"I don't come up here after dark,” he said, his eyes even larger than before. “And never to this building."
We slipped through the door, two teams at a time, one covering the other as we cleared rooms, one by one, constantly assessing for threats as we moved. Ninety percent of alarm calls are false so I was beginning to think this was just another one set off by the wind or a cat. But it wasn’t windy and—
A loud bang from the stairwell followed by heavy footsteps running up to the second floor.
The stairs were the only escape route from up there and we moved toward them together, our weapons drawn. One of the officers told dispatch we had a burglar confined and to send a dog unit. We covered the bottom of the stairs and waited.
Loud banging.
This time from all the way up the stairs, and it sounded as if someone were throwing things on the floor or against the walls.
We held our position until the K9 unit arrived. We told the officer we believed we had a burglary suspect cornered on the second level and we wanted him to send his dog up the stairs to do a search. Police K9 dogs really love the action. Give them a suspect to chase and they are in doggy heaven. Tell them to watch a prone suspect and they are happier than if they were given a T-bone steak. Tell them to run up a set of stairs to nab a bad guy …
The dog refused to go into the building.
The handler insisted. “Go get ‘em, boy!” he encouraged. “Get the bad guy! That’s my baby, go get the bad guy!” The handler unleashed him. “Go get the—”
The dog spun about and ran madly away into the cemetery in the opposite direction, his handler in pursuit, shouting for him to come back.
From upstairs a radio blared to life.
Enough. It was time to go get this guy. Half way up the stairs the lights snapped on, and we all reflexively crouched. Any doubt we had before about anyone being up there was now erased. It had to be someone moving around and—
The lights went off, as did the radio.
We hesitated for a moment and then continued our stealthy climb. The second level room was full of caskets. My skin crawled at the thought of having to search for someone hiding in them. But it had to be done, so with my weapon in hand I commenced to move across the floor, my flashlight beam penetrating the darkness and … a metal gurney lay on its side in total disarray. Was this what was being thrown around? A portable radio sat on a nearby desk.
The hair on the back of my neck stiffened as my light moved over the source of the banging and the source of the music, both of them now still. But there was no one up there. Confident no one was anywhere on the second floor we began filing back down the stairs.
The music came on again. I spun about and looked back up into the darkness. The music went silent.
But there was no one up there. We just looked.
Outside, the security guard was waiting by my patrol car. I returned the building keys to him without uttering a word and he took them from me without speaking. I radioed dispatch that everything was secure and there was no evidence of a burglary. I exhaled a long calming breath and began to open my car door when a light caught my eye.
It was coming from the second story window.
HAUNTED PLACES IN THE NEWS
Eastern State Penitentiary
The Pennsylvania Prison System controlled Eastern State from 1829 to 1913. While the systems was used by the Quakers as a place for prisoners to look inside themselves and find God, in reality the solitude drove many men, otherwise perfectly sane, to total madness. The place was notorious for its torture devices, but the Quakers denied any involvement.
The Hole, a pit dug under a cellblock, was a hellish place where rule breakers were confined for weeks at a time with only bread and water to keep them barely alive.
The Iron Gag was used on inmates who disobeyed the prison’s communication rules. This was a terrible device that clamped onto the prisoner’s tongue and then linked to his wrists, which were wrenched up behind him. The slightest movement would tear the prisoner’s tongue. The device took the lives of many people.
The Bath was a method of punishment in which the inmate was submerged in ice-cold water and then hung on a wall all night. During the winter, it was common for the inmate to be found covered in a layer of ice by morning.
It’s hard to believe but there were far worse punishments than these. Add to that the overcrowding issue. Designed for 250 inmates, it was jammed with over 1700 inmates before it was closed in 1913.
Not surprisingly, the old structure is a hotbed for paranormal activity. Here are two.
A locksmith was working on a 140-year-old cellblock lock when a force of some kind suddenly prevented him moving. He reported seeing anguished faces on the cell walls, and he felt a powerful draw to the negative energy that many paranormal investigators say he unleashed by releasing the old lock.
Tourists and employees often report hearing giggling, whispering, and crying.
Over two dozen investigations are conducted a year in the prison and nearly every time the teams find evidence of paranormal activity.
Source: About News
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West Virginia Penitentiary
A worker reported being physically stopped from entering an area known as the Sugar Shack.
“I had my arms full of tools and I was about half way through the room when I felt pressure on my shoulder. It was as if someone put their hand on me and stopped me. I definitely know there is some kind of activity here.”
Another worker opened a door into a cellblock and could hear what sounded like someone kicking a cell door. “It echoed through the whole room. I’ve heard EVPs here but nothing scared me like that time.”
A tour guide began his job as a skeptic but his experiences quickly made him a believer. “The place is very creepy and you never know when you’re going to see something. I’ve seen figures in different places right when I was giving a tour. Visitors report hearing and seeing things too.”
Source: Discovery
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Alcatraz
Two tourists were spooked after they took a photograph in the prison’s visitation center. The photo depicts what appears to be a young woman looking into the camera from inside the prison’s visitation area.
The photographer, a teaching assistant from the UK, said, “As soon as we entered the prison, everything felt eerie. I didn’t feel comfortable there. While I was doing an audio-tour of the place, I casually snapped the empty visitation block window. When I glanced at the picture on my phone, I saw this dark female figure in the picture. I looked at the window again and there was no one in the room.”
Source: Daily Mail, UK
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Licking County Jail, Ohio
Built in 1889 and closed several decades ago, there appear to be a few prisoners still “locked up” in the old structure that some people in Newark consider an eyesore.
Southeastern Ohio Paranormal Investigators spent a chilly night in the old jail in November of 2011. They brought with them an assortment of high-tech tools and were able to capture EVPs and an apparition that appeared to be looking out from a basement room.
The two lead investigators, Tom Robinson and Michelle Duke are corrections officers with the Zanesville Police Department and have over 30 combined years of experience in paranormal investigations.
The two played their recordings and talked about their findings with people from the community and the county. Those in favor of tearing the old structure down are now concerned after the sudden interest in the place. They are worried that Robinson and Duke’s investigation, as well as other reports of hauntings at the site, might save the old jail.
Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
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Chathum County Jail
The Savannah (Georgia) Ghost Research team spent a night in the old jail in 2015 and captured 50 recordings, some more clear than others, which is almost always the case. Ryan Dunn, the man in charge of the investigative team said they got a number of
direct responses to questions the team asked.
At one point, Dunn asked if there were a presence with them to knock three times. The recording picked up three knocks.
When one of their devices buzzed during the investigation, a recorded voice can be heard to ask “Was that an alarm?”
Dunn said, “We caught this shadow figure on a thermal camera that was walking back and forth in the halls. [An investigator] got a photo of it on thermal and we saw it come into one of the cells, crouch down, stand up, and walk right back out. It was a little unsettling.”
Source: Fox 10 TV
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Pentridge Prison, Australia
There is a frequently seen apparition at the now closed Pentridge Prison that looks like one of its former notorious inmates, a man who went by Chopper Read. Many night visitors passing through the area known as D-Division have seen the figure.
Sometimes the shadow watches them as it leans against the wall outside his cell, Cell-16. Other times, people see the shadow lighting a cigarette before moving into the cell.
Jeremy Kewley, a tour guide at the prison, was taking a group around one night in the summer of 2014. He prefaced his story by saying that the prison in general “is quite eerie, to say the least.” At one point during that tour, Kewley led his group to the end of a block of cells.
“Suddenly,” Kewley says, “from Cell-16, a male voice loudly and aggressively shouted, ‘GET OUUUUUT!’ It was very scary and we all jumped. Then we moved away quite quickly. We called the police. Can you believe it? The police were called because that was just not right.”
Officers came and thoroughly searched the block and the cells, but they didn’t find anything.
During his incarceration, Chopper was allowed outside of his small cell to walk about the larger caged area. He would lean against the wall, smoke cigarettes, and watch other inmates roam the corridors.
Chopper Read died in 2013.
Source: Herald Sun
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Indiana
People in Gary, including the local police captain, believe that numerous ghosts and demons haunt a house on an otherwise quiet street. The location has generated many police reports of strange occurrences over the years.
One family fled because of the sheer volume of paranormal events, to include children being levitated, sounds of footsteps, and odd behavior by animals and even insects.
Psychics informed the family that there are over 200 ghosts and demons in the place and it appears they are trying to possess the three children.
At one point, a family physician diagnosed the complaints as hallucinations, but only at first. Medical staff at the physician’s office witnessed one of the children being lifted and thrown against the wall without anyone touching him.
The family moved and the new occupants have not experienced anything unusual. However, the police captain that visited the family before they moved out said he has been converted into “a believer” in ghosts and demons.
Source: Huffington Post and Examiner.com
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Texas
“Some officers would rather not go upstairs by themselves at night,” said one officer from the Richmond, Texas Police Department. “In fact, it’s so spooky an officer has given tours of the station for 12 years.”
“We’ve heard people, sounds like little kids running upstairs, but there is no one up there,” said a dispatcher. Most recently, she heard a voice on the intercom say, “Get out!” No one else was in the building at the time.
The Richmond Police station was built in 1897 and was initially used as the county jail. The sheriff and his family lived on the ground floor, black inmates were lodged in the basement, and Hispanics were incarcerated upstairs. A gallows still stands in the police station where the condemned were hung by their necks.
A medium was brought to the station and without being given any information froze in her tracks in the basement. Staring at a back wall, she said, “I’m getting an image of somebody being hacked and beaten.”
An officer said that is exactly what used to happen on that wall.
Source: KHOU TV
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Pittsburg
The Greater Pittsburg Paranormal Society recently offered audio and video evidence that something is going on inside the Homestead Police Department. The evidence has vindicated staffers at the station who have long reported the sounds of doors slamming and of footsteps, and the occasional taps on the shoulder.
During a meeting, an electric typewriter turned itself on and started typing. Another time a broken sidewalk cleaner turned on without a key. Similar reports reached a stage where the police chief allowed the Paranormal Society to come in and investigate.
The investigators picked up the sound of a scream in the basement, the sound of a door slamming in the attic, and a loud voice booming, “Hey Sam,” followed by another door slamming.
A video showed a video camera cord, which they had taped to the ceiling, being pulled loose. “It didn’t simply fall,” the investigator said. “It’s like someone pulled it loose.”
Another video showed a shadow moving behind a window, the same window where officers have reported feeling watched as they pass.
One investigator reported that when she was in the attic she felt someone tap on her shoulder and pull her hair upward.
The lead paranormal investigator says the haunting is residual, meaning it’s not interactive with people who work there.
Then how does that explain the touching and hair pulling?
SECTION THREE
DIVINE INTERVENION AND DEMONS
Divine intervention is a gift from a higher realm of existence: the Biblical God, the Creator, the Buddha, or what many call a Higher Power.
Divine intervention is a guardian that redirects us to prevent something from happening, or redirects us to a place where we can help someone or experience something of value.
A demon is a persistently tormenting person or supernatural force.
A demon is a supernatural, often malevolent being prevalent in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore.
SCRATCHES
By Rich Perez
I’ve been on the Houston Police Department for nearly 23 years, and I’ve served in the US Navy, both active and reserves, for nearly 29. I’ve done two tours in the Iraq War, the last one working with the Army.
I didn’t begin believing in God and the supernatural until after some things happened in my middle teens—good and not so good—that I couldn’t explain. As a realist, I searched for answers to what these occurrences meant and I found a connection with the spiritual side that blew me away. It allowed me to no longer fear death and it compelled me to always listen to that benevolent “inner voice.” It has not only saved my life on the job, but “the voice” has made decisions I would not have made before it entered my life.
I’ve also had experiences with what I believe to have been “unseen assailants.” On three occasions, beginning in 2009, I was injured repeatedly by what I conclude to be some type of malevolent spirit. I can’t validate this because I’ve never felt the assaults as they happened; I discovered the injuries—long scratches on my body—afterwards.
I did, however, find a pattern to them.
Each one happened on a domestic disturbance call with a highly dysfunctional family unit of three to five members. Each occurred in an apartment in disarray, with blinds closed, and lights dimmed on bright, sunny Texas days.
I always try to do what feels right on family disturbance calls. Sometimes it’s just a talk; sometimes it’s an arrest of one or more participants; and other times I mediate with a positive spiritual spin. Before leaving a family, I typically say, “Open up the blinds and let some of God’s light in. It’s free.”
The first time I got home after handling a domestic disturbance call during my shift, I began peeling off my gun belt, shirt, and vest, as was my routine. But before I could completely remove my vest I felt a burnin
g pain on my back. Then when I pulled off my T-shirt, my wife jokingly asked, “Who have you been sleeping with?” I told her nobody, today. She laughed and told me there were scratches on my back.
When I looked in the mirror, I found two long, thin scratches running diagonally from my right shoulder to just above my left hip. I figured my vest somehow scratched me through my T-shirt, but that didn’t make sense because the shirt is worn to protect the skin. That first time was five years ago after I had returned from serving in the Middle East.
About a year later, I went to another family fight that had the same elements as the one just described: a small apartment, dimly lit, and a dysfunctional family. I did my best to patch things up with my usual positive intervention with a spiritual twist. I came home, peeled off my uniform and felt that same burning sensation on my back as I had a year earlier.
This time, I discovered three thin marks, also diagonal, but running in the opposite direction, from my lower left shoulder to my right hip. The middle scratch was longer than those on each side of it.
The last time I experienced this was in 2014. I went to another family fight in an apartment, same closed curtains, dim lighting on a sunny day, and another dysfunctional family. I gave my usual lecture but this time I took one of the family members to jail on a warrant.
I went home, stripped off my gear, and when I removed my vest I once again felt that same burning.
This time I found two horizontal scratches across on my back.
I’ve handled many domestic disturbance calls on the job but these three all had the exact same elements.
I’ve shared my stories with a few officers but not one of them has experienced the same thing.
Cops' True Stories of the Paranormal: Ghost, UFOs, and Other Shivers Page 10
