Being a paranormal investigator is one of the most exciting pursuits a person can have. Especially when you are blessed with the ability to investigate pretty much anywhere you want, whenever you want, like I am. Up and down the East Coast, you name it, I have probably spent multiple nights there.
Tonight, as I am sitting here working on marketing our haunted New Orleans tours I was reminded of something that comes along with being a paranormal investigator. So, I was sitting here in my office, there is light from a small lamp barely giving off enough light to fill even my work space. I start to get ‘that’ feeling. Any paranormal investigator will know exactly what I am talking about. I look to my left, to the doorway of my office and I see the head and shoulders of a dark figure peering into the room at me. As soon as my eyes made contact it quickly ducked out of sight. Now, that was interesting! I got up to look around and of course nobody is around.
Actually, since moving to my new house in New Orleans, this is the second time I have seen a shadow person in the house. I have only been here for about 3 weeks, so this should be interesting.
The first time I watched this shadow person was two nights ago. After a long day of working and walking around the French Quarter, I went back home to get some work finsihed. . I went out to the pitch dark kitchen area to grab some more caffeine in the form of a coke. As I walked into the room I noticed a figure walk around the corner, leaving the space on the other side. There was nobody in my house aside from me. For a split second, you think that someone broke in. Then, you realize that it is just another 'ghostly' visitor. Just to be sure, I walked down the hallway…and nobody was there.
For almost a year, every since Ghost City Tours starting doing our nationwide ghost hunts I have been picking up paranormal hitch-hikers in my journies. It has gotten to the point that I can block them out, for the most part. But, I know they are there.
One evening, when I was still living in Savannah before moving to New Orleans, I was laying in bed by myself, with Zoey, my Bullmastiff laying on her bed at the foot of my bed. All of a sudden I hear deafening crashes coming from downstairs. Even Zoey jumped up and looked at me with an expression on her face as if asking me…Dad, what the hell is that?! The crashing went on for, I am guessing, at least 15 seconds. Then, all went silent. I’ll be honest, it took me a few seconds to gather up enough courage, and a big knife I keep in my dresser, before heading downstairs. I was very certain someone had broke into my house. When I went downstairs to investigate, nothing. Not one thing was moved, nothing was damaged. And that doesn’t even begin to tell the story of the state of my life when I was doing these ghost hunts full time.
Another night I was doing a radio interview while laying in bed. In the middle of the interview, someone came running up the stairs to my bedroom. Even the guys on the other end of the phone line heard it. There was nobody there.
One of the most frightening times was a night in Savannah in the summer of 2014. I know this was all caused by something that had followed me home from Old South Pittsburgh Hospital. How? Because the disembodied voices echoing through my bedroom were the same voices which I had recorded, just days earlier, threatening to kill me, at the Hospital. Halfway through the night the activity was picking up soo much I decided to get a voice recorder.
Now, I don’t investigate my own house, and I wasn’t going to then. Without even saying what I was doing I laid the voice recorder on the bed, pressed record and let it go to work. After 8 minutes I turned off the recorder and listened to what was there. In 8 minutes I recorded 6 different voices, a few male voices and a female. At one point the female ghost was having a conversation with one of the male ghosts talking about burning my house down.
By this time, my ex-girlfriend had dozed off. I woke her up to listen to the voices. As soon as she heard the woman say ‘just burn it down”, in regards to my house, she took the headphones off and threw them at me. I didn’t know why she responded that way. In the course of dating me she had been to many haunted locations and heard many EVPs. Well, it turns out that when she dozed off she slipped into a dream state where something, she described it as a shadow person, was standing in the open doorway of our room…with flames behind it. You better believe I went around and checked all of the smoke alarms before I went to bed that night.
Oh, and did I mentioned I got scratched NINE times while laying in bed that night. Intense? Yeah, that might describe that night in my bedroom.
We are in a good location for ghosts, right on the edge of the French Quarter. It seems like if I was to walk a block in any direction I would run into one of the famous haunted New Orleans locations. So, maybe they are just residents and are coming out to investigate us.
Many people get into the field of paranormal investigating because they see it on TV. Or, maybe they are adrenaline junkies who love the thought of chasing down ghosts in abandoned buildings. I encourage people, if you’re going to get into paranormal investigated, do it for the right reason. Do it because it is your calling. Do it because you are genuinely interested in the afterlife, interested in how this ‘all works.’
When you find yourself doing paranormal investigations more and more you do open your life up to a bit of unpleasantness. Ghosts and spirits following you home may end up being the least of your worries.
Here in New Orleans, the ghosts which seem to be in my home have done nothing up to this point to suggest they are nothing but curious souls checking me out as I move into this new space. I hope it stays that way. Oh, no joke, just as I am typing this, a big crash just occurred in my living room…give me a minute…
Okay, nothing was there, but it was a loud crash, and come from the living room. It almost sounded like a broom that was knocked over onto hardwood floor. Oh well, I am sure I’ll have more chances to try and catch my ghostly roommates in action.