Do you remember the first paranormal video that you watched? Was it scary or was it funny? When I watched my first paranormal video on YouTube, a lot of thoughts were running through my mind. The video featured a group of people in a room playing a video game when there were noises that happened in another room of their house. One person from the group checked the room multiple times and found nothing. Eventually, the group got tired of being scared and then they heard a big crash from the same room. Upon inspecting the room, they found that several items were overturned and misplaced.
After watching that first video, I thought that anything could've happened. There might have been a hidden door on the wall where a person could come out to do their "hidden" party tricks on the unsuspecting people in the other part of the house. Or it might even have been an elaborate prank that one of their friends was trying to pull on the whole party. Either way, there was always the possibility that it could have been staged. Many of the comments on the video talked about the video being "fake". So, while laughing, I said to myself, "why not just watch a whole bunch of these joke videos, just for entertainment".
With each paranormal video that I watched, my opinion about paranormal occurrences slowly began to change. The scenes and scenarios that the people who experienced the paranormal activities became too real to refute. For instance, there was one instance where a person was temporarily residing in a haunted camper van. You could clearly see that were no strings attached to any items and there was no one outside or inside the camper van. The weather outside was calm and the evening was cool. The man enters the camper van nervously - and after seeing multiple paranormal videos, you can tell if someone was pretending to be afraid versus actually being afraid. This guy was scared out of his pants and the camera he was holding was shaking ever so slightly as if he was scared to go inside, but he felt as if the world should know what was going on in his life.
He went inside and sat down on a small seat at the edge of the camper van "room". There was a small bookshelf on the wall with an ironing board next to it. Near where he sat, there was a small bed that was empty of items. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was a regular camper van, with normal items of daily use like books, a clock, pencils, cups, and other normal stuff for camping. The light inside the van was bright so you could see everything.
After sitting for what seemed like forever, suddenly, some of the items were flung from the bookshelf by an unknown force. It happened slowly, one-by-one. Then it got faster and more furious. Before he knew it, the ironing board was overturned, blankets were tossed in the air and wind was blowing around the camper van even though it was clear and the windows were closed. What caught me off guard was when he tried to get away from the van in fear. The more he wanted to go, the more ferocious the force would be and the lights would flicker. His camera battery went low, his flashlight wouldn't turn on, and his cell suddenly was out of battery and reception was low. It was such as small room, but I couldn't watch the video any longer. Questions began pouring into my mind. How could that happen? There was literally no plausible explanation in the laws of physics that would support such an event - and yet it seemed so real!
Soon, watching the paranormal became strangely addictive. With each video I watched, the evidence of paranormal activity in certain locations around the world creeped me out. There were teams that went out to prove these things and most of them came back more scared than ever...because they actually experienced it - even though they were non-believers at first.
Probably the scariest one I watched was a short clip showing a girl with a camera who was in the hallway of an empty house which was presumably her's. All the lights were very dim and the camera image processing chip had to brighten everything so things looked more black and white than colored. She was breathing heavily and the sound of disembodied singing could be heard in one of the rooms. Then, all of the doors in the hallway opened violently leaving her to shake and softly squeal in fear. I could hear her whispering to the camera, "I want you guys to see this. Please help me. Anyone please now...its...oh my gosh. its here. oh no. oh my gosh. oh..." Then, it appeared.
A semi-transparent 'being' emerged from one of the rooms. Or rather, it passed right through the half-open door of one of the rooms. Before it entered another room, it looked directly at her and opened its mouth. Its disembodied shriek was so powerful, it scared the beegeebies out of me. I had to remove my headphones and pause the video to catch my breath. When I regained my composure, I continued the video.
The girl quickly retreated into the last room at her side of the hallway. I mean, it was kind of her only choice. What else could she do?
For the next few moments, you couldn't see anything because the camera was shaking back and forth - as if she was running without pointing the camera anywhere. Once she was inside what looked to be an unused spare bedroom, she locked the door and backpedaled to the window of the room which was located on the opposite side. The lock on the door was the push-lock type with no regular keyhole on the other side, so I thought she was safe for the moment. However, even with this newfound sense of safety, the girl kept repeating in hushed tones, "please, it's out to get me. Help, anyone please help. Please..please..now..please. ". Her cries were obviously real. The type that you really couldn't fake.
Then, the unexpected happened. This 'creature' seemed to be launching itself headfirst on the door by the sound of the things. Its repeated hits to the door grew stronger and stronger until his head and shoulders literally broke through the middle of the door. Shards of wood flew everywhere. Something was about to go down real quick...and the girl knew it.
She immediately lifted the bedroom window and hopped outside just as the creature burst through the door, completely shattering the entire doorframe in the process. Once the girl was outside, she turned on the camera's flash and started snapping photos using the flash. Some cameras have the ability to take photos while recording videos and hers did. With each flash, it became apparent that the situation was getting more hopeless by the second.
There were no immediate signs of any streets, roads, or cars. There was just a pitch-black forest ahead of her which indicated that she was living in some kind of forest. After about the third or fourth flash, I could almost see a massive group of the same type of creature approaching her from all directions. As soon as she saw this, she stopped cold in her tracks. Adrenaline kicked in and she began flashing photos at a much faster rate. She began running slow at first and then faster and faster. However, there seemed to be no gap or escape route that wasn't already filled with these creatures. Ultimately, the creatures closed in on her with each flash of the camera. Her whimpers and cries slowly fade as the video ends abruptly.
After the video ended, I slowly removed my headphones and reflected on the reality of paranormal things. Are they really real? At first, it seemed like a joke, but now, it doesn't seem so funny anymore.
It's an experience that you can't "unsee" or forget even after several years.
