The Unknown Roommate: My True Ghost Story

Before I moved into my home back in the year 1999, I lived on the third floor of an old house in Shillington, PA for seven years. I really loved this old apartment. The landlord at the time inherited it from his uncle and decided to section off the three floors and make it into three apartments. The third floor was once the attic and therefore fairly small, but plenty roomy enough for me and my cats. It had a cute little kitchen with a small full refrigerator, kitchen sink with cabinets, a stove with oven, and wall shelves as well. The living room was also small as was the bathroom which did not have a bathtub but a shower stall; however, both the kitchen and the bathroom did have a lot of closet space which was great! The bedroom was pretty large with a small closet for clothing, etc. The basement was set up with three separate storage spaces (no washer or dryer) for all three apartments.

My apartment building, 3rd floor on 31 S. Wyomissing Avenue.

A couple of months after I moved in, I noticed that my telephone would ring around 11 o'clock in the evening, but when I picked it up there was no one there on the other end. This would happen a couple times a week or so. Okay, maybe just something whacky with my telephone line? Since it did not happen ALL the time, I just shrugged it off at first.

Then, for no reason that I could understand, my bed would shake while I was trying to sleep. This happened EVERY night! I was so scared all I could manage to do is freeze up and not move a muscle until it passed! 

I finally decided to ask my neighbors who lived on the first and second floors if they ever experienced anything like what I had. After all, they also lived in the same house/building that I did. Neither of them had - apparently, I was the lucky one. However, the neighbor on the first floor who happened to know our landlord's family for a long time had disclosed to me that someone had hung themselves in the attic many years ago! 

Other than feeling terrified for a little while, I eventually got used to "whoever' or "whatever" was making their presence know to me. Never once had I felt in any serious danger in spite of how unnerving it could be at times. 

I miss that old apartment so much and I have never regretted living there - not once!

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

Is that you, Dad?

 

My sincere apologies to everyone for not posting for a few weeks. I have been so unbelievably busy that I barely have time to breathe as of these last few months since being thrown into a nightmare. I will try to visit your blogs when I can I promise. Until then, I felt the need to share a recent personal "ghost story" if you will ...

This past Saturday, my husband's cousin's daughter, Carissa (my realtor) and her husband were helping me to clean out my mom's house - which is a sort of horror story of its' own I might add. My dad built the house and no one has ever lived there except my family. The attic is just a crawl space that you can not even stand in. 

Carissa shared a story with me about something "creepy" that happened while they were checking out the attic to see how much of a mess we have to deal with. She said that every time her husband spoke or said anything, the attic light would flicker. After he stopped talking, the light would stop flickering. They did this several times and the same thing would occur. Carissa spoke aloud to the "presence" that was apparently making themselves known to them and told them not to worry, they were not there to hurt anyone. She immediately asked me if anybody had died in my mom's house. I explained to her that my dad had passed away in the living room surrounded by my mom and I. 

So, I have no doubt in my mind that my dad was in the house with them and most likely always is at all times. I can feel him every time I walk into the house and most especially in the four-car garage which he also helped to build and was his pride and joy - which now is almost empty as I have been trying sell off items to help raise more money for my mom to live on. 

As I stated previously, this entire experience has been a complete and total nightmare. By far, the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life since dealing with the loss of my dad.

Lehigh Canal Ghost Tour with Charlie Adams III!

Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween all! Tonight, my husband and I had tickets to take one of Charlie Adams III's ghost tours. Charlie was born and raised in Berks County, PA and has authored 35 ghost story books over the past few years - I own a few of them. This tour was located at The National Canal Museum in Easton, PA ...

One of the two mules helping to pull the canal boat. Their names are Hank and Ernie ...

The Captain dressed up as a zombie ...

Posing for a pic with Charlie before the start of the boat tour. He is so personable and was such a pleasure to chat with ...

Charlie sharing ghost stories with everyone ...

Midway through the tour, we paused briefly to enjoy the gorgeous sunset and beautiful scenery along the canal ...

Even Charlie commented on "how cool" it was while everyone including himself snapped a quick pic ...

This was Charlie's last tour for this year. I have always wanted to be a part of one of Charlie Adams' ghost tours and I am very happy that I finally had the chance!

(Photo courtesy of Charles J. Adams III)

👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻

Some neat pics on our ride home from the ghost tour ...

Throwback Thursday: Are Orbs Real?

In photography, an orb is a typically circular artifact on an image, created as a result of flash photography illuminating a mote of dust or other particle. Orbs are especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras.

Orbs are captured during low-light instances where the camera's flash is used. Cases include night or underwater photography, or where a bright light source is near the camera. Light appears much brighter very near the source due to the inverse-square law, which says light intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source. The orb artifact can result from retroreflection of light off solid particles, such as dust or pollen, or liquid particles, especially rain. They can also be caused by foreign material within the camera lens. The image artifacts usually appear as either white or semi-transparent circles, though may also occur with whole or partial color spectra, purple fringing or other chromatic aberration. With rain droplets, an image may capture light passing through the droplet creating a small rainbow effect.

Some paranormal investigators have referred to orbs appearing in photographs from allegedly haunted locations as 'ghost orbs', 'spirit orbs' or 'angel orbs', and claim them as evidence of spirit presences representing the essence or soul of a departed person, in some cases claiming that orbs have appeared on command and may have images and faces visible within them when zoomed in.

The following are merely two of my own personal true stories and experiences with orbs and the "unexplained" ...

The Bride's Best Friend

In October of 2012, I officiated a legal Wiccan handfasting for a couple who lived in Denver, PA. Toward the end of the ceremony, the bride turned to her family and friends (and unbeknownst to me) she "spoke" to her best friend who had passed away of cancer shortly before the wedding was to take place - the wedding which she was supposed to be such an important a part of. My husband had taken pics for me as, of course, I was not able to. A few days later after I had gotten my pics of the ceremony developed, I had immediately noticed an unusual orb-like image at the bottom of one of the bride's maids dresses. In fact, you can actually see her glancing down at her side at something that had so obviously caught her attention ...

The week after the wedding, the bride came to my home to pick up her official Marriage Certificate. After I showed her this particular pic, her immediate reaction was,"I knew it! I knew she was there, I could 'feel' it! I am not at all surprised."

Eric & Kim's Halloween Handfasting ~ October 28, 2012

****************************************************

The Ghosts who (still) live in Gettysburg, PA

A few years ago, while attending a family reunion in York, PA, we had decided to take the Gettysburg ghost tour which included the historical battlefield. The tour guide took us all through the town and recanted personal stories of which the locals and other witnesses had shared of things they say they had seen and the ghosts and their images that roamed (and continue to roam) the streets to this day. Images and unexplained phenomena regarding the soldiers and their families who had died there. 

We were allowed to take photos and videos (back then, mostly via camcorders) of the entire tour. I remember there was one old abandoned home with a rather interesting history regarding it which the tour guide told us that due to previous paranormal activity as reported by the caretakers who upkeep the grounds, no one was allowed to enter this particular home. She also warned us that, even though we were welcome to take pictures and videos outside of this home, the energy in and around the house was so strong that many previous tourist have complained on numerous occasions that when they attempted to take pics or acquire any video footage, their batteries immediately died ... drained of all power! We all sort of shrugged our shoulders and pretty much did not think much more of it at that time.

Well, lo and behold while I was standing aside of my (then) brother-in-law who was using his camcorder up until that point during the tour, say, "I don't believe this!" (and began laughing) We both saw the red battery light go off and "POOF", no more video - completely shut off! Later that evening, my sister Robin told me that the battery came back and the camcorder was working fine.

In addition to the ghost tour, there was also a cool little museum which we visited before the tour began that was filled with dozens of orb and image photos captured by various folks who took pics during the walk through the battlefield and the town itself hanging on the walls - photos like the one Dark Elf had found above.

So, are orbs for real in most cases? Please feel free to share any experiences you may have had with them. 

The Ghost of "Mrs. Miller"

Well, since it is almost Samhain and Halloween I thought it would be the appropriate time to share a true ghost story with everyone. Years ago, I had a friend, Ginny, who bought a house on South 14th Street in Reading, PA where only she and her 10 year old son, Billy, lived. She shared some rather unsettleing stories about the events which happened there while they resided in that house.

To begin with, the woman who live there previously, "Mrs. Miller" (according to the woman's son) always wanted to die in her house, but sadly died in a hospital instead, leaving her son, Bill, to sell her house after her death. Enter my friend Ginny and her son Billy ...

She recalls the day the realtor showed her the house saying that, "I felt someone touch my shoulder, but when I looked into the big mirror in the living room, no one was there!" She remembers thinking how strange it was, but thought nothing more of it at that time. When she went back to the house with Mrs. Miller's son and daugther-in-law, she saw something even stranger - an image of a woman wearing a long white dress standing at the top of the steps to the second floor. She mentioned what she saw to them at that time telling them, "You are going to think I am crazy, but ..."  The daughter-in-law said, "They buried Bill's mother in that dress." 

Now, she decided to buy the house regardless and not long after they moved in other things began happening. One time upon coming home from picking her son Billy up from school as she walked through the front door she saw her glass rose (a gift from her deceased aunt) dangling on the edge of her living room coffee table. When she took a step toward it, it fell to the floor and broke into pieces. Other things went on as well such as blankets being thrown on the living room floor when NO ONE was home at the time - not even her son.

When Ginny decided to perform some renovations to the house, Mrs. Miller was NOT happy nor amused. Ginny recalls one evening while they were watching television in the living room her framed Footprints which she had hanging on the wall flew across the room and shatterd on the floor. When I asked Ginny one time "why" she stayed in that house after these types of events, she said, "I never really felt threatened by Mrs. Miller, she just wanted me to KNOW how she felt about someone else living in HER house."

I, myself, was in that house several times and the only time I felt strange was upstairs where the bathroom was - you had to pass the door to the attic first to get there.

Honestly, I have had my own experiences with "ghosts"/spirits in my own home, but never experienced anything close to what Ginny and her son had. More about that in a later post. 

The Boleskine Manor: Fact or Fiction?

Greetings, my dear friends! While browsing around the net searching YouTube videos, I inadvertently came across a few documentaries on the history of the Boleskine Manor (House). To tell you the truth, I never actually heard of this place before, let alone that it once belonged to the very controversial Aleister Crowley who purchased the house in 1899 for the express purpose of conducting/performing a series of magickal workings called the "Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage" taken from a grimoire called "The Book of Abramelin." According to Crowley, the actual purpose of this ritual is to invoke one's Guardian Angel. Not only does it require at least six months of preparation, celibacy and abstinence from alcohol, but it also includes the summoning of the 12 Kings and Dukes of Hell to bind them and remove their negative influences from the magician's life. Crowley was so committed to acheiving this goal that one of the many reasons he chose the location of the house was because the grounds facing the Loch Ness (the house was located on the south-east side) had sand which would allow him to "see" the footprints of the spirits he had summoned. While in the process of this magickal working, Crowley was called to Paris by the leader of the Golden Dawn and therefore made the very grave mistake of not banishing the demons he had summoned forth which, according to legend, led to a series of strange happenings both in and around the Boleskine House.

Whether or not one believes in any or all of the tales surrounding this legendary structure, the fact is that strange and tragic events had been going on in that house long before Crowley ever lived there. The house has a very interesting history which dates back to  circa 1760. The Parish of Boleskine was formed in the 13th Century and both a kirk and a graveyard were built in the parish around this time as well. A clergymen at the time named Minister Thomas Houston (1648-1705) was said to have had the task of rather hastily laying animated corpses back in their graves after a (supposedly) devious local wizard had raised the dead in the Boleskine graveyard. 

The Boleskine Cemetary in Scotland beside Loch Ness

The Boleskine House was built on the site of the kirk, which according to legend caught fire during congregation and killed everyone inside. A man named Colonel Archibald Fraser later purchased the ranch-style house which included 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, lounge, drawing room, and a library. There was even a tunnel linking the house to the graveyard. 

Since then, there have been several others who had purchased and lived in the house. Crowley moved out of it in 1913 and an actor named George Sanders bought it. Sanders was involved in a scandal selling shares for a pig farm supposedly built on the grounds of Boleskine - except the farm never actually existed. The next owner was a man named Major Edward Grant. In 1965, Grant committed suicide in Crowley's bedroom with a shotgun. After this, a married couple moved into the house. The wife was blind and after only a month the husband walked out, leaving her to wonder around unable to see. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uEesEj1G-g

(excerpt from The Oxford Address/interview)

In 1969, an experimental filmmaker named Kenneth Anger bought and rented the house for a few months. Anger had a interest in the occult and knew about the house's strange but tragic history. When musician Jimmy Page heard about this, he bought the house in 1971 - although he spent very little time living there. It is no secret that Page, by his own public admission (for a recent Oxford University interview, please click on the link underneath the above pic), was "very interested actually" in the teachings of The Golden Dawn and "all things mystical and magical, all things bright and beautiful."  (BTW, contrary to popular belief, Page is not a Wiccan, nor is there any evidence to support him even being Pagan to this date. At any rate, the only person who truly knows the answer to that question is Page himself). 

Page had asked a close, long-time school friend of his named Malcolm Dent to stay at the house and take care of it in his absence. Dent recalls quite a few horrifying moments while living there. Page sold the house in 1992 and it had a couple of more owners since that time. It is worth mentioning that the house suffered two more fires and the last one almost completely destroyed it. In spite of this, it is said that the house is due to go back on the market in the near future.  

The 2015 house fire

I, personally, believe in spirits and, of course, magick; however, in my humble opinion, the Boleskine House has a very troubled past, and in regards to Crowley, I believe he indeed practiced black magick there (he even admits it in his own book "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.") Furthermore, Crowley himself admits his black magic "simply got out of hand." I have said it before and I will say it again, NOTHING GOOD comes from playing and/or dabbling in the black arts! That much, I am sure of.

So, what do you think about the story behind the Boleskine House? I would be very interested in your thoughts or opinions on the subject.  

Are orbs real?

In photography, an orb is a typically circular artifact on an image, created as a result of flash photography illuminating a mote of dust or other particle. Orbs are especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras.

Orbs are captured during low-light instances where the camera's flash is used. Cases include night or underwater photography, or where a bright light source is near the camera. Light appears much brighter very near the source due to the inverse-square law, which says light intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source. The orb artifact can result from retroreflection of light off solid particles, such as dust or pollen, or liquid particles, especially rain. They can also be caused by foreign material within the camera lens. The image artifacts usually appear as either white or semi-transparent circles, though may also occur with whole or partial color spectra, purple fringing or other chromatic aberration. With rain droplets, an image may capture light passing through the droplet creating a small rainbow effect.

Some paranormal investigators have referred to orbs appearing in photographs from allegedly haunted locations as 'ghost orbs', 'spirit orbs' or 'angel orbs', and claim them as evidence of spirit presences representing the essence or soul of a departed person, in some cases claiming that orbs have appeared on command and may have images and faces visible within them when zoomed in.

So here follow some stories of Kim's:

The following are merely two of my own personal true stories and experiences with orbs and the "unexplained" ...

The Bride's Best Friend

In October of 2012, I officiated a legal Wiccan handfasting for a couple who lived in Denver, PA. Toward the end of the ceremony, the bride turned to her family and friends (and unbeknownst to me) she "spoke" to her best friend who had passed away of cancer shortly before the wedding was to take place - the wedding which she was supposed to be such an important a part of. My husband had taken pics for me as, of course, I was not able to. A few days later after I had gotten my pics of the ceremony developed, I had immediately noticed an unusual orb-like image at the bottom of one of the bride's maids dresses. In fact, you can actually see her glancing down at her side at something that had so obviously caught her attention ...

The week after the wedding, the bride came to my home to pick up her official Marriage Certificate. After I showed her this particular pic, her immediate reaction was,"I knew it! I knew she was there, I could 'feel' it! I am not at all surprised."

Eric & Kim's Halloween Handfasting ~ October 28, 2012

****************************************************

The Ghosts who (still) live in Gettysburg, PA

A few years ago, while attending a family reunion in York, PA, we had decided to take the Gettysburg ghost tour which included the historical battlefield. The tour guide took us all through the town and recanted personal stories of which the locals and other witnesses had shared of things they say they had seen and the ghosts and their images that roamed (and continue to roam) the streets to this day. Images and unexplained phenomena regarding the soldiers and their families who had died there. 

We were allowed to take photos and videos (back then, mostly via camcorders) of the entire tour. I remember there was one old abandoned home with a rather interesting history regarding it which the tour guide told us that due to previous paranormal activity as reported by the caretakers who upkeep the grounds, no one was allowed to enter this particular home. She also warned us that, even though we were welcome to take pictures and videos outside of this home, the energy in and around the house was so strong that many previous tourist have complained on numerous occasions that when they attempted to take pics or acquire any video footage, their batteries immediately died ... drained of all power! We all sort of shrugged our shoulders and pretty much did not think much more of it at that time.

Well, lo and behold while I was standing aside of my (then) brother-in-law who was using his camcorder up until that point during the tour, say, "I don't believe this!" (and began laughing) We both saw the red battery light go off and "POOF", no more video - completely shut off! Later that evening, my sister Robin told me that the battery came back and the camcorder was working fine.

In addition to the ghost tour, there was also a cool little museum which we visited before the tour began that was filled with dozens of orb and image photos captured by various folks who took pics during the walk through the battlefield and the town itself hanging on the walls - photos like the one Dark Elf had found above.

So, are orbs for real in most cases? Please feel free to share any experiences you may have had with them.