Noises
A Michigan mom was determined to discover the cause of the strange things happening in her home. It started with her hearing strange noises in the middle of the night but it just got worse from there. It got so bad that she began to blame her fiance for the strange happenings, even though he denied it.
Finally, she had proof. She had video evidence, but she had no idea just what she’d captured. And truth would scare her.
Video Evidence
Heather Bough got ready to watch the video she had recorded from the baby monitor in her daughter’s room. Despite what other people said, she didn’t believe that her daughter was scratching herself in her sleep.
She hit play and began to watch, convinced that she would catch her boyfriend Joshua in the act. Her hair stood on end as she saw the figure in the video. Joshua had been telling the truth. It was something else!
The Beginning
Heather Bough and Joshua Higgins were living in his mother’s guest house with their 1-year-old daughter, Lily, for just over a year already. Then something happened that made them want to get as far away from there as fast they could. It all began when Heather noticed scratches on Lily’s face when she lifted her up and out of her crib one day.
At first, she didn’t think too much of it. But when more marks appeared she knew something was up. That’s when she decided to approach Joshua.
The American Dream
The couple were in a happy, stable relationship and lived a normal life for a young couple in the town of Highland. All their dreams were coming true. They had a great home, a beautiful baby girl, and they were madly in love.
Then she started hearing strange noises at night. Creaking doors, thumps, footsteps in the kitchen and suddenly the unexplained scratches on her daughter’s face. That was the final straw.
Tensing Up
She asked Joshua if he was getting up in the night and moving around the house. She even asked him if he went to Lily’s room. Did he know how she got the scratches? Joshua denied everything and their relationship became strained and tense. It seemed that their fairytale life was in danger of becoming a nightmare.
Heather decided to try and catch Joshua in the act. What she discovered, however, would be much worse than she ever imagined.
Suspicious Minds
Heather knew that she needed to do something. Even though he denied it all, Heather couldn’t carry on living like that. She was either going crazy or she was imagining it all. Maybe it wasn’t Joshua, maybe it was an animal.
The problem with that idea was that Heather always made sure everything was closed up properly. That meant that whoever – or whatever – scratched Lily must already have been in the house.
Evidence Gathering
Heather knew that her relationship was in danger. She and Joshua decided to buy a baby monitor and set it up so that they could watch Lily at night. They set up the camera so that it was focused on the crib. Joshua was sure that it was Lily as it wasn’t uncommon for babies to scratch themselves with their nails while they slept.
Heather knew this couldn’t be the case because she made sure to keep Lily’s nails properly trimmed. Neither of them were prepared for the truth.
Discovering The Facts
Heather bought a state of the art camera with night vision capabilities so that she could monitor Lily while she slept. She was determined to get to the bottom of this and find the truth. She set the camera to record and went to sleep. Sure enough, the next morning there were more scratches on Lily’s face.
Heather immediately went to watch the footage, knowing she would be able to see the culprit on the video. She hit play and watched her own home become a place of nightmares.
Shadow Man
Heather saw the figure appearing in Lily’s room. She was convinced that it was proof that it was Joshua who was walking around at night, but why would he keep lying about it? Could he have been sleepwalking?
Then Heather’s blood turned to ice as she kept watching.
Who’s There?
Heather saw the blurry image of the man walk past the crib. In the video, Lily immediately looked at him and stood up against the side of her crib. Lily is curious about the man in the room.
At that moment, the man turned to face the camera and Heather feels herself turn cold. The man in the footage isn’t Joshua!
Spine Chilling
Heather couldn’t breathe, her hair stood on end, and her heart was pounding as she kept watching. The man in the video was a complete stranger to her. What was he doing in the house?
She watched as he kept walking around the crib, examining Lily. Heather began to panic. Who could this man be?
A Terrifying Thought
It was clear that his man was the source of the strange noises she heard at night. Heather kept watching the clip over and over until she saw something terrifying. There was a point in the video where the man becomes transparent.
Heather realized that she wasn’t looking at a man but at something supernatural. Heather knew immediately that they had to get away from that house as fast as they can.
The Truth Revealed
When Joshua watched the footage he was just as shocked. “It was chilling… It was literally a chill down your spine, like that ‘what if’ factor — Is this what I just saw?” he said.
“Seeing Lily’s face with the scratches was so bizarre and frightening,” Heather explained. “I was crying, ‘What happened to you?’ I grabbed her jacket and ran over to my mother-in-law’s house. Nobody knew what happened. We wondered if she’d scratched herself, but when we put her hands up to the scratches it did not match up.”
Who You Gonna Call?
Joshua was terrified after watching the video, with chills running up and down his spine. He knew that he needed to save his family from whatever that was. Getting away from there was the most important thing. As the terrified family fled the house, Joshua called the police.
After he had explained the situation, the police referred him to the Scientific Paranormal Investigations of Michigan. What they would find, however, would be even more terrifying.
Paranormal Research
The co-owner of Scientific Paranormal Investigations of Michigan, Mike Priest, sent a team to investigate the house immediately. Their discoveries would ensure that Heather and Joshua were even more desperate to get away from that house.
The investigation revealed that not only was the guesthouse haunted, but the main house was too.
Paranormal Activity
The strange man on the footage wasn’t the only strange thing that happened in the house. “I woke up to get ready for work one morning and it felt like someone was choking me,” Heather admitted during an interview. “It shook me to the point where I decided to buy our camera.”
She never told Joshua because she didn’t think he would have believed her. “There have been times where me and my fiancé would wake up in the morning and I would hear an angry male voice — like someone had stubbed their toe,” she said.
What’s Going On?
“I definitely believe there is something going on at this house,” Mike Priest said. “We are looking forward to checking out this one as well.” Mike said that when the team came in they recorded several strange noises in the house.
“We heard something say, ‘Oh here we go. Oh yeah.’ I heard it as plain as day,” Mike admitted.
Further Proof
Mike his team came back for a full-scale investigation. They hoped that they would be able to find out what exactly Heather had caught on video. They were going to try and replicate the recording, which would prove it’s real, or find some logical explanation for what she captured.
Kris, Joshua’s mother, had owned the house for 11 years and thought she might be able to explain who was responsible for the haunting.
Last Tenants
“I was told when we bought the houses 11 years ago the lady who owned the property died in the main house,” Kris explained. “It’s an old farmhouse and according to her niece… she fell down the stairs, broke her hips and laid there for a very long time before she passed away. She said that the guesthouse was built for the lady’s brother who was schizophrenic.”
However, Joshua’s dad, Jim, offered a different theory.
A Dark History
Jim thinks that the mysterious figure is a previous tenant of the guesthouse. “The gentleman that lived here originally… (jumped) out this window, which is one story down,” he told WXYZ-TV Detroit.
While they might not be any closer to finding out who the mysterious figure is, Heather and Joshua knew what they have to do.
Getting Out
“It scares us that it could do something else,” Heather said.
“It’s not physically just going after her, it feels like it’s going after myself too… This has made us want to leave as soon as possible. As soon as possible we’re out of here. This is a spirit. I don’t know what its intentions are, but at this point, it’s becoming physically harmful.”
Skeptics
Although the video, released by Heather and Joshua on social media, has become a viral sensation overnight and has chilled many viewers to the bone, there are also some skeptics.
Some people do not believe that the figure in the video is an apparition at all and say that what was captured on film is far more likely to have a very simple explanation.
Digging Deeper
Kenny Biddle of the Skeptical Inquirer, wrote: “There’s something else I noticed right away – the ghost was casting a shadow, two actually.”
“…this tells me the figure is a solid, physical object able to reflect light. In the first milliseconds of the video, as the figure is moving to the left, you can see its shadow move across the ceiling right by the ceiling fan.”
A Possible Explanation
He continues: “I would surmise either (Heather) and/or (Joshua) had been watching television and had reason to get up out of bed, perhaps go down to the kitchen for a drink/food or a visit to the bathroom, paused the video and walked across the room not realizing they were being recorded. At a later, unspecified time, they reviewed the footage and due to a lack of understanding of video cameras, concluded the distorted figure was a ghost.”
But how does he explain the scratches on Lily’s face?
The Scratches
“Aside from the technical issues, it is not uncommon for babies to scratch themselves. We know from her statements that (Heather) discovered the scratches after waking the baby up from a nap,” Kenny wrote, “… but there’s nothing to rule out the possibility Lily scratched herself while sleeping.”
After digging a little deeper into the story, Kenny discovered something interesting.
True Motivations?
“I’m not sure exactly what the motivation behind these claims is, but I do have my suspicions,” He wrote. “I went to Heather Brough’s Facebook page earlier today and noticed that she posted her first public post since November of 2018; it was a link to a GoFundMe account she had created that day (March 26, 2019) with a goal of $5,000. She was asking for this amount to help her move out of the guest house, citing her daughter’s safety from all the paranormal activity as the main reason for the fundraising.”
Then, Kenny reached out to Heather directly with a Facebook message.
Reaching Out
“Hello, my name is Kenny Biddle, and I’ve been investigating paranormal claims for the last 20+ years. Your video of what is believed to be a ghost walking in your house was brought to my attention by several paranormal groups,” Kenny wrote.
“After taking a look at it, I was wondering if there was a longer clip – perhaps footage showing the few minutes leading up to (and including) the clip that was shared on ABC Action News. The clip that has been shared starts with the figure already in motion, and I was hoping to see where it originates.”
Observations
“I noticed the TV was on, so being able to confirm it wasn’t someone (living) watching TV and perhaps got up to get something, would be beneficial. I’m not saying this was a hoax, I’m just trying to get as much information as possible to understand what the video is showing. I appreciate your time in reading this. I hope to hear back from you. Have a good day.”
Kenny says that he is still waiting for Heather’s response.