The Night Marilyn Monroe Returned.

From Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places: By Brad Steiger

 

 

During the summer of 1946, Bob Slatzer met Norma Jean Baker in the lobby of Twentieth Century–Fox Studios. He was a correspondent for an eastern newspaper, and she was a young model trying to get work by making the rounds. They struck up a conversation and made a date for later that evening. Thus began a long relationship that led to their brief marriage in 1952. Even after Norma Jean had been transformed into the Hollywood love goddess known as Marilyn Monroe, they remained close friends until her death in 1962.

 

Since her passing, many strange things have manifested in Bob’s life that have convinced him that her spirit is still with him. In 1973 he participated in an experiment that actually caused Marilyn Monroe’s spirit form to materialize.

 

Slatzer had known Anton LaVey, the author of The Satanic Bible, for about two years when he learned that LaVey was fascinated with Marilyn Monroe. One night LaVey contacted him and told him an astrological “dark moon” would occur on Saturday, August 4, just as it had 11 years earlier when Marilyn had died. LaVey needed someone who knew Marilyn very well to help him manifest her spirit. Bob agreed to participate in LaVey’s plan, and later that night they went to Marilyn’s former home on Helena Drive. LaVey had received permission from the then-current owner to be at the house. Although she closed the gate that led up to the home, she allowed them to sit in the cul-de-sac that led to the property. They positioned their car against the gates, looking out, and there was no one else around.

         

Slatzer sat in the front passenger’s seat, next to Anton. Mrs. LaVey was in the backseat. LaVey had a tape recorder with songs from Marilyn’s pictures, and about 11:45 P.M., he turned it on at a low volume. He also had a small penlight he used to read something he had written. Slatzer remembered that it was sort of like LaVey was speaking in tongues or chanting. “About 12:15 A.M., the night was still,” Slatzer told us when we interviewed him about the extraordinary encounter for Hollywood and the Supernatural. “Not one single blade of grass was moving. The leaves on the eucalyptus tree by the comer of the house were still. All of a sudden, a terrific wind came up. The tree looked as if it were in a hurricane for three or four minutes—yet nothing else on either side of the road was moving. Then from out of nowhere—I didn’t even turn my head or blink, and I have 20-20 vision—this woman appeared! It was as if somebody suddenly set her there. She had on white slacks with a little black-and-white, splash-pattern top, little white loafers, and I could see a shock of blond hair. She started walking toward the car. I had goose bumps all over!”

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After recovering from his shock, Slatzer began to think like a journalist. He wondered if the whole thing was a setup by LaVey, a kind of publicity stunt, but he didn’t think that LaVey would do anything like that. He seemed too intense and serious about his work. As the figure of the woman began walking slowly toward the car, Slatzer asked LaVey, who was sweating profusely, if he wanted to turn a light on. LaVey indicated that they should remain silent. “The figure came slowly toward us and stopped about 30 feet in front of the car,” Slatzer said. “Anton had dimmed the music a little and finished his chant when she was about halfway to us. All of a sudden, she veered off to our left. There used to be a big tree there, and she just stood there, almost as if she were made of cardboard, with kind of a wooden look, but the figure was highly recognizable as Marilyn Monroe!”

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Slatzer told us that at that moment he truly became a believer in the paranormal, in life after death. “Marilyn was so real!” he recalled. “Mrs. LaVey had practically turned white and looked almost petrified! Anton … well, his breath was taken away, I can tell you that!” The image of Marilyn Monroe hesitated for a minute, her hands clasped. It appeared that she was looking past their car rather than directly at them. Slatzer thought it seemed as if she was looking past the gates, as if she wanted to enter the gates and go in but didn’t want to pass the car. Then she turned to her left and slowly started to walk down the middle of the boulevard.

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When the ghost of Marilyn Monroe was about three-fourths of the way down the street, Slatzer decided to get out and walk after her. As he approached her, the ghostly image turned, walked to the middle of the street, and vanished into thin air! “I saw this happen with my own eyes,” Slatzer said. He had walked hurriedly through a small drainage ditch about two and a half feet wide in his attempt to catch up with Marilyn’s ghost. He noticed his wet shoes had left an imprint on the road. The apparition of Marilyn had been taking short, small, measured footsteps, and had also walked through the ditch, but it left no footprints.

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Slatzer told us that he had repeated the story to only two people: psychic- sensitive Clarisa Bernhardt and Norman Mailer, who had written a book about Marilyn Monroe. “When I got through telling it to him, he said, ‘I do not disbelieve it. I do believe these things—and that is quite a strange experience.’”

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