In 1995, musician Patrick Cross purchased an instrument that would later become known as the infamous ‘Patrick Cross Devil Guitar’. At the time, it was just a white, V-shaped electric guitar, a replica of the more famous Gibson “Flying V”. Crafted from heavy maple wood in 1989, the instrument already looked like it had passed through many hands.
Cross noted it was in decent condition for a used guitar, save for a minor crack in the headstock as if it had been dropped. But this guitar had a mysterious and dark past. It had reportedly survived a devastating bar fire in Michigan. A band was playing when the fire erupted, consuming the entire building and tragically killing one of the band members. Everything was incinerated except for the guitar, which was recovered completely unscathed. After the tragedy, it was sold, eventually finding its way to a shop in Oakville, Ontario.
Cross recalls feeling an uncanny attraction to the instrument. It felt as if it was calling to him, saying, “Play me.” The moment he picked it up, he felt a tingling, electric sensation, a strange confirmation that this was the right guitar for him. He didn’t even look at the other instruments; he couldn’t put this one down. While it was an odd feeling, he notes it’s one most musicians would understand.
In the shop, it played perfectly as he improvised blues-rock riffs and classic chords. But when he brought it home, a bizarre problem emerged. The guitar would mysteriously go out of tune the moment he picked it up. He thought it was strange, as it had played fine just moments before.
Even stranger, however, was that when he started to play dark, heavy songs like Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke On the Water’ or Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’, the guitar would snap back into tune. It seemed to genuinely prefer a grim, heavy sound, and when playing such music, it sounded better than ever.
Within two days, Cross began hearing strange sounds in his apartment. The noises seemed to originate from the closet in the second bedroom, where the guitar was stored. He opened the closet door, heard nothing, and saw nothing amiss. But from his living room, he could distinctly hear what sounded like two men arguing one voice sounded Spanish, the other Mexican, and they were discussing money. The moment he approached the bedroom to investigate, the voices would abruptly stop.
This was only the beginning. As the days went on, paranormal activity plagued his apartment. His car keys would vanish, only to reappear later in plain sight. He saw shadows flitting across the walls and heard disembodied footsteps and unexplained banging or knocking. Cabinet doors opened and closed on their own. Lights he was sure he’d turned off would be back on. The television would be playing when he returned home.
His cat would stare intently into the air, tracking something invisible as it moved, its gaze following an unseen presence walking into the other bedroom. If the guitar was left out of its case, Cross would feel a palpable chill surrounding it like a pocket of cold air or an icy wind.
The entity wasn’t content to stay at home. When Cross began using the guitar in his rock band, “SCI-FI Prodigy,” the phenomena followed. Rehearsals and performances were disrupted by inexplicable power outages to their equipment and bizarre, disembodied voices coming through the music amplifiers.
Lights would flicker and burn out, and on several occasions, actual fires erupted from the stage lights for no apparent reason. The drummer witnessed his cymbals fall over and his drum kit go out of tune the instant he started to play. Other band members also reported hearing people talking in the room when they were just outside, with the sounds seeming to center around the guitar.
The instrument became notoriously difficult. It refused to stay in tune for anyone unless the music being played was dark, negative, or aggressive heavy metal or rock songs with themes of death and destruction. It particularly favored one of Cross’s original compositions titled “Something Is Out There,” a song about spirits, evil entities, and fear of the unknown, with a heavy “X-Files” vibe. It was one of the few songs the guitar would remain perfectly tuned for.
“The guitar had an presence of evil a bad aura around it. It felt like a three-foot (about a meter) cold presence. Other people, including Rob McConnell of X-Zone Radio Show and Janet Russell of Beyond the Unexplained, also sensed this,” Cross says.
As time went on, Cross experienced an escalating series of personal misfortunes. He believed this streak of bad luck was directly linked to the guitar’s presence. He lost his job. His health began to deteriorate. Mysterious rashes and sores appeared on his legs for no discernible reason.
His car would shoot flames from the top of the engine every time he started it, despite mechanics finding no mechanical cause. One day, a horrific stench filled the apartment, seemingly emanating from the guitar a smell of burning and death. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the terrible odor vanished.
Cross began documenting the events, taking photos of the guitar to investigate why these strange events were happening. He captured numerous “ghost orbs” around the instrument on camera and sometimes saw a misty presence with his naked eye.
He always felt a cold sensation when he picked it up and would receive small electric shocks, even when it wasn’t plugged in. He says that wherever he took the guitar, it seemed to provoke events. Once, at a gig in Ontario, a fire broke out in the bar area. Glasses full of water would shatter as people walked past the table where the guitar lay.
On May 16, 1999, Cross was a guest speaker at the X Zone Symposium, a UFO and ghost conference in St. Catharines, Ontario. He brought his “devil guitar,” as it was now known, hoping to find someone who could explain the phenomena.
“Psychics said they felt strange around the guitar and expressed their opinion that it contained an evil presence,” Cross remembers. “Two people who said they could help were mediums Janet Russell and Eugenia Macer-Story.”
Eugenia Macer-Story proceeded to channel the guitar and made a terrifying discovery: a living entity was attached to it, residing within the very wood of the instrument. She found it exerted a controlling influence on Cross and anyone who touched it.
It possessed intelligence and spoke directly to Eugenia, stating it did not want to be exposed; it wanted to cause evil and destruction. It wanted to “fly like a condor with great wings” and called itself “The Eye of the Condor.” (They later discovered this is a popular song in Mexico and South America, where condors live). The entity confessed its desires: It wanted to start fires. It wanted Cross to kill with it to literally use the guitar as an axe to murder people.
Cross felt physically ill upon hearing this, as it confirmed the terrifying, intrusive images that had plagued his own mind urges to kill whenever he was near the guitar. He had also been experiencing vivid dreams of committing murder, wielding the instrument like a weapon.
The entity boasted that it had caused many fires and survived them all. It claimed it was “created by the Devil” and was here to do its father’s bidding. Eugenia also discovered that one of the most powerful Voodoo spells, EXU (pronounced “Eshu”), had been placed on the guitar by previous owners. The spell was intended to bring wealth to whoever possessed the guitar and did its will. However, the spell backfired on the owners, who were involved in drug money, and they were killed.
The spirit trapped within wanted to be released into a human host to continue its spree of murder and destruction. It reiterated that it only liked dark, evil music and would go out of tune if the music was “good, happy, or fast-paced.” The entity declared it never wanted to become good; it only wanted to perform evil deeds.
“It used profanities, swearing, and vulgar language while speaking to Eugenia, trying to attach itself to her,” Cross says. “The spirit said it wanted to enter her body and kick her soul out. Eugenia felt the presence begin to invade her, and she recoiled, moving away from the guitar as it actively tried to possess her.”
After a two-hour channeling session, Eugenia advised that the guitar must be destroyed or be re-blessed to change the evil within it. When she asked the entity if it wanted to be blessed, it responded with an emphatic “no” and, in Spanish, began blaspheming Christ and God.
Following Eugenia’s advice, Cross resolved to destroy the guitar. He took it to a remote park, placed it in a steel trash bin, and doused it with gasoline and lighter fluid. Before lighting it, Cross poured a circle of salt around the container to stop the evil entity from escaping or attaching to something else. He recited the “Our Father” three times and commanded the evil spirit to return to its source.
As he did, he saw a misty cloud rise inside the bin. A wind suddenly kicked up in the previously calm air. He tried to light the fire, but the flames kept extinguishing. He added more gasoline and kindling; the entity was clearly resisting its destruction. Finally, the fire caught.
As the flames engulfed the guitar, Cross heard a high-pitched, piercing scream emanate from the fire. It sounded “like a sick, wounded animal.” He stood watching it burn, adding more gas, when a portion of the flames leaped out and caught his arm.
Now on fire himself, he panicked and dropped the full gas can, terrified it would explode and engulf him. Miraculously, Cross managed to extinguish the flames that had begun to burn his clothes. He caught his breath, relieved, and watched as the guitar burned, eventually becoming a single, charred piece of wood. After an hour, he was certain the fire was out.
He poured more salt on the burnt remains, just to be sure, and left the guitar in the bin. He took the case, sealed it with salt inside, and wrapped the cloth back around it. He was trembling but felt good that he had destroyed the evil entity. Hoping it would not haunt or possess anything else, he left the park around 10:30 PM.
The moment he returned home, Cross felt an immediate sense of relief. The oppressive atmosphere in his apartment was gone. He heard no more voices, saw no more shadows, and felt no more ghostly activity. The very next day, Monday, everything in his life changed for the better.
He received a call for a new job. His health began to return; the mysterious rashes and sores on his legs vanished. His dying house plants revived, he says. He also won $150 on a “Bingo” scratch ticket. The power surges on his TV stopped, and his car started normally. By a miracle, everything that had gone wrong corrected itself overnight all beginning after he rid himself of the possessed guitar.
Since 1999, Patrick Cross has investigated all manner of hauntings and ghostly activity, but he maintains that he has never encountered anything as malicious, strange, or personally destructive as his time as the owner of the “Devil Guitar”.
Sources: Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places by Brad Steiger; The Midnight Hour: Canadian Accounts of Eerie Experiences, edited by John Robert Colombo
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About the author:
Jabba is an explorer of the unknown, an investigative journalist at heart, and a hunter of the truth that official history prefers to keep silent about. With over 10 years of experience writing alternative analyses and in-depth investigations.
