Finally had a chance to listen to the show.
At first, my BS detector was going off so much, it was hard to hear what the guest was saying. But as the discussion went along, I was drawn in more, especially when David brought up his experiences.
Then, towards the end of the program, I was struck by the story Offutt told of a woman he interviewed whose encounters with a "shadow person" were preceded by an
audible heartbeat in the house.
That brought something to mind that I hadn't thought about since I don't know when: a story my father told me long ago, then we all forgot about it.
The event would have taken place around
1972 or '74. My family was living on a corner of the little homestead my Irish ancestors carved out of the rolling hills of Wisconsin back in the 1870s. My ancestors established then helped build the little Catholic church that was the center of their farming community, and that church was only 1 mile from my house. It was flanked by the customary cemetery and large rectory, where the parish priest lived.
As my father tells the story, I would have been barely out of diapers at the time, fast asleep when
our phone rang at about 10 or 11 p.m. one night. My father answered the phone, and
it was our parish priest. He was
obviously upset, my dad said, and he asked if my parents would
please come out to the rectory right away. He didn't offer details, but I suppose the tone in his voice made my dad understand that
whatever had happened was too important to waste time talking about on the phone.
My parents and grandparents were always heavily involved in our little church, and we had our priests over for supper all the time. I think Father must have felt
he could trust my parents, plus we were so close that Dad could get there in just five minutes.
Father was waiting for my dad at the door to the rectory, looking
pale and obviously shaken. As Dad walked up to the house,
all the windows were lit up as though Father had turned every single light on. This was a very large two story, 6-bedroom house, with an office, living room, dining room, and kitchen/dining area on the first floor--all the bedrooms were upstairs. They quickly went into the living room, the largest room on the first floor, and
Dad asked what was wrong.
Father then told him that he was so sorry to call so late at night, but
he just couldn't stand up to it any more by himself. And living out in the middle of nowhere as we did,
he didn't know what else to do.
He told my dad that
the house was breathing, that the Devil was in the house. But as soon as my dad arrived, the breathing had stopped, Father said. Of course this wasn't the sort of thing my dad expected to hear. His first thought was that that was crazy, but then again he had known and respected Father for more than a few years, and he had to believe that
if he said he heard the house breathing, then he must have heard the house breathing! And why would he say the Devil was there if something hadn't happened to make that clear to him? And he couldn't stand up to it anymore himself.
My dad stayed and talked with Father for maybe the next hour or so, not about the breathing but about anything else he could think of
until Father had calmed down and said he was going to be fine, and Dad could go back home. And from that day on,
Father never uttered another word about it. And my dad never brought it up with him, either.
So there you have it--take it for what it's worth. There was
no mention of shadow people, but a weird breathing sound and then
something other than just that sound of breathing must have manifested itself that night in that house. Guess we'll never know what, though.
