. I don't have

(59:12):
that open we all we've all heard the term. I
would have to look it up on a separate thread.
I mean, and again, you could probably talk to one
hundred people and they're all gonna have different versions. But
I think a double ganger definitely has sinister aspects to it. Yeah,
apparently this does not. It's a great story.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Yeah, it is a great story. And the other thing
I can think of is like a mimic. That's something
you see it come up on social media a lot. Yeah,
a mimic is something that will impersonate somebody else or whatever.
But I mean, this wasn't trying to do anything or
anything like that. Actually annoyed by the fact, you know.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
It's almost like a shadow that precedes the person rather
than follow mind.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
And then yeah, absolutely, So that's a super interesting story.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
So obviously you could hear by the way you told it.
Esse has multiple stories, and we're going to get to those.
We just kind of want to.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
We we always we have to rash, Yeah, we do,
and we mix them up to We're not going to
pay your two stories in a row or anything like that.
So there's a few other people wait and have their
stories read. And if your story hasn't been read, and
you send it to us just hold out and if
it's been a long time, send me a message because
it might have been shuffled off somewhere and I want
to make sure that I get to it. But great story, Jess.

(01:00:20):
We appreciate you sending it in. I hope you guys
liked this episode and we will catch you in the
next one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Better guess