Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown (34 page)

A&E was also going to be sponsoring UNIV-CON that year, which was fantastic. They’d even agreed to screen an episode of
Paranormal State
there. After that, via satellite hookup, I spoke with about thirty A&E advertising departments across the country. I was shocked, excited, overwhelmed, astonished, and about a dozen other adjectives.

And of course, after all that wait, wait, wait, everything had to happen right away. We’d have to have six new episodes finished before the premiere, so I’d be available for promotion. But there was even a good side to that. Since we knew the show would debut in December and we only had to shoot six more cases, we didn’t have to rush
too
much.

At the time, I was only renting part of that huge two-story house. Now I rented the downstairs level as well and turned it into an office. Previously, PRS had operated in a club room, a cubicle, and once in an investigator’s basement for a while. In the old townhouse, the office space was next to the washer and dryer. This was the first time we had an official office with its own entrance. We also agreed on the need to have more people examining cases, so I was able to put Eilfie and Serg on salary to help out. It’s not that they weren’t paid for the show, but it wasn’t huge money, and this was a way to compensate them more. We worked four days a week, finding cases, planning the conference.

Meanwhile, there was time to go back and think about our first thirteeen shoots and how to improve things. We all agreed our technology and evidence review needed to be beefed up. We also agreed on a rough structure, the briefing, the client meeting, the psychic walk-though, and so on. The crew would no longer relocate to State College. Since the show would focus on the cases now, they could remain in NYC and travel directly to the investigations.

Another issue we reviewed was the breakneck schedule. Now we planned to prepare a case or two, shoot two back-to-back, take a break to prepare the next two, and so on. It sounded like it would be more like the investigatory process I’d established and enjoyed before the show started.

With the improvements, the promotional efforts, and the upcoming premiere date, I went back into production for season 1.5 in September 2007, all jazzed up and raring to go.

P
ARANORMAL
B
ILLBOARDS

Among the exciting things A&E used to promote
Paranormal State
was a billboard using an innovative Digital Audio Technology (DAT) that could direct sound at people’s heads, making it seem as if someone who wasn’t there was whispering in their ear.

The new technology, first used in England, transmitted low frequency sound waves that made the human skull act as a sort of speaker. People in range of the transmitter would hear an unnerving woman’s whispering voice saying, “It’s not your imagination.”

This amazing promotional device was installed in SoHo in New York City and quickly caught the attention of national and international press, including the
New York Times
, National Public Radio and newspapers as far off as Asia.

On Sunset Boulevard in LA another great billboard, this one 3-D, was installed. It featured a slowly emerging screaming face reminiscent of Munch’s
The Scream.

Chapter 17
We Find Something

If you want to go in you’re welcome to, but I think I’ll stay on the porch.

Our first shoot for season 1.5, which would become “Pet Cemetery,” was an amazing case where a lot of crazy stuff happened. It was so intense and in-the-moment there were times I felt like I was living in a Stephen King novel.

The client fell into our laps. We were looking at a different haunting in Maine. A couple said they’d found blood in their home, where apparently some dark things had happened, including a murder. The producers scouted it and at first I was interested, but the stories didn’t add up. The blood turned out to be paint. The woman was also on several medications. In the end we decided against it. What I think is interesting, and that the audience doesn’t get to see, are all the cases we turn away or look into but don’t work out. Sometimes I think it’d be fun to show that process.

But while in Maine, the producers also met Sybil Howe, a divorced nurse who’d been driven out of her house by paranormal activity. Her dog seemed to sense a presence, too. Two other dogs had been run over near the house. It sounded like a creepy location—a remote house—but I wasn’t sold. The story seemed to be mostly about dead dogs, which was sad, but not intriguing. When I learned that Sybil had also been in touch with Lorraine Warren, I took a closer look and learned there were rumors of strange rituals taking place on the property. That caught my interest. After speaking to Sybil, I was hooked.

She described a latch on her door popping open for no reason. While showering, she felt as if something was watching her, and then she heard what sounded like a hand slamming into the wall next to the shower.

She seemed legit. She didn’t just say, “Oh, my dog is growling at something invisible.” The pieces of each experience were there. “I’d wake up, feel a presence, see my dog, Lucy, staring at something. Then she’d start growling.” So we went for it.

The episode was shot during school, and, unlike our previous efforts, during the week. We found the Parsons Memorial Library near Sybil’s, and shot the briefings for this case and the next there. It was senior year for Heather and Katrina, a busy time, so Heather wasn’t there for this episode. In the next episode, Heather would be there, but not Katrina. With a number of shows under our belt, we felt more confident. It wasn’t as big a deal as when Serg wanted to study while we were trying to shoot “Freshman Fear.” Serg and Josh had both graduated by this point.

As I explained at the briefing, animals are very sensitive to their surroundings—able to sense earthquakes and tornadoes before they happen. They’re also traditionally thought of as able to detect spirits. This seemed extreme, though. Lucy, Sybil’s black Labrador, even refused to go up to the second floor.

At this point Sybil wouldn’t enter the house at all, so she and Lucy met us in town. She was a little more open to the paranormal than the average person. She had brought in a psychic before we’d been there. Here, though, the psychic wound up picking up things our own experiences later confirmed.

It’s not mentioned in the episode, but Sybil also had experiences before living in the house. Apparently she’d known someone who’d gotten into some dark, questionable practices and talked about using blood and animal parts as offerings, something in which Sybil hadn’t been involved. This person was gone, but as the case developed, I thought there might be a connection between that relationship and this activity. After “The Devil in Syracuse,” the possibility of demonic involvement no longer rattled me or my team quite the same way.

At the house, things started the first day she moved in. At night, she heard footsteps overhead. Over time, she said there were bells ringing, lights going on and off, and a gross fecal odor following her around. Meanwhile, she said that Lucy was constantly begging Sybil not to leave her alone. The dog was particularly uneasy if Sybil, or anyone else, went up to the second floor. At one point Lucy developed a limp, as if something in the house had hurt her.

One night, Sybil said she found herself mysteriously locked in the bathroom. She was able to get out, but that was enough for her. When she bought this place, she hadn’t sold her first house yet, so she moved back to her old home. Now she didn’t want to sell the house because she felt it unfair to pass the problem on to someone else.

When we arrived, she hadn’t been at the property for a while. I tell you that place was creepy. It was in the middle of nowhere. The closest neighbor was a quarter mile or more away. If you screamed loud enough
maybe
someone would hear you.

“If you want to go in you’re welcome to, but I think I’ll stay on the porch,” Sybil said.

So, in I went. I’m not the type who typically senses things. In “Beer, Wine & Spirits,” for instance, I didn’t feel the same creepiness others did. Here, the moment I walked in, the whole place felt dark. There was definitely heaviness in the air.

Among the activity, Sybil mentioned a ringing bell. As I first toured the house alone, amazingly, I heard it. It sounded like a toy or something musical.

I was thinking, “Wow.”

In trying to pinpoint it, though, I eventually figured out it was the refrigerator. Once I unplugged the fridge, the sound stopped. That turned out to be one of the few mysteries here that was actually solved.

From the state of things, it was obvious Sybil had left in a hurry. There were half-unpacked boxes and plastic bins all over, so she hadn’t even completely moved in. Remodeling had begun on the second floor, where she planned to put her bedroom, but it was never finished. I searched for evidence of an animal infestation that could explain the strange sounds and smells—and caused the dog’s reaction—but I didn’t see anything.

Next I tried to coax Lucy in. She wouldn’t go past the threshold of the front door. The moment I started up the stairs to the second floor, Lucy barked and kept barking. You can see this in the episode; the sequence is completely in real time. I hit the stairs and the dog becomes upset. Lucy would not go in.

Dark as the property and the house felt to me, the feeling definitely intensified on the second floor. It was different, as if at any moment something would jump out at me.

Something else that didn’t make it into the episode was the fact that we’d brought Xander, my own dog, with us. Given Lucy’s reactions, I wanted to bring him into the house to see what he did. Once we took our first look at the place, everyone tried to talk me out of it, including the producers. At the time we didn’t even know
how many
dogs had died here.

It may seem callous that I wanted to take my pet in, but I knew in my heart Xander wouldn’t be hurt. I’d stay with him, and I wouldn’t let him run around unattended. Serg, who co-owns Xander, was open to trying it, but he felt everyone else had a good point. Why take the chance? So we decided against it.

That created the issue of what to do with Xander. I couldn’t just keep him locked in a car, so I had to find a kennel, which led to an interesting turn. The kennel we found was run by a dog whisperer. This isn’t a psychic. It’s someone who’s studied dog psychology well enough to communicate with canines in ways they understand. This connection provided an opportunity for the case, which I discuss toward the end of the chapter.

Meanwhile, Eilfie did some great work researching the property’s history. She managed to come up with a list of all the previous owners going back to 1893. There were at least a dozen. I don’t necessarily attribute the large number of owners to the paranormal. In cases where there really does seem to be something going on, it’s particularly important to explain whatever aspects are explainable, to leave a clearer picture of what, exactly, is unknown.

A more “natural” explanation for the number of owners is the home’s remote location and size. It was a starter home, inexpensive and small enough for a single person, or, at most, a couple with one child. There were also those who’d buy the house to stay in over weekends. Could other reasons have caused people to move out? Sure. But the turnover wasn’t surprising.

The most recent owners, Sybil told us previously, were her son and daughter-in-law, Melanie, and their daughter, Coley. They’d owned the two dogs we knew of that had died.

Katrina interviewed Melanie. She hadn’t really noticed anything off at the house until their first dog, Zeus, got out and was hit by a car. About a month later they’d bought a second dog, Bailey. In short order Bailey also got out and was hit -and killed.

This was genuinely odd. The house was in the middle of nowhere. We spent a lot of time there, and a car came by maybe only once every half hour. There was no blind spot, so when a car did drive by, you’d be able to see it coming a good distance away.

After the death of the second dog, their toddler, Coley, developed an invisible friend she’d named Deppy Zoe. Invisible playmates at that age are common, more likely the result of an active imagination than a child seeing spirits, but naturally Katrina asked Coley about Deppy Zoe.