Angels, Demons, and You: New Doc Explores the Reality of the Supernatural

Photo image courtesy The Christian Broadcasting Network
NASHVILLE - For centuries, scientists, theologians, and everyday people have attempted to justify or refute the existence of angels and demons.

The advocacy for the existence of angels is a welcoming thought as it only strengthens one’s faith in what lies beyond our world. But what about demons? Often associated with evil, temptation, or spiritual opposition to good, these otherworldly forces have been known to influence human behavior in highly negative ways.

In the new documentary Investigating the Supernatural: Angels and Demons (available now), veteran journalist Billy Hallowell explores whether there are still real and spiritual forces in our world today. Tapping into eyewitness events, historical context, and keen insight from highly credible experts, Angels and Demons seeks to help viewers better understand how spiritual warfare influences our daily lives.

A sequel to last year’s award-winning film Investigating the Supernatural: Miracles, Angels and Demons serves as a reflection of what the Bible says about out of body experiences, demonic forces, and how these otherworldly influences shape our faith.

I recently sat down with Hallowell and Bruce Van Natta, a mechanic who had an out of body experience following a horrific accident, to discuss what happened to him, why people are often dismissive of angels and demons, and how the decision was made to release this film during Easter season.

For the sake of our conversation, how would you define an angel and a demon? I ask this because many cultures see angels and demons very differently than here in the United States.

Billy Hallowell: It's kind of a different bent to it. There's some debate about what angels or what demons are. In the Church, the majority viewpoint is that they're fallen angels. But there's another viewpoint that they're the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim. And so, people will debate that. We unpack that in the film. We don't tell people what to think. Obviously angels would be the good side and demons would then be the fallen angels or the disembodied spirits of the nephilim. And this is the interesting thing, because we can debate this all day long. Every single culture since the beginning of time has had a concept of the demonic and of angels. Every single culture. We see things through a Christian lens, obviously, and that's how we present it. We think that the evidence is on that side. But I do think it's interesting that 83% of Americans believe in a spiritual realm. That doesn't mean 83% are Christians. They're not. Obviously other cultures have different views on it. We take it through a Christian lens and let people sort of make a decision on what they believe about the nature of demons and about the nature of angels.

Bruce, you are one of the featured case studies in the film and it's an amazing story. If you don't mind, could you share a little bit about what happened with you?

Bruce Van Natta: I was a diesel mechanic. In 2006, I was underneath a logging truck. The jack slipped when I was underneath the axle. I had five to six tons of weight fall across the middle of my body, crushing me flat. I ended up about an inch thick on the left and about two inches thick on the right. I was flat in between the bottom of my ribs to my pelvic flat across the middle. I was thinner than my spine. This is because my L4 and L5 vertebrae were both broken. I called out, Lord help me! The volunteer fire department was called by the other mechanic I was working with. He was there. There were two of us in the shop.

Suddenly, I could see myself from a viewpoint above. I couldn't even see half my body because the jack was so tall. The other mechanic ended up jacking the truck up off my body. And I saw this big flat spot that was literally the only way to describe the cartoonish look across the middle of my body. And I was thinking, there's no way I could live from this. After he got the jack off my body, I pulled myself out because he didn't want to touch me. Grabbing the front bumper, I dragged myself out just far enough so the top of my body was sticking out. I looked underneath. Now, if the jack slips, it's going to fall on my legs. So, I just wanted to put my palms on the bumper and straighten my arms. I did this so that if it slipped, it wouldn't hit my legs.

And that's when I realized my arm was shaking like a blur and I couldn't breathe. My lungs collapsed. So, I was listening to my heart and actually heard my heart stop. And then when I heard my heart going, boop, pop, boop boop. Oh my! I was on the last beat of my heart. My spirit left my body. I was having an out of body experience. People talk about being 14, 15, or 16 feet up, I could see the accident and what had just happened. And I didn't even know that the guy under the truck was me. I was completely disconnected from the situation and had perfect peace. So, I would stop right here and tell people, if you're a Christian, the day you die is going to be the best day of your life.

The topic of this documentary is angels and demons. Were you surrounded by angels? Did you see anything?

Bruce Van Natta: Yes. When I looked down from above, there was an angel on each side of my body, approximately eight feet tall. I base their height off the fact my co-worker, who was there, is six feet tall. The angels had white shining robes. Angels are mentioned 290 some times in the Bible. And a couple times, it mentions those white shining robes. These angels didn't have wings. They were just big, very muscular men, with long hair and a rope belt. They put their hands in the middle of my body where I was crushed flat. They never talked. I never got to see their faces. I could just see from the back that they were men and they put their hands in the middle of my body, but I didn't know it was me.

So, from above I said, “Oh look, those angels are down there to help that guy. That's nice.” I'm just up there in perfect peace. And the volunteer fire department people were not going to do CPR because I had a massive chest injury. No heartbeat. No pulse. And then, the last person to come was this lady named Shannon, a volunteer fire department person. And this lady ended up praying me back to life three times. I watched her do it from above three separate times.

For such a long time, as a culture we were quickly dismissive of angels and demons. But in late years we are seeing astrophysicists, theologians, and psychiatrists all saying the evidence demands a second look. Why is there a change in their point of view in late years?

Billy Hallowell: There's clearly a spiritual realm where something else is going on. And second of all, there's real evil. I'm seeing this evil, and I need to make sense of it. And so, a lot of the things about this film series that I think can be missed is that these are testimonies and stories that actually point people back to the truth. And oftentimes people want to avoid miracles. They want to avoid angels and demons. They want to avoid all this because it feels too supernatural and too strange even in the Church. And yet they're the very things that we're seeing bring people to faith and actually carry them over the finish line. When we started making this in 2023, that was before all of this was happening. So, it's interesting to be in it now and be like, wow, these stories actually can bring people over a finish line to faith and help them understand.

In the process of making this documentary, you interviewed scientists, theologians, eyewitnesses, and survivors about their extraordinary experiences. What was the general consensus when you asked these folks whether angels and demons are even real?

Billy Hallowell: Everybody that we dealt with in this film was very convinced in their stories that they were dealing with angels for demons. We had Dr. Richard Gallagher, who's a psychiatrist that people know. He's been out there speaking about this issue for a long time. He was a skeptic before the Catholic church came to him and said, ‘Hey, we want you to come in and tell us whether this person is crazy or whether they're possessed.’ And he went into that skeptically. And as you will see, the stories that he tells us, he walked away very much a believer that he was dealing with real evil in these cases. We also address aliens. We don't go crazy with it but it is there. That's a whole different dimension but it's something that Christians need to have an answer for. We just had former President Obama recently say that aliens are real. This is a prominent politician we are talking about. And so, if the secular world is talking about aliens, we need to have a response to it. We're not telling people what to think, but we did provide some expert opinion on what they may be. Angels and the Nephilim are one thing as a topic, but aliens beg the question of what if they're demons on a whole next level? That's a good debatable question. That's a film in and of itself. We didn't want to go crazy with it, but we did want to address it.

In your travels, were there any people that you interviewed where you said to yourself, “No way! This can’t be true!” If so, what changed your mind about their story?

Billy Hallowell: My go-to is to believe things aren't true beforehand. Look, I'm a Christian. I believe it's all possible, but it's all true. But I need to be convinced. And so, my go-to is to say, well, you may really believe that happened, but what is the evidence? And I think in Bruce's story, there are a number of things that when I first heard his story I had no reason not to believe you. But I thought, well, I haven't talked to him yet. When we went in and talked to you and then talked to other people, there's numerous people we spoke to who were in his story who could corroborate. One of the things is that when Bruce was over his body, you were able to see people coming in the back door that you never would've been able to see. How could you describe them because you were under the truck with no heartbeat and no pulse. And so that was deeply compelling. I don't want to spoil the whole story, but there are some other things too. There were some other things, including your miracle healing, because he didn't just get better over the course of that year. You were actually getting sicker over the course of that year. He was dying.

Bruce, was there anything along your journey of recovery where, as you're processing all of this, that you said, “No way, this can't be true. What's happening to me?”

Bruce Van Natta: When I watched the angels from above, it seemed so normal. That puzzled me. In retrospect, after I came back and I was out of my coma, I thought about why did that seem so normal? The only thing I could think of is that because angels are normal in the spirit. When I was out of my body in the spirit, it seemed normal to me. But it wasn't until I came back and came out of the coma that I just wanted to tell everybody what a big deal it was. If somebody has ever experienced a presence of evil in a place or a location, it's a reality check that you will never deny. This is because you feel it. You've probably been in situations where you think of it as pure evil. You’ve got to be able to explain that. It's because it's pure evil and there's a demonic element behind it.

The plan for Investigating the Supernatural: Angels and Demons is to release this film during the Easter season. Interesting timing in my opinion but this was a deliberate choice. Please explain your motives for this.

Billy Hallowell: I love that question. Obviously, Jesus came, He lived, He died, He rose again. And He's the reason we have salvation. When we think about that though, there's a spiritual battle that we live in. And part of navigating the Christian life isn't just saying one time you believe it, one prayer and moving on with your life. It's living it out. The Easter season is a great reminder of that. And I think this particular film forces us to really think about Ephesians 6. We're in this battle. How are we going to win it? We don't know. If a lot of churches aren't talking about this, if a lot of Christians are pretending it's not happening, how do we help people survive and thrive to get through things?

There are a lot of people suffering and dealing with things right now that they don't even realize the root of it. It's the root of evil that they're struggling with. And so, there's a lot there. Ironically, I think a lot of people would say, why not Halloween? And it's like, well, that would be fine. There is no wrong time. But it is interesting. When you look at Revelation, this is the exact reference. But when you look at the story of Mary, Jesus and His birth, the serpent comes after her, and you think about what the Easter story is. It's what the enemy wanted to stop.

And you see in Scripture, Satan trying to do that again and again and again. And I think it's one of the reasons we have so much antisemitism today. It’s because the enemy is still going after God's chosen people. I think it's the perfect time for us to be thinking about this Ephesians 6 story.

WATCH A TRAILER FOR INVESTIGATING THE SUPERNATURAL: ANGELS AND DEMONS: