The Occult Section

Another British paranormal news piece that I’m blogging about 90% because of the picture they article included (and 10% for the name of the pub). No shame. I also like the generic team name that is mentioned: the Paranormal Society. From The Halifax Courier:

The actual picture in the article. I hope this was as satisfying for all of you as it was for me.

GHOSTLY images have been included in a painting of a haunted town centre pub.

Dean Majors, landlord of Dirty Dick’s, commissioned the work which shows how the pub (formerly the Royal Oak) used to look.

An old image, which dates back to the 18th century, was used as the basis for the painting by Joy Edwards.

She lives in Sowerby Bridge and captured the old character of the pub and painted ghostly spirits looking out of windows.

The original building was pulled down in 1929 and rebuilt in mock-Tudor style using materials, including beams and panelling, from the wooden frigate HMS Newcastle which was built in 1860.

Three ghosts are connected to the pub.

Dean said by research and talking to old regulars he had been told the last landlord before the pub was demolished had a son who was killed after his party clothes were set alight by sparking embers from a pub fire.

And, around 40 years ago a woman reported seeing a Amish-style character walking about.

“She said what she saw was as clear as day,” said Dean.

The third ghost is linked to the ship and said to be that of someone killed on board while moving gunpowder.

Dean, who has run the pub since it reopened last year, said he had witnessed poltergeist activity.

That has included a glass jumping up off a shelf and smashing on the floor; a barrel jumping off the ground and cellar switches being mysteriously flicked.

“I have an open mind – but I think if things keep happening we will get the Paranormal Society in,” he said.

Dean said the painting had rekindled interest in the pub’s history.

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Getting people who are alive to fill out census forms is hard enough, but that isn’t stopping one rogue “certified paranormal investigator” from trying to complete a census of every ghost in the world. That is assuming, of course, there would be no language barrier, that all ghosts are land ghosts (not sea ghosts), that there are no ghosts in space, and that, of course, ghosts exist and want to participate in a census. But this dude is certified so clearly he knows what he’s doing.

"I could have sworn I left my ghost detector right next to my submarine with the screen doors!"

Poland’s only officially registered ghost hunter has accused the spirit world of giving up on mankind – and he wants a census to check his theory that there are fewer spirits bothering to stay and haunt people.

Piotr Shalkevitz, 40, from Chrzanow, Poland, who has spent tens of thousands of pounds on the best paranormal detection equipment from the US, believes it might be because they have given up trying to warn people to prepare for the afterlife.

He said: “Maybe they think we aren’t worth saving, and they have given up trying to tell us whatever it was they wanted us to know.

“It might also be that people just aren’t bothered, they see so much on the TV and they just rationalise it all away. They have become immune to messages from beyond.”

Now frustrated Piotr, who became Poland’s only officially registered full-time ghost buster three years ago, has issued a plea to his fellow countrymen for a census of ghosts to monitor the population. But he also wants global ghost busters to contact him about their local spooks.

He said: “We need to have a record of where the ghosts are haunting, and only then can we really monitor if numbers are falling. If there is no record in the first place we have nowhere to start.

“If someone suspects paranormal activity, I have a 24-hour hotline. Call me and I’ll be there.”

Technorati Tags: census, debunking, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, haunting, humor, media, News, paranormal, people, poland, supernatural, thoughts

I love these kind of stories. Imagine owning a supposedly haunted location (this particular one is in Ohio)? Coolness x a billion. Unless, of course, some reality TV show cast members from a paranormally-themed show snatch it up before anyone else can (since they have plenty of disposable income) and then make it into a huge money making venture for themselves. Again. Aherm.

Granville’s venerable Buxton Inn is for sale for a cool $3.9 million. Ghosts included.

Built in 1812, the Buxton is the state’s oldest continually operating inn doing business in the original building. The sale includes the inn, which is comprised of five buildings located at 313 E. Broadway, and five other historic buildings on nearby East Elm and South Pearl streets, according to the listing by Street Sotheby’s International Realty.

Owners Audrey and Orville Orr are retiring after owning the Licking County inn since 1972.

A well-known central Ohio attraction, the inn is believed to be haunted by the apparitions of former innkeepers, and guests have reported strange phenomena such as the sounds of ghostly footsteps and doors mysteriously opening and closing on their own.

Ghost hunters and potential buyers can learn more at the inn’s website: www.buxtoninn.com.

Technorati Tags: buxton inn, ghost hunters, ghosts, granville, haunted, haunted inn, haunted inn for sale, licking county inn, ohio, paranormal, people, supernatural, thoughts

You scream; I scream; we all scream for – scary movies! Yes, even the upcoming ones that have just a smidgeon of a chance to turn out totally lame. Enter “Ouija,” Universal Pictures’ newest interest in the realm of paranormal-genre movies. Although the idea sounds a bit cheesy, hit director Michael Bay’s production company is being mentioned often, which is doing a great job of keeping the interest factor high. So what is all the hype about? Why is the Ouija (or anything relating to the use of one) always so intriguing?

“Ouija,” with a release date set for sometime in 2013, has been on and off of the chopping block in the past, with a script that seemed left for the dead. It was, however, recently revived, only with a budget that seems to have lost a little blood. Interestingly, Jason Blum; the producer behind the “Paranormal Activity” set, is also poised to pounce on this opportunity to connect the dead, with the living, again. We can only hope for him to pull off something as insidious as, well, “Insidious.”

A movie about the Ouija board? Well, at least that hasn’t been done for a few years… but wait, if we WATCH someone doing the Ouija, isn’t that supposed to open us up to being bothered by evil spirits? Or is that only if you’re touching the board? So really, you are signing up to join a movie theater full of demon-possessed zombies? Count me in. I’m certain watching five million dollars be totally wasted will be worth it, as long as I get to take home my very own ghost!

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Front on visual of the bar upon entering the tavern.

“Once upon a time there was a tavern…” Tucked away in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village is the White Horse Tavern. This longshoremen’s dive turned literary bohemian haven has long been the subject of much ghostly folklore. Rumor has it that in 1953 Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, while on a particularly enlivened bender, drank a record of 18 whiskey shots. Predictably, after he finished slamming shooters, Thomas stumbled outside and collapsed into a deep booze snooze trusting his fellow compatriots to deliver him safely back to his room at the Chelsea Hotel. The next morning he was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he was declared dead of “wet brain” or alcoholic encephalopathy, muscle impairment that usually accompanies alcohol abuse. Since that day patrons of the bar have claimed to have seen the full body apparition of Thomas sitting at his favorite corner table or hanging around outside the tavern. There have also been accounts of Thomas’s corner table shoved aside in the mornings when the staff arrives to open shop, as if a drunk, impatient person needed to get around it.

Thomas is buried in the over-spill graveyard of St. Martin's Church, Laugharne, Dyfed, Wales. His grave is marked by a plain white cross. Caitlin Thomas, his wife, is buried in the same grave and her name appears on the reverse side of the cross.

Listed as one of the most haunted places in New York City, The White Horse Tavern is inextricably linked to the last whiskey Thomas ever drank, a fact that the tavern doesn’t seem to mind but actively embraces. Upon walking into the bar, which hasn’t changed in appearance since it opened its doors in 1880, it is hard not to notice the extensive, wall-to-wall collection of porcelain horses staring down at you from their various perches aloft light fixtures, shelves, wall mounts, mirror frames, wall accents, window displays… you get the picture. In addition to the many portraits of Thomas that adorn the walls, a plaque commemorating his last visit to the White Horse Tavern hangs above the bar. Not too far away from that sign, the discerning visitor will spot the ostensibly subtle urn affixed to the wall which the staff will jokingly identify as Thomas’s. The tavern even goes so far as to serve his purported last meal in the back room each year on November 9^th, the anniversary of his death.

If you find yourself at the corner of Hudson and West 11^th streets, the White Horse Tavern is worth the visit, if just for the atmosphere and historic architecture.  And while I cannot definitively say whether or not this bar is haunted, being that I lack any and all training in the field of paranormal investigation, I can say that the White Horse Tavern is a long-standing love letter to the legacy of Thomas to whom they owe their continued success and with such a welcoming audience, how could Thomas turn down the occasional pint?

One of the many portraits of Thomas scattered throughout the tavern.

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