Winter is so beautiful and we're heading into the coldest time of the year. This means we spend a lot of time indoors watching movies especially Christmas movies.

What defines a really good Christmas movie specifically? Does it have to be about Christmas or are any of the winter holidays OK? Do you look for some kind of good overcoming evil and right prevailing?   Do these movies need to demonstrate the Christmas spirit and teach people the true meaning of Christmas?  What about a happy ending?  Is that a must have?

Here's our list.  What's on yours?

EVP's are those spooky voices or sounds that get recorded during a paranormal investigation.  But are they really the voices of the dead?

Join Bridey, a paranormal investigator with over 15 years experience, as she shares some EVP's recorded at the Walker Ames House in Port Gamble, WA and gives you some tips for recording your own EVP's.

Listening to this episode will give you some greater insight for understanding the Dumas Brothel Investigation episode that is coming up.

On October 8th Jovie and Bridey performed a paranormal investigation at the Dumas Brothel in Butte, Montana.  During the evening they had a chance to sit down and chat with David Prince the Owner and operator of the brothel museum.  

The Dumas Brothel has the title of the longest running brothel in the United States, operating from 1890 until 1982.  

They discussed the history of the building, the paranormal activity that happens there and past investigations that have been performed.  David was a font of information and gave us great insight about the building and even assisted us during our investigation.

For those who want more, we have additional audio on our patron page.  We even have loaded a possible EVP there for our listeners to review.

In this episode we bring you the story of the Bell Witch and we urge you to decide for yourself, was John Bell murdered? By ghost.

The Bell witch haunting is considered a legend because, although much has been written about the subject, verifiable facts are few. The first written account of the case was not published until 1894. Many years after the eyewitnesses were dead. There are a lot of accounts of this legend, but because the facts are hard to pin down, we are left to choose those versions scare us the most. This story is the most complete that we were able to find but questions still remain who exactly was the Bell witch. The spirit that spent four years tormenting the Bell family went by many names and demonstrated multiple personalities. Was it sent by Kate Batts to torment her enemy, John Bell or was it something else.

As with many historic cases, we are left with more questions than we have answers. We have to continue to look at the stories, determine where there is fact, where there is embellishment, and then use our own judgment. What is truth and what is simply entertainment.

There are a lot of famous haunts all over the world, but in this episode, we focus on the United States. We start with private residences because those are always some of the most frightening.

We talk about multiple cases including the nightmare that was the Amityville Horror.  In a small affluent town in New York State the murder of an entire family led the stage for an infamous haunting.  In the mid 1970’s Ronald DeFeo Jr. was tried and convicted for murdering six members his family. Then the Lutz family purchased the house and lived there for less than 30 days, become so frightened that they move out in the middle of the night abandoning all of their worldly goods. Now, you had to be really scared to leave everything you own behind and not be willing to go back and pack up. But depending on who you listen to, there was paranormal activity before the murders. We’ll explore this case in more details.

We also look at paranormal activity at the Bell Witch farm in Tennessee, the Lizzy Borden Inn, the Villisca Axe Murder House and many others.

Join us for some Halloween fun!

We're in mid-October and the veils are thinning this time of year. For a lot of Earth based people, we believe that the dark half of the year starts three days after summer solstice. The reason why we believe that is because each day after that, the nights get a little bit longer. And this time of year, everything is getting very noticeably dark early and the veils are thinning.

We believe that the spirits can move through the veils more readily to come join us. Most cultures have some sort of event that they celebrate at the end of the month, usually between October 30th and about November 5th, somewhere in that window of time. A lot of different cultures and religious beliefs will celebrate their ancestors and their family members who have passed and their pets, anyone they have loved that has influenced them and meant something to them.

In this episode we discuss ghosts and haunting activity.  We’ll discuss the three categories of haunting activity, residual, active and poltergeist.  We’ll discuss the characteristics of these types of haunts and talk about some famous and personal examples of these types of haunts.

Join us next week where we’ll expand the discussion to include more tales of hauntings.

Folklore and stories of blood sucking creatures have been abounding for thousands of years but there is a true modern subculture of vampires. But what is a vampire?  The term vampire was not created until the 19th century. And before that, vampire traits that defined modern day vampires were attributed to a variety of creatures such as ghosts, evil spirits, ghouls, demons, the devil and even Deities.

One of the most famous was Vlad the Impaler. He ruled Romania from something 1456 to 1462.  He was known for killing his enemies by impaling their heads on wooden stakes and then dining among his victims while dipping bread in their blood.  Bram Stoker based his story of Dracula on Vlad. Bram Stoker has set the modern tone for how we generally interpret vampires and their stories.

Another famous vampire is Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who over the course of her tenure of ruling this castle in Romania is rumored to have killed over six hundred and fifty peasant girls and not only drank their blood, but bathed in it because she thought it would keep her young.

There is also a subculture of people who self-identify as vampires. And then there is this other group that do role playing in games and they play vampires.  There are two main branches of vampirism which are referred to as sanguinarian and a psychic or pranic vampirism.

If you are interested in more information about vampirism, we urge you to do your own research.

The legends of ghost ships fill our minds and bring out our deepest fears about the unknown, about death and about the vastness of the ocean.

 

So open up your minds to those fears and talk about some true stories of ghost ships.

From the Mary Celeste to the Joyita, the Baychino and the Sayo.  Ghost Ships invade our psyche and remind us that nothing is permanent.

 

A ghost ship is a ship that sails the ocean without a crew. Sometimes these ships are seen in the distance and sometimes they run aground with the crew missing, never to be found.

 

We're never going to fully know what happened to these vessels, making them ghost ships. And really, that's what intrigues us and makes us repeat these stories, keeping these ghost ships alive in our collective consciousness.

Tonight's subject is Mer people. Mer people are just one part of a group of water elemental spirits. Mer people are just the ones we hear about the most. Folklore is sprinkled with stories of seductive mermaids singing songs to enchant sailors and lure them to their death. They are associated with the ocean and commonly referred to, of course, as mermaids and mermen.

Debunkers will say, well, people are misinterpreting other sea creatures that we know about, like a manatee. But manatee don’t look human at all and a manatee do not have arms and hands.

But a lot of people who are earth-based practitioners, people who practice Wicca and have a lot of reverence for the Earth, do work with mer energies. When those energies are captured, it is to open up emotional centers, to process emotion, learning how to separate intellect and emotion, developing tolerance. Some people say that to call on mer people and to invoke their energy is very good for protection for women. It is also very good for your imagination and ancient wisdom for predicting storms and future events. There's always this energy of prediction involved in water energies and developing psychic power and self-discipline.

Many energy healers call on mer energy because there is a really graceful flow of energy with mer. There's a sense of freedom and empowerment that comes with tapping into mer energy for healing.

Witnessing a UFO can be scary. Can you imagine an 8 year old, carefree and playful, having fun playing games with classmates at school, when suddenly a silver disk emerges from the clouds and lands in the school yard?  This is exactly what happened on four distinct occasions; in 1966, 1967, 1977 and 1994.  The event gets stranger and a powerful message is the only remaining artifact from these events.

 

Don't miss out on this fun episode of Ghostbumps!