Introduction

I have oftentimes heard it said that if you live in Great Britain and your house is not haunted, well then you are just doing something wrong. Should it really come as any wonder that this statement may actually have a bit of truth to it? The British Empire has had a long and illustrious history soaked in bloodshed that may have left some remnants of the past behind to remind the modern day Brit of their bloody past?

When the Romans pulled out of the British Isles they took with them civilization and Britian was thrust into centuries of darkness that brought with it greed, disease and superstition. Past warlords were now lords and kings and although they claimed rulership and claimed to have the people’s best interest in mind they actually acted more like well born mafioso seeking to keep the people in darkness and their coffers full. Wars were common place and those peasants who got in the middle now roam the many ancient castles and homes that still stand having survived the ages.

In this new series, I don’t just want to explore the same tired and worn out castles that claim to have a specter from the ancient past of England but rather I want to take a look at some of the other homes that folks like you and I could possibly afford and of course other favorite haunts of the UK. I hope you enjoy, Kingdom of Shadows.

Terror at 50 Berkley Square.

In the annals of paranormal research their is no more terrifying haunting than an attack by an inhuman, or demonic spirit. The literature is filled with case studies of horrified families who are forced to endure a spirit bent on making their lives hell on earth. The chief purpose of the inhuman, a spirit that never walked the earth as a human, is to harass, frighten and eventually possess the soul of an otherwise unsuspecting human host. It would appear that a seemingly innocuous house in a fashionable business section of London plays host to such a being. Although the house is now an antiquarian booksellers, it would seem that the demon still makes it’s presence known in the upper rooms where no human has dared to step foot in almost a century.

In his outstanding book on the subject of haunted homes in England, Charles Harper wrote in 1907, “It would appear that something horrible haunts the upper rooms of this otherwise innocent looking house.” And it would appear that this British author of the strange and unsual is more than correct. For most of the 19th century the house at 50 Berkeley Square has been known as the most haunted house in all of the British empire and it would appear that whatever the entity is it can lay claim to a body count, at least two deaths have been attributed to the terrifying entity that is said to stalk it’s upper rooms.

The first gentleman to fall victim to the heinous entity that haunts the home was a British nobleman who was a well known scoffer of claims of the paranormal and openly mocked those who claimed to have seen a specter. He considered such folks to be nothing more than superstitious peasants. Upon hearing of the entity that haunts 50 Berkeley Square the nobleman set out to spend the night in the home and bring to nothing the reports of the ghost and the phenomenon attributed to it. The nobleman arrived one cold night in December of 1840 with numerous friends who would take up a position in the lower quarters of the home while he slept in the supposed haunted room. The nobleman advised his friends that if he should requier their assistance with perhaps a human assailant, he would ring the servants bell twice to alert them that he needed their assistance. Around 9pm the nobleman made his way up to the haunted room and lay his head down for what he believed would be a restful night’s sleep.

As the night grew and all in the house slept, the friends of the nobleman were startled awake when the servants bell for the haunted room began to ring furiously and then became silent. The friends bounded their way up the stairs and threw open the door of the alleged haunted room where their friend was bedding for the night. As they approached the bed they expected to find their friend wide awake and laughing at them having fun at their expense. However, what they found chilled them to the bone. There on the bed lay the paralyzed body of their friend his eyes unaturally bulging from their sockets and a look of horror spread across his face. They discovered that their friend was alive but unable to speak due to him being in shock. A few days later the arrogant nobleman who had previously mocked claims of the paranormal was now dead victim of the very thing that he once scoffed at.

News of the nobleman’s death circulated through the dirty 19th century city streets of London like wildfire. Citizens had always known that the house had a dreadful presence residing behind it’s walls but this was the first time that it had claimed a victim and worse a fellow associated with the Crown. Folks walking down the streets surrounding the house at 50 Berkeley Square gave the infamous home a wide berth, they were scared and did not want to venture to close. However that would soon change when it’s second and hopefully last victim was claimed sometime in the late 1800s.

On a cold night two sailors who had just come into port desperately searched the city for a relatively warm place to stay and hopefully catch a good night’s slumber. As they walked down the gaslit street of Berkley Square they came upon darkned number 50 and noticing that the home appeared to be vacant they broke open the back door and made their way up to the upper rooms. They would soon regret their intrusion.

Around midnight both sailors were awakened from their slumber when they heard what sounded like a strange groining noise and the sound of a heavy body being dragged up the stairs. The sailors began to dress thinking that the owner of the house had come home and would certainly notify the authorities of their intrusion into his home. As the two sailors were about to crawl out the window the door to the room flew open and the sailors could not believe what both their eyes were seeing. Standing in the door was a large shapless black mass that seemed to ooze a feeling of terror and dread. One of the sailors was able to make it out the window, however his companion was left behind frozen to the spot by the terrifying entity that stood before him. As the sailor who escaped ran down the street he could hear the horrified scream of his companion fill the dark cold night.

Moments later after running through the street like a man stricken with madness the sailor finally came upon a constable walking his beat. The terrified sailor told the Bobby, what he and his friend had done and his friend was left at the house with a strange evil being. As the cop and sailor rushed back to the home at 50 Berkley Square they both discovered an unthinkable sight. The sailor who was left behind had jumped out of the haunted room and his dead body now lay impaled upon the spiked fence that surrounded the dark demonic house at 50 Berkley Square.

Today the house is now the headquarters for Maggs Brothers Antiquarian Booksellers and it would seem that the reports of a horrible being is now in the past. However those who pass the building still attest that they hear the sounds of moans coming from the upper rooms and mysterious lights are said to flash when no one is supposed to be in the building. Several folks have reported that as they passed the home they felt as if something was watching them from the upper rooms and when they look up they claim to have seen a dark form with glowing eyes looking down upon with hatred.

If a spirit does in fact haunt the house at 50 Berkley Square, is it really a minion of the evil one? One researcher says no. He claims that one of the early residents were two wealthy brothers who built the house and wanted to have a taste of living in the big city. As time went on one of the brothers began to loose his mind and became so dangerous his brother locked him away in the upper room to keep him from attacking those who walked down the street. Those who passed the house would claim to hear the lunatic ravings of the madman as he yelled and screamed and hurled insults upon passerbys. Then one one day the lunatic brother seemed to be quiet. It is believed that the sane brother may have murdered his mad sibling and dissappeared after the deed was done. It is possible that this horrendous ghost that has laid claim to the lives of two men could be the spirit of this insane former resident. Many paranormal researchers believe that death does not change a person if they were dangerously homicidal in life they will be so in death. It would appear that only two men really know for sure what haunts the upper rooms in the house at 50 Berkley Square.

Rick E. Hale

t_seeker@hotmail.com

Frank Madrid has always experienced the unnatural.

Not the kind of unnatural such as fleeting shadows or a mysterious figure seen out of the corner of an eye. He has experienced the waking-up-with-hands-tied unnatural, the black-shape-rushing-through-me unnatural.

So the fact he has become a ghost hunter is the most natural thing that’s happened. Click Here

Madrid’s fascination with the paranormal, going back to those weird things that happened to him as a child, would eventually manifest itself in the Arizona Paranormal Society.

The group, which he formed in 2006 with girlfriend Lori Marshall, now has 24 members who rotate among the 30 or so investigations they conduct each year.

In most cases, the society is contacted by a concerned home or business owner who is experiencing ghostly visits, from unearthly sounds to apparitions to (in rare cases) the manipulation of objects.

After a screening process involving questionnaires and interviews, Madrid decides whether an on-site investigation is necessary. As at the Triangle T Ranch, as many as 10 investigators arrive with tools of the trade. Their work keeps them busy for hours, with members usually not packing up until 2 or 3 a.m.

Business is picking up, Madrid said (the society does not charge for investigations).

“We’ve been really busy these last few months, and we’re booked all through October,” he said. “I think people are more open to the paranormal now than ever before, and they want to know what’s going on.”

In 80 percent of cases, Madrid said, what is going on is completely normal. A settling house causes thumps and creaks. Drafts can close doors and set rocking chairs in motion. And a bad mix of medication can result in “paranormal” infestations.

Spirits typically linger for several reasons, Madrid said. Frequently, they were the victim of sudden or traumatic death. Some stay to pass on a message to loved ones. Others refuse to move on, to postpone eternal judgment.

And sometimes, they simply don’t realize they’re dead.

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/2008/10/30/20081030ghosthunters1031side.html

The Alabama Paranormal Research Team staked out the Auburn University Chapel on Saturday night in search of Sydney Grimmett, the ghost of a Civil War soldier who is said to be seen in the church’s rafters. But whether Grimmett was present that night is a mystery.

The night was quiet until the end, when power readings began to increase and there was a water incident in one of the restrooms.

“It was really odd, I can’t say for sure the ghost of Sydney Grimmett lives in the bathroom of the Chapel, but there was definitely some odd
phenomenon,” said team member Faith Serafin.

Serafin, John-Mark Poe, Michelle Smith, Cassie Clark and Shane Clark brought voice recorders, video recorders, equipment aimed at capturing electromagnet fields and other gear to the 158-year-old church to record and identify paranormal phenomenon.

“There was originally a group of planters (plantation owners) that set it (the Chapel) up as a hospital for the regiment … ,” Poe said. The regiment came from Texas, he said.

“(The person) who is said to be in here is one of those Texas men who died,” he said.

“Supposedly he got shot in the leg and got gangrene and died here and was buried out at Pine Hill (Cemetery),” Smith said.

Most of the paranormal activity happened when the chapel was the university theater.

“That’s when they had everything that went on,” Smith said.

At the theater’s new location, the Telfair Peet Theatre, students leave candy out for Grimmett, who is said to have followed the group.

Once the investigation began, most of the spooky stuff took place in the women’s bathroom, not the rafters.

The power reading increased in the bathroom and there was an eerie feeling. Hand-held radios buzzed unexpectedly and, at the end of the night, the water was found dripping from a faucet despite being off before the investigation began.

“It sounded like the water in the bathroom went on. … The water was dripping like someone had turned it off quickly. … I know when I was in there earlier I had turned it off,” Serafin said.

Source: http://www.oanow.com/oan/news/local/article/paranormal_research_team_looks_into_auburn_university_chapel/43995/

Did you ever get the feeling that you were being watched? Ever swear that you witnessed something that just couldn’t be there?

L’Aura Hladik has - and she’s here to tell you that you’re not alone.

Paranormal expert Hladik has been investigating strange places, ghosts, and unexplained phenomena since she began exploring the mysteries of ghosts in 1993.

In 1998, Hladik founded the New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society after working for five years as a ghost hunter. Her recent book, “Ghosthunting New Jersey,” which was published by Clerisy Press in October, examines many famous places throughout the state that seem to have unusual activity.

Meticulously researched and refreshingly free from dramatic “spooky” recreations, Hladik’s book is an investigator’s dream. In addition to checking for possible facts surrounding each tale, she also gives readers tips on places that require permission or whatnot.

Whether you believe in spirits or not, “Ghosthunting New Jersey” just might give you a new perspective on the supernatural.

The book examines over 30 different sites, including Charlie Brown’s Steakhouse in Hackettstown, the famous Spy House in Port Monmouth, the Shades of Death Road in Warren County, and many others.

While some of the stories compiled are still unexplained, many contain true tales of murders.

Hladik said that the actual writing of the book took only six months, but there are actual experiences from when she started her own investigations in 1992.

According to Hladik, she has been interested in the supernatural for most of her life.

“I was interested in this stuff as a kid,” said Hladik. “In 1992, I went on the tour of the Spy House and that really got me all gung-ho.” The Spy House in Port Monmouth, which is a chapter in the book, has been touted as one of the most haunted places on the Eastern Seaboard and is named as one of the most haunted locations in the United States. It became known as the spy house because it was where captured spies were traded for American Revolutionaries. Hladik, who has visited the site several times, believes there is unusual activity.

“Going up to it, it looked like any other historical place,” she said about a visit in 1992. “Then we walked up to it and I smelled pipe tobacco and I thought, ‘I’m going to be sick.’ And just as I thought that, [the smell] was gone.”

She describes the house as one of the most haunted places that she’s investigated. In the book, she recounts other former skeptics who viewed unusual activity, such as children playing in the yard: “At this point, the young man realized that the clothing the children were dressed in was not of our time period… Now he realized that the children were not being neglected by their parents… They were ghosts.” Hladik says there are other tell-tale signs of spirits.

“[I] noticed the sensation of not really being alone even though [I was] alone in the ladies room,” she said.

Haunted Hudson County?

Some living in Hudson County might wonder why there aren’t any local places listed in the book, such as the Brass Rail in Hoboken, the campus at Stevens, and others. Yet Hladik says that they did have a team of investigators visit the Brass Rail, which is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a bride who fell down the stairs.

“I had one of my team meetings down there,” said Hladik about the Rail. She said that the New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society went there to investigate, but were unable to turn anything up. Team leader Laura Lindemann investigated the restaurant, said Hladik.

“But the place was in full operation, which isn’t conducive to the investigations,” she added.

According to Hladik, she has conducted an investigation in Jersey City, but it was at a private home so she isn’t able to publish any accounts.

“I’m always open to other investigations,” she said about Hudson County.

Ghost-hunting

The book is meant to provide the facts and provide information to readers if they wish to conduct their own investigation.

Yet amateur hunters should beware. What they might not realize is all the research that is involved.

“The objective with the series is, after you are done reading the chapter, you can go see for yourself,” she said. For her team’s investigations, there usually are at least five people there. But before visiting a site she will go through the hours of research, trying to see if anything happened there and checking the background.

“The main thing is to see if you can prove or disprove whether there is paranormal activity or not,” said Hladik about her own investigations.

She also maintains that while at least 60 percent of the sites in the book contain activity, it is important to study a place. “Sometimes just a shot of WD40 and the squeaky door goes away,” she said.

During the course of her investigations, she says that she never felt that she was in any danger, but she definitely had some strange encounters.

Some encounters, Hladik describes as a thumbprint of a tragic event, which doesn’t necessarily mean a ghost. “When you have a tragedy or trauma, you have that residual from that type of event. It kind of leaves it mark, but it doesn’t have any intelligence to it. But if you have a ghost, there will be more interaction,” she said.

She recommends that readers do their own research first before conducting an investigation.

“Read the old books, to get a feel for the particular place. Keep an open mind. Document your findings and don’t think that everything you automatically see is a ghost,” said Hladik.

Source: http://www.hudsonreporter.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20182055&BRD=1291&PAG=461&dept_id=523592&rfi=6

That’s not the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Texas’ UFOs are back — just in time for Halloween.

Reports of UFOs sighted over North Central Texas last week are the latest in an apparent sequel to the Stephenville sightings in January which grabbed headlines nationwide.

Dozens of residents in and around Erath County reported seeing strange lights in the sky the evening of Oct. 23, according to the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, which also reported that the military has confirmed the presence of F-16s in the area at that time.

“I think more people are willing to come forward now that more people are talking about this,” said Whitney White-Ashley, a reporter for the paper.

CNN reported last week’s sightings, interviewing Dublin resident Andy Monroe, who caught a 30-second video of a line of red lights he says encircled an oval shape floating in sky.

Most of the descriptions are of an oval shape with lights around the outside, said Alejandro Rojas with the Mutual UFO Network, a nationwide organization created in 1969 to scientifically study UFO sightings. A MUFON investigator is interviewing witnesses and the group already has sent requests for Radar data from the F-16s.

“These are descriptions that were sent into our website the night of the sighting, so they could not have been something just copied from media coverage,” Rojas said.

January sightings

In or around Jan. 8, dozens of people around Dublin and Stephenville — about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth — reported seeing something in the sky that did not move like conventional aircraft.

Descriptions varied. Some told of objects up to a mile long and hundreds of yards high. Others reported seeing two to eight lights that flew in formation, changed color and shone with intensity greater than a welding flame. Some witnesses said the objects were accompanied or followed by military jets.

Latest Texas sightings

According to MUFON’S Web site:

near Dublin. A couple said that at about 7:20 p.m. Tuesday they were headed west on U.S. 377 when they saw a flying object sporting three sets of three lights in a semi-circle.

Dallas. A man said he was walking his dog at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday when he saw a triangle-shaped object with orange lights flying silently almost due south over downtown.

Fairfield. Residents reported seeing from their porch an oval object glowing red while hovering at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the southwest. “Occasionally it would throw a whitish blue light. We could see other air traffic way high above it (planes fly along I-45 as a normal route). This looked nothing like what else was in the sky.”

Source: http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1006496.html

Though she now chases ghosts for fun, Patty Antol never believed in the paranormal before she moved to a 1950s ranch in the Pittsburgh area in 1992. Even after an antique grandfather’s clock that hadn’t worked in more than 20 years suddenly started tick-tocking in her house — and then stopping dead at precisely 1 a.m. — ghosts were the last thing on her mind.

“It didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t put my finger on anything so I just dismissed it,” she recalls.

Then things started missing. She’d put down a hammer, turn around and it’d be gone. Makeup and mail disappeared. And what about those unearthly voices and whispers? It was starting to test her sanity.

“My husband told me I was watching too many spooky movies and to get over myself,” says Antol.

Which she tried her best to do, until about a year-and-a-half after moving in. While talking to a friend on the phone in her kitchen one sunny afternoon, she heard someone coming up the stairs from the basement.

Turning toward the noise, she saw the image of a very tall man walking toward her, his hands clenched in fists at his side. He came so close that Antol could see beads of sweat on his translucent brow and dirt on his white T-shirt.

What really frightened her, though, was that when he walked through her, she could feel his anger and torment.

“It was the most intense feeling I ever felt,” she recalls. She pauses, remembering how her husband laughed when she told him about it. “I thought maybe I was losing it.”

Or was she? A couple of weeks later, her oldest daughter, then 7, was especially grumpy when she got up for school. “Bruce” had kept her up all night, she complained. Antol assumed she must be talking about one of her stuffed animals. But when pressed for more information, her daughter shook her head.

“No, Mommy,” she replied. “It’s the guy who comes into my room at night.”

“What guy?” Antol asked.

“The guy who watches me and plays games with me.

Usually, he just takes the blanket off her bed, she said. But that night, he’d pushed down on her chest “and it hurt.”

Asked what he looked like, the little girl described a very tall man in a dirty T-shirt and work pants — the same man Antol had seen.

“Is he real?” Antol remembers asking. Her daughter responded quite matter-of-factly, “No, Mommy. He’s the ghost who lives here.”

Antol had never spoken to her children about “her” ghost or the other strange things she had experienced. The only explanation was that her house, which was built in the 1800s on the site of an apple orchard, was indeed haunted.

“I just had this feeling that Bruce was stuck there for whatever reason and meant no harm to us,” she says.

Over the next several years, more unusual things occasionally happened in the house, but for the most part, the family just went about their lives.. Antol, meanwhile, became so interested in paranormal activity that she founded a group, Ghost Chasers of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

But she never told many people about her own ghostly guest.

“We were a little overprotective,” says. Antol, who during this time got divorced, remarried and had a third daughter. “We didn’t want to share him.”

In 2005, the family sold the house and moved to a new house in Canonsburg, Pa.. Antol says there’s also been paranormal activity at her new home, though of a happier nature.

About six months after moving in, the Antols threw a birthday party for their youngest daughter. After everyone had left, the 3-year-old went to sleep in her parents’ bed. Sitting in the living room, Antol watched as her daughter’s favorite Mylar balloon started bouncing across the ceiling and into the hallway. Dropping halfway to the floor, it then floated up the staircase.

“Then it turned, mid air, and floated into my bedroom to the side of the bed where she was sleeping,” recalls Antol, who followed it.

She’s pretty sure it was her mother, who died before her daughter was born but with whom the child seems to be connected. After talking about seeing an “angel” in her bedroom, the youngster picked a picture of her grandmother as a teenager out of an old photo album.

“We like to think she’s keeping her eye on her kid and grandkids.”

It’s funny,. Antol admits. Tell a stranger that you investigate ghosts and they look at you like you’re crazy. But almost always, they follow up with a ghost story of their own.

“People might not want to talk about it, but a lot of us have experienced things we can’t explain,” she says.

Source: http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/37523

RENO, Nev.—An unexplained cold spot in the house, voices or footsteps coming out of nowhere and a sudden mist are believed by some to be signs of a ghostly presence.

So who ya gonna call when things go bump in the night?

Three Reno college students who recently formed Nevada Student Paranormal Investigation said they will check area homes and businesses for any wraiths in the rafters or poltergeists in the pantry free of charge.

Sean O’Callaghan, grandson of the late Nevada Gov. Mike O’Callaghan, started NSPI earlier this year with his friends Mike McLoughlin and Jacob Tipp.

The three 21-year-olds, who grew up together in Las Vegas, are more phantom finders than ghostbusters. They can’t rid dwellings of any ghastly apparitions, but they’ll use their electronic gizmos to confirm their presence.

Armed with a digital camera and infrared video equipment, a digital recorder, an electromagnetic field detector and a thermal scanner, the trio plumbs dark places for such spectral signs as unexplained orbs of light and electronic voice phenomena, known in the ghost trade as EVPs.

EVPs are voices that can’t be picked up by the human ear but show up after an audio recording is analyzed, said O’Callaghan, a political science and economics major at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“If we see an orb or something in a photograph or a video, we’ll look at it to determine if it could just be dust,” he said. “With EVPs, the theory is that ghosts are able to manipulate certain wavelengths of radio waves that we cannot hear.”

The NSPI crew spends hours playing what they have recorded through a sound analysis program to filter out ambient noises and amplify any area where they hear something unusual, O’Callaghan said.

During a recent trip to Buckland’s Station, an old stagecoach way station south of Silver Springs, the three men recorded the voice of a woman saying what sounded like, ‘Why are you here?’

“When you hear a woman’s voice—and there was no woman with us—that’s when you know you’ve got something,” said McLoughlin, a UNR student majoring in criminal justice.

O’Callaghan and his friends have detected signs of specters at Fort Churchill and in Robb Canyon west of Reno.

They also debunked a rumor that orange lights in the Virginia City Cemetery were signs of a paranormal presence after they determined they were reflections of the city’s lights off a polished gravestone.

They soon plan to check out the Goldfield Hotel, a site know for its ghostly guests.

And they welcome any new members who want to join the NSPI, which is an official member of Ghost Adventures, the reality show dealing with the unreal that is broadcast on the Travel Channel.

O’Callaghan said he believes ghostly spirits exist, but McLoughlin and Tipp are somewhat more skeptical.

“I can’t say I see ghosts, but when you do hear an EVP, I know it’s definitely something that wasn’t around us,” said Tipp, a biology major at Truckee Meadows Community College. “So I’m not convinced, but I’m getting there.”

McLoughlin said he has seen some eerie-looking things caught on camera and video.

“But I’m not going to call them ghosts,” he said. “When I see a full apparition, that’s when I’ll be convinced.”

Still, the thrill of the hunt keeps Tipp and McLoughlin interested.

With the approach of All Hallow’s Eve, one might expect the NSPI crew to be out in force on Halloween, but the three men say that’s one of the worst nights to look for phantoms.

“Halloween is a bad night for ghost hunting,” O’Callaghan said. “There are too many people out and too much noise.”

Source: http://www.ghostlycast.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

Great Britain has always been known as a land populated with the spirits of the dead and should it be any wonder when you consider the long and bloody history of Old Blighty? If our country, which is relatively young by comparison, can possess hotels with haunted reputations than it should come as no surprise that hotels that are centuries older than our own land should retain the spirits of the dead that are still said to walk.

The Queens Head Hotel

I can honestly say that this hotel has a pretty cool name. Built in the mid-17th century as a sort of memorial to the wives of Henry VIII who met their untimely demise at the executioner’s block this hotel is said to have a spirit walking it’s halls that gives off a feeling of intense evil and dread. Over the years several staff and guests have reported witnessing a large, tall black mass that appears to be a man but has no features making some wonder if this entity, whoever it may be could be a shadow person. No one is quite certain who this person may be, however in the many times that he has been encountered by the living occupants of the hotel, they claim that this figure gives off an air of evil and dread. Psychics who have investigated the hotel claim that the spirit is one of pure evil and should be avoided at all costs.

Guests of the hotel have claimed to be awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of children crying and sometimes playing in the halls. One of the children that has been seen on numerous ocassions by staff and guest alike, appears as the apparition of a young boy dressed in an old fashioned gray school uniform. The young lad is said to appear sitting on the steps of the main staircase and those who have seen him claim that he appears to be sad and deeply depressed. Over the years many have attempted to discover the identities of not only the dark man but the children as well and as of yet the spirits of The Queens Head Hotel remain a mystery.

Ruthin Castle Hotel

I love when a good ghost story has it’s roots is a verifiable tale of betrayl, jealousy and murder and it would appear that these three things appear to be at the root of many tales of the unquiet dead in England and one of the oldest hotels is no different. Wales’, Ruthin Castle Hotel is possibly one of the most haunted locations in the country of England. The original castle was built in 1207 for King Edward I as a place for the monarch to get away from the rat race of ruling an empire, however peace and quiet was something the young king never found because the betrayl and murder that he dealt with on a daily basis followed him to his vacation home.

Although the castle and the hotel that was built onto it lays claim to many ghosts, the most active spirit seems to be that of a young woman clad in a gray dress who walks the halls of the hotel weeping. The story of the Gray Lady can be traced back to 1213, Edward’s second in command was a well known philanderer who got it on with pretty much any woman who would succumb to his advances, and did they really have much choice afterall it is not a wise thing to turn down the King’s right hand man.

One night as the King’s man was locked in the throes of passion with one of his many conquests his wife happened to be home and cracked the door open a bit to see her husband in the arms of one of the chamber maids. The wife was well aware of her husband’s loose morals but this was first time she ever witnessed it. The wife could take no more of her husbands immorality and decided that she would do the only thing she could think of, the bastard and the wench must die.

The wife waited in the castle library for the oppurtune time to shed blood and when the clock struck midnight she figured that they must be asleep by now so the wife grabbed the closest thing she could find, an ax sitting by the fireplace, and quietly stalked the hall to the room. The wife wanted to keep the elemant of surprise and opened the door ever so silently, raised the ax over the head of the sleeping form of her husband and his mistress and a blood bath ensued. That’s what happens when you screw around.

Unfortunately it would not be long before the jealous ax murdering wife was captured. These were the days when woman were seen as property and were subjected to the whims of their male counterparts and although her husband was a cheating douchebag, it did not save her from meeting her maker. The wife was brought to the axman’s block and she lost her head. For whatever reason, possibly due to the severity of her crime, the wife was buried in unconsecrated ground without the services of a priest. Is it any wonder her spirit still walks the castle and certain parts of the hotel?

Those who have stayed at the hotel and ventured into the old part where much of the castle has been incorporated onto the hotel have claimed to see two versions of the Gray Lady. One version is the sad jilted wife who wanders the halls weeping loudly over the infidelities of her husband. The other version of the apparition is not so charming. The spirit of the gray lady has been seen stalking the halls and weilding an ax with a crazed look in her eyes. She is a woman on a mission to take care of a little business that has gotten way out of hand. Whatever version of the spirit witnesses have seen it would appear that the gray lady of Ruthin Castle Hotel is their to stay.

I hope you enjoyed this series of of haunted hotels as much as I enjoyed writing it. Would you dare to spend the night in one of these hotels knowing that at any moment you could come face to face with one of these lost souls that still wander their halls? I would, but then again I’m a little strange like that. I’m going to be taking a little break for awhile so before I go I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Halloween. See you soon.

Rick E. Hale

t_seeker@hotmail.com

Over a three-month period this summer there were 1,000 UFO sightings filed with the National UFO Reporting Center.

Some 75 of those UFOs were reported over the state of Texas.

Stephenville is one hot spot we’ve shown you before.

Now the small town is getting buzzed by UFOs again and we have the video.

“You could see the oval shape. Got my friend, I said ‘dude, you got to come look at this,’” said Andy Monrreal.

Monrreal was hanging out with his Dublin High School friends when they all saw something they say looked like a UFO.

“You could see a shape. It was like a complete circle,” said Monrreal.

He rolled off a half minute of video on his mom’s digital camera.

His dad saw it too.

“I never seen nothing like that in my life. Big lights and everything,” his father said.

So did mom.

“It was a round thing. You could see lights around it, flickering and changing. It was awesome. Just turning and flickering,” she said.

Back in January, Erath County went UFO crazy after a handful of people reported similar lights over Stephenville.

International press and UFO hunters descended on the town.

This time, many more eye witnesses are phoning the Stephenville Empire Tribune or the ET.

Reporter Whitney Ashley said many people don’t want to talk publicly, like several workers at the paper, who also saw the lights.

“I’ve got at least 10 right now willing to go on record,” Ashley said.

“The sheriff’s department got lots of calls in the southern part of Erath County.”

Down around Dublin, home of DR Pepper.

The Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth confirms seven F-16s training in the area at the time.

Several witnesses told us they saw the fighters, after they saw the mysterious lights.

Source: http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/localnews/news8/stories/wfaa081025_lj_ufo.1497ef4d3.html

WICHITA FALLS, Texas — Night is falling over farms along the Red River and, now, every October sunset feels like Halloween.

While other families gather closer to their hearths, the Military Paranormal Investigations group is getting ready to visit a graveyard.

Organized less than a year ago, this group of U.S. military members and their families is one of a growing community of men and women nationwide who are interested in looking at the supernatural through scientific eyes. No mediums or psychics are involved, and MPI members said they have approached each of their nearly 20 investigations as skeptics ready to disprove a myth.

Their first investigation was in what’s left of the town of Clara, Texas, which was battered by drought, a hurricane, an inadequate water supply and an exodus of residents during the 1920s oil boom. All that remains now of the Wichita County ghost town are a church, rectory and cemetery.

Through the years, reports swirled of paranormal events at the site: unexplained lighted, vortexes, crying children and a graveyard apparition of Pleasant Queen, the first person buried in the cemetery. The MPI investigators said they saw orb-like objects, but said they appeared to swirls of dust or bugs. They saw no vortexes, apparitions or unexplained lights. They heard no crying, but did “capture” so-called electronic voice phenomena, which some say is static heard on radios or electronic devices and others as the voices of spirits.

While many group members are in the Air Force, the group and its activities have no affiliation with that or any other armed service.

“We’re open to spiritual aspect but we’re strictly scientific in our approach,” said Joe Eversole, MPI lead investigator and an Air Force tech sergeant. “We don’t believe anything until it can be measured or recorded.”

Eversole and wife, Celeste; Rob Wirth and wife, Misty; Jeff Jones, his wife, Melissa, and son Kyle; Jamie Sampson; and Jeramiah Lewis said they will investigate any case.

Because of the Air Force connection however — Rob Wirth is a tech sergeant, Jeff Jones is a master sergeant, while Lewis and Sampson are staff sergeants — military sites are of particular interest. They travel to sites where paranormal occurrences have been reported and hunt for evidence to back up — or refute — the claims.

All agree their most exciting investigation to date was of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock, Ark., built as a confederate arsenal in the 1840s. Ultimately converted to a U.S. Army installation, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was born there in 1880.

“It was just amazing. We captured a lot of great stuff and it was an intense experience,” said Wirth.

Closer to home, the group has gathered data at Fort Richardson in Jacksboro and is keen to do a thorough investigation of 10th Cavalry Creek, where it’s said Buffalo Soldiers killed in an Indian raid were buried in a mass grave with their horses.

“We’re curious whether this site has a paranormal connection to the ‘Screaming Sheila Bridge,’ ” said Eversole, referring to another “haunted” site nearby, where a woman was supposedly hanged long ago. “But the evidence is what tells the story.”

It’s easy to see why guys who spend their days working in instructional technologies for the Air Force would be drawn to paranormal investigation: The gear is way cool.

Eversole and Wirth are glad to show off their collection of LED surveillance cameras, digital voice recorders (sensitive enough to pick up EVPs — Electronic Voice Phenomenon — words the human ear cannot hear) and electromagnetic field meters (spirits are said to disturb normal magnetic fields.) The data is analyzed by an array of special computer programs.

Practical experience, however, has led them to use domestic tools like laser levels (even a shadow can break the light beam), compasses and, in case a surveillance proves uneventful, a deck of cards.

Everyone in MPI brings different skills to the table; while some focus on detection technology others focus on case management, historic research of sites and scheduling investigations. In the field everyone takes part in data gathering.

All say they share a common curiosity born of an experience or experiences that could not be explained. Once shows like the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Ghosthunters” and Bravo’s “Paranormal State” hit television, it became evident others were looking for answers too.

“I’ve wondered about this kind of thing since I was a kid,” said Eversole. “Now I can prove or disprove it for myself.”

On the Web: www.mpi-paranormal.com.

Source: http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/37389