Hello, it's Richard mcclin smith Here. Season seven of Unexplained will begin on Friday, July twenty eighth, as we replay some of our favorite episodes in the meantime. This week, we're going back to July twenty eighteen for me. The Spanish film Veronica, directed by Paco Plaza and released in twenty seventeen, is without doubt one of the best horror films depicting demonic possession of recent times. Incredibly, the true
story it's based on is even more terrifying. Incidentally, if you want my absolute favorite film about possession, which also happens to be just one of the greatest films of all time, that would be Andre Zelewski's nineteen eighty one masterpiece Possession. But for now, Here's Unexplained, Season three, Episode seven shadow play. To paraphrase author Terry Pratchett, though light might think it travels fastest, darkness appears always to find
a way of arriving first. Wherever light goes, it seems the darkness is already there, ready in waiting. In the United States, Detroit Institute of Arts hangs a strange and captivating painting of an unconscious woman dressed in white, her body stretched out across a bed, with her arms and head dangling toward the floor. Squatting on her chest, staring out at the picture with dark red eyes is a
peculiar and somewhat grotesque cherubic imp. Though the woman is bathed in light, the imp, clearly a creature of the night, resolutely remains steadfastly, refusing to be cast back into the shadows, and in the darkness beyond, another creature is emerging, a
black horse with flared nostrils and bright white eyes. The Nightmare, painted by Henry Fuselli in seventeen eighty one, serves as an ironic repost to the Enlightenment, Europe's pervading cultural movement of the day, or, as art historian doctor Noel Paulson puts it, the painting demonstrates the ultimate futility of light to penetrate or explore the darker realms of the unconscious.
For many, myself included, the picture brings to mind the terrifying and vivid effects of sleep paralysis, an uncanny phenomenon that can result in the seemingly very real experience of believing you have woken from sleep, only to find yourself
completely paralyzed. Though I am now familiar with the experience enough to know it when it happens, what I have never grown used to are the occasions when I believe I have woken up to find not only am I unable to move, but that there is a shadowy humanoid creature standing over me. Much worse, when that figure scurries out from the corner of the room and launches itself
at me as I fight to regain consciousness. It was some time before I discovered others had also had similar experiences to myself, and that these illusory creatures had a name, shadow people. The terms modern iteration was popularized by Art Bell, the much missed late night talk show host who sadly died in April of this year. It was back in April two thousand one that Art dedicated an entire episode of his pioneering Coast to Coast AM show to the
discussion of the phenomena. Listening to it again recently, I was struck by how similar my own experiences had been to those described by his listeners, but also how different some of them were, too, like the ones where listeners claimed to have seen shadow people when they were wide awake, for example, or those who had come across their children talking to themselves late at night, only for their children
to tell them that they weren't talking to themselves. The episode reminded me also of a deeply unsettling story I came across recently, regarding the twenty seventeen film Veronica. The film tells the story of a teenage girl from a suburb in Madrid who dies in terrifying circumstances after fooling around with a Ouiji board. Many may, no doubt have seen the film, but did you know that it was based on a true story. You're listening to unexplained and
I'm Richard mc lean smith. Please, said the operator. You need to calm down. You say there's someone in your house. No, not some one, came back, the desperate voice on the other end of the line. Something please hurry. Maximo Gutierrez had placed the call to his local police station in the early hours of November twenty seventh, nineteen ninety two, going on to explain that his family were being terrorized by something in their apartment and that they didn't know
what to do. The operator listened with amusement as Maximo frantically recounted the events of that night. He had been woken by the screams of his terrified wife, Concepcion, shouting about some one she couldn't see, pressing down on her chest and grabbing at her arms and legs. Within seconds, an incessant banging could be heard reverberating around the flat. Concepcion screams, along with the terrible thumps, had brought four of the couple's five children racing in fear into the bedroom.
Their fifth child, being a young baby, was now crying in its cot, panicked by all the commotion. Moments later, the petrified family gathered in the living room, only to watch with horror as the crucifix nailed to the wall seemingly turned upside down on its own accord. Maximo concluded that they had decided to stay together in the family
room since they were too afraid to leave the apartment. Why, asked the operator, Because there was something standing at the end of the hallway blocking their way out, he replied. Wary of how all this might sound, Maximo passed the phone around his wife and children, who all repeated the same to the operator with equal desperation. If their story seemed confusing to the officer. The distress in their voices
at least was real enough. The officer duly advised Maximo to keep the family together and try to stay calm, and offered to send a squad car to investigate at the first available opportunity. It would be another forty minutes, however, before Chief Inspector Jose Pedro Negri, along with four other armed officers, pulled up alongside the vast thirteen story housing
block on Calier Louis Marin. The street was located in the Veyeka district of Madrid in Spain, a proud and tight working class neighborhood on the southeastern fringes of the city. On exiting the car into the freezing night air, the offices were surprised to find the family, including the baby, whose conception clasped firmly to her chest, now standing in a huddle in the entrance way to the apartment block.
Approaching them from across the road, it was clear to the bespectacled Inspector Negri that they were in a state of deep distress. Maximo explained that they had been unable to withstand the strange activity any longer and finally plucked up the courage to abandon the apartment. Moments later, having been reassured by the presence of the police, Maximo, followed by the rest of the family, led the offices into
the building and towards the apartment. Anxious faces peered out from behind half closed doors as the family and police officers made their way along the narrow hallway, with Inspector Negri assuring each one as they passed that all was fine and to go back inside. Finally, Maximo stopped through here, he said, pointing the way into the flat. Negree could clearly see the reticence on the family's faces as they lingered outside the entrance. Taking the lead, he made his
way inside, followed closely behind by the other officers. Clean and well kept, if a little cramped for a family of seven, the flat seemed much like any other family home that Negrie had visited, with the exception of one thing. On stepping into the living room, Negrew's attention had been caught immediately by what looked like some kind of shrine.
Lined up along the mantel piece of a back wall, a row of vases filled with bright plastic flowers, small angel figurines made from porcelain, and just above it, in the middle of the wall, hung a large painting of a girl, and underneath it was the original photo of the same, all watched over by the beatific face of Jesus. Come and sit, said Maximo, inviting the police to join him around the dining table. The officers looked to each other with concern, having expected to be chasing out an
intruder by now. It will only happen when we are calm, he continued. The officers sat down at the table while the rest of the family gathered round, a look of apprehension on their faces. Negree watched intrigued as Conception collected herself, before nodding to one of her children to switch off the light. Though it was dark, Negree was still able to see all the family gathered close to the table when the sound of a cupboard door creaking open broke
the silence. Moments later, another door was opened suddenly, before violently slamming back shut with an almighty bank. An officer jumped from the table and swiftly turned on the light, revealing at the far side of the room a cupboard door which had been closed when they sat down was now wide open. Inspector Negrey walked over to the door and pushed it shut, expecting it to loosely swing back open,
but it remained firmly shut. He turned back to the family and looked again to the shrine along the back wall. Her name was Estefania, the couple's third child. She had died just over a year ago, explained Conception, before proceeding to tell the offices about everything that had happened ever since. It had all started after the death of Conception's father in nineteen ninety, when he had fallen gravely ill that year.
Although they had rarely got on, Conception requested that the family gather round his hospital bedside to comfort him in his final moments. However, it was reported that the elderly man, still bitter and cantankerous from many years of family feuds, was unmoved by the gesture, vowing that not even death would prevent him from continuing to be a nuisance to
the family. A short time after the old man died, Estefania, who was sixteen at the time, arrived at school one morning, shocked to discover that her friend's boyfriend had been tragically killed in a motorcycle accident. At some point, perhaps in an effort to alleviate her friend's suffering, Estefania made a peculiar suggestion, what if she thought they tried to contact him.
Her friend, who had been understandably devastated by the death, leapt at the opportunity, desperate for any comfort she might find. A few days later, Estefania set off on the short journey to the Colegio Aragon, located barely five minutes walk from her family's apartment, with something extra peeking out of
her rucksack, her Wigi board. That afternoon, she and her friend, along with another classmate, made their way to the back of the playing field, finding a quiet, secluded spot in the shadow of the nearby Callia Louis Marin apartment blocks. With the three of them sat cross legged in a semicircle. Estefania laid the board out in front of them as another of the girls removed a glass tumbler from her bag, turned it upside down, and placed it in the middle
of the board. It wasn't clear how long they had been sat there when the teacher found them, asking questions into the air with their fingers lightly touching the glass. As it moved around the board. When the teacher demanded to know what was going on, it was said that the glass shot off the board and smashed into pieces soon after. One of the girls would later claim that in that moment, a strange, dark vapor was released from the glass, rising like the smoke of a recently blown
out candle, straight up and into Estefania's knows. The teacher, scolding the children, demanded their return to class immediately, before picking up the board and breaking it in two. It was only a few weeks later when the voices started. The first time Estefania heard them, they were little more than whispers in the night, hurriedly spoken words she couldn't quite discern, But soon she found she could understand them.
They were calling out her name, and it wasn't long before she could see them too, wispy, shadowy shapes that seemed to flicker in the edges of rooms. It was clear to her that they were stalking her. Conception had noticed the quiet change in Estefania, how she had become irritable and withdrawn. At first, she merely put it down to the shock of her friend's boyfriend's death, but after hearing about the incident at the school, she began to wonder if it might not in some way be related.
One morning, after hearing a commotion coming from her daughter's bedroom, Conception found her lying rigid on her bed and foaming at the mouth, with her eyes rolled in to the back of her head. Moments later, Estefania came to with no recollection of the event. For the next six months, she would be plagued by similar incidences. Conception, who had suffered for years from epilepsy, began to wonder if her
daughter was suffering from a similar infliction. However, after countless trips to various doctors and hospitals, nobody was able to give a satisfactory diagnosis. One evening, Conception found Estefania sat upright in her bed, her eyes wide with terror. They were beckoning me to go with them, she said. Her mother could only look on aghast, trying her best to comfort her daughter, who would later request that, if the time came, that she be buried with a photo of
her mother and father. On Tuesday, August thirteenth, Mariannella, Estefania's sister, entered the bedroom they shared together, only to find Estefania in a peculiar state. Having at first not registered the sister's presence, Estefania turned toward her suddenly, before leaping from the bed and trying to grab her, managing to jump away just in time. Marionella could only watch on in horror as her sister then collapsed to the floor, convulsing violently.
The fit lasted only a few minutes before Estefania regained full consciousness, but again having no recollection of the event. That evening, Estefania went for a walk with her boyfriend in the warm summer air, returning home later that night. It was some time in the early hours of August fourteenth when the family were woken by the strange and hideous sound of gurgling and grunting coming from Estefania's room.
Maximo switched on the light to find her in the grip of yet another terrible seizure, writhing about in her bed. Terrified and screaming at each other to do something. They did their best to restrain her, while Conception rushed to call an ambulance. Estefania, having slipped into a coma, was already unresponsive when the ambulance arrived and rushed the now
seventeen year old to nearby Gregorio Morannan Hospital. Despite attempts to resuscitate her, she was declared dead at two a m. Though there was no obvious explanation for the cause of death, a subsequent autopsy would conclude that she had died as the result of asphyxiation. Tissue samples sent off for further tests yielded nothing. In the months following Estefania's death, her grieving family did what they could to support each other, praying each day for her salvation at the makeshift shrine
that conception had constructed for Estefaniel's siblings. Especially, the strange nature of her death and her disturbing behavior prior to it, had left an indelible mark. Though her sister's decision to move out of the bedroom they shared together had primarily been made on account of how unbearably sad it was to sleep there. She couldn't help but feel a little scared when in there too, But if she had hoped a change of rooms would bring her peace, she was
going to be very much mistaken. It began in the early hours one morning, as winter settled into the city. The sisters heard it first, a quiet voice coming from somewhere in the apartment always after the lights had gone out, Mamma, Mamma, it seemed to be saying, with no sign of it abating. One of the girls decided to investigate and made her way to the bedroom door. Opening it, she found only
the emptiness of the apartment. Beyond Mamma came the voice again, but this time from the direction of the bath room. Quietly making her way over to it so as not to disturb her parents, Slowly she pulled open the door, but there was nobody there. A few days later, when the flat was empty, Conception was cleaning the apartment when she heard a tremendous racket coming from Estefania's old room.
The room was kept clean and virtually untouched, but when she opened it that morning, he found it completely rearranged, with bed sheets, books, and toys strewn across the floor. Soon after, the children began to complain of a bizarre scraping sound coming from inside the walls. Appliances would turn off and on randomly, whilst doors slammed open and shut
without anyone standing near them. Thinking it nothing more than the effects of a draft coming from the communal hallway, Maximo took to placing the sofa across one of the doors, as well as a heavy marble table in an effort
to stop it from opening. One night, whither all the family gathered in their living room, a heavy pounding noise was followed by what seemed like an inordinately strong gust of wind, unlatching the door and sending the table and sofa sliding back across the room, knocking a photo of Estefania to the floor in the process. Conception picked up the frame, only to drop it again when it burnt her fingers. When Maximo picked it up moments later, he turned it over, only to find, to his horror that
the photograph was now burning from inside the frame. He watched, completely stunned as the smiling face of his daughter melted and turned to ash right in front of him. Late one night, with the family fast asleep, two of the sisters who shared a room together, were awoken by the sound of whistling outside the apartment. The noise soon dissipated, only to be replaced by a strange groaning. But this didn't come from outside the apartment. It came from outside
the bedroom door. One of the girls screamed, look she said, on the floor. Now Huddled together on one bed, the sisters stared in disbelief at the ground. There. Caught in the soft orange glow of the street light outside, was the silhouetted shape of a man crawling towards them. The pair screamed together as the shape brought one arm over
the other and dragged itself closer and closer. They cried out again as the toys on their shelf were sent flying across the room, followed by loud, banging noises that echoed throughout the house. By the time their parents arrived, the activity had stopped and the shadow man was nowhere to be seen. From that moment on, however, the family continued to witness what they took to strange humanoid shapes
drifting about inside their apartment. Neighbors and friends also reported seeing them, and it wasn't long before local paranoral investigators were queuing up to see them too. By autumn nineteen ninety two, the family had been suffering for the best part of a year before finally deciding to seek help. In October, they were visited by two self described psychics who promised to help them get to the bottom of their troubles. Their subsequent efforts were filmed by a local
news channel and broadcast later that month. The report documented a number of bizarre occurrences, including what seemed like the voice of a young girl speaking through a radio device that had been placed in the bathroom. The voice said simply, beware of Grandpa. It was only a few weeks later when Conception awoke with the sensation of some one pressing down on her chest and grabbing at her hands and feet. Investigator Negri, having listened patiently to the family's story, was speechless.
As they stood up from the table to examine the rest of the flat. One of the officers noticed a rusty, brown colored stain that seemed to be materializing on the tablecloth right in front of them. Pulling a pen from his pocket, he prodded at it, finding it to be damp and made from something like the drool of a dog.
Three of the officers, deciding they had seen enough, requested permission to leave the flat, before hurriedly making their way downstairs and out at the building, Negrie asked to see the bathroom first, where the family believed many of the bizarre noises had first originated. By this point, so terrified were they of it. They used it only as a
store room and kept it locked at all times. As soon as Negre stepped inside, he felt the temperature plummet, but otherwise there was little of note, and then they showed him into Estefania's old bedroom. The room had not been much changed since the day Maximo and Concepcion's daughter had died. Posters and pictures of Estefania and her friends lined the walls, as well as a large crucifix with
a smaller pearly crucifix hanging off it. The two twin beds that she and her sister had slept in remained side by side, unused for The inspector took a seat on Estefania's old bed and looked about, noticing another large poster stuck to the back of the door. He had been sitting for less than a minute when an odd sound was heard coming from the balcony right outside the room. It was as if a heavy stone was being rolled
about on the concrete. It was drowned out moments later by a terrible scream that came from the same direction. Negrie and his partner rushed to the balcony, flinging open the door unleashing a cold wind into the room. Outside, However, they found the balcony completely deserted. Turning back into the room, Negree could see that something was wrong. The family stood frozen, staring at the wall, their faces completely pale. Negree followed their gaze to the crucifix that was now turned completely
upside down. The smaller crucifix seemingly thrown into the middle of the room. Look, said one of the children, pointing to the back of the door. Negre moved in for a closer inspection, completely stunned to find three slash marks in the poster, as if something had clawed at it, pulling it away from the door. He could see also that the scratches had gone right through into the wood.
Utterly dumbfounded and cautious of the family's obvious distress, Negri agreed to stay with them for a while longer until he was satisfied that whatever had been occurring had come to an end. Later that morning, the inspectors kept back into the cold and joined his colleagues in the car before driving back to the station. Not one of those officers being entirely sure what on earth they had just experienced.
Inspector Negri's official report of the event, attesting to what he heard and saw, remains the only report in the history of Spain's police force to allude to the possibility that what had been witnessed had been of a paranormal nature. This episode was written by Richard McClain smith Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, were
also produced by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
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