The Case of the Baby in the Basement

My favourite episode of Ghost Cases.

Paul Kimball

Earthlights

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

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

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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

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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

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.

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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

The Case of the Haunted Cell

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

Happy birthday to Sculder

From Mully...

Ghost Cases - draft trailer #1

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 - commercial teaser #1

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

Paul Kimball

Ghost Cases - opening title sequence

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

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

Is Sculder an alien?? (gasp!)

Happy Birthday to Sculder!

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




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

Paul Kimball

Suitable for Framing, Vol. II

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



Holly at Whaley House:

Ayahuasca - Paranormal Investigator's Ghost Buster?

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