The Case of Doris Bither.

The Doris Bither Case is one of the most famous and documented in paranormal investigation; However, more than four decades later, there are still many loose ends. Some of you are surely aware of the novelization of the case, made by Frank De Felitta, and the film released in 1982: The Entity, with Barbara Hershey in the role of Doris Bither.

In 1974, Doris Bither was a single mother in her thirties. She had four children from four different fathers: one girl and three boys. At that time she was emotionally suffering from the consequences of several abusive relationships, which led her to seek solace in alcohol. In this context, Doris Bither invited paranormal investigators Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor to her, what she said, haunted house. During that first visit, Doris Bither confessed the true reason for the invitation. She claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by three demonic entities.

Apparently, Doris Bither’s eldest son once tried to intervene while his mother was being thrown across the room by an invisible entity, and was injured himself. This was the first time Taff and Gaynor had heard of this type of spiritual abuse; However, his doubts disappeared when he saw the bruises on Doris Bither’s inner thighs. Some neighbors even testified to seeing apparitions moving around the house. The children had also seen these beings; in fact, they appeared so frequently that one of them like Mr. Who.

The paranormal investigators gathered their team and set out to study the case. According to her report, Doris Bither was instructed to summon the entities, so she began cursing and yelling at them. Suddenly, lights appeared in the room. A kind of mist swirled in a corner and began to take the shape of a robust male torso. Despite her equipment, researchers only managed to capture an arc of light over Doris Bither as she sat on her bed.

By interviewing the entire family, paranormal investigators concluded that the entities seemed to grow stronger as the family’s emotional problems became more pronounced. However, paranormal activity was always more intense when Doris Bither was present. Despite moving several times, she Doris Bither claimed that her entities followed her; even that she became pregnant with one of them, although medical tests revealed that she was suffering from an ectopic pregnancy. In the late 1980s, Doris Bither retreated into silence. Her eldest son, in an interview conducted in 2009, commented that her mother had died of pulmonary arrest in 1995.

Taff and Gaynor first visited Doris Bither’s home in Culver City on August 22, 1974, and continued to go regularly over a ten-week period. They did not investigate the alleged sexual assault, since it preceded her participation in the case; and Taff himself stated that he did not believe such incidents had occurred. During the course of their visits, however, they noticed intense poltergeist activity: objects falling by themselves from shelves, strange lights, bad smells, and cold spots in the house. They were joined by a medium and several other researchers; However, only Taff, Gaynor and Doris Bither herself were the people who provided greater details of this paranormal activity.

Photographs of what appear to be lights are the only objective evidence collected in the course of the investigations. They were taken by Taff and Gaynor with an instant camera and a 35mm camera. The researchers indicated that they focused on moving orbs of light, but what the images show has a different appearance: a static, semicircular band of light; an irregular bright line; and overexposed areas without shape. Taff and Gaynor also used an infrared camera, but accidentally overexposed the film, rendering it unusable.

This is, broadly speaking, the Doris Bither Case; However, there is much more beneath the surface.

The story of Doris Bither is, by all accounts, a tragic story. She had an abusive childhood, several failed marriages, was an alcoholic, and lived in a squalid home with four children. After being physically attacked by these mysterious entities, she never considered contacting the police, given the circumstances, but she did mention it to a friend of hers. The matter probably would have ended there, as a situation easily attributable to stress, mental illness or substance abuse, if it were not for that chance encounter in a bookstore.

A friend and confidant of Doris Bither overheard a conversation between parapsychologists Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor, two men who worked at the University of California, Los Angeles, about paranormal topics. The friend told them about Doris Bither’s experiences and asked if they could help her. Intrigued, Taff and Gaynor interviewed Doris Bither in August 1974. Although Taff and Gaynor called themselves paranormal investigators, the truth is that Taff had a doctorate in psychophysiology, and Gaynor a degree in philosophy. This was her first paranormal investigation.

As often happens in these types of cases, the presence of alleged psychics, parapsychologists, paranormal investigators and self-proclaimed “ghost hunters” intensified, and possibly exacerbated, Doris Bither’s situation. Where a serious professional must, in the first instance, refer the person to a qualified psychiatrist, Taff and Gaynor saw a golden opportunity to investigate a real ghost.

So what really happened with the Doris Bither Case?

Unfortunately, the Doris Bither Case was never competently investigated and, almost half a century later, it is impossible to be sure of much of what has been assumed to be true. Many of the people who participated in the investigation have since died. However, there are a few pieces from which we can put together a reasonable assumption of what happened in 1974. On the one hand, we have Taff’s claims and conclusions, which can be examined against the evidence he offers. For such a spectacular case, there is little independent corroboration of the paranormal events that occurred around Doris Bither.

In 2014, Taff commented:

More specifically, Taff and Gaynor claimed to have observed small, rapidly moving balls of light on several occasions, almost always in the presence of Doris Bither. The lights were further reported to change their movement, size, and intensity in response to the researchers’ requests and the Focal Agent’s occasional emotional outbursts. Attempts to photograph the lights were reportedly unsuccessful on most occasions, although in some rare cases arcs of light were captured, an effect that can appear in photos of illuminated objects, either due to movement of the camera as well as that of the object itself.

Now, many alleged paranormal phenomena in the Doris Bither Case are related to the context, that is, to the “decayed and dilapidated nature of the wooden house” in which they occurred. In fact, many of the typical paranormal phenomena are usually easily explained by context. However, Taff and Gaynor also claimed to have experienced some unexplained phenomena, for example:

The investigators were joined by a friend of Doris Bither, named Candy, who claimed to be psychic and who occasionally shouted that “there was something in the corner.” On some occasions, other people joined in, with little or no regard for the research protocol. In any case, the most impressive evidence, at least for Taff, is in a few photographs.

During their second visit to the house, they brought additional equipment and several cameras which they claimed later yielded unexplained photographs. At this point it must be said that this evidence does not withstand the most superficial critical look.

The most dramatic events in the Doris Bither Case occurred when Taff and the rest of the team were not in the house. Taff writes:

Taff then goes into detail about all those strange stories. Because? Basically because Taff and his colleagues were forced to rely on what Doris Bither told them had already happened. Unable to verify their claims, the team attempted to confirm them through other means. They tried ancient spirit communication techniques, asking spirits to make sounds or manipulate lights in response to questions: a certain number of taps or flashes to indicate “yes” or “no,” for example. The efforts were as fruitless as they were not serious. Even Taff admits that:

Devices that were available at the time, such as Geiger counters, were also used, but in the end the evidence was inconclusive and ambiguous.

Doris Bither’s claims of sexual assault by these entities is, perhaps, the most horrifying aspect of her story; However, it was only one part of a much larger series of paranormal phenomena that the family and investigators claim to have experienced. Despite panic scenes on ghost hunter shows and YouTube channels, in which participants claim to be pushed or hurt by unseen forces, claims of supernatural assault are very rare. In fact, the experiences of most people with the paranormal are mundane. Furthermore, they are often benign and comforting. So the Doris Bither Case, if it was real, is also notable for that reason.

By the way, Taff points out:

. According to Doris’s testimony, this event took place on several separate occasions, each time leaving large, distinctive black and blue wounds, especially around the ankles, wrists, breasts, and groin area on the inside of the thighs.”]

Claims about relationships with spirits have a long history, beginning with medieval witches and their Sabbath gatherings where they supposedly had carnal encounters with the devil. From a psychological perspective, it is not surprising that a wide variety of “ghosts” are sexual in nature, that is, a manifestation of overt or repressed sexual feelings. After all, even the most secretive ghosts are known for touching, caressing, even breathing heavily into the ears of their terrified victims.

Reports of ghosts touching their victims are not as rare as you might think. Generally, people report invisible entities appearing at the foot or on the bed late at night. People who experience these events often describe being terrified, paralyzed, held back, or pushed down by some invisible force. Most are also convinced they were fully awake at the time and reject the suggestion that it was all a dream. The reports of the most severe spiritual attacks,…