The Haunting of Doris Bither | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] yup that's finite that's it that's it that's the episode
see you later keep it weird keep it weird they're like girls like shut the [ __ ] up and tell me a story
whatever I have a ponytail in my hair and I tell you a story I do weird [ __ ] like this with it yeah they're like I'll
like be talking and I'm just like and then the guy was like and I just do like this a lot we can post it I just like
I'll be doing like this or like sometimes I'll do a little bit of this and I'm just like yeah you know
I'm quiet because I'm taking photos and we actually just talked about this I cannot multitask nope uh I can't do two
things at once we just had that conversation I also pulled my hair if I'm concentrating on something I cannot
do something else I can't listen to you I can't nothing that's funny because ow God damn
the tangles in my hair just ripped a piece out wow [ __ ] my hair brought to you by that
um I can multitask I can multitask in the sense that like I can have a lot of things going on at once and I can take
care of them I think it's a it must just be like a focus thing I can't focus um okay or like maybe it's a hearing
thing I don't really know how to describe it eventually because I can't listen to Somebody while I'm doing
something else if I'm going to pay attention to somebody or I need to hear something I need to focus
on that thing okay otherwise it's just like yeah because earlier I was playing her
the Andy Milonakis song because I got it on Tick Tock and we love the anti-milanova song and she's just
staring at her phone like so intently and I'm just like jamming to the Andy Milonakis song and I was like hello and
she was like oh sorry I was reading something and I was like were you reading something super interesting so
you were like no no and I was like [ __ ] it's Andy Milonakis it can be something
totally not like interesting or kneading of my full brain power but if I am reading something
I'm not gonna hear you it's just the way it is facts about you yeah that's why I
need to like when I go downstairs I put my phone away and I really don't I try not to look at
it again because if I won't be able to pay attention to anyone else if I'm even reading the smallest of things even the
the breaking headlines yeah can't do it huh that's weird sorry I was just looking because my wave looked small but
I'm I'm fine you're good I'm fine you're good it's my narration today so I just wanted to make sure that my waves were
waving that you could hear her beautiful voice all you audio production people out there
um so I have a haunting for us today yay and it is the haunting actually it is our research assistant Dave it's his
favorite haunting oh it is the haunting of Doris bither oh I'm ready which that's a fun that's a fun name in your
mouth Doris bither Doris bither so it all starts in the summer of 1974. oh your time my time your time to
shine it's not like super 70s but I mean it is because it's like in the middle of
the 70s but it's not super 70s feeling oh okay but it starts in the summer of 1974 two paranormal investigators and
UCLA students Barry Taff and Carrie Gainer were approached in a bookstore by a woman who overheard their conversation
that they were having about the Supernatural and she went up to them and she was like listen I have a friend who
needs somebody with you guys this kind of expertise now the friend in question was Doris bither she was a middle-aged
mama she was a single Mama of four kids and boy was she going through it she claimed that she and her family were
under attack from unseen entities in their Culver City California home now according to Doris the attack
started a few months earlier and they included among other things objects moving on their own random and
inexplicable foul odors in the house unusual noises with no point of origin typical and most distressingly and this
is like a little bit of a trigger warning moment multiple physical and sexual assaults that were increasing in
frequency and intensity as time went on oh yes that escalated quickly all right it did yeah so all of those things were
of interest to these two paranormal investigators who were just vibing in a bookstore a moment previously so they
got permission from their supervisor at the UCLA parapsychology lab Thelma Moss I like how you said UCLA did I say it
weird then UCLA UCLA it's very nice I had to say UCLA parapsychology lab how Alexis would have said it oh my God
thank you for the compliment see in my had I felt like it was giving Sandra Lee oh there you go cocktail time you could
have said UCL la la la la la la so yes Thelma Moss they're per provider I was gonna say their provider their
supervisor at UCLA gave them permission okay okay and once they got permission Barry and
Carrie headed out to Culver City and they started what would become a 10-week investigation of what has now become one
of the most well-known and most controversial Poltergeist cases in American history Barry and Carrie coming
to you live Marion Carrie they're Anne Carrie they were almost Barry and Jerry oh and Barry and carrier somewhere scary
so in the summer of 1974 like we know Barry Taft was enrolled at UCLA and he was studying
psychophysiology which is a pretty broad field of study it focuses on like the Mind Body Connection okay and when he
wasn't studying or taking classes he worked as an assistant at the UCLA parapsychology lab which was like a
niche little offshoot from the University's larger neuropsychology program so much psychology all the psych
all of it and the neuropsychology program like the big whole it was kind of like a big hole program that had
these tiny little programs under it like an umbrella yes it was headed by Dr Thelma Moss so throughout the 1960s and
70s there were new religious movements and occult practices that gained a lot of popularity across the U.S and that
gave rise to what were previously little-known or short-lived academic programs like the UCLA app I can't say
UCLA anymore UCLA UCLA lab that were built around scientific or pseudoscientific study of paranormal
phenomena I like it so Barry found out about the UCL program I literally can't say it I'm sorry that I did that to you
I think it was my fault UCLA program as a teenager and that was when he was volunteering for study on Psychic
phenomenon according to him this experiment when he was a teenager it involved being handed a set of Dr Moss's
Keys who would later become his uh like the head of the lab there so he got a set of her keys and he was asked to
provide information gleaned only through psychometry this supposedly Supernatural
ability to learn information by touching inanimate objects oh Isn't that cool that's fun right I want to try it that's
really fun I'm into it yeah yeah so he claimed that among other things uh he correctly identified the name of Dr
Moss's deceased husband and the name of her best friend actress Shelley Winters oh wow which also he might have just
known but yeah I don't know I don't know I don't know how he would know the name
of her deceased husband yeah I mean this was in the 70s still right yeah so he couldn't have just Google just Google it
so exactly now I'd be like all right the only like Shelley Winters I was like well maybe there was like a newspaper
where like they got lunch together yeah the deceased husband interesting interesting so it was the start of
something big for Barry and it kind of sparked his interest in this whole world of the Paranormal all right Barry so
after enrolling at UCLA he lobbied hard to get a position as a research assistant in the parapsychology lab and
by 1974 as we know he did he got accepted as a part-time lab assistant but he did claim that most of his time
was spent quote unquote in the field conducting research and it was at UCLA that he met fellow
student Carrie Gainer who was an undergraduate philosophy student and Carrie also had developed a strong
interest in the Supernatural so they kind of teamed up together I like it me too being spooky yeah it's giving Sam
and Colby I'm into it you know yeah so that brings us to August 1974 where Barry and Carrie were in a Los Angeles
bookstore loudly discussing the Supernatural and loudly ghosts loudly and proudly being like
parapsychology Spirits Poltergeist what else freaking doors seances I love it it's fun that's what they did
that was their conversation that was an audio clip of their conversation yeah just so don't ask us how we got it yeah
I can't tell you where it was an amazing research assistant he's got it readable
I told you this was his favorite case he went back to the past for it hell yeah I
did so yes they were loudly having that discussion previously uh inserted in here and that's when they were
approached by a middle-aged woman who said like I said earlier her friend Doris bither was having a paranormal
activity in her home for months and at this point she was very very desperate for help with the situation but at the
same time she was also afraid to seek help from traditional organizations because I'm sure she was worried people
wouldn't take her seriously of course now according to the friend Doris and her three sons quote claim to have seen
semi-transparent apparitions of roughly human shape and size in their home they had also seen objects move across the
room on their own and had experienced other supernatural phenomena that they could not account for no explanation
not super fun in their case no no so their interests were peaked so the two men bury and Carrie gave Doris his
friend their information and later they arranged to go out to Doris house to conduct a preliminary interview hmm so
when they pulled up to Doris's house on the evening of August 22nd 1974 they were surprised by what they saw Barry
recalled this house was a little Shack it was twice condemned by the city she shouldn't have even been living there oh
so already it's like got creepy Vibes now once inside Barry and Carrie sat down with a noticeably anxious Doris and
started their interview now from the moment they began asking her questions it was clear to both of them that she
was not comfortable talking about her personal history so they tried to make the like a decision to keep the
interview focused on the Paranormal Activity occurring in the home and not getting like a ton of background
information now Dora's elaborated on the experience that they already had learned about from
her friend at the bookstore and then she told them about the worst aspect she believed was a haunting according to her
on more than one occasion and this is a trigger warning it's like sexual assault
more than one occasion she had been sexually assaulted by an unseen entity both while she was alone and while her
children were home oh like in front of them what the [ __ ] super [ __ ] up she told them quote the two smaller ones
meaning like the apparitions held me down and one big one attacked me I hate this I know a lot in response
Barry said later we just froze Carrie and I looked at each other and I rolled my eyes back and put my hands on my head
and thought Oh my God this woman's psychotic wow his words not bad there you go I was gonna say quote Yeah quote
so at that point which you can understand why he might think she was like you know she was in a you know a
different state of mind yeah she was losing it a little bit so at that point Barry and Carrie were pretty sure that
she was experiencing some kind of symptoms of mental illness so they referred her to a Psychiatric clinic at
the UCLA neuropsychiatry department and they left assuming that that would be their last interaction see that's
interesting that it started off that way it is it's interesting that they didn't
immediately be like Poltergeist let's go like you know they they were like you know what we're sure this seems like you
might have some mental illness that's going on and we should get you help because I tried to and I said they tried
to get her help that was nice especially in the 70s honestly but about 10 days later Barry got a
phone call from Doris claiming that since the two men had last visited the Paranormal Activity at the house had
gotten even worse and was now being experienced by her friends and her neighbors oh wow so when she mentioned
that there were other Witnesses outside of the home their ears kind of perked up
again a little bit so they did agree to go back out for a follow-up interview so a few days later they were back at
Doris at Doris's house on Braddock Street and they were immediately hit by a terrible odor as soon as they walked
in the door Barry said it smelled like decomposing organic matter Rotting Flesh a very sour nauseating smell
sorry I was fighting that so hard and as the three of them stood there talking in the kitchen all of a sudden a
cupboard opened on its own and a heavy frying pan came flying toward them and what Barry described as a ballistic Arc
oh wow also very nice way of describing that a ballistic uck wow he's a scientist that's uh sounds painful yeah
I don't think it hit anybody luckily would have been would have been painful exactly but imagine you don't believe
this woman and then you walk in you're like wow it smells like [ __ ] in here like she trying to trick us but then a
cupboard moves on its own and something comes flying out of it yeah I'd be like wow okay it'd be like we doubted this
woman too soon down the wrong path I guess and I guess they said the frying pan moving of its own accord was
evidence enough for them that the violent assaults Doris had described on her previous visit including one where
she claimed a fuse box was torn off the wall and hurled at her by an unseen Force why are they so mad I don't know
but it proved to Barry and Taft that regardless or excuse me that's the same person Barry and Carrie that regardless
of the cause there was indeed something happening at Doris's house and it was worth investigating formally wow can you
imagine you're just standing there very it's very Sixth Sense yeah that it's just like Angry that's the thing I'm
like what what's your problem I don't know so in any investigation paranormal or otherwise the biographical
information about the victim is usually pretty critical in solving the problem or understanding why it happened to
begin with but in the case of Doris bither little is known about her life before the Poltergeist activity began
other than vague allusions to a traumatic personal history okay so it seems like she may have been haunted in
more ways than one and isn't there like a a belief system that like trauma can attract this kind of I think there is
yeah like like demonic activity and all that good all that good stuff all that terrible stuff yeah I've heard that
because I think like somehow the Demonic force or whatever whatever have you like
praise upon that weakness kind of thing okay and can sense it maybe yeah or like
attach itself to you in some way yeah if those things exist it makes sense that that would be what they would be
attracted to yeah so Barry said Doris was very evasive and somewhat cryptic regarding her
background so much so that she refused to even tell us her age which we knew was older than ours but not by how many
years huh so literally they literally didn't even know how old she was wow but what they did learn which I do wonder if
she like didn't want to give them too much information because she was like almost like when you go get like a tarot
reading or a psychic reading yeah you're gonna want to relieve like um kind of reveal anything that's going
to help them yeah you want to keep it up to them maybe that's what she was doing
yeah that could be it and she could just be like the first like she could be just
being smart and being like you don't need no [ __ ] about me yeah I'm private just figure out my house [ __ ] figure it
out so what they did learn mostly from observation was that she was very poor and had an unstable employment history
she had four children at the time three boys age 10 13 and 16 and they lived with her on the condemned house and on
Braddock Street and she also had a pre-teen daughter who was living somewhere else at the time of the
investigation now they also learned really quickly that she was a heavy drinker and she
drank she seemed to drink daily oh man now during their time in the house quote the investigators observed poor
relationships between Doris and the children and there was fighting among the siblings oh this sounds so sad of a
house it sounds super sad and just like a very chaotic yeah and just like the fact that they're living in a condemned
houses yeah that's all Bad News Bears now among the most heavily criticized aspects of the bitter case is Barry and
Carrie's failure to collect any personal biographical information or to press Doris for any additional details about
her life writer Benjamin Radford Radford wrote where a trained psychologist or social worker might have seen a troubled
woman needing help TAF and Gainer saw a golden opportunity to research a real haunting
would just like see that but they also they did try to provide her help they don't think that's necessarily a fair
overview no that's absolutely true now Barry he explains the lack of information as a simple matter of
protecting the case he said had we even attempted to secure the type of background information we currently
collect such as medical psychological family psychodynamics prescribed medications as well as recreational
drugs and alcohol usage Doris surely would have shown us the door from the outset so he agreed like we wouldn't
have been able to do this investigation and we tried to get her help and again you can only push so hard exactly I do
want to see what's going on in this house yeah and she wanted their help like she was asking for your help so so
basically she was a very private woman and they weren't willing to lose out on investigating the case by pushing her
boundaries yeah I get that I get she set up boundaries don't push him I get that
no in the years since more information about Doris has come to light that gives a little more insight into her State of
Mind at the time of the investigation and possibly some explanation for some of the activity that she claimed to
witness it should be said that most of the information learned after the investigation came from Doris's son
Brian Harris who Barry Taff points out also struggled with addiction and he did contradict himself a few times during
the interview but this is what we do know Doris was said to have been born in Illinois in 1940 to a very dysfunctional
family and according to the accounts of the those who knew her she had a really really hard life from the beginning as a
teenager she started experimenting with drugs and alcohol to escape her abuse of
home life and she was generally just a rebellious teenager who was acting out more often than not and because of that
her parents kicked her out of the house while she still was a teenager oh and she was forced to fend for herself so
you can kind of see how she became a product of her environment yeah absolutely no there isn't much about her
life that is known after she was kicked out of the family I guess between Illinois and California there were a
couple of marriages that didn't work out and eventually she had the four children
and then ended up in Santa Monica where she was living just before she moved to the house on Braddock Street in Culver
City the war the one that we're at now now the majority of the Paranormal Activity occurred in the house on
Braddock Street but the sun Riot and Harris claimed that there were quote some psychokinetic events and even the
occasional Apparition even before the family moved to Culver City oh damn so this may have been something that
followed I was going to say so it followed them and later we'll see that it may follow them when they leave this
house so the haunting activity they said became uh excuse me began somewhat suddenly just a few months after they
moved into Braddock Street it started with a weird inescapable feeling of being watched and then things escalated
from there again objects were moving on them or by themselves a lamp flew across
the room at one point and at that time Doris and her children hadn't experienced any violin activity but that
changed one evening a few weeks later when Doris was sexually assaulted by an unseen entity in her bedroom in her
interviews with Barry and Kerry she said that whole thing wear two smaller entities held her down and one big
entity attacked her that's horrifying to think about that is literally mind-blowing just being held down by
entities is because you think of like sleep paralysis yeah what that feels like how scary that is but then to add
that onto it I can't even imagine because like sleep paralysis you kind of know that your body's doing it oh like I
guess no you don't oh you don't yeah but I mean like she was seeing two things hold her down like do you see something
hold you down when you have sleep problems a lot of times you see something in the room coming at you
while you're being held down or at least that's what I always see I hate that yeah but I'm just saying like she saw
the things that were holding her down and saw the thing attached yeah no that sounded like another level yeah no but
the uh from that point forward the activity escalated more and more and then it started to involve the children
in various ways according to Brian Harris there were times when they were quote slapped by an unseen hand in the
middle of the night oh and he specifically recalled an incident involving quote one of the boy is
bumping into an invisible person in the hallway oh no like you bump into a person but
there's no person there oh that like I don't like that one and interestingly Doris and all three boys describe their
experience in the house as having been with a male Spirit they never saw a physical manifestation
but they all alluded to it being a male presence okay which is I I definitely think you can kind of pick up on that
yeah I would say so but interesting that all four of them felt the same way on that yeah that is interesting and it
seems like obviously there were multiple entities so it's like a bunch of dudes haunting this place oh oh I don't know
it's like I don't want anyone haunting me really except for David Bowie yeah really all except I feel that so
according to Brian Harris not long after moving in Doris received a knock on the
door on the front door one afternoon and she opened it and this is a quote she discovered an old Mexican lady possibly
in her 70s or 80s who had come to deliver a message to the new occupants he said the woman told his mother you
need to get out I used to live here in This Old House back when it was just a farm and I was a little girl there's
something very evil here this place is haunted and you need to get out oh no um yeah I just went too much so the
woman just turned around and left without saying anything else and a few months later that's when everything
started that [ __ ] is straight out of a horror movie hate hate hate low than tired I
always love someone coming to the door being like saying you gotta get the [ __ ]
out of this house because I lived here once there's some [ __ ] in here you're gonna die if you don't get out of this
house and I love in the movie when the family goes thank you so much and that does not leave that house because that's
what it sounds like here I'm like what the hell it does I think this family could not have gone anywhere else no I
was gonna say in this situation it's totally different but in the movies you're like get out of there and also
it's like if somebody comes up to your house and is like I lived here once and it's haunted you need to leave you're
not gonna pack up and leave no like I realized that before I get 100 comments of like how stupid I am that I don't
know that I was like let me get ahead of that real quick because I mean in the movies when
you watch her you're always like why the [ __ ] don't you get out of the house exactly but this is real but here you're
like you're like all right but that's still really scary but still and also you said something we were just saying
about horror movies this uh became a horror movie oh it did I think it's uh I'll say it later I think it's the
entity so once Mary and Carrie were convinced that there was more to Doris's story
than they originally thought and they got that permission from Thelma Moss to conduct the study on behalf of the lab
they began that 10-week investigation now similar into the investigation into Doris's personal history the story of
the paranormal investigation at the house on Braddock Street is light on the details with the exception of one
well-documented incident I guess in a lot of ways Doris's description of the activity in her home
was similar to countless other stories of haunted houses and haunted people at the time you got the yucky smells things
moving on their own weird noises yeah violent assaults by unseen hands and given the commonality of those
experiences it is worth noting that Doris's report came less than a year after the release of The Exorcist over
all of these things also happen yeah it's worth mentioning yeah yeah you gotta give the both sides here you do
gotta be Devil's Advocate and you decide dear listener so what set Doris's story
apart though from the more run-of-the-mill hauntings were the less common reports of the violent sexual
assaults which I guess is sometimes referred to as um spectral rape or spectrophilia oh I've never heard of
that before I have not either but I'm glad that there's a name for it because you say sexual assault and you're like
well it's it's even more than that yeah yeah like what's happening really here it's scary
now Doris claimed that on multiple occasions she was spectrally raped by the invisible entities of three men the
largest of whom the kids came to refer to as Mr who's it Mr who's it sister who's it shut the [ __ ] up isn't that
absolutely terrifying Mr who's it Mr who's it like w-h-o-s-e Dash it I don't know why but I don't like that
at all no I hate it like there's nothing innately menacing about that but somehow it is
it's the most menacing in my body like it's not like classically menacing but when you listen you're just like no yeah
no no that sounds terrible when you put it into the yeah in context it's called exterior yeah I'm glad that we just have
skeletal skeleton skeleton just went home to his family and that's great you know I hope he stays there oh he was
nice though yeah she started talking about her closet the other day and I got real freaked out I was like is it
skeleton come back no I've missed skeletal I know one's Top Hat yeah he just seemed awesome he did well he's
with his friend every time we talked about skeleton I just pictured somebody being like wow every time you know
correct he feels very Jazzy he does this is the top part yeah and like the way he
poses yeah you know but in these events Doris claims that she was held down pushed and even thrown across the room
and then assaulted by at least one of the attackers very tougher in 2014. according to
Doris's testimony this event took place on several separate occasions each time leaving behind large and distinct black
and blue wounds especially around the ankles wrists breasts and groin area of the inner thighs oh so she was literally
covered in black and blues and that's like very classic like areas where you would have producing after an assault
after being held down and yeah assaulted yeah so given The Sensational and lurid
nature of the assaults it would be very fair to say that they were the aspect of
the case that kind of elevated it above the more common reports of hauntings and
Poltergeist activity I'm just like oh yeah like things are getting thrown around and you know it's smelly in here
right it's like it's up to the end yeah but it is worth noting that these attacks were only experienced by Doris
and her sons so there were no witnesses to the assault outside of the family okay and there wasn't any documentation
of the physical evidence that had been left on her body she just said what had happened okay but I'm not doubting her
I'm just saying there's no evidence if you look for it it's not there just the reality yes now according to Barry the
physical and sexual assault stopped altogether once the invested investigation began and there were a
large number of people coming and going at the bitter house okay so I don't know
if maybe the ghosts noted like the the demon Spirits noticed that there was people
and we're like we're not going to be able to get away with this I don't know like and what do you shame
is that and what the I don't think they had that I don't know I don't know about
that I think more people there to help her yeah perhaps you know yeah I guess so despite the abrupt and kind of
curious end of the physical and sexual assaults upon the introduction of potential Witnesses Barry and Kerry
maintained their belief that Doris really was experiencing what she said a genuine Poltergeist activity in 2011
Barry wrote that Doris's case quote was not in my professional opinion the result of spectral rape but rather a
disturbingly real Poltergeist outbreak oh and he kind of became like um The Unofficial spokesperson for the
investigative team and he claimed the real focus of the investigation was the moving objects and the frequently
reported balls of light that manifested around Doris during this time okay because I mean Barry and Carrie they saw
one of those pans fly out of yup okay so they were like we want to investigate the moving flies on its own and like the
foul odors and stuff that honestly makes more sense to me and it makes me feel like they were at least there to really
get the the real deal here because they were like we witnessed with our own eyes
this pan fly out of this cabinet so we're gonna follow this and not what the other stuff because we that we're not
there for that we've never seen exactly I think that's a smart way to go about it so at the time of the investigation
the UCLA parapsychology lab was among the most underfunded programs on campus and because she herself was skeptical of
Doris's claims Dr Thelma Moss refused to direct any resources substantial resources toward the investigation
so because of that Taft and the team of mostly student researchers relied on pretty basic techniques for collecting
their evidence they did you know traditional photography temperature gauges I believe it's a geiger yeah I
think it's a geiger okay a geiger counter and that can detect uh differences in radiation levels and of
course sound recording equipment that's the whole gamut of what they had okay yeah at first they tried to communicate
with the entity quote asking spirits to create sounds or manipulate lights in response to questions
now they occasionally got responses to their questions but Taff admitted quote the answers we received could not be
confirmed and never really made any sense so they made other attempts to communicate with the spirits and they
relied on Doris's friend who claimed to be psychic candy and actually Candyman candy candy
she was the one who originally approached Barry and Carrie in the bookstore while they were talking oh
okay clip above candy cane candy cane it's Rusty Nail now aside from occasionally screaming out quote that
there was something in the corner not that she could see but sense these attempts at communication were also
pretty unsuccessful okay unfortunately unfortunately unfortunately so in an attempt to document the presence the
investigators started taking photos with their Polaroid cameras there were a bunch of photos taken but the images
didn't really show any kind of ghostly presence but then as they were assembled in the
kitchen Doris's friend candy shouted it's right in front of my face Carrie turned quickly directed the
camera toward candy and took two photos that the investigators claim are evidence of the entity's presence in the
home I'm going to show them to Elena right now but I'm going to make sure that we post them so you guys can see
them no we're not going to you can't see them you can never see them oh okay yeah all right and interesting this
photo which I'll talk about in a second is supposed to be um the control photo that they took
and I think that thing across her face is like a scratch on the photo I don't think it's
The Entity that's interesting okay so we'll talk about those according to Carrie the two
images in there are two images in the series that show candy who is slightly obscured by what she said the entity was
and she claimed it was right in front of her at the time that the photos were taken and then the third image that I
just showed Elena was the control image and it's included for comparison it shows an unobstructed image of candy
just after the entity photos were taken but as writer Kenny Biddle points out there is an obvious problem with the
control image in that the other two photos were taken using the camera's flash thank you I was literally about to
point that out and the third was not yeah obviously he writes in the two entity photos we
can clearly see the hard Shadows cast by candy silhouette both hard Shadows are consistent with the use of a flash bar
on the Polaroid camera which features single-use bulbs five on each side however the quote unquote control image
is dark overall in a nutshell the three photographs were not taken under the same conditions making comparisons
difficult or impossible and invalidating their use as quote-unquote controls I was just going to say that invalidates
the control completely it does because when you showed me I was like that's the same day the same day same place it also
to me it doesn't look like the same place because they even took it at a different angle it feels like yeah well
daily step back it's hard because you guys will see it once we post the images it to me it doesn't look like she's in
the same room yeah that's what I was thinking because it really looks like two different photos yeah because in the
third photo which is the control photo there's like a Ouija board in front of her if you look closely you can see like
a curtain and like some I think what's wood paneled walls but the curtain in the photos that she claims the uh ghost
is in front of her the spirit or whatever there's different curtains ah and she seems like there's like another
lamp behind her it just doesn't look like it's in the same room at all yeah it's a little strange but Biddle also
notes and he's the one that's like I don't know about this that in addition to the use of The Flash and the two
original photos of Candy the images are Overexposed that is another thing that it looks like they just look different
they do look like something was done there and because they're Overexposed it caused caused the overblown yellow Hue
that investigators claim as evidence of the entity to be present in those photos
versus because it's like blown out it looks like the first two photos look blown out completely and the third one
just looks like a dark bad photo exactly so Barry Taff admitted on multiple occasions that they were not very
familiar with the cameras and made mistakes with the settings quite often during the investigation and he did say
it rendered most of the photos useless regardless of their content I mean at least he admits it and I do imagine in
the 70s I mean even now it's hard to take into like a hats off to photographers because I don't know the
settings for a camera that like make like I don't know what to do with exposure what to do with like any of
that stuff no so in the 70s I'm sure it was even harder because you're like I don't [ __ ] know what any of this does
and the camera when you were like a Polaroid camera hadn't been around forever yeah yeah
so according to him as we spent more time there we began observing balls of light so now we're moving on to
something else he said what we call corpuscular masses of light oh I like that I know that looks like muscular
masses of light that look like plasma which is the fourth state of matter ooh he's getting scientific I was just gonna
say let's talk science the word corpuscular I like it's one of those that could go real
wrong oh real fast like because it's got pus in it yeah when you think like pustule
yeah like a pustule is not fun but but corpuscular is just on the other side of that it's a high brow yeah you know you
know this was you know words thank you for tuning in but while many of the things Doris claimed to have
experienced before the arrival of the investigators were never really witnessed by anybody outside of the home
Taft claims that the balls of light that manifested around Doris were seen by many people on the investigative team
interesting in a summary note prepared by Barry and Carrie they described the orbs of light as quote displays of small
rapidly moving balls of light on several occasions which occurred in the presence
of a woman in her mid to late 30s Doris the lights were reported to change their
motion size and intensity in response to the investigators requests and to the occasional emotional outbursts of the
female agent Doris attempts to photograph the lights were reportedly met with no success on most occasions
although in a few rare instances the lights were captured on film as curved arcs of light akin to the trails that
can appear in photos of lighted objects I'll show you a picture in a minute okay
so given the lack of other tangible evidence the orbs of light quickly became the focus of the investigation
and would go on to be the most heavily documented and most controversial aspect of the bitter case
so they were determined to capture the orbs on film and about halfway into the investigation the team decided they were
going to set up several cameras in Doris's room because that was where the orb-based activities seemed to be the
heaviest okay so at first nothing happened but the team kept checking in and sure enough
the orb activity increased in intensity years later Barry Taft described the lights as quote moving pulses pulsing
flashes of light lime green in color three-dimensional in nature which were not stable in size or luminosity
now eventually I guess the lights became so bright that they illuminated the entire room
damn isn't that crazy and during one of those incidents Taft says the orbs collected in the corner of the room
forming the shape of the upper torso of a very large man he said it was an apparition made out of
not bathed in lime green light oh I I like how he worded that yeah that he was made out of not babies not beads like
the light made him lime green light according to Taft two of the assistants at UCLA quote big hulking guys passed
out because they were so traumatized by what they were seeing their brain just wouldn't accept it holy [ __ ] right so
while the first experiment with the orbs yielded some results the orbs proved really really incredibly challenging to
capture on film and when they did capture the orbs in a photo there was nothing else in the photos that would
allow for perspective to really show the trajectory or the true identity of what
it really was okay and so they realized that they needed to alter their approach
in order to properly document these orbs so Taff and his team devised a new plan
and he describes that in his final report writing our fifth visit to Doris's house resulted in large-scale
magnification of all phenomena we began by duct taping large black poster boards
up on the walls in the ceiling of the bedroom all of which were numbered and identified with a magnetic orientation
white duct tape was placed between the dark panels that formed a grid Network a grid Network like graph paper therein
providing us with a reference for further attempts at photographing the lights black poster board were also used
to seal off all light entrances into the bedroom that rendered the environment almost pitch black wow so basically they
set up like a [ __ ] hypothesis here and really executed a science experiment there you go you know I like it they had
a hypothesis they did the scientific experiment on it boom and that's science for that
you're welcome science with Ash that's how it works so it was during this visit that Taff and
his team managed to capture a now pretty iconic photo of Doris sitting on her bed
with an arc of light streaming over her head from what they say is one of the orbs traveling through the frame and I
can see it you got it this one yep so in his description of the event and the photo more specifically Taft notes that
had the streak of light been a projection from a light source rather than an independently moving object in
the frame The Arc would have bent when it hit the corner of the room where the two walls met an angle yeah in his
report he described Doris as quote cowering on the bed beneath the lights that were flying around her in a mad
Fray okay so that's his take on it and I can see what he's saying about the corner
there definitely I get what he's saying about the corner she's I don't think she
seems to be cowering very much she just kind of looks like she's looking at it she's holding like the side of her head
and she looks like she's looking back at something yeah and it almost to me looked like she was like moving her hair
like out of yeah or she was like covering her ear yeah exactly but photoanalyst Kenny Biddle who is a
bit of a skeptic on this case points out the photo does not in fact show bitter cowering but instead sitting on the bed
looking if anything a bit uninterested as the other team members sit idly I don't think you can say she looks
uninterested well I think that's the thing I don't think any of us can look at this very grainy black and white
photograph where you can't see her face that's the thing you can't see or take anything from it
she's sitting there she's looking that's all I can tell you is she's looking back
at something that looks like she's looking at the light but I can't say whether she's interested
uninterested sick healthy sad happy scared I can't say anything so I'm not gonna she's sitting there she's looking
at something exactly now Biddle also points out while Taft described having hung black poster board with duct tape
threads around the room to adequately document the phenomenon and do the scientific experiment the picture
clearly shows bare walls with no hint of poster board or tape that's what I was gonna ask because at first I was like oh
maybe like because it's black and white we can't really tell that those are like
covered but then there's like decorations on the wall yeah that you can see you don't see any of that yeah
that's the thing now according to TAF a few days after they set the room up with
the poster board but before they started taking pictures they got a call from Doris who said or who asked that they
return as soon as possible and he said when they arrived at the house they discovered that the poster board they
hung had all been torn down and that's when they got this photo now it's very convenient Doris claimed that it
happened one afternoon while she and the kids were out of the house also convenient okay but Taff even
acknowledges the possibility that she had torn everything down in order to bolster her claim and get some more
attention Okay if this is what that was so after 10 weeks of an investigation in
Doris's home Thelma Moss came to the house to witness what Barry and Carrie had claimed was happening because she's
like you're spending a lot of time on this what are we getting out of here but during her visit to the house she
didn't witness anything unusual at all now until that point the majority of the activity Doris claimed to have
experienced had been relayed to the investigators after the fact with no way to verify the accuracy of their claims
so given that Thelma Moss hadn't experienced anything unusual during her visit and the best that Barry and Carrie
could come up with was a couple blurry photos she pulled the plug on the project and the investigation yeah I
don't blame her I don't either I think she was like listen this is supposed to be legit and like you guys aren't really
getting a lot here and you've been here for 10 weeks like this isn't worth it no
so the investigation into Doris feathers haunting came to an abrupt and unceremonious end
now by the time investigators had exited Doris like Doris's life excuse me she had managed to save enough money from
working part-time jobs to move from the house on Braddock Street to a new house elsewhere in the city well that's good
but she didn't leave a forwarding address with Taff or his team of investigators
so luckily by the time Doris had started working with writer slash director Frank
de Felida D felita it's hard to say he was working on the fictionalized account of her experience a movie called The
Entity and it would later be adapted for a film starring Barbara Hershey I think as
Doris um but at that point he helped Barry Taff and Carrie Gainer get in touch with
Doris for a follow-up interview oh that was nice of him it was so she claimed that things were quiet in her new house
for a few weeks but not long after moving the activity had started up again uh-oh and by the time the investigators
reached out to her she claimed it was affecting the houses on either side of her oh talk to those people talk to them
so they arranged a visit to Doris's house that brought and they brought some basic recording equipment with them to
document the interview according to Taft the three were standing in Doris's living room just chatting when all of a
sudden a vase flew off a nearby table and landed right next to where they were standing oh damn much like the frying
pan now obviously frightened by the flying vase the trio turned toward the direction it had come from and realized
they were not alone in the room oh Taft claims they began hearing heavy breathing getting closer as they stood
there motionless followed by a kind of shuffling coming in their Direction he said quote we could hear a footstep
another footstep and then a drag oh and then all of the sudden the reel-to-reel recorder that Carrie had been running
was turned off by an unseen hand and they decided right then and there to conclude their interview and get the
[ __ ] out of that house but they were recording when that happened yes okay that's what they said
oh I don't know whatever came of roll the tape I don't think they ever did because according to Taft doors did move
again a short time later and this time to San Bernardino and the Paranormal Activity supposedly continued but they
lost touch with her a couple months later when she moved to Texas Jesus and she didn't leave any contact information
that time either so Barry Taft said the last time I ever heard from Doris bither
was around when the film came out in 1983 and she was at a screening at Fox with all of us I think she felt
threatened by all this attention but on another level I think she appreciated that we were trying to help her come to
grips with what was going on this is wild it's crazy now in his assessment of the case skeptic Benjamin Radford wrote
quote as is often the case with haunted people the introduction of Psychics paranormal investigators and other
self-styled Ghost Hunters escalated and arguably exacerbated by their situation so he's saying like I don't know I think
it all kind of got worse when she got attention yeah I mean you can see that happen in cases totally so but
regardless of whether someone believes Doris but there's a count of spectral rape and demonic assaults and everything
else that she went through in her house everyone who knew her or came into contact with her during this period
agreed that she was a very fragile woman who was desperately just seeking any kind that's really sad so no matter what
it's really unfortunate yeah now unfortunately some people feel like what she found was two opportunistic college
students who were hoping to make a name for themselves and become like big time paranormal investigators Allah exactly
the Warrens and I guess they and like those people feel like when Barry and Carrie had gotten all they could from
her they walked out of her life and never really offered much help or explanation for her experiences oh yeah
now sadly she died from respiratory failure in 1999. oh wow at the age of 59. oh she was young and according to
her son Brian she was plagued by paranormal harassment until the day that she died wow so I don't know what I
think about this case wow I don't that picture with the light is really interesting but I don't know
if there's a way to make that happen that's the thing I don't know if it's like because it almost there's like a little
other part of the of the picture where there's like a slight bit of light in there yeah on the top of the arc like to
the to the left to the left it's like an upside down Arc yeah and I'm like with something shined at the camera that made
some kind of reflection that didn't need to be bent in that corner because it wasn't directed towards that corner
exactly I don't know I don't know how those cameras work um I wish there was just more evidence
than what we got yeah I wish there was some you know throw a [ __ ] tape recorder on let me hear some stuff
exactly you know tape recorders back then yeah just I don't know I don't know I think the lack of evidence here kind
of makes me feel like maybe they were just hoping to make it big and they I saw this as an opportunity yeah but the
fact that her son said that she was he was or she excuse me was haunted until the day that she died and like this
activity even started before that house yeah but then I was in my head I'm like why
would they leave the second house when the when the Curious Paranormal Activity started
yeah that's true like you just suddenly decided to leave yeah I don't know there's a lot to think about in this one
there is so let us know what you think yeah interesting and we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it
weird but that's so weird that your house is that [ __ ] haunted because that's so scary it's so scary so scary
and don't keep it so weird that you take advantage of somebody who's experiencing
a genuine haunting okay I love you so much bye [Music] thank you

In the summer of 1974, paranormal investigators and UCLA students Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor were approached in a bookstore by a woman who’d overheard their conversation about the supernatural and said she had a friend who needed help from someone with their expertise. The friend in question was Doris Bither, a middle-aged single mother of four who claimed she and her family were under attack from unseen entities in their Culver City, California home.

According to Doris, the attacks began several months earlier and included, among other things, objects moving on their own, the presence of inexplicable foul odors in the house, unusual noises with no point of origin, and most distressingly, multiple physical and sexual assaults that were increasing in frequency and intensity.

Thank you to the lovely David White for research assistance :)

References

Biddle, Kenny. 2021. "A Closer Look at the Entity Photographs." Skeptical Inquirer 45 (6).

O'Keeffe, Ciaran, James Houran, Damian Houran, Neil Dagnall, Kenneth Drinkwater, Lorraine Sheridan, and Brian Laythe. 2019. "The Dr. John Hall story: a case study in putative “Haunted People Syndrome"." Mental Health, Religion & Culture 22 (9): 910-929.

Ortega, Xavier. 2011. The Real Entity Case, Part II. August 6. Accessed August 23, 2023. https://www.ghosttheory.com/2011/08/06/the-real-entity-case.

Radford, Benjamin. 2021. "The ‘True’ Story behind The Entity: Untangling Hollywood Horror." Skeptical Inquirer 45 (6). https://skepticalinquirer.org/2021/10/the-true-story-behind-the-entity-untangling-hollywood-horror/.

2005. The Entity Files. Directed by Perry Martin. Produced by Anchor Bay Entertainment. Performed by Barry Taff.

—. 2011. The Real Entity Case. August. Accessed August 24, 2023. http://barrytaff.net/2011/08/the-real-entity-case-2/.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Doris Bither's haunting involved paranormal investigators documenting disturbing supernatural events in her home, leading to controversy and a film adaptation.

Key points

Doris Bither's Haunting. Doris Bither claimed her family was under attack by unseen entities in their home.
The Investigation Begins. Barry and Carrie begin a 10-week investigation into the Bither haunting.
Escalating Paranormal Activity. Doris reports worsening paranormal experiences, prompting Barry and Carrie to return.
A Disturbing Encounter. Barry and Carrie witness a frying pan flying across the room during their visit.
Doris's Troubled Background. Doris's difficult past may explain her haunting experiences.
The Warning. An old woman warns Doris that her new home is haunted and evil.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Oh yes, that escalated quickly, alright.

Commenting on the rapid escalation of Doris's haunting experiences.

4:44WatchSep 26, 2023

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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