I love hearing from people about their experiences with the living impaired. Through the years, I've responded to hundreds of emails from people around the world wanting to know more about what the heck is going on in their house - or under their sink - or beneath the flowerbed. Today I've opened up a blog forum to answer some of those questions so others can see they're not alone and perhaps we can get through this wacky time together.
Please visit my new blog: Ask a Ghost Hunter (yes, I know, inspired title). Drop me a line at info-at-weeghosties.com with your questions and I'll answer them on the blog or in a personal email if you don't wish it published.
Happy Haunting!
S
Ghost in the mirror
Ok, I’ll admit it; mirrors freak me out. Aside from the usual wake-up shock I get every morning, I just don’t feel comfortable around big shiny things that can blind you in sunlight and let in the shadows at night. Alice had it all wrong, stay on this side of the looking glass.
There are many stories of the supernatural being trapped behind the smooth perfection of glass, remember the Magic Mirror in Snow White? Perhaps it wasn’t just a story after all, take away the woodland creatures and you have a witch talking to a ghost in a mirror. You will always find a large ugly mirror with chipping silver backing in old movies, I think it’s the same one in every film before 1972. About 20 feet tall and gothic, it features every freakish monster you could imagine creeping up on a blonde brushing her hair in her underwear.
Mirrors seem to catch the breath of its subjects. There's always the chance that they see more than we do and keep its secret.
Happy Friday the 13th!
There are many stories of the supernatural being trapped behind the smooth perfection of glass, remember the Magic Mirror in Snow White? Perhaps it wasn’t just a story after all, take away the woodland creatures and you have a witch talking to a ghost in a mirror. You will always find a large ugly mirror with chipping silver backing in old movies, I think it’s the same one in every film before 1972. About 20 feet tall and gothic, it features every freakish monster you could imagine creeping up on a blonde brushing her hair in her underwear.
Mirrors seem to catch the breath of its subjects. There's always the chance that they see more than we do and keep its secret.
Happy Friday the 13th!
Ghost hunter's Diary
A few of you know that I've been ghost hunting for far longer than I'd like to admit to. While rumaging around for a story outline today in my files, I found some articles that were published while with my ghost hunting group in Washington, D.C. years ago. I thought it would be fun to share what a bit of this investigation was like:
XXX House, Maryland 2003
I went on an investigation last month to a house that my group had been to previously. I had heard the stories of full-body apparitions, whispers and hot spots and now wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The night was perfect, an electrical storm had been brewing for days making the air crackle and the night sweaty. The house was a stone's throw away from a marsh in the Chesapeake, the smell of rotting vegetation adding to the ambience. If there were spirits to be found, how could they resist?
Lights flashed in this house. The owners blamed it on the spirit of a woman murdered there over a year ago in their basement bedroom. They showed me where they had replaced the bloody carpeting next to their bed and I had to quell my imagination from seeing faces stare back at me in their mirrored closet doors. We set up infra-red cameras in the hallway, where the owner had encountered her several times and waited. We interviewed the family again. And waited. A bulb in the kitchen track lighting flashed off and on, the other six in the track remained steadfastly bright as I grilled the owner about faulty wiring. And we waited.
At first, a few members of the investigative group, including myself, had felt something in the house. Some felt a tickle on their skin; it skimmed and played with our senses until we almost scratched ourselves to get away from it. Another had the sensation of pressure around his head. As we busied ourselves for her possible appearance, our most sensitive investigator felt her watching from a corner. Now we were both waiting.
The children of the house went to bed, the owners stayed up as long as they could trying not to be in the way but still curious about the tools we had brought and how to use them. They were looking for answers more than we were, they needed to understand what was happening. Around 11pm, the house cleared. The air was not as heavy though the storm still rumbled in the distance, the faint caressing of our skin faded and we suspected that she was not going to give in to a command performance. Waiting until after 2am, her usual time to wander the house, we packed up for the long journey home to another state. We know this game well by now, it's on her terms and we're just following the allure of the mist.
XXX House, Maryland 2003
I went on an investigation last month to a house that my group had been to previously. I had heard the stories of full-body apparitions, whispers and hot spots and now wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The night was perfect, an electrical storm had been brewing for days making the air crackle and the night sweaty. The house was a stone's throw away from a marsh in the Chesapeake, the smell of rotting vegetation adding to the ambience. If there were spirits to be found, how could they resist?
Lights flashed in this house. The owners blamed it on the spirit of a woman murdered there over a year ago in their basement bedroom. They showed me where they had replaced the bloody carpeting next to their bed and I had to quell my imagination from seeing faces stare back at me in their mirrored closet doors. We set up infra-red cameras in the hallway, where the owner had encountered her several times and waited. We interviewed the family again. And waited. A bulb in the kitchen track lighting flashed off and on, the other six in the track remained steadfastly bright as I grilled the owner about faulty wiring. And we waited.
At first, a few members of the investigative group, including myself, had felt something in the house. Some felt a tickle on their skin; it skimmed and played with our senses until we almost scratched ourselves to get away from it. Another had the sensation of pressure around his head. As we busied ourselves for her possible appearance, our most sensitive investigator felt her watching from a corner. Now we were both waiting.
The children of the house went to bed, the owners stayed up as long as they could trying not to be in the way but still curious about the tools we had brought and how to use them. They were looking for answers more than we were, they needed to understand what was happening. Around 11pm, the house cleared. The air was not as heavy though the storm still rumbled in the distance, the faint caressing of our skin faded and we suspected that she was not going to give in to a command performance. Waiting until after 2am, her usual time to wander the house, we packed up for the long journey home to another state. We know this game well by now, it's on her terms and we're just following the allure of the mist.
Garnet, Montana - ghost town
One of my early experiences with the paranormal came from visiting a ghost town in the northwestern USA while on vacation. Now, you’d expect a ghost town to come with the prerequisite residual hauntings or at least a spooky outhouse. This town of Garnet, Montana, had its share of rundown buildings as it nestled in a wee valley in the mountains. A gold mining town, it once held the riches of the mountain in its palm and miners flocked to pluck it from between the fingers of the hillside. It grew fat and rich for a time but when the gold ran out, so did the miners. leaving behind a hotel, a general store, small houses and large pockets dug into the nearby hills (plus the aforementioned spooky outhouses).
My family wandered through what was left of the town, along with other curious tourists, trying to get a sense of what it was like in its heyday. Imagining dirty, desperate men coming from inside a mountain wasn’t difficult, what remained of their cabins told the story better than any signage the BLM had provided. Ruined furniture, rusted pans left scattered about filthy cabins and the feeling of failure permeated the broken walls of the houses, why wouldn’t there be a haunting? It seemed as if that was all there ever was here.
I entered the hotel slowly. Once there was grandeur of sorts, now it looked like a woman ruined by too many men and not enough self-respect. Plaster flaked from the walls and heavy tables stood in the middle of the first floor dining room, looking strangely proud of weathering time and being able to show off their wounds left by drunken gunshots and the flying glass of old arguments. I followed my family upstairs to see the rooms. They were partitioned off by Plexiglas so you could peer inside but not enter. In some of the rooms, the windows were left bare, sunshine squeaked in through the dirty glass and fell onto beds salvaged from the hotel and covered with old quilts. In others, the windows were covered, dusty light shone through the boards that swallowed the glass. These rooms held what seemed to be 100-year-old garbage. It covered the floors and rose up the walls, it smelled like decay and made you want to turn away. I, naturally, couldn’t.
As I got closer, my heart started to beat louder in my ears and my nose started to twitch. I felt lightheaded and wanted to run. I poked my head into the room and at once felt something rushing towards me. I am not particularly psychic, just enough to know when to get the heck out of a place! If I could describe it, I’d say it was pain, screaming and confusion coming at me all at once. I backed away quickly and my investigational gene kicked in. I checked out the other rooms to see if I experienced any similar occurrences and casually asked my husband if he had seen anything out of the ordinary. This man is as intuitive as a brick. “Nothing that a dustbuster couldn’t help…” he replied.
I knew what I had felt was unusual; I tested it again before we left the building. Again, my heart raced and my nose tingled but this time there was no attack of emotion towards me. I could feel that it sat huddled in the corner, amidst the rubbish and filth, and watched as I moved out of sight and down the stairs, escaping into the light.
My family wandered through what was left of the town, along with other curious tourists, trying to get a sense of what it was like in its heyday. Imagining dirty, desperate men coming from inside a mountain wasn’t difficult, what remained of their cabins told the story better than any signage the BLM had provided. Ruined furniture, rusted pans left scattered about filthy cabins and the feeling of failure permeated the broken walls of the houses, why wouldn’t there be a haunting? It seemed as if that was all there ever was here.
I entered the hotel slowly. Once there was grandeur of sorts, now it looked like a woman ruined by too many men and not enough self-respect. Plaster flaked from the walls and heavy tables stood in the middle of the first floor dining room, looking strangely proud of weathering time and being able to show off their wounds left by drunken gunshots and the flying glass of old arguments. I followed my family upstairs to see the rooms. They were partitioned off by Plexiglas so you could peer inside but not enter. In some of the rooms, the windows were left bare, sunshine squeaked in through the dirty glass and fell onto beds salvaged from the hotel and covered with old quilts. In others, the windows were covered, dusty light shone through the boards that swallowed the glass. These rooms held what seemed to be 100-year-old garbage. It covered the floors and rose up the walls, it smelled like decay and made you want to turn away. I, naturally, couldn’t.
As I got closer, my heart started to beat louder in my ears and my nose started to twitch. I felt lightheaded and wanted to run. I poked my head into the room and at once felt something rushing towards me. I am not particularly psychic, just enough to know when to get the heck out of a place! If I could describe it, I’d say it was pain, screaming and confusion coming at me all at once. I backed away quickly and my investigational gene kicked in. I checked out the other rooms to see if I experienced any similar occurrences and casually asked my husband if he had seen anything out of the ordinary. This man is as intuitive as a brick. “Nothing that a dustbuster couldn’t help…” he replied.
I knew what I had felt was unusual; I tested it again before we left the building. Again, my heart raced and my nose tingled but this time there was no attack of emotion towards me. I could feel that it sat huddled in the corner, amidst the rubbish and filth, and watched as I moved out of sight and down the stairs, escaping into the light.
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