FATE MAGAZINE PSYCHIC FRONTIERS MAY 1994 LOYD AUERBACH THE INVESTIGATOR AS EXPERIENT Possibly the most often asked question of those of us who do spontaneous case investigations is "Have YOU ever seen a ghost?" As I've mentioned in past columns, the answer is no. But of late, I have been somehow perceiving "extra" information that has been corroborated in a couple of ways. Let me share with you a couple of recent investigations and what I "got" from them. "The TRENCHCOAT" This past December, the Office of Paranormal Investigations received a call to help a woman living in an apartment in San Francisco. The woman, who we'll call Wendy, had sensed a "presence" in her apartment for the entire two years she lived there. However, since November, she began to see a shadowy figure come into her bedroom, moving closer and closer. One night, she was awakened to see the figure leaning over her. Upon turning on the lights, the figure vanished. She received some corroboration from a friend of hers who had stayed over and asked about a "presence" she sensed as well. Wendy was frightened, and ended up at her boyfriend's place every night after nine. She asked us to come in and check things out. I brought with me two other O.P.I. team members, Gary Storm and Dean Pardee. Kathy Reardon, one of the intuitives we work with and out prime team "psychic" was to meet us a bit later. Wendy took us through the 4th floor apartment, explaining just where things had happened. We also took readings with our Tri-Field meters, measuring the local magnetic fields. Of course, near active appliances and sources of electrical current in the walls, we got high readings. We also got higher than background readings in a couple of other places. As Wendy took us into her bedroom, I felt a strange sensation. I stood in the doorway in a position that felt "right" and asked her if "this is how the figure appears." She nodded, although a bit apprehensively. I began to move into the room slowly, stopping at the end of the bed, then around the bed to the right, finally stopping again near the headrest. Wendy was nodding as I was moving, her eyes widening more and more. To me, I was just moving in a way that, again, "felt right," whatever that means. At the final position, I bent over the pillow, feeling as though if there was someone there, I'd be attempting to tell the person in bed something. "Wendy, when he bent over you, could it be as though he was leaning over to wake you up and tell you something? As though he was even trying to kiss you first, gently?" She thought about it a moment. "Yes, now that you put it that way, I think you're right." This calmed her down a bit, though she had many questions for me (so did I). Just before we went back into the living room, I got a fleeting impression of the man wearing a trenchcoat and hat, and of him falling or being pushed out the window by the bed. Apparently Wendy also had an impression of the hat and coat, but not the window. A few minutes later, Kathy Reardon arrived. After talking with Wendy for a bit, we were able to talk over a speaker-phone with her friend that also had "sensed" the "presence." Following that, Kathy, Wendy and I moved back to the bedroom. Up to them, I hadn't discussed my impressions with Kathy, just that I had "gotten something." Kathy began to describe a similar movement of the man through the room, also coming up with the reason behind him leaning over the bed. She felt the man had been going through those motions in the late 1940s or early 1950s, which felt right to Wendy and myself. But I suddenly got the idea that the person in bed was supposed to be the trenchcoat's girlfriend or wife, but wasn't. Instead, it was a man waiting to do the trenchcoated man harm. I said this aloud and Kathy agreed. Kathy added that the trenchcoated man either fell because of surprise or was pushed out the window right behind him, and fell to his death. I felt he was pushed. Kathy asked Wendy if she was getting anything herself. Wendy said she got a name: Paul. I immediately understood that that was the trenchcoated man's name, and that the woman he was expecting to find in bed was named Jesse. Kathy added the first name of the man in the bed, Frank. Kathy (and I) felt there was less of an actual "spirit" in the place than leftover impressions of the event. She tried "clearing" the place, and it did feel better. Wendy had little problem there for a time, but has begun to suspect that the phenomena is continuing. To help close things out, we're going to try to learn of any deaths from a fall from that apartment window that may have occurred in the late 40s or early 50s. For me, it was an interesting experience, and one that is somehow continuing. "THE CATFISH PLANTATION" In mid-February, I went to Dallas to speak for a group called The Eclectic Viewpoint. While there, I was asked if I wanted to go to a haunted restaurant with a few members of the group and with a crew from the local ABC-TV affiliate. Never one to miss a good haunted restaurant, I agreed. So, on Saturday February 12th, a group of us headed about an hour south of Dallas to the Catfish Plantation Restaurant in the town of Waxahachie, Texas. A quaint Victorian house, the building, built in the late 1800s, was originally a residence until the early 1980s. Opened in 1984 by Melissa and Tom Baker, the restaurant serves great food (heavy emphasis on catfish, of course) and good spirits. Melissa was our guide for lunch and for the tour afterwards. I had been given a minimal briefing about the place before we arrived, and decided to enjoy lunch before getting down to business. I did have the forethought to bring out the Tri-Field meter just in case something happened during lunch. As I was eating and enjoying the good conversation with Cheyenne Turner (founder of the group) and her friends, I suddenly got the "feeling" that I should switch on the meter. Sure enough, I watched as the gauge began reading a higher and higher magnetic field. I switched it off, feeling a bit smug with myself for somehow sensing something going on. A few minutes later, the feeling disappeared. I had been checking the reading every couple of minutes, and as the feeling faded, so did the reading drop. After lunch, as we went through the restaurant, I got that same feeling in a few places. Each time it was validated by a much higher than background reading. In addition, in a couple of spots I expected to get high readings (next to the ice machine and the cash register), the feeling wasn't there. The more interesting feelings and readings were from spots above our heads (but not near enough to the fluorescent lights to get a reading from them). These aerial zones seemed to have a much higher reading, but not stationary. They moved about in a manner one would not expect from a naturally caused magnetic field. This feeling, by the way, I perceived as a pressure around my forehead. As we moved through the restaurant, we heard about the history of the ghosts. Apparently, two female figures had been seen there, as well as one male. Objects would move around, clocks would reset themselves, and coffee was obligingly brewed for arriving employees. Witnesses include customers, employees, the owners, and even local police officers. At one point in the mid-1980s, a psychic investigation apparently revealed that there were three ghosts there: a woman from the 1920s named Elizabeth, a man named Will, and a woman named Caroline who died in the 1970s. The Bakers did a bit of investigating of the history of the house and learned that there were three past residents who matched names and time periods with Elizabeth, Will, and Caroline. Elizabeth, it was thought, was most often seen in her wedding dress. Apparently, she died on her wedding day in the house (they believe she was murdered where the ladies room currently stands). The ladies room is in fact a center of odd feelings. I did get that same feeling (and a corroborating high reading) in the ladies room in a particular spot that matched witness accounts. In addition, I sent Cheyenne and a couple of others in there to check if there was any spot that felt "odd" to them. The same spot was picked. All in all, an interesting experience, even if I didn't see a ghost or anything moving. The feelings were good enough. I recommend the Catfish Plantation Restaurant, both for their food and the chance at experiencing something paranormal. Make sure you tell the owners if you have an experience there. HOLMES BOOKS In downtown Oakland, California is a huge used-books store in a building that will have had its 100th anniversary by the time you read this. Holmes Books store has been in the same family for most of that time, and over the past several years, people, both customers and employees, have reported ghostly happenings. Books fly off the shelves, apparitions have been seen of a male figure, footsteps where there should be none have been heard, and a protective presence has been felt. O.P.I. Associate Director Barbara Gallagher, along with a small group of others went into the store after closing time along with the owner and her son. While no physical phenomena occurred, again I was getting those "feelings." And again, they were checked out against fairly high readings on the Tri-Field meter, readings that were not constant. Several spots felt odd to me at certain points in time. In addition, one of the people with us also was somehow getting odd feelings (though he said he felt it more in his stomach). Both J.B. and my sensations agreed on most occasions with the magnetic readings. We took a couple of Polaroid shots during the moments the readings (and our feelings) were highest. On those Polaroids, and only on those shots, there are portions of the pictures distorted, and one can see through portions of the bodies of a couple of people in the pictures. Shots taken from the same film pack with the same camera, by the same photographer (me) of the same spots when the readings (and our feelings ) dropped back to normal are in sharp focus and have nothing out of the ordinary on them. We'll be going back to Holmes Books in the very near future with a larger team to include others, like Kathy Reardon, who appear sensitive to this phenomena. "FEELINGS...NOTHING MORE THAN FEELINGS?" For me, these last few investigations have been very encouraging. As an investigator of the phenomena, I hadn't really thought of myself as a "detector" as are some of the psychics we work with. However, that my sensations and perceptions could be corroborated either by the perceptions of other observers, or better, by a device that measures physical energies, is exciting. I can only encourage people to pay attention to their feelings and their perceptions in any supposedly "haunted" location. It's an exciting sign of things to come. AƒAƒ(üHH‰ øÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÏHÏHHH  ?ý¯ Õ{´5áG@íÛjç!uº(r)7 Z