Episode 483: The Alleged Smurl Family Haunting pt 1

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery. Plus. Okay, you guys went ham sandwich and ordered so many lunar dials in the pre-sale there.

I was like, Oh my God, you became entire. Ham hoagies is what you were. what's a ham hoagie?

What is that? Isn't it like a sub? But somewhere else, they call them hoagies. Oh, a sub is a hoagie. Yeah, I thought I was going to say, a hob is a soagie.

Hell yeah, target, target, Barnes and Noble, Barnes and Noble.

And Amazon starting August 1st, and you can buy it there. Baby, play the game, play it, play it so hard.

Go get it lunar dial you bunch of hoagies starting in August, August, hey weirdos.

I'm Ash and I'm Alayna, and this is morbid.

This is morbid that was AI generated. I liked that.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, never, literally, never, never.

We're not those kind of people, we're not those kind of girlys, you know, we're not robots over here. Sometimes I little feel, I little, I feel a little robotic.

Uh-oh, you glitched, dun-dun-dun. Everybody's like, caught ya? that probably hurt your ears, sorry.

That probably did. Yeah, I was just saying, speaking of AI, or maybe just like, or maybe just, you know, social media listening to you. Oh, wait, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I'm doing that. you did. you meant to?

Look, what I just did to my shirt, I didn't think that was going to stay. Can you guys see that? It's wild what she did to her shirt? I put a hole in it by accident.

She did, she put a whole ass hole into her shirt. Damn it okay, sims, you're feral.

Uh, but yeah, we were, we were saying how, uh, TikTok listens to you. And apparently, according to Ash, I've been talking about the Sims a lot because I keep getting you do talk about it a lot. I keep getting Sims content all of a sudden, and I'm not mad about it. No, what? what is Sims content?

Uh, just people showing you their Sims builds and also showing you funny things that happen in the game. Oh, okay, because there's a lot of glitches that happen in the Sims that are hilarious, really. And there's also a lot of like, hidden places you can go and hidden things you can do.

Like creepy, or like like fun things like you can like, is the Sims ever? Go inside of a of a tree? A fairy tree and go to like a fairy realm? That's cool, like a hidden fairy realm? I feel like your kids would love that.

Oh yeah, is the Sims ever scary? like, do like, bad things happen? I never. I literally never played the Sims. That's wild to me.

I used to watch you, but it's scary because glitches happen and they can be terrifying sometimes, like, how? So, like, give me an example.

Like a horse. Apparently one of the new glitches, there's like a new expansion thing out. I guess I don't have this one, but I saw a TikTok about it. What crazy.

But one of the it's like, horse ranch is the thing, so you can, like, have a horse ranch. And the horses like bend over backwards. Like, walk at you, like these crazy ass, like a demon. It's like a glitch in the game, I feel like that's not a glitch. I feel like that's just like somebody in the office bored on a Thursday.

Probably, wow, yeah, that's crazy, it's pretty fun.

That's the Sims is fun, gotta say I think a lot of people agree with me. I know a lot of people, a lot of you play the Sims. I know this because whenever I've mentioned it before I post something, people are like, Hell yeah, Sims, you know what else? people play a lot that I've never played.

What? And I don't think you've ever played it either. Animal crossing I've never played that. Do you remember during the Panoramic when Animal crossing, just Like, took over the nation?

No, did it. Everyone was buying the Nintendo Switch, that's what it's called. Oh, I didn't even know that.

Which Drew wants to buy one? And I was like, I don't know, like, I don't know, be a gamer boy, I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know, I'm not a huge gamer, I'm not a gamer girl I love. I was a Sims gamer, girly, yeah.

And I do love a horror video game sometimes, but I haven't played one in like, a billion years because it's you know when. But I'm not, and I never have been a video game girly. Like, remember when Papa and I was sick? And he got me those computer games, The Hobbit, he got me the Hobbit, and like an Ariel game, which I fucking loved.

The Ariel Game because you just like, put clothes on her, yeah, like it was like styling Ariel. And I was like, sign me up. But then the hobbit, I was like, Do you know me, sir?

But who took the Hobbit game? I gave that right to her, she was like, Can I play this? and I was like, Yeah, I got it the fuck away from me and this bitch over here spent the-.

I was actually just talking about this recently, I was telling Drew about it. We were talking, I think it was when we were talking about the Nintendo thing. But I was like, Alayna overtook this fucking game.

And I passed the point of me being sick. I was cured at this point. Oh yeah, she was thriving, you were on level after level after level.

That game ruled and I want to play it again. It was a cool game, It was a cool game. Cause I remember at that point when you started playing, I was like, Could I play now?

And you were like, No, I was like, No, I've almost beaten this, but it's hard. It was when we had a computer room, yeah.

That's a wild when a computer room was a thing, that's a wild thing to think about. I know the good old days.

And the computer room used to scare me. I'm on Papa's house. Why did it scare you? It's a freaky ass room. Do you remember that room?

I mean, yeah, like the weird side closet and shit. I think that room was my room at one point. That room was also my room at one point. I think it was everybody's room at some point.

Yeah, but yeah, I think that was my room. at one point. Was that like your childhood room? No, it was when I was like a teenager, and I was like, I want this cool little room to myself.

And then I was like, I don't like this room. yeah, that room's too honestly. that room's too small to be like a room, room, truly room.

People like the way we say room, oh yeah, I've heard people say that I don't, cause I've heard people say room.

I don't think I'd say it differently. We say room, room like room, and other people say room.

Wait, people say, room like, room, this is my room.

It reminds me of Rune, It reminds me of Rune on Gilmore Girls. I think they say, or did they say rum, rum? We say rums?

This is we're losing all. They're like, who cares what I say? That's not what we came for, everybody's like, and bye.

Well, that was rums rooms and video games for you all. that was rums rooms and runes with Ash and Elena. Yay, I like that, but you know what, this is a spooky, crazy episode, so it makes sense that we're being spooky and crazy leading up to it.

This case was particularly asked for by Dave, our research assistant, Dave, my best friend. We love a Dave. we love Dave. It is the SMURl family haunting, and Dave was like, This is a goodie.

And I was like, Wow, so many wild things happen in this that like, Oh my God, and you know what? With a name like SmURls? It has to be good. That's one of the things that I thought, that's one of the things that I thought, all right. So the story of the Haunting really gained traction on August 19th, 1996..

Oh, in the 80s, it was very 80s. But on August 19th, 1996, that was when a rather interesting news story appeared in the Wilkes-Barre Times-leader. And the article was written about the Smurl family home in West Pitson, Pennsylvania, and the Smurl family home was owned by Jack and Janet Smurl.

Jack and Janet Jack and Janet. But they claimed that's their couple song, I was going to say, that's their theme song.

Jack and Janet Smurl. They claimed that for a period of about a year and a half that they had been the victims of a truly insane haunt. They said their home was infested with ghosts wandering the halls. They were tormenting the family, dog demons were attacking the kids in the house. They were allegedly sexually assaulting the adults in the house. Oh, no.

It was a truly wild story from start to finish. Apparently, apparently, apparently, apparently.

I thought you said infested by goats at first too, to be honest, but then I took the context clues later. That was a pretty good impersonation. I thought it was a goat that just walked in here, but it was just that color me a goat. I don't know why. I just like, ummed at you that hard.

I appreciate it. It really like, put us into business. I feel like it was like, an um, get to business. So the article, so the article.

In The Times-Leader, it got a lot of attention, and soon reporters from like all over Pennsylvania and even the surrounding states wanted to get an interview with the SMURls. Oh, of course, this is primetime media. My guy, yeah.

And the Smurls, they were happy to give one. But unfortunately, during these interviews, like people would come to the house sometimes and all activity would cease to exist. Like they could never show what was going on in the house, they could never prove that anything had actually happened. I mean, yeah. But even though people couldn't see what had happened with their own eyes, the press at first, and actually even the church believed the SMUrls.

They were like, You know, I, I see what you're saying, I don't see it, but like, I could see it, yeah. And like, I get that. Ghosts don't have media training, so I understand why they wouldn't come out.

Be a little shy, you know, it's okay. And I think the thing was like, what they were claiming was so wild that the people who believed them were like, they couldn't possibly make this up, yeah.

Like, this would be a reckless thing to make up exactly. But after a while, though, people were like, the lack of proof is really kind of like tugging at us and start. People started questioning whether or not they had really experienced any kind of haunt at all. Oh boy, so this went from like full blown hell.

Yeah, smurls, I'm so sorry you're going through that to like, What the fuck are you talking about? like, Are you lying? Yeah. So people just started to talk the whole thing up to a hoax. That was created by the family for like, attention and fame, and they eventually lost interest.

But who knows, maybe, like something really did happen, We don't really know, maybe. So let's get into the story and let's get into the key people involved.

We got John James Jack, John James Jack.

So that's Jack Smurl. He was born December 19th, 1942, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to his parents, John and Mary. He was the younger of two kids, and looking back, he said that he actually had a pretty ideal childhood. Spent a lot of time outside with friends. They would, you know, go exploring, they'd play sports, they'd adventure through the woods in the area.

Yeah, I literally wrote, You know? Side note Isn't it fucking wild that kids just used to go off and play in the woods? Yeah, I used to play in the woods.

You used to play in the woods? Yeah, in the 80s, they played in the woods, well, I guess you grew up in more than 90s.

Yeah, it was like late 80s, early 90s, we would play in the woods. I didn't even know that you played in the woods. I was going to say we were talking to Ma about that recently and she would play in the woods.

Oh yeah, the Woods were was the shit before everybody came and made it awful. I know we went to, like Woods parties in high school, but we never, like, played in the woods.

So technically, you played in the woods. Quote unquote. Yeah, you're not wrong, but wow, yeah. But overall, though, Jack, he was said to be a really easygoing kid.

He was smart, got along with his peers, and everybody in high school really liked him. And he went to a Catholic high school in Wilkes-Barre called St. Mary's. Now. Even though he did well in school and he was clearly a pretty smart kid. After he graduated from high school, Jack was kind of just done with the whole school thing. Yeah, some people are.

Relatable, yeah, but he wanted to. He just wanted, like, some kind of excitement. He wanted a big adventure, and he wanted to go see more of the world than just Pennsylvania, where he lived. Yeah.

So in the early 60s, pretty much the best way to guarantee traveling was to join the military. So that's what Jack did. And he served in the Navy from June of 1960 until his honorable discharge in 1965. So he got a lot of travel time under his belt. Look at him.

And it turned out that his personality, the fact that he was a worker like, he had a strong work ethic, and he was very attentive to rule following. It made him an excellent serviceman. So he did really well during his Navy years, and while he was enlisted, he trained as an I'm going to try this electroconclusive therapy technician. It was more intimidating than I thought, but it turned out that was another thing he was really good at.

And he was naturally empathetic and had, like, a lot of compassion when it came to people struggling with their mental health. So this work was just as rewarding as his time in the Navy was now, once he was discharged. He had big dreams of settling down. Wanted to get married, wanted to start a family. And it just so happened that during his time in the Navy, he had met a girl named Janet Oh.

I know her, I do, too. He thought she would be the perfect girl to eventually marry. He was a little bit older and Janet was in high school when they met, but despite the age difference, Jack and Janet hit it off immediately.

Oh, Janet was very into school, she was kind of like a bookworm. Robert Curran, who wrote The Haunted One Family's Nightmare, put it that Janet quote, had no interest in the drugs or promiscuity favored by the hippie movement. Oh, yeah.

Fuck those people, fuck the hippies, yeah, a.k.a my people.

So Janet was not like that, and neither was Jack, so that's why they kind of meshed so well together.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop fucking around. She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah, no, it's hysteria, it's all in your head.

It's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely?

Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

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Now, their initial meeting was actually pretty brief, but Jack just couldn't get Janet off of his mind as he finished his ears on the service. So he was really thrilled when they met up again, by happenstance, at the 1967 company Christmas party for Topps Chewing gum. They actually both worked there, but in different departments, and they didn't realize it until they met at the Christmas party. So it kind of seems like they were, like, meant to be a little bit.

Yeah, go to those holiday parties, guys, I used to fucking love my company's holiday party. Some of them are fun, some of them are fun. So, like Jack Janet, she was also raised a devout Catholic, so they had similar morals and values, and they bonded over those.

And like I said, their personalities just really seemed to complement each other's. So they dated for one year and then they decided to get married in this massive Catholic ceremony. Looking back on their relationship, Janet said I think I knew right away. I really liked the way he presented himself and the respect he had, not just for me, but all the things I valued. I like the way you move, that's really sweet.

That's what she said. I think she was like, I like God and you do too, and the church is awesome and we like it together, you know, same thing, morals same thing.

They were like, Omg, omg, morals. Have those me too. Yeah, I would love those, yeah.

So Jack and Janet weren't the couple, like, out and about at parties. They weren't joining in on protests that a lot of people their age were joining in on at this time period. But they were just, you know, readying themselves to make a family, they were just vibing, they were just vibing, making plans for a fam.

And Jack said, We both wanted a family and we both wanted to make sure that the family would be raised properly. Good old Catholic folk. So the early years of Jack and Janet's marriage went really well. It was particularly pleasant. Jack was ever the hard worker.

He got a promotion and a pay raise. And by the end of the 60s, Janet had given birth to the couple's two daughters, Dawn and Heather, which I think are really pretty names. Yeah, Dawn and Heather.

Yeah, now. Janet had left work to be a full-time mom, and she said she saw it as not only quote her sacred responsibility, but a privilege as well. That's cute, so she really loved being a mom. I love that.

Now, as a young couple with two children, support, two support. Excuse me. It wasn't always easy to make ends meet on one income. So the family ended up moving in with Jack's parents, John and Mary Smurl, into their house in Wilkes-Barre, now living with Jack's parents. But Jack's parents, that's hard to say, and it makes me feel like you're saying it wrong. Yeah, it is hard.

Jack's parents, Jack's parents, it's because of the two S's. This is a also how biblical of them is what I meant to say.

John and Mary. I didn't for some reason. That didn't. that didn't hit before. good old Catholic folk, you know, just whoop just hit. Yep. I was like, Oh, Bible.

Exactly, and then we got John and Janet, yeah, Janet, from the Bible somewhere.

Wasn't that like only men? Who knows? I don't fucking know, I think it was dudes, I think it was a guy's night.

I think it was dudes just being bros. It was Saturday, it was for the boys.

So they move in with John and Mary, not the Christ kind, but the other ones.

Living with Jack's parents meant that he and Janet could save money to buy their own house. And they also had John and Mary around to help with the kids. So that was an added bonus with the kiddos, with the kids.

A little chickadees, you know, a little chickadees, chickadettes. But unfortunately, the plan hit a major snag in the summer of 1972, when Hurricane Agnes swept through the east coast.

Hurricane Agnes Bitch sounds like a bitch. She was a bitch, like my grandmother's name was Agnes, so I'm allowed to say that.

My grandmother's name was Agnes, but she was apparently awesome, though. yeah, she was the tear. I didn't get to meet her. But like, I don't know a hurricane, Agnes feels like she means business.

Yeah, she does like, you don't come in being like, Hello, I'm Hurricane Agnes, I'm just gonna rain a little bit. Yeah, no, you look like you fuck shit up.

Yeah, you fuck shit up. And she did actually, oh man. The storm caused billions of dollars in damage, and it actually, on a more serious note, it actually killed over a hundred people.

I didn't even know I have to look up this storm, I didn't know that I hadn't heard of it either. Actually, because I think the first major hurricane in my life, I think, was Hurricane Bob.

I think it was on the East Coast. The one that sticks out to me the most is Ida, but she may have been recently, I think she was recent, I'm pretty sure.

I don't know, I get them confused, but Hurricane Agnes I have not heard of, I'll have to look it up me either.

But so it was a really devastating hurricane for the area. But luckily, the SMURls. They were lucky in the sense that they didn't suffer nearly as much property damage as others did, and they were actually able to fix much of the damage. But what did happen to them was that the house was actually seized by the city through eminent domain. Oh, shit, isn't that?

Isn't that when, like, they can turn it into like a hospital, or they can turn it into like something for the city? Now? That's the thing I was like, I'm not really sure how all of that works.

But Dave thought that the property was so ruined that they were probably tearing down the area and redeveloping. So the city. Kind of, like, took it back and wow, that's wild. But either way, now, the family was forced to find a new home that could accommodate the entire SMURL family, Jack's parents included. Yeah.

So that's six people, that's a lot of people that have to find shelter for exactly now. Luckily, though, it actually didn't take long for Jack and Janet to find exactly what they were looking for. In a duplex at 330 Chase Street in the small town of West Pitson, Pennsylvania, about half hour outside of Scranton, Scranton.

I literally wrote Q Alaina Office reference here.

You know, no, I don't. you all know, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to everyone else.

I know you don't know, she wasn't talking to me. Is that me at Jez's house? No, it's you, Jim.

What? Don't worry about it? So, in the middle of 1973, when the SMURls bought the house West Pitson, it really seemed to be like the perfect area for them. The town was filled with a lot of hardworking young people, a lot like Jack and Janet, and most of them were like working class people again, just like Jack and Janet. So once they moved in, they wasted no time getting settled.

And as the quintessential homemaker, stay-at-home mama of two, Janet got active in this community, which this is impressive. Actually. She worked to establish a girls softball league, WHOA. She joined a local chapter of students against drunk driving, and she spearheaded the town's cherry blossom festival. Damn Janet.

Which I was like, Okay, Janet, yeah, what's your wig made of? all right, Janet? your mom's chest hair?

I had to put it in there somehow, that was amazing. What's your wig made of cherry blossoms?

From the festival, I spearheaded, Hell yeah, that's what Janet would have said. That's right now. Meanwhile, Jack was, I know, seriously, he was doing really well, too.

He was moving up the corporate ladder at T.

O.

P.

S to a middle management position, and he joined the local Lions club. Damn look at him, assistant to the regional manager and everything. That's office, yeah, it is.

So years later, Jack and Janet, they looked back on those early years living in that home on Chase Street. And they actually agreed that they were some of the happiest times in their marriage. Especially in light of all the chaos that followed. Uh-oh. So when they found their duplex on Chase Street, like I said, seemed to have everything they wanted in a home. As a duplex, it could easily accommodate Jack's parents, while still having more than enough space for everybody else. So actually, Jack ended up selling his parents their side of the living space for $4,000, which would be about $25,000 now.

Which, like, that's a fucking deal on a whole last home, it really is on a whole last home. So when they bought the house, Jack and Janet didn't really know much about the owner.

All they knew about him was that he was an elderly man who had been renting the property out for years. But otherwise, the house passed all the standard inspections and all the major utilities plumbing, electric, foundation, roof, yadda, yadda, yadda. They all seemed to be in perfect working order, which made the house feel like a steal at just $10,000. Damn, yeah.

I forgot to put in the translation of that, like what it would be today. I could see. You were like, I want to know how much that is. Yeah, I forgot to put it in, it's okay.

But perhaps there was a reason that it was that cheap, perhaps there was dun, dun, dun. I'm ready to find out what it was. So the first strange occurrence anybody in the SMURL family can remember actually happened in January of 1974, just a few months after they moved into the house.

Mary had recently bought a large red carpet for her and John's side of the house. But when the rug was delivered to the house and rolled out on the floor, they were pretty disappointed. Because right in the middle, there was a huge dark stain that obviously wasn't there when Mary had bought it, huh? So she was able to get the stain out of the rug she just used, like regular old carpet cleaner.

But a few days later, it inexplicably returned in the exact same spot, almost like she had never removed it in the first place, huh? So they ended up throwing away the carpet and they just didn't think much of it. They were like, Well, that was fucking weird, but maybe I didn't get all of it out, like, maybe it dried, weird, you know?

Yeah, they were just overall confused about the whole thing. But I should say here that the timeline of the SmURl family haunt shifts around a lot. Because it seems like when they first went to the press, they said the whole thing lasted about a year and a half. But then the timeline shifts again and again throughout the entire story. And I think that was part of the reason why people started to have doubts.

Okay, I honestly I think, like, obviously a real like, true haunting. Where you have this evidence and you catch things on tape and like, catch things on, you know, video and all that. That is fascinating and awesome, and that's like my favorite kind. But there's something fascinating about one where you question whether a whole fucking family, including adults, are like, making it up.

Yeah, like, there's something so fat, because I'm like, you all banded together. Why did you do this? Like, what a weird thing to fake is a whole haunting. It's funny that you say that in the way that you did.

I don't know how to like reiterate how you said it, but I'm excited to see how that. There potentially could be a reason that everybody felt this way. And I should mention that we might not get there until part two. Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you that we're beginning Spooky season early.

Yeah, bitch, it's October somewhere, yeah, you know? So, while the stain on John and Mary's new carpet seemed relatively innocuous in the timeline that they do later put together. It was soon followed by a whole slew of issues in the home that they believed were supernatural forces. Okay?

Now, just a few months after the rug incident, Jack said that he was watching the TV one night when suddenly the TV burst into flames. Without any warning. What or any sign of a problem. Were you buried that late? I sure did.

Shit, he was just watching TV one night and the television burst into flames, he said. These ghosts came in like a wrecking ball. They never fell so hard, they never did.

They were like, Hey, I'm here, like, What? wow, and that's demonic, that's pretty demonic.

That's demonic, that's dark sided, or that's given faulty wiring. it's certainly that's sinister wiring. sinister wiring is the problem there.

So that's the thing. Jack and Janet were like, we got some faulty wiring up in this bitch, but then they were like, No. Everything passed inspection when we bought the house, and then that TV fire was followed by other small fires in the house. Their new electric stove caught fire, and so did Jack's car days after he brought it home from the dealership.

Oh my god.

Oh my God, it's given. sinister babe, what the fuck? What the fuck, Oh my God.

Oh my God, should we leave that in? We were getting, we were just talking about a faulty wire and fire, then there was a fire.

Oh my God, I, I didn't even do any. I just stared. I was just like, Oh my God, fire.

Why did we continue to yell it in Southern accents? How did that happen? Um, so that just happened. I'm like, not even shitting your dicks right now. We left that in on purpose. Yeah, and in the beginning, it kind of sounds like I'm being silly.

No, a fire, just top. It was not at all, we had it. What did what happened? Cuz you saw it?

So Ash was talking about faulty wire and and I said, fire, multiple, wow, that was sinister and all that. And then I had, I was just looking at Ash, because right now you can't see it, but I can. Ash is bathed in rainbow light right now, cuz we have a little rainbow, cuz I'm gay.

Yeah, cuz she's so good and so I looked at, I was like, Wow, she looks, she looks so angelic right now. I'm this rainbow bath. And so I happened to look over to my right and I said, Oh, that that candle is really, really going. And then I looked and I was like, Oh, that's a bonfire in our room right now.

And it just like, lit, I don't even know what lit on fire. Was it like the paper underneath? No, no, cuz we have like a little candle, like, Yeah, I guess you would call that like a candle holder, and I think it just she's lit on fire. I don't really know what happened here.

That was so scary. And she was right next to Baffy. She was, yeah, like my little baphomet statue, she was slipping over there. Yeah, he was like, as above.

Let's go. But I, yeah, I don't know what just happened, but that was terrifying. That could have been real bad. It was big. I wish you guys had seen it.

I'm not like, massive, but I should have got control of my Constitution and I should have taken a video of it while Mikey put it out.

I know Mikey saved us all. I just want to be. I didn't move an actual muscle, did not, I did not move at all, she says. Didn't move a muscle.

She didn't even uncross her legs from crisscross applesauce. No, I sure didn't, and I just like, Oh, my God.

I forgot everything from Stop Tropic. I. I got up, but all I did was say, Oh, no and stand over Mikey while he put it out. And I. I did open the door. Did you just like it? Yeah, yeah.

Okay, but uh, yeah, that just happened, so that was interesting. I'm glad we could take you guys along for that ride, but we're okay now. Well, it smells a little crispy in here. It smells like good, though. yeah, it's like crispy candles, bonfire, bonfire.

That just makes me think of a childish can be no, but I'm not gonna sing that. So anyways, so anyway, anyways. Donald Glover You know, I'm just kidding, um, so yeah. Fire at the SMURL residence, cars, electric stoves, TVs, the whole nine, but to the SMURLs, the first few unfortunate events in their home.

They just kind of dismissed them as like, surprise, this is what what makes me lol. They dismissed it as surprises that come along with being first-time homeowners. Yeah, my car didn't burst into flames, nor did my television. No, so, like, I wouldn't chalk that up.

No, it definitely didn't happen to me either, but you know, everyone's experience is different. I suppose it is. Wow, it really does smell crispy in here.

It does, but anyway, some of the issues, like, you know, wiring, if that was the case, leaky plumbing. Those things probably could have been the result of them. Buying a house with a pretty long history of unknown repairs. Yeah, so they talked it up for a minute. I see why you don't want to immediately assume it is, you know, the dark Lord, yeah.

Assumption that it's the dark Lord.

Avoid that at all cost. I can understand, but here's the thing there was all see continuance to avoid the dark. Lord. Sorry, Buffy. There was also the fact that when these small problems would come up, usually it was Jack or John, his father, that would fix them. And neither of them had any handyman experience really. So like that could have led to more issues, yeah, but John and Janet, they eventually became convinced that there was a lot more to it.

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After they had installed a new sink and tub into their bathroom, they described it as looking. Quote As if the talons of some frenzied beast had clawed at the porcelain. Oh, but maybe they had just scratched it all up during the installation, maybe, or maybe it was the talons of you don't know. I don't know. I wasn't there, that's the thing.

So a lot of the unfortunate events in the beginning and the early years could be chalked up, you know, poor of craftsmanship and shoddy work. But that kind of explanation would not cover the sudden change in behavior of the SMURls oldest daughter, Dom, in 1975. She started regularly going into her parents room in the middle of the night and telling them that she had quote just seen people floating around her room. Oh, now. Each time they would go into her room and look around, but find nothing out of the ordinary. People floating. Unfortunately, no, no, or maybe fortunately for them, but like, I would find that unfortunate.

Yeah, you just said you saw floating people, don't bullshit me.

But almost every night, Don would come back and say the same thing. Like, And she wasn't on acid, she was like a child, I was gonna say, she was like a child. So, for the most part, the unusual and inexplicable things that happened in the SMURL house, they were just minor inconveniences, disruptions in their ordinary lives. Lots of like random noises. Radios would turn on by themselves, drawers would open and close, they would hear footsteps up and down the halls in the middle of the night.

None of those things seem to have explanations. Yeah, and whenever they would happen, Jack, Janet and the kids, they would usually just ignore them. Because they were kind of getting used to it. And it became much easier in 1977, when Janet gave birth to twin girls, Shannon and Karen, I believe, or Karen, I think it's Karen, sorry, um, so at this point, the family had their hands full, so the noises were not something they were focusing on. Yes, now there's like two screens.

Now it's noisy, Yeah, it's noisy, so, you know, like by the 70s, in the 80s. Jack, Janet and the parents. They were all so busy with, like the babies and just like other life things going on. But they weren't bothering with every little irritation or like footstep that would happen.

Yeah, but that would start to change in 1983, when the couple noticed an inescapable quote. Stench of smoke and rotten meat that seemed to permeate the house. No matter what they did. Oh, imagine if your house just smelled like smoke and rotten meat? Damn, and like, No, no febreze, no incense.

No flammable candle. I was just gonna say, right now it smells like smoke in here, but not rotten. we're not rotten meat. They couldn't do anything to fix it.

And later, Jack would claim that the first time he noticed the stench was quote while he was kneeling before his bed. Saying the Rosary. Oh, it was almost like some kind of demon, didn't like some demon, saying, cut that shit out, cut that shit out. I don't know. I don't like that Rosary of yours, it's very demony. But at the time, he and Janet thought that there might be, like, a rational non-denom-denom-denom-demonic denomination denomination.

Spooky cases make us crazy usually, also fires do pretty crazy, but yeah, I feel like spooky is usually when we need like a little slowdown, that's it. Yeah, that's when we really just shake out all the goofies.

Yeah, you know, so, yeah, they thought that no demons, rations and rationalities, yep, so. They were worried, though, that the smell was being caused by subsidence from all the heavy mining going on in the area at the time. So subsidence. For those who don't know, because I didn't know, I also don't know. It's when a land of area stir an area of land.

Excuse me, starts to cave in on itself. Oh, and I guess it smells. I don't know. I was gonna say that it's stinky. I think that I don't know why they thought it was so smelly. But Jack contacted the Department of Mines and he was told to check the foundation of the house for signs of cracking and crumbling. But they didn't find any there. Like, there was no evidence that this was going on. So, once again, the SMURLs were at a loss to explain the unexplicable happening in their home.

Yeah, so. Since moving into the duplex in late 1973, they had endured more than a decade of unusual and like, sometimes pretty frightening, events in their home. And that's a long time to keep up. A ruse it is. And after a while, they said they just stopped looking for any kind of rational explanation. And they just came to terms with the fact that they lived in a haunted house. Yeah, and they were cool with that for a little bit. Yeah, I'm just like, you know, like, footsteps. The small fire seemed to stop.

I guess they figured out a way to make it not smell like rotten meat, yeah. But then, in 1985, all that changed again, because the activity took a dark and decidedly more threatening turn. One winter afternoon in late 1985, Janet was in the basement, just, you know, separating laundry and running through her to-do list in her head. Just stay at home, mama things. And she was loading up the washing machine while she did this.

And as she was doing that, she thought she heard someone call her name. And so she stood up a little bit straighter and kind of like, listened closer, just waiting to see if the voice would call out again. And she was just about to explain it away, as you know, like coming from the TV upstairs or something. When she heard it again, a soft female voice calling, and it seemed like it was coming from behind her, so she whipped around to confront the voice. But, like, we know, no one was there. Oh, so that that experience seemed to contradict that. Like everything Janet knew about ghosts and hauntings just from watching TV and movies. It was the middle of the day, all the lights were on in the house. She was like, why would this happen right now?

But still, here, she was trying to listen over the sound of the washer and dryer for someone to call her name again, huh? And she said she'd that she was just thinking about how violating it was, having something in her house that she couldn't see. Like, she was just thinking that. When she heard the voice call out her name again, oh, and this time, Janet made Horror mistake movie number No, fucking a horror movie mistake number one, and she screamed at the voice, What do you want?

Oh, no, you never do that. Janet. No, never do that. Nope, you don't say who's there, and you don't say what do you want? and you don't say be right back, no. But obviously there was no reply.

So she made her way toward the stairs, stairs, and she started climbing up them slowly backwards, all the way to the top. Because she was fucking terrified. Oh my god, when you just said that for some read for a split second, I was picturing. Like in like those scary, like exorcism movies, where they, like, throw themselves backwards and, like spider up the stairs. Janet just decided to back.

Oh my god, you said that's so casually, but no, you just meant like a normal person. Like, she was like, backing up, that's their stairs, okay, she was also like, they geeked out. Thank you for clarifying that for me.

No problem, anytime I had the wrong idea. Imagine if she just like, like, dead girl up the stairs, Yeah, you know, like haunted person, no big deal. But as soon as she got to the top, she heard her name again, like, this thing was fucking with her. So she ran to the kitchen and she said she dropped to her knees and immediately started praying.

And she said that she continued to periodically return to the kitchen and pray like that for the rest of the night. Damn, and I guess it went away. That's exhausting, one would think so. According to the SMURLs, they had spent more than a decade laughing off, or, you know, trying to rationalize the strange events that occurred in their home.

But this was different this time. Something spoke Janet's name. It knew her, yeah, and it was in her home without her permission. Yeah, so that night she went to Jack about it and she was like, I'm not cool with this.

Like, this is something I can't ignore. No way we're not on a first-name basis here. No person think they are exactly now.

As a devotely Catholic couple, they had accepted a certain belief in a paranormal world. But it was one thing to believe in it, a totally different thing to actually experience, of course of it. So they agreed that they should start looking into options for help. But then the topic just kind of fell by the wayside and they continued about their day-to-day lives. That makes sense. So a few months went by and, you know, after Janet's experience with the voice in the basement, nothing happened. But then something did happen, but then it happened.

She had a second experience and this time it was way more convincing. So months go by, and then one February morning, after she had sent all the girls off to school, she was in the kitchen ironing. It's it. I feel like these these ghosts don't like house chores.

No, they don't. I think, what are you doing? They're honestly just telling her to live a little, yeah, but she was ironing, and she said that she felt a sudden cold chill rush into the room. And she said she looked up from her chores, like thinking, Oh, she left a window open or something, only to see a quote black, human-shaped form Sten standing about 10 feet away from her.

Oh, and she later said, To be honest, I wasn't sure at first whether it even existed. I knew there was a possibility that I was hallucinating or something, but then it started moving toward me, and I knew then that there was no doubt about it. The thing, whatever it was, was real, very real. Ooh, huh. But before the mass started moving toward Janet, she just stood there, not really wanting to run or, like, move any kind of muscle that would alert it. So she just stood there, holding her iron in one hand and staring at the mass in her kitchen.

She said eventually, quote This is wild. A cape fluttered from its back, but was what was most upsetting was that the face had no features at all, huh? a cape, so it was a superhero.

It would know it was stylish. Oh, excuse me, obviously, sorry. I thought a superhero.

I mean, maybe who am I to say? Well, we don't know who this? I'm not the local authority, I'm not either on big. It could be there yours.

It could be a stylish superhero. Oh, you know, look at that, we don't know. So, she said. The thing didn't appear to be a solid mass. She could kind of see through it slightly, and she said it was the height of an average man. But all of the sudden, the shape again moving toward her. And she's just standing there, frozen in place with shock, and it just kind of like moves through her, like, like, moves, like.

No, you know. No, no, I don't know how that happens. Yeah, you don't just be ironing. No, you just let the mass, yeah, just move right through you, you don't know about that.

No, I don't be either, but Janet does. And she said after a minute or two had passed, she finally composed herself enough to look around the room, but it was gone. No, cuz now it's inside of you. I think I don't know, I'm worried for you, Janet. Or maybe it, like, went through a wall or something, because I also just thought about the cape thing. Stylish and superhero are both, like, pretty innocuous.

You're like, that's fun, yeah, what if it's like Jack the Ripper? He's always wearing a cape white, literally know that you were gonna in the pictures?

He's always wearing a cape and it's wild because you have a Jack the Ripper like pub thing behind. Oh yeah, and he, that's a that's a black figure, yep, with a cape about the height of a man. Oh, I don't love that, hate it.

I don't love that, hate it. So a few minutes later, she kind of went through the house and, like, checked the other rooms. But just like the voice she had heard in the basement, there was no sign of this figure anywhere.

So when she was sure that it wasn't hiding anywhere in the house, she went over to her in-laws side of the house and knocked on the door. Not really sure what the fuck she was gonna tell her mother-in-law, but sure that she needed to talk to, like anybody, about what just happened now. For as long as Janet had known her mother-in-law, Mary, Mary had been this warm, comforting presence in her life. But on that day, there was something very off about Mary. So the two of them sat there in the living room. Janet, you know, just trying to figure out how to explain what the fuck she had just gone through to Mary.

When Mary leaned forward and said to her, I have to tell you something. Janet Oh, no, there's something about Mary there is. So Janet could tell that Mary was really upset. So she was like, Okay, yeah, tell me, and Mary goes, Maybe you won't believe me, Janet.

I don't know if I believe me, maybe I'm getting old. And then she explained that she had been sitting in the living room praying a short time earlier, when she saw what appeared to be the hazy black shape of a man come through her wall. As though it had simply walked through a door from Janet's side of the house, damn the form, the form, Mary told Janet. I was sitting here in my chair, saying, my.

Novena's I don't know. When I felt some kind of private presence, I looked up and saw this black form up here, it walked past me and disappeared. So they both had the same experience like whenever the shape left Janet's.

It just went straight to Mary, it went through the wall, to Mary's side of the house. Wow. So even though it's doing anything, though, I think he's just passing through. It's just vibing. Yeah, he seems like he's just observing. Same girlies go to lunch with each other.

Yeah, be ladies who lunch, just like, do something. You know, he's not being well, not yet, you know, I assume this. This doesn't stay as docile. I don't know he is right now, I don't know.

Oh so, even though they were both still scared, absolutely shitless, they were both a little relieved that they both seen the same thing. And you know, they weren't necessarily losing it. Yeah, it was validating to know that they weren't hallucinating or having any kind of episode, and that validation only strengthened Janet's belief that they couldn't wait any longer to do something about this like this, presence in their home was getting more and more frightening as the months and days passed. Yeah, but the problem was that Jack hadn't seen what his wife or his mother had seen. And he was still very much of the belief that there was a rational explanation for what was going on, I don't know how you rationalize, like a black, shape-shifting thing with a cape walking through your house.

But that's so Jack, talk to Jack about it, that's so Jack to try to rationalize. Yeah, you know, very Jack thing to do it is, I agree.

Yeah, so a few more weeks passed without any unusual incidents in the home, and, you know, Jack and Janet suspected that their ordeal was over and just ended. One day, yeah. But their hopes went down the drain later that spring, when a light fixture in the kitchen came crashing down out of nowhere. Almost landing on Janet and Heather, who luckily managed to get under the table to avoid all the falling debris. But Shannon, that one of their daughters, on the other hand, didn't move out of the way fast enough. And the large fixture caught her in the shoulder and knocked her down to the floor. Oh so, Jack. He looks up at the ceiling and he was shocked because when he sees the hole in the ceiling, it didn't look like the light had just fallen.

It looked like it had been ripped out of the ceiling, he said. By some kind of force. What? Yeah. So this incident reminded them about their commitment to find outside help for this problem they were experiencing, but they didn't know where to start, Janet said. After that, we spent hours, days, weeks, talking to people who might possibly be able to help us. But unfortunately, a lot of the people that the SMURLs reached out to in the beginning weren't really taking them seriously.

Yeah, because, remember, this is like the 80s and everybody's like, What the fuck are you talking about? Not a lot of people had gone through this before. No, now. One of the people that they reached out to just implied that maybe they were watching too many horror movies and were letting their imaginations run wild. Wow, and Jack and Janet were really pissed off about that. Yeah, I would be pissed off too, right?

Yeah, so. By the late spring, the haunts in the SMURL house had escalated considerably and now included physical assaults. Oh, this is strange, okay?

So in one instance, Jack claimed that he woke up from a nap to find himself suspended in the air above his bed. And at first, he thought that he was still dreaming. But as he emerged from a sleepy state, he realized that he was very much awake. And after thrashing around in the air for a few seconds, he dropped from the air and landed back on the bed with no sign of what had caused this experience.

Um, I. The only thing I can think of is he turned 16 years old and he became a witch. Finally, I lost Sabrina, the teenage, but he had already turned 16 long ago. So it doesn't work, it doesn't. I don't know if they officially don't have an explanation, that was my explanation.

There's no explanation. No, it's. It's gonna get particularly steamy here. Oh so, weeks after that, on a particularly steamy night, in more ways than one. In June, Jack and Janet had just finished getting together. If you're following what I'm putting down for them, I know, you know. And they were laying in bed together when suddenly something grabbed Janet by her ankle and started pulling her from the bed.

A l.a. Oh, movie we were talking about this morning. Paranormal activity. Oh so. Jack grabbed a hold of Janet and he held tightly on to her. As whatever it was that was trying to do, whatever it was trying to do with her was trying to rip her from the bed. Still, Oh my God.

He said It was like a tug-of-war going on. I was holding on to her as hard as I could because I had no idea what the thing wanted to do to her. But the harder I tried to keep her next to me, the harder it pulled on her. Well, I hate it now. After a few more seconds, whatever was pulling, Janet abruptly let go and just seemed to vanish. Huh? And it left behind a horrible odor and started banging on the walls as it left.

It kind of did, I guess, and then it, I was trying to think of a word like they would host, and then it banished.

Wow, now that's rude. Right after they finished their, you know, moment together. Sure, yeah, moment together. It tries to steal her and then can't, so just farts.

So shitty it is, that'll really, that'll, that'll ruin any hope of a encore.

Like, whatever just happened, yeah, that's a bummer, I know. So in the months that followed, the assault on the SMURL house continued and got worse and worse day after day. Jack and Janet said they could hear the hissing of phantom snakes. Ooh. Drawers and cupboards opening and closing on their own and heavy footsteps, of course, walking up and down the halls at night. So they were totally still at a loss to do for what to do. Because they're still even reaching out to people and getting doors slammed in their face everywhere they go.

So Janet started reading about the supernatural in any book that she could get her hands on. And she also started keeping a diary of all the things that were happening in the house. And then soon, one afternoon in early 1986, a call from a friend changed the course of the SMURLs lives in ways they never could have imagined. You don't say, I do say. After a blessing by their parish, priests failed to resolve the haunting, Jack and Janet were starting to lose hope. But then a new solution presented itself, in the form of a phone call from Janet's friend, Carla.

I knew it was gonna be Carla who was gonna break this wide open. Tell John Yeah, so. Carla and Janet had been friends for years, and Janet had confided in her girl, Carla. Yeah, about all the things going on in the house and especially how much it had been affecting the family. Because at this point, it's affecting their relationships with one another. Yeah, clearly, yeah, ghost.

So Carla mentioned that she had come across the name of a professor, Professor No. I taught at Marywood College, which was a private Catholic school in Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

And then I almost went to sing it, but then my brain said to sing the bluey song. Oh, I just can always sing a bluey song. But anyways. So Carla's like, Hey, I know this professor who teaches at a Catholic school and he has been studying the subject of demonic possession. And it kind of sounds like that's what you're dealing with. Wow.

That's pretty awesome, but, I mean, I know, super convenient. But after all the negative experiences that Janet had contacting, like academics like this in the past, she wasn't very hopeful. She was actually kind of worried. But it was gonna be a waste of time.

But she was like, You know what, my friend Carla is my good girl, I'm gonna listen to her. What do I have to lose? Let me appease my friend here and give this guy a call.

So she does. And the professor at Marywood College explained that his interest in the subject was purely academic. And he really didn't think there was much he could do to help. But he did provide them with the contact information of two people who could most definitely help two people. Are you talking about Ryan and Shane from Buzzfeed? Unsolved?

No, as much as I fucking love those two individuals I'm talking about, Ed and Lorraine Warren. Oh, I bet you didn't even couldn't tell. I could never have guessed, and I said, I bet you didn't even couldn't tell. I didn't even couldn't have told.

Now, by the summer of 1986, Ed and Lorraine, they had built up quite a name for themselves on the talk show circuit. And among certain circles, you know, for their involvement in dealing with the supposed haunting of George and Kathy Lutz's house in Amityville, New York. I don't know if you guys have heard of that one, I don't know, maybe you've heard of this one. The claims of demonic possession in the murder trial of Arne Johnson.

Oh, I have you heard of that one? Elena covered it, and there was a bunch of other things that they were known for. So some people had faith in Ed and Lorraine, but most people were deeply skeptical, skeptical even about their methods and motives. And the more vocal skeptics and scientific. Investigators usually pointed to documentation of fraud surrounding the Warrens, like the Lutz's admission of fraud in the Amityville case Oops, as evidence of their SUS intentions. Yeah, now. For their part, Ed and Lorraine always maintained that their intentions were good and that Lorraine had powers as a psychic medium, and those were genuine powers.

Yeah, she said. We have a single message we want to get across to people. There's a demonic underworld and that, on some occasions, it can be a terrifying problem. For people like, I agree with, seems legit. Pour one out for Lorraine now. After a brief telephone conversation with the Smurfs, Ed and Lorraine were pretty sure they could actually help the couple. So they agreed to travel from their home in Connecticut to Pennsylvania as soon as possible. And in their initial interview with the Smurfs, Ed and Lorraine, it kind of ran through their standard battery of questions. Regarding the couple's familiarity with satanism, use of Ouija boards, practice of witchcraft, all the activities that the Warren said could lead to a demonic infestation.

You know, yeah.

You know now, as Ed Warren continued his interview with the Smurfs. When they finally got out there, Lorraine started exploring the house. And she was accompanied by her friend Rosemary, who also claimed to have psychic abilities and also had a baby. No, maybe I actually.

Picked up what you're putting down now? The two psychic mediums immediately sensed the presence of evil. Oh, no, you won't get that unless you watch Spongebob. But it seemed to get stronger as they made their way up the stairs to the second floor of the house. Huh? And after exploring the second floor. When they reached the door to Janet and Jack's bedroom, they sensed that they would find whatever it was they were looking for behind that door.

Oh, but they checked the bedroom and they found nothing, huh? In the actual bedroom, all that remained was to look in the couple's closet. So they did now. Up to that point, Lorraine and Rosemary claimed to have identified three ghosts in the small home. Two were benign and one was very angry.

Now, later, when they were assembled at the kitchen table, Lorraine presented the profiles of the entities she believed were haunting the Smurfs home. The first was an elderly woman. Lorraine said that she was, quote probably senile, but not violent. She's just confused, okay?

The second spirit was a young woman Lorraine described as, And this is her words, not mine, an insane, violent spirit who might want to harm you. Ooh. But, she said, the spirit could be, quote, dealt with through prayer. And then there was the third ghost, a man with a mustache, who, quote, possesses the ability to carry out great harm.

Oh man, so Lorraine, that mustache, it's the mustache. always. so Lorraine is the problems everywhere. mustaches. Oh, what did I say in Buffy? Yeah, they always tell I don't trust a mustache.

Never, they always lie, Yeah, listen to Buffy, the rewatcher Do it in admitted that, other than that, she received no information from this specific ghost at that time or entity. But finally, they got to the fourth entity in the house, which I believe they found in the closet. And they said this demon, Lorraine said, was there to quote, create chaos and destroy the family.

Oh, shit, destroy them.

The actual bring it on now. Once Lorraine had finished presenting, you know, her spirit profiles on Bumble. Just kidding, Ed took over the conversation. He told Jack, It's like I said before, Jack.

I suspect that the demon has been in the house dormant for decades, but one thing I know is that your girls reaching puberty gave the demon energy. Okay, I don't love that, I don't even like it, I don't.

I actually don't perceive that, I perceive it, I don't accept it, he said. And to Jack, he said his. He told them about his belief that adolescents possessed a ton of psychic energy. That had the potential to attract and even activate non-human entities, leading to all manner of panera paranormal.

Cheddar broccoli soup.

Manner of a you pick.

Are you getting a cookie on the side, Jack? Because it's time to end this shit?

He told the family quote You should get the broccoli. You're like a battery, it draws on for power, it's a real psychic explosion.

It wants to keep you and your family confused and afraid. That's why it often appears to only one of you at a time. Oh, which is true, okay, so? Based on their initial investigation, Ed and Lorraine concluded that, in addition to the three ghosts haunting the house, a demon had latched on to the smurfs. And was drawing energy from the family. And because it was able to draw this energy from the family, it was growing more powerful and more aggressive. And it was wearing on them day after day, after day.

Janet remembered As we listened to the Warren's and Rosemary talk, I remember feeling a strange combination of release and relief and dread. The dread came from knowing that Ed and Lorraine and Rosemary were confirming our worst suspicions. Our house had been taken over by a demon, a diamond. And the rest, you'll have to wait to hear in part two.

But their house had been taken over by a fucking demon. Y'all it certainly has, and Panera it has. Yeah, cheddar, broccoli soup everywhere. That's the kind of haunt I'm in for. Lactaid seems pretty rad, but a little sticky and smelly, eventually smelly. Oh, maybe it wasn't a cracked the code.

It was cheddar broccoli soup, went in. Panera, panera. it's fun to say it like that. Do you ever say Panera instead of Panera? I wonder when they opened, huh?

We'll update you in part two. part two will let you know when Panera opens. And if it was their fault. So yeah, okay, I hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it. But that's the way that you don't get a. you pick two after this, because why wouldn't you?

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