Entities

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Story 1.

A haunting in Indiana.

In previous episodes, we have looked at instances of unwitting victims having been targeted by apparent demonic entities.

But in this story, we examine a case in which an entire family were allegedly driven from their home by a whole host of demons, forcing them to enlist the help of both the church and the police in an effort to save their children.

The interview with the children had already taken several hours, and as evening approached, Valerie Washington found herself longing for the end of her working day.

She had been asked that afternoon by her supervisor at the Department of Children's Services to go across town to the hospital in Gary and assist the staff there in assessing a family which had been brought in.

With the children's mother and grandmother seated next door in a separate room, she and one of the nurses had spent most of the day questioning the three siblings in an effort to find out why the police had removed them from their home.

And whilst the interviews with the family's 12-year-old daughter had gone well for the most part, sadly, the same could not be said for her two brothers.

The younger of the pair, who was seven years old, had a tendency to growl and bare his teeth when asked questions.

He would roll his eyes right back in his head until only the white showed, announcing that it would soon be time for those who were present inside the room to die.

His older brother was less aggressive, but had largely remained silent when questioned, simply staring back at the caseworker with a disconcerting smile.

Realizing that she was making little headway, Washington was about to end the interview when the younger boy had launched himself across the table at his nine-year-old brother.

Calling for the children's grandmother to assist, Washington watched on wearily as the older boy then began to head-butt the old woman in the chest, provoking her to take him by the hand and commence praying out loud.

Suddenly, the boy went completely stiff, his head rotating slowly to fix upon the two healthcare workers with a dead-eyed stare.

He then began to walk backwards.

Washington's jaw suddenly dropped open in disbelief as the child reached the wall behind him and then continued to walk backwards, up it.

He was still staring at her, sporting that terrifying grin as he stepped off the wall, his feet now standing flat against the ceiling before he dropped down again.

With a frightened cry, Washington grabbed her notes and ran from the the room, with the male nurse following closely behind her.

As the waiting police officers jumped up to see what was going on, she ordered them to take the children into protective custody, and then shakily began to phone, her supervisor.

The first signs for Latoya Ammons that something might have been amiss with the one-story house in Caroline Street, where she had just relocated her family, were the flies.

The weather in Gary, Indiana in that December of 2012 had been characteristically cold, and yet, after less than a week at the address, she found that the porch area and screen door was somehow permanently carpeted in a thick layer of grossly distended black flies.

No matter how many times she tried to kill or remove the dead insects, They quickly returned, causing her to call the landlord and ask for assistance.

For his part, he seemed as surprised by the issue as she did, saying that he would get someone to come round and look into the problem.

He also stated that nothing like this had ever been reported by any of the previous tenants.

Several nights later, Latoya had been sitting in the living room with her mother, Rosa Campbell, when both women had been startled by the sound of loud footsteps apparently ascending the stairs from the the basement below them.

Thinking that this could potentially be one of her sons playing a prank, Latoya had gone across to the cellar door and opened it, only to find nobody there.

Bewildered, she switched the basement lights on, before suddenly recoiling in horror.

There on the wooden steps, illuminated by the solitary light bulb shining down from overhead, were a large set of glistening boot prints.

Latoya had quickly locked the cellar door and then checked every room in the house to ensure there were no signs of a break-in.

All three children were still fast asleep in their beds, with the windows and doors to the address apparently locked and secure.

After several minutes, when she went back to check the stairs, The mysterious boot prints had now seemingly faded away.

A few days later, officers from the Gary Police Department were called to the address following a frantic 911 call from Latoya.

When they arrived, they found the tenant hysterical, seated in the living room of the house with her three children hugged close, eyes darting frantically around the room.

Latoya explained to the officers that she had arisen in the early hours to get a drink from the kitchen, only to encounter a dark figure standing in her path in the living room.

She had cried out in fear as the shadowy intruder had lunged towards her, only for it to fade into nothingness as it made contact with her.

Consumed by a freezing sensation and a sudden urge to vomit, she had briefly collapsed to the floor before regaining her senses and managing to call the police.

Despite their best efforts, the police officers could find no trace of an intruder either inside the address or its surroundings, and advised the mother of three to try and get a good night's sleep.

But as terrifying as these encounters were, they were only the start of the horrific ordeal that was yet to come.

Two weeks later, on the evening of March 10th, 2012, The police were again called to Caroline Street.

Once more, Latoya was was hugging her children close to her, tears streaming down her face.

The officers listened impassively as the children's grandmother explained that both she and her daughter had been awoken by panicked yells coming from her granddaughter's bedroom.

Hurrying through the house, they had found the 12-year-old girl levitating several feet above her bed.

apparently fast asleep.

It had been her brothers who were screaming in distress.

Unable to rouse the floating child, Rosa Campbell had immediately ordered the others to join her in prayer, at which point the girl had descended to the bed.

She awoke with no apparent memory of the event.

It would transpire that the local churches which the grandmother had contacted in the aftermath of this incident were as sceptical as the police officers who had attended.

With the religious community refusing to help, the family instead turned to a local clairvoyant, who stated that she could feel the presence of multiple demons inside the address, advising the terrified tenants to vacate the residence immediately.

Lacking the finances for such a move, Latoya instead attempted to cleanse the address herself.

She erected a simple altar in the basement, made the sign of the cross in oil on the children's foreheads, and read a psalm out loud.

The situation quickly deteriorated.

Latoya and her mother later discovered her seven-year-old son hiding inside one of the closets, apparently talking to an invisible child.

The boy explained that he was conversing with the spirit of a dead boy, who was describing to him how it felt to die.

Almost immediately, both he and his brother seemed to become repeatedly possessed by demonic entities.

They would growl like dogs, laugh maniacally, and speak to her in strange voices which were not their own.

Following an incident where an item of furniture apparently levitated by itself and then flew across the room injuring her daughter, the Department of Children's Services were contacted by a neighbor who had concerns for the safety of the children.

It was whilst Latoya and the rest of the family were at the hospital seeking treatment that a caseworker attended to interview them.

The meeting did not go well, and when her eldest son apparently became possessed and walked backwards up a wall and onto a ceiling, her children were taken into care.

Desperate to get them back, Latoya made repeated appeals to anyone she could think of.

including religious leaders and a local police captain named Charles Austin.

Having worked in law enforcement for around 30 years prior to this case, Austin was initially sceptical of the account given by the hysterical mother.

A visit to the family physician, Dr.

Jeffrey Onyaku, would do little to persuade him of her claims.

On speaking with the doctor, he was informed that in all likelihood, the children were acting out delusions suggested to them by their mother's deeply religious beliefs.

But, the accounts of the social worker and nurse from the incident at the hospital concerned him.

Both witnesses were trained professionals, completely terrified by what had taken place there.

Accompanied by another officer, along with social worker Valerie Washington, he decided to pay a visit to the family home in Caroline Street.

Despite his many years on the force, Austin found himself completely unnerved by the encounter.

The video recorder they were using repeatedly failed whilst in use, the batteries apparently sucked dry by some unknown force.

Whilst reviewing the photos they had taken at the premises, the outlines of shadowy figures could be seen standing watching the officers.

which were also present on the images he had taken using his personal mobile phone.

When he later went to review the audio notes he had recorded, Austin heard a mysterious voice talking in the background, which had not been heard at the time of the recording.

He would later experience electrical issues at his home address, with devices shorting out or failing when he touched them.

Another individual who agreed to help the family was the Reverend Michael Maginot.

who had been contacted by the chaplain from the Methodist hospital.

When he spoke to Latoya, she pleaded with him to conduct an exorcism at the house.

Agreeing to a preliminary visit to the address, he found that lights flickered when he went near them, and the window blinds would move around despite the windows being securely fastened.

He would go on to conduct three separate exorcisms at the residence, two in English and one in Latin.

none of which passed without incident.

During one of these visits, a strange oil began to ooze out of the fixtures, dripping onto the floor below.

Even after officers cleaned this up and checked that these fittings had not been filled up with oil by Latoya, more of the fluid began to drip from inside.

In another incident, a social worker named Samantha Illich, who had taken over the family's case when Washington requested to be removed, suffered an adverse reaction.

As with the officers on the previous visit, she discovered a strange fluid oozing out of the wall in the basement.

When she ran her finger through it, it was freezing cold and highly viscous.

Suddenly, the strange gel seemed to change its chemical makeup, hardening and quickly solidifying.

A sharp pain then shot through her finger, as if it had been snapped or broken.

Illich was instantly paralyzed, as her entire body was then engulfed in a similar agony.

Unable to speak or breathe properly, she fled the house and refused to go back inside.

After the third exorcism, whatever was taking place inside the address seemed to cease.

Latoya was reunited with her children, moving out of the house shortly afterwards.

The highly public way in which Latoya Ammons has described the events which took place in Gary, Indiana have opened her up to accusations of manipulation and sensationalism.

She has given multiple interviews about the alleged ordeal which she and her family went through, with some commentators accusing her of fabricating the accounts in order to profit from them.

It is true that Latoya was in financial difficulty at the time she reported the disturbances and was several months behind with her rent payments to her landlord.

There is further criticism too in the written assessments of the children, which were carried out by state psychologists.

Most were of the opinion that the boys in particular were attempting to please their mother by acting out her fantasies to the authorities.

And yet, many of the professionals who were involved with the family and who worked on their case simply cannot explain some of the things they saw and heard during that time.

Some are veterans in their field, highly respected and upstanding in the local community, with absolutely no reason to embellish or lie about what they encountered.

There is also the issue that Latoya has given the press direct access to her medical records and those of her children.

in order to verify and support aspects of her account.

If she were to be fabricating what transpired, surely this is is something she would have sought to hide, in order to assist her narrative.

With no further incidents of a supernatural nature having been reported by either the family or any of the subsequent tenants of their older dress,

it seems that whatever forces targeted Latoya and her children have long since moved on.

Did a demonic entity fixate on this mother of three and her young family in an effort to claim their souls?

Or was this a case of a mother affecting the mental health of her children through fantasy and indoctrination?

In truth, we cannot be sure,

but what we do know is that this case possesses a wide and diverse range of evidence far in excess of most others we have looked at.

And for that reason, it should be viewed as a cautionary tale of the potential threats waiting at the fringes of our reality.

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Story 2.

The Philip Experiment

The idea of a continuing existence despite the passing of a person's physical form is one that has long fascinated humanity.

But what if it were possible to force such an entity into being via the use of nothing more than sheer willpower?

In this episode, we will examine a case in which that concept was tested and resulted in some degree of success, an undertaking which became known as the Philip Experiment.

The reporter looked on, notepad in hand, as those assembled in the centre of the room continued to speak amongst themselves in hushed tones.

Only one other person besides himself and the group was present, a colleague who had been appointed to remain alongside him for the duration of their meeting.

The people who were seated around the small table before him all shared something of a loose association, but were fully aligned in their fascination with the afterlife.

They had been conversing amongst themselves for several minutes now, recounting the history of a long-dead English nobleman, who appeared to have lived something of a colourful past.

The journalist had been midway through recording some of this sordid history when he suddenly paused, detecting a visible flicker of the lights situated above him.

Although only momentary, this temporary dimming went on to repeat itself several times.

At the point he considered commenting on this phenomenon to his chaperone, the journalist's eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

The table which the group was seated around seemed to shunt slightly to one side, before moving back to its original position.

This unnatural occurrence would be repeated a further three times, much to the apparent joy and amusement of those in the centre of the room.

The reporter began to scroll in his notepad with some haste, attempting to document everything he was seeing, along with his own personal feelings about it.

He then glanced up at the table as there was an audible exclamation of wonder and surprise from those assembled there.

To his astonishment, A light and translucent patch of haze seemed to have formed immediately above them, which slowly began to expand.

Its smoke-like tendrils ventured forth to probe the surroundings, as if it was somehow alive and searching for something.

It then began to glide across the small space towards the journalist and his escort.

This prompted the visitor to hurriedly replace his notepad in his coat pocket and make a hasty retreat from the room.

Somewhat bewildered, he was completely at a loss as to how he was going to present what he had just witnessed in his newspaper column the following day.

It was a story of a human soul which had been successfully summoned at a seance centuries after its human existence had ended.

However, the man that the soul belonged to had never actually existed.

It was nothing more than a manifestation.

a thought form, created by the small gathering of people who had summoned it.

No matter what their wider political or religious views, every society throughout history has made reference to the existence of spirits and the notion of an afterlife.

Stories have been passed down from one generation to the next, relating encounters with unknown spiritual entities or the souls of departed loved ones.

Discussions on this subject have identified an apparent trend, wherein people who died under the most tragic circumstances seem unable to move on, tethered to a particular person or place with which they were previously associated, continuing to manifest within the physical realm.

Quite often it has been theorised that it is the trauma or unexpected manner in which they died that has led them to remain upon the earth.

Perhaps the horror of their departure proved too confusing to fully process, or generated an overwhelming sense of unfulfilment or regret, which then drew them back to the living.

They then appear before startled witnesses, either repeating their actions at the point of their death, or issuing warnings about the manner of their passing.

Scientific opinion on the phenomenon remains starkly divided, with some asserting that there may be unidentified energies or processes at work.

Forces which currently are not fully understood by the scientific community, but which somehow ensnare and preserve the souls of the departed.

Others believe, however, that the spirits in question instead reside solely and firmly within the minds of those who have allegedly encountered them, somehow generated by the participants in the event, the side effects of varying degrees of protracted guilt or trauma.

This somehow converts their own vision into a tangible apparition, which is then witnessed by third parties.

During the 1970s, one group of researchers based in Canada attempted to demonstrate that it was the human mind which facilitated the appearance of ghosts.

The basis of this idea lay within the previous work of the group's founder, a British academic named George Owen, who had emigrated to the country several years prior.

Possessing a strong background in mathematics and physics, Dr.

Owen had become fascinated with reports of poltergeist activity from around the world.

As a result, he had travelled extensively, interviewing witnesses from across the globe and documenting commonalities between each of the different cases.

Owen would eventually form the opinion that high degrees of stress being exerted on the minds of those involved had caused them to manifest seemingly supernatural encounters.

After settling in Canada with his wife Iris and meeting various other like-minded individuals, he had gone on to form the Toronto Society of Psychical Research, or TSPR.

In 1972, Owen had proposed a bold experiment to the members of this group.

in which they would attempt to will a fictional ghost into existence, the spirit of a historical figure who had never physically existed, and whose backstory had been crafted completely by their own hand.

They would attempt to manifest this entity using only the power of their minds, inviting it to appear before themselves and other witnesses.

The proposal was readily accepted, with a group of eight core members, including Owen and his wife, dedicating themselves to the undertaking.

Having secured a psychologist named Dr.

Joel Witten to act as an independent observer for the experiment, Owen then set about creating his subject.

He and his colleagues would craft an intricate backstory for the spirit they intended to create, which they could recount in such great detail as to convince themselves it could only be real.

The first factor which Dr.

Owen and his colleagues decided upon with regards to the creation of their test subject was the timeframe in which it had existed.

Examining various historical settings, they were eventually drawn to 17th century England, focusing specifically upon the reign of Oliver Cromwell.

This was a time which had been written of at length by the chroniclers of the age, but to an extent still allowed sufficient absence of detail within which to insert their character.

The recorded histories of later periods had proven too detailed, the high levels of information proving to be a restricting factor.

In contrast, writings pertaining to earlier timeframes lack sufficient context, creating too many questions which disrupted the protagonist's backstory.

So, it was into this setting that the fictional character of Philip Aylesford was duly inserted.

along with many tragedies and torments experienced within his lifetime.

An aristocrat of no particular fame or notoriety, Aylesford was raised a Catholic and had been a supporter of the king during the English Civil War.

Now somewhat marginalised by the arrival of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector, Aylesford had retired to his estate in Middle England, determined to avoid scrutiny from his new ruler.

Several years prior and before the onset of the conflict, Aylesford had married Dorothea,

the beautiful daughter of a noble family which resided a short distance from his own lands.

It soon became apparent, however, that the two were not a match, with both parties withdrawing from one another trapped within a barren and fruitless relationship.

Philip had gone on to rediscover happiness with a common woman named Margot, whom he had encountered one day whilst out riding alone.

Bringing her back to the estate in the guise of a servant girl, the nobleman had enjoyed a short and passionate affair, right under the nose of his cold and unfeeling spouse.

But Dorothea soon grew suspicious of the new arrival, denouncing Margot for trying to bewitch her unwitting husband using dark magic.

Thinking only of his wealth and reputation, The hapless landowner had gone along with his wife's accusation, even giving evidence against his lover at her trial.

He had stood in silence as Margot was convicted of witchcraft and then suffocated his emotions as she was led from the courtroom to be burned at the stake.

Months later, his servants had found Philip's body lying twisted and broken on the ground below one of the battlements of his home, having hurled himself to his death in guilt and despair.

With the detail of his sad tale now decided, the group went as far as to engage a local artist to draw a picture of their creation, before then setting about willing him into existence.

Under the watchful eye of Joel Witten, the eight members of the TSPR who had dedicated themselves to the experiment assembled on a weekly basis.

During these meetings, they would discuss Philip's life in detail, questioning his actions and motives, exploring the grief that had led him to his tragic and untimely end.

These discussions would then progress to invitations for the spirit of the dead nobleman to reveal itself, so that they could question him further on his life.

Seated around the commission drawing of Philip, one member of the group would be nominated at each meeting to reach out with their mind.

They would visualize the dead aristocrat and call him to attend, before going on to share what they had experienced with the rest of the group.

An entire year would pass with no success before Iris Owen proposed that they enact changes to the way in which they were attempting to make contact.

Working under normal room lighting as opposed to the candlelight they had previously been utilising, No one member was now allowed to act independently of the others.

The group would instead silently reach out together in the hopes of contacting Philip's spirit, combining their efforts to manifest him.

Almost immediately, this change in technique garnered results, with members of the group detecting a faint tapping upon the tabletop and walls.

After several further meetings, the team devised a method for the spirit to communicate with them, recording a series of positive and negative responses to their questions.

The audible knocking of their spectral visitor was later accompanied by physical movements of the table they were seated at, seemingly moving of its own accord a short distance from its original position and then back again, despite the group having only rested their fingertips upon it.

As time passed, the table's movement in response to their questions became more pronounced.

sometimes tilting to one side or rocking back and forth on one of its legs.

There was an unexpected further development as the lights in the room began to dim or flicker, individually at first and then together in unison.

Philip's confidence and apparent abilities seemed to grow, to the point where he briefly appeared to those who had summoned him as a light mist.

Eventually, After being observed by several independent witnesses and filmed as part of a studio television programme, Philip's responses gradually became less frequent, until they finally ceased altogether.

The spirit seemed to have tired of the brief existence which it had been called to, choosing instead to return to a state of inactivity.

Fully acknowledging that this activity could only have been created via their own minds, Dr.

Owen recorded several intriguing observations.

If any member of the group was absent for a meeting or physically unwell, it was noted that Philip's spirit either did not appear or did so in an apparently weakened state.

Several group members also reported poltergeist-like activity in their own homes after they had returned from their weekly meeting.

This suggested that their creation had either accompanied them to their residence or their activities had somehow attracted the attention of an unrelated, genuine spirit entity.

Keen to replicate their apparent success, the TSPR went on to form a second group comprised of members who had not been part of the original experiment.

As before, they would spend several weeks crafting an entirely fictional character, settling on Lilith, a French-Canadian girl who had opposed the Germans during World War II.

Once again, after a sustained period, their their attempts to will the soul of the wartime resistance fighter into existence met with apparent success.

A degree of dialogue was established via a series of knocking sounds and table movements, though not as intensely as with the first group.

Similar results would be obtained in further seances involving fictional characters, carried out not only by the TSPR, but other groups based as far afield as Australia.

Many years on from the events of the Philip experiment, the fictional ghost's legacy remains something of a double-edged sword.

On one hand, the research generated surprisingly little criticism or pushback from the scientific community towards the published results.

However, There has never been any real agreement as to how what was witnessed came to be achieved.

Despite none of the participants claiming to possess psychic powers, some commentators cite the experiments as proof that such latent abilities must truly exist.

Others take a more grounded view, agreeing that it was nothing more than a shared hallucination created by those who participated, with each of those present subconsciously influencing the physical side effects.

A smaller number of observers postulated that a real entity may well have been summoned from the astral plane, which then took on the identity of Philip as part of a deceitful act, impersonating their creation for its own demonic ends.

As with numerous other assertions and trials of this nature, the perception of the event may be influenced as much by the observers as by the participants.

Depending on the extent to which an onlooker believes in such things, they might choose to overlook someone else manipulating objects or even agree that an apparition is manifesting even if it does not truly exist.

Conversely, some individuals may completely reject any inexplicable phenomenon, attributing it solely to deception and manipulation on the part of those involved.

Much like the individuals gathered around the table during the Philip experiment, it could be that people often see only what they want to see.

And as to how real it is,

well,

that is entirely within the eye and the mindset of the beholder.