Get out of there.I'm sorry if this doesn't pertain to the exact topic of this thread, but it does have to do with satanism. Something strange is happening, and I don't know where else to go. This forum is the first place I thought of. This is my first post.
My wife and I are currently renting a home out in the country, where we are practicing small scale agriculture and growing our small family at the same time. We currently have a 6-month-old son, and we plan on having more babies in the near future.
I'm a very busy man, and I work pretty much everyday. I have a Monday through Friday day job as a plumber, I do side jobs of plumbing, electric and landscaping, and on weekends I go 5 hours out of town to fix up an old house that my wife and I recently bought.
Recently, my wife came to me with concerns about our neighbors. First, let me give you a brief rundown of who's in the house next door. I will not use names, only euphemisms. They are: the husband, the wife, the aunt, the daughter, the daughter's boyfriend, and the grandmother. So we have six characters at play here.
The husband and wife, on the surface, seem like normal country people. They have two horses, and three dogs. They grow food in their backyard. They have a motorcycle. They have always been pleasant when they have spoken to us. They look to be in their late forties to mid fifties, in terms of age.
The aunt is a sprightly older woman, looking to be in her late 40s or early 50s. She claims that she was unable to have children due to a botched appendectomy which did damage to her reproductive tract. She showed my wife a large vertical scar on her stomach to attest to this. She technically doesn't live in the house, but she lives about an hour away and she visits fairly frequently.
The granddaughter is in her 20s, somewhat fat, and dresses like a goth feminist. Black clothing, crazy hair dye, skull and bones, etc. According to the grandmother, the granddaughter practices witchcraft. We have never seen the boyfriend in person, but apparently he lives in the basement, and they have pictures of them together from when they were younger.
The grandmother is an older woman in her 70s. I am not a superficial person, so I feel weird saying this - but she looks like a witch. She looks like the sort of person that they would hire to play a witch in a children's movie. She has a big, crooked nose that takes up most of her face, and squinty witch eyes. I know this might sound weird, and I have trouble even taking myself seriously as I write this. But I can't think of any other way to describe her.
I'm not sure exactly how to tell this story. I guess I'll start chronologically. On Sunday, June 27th, when I was out working on the house that we bought, I received a text from my wife. She said that she had concerns about our neighbors and that she couldn't wait to leave the house. She also seemed like she was fearful and upset.
I called her immediately, and she began to explain some things to me. First, I want to give you a little bit of background on me and my wife. We're both devout Christians, but my wife has recently had an explosion of faith and Christianity.
She has become a creationist, whereas I am not (I could be convinced, and I'm not against creationism; I'm just not sure yet). We haven't been to church in a while because my church closed, and they are only reopening now on the Sunday of July 4th (my church is lame, I know. We are moving soon, so we will be getting a new one).
My wife is a very emotional and excitable person, and I'm usually the one who has to calm her down and be logical. We have a very good dynamic. She is extremely traditional and submissive. She readily embraces her Biblical role. We have a very good marriage.
When I called her, it was with the intention of listening to her concerns and probably calming her down. However, upon hearing what she said, I became increasingly concerned myself. Like I said, I'm the logical one. I'm the one who calms her down when she gets emotional or excited. So if we both have convergent ideas about this subject matter, It means that we both reached the same conclusion from different starting points.
As I mentioned earlier, the grandmother said that the granddaughter practices witchcraft. She said this in a way that indicated that it was accepted by the family (and possibly that other family members engage in it as well). Being a logical and reasonable person, I thought back to some of my experiences at college. I actually had a friend who converted to satanism at a death metal concert with her boyfriend.
The satanists I knew in college were not serious. They were not about to abduct a child. They were not about to sacrifice an animal. They were not about to engage in anything like that. They were the type of satanists who are really more like atheists or neopagans, casting "spells" and engaging in theatrical rituals whenever they were drunk enough to think that it would be fun.
I don't want to belabor the point, but I really want everyone to understand that I am a skeptic whereas my wife is a "leap of faith" type of person. My wife is revelatory, whereas I am methodical and logical. I came at this from the view of a skeptic. I approached this situation ready to explain to my wife that most "witchcraft practitioners" were harmless, like the stupid kids I knew in college.
Sorry for the long intro, but I felt it was necessary. Anyway, this is what she told me:
Over the course of the past couple of weeks, the aunt has begun approaching my wife on a regular basis and inviting her over to the house. My wife is an extremely kind and empathetic person, and we moved out to the country so that we could engage in a culture of neighborliness. With this in mind, my wife is the perfect person to be approached by a lonely old woman in the country.
My wife loves animals, and she loves old people. She thinks that they are cute. On paper, this situation is perfect. It's a cute little family out in the country that wants to have her over for dinner, wants to teach her how to sew, and wants to help her with her new baby. My wife is extremely open to these kinds of situations. That's part of the reason we came out to the country.
However, upon beginning to accept these invitations, my wife started to get bad vibes. I'm not the sort of person who understands terms like "vibes." I'm kind of autistic about this stuff. This is part of why my wife and I are such a good team. We complement one another.
Let's start with the grandmother. In addition to looking like a witch, her behavior is odd. In particular, her behavior is odd when dealing with our baby. She uses strange phrases, such as "you look tasty," when referring to our baby. One time, my wife left him with her for just a moment while she ran back to our house to grab a diaper. He was crying when she got back, and he is normally a very happy baby.
That same time, when my wife left him alone with her for a moment, she said that the grandmothers reaction was strange. It was almost as if she was trying to "play it cool," trying to contain her excitement at the thought of being left alone with the child. My wife also said that the grandmother reacted strangely during a diaper change, as if she was resisting a desire to gaze at my son's naked genitalia.
These behaviors, when taken individually, are no cause for concern. But taken together, I guess that's what adds up to a "bad vibe." Still, however, I'm a skeptic. I remained skeptical, at this point in my wife's description of events. However, I continued exploring by asking my wife questions and processing the information contained within her responses.
First off, there are the dogs on the property. My wife worked as a veterinarian for several years. She is familiar with many different types of animals, and has had relationships with a variety of dogs. She's very familiar with signs of abuse. All of these dogs look like death, they all look much older than they actually are, and they all look like they've been through hell.
Occasionally, I've heard sharp yelling directed at the dogs coming from the house. My wife confirmed this recently. During one of her visits, my wife had walked in the house before the grandmother realized that she was present. This was a candid moment, where the grandmother did not know that she was being watched.
At one of the dogs, she yelled something along the lines of "shut up, or I'll take a whip and ctack your ass!" It was a very specific threat, and The harsh nature of her scream was completely uncharacteristic when compared with the whole "sweet old lady" vibe that she had been trying to cultivate with my wife.
My wife made her presence known, and the grandmother was visibly startled. She was embarrassed. She quickly attempted to explain herself, saying that she was "trying to get the dogs in order," or something like that. My wife brushed it aside and try to tactfully avoid an awkward situation.
So now we have a creepy old "witch" lady who screams at her dogs when nobody's looking, but then pretends to be a sweet old lady when my wife is around. She has a granddaughter who openly practices witchcraft, and they have three hellhounds who look like they've been abused. I feel like I've seen other dogs at the house as well, as if animals may have come and gone. I can't confirm. It's a weird house.
Speaking of the house, it's dingy. It's cluttered. It's labyrinthine. There are pictures of horses everywhere, sculptures of horses, figurines of horses; The whole house is covered in horses. They own two horses, which they keep on a couple of acres of land across the street. Like the dogs, the horses seem to have personality issues. They are not like other horses that my wife has encountered, and she has encountered many (including horses that have been injured, large horses, dangerous horses, etc).
Now, I want to focus on the behavior of the aunt. The aunt is the main instigator in terms of getting my wife to come over to the house. She texts my wife frequently, sometimes just sending emojis or other random things to keep the conversation going. However, and this is important - she does not knock on the door when I am present. All of these efforts take place in the absence of me, the husband and father.
It's easy to know when I'm not home, because we only have one car. If the car isn't there, I'm not home. If the car is there, I'm home. I park on the side of the house that is clearly visible to them, so they would easily know if I was home just by looking out of their window.
In addition to encouraging my wife to visit the house so that the grandmother can play with the baby, she also asks questions. She asks questions about the layout of the house, about where the bedrooms are located. She asks questions about my wife's family, about where they are located. She asks the sort of questions that would be useful to somebody who was trying to kidnap a child. Like I said, when taken individually, none of these things are suspicious. I'm trying to paint a whole picture here, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Now let's talk about the wife. The wife also asks questions. When my wife is outside working on the farm without the baby present, she will ask where the baby is. She doesn't ask "oh, now, where is that cute little baby of yours?" It's more to-the-point. Like: "Where's the baby? Oh, he's in the bedroom sleeping? Okay."
So now we've got the wife and the aunt asking questions that, when taking together, would give somebody the information of where the baby is when he is unattended and what the layout of the house is like.
I'm going to return to that grandmother again, because there was one more comment that really got me thinking. At one point, the grandmother very briefly and casually told my wife about the loss of her 5-year-old child. This is a woman in her 70's, so if she lost her child when he was five, this would have occurred sometime between 1975 and 1990.
When she first mentioned it, It was somewhat ambiguous. She said "I lost my little boy when he was 5 years old." Upon hearing this, you would assume that the boy died. Perhaps he got sick, or maybe he drowned or had some other sort of accident.
She proceeded to sniffle a bit, and put her face into a frown for a moment. My wife described this display of emotion as "fake." She then continued the story: "yes, I just turned away for a second, and when I looked back he was gone." She sniffled for a few more moments, and then immediately shifted back to normal. She never spoke about it again.
So there's a few things to look at here. First of all, she made it clear that her 5 year old son was kidnapped. It was a brief story, containing very little extra information. There was no description of search efforts, no painful reflection. Just a brief and casual comment about how kids, well... sometimes they just go missing. And it's sad - see me snivelling? See me pouting? Ok, I'm done now. Let's go back to talking about normal things.
That whole interaction struck me as odd. I wasn't present, and I've never spoken to the grandmother. I've only seen a brief video of her, which my wife recorded on Snapchat. So I can't comment on her body language, or If her emotions were "fake." I do trust my wife, and I believe that she is good at reading people. She's definitely good with animals.
In order to test these people a little bit, my wife dropped a couple of Christian religious comments. The grandmother was visibly uncomfortable when Christianity was mentioned, and the aunt had an interesting comment. When my wife mentioned it was hard to find God-fearing people, she said "I don't fear God, but I know I wouldn't be here without Him."
Like I said, when taken individually, none of these things mean much of anything. But when taken together, it seems like they are adding up to something strange. I'll give a brief rundown, one more time:
1) Witchcraft openly practiced by at least one member of the household, and is supported by other members of household. Visible discomfort when Christianity is referenced.
2) Obsession with baby. Odd comments about baby. Insistence on visiting the house. Persistent invitations. However, none of this occurs when husband is present. Targeting the weaker vessel?
3) Strange animals, which seem like they have been abused (according to my wife, who is extensive experience dealing with animals who have been injured, animals who are sick, etc).
4) Bipolar behavioral duality (screeching at dogs with oddly specific threats, and then switching to "sweet old lady" mode). Acting "too nice." Awkward situations. "Hansel and Gretel" effect (feeling like one is being lured in with kindness and food).
5) The granddaughter bragged about the fact that their parakeet yelled "go fuck yourself" when a priest entered the house. Apparently, this parakeet doesn't normally say that. It normally only says "thank you" and "I love you." I'm not sure if it's a true story, but regardless, it's weird that the granddaughter bragged about it. The other family members chuckled along when she told the story.
6) Inquiries about the layout of the house and the location of the baby when unattended.
7) Casual mention of the fact that the grandmother had a child who was kidnapped. "Fake" emotions. No follow-up story.
8) Proximity to Washington DC. This may or may not be relevant, but we live within an hour of Washington DC. Unfortunately, DC is definitely a hub of child trafficking. There may be a monetary incentive for those who engage in trafficking.
In conclusion, my wife and I are concerned. We don't want to overreact, and we don't want to be superstitious. Right now, we just have our guard up. We will be locking our doors at all times and we cannot leave him unattended, even if it's just for a moment when he is sleeping and my wife is working outside.
We won't be here for much longer, and we've decided that we are going to lie to the neighbors and tell them that we will be here for much longer than we actually will. This will eliminate any sense of urgency, If they are actually planning something. We also have guns, if anybody tries to break in.
Please let us know what you think, or if you've experienced anything similar. Thank you, and God bless you all!
These people are creepy and weird. I would not leave a child alone with them for a second. That comment about the missing 5 year old is a huge red flag.
Your wife seems like she is a little naive and too nice. It was a terrible mistake to leave the baby alone with these weird people for even 2 seconds. You should minimized your children's exposure to satanists and sodomites. And never, ever leave them alone with people like that.
If you're going to stay there I'd put a big fence around the whole house, and get a few large guard dogs. Intelligent ones who understand who is part of the family and who would go for the jugular if anyone touched one of the children. Get the house exorcised.
I could imagine a situation like this being possibly doable if your wife was able to keep strict limits with the neighbors. But if it was my family - I'd leave.
