Moms Discovery Of Odd Figure On Camera Adds Concerns To Scratch Marks On Baby
It was a night like any other night in Michigan, but not for this concerned mother… It had been a little while now where she kept noticing strange things happening in her home, and now she just knew she had to find the cause! Specifically, the strange noises she had been hearing at night. She could feel herself reaching the end of her tether, something just wasn’t right, and she had to find out what was going on…
Baby Monitor Video
She had been thinking about it for a while now, and she decided that setting up a baby monitor to film what was going on was a good and easy solution. How was her daughter ending up with scratches on her face, surely she wasn’t scratching herself? Now she had the footage and it’s a good thing she was sitting down when she watched it. She wasn’t ready for this. For this mother, a parent’s worst nightmare was unfolding with horrifying mystery.
Baby Monitor Video
Concerning Marks On Infants Face
Heather Brough lived together with Joshua Higgins and their one-year-old baby, in Joshua’s mother’s guesthouse in Michigan for a little over a year when events made the family want to move out immediately. It all began when Heather took Lily, their daughter, out of the crib one morning and noticed scratches on her face. She only became worried when new marks kept on appearing and her suspicions started falling on her fiancé. Was Joshua to blame for the abuse?
Concerning Marks On Infants Face
Reality Changes
Heather and Joshua were loving parents and had a happy relationship. They lived the kind of life that young couples lived, and at that moment in that small town, everything was perfect. Their love was deep, they had a beautiful daughter and their cozy little homemade it all seem picturesque. Things took a turn towards the darker side when Heather started to hear noises at night, thumping on the floor, screeching door-hinges, and random footsteps in the kitchen. The discovery of scratches on Lily’s face was where she drew the line. This had to stop.
Reality Changes
Tensions Rise
She immediately started to question Joshua about getting up at night and if he had gone into Lily’s bedroom during the previous nights. She was almost accusatory when asking him about the marks on her face. Naturally, things started to get quite tense and Joshua denied any knowledge of this. Heather was not convinced and that’s when she decided to do something so that she could catch him in the act; she couldn’t think of any other explanation. Turns out, she couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Tensions Rise
Searching For Solutions
She was going to go out of her mind if she didn’t do something about this. She knew she would be heart-broken if this fairytale life came to an end, but if the father of her child was hurting her baby, she would not stand for it at all. She thought that it might have been an animal that got in, but she knew she didn’t leave windows or doors open at night. Someone or something inside the house was doing this.
Searching For Solutions
Finding Sense
She knew she had to find answers, whether it was that Joshua was guilty or the forever-not-knowing, this was going to tear their picture-perfect fairytale apart. They went out together and got a baby monitor with a video camera to set up in Lily’s room. Joshua pointed out that they should position the camera in a way that they could see if she was maybe scratching herself in her sleep. Heather agreed but also noted that she had been making sure, every day, to keep Lily’s nails trimmed, especially after the first incident.
Finding Sense
The Video
They purchased a Logitech Circle 2 because it had night vision capability and that was sure to help them catch the culprit. They set it up and went to bed to have an uneasy night of sleep. The next morning, their sleep-deprived eyes stared at the new scratches on little Lily’s face with a sort of knowing disbelief. They would have to watch that video now. They could feel their fairytale growing darker, even before they started watching it.
The Video
Creepy Figure
The first figure to appear in Lily’s room is that of a man, and Heather straight away thinks she’s solved the problem of the noises. Joshua must be sleepwalking at night, but that idea doesn’t fit the rest of the issues, like the scratches. She would have to keep watching, more clues were needed to solve this mystery, even though it felt that every minute watching made her fairytale home turn more into a nightmare.
Creepy Figure
Stranger
A grainy shadow, the shape of a man, enters Lily’s room and passes the crib. Lily seems to become aware of the figure and sits up, then slowly pulls herself up by the side rails until she’s standing and looks around as though searching for the figure. The figure appears and turns toward the monitor, it was then that Heather knew it was not Joshua on the video in Lily’s bedroom. Some mysterious figure was messing around with her baby.
Stranger
Dark Reality
Her spine was as stiff as a plank, she could hardly catch her breath, her heart was pounding as though she had just run a mile, and watching the stranger on the screen just wandering around in Lily’s room left her mind racing through a million thoughts. One thought stood out loud and clear though, who is this stranger in my baby daughter’s room in the middle of the night? What could he possibly want from a baby?
Dark Reality
Time To Leave
This is why Heather was hearing footsteps and thuds and other noises at night. There was a man in their house! She replayed the clip a couple of times and noticed that at a point when the man passes Lily’s crib, he becomes totally transparent. It felt like ice had formed down her spine. She felt she couldn’t move, she just held Lily tighter. She had to show Joshua the video and they needed to move out now.
Time To Leave
The Truth
Joshua said, “It was chilling… It was literally a chill down my spine, like that ‘what if’ factor — Is this what I just saw?” Heather recalls, “Seeing the scratches on Lily’s face was so bizarre and frightening.” She also added, “I was crying, ‘What happened to my baby?’ I grabbed her jacket and ran over to my mother-in-law’s house. Nobody knew what happened. We wondered if she’d scratched herself, but her little hands did not match up to the scratches on her face.”
The Truth
Calling For Help
Joshua could not shake the chills from the footage he had seen, a ghostly stranger in his daughter’s room in the middle of the night, while he slept unknowingly. He felt terrified and needed to get his family out of that house immediately. With his wife and daughter, they ran out of the house and called the police for help. They put him in contact with the Scientific Paranormal Investigations of Michigan. It was time for the experts to be brought in.
Calling For Help
Home Investigation
Mike Priest, the co-owner of Scientific Paranormal Investigations of Michigan, spoke to them on the phone and decided this was a case that definitely needed investigating. He got a team together and they went to investigate the house. The team reviewed the footage and went into the house to investigate further, their report did not fill Heather or Joshua, nor his mother, with any joy at all. The investigators concluded that the main house, including the guesthouse, was very possibly haunted.
Home Investigation
Stranger Things
This event was not the only strange thing to happen. In an interview, Heather said, “I woke up to get ready for work one morning and it felt like someone was choking me, then it shook me, and at that point, I decided to buy our camera.” She had not mentioned this incident to Joshua after it had happened. She also added, “There have been times where my fiancé and I would wake up in the morning and hear an angry male voice — like someone had stubbed their toe.”
Stranger Things
Creepy Sounds
Co-owner of Scientific Paranormal Investigations of Michigan, Mike Priest, who led the paranormal investigation, felt certain they did the right thing in calling him and his team, saying “I definitely believe there is something going on at this house”. At Joshua’s request, Mike and his team set up recording equipment and found some strange sounds.“We heard something say, ‘Oh here we go. Oh yeah.’ I heard it as plain as day,” Mike recalls. The figure seemed to have been expecting them…
Creepy Sounds
Time To Return
Priest aims to return to the house to thoroughly investigate it. Mike and his team will scrutinize the footage and try to recreate it or find some logical explanation before they pin it down as a paranormal case, and this way they hope to find what it was in Lily’s room. Or perhaps Kris, Joshua’s mother, could give some insight into this house that she bought eleven years ago. Who were the previous owners, what is the house’s history? Who lived here and what happened to them?
Time To Return
The Family Before
“I was told when we bought the house, a little more than eleven years ago, that the lady who owned the property died in the main house,” Kris explained. “It’s an old farmhouse and according to the niece, she had fallen down the stairs, broken both hips, and laid there for a very long time before she passed away. She said that the guest house was built for the lady’s brother who was schizophrenic.” But there is also another theory.
The Family Before
A Past Of Darkness
Jim, Kris’s husband, has a different theory of the whole situation, one that would bring a new perspective. Jim is convinced that the unwelcome guest is a ‘spirited’ previous guesthouse tenant that is taking his chances. “The gentleman that lived here originally… then jumped out this window, which is one story down,” Jim said to WXYZ-TV Detroit. Joshua and Heather were still no closer to learning the truth though, but they had a theory on what to do about it.
A Past Of Darkness
No Time To Spare
“It scares us that it could do something else,” Heather expressed. “It’s not physically just going after her, it feels like it’s going after me too… These terrifying experiences have made us want to leave as soon as possible. As soon as possible we are out of here. This is a spirit. I don’t know what its intentions are, but at this point, it’s becoming physically harmful.” Was there no release from these apparently occult attacks?
No Time To Spare
Viral Video
Heather shared the video to social media and it went viral, many people saying it left them chilled to the bone. Some exclaiming their horror at the apparition in the child’s room. While others are a lot more skeptical, saying there is probably a simple and logical explanation behind it all. But if there was one, these doubtful critics could not provide it. Any person that had a more conventional theory was unwilling to help the troubled family, or so they thought.
Viral Video
Ghost Shadow?
Skeptical Inquirer writer, Kenny Biddle, wrote this: “There’s something else I noticed right away – the ghost was casting a shadow, two actually. This tells me the figure is a solid, physical object able to reflect light. In the first milliseconds of the video, as the figure is moving to the left, you can see its shadow move across the ceiling right by the ceiling fan.” If you know anything about ghosts, then you can be certain that they are not ‘physical objects’.
Ghost Shadow
Logical Reasoning
He added: “I would surmise either Heather and/or Joshua had been watching television and had a reason to get up out of bed, perhaps go down to the kitchen for a drink/food or a visit to the bathroom, paused the video and walked across the room not realizing they were being recorded. At a later, unspecified time, they reviewed the footage, and due to a lack of understanding of video cameras, concluded the distorted figure was a ghost.” The question of the scratches on little Lily’s face still remains unanswered by this theory.
Logical Reasoning
Chance
“Aside from the technical issues, it is not uncommon for babies to scratch themselves. We know from her statements that Heather discovered the scratches after waking the baby up from a nap,” Kenny wrote, “… but there’s nothing to rule out the possibility Lily scratched herself while sleeping.” Kenny discovered something rather interesting when he dug a little deeper into the story. As it turned out, the hysteria of those involved had conveniently omitted some sensible clues.
Chance
Reasonable Theories
“I’m not sure exactly what the motivation behind these claims is, but I do have my suspicions,” Kenny said. “I went to Heather Brough’s Facebook page earlier today and noticed that she posted her first public post since November of 2018; it was a link to a GoFundMe account she had created that day (March 26, 2019) with a goal of $5,000. She was asking for this amount to help her move out of the guest house, citing her daughter’s safety from all the paranormal activity as the main reason for the fundraising.” He then sent Heather a Facebook message.
Reasonable Theories
The Facebook Message
“Hello, my name is Kenny Biddle, and I’ve been investigating paranormal claims for the last 20+ years. Your recorded video of what is believed to be a walking ghost in your home was brought to my attention by several paranormal groups. After taking a look at it, I was wondering if there was a longer clip than that – perhaps footage showing some minutes leading up to (and including) the clip that was shared on ABC Action News. The clip that has been shared starts with the figure already in motion, and I was hoping to see where it originates,” Kenny said in his message.
The Facebook Message
More Information Needed
“I noticed the TV was on, so being able to confirm it wasn’t someone (living) watching TV and perhaps got up to get something, would be beneficial. I’m not saying this was a hoax, I’m just trying to get as much information as possible to understand what the video is showing. I appreciate your time in reading this. I hope to hear back from you. Have a good day.” Heather still hasn’t bothered to get back to him at all, says Kenny.
More Information Needed