Supernatural Witness 5 (Paranormal Factor) Read online

  Paranormal Factor V.

  Supernatural Witness

  Copyright © 2012 by Angela Baker

  Published by Marquette Press

  The universe has order. It is comprised of scientific principles and formulas – that is, until you add the paranormal factor; a variable that doesn’t abide by the rules of science. When evidence of the spiritual realm is scarce because it’s random, that doesn’t disprove a paranormal occurrence. If the experience is vivid, distressing and memorable – those that experience these haunting events become more than just mere witnesses to the supernatural…

  Introduction

  Paranormal Factor was founded in 2007 with the goal to interview and record stories from those that have claimed to have had encounters with the supernatural. These experiences involve the witnessing of ghosts, frightful encounters with entities, and other strange happenings. Although these testimonials are directly from the source, the names of the eye witnesses will not be divulged as these individuals are still trying to cope with their experience. Even though they wish to share their story to gain some understanding, they don’t wish to be directly identified. In the three cases described in this edition, the location of the event may have been changed out of respect for area residents and businesses. These accounts are always from the witnesses’ perspective.

  Although we don’t always conduct an investigation at the site, we still research in order to debunk urban legends as needed. Paranormal Factor believes in the retelling of personal experiences, even when audio or visual evidence isn’t obtainable. Because these events are personal experiences, they greatly effect a person indefinitely and not always for the better. By recording these events, we hope to learn from them in order to determine any correlation or pattern.

  The collection of witness accounts you are about to read will surprise you, and perhaps you will have doubts as to their legitimacy. These events are recorded in the words of the person that experienced them. Three different individuals have been interviewed for this edition of Supernatural Witness. You may even feel that some of the events are minor or inconclusive. The official stance of the investigators at Paranormal Factor is that if there is an occurrence such as an object moves without explanation, it is remarkable enough to record and share to gain further understanding. We leave all conclusions to the reader, and we simply want you inform you that sometimes things go bump in the night and sometimes there isn’t an explanation…

  Case 15. The Doppelganger

  Is there such a thing as a doppelganger? If so, why would they visit you?

  Donna is a woman who has vivid dreams that sometimes overlap into her real life. In Paranormal Factor 4, we interviewed Donna and she described her most disturbing experiences. During March of 2012, she contacted us again about another disturbing development.

  She claimed that she saw a doppelganger of herself.

  The very mention of a possibility of a doppelganger is disturbing. They can be harbingers of misfortune and sometimes even death. Naturally, she was very upset. For someone like Donna who sees patterns in her paranormal experiences, seeing a doppelganger would be terrifying. After doing a little research, we assured Donna that perhaps she was experiencing a phenomenon known as temporoparietal junction.

  We also inquired about her mental state. While we are not qualified to make an analysis, we assume for the purposes of the interview that she was not suffering from schizophrenia or paranoia or any other delusions. Donna was clearly suffering from heightened anxiety because she saw her doppelganger at night. Given her concern (and curiosity), we sent one of our members to her home to record her recollection of the event.

  Donna told us that nothing particularly stressful was happening in her life when the event occurred. While lying in bed, Donna raised her hand in her sleep so that it was positioned somewhat in the entrance of her room. She described initially feeling a cold chill and a then a breeze cooled her arm and hand and it spread to her fingers.

  She said she didn’t feel afraid at first. Donna wiggled her fingers slightly and that was when she felt the touch of someone else. It was gentle and soothing. She didn’t feel worried and assumed it was her imagination, so she allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

  At some point during her slumber, she was awakened by the continued touches on her hand. This time she didn’t fall asleep again but pulled her hand away. She turned to the right towards the entrance of the room and sat up slightly.

  It was at this time that she saw a translucent version of herself, and it was like she was looking into a mirror. The apparition not only identical to her, but shared her expression. Donna had what she called a strong psychic message that they shared a secret of something to come. The entity began to reach out to her and couldn’t resist doing the same.

  When they touched, she felt a slight electric current and her mind registered a bright light. Donna felt that she lost consciousness for a moment, and when she came to, she saw the apparition’s gauze-like, translucent shape exit the room.

  After listening to Donna’s story, we discussed the possibility that she could have been having an out of body experience, but the strange way that the apparition made contact was consistent with a haunting, but why would it decide to take on Donna’s appearance?

  These are questions we can’t quite resolve yet, but we plan on monitoring the situation and staying in touch with Donna to see if there is any meaning to these events. Hopefully the evil we have learned about doppelgangers does not present itself and this is an isolated incident.

  Case 16. Dictation Gone Awry

  Can computers be used as a tool for the deceased to communicate with the living? Or is some other entity watching?

  Recently, I installed a dictation software program on my daughter’s computer. With this particular software package, you had to train the software to recognize your voice to increase the accuracy of the typing. As we went through the training together, my daughter spoke into the microphone to read the passages that she was required to read to train the computer to recognize her voice. I remember getting frustrated with the computer. It was giving me all kinds of trouble as we installed the program.

  Finally, around midnight, we had completed the installation and my daughter begged to stay up to practice with the new software. She loved to write stories and this was sure to be an excellent tool to help her. I decided to allow her to stay up a little while along with her sister who was very fascinated with the software.

  I figured, why not, it’s a weekend.

  I decided to go to my room to check my email on my netbook. As I checked my email accounts and social networking messages, I heard giggling out in the living room. I heard them making silly statements. It was clear they were having fun trying to figure out what kind of statements that they could type with their voices. This sound was pretty common around my house, so I didn’t think too much about it.

  After awhile, my oldest daughter came into my room with a frightened look on her face.

  “Mom, the computer was talking to me!” I asked her how. She told me that she decided to pretend that she was asking the computer questions instead of just wanting it to take dictation. I told her that was silly. She said that she asked the computer where mom was and the computer told her that I was in my room with the netbook and sure enough, there I was! I asked her to show me.

  I followed her out to the living room. I noticed that there was some gibberish in the word processing document along with the words, “in her room with the netbook.” I asked her how I would know if she wasn’t just playing a joke to me. She promised me that she wasn’t.

  I had an idea.

  She sa
t down at the computer chair and I told her to duplicate what she had done. My daughter began to speak into the microphone.

  She said, “How do you know things about people in the house?”

  A chill went down my back. This was not the question I felt that anyone should ask to a possibly haunted computer. She waited for the dictation program to translate. The first sentence was just gibberish, and I sighed in relief. Surely, it had to be a translation glitch.

  Finally, the translation ended with, “Your pictures on the wall.” Both of us jumped in surprise. Since then, we haven’t used the dictation software since.

  Note: The location of this manufactured home has experienced other strange phenomena. Lately, it seems to surround the eldest girl in the home, who is currently 13. Her items are frequently missing, such as a pair of brand new shoes that were finally found behind the stove next to each other as if they had been carefully placed there. Once again, the shoes are missing once more and are nowhere around. Things have also been seen moving across tables and items lost are always found in unlikely places.

  Case 17. Goodall Home

  When I worked as a nurse’s aide I worked at a challenging group home known as Goodall Home, the deceased members of the household were also a challenge.

  The Goodall Home was one of the most challenging places I had ever worked as a nurse’s aide. The patients living there were temperamental and came from institutions where they most likely encountered all manners of abuse and often neglect. Some were the products of their family’s indifference. Nobody visited the residents at Goodall Home except the staff.

  The Goodall Home was the worst of the residential homes because it was the culmination of society’s indifference. Nobody wanted to spend time with the patients of Goodall, because they didn’t often play nice with others. Sometimes they pulled their hair and screamed. Others slapped themselves and hit you. Some ate food from a processor; others didn’t understand how to go to the bathroom. You could be bitten at Goodall Home and scratched the next.

  There was a lot of rocking back and forth, medications being passed out, and of course, the screaming. I worked at other group homes, but to me, Goodall Home would always be the trenches. Often after being attacked by a resident and narrowly escaped injury, I swore I would never go back.

  But I needed a job and I was good at what I did, so every day I drove my Cavalier into the driveway and prayed for a good shift and that my coworkers would have my back.

  It seemed that the residents weren’t the only thing to watch out for. Goodall Home was built in 1864, and was a six bedroom house with two outbuildings I had never entered. The Goodall family had built and lived in the home before allowing its use for a residence for disabled adults.

  I dreaded working alone at Goodall Home.

  Even after the residents had left for their day programs, I could tell there was something wrong with the house. I recall racing up and down the upstairs hallway changing bedding because I just didn’t want to be there too long. As I carried the soiled sheets downstairs, I had the sensation of someone wanting to push me down. Once I felt their hands upon my back. Fortunately, when I was young, I was also quite fast. I raced down those steps as if the devil was chasing me.

  But that didn’t change the fact that the next day, I would have to go up there and do it all over again. One of the third shift staff would turn on the seventies era stereo in the large dining room. It could barely get one station, but it was something for us to listen to.

  One morning, the third shift staff completed her morning paperwork and left early. As I continued to document the happenings of the day, I heard static interrupting the classic rock music I had selected. This was by no means unusual, so I went to it and adjusted the tuner and went back about my business.

  Once more the static returned, and this time I heard voices coming from the stereo. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I began to get mildly concerned, but I assumed that there was another radio station interrupting the one I was listening to. I walked over to the stereo and found that this was not the case. The only station was the music one I had chosen, so I once again adjusted the dial and returned to my paperwork, eager to get home.

  Next I heard static then music, static then music.

  I rushed into the dining room ready to turn off the stereo. Obviously, it was malfunctioning. What I saw shocked me. I watched as the dial began to turn back and forth as if by an unseen hand. My heart began to thump in my chest and I unplugged the stereo.

  It didn’t seem to go off right away but was more of a slow drain. I watched as the dreaded blue light finally faded into sleep. From that day on, I dreaded being left alone at Goodall Home, and made sure that the stereo was left unplugged when I worked.

  The stereo wasn’t the only thing in the house that was affected. There was an intercom that was upstairs. It was used to monitor the residents upstairs. Sometimes, the vague voices would come through along with the static. When staff went upstairs to investigate, there was nothing going on.

  There was also an old fashioned attic door that was always locked up when staff didn’t have to go in there. This of course didn’t prevent the attic light from being on every time I left after second shift. Every time, no one had been inside of the attic all day to leave the light on. When the light was turned on, it would turn on again.

  One staff once told me that she thought that the angry, agitated spirits of the patients of Goodall Home were the reason for the haunting. Another suspected that the evil of Goodall Home had gotten into the residents. Either way, it wasn’t pleasant to work there.

  Goodall Home was finally closed, and its former residents have moved on into the community that once shunned them. One family purchased it to restore it, but suddenly left.

  I like to think of Goodall Home as an in between place where the forgotten souls from institutions were sent to find their way into the world, but does whatever lurks inside linger still? Time will tell.

 

 

  Angela Baker, Supernatural Witness 5 (Paranormal Factor)

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