When my Grandma Belle was a very young girl, her father Leander was a deeply-religious-man, many in the town of Ripley, West Virginia looked to him for spiritual leadership.
An example of such is the nature of this story. A local family was experiencing “visits” from a spiritual entity that came in the form of a rolling blue flame that would suddenly appear in their living room and move from room to room often omitting strange whining sounds like that of a cornered cat about to strike.
Although the entity had not hurt anyone in their family to this point, they were none the less terrified by what they were seeing. As the days went by the visits became more frequent to the point that the troubled family could no longer deal with it and asked our great grandfather for his help.
That night when Leander arrived at their home the entity was in full force, roaming about the house as the terrified family looked on. Leander knew from experience the only thing to do was to confront the spirit, so he slowly approached the flame but when he got within a couple of feet, the flame flared up followed by a loud screech.
As the flame moved away Leander again followed it to the next room and again approached the entity and once again the flame flared up and the noise got louder. Leander again remained still until the flame began to move toward the rear of the house. At this point Leander cornered the entity and stated “In the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, what do you want”.
The flame flared up engulfing the entire room for and instant and the screech reached a deafening pitch, and just as suddenly it was gone… never to be seen again.
To that local family it was a demon driven from their home, but to great grandpa Leander it was just another wayward spirit finally at rest.
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