The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren (5 page)

The general stopped for a moment to put on his glasses. “I grant you, none of this is terribly important unless put into perspective. One of the responsibilities of the commanding officer here is social protocol. In this house, we receive our fair share of government leaders and Army brass. Recently, on special occasions, some potentially serious events have occurred. Wallets have been stolen, pockets have been picked, money and personal mementos have been taken from eminent dignitaries and their wives. Later, all the stolen items are found upstairs, neatly laid out on the dresser in our master bedroom.” The Warrens sat mum, taking in the unique nature of the problem.

“This foolishness
cannot continue
,” the general said forcefully. “Yet we know that no person has committed these actions. So my question to you (Mr. Warren, Mrs. Warren) is the following: if this is a ghost—and I stress,
if
it is—then you tell me: can a ghost manipulate physical objects?”

“Yes,” Ed answered, “it can. Providing the objects are of no significant weight, such as the ones you describe.”

“All right then,” the general said, “does this sound like a ghost to you?”

“Based on what you say, yes,” Ed answered. “In fact, it is quite probable that a human spirit is at work here because the items did not disappear
completely.
”

Taken aback by the reply, the general looked at Ed for a moment. “Would you be able to tell if there is a ghost in this house that steals wallets?”

Lorraine saw this as her opportunity to reply: “Sir, I am a clairvoyant. The best thing would be for us to walk the house. This would allow me to determine if in fact a spirit is causing the disturbance. It’s the best test.”

The general and his wife agreed, and the group rose to their feet. Ed and Major Wilson headed for the basement with the key to the downstairs study. As usual, the bunk was torn apart, as though someone had been sleeping in it. Yet nothing else was disturbed. They closed up the room and headed back upstairs. In the first-floor kitchen, Major Wilson showed Ed a cutting board with a wet spot on it. “It almost dries,” he told him, “but every afternoon, it gets wet again!”

Elsewhere accompanied by the general and his wife, Lorraine stood with her eyes closed in the center of the downstairs rooms, beginning with the sitting room, trying to perceive any invisible presence.

Nothing was apparent on the first floor, although Lorraine found herself somewhat transfixed in one of the mansion’s back bedrooms. “This room,” she said, “this room right here is where John Kennedy stayed whenever he visited the Point. The vibrations in here are truly beautiful.”

A bit amazed, the general’s wife told Lorraine that she was right: “This
was
the President’s bedroom: he couldn’t climb the stairs because of his back.”

After leaving the first floor of the Thayer mansion, the general’s wife led the way up a banistered staircase to the second floor. In each room, Lorraine picked up impressions of the powerful individuals who had spent time in the house, but hardly any sense of a mischievous spirit.

In one upstairs bedroom, Lorraine again paused for long moments. “An elderly woman spent a long time in this room,” she mused. “The woman would often stand by that open veranda and look out to a field."

Lorraine walked to the window. In the distance, she saw the cadets standing in formation on the parade ground; then she turned back into the room. “This was a very wise woman who shared a burden with a man in her life. She counseled him... but the man was not her husband.”

“The man is Douglas MacArthur,” said the general. “The old woman is his mother. This was Mrs. MacArthur’s bedroom when her son was Superintendent here.”

The upstairs group then walked back down to the sitting room, where everyone met once again. “After walking the whole house,” Lorraine admitted, “I did not feel the presence of anyone who would be responsible for causing the phenomena that you described. On the other hand, it is possible that a spirit has deliberately avoided us.”

“Is there any way of finding that out?” asked the major.

“Yes,” answered Lorraine, “this could be determined in the trance state.”

A concerned expression crossed the major’s face. “Does this mean we have to hold a séance?”

“No,” she laughed, “I’d just have to sit down sometime this evening, once the hubbub and vibrations of the day have died down.”

With Lorraine’s consent, it was decided to hold a gathering in the mansion after the evening lecture. If the problem could perhaps be solved once and for all, it was at least worth a try.

At a cordial dinner held at six o’clock that evening, the Warrens were introduced to officers of the West Point faculty who, with their wives, proved extremely curious about the whole subject of the supernatural. At eight, Ed and Lorraine presented a general lecture on spirits to a wide-eyed Army audience. The Warrens illustrated their talk as usual with slides of ghosts, apparitions, and other unusual phenomena, which brought the customary response of “Ooo”s and “Wow”s. Although the lecture was received with enthusiasm, none of the cadets thought for a moment that such things could go on at the Point.

During the question session at the end of the lecture, a young lady in her thirties stood up and told the Warrens that she felt it was a good time to say something she’d been carrying around all her life. She wanted everyone to know that what the Warrens were talking about was true. These unusual things
do
go on. Her father was the flight leader of that squadron of fighters lost over the Bermuda Triangle in 1945 and he never returned home. He and the other men were really lost at sea. And though people might like to think it’s some sort of hoax, it isn’t.

When she sat down, the entire audience spontaneously erupted into cheers and applause. Seeing this as the perfect opportunity to end the lecture, Ed saluted the cadets and bid everyone good night.

Five minutes later, the Warrens were on their way back to the Thayer Mansion with the officer, plus a private group of officers and their wives whom the Warrens had met at dinner. Lorraine explained to the major that she felt Mrs. MacArthur’s bedroom was the most favorable place to attempt communication.

The major in turn told Lorraine that the general and his wife had to depart for New York by helicopter at ten. Though elsewhere on campus, they would stop by the mansion before leaving.

“Fair enough,” she replied.

Upon being met at the front door by a staff aide, the group made its way upstairs to the MacArthur bedroom, where the officers and their wives found seats on the floor. Lorraine sat on the bed. (“A bed,” notes Lorraine, “where people spend a third of their life sleeping, is an excellent source of vibrations.”) All lights were turned off but one, and Lorraine closed her eyes.

“I see a black man approaching,” she soon said, speaking out loud like a newscaster. “He’s wearing a dark uniform with no braid or decoration. This man is with us now.”

Eyes darted around the room, but no such figure was visible.

“This man is overtaken with a sense of fear, guilt, and lack of acceptance. He feels very sorry for something.” Lorraine stopped, her body tense, her arms straight out beside her. “He’s speaking to me now. He tells me that he has been accused of murder. His cell is in the basement. But the Army has ex—ex
on
erated him of that murder. He is very, very sorry and he cannot hold his sorrow any longer. This is why he has been taking wallets... he wants the Army to know his sorrow.”

Everyone in the room sat silent, waiting to hear more.

“What is your name, young man?” Lorraine asked. “Tell me your name.... He tells me his name is Greer. He spells it G-R-E-E-R. What is the date?... It is the early eighteenth—no, it is the early eighteen-hundreds. He doesn’t know the date anymore. He says he just wants his sorrow to be understood. He wants to know who I am.”

Lorraine, deep in trance, began to bend forward. Ed told her to lean back.

“Mr. Greer,” she said, “I have been sent by the Army to find out your problem.... No, Mr. Greer, you are
not
held in dishonor,” she said in an apparent reply. “Your exoneration was for a purpose. It is on the records that the death you caused was not a murder. Your exoneration stands.

“Listen to me, Mr. Greer. Your sorrow is understood by the Army. But it is only proper that your sorrow be over. There is nothing we can do for you.
You
are holding yourself back;
you
must exonerate yourself. Enough time has passed. It is now the twentieth century—this is the nineteen-seventies. You do not understand the present day. Each time you take belongings from an important person, you put the Army in a very dangerous position.... He tells me he has no more need to do this. He feels confused. He wants to come back to life...."

Lorraine’s arms slackened, then she began to drift away from the trance.

“Lorraine,” Ed said forcefully, "stay with him. Try to send him on."

Lorraine sat silent for long moments, and then again spoke. "To live again, Mr. Greer, you must go to the light. It is time for you to surrender yourself and begin again. Everyone must do this. Focus on the light and step toward it. Go to your friends and family. Go home to the light, Mr. Greer. Focus on the light and be drawn toward it...."

Lorraine suddenly snapped awake, her eyes wide open. "He’s gone. I lost him," she declared.

The lights were switched back on as the officers and their wives rose to their feet, speaking in anxious hushed tones. Lorraine, standing in the center of the group, gave a complete description of the man and said at the end, Greer had simply vanished.

Shortly thereafter, the entourage made its way downstairs and left, while the Warrens and the major waited in the sitting room. A few minutes later the general and his wife arrived. Lorraine briefly reviewed the communication she’d had, noting in conclusion: "I didn’t get the impression that Greer really wanted to be here. In a way, I think he was just waiting to be dismissed. After this, I seriously doubt that any more pockets will be picked. But if it does happen again, please let me know—there
are
things I can do at a distance."

"That’s very nice of you," said the general. "However, there’s one small item. No black man has ever served at the Point until this century. But I promise you, the major will have this matter checked out completely in the next few weeks."

As they spoke in the foyer, a helicopter could be heard descending outside. It was time to go. After an exchange of gratitude and farewell on the front steps, the general and his wife crossed the lawn and boarded a large service helicopter bound for New York. The Warrens slipped into the back seat of the waiting limousine, wondering if Greer had indeed ended his travail of over a century.

A few weeks later, while lecturing at Boston University, Ed and Lorraine were called from the stage to take a telephone call from West Point. The Army wanted them to know that a complete and thorough search of the records had been made. It was discovered that a black man, a porter by the name of Greer,
had
served at the Point. Assigned to the Thayer Mansion in the early nineteenth century, he’d been accused of a murder, but the Army exonerated him of it. His records had been out of order, and he would now be filed as "Deceased." "And by the way, the next time you lecture at the Point, could you please do something about the ghost of a Civil War cavalryman who refuses to leave one of the dormitory rooms? We need the space."

Of course, the Army is not the only large organization that has recently had to contend with a ghost. After the crash of one of its L-1011 jetliners in the Everglades, Eastern Airlines experienced recurring spirit phenomena on its planes, as was reported in
The Ghost of Flight 401.
In the year following the disaster, many hundreds of people reportedly witnessed the spirits of the deceased crew members in full physical form aboard other Tristar jets. On one occasion, the voice of the spirit of Don Repo, the flight engineer killed in the crash, was allegedly captured on the flight recorder when he materialized in the cockpit and spoke with crew members. Sometimes it is possible to deny or ignore that such unusual events occur. However, on such occasions as at West Point, when phenomena simply will not go away, the most direct route is to acknowledge that something
is
there—if only to stop it from happening.

"Actually," as Ed points out, "it’s a credit to the Army that they considered the supernatural as a valid option. In my travels, I’ve often found that people who
don’t
believe in ghosts, many times
won’t
believe in them. They see the supernatural as something threatening, so they blot out the information. Fortunately, these Army officers didn’t adjust an unpleasant reality to suit their purposes. Instead, they analyzed the data, logically weighed the evidence, and came to a rational conclusion that led to the solution of the problem."

When one brings up the subject of ghosts, the mind almost automatically conjures up images of haunted castles and manor houses in England. In the Warrens’ experience, are there more ghosts in England or in America?

"I was asked the same question in London by the BBC not long ago," Ed responds. "There are places in the world that are
really
haunted, and many of those places are in England. Borley Rectory, for example, is a virtual doorway to the supernatural, as it has been for hundreds of years. One need only read the late Harry Price’s books, such as
Poltergeist Over England,
to find that out. But by far, there are more ghosts in America than in England. The reason is a matter of numbers. Although the day-to-day level of spirit activity is about the same the world over, there are simply more people in America. In other words, where there’s a very large population, there is also a greater probability that some of them will get caught up in the ghost syndrome when they die."

Where in America would a person be most likely to encounter a ghost?

"In terms of
physical
places," Ed replies, "we’ve found that one is most likely to confront a ghost in old, isolated buildings. Farmhouses or older brick homes built near the sea during the colonization of America have the greatest
potential
for being haunted because of the generations of people who have lived and died there. But ghosts don’t appear only in haunted houses. For example, recently a number of people around here, including our assistant Judy, commented on seeing an adult man in a trenchcoat pacing out in the road at night in front of our house—though he disappeared whenever anyone got close! It turned out that a few days before, a young man brought us some jagged parts from Flight 401, that jetliner that went down in the Everglades. The very moment he handed the first part to Lorraine, the young man standing next to her saw the apparition of Don Repo—the flight engineer on the jet. It was the same man who had been seen on the road. He was pacing and waiting because, as coincidence would have it, we were meeting with relatives of his family later that week, at which time Lorraine saw him and another apparition present during the entire length of our discussions. By the way, I should also mention that the name
Steward
or
Stewart
came through to Lorraine the minute she began psychometrizing the 401 parts.”