Living the Haunted Life

While recently talking to Connor Hopkins, we began discussing weird experiences that the crew of ghostfiles.tv have had since they began filming "A Brush With Evil", based on the book by Josh Heard, "When Ghost Hunting Goes Wrong: A Brush With Evil". I decided to go ahead to catch up with him, Josh Heard and Sommer Carter about these strange experiences.

Brendan Jacob, Cole West, Connor Hopkins

First I took a couple minutes to ask Connor about his experiences and what he thought might be happening. He tells me hes been investigating for 7 years and he never experienced much weirdness on a personal level until he started working on the film, "A Brush With Evil".

I asked him to give me details and he tells me, "Nothing ever happened to me and Brendan (Jacob), until we started working on ABWE. Then after that strange things started happening, such as hearing knocks, seeing shadow people and things whispering in my ear while I sleep.  It has happened at my house, Josh's, Brendan's, and even Cole's houses in Auburn." He continues, "I also hear strange things while I drive around and when I stay at our hotels on the road.  Everything has calmed down until I got back from Baltimore for Ouijacon. Brendan and I have seen a shadowy figure at Cole's house. Cole and Brendan saw a printer slide across the ground on its own. Just yesterday My mom and I heard footsteps walking up our stairs and both sat there and watched her bedroom door open by itself."

As long as I've known Connor he's been a pretty straight forward guy and willing to admit when he thinks something isn't plausible or all out bullshit. So, I know him experiencing these things has him a little weirded out. Same goes for Sommer Carter. As long as I've known her shes always had a skeptical mind, much like myself when looking at paranormal claims.

Brendan Jacob, Sommer Carter, Alejandro Dominguez, and Connor Hopkins

I asked Sommer to talk to me about what she's been noticing, and when she believes things changed. She's now dealing with trying to make sense of her experiences. She explained to me in her own words, "It wasn't until the summer of 2014 when I felt like I might have some sort of paranormal attachment, so to speak. Prior to that I did not believe that could happen. I didn't think ghosts were real. I wasn't 100% sure of it. After filming a movie called "A Brush With Evil", in August 2014, strange things started happening to me. I started seeing, things in my house. One night I was awoken in the middle of the night. I looked up and there was a small black figure sitting on the edge of my bed. I turned on the light and it was gone. In that instance, maybe it was a dream? I don't know, but that wasn't the only thing to happen. I also, a few times, saw a black figure in the backseat of my car while driving. The first time I saw it I brushed it off, didn't think much of it. but the second time I saw it, it was so much more defined that it startled me and I almost drove off the road. These black figures that keep appearing to me, where never there before I visited Iowa. I've been to hundreds of allegedly haunted locations, and I've never had anything bad happen. Now I feel like, there might be something lingering or watching? I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, but I believe it knows I know it's there. and I hope to figure out what it is, and what it's after."

In order to have this all make sense of this, a good person to talk to would be Josh Heard, since this whole thing stems back to his experiences. What is it about ABWE that might be causing strange things to happen with the TGF peeps?

To get deeper into that I asked Josh Heard himself, the producer of ABWE, about his experiences. Much like myself, Josh has always had a curiosity with the paranormal. It wasn't until his experiences with Workman's Chapel in Northwest Missouri, did things begin to change.

Connor Hopkins and Josh Heard filming ABWE

Josh explains to me, "It wouldn’t be until my college years, while investigating with a small team in Northwestern Missouri that life would literally spin around and leave me truly terrified. It was the cause of me writing my first book. A first-hand account of what went on during the course of a couple of weeks, and would ultimately leave me and my team scarred for life. After the horrible ordeal that was covered in "When Ghost Hunting Goes Wrong: A Brush With Evil", the majority of my sleep was handed over to terrible nightmares that would not only startle me awake, but would leave me so scared that the idea of sleep was an impossibility.


During the writing process and ultimately, the making of the documentary, odd things began to happen. Things that were almost too much to be simple coincidence. I won’t get into too much detail… (I don’t want to spoil a special, future featurette from the film) but I will say that life, again, began to unravel around me. Hell, I almost lost my family because of it all.

Since that time, I have had the feeling that something doesn’t want me to tell this story. And, for whatever reason, tries to throw me “curveballs” in hopes of driving me away from the story. The ultimate problem is that I am also a very stubborn, bull-headed son of a bitch who sets his eye on the prize and doesn’t falter easily. If I truly want something, I will not stop until I achieve the goal.

Now, could it just simply be a case of bad luck? Possibly… but possibly not. I very well could be the most unlucky S.O.B. on this planet. But isn’t it also possible that this story is so compelling that a dark force wants to stop it at all costs? I only know the things that have happened, and continue to happen on a daily basis. One day soon I will share the specifics with everyone."

So is it possible that the ghostfiles.tv crew is haunted? Can it be that whatever is happening, is related to Workman's Chapel? Or can these all be tricks of the mind? It's really hard to say, but there's no doubt that whatever's going on, it has changed life as they know it.