Ed Warren was blunt: "You don't have a ghost. You have a demonic infestation."
Janet was the first to notice it: the smell. A foul, sickly sweet odor of rotting meat mixed with sulfur that would waft through the house, then vanish. Soon after, the furniture started moving. Not the subtle, "did-I-leave-the-window-open?" kind of movement. This was a heavy armchair sliding across the living room floor while the family watched TV . The haunting didn’t come all at once. It escalated in three terrifying waves, as documented by renowned demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (yes, those Warrens). the smurl family
The Warrens performed a "progressive blessing" of the home. For a few weeks, the violence stopped. But then it returned, worse than before. The Church was hesitant to authorize a full Exorcism of a place (rather than a person). The Vatican’s position was that buildings cannot be possessed, only oppressed. Here is where the story takes its strangest turn. The Catholic Diocese of Scranton initially dismissed the Smurls as hysterics. But after a bishop secretly visited the home and witnessed a crucifix spinning upside down on the wall, the Church relented. They did not perform an exorcism. Instead, a priest came to the house, blessed every room, and performed a "Supplication of the Laity." Ed Warren was blunt: "You don't have a ghost
The family claimed to see an old, gnarled woman with black eyes standing in the corner of the basement. They also saw a tall, man-shaped beast with matted hair that smelled of decay. The house had become a spiritual war zone. By 1986, the Smurls were desperate. They called in the Warrens, who brought a team of priests, psychics, and parapsychologists. Using electromagnetic field meters and thermal cameras (cutting edge at the time), the team recorded massive fluctuations in the basement. Lorraine Warren claimed she saw a "portal" in the foundation—a spot where the soil itself felt corrupted. Soon after, the furniture started moving
The priest famously took a piece of chalk and drew a line across the threshold of the basement door. He then placed a blessed medal of St. Benedict on the frame. His instruction was simple: "Do not open this door. Do not go into the basement. Ever."