How to seek the paranormal | Carrie Poppy | TEDxVienna

Eight years ago I was hunted
by an evil spirit.

I was 25 at the time and I was living
In a tiny house behind other house in L.A.

Is this guest house, kind of lapidaded
Not taken care of for a long time

And one night I was sitting there and got
this truly spooky feeling

Kind of the feelinglike you are
being watched, but no one was there

Except my two dogs, they were just resting
I look around and no one was there

I thought "Ok this is just my imagination"
But the feeling just kept getting worse

I started to feel pressure in my chest
Like the feeling when you get bad news

But it's starting to sink lower and lower
Over the course of that week

This feeling got worse and worse
And started to become convinced

That something was there
In my little guest house haunting me

And I started to hear this sounds (Woosh)
Kind of whisper like something passing by

I called my best friend Claire and said
"I know this is going to sound crazy"

"But I think there is a ghost in my house"
(Laughs) "I need to get rid of it"

She's very open minded and said
"I don't think you are crazy"

"¡I think you just need to do
a cleansing ritual!" (Laughs)

"Get some sage and burn it
And tell it to go away"

So I said ok, I went and bought sage
And I have never done this before

So, set the sage on fire, waved it about
and said "¡Go away! This is my house"

"I live here, you don't live here!"
But the feeling stayed nothing got better

Then I started to think "Ok this thing
Is propably just laughing at me"

Because it hasn't laughed and I probably
just look like this impotent and powerless

Thing that couldn't get it to go away
So, everyday I come home and realize

This feeling got so bad that, I mean
I'm laughing about it now

But I would sit in there in bed
And cry every night

The feeling on my chest got worser
It was physically painful

I even went to a psychiatrist and tried
To get her to prescribe me medicine

And she wouldn't just beacuse
I dont have schizophrenia (Laughs)

So finally I got on the internet
and googled hauntings

I came upon this forum "Ghosthunters"
But these were a special kind of hunters

They were skeptics. They believed that
every case of ghosts that they had

Investigated so far had been
explained away by science.

I was like "Ok smart guys, this is what's
hapenning to me, and if you have

an explanation for me I would love to
heart it" and one of them said

"¿Have you heard of carbon monoxide
poisioning?" Yeah... like gas poisioning?

So carbon monoxide poisioning is when
you have a gas leak in your home

I looked it up and the symptomps of
carbon monoxide poisioning include

A pressure on your chest
auditory hallucinations (Woosh)

And unexplained feeling of dread.
So that night I called the gas company

I said I had an emergency. "I need you
to come out, dont wanna tell the story now

But I need you to come out" (Laughs)
They came, I said "I suspect a gas leak"

They brought their gas detector
and the main said "It's really good thing

that you called us tonight because
you could have been dead very soon"

37% of americans believe in haunted houses
and I wonder how many of them

have been in a haunted house
and how many of them in danger.

That haunting story has led me to my job
I'm an investigator in two senses

I'm an investigative journalist and
investigator of the claims of paranormal

In claims of the spiritual and that means
a few things, sometimes I'm pretending

To need an exorcism so that I can go
to an exorcist and see if he is using

Gimmicks or psychological tricks to try to
convince someone that they are possesed.

Sometimes it means that I go undercover on
a french group which I report on a podcast