Stories from the Watseka Wonder
In October of 2022, we had the unique opportunity to host a coven-themed boudoir event at the “Watseka Wonder,” also known as the “Roff House,” which is famous for being the site of the first-ever spiritual exorcism case in the United States. We hoped for a couple “spooks and scares” with it being the night before Halloween and that’s just what we got!
Our stories begin on the moody eve of Halloween, 2022, in Watseka, Illinois. Our ventures had guided us to plan and execute an event at the famous Watseka Wonder, the site of the first-ever documented exorcism in the United States. Of course, we were all skeptical going in, but my team and I all agreed that we felt the shift of energy the minute we walked through the door.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to appreciate the difference in energy, as we were pressed for time and got right into preparing for our guests. The event began promptly and we immediately began to experience things that one could consider questionable. The home quickly filled with happy, excited clients that shared the same love for Halloween and the music kicked up from the speakers placed in the parlors. Introductions began and bloody mimosas were poured, then all of the chatter of happy clients in the parlor came to a sudden halt. Our speakers began to glitch and skip like broken records. In all of the events we’ve hosted, we’d never experienced any technical difficulties with our equipment and this instance was easy to shrug off, even though it kicked us off to a great, spooky start!
The event moved smoothly through the night and we all anticipated what was to come once things settled down. Once the main event ended and the majority of our guests said their goodbyes, our experiences began to grow from little glitches in the lights and electronics to clearly hearing your name being called from a room that no one was in or seeing something from the corner of your eye. “I experienced a lot of cold chills and heard random sounds around the house not attached to a person. I (later) experienced some sleep paralysis from what felt like a presence touching me,” wrote Holly, a stayover guest. At one point, one of our clients met me hastily in the kitchen, claiming I was calling for him, as I (Maris) prepared more mimosas. The kitchen was situated far from the main event space and I had been alone in the room for quite some time. Needless to say, we joined the rest of the group juuuuust a little quicker!
Our newest client, April, had experience in paranormal investigating and brought along her EMF Sensor kit to test out in her room. Before long, the night fell together organically, which we couldn’t appreciate more. Once April brought out her equipment, everyone was on their toes. Earlier in the evening, we were lucky enough to have Hannah of Lucid Spirit read everyone’s tarot. In a personal conversation with her, she shared her thoughts on the energy of the home and discussed that she felt the strongest presence in the first bedroom directly up the staircase, which happened to be April’s room. Everyone gathered in the first bedroom after the shoots concluded and watched April speak to the spirits she believed could be present while the EMF reader jumped simultaneously. It was a first for me and everyone shared the same feeling! From there, the energy and excitement spiked organically and I watched all of our stayover clients run around the home like little kids in a mystery thriller searching more another clue around every corner.
A few moments after April began using her EMF kit, my assistant Kate was walking down the staircase just outside April’s room and noticed something in one of the steps. She found that the step opened up into some kind of little storage space. Nothing too crazy, right? No, of course not. The crazy part? April’s sensor jumped at the same time that Kate opened the step that everyone upstairs screamed. Kate went running back up and told them. We all considered it to be coincidental- until it happened three or four more times at the same time that the step was opened. Our guest Pierce uncovered a few strange finds. He opened a closet to find a couple demonic-looking paintings, behind them were three porcelain dolls and a small box, nothing else. If that’s not enough to send a chill down your spine, what is? After that, he stumbled across an envelope sticking out from under a padlocked door just enough to grab it. Oddly enough, it was full of one-hundred dollar bills. He also found a scrapbook stashed away that contained newspaper clippings of missing persons and major disasters with no captions or explanation. The list of strange things seemed to go on and we confirmed with the owners that no items were planted and were expected to have just been left from past guests, as they do not often visit the home anymore.
Throughout the night, we had multiple reports from our clients thinking that someone else had called their name, that they had heard footsteps in the night on the level of the house that no one slept, doors that were open had mysteriously closed, that they swore they saw a man standing atop the staircase, etc.
Fortunately, no one felt anything malicious or evil present, but things were still spooky. Everyone slept, then we awoke to a dark, dreary Halloween morning and joined for a breakfast by candlelight. I woke up to the eerie, cinematic sight outside my bedroom window of the heavy fog still lingering in the air around this “Conjuring-looking” tree. It began raining and I remember thinking that I had never felt such an embodiment of Halloween before.
As my assistant and husband were taking boxes out to be loaded into the car, I finished cleaning up after breakfast. This is where my own personal experiences start to get good. I was completely alone in the house and only three of us were on site. I heard my husband walk inside from the dining room, through the butler’s quarters, and into the kitchen. I stayed with my back to the door as I washed the dishes. I heard his footsteps so clearly that I began speaking to him and asking if everything was loaded. I felt a hand on my back, which isn’t out of character for my husband. I began to wonder why he hadn’t answered me, despite coming up so close, so I turned to talk to him. When I turned, no one was in the kitchen with me. An eerie feeling flooded over me as I still felt as if someone was standing directly in my path. I hurried outside to find both my husband and assistant at the car organizing boxes. Neither of them had been inside for at least ten minutes or so since everything was loaded. After our stay, I mentioned this to the owner and he said that being grazed while doing dishes wasn’t a rare occurrence in that home and seemed to be something that guests mentioned to him rather often.
After our wonderful stayover guests departed and it was just the team left, we were advised by our fellow witch in attendance to say our goodbyes to the house and its spirits and do a cleansing ritual before departing. One of the rules of checkout per the owners was to make sure all the doors and windows, including bedroom doors, were shut before we left. Together, my team and I walked the home and shut the doors together. The last doors we shut were the two doors that sealed the staircase that led from the upstairs bedroom to the kitchen.
One of my assistants went upstairs while the rest of us stayed at the bottom of the steps in the kitchen. We watched her close all the doors throughout the hallway at the top of the stairs, as it was a straight view all the way down. She closed the door that sealed the staircase off from the rest of the upstairs, then came down and shut the corresponding door in the kitchen. We had all said that throughout the night, it felt almost as if someone was standing at the top of the stairs. None of us had spoken of it until breakfast, where we were all stunned to hear that we had the same feeling. We joked that she hadn’t said “goodbye” to the “man atop the steps,” so she opened the kitchen door at the bottom of the stairs to do so. When she did, we noticed that the matching door atop the stairs that she had just closed before, was open. It was then that we said, “yep, that’s enough for me!” and walked rather quickly outside to do our cleansing.
Of course, everyone has their own stories from the house and this was just my take. The Roff House was by far the most interesting experience we’ve had at a venue so far and we hope for more like this in the future. I wish I could’ve included all the stories from that night, but if that were the case, this blog would be miles long. I guess if you’d like to hear more, you’ll just have to experience it for yourself. ;)
