Speaker 1: In ancient Greece, the pytheas, the high priestesses of the
Speaker 1: Temple of Apollo who served as his oracles at Delphi,
Speaker 1: were thought to originally have been young children, ideally farmers daughters,
Speaker 1: who were chosen for their perceived purity and innocence. It
Speaker 1: is a common theme in the history of divination found
Speaker 1: in many cultures. In ancient Rome, for example, it was
Speaker 1: often the task of children to perform the drawing of lots,
Speaker 1: a process used to determine the will of the gods
Speaker 1: by the reading of small tablets, usually made of wood,
Speaker 1: that were thrown into water. Classicist Sarah Illis Johnston of
Speaker 1: Ohio University attributes this to the strongly held belief that
Speaker 1: children were simply able to see gods, demons, and ghosts
Speaker 1: that other people could not, a skill that they would
Speaker 1: invariably lose once they grew up. Needless to say, such
Speaker 1: a notion is a popular one in the culture of
Speaker 1: the paranormal, and unexplained. For a start, there is something
Speaker 1: inherently unnerving about young children being privy to things that
Speaker 1: adults are not, But also this idea plays into the
Speaker 1: common narrative that adulthood somehow robs us of the innocence, imagination,
Speaker 1: and openness of the senses that are thought required to
Speaker 1: see such things. I have explored this idea previously on
Speaker 1: the podcast with regards to the apparent UFO sightings in
Speaker 1: the Welsh town of broad Haven in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: and in the book in the chapter concerning the apparent
Speaker 1: UFO sighting at a school in rural Zimbabwe in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. In both cases, a group of school children
Speaker 1: claim to have seen an unusual craft land at the
Speaker 1: back of their playground. When later called on to draw
Speaker 1: pictures of what they had witnessed, many of their images
Speaker 1: contained striking similarities, despite the children having had little to
Speaker 1: no time to confer on what they had apparently seen.
Speaker 1: But by far the most unnerving of this trope are
Speaker 1: those of the sixth sense variety. In m night Shire
Speaker 1: Marlin's iconic nineteen ninety nine film of the same name,
Speaker 1: the young boy Cole Seer claimed to be able to
Speaker 1: see dead people. Back in nineteen eighty nine, just outside
Speaker 1: the city of Columbus in Georgia. In the United States,
Speaker 1: another young child was claiming exactly the same thing you're
Speaker 1: listening to, unexplained and I'm Richard McClane Smith. Wolf, cried
Speaker 1: Heidi from the back door. The young girl scanned the
Speaker 1: yard again, now completely covered from three days of snow,
Speaker 1: but saw no sign of the dog anywhere. Mummy, she asked,
Speaker 1: turning to the twenty one year old Lisa, who was
Speaker 1: busy making lunch in the kitchen. Where did Wolf go?
Speaker 1: He's probably in his kennel, she replied, Why don't you
Speaker 1: go and take a look. Heidi was almost four years
Speaker 1: old and loved nothing more than playing about in the
Speaker 1: snow with her puppy, a recent moving in present from
Speaker 1: her parents. This was the first time he hadn't come
Speaker 1: running to her when she called his name. After trying
Speaker 1: one more time but getting no response, she zipped up
Speaker 1: her jacket, grabbed her toboggin, and headed out into the
Speaker 1: garden to find him. Lisa watched from the window with
Speaker 1: a smile as her daughter trudged out in the snow,
Speaker 1: pulling her empty sled behind her as she went back outside. Heidi,
Speaker 1: having now reached the kennel, peered inside to take a look,
Speaker 1: but there was no sign of her dog anywhere. Just
Speaker 1: then she noticed Wolf's footprints in the snow, heading back
Speaker 1: toward the house. Heidi followed them all the way to
Speaker 1: the edge of the porch, where they veered off to
Speaker 1: the side and disappeared underneath it. Ducking her head under
Speaker 1: to get a better look, Heidi finally spotted him. Wolf,
Speaker 1: there you are coming out of there, But Wolf, who
Speaker 1: was backed in as far as he could go, refused
Speaker 1: to budge, as if he were too afraid to come out.
Speaker 1: Just then, Heidi felt a prey behind her back. In
Speaker 1: the kitchen, Lisa was putting lunch on the table when
Speaker 1: her daughter came rushing back inside. Can I go and
Speaker 1: play with mister Gordy, she asked. Lisa looked confused. Who
Speaker 1: is mister Gordy? She said, The man with the shiny
Speaker 1: black shoes, said Heidi. Lisa, now suddenly concerned, asked her
Speaker 1: daughter to confirm again if a man had just approached
Speaker 1: her in the garden. Yes, mister Gordy, he wanted to
Speaker 1: push me on the swing, said Heidi. In a panic.
Speaker 1: Lisa ran to the window but saw no sign of
Speaker 1: anybody outside. Then, ordering Heidi to sit at the table,
Speaker 1: she hurriedly locked the front door and pulled down the
Speaker 1: blinds before calling her husband Andy. Andy who was at
Speaker 1: work a short drive away, told Lisa to they put
Speaker 1: until he could get there. Lisa knew there was every
Speaker 1: chance she could be overreacting, but it was always better
Speaker 1: to play it safe than sorry under such circumstances. So
Speaker 1: who was this mister Gordy asked Lisa, nervously, looking out
Speaker 1: the window as Heidi sat nonchinantly eating her lunch in
Speaker 1: front of the TV. Well, he's quite old, with white hair,
Speaker 1: she said. He only wanted to push me on the swing.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what he was wearing, asked Lisa. Heidi
Speaker 1: thought for a moment. He had a big hat and
Speaker 1: smart clothes, just like what the people wear at church. Lisa,
Speaker 1: taking the remote, turned down the TV and asked her
Speaker 1: daughter if she had ever seen this mister Gordi before. No,
Speaker 1: said Heidi, but he said he would be back. When
Speaker 1: the twenty two year old Andy finally arrived home twenty
Speaker 1: minutes later, he made a quick scout of the area,
Speaker 1: looking for any sign of an old man in smart
Speaker 1: clothes with white hair, but found nobody resembling that description.
Speaker 1: When the Wirecks first moved to Harris County in the
Speaker 1: fall of nineteen eighty eight, they couldn't have been more ecstatic.
Speaker 1: This quiet district in southwest Georgia had a reputation as
Speaker 1: one of the more sought after counties in the state.
Speaker 1: The young couple had never imagined they would ever be
Speaker 1: able to afford a house there until one day Lisa's parents,
Speaker 1: driving just outside the town of Ellerslie, noticed a property
Speaker 1: up for auction. The three and a half bedroom ranch
Speaker 1: house had come on to the market unexpectedly the previous
Speaker 1: owners abandoned it without any explanation. Realizing they might have
Speaker 1: a steel on their hands, they convinced Lisa and Andy
Speaker 1: to take a look. Though the house would ordinarily have
Speaker 1: been out of their price range, the couple put in
Speaker 1: a bid of what they could afford and left it
Speaker 1: at that, assuming they wouldn't get it. A few weeks later, however,
Speaker 1: they were amazed to find they had won. It was
Speaker 1: a few months after they had moved in in February
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, that Heidi had her first encounter with
Speaker 1: mister Gordy. After the initial fear at the thought of
Speaker 1: someone trying to abduct her daughter, Lisa soon came to
Speaker 1: realize that mister Gordy was nothing but an imaginary friend.
Speaker 1: Over the weeks and months that followed, she would often
Speaker 1: overhear Heidi talking to someone in her room, only to
Speaker 1: find her sitting alone on the floor playing with her dolls.
Speaker 1: Whenever she asked who her daughter was talking to, each time,
Speaker 1: without fail, came the inevitable reply, why mister Gordy. Of course,
Speaker 1: Oftentimes Lisa would watch her daughter having tea parties on
Speaker 1: the lawn, laughing and talking as if someone else was
Speaker 1: out there with her. Other times, she would head off
Speaker 1: to play on the big tree swing at the back
Speaker 1: of the garden, her arm held high in the air
Speaker 1: as if she were holding someone's hand. Lisa marveled at
Speaker 1: the inventiveness of it all, just pleased that her daughter
Speaker 1: seemed happy, and soon she was even playing along herself,
Speaker 1: preparing lunch and snacks for Heidi to share with the
Speaker 1: enigmatic mister Gordy. Each time Lisa would come to clean
Speaker 1: up their plates, mister Gordy's food would remain untouched. Then
Speaker 1: one afternoon, as Lisa was tidying some clothes away, Heidi
Speaker 1: came running into her parents' bedroom in a panic. Mummy,
Speaker 1: she said, there's a man at the door covered in blood.
Speaker 1: His hand is hurt. Lisa ran straight to the front
Speaker 1: of the house, only to find the front door completely open,
Speaker 1: but no sign of anyone outside, Shutting the door and
Speaker 1: locking it immediately, Lisa told Heidi to stay where she
Speaker 1: could see her. Was this mister Gordie, she asked her daughter. Heidi,
Speaker 1: seeing the fear in her mother's eyes, withdrew slightly and
Speaker 1: turning her own eyes to the floor, shook her head.
Speaker 1: His name was con she said, And she really saw
Speaker 1: a man standing there. Yes, said Heidi, nodding nervously. Later
Speaker 1: that night, Lisa recounted the story to Andy. Both knew
Speaker 1: full well it was nothing but Heidie's imagination. But that
Speaker 1: was the thing, thought Lisa, whenever she spoke about it.
Speaker 1: Be it the man with the blood on his shirt
Speaker 1: or mister Gordie, she seemed so convinced they were real.
Speaker 1: Just then, a distant scream punctured the quiet of the night,
Speaker 1: followed moments later by Heidie bursting into her parent's room.
Speaker 1: There's a man in my room, she cried. He's not
Speaker 1: like the other ones. Lisa grabbed her daughter, Miss Andy
Speaker 1: bolted from the bed and ran straight to Heidie's bedroom,
Speaker 1: Switching on the lights. He looked everywhere for any sign
Speaker 1: of an intruder, but there was nothing, and the front
Speaker 1: door was still locked from the inside. As Heidie would
Speaker 1: later describe it, this new figure wasn't a man so
Speaker 1: much as just the sense of a body dressed in
Speaker 1: a hooded top. This was now the third figure she
Speaker 1: had reported seeing, but unlike the other two, this one
Speaker 1: had left her utterly terrified. Are you always taking care
Speaker 1: of your family? Do you often take care of others
Speaker 1: and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: to make time for you. You deserve it. Teledoc gives
Speaker 1: you access to a licensed therapist to help you get
Speaker 1: back to feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again.
Speaker 1: With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by
Speaker 1: phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a
Speaker 1: week from seven am to nine pm local time. If
Speaker 1: you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious,
Speaker 1: depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a
Speaker 1: personal or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed
Speaker 1: to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy
Speaker 1: to change counselors if needed for free. Teledoc therapy is
Speaker 1: available through most insures or employers. Download the app, or
Speaker 1: visittelldoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast Today to get started.
Speaker 1: That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. Over the next
Speaker 1: few weeks, Heidi continued to report the sighting of a
Speaker 1: menacing figure in a hood moving about the house where
Speaker 1: Lisa and Andy had been happy to indulge her games
Speaker 1: with mister Gordy. This latest development had left their daughter
Speaker 1: too scared to sleep in her own room. Hoping it
Speaker 1: was all just a phase, they did their best to
Speaker 1: reassure her no one was really there, but secretly, Lisa
Speaker 1: had begun to wonder if there wasn't something more to
Speaker 1: it all. Raised a strict Christian, she was no stranger
Speaker 1: to the notion of demons and ghosts. What if this
Speaker 1: wasn't just in Heidee's imagination, she thought? In desperation, Lisa
Speaker 1: turned to her older sister, Joyce Kathy for support, and
Speaker 1: when the house next door was put up for sale
Speaker 1: later in the year, she was overjoyed when Joyce Cathy
Speaker 1: agreed to buy it, having seen how worried her sister
Speaker 1: was becoming and keen to spend more time with her niece,
Speaker 1: Joyce Cathy was happy to do it. It was shortly
Speaker 1: after moving in that she received a visit from the
Speaker 1: house's former owner, Katherine Leadford. Catherine had wanted to welcome
Speaker 1: Joyce Kathy to the neighborhood, but also to drop off
Speaker 1: some of the final papers from the sale. Going through
Speaker 1: them together that afternoon, Joyce Cathy was struck by a
Speaker 1: name written on one of the contracts, James S. Gordie.
Speaker 1: Realizing it was the same name as Heidee's apparent imaginary friend,
Speaker 1: she asked Katherine if she knew who he was. As
Speaker 1: it turned out, Gordy was an old friend of Catherine's
Speaker 1: family who took care of all their legal matters. Feeling
Speaker 1: suddenly defensive, Joyce Cathy asked where this James Gordy lived.
Speaker 1: Is it possible her family might have seen him around? Well,
Speaker 1: thought Catherine for a moment. He used to live a
Speaker 1: few minutes drive away, But I'm afraid he's been dead
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. Later, as Catherine gathered her things
Speaker 1: to leave, Joyce Cathy asked her if she could describe
Speaker 1: what Gordy looked like around the time when he died.
Speaker 1: I suppose he was quite old by then, she said,
Speaker 1: with a full head of white hair. But he was
Speaker 1: always smartly dressed in a nice dark suit. That evening,
Speaker 1: Joyce Cathy told Lisa and Andy about her conversation with Catherine,
Speaker 1: wondering if there was any way that Heidi could have
Speaker 1: overheard or seen something about mister Gordy. But neither could
Speaker 1: think of anything. Perhaps it was all just a coincidence,
Speaker 1: they thought. Unable to let it go, however, the following day,
Speaker 1: Lisa made her way to the local library and requested
Speaker 1: to see the papers from nineteen seventy four. Sitting in
Speaker 1: front of the monitor, moments later, she scrolled through the
Speaker 1: microfilm until she came across the man's obituary. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: there it was James Scarborough Gordy, caretaker of a number
Speaker 1: of local properties, who died aged eighty six in September
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. Back home, later, as Heidee was sat
Speaker 1: playing with her dolls, Lisa asked her again about where
Speaker 1: she got the name Gordi from. Heidi ignored her for
Speaker 1: a moment as she continued to play, then, without looking up,
Speaker 1: said simply that he had told it to her himself.
Speaker 1: But mister Gordie isn't real, explained her mother. Heidi stopped playing.
Speaker 1: But he is real, she insisted, he's standing right next
Speaker 1: to you. Eager to get to the bottom of it all,
Speaker 1: and now increasingly more spooked by the day, Lisa hashed
Speaker 1: a plan after explaining to Catherine Leadford what had been
Speaker 1: going on, they arranged for Heidi to go to Catherine's
Speaker 1: home and take a look at some old family photographs
Speaker 1: to see if she might recognize anyone. One by one,
Speaker 1: they flicked through the old black and white stills, stepping
Speaker 1: back years into the life of Katherine and her family.
Speaker 1: Arriving at the last few, Heide's eyes suddenly widened. There,
Speaker 1: she said, pointing to a young man standing at the
Speaker 1: back of the frame with a bandage wrapped all around
Speaker 1: his hand. That's con the man with the blood on
Speaker 1: his shirt. Lisa looked expectantly to Catherine, who couldn't believe
Speaker 1: what she was hearing. Well, she said, taking the photo
Speaker 1: for a closer look, that there is my uncle, not
Speaker 1: con exactly, but Lon Lon Bachelor. Lon had been dead
Speaker 1: since nineteen fifty seven. As she went on to explain
Speaker 1: and back when he was twenty years old, he lost
Speaker 1: his hand in a cotton gin accident. Lisa gasped, that's him,
Speaker 1: she said, to Catherine's one of the people she's been seeing.
Speaker 1: Heading back to their home, Lisa was now convinced that
Speaker 1: this was more than just a game of make believe.
Speaker 1: But worse than that, she thought, what if something sinister
Speaker 1: was at play. After the visit to Catherine, Lisa and
Speaker 1: Andy stayed up late discussing the permutations of what could
Speaker 1: possibly be taking place, when that scream rang out again
Speaker 1: from Heide's room. Moments later, the door burst open and
Speaker 1: Heidee raced onto the bed. She'd seen the faceless figure
Speaker 1: again and now her face was hurting. Lisa switched on
Speaker 1: the light and cried out in shock. There raked across
Speaker 1: her daughter's cheek were three deep and bloody scratch marks.
Speaker 1: Having seen enough, the family gathered some things and drove
Speaker 1: immediately to Lisa's parents' house to spend the rest of
Speaker 1: the night. The following day, the family returned to their home,
Speaker 1: determined to confront their fears. Whatever they were dealing with,
Speaker 1: there was no use in panicking, and they certainly weren't
Speaker 1: free to move anytime soon. They would just have to
Speaker 1: wait it out and hope that things improved. A few
Speaker 1: nights later, as the family slept, Andy tossed and turned
Speaker 1: in his sleep, suddenly bursting awake. After a moment of confusion,
Speaker 1: he realized he was just having a nightmare, but then
Speaker 1: he felt the searing pain running up his side. Rushing
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, he switched on the light and pulled
Speaker 1: up his t shirt. Turning his side toward the mirror,
Speaker 1: he gasped in horror at the sight of three fresh
Speaker 1: gashes up the side of his body. There was no
Speaker 1: denying it any more. It was time to seek proper help.
Speaker 1: Unsure where to start, Lisa tried the library again, where
Speaker 1: it was suggested to her that she contact doctor William Rowell,
Speaker 1: a psychologist based at the University of West Georgia. Doctor
Speaker 1: Rowell also happened to be one of the country's leading
Speaker 1: authorities on apparent parapsychological phenomena. Growing up in Denmark, Roll
Speaker 1: who was born in Germany in nineteen twenty six, became
Speaker 1: convinced he was having regular out of body experiences. This
Speaker 1: awakened an interest in parapsychology that took him first to
Speaker 1: Berkeley and later to Oxford University, where he became president
Speaker 1: of the university's Society of Psychical Research. Back when the
Speaker 1: study of parapsychology was still indulged by many leading academic institutions,
Speaker 1: doctor Roll was a leading proponent of the subject. Though
Speaker 1: Roll kept an open mind with regards to the causes
Speaker 1: of paranormal phenomena, it was his ultimate belief that if
Speaker 1: there was anything of substance to them, they would prove
Speaker 1: to be of a rational, scientific nature, as opposed to supernatural.
Speaker 1: The Wireck's case, however, was unlike anything he had come
Speaker 1: across before. After arriving at the Wireck's home one afternoon,
Speaker 1: the erudite role began by conducting a series of interviews
Speaker 1: with the family to ascertain the veracity of their story.
Speaker 1: Listening to Heidi speaking, in particular, he was struck by
Speaker 1: the consistency and level of detail in her recollections. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: the manner in which she spoke about the various figures
Speaker 1: she had encountered seemed to suggest that she had no
Speaker 1: concept of them being apparitions or ghosts at all, but
Speaker 1: rather they were as real to her as anything else
Speaker 1: in her life. Afterwards, Doctor Rowell had a surprise for
Speaker 1: the family. He had managed to track down a photograph
Speaker 1: of the deceased James Gordi and asked Lisa if you
Speaker 1: might present it to Heidi to see if she might
Speaker 1: recognize who it was. Eager to see the results herself,
Speaker 1: Lisa gladly let him proceed. Taking the pictures from his bag,
Speaker 1: He placed them on the table and asked Heidi to
Speaker 1: pick them up one by one and to take her
Speaker 1: time to study each of them before moving on to
Speaker 1: the next. Each photograph bore a portrait of a man
Speaker 1: in similar age and appearance to Gordi. Heidi picked up
Speaker 1: the first photo, gave it a long look, and then
Speaker 1: moved it to the side. She repeated this process for
Speaker 1: the first nine pictures until finally she came to the
Speaker 1: last one. That's him. She said, that's mister Gordy. Doctor
Speaker 1: Roll turned the photo around and picked it up. It
Speaker 1: was the photograph of James Gordy. Staggered by Heide's story
Speaker 1: and the correct identification of James Gordy, Doctor Role began
Speaker 1: immediately to try and understand what was taking place, since
Speaker 1: he didn't believe it was possible to interact with conscious
Speaker 1: apparitions of the now deceased. He theorized that unusual electromagnetic
Speaker 1: fluctuations in the area could be causing audio and visual
Speaker 1: hallucinations in Heidee's mind. After conducting a number of tests
Speaker 1: on the perty, however, though doctor Roll found some anomalous readings,
Speaker 1: he found little to confirm his hypothesis. A few years later,
Speaker 1: Lisa and Andy welcomed a second child, Jordan, into their family.
Speaker 1: The pair had been worried about the effect of the
Speaker 1: hauntings on their baby, However, Thankfully, by then, though Heidi
Speaker 1: continued to claim that she saw apparitions in the house,
Speaker 1: their frequency and number had significantly declined over the years.
Speaker 1: By the time she was a teenager, all trace of
Speaker 1: mister Gordie had gone completely. Some years after Jordan was born,
Speaker 1: Lisa's niece Kelly Brown, was looking after her in the
Speaker 1: house alone when she heard the sound of someone's voice
Speaker 1: coming from a back bedroom. Moving through to the end
Speaker 1: of the corridor, she found Jordan sitting on her own,
Speaker 1: seemingly deep in conversation with someone. Only there was nobody
Speaker 1: else there. Who are you talking to? Asked Kelly Brown.
Speaker 1: The little girl said Jordan. She was hurt really bad
Speaker 1: in a car accident. But Jordan said, Kelly Brown, there's
Speaker 1: nobody here, Yes, there is, she said, she's standing right
Speaker 1: next to you. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and
Speaker 1: would like to help supporters, you can now go to
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com Forward Slash Support. All donations, no
Speaker 1: matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements
Speaker 1: have Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClane Smith. Please
Speaker 1: subscribe and rate the show on iTunes and feel free
Speaker 1: to get in touch with any thoughts or idea. It's
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward Slash Unexplained Now it's time to take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: To make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
Speaker 1: your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or
Speaker 1: video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time,
Speaker 1: seven days a week. Teledoc therapy is available through most
Speaker 1: insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit telldoc dot
Speaker 1: com Forward slash Unexplained podcast Today to get started, that's
Speaker 1: t e l a eoc dot com slash Unexplained podcast