Paranormal Witness: The Manson Curse

Paranormal Witness airs on the Syfy channel, and the episodes I've seen have been pretty creepy.  I recently watched an episode called "The Manson Curse," and it was no exception.  When David Oman found out that he could buy a lot in Beverly Hills for only $40,000, he couldn't pass it up.  Three years later, David and his father finished building the house on Cielo Drive, and David decided to have a housewarming party; hours before the party was set to begin, David heard a knock at the door, but when he answered it, no one was there. At the party, Lawreen Yakkel entered the kitchen to get a bottle of wine and saw a dark-haired man pass by window that no one could walk by...because it was at least twenty feet off the ground.  Later, a glass on wine flew across the room and smashed against the wall (this spirit is a real party pooper).  Lisa Rigsbee, David's girlfriend at the time, went up to bed early one night and heard the bedroom door open as she tried to fall asleep; she thought it was David, of course, but instead she saw a man she didn't recognize who soon disappeared.  

Since David used to be a private investigator, he decided to find out what was going on in his home.  During his research he discovered that the Manson murders took places four houses down the street from his house. David invited his friends Jeff Mandel and Kashmir White over to watch a movie that night, and they heard strange voices coming from the intercom, which you have to be inside the house to use. While David searched the house, with his rifle for protection,  disembodied voices began traveling around the room Jeff and Kashmir were in.  Jeff decided to search the house, and though he didn't find anyone, he heard a raspy "death rattle" just before a blast of air almost knocked him over.  Jeff convinced David to set up filming and recording equipment to help them find out what was going on; apparently, the spirit didn't like it because it tried to take the video camera out of Jeff's hands one night.  When he played the video back, he heard a voice saying "Jeffrey, don't shoot me." (Creepy!)  Later that night, David was awakened by the sound of footsteps and went to investigate; all he found was the projector still running, even though he was sure he'd turned it off.  He went back to sleep, but he soon awoke again, and this time he saw...a man standing at the foot of the bed! (That would be the last time I slept in that house.)  The man pointed out the window at the driveway and disappeared after David heard a loud bang.  Jeff came over the next day and showed David some of the footage they'd shot, convincing David that there was indeed a ghost in his house.

David called his friends at the LAPD, and they let him look through the evidence from the Manson murders. That's when he realized that Jay Sebring was the man he saw at the foot of his bed and that the bang he'd heard must have been a gunshot.  When  David found a picture of Steven Parent, who had been shot in Sharon Tate's driveway the night of the murders, he realized that must be why Sebring's spirit had pointed at the driveway.  David called in psychic Alma Carey to check out the house without telling her anything that had happened; at one point, the temperature dropped and she felt a strange energy...and that's when she saw the ghost of a blonde woman downstairs.  Alma went downstairs to find the woman and ran into David, who said no one else was in the house, so Alma suggested they hold a seance.   During the seance, the lights flickered and a flame on one of the candles bent in half when Alma asked if anyone was there, and when she asked it if was Sharon Tate, all the lights and candles went out.  Something tried to take the camera out of Jeff's hands, then Kashmir's chair started moving.  Alma asked, "Why are you here?,"  and they heard "heartbreaking" screams.  Alma began clutching her stomach and felt like she was being stabbed, and David realized that they were "having a shared experience of the victims who were killed down the street at the hands of Charles Manson and his followers."  David couldn't figure out why his house was being targeted when it was 150 feet from where the murders took place and wondered if the victims had tried to escape the house and ran to the neighbors' for help.  David still lives in the house (WHY?!) and the paranormal activity is still going on.

This episode was pretty creepy...Paranormal Witness is a great show, and I'm glad I have three more episodes on my DVR.

My rating: 8/10

Last August I wrote about an episode of Ghost Hunters where the TAPS team investigated David's house...you can check that out here:

http://paranormalcrystal.blogspot.com/2013/08/ghost-hunters-henson-studios-and-manson.html

Hauntings in America

Hauntings in America is a DVD that was released in 2013 (but was made in 1996) and is hosted by Michael Dorn and Christopher Lewis.  Experts Dr. Barry Taff (parapsychologist), Daniel Cohen (author), Arthur Myers (author), and Laurie Jacobson (author) weigh in on eleven haunted locations across America.

1. Hollywood, California: At the Westwood Memorial Cemetery, Marilyn Monroe has been seen by her grave and was caught on film by someone who was taking a picture of the grave.  George Reeves haunts his former home.  Sharon Tate was once staying at the home of then-fiancé Jay Sebring when she saw the ghost of former owner Paul Burn; as she ran down the stairs to get away from him, she saw “an apparition of a person with their throat slit ear-to-ear,” which is how Sharon died two years later. (That is so creepy!)

2. Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California: A medium told Sarah Winchester that her husband and daughter died because of “the spirits of all the people killed by the Winchester rifle and that the only way she could appease them was by building a house continuously” (according to Winchester Mystery House employee Shozo Kagoshima).  Sarah would communicate with the spirits, and they would tell her what to do with the house.

3. Alcalde, New Mexico:  The ghost of a woman who fell or was pushed down a staircase of a Los Luceros adobe during an argument haunts “the stairs, mourning the children she left behind.”  There were also many hangings right outside the adobe because it used to be a jail and courthouse.

4. Olathe Naval Air Station, Kansas: A navy pilot who haunts the Olathe Naval Air Station is known as “The Commander.”  In 1949, the pilot, flying his plane at night in the fog, crashed his plane into the administration building; a witness claimed that he saw the pilot get out of the plane and walk away, but when emergency crews were able to get to the fiery plane, they found his body still inside.  People have reported hearing voices and phantom footsteps in Hangar 21 and finding things in a different position then they had been earlier (for example, closed windows being found open when no one had been in the building).

5. The South: In St. Francisville, Louisiana, the Myrtles Plantation was the site of ten murders and is said to be one of the most haunted places in America.  Hand prints have appeared in one of the plantation’s mirrors, and no matter how many times the glass is changed, the hand prints keep showing up.  Three spirits have been caught on film: two children and a woman who is believed to be Chloe, the mistress of owner Clark Woodruff, who cut her ear off after he caught her eavesdropping on his family.  In an act of revenge, she poisoned the birthday cake she baked for Woodruff’s oldest daughter, killing Woodruff’s wife and two of their children; Chloe’s death came at the hands of an angry mob, and she now likes to roam around the plantation.  The Waverly Mansion near Westpoint, Mississippi is haunted by a little girl who is “looking for her mother.”  The current owners of the house have seen the little girl and heard her calling for her mother and found a child-sized imprint on one of the beds.  An employee of Waverly Mansion says that the girl may have been a neighbor who was brought to the mansion during the Civil War to be taken care of during illness and died in the house.

6. Baltimore, Maryland: The U.S.S. Constellation is said to be haunted by the spirits of three sailors, including Commodore Thomas Truxtun, but a naval historian refutes the rumors, saying that Truxtun never even saw the U.S.S. Constellation.

7. YMCA Locker Room in Cambridge, Massachusetts: In 1991, a YMCA employee said that he had seen a ghost in the locker room, so Arthur Myers conducted a séance to try to find out who was haunting it.  Reverend Erle Myers came along and sensed a “tall, thin man, probably in his fifties” who was often around young people (it is believed that he was a teacher who abused his students) and didn’t have any friends.  Erle told the spirit to go toward the “white light,” and there have been no ghost sightings since.

8. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: This battlefield is said to be the Civil War’s most haunted, and “Sachs Covered Bridge may be a magnet for Gettysburg ghosts.”  Author B. Keith Toney says that his wife saw ghostly wagons and soon realized that she was seeing “Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg.”

9. Delta Queen:  The boat is haunted by Mary Becker Greene, who was the owner and died on the boat in the 1940s.  Soon after Mary’s death, renovations on Delta Queen began, and a bar was added; Mary never allowed people to drink alcohol on Delta Queen, and a few days after the bar opened, a small boat called The Mary B. crashed into the boat right where the new bar had been built, and they had to close it.  A crewman who was staying in Mary’s old room woke up to see “a cloaked woman standing beside him,” and the presence disappeared when he spoke to it.  The next time the crewman saw her, he turned a light on, and every light bulb in the room exploded.  A couple who was staying (and drinking) in Mary’s old room was shocked when a pitcher of water “lifted up in the air and smashed against the mirror.”

10. Rugby, Tennessee:  Englishman Thomas Hughes started a new colony in the mountains of Tennessee in 1880, and it is believed that some of the original settlers never left.  Room 2 of the Newbury House is haunted by Charles Oldfield (who died in that room), but only when women are staying by themselves; they will often find his ghost standing over the bed.  In the Roslyn Mansion, people have heard footsteps and caught a glimpse of a ghostly female figure (sometimes holding a baby) believed to be former resident Sophie Tyson.

11. Oil fields of Oklahoma: Thomas Gilcrease haunts his former home, which he had basically turned into an art museum since he spent most of his money on art.  People have seen an apparition of Gilcrease and reported cold spots and drafts in the house.  

Hauntings in America is very informative, but I found myself not paying attention and having to rewind it multiple times because I was on the computer like I usually am when I take notes on paranormal shows, and the show wasn't keeping my interest as much as most of the others I've watched.

My rating: 7/10

Ghost Hunters: The Henson Studios and the "Manson" House

Yesterday I watched a season 3 Ghost Hunters episode called "The Henson Studios and the 'Manson' House," and it was pretty creepy!  The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) gets a call from a man who lives next to where the Manson Family murders took place, and since the house where it occurred is no longer there, the man believes that the victims are now haunting his house.  The TAPS team meets with David Oman, the homeowner, and he tells them that strange things have been going on since he was building the house...a construction worker said that he heard voices and footsteps on the stairs that kept getting louder and then stopped; when he felt a cold breeze on his shoulders, he left and didn't return for six weeks.  David tells the team that one night he saw a ghost standing next to his bed, pointing toward the driveway; when David was researching the Manson murders a few months later, he realized that the ghost was Jay Sebring, one of Manson's victims.  The team calls in fellow investigator Chris Fleming since he has some equipment that they do not have, and they think it would be useful for this investigation.  Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango investigate the guest room; Steve asks the spirit to give them a sign that it's there, and the blinds start moving.  Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson, and Chris take the living room and also ask for a sign; they hear a loud noise in the kitchen and cannot figure out what made the sound.  They then move to the master bedroom, where they feel cold spots, and the K-2 meter, which measures energy, starts going crazy.  They change the batteries to see if it's causing a malfunction and then start asking yes or no questions, hoping that a spirit will communicate with them by making the K-2 meter blink; they find out that the spirit who is communicating with them is male, he was murdered by the Manson Family, and there are more spirits in the house.  Chris asks if the spirit is Jay Sebring, and the K-2 meter blinks once for yes; they also learn that Sharon Tate is one of the spirits who is haunting the house.  They ask the spirit to prove he's there by making the temperature drop from 66 degrees to 62 degrees; the temperature in front of the thermometer changes, but the temperature in the rest of the room stays the same.  When reviewing the recordings from when Donna LaCroix and Steve were using the EVP meter in the living room, they hear a female voice answering Donna's questions; they did not hear this voice when they were in the room.

Next the TAPS team goes to the Jim Henson Studios, where studio employee Johan Filla says he saw a dark figure in a top hat on the roof one night; when he went to the roof to investigate, no one was there.  There have been many ghostly sightings there, including when one employee saw a woman disappear into a wall.  On the soundstage, Jason and Grant get a thermal hit that looks like a female body floating three feet off the ground, and in an area known as "The Barn," Dave and Donna hear a "Shh!," and Donna hears a voice whisper "Tango, Tango."  I was hoping that the paranormal activity was really The Muppets coming to life, but no such luck. ; )

The Manson Family part of the episode was pretty creepy, but the Jim Henson Studios wasn't too scary...I don't really want to meet any ghosts though, so I'll probably never take a tour of the studio, even though I'm a little obsessed with The Muppets.

My rating: 9/10

http://www.syfy.com/ghosthunters