Paranormal Witness—"The Real Haunting in Connecticut”

         I recently saw an episode of “Paranormal Witness” that really caught my attention. It was called “The Real Haunting in Connecticut”, and it told the story of a rather dark, malicious haunting experienced by the Snedeker family. Their account—unlike many I’ve seen—seemed credible and solid. And their story got me to wondering exactly why some people experience this kind of malignant haunting.
         The problem began after the Snedekers moved into a colonial house near Hartford, Connecticut—a house that had previously been a funeral home, and still had mortuary equipment in the basement. The family’s eldest son, 13-year old Phillip, had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and they rented the house to be close to his cancer treatment center. Carmen, the mother of the family, didn’t really want them to stay in this house; but finding a place to live hadn’t been easy, and she and her husband felt like they didn’t have much choice. So Carmen blocked off the embalming room in the basement, and put Phillip’s bedroom down there so that he could be close to a bathroom when he needed it.
         According to the show, Phillip was awakened by someone calling his name on his very first night in the house, and he felt immediately convinced that the house was evil; he didn’t want the family to stay there. But they did.
         He would begin “seeing things” as well as hearing voices; he and his two brothers would also discover, as they explored the area under the counters in the basement, a sticky substance on the walls and floor that looked like blood. Phillip and his middle brother Brad would also see four cloaked apparitions lurking in a corner in the basement—but Carmen would find no intruders when she went searching. All four of the Snedeker children were becoming terrified to be in the house, but Carmen didn’t believe in ghosts, and she scolded Phillip for scaring the others.
         As the family continued to live in the house, Phillip became increasingly sullen, and he complained of hearing voices calling him every night. After the family had been there for about a year, he moved his bedroom into the embalming room—and he began to change even more. He started writing obsessively in a journal, and he became aggressive and angry, often fist-fighting with his brother Brad.
         And then, one day when she was cleaning his room, his older cousin Tammy would chillingly discover what he had been recording in his journal: dark, violent drawings, and notes about killing, murder, and death. Strangely, even though Phillip was dyslexic and had trouble writing, the words were perfectly written—because, he said, “the man had helped him.” Carmen would also discover that her son had been cutting himself on his arms. “Something was telling me to do it,” he said.
         The problems involving Phillip finally reached a peak when his cousin Tammy stepped in between him and Brad to break up yet another fight. Phillip ran into her room and began tearing it up—and then shoved her across the room with a strength that seemed impossible for a boy who had been so ill. After that, the haunting phenomena began for Tammy; unseen hands pulled her covers down during the night, and also tugged at her bra and went up her shirt.
         Carmen, concerned for the safety of all the children in the house, felt that something had to be done. She still didn’t believe that anything paranormal was happening, and she felt that Phillip was somehow responsible for all the mischief. So: she talked to his doctor about the disturbing behavior she’d been seeing. The doctor felt that Phillip could be schizophrenic and should be committed. So Carmen allowed her son to be taken away. At the hospital he delivered a chilling message to his mother: “Now that I’m gone, they’re gonna come after you.”
         And she did become the next target for the haunting. While she was taking a shower, the shower curtain wrapped tightly around her face and body, cutting off her breath; Tammy intervened, tearing a hole in the curtain so that Carmen could breathe. And then things escalated for Tammy as well; again, her bedcovers were tugged, and later, unseen hands groped at her. She described the “growling, coldness, and smell” of the unseen presence as it came for her. And she, along with Carmen, watched in terror as a rosary around Tammy’s neck levitated and then crashed to the floor. Finally Carmen called the church for help, and an exorcism was performed on the house.
         The account on “Paranormal Witness” didn’t indicate whether the exorcism was successful. The family moved out of the house in October 1999, and Carmen had her son released from the hospital. The show didn’t reveal how he fared after he returned home. But, sadly, his cancer returned 24 years after he first became ill. He passed away in January 2012 at the age of 38.
         Phillip did record an interview before his death, admitting that he had been “more fascinated than frightened” of “the things that were in the basement.” And, rather chillingly, he described how evil can “find its way into the little nooks and crannies in your life, and begin to manipulate you …”
         If this story really is true, it raises some interesting questions. It seems there were probably several angry, manipulative presences lingering in the house; so, would there have been problems for anyone who moved in, or was there something about this family that made them especially susceptible? My feeling is that there probably would have been some amount of strange activity for whoever lived there, but—maybe the Snedekers really were particularly vulnerable.
         Their situation was a stressful one; Phillip had cancer, devastating news for any family. They’d had to leave their home in upstate New York for an unwelcoming house in an unfamiliar city—without their father, who stayed behind to continue working. Did all of this make the family more vulnerable to the energies in the house? And was Phillip—in his weakened physical and mental state, and with his admitted fascination for the “things in the basement”—was he the most susceptible of all? It seems very possible.
         I also wonder exactly why these dark, angry presences became trapped in the house. Were they the spirits of deceased people who had been traumatized by seeing their bodies being processed by the funeral home? Had they not realized they were dead, or not wanted to? Or—were these souls somehow traumatized by the way their bodies were handled? Was there some mistreatment? So many possibilities …
         What do you think?

      Sources: “Paranormal Witness”, Season 2, Episode 208: “The Real Haunting in Connecticut”     http://www.syfy.com/paranormalwitness/episodes/season/2/episode/208/the_real_haunting_in_connecticut

Ann Young

Author—Fantasy, Mysticism, Paranormal Fiction … and Fact

www.annyoungfiction.com

Spirits Dark and Light

         As someone who’s courted the paranormal for decades, I’ve encountered more than a few ghostly visitors over the years. They’ve manifested in a variety of ways: dark and light, as sparkles or flashes, as silhouettes or solid-appearing figures. Their presence hasn’t always been easy to handle, but these visitors have had a profound influence on my life and my view of reality.

         No one has to convince me about life after death, or about the idea that people who have died can make themselves known to us. I don’t need proof of the existence of non-corporeal beings who were never human. And I don’t need convincing that we who are human are a melding of body and spirit, with the spiritual part being able to separate from the physical—at death, and sometimes while the person is very much alive! (More about that in a future entry.)

         I really have seen a few visitors who didn’t appear human at all. They didn’t have five heads or razor-sharp claws; their foreignness was much more subtle, and much less scary, than that! I remember seeing one that manifested as a moving pattern of light and dark over the wall. I knew it was a presence of some kind—its energy seemed very much alive, and its movement seemed to be part of that aliveness—but it didn’t have a body as we do.

         There was also a night, years ago, when I woke up to see a huge figure filling the doorway to my bedroom. I had a sense of a male energy, but he didn’t seem human; his face was indistinct, his body broad and square, and he was clothed in a robe-like garment that was scattered with points of white light. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me, and I definitely felt uneasy seeing him. My sense was that he really was a different kind of being, from a reality other than our own. I just wasn’t so sure I wanted him visiting me!

         I’ve also seen ghostly visitors who were the spirits of deceased people I knew. Several months after my mother passed away, I was startled to get a quick glimpse of her sitting in an armchair in my living room—looking very solid and distinctly like herself. I had a sense that she wanted to communicate with me, and that she wanted me to recognize her and know she was there. I don’t think it was a coincidence that she appeared so recognizably and clearly.

Just a few weeks ago I had another interesting experience. The spiritual center I attend was having a food auction that was named for one of our members who had died. As I was standing in line, chatting and waiting for my turn at the food counter, I got a quick, peripheral glimpse of someone standing in the doorway to my left. I got a distinct impression of a broad, solid figure there, but I couldn’t distinguish who. When I turned to look directly at the person, no one was there! Then I realized who I had seen; it was our friend, the one the event was named for. The figure did have her shape. And it made perfect sense that she’d be standing there watching everyone enjoying the food, just as she did when she was alive.

         Having had these experiences and many others, I’ve come to the conclusion that our familiar reality is surrounded by a non-material dimension through which various kinds of spirit visitors can manifest to us. And I believe that there are still other dimensions/realities beyond that—a multidimensional Universe—through which we all ultimately travel as our souls evolve on their journey. What do you think?

 

Ann Young

Author—Fantasy, Mysticism, Paranormal Fiction … and Fact

 

Glimpsing the Afterlife

        Have you ever been able to sense what happened to a loved one after death? I have. I wasn’t trying to; in fact, I was surprised when some very distinct impressions came to me after a few of the deaths in my family. I was also surprised at how these loved ones reacted to their own passing—and where their journeys seemed to take them after they crossed over.

            The person who surprised me most was my uncle. While he was alive, he seemed to be a pragmatic, no-nonsense, cynical sort of guy. He never seemed to have much of a spiritual or religious leaning. But shortly after his death, I was startled to pick up a distinct impression of him leaving his body with ease, rising up with a great sense of freedom and joy toward the spiritual realm that was his home—just as he’d always expected to.

I was totally floored by the fact that I even had this impression—and by the fact that it also seemed to indicate an inner spiritual life I never would have expected from this uncle. In the end, I decided that he must have been one of those people who was very private about his spiritual beliefs. I felt happy for him, in that he seemed to clearly understand where he came from and where he was going.

By contrast, there was another male loved one of mine who was intensely devout and religious during his life—and fell into a kind of dark, ominous turmoil after he died. These were some of the strongest impressions I’ve ever had after a family member’s passing. On the two nights before his funeral, I could feel, and almost see him lingering heavily in his house, consumed in a dark turmoil that seemed to have some potent anger at its center.

In all honesty, the dark, dense quality of his energy scared me away from trying to help. And I wondered why he was caught up in such turbulence. In trying to be pious during his life, had he been suppressing a great deal of anger, an anger that was finally freed when he left his body? And did this very religious man—a good man, who had spent so much of his life in service to other people—did he carry into his death a feeling of not having done enough, of being too sinful or angry? And did he end up experiencing the torment of Hell as an expected punishment?

Over time, I was able to send him some prayers and healing. And a day came when I could sense that he had moved on from his turmoil. But I find myself wondering how many people fall into this kind of torment after death, because of the expectation of being punished, or being sent to a place called Hell—which, I believe, exists only as a state of being created by one’s own fears and expectations. More about that in a future entry.

My father was another person about whom I had some strong impressions after his death. While he was alive, he seemed to have little, if any belief in God; in his opinion, God didn’t help anyone, and our task as humans was to fend for ourselves and deal with whatever life threw at us. His death was quick and sudden, and I don’t think he departed easily; I felt a strange kind of jolt when it happened, like a brief, rough interruption in time. And then, some weeks after his death, my brother and I had a dream about him—the same dream.

We both saw my father sitting in a grey, empty place all alone, and I knew at once that he really hadn’t believed in anything; he had ended up in a kind of grey limbo because he hadn’t expected anyone or anything to be there for him. To me, that was very sad. I don’t recall whether I felt like I could do anything to help, but I remember feeling certain, somehow, that he wouldn’t be in that place forever. As with my other loved one, a time came when I could sense that my father wasn’t stuck anymore. And I felt such a sense of relief.

So—what’s to be made of all this? It seems to me that a person’s expectations, attitude, and spiritual beliefs can play a huge role in where they go after they die. But I don’t believe the story ends there. I agree with the mystics and metaphysicians who suggest that our journey of evolution carries on after physical death: no one stays stuck forever, and we all continue “moving up the spiral” into new experiences in this multidimensional Universe. Do we move toward the fullest realization of ourselves, or perhaps a perfect reunion with our Source? Either one sounds really good to me.

Ann Young

Author—Fantasy, Mysticism, Paranormal Fiction … and Fact