Speaker 1: This show is sponsored by Better Help Online Therapy. Visitbetterhelp
Speaker 1: dot Com. Forward slash Unexplained one zero because honestly, being
Speaker 1: a human can be exhausting. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with
Speaker 1: me Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes,
Speaker 1: we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason
Speaker 1: or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In
Speaker 1: last week's episode, Under the Influence, we trace the story
Speaker 1: of the apparent demonic possessions of David Glatsal and Arnie
Speaker 1: Johnson that were said to have occurred in Connecticut in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties. Much of the story, as it
Speaker 1: has come to be known, is largely derived from the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three book The Devil in Connecticut, written by
Speaker 1: Gerald Brittle. Brittle was given the supposed full account of
Speaker 1: the Glatsal families and Annie Johnson's bizarre experiences by some
Speaker 1: of the respective family members, and Lorraine and Ed Warren,
Speaker 1: who claimed to have witnessed much of it for themselves.
Speaker 1: In twenty six, with the book due to be republished,
Speaker 1: Carl Glatsaw jor David's older brother, who was fifteen at
Speaker 1: the time in question and who never once believed his
Speaker 1: brother was actually possessed, sued Brittle and Lorraine Warren for
Speaker 1: their depiction of what apparently took place. Although Carl didn't
Speaker 1: dispute much what physically happened, he claimed that elements were
Speaker 1: exaggerated and in some cases entirely invented, to support the
Speaker 1: Warren's insistence that David was being possessed by demons. In fact,
Speaker 1: as Carl Junior stated, David's problems, which he believed were
Speaker 1: most likely the result of some form of psychiatric illness,
Speaker 1: had begun as far back as nineteen seventy nine, a
Speaker 1: full year before the book suggests or thor Or Old.
Speaker 1: Brittle argued in response that having only written the book
Speaker 1: after recording hours and hours of testimony from the Glasso
Speaker 1: family themselves, he wholeheartedly stood by everything he said in it.
Speaker 1: The case was eventually dismissed. As for Arnie Johnson's conviction
Speaker 1: for the murder of Alan Bonno, his case is often
Speaker 1: presented as an example of how a defendant attempted to
Speaker 1: use demonic possession as a legal defense strategy. However, in reality,
Speaker 1: this line of defense wasn't actually allowed by the judge
Speaker 1: and so was never genuinely put to the test in
Speaker 1: a trial by jury. As such, it is interesting to
Speaker 1: wonder what the outcome may have been had this been allowed.
Speaker 1: After all, as Johnson's lawyer put it at the time,
Speaker 1: for anyone claiming a Christian belief in God, as all
Speaker 1: of the jury did, there is the very awkward truth
Speaker 1: that they would most likely believe in the existance of
Speaker 1: the devil too. In effect, for someone of that belief,
Speaker 1: the distinction between what was and wasn't an act of
Speaker 1: the Devil could never truly be satisfactorily established. Back in
Speaker 1: the sixteen seventies, on the island of Sicily, one Benedictine
Speaker 1: nun found herself confronted with the same uncomfortable dilemma after
Speaker 1: a series of terrifying experiences left her in no doubt
Speaker 1: that she was being tormented by the devil. A gentle
Speaker 1: pink haze descended across the dusty land as the carriage
Speaker 1: continued its climb into the hills toward Palmer on the
Speaker 1: southern coast of Sicily. Inside, fifteen year old Isabella gazed
Speaker 1: longingly at the distant shimmering Mediterranean as they climbed, relieved
Speaker 1: to finally be over the fever that had so blind
Speaker 1: I did he first three months at the monastery. Palmer
Speaker 1: was established in sixteen thirty seven with the building of
Speaker 1: the Church of Madonna del Rosario by Isabella's father, Julio Tomassi,
Speaker 1: the first Prince of Lampaduza, and his twin brother Carlo.
Speaker 1: A short time later, Julio's own palace was erected, taking
Speaker 1: pride of place in the center of the commune. Then,
Speaker 1: in sixteen fifty nine, having decided that he and his
Speaker 1: family should dedicate their lives to God, Julio made the
Speaker 1: decision to donate his palace to an order of Benedictine
Speaker 1: nuns to serve as their monastery. The following year, Isabella
Speaker 1: Tomassi took her place amongst the nuns, alongside her sister Francesca,
Speaker 1: who joined the year before. Almost immediately that'd been complications,
Speaker 1: a strange nervous ailment that wouldn't settle in the end,
Speaker 1: Isabella was sent back home to Agrigento to recuperate. Three
Speaker 1: months later, in October sixteen sixty, she returned. It had
Speaker 1: been a long and arduous journey from Agrigento, over six
Speaker 1: hours in total, in the cool autumnal air, sat alone,
Speaker 1: with nothing but her thoughts for company. Her heart was
Speaker 1: soon warmed, however, by the sight of Francesca, now Sister
Speaker 1: Maria Sarafica, waiting for her at the foot of the
Speaker 1: monastery steps to welcome her back to her true home
Speaker 1: under God's roof. Isabella stepped out into the soft light
Speaker 1: of dusk and gazed out again toward the sea, still
Speaker 1: sparkling in the distance. Then turning back, she looked to
Speaker 1: the large cross perched high on top of the convent roof,
Speaker 1: then slowly followed her sister up the steps. Free from
Speaker 1: the troubles of those first few months, Isabella soon settled
Speaker 1: into the cloistered life. Then, in May sixteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: under the watchful eye of her uncle Carlo, she was
Speaker 1: formerly baptized into the Order, taking the name Sister Maria
Speaker 1: Crossofissa della Concezioni. Like all her fellow nuns, Sister Maria's
Speaker 1: time was spent largely in prayer, reading scriptures, and taking mass.
Speaker 1: Of all her pastimes, however, by far her favorite was
Speaker 1: singing in the choir, feeling the words and melodies flow
Speaker 1: through her, lifting her ever higher and closer to God
Speaker 1: and for the first few years, all was well, as
Speaker 1: documented in a series of letters that sister Maria wrote
Speaker 1: to her brother Giuseppe Tomassi, who was living in Rome
Speaker 1: at the time pursuing his own religious studies. But sometime
Speaker 1: around the beginning of sixteen seventy six, something strange began
Speaker 1: to occur. At first, it manifested as an unsettling sense
Speaker 1: of loneliness within the then thirty year old sister Maria
Speaker 1: and the steadily building feeling that her experience of life
Speaker 1: was not the same as the other sisters around her,
Speaker 1: and before long the visions started to emerge. It was
Speaker 1: small things at first, seen out of the corner of
Speaker 1: her eye, that portrait of the Madonna and Child, for example,
Speaker 1: that she could have sworn was staring directly at her.
Speaker 1: Other times, she was convinced that her guardian angel had
Speaker 1: revealed itself to her. And then one day Christ himself
Speaker 1: appeared to her, nailed to the cross, as real as
Speaker 1: if she was standing next to him at gold Gatha herself.
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Speaker 1: Unable to keep it all to herself, news soon spread
Speaker 1: of sister Maria's apparent miraculous visions. In response, senior officials
Speaker 1: eager not to draw the attention of the Spanish inquisition
Speaker 1: treated her to a series of violent interrogations, demanding that
Speaker 1: she confessed to making it all up. But Sister Maria
Speaker 1: would not budge. It was all real, she insisted. But
Speaker 1: then something else began reaching out to her. It started
Speaker 1: as a voice, at first, coming to her in the
Speaker 1: depths of night, when she felt most alone and isolated,
Speaker 1: telling her that she was wrong to worship God and
Speaker 1: that she should reject him. It was a voice she
Speaker 1: didn't recognize, but knew instantly the devil had come for her.
Speaker 1: Many nights, Maria would scream at the voice to leave
Speaker 1: her alone. As her fellow sisters grew more and more
Speaker 1: concerned for her well being, but Maria refused to tell
Speaker 1: them the truth, terrified what they might think if they
Speaker 1: found out she was in communication with Satan. Even when
Speaker 1: she did attempt to confess it to the priest, the
Speaker 1: moment she entered the confession box, she would flail in agony,
Speaker 1: as if her skin were being ripped apart from head
Speaker 1: to toe. Even merely approaching the altar and the chapel
Speaker 1: left her screaming in agony, often to the point that
Speaker 1: she would faint from the pain of it. Night after night,
Speaker 1: the devil tormented her, appearing to her in hellish visions,
Speaker 1: while her blood curdling screams could be heard ringing out
Speaker 1: through the deserted halls of the convent. On the morning
Speaker 1: of August eleventh, sixteen seventy six, as the rest of
Speaker 1: the convent assembled for choir, they soon realized that Sister
Speaker 1: Maria was nowhere to be seen. With two nuns sent
Speaker 1: to Sister Maria's room to investigate, they arrived to find
Speaker 1: her sat on the floor in complete silence, her eyes
Speaker 1: dark and slack with the weariness of a night without sleep,
Speaker 1: and her face and hands covered in ink. And beside
Speaker 1: her on the floor underneath a long feathered quill, stiff
Speaker 1: and blackened with ink, a single piece of paper covered
Speaker 1: in a bizarre language of strange, indecipherable symbols. Then Sister
Speaker 1: Maria looked up. Finally, it's a letter from the devil,
Speaker 1: she said, having clearly suffered some kind of ordeal, Sister
Speaker 1: Maria was ordered to spend some time in bed to recover.
Speaker 1: Later that day, with the other nuns becoming increasingly troubled
Speaker 1: by the existence of the strange letter, Sister Maria was
Speaker 1: visited by the head of the convent, Abbess Maria Seraphica,
Speaker 1: who wanted to learn more about where it had come from.
Speaker 1: A Sister Maria explained the devil had visited her again
Speaker 1: in her room, demanding that she reject God. When she refused,
Speaker 1: the devil dragged her to Hell, where she was then
Speaker 1: tortured by demons and forced to suffer the pains of
Speaker 1: all the damned until eventually she blacked out. The next
Speaker 1: thing she knew, she awoke to find herself lying on
Speaker 1: her bedroom floor next to the mysterious leg, with no
Speaker 1: recollection of how it came to be there and no
Speaker 1: clue as to what it said. Abbas Sarafica looked again
Speaker 1: at the strange symbols scrawled across the thick paper, like
Speaker 1: nothing she'd ever seen before. There was one word, however,
Speaker 1: that she did recognize, the last one, which read simply
Speaker 1: oime Alas. It was clear then to Abbas Sarafica what
Speaker 1: had taken place So valiant was Sister Maria's efforts to
Speaker 1: resist the devil's words that he was forced to take
Speaker 1: over her body and use it to write a diabolical
Speaker 1: confession which he tried to have her sign with her name. However,
Speaker 1: in a final effort of divine strength, Sister Maria had
Speaker 1: once again resisted writing only the word alas instead. Deeply
Speaker 1: troubled by what might be written in the unknown message,
Speaker 1: Abbess Seraphica had the letter displayed to the public in
Speaker 1: the hope that some one might be able to decipher it,
Speaker 1: but no one could. Over time, Sister Maria's reputation as
Speaker 1: somewhat of a mystic continued to grow, culminating in sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight in a tortuous forty nine hour session in
Speaker 1: which she claimed to visualize the entire passion of the
Speaker 1: Christ through his own eyes, from his welcoming to Jerusalem
Speaker 1: through to his nailing on the cross, with Sister Maria
Speaker 1: screaming out as each nail was thrust sharply into bone,
Speaker 1: and on through to the resurrection. It is said that
Speaker 1: when she finally came to the imprint of a cross,
Speaker 1: as if burned on to her skin, was found in
Speaker 1: the center of her chest. When she died in sixteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, the age of fifty four, it is said
Speaker 1: that that same image of a cross once again appeared
Speaker 1: on her chest for hundreds of years, the Devil's Letter
Speaker 1: and its mysterious unknown language remained indecipherable. In nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: the Benedictine nuns of what by then had become known
Speaker 1: as Palmer de Montechiaro went as far as to offer
Speaker 1: a month long vacation at their monastery to anyone who
Speaker 1: could propose a solution, but once again, the letter refused
Speaker 1: to give up its secrets until that was in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: thanks largely to the dark Web. After three hundred and
Speaker 1: forty years, a breakthrough was finally made. After hearing about
Speaker 1: a top secret algorithmic codebreak software apparently doing the rounds
Speaker 1: on the dark Web, a team from the Ludum Science
Speaker 1: Center in Catania, led by director Daniel Abbarte, decided to
Speaker 1: get hold of it. In need of something to test
Speaker 1: it out on, Abarte, who'd long been intrigued by the
Speaker 1: mystery of the Devil's Letter, had the perfect suggestion. After
Speaker 1: conducting some research on the life of Sister Maria, the
Speaker 1: team soon discovered that she was in fact an expert
Speaker 1: linguist who devoted much of her time at the convent
Speaker 1: to studying ancient Greek, Arabic and the Germanic Runic alphabet,
Speaker 1: amongst other languages. After priming the software in accordance with
Speaker 1: what they knew about Sister Maria's linguistic skills, they ran
Speaker 1: the letter through the program. Incredibly, it worked. The eleven
Speaker 1: lines of strange text were found to be created from
Speaker 1: a mix of Arcade, Greek, Arabic and Runic letters and graphisms.
Speaker 1: Once to cipher, they found in the letter a proclamation
Speaker 1: that God was nothing but a human invention, with the
Speaker 1: writer calling Jesus and the Holy Ghost dead weights and
Speaker 1: urging Sister Maria to abandon her faith. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now
Speaker 1: do so via Patreon To receive access to add three episodes,
Speaker 1: Just go to patron dot com forward slash Unexplained Pod
Speaker 1: to sign up. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, featuring ten
Speaker 1: stories that have never before been covered on the show,
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements
Speaker 1: have Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe I been rate the show
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get
Speaker 1: in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can reach
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