Syfy Paranormal Witness: Deliver Us From Evil - My Story

Lana Brock on Syfy Paranormal Witness Episode "Deliver Us From Evil" first airing on July 10, 2013 taken from the story "Growing Up In a Haunted House" by Lana Brock in 2011.

The opportunity for telling my story of the haunting of my childhood home presented itself to me back in 2011 when Paranormal Witness requested stories to be submitted for production consideration on their program. I wrote out a simple outlined story format of the haunting and the events which took place in my home. I submitted it to Raw Television's email address. I knew submitting my story by an emailed Word Document complete with photos would be much faster than someone else's snail mail stories. I wanted my story to be seen first. Of course I knew there would be my story among countless others. I didn't know what Paranormal Witnesses would see in my story which would give me a better shot at having my story produced over others. However I figured that I had to try. It wouldn't hurt if nothing came of it. I considered it was worth a shot in the dark.

I received an email from Helen Lambourne; story producer from London, England. I didn't realize that Raw Television was an English based television production company. I did some research and discovered that Mark Lewis was Executive Producer of the program Paranormal Witness. It was Raw Television in London, England who would write a great story script from the story submitted to them by people like me. They then took that script and pitched it to the Syfy Channel, headquartered in New York city, New York. Helen wanted to convey to me that her production team had received my story and thought it sounded like a good story to produce.

Now, I knew there had to be something unique about my story that would make them want to choose mine, even to attempt to pitch to Syfy Channel. Perhaps it was the religious family angle going up against evil. They seemed to like the fact that my father had gone to Seminary College to train in religious ministries and the mission field. He had moved his family back to Kokomo Indiana to find work and to work in the church as an assistant pastor and teacher. Helen wanted to discuss the story in depth with me about the religious aspects and just how my father and his family dealt with such stress when it came to dealing with the demonic. I explained my father was now deceased and wouldn't be here to share his story. She called me on a weeknight after I was done with work. We spoke for about an hour. It was midnight her time and 6 p.m. my time.

Syfy's Paranormal Witness: Deliver Us From Evil - Season 3 Episode 5 - Original air date 7/10/13

Helen was excited about seeing my story produced. She wanted to get some others in my family involved in the production. Unfortunately, early in the process Helen moved on to another production. I was then introduced to Amy Lee-Jones. Amy took over the email correspondence and phone conferences. Helen had tried to concentrate on my father's part in it. However, I explained to Amy that my father could not speak for himself and so I wanted to tell the story as I saw it. The story would be about a pair of identical twin sisters....Lisa and Lana. Me and Lisa would tell our story and my father's part in it. I would also invite my mother Ann Brock, to share her perspective. I did try to get my sister Mary and my brother Roger to help but they turned the opportunity down. Mary thought there could be nothing that she could include that would help. Roger felt apprehensive about becoming involved. Not that he didn't want to take part; he definitely did. But recalling memories of the days in that house seemed to strike him negatively; and him most of all out of all 7 of us in the family.

After a couple of months of phone conferences with story producer Amy Lee-Jones, the story was then pitched to Syfy Channel. Syfy Channel said they needed more. What they wanted was more of a balance between female and male witnesses. They needed a guy in the story, especially as they felt it would be great to have a man to share some facts about my father to give some credibility to my father's side of the story since he wasn't here to tell his side. So I spoke with my youngest sibling James Brock, who decided he would take part in the narration of our story. It was great to have James, Lisa and my mother to collaborate with me in telling this story. I knew that when it came to the re-enactment of the story that I had little to no control of what would be displayed on television. But we knew that giving a narrative of our family history in our house would be told truthfully and from our hearts. And we were not without a little charm, wit or dramatic storytelling when it came to the interviews.

For an entire week beginning May 5th 2012; I and my family took part in the production of the interviews which would be a part of the documentary "Deliver Us From Evil". I lived in a nice town called Carmel in Indiana and at that time worked in Fishers as a Student Loan Financial Consultant. I knew I would need to get time off from work, so I took a vacation. I remember first meeting with producer Mark Lewis and Amy Lee-Jones in the lobby of the hotel in Indianapolis, which was only a few blocks from the studio we would be filming. My impressions of them was quite admirable. They were witty and really down to earth. Mark enjoyed getting to know a little bit about us. Lisa, me, my brother James and my mother all met with the producers and showed them photos and told our stories. They were intrigued and found us as funny as we found them. It was a great first impression.

The next morning I had a full breakfast along with the producers and my family; then later we all drove to the studio, where for the next week we would take turns telling our story. The studio was dark; the perfect background for a show about hauntings. They had set up a very large light to lighten one side of my face up against the dark. Nice effect, I thought. Of course me and my family had said things which we found out later was spliced up a bit, chopped up. However, Mark said that was the editing process. It was very warm that week and I found it unpleasant going outside to smoke, which I still did at that time. Our sound producer and cameraman both smoked. So I didn't feel alone in that habitual weakness of mine. They were also husband and wife. So when we went outside for a smoke break we also spoke about our families and had a laugh.

Lana Brock on Syfy's Paranormal Witness: Deliver Us From Evil

After waiting a good year, me and my family got to see the show we made. We learned that the production of the re-enactment was made in January 2013. A few times, Director Neil Rawles had a 3-way conference with me and Amy Lee-Jones to discuss just how the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church performed a baptism, what kind of things we would see on the walls or as decor in our house and what the house cleansing was like. It was pretty close as I witnessed on television. Certainly they weren't going to get everything accurate. How could they? It was 50 minutes contributed to a television show not a full feature film. They had to cram many years of experiences in a short period of time chronologically. So producer Mark Lewis wrote me and explained how they had to compress a lot of the experiences into one night. This saved time. Many things were accurate just not in the same night as was shown. Also, what I witnessed on the outside of my house was very close to how they depicted the creature on television. However, I never witnessed that in my room. I witnessed a black mass above me...which made me feel as if I was suffocating...as it pressed upon my chest. So there were a few differences in how they depicted my stories. I knew they would embellish a little.

I thought the important thing was to get the story out there. It does not matter if you are spiritual or religious or not. It doesn't matter if you believe or not. These things happen to many people. And coming from a religious family I felt we should've known the answer to why these things happened. But I discovered in my life....if there is a God, then He doesn't want us to know everything. If there is a powerful Bible it doesn't give full disclosed information on everything we want to know. Oh certainly everything important to the Gospel of Christ is included in the Scripture....but only that which is important to that Gospel and the history and future concerned as well. I stated that we didn't have all the answers...because of those facts. I remember Mark Lewis stopped production just to inform me that he thought I had just stated something profound for television. I think I had impressed him. It wasn't my intention of course. Just the truth for which I believe.

All in all, no matter the inaccuracies in the documentary, the whole process was fun and I enjoyed it immensely. I made a good memory out of it and it gave me something pleasing to remember for my father and family when addressing such a horrifying topic. That is what is important to me. Now it's not just a creepy story. But a story where it was fun being told to millions of viewers around the world, sharing in the suspense of telling our story.

PS. I met my boyfriend, Demonologist Carl L. Johnson, because of the viewing of my episode on television. We found each other on Facebook and then it went from there. We later became good friends and then partners in life. He's my love and my life. ~~Lana~~