It started with knickknacks being moved around the house. Then it was kitchen drawers being opened.
The
haunting experience culminated when Rudy Calderon's family saw a
Yiddish word scrawled on a bathroom wall with what appears to be
charcoal.
The word, based on Google translate, means "danger."
Calderon, 28, thought someone in the Phoenix home was pranking the family with a series of paranormal stunts.
If
that's the case, no one has confessed, even after another, potentially
damaging incident on Christmas in which both bathrooms flooded, he said.
Now, he believes it's supernatural activity.
“I
don’t think this is natural, I think there’s a supernatural entity
involved," Calderon said. "But I can’t say one way or another."
Calderon
uploaded the pictures and a video of the ominous images to his Facebook
account on Christmas Eve. Since then, more than 450 people had shared
the post as of Wednesday afternoon and the video has been viewed 70,000
times.
Dozens of comments have been posted, many of them offering advice on how to deal with troublesome spirits.
It's no viral sensation, which by today's standards
would require at least a million views within a week, but It's more
interaction than Calderon has ever seen.
"For the
past few days our house that my grandfather, aunt, two cousins and
myself have been living in has been 'acting up,' " he wrote on his
Facebook on Christmas Eve. "We have been hearing noises, objects appear
out of nowhere, they move around and yesterday all of our kitchen
cabinets were left open. All doors were locked so no one could have
gotten in and we tried to blame each other but then things got weirder."
Various people from across the country have commented on the post offering spiritual suggestions.
To
his surprise, most of the comments seem genuinely concerned for
Calderon and his family's well being. He expected more ridicule than
what he has received, he said.
"If you have someone
pray over your house, the person that prays has to be someone very
powerful spiritually or else you will just make it angry," a Facebook
user named Frank Ibarra recommended.
Others insist it's all some hoax.
'It's pretty widespread'
Still,
the wave of support that Calderon has received is part of a trend that
more Americans believe in ghost stories, professors say.
But those who have these experiences, like Calderon, are left with a lot of questions and few answers.
"The
past week has been pretty miserable for us. We’re tired and we’re low
on energy," Calderon said. "We’re stumped as to why it’s happening now.
The reason I went to social media is because I've never experienced
anything like this before.”
Christopher Bader, a
sociology professor at Chapman University in Orange, California, who
researches ghost hunters, said Calderon's experiences are not unique.
He
said that based on his research, such experiences, with the exception
of the Yiddish writing, are common and can happen to anyone.
Diane Goldstein, a folklore professor at Indiana
University, said she has never heard of Yiddish writing on the wall in
the ghost stories she's researched. However, she agreed with Bader that
such ghost stories are common among people, regardless of their
cultural, educational background or income.
"It's pretty widespread," she said.
Bader, who
co-authored the book, "Paranormal America," also said that TV shows in
recent years have helped legitimized anecdotes of paranormal activity.
"You
can read this in one of two ways, some of my friends say that this is a
negative aspect of our culture and we're becoming more gullible," he
said. "But other people believe that people are less afraid to speak out
about these experiences."
Bader said he's heard of ghost stories of people seeing Yiddish writing but it's rare.
Looking for answers
Calderon can't explain it and said nobody in his family is Jewish or can write in Yiddish.
He
lives in a single-family home in west Phoenix with his aunt, his 14-
and 17-year-old cousins and his grandfather, who converted from
Catholicism and is now an evangelical.
In 2013, he
graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in
global studies. A year ago he started his own business that organizes
affordable 10-day trips for college students who are minorities who want
to travel but can't afford a full semester abroad.
He
said the activities started on Dec. 21 when he noticed a plush Santa
Claus being moved from a corner in the living room to his laundry bin in
his bedroom when the whole family was out shopping.
Later
that day he noticed a box filled with coins he has collected from his
travels around the world that was moved from his luggage to the kitchen
counter.
Then on Dec. 23, he walked into the bathroom about half hour after her cousin used it and noticed the writing on the wall: געפאר.
He
said that's when the family began to accuse each other of taking the
prank too far. The cousin said in an interview she doesn't know Yiddish
writing and didn't notice the scrawl on the wall.
"That's what threw us off," Calderon said.
On Christmas Day, he said, the family found the home's
two toilets and two bathtubs overflowing with water. His aunt called
the landlord's husband, a plumber. He did some maintenance work but
found nothing wrong, he said.
On Tuesday night, as
Calderon and his aunt began praying, they heard someone banging on the
front door. Calderon hurriedly ran to the door and opened it, but found
no one there.
"If it's someone coming in then
that's scarier because they can hurt us," said Stephanie Garcia, 17, one
of Calderon's cousins. "I don't know what to think."
Calderon's
aunt Cristina Torres, 47, said she was "terrified" because she doesn't
know who or what has been doing the sinister activities.
Bader,
the California professor, said a common theory among ghost hunters is
that teenagers' energy manifests into telekinetic powers. He added that
if Calderon travels a lot and brings back pre-owned souvenirs, some
ghost hunters believe that a spirit may still be attached to the item.
Calderon said the family hasn't called police because they don't have any proof someone has broken into the house.
“What
would we tell the police? Things are moving around?" he said. "We have
no evidence of someone breaking into the house. They may laugh at us.”
Goldstein,
the Indiana professor, warns not to criticize people who share their
ghost stories. She said that she can't answer if such stories are real
or not, but those who experience such events wholeheartedly believe they
happened.
"I think it’s very important that with
these stories, to take into consideration the people who report them
that it’s not always a story that should be taken to attack someone or
taken to create a fictional account of something or casts aspersions on a
community," she said.
"It’s simply what they believe happened."
Source: azcentral.com
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Spirituality