posted on August 5, 2005 08:40:06 PM new
Curiosity Gets The Ghost For Those Who Hunt What Haunts Us
By Michelle Saxton
Associated Press Writer
FAYETTEVILLE - Deputy Jim Bare walks slowly through Blumehaven Inn's damp, cool basement, investigating a father's and son's death.
Bare isn't looking for bodies - he's searching for ghosts.
His interest in the paranormal led Bare to apply his skills as a Raleigh County Sheriff's detective to investigate the unexplainable.
As the co-founder of Appalachian Paranormal Investigations, Bare and fellow group members "hunt what haunts you."
"We're skeptics before anything," Bare said during an investigation at the 110-year-old Fayetteville inn. "We want to see it and ... disprove it if we can.
"If not, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be what it is," he said.
According to local legend, the Blumehaven Inn was once home to a Dr. M. Malcolm and his son. Both men died in the house - the father in 1919 of esophageal cancer, the son in 1932 of tuberculosis.
The father died in what is now the inn's Room 7. The son died in the basement.
Bare is in the basement looking for the son's spirit, which is said to cough from time to time.
The father's spirit is more mischievous, suspected of stealing items from guests and workers and hiding them under a bed in Room 7.
"We'd leave tools around and they would always be underneath the bed in Room 7 the next day," said inn owner Karen Campbell, who allowed Bare's group to investigate.
On the day of Bare's visit, a set of keys lost by a guest was found under the bed.
Campbell, who purchased the Victorian-style, three-story house in 1997 to convert it into an inn, has gotten used to a male voice singing "Rock of Ages," or the rapping of a cane.
And she has learned that having a ghost around can come in handy.
Once faced with the task of cleaning the inn's windows, Campbell said, "All right Dr. Malcolm, if you're really here, clean that window for me."
The window was polished about an hour later.
"I was like, 'Oh, thank you,"' Campbell said.
Appalachian Paranormal Investigations was formed a year ago when Bare and a co-worker expressed a mutual curiosity in the supernatural. So they joined the American Ghost Society, a network of ghost enthusiasts, writers and hunters.
Tim Vickers, an investigator with Child Protective Services, and Det. Jim Bare of the Raleigh County Sheriff's Department, hunt for ghosts in the Blumehaven Inn in Fayetteville. (AP photo)
"We're just trying to figure out ... what's going on and what's out there - if anything," Bare said.
A similar curiosity prompted Ben Mechling and a boyhood friend to start West Virginia Paranormal Researching and Investigation in the state's Northern Panhandle.
The two thought, "It'd be pretty cool if we became ghost hunters," Mechling said.
Mechling's group investigates hauntings by request and initiates ghost hunts. The group keeps records of its investigations and gives clients photographs.
Neither group charges for investigations.
"We feel that it's too easy to try and scam somebody for money," said Mechling, 26, who works in Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel's engineering department.
The hunt for ghosts is a technological endeavor.
Motion detectors, tape recorders, cameras, infrared thermometers and electromagnetic field meters are the gear of modern ghost hunters. On occasion, Bare's group consults with an electrical engineer and a heating and air conditioning expert.
"We want to be as scientific as possible," said Tim Vickers, 33, who became interested in spirits as a preschooler when he heard the rattling of pots and pans coming from his parent's vacant kitchen.
Bare's investigations have taken him to graveyards, a tunnel and the General Lewis Inn in Lewisburg, where he swears a cloth napkin mysteriously moved from a table to the floor.
posted on August 5, 2005 09:07:49 PM new
humm...all that money and time invested to see a cloth napkin fall from a table to the floor...with no proof ....must be one of President Bush's new programs, which one of his buddies did you say is heading it up?
posted on August 5, 2005 09:25:13 PM new
I think Halliburton is getting 30 billion for it
I know these posts are silly but it got quiet in here and Linda and Bear are soooo borrrring with their big expose I thought anything had to be better.
posted on August 6, 2005 09:43:38 AM new
Hey..Twig..not to fear..for a "one time only" offer for $499.99 + SH. and Tax...
I will ship you, the Official Super Duper Glow in the dark Galaxy Ghost Busting Bra and Panties Set. Guaranteed to repel and chase away any Ghosts in just 24 hours!
Wear them under your normal clothes and watch in amazement as the ghosts and goblins in your home disappear right before your eyes....
posted on August 6, 2005 10:44:08 AM new
I take it you guys don't believe in the paranormal. If you lived in my house, you would. In fact, we welcome them. Makes life interesting. We did have one that delighted in dropping things in my office. I'd hear a thump , turn around and find a book or other object tossed onto the floor. My office is now in the back of the house. Ken awoke one night to a child standing at the foot of our bed. When my granddaughter was a baby, there was one room in our house that she wouldn't sleep in. We'd put her in there with her mother when they spent the night and she'd cry the entire night. We'd move her to another room and she'd be fine. We found out that the room was originally a child's nursery when the house was built around 1905. My daughter used to get creeped out in that room. That's the same room I had used as my office. Now, it's my son's room and he sleeps so soundly not even the dead could wake him! .
My spiritual advisor constantly nagged at me to not invite these spirits to stay because I'm doing them harm by doing so. So, we just ask them to move on. We're now sort of a stopping by point.
posted on August 6, 2005 10:55:39 AM new
How creepy is that, Cheryl! Unless they contribute by paying rent they are not welcome here! Besides living in Mississippi who wants beings wearing white sheets hanging around..enough to give a girl a bad name..don't ya think.. LOL
posted on August 6, 2005 11:21:03 AM new
White sheets/South...not a good idea
Cheryl, it's not that I don't believe this stuff (both of us have had odd things happen in this house)but if I have ghosts what good are they?
They don't entertain guests, they don't even howl on Halloween!
And they don't vacuum or do windows!
So, to Hell with 'em
posted on August 6, 2005 11:31:27 AM new
Mingo, you mentioned on another thread a certain radio personality that you highly recommend..I have forgotten his name could you post it again.. Thanks.. MM
posted on August 6, 2005 11:43:41 AM new
BIG ED SCHULTZ , the Meat Eatin', Gun Totin", LEFTY from North Dakota!
I think in Loosianna it's AM 1340, 1350 , 2 PM Central.
Don't get scared...only his VOICE resembles the drug addicted Limbaugh's voice.
This guy's good and zings it to the Democrats when they deserve it....but rips Republicans to shreds with facts and common sense.
He also loves to talk sports and fishing and hunting...gets speeding tickets.
Has a great wife who brought him "into the light" and is a real knockout. She'd have etex, bear, and classic votin' Democrat at the next erection..er ..election
posted on August 7, 2005 11:15:45 AM new
Twig.. I believe it is a figment of the imagination.. the brain can be very obliging. We only use a portion of our brain..who's telling what we can conjure up if we tap into the reserves...
posted on August 7, 2005 02:20:29 PM new
maggie- I try not to use my imagination too much...it hurts my head..lol!
We had a "ghost" who lived with us when we were growing up. It actually slapped my middle brother across the face once. After my baby sister died, my youngest brother heard crying off and on, all night, for years. I don't believe these were the imaginations of little boys (Jim was 15). For whatever reasons, strange things happened upstairs at my parents' old house. With the exception of one slap, I was never told of any other "physical" manifestations. It was just one of those things you laugh about, once you grow up.
