The following is a two part article in which Dr. Barry Taff and myself wrote with fresh insight from his original investigation of the case in 1974 and some new information that will be available in my upcoming book. This is an update to the Doris Bither story , or as it’s more commonly known, “The Entity” case.
Part I
Written By Dr. Barry Taff
Contrary to what many people believe, the case of Doris Bither, that later became the novel and motion picture The Entity, was not, in my professional opinion, the result of spectral rape, .a.k.a. spectrophilia, but a rather disturbingly real poltergeist outbreak. Unfortunately, the amassed data on the case does not in any way support ghostly sex, but back in the mid-1970’s in my mid-20’s, such a notion was intriguing to say the least.
The passage of almost four decades and the experience of thousands of more cases, have provided this author with a rather unique perspective regarding such experiences and claims. Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and while there was plenty of evidence that we were dealing with real paranormal phenomena, it very likely had nothing whatsoever to do with incorporeal sex, except in the mind of Doris and her children.
Doris was very evasive and somewhat cryptic regarding her background, so much so that she refused to even tell us her age, which we knew was older than ours, but not by how many years. Had we pushed Doris hard to reveal more about her hellish past, such efforts on our part might have pushed us right off the case. Had we even attempted to secure the type of background information we currently collect, such as medical, psychological, family psychodynamics, prescribed medications (names of meds, dosage and duration) as well as recreational drugs and alcohol usage, Doris would surely have shown us the door from the outset. We had no way of knowing just how utterly disturbing of a life she really had led: disowned by her family as a young teenager and cast out to fend for herself.
It’s fascinating the way time has a way of providing answers to those who wait. Some years ago, I was contacted by Javier Ortega from GhostTheory.com to interview me on The Entity case. Somewhat later, Javier also interviewed one of Doris Bither’s sons, Brian Harris.
Brian spoke to Javier of how his mother was banished by her family while still a teenage due to her rambunctious lifestyle and rebellious nature. How his mom started playing with Ouija Boards and seances at very early age, finally mixing such with drugs and alcohol to quell the irritable psyche within her.
Brian’s interview was disturbing at many levels in that he continuously contradicted himself in terms of his responses to all questions asked of him, certainly damaging his credibility as a witness. It was not until Javier interviewed Doris’s other two sons that he learned that Brian was a chip off the old mother’s block in terms of drinking and drugs. However, some of his statements were supported by corroborative testimony by his brothers.
According to Doris’s other sons, there were subtle amounts of paranormal phenomena present long before she moved onto Braddock Street in Culver City, California. They spoke of some psychokinetic events and even the occasional apparition, although I would never refer to such an occurrence as subtle.
However, not long after Doris moved from Santa Monica to Culver City, a strange woman appeared at her door warning her that her house was an evil or bad home. When Doris asked what the lady was talking about, the mysterious lady simply walked away without further explanation. Shortly thereafter, Doris was beset with the paranormal attacks. Was there a connection, in that the unknown lady knew something ugly about that particular ramshackle tinderbox Doris now lived in, or was this just a coincidence? We’ll never really know unless we find that woman, some thirty-seven years later.
Currently, Javier is in the final stages of writing a book about Doris Bither and The Entity case, which begins long before we made
her acquaintance in the summer of 1974. Such detailed information may help us further clarify exactly what occurred and why, some 37 years ago. Although, as it appears that Doris is not available to further study, we must deal with the somewhat fragmented memories of her children.
According to Doris’s son’s, she passed away in 1999 at the tender young age of 59 from respiratory failure, and as such we’ll never really know if Doris fit the longitudinal pattern that has emerged in this type of parapsychological research strongly indicating a link between poltergeist activity and epilepsy/seizure prone individuals.
It would have been really interesting to have given Doris a full neurophysiological medical workup combined with taking environmental electromagnetic and geomagnetic measurements. Odds are, that such data collection would have revealed the true nature of what was really going on here.
Due to the fame or infamy this case gathered over time, there’s an incredible amount of misinformation and disinformation circulating about what did and did not actually occur back in 1974-5. There has been erroneous scuttlebutt pertaining to when Doris died, to the point where many mistook the death of Barry Conrad’s ex-girlfriend, Lisa McIntosh in 2006, as that of Doris.
There have also been many people who have claimed that they were part of our lab and were also part of our investigation of this case. There were only three names formally associated with this case, one being Kerry Gaynor, my associate at the time, Dr. Thelma Moss, the head of our former UCLA parapsychology lab (who only visited the site on one occasion), and yours truly.
For the last three decades I can think of at least ten different people who’ve claimed to have worked with us on this case. Some of them I’ve never even met and would not even know if standing next to in a room. Over those many years, people in other states have even claimed that The Entity case occurred in their own backyard, not here in a suburb of Los Angeles. Put simply, they’re all lying.
In recent years several others have surfaced, who were even more blatant and deceptive in the claims. One of them has recently been boasting to have worked in our lab, where we were training him as a medium to work for the U.S. government when he was well under eighteen years of age at the time. This man is either seriously disgusting opportunist, delusional or just psychotic. Neither our lab, nor the U.S. government, trained anyone as mediums, and we were not even allowed to work with anyone under the age of eighteen due to the university’s Human Use Committee regulations. Such people should at least check their historical facts before pontificating.
More recently, a psychopathic woman has appeared on the scene who has been attempting to take credit for every case on the book, such as the one mentioned in chapter three (“A Hazardous Haunting”) of my book as well as The Entity case. You can read more about this criminally insane excuse for a human female on this site at “A Demon’s Lair”. This is one seriously frightening person to be around. If one needs to chase a demon, here is one just waiting for you in La Crescenta. But beware; your valuables might mysteriously disappear while in her presence. This is not a joke.
As there are no academic credentials required for anyone to go out and investigate the paranormal as they try to emulate the garbage they’ve seen on cable TV paranormal reality shows, every uneducated and ignorant new age groupie is out there looking for demons. Like I just said, there’s one in La Crescenta waiting to be captured and disposed of. What are you waiting for?
To fully comprehend the possibility that a living person’s subconscious mind can involuntarily generate such power as to generate luminous anomalies, apparitions and macroscopic psychokinetic result is for me, more compelling than if a discarnate intelligence was responsible.
My assessment and conclusions are fully expressed within Chapter 2 (The Real Life Entity Case) of my book Aliens Above, Ghosts Below: Explorations of the Unknown.
Part II
Written By Xavier Ortega
I never imagined being in the place in which I stand today. For years, I’ve read about the Doris Bither case and thought that such claims as “spectral rape” were of the most absurd things that I’ve ever heard. Although I was highly skeptical about this case, something inside of me was always terrified when I would read over the case details just for fun. What I never imagined, was me being involved in such manner with this case. A case that officially began in 1974, but has a much longer and darker history to it. Four years before my birth, a single mother of four, living under dire circumstances, battled unseen forces that physically assaulted her and her children in a small house in Culver City, California. Thirty seven years later, I find myself believing that Doris did suffer some paranormal assaults against her body. Assaults from unseen forces in which Doris was, and always had been, the catalyst to.
There are three journals sitting on my desk that are full of notes. These notes are my prized possession. It took me years to catalog in a chronological order the major events in Doris’ life. With the help of Doris’ eldest son, I managed to get an insight to the life of Doris Bither. A life full of abandonment, abuse and a very deep and dark void. As I sometimes glance through my journals, I can’t help but feel that Doris’ psychodynamics with her family, started her off in a wrong direction in life. It only became worse, after an adolescent Doris Bither got mixed up with the dark side of seances. Something that at first seemed like bar trick to impress her friends, became an obsession that quickly spun out of control. Sending Doris in a hellish ride that continued on until the final moments of her life.
Although there is much more to Doris’ life and haunting that I can mention in this article, I can tell you that all the evidence leads up to this being a case of extraordinary psychokinetic powers. Or at least that’s how I see things. Dr. Barry Taff is correct when he stated that Brian Harris seemed to contradict himself when I interviewed him. Although this is evident in the interview, I don’t believe this was done with intent. As I recall, when talking with Brian for a few hours over the phone, he seemed extremely agitated and very emotional over the fact that some things that were written about his mother were not true. He was so emotional that it was apparent how jumbled his thoughts were at the moment. Mr. Harris just wanted to get the facts out there about his mother. He is the middle child and remembers a few things quite clearly.
“She was no drunk. Sure she liked to drink every now and then, but not the way they [investigators] painted her.”
I listened intently as the sound of his voice cracked a little.
“And all that stuff about her manifesting these entities because of there being three young males in the house that created this ‘tension’ is all crap! These things were real! I saw them and they saw us.”
I do believe Mr. Harris experienced things that his other brothers did not. There was a time when one of the children was slapped by an unseen hand during the middle of the night. Another story involves one of the boys bumping into an invisible person in the hallway. The boys all experienced and saw different things throughout the years, but the bottom-line is that they ALL experienced something in that house. Something that was paranormal.
I had mention to Dr. Taff when we first met that Doris was visited by an old Mexican lady when she had first moved in to the house in Braddock drive. She received a knock at the front door and was surprised to see an old Mexican woman standing there. Possibly in her 70s or 80s, the woman seemed somber and was there to delivery a chilling message:
“You need to get out! I used to live here in this old house, back when it was just a farm and I was a little girl. There is something very evil here. This place is haunted and you need to get out!”
The old Mexican woman left without saying another word. This warning unnerved both Doris and her eldest son. It was only a few months after that dire warning that the attacks began.
The life of Doris is plagued with demons both literally and figuratively speaking. Because of the vast amount of information that I was privileged to have, Doris eldest son and I have been talking about converting his memories of the time spent on Braddock drive into a book. A book that I’ve been working on for some time and expect to finish soon. The book contains major events in Doris’ life in a chronological order. From the day she abandoned her family in Illinois, to her final days. Doris Bither passed away alone in a room, a room from which her son reported seeing balls of light appear just like they did back in the early 70s. You see, Doris died a haunted woman.
The book is a project in the works and I expect to have it complete late this year. This will be a first-hand account of Doris’s eldest son. The dark past he knew about his mother, his experiences during the time spent on Braddock drive and his adult life with his mother. This is a non-fiction piece, based on meticulous research into the case. With the help from the good folks over at the Los Angeles County Hall of Records and Doris’ family, I piece together the history of one of the greatest cases in the annals of the paranormal.
Javier Ortega
August, 6, 2011
Los Angeles, CA
