Smurl Haunting | The True Story Behind The Conjuring: Last Rites

In the 1970s, the Smirl family was looking for a fresh start after their house was destroyed in a natural disaster. At first, all seemed well as they settled into their new home and community. But little by little, things seemed more amiss. It started with inexplicable stains, or maybe a passing foul odor, small mishaps that could be reasoned away. In time, it would turn into something much more sinister leading to over a decade of paranormal torment. Today, we're investigating the Smirl family haunting. This is Redweb. Welcome back Task Force to another episode of Redweb, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, true crime and a dash of that paranormal. I am your resident mystery enthusiast, Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing this case for the very first time, Alfredo Diaz. I feel like hindsight is 2020, but also we could learn from the past. Okay. And so I feel that at this point, again, besides 2020, we could start to see these things happen a mile away. You're seeing stains. You didn't like flickering. All these little things that are happening, I'm like, no, I know where this is going. It's just the same way you're standing there, take a sip of water, swallow it and you go, oh no, I'm going to be sick tomorrow. Oh no. Yeah. Or you get that smell in your nose, where you're just like, uh, I know that like that weird off smell. Yes. I'm about to get hecka congested. Yep. Exactly. So I feel like it's the same that we can apply it here. It's like lights flickering, stains are happening. All kinds of little eerie things, you go, oh no, I'm about to be haunted. That's the thing though. It's like it always creeps in. My lights flicker and I'm not going to sit here and start dousing my room in holy water. I start looking at my light switch and I go, I have like a dimmer switch I installed. Is it the wrong light bulb? I don't know. I start to think of the grounded more explainable things, but you're right. See all these kind of paranormal cases start small and then crescendo into something where you're like, okay, at what point was there a tipping point where we should have fled 10 plus years of paranormal torment somewhere in there. It should have been like, all right, we should probably figure this out. Yeah, we should probably get going. But you know, this case is going to be a very interesting one because I think it approaches that I think it has a conversation with exactly that instinct where it starts small. They understand that it starts to escalate. They try to approach that. They try to fix it. They do try to leave and it's like something that follows them. What's interesting is, of course, when you look at the believer side of everything, it's when there is an entity of some kind, is it emboldened or empowered by your belief? You're paying attention to it. But also when you have the skeptic side, when there's something more grounded, maybe more psychological that's behind it, it has the same trajectory. You start to believe into it, leaning into it. You have a kind of contagion effect where more people believe into it and so it takes on more of a presence. And so I'm going to be really interested as we approach this case, walk through that timeline. Of course, walk our way up to Ed and Lorraine Warren because of course, when the paranormal comes a knock in these two are here, right, they got to make the buck. And then we're going to talk about the key entities in this house because there's like four of them and then we're going to talk about the theories where we go, yes, is it real? Is it hoax or is it somewhere in between? I love that in between, that conversation of like, you know, you can just believe it or you can really try to analyze the nuance to this particular case, but it's an interesting one. I agree. And as always, before we dive into today's episode, we got some housekeeping and self promo to do because this Wednesday task force, you can join us live for a recording of break room. It is our behind the scenes podcast where we talk about all sorts of stuff. It's this Wednesday at 4 p.m. Central time. We like to move it around. Keep you on your toes. And if you want more red web on Thursday, we have the final episode of friend slot, Timber. We're playing with regulation pod. That's Jeff Nick and Gavin. We're doing a game called Makeway. It's kind of like chicken horse, if you're an achievement hunter fan and all the episodes are free for everyone at red web pod.com. We've been playing with our old friends and so it's been nice to see some old familiar faces and voices. And if you want one that's out right now last week, Fredo, we put ourselves through the ringer because we played with Michael Jones and Fuya in Mario Party. So if you want to see if Michael still got that, I don't know, magic sprinkle dust of Mario Party. Come check that out again, all free at red web pod.com. And lastly, you can get merch at store.red web pod.com. But with that said, let's dive back into the episode. Fredo, let's dive into this case. And of course, when the paranormal is around, there's usually some level of sensitive topics because there's a lot of human element in these stories. So if you're looking for those, as always, check out the description. But other than that, Fredo, I'm going to take you back to August, 1973. You have Jack and Janet Smirl. And their family is moving into a double block duplex there in West Pitston, Pennsylvania. I have an image for you right out of the gate. So we can get some faces for the names. Also, I believe that is the half of the duplex behind them duplex being like houses that share that common wall, you know, there's two houses combined kind of thing. Yeah, it looks cozy, a little duplex behind them, and they have, you know, the little black and white photo. They're all, they're all posed, just a little photo and Fredo in front of the duplex. You know, this is like the daughters taking the photo or something because the dad's got a hunch down to be in frame. Grandpa's in the back. I'm like, what's the blocking on this? Let's get grandpa around front. You know what I mean? Let's stage this photo. I'm like, stick a step back. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. The harsh shadowing of the mom on the bed. Very 70s. I feel like the 70s are so iconic. You could just feel it dripping out of every photograph taken. Oh, yeah. And the like style of hair and clothing and everything is so apparent. The colors. The colors, the big glasses, the big frames, I should say. Yeah. All right. So they're moving into this duplex. Now on one half, you got the smearl couple and their daughters, Dawn and Heather. And then in the other half, it's not, you know, a strange family. It's Jack's parents. John and Mary. And so it's a very nuclear family duplex. I love this. They can go next door to see the G parents. It's wonderful. Now the family moved over from Wilkesbury not too far away, but this was after Hurricane Agnes flooded their previous home just a year prior. So house gets flooded. They need to look for a new place. They're not trying to move state or move city. It's about nine miles away, just shy of 15 kilometers from their previous place. Now, the duplex itself to give you an idea of what they're moving into. It's a bit of a fixer upper. It's 80 years old by the time they move in. So it's a turn of the century build and it needs some serious renovation, okay? This I think is foundational to the the spark that kindles the flame on this story. Families ready for the challenge, they know what they're getting into and they are ready to do the renovations themselves. And it seems as the family moves in, everything is going well. You know, they find a local church to become a part of and they join this close knit community. They also, they're completing the necessary repairs on the house, repainting, refinishing, really doing everything to make that place a home. Now the starting point of the activity from this point is a little debated. You know, you look at a case like this and it's always a little here and there. Some sources say it happened right after they moved in. Some say it happened and kicked off during the renovations. Some say it happened weeks after the renovation started. I don't know. We can debate that till the end of the day. But ultimately, I think the most popular timeline is that renovations begin and almost immediately, this is where the couple, the family starts to notice strange things happening in the home. So the most popular timeline kind of points to 1975 as being the beginning of this activity and it starts very small like we discussed, you know, renovations are ongoing and tools go missing. You leave a hammer in one room and it vanishes only to show up later in the kitchen mysteriously. And you know, that sounds like mysterious, but also you have multiple family members working on various things. It's not like you have a hard schedule that you're checking, true, you know, I don't want to criticize it out the gate, but these are just my instincts as we read. And but yeah, these tools would disappear and reappear in other places. They would check with each other and people would be like, well, I didn't touch that. I didn't do that. I also noticed the paintbrush did that, you know, strange stains would start appearing on the carpets on the walls and you're thinking, okay, an 80 year old house, but you'd think that those stains would form over time if it's water damage, if it's mold or what have you, it's not like, okay, well, let's do the landlord special and paint over it and then it punches through immediately or it appears on the carpet suddenly. That's kind of what we're talking about. Yeah, and the thing is you talk about, it's a stain, right? It's not a, you didn't say spot or, you know, it's a stain that showed up. So that's something that's a little hard mark on there that's formed over time most likely. So for the instantly pop up, that's a little weird. It is a little weird. Tools and stuff. I get that. Like you said, family members running around. I put everything back in its own little spot by way, which is a double edged sword to me if I don't lose anything. but if I do lose something, it's gone. - Right, because you go, I don't know where to look. I mean, it always goes here. - Yeah, every time. But yeah, I see these are the early signs of stains though. The multiple stains. - Multiple stains? - I'll be honest, it would get, it stopped me for a bit. 'Cause I'd be, I'd be trying to figure it out. I'm looking at the ceilings, water dripping down, is there a leak somewhere? But the stains on the floor, then stains on the wall, depending on the different spots of the stains, and okay, it was not like a specific leak. And something is a piping that goes from there to there, and that's just, the stains are following the chain. - Right, right. Like a leaky pipe, multiple points of failure, whatever. It is interesting, and again, like, okay, the other element that kind of comes with this, and then we'll analyze more. - Fowl smells, right, would kind of wafthru the house. It wouldn't be omnipresent, nor would it stay. It's not like you have a point of mold, or decay, or a dead animal in the wall, where you're smelling this rotten egg sulfur, they even said rotting flesh smell in the house. Instead, it would be throughout the house, you would just catch a whiff, and then it would disappear. They couldn't track it down, and so there's no obvious source. When you look at all these things combined, you can do two things. One, you can kind of explain them away. You know, maybe the wife touched the hammer, or, oh, you know, maybe this was a fresh stain, so when I paint it over it, it was still wet, so it pushes through the fresh paint, or mold is causing this smell, so that you can kind of explain it away. So it's immediately kind of critiquing what your instinct says, which is like hindsight's 2020. But if I started feeling things were off, this is why they didn't make any moves, 'cause they could kind of go, ah, this is kind of normal. But in hindsight, it's not. - Yeah, in a way, it is a little bit more subtle than I would think, you know, weird smells, and everything. Is the sink garbage disposal broken? - Oh, yeah. - Something in there, rotting, or something. He starts to try and make excuses. Yeah, it's trickiest, not as simple as I was saying earlier, most definitely. And also, it's so much work and effort to just commit to that, right? It's all, it's all bad. Get me outta here, it's haunted. We gotta move, and then you're doing all these, all these things, and you're very unsure. - It's the dad perspective of, we just took out a loan to get this house. I'm not about to undo all this, and go find another house, and then move again, and then, you know, then there's another house with other problems. Like, you're thinking of this, like, 80 year old house, top to bottom renovation, doing it yourself, like, sunk cost, right? - Yeah. - I'm already doing it. I don't wanna have to start over, do this somewhere else. Like, we're here, we have this amazing community. I get it. Now, one other thing, if you ever move into a house, like this, and you start to get the EBGBs, let me just tell you, get a box of flies, open that puppy up, they'll go find the stink. They're gonna go find that stink, and so you can figure out if it's a paranormal entity, or some sort of stink in the walls. - I didn't even think about that. Yeah, they love stinky stuff. - All right, I mean, that works, right? - It should. - I mean, just a pocket full of flies, bang. - They hang around the trash, they hang around poop, and now they're flying all over the place. - Get out, that's the ghost. - Yeah, that's the ghost. - Yeah, that's a ghost right there. - That's a ghost's stench in the house right there. Flies can't track it down. (laughing) - Now, if the flies form into a personal shape, then you got a demon, okay, then you can-- - Torch the thing. - Okay, let's move forward here, but this is like the foundational element to the story. Now, this reportedly went on for some time, and the family tried to convince themselves it was a normal disruption, right? They can kind of explain these things away, but again, with hindsight, they look back on this, and this is where they noticed the haunting seems to only intensify over time. Regardless of paying attention to it or explaining it away, it started to turn into other several disturbances, like knocks, footsteps, these would evolve into banging sounds throughout the night, which would then evolve into like actual sounds. One of them, they described kind of as like a pig-like snort or grunt, and then sometimes they would hear indesernable like human voices. It'd be the middle of the night they'd wake up, and they would hear almost like someone was talking to them through the walls. - All right, see there. That's when you start making the move there. I'm starting to hear voices and stuff. At that point, that's the culmination of everything. That's where I'm like, I'm outta here. - So that's your line in the sand, okay? I got you. - This is like stage two. - Stage two? I might be bold enough to push into stage three. - Same? - I feel like most would. But stage three here freaks me out. - Oh no. - Have you ever heard of a mimic from the Appalachian like folklore? - No. - Okay, well this kind of hits on that. So Janet and her mother-in-law, Mary, they would report hearing these human-like voices. However, it would sound like one another, even when the other person wasn't in the house. So this wasn't like Janet hearing Mary call her name, and Mary was just in the other duplex or across the room. Mary wouldn't be there. So Janet is hearing her voice called Janet across the house, and it sounds just like her mother-in-law. And then Mary was the same way. Janet would be away, and Mary would hear Janet, and sometimes even Jack talking or arguing with each other, sometimes yelling at each other. So she would hear an energetic conversation, and then when she went to go check it out, they either weren't there, or they were like sitting and reading the newspaper, nothing hectic whatsoever. And then Janet also reports doing the laundry, and again, hearing a voice whisper to her while no one else was home. It's whispering her name. It's again going Janet, and you're just like, and it sounds like a family member. I don't, so I don't like that. - Yeah, no. - No, this is reminding me of what we did, the New York Times Memorial. - Oh, interesting, yes. Christianity, Christian, I think separately, thought they saw me in the building when you and our outside chatting. - Yeah, you were on the phone or something, so you were like having a private conversation down by the street. - Yes. - And they're seeing like a shadowy figure look just like you inside. - Oh, no, man. - No, man. - And you were like, and to be the focus of it too. - Mm-hmm. - Oh, no. - And then to go in, it's already antagonizing. Well, this is probably my smartest moment, but, you know, this is the horror act. - And you know. - You got that plot armor. - It is, yeah, mm, sail on that left. (laughing) - We'll kind of, we'll see what kind of show this is. - Well, yeah. Yeah, we turn into a horror movie. - Yeah, so, and I mean, stage three, mimic, we don't like that. I feel like it's hard because you don't want to, some people, right, we'll believe it. Like, oh, I know this is happening, this is going on. And then there's others that are more skeptical, right? That can't be real. That's not reality. And so you'll sit in that until it slaps you in the face. - And they kind of did. - Right, and they can't blame him for it, you know? Not everyone's going to sit here and go, this is real. Luckily, I sit in the camp of, I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm not going to mess with it. - Exactly. Self-preservation. - Exactly. That's a little rough, that's terrifying. With all the, I mean, the culmination of everything, I am not feeling safe in my home, I'm terrified. When you start to see it back to back, it's like Jim hearing his pranks to Dwight all in a row. And he goes, you know, when you say I'm all in a row like that, it starts to sound a lot less fun. Like, yeah, it starts to build a narrative. Now, I do want to say, as we go along, these are just my gut instincts, we'll talk about the theories, but it's localized, it sounds like to Janet and Mary so far. And I also have to imagine just like putting myself in the shoes, if the mother-in-law is hearing an energetic argument, yelling expletives. And then she comes next door to see what's going on. You know, the husband and wife might be inclined to say, ah, you know, mom, don't worry about it. You know, you don't want it to kind of like worry her or extend out into the family, or maybe you want to keep that drama bottled up, you know, whatever that is. I can see how then Mary is set up for that situation, both from the believer and the skeptic side. But Janet, hearing Mary call her voice and no one's home, I don't like that. And then the neighbors start getting involved. And I will say the neighbors have a pretty critical and skeptical take on this entire thing. But the neighbors start reporting blood-curdling screams coming from the house at all hours. Nothing's going on, but they're hearing these screams punched through the walls. And at some point, throughout all of this, the family themselves are beginning to witness full-bodied apparitions, right? Now we're entering, I don't know, a made up stage four. I would call it. Like if you're gonna escalate past mimics and now you're seeing things, I'm already a smoke silhouette of who I once was, the loony tunes punched through the wall kind of thing. - Exactly, yep, I'm gone. - Like I'm gone, dude. Like-- - The thing, too, is like these things escalate so fast. - It kind of creeps under the skin and you're right. Then it triggers like a light switch, dude. - Mm-hmm. - Dude, it's so eerie. - So you want to think that I'll catch it at the right time. Which is like stock markets, right? You can every time the top, you can every time the bottom. - Sure. - And so it's like if you're thinking, you're gonna know the moment before you should get out and then that's when you'll do it, it's not gonna happen. - Right, you need a paranormal escape plan before you're in the paranormal horror. - Exactly. If you're in it already, it's too late. [BLANK_AUDIO] - Exactly, yup. So Dawn, this is where it begins. Now that Janet or Mary, Dawn, the eldest of the two sisters or daughters, she reports seeing people floating in her room, just kind of levitating so far. And then soon enough, this moves through the entire family. They're now seeing kind of like the smoke monster from lost, they're seeing black mists, black masses floating through the hallways. Sometimes these would turn into shadowy figures, which would walk through the walls or what have you. Now I feel like this is a very movie thing. We talked about shadowy figures for the West Virginia penitentiary, but you don't often hear about them in these actual cases. So it's interesting that this is showing up here. Now coming back to the laundry where Janet was hearing voices, there was one particular occasion, where again, she's folding laundry and she sees a shadowy figure slowly pass in front of her and it heads to her living room and off it goes. And she's frozen in fear for like a full minute and she decides to investigate. So she slowly slips out the room, goes outside and she notices on the way out, no one else is home. She goes out the front door, terrified, goes into the other side of the duplex and she decides to tell her mother-in-law, Mary. So again, it's Janet and Mary about what she saw. And there she finds Mary also frozen in her chair in the grips of fear and she looks incredibly upset. And it turns out that Mary had seen the very same shadow figure pass through her side of the house. So it moved through her side, went through the shared wall into the other side where then Janet saw it and then it off it went. So when she came over, they corroborated their stories. And so I guess this shadow figure is kind of using the entire house. - Yeah, see that's the worst. The worst thing is, and we've experienced this during some of the ghost hunts. - Mm-hmm. - And you know, Christians got the noise catching headphones on, we're doing the SS method. - Oh, that's a West Virginia, yeah. - Yeah. And then so I'm carting around Christian, he can't hear anything and then they'll hear the wailing. But I hear it terrifying. I hear it and then I look over at Shane and he's looking at me like signaling with his eyes that he also hears it. - It's worse. It's compounding interest you don't want. You didn't read right? - Right. - Or just like, what do you mean? You also hear the thing that I'm hearing confirming that I hear the thing that I'm hearing. - No dude, that is genuinely the worst. I come in as a skeptic, I want to explain everything. I want to be honest. And if there's something I can't explain, I will be honest about that too. But when you hear something, you feel something and I turn to you, for example, and you go, no, I didn't hear that. I calm settles over me where I go, cool, there's an easy explanation here. But when you look at somebody else, Shane, you, Christian and the eyebrows are raised, they're indicating they heard the same thing, felt the same thing. That's eerie. Yes, you can still explain it away. But man, I remember hearing that in the tapes. And we did that whole reaction video on it. And that was wild. We poked around, we tried to explain it with other things in the area. But that was the longest wailing sound, you know what I mean? It's not like a blip and it's done it. It was like ongoing. It kept going, and it did it twice. Oh, I was, it sounded straight up like a person. Dude, ooh, and that's the thing. It's like, this sounds like a person. It's happening twice. I know what I'm hearing because it's happening long enough for it to happen. And so like, when other people are experiencing it in the same building, oh my god, it's just, how do you not get selfish? And then just because, you know, it's family and friends and whatnot, but it's like, how do you get selfish and wish that it's not you, right? 'Cause hauntings don't really happen as like everyone gets possessed at once, you know? It's like one entity possessing, really going after one person. And so just, I mean, again, I like to put my mind in this situation, like, how do you not get selfish of like, please don't be me, please don't be me. I mean, yeah, it's self-preservation to get you. I want to be possessed, so it is. And it's just so hard when like, you know, you're forced into a situation of self-preservation against important people in your life. Yeah, or like in this case, the swirls against maybe your own family. You're all experiencing certain things. No one seems to be isolated yet. Right, it's Mary and Janet for the most part maybe. But now you're seeing things. I mean, this happened like you said quick. And so this goes on and we'll talk about it for quite some time. But right now, it's only been going on for about a year and a half, two years, and you see where we're already at. That's wild. Yeah. So yeah, these hauntings, these disturbances, they last for years. They're growing in intensity. Now in 1977, Janet gives birth to two twins. Shannon and Karen's Smurl. Or as I kept saying, when we were going over this, sharing is caring. Smurl, like the care bears of the daughters. And it gave me a good, nice little positive energy in this house because despite the growing family, despite the very innocent twins that are born and brought to this beautiful home, to this wonderful family, they're not able to move out of the duplex, right? Financial reasons are keeping them there. And the ever escalating paranormal activity is still happening, despite the happy arrival. And so here is a photo I'm going to show you of the entirety of the family. And this is a few years on now. You see the twins in the front. They're a little bit older. You can see like the 70s into the 80s kind of style, but this is the family. - Oh, the hair is getting bigger. - Hair's getting bigger. - Yeah, the woman's hair is getting bigger. So that's how you know it's 80s. - Does her shirt say eats? - It looks like it says eats. But there might be a word, like a letter in front of it that we're not seeing, but it does say eats. (laughing) - You know what? Eats. - If that's your favorite activity is eat. (laughing) - Why not, man? - I'm not sure if this is eat. I'm going to scare these ghosts. I eat. - I'll be eaten. - I'll be eaten. - Awesome, man. Like it's in your own home. All these things are happening. And you're still trying to go about your life. - Yeah. - Trying to make love to your loved one. - Oh, well, okay. Hold on. - I'm just like, what are the, it's like, yeah, that's happening. - It's just, it's going to feel weird. How are you going to perform when you're thinking like an entity might be watching you. Like a little creek was waiting on the side early. - Right. - You know what I mean? - Honey, we could do this right now, but we got to wrap it up by about 11.30 p.m. when all the spectre stuff starts to happen. - Yeah, yeah, once I was popping off. - I don't want to be caught with my pants down when the ghoul comes in. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to be pants down when the ghouls show up, dude. You don't want to be pants down when the shadow man come walkin' in. - Shadow man over here with my cheeks out, everything. - I don't know, maybe that's the Frato special. You know, you get buck naked, scare these things off. Nobody wants to fight a naked man. - That's one way, but I mean showering things like that, you know? - Right. And I learned that from the ring. Or hold on, was it the ring or was it the grudge when the hand is coming out of the back of the head? - No, it was, I think it was a grudge, yeah. - That movie freaked me out. 'Cause yeah, that proved, even when the sun is up, you're locked in. The haunt continues and follows. - I know, man, we talked about this. It's like, why is there never a haunting in the middle of the day? But you know, there's a lot of movies that show that. - Yeah. - But traditionally when you look at the stories that inspire the movies, the haunts are always at night. And it's like, what are you trying to hide in the darkness for you already, this entity that is unpredictable. We don't really know what to do or how to handle it. Then you gotta add the darkness for some damn reason. - Right, you think the darkness is different, and then you drop trow and then shadow be shadow. I think there's something to be said about the human psychology of the dark. You know, like, you don't know what's around the corner. It tickles the psyche and to me, that tilts my kind of analysis to a different direction. But the fact that here in broad daylight, yes, it's someone who's home alone, which can spur on some of those, I'm alone, I'm scared. But some of the stuff is happening during the day, plane day. So you're not necessarily in that evolutionary moment of I'm in the dark, there's a predator there kind of fight or flight feeling. - True. - Sun goes down, pants go down. And that's, I'm going after that goes the wrong way. Okay, I'm with you though. I wanna come back though, 'cause you're like, you know, you talk about making love. They've got young babies now, or young, young kids in the house. And that already is me going, okay. Am I bringing kids into this? Are they safe? Regardless of what it is, even if it's psychological, like what's happening here and how will that impact the children? You know, that's kind of real terrifying. You know, whether you're a skeptic or a believer. - Yeah, that's a good point, right? Whenever I'm with people and I feel like we're always, I always make the ground roll of like, hey, it's a dangerous situation comes up on the street. I need you to run, don't look back. And I say that because it's gonna be easier for me to focus on the situation at hand. Protect myself. Therefore protecting you if you're not there. - Right. - You see in movies all the time, right? The person sticks around and then the hero gets a tractor or whatever and then they get caught off guard. And so that's the thing too, right? It's like, if it's just you, maybe you could try something more extreme or you could do it. do these certain things. I mean, but like having a baby, your focus is split, also it's a baby, so you're tired, you're not getting enough sleep, et cetera. - Dude, that's great point, yeah. - And so that could exacerbate the situation, the haunt, and other way, yeah. - And even then, it could also be the excuse as to why things are happening. You're like, oh, I'm just sleep deprived, that's why. That's why I'm seeing a shadow man. - Yeah, yeah. - More frequently, instead of being like, oh, he coming back with a vengeance, yeah. - Right, and so now you can see how this particular case has it's building on both fronts. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, you can see the narrative building on both sides of the argument, but from here, this is where we enter now, again, making these stages up, a more physical level of paranormal activity. So now we're entering stage five. This is where I think the believer skeptic conversation sinks or swims. It kind of needs to pick a lane because as time goes on, the hauntings that are hanging over this family get even worse, they start to turn physical, whatever's going on in the house, it's physical. Start small, once again, the family's noticing scratches where they otherwise wouldn't have expected one on their bodies out of nowhere after they wake up. We've seen that before, but then it escalates. And this is where I get really interested. And I'm so always desperate for that as you say tangible evidence, even if it's very difficult to get, they say that there's 75 pound German shepherd was picked up into the air by an unseen force, the rone across the room into the wall, which pisses me off right away. But Mary, Jack's mother, even had a heart attack in the house, which the family attributes to the spirits and everything going on. And again, skeptic believer, whatever, the stress of what's going on in the house could absolutely contribute to that medical malady. And then I believe one of the young daughters was pushed down the stairs by an unseen force. And this is, various sources point to Shannon being that particular daughter, but it also could be Karen. We don't know for a full fact. I will say the dog is fine. It was kind of startled, obviously, being thrown into the wall or what have you. Again, taking it face value will analyze closer later. But eventually, now I don't know if this is a strange stage six, Fredo, 'cause again, we're escalating here. - Yeah. - Eventually, maybe your tactics fall to the wayside. Because the spiritual disturbances begin to turn sexual, not only for Janet, but also Jack. They're both claiming to have been assaulted by ghosts on separate occasions. They also claim that one night their bed was shaking violently. And when they awoke, they saw a shadowy figure lurking at the very edge of the bed. And then on another occasion, the couple reported, both levitating out of bed up to the ceiling, which are two things very vividly that are displayed in the movie The Exorcist. - Yeah, every at that point, it's all hands on deck. Like get a priest, I don't know, a medium, like whoever you call, I mean. - A ghost buster. - Yeah, the ghost busters. The thing eventually talked about Ed and Lorraine Lauren. - Ed and Lorraine, they're gonna find their grubby paws up in here. - Yeah, yeah, they'll make their way. But I mean, I say it all the time, man, there's no playbook on this. Like, what do you, what do you do? - No, there's no playbook. And it feels like these cases beget more cases. Honestly, it feels very reminiscent of the alien abduction case where there's a lot of really vivid stories with unique angles, but then you see whether they were real or not, it's crowded by the noise of other cases, just kind of mirroring. So either the mirroring of similar stories provides proof of consistent evidence or it proves copycats, right? And so like we get lost in that noise. But what's interesting here is I actually just looked it up because I forgot what year the exorcist came out and it far predates this haunting. And so there could be, I mean, it was impressive and haunting for its time. It definitely left a mark on the zeitgeist. - Yeah. - It's possible that there is the psychological element of like, you see this movie and it's imprinted on you and that's what happens and, or they actually did levitate up out of their bed while it was shaking and everything. It's, we may never know. Now another time, again, it's at night they're sleeping in their bed and Jack is holding Janet in his arms. It's just how they sleep. And then she feels a tug on her leg and he feels this too. He's holding onto her and eventually the tug becomes so vigorous that he squeezes onto her to keep her in place while this unseen force, whoever, whatever it is, is tugging more and more on her leg, almost as if to rip her out the bottom of the bed. And he's holding her in place while this is all happening. And when the polling stopped, like kind of yanking on her leg, suddenly almost omnipresent in the room, this pounding began, like something coming from inside the walls. Again, it feels very movie-esque, but these movies, like the one based on, like the two that are based on this haunting, come from something and this is what they're claiming to have experienced. And then following this almost omnipresent banging on the inside of the walls around the room, this terrible stench fills the room almost so much that they have to leave, like they can't breathe easy in this room. So they vacate the premises. So as you kind of indicated, as members of the Catholic church, they begin asking for assistance. They want an exorcism on their home. And honestly, if that's where your beliefs lie, I do not blame you whatsoever. Exorcisms can be very dangerous, like, again, this is with hindsight looking back. You know, that it can exacerbate certain psychological illnesses and so I won't get into all of that. But I can understand if you feel this is the only solution you have in the height of fear in this moment, yeah, it makes obvious sense. And the timeline on this part is also widely debated. It's unclear if they asked for help from their church prior to the year 1986. So 12 to 13 years after moving in. But ultimately, they do have a priest come over. And the priest visits the house. They bless every room twice over. But seemingly, it brings no change. And then a priest stays at their house for an entire week to see if his presence can push out whatever negative energy's going on here. And while they're there, no disturbances occur. And so the priest thinks, okay, well, no further church help is as needed. And so they offer no further help. He leaves, but things continue after his exit. So now, again, the timeline's a little wobbly, but it's April 1985. And it's roughly 10 years after the hauntings had started and another intense disturbance occurs. This time it's once again around Janet. And as she's getting Heather ready for her confirmation, Shannon, who is standing nearby, just kind of watching things happen, just a young child being around. Now, suddenly the ceiling chandelier plummets, it just drops from the roof, right? It cuts Shannon's face. That's how close it was to her. And then it dents or marks up the fridge as it bone bounces over. Now, about this incident, this is what Janet said, quote, it was very frightening because it was unexpected. And it wasn't like a light that had broken naturally. It didn't tip. It didn't sway. It just came crashing down. It gouged Shannon in the forehead and left a mark on the refrigerator. End quote. And shortly after this, given that they sought help from the church and it seems to not have made a mark, the couple then reaches out to the famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for help. - Yeah, I mean, how can you blame them at this point? You're trying to look at anything that can help you? - I mean, a child is now injured. Whether it be, again, it could have been in this 80 plus year old house now 90 years old now, it's just an actual, like, full-on failure, right? Where the wood rotted out and the chandelier just gave, or it could have been an attack. And either way, yeah, you're right. You just want an answer. - Yeah. - Now, Task Force, if you're curious, we did an entire episode on Ed and Lorraine Warren, who they are, how they got into paranormal investigation, what their history is and how it's so, it starts in art and then it makes its way over into paranormal. And we talk about and we analyze critically their history. I will say that there's not a very positive energy that emanates from them once you understand them closer and the cases that they've worked on. Sure, the conjuring is an amazing set of films. If you like horror movies, go check them out. But there's definitely some problematic energy all around the warrants. And I think they did much more harm than good when it came to especially activity around children and what they experienced. And there's just a lot of psychological unwellness surrounding these cases and these two come through and just exacerbate that. I'll be real. If you want a deep analysis on that, go check out that episode. But with that context, though, let's look at January 1986. Ed and Lorraine Warren begin to investigate these hauntings. Now, of course, we know what they look like, but if you don't, Fredo, here's an image of them at the house, you can see the press is lining up to get them on mics, and this is them on the porch. - Yep, there they are. Look at like they're ready to do battle. - Yeah, he's about to punch a demon, dude. - Oh, it's got the deviator shades on. This guy's coat sleeve rolled up, he's ready. - Oh, he's ready to make some money. (laughing) Okay, so they come in and they know the history. They know this has been going on for a while. And again, I build the skeptics and believers case here. One, they either come through and truly verify immediately that whatever is in this house is very powerful. On the other hand, they come through and they know So the story, they know that this has history and the family is fully in the throes of fear here. And so they just validate that fear and they say, yes and, right? So they come through and at the very start, they're using religious provocation. They're trying to lure the spirit out and they're playing religious music. They're praying, you know, they kind of demonologists is their angle. Most of what they do is from the perspective of there's a demon here. Not necessarily a malicious entity or a spirit or the dearly departed. It's usually from the corners of demonology or clairvoyancy Ed Warren had this to say on the house. He says, quote, I did not have to wait moments when the very thing I felt was a drop in temperature of at least 30 some degrees. Then a dark mass formed about three feet in front of me. There was a sound in back of me. I could hear rattling around. End quote. Now a drop of 30 some degrees is a is a new symptom, but also a dramatic one. I don't have to drop anyone could feel that. I like to think that he just walked the anointing temperature is dropping. Right. Right. 30 degrees. Kelvin. Like, what scale are we using? We're using the degrees. 30. Listen. A cold draft is not unique, but to feel something cool and then call it 30 degrees. Again, I build both cases sounds a little bit suspicious, but also like maybe it's exaggeration and he did feel actually something. It is strange that he saw so much so quickly as soon as he enters. Also on the initial investigation, this is where things escalate to maybe like at stage seven or whatever. He sees a message written on the mirror. This is another new thing. It says get out and again, he's using religious provocation and so under the guise of believing this and taking it at face value. If they are accurate and this is a demon, I can understand why this would elevate to the message stage. But Ed believes that a demon did in fact write that message on the mirror and that's why they kind of boom, we're going down that path. Now the Warrens investigated this house for months. They documented their findings and they tried to rid the house of spirits and this is where again, I can't help but throw my pocket sand in the air because when we analyzed the Warrens, we knew that they were active for about 50 years. So this is the better part of Ed's life. He lived to about 70 if I recall and Lorraine lived quite like many years longer. But over their time of being active, they said they investigated over 10,000 cases. And so unless this case is super special, which it does seem to be, it's very, very active. And then they caught up with a bunch of other cases. They averaged three cases per week for Ed's entire adult life or their entire activity, like their entire active careers, no holidays, no breaks, no breathers. So again, I'm trying to align the facts here and they're here for months. And so one thing's got to give in my mind. And if you're willing to lie about one thing, are you lying about multiple things, you know, I put that out there. That's true. I mean, and how many cases they spend multiple weeks at? But in how many cases did they come in and then just go like, oh, this is nothing and it's over, right? You know, could they really pack it up or could they like hire an understudy? True. Maybe, maybe. So from here, it continues to escalate and Ed himself. He says he is attacked. He is thrown across a room and the two realize that the spirits are too powerful for them alone to exercise from the house. I believe Conjuring last right was the most recent one. And I saw the trailer and they're like, this is our most dangerous case. That'll be our final one, you know, I can see some of that energy here. Now they try several times to have the church perform an exorcism on the house, but initially they were turned away. Over time, eventually three exorcisms are indeed performed here at the house, including one by the friends of the warrants and episcopal priest. And while some reports state that things were mostly quiet after these exorcisms, the spirits were never fully gone and only became less frequent, you know, less intense. You just dialed it down, but didn't get rid of it. Over this time though, the warrants determined that there were actually four spirits in the house. You had two female ghosts, one male and then one demon. And they said that this demon that was underneath it all was using these three, perhaps human spirits to almost like puppets to intensify the torment of the smurls, but also maybe even torment these, uh, just kind of people who might have passed in the home. And I don't really know, but they figured this out by way of Lorraine, who was a self-proclaimed clairvoyant and a medium and was reportedly able to detect the distinct presences of each of the spirits in the home. Now throughout all of this, the smurls had become a town spectacle. As you can see, as soon as the warrants show up, it brings the swarm of media because they by this point had built a reputation for better or worse. And so everybody wanted a little piece of that paranormal pie. They can break the story, they'll get the newspaper. Yeah, I mean, there's, uh, at the end of the day, even for Ed and Lorraine, it's a business. And, you know, there's money to be made here. Uh, I mean, look at the news, just in general, right? The news is like, oh, let's cover this and this is recovering someone's fears and your monetizing it, et cetera. It does make sense if it was, you know, multiple entities in the, in the building, just because of how, like, frequent and how violent, how things have ramped up, the very interesting dynamic, though, where it's what two women, a male, and a demon that's kind of controlling it all. It sounds like it, yeah, yeah, that's an interesting dynamic. Usually it's like one entity, uh, one spirit, et cetera. Um, or if there's a handful, it's like, okay, it's like a hospital or a penitentiary, something like that. But to be in a house and a demons controlling and all that, that's pretty unique. I mean, the thing is, like, it is, it is a fancy tale, though, yeah, yeah, you're telling me that. I'm like, whoa, I'm in. Yeah, right. What do you mean? This demons controlling other spirits and they're haunting this, this family. That's a good story. It's a very good story. And like, part of these contracts, you got to know that they're signing almost the equivalent of an NDA where they're like, they're signing on to like, have the rights to the narrative. And sometimes to also benefit the family, but they're carving themselves into it, the warrants. They're basically like, and so it, it kind of, yes, on the skeptics point here, it encourages them to bring up like, okay, let's bring all the nuggets that we know work as a structure from previous investigations and maybe sprinkle in something that's more unique to this house, to this case, this story, this family, whatever. Or they're actually figuring out what's going on here and it makes sense because it's based on the history of the home, et cetera, et cetera. I can see it, right? Yeah. But I am very cynical when it comes to the warrants, I'll be honest. So at this point, though, right, the neighbors have reason to continue their skepticism. They're getting annoyed by all the attention from the media and all the while, despite hearing some of the screams from the house, they're doubting the legitimacy of the claims, right? Of the smurls, experiences of what they're hearing, what they're seeing. And at this point, whether it's the spotlight on the house, the fatigue over a decade of these stories, whatever, the family starts to experience bricks getting thrown at their house, basically trying to either like, say, shut up or we're going to keep throwing these bricks at your windows or just leave, get out of here, retired of your stories, retired of the media, retired of the law, because we don't believe you anymore, you know, whatever it is. That's the thing, man, people turn on stuff, things hang around long enough, you just turn on it. Right. Right. There you go. This isn't fresh and interesting anymore. This is old hat. They're not just going to go away if they're real, right? If there's a demon actively getting what it wants out of tormenting you, I'm sorry, doesn't just turn off when you're not interested, neighbor, but and again, this is where I think you'd be very impressed after all this time. Yes, it's a little late on your measure, but after over a decade of torment, the smurls finally relocate back to Wilkesbury across town and it's 1987, however, it's not a happy story. This isn't the ending that they had hoped for. The darkness seems to move from the previous home to it, like attaches to them and goes with them. And now at their new house, they're still reporting these black masses, moving through the house, strange, unexplained sounds. And at this point, they're then finally able, because of this, I think, it's now attached to them, unless the house. And so they go back to the Catholic church. They're able to procure a final exorcism, which they are then able to do and it seems to be successful. They they expel the demon. And while details of this exorcism are reportedly confidential, it is reported to be successful. That whatever it was, the spirits, the demons have all been expelled. And a woman named Deborah Owens then moved into the former smurl house. This is a 1988 now. And she reports that she never experienced any strange phenomenon while living there. And again, I can see both sides, one, the spirits moved away with the family. So of course, she wouldn't experience anything or two, well, maybe there was never anything happening there in the first place. Maybe it was a unique circumstance of events that built a psychological environment that led the family to believe the same, whatever it was. You know, and we'll analyze that. But before we dive into it. Is this proof of a demon or something else? Evidence of a hoax, something in between? I think we should recap what the entities are and what the Warrens read on them was. So first up, we have the two female spirits, an elderly woman and a young girl. So one of the spirits, the Lorraine identified early on, was that of an elderly woman. And the Warrens believed that she was relatively harmless and was potentially the home's original occupant and was somehow tied to the house's history in some way, you know, maybe somebody that passed away peacefully there and then because of that, her spirit just happens to be present. Now, she was often described as wearing old-fashioned clothes, would silently drift room to room, and she was just otherwise seen, less heard, no harm seemed to befall the family from her directly. But overall, she just kind of contributed to that sense of unease, that there's something there. And honestly, if I'm seeing a ghoulish woman float down the hallway, I don't care if that's my grandmother. It is uneasy, that is strange. Even if it is kind of heartwarming and peaceful, it's like, oh, that rattles my sense of reality, you know? Yeah, I'm 1,000 percent. I'm not looking at things the same. Now things get interesting with a potentially ages read on these spirits because now we have the young girl. You know, we have the elderly woman and she's nice and peaceful, but the young girl, she was another spirit detected by the Warrens. Potentially like a teenager, they didn't really have a specific range. But the Warrens labeled her as particularly violent and they blamed her for many of the strange disturbances that occurred in the house, namely the loud bangs, the scratching of the family members, and the screams that were heard throughout all hours of the night. And they, I believe, but just the screams that were heard permeating the house. She was also particularly aggressive towards Janet and Mary for some reason, and the Warrens believed that she was likely being controlled by the demon in the house. Next up, we have the soul man spirit, the male that we don't really have much on. The Warrens detected this, the spirit of a man who maybe died in the home, likely decades before the smurls ever moved in, hopefully not days before they moved in, hence the weird smell. But they said that they sensed an aura of profound sorrow, restlessness. Things like that emanating from this entity rather than anger or aggression. And they said that the spirit likely appeared as one of the shadow figures and was the one who might have given that sense of cold feelings in certain rooms that draft. Hmm. I mean, I guess this is like, like, what, like, residual energy, just left over energy. Just like, imprints on time. Yeah, or it's just like, oh, okay, I'm sorry, it doesn't quite feel right. Nothing's really happening. But I just feel off a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we've talked about that as a somewhere in between, like, you know, in the realms of science and the paranormal and the, in the blurry line, right, like, that we don't know, is there some reality where like our feelings can impress upon time in some lingering way, like a cologne in a room that you were once in that you can kind of still sense it in a sense. I don't know. It does sound a bit flowery, but it is, it's interesting. That's where my thoughts always lie. But next up, we have the demon, right? And that's kind of at the core of the haunting. This demonic entity that's using its power to control the other spirits, maybe even torment them equally to the family, so both the dead and the living. And the warns believe that the demon was obviously the most violent and harmful inhabitant of the Smirral House. And based on Jack's kind of more vivid sexual encounter or sexual assault by this spirit, Ed Warren particularly believed that this demon was a succubus, right? The succubus being a female demon, that in folklore, torments, men in their sleep. And the way I understand it is often sleeps with them to steal their energy. And that's what it kind of sustains this entity. I believe Janet also experienced this, which would be a, there's the succubus and then the, the incubus, not the band, imagine the band taunting a little. But like, I think it's an incubus is the male version. But ultimately, the warns believe that the demon, yes, is responsible for the principal elements of the house. One of the black masses, the mismoving throughout the house, the violent slamming of the doors, the threats, like the get out message on the mirror, maybe the, the voices, emulating the family members' voices. But all of that kind of leaves us with the theories. What is going on in this house? Is it real? Is it a hoax? Well, hoax is kind of like a negative tinged kind of disbelief theory. But is it a hoax or is it just like not paranormal or is it somewhere in between, right? Yeah. I don't know. I feel like it lean towards like, it's either a habit or didn't happen. I feel like that's where we, yeah, usually end up. It's kind of hard to just kind of think and wrap your head around the fact that this was an in between for the family, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Like maybe it started paranormal, but then it escalated in another way, like, right. But also when it comes to hoax, we usually say hoax or something. Sometimes it just isn't, right? Because it just isn't paranormal, that doesn't mean it's like a hoax, like someone intentionally set out to lie. True. Yeah. But we'll analyze that when we get there. First up, cat found this angle that I honestly don't think we've talked about before, because I don't think it really came up or was relevant until this case. So we have the theory from the warrants that they believe the family, the small family was part of what's called the chosen. Now, the warrants define the chosen as a group of people who are hand picked by a demon to be terrorized, typically these are people of devout faith, which makes sense. It's hard to be tormented by something you don't believe in, just to be frank. But in an interview with paranormal researcher Tony Sparrow, Ed says that the smurls were quote, picked for one purpose. God wanted to show his power over evil and these were the people he did it through. End quote. We're gonna put this family through it to show the devotion that humans have for me. This is the more old testament interpretation of, you know, your benevolent, malevolent God. True. Yeah. There are so many different interpretations. I won't expel upon like my personal takes here. But just taking it at face value, it is an interesting question to raise. Like, would God want to torment somebody for over to like 12 to 13 years ish, just to prove his strength over a minor demon? I don't know. And did God need to work through the warrants in particular again? That's where I start to get a little wary and it could be if I'm being very, very cynical here, but it kind of hits me sideways like are the warrants using God is almost like an arm or to make them a little bit more untouchables the wrong word, but like maybe unimpeachable. Like how dare you challenge me to challenge me is to challenge God. I'm like, well, that's weird. Like, that's not the same. Yeah. You're using religion almost as an armor to not only perpetuate the narrative and what have you, but also to kind of shield yourself from criticism. So yeah, I don't know, I don't know, but it is an interesting angle. But it does, again, I think you raised a good point of like, it's also a compelling narrative. It's a compelling through thread that stitches all of their cases together when you start to say everyone we've investigated as part of the chosen. If you like this episode, you're going to love that episode of the chosen. Just as someone who loves shows and movies, it starts to feel a little bit like that. So this is just a tiny bit. But let's kind of stay in the realm of believability here and taking it all at face value because there's another internet theory that's circulated around this particular house. And it's kind of unsubstantiated and I do think it's a little bit of catch 22. The story begets the theory, which then is the theory, the foundation for the story, right? It begs the question in the philosophical stance in that the theory says the house was the site of an occultist group and a ritual. They say that they don't really know the internet, doesn't really know where it begins, but the rumor that circulating says that pig bones were found at some point buried in the yard of the smurled house, hence the kind of pig-like snorts and grunts that were heard in the walls and throughout the home. But because of this, some theorized that this occultist group might have sacrificed a pig on the premises, bringing an evil energy not only to the property, but to the house. And that is how this whole thing began and why this particular home is so sinister. And then it attached to the family when they moved away. And that said, again, it's using the story for the evidence that then creates the origin of the story. Yeah, it's kind of like cherry-picking stuff that kind of fits your narrative. Ultimately, I will say there's no evidence to report pig bones being found in the yard. Again, it could explain these noises, but honestly the way I read it, I think it's fascinating theory. It does attempt to fill in the gaps as always, we like that, but I think someone started a rumor based on the symptom of the pig-like sounds and then brought that to say, oh, maybe there was pig bones. And then people went, ah, there were pig bones and it's like, you know, the game of telephone got it twisted. Exactly. That's where my mind is at. It's like, oh, essentially inspired by the noises, yeah. So moving now into, we will take the angle of a hoax here, just given the nature of this particular case, but is this even real with the media attention that flank the warrants and the smurls obviously comes intrigue, believability, but also equally criticism. The then chairman of the committee for the scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal. was an outspoken professor named Paul Kurtz. Kurtz spoke out against the Warrens, saying that they were not at all objective, independent or impartial paranormal investigators, which are all things necessary for science, right? You have a hypothesis, you set out to disprove your hypothesis so you can have a stronger thesis. They're not really doing that. And not only did Kurtz distrust the Warrens, he was also outspoken about the smurls themselves. He labeled their claims as quote, a hoax, a charade, a ghost story, end quote, and encouraged them to undergo psychiatric and psychological examinations if they really wanted to get under the skin of whatever was maybe truly going on here because I do think they were experiencing something. Something's happening to the family. It's just a question of what? - Like was it in their own mind though, you know? - It's possible, that's what Kurtz is seeming to imply here. And also it's just, it could be placebo effects, right? Something happens and then you start to spiral down that path. The thing is like when you have the Warrens come in and say such vivid actions happen or even the family themselves saying like a dog was flying across the room. - That either did or didn't, you know? - Right, right. - And that's where it minds at, like did the dog fly? I mean, yeah, I don't know. I mean, nowadays you like to think that people will have cameras in their place so they could pull up footage or whatever. - It's true, for better or worse. - Big brother's here. - Yeah, everyone's instinct is to record everything. - Yeah, yeah, nowadays for sure. - We're still not gonna get nothing. We're still gonna get nothing. It's gonna be so many paranormal things that go down and modern day and there's no footage. - I follow so many paranormal and UFO-UAP subreddits and like, I do appreciate that all of those communities are self-critical and they analyze like we do and they debunk most of their own stuff. But I'm like, how are you filming this on yesterday's potato? Okay? - Yeah. - We got these 4K 8Ks now in our pocket, let's. - Yeah, we got these insane. - Absolutely insane, like high-res cameras, love of light, super light, and it's just, like, how do you, how does it look like this is on a Motorola razor? - What are we, what are we doing? And that's like, I mean, that I think itself is a good case for confirmation bias. When you believe in something so strongly, you look past maybe the clear evidence because you either are already believing or you wanna believe. And so you kind of miss or overlook all the stuff that might have shown you the other direction. But coming back to Kurtz though, he and other skeptics looked at this case and they believe that it's possible that the family was dealing with some form of then called mass hysteria, but you and I now know we've talked about this at length, it's called mass psychogenic illness these days and that there might have been a shared anxiety throughout the home for whatever reason. Started here or there, you know, maybe the family moving, maybe the family growing financial strain. And then this anxiety was the underbelly that then fed into one another until truth completely vanished where one fear, like especially if a parental figure is afraid or sees something or your spouse, someone you really trust and you're like, well, that makes me unnerved. I wanna console you, but now I'm actually a little bit it's under my skin or especially with the kids, you know, et cetera. And so you can kind of see, especially in like the Enfield Poltergeist case. That is like the quintessential one that shatters my belief in the warrants because I think we, I think we really had an answer on that one and you see childhood trauma and psychology that's just getting preyed upon, but I digress. You know, some skeptics and local neighbors actually believe that the Smirl family created this story for financial gain. It might not have started there, but it certainly might have ended up there. You know, they onslaught of media attention after the warrants especially became involved, led to public appearances, book deals, film projects. I'll talk about these a little bit more as we come to a close, but you have the haunted in 1991, just a few short years after all of the war in attention. And then of course, the Conjuring last rights from 2020. 2025, who says it like that? I did, but let's talk about those in a second. Karen Smirl, right, one of the twin daughters. She has staunchly denied that there's any financial motivation and she's claimed that they never profited from any of this media attention. They never made any residuals from books or from movies or anything else from the media attention that kind of constantly tormented their family. I will say the family did partner with a, I think a newspaper writer, Robert Curran in 1986 and the warrants and they all co-authored the book, the haunted one family's nightmare. And so they already have media coming out of this. They have this book, they have the movie that's based on the book. It's a two hour TV movie titled The Haunted, The Conjuring. And she's saying that they are not profiting off of any of this, but I'm like, I believe the warrants certainly are. - Oh, definitely. - Robert Curran must certainly be, and so is she lying? I don't know, and I'm not trying to like character assassinate here whatsoever, but I do know that Karen Smirl, I don't know if she's still active, but at some point, no, yeah, I think she now works as a part time paranormal investigator. - Oh. - And so I do wanna respect her wishes for discretion. I wanna respect that she wants to separate herself from all of this, no one should go hounding her, and I really don't want to judge a character or a book by its cover whatsoever. This is truly in the analysis of what's happening here, but cynically, she would have a reason, a financial gain to say like, oh, no, it was real, because my career's based on that. No, we didn't profit off that because that's again, a knock against the believability. - Yeah. - That said, we've done ghost hunts before. That doesn't mean that, you know, she isn't out there actually trying to help people in debunk stuff. I don't know, I don't know. But anyway, that was most of the stuff I wanted to get to in the closing, but I, slippery slip. I couldn't help it. - It's hard, man, because again, like, and I've said this before, but if you're going through all this and this is real and this is happening, get your bag, you know? - Yeah. Like, if this is really happening to you and you're going through all this, like monetize the hell out of it, man. Like, you don't owe people much. - Oh, I thought you were talking about a go bag, like a cool bag. Like, I gotta get out. - Oh, like a cool bag? Oh, man, what would even be in a cool bag, you know? - Paratrasers and a jacket, you know? - Chargers and a jacket, there you go. - You gotta get out of here. - Yeah, some comfy, you know? Not restricting like jeans. - Yeah, but I see what you're saying. Like, I get it, there's a fine line between, you know, perpetuating a hoax and like, maybe, I don't know, lying your way to a story. Like, you could just go write a story, but like, it's harder maybe to crack through the noise and get your story sold. And so like, is this some sort of weird avant-garde marketing, maybe? But if your family's truly going through something and it manifests in a way you don't fully understand, I understand what that, you know? You want to write what you know and you want to express what you went through. And whether people believe you were not or whether you subscribe to it, being psychological or a ghoul or what have you, like, I don't know, write it out, dude. I get it. - Yeah. - But the Warrens certainly are out here to try to get your bag too. - Yeah, that's a thing. Yeah, they also try to get a piece of that bag as well. But, man, that's a thing, right? What's other people that are like, hey, or professionals in this space, we're gonna come help you out. And it's like monetize, monetize, monetize, and it's like, - Yeah. - Man, it's rough there. - I also, I'm sitting here and again, this is, I really don't want this to come off as judging anybody whatsoever. I do not know what I don't know. But I will say, Shannon and Karen were quite young by the time this all wrapped up. They're still in single digits. Quick math, maybe seven, eight, nine, something like that. Could it be a situation where the parents are perpetuating this situation? And the daughters are truly on the rise. Like, they believe what they're experiencing is to be paranormal. And maybe they're shielded from any sort of financial gain that they didn't know about. And that would put a lot of malice on the parents, to be honest. - Yeah, what? - Not trying to put that out there. But again, I don't know what I don't know. These are all possible avenues. We're all just theorizing. We're throwing things at the wall. So I don't know, man, I just don't know. - That's the rough part, right? And that's the thing about doing all these episodes. We theorize, and we theorize, and we theorize. But we really don't, we really don't know. We weren't there. We like to think that behind sight again. We'd react a certain way or do a certain thing, but you know, as man. - This last angle though, I think kind of rests where we usually come to the conclusion of, right? I think the warrants are there to exacerbate and maybe pray a little bit. But the family I do think went through something. And the results of that, the anxieties that ensued because of it are real. It's just a matter of what was that thing. So the last theory talks about physical and environmental factors because in 1983, this starts to take us way back to the beginning. Jack reportedly had surgery to remove some fluid from his brain, likely caused by a case of meningitis in his youth. And this kind of was causing short-term memory loss around that time. And again, I'm not a doctor. And I don't know the truths behind all of this, if this is just room where it is reported, but skeptics point to this surgery and this ailment as an explanation for the hauntings, right? Maybe this is the spark of the fire. They believe that Jack was actually suffering from something. Perhaps cognitive issues, perhaps hallucinations, and that then being the head of the household traditionally speaking, maybe this had some sort of knock on effect, you know, that like now you have a more, again, we talked about that. The spouse, if my spouse going through something, I wanna protect her, I wanna console her, but if she's truly believing something, I believe her. - Yeah. - And so like, that could be what's happening here, and so then you see how it starts somewhere real, or physical, I should say, and then spirals somewhere paranormal, but the symptoms of which are still real. Other skeptics point to, you know, the possible cause of hallucinations, being the renovation. You know, some believe that the environmental factors were at play, you know, maybe there's fumes from the renovation, carbon monoxide, mold, and spores in the air. - Sure. - I don't know how much paint they're put in the house, but it could be paint fumes, you know, and then, you know, something gets misplaced, short-term memory losses in place that spurs on a belief. And again, now we're just setting up the dominoes. After that, you don't need to explain the rest, you just need to explain the beginning, and you see how it tumbles out of control. And that is where I think, I honestly think we usually land with the paranormal cases. - Things don't do. - Yeah, what's that first domino? - The thing though is that like, how do you get to that point where you are seeing, you know what I mean? It's kind of like the environment is having an influence on you, and then you make that jumping point to a dog was thrown across the room. - Right, well, then you're like, maybe who's saying that? And then are you escalating in the sense of like, wild hallucinations, or just trying to defend your story with increasingly, you see that with a liar, right? - God, I'm not trying to say these families are liars. I'm just saying like, you see that when a story is maybe built on something else, it exaggerates. It crescendos, it builds, until someone says something where you jump the shark, where something like, you know, the dog felt unwell, suddenly became something bigger than it was. Again, I don't know. Ultimately though, I hope Karen is getting her bag. And maybe I hope she's getting that privately, 'cause they just made a whole movie, a big franchise just last year. But so Karen, I hope you're getting that bag, you know? You went through something in your young life, you and your family were experiencing something, and those psychological effects are definitely still there regardless of what that first domino was. But man, what a wild and interesting case. I mean, it had so many vivid elements. And of course, like, it's always a thousand reasons to be skeptical. There's a lot of reasons to be a believer. And that's the thing, and everyone in this, you know, listening to this episode will sway one way or another, right? - I can feel them all, they're driving a work in their car and they're going, mm-hmm. My BS detectors going off, or someone's like, "Ooh, ooh, I know, I've felt something like that before." Like, it's all about your experience. - But you know, that makes you think about like, the people that have a lot of vivid experiences, you know? - Yeah. - I mean, Christian's mom has had a lot of vivid experiences. - Yeah. - And so-- - Her little baby voices and stuff. - And so I completely get it when you look at these kind of situations going, you know, there's probably something there. I've experienced it myself. I have, but just different walks of life, man, different ways of look at it. Some people are gonna think one way and some another. - And the thing is like, I think the core case is fascinating. Even if you take the skeptics' psychological angle, or the true believer's angle, but what always throws a wrench into things is when the warrants come to play. I think that's when things start to accelerate and exaggerate and my like, just skepticism around them is omnipresent. You can really see it when you take the high level of you across all their cases and you start to go, "All right, come on," you know, and that's what I think really gets in the way of truly understanding what the families are going through. - Yeah, I agree. When they step onto the scene, there's even more spotlight. It's, yeah, it's their scene now. - It's their scene. Things are always escalating. So essentially patterns for sure. - Well, Task Force, we'd love to know what you think. I think the unsolved mystery here is, what is that first domino? What really set off the chain of reactions that ultimately and truly did haunt this family in one way or another? But as we come to a close, Fredo, some shout outs to the Task Force, we've got Alias, as our newest member of the Task Force, and then our Buff Scientist of the Week, we've got Reese, a Tensio, and then our Squunks, we've got Bromand, Clint from PS3, Tucker did it, and Zara Thustra, just to name a few. Thank you all so much for joining us at RedWebPod.com. It is the number one way to support us, but you can also share this podcast with your friends. If you have people that love the conjuring, we have covered pretty much all their cases, the main ones. So if you want to share that with a friend of yours, mom's love RedWeb, we all know that. So share it with your mom. I love that I get to talk to Christian and Fredo about these cases, but if you want somebody else to talk to, we've also got our Discord channel. You can review us for free wherever you are. You can leave comments. It's just, however you engage with us, we really appreciate it, and all of it supports us. We are an independent little podcast, little thing, you know? And we appreciate it all the time. All right, Fredo, with that said, the October season is upon us. So you're going to start to see a little increase in cases a little bit like this, not all of them, but a little bit more of the hauntings, the interesting locations, the interesting houses, or something. We might sneak in a haunted wood here and there. I love the historical haunt. Yeah, but is that a time of the year for us, or even ghost haunts and everything? Yeah, as of this coming out, we are going to be in Iowa for another ghost hunt, which is coming in October. So we're doing our annual Halloween special task force. So if you want to brace for that again, we're going to have exclusives on our Patreon page. But all that, you know, stay tuned. We'll keep you posted and all that good stuff. But Fredo, that said, I'll see you right back here next Monday, forget another mystery. [MUSIC]