GLASSELL PARK, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Anything that has been around for a century has a story to tell. An old house in the hills of Glassell Park is no different. It's home to John Matkowski, John Huckert and perhaps something else? "He (Huckert) would tell me that my house is definitely haunted and one day he's going to prove it," Matkowski said. The two first noticed strange occurrences 20 years ago. A bathroom door in their house kept opening by itself. "I shut the door again and when it opened again that's when I snapped (a Poloroid picture)," Huckert said. "First, I thought it must have been a joke because it looked so much like the stereotypical woo hoo hoo, scary ghost."

But that was just the beginning. Three months later, with a house full of witnesses, they decided to try to talk to it. "I think the first question we asked was 'Are you here?'" Matkowski said. Another Poloroid was taken. This time, an odd cloud formed the letters Y-E-S.

"That just changed everything. It's one thing to get weird light patterns and stuff like that. It's another thing to get communication," Huckert said. Throughout the years, the two claim to have accumulated thousands of these communications. A 1992 video walks viewers through the Poloroid process from start to finish. Huckert is seen placing fresh film into the camera, asking a question and waiting for the Poloroid to develop. The answer? In Latin. The words roughly translate to "murder." Scientists, experts, even representatives from photo companies have shown up with their own film and cameras to debunk the story, but haven't been able to.

In a recent gathering, they invited a house full of skeptics, as well as paranormal enthusiasts to their home to try it themselves. There has been a long suspicion that someone is buried under the house, so the group, using their own film and cameras, asked if that were the case. Again, in cloud-like formations, two Polaroids came up with the answer "dig" and "here."

Something else happened that night. Through the years, Huckert has always talked about seeing what he calls "shadow people." "Something I've seen a lot and a few other people have seen are these shadow people," Huckert said. "They are like shadows, but they are in the middle of the room." For the first time, they believe they captured one on film in a group picture taken that night. "Amongst our group is another figure, but it's not a person, it's a shadow of a person. But there was nobody there," group member Bill Murphy said. The dark figure stood right next to Huckert. Even the hardened skeptics present that night were perplexed.

"I'm like, 'Come on. How can people be falling for this? This is a simple parlor trick. It's got to be explainable.' And you know what? I don't have an explanation for this," Brian Patrick said. "I didn't freak out. I just finally didn't have something to say or some way to discount it," Michael Henry said. "It was very surreal to actually be present to see it," Deedee Henry said. Whatever is happening at the home, Matkowski and Huckert have been living with it for more than 20 years and have no idea what is going to happen next. "I'm not scared. I'm just in denial," Matkowski said. "It's like driving the freeway. It's terrifying, but you just keep going."

On Friday, February 5, 1993, the Fox TV reality show SIGHTINGS examined what may be a landmark discovery in parapsychology: convincing evidence that ghosts exist and can actually communicate with us. Two residents of an old house in the hills of Los Angeles began receiving ghostly messages in Polaroid photographs. The pair started taking photos inside the house in the hope of obtaining a picture of the entity they believed haunted the house.

After first capturing a ghostly image on film, the men discovered that if they asked questions about the entity and why it was inhabiting their house, words and messages appeared in response on their film. So far, more than 1000 photos have captured messages – photos taken not only by the residents but by paranormal researchers and other outsiders. A photographic expert at Polaroid has no explanation for the messages. An expert at California’s Brooks Institute of Photography can suggest an explanation, but it requires a lengthy set up process and hours of lab work.

The ghost or spirit calls himself “WRIGHT”. He shows signs of erudition and intelligence, writing many of his messages in Latin. The ghost first appeared on film in March 1992 after one of the residents kept hearing unexplained noises throughout the house. After a door opened mysteriously, he took a series of photos, several of which revealed a classic ghost-like shape, including dark shadows at the eyes and mouth. The messages began to appear on film in June 1992. The first was in response to a friend’s question about the ghost, “Is he here now?” The photo revealed a barely discernible “yes” in cloudy white shapes. After that, the writing became far more legible.

They were skeptical at first, suspecting a bizarre prank by the film’s manufacturer or local distributor or some other technological trickery, such as projected holograms or shaving cream sprayed on cellophone. The paranormal research teams, similarly skeptical, used their own cameras and their own film to take photos in the house. Their photos also yielded answers to specific psychics, visiting independently of each other, agreed that not only this spirit but three others reside inside the house. Polaroid Corp. representative, Howard Wurtzel, examined the photographs and could find no physical evidence of tampering. His only explanation for the writing was that it was some form of radiation created by a high energy field.

Renowned spiritualist and psychic Peter James was called in to explore this phenomenon, in addition to three other psychics who also lent their insight to this investigation. James visited the house numerous times and believes that it is situated on the grounds of an ancient ritual site and that spirits are definitely trying to communicate with the living.

...As he walked around the house, Peter James stopped in one spot he called a "spiritual vortex," a kind of doorway through which he felt spirits were entering the house. "I feel a very strong vibration. Something is definitely coming up from the floor," he reported. "I get a tingling sensation. It's also very cold here. My legs are trembling. It feels like something is coming from below and it's going through my entire body." Then someone snapped several polaroids of Peter standing in the vortex. In the photos, strange ghostly images appeared to surround him...

Most of the photographs on display were taken before Photoshop, digital imaging and cell phone cameras changed photography. Each Polaroid is original and unique. They show familiar rooms with wispy, feathery tendrils and misty tufts of white substances and, amazingly, cloud-like writing. Even more extraordinary is the relevance of the words to whatever questions had been asked. Usually a response came in English, but sometimes it appeared in Latin. For example, after questioning the identity of the answering spirit, a response came in Latin; “Et alla Corpus delicti,” (among other things, a murder victim). The words floating in midair were invisible when the photo was taken.

Seeing Things explores the boundary between the known and the unknown. It asks whether something as simple and functional as photographs of record — people at a party, an empty room, an open door — can be a gateway to something more.

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? Come explore these strangely surreal photographs and decide for yourself.