Hitch hiking Ghost?

I slept in Mia's room that night. The Professor cracked open his laptop (he carries that everywhere, it seems) and spent the rest of the evening in our living room doing research.



By morning I had gotten only a few hours of sleep, and the Prof looked like he didn't get any. But at least no more ghosts came calling. I made a pot of coffee and set a cup in front of him, then set about making breakfast. I was shooting for omlettes, but ending up making scrambled eggs and salsa.

I sat down across from the professor, and he managed not to become overwhelmed by my morning lovliness. I was wearing an almost too small Batman tee shirt and a pair of sweats that were entirely too big. My hair looked like I had slept in a waffle machine, and the bags under my eyes had bags.

"So is this like the ride at Disney World?" I asked.

"What, 'it's a small world'?" asked the Prof.

"No, dummy. The Haunted Mansion. 'Beware of hitch hiking ghosts. They may just follow you home.'"

"Ah," he said, and closed his laptop. "well, that may be closer than you think."

The professor went on to explain that, although it was rare, sometimes a spirit found a human energy field that it found more interesting than whatever it was it usually did. It could change the location of a haunting. Or, as it seemed in this case, pull something from one location to another.

It might not last for long, but then again it might last as long as I lived. It might be tied to an area I spent a lot of time in, or it may be tied to me.

We'd know soon enough.

The Waiting Father Ghost - part 2

It was around 11:30 when we got our first bite, as it were. The EMF detectors started spiking in both rooms. That didn't necessarrily mean anything, as there were power lines running past the house, and the EMF had been a little high the whole time. But sometimes a spike can represent an increased spiritual presence, or a doorway opening between here and there.

At exactly 10:33 pm, the time when the father had received his call many years ago, the phone receiver on the kitchen wall fell off the hook. I'd almost say "jumped" off, but when it did I definately jumped. The professor look at me and raised an eyebrow in that Mr. Spock way.

"Are you here, Bill?" asked the Prof. I just kept my eyes open. "We know you must be going through a bad time right now. WOuld you like to talk about it?"

Nothing. The phone stayed on the floor spinning gently where it fell. It rotated once or twice from the inertia of the fall, and then stayed still.

"We're sorry about your daughter, Bill," the Professor said, again trying to establish communication. To me he whispered, "It might just be a residual."

"I'm sure your daughter misses you," I said in a shaky voice. "If you move on, I'm sure you can join her."

Nothing.

Then Doug burst into the kitchen, out of breath. "You guys should come upstairs. Something big is going on."

"How big?" asked the Prof.

"The windows just frosted over," said Doug. The Prof and I exchanged looks, then ran upstairs.

The Waiting Father Ghost - part 1

There were two main locations in the house where the waiting father ghost (we decided not to share any real names at this time. The family of the deceased have had enough of a spotlight for all the wrong reasons). One location is the murdered girl's bedroom, which is now an office used by the husband living in the house now. The other location is the kitchen, where the father was when he received the last phone call of his life.

We set up cameras in both rooms, as well as digital recorders and EMF detectors. The professor and I took the kitchen, and Mia and Raj took the upstairs room. Doug was the runner, who would go between us if we needed anything.

The little girl (Angie) had been half way through her first year of kindergarden. She had been adorable, and in her school photo she was all smiles and pony tails. In those days a parent was required to be waiting at the bus stop, and the girl's house was only a few blocks away, so she always hopped off the bus, waved to the bus driver, and walked the short distance home.

The last time she waved to the bus driver, a car had been parked at the corner. A car no one gave a second glance. But, according to the police report, the driver of that car was somehow able to intercept the little girl, and no one who loved her ever saw her alive again.

The kidnapper was never found. Angela was. Her horribly mutilated body was found tied to a tree in a wooded area only a few miles from her home. Police called her family as soon as they had identified the body. Angie's mother was asleep, having been taking tranquilzers for the last few days. Angie's father, who had been frantically doing everything he could to find his daughter, answered the phone. His heart wasn't up to the news, and it felled him right there in the kitchen.

The mother moved away eventually to try and forget.

It seems the father still hasn't forgotten.

New Gig - The Waiting Father Ghost

We've got a new one. We've been invited to take a look at a home that has a spirit in need of help. At least that's how we look at it. The ghost is the father of a young girl who died under difficult circumstances, and seems to be having trouble moving on. The home's current owners aren't bothered by the ghost, or whatever it turns out to be, but wondered if we could produce any evidence of the haunting. They probably want to use it as a second income. You know, "See the real ghost house for $5" or something like that. You'd be surprised how many people get greedy over the dead (or maybe you wouldn't).

According to our research, the young girl was abducted from her bus stop. The father was distraught, as would be expected. When they notified him that they had found her body, he had a massive heart attack and died before help could arrive. Supposedly he still waits for his daughter to come home.

Bleck

I'm sick as a dog with some horrible tummy bug. Since late Saturday I've been in the bathroom doing things that are so unladylike that I'm even grossing myself out. With luck, I'll either be better by tomorrow, or dead.

Just so no one gets bored, I'll throw in a little something I read about as an undergrad that is often confused with a ghostly visit (or, much farther back, a visit from a demon like a Succubus. Although a Succubus visit was also often explained away by wet dreams). It's a type of sleep paralysis that feels like someone is on top of you, holding you down. I had this happen to me once when I was in high school, and let me tell you, it scared the shit out of me. It really felt like

someone was on top of me.

It usually happens when you're just coming out of sleep, and it's your body's muscles "turned off". As they turn back on, it feels like someone getting off of you. It's also called Hag Phenomenon. About.com has a good description:

So what causes it? Dr. Max Hirshkowitz, director of the Sleep Disorders Center
at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Houston, says that sleep
paralysis occurs when the brain is in the transition state between deep,
dreaming sleep (known as REM sleep for its rapid eye movement) and waking up.
During REM dreaming sleep, the brain has turned off most of the body's muscle
function so we cannot act out our dreams - we are temporarily
paralyzed.

"Sometimes your brain doesn't fully switch off those
dreams - or the paralysis - when you wake up," Hirshkowitz told ABC News. "That
would explain the 'frozen' feeling and hallucinations associated with sleep
paralysis." According to his research, the effect only really lasts from a few
seconds to as long as a minute, but in this half-dream half-awake state, to the
victim it can seem much longer.

A Haunting We Will Go

Tonight we're visiting an old lady with a maybe ghost. We don't think it's very likely, but we figure it will be a good trial run for everyone, as it's our first time working together. The lady lives alone; her husband is in assisted living with Alzheimer's. She keeps hearing a downstairs music box playing at night. Her guess is that it's a relative who died from cancer in the room with the music box.

So we'll be checking it out tonight.

The Team

The team isn't a for-profit group, like Ghostbusters, or anything. We're a bunch of academics hoping to make our scientific careers. We should probably come up with a name for ourselves, just in case someone wants to make a movie about us. Although considering this motley crew, it would probably be a porn movie.

There's me, Ghost Girl (and that's the closest you're going to get to my real name). I was born in Hawaii and was raised more or less like everyone else. I've been going through an "artsy" phase, which my brother calls my "Wendy O phase," but I've been thinking it may be time to go a little more conservative. Not sure yet, but I'd hate to scare the clients more than the ghosts. Anyway, I handle the computer hardware and a little bit of this and that. I'm not really an IT person, but I'm more of one than anyone else.

There's my roommate and partner in crime, Mia. She's a hottie, but then I've seen her naked. She's in charge of acoustics and sound recording.

Raj is the team horn-dog. He'll bang anything that moves, so he's our motion sensor guy. He's currently seeing some stripper (sorry, "dancer") who, swear to God, looks like that porn star who ran for Governor in Las Vegas, Mimi Miyagi. I'm not jealous. Raj and I dated briefly (I moved, so - bang!), and I learned two very important things about him. One: He's hung like a whale. Like the movie line goes, "What do they call telephone poles in France?""I dunno." "They call them Raj's penis."

And the other thing I learned was that, once you get over the package parameters, he's a one-trick pony. Granted, that trick made it hard for me to walk for a couple days, but after that, eh. It's over and done. But he's a good guy.

There's the Professor. He's our Phd (Piled Higher and Deeper), advisor, mentor, and boss. He's in his forties, but doesn't really look as old as that. Some grey on the side, like Mr. Fantastic, but otherwise ok. I haven't had to sleep with him for an A, but I wouldn't mind if it came to that. Just saying.

Doug carries all the heavy stuff, at least that's what I kid him. He looks a lot like Jack Black, although he's got almost no sense of humor.

Introductions are in order

To start with, I suppose I should tell you a little about myself. I'm 22 years old and a grad student at a fairly large, urban university. I have a B.S. in Psychology, focusing on social psychology. I have recently started working on my Masters in psychology, with Parapsychology and Dealing with Grief my two main focuses (parapsychology a tad more important to me). Some fellow students and I are part of a paranormal investigation team, headed by my professor. Think "Ghost Hunters" except with real science and no playing to the camera ("Did you hear that barely audible tink? It sounded like an 18th century flute cobbler dragging a chain across the body of his victims." "Yeah!").

I'm blogging about the coming year as we get into some - hopefully - cool investigations. I still need to talk to the others to see if I can use their names, or if I should stick with clever nicknames.