Thank you!

The blog got its 4000th view yesterday! When I started this blog, I thought that just my friends and family would read it, so I'm thrilled that so many people that I've never met from all over the world are enjoying it.  Thanks to everyone who has been reading and sharing what I have to say about ghosts and aliens! : )

Beware of Ouija boards!

Since I started this blog, I've been watching and reading tons of paranormal TV shows and books, and I've noticed quite a few instances where paranormal activity began after someone in the household used a Ouija board.  Anyone who has seen The Exorcist is probably afraid to use a Ouija board, and they should be...here are some stories I found online where people have claimed that hauntings or demonic possession occurred as a result of a Ouija board:

-In a house in Kentucky, a man and his girlfriend's family used a Ouija board, which spelled out that the spirit of a 16-year-old boy named Dan was communicating with them.  Dan said that he was in the bedroom of the girlfriend's younger brother, then scratching and creaking noises could be heard coming from the dark room. Their dog began playing with something in the room, and when the family entered the room after being urged to by Dan, they saw a "small black shadow," and on the bed, "something unseen sat beside [them] and the pillow sank down where it sat."  They used the Ouija board a few more times, and things kept escalating...it's an interesting story, and you can read the whole thing here:

http://ouijaboardky.tripod.com/ouijastitions/id10.html

-In Winnipeg, Canada, a woman named Danielle converted from Christianity to Satanism and bought a Ouija board to help her summon demons.  During one session, she made contact with something that said it was bad and might hurt someone; she asked how many spirits were there, and the demon said there were three of them and that their names were Belial, Malphas, and Legion.  Danielle decided to end the session and heard hissing when she tried to leave.  Her friend took her to a church, and Danielle "kept seeing orange auras" on the way there.  Danielle doesn't remember entering the church, but recalls being inside and choking, feeling like "something was trying to come out of [her]."  An exorcism was performed, but Danielle says that only Malphas left her body' Belial and Legion are still there.

http://paranormal.about.com/od/demonsandexorcism/a/Possessed-By-Three-Demons.htm

-In Middleton, Idaho, 17-year-old Derek let his friends bring a Ouija board to his house, and after they used it, Derek began experiencing his "bed moving, scratching on walls, waking up with heaviness on [his] chest and not being able to move or speak and even seeing a very tall dark cloaked figure that physically attacked [him]."

http://www.yourghoststories.com/real-ghost-story.php?story=8934

If I had ever thought about using a Ouija board (I haven't), these stories would definitely scare me out of it...and there are a few dozen more stories on this website:

http://www.yourghoststories.com/ghost-stories-categories.php?category=13&page=1

In conclusion, there's really no good reason to use a Ouija board unless you really want to be possessed or haunted...and who wants that?

Movie Spotlight: R.I.P.D.

R.I.P.D. is a 2013 movie starring Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Bridges, Mary Louise Parker, Kevin Bacon, Stephanie Szostak, James Hong, and Marisa Miller.  Boston police officer Nick Walker (Ryan Reynolds) is murdered by his partner (Kevin Bacon) and joins the R.I.P.D. (Rest in Peace Department) to help protect the world from the dead.  His partner is Roy Pulsipher (Jeff Bridges), a former U.S. Marshall who lived in the 1800s.

R.I.P.D. got mostly negative reviews, but if you watch movies just to be entertained, you should check it out. That's why I watch movies, and I enjoyed it...the concept of the movie (which was based on a comic book) is really interesting and different, and all of the actors were great, especially Jeff Bridges.  Fun fact: Zach Galifianakis was originally offered the role of Roy Pulsipher, but he ended up dropping out of the movie because of scheduling conflicts; I love Zach, so I would've liked to see him in that role. : )

http://www.universalstudiosentertainment.com/ripd/

The Dead Files: Hotel Nowhere

I watched my first episode of the Travel Channel's The Dead Files a few days ago; the episode was called "Hotel Nowhere" and aired in May 2013.  The show stars Amy Allan, a psychic medium who communicates with the dead, and Steve Dischiavi, a former homicide detective who researches the history of the haunted location.  Amy and Steve never speak to each other during an investigation, only at the end.  In this episode, Amy and Steve meet Todd, a single father who bought a California mansion that he planned on turning into a hotel. Todd says that he’s heard footsteps, and people have been touched when no one is near them.  He has turned the house into a haunted attraction eight years in a row, and over 30,000 people have come through, so he’s afraid that he’s “stirred things up.”  Laura, one of Todd’s haunted attraction employees, says she was standing in a closet and something grabbed her and pulled her farther into the closest; when she got out and shone her flashlight in there, there was no one there.  She quit that night.     

Todd once saw a black entity in the bedroom, and it rushed at him; Todd screamed and it disappeared.  He tells Steve that the house used to be a sanitarium.  Over the past few years, Todd has had about 100 groups come in and investigate the house.  While Todd and Steve talk, Amy walks through the mansion and senses mentally ill and sick presences.  Glenda, Todd’s sister, feels uneasy in the house and “gets the shakes” every time she goes there; she says her friend got really ill, like she was having a heart attack, when she visited the house and ended up in the hospital for 3 days…and no one could ever figure out what was wrong with her. Glenda also says that something touches her every time she’s in the house; she thinks that Todd should bulldoze the house and says she would never spend the night alone there.  In the basement, Amy says the spirits hang out there, and she senses people banging on the walls, trying to get out.  The dead are telling her that they’re fed up “with the living antagonizing them.”       

Steve meets with David Hadden, the county coroner, to learn more about the sanitarium.  Hadden says it originally took in tuberculosis patients, and dead bodies were kept in the basement until the mortician could get them.  After tuberculosis died down, the sanitarium began accepting mental patients and did not treat them well; “they’d chain them to toilets and sinks, they’d have them lying nude in the hallway, some did electroshock therapy and lobotomies, or they’d over-medicate them.”  In the library, Steve finds an article saying a man named Tony Andrews bought the property, but lost it in foreclosure; Tony died of cirrhosis at age 36.  Outside Amy senses a spirit who says he “rules the roost” and was forced to get rid of the property; she says he thought it was great when he had it and is not happy about what it turned into, and Amy has a bad feeling about him. 

After Amy and Steve complete their separate investigations, Amy tells Todd that she sensed spirits of mentally ill people“ crawling on the ceiling and down the side of the stairs” and that saw someone throwing up; Todd says that people have come to the house and suddenly vomited.  Amy also tells Todd that she saw mistreatment, such as a woman “who was being held down and beaten” and “a patient having his head beat in."  Todd says that when he had the structure torn down that used to house mental patients, the paranormal activity increased.  Amy says that she saw a man and a woman who kept saying “We did a good job,” and Steve tells her that a woman used to own the sanitarium and sold it to Orrell Lamoreaux, who later died in the house.  Todd wants to advertise his future hotel as a haunted one, but Amy advises Todd to provide counseling for the spirits (using a transpersonal psychologist) and to have an exorcism to get rid of the spirits who don’t respond to counseling.  Amy says the spirits are aggressive, and Todd could be putting his guests’ lives in danger.  Todd has not contacted a transpersonal psychologist and is still planning to turn the mansion into a hotel.

The Dead Files was an interesting show, but I didn't enjoy it as much as some of the other paranormal shows I've watched, such as Ghost Bait or When Ghosts Attack.  Once Todd opens his haunted hotel, I hope no one is actually dumb enough to stay there...that sounds like a really bad idea.

My rating: 7/10

http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/the-dead-files

Free book: Dying to Forget by Trish Marie Dawson

Dying to Forget by Trish Marie Dawson is free today!  Here's the Amazon description:

"Sometimes the day you die is only the beginning of a new job.

Piper Willow dies the summer after her high school graduation and finds herself in a spiritual terminal called the Station. She's given only two choices: Move on to the unknown where she'll be faced to spend an eternity in her own personal hell or be trained as a Volunteer and return to Earth as the subconscious for a person in need of outside assistance. Does Piper have what it takes to save a life, to be the nagging voice inside another person's head? Or will she fail and end up lost and tormented...forever?"

Sounds like a good one...I just got my copy!

http://www.amazon.com/Dying-To-Forget-The-Station-ebook/dp/B008S2RKAU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1386610332&sr=8-4&keywords=trish+marie+dawson

Book award

It's time to vote for the Turning the Pages Book of the Year, and Never Trust an Angel and Other Plays is in the running! You can vote for it in the general voting area as well as the comedy and drama categories...For I Am Zeus won the comedy category last year, and I'd love to win it again this year! It only takes a minute to vote, and I'll be so grateful to everyone who does it. Thank you! : )

http://turningthepagesbooks.blogspot.com/2013/12/book-of-year-2013-is-now-open.html?spref=tw

Things I've Learned from ALF

1. Malmacians live for 100 years.

2. ALF stands for Alien Life Form.

3. Melmac has a purple sun.

4. ALF doesn’t get Sesame Street on Melmac and doesn’t “get” it here either.

5. Melmac no longer exists because it exploded.

6. If the Army takes ALF to a lab, they’ll see how he reacts to extreme cold, heat, poke him with needles, and dissect him.

7. ALF’s real name is Gordon Shumway.

8. ALF uses a blender to make peanut butter sandwiches.

9. ALF is 98% hair.

10. It’s against the law to shoot anteaters.

11. A family is like a crescent wrench.

12. The 3 C’s are “cooperation, courtesy, and respect.”

13. Nuclear disasters are “no picnic.”

14. The reason that Melmac exploded was not because “everyone plugged their hair dryers in at the same time.”

15. ALF likes cats “with a side of fries.”

16. Hamsters taste just like rats.

17. Cats can be hypnotized.

18. There’s a family of “cucumber people” on Mars.

19. Decorating involves posters and paint, and that’s it.

20. Gold is worthless on Melmac, but foam is worth a lot.

21. It’s pretty easy for an alien to write a soap opera script and get it on the air almost immediately.

22. On Melmac, the postage rates were “first class, second class, fish, and ham.”

23. Everyone on Melmac could communicate with the dead.

24. There are two planets next to Pluto called Dave and Alvin.

25. It would take two hours to pull the hair out of Alf’s body.

26.If you spray a Melmacian roach with bug spray, it will grow to be the size of a door and can be killed with perfume (and it will be horrifying).

27. Cats are delicious.

http://www.amazon.com/ALF-Season-One-Paul-Fusco/dp/B0002DB5N6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1386182910&sr=8-2&keywords=alf

Book Review: Help for the Haunted by John Searles

Help for the Haunted by John Searles was published in September 2013 and is about Sylvie and Rose Mason, sisters whose paranormal investigator parents (Sylvester and Rose) were murdered in a church while young Sylvie waited for them in the car.  I really enjoyed this novel, and as I was reading it, I couldn't help but think of famous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (who were portrayed by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in The Conjuring)...Help for the Haunted's Sylvester and Rose even have a creepy doll come into their possession!  On the Amazon page for this book, Searles mentions in an interview with Gillian Flynn that he grew up in the same town as The Warrens, so it makes sense that The Masons have some similarities to The Warrens.

Here's the Amazon description:

"John Searles’s Help for the Haunted is an unforgettable story of a most unusual family, their deep secrets, their harrowing tragedy, and ultimately, a daughter’s discovery of a dark and unexpected mystery.

Sylvie Mason’s parents have an unusual occupation—helping “haunted souls” find peace. After receiving a strange phone call one winter’s night, they leave the house and are later murdered in an old church in a horrifying act of violence.
A year later, Sylvie is living in the care of her older sister, who may be to blame for what happened to their parents. Now, the inquisitive teenager pursues the mystery, moving closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night—and to the truth about her family’s past and the secrets that have haunted them for years.
Capturing the vivid eeriness of Stephen King’s works with the compelling quirkiness of John Irving’s beloved novels, Help for the Haunted is that rare story that brings to life a richly imagined and wholly original world."

I recommend Help for the Haunted to anyone who is interested in the paranormal or anyone who just wants to read a great novel.  I really felt for Sylvie and wanted to her to solve the mystery of her parents' deaths (and the mystery of her parents in general)...and when she found out the truth, I did not see it coming at all!

My rating: 8/10