February 27th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/
Listen: bethlehems-sun-inn-is-haunted-lehigh-valley-paranormal-group-says

Sun Inn Preservation Association founder Hughetta Bender put her heart and soul into saving the Main Street historic site.

And some believe her soul still remains in the former 1758 hotel.

On a January visit to the inn, a Lehigh Valley-based paranormal investigation group snapped a photo of what appears to be a woman in a second floor window. The figure looks to have gray hair, glasses and be wearing a white apron.

“I said, ‘Oh, my God, that’s Hughetta,’” said Bucky Szulborski, a Sun Inn Preservation Association board member who joined the paranormal group on its investigation. “She wore a white apron.”

“For that to appear at the Sun Inn — it’s remarkable,” he said.

Bender’s likeness was far from the only paranormal observation Lehigh Valley Research and Investigation in Paranormal Activity made on two visits to the inn — Jan. 24 and Saturday.

The group caught on tape at least 15 unknown voices and what they say sounds like a half-hour long ghosts’ party in the dining room.

The group ranks the Sun Inn as among the most — if not the most — haunted place they’ve investigated.

“This place is as active as it gets,” said member Jim Fitzgerald, a Whitehall Township resident.

The group went room-by-room on both nights, asking if there were any spirits in the inn. They asked about Elizabeth Moore, a nurse who died in 1897 at the inn.

When they asked if Elizabeth was there, someone responded with the word, “Moore,” said member Steve Werner, of Bethlehem.

The response was only heard through audiotape, as were all the other unknown voices. Group members believe ghosts affect magnetic forces, so they can often only be heard on tape but not in person.

The group played many of the recordings for the media Thursday, including two instances of a strained voice saying “We’re watching you.”

On another recording, Werner and Fitzgerald are up in the attic, asking if any slaves were kept there during the inn’s early days. “See my back,” someone can be heard saying in response.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

February 27th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/

Listen: apopka-house-with-colorful-past-reopens-as-restaurant

The century-old McBride House has undergone another reincarnation and will officially open today with a new name, new managers and a new menu.

The Victorian home on East Main Street sheds its past as a cowboy bar, haunted house and Civil War re-enactment site to become Highland Manor.

Entrepreneur Mick O’Sullivan, who speaks with a thick Dublin brogue, and his partner and chief Chef John Mooney of Chicago, will celebrate their grand opening at 5p.m. Local dignitaries will sample the Southern-flair American cuisine that includes skillet corn bread, fried quail or rib-eye cooked on the bone.

The pair have invested almost $1million in the restaurant, which has a full bar and banquet hall.

They seem undaunted by the staggered economy and recent failure of the now-defunct Captain and the Cowboy restaurant on the site. That restaurant closed in May. Its former owner, Don Green, a Silicon Valley investor and real-estate mogul, had spent $3million in 2005 on the house and grounds.

“Nervous? Us?” Mooney said. “There’s a calculated risk with any restaurant, but we feel that our food will speak for itself.”

O’Sullivan said they have done extensive research and have opened and run successful restaurants in New York City and elsewhere.

“We’re aware of the economy,” O’Sullivan said. “But once we saw this property, we fell in love with it. And we’ve set our prices with this economy in mind.”

The cowboy bar and the bright Key West-themed colors are gone after the pair restored the home to its original look, with muted colors and hardwood floors.

The pair knows the home’s sometimes checkered history, including talk of it being haunted by an early resident.

“We’ve redone everything, soup-to-nuts,” O’Sullivan said.

The tables were made by a woodworker in Zellwood, and a carpenter from Apopka made the wine racks. The new restaurant is at least the fifth incarnation for the tin-roofed home.

It was built in 1903, and for eight decades sat on North Highland Avenue in downtown Apopka. By the 1980s, it was known as the McBride House after Dr. T.E. “Tommy” McBride, one of Apopka’s first doctors and the home’s last resident. It was moved in 1985 under threat of demolition to the site at U.S. Highway 441 and State Road 436.

Clay and Neil Townsend, whose family also owned an Orlando restaurant at the time, bought the structure from the city for $10 and, after spending a couple of million dollars on renovations and additions, opened Townsend’s Plantation in 1987. The property also became the site of an annual Civil War re-enactment.

That restaurant closed in 1997, and the place was opened only occasionally for banquets and as a haunted house on Halloween until Green made his try at the restaurant business.

Popularity: 20% [?]

February 27th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/

Listen: chance-to-spend-night-at-haunted-five-bells-inn

DARING ghost hunters are being invited to spend the night in one of the South West’s most haunted locations.

A professional paranormal investigator will be on hand to help look for signs of things that go bump in the night at the Five Bells Inn in Whitchurch Canonicorum near Bridport.

The charity event, on March 14, will raise funds for the Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT).

Up to 20 hardy souls will brave the inn, which is rumoured to be haunted by pilgrims’ souls that sought healing from St Wite.

Travellers once stayed at the Five Bells Inn while on pilgrimage to the nearby church of St Candida.

The church has a 13th-century shrine containing the bones of St Wite, with three openings into which pilgrims could place afflicted limbs for healing.

Ghost-hunting equipment including night-vision cameras, temperature gauges, electro-magnetic field metres and dowsing rods will be used on the night.

Sponsored participants will pay £30 to take part, to include the use of investigative equipment, a disc of photos of their ordeal and a cooked breakfast.

Kizzy Brown, marketing and fundraising manager for DWT, said: “This is a brilliant chance for people to test their nerves. Join us for this one-off chance to try something so unusual.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

February 27th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.tvfodder.com/

Listen: supernatural-renewed-for-5th-season

Just a quick news note. Sites all over the internet are reporting that Supernatural was renewed this week.

However, I have been unable to find an official announcement, though there’s no reason to believe it’s untrue. The ratings have been stronger than ever, and the storyline and writing have made this the best season yet, in my opinion.

Now, I guess we get to fidget and wait until the summer conventions to hear if Kripke is sticking to his 5 years and out plan for the show. While I’m sure Jared and Jensen appreciate the (somewhat) steady paycheck, this show is brutal on the actors from all indications. Maybe everyone will be ready to move on at the end of season 5. Or maybe not?

Popularity: 22% [?]

February 26th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.mpnnow.com/

Listen: ghost-hunters-claim-chilling-finds-at-palmyra-museum

Phantom footsteps, whispers, a swaying chandelier and a piano that played on its own exposed the presence of ghostly spirits residing in two local museums on Market Street. Or so say members of a few ghost-hunting teams that recently camped out with some high-tech equipment.

The spook sleuths from Scientific Paranormal Investigations and Finger Lakes Area Spirit Hunters on Thursday, Feb. 19, shared their findings with a crowd of about 55.

They played recordings they said captured whispered ghostly responses to questions and faint piano playing. They shared bone-chilling stories of apparitions and chills and breezes that seemed to come from nowhere.

“A feeling of dread engulfed me,” said Rob Henning, co-founder and case manager for Scientific Paranormal Investigations of Palmyra, as he described an encounter he said he had with a young girl in the piano room in the general store. “Immediately, we were blasted with cold, dry air.”

The general store and attached living quarters, at 140 Market St., is preserved store that thrived on Erie Canal commerce and a bustling downtown back from the early 1800s to the 1940s. Some believe its visitors are not just docents and tourists but also some long-dead members of the Phelps family, including spiritualist and musician Sibyl Phelps, who lived above the store and became something of a shut-in in the years before her death in 1976.

The Historical Museum just up Market Street, meanwhile, is on the site of a 1964 blaze that claimed seven people, six of whom were children. The museum itself is an old hotel that was moved from William Street in the 1970s during urban renewal work.

Bonnie Hays, director of Historic Palmyra Inc., was contacted about a year ago by members of the Victor-based Finger Lakes Area Spirit Hunters. “They said, ‘we’ve always wanted to come to your buildings, would you mind if we came?’” she said. “Of course, I said, ‘We’d love it.’”

And so, for the past several months, the Spirit Hunters and Scientific Paranormal Investigations have surveyed the museums with video, camera, audio, high-tech night vision and thermal-vision equipment.

The investigators aren’t the only ones who’ve experienced strange happenings in the museums.

“I swear a black cat came in the front door of the Phelps Store, walked down through the store and up the stairs,” said Ralph Kommer. “Bonnie (Hays) and I looked for it, but never found anything. She left food. It was never touched.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

February 26th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.capecodtoday.com/

Listen: jail-house-rocks-and-rambles

Old jails are full of intrigue, especially when they’re reputed to be haunted. A few weekends ago, we stopped in to see Barnstable’s “old gaol,” a small, 17th century building now located behind the Trayser Museum on Route 6A. The jail, which was moved in 1972 from a previous spot on, you guessed it: Old Jail Lane, is considered the oldest wooden jail in America. Used during the 20th century as a barn, its historic importance wasn’t realized until 1968, when the owner found a plank engraved with the message, “W. Bartlett 13d October 1698 and 27d he was let out.”

We were met at the jail by Derek Bartlett, founder of Cape and Islands Paranormal Research Society, which oversees the property. He showed us around the rustic building, noting other interesting wall carvings possibly doodled by bored prisoners. The jail was a holding cell for the usual 18th-and-19th-century ne’er-do-wells, but its most notorious prisoners were buccaneers from the pirate ship, Whydah, which sank in 1717.

Bartlett said there have been reports of apparitions and voices, the usual ghostly stuff. He’s a professional ghost hunter, who with his team from CAIPRS, investigates paranormal sightings throughout the region. They also lead various Haunted Cape Cod walking tours, and Barnstable Village seems to be Ground Zero for many haunted sites.

The old gaol is also Ground Zero for a new geocache, “Ye Olde Jaol House.” It’s a tiny micro-cache hidden in plain sight. Most geocachers find it right away, but for some reason I seemed to look right over it until I phoned a friend. Maybe it was paranormal interference.

After finding “Ye Olde Jaol House,” I went in search of a traditional geocache located a mile or so away in the Jail Lane Preserve, called “Old Jail House.” There obviously was a connection between the two sites. This second cache is off of a quiet trail in a town conservation area, where the old jail previously stood. There have been reports of apparitions here, too, but it looked like typical Cape Cod woods on a Saturday afternoon.

Who knows what you’ll find geocaching: A hidden trail? A secret beach? A little-known nugget of history? Or maybe, ghosts?

Popularity: 9% [?]

February 26th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.examiner.com/

Listen: key-west-cemetery

The Key West Cemetery was established in 1847 after a disastrous hurricane hit the area on October 11, 1846. The hurricane destroyed several of the older burial grounds creating the need for establishing a new city cemetery.

In 1847 the City bought a 100-lot tract in the center of town for a mere $400. One section held the family plots while another area was designated as the public section. Several years later, the city added 233 more lots. In 1868 there was a Catholic Cemetery added and a small Jewish Cemetery.

The Key West Cemetery reflects an era of cemetery reform that happened across the nation. “The Rural Cemetery Movement” began in the 1840’s. Cities began to build large park-like cemeteries outside the city limits. Cemeteries became peaceful parks for admiring works of art and enjoying the fine landscaped grounds.

There are nearly two dozen US Navy sailors buried here after the disastrous explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. This cemetery has Bahamian mariners, Cuban cigar makers, Spanish-American War veterans, soldiers, civilians, millionaires, paupers, whites, blacks, Catholics, Protestants and Jews—all resting side-by-side completing Key West’s diverse heritage.

The cemetery is said to be haunted by the ghost of Elena who is buried in a secret grave. Ghostly whispers are heard as you walk down the paths. A mysterious ghost of a concerned Bahamian woman has been seen wandering through the quaint cemetery in search of disrespectful intruders.

Popularity: 8% [?]

February 26th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Listen: pub-spirit-is-a-western-film-star

THE ghostly figure of a COWBOY walks in front of a roaring fire in a haunted pub and is caught on video.

Locals are convinced paranormal forces are at play and that the spooky sighting is definitely a GHOST.

Just visible is a Stetson style hat and a waistcoat.

Caught as pals tested out the video mode on a new mobile phone, the strange presence was NOT seen until the recording was played back.

And landlords have told of similar spooky goings-on in the same pub in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs.

Filmed by local Andy Willett and pals Macca and Vince Bundy, the bizarre footage spooked all three.

“It has to be a ghost,” Mr Bundy, 43, said. “There is no other explanation.”

“We didn’t see it while we were sitting there, only when we played the video.

“I couldn’t believe it.

“You can make out a hat and a waistcoat. I’ve never seen a video as clear as this before. It’s not a fake, it actually happened.”

The Tunstall pub called the Ancient Briton, now a derelict site after it was targeted by arsonists, was thought to be HAUNTED.

Mr Bundy, who has hung on to the footage for three years, said: “One previous landlord told a local his young son used to talk to ‘another little boy’.

“And one tenant’s child spoke of a COWBOY who used to pick-up his socks.”

Singer and UFO fan Robbie Williams used to live near the pub.

Popularity: 9% [?]

February 25th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/
Listen: toughening-up-to-rude-ghosts

The question is, would you go to her if you were a recently deceased person with an unresolved issue? And if so, would you be so rude as to interrupt her at all hours of the day and night, whatever she is doing, as the ghosts do on this show?

One thing this programme teaches us is that the undead have no manners.

Melinda is toughening up, thank goodness, starting to boss those pestilential ghosts around.

She actually stuck her hands on her hips and told a whole bunch of them to scram this week, which, given her Pollyanna-ish manners, was nearly as shocking as if she had told them to eff off.

But what she really needs is a seriously tough sidekick, someone like Endora from Bewitched. “Oh, reeally! Make an appointment, Derwood, or whatever your name is.”

Still, as silly as this show is, Hewitt is ridiculously fetching as the sweet-as-pie newlywed, and after a break of a few months, it is quite fun to see the tricksy stories about ghosts and their complicated past lives again.

Melinda appears to use a similar technique to that used by Cesar on Dog Whisperer, to impose “calm, submissive energy” on her ghosts, before indulging them. They always start by behaving badly, then end up trotting like happy little pitbulls towards the Light.

It still rankles that Melinda never tells them what the Light is, and whether you can get a decent latte there, and does it have broadband?

And that, even more amazingly, the ghosts never bother to ask. But, as you have to keep reminding yourself, it’s only television.

Later on TV3 on Sunday came another of those unsung late-night treasures which, had the channel’s programmers had their wits about them, would have been trailered as “The Original, Real-Life Jaws”.

Twelve Days of Terror sounded like another of those shlocky horror B-movies, but was in fact a Discovery Channel docu-drama on the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks.

It was this celebrated phenomenon, in which two people died – that we know of – and a child was horribly maimed, that inspired Peter Benchley to write Jaws.

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Popularity: 25% [?]

February 25th, 2009 by CVPI

Source: http://www.examiner.com/
Listen: ghost-of-hotel-san-carlos

The ghost of Leone Jensen is said to roam the hallways of the San Carlos Hotel in downtown Phoenix, AZ. Witnesses claim to see her as a floating white, cloudy figure of mist. Unexplainable breezes accompany her presence.

In almost every ghost book or story written about dear Leone tells of a scorned woman devastated by the rejection of a love interest. The stories say she was dressed in an elegant white evening gown ready for a night of dancing with her bellboy boyfriend from a nearby hotel. After her dreams for a romantic evening folded around her, she decided she could no longer live with a broken heart. She left her room on the seventh floor, climbed to the roof, and leaped off the seven story San Carlos Hotel.

Ah, yes, that version of the story is filled with a bit of Hollywood flavor and makes the incident far more sensational than what really happened. I am going to share the real story of the Leone Jensen’s suicide with you. Through research I was able to find the true—and just as dramatic account of the tragedy.

Leone Jensen, aged about 25, was a resident of California and a visitor in Phoenix for about two or three weeks. On May 8, 1928, Leone committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the San Carlos Hotel—her body was badly crushed and shattered.

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Popularity: 8% [?]