All language subtitles for Paranormal Witness s02e01 Man In the Attic.eng

[Haunting music]

- Over to there, 7 and 8?

Sold $27.

- A voice said...

Both: I see you
bought the dybbuk box.

- A dybbuk box?

- It's what my
grandmother called it.

- I'm Jewish, and I
know what a dybbuk is.

It's they type of a
thing that you use

to scare little kids.

- Just pure evil.

- Say, "hi" to our new roommate.

[Rattling]

[Screaming]

- All of a sudden,

something's
tearing inside of me.

- Jason?
[Knocks on door]

[Sobbing]

[Loud popping]

- [Screams]

- Don't do that, or
the dybbuk will come.

[Bells ringing]

My shop is located
in downtown Portland

right at the base of
the burnside bridge,

which is kind of the
gateway to the city.

What I was looking for
were small, unique items

that I could sell,
I could retail,

and the best place
to find those anytime

is at yard sales, garage
sales, and estate sales,

small auctions.

- Hi.

- So on this particular day,

the family was selling
items that had belonged

to the grandmother
who had passed away

who was a holocaust survivor

and who had died
at a ripe old age.

I believe it was 103.

They were selling
things in job lots

that had all been
grouped together

on these pallets.

But there was one
pallet in particular

that I was interested in.

- Our next lot, 29, is
a unique box lot here.

All righty, how about...
Would you go $5, sir?

Thank you. Now $7.50.

$7.50 and $10. $10, friend.

$10, now $12.50. Now
we're gonna go $15.

- I think it got to
about 27 or 28 bucks

before finally, people got tired

and realized that I was
going to get that pallet.

- Over to there, 7 and 8?

Sold $27. Number 35, thank you.

- I was really happy,
because I had got

several hundred dollars worth
of items that I really needed.

But along with those
items, there were three items

that were unusual to be
included in a lot like this.

One of them was a steamer trunk.

The other one was a sewing box.

And the final item
was a cabinet of sorts,

a small wine cabinet.

And a voice said...

Both: I see you
bought the dybbuk box.

- Dybbuk box?

- The young lady being
in her late 20s, early 30s.

It didn't immediately register

that she had used
the word "dybbuk."

I'm Jewish, and I
know what a dybbuk is.

It's the type of a
thing that you use

to scare little kids.

You'd say, "don't do that,
or the dybbuk will come."

- It's what my
grandmother called it.

- And she explained to
me that whenever anybody

would ask about it,

grandmother would spit
through her fingers three times

[makes spitting sound]

And say it was
never to be opened.

When she told me this,
it really didn't phase me

as being anything
that was all that special.

So I loaded up the
stuff that I had bought,

and away I went.

All in all, it was a good day.

So I drove back to my shop.

It was a small storefront,

perhaps 25 feet wide,

and the basement down
below was quite a bit larger.

It was probably 4,000,
4,500 square feet.

The way the box was locked
was that there was a brass hasp

with a small brass
padlock placed on it.

So instead of
cutting the lock off,

which I normally
would have done,

I took a small screwdriver
and sort of bent the hasp

or the metal part that
came down and held it.

[Rattling]

The doors opened.

I didn't expect that.

It must have had a mechanism.

It was a nice touch to a box

that really didn't
look like it deserved

that kind of detail.

There were quite a
few items on the inside

that really didn't make
a lot of sense to me.

There were two
pennies from the 1920s,

a candlestick, kind of a
fat, pear-shaped body,

a small chalice or wine goblet.

There was also a statue.

It was made out of granite,
different pieces of granite,

and it had carved into it
the word "shalom" in Hebrew.

And then there were
two locks of hair.

- Hair?

- What crossed my mind
was that this was an old lady

who had kept it for
some sentimental reason,

not giving it any more thought
than I would normally give

a small, little wine cabinet.

I had a young lady that
worked for me at that time

named Jane who was
absolutely a fantastic salesperson.

So on this particular day,

I left her in
charge of the shop,

left the box in the basement...

[Bells ringing]

And went about my business

taking care of some errands.

- I was down in the
back of the basement

and kind of cleaning things up

and organizing his
tools and everything,

and then I was gonna
go up and open the store.

All of a sudden, I
just... I kind of felt

like somebody was watching me.

I had been left there
alone several times,

and I could walk in the dark
and down through the basement

and spend hours down there

and never felt
anything until then.

There's a difference between

being afraid of
someone or something.

[Phone ringing]

I had gotten a phone call.

- Addy's market. Jane speaking.

- And it was a friend of mine.

- Oh, hey. Hey, Geneva.

Yeah, no, you can come
tomorrow. That's fine.

I'll just tell Kevin.

Yeah, I know. That's fine.

Yeah, when are you
planning to come in?

Okay. [Stick clatters]

Hey, um, I got to go.

- I had that feeling
inside, inside my gut

that something was wrong.

- Hello?

[Clattering]

Who's there?

Hello?

We're not opened yet.

- And when I turned around,

the light that I
had switched off

turned back on.

[Glass shattering]

It was glass breaking.

Just like... [Imitates
glass shattering]

It was very loud.

[Glass crunches]

- Oh, my god.

[Gasps]

Oh, my god.

- I went, and I
grabbed the phone.

I called Kevin.

- [Sighs]

[Phone beeping]

Kevin, pick up. Kevin, pick up.

Kevin, pick up. [Phone ringing]

Kevin, pick up the phone.
Kevin, pick up the phone.

Kevin, pick up. Kevin, pick up.

[Phone vibrating]

Kevin, pick up. Kevin, pick up.

- Hello?

- Kevin?
- Jane?

- [Speaking indistinctly]
- I can barely hear you.

- Someone's here.

- Somebody's in the store?

[Glass shattering]

- I was young.

I'm like, "when are you
gonna get back here?"

To me, it sounded like
it was a baseball bat

smashing things.

- Hysterical is the
only way to put it.

She was trying to tell me

that there was somebody
in the basement...

- Something's here, Kevin.

- That sounded like
they were breaking glass.

They were throwing
things around.

I said, "well,
who's down there?"

And she said,
"nobody's down there."

- Jane, okay...
- [Shouting indistinctly]

- Call the police.

Call the police immediately.

Jane.
- And as I said that...

- Jane!
- My phone died.

[Engine revs]

- Kevin! Kevin!

- And I was scared
to death for her.

Could have been someone
that really had some bad intent,

either to steal something
or to harm or to Rob.

It couldn't be good.

- [Screams]

[Glass shattering]

[Clattering]

[Screaming]

[Sobbing]

[Screams]

- Jane?

Jane.

- I approached the
back of the shop.

I didn't know what to expect.

So I went to the basement door,

and I noticed that
the wrought-iron gate

was locked, which was odd,

because I hadn't locked it.

- Jane, it's Kevin.

- I went to turn on
the lights at that point.

I flipped the switch, and
the lights wouldn't go on.

So I grabbed a flashlight
and took a look around.

[Glass clatters]

And it was then that I noticed

that all the lightbulbs
in the basement

had been broken.

There were ten four-foot
fluorescent fixtures.

All of them had been broken
out and were lying on the ground.

- Oh.

- Jane isn't the kind
of person who cries.

Well, literally, she said...

- [Bleep] You.

- [Stammers]

- I just had this
feeling that I had to go.

- Jane?

- I just left, and I
never came back.

- There is no exit.
There is no way out.

There's no crawl space.

There's nowhere
for anyone to go.

Whoever had done
this had to still be there,

because I had just
unlocked the gate.

There was no way out.

I had to think at that
time that it was Jane.

I had to think that,

because there is
no other explanation,

and there was nobody else there.

So it was her, and I
was sorry I upset her,

but there could be
no other explanation.

So my mom's birthday
is on October 28th,

and we were gonna go have
lunch and do something else.

And on that day, she came
down to the shop quite early

before I was open.

- Happy birthday, mom.
- Oh, darling.

- There was a small,
little display area

of some furniture,

and so she sat down.

- And he said, "this is an
unusual present for you."

- In the past, I have
gotten strange gifts,

not a wine cabinet, but,
you know, strange gifts.

My husband used
to give me plaid coats

every single birthday.

He knew I hated plaid and
that I would return the coat

and get something that I liked.

- Kevin, there's a call for you.
- Okay.

- When he went downstairs,
I looked at the box,

and it was as though the
box was looking back at me.

- Kevin speaking.

Yup. No, we still have it.

[Rattling]

- The doors opened,
and it was just like

a cold breeze coming out.

I can't describe it,

just pure evil.

I couldn't run away.
I couldn't get up.

I couldn't get away from it.

I knew I was having a stroke.

My mouth contorted,

just started to sag,
and my eye pocketed.

- Mrs. Mannis?

Kevin?

- "Am I gonna make it?

Is this death?"

And my thought was,
"Kevin is downstairs.

"Am I gonna die
before I see my son?

Is he gonna know?"

"Am I gonna make it?"

- Mom.

- I was frozen.

I couldn't leave.

- Okay, they're here now.

- It was only me
that could tell,

because she didn't
have enough ability

to express herself,

but you could see
the terror in her eyes.

- And I wanted to...

I had to communicate to him

to protect him,

and it was almost
impossible to do.

When you're having a
stroke, you can't write.

You can't talk.

- All the communication
was through her eyes,

and so her eyes were
kind of wandering,

and yet, you could tell.

You could tell that
she was pleading

to get something
out, to say something.

- The one thing
that I wanted to do

was to impress upon him

how important it was

that he get rid of the box.

- God forbid

it did anything to him.

If it gave me a stroke,

what would it do to him?

I probably should
have picked a better gift,

maybe taken a little bit
more time in choosing it.

It never crossed my mind
that it would be anything

other than what it
was: A small box.

- I knew that it was
something that was evil,

because I had felt
the coldness inside.

- Everything started
to fall into place now,

all hell breaking
loose with the shop,

with my mom having the stroke.

The common denominator
of all these things

was this box.

So I decided to try and sell it.

And a few days later,

an older couple came
in and purchased it

and didn't think
anything about it.

Glad to see it gone.

I got more stuff
to do than that.

And I find the box
sitting by the front door

with a note on it.

And the note read,

"this has an odd
darkness about it."

This is hard to get rid of.

Nobody seems to like it.

I had a storage unit
out in back of my house

that I decided I
would put it there

and hopefully forget about it

until I could figure
out what to do with it.

I started to have
dreams, terrible dreams.

I would be with somebody
who I knew and I trusted.

I would be in a
very pleasant setting

with this person, and
we would be walking.

And at that point, immediately,

whoever I was with in the dream

would change from that person

into the most gruesome,
horrible, evil-looking hag

I'd ever seen.

And that hag would proceed

to just beat the
living crap out of me.

- [Screaming]

- [Sighs]

- When I woke up,

I know that this
sounds unbelievable,

because I didn't
believe it myself.

I found bruises.

Something is happening
where I'm getting injured

in the night.

And it got to the point
where every single night,

I knew that I would
be having this dream.

No matter what I thought
of, no matter how I tried,

this was going to happen.

At that moment, I knew
that the box was cursed,

that there was something
wrong with that box.

But I decided I
had to get rid of it,

and it turns out
the quickest way

to be rid of it would
be to put it on eBay.

[Camera clicking]

And it called it
"the dybbuk box"

in the main heading

and then described it

as a haunted
Jewish wine cabinet.

And I certainly
wasn't going to sell it

without disclosing everything

that I thought had
been happening.

My hope was that somebody
who dealt with the occult

would see this and buy it

and dispose of it the
way that they knew

it should be disposed of.

- When I first learned
about the dybbuk box,

I was a student at
Truman state university

in kirksville, Missouri.

- What are you looking at?
- EBay.

- My roommate Sam
had seen this posting

for this haunted box.

- What is that?

- The dybbuk box.

- And he was telling
me about how the owner

was experiencing very
terrible nightmares...

- "Haunted"?
- Mm-hmm.

- How his mother, I believe,
had become really sick.

It was this really
long description

of what had transpired,

and it really captured
our imagination.

- You want in? Come on.

Really?
- I'm okay.

- All right.

- I didn't really want
to spend money

on something that
could be a hoax,

and that was
really the end of it.

We didn't really talk
about it after that at all.

- During the course of the week,

it finally got up to a number

of about 7,500 people
that had seen this,

and I've sold a
lot of stuff on eBay

and never had that
kind of a response,

so I thought, "maybe
there are a lot of people

involved in the occult."

7,500 is a lot of people

to watch a little
wine cabinet sell.

- About three weeks
later in the middle of June,

I had come home for lunch,

and I opened up our front door,

which entered
into our living room,

and I was instantly hit

by this overwhelming
stench of urine.

There was newspaper
and packing peanuts

strewn throughout...
All over our floor,

and my instant thoughts were,

"who made this mess,

and where did somebody
urinate in my living room?"

And it was just sitting
there staring at me

and me staring at it,

and I was thinking, "I
can't believe he bought it."

- Say hi to our new roommate.

- After I got over that initial
shock that he bought it,

I laughed, 'cause
I couldn't believe

he spent his money on this.

Once, though, the dybbuk
box was in my house,

I really wanted to go into
this with an open mind.

I didn't want to
think that this thing

was actually haunted.

- Well, what are we
gonna do with this?

- And he said...

- I'm gonna sleep with it.

- Well, I think Sam
was really curious.

If there was any spirit
trapped in the box,

maybe antagonize
it a little bit saying,

"are you gonna
come out and play?"

- Ooh!

[Ominous piano music]

♪ ♪

[Indistinct chatter]

- It had a very prominent
spot in the living room.

We didn't ever hide the box.

- Yeah, I bought it on eBay
for, like, really cheap too

for an antique.

It was only 140 bucks.

- Once everybody got done
checking out the dybbuk box,

we would say just
kind of off-the-cuff,

"by the way, this is cursed,

"and you might have nightmares
for the rest of the semester

or possibly your life."

- Yo, guys.

- It was a big novelty,

and people were
kind of laughing around

and joking around.

- Time has come to open the box.

- Some of the girls got
quite upset and disturbed

by the fact that this was a
potentially haunted artifact.

All: Ooh.

[Rattling]

- [Screams]
- Whoa.

- [Laughs]

[All laugh]

Come on, it's funny.

- She got upset that her
hand was put in the box,

that she potentially
exposed herself

to this possessed spirit.

She was definitely freaked out,

and she was concerned
for her safety and ours.

But we were just having fun.

We were just having
pranks on people.

But there came a
point whenever...

We realized that things
were about to change.

- Hey, what's up?
- Oh, you know...

- we experienced some really
unusual things with electronics.

- How was last night?

- Oh, you know...

- studying the... [Loud popping]

Whoa! Jeez!

- Whoa.

Okay, this is...
- What the hell, man?

- What the hell just happened?

- He was telling me that
his laptop just crashed.

- Whoa.

- It was a critical failure
with the hard drive.

Well, I woke up one morning

and was getting ready to go,

and one of my roommates
came out of his bedroom,

which was next to mine,

and he looked awful.

His eyes were all bloodshot,
bloody... almost... looking,

and it looked
really, really bad.

[Insects buzzing]

And then there was these
bugs that were crawling all over.

We found them
in our living room.

They were crawling up
the walls in our bedroom.

They were in our kitchen
and our bathrooms.

They would be in the sink,
or they would be on the walls

or in the mirror
or around the toilet

or wherever it may be.

They got into everywhere.

Over the summer
and into the fall,

Sam started to become
a little bit more reclusive.

So we got to see
him less and less.

I felt really bad for Sam.

I felt that there was despair

and that he was really just done

and hopefully that
getting rid of the box

would be a turning point for him
where he could start to recover.

- I'm the director in
a medical museum.

I've always had
a love of history

and the artifacts that
tell the stories of history,

so we're always looking
at objects as puzzles

to be unraveled.

Sam was keeping
online in a personal blog

all the things that
had happened to him.

So I could actually
follow week-by-week

all of the things

that were going
on with this box.

If I could get this box,

I could rationalize
pretty much through

what I would consider
a scientific basis,

is it what it was
supposed to be?

Looking back at
the words he wrote,

there was a warning

that I probably
should have heeded

and I didn't.

- When Sam listed the
dybbuk box on eBay,

I followed the sale.

- No bid had been taken place,

so I just threw in a bid
of... I think it was 50 bucks.

- You could see the bid price

jumping up by
different dollar amounts.

It would start off with $30,

and then it jumped to
$45, and then maybe $50.

- The difference was, I had
now made the commitment

that not only would I bid,

I would buy this box.

- All of a sudden, it
would be a large jump,

and it would go up to $108

and then $150 and then $200.

- When Sam had
bought it, he'd spent $140,

and so I put in
a bid for double.

- Finally, within
the last second,

it jumped to $280.

- Yes!

- Basically, I won the bid,

and so I was very excited

once I knew the dybbuk
box could not escape me.

- I was taken back
by it at first, thinking,

"well, why would someone
spend that kind of money

on something that would
potentially ruin their lives?"

- So that night, I decided

to actually examine
the dybbuk box.

It was dark.

Everything was closed
down on campus,

and I'd had to unlock
and go through,

and all of the
minimal lights were on.

I was already aware

that both Kevin's family
and the college students

had had spontaneous illnesses

and what appeared
to be, like, infections.

It seemed good practice

to put on the white gloves

to basically examine this item

just in case there
are any contaminants.

So I dimmed the lights

and turned on the black light.

There was a little bit of glow.

It was wax,

but it did indicate to me

that someone had lit a candle,

and it had dripped on
the outside of the box.

It made me think,

"this actually could
have been used ritually."

So the next thing was to see
what was contained inside.

The moment just
before opening the doors,

I kind of just wondered
what would happen.

[Rattling]

[Rattling]

- Like, I guess I
kind of expected

that if this thing
really was haunted,

it would happen immediately,

and so in opening it up

and seeing all
these other pieces...

And yet, the stillness,

there was no strange
things happening.

It was like, "okay,

well, maybe it's just
a historical piece."

But I didn't realize
how wrong I was

and what was yet to come.

Within days of it
being in the museum,

the computers were crashing.

- Yes, I've tried turning
the computer on and off.

- We were losing
valuable information,

weeks of work.

- Yeah, well, my
colleague's going

through the exact
same thing right now.

- And then the lightbulbs.

[Popping]

And what was odd about it,

it was the bulbs all around
where the dybbuk box...

Where they were all going out.

And just... then things
seemed to get a whole lot worse.

- Okay, well, I guess
we've explored every option

from "a" to "z."

- The staff felt a
depletion of energy, illness.

They made it clear
that this artifact

was an unwelcome guest.

- Listen, I'm losing
my whole office here.

I got to go.

- And then I knew
I had to take it out

of the museum.

I had no choice.

I have a lockable
back part of my truck,

and it was secured in there.

But just driving home,
you know, I just felt

that I was forced
against the wall.

I really didn't want
to take it home,

but I thought I had no option.

And that night was
completely restless.

I kept having dreams of
these sunken-eyed old women,

and then their
face would literally

just dissolve into the
most ghastly injuries

as if the flesh was
being torn and ripped.

I'd wake from these in shock

only to go back into sleep,

and it started all over again,

the same women
with gray, flyaway hair

and sunken eyes,

and it just happened
all night long.

- [Screaming]

- [Panting]

[Groans]

- When I woke that morning,

I was just glad just to be up.

- [Sighs]

[Breathes heavily]

- And I was thinking,

"could I have done
this to myself?"

- What's wrong with your eyes?

- I don't know.

- Things in my life
had gotten really bad.

I mean, things had
gotten really bad.

Health issues, family
concerned and upset.

It wasn't long after umm
that my son and I were...

It was an evening hour together

down in where the TV was on.

And all of a sudden,
he calls over to me...

- [Whispering] Dad.

Dad.
- Yeah, buddy?

- What is it?

- What?

- Look.

- It looked like flames,

this black mass,

and he's looking and
going, "what is that?"

And I see the true
fear in my son's eyes.

I was worried about my family.

Now it's taking over my life.

I'd explored the
scientific side,

and there was no explanation

for what was
going on in science,

not to me.

I was thinking, if this box

truly had something
trapped in it

and I'd released it

that I needed to do something

to seal it again.

We have this rental
property that had a cellar.

It wasn't being used,
and so I decided

that I would take the
dybbuk box over there,

and that is where I felt
would be the best place

to isolate the box.

As I'm finishing
up this process,

the sound as if wind is
building in the space...

[Clattering]

And yet there is nothing
that could create this.

We're completely entombed.

[Wind rushing]

Then I locked the
door to the basement.

Then I was done with it.

It was gone.

[Rattling]

- [Sighs]

- I now needed to finish it,

which was to wash myself free

of any attachment of
anything that was connected

to me being in the
presence of this evil.

The steam and the heat,

it's invigorating.

It's really powerful.

- Jason?

- All of a sudden,

something's
tearing inside of me.

- Jason?

- And then it just comes out,

this gelluous mucus.

- [Coughing]

- Something I've never
had out of my body

was in my hands.

- [Gagging]

- There's no way to explain it.

It just happened,
and I was in disbelief.

- Jason?

- Yet I also knew that
something came out of me.

- Jason?
- What?

- Open the door.

I got to show you
something. You got to see this.

- Okay.

- And outside the door, I
hear my wife yelling to me

about something about
poison Ivy and jeans.

- Jason, open the door.
- What?

- What is this?

Have you ever
seen anything like it?

Look at it.

- And what I'm seeing
are watery blisters

that have broken out with blood,

and they're all over,
and it's swelling.

I needed to kind of get
this thing taken care of.

I needed to finish it.

I needed to find Kevin mannis,

the original owner
of this dybbuk box.

[Phone ringing]

- I got a call in the
middle of the night.

- [Clears throat]

Hello?

- And I hung up on him.

I was frightened that
somebody had a problem

that I was going to
have to try and solve

or I was gonna have
to take that box back.

[Phone rings]

The phone rang again,

and Jason said, "please
don't hang up on me.

"Talk with me about this.

It's very, very important."

- Within a few minutes of
the conversation with Kevin,

I knew that I was no longer
alone with this problem,

that he was going
to work with me

and help me come to some
way of getting this out of my life.

- I went looking for the house

and had a hard
time finding it at first.

Couldn't remember
exactly where it was,

and it took me a little
bit to finally locate it.

- Hi, um...

- I told her that I was trying
to get some information

about the box.

- I bought this box.
- I think you should leave.

- I wasn't gonna get anywhere,
so I started to take off.

And I had made it
maybe 10 or 15 steps

when I thought she said...

- I know exactly
why you're here.

- There was a little old lady

drilling me with her eyes.

The woman introduced
herself as Sophie

and said she was the
cousin of the woman

who had passed away, havola.

And so I listened.

She said that she had
lived with havola in Poland

prior to world war ii.

At that time, it was kind
of the rage in Europe

to have seances, to
contact the other side,

to play with games like that.

And havola had made
what looked like a ouija board

that was made
out of a tablecloth.

And on the tablecloth,
she had embroidered

letters of the alphabet,

and they would
take a little pendant.

And as they would ask
questions, the pendant would swing

and either spell out a word

or answer a question
that they asked.

- [Gasps]

[Distorted buzzing]

- During the
course of doing this,

they felt like they
had contacted a spirit

that started asking
them to bring it over

from the dark side,

and they became suspicious

that what they had
actually contacted

was a dybbuk,

a dark, evil entity
that would try

to grab on to
one of their souls.

So they devised a ritual

where they would be
able to bring this thing over

and trap it in a box.

[Clattering]

- [Screams]

- That's why havola,
the grandmother,

had been so emphatic.

- Don't open the box,
because what's inside...

- Because what was inside
was so dark and so terrible.

Apparently, when I bought it

and brought it back
down to my shop

and opened it up
for the first time,

I released it.

- The story that Kevin told me

was like nothing I'd ever heard.

It seemed almost too
impossible to make up.

It seemed very real,

he was very earnest about it,

and it started to
make some sense.

I contacted rabbis
and got the information

on the best means
to seal this spirit away.

Some people may
think this is a hoax,

but every person that
has come in contact

with this box

has suffered sickness,

calamity,

misfortune.

- I know that when
I owned this box,

terrible, awful, rotten
things happened to me.

When I got rid of it, they
stopped happening to me.

- Everything that
happened that was bad

was because of the box.

- People have asked me,

"what would it take
to buy the box?"

I wouldn't sell it to anyone.

It weighs on my mind,

because eventually,
something will change.

I'm not gonna be here forever.

The one dilemma
is having this thing

and not knowing
what to do with it.

For now, it is safe.