Red Tash's Blog, page 263
October 16, 2011
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Punkin Day!
Off to select ours for the year. :)
Speaking of...
Punkin Day!
Off to select ours for the year. :)
Speaking of punkins, don't forget to enter the Trick or Treat Bash, which ends Sunday! Your time! It runneth out! If you don't win a free Kindle, tons of novels, amazon gift cards, and the envy of all your bookish friends, don't blame me. You gotta play to win, mon frere. ;)
This video was done by the ghost hunters, thusly, the typos and...
This video was done by the ghost hunters, thusly, the typos and interesting spellings are not mine. Watch what happens, judge for yourself.
October 13, 2011
Your opinion needed
Stay tuned for a video by one of the ghost hunters, tomorrow...
Stay tuned for a video by one of the ghost hunters, tomorrow morning…
While you're waiting, why don't you enter my Kindle giveaway, the Red Tash Trick or Treat Bash? Only 3 days left to enter.
Or check out my books on Amazon. Rated 4 stars and above.
Portrait of an articulated skeleton on a bentwood chair by Powerhouse Museum Collection on Flickr.
Part two of two of my story on a local ghosthunt continues...
Part two of two of my story on a local ghosthunt continues below. Read part one here.
Local paranormal group investigates Montrose Mansion
Steve Lasley, of Palmyra, isn't in a hurry to talk to ghosts, but on this night at the Montrose Mansion, he might not have a choice.
"I'm out to prove it's not haunted," he says of the huge structure, through a modest smile.
He doesn't seem afraid, just interested — and perhaps somewhat amused at the goings on
Still, there is good rapport between himself and Randy Verleen, co-founder of Southern Indiana Regional Paranormal Society, or SIRPS, a group invited on a September night to investigate Stratto's banquet facility and former Italian restaurant along Lewis & Clark Parkway. Verleen, a retired Department of Correction employee from Charlestown, believes in speaking aloud to spirits and asking them for signs of their presence.
The investigators set up equipment and test the noise levels of the house, then they set about taking digital photographs, electromagnetic frequency, or EMF, readings, and recording electronic voice phenomenon — EVPs. When Verleen photographs a blurry object in a downstairs mirror, Lasley approaches the mirror with a flashlight and observes that the mirror has streaks of glass cleaner on it, nothing more.
Verleen doesn't seem convinced, but it's evident there is room for dissenting opinions within the team of researchers.
Although ghost-hunting equipment doesn't necessarily come in a starter kit, the team discusses such items as ambient temperature gauges, what kinds of cameras they use and the various EMFs they are getting.
To a rookie, it may not appear to be rocket science, but neither does it seem quite so simple, either. As they record the night's proceedings and hope to make contact, they already know that hours will be spent in the coming week poring through digital photos, video tape and electronic recordings.
Orbs, phantom movements and even EVPs are the proof they will seek from the night's work. It's going to be a long night, perhaps —but a passion for exploring the unknown and for helping others drives them.
Wanda Vest, of New Albany, co-founded the group in 2007.
"Obviously, we know that everything we 'know' about the paranormal is only theory," says Vest.
Verleen explains more about the EMF readings.
"The theory is that entities, spirits, ghosts — all of those type things that people are trying to find — give off energy. It's loose energy, not directed energy like electricity. They may use it to communicate sometimes."
Verleen continues. "The youngest member of our group will hold the switch on, while he's doing a reading, and explain to the entities exactly what it is and what it can do. He'll advise the entity to touch it once for yes, and twice for no."
Are these EMF devices made just to reach out and touch a friendly ghost?
"Some are made to check for radiation leaks from a microwave or a cell phone," explains Vest.
"Electromagnetism can cause paranoia, make you feel like someone is watching you," said Verleen. "Basement wiring often isn't as insulated as the rest of the house — that's why people get creeped out in their basements or in their attics. Some rooms are so bad they're known as 'fear cages' because the EMFs are so high."
Vest adds: "Those are particularly high rooms — if the meter goes to nine, that's bad. It creeps you out, and you probably shouldn't spend much time in there.
"If it goes as high as 23, people might see things in the room. Your brain runs on electric impulses," she explains.
And what if a room registers high, but someone in it doesn't get creeped out?
"Think of it like poison ivy," says Vest. "Not everyone's sensitive to it. Some people can be around it and not catch it, but others will."
And what about the ghostly orbs posted so frequently around the Internet? Would the photojournalist's camera find the same activity the paranormal researchers would catch with their picture-takers? The SIRPS team isn't sure.
"Wanda's definitely a nonorb person," says Verleen. He continues with another local ghost story. "We found an orb at Tunnel Mill with a face once."
Lasley elaborates. "It was coming toward us, and we couldn't see it without the camera."
"We could see it in the captured image only — not through the viewfinder," explains Verleen.
Are orbs proof of spirits? "I've done lots of tests with spray bottles and dust, and I can't duplicate the effect," explains group skeptic, Lasley.
Vest still dissents. "I believe it's dust, mist a bug — something natural."
"The longer you look in it, the more you see in it, though," says Lasley.
"There's only one orb I believe was real," Vest confesses. "I could feel my hair being moved once while a photo was taken, and an orb showed up right on my hair.
"That was at Pigeon Roost in Henryville, where some Indians slaughtered settlers. Orbs were moving around Randy while we were talking."
What about other local ghost stories? "Ten Penny Bridge in Charlestown is a myth," says Verleen. According to legend, if you set 10 pennies on the bridge's rail, the spirit of a ghost will either scatter them off the bridge, or they will otherwise disappear.
"Steve and I went there and tried it —it didn't work," Verleen said
How about the rumored "druids" near the Old Brick Church Cemetery outside Sellersburg?
"You will see what they call 'shadow people' if you go," says Vest. "They only show up as blackness."
"Long capes and hats," adds Lasley.
Back at the Montrose, this journalist experiences no shadow people and sees no one made of vapor. In one of the downstairs dining rooms, however, a dizzying sensation overtakes me, and my vision goes blurry in my right eye for more than a few seconds.
"Yes, there are lots of dizzy spots in this house," Vest says matter-of-factly. According to "Ghost Hunting," a book by Loyd Auerbach, spots in a house that give multiple people dizzy spells or headaches could be a sign of high electromagnetic field activity because of faulty wiring — or it could be paranormal activity.
We left the hunt shortly thereafter, and SIRPS shared their research with me the following week. After sorting through about 150 photos, videos and audio recordings, this journalist has only found a few pieces of evidence that seemingly defy explanation.
A night-vision camera stationed at the front door of the restaurant catches movement rising up in front of the door. At first appearing to be some sort of reflection outside on the street, the movement continues upward on the inside of the left-hand side of the door.
In a separate voice recording, a man's voice seems to whisper something that sounds like "she's lost." While no expert, this reporter does have audio software, and to test this particular recording, she amplified it to the point where human voices on the tape are obviously greatly distorted.
When other suggested EVPs were put to this test, they degraded. This particular recording, though, still seems to be saying "she's lost," with high amplification. (Visit the related link in the Web site information box)
As far as the many photos of orbs in the Montrose's attic are concerned, there is no hard proof that orbs indicate anything other than plastic lenses in near vicinity to a camera's flash. Orbs are pretty easily explained away on various Web sites devoted to debunking their value.
And although there is a tape of a flashlight dimming and brightening during the ghost hunt, corroded battery connections will cause the same effect in most flashlights. Does that mean it wasn't the ghost of John McCulloch — the home's original owner — playing with the light? Watch the video and decide for yourself. (Visit the related link in the Web site information box)
"I've personally never seen, experienced, smelled or felt anything supernatural in that place," says Walker McCulloch, John McCulloch's grandson. "But my father swore up and down the place was haunted, as did my uncle.
"And once, I was told that a customer at the restaurant [Stratto's] saw an older man coming down the steps of the main staircase with a little boy, during restaurant hours. What most people don't know is that John McCulloch did have a son who died at a very young age. Anything's possible."
Stay tuned for ghostly video…
October 12, 2011
Part two of my journalistic ghost-hunting adventure arrives...
Part two of my journalistic ghost-hunting adventure arrives tomorrow morning…
While you're waiting, why don't you enter my Kindle giveaway, the Red Tash Trick or Treat Bash? Only 4 days left to enter.
Or check out my books on Amazon. Rated 4 stars and above.
Part one of two:
Things go bump in the night at old Montrose ...
Part one of two:
Things go bump in the night at old Montrose Mansion
Originally printed in the New Albany Tribune and The Evenings News, October 30 & 31, 2008. Written by yours truly, as I accompanied a local ghost-hunting group on a big adventure.
CLARKSVILLE, IN — The Montrose — otherwise known as Stratto's along Lewis & Clark Parkway in Clarksville — is a big place, much bigger than it looks from the street.
Quietly tucked midway back on its lot, the building is reputedly home to more than a banquet hall and former Italian restaurant. The huge former home is rented out for receptions and has served as a lunch and dinner spot, but when all is calm inside, its high ceilings and classic architecture recall the post-Civil War days of the Montrose's construction.
Stepping into the converted mansion, a visitor might get a little lost in the atmosphere — perhaps forget what year it is, altogether.
Many believe that's exactly what happened to the house's original owner, John McCulloch.
Stories have circulated about the Montrose's haunted nature since the 1920s, when a family member spotted what he believed was the ghost of McCulloch in an upstairs bedroom.
"My father, Kenneth, was John McCulloch's son," explains Walker McCulloch, of Jeffersonville. "He was living in the house in his mid-20s, and had been out of town up to things that he probably shouldn't have been.
"He was a rather fearful person — he slept with a gun under his mattress and 14 locks on his door. One night, he woke to the scent of roses in the air and said a figure materialized at the foot of his bed.
"According to my dad, it was somewhat foggy, like it came out of vapor. I remember him saying, 'I don't know how I got all those locks undone so fast, but I did,' and apparently he ran down the hall and hid in my uncle Bob's room.
"Uncle Bob was kind of a character, too, so he must have been scared to run down there for help. Dad took it as a sign from John McCulloch that he should stay out of trouble."
Does Walker believe the story?
"Well, Dad said there was very obviously someone there. I know the family that lived in the house for 30 years before it became a restaurant told spooky stories, as well."
Employees at Stratto's — and before that, Sunset Grille — have spoken of finding doors shut behind them, intercoms buzzing with no one on the other end of the line and various creepy feelings in the attic and basement of the house.
Light bulbs have been found removed inexplicably from lamps around the building, when no one was present to complete the deed. One night, an employee was rumored to have found an open window upstairs in McCulloch's bedroom, and upon closing it and returning downstairs to the restaurant, finding the same window open again.
"I hear footsteps upstairs sometimes," says Stratto's manager Nick Hatfield.
After working at the establishment for two years, dealing with spooked busboys and the like, he invited Southern Indiana Regional Paranormal Society, or SIRPS, in to have a serious look around.
"I just want to see what they find," he said.
The ghost of John McCulloch, should he really exist, has never been afraid of making noise in front of the help. A domestic employee by the name of Edna Spokes worked for Walker McCulloch's grandmother, Joyce, for many years.
"Edna told me more than once 'Mister John's stomping around the attic again,'" Walker said.
At midnight on a Friday night in September, six SIRPS members gathered in the darkened bar of the Montrose with an assortment of equipment. If at all possible, they set out to contact whoever — or whatever — has been making such a fuss in the old house for the better part of 80 years.
Their assembled gear filled two large tables in the room. Gauss meters — used to measure electromagnetic frequency, or EMF, beeped and whirred as the team chatted about where to set up night-vision video cameras, and who would volunteer to go upstairs to test the noise level in the house.
The restaurant was virtually unlit, but the team strode through it without trepidation as they ascended both wide and well-used staircases, as well as narrow, steep, even creakier versions into the lesser-used sections of the building.
"Ghosts were people, too" is their motto, and if John McCulloch or any of his relatives are present, they are mostly looking forward to meeting them.
Steve Lasley, a delivery driver from Palmyra, isn't in such a hurry to talk to ghosts.
"I'm out to prove it's not haunted," he says, through a modest smile.
He doesn't seem afraid, just interested — and perhaps somewhat amused at the goings on …
… Read details of the ghost hunt in the coming days.
