Submitted photo - This historic home in Harpers Ferry is known as the Booth House and the ‘Haunted Cottage.’ Its new owners are creating a museum on the history of ghost hunting and offering classes on the subject.

HARPERS FERRY – A Harpers Ferry home is slated to become the site of a new paranormal history museum and research center – called the “Haunted Cottage” because of mysterious occurrences there through the years.

“We’ve heard footsteps. We’ve had objects disappear, and reappear later,” said Vince Wilson, head of the Harpers Ferry Society for Paranormal Research, and the guide of an international organization called the Paranormal Investigators Coalition.

Wilson said the museum – which already is partially open – will be located in the cottage, also known as the Booth House.

The property previously belonged to the family of John Wilkes Booth, who stayed at the site while visiting the area in 1859 to witness the hanging of famed abolitionist John Brown, Wilson said. At least 12 deaths have reportedly occurred in the home, he added.

The property’s history piqued the coalition’s interest, said Wilson, a professional paranormal investigator who has written three books about how to undertake such investigations. He said the coalition previously had an office space in Baltimore. “But it wasn’t haunted, it was just an office we worked out of,” he explained.

The group members also leased the Booth House in Harpers Ferry, and as they learned more about it, Wilson said their interest in the home grew. When the structure went up for sale, they immediately purchased it.

The building is home to a library on paranormal activity that contains nearly 500 volumes on ghosts and the science that surrounds their study, he said. Training sessions are held each week to help budding paranormal investigators learn more about the field.

Wilson said the courses range from “ghost hunting 101,” to sessions that focus on specific topics, including the use of photography in paranormal investigations.

Wilson said knowing the ins and outs of the trade is important for those who are about to undertake an investigation. These tips often do not come across in the television shows that have recently raised the profile of ghost hunting and turned it in to a popular endeavor.

“We try to use common sense techniques … lowest common denominator techniques,” he said.

Part of the investigative process is realizing that if a story sounds like it’s not true, chances are it probably isn’t, he said. Those who are listening to a possible ghost story should consider whether it sounds similar to others that they have heard before. A story about objects moving around or apparitions appearing, he said, is far more likely to be real than one about a ghost watching the History Channel to find out how the Civil War ended.

Wilson said it is not uncommon for investigations to prove that a ghost story was false.

“We estimate that about 90 percent of the investigations that we’ve gone to over the course of a year are debunked,” Wilson said.

So far, however, the ghost sightings at the Booth House have not been able to be debunked by Wilson and his colleagues. People have turned off the lights, only to return later and find them back on again, he said. Another time, the remote control for a television was somehow moved from one part of the house to another, its batteries removed and scattered around.

Wilson said the house gives investigators a place to try out their skills, noting that the space can be rented out by other ghost hunters seeking to try their luck on their own. The home can be used for birthdays, weddings and overnight paranormal investigations.

A museum is in the works on the property to show the progression of ghost hunting over time. Degrees of interest in the topic have been around for centuries. The official field of paranormal investigation came in to being nearly 120 years ago, he said.

Wilson himself began testing out his skills in the field 11 years ago, visiting bridges and taverns that were reportedly haunted.

“I was going on these little adventure tours with a friend of mine,” he explained.

Wilson said the duo started applying scientific principles to their research. He used what he learned to write the book “Ghost Tech,” and later “Ghost Science” and “Ultimate Ghost Hunter.”

“It’s my career of choice,” he said of his vocation in paranormal investigations.

What he’s seen through his work in the field has left him with a clear opinion on ghostly activity.

“We think that ghosts are an imprint on the environment,” he said.

Now, he’s hoping that he and others will be able to use Harpers Ferry’s Booth House to teach a new generation of ghost hunters about the history of the field, and the skills needed to be successful.

This was taken from journal-news.net and is copyright by the articles owner

Helen's Place

A group of paranormal researchers investigated Helen’s Place in Clanton on Saturday night.

Eight people from Southern Paranormal Researchers (SPR), based in Montgomery, set up camp at the restaurant and catering business, which was originally a home built in 1913.

The term “paranormal” describes any unusual experience that lacks a scientific explanation, particularly a ghost or haunting.

Members of the restaurant’s staff have reported seeing apparitions and unusual activity in the building.

“It’s a lot of sitting, a lot of documentation,” SPR founding member Shawn Sellers said of his work.

The group used several pieces of equipment, including four security cameras set up in different areas of the house, portable camcorders and recording devices in hope of capturing any trace of paranormal phenomena.

The cameras were set up in the dining area, hallway, kitchen and attic. Carbon monoxide detectors were used to make sure there was not any faulty wiring, which can interfere with paranormal investigations.

“It’s like fishing,” explained David Humphrey. “You go to a hole one day and catch a lot of fish, and the next day you’re not.”

Each camera view was monitored, while members went their separate ways conducting “moving investigations.” Members also conducted EVP (electronic voice phenomena) sessions.

EVP are electronically captured sounds that may be the result of intentional voice recordings. These are usually achieved by listening to static, stray radio transmissions or background noise recorded in supposedly haunted places.

At the end of each investigation, members of the group compare notes and review all video and audio recordings for evidence.

As of Tuesday, not all the tapes had been reviewed, but some observations were made Saturday night. During one EVP session, two reported seeing a white mist near the hallway.

At least one member seemed convinced through personal experiences from the night of the investigation.

“There’s no doubt that it’s haunted,” Marty Harsh said in a phone interview Tuesday.

This was taken from The Clanton Advertiser and is copyright by the articles owner

RAF Metheringham

Paranormal investigators say they have captured on film the ghostly image of a young Lincolnshire airwoman killed in a motorcycle crash during the Second World War .

The spectre of Catherine Bystock appeared on a road near the former RAF base at Metheringham, near Lincoln, which she is said to have haunted for over 60 years.

The base closed after the war but the tale of the ghostly woman, has become famous and even today villagers avoid the road where she is said to appear.

Catherine Bystock was a 19-year-old WAAF – a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force – engaged to a flight sergeant when she was killed while riding pillion on his motorbike in an accident on the bomber base.

Since then, her ghost has made regular appearances, frightening the life out of motorists using the dark country lane that now runs across the former airfield.

Over the years, some have reported a young woman dressed in an RAF uniform flagging them down and asking them to help her injured boyfriend.

But those who have gone to investigate found no trace of the injured motorcyclist and the girl then vanished in front of them.

The ghost traditionally appears in the summer months usually at around 9.30pm – the time when she died – and always after dusk starts to fall.

Now her image has apparently been captured on film by members of a local ghost-hunting team,

Mark Stretton, leader of the Spalding Paranormal Investigations team, said “It’s by far the best ghostly image we’ve ever caught on camera.

The 43-year-old schoolteacher added “The area has quite an atmosphere at night time.”

This was taken from The Lincolnshire echo and is copyright by the articles owner

The Kendall Cracker Factory

Kim DeVer, manager of the old cracker factory building, had a lot on her mind after the third floor of the building collapsed – and paranormal activity wasn’t far from her thoughts.

On two occasions in the past year, Brian Lavigne of Alton and the Paranormal Researchers of Southern Illinois team conducted paranormal investigations in the old factory.

The determination that DeVer observed and the preliminary conclusion by the research group is that the building displays strong paranormal activity.

“In early December, my son, Ross DeVer, spent the night in the building,” Kim DeVer said. “He definitely thought there was some paranormal activity going on. When we were hunting, we spent most of our time in the basement and the two top floors. There are still spirits there when there was a Baptist Church present, which was before the cracker factory.”

The Kendall Cracker Factory was built in 1864 with deep arched vault-like recesses, once used as ovens. The factory was built on the site of Alton’s First Baptist Church in 1836 and utilized at least part of the basement foundation of the early church, which burned in 1860.
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This is an earlier account on the history of the factory:

THE CRACKER FACTORY

Located in the heart of the Broadway Antique District is a large old building with a long history in Alton. The site on which the brick warehouse stands has been used for several things and has been owned by some of the leading businessmen from Alton’s past. In 1972, the building was purchased by a man named Sam Thames, a beloved figure in the city who organized the first Alton Antique Association. He became a leading force in bringing new antique businesses to town and also in spreading the word that Alton was “the place to come” for fine antiques.

Born in Many, Louisiana, Sam came to Alton in 1969 after serving five years in the United States Marine Corps. He owned a furniture company for a time before purchasing the Cracker Factory building and he made frequent trips to Demark and England in search of antiques for his shop. He also modeled professionally and became a community leader in the city. His support for historic landmarks gained him membership in the Alton Area Landmarks Association and he became one of those responsible for keeping the Berm Highway from being built through Riverside Park. Sadly, Sam Thames passed away in April 1994 following a lengthy bout with pancreatic cancer.

When I first moved to Alton, one of the locations in the city that I heard of as being haunted was the old Cracker Factory, which Sam had owned for many years. While I could never track down anything concrete about it, I was told that the ghost here was probably Sam himself. “If anyone would be haunting that building,” an acquaintance explained, “it would be Sam, because he loved the place so much.”

As it turns out though, if Sam does remain behind here – he does not walk in this building alone.

In March 1865, the proprietor of what had been known as one of the largest bakeries in St. Louis, Kendall’s Steam Bakery, purchased a plot in Alton at the corner of Easton and Second Streets with the purpose of building a new bakery on the site. The land had previously been occupied by the First Baptist Church, which had been built there in 1832. Rumor had it that the church had once been a station on the Underground Railroad but the legend died after the place was destroyed by fire some time after its construction.

H.N. Kendall, the new owner of the property, was well-known in the St. Louis area and he promised a variety of innovations to the new bakery that had not been seen in Alton before. In 1866, Kendall’s Cracker Factory opened at the site. The three-story building (four including the basement), with its unusual Italianate windows on the Easton Street side, became a destination spot in the community after Kendall launched his bakery. Offering a retail store on the main floor, all of the baking was done in the basement using five large, brick ovens that held metal racks. They were so massive that two men could stand side by side in each with their arms outstretched and still not touch the edges. According to old records, the bakery was capable of producing as many as 125-150 barrels of crackers every day, using 50 or more barrels of flour. Three of the original ovens can still be seen in the basement today and signs of scorching and burns are still visible on some of the surrounding wood beams.

By the turn of the last century though, Kendall’s Cracker Factory was gone and the location was better known as the McPike Building. It was owned by Henry McPike and the building housed a number of businesses, including offices for Dr. G. Taphorn and Curdie, Challcombe & Co., a store owned by Joseph Krug, a saloon owned by John Ehret and others. In February 1904, a fire broke out in the building that caused around $8,000 in damage. The fire began mysteriously in the unoccupied basement beneath Krug’s store, which was strange since there was no open fire of any kind in the place and the building was heated by steam. Whatever the source of the fire, it broke out around 9:00 in the evening and an alarm was immediately sounded. By the time firefighters arrived though, the smoke pouring out of the cellar windows was so thick that they could not get through it. To make matters worse, the doors to several of the businesses were locked and the firemen could not get inside. Eventually, the fire broke through the floor beneath Ehret’s saloon, Krug’s store and the Curdie, Challcombe & Co. office but did little damage above the building’s second floor.

With the source of the fire being in an area that the firefighters could not initially reach, it was difficult to combat. A number of volunteers came to try and help and when Joseph Krug arrived, a large window at the front of his store was shattered so that he could retrieve his record books and several items that could not be replaced. Several men went in to try and save the papers and records in the office of James Smith, the township tax collector. At the time of the fire, the Mutual Protective League was initiating three new candidates in a secret ceremony on the third floor but they managed to make it out through the clouds of smoke that suffocated the stairway. A newspaper report of the fire also mentioned the meeting of the Jolly Bachelors that was taking place in the building as well. They were startled when the fire alarm was sounded to learn that their own building was burning. According to the report “the Bachelors retreated in disorder as if they had been attacked by a lot of leap year girls.”

The fire was under control within a couple of hours and was put out by midnight. No cause for the fire was ever determined and those in the building who were insured soon repaired the damage they suffered and were back in business again.

Between the time of the fire and 1972, when Sam Thames purchased the building, the Cracker Factory went through a number of different owners and always served as retail and antique shops, as well as offices and even a small restaurant for a time. When Sam opened his antique store in the building, he moved into the basement and became known all over the area for his excellent selection and assortment of unusual objects. According to friends, Sam was the first to report the presence of a haunting in the building. It has been said that he frequently spoke of hearing footsteps in his store, especially going up and down the main staircase that led in from Broadway. He never thought much of it though and figured that any “additional occupants” in the building were more than welcome. Some maintain that after Sam passed away, he joined the unseen presences in the building and continues his attachment to the place as the years have gone by.

In the fall of 2002, Julie Rossi and her fiancé, Gary Basden, began looking for a place to open an antique store in Alton. When they had the chance to see the basement of the Cracker Factory, Julie fell in love with the place and knew that she had found a home for their new store, Riverbend Treasures. The basement had been largely unoccupied since Sam Thames had died and so they began the hard work of renovating the space to suit their needs. They spent about two months on the project before finally opening the store in November of that same year.

During the weeks before they opened, Gary had a chance to talk to some of the other occupants of the building and learned that they believed the Cracker Factory was haunted. As a non-believer in ghosts, he listened politely to their stories but never really thought much more about it. The other occupants, who have office space on an upper floor, told Gary that they were often visited by a resident spirit. He did not manifest himself in the phantom footsteps that Sam Thames heard but rather put in appearances as a full-fledged apparition. They described him as having long, dark hair, a straight nose and wearing black pants, a vest and a white shirt with old-fashioned, billowy sleeves. The specter was never threatening but usually just appeared for a few moments and then vanished. On one occasion, he was seen staring at their copy machine as it churned out pages, as though fascinated by the process. And one other thing, they added, was that he had a tendency to whistle.

The stories were mostly forgotten by Gary until one day a short time later when he and Julie were getting the store ready to open. “I was working in one area and Gary was working in another, out of sight,” Julie told me, “and for some reason, I started whistling.”

Gary immediately came out of the back and asked her what that sound had been. When Julie asked him what he was talking about, he asked her if she had been whistling. When she replied that she had been, Julie noticed that Gary looked relieved. “I forgot to tell you,” he told her. “They told me that the ghost upstairs likes to whistle.” Julie still maintains that for someone who said he did not believe in ghosts, that he certainly came out of the back room quickly to see what was going on.

But the strange happenings in the building would soon turn out not to be false alarms. As Julie prepared to open the shop for her first day of business, she carefully double-checked to make sure that the doors were locked before she left the night before. She had brand new “open” signs that had been placed in the windows and as she checked to make sure that the doors were locked, she also made sure that the signs read that she was “closed”. She was looking forward to turning them around the next morning. However, someone beat her to it! When she came in the next morning, both of the signs, on both the front and side doors, had been turned so that they read “open”. No one else had been in the building since Julie had left. The only explanation seemed to be that “someone” in the place was happy that she had opened a new antique store in the basement.

This was the first incident to occur but it would not be the last. One day that first winter, Julie came in one morning and discovered that the thermostat for the furnace had been turned up all of the way. She was sure that she had turned it all of the way down the night before, since heating the space was so expensive, and even if she had not, she would not have turned it up that high. She called Gary to make sure that he had not done it, but he had not been in the shop at all.

As time passed, other small occurrences took place. Items moved about by themselves, footsteps were heard on the staircase (and Julie reported this before she ever found out that Sam Thames had talked about the same thing) and on occasion, she would catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. A couple of different times, she saw fleeting figures that she described as being a man and also a little child in corners of the store.

One evening, one of the ghosts even spoke to her. She was working late one evening and was waiting for some vendors to arrive with some new items for a booth that they have in the store. Gary had left to go pick up some items that they had purchased at an auction and so Julie was left in the building alone. The vendors were running a little late and Julie left both doors open for them when they arrived. As she was working in the side room, she heard the sound of someone whistling. Thinking that the vendors had arrived, she walked out to greet them but there was no one there. “I just assumed that it was my imagination,” she told me, “and not thinking anything of it, I went back to work.”

A few minutes later, she heard a voice call out to her. “Hello, Julie,” it cried. This time, sure that the vendors had actually arrived, she once again walked out into the main room. Once again though, the place was empty. At that, Julie announced out loud that she had had enough of the game and nothing else bothered her the rest of the evening.

For the most part, Julie believes that the ghosts that are in the building are harmless and are notorious pranksters. The changing signs and turning thermostats have been just a couple of their tricks. In addition, they have been known to turn lights on and off, hide things and to change the station on the radios that have been placed around the store. “We have three radios,” Julie explained,” but we keep them all turned to the same jazz station. On some mornings when I have come in, I will find the radios have all been set to some strange station that we would never listen to. I don’t know how this happens but it’s really bizarre.”

Around the time of this writing, Julie bought an old pie safe at an auction and had it displayed in the store. In the bottom racks, she placed three antique pie tins that she was also offering for sale. Inexplicably, when Julie comes into the store in the morning, she will often find the tins to be moved around, switched in position, turned upside-down or outside of the pie safe. There is no explanation for how they could have gotten this way and I have tried to fiddle with the rack myself (trying to get the pie tins to move) but I had no luck with it. Is this an example of Julie’s prankster ghosts at work – or a specter attached to the pie safe itself?

Julie and Sam Thames have not been the only people to experience odd happenings in the basement. Many customers who have come in, including attendees on the History & Hauntings Tours, have claimed weird encounters inside of the old bricks ovens that line one side of the store. These encounters range widely between the smell of something burning (which then vanishes), cold chills, eerie sensations and even feeling as though they have been touched or their clothing pulled on. I never tell anyone what to expect when they go into the building, but rather allow them to look around the place for themselves.

In June 2003, a woman named Barbara Crain came on the tour with her husband and daughter. She and her husband, Charles, were looking around the store and were standing in the center oven when she got a strange feeling. “I mentioned to Charles that I felt sort of uncomfortable there and after we went outside and were standing there for a couple minutes, I realized why I felt so uncomfortable,” she explained to me later. “I am by no means claustrophobic and being inside of small areas has never bothered me in the least. However, when I was in that center oven, I felt as though the walls were closing in on me and that was what was causing that uncomfortable feeling.”

And while Barbara is not alone in her strange experience with the ovens, I am perplexed as to what might be causing this to happen. There is nothing in the history of the bakery, especially in connection to the ovens, that should be causing people to have strange reactions in them – but yet they are. This is just one of the unsolved mysteries of this fascinating historical structure.

Unfortunately, Riverbend Treasures is no longer located in this building but even you do see a business with an “open sign”, be sure to stop in and check the place out. It’s likely that you’ll find some unique items on the shelves and you may even hear a ghost story or two. Many people in Alton are willing to share their stories of hauntings and restless ghosts. The spirits are just a part of doing business here and you just never know when you might get a chance to encounter one of the resident haunts for yourself.

Ross DeVer, a 16-year-old Marquette Catholic student, spent the night in the building with friends. He was walking around filming when a friend heard a creak and a towel was yanked off the rack near them.

“We also walked by doors that were open and five minutes later they would be closed,” he said. “We went to bed about 4 in the morning and woke up at 8 in the morning. I had a hard time getting to sleep. I was afraid I would miss something. I definitely think there are spirits inside the building. On the PRoSI visit, all the walkie-talkies started making noise and we went into the room and they were all still off. That was weird. I went on both hunts.”

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