The Observer, whose real name is John Purkey, has uploaded a video on John discussed a paranormal experience he had before Kurt Cobain’s death. John was friends with Kurt Cobain, and provided material for the film Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. He is also mentioned in Heavier Than Heaven and other Kurt Cobain books.
He opened up by saying he understands if people don’t believe this story and think he’s losing his mind. He said it’s even rare for him to believe things that can’t be proven in regards to paranormal experiences.
“Regarding an incident that has to do with Kurt, this happened, I remember the exact day actually, it was November 5, 1993. I was sitting in my room, okay, first of all a little bit of history here. This house that I lived in was haunted in a sense. I had some weird things happen to me for sure. Something was going on in the laundry room and there was nobody in there, stuff was happening in there, and I could peak through the paneling in between my room and the laundry room, and there was nobody in there at all. The washing machine was almost turning on by itself, the record player turned on by itself, anyways so this house, there was weird stuff going on there.
Now I wanted to tell you that because it all kind of makes sense when I tell you what happened. So I’m sitting there in the downstairs room, which that’s where stuff was going on most in the house. I hear this voice, I guess they’d call it a disembodied voice or something, it was kind of like right in my ear. It said, ‘Kurt is going to be murdered, you need to go see him.’ I don’t know what to say man, I really believed it. I was 24 in 1993, in good health, I didn’t even really drink too much. I probably smoked cigarettes, smoked a little bit of weed, but that just wasn’t something that happened to me. Hearing things in my head or whatever, but I’ll tell you what, I know what I heard, and it freaked me out big time. I really thought that I had to see Kurt. I didn’t really know what to do.”
“Anyways, so time goes on and it’s really kind of freaking me out thinking about incident. So Nirvana was playing in Salem, Oregon with the Melvins and the Breeders, I brought a friend Sherry, a friend Janie, which is who I told I had this incident happened. Then another kind of girlfriend Angie, I don’t know where she is these days. So anyways, Sherry drove us down there from Tacoma.”
“So we get down there, I find Krist [Novoselic]. Krist puts us all on the list and gives me a backstage pass. The whole show happens, I end up going backstage earlier and Kurt wasn’t around. So I just watched the show, waited until afterwards, and my backstage pass was gone and I don’t know what happened to it. So I do end up getting back there, I talk to one of the dudes like watching the back gate, and they went back and asked Kurt if John could come back and say hi or whatever, and Kurt was like, ‘Yeah.’
So I went back there and got to hang out with Kurt for probably about an hour. Of course I didn’t say anything to him about what happened to me, and I really wanted to say something, like, ‘Hey man, be careful.’ But I didn’t. While we were sitting back there, somebody wanted a guitar signed, and he was going to sign it and give it back, somebody gave him a bunch of pictures of Frances Farmer. I remember Frances Bean was there, she was really little, and she was eating macaroni and cheese. My three friends came in, the security people let them in, so they hung out for a little while. At some point I talked to Kurt, I wanted to get back in touch with him. He was like, ‘Yeah, definitely.’
He asked where I lived, and I lived in a closet at that point actually, it was a closet big enough for a smaller mattress and a few things. I remember him saying something like, ‘Hey, wanna trade?’ (Laughs) I was like, I laughed, and anyways he gave me a couple of phone numbers to reach him. I’m pretty sure one number was for the house by Lake Washington, and one number was for a guy named Michael, who was like a manager or whatever. Kurt said, ‘You could try calling him and getting my new number.’ It sounded like he was moving to Carnation, that’s what he told me, he was going to be living in Carnation.”
“So anyways, Kurt gives me these numbers, and he wants to keep in contact, legitimately. So that was it, and I remember when I was leaving feeling like it was the last time I was going to ever see him. I don’t know, it was pretty emotional.”
He mentioned he did try to call, and nobody ever answered the house number. He ended the video by saying he knew it sounded like a ‘pretty far out’ story, but that it’s ‘the truth.’
Below is the video, followed by the note that Kurt gave him with his phone number.
