PARALLEL DIMENSION OR AFTERLIFE ?

The night porter at Dolphin Square, was prime for a chat. Hot nights in centre city London and just by the river made sleep impossible. The pool and restaurant had just closed and there was little to do except go out for the night and I chose an early night. We were joined by two of the security guards who were as interested in the tenants as we were in them in view of the insecurity being caused by a recent wave of vandalism and robbery in the area. The presence of Royal tenants had caused the whole security system to be re structured and powerful infra red cameras had been trained on every angle of the massive estate.

The conversation drifted into interesting aspects of their work and it was late enough to be a bit lax about the choice of subjects. One of the guards was a young ex Gulf War soldier who had been injured and despite a few surgical operations had been left visibly lame. I suspect he was no older than 25 and sporting the innocence of one taken away from the day to day realities of monotonous life to emerge sensitive and confused from his violent, unimagined experiences. I had reason to ask them about whether they had in fact ever seen anything during their night security history which bordered on the unexplained and perhaps mysterious. The whole estate was a labyrinth of corridors, underground passages, internal gardens and surrounding alleyways. It did not take the older one long to react as his eyes narrowed and proceeded to tell us about the mysterious figue with a long dark cloak which they had constantly followed on camera and which they had subsequently pursued physically each time, to no avail. It had seemed highly unlikely to me that they should refer to what I had in mind bearing in mind the whol spectrum of experiences which many night watchmen find themselves involved in. He appeared to have met me head on – right on the spot and I felt I knew what he was talking about and for which possibility I had asked the question. I had walked down to the lobby of my particular House (of which there were over a score on eight levels, making the famous condominium the largest block of apartments in Europea in the 30´s when it was built).

The silent figure

I was due to catch a flight at Gatwick at 09.00am and I was taking the Victoria train at around 06.00 am. It must have been around half an hour before that time when I walked down the stairs and entered the lobby. It was also then, that I saw the dark, silent cloaked figure with head pensively down glide past the corner of my eye. I could not detect features, but it was real enough. I turned to my right where the figure had disappeared to and which led to the short corridor, lifts and a swing door for the inner gardens of the estate. I wondered who it was since we knew most our neighbours and there had not been any acknowledgement which was a little unusual. I saw that the swing doors with slow return hinges appeared not to have moved nor had the lift sound betrayed a passenger or a characteristic opening or closing . My split second turn towards where the figure glided to would not have given it time to do any of these two essential thing and the matter left its mark in my mind for years to come. I told them what I had seen and the younger one was more than taken aback. I took them both to the lobby of the particular block which they examined in great detail and there appeared to be no doubt in relation to the particular cameras, that it was here that the figure had gone to from the outside. I refrain from mentioning the block in case contemporary tenants should find it diquieting. They had always seen the back of the figure move into this lobby and I had obviously seen the front but I realize now that it was quite faceless or had swept past too quickly for me to catch a glimpse of it. It was solid enough in an ethereal sort of way and it had slid past me only two metres away, leaving a distinct impression of a gliding movement. Only a year before, a horrendous murder perpetrated by two young delinquents had taken place on the fourth floor. Many tenants heard it, including myself, but it was attributed to a family quarrel and nobody went to the rescue. I had met the victim and I had remember having seen him once with a a very long dark trench coat. Although I will never be sure, I can say with some conviction that the figure measured up to his overall presence.

The nature of this and other manifestations always left grounds for potential explanations, but none ever proved conclusive enough. This is why I thought about it as elusive parapsychology. My comments had stunned the security guards who had at my instigation provided me with information which had been corroborated with a careful examination of the site. There were factors on both sides to show that the incidents had something in common and that the events actually took place and both recorded by camera and eyesight. However, short of dismissing it all as tricks of the imagination, it does not explain the camera frequent camera sighting, which had always led to the same block entrance and total loss of contact beyond the doors to the lobby. I had been the first to explain the sighting from within the lobby that I chanced to walk into at the precise moment of time that the spectre walked in.

Strange things in store

Not all of these strange occurences that shook my senses during the course of a long and eventful life, were of the ghostly variety, but strange they all were. I was walking down an eerie tree lined avenue late at night in Buffolo New York. I had just attended a lecture at the local university given by a professor friend with whose family I was staying. It was the 4th. July and the year for the moment evades me. I had done a British Royal Tour of Toronto and taken the opportunity to cross Niagara Falls and pop into Buffalo for a long awaited encounter. I really do not even know what happened during that long walk to the house. I remember the incandescent globe. It looked like a searchlight and it appeared to glide over the treetops, silently as if searching for something. My immediate reaction was that it was a helicopter as seen in films, looking for fugitives at night, but there was no sound. The next thought was – glider, but it was a very dark night and the light seemed to hover at some point. It could have been, but what it was doing at night so close to treetops, is another question. I did not have much time for futher thought. “Run!” shouted Steven. I needed little persuasion because of the inexplicable aspects of this sight. We had to pass underneath where this thing had floated over and beamed downwards so it was not a comforting prospect. Steven was miles more mature than I was and of an establishment breed that had earned him his position within the university and at least one major appointment in Belgrade where I had met him and his excellent wife. We met in London subsequently and the Buffalo trip was a sequel to the endless fun we had in the vicinity of the Capital. I have never had a chance to go over the incident with him since that peculiar night and neither of us had a clear idea of what it could have been apart from the fact that it looked ominous and out of context with the setting. For one reason or another, it did not add up. It was one of those things that had to be be ignored or spend hours on in circular argument, to arrive at the same starting point and further doubts. Years later, one curious fact came to light in the UFO sighting journals. The time and date coincided with the so called massive UFO sightings in Washington often called the “attack on the Capitol”. We may have been close to one of those mysterious lights that appeared to surround the citadel throughout the course of that night. Or perhaps a straggler or malfunctioning one – whichever, it is too coincidental to be dismissed. Whilst moving forward, across the treetops, it was not doing it hurriedly and like a soap bubble, seemed to hover at some point. Steven sensed danger from this strange movement which in hindsight appeared to be allied to a search and something that only a helicopter would do – except that if it had been one of these, we would have most certainly felt and heard it. Nothing had broken the splendid silence of that blissful night.

A sighting and cosmic grafitti

It was not to be the last time I had come across a mysterious airborne artefacts except that the second one occurred just off an unlikely town called Estepona, in the Costa del Sol, Spain, where the only unexpected thing that every happened was that you got robbed. My friend, an executive of a notoriously filthy, petrol refinery in the bay of Gibraltar, was glad to retire and breath the relatively fresher air of this beachside villa complex. We had been family friends for years and we looked forward to a good stretch on the beach the following day. The sky was clear and the stars twinkled with the intensity of a moonless night when suddenly, it flew overhead – silently like one of those shots in the star trek television saga. We both shouted “What´s that ?” and we had reason to do so for it was massive and salmon coloured with what appeared to be a wide variety of attachments underneath or even as it seemed to me, an inverted landscape. It was silent, swift and shapeless and it disappeared within seconds into the void and just over the sea. If it had been a meteorite, I suspect it would have been glowing with much greater intensity and would have hit whatever it did with a massive force and explosion, for it was too near the earth to be far from its point of impact. It could also have been an optical effect produced by something so massive that seen from ground level would have been translated as immediately overhead. The orangey glow could have been a reflection of the street lights if the surface had been shiny or highly reflective. Could it have been a brief outer space entry and exit into the earths´s atmosphere of a spacecraft ? It covered most of the retinal area leaving, just enough space to see the diffusion from light to dark of what was an irregular object and nothing like a fireball. Again – no sound. The colour sticks in my mind – salmon, soft and full of lighter and darker shapes within the surface – nothing like a spacecraft but more like a massive piece of illuminated earth with clumps of rocks stuck to it. But then it was so sudden and so unexpected that it was difficult to retain it mentally. This was not the case however with something else that happened only some 60 kilometres away and just within the Malaga airport complex.

I owned a carpark at the airport and I must say that it all started when we built stadium-like sun screens of corrugated iron which spanned some fifty feet. I cannot for the life of me explain it away and heaven knows I tried to get all and everyone interested in taking it seriously but neither relevant societies nor press were in the slightest bit inclined to come over and see for themselves. Our day manager and I spent hours trying to figure out the patterns in the dust that covered most of the cars in that very heavily contaminated part of the world with at least one of many illegal quarry only a few miles away. The designs were perfectly symmetrical and broadly speaking could be taken for photographic copies of the rings of Saturn. All were made up of dustless rings carved out on dusty surfaces. Some had wide intervals between them. Others closely packed and some huge ones covering both bonnets and windscreens. What gave us the creeps was that they followed from the large open surfaces to the other adjoining ones at different angles but when viewed from a few yards away, the complete pattern seemed to follow the line of vision as if it had been beamed from above with no visible distortion. Some were only dartboard affairs only a few centimetres across – others as large as a metre. Many appeared on the windscreens as if rubber suckers had been stamped carefully on the dust or perhaps even rubber stamps of concentric circles. Sometimes light brush marks on the window ones appeared to be bird wings showing outer feathers clearly stamped and in many cases associated with these images. These could have proved coincidental since we had seen them on other occasions when they images were not there except that there were many more than normal. The beauty of these images were sometimes so startling that we were loathe to wash them off , as the car owners came for them. As they disappeared we realised with distress that they were not being replaced. The experience would remain ours and of those people we showed them to. Whatever made them did so on one specific day and all we could possibly associate with the making was some sort of electromagnetic wave which somehow implanted magnetic properties in a set design depending on frequency. What I mean is that whatever dust lay on the magnetised areas was of a different polarity and joined the dust rights next to it like neighbouring bands. This made me think that perhaps the smaller tighter ones were of a higher frequency and the large, of a lower scale. Whatever sent out such mysterious electromagnetic wave blasts, may have perhaps been of a morse effect and thus creating a smaller or larger circle with wider or narrower rings depending on the what I can only call an electromagnetic intonation. Each pattern had to be a single burst if they were individual clearly marked patterns. Whatever, the possibility as someone suggested that they were caused by glass fibre strands from afar driven by air currents in a circular motion could not account for the perfection and the definition. The idea however appeared to offer some sort of explanation but the very large patterns were definitely outside the capability of such a mechanical possibility. Both Jack Holmes, the general manager and I together with the dozens of others who saw it were not only bewildered and awed by the apparitions, but a little concerned that perhaps something had come to the airport that was not in the order of ordinary things. I spoke to a German scientist during a conference in Paris I had attended and who shared the same hotel. He merely said -”I would be careful if I were you”. He seemed serious enough but then under the circumstances, short of being his speciality, I suppose it could have been a brush off or a gentle ticking off.

Sounds from nowhere

The patterns were not the only weird happenings in that unnatural enclosure. We had all spent time looking for non existant radios seemingly within the 14,000 square metre parking area. In carparks anything on – lights or radio could lead to battery rundowns and that was hard work best avoided, so chasing such things was a matter of duty. At times the crystal clear sounds of music (I cannot remember voices) filled the whole undercover areas, so I attributed this to the corrugated iron awnings which were somehow acting like antennaes and loudspeakers. On one occasion whilst standing at a window overlooking the whole compound in the dead of night, I heard breathing with the realistic whistling end of the start of a snore. I cannot explanit it better. I listened for a fair length of time and ventured to walk in the darkness of the complete compound surrounded by the sound. The whole roofing complex appeared to be breathing as I walked from section to section and the sound continued. If I was not terrified, it was because my logical sense of things, told me that if something breathed that loud it had to be a giant and I could not see one so it had to be some sort of auditory illusion. The sound of music made more sense but then perhaps someone had fallen asleep near a transmitter at the airport and my talented roofs did the rest. Even radar perhaps, so utilized at airports could have translated into an audible sound under those conditions, but then once again it could have been anything. The following however, was much more disturbing Paraspycological manifestions when not imbued with malice or threat, set my heart pounding, but I was more awed than afraid, fearing the worst but also proof which I could put to good use. Those experiences which were of potentially dark augur however, like the one I experienced just two years ago, in the same place, left me stressed and fearfully aprehensive.

Frightening encounter with destiny

There were at least three of us involved. Martin, Lynne his wife and I. As a animal rescuer of some ingenuity, I had a collection of some fifteen dogs on board at the best of times. These were kept in fenced compounds whilst I found and negotiated my new home. As loves of my life with a very close contact with each and every one of them, the Lynne the hired help, was an absolute necessity., Her husband Martin, our office manager on site who took over from Jack Holmes, made up the main basic trio with a variety of drivers which changed every now and then. My experience with dogs and the hundreds of things that can and often go wrong, made me very sensitive to any changes that heralded problems of health ahead. That fateful morning, I stood in front of the compound of four of what I called my wild pack. I heard rather than saw to start with, the rustle that reminded me of the sound that peacocks and turkeys make when they fan and stretch their tail feathers in display – a plastic scratching sound which I would find difficulty in putting across verbally. From the corner of my eye I then saw what appeared to be a massive black wing draped down over the side of the wall leading into the enclosure. I knew instinctively that it was not a real object. I dared not move and watched it briefly before raising my eyes to see if there was something above me terrifyingly big and wounded. The eye movement saw it dissolve instantly. For obvious reasons I associated it with a sign of death and perhaps an angel of death although I had never seen an image of that nature and the man with the scythe was my concept of such things. The crow black image burnt is way into the subconscious. I informed lynne and she told Martin. I asked them to put it into the day book in case something followed on.

That same night I went to the cinema and saw what appeared to be a good film but which was probably the worst thing I had ever seen in that category. It featured Meryl Streep, my favourite star and she acted out her role as a country and western singer within a group on the final closing night of a particularly old theatre. What I saw then left me cold and gave me an insight into psychic warnings. It appeared, from a film that I had read absolutely nothing about beforehand and which was incomprehensible from the start, that the whole situation was being monitored by an angel of death in the form of a woman who kept walking among them invisibly and who in one instance is shown with massive black wings to endorse her identity. I was shaken and alerted and took time to understand the peculiar plot. It looked initially as if the object of the removal by death was a younger member of the troupe, but who was eventually bypassed in favour of the oldest – a veteran octagenerian who had been silently in love with a slightly younger woman within the circle. As it turns out, the angel of death had allowed him to see and even converse with her and he had asked for an opportunity to declare and consummate his love for the other woman before bidding farewell. There follows a rejuvenation process which leads him to state his love and provoke the desired response. He waits in his private quarters blissfully at the height of his happiness and satisfaction awaiting his love and who turns up just as inspired, only to find him dead. Lynne and Martin were astounded and used to such things from me and they prepared for unplesant things to come. Again, diary entries were made and to my astonishment, whilst listening to the car radio that same day, a whole programme dedicated to wings, their symbolical meanings and evolution filled my ears. I knew that something terrible was about to happen associated with the dogs and Lynn was quite upset watching every dog and noting every change.

The signs consolidate

It poured the following day and left deepish puddles everywhere. I released the dogs in the mentioned compound and they run around like mad splashing water around. I watched them with great pleasure, beautiful as they were and having the time of their lives. The youngest, Mungi, suddenly flapped around on her back and what I took for devilry, turned into horror and alarm as she tried to get up but threshed around inexplicably with her mouth open as if in agony. I saw Martin rush towards me as I shouted for help whosaw what was happening and I picked up the stricken dog whose heart could almost be heard – such was the violence of its pounding. I knew I had seconds in which to steady the heart and I massaged Mungie with intensity hoping to get her out of the fit. I felt the heart stop and start and and then gallop again but fell short of stopping again, I sensed we were over the hill. I held her head to enable her to breathe better and massaged her back and chest in an effort to calm her down. She appeared to be coming out of the coma and the heart beat started to slow down. Mungi could not get up for a while and eventually when she tried, her back legs gave way. Two minutes later, dazed and subdued, she started to walk and then appeared to recover fully with that characteristic confused look looking around for someone to blame. She had just gone through the horizon but short of further developments had survived. Mungie was the youngest and strongest of all the dogs with a vitality that even today, four years later, she demonstrates to our sheer delight. She is a close to a red setter as a mix can be but essentially she is of jackal origin called a Podenco in Spain. They are very hardy wild dogs only recently domesticated.

Lynne, Martin and I discussed the event and begged the question. Was there something to follow in this psychic saga ? I refused to think, because anything, just anything that affected my dogs struck me with a knife as long and as sharp as the fear that came over me. I had another dog in another field with an ex nightwatch man who had been taken ill and would be away in hospital for some time and would never return. Canela, for that was her name, had been poorly for some time, reflecting the bad life she had had before I took her in. She was one of the family having saved her from scoundrels whose lead/rope had practically grown into her neck such was the abuse. Canela started to show signs of illness and I put her on a double dose of antibiotics as prescribed the vet. Miraculously, after a stint on the antibiotics and freshly cooked food, she suddenly appeared to have returned to her younger days, running around friskly as she had not done for many years. We could not believe it and stood before her awed at the sight. We had felt a sense of forebading at her rejuvenation in view of the film, but there had been no cause for alarm with respect to her health. Suddenly without warning when we took it fro granted that she was well on her way to perfect health, she started to stumble and I knew instinctively that death was near. My hackles rose as the scenes in the film raced in my mind. The second chance – the return to younger days and spirited behaviour was over. I had just weaned her off the choice food to get her back to more nutritious though less palatable dog food and as her head sunk lower into the ground I knew she was minutes away from her destiny. I felt her last breath with little comfort, but perhaps in some way, I knew that the last ten days of foreboding and fear were over. I knew with great saddness, that for the moment at least, fate had had its day and perhaps hopefully we had a long and contented space of time before us in unsolicited compensation.

About the Author:
Parliamentary correspondentage at 15. Royal touring writer. Agency Commonwealth writer Publisher Britain’s first trade journal for drivers. Travel writer and millionaire businessman, hotelier, restauranteur. Contributor to Holy Blood and Holy Grail. Messianic Legacy. Sword and the Seal. Articles published in wide variety of British and Commonwealth Journals. Author Al Andalus * a trail of discovery. Lulu

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – STRANGE MANIFESTATIONS

Ghost hunting is not a science. Out of all the individuals and/or groups of ghost hunters in existence, very, very few actually have any experience with the scientific method or have any experience actually conducting experimental research.

Still, many groups will tell you that they have photos and audio of what are spirits; evidence of ghosts. As far as I am aware, there is no scientific evidence of the existence of ghosts or an afterlife. That is a question of faith at this point in time. If somebody knows something I don’t, please let me know!

As the member of a group whose members actually have some background conducting scientific research, I realize that ghost hunting doesn’t lend itself to a well-controlled scientific experiment. The methodologies are weak, the equipment used was never originally designed to detect ghosts, and it is nearly impossible to replicate the results.

Even more perturbing is the fact that certain groups are damaging the credibility of legitimate and accomplished paranormal researchers and parapsychologists by posting photographs that are easily dismissed as well-known and easily identifiable camera malfunctions and other artifacts of the photographic process.

Capturing a photograph of an orb or strange mist is just that. A photograph of a strange orb or mist. Competent paranormal investigators will attempt to rule out the anomaly….is it a reflection? Is it a bug? Is it dust? Is it condensation on the lens of the camera? Is it a problem with the developing and/or printing process? The logical possibilities are nearly endless, and yet, certain people will make a claim that “it’s a spirit orb,” or that the mist is representative of “the paranormal energy of the ghost that haunts the” location.

We try and look at our “evidence” with a critical eye, and include the use of accomplished photo consultants in an attempt to rule out all rational explanations. What we can’t explain means simply that, we can’t explain it. If we’ve done a good job ruling out everything, we may just be left with something paranormal.

Remember that the word ‘paranormal’ simply means ‘not scientifically explainable.’

That’s it. To take the next step and call a possibly paranormal photograph a picture of a ghost is a leap of faith that I, personally, can’t swallow. A person can certainly make that statement, but at that point it becomes an opinion, a statement based on belief and faith. I mean, it just as well could be a picture of a 1957 Chevy or Fred Flintstone. At that point, I can choose what I believe. There’s simply no evidence backing it up.

Our group members have varying beliefs. There is one thing we all agree with however….we’re never going to call a picture of a camera strap a “vortex through which spirits can enter our material realm” or a photograph of an orb “a spirit orb which shows a ghost trying to manifest itself.”

This is simply too big a stretch of illogical rationalization in our minds.

I’ve been a member of a group where, to be a member, you had to believe in ghosts! We’ve also had members in this group to whom every cold draft, every sound, and every strange photograph was a ghost, regardless of whether the phenomena was debunked or not.

We like to have fun, and our belief’s evolve everyday, but we feel that we have to be careful and measured in our response to what we call ‘evidence.’ 99% of the pictures we post on our Web site don’t contain anything paranormal. Capturing actual paranormal activity in photographs is quite rare. Also, the majority of EVPs can be debunked or certainly explained away by skeptics as something other then the voices of dead people. We post things of interest and for entertainment, but you won’t catch us calling something a ghost. To be quite honest, there are only two or three pieces of “evidence” I have captured over the years that I can say with near certainty are paranormal–unexplainable by conventional science.

As far as myself, I can definitely say I’ve experienced paranormal phenomena, phenomena that is unexplainable by science. As to what caused this phenomena, well, I can’t say. It’s simply unexplainable in my mind.

This is a hobby for us, and we like to have fun with it, and we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but, at the same point, however, in the spirit of transparency, we feel we have an obligation to call a spade a spade.

Sights Unseen Paranormal

by Bobby Elgee, Sights Unseen Paranormal

Author: Bobby Elgee  is a lead investigator for Sights Unseen Paranormal, a small ghost hunting team based in New England. With a background in cognitive psychology and the publishing industry, he brings a common-sensical, practical/person center approach to paranormal investigations.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – “Evidence” of the Paranormal and Ghosts

The winds cut deeper and make progressively louder noises as the days shorten. Fog creeps in from the sea more often. And then Halloween shows up, as if to really remind us about things otherworldly. It’s no wonder Oregon’s northern coast has a load of ghostly tales swirling about. It’s no wonder the remake of “The Fog” currently in release is set in a fictional North Oregon Coast town. From flying pots and specters who’ve moved from one building to another in Seaside, the ghostly legends of a hotel in the Nehalem Bay, to the myriad of hauntings in ancient Astoria – there’s plenty for the ghost-hunting tourist in this pristine and stunning area.

SLEEPLESS IN SEASIDE

Tales of things creepy abound in Seaside – but they’re hard to find. It’s almost as if they’ve been swept under the carpet.

For almost 100 years, the old Hotel Seaside (later named The Seasider) was a grandiose, beautiful building that was a sort of centerpiece to Seaside, at the Turnaround. So it’s no surprise that place acquired tales of apparitions and otherworldly guests over the years. There were numerous spirits that purportedly haunted it.

These days, the Shilo Inn sits in that spot. But when the old hotel was torn down, the spooks moved to Girtle’s Restaurant, just down the street on Broadway, according to owner Bob Girtle. He recounted numerous stories of otherworldly happenings in the restaurant, having seen them himself or coming from various employees who tell their own tales. They talk of seeing the mysterious shadows of feet walking behind the door of a closed-off area of the kitchen, visible from the small space between the floor and the door. This happens when it’s not possible anyone else is in there, say Bob and his crew. They don’t even check that room anymore when they see the shadows.

Then there is the notorious flying coffee pot in the galley area between the kitchen and the main dining room. Bob and others on his staff have experienced this more than once. Sometimes it moves a bit, others it literally flies across the hallway.

Bob said he inherited some employees of the old Seasider back in the 80′s, and at least one said they saw some of the same ghosts.

John Sowa, owner of the New Orleans-style eatery Lil’ Bayou, also related tales of moving objects in the kitchen and a strange sense of someone being near him while alone in his office. Kitchen utensils are found in different places than employees have left them, or an object suddenly falls off a hook or a shelf.

Lil’ Bayou lies in the historic Gilbert District of Seaside, which is filled with old buildings, almost all with upstairs areas that are often unused. The charming, atmospheric area has gone through a rebirth in recent years, and often there are whispers of ghosts coinciding with many of the renewed buildings.

The Seaside Aquarium may have a closet containing something – or rather, an upstairs that could be haunted. When the building was a natatorium back about 80 years ago, there were apartments at the top floor. That area isn’t used much at all now, but manager Keith Chandler says he’s heard whispers over the years the top floor is haunted. Various stories have been handed down over the years about noises coming from there.

EERIE AND NOT-SO-EERIE ON THE BAY

Manzanita, which caps the north end of the Nehalem Bay, is shrouded in mists and mystery, with Neahkahnie Mountain looming overhead and legends of a galleon and its buried treasures. Some versions of that tale contain atrocities, like purportedly burying their African slaves alive with the treasure to keep the natives away.

On its beaches, there are mysterious piles of rocks that have appeared over the years, apparently overnight. Sometimes they appear as single piles or stacks. No one has ever figured out who is responsible, creating speculation of an otherworldly artist.

In nearby Wheeler, facing the Nehalem Bay, Old Wheeler Hotel owner Winston Laszlo says he’s encountered several things in that old building he couldn’t really explain. Sometimes, he said, he believes he sees someone in the corner of his eye, only to discover there’s no one there.

Once, Winston was looking in a mirror in the hotel’s public area and saw the reflection of a man sitting in a chair behind him. Winston says he turned around to look at the man, whom he didn’t recognize as a guest, and there was no one there.

A pair of ghost hunters even came to the visit the place and took photos of what they believed could be “spirit orbs” just outside the basement area. Winston still has copies of these.

Winston and wife Maranne Doyle-Laszlo say the entire building seemed to be against them during the process of remodeling the ragged old construct into the first-rate hotel it is now. They had a nagging feeling a presence seemed to arrange one disaster and setback after another, such as when a window blew out in a storm. Then, one day, they say the building seemed to accept them, and reconstruction proceeded smoothly thereafter. ( www.oldwheelerhotel.com )

In an email just before her visit, ghost hunter Martina DeLude told Winston that made sense. “Ghosts that haunt residential and business locations become very threatened when someone starts changing things that they are accustomed to. Some spirits actually become incensed when furniture is moved around. Just like the living, most spirits do not like change. Possibly, as soon as they realized that it was once again going to become a hotel – perhaps something they may remember – they decided to help you along instead of stifling your efforts.” There’s more on their investigation of the Old Wheeler Hotel at http://www.nwpprs.com/Investigations/Places02/OldWheeler.html 

In other tales, Wheeler Antiques owner Garry Gitzen says a Wheeler woman, descended from local tribes, actually burned down her own house in recent years because disturbing spirits haunted it. She did this in lieu of tearing the thing down, never rebuilding it, with rumors floating about that Native American children had died in a fire in that spot in ancient times.

Not all is creepy here. According to Winston and Garry, there is a host of well-meaning spirits there known as the “Good Spirits of Wheeler,” and Ekahni Books owner Peg Miller says the place is a sort of “spiritual vortex lite.” They all point to something they call a “Wheeler Moment,” where serendipity seems to suddenly rear its head. Locals talk of numerous circumstances where pleasant, happy coincidences popped up, assisting folks in some way. They all note various incidents where someone is discussing wanting to do something, and someone or some opportunity arises that helps things along – like the time the Garry and Winston were talking about creating a film festival, and they discovered a documentary filmmaker was staying in town.

ASTORIA – OR GHOSTORIA?

At the very tip of Oregon, Astoria is full of major ghost stories of one sort or another. That’s no surprise, considering it’s the oldest settlement west of the Mississippi.

The Liberty Theater is widely regarded as haunted. It was once a haven for the likes of Duke Ellington, Jack Benny, Guy Lombardo and supposedly even gangster Al Capone. Purportedly, it’s also occupied by someone named Paul. One employee was quoted as saying that Paul is “quite handsome,” giving him the nickname Handsome Paul. He apparently wears a “white tuxedo and a panama hat,” according to the Clatsop County Historical Society.

Cast and crews over the years have talked about spotting him. While mostly just an apparition, he’s been known to slam doors and make other unruly noises. Other tales from the theater include objects gliding through the air, knobs unscrewing themselves from appliances and utilities, as well as two or three other inhabitants from beyond.

Also famous for being haunted is the firehouse there, plus the town has a brutal history of men being “shanghaied” in the early part of the century.

For more on the Oregon Coast, including extensive virtual tours, see www.beachconnection.net.

About The Author

Andre’ Hagestedt is editor of Beach Connection, a tourism publication covering the upper half of Oregon’s coast – some 180 miles.