We don’t usually think of games when we consider the paranormal. The
paranormal is something to be investigated, researched and taken seriously,
not trifled with in something as frivolous as what we’d consider a “game.” We’re not talking about the harmless games children play at Halloween or
even the various paranormal-themed action and role-playing computer games
available. We’re talking about the games that are played in the dark of night
that truly can be paranormal in nature and have unexpected, even terrifying
results. Games such as “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board,” the Ouija
board, “Bloody Mary” and spoon bending seem to be favorites of teenagers
particularly.
At parties, sleepovers and when the opportunity
arises to sneak into an abandoned or rumored-to-be-haunted building, these games
are very often played. Teens like them not only because they challenge the unknown, but also for the
same reason they love horror and slasher movies – they like to be scared. Adults and paranormal researchers usually discourage such games –
particularly the Ouija and Bloody Mary – because of the negative psychological
impact they can have on the participants. Whether the game players are merely
scaring themselves or they really are tapping into negative realms, many
researchers advise that these “games” are best left alone. And for that reason,
we cannot recommend their practice. Light as a Feather and spoon bending are
more harmless and may have a scientific basis, but some argue that any game that
has elements of the unknown should be avoided. People, play them at their own
risk.
Bloody Mary : The conjuring of Bloody Mary has been a favorite way for
teenagers, girls in particular, to scare themselves silly. The appearance of the
Bloody Mary spirit has become the stuff of urban legend, yet many have testified
that she really does appear. Basically, the ritual goes like this: stand in a
darkened or lightless room where there is a mirror. Stare into the mirror and
chant “Bloody Mary” 13 times. The gruesome spirit of Bloody Mary will appear
behind you in the mirror...
Selected Extract From "Ghosts of East Anglia" by Tony Ellis DOROTHY, VISCOUNTESS TOWNSHEND, 1686-1726
The ghost of the Brown Lady, so called because she is always seen on the
staircase and in the corridors of Raynham Hall wearing a brown brocade dress,
haunts this 16th century Hall. The Brown Lady has been identified as Dorothy
Walpole from a portrait that hangs in the hall. She was the daughter of Robert
Walpole, one-time Member of Parliament for Houghton, in Norfolk, and sister of
the more-famous Sir Robert Walpole, the 18th century Prime Minister.Dorothy is
said to have fallen in love with the Second Viscount Townshend but her father,
who was Lord Townshend's guardian, refused his consent to their marriage because
he felt that if he did agree it would be misconstrued by other parties that he
was using his guardianship in order to gain an advantage for his daughter. Lord
Townshend eventually married the daughter of Baron Pelham of Laughton, but
became a widower in 1711. Shortly afterwards he finally married the love of his
life, Dorothy Walpole.
However, in the meantime Dorothy Walpole had become the mistress of Lord
Wharton, a well-known profligate, who had to leave the country rather suddenly
after building up a pile of debts. It was after his marriage to Dorothy Walpole
that Lord Townshend learned of his wife's previous conduct with Lord Wharton and
ordered that she be kept locked in her apartments at Raynham Hall. She died at
the age of 40, on 29th March, 1726, officially of smallpox but there were those
who said that she had died of a broken heart, or even a broken neck after either
falling, or being pushed down the Grand Staircase. It is believed that she
returns to Raynham Hall in search of her children, from whom she had been parted
by her husband, after he had learned about her affair with Lord Wharton. In
1836, the author Captain Marryat was staying at Raynham Hall and asked his host,
Lord Townshend, if he could sleep in the room from which the Brown Lady was said
to appear. As he was about to retire to bed for the night, two young men,
relations of Lord Townshend and fellow-guests in the house, called into his room
and said that they wished to discuss a gun that they intended using the
following day whilst out on a shooting party...
Just south of San Antonio,
Texas, in an unremarkable neighborhood not far from the San Juan Mission is an
intersection of roadway and railroad track that has become somewhat famous in
the catalog of American ghost lore. The intersection, so the story goes, was the
site of a tragic accident in which several school-aged children were killed -
but their ghosts linger at the spot. And the curious from all over the country
come to this section of railroad track to witness firsthand the paranormal
phenomena they've heard takes place there. The story - at least 20 years old -
is the stuff of urban legend and its details vary from telling to telling, but
this is essentially it: Back in the 1930s or 1940s, a school bus full of
children was making its way down the road and toward the intersection when it
stalled on the railroad tracks. A speeding train smashed into the bus, killing
10 of the children and the bus driver. Since that dreadful accident many years
ago, any car stopped near the railroad tracks will be pushed by unseen hands
across the tracks to safety. It is the spirits of the children, they say, who
push the cars across the tracks to prevent a tragedy and fate like their own.
Even today, cars line up at the
haunted intersection to see if the legend is true. The driver stops the cars
some 20 to 30 yards from the tracks and puts the car in neutral gear. Some even
turn off their engines. And sure enough, even though it appears that the road is
on an upward grade, the car begins to roll. It rolls slowly first, then steadily
gaining speed - seemingly of its own accord and against gravity - up and over
the tracks. This has been tested time and time again, and cars really do roll up
and over the tracks - every time. But that's not all. The second half of this
legend is that if a light powder - like talcum or baby powder - is sprinkled
over the car's trunk and rear bumper, tiny fingerprints and handprints will
appear - the prints of the ghost children pushing the car. Many who have tried
it swear that indeed they can see the evidence of small children's handprints in
the powder...
Often called the most haunted
ship in history, the USS Hornet rests deceptively still in its berth at the
decommissioned Alameda Naval Base. The USS Hornet CV-12 is the eighth US ship to
carry the Hornet name. The first was commissioned in 1775 and battled the
British in the Revolutionary war. The second Hornet commissioned in 1805 gained
fame in America's battle against the Barbary Pirates and landed Marines on the
shores of Tripoli. The seventh Hornet (CV-8) launched 16 Army B-25s to strike
the Japanese home islands in one of the most daring raids in the history of
warfare, the "Doolittle Raid". She went on to fight at the Battle of Midway and
was lost to an overwhelming air attack at the Battle of Santa Cruz.
The eighth USS Hornet, the one
currently docked in Alameda, was commissioned in 1943 at the height of the war
in the Pacific. She quickly became one of the most highly decorated ships in the
Navy. She destroyed 1,410 Japanese aircraft and destroyed or damaged 1,269,710
tons of enemy shipping. Ten Hornet pilots attained "Ace in a Day" status. She
supported nearly every Pacific amphibious landing after March 1944 and struck
the critical first hits in sinking the super battleship Yamato. Her pilots are
also credited with the first strikes against Tokyo since the 1942 Doolittle
Raid. During the cold war the Hornet had the honor of recovering astronauts from
both the Apollo 11 and 12 missions. Her impressive record did not come without
cost. An aircraft carrier, in times of war or peace, is a dangerous place.
Sailors have walked into aircraft's spinning props, been sucked into their air
intakes, and blown off deck by their exhaust. Dropped ordnance has exploded,
burning and maiming sailors. Snapping flight arrest cables are known to have
decapitated at least three men on the USS Hornet. All told, in her 27 years of
active service, more than 300 people lost their lives aboard ship...
Montpellier in 1981:
Shortly before midnight a two-door Renault pulled
over to pick up a woman. Four people were already inside the car, so the
hitchhiker’s unexpected presence necessitated some rearrangement of seating.
Eventually, she settled in the rear seat. The car continued on its way, loud
music blaring from its cassette player. As it approached a sharp curve the
hitchhiker suddenly shouted, ‘Mind the bend. You are risking your life!’ The
driver slowed up and safely negotiated the turn. Then everyone realized that
their passenger had vanished! So shaken were the four that they called at
the Montpellier police station and reported their experience. Inspector
Lopez was impressed and later told researchers, ‘Their panic wasn’t put on
and we soon realized they were genuine. It worried us, ‘But there was little
that could be done after the event.
Resurrection Mary: This cemetery is home to a well known ghost story. It's the story of
Resurrection Mary. Her name is Mary Bregavy, a young Polish girl that was
killed in a car accident in 1939 while going home from a dance at the
O'Henry Ballroom, now the Willowbrook Ballroom. Her ghost makes appearances
all along the cemetery roads and at the Willowbrook Ballroom. She has been
known to dance with men at the ballroom and ask them for a ride home only to
disappear from their cars as they pass the cemetery. She's been seen
hitchhiking on the nearby roads by many creditable witnesses. A taxi cab
driver saw young girl walking one evening in 1989 and picked her up. The two
of them were talking and driving but as the cab passed Resurrection Cemetery
the girl, (Mary), disappeared from the front seat of the cab. In the summer
of 1976, the Justice police received a phone call from a man who said that
he saw a girl locked in the cemetery after hours. It was 10:30 PM when
Sergeant Pat Homa responded to the call. Homa shined his flashlight through
the cemetery bars into the darkened burial grounds. He didn't find any girl.
He did find two of the bars on the gate were bent apart at a weird angle.
They appeared have been bent apart by human hands...
Supernatural scouters and spook enthusiasts gathered for an evening of paranormal pursuit during a community mixer and question-and-answer session Saturday night at the Main Street Grille. Investigators from the Arizona Paranormal Investigations (API) presented a slide show of "hauntings" from around the state, followed by an overnight analysis of the Payson's Main Street establishment. They set up cameras, video recorders and tape machines to capture anything out of the or... Read More
The producers of "Ghostly Homes of Cape Cod" and "Ghostly Homes of Charleston" are looking for suitable homes for a new Halloween special. Jake Klim: Do you think your house is haunted? Are strange sounds creeping you out late at night? Does your basement moan and howl? Does your attic creak? Do your walls and ceiling wail with pain? Lights turn on and off by themselves?Think your house is haunted? Maybe it just needs a visit from our television crew and our team of licensed... Read More
When scientists wrote in a recent issue of the journal Nature that they could induce phantom effects — the sensation of being haunted by a shadowy figure — by stimulating the brain with electricity, it made perfect neurological sense. One could even argue that the existence of such sensations explains away the so-called supernatural. In fact, as The New York Times reported, the researchers promptly concluded that ghosts are mere "bodily delusions" — electrical misfirings and nothing mo... Read More
The human brain is, in surprising part, an appliance powered by electricity. It constantly generates about 12 watts of energy, enough to keep a flashlight glowing. It works by sending out electrical impulses — bursts of power running along the cellular wires of the nervous system — to stimulate muscles into motion or thought into being. We’re mostly aware of this when the machine falters, when it short-circuits into epilepsy or frays into the tremors of Parkinson’s disease. So when scientists wr... Read More
It was the night before Christmas and Ebenezer Scrooge was facing a succession of supernatural terrors; or, as the latest medical thinking would have it, he was succumbing to a brain disease so obscure that doctors would not give it a name for another 150 years. A pair of medico-literary sleuths claimed last week to have tracked down the illness that haunted Scrooge. They concluded that Charles Dickens brilliantly observed the symptoms in A Christmas Carol. Robert Chance Algar, a Californian neu... Read More
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine isn't exactly muttering "I do believe in spooks! I do believe in spooks!" like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. But he's not ruling out the possibility either.Asked on his monthly radio show on the Virginia News Network whether he has had paranormal experiences like previous Executive Mansion occupants, Kaine flatly answered: "Yes."Kaine said Thursday that at the same "inconvenient time" every week, the telephone rings in ... Read More