It is difficult to understand certain people. It is even more difficult when you learn the person in question understands they have a problem but fails to address it. Last weekend I was saw this happen twice.

The first situation was my uncle. He has type 2 diabetes but the only thing he does to help himself is take insulin. He still eats the same crap he has eaten his entire life and uses the insulin to compensate when he eats something bad. Well his kidneys failed last week and now he is on dialysis every other day for the rest of his life.

He is retired, cannot drive a car, on a limited income and rapidly chipping away at his savings to support his lazy lifestyle. What do I mean by lazy lifestyle? He refuses to cook anything because he hates to clean dishes. He orders carry out and delivery for every meal and supplements between snacks with junk food; hence the kidney failure. We all know how expensive it is to eat out as opposed to cooking your own meals.

I took him some food last Saturday from the grocery store. Lunch meat, cans of soup, cereal, some zero trans fat frozen breakfasts, some fruit, and some other necessities to last for about a week. Anyway, I walked into his apartment and was appalled. He never cleans anything and he had been living there for 15 years. Never throws anything away; he lives like a bum. I don’t think he showers very often either because the scent of ripe ass penetrated my nostrils almost causing me to vomit.

Three years ago my wife and I cleaned his apartment from floor to ceiling; throwing away trash, mopping floors, cleaning everything. Then, I showed him the few simple things he had to do to keep the apartment clean but he refused to do any of them. I made it very easy for him too. When we opened the doors to the interior of the building, the other habitants Gladed the halls because of the stench rising from his ground floor apartment. It was disgusting; I couldn’t believe a member of my family actually could live like that. We are all scrubby Dutch. We clean everything!! We are all fanatics about showering. I even own a water pick to keep my teeth sparkling clean. Not my uncle and the troubling thing is that he is aware of how he lives.

He told me that he knows he is a slob and lives in a pig sty but he does nothing to help himself. He realizes his eating habits are bad but refuses to change. He laughs about it. I told him there is nothing funny about living like brainless slob. Nothing funny about being so stinky, flies even refuse to inhabit the apartment. I don’t understand this, can someone please explain.

This story is even worse than my uncle. A while back I wrote Evil Descends about an actual haunting I have been investigating in the St. Louis area. Well the Thanksgiving holiday provided a rare day off for the entire paranormal team and gave us an opportunity to finally attempt a cleansing of this home. The mother (T) contacted me and said the situation was even worse. The entire family was still sleeping in the same room; everyone is still afraid to be in the home alone, they hear voices and see many ghosts roaming the halls.

Anyway the day we were to go into the home T stopped communicating with me, just like she has done about a dozen times in the past. I was furious with this moron! She claims never to have my phone number even though I type it at the end of every email. She says she will call me but never does. I called her Wednesday night (we were supposed to go into the home on Friday and Thursday was Thanksgiving) so she answers and then pretends to be someone else. I knew it was her the entire time but I was so stunned by the response I just told her to call me back. Did she call me back? Hell no!

How can she raise her kids in this type of environment? How can she allow these spirits to torment her family? She must not care at all for those kids. The oldest son already committed suicide about two years ago. There are at least two more daughters 12 and 10 years of age in the home and possibly a younger son. T claims she is sexually attacked by an unseen being, does she think her kids are safe there?? What a fucking idiot!!!

She sends an email telling me how bad things have become and then I give her a date to bring my team into the house to help and then she never responds. This is at least the third time she has done this to me so now she can kiss my ass if she thinks I am going to help her now!! I hate to abandon those kids but I am a believer in social Darwinism so what can I do?

I am starting a “kiss my ass” list and she has been added to the number one position for being the worst mother of the year. At least my uncle is the only one being affected by his laziness. But moronic mother T wins the loser mother of the year award for leaving her unprotected children in a home everyday with an evil spirit roaming free and tormenting them. I really hope she reads my blog.

To T: Get off your ass and do something, anything!!! Contact your priest, pastor or anybody who can help those kids!! Please stop bitching to me unless you want to do something about it!! I am tired of hearing your tales of woe and then see you not taking any action.

Why bring kids into the world if you don’t give a shit about them? Why bring kids into the world when you don’t take care of them? This is one of the worst examples of a shitty mother I have heard since the mom who drowned her kids in the tub. T is doing the same thing by her lack of action. Am I out of line here? What are your thoughts?

Darth's "Kiss My Ass" List
1. T
2. MPAA (I'll explain tomorrow)

More to come.........

Many people have asked how I got started with the paranormal investigations. Well, here is my story:

It all started when I was a little kid about 5 years old. While looking through the records I found this scary album titled The Chilling Sounds of the Haunted House by Disney. The picture on the cover scared the crap out me but I had to have it. So where does a kid go when he really wants something? You guessed it, right to grandma; she hardly ever said no to me. Well I played this record so much I wore the grooves out. Today I own about 5 copies of it. Whenever I am at flea market or an estate sale and I run across one in good condition, I can’t resist paying fifty cents for another copy.



I remembered staring at this cover listening to the scary sounds thinking about how I wished I lived in that house. I always wanted to explore the attic and find out who left that light on. It would be a stormy night and I would cross the graveyard in front of the house while the thunder roared and the lightning danced upon the horizon. The wind would howl with the waist high grass bowing in unison to the unseen horror that waited for me within the house. Incidentally, the house on this album cover resembles the McPike mansion except for the attic room.

The album peaked my interested in all things scary but it was the Chiller Theatre where, as a kid, I honed my paranormal skills. Every Saturday night my little brother and my mom and I would gather under a blanket, pop some popcorn, and watch the Chiller Theatre spooky movie of the week. I was scared to death but I couldn’t look away. When my mom and brother would hide under the covers I would stare at the TV with my heart getting ready to pound out of my chest.

The movie that used to do the most damage was “Die! Monster, Die!” starring Boris Karloff. After watching that one I had to change my routine for getting into bed. I would stop at the edge of the doorway and run towards the bed jumping to avoid any monster hands which attempted to grab me from under the bed.

My mom was awesome and always catered to my fascination with new age stuff. I still enjoy watching a scary movie with her.

Halloween was always a big event when we were kids. Every year my brother and I would attend all of the haunted houses in the neighborhood Churches, schools and where ever. Those used to scare the crap out of me but I would go to them every year. I remember one time I was about nine years old I got so scared I just started running through the house screaming, “I gotta throw up! I gotta throw up!” Needless to say all of the ghouls cleared a path for me to exit quickly.

In second grade I was accused of being possessed by the devil by one of the nuns. It all started during my First Communion when I received the Host for the first time. As soon as it touched my tongue I vomited it back all over the priest along with the Fruit Loops I ate earlier. The nun, which was the principal of the school, called my parents and insisted I was a demon child. It was a good thing the parish priest did not agree with her about me needing an exorcism; that might have gotten ugly.

In high school I read JRR Tolkien, HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King books regularly. I listened to bands like Ozzy Osbourne, who was my favorite rock star, also Rush, Triumph, Motley Crew and Black Sabbath.

When I was a freshman in high school, one of the nuns who taught science liked me because I was good with the experiments and got good grades. She asked me what I was going to do when I grew up. My response to her without missing a beat, “I want to solve all the mysteries of the world. I want to find a Bigfoot, live in a haunted house and talk with a ghost. Maybe even take pictures of a UFO too, but I gotta buy a camera first.” She smiled awkwardly at me and only managed to get out an “OOOOHHH!” She didn’t talk to me much after that.

Then in 1999 came my big break. A friend of mine, who was assisting with her sister’s book about the paranormal, invited me to attend an overnight at the Cheney Mansion, one of the local notorious haunted houses. At the time I knew nothing about orbs, EVPs, or any of the actual science. But in the following years I immersed myself in research and investigations. I wanted to find out everything I could from everybody who had ever visited or lived in a haunted house. I showed up with a video camera and filmed as much as I could. Right away I knew this was where I was supposed to be. I had no troubles walking into the dark basement or climbing into the crawl spaces.

This was also when I had my first psychic experience. There was one particular bedroom I refused to enter. When the group asked me why I stayed at the door I confessed to having a feeling like if I entered the door would slam and I would be trapped. The next morning when we met the curator she asked us if we felt anything strange. I told her about that one bedroom. She smiled and said that was the room they would lock PD Cheney into when he came home drunk. He was a mean drunk and would often break things so they choose that bedroom because there was nothing valuable in it. He would pound on the door for hours before passing out.

My second psychic experience came when I took a trip to Bowling Green to do some antiquing. I remember feeling the presence of a very unhappy old lady standing right next to me. She was unhappy because I was in her home. I could actually smell her!! As we were leaving I asked the owner of the store if they had a ghost. They sure did and when I found out it was an old lady, I knew something was going on with me.

We eventually went back to the Cheney Mansion a second time and then other places. I carried my video camera and filmed everything. I was Ghost Hunters before Ghost hunters existed. I wanted us to do a show on the local access cable channel in which we would play back our footage of the investigations. But the team at the time was not as committed to the research as me.

One of the best investigations involved the old funeral parlor at the top of the street where I grew up as a kid. I remembered the place was a big scary mansion and I always seemed to be in the alley when they would bring in the bodies. The old dark garage door screeched opened and the hearse slowly drove through, I knew what was happening and it scared me. It was like having Phantasm at the top of the street. When it was sold by the original family, they allowed us to spend a night investigating it. This house, which terrified me during my entire childhood and now I was going to spend the night there. I’ll post pictures of it later and show you what it looks like today.

In 2004 I started running ads in the local newspapers querying for stories about hauntings. I interviewed people, developed theories and now I ‘m ready to test some of them. I want to take paranormal investigations to the fringe and go places very few investigators want to go. I want to dissect a haunted location and make contact with spirits on a whole new level.

I believe I was “called” to do this work. There are people that need help and protection from bad spirits. I believe I can help them. It could be the “knight in shining armor” complex I have had my entire life or maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, I know I’m good at this because I feel comfortable in these environments. Just like Steve Irwin was comfortable jumping on a crocodile, I feel quite the same when confronting a spirit.

For more information, I posted the story a while back behind one of my ongoing investigations. It’s called Evil Descends. I live for this!!

This is the third year I have attend the haunted tours of Alton. I attend the tours only to socialize and build a bigger network of friends. These tours are also a good resource for learning a detailed history of each location. I also wanted to run some new theories by a few of the other investigators and try to get into some of the more notorious haunted locations. This year I had an exceptionally awesome time visiting with both touring companies.

First of all I have to say that both tours are run by incredibly talented and professional people. With that being said there are some strengths and weaknesses of both companies. So here is my review of both touring companies.


Antoinette’s Haunted History Tours
Witching Hour Tour: $42 per person

Antoinette started the tours in Alton, and it is important to know this company was the first and undoubtedly still is the best. Antoinette and her daughter Alixandria are very knowledgeable of the history and hauntings of Alton. Their trolley tours offer the best value for your dollar.

The trolley tours give the best history and show you the most interesting places in Alton. The most important aspect of these trolley tours is that they change from year to year. So you get an opportunity to actually get off the trolley and visit at least three different locations every year. Last year was much better than this year as we got to visit the Milton School, a haunted Art Museum and McPike Mansion (three of the best hauntings in Alton). This year was not as good as the best place was a private residence but it was still exciting.

You can opt for a meal with your tour for an additional $13 or forget the meal and just get going. While the meal is excellent quality, I prefer to spend more time visiting the locations and listening about the history; so I prefer tours without the meal.

The only negative thing about the Antoinette Tours is their tour guides are not the best public speakers. They use family members and friends, which is alright as long as the individual is a good public speaker which is not often the case.

While their tour guide Gary is very knowledgeable and does not require a script, our tour guide David was not that good. They have four tour guides: Alixandria, Aurora, David and Gary but I have only heard the two guys. I have had the opportunity to talk with Alixandria and Aurora and find them to be very friendly and very knowledgeable of the area. I also hear they are both very gifted psychics.


Ghosts of The Prairie
Cost: $30 for the expanded tour per person

This group came around after Antoinette. This is still a good tour but it is important to note this is just a walking tour of the general area around their bookstore and is the same tour year after year. So once you see this one, there is not point at seeing it again. The best value for your money is the Antoinette tour.

Another problem with this tour compared with the Antoinette tour is we only got to visit two places with the best being the Unitarian Church. And while I really liked the Unitarian Church it just wasn’t the better value compared with the other tour which offered an additional visit.

The best thing about this tour is Len Adams. Len was our tour guide and although we just walked around the general area of the bookstore, his public speaking and stories are the best. He needed no scripts and added a touch of humor keeping everyone on the tour loose and smiling. He reminds me of my grandpa telling ghost stories around the fire during camping trips. He is just a very entertaining and likeable guy. I recommend this tour just to meet him and hear his stories.

By the way, he just released his first book, “And There I Was….” co written with Troy Taylor. I hear his second book will be entirely containing his exclusive stories. I can’t wait for that one; I know it will be good.

Conclusion

I really do not know how either one of these groups declares a location haunted other than to relay on the information and stories gathered from third parties. Len Adams offered personal accounts of situations and encounters but never offered any scientific data to back his stories. Antoinette’s crew did not offer personal accounts and focused on the stories of individuals actually living or working in a particular location.

While that might be good for the average person attending the tour, I want the scientific data. It doesn’t impress me if somebody feels threatened or hears a noise. That noise could be a loud furnace.

Another reason I like the Antoinette group better than the Ghosts of the Prairie group is Antoinette offers help for people under attack. I realize some people out there are under attack by evil spirits and I want to offer help for these people. This is the reason I felt “called” to be a paranormal investigator, because people often need help. Antoinette’s group offers this service too and I have heard stories of them cleansing locations and trying to help those in need.

Ghosts of the Prairie, on the other hand, is only interested in the investigation and never attempts to take the additional step of helping people. At least I have never heard of them offering or attempting this service. Ghosts of the Prairie is only concerned with selling books and additional tours but I truly believe the Antoinette group is truly concerned with helping people, which is what I believe in too.

So if you are in Alton and have time to attend two tours then attend both. But if you only have time for one, then I would recommend the Antoinette tour. You’ll get the most value for your money by visiting more locations. Plus you will get a chance to actually visit three locations as compared with two by Ghosts of the Prairie.

This third update from Alton will focus on the Underground Railroad with a few words on a couple of other hauntings, and a few more pictures.

The Underground Railroad provided a means for escaped slaves to go north and become free men. The penalty for harboring an escaped slave was death, either by tarring and feathering or hanging. The secret rooms where these escaped slaves were hidden were dark, depressing places. I have visited several of these hiding places consisting mostly of brick, concrete and stone with no toilets.

Men, women and children were hidden in these small rooms and had to remain completely silent. Any noises could lead to their discovery which many times would mean death or at least a severe beating and then being send back to the slave pens. They were fed whatever scraps the host family could spare, which sometimes was not much.


A picture of one of the many Underground Railroad hiding places; this particular one is in the basement of the old Enos Tuberculosis Sanitarium.


The notorious McPike Mansion. The classic looking haunted house. This home is currently condemned so no visitors are allowed to investigate inside the house. The current owners are in the process of renovating the building and converting it into a bed and breakfast. In the wine cellars of this house a smoke cloud followed the current owner and was captured on video. I’ve seen it; it’s incredible!!


518 South. This home is a restaurant today. The strange happenings involve a particular table in the front left side of the house in which I had the privilege of eating dinner. Things disappear from the table which also has been seen levitating. At one time this place was a funeral home and at least one person has committed suicide in the house. Where? You guessed it; right where the levitating table sits today. On the night I was there nothing happened but the food was excellent. Maybe I will get a chance to spend the night here. HINT! HINT!


The Historic Hampton Mansion designed by the famous local architect Lucas J. Pfeiffenberger, who also designed the Fulkerson House, the Cheney Mansion and several other homes in the 1800's.


The William Fulkerson House is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Located in historic Jerseyville, IL, it is the twin to the Cheney Mansion, in which I have conducted two investigations.


A Shrek sighting and a view of the remains of the old Confederate Prison


The Confederate Cemetery


The Enos Tuberculosis Sanitorium. The third floor of this building was added to treat Tuberculosis (TB) patients who died at the rate of 100 per year. During this time the only treatment for TB was plenty of sunshine and food. Needless to say many people lived in agony on this third floor.
This building was also part of the Underground Railroad. On the roof is a turret room in which the residents could signal across the Mississippi River when it was safe to enter the city to hide more people.
Today it is an apartment building where residents hear furniture moving and people talking, moaning and screaming on the third floor, when the third floor is vacant. One night a bottle of wine vanished from a kitchen table only to be found hours later in a different room of the apartment.


A view of the turret rooftop


The infamous "Devil Face Photo" taken at the Milton School in 2004. Upon first viewing this picture within our camera displays, it looked liked a white angry face but when we blew up this picture at home on a large monitor it seemed to be just paint on the back wall. The insert on the lower left shows the picture as we saw it on our camera displays. Special thanks to AndyR for creating the insert.
We sent it to the touring company and asked them to check that wall. After the next tour they checked it out and told us there is no paint or white wash on this back wall. So now we don't quite know what to make of it.
Because of this we now wait to view all photos on a larger monitor at a higher resolution before passing judgement. You be the judge: devil face or something on the far wall?

Stay tuned, more to come tomorrow.........

The Unitarian Church



“We meet again, at last.”

Last year I headed an investigation into the Unitarian Church. While the atmosphere was the best ever, with a severe thunderstorm passing over head, nothing of substance actually happened. During the séance the church rattled as the thunder roared and the lightning pierced the darkness throwing mass amounts of energy into the air. Everybody was on edge but no apparitions appeared.

This time I was anxiously anticipating entering the church again but it would be to help the tour guide handle the large group. I did get the opportunity to take some pictures and more orbs appeared but the EMF flat lined as there was no energy in the old church this time. Maybe I’ll get the opportunity to investigate the church again but this year I want to further investigate the old Meridian Coffee House and the Milton School.

The History and Hauntings

Phillip Mercer was the pastor of the First Unitarian Church in the 1930’s. He was found hanging in the sacristy, dead of an apparent suicide. It is rumored that he lingers behind to keep watch over the church. Church members cannot explain the weird things which take place here.

The old Meridian Coffee House is one of the most spectacular haunted locations in the town of Alton Illinois. The coffee house building was once located on the site of an America Red Cross hospital that was constructed during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Reports of women getting “goosed” and men being pushed have intrigued me. An investigator I know got the opportunity to spend the night alone in the location with some IR motion detectors. He fell asleep on the couch and woke to the IR detectors going crazy but he could not see anybody. He was so freaked out he left, leaving behind all of his equipment. (Not a very good investigator in my opinion.)

People on the first floor have reported hearing footsteps on the vacant second floor. Men have reported to have been grabbed by invisible hands. Women have reported having their hair grabbed and the butt pinched by an invisible assailant. Well I want to be the next investigator to try to find out who this ghost is and why he still haunts this location. Keep your fingers crossed; hopefully more to come.

ORBS

Just for the record, I consider orb pictures to be the worst form of evidence of a haunting unless they are coupled with other evidence. For example, my psychic friend tells me a spirit is in a location and I snap an orb picture. Even better is when an EMF gauge or an IR thermometer is showing some evidence and then I get an orb picture. Orbs alone are not very good evidence but orbs with something else are not too bad. Of course we all want a picture of a full apparition or some type of materialization but those are very rare.

Be wary of cameras below 4 mega pixels because they have a CMOS flaw that can draw artifacts into a picture. Artifacts are types of “noise” where the camera generates images on it own. Because of this I bought a 5 mega pixel camera without this known bug.


This comet appeared during an Antoinette tour of a private residence.




This orb from the Unitarian Church appears and then is seen again closer in the second picture. The EMF gauge was not around me during this time but I did have a PVR running in the back of the church. When I analyze that I’ll let you know if I hear any EVPs.


The old Meridian Coffee House

Stay tuned for Alton Update 3, which will focus on the underground railroad and other haunted locations. Also later this week, I will give a complete review of both tours.

As promised here is the update on the tours and investigation from this year’s trip to Alton. This past weekend I gave this website out to many people I met on the tours so they could see the pictures. For those of you who are new to the page, you will find a collection of past writings on the right side of this page broken into categories. The paranormal writings are between the Political Essays and Funny Stuff.

Since so much happened I want to break the weekend into a few different posts. This first one I want to focus on the remains of the old confederate Prison, The Confederate Cemetery and Sunflower Island.

The History

The Alton prison was originally opened in 1833 as the first Illinois state penitentiary. It remained in service until 1860 when a new facility was built in Joliet on February 9, 1862. The vacant structure re opened as the Alton federal military prison. During the next three years at least 11,764 Confederate soldiers were held in this facility.

By all objective accounts, conditions in the prison were substandard. The mortality rate was high. Hot humid summers and cold damp winters undoubtedly contributed to the high death rate. Overcrowding, inadequate food and clothing and unsanitary conditions further compounded the prisoners misery. Pneumonia and dysentery were common killers bur contagious diseases like smallpox and rubella were the most feared. The smallpox epidemic that began in late 1862 ultimately prompted prison officials to transfer contagious prisoners to a temporary facility a safe distance from civilian residents of Alton. This facility was called Sunflower Island.

In addition to being a tent hospital, when the Confederate cemetery filled with corpses the dead were buried in mass graves on Sunflower Island in trenches. Years later when the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to make the island into a wild bird refuge, they discovered they could only make to make minor changes to the island for fear of releasing hundreds of thousands of bones into the Mississippi River. When the trees were dug up on the edge of the island hundreds of human bones were imbedded within the roots and bark.

The Hauntings

Many residents of Alton report seeing vagrants within the remains of the old prison and within the Cemetery. Only those are not vagrants they are ghosts. One night a gentleman was walking his dog and bent down to tie his shoe when he looked up he saw a homeless man standing in front of him. When he looked away momentarily to make sure his dog was under control the man vanished.

Many of the bodies of the Confederate soldiers never even made it to the Cemetery. The Union soldiers were given the task of burying the dead but they did not want to do this strenuous task. So many times they would just push the bodies off the cart into a ditch along the way to the cemetery. There is an old haunted road called Hop Hollow Road were many of the dead were hidden. To this day when the residents along this road perform yard work they still discover bones.

The Pictures


Two orbs rising from the ground at the remains of the old Prison. I don’t put much weight behind orb pictures because they can be dust or bugs, but on this night it was 35 degrees and there were no bugs. In addition, my psychic friend kept telling me there were spirits here.


An Orb at the Confederate Cemetery. My psychic friend told me to take a picture of these trees and I would see a spirit.




Sunflower Island. Here is where the trees were dug up and the bones were imbedded within the bark and roots. Under the ground is a mass grave containing thousands of bodies.


A monument dedicated to the Confederate soldiers buried within Sunflower Island. Only a few names are on it, as we do not know the names of most of the people buried here.

More to come tomorrow..........

This weekend I am off to Alton Illinois for a much needed ghost hunting excursion. I’ll give you all of the details next week. I’ve been developing a few theories on how to manipulate energy to either power up or power down spirits.

We are also going to gather some EVP’s at the old Confederate Cemetery and possible work on another experiment with that technology. Anyway, I probably will not make any significant breakthroughs but I might come closer to being where I want to be.

With any luck I’ll come back with some great photos and maybe some ghostly voices on mp3’s. See you all next week.

Well I am progressing on the book to the point where I feel comfortable releasing a brief view. It's still untitled but I did give a name to this passage. In regards to titles. I treat my stories like I treat my pets. I let them tell me their name over time. So here it is:

People think hell is a volcanic world where soul’s burn, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In actuality, hell is a cold dark place filled with silence. Almost like being locked in a freezer full of corpses. Well, there is the occasional scream just to keep you awake. What kind of creature would live in a place like that?

Once you stare into the face of evil, you can never get that image out of your mind. It’s engraved into your soul and every time you close your eyes you can see the face of evil staring back at you. It’s waiting for you; waiting until you are at your weakest. Then it will strike and take away everything you hold close to your heart.

The eyes of evil are like two lifeless pieces of coal. An endless black pit filled with horror and pain. There is no life in the void, only death, decay and darkness. They will suck the life out of you; absorbing the laughter and smiles, while leaving behind isolation and terror.

When darkness descends, the wake of destruction is much like a tsunami. One day your family is happy without a care in the world. Then, one day you feel the cold spots. Then, voices in the dark empty house. The voices are a whisper in your ear like someone is standing right next to you but no one is there. You can feel the icy breath softly rushing into your ear as you name is whispered.

At first you think you are crazy but then you feel an invisible hand on your shoulder. The touches are gentle at first but become more intense often leaving bruises. You put your groceries away in the closet and are shoved inside with the door slamming behind. You bang on the door frantically trying to open it but it will not budge. It’s like a concrete wall and your fists make only a dull thud against the wood.

Then one night you awaken to a stranger sitting on your night stand staring through you. He looks real enough but you must be dreaming because, the eyes are strange. The eyes are nothing but two pools of darkness. You exhale and see you breath – its freezing! You want to scream but you can’t even move. Terror fills the room as he floats to the ceiling and vanishes in a black fog which slowly dissipates.

You notice other strange things happening in the house. The electrical appliances come on by themselves. The television in the basement displays only an eerie green static and if you look closely you can see a dark figure within. You unplug it but it still works!

Your family photos have blurred spots in them. You can see other people’s faces, sometimes appearing directly over your faces. The translucent white orbs are everywhere. In some pictures it looks like it is snowing in your house. Other people start to notice strange things happening in your house. They are scared to come over now so they stay away, further contributing to your isolation. You are the dark secret in the family that no one talks about but everybody suspects.

Now you are starting to see other people in the house. Is he bringing them here? You sense the man is living in your closet. At times you can see his evil glare between the shirts when you are putting the clothes away. You can see him run past you out of the corner of your eye but you never get a good look at him. You only get a better look at his face at night.

The night terrors are the worst. That is when the man in the bedroom attacks you; often while your husband is asleep in the bed with you. You must be crazy, you must be imagining this; but the bruises on your inner thigh are proof enough for you. How can you be raped by an invisible man? If you say something they will put you away.

As evil descends over your home you can think of only one thing. If you can see this and feel this, what about the kids? How will you fight this?

Keep in mind, I am trying to paint an aura of fear and hopelessness, which an evil spirit would bring into your life if he would appear. This particular story is based on an actual case I am currently working on.

Paranormal investigating is my favorite thing to do. From 1999 to the present I have stepped foot in over a dozen haunted places. I took two years off to finish my undergraduate but I’m back now and writing a book about my experiences.

I recently ran an add in the St. Louis Post and the Riverfront Times advertising if people were under a spiritual attack to email me with details. Well I have received several leads but one in particular is quite disturbing. The entity is supposed to have contributed to the death of one of the members of the family. I quickly pushed this haunting to the top of my list and will hopefully get a chance to investigate this before the end of the year.

Needless to say the family is scared to death and I do not blame them. I really want to help this family. I cannot explain this but I feel this is what I am supposed to do with my life - protect people from spirits. I have been protecting people from things my entire life and this is the one area I feel I can be of service the best. I think I will investigate this one alone - if anything happened to one of my friends I could never forgive myself. I can deal with it if my ass gets kicked but not if a loved one is touched.

When I was in college I saved a classmate from an abusive boyfriend that would show up at her dorm and beat the shit out of her. So the school threatened to expel her if it happened again and they did not want the police called because it would make the school look bad. How screwed up is that!!! Expel HER because she is being abused – what a dumb ass school!!!

So she calls me crying, not knowing what to do and embarrassed to show up at school with bruises all over her body, so I took care of it. Anyway I hid in her closet one night trying to catch him in the act and sure enough he starts pounding on the door trying to get in. She opens the front door and as he goes to hit her I jump out of the closet and beat his ass out the door, down the hall and into his car. He drove away and never returned.

So now I want to do these paranormal investigations to see if I can help people with this. My coworkers think I will get possessed or even worse, killed by a demon. I say bring it on!!! I’m not scared to die and I am not scared of any invisible force hurting me. If its my time to die then its my time to die.

The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. I must have an adventure in my life in order to have fun. I cannot just sit around and let life pass me over. My marriage sucks and I’m not sure how long it will last so what have I got to lose. Anyway below are a couple of my favorite places I have investigated and a brief synopsis of each one. I will post more in the coming months – unless the demons kill me. LOL!!!

Cheney Mansion
Investigated in 1999 and 2000

My first paranormal investigations were in the Cheney Mansion. I was just learning and did not know anything. During the first investigation, lights would come on and a chair was moved. We did not see it move but we know the chairs were positioned perfectly around the dining room table and when we went back to the dining room one of the chairs was moved away from the table.

This was also the place I made my first psychic reading. Everybody entered one of the spare bedrooms but I just could not do it. When they asked me why I said I felt like if I did I would get trapped inside and it freaked me out. Later on we met the caretaker and she told us when Mr. Cheney would come home drunk they would lock him in this bedroom until he sobered up because he would destroy things. He would pound on the door all night long trying to get out.

During our second visit we actually used a Ouija board which I recorded the entire event with a video camera. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees from the moment we pulled the Ouija board out until we put it away. That night was the most active I have ever seen a Ouija board.

The Unitarian Church
Investigated twice in 2005

The Unitarian Church is the only place that terrified me. I hate to admit this being a paranormal investigator but I did go back a second time to conquer my fears.

Although I did not know it at the time, during my first visit to the Unitarian Church I was under attack from the moment I set foot inside the place. I felt drained upon entering and as the minutes passed I got to the point of near exhaustion. I felt something was following me the entire time and have some very disturbing orbs in my photos to prove it. The spot were the priest hung himself was a bad spot but nothing compared to the basement.

I am almost six foot five; I used to play football in December in my shorts so I never get cold. When we went into the basement which was built in the late 1700’s, I was so cold and I could not stop shivering. I also felt this enormous pain in my stomach that did not subside until I left the building. When I did leave I was VERY pissed off at myself for being scared; so I went back a second time within a few weeks with a much smaller group.

I had to conquer my fears so I took three of my friends during a very bad thunderstorm, and finally faced the force that terrified me. It was the perfect night for an investigation, the thunder and lightning was shaking the Church like an earthquake and four idiots were tempting fate in one of the notorious hot spots for ghosts in the Midwest. Plus we were just a few days short of the date of the priest's suicide. So while my friends were telling stories in the chapel I was wandering around just daring something to jump out at me.

A psychic friend of mine told me if I ever felt threatened to imagine myself in a beam of light, with the light being my protection. I laughed at the time but it really works. So I am walking around throughout this church by myself in complete darkness picturing myself radiating light like a sun. I was also thinking that if this ghost materialized I was going to run through it like some dumb ass wild berserker. I was still pissed off from being scared the first time and I remember thinking, “Come on you son of a bitch I dare you to show yourself!"

Well nothing happened this time. No attack, no sickness, no cold…nothing. In fact, the caretaker which had many encounters in this church commented; except for the storm, that night was the quietest he had ever seen it. Chicken shit ghost!!! Below are pictures of the mansion and the church.

The Cheney Mansion 

The Unitarian Church 

I recently spent an evening at a notoriously haunted location in Alton. Here is what I learned from it:

How many times have we viewed a scary movie only to hear noises within our room or see shadows moving on the walls? Are those noises or shadows actually there? Probably, but they are not paranormal activity. If your mind was not “running on fear” you could easily see the shadowy figure is just the hat on the bedpost and the noises are just the old house settling.

The effects of fear on the body are well documented. Fear can cause body temperature to rise and fall. It excites the brain and stimulates chemicals within the body which can cause hallucinations and lead to the brain misinterpreting events. Normal effects of fear on the body include: a sudden rise or fall of body temperature, sweating, stomach aches, goose bumps, shivering, hallucinations, and feeling touched.

I have read many stories of amputees who claimed to feel their severed limb. In one case a man lost his leg in a war but could still feel his foot itch, and could still move his toes but there was no foot to scratch and no toes to move. This could also explain how people claim to be touched by an invisible presence. The mind is mysterious so it is important to be aware of this before you start your investigations.

I have a theory that telling spooky stories, having séances, using Ouija boards and such before or while entering a suspected haunted location will condition your mind to be susceptible to encounter things or see things that are not really there. So when conducting a paranormal investigation listen to all of the “spooky” stories beforehand so your mind is not clouded with negative or fearful thoughts.

Our brain is a filter. It receives data from the eyes, ears and other nerves within the body and presents it to us so we know what is happening. The problem is when emotions like fear cloud the mind and cause the brain to interpret events in a way that generate false readings. This is why it is important to have scientific devices to document strange changes in the environment. Cold spots can be attributed to the body’s response to a fearful situation; but if you have a thermometer and can measure the falling temperature, you have proof of something happening. Never investigate alone because you want a witness to verify events you see and hear. Take cameras and recorders to document events so you can replay them to verify situations. It is important to investigate with a digital video recorder, a digital camera (5 mega pixel or higher) and a digital voice recorder.

Know the history of the haunting in advance of your arrival so you can enter the location fear free. You should always enter a location with a neutral, peaceful mindset free from emotional baggage so you can avoid your brain giving false interpretations of your surroundings.