The Occult Section

For the most part, I don’t like psychics. For one, their accuracy is about as good as someone who doesn’t claim to be psychic. Second, they make these outrageous claims about having these superpowers, and point to all the times they coincidentally happened to be correct, and wave off all the times that they are wrong as simply not being in control of this awesome power they have. Hogwash. Where were all of the panic-stricken psychics on 9/10/01? Anyway, now a mother of a Sandy Hook Elementary School student is claiming that her 5-year old son is psychic. Because he didn’t want to go to school. Such odd behavior for a child of that age…

Following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, one mother is saying that her five-year-old son was spared from the mass shooting due to his psychic abilities.

Karen Dryer claims that her five-year-old son Logan started kindergarten there in September. For the first two months, he was fine. Then, in November, two weeks before the shooting, his teacher reported that Logan would cry and request to go home. She later took him to a doctor to run tests, but everything came back normal. Even still, the doctor recommended that they take Logan out of school and home school him for a while. Dryer says that she and Logan would return to the school once a week to see his friends and teachers.

“Logan was perfectly normal wherever we were except at school,” Karen said to Hollywood Life. “We couldn’t even say the word ‘school’ in the house because he would get so upset.”

Dryer says that her mother had psychic abilities and she has no doubt that her son has the same skills as well. She said that, when they took Logan to the open house earlier this week, “Logan was back to normal. He said he loved the new school, ‘I love it, it looks like a college.’ The teachers were amazed at what they saw because he used to be so scared of school. Now he was running around the school like he owned it. He danced for the teachers. He told me that Grandma was with him at the school and helping him play and that she was also helping me.”

While the story is perhaps an uplifting one, Discovery News points out that it likely does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. Dryer may be attributing connections between things that do not actually exist, like saying that a rooster made the sun rise because the rooster crowed before dawn. In addition, Logan never specifically mentioned anything about guns or tragedy, which may have made Dryer’s case stronger. Dryer may also be succumbing to the psychological phenomenon, confirmation bias, in which she notes the times that Logan’s behavior may have served as a precursor to an event instead of the times when Logan may have had the same behavior and no event occurred. Of course, one can only hope that Dryer’s story did not add to the pain of any of the victims’ families, as many of their own children may not have wanted to go to school that morning.

Like the article states, if this boy truly was psychic, then why didn’t he mention the shootings before they happened? Many children, especially of the 5-year old variety, will just come up with all sorts of reasons as for why they don’t want to go to school. And they can be very creative and very convincing. It doesn’t mean that psychic abilities are in play. It just means the kid is normal and doesn’t want to get up early, or be away from his mother…or toys…or TV. I feel like it’s a bit insensitive and irresponsible for this mother to be trying to attribute super powers to her child while other parents are still grieving.

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A few months ago, I blogged about the alleged UFO that fell into Bantam Lake in Litchfield, Connecticut. I also mentioned how I usually camp on bantam lake every summer. Now The Litchfield County Times is reporting that there is still no evidence that anything crashed into the lake, and if something did, it was probably a meteorite. The article also mentions the other paranormal phenomena that have been reported in Litchfield throughout the years. As I said in my previous entry, “I always pay attention to place names (thanks to Loren Coleman’s “name game” discussion in his books), as they are usually interesting when it comes to the history of a town. A “litch” usually refers to a type of undead creature, from the German and Dutch words for “corpse.” So it’s always been interesting for me knowing that Litchfield is a hotspot of paranormal activity.

From my last camping trip to Bantam Lake

LITCHFIELD­—No, there wasn’t another sighting of a UFO or meteorite on Bantam Lake. Rather, Jon Nowinski, director of Smoking Gun Research Agency (SGRA) in Orange, said in an e-mail last Tuesday that the most likely scenario remains that it was a meteor that fell into the lake in April.

“Unfortunately, even if that were the case, recovering anything is probably impossible—though if we begin to get reports of mysterious lake creatures being spotted in Bantam over the summer we may have to consider other options,” quipped Mr. Nowinski.

In April, the buzz was that a glowing green object fell into Bantam Lake around 2 a.m. An unidentified motorist who was near Bantam Lake called State Police at the Troop L barracks in Litchfield to report seeing a green, whale-sized object fall into the lake.

Such a report doesn’t necessarily suggest credibility—given that the motorist didn’t stick around and apparently didn’t call back—but an on-duty State Police trooper some 10 miles away in Warren also called the barracks to report seeing a large object fall from the sky over Bantam and Morris.

Morris firefighters were dispatched, along with firefighters from Bantam, and made several passes up and down the lake in a boat, but didn’t find anything. Morris Fire Chief Joel Skilton said he was inclined to believe it was a meteorite, given that the National Weather Service had documented a meteor shower in the area that night.

Mr. Nowinski said last Tuesday they discovered, through extended research, that in the days surrounding the Bantam event there were several incidents throughout the U.S. of streaking objects crashing to Earth.

“In one particular case in California, they were actually able to recover the meteor fragments out in the desert. It seems that these were all linked to the same meteor shower,” said Mr. Nowinski.

He said the most frequent question they’ve received about the Bantam incident is, “What could be done if this object were larger?”

“Truth be told, there is no defense against an impact from a large meteor, so I suppose, in a way, people can count themselves lucky up there,” said Mr. Nowinski.

According to The Smoking Gun Web site, www.sgra.org, the group studies the paranormal, metaphysical and the unexplained.

In the wake of the reports about the incident, the Bantam Lake Protective Association’s former president, Robert LaBonne, sent an e-mail to State Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-Goshen), who is running in the Fifth Congressional District, and State Rep. Craig Miner (R-Litchfield), telling the legislators he had received e-mails from as a far away as Florida.

Mr. LaBonne said in April that with modern technology and the 911 service, he would have thought the State Police could trace the 911 call back to the cell phone owner, since the citizen who claimed to see the object fall into the lake did not remain at the scene.

Mr. Nowinski has been invited to teach a class on investigating the unexplained as part of the Litchfield and Thomaston Adult Education program at the Foothills Adult & Continuing Education Program in Thomaston and Litchfield in the fall, and he will be using the Bantam Lake incident in some discussions about how investigations are carried out.

“There’s many other mysteries from the Litchfield area to include as well, so that will make for good tie-ins to the class lessons, and with summer on us, the season for Litchfield Bigfoots has arrived,” said Mr. Nowinski. “So maybe I’ll have some good close encounters of other kinds to report to you in the future.”

Mr. Nowinski said last Wednesday in an e-mail that this isn’t the first incident to happen around Bantam Lake that drew the group’s attention.

“We’ve actually looked into several UFO reports in the area directly around Bantam Lake,” Mr. Nowinski said, “and [we] have made trips out there many times over the past few years to do some on-site investigating, which is why we are so familiar with the area.”

He said UFO sightings in Litchfield County are actually pretty common, and they tend to receive three or four a month between Torrington, Litchfield and New Milford.

“Especially the area along the Route 8 corridor from about Plymouth on up to Colebrook and all around Route 202, which, of course, runs right by Bantam and Candlewood Lake, which have always been ‘hotspots’ for reports” Mr. Nowinski said.

According to Mr. No­­winski, there are even Native American stories of “Sky People” coming down and interacting with some tribes in the Litchfield area, specifically around Mohawk Mountain.

Mr. Nowinski said in his e-mail, aside from UFO sightings, there are also ghost stories from all over Kent, Cornwall and the Washington area.

“Of course there’s the old legend of Dudleytown, which despite the rumors is not quite the ‘cursed town’ its reputation suggests,” said Mr. Nowinski. “But there are many other more interesting local stories,”

Stories range from a haunted Cornwall covered bridge to stories of people hearing and seeing ghost trains running along the old railroad tracks in the Kent area.

“There are a lot of old inns and homesteads in the area that are filled with stories, and we’ve had the chance to conduct a few investigations up that way,” Mr. Nowinski said. “I’m always on a look-out for places with interesting histories whose owners are willing to let us come up and see what we get.”

Mr. Nowinski also mentioned the Litchfield Bigfoot, for which sightings have been reported since the 1950s in Canaan, Goshen, Warren, Litchfield and Cornwall.

“In 2007 we received a call from someone who was hiking around Mohawk Mountain with four other people and they claimed to have seen a Bigfoot-like creature walk across the road inside the state park from about 50 yards away,” said Mr. Nowinski.

There are other similar stories from hikers, hunters and even people just driving by on the roads who claim to have seen such a creature just off in the woods or walking across the fields., he reported.

“This actually has some tie back to Native American stories as well, as we’ve spoken with people who relayed stories passed down from generations about ‘wild men’ who lived in the woods,” said Mr. Nowinski. “Though, there has never been any concrete evidence, photographs or videos as there have been of other Bigfoot sightings.”

I am in agreement with Mr. Nowinski in his assessment. As I said, I go camping up on Bantam Lake every summer, and I don’t think a year has gone by where we haven’t seen dozens of shooting stars. It wouldn’t surprise me if a small meteorite did fall into the lake. That being said, I’ve also seen a very strange object in the sky, as well as a few other odd things in and around the lake. But those are stories for another time…

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Ok, so this is a story that I had to blog about. There are stories all over the internet this week about a UFO falling into Bantam Lake, which is in Litchfield, Connecticut. Now for the past thirty or so years, I have been camping on Bantam Lake every summer. So this really hits home for me. Or at least my favorite vacation spot. I’ve seen my fair share of weird things while camping on Bantam Lake over the years, so this doesn’t really surprise me. I always pay attention to place names (thanks to Loren Coleman’s “name game” discussion in his books), as they are usually interesting when it comes to the history of a town. A “litch” usually refers to a type of undead creature, from the German and Dutch words for “corpse.” So it’s always been interesting for me knowing that Litchfield is a hotspot of paranormal activity.

From my last camping trip to Bantam Lake

LITCHFIELD — It was quiet on Bantam Lake Thursday, afternoon with a few scattered showers — but no UFOs.

That’s what reporters from Eyewitness News, the Connecticut CBS affiliate, and NBC Connecticut news crews were looking for at a parking area on North Shore Road in Bantam—or at least a good follow-up to a story first reported by the Republican American of Waterbury.

The story in Thursday morning’s paper recounted reports of a glowing “unidentified falling object” disappearing into Bantam Lake after midnight Monday.

“I think it’s pretty exciting the possibility of a UFO, but highly unlikely,” said Litchfield resident Marie Doyon, who was out Thursday afternoon at Bantam Lake, which spans the towns of Litchfield and Morris and is Connecticut’s largest natural lake.

According to a report posted by The Associated Press, authorities said they didn’t find anything after a state trooper and another person reported the large object falling out of the sky.

The Republican American reported that a person driving in Litchfield at about 2 a.m. Tuesday reported that a green, glowing object the size of a whale fell from the sky and crashed into Bantam Lake. Officials say that at about the same time, a state trooper 10 miles away in Warren called dispatchers to report that something fell out of the sky and landed near Bantam or Morris, the AP story said.

Morris firefighters made several passes up and down the lake in a boat looking for a possible plane crash, but didn’t find any debris, according to the AP story, which said, “Authorities called off the search, leaving the mystery unsolved.”

“I’ve heard people talking about it, it was green glowing whale size of an object,” said Lindsey Vanyo, an employee at the Green Tomato Deli in Morris, which was formerly The Ripe Tomato and is now under new ownership.

Litchfield resident Tina Landau said she had just heard about it Thursday morning.

“It’s kind of freaky, and at this point nobody seems to know. It’s pretty wild,” said Ms. Landau, who lives about a mile from Bantam Lake. “I have a pretty open mind about things, but I’m still curious.

Morris First Selectman Barbara Bongiolatti said that she didn’t know anything about the incident until she heard about it from her highway foreman.

“I have no idea what it might have been or what it was about,” said Mrs. Bongiolatti.

Ms. Bongiolatti said the Morris firefighters told that they found nothing when they went out.

According to a report posted by WTNH News 8, the National Weather Service said there was a meteor shower in the area that morning.

This very well may have been a meteor, as I have seen lots of shooting stars over Bantam Lake over the years. But I’ve also seen many things I couldn’t explain. Litchfield has many Bigfoot sightings (going back to the Winsted Wildman), UFO sightings, and ghost stories. Unfortunately for this story, the details are thin and the trooper and driver have not been identified, so until they are, this is all we have to go on. Until more details emerge, I have to agree that this was probably just a meteor.

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What a doofus: Steven Lamotte, a Norwich, CT man was arrested for trying to set Norwich Hospital on fire. Yes, the entire hospital. Norwich Hospital was featured on the mid-season finale of “Ghost Hunters” in May. I found a somewhat ironic blurb about that (I have bolded the funny part):

Preston – The Norwich State Hospital is the focus of tonight’s Ghosthunters mid-season finale episode.

Preston Redevelopment Agency Chair Kent Borner said he hasn’t seen any of the footage, but it’s possible the team could have come across a “gaggle of ghosts.”

Members of the SyFi ghost hunting team were on the property for four nights in March.

“Quite a few million people will see this, any publicity is good publicity. You never know who’s sitting in front on their TV,” Borner said.

Oh, Mr. Borner, I think it’s safe to say now that literally ANY publicity is not necessarily good publicity.

So here’s the story of what happened at Norwich State recently:

Friends say Steven A. Lamotte was interested in the paranormal and had a fascination with fire, according to police reports.

The 23-year-old former Norwich man, with a last known address in New Britain, was ordered held on $150,000 bond Tuesday at his arraignment in Norwich Superior Court on charges he set a fire to a building at the former Norwich Hospital property in Preston. It is a site visited in the past by so-called ghost hunters.

Lamotte was the latest in a string of arrests for a Norwich arson squad investigating suspicious fires at unoccupied buildings in the area. Newly released police reports show Lamotte may not have been alone.

Friends, suspects

...Oh, you mean this story ISN'T about ghost hunters who were fired?

Kevin Walker, another former Norwich man and a suspect in several arsons that include the April 27 blaze at Capehart Mill in Norwich, admitted he was there when Lamotte soaked some crunched up paper with gasoline and lit the paper on fire in the administration building of the sprawling former hospital property, police reports show.

Another suspected firestarter, Keith Mutch, of Norwich, told Norwich Police Officer Robert Smith that Walker told him he and Lamotte were “ghost hunting” at the time, police reports reveal.

Paranormal activity

During interviews with members of a Norwich arson squad, Lamotte’s ex-girlfriend, Brittany Sievers, said months after the fire she drove with Lamotte and Walker to the former Norwich Hospital building “because they were interested in the paranormal,” according to the arrest warrant affidavit in the case.

They toured the burned room and Sievers said Walker “was very excited and actually started running around the other rooms saying how they could light other rooms on fire,” police said.

With a field that is desperately trying to gain recognition and respect amongst the scientific and skeptical communities, a few stories like this one (and others of trespassing) that gain national attention really set things back. Thanks to all the losers out there who constantly ruin it for the rest of us.

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While the title of the article is a bit misleading, the point of the article is true over and over again: do not tresspass, do not run from the police, and do not jump off cliffs. It’s a hot mess. And, for goodness sake, if you’re going to get caught, do NOT say you are ghost hunters!

"We are serious, scientific, and all of our investigations are provided completely free of charge!"

MERIDEN, Conn. – Three teenagers were seriously injured when they jumped off a cliff while trying to outrun police.

The chase began after police caught the amateur ghost hunters trespassing in a public park.

Police spotted the boys shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday in Hubbard Park near the former Undercliff Sanatorium for children.

In 1918, the facility became first sanatorium in the country devoted exclusively to children.

The abandoned sanatorium is widely considered to be one of the creepiest places in Connecticut.

Police told reporters the boys considered themselves to be amateur ghost hunters.

It isn’t clear how far they fell.

One of the boys used a cell phone to call for help.

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