#Doris Bither

[mysteryarchivesyt]

The Untold Story Of The Entity Haunting - Doris Bither Case - California

[anhed-nia]

Hey look, IT'S ME! If you wanna do something really special for my birthday, *and I know you do*, come visit me at the Film Noir Cinema in Greenpoint on 4/18 so we can all have a Very Difficult Conversation about THE ENTITY. That sounds like fun to you guys, right? Most people know of Doris Bither not by name, but through the fictionalized account of her story in Sidney J. Furie's harrowing supernatural thriller about the woman who claimed to have endured relentless sexual assaults by a supernatural force. But who was Doris Bither? To UCLA’s parapsychology team, her purported suffering offered a tantalizing validation of their profession. To the journalists at The Skeptical Inquirer, she was victimized only by the exploitative endeavors of pseudo-scientists. To some, Bither was a madwoman; to others, a con artist. For Furie and his star Barbara Hershey, she provided an allegory for more ordinary forms of misogynistic oppression. The elusive Doris Bither’s true identity may be lost to us, but this hasn’t stopped many different people from twisting her story to fit their own unique, often conflicting perspectives. This talk will explore as many of them as I can fit! Get your fresh hot tickets HERE for my very own second-ever Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies talk:

If you guys don't come, it's just gonna be me myself & I!

[ersblog]

El Extraño Caso de DORIS BITHER

[paranomalyzone]

ENTITY: The Doris Bither Case

An alleged case of violent paranormal attacks...The story of Doris Bither is one of sadness, controversy and potentially the most disturbing of all paranormal phenomena.  Do you believe?  

Check out this episode!

[unatestadellidra]

Guarda "Il Tormento di Doris Bither - REDRUM EP.2" su YouTube

[meurefugio40]

Íncubo real na Carla Moran (Doris Bither) Brasileira CFB#1461 P2 Caça Fa...

[brokehorrorfan]

Scream Factory has revealed the extras for its The Entity Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, which streets on June 11. Joel Robinson designed the new cover art; the theatrical poster will be on the reverse side.

The 1982 horror film is directed by Sidney J. Furie (Superman IV: The Quest for Peace). Frank De Felitta (Audrey Rose) wrote the script, adapted from his 1978 novel of the same name, which itself is based on the 1974 Doris Bither case.

Barbara Hershey stars with a fearless performance. The cast also includes Ron Silver, David Labiosa, George Coe, Margaret Blye, Jacqueline Brookes, Michael Alldredge, Alex Rocco, and Allan Rich.

The Entity will include DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, DTS-HD Master Audio 4.1 audio mixes. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Audio commentary with Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films author Daniel Kremer (new)

Interview with actress Barbara Hershey (new)

Interview with actor David Labiosa (new)

Interview with composer Charles Bernstein (new)

Interview with editor Frank J. Urioste (new)

Trailers From Hell – The Entity trailer with commentary by Suspiria director Luca Guadagnino

The Entity Files featurette

Theatrical trailer

TV spots

Radio spots

Still gallery

Oscar-nominee Barbara Hershey stars as Carla Moran, a hard-working single mother whose life becomes a nightmare when she is attacked in her bedroom by someone – or something – that she cannot see. Disbelieved by her friends and dismissed by skeptical psychiatrists, Carla begins to lose her grip as she is repeatedly attacked in her car, in the bath, and even in front of her children. Could this be a case of hysteria, a manifestation of childhood sexual trauma, or something even more horrific? Seeking help from a group of daring parapsychologists, Carla will attempt an unthinkable experiment: to seduce, trap and ultimately capture the depraved spectral fury that is The Entity.

[reignmaker1911]

10 Horror Movies and The Depraved Acts That Inspired Them

10 Horror Movies and The Depraved Acts That Inspired Them

Based on a True Story,’ or “Inspired by Actual Events”; are just two phrases that, when added to a cinematic production are guaranteed to raise eyebrows as well as ticket sales. Why; well it seems that when we see phrases such as these, our proverbial antennas rise and immediately we won’t know about the horrible tale that happened…

[mysteriesoftheunknown]

Sightings - Ghosts - The Entity case - 1992

cw sexual assault

“...she shouted out again ‘it’s in the corner’, again we fired our camera, again it was bleached out white completely…”

“...we felt a cold breeze of air coming in the air, accompanied by a horrible stench, a stench so foul  some people were vomiting, we fired the camera in the direction...of the breeze...again it was bleached out white completely, except...you can see a small ball of light…”

“...we fired the camera and the face was completely obliterated…”

“...she started screaming...’I don’t want to see your lights, show us yourself’...at that point it started to appear.”

So this segment concerns a famous case - the case of Doris Bither, better known as The Entity case. In 1974 in Culver City, California, Bither contacted a parapsychologist, Barry Taff, to document her haunting. She claimed to see the typical “orbs” & other luminous apparitions, as well as poltergeist phenomena, but she also claimed that one of the "entities” had attacked and raped her.

Frank De Felitta would later fictionalize these events into the novel The Entity, adapted into a film in 1982 (and later used as material for the avant garde short Outer Space in 1999).

Serious questions would be raised about the quality of the photographic “evidence”, questions also raised by the open admission here that they fucked up the control photo of Bither (by making it too dark and scratching it). It’s also a bit...uncomfortable how the witnesses here speak in awe of the encounter, given that the person in question saw it as an assault; a quick google reveals that the investigators didn’t investigate the rape claim, and believe it never happened.

[donnerpartyofone]

NEXT TUESDAY at 7pm, join me at Greenpoint's Film Noir Cinema (live and in-person only!) for my Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies NYC lecture about the true story behind the terrifying film THE ENTITY! This talk is not for the faint of heart, but I promise it will be fascinating.

The 1982 supernatural thriller THE ENTITY has an outrageous premise--a woman is repeated assaulted by an incubus-like force--and yet, it is said to be based in fact. In 1974, UCLA parapsychologists studied the extraordinary claims of the mysterious Doris Bither. Though their investigation has been thoughtfully debunked by some, the essence of the story remains irresistibly compelling. It was adapted into a best-selling novel, and then realized as an infamous feature film. But who was Doris Bither? What can we tell about her from this string of controversial interpretations? Perhaps they say more about ourselves--what we want to believe, and why--than they do about Bither herself, who has since deliberately vanished from view.

Please don't miss this challenging, eye-opening talk--I'll consider it a birthday present to me personally!

[anhed-nia]

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT! Join me at the Film Noir Cinema in Brooklyn for my Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies talk on the true story behind the notorious supernatural thriller THE ENTITY. The strange tale of Doris Bither--a woman who is said to have been assaulted by a supernatural force--has been told by scientists and skeptics; published as a sensational bestseller; and brought to terrifying life on the big screen. But, who was the real Doris Bither? Come find out tonight at 7pm, live and in-person only:

[lasamigasestupendas]

Casas

Material complementario mencionado:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2iuHFPDTAM

Danse Macabre - Stephen King

Mindhunter

Carl Jung

https://theoryofimage.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/recuerdos-suenos-pensamientos-carl-jung.pdf

House as mirror of the self

https://www.amazon.es/House-As-Mirror-Self-Exploring-ebook/dp/B00AMNGQL2/

The Making of Home - Judith Flanders

Peli El ente (no se en q plataforma española se podrá ver?)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082334/

https://paranormal.lovetoknow.com/ghosts-hauntings/doris-bither-entity-haunting

Autor: Dominick Dunne

Peli: Poltergeist

Carrie - leed el libro y luego ver la peli

https://www.amazon.es/Carrie-BEST-SELLER-Stephen-King/dp/8497595696/

Jeffrey Dahmer: el altar

https://cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/R25HXHG5HSH3A3WPX2FBZIERJ4.jpg

La semilla del diablo 

Libro de Ira Levin, peli de Polanski

Al final de la escalera, de Peter Medak

Casa de JonBenet en Boulder, Colorado

Man in the Window, un podcast sobre la busca y captura de The Golden State Killer

El asesino sin rostro, Melissa McNamara (no McCarthy)

The House Next Door, peli de 2006 basada en el libro que nos comenta Carmen Pacheco, está enterita en Youtube.

Bitten by Witch Fever: Arsenic in the Victorian Homes, de Lucinda Hawksley

Recuerdos, sueños y pensamientos, de Jung editado en España por Seix Barral

[somethinwcked]

The Doris Bither haunting, also known as the Entity Haunting, occurred in 1974 in California. Bither claimed that she was plagued by poltergeist activity and that the spirits of three men were assaulting her... https://bit.ly/386AUZ5

[mythicallore]

A Famous Case of Truly Frightening Entities

Hauntings truly run the spectrum of the weird. You have some that merely involve moving objects, others that entail roving apparitions of some type, and still other more malevolent case that have reports of physical violence and assault revolving about them. Then you have the truly frightening accounts that involve all of the above. One of the most terrifying hauntings in history seems to have settled down on one very unfortunate family in the 1970s, involving a group of specters with an inclination for violence, mayhem, and even rape, and which would go on to become one of the most ghastly incidents of paranormal activity on record.

The story of one of the most frightening and violent hauntings of all time starts in 1974, with a single mother by the name of Doris Bither, who lived in in Culver City, California, with her four children. The family had moved here from Santa Monica in order to try and start a new life after a string of abusive relationships that Doris had been in, and to try and escape her demon of alcoholism. It was a rough time of things, as Doris had barely enough to raise her four children, all born of different fathers, and they were a broken family living in dirt poor conditions, but things would soon get worse still, when something decidedly dark and paranormal came calling.

It started rather creepily enough, with an elderly woman who came over one day shortly after they had moved in to tell Doris out of the blue that she had once lived in the home and that it was evil, before wandering off to never be seen again. So far, so eerie, but it would prove to be almost prophetic. Not long after this, there would be instances of classic poltergeist activity, such as lights turning on and off, objects moving on their own, and anomalous noises, all of which were witnessed by all of the family members. Then things graduated to the more frightening when apparitions would start appearing.

At first it was just glimpses, a shadow figure moving across the living room here, a movement in the periphery of the vision there, but it got steadily more intense, and even neighbors began seeing these things around the house. The figures that were seen started to take shape, appearing as fog-like humanoid shapes that would move about or merely sit in the corner and simply watch. In an interview with Ghost Theory, Doris’s middle son, Brian Harris, would describe them thus:

It was never clear. When they would make themselves known, it was always like a fog. Like a human…but not quite. It was like a sculpture. Like a chiseled body. Not a full figure, but at times we could see some of it. At times, it would be annoying. We would be watching television and these things would walk by. Like nothing. We were so used to the poltergeist, that we just got to a point were we wouldn’t even care.

It became increasingly clear that there were more than one of the entities as well, either 3 or 4 of them, depending on who you ask, although Harris has said that there were 4. This spooky paranormal activity, although at first scary but mostly harmless, would not stay that way for long, soon becoming increasingly terrifying. Not content to just mill about and cause mischief, the entities began to lash out at the family, pushing, shoving, hitting, and even clawing or biting them, and this would happen at all hours, even in the middle of the daytime. Harris would say:

We all experienced some form of attack. There was the pushing, biting and scratching being done to us. There were about 4 entities in the home, and they made themselves known by appearing all the time….I think it took a lot of energy for them to do that. It was as if they [the four entities] showed themselves whenever they felt like.

Although he said there were four of the specters, Doris herself would later claim that there were only three, but the true number was- too many. Even more terrifying still was that the entities began to actively target Doris the most vehemently, and it went from simple pushes, scratches and bites to full on assault, with the ghosts even allegedly holding her down and raping her with abandon. This would often happen in the next room while the terrified children listened to the bangs, thuds, and their mother’s desperate screaming as they cowered in the shadows, but it also sometimes happened right in front of their eyes, and Harris has described these spectral attacks thus:

The whole rape thing was real. My room was right next door to my mother’s. I would hear the attacks happening. Things being thrown, her screaming. Then she would come out of the bedroom and have all these bruises. On her legs, her inner thighs. There were times were we would see it happen in front of us. It was like if a man was standing in front of my mother and would start to beat her. Imagine a woman being beaten. You could see her being picked up and thrown around. Sounds, slaps…but there was no one there to actually do it. We all felt it too. pulling, biting and scratching…we were all attacked.

These viscious attacks and sexual assaults went on unabated, with the apparitions appearing without warning practically every day and night, and it got to the point where the family was desperate for anyone to help them. The biggest of the entities even gained a creepy nickname for himself, “Mr. Whose-it.” Doris took it upon herself to approach paranormal investigators and parapsychologists Kerry Gaynor and Dr. Barry Taff, who were intrigued by her harrowing tale to say the least, and went about arranging a full investigation into the claims. They would not be disappointed.

The team moved in for their investigation on August 22, 1974, thinking at first that there would not be much to this all other than a seriously disturbed young woman. The first thing they did was take a look at the myriad bruises, scratches, and scars that she had all over her body, especially along her inner thighs, allegedly inflicted by the entities and which proved to be far more savage and severe than they had expected. She gave them additional information on the attacks by saying that there were 3 of them (despite her son’s claims that there were 4), and that the two smaller ones would hold her down while the bigger one raped her.

Intrigued, but not yet sold, the investigators set up their equipment in an effort to gather any evidence at all of a haunting. When this was done, they had Doris go into one of the rooms where the most activity had been occurring and told her to start yelling and cursing at the unseen entities, trying to draw them out. Almost immediately there was intense orb activity captured on the equipment, with spots of light flitting all over the place like angry bees. After this Doris was seen to be enveloped by a greenish mist, followed by the materialization of what appeared to be the upper torso of a man, which hovered there in the mist and was apparently so terrifying that one of the investigators fainted. This torso could not be captured on the equipment, but there is a photograph of Doris with a strange arc of light appearing over her.

This sort of intense paranormal activity would could continue virtually unabated for the next several months of the investigation, including apparitions, mysterious lights, temperature drops, horrific mystery odors, and moving objects. It was even noticed that the invastigators’ presence actually seemed to anger and irritate the entities, and it was also found that playing music by the metal group Black Sabbath also seemed to cause an uptick in activity, making it all stronger, but then it suddenly started winding down and stopping altogether for no discernible reason.

One of the photos taken during the investigation

In later years, Doris would move her and her family to other places on several occasions, but according to her each time the entities would follow her wherever she went, although somewhat weaker than they had been. She would even claim at one point that she had been impregnated by one of the spirits. Although her case had become quite well-known at the time, Doris herself would drop off the radar for years before finally succumbing to cardiac arrest in 1995, leaving us no further along as to what happened to her than when these supernatural forces first targeted her.

What exactly happened to this poor woman and her family? What sort of spirits or entities targeted them and why? That would depend a lot on who you ask, but according to Taff himself, it has nothing at all to do with ghosts or spirits as we imagine them. Taff is convinced that the phenomena were caused by the subconscious human mind lashing out to affect the world around it though psychokinesis, the ability to move objects with the mind. In his theory, this is all the result of various factors coming together to cause the mind of a victim to reach out to wreak havoc on the outside world, most often without their awareness that they are even doing so. So insistent is he that this is the case, and that such hauntings are caused by the projections of living beings rather than demons or the ghosts of the dead, that he has expressed disdain for these “paranormal” ideas, saying:

I don’t, for one second, believe this is the work of dead people throwing living people around. As there are no academic credentials required for anyone to go out and investigate the paranormal. Every new age groupie is out there looking for demons, emulating the garbage they’ve seen on cable TV paranormal shows. To fully comprehend the possibility that a living person’s subconscious mind can involuntarily generate such power as to manifest luminous anomalies, apparitions, and macroscopic psychokinetic events, is for me, far more compelling than if a discarnate intelligence was responsible.

The evidence and collected data suggests these effects are the result of what’s called Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) There’s two types of psychokinesis (moving physical objects around without physical means). There’s microscopic, which works on very small scales, things like affecting random number generators, random event generators, and moving subatomic particles around. It’s usually electrostatic-based, fatigue in the individual is shown, as it’s done on a conscious level. And then there’s macroscopic, what we call ‘poltergeist,’ and that’s a whole different ball of wax. We’re talking about the ability of moving very massive objects, hundreds of pounds easily. It’s done on a subconscious level, as there is no fatigue seen in the person at the core of it. Like the microscopic type, it’s believed that the phenomena are generated by a living human agency.

Taff has used this explanation to explain a wide range of what are traditionally considered to be “paranormal phenomena,” which he has compiled into a book called Aliens Above, Ghosts Below: Explorations of the Unknown, which takes the approach of trying to explain all of these disparate phenomena with possible real world rational solutions. Others disagree, and say that this was some sort of demonic presence, a trio of ghosts up to no good, or just the delusions of a fractured mind. It has never been solved either way. Whatever the case is remains to be seen, but in the meantime the Doris Bithers story has gone on to become one of the most frightening and controversial accounts of a haunting on record. So famous and noteworthy is this mysterious case that it was made into a 1983 Hollywood film based on these events called The Entity, starring Barbara Hershey and directed by Sidney J. Furie, and which is loosely based on the real events. What was it that terrorized this family so violently? We may never know for sure.

[myhauntedsalem]

Most Violent and Terrifying Hauntings in History

You’d never guess that this cheery yellow house was the site of one of the most violent and terrifying hauntings in history, but in 1974, it was home to a case so scary a film was based on it’s events.

The August 22, 1974 in Culver City, California, researchers Kerry Gaynor and Barry Taff were giving a lecture at a local bookstore on paranormal research. They were approached by a woman about 30 years old named Doris Bither who lived in a small house with her family. Bither overheard the men talking about paranormal activity, and claimed that her home was haunted. In a subsequent interview with investigators, she told them that she had spirits in her home, beings known for producing banging on the walls, strange voices, mysterious lights, and perhaps the most frightening, also claimed to have been brutally beaten and savagely raped by extremely violent, invisible forces.

Taff and Gaynor initially disbelieved Doris, citing the commonly occurring phenomena of sleep paralysis as her diagnosis.

However, the two changed their minds when witnesses to the events began to come forward, several of which were family members who had actually seen Doris being tossed through the air like a rag doll. In one instance, Doris’ son attempted to intervene when he heard screaming and was throw across the room, breaking his arm.

While Taff and Gaynor performed the first investigation of the home, they noticed that the house lights flickered occasionally, but didn’t expect what happened next. During the first interview conducted with Doris’ teenage son in the kitchen, the cabinets were flung open, pots and pans fell violently without anyone touching them, and everyone became suddenly aware of some kind of presence in the bedroom. The numerous photographs taken with a Polaroid camera refused to develop properly, instead producing sheets of white fuzz. Doris was immediately removed from the house, and to the astonishment of the investigators, the bizarre phenomena disappeared and pictures taken with the same camera and the same film cassette functioned normally once again. The investigation lasted ten weeks, during which Doris described horrific encounters with numerous beings, one being a kind of huge humanoid which she referred to as “The Entity”, and two smaller beings that accompanied it and helped hold her down during attacks.

In perhaps the famous report, more than 30 researchers were present as Doris attempted to summon the spirits into her bedroom. Equipped with recording material, Doris began to curse and yell at the spirits. To the surprise of many, strange lights began to appear around the room. A greenish fog began to form in the corner, swirling and growing. Within seconds, the shape of a man’s upper torso began to manifest through the fog. Many witnesses claimed it was a male entity, very big and muscular but without a face. One researcher fainted after seeing the incredible phenomenon. Of course, recording cameras failed and only managed to capture the image of what appears to be an arc of light floating in the middle of the room.

At the end of the investigation, the researchers recommended that Doris move because of how bad the situation had become. Bither and her family took the advice, and went to live in Texas, maintaining contact with the researchers. Unfortunately, the attacks did not disappear, and Doris continued being brutally assaulted.

Eventually, Doris Bither disappeared with her family, shying away from the limelight gained by the release of the book and film written about her experiences. However, in recent times, some of the children have confirmed everything that happened in the house in Culver City, and even added an unexpected twist to the story. While living in San Bernardino, Doris said she was pregnant with The Entity’s child.

Today, the little yellow house still stands in Culver City, though it seems that whatever haunted it left with Doris. The current owners claim they’ve never witnessed anything strange.