Haunted Art Studio
INwhat day is it today? Aha… March 17, 2007, Saturday. I'm sorry if I seem embarrassed. I feel like I just came back from Disneyland. Disneyland Macabre. There was so much to see, so much to do, and the added bonus is that this art studio is truly haunted! That night I went with HPI (Haunted and Paranormal Investigations) in Northern California. We all met first at Starbucks, where we had a quick briefing and I wolfed down the Venti Caramel Macchiato. Let's call a roll call to HPI paranormal investigators (it's 8:45 p.m.): Shannon McCabe/Principal Investigator, President; Tim Hawkins; Michele Stump; Brian Colbert; Kristen Sheley/Researcher; Maria Casiano; Alice Perry; Engineering Manager, John Wachter; Principal Investigator Michelle Paykel; Julie English, Paul Dale Roberts; Ghost writer. After checking in at Starbucks, we are escorted to the art studio.
A resident tells me that this place has existed since the 1930s. She is an artist and has lots of stories about this place. Let me tell you why I call it Disneyland of the Macabre. I don't say this maliciously, believe me, this place is like a museum, there is something to see. But I repeat, I'm not getting ahead of myself. The resident, a very elegant lady, sits comfortably and explains to me that one evening around 10 p.m. she saw a gloomy, shadowy figure of a man in one of the rooms. He just stood there, then looked at her and walked away. For the first month in this studio, she painted and listened to music, not caring at all, until suddenly she heard footsteps on the stairs. The footsteps became louder… Clack, clack, clack! It was very clear and surprised her. She went to check, but no one was there. She witnessed activity in the kitchen, bathroom and living room. In the kitchen, objects fell from the wall. Her guests saw full-sized apparitions in the living room. According to the resident, one of the guests saw someone in her bathroom and didn't care, and then realized that there were no other guests in the room. The person she saw in the bathroom was a 55-year-old man who appeared to be Italian and had gloomy hair. When she went to the bathroom again, he was gone. Another guest was sleeping on the couch and saw the face of a man (Italian male ghost/spirit) staring at him face to face. Another story involved a plant that moved of its own accord. There were scorching spots in various parts of the apartment. Yes, I said scorching spots, not cool spots. Another artist who was a guest of this studio dreamed that he was lying on a couch and was surrounded by 13 beings.
The history of this elaborate studio is that there was a restaurant downstairs and a nightclub upstairs. At one point, the place was a “speakeasy” during Prohibition, complete with its own escape route. In the 1950s it was a jazz club. It was also a brothel and a Japanese gambling parlor. This studio has a long history. You can even see where there was a stage for the band and a rather enormous dance floor for the past patrons.
Now let's get back to that Disneyland I was talking about. The studio is like eye candy full of relics. A guest at the studio tells me she describes it as “an eclectic mix of religious icons representing the Catholic and Buddhist religions, with a twist of rebellious punk rock thrown in…” Yes, I'd have to agree with her, this art studio is all that and more, and it also comes with a bag of chips! As I looked around the studio, I saw various pieces of art such as broken dolls, manic dolls, candles, dried flowers, voodoo dolls, skulls, disco balls, antique photographs, beads, religious paraphernalia; plants, circus materials, gothic materials, Christmas lights and other various works of art. In fact, the studio itself is one great work of art!
While investigators were impressed with this studio, they walked around it with their video cameras, walkie-talkies, EVP monitors, and temperature gauges, while television monitors displayed what was recorded. Have we seen bullets? We saw bullets flying everywhere, in and out of the studio.
Another guy in the studio and his girlfriend lead me and another researcher into the basement. We didn't find any ghosts in the basement, but we did find some antique relics such as a cat skull, tax forms from 1942, an antique jug, antique bottles, airy fixtures, and a broken chair. The passage through the basement was treacherous, there was mud and huge holes that were effortless to fall into. A resident even found several mummified feral cats in this basement. I discovered a nasty black widow and knew it was time to leave.
As we were walking back to the living room, one of the researchers' electromagnetic field meter starts to fluctuate like crazy. Another EMF meter does the same thing. Something is happening in the living room and the two researchers feel a presence behind them. The presence is, in a sense, ominous. A video camera records a ball that floats above one of them, settles near her torso and scatters. After about a minute, he hears a rustle nearby and jumps up from the couch in fear! Was this the Italian ghost the local resident affectionately calls “Tony”? Both researchers captured the gorgeous orbs on their video cameras and are thrilled to show me their photos.
Around midnight we started gathering all our equipment and headed home. When everyone works as a team and we all experience something extraordinary, it brings the HPI team together. The closeness of everyone sharing similar experiences, which leads to a sense of belonging to a family. A family that welcomes you and leaves with sultry hugs. We all know that we survived another investigation and survived this adventure into the unknown. As I drove away and headed home I turned on some uplifting music and one of the songs was “Sail Away” which lifted my spirits and the next uplifting song was the theme from The Exorcist. Oh no, let me get that CD out! I don't need to hear it! If you would like more information about HPI, please visit their website: http://www.HPIparanormal.net
Paul Dale Roberts, freelance writer
www.jazmaonline.com
5606 Moonlight Path
Elk Grove, California 95758
JazzaPika@cs.com
(916) 203 7503
Edited by: Shannon McCabe
Floating lady without legs
ABOUTOne day I was sitting in my room when I heard a sound and didn't pay attention to it. A second later there was a knock on the door and I got up to see who it was. When I got up, I opened the door and no one was there. We lived in the basement, so there were stairs and a wall in my way. When I went up the stairs, there was no one there. I thought he was my sister's boyfriend, but there was no one in the hall. So I went into the house, looked at the door, sat back on the bed and finished watching TV. 5 minutes later I heard another sound. I turned around and saw a woman floating, looking at me dead. Her eyes were red, she was wearing a gray dress and she had no legs, she had long black hair, but she just stared. I woke up my mother to see what I saw, but she got up too tardy. As I jumped under the sheets trying to hide from whatever she was, there was another knock on the door and my mom told me to go get it. I refused and she opened the door, this time it was my sister and her boyfriend.
I asked my sister “have they knocked on the door yet?” and they said no, they just got here. So I asked my mom if she saw it because I was telling her about it and she said she only saw the end of her dress. I was only 9 years venerable and now I'm turning 18 and I remember that day like it just happened.
Possessed in a dream
This is perhaps beyond the realm of the ordinary, considering it was a dream. However, I feel it has a few similarities to my story “I See You” and maybe the dead can affect dreams?
It was the night of March 23, 2007. I got off work and went to bed around 7 p.m. I'm pretty sure it was a dream where I actually wake up and hear noises, bangs and banging. The next thing I know in this dream is that I have a sense of evil and that there is something else inside me. I feel possessed by a demon. I am full of rage, malice and anger and I run down the stairs, but as I hop on my left foot, taking the steps four at a time, I feel invincible.
I have enough control to look in the mirror and see red eyes staring back at me. I pass by my mother. Stop and look at her. I go to the next room and run into my father's, and that's where the dream ends.
This dream was so bright and detailed that it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The neighborhood was modeled on reality, it was my house and I walked around it. I have to stop and wonder if it really was a dream. Apart from the demon element, there was no other fantasy or contrived element that I experienced in any of my other dreams. Could it have been more than a dream? Can we be susceptible to evil spirits in our dreams?
Cya
Simon