The Journal

These are my field notes from the Candle Face investigation, dated as the events happened, beginning in October 2023. They track the Lost Souls, the Fugitives and Isabel. The newest entries appear first. To follow the case in order, go to the last page, read from the bottom up, and work back one page at a time. If you catch something I missed, tell me.

The Journal

Dim apartment workspace with coding on a monitor, an empty chair, a thermostat reading 98°, and a faint shadowy figure in the background.

Candle Face Victim #17: Taken for Not Believing

A software engineer who trusted systems and testable things, and dismissed Candle Face as stress and bad sleep. She didn't argue. She turned up the...

Arthur Mills
A shadowy figure slips through an open door into harsh daylight, leaving a dark, decaying stone room in an eerie black-and-white scene.

Candle Face Victim #16: A Waitress’ Last Walk Home

This one came into my garage while I was still awake, a young waitress in a miniskirt with long blond hair. She'd worked Sixth Street,...

Arthur Mills
Four gaunt, faceless human figures in shadow, dissolving into flame and smoke, painted against a fiery orange and black hellscape.

Candle Face's Lair: The Tour She Gave Me

Tonight Candle Face took me through the portal herself. Thousands of souls in torment, and a message: she chose me because I beat her once...

Arthur Mills
A strip of yellow

Candle Face and Austin's Serial Killer Rumors

The last three spirits who came to me all drowned, and all of them named Candle Face. That pattern pushed me to look at the...

Arthur Mills
Still water at dusk reflecting a pink and purple sky, with a dark treeline and old wooden pilings silhouetted across the far bank.

Candle Face Victim #15: Return to the Water's Edge

A wet man shakes me awake and demands I write. In life he was homeless downtown, and mocking Candle Face was his armor. She started...

Arthur Mills
The neck and shoulder of a capped brown glass beer bottle, rim-lit against a black background.

Candle Face Victim #14: Sobriety's Test on Sixth Street

A dripping-wet man with a beer bottle he never wanted. Months sober, he went to Sixth Street to prove he could handle it, and he...

Arthur Mills
A man submerged underwater, eyes wide and mouth open in panic, as a pale, ghostly translucent hand presses down on his head from above.

Candle Face Victim #13: Beneath the Surface

This one came back angry. A spirit I'd met in late December and never written up returned tonight, and for the first time one of...

Arthur Mills
Candle Face Chronicles: The Journal — Victim #11 “Identified?” lost soul case file.

Identified? Candle Face Victim #11: The Girl from the Shack

An anonymous tip connected Victim #11's account to a real Austin cold case. The similarities are unsettling, but I'm holding the line: a spirit's testimony...

Arthur Mills
A fortune-teller's hands resting on a rustic wooden table lit by a single candle, with a deck of face-down cards, a pocket watch, and a rolled scroll.

Candle Face: The Betrayal of the Paranormal "Experts"

Right after I published a possible match on one of the cases, the paranormal "experts" I'd been asking for help went silent and cut ties....

Arthur Mills
Candle Face Chronicles: The Journal — Victim #2 “Identified?” lost soul case file.

Identified? Candle Face Victim #2: Mama's Last Embrace

Three months of testimonies, and finally a possible break. A former colleague who saw my podcast went looking on his own and found a decades-old...

Arthur Mills
Still water at dusk reflecting a pink and purple sky, with a dark treeline and old wooden pilings silhouetted across the far bank.

Candle Face Victim #12: Laughing at the Water's Edge

The twelfth Lost Soul mocked Candle Face while stumbling home drunk one night. She was waiting at Longhorn Dam, and she pulled him under the...

Arthur Mills
A small, weathered wooden shack with broken-out windows, standing abandoned in dense woods, shot in black and white.

Candle Face Victim #11: The Girl from the Shack

A skeptic raised by rationalists, she mocked the Candle Face story her boyfriend told her. Then the dreams started, and left marks. What her boyfriend...

Arthur Mills
1 … 6 7 8 9 10