The Amityville Horror

[Amasov]

I've watched various interviews with the Lutzes along with a few documentaries on the event. One thing that seems to be unanimous throughout them all is how the family agrees that their last night in the house was the worst, but the accounts of what happened that night change from interview to interview.

In one interview, George said that his children's beds were being dragged across the floor from the room above him. Another one, he goes onto to say that that were slamming up and down on the floor and that he wasn't able to get up and help due to being immobilized. He alleges in one other interview that the noise coming from the first floor was incredible and that it sounded like 40-50 people were tuning up instruments and that all the doors in the upstairs hall were opening and slamming shut violently.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Funny that the original movie was filmed in the actual house where the Lutzes lived and the DeFeo murders took place and none of the demons and ghosties once showed up to bother the actors or film crew. Or any of the subsequent families that lived there.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, demons and ghosties don't have SAG cards.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Maybe they should ask Christine Belford if she had any ghosties in her room when she was a kid. Her family owned the house until 1965, when she was a teenager. Her parents sold the house to the DeFeo family after they got divorced. Her birthplace is listed as Amityville, New York.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Hmm. She should star in a sequel, playing herself, going back to exorcise the place or something.

 

[Amasov]

Well, demons and ghosties don't have SAG cards.

They also wouldn't want to outperform James Brolin and Margot Kidder.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I'm fascinated by the fact that ghost always seem to haunt white people and not blacks. I never see ghost hunters going to South Central LA investigating a house in the hood for demonic activity.

Also, why do they stay in places like that? If I walk into my house and a dish flies across the room at me, I'm walking right back out, and mailing the keys to the bank. They can have it.

 

[Joeman]

I'm fascinated by the fact that ghost always seem to haunt white people and not blacks. I never see ghost hunters going to South Central LA investigating a house in the hood for demonic activity.

Also, why do they stay in places like that? If I walk into my house and a dish flies across the room at me, I'm walking right back out, and mailing the keys to the bank. They can have it.

I've been to a couple of civil war battlefields, at night. Shouldn't there be a cavalcade of ghosts there, with all those horrible deaths? But no. There is a house haunted by this one dude that hung himself. Again, I remain skeptical.

 

[John Picard]

I'm fascinated by the fact that ghost always seem to haunt white people and not blacks. I never see ghost hunters going to South Central LA investigating a house in the hood for demonic activity.

Also, why do they stay in places like that? If I walk into my house and a dish flies across the room at me, I'm walking right back out, and mailing the keys to the bank. They can have it.

I've been to a couple of civil war battlefields, at night. Shouldn't there be a cavalcade of ghosts there, with all those horrible deaths? But no. There is a house haunted by this one dude that hung himself. Again, I remain skeptical.

Actually, I've read accounts of haunted battlefields of both the Civil War, Revolutionary War, and even WWI.

 

[Joeman]

Actually, I've read accounts of haunted battlefields of both the Civil War, Revolutionary War, and even WWI.

Same here. Usually it's something like "I went up to the manager and told him how much I enjoyed the civil war reenactment they put on that day. He went pale, and said that they in fact did not have a reenactment scheduled for that particular day."

Reading accounts of people who, for all I know, are crazy and would say just about anything just for the hell of it, and seeing it for myself are two different things.

Now that's not to belittle anyone here who has had a personal experience, but I do believe that the majority percentage of ghost stories people tell are told simply for effect, are the ramblings of a crazy person, or an enormous exaggeration of a much less significant event. The rest are either something that seemed paranormal, but actually was not, or perhaps a small percentage had an actual paranormal encounter. I cannot definitively rule out that possibility.

Based on first hand accounts I've heard, including both my parents (they say they both saw the figure of a man standing in their bedroom doorway) and my grandmother (she said she felt someone sit on the edge of her bed), it's hard to ignore the possibility that something might be out there lurking around in some other wacky dimension or something. I just can't seem to wrap my brain around it, as it just seems so illogical. Regardless, I find the subject very fascinating.

One thing I always wonder about the ghost hunter shows is why it's always got to be at night with "lights out"? If ghosts indeed use various forms of energy to manifest themselves, wouldn't the daytime or with the lights on be a better environment? I believe it's strictly done for no other reason than to play on people's natural fear of the dark. I simply can't rationalize why ghosts would prefer the dark, or how they make footstep sounds (can they really become solid, and if so, wouldn't the bad ones be killing people?) or why one has never explained to someone how life after death works. If there are ghosts, they suck at communication.

I'll say this much, if I ever have a personal experience that I deem to have no logical explanation other than being paranormal, it would throw my current belief system about God, life after death, and lots of other things into complete disarray. I would have to have total re-think on everything (that is if I don't have a heart attack and die from the sheer terror of an actual ghost experience).

That Snopes article is very interesting. I was always under the impression that the movie was based on a true story. Looks like it's no more a true story than the Blair Witch.

If I die and become a ghost, I will haunt this forum.

 

[Unicron]

Now that's not to belittle anyone here who has had a personal experience, but I do believe that the majority percentage of ghost stories people tell are told simply for effect, are the ramblings of a crazy person, or an enormous exaggeration of a much less significant event. The rest are either something that seemed paranormal, but actually was not, or perhaps a small percentage had an actual paranormal encounter. I cannot definitively rule out that possibility.

I probably wouldn't put the majority or reports into the category of craziness or mistakes myself, but I agree with you that it has to be approached cautiously. I personally think it's a potential benefit that hauntings, unlike say UFOs or cryptozoology, are often thought to be repetitive and the more famous ones have fairly consistent stories being reported over decades or even longer. How much of that may be real and how much of it may be influenced imagination is harder to separate, but perhaps there is at least a kernel of truth somewhere.

One of the reports I have in a collection of stories related to the battle of Gettysburg was described by a friend of the author. He was a Union reenactor and was out in the field one day with a fellow historian, and they were resting at sunset after taking part in a recreation of one of the day battles (I'm tempted to say either the first or second day, but I'm not sure). As they were resting they were approached by another Union soldier who talked pleasantly with them and didn't seem particularly unusual. Before leaving, he gave the author's friend several rounds of ammunition from his cartridge box and commented that the two might need them, before leaving with a "quizzical look." It was after he left that the author's friend noticed while moving the ammunition in his hands that he could feel actual bullets in the cartridges, which naturally are not legal for reenactors to carry. The author reports that at the time of publishing, his friend still had the unusual cartridges and had had them examined. They did indeed contain bullets and appeared to have either been authentically made or recreated.

One thing I always wonder about the ghost hunter shows is why it's always got to be at night with "lights out"? If ghosts indeed use various forms of energy to manifest themselves, wouldn't the daytime or with the lights on be a better environment? I believe it's strictly done for no other reason than to play on people's natural fear of the dark. I simply can't rationalize why ghosts would prefer the dark, or how they make footstep sounds (can they really become solid, and if so, wouldn't the bad ones be killing people?) or why one has never explained to someone how life after death works. If there are ghosts, they suck at communication.

I don't consider them particularly reliable myself in the science department, but a lot of the various stories and folklore I've read over the years have mentioned events occurring in the daytime as well as night. Some hauntings are described as being merely visitations, which is to say not a result of a specific tragedy. A couple who lived most of their lives in a beloved house might occasionally make a reappearance or some other unusual sign, just to let the current owners know they're still around. And since the process of haunting might tie into biology, in the sense that a haunting is thought to be an imprint of energy and living things are a sort of living machine, perhaps that might explain how non-human ghosts (ghostly animals for example) can also occur.

I'm just speculating, but I tend to think there are some elements that make sense. If nothing else, ghost stories can be useful entertainment to enjoy (and scare the crap out of people with )

 

[Joeman]

Yeah I can somewhat rationalize a residual haunting more than I can an intelligent one. Being that we really don't have a full understanding of time and space, I can see how it might be possible that certain events could be imprinted at a certain location, and become visible to people under the right conditions.


That story about the ammunition is interesting indeed. That's a really tough one for me though. To think that a ghost was able to manifest itself in solid form is one thing, but to manifest an object in such a way that it remains permanently in solid form seems very extreme. That would be wild for sure if that really happened.

 

[Unicron]

It's certainly one of the more unusual stories I've heard, as it's rare to hear about this sort of ghostly(?) object being given to someone. It's seemed to me that determining whether a ghost is intelligent or not is somewhat tricky, since a lot of the stories do describe a more residual haunting than an intelligent spirit that has its own awareness. Harper's Ferry is another location that has attracted many legends from the Civil War days, with the ghost of John Brown being among of the reports.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Perhaps it's not a ghostly object, but rather something that was buried with him or that he's been somehow carrying around since he died. Although why he would suddenly give it to a random stranger is another question.

 

[Joeman]

Perhaps it's not a ghostly object, but rather something that was buried with him or that he's been somehow carrying around since he died. Although why he would suddenly give it to a random stranger is another question.

Good point, but it seems that the ghost would have to have the power to phase that object in and out with itself (which seems extra far-fetched to me), or this solid object would just be floating around all by itself. So many variables with these damn ghosts lol. Interesting thought though, and I guess just as possible as any of the other speculations out there.

 

[John Picard]

Actually, I've read accounts of haunted battlefields of both the Civil War, Revolutionary War, and even WWI.

Same here. Usually it's something like "I went up to the manager and told him how much I enjoyed the civil war reenactment they put on that day. He went pale, and said that they in fact did not have a reenactment scheduled for that particular day."

The ones I am referring to are quite different. These are accounts where people were camping or otherwise out on an old battlefield location and reported hearing gunfire, cannon fire, bugle calls, and orders being shouted. I believe it was a Time-Life series book on ghosts that I read in the 80's about one such event where a couple reported such an experience and had even taken notes. The interesting part is that the times noted in their record were within minutes of what historical documents noted had happened (ie the order to Charge was issued, etc).

I also spent seven years in the Navy, and just about every shipboard command has its share of ghost sightings.
The Ghost That Stalks The Carrier Forrestal

I had also heard of a possible poltergeist on my ship, the USS Carl Vinson, back in 1989. One of the cooks talked about how a stack of hamburger pattie boxes had been scattered around one of the reefers not long after a deceased crewman's body had been stored in the reefer during the latter part of a cruise the previous year. There were several factors that perplexed him to no end:
1) The incident happened while the ship was traversing calm water
2) Only two members of the mess staff had keys to that reefer
3) There is a standard way the boxes are stacked, so they interlock and won't collapse. He even stated how they'd never had a stack fall apart when the ship had cruised through a typhoon.