Georgia's Haunted Battlefields and How to Read Spirit Energy

 

My upbringing at my childhood home, "Aspen Grove"  in Fairfax, Virginia set the stage for my obsession with battlefields and history.

Ghost Trains! Ghost Lights! Disappearing Trains! Haunted Train Tracks!

 

To some people, trains are romantic rides into the past. To others, they are the things of nightmare legends and tales. Turn down the lights and let's delve into some of those stories. 

Are Georgia's Supernatural Qualities Set in Clay Soil?

 

Over a decade ago, I searched for a Haunted Formula. I studied 50 often-reported haunted locations and looked for similar factors - construction, age, trauma, moving water nearby, railroad nearby, and geology. I gave a number for each factor the location had to see what the top scoring sites were. Then, I used this formula to evaluate a potentially haunted location I was going to investigate so I could see the odds of it potentially being haunted ahead of time. 

Quantum Basics: How to Quiet Your Haunted Home

 

After decades of helping folks in haunted homes who are uncomfortable with the activity, I learned some very effective basics and it all can be explained by quantum physics.

Has Science Explained Residual Hauntings?

 

Residual ghosts

Having grown up in a very actively haunted Civil War hospital home (Aspen Grove in Fairfax, VA), I contemplated why we have these encounters that feel like we are witnessing history. 

Residuals with encounters have a very suspended and odd feel to them. For example, one of many residual ghosts at our home was a Civil War figure that was seen in a long window on the second floor, appearing to be smoking and looking out. He didn't see us outside staring up at him, was lost in his own world. Upon witnessing the figure, we felt a sense of being in a vacuum, suspended as if we met in a land between this world and that - a no man's land. 

I've long asked myself, why today? why this moment in time? 

Scientists have proven something called Time Mirrors.

Unlike normal mirrors that reflect space, time mirrors reflect reality backward in time. In the lab, scientists managed to reverse waves of light and sound, making them travel back to their point of origin instead of continuing forward. This breakthrough relies on manipulating the medium in which waves travel.

Let's look at another visually disorienting phenomena - 

Fata Morgana. This photo above shows what seems like a ship above the sea. This phenomenon happens when rays of light bend when they pass through air layers of different temperatures in a steep thermal inversion where an atmospheric duct has formed.

Under the right conditions, such things are glimpses of history playing in present day. 

As an investigator of ghostly phenomena, I have noted that on nights we investigate and a geomagnetic storm is occurring (the earthly effect of solar flares), we run into more ghostly activity. Is this a catalyst for Time Mirroring?

Statistically, most ghostly encounters are "residual" or lingering and replaying within the senses - visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile. This glitch in time that allows mirroring is intriguing and also makes me ponder things like, when we get an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon), perhaps we need to play these audio captures backwards, as the very act of time mirroring means going backward. 

These are exciting things to consider and I hope to continue to pursue this avenue of research. 

Lighthouse Keepers Tragedies: Isolation, Madness, Murder, Suicide

  

The film "The Lighthouse," is one of many portrayals of the life of lighthouse keepers, isolation, and tragedy.

I think we all need a little dive into madness that is lighthouses and the tragic lives of lighthouse keepers - 

Joe the Ghost - Living in a Haunted House

 

Having grown up in a very actively haunted, Civil War hospital, estate in Fairfax, Virginia, I know something as a ghost investigator that is absolutely true - you gotta live in the setting, not visit it to study for a weekend.

The Alchemy of Hauntings

 

A person dies in a building and it's haunted, right?

Considering how many buildings and how many deaths, especially the fact that 100-year-old buildings had their residents dying in them regularly instead of hospitals, we should have a lot more haunting situations than we do.

Why does one building hold a haunting while another with a similar history does not?

I call such haunting buildings "Spirit Vessels"

Let's look at all the possible elements in creating a Spirit Vessel-


GEOLOGY/COPPER/QUARTZ/SPRINGS/LEYLINES

Mining towns like Tombstone are riddled with active hauntings, even though the buildings are wood structures - the copper running throughout the earth beneath the town seems to set an alchemy that counters poor building construction. Therefore, geology trumps building construction. Limestone is often found in haunting locations, as is granite, but it would appear that copper/quartz have an ability to be more potent to buildings that otherwise would be lesser vessels of spirits. Springs and waterways with moving water nearby are often reported near haunted sites and there are some theories about the inherent power of churning water. Leylines are the reported lines of energy running through the earth and where leylines converge, it is believed are power centers or vortexes. Many ancient sites are atop of such convergences, thought to be because of their amplified power.


CONSTRUCTION/BASEMENT/EARTH

Stone buildings seem to create their own sort of harnessing of energy and hold it within the walls. A building such as Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV, is a building that I consider to be the single best spirit vessel in America because it has all these traits - to an amazing degree. And, it even starts with being the largest stone building in America on top of great geology (limestone), running streams, cemetery, tragic history, plenty of deaths, feng shui - doors in hall do not line up....



FENG SHUI/LAYOUT/CONTENTS

In the case of Trans-Allegheny, the fact that the doors in the hall do not line up creates an interesting scenario in which the hallway would be particularly active, as energy can exit a doorway and be met with a wall and begin a bouncing journey through the hall. Had the doors lined up and energy could go in one doorway and through the other, you would have paths of energy you could walk through and feel, but nothing lingering. It's the cul-du-sac effect that makes this intriguing.



As well, we consider things like windows where energy comes through, darkness which attracts negative energy, clutter which attracts negative energy, proximity to a cemetery which causes negative energy, history of death which causes negative energy. This location has it all in spades.

AMOUNT OF DEATHS/TRAUMAS

Records had revealed thousands of deaths there, but this was not like a sanitorium where people were sick, weakened, and unable to put off the kind of mental trauma that we see in good haunting vessels. These people's mind energy and mental illness and inner torment was such that it basically stained the space.

When I speak about other dimensions in my theories about the other side, it's not sci-fi nonsense. A 2-D impression of us, a photograph, takes our 3D space and represents this 3D world in a 2D form. We are sharing our space in different ways. When we have trauma and death, we are imprinting the space in which we are in, that includes the other dimensions in which this ghostly activity comes from. If I stop and take a look at the 2D photographic version of me in my 3D world, I appreciate what it represents and there is an interaction. When we pass into the next dimension (I think a better term than "world"), we have marked an area in the 3D world that still can detect that portal we utilized. It has changed our 3D environment in that spot, a moment in which we turned from 3D form in this physical world to the next realm.


CUMULATIVE EMOTIONAL CONTENT/MENTAL ILLNESS

Continuing on the theme in the last paragraph, imagine the imprint we leave in spaces by trauma, anguish, mental illness, fighting, and arguments? Why do you think battlefields, prisons and asylums feel so powerful? The spiritual aspect of us (that which moves to the next dimension upon death) senses these things of the next realm - spirit knows. That's the same as psychic skills. Psychic skills are basically utilizing the spirit that can touch, feel and sense the next realm.

INFRASOUND/SOLAR/GEOMAGNETIC STORMS

Why would solar flares have an effect? Well, the geomagnetic storms that result from them do seem to have an effect on human physiology and we still do not know what effect this might have on stone, buildings, and activity in general. Infrasound's effects on something as simple as water molecules is an interesting realization - if it does this to water - what does it do to our bodies? People in the range of infrasound (sound waves below our ability to hear with our ears) often report feelings of paranoia, being watched, seeing shadow people....

HUMANS/EMOTIONS/PHYSIOLOGY/BELIEF

The humans interacting in the building, living there, perceiving the hauntings have their own body physiology--electrical and chemical, their own physiologic reaction to drugs/geomagnetic storms/and stress, combined with belief systems and interpretation skills that either enhance the ghostly encounters or perhaps stimulate them. Sensitives/empaths/psychics and those who have encountered paranormal in other residences, might be better activators or attractors of activity. The emotional state of the people within the building - whether they congregate for prayer or they have repressed anger, all have vastly different effects on the environment. The accepted belief that humans create or instigate poltergeist activity in the form of psychokinesis is a valid one. I, myself, have seen objects move toward me that were metal - defying all physics as we know it. I became a momentary magnetic of sorts. Hmmm....

HAUNTED FORMULA

A study I performed in 2009 about 50 very active haunted locations around the country revealed some very intriguing findings.

"Haunted Formula" (50 sites) This was looking at 6 traits of a site to find out how many of these traits each site had to get a "number" on how haunted it was. 5-6 was exceptionally active, 3-4 was mild haunting and less was not very active or not active at all. (6 traits - geology, construction, waterway nearby, railroad tracks nearby, death, older than 50 years)

Geology (in order of most potent geology and then descending in importance)

1. Limestone: 13 of 14 sites with limestone ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale

2. Shale: 12 of 13 sites with shale ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale

3. Sandstone: 20 of 22 sites with sandstone ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale

4. Granite: 1 of 2 sites with granite ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale.

Sedimentary is a rather vague title for a type of geology and just about all the 50 sites had this kind in one way or another, but then a great majority of the land in the US is sedimentary, so that's not necessarily significant, except that volcanic areas seemed to be very devoid of activity, except mining towns.

WATERWAYS: (I considered if the site was within a mile of running water, stream, river, ocean)

41 of 50 sites had this feature--that is very significant. It's also hard to discover whether or not the other 9 sites had underground springs, so it's a very hard one to judge. Also, people tended to build homes near waterways long ago before we had wonderful plumbing and such. I did not, however, find one super haunted site that did not have water nearby.

TRAINS: This one intrigued me because of the strange correlation, but now I am leaning more toward it being an incidental finding and considering removing it from the formula all together which might alter a few things, but statistically it wasn't horribly impressive and, as I said, people tended to build older homes near trains and trains tended to be built near towns.

32 sites had train tracks nearby, 18 did not.


DEATH/TRAUMA:

42 of 50 sites.

OLDER THAN 50 YEARS:

All 50 sites


CONSTRUCTION:

Masonry/block/brick were 43 of the 47 that could be judged (one place was a sign, one place was a ship, and one place was a cemetery, so construction could not be included)

Frame were 4 of 47.


PUTTING IT TOGETHER

In conclusion, we find that there are many factors to consider in whether a site could have a potential haunting and perhaps even the type of haunting -- feng shui could tell you where activity might pool in a building, the trauma history of when people left this realm for the next might show you hot spots, the geology and construction might tell you if it is even a potential vessel, given its history, and the emotional/physiologic/mental condition of the people investigating on the team can have an effect, as well. If the environment affects us and we affect the environment, we could be creating an alchemy in a moment in time in a space in this dimension that leaves a beacon or a memory for all time. In the right conditions, it becomes activated.

It's a good idea to consider all these aspects and even to have investigators write down their emotional or even hormonal states before a study and have them fold that up and put it away until afterwards so you can compare them with who was having issues or near the action or perceiving the action or feeling weird with what was going on in their emotions/hormones that day. We learn much this way, even to know what day you personally will have more encounters.

CHECKLIST FOR POTENTIALLY HAUNTED SITES


Geology/waterways/leylines (you can look up county/state geology maps online, waterways show up on Mapquest when you punch in the address of the site, as well as railroad tracks, and leylines can be determined by the use of divining rods)

Feng shui (nearby cemetery/clutter/darkness/odd dead end rooms/energy paths not getting a straight run, cul-du-sac places for energy)

Multiple deaths and trauma (use of building in the past, manner of death being not anticipated)

Generations of negative emotional content (troubled families and family members)

Infrasound/geomagnetic storms (Are these things at play?)

The humans within and their mental states/psychic abilities (what's up with the research team and the people who dwell in the building?)


SUGGESTED READING LIST

PSIence by Marie Jones

Confessions of a Feng Shui Ghostbuster by Anna Maria Prezio

Leylines and Earth Energies by David Cowan and Chris Arnold

For archived geomagnetic storms, try this site.

Mesa Arizona Hauntings

I have an ongoing study of the City of Mesa and unusual ghostly findings that may have ancient roots.


Ancient HoHoKam canals map

I kept getting people from the city of Mesa, Arizona complaining about ghostly issues that seemed to repeat themselves in description by many people.

I looked around at the geology and found nothing of significance or in the history of the town, except if you go back to ancient times and a missing tribe called the HoHoKam whose canal system fed from this area.

As well, upon visiting one of their mounds in Mesa behind the hospital off of Country Club Road, I learned that many neighbors around that mound area have these same haunting issues on a larger scale.


In my studies of the characteristics of haunted locations, ancient sites, mining geology, and waterways are significant.

I've had a substantial reporting for several years. Anyone with more to add, please let me know at ghosthuntingtheories@gmail.com or comment anonymously below -

People in the area report:

Voices
Knocking
Doors opening and closing
Apparitions
Feelings of being watched/doom/uncomfortable
Shadow people
Objects being thrown
Pets acting strangely

I am going to give some regions of the town I've heard from just from that post alone:

University west of the 101: (talking, footsteps, heavy sensation)

Country Club, North of 8th Ave: (report of haunting)

University and Gilbert: (footsteps, shuffling sounds, voices, uneasy heavy feeling, cat and child reported but not living there)

West of Ellsworth between McDowell and McKellips: (seeing things in windows, voices)

Main and Extension: (heavy feelings, unsettling)

East of Country Club, South of Brown: (small child, growls, cabinet opening, mists, crying, screaming, shadow figures, eerie feelings)

Country Club, south of Broadway: (talking, touching, shadow person, apparitions)

South of Main, West of Extension: (uneasy feelings, apparitions, sounds, voices)

East of Mesa Dr., North of University: (voices, uncomfortable feelings)

Stapley and Brown: footsteps, apparitions, blinds moving, physical touching, electrical issues.

Broadway and 2nd Ave: Apartments reportedly haunted

North of Southern, West of Gilbert: (Being touched, poked, feeling uneasy)

South of McDowell, West of Usery Pass: (People seen in windows when house is empty, voices)

University, west of Stapley: (Believed to be child ghost playing tricks on office workers, female apparition, believed to be 1920s era)

East of Extension, North of 8th Ave: (pots and pans falling, man breathing, footsteps, doors opening and closing)

Country Club and McKellips: (sounds in closet, male apparition seen by child, doors opening, toys moving)

University, East of Ellsworth: (someone reporting a haunting)

Country Club and Guadalupe: (balls of light, feeling of being watched, objects moving, tapping on window, scratching on walls, child reporting apparition, electrical turning on and off, adult saw apparition of boy in overalls)

First Avenue, East of Mesa Dr.: (report of tunnels under the old downtown area from the Mormon Temple and outward)

Aspen Ave. off Jefferson Park: (cats watching things that aren't there)

Gilbert and University: (footsteps, being watched, being pushed, someone turning doorknob, animal seeing things not there, closets opening and closing)

East of Center Street, north of the consolidated canal: (hearing voices)

Val Vista and University: (child apparition)

South of Brown and East of Country Club Dr.: Apparently possessed by a demon.

I'm looking for characteristics that might explain an entire city having issues with haunting more than the usual. I'm all about commonalities and repeatability.




audio recorder for EVPs

Paranormal in the Himalayas

 

Mt. Everest at 29,000 feet and other mountains in the Tibetan Plateau that tempt hikers to climb to their summits are also magnets for unexplained mysteries. The Himalayas are the tallest peaks in the world and growing a fraction of an inch each year. If para experiences occur rampantly in geologically active areas, then Tibet is surely one of the most spooky places in the world!

Understanding Hauntings and the Afterlife: Here's How It Works

Most of us regard the afterlife from the point of view of a living 3-dimensional player on a 3-dimensional field. Thus, we see a ghost as an invisible person who can get confused, trapped, vengeful, or concerned, but always in one place at one time.

Can a Church be Haunted?

It was an old historic church in the middle of nowhere Arizona. 

Can You "Manifest" Ghosts to Leave? Yes, You Can!

 

The very principals of "The Secret," involve ancient practices of refocusing the mind to what you want instead of what you don't want. This practice is called manifesting. 

If it works so well to give you what you want, can it work to get rid of what you don't want? 

Kinda, yeah - 

How Manifesting Works in the Paranormal Realm

It is popular today to discuss the concept of manifesting. It is a motivational way to reframe your life so that you imagine as clearly as you can, focus on completely the success/goal you desire. You then begin to live and act as if it has already happened. And then the universe brings you many surprises that lead to that goal. 

I think we can all agree that when we think we can't speak in front of an audience, our minds go blank. That is manifesting in a simple but very real form.

In the field of paranormal research, how you handle the unexplained follows principles of both manifestation and cognitive distortions resulting in panic, anxiety and helplessness or inquisitiveness, wonder, and insight.

In other words, if you go into a situation imagining what would happen if you got possessed, you upped your chances of being possessed. If you think you might hear something you can't explain and it's a ghost, when you hear a noise you will assume it is a ghost.

As we have no real objective evidence of ghosts or hauntings, we are stuck in the subjective and that has to process through a person's background, belief system, knowledge, sensitivity, religion, culture, and more.

I have spent many decades chasing after the unexplained, even being raised since I was a baby in a Civil War hospital that also saw battles on the property. Never once in all that time I have been threatened, possessed, attached, pushed down stairs, or any other calamity. 

In fact, it is not even in my belief system, so it is virtually impossible for me to have such issues. 

Our world is a series of events and then our own take on those events. The way we handle it has much to do with how we handled it in the past, what we believe that we have been told about how the world works, and whether we look for what's right or wrong.

When I approach a haunted location, I have a bit more senses to help me understand the energies around me, but I also approach it with curiosity. No threat. No fear. I anticipate contact and interaction. I invite the location to show its message. I expect a new experience that will enlighten me further.

How we interpret sounds, object movement, and shadows all help to manifest different experiences. I was once on an investigation when a cup flew across the room. The person with me told the story later on of the "attack" and threat, even hearing a growl and seeing a shadow - experiences I did not interpret. In fact, it seemed like an ideal burst of energy to get our attention. 

Sometimes, ghostly phenomenon seems to act like kids tugging on your pant leg. They try real hard to get your attention and when you don't respond, they tug too hard.

To me, it was a random set of circumstances that allowed us to turn our attention to a force in the room.

There is one simple reality about manifesting in the spirit world - 

You will encounter what you believe is possible. 

The Alchemy of Hauntings

A person dies in a building and it's haunted, right?

Considering how many buildings and how many deaths, especially the fact that 100-year-old buildings had their residents dying in them regularly instead of hospitals, we should have a lot more haunting situations than we do.

Why does one building hold a haunting while another with a similar history does not?

I call such haunting buildings "Spirit Vessels"

Let's look at all the possible elements in creating a Spirit Vessel-


GEOLOGY/COPPER/QUARTZ/SPRINGS/LEYLINES

Mining towns like Tombstone are riddled with active hauntings, even though the buildings are wood structures - the copper running throughout the earth beneath the town seems to set an alchemy that counters poor building construction. Therefore, geology trumps building construction. Limestone is often found in haunting locations, as is granite, but it would appear that copper/quartz have an ability to be more potent to buildings that otherwise would be lesser vessels of spirits. Springs and waterways with moving water nearby are often reported near haunted sites and there are some theories about the inherent power of churning water. Leylines are the reported lines of energy running through the earth and where leylines converge, it is believed are power centers or vortexes. Many ancient sites are atop of such convergences, thought to be because of their amplified power.


CONSTRUCTION/BASEMENT/EARTH

Stone buildings seem to create their own sort of harnessing of energy and hold it within the walls. A building such as Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV, is a building that I consider to be the single best spirit vessel in America because it has all these traits - to an amazing degree. And, it even starts with being the largest stone building in America on top of great geology (limestone), running streams, cemetery, tragic history, plenty of deaths, feng shui - doors in hall do not line up....



FENG SHUI/LAYOUT/CONTENTS

In the case of Trans-Allegheny, the fact that the doors in the hall do not line up creates an interesting scenario in which the hallway would be particularly active, as energy can exit a doorway and be met with a wall and begin a bouncing journey through the hall. Had the doors lined up and energy could go in one doorway and through the other, you would have paths of energy you could walk through and feel, but nothing lingering. It's the cul-du-sac effect that makes this intriguing.



As well, we consider things like windows where energy comes through, darkness which attracts negative energy, clutter which attracts negative energy, proximity to a cemetery which causes negative energy, history of death which causes negative energy. This location has it all in spades.

AMOUNT OF DEATHS/TRAUMAS

Records had revealed thousands of deaths there, but this was not like a sanitorium where people were sick, weakened, and unable to put off the kind of mental trauma that we see in good haunting vessels. These people's mind energy and mental illness and inner torment was such that it basically stained the space.

When I speak about other dimensions in my theories about the other side, it's not sci-fi nonsense. A 2-D impression of us, a photograph, takes our 3D space and represents this 3D world in a 2D form. We are sharing our space in different ways. When we have trauma and death, we are imprinting the space in which we are in, that includes the other dimensions in which this ghostly activity comes from. If I stop and take a look at the 2D photographic version of me in my 3D world, I appreciate what it represents and there is an interaction. When we pass into the next dimension (I think a better term than "world"), we have marked an area in the 3D world that still can detect that portal we utilized. It has changed our 3D environment in that spot, a moment in which we turned from 3D form in this physical world to the next realm.


CUMULATIVE EMOTIONAL CONTENT/MENTAL ILLNESS

Continuing on the theme in the last paragraph, imagine the imprint we leave in spaces by trauma, anguish, mental illness, fighting, and arguments? Why do you think battlefields, prisons and asylums feel so powerful? The spiritual aspect of us (that which moves to the next dimension upon death) senses these things of the next realm - spirit knows. That's the same as psychic skills. Psychic skills are basically utilizing the spirit that can touch, feel and sense the next realm.

INFRASOUND/SOLAR/GEOMAGNETIC STORMS

Why would solar flares have an effect? Well, the geomagnetic storms that result from them do seem to have an effect on human physiology and we still do not know what effect this might have on stone, buildings, and activity in general. Infrasound's effects on something as simple as water molecules is an interesting realization - if it does this to water - what does it do to our bodies? People in the range of infrasound (sound waves below our ability to hear with our ears) often report feelings of paranoia, being watched, seeing shadow people....

HUMANS/EMOTIONS/PHYSIOLOGY/BELIEF

The humans interacting in the building, living there, perceiving the hauntings have their own body physiology--electrical and chemical, their own physiologic reaction to drugs/geomagnetic storms/and stress, combined with belief systems and interpretation skills that either enhance the ghostly encounters or perhaps stimulate them. Sensitives/empaths/psychics and those who have encountered paranormal in other residences, might be better activators or attractors of activity. The emotional state of the people within the building - whether they congregate for prayer or they have repressed anger, all have vastly different effects on the environment. The accepted belief that humans create or instigate poltergeist activity in the form of psychokinesis is a valid one. I, myself, have seen objects move toward me that were metal - defying all physics as we know it. I became a momentary magnetic of sorts. Hmmm....

HAUNTED FORMULA

A study I performed in 2009 about 50 very active haunted locations around the country revealed some very intriguing findings.

"Haunted Formula" (50 sites) This was looking at 6 traits of a site to find out how many of these traits each site had to get a "number" on how haunted it was. 5-6 was exceptionally active, 3-4 was mild haunting and less was not very active or not active at all. (6 traits - geology, construction, waterway nearby, railroad tracks nearby, death, older than 50 years)

Geology (in order of most potent geology and then descending in importance)

1. Limestone: 13 of 14 sites with limestone ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale

2. Shale: 12 of 13 sites with shale ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale

3. Sandstone: 20 of 22 sites with sandstone ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale

4. Granite: 1 of 2 sites with granite ranked a 5 or 6 on the haunted scale.

Sedimentary is a rather vague title for a type of geology and just about all the 50 sites had this kind in one way or another, but then a great majority of the land in the US is sedimentary, so that's not necessarily significant, except that volcanic areas seemed to be very devoid of activity, except mining towns.

WATERWAYS: (I considered if the site was within a mile of running water, stream, river, ocean)

41 of 50 sites had this feature--that is very significant. It's also hard to discover whether or not the other 9 sites had underground springs, so it's a very hard one to judge. Also, people tended to build homes near waterways long ago before we had wonderful plumbing and such. I did not, however, find one super haunted site that did not have water nearby.

TRAINS: This one intrigued me because of the strange correlation, but now I am leaning more toward it being an incidental finding and considering removing it from the formula all together which might alter a few things, but statistically it wasn't horribly impressive and, as I said, people tended to build older homes near trains and trains tended to be built near towns.

32 sites had train tracks nearby, 18 did not.


DEATH/TRAUMA:

42 of 50 sites.

OLDER THAN 50 YEARS:

All 50 sites


CONSTRUCTION:

Masonry/block/brick were 43 of the 47 that could be judged (one place was a sign, one place was a ship, and one place was a cemetery, so construction could not be included)

Frame were 4 of 47.


PUTTING IT TOGETHER

In conclusion, we find that there are many factors to consider in whether a site could have a potential haunting and perhaps even the type of haunting -- feng shui could tell you where activity might pool in a building, the trauma history of when people left this realm for the next might show you hot spots, the geology and construction might tell you if it is even a potential vessel, given its history, and the emotional/physiologic/mental condition of the people investigating on the team can have an effect, as well. If the environment affects us and we affect the environment, we could be creating an alchemy in a moment in time in a space in this dimension that leaves a beacon or a memory for all time. In the right conditions, it becomes activated.

It's a good idea to consider all these aspects and even to have investigators write down their emotional or even hormonal states before a study and have them fold that up and put it away until afterwards so you can compare them with who was having issues or near the action or perceiving the action or feeling weird with what was going on in their emotions/hormones that day. We learn much this way, even to know what day you personally will have more encounters.

CHECKLIST FOR POTENTIALLY HAUNTED SITES


Geology/waterways/leylines (you can look up county/state geology maps online, waterways show up on Mapquest when you punch in the address of the site, as well as railroad tracks, and leylines can be determined by the use of divining rods)

Feng shui (nearby cemetery/clutter/darkness/odd dead end rooms/energy paths not getting a straight run, cul-du-sac places for energy)

Multiple deaths and trauma (use of building in the past, manner of death being not anticipated)

Generations of negative emotional content (troubled families and family members)

Infrasound/geomagnetic storms (Are these things at play?)

The humans within and their mental states/psychic abilities (what's up with the research team and the people who dwell in the building?)


SUGGESTED READING LIST

PSIence by Marie Jones

Confessions of a Feng Shui Ghostbuster by Anna Maria Prezio

Leylines and Earth Energies by David Cowan and Chris Arnold

For archived geomagnetic storms, try this site.

Popular Types of Ghosts

In the arena of ghosts, there are some popular players that show up over time and location. Some of the more popularly and often reported ghosts are going to be reviewed here today. Chances are your home, your friend's home, your neighbor's home, your neighborhood, your town might have at least a few of these. 

Crybaby Bridges

(Anderson, SC)

Cry baby bridges involve legends of or actual events of a child being pushed over the bridge and dying or jumping from the bridge, or some other tragedy associated with the bridge involving a child. The names of just some popular cry baby bridges in Ohio are; Rogue's Hollow, The Screaming Bridge of Maud Hughes Road, Egypt Road in Salem, Wisner Road and Helltown. That's just one state!

These are the cry baby bridges just in the state of Oklahoma as reported on Wikipedia:

In Alderson, near McAlester, the bridge is located at the end of Alderson Road and has been known to legends of a woman who was raped by her father several times and would throw her unwanted infants off the bridge. Local residents have reported sounds of babies crying underneath the bridge late at night and also the glowing image of the woman has been seen numerous times floating over the rocky bed of North Boggy Creek.

In Moore, approximately 2 miles east of Sooner Rd. on 134th St. there is a collapsed and abandoned bridge. Legend of a woman and infant in their vehicle falling through the wood of the bridge during late-night hours, a few days later the vehicle and remains were discovered by law enforcement patrolling the area. As for the bridge, it was never repaired and the road was therefore deemed unsafe and was closed off to vehicles, the cry of the baby is rumored to be heard during overnight hours.

In Kellyville, approximately 1.63 miles east of the Slick/Kellyville Road on West 181st street on the north side, there is the original bridge abutments off of the new road. Legend of a woman and her infant child driving down the road trying to escape her husband. The woman's car ran off the bridge and the baby was never found. Legend continues that if the bridge is visited at midnight the baby's cry can be heard and sometimes accompanied by a strange blue light.

La Llorona

The legend of La Llorona is from our legend-filled neighbors to the south of the United States. It is a legend repeated in some form or another in many cultures around the world. There are a lot of explanations for why the La Llorona exists, most having to do with a woman who met a man but he didn't want children, so she drowned her children. She rushed back to tell her lover what she had done and how much she loved him, that she would drown her own children, he was repulsed and rebuked her. She then wandered in search of her children. Some say, she was turned down at Heaven and forced to go back to earth and find her children. Her spirit is said to wander in the desert washes crying out for her babies. She is the equivalent of the lady in white in the United States.  In the UK, the equivalent is the banshee.

There is a different version in every area. Here is one shared by a woman about the Tucson La Llorona.

"The Tucson, Arizona version of La Llarona was a promiscuous lady who didn't like to be bothered with children. Whenever she had a baby, she would take it down to the river and drown it.

When she herself died and tried to get into Heaven, St. Peter told her that she couldn't get in unless she brought all her dead babies with her. So now she wanders along the river, wailing for her lost children. Not surprisingly, they haven't come back to her.

Don't leave your baby alone in the dark or let your little ones wander around at night alone, because La Llarona will take them in hopes of fooling St. Peter. —Maureen

Hitchhiking Ghosts

The most famous (or infamous) of the hitchhiking ghosts comes from Illinois and she was known as Resurrection Mary (named for the cemetery she was associate with).  

Back in the 1930s, drivers along Archer Avenue were reporting a girl in white was attempting to jump on running boards. More recent drivers claim stopping to give her a ride and one she's in the car, she disappears right at Resurrection Cemetery, before they get to her destination. She is seen to dart in and out around the cemetery and sometimes, right in front of cars, leading drivers to believe they hit someone. One of the legends associated with her is that she went stormed home on foot from a dance after an argument with her boyfriend and got hit by a car and is buried in the cemetery. 

Lady in White

This ghost is usually associated with a legend in a rural area of some tragedy. The woman, in a long white gown is still seen wandering. Some are attached to stories of losing a husband, being rebuked by a lover, or even being a harbinger that someone is about to die.

The White Lady of Acra (NY) is a legend of a young woman dressed in all white supposedly seen at night along the road she last traveled on or near the cemetery not far from her fatal accident. (Interestingly similar to the legend of Resurrection Mary).

It would seem that a great deal of female apparitions seen by people involve a gown, often a light/white gown, giving way to even more reports of white lady ghosts.

Stair-Climbing Ghosts

In terms of Feng Shui, the study of energy "chi" and how it flows, stairways are great raceways for energy. Why do we have so many stairway ghosts? I'd say the likely reason is very logical - stairways easily creak compared to floorboards because of the way they are supported. They have also had people climbing up and down them for decades, sometimes centuries. That common pattern is bound to lay down some memories. 

In the home I grew up in, we have a very famous stair climbing ghosts. We called him the soldier with no boots. The legend told to us when we moved in and my mother asked the previous owner about the sounds, was that a soldier had been in there during the Civil War and fighting broke out. He rushed outside to give aid with his gun, leaving his precious boots his parents had given him, up in the room. He was killed. He kept going back for those boots. Each night, he climbed the stairs and headed down the hall to the middle bedroom where he would come to rest before the radiator, the board sighing with his weight, as if the fibers of the house recalled this event over and over again. 

Bedsheet-Mussing Ghosts 

They tuck you in, they pull the sheet off your feet. These playful ghosts are sometimes very unsettling. On Ghost Hunters show, Grant spent a night in an infamously haunted room at the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, Arizona where something moved his bedding as he slept. 

I had an incident at the Hotel Vendome in Prescott, Arizona that unsettled me greatly. I do not like hospital corners, I feel trapped in the sheets, so I was pulling the sheets out of the corners of the bed before going to sleep. My friend who was staying in the haunted room with me thought it was hilarious that I am scared of tight sheets, but she knew my routine. So, I got ready, climbed into bed, took a few pics of the room to compare in the morning. I woke up at night, hearing something in the closet, and feeling something bumping the bed. I thought someone was in the room. I picked up the camera and took a shot. Then, I realized that my feet were tucked in tightly with a hospital corner, in fact, my toes were pointed it was so tight. I panicked and my friend woke up and saw that I was trapped as I pulled the sheets back out from under the mattress. When the photo was checked later, it showed the closet door was wide open during the night. In the morning, when I took the pictures, it was closed again. 

The most extraordinary one was in Gettysburg. Julie and I stayed at Federal Pointe Inn (I highly recommend it). We went to bed at night and the air conditioning made the room really cold. I kept pulling the blankets over me and then I would wake up and they weren't there. I found them halfway off the end of the bed one time. The next time, on the floor on the other side of the bed. The next time, a few feet away from the foot of the bed. The last time, they were all the way at the opening to the reading room about 15 feet away! I got really mad, wrapped myself up like a mummy and said out loud, "these are MY blankets." 

Other common themes:

Widow's walk ghosts that go back and forth awaiting their man who died at sea

Pirate ghosts searching for treasure

Laughing children

One's own deceased relatives

"Guardian angels"

Most Haunted Places in Utah

This guest post was written by Oskar from GhostlyPursuits.com (*I suggest you check it out!)

Transient Ghosts

They come and go like it's a bus station.

I hear people often talk about issues with transient hauntings. They might have lived there a long time and never run into problems, then BOOM! Or, they had some haunting problems in the kitchen with a little girl's voice and then later in the bedroom felt a male presence who came and then went after a week's time. The types and locations, as well as time periods shift. Let's look at some possible types and explanations - 

Most Haunted Places: We Have It All Backwards

I get asked a lot - what is the most haunted place you know? 

Answer: Everywhere is haunted.

Elements That Might Affect Hauntings

Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan has taken on the tragic nickname of "Suicide Forest." Every year, hundreds of despondent people enter the forest, some of them camping for a time to put their heads in the right place to make the final desperate sacrifice of their mortal life in this beautiful natural setting. Such a location, for 14 square miles of size, and given the amounts of death should be quite haunted, but there are more reasons than just those for why it could be exceptionally haunted.

Most haunted locations have death associated with them - that crossing over from this realm to the next, but how those deaths happen is as important as the fact that they passed on there. It appears that the moments that a person is dying, whether in fighting, defending, sickness, suicide or pain, the intensity of emotion and period of time are critical to adding layers in the environment of space "memories" or "markers." Surprise death, such as being shot down without foreknowledge, seems to lessen the possibility of lingering spirits. 

Considerations such as geology, construction, and decades of tragedy combine into ideal spirit vessels, as well as possibly some other elements we don't consider.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV.  An ideal candidate for a spirit vessel. The largest hand-cut stone structure in America sitting atop of sandstone, shale, clay, coal and limestone geology, and has had hundreds of agonizing deaths within its walls, not to mention the energy of many minds that were troubled. 

The power of the earth is an amazing thing. In fact, Tesla mentioned that the voltage between earth and ionosphere could make for unlimited free energy if we tapped it. The constant geologic shifts and seismic activity affect the human body, but what do certain types of geology do for forces and pressures, fissures, and caves, all sort of variables underground that affect the very chemistry and electrical of our bodies? People do predict earthquakes, most often reporting migraines just before. Animals react quite violently to coming seismic activity. Even solar flares can give us vivid dreams. We are more affected by the very earth we are pressed upon by gravity than we realize.

Considerations

Atmospheric electricity:  There are electrical charges in earth's atmosphere. Tesla even contemplated that between the negatively charged earth and positively charged inosophere, there were 200,000 volts available for potential free energy for the citizens. Static electricity and electrical storms are often signs present during haunting activity. 

Earth's Resonance:  The earth vibrates at a resonance of 7.83 Hertz. Some believe that listening to this particular frequency would be soothing to the body and any variances in that frequency may cause unsettling effects. Seismic activity might give off a resonance felt by animals and sometimes interpreted by humans as migraines and odd dreams. It is possible that this resonance change can precede a ghostly activity or make it more perceivable. 

Harmonics:  While researching hauntings at Eastern State Penn, it was found that the long spoke-like halls projecting from the inner circle area created infrasound when there was rain falling on the building. Infrasound is a frequency of sound below the threshold of human hearing, and yet it has a remarkable effect on the person's perceptions and experiences. The very action of wind, rain and natural occurrences upon a building, if constructed a certain way, could create infrasound that, once again, either makes us perceive something that isn't there or makes us more keenly aware of that which we cannot perceive under normal circumstances. 

Geomagnetic storms: When there are solar flares, the resulting issue for us on the Earth are geomagnetic storms. It's been studied in its affects on heart rhythm and heart attack rates, but what about the brain?  The pineal gland is the interesting part of the brain. It is small, like a walnut, but packs a huge punch. It floats in cerebrospinal fluid inside the brain and regulates much from our circadian rhythms, internal compass, and releasing hormones like melatonin that allow us to sleep. It is also believed to be the seat of psychic skills. And, it is apparently affected by geomagnetic storms with everything from higher incidence of suicide to extremely vivid dreams. It is possible that geomagnetic storms either work on our receptive abilities to perceive ghostly activity or affect the phenomena of ghosts to manifest. 

Water holding memories:  Experiments have shown that impressing a word or feeling onto a drop of water causes the very formation of it to change. We have yet to put this test to other sources to see what else holds memories. Being a psychometrist, I can tell you that objects and walls hold memories and even spaces. The question is - might this be just recorded events or memories and not a true spirit haunting feature? 

Moving Water:  Moving water is often reported near haunted locations such as lighthouses and homes. The interesting aspect of this is that churning water creates negative ions which create feelings of bliss and positive feelings. So, how could this affect a haunting? The same sort of feelings occur during alpha brain wave state as one is drifting off to sleep and waking. These are times we are very astute and discerning hauntings. It may not be that these locations are more haunted, but that we are better receivers of that info. 

Feng Shui: An ancient Chinese system for organizing one's environment to make good energy flow freely and bad energy exit. The very placement of doors, windows, stairwells, and objects within a home can either trap bad energy or allow good energy to make positive things occur. I often ask people in troubled homes to being with some simple steps, journaling events, having a talk with the environment, and cleaning up the clutter and adding more light. It is not fully understood if "chi" (energy) is blocked by paths, but ironically highly reported areas of hauntings are hallways and roadways. 

Geology:  There is a great deal of talk about the types of geology that seem to be present in haunted locations and in my own sample study of 50 reportedly active haunted locations, things like limestone, granite, and sandstone were common, but then these are common geological features in areas where towns were built around mining and resources. It can be hard to decide if the geology is at fault or if the fact that distant buildings were built in prime areas that populations gravitated toward. There are some things to consider in places like mining towns. Yes, they had a rough and tumble past, but so did Gettysburg Battlefield and Revolutionary War locations. The very content of salt and copper in the ground could make some areas more electrically conductive. It might either jump start ghostly activity or create phenomena interpreted as ghostly. 

Piezoelectricity:  Many materials can produce an electrical charge such ceramics, stone and quartz. There are very interesting conditions in ancient megaliths that show promise that the ancients were very aware of the properties of stone and ceramic and resonance and sound waves in order to create all manner of disturbance and perhaps even opening portals to other realms in which they eventually chose to remain and leave us behind with the remnants of a civilization so advanced that we must ponder if aliens had visited us. 

Psychometrics:   Is a prison more haunted because of the amount of angry people within and violence or because it contains metal surfaces that retain that energy? Are ties made in this realm with an energy form that can pass between worlds so that those on the "other side" can come back and forth under the right conditions to the locations that are tied to their personal energy form? Well, there is much to be pondered in this arena and I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out just how psychometrics work and what I am reading and how, though I do admit that metal seems to retain the clearest "memories" to be read. 

Living humans:  There is no denying that, no matter what equipment an investigator carries, it's the human who perceived the activity that is the best meter for what is going on a haunted environment. There are humans who are more "magnetic" for activity and whether that is because their perceptions are better honed or they simply have a chemistry or electrical about their bodies that attracts or even creates the right situation for a showing, is unknown. There have been reported higher incidents of poltergeist activity in those who have seizure disorder and whose temporal lobes might be damaged or highly active. There is much we don't know about how it all comes together, but we do know one thing - humans are witnesses to activity and so a very integral part of the whole process of finding hauntings. 

Conclusion

As you can see, these are only a part of the potential physical world elements that can contribute to a haunting and even when you put all these together, you don't know the exact balance necessary to create lots of activity. We living people are perhaps one of the greatest elements because it is our very perceptions that register these hauntings and there is very likely an element of our own chemical and brain makeup that affect/attract activity.

Learn more - 
Geomagnetic fields and human body
Government Commentary on geomagnetic effects on the brain
Pineal gland, PSI, and geomagnetic storms
Piezoelectricity and resonance in ancient megaliths
Confessions of a Feng Shui Ghostbuster