Monthly Archives: September 2015
MY FAMILY AND I LIVED IN A HAUNTED HOUSE
(Photo Credit: JC “Jeanie” Cooke-Fredlund, Author and Paranormal Researcher)
Years ago, back in 1973, to be exact, my childrens’ father and ex-husband and I decided to relocate back to our hometown of Mankato, MN. We looked at several houses, but this one really caught my eye as well as my fascination with history. It was a partially remodeled home that had been built in the late 1800s. It is the house that I referred to in my Forever Nearby article titled, “We’re Definitely Not Alone.”
It was while residing in this house that my (then child, son) experienced the terrifying presence of Shadow People in his bedroom.) Today, my son is an adult with a family of his own, yet he continues to attest to the fact that his experiences with “A Shadow Man” definitely occurred. Of course, I didn’t take his reports seriously at the time, but I believe, in retrospect, that NOT coincidentally, my son’s then severe asthmatic problems all but completely dissipated once we left that house. His experiences with the paranormal were not the only ones our family experienced during our five years living there. It was our personal experiences that served to trigger my adult interest in the paranormal.
Yes, the house possessed plenty of old time charm, but I was happy to move out five years later. I also believe that, (NOT coincidentally) no one has remained in the house longer than five years before or since!
The house to which I refer (pictured above) is located at 619 N. 4th St. in Mankato, MN, but is a private residence and so trespassers are not welcome.
(Copyright 2017 by JC “Jeanie” Cooke-Fredlund)
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
BIG BAY POINT LIGHTHOUSE in MICHIGAN
BIG BAY POINT LIGHTHOUSE in MICHIGAN
During 2008, we visited the Big Bay Point Lighthouse in Michigan. It is said to have a ghost that roams and the story of that haunting is below; from About.com.
I decided to go out around 5:00 a.m. and shoot the sunrise over the lake. I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched from behind me, so I took a couple of early morning shots while it was still somewhat dark. The orb seen in the yard behind me explained my eerie sensations:
“Location: On Lake Superior, Michigan
When built: 1896
Big Bay Point Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast
The haunting: This stately brick lighthouse might be haunted by the ghost of H. William Prior, who was the facility’s first keeper. According to Big Bay Point Lighthouse History by Jeff and Linda Gamble, “Prior was despondent after the death of his son and on June 28th he disappeared into the woods with his gun and some strychnine. It was feared that he had gone off to kill himself, and a subsequent long search failed to find him. Mrs. Prior and her family left Big Bay on October 22, 1901 to live in Marquette. Over a year later, the following entry was made in the station log:”
Mr. Fred Babcock came to the station 12:30 pm. While hunting in the woods one and a half mile south of the station this noon he found a skeleton of a man hanging to a tree. We went to the place with him and found that the clothing and everything tally with the former keeper of this station who has been missing for seventeen months.
It’s said that the ghost of the red-haired Mr. Prior is occasionally seen on the property and may be responsible for the unexplained slamming of doors. Today, Big Bay Point Lighthouse is a bed and breakfast.” (About.com)
SACHS COVERED BRIDGE at GETTYSBURG BATTLEFIELD, PENNSYLVANIA USA
I have to admit that being a ghost hunter can be scary. Especially when hunting in an environment that has been well-documented as being haunted. Often times the best of these environments (eg. the most fertile for locating spirits) are areas where there have been one or more deaths. At Gettysburg there’s been thousands and thousands who’d tragically died there.
I’d wanted for years to tour Gettysburg so I contacted my old high school best friend who now resides in Pennsylvania. My husband and I wanted to tour Gettysburg, PA, and Kathy lives just twenty miles away from the battlefield there. Ralph wasn’t really interested in a paranormal investigation (he’s the more “level-headed” of the two of us, but I knew Kathy would be up for it.
Kathy and I met two paranormal investigators from the Mason-Dixon Paranormal Society at 9:30 p.m. in the town of Gettysburg. We then followed the two investigators in Kathy’s car, out to an area on the edge of the battlefield. Hundreds of thousands of men died in the area we were visiting during the Civil War. Many of them perished at the bridge site where we were headed.
On this photo, my girlfriend is walking ahead of me onto the bridge. Notice the large white orb just above her head up ahead of her.
Approaching Sachs Bridge after dark.
From the time we entered the bridge I experienced a ‘creeped-out’ sensation. We used some of the investigator’s tools in an attempt to communicate with any spirits near us. We experienced the flashlight going on and off as we asked the spirits there to do. It was eerie.
The most eerie part of the night for me were the numerous photos I shot in the completely black darkness. For completely black darkness is not what we saw on the photos we’d just shot!
Only such thick, black darkness to the naked eye you could’ve cut it with a knife[/caption]
This is NOT what we saw as we looked out over the river . . . only pitch, black darkness . . . so thick that you could have cut it with a knife. Yet, the above picture is what the ominous night revealed to my Nikon Camera.
“No orbs could be seen with the naked eye.”
But my camera revealed something in one of my hundreds of photographs I had not noticed until after we’d returned home. Something I found somewhat startling. If you look to the left of this photo, near the far end of the bridge, you will notice a large cloud of red mist covering a man’s head and a woman rushing to him from across the opposite side of the bridge. (I am hoping that you will be able to make it out as well as I could when I enlarged it.)
I must admit that Sachs Bridge was an eerie place to tour, and I was relieved to return to Kathy’s home that night.
(Wikipedia reports the following: People have reported residual haunting in the form of battle amidst a mysterious, sudden fog near Sachs Covered Bridge.)
Copyright 2015 by JC “Jeanie” Cooke-Fredlund
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
HAUNTED SHELF ROAD, CRIPPLE CREEK, COLORADO USA
High up in the Rocky Mountains there sits a tiny mining town, known as Cripple Creek, Colorado. Just outside of Cripple Creek is a dirt trail known as “Shelf Road” (its set back a bit behind the town of Cripple Creek.)
Back in the gold rush days, this [so-called] road was a rocky, steep and narrow dirt trail that was traveled by hundreds upon hundreds of stage coaches and wagons. Those coaches and wagons were filled with countless folks hoping to fulfill their dreams of getting to the mine in Cripple Creek where they were determined to strike-it-rich.
My husband and I are history-buffs/adventurers and were incredibly excited to find this road/trail. Many hundreds of people died traveling this (and many other parts of the Rocky Mountains) as it has changed very little since that time [not much wider than a driveway].
It is still very steep, rocky and very treacherous. (Having traveled it ourselves, we don’t recommend that anyone try to drive it unless you have a four-wheel drive vehicle and not in the face of impending rainy or stormy weather due to the fact that the mountain canyons can (and do) fill with rushing flash flood waters in a matter of minutes.)
We’d driven a long way down Shelf Road and I had my truck window down so that I could touch the rocks just inches away from me. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, I could hear the laughter of two small children. Their laughter danced down over the rocks as if they were playing and giggling at the same time; enjoying themselves immensely not very far above us.
I strained my neck to gaze up toward the tops of the rocks – steep, vertical rocks that went straight-up at a ninety degree angle from the ground; enormous rocks that I could reach out our RAM truck window and touch (the trail is so narrow). But, low and behold, there was absolutely no one there! (There was no way anyone could’ve accessed the area above us without elaborate, professional rock climbing equipment – sheer limestone cliffs that both towered over one-hundred feet above us and that dropped over one-hundred feet beneath us greeting us in that and in many other spots!)
At first I thought it was just some traveler’s children, but then I realized that there was absolutely no one for miles and miles from where we were. Sometime later and while processing the strange occurrence we’d just experienced, I realized that the echoing sound of the children’s laughter, had embodied a haunted-sounding ring to it.
Shelf Road, Cripple Creek, Colorado
Shelf Rd, Cripple Creek, CO
Shelf Road in Cripple Creek
Scary Shelf Road outside CC CO
The experience touched me deeply as I could hear the pure, elated joy in the children’s laughter yet realized that they had to have met with a tragic demise there more than a century ago; during the old gold rush frenzy that took so many innocent lives.
_________________________________
(Noteworthy: While driving deeper and deeper into the canyon, it was a bit cloudy and I kept experiencing this heavy foreboding feeling that it was going to flood-out – the way that mountain canyons sometimes do. One month later, a disastrous flood occurred in Colorado during which many people and animals lost their lives. In fact, we learned later that because it is such a deep canyon, many people choose not to travel Shelf Road at all.)
Copyright 2014-15 by JC Cooke-Fredlund, Author
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FOREVER NEARBY 