Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode thirty one, Every
Speaker 1: Story is a Ghost Story, Part two of three. Hoping
Speaker 1: to catch whatever it was making the noise in the attic,
Speaker 1: Jeff wasted no time in jumping back up to the
Speaker 1: hatch and peeking through it to take a few more pictures.
Speaker 1: My god, I can see it, he cried with astonishment.
Speaker 1: It looked, he said, like two small balls of light,
Speaker 1: seemingly hovering about at the back of the attic. As
Speaker 1: Jeff kept his eye on them, Barry pulled the cord
Speaker 1: for the laundry room light, turning it off with a click.
Speaker 1: As Jackie switched off the kitchen light, just a check
Speaker 1: of the apparent orbs weren't merely reflections of something else.
Speaker 1: Now with the house in near darkness, Jeff looked about
Speaker 1: the attic again, but was disappointed to find the lights
Speaker 1: had gone. But then something moved out at the corner
Speaker 1: of his eye, Jeff saw with terror what appeared to
Speaker 1: be a large shape moving in the dark. Watching as
Speaker 1: it darted in closer, Jeff quickly ducked back down and
Speaker 1: closed the hatch lid behind him. When someone hurriedly turned
Speaker 1: the lights back on a stunned looking, Jeff was revealed
Speaker 1: standing under the attic hatch, seemingly speechless at what he'd
Speaker 1: just witnessed. Jeff jumped down from the washing machine and
Speaker 1: winced when he fell to shooting pain running down his back.
Speaker 1: He pulled up his shirt to find just where he'd
Speaker 1: felt something forcibly pushing at him in the attic minutes ago,
Speaker 1: a large red mark that was quickly swelling up, while
Speaker 1: the muscle around it was slowly beginning to bruise. With
Speaker 1: all the commotion having died down, Barry looked again at
Speaker 1: the battery light on his camera that throughout it all
Speaker 1: had stayed resolutely read, only to find it had now
Speaker 1: turned green. It was close to three am before they
Speaker 1: wrapped up for the night and said their goodbyes. As
Speaker 1: they drove home, Barry and Jeff couldn't contain their excitement
Speaker 1: at what they'd just witnessed. Veteran paranormal investigator doctor Taff
Speaker 1: had also left in no doubt that something extraordinary was
Speaker 1: taking place in Jackie Hernandez's bungalow. Later, as the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Hills loomed up ahead, Barry and Jeff made a quick
Speaker 1: stop at a local twenty four hour photography lab and
Speaker 1: dropped off Jeff's film for processing. It would be four
Speaker 1: thirty am before they finally made it home. After loading
Speaker 1: in their equipment, Barry offered Jeff a spot on his
Speaker 1: living room floor before slumping into bed himself. Hours later,
Speaker 1: as a golden dawn light blanketed the city, Jeff began
Speaker 1: to stir in his sleep, Barry was woken by a
Speaker 1: horrifying scream coming from the living room. Rushing to Jeff's aide,
Speaker 1: he found his friend trembling under the blankets and pointing
Speaker 1: to the back wall. He just seems something hideous, he said,
Speaker 1: like the corpse of an elderly man, just like the
Speaker 1: figure that Jackie had claimed to have seen in her apartment.
Speaker 1: As Jeff steadily began to calm down, Barry nervously scanned
Speaker 1: the room but found no sign of the apparition. The
Speaker 1: fear deeply etched on Jeff's face was enough to convince
Speaker 1: him that whatever his friend had seen had at least
Speaker 1: been very real to him. The following afternoon, they collected
Speaker 1: the photographs and sat together in the van, picking through
Speaker 1: them with disappointment as one after another revealed nothing but
Speaker 1: dark empty space, But then, having almost made it through
Speaker 1: the whole role, they found something peculiar. In the right
Speaker 1: hand corner of one of the photos, they could clearly
Speaker 1: see the spotlight they'd placed behind the camera, highlighting the
Speaker 1: beams of the attic roof. In the left hand corner, However,
Speaker 1: unrelated to the spotlight was an unaccountable ball of light
Speaker 1: that seemed to be caught mid movement as it traveled
Speaker 1: through the air. That's it, thought Jeff, convinced it was
Speaker 1: one of the balls of light that he'd seen in
Speaker 1: the attic. Relieved they had something to show for their
Speaker 1: unsettling night at Jackie's home, they also knew it wasn't
Speaker 1: nearly enough. If they were to have any chance of
Speaker 1: convincing anyone that something genuinely supernatural was occurring, they would
Speaker 1: need far more than that. A few days after Barry
Speaker 1: and Jeff had visited Jackie's home, she and her good
Speaker 1: friend Susan Castanada were returning to Jackie's bungalow having been
Speaker 1: out shopping, when Jackie had the distinct feeling that something
Speaker 1: wasn't right. Pulling open the front door, she was devastated
Speaker 1: to find the house in a complete state of disarray,
Speaker 1: as if someone had just ransacked the place. Bedding and
Speaker 1: clothes were strewn about all over, while in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: plates and glasses that had previously been stacked away were
Speaker 1: now sitting out on all the surfaces. The deeply shaken
Speaker 1: Jackie wasted no time intending to the mess in the
Speaker 1: living room, while Susan headed to the kitchen to put
Speaker 1: away some groceries. As she would later explain to Barry
Speaker 1: she'd just begun to stock the cupboards when she jumped
Speaker 1: suddenly at the sound of a large bang, which was
Speaker 1: quickly followed by the sound of things scattering across the floor.
Speaker 1: Looking up, she realized the must have come from the fridge,
Speaker 1: as if someone had just then slammed the door of
Speaker 1: it shut right next to her. Then she saw what
Speaker 1: must have fallen from it, a bunch of alphabet magnets
Speaker 1: that were now liberally scattered over the linoleum floor. Susan
Speaker 1: gasped at the sight of the letters G and O
Speaker 1: lying side by side, spelling the word go. Over the
Speaker 1: next few weeks, Barryfield did numerous calls from an increasingly
Speaker 1: desperate Jackie, convinced that the apparent haunting was intensifying now.
Speaker 1: Shadows were being seen swimming on the ceiling, as well
Speaker 1: as inexplicable flashes of light all around the property. She'd
Speaker 1: also been hearing a weird noise, as if someone unseen
Speaker 1: were taking long, deep breaths while standing next to her
Speaker 1: the house. With Jeff needing a few weeks to recover
Speaker 1: from the injuries sustained in the attic, and still a
Speaker 1: little haunted by the terrifying vision he'd apparently witnessed in
Speaker 1: Barry's apartment, it wasn't until a few weeks later that
Speaker 1: the pair returned together to Jackie's home, this time without
Speaker 1: doctor Taff. When they arrived at the bungalow that night,
Speaker 1: they found an already frantic and agitated Jackie being comforted
Speaker 1: by Susan. It was clear that, due to whatever had
Speaker 1: been happening since their last visit, Jackie had not been
Speaker 1: sleeping well. After conducting another short interview with her, Barry
Speaker 1: and Jeff left to investigate the attic space again, while
Speaker 1: Jackie headed off to check on her children. Moments later,
Speaker 1: a piercing scream was heard coming from the bedroom. Barry
Speaker 1: and Jeff rushed through to find a tearful Jackie slumped
Speaker 1: down on the bedroom floor, claiming that something had pushed
Speaker 1: her to the ground. Unsure what to make of it,
Speaker 1: the men were just helping her out onto the porch
Speaker 1: to get some fresh air when another cry rang out
Speaker 1: from inside the house. Barry and Jeff ran straight back
Speaker 1: inside to find Susan standing next to a built in
Speaker 1: dresser at the back of the living room with an
Speaker 1: odd look on her face. Something's coming out of the walls,
Speaker 1: she cried, pointing at the dresser's shelves. Jeff moved in
Speaker 1: for a closer look and directed a flashlight toward the
Speaker 1: back of the unit. Sure enough, something peculiar was dripping
Speaker 1: in large rust colored droplets from under the top of it.
Speaker 1: Barry hurriedly grabbed the video camera and shot some close
Speaker 1: up images of the strange substance dripping down onto the shelf.
Speaker 1: Then Susan called out again, pointing to a cabinet adjoining
Speaker 1: the children's bedroom. Look here, there's more of it, she said.
Speaker 1: It was happening there too, a large yellowing pool of
Speaker 1: it collecting in the corner. The men checked the walls
Speaker 1: and the attic above for any sign of a leaking
Speaker 1: water source, but found nothing. They collected samples in plastic
Speaker 1: bags before packing up their gear and heading home for
Speaker 1: the night. The next day, Barry contacted doctor Taff to
Speaker 1: get some advice on what exactly they might have found.
Speaker 1: Excited by the possibility of the samples, doctor Taff made
Speaker 1: arrangements to have them chemically tested by an acquaintance of
Speaker 1: his who were at a medical research lab in Westward, California.
Speaker 1: A few days later, the results came back. The liquid
Speaker 1: was apparently inexplicably human blood plasma, the liquid in which
Speaker 1: blood cells had transported around the body. Sometime later in
Speaker 1: late August, Jackie's friend Chrissie's if Kovic was staying over
Speaker 1: at Jackie's home when she was woken by the sound
Speaker 1: of Jackie bouncing excitedly around the living room, clicking away
Speaker 1: with a camera. From what Chrissy could make out, Jackie
Speaker 1: appeared to be taking pictures of the ceiling. What are
Speaker 1: you doing, she asked, Are you not seeing this? Jackie replied.
Speaker 1: Chrissie blinked out the sleep and rubbed her eyes, then
Speaker 1: looked again with amazement. Up near the ceiling. She saw
Speaker 1: what looked like two balls of light moving freely through
Speaker 1: the air. She glanced at the window, but was confused
Speaker 1: to discover that the shutters were completely closed, with no
Speaker 1: obvious sign of a light source coming from anywhere. For
Speaker 1: the next five minutes, Jackie continued taking photographs as the
Speaker 1: peculiar orbs circled each other, glided together as one, then
Speaker 1: broke apart again and vanished. When Jackie received the developed
Speaker 1: photos later that day, she was disappointed to find many
Speaker 1: of them had been discarded. The photo lab assistant saw
Speaker 1: a little more than blurred shots of ceilings and walls,
Speaker 1: but of the few that came out well, the apparent
Speaker 1: orbs of light, although arguably appearing to be little more
Speaker 1: than pulls of light reflecting on surfaces, were captured clearly.
Speaker 1: Jackie showed the snaps to Barry. For him they were
Speaker 1: further justification for their time spent investigating the house. Ever diligent, however,
Speaker 1: he was keen to get a professional opinion, and Dulie
Speaker 1: took the photos to Allan's custom photo Lab in Hollywood
Speaker 1: to have the proprietor, Allan Weddert's, run his trained eyes
Speaker 1: over them, though Allan wasn't quite prepared to jump on
Speaker 1: board with what Barry suspected that Jackie shared her home
Speaker 1: with a real ghostly entity. His conclusion on inspecting the
Speaker 1: photographs was remarkable. None the less, it was his professional
Speaker 1: opinion that whatever light Jackie had picked up was not
Speaker 1: reflective nor the result of any camera trickery. In other words,
Speaker 1: it was its own source, and things were only about
Speaker 1: to get weirder. As the strange events became more frequent,
Speaker 1: Jackie grew increasingly anxious for her and her children safety.
Speaker 1: A few nights later, unable to stand the thought of
Speaker 1: another night alone, Jackie begged Susan to stay with her
Speaker 1: and help her keep an eye on the children. Taking
Speaker 1: one look at her friend, Susan ordered Jackie to get
Speaker 1: some rest while she put the children to bed. Grateful
Speaker 1: to finally have some time for herself, Jackie decided to
Speaker 1: run a bath. With her eyes closed. She slipped down
Speaker 1: heavily into its comforting embrace, lying submerged for a moment
Speaker 1: as she let the warmth of the water soothe her
Speaker 1: tired body. She suddenly shot up, gasping for air, convinced
Speaker 1: that something was in there with her. Looking down in horror,
Speaker 1: as she explained it later, she saw two spheres of
Speaker 1: light moving about in the water. They tried to get me,
Speaker 1: she cried to Susan as she ran into the living room,
Speaker 1: clutching a towel to her chest. After eventually settling her
Speaker 1: friend down on the sofa, Susan offered to take a
Speaker 1: look herself, and nervously made her way to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Finding nothing there, she turned back to the living room
Speaker 1: when a sudden breeze seemed to blow through the corridor.
Speaker 1: Susan froze. Sensing a presence behind her, she spun back
Speaker 1: to face the bathroom, but there was nothing there. With
Speaker 1: Jackie's increasingly fragile state, Susan decided to keep all that
Speaker 1: to herself. However, any hope of taking Jackie's mind off
Speaker 1: the whole thing soon disintegrated when later that night, the
Speaker 1: sound of those disembodied footsteps in the attic returned with
Speaker 1: a vengeance, keeping them up all night. By now, for
Speaker 1: Jackie and her children, the apparent haunting had become a
Speaker 1: constant and unrelenting nightmare. If it wasn't strange balls of
Speaker 1: lights appearing or sinister scratching above the ceiling, it was
Speaker 1: the constant fear of what might happen next, and the
Speaker 1: unrelenting sense that something was out to get them, but
Speaker 1: leaving the property was completely out of the question. Raising
Speaker 1: two children on her own with no job, Jackie, who
Speaker 1: was barely getting by on welfare checks and food stamps,
Speaker 1: had neither the energy nor the resource is to find
Speaker 1: a new place as affordable as what she currently had.
Speaker 1: It was late one evening in September when Barry, who
Speaker 1: had continued to visit the property periodically whenever he had
Speaker 1: the time, received yet another frantic call from the now
Speaker 1: perennially distraught Jackie. She'd woken up earlier in the night
Speaker 1: with the sensation of being choked, and was calling from
Speaker 1: Susan's home, having been forced to seek shelter there. The
Speaker 1: hairs on Barry's neck raised as he sat in the
Speaker 1: quiet darkness of his apartment listening to the anxious Jackie
Speaker 1: on the other end of the line. That night, he
Speaker 1: was left in no doubt that whatever was going on
Speaker 1: in her home was demonstrating a clear malevolence toward its occupants.
Speaker 1: On the evening of Monday, September fourth, at ten forty
Speaker 1: five pm, as Barry Comrade himself documented in the two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine book he later wrote about the whole
Speaker 1: ordeal an Unknown Encounter, a true account of the San
Speaker 1: Pedro Haunting. Barry's phone rang again. While he did his
Speaker 1: best to calm her down, Jackie rattled off a litany
Speaker 1: of terrifying events that had reportedly just taken place that evening,
Speaker 1: from doors being slammed to toys in the children's bedroom
Speaker 1: being levitated and thrown across the room. At the time
Speaker 1: of the call, however, Barry was in the middle of
Speaker 1: an editing job with clients and so was unable to
Speaker 1: get out to the house. An hour later, and the
Speaker 1: clients had gone home, and Jeff and their mutual friend
Speaker 1: Garry Bone had dropped by unexpectedly. Then Barry's phone rang
Speaker 1: for the third time that night. He put it on
Speaker 1: speaker for all of them to hear. I've got to
Speaker 1: get out of here, screamed Jackie, before the line abruptly
Speaker 1: cut out. As the three men tried again to establish contact,
Speaker 1: it was another twenty minutes before they were able to
Speaker 1: get Jackie back on the line. She kept telling them
Speaker 1: that something was terrorizing her and her children and they
Speaker 1: needed to escape. Unable to ignore her any longer, Barry
Speaker 1: shouted back that they would come down and get her
Speaker 1: and her children immediately. Less than an hour later, Barry's
Speaker 1: tradesman Dodge pulled up outside the bungalow, coming to a
Speaker 1: skidding stop by the side of the road. Though their
Speaker 1: thoughts were for Jackie's safety, there was no question that
Speaker 1: they needed to make a record of what was happening. Hurriedly,
Speaker 1: they pulled their equipment from the van and squeezed through
Speaker 1: the narrow passage past the main house and on to
Speaker 1: Jackie's bungalow. At the back. As the men arrived, Susan
Speaker 1: was just escorting Jackie's confused son onto the porch, followed
Speaker 1: moments later by a distressed Jackie holding her baby daughter
Speaker 1: in a carrier. Barry suggested they wait with him on
Speaker 1: the porch as Jeff and Gary darted ahead and made
Speaker 1: a bee line for the laundry room. As soon as
Speaker 1: they were inside the house, things felt different. Something in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere had shifted, with much of the strange activity
Speaker 1: appearing to focus on the ceiling and the attic space above.
Speaker 1: Jeff wasted little time in scrambling up through the attic
Speaker 1: hatch and scouring the space beyond. Gary joined him a
Speaker 1: moment later, with Barry's camera seemingly unable to work whenever
Speaker 1: strange activity occurred in the attic, he elected to film
Speaker 1: from the kitchen in the hope of capturing something down
Speaker 1: there instead. After waiting for the other two to get
Speaker 1: their footing above, he switched off the kitchen lights, then
Speaker 1: pulled the cord for the laundry room light and plunged
Speaker 1: them all into near darkness. Having just settled the kids
Speaker 1: on the porch, Susan and Jackie then appeared at the
Speaker 1: kitchen door, staring at something over Barry's head. Look, said Jackie,
Speaker 1: a peculiar light was moving around the laundry room. It
Speaker 1: eventually settled on the curtain of a windowed door that
Speaker 1: led into the garden. Barry pulled the camera to his shoulder,
Speaker 1: but before he could hit record, the light disappeared. Turning
Speaker 1: back to face Jackie and Susan, he was stunned by
Speaker 1: the sound of three loud clicks ringing out from the
Speaker 1: middle of the room, as if someone had just snapped
Speaker 1: their fingers right next to him. Jackie and Susan, who
Speaker 1: both heard it too, looked uneasily toward Barry, each of
Speaker 1: them beginning to sense the same thing that right at
Speaker 1: that moment, something they couldn't see was in the room
Speaker 1: with them. Did you guys hear that? Shouted Barry to
Speaker 1: Jeff and Gary above. What did you say? Came Jeff's
Speaker 1: muffled reply. Barry's heart raced as he turned on the
Speaker 1: camera and prepared himself for just whatever was going to
Speaker 1: happen next. Up in the attic, having heard the commotion downstairs,
Speaker 1: Jeff waved a flashlight around to see if anything might appear.
Speaker 1: There's nothing here, he said, But a moment later, Garry
Speaker 1: watched in horror as Jeff's flashlight suddenly cut out and
Speaker 1: everything went dark. Jeff, he cried out, but there was
Speaker 1: no reply. Stumbling blindly, Garry heard something shuffling just a
Speaker 1: few feet in front of him. Then, with his eyes
Speaker 1: finally adjusted to the dark, Garry was just about able
Speaker 1: to make out Jeff, leaning back against one of the
Speaker 1: roof beams, frantically clawing at his throat. Rushing to his side,
Speaker 1: It was only when Garry tried to pull him away
Speaker 1: that he realized there was a cord wrapped around Jeff's neck,
Speaker 1: attached to a nail on the wall. Unable to loosen it,
Speaker 1: As Jeff choked, Gary used all his strength to push
Speaker 1: on the nail, bending it down until finally he was
Speaker 1: able to pull the cord free. The crew in the
Speaker 1: kitchen could only watch a ghast as a stunned Jeff
Speaker 1: lowered himself gingerly from the attic and jumped down, seemingly
Speaker 1: too shocked to even notice the thin washing cord still
Speaker 1: wrapped around his neck. Oh my god, gasped Jackie. It
Speaker 1: tried to kill him. In a panic, she ran outside
Speaker 1: to check on her children. As Jeff stumbled forward in
Speaker 1: a complete daze, Barry's camera zoomed into the cord, where
Speaker 1: just underneath he could clearly see a red welt forming
Speaker 1: on Jeff's neck. Barry focused his camera back to the
Speaker 1: laundry room, where he then apparently noticed a strange ball
Speaker 1: of light in the few finder, But when he pulled
Speaker 1: his eye away, he saw nothing in the air in
Speaker 1: front of him. Just then, he was suddenly gripped by
Speaker 1: a strained sensation of electric shock, and his vision began
Speaker 1: to blur and tunnel. He was blacking out. Garry saw
Speaker 1: his friend wobbling and grabbed him just in time to
Speaker 1: help lower him to the ground. Meanwhile, Jackie, who was
Speaker 1: comforting her baby daughter, screamed at the sight of a
Speaker 1: bizarre red mark like a red thumbprint that had just
Speaker 1: appeared on her baby's forehead, Arriving on the porch just
Speaker 1: in time to get it on film. The others looked on,
Speaker 1: completely baffled as to what it was. A horrified Jackie
Speaker 1: rubbed it off before bringing her baby tightly into her arms.
Speaker 1: Barry could only corn in stunned disbelief as Jackie sat
Speaker 1: on the porch in a horrified silence, gently rocking back
Speaker 1: and forth with her baby. Looking back to the bungalow,
Speaker 1: he ordered everyone to vacate the property immediately. You've been
Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode thirty one, Every Story
Speaker 1: is a Ghost Story. The third and final part will
Speaker 1: be released next Friday, April fourteenth. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Richard McClean smith. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard McClean smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by Richard
Speaker 1: McClean smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, featuring stories that
Speaker 1: have ever before being featured on the show, is now
Speaker 1: available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes,
Speaker 1: and Noble Waterstones, among other bookstores. Please subscribe and rate
Speaker 1: the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free
Speaker 1: to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding
Speaker 1: the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have
Speaker 1: an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You
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