Case 8: Private Home in Harukawa (Trip to Japan 2)

This case only happened due to a chance meeting with the neighbors of my maternal aunt, who had apparently been dealing with many disturbances over the past three years. Their names and the exact location of the house have been kept secret to protect their privacy. In this case, they will be referred to as Grandfather B, Father B, Mother B, and Son B.

Their story begins during the COVID lockdowns of 2020. While they began in the US in March, in Japan, they began in late February, and were more restrictive and long-lasting. This actually prevented me and my family from visiting Japan for not only 2020, but also 2021 and even 2022, making 2023 our first visit since 2019. For additional context, Grandfather B’s wife, Grandmother B, came from a family who ran a shrine in Harukawa, and was a shrine maiden in her youth when she was not attending Harukawa Girls’ Academy, the only high school in the village. She passed away during the early days of the lockdowns from COVID-19, and it was about a month after her death that things began happening.

Initially, it was just some footsteps at night that they could perhaps chalk up to their imagination from their isolation. Then, however, it escalated to voices. Starting in July of that year, they began to see shadow figures in the house, and in September, they photographed what looked like a man looking out on the street from the second floor when Father B took photographs of the building to test out a new camera he bought. Around November, on two separate occasions, Grandfather B and Son B both saw a man standing behind them from a mirror in the house, only to turn around and find nobody there.

What perplexed the family was that there was no sign that Grandmother B was haunting the property, which would have been an obvious guess given she had lived there for so long. Indeed, they recalled to us that they did not recognize any of the spirits they saw in the house. The most mysterious aspect, however, was that the activity seemed to follow a pattern every year, picking up in July and ending in November, with only very intermittent activity outside of that timeframe.

Despite both the family and myself doing research on the property, finding anything concrete was difficult due to the village being devastated by American air raids that targeted the neighboring city of Yoshimatsu in the Second World War. The whole area the house was in burned to the ground in a devastating fire caused by the very last raid on the area that killed around a hundred residents of Harukawa, although the exact death toll will probably never be known due to the poor record-keeping at the time and the ferocity of the fire likely totally incinerating some victims. Perhaps these spirits are those who were killed in the fire, but that begs another question: Why did they only appear once Grandmother B died?

We found out through the family that Grandmother B’s family was experienced in performing Shinto exorcisms, and had even dealt with what American investigators would probably determine to be a demon years ago when she was a teenager at a house nearby, an exorcism that she personally assisted in. In talking with the rest of the team, we theorized that perhaps Grandmother B had blessed the house or had otherwise done something to keep the spirits away, and when she died, they were released from whatever she did and began to haunt the house.

Armed with this information, we knew we would be in for an interesting investigation. As with our previous private home investigation, we would conduct two nights of ghost hunting while the family went away.

…

On August 15, the first night of our investigation began. Due to the small size of the house, we were able to continuously cover almost the entire building for the whole night. It also made capturing audio evidence harder, however.

Me, Ashley, and Jared started off downstairs, while Marie and Yukiko started off upstairs. For the first hour, nothing of note really happened anywhere in the house. In fact, it was while the three of us were taking a break in the living room of the house and talking among ourselves that the first piece of evidence was captured.

I asked the other two, “How are you guys enjoying Harukawa so far?”

“It’s a good change of pace from Tokyo,” Jared replied. “It reminds me of Volendam Village back home.”

“The beach here was really nice,” Ashley commented, referencing a visit we took to the local village beach earlier in the day. “I finally got to show off that swimsuit I got a few weeks ago.”

“And you looked hot as Hell in it,” I remarked, teasing my girlfriend a bit. “I give it two thumbs-up.”

“I don’t know why you’re so attracted to it,” Ashley chuckled as she got a bit closer to me on the couch. “You’ve seen me naked before, Takeo. Would a bikini be a downgrade?”

“It’s different, though. I can’t really explain it.”

Jared, seeing that we were getting rather flirtatious, replied with a laugh, “Bro, really? I’m right here.”

Ashley teased him with, “Who cares? You’re just jeal-“

We all stopped when we heard the front door unlock and turned our heads to find it opening and then shutting by itself, which was also captured on Jared’s camera. When it locked by itself, we all turned back to each other in silence, stunned at what we had just witnessed. We then heard what sounded like a chair in the kitchen being moved slightly, despite no one being in the kitchen at all that we could see. With this, the mood had completely flipped.

Jared got up and focused the camera more at the kitchen, finding that a chair near the table had been moved out by a few feet. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “I got all that on camera.”

I started up my digital voice recorder and began an EVP session, conducting it in Japanese like I had done at Doryo-do. “Who’s there?” Pause. “Can you hear us? We can hear you.” Pause. “Can you tell us your name?” Pause. “Did you live here?” Pause.

Just as I stopped the recording and was about to play it back to see if we captured anything, we heard the TV in the other room suddenly turn on despite no one being near it. Startled, Ashley yelled out, “Shit! Who turned on the TV?”

“It wasn’t me,” Jared replied. “The remote’s still in there.”

“I don’t have the remote,” I added before I began to play back the recording. As we all listened in, we managed to pick up two responses to my questions.

The first, in response to the question about if they could hear us, was an indiscernible male voice. The second, in response to the question about if they lived here, was the same male voice saying back, ‘My home…’ Ashley remarked to me upon hearing both EVPs, “That doesn’t sound like a grandmother. That sounds like a man.”

“I don’t think the problem is the spirit of (name censored)’s grandma,” I replied. “I think it may have been whatever she was keeping in check before she died.”

As Jared went to turn the TV off, Marie and Yukiko came walking down the stairs, both of them confused as to why it was on. The latter asked, “Takeo, did you guys turn the TV on?”

“No,” Jared replied as he turned it off. “It turned on on its own while we were in the kitchen.”

Marie then said to us, “We gotta get a new battery for our video camera. Yukiko’s died right as we started filming.”

Curious, I asked her, “Did you get anything up there while it was dead?”

“No,” she replied. “But I did feel there were at least a few spirits in the house. All but one was a man. There was one that was an older woman, though.”

“It’s probably the grandmother.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Whatever she kept at bay here was released when she died.”

Jared then yelled in shock from the other room, “Holy shit!” As we all ran over, he was aiming his camera up the stairs, telling us, “I just got something! It’s on the camera!”

Concerned, Marie asked him, “What happened?!”

“I saw a fucking person up there,” he replied. “I know for a God damn fact I got it on video, too!”

Marie looked up the stairs and told us as she turned pale from fear, “There’s a man up there, and he’s… Angry.”

Ashley asked her, “Angry?”

“He’s mad that we intruded on his space,” she explained as she began to shiver with fear. “He… He wants us out.”

Yukiko then ran over, having changed the battery in her camera and placed the original in a charger. “I’m recording now! What happened?”

“I saw someone walk into a room upstairs,” Jared explained. “I got it on camera, too.” He then stopped his recording to show us what he had gotten. “Take a look.” Sure enough, when he rewound the video, it showed a black shadow figure walking down the hallway and then entering a room without opening the door, seemingly phasing through it instead. The shadow was almost totally opaque, blocking out everything behind it as it walked.

“One of us has to go up there,” I said, taking a deep breath as I prepared for what could possibly happen. “We can’t just stay down here and wait for it to confront us.”

“I’ll go,” Ashley replied.

“I’ll head up with her,” Yukiko also volunteered. “You guys can stay down here.”

“Please,” Marie pleaded with both of them. “Be careful. Whatever is up there is malevolent. Very malevolent.”

“We will be,” Ashley assured her as she and Yukiko walked up. In the meantime, me, Jared, and Marie would take a break downstairs to review the evidence we had gathered so far.

…

Almost as soon as they had ascended the stairs and got in front of the door the shadow figure had entered, Ashley and Yukiko felt a chill. “It’s cold up here,” the latter observed as she aimed her camera down the hallway and then at the door. “It was right about here when my camera died when I was with Marie.”

“The ghost probably drained it of energy,” Ashley theorized as she opened the door to the room. “It’s even colder in here.”

As they walked in, both would later tell me that they felt a sense of dread stepping into the room, which was otherwise just a normal bedroom. Whatever was in that room did not want them in the house at all, much less the room itself. Ashley turned on the EMF meter while Yukiko turned on a digital voice recorder and set it down on a dresser in the room.

As soon as Ashley turned the meter on, her eyes widened. “Holy crap, it jumped to almost its highest level. Look.” Yukiko aimed the camera at the meter, recording the highest EMF levels we had ever seen so far in our experiences with using it.

Yukiko, intrigued, began asking questions in Japanese. “Why don’t you want us in this house?” Pause. “Did (name censored) seal you away?” Pause. “Can you tell us who you are?” Pause. “Can you tell us how you died?”

Immediately after asking the last question, Ashley felt a burning sensation on her back, which began to cause visible pain after several seconds. “Agh…”

Yukiko, concerned, asked her, “Ashley, what’s up?”

“My back is killing me,” she replied. As Yukiko set the camera down, Ashley pulled her shirt up in the rear so Yukiko could see her back. “Is there anything on there?”

“No,” she replied. “I can’t find anything. What does it feel like?”

“Honestly, it feels like I’m on fire.” She then put her shirt back down and began to feel the same burning sensation on her forehead. “I don’t feel cold anymore. I feel like I’m burning up.”

“Wait a minute,” Yukiko theorized. “This house was built in an area that burned down after an air raid… What if the spirit in here is trying to tell us how they died?” Almost immediately after she asked this question, both of them heard a whispered response in the room: ‘Yes!’

Ashley and Yukiko gasped and turned to the closet, where the voice had been heard. “Holy shit,” the former said in a panic. “Holy fucking shit, did you hear that?!”

“Yeah,” Yukiko replied as she turned the video camera to the closet and then pulled out her phone to take several photos of the room. “Looks like we got our answer. I’m gonna try to see if I can get a photo of whoever this ghost is.”

As Yukiko snapped several photos, Ashley began to feel a sharp sensation on her right arm next, rubbing it a bit as she remarked, “Come on… Not this, please…”

“Now what?”

“My right arm hurts, but it’s not a burning sensation. It feels like something’s clawing at it.” Curious, she pulled up her right sleeve and immediately yelped in fear at what she saw.

Yukiko picked up the video camera and aimed it at her right arm near her shoulder, which had three long scratches running down. “Oh shit, those… Those are scratches.”

“And it’s in a group of three…” Scratches in a group of three were usually a mark of a demon rather than a normal ghost, as having three scratches is believed to be a mocking of the Christian Holy Trinity. However, this perplexed us, as Japan is not traditionally a Christian country (although Japanese Christians do very much exist and have existed for almost five centuries), nor was Family B Christian at all. “Why did this appear here, though? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh my God…” Ashley took several deep breaths to calm herself down. “I got fucking scratched…”

“I think we should head back downstairs. I don’t want whoever’s up here hurting you more.”

“Hang on,” Ashley disagreed. “We should review the evidence we got first. I don’t want to head back down yet.”

Yukiko sighed and relented, picking up the digital voice recorder and playing back the recording. “Alright, alright.” As they listened in silence, they managed to get responses to every single question, a strong indication of high activity in the room.

First, in response to being asked why we were not welcome in the house, a male voice said something we could not decipher. Second, in response to being asked if Grandmother B sealed the spirit away, the same male voice replied with her first name, which we will not reveal. Third, in response to being asked who they were, a different deeper male voice chimed in with ‘Yamada’, a name we could not track down as ever living on the property due to many of the prewar records being destroyed. Finally, in response to being asked how they died, the original male voice came back, saying to the two of them ‘Airplanes.’ This was immediately followed by the second male voice following with, ‘I burned.’

Once the recording finished, a shocked Yukiko said out loud in English to translate the last two EVPs, “‘Airplanes’ and ‘I burned!’”

“Jesus Christ,” Ashley exclaimed. “Well that proves it!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Yukiko replied as she grabbed the digital voice recorder, stuffed it in a pocket, and got out of the room, quickly followed by Ashley as she grabbed the EMF meter. As they looked down the hallway, she said to Ashley, “Let’s head back down.”

…

“You got scratched?!”

“Yeah,” Ashley said to me as she showed the faint lines on her upper arm. “Three times right here.”

“Holy shit,” I sighed. “This is getting freaky.”

“And dangerous,” Marie pointed out. “I think we could be in for more than we bargained for, guys.”

“I knew this day would come,” I admitted, feeling awful for having put my girlfriend into this situation. “But the last thing I wanted was for any of you guys to have to go through it. I always thought it would be me who got scratched or hit first. I’m sorry you had to go through that, Ash.” Truth be told, I almost wanted to shut the investigation down right then and there, but how everyone else responded reassured me.

“Babe, it’s okay,” Ashley assured me. “I’m fine. It's not your fault.”

“She’s right,” Marie added. “If we didn’t want to do this, we wouldn’t have said yes to joining you, Takeo.”

Jared asked us as he kept rolling on the camera, “Hey guys, do you want me to shut this off? It’s getting kinda personal.”

“No, no,” I replied. “It’s fine. Besides, anything could happen while we’re down here recuperating.”

“He’s not wrong,” Yukiko pointed out. “You guys were reviewing EVPs when the TV turned on by itself, after a-“ Almost on cue, the TV once again turned on by itself despite none of us being near the remote. My sister sighed, “Of course, right as I say that…”

Marie chuckled. “I’m sorry, that’s kinda funny.”

“Yeah, it is, actually,” Ashley agreed with a laugh. “What’s on anyway?”

“Looks like a news channel,” I replied before picking up the remote and flipping to another channel. “Oh hey, this one’s got an anime series on it.”

Curious, Jared asked, “This late? Is it a rerun?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Reruns are a bit rarer in Japan. They’ll usually air more violent anime this late at night, although not always. Some of the moeblob shows or more raunchy shows aired this late, which is what this appears to be.”

“How raunchy are we tal-?” Again, almost on cue, one of the girls on the screen then stripped down to her underwear before removing her bra, albeit viewed from the backside so her bare breasts were not visible. “Oh.”

All of us broke into laughter at the timing of his question, a much needed relief from what had just transpired upstairs. “Literally right as you say that,” Marie said as she laughed the hardest. “She flashes her boobs at us!”

Yukiko then asked me, “What even is this show?”

“I don’t know. It must be pretty new. We’ll probably find out what it is soon enough back home.” Ashley then grabbed the remote and flipped to another channel showing what seemed to be a live-action movie with a smug expression on her face. Surprised, I said to her, “I was still watching that.”

“Oh, whatever,” she joked. “Why ogle at boobs on screen when you have a pair you regularly touch right here?”

Everyone else broke down laughing again, with Jared lightheartedly warning her, “Be careful. I’m still filming, Ashley. What’s gotten into you tonight?”

“We haven’t done anything alone since we got here,” I explained. “Maybe that’s why she’s like this.”

“I gotta admit, I’m getting a bit restless,” my girlfriend admitted with a blush. “Maybe we could sneak away tomorrow during the day and do something, maybe even do so-“

“Okay, okay,” Marie cut her off with a chuckle, covering her mouth. “That’s enough being horny on main, Ash. I don’t think we need to record the intimate details on video.”

I jokingly added, “Yeah, let’s stop before we get cancelled… Or arrested.”

“You know,” Yukiko then imagined. “I wonder if the ghosts around us are laughing, too.”

“Honestly,” Marie replied. “I don’t sense their presence downstairs right now. Maybe they all went upstairs.”

…

Perhaps our jokes scared the spirits off, because for the next few hours, we got absolutely nothing. This was not something we were disappointed by, nor did we not expect this to happen. One thing that many people do not realize is that in most instances, ghost hunting consists of long hours where next to nothing happens with brief interruptions of paranormal activity varying heavily in intensity. This, of course, is not exciting in the slightest, hence why it’s never included on those paranormal television shows or, more recently, on online videos of ghost hunting.

Me, Ashley, and Jared were all upstairs, having decided to venture to the room where Ashley had been scratched once again to see if we could make contact with whoever had done that to her again, hopefully without a second scratching of course. We had spent quite a bit of time in the room, only to find nothing, so we proceeded to go into the other rooms.

As I entered a bathroom by myself, Jared filming me from the hallway, the lull in activity was broken by something that truly terrified me. “This night is more like a bust,” I remarked somewhat ironically before the scare. “It’s like they all ran away after Ashley got scratched and we laughed about the whole situation.”

“Maybe we showed them we weren’t afraid,” Jared theorized. “Malevolent entities can feed off of fear, after all.”

“Maybe.” I then pulled back the shower curtain inside the bathroom, finding nothing on the other side besides some bottles of body soap, shampoo, and hair conditioner on the floor, with the shampoo bottle wide open and its contents all over the floor of the shower. “Huh… Someone spilled some bottles on the floor here.”

“Like what?”

“The shampoo bottle’s open and there’s a bunch of it on the floor. There’s also a bottle of body soap and a bottle of conditioner here.” I picked up all three bottles and put them back on the shelves, shutting the shampoo bottle as I did. “I don’t recall any of us being in this room until now.”

“That’s weird. I don’t remember Marie, Ashley, or your sister saying they went in there.” At the same time Jared said this, the video camera he was holding picked up a chilling EVP that would be a sign of things to come: A deep male voice saying in Japanese ‘In your head…’

Ashley then walked over, curious as to what was going on. “Hey, what’s going on? I heard my name.”

“Someone or something threw bottles of soap and shampoo on the shower floor in here,” I explained. “And they opened the shampoo bottle and poured out a bunch of it too.” Then, as I stepped out of the shower and looked at the mirror inside, I saw something standing behind me that scared the living daylights out of me. “Ah! Holy shit!”

As I whipped around to see what it was, Jared and Ashley ran inside. At the same time, the EMF meter Ashley was holding registered a high spike in readings. My girlfriend asked, “Takeo, what happened?!”

“There was someone right here behind me! It was right here!” Of course, there was nothing to be found, and it was as if the spirit existed only in the mirror I had been looking into before disappearing.

Jared asked, “What was it? I couldn’t get it on my camera!”

“It looked like a guy with burnt clothes,” I explained while trembling out of fear. “Like… All burnt. All the way. All over.” I then took a deep breath to calm myself down, still reeling from the disturbing sight in the mirror. “Holy shit… Oh my God…”

As if this was not enough, the door to the medicine cabinet, which the mirror was attached to, then opened by itself, which Jared captured on camera as he yelled in surprise, “Holy shit!” This was followed by several bottles of pills being tossed out of the cabinet by an unseen force and hitting the wall before falling to the ground.

Ashley grabbed me and Jared and quickly pulled us out, with a pill bottle barely missing my head as we got out of the bathroom. “Come on! Let’s go!”

Marie and Yukiko heard the commotion from downstairs and quickly ran up to see what was happening, the former shouting, “What the Hell happened?! What’s going on?!”

“Someone’s throwing pill bottles in the bathroom,” I yelled out as we quickly slammed the door to the bathroom shut, the contents of the medicine cabinet still emptying themselves out inside. “There’s something evil inside there!”

Yukiko kept filming from the top of the stairs as Marie ran over. As soon as she got in front of the bathroom door, she stared at it with a look of dread. “We gotta stay out of there…”

Jared asked her, “Do you sense something in there?”

“This one… This one is angry. It’s angry we’re here.”

Yukiko asked us, “How angry is it, Marie?”

“It threw a pill bottle at me,” I replied. “I’d say it’s pretty fucking angry.” I then asked Marie, “Did you or Yukiko ever go in here before we did?”

Marie shook her head, “No. Why?”

“When I walked in, someone had thrown the bottles of soap, shampoo, and conditioner all over the floor, and they also poured some of the shampoo out on the floor. I cleaned it up as best as I could before I got scared off.”

“I think this spirit threw them,” she theorized as she continued to sense whoever was in the bathroom. “He might have gotten angry at us being here and wanted us to go in.”

“If he’s angry about us being here,” Jared then asked out of confusion. “Then why the Hell did he draw us in?”

“To scare us into leaving.” She then rested herself against the wall, propping herself up with her left arm. “Agh… I feel something…” Her expression turned into one of pain, as if something was hurting her. “It feels like a burning sensation…”

Ashley, worried that Marie might get scratched too, demanded of her, “Where?! Is there a specific spot?!”

“No, it’s all over… It feels like I’m burning up.” She then wiped her forehead of sweat. “What… What did you see in there, Takeo?”

“I saw a man with burned clothes,” I explained. “Everything on him was burnt. Even his skin was blackened.”

“Then it’s the man I’m seeing. He… He was burned to death, and I think he was killed in the air raids.” She then wiped her eyes, getting emotional from the energy attaching to her. Perhaps the spirit was channeling his grief into Marie, but it soon became apparent he was also channeling his anger into her. “Agh…”

“Woah, hey,” Yukiko said to her as she approached her. “Marie, are you okay?” No answer. “Hey, Marie, can you hear us?” Still, no answer.

Getting concerned with her behavior, I got close to her and asked her, “Marie, what’s going o-?”

“Back the fuck up,” she then sternly warned me, which was totally out of character for her. “Go! Get away from me!” Following her instructions, I took a few steps back as she then turned to Yukiko and suddenly switched to Japanese, which frightened all of us. “You traitor! Get out!”

Everyone was stunned. Out of instinct, my sister replied in Japanese as well, “Marie-chan, how did yo-?!”

“Get out!”

“Oh my God,” Ashley then realized, coming to the conclusion we had all now reached. “She got possessed!”

Marie turned to Ashley with contempt and hatred in her eyes. “What are you doing here?! Shouldn’t you be back home?!”

It was at this point that I grabbed Ashley and told her, “Go back downstairs. If she’s possessed, whoever is doing it might not like you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re Korean. She just asked why you weren’t back ho-“

Marie, or more likely the spirit possessing Marie, then stepped closer to us, almost lunging at us before seemingly stopping herself. She shouted at Ashley in Japanese again, “You ungrateful bitch! You should be thankful! You all were traitors!”

In a brave but also perhaps foolish move, Ashley defiantly replied to the spirit in Korean. “I’m not scared of you! Get out of my friend! She would never say those things about me or Korea!”

It was this that caused the spirit to break down. Marie punched a wall, putting a dent in it before falling to her knees and grasping her head with her hands, seemingly in pain. She screamed in English, “Get out! Get out! Get out of my head!” Almost as if she was arguing with herself, she then switched to Japanese, yelling, “Let me speak! Let me move on!”

Angry at the spirit, Jared shouted at Marie, “Get out of my friend! Stop messing around with her! I don’t care who you are! You need to leave her body or else!”

Yukiko similarly shouted in Japanese, “Get the Hell out of Marie-chan! How dare you possess her body! Get out!”

Finally, I grabbed Marie by her shoulders and hoisted her up, getting in her face and yelling at the spirit occupying her body with all the rage I could muster up in my voice, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MARIE RIGHT GOD DAMN NOW!

After I yelled, there was a pause in the commotion as silence filled the home. Marie blinked several times and looked around, deeply confused at what was going on and why we were all crowding around her. To say my heart rate was elevated would be an understatement. I was terrified of what was going to come next, knowing that possessions were totally unpredictable.

Jared then cautiously asked her, “Marie, are you…?”

She then looked up at the ceiling and remarked as she got up, “He’s gone… The spirit… He left us. Why are you guys standing around me?”

In relief, I replied, “Oh, thank God.” Me and the others all bear-hugged Marie, glad that her possession was over. “We’re so glad you’re okay, Marie.”

Still confused, Marie asked us, “Wait a minute, what the Hell happened?”

…

Downstairs, we sat Marie down and fully explained what had transpired, showing her the footage of her possession. To say she was disturbed would be very accurate. In particular, what creeped her out the most was the fact she began speaking perfect Japanese to us despite having at best a preschooler-level understanding of the language. She was also saddened by how she acted towards Ashley due to her race.

Once the footage was finished, Marie wiped her eyes of tears and told us, “I’m so sorry… I wasn’t able to stop myself.”

“There, there,” I said as I patted her shoulder to comfort her. “You’ll be alright.”

“I said so many terrible things… Ash, I’m sorry I…” She then took a deep breath, feeling horrible about how the spirit had been racist towards Ashley.

“It’s not your fault,” Ashley assured her. “I know you, Marie. I know you’d never say those things about me. Remember that time you punched a dude for calling me a chink during an argument in school?”

Marie, remembering an incident where someone had acted rather racist towards Ashley in an argument, earning them a punch, chuckled and recalled, “I got a day of internal suspension, but it was worth it.”

“To be honest, I wasn’t even mad. If someone’s gonna call me a racial slur, they should at least stay in the right ethnicity. Thank you, though.” All of us shared, once again, a much-needed laugh.

Adding to the humor, Jared pointed out, “You’re asking a racist white guy to know the difference. That’s your first problem, Ashley. They tend to not be so bright.”

“I know, I know.”

…

After this, we ended our investigation of the house for the night. We all went back home and got a much-needed rest, and in the morning, we began to review our evidence. We also called Family B to tell them what had happened. In particular, Mother B was disturbed by what had happened to Marie, and profusely apologized to us for getting us involved in this haunting.

Marie sat the second night out for obvious reasons, and instead visited the only church in town, which was Catholic like a majority of Japanese Christians are, to pray for protection from the spirit that had possessed her. Me, Ashley, and my sister, meanwhile, visited a local shrine. As I have said before, none of us are particularly religious, but these experiences did drive us to seek spirituality in some form regardless. All of us are, at best, culturally Christian, with me and my sister being like most Japanese people and not subscribing to any particular faith, instead living up to the stereotype of ‘born Shinto, marry Christian, and die Buddhist.’ Ashley meanwhile was raised in a Presbyterian household, a common Christian demonization among Koreans. Marie and Jared, as said before, were raised Catholic and Lutheran respectively.

Aside from reviewing evidence and praying, we all went to the beach to unwind and discuss what we would do for the next night, which Jared partially captured on his camera. “So,” I said to the group as three of us sat down together on the hot sand. “I have a feeling not all of us will go back tonight.”

“I’m not gonna,” Marie immediately answered. “Not after what happened. I’ll still be good for the school investigation, but like Hell am I going back to that house.”

“I don’t blame you one bit. I hope I never get possessed.”

“Knowing our luck,” Jared pointed out. “It’s bound to happen to someone else in the group at some point. Honestly, I’m surprised no one got possessed sooner.”

Ashley and Yukiko then walked up from the water, having taken a swim while we discussed what to do. “Hey guys,” my girlfriend replied before noticing the camera was on. “Oh, you’re recording, Jared?”

“Yeah?”

“What, are you trying to get a beach episode in or something? This isn’t an anime, you know.”

“I guess this could be our beach episode,” Marie joked. “Although I don’t know how a ghost hunting show would even need one.”

“We gotta be careful with what we say and show,” I pointed out with a chuckle. “I’d rather not have Jared end up on a sex offender’s registry since we’re all still in high school.”

“Whatever,” Ashley replied as she sat down next to me, pushing her body up against mine. “It’s just the beach. Why wouldn’t we wear swimsuits? Don’t lie and say you don’t like what you see, Takeo.”

I blushed and admitted, “Okay, yeah, that bikini looks hot on you, Ash.” She was wearing a green and blue bikini top and bottom, and I would be lying if I said I did not find it great to look at.

“Speaking of that,” Marie then asked my sister. “I’m surprised you don’t wear one, Yukiko. You’ve always just worn one-piece swimsuits.”

“They’ve never really been my thing,” she shrugged. Truth be told, she always preferred them, usually in blue like the one she was wearing now. “It’s not to prevent people from looking. I know plenty of people think they’re, well, hot. Have you seen how often one-piece school swimsuits are used in fanservice? I just don’t care for most bikinis or two-piece swimsuits in general.”

“God, we are so cringe,” Jared commented. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Hell yeah, bro,” Ashley replied, hi-fiving him. “So, besides all the beach episode talk, what’s the plan for tonight?”

“Marie’s out,” I explained. “Honestly, I was thinking we could send only two people inside this time. It’s not a big house. We could cover everything we need with just an investigator and an equipment tech. I’ll go in as the investigator since I can speak Japanese.”

“Then I’ll go with you as the equipment tech,” Yukiko volunteered. “We’ll give the others a break.”

“Does that sound good to you guys?”

“Yeah,” Ashley nodded.

“Sounds good to me,” Jared agreed.

“Then it’s settled,” I concluded. “Me and Yukiko will head in tonight. We’ll stay up as long as we can, either until dawn or, more likely, until we get chased out.”

…

That night, me and Yukiko stepped into the house by ourselves, equipped with one video camera, one photo camera, one digital voice recorder, a Japanese Bible and crucifix, a wooden talisman, or ofuda, from the shrine we had visited, and the EMF meter. We would remain together at all times as a safety precaution due to what happened to Marie the night before. We also made sure to have both Christian and Shinto objects to ward off any potential possession attempts, especially since this time, we would be more confrontational with the malevolent entities inside the house.

Before anything began, we started by laying out our equipment and saying a short prayer. For this investigation, almost all of our conversations with both each other and the spirits within were in Japanese. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Yukiko replied to me. “I’m scared, but I’ll get through it.”

“I’m terrified,” I admitted. “This is uncharted territory for us.”

“Oniichan, what if this thing follows us?”

I paused. Such a thing was a possibility I had not really considered. “Well… We…”

“What do we do?”

“We’ll deal with it if it gets down to it. Right now, we need to help (Family B). That’s why we’re here.”

Yukiko, still uneasy, sighed, “You’re right. We’re here for them.”

Both of us then washed our hands in a sink, sat down at the table, and put our hands together in prayer, saying the Lord’s Prayer in Japanese first. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

We both took a deep breath and paused, the roaring silence of the house filling our ears as we then switched to a Shinto prayer, or norito, specifically the Hi Fu Mi norito. “Hi fu mi yo i mu na ya ko to mo chi ro ra ne shi ki ru yu i tsu wa nu so o ta wa ku me ka u o we ni sa ri he te no ma su a se e ho re ke.”

With our prayers done, we began the formal investigation by laying out the crucifix, the talisman, and the digital voice recorder on the kitchen table, keeping the Bible and the EMF meter in my hands as Yukiko picked up the photo camera and left the video camera on the counter. We stood behind the video camera and began to ask questions using religious provocation in Japanese. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I command you to give us a sign that you are here. You’re going to answer our questions with knocks. Unless I say otherwise, it’s one knock for yes, and two knocks for no.” I then turned to Yukiko and asked her, “Are we all set?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I’ve been recording ever since we prayed.”

“Excellent.” I then turned back to the table. “Are you a man, yes or no?” Sure enough, we got a knock on one of the kitchen cabinets near the table. I also looked down at the EMF meter and saw that it was registering rather high readings. “There we go. Okay, did you live in this house?” Two knocks. “Did you live in a building near here that no longer exists?” Two knocks. Confused, I asked, “Are you human?”

To our horror, this entity knocked twice, indicating that it was very much not human. “Holy shit,” Yukiko whispered. “This isn’t good.”

I took a deep breath to calm myself down and continued. “Did you witness the American air raids here?” One knock. “Are you the only spirit inside the house?” Two knocks. “Did you possess an American girl in this house last night?” Instead of knocking, there was a brief period of silence, broken very suddenly by a cabinet door flying open and a plate being thrown to the floor by an unseen hand, shattering into many pieces. As the cabinet opened, Yukiko snapped a photo of it. Standing my ground despite this violent event, I asked, “Do you know who possessed my friend Marie last night?” One knock. “Did you possess her?” Two knocks. “Alright, that means it wasn’t you… But… What are you anyway?”

At this point, we both heard what sounded like whispering from behind us. We turned around, with Yukiko grabbing the video camera and aiming it into the family room. However, nothing was seen, and the whispering was indecipherable even after we reviewed the audio later. “You heard that, right?”

“Yeah.” Turning back to the table as Yukiko put the camera down, I asked, “I want to speak to the spirit who possessed my friend. In the name of Jesus Christ, I demand to speak to you right now!” It was at this point that the digital voice recorder picked up a response that we only caught upon review, but one that foreshadowed what would soon transpire: ‘You’re back.’

“It’s getting a little cooler in here,” Yukiko remarked as she took several photos of the living room and the kitchen. She then went back and reviewed the photo she took as the cabinet was opened and the plate was thrown. “Woah… Oniichan, look at this.”

I walked over and saw that the photo showed a disembodied red hand reaching for the cabinet after it had been flung open, seemingly trying to grab the plate that was thrown less than a second later. “That hand is red… This isn’t good.” I then turned back to the table and asked, “If you’re the spirit that possessed my friend Marie, I command you to reveal your identity to us! We don’t appreciate what you did, and we don’t like the fact you’re tormenting the family that lives here. They called us in to get you to stop harassing them and making their lives a living Hell. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I command you to show us a sign and say who you are!”

In response, one of the chairs slid out from under the table by several feet on its own. This was followed by the sound of a door upstairs being flung open and then slammed shut, causing us to briefly turn away from the table once more. Yukiko said to me as she pulled out her cellphone to record a second video and set the photo camera down on the counter, “I’m gonna go check that out.”

“You really shouldn’t go up there by yourself,” I warned her.

“It’s only for a few seconds.”

“But you-“

“Trust me, oniichan. I’ll be right back.”

Realizing I would not get through to her, I acquiesced. “Okay, fine. Shout if you need me.” As Yukiko left to go upstairs, I continued my confrontation of the malevolent spirits within the home. “Don’t you dare follow her! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you will stay here and keep talking to me! How about you start speaking instead of just knocking on things and breaking plates?” I then picked up the digital voice recorder from the table. “Speak into this. Can you tell us who you are? Why are you so angry?” Pause. “Why did you call me and my sister traitors?” Pause. “Why do you hate Koreans?” Pause. “Is there anyone living in the house you dislike?” Pause.

I then stopped the recording and began to play it back. To my shock, I managed to capture several whispers and moans that neither me nor Yukiko had heard that went on as things were moved around in the kitchen. Although nothing was discernible in terms of what they were saying, it was clear to me that there were two spirits, one of whom was possibly demonic. Then, when I began asking questions for an EVP response, I got answers for every single one, and each answer was increasingly chilling.

In response to being asked who they were, the inhuman spirit replied with the Japanese word for Hell, or jigoku. When asked why they were so angry, the other spirit, perhaps the one I had seen and the one that had possessed Marie the day before, replied with a whispered ‘Bombs fell…’ When asked why they called me and Yukiko traitors, the second spirit simply told me ‘America.’ When asked why they hated Koreans, this same spirit replied with ‘No’ before the inhuman spirit from before chimed in with ‘they lost…’ Finally, when asked if there was anyone in Family B they disliked, both spirits replied with the names of Father B and Grandmother B.

“Holy shit,” I said to myself as I finished typing down the responses I heard on my phone. As I did, the front door to the house suddenly unlocked, opened, closed, and then locked with no one standing near it right before my eyes. To say I was filled with fear would be a gross understatement. I was totally alone with at least two entities, one of which was most likely demonic and both of whom were not too happy I was inside the house. I froze in fear as my heart rate skyrocketed, unable to move or even speak.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Yukiko was filming the rooms with her cellphone, taking several photos while also recording video. “Who’s up here? We can hear you downstairs.” She got to the room all the way down the hallway, the bedroom of Grandfather B and formerly of Grandmother B before she died, and opened the door to let herself in. As she walked around, she could feel a sense of dread wash over her. “I know you’re up here. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I command you to make your presence known in this room!” In response to her demand, she heard a low-pitched growl come from an opened closet in the room and turned her camera to it, finding nothing there. “Is that you?”

This question seemed to set whatever was in the room off, because as soon as she said the last word in her sentence, all of the drawers of the dresser inside the bedroom opened at once, frightening her. This was followed by a voice in the room that said to her ‘I’m here.’

“Holy shit,” she muttered to herself in a rare bout of English. “Holy fucking shit…” Switching back to Japanese, she yelled out, “Come on! Do more than that!” Although she was clearly terrified, she pushed forward, and as a reward for her bravery or perhaps foolishness, she was suddenly pushed to the ground by an unseen force, knocking her phone out of her hand. She quickly picked it up and ran down the hallway to the stairs, now scared off completely as she began to even cry out of fear. “Oniichan! Oniichan!”

Snapped out of my petrified state, I looked to Yukiko and got up, asking her, “Yukiko, what the Hell happened?!”

“I got pushed,” she yelled as she set the phone down and practically bear-hugged me, shaking with fear as she did. “Something up there attacked me!”

“What attacked you?!”

“Something in the grandparents’ room pushed me!”

Angry that they had messed with my sister, I yelled out at the spirits inside the house, “I warned you not to lay a hand on my sister! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I command you to leave this house and leave the people inside it alone! They don’t deserve this! We don’t deserve this! What did we ever do to you to make you attack us?! If you’re mad at (Grandmother B), take it up with her in the afterlife! She died four years ago! Leave her family and us out of it, please!” The rage in my voice was palpable, and perhaps it proved to be the final straw with what happened next.

It was at this point that both the digital voice recorder and the EMF meter died, both of their batteries suddenly being drained of energy. As Yukiko clung onto me, she looked over at them both and remarked, “They… They died…”

“Oh shit,” I muttered. “This isn’t good…” Then, we both heard a loud scream of pain from upstairs, which reverberated throughout the whole house. I grabbed the video camera, digital voice recorder, and EMF meter as Yukiko split from me and grabbed the crucifix, the talisman, the photo camera, and the Bible. Having taken all of our stuff, we ran out of the house as fast as we could and never looked back, running all the way to the house we were staying in for our vacation.

…

The day after, we contacted Family B again and made them aware of what had happened. After talking it over with my family and them, they agreed to get their house exorcised. They said they would try a Shinto exorcism first, and if the activity continued, they would do a Catholic one next.

To say our evidence was compelling would be selling it short. Those we shared it with remarked that it was some of the most frightening and also convincing proof of the paranormal ever recorded in visual and audio form. It was around this time we also began discussing editing and uploading videos of our investigations online, although this would not happen as of yet. Our private home investigations may never be released, or only released in a heavily edited form, due to the sensitive nature of what was found and the privacy of the families involved. This rang especially true for this investigation due to how strict Japanese privacy laws can be. That said, I could still write about them in a somewhat redacted form to preserve their privacy.

With all of this in mind, we talked over perhaps cancelling our next investigation to give us all a break, but in the end, we went through with it anyway, and in hindsight, it was a good thing we did.