Tag: Haunted House

“I Lived in a Haunted House”

“I Lived in a Haunted House”

Or, What Made me Believe in Ghosts

I’m not the kind of person who looks for evidence of the supernatural. I love to read and write about it. My favorite TV shows all have paranormal and supernatural themes (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf), but I never had a concrete stance on whether ghosts are real until I moved into a haunted house.

In 2008 my husband, our daughter, and I moved to Ogden, Utah into a sixty-plus-year-old home. We were native southern Californians and this was our first experience living in the Beehive State. My husband’s job transferred him to nearby Roy and we were excited to find a cheap house within fifteen minutes of his office.

The house has a main floor plus a full basement that can be used as a “grandma apartment” with its own kitchenette and bathroom, and an attic with two bedrooms and a bathroom. Though there were only three of us, it was perfect. We could have a playroom for our daughter, a rumpus room downstairs, and both my husband and I could have our own home offices. I loved it.

Haunted House
The basement is level with the car. The main floor is in brick. The attic is above that. The garages are in the back.

The first unusual experience happened almost immediately. At the rear of the property was an older garage with a much newer garage addition built onto the side. I adopted the older garage, but when we moved in it looked like it hadn’t been used in decades. It was coated with dust and cobwebs. Someone had dug their own mechanic’s pit into the ground and miscellaneous car parts and shop tools were rusting in drawers and cabinets. The first thing I did was cover the mechanic’s pit and clear out the space from top to bottom so I could park my car inside without being afraid of breathing in the Hanta virus.

Old Garage
What the garages looked like before we moved in. The old one is to the right. You can see part of the newer addition on the left.

After a rough day of cleaning I was standing in the doorway of the old garage and I saw a man behind me, to my right, on the edge of my peripheral vision. Scared that a nosy neighbor had snuck up on me, I spun around. No one was there.

My little girl is standing in the same spot I was when I saw someone who wasn't really there.
My little girl is standing in the same spot I was when I saw someone who wasn’t really there. The old garage is on the left. The newer one is to the right.

The kitchen on the main floor didn’t usually have any supernatural or scary vibes. But one day my three-year-old daughter and I returned to an empty house. With her in the lead, we rounded a corner into the kitchen. Something by the windows caught her eye and she called out, “Hi, ghost.”

I'm writing at the kitchen table in front of the windows where my daughter saw someone.
I’m writing at the kitchen table in front of the windows where my daughter saw someone.

There was no one in the house but us and I didn’t see anything. When I asked her what she’d seen to make her say that she didn’t want to talk about it.

My daughter is making a potion with her grandma while I cook dinner in front of the windows that spooked my little girl.
My daughter is making a potion with her grandma while I cook dinner in front of the windows that spooked my little girl.

The worst area of the house, though, was the attic. When we bought the property the previous owners, who’d only lived there two years, had been using the adorable attic bedrooms—with their hand built shelves, wood paneling, and sloping ceilings—as storage space. I couldn’t understand why!

As soon as we moved in I swept the two rooms and spread out my daughter’s impressive toy collection, made curtains for the windows, and lay down large play rugs. I couldn’t wait to spend hours of fun, imaginative play in there.

Except no one ever wanted to go up there.

The attic. Here is my daughter and her friend playing in the pirate ship playroom I made for her (complete with canvas sail and freestanding ship's wheel). This is the room my brother slept in. Once.
The attic. Here is my daughter and her friend playing in the pirate ship playroom I made for her (complete with canvas sail and freestanding ship’s wheel). This is the room my brother slept in. Once. See the light spot in the background?

One reason, which has nothing to do with the paranormal is, heat rises. During the summer the attic was the hottest level of the house. Beyond that, though, I always got a bad feeling up there. The stairs leading into the attic were narrow, steep, and covered in thick green carpet. I slipped on them at least a dozen times in the three years we lived there. My daughter fell so badly once, while carrying a play set down, that she still remembers it six years later. When I used those stairs I purposefully gripped the banister tight and planted my feet solidly on each step because it became an almost certainty that if I wasn’t paying attention I’d slip. Especially on the way down.

And the attic stairs were always cold. Winter or summer, it didn’t matter; they were colder than the rest of the house.

All those toys in the attic used to power on constantly and randomly. My daughter still has a lot of battery powered toys and I can honestly say, except for Zhu-Zhu pets that come on if something touches them, none of them power on by themselves. None. But in the attic, toys would sing and light up and talk without human interference all the time. We just got used to hearing the little piano start playing music, or the animatronic bear say, “I love you,” or the electronic book sing the Alphabet Song. At any time of the day or night.

When we had overnight guests I set them up in the attic. They would have privacy and their own bathroom. So when my brother came to stay for Thanksgiving I made a place for him in the attic. I didn’t say anything to him about the strange feelings I got up there because I didn’t think he’d believe me and I also didn’t want to influence him. Maybe it was just me.

Haunted House Edited
The red arrow points to the attic window of the room my brother slept in. The blue arrow points to my brother, yes, but also the front door I heard open and close from my spot in the basement below.

The next morning he described his night spent in my attic. First, the plastic vanity against the wall turned on and flashed its lights and played a bright, tinny melody. He hadn’t touched it, even by accident. Once he’d actually fallen asleep he said he woke up to a man bending over him, his twisted and angry face inches from my brother’s.

My brother wouldn’t sleep in the attic again after that. When he visited next time he slept on the pull-out couch in the basement and was much happier.

The final incident I can share happened over the summer when my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and nephew were visiting. Because it was hot we were all chatting in the rumpus room in the basement. We were directly under the main floor living room.

Keep in mind our house was older and had a lot of wood floors. It made noise—pops and creaks—all the time as it settled, expanded, and constricted in different temperatures. But that day I heard the front door open and close.  My husband always came home through that door, never the basement door, so I knew who it had to be. I remember leaning back my head onto the couch and following the sound of his footsteps as they crossed from the door to our bedroom on the other side of the house.

Excited, I announced, “Sounds like he’s home.” I rushed upstairs to greet him, but the house was empty. The front door was still locked. There was no car in the driveway except mine. There was no one there.

I still haven’t researched the property or its previous owners. Half of me is scared I’ll find nothing. The other half is afraid I’ll discover I was living in some hellish murder house. But I have never had any other supernatural experiences in any other home I’ve ever lived in, and because of my husband’s job I’ve lived in nine different homes since we got engaged.

By the time we moved away that adorable playroom in the attic I’d spent so much time decorating was being used for storage and no one ever went up there unless they had to.

<3 Anna

Haunted Hollywood Hills Home For Sale

Haunted Hollywood Hills Home For Sale

Fully Renovated–and Possibly Haunted–Hollywood Hills Home Asks $2.1 Million

Written by Elijah Chiland

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post.

When last we saw this 1925 Spanish-style residence in the Hollywood Hills, it was being sold in a state of significant disrepair—so much so that we wondered at the time if it could find a new owner willing to commit the time and expense necessary to restore it to its former glory.

Well, we’re pleased to say that four years later, the house is still standing—though the interior is barely recognizable. The current owner has thoroughly remodeled the place, leaving a few vintage windows and a handsome beamed ceiling in the living room as reminders of what once was.

Speaking of what once was, we should mention the house may be haunted.

Various reports of ghostly apparitions spotted at the residence throughout the years can be found in a few dark corners of the internet, and parapsychologist Barry Taff tells a documentary crew that he was once pelted with pennies that mysteriously fell from the ceiling when he visited the house in the 1970s.

 Outfitted with plenty of wide windows that give the place a light and airy feel, it doesn’t look very haunted in listing photos, but one never can tell.

The house has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Features include a fully renovated kitchen, fireplaces in the living room and office, three separate bedroom suites, and a tall entryway with an elegant, winding master stairwell.

The home sits on a 5,970-square-foot lot and includes numerous patios and decks that provide excellent views around the surrounding hills. It last sold in 2013 for just $700,000. Now, it’s listed for $2.095 million.

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<3 Anna

Haunted Casa Grande Domes

Haunted Casa Grande Domes

Crumbling, Iconic, Haunted? Future Uncertain for Casa Grande Domes

Written by Mariana Dale in June 2017

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post

About seven miles south of Casa Grande hulking mustard-colored domes rise up from the desert landscape like a scene from Star Wars’ Tatooine.

Built in 1982, they were meant to be the headquarters for an electronics manufacturer, but have since become a magnet for photographers, artists and hooligans.

“Virtually anyone who was raised in Casa Grande and went to high school or college here has partied out here,” said Dan Peer, the property’s owner.

The domes might not be an icon much longer.

Half of the largest dome collapsed last year. Pinal County asked the owner to have an engineer assess the domes’ safety or block them from public access. When he did not, the domes were condemned as unsafe, said spokesman Joe Pyritz in an email.

The owner is appealing the county’s decision and will have a hearing with the Board of Supervisors at a future date.

Abandoned, Broken, Haunted?

Peer starts a tour of the domes with a disclaimer.

“First comment is, you enter the grounds at your own risk.”

There’s a no trespassing sign, but the barbed wire fence has been trampled down.

“There are holes. There are unfinished foundations. There is rebar sticking up. There’s rocks, glass — you name it,” Peer said. “Don’t trip. Don’t get hurt. ”

The first dome was the closest to ever being finished. You can see the tiles where the bathroom would have been inside. Unlike the other structures, made of connected orb shapes, it’s shaped more like a flying saucer.

Graffiti ranging from clumsy tags to elaborate images of faces and animals cover the walls.

“We have some good artists in the area, no doubt about that,” Peer said as he gazed up at the walls.

A group of pigeons fly out of the domes as the tour continues.

The Travel Channel show “Ghost Adventures” featured the domes in an episode last March.

“This may be one of the most unusual, yet sinister places we’ve ever investigated in America,” the host claimed.

There were rumors of satanic rituals practiced beneath the arching concrete ceilings.

“There were satanic signs they tell me, but I wouldn’t even recognize them,” Peer, who appeared in the show, said.

A man of God, Peer said when he purchased the property, they exorcised any otherworldly presence.

“It is not haunted and Satan is not welcome here anymore,” Peer said.

‘A Unique Type Of Construction’

The domes were built in the 1980s as the headquarters for electronics manufacturer InterConn Technology.

Lonnie Mikkelsen was part of the construction crew and still lives in Casa Grande.

“I didn’t have a clue what they were doing,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, sign me on.’”

Maybe you’ve made a globe or piñata out of a balloon and papier-mâché. The process to build the domes was like that, but in reverse.

First a giant balloon-like tarp was attached at the foundation. Fans inflated the balloon and workers built the dome from the inside, first spraying the sides with polyurethane foam, then concrete reinforced with metal fibers and added rebar.

Interconn went under before the domes were completed and the property has sat vacant for years.

A protective white layer covering the foam has peeled away and the foam turns mustard yellow in the sun. The domes’ surface are pockmarked with handholds people use to climb to the top.

“I would have liked to see them make it just because it was a unique type of construction,” Mikkelsen said.

The company that built the domes on the other hand, still exists.

“So far we have constructed domes in every state in the union except one and in 52 foreign countries,” said Gary Clark, sales vice president at the Monolithic Dome Institute.

The tarp used to build the largest Casa Grande dome structure was re-configured and formed to shape for Monolithic’s manufacturing facility in Italy, Texas.

It’s called brucco, the Italian word for caterpillar.

Clark said before the recession in 2008, the company was creating more than 100 new domes a year for everything from schools, private residences and churches.

Monolithic touts the domes’ weather resistance, insulation and ergonomics.

“It’s very simple to say they are iconic,” Clark said.

Decrepit And Real, ‘It’s Honest’

The Casa Grande domes may not be an icon for much longer. Peer pointed out cracks and holes in the domes as we walk through the cavernous space. Some are no wider than a hand, others you can walk through.

“Concrete does have a tendency to crack anyhow, but none of these cracks are really structural,” Peer said.

He believes vandals caused the destruction, including the collapse of the largest dome. The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office reported there have been about 26 calls about the property since 2012 — 76 percent for trespassing.

“Is it really worth the trouble?”

Peer said sometimes he wonders. The property is for sale and has been for years.

“It’s a million-dollar property in little better shape than it is now,” Peer said. “Maybe in quite a bit better shape than it is now.”

For now, Peer occasionally rents the property to filmmakers and photographers, but many people still visit the domes without permission.

On the day of the tour with Peer, Patrick McPherson and his buddy from Phoenix are also exploring the domes.

He’s from South Carolina and read about the site online before visiting.

“There’s just something nice about, I don’t know, how decrepit and real it is. It’s honest.” McPherson said. “It would be a shame to lose this, I think.”

An LA-based artist that goes by Boots stenciled her poetry on the domes walls. Boots became enamored with abandoned places after a break-up from an  eight-year relationship.

“The domes, like other places I’ve explored, have their bad and good graffiti,” Boots said. “There’s artists you recognize and then kids tagging how much they hate their parents.”

Since she visited, several of her poems have been covered by spray paint.

“The domes are dreary, but have a sense of hope,” Boots said. “Their oddness alone is appealing: random domes in the middle of the desert that have become a tourist attraction.”

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<3 Anna

Is The Horse You Came In On Saloon Haunted?

Is The Horse You Came In On Saloon Haunted?

Or, Peek Into Baltimore’s Historic Haunted Saloon

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post

Exploring Baltimore’s Historic Haunted Dive — The Horse You Came In On

Written by Clint Lanier and Derek Hembree in 2017

There’s no controversy about which bar in Baltimore, Maryland is the oldest – the honor belongs to The Horse You Came In On.

Founded as a saloon (under a different name) in 1795, this bar has been quenching the thirst of sailors, shipbuilders, and all other kinds of miscreants since its opening. When it was founded at what is now called Fells Point, the port of Baltimore was an important shipping center for the young United States. Cargo from throughout the world arrived and offloaded here, including African slaves during the height of the American slave trade.

Originally, the bar was quite small with stables in the rear to keep horses while customers imbibed. Its legacy, then, is as a saloon rather than a respectable tavern of the day (like Gadsby’s Tavern down in Alexandria, Virginia). This is fitting considering its proximity to the dock and the type of clientele it saw.

The current name of the joint draws from this legacy. Howard Gerber bought the place in 1972 and changed the name from Al and Ann’s to The Horse You Came In On. He then got a friend to dress up like a cowboy and ride a horse into the bar on opening day. That pretty much sums up what this place is like – funny and fun with an odd sense of humor, but always keeping an eye to the past.

When you walk inside, the first thing you notice is just how damned big the place is. Years ago the owners expanded the bar by replacing the area in the back that housed the stables with three brand new bars, including a tequila bar and a bar with more of a Tex-Mex sort of feel.

The small bar at the front entrance is the authentic 18th century saloon. The furniture and décor are new, but as Rob Napier, the long-serving manager and bartender told us, after 200 years of service things will get updated. He pointed out the tin ceiling, which was probably added in the 1800s, and the electric lines added in the 1900s. Things change.

But not necessarily everything. We think the atmosphere is probably about like it was back when it was founded. It’s energetic but comfortable, bawdy but thoroughly enjoyable. The live music, played 7 days a week, can get a bit loud, but not so much that you can’t have a conversation across the table. It’s easy to see yourself here back in 1849, having a drink at the bar with your friends. And if you had been there then you might have noticed a local, down and out writer having a drink before walking out into the night.

That writer would have been none other than Edgar Allen Poe. You see, this bar was the last bar he would have passed on the way to his house, and so he was known to frequent the place. It’s thought, in fact, that this was the last place he drank before being found on the night of October 3, 1849, deliriously wandering the streets of Baltimore. He died four days later.

It’s Poe, in fact, that Rob tells us is the ghost that causes so much havoc at The Horse. They typically refer to him as “Edgar,” and even Rob, who says he was never really a believer in the supernatural, has had his run in with the spirit. He told us that late one night, as he was closing up with another bartender, they went to lock the front door when suddenly, a beer mug sitting on top of the bar shattered into a pile of broken glass for no reason at all. Rob turned to see a look of terror on his bartender’s face and so asked him what was wrong. The bartender took out his phone and showed Rob a picture he took the night before. It was of a shattered beer mug that exploded in the exact same place on the bar just as he was closing up. Needless to say, Rob is now a believer.

The Horse has a full bar and can whip up just about anything you can order, but they are known for their Jack Daniels and tequila programs. They infuse their own cinnamon, honey and green apple Jack Daniels. They also have a Jack Daniels bottle program where you can buy a whole bottle, leave it there, and then drink off it until empty. They also infuse tequilas and have a huge selection of the smoky, agave-based spirit at their tequila bar.

Lastly, they do have a full kitchen and a great selection of pub grub. We tried the crab and cheese soft pretzel and the street tacos, and we’d definitely recommend either one.

If you visit Baltimore, don’t miss the historic Fells Point, with its 19th century cobblestone streets and historic buildings. And, of all the places to visit, make it a point to have a drink at The Horse You Came In On. Order an Old Fashioned or local beer, raise a toast to Edgar Allen Poe, and drink in some history!

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<3 Anna

Family Searching for Nanny in Their Haunted House

Family Searching for Nanny in Their Haunted House

Nanny Sought for Haunted House in the Scottish Borders

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post

Five nannies in the past year have blamed their departure on spooky happenings in the “haunted” house.

The alleged incidents have included strange noises and moving furniture.

The family have not experienced any “supernatural happenings” themselves but are happy to pay above the asking rate to find the right person.

The couple, who have two children aged five and seven, are advertising the position on Childcare.co.uk, a social networking platform for parents, childcare providers and private tutors.

The successful candidate will have their own room with en-suite bathroom and private kitchen in the family home, a “lovely, spacious, historic property in a remote spot with spectacular views”.

However, the live-in nanny will sometimes be alone in sole charge for up to four nights per week while the parents work away.

The advert said: “We have lived in our home for nearly 10 years.

“We were told it was ‘haunted’ when we bought it, but kept our minds open and decided to buy the house regardless.

“Five nannies have left the role in the last year, each citing supernatural incidents as the reason, including strange noises, broken glass and furniture moving.”

It said that had resulted in a “period of great upheaval” for the children.

“We haven’t personally experienced any supernatural happenings, as they have been reported only while we’ve been out of the house, but we’re happy to pay above the asking rate, and feel it’s important to be as up-front as possible to find the right person,” the advert continued.

“We are keen to find the perfect long-term nanny, so if you’d like to be considered for this rewarding and exciting position, please do get in touch with us.”

‘Genuine position’

They are offering a salary of £50,000 gross per year and 28 days holiday, plus bank holidays.

Richard Conway, founder of Childcare.co.uk, told the Daily Mirror: “When we saw the advert we were stunned.

“Some of the guys at HQ were sceptical but after talking to the family and their previous employees we realised it was a genuine position.

“We have hundreds of thousands of providers on the site and we’re hoping that one of them will be able to help them.

“We’ve had some weird and wonderful families find childcare providers through the site, however I think this is probably the most interesting story we’ve heard.

“The family has assured us that no harm has come to anyone living in the house, however the nanny will have to have a strong disposition!”

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<3 Anna

Is an Oswego Spirit Haunting the NY Governor’s Mansion?

Is an Oswego Spirit Haunting the NY Governor’s Mansion?

Or, Take A Peek Into The Haunted Mansion

Is an Oswego Spirit Haunting the NY Governor’s Mansion?

Written by Steve Yablonski in June 2017

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post

Is Gov. Andrew Cuomo being haunted by the ghost of a former Port City pastor?

At some recent public events, the governor has taken to playfully discussing spooky happenings at the Executive Mansion, his 160-year-old Eagle Street home.

He claims he doesn’t believe in ghosts, the noises the mansion makes in the dark of night still “creep him out.”

“It’s me alone when I’m in the house because my family’s in Westchester,” Cuomo said in an interview with the Albany Times Union early last month, alluding to the home he shares downstate with his partner, Sandra Lee. “The kids are in school. So it’s me alone. There are stories that this house is haunted. Now, I don’t believe in ghosts, and I’m a big tough Italian guy. But I’ll tell you – it gets creepy in that house and there are a lot of noise that go on and you are very alone.”

Perhaps he is being visited by Gov. Charles Evans Hughes’ father.

The elder Hughes died in the Executive Mansion in December 1909, “following a recent stroke of apoplexy,” according to the New York Times.

Whether there were any other deaths in the mansion before it came into the state’s possession in 1877 is unknown. At the very least, none were recorded.

A native of Wales, the 77-year-old arrived in the United States in 1855 and preached at churches in Oswego, Brooklyn, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to his obituary.

The Reverend David C. Hughes was the pastor of the West Baptist Church on the corner of West Third and Mohawk streets in Oswego, according to Justin White, president of the Oswego County Historical Society.

The church was an offshoot of the First Baptist Church, which was located on the east side in Washington Square.

The West Baptist Church was formed in 1853, but the current church that stands today was built in 1867.

“Half the cost was financed by Thomas Kingsford, which allowed for a more substantial ornate church,” White said. “It was designed by Andrew Jackson Warner of Rochester, who also designed the Richardson-Bates House and the Oswego Ladies Home.”

Rev. Hughes was the pastor during the construction of the “new” church and was the pastor from 1866 to 1869.

“Ministers often traveled from one church to another and did not stay in one place for long,” White said. “The building of a new church would have been an important legacy.”

What makes this even more interesting is that he was the father of the Hon. Charles Evan Hughes, who had an equally amazing life, he added.

“He was the Governor of New York State, the Secretary of State under President Harding and then Chief Justice of Supreme Court under President Hoover. He also ran for president in 1915,” White said.

Charles Hughes was a child when he lived in Oswego; started school in the Port City and became a “scholar” of the church Sunday school.

“When the stained class memorial windows replaced the original windows in the church by Haskin Glass Studios of Rochester, Hughes donated one the called “Gethsemane” in memory of his father for his time in Oswego at the minister of West Baptist Church,” White said.

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<3 Anna

Does Jared Leto Live in a Haunted House?

Does Jared Leto Live in a Haunted House?

Jared Leto’s Haunted House?

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post

Jared Leto’s house is haunted.

The ‘Suicide Squad’ actor lives in a converted Air Force base in the Hollywood Hills and believes the estate is inhabited by ghosts.

He told the latest issue of ES magazine: “God knows what they did here, but it talks. We’ve already had ghost sightings reported by my housekeeper. A handyman quit the project as he had an encounter. But I feel quite at home up here. It’s like a refuge. You’re at the top of this mountain. There’s this breeze coming through. It’s hard to leave.”

And Jared, 45, also revealed he believes in Singularity, the theory that technological advances will lead to machines that are smarter than human beings and that man and technology will eventually merge.

He said: “It’s far away but I don’t think it’s science fiction. I think it’s reality. Haven’t you had that thing, where you dream something and it sort of … happens? It’s inevitable that will happen at some point. You’d have to be a monkey not to see that. The difference between ourselves and our technology will be hard to decipher and determine.

“I mean, this is a long time in the future, but we are going to become an interplanetary species. Culture and society will advance. And we will become indistinguishable from the technology that gets us there. If you refuse, you are going to be left behind in the Dark Ages. You won’t even be able to talk to people, you’ll be grunting compared to the language that they speak.”

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<3 Anna

Radiohead Recorded Album in Haunted House

Radiohead Recorded Album in Haunted House

Radiohead Talk Recording “OK Computer” in a Haunted House

Written by Luke Morgan Britton in May 2017

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post

Radiohead have recalled working on their classic album ‘OK Computer’ in a haunted house, speaking in a new interview to mark the 20th anniversary of their seminal record.

The band recently announced the 20th anniversary reissue of their classic album ‘OK Computer’. Originally released in 1997, ‘OK Computer’ was largely recorded at St Catherine’s Court in Bath between 1996 and early 1997.

Speaking of the Somerset manor house where the likes of The Cure and New Order have also recorded, guitarist Jonny Greenwood has told Rolling Stone that “people were always hearing sounds” in the house.

Frontman Thom Yorke added: “Ghosts would talk to me while I was asleep. There was one point where I got up in the morning after a night of hearing voices and decided I had to cut my hair.” The singer described how he proceeded to attempt to cut his hair with “the little scissors on a penknife” and “cut myself a few times. It got messy. I came downstairs and everyone was like, ‘Uh, are you all right?’ I was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ Phil very gently took me downstairs and shaved it all off.”

Elaborating on his psyche during the making of ‘OK Computer’, Yorke said: “I was basically catatonic. The claustrophobia – just having no sense of reality at all… I was getting into the sense of information overload, which is ironic, really, since it’s so much worse now.”

“The paranoia I felt at the time was much more related to how people related to each other,” he added. “But I was using the terminology of technology to express it. Everything I was writing was actually a way of trying to reconnect with other human beings when you’re always in transit. That’s what I had to write about because that’s what was going on, which in itself instilled a kind of loneliness and disconnection.”

“Back then,” Yorke recalled, “the person I saw in the mirror kept saying, ‘You’re shit. Everything you do is shit. Don’t do that. It’s shit.’ ”

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<3 Anna

Redlands, CA is the Ultimate Haunted Town

Redlands, CA is the Ultimate Haunted Town

Or, A Southern California Haunted Hotspot

You can read the full article below or click here for the original post

The Ultimate Ghost Town

Written by Manny Sandoval

The City of Redlands is deemed to be one of the most haunted towns in America.

From apparitions of a boy swinging on a swing at Mariposa Elementary School, to hearing footsteps run across the stage at Prospect Park to an even more frightening demonic face that appears inside The Barton Mansion. There is no doubt that Redlands is the ultimate city to ghost hunt.

Redland’s Mariposa Elementary school is filled with happy students by day, but at night its known to be extremely quiet, dark and eerie.

The City of Redlands is deemed to be one of the most haunted towns in America. From apparitions of a boy swinging on a swing at Mariposa Elementary School, to hearing footsteps run across the stage at Prospect Park to an even more frightening demonic face that appears inside The Barton Mansion. There is no doubt that Redlands is the ultimate city to ghost hunt. Redland’s Mariposa Elementary school is filled with happy students by day, but at night its known to be extremely quiet, dark and eerie.

Barton House

In the 1950s a boy named Billy was happily riding a bike and was suddenly hit by a bus in front of the school.

Although Billy later died at a nearby hospital, many claim that he still wanders the school grounds.

It has been reported in several different cases that if you knock on the nurse’s office door, someone will knock back. There have also been reports of Billy rocking the swings back and forth, from time to time.

“I visited Mariposa Elementary school with my older sister and her boyfriend when I was about 15 years old,” said Arnie Lopez, San Bernardino resident. “It was a Friday night and we went to knock on the office door/nurses door and sure enough, something knocked back. I never ran so fast in my life.”

School officials claim that there is no paranormal activity going on whatsoever, which is understandable when you do not want the public trespassing the school grounds in the wee hours of the night.

“I have been to Mariposa Elementary and knocked on the nurse’s door at midnight, and the AC clicks on and the door is vacuumed in and knocks back,” said Yucaipa resident, Rob Thorpe.

“I use to run around Kimberly Crest and Prospect Park making the security guards chase my friends and me, while running from the guard, someone reached out one of the orange trees as I passed and grabbed a hold of me, and it was NOT one of the people I was with. Scared the living poo out of me,” continued Thorpe.

Speaking of Prospect Park, this is also another blood-curdling location that ghosts’ often tend to be seen or heard at.

Prospect Park is one of the oldest and largest parks in California, located on the hillside of Redlands, also known by locals as ‘Sunny-side Redlands.’

Orange grove

In 2013, a man was arrested for raping and murdering a woman, and afterward, her dead body was discovered in the park.

It has also been a popular hangout and sleeping spot for the homeless; which even more dead bodies have been reported from time to time.

Prospect Park is also thought to be a prime location for Satan worshipers to gather at night according to aboutredlands.com.

The most popular tale in regards to this park is about an 11-year-old girl named Lee Ann who was walking home from Kingsbury Elementary school and was abducted while taking a short cut through the rugged orange groves.

She was later found dead, naked, and thrown under the stage in the middle of Prospect Park.

Prospect Park

“I had an eerie experience at Prospect Park. The street lights were all flickering and I heard footsteps and items falling or banging from backstage of the theater,” said Elizabeth Dillon, Redlands resident.

Although many people claim to experience supernatural activity at this park, others do not seem to have the same luck.

“My friends and I visited the park last year and nothing happened, it’s just really creepy at night. You can easily trick yourself into hearing or seeing a thing,” said Los Angeles resident, Joel Morris.

Although some people’s experiences are a laughing matter, when multiple people spot the same demonic face throughout an old Victorian mansion, that is a totally different story.

The Barton Mansion is also known to have been a popular meet up spot for Satan worshipers.

There are also claims that this home was built on top of ancient Native American burial grounds.

Also, the home once served as an insane asylum and a prison.

Today The Barton Mansion serves as a law office.

The Mansion was built in the 1860s and became a hot spot after paranormal investigators posted a video of their findings online in the early 2000s.

The video investigation can be found on YouTube, by simply typing, ‘Barton Mansion’ in the search bar.

In the video, the group of paranormal investigators is investigating the home, when moments later they encounter and capture an apparition of a demon.

There has been much debate as to whether the video is real or not.

“People have reported an intense feeling of being watched by a very unwelcoming source. Disembodied voices have been heard and shadowy figures have been seen darting up and down the staircase,” according to hauntedplaces.org.

Now, whether you believe in the unknown and you are looking to encounter the paranormal, or if you feel that all of these reported incidents are totally bogus, dig deeper, do your research, and maybe visit one of our top three Haunted Redlands locations: if you dare.

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An Account of a Night in a Haunted Hotel

An Account of a Night in a Haunted Hotel

Or, Do You Believe In Ghosts?

Click here to see the original article or scroll down to read the whole story.

The Mirror in the Last Haunted Hotel

Written by Benjamin Radford in 2017

It was just before two in the morning; the place smelled old and I wasn’t much fresher. I stood quiet and still, alone at the top of the carpeted stairs in one of the most famous Old West–related haunted houses in America: the St. James Hotel in the small town of Cimmarron. It’s in northern New Mexico not far from the Colorado state line.

The historic hotel, built in 1872 as the Lambert Inn, was a prominent stopover for various gold-fevered prospectors and assorted ne’er-do-wells headed west. A parade of rooming outlaws and lawmen added to the hotel’s legend, including Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Annie Oakley. Jesse James was said to favor room 14, for example, and today most of the rooms are named for the gunslinging celebrity who allegedly quartered there.

The two-story St. James has kept maintenance in that historic part of the hotel to a bare minimum; the wallpaper is peeling, the doors are scratched, the blood-red carpet and wooden floors are worn. There are modern rooms on the property, but if you want a taste of the Old West and to imagine what it was like to stay there in the 1800s, it’s about as close as you’re going to get. Most of the furniture is antique—or at least quasi-antique—if not from that exact era, with allowances made for modern fire code regulations and minor amenities. A large mirror sits near the top of the stairs. Despite its pocked and blistered silvering, it is in good shape for its age and has surely held the reflections of countless farriers and farmers, harlots and handymen, gunslingers and ghost hunters who roomed there.

The bar of the St. James Hotel.

I’d spent much of the past eighteen hours investigating the grounds, interviewing people, doing historical research at the local library, photographing the area, cataloging claims, reviewing evidence, and taking notes. I’d spent much of the past eighteen years doing more or less the same thing in dozens of other supposedly spooky locations in North America and around the world. Though approaching each new mystery with an open mind and a boyish investigative eagerness to find ghosts and solve mysteries, I had to admit, in this hotel and at this late hour, to a certain numbness, a discouraged cumulative emotional and intellectual exhaustion with evidence that never seemed to improve, no matter the location, reputation, or particulars. It’s a sea of teasing second- and third-hand stories seemingly accepted as self-evident documentary evidence, a litany of twice-told tales “confirmed” by psychic visions, “feelings,” and sciencey Radio Shack beepy things.

I’d seen mirrors in many supposedly haunted locations associated with some ghostly lore—though I hadn’t come across any tales at the St. James related to that particular mirror—and I’d seen cases where mirrors played a role in explaining some ghost sightings. I was curious to see if there were any odd reflections one might mistake for a ghostly image that could be created by a camera flash. I took a handful of test photos, including a few of myself in the mirror. As the sharp click of the shutter faded and the flash burst slowly left my eyes, I met my mirrored gaze and grew, pardon the word, reflective.

I’d paced the decaying halls for an hour searching for any unusual or (seemingly) supernatural phenomenon. As my mind wandered, I wondered what I should look for. I’d read and heard about specific scary events at the St. James (of varying degrees of credibility), but none had manifested themselves to my skeptical eye or equipment. Many of those ghost stories were anonymous anecdotes from a time before the area had electricity—century-and-a-half-old reports of ghostly goings-on, vengeful spirits, and murderous mayhem, all clearly rooted in folklore.

I wondered what would genuinely frighten me. As a longtime movie buff (and the director of two short films), I have developed an eye for how directors and cinematographers frame their shots. TV and film scenes are a series of carefully composed images. A scene’s lighting, camera angle, color, actor blocking (positioning), focus, and many other elements are carefully considered and chosen to achieve a specific effect and reaction from an audience: suspense, surprise, humor, and so on.

It was likely much easier to be scared in the years before the light of science chased the shadows from the dark corners of the world. Our (Western) forefathers lived not so long ago in a world populated by unseen malevolent spirits such as fairies, vampires, and witches. Fear has its roots in the unknown, and as more and more is known about the world around us (ranging from mapping remote lands to understanding germ theory), it stands to reason that the world becomes less and less frightening. Fearsome monsters once rumored to roam South America and Africa or lurk in the murky depths of the oceans are now known not to exist. There is of course a cryptozoology-influenced middle ground, but most modern monsters are all too human and largely created by the news media: school shooters, candy-bearing pedophiles, foreign terrorists, and so on. We have become passive consumers of other people’s interpretations and depictions of what we fear—or are expected to fear—and much of that is visual.

The haunted hallway in the St. James Hotel.

This careful staging for visual clarity and maximum effect is most obvious in scenes where actors are sitting around a dinner table and are carefully positioned so that none have their back fully to the camera or are blocking other actors. Once you begin to notice it, it’s hard to miss the family or group unnaturally sitting around a table in a C-shaped semicircle so that the camera can see what they’re doing. By recognizing (and trying to strip away) the artificial cinematic conventions of ghosts, demons, and the supernatural from our expectations about the real world, we can try to imagine what agenuinely supernatural experience might be like. There is no reason to expect that genuinely supernatural creatures or entities would hew closely to our mass-media-mediated expectations of them.

As I stood at the top of the stairs, I tried to picture what I might see in the mirror in one of the region’s most famous haunted houses that might startle or frighten me—something that would nudge the needle of my internal Skeptometer into the Believer zone, no matter how slightly or briefly. Like many people, I endorse the famous X-Files phrase “I Want to Believe.” I do want to believe—but more so I want to know; belief by itself is cheap, as cheap and transient as doubt. What’s important is understanding the reasons and evidence that make a claim plausible or dubious. I wanted something real, something profound and soul-shaking and unmistakable, to occur. Not some later-noticed and tortuously enhanced small flash reflection orb in the corner of some photo, one mild “anomaly” among hundreds. Not some ambiguous dark blur or “shadow figure” whose origin as a long exposure is obvious to photographers and skeptics (but apparently few others).

No, I wanted something real, something both intellectually and emotionally compelling, something I hadn’t seen dozens of times before. Something that would make me question reality, make me doubt my experience-informed, science-based, heretofore generally negative conclusions about the quality of the evidence for ghosts.

I didn’t want to let my imagination run wild—after all, it was dark and so late it was early, and I was tired. I’d had a long drive and not enough coffee. I was all too familiar with the dynamics of psychological priming and suggestion at spooky locations, certainly enough to know that I’m not immune to it. As Richard Feynman sagely noted, a cardinal rule of science is that “you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Still, as my heavy-lidded gaze slowly shifted from spot to spot around the mirror, changing focus in the sickly yellowish glow cast by hallway light bulbs, a few visions came into my head. Bloody Mary was the most obvious, the most famous mirror-based ghost story. I pictured her suddenly appearing in the silvered gleam and reaching out toward my face with the classic, dramatic cliché of a pallid outstretched hand and filthy, cracked nails preparing to exact revenge upon the living—me, in this case, I assume—for daring to summon her.

Or maybe, I mused, like the Hispanic ghost La Llorona—and as in Kubrick’s The Shining—she’d appear as a beautiful woman before suddenly turning terrifying. Or would the ghost be closer to Sadako (Ringu), the long-maned Japanese girl who might climb out of the mirror and slowly, inexorably crawl toward me over the worn wooden floor in muted blue cathode-ray light of unknown origin?

I sought a pure, genuinely foreign experience, something unmistakably supernatural that could not be the product of a tired mind, a mild hallucination, or a half-forgotten memory of a scary film scene. It makes sense that our primal fears draw from our familiar bodies and lives, of course; Stephen King understands this and has mined deep fears from the ordinary for decades. If cats feared ghosts, those feline phantoms would surely have tails and walk on all fours; a cat skull—not a human one—would haunt their fervid nightmares.

No matter how deeply I mined my memories or imagination, all the scary, ghostly images I could conjure came from movies: the swarming luminous semi-transparent skeletal wraiths in Raiders of the Lost Ark; the creepy demonic face pushing though a flexible opaque fabric on the poster of Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners; the glimpse of a homeless subway rider’s rat-like tail in Jacob’s Ladder; and so on. Over and over when I tried to picture a real ghost, a genuine spirit of the undead, I drew not from my own personal subjective fears or experiences but from those of other people—and even those were not genuine but completely artificial computer-generated images carefully rendered and constructed by talented visual effects artist strangers. They didn’t know me; they didn’t know my personal fears. They were creating and dispensing memetic fear widgets that I had absorbed and internalized.

These were not organic fears summoned from the depths of my dark unconscious.

These were images created commercially by humans specifically for the purpose of scaring other humans—often using tired tropes such as skeletons (which honestly have never scared me; bones don’t frighten me because they prevent me from collapsing in a soft fleshy lump).

Those were the obvious Hollywood camera-friendly ghosts. But in my years of investigating, I’d never seen anything even close to resembling those. The best “ghost” videos were either fakes (occasionally clever but more often fairly obvious) or so ambiguous as to be close to worthless (reflections in windows, unnoticed long exposures, and so on). There’s no bell curve distribution to quality ghost evidence; instead it’s more of a pyramid shape, with the vast majority of ghost photos being of very poor quality, and the most compelling mysteries very rare.

I watched and waited, studying my reflection. I was tired. I felt as old and faded as the wallpaper.

I felt each minute standing silently in front of the old mirror.

I felt each hour at the hotel.

I felt each year doing the same investigations at dozens of places just like it, looking behind closed doors for spooks that weren’t there.

The search for some ghostly sign, the interviews with believers, the countless fruitless photos and videos and Rorschach EVPs—all that seemed to amount to nothing more than sound and fury: a handful of shadow, a fistful of rain.

As those thoughts lazily wandered through my mind, I returned to the moment and focused on my reflection again.

I sighed and finally gave up. There was nothing for me here or anywhere else I searched. I decided to end it. I was done. I took one last long look in the silver-pocked mirror on the second floor of the haunted St. James hotel and went to bed. Despite a lumpy bed in an old hotel, I slept better than I had in years.

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