'The Entity:' The Real Ghost Case Behind The Movie

We're halfway through the first series of The ParaPod and it's still a stalemate. Ray Peacock is still refusing to believe in the paranormal and Barry Dodds is still convinced that ghosts exist. In this episode Barry tries to change Ray's mind with the story case of Doris Bither.

Hardcore believer, Barry, desperately needs a win this week having already been beaten in the first four episodes by skeptical Ray.

His main weapon this week was the story of a lady by the name of Doris Bither, who was the victim of violent paranormal activity in 1974 in her Californian home. Barry starts by telling us that Doris' story inspired the 1982 Hollywood movie 'The Entity', which he describes as a "very very frightening film," and says it's "worth checking out."

According to Barry "she was getting attacked physically and she didn't know what was going on because it was somebody she couldn't see." Ray clarified, "it was a ghost?" Barry confirmed this to be the case.

Ray, trying to picture the setting, said he can't help but think of Doris as an old woman and ask Barry how old she was, "I think she was mid 30s," he replied. But it was no good, Ray couldn't shift the image of "the lady who owns Tweetie Pie" from his head.

Barry continued with his story, telling us that it was in fact three entities that were focusing on her, "two smaller ones, one larger one."

Doris tried to get help from friend but they all, "wrote her off as mental," according to Barry. So she went to a local bookstore in search of answers. While there she overheard two men debating the paranormal. One of the men argued that ghosts wouldn't be able to interact with the living.

Barry said, she approached the men and said "yes they can" and and invite them to her house to see the violence happening for themselves.

The two men were Dr. Barry Taff and Dr. Kerry Gaynor, from the UCLA Parapsychology Lab. They accepted Doris' invite and came to investigate her house, but to their disappointment, nothing happened. But, as the pair were about to leave a mirror started moving.

Taff and Gaynor went back to the university and asked the department for additional resources to investigate the case. Sooner after, activity started to build and Doris' son was attacked. Barry said, "I think it broke his arm."

The researchers set up cameras in the house and one day, while Doris was sat on the bed, the team caught this photo, which Barry used as his main piece of evidence to convince Ray.

Barry said, "the interesting thing is it's not a light shining on a wall," and that a lot of people think the light is shining on the wall. But, I'm sorry, they must be stupid people, the light clearly isn't shining on the wall, you can tell by looking at the corner.

As Barry and Ray agreed, the arc of light looks like it's floating in front of the wall, above the bed. Although the pair agreed, they didn't believe the same thing.

Barry is convinced this photo shows "they've caught lightning in a bottle," and the the light is a physical object in the room at the time, hence why the man on the left can be seen looking up at it. While Ray, more rationally says that the photo is "nonsense." He says it is either faked or some light was introduced while developing the film.

Barry ends the story, clearly defeated, but saying that Doris left the house and the activity continued, which he says is a sign that it was her who is haunted, not the house. But none of that matters anyway, as Barry says "Dorris is dead now."

A fact which has Ray worried, "who's going to look after tweety pie?"