The Supernatural Slacks of Ecuador

 The Supernatural Slacks of Ecuador

By Cole Herrold

As time goes on, we are getting more and more paranormal evidence caught on camera. With this paranormal photographic surge, we have captured some of the best evidence for the existence of Aliens, Cryptids, and Ghosts, yet these entities are seemingly mundane as compared to some of the footage captured over the recent years. One of the most ridiculous yet interesting pieces of footage comes from Ecuador, and it shows not a South American Sasquatch or similar supernatural humanoid but a pair of spectral slacks running around on their own, free of any owner.

A girl named Magaly was out in the rural streets of Ecuador playing and recording her pet rabbit. As she filmed the small animal, she noticed that the animal began to look towards the right and then hop further away. She continued to record and seemed to not notice anything, but the rabbit was not the only being to realize that something was off as a little boy looked on in the same direction as to where the rabbit had looked. Magaly, however, not seeing whatever the other two did, simply ended the video and did not think anything else about it before uploading it to YouTube. However, as the world began to look at what was originally thought to be a cute rabbit video, they soon noticed something bizarre that was caught along the right side of the video. Those who caught this paranormal photobomber were perplexed, for this was not some classic ghost photo or some Ecuadorian Bigfoot but a, both comically and eerily enough, a disembodied running pair of white slacks with a belt. Now I know how difficult it can be to simply describe the video when its something that does need to be seen to understand, so in the Works Cited, there is a link to what I believe to be the original upload of the video, so I highly recommend viewing the clip before reading my breakdown.

Now in the video, we see at the 4-second mark that this strange white pants-like anomaly starts to wander out from around a building and run or jog in a rather bizarre way along the sidewalk. The pants do not make contact with the sidewalk, and there are no noticeable shoes, socks, or obviously feet, and yet they do leave a shadow as they move, indicating that something physical is there moving. The pants jumping leaping sort of motion is bizarre and rather whimsical and brings to mind the scene in James Whale’s The Invisible Man where Jack Griffin chased a girl while invisible, wearing only a pair of pants and joyfully singing. Now, as you watch the figure move past the 8-second mark, the figure seems to of disappeared. Whether this is due to the low lighting or from actual dematerialization is difficult to tell as we do not see the figure move past a shadowy section from the tree part of the difficulties with this is also the fact that the video ends at the 11-second mark. Other than this, there's not too much to break down in regard to what's being shot in the video.

Now just what is the reason that a pair of pants were caught running on camera? We do need to take this footage with a grain of salt as there is obviously the possibility of the footage being doctored either through CGI or double exposure, or some other form of technological trickery. Yet the reason I feel that there is something more physical than CGI is the fact that both the rabbit and boy at least noticed the pants as they ran along the sidewalk. The same goes for the fact that there was a shadow from the pants, so both of these concepts imply that there was something physical that was captured on camera. This does not, of course, rule out a hoax, as there is always the chance that the pants could be puppeteered by strings from the top of the building, yet none can be seen from the footage and that certain sections of the pants do seem to follow the movements of someone running. 

Another possibility is that what is being seen is a genuine video of a spirit. Ghosts appear in countless forms and guises, and one of the most common types of apparitions are those that appear in the manner in which they died, such as the ghost of Anne Boleyn, who manifests without her head, so perhaps in this video what we are seeing is the spectral apparition of someone who was separated from the waist and the torso and that now the spirit appears as a running set of spectral slacks. Of course, the problem with this is the fact that there also were no feet or reported and also that there is no history, at least that I have found, of someone who suffered such a fate.

Another theory that I sort of mentioned/joked about early on is that perhaps what was being reported was some sort of individual, either with supernatural abilities or through some sort of technology, managed to make themselves invisible. This could explain as to why the pants seem much more physical than what one would expect from a traditional ghost video. It also could explain just the absolute insanity, which is the video overall. Scientific advancements are made every day, so it's completely possible that some individuals found the key to invisibility through technology or found some way to make themselves invisible without the aid of tech through some serum or something similar.

Another possibility that I feel I need to mention is that perhaps even though the object running does appear to be a pair of pants with a belt that perhaps this is some sort of technology. There have been cases of seemingly sentient or ambulatory pairs of pants that run on their own fruition. Some of these pants seem to be interconnected to UFO and extraterrestrial cases so perhaps what we are seeing is some kind of extraterrestrial technology or even some as-yet-unknown earth technology reminiscent of the pants from the Jimmy Neutron “When Pants Attack” episode.

Another thing I feel I need to also mention is the concept of the Tsukumogami. In the lore of Japanese Yokai, there is a belief that when an object reaches its 100^th birthday, they come alive and develop humanoid features. Some of these objects also come about when a human spirit fuses with the object and transmogrifies, as seen with the legend of Hokusai, the ghost lantern. These entities spring about from the idea that all things have a spirit or soul, and if this is something universal and not just something described in the Shinto belief of Japan, then it's possible that, that is what we are seeing here.

Another thing that I feel needs to be mentioned is the idea of a haunted object. Traditionally haunted objects are not incredibly mobile as many move slowly over a long period of time or have quick, jerky movements, but this is not universal, especially when one looks at how Poltergeist activity happens. Perhaps this pair of pants was haunted by its previous owner or had some sort of spectral energy attached to it that allowed it to move about on its own. Needless to say, if this is the case, then this was one of the best-captured pieces of evidence of such a phenomenon.

As with all photographic evidence, especially the ones captured in modern times, we have to be extremely skeptical. With the advancements in technology, there are also the advancements in hoaxing, and so with cases like this, we have to accept that that could always be a possibility. Now with that said, I do find this footage interesting. I think that it should be looked into more thoroughly and that perhaps there are other similar phenomena or examples of this phenomenon elsewhere. Until that day, when more information comes to light, this piece of evidence is incredibly interesting and strange and will be hypothesized about until it is confirmed to be real or found to be a hoax.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Paranormal Entity, Scientific Experiment

Location: Ecuador

Sighted: 2020

Works Cited:

Clint “Ghost Pants Caught Running Down Sidewalk Before Disappearing” Gater 98.7. August 6, 2021. https://gaterrocks.iheart.com/featured/clint/content/2021-08-06-ghost-pants-caught-running-down-sidewalk-before-disappearing/. Accessed June 23, 2022.

“Pants walking by themselves." July 16, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2rwU-h6F2c. YouTube.

Paranormal Caught on Camera Season 5 Episode 7. Travel. 2022. 

The Anguished Man

 

The Anguished Man

By Cole Herrold

Image of the Actual Painting

When it comes to haunted objects, there are countless cases. It seems that any old doll is haunted, or any thrift store furniture has some entity attached to it. Yet most of these objects, even the overly stated creepy doll, is underwhelming; they genuinely are not that terrifying to see, but instead, it's usually the aura or presence of the spirit within that gives those who see or encounter these vessels the chills. However, while people will point to Annabelle or even Robert the Doll, who I personally got to meet and have a slight experience with as the most terrifying haunted object, there is one object to me that even without a backstory is instantly terrifying this object is the Anguished Man Painting.

The Anguished Man Painting's origin is shrouded in mystery, for we know nothing about who made it or why. Yet what we do know about this cursed painting comes exclusively from Sean Robinson. Sean Robinson is the current owner and researcher of the infamous painting, and he details the painting's origins into his life from his Grandmother. His Grandmother had rather reluctantly received the peculiar painting as a gift one day. She instantly felt that the painting held some sort of energy to it but proceeded to hang the painting up in her home. As the painting hung on the walls, she was soon plagued by several bizarre sounds happening in the middle of the night; thinking these sounds were nothing more than something typical like the house settling, she thought nothing of it, that is until she began seeing a dark man-like figure appear. This occurred for some time until the woman could not handle the dark denizen anymore and realized that these appearances occurred right after she was gifted the painting, proceeded in covering the anomalous art, and placed it in the attic. After the painting was confined to the attic, it appeared the entity was contained, and there much like films like Prince of Darkness or Leprechaun, the evil was contained, and it waited for the chance to be released once more.

Sean's Grandmother kept the painting hidden in the attic, talking about it only occasionally over the twenty-five years before her death. When Sean would ask her about it, she was hesitant to talk and would only state its evil, but on one day, the elderly woman bequeathed Sean with the small amount of information she was able to glean about the painting. From what she could figure, the painting, which was made from a canvas attached to a wooden frame, was made by an individual suffering either from some mental illness or deliberately seeking to cause harm began to conceive the painting through the work of oil paints however a new medium was soon to be added as while he was working on his morbid masterpiece he began to cut himself and would mix his blood with the oil paints adding to the horrendous appearance and feel of the painting. Once the painting was done, the painter ended up committing suicide and, in a sense, baptized it in its new name, The Anguished Man.

All through the years, while Sean listened to his Grandmother's tales, he was a skeptic; he never believed in ghosts, faeries, or anything supernatural. All that would change when he was cleaning out his Grandmother's attic and found the painting. He, in a sense of either morbid curiosity or as a memento of his Grandmother and the tales she would tell, ended up keeping the painting, taking it home, and kept the frayed paint-cracking portrait in his basement, ultimately forgetting about it. All this would change, however, when in 2010, when Sean, after realizing his basement was flooding, headed down and rediscovered the painting and, in an effort to save it, brought the macabre masterpiece upstairs and hung it in a bedroom.  This is when the phenomena once more began. The family could hear the sounds of crying and scratching could be heard with no discernable point of causation; physical abuse and strange sensations of being touched were felt by his wife and child, and once more, a tall, dark shadowy man would appear in Sean and his family's home. The figure would appear to lean over near the foot of his bed and seemed to be like a middle-aged man, but his features exactly were indiscernible.

Sean would later begin an attempt to understand the phenomena associated with the painting. He would later upload these videos to YouTube, and it is from these that a sort of timeline of the phenomenon can be set up. His first video offers the background and details the kind of phenomena the painting supposedly causes. The second video details his first experiment, which involved him recording the painting for eight hours over three nights, and on February 13, 2011, at 2:30 AM, he was able to capture an EVP that sounds like a scraping sound. This would continue on the 14^th at 4:00 AM, but with one additional activity, a wide-open door to the right of the painting slowly began to close. Sean claims that there were no drafts as well as that every member of his family was sleeping, so there was no discernible reason for the door to shut the way it did. On the 15^th of this session, at approximately 1:30 AM, there was recorded the sound of a large bang, but upon further inspection in the morning, nothing was on the ground that would indicate that something fell over.

During this time, the painting was moved around Sean's house, and once the painting was moved back upstairs, his wife, while in the bathroom one day, felt a hand brushing her hair. She instantly thought it was her husband, but when she turned around to see if it was him, she found nobody there. She instantly ran to tell her husband of what just occurred, and he took note of it. On another particular day, Sean was walking towards the steps to the upstairs of his house when he noticed a large fog-like mist hanging on the upper floor thinking it was perhaps a fire he quickened his pace and began clamoring up the steps, but as he approached the gray fog it suddenly dissipated and there was no sign of anything burning. After all this phenomenon and certainly the pleadings from his wife, he took the painting from its current spot and locked it in the cellar where the activity once more dwindled away.

About a little over a month later, once more piqued with curiosity, Sean once more descended into the cellar and grabbed the covered painting. This time he recorded the painting for seven hours over the span of four days; during this session, however, he was able to capture some bizarre video evidence of something possibly interconnected with the painting. The painting was kept visible by one lonely light, and on Wednesday, March 23, 2011, at 2:45 AM, Sean managed to capture strange white rod-shaped and string-shaped objects that seem to appear from nowhere or travel around on the camera. On the next day, at 2:15 AM, the objects seemingly reappeared and at one point seemed to have become thicker and more vibrant in color, whereas on the previous night, they appeared wispy and seemed to be blurred. These bizarre blobish streaks reappeared on Friday at 4:45 AM and seemed to be just as bold and vibrant as the night before, but the most bizarre piece of the Friday footage occurred at 6:00 AM when a bizarre mass appeared above the painting and seemed to descend down into it the mass even though it is clearly smaller than even a child or baby does superficially bear an almost human-like impression. During these events, everyone in the house was once again asleep, and the curtains in the room where the painting was being held were kept shut to avoid any potential glare from street or car lights. These events captured on camera were not alone, for the family continued to feel a strange sensation around the house, and the strange noises once more continued. All of this would be secondary; however when during this timeframe, when the painting was upstairs and the filming occurred, Sean's son fell down the stairs. The boy, after rolling and tumbling down each step, collapsed on the floor; his father rushed to his aid, where the boy was slowly recovering. His father instantly asked him if he was alright, and the boy said he was but asked if there was anyone else upstairs. His father said no, there wasn't, and the boy simply looked at his father and said it felt as though I was pushed.

Several months had passed since Sean's last research into the painting, and so in May, he decided to once more bring the painting up from the cellar and record any phenomenon from 1-5 AM over the course of five nights. On the first night, May 11, 2011, at approximately 3:00 AM, he caught what can only be described as gasping breaths and muttering that seemed to be coming from the direction of the painting. The second night apparently was fruitless, but on the third night, which was overly appropriate as it was Friday the 13^th, he caught some bizarre squeals at 2:30 AM, and then on Saturday the 14^th at 4:15 AM, he caught more of the same gasps for breath, but this time it sounded even louder. All this would come to a conclusion when on Sunday the 15^th at 3:00 AM, an apparently full torso apparition was caught on the camera; the figure was a gray blob that was humanoid in shape and seemed to move across the painting in a large blur.

During the month of June, Sean continued to still investigate the painting and continued to film for a few days around the middle of the month. On June 16^th at 3:25 AM, the painting which was sitting on the bed leaning against the wall seemingly fell, and as the camera rolled once more, one of the bizarre wispy lights appeared. The manifestations during this time continued, and around this time frame, the same banging sounds and scraping sounds would occur. These sounds were not alone; however, as in the corners of the room, there were the sounds of crying that could be heard in the darkest portions of the night, the family would also experience senses of nausea, migraines, and nose bleeds that would seemingly come from nowhere, and sleeping was difficult as whenever they could get to sleep their dreams were filled with nightmares. Perhaps the final nail in the coffin, however, was when the wife once again, while sleeping, felt a hand brush through her hair. The wife, in a moment that clearly was a you can have the painting or me situation, ultimately resulted in Sean, even though virtually obsessed with the painting into putting it away in storage, only taking it out on the rarest occasion to document.

While the painting was in storage, the house was relatively peaceful, and none of the anomalous phenomena was reported. However, word had soon reached out about the painting, and so television programs came knocking to try and see if they too could experience the phenomenon. Sean was more than happy to see what they could discover about the painting and proceeded to get it out once again of storage only a few months after putting it in. While the painting was out, Sean could not help but see what he could possibly pick up on camera while he waited for the television personalities to arrive, so once again, placing the painting in the room, he recorded for six hours from 12 to 6:00 AM. He recorded the usual banging and scraping noises which now to him have become relatively mundane, but then at 3:30, he recorded a small set of vaporous mist that seemed to rise up from below the bed and disappear about at level with the painting.

From that point on, the Anguished Man Painting went on tour. The painting was loaned out for research by various paranormal researchers. Ian Lawmen and John Blackburn of Mysteria Paranormal, who were some of the researchers who were loaned the object, took it to several of the allegedly most haunted locations in all of the United Kingdom, including Chillingham Castle in Northumberland County. On this particular investigation which happened on May 18^th, 2013, Blackburn and some 20 other ghost hunters who placed the painting in the dead center of the room. John claimed that the room went frigid during a séance and that a large black figure appeared in the middle of the circle that they formed. Blackburn began asking the painting a series of questions that were aimed towards the painting, and a large wooden bench began to bang on the floor, seemingly in response to each question. Ultimately ending when the bench flipped upside down by an unseen force. Blackburn would later claim that the events he witnessed that night were the strangest he'd ever seen in his time as a paranormal investigator.

During these sessions, Blackburn felt that there were two spirits attached to the painting, one a human spirit by the name of David, who he would later commune with on other investigations, and a darker spirit. Blackburn would later do a live show with the Anguish Man that can be found on YouTube where the painting allegedly faces Blackburn when he asked it a series of questions. The painting, throughout this questioning, would occasionally move to lift up on its right side when answering questions. Yet, some of the actions might have been caused by subconscious effects similar to the planchet use of an Ouija Board.

In 2016 rumors spread that the Anguish Man Painting was on sale. Sean would later refute these claims even though several copies have since been reproduced for sale on eBay. Sean would later reveal the authentic painting in an update video in 2016 and would later comment on events about the Anguish Man painting in a 2017 video “That he feels like it’s a burden to carry. Until he can find out what’s wrong with it. Or What he can do with it”. Since then, La Brea Pictures had planned on doing a film about the painting titled Anguished, which was to be directed by American-Finnish director Til Ricks. Yet as with many film concepts and plans, nothing has happened with this film, and instead, it has been left behind in an era whereas other haunted artifacts like Annabelle and Robert the Doll have since developed franchises. Since then, the Painting has remained locked up with Sean carefully guarding over it until something can be decided with what to do with the peculiar painting.

Thus ends at least from what is recorded the tale of The Anguish Man Painting. I will be the first to admit that I'm perplexed by this case. The painting is absolutely unsettling to look at, but much upon my other research into haunted objects when I have the chance to view them in the flesh, I wonder if the paranormal feeling or effect could simply be caused by the association with the story. I'm more fascinated when people are drawn towards an object which they then once they keep it or purchase it begins a haunting. The Anguish Man is unique because Sean clearly seems to be obsessed with it, going so far as to put his family in danger as the entity(ies) cause both physical and psychological damage on all of them if Sean's accounts are to be believed. There is some speculation that Sean and his wife are now divorced, which many feel is because of the painting; this does lead to some credibility, but I'll get to that later.

Hauntings are perhaps the easiest things to fake that people can instantly feel are real. Some fishing lines attached to a door or chair, for example, can easily give the appearance of poltergeist activity. Cryptid encounters are slightly harder to pull off as one needs a slightly realistic suit or prop that could look like a biological animal, thereby making them the most difficult to hoax even with the use of CGI. So, with entities like ghosts, there's countless pages of examples of hoaxes. This case skeptically speaking could be one watching Sean's footage; all of the footage could be explained as a fishing line on the door to close or someone behind the camera making noise. The images of lights or figures could be a variety of things from insects near the lens caught in the frame as they move, making them look indistinct for the small figures, and for the larger blob, it could have been a person running across the room appearing blurred by the camera. There are tons of reasons why it could be a hoax or at least some misidentification of a natural phenomenon.

While there are tons of reasons as to why it could be a hoax, there's also the chance that if we believe Sean's claims, he's telling the truth. Looking at it from someone who has spent some time investigating ghosts, cryptids, and UFOs, I think what Sean is doing is a great thing; if there's a phenomenon its important to research it not only to validate your claims but also on a more scientific approach to help add to data to a mystery that most scientists do not accept as plausible. With that said, for the most part, there seems to be very little reason for Sean to perpetrate a hoax his wife seemingly left him; he has not raked in the dough in the same way the Lutz's did with the Amityville Horror case, even with the failed movie deal, there's been no attempt to sell the painting or gain any sort of financial gain from the ordeal, in fact outside of the world of the internet he's not exactly famous in the same way the Warrens or any modern paranormal researcher who has published consistently is.

Now, if this is a real case, my one true lament is the lack of actual scientific research done on the painting. If this object is as active as it seems to be, it would be the perfect object for scientists to observe and so research on to validate the existence of a potential entity. To me, this object, if given to a proper institution as a subject, could change the meaning of paranormal research. Most scientists' number one issue with the paranormal is that it is not a testable science. One cannot test a ghost in a lab; however, with a possessed artifact, that's the closest thing one can come to. If an object like the Anguished Man was kept in an institution under surveillance and tested, thereby possibly answering some of the claims of what is reported.

I, however, do not think this would ever happen; however, I do offer some advice for Sean in future research of the painting to help alleviate his claims. The first of which is to give a clear view of the surroundings in which the object is in. The room where the painting resides in is focused primarily on the bed, and so while this gives a straight and focused view of the object, it sort of does not show the full room on the off chance that a string is used. This could help validate his claims and stop skeptics from pointing towards it. The same goes for showing Sean leaving the room as well as showing that no one else is in the room too. Another feature would be just having the entire footage as evidence that nothing was faked. Even if it was as a backup file on a website or something similar for those to officially validate the claims. Just honestly, something more thorough and longer would be infinitely more helpful, even though I know at certain moments it can be an unrealistic ideal.

The Anguished Man painting is a mystery that I'm sure will last for just as long as Annabelle or Robert or any of the classic haunted objects that have become collected in the public zeitgeist. I have a strong suspicion that this case is a true encounter as when viewing the few interviews with Sean that have occurred, he does seem to be genuinely disturbed by his encounters and that they are authentic. However, as with most paranormal cases, I cannot say for certain, and so time will only say until then; we can only wait with bated breath as Sean investigates his paranormal portrait, hopefully giving us the answers we so desperately want.

Works Cited:

Spookiest Objects By Terrance Zepke

Barkan, Jonathan “The Haunted Painting ‘The Anguished Man’ is Becoming a Movie” Bloody Disgusting. May 12, 2016. https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3390926/haunted-painting-anguished-man-becoming-movie/. Accessed October 2, 2021.

Rigney, Todd “The Anguished Man, the World’s Most Haunted Painting, Is Not for Sale” Dread Central. September 7, 2015. https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/124421/the-anguished-man-the-worlds-most-haunted-painting-is-not-for-sale/. Accessed October 2, 2021.

“The True Story Of This Chilling Painting Will Give You Chills” Unexplained Mysteries. YouTube. March 9, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8FXChwoNzs. Accessed October 2, 2021.

Enigma Paranormal Events. YouTube. youtube.com/channel/UCjL5UmGChTCTiJDhgsHZ4Rg. Accessed October 2, 2021.

The Anguished Man. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/user/MrModnation. Accessed October 2, 2021.