Apparently, a man attacked a farmer’s wife, beat her, and then covered her with an old mattress and set it on fire. The attacker escaped but was eventually caught and a mob mentality over took the town of Purcell. The entire town took part in gathering up brush and made a pile around a telephone pole. They then soaked the pole and brush pile with flammables. Once they tied the attacker to the pole alive, they set the pile on fire. This was all done on main street in Purcell. The news article says that women and children ‘stood up in cars’ to watch the man die.

The mob had apparently locked the sheriff and under sheriff in the court-house while this all took place.

My friend brought this to my attention wondering if this would be something that would be worth investigating, paranormally speaking. I honestly have reservations about it and can’t decide.

For one thing, this act took place on main street. How would we introduce control factors? It’s completely open to the elements and passer-by’s. Also, I haven’t been able to come across any reports of paranormal activity. I also don’t believe anyone has ever investigated this site before.

My other reservation is, this was a gruesome act carried out by vigilantes. The man killed was never given a proper trial. The police never had a chance to conduct a proper investigation, therefore, the man killed might have been innocent. The woman attacked said that the man was her attacker, according to the article, but it also states the woman who was attacked was hit on the head several times with a pipe. Doesn’t it make sense that she might not have had all of her faculties when she pointed this guy out? The man she accused used to work for her husband on their farm. Couldn’t there have been some animosity there between the farmer and his wife and the ex-farm hand?

Lastly, why should I bring back attention to this horrific act that took place back in 1911 by doing an investigation? Should I just let ‘sleeping dogs lay’? I would like other peoples insight into this because I’m on the fence. What do you, my readers, think I should do?

After they had both passed, I continued on with my quest for pistachios. In the mist of all my rampant thoughts, I had totally forgot about another item that was back on the aisle that I had just left, so after successfully stalking and killing my prey (pistachios), I returned to the previous aisle. Low and behold there were the two men. They were both standing there studying several products and their ingredients.

As I passed them, I tried to hear what they were saying without getting caught. One man was saying to the other, “Dad, it says right here, ‘smoked’ oysters. They’re not sardines.” Without allowing another word to be utter by his son, the father interjected, “Then why is that a picture of sardines on the can?” The son then exclaimed, “What? No, that’s oysters, isn’t it?” The dad then replied, “If you’d put on your glasses you might be able to read something!” It was at this point that the father notice me watching them. He smirked at me and winked while his son dug around his jacket trying to find his glasses. By this time I had found what I had forgotten, grabbed it, and then proceeded to pass once more the lively father and son. As I did, I noticed that they were both wearing the same cologne. I’m almost positive it was High Karate.

As I exited the isle and made my way to the front of the store, it hit me out of nowhere. How cool was that. Being able to live a long life with your dad. How cool is it that these guys still get to go shopping together. Who knows? Maybe they still get out and go fishing. I instantly plummeted back to my times with my dad. I’ll never get to grow old with him. I’ll never get to argue whats on the label of something. I’ll never get to go fishing one last time.

I left the store trying to focus on something else.

Hopefully, my wife and I will be blessed to grow old together, arguing with our kids as to ‘Who’s turn it is to change our diapers!’

I miss you dad.

The warehouse that once was a movie theater

I discovered that this present-day warehouse used to be known as ‘The Bison Theater’.  It was built to look like that of another theater, which was in the same vicinity. Recently, the long time owner of the property passed away. The property was left vacant for a time until a new owner bought it and leased it out to a new tenant, who is the one who is experiencing things he can’t explain. The man occupying the property is a person who didn’t believe in the paranormal, until now.

View of old projection room from the warehouse.

The tenant came home one day, and while parking his car out front, saw someone or something in the upstairs window. The window is to the apartment that used to be the old projection room. At present, and at the time of this experience, the apartment was and is being renovated.

As the tenant was exiting his vehicle, something caught his eye in the upstairs window. He looked up and saw what he describes as ‘an old-time, white cotton shirt with a high collar’. The shirt was moving in such a way, it was as if someone was bending over, either to pick something up, or to put something down. The tenant is quite sure of what he saw. As he focused on the shirt, he noticed two distinct things. He realized that what he was witnessing, had no pronounced human attributes, such as a head or arms. It was as if a shirt was moving all by itself. Then he realized that the window he was looking at was completely boarded up. What he was watching was as if it were an x-ray. The image was showing itself through the boards of wood. Shortly after his sighting, a friend arrived at their planned meeting time. He explained to his friend what he had just seen, so they investigated the entire piece of property thinking that there was an intruder. They scoured the entire warehouse and apartment, but found no one.

One of the upstairs apartment windows.

When I arrived on site, the tenant took me around showing me the property. While on the impromptu tour, I had my digital voice recorder, as well as my digital camera. The tenant and I were standing in the warehouse talking. At this point, our topic had changed to what we do for a living and nothing about paranormal experiences. As we were bantering back and forth, a loud slamming sound came from the warehouse garage door. We obviously stopped talking immediately. The sound was as if a large object was slammed against the metal garage door. We both went over to see if something had fallen against it, but there was nothing there. I don’t know why, but what I immediately thought of when the sound occurred, was ‘someone had just thrown a body against the door’. That was just the first of my experiences that night.

The exact moment the garage door sound occurred.

After my tour was done, the tenant left me alone to conduct my investigation. He went and stayed up at the front of the property, where there is a little office.

I always carry my voice recorder with me when investigating. There is a switch on it that ‘locks’ all buttons on it so that it remains recording. At one point during my investigation, I had to take a restroom break. While in the restroom, I started to hear voices. At first, I didn’t know where they were coming from. Then I discovered that what I was hearing was myself and the tenant talking. I looked down at my recorder, which I wear on a lanyard around my neck, and noticed that somehow, the locking switch on the recorder had been physically switched off and the recorder switched to its playing option. Something had switched the recorder to our conversation. I have never had this happen before until that moment.

I knew then that it was time for me to sit alone in the upstairs apartment. There are several rooms at this site that seem to be active to other paranormal groups. In the upstairs projection room, multiple EVP’s were recorded as well as the classic ‘orbs’. It was this room that I sat alone in as well as the apartment itself since that is where the shirt apparition appeared.

Alone in the projection room.

This place was hard to do a thorough investigation as it is located along a major road with traffic traveling 24/7. The boarded up windows have since been replaced with real windows, which allow light in from the passing traffic. The roof to the warehouse is metal with no type of insulation insulating the warehouse from outside noise, such as rain. I also noticed there to be several vents leading up through the roof completely open. These are just some of the things that contribute to the noise pollution that I noticed.

Standing alone in the upstairs apartment, listening.

Even though I debunked some of the things that I heard, there was still the two incidents that happened to me that I couldn’t. I still have a lot of evidence that I need to go over, but when you are a one-man operation, you tend to fall behind a lot. I still have evidence from several recent investigations I’m still trying to go over, but it’s going to take some time to do so.

I was invited back by the tenant to come back anytime, which I plan to do so. My hope is to be able to do a longer, more thorough investigation in the near future. I will announce my findings of this investigation and the next time I visit this site here on my blog.

Stairs leading up to the apartment, which was the projection room.

A picture of me I captured while going up the stairs. I think it's cool!

Apparently a gentleman who owns a warehouse down town has started to experience things he can’t explain away.

The warehouse that will be investigated use to be a theater in its early days. According to the owner, the upstairs is composed of a couple of rooms. One used to be the projection room, and the other is an apartment that used to be where the projectionist/owner lived.  The present-day owner states that in the beginning when he first took over the property, odd things started to happen. The most pronounced incidents were comprised mostly of voices being heard throughout the property. While he was at the property at night alone, he would hear what he thought were conversations coming from different areas of the warehouse. He would naturally investigate to see if there had been a burglar that had entered, but never discovered the source of the voices. Eventually the voices died down, or the owner grew use to them, and it seemed as if the voices just stopped.

Recently the owner started cleaning up the property and repairing it so that he could lease out the property. Upon doing so, he started witnessing solid black figures that seemed to by a large full-figured person that looked like a shadow. When this started to occur, he again thought that someone had entered the premises without his knowledge. He has experienced this more than once, which has prompted him to ask for an investigation.

I haven’t been able to research this property and it’s background fully as I was just invited and notified of this case yesterday. I have class tonight but plan on joining the investigation afterward. The primary investigating team will already be on site once I arrive, but are willing to let me conduct my investigation just to see what kind of evidence we both might collect. This will be interesting to see if we can gather like evidence at different times, which would help authenticate any evidence we might collect. Obviously I will post an update to this investigation in upcoming days.

April 1, 1943 Paramount Pictures

The neighborhood where these production companies were located can still be easily noticed by the architecture of their buildings. The beautifully constructed structures stick out from the modern-day glass and steel monoliths that surround the quaint street. It is the constant progression of quick, poorly constructed buildings that I came across.

April 1, 1946 Warner Brothers Offices

photo- Stanley Warner Box from USC Cinematic Arts Library and OKC Film Exchange Archive.

It has long been rumored that some of these old buildings are haunted. Some by starlets of yesteryear, some by past employee’s who still show up for work. I’ve actually had the pleasure of investigating some of these old beauties and recorded some great EVP’s. But it seems that the days of investigating these structures are gone. New companies have moved into several of the locations and refuse to let investigators inside. They are afraid of giving the public the ‘wrong idea’ about their company. And now the city is doing major construction all along film row.

Present day construction outside the old screening theater.

With the construction and new companies moving in, the idea of allowing paranormal investigators to investigate these historic locations seem very bleak.

Historic buildings along Film Row.

To me, it all seems sad that we as a society don’t really care about the handling and care of historical locations. We lose so much all in the name of progress.

Sidewalk outside the old screening theater.

Windows to the lobby of the screening theater, closed up with boards.

Don’t get me wrong, there are real investigators out there trying really hard to help people who are distraught and afraid of what they are experiencing. On the other hand, there are multiple groups that go out, buy a couple of electronic gadgets, and instantly claim to be an investigator. What’s really scary is people who ask help from these so-called ‘ghost hunters’ don’t do proper research on the team itself.

With proper research, anyone can find out information on paranormal teams, which I HIGHLY recommended.

There are teams out there that treat their paranormal team as a social event. An investigation to them is just an excuse to get together, walk through a strangers house, and then party afterward.

There are teams that are used as people’s personal dating service and a way to cheat on spouses. There are even those who get into the paranormal community just to stir up trouble and bash teams while trying to defame peoples personal characters so they gain notoriety. I don’t understand this.

I thought that everyone was taught a certain amount of morals and ethics. It is these values that should keep teams from allowing child molesters to be associate with them or their team in any way, shape, or form. These values should keep team members focused on their task at hand instead of counting how many people we can sleep with in a nights time. As adults, we shouldn’t care what others call us or instigate the situation more by responding to their child like name calling. Instead, we should be researching our future investigators background or researching the history of our upcoming case. Am I right with these observations, or have I missed the boat completely?

Again, there are valid, honest, good people out there trying to do good investigating for people out of the kindness of their hearts. But the majority have different agenda’s, and they’re easy to spot.

It is these reasons that I do my thing by myself. It cuts down on all the BS. Unity in the community? There is in mine!

Look closely at the bottom. I call it 'cardinal'.

Immediately seeing this image, I started to go furiously through the remaining images like a child going through presents on Christmas morning. Here are more images I discovered.

Notice the stealthness used by the hairy beast. Almost ninja-like.

It was obvious to J-Dawg and the rest of Melrose Place inhabitants that something new had arrived in their neighborhood.

J-Dawg inspects the alien object while his fellow friends eat.

Once the residents of Melrose Place realized that the object wasn’t from West Virginia and would eat them, they became comfortable enough to go about their everyday routine. (Before getting in a tizzy, my wife is from West Virginia and WV is our dream state that one day we want to live in. And besides, it took me six years to get her to stop shooting the neighborhood tree rats here in the city so she could make her ‘Surprise Stew’. Just kidding!)

J-Dawg's close up. Told you he became comfortable!

Now he's just hamming it up!

Unity in The Community

Why is it that different species of animals can get along and live in peace with one another, even sharing the same dinner table and we humans constantly bring grief, destruction and death to each other? Shame on us! I’ll sit contently by while watching Melrose Place.

First, the live stream. I’m going to spend the day trying to get a hold of UStream and see if they have any answers for me technically.

I have tried to go live on countless paranormal investigations, but to no avail. The funny thing is, every time I do a test broadcast before the actual event, everything works perfectly. Both audio and video come through just fine. I’ve broadcasted multiple shows multiple times without a hitch. Take yesterday for instance. Literally, four hours before my actual investigation I did a test broadcast and everything worked perfectly. But once I arrived on site, everything went down hill. My laptop did function properly, it took 30 minutes just to start-up, and so on. What’s interesting, these problems only seem to happen when I’m trying to do a paranormal investigation. If anyone out there has any suggestions, PLEASE let me know! I need all the help I can get! Now, the investigation.

How cool! I found out plenty of background information that I didn’t know before.

The entire building, the store and the upstairs apartment, was left vacant and boarded up for 30 years. During this time span, vagrants broke into the property from time to time and to refuge within the building. It was during this time span that a murder took place in the upstairs apartment. I haven’t been able to figure out where in the apartment this happen.

During my initial setup, I experienced the feeling of someone standing behind me, just watching. It was the typical feeling that evokes ‘goose pimples’ and an overall weird feeling just being in the place.

While I was fighting with the computer, I kept hearing knocking coming from the room to my left. Every time I heard the series of knocks, I would go into the room to look around. But every time there was nothing. Since I just arrived on location, I hadn’t set up my camera yet, so I didn’t get this on video. So, I  have to chalk this up to a personal experience.

The other room that I found to be really hard to enter was the bathroom. This is the room where Zeke, the paranormal pooch, acted as if he saw something. This room absolutely freaked me out. Just passing by it worried me for some reason. So, I set up my camera trained down the hall where the bathroom was located, as well as left my digital audio recorder inside it.

Since I just did the investigation last night, I haven’t had time to review the evidence yet. As soon as I do, I’ll post anything that merits posting.

This is an exterior picture of the room were knocking was heard.

The back door that goes to the back of the apartment

The apartments enclosed sun room

The apartments door that exits to the roof.

I know some might say, “Oh that’s just another tree rat from down the street!”, and to those I say,”I know my squirrel J-Dawg! He’s a lot smarter than typical tree rats, so back off!”

I stood on my front step, not moving a muscle as J-Dawg stared back at me. It was as if he was telling me, “I know I stayed out passed my curfew, but I was out with the ladies, having a good time! So, what’s up with this empty food dish old man?”

For a brief moment, I just stood there with my squirrel, hanging out. Mentally I went through this laundry list thanking people over and over. “I don’t have much in this life and probably never will. Thanks for showing this tree rat back to Melrose Place. He means a lot to me.”

I quickly grab my cell phone and cranked off a couple of pictures of J-Dawg so I could show my human family inside the house. I then promptly doled out heaping amounts of squirrel feed in his dish. Life is good this cold, Wednesday morning. J-Dawg is back home at Melrose Place.

The moment I spotted J-Dawg

His eyes locked with mine!

Keep your cats and dogs! J-Dawg the tree rat is the pet for me!