Demons in the dark: The terrifying experience that permanently ended a radio show’s horror series

Ghost stories are all fun and games until they’re not.

Years ago, when Calvin “Speedy” Wilburn, Rick Burgess’ longtime co-host and producer, traveled around the country visiting haunted sites for a popular October series on the now-retired “Rick and Bubba Show,” he had no idea he’d encounter actual demons.

Dubbed “13 Days of Horror,” the well-intentioned Halloween series was supposed to be a lighthearted way to enjoy October festivities. Rick describes it as a “Scooby-Doo ... Ghostbusters kind of thing.”

But it wasn’t long before the crew discovered that there’s no such thing as lighthearted horror.

On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Speedy shares the harrowing story of a demonic encounter that shook him so deeply, the team shut down the series forever.

“13 Days of Horror” focused primarily on visiting purportedly haunted historical landmarks. Speedy and the camera crew often teamed up with paranormal groups armed with infrared cameras and EMF meters to venture into the country’s dark corners.

However, one “very cold Alabama night,” the team broke with tradition when, instead of visiting another landmark, they met up with a lady and her young daughter at their house, which they claimed was haunted.

The crew immediately knew they were dealing with something different when the child showed them bloody scratches on her body where a demon had allegedly attacked her in her sleep. The mother told bone-chilling stories of her daughter waking up with braids in her hair that weren’t there before she went to sleep and candles being blown out en masse around the house.

Speedy recounts how upon entering the home, he could feel that “the vibe was different.” There was a “heaviness” and a “darkness” that “weighted on [his] shoulders.”

The paranormal hunters they were with then began “asking questions for the spirit to appear.” They even had the young girl, who was “horrified,” ask her spiritual tormentor questions about why it was attacking her.

That’s when Speedy and the team shut it down and left the house, knowing that what they were involved with was no laughing matter.

On the car ride back, one of the staff members who had been taking pictures in the home pulled out his camera to look over the images.

The photos he had taken were completely black except for numerous “orbs” hovering everywhere.

That’s when the crew knew for certain that what they had experienced was “not a spooky, funny, let's go have a good time, Mystery Machine, Scooby-Doo, bring back a funny bit for the show” situation.

“This was a demonic heaviness, a serious situation we were in, and looking back on it and knowing what we were doing and what we were asking, you just feel so foolish,” Speedy tells Rick.

While that experience shut down the series permanently, there had already been other experiences that had made the crew wary about their “13 Days of Horror” segment. There was another time when the crew was left quaking in their boots after visiting the children’s wing of an abandoned mental institution.

Speedy also shares wild stories from his dad’s days of going door-to-door sharing the gospel that will make your blood run cold. From a woman who “roared like a lion” at the sound of Jesus’ name to a sick patient who spoke in a voice that was not her own, these moments confronted Speedy with a spiritual reality far beyond the playful scares the crew had set out to chase.

To hear the details of each harrowing demonic encounter and Rick’s biblical response, watch the episode above.

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