Living with 9 ghosts is utter chaos for Dan

by Martha Jette
(Hamilton, Ontario)

How would you like to have to share your home with nine ghosts? Dan Guthrie of Pampa, Texas does and he says the situation has become total chaos for him and his wife. Dan said he purchased the home built in 1978 about six years ago, but the spirits did not make life difficult for them until the late fall of 2007. Among the many spirits, Dan believes he picked up a particularly nasty one at his place of employment, since it first attacked him there.
“All of the activity started about seven months ago,” he said. “I was being attacked almost every night.”
By attacked, the 41-year-old means pushed, slapped, hit, kicked and even knocked down to the floor. He explained that the first time it happened, he’d just gotten home from work as a machinist at around 4:15 a.m. Most nights, he says he and his wife have to sleep in rotating shifts so one can ensure the other one’s safety.
Although he doesn’t know who all the spirits are, he has determined that the physically abusive one is male and possibly a demon. There is also a little girl spirit who likes to say hello to him. He has managed to capture an EVP of her voice saying, “Cause.”
There are also three women and one of them often comes into the bedroom at night. He said they always know when she’s present because they’ll hear banging or knocking, the television or radio will suddenly blast louder.
“She also keeps us up at night shaking the door,” he noted.
However, Dan assured that it was much worse when one of the ghosts came in regularly to shake him while he slept.
“He was dark black when I saw him.”
Since then, he has told all of the spirits that the bedroom is his space. He has also tried talking and reasoning with the ghosts, but what he usually gets in return is a growl. When asked if all this nasty behavior frightens him he said, “No. I was just very mad!”
Obviously, these spirits think they have every right to mistreat Dan and his wife. As a matter of fact, while being interviewed on Yahoo IM with Martha Jette, Dan had to quit after about 45 minutes.
“I have a bad one in my room right now,” he said adding that the ghost was growling. “If I don’t stop talking about it, he’s going to hit me again.”
The interview resumed two nights later while everything seemed quiet. To keep things that way, he typed in the dark while his wife slept nearby.
Dan says he’s happy that his children are grown and have moved out of the house. However, his son who is a preacher did drop by to bless the house.
“He lasted about 30 seconds! He won’t talk about it either. I think he saw the demon.”
Dan said his son did not even call him for about five months after that. Others who dare to visit usually wish they hadn’t.
“The first thing they notice is the smell – like something died in here.” Dan said the putrid odor is usually present “first thing in the morning and when I get home from work.”
His grandchildren don’t come over now either.
“My grandson is 12. He was slapped and had his earring pulled on hard.”
He explained that when his granddaughter was 7 years old, she could see lots of the orbs around the house and even saw the little girl.
“She thought is was fun.”
But when she recently saw a tall, black shadow Dan told he she had to leave. He knew trouble was brewing and he didn’t want her to get hurt.
“We miss seeing the grandkids.”
In an attempt to find out more about the upper class home, Dan learned that it sat right in the middle of where a battle between Indians and white men occurred during the late 1800’s. It is probably not the actual house that is haunted but rather the land itself. About two blocks away from his home, there is also an Indian burial ground. As well, he learned that there had been two families in the house before him but could not locate them.
Dan decided it was time to get some professional help but had trouble finding a ghost hunting team that would come out to his home. His claims of so many spirits and so much activity just sounded too far out there. However, in March 2008 members of a ghost-hunting group did take on the challenge and not surprisingly, the spirits took an instant dislike to them. While they were in the home, they heard whispers and various items disappeared. As well, they saw an apparition of a young girl, and when one of the spirits was provoked, a team member was slammed against a wall and thrown to the floor. Needless to say, they high-tailed it out of there!
Then in July 2008, a group called TEXPART, which is a sister group of TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) from Dallas arrived to investigate. A three-member team decided to hold an overnight session and one mid-day session, since the paranormal activity tended to carry on around the clock.
Team member, J.J. noted that he spoke with the previous investigative team and was a little leery about what had happened while its members were in the house.
“I couldn't explain the claims of the first group that investigated but we had dealt with homes that had some activity that had escalated because of the fear factor in the home,” J.J. said.
However after TEXPART’s investigation, he had a completely different attitude.
”Most of what my team and I saw and experienced was phenomenal!” he said. “First off, we didn't provoke the spirits to hurt, hit or cause anyone harm. We did ask whatever was there to move things, knock or prove their existence but we never challenged the source to violence... so nothing great or substantial happened from that perspective. But something that will stick in my mind - as well as my teams minds probably forever are a few of very interesting events.”
During the investigation, Dan, his wife and his grandson were present.
”At some point in the early morning, we had all taken turns sitting in what all claimed to be the ‘bad room.’ Things that happened in that room were shadows, apparitions, voices, laughter, entities coming through the closet door - the whole nine yards happened in that room. We tried posting the client and one of our investigators in the room first. Not too much happened that way. Then we tried posting the client’s wife, myself and one other female TEXPART member in the room... again nothing. So we tried sending the three youngest in: two TEXPART members under 22 and the client’s grandson. As expected, we could hear the three talking fairly loudly with the door closed. Suddenly from four rooms away, the client, myself and the client's wife all heard a male voice in the bedroom hallway say very clearly "Get out!"
The client heard it a second time, more muffled as though it had gone further down the hall to the room. At that time, the camcorder in that hall shut down on its own and the members in the room left the room because they said it got very stuffy and hot in there all of a sudden. Thankfully, the words by a male "get out" were successfully recorded on not one but two voice recorders!
In other experiments, the team asked who was present - to please give us names - many very clear answers were gotten on the recorders. But the most incredible, memorable occurrences happened outside the home, while in the driveway in front of the home. This was crazy! There was a nice covered double swing in the drive in front of the garage doors. The client had claimed that it would swing by itself and that we should see if it would happen since that particular morning was so very still. There was no air movement, no breeze (or) passing cars - nothing. The client stepped out with the team, as did his family - leaving his house empty. Interestingly enough, the swing was swinging slightly and we noted a deep indentation as though someone were actually sitting in the swing.”
When Dan taunted the spirit to “do better” by making it swing more quickly, it did and when he told the spirit to stop, it did that too! And as it did, the indentation disappeared. This astonished the group.
“So the client (Dan) sat down, put both feet in the air and put his arms to the sides. He asked it to swing him from side to side if it was still there. After a few seconds, the swing shook from side to side, just like someone was standing right next to the swing and shaking it! And then it just stopped.”

But there were more surprised to come.
As we turned to go back into the home, I saw the vertical blinds in his front window next to the door part, as if someone were looking out. I turned (and saw that) the others had seen it to. I said that it was probably the cat, but as we watched, my words had no sooner left my mouth and the other complete opposite side of that wide window - the blind pulled back just as though a pair of hands were holding the blinds on each side of the window open just enough to see it... and what was even freakier... the area behind that window was intensely black - so black that it blotted out the hall lamp at the door for quite a few seconds. Then, as we took a couple of pictures and headed for the door, both sides dropped and we could see the light of the lamp again! Whatever had been there was gone.”
TEXPART members thoroughly investigated both the swing and the curtains to rule out any pranks or tricks.
“I determined that there was nothing to make that swing do what it did, and even if the cat had jumped in the window and parted the blinds on one side, how in the world would it have reached clear to the other side and perfectly parted the blinds on the opposite side from where it sat? It just wasn't a big enough cat for even its tail to be blamed. And a tail would not have had that effect. What about the mysterious blackout?