Esoterica: Lancashire Apparition, Anti-Witchcraft Unit and Landmark Investigations

Apparition shows up at historic Lancashire pub

Pub staff turned ghost hunters who staged a sleepover in a historic village inn got more than they bargained for when things began to go bump in the night!

The Lower Buck Inn, Waddington, has been the centre of village life since it was built in 1760.

Tales of ghostly happenings have become folklore in the village. So much so that a group of staff members decided to investigate for themselves, raising money in the process for the North West Ambulance Service.

Jenny Barnsley, Chloé Hartshorn. Lucy Knowles, Gemma Tithe and Hannah Blanc closed up the pub as usual at closing time and got ready for their sponsored sleep-in. They were shocked when, shortly afterwards, one of the girls saw a ghostly figure in the front bar.

Jenny, who works behind the bar explained: “We decided to have a sleepover and seance to find out for ourselves if the pub really is haunted as everyone says. First, we lit candles and asked if anyone was present and we immediately heard scratching and banging noises coming from upstairs. Chloé then saw a man in the doorway of the front bar and shortly afterwards, we took a picture as the room had gone cold. We were amazed to see what looked like separate images of a man and a girl in two different pictures.”

Landlord Andrew Warburton has long had the feeling he’s not alone behind the bar: “A pub this old is bound to have its history ingrained within the walls. Generations of locals and visitors have celebrated and commiserated here and it has a lovely warm feeling about the place. If there are any ghosts here, I think they’re definitely of the friendly variety!”

The ghostly goings-on have provided a great talking point in the pub and £300 was raised by the girls for their chosen cause, so it looks like Andrew might be right – these ghosts are definitely well meaning and generous in spirit! - clitheroeadvertiser

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Saudi Arabia's 'Anti-Witchcraft Unit' breaks another spell

The unit, established in 2009, is charged with apprehending sorcerers and reversing the detrimental effects of their spells in the Gulf country.

When the severed head of a wolf wrapped in women's lingerie turned up near the city of Tabouk in northern Saudi Arabia this week, authorities knew they had another case of witchcraft on their hands, a capital offence in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom.

Agents of the country’s Anti-Witchcraft Unit were quickly dispatched and set about trying to break the spell that used the beast’s head.

Saudi Arabia takes witchcraft so seriously that it has banned the Harry Potter series by British writer J.K. Rowling, rife with tales of sorcery and magic. It set up the Anti-Witchcraft Unit in May 2009 and placed it under the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPV), Saudi Arabia's religious police.

"In accordance with our Islamic tradition we believe that magic really exists," Abdullah Jaber, a political cartoonist at the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, told The Media Line. "The fact that an official body, subordinate to the Saudi Ministry of Interior, has a unit to combat sorcery proves that the government recognizes this, like Muslims worldwide."

The unit is charged with apprehending sorcerers and reversing the detrimental effects of their spells. On the CPV website, a hotline encourages citizens across the kingdom to report cases of sorcery to local officials for immediate treatment.

In the case of the wolf's head, the Anti-Witchcraft Unit in Tabouk was able to break the spell. The Saudi daily Okaz reported on Monday that the unknown family that had fallen victim to the spell had been "liberated from the jaws of the wolf.”

The Anti-Witchcraft Unit was created in order to educate the public about the danger of sorcerers and "combat manifestations of polytheism and reliance on other Gods," the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The belief in sorcery is so widespread in Saudi Arabia, that it is even used as a defense in criminal court cases. Last October, a judge accused of receiving bribes in a real-estate project told a court in Madinah that he had been bewitched and is undergoing treatment by Quranic incantations, known as ruqiyah, a common remedy for the evil eye.

Jaber noted, however, that most sorcerers both inside and outside the kingdom were charlatans that take advantage of illiterate citizens who believed they were afflicted by the evil eye. He said that such beliefs were more prevalent among older, rural and often illiterate individuals than with younger, educated Saudis.

"A while ago my arm was hurt and I couldn't draw," the cartoonist said. "Many older people told me that I must have been afflicted by the evil eye and should be treated by a Sheikh."

"It's a matter of ignorance," Jaber added. "If people were more educated they wouldn't believe in this."

The last time Saudi Arabia executed a convicted sorcerer was in late 2007, but this did not indicate the penalty has since been lifted, Cristoph Wilcke, a senior Middle East Researcher at Human Rights Watch and expert on Saudi Arabia, told The Media Line.

Human Rights Watch had appealed King Abdullah in 2008 to halt the death sentence of Fawza Falih, a Saudi woman, on charges of witchcraft. The sentence was postponed, but Falih died in prison of ill health.

Saudi Arabia lacks a penal code, making court decisions on whether a given act constitutes witchcraft completely dependant on the judge's discretion, Human Rights Watch said.

"We hear time and again of foreigners, such as Ethiopians or Nigerians, accused of sorcery in Saudi Arabia because of traditional practices from their countries of origin," Wilcke said. "They are usually apprehended by the religious police, brought to court, and let off with a warning or lashes."

In other cases, however, false accusations are made against foreign domestic workers in order to counter their charges of sexual harassment within a Saudi household.

"They will often say that the [female] domestic worker bewitched the Saudi into falling in love with her," Wilcke noted.

Belief in sorcery is not necessarily more widespread in Saudi Arabia than in other Gulf countries, Wilcke added. On Monday, the Emirati daily Al-Khaeej reported that Dubai police had arrested an Arab African national on charges of fraud and sorcery, after he charged 15,000 Dirham ($4,000) from a woman whose husband had left her, promising to bring him back using magic.

But the strictly Orthodox brand of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, known as Wahhabism, did contribute to the country's zero-tolerance policy on magic, Wilcke noted.

"Wahhabism believes in strict monotheism," Wilcke said. "Sorcery is a way of praying to someone other than God." - jpost

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Texas group probes local landmark

Seguin’s Mosheim Mansion has been rumored to be haunted. Carol Hirschi said now she knows for sure.

The Central Texas Paranormal Society CTPS (Ghost Investigators) came to the local bed and breakfast for an investigation, Hirschi said.

“They came here a couple of months ago,” she said.

What they came up with confirmed Hirschi’s suspicions.

“The paranormal investigators came in and they got some EVPs [electronic voice phenomenon] which I haven’t heard yet but I have heard they are interesting,” she said.

Even though she is a writer and not an investigator, Erin Wallace joined the team for the exploration of the Mosheim.

“When we went upstairs we did an EVP session,” she said. “When the other two investigators asked a question we didn’t get anything. But when I did it lit up and went crazy. They told me that sometimes ghosts are more receptive to certain people.”

Wallace asked a simple question, “Is there anybody here related to the Mosheim family?”

The writer got her answer — but not until after investigators finished going through all of the evidence.

“The first thing they revealed to me, was my EVP session,” she said. “Right after I had asked the question, I got a response ‘John.’”

The investigation team also found some activity in the cellar of the mansion.

“We had cameras set up in the basement, which was known for paranormal activity,” she said. “From down there we got EVPs of a couple of gunshots and footsteps going up the stairs. It was like normal footsteps, with like women’s shoes, it sounded like big, heavy boots.”

After digging for more information on the house, Wallace said she found a violent crime was committed a long time ago.

“A descendant of the Mosheim family said a murder happened in the house and we are wondering if it maybe happened in the basement.”

Wallace is shining a spotlight on the CTPS and her experiences in a book. The idea for the book came from her sister, who is an investigator with the group.

“The original plan was to just write about the investigations, but after I met the people my focus changed to more of biography of them and what they do,” she said. “The book explains what and who they are. They wait for people to come to them. They are not ghost hunters or seekers. They go out and help people who are having paranormal trouble.”

But Hirschi really didn’t need the CTPS or the book to tell her the mansion was haunted. Throughout the years the Hirschis lived there they have witnessed some unexplainable events.

“The people that were working here before us said the house is haunted,” she said. “They gave us a picture that somebody took and it looks like somebody is standing in front of a fireplace. They assured me that nobody was standing there when they took the picture. They also said in certain parts of the house somebody would get thumped on the back of the head.”

Hirschi’s husband Bob knows first hand what that feels like.

“My husband has actually gotten a thump on the back of his head,” she said. “We were moving furniture and he goes ‘Who was that?’ He said it felt like somebody thumped him on the back of the head like an angry nun would do.”

The Hirshcis are not the only residents in the house who have had experiences with the spirits.

“I had a dog named Bipolar Shorty and when she would walk to the office she would wag her tail like she was looking at somebody and the door would open automatically for her,” she said. “It wouldn’t do that for me.”

While the owners and some guests have had some experiences, they have never been bad ones.

“I will say some weird stuff has happened,” she said. “I have heard unmistakable footsteps. I have dogs and they don’t walk heel-to-toe in hard-soled shoes. We have been told by neighbors that they have seen a guy walk around the house at night.”

The first couple of years Hirschi said were the busiest, as far as the paranormal activity was concerned.

“The weird stuff happened when we first moved in,” she said. “It has pretty much stopped.”

When a psychic came to stay at the Mosheim, she let Hirschi in on some of the feelings of the otherworldly visitors.

“Pam (Grant) tells us that the spirits here like us and they are glad we are here,” she said. “She said they like the dogs and they enjoy the things that go on like the theater and the people coming and going. They like it. Maybe it’s because one of the women that lived here was a recluse, she was agoraphobic. It may be now she can enjoy it, maybe she is making up for lost time.”

Hirschi has told the “guests” that they are welcome to stay as long as they don’t scare her business away.

“They don’t harass, they don’t do anything malicious. Nothing scary or dangerous happens but it is just weird,” she said.

Wallace echoed what Grant told Hirschi.

“It’s not a bad feeling there. I have been to places that are bad and put off a bad vibe, but this is not one of them,” she said. “At the Mosheim, you can feel it is a happy place. Even with everything that I had experienced I would still stay there.”

Wallace is no stranger to Seguin, so when given the chance to join the team at the Mosheim she took it.

“I lived in Seguin for five years and I love it. I miss it,” she said. “When they were asked to investigate the Mosheim, I jumped on the opportunity.” - seguingazette

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Maryland paranormal group investigates Snow Hill Manor

What do you do if you're the supervisor of an 18th century Prince George's County Parks and Recreation manor that is now plagued by supernatural activity?

If you're Mary Schiappa, you call the local ghostbusting group to investigate.

The Greater Maryland Paranormal Society (GMPS), was established in 2006 as a nonprofit paranormal investigation group, and took to Snow Hill Manor in South Laurel on Friday to investigate claims by staff that the home is filled with supernatural activity.

Most of the society’s members have either experienced paranormal activity or have an intense interest in the paranormal. Its founder, William Hartley, said the group doesn’t use gimmicks. It only uses scientific methods to detect paranormal activity and shies away from psychics or mediums, he said.

According to Hartley, most clients are private citizens who are not charged a fee. All ghosthunting members have regular day jobs and contribute to the society’s expenses.

Schiappa explained to Hartley that she has been working at the manor for seven years and constantly hears doors closing, floors squeaking and music playing when there is no one else in the home.

“Lots of people lived and died here,” Schiappa said. “There’s always creaks and doors slamming. At night I get spooked out but I think whatever is here likes me.”

Schiappa went on to say that once she was planning a face-painting event at the manor and stepped away from her table. She returned but the paint had vanished, only to be returned to the same spot a week later.

Armed with high-tech, electromagnetic gear detecting energy signatures of the paranormal, the group set up shop in the home from late Friday into early Saturday. The public was welcome to join in for a charge of $30, with all proceeds benefiting the American Red Cross.

During breaks, attendees huddled around a snack table, swapping stories of ghostly experiences and detailing what they hoped to see during the rest of the evening. Most said they had a fascination with the paranormal after experiencing it firsthand.

Donna Kopp, 51, of Fulton dragged her sister and daughter to the event. She said she had always suspected she was capable of sensing spirits.

“I’m trying to find out of if it’s something I am producing,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out if I’m crazy or not.”

Gary Neuwirth of Crofton attended the event with friends and said he became interested in the afterlife after having a supernatural experience when his mother died.

“I was looking for something that is local,” he said. “I hope to validate my beliefs that ghosts or spirits exist.”

"It’s like an addiction."

Colin McGuinn, 28, of White Marsh joined the society after asking it to investigate activity at his home. He said he’s been chasing the paranormal ever since.

“Who needs football when you got ghost hunting?" he asked.

Elyse Caudill, 26, of Baltimore joined the group after having an interest in parapsychology—the field’s academic name.

“I believe in the possibility of [paranormal activity],” she said. “You get that piece of evidence and you want more—it’s like an addiction.”

During the night, cameras were set up around each level of the house, lights were turned off and the group was split in half and sent in different directions. Each group had a guide who was equipped with electromagnetic equipment to detect energy, as well as thermometers. It is believed that when a paranormal presence appears, the temperature in a localized area will drop.

Attendees spent the evening shuffling among the manor’s three floors, huddling in rooms and asking the spirits questions about why they continue to linger in the home.

While there were no ghost sightings, objects placed around the house to test paranormal activity, such as pennies, were inexplicably moved or tossed down stairs—presumably by supernatural forces.

Close encounters or not, when asked how technology is used to detect supernatural beings, Hartley simply responded, “Energy doesn’t die.” - laurel.patch

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Spiritual / Paranormal Activity News: SRI Updates, X-Men - First Class Haunting and University Ghosts

 

Active Spirit Rescue International Cases

These cases are currently active...you can following the case log updates at the Astral Perceptions forum. Access to Spirit Rescue International case logs requires registration.

Entity Attachment - Western Ontario, Canada: Family of four seeking help for persistent turmoil and personality disorders that may possibly be related to paranormal interference. We have conducted 2 remote viewing sessions so far and have cleared one entity...though we suspect another negative energy persists. We continue to work closely with the family.

Tormenting Entity - Leeds, West Yorkshire: The client has experienced unexplainable discomfort, maladies and constant mood swings over the past 7 years...to the point where they feel that a negative energy is responsible. A remote viewing session was conducted...an unknown book may be the key to this case.

Diabolical Inhabitant - Flushing, New York: A family shares a NYC apartment with a malevolent occupant that has been a destabilizing force for several years. The circumstances evolved into desperation and terror. Irene is astrally monitoring the location daily. As well, SRI support is in constant contact with the client. There has been marked improvement over the past few weeks.

Llanelli, South Wales Haunting Case: SRI continues to work and monitor this location and family...with a good deal of success so far. This case has received worldwide interest and inquiry.

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Ghosts spooked ‘X-Men- First Class’ cast at ancient British mansion

The cast and crew of X-Men-First Class has revealed that the Anglefield House in Berkshire, England where they were stationed for the shoot, was haunted.

Narrating spooky incidents, actor James McAvoy revealed that he and his cast mates spent almost five weeks on location at the mansion living with the ghosts of past residents.

"The oldest part of that house goes back to 800 Ad... There was a hell of a lot of ghosties running about in there, but the only ghost I actually came across was the ghost of Sir Patrick Stewart haunting me for playing his character badly," Contactmusic quoted him as saying.

The Scottish actor plays the role of 'Professor X' in the X-Men film trilogy.

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The Ghosts That Haunt Montevallo

The ghost lore of the University of Montevallo, which has passed between students and residents of Montevallo for years, was shared during a ghost walk on the university’s campus on June 11.

Kathy Lowe, the new director of UM’s Carmichael Library, led a walk around the campus, telling the stories of UM’s most infamous ghosts.

“I was a reference librarian, and people would ask all the time about the ghosts,” Lowe said. “We decided to set stories straight; we decided to inform people of the real story.”

The main ghost stories derive from the King House, Main Dorm and the King House Cemetery. The first stop on the ghost walk involved Main Dorm.

Sophomore Condie Cunnningham lived in Main Dorm in 1908. According to Lowe’s research and the minutes from a board of trustees meeting, on Feb. 4, 1908, Condie and her roommate were melting chocolate for fudge in a chafing dish. They ignored the 9:30 p.m. bell signaling an approaching curfew, and when the 10 p.m. curfew bell rang, they scrambled to put away their fudge-making equipment.

“They began rushing to put everything away,” Lowe said. “Alcohol fell on the carpet, and the flame caught on the back of Condie’s nightgown. She became hysterical and ran screaming down the hall.”

A faculty member living in the dorm extinguished the fire, but Condie passed away two days later.

“The ghost stories began not long after,” Lowe said. “Girls reported hearing screaming and moaning on the hall, and on the wooden door of her dorm room, you could see her face – eyes, nose and mouth with flames. We had to put the door away because it became such a curiosity.”

The second most famous ghost is that of Mr. Edmund King, the man who built King House in 1823. King House, or the Mansion House, is located on campus, and was considered a large house in its time, with glass windows and two stories.

King and his wife, Nancy, had 10 children. He was alive when the Civil War started, and maintained a fruit orchard behind his house. Lowe said King would wander the grounds, the King family’s cemetery and the orchard.

“He would wander and carry a shovel and lantern,” Lowe said. “(After his death), the stories of the lights that shine at night began. People say they see lights and the curtains of the house move. They say he’s looking for the money and silver he buried in his fruit orchard. To this day, he’s seen with a lantern.” - shelbycountyreporter

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THIS WEEK'S SPIRITUAL / PARANORMAL ACTIVITY LINKS

Suspension of Disbelief: Baffling Paranormal Cases

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The Paranormal Negativity Overload

The Kingdom: The Danish Miniseries From the Twilight Zone

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Into the Dark

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The Ins and Outs of Tea Leaf Reading

Lady in Black

Sports Loving Ghost

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The Baby Angel Ghost: One Reader’s Possible Spirit Photos

The Ouija Debate

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Tales of the Unquiet Dead

Who Or What Are The Shadow People?

The Astral Plane

10 Ways to Develop Psychic Abilities

The Happy Ghost

Hunting in the Otherworld

There's Something in Our House -- Part One

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Sandra Bullock 'Convinced' North London Location Haunted

Sandra Bullock probably wasn't asked to star in the next series of Ghosthunting With...

But ITV2 chiefs will be banging their heads against the wall now because the Hollywood actress might just have been tempted.

She is in London filming sci-fi thriller Gravity with George Clooney and has asked producers to investigate the converted church she is staying in because she fears it's haunted.

She's had sleepness nights due to "ghostly presences" inside the north London gaff.

A source said: "Sandra is convinced something is not right."

It's a shame Bill Murray isn't co-starring with her. He might still have a proton pack from Ghostbusters knocking about. - The Sun

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Sandra Bullock is currently in London filming a Sci-Fi thriller called "Gravity" with George Clooney, but The Sun, a British tabloid, reports her offscreen activities are more focused on the paranormal.

The Oscar-winning actress is staying in a converted church, but sources say she is asking her producers to investigate the dwelling because she fears it's haunted.

The paranormal patter is reportedly so bad that Bullock is suffering sleepless nights due to "ghostly presences" inside the north London church and a source claims the actress is convinced something is not right.

Bonnie Vent, a San Diego-based spiritual medium, isn't surprised Bullock is having ghostly experiences in jolly old England.

"London has a long, rich history for murder and mayhem," Vent told AOL Weird News. "The properties are hundreds of years old with many highly emotional experiences attached as well as bodies buried in the floors and walls of some properties."

Also, show business celebrities seem to have a knack for picking up ghostly vibes, she says.

"Celebrities are more open-minded, live-and-let-live types," she said. "They're already living outside of the box. Plus, they travel a lot and staying in different places makes you recognize when a room has a unique energy to it."
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Vent, who said she has worked as a "spirit advocate" to deliver messages from beyond the grave for celebs like Michael Jackson, George Carlin and "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, believes Bullock is going about things the right way by trying to investigate the spooks rather than removing them willy-nilly.

"She needs to check out the property," Vent advised. "Whatever is haunting her could be from either the building or the land itself."

Vent also suggests Bullock take matters into her own hands by setting up a tape recorder in her room and asking questions in it for five minutes.

"She should leave five-second intervals in between questions," Vent explained. "Then when she listens back to the tape, she should listen for any strange sounds that shouldn't be there."

However, paranormal researcher Bryan Bonner of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society has some slightly different advice for her.

"I would suggest that one never ask movie or TV producers to look into any type of paranormal activity," Bonner said. "The only thing that will do is create another movie or TV show. However she might be able to get a credit as co-writer."

Bonner says Bullock's paranormal problem is actually quite common and has a very simple solution.

"The best thing for her to do would be to go to another place to stay," he said. "Once a person is convinced that a place is 'haunted,' it is hard for them to think anything different."

Spiritual / Paranormal Activity News: Hungry Spirit, Jim Morrison Haunts Woman and Ilchester Mill Investigation

The Hungry Spirit

My grandfather told me this story about an experience that happened to one of his friends. There was a house in eastern Tennessee that people claimed was haunted and no one dare to spend the night in. This particular friend of my grandfather, wanting to be the brave hometown hero, decided to give it a shot.

He went into the house well before dark and set up his stuff in the upstairs bedroom. Being a big believer in early to bed - early to rise, was in bed by 8pm. Precisely at 9pm, he heard the main door opened and then the kitchen door. He heard pots and pans being removed from the cabinets and soon he could hear the sizzling of meat frying. In fact, he could actually smell bacon and eggs. He wanted to go downstairs, but thought better of it.

Afterwards, he heard a kitchen chair being pulled out and something sat down. He could hear the fork scraping the plate. A while later he heard the chair move again, dishes were placed in the sink and water was run. He heard the clatter as the dishes were washed and put up and the pots and pans were replaced in the cabinets. Finally, he heard the kitchen door and then the main door opened and closed again. He stayed under the bed till morning because he was too scared to move.

Of course, nobody believed that he stayed the night in that haunted house, so he did it one more time. This time he sprinkled flour all over the kitchen floor. He really thought his friends were playing a trick on him. He sprinkled so much flour that an ant couldn’t have walked through without leaving a track. He waited in the dark upstairs and the visitor came at exactly 9pm for his meal again. After, it had left, he rushed downstairs to see if there were footprints in the telltale flour. There were none!

NOTE: this was forwarded to me a while back...I've read and heard similar versions before. Do you have a personal ghostly tale or experience a strange close encounter? Forward it to me for others to read...Lon

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Ireland's only known "satanic murder"

The murdered seven-year-old boy found in an attic in Dublin in 1973 was tied to rafters in the attic in a "cruciform", the author of a forthcoming book on the killing has said.

The death was Ireland's only known "satanic murder", according to David Malone, who came across the case while carrying out research on other events of the time.

Gardai who recall some of the events told the Sunday Independent the case was always regarded as strange and tragic and that the victim, John Horgan, disappeared while he was out looking for rabbits near his home in Palmerstown on June 13, 1974.

His body was found the next day in the attic of the home of a 16-year-old near the Horgan family home in Hollyville, Lucan Road. The 16-year-old, who was never named as he was a juvenile, was arrested and charged the following day with murder.

Gardai found an altar, on which was a chalice and Communion hosts, beneath the hanging body.

After the discovery of the body gardai called local parish priest, Fr Cornelius O'Keeffe, who administered last rites.

The author and TV documentary producer, Mr Malone, said: "It was a Satanist murder. When he was discovered he was in a cruciform tied to the rafters. As a result the 16-year-old was arrested and sentenced to life. It was a terribly tragic case."

The case reawakened last week at Dublin County Coroner's Court as Mr Malone said that during his six months of research into the murder he discovered that no death certificate had been issued for John Horgan.

"At the outset of researching something like this you start with birth and death certificates but I found that there was no death cert. I presume it was as a result of an oversight."

As the juvenile who carried out the murder was never named and not all the details of the nature of the killing were in the public domain there was relatively little publicity about the case.

The Northern Troubles were at their height and a number of security-related crises hit the country around the time of the murder and subsequent court hearings.

Last Tuesday the brief hearing to issue the death certificate heard that John Horgan was found in the attic surrounded by "religious objects".

County Coroner Kieran Geraghty gave a brief account of the details of the tragedy after his office was notified that a death certificate had never been issued.

It is a legal requirement that every death is recorded and registered with the State.

At the hearing, Detective Inspector Richard McDonnell said a male was later charged with the crime and served a sentence.

Det Insp McDonnell, from Lucan garda station, contacted the Horgan family after he was asked in February of this year to prepare an inquest file for the issuing of the death certificate.

"I contacted the family of John Horgan who indicated they did not wish to revisit a very traumatic period in their lives and reopen old wounds," the detective said yesterday. "However, the memory of their son is always with them."

The Horgan family was not present at the brief inquest.

The coroner revealed that the killer, who is now 54, was now living outside Ireland and said it would be inappropriate to call a full inquest without the consent of the family.

Mr Malone said he cannot reveal further details due to contractual arrangements with his publishers and because of discussions over syndication rights. The book, The Boy in the Attic, is due to be published by Mainstream Publishing this autumn. - independent.ie

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Jim Morrison Ghost Haunting Woman In Virginia

The ghost of Jim Morrison has begun haunting a woman at her home in Virginia.

Rhonda Baron said she saw the spirit of the late Doors star lying on a bed he apparently used to sleep in.

The property in Arlington was apparently owned by Morrison's parents before Baron's family took over the home.

"The spirit laid down on the bed. Completely laying down and looking at me like this. It was like a haze. It was like you could look through it,"she told WUSA 9 News.

Morrison shot to fame as the frontman of The Doors before he died in Paris in 1971 at the age of 27. - gigwise



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How the sci-fi writer Geoffrey Hoyle predicted 2011's technologies in 1972

What will the world look like in the not-too-distant future? It's a fun game to play sitting around the pub/dinner-party table, but unless you grew up in the house of the astronomer and science-fiction writer Sir Fred Hoyle (who, incidentally, coined the term "big bang", even though he rejected the theory), where lunches with the physicist Richard Feynman were not uncommon, chances are your beautiful "vision" will evaporate with the inexorable passing of time.

So it is a brave man who commits such ideas to paper. Which makes it all the more delicious that when Sir Fred's son, Geoffrey, was asked to do just that in the early 1970s, he got so many things right. And though 2011: Living in the Future was intended for children, the renewed interest in Hoyle's work (Facebook groups, a new US publisher) owes as much to Hoyle's prescience as it does the period charm provided by theaccompanying illustrations by Alasdair Anderson that have become something of a cult.

The new reprint is flattering to Hoyle, now 69 and living in a French village, but also, perhaps, amusing to a man who has been a theatre producer, a documentary-maker and an advertising executive before, somewhat reluctantly, entering the "family business" of science-fiction writing.

"The book was the idea of an editor at Heinemann," he says from his home near Perpignan. "They were publishing a series for children and asked whether there was something we could do involving science-fiction to make them think about what kind of world they would like to grow up into; and because it was going to be sold in America, it was made clear that there should be no politics or sex."

The fact that the book promotes an uncomplicated, politics-free vision of the future is made even more k astonishing when you talk to Hoyle now. Here is a man whose mind flits from subject to subject at an alarming rate – from accusations that 2011 is politically incorrect ("People blame me for the fact that there are no black people in the book, but I had nothing to do with the illustrations. Would I have chosen for the father to be a hippie? Probably not") to a deep feeling that while technology has developed almost as he had foreseen, attitudes and social structures have not kept pace.

This last point is something of a bugbear. "Over the years politicians have added new thing to new thing and nobody has the intellect to wipe the slate clean and say, 'What do we need?' What have changed over the decades are the levels of bureaucracy, the control over our lives and the rise of the career politician with pop-star status. We live in a time where there's a huge amount of disinformation and facts can be twisted to alarm or control. The original draft of the US constitution is 20 pages long; Brussels turns out thousands and thousands of pages – which says to me that no one knows how to make law [any more]."

So while Hoyle predicted both the large (the ubiquity of the computer, the invention of the smartphone and the microwave) and the small (Skype, home supermarket delivery, touchscreens and webcams) ways our lives have changed, he has no idea why the social model of Europe is still "tailored to the way people were living in 1947".

What, then, would the book look like if he were writing it now and trying to imagine the world in 2051? "I think that book might have to show the slow decline of the Anglo-Saxon industrial revolution. Things have either peaked or plateaued, so there will probably be a reduction in the standard of living. But then," he adds, "that book would inevitably be bleaker, because the 1960s and 1970s were fantastic and I am now, I suppose, a grumpy old man."

Hoyle is also acutely aware that he will almost certainly not live to see whether he is right or wrong in this analysis. Not that this realisation frustrates him. What does is the fact that of the many young people looking at the book now, few of them ("One out of 17 from a class of 11th graders in Kansas") have the imagination to consider their own future world. "I grew up at a time when people put money into original thinking. Now it's all about viable commercial ideas. But the jet engine and penicillin were not born out of that culture. So I'm thinking of starting a website-cum-blog where young people can post their own thoughts on how everything from clothes to food to how we live and work will change over the next 40 years."

And as far as Hoyle's own immediate future is concerned? "That's easy," he says. "My sister and I inherited my father's intellectual copyright, and 10 years after his death he and his ideas are still much talked about. I sit and watch, reply to emails, and enjoy the sunshine." - independent

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Ilchester Mill Investigation

On Thursday, April 6th, 2006, I assembled a small team to investigate the recent paranormal activity at the Simkins Industries mill located in Ilchester, MD. The plant is located on the Baltimore County side of the Patapsco River at River Rd. near Hilltop Rd. There are remnants of the Ilchester mid-1800’s village still standing, but all the houses are now boarded up. The plant was deserted due to a major fire on the top level in 2003.

I had received several inquiries from people who had recently been on the property as well as a few queries from former employees. There have been various incidents and reports of phenomena mainly strange lights and sounds. To our knowledge, no other investigations had been made in the plant since it was closed. For the record, we had investigated some paranormal activity in the plant in the early 1990’s (when operations were running...though the plant was shutdown for maintenance) and I have reported this previously.

The team consisted of my assistant Cory and two former employees of the plant, Keith and Jerry. We were able to work our way into the plant through a dock entrance and descended 2 stories into the main beater room area. Because Keith and Jerry knew their way around, I had Cory and Jerry start the investigation to get some baseline EMF readings at various locations throughout the plant and to record any activity. All the power was off in the plant, so I was hoping for solid electro-magnetic readings. I decided to stay in the main beater room area with Keith mainly because I had recent physical limitations that made standing and walking for a sustained period of time impossible. I figured if Cory found anything, she’d give me a call and Keith could direct me to the area. Before we began, I asked Keith and Jerry not to mention any specific deaths or injuries that had occurred in the plant. This plant has a long history and reputation for many horrific work related casualties.

We started at approximately 6:30 pm and figured we would stay until early morning unless we were run off by any security personnel...or worse. I hadn’t seen any security people touring the plant, so I assumed we’d be able to conduct a thorough investigation.

Not too long after we started to look around, I noticed that the images on the digital cameras were not developing though the register on the card indicated that images were there. There was full power in the cameras and the cards were fine, but no images were coming on the screen. That was truly strange because I had never experienced that before and for this to occur with both cameras was very unusual.

Everything was fairly quiet for about 2 hours. I called Cory and she said that nothing remarkable had happened other than she received 1 major EM spike in the machine room dry end and that they were going to walk back to our location. A few minutes later Cory and Jerry returned. Jerry commented that it was very strange that he had not seen or heard any cats in any part of the plant. He stated that the plant was always inundated with cats for the many years he had worked there. Keith stated that he had also noticed it and thought it was very strange. Frankly, up to that time it was eerily quiet. We sat together for about an hour going over her notes and planning out our next moves.

By this time, it was 11:15 pm and we decided to start walking to a few areas that Cory had suggested. We went through an area that I was familiar with from my initial investigation but, strangely, I felt nothing. We continued to walk until we reached the former maintenance department. I started to get a feeling of dread and nausea as well as tightness on my chest. Cory also stated she felt a bit weird. After a few minutes, I asked Cory where she had recorded the EM spike. She said on the floor below by a machine called a rewinder in the machine room dry end. We walked down the stairs and entered into the main part of the plant. As soon as I walked through the wide doorway, I felt like something pushed me in the chest...I literally backed up and tried to regain my breath. A few seconds later, we heard a loud thud sound. Each of us looked around not knowing where the sound came from. It seemed to me that something large had hit the floor but the sound was tempered as if it was in a tunnel. My feeling was that something catastrophic had happened here…the residual energies were coming at me from all directions. Cory was getting erratic EM readings stronger than those she had recorded earlier. I tried to endure the bombardment of energies I was experiencing, but it was getting very hard to deal with. I needed to get out of that area as soon as possible so I could gather my thoughts. I turned around and walked towards the warehouse area so I could sit down and rest. The others soon followed and we took a break.

I asked Jerry to confirm if someone had died in that area, but I didn’t want a name or know how it happened. He stated that at least 2 employees had lost their lives in that specific area but he was unaware of their names since the deaths occurred before he started employment. Keith confirmed the deaths but he also had no idea of the circumstances or names...only third party information he had heard. I was determined to go back into the machine room and see if I could sense anything from the spirits residing there.

After a bit of a rest, Cory and I walked back into the machine room. As before, I felt pressure on my chest but not to the degree I experience previously. I immediately felt pain and sorrow...like my life force was draining out of me and I couldn’t stop the inevitable. Then I heard the name “Russell”. It was obvious that this was the person who had been haunting here. The sorrow and grieve this spirit was projecting was as intense as I have ever felt. I fear he will remain on this plane and refuse to ever move on.

I decided that I was done here and that we should check out a few other locations within the mill. We spent another 2 hours in the plant taking EM readings and recording some history of the mill from Keith and Jerry. I asked Jerry if he could put me in contact with a former employee who could tell me about any of the people who had died in the plant.

That Sunday, I interviewed a gentleman who wanted to remain anonymous. He had retired from the plant in the mid-1980’s and had started there when Bartgis Brothers had owned the mill. He confirmed that an employee by the name of Russell was killed in the machine room in 1977 after a 1½ ton roll of paperboard had slipped off a forklift and crushed him to death against the rewinder. But, I was stunned by the information that was to follow. The employee who attempted to load the paperboard roll and allowed it to slip off was a man by the name of Robert Buzzard. If you read my initial investigation at the plant, you would recognize that name. I had felt a presence of a spirit who called himself “buzzard”. I had no idea at that time that this was an actual name. As well, I had this feeling that “buzzard” had died by his own hand. It was confirmed that Mr. Buzzard had become so distressed after the accident he decided to retire. Less than a year later, “buzzard” had indeed committed suicide.

NOTE: since I am now with Spirit Rescue International I would to like to help 'Russell' and 'Buzzard' to move on, though the status of the mill is unknown and security at the location is much higher than before.

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THIS WEEK'S SPIRITUAL / PARANORMAL ACTIVITY LINKS

'Paranormal Detective' searches for missing Ohio man

Chasing Twain's Ghost

Is new FWP wildlife center haunted?

Ouija Board - A History

Wim Hof, Dutch 'Iceman,' Controls Body Through Meditation

A Haunting in the Czech Republic

Orgasms unlock altered consciousness

Grandma's Last Visit

Comforting Presence

TV Ghost

'Ghost' photo phone suddenly quits working

Haunt Jaunting Hazards: Shady Haunted Places

Update on Paranormal Experiences at Salt Lake City’s Shiloh Inn

The Ghosts of Fort Morgan

The Prison of the Mind

Mercy for witchcraft girl 'told to stab mother'

Exploring Extra Sensory Sciences: Psi of the Quantum Kind

Eerie Vibes at Ten Broeck Mansion

How to spot a psychopath

Exorcism claim fails; mom guilty of murder

An Accidental Paranormal Tourist in Salt Lake City


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(410) 241-5974

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Haunted Locations and Legends - Part Two

Hi folks. Today's submission is going to be brief because I am totally 'under the weather.' I'm going to post a few 'oldies, but goodies'...hopefully I'll be back to full strength in a day or two. Thanks for reading...Lon

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Spirits Remain At Brandy Station

The old Graffiti House in Brandy Station is pitch-black dark.

As I sit in a chair, my back to the wall, a man named Ron walks down a central hall quietly asking questions.

"Is there anyone here?"

"Are you a soldier?"

"Are you waiting for a train to take you to Richmond or to Washington?"

"Has Gen. Lee been here?"

"Were you wounded in the Battle of Brandy Station?"

Ron's voice fades as he goes into a far room here on the first floor. His questions turn into statements of reassurance.

"We are not here to harm you," he promises the surrounding darkness.

For several minutes there is an eerie quiet, broken only by the occasional creaking of floorboards from the second story above.

Then, still two rooms away, Ron coaxes whatever spirits that might be floating about in the darkness to manifest themselves in some way.

"If you are here, make your presence known to us," the weekend ghost-hunter says. "If you are here, touch one of us in some way."

For a few seconds there is absolute stillness and quiet and I sit smiling, thinking that this is all a lot of superstitious rot.

Then, suddenly, I feel something touch my back, between my shoulder blades, just below my neck. It begins almost as a muscular twitching and I instinctively reach around to try and scratch the spot.

Before I can get my hand up, however, the twitching sensation becomes more pronounced and now it is without question a tapping from without.

Now I am smiling no more. Now the hair is standing up on the back of my neck. Now I have a strange feeling that someone or some thing is there in that 4-inch space between my back and the 150-year-old interior wall of this old Civil War field hospital.

Then I hear a gentle thump on that wall, and I slowly turn to find that the large picture frame behind me is moving. It is the frame that is tapping me on the back.

But how can it be moving? There is no breeze, no heater stirring air on this cold moonless night. And there is no freight train rumbling down the adjoining railroad tracks that might make the wall vibrate.

But even a freight train wouldn't push a large picture frame 4 inches out from a stationary wall.

What is doing it?

You tell me, brother!

I spent more than four hours in the dark Saturday night as members of a ghost-hunting group that calls itself the Virginia Paranormal Institute inspected the Graffiti House for spirits.

The small sliver group, headed by Mark Taylor of Gaithersburg, Md., had been invited by Graffiti House caretaker Della Edrington and the Brandy Station Foundation, which owns the pre-Civil War structure.

Wounded soldiers--both Union and Confederate--convalesced here and many of their names remain scribbled in charcoal on plaster walls all over the house.

Although there is no official record, some of the wounded undoubtedly died here. And since Appomattox, there have been reports of spirits residing in this place--and the unmarked graveyard behind an abandoned and now dilapidated church just a few yards away.

If there are spirits here--as Edrington has often suspected--she wanted to confirm their presence. So she set up the investigation.

So, Saturday night Taylor (a real-estate broker), Ron Pipilo (a truck driver), Rick Allen (a mechanic) and Jackson "Jackie" Hicks (a business owner) showed up with all kinds of sophisticated ghost-detecting equipment to search for spirits.

Edrington was there and I was invited to attend and videotape the investigation for a TV documentary I am producing.

Little did I know that I would become part of the story!

a tap in the dark

About 7 p.m., all the lights were turned out and the hunt began.

My "incident" occurred about an hour into the event after, I suppose, whatever spirits in attendance had a chance to become accustomed to us.

After tapping me, however, whatever was there backed off, and it was at least another hour before the action picked up again.

Then, in a small upstairs bedroom, Allen reported that one of his instruments was getting an abnormal reading beside the name "Bowman" scribbled on the wall.

Hicks, who the group claims has a high sensitivity to the presence of spirits, volunteered to sit in a chair next to the name in an attempt to coax anything paranormal into action.

We stumbled quietly up the old stairs (there were no lights on all night), went into the little room and shut the door behind us. Then Hicks began asking any spirits present to manifest themselves.

"You can use my body," she says. "Just don't take too much of my energy."

Her pleas go unanswered for several minutes and then, in the middle of a sentence, they abruptly stop.

"I feel something putting pressure on my wrist!" she says quietly, trying hard to restrain her excitement.

"Yes, something is there! I feel it!"

Through the viewfinder of a video camera capable of recording in absolute darkness, I see Hicks eyes widen and the tension in her body build.

"It is moving up to my hand!" she says after a few moments. "It is like something is squeezing my hand!"

Allen, who has been getting abnormally high readings on one of his instruments near the name on the wall, turns his attention to the woman in the chair. He brings the instrument down to her hand and it goes wild, with lights blinking on and off at a furious pace.

"There is definitely activity here!" he says.

For perhaps 15 minutes Hicks feels the pressure and Allen's instruments note some kind of abnormal energy near her hand. The living beings present in the room --including me--are all filled with excitement.

Finally, Hicks feels she must free herself of whatever is touching her and she gets up. Edrington then sits down in the chair, to see if she can experience anything paranormal.

After several minutes, she says that although she sensed there was something present, she really didn't feel the hand and wrist squeezing that Hicks felt. Allen gets no abnormal readings near her.

"I suppose the spirits here are just used to me," Edrington, who works in the Graffiti House on a daily basis, says from her seat in the darkness.

Minutes later we are downstairs again. Taylor shows us a picture of what he feels is a blood stain he found on an old floor. The photo was taken under ultraviolet light and will be analyzed later.

Hicks is anxious and says she must go outside, that whatever touched her in the upstairs bedroom has drained much of her energy.

"They sometimes do that," she says of spirits.

I immediately think of Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in that scene from the movie "Ghost." Again, the hair stands up on the back of my neck.

keep the lights on

Are there ghosts in the Graffiti House?

According to Taylor, the evidence is still inconclusive. He will continue to analyze photographs, sound recordings and videotape before he and other members of the Virginia Paranormal Institute (the four aforementioned people) offer an educated guess.

As for me, well, I don't know what to believe.

But when that picture frame started tapping me on the back there in the dark, well

As the inimitable Barney Fife once said, "There are things out there that we just don't understand!"

That night when I went home, I slept with the lights on. - fredericksburg

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Voices in the Closet?

In the late 1960s, a local man by the name of Reg lived in a house with some particularly chatty spirits. As he explained it to me, "I've had the goose bumps because I've not seen, but heard, ghosts talking in the house I grew up in on Blackmarsh Road."

"My grandmother, my grandfather, mother, and myself, have all had chance meetings with the supernatural beings on Blackmarsh Road, west of Purity Factories Ltd.," Reg said. His first encounter with the local ghosts took place in his family home when he was about nine years old, around the year 1968-69.

"I grew up there with my three sisters," Reg said. "Sometimes, due to limited space, I slept on the sofa in the living room. In the living room was a small stove and coat closet. I remember the chimney ran next to the closet."

It was this closet that was the focus of Reg's encounters with a pack of noisy ghosts.

"I remember so vividly being woken up between 3-4 a.m. every morning to the sounds of a group of people conversing in the closet," Reg said. "To the best of my knowledge, there were six or seven people. I could not pick out what they were saying, though at the moment I could hear them very clearly.

"This went on until we moved," he said. "I told my mother about this at the time it was happening but, of course, it was dismissed as a child's imagination until many years later."

Long after Reg had grown up and moved out of the property, his grandparents had moved into the same apartment.

"I was away working in Toronto," he said. "I was talking to my mom and we happened to start talking about the closet. She told me my grandmother was asleep one night when she, too, was roused from sleep by the sound of people talking in the living room. She went to check it out and she also heard many voices in the closet."

The grandmother was not one to let noisy spirits invade her closet.

"Being the strong-willed person that she was, she said the Lord's Prayer aloud," Reg said. "When she was finished, she said the voices stopped, never to be heard again."

The use of the Lord's Prayer or even the name of God is a familiar and recurring motif in Newfoundland ghost stories, and it is certainly one I have come across before in family stories.

According to Stith Thompson's "Motif Index of Folk Literature," this is something that occurs in many local stories and legends. It is so recognized as a part of traditional stories that it has been given folk motif number E443.5 - "Ghost laid by adjuring it to leave in the name of God."

Another Newfoundland story that is typical of tales in this genre is from Trinity, and involves a man by the name of Uncle Eli. Much to Uncle Eli's chagrin, some type of ghost kept blowing out the kerosene lamp while he and his family were trying to play cards.

But Uncle Eli was having none of the phantom's antics. He spoke up loudly and challenged the force responsible for blowing out the light.

"If you belong to God, go back to God," directed Uncle Eli. "If you belong to the devil, go back to the devil!"

After he said these words, Uncle Eli then lit the lamp a third time. That time it did not go out, and the family was able to finish their game in peace, with no more ghostly interruptions.

**********

Realtors Not Welcomed In Haunted House

Since the Field family house was built on Broadway around 1900, five family members have died there. Apparently they found the home so comfortable, they never found a reason to leave.

For decades the house's denizens have encountered such strange occurrences as footsteps, laughter, moving objects, messages and a Halloween party gone awry.

"You just have to hang out at these places," said Terry Fisk, co-author of "Wisconsin Road Guide to Haunted Locations" "There's not a certain time or a pattern as far as what people can do to cause something to happen. It's usually just a matter of being in the right place at the right time."

According to the house's current guests, real estate brokers for ReMax Preferred, these random occurrences begin about 4 p.m.

"It's noises mostly," broker Barb Drolson said. "When we first came in and were taking wallpaper down, we could hear noises in the basement like furniture being moved back and forth."

When ReMax first moved into the house about four years ago, they hired someone to install the phone system. After he worked down in the basement for some time, he ran out of the house leaving his tools behind and never came back.

"When he came up, he told us, 'You know, you're not alone here,'" Drolson said. "He went down to our main office in Madison and said, 'I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm not going back there.'"

Around the same time, they hired contractors to remove wallpaper in one room and apply mudding. To their surprise, each morning the mudding would be strewn on the floor and scratches would appear on the walls.

"We also had a brand new fax machine that we couldn't get to work at the time, and they sent an engineer from the company," Drolson said. "He did a tracing on it that looked like a cardiogram, and they couldn't figure it out. He said it's the closest thing to white noise he's ever seen."

Drolson said they've also had the postage meter turn on and off, heard footsteps upstairs, heard the toilet flush and bathroom sink turn on, had radio stations change channels and emit a high-pitched screeching and experienced cold spots — most of which have happened with several people present.

"Initially we (felt threatened) and when I'm here by myself I keep the radio on so I don't hear the noises," she said. "When we first started my daughter was here, and I was out on appointments, and she heard noises in the basement. She got so freaked out that she sat with a store owner downtown until I got back."

Tom Bannen grew up in the house, which his great-grandfather built, and lived there from 1967 to 2003. Ever since he was a child, they've known who the hauntings can be attributed to.

"We know exactly who it is," Bannen said. "There's five people that died in that house and all five are members of my family. My great-grandfather, great-grandmother, great aunt, mother and father."

Bannen said they'd consistently hear footsteps and noises coming from inside a china cabinet in the living room. Bannen's daughter, Linda Bannen-Stilwell remembers her grandmother asking the noises from the cabinet to stop, and they always would.

"One thing that really scared me was right after my grandma had passed in the house," Bannen-Stilwell said. "The night that I walked in the house and found her, the light bulb popped and went out. Every week for the next month when I walked into a room the same thing would happen. Finally I said out loud, 'This is scaring me grams stop doing that.' And it never happened again."

When she was a young girl growing up in the house, Bannen-Stilwell said her cousin told her stories about the house that thoroughly freaked her out.

"It scared me so bad that I couldn't sleep in that house for a week," she said. "My grandma told me that all of the ghosts are family members that aren't going to hurt you, but protect you."

Other family members have attested that the ghosts have been friendly to them. That is, until ReMax moved in.

"Most of the stuff happened after ReMax bought it so I think they must have been kind of angry that we sold the place," Bannen said.

"I'm not surprised because my grandmother was insistent about keeping the house in the family, so I think she was upset that my aunt and dad sold it," Bannen-Stilwell added.

One morning all of the curtains were down and a curtain rod was leaning against the wall, Drolson said.

"When I was walking through, I could feel something behind me, and I turned around," she added. "Just when I did, the rod came crashing down behind me. Well I bolted out the door and nearly ran over the neighbor with my car."

In another instance, Drolson said two women were sitting in the house as she was walking through and a clock that hangs from chains attached to a railing struck her right in the face.

"Yeah, it's been interesting to say the least," she said.

Drolson has also experienced aromas in the home such as heavy cigar smoke and baking apple pie.

"They didn't share any with us, though," Drolson said with a laugh. "And we know at least one of the past occupants did smoke cigars."

Drolson said area residents know the house for infamously seeing its lights turn on at odd hours in the evening. The ReMax brokers are hoping the ghosts will "mellow out" since attorney George Field, Bannen's cousin, moved into the upstairs portion of the building. However, he's also experienced some strange things in the house.

"Every once in a while George finds stuff in there, which is strange, too," Bannen said. "For instance he found my grandmother and grandfather's brand new checkbook in the attic. The account was issued one week before my grandfather died, and the book was gone for all these years."

Bannen added that Field once went down to the basement of the house where he saw a mirror that had accumulated dust. The mirror quite simply said, "Get out."

"When I was in middle school, I'd have Halloween parties," Bannen-Stilwell said. "Grandma wasn't too keen on it because her father died on that day, but we had one anyway. Well one of the girls brought a Ouija board, and they had candles going and started doing it. I was too scared of that stuff so I was sitting in the hall with my grandma, and we heard them scream. According to the girls, all of a sudden the hand thing flew across the room and the lights flickered. That's when my grandma said, 'OK, no more of that in this house.'"

She added she has caught glimpses of people walking in the hallway and shadows of footsteps under a door, not to mention her grandmother's unique laugh.

"She was a Field, and the Field laugh is very distinctive — very loud — so you could hear it throughout the house," she said.

Though the ghost stories have been well-documented from personal experiences throughout the years, Drolson said it's mostly harmless and quite fun.

"I usually just come in and say, 'Hey, I'm here, and I got work to do so leave me alone unless you want to help.'"

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NYC's Haunted Bars: Where The Party Never Ends

'I'm a rational person," says Ernest Lekaj, general manager of W. 23rd St.'s Star Lounge. "I'm a law student. But sometimes there are things that can't be explained."

The lounge - an offshoot of the Hamptons hot spot Star Room - winds through three rooms in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel.

The building has played host to many a famous resident and a handful of famous deaths. Sex Pistols rocker Sid Vicious allegedly stabbed girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in the bathroom of room 100 in 1978.

And it appears that some of those who have passed to the other side seem to want to stick around for a cocktail.

"A month ago, we came in and none of the lights worked," says the bar's owner, Charles Ferri. "Nothing. And we're like, What the hell happened here?"

A call to the hotel's front desk failed to explain the problem, and an electrician was summoned. After sawing through the ceiling, workers reached a tangle of wiring that had been rearranged.

"We had to cut the drywall to get to these wires, and they were switched," says Ferri. "How could anyone even get to these wires? It's still a mystery."

The incident prompted Ferri, a skeptic, to reexamine a string of odd happenings. Lights had routinely flicked on and off. Odd noises could sometimes be heard from the bar's back-room office, but ceased upon inspection. Once, the furniture in the locked lounge was rearranged overnight.

A visiting self-proclaimed psychic told Ferri that she sensed the presence of an older woman in the bar.

"She said, 'She's unhappy about something,'" says Ferri. "I'm not a believer in this stuff and I don't want to be, but something is just not right."

In any case, he says, any ghost haunting a bar can't be so bad. At least he or she has decided to spend a few days or hours of eternity somewhere festive.

"It seems they like the bar," says Ferri. "They just don't want anyone else to come. If they bought enough bottles, I would for sure let them have the space."

A number of Manhattan's historic taverns and rooming houses have played host to regulars living and dead. Here are the favorite haunts of the city's phantom party animals:

WHITE HORSE TAVERN
567 Hudson St., at W. 11th St

This West Village mainstay anchors its spot in New York lore as the place where poet Dylan Thomas spent his last drinking night on Earth.

After downing a lineup of 17 whiskies - some reports increase this number - the poet stumbled back to his room at the Chelsea Hotel. Accounts of his demise vary wildly, but it is generally thought that he died after being brought to St. Vincent's Hospital.

But if it is Thomas haunting the crowded burger-and-pint pub, he's not making himself a nuisance. "He's never a bother," says owner Eddie Brennan.

In fact, the ghost may have provided at least one worker with a few free drinks. A porter hired to carry kegs down to the basement often told Brennan he heard footsteps in the bar and found an empty beer glass and shot glass on Thomas' favorite table, near the radiator in the middle room.

"I would say, 'Tony, you're drinking the beer and you're drinking the shot and you're drinking too many of them,'" says Brennan. "But he would swear to me up and down."

MANHATTAN BISTRO
129 Spring St.

The restaurant in this historic townhouse sits over a well where the bruised body of Elma Sands was uncovered in 1799.

"She was last seen with her fiancé, Levi Weeks," says Brett Watson, who researched the property for a ghost-themed scavenger hunt put together by his company, Watson Adventures. "They went up in this area for a sleigh ride, back when this was the Lispenard Meadows."

Weeks denied he had been with Sands at the time, and his trial became a sensation with a defense team that included Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. The big-name lawyers did the trick, and Weeks was acquitted.

"Sometimes people have spotted a young woman who is in a dirty dress with moss and vines on it," says Watson. "They say it's the ghost of Elma Sands."

EAR INN
326 Spring St.

The building that houses the Ear Inn was constructed in 1817, and when the pub on the ground floor opened some time later, it quickly became a favorite spot for seafarers.

One known to stick around after closing is Mickey the Sailor, an apparition accused of goosing waitresses. He gets even more amorous with guests brave enough to stay overnight.

"Supposedly women who've lived upstairs above the bar say that the ghost has crawled into bed with them," says Watson.

"He's a sailor. Sailors are going to do what they're going to do."

"It's not a tale," says one of the current owners, Martin Sheridan. "It's a fact. Although lately it's been people who notice a little too much of their drink missing. They look around and start accusing their friends."

WAVERLY INN
16 Bank St.

Built in 1844, the Waverly Inn is currently packed with celebs, not spirits, under the ownership of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.

As recently as 1997, however, the inn boasted a spectral guest list - unseen customers who wouldn't have been very impressed by the truffled mac and cheese.

A fire that devastated the building in 1977 left the restaurant's smoking room, Room 16, unscathed. Hostess Maria Ennes was quoted at the time attributing the room's salvation to its resident spirit, saying: "It's where the ghost likes to be."

Apparently the top-hat-and-waistcoat-wearing phantom was fond of spooking waitresses by moving andirons in the fireplace and sometimes dampening the blazes.

"He was also accused of switching the keys on the computer for meatloaf and fried chicken," says Watson. "I think that would be a good excuse for the management to keep on hand."

**********

Seattle's First Avenue Businesses Have Haunting Problems

There's one place in Seattle where it's Halloween every day.

At 1921 First Ave., businesses keep coming and going, but one thing stays the same -- the presence of ghosts unafraid of making their presence known.

These spirited die-hards have bid their share of goose-bumped humans a hasty adieu.

The latest casualty at 1921 was the hip eatery Starlite Lounge, which closed this year. What ultimately doomed the new restaurant was shaky management, say those in the industry. But rumor has it specters floating inside the stone and brick building -- once home to a bustling death business -- banged pots of disapproval to speed up moving day.

John David Crow wasn't a believer in spirits when he opened his restaurant, Fire & Ice, at 1921 First four years ago. One evening, Crow told me, a wire coat hanger straightened itself and balanced on a knob like a seesaw.

So, Crow called in a shaman, who walked around and was shocked. "There are 19 spirits in here," the shaman told him. "I see 19 faces looking down at us right now."

Before you knew it, Crow's restaurant closed, too.

Workers at a previous restaurant at the spot, Cafe Sophie, also reported strange occurrences. Once, after midnight, an electrician rewiring one of the chandeliers saw two men sitting at a table talking, but thought nothing of it. The men even got up and held the ladder as the electrician worked -- until a woman in a white linen dress entered the room and started arguing with them.

"The electrician suddenly realized that his 'helpers' were not of this world," according to an account in Margaret Read MacDonald's book "Ghost Stories from the Pacific Northwest."

Cooks later found the electrician "sitting on the curb muttering."

Seattle, of course, has its share of famous ghosts and ghost tales.

There's the girl with dark hair, swathed in a white light, said to haunt the Neptune Theater in the University District. A janitor saw her in the lobby and told her the theater was closed. Then he realized she was transparent -- and dropped his Coke.

The Harvard Exit cinema on Capitol Hill has a resident spook. So, too, did the 14-room mansion known as The Castle, in Georgetown. Two residents said they saw a derangedlooking woman clutching her throat as if she were being strangled.

Seattle's most famous market, Pike Place, has a host of otherworldly characters, including "The Fat Woman Ghost" -- the spirit of a barber who lulled customers to sleep to steal from them. The barber fell through a Market floor to her death -- or so the story goes.

1921 First Ave., though, is most unusual, because tenant after tenant has tried to make peace with its lingering dead, even as they've tried -- and failed -- to court the living.

But the back story of the location -- in the same block as Le Pichet cafe -- explains why spirits, if you believe in such things, keep hanging around.

In the early 1900s, E.R. Butterworth brought his thriving mortuary to the location. Inside the building, there was a showplace for funerals, a garage for hearses, a cremation oven and a vault for ashes. On the first floor were viewing rooms, sitting rooms and a chapel. Seattle's first hydraulic elevator carried mourners to the top floor to buy caskets.

"For twenty years, The Butterworth Building saw the city's deceased pass through its doors," MacDonald's collection of ghost stories says. "Then in 1923 the Butterworth family moved their firm to Capitol Hill -- but they seem to have left a few of their customers behind."

Over the years, a man watched in awe as work tools mysteriously danced in the air. A bartender saw wine bottles shoot from a bin. And a kitchen worker stacked plates and looked away, only to turn back and see them laid out like fallen dominoes.

A customer in a booth once complained to a waiter about a woman staring at him. The waiter looked back and said, "What woman?"

Employees from different businesses -- including Avenue One and Isadora's -- that have come and gone at the spot echo the feeling that they were being watched.

Monday, I peered inside the dark space. With its vacant bar chairs clustered in a dark corner and long shadows everywhere, it looked spooky -- but apparently not spooky enough to scare off yet another entrepreneurial spirit.

Ghosts be damned, says Patrick McAleese, an owner of Kells. He says his cousin will try his luck at 1921.

With a touch of Irish humor, he added: "I'm a little more concerned about the living than the dead."

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