A TRUE STORY:

In May of 2010 my wife Sara and I purchased a seemingly delightful house in west Salt Lake City, Utah in the Glendale neighborhood. It wasn’t the ideal neighborhood we had hoped for but we thought we could make the best out of it. As soon as we began to settle down and make the house our home Sara began to experience severe nightmares. She complained of uneasiness and unexplained “rage” that would come over her as soon as she arrived home.

I brushed these complaints off as stress to adjusting to the new house. The nightmares quickly became worse to where she could not sleep much through the night. It was at this time we conducted a “house cleansing” of sorts with the aid of some Catholic friends.

We even photographed an unexplained orb floating in our basement. Being of Native American heritage myself, I did my own form of “clearing” with sage and tobacco. There was some peace after this.

Sara’s nightmares returned after a month or so. This time she claims she was contacted by “entities” and feelings of hatred. She also claimed to hear strange noises, voices, and flashes of movement throughout the house. I worked all day while she remained home so I didn’t see any of these things. She felt unsafe in the house so we got a big dog to help with security. I reassured her that it was all in her head. Unfortunately, the problems for my wife came to a head one strange night in early 2011.

I had woken up to use the restroom around 1am. I did not turn on any lights as to not disturb anyone sleep. My daughter slept soundly in her room when Sara awoke to use the bathroom while I was still in there. When she walked in she was unaware of my presence. I alerted her by quietly saying “hey…” what followed was a horrifying blood curdling scream the likes of which I’d never heard before.

I stood to try and console her but she attempted to run from me as if I was some assailant meant to harm her! She fell to the ground instead and injured her ankle. I tried to comfort and reassureher while trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Our daughter woke up in a panic and quite frightened. Sara had to go to the emergency room that night. I feared for my wife’s well being and sanity and the psychological impact on my child.

I wanted a more rational explanation but felt compelled to protect my wife from whatever she imaged was disturbing her. She insisted that it was of a supernatural source. Hence, because I felt tired of the disturbances I challenged the “entities” to come after me instead.

What followed took about five or six months. The disturbances for me began when Sara was having family difficulties with a close relative. It was around this time that my anger began to become a problem. I was stressed out over work; I wanted my home to be safe and happy when I arrived. It was not. I would become severely irritated over trivial things. The problems with the close relative were nothing new but I had grown tired of it and became resigned to a violent confrontation. I was to have one but not with the person I expected.

October 2011
I slept with Sara at my side. My dreams followed their usual patterns when suddenly they stopped and a feeling of invasion attacked me. I sensed a large presence over me that was going to take me away. I can’t explain why I felt these things but it frightened me to the core. The scream I let out was primal and full of sheer terror. Sara woke in a panic and roused me while the dog growled and barked at our bedroom doorway. Despite my shaken feeling I rose from the bed and attempted to find out what the dog was confronting.

I followed the dog down the stairs to the front door. I was disoriented and nearly fell to the ground. Again our little daughter was awakened by the noise. We all attempted to sleep in the master bed that night but not without waking periodically to lights, mist and figures in our doorway. Two days later our dog mysteriously vanished. We never recovered her.

What followed during the months after that was a series of attempts at making the house livable. First, I contacted some medicine practitioners from my Native community back home in Texas, we had a ceremony for the dead in our home, we conducted a through cleansing with sage, we redid the Catholic blessings, a friend did an energy banishment, and finally we invited the Bishop from the LDS church across the street to conduct a blessing.

Despite all of this my sleep was severally disturbed. Nightly I would wake at 3am to a sense of impending confrontation. I feared that I would be taken away by some unknown force and wouldn’t be able to defend my family. I filmed these nightly disturbances a couple of times with no conclusive evidence. That is when we invited a paranormal team in our home to investigate. The lead investigator claimed that though they captured no visual or auditory evidence she received intelligent responses from flashlight experiments. I was witness to a few of these experiments. She claimed that when she asked if the entities liked Sara and I being together that the entities indicated that they did not. When she asked if they intended to separate us the answer was affirmative.

Summer 2012
That summer was difficult. An elder whom I consulted died, my beloved grandmother passed way, and I felt I was losing my mind. We had a medicine ceremony conducted for us in Texas. I hoped my problems were over with, but there was little relief for me. I became depressed and I couldn’t explain why I was waking at night. I began to suspect the cause was supernatural after all.

My slept got worse, my anger increased, and my night dreams were that Sara was leaving me because she “saw” my evil side. I began to suspect that I was the source of the disturbances. I was starting to believe that it was because of a psychological block that I was stirring these strange events. I am an Iraq combat veteran and I assumed it was my PTSD that was causing it. I somehow thought I had created the entity that was appearing in shadows, dreams, and in the corner of our eyes. My rage over trifling problems were wholly inappropriate and overboard. Sara insisted I do something about it or she would have to ask me to leave. Our marriage was falling apart and I believed I was the cause.

I’m deeply in love with Sara, and our our daughter is my entire world but my sanity was slipping. The thought of losing them was unbearable. I began to see a psychotherapist. Now, I was convinced that I was the cause of all that was wrong in our home. There was nothing supernatural about it. An elder back home suggested smoking tobacco over the problem. The “smoke” as it is referred to is a powerful agent in spiritual matters. It is customary in ceremony to use a pipe or tobacco rolled in a small piece of cornhusk for prayer and communication with the ancestors. I did not do this even though I had great experiences with this  in my life previously. Instead, I began taking mood stabilizers and continued to ignore the advise of my elders back home.

Things calmed for a while though my sleep remained disturbed. Sara got pregnant with our second child early in 2013. One night I woke as usual, but while rolling over in an attempt to go back to sleep I saw something quite shocking. A very tall dark figure stood at the foot of our bed, it’s face hidden, but its form blocked the bedroom doorway behind it. I screamed like a frightened child imploring Sara to wake up. I was shaken like I had never been shaken before. The terror of the attack in 2011 returned ten fold and I plunged into deep confusion. The figure was horrifying and till this day I become chilled thinking about it.

My therapist had no explanation, so we tried hypnotherapy, as we theorized it was deeply unconscious. We concluded that the vision of seeing the entity was arising from my subconscious. The hypnotherapy didn’t end the experiences. From then on, I slept little in the master bedroom and when I did I awoke to a figure or angry face hovering over me. Each time I screamed in terror.

Sara and I began to sleep in other areas of the house. Sara even witnessed a treasured figurine of a loving couple in an embrace thrown to the ground from its place on a display shelf. The piece was broken and struck a deep chord with both of us, as the figurine was a wedding gift symbolizing Sara and I. We took a short vacation to San Francisco where I did not experience night disturbances or visitations from specters. However, when we returned home the entity reappeared at my bedside and Sara become very ill with bronchitis. This was especially alarming as she was now seven months pregnant and in severe pain from coughing. Sara required heavy medication and observation from her prenatal doctor.

Finally, Sara could no longer sleep, attributing the disturbance to my night terrors and a feeling of impending attack on her too. This escalated to the point that she and our daughter were camping out in a tent in our yard because she simply felt threatened. One night she couldn’t breath because of what see described as a “pressure” on her chest. This was due to what Sara described as terror. She claimed that she felt something was trying to convenience her I was unsafe – like a voice in her head, even though she knew it was untrue. I cried, as my nightmares were becoming reality. I begged my Creator for help. At last, the thought of using the prayer smoke came to mind. Even though I’d had the intention of using the smoke as a means to resolve the issue before, I had failed to actually attempt it.

I rolled the smoke and prayed to my ancestors for help. I also attempted to “talk” to the entity, as I believed it was trying to communicate with me. I removed all animosity from my words. I simply offered a means of communication that otherwise hadn’t been there. I even accepted the notion that if I was the source of the problems, that it be clearly shown to me, so that I could remove myself from the lives of those I love. I did not ever want to be a threat to them and if I needed to leave I was wiling to accept that. As soon as I finished, Sara and our daughter came back into the house and slept the entire night.

The nights that followed were quiet for about a week. I returned to therapy and my therapist observed that I seemed different – “clear”. I began to suspect once again that the entity was not a manifestation of my subconscious but an actual dark specter that was meaning to tear my wife and I apart. Sara and I had arranged to go to a couples retreat to try and restore our relationship to it’s former strength. Our daughter stayed with grandparents while we went to Provo for this get-away. We had a close friend and her kids stay in the house to watch our dogs.

On our first night out of town Sara received a text message around midnight from our friend saying she felt a chest pressure and she was very frightened because of an unwelcoming presence such that she abruptly left the house with her children. Our friend claimed that she sensed a dark presence in our master bedroom while she slept and that her daughter felt “unsafe”. At this point, I was convinced the source was not me but a separate entity in the house.

When we returned to town that Sunday from our retreat we attempted to pick up our little daughter from Sara’s parents. Our daughter was in a state of total panic coupled with vomiting and fears of “dying” or “disappearing forever” etc. She feared returning to the house. That did it!

I resolved to confront the beast that was tearing our family apart. I had tried everything, even blamed myself for the problem, now I was to go head to head with it. Enough was enough. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I would find someone to get rid of the entity for good.

We left our daughter with Sara’s parents so Sara could come home and take the dogs while I confronted the entity. When we arrived I went off at full throttle. I allowed my anger toward this thing to unleash in a final fight for my family, for my sanity, and for our home. I confronted the entity on it’s deception – it’s attempt to make the poltergeist seem to be my fault in it’s attempt to create a void between Sara and I.

My tone was very loud and grave. I went on for over an hour screaming in anger till I was hoarse. I petitioned the entity to leave my family and me alone for good or I would find someone to permanently banish it. My threat was backed by the knowledge that the entity was linked to the property and its existence was dependent on it. Should it be vanquished from the house, it would have nowhere to go and be thrust into nothingness.

Of course I received no auditory response but I propositioned the entity to find a way to give me their answer. When I was done, as I walked out the door and crossed the threshold, the door pushed behind me nearly knocking me down. I had gotten the answer. I interpreted the door pushing forcefully on me as the entity’s way of saying, “do your worst”. So I let it know that it was “done” and I would find someone to expell them for good. I smoked another prayer smoke this time asking my Creator to help me find someone to get rid of the entity.

Within an hour of the prayer smoke, the same friend who was unable to stay in our house said she’d met someone who claimed to do space clearings.

We had already tried this many times and had heard of and met many people who claimed to clear homes. This lady claimed she cleared homes on the “molecular level” and that the clearings were permanent. I was astounded at the quickness of the response the universe gave my prayer. That night, on very short notice, Claudia came to our home and began her work. She and our friend worked on clearing our home for several hours while we spent the night in a hotel.

When Claudia finished, the house was transformed.

Though it’s hard to explain, after that energy clearing, the house was void of any animosity. In fact, from that point on, if I sat down in the house with lights off at night, I not only no longer felt threatened, but I could see into corners that had previously been blacked out. There was a lightness and freedom in the space. A few days later I embraced my pregnant Sara in our kitchen to simply feel the home. It felt as though it was all over, once and for all. My sleep returned to normal. I was even able to sleep peacefully in the very bedroom were I was tormented.

My family and I are eternally grateful to Claudia for her help. She did what no one else was able to. We now have renters in the home who have lived there peacefully with no paranormal problems. They are gracious and appreciative tenants and seem to be happy in the house where we once struggled. There’s a sense of satisfaction knowing that nothing on the property is terrorizing its inhabitants. I’m thankful that Claudia provided a way for not only my family, but for the current and future occupants of the house to feel at peace.