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For the past week,   our smoke alarms have been going off every night at 9:00pm.   Nothing has been on fire.  There has been no smoke.  The alarms just go off.  We live in a new house we purchased from the builder 5 months ago.  The smoke alarms are brand new, but every night the alarms go off.  This is a huge pain in the ass.   It is loud and wakes up the baby and it creeps out the kids.   Everyone panics and runs around like idiots.  You never realize how hard it is to stop those things from going off until you try to get them to shut up.  I knocked the things off of the ceiling and they still went off in my hand.  I mashed the button.  I took the batteries out.  If one goes off,  they all go off.  It is maddening.

This maddening smoke alarm behavior got me thinking about whether or not a ghost could produce this type of behavior in a smoke alarm.  My preliminary research showed that many people have this problem.   I found countless message boards where people have asked if a haunting could produce an alarm going off every night at the same time.   One person hypothesized the following on a yahoo message board, “If the theory about ghosts being a collection of energy is true, then yes, they could manipulate electrical equipment to do such things, powering if from their own energy.”  This made sense to me.  This theory is supported by the large number of people that describe this type of  smoke alarm activity in haunted locations.    Stories like this one from Castle of Spirits http://www.castleofspirits.com/stories03/smokedet.html are prolific.    Another interesting smoke alarm ghost story can be found a http://www.yourghoststories.com/real-ghost-story.php?story=3449.  My husband used to work at the morgue and every night the smoke alarm went off  in front of the cooler where the bodies were kept at 3am on the nose.  It was like clockwork.  It went off for five or ten minutes and then went quiet.  It was more than creepy, especially when you are spending the night alone at the morgue. 

So, theoretically a passing spirit or ghost could produce the type of behavior we’ve observed in our smoke alarms here.  This smoke alarm behavior is made even more frustrating by the fact that it only seems to happen when my husband is gone so the only person that knows what they are doing with the smoke alarms isn’t present.   I also wanted to investigate non supernatural possibilities for my faulty smoke alarms.   I did my reading and found that there are many things that can contribute to smoke alarms going off at the wrong time.  Many modern smoke alarms are also triggered by intense heat.  So, if it is very hot and your attic is excessively hot sometimes that will heat the ceiling and trigger the smoke alarm.  Also, if  hot steam from a shower rises up this could trigger the smoke alarm.  It is also always possible that the things are broken and need repair.  I could easily rule out the smoke alarm being broken by talking to my builder.  I could also rule out the attic heat hypothesis by going up into my attic and finding that it was not really hot up there.   That left the steam possibility.  My son does shower every night around nine and after examining his behavior, I think he was setting off the alarm by opening the bathroom door and releasing all the hot steam onto the smoke detector.  

Our house is not haunted, but that doesn’t make the number of cases of smoke alarms going off without any reason less interesting.   I have never found an explanation for the alarm that went off at the morgue.   The alarm was a hospital alarm that was checked regularly due to tight hospital regulations.  It was in front of the cooler and the air around it was cooler than the rest of the hospital and since the morgue was in the basement there was no attic above it.   My husband and I still tend to believe that the phantoms of the dead locked up in that rancid smelling cooler drifted out late at night, setting off the alarm.

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During my castle tour of the Loire Valley, I listened to many audio tours and studied the history of each castle. There was no mention of anything supernatural. The tours contained only the facts. Interestingly, my son’s audio tour of the castle of Chenanceau was quite different from mine. It was designed for young children and told a detailed account of the ghost that haunts the castle.

Chenanceau is one of more stunning of the castles in the Loire Valley. It is a beautiful Renaissance castle that stretches across the Loire-Indes River. It was constructed in phases and is a uniquely feminine castle. All of it’s owners and occupants have been women and the castle itself seems to whisper this character. The castle was taken by King Henry II in 1517 for his mistress Diane de Portier. After the king’s death, his wife Catherine de Medici, took the castle back from Diane and began the elaborate construction of the gallery that stretches across the river. It was completed in 1577.

It is this gallery that is haunted by the ghost of the White Queen. The White Queen was the wife of King Henry III. Following his murder, she retired to Chenonceau and clothed herself only in white. She spent the rest of her life mourning his loss. Even her bedchamber reflects her sorrow. It is black, painted with white flowers.

According to my son’s audio tour, her ghost still wanders the halls of the chateau forever mourning her lost love. She is seen by many visitors as a white clad specter weeping in the hall. Many have also reported seeing images of her in pictures taken of the hall. I have included the pictures we took of the gallery. It may be my imagination, but I always think I see a soft white form by the window.

Be sure to come to HALLOWEEN EXTREME : A Halloween, horror and haunted house extravaganza!

MAY 24-26, 2013 Rosen Center, Orlando Florida

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It is give away time again!  A couple of times a year I giveaway free books and prizes to my readers.   This time I’ll be giving away kindle copies of all of my books and a ten dollar gift card to amazon.com.  If you would like to win this lovely amazon gift basket follow me on Facebook or twitter and comment about it below.  I will pick one lucky winner!  Good luck! Here are the links!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessica-Penot/512746908786746?ref=hl

https://twitter.com/Jessica_Penot

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Reposted from Ghost Stories and Haunted Places | Go to Original Post

This haunting story has always been one of my favorites because it does not have a history. The haunting on Larrabbee Street has often been compared to the Amityville case, however, the house on Larrabee Street didn’t have the history the Amityville house had. It is a haunting that is unexplainable. The spirit that haunted Allen and Deborah Tallman came from nowhere.
The Tallman’s moved into the house on Larrabee Street in Horicon, Wisconsin in 1986. At that time, they had a little girl and a boy who was about 6 years old. Deborah Tallman was pregnant. The Tallman’s loved their new home and began a fairly typical America life in their new home. Although they loved their new home, The Tallmans immediately began having difficulties in the house. They were plagued by a rash of sicknesses and their cat went crazy, climbing the walls and screaming all night. Deborah was close to her family and her family usually spent a considerable amount of time visiting Deborah. These visits began to decrease in frequency following the Tallman’s move into their new home. Both Deborah’s mother and sister indicated they felt sick in the Tallman home. They felt sick and suffocated.

It took more than a year for the haunting to escalate and culminate in the events that lead to the Tallman’s fleeing their comfortable home. Deborah had her baby girl and the children began to complain more and more about things in their room. The little boy said that a hideous, diminutive, old woman would come into his room at night. The little girl was plagued by visions of monsters. The Tallman’s grew more and more tired as their children kept them up night after night. Even their attempts at time away from home were thwarted when the babysitter saw furniture moving on it’s own.

The children’s nightmares could be brushed off as childhood fancy, but when Allen began to hear things and see things the Tallmans called their preacher. The preacher came into the home and told the Tallmans that their home was in the grips of something from the devil. He told them that the only way to dispel the evil that had been growing in their home was to go to church more. The Tallman’s listened to the preacher to no avail. Things got worse. Windows in the basement relocated on their own, the refrigerator door remained open on it’s own, the children continued to be visited by nocturnal terrors. Allen saw the garage catch on fire and when he rushed to extinguish the flame he saw a green eyed demon above the door. Allen even saw a full bodied ghost that rose from the floor in a a kind of fog and took form just long enough to tell him that he was “going to die.”
Desperate, the family called the preacher again. The preacher came and told them to play church music all the time. The family listened. They listened and their was a brief reprieve before the entity came again. This time the entire family and the babysitter saw the specter just long enough to turn them all white with fear and send them fleeing into the night.

After the Tallman’s left their home, the house became a local sensation and lines wrapped around the neighborhood with curious spectators hoping to catch a glimpse of some random terror. Many spectators claimed to have been successful in their desires. Many claimed to see snow blowers running up and down the driveway by themselves and furniture being flung around inside the house. Of course, none of these stories have ever been confirmed, but the stories themselves turned the Tallman house into a local legend that grew with time. Stories of the house being a gateway to hell and blood dripping from the ceilings proliferated and a media frenzy swept incidents out of control.

Despite this, and despite accusations that it was a hoax on the Tallman’s part, the Tallman’s have shown nothing but the desire to stay out of the spot light. They’ve turned down interviews and even rejected Oprah when she invited them to be her guest. They seem happiest forgetting the horror on Larrabee street.

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Black Eyed Children are the cause of much debate.   They appeared, as if from a vacuum, in 1998, and since that time the Internet has been crowded with stories of their appearance and activity around the world.  In 1998, a reporter named Brian Bethel was working in his car.  He was sitting in his vehicle alone at night and everything around him was quiet and dark.   Out of this darkness, two children emerged.   The reporter rolled down his window to talk with them.  The children told the reporter that they had been dropped off by their parents to see a movie, but they had no money and had begun the walk home.  The begged the reporter to help them and let them into his car with him.  The reporter was somewhat put off by the appearance of the children in the night and although his first impulse was to let the children in, something in his gut told him not too.   The longer Brian put off letting the children in the car, the more persistent they became.  Finally Brian peered into the darkness and noticed that the children had black eyes.   Their eyes were entirely inky black with no white or iris.  Brian became terrified and was driven by an overwhelming panic and need to run away.  The children sensed his fear and became even more aggressive in their pleas to enter the vehicle.  Finally, Brian abandoned the eerie children and went on to tell his story.

Since Brian’s encounter, countless other stories like this have peppered the Internet.  One story I read on the Internet was told by a young man who skateboarding in the dark.  He was approached by two young children who claimed they were lost and asked if he could take them to his house and let them use his phone.  He offered his cell phone, but the children insisted they use his home phone.  The young man noticed the children’s eyes and asked them why they were wearing contacts.  He then declined the children and went home on his own.  He was scared of the children and wanted nothing more to do with them.  When he looked out his window later that night, the two children were still watching him from the front yard.   Another story was told by a woman who was awoken in the middle of the night by two children asking for help.  They wanted to use the phone to call their parents.  The woman was overwhelmed by fear and didn’t let the children in, but they stayed at her door for hours begging and pleading.

These Black Eyed Kids or BEKs  have stayed on the fringes of the paranormal and have remained so because no one really knows what to make of them.  Some people believe BEKs are part of an elaborate Internet hoax and that those telling the stories speak out on the Internet as part of this hoax.  There are others that believe the BEKs are the ghosts of lost children who wander the earth searching for safety.  Others believe they are lost souls trying to gain entrance to our lives.  Another theory states that the BEKS are demons trying to con their way into people’s lives and yet another theory says they are vampires, who must get permission before entering to feed on their victims.  A final group of people argue that BEKS are the product of some bizarre alien human mating.  Whatever the truth is, the stories about these phantom, black eyed horrors are enough to send chills down your spine on the warmest nights.

Reposted from Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles | Go to Original Post

GHOULA meets for cocktails in haunted places on the 13th of each month. “SPIRITS with SPIRITS” is a casual social gathering of regional ghost hunters and those that just like ghost stories. Open to all, from the curious skeptic to the passionate phantom pursuer. Make friends, and toast a ghost! Let’s put the “Boo!” back into “booze.”

All those who attend will receive a free (square) G.H.O.U.L.A. button. If you already have one, please wear it so others can find you, without asking the staff about our group.

May 13th will be GHOULA’s 60th SPIRITS with SPIRITS, and as such, it will mark 5 years of our humble group meeting once a month to explore this great city, and to tell ghost stories over cocktails. Help us celebrate this milestone at one of the most enchanted places in Los Angeles.

RSVP REQUIRED: This meet-up will be in the Oviatt Penthosue, with a full-service (no host) bar set up just for us. The good people at Truly Yours Catering have arranged for GHOULA to get special access into this famously haunted building’s inner sanctum (not normally open to the public), so come out for this rare opportunity to see one of the great hidden gems of Downtown. Since there are occupancy limitations… Please RSVP here.

THE DATE: May 13th, 2013 (Monday)
THE PLACE:The Oviatt Penthouse (at the top of the Oviatt Building)
617 S Olive St, Downtown, (map)
(Instructions on how to enter penthouse will come later.)
THE TIME: 8:00pm – ?
ADMISSION: FREE (with RSVP)

THE GHOST(S):

“We’re at Nineteen Moonbeam Terrace
Overlooking Starlight Square
We’re the couple in the castle
Way up high in the air!
On the corner there’s a cloud bank
and we bank our millions there
We’re the couple in the castle in the air.”
—from the song “We’re the Couple in the Castle” (1941)

No one knows for sure if this song, written by Los Angeles-based songwriters, “Hoagy” Carmichael and Frank Loesser, for the animated feature, MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN, about an art-deco “castle” on the top of a skyscraper in the middle of a city, was inspired by the Oviatt Penthouse, but it seems likely.

In 1928, the Los Angeles Times called this Romantic penthouse the “Castle in the Air,” and it is every bit as magical today as it was back when James Oviatt, his wife, and their son lived there (even if the rooftop beach with imported sand from the French Riviera no longer exists). It is thought to be the first Art Deco residence in Los Angeles. Also, the penthouse is 13 stories up, and has a tower with three neon clock faces that are 13 feet in diameter each. Coincidence?

James Oviatt opened his haberdashery (men’s apparel) at this address in May of 1928 (exactly 85 years ago), and occupied the first three floors of this building until 1966. When his business ended, he continued to live in the penthouse until his death, a few years later. Although haberdasheries have largely disappeared from Los Angeles’ landscape, some believe that one haberdasher lingers on…

In life, James Oviatt was an avid pipe smoker, and there are claims that the strong smell of pipe tobacco will inexplicably waft through the rooms of his former home as well as the areas in the building where he used to work, especially the ground floor (now the smoke-free Cicada Restaurant). By all accounts, Oviatt was a perfectionist, and obsessed with keeping a tidy workplace, so is it any surprise that those who work at Cicada and the Penthouse feel that the shadowy figure that watches over them, or the disembodied footsteps that follow them, is just the former owner keeping an eye on things, in an attempt to maintain the standards of excellence he originally set.

Additionally, there seems to a secondary spirit that acts as the “yang” to the orderly Oviatt’s “yin,” a mischievous “prankster,” who playfully creates disorder, moving objects, throwing up papers, and tugging/pushing the staff. Since some have seen (or heard) the ghost of a small boy, who disappears into the walls, these unruly phenomena are generally blamed on Oviatt’s son, Jimmy, who in life, used to raise hell, and try to scare the staff by jumping out from behind display cases. Does his energy still engage in such childish thrills? It is said that one former security guard got so spooked in the penthouse, he ran down thirteen flights of stairs to avoid waiting for the elevator (“Feet don’t fail me now!”)

Although the ground floor (Cicada Restaurant) and the Penthouse are the real hot spots for activity, it seems that this spooky duo, do not apparently limit themselves to those two locations. Just about every tenant within this office building have had their spectral brushes with Oviatt and his son.

Perhaps the old song’s lyric should be updated to..
“We’re the couple (of ghosts) in the castle in the air”

So, come out to Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #195, have a cocktail under Downtown’s only weather vane, and celebrate 5 years of toasting ghosts… if you dare.

The Oviatt Penthouse
(to read about last month’s haunted location… )
(to see a map of previous SPIRITS with SPIRITS locations… )

Reposted from Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles | Go to Original Post

GHOULA meets for cocktails in haunted places on the 13th of each month. “SPIRITS with SPIRITS” is a casual social gathering of regional ghost hunters and those that just like ghost stories. Open to all, from the curious skeptic to the passionate phantom pursuer. Make friends, and toast a ghost! Let’s put the “Boo!” back into “booze.”

All those who attend will receive a free (square) G.H.O.U.L.A. button. If you already have one, please wear it so others can find you, without asking the staff about our group.

THE DATE: April 13th, 2013 (Saturday)
THE PLACE: Chimney Sweep Lounge
4354 Woodman Ave, Sherman Oaks
(Map)
THE TIME: 8:00pm to the witching hour

THE GHOSTS:

“There’s the whole world at your feet.
And who gets to see it but the birds, the stars, and the chimney sweeps.”
–Bert the Chimney Sweep (from “Mary Poppins”)

Although not as common today as they were in an earlier era, the profession of “Chimney Sweep” (one who cleans out the flammable soot from the chimney) still exists. However in earlier times, these duties were carried out by poor children, who could climb up the tiny openings. It was a dangerous job, and many children died as a result, prompting a holiday in Britain for these kids to get one day of rest during the year on May 1st (in a couple of weeks). As a further reward for their important talents (preventing houses from being set ablaze as a result of creosote build-up) these beloved figures were elevated to folk hero status, and became symbols of good luck.

That aside, no one today is sure why in 1960, the then owner chose the idea of a “chimney sweep” as the establishment’s theme. One theory is that its a reference to the fireplace with the exposed flue in the middle of the bar room. The kitschy chimney sweep portraits that decorate the wood-paneled walls came shortly after the theme was set, and according to legend were painted by a regular patron, who wanted to immortalize the other regulars. Even though the Mary Poppins books (which celebrated chimney sweeps) had been around since the 1930′s, the Walt Disney film adaptation that really brought this concept into the 20th century pop-culture was released four years after the bar opened. The bar even pre-dates the production of this feature film developed on the other side of the valley by a couple of years.
So, why chimney sweeps?

Perhaps this simple European figure dressed in black with his top hat and brush appealed to the World War II soldiers returning from Europe, as they moved into the San Fernando Valley in large numbers (in the same way that those returning from the Pacific Rim where attracted to the “Tiki” bars.) If that is the case, it would explain the Chimney Sweep Lounge’s resident ghosts…

According to employees, past and present, as well as an article in the Los Angeles Times over a decade ago, a group of four ghostly men in military uniforms sit around a table drinking in the far (North-East) corner of the bar room. Witnesses to these apparitions are definite about the uniforms, but are unsure about what era (or war) they may be from. Nothing else is really known about these four drinking buddies from the after-life, or their relationship to this site. Could they be connected to a man that was brutally murdered a block away from the bar, when an unknown assailant followed the victim out of this neighborhood bar and shot him in the head, leaving his body on the pavement? Who knows…

It should also be noted that despite there being many haunted bars in Los Angeles (with many different ghosts), there are very few bars that have a ghost that actually engages in the act of drinking. As ironic as that may seem, not only does this bar have one, it seems to four of them. Now, that deserves a toast!

So, come out to an old valley landmark that prides itself as being your “living room away from home” and enjoy a round of what the spirits are drinking… if you dare.

(to read about last month’s haunted location… )
(to see a map of previous SPIRITS with SPIRITS locations… )

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Whenever I imagine a medium at work, I think of the mediums of the Spiritualist Movement of the turn of the 20th century.  I imagine women and men sitting at old wooden tables talking to the dead.  I also view mediums with skepticism.  I tend to think that in any money making venture there’s always an angle and sometimes people stretch the truth for the profit.  I guess I am saying that I think most mediums are full of it and I’ve never seen a medium that’s made me believe otherwise.

Last night however,  I joined medium, Tracy Farquhar, for a spirit gallery at the Lowe Mill and she managed to change my mind.  The Lowe Mill is an old Mill in a minor state of decay.  It has been revamped and turned into an art center.  There are concerts there and many artists have studio space in the Flying Monkey portion of the Lowe Mill.  Beloved Books is in a corner of the Flying Monkey and is one of those last corners of the world that still pays tribute to the written word in the form of purely paper books.  There are no kindles or nooks there.  There are only shelves of old books surrounded by paintings and chairs.

The Spirit Gallery was in Beloved Books and music from the concert below made the floor boards vibrate as the medium spoke.  Dogs barked in the distance and the sound of frolicking people surrounded the darkened book store.   Tracy Farquhar paced in the dark and  said that there were many spirits in the store with us.   She didn’t ask any questions.  She just called out a name.  She said there was a Robert or Roger with us  and he was someone’s uncle.  She said he died 5 years ago from something having to do with his brain.  She said she saw an old family house by the lake.  She said  Robert/Roger liked fishing.  It was at this point that I admitted that I did have an Uncle Roger who passed five years ago.  He wasn’t my favorite uncle so I wasn’t overjoyed to talk with him again, but I was intrigued by the accuracy of what she was saying.  She said the family house had just changed hands and that although it was still in the family it wasn’t with us anymore.   The house was crumbling.  The foundation was sinking.  There was an old tree in the yard that Roger had buried something he valued by when he was a boy.   Roger saw me as a girl.  I was a little girl to him and he wanted me to remember him taking me someplace.  He also felt bad about some falling out he had with my father.  I thought she was talking about my biological father who had divorced my mother so they didn’t talk anymore.  He also said he was worried about a girl, whom the psychic called my daughter.  I told her I didn’t have a daughter.  She said it was a young girl who was or had been in school but was leaving because of social problems.  He wanted her to go back to school.  My sister did just drop out of college last semester because of problems with social anxiety, although I didn’t tell the medium that.  I tried not to tell the medium much.  She continued to say I had some kind of foot or heal pain and he said I should take care of that. I do have plantar fasciitis and I hate taking care of it because that involves wearing ugly shoes, my nemesis. 

The medium moved on to another spirit and I was left vaguely stunned and trying to figure out how she could have possibly guessed all of that information.  I still can’t think of a way,  I am assuming that she did somehow reach the spirit of my Uncle Roger.  I later learned that my step-father and my Uncle Roger had a huge falling out right before he died and that my Uncle had a favorite tree by our old family house where he built a fort and buried his treasures.  The psychic had known things I didn’t even know.

The Spirit Gallery ended in many tears and people being reunited with long lost loved ones.  Lots of people were crying.  I was just stunned.  I guess if I believe in ghosts it isn’t that much of a stretch to believe in a medium, especially in one who knew more about my family than I do.