Why are ghosts here?

Many people believe in a heaven or some place like it, and wonder why ghosts bother to stay and be ghosts, rather than moving on and "going into the light".  I hear this question from a LOT of family and friends.  


It's a TERRIFIC question, and the only answers we can offer are theories, since that's the best we can do in this field of study.


Here are a few reasons spirits may "hang out":

• They have a message to get across or business to finish.  Maybe a spirit cannot rest because there is a misconception about themselves that they want clarified.  Perhaps it is believed they killed themselves, but they didn't, and they only want the truth to be known.  Maybe they want to make sure that a certain part of their estate is handled the way they want it handled... it might stay around to make sure it goes as planned.
• There is a friend or family member who still needs them.  This is one of the sadder situations.  There might be a survivor who is so grief-stricken and cannot bear to continue, so the spirit feels the responsibility to stay with that person until they are strong enough to move on.  Only then, can the spirit move on.  This is one great reason to go ahead and grieve a loss of someone you love, but be clear that you don't expect or want them to stay and "babysit" you.
• They may not know they are dead. 
• They may want to just witness something... for example: a mother who dies in childbirth may want to stay around to see that child grow to adulthood.
• They may just be frightened or confused about moving on.
• They might have such strong positive memories about the times they spent in a place while they were alive, that they want to spend more time there after death.  It may feel like a safe haven... like home.
• And, although it isn't as common as all the reasons above, a negative entity can sometimes keep spirits in a place against their will.  Then you have a "bad guy" trapping spirits who are trying to leave.   

Just to clarify, just because a spirit is around doesn't mean it is bad and "unworthy" of moving on to a better place.  There are many reasons they may hang around, and only some of them are listed above.  

A terrific resource for more information on how to identify what you are dealing with, and how to proceed is Michelle Belanger's The Ghost Hunter's Survival Guide, a book that I highly recommend.  This book has oodles of info for the aspiring ghost hunter.

Important to note:  Just as we should not force our opinions on others in the living world, the same goes for spiritual entities, except in extreme circumstances.  There may be some reason an entity is still around, and if so, it would not be right of us to try to force them "into the light."  IF it were a negative entity, that's a different story, but that's a whole different subject.    

My first client case...

So I encountered my first client investigation this past weekend!
It was out of town, about 2.5 hours away, in Cobb, CA (the Clear Lake area, Lake County).  Since it was so far from home, we all stayed and made a weekend of it.  
Occasionally, I had 1 bar on my phone, but otherwise, no cell service... I felt like I was "off the grid" all weekend!  

Our client was having claims of apparitions (fully visible entities), shadow movement, sounds of voices, knocking and taps, and things being moved without explanation.


The weather was crazy!  Rain, hail, wind... it was chilly.  To top it off, there were 3 earthquakes in the area while we were there! The residents joked it was because the paranormal investigators were there poking around!  We did a short investigation 5-9am Saturday, and another more detailed one 10pm-1:30am Saturday/Sunday.... Looking for this guy:

I handled the digital video for the first session, and encountered battery drain three times.  Most paranormal researchers theorize that entities can take energy from the surrounding environment - from electronics, natural energy like lightning, and other sources, even people.  Anyhow, the battery went from full to empty instantly.  I shut it down, and when I restarted it the battery had rebounded to full.  Apparently, that is typical of "battery drain" from paranormal sources.  

I used the restroom while there, and while I was in it the doorknob jiggled strongly, like someone was trying to open the locked door.  When I got out, I asked the group and no one claimed to have been anywhere near the bathroom.  And right before we left, phone lines fell from the pole behind the building and were lying across the porch... lovely weather we were having!

One of our team members got two great EVPs, where an entity is saying "I won't leave.... Huckabee...." (two EVPs originally about 20 seconds apart, separated by silence, but I cut out some of the silence for this clip):

I got to use the fancy shmancy full-spectrum still camera for the evening investigation, and we got an interesting orb photo from it.  I normally don't like orb claims ... so many of them are from dust reflecting light, bugs, or even dirt on the lens.  But it is highly unusual to get an orb photo with a full-spectrum camera because it doesn't have a traditional light flash to cause a reflection off of dust.  So, I'll call it very interesting, but it doesn't prove anything.


My digital watch zero'ed out (went back to 01/01/2001 12:00) 3 times... I re-set it the first two times, and tossed it into a bag after the third... it hasn't given me problems before - so maybe my watch had battery drain as well.  A teammate and myself heard a whistle in the cellar, but it wasn't caught on any recorders - dang it!  We got a temperature change on request, from 61 degrees to 63.8.... not hugely significant, but it was stable temperature before, and slowly changed as we asked it to.


And my pièce de résistance: in response to questions during an EVP session, I felt my hand being touched... 3 times! CRAZY-strange.... pressure on my skin, but it also felt tingly, like when your foot falls asleep and starts to wake back up...  Weird, and very cool too!


We have our team meeting soon and I'll find out what the other members got from the investigation, and what we will be bringing back to the client! That's the difference with doing client cases... the work only begins with the investigation.  It's followed by more work to put together what we theorize is going on, and we need to come back to the client with evidence (if we have any, which we do this time), and suggestions if they want any.  Most importantly, clients want to know that they are safe... this client has nothing to worry about.  Things may move, they may see people who aren't alive, but they are in NO danger.  

Experiences & Evidence so far

At this point, I have only done recreational investigations, where we don't have clients who are scared in their homes... so it's been just for fun... until this upcoming weekend (my first client case).

Before it gets too far behind me, I just want to go over my personal experiences and evidence so far.

Preston Castle - Ione, CA

Preston Castle was SUCH an amazing building with an interesting history, in a town without much else going on.  It was a very cool place to be able to experience my first investigation.  I was there from 8pm-4am, and was so tired by the end, but very happy too.
Despite the fact that the building has holes in the walls and windows, holes through some parts of the floor, peeling paint, crumbling plaster, no electricity or lighting (or heat... COLD night), it never felt uncomfortable or threatening.

When in operation (1894-1960), "wards" (not called inmates) were 12-24 year old boys who would now go to a juvenile hall.  Back then, before the castle was built, the kids were being sent to Folsom Prison and San Quentin State Prison.... so it was a good thing that these kids had a less threatening place to go, once it was built.  Throughout the years of operation, a typical number of deaths occured on site, due to regular illnesses and injuries.  One or two due to gunshots obtained while trying to escape.  And in 1950, the head housekeeper Anna Corbin was beaten to death by a ward.  Despite a popular rumor, her killer was found, convicted, and sent to prison elsewhere.
For more history and pictures: http://www.prestoncastle.com/

One of my favorite places in the castle was "company b" room, a large dorm room for the wards.  While in here, we did receive a strong knock on the wall in response to talking about football.  I saw several shadows and movement that did not make sense based on the humans in the room and sources of light, but I have nothing to document this, so it's just a personal experience.

On the third floor in an old staff apartment, I witnessed something blocking out light coming through a hole in the wall.  No humans were in the area, and we were on the third floor, so it wasn't coming from outside, but again, this is just a personal experience.  We did, however, get some good response when asking the entity or entities to change the temperature.  It began to change rather quickly, and as we all watched the digits move on the thermometer we had, we heard a loud, distinct heavy breath.... the type you might hear when you are breathing out to purposely see your breath fog up when it is cold.  We did get a recording of this, and here it is:
(if you want to hear ANY of these EVPs properly, you will need a set of headphones, or at least some great speakers)

While still on the third floor, but in another room, I was asking for somebody to please knock, as a form of communication.  I got a clear, vulgar response, below.  

Let me clarify something first:  An EVP is an electronic voice phenomenon.... it is something you don't hear with your ears at the time it occurs (because it is theorized that spirits/ghosts/entities do not make sound waves, but communicate through electromagnetic fields, which CAN be picked up by digital recorders).  SO, I did not hear this when it happened:

Did you hear that?  I have had several people, including experienced EVP analysts, listen to it, and we all hear "F--- you"

Friendly guys there, don't ya think?

There were several other possible EVPs, but since there were about 15 people in the building, I don't really count on many of them being true and accurate.

I had my hair pulled while in Preston Castle (which I had been inviting them to do as a form of communication), and immediately stayed where I was and had someone else check all around and above me to make sure my hair hadn't just been caught on something that was moving. I was 2-3 feet from any walls, standing still, with nothing hanging anywhere near me.  Again, just a personal experience.   And there were footsteps in a debris-filled hallway that I could clearly see, and there were no humans causing the sounds - another personal experience since I don't have video to capture that.

All in all, Preston Castle was an awesome first exposure to paranormal investigations!

Historic Cary House Hotel- Placerville, CA - http://www.caryhouse.com/

The Cary House was interesting... I only investigated for a few hours at this location because it is still a hotel in operation, so we had to be quiet for the paying guests, and stop investigating altogether at 2am.  There was considerable shadow movement in some of the rooms were we did some EVP sessions, but that, AGAIN, is just a personal experience.  I did, apparently, make friends with one entity who was polite enough to say "hello":

And at another point, we were talking as if we were communicating with someone who might have worked there, since that is one theory on who, if anything, is 'hanging around" there at the Cary House, so we asked them if they worked there, and there is a quiet but distinct "yes":

And that's about it for the Cary House... nothing earth-shattering there.

I have my first out-of-town and overnight client case near Clear Lake this weekend, so that should be interesting.  I may or may not be able to share about that one, since it is for a client.  So stay tuned!  Thanks for reading!

Investigator-in-training

About 4 months after losing my Dad and my mother-in-law (both in April 2011), I woke at 2:33am to my dog growling.  He was standing on the foot of my bed, in a fully attentive stance with bristled back, growling at my bedroom doorway.  In the doorway was a man-shaped solid shadow.  No features, but solid black, darker that the open hallway behind it.  Immediately, all I thought of was my children who have bedrooms off the same hallway, and I hurdled myself out of bed at this "person".  But it dissolved in thin air as I reached it.  Only then, did it occur to me that I didn't have an actual human intruder, and contrary to how you might think I would react, I felt oddly at ease, now that I knew we weren't having a home invasion.  I checked the whole house, then went back to bed.  My husband had no idea what I had seen, and I didn't need to get into it at that time.  I told him the next morning, and he didn't say much, but did tell me he believed me.

There are a lot of written sources of information on the paranormal out there...
I have exhausted my local library system of their books (not many to start with),
and so many other books are just collections of stories of hauntings... which really doesn't give me much information to process or new things to learn.
Websites are, well, unreliable at best.  Entertaining for sure, but in the paranormal field, you could find anything out there and it could be fact or fiction.... just not what I am looking for.

If I really wanted to find more information and understanding, I needed to find a paranormal group in my area, and get involved.  This is a first-hand experience kind of thing, but not something you can do by yourself (and my husband and friends are all pretty creeped-out by the whole idea).

In the fall of 2011, I found a lecture offered by a respected non-profit ghost-hunting group in the Sacramento, CA area, and was SO impressed with their knowledge and level-headed approach to their client-based investigations.  I took notes at that lecture like an over-enthusiastic college student.  I stayed and asked questions. I learned a lot, including some recommended books, and respected figures in the paranormal field, historically and modern-day.  And they weren't accepting any member applications.  Pooh.  I tried to find another group in the area with the same non-profit status and ethical values as a group, but had no luck.

I tried to stay in contact with them, hoping to be available whenever they would take on new recruits, e-mailing, following their website and facebook page, and communicating with them.  Then a TAPS Academy lecture was scheduled nearby, and an investigation at Preston Castle (an old, closed-down reform school, an early version of juvenile hall for boys) afterward, and the group I wanted to break into was helping facilitate the event.  I signed up immediately.
Again, I learned a LOT at the lecture portion, including some intriguing quantum physics (and some recommended books on the subject, which are now on my nightstand).
But the investigation at Preston Castle was my first real investigation, and I was SO excited.  I did 8 hours of investigation that night, using my digital recorder and a K2 meter (to detect electro-magnetic field fluctuations, which can be man-made, natural, or also theoretically ghost-related).  I was exhausted, but also felt great... I was learning first-hand what I have been wanting to learn about.  And I needed to continue.

I started to e-mail the group, and finally "broke them down"... they were finally able to take on a new investigator, on a probationary basis.  I completed my application and crossed my fingers....

As part of the fall 2011 lecture, the group offered a recreational (as opposed to client-based) ghost hunt opportunity at a historic hotel in Placerville, CA, just a few weeks after TAPS Academy, and only a few days after I applied to the local group.  Lucky for me, they interviewed me and accepted me as their newest investigator when I arrived for that investigation.

To date, I have caught some interesting EVPs, and have felt and seen some things that I have no explanation for.  But I have also rationally explained some things that had others jumping or claiming "ooo... I think that was a ghost" too.  I like to debunk... find rational explanations for things.  Heck, it's in my genetics to just dissect things until I understand them, so debunking is second-nature.

I have a long way to go, but I finally feel like I'm on my way.
Thanks for following!

Always curious

As the adoring daughter of a mechanic, I grew up with an appreciation for rational explanations for things, basically always believing that, with enough tough research and willingness to dig, I could find easy explanations for anything that seemed strange at first.  Occam's Razor - the theory that "all things being equal, the simplest explanation is more likely than a complex one" is like poetry to me... absolute truth, and put so simply and beautifully.

At the same time, I have ALWAYS been in love with the fact that there are still undiscovered things on this planet (despite the overwhelming assumption that the human race has explored every exposed surface of the Earth - the collective human ego is ENORMOUS).
Despite the amazing advances in technology and exploration, we still don't know it all.  According to a 2011 New York Times article, scientists discover and catalog more than an estimated 15,000 new species every year.  According to NOAA (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) we have only explored 5% of the oceans, which account for over 71% of the Earth's surface.  Add to that, it is estimated that there are even still 100 uncontacted human tribes on Earth, mostly in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Peru.  There are vast areas that can only be reached on foot (and have not yet), and some of the mountainous areas of New Guinea and jungles of Africa and the Amazon have yet to be explored by civilization.  There are vast quantities of information about our own visible, tangible planet that we, as a human race, do not know or understand.  (Although you often hear less-educated people claim we, as a race, have explored everything except the deep ocean.)

That being said, how much research do you think has been aimed at trying to understand those things that cannot be easily seen or measured or understood?  Not much, until relatively recently.

My personality has always kept me open to other points of view... I've never felt that I know it all... there are always more things to learn.
I feel that the more educated you are, the more you are aware that you don't know anything.
SO, from an early age, I was open to the idea that there are "things" I can't see, but are truly there.  After all, energy is neither created nor destroyed - so where does human energy go when it does not have a body anymore?  It has to go somewhere...

All this curiosity and openness to learn more came to a screaming pitch, when in a span of 11 months in 2010 to 2011, I lost both my in-laws (who lived with us), and my own father, my stable rock, the rational mechanic/gardener who taught me so much and made me who I am today.  The loss of my own Dad at only 62 years old was sudden and unexpected and heartbreaking.  I had to learn more.  I had to know more.  And so here I am today.   


I know our loved ones are not far... but I would like to know more, and understand as much as I can from the living side of the equation.


(To be honest, my dad would shrug his shoulders and give it one of his mild-mannered characteristic chuckles if he were here alive today as I got into this field, but he would support me regardless.)


The existence of ghosts has yet to be proved or disproved (enough for EVERYONE) beyond the shadow of a doubt... I just know that there is more out there than what we can perceive with our basic senses.

A note to all those strict non-believers out there.... I am a skeptic. A skeptic is not a non-believer... it is simply a person who looks first for rational explanations.  Not every claim of paranormal activity is truly paranormal, and in all truth, most are not.  Most have other rational and natural explanations.
I am doing this because I want to find evidence if I can, and if I can't, I at least want to experience more.

To refer to one of my all-time favorite movies, Contact, based on a book by the same name by Carl Sagan, an AMAZING man:
When the theologian is talking to the scientist about the existence of a God or a greater power, the scientist argues that it's impossible for her to believe in something that cannot be proved.  The theologian asks "Did you love your Dad", and immediately she seems offended that he could even ask (because he died long ago, and she completely loves him), and she responds "yes." He responds "Prove it," which she, of course, cannot.

Some things may be true, but we may not be able to prove them.  We take love on faith....