OVERNIGHT's Jesus Idol
In this article, we will be looking at an event which happened live that I've transcribed which occured as an audience member called Miranda was being questioned about an experience she shared for OVERNIGHT's web-series 'Haunted Homies'. OVERNIGHT is a paranormal investigation team based in America, and they upload their investigations to YouTube. During their 'Haunted Homies' series, they discuss the paranormal to an audience, and they read out experiences which the audience members have submitted to them prior to the event. Once the experience is read out, the team invites the person the experience belongs to on stage, and then the person is questioned about the experience by the OVERNIGHT team.
This transcript covers a period of time towards the end of when Miranda was questioned about her experience. During this time, an item fell off the shelf which was located on the stage as part of the backdrop to the interview. The transcript covers the team's response and speculations as to the item falling, and it ends just before Miranda leaves the stage for the team to move onto discussing the next person's experience. It's important to stress here that, in the video, you do see a book fall and knock the Jesus statue from the shelf. The fact the book knocked the statue, and it wasn't a spontaneous event, doesn't rule out the team's speculations; but I will discuss this more during the end of this article.
I have tried my best to transcribe the experience and the interview word for word to keep everything discussed as authentic. Where, in the interview segment, you see (...) it means I've cut out a portion of the conversation. I'm always reluctant to do this, and so cut out as little as possible, but the OVERNIGHT team have a habit of going off topic and joking about things; so it's an unfortunate necessity. Anything I couldn't understand is marked by *inaudible*. The interview was conducted by Elton Castee, and Corey Scherer; the two lead members of the OVERNIGHT paranormal investigation team during the time of this interview. Since this interview was conducted, Corey has left the OVERNIGHT team. As with all articles, my own thoughts will be included at the end of the article.
The Jesus Idol Falls
*A book on the shelf behind the interview panel falls forwards and knocks a Jesus Statue from the shelf*
Corey: "No, what? What?"
Elton: "Dude, is it actually? Dude, look what it is. Look what item it is. They don't know, but we know. Look what item it is"
Corey: "Where is it?"
Elton: "Look, look what item it is. Look what item it is. Look what item it is. Look what item it is dude! Dude, look what item it is! Let's go! Oh my god, and neither Marty nor Kyle know what that means either 'cause they weren't filming on that trip"
Miranda: "So, yeah"
Elton: "Okay, okay, no; hold on. So, first off; one, this is our first time ever having the haunted museum on stage. Typically it's set up, like, somewhere else, like, away from the stage; like where we take pictures. This is the first time ever, which also means this is the first time ever on this tour that we're, like, talking about paranormal things infront of these items and nothing has ever fallen across this entire tour; nothing has ever fallen. People have bumped into the cases, leaned on the tables; nothings ever fallen. We're sitting on the fucking chairs right now, no one's moving, and it's that item of all items to fall. Okay, okay. Oh, no, no, no. Alright, we're gonna interject, uh, real quick on that story because"
Corey: "What?"
Elton: "Dude; I have to tell Jonah. I have to tell Jonah about this. Alright, so, I'm not gonna be able to fully recall the story. So, a while back, and I think still to this day, I've been asking people to ship us haunted items and with all the items I said 'please, if you send me something, don't just send me something; like, tell me why you're sending it to me. Like, a story, anything on it at all', and all the items you're seeing here, other than the Dybbuk boxes, are items that have been shipped. Like, Ellie has now been named; that came from, I forget what country in Africa. That was from, uh, South Africa. They've all come from all different places, but this, and there's another one somewhere up here; oh, there it is, there's the other one right there. It was a matching set and the story that came with this was basically they thought the house was haunted and they would pray every single day to these, these two items; Jesus and Mary, and they would pray to it every single day and be like 'please take this away, please take this away', and things actually got better, but their theory was all of that negativity that they were trying to get removed from the house ended up in these two items because they would pray and then all of a sudden these things and in this area was, like, causing wierd issues and then finally they put it down in their basement. Nothing upstairs happened, only in the basement. So, with that being said, part of the story was every time they prayed to these items, they felt as though these were getting stronger as if they were harnessing more and more of that negative energy being confined into these. So, hypercut to Stanley Hotel. Uh, we're in Room 217, we've been opening, like, two items, three items, every single night across an eight day trip. We had, at that point, I think like eight or ten items left to open. We're like, 'let's just open them all in 217, bring every item in that we have into one room that we literally didn't leave for about nine or ten hours straight'. So, but this! This one along with the other was the craziest shit we have ever had happen. This might be the first ever, like, four hour video we ever post. I don't wanna cut anything so you can just realise how wild this night was..."
Corey: "Yeah"
Elton: "...unboxing different items"
Corey: "Yeah"
Elton: "So, with these, we had a couple devices set up. I don't remember, rempod was on the table..."
Corey: "Mhm"
Elton: "...and K2 was on the table"
Corey: "Yeah"
Elton: "And I was the one who was reading the story; and as I was reading the story, every time it would get to, like, the parts about 'there's more power in these items', the rempod would go off, and it was like, almost like creating activity in the room at the same capacity thst the story was being read. So, it'd be like 'oh, I had these items, I would start to pray', like, rempod, rempod, and be like 'the more I prayed, the more energy it had into it', it would go off, it'd go off, and it got to a point where the story was saying like, 'it got so scary I had to put it in my basement', rempod would go off; and we're all like 'that's unusual, right? Like, that timing was, like, insane?' And I said one more time 'okay, I'm gonna read the story one more time but specifically when I get to the part that mentioned power, show me how much power you have' and I read the story in the exact same way, in the exact same phrasing, and it got stronger each time. I would say 'power', it would *makes beep noises and gestures the equipment activating*, and I would say, like 'it got stronger' and it would go off again, and then I waited two and a half, three minutes, and I was like 'I'm gonna read it one more time. I'm gonna read the story for a third time. I know everything's been set, the timing is all off, is there some kind of wierd rhythm in the device?' As I read it the third time, literally as I'm talking about how much power is, is in these items; the devices were the loudest and strongest that they have ever been"
Corey: "Yeah"
Elton: "Three times in a row, nothing inbetween"
Corey: "Yeah"
Elton: "Only when we got to the part of the story where it mentioned how strong, how evil and demonic these items were"
Corey: "Yeah"
Elton: "So, it's a wierd thing because you haven't seen the clip yet, but when that video comes out and you see these, you'll understand why this is the reason why our motor home keeps breaking apart. This is probably all tied in together"
Corey: "Aren't we like, in, like, a church?"
(...)
Audience Member: "Are you sure it's not the thirteen Dybbuk boxes?"
Elton: "No, because they've all been opened and put protection scrolls in it and resealed, so I'm fairly confident that that is not the problem. I don't even know where this came from"
(...)
Corey: "Aren't we, aren't we, like, in a church right now?"
Elton: "We are in a church right now"
Corey: "So..."
Elton: "Exactly"
Corey: "But do you see what just happened?"
Elton: "Yeah, the items? Yeah. Mary and Jesus"
Corey: "We, we're in a church and the Jesus Christ idol just got pushed off the museum shelf"
Elton: "This is the first time we've had any kind"
Corey: "Kind of anything?"
Elton: "Yeah"
Corey: "The Jesus Christ idol is the one that got pushed off as we're in a church"
Elton: "It's pretty cool dude"
Corey: "No, it's literally, like, mocking Jesus"
Elton: "It's pretty cool dude. It's what we're here for, right?"
Corey: "Yeah, well, thank you. I'm freaking out right now"
Elton: "Yeah, he really is. He's actually freaking out right now. That's really cool. This is the first time we've ever had any kind of paranormal thing happen during our liveshow"
Corey: "You guys don't understand. So many people have been bumping into this during pictures. Like, we've been saying 'okay, we're gonna have to put a rope up because stuff's gonna get knocked over'. The amount of times that people have bumped into this, and nothing has fell over, and the Jesus Christ idol just got pushed off the shelf"
Elton: "Yeah"
Corey: "While we're in a church"
Elton: "Yeah"
Corey: "Surrounded by thirteen-hundred demons in a box"
Elton: "I think you exaggerated a little bit"
Corey: "Twelve-hundred"
My Thoughts
I really appreciate how excited Elton was when discussing the idol, plus it's great that he said this kind of activity is what the team is there for. It's always baffling when teams run from activity, as what Corey displayed during this event as he literally left the stage for a short while after the item fell. Paranormal investigators, especially experienced ones like the OVERNIGHT team, should always be wanting to learn more and they should always be wanting to investigate unknown events. So, I just thought to mention that as a huge point of praise from me to Elton. It's also good how Elton discussed the importance of repetition within investigation. His story about how they tested the idol in the Stanley Hotel is a fantastic example of how investigations should go if the team is experiencing activity. Instead of running away or freaking out, the team should instead repeat experiments to rule out variables such as technical malfunction or coincidence.
It's very important, before I go on to discuss if I think the idol is haunted, for me to discuss a little bit of conversation which occured between Elton and Corey after Miranda had left the stage. They don't discuss much more than what I've already transcribed, but the audience does tell them that it was a book which knocked the idol from the shelf. Elton looks through the book and says it's empty and has something to do with witchcraft. He then sees an alphabet written inside it, and he says it's an angelic alphabet before slightly entertaining the coincidence of a book containing an angelic alphabet knocking a Jesus idol off the shelf while in a church.
I do agree that there are a fair few coincidences around the idol falling, but I don't think we can jump to a conclusion of it being paranormal activity. Elton and Corey put lots of emphasis on nothing ever having fallen off the shelves, even though people had bumped into it often; so, I suspect nothing had previously fallen because the book had never been placed as it was and where it was. It sounds like the shelves and items are often moved, which means the items won't be in the exact same place each time they're on display. Books are incredibly temperamental when propped standing on a shelf, and so I suspect vibrations from the stage caused it to fall into the idol. It's true no one was moving, but they were using microphones to interview Miranda; and so if there were speakers projecting the sound, then the vibrations from the sounds could have been enough to cause the book to fall. This is all speculatory from me, but I suspect it was all just down to books being unstable when stood as this one was.
Now, to play devils advocate, I will say that this event is a really good example of activity I would deem to be legitimate. This is because I believe the paranormal always thrives in coincidences. I think the most compelling experiences are those where they aren't extreme, but they're too coincidental to be meaningless. This is exactly what this event is due to the coincidences of the angelic alphabet, the Jesus idol, and the church setting. Plus, as things haven't fallen before, these three details lining up during the one time something has fallen is a bit odd. This does not mean that it's paranormal though, and I suspect Elton knew this. Once he and Corey were told about the book, it was like all of the excitement from the speculation around the idol vanished from Elton; and I suspect this was because he then knew it wasn't paranormal and wasn't anything to do with the idol. It could also be because they'd spent a good bit of time on the idol and they only had a certain amount of time to read more experiences within the show, but I feel Elton changed his stance and so didn't say anything more.
So, as much as I would love to say that this was legitimate paranormal activity; I really don't think it was. If it happened again in the show, or if something happened as they were discussing the idol's power, then I would be more inclined to believe it. However, as nothing else happened, there's nothing indicating that the event was paranormal. There isn't even anything suggesting the event was due to the idol given it's the book which caused it to fall. Despite my stance here, I still felt this event to be important to document as it goes towards an overall profile of the OVERNIGHT team, plus it is good discussion around an event which happened live and was, in the moment, deemed as paranormal.
Thank You!
Thank you for reading this article! I'm glad that Elton and Corey discussed the event in a serious manner as they could have very easily been over the top about it, or far too comedic about it, but instead they mostly kept level heads and discussed it as being a serious and legitimate event. This definitely helped when it came to writing up an accurate transcript of the event, but it also served as a good reflection of both Corey and Elton's stances when it comes to the paranormal. Elton was excited, but level headed, and drew information from previous events to emphasise the significance of this event. Corey, on the other hand, left the stage for some time, admitted to freaking out, and drew religious parallels and coincidences. These two approaches to the paranormal are fascinating to have in one team as usually teams lean too far one way or the other; so it's a shame that Corey has since left the OVERNIGHT team. If you want to watch the full haunted homies episode which features this event, then please click the link below:
The next article will document a location in Nottinghamshire and it will be published on Wednesday the 14th of January. The following article will document an artifact and will be published on Friday the 16th of January.
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