Cold, wet, and creepy

Today's investigation at the cemetery near the paper mill had the team and myself slogging through damp, snowy ground in very windy mid 30 degree weather. "Sarah" the 12-year-old influenza victim that died in the 1920s and 9-year-old "Myra" were no-shows, but the investigation did have a few interesting encounters.

Club President Toby held the sensitive EVP recording machine in his hand continually imploring the ghosts "if you wish to be heard please speak into the black box in my hand," while psychic Michelle wandered the grave sites trying to pick up an extrasensory activity with the help of the two other attending members, Evan and Melissa, who also took random photos to check later for lights, or other evidence of spirits that they said occasionally appear in photographs or video footage.


Caption: UM Paranormal Investigations Club members walk toward the rear of the cemetery where the spirits they'd previously contacted through the Ouija board said they resided.

And though they were unable to locate the two female spirits they claim had spoken to them through the Ouija board, all of them at several points said they felt strange energies around certain grave sites or parts of the cemetery. The newest member of the club, Evan, repeatedly said he felt very off today and even after the investigation when the club had lunch at a restaurant downtown, he was very nervous and kept remarking how he was sensing energies in the area and that any loud noises were making him jumpy.

Personally the only thing I felt was a gradually intensifying cold sensation spreading through my body, but that could be just that the wind chill was in the 20s today and I was outside for about two hours at the cemetery. The group is already busy planning their next outings to take place next weekend (April 5th and 6th); on Saturday they are taking part in an on-campus Spring Carnival where they hope to do tarot readings, talk about their club and so on; and Sunday is a return to the town of Corinna where the group claims to have previously had many encounters with the supernatural.

Caption: Group psychic Michelle tries to get a better reading on a tombstone she said had a strange energy around it as Melissa looks on.

Are haunted sites everywhere?

Over at a website called The Shadowlands, I found a nice comprehensive listing of places that, according to some, are haunted. The website has a pretty good database of what I would call "all things strange and unexplained." Just the sort of stuff we're looking for. Under the Haunted Places Index you can search by state; I picked my own state (Maine) which has long been a haven for ghost tales and the supernatural (after all Stephen King lives about 15 miles from where I'm sitting right now).

I checked out the town I live in and what do you know? A famous haunting here on campus; I was actually surprised they just had one since it seems every other building here has a host of ghost tales attached to it, but I think they're picking the best-known for this database. Of course they did have the infamous "reappearing foot on the tombstone" in Bucksport Cemetery, but I was disappointed in that they don't seem to have any mention of the most famous haunted place from the area of Maine I grew up in.

Catherine's Hill lies along the quickest route from Cherryfield (middle of nowhere Washington County) to Ellsworth (something resembling civilization), a road most of the locals call the Black's Woods Road. The legend varies, but they all agree that decades back a young woman was somehow beheaded while traveling along the road. Hundreds have reported seeing her along the road, or even inside their vehicles for brief periods.

It's not difficult to see how the road can be spooky, especially at night. It's a desolate 20-some mile stretch through a winding, decrepit road thick on both sides with forest and occasional lakes. I've made the drive hundreds of times myself, especially during the two years I dated a girl from Lamoine, in which I was driving it nearly every night around midnight, but I have never seen anything strange myself. Plenty of deer, rabbits, and other sundry forest animals darting across the road, in front of my car, were the only heart-stopping encounters I had along Black's Woods. I even tried to "set the mood" for a ghostly encounter, keeping my radio low, tuned to the paranormal talk show Coast to Coast AM.

Perhaps tomorrow will bring better luck. That's right, stay tuned because tomorrow's update will hopefully be something special. I'll be traveling to a nearby cemetery, with members of the campus Paranormal Investigations Club, to report and take photos on their investigation. They hope to primarily prove if the messages they received, on a Ouija board, from spirits who said they were buried there, are true...but who know what else may happen when you trod upon the domain of the dead?

How did I get here...

...and where am I going? Some of you may be pondering to yourself right now, "Self, why is this jaded man of the world, known only as Jeremy, writing a web log about a topic which he carries so much skepticism toward?"

A wise person, since quoted ad nauseam for their contribution to popular wisdom, said "the truth lies somewhere in the middle." Perhaps I felt that my skepticism and commentary might balance out the passionate fervor with which believers in all things paranormal approach their topics of interest. But fear not, reader, for I am not wholly opposed to keeping an open mind when I earnestly feel someone has swayed my standing opinions.

Allow me to share a brief personal narrative. A few weeks ago while reporting, for a Mass Media class, on a Paranormal Investigations club meeting here on campus, I became, despite best efforts to maintain journalistic integrity and non-bias, part of the story. Apparently the members of the group were receiving messages from my recently-deceased father. I wasn't sure whether to be slightly offended or shocked by the conversation between them and...well spirits if you believe in that sort of thing, that followed, but it certainly gripped my attention.

And so, now that you know my brief story, I hope you'll accompany me as I delve into the world of the unexplained and mysterious. Whether I find psychics or charlatans, UFOs or swamp gas, or hauntings or just creaky floor boards, it will be a hell of a time.