After narrowly escaping death, party animal Doug moves to the country to live with his grandfather but peace evades him. Taunted by frightening voices and horrific visions, he can’t seem to shake the feeling that something has latched onto him.
After narrowly escaping death, party animal Doug moves to the country to live with his grandfather but peace evades him. Taunted by frightening voices and horrific visions, he can’t seem to shake the feeling that something has latched onto him. As the encounters worsen, Doug seeks to determine if it’s the house that’s haunted or him and learns a terrifying truth: Death doesn’t like to be cheated.
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Find episode transcript here: https://a-ghost-ruined-my-life-with-eli-roth.simplecast.com/episodes/the-hell-hound
Eli Roth [00:00:02] I'm Eli Roth. A lot of people believe that our behavior is controlled by our fear of death, and it makes perfect sense. We spend most of our lives trying to outrun it. But at the same time, we know it's inevitable. Like most people, I think the fear comes from the unknown. I've heard countless supernatural and paranormal stories, and many of those spirits once lived in our reality, but some aren't like that. Some aren't that easy to figure out.
Doug [00:00:32] Oh, boy. You know, even by what I'm doing right now doing this, I'm kind of I'm really I'm kicking it up a little bit, I guess, or setting it off because in the past I've noticed when I tell new people, it does seem to kick up the activity a bit, but I feel like I still want to do this regardless. I want to tell my story because I know that what I went through was real. Something was really after me. I lost weight. I mean, my heart would be pounding. When I would go to bed, I was taking melatonin and another sleep aid, and I was taking probably more than I should have. But I just it really didn't make that much of a difference. I just felt total fear to get in bed every night. My name is Doug Walter and A Ghost Ruined My Life.
Eli Roth [00:01:23] What you're about to hear is Doug's story, as told by him to us using dramatic recreations from my TV series A Ghost through in my life on Discovery Plus. We went through hundreds of true paranormal accounts looking for the most terrifying ones to share with you. Doug Walter tells us the story he's never told anyone, and it starts with a horrible accident that he was lucky to survive. Welcome to the Ghost Ruined My Life podcast. This story is called The Hell Houd. It's 2019, Doug's living in New York City and having the time of his life.
Doug [00:02:01] I did live a pretty carefree life. I knew right and wrong. I just didn't do what I knew was right. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time, and that's kind of where my life hit a turning point.
Eli Roth [00:02:12] Doug liked to party hard... Very hard.
Young Doug [00:02:24] Yeah. Wooo!
Doug's Friend [00:02:25] Hey you trying to drown yourself? Slow down, man.
Young Doug [00:02:29] Why this is what I'm here for. This is what lif is for, bro. Whoo! I gotta piss like a racehorse. Line up some more shots.
Eli Roth [00:02:41] One night, Doug has too much to drink. He falls and smashes his head against the wooden railing at the bar.
Doug [00:02:51] That's kind of where my life hit a turning point.
Eli Roth [00:02:54] Doug's head injury is serious. It's deadly. And that is not an exaggeration. Paramedics arrive and they pronounced him dead on the scene. When our producers were in the room with Doug, it was clear that he had had an experience that few others have. There was something behind his eyes that you just can't explain.
Doug [00:03:12] When I had the experience, it was all black and I was flying through somewhere and something was right behind me and I was moving fast and continuously. It is always right behind me and I couldn't escape it, and I don't know what it was, but I was running from it. And I just remember feeling terrified, not knowing what it was and don't know what. But I was, you know, I guess, trying to escape from whatever was chasing me.
Eli Roth [00:03:40] The paramedics fight to revive him, and miraculously, Doug escapes death.
Doug [00:03:45] I always wondered if it was just, you know, maybe me crossing over to the other side or getting ready to. Looking back on it, I just felt lucky. I felt like I got another chance. The whole near-death experience maybe lasted anywhere between 30 seconds to a minute. I was dead and then I awoke. It really forced me to kind of just look at the mistake I made because I mean, there's really not a bigger eye-opener than that.
Eli Roth [00:04:13] Doug decides to leave life in the city behind and move out to the peace and quiet of the country.
Doug [00:04:20] I moved in with my grandpa in Suffolk County, and it was an opportunity to make my life easier. And it was an opportunity to help my grandpa because, you know, he was at an age where it was best for him not to be alone. You know, I felt happy to move in with him. This was a place that I was comfortable at.
Young Doug [00:04:39] Hey Grandpa Lou.
Doug's Grandfather [00:04:40] Welcome to The Boondocks, Kiddo. Let me show you the guest bedroom.
Young Doug [00:04:45] I remember where it is, gramps. I figured I could, you know, help out, do some cooking, some cleaning, whatever you need.
Doug's Grandfather [00:04:58] I think we could go visit your grandmother.
Young Doug [00:05:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, of course.
Doug [00:05:05] My grandmother passed away in March of thousand nineteen and after she passed away, my grandpa would take trips to a cemetery pretty frequently and I would drive him and it would probably end up being maybe sometimes once a week. Weekly. You know, I felt like I drove through a cemetery way more than the average person does.
Doug's Grandfather [00:05:31] She always loved it when you would visit. She'd be so glad to hear that you're coming to stay for a while.
Young Doug [00:05:39] Yeah.
Doug [00:05:41] In the past when I would go to a graveyard, I didn't think much of it after my near-death experience. Now I would just look at it, and I guess I still feel a little bit fearful with everything that happened with me. Visiting a cemetery, I would just look at it, and I guess I feel a little bit fearful. I'd feel a little bit uneasy.
Ghost [00:06:06] Turn Around.
Doug [00:06:17] When I heard that voice saying turn around, my heart just dropped. I really drove myself crazy trying to think, what is this, why is it happening? I just thought, it's trying to tell me something. I'm right here. Turn around. And it was saying it maliciously. That's how I take it.
Eli Roth [00:06:38] Doug has no idea what's going on. Who can blame him? He decides to shake it off.
Doug [00:06:44] Looking back, it was kind of like a warning before a volcano errupts. But I missed it. This vibration in the air, I felt it felt just like the slightest bit of pressure almost felt like when you have two magnets that are opposite and they're pushing against each other. I can't compare it to anything else, but it's something that you feel and you know, it's there.
Eli Roth [00:07:05] It's his first night in this country house and he's just returned from a creepy old cemetery. At first, Doug tries to convince himself that it's just his mind playing tricks on him. But strange things keep happening. He can't shake the feeling that there's something there with him, and whatever it is, it has no intention of letting him sleep.
Doug [00:07:26] I remember laying in bed and it was pitch black, and I remember feeling something come over the bed and I remember it started at the foot of my bed and I could just feel it worked its way up. And then it got to basically my upper body and I sensed something there and I thought it could be an animal. But I don't see them, and I remember feeling frozen in fear trying to. I guess I was trying to convince myself that it wasn't happening, but I felt it, and I remember feeling so afraid. That I remember just one tear rolled down my eye like I got that emotional. And I just I couldn't move and I couldn't really process it. I just remember thinking, Is this really happening? It felt something that resembled an animal. And it wasn't until it got right up to my face that I thought to myself, this feels exactly like a dog. I mean, it even sniffed like a dog. That's what it felt like, basically right in front of my face. I think it want to feed off of fear. I refuse to believe that I'm helpless. And there has to be something that I can do.
Eli Roth [00:08:43] As the weeks pass, the voices continue to call to him.
Ghost [00:08:47] Turn around.
Doug [00:09:18] I can't see anybody, but I could hear voices, and I don't know who they are. And at that point, I realized that I had a rough road ahead of me,
Eli Roth [00:09:29] but it's the nights that terrify him most.
Doug [00:09:32] I remember laying in bed always at night as I'm getting ready to fall asleep. My bed was nudged just enough where I'd feel it. And that was it, and I remember the first time it happened. My gut reaction said something just moved my badge supernatural. And as quick as that thought came to mind is as quick as that thought left. But it was enough to get my attention that I couldn't brush off. I was thinking about it all day. Is this going to happen again? And from that day on, things weren't the same. I think whatever this was, just trying to show me that, hey, I have physical strength.
Eli Roth [00:10:14] Doug tells us that he decided to keep the torment to himself.
Young Doug [00:10:20] uhh. Coffee.
Doug's Grandfather [00:10:25] Sleep well, kiddo?
Young Doug [00:10:29] Slept like a baby.
Doug [00:10:32] It's not an easy thing to come out and say this is happening, and I feel like for me, it was not necessarily. People would think that I would have mental illness, but they would think that I was just making it up or just doing this for attention for me. I just I felt like even if someone did believe me, I couldn't prove it. And for me, that was that was the hard part was that someone had to take me at my word.
Eli Roth [00:10:58] Between the crazy visions and the mounting voices he starts to wonder, is his grandfather's house really haunted? The next night, things escalate.
Doug [00:11:08] I remember laying in bed, and it was right before, you know, I would have fallen asleep. I remember hearing footsteps out in the hallway that were a lot faster than my grandpa walks. And when it happened, I don't remember feeling scared, but I definitely felt puzzled because hearing that it just now wasn't how he normally sounded. That was nowhere near where he would walk.
Eli Roth [00:11:33] Doug follows the sounds to his grandfather's room and finds him fast asleep.
Young Doug [00:11:40] Gramps. You OK,.
Doug's Grandfather [00:11:43] *mumbling*.
Young Doug [00:11:43] You need something. Why did you get up?
Doug's Grandfather [00:11:49] Didn't get up. Black dog at your door?
Young Doug [00:12:02] Alright pops.. Back to dreamland.
Eli Roth [00:12:06] But what happens next is no dream.
Doug [00:12:09] The first time I saw something, I remember sitting on my couch and I saw it right out of the corner of my eye and it was a black dog. At this point, I was frozen. I was shocked. I couldn't think. I couldn't process what was happening. I just remember feeling. Totally frozen. I saw that this was real. And this was not something that was just in my head. That's when it hit me that the house wasn't haunted. It was me.
Eli Roth [00:12:40] We'll be back after a short break. After surviving a near-death experience, Doug Walter leaves New York City in the hopes of finding peace in the country. But whatever's terrorizing him, one form it appeared in is a black dog. It's persistent.
Doug [00:13:02] I'm here, I'm following you and I'm watching you. And I remember at that point thinking, Wow, this thing is doing whatever it can to try to scare me, and I never imagined it would get as bad as it did. You know, and when things got bad, I never imagined that they would get better.
Doug's Grandfather [00:13:22] Morning here, you're up early.
Young Doug [00:13:24] Yeah, yeah. I couldn't sleep for some reason
Doug's Grandfather [00:13:29] You didn't sleep at all?
Doug [00:13:32] To me, that was worse than the lack of physical sleep, the fear took its toll much more.
Young Doug [00:13:39] You remember getting up last night at all?
Doug's Grandfather [00:13:42] Nope.
Young Doug [00:13:44] I could've sworn I heard you up and down the hall last night.
Doug's Grandfather [00:13:48] Not me.
Young Doug [00:13:50] But I mean, you remember telling me you saw ablack dog in the house, right? Seriously, Gramps. Have you ever felt anything in the house like something's watching you?
Doug's Grandfather [00:14:08] Son. You think you need to see a shrink, talk to somebody about this?
Eli Roth [00:14:18] Doug is positive. He's not crazy. He has no idea what's happening, but it's never happened to his grandfather. And Doug doesn't think it's related to the house.
Doug [00:14:29] If I could move out and that was a fix, I would easily have done it.
Eli Roth [00:14:33] When Doug tells the story, he seems to relive the desperation he felt at the time. He could not continue with this level of anxiety and exhaustion.
Doug [00:14:42] I don't think I could have gone anywhere and would have been able to escape it. I just I felt like I had no choice but to deal with it. As the days passed, more things happened and I could see that it was starting to escalate. As I'm laying in bed, I could feel the mattress like something is pushing it up from within the mattress almost at times, like it was breathing. It felt like something was coming to life from inside of it. Like, it was getting stronger and stronger. It was mentally and physically exhausting. I just had this uneasy feeling like something bad was currently happening or about to happen.
Eli Roth [00:15:28] The torment escalates and the voices continue to call directly to him. It's as if they're trying to lure him away from something or into something.
Young Doug [00:15:41] Yeah. Yeah.
Ghost [00:15:51] Doug. Doug. Turn Around.
Young Doug [00:16:04] I did turn around. What do you want from me? Answer me.
Ghost [00:16:15] Join us.
[00:16:16] Why is this happening to me? Why this wasn't something that I could just brush off and let go. I think it wanted to either break my will where I did something drastic or had to be hospitalized. Whatever it was just wanted to torment me for whatever reason. It was almost like it was enjoying it.I refuse to believe that I'm helpless and there has to be something that I can do. I was online and I was desperate to try to find some kind of answer some kind of solution to what was going on. And I looked up supernatural and black dog, and there's mythology that it's called the hellhound. It's a bad omen, it's not good, and to me, that scared me because it wasn't just it wasn't just the person after me, it seemed to be more than one thing. But I couldn't come up with anything concrete. That was an answer. I really. All I could do was speculate.
Eli Roth [00:17:17] As both the demonic dog and the voices continue to stock him, Doug feels increasingly isolated. The fact that the house is so isolated doesn't ease his sense of dread
Doug [00:17:28] while I'm sleeping and when I'm by myself pretty much alone, most of it happens. And so I would say here, and especially at night, it definitely it kicks up more, definitely at night. That seems to be the witching hour. Maybe there's some kind of connection to when we're asleep that whatever it is, try to find its way into really. As soon as I would lay down, I would feel just steps like that coming up something. We're just kind of prace around and I feel around my pillow, around my head. It was never a really religious person, but this is like a Saint Michael medallion and this is a crucifix. Sometimes I would hold it, and it seemed to make a difference.
Eli Roth [00:18:07] Doug's using some religious objects to protect himself, and I completely understand. I've used things like sage to cleanse the energy from a room. Again, this situation is untenable, and Doug has to act fast. His life and well-being depend on it.
Doug [00:18:22] Once I realize that whatever it was was following me. It's a physical terror. It's just there's really nothing that's as scary. Nothing seemed off limits at this point. Anything seemed possible. There was a moment where I felt like I was going to need some kind of help, whether it was a priest or a hospital or something more than myself. I felt like I was going to need some kind of help. And I remember just running through my mind, Where am I going to go? Who am I going to turn to it? I remember thinking, if I go to a hospital, they're not going to take me seriously if they do. I mean, there's really not much they can do. And I'll be in a hospital room with this thing still tormenting me, and I won't be able to escape it. One of the avenues I went to try to get some help was going to a priest, and I went up to him after mass and I explained what was going on and I told him a bit about my past. I wanted him to know everything about me because I felt like if he did, he would be better suited to help me. And, you know, I explained what was going on, and he told me that it was probably all in my head and that was just that was like the curtain closing down. I just thought, if he doesn't believe me, who, who? Who is? And I remember just feeling a bit frustrated and asking him, Well, you know, do these things? Do you believe that they ever happened at all? And he goes, Yes. In rare instances, but whatever it is, it's probably just in your in your mind and not really happening. And I just after that, I wasn't going to speak to another priest any time soon. At least it was. It was crushing at the moment. If the priest couldn't help me, then maybe someone from the other side could
Eli Roth [00:20:14] desperate for help. He reaches out to a psychic medium.
Medium [00:20:19] Doug Walter?
Doug [00:20:21] Ended up speaking to someone, and this woman could hear the fear in my voice when I spoke to a paranormal investigator. She was basically telling me this had to come from somewhere.
Medium [00:20:30] Did the doctors tell you how long you were technically dead?
Young Doug [00:20:33] One minute they told me no signs of life.
Medium [00:20:38] Have you been to any funeral since then or cemeteries?
Young Doug [00:20:41] Cemeteries? A lot.
Medium [00:20:43] Why.
Young Doug [00:20:44] I I bring my gramps and he visits his friends and family that are gone now.
Doug [00:20:49] I mentioned to her that I did go to a cemetery frequently, and she explained to me that hospitals, cemeteries, places like that are very active spiritually, and it is possible that something called me back from there.
Medium [00:21:03] Do you think you can get something on camera, something visual?
Young Doug [00:21:09] Do you think that that would be seen as provoking it?
Medium [00:21:14] It's a risk, definitely. But you might need to provoke it to get some answers.
Eli Roth [00:21:21] Doug sets up a night vision camera and records while he sleeps. Many people try this, but most of the time they get nothing. But what Doug shows our crew is shocking. He had never before shown it to anyone. I could not believe what we were seeing.
Doug [00:21:36] This one here, just the lights trick that flies by. This is like 6:30 in the morning. See right in that bottom right corner. OK, this one on this was the first clip I saw. Here we go.
Crew Member #1 [00:21:53] What is that?
Crew Member #2 [00:21:54] It's Like a strobing.
Crew Member #1 [00:21:57] Woah.
Doug [00:21:57] so this is me sleeping. Just look at the bottom of my feet. You don't really see anything. Looks like something was pulling the blanket, I just remember thinking this is like something out of a book or a movie, but it's not. This is my life right here right now. Knowing something was present, I felt so scared, like I wanted to tell the whole world. And I'm not really a talker, but I felt like I wanted everyone to know what was happening. To me, that's how scary it was.
Young Doug [00:22:27] See? It's real.
Medium [00:22:30] I never doubted it was real.
Young Doug [00:22:33] Let's just figure out what it wants so I can give it up and put an end to this.
Medium [00:22:37] You do not want to do that.
Young Doug [00:22:39] Why not?
Medium [00:22:40] If you didn't understand this before, understand it now. You are in a fight with something evil.
Eli Roth [00:22:47] We started this episode talking about how so much of our behavior is controlled by a fear of death. Doug was living without any fear at all. Then he actually died when he hit his head on that wooden bar in New York City. But he came back. He cheated death and death wants payback.
Doug [00:23:05] After that night's near-death experience, some door got opened up when I went to the cemetery with my grandpa. Death recognized me whatever was chasing me. I think it was just maybe death. Or maybe I wasn't running from something. Maybe I was running to somewhere, maybe being in between worlds. I really can't say if I if I had to take a guess, I don't. I think I was just trying to escape death. I refuse to believe that I'm helpless. It's been seven months since this began. And I don't know if these entities will ever go away. But for me, I made the decision that I'm going to live my life anyway.
Eli Roth [00:23:51] Doug now understands the black dog he saw is a messenger from the other side. It continues to stalk him. He still lives with his grandfather and fights to stay in control of his life. Each day,
Doug [00:24:04] I'll go to bed at night still and close my eyes, and I'll just feel something moving around or feel something just kind of swatting at my face. I still feel it every night. I don't know if I'll ever have a sleep like I used to. Death doesn't think I belong here, but I do.
Eli Roth [00:24:21] Doug Walter has a lot to live for, and we wish him a bright future. Philosophically, we know that death is a natural part of life and inevitable. But the fact that death could be an entity that would somehow feel slighted by a situation like Doug's and then fight to claim back that life. Now, that's terrifying. If you want to hear more real, terrifying stories like this, go to Discovery Plus and check out my TV series. Eli Roth presentsA Ghost Ruined My Life. If you have an experience you want to share with us, visit Cream Productions dot com slash submissions to find out how you want to learn more about the podcast TV show and what we're up to go to travel channel dot com slash A Ghsot Ruined My Life. A Ghost During My Life with Eli Roth is produced by Cream Productions for Discovery Plus for Discovery Plus, our executive producer is Marissa Lucy for Cream productions our executive producers are Eli Roth, Johnny Kalangis', Kate Harrison and David Brady. See you on the other side.