You will not find a person who has not at least heard about the films "The Conjuring" or "The Curse of Annabelle". But few people know that the plot of these films is based on real events, namely, on the investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren, behind which more than 10 thousand paranormal cases, many books, as well as their own cinematic universe ("The Conjuring" and "Conjuring-2", "The Curse of Annabelle" and "The Curse of the Nun" based on their research). Despite the criticism, scientists tried to understand the cause of supernatural phenomena, to help people who encountered them, and even enjoyed the support of the Vatican, consulting the Catholic Church on all kinds of spiritualistic manifestations.
How it all began
In 1943, 17-year-old Ed Warren met Lorraine Rita Moran, who at that time was 16. Soon he was drafted into the navy, but managed to propose to the young beauty, and she agreed. The couple had a lot in common, for example, they had a craving for the supernatural since childhood, but the desire to study strange phenomena seriously appeared only at the end of the war.
Lorraine considered herself a medium, and Ed, despite the fact that he worked in the police, devoted all his time to the study of the paranormal, involving his wife in this. The couple began to travel around the country in search of people faced with the inexplicable, and tried to help them. As time went on, more and more experience was accumulated, the couple became famous, and doctors, scientists, policemen and members of the clergy began to help them in their investigations.
In 1952, a couple who studied supernatural phenomena founded the New England Society for Psychical Research (the oldest in existence), as well as the Warren Occult Museum, which still attracts many people from all over the world.
The curse of Annabelle
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Annabelle is a doll from the "Rag Annie" series. It was bought at a thrift store in 1968 for a nurse student named Donna, who had no idea what she was facing. The girl lived with her friend Angie, and after the toy got into the house, neighbors began to notice very strange phenomena taking place in their room. The doll was not in the place where it was originally, the doors and windows opened by themselves, and once Donna and Angie found Annabelle standing in the kitchen and leaning with a rag hand on a chair - and this despite the fact that when the girls tried to put it themselves, then she fell, because her legs were also rag.
They were forced to ask the priest for help by a case when Angie left a pen and paper next to the toy, and when she entered the room, she found a clumsy inscription “Help”. Hegan's father advised the students to contact Ed and Lorraine Warren to sort out and solve the problem. During the study, the researchers admitted that a demon is imprisoned in the doll and it must be isolated (the toy is still in the Warren Museum). After the cleansing ceremony was held in the house, paranormal events ceased to bother the girls, and this story became the basis for the movie "The Curse of Annabelle".
Amityville Horror
On the night of November 13, 1974, in Amityville, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo shot and killed his family of 6 people, including younger sisters and brothers. At the trial, Ronald said that the voice in his head made him kill, which literally begged the young man to commit a crime for 28 days in a row. Despite the strange statement, he was found sane and sent to prison to serve 6 life sentences.
About a year after the sad events, this house was bought by the Lutz family. At first everything was as usual, but after a short period of time, George, Katie and their 3 children began to notice strange phenomena: either a huge number of flies settle in the attic, then inexplicable smells and sounds fill the whole mansion, and when their 5-year-old daughter Missy began to tell about their new "friends" - a boy (suspiciously similar to a murdered child) and a creature that resembles a pig with red eyes - the parents sounded the alarm. The priest tried to consecrate the house, but it only got worse. The father of the family began to wake up regularly at 3:15 am (the estimated time of the murder of the DeFeo family), and the morale of the rest of the household left much to be desired. After 28 days of living in Amityville, the Lutz packed up and left the cursed place.
Less than a month later, the Warrens came to this house, along with a team of parapsychologists and equipment, to conduct their investigation. During their research, Ed and Lorraine came to the conclusion that John Ketchum, an adept of black magic, was buried on the site of this house. According to the Warrens, such a "legacy" is guaranteed to attract suffering and pain to this mansion. These events became the basis for the movie "The Amityville Horror". Later, the damned house was bought for $ 950 thousand, and its current owners carried out a complete reconstruction.
Enfield poltergeist
This case of poltergeist manifestation is the most documented, and it really excited the British public. In the late 70s, the Hodgson family was forced to turn to specialists studying the paranormal, due to the fact that strange and dangerous things were happening in their house. Furniture moved around the room without assistance, all household members heard footsteps, and little Jannet began to speak in a man's voice and spontaneously rise into the air.
Within a month, 30 people investigated everything that was happening and came to the conclusion that something was really going on in the house. For a long time, Peggy Hodgson and her 4 young children suffered from heightened attention, ridicule, criticism and incessant paranormal activity. In 1978, the Warren couple came to Anfield to investigate the matter and help desperate family members. Ed and Lorraine confirmed the hypothesis of mediums: the spirit of the former owner of the mansion Billy Wilkins, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage, enters into Janet.
In the same year, the poltergeist ceased to manifest itself after the ritual of cleansing the house, nevertheless, Jannet and her mother sometimes heard footsteps at night or felt a glance, but the violent manifestation of evil spirits was no longer observed. After Peggy Hodgson's death, the Bennett family bought the house, but they did not stay there for long because of the oppressive feeling that someone was watching them. These events became the basis of the movie "The Conjuring-2".
The Perron Family Affair
In January 1971, the Perron family moved into a huge farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Immediately upon arrival, Carolyn, Roger and their 5 daughters received unusual advice from neighbors: "For the welfare of your family, leave the light for the night!", But did not attach any importance to this, because the last money of the family was spent on buying real estate and changing something Roger and Carolyn were not going to.
After a while, the mother of the family drew attention to the first seemingly harmless oddities - objects disappeared from their usual places. Further events took an even more unexpected turn: benevolent ghosts almost nursed the children, kissing them on the forehead at night and straightening the bed. However, the idyll did not last long, and soon the Perron girls announced that some dark entities attacked them in the barn and began to whisper that 7 soldiers were buried within the walls of their house. Then outright terror began, from which Carolyn suffered most of all: the woman's spirit directly threatened her with reprisals if she did not get out of the house. And when things began to take a very nasty turn, the friend of Cynthia (one of the daughters) brought in the Warren couple to help.
Lorraine from the doorway said that there is a powerful dark energy in the house and, if you do not start the ritual of purification, the situation will only worsen. The investigators began to drive out the evil spirit of Bathsheba Thayer, the former mistress of the estate and, according to rumors, a witch who sold her soul to the devil and took possession of Carolyn's body, but something went wrong and the poor woman became even worse. For many years, the Warrens tried to help the possessed mother of the family, but Bathsheba did not let her go, and the vexed father of the family drove the researchers out. The family could not move due to financial difficulties, but after 9 years of hell, Roger managed to sell the house and take the family to another state, and later Andrea Perron will write a book about how she and her family lived in Harrisville.
This investigation was considered one of the most difficult by the Warrens in their 50-year career, and while much has changed in The Conjuring, it is still worth watching to get a better understanding of the Perron family history.
