Poltergeists - different cases


The haunting of Jackie Hernandez - Poltergeist in San Pedro CA


In the summer of 1989 in a quiet neighbourhood in San Pedro, California, Jackie Hernandez awoke in the middle of the night to see a ghastly vision in her children’s bedroom. Sitting in one of the beds, looking right at her, was the image of a haggard old man. He wore a lumberjack flannel shirt and denim suspenders.

Jackie was petrified by terror. And in that twilight moment of adrenaline, she caught a glimpse of the bright eyes that were inside her children’s bedroom. The eyes belonging to a cadaverous face that had been staring at her. Motionless, threatening.

What follows is the true story based on multiple eyewitness accounts of the strange events that happened one summer in San Pedro, California.


Jackie Hernandez. The single mother of two was barely making ends meet in 1989. She worked long hours at various menial jobs and would usually drop off her two baby boys with her friend and neighbour, Susan Castenada.

However one summer morning Jackie showed up to Susan’s door. She was in a state of panic and disarray. After calming down, she told Susan about what she had just seen over at her house. She told her the ghoulish figure in her boys’ bedroom and that she had been hearing strange sounds coming from her attic for the last few days. Susan knew that what Jackie had seen was a ghost and knew exactly who to call.

Dr. Barry Taff received the telephone call from Susan in which she explained to him the urgency of this matter. She told him that her neighbour was afraid of going back to her own house. She told him that two small children were also involved. Dr. Taff showed up to the residence as soon as he could. He brought with him his friend and accomplished cameraman, Barry Conrad. There were also a few associates of Dr. Taff involved in the first visit to Jackie’s house.

Upon entering the residence the investigators were hit by the putrid stench that filled the air. The malodorous stench of death and decay. They couldn’t find the source of the smell so they decided to air out the tiny bungalow the best they could and prepared for their investigation. Dr. Taff, a Parapsychologist, was getting down to the preliminary round of questions with Jackie when a loud crash came from the attic. Everyone froze.

Boom! Another one. This time it was louder.

Jackie made her way to her kitchen and pointed towards the ceiling. She told the investigators that it was coming from up in the attic and that she knew exactly what it was. That it was the severed head she had seen floating there before.


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Several loud bangs is heard from the attic


Susan, Dr. Taff, and the rest of them stood in disbelief of what Jackie had just said.

The investigators opened the attic door that was in the kitchen and hoisted themselves up along with cords and camera equipment. They found nothing besides junk, dust, and cobwebs.

Back in the living room, Jackie admitted to everyone of having heard what sounded to her like a muffled voice coming from the attic a few months before. One day she decided to investigate when the voice was heard and she popped her head through the attic door. Armed with only a flashlight, Jackie saw nothing or nobody inside the dark and dusty attic. However when she shined the light in a corner, she told the investigator that a floating, disembodied head came at her. Jackie said she had never gone up there since and hasn’t told anyone about it until now. She said that weeks prior, soda cans as well as other random objects were flung at her by unseen hands. She also told them about finding mysterious puddles of a water-like substance around her house.

Jackie was able to show them where and Dr. Taff proceeded to collect samples of the oozing liquid that was coming from within the cupboards. Later analysis resulted in the viscous liquid being human blood plasma. The blood of a male with a heavy iodine and copper content. Jackie was questioned about it but she claimed she knew nothing about the blood. Blood that all of the investigators saw ooze out of the wooden cupboards.


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Mysterious ooze. Later revealed to be human blood plasma.


When questioned about the ghostly vision, Jackie confessed to them that she had seen the gnarled old man sitting in her dinning room table before. Sitting in dark, staring at her.

After a few hours of questioning and photographing Jackie’s place, the team decided to call it a night. They were packing up their gear when one of the assistants asked the photographer, Jeff Wheatcraft, to go up in the attic and take a few final shots of it empty. Barry Conrad accompanied Jeff. While they were up there shooting pictures, something grabbed ahold of Jeff’s 35 MM camera and threw it across the attic. Before Jeff could react, Barry saw that he was shoved by the same phantom hands that snatched his camera. When they both came down from the attic, Jeff’s face was pale white. Nothing more happened that night in Jackie’s house.

Not until September 4th when Jackie called Barry Conrad at midnight telling him that there was more activity in the house now and that it was becoming difficult to live there. Barry, Jeff and assistant photographer Gary Boehm quickly reached Jackie’s house. They came with state-of-the-art equipment and were ready to capture what was happening inside the house.

On this second visit, the investigator were able to film several small (sometimes large) corpuscular masses of light. In other words, small globs of light that travelled across and through the rooms. They were able to film the unexplained lights zooming in and out of the place. Jeff and Gary went up into the attic. Jeff wanted to determine what happened to him just a few weeks ago when he was up in the attic with Barry Conrad. As they both snapped away, nothing was happening. Gary mentioned that they should probably go back downstairs. When they were making their way back, Jeff let out a gasp.

As Gary turned around, he snapped a photograph in total darkness. The flash momentarily illuminated his friend’s terror stricken face. Jeff had been hung up on a rafter by a pair of unseen hands.


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Wheatcraft hung from his neck by an unseen force.


In that moment Barry, Jackie, and Susan all heard the commotion coming from upstairs. They quickly gathered around the attic entrance to help down a disheveled and confused looking Jeff. His clothes were covered in spiderwebs and dust. His face was completely flushed of color. Around Jeff’s neck as a tight noose that left a red mark across his neck.


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Jeff Wheatcraft quickly leaves the attic with panic in his eyes


When Jeff was able to compose himself, he told them that he was making his way down, right behind Gary, when he felt someone put the noose around his neck and yank hard and hoisted him up on a rafter. Gary had ran back and had to lift Jeff up in order to unhook the noose from the large nail it was hung on.

It would be the last time Jeff Wheatcraft ever set foot inside the San Pedro house.


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The knotted cord that was stringed around his neck, got twisted tight, and then pushed / lifted him up to the rafter


The activity continue for several months to a lesser extent. There were random lights that appeared throughout Jackie’s house and spectral voices that were still coming from the attic. The overpowering stench also seemed to come and go with time.

Shortly after the San Pedro incident, Jackie had moved to Kern county, which is a small and rural area about 380 miles north of Los Angeles. When she had reported to the team that the activity had followed her, Jeff and Barry had made their way up north. They wanted to capture more activity on film. Jeff felt that as long as he was nowhere near the house on San Pedro he would be fine.

A seance was arranged by one of Jackie’s neighbours and Barry and Jeff sat in to observe. Simple questions like: Are you a ghost? were answered with the planchette moving towards the written “Yes” on the board. When the team pressed on about the spirit’s former life, it told them that he had been murdered in the harbours of San Pedro.

Barry asked: “How many ghosts are there in here?” he was given an unnerving answer: “Phantoms fill the skies around you.”

They had asked why it had targeted Jeff. It replied that he resembled his killer.

When they asked it why it targeted Jackie, it replied with: “Energy.” So they asked: “what kind of energy?”

“Dead” was its response.

Whatever it was that was communicating via the Ouija board had signed off, telling them: “I must go now, the sun cometh.”

Shortly after this last message, Jeff Wheatcraft has again shoved by unseen hands, throwing him back against the wall. Although the cameras were rolling at the time, they captured nothing as the equipment began to malfunction as soon as they stepped foot inside Jackie’s house. Jeff recovered physically from this injuries however the San Pedro case left a deep, reminiscent scar in his psyche.

Jackie Hernandez moved several other times and with each, the activity lessen. To the point where it completely stopped. Jackie Hernandez now lives in Los Angeles and has put the terrifying ordeal behind her. To this day, the house on 593 West 11th street has seen many tenants come and go. Some have reported hearing strange bumps and sounds coming from that dusty, dark attic.

Source



Documentary: The haunting of Jackie Hernandez - a true paranormal story



 
Here is the case of The Gorton Poltergeist


A set of houses in Gorton, Manchester, England, were plagued by poltergeists back in mid 90's

Those six families living in these six residences complained of things like: childlike apparitions haunting their bedrooms, a dog involved in a sort of tug-of-war by some unseen force pulling a bone it had in its mouth, unaccountably cold rooms, a man being pushed across the room by an unseen force, weird smells appearing out of nowhere, moving plants, televisions activating even when not plugged in, and pillows found put in unexpected shapes while people were away, and apparitions of a man walking straight through walls.

[tug-of-war with the dog sounds almost comical, but I bet I wouldn't laugh seeing it for myself]

The Case of The Gorton Poltergeist - Part 1/2


The Case of The Gorton Poltergeist - Part 2/2

 
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The case of The Zaragoza Poltergeist (Zaragoza Duende)
- started on September 27, 1934 in Zaragoza Spain.

"The Palazon family, residing in an apartment complex on the “Gascón Gotor” street, encountered a frightening ordeal when they started to hear maniacal laughter and voice coming from inside their home. The family did not know what or who was causing this. As the neighbors started to hear these strange sounds coming from the residence, word started to spread about the strangeness that surrounded this building.


As it is often the case, the phenomenon or poltergeist quickly turned its attention to the young maid named Pascuala Alcocer. She had reported that the voice was tormenting her and coming from the wood stove. The family realized that she was not making this up. The voice was coming from the stove and seemed to have an intelligence behind it. It would interact and answer questions at times. As the news of this poltergeist spread, thousands, and I do mean thousands, of people took to visiting the building. Standing outside and blocking the streets, the spectators all came interested in hearing this so-called “duende of Zaragoza“. The word spread so fast and so wildly that the London Times had made a report on the case.

(I recommend this more detailed documentary from Spain. about the case, - it's subtitled in engish)

Taking it upon themselves to “put an end to this circus”, local police and judges personally investigated the home and brought with them a few psychiatrists to analyze Pascuala. Informally putting the blame on her from the beginning. But while investigating, the officials found more and more evidence to prove that this was not a hoax.

The entity was reported to not only speak, but also to be able to see what was going on around the home. 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.

The police men ask:
“Do you want money?”

No!

“Do you want a job?”

No!


“man, than what do you want?”



I’m not a man.

It was said that when someone turned off the light in the room as a test, the entity would scream: “Light! Light! I cannot see!”

With no real answers to the strange events, the judges, police and psychiatrists assumed that Pascuala was using ventriloquism to create this hoax. They were in extreme pressure to come up with a solution to this hysteria, that blaming the girl was the best way they could think of quieting the situation. Their theory of ventriloquism did not survive though.

Soon, all the tenants in the building were evacuated. The whole block was quarantined and Pascuala was removed from the premise. An architect was called to examine the whole building, corner to corner. Even the army was called in to investigate the issue and cut all communications (radio/telephone) from the outside. The maniacal voice continued emanating from the wood stove, but now with a different attitude. It started yelling and insulting everyone in the room. Telling them that it would kill them all!

The investigators and architect were dumbfounded. Pascuala was nowhere near the neighbourhood, so their theory about ventriloquism fell flat.

When the architect called a skilled mason in order to take some measurements of the kitchen, something else happened. The voice showed them it had knowledge of the building. While the man was measuring a certain part of the kitchen the voice said:
“Don’t worry, it measures 75 centimeters.”.

Of course when he measured, it was exactly 75 centimeters. The mason got up and left the building never to come back. Leaving his tools behind.

Arturo Grijalba was only a kid when the entity spoke to him. He was the building owner’s son and the only remaining witness alive to this story. While the investigation was taking place, he had wondered into the kitchen to take a look at this infamous voice. He noted that there were no residents in the building. Only police men were next to the stove and around the building, guarding the perimeter.

When Arturo turned to his dad and said:
“Let’s go dad, this thing is crazy”
The voice then replied:
“Not crazy little one..” in a guttural response. Everyone heard it and were scared.

After two months of insults and threats, the maniacal voice suddenly stopped. Like in all poltergeist cases, it manifested quickly and without warning and vanished the same way. Never to be heard again.

Today, the building no longer stands. It was demolished in a draconian effort to shut that maniacal voice once and for all. In its place, stands a modern building with many residents which none have reported any strange occurrences. The name of the new building?; Edificio Duende. ( The Goblin Building )
 
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I have studied two cases in Finland. They were rather strong and also "solved"; it means they could be finished by certain methods. As unbelievable as it sounds so the first case was finished by removing the witch-bag and in the second case a psychic took the two spirits with her into her home and released them after some years. It was really difficult for me to "believe" in the cases, but I verified both stories as well as I could, and everything I found was confirming and nothing was against the men I interviewed.


I have written the stories in my blog, unfortunately in Finnish. Google translator does not work well at all in translating to English, but if somebody is interested so I can help when needed.


Jyväskylän kiviveistämön kummitus (the place where tombstones were carved)

https://parapsykologia.blogspot.fi/2010/11/jyvaskylan-kiviveistamon-kummitus.html


Isojoen Leppiniemen kummitus

https://parapsykologia.blogspot.fi/2011/03/isojoen-leppiniemen-kummitus.html
 
I have studied two cases in Finland. They were rather strong and also "solved"; it means they could be finished by certain methods. As unbelievable as it sounds so the first case was finished by removing the witch-bag and in the second case a psychic took the two spirits with her into her home and released them after some years. It was really difficult for me to "believe" in the cases, but I verified both stories as well as I could, and everything I found was confirming and nothing was against the men I interviewed

I have written the stories in my blog, unfortunately in Finnish. Google translator does not work well at all in translating to English, but if somebody is interested so I can help when needed..
Interesting, but as you said; the Google-translate of it to english made almost no sense at all.:)
 
We were talking about the movie "The Conjuring 2" in another thread, and my response about the Enfield Poltergeist-case there got a bit longer than I thought, so I moved it to a new thread here.>
Lots of UK forum members here. I'm curious if any of you remember following the press coverage of the Enfield Poltergeist events as they happened? (77-79)
 
Lots of UK forum members here. I'm curious if any of you remember following the press coverage of the Enfield Poltergeist events as they happened? (77-79)
That's an interesting question - I asked myself the same thing. I recall nothing at all. That though was one of the most hectic periods of my life, the era of punk rock and partying, as well as many other things. Following the news media was pretty low down on my priorities at the time.
 
The Seaford Poltergeist (Long Island, NY)
(inspiration for the Spielberg film Poltergeist, investigated also by parapsychologist William Roll and featured in his book The Poltergeist)

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Mind on the Rampage? The Seaford Poltergeist


- J G Pratt -

THE YEAR 1958 began for me not unlike any number of others. I had recently accepted Dr. Rhine's suggestion that I should give up a project for the investigation of pigeon homing supported by a grant from the Office of Naval Research. Over a period of several years this work had involved me in field studies that kept me away from my desk a great deal of the time. To free myself from this pleasant duty, I transferred the pigeon-homing project to the Duke University Zoology Department, and I slipped quietly back into harness in the laboratory.

Then, early in February, a friend of the laboratory in the New York region sent us the first clipping about some household disturbances which had broken out in the James M. Herrmann home in Seaford, Long Island. These events involved the movement of household objects and other physical effects for which the observers who were on the scene could find no explanation. The mysterious occurrences appeared to center around the son, James, who was in early adolescence. Thus the disturbances fitted into the pattern of the typical "poltergeist" (mischievous spirit) of which there have been some hundreds of cases recorded throughout history. Several earlier cases had been investigated by experienced research workers with results that only made the mystery seem deeper and therefore more challenging and more worthy of continued study.

(Continues here)

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That's an interesting question - I asked myself the same thing. I recall nothing at all. That though was one of the most hectic periods of my life, the era of punk rock and partying, as well as many other things.
Speaking of music of that time, I was trying to make out the posters in the Hodgson kids' bedroom.
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I'm pretty sure the band on the top left is the Bay City Rollers, from this same photo shoot:
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Not exactly punk rock.
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I don't understand why so many of these experiences are so terrifying, threatening, and/or violent. I've had many encounters with spirits: hearing them, seeing them, being touched by then, but nothing felt dangerous. While I've certainly been frightened by the sounds of footsteps in the middle of the night, I know footsteps aren't going to harm me. I've never had a paranormal experience that was threatening or violent.

A few days ago I was at a IONS community group gathering. One of the regulars is a parapsychologist. Our topic for the evening was the afterlife. He mentioned his boredom with the afterlife, stating after years and thousands of case studies, he found pretty all the hauntings are someone's grandmother. He's found it's all very benign paranormal activity.
 
I don't understand why so many of these experiences are so terrifying, threatening, and/or violent. I've had many encounters with spirits: hearing them, seeing them, being touched by then, but nothing felt dangerous. While I've certainly been frightened by the sounds of footsteps in the middle of the night, I know footsteps aren't going to harm me. I've never had a paranormal experience that was threatening or violent.

A few days ago I was at a IONS community group gathering. One of the regulars is a parapsychologist. Our topic for the evening was the afterlife. He mentioned his boredom with the afterlife, stating after years and thousands of case studies, he found pretty all the hauntings are someone's grandmother. He's found it's all very benign paranormal activity.

Perhaps it's like serious criminal activity - it happens, but only to a small proportion of the population. I've had many encounters with human beings but none have tried to kill me (so far).
 
I don't understand why so many of these experiences are so terrifying, threatening, and/or violent.
I read the rest of this post, and mostly agree, or at least sympathise. Still in the specific case of the poltergeist phenomenon, it is usually associated with the presence of a particular adolescent. That stage of life can be troubling, and perhaps the activity is an outlet for an overflowing of youthful exuberance which has no conventional outlet.

There are other types of experiences, perhaps it's the unpleasant ones which make the headlines.

On a somewhat separate topic, I'm very often disappointed by how many movies take paranormal topics and put a frightening spin on them, even benign occurrences are given a dark and menacing narrative interpretation - with a few exceptions. Perhaps we as a society are not yet ready to accept the more joyful possibilities.
 
Perhaps it's like serious criminal activity - it happens, but only to a small proportion of the population. I've had many encounters with human beings but none have tried to kill me (so far).
I've often thought about this in the context of ghosts, Many people (various friends and acquaintances among them) regard an encounter with a ghost as something to fear, almost by definition. I always think, does that also mean that an encounter with a living person is also something to fear, by definition? To me it seems nonsensical.
 
I've often thought about this in the context of ghosts, Many people (various friends and acquaintances among them) regard an encounter with a ghost as something to fear, almost by definition. I always think, does that also mean that an encounter with a living person is also something to fear, by definition? To me it seems nonsensical.
It would be reasonable if you'd never met another person, had read lots of books /seen lots of films about how bad other people are and/or had lots of religious indoctrination that even tryIng to talk to other people was dangerous, perhaps. :)

I think fear of the unknown is perfectly reasonable to be honest. That doesn't mean we have to succumb to our fear :)

I think knowledge conquers fear of the unknown. Or shows us that we ought to be afraid lol
 
Well, I only ever had one small insignificant sighting of a ghost, and it doesn't make me an expert. But I don't think I ever considered ghosts to be scary. I was more concerned about the lions and tigers in our backyard at night (there aren't any). Strangely Rupert Sheldrake mentioned the same thing (he's never been to my backyard :) ), that children are afraid of wild animals at night, regardless of whether or not they are there.
 
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