Ray: John Huckert and John Matkowski were grappling with a sense of unease, an unshakable feeling of being watched that was hard to ignore. The shuffling in the attic could be explained as rodents or raccoons, the ghostly apparitions in the yard as a trick of the light through the trees. But the noises became harder to dismiss once they received photographic evidence that they were not alone. It started as light trails and amorphous white shapes on Polaroid photographs but evolved into much more.
John Huckert: And then at some point when you looked at it, in the negative space, it started looking like a word. All of a sudden we realized it said “yes” and then it was like opening the floodgates at that point.
Ray: The photos ranged from abstract ghostly lights to clear words and sentences suspended midair, which weren’t visible at the time. It has been nearly three decades since this story became known to the world, and yet all who were present stay firm in their conviction about this strange phenomenon.
[Intro music]
Ray: Situated in the quiet Los Angeles neighborhood of Mount Washington, John Matkowski, screenwriter, cinematographer, and manager of fine art gallery DRKRM, first moved into an unassuming home in 1985. The house was built sixty years earlier and had witnessed the ebb and flow of life for decades prior. It sat atop a hill, shrouded by foliage, shading the house and walkways, setting the stage that an unseen force could lurk just around the corner.
John Huckert: It’s off the main road. You have to walk a path up to the house, so you can’t actually really see it from the road. It’s kind of creepy at night because it’s a very thin narrow path and as you get up to the house, it’s more of a cabin than a house. It’s dark, but it’s comfortable once you get to know it.
Ray: Matkowski first started renting the home with one roommate. Early upon moving in, the roommate reported hearing odd noises, such as footsteps on the roof at night. Matkowski tried his best to ignore the feeling that there was a presence in the house, not wanting to give credibility to the idea that his house could be haunted. But the unsettling atmosphere led the roommate to leave, creating an opportunity for John Huckert, a fellow filmmaker and friend, to move in.
John Huckert: I first met John back in 1986. I was living in an apartment in Hollywood. My next-door neighbor said, I have a friend named John and he also makes movies. We talked, showed each other films, and got along really well. In 1990 I was really poor and lost my apartment. I was going to be living in my car and he said, I have a room here, come stay here. Then I never left. It’s been 33 years.
Ray: Unaware of the journey that lay ahead, the two friends would soon find themselves entangled in a web of supernatural occurrences that would challenge everything they knew about the physical world.
John Huckert: When I first came over, right away I felt a heaviness. I’m not sure how to describe it, but there was a heaviness in the air, and I said, “Is this house haunted?” He goes, “No, no. But!” Then he started telling me stories. People had heard someone walking on the ceiling or on the roof. You tend to come up with logical explanations, but there was a really weird sense of something there.
I would see a number of people that I thought were real. There was a woman in a very old dress. I’d see her walking across the porch. The first few times I’m thinking, why aren’t the dogs barking? When you see them, literally out the window, you run out to ask if you can help, and there’s no one there, and no way they could get away.
Ray: One day in 1992 Huckert was alone in the house and couldn’t shake the feeling that there was someone, or something, there with him. Out of nowhere, the bathroom door slowly creaked open.
John Huckert: I took a picture; there was nothing on the picture, and I felt kind of silly. I sat back down, and the bathroom door opened again. You have to lift it up and open it. It’s basically a bunch of boards nailed together, like in an old cabin. It scraped open, and there’s a little slide thing inside to lock it.
When the bathroom door opened again, I remember thinking this was a sign. I was shaking so much. I took a picture of the top of the TV set, then took a picture of the hallway with the bathroom, and that’s when the very first image came up. Watching it develop was terrifying and comical at the same time.
Ray: Captured on the Polaroid was an image that defied all logic: a quintessential ghost, like something from a children’s book, a white ethereal figure with large circular eyes and a gaping mouth.
John Huckert: It’s like, boo, I’m a ghost. At first when it comes up, it’s kind of scary. It’s like, well, what is that?
Ray: At first John tried to rationalize the photo. His father had gifted him the Polaroid camera, so could his father have manipulated the device to pull an elaborate prank? That seemed unlikely, for Huckert captured sequential photos that showed a ghostly presence, unseen to the naked eye, moving throughout the home.
John Huckert: I took another picture, and it was different and had a weird light. I waited until Matkowski got home. We took the rest of the pictures, and maybe five had either light on them or that one shape, and the rest had light forms that we would later be told were ectoplasmic energy.
Film was expensive. About two weeks later we bought another pack. Over the next three months, three and a half months, we took a bunch of pictures.
Ray: Wanting to share the experience with others, but fearing accusations of forgery, they invited friends over.
John Huckert: We showed them the pictures. They asked, “How did you do this?” We said we weren’t really sure. One friend said, “Is he here now?” They picked up the camera and snapped a picture. We watched it develop, and some of the light things started showing up. When you looked in the negative space, it started looking like a word.
All of a sudden, we realized it said “yes.” Someone asked, “What did you ask?” We asked if it was there. Then someone asked its name, and it said “Wright.” Someone asked if it was a good ghost or a bad ghost, and it said “friend.” That changed everything. It’s one thing to think of ghosts as an imprint on the landscape. It’s another to think of them as communicating with you.
Ray: Now they had a name for the spirit, Wright, etched on the photographs in the familiar eerie handwriting. Over time Wright honed its communication skills, each Polaroid revealing more refined handwriting. Some messages appeared in Latin, such as “inter alia, corpus delecti,” in response to the question, “Did you die in this house?” The English translation is “among other things, a murder victim.”
Another photograph bore the English words, “Invoke muse.” At that time both men were struggling with writer’s block. They interpreted the message as a call to action and an encouragement to rekindle their creative energy. Matkowski later hosted an exhibition at his gallery showcasing their collection of photographs, titled Seeing Things: Ghost Polaroids.
The exhibition description read: “These startling photographs challenge perceptions of reality and art. Is the image of the room with the ghostly writing the way we see ghosts, or is it the way ghosts see us? Who is seeing things, after all?”
Curious about the origins of the name Wright, Matkowski searched through documents at City Hall and found four people named Wright associated with Southern California. One man in the 1800s owned the whole mountain area, but they never found anything beyond that.
With a collection of over 100 Polaroids revealing ghostly figures and eerie messages, they contacted the television show Sightings.
Sightings: Tonight, a Sightings exclusive. Never have I come across anything like this before. A viewer captures eerie images and bizarre messages on Polaroid film.
Ray: Sightings gained prominence in the 1990s by exploring unexplained mysteries, UFO sightings, and paranormal phenomena.
John Huckert: They brought in a giant box of factory-sealed film. Every box was marked and numbered, and two people were on it at all times. They watched everything to make sure no one was sneaking anything in. It only worked on the Spectra camera. Every time they came over, they got communication.
Ray: The film crew captured the same phenomenon on factory-sealed Polaroid photographs. The pictures developed live on camera.
Sightings: What does it say? Genius Loci. The question was, are you here for John or the house? The answer came out in Latin: “the guardian spirit of a man or a place.”
Ray: The photos were analyzed by Polaroid representative Howard Wurtzel, who had no explanation for how they came to be.
Howard Wurtzel: We have never encountered it, and we have been selling film for 50 years to billions of customers. It could be what they are saying it is, a possibility that somehow it is a field they are capturing. Physically I don’t know how they could do it.
Ray: The Sightings team also enlisted psychic Peter James, who became good friends with Huckert and Matkowski.
John Huckert: Peter came into the house without knowing anything. He said he was picking up Amelia, Gilbert, and Stefan. We had looked up records and those were names of people who had lived at the house. A skeptic would say he had been given the address and looked up what we had spent weeks researching, but he didn’t know anything. He became very good at communicating with Wright.
He would ask questions and get responses. It was almost like a dialogue, but a slow-motion dialogue, because sometimes you ask a question, get light forms, then someone asks another question, and writing comes up that answers the first person’s question.
Ray: Barry Conrad, a filmmaker and author with a keen interest in the paranormal, was invited to a Halloween party at John’s house in 1993.
Barry Conrad: I was filming Peter James, one of the premier men in psychic research. During the party, a woman started taking Polaroid pictures of a gentleman dressed like a knight. The pictures developed with wispy, white, misty forms. In one background shot, a face appeared over his shoulder. It was startling.
As far as the authenticity of the case, I am totally convinced. John Huckert and John Matkowski are very credible people, and other people brought their own cameras and got the same kinds of images. I am 100% positive that this is a real phenomenon.
Ray: Wright’s handwriting appeared exclusively on a specific type of Polaroid film, Spectra. Some claim the film holds the answer.
Ben Fraternale: The Spectra was a more advanced camera system. It had a double exposure mode and close-up and microscopic tools. I think it’s possible they exposed text onto every frame, loaded the pack back in the dark, and then shot the pictures. That is the most logical explanation because it’s practical and easy.
Ray: This doesn’t fully explain why the film Sightings brought produced ghostly images, and John continues to witness unexplained activity within the house.
John Huckert: The communication is different now. Peter told us we have a Grand Central Station for spirits. They come in by the bathroom and go out near the fireplace. He said we have seven full-time ghosts. On other cameras we have never captured writing. A lot of what we’ve got we’ve never shown. We’re not out to prove to anybody what’s going on. We’re enjoying what’s going on here, and it communicates still, helps us, and guides us. It has profoundly changed everybody who lives here or is connected to here.
Ray: During a 2014 news segment produced for ABC7, a clear humanoid shadow figure was captured in a group photograph during filming. Even skeptics present were perplexed.
Ray: This unseen presence, manifesting itself in the heart of Southern California, became a catalyst for dialogue, inspiration, and fresh perspectives. The message “Invoke muse” became a source for television programs, books, art, exhibits, and podcasts.
John Huckert: Everybody takes away something different from the house. I was reading about death and how we need to think about death every day. If you don’t, you put life off until tomorrow. If someone has a terminal illness and three years left, that means three Thanksgivings left with that person. Does that change how you spend this Thanksgiving?
If you appreciate your life, it helps you focus. Death makes our lives meaningful. If you get over your fear of death, if life does go on, then it’s all a continuum. It’s all part of the cosmic dance. I’m getting old, but I have so many projects lined up and I’m excited about them. I love being creative and will continue until I hope I drop dead on my last day of shooting film.
When we’re born, many children cry because they are moved from a warm, comfortable environment into the cold. As adults we see that as beautiful. Maybe death is the same kind of transition.