It sounds like the setting for a classic scary movie.
The scene opens with the camera traveling down a long and winding dirt road somewhere out in the country.
On one side of the road, the audience sees an old cemetery filled with local history and legends. Across from it sits an unassuming little house where strange things have been known to happen.
The house belongs to Addison resident Mary Diedrich and while her life is not a movie, stories of her brushes with the spirit realm are featured in the upcoming documentary ‘The Haunting Truth: Mid-Michigan’s Urban Legends and Paranormal Activity,?
Filmed by 1997 Oxford High School graduate Jeff Jones and his company Midget Pickle Productions, the documentary will premiere at the Oxford 7 Theater Friday, Oct. 30 (midnight) and Saturday, Oct. 31 (9 a.m. and midnight).
‘It’s exciting. I hope it brings awareness to the fact that ghosts do exist and not to be afraid of them,? said Diedrich, who’s lived in her E. Drahner Road home, across from the Lakeville Cemetery, since 1997.
Over the years, Diedrich and her husband of 17 years, Mike, have encountered a number of things that could be classified as paranormal phenomena.
‘My husband never believed in ghosts until we moved in here,? Mary said.
Before the couple moved in, they gutted the house and began rebuilding it. During the project, the Diedrichs got an unexpected little visitor who was quite playful and mischievous.
‘We’d hear a little girl giggling and running down the hall,? Mary said. ‘My husband would set his tools down to do the drywall and they’d get misplaced. He’d find them somewhere else. I would hear a door shut, but we didn’t have any doors up. It was just weird.?
Mary learned that a 7-year-old girl named Melissa used to live in the house before she died of leukemia. She’s now buried in the Lakeville Cemetery.
One night, Mary decided to light some candles and speak to Melissa. ‘I told her that her mom comes to visit her every week across the street and she needs to go over there so she can see her mom,? she said. ‘All this stuff stopped after I did that.?
Mary’s certainly no stranger to having contact with entities that dwell outside this reality. From a very young age, she’s been in tune with what lies beyond the veil through dreams and intuition.
‘It runs in the women in my family. My aunt, my mom, and my sister and I all have that,? she said. ‘I try to stay as open-minded as I can . . . I’ve been experiencing this kind of stuff my whole life.?
That’s why things like hearing voices emanating from the corner of one of her home’s bedrooms doesn’t really bother her.
‘They sound like men’s voices,? she said. ‘That’s the only way I can describe it; it sounds like a radio talk show. There’s no music. It’s just a bunch of muffled men’s voices.?
The first time it happened was at night and she thought she’d left the radio on, but when she checked, it was off.
‘I thought I must have dreamt it, but it just happened constantly,? she said.
Because the main part of her home used to be an army barracks moved to Addison in 1952 from a military base in the metro Detroit area, Mary believes the voices are probably those of soldiers.
‘It’s still happening to this day,? she said.
Despite her familiarity with paranormal activity, Mary’s had some incidents at the house that frightened her until she later found out what they meant.
One night, she was in the kitchen washing dishes when she saw a flowing white apparition heading down the hall.
‘It couldn’t have been more ghost-looking,? she said. ‘I dropped the dish I was holding. I don’t usually get that scared because I’m used to it, but it was so right there, it freaked me out. I didn’t understand it.?
A couple of days later, she was on her way to work when she realized she’d forgotten something.
She wasn’t far from home, so she turned around and went back to retrieve the item.
On her way to work for the second time, Mary saw there had been a large, multiple-vehicle accident on the route she usually takes. ‘I feel like I probably would have been in that accident had I not, for some reason, left something at home,? Mary said.
She believes the spirit she saw a few days earlier was there to protect her from that accident.
While some spirits offer protection, others visit to offer comfort.
One night, after Mary returned to her bed from a trip to the bathroom, one of her dogs laying at her feet started growling.
‘I went to move the blanket to see what she was growling at and I was paralyzed,? she said. ‘I couldn’t move any part of my body. I was petrified.?
All of the sudden she felt some sort of ‘pressure? from an unseen force gently massaging her body from her legs to her shoulders.
Although she was frightened at the time, Mary now believes it was the spirit of a recently deceased friend and mentor come to comfort her because she was worried about her own son, Christopher, who was serving with the U.S. Army at the time. He did three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
Mary’s late friend had ‘died of a broken heart? a week after his own son passed away.
Strange occurrences aren’t just confined to Mary’s little house. When her son Curt was 14, she took a picture of him and his dog running in Lakeville Cemetery. But when she got the photos developed, neither one of them was in the picture. ‘It’s just like they disappeared,? Mary said.
In the end, Mary doesn’t expect her stories or her screen debut in ‘The Haunting Truth? to lead to any offers from Hollywood. She just hopes it does well for Jones.
‘It was fun working with Jeff,? she said. ‘I trust his judgment.?
Look for her at the film’s premiere and she may give you an autograph.