WILBRAHAM, MASS - In the 240 years it has been on Boston Road, the building now known as O'Driscoll's Irish Pub has been many things.  A Catholic church. A veterans center. A boarding house. Rumor has it that George Washington slept there.

But after James D. Driscoll purchased the two-story wooden home last year, it quickly became apparent that the historic building harbored yet another purpose: Home for wayward poltergeists.  "We had a paranormal medium come in November, and her point was that it (the building) has so much history here that it lends itself to fragments of past lives that get stuck here," said Driscoll, an East Longmeadow selectman who opened the popular eatery and cultural center last May.  "She said they don't know they're dead, so she'll tell them to look at their feet. When they see they don't have feet, they realize they're dead and they leave," he said.

The paranormal investigator, who asked not to be identified, told Driscoll that his pub had no fewer than six spirits wandering about. Four were mere remnants of lives that had some piece of their troubling history played out in what is now the Boston Post Road bar. Those fragments were easily dispersed.  

Two others were full people who had a deeply rooted association with the establishment. One the medium described as a woman, the mistress of a married man, who had a miscarriage and was continually looking for her lost child. She stopped haunting O'Driscoll's soon after the paranormal confronted her.   "I'm actually selectively cynical about this stuff," Driscoll said. "I don't believe it all, but she was dead-on when she described what happened to Chris."

Chris is O'Driscoll's bar manager, Christopher W. Lepiesza, 25, who was the first employee to have contact with the other resident spirit, "Jon."   "I was working a shift by myself behind the bar one night and the keys disappeared from the register and ended up under a random bottle," he said.   At first, Lepiesza waved off the incident, figuring it was a case of absent-mindedness. But as the weeks wore on, he began to notice more inexplicable occurrences. The keys were moved again. Doors shut for no reason. Other items were hidden or moved. A cold presence would take over the room, then leave again.

Lepiesza had never been a skeptic, but, until he actually saw "Jon" he didn't have any direct experience with the spiritual world.   "I was locking up the bar one night and all of a sudden the hair on my arm began to rise up. I looked over my right shoulder and I saw some blues, some reds and a very distinct nose," he said, pointing to the bar's foyer.   "So my heart started racing and I turned back around to grab the trash. When I looked back, he was gone."   

Gone that night, but not for long.   Turns out, Jon is the one spirit who asked the paranormal investigator to allow him to remain on the premises. Had the medium pressed the point, Jon would have been banished.   "She said he (Jon) had been here a long time and that he wanted to stay here because he enjoys it," Driscoll said. "He (Jon) told her he liked to play pranks on the male bartender with the goatee who wears an Irish cap."

Driscoll also claims to have seen Jon traversing the bar area when no one was around. Driscoll was so convinced that the luminous white figure he saw was real that he briefly chased after it.   "It wasn't like Casper the Ghost," he said, referring to the comic book poltergeist. "It was translucent, white, and the size of a real person."

Driscoll agreed to give Jon the run of the place, as long as he kept his pranks in check. For the most part, the mischievous poltergeist has kept that promise. At times, he can't resist.

Lepiesza has settled into his unofficial role as the ghost's favorite foil.   "I'll be sitting in the basement, doing some work, and all of a sudden it will get a little cold and I'll see something move," Lepiesza said. "So I say 'Hey Jon. I'm trying to work and you're distracting me. Stop it.' He usually stops."

Occupants believe their West Inverness house is spooked   Joseph M. Giordano 2005 Dundalk Eagle {Posted 1/11/05}

 

When members of the Meyers family saw a figure in the window of the Jasmine Road house they wanted to buy, they should have known something was up.

But they didn't, and now they may be living with something paranormal.

"His name is Dexter," said 8-year-old Ozzie Meyers V. "And he kept asking me to read to him."

Ozzie's parents, Jennifer, an apparently down-to-Earth woman who works for Johns Hopkins University, and Ozzie IV, a stay-at-home dad, thought it might have been an imaginary friend. Then something happened that sent a chill through their West Inverness household.

"Ozzie [V] came to us about two years ago and told us that the little boy in the attic wanted him to play with his train tracks," said Jennifer Meyers, who bought the house in 1998. "My husband went to the attic to check it out. He found old toy train tracks under the insulation. We were convinced after that.

The house, in the 2000 block of Jasmine Road, was built in 1957 on a plot of land that used to be part of the Lynch family farm, according to Baltimore County land records.

The Meyers family moved in after a series of renters had lived in the home, Jennifer Meyers said.

Though the renters had no problems with anything out of the ordinary, they had an interesting occurrence at a party they hosted at the house, according to a neighbor.

"Just before the Meyerses moved in, there was a party at the house," said the neighbor, who asked that her name not be used. "And they had invited a psychic. During the party, the psychic was at the [dining room] table and told [the guests] that someone had brought a spirit into the house."

The neighbor has lived in her home for 30 years and believes that something is not quite right about the Meyerses' house.

"I believe them," the neighbor said. "I hear something running up and down the stairs when no one is at home. There are thumps on the wall and other noises when the house is empty."

In December, Jennifer and her husband appeared on The Montel Williams Show when celebrity psychic Sylvia Brown was the guest and the topic was "the unknown."

"We weren't too happy with [Brown's] answer," Jennifer Meyers said. "She was contradictory and didn't make any sense."

Part of the show was filmed at the Meyerses' home and featured a clip - recorded by one of the show's cameramen- of the lights above the dining room table rapidly going on and off.

"That seems to happen when we're at dinner and arguing about something," Jennifer Meyers said.

Everyone in the house has had strange experiences they can't explain.

"I hate doing laundry in the basement alone," Jennifer Meyers said. "I have seen the figure of a man downstairs."

Ozzie IV., who was always skeptical, has seen a shadow that moved up the steps from the first floor.

"That's what made a believer out of me," he said. "I also woke up and there was a man in front of our bed. My wife saw it too."

Beside the banging sounds against the wall and noises in the basement, the family has several questionable photographs that include a dark anomily around the children, especially their 17-month-old daughter, Genevieve.

"This black shape appears in a number of pictures of our daughter," Jennifer Meyers said. "We have one of an orb above her head at the christening."

Orbs are photographic anomalies that some believe indicate the presence of a ghost and like any other "proof" of the unknown are highly debatable.

One type of evidence that's harder to explain away is electronic voice phenomena (EVP).

EVP are picked up on video and audio tape but are unheard and unseen while the original recorded interview is taking place, according to the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena's Web site.

Strange sounds were picked up on an audio tape even though they weren't heard while the family's interview with The Eagle was taking place at the house. The sounds crop up over both Jennifer Meyers' and her son's voices throughout the recording.

Though not especially religious, the Meyerses have had everyone from a Catholic priest to a practitioner of Wicca come through and bless the house.

"Nothing seems to work," Jennifer Meyers said. "We've even yelled 'In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, go back where you came from,' but it didn't work."

"I try to keep a sense of humor about it all," she said. "But I want whatever it is to stop scaring my children."

 

  PUB GHOST TURNS UP ROBBIE HITS ON JUKEBOX  Norman Silvester  Sunday Mail UK  {Posted 1/11/05}

 

Bosses call in experts to probe spook

  Spirits haunt Phi Phi island    The Telegraph -Calcutta. India   {Posted 1/11/05}

Koh Phi Phi (Thailand), Jan. 7 (Reuters): The tourists can still be heard on this Thai paradise isle, only now local people say they are voices from beyond the grave.

Devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami, Koh Phi Phi, a holiday mecca typified in the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Beach, has become an island inhabited mainly by rescue workers and ghosts. “I heard some foreigners calling out to me last night, saying: ‘Come on, come on, come and join our party’,” said Prajit Sumta, a carpenter who is one of the few Thais to have stayed on the tiny island since the killer waves. “But then I looked round and realised I was all on my own.”

Then he knelt in front of a makeshift Buddhist shrine made of incense sticks in an old beer bottle to pray for the hundreds who died on the island. Holidaymakers are not the only ones whose spirits are said to be haunting Phi Phi’s palm-fringed beaches.

“One of the women who worked in the bank came to me in a dream telling me that her body had not yet been found. She wanted to show me where it was,” Prajit said.

Reluctant to leave his house alone at night because of the spirits, he is still one of the braver ones. Most of the hundreds of Thai residents who survived the December 26 disaster have deserted the island, for fear of ghosts or a new tsunami.

“Everybody has left and they don’t look like coming back soon. They are all scared,” said Roger Lohanan of the Thai Animal Guardians’ Association, which has launched a rescue mission for abandoned pet cats and dogs scouring the rubble for food.

Before the killer waves struck nearly two weeks ago, Phi Phi was particularly popular with young backpackers, who came in their thousands to soak up its hippy atmosphere in simple beachside bungalows.

The tropical night air would have been filled with the sounds of young people laughing, talking and drinking. Now its rubble-strewn streets, thick with the stench of death and bonfires, are deserted.

At night, for those starting the long, arduous clean-up in the light of arc lamps set up by the Thai army, thoughts for the dead some feel are waiting in the shadows are seldom far away. “Whenever I go out at night, I always go with friends,” said Korn Surachet, a 32-year-old electrician. “Never alone.”

This weekend moviegoers will see Michael Keaton wig out when he hears his dead wife's voice through static on his TV.  The movie, “White Noise,” is sheer Hollywood, Kansas City ghost hunters say.

They record voices from the other side, they claim, using ordinary tape recorders and camcorders, not TVs. And it usually happens like this:

They're called in to investigate paranormal activity in someone's home, a place of business, a cemetery. As they work, they record everything, recorders and camcorders running. Later, when they play back those recordings, they say they can hear voices on them that they didn't hear as they were recording, what those in paranormal circles refer to as electronic voice phenomena, or EVP.

On their recordings, the voices seem to be singing. They curse. They weep. They holler. One voice, recorded in a Blue Springs cemetery, sounds like a young girl saying “I miss Mom.” Another, from a historic home in Atchison, Kan., wants to know: “Where's my daddy?” Another, recorded in a northern Missouri home, pleads, “Help me, Brian.”

“Once in a while we'll get a weird voice saying ‘Get out' or ‘Leave my house,' but it's very rare that you get something scary,” says Bryan Kaplan, a member of Kansas City's Paranormal Activity Investigators group and the ghost hunter who recorded the “Help me, Brian” message.

“White Noise,” which opens today, could spike interest in a hotly debated form of paranormal research, already the topic of dozens of Web sites and books. Swedish opera singer Friedrich Jurgenson, one of the best-known researchers in the EVP field, recorded his first experience in 1959, when he claims to have heard the voice of his dead mother on a recording he made of birds singing in the forest.

In the 1980s, EVP believer Sarah Estep founded the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena, which today has its own Web site and newsletter. Estep was a consultant on “White Noise.”

Skeptics of most things paranormal debunk EVP as the product of overactive imaginations, the power of suggestion, electrical interference or even transmissions bleeding over from other frequencies. Anticipating buzz over “White Noise,” the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP, reminded the public this week that EVP recordings can't be scientifically proved and are little more than so much static.

“Serious parapsychologists today show virtually no interest in EVP, and modern reports in the parapsychological literature find no evidence of anything paranormal in these recordings,” the group's spokesman, James Alcock, a Toronto psychology professor, said in the group's written statement.

EVP believers have heard it all before. But they keep on recording and posting their recordings for all to hear, and debate, on Web sites.

“The first step is the scientific community as a whole has to recognize that something is going on with audio,” says Kaplan, a self-professed audiophile. “It doesn't necessarily mean that it's a ghost. It's still paranormal, in the sense that it's not in the normal range of understanding. And then from there we can understand the whole conscious response. That's the part I'm more intrigued by.”

Some EVP stories sound like urban legends. One of the stories posted at www.aaevp.com tells of a woman whose daughter died young. One day the woman accidentally left her daughter's dog in the house when she went shopping; she also left a voice-activated recorder on. While she was gone the dog tore up plants and made quite a mess. And there, on the recorder, is the dead daughter's voice, scolding the dog.

Ghosts and Haunts in Missouri, a paranormal investigation and research group in St. Louis, also posts EVP recordings on its Web site.

“There's one cemetery, a big one in St. Louis, where we've recorded the voices of children shouting, ‘We're here!” says member Terry Gambill. “None of us heard it while we were there. We were all there, looking over the cemetery and wandering the grounds, but none of us heard these voices.”

Gambill says he has captured nine EVP recordings using a Sony digital camcorder and hand-held digital voice recorder. Once, during an investigation of a cemetery where most of the deceased are German, “You can clearly hear a powerful man's voice, and it's not in English,” Gambill says. He says he knows the voice didn't belong to anyone in his group who was there when the recording was made.

No one can be certain where the voices come from, Gambill says.

“We can't prove it. We don't know. The best theory is that it's the voices of people who have died, but that of course is untested.”

According to the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena, EVP experimenters are using all types of devices that record sound, from audio tape recorders and video cameras to computers and even telephone answering machines.

Kaplan uses an external microphone on a digital voice recorder, which he says eliminates a lot of hissing sound. When he posts the recordings on his group's Web site, he plays three versions. The first clip is unedited. On the second he has removed hisses and background noises. The third clip is the amplified, hiss-free version.

The EVP voices can't be mistaken, he says, for the voices of anyone else who is heard on the recordings. Those of anyone else present at the time “will sound distant,” he says. “But these voices are full voices, low. And they're either sing-song or very monotone.”

Kansas City psychic Sueanne Pool, who says she has also recorded EVP in her work, calls voices “spooky.” “When you play it back it's different from a human voice. It's a lower-range voice,” says Pool, the author of Kansas City Hauntings and Ghosts and the upcoming The Ghosts of Jackson County.

The voices often are not easy to hear, says Becky Ray of Grain Valley, a colleague of Kaplan's in Paranormal Activity Investigators.

(She's right. Give a listen to any of the scores of EVP recordings on the Internet, and you have to listen to many of them over and over to hear what they are alleged to be saying. On some, frankly, it's darn near impossible to make out the “message.”)

“A lot of them, they're pretty quiet,” says Ray, who thinks the voices belong to the dead. “They're in the background, so you wouldn't notice them unless you're listening for them. But I have gotten a couple of them where it's like there's another person in the room.

“We have had them say names. On a couple of investigations we've had Bryan's name mentioned. At this most recent investigation they mentioned one of the owners of the building, a common name, which might have been a coincidence. Some of them sound like conversations that were going on, like residual conversations.”

After its visit to a Leawood home last spring, Ray's group discovered that it had recorded what sounded like a loud argument between a man and woman. There were no TVs playing in the house at the time or any other interference, Ray says, that might have caused it.

“It sounds violent,” she says. “It was definitely not going on while we were there. Our theory is that it was something that had happened in the past.”

Like Kaplan, Gambill and others who say they have captured EVP, Pool says she has never manipulated the recordings. “We're not playing it backward like ‘Oh, Satan's here,” says Pool, who claims to have made from 200 to 300 EVP recordings. “If you try to manipulate it in any way, you lose your integrity.

“A lot of people are saying now they're creating a sound board that creates white noise so they can hear the ghosts. I tell them that's stupid.”

EVP experimenters say that anyone can try doing what they do because elaborate devices aren't needed. The most popular devices at the moment are digital IC recorders that can be used with a computer to analyze the recordings.

A recording device, earmuff-type headphones and a low-noise, high-sensitivity tape, and you're set to experiment.

Unless, that is, “White Noise” scares you off.

Because the movie opens today, none of the local ghost hunters or psychics had seen it. But few held out hope that it's an accurate portrayal of their own experiences in the field.

The movie's previews seem to suggest that the EVP communications are lengthy, when in reality, most of the recordings tend to be short, a few words at the most.

“It's entertainment,” Pool says. “It brings to light the fact that there is much more to life after death than anyone has ever assumed, that with our modern technology we are able to hear bits and pieces. But to hear long-term conversations? I don't think so. Think about it. Everyone would be having these conversations at home. ‘Mom, what was that recipe again?”

---

 Chilling tale of psychic and ghost of murdered girl  Sonia Sharma, The Evening Chronicle {Original 9/30/04}

Psychic Suzanne Hadwin knew she had to do something when a little girl cried out for help.  

Suzanne, a medium by profession, had been at the haunted pub for a charity psychic event. She claims the premises had 37 spirits; about eight were children and one was Jessica's murderer Joseph Lawrence.  Suzanne, 32, of Witherwack, Sunderland, said: "Jessica was communicating with me. She'd been strangled and raped. He cut her up and trampled on her in the cellar. He tried to get rid of the evidence and threw all her clothes and belongings in a big fireplace.

"When I first heard Jessica, I felt in my heart that I had to help her. I felt so overwhelmed. She was saying: `Please help me, he's hurting me' and was trapped. '   And all the time I was in the pub, her killer was there. He murdered a lot of children and hid their bodies inside. He was a vicious, evil man. The atmosphere made you feel sick and tense. I felt like he was going to go for me at any minute."

Over two weeks, Suzanne said she stayed at the pub nightly and managed to release all the spirits into heaven, including Jessica. But Lawrence had to be forced out.

During the seances, Lana Grabinskis, a spiritual artist, was able to draw sketches of Jessica and Lawrence from Suzanne's descriptions. In some photographs they captured white blobs, which they say are orbs of spirit energy.

According to Suzanne, the pub used to be a stopping place for travellers on their way to Scotland. Lawrence, who had a southern accent and was dressed in grey, was a worker in his early thirties. He may have been a plasterer or miner.   Jessica was a local girl. Her mother was called Kathleen and her father Billy, who ended up killing Joseph Lawrence.

After they purged the pub of the ghosts, they managed to dig up a lock of Jessica's hair, a heel of her shoe and small rags from her clothing.   Suzanne said: "The girl told me her body was in the pub and we tried to search for it in a wall, where the fireplace used to be. That's where we found these items. We want to hand them over to scientists to be analysed and hope a search can be carried out to find her remains".

Staff at the pub say there were a lot of ghostly goings-on before they were released, like chairs and utensils flying around, banging, screaming and the feeling of being pushed or touched by someone who is not there.

Pub manageress Kamylah Momat, who has been there for a year, said: "We found a hand print of a child in some jelly, even though there were no children here. Our heavy industrial fridge was always found open, even though the kitchen door was locked. We just can't explain these things."

Suzanne is now hoping to carry out more research and wants to trace any relatives of Jessica.

Grandpa's Ghost Goes For Big Bucks On eBay

Just before Halloween, Maryland ghost expert Beverly Litsinger was asked her opinion about Anne Arundel's spirit population. Her conclusion: It's a nice place for ghosts, but it's no Frederick County.

Litsinger, a Randallstown resident who is president of the Maryland Ghost & Spirit Association, said she's recorded 34 different "hauntings" in the county. Just in Annapolis, they include a woman with smallpox spotted in a historic home, a young prostitute and an old woman who appear at the Rams Head Tavern, and other ghosts at the Reynolds Tavern, where Litsinger said she saw plates spontaneously breaking in the kitchen several months ago.

Even the State House is haunted, she said, by a worker who was killed when he fell off the roof during its construction.

Overall, she said, "You're doing pretty good" -- Anne Arundel's history and old buildings make it a better spot for haunting than Cecil County, which has only 14 hauntings by her count, or Charles County, which has 10.

In Anne Arunel, "You have a lot of historic mansions . . . and the historic mansions ended up being haunted," she said.  But she said Anne Arundel's ghost population seems to be dwarfed by that of Frederick, which apparently has been gathering spirits since long before it became a fast-growing Washington suburb. That area has many churches and older buildings that were used as hospitals after the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War.   In all, there are about 70 known hauntings there, she said.  "Frederick's very haunted," she said. "God, is that place haunted."

Litsinger's done ghost investigations all over the state. So does her business pick up in the days around October 31?  Not that she can tell.  "I haven't noticed it," she said. "'Course, I see ghosts all the time."

Ghost Stories & Haunted Objects

These stories first appeared in the TIAS Collectors' Newsletter (The Internet Antique Shop)  (Posted here on 11/26/04)

 

I consider myself to be of sound mind but I must say that my house is haunted. My grandfather and father built the family home in the 1930's.  Many family members have either seen or heard strange
things in the house but I will tell you my story.  At the age of five, I had my first other-worldly
experience. It was in the afternoon, my mother was cooking dinner and I was playing in my bedroom.
Suddenly, I felt as if someone were looking at me.  I glanced up and I saw a womanly figure in a flowing
white robe who outstretched her arms and motioned for me to go to her. I turned the other way and ran to tell my mother who, of course, didn't believe me.
At the age of eight, I once again saw something unexplainable. This time, it was during the night, I
was asleep, and felt someone watching me. I opened my eyes and saw a dark, shadowy figure move from my door and turn into my closet. Initially, I thought that maybe my mother or father had woken up to check on me.  I got up, went to their bedroom, where I found them both fast asleep.

My encounters stopped until the age of 24. I had decorated my bedroom with a Spanish theme and had
purchased an old canvas painting of a Spanish conquistador and hung it on the wall.  One night, while sleeping, I once again had the feeling I was being watched. As I opened my eyes, I focused the very same face that was on the painting, only this time, he was standing at my bedside, on the other side of room. The feeling I had as he looked at me was that he was angry. My mind was trying to process what I was seeing and I tried to focus on him, but he literally vanished into thin air.
I haven't seen anything since but I'm always on the
lookout.  Happy Halloween....Ann, in Texas

-- Another Story --

The Mirror
Somewhere in the early to mid seventies we purchased a job a lot at an auction (my wife maintains a written record of  location in her files). Although my wife did not share the same feelings, there was one item that attracted my attention.  It was a plain wood frame mirror with an unusual blue tint to
the glass. By the framing we recognized this as a piece from the 1850's - 70s. At the time we lived in a large city in an apartment and did not have wall space for the mirror. The year two later we moved to a smaller city a few hundred miles away and purchased a house. My wife's attitude towards the mirror did not change and thus the mirror stayed packed away. A year later we bought a small farm with its
original five-bedroom farmhouse of 1855. Now we had wall space to fill up. This farm's property boundaries extend into  the zoned section of a small hamlet of about 80 people. The mirror was removed from its box and for the very first-time we saw a glint of light shine from the pencil writing on the back. The inscription stated that the mirror was bought in this small community that we had just moved to in 1951 from a Grace McGee. This was some 20 years prior to our purchase and a few hundred miles away from the auction where we obtain the mirror. After little research we found out that in
1951 Grace McGee's auction was four homes from our house. We also found out from the long-term residents that the McGee's where the local house builders in this area in the mid to late 1800s. More interesting, is what we discovered when searching the title of our property. In the mid 1800s McGee's owned this lot and concession that we now live on. Unless McGee's house of the mid 1800s has
been torn down, and there is nothing that would lead us to believe such; then there is a high probability that not only did the McGee's built this house but were also the original owners.    The mirror that we bought in the seventies has been brought back to house that it was originally purchased for 145 years prior.
My wife now thinks it's just a swell collectible and the mirror is a metaphor to illustrate that fate meant to us to live where we do. Needless to say, the mirror now maintains a position of wall priority in this old house.

 

-- Another Story --

Friendly Ghost
My great grandmother told us this story when we were quite young--One I never forgot.   
When she was very young and had her first and only child (my grandmother) --She and my great grandfather for some reason had to move from where they live to another home-- Now this was in the dead of winter and they had no heat at the time --My great grandmother had to stay in the bed with
her new baby to keep them both warm until it was time to move them---My great grandmother had fallen into a deep sleep, when her brother -in-law woke her up and told her to uncover the babies head or she would smother (the baby was completely covered, head and all and was just about to smother)- She looked up to thank him ,but he was gone---A few weeks after the move and every one was settled, her brother -in -law came to visit--Again my great grandmother thanked him for saving  her babies life--He was bewildered to say the least for he told my grandmother that he wasn't anywhere near their home on that night---Trish

--Another Story--

I read with great interest the story of Linda's antique mirror.  Lucky she found a room it would work in. I wrote you a while back about an antique dresser with large, full-length mirror which I purchased in an antique shop and of the many problems it caused us. I finally thought everything had settled down; then it began again.  I awoke one night when someone slapped me on the face;  soon after, a chair which you could not tip no matter how you tried, in my bedroom, tipped  completely over with me in it in the middle of the night.  The huge bruise on my hip and thigh was shaped exactly like a heart!  That was enough.  We got rid of the dresser and have had absolutely no more problems since.  For me, I will never buy another antique with a mirror.  Thanks.  Dolores P.

 

--Another Story--

 

The Frame
This is a true story. About 31 years ago, newly married we bought our first home which was a old stately looking home. We decided to find some old pieces to go in it before closing. At a auction in a remote area we found some interesting items. A very large frame came up for bid.  We figured it would sell for a lot of money. We bid $5.00 and nobody else bid. We couldn't believe it! Took it home and leaned it against wall in our apartment until the move. Once in our new home with hung the picture. The man in the picture was very stern looking. We figured that was normal because in the 1800's that's the way most pictures were.  Then we decided to take his picture out and put a picture of my wife in the frame that I had painted while in the service. Since his picture was so old I hung it in the basement. Then it started.........First we heard someone walking around late at night. Then when our first child was
born we heard steps. I thought the baby was up. On checking on him, I found the door closed. You couldn't close that door easily because of the carpet. I opened it and the room for COLD. The baby was
sleeping. My wife or I didn't close the door. Then every time I wanted to redo the upstairs hallway, where the picture was hanging, something would happen. Then one morning I said , That's it! The hall gets completed TODAY. The next day I hang the frame back up on the wall.  We were sitting in the living room when we heard this crash. I ran upstairs. There leaning against the wall was the frame. The heavy wire was still attached to frame. The frame was not damaged at all. The very large hook was still in the wall..... This could not of jumped over the hook. The frame must weight over 20 lbs. I said that's it.... I went to the basement, got his picture put it back in the frame and hung it back on the wall. To this day....... he is happy...... Not a single thing has happened. At the holiday's I put garland and lights on the frame and we have a great story to tell friends. Thanks for taking time to read my story. Joe in Cicero, N.Y.

--Another Story--

The Bell
I loved the Haunted Frame story! We have lived in the St. Johns, Michigan area for 24 years and have gotten to know our rural "farmfolk'" neighbors very well. Living in a farmhouse we find it hard to trace when it was built originally, aside from the addition which was built in 1898, and the milk room built in 1903 etc., we only know history of this place and it's inhabitants from the relatives of the former residents. They live right down the road. One of these people was an old farmer named Bud who had
grown up in the section and shared pictures of he and his uncle in the front of our house standing by a horse and buggy, before any additions were made. When Bud decided to retire from farming, he had an auction sale and was kind enough to call me and ask if I wanted to make an offer on the cast iron dinner bell sitting in his barn down the road from us. Of course I made a bid, he accepted, and I had that bell up before the auction.  We also bought other wonderful things at his auction including a 1950 Farmall H tractor for my husband and a wonderful 3 pronged pitchfork which we have seen in the old pictures. But the bell was like the heart of the farm to me. Bud was a well know tease in the neighborhood and loved practical jokes. He passed away shortly after the auction and soon after that, within days, our dinner bell began to ring itself. About 3 times, when our family was home, we heard it ring, with no one near it and no wind that 75 pound bell managed to ring itself. Well we figured it was Bud, coming
for one last practical joke. When I told Bud's widow later (I waited months so not to upset her so soon after his death) she told their adult children and now whenever I see them or other neighbors, I get teased about the haunted bell. I'm not the only one who heard it, and I'm glad of that since otherwise people might think I was a little coo coo!!...Melissa R.  St. Johns, MI

 

--Another Story--

 

Hurricane
Hurricane Ivan hit the Pensacola, Fl  area this October, and I was distressed for my friend  Jane who lost her condominium home on the bay,  and most of its contents. What could I do to help--what of my things might she need, I wondered one morning as I brushed my teeth.  Suddenly I  found myself thinking not of Jane, but actually of her mother who had died some months before the storm and was an amazing, fun-loving mother and grandmother with a background in fashion and merchandising.    I  began to gather some things to take to Jane. Leaving my house, the door was ajar to one closet--as I
went to close it, I spied  a plumped European pillow with vintage sham of white lace and cut work, hanging out over the shelf.   It had been a birthday gift from a friend of mine named Suzy--and I had set it out on my bed, but  it was so luxurious and pristine that I had treasured more than used it and put it away for safekeeping.  When I saw Jane, I gave her the items gathered, and  she was very grateful.  Then I reached into my car for the massive pillow---as soon as  she saw the pillow and sham, she began to cry, and I  tried to reassure her that everything would be fine and that in fact  her mother's image
had come to me as  I was brushing my teeth that day.  Jane cried even more, and  said that  the night before in her new apartment, she was sad, thinking how she regretted not taking to safety  the large European pillow with a sham from her bed--one that her mother had given her it in the last year of her life.  She could not believe I was handing her a near-duplicate and that she felt somehow her Mom was telling her that everything would be  all right again.  I added  that actually the sham  had been a gift of my  friend Suzy.  Jane said, "You know my mother was called Suzy by every member of the family."
Now I have space in my closet and Jane has a memory of mother recovered and I know that even while   brushing one's teeth,  pay attention as little serendipitous miracles can happen! ....Judy K.

--Another Story--

 

The Rocking Chair
The story of the Pillow just confirms what I've been feeling all along.  People who love us and are now gone, somehow are watching over us and get messages to us - even people we didn't know but feel some connection to.    Years ago, my grandmother and grandfather lived behind my parents in a small one bedroom house. My grandfather had a wonderful mission style rocking chair that he always sat in and I loved to sit on his lap.    He passed away and about 5 years later, my grandmother passed away. At that point, my son and I really needed a place to live and so we moved into the little house behind my parents.    Most of the furniture in the house was my grandmother's, including the rocking chair.   My son slept in the bedroom and I slept on the couch in the living room.  One night I woke up and saw my grandfather sitting in the chair, smiling at me, as if to say, everything will be alright and you are safe.    I've now moved on and all my children are grown.   The rocking chair is in my parent's home but
every time I go to visit, that's where I sit and all my worries just ease away, just as if my grandfather is holding me on his lap like he did when I was a little girl.    Everyone in the family knows that will be my chair one day - my grandfather said so!   I think that's why I collect things - they are things that usually speak to me and give me comfort - someone wants me to take them home.   Yes, I may be crazy, but I'm glad I'm this kind of crazy!  Sheryl

--Another Story-- 

Neatness
We bought our first house in the mid 1990's from the relatives of a 95 year old lady.  The house had been built in the 20's and was a classic Milwaukee Bungalow.  She had been moved to a nursing home and her house was being sold.  She was a very particular lady.  The house could only be shown if her
niece was present and when we were being shown the house all o f the doors were locked and the niece would unlock the doors as we were shown each room or closed and then the doors were relocked.  Mrs Augustine (the 95 year old lady)  and her husband bought the house in the mid 60's.  He promptly died
 and she lived in the house alone for 35 years.   A few months after we bought the house, we heard from a neighbor that Mrs Augustine had died.  That was when interesting things started to happen in the house.  She tended to pick up around the house.  If I left my socks on the bedroom floor, when ! I would come home from work, the socks would be in the bedroom trash can.  She also turned off lights.  On a few occasions we were in a hurry and when leaving the house we would notice that we had left the basement or attic light on.  When we would come home the lights would be off.

Ghosts run in his blood  Kathleen M. Schurman  ©Stratford Star 2004  09/18/04

John Zaffis has dabbled in the family business for many years, which, by anyone's standards, is highly unusual.

He attended exorcisms and strolled through haunted cemeteries on a regular basis, advised families struggling with poltergeists and possessions, and lectured on his otherworldly experiences.

Yet, until recently, he hadn't fully committed to following in the footsteps of his uncle, noted demonologist Edward Warren.

This year, however, all Hades has broken loose, and long-time Stratford resident Zaffis has taken time off from his day job and launched headlong into his "night" one with a tour of 30 colleges and universities that has him booked solid almost every day throughout October.

"I talk about everything that ties in with the paranormal," Zaffis said of his lectures, "human spirits, exorcisms, poltergeists, why certain places are haunted, and why some spirits stay behind."
After 30 years of working in the field, conducting investigations of paranormal activity, Zaffis has plenty to say. He said he saw his first ghost, his grandfather, at the young age of 16 and decided that there, "might be something to this stuff."

He began to look into paranormal phenomenon, which, for him, meant no more effort than spending time with his Uncle Ed Warren, his mother's twin brother, and Ed's wife, Lorraine. For many years, the Monroe couple were the foremost international authorities on ghosts and demons.

Zaffis worked with the Warrens for more than 20 years before striking out on his own five years ago.

To say business is booming is an understatement. Zaffis and his team of investigators are currently investigating 12 cases of hauntings and possessions throughout New England and New York.

"I have seven people working with me, and I still can't keep up with the cases," he said. "One of the cases is a water poltergeist, and I've never been involved in a case of this degree before. We actually have footage of this happening in the house ¾ water dripping from the ceilings in areas where there are absolutely no pipes."

Is there more paranormal activity than there used to be? "Tons more," Zaffis replied.

The plethora of activity has given him plenty of material for his book, "Shadows of the Dark," published through IUniverse. It should be available by the first week of October, just in time for Halloween.

A long table in the finished basement of Zaffis's home is covered with photos of current investigations, including some of recent water poltergeist activity and several of filmy, white auras surrounding smiling children posing in suburban backyards.

"Just run-of-the-mill psychic photos," he said of auras, "nothing sinister."

The rest of the room is filled with hundreds of Halloween decorations ¾ skeletons, bats, devils, spiders and other assorted knickknacks and displays. He and his wife, Cheryl, have been amassing Halloween-themed items for years.

The really scary stuff, however, is in the next room, which holds a collection of items associated with various cases he's worked on.

"These are 'allegedly' haunted items," he said. "I don't always believe there's something up with them. Sometimes people just get it into their heads there's something wrong and want the item out of their house."

Some, he said, have spirits attached to them, and others don't. The "really negative" objects don't come home with him but will usually show up as photos in the slide show Zaffis presents at his lectures, which he hopes will enlighten people as to what the paranormal is all about.

"I try to present the material so people understand they shouldn't dabble in things they don't understand," he said. "They shouldn't leave the door open. Afterwards, people tell me they have a better understanding of what all this is."

Zaffis has committed to two area lectures to benefit local organizations. He will speak at Sterling House Sept. 28 from 7 to 9 p.m., and aside from his regular talk, he will focus on Stratford ghosts and hauntings.

Oct. 7, Zaffis will lecture at Booth Memorial Park from 7 to 9 p.m. where he will focus on the paranormal activities he has investigated at the Booth Museum. Both lectures are $10 for admission, and proceeds benefit their host sites.

On Oct. 30, Zaffis can be seen on the Discovery Channel in "A Haunting in Connecticut" at 10 p.m. and midnight. The film documents a famous Simsbury haunting Zaffis helped investigate, and in it, he plays himself.

For more information on Zaffis, additional area lecture dates, or to get a peek at some of the artifacts in his basement "haunted museum," visit www.johnzaffis.com.