Take this link for the PDF of the new Bizarre Bazaar Catalog #51.
Take this link for the PDF of the new Bizarre Bazaar Catalog #51.
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Beware Of Ghosts And Hobgoblins That Do More Than Go Bump in the Night!
By Sean Casteel
Some spirit entities are more dangerous than others, according to a new book from Timothy Green Beckley’s publishing house Global Communications. The book is called “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts – Uncovering the Truth About Terrifying Homicidal Poltergeists.” Beckley kindly warns potential readers that the book is not for the faint of heart.
In his introductory chapter, Beckley lays out the book’s theme:
“Most of us think of ghosts as frightening entities,” he begins, “but I’m really not sure why. I mean, the majority of ghostly entities and spirits are like will-o-the-wisps. They may drift out of the cobwebs of your attic or a damp cellar corner, but, for the most part, they don’t really do anything dramatic or harmful – except perhaps throw a chair in the air, or shake a bed till it rocks, or step heavily on the floorboards in your house alerting you to their presence. Now I’ve seen doors open and close by themselves, lights go on and off and dishes drop to the floor without breaking. But after watching hours upon hours of your favorite ghost hunters’ show, I really can’t get as excited as I was at age four when I thought I saw a full body apparition in my room surrounded by a brilliant aura.
“TV and the movies portray ghosts and the esoteric in general in a more aggressive light,” Beckley continues. “You have ‘Ghostbusters’ with its slime and ‘The Exorcist’s’ star Linda Blair spitting pea soup and defaming her mother with a reference to oral sex and what she can do while in hell. Nothing like a good nail biting horror story like ‘Pet Semetary’ to prompt us to hide under the covers and leave on the night light next to the bed. It doesn’t matter in these instances if we are five or fifty, a good scare is a good scare!”
But what about fearsome ghosts away from the fictionalized world of horror movies?
“Good scares in real life,” Beckley writes, “as far as ghosts go, are pretty much a rarity, except for those occasional cases which are guaranteed to make you wet your pants and scare the bejesus out of you. For purposes of this work we naturally decided not to include your average, mundane ghost story. What we are concerned with at the moment are incidents which can be categorized as the most diabolic of poltergeist experiences, as well as skirmishes with the most gruesome and alarming phantoms you are ever likely to deal with.”
A HORRIFYING RESIDUAL HAUNTING CRIME SCENE
And, true to his word, “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts” delivers on that promise as it recounts some of the most frightening encounters with evil entities in recorded occult lore. As I was researching for my own contribution to the book, I ran across the following story, which can be found online at: https://backpackerverse.com/ghost-serial-killer-story/
The article is headlined “The Ghost of a Serial Killer Lurks Within this Farmhouse.” The author identifies himself as a ghost hunter who normally takes his cue from other paranormal investigators. But this case seemed to fall right into his lap. As he drove along to another location he had been told was haunted, his “spidey senses” alerted him to a rundown farmhouse somewhere in California.
“When I stopped in front of the property,” the unnamed writer writes, “I could almost hear screams and growls in my head. Strangely enough, there were no signs blocking the entrance to the property, so I grabbed my equipment and went in. I found it odd that the majority of the trees and plants surrounding the old house were either dead or dying.”
The house itself was decaying from the inside out. There were boards nailed across the door, which the ghost hunter said were flimsy and easy to tear down.
“The door opened on its own,” he writes. “Creepy enough. But I had to remember that the dangers were more than structural. The familiar pricking up of my hairs and the chills hit me fast.”
When he walked into the kitchen what he saw made him freeze in his tracks.
“A woman was slumped on the floor under the sink,” he recounts, “with a large knife in her chest and trickling blood. I was able to see through her and I realized I was in the middle of a residual haunting, but then she looked up. The pain in her face was horrible, but she managed to raise her hand and point upwards. Then she screamed. I looked up, but no one was there, so I turned back as I trembled in fear to see the woman standing up.
“Still screaming,” he continues, “she pointed up again. Her head began to twitch and shake uncontrollably with her mouth wide open. I knew that I had to investigate, even though I was nearly peeing in my pants, so I went out and ran up the stairs.”
He arrived at the upstairs bedroom at the front of the crumbling house.
“Again, the door opened on its own, making my flesh crawl. Then I saw a small boy lying in a pool of his own blood. I couldn’t help the tears falling down my face, but I was distracted by a nasty growl close to my right ear. Angry now, I turned around and yelled, ‘Who are you?’ but I didn’t get a response. Then the boy sat up and yelled in his tiny voice, ‘Help us!’”
In another bedroom, the door opened violently this time, smashing against the wall while the handle rattled. A teenage girl was flung across the old bed, with slashes all over her body.
“A river of blood ran under the bed. Then I heard menacing laughter in the distance, which fueled my anger. The girl slowly sat up and pointed to the left. Her pretty face was littered with gashes and bruises. I was weeping angry tears for this ghostly family, who had obviously been viciously attacked by a sadistic killer. I could still hear the screams from the mother and the little boy, along with the gurgling from the girl on the bed. It was clear that she had her throat slashed but she was trying to speak as she pointed to the back of the house. The gurgling, crying and screaming went on as I crept down the landing to the room at the back, shivering in fear.”
The writer expected to face the killer responsible, but instead saw a grown man in a chair with an axe deep in his head. There was a pool of blood under the chair. It was the father, who also couldn’t speak but slowly lifted his hand and began to point.
“A chill swept through my soul as I realized that his finger was pointing directly at me. Was I the killer? As I thought that, the father pointed more emphatically and the screams and noises from his family increased. While I stood there dumbstruck, wondering what he meant, I felt a blast of evil hit my back, freezing my body. Then a putrid stench wafted over me and the father continued to point anxiously – to the space behind me.”
The ghost hunter turned around, coming face to face with the most evil entity he had ever encountered.
“Now I was only centimeters away from a murderous monster who had slaughtered an innocent family in cold blood. He looked like a big gorilla of a man who had escaped an insane asylum, with huge black eyes and an awful sneer.”
The writer remembered a mini-Bible on his keychain, a gift from his late mother. He shoved the tiny Bible in the killer’s ghostly face and yelled, “Leave them alone! Go to hell, where you belong!” The monster screamed like a demon splashed with holy water, then disappeared.
“I turned around, and the father was gone. When I raced through the house, I saw that the whole family was gone. The house was now empty but free from evil.”
BATTLE AT THE CEMETERY
You can usually count on psychic and counselor Maria D’Andrea to provide upbeat, positive insight on a variety of occult matters. But even Maria has had her life touched by an evil ghostly presence or two, as the following story from her contribution to “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts” demonstrates. What starts as an etheric sword fight between ghostly combatants crosses over into physical reality – with terrifying results.
This is how Maria tells the story: “One cold and dreary night, I was doing some spiritual blessings at a cemetery at the request of a client to help his recently passed away relative through the transition from one reality to the next. As I walked through the grounds looking for the gravestone, I thought I heard a strange sound. As I tried to listen more, I realized it sounded like arguing, but in a language I didn’t know. I ignored it, thinking it had nothing to do with me, and kept walking in search of the gravestone.
“I found the spot I was looking for, did the blessing and started back to my car.
“Soon, it sounded like the arguing was closer, then it sounded far away, then again closer, like they were moving around everywhere in the cemetery. I was still thinking it didn’t concern me. But I became curious as to what was going on, so I started to walk toward the sounds. Yes, I knew it wasn’t my smartest move.
“As I headed in the direction of the sounds, I heard what sounded like metal hitting metal. I rounded a bend and there were two etheric soldiers fighting. There were swords clashing and making a terrible clanking sound. One was a confederate soldier and the other a union soldier. Apparently they didn’t know the War Between the States was over.
“They seemed out of control, vengeful as though they were in a whirlwind and couldn’t stop. I heard a few words, although not the whole sentence, and I wasn’t paying attention to their meaning. They said the following words: ambush, conscript and a few more, but those are the ones I remember. After all, I was more focused on the deadly fight.
“They were both covered in blood; some blood looked dark, with an eerie glow, while some looked like the blood was dripping off various body parts. It looked gruesome. As I stood there transfixed, at a distance, all of a sudden they both turned their heads and looked at me. First I thought they were looking at something else. Why would they notice and see me?
“They both started running toward me waving their swords. Initially I thought that, since they were spirit and non-physical, that they wouldn’t harm me. I was wrong.
“As they ran toward me, one of them threw his sword toward me, and I heard it as it splintered part of the tree near me. So it could harm me physically. It didn’t occur to me previously that anyone would throw a sword.
“I turned and ran toward my car. I know when to retreat. I kept thinking as I headed toward the parking lot, “I hope they don’t realize they’re spirit because they would be able to gain quicker ground not being limited by physical laws.” I didn’t even look back, since I still heard them yelling and they sounded like they were getting nearer.
“I heard the second sword hit a stone near me, but by then I was at my car. It seems they were attached to the cemetery because they didn’t follow when I got to the parking lot.
“Some days it doesn’t pay to be curious. Hopefully nobody else will see them, because, if you don’t see them, they might not be aware of you either.”
THE DEPRESSING MONSTROUS PRESENCE
Another contribution to the new book comes from researcher and author Adele Casales Rosa, whose book “Portal: A Lifetime of Paranormal Experiences” details numerous encounters with the unknown, her own as well as those of others. In a chapter called “The Horror of Baguio,” Rosa recounts the story of a young Filipino husband and father named Ernest who is crippled with depression because of a monstrous presence not everyone around him could perceive.
“The creature’s continued presence almost every twilight,” Rosa writes, “consumed Ernest’s waking hours. His apprehensions of being ‘taken’ by the creature, body and soul, started to show in his poetry. His poems, which were an outlet for his internal turmoil, turned even darker, drearier and more foreboding. His siblings, who read his opus, became concerned and from concern, became alarmed when he wrote one poem which began as ‘The bird that flies is false.’ Themes of death became prominent.”
The creature tormenting the young poet was described like this: “Embracing the window, with a wingspan of more than 6 feet from tip to tip, was a bat taller than a man. Its leathery wings ended in a talon-like grasp at the edges of the window. Its yellow eyes were like a cow’s, the semblance of horns protruded from its black head and it had a goatee at the end of its pointed chin. The face of a goat with the eyes of a cow – and a leathery body framed by the wings of a bat.”
It is an eerie thing to contemplate, that such a creature would repeatedly appear and yet never leave any physical traces behind, such as animal tracks or bat droppings. In spite of its physical nature, its effect on the young percipient was decidedly psychological and emotional, as was its impact on his family. To learn the story’s tragic end, read “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts,” and prepare yourself for a tale as sorrowful as it is strange.
CULTS THAT KILL
Scott Corrales, a most prolific writer and translator of Hispanic UFO and paranormal articles and books, has become a frequent contributor to Global Communications books. For this particular volume, Scott provides a survey of cult-related murders and satanic secret societies. The following is excerpted from his chapter in “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts.”
“It came as a surprise to readers of Chile’s ‘La Tercera’ newspaper that the nation’s Chamber of Deputies (similar to the U.S. House of Representatives) had held hearings in relation to the existence of eighty active satanic groups in their country – 40 of them classified as ‘dangerous clandestine groups.’ The cults are allegedly involved in such ghastly acts as consuming human flesh, necrophilia and self-mutilation.
“According to sociologist and cult researcher Humberto Lagos, satanic groups were proliferating throughout Chile since the year 2000. The groups are never large – size not being a consideration, rather, the amount of damage they can cause being the major factor – and are formed by young males (30 and younger) who cut off one of their fingers as a sign of belonging to the cult. Lagos, the government’s main consultant on the matter, added that lonely, elevated areas such as La Piramide are frequented by these cultists for their weekly rituals. A cross-section of the cult members would reveal disaffected youth who blame society for their ills and – in a Catholic country – rebel against one of the most visible societal symbols.
“Police officers report that these places are often marked by a hexagon with the number ‘666’ and fenced with inverted crosses. The cultists drink alcohol and take drugs prior to engaging in sexual rituals. However, the Vitacura sheriff’s department, which is in charge of the La Piramide sector, has not recorded any reports from local residents regarding strange rituals or situations in the area.
“It is believed that three hundred such groups exist throughout Chile, acting in small cells, much like terrorist outfits. Many of them are not satanic, but rather practitioners of Santería or other Afro-Caribbean religions, which have gained considerable followings in South America.
“The Chamber of Deputies’ committee on cults was empaneled as a result of charges of white slavery leveled against the ‘Center for Tibetan Studies’ in the city of Viña del Mar. The new anti-cult legislation would follow the European model, which makes ‘manipulation of conscience’ and any form of mental manipulation or obfuscation a crime
“None of this, according to the information in La Tercera, compares with the most violent case recorded: the 1994 incident involving a Satanic/neo-Nazi cult engaging in child abductions in order to torture them and subject them to all manner of sexual outrages. The cult celebrated its rituals at night in the vicinity of the sports club of the town of Sausalito.
“The Chilean newspaper does not go on to state if there was any link between the cultists and the members of the upper class athletic club. While such a connection may at first seem startling, it has been seen elsewhere, as in the case involving a group of Mexican Satanists who carried out their rituals in Chapultepec Park, not far from the elite Restaurante del Lago eatery. Another case involving upper middle class practitioners of ritual magic appeared in Spain’s El Pais newspaper on March 23, 1999, when it was reported that members of the Fraternidad Blanca Universal (Universal White Fraternity) had performed a ritual designed ‘to enhance both pleasure and longevity’ in the coastal resort town of L’Alfás del Pi which resulted in the death of Natalie Castleford, 38, a Belgian national. According to the press, the cultists placed a blanket over Castleford’s body and several people proceeded to sit on her in order to interrupt her breathing process – a method which, according to the cult’s beliefs, causes intense pleasure, extends natural life span and purifies the body.
“At this point it must be added that police officials in these countries, while at first baffled by the nature of the crime, tend to react swiftly and usually ‘get their man’ after diligent detective work, often resorting to infiltrating the cults. In October 2002, Spain’s El Mundo newspaper carried a story on how Italian law enforcement had successfully broken up the Angels of Sodom, a satanic cult in the city of Pescara in eastern Italy, led by a 32-year-old reverend known as Jan Ash. This cult leader had allegedly belonged to a number of U.S. cults, but decided to establish his own seven years ago because of his interest in ‘vampiric practices,’ according to the newspaper.
“The police apprehended ‘Reverend Ash’ and three associates during the Pescara raid, and confirmed fourteen cases of abuse to minors, adding that ‘the total list may number in the hundreds, since the cult had been operating clandestinely for seven years and reputedly had a considerable number of customers.’”
A VENGEFUL GHOST IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY?
Global Communications’ great scholar of Greek mythology, writer and podcast personality Hercules Invictus, adds some material of historical interest on the nature of the gods and spirits we encounter in the land of dreams, a realm that is a reality unto itself and occupied by dark powers we cannot begin to comprehend.
Hercules also tells the story of a Grecian entity called The Moor, who could possibly be a daemon or a vengeful ghost. In any case, The Moor is a fearsome creature to encounter and a fascinating example of how the mythic and paranormal are handed down through the centuries with their fear-inducing qualities still intact.
No one has ever completely explained why we enjoy being terrified. What is that perverse thrill we seek and never get enough of? Why does a case of the chills make us feel satisfied and well-served by scary forms of entertainment, whether entirely fictional or, as in the case of “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts,” a representation of factual stories said to have literally taken place in our “real” and physical world?
If you are this kind of “fear-junkie,” then you are sure to be pleased with “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts,” as well as with other titles in the Global Communications catalog.
But this volume is not just your average, run-of-the-mill, “tales to be told by the campfire,” frightful ghost stories book. Publisher Beckley insists that “So-called poltergeists come in all shapes and sizes and inspire varying degrees of horror. What might be surprising is that poltergeists are NOT necessarily the spirits of the dead nor the overworked, disordered personalities of the living often thought to have become possessed by demonic forces. That which we call a ‘poltergeist’ could just as easily include a wide range of other unearthly phenomena, such as random denizens of the dark moving through time and space and other dimensions, as well as manifestations of cryptids, known collectively as shape-shifters and ‘bedroom invaders,’ and possibly even representatives of numerous alien races.”
The roster of well-heeled paranormal gumshoes who have contributed material to this 300 page tome include Paul Eno, Brad Steiger, Tim R. Swartz, Shawn Robbins, Joshua P. Warren, Butch Witkowski, William Kern, Michele Lowe and Carol Ann Rodriguez, who each approach these powerful phenomena from a variety of angles.
One word sums up the situation quite pointedly – BEWARE!
SUGGESTED READING AND AUDIO/VISUAL
ALIEN BLOOD LUST: ARE THERE VAMPIRES IN SPACE?
THE BELL WITCH PROJECT — POLTERGEISTS, GHOSTS, EXORCISMS AND THE SUPERNATURAL IN EARLY AMERICA
CRYPTID CREATURES FROM DARK DOMAINS – DOGMAN, DEVIL HOUNDS, PHANTOM CANINES AND REAL WEREWOLVES
Visit Our YouTube Channel – Over 400 Videos Now Posted! – “Mr. UFO’s Secret Files”
By Sean Casteel
If there were such a thing as a top ten list of unexplainable phenomena throughout history, Gef would rank right at the top.
Fortean researchers, parapsychologists and skeptics alike would have to admit that they have never encountered such a bizarre but apparently well-documented case that is so completely devoid of hysteria in the timeless annals of the unexplained.
If Gef the talking mongoose is what it is claimed he is, he should certainly turn the heads of the scientific community, who at first glance would probably consider this to be a case of mass hysteria.
There is – as we shall see – every reason to recognize this talking animal as the Eighth Wonder Of The World, a title for which he is wholly deserving, for it is said that Gef, an otherwise unassuming small rodent, could:
** Sing songs.
** Mimic the sounds of other animals.
** Read minds.
** Move objects through the air although he was nowhere near them.
** Chat with visitors from around the world, sometimes using vulgar language.
** Hide himself from curious eyes and become invisible whenever he wanted to.
Whatever the powers that lurk behind the curtain of paranormal mystery truly are, they usually manifest in dark and frightening ways. They are not shy or apologetic about inducing extreme levels of terror in the hapless percipients who encounter them.
But in the case of Gef, the Talking Mongoose, it seems as though the spirits are having a bit of childlike fun, indulging in a whimsical playfulness where no one is really injured or frightened – just perplexed and made curious by a creature who crossed over from the other side and took up residence in the home of a farming family living on the Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland.
Publisher Timothy Green Beckley has done his readers a favor by resurrecting an out-of-print book about Gef that is not only extremely rare but very costly. The book is called “The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap: A Modern ‘Miracle,’” by Harry Price and R.S. Lambert, and was first published in 1936. Original copies sell for up to $1000 nowadays, but Beckley can provide not only the original text but the updated research of present-day writers like Tim R. Swartz and Hercules Invictus for the price of an everyday paperback.
“James Irving and his family found themselves in the crosshairs of a series of increasingly strange events,” Swartz writes, “that would dominate their lives for years to come. James ‘Jim’ Irving, an educated man, had previously been a traveling piano salesman, and although the farm was his retirement project, it was proving insufficient to support his wife, Margaret, and their young daughter, Voirrey. The farm was called Doarlish Cashen – Manx Gaelic for ‘Cashen’s Gap.’ There were no neighbors nearby nor was there a telephone or electricity.”
Beckley’s updated reprint is called, simply enough, “Gef The Talking Mongoose,” and opens with a chapter by longtime paranormal researcher Tim R. Swartz. Swartz provides an excellent overview of the Gef saga and equips the reader with the basic facts as a precursor to the more detailed treatment by Price and Lambert.
GEF INTRODUCES HIMSELF
Gef made his first appearance on September 13, 1931.
“According to Jim Irving,” Swartz writes, “he first saw a small, weasel-like animal in his farmyard that could bark like a dog and meow like a cat. Even more amazing, when Irving made other barnyard animal noises, the little animal would repeat the sounds back immediately. It wasn’t long before the Irvings became aware that this creature had found its way into their home, announcing its presence with random scratches, rustling and general activity between the walls and the matchwood paneling.”
Thinking the sounds were caused by rats or other pests, the family set traps but caught nothing. Jim made a last-ditch attempt by growling like a dog at the invasive vermin, only to hear something growl right back. He then realized it was the animal he’d seen outside.
“Whatever it was,” Swartz recounted, “it proved to be a talented mimic. It would repeat Irving’s imitations of various animals and birds, and soon he had only to name an animal and it would promptly respond with the appropriate sounds. At other times it made a gurgling sound like a baby that soon changed into actual words.”
Voirrey, the family’s young child, was fascinated by the new guest and would ask the creature to repeat nursery rhymes, which it would do in a clear, high-pitched voice. The family called the interloper “Jack,” but he soon told his hosts he preferred to be known as “Gef,” spelled G-E-F. He claimed to have been born in Delhi, India, in 1852, and he was brought to the island twenty years earlier when a farmer had imported mongooses to the area hoping to curb the local rabbit population. Gef said he had always understood human speech, but he learned to speak himself more recently, having been taught by Jim.
As rumors of the strange creature spread throughout the Isle of Man, it was often claimed that Voirrey was fooling everyone by “throwing her voice,” an explanation that Swartz skillfully debunks.
“This is not to say that Voirrey didn’t at times imitate Gef’s voice,” Swartz admits. “In practically every poltergeist case that centers on children, there are instances where the child is seen to throw something or bang on a wall if they think they are not being observed. Voirrey was probably guilty of this when Gef would become stubborn and refuse to make an appearance. But it is unlikely that Voirrey could have managed to keep such a long, drawn out hoax going for as long as the phenomenon lasted.”
Investigators speculated from the beginning that Gef was a haunting of some kind – possibly a poltergeist.
“Gef could produce knocks and raps all over the house practically simultaneously,” Swartz writes. “He was also fond of throwing things at the Irvings and their guests from cracks in the paneling. As well, Gef claimed to be able to travel all over the island and repeat various conversations that he had overheard. He also had a rich vocabulary of swear words and loved to sing songs that were unknown to his hosts. These antics are very similar to poltergeist pranks and even Jim Irving thought at times that Gef was more than just an ‘extra clever mongoose.’”
The case attracted attention from the media. News of the mystery first reached London in October 1931, when an item concerning a “man-weasel” appeared in the press. A newspaper called the Daily Sketch published a photo of the Irving cottage with the caption “The Talking Weasel Farm,” and the Daily Mail and other journals briefly reported strange events at Doarlish Cashen. The northern newspapers took a larger and more sustained interest in the affair because the talking animal was a near neighbor and naturally paid more attention than the London newspapers.
Early in 1932, the Manchester Daily Dispatch sent a reporter to the Irving farm in order to investigate the mystery at its actual location. He was fortunate enough to hear Gef speak.
“The mysterious ‘man-weasel’ of Doarlish Cashen has spoken to me today,” the journalist wrote. “Investigation of the most remarkable animal story that has ever been given publicly – a story which is finding credence all over the island – leaves me in a state of considerable perplexity. Had I heard a weasel speak? I do not know, but I do know that I have heard today a voice which I should never have imagined could issue from a human throat; that the people who claim it was the voice of the strange weasel seem sane, honest and responsible folk and not likely to indulge in a difficult, long, drawn-out and unprofitable practical joke to make themselves the talk of the world; and that others had had the same experience as myself.”
Jim Irving told the reporter the story of how the animal had taken up residence in the family home but denied that the place was haunted.
“There are no spooks here,” Irving declared.
WHO OR WHAT WAS GEF?
The publicity in various media outlets quickly piqued the curiosity of psychic investigators Harry Price and R.S. Lambert, who would team up to write the aforementioned paranormal classic “The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap,” based largely on their own onsite investigation of the Irvings and their mysterious houseguest.
In their introduction, the pair writes: “The following pages are an essay in the Veracious but Unaccountable. Whether looked at from the point of view of psychology, of psychical research, of anthropology or of sociology, this true story of Gef is very odd. We have been moved to set it down in as full a form as possible in order that everyone interested – including, we hope, posterity – may be in a position to form their own judgment about it.
“To believers,” they continue, “it will represent proof of a miracle; to skeptics a lesson in the laws of evidence. Some will call it nonsense from first to last; others will admit it to be at least as good as most ghost stories. Throughout we have sought to avoid mere credulity on the one hand and prejudiced skepticism on the other. There may be readers who will be disappointed that we have at the end no cut-and-dried solution of the mystery to offer, but this only suggests that the facts, as we have honestly tried to set them forth, are susceptible of various explanations.”
The authors comment that although the farm yields little or no produce and that most people would find their lifestyle nearly intolerable, the Irvings are still a “united, cheerful and healthy trio of normally intelligent persons. Nevertheless, into their lives has entered a mystery, perhaps one of the most curious and unaccountable mysteries of our times. Their solitary farm has become the scene of what is alleged to be a supernatural visitation – such a visitation as was common enough three hundred years ago, when the reality of witches and their familiars was acknowledged and feared.”
And what does Gef call himself? He cannot be relied on, the two investigators write, to tell his hosts exactly what he is. At various times he has called himself a mongoose and an “earthbound spirit.” This last description, they write, is a “purely spiritualistic term,” adding that Gef is thought to be afraid of dying, so he cannot be assumed to have made the transition to the world of the dead.
The Irving’s did not see Gef as a frightening creature but more like the family’s pet, one who could feast on biscuits, chocolate and bananas and helped them keep the stoves lit. But to others he was considered a “monstrosity,” a freak of nature, an abomination to God.
Gef himself seemed confused about his identity. He once said he was from another dimension, that he was a spirit, but took that back by intimating, “If I were a spirit, how could I kill rabbits?” When quizzed on why he was so reclusive, Gef said he was not a pleasant sight to behold. That some might be frightened and see him as a “real freak.”
Gef suddenly took to singing and speaking in strange tongues. The authors were told that “the voice is extremely high-pitched, above the human range, with a clear, sweet tone.” He began to sing more and more: songs, hymns and ballads. Some of these the Irvings knew, some were new to them. His singing became almost a nuisance.
ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY?
Though the Gef phenomenon seemed at times to center around Voirrey, she told the authors that she had no great love for him. However, she saw more of the animal than anyone else and was the only one to see all of him. Her parents frequently pleaded for him to show himself fully but were always refused. They sometimes saw a portion of him sitting on a beam or glimpsed something flashing past a gap in the hedge, but that is all. When they asked him to come out in the open, Gef answered them by saying, “I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you’d faint. You’d be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!”
That last remark about a pillar of salt led the researchers to speculate that Gef must have attended Sunday school somewhere. Gef also found enough amusement in his living situation to make the Irvings familiar with the sound of his laughter.
“If laughter indicates happiness,” the two researchers reasoned, “then Gef must be supremely contented in the bosom of the Irving family. He laughs all day. He possesses an extensive repertoire of laughs. To quote Jim’s description, ‘Sometimes it resembles the tittering laugh of a precocious or mischievous child; at other times I would say it was the chuckling laugh of an aged person, and another distinct type is one which I would say was satanic laughter, or the laughter of a maniac. We all have a most intense dislike to this last laughter, as it is very trying. But, fortunately, we do not get this kind very often.’”
TRYING TO EXPRESS THE ULTIMATE TRUTH
Price and Lambert can only offer three possibilities as to ultimate reality of Gef. First, Gef exists and haunts Doarlish Cashen, substantially as the Irvings say he does. Two, that Gef is a product of hallucination and fantasy. Or three, that Gef is a product of conscious deception. Acceptance of the first conclusion rules out the other two, but the second and third conclusion are not exclusive of each other and may be entertained together or separately.
In assessing the reality of Gef, the authors are unwilling to sweep away the many trustworthy outside witnesses who heard Gef and were certain of his independent existence. They take very seriously the findings of people who also visited the farm, such as spiritualists, teachers, hikers, relations and neighbors, and are unwilling to discount their statements.
Given the reality of Gef, the authors speculated that had he been rather more docile and agreeable in his behavior, less elusive in his manifestations, and more pleasing in his personality, he might have become in time the center of a sort of cult. In spite of his deficiencies, he gained a circle of admirers eager to hear his latest doings, ready to pay periodic visits to his shrine, and to bring small gifts to win his good will.
“It is the stuff of which oracles are made,” Price and Lambert write, “and the foundation on which temples are built. Gef rejects spiritistic interpretations of himself, and yet will not or cannot reveal his own identity. He has no message to give out, no real miracles to work. It is certain that ‘doubters’ will abound and that the faithful themselves will be able to do little more than acclaim Gef, with all his wit, malice and tomfoolery, as A VOICE AND NOTHING MORE.”
But what a fascinating voice! Whether it came from a “clever” mongoose or a poltergeist in animal form, reading “Gef The Talking Mongoose” will more than satisfy occultists and students of the supernatural like few other works available today. This priceless reprint of 1936’s “The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap” coupled with the 21st century efforts of Beckley and his pool of writers is a must-have item for both collectors and newcomers to the subject.
Oh, and by the way, there is even an account in the book of a talking stove – yes, I said talking stove – that goes well beyond the boundaries of Gef’s abilities as an animal to speak. The universe gets stranger all the time. Where are John Keel and Charles Fort when you need them the most?
SUGGESTED READING
GEF THE TALKING MONGOOSE – THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
WEIRD WINGED WONDERS: THE TWILIGHT WORLD OF CRYPTID CREATURES
AMERICA’S STRANGE AND SUPERNATURAL HISTORY
YouTube Channel (400 plus interviews posted) – “Mr. UFOs Secret Files”
By Tim R. Swartz
A poltergeist distinguishes itself from traditional ghosts and hauntings. Could a poltergeist be something entirely different?
It can be terrifying enough when a poltergeist makes its appearance in a household. Rocks thrown about, strange bangs on the walls, moving furniture, items disappearing and then reappearing, this is enough to set anyone on edge. However, when a poltergeist finds its voice and starts to talk, you know that events have decidedly taken a turn for the worse.
Poltergeist activity has been recorded throughout history and is probably the most prolific of all supernatural events. One of the earliest accounts was from around 500 C.E. when St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, was bothered by a spirit that battered the walls of a shelter the Bishop was spending the night in with showers of rocks. Another early case was the Bingen poltergeist, which comes from the Annales Fuldenses or Annals of Fulda. This incident happened near Bingen in present-day Bavaria around 856-858 C.E. A farmer was plagued by a stone-throwing ghost who shook the walls of his house “as though the men of the place were striking it with hammers,” set crops on fire and also shouted obscenities and accusations at the farmer suggesting that he had slept with the daughter of his foremen. The poltergeist would follow the man around and fearful neighbors would refuse to allow him near their homes.
The Bishop of Mainz sent priests with holy relics who attested to hearing the poltergeist denouncing the farmer for adultery. When the priests sang hymns and sprinkled holy water, the poltergeist threw stones and cursed at them.
The Bingen poltergeist had many typical features of a poltergeist that are still repeated in modern times. The fact that this poltergeist could talk is something that has been seen in other cases, but nevertheless, it really doesn’t happen that often.
Is A Poltergeist A Ghost?
Poltergeist phenomenon is often placed in the same niche as ghosts and hauntings. The implication is that a poltergeist is a ghost, i.e. a human that has died and returned in spirit form. There is no doubt that there are similarities between ghosts and poltergeist activity. However, a ghostly haunting often tends to have the visual element; for example, a glowing figure dressed in old fashioned clothes is seen walking down a hallway. A haunting also repeats in the same way on a regular basis, much like a recording that is played back over and over. In long-term ghostly hauntings, a ghost will usually ignore entreaties from the living and shows no sign of awareness of its surroundings.
The Demon Drummer of Tedworth, 1662
Poltergeist activity, instead, operates in a completely different fashion. A poltergeist almost never makes an “appearance” and becomes visible, but as with ghostly hauntings, there are always exceptions. A poltergeist can do things such as move heavy furniture, instantaneously teleport objects, produce explosive sounds and disgusting odors, create rain inside a building, cause spontaneous fires and other things that seem to be outside of our current understanding of physics.
A poltergeist is extremely aware of its surroundings, and will often quickly respond to suggestions by observers and other external stimuli. This shows that there is some kind of “intelligence” behind its pranks and not just some random psychokinesis (PK). This intelligence, along with an ability to communicate, will manifest in a myriad of ways. Pieces of paper with strange messages appear; writing on the walls, children’s toys will be arranged to make words, and, perhaps the most shocking, they will sometimes start to speak out loud.
When a poltergeist achieves speech, it generally starts out as animal-like growls and whispers that slowly evolve into discernible words. Most poltergeists never reach this stage of their development, but once they do, a clear “personality” emerges from what were previously just random events.
L’Antidemon de Mascon
One early case of a talking poltergeist happened in Mâcon, France in 1612 when a Calvinist pastor named Francois Perreaud, (or Perrault), became the target of a very unsettling poltergeist. Perreaud’s poltergeist made its first appearance on September 19, 1612 when invisible hands started shaking bed curtains and tossing bed clothes onto the floor. This continued for several nights and then escalated when Perreaud and his family heard “A frightful din in the kitchen consisting of unearthly rumblings and knockings, accompanied by the sounds of plates, pots, and pans being hurled against the walls.” Perreaud rushed to the kitchen, expecting to find his kitchen destroyed, but was shocked to find that everything was normal and the kitchenware was in its place.
Title page of “L’Antidemon de Mascon” by the Calvinist pastor Francois Perreaud, detailing his experiences with a talking poltergeist.
Eventually a voice that was “very distinct and understandable, although somewhat husky” was heard in the house. It sang, “Twenty-two pennies, twenty-two pennies,” then repeated the word, “Minister” several times. Perreaud said to the voice, “Get thee behind me, Satan, the Lord commands you.”
The voice kept saying “Minister, minister,” until the exasperated Perreaud snapped, “Yes, I am indeed a minister and a servant of the living God before whose majesty you tremble.”
“I am not saying otherwise,” the voice replied.
Once the poltergeist began speaking, it would not stop. It recited the Ten Commandments, followed by the Our Father, the Apostles’ Creed, and other prayers. It also sang Psalms and recited accurate personal details about Perreaud’s family. The voice claimed that it was from the Pays de Vaud, which was at that time infamous for its witch hunts.
The voice told wild stories, made inappropriate jokes and often acted like a child and teased the maid. It was also able to expertly mimic the voices of various Mâcon residents. It also took on several different identities. At one time the voice claimed to be the valet of the original entity, who had left the house and was now in Chambery.
On November 25, the voice announced that it would no longer speak, but its antics in the form of throwing stones, tying knots in the mane and tail of Perreaud’s horse, and other typical poltergeist stunts, continued through until December when it finally disappeared forever.
Different Personalities, Different Voices
The Bell homestead. From Authenticated History of the Bell Witch, M.V. Ingram, 1894.
The Bell Witch poltergeist in 1817 was very similar to the Mâcon poltergeist due to the fact that “the witch” was extremely talkative and could imitate the voices of people from the area. The poltergeist was said to speak at a nerve-racking pitch when displeased, while at other times it sang and talked in low musical tones. In one instance, it was alleged to have repeated, verbatim, sermons administered by two preachers, occurring at separate locations, that took place simultaneously. The sermons recited by the witch were verified by people attending the churches as being identical in voice, tone, inflection, and content. The poltergeist was even known to attend church and sing along with the congregation, using the most beautiful voice anyone had ever heard.
As well, the poltergeist had the ability to change personalities in the middle of conversations with the Bells’ or their visitors. The witch had five distinct personalities, each with different voices and traits which made it easy for the family to separate the perpetrator of the moment. These voices were named “Black dog,” “Mathematics,” “Cypocryphy” and “Jerusalem.”
This ability to produce “different personalities” also shows up in other poltergeist cases, creating a belief that there are a number of different entities haunting a house.
The Bell Witch was very fond of talking about religion and philosophy for hours on end, especially with John Bell Jr. The witch had developed a respect John Bell Jr. due to his tendency to stand up to its abusive behavior. In 1828, the poltergeist reappeared to John Bell Jr. telling him, “John, I am in hopes you will not be as angry at me on this visit as you were on my last. I shall do nothing to cause you offense; I have been in the West Indies for seven years.”
Despite his misgivings, the poltergeist had long talks with him about the past, the present and the future. Years later, he told his son, Dr. Joel Thomas Bell, the details of the poltergeist’s discussions. A book was published in 1934, The Bell Witch – A Mysterious Spirit, which supposedly was met by outrage by other members of the Bell family who felt that details of “the family problem” should not have been made public.
For a more complete history of the Bell Witch poltergeist, see The Bell Witch Project by Timothy Green Beckley, published by Inner Light-Global Communications.
The Shawville Poltergeist
When a poltergeist does find its voice it seems to take great delight in spinning wild tales of its identity and origin. It may at one time say it is the ghost of someone who died years before, only to change its tune later and profess to be the devil or a demon. Like the Bell Witch, the Shawville poltergeist (also known as the Dagg poltergeist), enjoyed entertaining visitors by telling obscene stories and conversely, singing hymns in an “angelic voice.”
The Dagg home as it looks now. The Shawville poltergeist also known as the Dagg poltergeist is a historical, and well documented case in Canada.
The Shawville Poltergeist took place in the Ottawa Valley, Quebec in 1889 and centered on the farm and family of George Dagg. The incidents started with what appeared to be animal feces streaked along the farmhouse floor. At first, a young farmhand named Dean was blamed since he was known to come into the house with dirty shoes. Nevertheless, after the boy had been fired, the strange incidents continued with crockery moving, fires starting spontaneously and windows being smashed.
The Dagg family’s eleven-year-old adopted daughter, Dina-Burden McLean, was also physically attacked by the entity when it pulled her hair so hard that her braid was almost torn off. Later, when Dina’s grandmother was making up one of the bedrooms, the girl shouted, “Oh grandmother, see the big, black thing pulling off the bed clothes!” The woman could see the sheets being pulled up, but couldn’t see what was doing it. She handed Dina a whip, telling the girl to strike out at the invisible being. Dinah struck the air a few times and both the girl and her grandmother heard a sound like a pig squealing.
A few days later a piece of paper bearing the message “You gave me fifteen cuts” was found nailed to the wall.
After this incident Dina claimed that she was hearing a strange, gruff voice that followed her around saying bad words to her. Soon, the entire family and others could hear the gruff, man’s voice who identified itself “as the Devil.” Not everyone was convinced the voice was a supernatural being and blamed Dina for everything. At one point her mouth was filled with water, yet the voice could still be clearly heard by everyone in the room.
Much like the Bell witch, the Shawville poltergeist enjoyed the attention and would talk for hours. It would often give conflicting stories on what it was. Previously it said it was the devil, later, it claimed to be the spirit of an old man who had died 20 years earlier. When George asked it why it was bothering his family, it replied, “Just for fun.”
It also admitted setting small fires in the house, but again only for its amusement. “I set the fires in the daytime, when you could see them. I like fires, but I didn’t want to burn the house down.”
After several months of activity, the voice announced that it was going away. When word got out, crowds began gathering at the house to witness the event. The voice was happy to answer questions from the crowd, but now it claimed, “I am an angel from Heaven, sent by God to drive away that fellow.”
“You don’t believe that I am an angel because my voice is coarse,” it said to the crowd. “I will show you I don’t lie, but always tell the truth.” Instantly its voice took on an “incredible sweetness,” and it started singing a hymn:
“I am waiting, I am waiting, to call you dear sinner, Come to the savior, come to him now, won’t you receive Him right now, right now, Oh! List, now he is calling today, He is calling you to Jesus, move! Come to Him now, Come to Him, dear brothers and sisters, Come to Him now.”
Witness testimony agreed that the poltergeist sang with such a beautiful voice that many of the women were reduced to tears. After several hours of singing, the poltergeist said goodbye, saying it would return the next morning and show itself to Dinah and the other children.
The next morning the children breathlessly told their parents that “a beautiful man, he took little Johnny and me in his arms… he went to Heaven and was all red.”
Under questioning, the children described a man dressed in white with a lovely face with long white hair. He also had ribbons and “pretty things” all over his clothes and a gold object with stars on his head. The man reached down and picked them up saying that they were fine children.
Dinah said he had spoken to her as well, telling her that everyone thought he was not an angel, but he would show he was. Then he had “gone up to Heaven.” Questioned further, she said he seemed to rise up in the air and disappear in a kind of fire that blazed from his feet.
Compared to other poltergeist events, talking poltergeists seem to be in a category all by themselves. They may start out the same, annoying pranks, strange noises, showers of rocks and other debris, but then they seem to turn a corner and gain energy to a point where a consciousness and personality emerges. The personality is much like a child or mentally challenged adult, but it is a personality nevertheless.
Both the Bell Witch and the Shawville poltergeist exhibit almost identical personality traits. Both were fond of using obscene language and taking on the roles of different characters. Both entities were never shy about talking for hours in front of multiple witnesses. In fact, they seemed to thrive on the attention. They also claimed the ability to travel instantaneously to far off locations, bringing back information that could be verified later.
Gef The Talking Mongoose
So much has been written about the “Dalby Spook” over the years that there really is nothing new that can be added for this chapter. Nevertheless, considering the similarities between “Gef” and other talking poltergeists, this amazing case does need to be included.
The case of “Gef the Talking Mongoose” started in 1931 on the Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland.
The farm, located on an isolated hilltop, was home to 60-year-old Jim Irving, his wife Margaret, and their 12-year-old daughter Voirrey.
Jim had been a traveling salesman before taking up farming in his retirement. The farm was not a success and the family struggled to make ends meet. Doarlish Cashen (Manx for “Cashen’s Gap”) was extremely isolated with no electricity, no phone and no radio. By all descriptions, life on the Irving farm was dreary and offered few pleasantries.
This all changed when Gef made his appearance when the family started hearing strange “blowing, spitting and growling” sounds coming from behind the wooden paneling lining the farmhouse walls. Eventually these sounds turned into recognizable words from a very high-pitched voice. The voice introduced itself as Gef and claimed to be “an extra clever mongoose” born in Delhi, India in 1852.
Gef was soon holding regular conversations with the Irving family. He would travel in the space between the interior wooden paneling and the exterior walls of the house. He reportedly would throw objects like pins or rocks from the cracks and holes in the paneling. Although Jim and Margaret both caught brief glimpses of Gef, only Voirrey was allowed to look at him directly. She described him as being the size of a small rat, with yellowish fur, a flat snout like a hedgehog, and a long bushy tail.
Even though Gef acted like a poltergeist, he once told Jim that he was a living creature and was, in fact, terrified of ghosts. Like other talking poltergeist’s, Gef’s voice had an inhuman quality about it. Those that did hear him said his voice was high-pitched, at least an octave above a human voice. Unlike other talking poltergeist’s, Gef did not like to talk to others outside of the Irving family. Paranormal investigators Harry Price and Nandor Fodor went to great lengths to travel to Doarlish Cashen, but Gef refused to speak to them. However, there were plenty of witnesses to Gef’s ability to speak to convince both men that there was some sort of unusual activity at the Irving house.
On one occasion Gef agreed to allow Voirrey to take his picture. The subsequent photographs did little to convince skeptics on the reality of the talking mongoose.
In their book about Gef, The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap: A Modern Miracle Investigated, Price and R. S. Lambert noticed some parallels to poltergeist cases. They wrote:
“Many of the events related by Irving can be classified by those experienced in psychical research as belonging to the class of ‘poltergeist’ phenomena. Amongst these are Gef’s habit of throwing sand and small stones, also metal, wooden, and bone objects, at persons in or near Doarlish Cashen; the thumping, scratching, rapping, and banging noises which he makes behind the paneling and in the rafters of the house; and the movement of furniture.”
In 1970, Voirrey agreed to be interviewed by Walter McGraw for FATE magazine, Voirrey denied any involvement, and seemed rather bitter about the whole experience, stating, “It was not a hoax…Gef was very detrimental to my life. We were snubbed. The other children used to call me ‘the spook.’ We had to leave the Isle of Man, and I hope that no one where I work now ever knows the story. Gef has even kept me from getting married. How could I ever tell a man’s family about what happened?”
She continued by saying that Gef “made me meet people I didn’t want to meet. Then they said I was ‘mental’ or a ventriloquist. Believe me, if I was that good I would jolly well be making money from it now!”
Gef remains a true enigma in the hallowed halls of paranormal research. One side thinks that Gef was a poltergeist, while the other side thinks he was something else. If you were to compare Gef to other talking poltergeists, the similarities are obvious. Like the Bell witch and the Shawville poltergeist, Gef enjoyed singing hymns. On January 19, 1935, Gef was in “high spirits” sang the hymns, “Jesus, my Savior, on Calvary’s Tree” and six verses of “The King of Love my Shepherd is.”
As well, like other talking poltergeist’s, Gef’s voice was said to be strange and not like human speech. Jim Irving also said that Gef’s laughter varied from what sounded like a small child, an adult chuckle, or a maniacal laughter that left the family thinking that they were dealing with an insane creature from hell.
Gef is also discounted as being a poltergeist because he was seen physically several times. However, a talking poltergeist is often able to make itself visible, but much like the way it can talk in different voices, it can also appear in different forms.
The Voice From the Stove
Maid Pascuala Alcocer in front of the stove where the mysterious voice emanated.
Around the same time that Gef was active, another talking poltergeist appeared in Zaragoza, Spain. The Palazon family was living in an apartment complex on Gascón Gotor street when in September, 1934 they started to hear maniacal laughter and voices coming from inside their home. At first the voice sounded like a woman, but later it would change and appear to be a man speaking. The family was perplexed by the strange sounds, but kept it to themselves for fear of ridicule.
When the din coming from the apartment became too much, neighbors called the police. The voice then started shouting: “Cowards, cowards. You called the police. Cowards!”
When they arrived, the households young maid, named Pascuala Alcocer, told police that when she was trying to light the wood stove, she heard a loud voice coming from the stove saying, “You’re hurting me!”
The police checked the apartment but couldn’t find any source for the mysterious voice. Word quickly spread and hundreds of people gathered outside of Building #2 in hopes of hearing the “duende” (goblin) for themselves.
Local police and judges personally investigated the home, forcing the family to move out as they shut off electricity and phone service as they tore the place apart. This enraged the voice and it shouted to everyone that it would kill them and all the residents in the building.
Authorities also brought in psychiatrists to question Pascuala, whom they suspected of hoaxing everything. The doctors suggested that Pascuala was mentally ill and that she was producing the voice through subconscious ventriloquism. At one point they sent the maid on a vacation along with the family, yet the voice continued to speak. Even moving every resident out of Building #2 failed to stop it.
Whatever the source, the voice was able to see what was going on around the building. It would guess the number of people that were in a room at a time, it would interact with police officers directly when they asked it what it wanted.
“Do you want money?”
“No!”
“Do you want a job?”
“No!”
“Every man wants something.”
“I’m not a man!”
One of the original builders was brought in to take measurements of the kitchen, but the voice interrupted saying: “Don’t worry, it measures 75 centimeters.” The mason was so scared he left the building never to come back leaving his tools behind in a closet.
Eventually the voice vanished just as mysteriously as it arrived. Pascuala Alcocer went into seclusion lamenting up until her death years later that “the voice from the wall ruined her life.”
The Poltergeist As An Elemental
There are many more cases of talking poltergeists that have been carefully researched and chronicled, and probably hundreds more that were never reported for fear of ridicule. The poltergeist by itself is an oddity in the world of paranormal research, and the talking poltergeist goes even further as a head-scratcher due to its outright off-the-wall high strangeness.
All kinds of theories on the true nature of the poltergeist have been suggested. Black magic and curses as the cause of poltergeists are popular in countries such as Brazil where spiritism is still practiced. Folk lore concerning elemental spirits such as fairies, hobs and goblins show that they were also fond of mischievous tricks such as throwing rocks, starting fires and stealing household objects.
The black king of the djinns, Al-Malik al-Aswad. Photo courtesy of the Oxford Digital Library.
Middle Eastern folklore and Muslim theology concerning the djinn and their amazing powers also have similarities to the poltergeist. The djinn are beings with free will that once lived on Earth but were sent away by God to a world parallel to mankind. The word djinn comes from an Arabic root meaning “hidden from sight,” so they are physically invisible from man as their description suggests.
The djinn will take possession of buildings or locations and torment any person who goes to live there. They throw rocks at people. They can levitate and cause objects to disappear. A djinn can quickly travel great distances. One of the powers of the djinn, is that they are able to take on any physical form they like. Thus, they can appear as humans, animals and anything else. They can mimic the voices of deceased humans, claiming to be spirits or Satan. They enjoy playing tricks and frightening people. In fact, they can feel strong emotions such as fear or grief and gain energy from these strong emotions.
Like humans, the djinn have distinct personalities. There are those who are of low intelligence, quick to anger and are fond of playing tricks. Others have a superior intellect and act more along the lines of guardian angels rather than tricksters.
It is interesting to consider that the poltergeist could be an elemental spirit rather than a human. This could explain why poltergeists (especially the more energetic talking poltergeist) are resistant and very hostile, to attempts to get rid of them by using religious methods. If a poltergeist is not a human spirit or a demon in a Christian, Jewish or Muslim tradition, attempts to use exorcism are pretty much useless.
Could The Poltergeist Be An Artificial Intelligence?
Considering that the poltergeist could be something other than a human spirit, the website The State of Reality, (www.thestateofreality.com) states to be “the combined effort of four professional remote viewers that have set out to share their project findings regarding socially significant, anomalous target sets.” On this site there is an interesting article concerning their remote viewing of the Bell Witch incident.
Jeff Coley writes that the team’s result of their remote viewing attempt came up with the concept of “Something contained, or restrained inside an enclosure. Often this container was sketched and described to be like a bottle, while at other times as a box of some kind, which acted as an enclosure or a tomb. One viewer’s session described this object as an ossuary, similar to what a collector of antique relics might possess within their private collection. Other sessions described what looked suspiciously similar to the idea of a Genie bottle.”
According to Coley something had been contained inside a bottle or box. The viewers described it as a phantom, and intelligence and a thought form. The remote viewing work describes the purpose of this thing as having to do with amusement, recreation, performance, and the idea of sending a message. The viewers also described that the phenomenon was associated with something destructive in nature. One viewer notes that it is like a parasite or a time-bomb that somehow escaped or was accidentally released.
Could the talking poltergeist be an artificial “spirit” created by an ancient civilization eons ago?
The opinion by the remote viewers was that whatever the Bell Witch was, it had been deliberately contained as a punishment eons ago. Three of the viewers described guards who seem to be keeping this thing bottled-up. One viewer described these guards as ethereal, floating, muscular “brutes,” almost like otherworldly prison guards, while another viewer described something like a sentry, guarding and patrolling.
It almost sounds like the Bell Witch (and it even admitted to John Bell Jr. that it was millions of years old) was an artificial intelligence that had been created by a highly advanced and now vanished civilization that could have been terrestrial or even extraterrestrial. Its purpose might have been to entertain and teach but somehow became uncontrollable and had to be contained.
This is just speculation of course. But considering how unusual and powerful talking poltergeists can be, is it really so far-fetched to say that these invisible intelligence’s might be a form of artificial intelligence? Not an intelligence contained within a machine, but an artificial intelligence without a physical form…in other words, an artificial “spirit.”
Perhaps these AI’s were locked away millions of years ago for some reason. As time wore on, some have managed to escape their confinement and then proceed to wreak havoc in the area where they were kept. Perhaps they have limited energy that can no longer be “recharged.” This could explain why they disappear so abruptly and completely, never to be heard from again.
When you look at past cases of talking poltergeists, they display personalities that if they were human subjects, doctors would describe them as psychotic or schizophrenic. If my thesis is correct, this madness could be the result of millions of years of lonely confinement, with little hope of rescue. The human mind would self-destruct in a matter of months. Consider what this amount of time could have done to an artificial mind.
Rather than fear and loathe these tortured entities, a better solution would be to offer them kindness and understanding. For any creature with a soul, even if it is an artificial soul, deserves happiness and even love. This is a difficult concept considering the torture these things have brought upon their victims, but even a savage dog will eventually respond to a kind heart.
Could the poltergeist respond as well?
SUGGESTED READING
By Sean Casteel
Amityville.
Six individuals were shot to death in this house in Amityville, Long Island, said to be the scene of some extremely violent poltergeist activity following the murders.
The very name of the small Long Island, New York, community instantly conjures visions of horror, of a death-dealing psychopath laying waste his parents, two sisters and two brothers with a Marlin rifle. The egregious murders were chronicled in both a bestselling book and a major Hollywood studio movie and have become, pardon the pun, a “household name”: The Amityville Horror.
The convicted killer was Ronald DeFeo, Jr., whom one judge called “the devil incarnate.” DeFeo told varying versions of what happened the night of November 13, 1974, including the claim that he was possessed by an evil spirit and had committed the crime through no free will of his own.
While it is of course impossible to decide the existence or nonexistence of the devil and his demons in a court of law, the evil-spirit-possession argument was entered along with an insanity plea. Ultimately, Defeo received a 25 years to life sentence for each of his victims and remains in prison today.
But is it so easy to simply scoff at Defeo’s claim to have been an unwitting agent for the devil? Could it possibly be that Defeo was telling the truth of what happened?
Amityville and Beyond
This is one of many issues dealt with in the book recently issued by Timothy Green Beckley’s Inner Light – Global Communications publishing house. Entitled “Amityville and Beyond: The Lore of the Poltergeist and Other Petrifying Paranormal Phenomena,” the book breaks relatively new ground in making some overdue correlations between spirit possession, ghosts and even the UFO/alien presence.
This overarching “theory of everything” hypothesis can perhaps be credited originally to the late John A. Keel and was later expounded upon by the very prolific Brad Steiger. But Beckley and his hard working crew of contributors aim to take this theory and definitively tie up the loose ends and connect the many different forms of paranormal activity at play in the world today.
A PARANORMAL RESEARCHER’S EARLY POLTERGEIST ENCOUNTER
Paul Eno
Paul Eno is among the topnotch researchers Beckley has assembled for the writing of “Amityville and Beyond.” Currently Eno hosts, along with his son Ben, a radio show called “Behind the Paranormal” based in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
“American history is full of poltergeists and nasty and vengeful spirits,” Eno writes. “Much has been written about the Bell Witch that frightened a U.S. president so badly that he fled in the early morning hours from a Tennessee homestead. Furthermore, this book contains the full story of the dreadful Amherst poltergeist, which is just as scary as any similar saga of evil you are likely to hear about from an historical perspective.
“My attitude about such cases,” Eno continues, “is a bit more ‘radical’ than the views of other researchers, who tend to treat such poltergeist outbreaks as either restless spirits gone awry or put them in the general category of a purely psychological manifestation attributable to the witnesses’ psychological state. I see such outbreaks more akin to a crossing of parallel dimensions by a variety of beings often mistaken for the undead – though they seem to have, in many instances, the same attributes as so-called ‘aliens.’ Even cryptids from the darkest realms of our minds have recently been brought into the poltergeist equation.”
Here Eno has very succinctly expressed the overall theme of “Amityville and Beyond,” that aliens and cryptid creatures like Dogmen are cut from the same cloth as “noisy ghosts” and possessive demons. Eno at one time was an assistant to the famed Ed and Lorraine Warren, the husband/wife paranormal researchers whose work has been the subject of the movies “The Conjuring” and “The Conjuring 2.”
Several bestsellers and over a dozen movies have been made (both “fact” and fiction) involving the unexplainable phenomena inside the Amityville house. Here Ed and Lorraine Warren meet with a reporter as they try to contact the spirit world.
Eventually, Eno broke away from the Warrens because he found their ecclesiastical approach to poltergeists and their subsequent use of exorcism to rid a person of the “demon in charge” to be too steeped in religious folklore and superstition. Eno says he found that reading jokes from a book did more to dispel the presence of the “devil” than the sprinkling of holy water by a priest.
In November 1974, Eno found himself on Lindley Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut, along with Ed, Lorraine and Father William Charbonneau, and an indeterminate number of police and reporters. And a very frightened family.
Poltergeist victim Marcia gives her pet a big hug while trying to put the events of the past out of her mind.
“The latter consisted of Gerard Goodin and his adopted daughter and only child, Marcia (pronounced Mar-SEE-a),” Eno writes. “Shortly Mom (Laura Goodin) returned from the St. Vincent’s Hospital Emergency Room with her right big toe bandaged. It had been broken by a flying television set. The house itself was a mess. ‘The Thing,’ as Laura called it, had been tearing pictures, especially religious objects, off the wall all morning. A priest had come to bless the house, apparently to no avail.”
Calling it the best-witnessed poltergeist event in history, Eno says that violent phenomena were witnessed by almost 100 people in the Bridgeport outbreak. Eno was on the scene himself when some of the bizarre incidents transpired.
“I stood in the kitchen,” Eno writes, “with three firefighters on one side of me and three police officers on the other and watched the refrigerator float off the floor, turn right, turn back, then settle gently back to the floor. Late in the evening of that first day, I was sitting at the kitchen table with Lorraine. Also in the kitchen was a huge police officer, Ed Warren and a reporter from WNAB Radio. Lorraine suddenly let out a yelp. I watched as a second-degree burn, with its trademark white blister, appeared on Lorraine’s left hand, between thumb and forefinger. This was all caught on the radio reporter’s tape, which still exists. You can hear a youthful me stating, ‘There’s a blister forming!’”
TOUCHING THE NEAR-INVISIBLE
The Goodin house in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
At another point during Eno’s visits to the Bridgeport home, he was alone in the house with the Goodins, playing monopoly with Marcia to pass the time and to help her relax.
“Suddenly an acrid smell, like ozone mixed with sulfur, came from the kitchen,” Eno recounts. “Instantly Gerard Goodin was up, dashed into the kitchen and started chanting in Latin! My skin tingled with an electrical charge that I now associate with the electromagnetic ‘branes,’ as physicists call them, presumably the boundaries between parallel worlds.
“A whitish, gauzy cloud began to form in the kitchen,” Eno continues, “and Goodin was back in the living room at once. I was convinced that four entities were ‘arriving’ in the kitchen from Marcia’s adjacent bedroom. They weren’t entirely invisible, and there were four distinct shapes coming from the kitchen in a line. They were each about four and a half feet high and had rounded tops, with no discernible head or shoulders.”
Goodin saw the figures also, and he followed one as it moved from the kitchen. As the mystery entities entered the living room one by one, Laura Goodin started to cry while Marcia clung to Eno for comfort. Then one of the almost-invisible things approached Eno and stopped.
“That’s when I made my mistake,” Eno confesses. “I began to feel angry toward this thing, which at the time I thought was a demon in the classic, theological sense. I was angry because it was obviously trying to get to this child. The whatever-it-was simply fed on the negative energy I was releasing and grew stronger.
“What happened next was the biggest shock I’d experienced in paranormal work up to that time. As the entity moved to get around me and at the girl, I instinctively pushed toward it. It resisted as though it was entirely material. In fact, I felt flesh and bone structure as if this were a solid being. These ‘demons’ were supposed to be spirits!”
Eno says it took him many years to come to grips with the experience, let alone explain it in terms of parallel worlds. He never even reported it to the Warrens, and it was decades before he could write or speak about it.
“While I stood there dazed,” he continues, “the entity got around me and threw Marcia across the living room. She ran back to me, crying. Finally, as the gauzy cloud inundated the whole interior of the house, and as I tired from, I would say today, being drained by this powerful parasite, I ordered everyone outside.”
Several hundred onlookers crowded in front of the Goodin house after reports of a poltergeist spread through the area.
Although the police had cleared away the crowds and cordoned off both ends of Lindley Street, there were still thousands of onlookers gawking from each end of the block.
“I could hear a voice in the crowd,” Eno writes, “preaching something about all this being a ‘sign of the end.’ These being the days long before cell phones, I had to use a neighbor’s phone to call the Warrens. It took them an hour to get back into the city because of all the traffic caused by this paranormal circus. When they finally arrived at about 9:15 P.M., we all reentered the house. Things were quiet.”
When Eno writes about the creature he pushed against as being almost invisible yet possessing a flesh and bone structure, what manner of being is this? It sounds not unlike the physical-yet-not-physical “bodies” of the familiar gray aliens whose stock in trade is the abduction of chosen subjects for whatever dark reasons are left for us to discover. As Eno so clearly explains, the aliens and demons who cross between dimensions may be one and the same entity but are given different names in scripture and folklore that vary according to who encounters the strange interlopers.
VOICES FROM THE DEVIL MADE THEM DO IT
Brad Steiger writes that in some cases, there could be a connection between demonic possession and poltergeist activity. (Graphic – The Demon Drummer of Tedworth, 1662)
While the saying is popularly true that “we all have our personal demons,” in some cases the demons can achieve total control of a hapless individual. In a chapter of “Amityville and Beyond,” the celebrated Brad Steiger makes a case for genuine demonic possession being at the root of many a murder. He also talks about the demon/alien connection.
“There are many among us,” Steiger writes, “who have every reason to accept the Ultra-Terrestrials as demonic, akin to the poltergeists that plague our darkest nightmares and create havoc all around those they decide to target. If humankind is indeed interacting with an extraterrestrial species then those UFOnauts, the ‘Grays,’ as they are currently nicknamed, may be representatives of technologically superior reptilian or amphibian humanoids.
“These serpent people have been interacting with Earth for millions of years,” Steiger continues, “either appearing in cycles of programmed visitations or steadily monitoring our species’ technological and societal development from underground or undersea bases. At some point in their many centuries long interaction, some Ultra-Terrestrial entities began to exploit humankind in foul, lascivious and wicked ways. Whether they be extraterrestrial or multidimensional in origin, they have become known to those unfortunate humans with whom they have interacted as evil, cruel and demonic beings.”
Steiger says the reader can easily see that Ronald DeFeo, Jr., was not alone. Steiger provides a frightening list of killers who claimed they were driven by evil “voices” to commit their crimes.
For example: In January 1990, authorities searching an Ohio farm commune found the slain bodies of a family of five – all victims of human sacrifice. Jeffrey Lunden, a self-declared prophet of a new religion, had decreed the sacrifices necessary to persuade the “forces” to present Lunden’s cult with a magic golden sword.
Another case: Daniel Rakowitz, suffering under religious delusions programmed by “voices” who called him the messiah and told him to form a new satanic religion, sacrificed his girlfriend in September 1989 to insure his messiah-ship.
One particularly gruesome case happened in 2000. Prosecutors charged a man in Great Falls, Montana, with killing a ten-year-old boy, butchering him, eating his flesh in specially prepared dishes, then feeding the remains to his unsuspecting neighbors. A psychiatric evaluation indicated demonic fantasies about cannibalism and the taste of human flesh. Encrypted writings found in the suspect’s home revealed a list of recipes involving the bodies of small children.
“The terrible power which drives and compels those obsessed with sacrificial murders,” Steiger writes, “is something so much more insidiously evil and complex than can be created by the distortion of creeds, ecclesiasticisms or belief structures. The monstrous voices that command men and women to kill others are not those of mortals. Those who have fallen under the deadly spell of the possessing Ultra-terrestrial-multidimensional entities claim to have been controlled by something outside of themselves – usually personified as Satan or one of his demons.”
AND THEN THE TERROR SPOKE . . .
Poltergeist activity displays a wide range of unusual events. Ranging from strange knocks and bangs on the walls, household items being thrown around, and mysterious voices demanding attention.
Evil speaking voices are also dealt with in a chapter by Tim R. Swartz called “When the Poltergeist Finds Its Voice.”
“It can be terrifying enough,” Swartz writes, “when a poltergeist makes its appearance in a household. Rocks thrown about, strange bangs on the walls, moving furniture, items disappearing and then reappearing – this is enough to set anyone on edge. However, when a poltergeist finds its voice and starts to talk, you know that events have decidedly taken a turn for the worse.
“Poltergeist activity has been recorded throughout history,” Swartz goes on, “and is probably the most prolific of all supernatural events. A poltergeist is extremely aware of its surroundings and will often quickly respond to suggestions by observers and other external stimuli. This shows that there is some kind of ‘intelligence’ behind its pranks and not just some random psychokinesis (PK). This intelligence, along with an ability to communicate, will manifest in a myriad of ways. Pieces of paper with strange messages appear; writing on the walls; children’s toys will be arranged to make words; and, perhaps the most shocking, they will sometimes start to speak out loud.”
According to Swartz, when a poltergeist achieves speech, it generally starts as animal-like growls and whispers that slowly evolve into discernible words. Most poltergeists never reach this stage in their development, but, once they do, a clear “personality” emerges from what were previously just random events.
Swartz recounts some case histories in the annals of poltergeist hauntings in which the intruding spirit spoke to its victims.
The Bell homestead. From Authenticated History of the Bell Witch, M.V. Ingram, 1894.
The 1817 case of the “Bell Witch,” the name for the poltergeist who took up residence among a Tennessee farming family headed by John Bell, Sr., is an interesting example. “The Witch” was extremely talkative and could imitate the voices of people from the area.
“The poltergeist was said to speak at a nerve-wracking pitch when displeased,” Swartz reports, “while at other times it sang and talked in low musical tones. In one instance, it was alleged to have repeated, verbatim, sermons administered by two preachers, occurring at separate locations, that took place simultaneously. The sermons recited by the witch were verified by people attending the churches as being identical in voice, tone, inflection and content. The poltergeist was even known to attend church and sing along with the congregation, using the most beautiful voice anyone had ever heard.”
On one occasion Gef agreed to allow Voirrey to take his picture. The subsequent photographs did little to convince skeptics on the reality of the talking mongoose.
Stories of a talking mongoose named Gef, who bedeviled an Irish family in the 1930s, as well as the tale of a Spanish family who heard maniacal laughter and voices emanating from their kitchen stove, help to round out Swartz’s examination of real-life incidents of “talking” spirits.
He also touches on the Middle Eastern folklore and Islamic theology dealing with the “djinn,” or genies, who can take possession of buildings or locations and torment any person who goes to live there. The djinn can levitate and cause objects to disappear as well as take any physical form they want – humans, animals and anything else. They can mimic the voices of deceased humans, claiming to be spirits or Satan. They enjoy playing tricks and frightening people. In fact, they can feel strong emotions such as fear or grief and gain energy from those powerful feelings.
“Like humans,” Swartz writes, “the djinn have distinct personalities. There are those who are of low intelligence, quick to anger and fond of playing tricks. Others have a superior intellect and act more along the lines of guardian angels rather than tricksters.”
WHEN AN ULTRA-TERRESTRIAL APPEARED IN A UFO WITNESS’ HOME
Like his friend, the late John A. Keel, researcher/publisher Tim Beckley (seen here in an off-screen moment during a taping of the syndicated William Shatner’s “Weird Or What?” show) believes there is a readily apparent similarity between poltergeist hauntings and UFO landing and abduction reports.
Timothy Beckley has been marching to the sound of a “different drummer” for more than half a century. He rightly admits that when it comes to most UFO cases he has “been there, seen it and investigated it.” He started out publishing a ten-page mimeographed newsletter when he was but 15, and over the decades has edited/published such widely circulated zines as “UFO Review” and “UFO Universe,” both sold on newsstands worldwide. And while he now claims to be “semi-retired,” Beckley’s prestigious para-physical publishing house still grinds out a couple of new titles every month.
“More and more, it became clear that there is only a thin line that separates what is known as poltergeist phenomena and events of a UFO nature,” Beckley remarked. “I always say what happens in a séance room or a haunted house is very similar to what you can expect to find at a UFO landing site or in the home of a UFO percipient.”
Beckley says that for a period of several months during the summer of 1982, members of a family he knew quite well were at the center of some unexplainable events which were triggered by the appearance of a circular device – a UFO – that was seen hovering across the street from their premises. Shortly thereafter an eerie presence could be felt as if some “adopted entity” had joined the family.
Voices were heard in the basement and at the bottom of a well. Children saw a silver suited being on the perimeter of their property and a shadowy figure was seen to walk behind the refrigerator and disappear into the wall.
The lady of the house goes on to describe in detail some of the bizarre incidents which took place and which tended to drive everyone “crazy.”
A shadowy figure “haunted” the home of a New Jersey family after a UFO was seen hovering near their house. Strange voices were heard, objects disappeared and were teleported about, and one of those involved said someone kept pushing up against the mattress she was sleeping on at night. (Art by Carol Ann Rodgriguez)
“From time to time,” the woman told Beckley, “it would feel like someone would come into the bedroom at night and would push against the bottom of my mattress. Sometimes I would be overcome by the feeling that I wasn’t alone, although nobody was physically in the room with me. One time, I was lying on my left side facing the wall and I felt a poke like someone’s finger jabbing into my shoulder.
“The business with the mattress happened almost every night. In addition, a photograph of my youngest son, aged two, kept falling from the wall This happened so frequently that finally I decided to leave it down where it couldn’t break.
“One night, I got bumped on the mattress and I thought that someone was trying to speak to me. I sat up in bed and said, ‘What did you say?’ I was able to hear the sound of someone talking but was unable to distinguish any words.
“Later, when my daughter arrived home, I told her about the voices and she said she’d heard them a few times as well. Actually, she seemed truly petrified. It seems that they had been bothering her for a while, but she was afraid to mention it to anyone for fear we would all think she was crazy. She said the voices would call her by name, but even though I was in her company when this happened, I could never hear anything.
“Things really got out of hand the day before Labor Day. Everybody had gone out to see the fireworks display put on by our neighborhood carnival and I was sitting around the kitchen getting the food ready for the next day when I heard a sound coming from the basement. It was the sound of someone walking across a board that had been placed at the bottom of the stairs to cover an open sewer pipe. When you step on it, it makes a little plunking sound, and someone was going back and forth across it repeatedly and it was driving me crazy.
“Not wanting to get hysterical and trying to brush the matter aside, I kind of laughed and thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got company.’ It was like a feeling of not being alone. Now and then, I got a little upset because it plunked a little too loud. I would stand out on the porch for a little while just to clear my head and then go back into the house.
“When the family got back from the fireworks display, I told them what had happened and that I had this strange feeling that I wasn’t alone. When I explained what had happened to the boards, my daughter replied they had been hearing that all day long but didn’t want to say anything about it. Her husband and my oldest son also heard it. My daughter’s husband even got up a couple of times to see if it was the kids fooling around and there was nobody there. He said, ‘It would sound just like someone was walking around down there and then when you went to look, you couldn’t find anything.’
“Our ‘friend’ seems to like my air conditioner. One night the dogs were barking out back and there was nothing outside. I shut off the air conditioner in order to go and check on the dogs. When we were below my bedroom window, my husband said, ‘The air conditioner isn’t on.’
“I said, ‘No, I shut it off so I could hear the dogs better.’
“So, we were out back of the house trying to figure out what was wrong with Max. He had plenty of water and food. It wasn’t that. He wasn’t nervous, like he was that other time. He wasn’t shaking. The dog was upset about something in the air.
“All of a sudden, my husband turned and said, ‘What was that?’
“I asked him, ‘What’s what?’
“He said, ‘The air conditioner just went on. Then it went off again. But just as we went by the window, it went on again.’ There is no way to shut it off and turn it on without pushing the buttons. When I had shut it off, it was on ‘Off.’ When we went back indoors it was ‘On.’
“I said, ‘Well, thank you, whoever you are. It is hot in there.’
“My husband said, ‘I know that thing was off. I know that thing went on and off a couple of times.’
“I said, ‘I know, it’s George.’
“He said, ‘Well, tell your friend to leave. I don’t want him hanging around here.’
“I said, ‘You tell him to leave.’ We went to bed and there wasn’t any more trouble that night.”
THE OUTER LIMITS OF ‘LITERARY’ FEAR
There is much more to be found in “Amityville and Beyond,” including chapters from a multitude of contributors as well as dozens of spooky illustrations. One can read about the night author and radio show host Joshua Warren spent in “America’s Most Haunted Bedroom;” paranormal investigator Michele Lowe bears heart-pounding witness to the spirits left behind in the aftermath of a murder-suicide; the rise of interest in poltergeist and paranormal lore that was part of the counterculture of the 1960s; the notion of cryptid creatures like the Dogmen, as studied by Pennsylvania researcher Butch Witkowski, as being physical embodiment’s of demonic extraterrestrials – the list goes on.
At the very least, “Amityville and Beyond: The Lore of the Poltergeist and Other Petrifying Paranormal Phenomena” delivers on the promise of its title and provides a great many scary, scary stories. Whether this nonstop horror show could all be a matter of real-world events is up to the reader, but you will in any case get a generous serving of fascinating tales of what happens when evil takes control and some among us mere mortals can only be its unhappy prey.
Sean Casteel
SUGGESTED READING AND AUDIO CONTENT
AMITYVILLE AND BEYOND: THE LORE OF THE POLTERGEIST AND OTHER PETRIFYING PARANORMAL PHENOMENA
ROUND TRIP TO HELL IN A FLYING SAUCER
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL, “MR. UFO’S SECRET FILES”
(OVER 150 INTERVIEWS WITH TOP RESEARCHERS ARCHIVED.)
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