The Occult Section

This week’s photo is of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Built by Freelan Oscar Stanley of Stanley Steamer fame, the hotel opened its doors on July 4, 1909, and was host to a number of high-profile guests including the RMS Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, John Philip Sousa, Theodore Roosevelt, the Emperor and Empress of Japan, and a variety of Hollywood personalities. But the Stanley Hotel is probably best-known for being the inspiration for “The Shining” by Stephen King. King stayed in room 217 just before the hotel was shut down for the season, and had heard tales of the hotel being haunted. King’s book definitely fueled the ghostly tales at the Stanley. Eventually, paranormal TV shows investigated the location, including Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures, which only boosted the legends in the eyes of the public.

To this day, the hotel offers haunted tours and other paranormal events for guests interested in the supernatural. In 2010, our own Laura Pennace visited the hotel to see what she could find. Unfortunately, the only paranormal activity she witnessed during her stay was completely faked by tour guides and employees of the hotel. This is not to say the hotel isn’t haunted, but be very wary any time you pay money to a location where their main source of revenue comes from their haunted reputation.

All photos in our Photo of the Week feature are taken by New York Paranormal Society team member Laura Pennace, who is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings, as well as engagement and proposal shoots. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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This week’s photo, like last week’s photo, comes from Snug Harbor on Staten Island, New York. Rumored to be the most haunted building on the grounds of Snug Harbor, it even attracted the team from TAPS as they filmed their Ghost Hunters episode “Murdered Matron” at Snug harbor, and the episode got its name from this building.

The Matron’s House (or Matron’s Cottage, as it is also called) sits on the grounds of Sailor’s Snug Harbor, located on the North Shore of Staten Island, NY. Founded in 1801 by Captain Robert Randall, it was built as an institution to care for “aged, decrepit and worn-out” seamen. It opened in 1833 and was the first home for retired merchant seamen in the history of the United States. The Matron’s Cottage was where the female staff for Snug Harbor lived. These women did the laundry, cooked meals and provided other day to day services for the men who lived at Snug Harbor. The woman in charge of these female staff members was called the Matron, hence the name of the cottage today.

Rumor has it that the Matron ran a very strict household for her female staff members, and would not tolerate any fraternizing between the women she supervised and the sailors. But, legend has it, she broke her own rule and had an affair with a man living on the grounds, possibly in what is now known as Cottage B, and had an illegitimate son. This being the late 1800s, she needed to keep this secret, and supposedly kept her son in the basement, in chains, until he was 13. At some point when he was 13, he supposedly escaped and killed her, and tried to hide in the woods behind Snug Harbor. He was found by members of the Snug Harbor community and reportedly hanged on a tree behind the Matron’s House (the tree was recently removed due to storm damage).

Rangers and employees of Snug Harbor have reported many unusual things in this house, from doors constantly unlocking by themselves, to objects in the building moving from where they were last placed, and even chains rattling in the basement.

This photo shows our team, the New York Paranormal Society, investigating the first floor of the Matron’s House back in 2010, and the grounds of Snug harbor can be seen through the window. We captured some interesting evidence, footsteps on the stairs, and you can see the video here.

All photos in our Photo of the Week feature are taken by New York Paranormal Society team member Laura Pennace, who is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings, as well as engagement and proposal shoots. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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Most of our photos of the week are exterior shots, but this one was taken inside one of the most active places we’ve ever investigated: The Governor’s House, located on the grounds of Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island, New York. Founded in 1801 by Captain Robert Randall, Snug Harbor was built as an institution to care for “aged, decrepit and worn-out” seamen. It opened in 1833 and was the first home for retired merchant seamen in the history of the United States. Snug Harbor was treated as a self-contained community and was overseen by a governor. Captain Thomas Melville, a retired sea captain and brother of Moby-Dick author Herman Melville, was governor of Snug Harbor from 1867 to 1884. The facility officially closed as a home for sailors in the 1960s and it was declared a landmark in 1965, opening to the public 10 years later. It is estimated that thousands of sailors died on the grounds of Snug Harbor in its over 130 year history.

The Governor’s House as we know it today is not where the actual governors lived, however. The actual home for the governors was torn down years ago, and what is known today as the Governor’s House was believed to be where a member of the governor’s staff lived, most likely his treasurer. Rumors of a “woman in white” haunting the Governor’s House and the surrounding grounds have persisted for years. The building was even featured on the Season 7 episode of Ghost Hunters, called “Murdered Matron,” where Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson investigated with guest investigator Meredith Vieira in 2011. They also investigated the Matron’s House, which is also on the grounds and a place we’ve investigated a number of times.

The first time we investigated the Governor’s House was in late November of 2009. We had all heard stories about the house, but we never expected to experience what we did. Shadow figures, EVPs, weird EMF and K2 spikes (something we have rarely gotten), and an overwhelming sense of unease throughout the investigation made our very skeptical group rethink things. The night was cold, the grounds were deserted, and the four of us investigated the house until the wee hours of the morning. Even photos of us looked creepy, as evidenced in this week’s photo.

Laura Pennace is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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This week’s photo is of the Southern Mansion, in Cape May, New Jersey. Built in 1863 by Philadelphia industrialist George Allen, the house today is reported to be haunted by Allen’s last relative to live in the mansion, Ester Mercur. The house stood in disrepair until 1994, when the Bray/Wildes bought it and restored it to its current state. The apparition of Ester Mercur is still reportedly seen in the home, mainly in the kitchen area, and people report smelling her perfume and hearing her laughing. The mansion has of course been featured on a variety of paranormal television shows like Ghost Hunters and Most Haunted. This photo was taken by our own Laura Pennace of Pennace Photography back in 2010, when we went down to have our own guided tour of Cape May’s haunted hot spots by our resident expert on Cape May, Shannon Baker.

You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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I was in the midst of looking up ridiculous photos for the story I covered yesterday on the couple who is suing their landlord over their belief that he rented them a haunted house when I came across a startling discovery. It was a roughly drawn picture of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, running away from something. As a sidenote, we clearly take ourselves and our research very seriously here..

“Who is this reminding me of?” I wondered. I almost kept going through photos, but I was too curious to let this one go. So I stared and stared at it.

Dude. Run.

And then it hit me.

Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and Grant Wilson from TAPS/Ghost Hunters are the same person.

Simply uncanny.

Don’t believe me? No worries. I’ve taken the liberty of changing Shaggy’s hair color to match Grant’s to more effectively expose the shenanigans that have been going on for decades. I think we can all clearly see this is the same person.

It’s undeniable. And he thought he’d get away with it…

What’s that? You want even more hilarious picture combinations that prove Grant Wilson and Shaggy Rogers (who, like Grant, is also from New England) are one in the same? The kind of combinations that start off logically (as logically as a post like this could be) and then gradually devolve as I try desperately to prove my point with completely unrelated things (they were all in jail! and have sat at tables in groups!)? You got it.

If this isn’t definitive evidence, I don’t know what is.

Technorati Tags: ghost hunters, grant wilson, humor, mystery machine, paranormal, paranormal activity, people, scooby-doo, shaggy, shaggy rogers, taps, thoughts, zoinks