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You are here: Home / Archives for The Paranormal Braintrust

The Paranormal Braintrust

How To Kill A Ghost – The Haunted Housewife’s “Occult Kitchen”

September 30, 2015 By Jim Harold

Theresa Argie
Theresa Argie – “The Haunted Housewife”

One of the most challenging obstacles ghost hunters face is navigating through the muck and mire of the paranormal world. They must weed through each report and rule out natural explanations, misidentifications, psychological front loading, embellishments, and intentional hoaxes.

The reports are many but the true hauntings are few. Unusual doesn’t necessarily mean paranormal. The power of suggestion and expectation can create the illusion of a paranormal occurrence where nothing abnormal exists. In a sense, we can create ghosts.

The reverse is just as misleading and far more devastating to those who believe. Destroy the idea and you kill the ghost. Not in the Sam and Dean Winchester Supernatural salt-and-burn-the-bones kind of way, but destroy it nonetheless. In fact I have killed many ghosts.

To kill a ghost you must first understand how they are created. You must be able to decipher between what is natural, supernatural, and psychological.

Our minds can take an idea and give it life. We conjure this ghost, give it power by our belief, wishing it to be true – like a tulpa or though form being. Although unintentional in many cases, sometimes this process is deliberate. Certain reality television shows who need a ghost to be real will often do this. They take an odd occurrence, develop it into a mystery which in turn grows into an enormous legend, twisting the truth to fit a colorful story, and add a dash of skewed history for authenticity. Viola! Now they’ve created a ghost!

One thing that helps this type of ghost “live” is the power behind the belief system. A legend grows with every telling of the tale, with each reported encounter, and every attempt at communication. This, in theory, is why places like The Ohio State Reformatory or Waverly Hills Sanatorium are said to be so haunted – the constant “calling” of the spirits by visitors and the expectation of finding a ghost.

Not all ghost hunters do much original research. Instead they hear the legends and expand on what others have done before them. If the accepted story is that the ghost of a little boy named Timmy haunts the halls of a famous abandoned TB hospital, then most investigators use that information as a starting point. They’ve heard the stories, the EVPs, seen the fuzzy dust filled photographs, and just go with it. They continue along this train of thought and expect to find Timmy.

How do they know for sure it is Timmy? How do they know it’s even a child’s spirit? The truth is, they don’t know with whom or with what they are communicating when conducting a paranormal investigation.

What if the original story was wrong or made up? What if Timmy never existed? What are people seeing and communicating with? The facts don’t always deter the phantoms.

If history proves there never was a Timmy, then what is happening? Is the ghost answering to a name because it’s desperate to communicate? Has it been called or beckoned from somewhere else? It may be a ghost, but it may not be Timmy.

Killing a ghost is like peeling an onion; every time you replace a myth with a fact, another layer is removed. The sharp knife of accurate historical research cuts through the paper-thin skin holding the story together. Fact checking property deeds, death records, newspaper articles, eyewitness interviews – these are the weapons I use in my quest to kill ghosts. With every discovery of an inaccuracy, embellishment, or unreliable source, I spill the blood of the imaginary apparition.

I found that killing a ghost can be a delicate matter. People love their ghosts. They cling to their stories like a lifeline to the afterlife. The legend of Lily keeps ghost hunters flocking to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in droves. If someone was to prove that Lily never existed, that there is no tortured child spirit roaming the halls of the defunct mental hospital, then paranormal enthusiasts might choose to spend their evenings and their money elsewhere.

When researching my first book (America’s Most Haunted: The Secrets of Famous Paranormal Places) I unexpectedly discovered the dangers of phantasmicide (I just made that up.) Paranormal venues that rely on their reputed ghosts to bring in visitors and revenue get very testy when you debunk their resident spirits. The reputation and personalization of the hauntings makes them very real. Giving them a name and a backstory gives them life. Taking that element away destroys the legend and destroys the ghost, and that’s bad for business.

Residential cases are similar. Strange happenings plague the family. The kids are talking to invisible entities, strange rapping noise are echoing through the hallways at night, eerie cold spots appear out of nowhere, or there’s an unshakable sense of being watched. They believe they have a ghost and they want someone to come investigate, expecting the investigators to produce a full blown apparition for them.

In these cases, it’s like fighting an uphill battle. The family truly believes their house is haunted and they want someone else to believe that as well. They don’t want to hear a rational explanation for the strange noises or smells they’re experiencing. They are not interested in a contradictory opinion. They want more than anything for someone to believe them. If told they have an unsafe level of EMF leaking from their breaker box, or a family of raccoons living in their attic, or they need to up their medication, they get angry.

The very last thing they want to hear is that there is no ghost. Most of the time, people don’t want reason and logic – they want validation or attention. They are offended at your findings. They are more upset when you disprove a haunting than when you tell them there’s a demon in the closet.
When you kill a ghost, you kill part of the family. You kill a piece of their reality, their sense of judgement, their ability to know fact from fiction. You are suggesting that they are wrong, disillusioned, or psychologically damaged somehow – or worse that they are just average, normal, boring. Their home is not haunted and they don’t have a ghost. They are not special. For many that is a bitter pill to swallow.

Think about the term “ghost hunter” and what that means. To hunt something is to capture and often kill it. Hunting a ghost, whether it be real or imagined, can lead to its literal and figurative death. Again.

Sometimes a ghost is real, sometimes a ghost is imagined, and sometimes we can make a ghost real with the power of our imagination. Keep that in mind next time you embark on a paranormal investigation or watch your favorite ghost themed reality show. The perception is the reality, both on the physical and the metaphysical plain.

Beware of ghosts, but also be aware of your power to create and destroy them.

—

Theresa Argie, The Haunted Housewife, is an experienced lecturer, educator, researcher and paranormal investigator and has had many years dealing with spirits, ghosts and paranormal activity. Theresa has worked beside some of the most well-known experts in the paranormal field, and has been featured by countless media outlets. She is also the co-author of America’s Most Haunted.

Filed Under: Slider, The Haunted Housewife, The Occult Kitchen, The Paranormal Braintrust, Theresa Argie Tagged With: America's Most Haunted, How To Kill A Ghost, Jim Harold, Occult Kitchen, Paranormal Braintrust, The Haunted Housewife, Theresa Argie

Is a Haunted House Really Haunted If There’s No One To See the Haunting? – Marie D. Jones’ “The Outer Edge”

September 28, 2015 By The Paranormal Braintrust

Marie D. Jones
Marie D. Jones

Having been involved in paranormal research for decades, the question has always haunted me: Is a haunted house haunted if there is no one there to observe the haunting? I first asked this question of myself after learning about quantum physics and the laws that govern the subatomic world. My father, a geophysicist, loved to have long phone discussions with me about the quantum world and what it might one day imply for the grander scale of existence. We especially liked to go back and forth about how quantum physics might one day explain paranormal phenomena, thus resulting in my first major non-fiction book, “PSIence: How New Discoveries in Quantum Physics and New Science May Explain the Existence of Paranormal Phenomena” in 2005.

The basics of quantum physics starts with the concept of wave-particle duality, a long-held discovery by Louis de Broglie and advanced by the likes of William Duane, Niels Bohr and some gentlemen I’m about to mention, which simply states that particles can behave as both a particle, and as a waveform. Wave-particle duality was demonstrated as far back as 1801 in the famous “double-slit experiments” of Thomas Young, who used photons, light particles, to show that they behaved as both particle, and wave, and that they were also influenced by the presence of a detector or observer. Young’s famous and oft repeated experiment involved a light wave such as a laser beam illuminating a plate with two parallel slits cut into it. The light passes through the slits and is observed on a dark screen behind the plate in the form of a brighter or darker band. The experiment revealed that the light wave passed through the slits and interfered with each other, resulting in a series of bands on the screen. But detectors placed at the slits themselves showed that the light particle passed through ONE slit, and not both, which would be expected of a wave form. The photon only went through one slit just as a classical particle would as soon as the detector was introduced.

Thus, the observation of the experiment concluded whether or not the initial light wave resulted in a wave via both slits, or a particle passing through only one slit. The interference that occurred when light passed through both slits disappears the moment a detector is introduced, implying that the act of measurement of the position of the particles at the point of entry of the slit wiped out any waveform behavior.

In order to accurately measure the position or momentum of a particle, one must engage in the act of observation in order to “collapse the wave function” and fix a particle into a measureable position. Cue the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal, courtesy of German physicist Werner Heisenberg back in the 1920s, which states that with a subatomic particle, there is an “uncertainty” as to its position until this wave function is collapsed via observation. Until then, one cannot accurately know both the momentum AND the position of a particle. Therefore, everything exists in a state of superposition, until something comes along and observes it into a fixed position!

This leads into the famous experiment we all learned about in high school, Schrodinger’s Cat. In case you don’t remember back that far, in the 1920s, certainly a heyday for the evolution of quantum physics, an Austrian physicist named Erwin Schrodinger sought to further understand the concept of “superposition” which states that nothing is really fixed in physical reality until it’s wave function is collapsed via observation or measurement. So he took a cat and put it in a box made out of thick lead with a bit of radioactive substance, cyanide in a flask, a hammer, counter tube, and a Geiger counter. His experiment postulated that if one of the atoms decayed, the counter tube would discharge and release a hammer that would smash the flask and release the cyanide, thus killing the cat. But, it was just as probable to him that the particle would not decay, and thus the cyanide would remain in the flask, and the cat would remain alive. Okay, before you call PETA upset about cat abuse, please know this was a “thought” experiment, which really intelligent people often do to work out theories and concepts in their noggins. His theory suggested the cat could be both dead and alive until we actually open the box and find out. Once again, the observer is the one who fixes the “reality” into place. Cat dead. Cat alive. But until observation occurs, the cat is both dead and alive and possibly a cannibalistic zombie, so be careful opening the box!

Which leads into another tenet of the quantum world, the Copenhagen Interpretation, formulated in 1927 (what were those people smoking then???) by Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. This suggests that the Observer Effect, a scientific term referring to alterations in behavior of a phenomenon being observed by the presence of measuring instruments (or a human observer), influences the outcome at the quantum level of the behavior and actions of particles. The intention or will of the observer has a direct influence on subject reality, thus turning it into objective reality. A simpler way to state this might be that until the point of observation, nothing is real or fixed or solid, it is only a potentiality or a statistical formulation, floating in a state of superposition where it remains both particle and wave and nothing really real…

Confusing? Not really, unless you get into the deeper physics and math. The basics of these tenets are somewhat more graspable, but the question remains…if they really do describe the world at the quantum level, can they be applicable at the grander, cosmic scale? Does quantum physics have any influence at all at what happens in the larger scheme of things, and if so, might it explain some of the spookier experiences people have that seem to fall on the outer edge of known reality?

So back to our original question. Our paranormal research group; let’s call them GITONUP – Ghost Investigators of Texas Observing Nature’s Unusual Phenomena. They’re a funky group, pun intended, devoted to observing, recording and analyzing activity at haunted locations. GITONUP has an investigation tonight at a haunted hotel known for paranormal activity, based upon the allegations of the hotel owners and several groups that have already been there to investigate. Our team goes in, locked and loaded with a van full of equipment, and spends eight hours roaming darkened hallways with gear at the ready, including digital recorders for potential EVP, electronic voice phenomena, and cameras of every size and shape.

They’ve got meters of every kind, to measure fluctuations in the electromagnetic field, changes it temperature and air pressure, seismic activity, heat sensors, ion detectors and more. All of this equipment serves to record and measure any activity that occurs in the course of the investigation and monitor increases and decreases in environmental factors within the haunted hotel. All of this equipment, ALONG WITH THE INVESTIGATORS, act as “observers” moving around the superposition within the haunted hotel, collapsing wave functions at every turn into fixed and measurable activity. Even if our team members all went outside for a break, and left their recording equipment and meters running inside, there would still be active observers within the haunted hotel to collapse wave functions and fix particles into place, thus fixing the reality of the hotel into place in a sense. The recorders and equipment, though not human, still act as observers because they measure the motion and activity of what they are trained upon.

Our team is excited to go home and analyze all the data they’ve captured and try to make sense of what it might mean (good luck on that one, kids!).

But what if the folks at GITONUP all got the flu and had to abandon the investigation and go home? They pack up their gear and clear on out of the supposedly haunted hotel, thus leaving behind no observers, no means of measurement, human or otherwise? Would the activity the hotel is famous for cease to exist? Would it remain in superposition until another human or piece of equipment was introduced to collapse the wave function? Is a haunted house really haunted without anyone or anything there to observe or measure the haunted activity?
If we follow the earlier tenets of quantum physics, the answer would be NO. The interior of the haunted hotel would be nothing more than a virtual sea of quantum particles popping in and out of existence, nothing solid, all vibration, because there would be nothing there to observe anything into solidity. And the problem is, there is no way to prove this because the only way we would know if activity was occurring with a haunted location would be to somehow introduce an observer or measurement method. We just cannot do it. It’s like poor Schrodinger, wondering if his cat was dead or alive, but not able to fully know the truth until he actually opened the box and looked in!

The Observer Effect, as it is called, dictates our reality based upon what we observe. But we all know that observation is based a lot upon our perceptions, which can be skewed by everything from expectation to belief to conditioning. Thus, even what we DO observe may not tell the real story. We’ll save that for another blog.

Is it possible for us Observers to every actually observe that state of superposition? Maybe. In fact, years and years ago, right after my dad and I had a long phone conversation on the nature of reality and light and vibration and that nothing was solid, yadda yadda yadda, I decided to meditate. I was a little depressed because I was living in L.A. and hadn’t yet found a job, so I thought I’d quiet my mind.

During the meditation, I went very deep into pure stillness, something I was rarely capable of because of monkey mind. I don’t know why, but I opened my eyes in the middle of that deep, deep stillness, and saw my room around me had transformed, literally, into a sea of vibration and waveforms…Nothing in my room was solid, although I could see areas of vibration that were more dense than others, possibly indicating where solid furniture was. It only lasted maybe ten seconds before my normal perception returned, and reality solidified everything around me, but the experience was so profound it changed my entire life and led me to write my books! It also led me to pursue classes in New Thought Metaphysics/Science of Mind, which posits that science and spirituality follow the same laws.

Not your normal meditation.

Had I glimpsed that magical state of superposition before collapsing the wave function around me back into my bedroom? Had I seen, just for ten seconds, that sea of vibration in which anything and everything exists until it is observed into a fixed state?

We don’t even have proof yet what ghosts actually are…maybe entities from another reality or Aunt Jane and Uncle Ned still alive in a parallel universe that’s bleeding into ours, or the essence of the dead in our own reality, or something our own powerful minds create and manifest. We haven’t any real proof yet of anything other than the fact that millions of people have seen or experienced a ghostly encounter over the course of human history.

But had they not seen the ghost, would the ghost even exist? Or would it be a potentiality floating in a sea of superposition, just waiting for someone or something to come along and pull it out of that sea and fix it into a physical measurable form? Which then begs the question, what might be out there that exists in that sea of superposition that we have yet to observe into reality?

Anything and everything…maybe.

—

Marie D. Jones is the author of several books about the paranormal, metaphysics, and cutting-edge science (many coauthored with Larry Flaxman), including PSIence, The Déjà vu Enigma, Destiny vs. Choice: The Scientific and Spiritual Evidence Behind Fate and Free Will, 11:11 The Time Prompt Phenomenon and Mind Wars. She has appeared on more than 1,000 radio shows worldwide, and on television, most recently on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. Her website is mariedjones.com.

Filed Under: Marie D Jones, Slider, The Outer Edge, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: ghost hunters, Ghost Hunting, Haunted Houses, Marie D. Jones, Observer Effect, paranormal investigation, paranormal investigators, The Outer Edge

Cousins of the Grays – Ryan Sprague’s “Hidden Auditorium”

September 23, 2015 By The Paranormal Braintrust

Ryan Sprague
Ryan Sprague

While most of us have swiftly moved past the question of whether or not UFOs exist, the troublesome relative of this phenomenon has arguably been that of the existence of said UFOs occupants. According to former Canadian defense minister, Paul Hellyer, in a 2014 interview with RT News, there are over eighty different species of aliens plaguing our planet. While there is no irrefutable evidence proving this ambitious claim, one type of alien species seems to hold the reins as the most frequently reported: the grays.

These spindly entities often include extremely slender bodies, disproportionately large heads, and deep, black eyes. They have been reported in many alien abduction cases, having almost robotic like tendencies, lacking any empathy for the abductee before them. While these beings have been both praised as peaceful visitors and revered as intrusive pests, they remain an iconic figure in the human eyes and minds of those familiar with UFO and abduction literature.

Illustration by Dominika Lizoňová
Illustration by Dominika Lizoňová

But what many may not be aware of is that both small and tall gray beings have also been reported in the world of cryptids, monsters, and mythical beasts, enigmatically breaking the myth that we may be dealing strictly with extraterrestrials. I began a search for stories of gray creatures that seemed to bare striking resemblances to the grays, yet held their own lore in the most mysterious of ways.

The Dover Demon

COG 2
Original sketch by Bill Bartlett

It was in April of 1977 when the small town of Dover, Massachusetts suffered a string of strange sightings involving a small creature roaming the streets. First reported by a group of teenage boys, Bill Bartlett, 17, noticed a small figure huddled next to a stone wall as they passed by it in their vehicle. The figure soon came into sight from the car’s headlights, turning and staring straight at Bartlett. It’s eyes were, according to Bartlett, “glowing brightly like orange marbles. It was about four feet tall and stood upright. It had a pale, gray tone to its hairless body. It had no nose or mouth. It’s head was very large like a watermelon,” he would go on to describe. While the other friends in the car didn’t see anything, they all admitted that Bartlett was extremely distraught after telling them what he had seen. Bartlett would return home that night, visibly shaken, according to his father, and sketched the creature.

RELATED POST: CLICK HERE TO LISTEN – Jim Harold Interviews The Roswell Slides Research Group

It was a few hours later that the second sighting of this creature took place. John Baxter, 15, was walking home from his girlfriend’s house. Thinking it was a friend of his, he approached, stunned when he finally saw the the silhouette of something rather odd. This small creature stared at him, standing upright, with bright orange/red eyes. It had very long toes and fingers which clung tight to rocks on the ground. Baxter would draw a sketch of the creature upon request from local newspapers, which can be seen below.

COG 3
Original sketch by John Baxter

The following night would include what most considered the final sighting of the Dover Demon. Abby Brabham was being driven home by a friend when she noticed a small creature on the side of the road. She would describe it quite similarly to that of Bartlett and Baxter, however she stated that it was crawling on all fours. Her description of the eyes differed as well, proclaiming a bright green color.

Despite the variances in witness testimony, it seems that something truly strange was wandering the streets of Dover over the span of two nights. Could the fact that as the sightings grew, the creature was becoming more and more desperate to not be seen? Or perhaps, it was somehow ill or injured, starting on two legs, and slowly digressing in strength, having to eventually crawl. Though completely speculative, it seemed that this creature did not want to be seen. But in the eyes and memory of the three witnesses above, the small gray creature dubbed the Dover Demon has all but faded into cryptozoological obscurity, its bright orange (or green) eyes haunting the back roads of Dover up until today.

The Carmel Road Creature

Setting our startled sights a bit west, we find a strange case out of Highland County, Ohio. In the blistering cold Winter in 2014, a local resident was driving up a steep hill on Carmel Road. When he came to the crest of the hill, he looked out his driver’s side window to see a seven foot tall creature, gray in color, with muscular legs that were bent backwards. The witness, who was a retired Marine, took note that the creature didn’t seem to have any arms. He hurriedly rushed home, in shock, and told his wife about what he had seen. Together, they reported the incident to the local chapter of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network).

“My husband saw it,” his wife would tell local MUFON investigators. “He wouldn’t have admitted to seeing it if he hadn’t been in shock. I had him draw it for me when we got to the house (see below). He says it was asphalt gray. It had no jawline, and its legs were bent backward and it leaned forward as it ran.”

COG 4
ghosttheory.com

Rather than jumping to conclusions that this was some sort of alien or unexplainable creature, the witness admitted that his reasoning for coming forward to a UFO organization was to at least get the word out, in hopes of other witnesses hopefully coming forward to corroborate his story. “I would like to get this information out in the area in hopes that maybe someone else had seen it, or that their giant cross-bred ostrich got loose… or something!”

The Creature of Mortegliano

A rather similar creature was sighted a few years earlier on February 11th, 2012. In the commune of Mortegliano, Italy, Leonard D’Andrea was forced to make a sudden stop on the roundabout he was driving on. A line of cars lay idle in front of him, all the drivers stepping out of their vehicles. “I thought there was an accident,” D’Andrea presumed. “ But when I saw what they were looking at, it was very unexpected.” D’Andrea witnessed a large creature, grey in tone, walking silently along the road. “It had to be at least thirteen feet tall. “Its legs were slightly bent forward with the back formed by very large tendons. The head had a round shape, ending in a conical shape.”

D’Andrea watched as the creature continued walking down the road, seemingly caring very little for anything in its way. He also watched as a mother gathered her children back into their car. Other witnesses attempted calling the police, but all of their phones seemed to have no reception. At this point, D’Andrea attempted to follow the creature, but had very little success as the traffic was too backed up. It soon disappeared out of sight, heading towards the town of Lestizza, where numerous reports trickled in.

Myth vs. Reality

While intriguing, the incidents above beg the question of how so many people saw these creatures and no photos or video had been taken. These along with so many other reports remain missed opportunities for getting clear images of what these gray creatures may or may not be. This is where the narrative of such stories begin to take on an almost mythological aspect, being passed down through oral tradition and through endless amounts of alternative news sources and web sites. We have fallen victim to such claims time and time again with online creatures being created by the collective imagination of phantom online gods. Simply look at such myths as The Rake and Slenderman for clear reference (Although some would argue the actual existence of the latter) We then find ourselves in a delicate dilemma. Just like the grays in alien mythology, we have almost nothing but witness testimony to rely on when dealing with these creatures. This led me to want to speak directly with a witness of one of these gray creatures. Perhaps this would put a more empathetic microscope on the mysteries that lay before our curious minds.

The Los Angeles Wriggler

I reached out to the paranormal community, hoping that someone would have a story to tell about a gray creature that breached the boundaries of alien intrusion. I found a gentleman in Los Angeles who had an incident occur a mere week prior to originally writing this story. Sam Shearon, an artist living out of Hollywood, was working on a project as the morning of August 12th creeped in. At about 3am, he sat on his couch furiously sketching, when he decided to make some tea. As he got up to head to the kitchen, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Thinking his eyes were playing tricks, he ignored it. But it only intensified. “There was indeed something at my patio door window looking in,” he would tell me. This is when whatever it was came into full view.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Ryan Sprague asks if all grays are really aliens? ” quote=”Are all grays really aliens?”]“It was large. Much larger than a person, though seemingly bent over in some way so that it could look in at me. Its limbs were very long, almost like ropes or tubes. The whole being was thin and tall. It had two arms and two legs, a large round head, dark eyes, and wide mouth. Its limbs were undulating slowly as though it was underwater, much like the movements of an octopus.” This is when Shearon immediately shot up out of his seat. The being quickly reacted. “It climbed up out of view in one movement. Swift and controlled, as though it had been caught spying and quickly recoiled out of view.”

COG 5
“The Wriggler” Sketch by Sam Shearon mistersamshearon.bigcartel.com

Shearon, though scared, gathered the courage to move to the patio door. He opened it and searched outside for the creature, but saw nothing. “You’re not welcome here!” he yelled. With that, Shearon’s brush with this terrifying and elusive entity seemed to end. But the image of that creature remained. Shearon admitted the following when asked what he thought this creature may have been. “I had been creating vast amounts of artwork in relation to various unexplained or Fortean subjects and my lack of sleep and poor diet and lack of both daylight and exercise initially made me think my mind was merely playing tricks on me.”

Shearon, doubting the experience was real or not, sought advice from a well respected researcher in the world of fortean creatures, David Weatherly. “ After speaking with David. he suggested that my state of being and circumstances are not unlike that of Shaman. That I had perhaps tapped into another state of consciousness, though awake and was able to see past the veil of our dimension into the realm of another, where other life forms may reside. I thought perhaps because of the subject matter I was working on and the level of realism I was bringing to a variety of creatures and entities to an almost photographic level, that I had perhaps attracted one.”

So it could have been possible that Sam had manifested this creature. But I still had to ask if he thought it possible that what he’d seen could have possibly been alien. “On first impression, it certainly had the simple features and large black eyes, though its head was more soccer ball shaped and its mouth was wide. It’s flesh was definitely gray in tone, though its proportions were much too large for a typical gray, and again, its limbs seemed to flow rather than have joints. However, I have read a number of accounts of larger taller greys or praying mantis type alien beings. I do accept that the vastness of the universe and the unknown dimensions are probably host to an infinite variation of life forms. So who knows. Whatever it was, it certainly seemed as though it did not belong.”

Conclusions

After looking at such creatures as the Dover Demon, the Carmel Road and Mortegliano creatures, and the flowing-limbed entity witnessed by Shearon, my eyes were open to the possibility that the grays we once thought so alien, could perhaps come from somewhere much more grounded. And whether that be from the backwoods of Massachusetts, the winding roads of Ohio, the well driven roundabouts of Italy, or the darkness of mid morning in Los Angeles, these gray beings were shattering any sense that we are dealing strictly with one phenomenon. And as they continue to be reported, they have shown us time and time again, that things are not always so black and white, but terrifyingly many shades of enigmatic gray.

—

Ryan Sprague is an investigative journalist, focusing on the topic of UFOs. He is the author of the upcoming book, Somewhere in the Skies: A Human Approach to an Alien Phenomenon, published by Richard Dolan Press. He is also the co-host of Into the Fray Radio and a frequent contributor to the geek website: RoguePlanet.tv. His work can be seen at: somewhereintheskies.com

Filed Under: Hidden Auditorium, Ryan Sprague, Slider, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: Cousins of the Grays, Grays, Haunted Auditorium, Paranormal Braintrust, Ryan Sprague

Does This Century Old Case Hint At A British Bigfoot? – Nick Redfern’s “If It’s Weird It’s Here”

September 21, 2015 By The Paranormal Braintrust

An Old And Macabre Mystery Lingers…

Nick Redfern
Nick Redfern

When Jim Harold asked me if I would be interested in regularly submitting articles to his website, I said, “Sure! Why not?” After all, I have known Jim for a few years and I also know that he has a wide and varied interest in multiple, strange phenomena. But, where to start? Well, rather than pick some random thing to write about, I figured this would be the ideal time and place to share with you something from my teenage years. Something that got me deeply involved in the worlds of the weird, the supernatural, and the mysterious.

Over the last couple of decades, I have spent a lot of time digging into matters relative to Bigfoot, the Men in Black, the Chupacabra, Roswell, and lake-monsters. But, back when I was in my early teens, I was exposed to something else. It was as chilling as it was downright bizarre. And it was something that occurred just a short drive from where I lived, as a kid, in central England. Namely, the village of Pelsall, the origins of which hark way back in time to the 10th century.

Barely a stone’s throw from Pelsall is the village of Great Wyrley. On the surface, there’s nothing odd or disturbing about the place. At least, not until you do a bit of digging into its history. That’s when you find Great Wyrley has a dark shadow hanging over it. And it has been there for more than a century. In late 1903, a resident of Great Wyrley – a certain young man named George Edalji – was sentenced to serve significant jail-time for violently attacking horses in the area. The late-night attacks were so ferocious and deadly that the entire populace of Great Wyrley was shocked to its collective core. Both the local and national media covered the killings and reported extensively on Edalji’s sentence. But was Edalji really guilty of the crimes attributed to him?


Someone who suspected there had been a major miscarriage of justice in the Edalji affair was none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous creator of the world’s equally famous, fictional, “consulting detective.” We’re talking, of course, about Sherlock Holmes, of 221b Baker Street, London. Such was the extent to which Doyle tackled the Edalji case, the latter’s seven-year sentence was cut and he walked out of prison in 1906. Edalji was a free man. Albeit, not a pardoned man. The local police remained convinced that Edalji was the guilty party, regardless of what Sir Arthur may have thought, and equally regardless of Sir Arthur’s fame and influence.

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Now, some might say that the strange saga of George Edalji was nothing more than a case of some deranged individual – whether Edalji, or possibly a local butcher’s boy named Royden Sharp, or someone else whose identity has never been ascertained – performing terrible acts that warranted incarceration. No-one, surely, would have a problem about placing such a person behind bars – and for a very long time. But, was the culprit George Edalji? Well, that’s the big question. There are a number of valid reasons as to why Edalji may not have been the guilty party. Born in 1876 to a mother of Scottish descent and a father who was from Bombay, India, George – along with the rest of his family – suffered from racist taunts, some of which came from the local police. Indeed, the Chief Constable of the Staffordshire Police loudly and outrageously proclaimed “black men [were] less than beasts.” Locals viewed the family with suspicion. Anonymous, threatening letters were sent to the Edalji home, and a campaign of intimidation and terror rolled on for years, and which culminated in George Edalji’s arrest and conviction for horse-maiming. Until, that is, Conan Doyle stepped into the swirling mystery and Edalji became a free man. Living very close to where George Edalji dwelled decades earlier, I – like most of my family and friends – had heard the tales of the animal mutilations, of the Conan Doyle connection, and of the menace that the entire affair created in and around Great Wyrley, back at the turn of the 20th century. But, with a growing interest in matters relative to the domains of the mysterious, the supernatural, and the occult, I began to realize that there were some aspects to the controversy which pushed things down very strange pathways. Possibly, even, supernatural pathways. There was talk – often hushed talk – of the unfortunate horses being sacrificed to appease ancient, terrible, supernatural entities. One of the strangest of all accounts suggested that the culprit was a large ape. This is intriguing, since Staffordshire has a long and controversial history of “out of place apes” and of “British Bigfoot.” In the Edalji story, however, the suggestion was that the ape was a wholly normal one – possibly a chimpanzee – which had been hypnotized to attack and kill the horses. A similar story in circulation posited that well-trained and aggressive boar were responsible. [clickToTweet tweet=”Nick Redfern asks, Does This Case Hint At A British Bigfoot?” quote=”Does This Case Hint At A British Bigfoot?”]Large and violent birds of an unknown kind, and even a wild and marauding cat, were suggested. In terms of the latter, we’re talking about an ocelot, which is known as the “dwarf leopard” and which exists in South America, Central America, and Mexico. It just so happens that the creature in question was a very real one. It was owned by a man named Dr. John Kerr Butter. He lived not at all far from where the attacks occurred, and, at the time of Edalji’s arrest, Butter was retained by the police to check for any incriminating horse-hairs on Edalji’s clothing. Whispers suggest that it was Butter’s ocelot (he may have owned several over the years…) that was the real cause of the horse attacks, and not Edalji, after all. Darker whispers suggest that Butter might well have had a vested interest in placing the blame on Edalji, specifically to direct people away from himself and his wild cat. Whatever the truth, Butter’s ocelot vanished under odd circumstances; although a second is rumored to have come into his hands a few years later. Well, as I’m sure you can guess, all this entertained and intrigued a very young Nick Redfern, to the extent that I still take note of any and all new developments in the strange saga of George Edalji. As for the latest development, it’s occurring right now. As I write these words, the PBS channel is airing a 3-part, dramatized series on the mystery titled Arthur & George, and which is based upon a novel of the same name by Julian Barnes. It demonstrates that this macabre and unsettling piece of Great Wyrley history is unlikely to fade away anytime soon.

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Nick Redfern is the author of many books, including Men in Black, Chupacabra Road Trip, and The Bigfoot Book. He can be contacted at his blog, “World of Whatever,” at nickredfernfortean.blogspot.com

A note from Jim Harold: I am thrilled that the great Nick Redfern will be a regular contributor to our Paranormal Braintrust section at JimHarold.com

Filed Under: If Its Weird Its Here, Nick Redfern, Slider, The Paranormal Braintrust Tagged With: bigfoot, British Bigfoot, George Edalji, If It's Weird It's Here, Nick Redfern, Paranormal Braintrust, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Conan Doyle

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