On Saturday Oct. 29, alumnus Christopher DiCesare shared his shocking supernatural story in the Union Ballroom as a part of the Geneseo Weekend of Horror.
In 1985, junior DiCesare was a normal Geneseo student. He was a communication major getting "A"s in his classes, running on the cross-country team and even drawing comic strips for The Lamron. During the winter of that year, however, DiCesare experienced a 10-week haunting in his room in Erie Hall – C2D1 – which would drastically change his life. The terrifying experience continues to affect him, over 25 years later.
Prior to the spooky encounter, famous demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren expelled DiCesare from a lecture because of the bad energy they perceived from him. A week and a half later, DiCesare and his roommate – who later fled C2D1 – began hearing whispers and seeing a strange apparition in their room. The ghost was described as a college-aged male, his head tilted eerily to the side. Despite banishing the ghost from C2D1 with the help of a blessing from Father Charles Manning of the Geneseo Interfaith Center, the haunting continued in other Erie dorm rooms. The ghost – whom DiCesare named Tommy – later attacked him while in the shower.
"I didn't believe in ghosts before the haunting; I was a skeptic," DiCesare said. "Most of the time I was praying to God on my knees saying, ‘Please take this away.'"
DiCesare's lecture was his second at Geneseo and one of many that he has lined up to promote the independent horror film, Please Talk with Me, which recreates the events of the C2D1 story. The film's director, Mara Katria, said that in order to make a horror film in the contemporary, "saturated market, there has to be something unique about it." Katria found Dicesare's experience unique due to "the sheer number [over a dozen] of eyewitness accounts." In addition, there is a written account of the event: DiCesare's roommate, John Jeff Ungar, kept a journal chronicling the haunting.
"I'm as surprised as anyone that this is happening. What was the worst part of my life is now being celebrated," DiCesare said to a CU Ballroom audience.
To give non-believers a better understanding of the paranormal, DiCesare used an analogy: "How do you prove love? Does a kiss prove love? A marriage? You know you're experiencing something out of the ordinary when it happens to you."