Ghost Lab -Are you Watching It?

I have to admit that when I first heard about this show, I thought - dang, ANOTHER ghost show? But I checked out the first episode and I've been hooked ever since.

Brad and Barry Klinge and their team do the usual ghosthunting stuff that we've come to expect, like collecting EVPs, trying to provoke activity, and using all the usual equipment.

But what they also do is explore the bigger theories behind why paranormal activity is happening in the first place. This week, for example, they examined the idea that moving water increases the likelihood of increased paranormal activity. They also talked to an engineer about how water conducts electricity - and learned that pure water is a poor conductor - it's actually the impurities in the water that increase conductivity.

They went to Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana, a place noted for its paranormal activity and also for being situated on the Mississippi River. (One of the brothers also saw an apparition in the house while on a group tour). The group did an analysis of the water in the Mississippi as compared to bottled water. The results - bottled water barely registered a blip for conductivity, while the Mississippi River water was off the charts. They also noticed that the only part of the house visible from the water was the third story - where an appartition has been seen several times from a window on that floor. So they decided to measure the levels of EMF from the water to the house - and were amazed to find that they could chart a direct line of EMF from the river - to the third story window. They also used this theory at another destination later in the show, the Metro rock club in Chicago - and found running water associated with that place as well.

Watch the video 'Evidence of Energy' on the list here.

In past shows, they've explored whether or not heightened levels of fear increase the likelihood of paranormal activity, or if places with a history of violent past affect the mood and temperament of the people who spend time there.

I don't think it's a better show than Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures (my two favorites), it's just a different focus and different equipment. If it were the same as the others, I might feel like it was overkill - after all, how many ghost shows can a girl watch a week?

You can also watch the first full episode here.

I also have to mention the last episode of Destination Truth and the hunt for the Yeti - how cool was the hair they found? That episode should be showing up on the website here soon. I guess we're done for the year and won't see new episodes till next March.

Plus I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of Mr. Yummy Pants, er, um, Josh Gates.

Sigh......March 2010 seems so far away......

Ghost Cat????

I think it's fair to say that as long as I've lived in this house with Papa Cash (almost 7 years) that I've never experienced any paranormal activity associated with it. Which is fine, I don't need to live with ghosts and I already lived in a house that had ALL kinds of spooky (thus the name of this blog and what ALL the bloggers linked to it have in common - whether by actual house or street).

But this house has been quiet since I've been here - except for a few occasional odd experiences which always seemed to come in pairs. Meaning I'd have an experience, and then Papa Cash would (or vice versa) and we wouldn't know of the other's experience until one of us mentioned it - and they always had occured within a day or two of the other.

Interestingly, all the experiences seemed attributed to something an animal might do -or more specifically, what a cat might do. And they all took place when we just had one cat - nothing has happened since we got Cat #2 and #3. For instance, I'd be in the living room and repeatedly think I saw Ash walk in the room - or walk out - only to find he was curled up sleeping behind me on the back of the couch. Then Papa Cash would tell me that he thought Ash came in the room and jumped up on the bed - when nothing was there.

Once when my friends from Michigan visited (one is clairvoyant) she remarked that a cat had just walked in the room - a short haired grey cat. I've had two cats that have passed on, but neither was grey, and both had long hair. Then I remembered P. C. telling me about a cat he had many years ago - a cat that taught itself to pee in the toliet (!) and also that he had to find a new home for the cat when he got busted by the landlord. (He also found out later that the cat continued to use the toliet in his new home and also cried till someone came and flushed the toliet. He was kind of relieved that the cat had a new home because he wasn't crazy about having to go flush the toliet for a cat). But according to him, the cat was very attached to him - would sleep on him at night and followed him everywhere and watched everything he did - thus the teaching itself to use the toliet- Mr. Kitty followed him in THERE too.

So I asked P.C. what that cat looked like - and Holy Shit, that cat was short haired - and grey. Now - I had heard the story about the cat many times but I'd never asked what the cat looked like. And my friend who saw ghost kitty did NOT know the story at all. And P.C. had the kitty before he was married or had a son, so it was at least over 20 years ago. Chances were good that kitty had went to heaven by now. So I felt like the ghostly cat visits were explained.

I had forgotten about these experiences - after all, they weren't really scary, just interesting. And after my friend saw him, and we put all that together, it pretty much stopped. Maybe kitty was just content to know we recognized him? Although in the weeks before my other kitties came to live with us, I did have quite a few instances of thinking I was seeing a cat out of the corner of my eye -when none were there.

Last weekend I was working at my desk - which is in the living room and faces a wall. Out of my peripheral vision I can see into my kitchen - off of which is P.C.'s office. His door was open and one of my cats loves to hang out in there on his desk. Repeatedly I thought I kept seeing Ash (my black cat) walk between the kitchen and the office. Repeatedly I looked and he wasn't there.

That didn't really phase me till yesterday - when I was sitting on the couch - Ash and Nissa sleeping on either side of me, Puff sleeping in the bedroom with P.C. - when I distinctly heard a cat use the scratching mats on the floor in the corner of the living room. It's a very distinct sound. I was awake, not drowsy, not dozing, and all three cats were accounted for - and none of them even close to the pad. It wasn't even a matter of- did I just hear that? I heard it, I recognized it, and it persisted for about five to ten seconds. There wasn't anything else in the room - and the noise was clearly in the room with me - that I could attribute it to.

Since P.C. was sleeping, I wasn't able to tell him and it slipped my mind until he went to go to bed today. He had no cats in the bedroom with him and the door was closed. He wasn't in bed five minutes until he came out and said, Okay....something just jumped up on the bed and walked a circle around me - like Puff does a lot of the time.
Of course then I shared my story - also realizing that this is how it used to happen before - in pairs, and both of us having seperate experiences without knowledge of the other's.

I tend to think that this visitor is probably his old friend again - since he's been seen here, and since it apparently likes to get in bed with him. I'm tempted to break out the EMF meter and try to get a measurement if it happens again. Or maybe a picture.

An interesting side note - I shared this story with a couple of friends at art class tonight and one of them also mentioned that she thought she was being visited (just recently, coincidentally enough) by one of her deceased animal friends as well. She attributed it to the time of year - the veils being thinner and all that.

What about the rest of you? Anyone else ever have a pet or animal visitation?

Destination Truth

Has everyone been watching this? The Chernobyl episode was really good, but the Island of Dolls was extremely creepy, dolls shouldn't do that, ever.

End of the world

In all my times of driving back and forth to saginaw, I have never seen this. Once on the way up and once on the way back I saw cars pulled over on the side of the road with people outside throwing up. We will see what the world holds when we get up.

He's Right There!

First off a note about my house, it has skylighting throughout and one of those is located in the kids bathroom. This last saturday I had sent Hailie into the bathroom to go potty before bed. She called me in and I found her standing in the middle of the bathroom looking up at the ceiling. She said "look at that daddy, right there". So I looked expecting to see a bug or leaf, something on or near the skylighting, I saw nothing. I looked back to her and asked what it was. She pointed to the skylighting and said "right there daddy, dont you see him, he is looking at us. he is right there". So now I am afraid to look back at the celiing, instead i look at her again and say "come on silly. is it a zombie!!!" (knowing my daughter loves zombies and likes to play a game in the car where everyone is zombies and we have to shoot them). Thinking she would look at me and laugh, give me a great big hug and run out. Instead she looked at me, didnt laugh, didnt smile and with a straight face, pointed back up and said, "he's right there, in the corner, with bunny ears"

My Orb

I thought I'd post something of a more personal nature......it's not going to bring any major paranormal revelations but the way that it happened was pretty cool.

I like to hang out with my friends and talk to dead people. Well, our spirit guides, usually. We talk to them and record it and take lots of pictures. During this particular session earlier in the summer, we were talking to my SG and I was taking pictures. I had taken at least a half dozen - all in the same spot- with nothing showing up. Then I resorted to begging and saying Please, please, give me something - anything on my camera. Right after I said that, I took another picture and got this:
Cute, ain't he?

Think what you will - I know it wouldn't impress Jay or Grant - but given the fact that I took a half dozen pictures before and after this showed up- and THIS is what I got RIGHT after I asked him to give me some kind of evidence that he was there- it means a lot to me.

I also have this picture from last summer. My friend and I were having a session and her husband was there. He had never joined in and we were discussing past lives - and also the fact that he's always felt that he had a life in which he died by fire in some way. I took a lot of pictures that night and I didn't discover this till I got home.

And a close up.....
I can't say what is but nothing even close to that - or anything else unusual even turned up that night.

If my fellow bloggers have any weird or unusual pictures of their own, post em!

Don't Know Much about History

But I do know that the Underground Railroad did not actually have train tracks....as our good friend and ghosthunter Steve did NOT on an older episode of GH. This episode revolves around another part of history, the Civil War.
Can I ride the train when we get there, Grant? Can I? Can I?

We don't have time to do any plumbing this episode, people. We're gonna get right into it. They're off to a place where spirits have been seen, including a little girl. It's the Thornbury Farm in Pennsylvania. It was built in 1709 and the Battle of Brandywine was fought on the property, apparently the largest land battle of the American Revolution. Surgeries were done in the house and an armless man has been seen in the house. Of course we also have footsteps that are heard and a young girl died there. She's buried outside even. One woman claims to have heard her moaning and it freaked her out so bad she left the house. There's another house on the property that used to hold soldiers and they think a prankster ghost hangs out there who moves tools and slams doors and funny things like that.

I don't think Jay and Grant find that amusing.

J & G start out in the main room and hang out and talk to spirits.
Do I see the you-know-what glowing?

Just about as soon as they start, the moaning starts. Yeah, the kind of moaning that would be MY cue to get the Eff out, but not my fellas. Nope, they're all on it and asking for it to happen again - which brings on footsteps from up above and more moaning. Up above them happens to be the little girl's room. They wonder if what they heard wasn't moaning but a child crying.

It must be J & G's night because they are getting all the love from the spirits. They go into the spring house with prankster ghost and the flashlight clipped onto Jay turns on by itself. Not only that, but once he takes it off and asks the ghost to do it again, it happens not only a second time on demand, but a third.

The guys say that it's a push button flashlight and also that in all the years of investigating, this light has never come on by itself. It's also hard to turn on at times and each time it's turned on, the guys touch it and it's ice cold. FUN!

Even the owner is impressed.

Added to the fun is that an EVP that sounds like a chuckle turns up while this is going on.


The second case is in Alexandra, Virginia at the Lee-Fendall House and G. Washington apparently visited there a few times. Jay can't make it on the case due to 'Family Obligations'. What about MY needs, Jay??

The house was used as a hospital during the Civil War and is now a museum. People heard a 1930's phone ring when there wasn't one. I don't know how they knew it was from the 30s but they did. People have felt a presence, heard people on the stairs, and a woman and a child have been seen on the servant stairs (which are tiny and freaking spooky!)

Grant takes Steve up to one of the room to some EVP and K2 work. They hear some creaking from a cabinet next to them when they start asking questions, and get some blips on the K2, but...................Nothing.

Tango and Kris also have a false alarm - thinking that a door opens on its own but then Amy and Britt fess up to using the door. Dangit!

Grant and Steve try to stir up some spirits in another part of the house but NOTHING.

Amy and Britt find that the EMF readings are pretty high throughout the house - which faithful GH watchers and Spooky House readers will immediately recognize as a.....................FEAR CAGE! They go in the cellar and find all kinds of exposed wiring.

Without Jason around to go snowmobiling or whatever, Grant decides to take a nap while helping to analyze the evidence......or lack thereof as it happens...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

In the end....
Lady, you have the Most. Boring. House. Ever.
But you know what, this is part of why I love my fellas so much.......sometimes nothing happens. At least we had fun at the first investigation. Here's hoping next week kicks butt!