Hurricane Matthew
The coincidences with Matty, Matthew, and Hurricane Matthew during our time with Norman was just unbelievable.
Matty was the doll’s original name. Matthew was Christina’s oldest son, and Hurricane Matthew was about to deliver its own brand of destruction.
Even the radar image of Hurricane Matthew looked evil and menacing.
The hurricane appeared like a giant skull eating away at the earth.
I remember when images of the hurricane resembling a skull took the internet by … well, storm.
It was almost as if in that moment the whole world was experiencing something paranormal.
Norman cannot take claim to that hurricane. I would be a damn arrogant fool to state otherwise and claim a doll actually manifested a severe storm.
But the timing could not have been better. October became scary real quick, and it wasn’t because of Halloween.
For those of us who live in the South, we are just as prepared for hurricanes as the North is prepared for blizzards. Weather in North Carolina is a nationwide joke. It can be twenty-two degrees one day and seventy-seven degrees the next.
North Carolina weather is beyond paranormal. But certain extreme weather delivers better opportunities to experience the supernatural. And more paranormal occurrences were definitely in our forecast.
Storms bring ionic energy with them, and to save you pages of explanation, that will sum up the relevance to the paranormal.
Air molecules are constantly breaking apart at great lengths from sunlight, wind, moving water, and even radiation. The end results in an abundance of negative ions.
But don’t let that word negative fool you. In this case, it is a good thing. Negative ions actually make you feel good. You would think just the opposite, but positive ions actually harm us.
We are surrounded by positive ions every day from electromagnetic fields (EMF) generated from electrical devices and atmospheric changes.
You would be surprised how much of your everyday life is affected by ionic energy. Extreme amounts can impair the brain and your thought process. Your immune system can suffer greatly, causing anxiety, fatigue, vertigo, nausea, hallucinations, and difficulty breathing.
To put it bluntly, before, during, and after a storm, you are exposed to approximately 3,250 positive and negative ions per cubic centimeter.
So you can only imagine what a severe storm does to bring that number up.
Positive ions bad. Negative ions good.
With me so far? Why is this relevant?
Paranormal research focuses a great deal on the impact of electromagnetic fields and ionic energy, not only to the human body and psyche, but to the spiritual realm as well.
It is almost unanimously agreed upon among researchers that higher amounts of EMF and ionic energy can promote more defined paranormal activity.
In other words, the more those types of energies are present, the more capable a spirit can become. They could possibly now move objects, speak, manifest, and make physical contact.
The stronger the field, the stronger the ghost. Therefore, storms are a good thing when it comes to researching the paranormal.
Again, I’m a psyche guy, not a physicist, so continue your own research on that if you wish.
A spirit is no different than a human being when it comes down to energy. We must eat to gain strength and to ultimately survive.
A spirit must absorb energy to gain strength. The more energy that is readily available, the more physical ability a spirit will have.
We were about to be sitting right in the middle of a smorgasbord for ghosts.
There would be nowhere for us to go outside or even the means to do so.
Most hauntings are subtle, lacking the available energy to feed off of. Everyday household items produce EMFs and other energies that spirits can, will, and do use with minimal occurrence.
Norman could already perform amazing feats without the help of a severe storm. Thoughts were racing as I contemplated what Norman would do if given the opportunity. Hurricane Matthew was approaching and we had a lot to prepare for.
Our home was only about forty-five miles from the shoreline, and our area was under severe warning with a direct hit in the forecast.
Aside from needing the normal bread and milk and essential supplies, we also had to be prepared for what this storm could do to Norman. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The first half of our preparation went easy. A quick run into town to the grocery store gave us everything we needed to survive physically. The second half of our preparation was a bit more extensive.
Even during a midgrade thunderstorm, we tend to lose power. Which means we lose water and everything in the fridge.
We live about five miles out of town and with the exception of a few neighbors, we weren’t exactly on the electric company’s priority list.
A normal storm could put us into apocalyptic living for two to three days.
This was going to be a full-blown hurricane.
There was going to be an abundance of flooding, fallen trees, dangerously high winds, and debris flying everywhere.
However, Christina and I were more concerned about the electrical blackouts and a sixteen-inch mischievous, loathsome doll creeping around the house.
We would be without the surveillance once the hurricane hit. There was no question about that. We charged up every portable infrared and night vision camera we had in addition to a handful of spare batteries. Every flashlight and camera light was freshly charged and prepared. Every piece of equipment we had for paranormal research was locked and loaded with enough batteries to last us for weeks.
If all of that failed us, we had an entire box full of candles.
If we were pushed to desperation, we could recharge certain pieces of equipment with a car charger. So I would say we were ready.
We locked up every door into the house and waited as Hurricane Matthew approached.
While we still had power, we kept a close eye on the Doppler radar both on the television and on the internet. We were going to know the exact moment Matthew was going to hit.
As expected, within just a few hours, Matthew’s outer bands hit our area and the power went out and all of our equipment went on.
It was about nine in the evening when this happened, and because of all the chaos outside, it was hard to determine what was coming from where.
Banging was a constant. The wind was atrocious. The entire house was shaking.
It was difficult to say whether anything audible was paranormal or the storm. We were going to have to experience visual activity to be sold on anything. So Christina and I decided to place Norman in a neutral location. We put him on the kitchen table in an upright position. Of course we placed a camera on him, set to record any motion if by chance he moved.
Christina went back to the master bedroom and I went to sit in Hannah’s room. The rain was coming down so hard that we needed to use radios to communicate even though we were only fifty feet from one another.
After about an hour, my ears started to adjust to the sounds outside from the storm. It was easier for me to determine what was coming from outside and what was coming from inside.
Christina called me on the radio to ask if I was hearing music. I told her I wasn’t hearing anything but the pounding rain and debris hitting the house.
But she was hearing music. It wasn’t a melody, though. It sounded more like drumming. At first, I thought it was just water rhythmically hitting a bucket or something outside, but to go on for over five minutes in perfect time … I had to rule that idea out.
All of the dogs were with Christina in the bedroom while we were separated. We had to consider their movement as well, so we made sure to be very aware of their location at all times.
We had equipped our dog Tank with a vest and night vision head camera set to constantly record. So whenever he walked through the house, whatever he saw, we would later see while reviewing the footage.
Tank geared up for investigating.
It’s pretty neat seeing the world through a dog’s eyes, even if sometimes that world is a dark one.
Tank is used to this. He often accompanies us on cases, so I had designed a special camera rig just for him.
A few moments had passed since we had reviewed what I dubbed as drumming.
Come to think of it, that makes me think of the little drummer boy. That didn’t hit me until writing this.
Yet another reference to Christmas.
I returned to Hannah’s bedroom and Christina remained in the master bedroom.
A few hours passed without incident, but then Christina once again reached out to me on the radio.
She asked if I had just walked through the living room. Now where I was sitting in Hannah’s room, I couldn’t see through the door to the living room. But from where she was sitting in the master bedroom, she could.
I told her I had not moved.
She said she swore that she had seen a dark figure walk through the living room and into the kitchen. She naturally assumed it was me.
I told her to come over to my location so I could see the footage on her camera. She did and I looked. Sure enough, it appeared as if something solid black and about five feet or so tall walked through the living room.
I watched it over and over, thinking maybe somebody was crazy and was out driving around and their car lights threw some shadows around. That was not the case.
But why a five-foot figure?
Could this go back to the theory that the spirit inside of Norman had aged and was now an older man?
Was he out of Norman now? Was the ionic energy from the storm bringing all of this out? It made sense to me, and I even said so to Christina.
As we were discussing the shadowy figure, Christina stopped midsentence to ask where the dogs were at?
The dogs were always within view or directly with one of us.
We both crept slowly to the doorway to see out into the living room. There stood Tank staring into the kitchen with his tail fully erect. He was on to something. That was the direction the shadowy figure went, and that was also where Norman was. None of the other dogs were in sight.
We could only assume they stayed in the master bedroom.
Then, without warning, both Christina and I jumped when Tank started barking.
Let me tell you something about his bark: it rattles windows, it about gives me a heart attack when I’m sleeping, and he barks at anything that moves.
If a leaf falls from a tree outside, Tank lets us know.
We stood there watching Tank’s body language as he stood poised, throwing out bark after bark.
I finally whispered to Christina that we should creep up and see what he was barking at.
There was a back door to the kitchen, as well as a window, and maybe he was seeing something not so paranormal.
It’s not uncommon during disasters for would-be thieves to take advantage of people. So we were going to check.
We made our way through the living room as quietly as possible. It wasn’t hard. The outside elements masked our movement really well.
Tank didn’t even hear us coming.
But before we could get to him, he started a very slow and cautious walk backward from the kitchen entrance where he once stood barking.
While our attention was on Tank as he nervously walked backward, a loud boom caused me to gasp, Christina screamed, and Tank darted off with his tail between his legs.
He shot directly for the master bedroom where the other dogs remained. Guess he was thinking safety in numbers.
But, like I’ve said before, Tank is a tank. He’s a force to be reckoned with. He is only two years old and well over one hundred pounds. And since Norman was brought into the house, he has become very timid and jumpy. I refer to him as my gentle giant now.
Now we had to investigate what in the world made that loud boom in the kitchen.
After rushing into the kitchen, both of us just stopped and looked at each other and said, “No way.”
Norman was now lying on the floor.
Now you have to remember he was sitting upright in the middle of the kitchen table.
It would have taken some intervening and some force to make him move all the way across the table to fall off.
Tank knew something wasn’t right.
Our first instinct was to check the camera that was trained on Norman.
Unfortunately, and I’m embarrassed to mention this, the battery on the camera was dead.
It had been so long into the night that we had completely forgotten to check the camera and change out the battery.
We had nothing to show for it, other than our perspective with our own cameras while walking into the kitchen and discovering him on the floor.
Of course there was Tank’s odd behavior to couple with that as well. But there still was nothing to show. It would all be hearsay.
Then it hit me.
Tank’s night vision head camera had been running this whole time. That device is awesome. It will record for up to six hours in total blackout in high definition. We grabbed Norman and brought him back with us into the master bedroom. The three of us went in, all the dogs went out. They did not want to be around that doll.
I have always been a firm believer that animals can sense things we cannot, so I wasn’t going to question for a second their reasoning for vacating the room.
I tried to call Tank into the room, but he refused to enter. He just stood in the living room staring at me, barking away. I can only imagine what he was trying to say.
Unfortunately, with Tank’s camera, we needed the computer to see his footage. There wasn’t a display on his camera, unlike the rest of ours, to review previously recorded material. I was a bit upset at that, but eventually we would have power again.
Christina and I quickly changed out the batteries in our cameras in case anything else happened, and then we discussed what to do with Norman next.
Honestly, I wanted to throw his ass outside and let Matthew meet Matty and wash him away into the darkness. It was just a thought.
I suggested we put him in the living room on the couch where we had a direct line of sight from the bedroom. By doing so, we could just sit with cameras aimed and watch him.
Christina agreed.
The three of us went into the living room, the dogs went back into the bedroom.
The more I think about the dogs’ behavior, the more I believe their anxiety level must have been over the top.
When you are a dog owner, you know your animals’ mannerisms and characteristics. Seeing all of our best friends’ heads down and cowering was a bit depressing. I almost felt like it was our fault.
But at the same time, maybe the chaos outside was making them wary and Norman had nothing to do with it.
That thought quickly went out the window about as fast as a road sign that had just hit the side of the house.
That’s right. After a loud smack on the living room wall, we shined our lights out through the windows to see a road sign lying there.
The wind was absolutely merciless.
The 121 mile an hour wind was no joke.
To put that in perspective, it is impossible to walk in eighty miles an hour wind, let alone 121. Flying objects at that speed become lethal. That road sign could have taken a person’s head off. One hundred twenty-one miles an hour wind could lift an average person off the ground. Wind that speed has a drag force of hundreds and hundreds of pounds.
The road sign was for a one-way street.
I couldn’t even tell you where the closest one-way street is around here. Who knows how far that sign traveled.
However, the excitement was far from over, and we were about to get yet another amazing visual recording.
The two of us went back to our spot in the bedroom and focused once again on the living room where Norman sat like a good little boy on the couch.
As if most of what you read so far wasn’t the most unbelievable material, I can’t lie.
Christina and I were sitting on the bed in silence, watching the living room with our cameras documenting everything.
All of the dogs were lined up beside us along the bed.
You want to talk about nearly soiling yourself? To my left I heard the most vivid breath. It felt like it was right over my shoulder. No question the drawn-out exhale came from a man.
I turned around as quickly as I could to capture what ended up being a better look at our mysterious shadow figure from earlier.
Except this time, he was in the mirror. The most haunting part about this was him not only gaining my attention, but the fact you can clearly see there is nobody standing in front of that mirror.
That extremely threatening and intimidating looking entity was in the mirror. He was like a reflection without the image to reflect.
His lifeless eyes housed a thousand stories that all seemed to be told at once as I sat completely frozen in fear.
You would have to see it to believe it, but luckily you can.
All my life, searching for these experiences. All my life, waiting for the undeniable truth of intelligent existence beyond our human life. And it all fell within my own family’s haunting.
The entity is revealed.
There it is. There’s the proof.
In a snap of a finger he vanished.
The door to our bedroom slammed shut. It slammed so hard books from the shelf fell off, and other objects we couldn’t even see, only hear, hit the floor. All of the dogs immediately ran into our master bathroom.
Christina and I sat there in awe at what we witnessed.
What was that black entity? Was he what Norman was holding inside? Did this storm fuel him enough to show his true self?
If that were the case, and I think it was, I definitely did not want to see it again, nor did I have any intention of ever bringing it out of Norman. It could stay right there.
A quick review of our cameras showed we had indeed captured the door slamming shut.
I was petrified.
The two of us sat in shock, awe, and confusion staring at the door.
Tank came out of the bathroom and very cautiously started sniffing around the door before returning to the bathroom with the rest of the dogs.
Shortly after that we started to hear a series of booms and smacks coming from behind the door.
The lights in both the master bedroom and bathroom started flickering off and on.
This was impossible. If the electricity was truly trying to come back on, other devices would have been powering up as well.
Instead it was just the lights.
It was at that moment that one of the most incredible and frightening things took place.
The entire bedroom door was ripped from its hinges in an extremely violent fashion and thrown full force into the living room.
And our cameras caught it.
Door flying off its hinges.
For as much as we both had witnessed over the years with violent haunts, this was getting out of control.
Door completely ripped its from frame.
A door had just been physically ripped from the hinges and thrown into the living room like it was weightless.
What do you say to something like that?
I jumped up from the bed and slowly made my way into the living room to film the now-destroyed door.
Norman just sat in his same spot smirking away at me.
As I shined my flashlight around the room, I instantly noticed interior damage to the living room.
No windows were shattered. The front door that led to the living room was fine, other than the large amount of water that was seeping in from underneath.
With urgency, I called for Christina to come see what I was seeing.
When she entered the room, her jaw dropped as I shined my flashlight on each and every hole in the wall. These holes were the size of a fist.
It was as if somebody lost their temper and started punching the wall.
One of the holes in the wall.
We also noticed family portraits had been knocked from the wall. Glass was shattered everywhere.
I cleaned up the glass so the dogs wouldn’t walk through it. I just kept shaking my head and saying to Christina how insane this all was.
Exterior damage I get. But interior damage without a breach was impossible, unless somebody else was in the house.
The only other … thing in the house was Norman.
After all of the heart pounding excitement, the morning was upon us.
Wall cracking open.
It was still dreary out, but most of Matthew’s rain and wreckage had passed.
Our front yard was no longer a yard. It was a pond. We couldn’t even see the road out front. Trees were down as far as we could see, and trash was everywhere.
From just our view, it was a total disaster.
A few days passed before we were able to leave the house. The activity from Norman seemed to have ceased for the time being.
We had a truck and wanted to get out and about just in case people needed help.
But before doing that, now that we had power, we needed to take a quick look through Tank’s eyes.
I loaded the footage from his head camera into the computer and Christina and I sat glued to the monitor.
During the time Tank was standing at the kitchen entrance barking, we could vividly see Norman sitting on the table where we left him.
As Tank started to back out slowly, right as he started to turn toward the master bedroom, Norman hit the floor. Which now let us know what set Tank running.
The clip of video was so fast and so short, his camera didn’t actually capture anything from the table.
Since his head was turning, all he captured was Norman in the air before he hit the floor.
Norman jumping from the table.
At least Tank’s camera was able to validate that something caused Norman to fall from that table, or he did it himself.
Regardless, it’s hard to say either way. Maybe this was a frame of Norman walking or running or even jumping.
We just don’t know. Either way, the image is haunting.
Shortly after reviewing the rest of Tank’s footage, we took the truck out to drive around town to see just how bad the destruction was. It was awful.
Entire roads were completely washed away. Lost dogs were everywhere. Even the town itself still had no power. All of the fast food restaurants, all of the grocery stores, and every business in town could not operate. Without power, it was a dead zone.
People were suggesting that neighboring towns had power and supplies, so we risked a drive to find one. Detour after detour brought us to a store about thirty minutes from home.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when we walked in.
All of the shelves were bare, and this was a major, well-known store. All of their food, batteries, and other useful supplies had been cleaned out. I saw workers loading up truckloads of food that went bad due to the power outages.
It truly was like Armageddon had taken place.
So we drove a little farther west to find a store to replenish the necessities we lost during the storm.
A few days later, the power was back, but the area still looked like a war zone.
Every road had large piles of debris plowed to the sides. Houses were missing their roofs. Vehicles were under four to five feet of water.
It was a depressing situation to see.
To make matters worse, the water was only going to be getting higher from the lakes and streams as it traveled back toward us from the north. The town wasn’t going to be itself for quite some time.
Children didn’t go to school for weeks because there was no safe way to get there.
It was dreadful.
Following the hurricane, the next month or so was fairly quiet. But that’s only because we were rarely home. Hurricane Matthew acted like the calm before the even bigger storm.
Thanksgiving came and went without a hitch. Norman was lifeless.
We were quite busy working out contracts with clients on new and old cases, so we were hit-and-miss at home. It wasn’t anything for us to be gone three to four days at a time.
Hannah continued to stay with her brother while we traveled, hoping to have all of our other investigative work finished before the Christmas holiday.
Anytime we arrived home, I spent time reviewing the surveillance, but nothing was ever out of the ordinary.
The anniversary of Norman’s fire was rapidly approaching, and we were waiting in anticipation.