As promised a while back in one of my earlier posts, here’s the Barton Mansion video. Please note that this is just PART ONE of a series. This is the main video, however. The most famous part comes up just shy of 22 minutes in, for those wondering.

The following story is an account of “PAUL” who had the camera and filmed the demon that appeared in the Barton Mansion in Redlands California on Sept 20, 2001…..

This is the story of what happened to me along with three other people in the fall of 2001. This story starts out with the purchase of a Sony Digital 8 video camera, I really don’t know what inspired me to buy a video camera but I did. And little did I know that the whole story of what happened in the Barton Mansion would turn into what I can only describe as the most horrifying experience I have ever had. I will try to detail what happened those two nights to the best of my ability.

It was the night of September 18th, 2001 that I was over at a friend’s house hanging out trying to figure out how to use my new video camera that I had recently purchased. The night was for the most part just like any other night that I might go over to a friend’s house to hang out but this time my older brother came over with two of his friends. After a while we decided to go somewhere else to hang out. I along with my brother and his friends, Tanya and Cody were outside on the street trying to decide what we wanted to do before we drove away. I mentioned that we should go exploring the town and see if there was anything interesting to film. Redlands is known for its historical houses along with many urban legends, many of which I live close to. To give you an idea of what kind of town Redlands is, it might be best to say that it has had a long history in the citrus industry. Scattered with Victorian houses and an abundance of orange trees, makes Redlands one of the highlights of the Inland Empire. So as we were all standing around I mentioned that we should go and check out the Barton Mansion and get the whole thing on videotape. I really didn’t see a problem with doing this because I had been in the house a few years before and nothing happened whatsoever. So we decided on taking a video tour through the house. I got in the car with Matt (my brother), Tanya and Cody and we drove to the mansion. I mentioned that we should try and be quite so that we didn’t attract a lot of attention to what we were doing. At the time the mansion had some provisions of keeping the curious out by means of boarding up all the doors and windows. But when we got to the house a piece of plywood that was normally covering the entrance was ripped of its hinges and lying on the ground. I mentioned that this wasn’t the way it was the last time I came down here with my friend a few years before. Nevertheless we all went into the house. I was holding the video camera in my hand with it rolling the whole time. The great part about this camera was that it had a night vision function that made it easier to get around without being detected by others. We walked into the first room and for the most part saw nothing of interest. At one point we split up just enough that we could cover the entire bottom floor quickly to make sure that we were the only ones in the house at that time. It was kind of nerve-racking to think that we were in the oldest house in Redlands, and to top it of we were in the house around 11:45pm. There were very few times that we were ever so far away from each other that we couldn’t make eye contact. We moved further into the house in pairs, looking around to see if there was anything to see. I decided to go and check out one of the other rooms. At first glance I didn’t notice anything and I continued into a small hallway that had fixtures for a bathroom. I paused a moment because I thought that I had heard something out of the ordinary. All four of us were in a group right at this point and we all had paused to see if we could figure out what the noise had been. I think we came to the conclusion that it was nothing to be concerned with so we moved forward. On re-entering the room that I had just come from, my brother noticed something on the floor. I couldn’t see what it was, so I moved to another location to get a better look at it. I can only describe what we saw as five rocks in a circular pattern with some kind of red object in the center. As my brother was investigating with a stick he picked up off the floor he turned the object over and at this point I got a clear view of what it was. It was a piece of meat about the size of a closed fist with one side of it sharply cut off. As it was rolled over you could see veins on it that led me to believe it was some kind of bodily organ. Suddenly, Cody started to comment on a feeling that he was having, he said that he felt like he was on fire and that there was an evil presence in the room. Tanya started to feel a strange presence too. I myself didn’t notice anything strange but by seeing the fear in their eyes, it made me want to leave. At this point, Cody and Tanya really wanted to leave, almost as if they were “tuned” into something that my brother and I couldn’t pick up ourselves. So, abruptly we left fearing that there was something else in the house at the same time that we were. And this idea was cemented when we came out of the house and heard a strange sound originating from a barn that was located about seventy-five feet from the house. I had never seen my friends in this state before, a fear that obviously coursed through them like a cold chill. We got in the car and left. The events that followed that night were mostly spent talking about what happened while we were in the house. There were ideas about going back to the house to see if anybody would come out. There was another idea to go back in and check the other two floors to see if there was anybody in there. We decided that we should probably just stay away, at least for the night.

The next night was September 19th. A night that has been burned into my memory like a branding iron. As I look back now, I have to ask myself, “Why did I decide to go back in”? I could have lived my life with the security of knowing that what I saw in there that night didn’t exist and was only part of fictional stories about ghosts and goblins. But my view of reality changed and was turned completely upside-down. It started when I mentioned to Matt that it would be interesting to see what was on the other two floors of the house. We talked about it and thought that it might be something fun to do, kind of like the night before. The entire day was spent like most other days but with the exception that we knew that we were going to be going back into a situation where there was a sense of danger. Matt and I were the only ones that knew of our plan to go back in, and we knew that Cody would try to talk us out of going. Tanya had expressed her fears to Matt the night before so we figured that she would opt out. We waited until the last second to tell Cody and Tanya of our plans. We called them on the phone and invited them to come over to our house to watch movies. After their arrivals we told them of our plans. After some heated debate, they said that they would come along too. Tanya elected to drive so we headed down to the Barton Mansion. Strangely, everyone was quite with just the sound of the radio in the background to break the silence. We arrived at the house about the same time of night as we had the night before. As we were coming to the place where we had parked the car the night before there seemed to be some debate on whether we were all going to be going back in or not. At first the plan was that all of us were going to be going back in. Cody said that he would go in if he felt right. We all approached the Mansion through the old mission gates and walked across the dead fields. As we came within site of the mansion we started to slow our advance. Cody said that he seemed to have the same feeling he had the night before and was not going to be going in. Tanya agreed and the two of them decided to hike back to the car. I remember that they even told my brother and I that we shouldn’t go in ourselves. By this time my brother was getting frustrated with the current situation, so we turned and started walking towards the mansion. It didn’t really feel like anything was any different than the night before but as soon as we got to the point where we were about to go in to the mansion, something made our hair stand up on end. As we approached the open doorway into the mansion, a pack of coyotes started to howl in San Timeteo Canyon. It seemed to us as if it were a warning not to go in. My brother even pointed out by saying, “That’s a great omen”, as we went into the house. After the coyotes, I was very nervous and cautious about everything. I was swinging the video camera around checking each corner to make sure it was safe. It got to the point where I was so nervous that I wasn’t even looking through the viewfinder. I was just holding the camera and pointing in the direction of where I was looking. As we continued through the mansion we both checked to make sure that we were the only ones. We came into the room that had the five rocks. And to our surprise it seemed like they had been moved just a little since the night before. The rocks seemed to be placed into a more symmetrical pattern around the piece of meat. It was something to think about, but we both knew that we came into the house to do one thing and that was to get the other floors on video. I led the way from that point into the hallway with the stairs that went up to the next few floors. We paused a minute and noticed the word, “DIE” etched into the plaster wall along the stairway to the second floor. Now if it wasn’t enough with the coyotes, to see this was just enough to make a person want to leave right then and there. But we continued up to the second floor. There wasn’t a real change in what we were seeing from the first floor. But I do remember that there was a bathroom on the far end of the hallway that I was a little nervous about. To give you an idea of how the bathroom was laid out, first the door swung inwards and from the time that I had been in the house before years ago I knew that there was a bathtub on the left of the door. When I saw it this time the door was swung open making the bathtub hard to see. I crept into the bathroom to make sure that it was clear but it was kind of an awkward situation. For some reason I felt as if there was going to be someone standing in the bathtub behind the door. And rather than poke my head around the corner of the door I used my video camera. As I was doing this I realized that it wasn’t going to make a difference at all because I couldn’t see anyway. So I kind of just poked my head around the corner really quickly and to my relief there was nothing there. My brother and I looked around and made sure that there was nothing on the second floor and then decided to go on up to the third floor. I was really nervous about somebody standing at the top of the landing just waiting to swing something down on us while we were walking up the stairs but fortunately that never happened. As we came to the top of the stairs we were going to do what we did on the second floor, check the rooms one-by-one. To our surprise, all of the doors were closed except the first door on our right that was wide open. I went first shining my flashlight into the dark room. The room was rectangular in shape going long ways with a boarded up window on the far wall. There was another window on the left wall that had a door leaning up against the wall that was half covering the window area. From the time that I was in the house before I knew that this very window had a broken window-seat that made an access way into what looked like a secret-passageway. And when I came into the room with my brother I could see that it looked like there was an object that appeared to be stuffed in this crevasse. Unfortunately there was a door that was leaning up against the wall and was blocking my view. In order to get a better look I would have to walk into the room. At first glance the room seemed quite safe, I shined my flashlight around and even into a closet that was on the far right side of the room and saw nothing. And that is where it all happened, as I was looking down at the object on my left behind the leaning door, I heard what sounded like plaster crunching on a wooden floor. I whipped around looking in the direction of the small closet on the right. And to my immediate shock I saw what looked like shredded cloth accompanied by an old style lantern. This caught me off guard almost as bad as what I actually saw in the following moments. Soon after I saw the lantern I saw a face like nothing in this world. It came peering out from the closet with its eyes fixed on me while it was moving out of the closet. The eyes were something that I will never forget for as long as I live. They were completely gray. But even though they were gray it seemed as though this demon was staring right into the very marrow of my bones. When this thing came out of the closet it looked liked it had to hunch down to come out. This part was terrifying, because when it came out it was at least ten inches taller than I. And I stand at 6’7” tall which meant that this demon was about 7’5” tall. I was completely frozen in place while I was standing right in front of this thing. My brother split as soon as he saw something move but I was in the middle of the room with my camera in the general direction of this creature. As I turned to run I could see this demon coming after me with its gray eyes, long ears, pronounced facial features, and its taller than seven feet stature. I was running for my life as I was trying not to fall down the stairs. I was so terrified that I even considered jumping out the second story window because I wasn’t sure if my brother and I were going to make to the front door. It was strange because as soon as I left the room on the third floor all the walls seemed to be coming in on me like something was trying to keep my brother and I there. It was especially bad on the third floor because it was almost like I had to dodge the walls as they came in on me. Our escape was a quick one even though a wrong turn was taken on the first floor. It was amazing but I guess our two friends out in the car had heard my brother and me as we let out crys of terror while we were making our escape. As soon as we got outside we ran like the wind towards the car that had already been started due to the forethought of our friends. My brother jumped into the car first followed closely by me. The adrenaline was so thick from everyone that I actually jumped into the car as it was already moving. I should be thankful that I didn’t get run over while I got into the small Honda Civic that we were riding in. But at the time I would have welcomed that, rather than what might have happened to my brother and I if we weren’t able to escape like we did.