"The Conjuring: Separating Fact from Fiction"

The most haunting spirit in the movie is that of suspected witch Bathsheba Sherman. Born Bathsheba Thayer in Rhode Island in 1812, she married fellow Rhode Islander Judson Sherman (one year her senior) in Thompson, Connecticut on March 10, 1844. The two were married by Vernon Stiles, a local Justice of the Peace. Bathsheba filled the role of housewife while her husband Judson worked as a farmer on their land. Fairly well-off, Bathsheba and Judson had a son, Herbert L. Sherman, born when Bathsheba was approximately 37 years of age in March of 1849. It is possible that they had three other children as well, all of whom did not survive past the age of seven, though no census records could be found to confirm these reports. The family also usually took in a boarder, most likely to help them on the farm.

The family's connection to the spirit of Bathsheba Sherman came at the suggestion of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The mother, Carolyn Perron, told Ed and Lorraine about an incident that had happened a few years earlier. She said that she had been lying on the sofa and all of the sudden felt a piercing type of pain in her calf and then the muscle began to spasm. Upon examination, she noticed a puddle of blood at the point of impact. She checked for bees or anything else that could have caused the puncture in her leg but found nothing. In her daughter's book, Andrea Perron describes the wound as a "perfectly concentric circle" ... "as if a large sewing needle had impaled her skin."

When Carolyn told Ed and Lorraine Warren this story in conjunction with the tale of Bathsheba Sherman, who had been suspected of killing an infant with a knitting needle (see above), Lorraine suggested that Bathsheba Sherman could have taken the needle with her to the afterlife and used it to stab Carolyn in the calf. From that point on, Lorraine Warren referred to the demonic presence in the Perron house as "Bathsheba." -House of Darkness House of Light

How many people died on the farmhouse property?

"Eight generations of one extended family lived and died in that house prior to our arrival," says Andrea Perron, adding, "Some of them never left." The Black Book of Burrillville, the town's former public records book, reveals that over the course of its existence the property had been host to two suicides by hanging, one suicide by poison, the rape and murder of eleven-year-old Prudence Arnold by a farmhand, two drownings, and the passing of four men who froze to death, in addition to other tragic losses of life.

The Conjuring movie is based on real-life events but takes artistic liberties for cinematic appeal. It portrays the paranormal investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren, renowned demonologists. While some elements are inspired by their cases, the film dramatizes and exaggerates occurrences. The debate over its authenticity persists, with skeptics questioning the veracity of supernatural claims. Ultimately, The Conjuring blurs the line between fact and fiction, offering thrills and chills while leaving viewers to decide for themselves whether the terrifying events portrayed in the movie are true or merely products of imagination and cinematic storytelling.

What did Lorren Warren and Ed Warren say?

The Conjuring scared up a surprising $41.5 million over the weekend with a haunted farmhouse tale said to be "based on the true story" of ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren.

But how much paranormal truth does the film handle?

Conjuring depicts the 18th-century farmhouse in Rhode Island where Roger and Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston) and their five daughters allegedly were terrified and even possessed by spirits.

Ed Warren died in 2006, but Lorraine, now 86, was a consultant on the film and remains a paranormal investigator. She insists that many of the movie's harrowing moments actually happened.

"The things that went on there were just so incredibly frightening," she says, citing her own investigation nearly 40 years ago. "It still affects me to talk about it today."

Neurologist Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society, who has investigated the Warrens in the past, is far from convinced.

"The Warrens are good at telling ghost stories," says Novella of the couple who were also involved in the paranormal story that was made into the 1979 film The Amityville Horror."You could do a lot of movies based on the stories they have spun. But there's absolutely no reason to believe there is any legitimacy to them."

Nonetheless, Andrea Perron, the oldest of the five Perron girls, now 54, says the film is "a beautiful tapestry" with "many elements of truth to it, and some moments of fiction."