This episode is a killer and I loved doing this research. Below is the transcript (roughly), and at the very bottom are the links to the sources used! Hope y'all enjoy <333
In an article from May 23, 2020, an LA reporter wrote that there have been an increase in reports of possible hauntings at homes during lockdown. This article says that because people are spending more time in their homes, they’re hearing lots of sounds like pops and creaks that they’re not used to hearing. Jason Hawes, the host of “Ghost Nation” and the man behind the Atlantic Paranormal Society has seen a massive jump in reports.
A week earlier on may 15, 2020, another article reported that paranormal and former TV host John Tenney said that the number of calls he began getting after lockdown restrictions went into place have doubled, if not increased by up to five times. Obviously theres room for variance because it’s not a steady increase.
The reports that Tenney was getting at this point was everything from the typical knocks and disembodied footsteps, to whispered voices in the TV or even text messages from people who had been passed on for a while.
Tenney says much the same that Jason Hawes does- that most people didn’t spend this much times in their homes before, they’re bored, they’re hearing things they don’t usually hear and they’re in a state of heightened emotional stress so they’re quick to jump and assume. But, he does leave room for the fact that maybe SOME people have started noticing things that were there all along that they were too distracted to notice before- like a ghosty.
Honestly i do recommend you read the interview he did, the link is in the blog for today’s episode as always. But Tenney brings something up here that will carry us through into exactly what i want to talk about today; he says that he observed a spike like this in 1999 during the Y2K, and there was another spike around 9/11.
He goes on to talk in this interview about how it’s the time of stress and how it really does affect human psychology in one way or another. Other people have noticed these spikes too, though, and I think it is absolutely something w e need to discuss.
Now I want to share with you a story, this one from someone who experienced the supernatural himself. Michelle Horne, a beautiful woman with so much life in her and opportunity ahead of her, passed from Covid after almost 10 years of marriage to her best friend Ian. A long battle with Covid- and Ian was devastated. One morning, not long after her death, he was driving to work as a radio DJ down the road he drove every morning, and down the road Michelle took to the hospital before she passed. About two dozen streetlights that flanked the highway were a purple color, like lavender, floating in the night sky. Ian took it as a message from Michelle, because 1) like i said, this was his daily drive and her last drive 2) purple was her favorite color and 3) that was even the color of the tie he wore at their wedding.
For Ian, he knew it was her immediately, and he was overwhelmed and happy with the knowledge that she was sending him a sign that she was with him. Here’s the thing, though- they’re still there. He actually called the city to find out about what happened, because he was shocked that they were still purple basically- and they said oh, it’s a defective batch of bulbs, we’ll replace them sometime. But what a coincidence, ya know? And even with it being explained away to something tangible, it doesn’t mean she didn’t influence that.
But that wasn’t the only experience he had; he saw Cardinals about his backyard in the autumn, which is out of season. Cardinals appear when loved ones are near, according to tradition. He’s also heard her audibly call out to him on multiple occasions, so loudly that it jolts him.
Jamie Jackson in Pennsylvania lost her beloved favorite aunt, Pat, after complications from Covid in summer 2020. This was a close relationship, like extra mom, like if you’ve ever seen me and my aunt Juju together. So Jamie was devastated, and especially so because she couldn’t even be at the hospital to comfort her or say goodbye. Seven months after Pat’s death, though, Jamie was putting up Christmas decor, a bunch of which had belonged to her aunt, when she turned to see a translucent figure of a petite woman who looked quite like her aunt from behind. Jamie froze, and then she ran. She said she knows it was her aunt, and she is sure that aunt Pat is still visiting her on this plane.
Experiences just like this have been happening all over the United States, like i told you before. but again, it’s not just here, and it’s not just now.
The 1918 influenza epidemic, paired with the end of World War I, sparked a MASSIVE resurgence of spiritualism in the US.
One of the most famous proponents of the movement, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was hugely into spiritualism, as he had lost a son to complications of the flu (but he had also been wounded in the war), a brother to the flu, and a brother in law to the war. You might know Doyle as one of my favorite authors of all time, and the creator of Mr Sherlock Holmes.
Doyle wrote that he experienced a visit from his son during a seance in 1919, where he felt a strong hand on his head an a kiss on the forehead. When he asked his son if he was happy, there was a pause before a sigh and the response “yes, I am so happy.”
He went on to report more experiences of his own communication, which was absolutely something he was searching for. He wanted comfort, and he wanted answers. Doyle claimed to know of up to 24 different mothers who were in communication with their dead sons.
In the wake of 9/11, tons of people reported sightings of and conversations with those who were tragically lost. Lisa O’Brien found her 4 year old daughter Jacie having a conversation with her daddy, whom she could also see. Jacie said that daddy was telling her knock knock jokes, and Jacie could name off her daddy’s coworkers and friends who had also died in the attack. A lot of these people Jacie had never met in her tiny little life, and she could even look at a group photo and say “those are the boys!”.
Bonnie McEneaney’s husband Eamon, had a sense of foreboding in the weeks building up tot he attack, and on September 2, 2001, they were at a barbecue where Eamon had a full discussion with his brother about the World Trade Center being hit again (for anyone who doesn’t realize, the WTC had been bombed once before, in 1999). They had a DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW TO BEST EVACUATE OTHER PEOPLE. Like how he should guide people out in the event of another attack.
For me, probably the most chilling is that in the days just before the attack, he told her that she needed to work on being the disciplinarian with the children, because “when I’m gone it’s going to be hard”. Then, the morning of, he had a vertigo attack in the shower- if you don’t know, that’s like EXTREME dizziness- this is the first time he’d had one in almost a year. I wish he had taken that sign.
Bonnie went on to talk with around 200 other people in the community of those who were DIRECTLY affected by 9/11, who also had signs and premonitions before and after, and visits from loved ones lost. She had enough to write a book, entitled “Messages: Signs, Visits, and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11” which I will obviously link.
Monica Iken woke up to see her husband, glowing, smiling at her, at the bottom of the bed. Just a hey, I’m here with you kind of thing.
The 2011 tsunami in Japan killed at least 20,000 people, and reports were so wide spread across Ishinomaki, the affected area, that a book has been written and a documentary made (that I watched, so good) about the confused spirits who wander around the city not quite sure that they’re dead.
People were reporting neighbors, who died in the tsunami, appearing outside their homes and sitting in puddles of water. People reported toys of children who were killed lighting up and playing sounds in empty rooms. Taxi drivers picked up passengers who wanted to be taken to destroyed homes, and disappeared before they arrived.
One Buddhist priest, Reverend Taio Kaneda, became a sympathetic ear to many of the people going through extreme grief in the wake of the tsunamis. With that, came a lot of stories of hauntings and the supernatural tied to those lots. A lot of people experienced disturbing dreams about those lost, and some had comforting dreams. Some people saw figures on the beach where there were actually no people- and these were people who hadn’t even had losses of their own. One man told Reverend Kaneda that he kept seeing the eyes of those who died in the puddles he passed on the street.
If you can and are interested, I highly recommend y’all go check out Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries, because the episode on this is incredible. It really sticks with you.
It’s so important to note that these experiences don’t just happen to people who are looking for them, who are in need of that comfort and visitation. I think that some of those who experienced the tsunami are good examples, because many of them were not religious at all, as Japan is actually rather secular in a lot of ways today. So there was not any hoping for visitations in a religious sense. For a lot of people it does create some serious fractures in their established world-view, or it doesn’t fit their religious beliefs. Some people have moved out of the grieving process and have a visit that shocks them. Some people get visits from people they don’t want to see again. Some of the people in Japan saw spirits when they themselves didn’t even know anyone who was killed.
These kinds of unwanted visits are especially prevalent during wartime, which we’ve been in for 20 years in case you didn’t know. A good amount of veterans report being visited by fallen comrades they lost, which is devastating for them and certainly not something they want to relive. Other vets have reported being haunted by those they killed; in the memoir “What It Is Like to Go to War”, Karl Marlantes recalls that he was stalked by a soldier he killed during the Vietnam War for years. He even exorcised his enemy’s ghost, in a private session at 2 in the morning with a priest. Karl wrote that he SAW the spirits of those he killed and the comrades who died under his command in that church, and even his late grandparents came to support him.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/20/health/supernatural-encounters-pandemic-loved-ones-blake/index.html (the story of Ian and Michelle is at this link!)
https://abcnews.go.com/2020/911-widows-deceased-relatives-communicate-grave/story?id=10891128 (this link is full of 9/11 testimonies)
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