Speaker 1: The ghost holds a unique place in the world of
Speaker 1: the supernatural, As capable of scaring us senseless as they
Speaker 1: are of inflicting us with the deepest of melancholies, they
Speaker 1: also come in many forms. The ghosts that we carry
Speaker 1: with us in our daily lives, memories of those we
Speaker 1: have loved and lost, or perhaps even wronged, thoughts that
Speaker 1: sit in the deepest parts of the psyche, straining to
Speaker 1: become manifest. But what of those apparitions that seem not
Speaker 1: to have been brought forth from the subconscious, those that
Speaker 1: have no connection to the observer, but instead seem to
Speaker 1: be reaching out to us from a seemingly timeless space.
Speaker 1: For some, to witness a ghost, particularly that of a relative,
Speaker 1: might bring a certain comfort, a reassuring glimpse of a
Speaker 1: life beyond death. Historically, however, the ghost has rarely been
Speaker 1: something to celebrate. For the ancient Sumerians, death was an
Speaker 1: act from which there was ordinarily no coming back. The
Speaker 1: souls of the dead left to dwell in cur the
Speaker 1: land of no return. It was a place where all
Speaker 1: were equal, regardless of their actions in life, no matter
Speaker 1: how rich or poor, a place where they would remain
Speaker 1: for the rest of eternity in dreary unlight, watched over
Speaker 1: by Irish Kegal, the dark Queen of the nether world.
Speaker 1: It was said that the oppressive conditions of kur could
Speaker 1: be alleviated for the dead if their surviving family made
Speaker 1: offerings of food and drink, which they could then receive
Speaker 1: in the nether world. A failure to do this would
Speaker 1: see the ghost of the deceased return to punish their
Speaker 1: uncaring and callous relatives with misfortune and ill health. In
Speaker 1: ancient Japan, the appearance of a ghost or uray was
Speaker 1: especially ominous. Urae was sometimes said to transform from souls
Speaker 1: or racon in fits of explosive emotion, often motivated by vengeance.
Speaker 1: A violent murder or suicide would almost always presage the
Speaker 1: arrival of a urae intent on retribution. Until the disturbance
Speaker 1: was settled, they would be fated to haunt the living indefinitely.
Speaker 1: Urae are traditionally portrayed as women with long black hair,
Speaker 1: wearing white burial robes, with hands hanging loosely from their wrists,
Speaker 1: an image that fans of the character Sadako Yamamura might
Speaker 1: recognize from author Koji Suzuki's petrifying Ringo series. Yamamura's betrayal
Speaker 1: as a traditional yura with a ponchon for climbing out
Speaker 1: of TVs and video monitors, as realized to devastating effect
Speaker 1: in Hideo Nakata's terrifying nineteen ninety eight adaptation of the
Speaker 1: first book in the series, is for me the most
Speaker 1: nightmarish betrayal of a ghost in cinematic history. Often, a
Speaker 1: ghost or apparition is said to be inexorably linked to
Speaker 1: a specific location. For those of us living in the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, there are allegedly many such ghosts. Both the
Speaker 1: Great Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle, for example, are
Speaker 1: claimed by England and Scotland's tourist boards respectively, as among
Speaker 1: the most haunted destinations in those countries. However, I've always
Speaker 1: found such a notion problematic in a very literal sense
Speaker 1: more than anything else, for reasons laid out with great
Speaker 1: mournful and affecting beauty. In David Lowry's twenty seventeen film
Speaker 1: A Ghost Story, there the eponymous ghost, having chosen to
Speaker 1: remain behind on Earth, is fated to drift through time
Speaker 1: as all the world changes around him. Although Lowry slips
Speaker 1: the ghost back into his original corporeal timeline. I've always
Speaker 1: wondered where such a ghost might end up were it
Speaker 1: not so easy to escape the seemingly ceaseless arrow of time.
Speaker 1: Just where exactly might a ghost be left to haunt
Speaker 1: tens of billions of years from now, when the planet
Speaker 1: has long since been obliterated by the sun, which is
Speaker 1: to say nothing of the fact that Earth is moving
Speaker 1: continually through space. So should such a thing as a
Speaker 1: ghost exist as a conscious entity with its own agency
Speaker 1: and ability to move around? Would it even be anchored
Speaker 1: to the planet at all? When it comes to the
Speaker 1: sheer terror of the supernatural? For me, there are a
Speaker 1: few more disturbing notions than the fabled knocking ghost, otherwise
Speaker 1: known as a poltergeist, malignant spirits of wrathful agency, seemingly
Speaker 1: dead set on singling you out for often inexplicable and
Speaker 1: therefore deeply frightening reasons. Though some consider supposed poltergeist activity
Speaker 1: to be the result of the extrasensory projection of troubled
Speaker 1: teenage minds, it is surely in the betrayal of it
Speaker 1: as an active spirit that the notion is most potent.
Speaker 1: I've always felt a little haunted by this idea. Doubtless,
Speaker 1: there are many of my generation whose first experience of
Speaker 1: such things came through Toby Hooper's mesmeric nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: film Poltergeist, which many forget was actually written by Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it is simply nostalgia that draws me back to
Speaker 1: this masterful movie, hypnotic in its luring fusion of slick
Speaker 1: Hollywood with a less familiar place that seems to call
Speaker 1: out silently to us from somewhere between the frames, although
Speaker 1: there's little telling which was cause and which was effect.
Speaker 1: As long as I can remember, since seeing this film,
Speaker 1: I have had a recurring, terrifying Poltergeist nightmare, always occurring
Speaker 1: in that liminal, lucid space shortly before waking. It begins
Speaker 1: with me standing at the top of the stairs of
Speaker 1: an old childhood home, while friends or members of my
Speaker 1: family are gathered at the bottom. As I walk down
Speaker 1: to join them, something catches me in its grip, something
Speaker 1: of unfathomable malignance from which I know I cannot escape.
Speaker 1: As I kick and scream, it pulls me back closer
Speaker 1: and closer towards something or somewhere of which all I
Speaker 1: know is that it is a place of obsidian darkness
Speaker 1: from which I will never return, and then I wake up.
Speaker 1: Every time it is exactly the same. I understand this
Speaker 1: is a common dream trope, and was once advised that
Speaker 1: the way to do away with it might be to
Speaker 1: try and turn around and face this unseen manifest fear.
Speaker 1: I've not yet been able to achieve this in the nightmare, though,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a good lesson in there somewhere. So
Speaker 1: it always fills me with a particular sense of caution
Speaker 1: and no little excitement when I learn of new alleged
Speaker 1: poltergeist events, particularly those of a seemingly malicious nature. You're
Speaker 1: listening to one, explained, and I'm Richard McLane Smith. Jackie
Speaker 1: opened her eyes, knowing before she even looked that it
Speaker 1: was midnight, sure enough. Turning to the alarm clock beside
Speaker 1: the bed, there was the familiar four zeros glowing pale
Speaker 1: green in the darkness. It was the fourth time in
Speaker 1: a week that she'd woken in the stifling heat at
Speaker 1: precisely that time. It was the summer of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: At that time, the twenty six year old mother of
Speaker 1: two was living in a small bungalow in Sampedro, an
Speaker 1: area of Los Angeles, located on the Pacific coast right
Speaker 1: next to the Port of Los Angeles. In years gone by,
Speaker 1: the area had been home to a thriving fishing community, which,
Speaker 1: having been in steady decline since the Depression, had become
Speaker 1: almost non existent by the eighties. That night, Jackie pulled
Speaker 1: off the covers and was just about to make her
Speaker 1: way to the bathroom when she spied an unfamiliar shape
Speaker 1: in the kitchen. Although she couldn't quite tell in the
Speaker 1: it looked as though someone was sitting at her kitchen table.
Speaker 1: Jackie froze, thinking first of her two young children asleep
Speaker 1: in the next room, then of all the permutations of
Speaker 1: what having an intruder in her home could mean. But
Speaker 1: as her eyes slowly adjusted, she realized with increasing terror
Speaker 1: what it was. And it wasn't the first time she'd
Speaker 1: seen it. The first time was a week or so previously, when,
Speaker 1: after walking into her kid's bedroom one evening to check
Speaker 1: they were asleep, she looked up to see it sat
Speaker 1: on the lower bunk bed, dressed in a checkered shirt
Speaker 1: and gas station overalls. It had stared at her that
Speaker 1: night too, with the same malicious expression on its elderly,
Speaker 1: grizzled and almost translucent face that it was giving her.
Speaker 1: Now paralyzed with fear, she is then said to have
Speaker 1: jumped back onto the bed and pulled the covers tightly
Speaker 1: over her head, and for the next six hours that
Speaker 1: is how she stayed pinned down on the bed, whilst
Speaker 1: taking periodic peeks out from under the duvet through the
Speaker 1: adjoining doorway into the kitchen. Each time she was met
Speaker 1: by the terrifying sight of the silhouetted figure sat completely
Speaker 1: still at her kitchen table. Only when the soft light
Speaker 1: of dawn broke through the bungalow's windows did the apparition
Speaker 1: finally vanish. At least this was how she relayed the
Speaker 1: story the next day to her neighbor and good friend,
Speaker 1: Susan Castanada, who lived just a few blocks away. Susan
Speaker 1: had listened previously to similar stories of the growing concern
Speaker 1: for her friends well being, not quite sure what to
Speaker 1: make of it all, until one day she witnessed something
Speaker 1: bizarre at the bungalow herself, a small table lamp untouched
Speaker 1: by anyone present, being seemingly hurled to the floor whilst
Speaker 1: she and Jackie sat talking meters away from it. The
Speaker 1: latest developments, however, suggested to her that something increasingly malignant
Speaker 1: was plaguing the family and it was time to get help.
Speaker 1: TV producer and director Barry Comrad had long been fascinated
Speaker 1: by the possibilities of the paranormal, but had never considered
Speaker 1: pursuing it in a professional capacity until he was introduced
Speaker 1: by chance to parapsychologist doctor Barry Taff in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: Taff had come to prominence in the nineteen seventies due
Speaker 1: to his involvement with one of the most famous poltergeist
Speaker 1: investigations of all time, in which Culver City resident and
Speaker 1: mother of four, Doris Bother, claimed she was being sexually
Speaker 1: assaulted by ghosts. The subsequent investigation and media attention of
Speaker 1: the case, later made into the nineteen eighty two film
Speaker 1: The Entity, propelled doctor Taff into the limelight as a
Speaker 1: leading investigator of supposed parapsychological phenomena. In late nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: doctor Taff approached Barry to film an investigation into the
Speaker 1: apparent haunting of the ship the RMS Queen Mary, moored
Speaker 1: in Long Beach California since nineteen sixty seven and considered
Speaker 1: by some to be one of the most haunted locations
Speaker 1: in the United States. Though the investigation failed to yield
Speaker 1: any significant results, Comrade remained in touch with doctor Taff
Speaker 1: in the hope that they might find something similar to
Speaker 1: investigate in future. So it was with no little excitement
Speaker 1: when one night in that summer of eighty nine, Barry
Speaker 1: received a call from doctor Taff detailing the terrifying and
Speaker 1: strange goings on that had been afflicting Jackie Hernandez and
Speaker 1: her children. As doctor Taff explained, he himself wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to contribute to the degree he'd done before, but
Speaker 1: he offered to meet Barry nonetheless at Jackie's bungalow to
Speaker 1: help initiate an investigation. It was shortly after seven pm
Speaker 1: on the evening of August eighth when Barry set off
Speaker 1: from his home in Studio City with a van load
Speaker 1: of equipment bound for sam Pedro. Joining him for the
Speaker 1: ride was his good friend Jeff Wheatcraft. Though not especially
Speaker 1: interested in the paranormal, Jeff had offered to operate as
Speaker 1: Barry's video assistant and production photographer for the evening a
Speaker 1: decision he would soon come to regret. A soft peach
Speaker 1: haze mingled with the smock over the distant towers of
Speaker 1: downtown Los Angeles as they dropped down from the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Hills along the one ten South toward the coast. Just
Speaker 1: over an hour later, they arrived at the corner of
Speaker 1: eleventh and Grand in central Sampedro. Then, after finding a
Speaker 1: spot to park and unloading the van, they squeezed themselves
Speaker 1: down a narrow alleyway between two streetside houses into a
Speaker 1: small garden space beyond backed by two squat bungalows. Then
Speaker 1: the porch light of one of them lit up, and
Speaker 1: Barry headed toward it. An exhausted looking Jackie greeted them
Speaker 1: as they arrived and introduced them to her two closest friends,
Speaker 1: Susan and Chrissie Zivkovich, and then led them through to
Speaker 1: meet doctor Taffe, who was already waiting for them inside.
Speaker 1: Though not much had happened so far that night, the
Speaker 1: facade of calm soon faded once Jackie took her seat
Speaker 1: in front of Barry's camera and attempted to articulate just
Speaker 1: what exactly had been occurring over the last six months.
Speaker 1: Jackie had originally moved into the bungalow, built in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century as a fisher's home with her husband Awl,
Speaker 1: the year before. Sadly, however, the couple, who by all
Speaker 1: accounts had a rather tumultuous relationship, had separated soon after.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long after that when Jackie first began to
Speaker 1: feel a presence in the building. At first, it wasn't
Speaker 1: something she ever saw directly, just the peculiar sensation that
Speaker 1: she and her children weren't quite alone. One afternoon, while
Speaker 1: a friend was visiting, the pair were chatting in the
Speaker 1: living room when a crash rang out from the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Rushing through, they found a picture that had only moments
Speaker 1: before been hanging on the wall, was now resting on
Speaker 1: the kitchen counter five feet away. Soon after, a cat
Speaker 1: bought in the spring of eighty nine was said to
Speaker 1: have started hissing and chasing and unseen assailant, And not
Speaker 1: long after that came the terrifying sightings of the ghostly
Speaker 1: elderly man, often seen after waking up precisely at midnight.
Speaker 1: As the hauntings had continued, with Jackie convinced they were
Speaker 1: becoming evermore sinister, she started to fear for the safety
Speaker 1: of her children. As Jackie and then Susan gave their interviews,
Speaker 1: Barry could see that Jeff was growing bored when they
Speaker 1: explored the property afterwards. It was clear that something was
Speaker 1: bugging him. You don't believe any of that, do you,
Speaker 1: he said, as they moved into the children's bedroom, finding
Speaker 1: nothing untoward. Her fear seemed real, don't you think, replied Barry.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It doesn't add up for me, said Jeff,
Speaker 1: as they made their way through to the bathroom. Then
Speaker 1: both of them stopped. Did you feel that? Said Barry.
Speaker 1: Jeff guarded his friend for a moment, equally surprised by
Speaker 1: the sudden, peculiar feeling in his head, as if there'd
Speaker 1: been a sudden shift of air pressure. That was odd,
Speaker 1: replied Jeff. Having seen everything they thought there was to see,
Speaker 1: they just returned to the galley kitchen when their attention
Speaker 1: was drawn to a blue curtain hanging up at the
Speaker 1: back of the room. Pulling it aside, they discovered a
Speaker 1: cramped space behind, taken up almost entirely by Jackie's washing machine.
Speaker 1: Looking above it, Barried then noticed the square hatch in
Speaker 1: the ceiling, which presumably led to the attic. That's where
Speaker 1: I saw the head, came Jackie's voice from behind them
Speaker 1: as she pointed toward the hatch. As Jackie had recounted
Speaker 1: in her interview earlier, one of the odd occurrencies that
Speaker 1: had been plaguing her was hearing what sounded like scratches
Speaker 1: coming from the attic. It had all started one evening
Speaker 1: when Jackie decided to see if anything useful had been
Speaker 1: left behind by the previous resident. Just the week before,
Speaker 1: a friend who lived in a similar property nearby had
Speaker 1: come across a significant amount of money while cleaning out
Speaker 1: her own attic. After carefully prising opened the hatch, Jackie
Speaker 1: pushed the cover to the side and pulled her head
Speaker 1: up into the space. No sooner had she done so,
Speaker 1: she had apparently found herself confronted by a disembodied head
Speaker 1: bearing down on her from out of the darkness. She
Speaker 1: had not been up since. Barry looked again to the
Speaker 1: hatch and then back to Jeff, you want to check
Speaker 1: it out. After waiting for a moment, as Barry settled
Speaker 1: the camera on his shoulder, Jeff grabbed a milk case
Speaker 1: from the back of the room, and placed it on
Speaker 1: top of the washing machine. Then, with the time now
Speaker 1: approaching midnight, he draped his thirty five millimeter camera around
Speaker 1: his neck and climbed up onto the crate. Then he
Speaker 1: dislodged the hatch and pulled himself through into the darkness beyond.
Speaker 1: Once up inside, with the faintest of light shining up
Speaker 1: from the laundry room below, Jeff could just about make
Speaker 1: out the contours of the space, which measured roughly twelve
Speaker 1: feet square and had a series of slanting beams down
Speaker 1: the middle of it supporting the roof. Not knowing exactly
Speaker 1: what it was he was looking for, Jeff set the
Speaker 1: camera to a low shutter speed to see what he
Speaker 1: might pick up. Bringing it up to his eye, he
Speaker 1: pointed it toward the darkest corner and reeled off a
Speaker 1: series of photographs. With each click, Jeff made sure to
Speaker 1: hold the camera perfectly still as he waited in the
Speaker 1: silence for the lens to click back shut before moving
Speaker 1: on to the next shot. Holding the camera to his
Speaker 1: eye once more, he peered through the viewfinder, almost willing
Speaker 1: something to appear from out of the dark. Just then,
Speaker 1: something flittered out of the corner of his eye. Jeff
Speaker 1: turned sharply to look at the spot, staring at it
Speaker 1: for a good few seconds before he was sure that
Speaker 1: there was nothing there. Again, he raised the camera to
Speaker 1: his eye and clicked. There it was again, he thought,
Speaker 1: spinning round the other way. This time, he kept his
Speaker 1: eyes fixed on the spot and took a step toward it.
Speaker 1: Moments later, down in the laundry room, Jeff's head appeared
Speaker 1: through the small gap in the roof. There's something here,
Speaker 1: I'm sure of it. Something's moving around. Did you get
Speaker 1: a picture, asked Barry. Hopefully that's just the thing. Every
Speaker 1: time I try to, it's already gone. Barry suggested trying again,
Speaker 1: only this time he should take the pictures over his
Speaker 1: shoulder before he turned around. Though not entirely convinced it
Speaker 1: would make any difference, Jeff agreed to give it a go,
Speaker 1: while the others, who'd all gathered in the kitchen now
Speaker 1: watched from below as Barry filmed. A pained cry from
Speaker 1: above was followed by the sight of Jeff hurriedly dropping
Speaker 1: down through the gap, minus his camera and with his
Speaker 1: face completely drained of blood. After taking a moment to
Speaker 1: compose himself, a startled looking Jeff turned to the camera
Speaker 1: and proceeded to explain how his camera had just been
Speaker 1: grabbed from right out of his hands and flung to
Speaker 1: the back of the room. Though worried for the safety
Speaker 1: of his friend, it was impossible for Barry not to
Speaker 1: feel a tinge of excitement at this revelation. There was
Speaker 1: nothing for it. They would have to go back up
Speaker 1: there and see if they could get something on a film.
Speaker 1: After grabbing a spotlight from the van, Barry and Jeff
Speaker 1: pulled it up to the attic and switched it on.
Speaker 1: With the place now completely lit up, Jeff soon spotted
Speaker 1: his camera lends in a far corner of the room,
Speaker 1: but strangely, there was no sign of the camera. Then
Speaker 1: a short time later, Barry spotted an old wooden crate
Speaker 1: in the opposite corner and went to investigate. Jeff look,
Speaker 1: he said as he pulled the rest of Jeff's camera
Speaker 1: out of it, Relieved to find that his twelve hundred
Speaker 1: dollar camera appeared to be undamaged. Jeff reattached the lens and,
Speaker 1: after switching off the light again, continued taking pictures while
Speaker 1: Barry picked up his video camera and prepared to film
Speaker 1: the space. When he pressed record. However, the green battery
Speaker 1: light on the camera began to flicker suddenly before turning
Speaker 1: completely red, despite having just recently charged the battery. He
Speaker 1: took it off and called for another to be handed
Speaker 1: up from below. Having attached another fully charged one to
Speaker 1: the back of the camera, he tried again, but still
Speaker 1: it refused to work. It was then that he noticed
Speaker 1: the pungent smell that had suddenly engulfed the room, as
Speaker 1: if something was rotting near by. It's behind me, yelled Jeff. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: Barry span round, just in time to catch Jeff falling
Speaker 1: forward onto one of the rafters with a look of
Speaker 1: complete shock on his face. Let's get out of here,
Speaker 1: he screamed. The others watched with shot from below as
Speaker 1: Barry and Jeff scrambled through the hatch, practically falling down
Speaker 1: into the kitchen. Doctor Taff demanded to know what had happened,
Speaker 1: but just as Barry was about to explain, Susan put
Speaker 1: a finger to her lips and pointed at the ceiling.
Speaker 1: The room fell completely silent as all of them strained
Speaker 1: to hear the peculiar noises now coming from above them,
Speaker 1: just where Barry and Jeff had been moments ago. It
Speaker 1: sounded like the heavy tread of footsteps moving back and
Speaker 1: forth cross the room. Then another much fainter sound was heard,
Speaker 1: as if a man and woman were having a conversation.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode thirty one,
Speaker 1: Every Story is a Ghost Story, Part one of three.
Speaker 1: Part two will be released next week on Friday, April seventh.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Richard McClean smith. Unexplained as
Speaker 1: an AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClean Smith.
Speaker 1: All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are
Speaker 1: also produced by Richard McClean smith. Unexplained. The book and
Speaker 1: audio book, featuring stories that have never before been featured
Speaker 1: on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You
Speaker 1: can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, Waterstones, among other bookstores.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
Speaker 1: to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast
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