Paul Kimball & Holly Stevens

The Case of the Baby in the Basement

2010-12-13T19:36:00.000-04:00

My favourite episode of Ghost Cases.

Paul Kimball

Earthlights

2010-08-31T10:19:00.001-03:00

When Holly Stevens and I were in the United Kingdom in May, 2009, filming four episodes of Ghost Cases, we had the opportunity to work with Steve Mera, Dave Sadler and the rest of the team from the Unknown Phenomena Investigation Association, aka the UPIA. The UPIA investigators employ a skeptical and rationalist approach to the paranormal, but they also keep an open mind about the possibility that our current science might not be able to explain everything about our world. In short, they are looking for answers, not confirmation of an existing belief system. It was a distinct pleasure working with them.

In the two videos below are some outtakes from footage shot for an episode that looked into stories of paranormal activity at the Bridestones, a neolithic burial chamber located outside of Congleton, England (the UPIA website has some great photos here). In the first of these clips, Dave recounts some of the allegedly paranormal activity that has been reported at the Bridestones, including a man who reported "missing time"; in the second, Steve and I wandered out into an adjacent field to discuss the phenomenon known as "earthlights", a possible explanation for many allegedly "paranormal" incidents, from centuries-old tales of fairies and will 'o' the wisps, to modern stories of UFOs. You'll notice the time code at the bottom of the footage, which also gives you an inside look at how material like this is edited together for television.

The earthlights theory is largely attributable to Paul Devereaux - you can read more about it at his site. He writes:

First may I say that I think most UFO reports are the product of (i)misperception of mundane aerial objects whether manmade or astronomical; (ii) mirage effects; (iii) hoax; (iv) psychosocial effects ranging from mental aberration to temporary personal stress conditions affecting a witness’s perception or interpretation of a perception; (v) the occurrence (unawares) in the witness of trance conditions, such as when awaking from or falling into sleep, or when driving, especially at night. Of all these, I’d suggest simple misperception is by far the greatest cause, though I suspect the trance explanation is involved more than we might suppose, especially in the case of reported alien abductions. Having said all that -- as a result of my own experience as well as my own research -- I ALSO think there is a small rump or residue of sighting reports that DO actually relate to genuinely unexplained phenomena. In my opinion, a percentage of this small rump of sightings relates to geophysical or meteorological phenomena that I have termed ‘earth lights’.

For more information on "spooklights" and related phenomena, check out this very good article by Dr. David Clarke. He writes:

Methane exiting from the surface of the marsh would be expected to burn, if ignited, as a flickering, fixed flame, but would hardly move through the air or against a prevailing wind. The marsh gas explanation for spooklights has been superseded by others, some fanciful and others plausible. Popular at the moment is the ‘earthlights’ theory which is a convincing connection between lights and the faulted geology of the regions in which they appear. Although no clear production mechanism has yet been discovered which scientists are entirely happy with, the theory suggests the lights are the product of a build up of electrical charge in areas of geological stress. Rather than being directly caused by earthquakes or tremors, the lights are symptoms of the earth’s internal traumas, springing into life as electrons are slowly released into the air and possibly through the water table as strain waxes and wanes in zones of geological faulting.

You can also find a brief synopsis by the UPIA here.

Paul Kimball

Holly Stevens and Ghost Cases on A & E Biography

2010-07-22T16:35:00.007-03:00

Episode 7, part 4 of the A & E Biography series My Ghost Story, about the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrew's, New Brunswick, features Holly and footage from the second episode of Ghost Cases. You can view the segment here.

I wish the producers had spent more time placing the incident in context, but that's American television for you - a lot of flash, and a lot of quick edits and special effects, sometimes at the expense of the story itself. Still, the segment is well done, Holly did a great job, and the footage remains compelling.

To get the fuller and much more interesting story, watch the original Ghost Cases episode on Eastlink TV, or check out my Paracast interview segment at The Other Side of Truth podcast, where I discuss the case (listen to it here).

Paul Kimball

Mully & Sculder on The Paracast, 19 April 2009

2010-07-13T03:28:00.002-03:00

Here are a couple of excerpts from an appearance that my Ghost Cases co-host Holly Stevens and I made on the Paracast on 19 April, 2009. At the time of this show, we were in the middle of filming the Ghost Cases series, and had already had some very weird experiences, two of which we recount in this clip. The rest of the show can be heard in its entirety at The Paracast.

Paul Kimball

The Algonquin Hotel ghost case

2010-07-12T02:45:00.001-03:00

In this short excerpt from the July 11, 2010 episode of the Paracast, which was our first show on GCN, I discussed perhaps the strangest and most compelling incident from the 13 episode of Ghost Cases - the Algonquin Hotel case from St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick.

To hear the entire episode, which also featured host Gene Steinberg and my fellow co-hosts Greg Bishop, Nick Redfern and Chris O’Brien, check out the Paracast.

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball on Dark Matters Radio, 29 June 2010

2010-07-02T06:44:00.003-03:00

A couple of days ago, on Tuesday, June 29, 2010, I returned for a 2 hour appearance on Dark Matters Radio, hosted by the one and only Don Ecker. Don and I covered a lot of ground, and in this episode of The Other Side of Truth I’ve excerpted the two parts that I found the most interesting. In the first, I discuss why I think the discovery of who we are as indivduals is the really important journey to be had in paranormal research. In the second, Don asks me to describe one of the strangest experiences Holly Stevens and I had while filming Ghost Cases in 2009.

To hear the entire episode, and all of the other great episodes Don has done since his return earlier this year to live radio, check out the Dark Matters Radio archives.

Paul Kimball

Ghost Cases - conclusions

2010-04-24T07:47:00.001-03:00

Ghost Cases wrapped up a few months ago, and I won't be doing another season (moving on to new projects). That doesn't mean that I won't continue to investigate reports of hauntings as the opportunity presents itself - it just means that I won't be doing it on television.

So, what conclusions have I come to after a season of "hunting" ghosts at thirteen supposedly haunted locations ?

First, I'm firmly convinced that after careful investigation the vast majority of ghost stories can be explained without reference to anything paranormal. Coincidences, tricks of light, fear, environmental stimuli – all can play a part in creating the appearance of something otherworldly.

There is also an element of wish fulfilment – for a variety of reasons, many people want to believe in the paranormal, including ghosts, and as a result they often find what they are looking for, usually by interpreting information to fit their own pre-conceived conclusions.

However, as with most things allegedly paranormal, there are some cases which seem to defy easy explanation. As I see it, there are two possible explanations for this.

The first is that the investigation may have been flawed, or incomplete, so that a non-paranormal answer is available, but just hasn’t been found yet.

The second is that there really is something paranormal happening.

Now, whether that means it’s the dead speaking to us from beyond the grave, or whether it perhaps represents some sort of natural phenomenon that our science doesn’t have the vocabulary to explain yet, I don’t know.

But we should always be conscious of the fact that there are a great many things about our universe, and ourselves, that we haven’t even begun to understand yet. To close ourselves off to the possibility that there might be more to heaven and earth than our current science can explain would be foolish, and… unscientific.

In other words, my conclusion about ghosts coming out of Ghost Cases is the same as it was going in, and can best be summed up by the motto I apply to all things, whether normal or paranormal:

Don’t believe.

Don’t disbelieve.

Think.

Paul Kimball

The Case of the Haunted Cell

2010-04-24T07:20:00.000-03:00

Ghost cases that rely on single witness testimony are a dime a dozen. Without corroboration of some sort, as any good lawyer will tell you, it’s hard to prove that something anomalous might have happened. At the old jail in St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick, in February, 2009, Holly and I had the kind of encounter that every ghost investigator is looking for, where you have more than one witness both experiencing something at the same time, and that experience is backed up by independent “hard” data.

Sergeant Tom Hutchings was a 21 year old Royal Air Force armourer who was convicted and hanged for the brutal rape and murder of a local girl, Bernice Connors, who was just 19 years old, while he was stationed near St. Andrew’s in the Second World War. Hutchings, who was the last person hanged in Charlotte County, spent his final days in a small, dark, cold cell in the jail, within earshot of where his executioners constructed the gallows.

By all accounts, Hutchings was a model prisoner in his final days, passing the time quietly. He made his way to the gallows without a struggle, and had nothing to say by way of a final statement. Unfortunately for him, however, the gallows had not been built correctly. Instead of the quick death that he might have been expecting, it took Hutchings eighteen minutes to be pronounced dead, a hard way to go, even for someone who deserved it. Ever since, people had reported strange occurrences in the jail, and in his cell in particular, which led to speculation that the gruesome nature of his death had somehow trapped Hucthings’ soul in this spot, destined to haunt it for all eternity.

Given the circumstances, it seemed to me that his old jail cell would be an obvious spot to try and make contact with Hutchings, although in hindsight I have to wonder what I was thinking. Making contact with benign spirits is one thing, but should a person really be trying to meet the spirit of an executed murderer who might still hold a grudge?

Just for good measure, and on the theory of “in for a penny, in for a pound,” I came up with the bright idea of trying to antagonizing the spirit of Tom Hutchings by bringing along a noose on display at the jail as a trigger item. For a laugh, as much to amuse Holly as anything else, I placed the noose around my neck as we were locked in the dark cell by the crew. Holly and I sat next to each other on the remains of Hutchings’ old bunk, with an EMF meter beside Holly, but out of my sight, and we waited to see what would happen.

After almost thirty minutes Holly and I had not experienced anything other than the winter cold and some pleasant conversation. It was at this point that I decided to turn off the low-level camera light we had set up in one corner of the cramped cell. I thought that perhaps this would encourage Hutchings to come out and say hello. I took the noose off of my neck, and plunged us into almost total darkness, with only the barest, almost imperceptible hint of moonlight coming through the slit of a window in the wall of the cell. Little did I realize what I was getting Holly and I into.

Within minutes, something happened. I felt Holly shudder beside me, and then she exclaimed, “oh f-ck.” Now, Holly is about as level-headed as they come, and doesn’t frighten easily, so for her to utter a profanity out of the blue was an indication of just how shaken she had been by what she had just seen – a feeling of something moving in front of us. My response to her was, “that’s weird,” by which she thought I was responding to what she had experienced, but I wasn’t. Instead, while she was sensing something in front of us, I had felt a tightness wrap around my throat. I turned to Holly and said, “I was sitting here and all of a sudden I felt this cold go around my throat, like colder than the cold, the freezing bitter cold that it is in here anyway. I haven’t felt that since I was in here, and it went right around my throat.”

Holly and I had both experienced something at the same time. That was interesting enough, and a step beyond a single witness account in terms of reliability. What made it even creepier, however, was the fact, unknown to me until she told me, that Holly had glanced at the EMF meter at her side as soon as she sensed the “presence” in front of us, and it was spiking above the baseline readings that she had taken when she first entered the cell.

A presence in front of us, at the same time as I felt a deathly cold wrap around my throat, at the same time as the EMF meter spiked well beyond baseline readings. We were both pretty spooked, but we decided to stick it out in the cell a bit longer to see if anything else would happen, although we weren’t quite courageous enough to do so in continued darkness, as I turned our camera light back on.

And then, just a couple of minutes later, it happened again. Holly looked down at her EMF meter and said, “It’s up again… it’s up again…it’s up….and it’s gone.” She hadn’t noticed what I had been doing, but the camera definitely picked it up. I turned to her and said, “I cannot see the EMF thing. There will be camera confirmation on that, that just before you said that look where my head went, back down, I felt the same…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, because I was so shaken – it had been the same sensation of deathly cold wrapping around my neck.

Holly knew exactly what I meant. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Yup,” I replied. “I went, the camera will confirm, before you said it, I went like this…” at which point I recreated my head pushing down into my chest so that my neck would not be exposed. I kept my neck there as I said, “I don’t actually want to expose my neck at the moment.” Holly was genuinely concerned. “I don’t think I’ve seen you like this before, Paul,” she said. All that I could say was, “Yeah, well I have this thing about strangling and necks throats and stuff. Maybe in another life I was hanged. The noose was funny, because the noose was no threat, but this - who knows?”

We were both scared, and we called out to the camera crew that we wanted out of the cell. They obliged, and we made our way out of the cell block and back to the offices in the building as fast as we could. It wasn’t any warmer there, but it sure felt a lot safer. As we recounted what had happened inside the cell, one of our witnesses, Elaine Brough, who works as a guide on tours of the jail, told us that what we had experienced was pretty much exactly what other people had reported happening to them when they went into the cell. She hadn’t mentioned this to us before we went in, because she wanted to see if we would have the same experience without knowing what to expect. The only thing that I could think of to say to her was “mission accomplished.”

Holly and I would often talk, sometimes seriously and sometimes for a laugh, about how when the season was done we would hop on a plane, fly down to Peru, journey up into the rainforest to a village where a shaman would conduct a traditional native cleansing ritual, so that we could clear ourselves of any residual “bad energy” that might have attached itself to us. If there was any one case that brought us closest to booking those tickets, it was the old jail in St. Andrews, where neither of us could shake the uncomfortable feeling that we may have run across the spirit of a very, very bad man. For our sakes, I hope Tom Hutchings is still in that cell, still suffering for the horrible crime he committed forty-five years ago.

Paul Kimball

The Case of the Baby in the Basement

2010-04-23T10:56:00.003-03:00

In Quinan, Nova Scotia, a cluster of a few houses about a half an hours drive from the town of Yarmouth on the Province’s far western tip, was a small farmhouse owned by Darlene McCall for 33 years. Unexplained occurrences had been happening for decades, but when McCall’s daughter, Shelley Paddock, moved in with her in September, 2008, they became even more intense and frequent. The activity manifested itself throughout the house and surrounding property, but three areas in particular seemed to be the most active.

The first was the basement, where Paddock and McCall described being pushed by an unseen force as they walked down the stairs, and experiencing cold once in the room itself. The second area was McCall’s spare room on the second floor. She claimed that she would hear footsteps on the stairs leading to the room, and that when she entered the room she felt a malevolent presence. Finally, there was the field behind the house. Both McCall and Paddock described the sensation of someone watching them when they would be out there, and Paddock told us that “whatever it is, I won’t come out here at night. I won’t stay out here. I don’t want to be out here. It’s not nice.”

No matter how many technological bells and whistles that you employ when you are investigating an allegedly haunted location, from digital video recorders to thermal cameras, in the end I really believe that it all comes down to whether or not you have a personal experience, because that’s what we’re all really looking for. Sometimes, however, that personal experience turns out to be more than you bargained for,. At McCall’s farm, that’s exactly what happened to me when Holly Stevens and I went to investigate the haunting in February, 2009.

On the surface, the investigation had begun in the same way that it always does – Holly and I arrived with the camera crew, met with the owner of the location, got the back-story on what was supposedly going on, and then set up our gear and prepared to film. But at McCall’s farm, something was a bit different from the beginning, and both Holly and I sensed it.

For one thing, the owners, Darlene McCall and Shelley Paddock, were genuinely afraid, which is something we hadn’t really encountered on previous investigations. As McCall described the basement to us, she was visibly shaking. “The basement is pure scary,” she said. “You get the feeling when you walk into my cellar that somebody is there to grab you. Not only the feeling of coldness but just pure fear. Something down there and he’s gonna get me.” When you see that kind of fear in someone else’s eyes, or behaviour, it can definitely have an effect on you as well.

Further, there was a real sense of isolation at the farm. The house is literally at the end of the road, out in the middle of nowhere, like something out of one of those horror films where people ask for directions at a gas station miles away, only to take a wrong turn and head down the one road to the one house that no-one should ever visit. It’s one thing to investigate a building like a hotel, where there are other people just a minute or two away; it’s another to spend a night in a supposedly haunted house miles away from anyone who might be able to help if you get in trouble. That plays on the mind, particularly when the owners of the property describe whatever it is that’s going on as “evil.”

As Paddock said, “I get the feeling that something wants to get me, to harm me and mine and I don’t know how to protect me or others from it.” Presumably, whatever wanted to do them harm would be just as eager to have a go at Holly and I.

Given that the basement was a key nexus of reported paranormal activity, I decided that I would spend time down there alone while Holly and psychic Kelly Muise, who was along for the ride that evening, were upstairs in the kitchen conducting a sort of séance to try and contact whatever spirits were in the house.

Now, while I have never ruled out the possibility that some psychic phenomena might be real, I have never been a proponent of using a psychic in one of our investigations. Dale prevailed on me to make an exception at McCall’s farm, however, so I did. The results wound up challenging all of my preconceived notions about both psychics and ghosts.

As I sat on the stairs in the frigid cold basement, with the door tightly wedged shut behind me, I could hear the proceedings upstairs in the kitchen through the floorboards. No matter what I thought of using psychics, I was struck by the fact that at least it was a shared experience between Kelly and Holly (and our camera crew), while I was stuck in the basement alone. That definitely ratcheted up the creepy factor. I couldn’t help but think that if there was a malevolent presence in the house, it would probably go for me first, as opposed to the group upstairs, because that’s what I figured I would do if I was a ghost with bad intentions. As a result, I felt like a lone wildebeest, cut off from the herd by a group of hungry lions.

About thirty minutes after I began my watch in the basement, I heard Kelly and Holly start to talk about a “murdered baby” being in the basement. They were both encouraging the spirit to make contact with me, and show me where the baby was buried. This was a development that I was not exactly in favour of – indeed, the digital video camera which I had set up to record whatever happened caught me responding to Kelly and Holly, saying repeatedly, “I don’t want to meet the baby,” and “don’t come show me where the baby is.”

And then it happened. Just after another exhortation from Kelly and Holly for the ghost to pop by and pay me a visit, the door opened behind me. As a skeptic, my immediate reaction was that it had been the wind, but I could hear when the wind was blowing, as it had been earlier (without moving the door, I should add), and it hadn’t been blowing this time. Further, the door didn’t open easily, as it wasn’t a perfect fit for the frame and got caught along the ground as it opened. Not the kind of door, in other words, that was easily pushed open by a simple breeze.

I immediately went outside to investigate – my first thought was that one of our crewmembers was playing a practical joke on me – but there was nobody out there. No wind, no people, just the still of the night, and McCall’s dog, lying next to its house twenty feet away from the basement.

That was it for me. I was genuinely scared, and had no intention of going back down into the basement. Despite the fact that it was well below freezing outside, I waited for another forty minutes until Kelly and Holly had finished their séance before I went inside. I told everyone what had happened, and I’m not sure they believed me, at least until we went downstairs, retrieved the camera, and played the tape back. Sure enough, there was the door, opening behind me, at the same time as Kelly and Holly had been telling the spirit to go to me in the basement. We were all a bit shaken, although I could see McCall and Paddock nodding their heads, as if to say, “we told you so.”

Stranger still is the fact that when we reviewed the data from my audio recorder, which I had with me in the basement, we heard what sounded like a baby crying at the same time as the séance was going on and the door opened!

The next day we all headed out into the back field, where the house had originally stood, to conduct what Kelly called a spiritual cleansing. Normally I would have been in a joking mood, because I’m very dubious about things like this, but given what had happened the night before I kept my mouth shut and simply observed the proceedings. Perhaps it was by chance, but as Kelly was spreading holy water over the area, some of it landed on me. I still wasn’t sure if I had encountered an evil spirit in the basement the night before, but I have to admit it crossed my mind that maybe a little holy water wasn’t a bad thing.

It would be easy to chalk this all up to coincidence. After all, that’s the simplest explanation, and as a result probably the easiest one for people to deal with. The problem with simple explanations, however, is that they’re not always the best explanations. With McCall’s farm, and the baby in the basement, I can’t help but think that this is one time and place where something extraordinary might really have happened, and where the explanation that makes the most sense is the one that challenges everything I thought I knew about our world.

Which is exactly why I seek out these experiences in the first place.

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball - ghost investigation at the Waverley Inn

2010-04-16T08:10:00.000-03:00

From my new podcast The Other Side of Truth:

Ever wonder what goes on during a ghost investigation? Well, for me, it always involves, among other things, trying to make contact with the spirits (should they exist, a point on which I am definitely a sceptical agnostic) through whatever means necessary. In one of the episodes we filmed for the Eastlink TV series Ghosts Cases which I co-hosted in 2009, Holly Stevens and I investigated an old hotel in Halifax, N.S. that is supposedly haunted by the ghost of two spinsters who once owned the place, as well as the ghost of Oscar Wilde, who stayed there whilst on a reading tour of Canada. At the end of the evening, Holly set herself up in one of two bedrooms where allegedly paranormal activity had taken place, and I set myself up in another - a room with an old painting on the wall of three rather attractive young women playing music, which had fallen a couple of times with no explanation. What you will hear in this episode are excerpts from my investigation of that room, culminating in what had to be one of the most unique tactics I had cooked up in the entire 13 episode run to make contact!

Happy birthday to Sculder

2010-04-07T00:15:00.000-03:00

From Mully...

Ghost Cases trailer

2010-01-25T12:36:00.001-04:00

The trailer for Ghost Cases, the television series I co-hosted / directed / wrote / produced last year.

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball on Coast to Coast with Ian Punnett - Oct. 31, 2010

2010-01-21T12:35:00.001-04:00

Last year I was lucky enough to be one of the guests on Coast to Coast AM's "ghost to ghost" Halloween special, which was cool. I like the cut of Ian Punnett's proverbial jib as host, and it was fun to chat about ghosts and Ghost Cases with him, and to hear some of the stories from the listeners.

Paul Kimball

Part I:

Part II:

Ghost Cases - draft trailer #1

2009-11-26T04:09:00.001-04:00

I'm currently working on the draft trailer for our television series Ghost Cases, which appears on Eastlink TV in Canada, and I couldn't resist the temptation to take the rough draft and add some funny Halloween-type music.

Paul Kimball

Ghost Cases - episode 3

2009-11-01T11:31:00.002-04:00

Episode 3 airs Sunday evening, 8 pm AST on Eastlink TV. Holly and I explore the ghost stories of the Fairmont Algonquin hotel in St. Andrews, NB, and gather some of the most amazing video evidence you'll ever see. Don't miss this one!

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball on Coast to Coast AM

2009-10-31T19:41:00.002-03:00

I'll be on Coast to Coast AM this evening, as part of the annual "Ghost to Ghost" extravaganza. Find an affiliate and listen in.

Paul Kimball

Ghost Cases - Episode 1 excerpt

2009-10-20T04:06:00.001-03:00

An excerpt from the first episode, about the old jail and courthouse in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. It aired on Eastlink TV on October 18, 2009.

Paul Kimball

Department 47 reviews Ghost Cases

2009-10-20T04:01:00.006-03:00

A review of Ghost Cases, from an advance screener I sent to Joe Harvat at Department 47.

Paul was good enough to forward me an advance copy of Episode Two of Ghost Cases. I had the chance to watch it Friday night and I have to tell you I really enjoyed it.

Ghost Cases takes a little different approach from what you might be used to on Ghost Hunters. In this particular episode, Paul and Holly visited a rural farm house in which seemingly paranormal activity was making life pretty uncomfortable for its living occupants. I felt Paul and Holly took the time to tell you a little more about what these people were experiencing and how it affected their lives. Like in most UFO cases, the only concrete thing we usually have is the witnesses, and understanding them may give us our best clue to understanding the phenomenon. You also get to know a bit more about the hunters too. You understand that Paul and Holly are just normal people with normal fears and foibles who just happened to be engaged in an unusual activity.

Ghost Cases is not so technology-centric as Ghost Hunters. For example, they are assisted by a psychic in this case - something I believe that Ghost Hunters used to do but abandoned for a more science-based approach. I would certainly like to see a follow-up to the case to see whether the psychic's efforts had any real or lasting effect on the manifestations there.

As a former TV guy, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the production values and videography were quite good - at some points rather artistic. They kept a few miscues in it (people sometimes at a momentary loss for words and such). I liked that. It gave it more of a sense of reality - in stressful situations, sometimes you do struggle for words.

I hope they pick up the show down here. I think it would be a thoughtful counter-point to some of the overwrought shows we get in the States.

Thanks Joe - glad you like it!

Paul Kimball

Ghost Cases - commercial teaser #1

2009-10-07T17:49:00.001-03:00

The first commercial teaser for Ghost Cases, which premieres on Eastlink TV on October 18th, 8 pm.

Paul Kimball

Ghost Cases - opening title sequence

2009-10-02T05:26:00.000-03:00

Tune into Eastlink TV on October 18, 2009, at 8 pm to see the premiere episode!

Paul Kimball

Ghost Cases at the 29th Atlantic Film Festival

2009-09-18T16:49:00.001-03:00

Holly and I interviewed last night, on the red carpet at the 2009 Atlantic Film Festival opening gala at the Halifax Metro Centre, about the upcoming television series Ghost Cases, which will begin airing on October 18, 2009 on Eastlink TV in Canada, and which has international distribution through Breakthrough Entertainment.

The clip from Ghost Cases that they aired was from a rough cut of the first episode, as the series is still in post-production.

Paul Kimball

Quinan, Nova Scotia

2009-08-08T13:49:00.013-03:00

In one of the strangest episodes of Ghost Cases, which we're editing right now, I found myself alone in the basement of an allegedly haunted farmhouse late at night, camera rolling, waiting for something to happen.

Holly and the rest of the gang were upstairs, in the kitchen, conducting what amounted to a seance.

As I review the footage, most of which consists of me talking to myself, at least until it happens (and to find out what it was, you'll have to wait until the broadcast), here are a couple of moments.

"I'm uncomfortable. This is not a comfortable experience. I don't have any funny, Paul Kimball wisecracks. This is uncomfortable. Assume for a moment that maybe there are spirits here, or whatever - upstairs, even if you do, you have that cameraderie, safety in numbers. There's something inherently completely idiotic about doing it on your own. There are places and times when I don't like being alone, and I have to admit, this is one of them. This was a completely stupid idea on my part. And yet, its like my friend Peter, who jumps out of airplanes for no good reason - he parachutes, which I would never do - but sometimes I think you just have to try it out, confront your fears, and hope that the chute pops, so... (nervous pause as I look around) - I hope the chute pops."

Then...

"As a kid, I used to sleep with the door open to my room, I couldn't sleep with the door closed. I used to go out of the room and go across the hallway, and stand outside my brother's room in the hallway. He'd keep his door mostly open too - sometimes I'd even go in his room and sleep on the floor. I didn't like being alone. It makes you wonder - as a kid, do you see things, and then as you get older, you sort of become more in tune with this world and less in tune with whatever other worlds there might be, or maybe it's just that your imagination is more active as a kid, or maybe it's both. I think maybe it's both. I feel like that kid right now, and I wish my brother's room was right over there, and I'd go stand out in front of it."

Scariest night I've ever had... coming to Eastlink TV this October.

Paul Kimball

Kimball & Stevens on The Paracast

2009-04-08T07:50:00.005-03:00

Holly and I will be appearing on The Paracast with Gene Steinberg and David Biedny on April 19th. We taped the 2-hour program last week - it's going to be a lot of fun! A discussion thread is already underway at the excellent Paracast Forums, which are always well worth a look.

In the meantime, I would heartily recommend recent shows that Gene and David have done with Robert Hastings and some former USAF personnel (including Bob Salas) about UFO incidents at nuclear missile facilities, and Dr. Richard Haines from NARCAP. Top-notch stuff.

Is Sculder an alien?? (gasp!)

2009-04-08T07:47:00.002-03:00

Speaking of Ouija boards...

2009-04-07T09:27:00.005-03:00

Speaking of ouija boards, my good friend Nick Redfern has a story about a ouija board experience and Bigfoot!

Excerpts:

As Laura admitted to me, none of them were seriously frightened by the board or the possible implications of what might transpire – in fact, they had no real idea at all how to even use the board, apart from “what we had seen in horror movies,” added Laura. But, like teenagers everywhere, they found the idea of “playing with the Ouija Board while my mom and dad were out” to be great fun and immensely exciting. However, what initially started out as nothing more than a bit of late-night joking around quickly changed into something far darker and much more disturbing...

Laura put out her hand to turn on the lamp that sat on a small bedside table, when she was horrified and panic-stricken by the sight of a silhouetted, large, black, hairy figure that was partially eclipsed by the shadows in the darkened room. Laura said the creature was “hunched over and had huge, long arms and big, white eyes.”

The full article can be found here.

Paul Kimball

Happy Birthday to Sculder!

2009-04-07T08:39:00.002-03:00

Tongue in cheek (we're both Smiths fans)...

Happy birthday to may partner-in-crime, Sculder!

Paul Kimball

Suitable for Framing, Vol. II

2009-04-06T10:52:00.003-03:00

Yours truly at Whaley House, San Diego, California - reputedly one of the most haunted places in the United States:

Holly at Whaley House:

Oujia, Oujia

2009-04-06T10:15:00.005-03:00

Should people investigating reported ghostly phenomena and hauntings make use of a ouija board as part of their efforts to determine what is going on?

Holly and I used a ouija board in one of our investigations. Nothing happened (so far as we know). But I've had friends who have had very odd, and scary, experiences with ouija boards, and as a result, whatever my personal experiences, I don't rule out the possibility that ouija boards might work, although not necessarily in the way that we might think.

I don't think the board itself, usually made by a mass-market toy manufacturer, is the key. Having talked to a number of psychics, they all say that the board is just the "key" that opens a "doorway" to... somewhere else. The problem comes with what might be coming through that doorway. One psychic put it to me like this - by using a ouija board, you are essentially leaving the front-door to your spiritual house unlocked. Now, if you think about your real house, most people lock the door, for good reason. Good people and friends are going to knock and wait for you to let them in; the kind of people who will be most likely to come into your house through an unlocked door are probably the very people you would want to lock your door to keep out.

In short, the psychics I've talked to all warn against using a ouija board, because you may be calling out for a particular ghost or spirit, but what you're likely to get is something else - something that pretends to be the person you're looking for, but who may well mean you harm.

This is born out by the personal experiences that have been reported to me by my friends. One of them, who is a lawyer who also holds a masters degree in english literature, and who is one of the most sensible, grounded people I've ever met, had a very frightenting experience when she was in university. She and a group of friends were playing with a ouija board when the "board" began to say some very disturbing things about this woman (who I was dating at that time). What really weirded her out, to the point where she called me at my residence and asked if she could come down to talk, was that her hands were nowhere near the board when these things were being "said", and the things that were communicated through the board were things that no-one else in that room knew except for her. When she got to my place, she was in tears. To this day, she will not even have a ouija board in her house. I have another friend, who also has a law degree as well as two graduate degrees, and is similarly sensible and grounded, who reports similar experiences, and will also no longer go near a ouija board with the proverbial ten-foot pole.

As I said, when Holly and I used the ouija board, nothing happened - perhaps because we were goofing around a bit, and not taking it quite as seriously as we could have. Given the stories told by my friends, maybe that was best! Regardless, I don't think I'll be giving it another go. As they say, better safe than sorry.

Paul Kimball

Has All of This Happened Before?

2009-03-31T12:15:00.004-03:00

I don't believe in reincarnation, or past lives. But I don't disbelieve, either. As with many things paranormal, I remain a healthy agnostic. However, I have a personal experience from years ago that makes me take it more seriously than I take other paranormal subjects.

When I was kid, until about the age of 10 or 11, I used to have recurring experiences where I would feel as if I was falling. It was always the same - I could literally feel the air rush around me, and that feeling in your stomach that comes when you're falling. These experiences wouldn't last long, and they always happened when I was awake - often when I was lying down reading, but not always. Anyway, I've always wondered whether this might have been some "echo" from a past life, where I had experienced a traumatic fall, perhaps even a deadly one.

Perhaps those experiences, if there is indeed such a thing as reincarnation, follow us through into the next life, at least for a while. This might explain why the experience came to me as a child, but eventually faded away and then stopped altogether. Maybe as you grown into the new life you've been given, you slowly lose touch with the old one. But in those early years, the echos remain, at least for a while.

Like I said, I don't believe, because the logical skeptic in me could never base any conclusions on childhood experiences that happened decades ago. But as with politics, where it's always local, so too with the paranomral - it's almost always the personal experience that makes one wonder the most.

Incidentally, I have always had, and continue to have to this day, a fear of heights.

Just sayin'.

Paul Kimball

Ayahuasca - Paranormal Investigator's Ghost Buster?

2009-02-10T23:16:00.005-04:00

There's always a risk you'll get burned when playing with fire, and the idea of a spiritual realm is definitely a metaphorical fire, if not a literal one. Paul and I have joked from the beginning about having to travel to Peru at the end of the series to be "cleansed", but perhaps there is more truth there then I initially realized. I've never doubted the significance the unknown can play on a person's physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, and with that knowledge, I have entered the world of "ghost hunting" with my eyes wide open, so to speak. However, being aware of the unknown doesn't make one any better equipped to deal with it. With the number of completed episodes mounting, and unexplained experiences increasing, I've recently redirected my research back to this idea of "aura cleansing." Just in case.

It seems that virtually every aboriginal culture has a means of cleansing the body of evil spirits and restoring harmony. One of the more controversial (from a "Western" sense), is that of a Peruvian shamanic ritual using a medicinal hallucinogen called ayahuasca. Derived of Banisteriopsis caapi (middle right picture) and Psychotria viridis, this ancient shamanic plant medicine has been used for thousands of years by Amazonian aboriginals to heal the mind, body and spirit, as well as serve as a direct link to other realms. The "tea" often causes a bombardment of drug induced visions over many hours which allows the drinker to confront unresolved psychological and traumatic issues. To the Amazonian aboriginals, ayahuasca allows you to see with your "third eye"; bridging the gap between our world and the spirit realms so that you can literally, get to the root of your problems: demons and other evils. They believe that illness (mental and physical) is caused by the attachment of these entities to our person, feeding off our energy and whispering doubt, fear, and unhappiness.

In an article published in the March 2006 edition of National Geographic: Adventure (link below), writer Kira Salak discusses her own personal experiences with ayahuasca during a shamanic workshop in the Peruvian jungle. During one ceremony, she describes having undergone a "small" exorcism where she was shown a vision of the past. Over a year and a half ago she climbed a supposedly haunted mountain in Libya, despite warnings from the local people. Through these visions, Kira devised that an entity attached itself to her while there. She underwent a violent and painful struggle during the ceremony in which the shaman confirmed with her that an entity was released from her body (top left picture).

While scientifically nothing can be proven, this kind of testimony renews recent concern surrounding paranormal investigator's wellbeing in areas of reputed high paranormal activity and reinforces that caution should always be exercised. I'm certain that anyone who has actually participated in a paranormal investigation would not refute these warnings. But I think it is important to recognize that even when all known safety precautions are executed, there is always the possibility that something can and will slip through. In some ways, I guess these "precautions" are like contraceptives to the paranormal world: more is likely better, but nothing is 100%.

So how can we protect ourselves? In short, I'm not certain we can. Likely, sooner rather than later, we will all be influenced by the energy we subject ourselves to. It is how we choose to deal with these energies that will allow us to succeed or fail. Now, a plant derived hallucinogen discovered thousands of years ago obviously may not be the only way to free oneself physically and spiritually. But, if this particular substance, with supervision, helps break down the walls we erect and allows our own minds to battle the demons we all have within us, paranormal or no, I'm all for it. Physical and psychological healing induced via the unconscious and conscious works of the mind and/or spirit is still healing.

But does ayahuasca really work? Will it rid the body of unwanted negative energies, evil spirits, or what have you? Can it heal physical and psychological ailments? There is scientific evidence to suggest so (at least as far as illness is concerned; the jury is still out on the existence of evil spirits and demons). However, even with positive data, how would one know that a practitioner is not simply experiencing a placebo effect? In this case, what's the difference? The mind is a powerful thing. It can inexplicably heal itself and the body...why not the spirit too? After all, if there are demons and evil spirits, even in the form of negative energies, what part of you would fight them off and keep them at bay? Surely not the purely physical. I think that with more and more people involving themselves in paranormal investigation and exploration, we'll be finding ourselves in increasing need of aura cleansing methods, ayahuasca or otherwise. You can't open that many doors and not expect a few unwanted visitors.

Bottom left picture: Visionary Artwork by Daniel Mirante

National Geographic Adventure: Peru: Hell and Back by Kira Salak

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0603/features/peru.html

Ayahuasca Healing in Peru - Kira Salak

http://www.kirasalak.com/Ayahuasca.html

Ayahuasca Workshops / Retreats and Conferences:

http://www.bluemorphotours.com/

http://www.soga-del-alma.org/conferencesite.html

http://www.ayahuasca-healing.net/ingles.htm

Suitable for Framing, Vol. I

2009-02-01T12:57:00.003-04:00

With our good friend, author / paranormal researcher Greg Bishop in Los Angeles, December 2008.

Paul Kimball

Ghosts & The Holographic Universe

2009-02-01T10:10:00.004-04:00

In a post at his must-read blog UFO Mystic, which he co-writes with Nick Redfern, my good pal Greg Bishop has this to say about the UFO phenomenon:

In Michael Talbot’s seminal book The Holographic Universe, we find a clue to secrets about the UFO problem which mainstream Ufology has ignored. Talbot, looking at the work of physicists like Alain Aspect and David Bohm, posits that reality, the universe, and everything is akin to an infinite hologram, in which all things contain complete information about all other things.

What physicists call the “quantum field,” is also the “collective unconscious” of Jung, where archetypes arise, and where spontaneous and simultaneous events occur, independent of distance. Western occultists are convinced that this realm is where everything we experience (both in waking and dream states) resides, but we are only seeing and sensing a small piece of what it truly “is.” This “dimension” is not bound by time, space or our attempts to understand and more importantly, to explain it. Language traps us in a conceptual web of illusions, at least as far as this symbolic realm is concerned. We may imagine that our reality could be a sort of shadow or epiphenomenon of this holographic dimension, looked at through a mental web of expectations, sensory input, and our illusory flow through time.

I would like to suggest that this is where the intelligence behind the UFO phenomenon “resides.” Perhaps this intelligence is dependent on the observer for its form and appearance. Maybe the ufonauts are implicit in this realm or hologram or idea-space, and need only other sentient intelligences to bring them into being. The interaction becomes the existence. What I am trying to get across here is that at least part of the UFO “problem” may be in our heads. Most of us, through cultural conditioning and input from our senses look at the physical universe as parts or pieces of some sort of infinite “machine.”

Greg has raised the point in a comment at my blog The Other Side of Truth that this same theory may apply to the phenomenon we call "ghosts". In some ways this ties in, as Greg noted, with my idea that ghosts may represent a form of "time travel", or at least a kind of temporal remote viewing.

If ghosts exist - and I am still far from convinced that they do - I suspect that they have far more to do with the kind of phenomenon that Greg is talking about, than the traditional idea that they represent the spirits of the dead. I am also open to the theory of residual hauntings, i.e. that an event has been recorded which at a particular place which plays itself back to people in the present day, so that an "impression" remains, but not of a person's consciousness.

Paul Kimball

Kimball & Stevens on The X-Zone

2009-01-27T01:56:00.005-04:00

A programming note: Holly and I will be on the X-Zone radio program with Rob McConnell Tuesday evening, between 1 and 2 am EST (10 to 11 pm PST, 2 to 3 am AST).

We'll be chatting about some of our ghost investigation adventures, what's coming up in the future, and maybe, just maybe, I'll squeeze in a bit of UFO talk as well.

If you can't catch the broadcast live, then you can listen to it at the X-Zone archives at a later date.

Paul Kimball

The Physics of Time Travel

2009-01-24T06:30:00.005-04:00

Physicist Michio Kaku discusses the possible physics of time travel.

As always with Kaku, interesting stuff.

Paul Kimball

Could Ghosts Be Time Travelers?

2009-01-24T06:15:00.004-04:00

Assume for the moment that ghosts are real, in the sense that they represent an anomalous, paranormal phenomenon (or at least some of them do). As with UFOs, that begs the question: what are they?

Again, as with UFOs, there may well be myriad answers. The one that most people latch onto right off the bat is that ghosts are the spirits of deceased people who remain in touch, somehow, with our plane of existence. The other popular answer that I hear most often is that what we think of as ghosts are, in at least some cases, demons of some sort.

Perhaps. But what if ghosts are something else? Could it be possible that what we see or experience as a ghost represents a break in the continuum of time? In other words, if we view time as not a linear construct, but rather a wave, or even a loop, could we be looking backwards (or perhaps even forwards) in time when we observe a ghost, or similar phenomena? The person we see or experience, assuming that they are from the past, is in all likelihood dead (although if it's the recent past they may well still be alive, in our time), but as we observe them it is as if through a portal, fleeting though it may be, to the past - in short, they are still alive when we are looking at them, at least in their time.

This strikes me as just as plausible an answer for ghosts than the "spirits of the dead" idea (although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive). Religious scholars have always spoken about some manifestation of an "eternal now". Scientists now openly speculate that human-initiated time travel in some form or another might be possible. But what if the "time travel" is occurring naturally, as opposed to the human-created forms we usually dream about?

Maybe, just maybe, when we see a manifestation of someone dressed as if they were in the 1890s, they really are still in the 1890s... even as they are, for a moment in time, also in 2009.

Paul Kimball

Holly and Paul on Radio Misterioso

2009-01-24T01:03:00.005-04:00

You can listen to our interview with Greg Bishop from December, 2008 here. The second part is much better, after some technical kinks were ironed out. We chat mostly about ghosts, but also get into UFOs and other paranormal subjects.

Paul Kimball

Ghost Investigation Field Report #1

2009-01-23T23:49:00.001-04:00

Much of my time these days is spent shooting a ghost investigation television series for a Canadian network. In each episode, I head out with my co-host Holly Stevens, shown above in front of the old Charlotte County Jail, to an allegedly haunted location where we interview first-hand witnesses, get the history of the place, and then investigate the stories ourselves. It's all a great deal of fun, and quite interesting as well... particularly when one comes up with an experience that is difficult to explain.

One such experience happened this past weekend, in St. Andrew's, New Brunswick, at the old jail. Built in 1832, the jail was where people sentenced to death would serve out their time until sentence was carried out, which was done on a gallows right next to the jail. The last person hanged in St. Andrew's was Tom Hutchings, an RAF sergeant convicted of murdering a local girl in 1942 while he was stationed in the area. According to witnesses, Hutchings has never left the jail, and continues to haunt his old cell.

As with all things paranormal, I'm an open-minded skeptic. I don't believe in ghosts, and I start any investigation by looking for logical answers to what people have seen or experienced. However, I'm unable to explain to my own satisfaction what happened to Holly and I this past Saturday evening in the jail.

In each episode, we tape a segment that we call "spooky hour", where Holly and I hang out in a particular spot in a haunted place, with the camera rolling but with the crew sent away, to see if we can experience anything. We have audio recorders and EMF meters with us, as well as the HD camera and a stills camera. In the first five episodes we filmed, there may have been some things caught on audio or that happened which will require further analysis, and Holly felt some things, but nothing happened to me personally.

That changed on Saturday night, as we sat in Hutchings' old cell, with the door locked and the lights off (except for the camera light and a small blue light). It was cold in there, because the building wasn't heated, and it was about -20 C outside, so we were bundled up, but my neck was not. As the hour went along, Holly and I were joking about Hutchings (well, mostly I was joking), and I was "challenging" him to appear if he really was there as a ghost. For several minutes, I had even hung a real noose around my neck as I sat there. Then, all of sudden, in one of those moments when Holly and I were being quiet, I had this feeling that the air around my throat had gotten noticeably colder - much colder than the room even. It was as if, to borrow an old song lyric of mine, the night wrapped around my throat. There was no choking sensation, but it was definitely an abnormal feeling.

Just as I was about to turn to Holly and say something, she whispered, "Holy f***" - at the same time as I had been experiencing the cold sensation wrapping around my throat, she had seen a shadowy shape against the wall - and the EMF meter had gone from its base reading of 0 to full, and then returned to 0 again. Now, there is no way that my feeling could have been influenced by either Holly or the EMF meter - I was looking away from Holly when it happened, and couldn't see the EMF meter in any event, as it was blocked from my view by Holly's body.

We immediately started to talk about what had happened, and decided, as "spooky hour" time wasn't done, to stay in the cell. About seven minutes later, the same sensation wrapped itself around my throat again - the camera caught me bundling up my coat against my throat... at the exact same time as the EMF meter spiked again!

Holly and I stuck it out for a few more minutes, and then had the crew release us from the cell. Once outside, we related our experience to one of our first-hand witnesses, a researcher who gave tours of the jail and the courthouse next door. She smiled, and said that she hadn't told us anything about what people reported happening in the cell, because she wanted to see if anything happened to us and she didn't want to influence us, but one of the experiences that had been reported is cold air wrapping around people's throats.

What makes this incident really interesting to me is that both Holly and I had a weird experience at the same time as the EMF meter spiked, and then my experience was repeated shortly thereafter with another EMF spike. We have yet to review the audio or video recordings to see if anything was picked up by those devices, but I can't help but feel that I may have had a brief meeting with Sergeant Hutchings, over sixty-six years after he was dispatched from this mortal coil.

Paul Kimball