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February 2003 Ghost Stories
In recent weeks it has come to my attention that certain parties are using my ghost stories and those of my contributors as references for their own commercial enterprises. If you or someone you know is writing a book on ghosts in the Pacific Northwest, PLEASE DO NOT!!! copy or use the following stories or any other materials within this website as references. Jefferson Davis (25 April 2003)
From: Jessica. Subject: St. Martin Hotel Haunting continues
The hotel still has the "strange" noises
from the 3rd floor. However; the lobby is so busy most of the time, Mr.
& Mrs. St. Martin do not spend much time there. I have heard the
sounds of furniture be moved around on the 3rd floor and have heard foot steps
and voices from the 2nd floor when there was nobody registered in the hotel
that evening. If you ever make it to Carson, please look us
up! We'd be more than happy to show you around. (many of the
original pictures & news paper clippings are still displayed in the lobby)
We have the same 95 plus year old
cast iron tubs in the bath houses and offer mineral "soaks" and
sweat wraps as the St. Martins did over 100 years ago.
Thank you for your time,
Jessica- Front Desk Clerk
*The St. Martin Hot Springs Hotel is in Carson, WA. It is described on my website in the Washington's Ghost section. A newspaper version of the death of it's founder, Issadore St. Martin is hanging on the wall of the hotel. He was accidentally killed in a scuffle with a local man. He died in the hotel. His wife died of shock shortly after that. The two of them haunt the third and second floors. It's a great place to get away and enjoy a traditional European style soak and massage. The hotel is a bit rustic, so don't expect televisions or Mai Tai's delivered to your room!!! Jeff
15 January 2003 From: Mike. Subject: Sometimes I get things wrong Hi Great site you have there,
just read these comment and I thought I would correct them. "or from around 0.0000400 - 0.0000700cm." Its 380nanometres<0.0000380> to 750nanometres. <0.0000750> "To be brutally honest, people who believe that normal photographic film is more sensitive to a electromagnetic radiation than the human eye, are wrong." The human eye, can perceive radiation<light> from 380- 750 nanometres. Many panchromatic films are sensitive down to about 250 nano. http://www.photo.net/photo/edscott/spectsel.htm Which, may "explain" some ghost photos as coming from the UV end of the spectrum, outside our vision. Which gives you a 130 nano 'window' of sorts. many people get confused with film pickup/range etc, the actual film will pickup lower into the UV end, but, the limiting factor is the glass lens itself, that's why Kodak tech manual recommend to reach below 250 nanometres you should use a quartz lens, which doesn't absorb the UV radiation. great site you have there. Mike *Mike is entirely right. His letter relates to my thoughts on ghost hunting and ghost photography section: (see the section on Ghost Hunting) in a photograph. It's a little bit embarrassing to have someone point out the shortcomings of your work. But he raises several good points. What if ghosts are not detectable as infrared entities, but ultra-violet radiation signatures on film. And because most ghost hunters do not use a quartz glass lens, we get imperfect pictures of the spirits? Has anyone else practiced ghost photography with infrared or ultraviolet techniques?
15 January 2003 From: Mark T. Subject: Hauntings in Independence, Oregon *Duane wrote me a cryptic note saying that he had seen some paranormal activity in Independence, Oregon. He sent me two jpeg pictures... which did not email correctly. I asked him where he went. Here's his reply: Jeff; Are you asking about ghost experiences I had in Independence? I have only had one outside of the Speak Easy Restaurant. I also had one in Eugene. Its late now but tomorrow I will resize the two places I sent you the other day. You should be able to get the pictures then. I will also explain about the ghost of a man who bumped into me outside of the Speak Easy. I'll also explain more about Lenore's Ghost Pizza/bar. It use to be an old hotel. Until tomorrow, Duane in Grants Pass. Has anyone else stories about these places?
29 January 2003 From: Wendell. Subject: Bellevue Woman
Mr. Davis;
One evening about 2-3 years ago...I was leaving Bellevue from work (on my
way home) when through the fog in front of me, a lady in white, ran
across the road in front of me. I myself am somewhat of a doubting
Thomas so I chalked it up to either being tired, a trick of the lights or
shadows along that road. But I was still insistent on solving
this occurrence before I went home. You see what I saw was ethereal, no real
substance, that's why I already concluded that I had not had a real person
run in front of me. When I got out of the car and looked around the
direction the lady ran I found myself looking at the freeway
below.
As far as shadows or light refraction tricks, I concluded that from the direction I saw her come from, there wasn't anything that could of been illuminated or used to illuminate from that direction.... You see it was an embankment that went at a 75 degree angle straight up.... Last but not least since it was foggy it probably was only 10 feet in front of my car went it ran past. Some could conclude that it in itself was also a plume of fog except for one thing.... I've never had fog stop, turn and smile and run off again..... Wendell p.s. do you think this could be your white lady or have I found another? *A few days later Wendell sent me a follow-up email: The area of Bellevue where the occurrence took place was on the Issaquah-Bellevue border on the Newport Road which parallels I-90.Since I wrote this letter to you, I spoke to a few friends of mine and they reminded me that this area is close to where some of Ted Bundy's victims were found.........Keep you posted. Wendell
Has anyone else seen this spirit?
24 January 2003 From: Barbara M. Subject: Personal Account of Haunting
Dear Mr. Davis,
Have just read your article on the
'Ghosts and Critters' site. Yours is one of the more reasoned
analyses available and I enjoyed it very much.
You mention that many claim to see
fully-clothed ghosts and speculate this may be the result of a mental 'censor'
on the part of the viewer. Having witnessed a fully clothed
'ghost', I tend to doubt my mind possesses such versatility as to
simultaneously (a) unexpectedly discover myself to be confronted by a total
stranger (b) maintain equilibrium (c) suspend processes such as
curiosity, fight/flight, fear, shock, analysis of the situation, (d) attend to
such matters as convention, propriety, possible prudishness etc. by
automatically and instantly 'clothing' the 'ghost'.
Of course, as you say, it's certainly
possible that our minds are capable of such diverse simultaneous activity,
which makes us even more interesting than we may suspect. It's also
possible of course that ghosts themselves simply continue the habits of a
lifetime, i.e. to clothe themselves. Would be interesting to
learn how the ghost of a confirmed naturist appeared to others after
death, wouldn't it?
The following account is probably
typical of the many you have on file. I submit it in the hope it may in
some manner prove useful; perhaps one small element may confirm other, similar
stories and in that way contribute to what is being discovered and
catalogued by researchers such as yourself.
The experience took place in 1981
approx. At the time I was living with my two small children in a house
of approx. 7 years of age. The house was constructed of brick
veneer, tile roof. The house was located in a housing development slightly
older than the house itself and was surrounded by similar houses of identical
age, all of which were located in a cul-de-sac approx. half a mile from the
coastline of extreme south-east Queensland, which is a State within Australia.
Prior to the creation of the housing estate in which our house was located,
the land itself had been a low-lying swamp, known ( I learned later)
for 'marsh lights' and spontaneous marsh fires. Some eight kilometres
west lay a reasonably high mountain range. It's occurred to me
that under our house and the surrounding area may possibly have existed
subterranean rivers; their destination being the nearby sea. In
earlier ages, there was considerable volcanic activity in the area, one of the
more spectacular examples being what is now known as Mt. Warning, which
is a mountain of considerable size consisting of the solidified core of what
was an enormous volcano; the calderas extends a very large distance.
My husband and I had purchased the
house two years prior to the experience, during a rushed weekend trip to the
area. We knew nothing of the house's history, other than it had been
vacant for six months prior to our purchase of it. We were told the
owners had never lived in the house, having been transferred to another State
shortly after purchasing the house from the builder. The house had
been rented out. Six months prior to our purchase of it, the house had
been put up for auction, but had failed to sell, after which it had remained
vacant.
The house seemed fine when my husband
and I inspected it, and we decided to buy it within minutes. We flew
back home immediately after signing the paperwork and approximately three
months later, the children and I moved into the house. My husband
planned to join us a few months later.
The day the children and I moved in, I
knew something was wrong with the house's 'atmosphere', but I brushed it
aside. I felt it within minutes of walking through the door; a
resentful, unwelcoming atmosphere. In fact, the house seemed to be an
entirely different place to the one I remembered from the day my husband and I
bought it. There was no turning back of course, we'd sunk all our money
into it, and sold our previous house. So, with two very young children,
both tired and confused after the plane flight to our new home, I had no
alternative but to consciously adopt a purposeful, positive outlook and
manner. I told myself the house just felt strange because it was empty
and hadn't been lived in. Taking the children on a little 'tour' of
their new home, I spoke cheerfully and positively, while at the same time a
different part of 'me' was mentally letting the 'atmosphere' within the
house know this was our home now, and we'd be staying -- and
'it' would be the one leaving. In fact, I had the distinct feeling there
was more than one 'it'. I'd never had such ideas before, nor had I ever
heard my mind being so strong to something invisible. It was a weird
experience. My main thought was to protect the children and show no
weakness.
Within a couple of weeks, we'd settled
in nicely. With so much to do, I didn't have time to dwell on
'atmospheres' and threw myself into making the children feel secure and 'at
home' in our new house and environment. Occasionally I'd have uneasy
feelings, but there seemed to be some part of my mind that instantly swung on
the defensive on those occasions, during which I would impose my strength,
like a kind of torchlight, throughout the house, cleansing it and staking my
claim. It was automatic, meaning I didn't analyse what I was doing --
instead I would sort of notice myself doing it. Consciously, I simply
told myself it was because I was still getting used to the place. The
part of my mind that seemed to be defending my family was unknown to me -- I'd
never noticed it before and was impressed by its strength and purpose, to be
honest. It was like having a body-guard living inside my head.
When we'd lived in the house a few
weeks, two men came to the door. They said they were detectives from the
local police station and after learning we'd recently moved-in, they asked if
I could give them any information about the previous tenants. I said I
could not. They said if I learned anything, I was to call them. Shortly
afterwards I mentioned it to a next door neighbour, thinking perhaps she would
know something she could relay to the detectives. The neighbour told me
that the house's last tenants were two couples, all of whom had worked at the
local hospital. She said one of the couples had been murdered, after
which the remaining couple had left and the house was put up for sale by the
owners.
My neighbour said the couple who'd been
murdered had spent the day on a beach several miles to the south, with their
dog. A number of people had seen the couple sunbathing, with the dog at
their side. They remained there throughout the day. When the sun
began to sink, the dog had apparently begun racing up and down the beach in
the vicinity of its owners, who remained prone on the beach. Finally,
late in the afternoon, a local resident had gone to investigate. He'd
discovered the dog to be distraught. It's owners were dead. It was
later revealed the couple had been shot several hours earlier. Witnesses
who had earlier seen the couple lying on the sand had assumed they were simply
asleep.
When my new neighbour told me this, I
remembered watching it on the TV news at our then-home a thousand miles to the
south, several months earlier. The crime has never been solved; it is
still an open case, twenty odd years later. In fact, several months
after learning this from my neighbour, I took my children to a doctor for
some minor ailment. I'd been told the doctor in question was very good,
especially with children. When the doctor had finished examining my
children, I said how reassuring it was to have a new family doctor. At
that point, the doctor told me he would be retiring very soon. I
expressed my disappointment, at which point he said he was needed at home by
his wife, who needed his support. The doctor then told me his daughter
had died some time before. I expressed my sympathy and he said
she'd been murdered -- he said I'd no doubt heard about it in the news; she'd
been killed while on the beach at Kingscliffe. The female victim's
surname had been 'Dow', as was the doctor's. I hadn't made the
connection when making an appointment for my children. I didn't tell the
doctor we'd bought the house where his daughter had lived prior to her death.
There had been one room in the house in
particular --- one of the bedrooms --- which had contained very disturbing
'vibes' that first day the children and I had moved in. I had felt it
very strongly when I'd taken the children in there during their first little
exploratory 'tour' of their new home. I'd slid back one of the empty
built-in wardrobe's sliding doors, and had been repelled, to tell the truth.
The children at that point had become very teary-looking, and had put their
fingers in their mouths uncertainly, and looked very unhappy. Determined
to be positive, I'd told them we'd go and find a little shop to buy a drink in
a few minutes, but while saying it, I was looking at an object on the
wardrobe's high shelf. It was a machine of some kind; I never did work
out what it was. At the time, I didn't have a video-player as they were
a relatively new invention, but in hindsight, the object could have been what
I would now describe as an early model video player, quite chunky. I
took the children out of the room at that point and later removed the machine
and put it in the garage, where it remained for quite a while until I gave it
to someone.
The machine or whatever it was was the
only object within the entire house -- apart from it, the house was completely
bare when we moved in. I've since wondered if the two couples who lived
in the house had been involved in some dabbling in the occult, and if the
machine had played a role. Whatever the case, some very disturbing
things happened in that house, what would be termed 'paranormal'. They
all occurred within a metre or so of that wardrobe; in fact one of the more
disturbing had the wardrobe as its focus. We sold the house in 1985.
In 1994, my by now adult daughter revealed to me for the first time, her
awareness as a small child of a very bad 'feeling' in the house, and within
the hallway in particular (which backed onto the wardrobe in question) and
within the wardrobe itself. She had never told me during her childhood.
I had therefore been of the impression, during our occupancy of the house,
that I was the only one who 'felt' anything there, and that I had been the
only one to experience anything paranormal within the house.
I saw the ghost, as I said earlier, in
approx. 1981. I had spent the majority of the evening doing sewing
repairs and ironing for a woman (a Mrs. Elton) whom I'd met briefly only once
or twice before. The children were asleep in their room; I was otherwise
alone in the house.
The house was 'open-plan' with the
dining-area to one side of the galley-kitchen and leading into the
living-room. On the dining-table was the sewing-machine. Behind
the dining-table and leaning against a wall was a spare chair on which were
two cardboard boxes, one stacked on top of the other. Within the boxes
were ten to twelve pairs of men's trousers belonging to Mrs.Elton. She'd
asked me shorten each pair of trousers by a couple of inches. She had
said that her husband had been nagging her to shorten the trousers for him and
had promised to take her out to dinner as a reward if she did so. Mrs.
Elton had said she hated sewing and had been putting the task off. When
she learned from someone else that I did a bit of sewing in addition to
ironing, she'd offered to pay me to shorten the trousers. I needed
the money, so I'd agreed. When I discovered the trousers to be an
expensive brand, I wished I hadn't. I wasn't terribly confident in my
ability to do a good job.
After taking home the boxes containing
the trousers, I'd put them on the chair. They'd remained there for about a
week before I forced myself to make a start on them. Prior to starting
the sewing, I'd ironed about three baskets of clothes, some of them for Mrs.
Elton. It was therefore about eleven p.m. before I began the trousers.
After shortening and pressing two pairs
of trousers, I decided to take a break. It would have been about 12.45
a.m. by this stage. I made a cup of tea and took it into the
living-room which was basically an extension of the dining room. I sat
down on the couch and lit a cigarette. I hadn't bothered putting the
living-room lights on, because light from the adjoining kitchen and
dining-room spilled into the living-room. The living-room was thus
half-lit.
At some point during the time I was
seated on the couch with my tea, I became aware of a man standing on the other
side of the living-room. He was tall, with neat, side-parted dark hair.
He wore a white long-sleeved shirt, but wasn't wearing a tie. He wore
dark long trousers. I can still remember him quite clearly. There
was a bit of chestnut colour in his hair where it caught the light. He
had an excellent smooth complexion with quite a bit of flush or colour in his
lower cheeks. He had large cheeks and dark eyes -- a bit 'blood-hound'
looking. He seemed a very nice, kind, trustworthy sort of person; the
type who would be slow to anger, very considerate and sensitive to the
feelings of others. His hair was very shiny. He was tall and quite
big, but not fit looking. He had the beginnings of a paunch.
The man was completely natural and
normal looking in every way. Had circumstances been different,
there would be no way of knowing he wasn't alive. He stood in three
quarter profile to me (approx.) and had one hand raised to his face as if he
were thinking about something, or puzzled or confused. He was looking at
something ahead of him, in the direction of the dining room.
The only unusual feature was the fact his legs disappeared (or just
weren't there) at some point around the knee area. At the time, it
didn't seem unusual, however. And he is the second ghost I've seen who
didn't appear to have any legs below the knee area, for some reason.
Under normal circumstances, had a
stranger suddenly appeared in my locked house late at night, I'm pretty
sure that I would immediately be shocked, terrified, startled and would panic,
loose my breath, be unable to think rationally, etc. I experienced all
these symptoms once when I answered the phone late at night and
heard a 'creepy' voice. I was like a two year old, and couldn't
even remember my own phone number seconds afterwards. So I couldn't at
all be described as having a robust nervous system, unfortunately.
When the man described above appeared
before me however, I don't remember experiencing any reaction at all. I
don't remember being curious, or afraid or shocked or frightened --- nothing.
I just remember seeing him. I don't remember his speaking to me at all.
To the best of my recollection, the man didn't even seem to be aware of my
presence. He simply stood there, looking a bit mystified, and staring at
something ahead of him. I don't remember when he appeared in the living
room, nor do I remember his departure. I just remember seeing him there.
One thing that is a bit strange however
is a memory of my looking down at him from above. I can remember being
above him and noticing his hair was thinning a bit at the top-back. And
part of this memory includes seeing myself, still seated on the couch.
In this memory, which troubles me a bit, the man appears to be looking at me
directly, and leaning forwards towards me -- he may even have been talking to
me or moving towards me, and didn't seem as nice as I remember him. This
latter element of memory didn't emerge for many year afterwards. So for
several years, I only remembered seeing him from my position on the couch.
( On a few occasions during my life of
56 years, when very, very frightened, I have somehow lifted up out of my body
-- both during normal 'real' experiences, and during 'paranormal' experiences.
From memory, this has occurred less than half a dozen times. For
example, once when I was a child, a large real-life dog ran at me, baring its
teeth. I seemed to rise above my body and look at the scene from
above myself. I actually felt myself going up out of my body-- leaving
it from the stomach area. On another occasion as an adult (in the same
house as described above) I was sitting on the floor in front of the
television. I felt someone come in the room behind me, but didn't turn
around straight away because I was concentrating on something on the screen
and believed it was probably my small son coming in to ask for a drink as he
did every night. So I ignored the sensation of someone being behind me
for several moments. When I finally turned around, instead of my son, it
was a very tall man with his face hidden. He started to speak to me --
it was horrible -- and next thing I was up in the air behind him, looking down
to see myself still sitting on the floor in front of him. On that
occasion, next I knew I was dragging my children from their beds while they
were still asleep. I drove them to a friend's house and we slept there
every night for about two months, returning home only in the daylight. I
was more frightened than I've ever been in my life. I actually went to
two different churches to beg them to come and bless the house... they weren't
very helpful).
After seeing the man in my living room,
I obviously rose from the couch at some point and methodically put away the
sewing-machine, iron and ironing-board etc. I was always very careful to
put things away, for the safety of my children. I don't remember doing
this however. Yet I do remember sitting on the couch, looking at all the
ironing all over the place, and the sewing machine, etc and thinking about all
I had to do, and about the next day's tasks.
When I awoke the next morning, the house
was neat as usual and I didn't remember anything unusual from the night
before. I showered, dressed and fed my children as usual and took them
to school. Then I came home and cleaned the house and waited for my
sister in law to come. I didn't have a car, and my sister in law, Sue,
had arranged to pick me up and take me to Mrs. Eltons and to another
house, in order I could deliver the ironing I'd done for them.
Sue arrived and we put the ironing and
the completed pairs of trousers into her car before setting off. Approx.
twenty minutes later, while we were sitting at traffic lights and listening to
the radio, I suddenly remembered the man who'd appeared in the living-room the
night before. I immediately told Sue about it. Sue naturally
stared at me strangely for a second and then the traffic lights changed.
I tried to work it all out as we drove to Mrs. Elton's. Sue
said only a few words about it. -- she didn't want to discuss it -- she
seemed almost angry with me.
When we arrived at Mrs. Elton's we
carried in the ironing and the two pairs of trousers I'd shortened the night
before. Mrs. Elton was quite funny and said her husband would now have to
live up to his word and take her to dinner as reward for her having sewn
the trousers for him. She told me she would need for the remainder of
the trousers to be finished within two weeks, because her daughter was coming
to stay with her. Mrs. Elton said she wanted me to deliver only a few
pairs of trousers to her at a time, rather than complete and deliver them all
at once, otherwise her husband might see them and realise she wasn't sewing
them herself. He wasn't aware apparently, that Mrs. Elton was paying
someone (me) to do the ironing etc. I'd never seen Mr. Elton.
Mrs. Elton asked Sue and I to take a
seat. She made coffee and then took the ironing and trousers into
other rooms. Sue and I were in a hurry and didn't want to linger, but
discussed small talk with Mrs. Elton for a few minutes before saying we
had to leave. Mrs. Elton remembered she hadn't paid me so disappeared
again to get her purse. When she returned, she handed Sue an ornately
framed photo, telling us it was of the daughter who was coming to
stay with her in two weeks. Mrs. Elton told us her daughter would soon
be having a baby.
I looked over Sue's shoulder to see the
photo. It was a wedding photo and the first thing to catch my eye was
the bride's white dress and veil. As soon as I saw the groom, who was
furthest away in the photo, I said, " It's him! ". Sue
didn't respond, but she jabbed me with her arm and continued complimenting
Mrs. Elton about her daughter.
I tried to follow Sue's lead, and Mrs.
Elton didn't seem to notice what I'd said, but I was silently desperate to
talk about it, because the man in the photo, the groom, was the man I'd seen
the night before in my living-room. In the photo, he and the bride were
standing in three quarter profile. It must have been an informal photo,
because the groom's dark jacket was unbuttoned, revealing the slight paunch
I'd noticed the night before. He was smiling in the photo, but it was
indisputably the same man.
Mrs. Elton told us her daughter and son
in law had been married for a few years but both had wanted to concentrate on
their careers and establishing their home before having children. Mrs.
Elton said her daughter's first child would be born shortly after her daughter
arrived to stay with her. Mrs. Elton said that during the earlier months
of her daughter's pregnancy, her husband (the man I'd seen in my living room)
had spent the morning mowing he lawns. It had been a hot day and he'd
gone to rest in an easy chair on the verandah. Mrs. Elton's daughter had
taken out a drink for him, but he'd gone to sleep. She decided not to
wake him. A few hours later it had begun to grow cooler, so she'd gone
to wake him, only to discover he was dead. Mrs. Elton said that doctors
had later stated he'd been dead for some time before his wife had gone to wake
him.
Sue and I started walking to the door,
as we had to leave, and Mrs. Elton came with us. When we were on the
driveway, Mrs. Elton turned to me and said " They're his trousers
you know .. the ones you're shortening for me." She then
explained that her daughter had sent many of her deceased husband's clothes up
to her father (Mr. Elton) because they were very good quality and had not had
much use. Mrs. Elton told me that although her own husband was quite
tall, her son in law had been even taller, which is why the trousers had
needed altering.
Mrs. Elton then said that doctors had
still not discovered what had killed her son in law. She said his heart
and other organs were still at the laboratory, still being analysed. At
the time I was quite shocked she could discuss it so cheerfully. I
wanted to tell her that I'd seen her son in law and that he had appeared quite
peaceful, but I sensed from Sue's earlier reaction that I shouldn't.
As we drove home, I attempted to discuss
it with Sue, because it was more than I could absorb. Sue however did
not want to discuss it, in fact she refused, other than to explain she'd
jabbed me with her arm because it would have upset Mrs. Elton to know her son
in law was a ghost. I attempted several times to discuss aspects of what
had occurred during the drive home, but Sue would not and appeared quite angry
with me, or with something. As soon as we arrived at my house she
departed without staying for coffee as she usually did. Normally, Sue
and I were able to discuss anything, and she usually had a keen sense of
humour.
After arriving home and taking care of
the usual things, I made a cup of tea and tried to work it all out. The
first thing that occurs to you is that there's a rational explanation that's
evading you, and you tell yourself you've imagined things, or mistaken some
aspect of them.
The man I'd seen the night before had
been as real as Sue and Mrs. Elton however. And I'd seen him twice -- in
the living room and in the photo.
I picked up a tape measure and crossed
to the wall unit in the living room. The man I'd seen had been standing
close to it. When I measured the wall unit, it was a couple of inches taller
than six feet high. The man had been at least as tall, and had been
slumped a bit, with his hand raised to his face.
I stood in approximately the same
position as he had, and looked in the direction he had. There was
nothing really to be seen at that part of the room, other than the chair
leaning against the wall and the boxes stacked on top of it. It was then
I realised the boxes contained the rest of Mrs. Elton's son in law's trousers.
He'd been looking at the boxes containing his trousers, with a puzzled
_expression on his face ! He must have realised his trousers were
in the boxes and was wondering what they were doing there ! I
can't think of any other explanation.
I've naturally thought about it from
time to time over the years, and the entire experience raises more questions
than answers. We tend to imagine that those who have died are in
possession of greater understanding and information that we are. For
example, I read on internet the other night that a woman had been provided
information about the location of a murder victim's body via electronic voice
phenomena, which suggests very strongly that those who have died are in
possession of far greater knowledge than we are. Why then, wasn't Mrs.
Elton's son in law able to understand why the trousers were at my house?
Because he was able to locate them, as evidenced by his appearance at my
house, which was approximately two thousand kilometres from where he'd died.
Yet he didn't know that his wife had sent his clothes to her father -- perhaps
he didn't understand why she'd sent them or why they'd been handed to me.
I've heard of psychometry, but in the
cases I've heard about, the object has always been metal, such as a ring, or
watch, or other personal item. Mrs. Elton's son in law's appearance at
my house suggests though that even clothing retains 'something' which links it
with its previous owner.
I'll confess to being troubled by the
implications of the experiences, because it seems to imply that Mrs. Elton's
son in law perhaps didn't realise he was dead, and that he retained a dream
like sense of reality that caused him to wander around in confusion.
Strangely however, even though he stood quite calmly and stared in the
direction of his trousers, with a slightly puzzled _expression on his face, he
didn't seem to be aware of me, didn't seem to realise he was intruding in a
stranger's home (without taking into account the vague memory I have of seeing
him from above, in which case he may have been interacting with me in some
way-- although I don't like that part of the memory, if in fact it occurred).
Since learning about near death
experiences, I'd hoped we are all greeted after death by those who care about
us. Why didn't this occur with Mrs. Elton's son in law? If it had,
would he have continued to be drawn towards, and to care about, something as
meaningless as clothing?
Are you aware of others having any
similar experiences? I'd appreciate hearing whatever opinions you may
have with regard to this experience.
Sorry for the length of this; I included
detail about the house because it might be relevant; for example, the house
may be situated on what is apparently known as a 'window' area, and may thus
precipitate paranormal occurrences, or may have been rendered 'sensitive'
through possible occult practices on the part of those who lived in it prior
to my family.
Oh, incidentally, I didn't alter the
rest of the trousers for Mrs. Elton. I think Sue's mother, who was a
trained tailoress, did them. I began a new job during that period, and
didn't have time to sew them. I may have been too nervous to do so, but
I don't remember being consciously afraid of the trousers -- I simply ran out
of time.
Yours sincerely,
Barbara Mason
22 January 2003 From: Mark T. Subject: Stories from Whatcom County First off - your website has been very helpful and informative. I have spent quite a lot of time on the Net looking for useful information on the Northwest's ghosts and your site has yielded great info. One thing that attracted me was one of the stories that was sent into you a couple months ago from a girl who, after I read her account, sounded like she had some similar experiences as I have. I've always prided myself on being pretty realistic and not let my imagination run away with me. However, it seems that strange things happen to me frequently. I have had lights dim momentarily when I enter rooms, felt as though I am not alone when I am, it seems like time sometimes moves slowly, animals seem to gravitate toward me and I to them. I am also a musician and singer, and when I am involved with my music it seems like there is nothing but the music and myself and everything else ceases to exist. I haven't had a watch run out of me - however it seems that my watch battery is determined to never die on me, and I never have to wind it, which strikes me as odd. I'm writing because I have had so rather strange things happen to me in the past four years. I am currently 20 and attending college, so it was when I was 16 when the first occurrence happened. I was cleaning my room during the day, any my mother was in the other room when one of the pictures on my wall fell off. I checked the nail and it was still in the wall, so I didn't think anything of it and put the picture back up. A week later another picture fell of the wall, with the same result, the nail still in place. Over the course of the following two months I have numerous occasions where pictures fell of the walls and objects would go missing and then reappear. The activity seemed limited to my bedroom. I was not too worried about it until I woke up early in the morning to the feeling of someone shaking me. As soon as I opened my eyes and tried to sit up in bed I felt as though something were trying to push me down into my mattress. It took a couple minutes and a hurried prayer in my mind before whatever it was release me and I was able to run out of the room. After that my parents had the room blessed by our bishop and I didn't have any problems with the room again. The house is almost 60 years old, but there were never any deaths there as we bought it from the people who had built it. It is in a remote area six miles from Sumas, WA. Nothing else happened until I moved out of my house when I was 18, and shortly after moving out into my fiancée and his parents' house in Bellingham. I was taking a nap during the day and was woken up by the same feeling that something was trying to push me down. Thankfully my fiancée came down the hallway near the bedroom and whatever it was left again. On two more occasions I woke up during the night and saw something standing in the doorway of my bedroom. ( a different bedroom than the one I had been napping in). It appeared to be human in shape, but it was featureless, like a shadow. After a few moments it disappeared. I am still living at the same house where these things happened, but I no longer sleep in that room unless someone is with me. My fiancée also mentioned waking up to see a strange woman standing in their room, but after a moment she disappeared. My fiancée's mother was home alone when she heard the front door open and then close. She called out to see if it was one of us returning home but no one answered. When I returned home with my fiancée and a friend, she told us about what she had heard and we all checked the house but did not find anyone. The most recent event to happen was two weeks ago. I was home alone, waiting for my fiancée's mother to come home and give me a ride to college. I was downstairs, looking for my shoes when I heard what sounded like footsteps on the floor above me. This is not uncommon when there is someone upstairs, but I was supposed to be alone! I checked the house but found no one, as I thought. Outside of having house experiences I had had one other experience at my college campus, Whatcom Community College. I was sitting in a class room with two other girls looking over my music for choir when I very distinctly heard a man's voice say my name, "Morgaine" in my right ear. I turned, but there was no one there. I dismissed it, thinking it had been my imagination when it happened again a few minutes later. I asked the other girls if they had heard anything but they said they hadn't. My apologies that this is such a long email. I was wondering though, if you had any helpful advice on how to deal with spirits that follow people. I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps the entity that attacked me in my parents home is the same entity that is causing strange things to happen in my new home. On every occasion that something has happened (excepting the voice I heard at the college) I feel the same feeling. I don't get a particularly good feeling from whatever it is, and would like to be rid of it if at all possible. It is a menacing sort of feeling, which I have read is rare from ghosts usually, but I still feel it anyhow. I have tried asking it to leave but that hasn't worked. Any information and / or advice would be greatly appreciated. - Morgaine
Below is a letter I received from a new website owner. Since I received this letter, I have allowed them to list portions of my website in their own. Please visit their site and let them know what you think. If you have your own ghost website, you might list with them yourself! Jeff
19 January 2003 From: Mark T. Subject: Expanded Ghost Websites
0 Dear Mr. Davis Hello. My name is Chris Carpenter and I am developing a new website with a few friends. Together we have come up with a radically new concept which would impact the future of ghost folklore and research on the internet.
First, a little background on what we wish to accomplish. Most readers if they go to the internet looking for information regarding ghosts and hauntings will do a search across a search engine for the particular information for which they are looking. These searches invariably bring up hundreds, possibly thousands of links with only vaguely informative content. Sometimes readers get lucky and find themselves directed to an informative website such as www.prairieghosts.com or www.ghosts.org [just to name a few.] These sites, though although very rich in information and content still provide only regional information to their readers.
It is the hope of myself and my friends that in the creation of our new website that we can bring together the talents and works of many well known authors, writers, and paranormal researchers in a centralized, streamlined website containing informative articles from around the world, in one easy to access, browse, and searchable site.
We have already begun constructing the baseline and building the database to house all this information. Now we are beginning the process of contacting professionals in the field and seeking their help ~ asking to forge an alliance of information… Information which would be globally accessible and provide a network of knowledge the likes of which have never been seen on the internet before.
Why am I contacting you? Because you are a respected professional in the field and I would love to be able to use your works/research on our site.
How would you benefit from this? By allowing us to use your work, it would be available in a single point-of-reference website along with many other professionals in the field, creating a huge online database of research information containing the works of many different professionals.
Monetary benefits? Our database is being built as a not for profit entity. We cannot offer any direct monies for use of your information. However, there would be indirect monetary gains associated. By looking through some of the sample links provided below [to pages within our developmental website] you can see that the opportunity for monetary gains through both the sales of your books and other published works through our merchant partners and through direct links back to your own website and email will provide you with an even larger stream of revenue than you currently have. Why should you be interested in this endeavor? Because by bringing together the knowledge and research of diverse individuals in the field of the paranormal we can create a single point of reference which could stand to dominate the information spectrum on the internet by providing both factual and useful information to readers and provide a steady sales generation of their materials through our direct merchant partners, as well as building traffic to their own high quality websites. Won’t you please take a few moments and visit our development site and see what you think?
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~radnurs/index.htm
our homepage, gives a brief overview of our mission and goals. Includes links out to the major areas of our site, which are currently under creation. Please feel free to browse through…
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~radnurs/your_story.htm
a mock up of a featured story including a link back to the authors dedicated biography page which provides a detailed biography, website link, email address, and purchase opportunity for the authors work…
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~radnurs/hauntings.htm
A direct link to the “hauntings” section of our website, which I believe will be the most viewed area of the site. This area is browsable by location of the haunting. Cases will also be found by performing a direct search for the title, location, or keywords once we are moved to our own dedicated servers later this year.
In conclusion, Mr. Davis I am contacting you today to see if you are interested in allowing us to use your materials – or some of your materials in the development of this database which we hope to
one day become the largest of its kind.
Please take your time and browse our developmental site at your leisure and think over our goals for creating this new, exciting website. If you feel that this is a project with which you may like to be interested, I would love to hear back from you soon.
With best wishes- Sincerely, Chris Carpenter
17 January 2003 From: Mark T. Subject: Clarification of Haunted Place Name
Jeff-
I am a librarian in Klickitat County, Washington. I greatly enjoy your books and have read all that we have in our system. I was reading in your newest one the other day, and naturally was curious about what you found for our county. I found a slight error about the name of Horsethief Lake.
According to the book "Our Native American Legacy" by Sandy
Nester, the Klickitat Indians are our native people here. The name
Klickitat means either "beyond" or "robber".
Locals have said for years that they were good "horse thieves"
(which in their culture was a good thing). Therefore, Horsethief Lake
is derived from the name of the local Indians.
I know this is trivial and can't be corrected in your book. I just
wanted to let you know, as I've always thought this was an interesting bit
of local history. Keep up the good work, as I said, I very much enjoy
your work.
Judy Bane
Horsethief Lake is located in the Columbia River Gorge, near Goldendale, Washington. It is now a State park, but before the 20th Century, the area was home to several Native American groups. There is a trail leading from the lake itself, into a box canyon. There are several examples of sacred Native American artwork. Most probably date back to the Wishram people, who lived there before the Klickitat and Yakamas came to the Pacific Northwest. I am not sure if Judy's correction of my book is correct. According to the Washington State Website, parks and recreation, it describes the naming of Horsethief Lake as taking place in the 1950s when the park was first opened. Does anyone else have a map showing the lake before the 1950s? Jeff
15 January 2003 From: Mark T. Subject: Hauntings
Hollywood Video Store Hi Jeff- My name is Mark, I'm 19 years old and I live near Portland, Oregon and am really fascinated with ghosts. I work at Hollywood Video, which contains a ghost. He was a former Store Manager who shot himself in the office. There have been many occurrences, such as objects moving around, noises-such as knocking on end-caps or shelves when nobody is there, (before opening the store). Alarms go off for no reason. There was a gun shot heard in the office, smell of cigar smoke (which he used to smoke) and temperature being very different in the office-getting very cold. This is why I became so fascinated w/ghosts and hauntings. Soon, I will be sending you a picture of a cemetery picture I shot for a school project. The film I used was Ilfords true black and white film. I believe that are at least 3 paranormal activity going on within the picture, but after reading your website (which I'd like to add is very fascinating and well done) I thought I'd get another opinion. The reason why I haven't can't send you this picture now, is because my scanner isn't working, therefore, I can't put it on my computer. I will send it w/in a few days hopefully. Also, my 3 year cousin is seeing someone in his house. He has seen the woman a couple times, one being in the laundry room, and the others in his bedroom. He told his mom that he'd like it if the lady would stop coming into his room when he's trying to go to bed because he's very tired. Is it true that kids are more likely to see things like that?? I always thought that because they haven't thought to block that part of life out yet. I understand if you can't email me back, because you are probably very busy, but I really wanted to share my stories with you and get some feedback. Thank you for your time, and again, I'll try to send you that picture w/a more details about the picture. Thanks again for your time. Mark T.
13 January 2003 From: Heather P. Subject: Hauntings in
Damascus, OR? Hi, I have heard a voice call my name down at the barn,
this has happened on many occasions. Also when I am out riding my horse
I've heard it as well. There is also a constant annoying feeling of being
watched. It can get rather un-nerving. I
used a pendulum and made contact with the spirit. My hand turned, to a
weird color of grey. (It wasn't cold out side and my other hand was just fine,
my niece is my witness.) My dad, also confided to my mom that he had a disturbing
encounter... Whatever it was, called his name in my mothers voice.
(She wasn't home.) My dad is not one to lie about that sort of thing.
(In fact he wasn't happy with my mother telling me about it.) She
did however, because I have shared my concerns with her about this place. I wish I could find out who or what is haunting it
would be great to be able to acknowledge the spirit. Any ways, I apologize
for my writing being so sketchy. If you have time or even get
to this e-mail can you let me know if you have heard of anyone else having these
experiences. Thanx,
6 January 2003 From: Stuart W. Subject: Indian Camp
Crying around the Portland area there are many old Native American village sites. Most of them are along the many rivers and slues around the area. Just about all of them have been destroyed by progress over the years; R.R. tracks ship yards airports ... etc. One of my hobbies is to beachcomb or walk these lonely old sites. Never excavate its against the law. Every once in a while, I find a broken arrowhead or trade bead amongst the old tires and things people have carelessly thrown over the bank. One morning back in 1989, I was poking around an old Indian village site near the Columbia River . Somebody had potholed there maybe a week before. The hole was fresh there was flint and bone laying around. I bent down on one knee to get a better look and that's when I heard it. A woman doing a song or chant more like she was crying definitely Native American. It seemed like it was rite in my ear. It was about six A. M. in the morning, out in the middle of nowhere I ran up towards the road to see if any body else was there who could of made that noise. There was no one. There was such a feeling of sadness in the air. I left and did not go back for a long time. If you read the early settlers journals the say around the 1830 smallpox killed these natives so fast that entire villages had decomposing bodies laying around as others wailed in pain and sickness. Eventually grass and leaves covered them up never even getting a proper burial. So that is why so much human bone is found in these old camps. I have a great respect for the native people that once lived along the river . Stuart
Does anyone have their own stories they want to share, or perhaps comment on the stories you have read in this section? Please let me know
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