My Paranormal Nightmare

For some,

Their hauntings from the past...

Still haunt them today.

I was terrified.

It was almost like satan himself was

Coming up from the depths of hell.

Get out!

My heart was pounding. My stomach felt sick.

He would just chase me.

My name is jack, and this is my story.

The neighborhood I grew up in was

Pretty much just a normal residential neighborhood.

I lived in a small, little colonial-style home.

Across the street from us was

The park where all the kids played.

As a child, I was a pretty quiet kid.

I mostly enjoyed spending a lot of time alone drawing,

Painting, coloring.

We were raised very strict catholics.

We were a very close family.

It looks great.

My brother, jack,

He had an easygoing, happy-go-lucky spirit.

We laughed and played.

He was a very happy little boy.

But one ill-fated night changes jack's life forever.

Michelle, you're in charge.

Okay, mom, have a great night.

My parents were out for the evening.

My sister and her friends,

They decided to break out the spirit board

And have a seance.

I was sitting on the outside from them.

I wasn't part of it.

As his sister and her friends begin the seance,

Jack's fear is growing.

jack!

jack.

I heard a voice.

It sounded like my mother calling me.

jack. Jack.

Nobody else heard it either.

The girls continue calling on the spirits.

Jesus christ, are you there?

- Come and talk to us. - We're waiting.

The girls said, "we're gonna call on jesus,

Because if we do that, we hear the devil comes in his place."

Please come to us.

It didn't make sense to me why they were trying to do that.

They really just believed it was a game,

Nothing really would come of it...

Until something actually did.

If you're here, can you send us a message, please?

I started to notice some kind of shape forming.

It wasn't all just a dark form -- it had color to it.

It was taking a shape almost like a human form.

I never saw anything like it. I was frightened.

I knew what my sister and her friends were trying to do,

And it did worry me

Maybe this was the devil that was coming.

Look!

The girls just started screaming.

They saw it, as well.

I remember thinking, "oh, my lord, this is

"not a good thing.

This is real." it was terrifying.

When they broke their chain, it disappeared.

- I'm leaving. - Bye.

It was extremely scary.

You could just feel the fear

And the terror in that room from what had happened.

The seance really scared me.

We never talked about it again after that,

Never told our parents.

The spirit board did scare me.

Even to this day,

I tell people, "don't use those things."

It's not a game, and it's not a toy.

It's something to be taken very seriously.

This marks the first time jack sees a spirit,

But not so for michelle.

I've been seeing them, hearing them,

Experiencing them since such a young age.

I was a very quiet child and liked to play by myself,

So I would always go upstairs to the old closet.

There was a lot of old toys in there.

But not everything in the closet is there to play.

I used to love to go in this little closet,

But then I kind of started being a little bit afraid.

There was this one toy, a little monkey

With symbols, and the monkey would automatically just start

To play his little musical symbols.

It was creepy and rather scary.

Michelle soon learns something is controlling it.

michelle.

She was scary -- why is this

Old, shadowy woman sitting in a closet?

I was very fearful.

Despite never seeing the old lady again,

Michelle carries the fear for years after.

As I got older, I just became

More fearful of this eerie, shadowy woman.

I'm not sure who that lady in the closet was, to this day.

I never really told anyone about it for the longest time.

When we were children,

We didn't talk a lot about these paranormal things that

Would happen to us.

I just didn't want to talk about that.

I really wanted nothing to do with the paranormal.

For a few years, the activity quiets down.

But jack's paranormal nightmare

Is far from over.

I do believe the spirit board opened a portal.

Something saw me.

It later came back for me.

I was about 15 or 16.

I vaguely remember falling asleep.

Don't know for how long,

And then a strong

Feeling of fear came over me.

And I hear something coming -- heavy, heavy footsteps.

It didn't sound like a human footstep.

It sounded like an animal -- it was,

Like, a -- almost a heavy clopping sound.

Scared and unsure,

Jack prays with his father's rosary.

My father's rosary --

It was something that I did look to.

I could hear it coming closer,

And at this point, I started to ask for some kind of help.

Oh, help me, god, help me.

I felt myself moving towards the doorway, and I could see

Down the stairs that come up to my bedroom.

And I could hear growling,

Snorting,

And that's when I saw this thing coming slowly

Up the stairs.

It had a goat's lower body

And a humanoid upper body.

It had a goat's head, horns,

And these glowing red eyes.

Typically what people would perceive

The devil himself to look like.

And it just kept grunting and growling,

And all these crazy noises,

And I was terrified.

It was almost like satan himself was coming up

After him from the depths of hell.

There's nothing going through my mind but terror.

Oh, god, please help me.

Someone help me. Someone help me.

My mother gave it to me after my father passed away.

you're going to be all right.

And that's when I heard this other voice.

it's okay.

I felt like somebody was there trying to help me, protect me.

Go away! He's not yours!

And then I heard it yell at this thing to go away.

Go away! He's not yours!

And I heard this goat-footed devil scream.

I was still in total fear.

And then it was gone.

Eventually, jack shared the story with me

About the goat-footed devil.

I was shocked, scared.

That was an evil, evil spirit.

It was very, very scary.

My father's rosary --

I do believe that had important part

In protecting me.

I just had the sense that maybe he had something

To do with getting me the help I needed that night.

And I've kept that rosary with me ever since.

This incident really scared jack,

Scared him within an inch of his life.

I do believe it was paranormal-related,

And I do actually believe now that it was

Connected somehow to the spirit board experience.

The spirit board opened a portal,

And it came through at its own convenience later on.

When you're dealing with things that are demonic,

Time has no meaning to it.

So you can have an experience with a spirit board,

And nothing happens until years later.

I've always been worried that this creature will

Come back -- I'm still worried about it to this day.

With time, jack comes to embrace

His ability to see and hear spirits.

Since I have accepted and connected and worked

With these gifts, my whole life has taken a completely

180-degree turn for the better.

For the past two decades,

Jack has been working as a paranormal investigator.

I know that I'm supposed to be helping people.

The reason I'm talking about this now,

It's because of what I do now.

And maybe -- maybe somebody else

Has had this similar experience,

And it is okay to talk about it.

There's things that can be done that -- to help you.