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Darkness Down
October, 2013. Somewhere along the west coast of North America. This short story is going to be bittersweet because it was such a great reading for Shannon and brought answers and healing to the woman receiving it. But it was also the last reading Shannon was able to do because of her deteriorating health, so this will be our last short story on my blog… unless someday destiny decides differently.
I am also going to be particularly vague about the location to protect the woman’s privacy because the events surrounding this story affected the whole community.
My psychic medium wife, Shannon and I are vacationing for two days in a small fishing town situated along a remote and rugged but incredibly beautiful part of the west coast. The Inn we were staying at was old, grand, distinctive, and haunted. In the early part of the 20th Century it used to be a hospital so you know there has been many deaths there. Shannon sensed that the Inn was very haunted, but there was nothing dark or evil there, just mischievousness. Still, haunted means spooky to me so I was always waiting for something scary to happen, and actually, not much did. Well, except for one thing. One little thing. Yes, Shannon still sensed spirits in the place, but nothing too exciting. Just past employees and patients still milling about like they didn’t know they were dead.
In the basement there were several rooms. There was a laundry room, a utilities room, a meeting/conference room, and a room with a pool table. Shannon sensed there was something down there, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, except that it had a very creepy vibe to it. And I don’t mean your typical everyday type of creepy vibe, I mean genuinely having a strong physical reaction type of vibe. Like intense feelings that we were being watched, which was causing us both heightened awareness to the point where neither of us could stay down there any longer even though we did not feel threatened.
So, what was that “one little thing” that happened before? Well, I was in our room taking a nap when our bedroom door unlocked, opened, and then slammed shut. All by itself! Now, the really weird part of this was, I was actually dreaming about it as it was happening, and Shannon was in the next room simultaneously having a waking vision of it while it was happening too! After the door slammed shut, I woke up and she came running in to see if I was okay and we both told each other of what we saw as it was happening! It was the first and only time that her waking vision and my sleeping dream occurred simultaneously between us while the event was happening. It really was beyond weird. Anyway, later that night we went out to dinner and that’s when we met the woman who Shannon would do an incredible reading for the following morning. Her reading lasted nearly three hours, and when she left, she felt like she would be able to finally begin to slowly heal from the mysterious tragedies in her life. This is her story.
Shannon: “I’m sensing your sister, your ex-husband, a tryst, a murder, a suicide, and a complicated chain of events surrounding it all. Your sister is telling me she was murdered by your then-husband several years ago. She says he took her out for a drive under false pretenses and strangled her to death. Your sister is very angry about it and she is refusing to say anymore at this time because now your ex-husband is coming through and he is saying that he slept with your sister, but only once, and it was a huge mistake, and that he refused to sleep with her again even though she still wanted to.
He’s also saying that his cheating had nothing to do with you and that he still loves you and never wished to hurt you, or your sister, but she was threatening to tell you about their one time together so he panicked and killed her. He hopes you can forgive him.” Confused, the woman asks Shannon, “If he still loved me then why did he divorce me?” Shannon continues, “Your ex-husband is telling me he was being tormented by guilt over what he had done and that’s why he eventually couldn’t handle being around you because your sister’s death was so devastating for you. Him knowing that he was the one responsible for your grief was making the guilt and the depression he was feeling more unbearable so that’s why he divorced you.”
Shannon now begins to describe what the woman’s ex-husband is beginning to make her feel. Shannon: “I’m feeling like I’m tied to something that’s sinking. It’s a really weird sensation and I can’t quite figure it out yet, but it feels like I’m not on land and I’m sinking down into a cold wet darkness. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but give me a minute and I’ll figure it out.” Well, the woman was so surprised by what Shannon was describing she immediately blurted out that her ex-husband was a boat captain who opened the sea-cock on his fishing boat and sunk it several miles out to sea with him tied to the wheel.
The woman then verified everything Shannon had said before. She also started to fill in some of the blanks as Shannon continued to deliver his messages, like how he left her sister’s body off to the side of the road in the nearby woods. How at first her then-husband supported her and was there for her immediately after they were notified by the police that her sister had been murdered. How the police even investigated her husband at the time as a suspect but eventually dropped the case due to lack of evidence. How her husband was so attentive during that time, but she was so inconsolable that it eventually drove them apart. Or so she had believed at the time. And how the police eventually ruled her ex-husband’s death a suicide because his hands were free and the rope around his torso was not very tight. By this time the woman was crying and distraught, but she eventually calmed down and said it was a huge relief to finally know what had happened even if the truth was extremely painful.
As Shannon and I were driving home later that day, all we could think about was how we hoped that poor woman was right about eventually being able to find some peace in her life now that she knows the truth. And I don’t know about you, but I think knowing the truth, even if it’s a painful truth, is still better than not knowing at all.
Halloween Horror Story
October, 2013. The Chadbourne Carriage House, Fremont Hub. Every October the Candle Lighters turn the Carriage House into a fundraising haunted house for children. I grew up in Fremont, California, so every year we would go there during the Halloween season. Our plan in 2012 was to take our two-year old Grandson through the haunted house, but we then decided against it, or should I say our Grandson decided against it. So while he and his mother attended the Halloween games they had set up outside for children, Shannon and I took each other by the hand and ventured into the haunted house. Now, this haunted house was pretty tame because it was designed for children, so I was a little surprised when I started hearing and feeling my psychic medium wife screaming and running around behind me. I was laughing my butt off as I felt my hand being dragged around behind me in the dark every time someone jumped out and yelled “BOO!” In fact, she was even doing it when no one was jumping out and yelling boo. She was moving around like a dancer in a rap video. I really thought it was hysterical!
As we exited, I asked her why she was screaming and running around so much because it wasn’t that scary. Shannon looked at me and slapped me on the chest and said, “That’s because you didn’t have a spirit and those stupid employees both jumping out at you!” Surprised, I said, “You mean there was a real ghost in there?!” And Shannon replied in a very frustrated voice, “Yeah! Not only was I getting jumped at by the hired help, but I also noticed a male spirit in there who was surprised I could see and hear him and he kept getting in my face saying, ‘You can see me? You can see me?’ I’ve never had a ghost get so close to me like that before and it was freaking me out! And then having the haunted house employees jumping out of the darkness just made things worse! I was so turned around in there that I wasn’t sure who or what was real and what wasn’t!” Surprised and excited, I started talking about Shannon to one of the lead Candle Lighter volunteers about what just happened and she told us that if we want to, we could come back in three days when they take down and pack away everything and she’ll let us look around inside The Carriage House in the daytime when it’s empty because a lot of the Candle Lighter volunteers have seen ghosts and experienced things themselves, and they’re not psychic mediums!
So two days after Halloween, Shannon and I returned to The Carriage House to find the main front doors open and all of the haunted house decor removed. The woman in charge of the Candle Lighters and a few of her volunteers led Shannon and I into the old building. All of my years in Fremont and this was the first time I’ve ever seen the inside of this place in the daylight without the ghost house decorations. It consisted of a central main room with horse stables along both sides. On the left there was also a tack room and on the right there was a stairwell that led to the upper floor which had bedrooms and a common area for the employees who cared for the horses. We didn’t get to go upstairs because the stairs were too old and unsafe and were not repaired during the refurbishment, but Shannon could sense the male spirits up there playing cards and cooking food. Shannon also sensed two boys on the main floor trying to hide from us. They were stable boys. One was black and one was white.
After Shannon’s reading, some of the Candle Lighter volunteers started sharing some of their stories with us. Several of the volunteers have seen the boys in there while other volunteers have seen the men, and some refuse to work in there alone and/or after dark. The Candle Lighter volunteer ghost stories were pretty standard fare, but their dedication to their community every Halloween is not. It is exceptional.
Destiny Diverted
In March of 2008, my best friend David Paris, who I have known since the 8th grade tragically passed away. Two months after his death, I was driving home from work, when I swear I saw David jogging on the sidewalk on my side of the road. I mean it looked just like him! It was so uncanny! As I passed him, I turned around to get another look but the sidewalk was empty. David was already gone. It was very brief, but it was also very real.
This was the first and only time I have ever seen a spirit. David and I use to work out together when we were younger, which included jogging, so I can understand why he would appear to me this way. I guess he didn’t feel the need to tell me anything, except in the way he chose to show himself, which was running free. David had many struggles in his life, so I got the feeling that he was communicating to me how he is now free from those struggles by, “running free.” David had an insanely quirky and very funny sense of humor. It was his best quality.
Rest in peace, David. For you are still greatly missed.
Escape From Hell House
December, 2007. Index, Washington. On a beautiful sunny afternoon up in the Cascade mountains during our annual Christmas vacation. My psychic medium wife, Shannon, her two teenage daughters, a friend of theirs, and myself, head to the abandoned Bush House Inn to see if Shannon can sense anything from the parking lot. The Bush House is reportedly haunted and has been closed to the public since 2001, so I wasn’t expecting anything too exciting, until Shannon noticed a second story window that was halfway open. Shannon looked at me and excitedly said, “We have to go inside!” and all I could think about was somebody calling the authorities on us because the last time I checked, trespassing was illegal. But Shannon and the girls were all chomping at the bit to go inside, so I decided to stay outside just in case I needed to bail them out of jail. Oh, and by the way, the place being creepy as hell had no influence on my decision not to go inside. (Yeah! Right!)
So Shannon and the girls walked up the outside staircase that lead to the second floor deck and the halfway opened window. Part of me was kind of hoping the window wouldn’t slide up all the way allowing them to enter, but it did, and the next thing you know they all entered through the window and disappeared from my sight. They were only in there for about fifteen minutes before I heard running and screaming as each of them emerged from the window with Shannon bringing up the rear. Even after they were all back outside on the second story deck, Shannon still rushed the girls down the stairs to the safety of the parking lot. After they made it back to me, Shannon and the girls were all out of breath. They were scared but also laughing with excitement about their ghost adventure. So I quickly asked what happened and Shannon said that we needed to get in the car and get away from there first! So once we put a little distance between us and the Bush House Inn, Shannon began to tell her story.
Shannon: “The energy in there was intense! As we walked into the hallway, I could see the spirits of maids carrying linens to the bedrooms. They seemed benevolent and peaceful and I didn’t sense that any of them died in some horrific way. Next we went up to the third floor suite because I could here a baby crying. As we entered the suite, I saw a cradle in the corner and it was where the crying was coming from so I walked over and looked into it and saw nothing which was strange because I could still hear the baby crying from inside the cradle! After that, we decided to go down to the ground floor which housed the dining room, kitchen and bar. The ground floor looked the same as the second and third floors, disheveled and ransacked. I also noticed a few spirits walking around enjoying the Inn as if they were still alive, but here’s the really cool part, we found the registry book which had my signature in it from the last time I was there back in the 90’s when it was still open!” I smiled at Shannon and said, “That’s pretty cool and all, but why were you and the girls running and screaming to get out?” and that’s when Shannon’s whole demeanor changed.
Shannon: “As soon as we approached the Bush House in the car, I started sensing something very dark, but it wasn’t that strong from outside, or even on the second and third floors, but as soon as we descended to the ground floor, it really made its presence known. I sensed it was strongest by the bar. As we were in the kitchen heading towards the doorway that led out to the dining room and bar, I got this overwhelming feeling of danger, I immediately blocked the doorway with my body and told the girls we have to leave. Now! The girls, being teenagers, were disappointed and started begrudgingly moving towards the stairs… Too… damn… slow! Because now the unknown presence started pursuing us! So I yelled at the girls to run because something was after us! Well, the yelling and the screaming started as the girls kicked it into high gear and ran back up to the second floor! I was bringing up the rear as the dark soul was gaining on us! As soon as I reached the second floor, I turned and looked down the stairs and saw a male spirit with a twisted face staring back at me, so I ran back into the bedroom and rushed the girls out of the window and back onto the balcony! I then looked behind me again as I had one leg out the window and saw that the spirit was now standing in the bedroom doorway, literally no more than eight feet from me! We barely made it out!”
By this time I had goosebumps on my arms and the hair on the back of my neck was standing up as I processed everything Shannon just told me, but then I calmly looked at her, smiled, and mischievously said. “So… you wanna go back tonight when it’s nice and dark?”
Gifts From The Afterlife
Kirby Raymond Smith 1964 – 1981
If you’ve been reading my short stories from the beginning about my psychic medium wife, Shannon and I, then you’ve probably noticed that most of our paranormal adventures occurred between 2001 and 2004. Unfortunately, Shannon has numerous health problems which has resulted in her having to discontinue doing readings. Also, the medical financial burdens associated with her health, for the most part, ended our ability to travel. Between 2004 and 2013, we only had a handful of paranormal experiences. And from 2014 to present (2019) we’ve had none because Shannon’s health took another serious downturn in 2014. But… the most significant, extraordinary and life-altering paranormal event that we have ever experienced took place in October of 2007. This is a short summary of that event.
***Just a quick reminder*** My cousin Kirby was killed in 1981 when he and I were both seventeen years old, and he is responsible for bringing Shannon and I together in 2001. That story, “Paranormal Epiphany” is the first short story published on my blog. Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the Home / Introduction page to access it.
Gifts From The Afterlife: October, 2007. 10:30pm. Shannon and I are in our bedroom and it was just another normal night, until Shannon suddenly looked at me and said, “Guess who just showed up? Kirby!” Now, after six years of Shannon being unable to do a reading with me and Kirby, I was a little jaded, so I flippantly asked, “Well, what does he want?” and Shannon said, “He says he’s now ready to talk with you.” I replied with, “Oh Really? So I’m finally going to get my own reading?” and Shannon says, “Yes. But this is not going to be like a regular reading. Kirby wants to channel through me so he can talk directly to you.” Surprised, I said, “I didn’t know you can do that?” Shannon responded, “I didn’t know either, but that’s what Kirby wants to do.” To this day, with the exception of the “Little Girl Lost” incident, Shannon has never “channeled” another spirit. At least to my knowledge she hasn’t.
The five hour channeling basically went like this; I asked Kirby a series of questions about the night of the accident… and he answered them. I asked Kirby about the several near-death experiences (including a suicide attempt) I had in the years following Kirby’s death… and he answered them. Kirby then told me, “Communicating with you like this will never happen again, so if you’re going to ask me anything, you better do it now,” so I asked Kirby a series of questions beginning with; what is God like? I asked about the afterlife/Heaven. I asked, is there a hell? I asked, what is our purpose in life? I asked, was Jesus a real person? I asked, were the Ten Commandments actually written by the hand of God? I asked, does life begin at conception or later in the pregnancy? I asked, do animals have souls? I asked, is there life elsewhere in the universe? And since this happened in 2007, I also asked if the world would end in 2012. (Spoiler Alert! It didn’t!) And Kirby answered them. All of them and more! Much, much more!
Like how existence is structured in infinite times and dimensions and how there are many different types of souls and why they exist. He also talked about reincarnation and how and why it works. This channeling turned out to be the most emotionally healing and spiritually enlightening experience of my life! It ended a lifetime of depression for me that began the day Kirby died. But… what was also surprising was Kirby said I would actually write a book with Shannon about this night. Now, what you need to know about me is: 1. I’m not crazy. And 2. I never wanted to be a writer or a poet. Being a writer/poet was never a dream, a goal, or a desire of mine. I don’t read very much unless it’s about something I’m extremely interested in. And I hated school. I even struggled to graduate. But this night set into motion a series of events that are still reverberating out to this day.
In 2008 we wrote “Living Beyond Existence-Kirby’s Gift from the Afterlife and then published it in 2011. Then, exactly one year after the channeling with Shannon and Kirby in October of 2008, I started writing poetry. I then published seven books out of those 509 poems in 2012, which is really odd because I don’t even like poetry, nor did I ever have the ability to rhyme before. In 2013 I even won an international poetry contest for my dark poem, “The Raven Effect!” I also have five fictional paranormal stories I still need to write. And I have one, 16 book series of children’s stories already written, (still looking for an agent and an illustrator) and another children’s series that I still need to write. And lastly, I started this blog of short stories about our true paranormal experiences in 2018. All of the fictional stories and the poetry were given to me every October from 2008 to 2012. And again, the channeling took place in October 2007, the month of my birth, and of Kirby’s death. I am now a Four Star author (4 stars from The Clarion Review) and an international award winning poet (The Witching Hour Competition) because of my cousin Kirby and his gifts from the afterlife.
CLICK HERE AMAZON AUTHORS PAGE
Ghost Stories Mine
This next batch of short stories will be about the paranormal experiences I had before I met my psychic medium wife Shannon in 2001.
STORY #1 April, 1981. I wake up in the middle of the night after having a nightmare about my cousin Kirby being killed in a car accident with his Datsun 260Z. Six months later in October, my cousin Kirby is tragically killed in a car crash with his Datsun 260Z. Later that night after Kirby had passed, I am awakened around 1:30 in the morning by the sound of his 260Z coming up the gravel covered driveway at my Aunt and Uncle’s farm where Kirby lived. (Z-cars make a very distinctive sound) I hear his car door open and then close, but when I go to look, the driveway is empty. Over the coming years I avoid several car accidents that would have most likely resulted in my death, but I always had overwhelming feelings that my cousin Kirby was protecting me as my guardian angel. There are more details explained about these incidences in our book, “Living Beyond Existence-Kirby’s Gift from the Afterlife.”
Several years later I am house sitting for the same Aunt and Uncle while they’re away on vacation, so I decide to sleep in Kirby’s old bedroom but am unable to. I didn’t see or hear anything but I had an overwhelming feeling I was being watched by something in his bedroom. I kept telling myself it must be Kirby so don’t be afraid, but the creep factor got to me so much I ended up sleeping out in the family room on the couch for the rest of the week. Over the years I’ve had reoccurring dreams of Kirby communicating with me in new and different locations that made no sense. In these dreams, Kirby and I both knew he had passed from the physical world to the ethereal one and it always seemed that he wanted to tell me more but was unable to. There is also much more to these dreams, but honestly, since the channeling between Kirby, Shannon and myself in 2007, I haven’t had anymore of those dreams, and I can’t remember too much detail from those older dreams because of all of the information I was given in the 2007 channeling, which is touched upon in my next blog story titled, “Gifts From The Afterlife.”
STORY #2 In the mid 80’s, I was working at my Father and my Uncle’s Round Table Pizza in Citrus Heights, California. It was a closing shift on a weekday. It was 11pm, quiet, and a little misty outside. Another employee (who also happened to be a family friend who worked with Kirby at the pizza parlor) and I were standing outside in the empty parking lot after closing, talking about Kirby. The parking lot lights were slightly dimmed from the lite amount of fog as we both leaned against our cars telling stories about my deceased cousin. After a couple of hours reminiscing about Kirby, an extremely loud bang suddenly echoed through the parking lot startling both of us as we immediately looked towards the mailbox in front of the pizza parlor where the sound came from, which was only about fifty feet away.
Those old mailboxes from the 80’s had those heavy metal doors on them that rolled and slammed shut if you released the handle while they were in the fully opened position. There was no one over there and there was no wind, even though there is no way a wind could open one of those heavy metal doors anyway. Mike and I looked at each other shocked, and simultaneously said, “Kirby!” We were both happy, shocked, and a little freaked out, but mainly just grateful that Kirby was able to give us a sign to let us know that he was still there with us.
STORY #3 In the mid to late 80’s my psychic medium Aunt gave me two readings, and both of them turned out to be very accurate. In the first reading, my Aunt told me how miserable I was working my current job and I should quit and move on to something else. Which I did. She also told me she sees me with a monkey which made no sense to me until 2010 when my grandson was born and one of his first baby pictures was with a stuffed monkey (not a real one) which led to his nickname, Monkey Man. I helped raise him when he lived with us from age 2 to when he was almost 7.
The second reading was five years later, when she told me I would have two great loves in my life, both women would become my wives, while obviously the first marriage would not last, my aunt said it wouldn’t make it any less significant. My second marriage would last a lot longer, but that wife would be plagued with crippling health problems, which Shannon is. After my aunt passed away, I visited a psychic medium who lived down the street after my first wife left me in the late 90’s and her readings were also very accurate. She also told me that either my mother or my sister would experience a serious health problem around their chest area. She wasn’t 100% sure, but she felt pretty confident that it would be my mother who would develop the health crisis, but would also still survive it. Anyway, two months later my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. And yes… she did survive it.
STORY #4 My next paranormal experience scared the living hell out of me. It was 1993 and my father and I had started a new business. It was a Mountain Mike’s pizza in Sunnyvale California, just one block from the haunted Toys “R” Us. It was 9am and I was the first one there to open so I entered the restaurant and walked into the pitch blackness of the back room toward the breaker box to turn on the lights when suddenly the free-standing storage rack on my right side started shaking… violently! Between the metal rack, the metal equipment on it, and how loud it was banging against the wall, the noise it made was absolutely deafening! My first thought was someone had broken in and was hiding back there, and when I had walked in, they must have panicked and ran into the storage rack, so I immediately took the last two steps towards the breaker box in the dark, turned on the lights and swung around with my heart pounding and my fists up! No one! There was no one there! Surprised, I quickly grabbed the large pizza cutting knife and ran through the restaurant just to make sure I was alone! The back door was still secured and no one had gone out of the front door.
After securing the restaurant, the phone rang and when I answered it, all I heard was a low growl that really freaked me out, so I hung up the phone and sat there in my office wondering about what had just happened. Two weeks later I was in our landlord’s office to pay rent and I told him what had happened and he looked at me and said, “Sounds like the Toys “R” Us ghost was welcoming you to the neighborhood.” I said, “What are you talking about?” because I hadn’t heard of the Toys “R” Us ghost before that time. Our landlord proceeded to tell me that a few years prior, when he had hired a construction company to build an extension to the main building of the shopping center, the tenants in the smaller building (which is the building our pizza parlor was in) called him about an earthquake and reported about how the building shook really hard so he should come over and inspect it, but the problem was there was no earthquake, so our landlord thought one of the construction trucks working on the main building extension must have accidentally collided with the smaller building, so he goes over to inspect the building thinking there was going to be impact damage in the back of the building but there was none.
Our landlord then told us there are ghost reports all of the time from new businesses up and down the El Camino Real that are located by the haunted Toys “R” Us. He was just as shocked about how all of the tenants in that building reported the same type of shaking when there was no earthquake or exterior damage. Dare he blame it on the Toys “R” Us ghost? And what did I do to prevent getting the hell scared out of me again? I’ll tell you what I did, I had an electrician in there that very same day to wire up a night light so I would never have to walk back into that spooky dark room again!
STORY #5 This next story requires a little backstory to understand it. In 1963, (one month before I was born) my father, (Ted) his brother (Dick) along with his son, (Barry) another nephew, (Mack) and a family friend, (Michael) were in a very serious car accident when a teenager ran a red light and crushed their car between his car and a semi-truck, killing my Dad’s two nephews, which included my Uncle’s son. My Dad and his brother were both seriously injured while their family friend only had minor injuries. This accident occurred in San Jose, California, which is about 30 minutes south of Fremont where my parents lived. Now, growing up I always knew of the accident, but I never knew exactly where it happened……. Now, fast forward to 2001. My job has me driving through an area of San Jose that I’ve never been through before, when… as I drive through an intersection I hear a voice in my head say, “This is where the accident happened,” as I simultaneously got an overwhelming feeling communicating to me the same information!
After I cleared the intersection I called my Dad on my cell phone and asked him what was the name of the intersection where the car accident had happened, and my Dad said it was at 7th and Keyes. So I make a U-turn and drive back through the intersection to find that it was indeed, 7th and Keyes! As I passed through the intersection for a second time, I immediately felt it was my cousin Mack (who I obviously had never met) was the one communicating with me about the accident! As I met with my Dad later that day to discuss in person what I experienced, we both felt sorrow over the family tragedy, but we also felt grateful for the message from Mack… my cousin who I never knew before that day.
STORY #6 In 1995, my first wife and I drove to Yosemite for a day trip. We pulled off the road into a pullout inside the park towards the top of the summit before we got down into Yosemite Valley so we could do a little hiking. We parked about 20 yards from the highway, we got out and I made sure all four doors were locked on our Chevy Blazer. Just like I always do. This was not a trailhead, we were just going to hike into open country for maybe half a mile. We got about 30 yards from our vehicle when I started getting a creepy feeling from the forest ahead of us, so I stopped for a moment, looked around, and then turned around to look back at our SUV, and I saw that the rear passenger door was wide open! I immediately yelled to my wife (who was ahead of me) that someone was in our truck! So we both sprinted back to find no one there and no evidence of the door being forced open. Now, what’s important for you to know is, we had never lost site of our SUV. From where we were, we could see everything. Our Blazer, the entire pullout, and the highway, and we neither heard nor saw anyone or anything that could have opened our vehicle door without being seen or heard! Afterwards, we were both kind of creeped out by it, so we decided to leave and just drive into the valley instead. I actually felt a little relieved because of the creepy vibes I was getting from the forest.
So what was it? A guardian angel protecting us from the eerie forest by distracting us with the opening of our truck door? I guess we’ll never know.
STORY #7 This last story really isn’t a paranormal one. But it still has an unexplained aspect to it that really creeped me out. In 1997, I drove to Pinnacles National Park for a hike. I set out on one of the hiking trails and got about half a mile in, when I started to get an uneasy feeling. But I brushed it off and kept walking. After about 30 feet, my uneasy feeling started to turn into a creepy feeling, so I stopped and looked around, which included suspiciously looking both up and down the hiking trail. Nothing. No one was around me because I was on the eastern side of the park, which was the least visited side. So again, I brushed off the unwanted feeling and kept walking. After about 20 steps, my hair stood up on the back of my neck and I got an immediate feeling that I was being watched! So I stopped again, looked around, and still couldn’t see or hear anything close to me, so I reluctantly walked on, except this time I had only taken two steps before I looked up at the peaks of where I was hiking to and immediately heard, “If you go up there, you won’t be coming back down.” And those words were coming from inside of me! I stopped and started to get really angry because I really wanted to hike to the top, but my gut, my intuition, my inner alarm system, or my whatever you want to call it, said no. So I started back down the trail to the parking lot and eventually forgot about this whole incident.
Until I heard a popular author being interviewed on a late nite radio program around 2011 or 2012 about mysterious disappearances in state & national parks. And that’s when it hit me! It suddenly hit be! I remembered my attempted hike up towards the Pinnacles. And then I immediately thought, “If I had kept going, could I have ended up as a missing person in one of those books about people mysteriously disappearing in the woods!” Possible? I guess I’ll never know the truth to this one, either.
Police Code: Supernatural
In 2011, my job had me at the Livermore VA in Northern California during the night shift meeting with a federal police officer, and because I was self-employed, I had my psychic medium wife Shannon with me because the main building is very old and very haunted. It was also very late so the building was empty and it had a very creepy vibe to it because there was only a minimum number of lights on. Shannon begins by sensing that the whole building has a very negative energy to it with many spirits still around, but she quickly focuses in on the spirit of a young woman on one of the upper floors. It turns out she used to be a tuberculosis patient who died there. Shannon said she also likes to play with the elevators by making them go up and down. As Shannon is describing all of this, the federal police officer starts getting that, “Holy crap!” look on his face, so I ask him what was he thinking and he begins to share two stories with us. Two ghost stories. And they were pretty creepy.
The federal police officer starts off with how one of the new officers were making his night rounds for the first time in the main building when he noticed the elevators going up and down by themselves. Because he was the only one in the building, it started to put him on edge, even though he was warned about them before hand and told that it was just a “glitch in the system.” He wasn’t warned about the place being haunted either, and it’s also important to note that because the main building is closed during evening and graveyard shifts, only one officer is on duty. Anyway, the new officer was making his rounds so he was taking the elevator to one of the upper floors, and as the elevator door opened, he saw a young woman in a hospital gown standing there in the dimly lit elevator lobby. Startled, the new officer tried to communicate with her but she ran down one of the hallways, screaming! The new officer ran after her down the hallway and into a dark room with his flashlight on, but was shocked to find that the small room was empty! The young woman vanished even though there was no other way in or out of the room! The federal police officer then told us that the new officer spent the rest of the night in his police cruiser and afterwards immediately quit at the end of his shift.
The federal police officer then tells us about a paranormal experience that personally involved him. He was making his rounds outside next to a one story administration building with a flat roof. The roof also had some sort of loose gravel or something on it because the officer could hear footsteps making a crunching noise while the timing of them matched his own. The federal police officer also said he was walking on a concrete sidewalk so his footsteps were quiet. He said he would take a few steps and then hear the footsteps up on the roof, shadowing him, so he would stop and aim his flashlight up to always catch nothing. But, the officer knew there was a secure indoor stairwell that had the only roof access, so he slowly walked all the way around the building to make sure there were no ladders against it to possibly give someone a way to escape, all the while still hearing the footsteps shadowing him from the top of the roof. As soon as he reached the outside door that lead to the interior stairwell, he ran up as fast as he could to the roof (which took about 8 seconds) to find nothing. What the officer said next is, well… I’ll mention that at the end of this short story.
The last paranormal experience Shannon and I had was in the Community Living Center. It is the only building that has full-time living with full-time nursing care for veterans at the Livermore VA. We were still there during the night shift so it was closed to visitors which made it fairly quiet. I bring Shannon inside and introduce her to the nurses and she quickly starts sensing and describing a spirit in the back of the ward which starts to creep out the nurses because many of them have been seeing someone out of the corners of their eyes, someone who looks like the veteran who had passed away in his room back there a few days ago, and who fits Shannon’s description of the spirit. At this point, many of the nurses started feeling very jittery because most of them were Filipino, and one of the things I learned about Filipino culture while servicing the VA’s is they believe strongly in ghosts.
Now, back to the federal police officer. After he and Shannon were done talking about their paranormal experiences, I tell the federal police officer that Shannon and I need to head up to the Community Living Center, so the officer quickly says, “I have to go make my rounds. Would you two like to join me? All of these ghost stories have me a little freaked out.” so I started laughing and said, “What are you afraid of? You’re armed!” and the officer nervously looks at me and says, “Yeah, but guns don’t work on ghosts!”
The Frightful Four?
The Pelican Inn located in Muir Beach. The Moss Beach Distillery in Moss Beach. The Cary House in Placerville. And the Banta Inn located in Tracy. What do these four locations in Northern California all have in common? They all are very unique. They all are haunted, and… Shannon and I cannot remember enough about their paranormal backstories for them to get their own short stories on my blog. But don’t think for one moment we didn’t enjoy these establishments, because we did. We enjoyed them greatly. It’s just that I feel the stories on my blog need to be exceptionally engaging so I’m just going to tell you the little bit we can remember about each visit to these locations that spanned between 2003 and 2011, all in one blog post.
THE PELICAN INN is an old English pub and it is my favorite location out of the four. My first wife was from North Devon, England, so I’ve traveled over to the UK four times back in the 90’s to visit my wife’s family. And I loved it! The Pelican Inn looks, feels, and smells just like England. Even the parking lot (or car-park) reminded me of England. Many years later when Shannon and I visited The Pelican Inn, we were given a tour once I mentioned that Shannon was a psychic medium. One room in particular had a spirit that would come out at night to haunt the room and it’s occupants, but that’s about all we can remember because the other thing that happened to us was much more interesting and has never happened since, and that is an older woman came over to our table while we were having dinner and introduced herself as some sort of high-level witch. She said she could sense Shannon’s power from across the dining room. She also told me how lucky I am to be with a, “Sensitive so powerful.” so I need to be sure to treat Shannon right. I honestly thought the whole incident was a bit odd and out of the ordinary, but my life has been nothing but a bit odd and out of the ordinary since meeting Shannon.
THE MOSS BEACH DISTILLERY is a restaurant that has beautiful views overlooking the Pacific ocean. Shannon and I were only there for lunch and in that short amount of time, Shannon sensed a female spirit around the women’s restroom and one down on the beach next to the restaurant. Shannon said they were the same spirit but she haunts in and around the restrooms when the restaurant is open and then she spends the rest of her time down on the beach, waiting for her lost love. And that’s it. Except for the fact that Shannon also figured out the place was rigged with a few fake ghostly tricks. And that’s about all Shannon and I can remember about the Moss Beach Distillery.
THE CARY HOUSE is the only location where we stayed at for two nights while Shannon and I performed at the Celtic fair in Placerville. It is historic and has that “old west” feel to it. Shannon sensed several spirits there. A male spirit in the lobby and another male spirit in the elevator, and then a female spirit upstairs on the floor we stayed on that liked to move around between the rooms. Just like the other locations in this blog post, Shannon and I do not remember enough of their backstories to write about, except that the female spirit liked rattling around at night.
THE BANTA INN is another restaurant that Shannon and I had lunch at. Basically, Shannon sensed the spirit of a little girl there, along with a little bit of backstory and that’s about it. I told our waitress; who was an older woman and a long-time employee, that Shannon was a psychic medium and what she was sensing, and the waitress verified it. I have to be honest, after experiencing paranormal readings for; at this point in time would have been ten years, the excitement had kind of worn off. Especially in a little old restaurant where the reading was just another run-of-the-mill haunting. So even though Shannon had a great reading, we really don’t remember much about it.
So, why did I include these locations if there wasn’t much backstory to them? Well, one reason and one reason only, they are a part of our experiences with the paranormal and I still want people to know that even if they are a little anticlimactic.
Children Of The Night
In 2007, my psychic medium wife Shannon and I went to Brentwood in Northern California to spend the weekend at my sister’s house. Shannon, my sister, my niece, nephew and I picked up pizza and rented a couple of movies at the video store and had a fun Saturday night together, especially when we started talking about how haunted my sister’s house was. What started it was Shannon had noticed a dark haired girl walking past the kitchen window. Shannon sensed she was a pedestrian who was struck and killed on Balfour Rd so her spirit now walks through the neighborhood to get back home. My sister, niece and nephew all got excited because they have all seen the same long haired girl outside the kitchen window as well, and they’re not psychic mediums! My niece and nephew then talked about how they have seen a dog in their backyard through their bedroom windows, but when they would run outside to check the yard, it would always be empty with the gates still shut. My sister and her kids would also hear footsteps on their back wooden deck, but even though they could see out of the window from their family room, there was never anyone there.
After all of the ghost stories were done being told, Shannon and I decided to sleep on the couch in the family room so we could still watch TV while everyone else went to bed. I slept pretty good until I was awakened by a little girl’s voice asking me why I was sleeping there. I was laying with my back towards her and I didn’t turn over to see her, but in my mind I could see that she was a little blonde girl who just happened to be a ghost around seven or eight years old. I also could hear the wind outside howling. I mean it was really blowing! Anyway, this little ghost girl kept asking me why I was sleeping there and I kept telling her I was just trying to get some rest, but between the little girl, the windstorm outside, and the sound of other children playing behind me that wasn’t going to happen.
After awhile, I heard footsteps behind me and then a door opened and closed and it turned out to be my sister going in and out of the garage. I turned over and asked her what time it was and she told me it was 6:30 in the morning. I then mentioned to her about how windy it was outside and she said, “It’s not windy outside. It’s not windy at all.” I said, “What? Are you kidding me? Can’t you hear that wind? It’s blowing like crazy!” So I looked out of the window and the trees and bushes were perfectly still, and the wind noise was suddenly gone. I then looked down at the couch and noticed Shannon was gone too. She had gotten up in the middle of the night and went to go sleep in the spare bedroom. So later that morning after Shannon got up, I told her my story and she laughed and said, “So, the children on the playground kept you awake, huh? That’s why I went and slept in the spare bedroom” I replied, “Playground? What are you talking about? And you left me out here with a bunch of ghosts?!!” Shannon laughed at me because they were just the spirits of children playing so I was in no danger.
She then told me that my sister’s family room is where a children’s playground used to be decades ago, which surprised my sister enough to motivate her to do a little research, and about three weeks later my sister called and told me she found out a farmhouse used to be across the street from her house and the playground for the children who lived there was where her house is now.
My sister and her family no longer live in that house because they eventually moved out of state. But Shannon and I have fond memories of the times we stayed there, and our only regret is we wish we had done it more often.
Ouija Boards & Exorcisms
These two short stories take place separately when Shannon was in her early teens and in her late twenties before she and I met.
OUIJA BOARD: One of Shannon’s girlfriends acquired a Ouija board and she had Shannon and a few other girlfriends over to “play” with it. Not knowing what they were about to get themselves into, these thirteen year old girls started to ask the Ouija board questions like; “Can you show us a sign?” and “Can you touch one of us?” Questions like that. Anyway, the scary part of this story is not long after they started, Shannon went into a trance-like state and started speaking in tongue while at the same time the planchette started to move which freaked out the other girls. To make things worse, the one candle they had lit; and was their only light source, flamed up and burnt Shannon’s arm and then went out leaving all of these teenage girls sitting in the dark screaming at the top of their lungs.
Now, what you need to know about Shannon; who is a psychic medium, is she did not know she was a psychic medium at this young age, even though she had been able to communicate with her Grandfather who passed away two years earlier. Shannon just thought she had some sort of special connection with her Grand-dad. After this Ouija board incident, Shannon started to explore her paranormal abilities more extensively. But more importantly, she never had anything to do with a Ouija board again.
EXORCISM: Shannon had a close girlfriend who was in a very abusive relationship. Her marriage was rife with fighting, jealousy, physical, mental and emotional abuse along with alcohol and drug abuse. All mainly coming from the husband. I mean you name the problem and they had it. Anyway, the paranormal part of this story happens not long after she finally had him arrested and filed for divorce. The problem was; although the husband wasn’t there physically, his negative energy was still there in the house. Shannon’s girlfriend should have been getting better but instead she was sinking deeper and deeper into a dark depression. Knowing Shannon is a psychic medium, she called her over to do a cleansing of her home. But after what happened, the cleansing turned into more of an exorcism.
When Shannon arrived, she noticed all of the windows had been covered up with thick blankets and cardboard to shut out the light. Or so Shannon thought. Her friend said she was just trying to keep her husband’s energy out and that it had nothing to do with the light. So the first thing Shannon did was remove all of the blankets and cardboard from the windows. Next she lit some sage and began a cleansing spell. Not long after that, the house began to shake and a strong wind started blowing through the house even though there was no wind outside. Shannon’s friend became very frightened so Shannon grabbed and held her while Shannon started a different spell. She’s hesitant to call it an exorcism spell because of the religious connotations, but that’s what it was. Anyway, at the height of the “cleansing,” both Shannon and her girlfriend could hear the house moaning louder and louder as if it were being tortured, and then it suddenly ended. Shannon said the house immediately looked brighter and felt like a huge weight had been lifted.
Afterwards, Shannon’s friend sold the house and eventually met and fell in love with a good man and remarried. She also started a career in counseling to help other women who are in the same position she was once in by assisting them with support programs and counseling so they can move forward with new and positive lives.
The Entity
The response to “Nightmare In The Woods” has been so overwhelmingly positive that I am going to share one more true story about Pat & Sue. This paranormal encounter takes place when Pat & Sue still lived in Gold Bar, Washington back in the 90’s, but it was told to me during the same Christmas visit in 2001 when the “Nightmare In The Woods” story was told. Just a reminder, in case you haven’t read that story, my wife Shannon is a psychic medium and her mother, Sue is also a psychic, but she wasn’t a medium like her daughter. We were at their home in the small town of Baring up in the Cascade mountains. After Pat & Sue told me the “Nightmare In The Woods” story, they began to share a new story about an unknown entity.
“When we lived in Gold Bar, we lived in a house surrounded by open fields. And beyond those open fields were heavily-wooded forests. At that time, our house had no prior reports of being haunted. But that was about to change. After we moved in, I felt there was something uneasy about the area so I was curious to know what Shannon would feel when she would visit us for the first time. And when she did, she sensed that something was off about the area too. But the second time she visited, she sensed something out in the woods. Nothing specific, just some kind of mysterious negative energy. On Shannon’s third visit she told us the negative energy was now at the treeline that bordered the field across from our house. And whatever it was, it was not only watching us, it was also moving!
During Shannon’s following visits she kept confirming my feelings by sensing the negative energy had moved to the middle of the open field next to our house, and then shortly afterwards it was on the other side of our fence. Over a three month period it had slowly moved about a mile and a half from somewhere in the woods to our house, and I think it was being drawn to my psychic energy and my abilities. The feeling that we had knowing this thing was bearing down on us like some invisible predator was a little nerve-racking, to say the least. But our nerves were about to really be tested because not long after it reached our fence, all hell started to break loose.
During the day nothing strange would happen even though I would always feel that something was lurking about just waiting for nightfall. After we would go to bed, whatever it was would always come out because when we would wake up in the morning we would fine kitchen cabinets and closet doors left open. At first the activity was subtle, but over a very short period of time it became worse. Much worse. It got to the point where we would have to lock and physically barricade our bedroom door for the night because it literally sounded like someone was ransacking our house! Bangs! Knocks! Crashes! And to make things worse, our front and back doors would always be left open, even though we knew they were always locked the night before! Suffice to say, this is when we decided to put the house up for sale, and shortly after it sold, we moved into this cabin.
To this day we still don’t know what it was. But what we do know is this… we sure are glad it didn’t decide to move out with us!”
Oblivion
Through these short stories I hope I have shown how impressed I am with Shannon. But nobody is perfect. So in the spirit of honesty and full disclosure, I’m going to share three readings that didn’t quite go the way everyone had hoped. So buckle up because the road ahead is about to get a little bumpy.
STORY #1 Shannon is doing a reading for the wife of someone I know at work. I told him about Shannon’s abilities and our paranormal adventures so he tells his wife and the next thing you know we’re at their home to give her a reading. This is a social reading so all four of us are sitting in their family room. The husband, the wife, Shannon, and I. The wife looks excited and ready to begin. Shannon starts by sensing a male spirit who is coming through and it turns out to be the husband’s favorite uncle. Now the wife looks a little disappointed, but she’s still okay because she knows the evening is just getting started. So Shannon delivers the uncle’s message to the husband and then refocuses on the wife. Again, the wife looks excited and patiently waits for her reading, but the husband’s favorite uncle returns and wants to deliver another message to his favorite nephew.
Now, this time the wife is visibly irritated and throws, “a look” at her husband like it’s his fault. Shannon continues and delivers the uncle’s second message and then refocuses on who the wife wants to hear from, which in this case is her mother. So by now, we’re all sitting there in silence and I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable when Shannon starts to sense someone coming forward, and I’ll be dammed if it wasn’t the husband’s favorite uncle again! This time the wife looks at her husband and says, “What is up with your uncle?!!” and he just shrugs his shoulders and says, “I don’t know?!!” I felt bad for the guy because now he’s getting blamed for something that isn’t his fault. Shannon and I apologize because no one, including the wife’s mother came through for her, and Shannon can’t make spirits come forward if they don’t want to. This was our first really awkward reading, and unfortunately it wouldn’t be our last.
STORY #2 Again, Shannon and I are at a co-workers home so Shannon can do a social reading. Shannon was hoping to communicate with the sister who had just past away two weeks prior, but instead of her sister, guess who decided to come through instead… her father. The man who abandoned his family when she was only twelve years old. She absolutely despised her father and wanted nothing to do with him because her life, along with her mom and her sister’s lives became very difficult when he left.
Besides the emotional trauma, they also struggled financially and never received any support from him over the years because he was too busy with his new wife and raising her kids. Every time Shannon tried to pass along a message from him she would abruptly cut Shannon off. I mean she became very contentious. To make things worse, her sister never came through, either. Shannon felt it was too soon for her sister to come through so close after her passing because that sometimes happens with souls. She tried to tell my co-worker that but it didn’t help much. It also turned out to be a really bad time for us to discover that she had anger management issues as well.
STORY #3 Shannon and I meet with a middle-age woman so Shannon can hopefully see if she senses anything about her future. Her older sister and the grown kids of the woman getting the reading were there too. The grown kids wanted this reading for their mother to hopefully give her guidance in shaping her own future because their aunt was extremely controlling and holding their mom back because their aunt is also very needy and doesn’t want her sister (their mother) to leave her. At least that’s her fear, anyway. So Shannon and the woman go for a walk at the park we were at to have a little privacy, but unknown to Shannon, the woman’s older sister was trailing behind them, eavesdropping. And when Shannon is focused on reading someone, she is oblivious to what’s physically going on around her.
I wasn’t there either because I had left to go put gas in the car. Anyway, I get back and Shannon is all alone, so I say, “Well, that went pretty quick.” and Shannon said, “The older sister grabbed her younger sister and told her I was a fake and was just making stuff up.” so I asked, “What did you say that set the older sister off?” and Shannon says, “All I did was tell the younger sister, ‘You need to break free from your (older) sister if you’re ever going to have a life of your own because right now you can’t do anything without her approval.’ and that’s when the older sister barged in and grabbed her younger sister, insulted me and then left.” After that happened I decided for security reasons I would never leave Shannon alone with someone she was doing a reading for, again.
Unfortunately there are still a lot of people out there who believe if someone is a psychic, a medium, or both, they should know every little detail about the future or they should be able to communicate with anyone who has crossed over, and that just isn’t how it works. It’s not an “all-or-nothing” ability. It’s like… life. It’s full of wondrous subtleties and mysterious disappointments. Having a healthy amount of skepticism is a good thing, but expecting someone to be all-knowing just because they’re a sensitive is unrealistic.
The Finality Of Fate
This story is a very personal one for Shannon because it’s about two different friends of hers who ended their own lives.
The first friend of Shannon’s was a young Indian girl in her early twenties whose parents were old-fashioned and very set in their ways. They were from India so their culture was very strict regarding many things. Especially if you were female. The problems were, Shannon’s friend struggled with being a psychic medium herself, and her parents struggled with it even more. In there minds there daughter had a mental illness, and because she was still very young, unmarried, and lived with them she had to obey them. Even when they forced her to see a psychiatrist who prescribed her medication that made things worse. So she reached out to Shannon because she was a psychic medium too. For some people, being a psychic medium is not a gift, it’s a curse. Shannon did everything she could to help guide her through handling the unpredictability of her abilities but her parents eventually kept her isolated at home and also forbid her from seeing Shannon anymore and that was something she just couldn’t handle so she took her own life.
A few years later, Shannon’s second friend actually did have a mental illness. She was diagnosed with Bipolar One Disorder. She was in her late twenty’s and was married with a small child and just had another baby when she accidentally committed suicide. It seems she was suffering from Postpartum Depression and her Bipolar One Disorder made it worse. She also reached out to Shannon who tried to help, but sometimes the finality of fate can not be altered. A few months after her death she appeared to Shannon and told her that her intent was not to kill herself but instead it was a cry for help. She didn’t expect her mom and husband to be out grocery shopping for so long and by the time they found her it was too late. There is still so much they don’t know about mental conditions and how to treat them that unfortunately people like Shannon’s friend are usually the ones who end up paying the ultimate price.
So why am I writing about these two young ladies? Well, it’s important to know that they both communicated with Shannon after their deaths so she could deliver healing messages to their loved ones. They wanted them to know that they are in a safe and loving place and not to worry about them. But just as important, they wanted people here in the physical world to know that we need to be more understanding, sympathetic, and less judgemental when it comes to psychics and mediums who are struggling with their abilities and also towards people with mental health disorders because, believe it or not, there are still a lot of close-minded people out there who believe they are all one in the same.
The Wraiths Of Sainte Claire
This next short story about the Sainte Claire Hotel in downtown San Jose, California almost didn’t make the cut because there was no interesting stories behind the hauntings that would make for an engaging short story. Just more ghosts haunting another old hotel. So why did I include the Sainte Claire? Because we had so much fun exploring it! Why? Well, Shannon and I were given our own personal tour of the haunted locations inside the hotel by the assistant manager, so we felt like one of those paranormal TV shows where the paranormal team gets a preliminary tour before they do their lock-down. Plus we got to go into areas of the hotel that were off limits to the public. So how did this all come about? In 2007, Shannon and I were staying across the street in the San Jose Marriott for the night and decided to go into the Sainte Claire because it looked old, and old places are usually haunted, and having a psychic medium wife to go ghost hunting with usually guarantees a good time. So Shannon and I are in the bar drinking, and since I didn’t have to drive, I could have more than two drinks so I was feeling no pain.
Anyway, Shannon starts telling me that she is sensing that the place is haunted so I mention to the bartender about Shannon being a psychic medium and he gets on the phone and calls the assistant manager to the bar. When he arrived, Shannon tells him that she is sensing several different spirits but they are in other locations of the hotel. Now, because of his own paranormal experiences and those of his employees, he decided to take us on a tour. Every place he took us, Shannon sensed a spirit. A young woman in the basement. A small boy in a hallway. He even took us to rooms on two separate floors that were haunted. I regret not being able to remember anything more specific, but like I said before, I had been drinking and after six years with a psychic medium this was just another typical hotel haunting for us. And for me, the real excitement was getting the personal tour by the assistant manager and hearing his first-hand ghost stories and those of his employees, as well as Shannon’s in such a grand old hotel.
The Brookdale Lodge
Let me say this right now. The Brookdale Lodge is our all-time favorite haunted place that we have ever visited. And we have visited our fair share of haunted places. We have been to the Brookdale Lodge in the Santa Cruz mountains many times, including staying there twice over two weekends. Our first weekend stay was in 2001 and our last weekend stay was in 2004. Between these two weekends, we would stop for a drink at the Brookdale Lodge when we would go to Santa Cruz or for a drive through the Santa Cruz mountains. After 2004, we were only able to visit two more times. As a psychic medium, Shannon had many paranormal experiences there, and although I’m not a psychic medium, I do get intense feelings if someplace is overwhelmingly good or bad or has a very intense negative energy to it. But, I can’t identify or express anything specific like Shannon does. But I can hear, and while at the Brookdale Lodge, I did hear noises that were later confirmed to be paranormal. To make telling these experiences easier, I’m going to try and incorporate all of them into one story-line, as if we were only there once, even though we were actually there many times.
The first time we pulled into the Brookdale Lodge’s redwood tree lined parking lot, Shannon could immediately hear the ghostly voice of a mother calling for her daughter. It was all around her as if she was hearing it in stereo. Shannon said it is the mother of the little girl who drowned in the Brook Room, which is the main dining room with a stream flowing through it. The main lodge was filled with ghosts from the past. The place may have had very few of the living when we checked in, but it was pretty busy with the dead. Or more specifically the spirits of the dead.
Its heyday was during the first half of the 20th century, and its lack of ever undergoing a major remodel; at that time, reflected in how it looked and felt. In the Lobby Bar, Shannon could see Hollywood stars of old still frequenting the place. Stars like Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean. They were drinking and smoking and having a good time. There was also an old male spirit who was always sitting in his favorite bar stool just killing time. But with the good there is also the bad. Like the mournful spirit of a woman who always sat at the table in front of the fireplace in the Lobby Bar pining away for her lost love. And then there was an upstairs storeroom that was locked so we couldn’t enter. Shannon felt pulled up there by something dark and mysterious but we never were able to find out what it was. Although the stairwell leading up to it had such a negative vibe that even I could feel it.
The bathrooms across from the Lobby Bar had a male spirit haunting the women’s restroom which enjoyed scaring the ladies. One of the more frightening; but briefest, reactions was when we entered the Pool Room. Now, the Pool Room is not the room where you would swim in the pool, instead it was a party room with a bar that had windows looking into the side of the pool so you could see people swimming underwater. As Shannon and I walked in there, it was dark and empty with only shimmering rays of light coming through the glass from the lighted pool. Since I was more focused on watching Shannon’s facial reactions, I hadn’t looked around the Pool Room when we entered it. Suddenly I see Shannon’s face react with shock, fear, and disbelief which freaked me out because I didn’t know what she was seeing. Which was a headless body swimming in the pool! But as quickly as she reacted, she just as quickly realized that she wasn’t seeing a ghost at all, but instead an actual swimmer in the pool. The height of the side pool windows only went up to the waterline which gave the illusion of somebody who was treading water the appearance of being headless. Realizing this, we both laughed our butts off! And to this day we still get a good chuckle out of it.
The Brook Room, which is also located in the main Lodge, is a magical dinning room with live trees and plants and a real stream flowing through the center of it. Every time we dined there, Shannon would see the little girl who drowned there decades before, and she was always playing on the bridge that crossed over the creek. One time during the day we were actually given permission to explore the second floor of the Brook Room. The second floor was permanently closed due to structural concerns, but Shannon was being pulled up there and we soon found out why. It was a portal. Shannon has only sensed a portal a few times in her life so this was pretty special. Obviously I couldn’t see it, but I did see it later in the pictures I had taken! It looked like a swirling whirlpool made of light that was located on the front wall. What really sucks, though, is during one of the times Shannon and I moved, the pictures were accidentally lost. The pictures I took of the empty pool area; not the Pool Room from before, as well as pictures of other locations were all lost. The pool area pictures showed, in three frames, a clear room, a room full of orbs, and then a clear room again. Normally I’m not impressed by pictures of orbs, but trying to explain how three pictures taken immediately after one another shows clear, then orbs, then clear again is beyond me. And then there were the three front lobby pictures that showed an apparition of a male spirit hovering several feet above and behind us while we were standing in different areas of the lobby. Again, all of these pictures were unfortunately lost.
Separate from the main lodge are two buildings where the rooms are located. Both times we stayed in the building that was closer to HWY 9 and has the giant painting of James Dean on the end of it. It also had a male spirit that was a bully who liked to push people from behind while they were walking on the outside landing of the 2nd floor facing the side parking lot. The first weekend we stayed there, Shannon could see a woman in our room with us. Watching us. Pretty creepy, considering. But what I found to be really interesting was Shannon said she would also appear inside the vanity mirror, looking back out at us. Shannon also said she used to live in the third floor room back in the 50’s and would let men pick her up in the Lobby Bar so she could bring them back to her room. Shannon calls her the “Mistress in the mirror.”
The second weekend we stayed there, we were in the room, directly below the room we had stayed in several years earlier, and whoever was staying up there was walking around and opening and closing doors all night long, but not loud enough to go up there and complain. The next day while Shannon and I were in the Lobby Bar, we were telling the bartender; who was also the owner’s daughter, about it and she told us no one was renting that room. Then she tells us her story about temporarily living in one of the rooms for about three months and she would also hear the same noises coming from that same unoccupied room. She also told us that other guests have mentioned hearing noises coming from that room, too.
The last two paranormal events; that I can remember, Shannon and I experienced were outside. The first one occurred at night near the underground tunnel where the stream exited from the Brook Room. Shannon said she could hear the whispers of the lodge echoing out from the tunnel. Between standing outside at night and next to a dark tunnel with water rushing out carrying disembodied voices, the creep factor became so intense that after a few minutes we had to go back inside. But the creepiest area of the property was in the back where they had living quarters for employees. Shannon could not specify exactly what it was, but it was definitely dark and negative and very dangerous because they have had several unexplained fires back there and the last one burnt down the whole employee apartment building.
Since then, the Brookdale Lodge has changed owners, changed its name, closed down, been completely remodeled, and opened back up again. And even though it looks completely different now, for Shannon and I, it will always remain our favorite haunted playground.
Nightmare In The Woods
This story is going to be a little different than our other ones because this one is by Shannon’s mother who told me this story during our Christmas visit in 2001. Sue was not a medium like Shannon but she was a very gifted psychic. Out of all of her psychic experiences that she shared with me, this one stands out because of its chilling nature so that’s why I’m sharing it with you, and hopefully the way I have written it will have done it justice. So sit back, relax, and imagine Shannon, her mother Sue, her 2nd mother Pat, and I, are all sitting in the fire-lit family room of their cozy little mountain home up in the Cascades of Washington state. Shannon’s two young girls are upstairs doing what young girls do. Outside it is dark. Mountain dark, because there are very few street lamps in this small community and most of them are blocked by the surrounding forest. The snow is also piling up outside threatening to bury us in the cabin which is just off of HWY 2 in the little town of Baring. It’s perfect weather for storytelling so Sue leans back, takes a breath, looks at me and begins. “I have a story to tell you, and it’s a true story. In fact, it’s a story that you’re even lucky that Pat and I are still here to tell.”
“Back in the early nineties when Pat and I still lived in Gold Bar, we decided to go camping up in the mountains off of HWY 2, so we threw our camping gear in the truck, loaded the dog, grabbed the rifle and off we went. We found a fire road close to the summit and drove up it for several miles until we came to an area that was relatively flat and open. As we were setting up camp, I started feeling that we were being watched from an area with a big boulder about fifty yards away. Pat shrugged it off and kept setting up camp because we were out in the middle of nowhere and there was no reason for anyone to be up there on a weekday. While it was still daylight we fixed dinner and as soon as night fell we built a small fire and did some stargazing before going into our tent for the night.
As soon as we climbed into our sleeping bags, my psychic alarm went off and I looked directly at Pat and said, ‘Don’t argue with me and just listen! If we go to sleep in this tent tonight we will never wake up again! We need to leave, now!’ Pat now says, ‘I usually want to talk to Sue about her psychic visions and feelings but this time my gut said; just listen and do what she says.’ Sue continues, so Pat grabbed the rifle and I grabbed the dog and we just left everything. We got into the truck and pulled onto the fire road to head back down the mountain when Pat stopped to load the single-shot .22 rifle. After that we start down the road again and that’s when Pat notices a pair of headlights behind us coming down the fire road too. I began to panic because I knew what that meant. When a psychic like me senses life-threatening danger, it affects me much more than just a regular feeling does. It’s an impending fact that acts like a survival instinct, except it permeates every fiber of my being, and in a situation like this where we are out in the middle of nowhere with no one to help, my psychic gift can turn into an emotional curse that sends me into a state of near hysteria.
As the mystery vehicle reached HWY 2, I began to panic even more because it continued following us once we headed west! Pat said, ‘We’re not heading home with this stranger following us!’ so we turned into the little town of Index were we parked in front of the local tavern to call a friend from the phone booth just outside of the front door! The mystery vehicle following us stopped on the bridge that entered Index, and then sat there, but only for a moment. It then turned around and sped off when some people came out of the tavern. They were a little drunk and didn’t know what to think about me because all they saw was a grown woman in her pajamas standing in a phone booth, which they found pretty funny because they all started laughing.
Anyway, we spent the night with a friend in Skykomish and the next day we went back to get our camping gear. Afterwards we went home and tried to forget about what had happened… but, about three months later I was watching the news and it started reporting about bodies being found in the woods. They had no suspects but as the news camera was panning around, I recognized the area including the boulder where we had camped just three months prior! I yelled for Pat to come out of the kitchen and we both sat there and watched in shock as we realized just how close to death we actually came to that night.”
Susan Lynn Taylor September 22, 1950 – March 6, 2011 Rest In Peace
The Christmas Readings
This next story will be two separate stories written within one blog post because they both occurred at my company Christmas parties but during different years.
CHRISTMAS 2001. Downtown Sacramento, California. My psychic medium wife, Shannon and I are sitting at our group table in a private banquet hall enjoying ourselves. There is about sixty co-workers in attendance but I’m the only one from the Hayward branch. We weren’t there very long when I began to notice Shannon looking over at this woman sitting on the other side of the banquet hall who looked to be in her early 50’s. She worked at the main Sacramento plant and I worked out of Hayward so we did not personally know each other. Anyway, Shannon tells me that the woman has a little spirit girl with her and is calling her over to talk to the woman, so Shannon goes over and before you know it, the woman bursts out into tears which gets the attention of everyone in the banquet hall. So I’m now sitting there in shock because this was my first management and sales department Christmas party with my boss.
While Shannon is doing her reading, I start getting questioned by everyone who is wanting to know what’s going on. Including my new boss! So I tell them Shannon is a psychic medium and she probably told her something that was very emotional. Boom! Just like that, everyone wants a reading! Other than having dinner and a couple of dances together, Shannon spent most of the night doing readings for anyone who asked. Now at this point you’re probably wondering why Shannon would do readings during a Christmas party. Well, in order for you to understand, I’m going to need to fill you in with some backstory on Shannon. You see, her first husband not only did not believe in her psychic medium abilities, he also thought she was crazy. And to this day he still believes the whole psychic medium thing is a bunch of BS. When I met Shannon she was extremely gifted but very unsure of herself. It took me a long time to pull her out of the shell that she had retreated into, but I kept nurturing her so watching her spend the evening doing readings for everyone was like watching a hawk on the wind. She was happy and free and her spirit was limited by no one and I loved watching her!
So what’s the story with the fifty something year old co-worker who burst into tears? Shannon told me later that when she went up to my co-worker and introduced herself, she told her she was a psychic medium and that she had someone with her. Shannon then asked her if she would give her consent to hear more, and she did so Shannon tells her there is a little girl with her who is around the age of seven and who passed away because there was something wrong with her blood. The little girl also had blonde hair pulled into pigtails with big bows in them. Now she’s saying, “Thank you mommy for the bows.” and that’s when my co-worker lost it and broke down crying. After she had settled down, she told Shannon that she had lost her seven year old daughter to leukemia back when she was in her twenties. She said she kept it secret over the years so no one outside of family and close friends knew she had lost a child. She also verified to Shannon about the bows. She told Shannon her daughter had to have bows in her hair… every… single… day!
Shannon did many readings that night, but the only other one I can remember was with the company owner’s son, and that reading made me feel a little uncomfortable and here’s why. Shannon told him two things. 1. He was miserable working for the company and even more miserable about the idea of having to run it someday because it wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was to play baseball, and rumor had it he was good enough to play in the Minor Leagues. And 2. The other thing she told him was that his life would soon undergo a major change. He verified to Shannon about his feelings toward the family business and wanting to play baseball, and a year later Shannon was again proven correct when the company went into so much debt due to the mismanagement of a new president that it struggled for years to stay out of bankruptcy. I left the company in 2005 so I don’t know if the owner’s son ever left the family business to pursue his dream of playing baseball or not.
CHRISTMAS 2003. Downtown Dublin, California. Shannon and I are at a local restaurant where the Hayward branch Christmas party is being held. The big management and sales department Christmas parties; like the one above, were discontinued due to financial cutbacks. This Christmas party was much smaller, around twenty employees but still very enjoyable. This Christmas party was also two years after the one where Shannon had made such an impression with her psychic medium readings, that the Hayward office manager was hoping to get one. Throughout the whole Christmas dinner Shannon sensed nothing, but that eventually changed because when we were getting ready to leave, Shannon suddenly blurts out to the office manager, “You have someone with you.” Well you would have thought she had just won the lottery because she smiled a big ole smile and told us to sit back down and talk with her! By this time everyone else had left so we sat back down and Shannon gave her a reading and this is how it went.
Shannon tells her that she sees her soulmate with her except this soulmate was a little different. She says you and your soulmate were not physical lovers but instead were emotional lovers. Shannon also tells her that her soulmate was about ten years older than her, and that she physically cared for him in some way, even though they did not live together. Shannon continues and tells her that before he died he mentioned how he would try to flash red traffic lights at her to let her know he is still with her; which she has been noticing. Especially since there was no rhyme or reason to when it happened. Shannon then tells her, “Now he’s showing me teddy bears.” and my normally cool, calm, and collected co-worker finally loses it and cries out, “Oh my God you know about the teddy bears!” so at this point she starts to verify everything Shannon told her by telling us that, yes! He was ten years older! (mid-sixties) Yes! They were never physical lovers because he was dying from a degenerative disorder and she was his evening caregiver. Yes! They were spiritual lovers who shared a special connection! Yes! He told her about what he would try to do with the red traffic lights! And… yes! He arranged to have teddy bears delivered to her every week while he was still alive and then each year on her birthday after he was gone!
After the reading she was so overwhelmed with emotion she gave both of us hugs and then thanked Shannon profusely for her special Christmas gift. The only Christmas gift she was hoping for.
Broken No More
Just by their very nature, mediums deal with a lot of tragedy and loss. But once in a while; at least in Shannon’s case, fate will help deliver messages. Much needed messages. Messages that fix broken lives. As a medium, Shannon’s dominant ability is communicating with souls who have passed. But there are times when Shannon can also foresee future events with her psychic abilities. This story is about one of those events.
Valentines Day. 2004. I take Shannon to one of our favorite restaurants. It’s a Japanese style restaurant where the chef prepares and cooks the food right in front of you. There is a family of four and another couple who are seated at the same group table/grill with us, and we all have a wonderful dinner, but more interestingly, I make it through the whole evening without mentioning to anyone about Shannon being a psychic medium. I know. It was tough. But I did it. Well… almost. After dinner, Shannon got up to use the restroom and that’s when I mentioned to everyone about how Shannon and I had met. (To read that story, scroll to the bottom of my main blog page. The story is titled Paranormal Epiphany.) Anyway, the family of four included two children, so the parents took them and left before Shannon returned, and the other couple stayed behind because they looked like they were still enjoying their romantic evening out together. But before Shannon returned, the chef leaned into me, lowered his voice, and asked if we could stay behind after the other couple leaves because he would like to talk with Shannon, so I said sure. When Shannon returned, the young couple were ready to go so they paid their bill and left, and that’s when I noticed the look on the chef’s face turn from one of professionalism to one of desperation. This is his story.
He told us that his wife had five miscarriages and the sixth baby was stillborn and that she had become so heartbroken she was thinking about giving up on having children. That’s when he asked Shannon if she saw them ever having a child. Shannon told him that she saw him in a park playing with a little girl around six years old. Shannon also told him it would be their natural born daughter and his wife’s next pregnancy would be the one that would deliver her. Shannon also told him what they would name the little girl, but I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, he took Shannon’s premonition; and one of my business cards, and thanked us as we left. End of story… Or so we thought. Shannon and I had pretty much forgotten about this particular reading when, guess who calls us nine months later? The chef! And he is elated because his wife had just delivered a healthy baby girl the week before! He tells me that his wife went to a doctor’s appointment a few days after Shannon told him about how her next pregnancy would be the one that would finally give them a child, but he kept Shannon’s prediction from her because he didn’t want her hopes to be too high just in case Shannon was wrong. He also told me that his wife picked out their daughters name! The same name Shannon had predicted nine months earlier!
Like I said before, once in a while fate will help deliver messages, and in this case, it did. In the form of a little healthy baby girl.
Specter Of The Witch
In 2003, my psychic medium wife Shannon and I left for Lake Tahoe for the weekend. After our first night at a haunted motel in Placerville; where I got very little sleep, we continued on to Stateline, Nevada which is the next community east of South Lake Tahoe, California. As we drove through the Sierra Nevada on HWY 50, Shannon would occasionally sense a car accident from the past with one or more spirits still lingering about. This usually happened no matter where we would drive to. What would also always happen on our various road trips is Shannon would sense when a cemetery or graveyard was near. The same would happen if there was a Native American massacre that took place nearby as well. But back to this story. So Shannon and I pull into a row of small cottages right on the California-Nevada border in Stateline, Nevada. We check in and Shannon starts to immediately sense the spirit of a young woman who used to actually live in the cottage we were renting. She was an unknown actress who looked a lot like Marilyn Monroe. Platinum blonde and full figured, but without the film success. She was just another one of Hollywood’s tragic failures whose dreams of becoming a star were crushed.
Anyway, she found her way to these little cottages back in the 50’s where she descended into a world of gambling, alcoholism and depression. She was a non-threatening ghost, but a little sad, even though she loved these cottages and the surrounding beauty of Lake Tahoe, which probably explains why she still hangs around. After Shannon did this impromptu reading, we headed off to the casino’s for a few hours to gamble, after that we came back to our cottage so I could take an afternoon nap, because remember, I got very little sleep the night before in Placerville so I was looking forward to getting a little shut-eye, but instead I got something different. Something very different. Something that ranks as one of the most terrifying encounters I’ve ever experienced.
When we returned to the cottage to relax, Shannon made a brief comment about sensing something dark behind the cottage. Something outside and in the back of the property that was hiding, but she couldn’t really focus in on it because the young female spirit was right there in the cottage with us and her energy was the more prominent one. I wasn’t really paying any attention at the time because I was ready for some sleep, so I laid down on the bed; which by the way was hard as a rock, and drifted off to sleep. The next thing I remember is gasping for breath and sweating profusely while Shannon is standing over me, shaking me and yelling my name for me to wake up! I sat up feeling like I had just had a heart attack. I looked at Shannon and said, “I just had the worst nightmare I’ve ever had in my life.”
Shannon said that even though she didn’t see anything, she sensed that something dark was holding me down and hurting me. She said she could see me struggling in my sleep, gasping for breath, and hearing me make groaning noises. I immediately told her to tell me more about what she was sensing before I would tell her what I remembered from my nightmare because I wanted to see if what I had experienced was something paranormal or if it was sleep paralysis. Shannon repeated what she said before, and that is she sensed something dark was attacking me but not much else. She did say she felt like it was the same thing she felt before behind the cottage but it was very elusive. A cold chill ran down my spine as I listened to Shannon because what I experienced was very familiar to what little she did say. After she was done, I began to share the horror of my nightmare with her.
I’m laying on the bed asleep in the cottage but still conscious of what’s around me. Shannon is not there, but I sense that something evil is, and it’s coming from the back of the cottage. I try to move but can’t. Something that I cannot see is moving across the room towards me. Closer and closer it comes but still I can’t see it. I just sense that it is evil and wants to harm me. My fear level starts to elevate to near panic levels because I still can’t move. I feel completely helpless like I’m some kind of defenseless prey. Then I feel two hands pushing down on my chest preventing me from being able to breath. As I struggled even more, the invisible entity suddenly appeared above me as a witch. I know… I know… it sounds very cliche, but that’s what I saw. A female witch dressed all in black. Her face was old and twisted and I could sense that she was immensely enjoying my torment.
As I struggled for one last breath, it felt like my heart was about to give out as it raced even faster, and that’s when I woke up to Shannon shaking me and calling my name. Thank God nothing like this has happened to me since then because it seamed so real. Not like a dream at all. And I dream a lot. Anyway, on Sunday morning when we went to the office to check out, I decided to keep my nightmare story to myself, but we did mention to the clerk about our experiences with the young spirit woman. The clerk; who was a man in his 50’s, listened quietly to Shannon’s story, and then suddenly told us to wait there as he turned around and walked out of the office. Shannon and I just stood there wondering what was going on because sometimes people don’t always respond favorably to psychic mediums. Whatever he was doing, we didn’t have to wait very long because the clerk walked back in with a shoe box full of old photographs and said that these were pictures of the woman who lived in the cottage we stayed in. Shannon and I were shocked! This was and is, the only time that I can remember where we had someone verify her reading with pictures. She looked exactly the way Shannon described her and the clerk knew much of the woman’s backstory from the owner’s of the cottage’s because they had retold stories throughout the years and this young lady’s story was obviously one of the more interesting ones, especially since they kept all of these old pictures of her.
So, was my nightmare experience something paranormal or was it just in my head? Honestly, I don’t know, and Shannon was more psychically linked to the young woman so she’s not really sure either, even though she did sense something dark, evil, and elusive there. But real or not, I can tell you this, the fear and memories I have of that experience are still fresh and remains with me to this day.
Phantoms
In 2003, my psychic medium wife Shannon and I were driving to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. We had gotten a late start on Friday and by the time we reached the town of Placerville it was almost midnight and I was getting sleepy, and Shannon couldn’t drive because of her medications so we decided to stay in a roadside motel for the night and continue to Lake Tahoe the following morning. Just east of Placerville, there were two motels. As we drove past the first one Shannon looked at me and said, “There is no way we’re staying in that place!” I replied, “Why not? It doesn’t look that bad.” and Shannon says, “It’s not about how it looks, it’s about how it feels, and I’m sensing a lot of negative energy so this motel is a no-go.” I then drive next door to the second motel and Shannon’s response was basically the same, so I responded with, “Well, we can go back next door to the first motel or we can stay here. The choice is yours because I can barely keep my eyes open and if I try to keep driving I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel.” Shannon’s reply was, “Well, as long as it’s not the first motel.” so she reluctantly agreed to stay at the second motel.
As I went into the office, Shannon stayed in the car while I checked-in. After check-in, I came out and excitedly told Shannon that they gave us a room in the new building. The motel consisted of two separate buildings. The old one and the new one. But, my excitement for a good night’s rest was about to to be interrupted, as we approached the door to our room in the new building I noticed the foundation was old. I mean really old. Like early 20th century old. But I was so exhausted I didn’t think anymore of it as long as the building itself was new. Which it was. But as soon as I opened the door, I was hit with a stuffiness that nearly choked me so I propped the front door open and then walked back to the bathroom and opened the window in there so the cross-breeze would air out the room. As I walked out of the bathroom, Shannon was just entering the room and I noticed she had that, “My spider-sense is tingling.” look on her face, so I asked her what was up? At first she didn’t say anything, she just walked around the room and then into the bathroom where I heard her slam the bathroom window shut. Then she walks out, visibly disturbed and brushing her hands back and forth while saying, “Well that takes care of that.” I asked Shannon why she closed the bathroom window and she said, “There was a face of a really creepy looking 49er (nickname for 1849 gold miners) staring in through the bathroom window like a peeping Tom.
But what really freaked me out was his crazy looking eyes so I shut the window.” My first response was to run outside to catch the guy until I quickly realized Shannon was talking about a ghost. So, after that little reading, Shannon starts to describe how there was another ghost sitting in one of the chairs across from the bed. She described him as a happy looking old man who kept tipping his hat and flirting with her. Anyway, Shannon said he was connected to the old chair and not to the building or the land. So after learning we now have two ghosts rooming with us for the night, I laid down on the bed and tried to relax, and that’s when Shannon said, “I guess I shouldn’t tell you about the little girl huddled in the corner on your side of the bed.” Yep. To help me relax, Shannon decided to tell me there was a little girl with severe burns all over her body who died when the original building burned down.
She said she could also see the flames around the little girl too. So I do a “facepalm” and say, “That’s it! Between the horrible image now in my head of a little girl being burned to death and my curiosity about the building, I will never get any sleep so I’m going to go to the office and ask about this place.” so I walk to the office and ask, “Why is the foundation old if the building is new?” and they basically verified Shannon’s story about the fire and how they just rebuilt the building on top of the old foundation. So when I get back to our room, I tell Shannon she was correct, which really didn’t surprise her that much. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night and the weekend was just getting started. And not just any weekend, a full-blown paranormal weekend because the place we stayed at the following night turned out to be haunted too.
But that’s another story.
Death Defied
This next short story has more to do with Shannon’s psychic abilities rather than her medium abilities, but it is still very significant. Back in the early 2000’s, Shannon and I were traveling back to California from Washington state after spending the holidays there for Christmas and New Year’s with her family. Instead of driving back down Hwy 5, we decided to drive down Hwy 1 along the coast. When we pulled into McKinleyville in Northern California; which is just a few miles north of Eureka, we stopped for dinner. After dinner we stepped outside into the parking lot, and even though it was pouring rain, Shannon suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and said, “We should get a motel for the night. Something is wrong with the road ahead and it’s too dangerous to travel any more today.” So I asked her, “Why? Are you having a premonition or something?” And she said, “I’m not sure. But I heard a toad croaking and that’s usually a bad omen.” I looked at her and sarcastically said, “Really? A toad croaking? I heard it too. But really?” Now I grew up with an Aunt who was a psychic medium so I’m a believer in that ability, but toads croaking bad omens? Not so much. Anyway, instead of continuing home to Fremont, I heed Shannon’s warning and we stay in Eureka at a motel for the night.
The next morning we get up, have breakfast, and hit the road. All while it is still pouring rain. As we’re driving along just south of Eureka we come to one of those digital road condition signs that reads, “Road Closed Ahead Indefinitely Due To Avalanche.” Surprised, I look at Shannon and said, “Toads croaking, huh?” I knew the highway was open the day before, so I turned the radio to the Emergency Advisory Radio Station that covers that area to get more details, but not until after I turned around to drive back to Hwy 299 that headed to Redding and Hwy 5 because now we had to take the long way home. According to the Emergency Advisory broadcast, this wasn’t a little mudslide two or three feet deep, this turned out to be a major rock slide that took out a section of the road. But here’s the really freaky part. I did some calculations based on the time of the avalanche and compared it to the drive time from the restaurant to the location where the avalanche happened, and based on my findings, we would have been in the general vicinity yesterday when the avalanche occurred if we had kept driving.
So… did Shannon possibly save our lives with a premonition? Or were we saved by a croaking toad. I guess we’ll never know.
Demon
Between 2001 and 2007, Shannon and I would travel every year from California to Washington state to spend Christmas with her family. During our 2003 visit, Shannon was asked to do a psychic medium reading for some family friends because they had lost a family member six months prior and were looking for closure. Interestingly, this reading would also be the only one where I would visibly see paranormal phenomenon, and afterwards during another event, feel genuine fear. As we left the main highway and drove over the river to their home, I noticed we were not only headed deeper into the woods, but it was also getting dark. The woods at night creep me out, especially since I grew up watching horror films. But that’s also part of the fun. Anyway, we pulled into their driveway which was a short dirt road that headed towards two very small twin cabins next to a river. But before heading up to the cabins, Shannon senses two very young brothers in the field across the street, but were unrelated to who we were visiting. The little spirits were running and playing, seemingly unaware of their gruesome deaths from a tractor accident decades before.
Next we meet the couple who lost their cousin, and after the customary greetings, Shannon starts to sense and follow where their deceased family member is leading her. The spirit was a middle-aged woman who was luring Shannon to an outside door that opened into a storage room where homemade blackberry wine was stored in the second cabin. She communicated to Shannon that she didn’t show any prior symptoms before her heart attack so it was completely unexpected. She also didn’t suffer and she is safe and happy. During the reading, Shannon was pointing out that the woman’s spirit was sitting in a chair with a bottle of wine enjoying herself. At this time, I noticed an imprint starting to form in the cushion. I excitedly pointed it out to every one else and we all stood there amazed as the imprint became more and more pronounced. Like I said before, it was the first and only time that I have visually seen anything paranormal happen. After the reading, Shannon felt drawn to explore the rest of the property, so the two of us set out alone… in the dark… along the treeline… next to the woods… and that’s when it happened.
Shannon and I had walked around the back of the property to a corner where there was an overgrown but still slightly open path through the trees and shrubs. We were beyond the sensor light but we were still getting a little bit of ambient light from the flood lamps so it wasn’t quite pitch black. We were about a hundred feet or so from the back cabin close to the woods so I was already feeling anxious. Shannon felt pulled to the area, and as we were standing there holding hands and staring at the pathway, the spirit of a young woman in her early 20’s appeared to Shannon. The young girl had nothing to do with the current family living there in the cabins, but she was still connected to the property and the surrounding woods. Shannon was describing her to me as feeling sad. Unbearably sad and racked with despair. She was also looking to Shannon for help. As Shannon is describing all of this to me, she abruptly stops and says, “We have to go! NOW!”
She squeezes my hand really hard and starts pulling me away from the path back towards the cabins. I mean she is literally dragging me! At this point my heart starts racing as the adrenaline is raging through my body because I thought Shannon might have seen a bear or cougar or something… maybe even Bigfoot? So here I am with those scenarios running through my mind! As we rushed from the pathway, I kept asking Shannon, “What is it! What did you see!” And she would only answer with, “We need to get away from here right now!” which freaked me out even more, so I kept looking behind to see if anything was following us while at the same time hoping nothing was!
As soon as we reached the back cabin and was fully immersed in the flood lamps, Shannon took a moment to catch her breath (actually we both did) before telling me what she saw, which was a black cloaked figure with a hood and no face but it had two burning red eyes that were permeated with evil! Shannon cries out! “It was a demon! It was a very old demon that imprisoned the girl’s soul because she was foolish enough to get involved in Satanism and now she’s cursed!” Shannon sensed that the whole area had a negative feel to it, and the couple currently living there in the cabins verified that the area was once used for devil worshiping back in the 70’s.
Shannon also told me that the demon spoke directly to her. She said, as it appeared behind the young woman, it placed its misshapen hand on the woman’s shoulder, eerily whispering, “She’s mine and you can’t take her.” The young woman then lowered her head and slowly faded back into the demon as if she was being absorbed by it. The demon then stepped forward, towards us and that’s when Shannon squeezed my hand really hard and ran, dragging me along with her.
Shannon has only encountered demons a few times in her life, but this one was definitely the worst.
Dead Man’s Hand
Back in 2001 during our trip to Deadwood South Dakota, Shannon; who is a psychic medium, and I were looking forward to visiting the famous Saloon #10 where Wild Bill Hickok was murdered. This trip was only three weeks after we had met, but I had already been witness to Shannon’s psychic abilities several times before so I felt confident and looked forward to our visit to the Saloon where Wild Bill had played his last hand of cards. As we walked in, I was eagerly awaiting for Shannon to start her reading with Wild Bill Hickok and the story behind his death. I watched her face. Nothing. I watched her hands. Nothing. I even watched her body language. Still nothing. I thought to myself, “What a bummer.” because the first thing Shannon said was, “I’m not picking up anything. This place isn’t haunted and Wild Bill isn’t even here.” so instead, Shannon and I drank a little, laughed a little, and danced a little, and listened to the band a little. I wasn’t going to let this one psychic bump in the road ruin our evening.
After an hour, I decided to get Shannon and I one more drink. Our waitress was pretty busy so I went up to the bar instead and asked for two more beers. Being curious, and a little buzzed, I told the bartender about Shannon being a psychic medium and how odd it was that she wasn’t picking up anything about Bill being shot. The bartender smiled and said, “That’s because this is the second location, the first location for Saloon #10 where Bill was actually shot is down the street.” Talk about being surprised! Surprised and happy! So Shannon and I immediately headed down the street to the original location where the reading I was hoping for earlier awaited us. As we walked in, everything came to Shannon. The having to sit with his back to the door. The poker game. The two pair of aces and eights that came to be known as a “Dead Man’s Hand.” The gunshot. Everything. But what came through the most was Wild Bill’s anger about being shot the one time he sat without having his back to a wall.
It just goes to show you that you can do everything in your power to control your destiny, but in the end, destiny controls you.
The Suicide Bride
Southern Oregon, 2001. Shannon (a psychic medium who became my wife) and I were visiting the Oregon Caves. After our cave tour, we ventured into the Chateau near by. It was a grand old lodge. Big, beautiful, and majestic. And haunted. It was also very quiet. The woman at the front desk told us there was a one to two week period between the spring and summer seasons when the crowds were less prevalent. So we asked her if it was okay to look around even though we weren’t guests and she said yes. Shannon and I started to wander around and while I was enjoying the grandness of it all, Shannon was walking slowly, rubbing her hands, and showing a look of concentration on her face. At this point Shannon tells me the haunting of the Chateau; or more specifically a room, was on one of the upper floors by a young bride. So we went back to the front desk and asked the clerk if she knew anything about the haunting. At this time I also told her that Shannon was a psychic medium. The clerk said yes, and since the place was nearly empty, and because she was also fascinated with Shannon’s psychic medium abilities, she offered to take us on a little tour.
The clerk first took us to a bedroom on an upper floor where the young bride stayed, but Shannon didn’t sense her presence there so she took us to another room. This next room had three windows in it and is where the bride’s story began to unfold. Shannon immediately started telling us what happened. In the 1930’s a young woman named Elizabeth was married, but later that day she caught her husband in the arms of one of the Chateau’s maids. Elizabeth was obviously crushed so she threw herself out of the window to her death. Pretty basic tale. Betrayed by love, then embraced by death. But here’s where the story becomes a little more interesting. Shannon walked over to the windows and told us that Elizabeth jumped out of the center window. The clerk suddenly got a look of surprise on her face and said, “That would explain why the center window has been nailed shut all of these years.” Shannon and I eagerly looked at the center window around the frame and there they were… nails. Old nails that have been repeatedly painted over through the years. It was a nice confirmation for Shannon.
On a side note, Shannon also sensed a small child hiding in the closet of the room where Elizabeth jumped to her death, but she didn’t sense the story behind it so all we got to leave with was the story of the suicide bride.
Dark Portal
This next story takes place the day after we experienced the “Little Girl Lost” possession. After that incident, my psychic medium wife Shannon and I made it to Fort Bragg in Northern California (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Bragg,_California) for the night where we stayed with only one paranormal encounter which was just a simple restaurant haunting. Shannon and I had lunch at a brew pub that had an old male spirit that liked to hang out there. A ghost story with not much story to it. Even though our waitress verified everything Shannon said about the haunting, which wasn’t much. It was just an old employee from the business that was there before it became a brew pub. It had your typical ghost sightings, unexplained noises and objects moving on their own. Pretty basic stuff. But the next day we got up and began our drive south on HWY 1 down the beautiful California coastline back to the East Bay where we lived, and this is where Shannon detected a portal. It’s one of the few times that she has ever sensed a portal, and it was an evil one.
A few hours away from reaching the small town of Manchester, Shannon noticed a change in the energy the land was giving off. It was a feeling of great sadness and dread. A despair so deep that it drowned out the natural beauty of the area for her. I on the other hand really love the coast so I was enjoying the scenery, but that was about to change, too. Shannon started describing how the local Native American tribes in that area were massacred by the U. S. Army back in the late 19th century, and how the land absorbed, remembered, and was reflecting that energy back. Shannon has detected many of these kinds of Native American tragedies on many of our road-trips, but this one was very disturbing for her, but she was eventually able to tolerate it. We finally reached the small town of Manchester, and while I’m focusing on the drive, Shannon starts yelling, “Did you see that! Did you see that building! It was a portal!” Shannon starts describing how eerie the building was, and since this was the first time she had ever mentioned sensing a portal, I turned the car around and headed back to see the building for myself. We pulled up past the school, made a U-turn, and then pulled off the highway right in front of the old building.
From what I can remember, it was maybe two stories high and it looked like it might have a semi-basement because the front stairs went up about six feet above the ground to the first floor. It was red, abandoned, and had a short central bell tower on top of the roof. But it was so long ago I’m not really sure. It did have a big grassy yard around it with the perimeter lined with trees. Anyway, Shannon starts describing what used to be either an elementary school or an orphanage. She wasn’t sure which, but she was sure it was filled with children. Abused children. The negative energy from the portal was dark and overwhelming so Shannon couldn’t really focus in on too many details, and she’s also not sure if the portal was emanating from the building or the land, or both. We were only sitting in front of the building for maybe thirty seconds when Shannon starts panicking and yells at me. “Drive! Drive! Drive! Get me out of here, now!”
So I drive off and immediately ask her what’s wrong? Shannon says, “A black-haired young girl appeared in one of the windows and started staring at me”, I asked her why did that bother her so much, Shannon replied, “Her face was severely burned by either acid or fire, and her eyes were missing. They were just two black holes and her mouth was black and gaping open in a very low and unnatural way. It was like there was no physicality to her eyes and mouth. They were just deep, dark, bottomless pits. She was one of the creepiest ghosts I have ever seen. Plus the energy from the portal was intensifying.” The negative energy of the land stayed with Shannon for about three hours after we left the surrounding area around Manchester, but the evil energy from the portal, and the tormented energy from the spirit girl stayed with Shannon for the next several days.
We’ve been back to Fort Bragg since then, via HWY 101 & HWY 20, but as beautiful as that drive down HWY 1 was, we have never gone back.
Little Girl Lost
Back in 2003, my psychic medium wife Shannon and I went on a drive up Hwy 101 to the little Northern California town of Leggett where we would connect with Hwy 1. There, the Pacific Coast Highway would take us west through the coastal mountains to the sea, and then down to Fort Bragg for the night. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Bragg,_California) As we were driving through a particularly winding part of the two lane road, Shannon started sensing a little girl spirit from the late 19th century. She was walking beside her family’s wagon with her parents riding inside, traveling on what was then an old primitive trail. While I was driving, I thought to myself, “How cool is this going to be, because now I get to hear another ghost story?” Well, my idea of cool quickly turned into fear. For the first and only time, I became afraid for Shannon because she was about to become completely absorbed, or possessed, by a distraught spirit.
Shannon starts describing a happy scene of a family traveling towards a new promising life. The mom and dad in the wagon were enjoying the fresh air and sunlight that was beaming through the trees while their eight year old daughter was instead, very tired of being on another tedious trip, so she was kicking small rocks around as she walked along the treacherous trail. The north side of the trail was an inclined wall of coastal mountains reaching straight up to the sky. On the southern side of the trail was a ravine with a steep decline around a hundred feet deep. I was more focused on driving because this section was becoming dangerous, so I was just listening to Shannon’s voice and not glancing back and forth at her face, when she starts describing how the little girl begins to scream as she sees the horses get spooked by something and pulls the wagon and her parents over the edge of the trail.
Next, Shannon tells how the little girl slowly makes her way down to the bottom of the ravine to her parents where she finds them dead. While Shannon was first describing this tragedy, she was telling the story as herself, but that quickly changed. I noticed Shannon’s voice began to sound higher pitched and she started using words like, I, instead of, her. There was a panic in her voice too as she started crying for her, I mean the little girl’s parents. “Mom! Dad! Wake up! Wake up! You have to wake up!” Shannon is now inconsolable, and the grown woman I was sitting next to just a few moments ago is gone, replaced by a hysterical little girl.
I now start to panic because this has never happened before so I start yelling, “Shannon! Shannon! What do you want me to do! Should I turn around?! I’m turning around! As soon as we come to a turnout, I’m turning around!” Shannon snaps at me and says, “No, I’m okay! I just need a minute!” By this time I’m pretty rattled, and Shannon’s unhinged emotional state isn’t helping any. But a few miles down the road we both start to calm down and she tells me what happened next, and it is gut-wrenching. Shannon painfully tells me that the little girl wandered along the ravine for several days afterwards. Exposed and scared of every little noise, every little shadow. Crying, hungry and cold. At night she would hide in-between trees and bushes. But on the fourth night, Shannon told me she found an old rotted out tree that was lying on the ground. And this lost little girl, still confused and paralyzed with fear, just crawled underneath the shelter of the fallen tree, and died. All alone, she just closed her eyes and died.
As I said before, this was the first time a spirit had possessed Shannon without her consent, and I hoped to God it would be the last.
Winchester Mystery House
In 2002, I took my then psychic medium girlfriend (who is now my wife) Shannon to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. I have been there numerous times over the years because family who visited from out of state would always want to go there, but this would be Shannon’s first visit, and my first visit with a psychic medium. Suffice to say I was pretty excited to start, but Shannon needed to use the restroom first so off she went. As soon as Shannon disappeared, our tour guide showed up and announced we would be starting our tour. I told her that my girlfriend went to use the restroom and she said no problem. Our tour guide was a 16 year old girl whose first name I can’t remember. But, and you’re not going to believe this, a psychic medium herself! What are the odds! The one time I show up with a psychic medium and the tour guide turns out to be one too!
While we were waiting there for Shannon, I looked at her and said, “I bet this happens all of the time. You’re ready to start your tour and there’s always someone that has to use the restroom at the last minute.” She smiled and said, “Yeah, but it’s okay. I’d rather have them go now before the tour instead of during it.” I laughed and agreed with her, but then I mentioned to her how I’ve been to the Winchester Mystery House many times before, but was really excited this time because Shannon was a psychic medium. The young tour guide looked at me shocked, like I had just insulted her or something, but then she leaned into me and gently whispered, “She’s okay with people knowing she’s psychic?” I was a little taken aback at first, but then I responded with a very confident, yes. I told her that Shannon is very proud of what she is and I’m also very proud of her too.
In fact, I can’t stop telling people about her because to me it just makes her even more special than she already is. Anyway, she then proceeds to tell me, in a very soft voice so no one else can hear, that she has psychic abilities too, but she keeps them secret because she doesn’t want to be teased and tormented over them. She tells me that she has a very small circle of friends in school that have paranormal abilities as well and they keep that part of their lives secret. I immediately felt bad for her. I had forgotten how tough being a teenager was, and being a psychic medium teenager was probably even more tough. By this time Shannon had returned so we filled her in on our discussion so both Shannon and the tour guide were now extra excited for this tour to begin.
Shannon and I hung back a little bit behind our tour group so Shannon wouldn’t draw too much attention to herself with her reactions. Our young psychic tour guide, however kept a very close eye on Shannon to see what she was experiencing. I noticed her always glancing towards Shannon after she would do her speech about each new room we would enter but always being careful enough to not make it too obvious. Shannon detected seven spirits throughout the mansion. Most of them were construction workers and/or house servants attending their various duties. Except for two. Shannon sensed a male spirit who used to be a security guard and a troublemaker. As we would find out later. The second spirit was none other than Sara Winchester herself. Shannon could see her sitting in a rocking chair overlooking a part of her property from the second floor. She was in a section that was closed to the public, but the strange way the mansion was built, allowed us to see the area from where we were standing.
If I remember correctly, it was a long narrow partially enclosed sun-room that overlooked a medium sized yard where a crescent moon bush was located. Every time Shannon enters where a new section was added onto a building she would get vertigo, so at the Winchester Mystery House, she was always getting vertigo. At the end of the tour, our guide did her “Thank you and come back soon.” speech, then patiently waited for everyone to shuffle into the souvenir shop at the end of the tour. As soon as the last tourist exited, she quickly ran over to us and excitedly asked Shannon, “So what did you see?” Shannon told her about the seven spirits she sensed. Shocked and surprised, yet giddily excited, our teenage psychic tour guide compared and verified Shannon’s experiences with her own. Shannon and her also talked about the security guard who was a little on the dark side. He didn’t like psychics and would try to touch or project negative feelings onto them. Our tour guide told us she constantly had to remain on guard when she would enter the part of the mansion where he was.
Another surprising part of the tour was Shannon; as well as our tour guide, detected absolutely nothing in the seance room. I mean nothing. It was psychically dead. So the only real difference between Shannon and our psychic tour guide’s experiences was she would also regularly see an eighth spirit that Shannon did not detect… but, she did see the most important spirit in the house where Shannon did, and that was of Sara Winchester herself.
In The Mouth Of Shadows
After Shannon (a psychic medium) and I met in 2001, we moved into a small cottage that was part of an old complex that had two other small cottages, about fourteen small apartments, and one two-story farm house. The cottages were originally built back in the early 1900’s as vacation cottages and were used by silent film stars and crews such as Charlie Chaplin. Only three cottages survived to this day. The house was built sometime in the 20’s or 30’s, and the apartments after WW2. Niles; which is now part of Fremont, was the original Hollywood before the studios moved from northern California to southern California. The cottage sat right at the mouth of Niles canyon. Haunted, Niles canyon. Our cottage was no bigger than 150 to 200 square feet. It had no sink in the bathroom and no insulation or air conditioning so it was hot in the summer and the old single-pane windows produced water condensation when it rained in the winter. It also had very little storage space and a small kitchenette. But it was affordable and we loved it. It was our little love shack. Oh… it was also extremely haunted. Not just our cottage, but the whole property. Roughly about two acres.
As a psychic medium, Shannon detected spirits all over the property, she did however perform a protection spell on our cottage so we would not be haunted, except for a small ghost cat that occasionally liked to run around at night. Cats never listen anyway. Shannon and I loved the property. Except for one spirit, a cranky old man in the attic of the main house who used to yell and scream from the attic window at Shannon to “Stay away from my house.” but most of the other spirits were friendly. One was a man in a baseball uniform who was always hiding behind the same bush. One was a young boy always underneath an apple tree. There was something mysterious always lurking outside one of our windows in the front room but Shannon never could sense what that energy was about. Across the small field behind the back of our cottage there was something dark, always staring at our bedroom window from underneath an elevated and abandoned tool shed, or something, but only at night. It was like it knew Shannon could sense it, but during the daytime the dark energy was gone. Whatever it was, it was the only energy Shannon identified as evil.
Shannon also sensed that the old film crews and actors energies were still prevalent on the property, but only in a general way. Nothing really specific. Off property, Shannon sensed massive amounts of energy within Niles canyon, which we rarely walked into. But during our first walk along Alameda creek which flows out of Niles canyon, Shannon saw the spirit-body of a young girl who had drowned. We were under the overpass for Mission Blvd when she saw a brunette in a white flowing dress just underneath the surface of the water. We were only about a hundred feet from the property where our rental cottage was. The spirit-body just floated their like a physical body but did not move with the flow of water downstream, nor did she try to communicate with Shannon. Could this have been the famous “White Witch of Niles Canyon?” Who knows. Because we lived right at the mouth of Niles canyon, it was usually windy, but the wind wasn’t always natural, sometimes we would get what Shannon called “Evil winds.” These were winds that carried the souls of the dead. They were very rare and were not generated by the canyon, but instead by restless spirits roaming over the earth.
My last story about our love shack is the creepiest. Shannon also sensed that there were other spirits haunting some of the other apartments, which the other non-psychic medium renters verified with plenty of ghost stories about spooky and weird happenings. But the one I’m going to tell you made all of our blood run cold. Shannon and I pulled into our driveway late one night where I had to stop to let Shannon out so she can open the car door because the driveways were so small, anyway, she gets out of the car and immediately runs to the far side of the neighbors cottage yelling something. I couldn’t see her either because there were now two cottages between us, so I immediately park my car and run over to our neighbors driveway where Shannon is standing and hurriedly asked, “What happened?” Shannon tells me she saw a shadow person staring at her. She said it was up against the house and moved along the wall from the front to the side where the driveway was and then it disappeared. She said it had no defining facial features except for its eyes. She said the eyes were dark, bottomless, and empty. Her story really creeped me out, but we had a good laugh over it because of the way she ran after it. Shannon has never run towards a shadow person like that before.
Anyway, like I said we were having a good chuckle when our neighbor pulled up wondering why we were standing in his driveway, so we told him what we had just experienced and the look on his face quickly turned to one of shock. He told us about a week ago he had pulled into his driveway late at night and out of the corner of his eye he caught something looking through his passenger side window at him. He quickly turned to see the exact same shadow person Shannon had just described. His eyes shifted away for a moment in shock, but when he refocused on his passenger window the shadow person was gone. He said he got out and looked all around but could not see or hear anyone. He said he would have knocked on our door to ask Shannon about it but we were gone that evening. Our little love shack was old, small, and had few modern conveniences, but we loved that place. Ghosts and all.
The Spirit Of Old Sacramento
In 2002, my psychic medium wife Shannon and I went to Old Sacramento for the day. When we arrived, Shannon immediately started sensing a very strong pull. Neither one of us knew anything specific about Old Town, except that I knew it was a very cool place to party at during the jazz festival, which is sadly no more. Anyway, as Shannon and I start walking around enjoying ourselves, she begins sensing two things. 1. That another town was buried under Old Town. And 2. A very strong urge to search out and find someone there. Instead of casually strolling around and enjoying browsing through all of the shops, Shannon is walking at a frenzied pace, as if she was late to an appointment. I kept asking her what was she sensing, and she would reply with, “I don’t know yet. But I have to keep looking. I have to know. It’s very important and I just can’t let it go.”
So for about 30 to 45 minutes, Shannon is dragging me around on some paranormal wild goose chase, until we come to an old beautiful brick building. We go inside and I immediately notice there are small stores on the ground floor along with stairways to more shops on the upper floors, so I assume if Shannon doesn’t find what she’s looking for on the ground floor, we’ll be hoofing it up those stairs. But I was wrong. I was so, so wrong. Instead, Shannon heads down the stairway to the basement where a long creepy hallway filled with out-of-business shops were. The hallway felt like it was straight out of a horror movie. Somewhat dark and foreboding. As we ventured down the hallway, I tried to stop Shannon from going any further, but she was having none of it. I said “Look, there is nothing down here. Let’s go.” And as soon as I said that, we came upon a little custom leather shop. My first thought was, “What a horrible location. How can this place even be in business.” Anyway, we go inside and an older man greeted us thinking we were clients coming in to pick up their custom order. The man; who was probably in his late 70’s or early 80’s, and myself were both surprised to hear Shannon’s next words.
Shannon starts doing a reading on him and describes how a young man in a uniform who died during the Vietnam War was driving her to find the old man. Shannon tells the shop owner very personal and accurate information about him and the deceased soldier, and after about 20 minutes or so, the old shop owner says “Wait right here.” He disappears in the back and then reemerges with an old photograph of a soldier. The photograph verifies Shannon’s description of the soldier, and the old man says he was my son. Now, I don’t know why Shannon can be driven to find a complete stranger to deliver a message and not know it was from the man’s son, but it happens sometimes. Psychics do not have “know all and see all abilities,” they’re only given what is needed, and in this case, what Shannon was shown was enough to convince the old man because he said he didn’t believe in psychics and if he hadn’t of experienced what he just experienced with Shannon he never would have believed it.
Afterwards, Shannon is feeling relieved that she was able to deliver the deceased soldiers message, so we go to the tourist center and guess what we learn, the original Old Town kept flooding in its early days by the Sacramento River so it was completely buried over and the new “Old Town” was built on top of the original Old Town to prevent flooding. Shannon’s sense of another town buried under Old Town was now verified. We haven’t been back to Old Sacramento since, but we still remember fondly of the unexpected reunion between a father and a son.
The Restless Souls Of Deadwood
Deadwood. South Dakota. 2001. Shannon and I are in South Dakota for three days vacationing. Remember, just three weeks prior is when my deceased cousin Kirby helped set Shannon and I up, and that Shannon is a psychic medium. Anyway, we are visiting Deadwood. Specifically, the Mount Moriah Cemetery. Final resting place of Wild Bill Hickok…… Or is it?
Shannon and I are walking around the cemetery enjoying the beautiful countryside of the Black Hills, when she starts to sense very angry Asian spirits in a far off separated section of the cemetery. Shannon is a little freaked out by their anger and despair, so we do not go into that area. Betrayal! Shannon also feels betrayal. She doesn’t really pick up much more than that, so we turn around and head back towards the entrance. As we walk, we come upon an attendant giving a presentation to a group of people about a certain grave site. The grave site of Wild Bill Hickok. Or so we are told. During his presentation, Shannon leans into me and whispers, “He’s not buried here.” Immediately I become intrigued.
Afterwards, I approach the attendant and inform him that we know Wild Bill is not buried there, he looks at us strangely and asks if we’ve been there before and we say no. I tell him about Shannon being a psychic medium and what she has already experienced with the Asian spirits. The attendant now becomes even more intrigued than me. He tells us that in the years following Wild Bill’s death, grave-robbers kept disturbing his grave so his body was moved to a more private location up behind the cemetery, and that the presentation that is given at the false grave is just for the tourists. His attention then focuses on the Asian spirits. He says the story behind them is they were Chinese, and instead of full wages for their labor; upon their death, they wanted their bodies sent back to China so they could be buried in their homeland. Their American employers agreed to this but did not keep their promises and eventually had them buried in a segregated section of the cemetery to save money.
The attendant then told us that this story is actually on their brochures which are available at the main entrance. I look at the attendant and said; “We didn’t know that so we don’t have a brochure.” He was even more intrigued after that. As we left the Mount Moriah Cemetery, we grabbed one of the brochures and it verified what the attendant told us, which in-turn confirmed everything Shannon had sensed.
Niles Canyon Premonition
2002. Pleasanton, California. Shannon and I are driving home to Fremont. There are several routes you can take to get home, but the way I was going to take was on 680 and not through Niles Canyon. Why is this relevant? Well sit back, relax, and let me explain. Niles canyon is severely haunted. Growing up just one mile from the canyon’s western entrance, I was always seeing on the news about car accidents in the canyon. Many of them resulting in horrific deaths. As a small child, I remember when my family were nearly in one accident that involved about 5 or 6 vehicles. Over the years, bodies were found in the canyon too. Some of them were homeless people who died there, and others were those who committed suicide. There were a few murder victims, too. Oh! There is also the old legend about the “White Witch” who haunted the canyon, and sometimes, if they were unlucky, the travelers who drove the canyon late at night might be subject to her ghostly attentions. Needless to say, Niles canyon is filled with a lot of negative energy, and the narrowness of the land concentrates that energy to extremely high levels which can affect psychic mediums in a very strong and unusual way.
The very first time I drove Shannon (who is a psychic medium and who is from Washington state) through the canyon, experienced many spirits. Some she could see on the side of the road, and others she sensed down in the creek where their cars eventually ended up after going over the edge. The drop off varies and is only about 10 to 20 feet, but still devastating when traveling at the moderate speed limit of the canyon. The most dangerous part of the eastbound drive was going through Dead Man’s Curve. This hairpin corner bridge is where the bulk of the vehicle accidents take place. After we drove through Dead Man’s Curve, Shannon leisurely stated; “There were about a dozen people standing on the side of the road waving at me.” so I said “What? I didn’t see anyone?” and Shannon said, “They were all ghosts.” I had focused all of my attention on driving through Dead Man’s Curve that I had temporarily forgotten about her being able to sense spirits. Anyway, we reached the eastern side of the canyon and turned around in the little town of Sunol to head back west to Fremont through Niles canyon, and that’s when things got really weird.
We start back to Fremont, and Shannon slowly starts to feel inebriated. She starts slurring her words and swaying in her seat like she can’t keep her balance. Her eyes begin to roll and she starts to feel nauseous. The drive through the canyon is only about 7 to 8 minutes, but it felt much longer. When we reached the western side of the canyon, Shannon immediately started to feel better. After a few days, I came to the conclusion that the reason why Shannon was affected this way during the westbound drive was a lot of the car accidents that occurred were by teenagers who would drive into the canyon (eastbound) sober, park their cars and party down by the creek, then drive back towards Fremont (westbound) drunk, which is when they would crash and lose their lives. Makes sense to me, and Shannon thought so too. After this time, Shannon and I have only driven eastbound through the canyon, once, and have never driven westbound. Not in 18 years… Except once… Almost.
Now, back to the beginning of the story. As I had stated before, Shannon and I were driving back to Fremont from Pleasanton. We were on 680 and the plan was to take it back to Fremont because of her prior unpleasant experience, but it was late and I was tired and Shannon was asleep. We also lived in a little cottage right at the western entrance of Niles canyon so going through Niles would have been a lot quicker. I have stories about that as well. But those will be written later. Anyway, Shannon was asleep in the passenger seat. A sound sleep. A sleep so deep that even the occasional pothole didn’t disturb her. So when the exit came up for Niles Canyon, I slowly started to drift onto the off-ramp, when suddenly, Shannon bursts awake throwing her hands up in front of her yelling, “YOU’RE GOING THROUGH THE CANYON!” I freaked out and hit the brakes and swerved back onto the freeway just in time saying, “NO I’M NOT!” We actually both laugh about it now, but at the time it was just another jarring but amazing paranormal experience.
Toys ‘R’ Us Blood Bath
2002. Sunnyvale. I take my psychic medium wife Shannon for the first time to experience the haunted Toys ‘R” Us in Sunnyvale California. Back in the 90’s I use to co-own a pizza parlor one block from Toys “R” Us, so I’ve experienced paranormal activity in that area before. But I digress, this is about Shannon’s visit.
The Legend.
The stories vary, but the core legend is, around the turn of the last century, a ranch hand fell in love with the ranchers daughter who owned all of the land up and down the El Camino Real. Including the land where my pizza parlor was. Anyway, the story is the ranch hand was chopping wood and accidentally chopped into his own ankle and bled to death when he saw the ranchers daughter. According to the legend, her beauty was so overwhelming and his love for her was so great that they distracted him which lead to his accident. Him bleeding to death is an important part of Shannon’s part of the story.
So… back to the present. Shannon and I walk into the haunted Toys “R” Us, and Shannon immediately stops and says, “What the hell happened here!?” (Remember, Shannon does not want to be told in advance about haunted locations) I ask why. And she said, “everything is covered in blood! The toys on the shelf and floor are both dripping in fresh blood! It’s literally a blood bath!” We made a quick tour of the store and then left because Shannon was starting to feel nauseous from all of the blood! This was the first and only time that one of Shannon’s readings focused on the results of a haunting and not the ghost itself. It also was the last time we ever visited that particular Toys “R” Us.
Haunting In Half Moon Bay
2002. Cameron’s Pub, Half Moon Bay, California. Shannon and I are having lunch when she senses that either the two buildings or the property that the pub is on is haunted, so I tell the waitress that my girlfriend Shannon (who is now my wife) is a psychic medium and that the place is haunted. The young waitress looks surprised and excited and says, “Wait here! I’ll be right back!” so she runs off to tell the manager. Soon after, the manager comes over and asks us if it’s okay if we follow her, and we say yes. My first thought was, “Were we being asked to leave?” but instead, the manager, the waitress, and Shannon and I walk outside to the building next door that is their Inn.
This is where the manager wants to know if Shannon can tell them what’s going on inside their building. As we reach the Inn, the manager unlocks the door to an interior stairway that leads upstairs to the three bedrooms. She then steps back and gestures for us to enter first, which we begin to do, but then Shannon immediately stops and stares up the stairway for a good minute or two while the rest of us just watch her in anticipation. Shannon then turns and looks at the manager and says, “Your guests are being pushed as they walk down the stairs.” The waitress gasps in surprise and the manager confirms what Shannon just said. We then go upstairs and Shannon sees the ghost of an old sailor from about eighty years ago and who is angry about having strangers sleeping in his room. That’s why he tries to push the guests down the stairs.
As Shannon is reading all of this, the old sailor is aware that Shannon can see him so he starts verbally taunting her with insults. At this point, Shannon is ready to leave so in order to protect her going down the stairs, I go first, very slowly and with both hands on the handrails with Shannon immediately behind me so if she falls, she’ll fall into me and I’ll be able to support her. Shannon has had four spinal surgeries (two more since 2004) so I wanted to prevent her from being pushed down the stairs by a grumpy old ghost.
Cameron’s Pub is a great place to eat and drink. If you’re ever in Half Moon Bay, I highly recommend it. And if you’re really brave, try staying the night. Who knows, you might just have a run in with an old grumpy ghost.
Mill Creek Road Massacre
2002. Fremont, California. My psychic medium girlfriend Shannon (who is now my wife) and I drove up Mill Creek Road in the Fremont hills because back in the mid-eighties, two teenage girls were brutally murdered there and I wanted to see what Shannon would sense, but I did not tell her this because she doesn’t want to be given any prior information regarding a haunting or information about places where tragedies resulted in deaths, so I just told her it was a beautiful drive in the Fremont hills. As we start up Mill Creek road, Shannon immediately starts describing the girls and their night of terror before they died. I remember a lot of the details about the case from our local paper from the 80’s because it was such a shocking story for Fremont. That’s how I knew Shannon’s accuracy about what she was describing was so accurate.
I’m not going to go into details about what was done to the two girls before they were killed because it was pretty brutal. I will say this, Shannon saw how the men played a sadistic game of cat and mouse with the girls before they were raped, murdered, and had their bodies mutilated. Shannon said she could feel how each time the girls would frantically reach the top of a hill and would desperately hope to see the city lights but were always crushed with fear and disappointment. This twisted game went on all night, and Shannon was also seeing why the girls were being tortured. It had something to do with drugs. Shannon also had visions about the men. She saw that they were three guys from Hayward, and when the time came to do what was eventually done to the girls, one of the men refused and tried to stop the leader of the group. Shannon saw how the two men fought as the third man just stood and watched. But in the end, the leader won which sealed the fate of the girls.
While we were driving along, I did not confirm or deny any of what Shannon was saying at the time until we exited the canyon which took about forty minutes. As soon as we were out of the hills and off of Mill Creek Road, I verified everything Shannon had said. She was very solemn for the rest of the day because the energy from the reading was very negative and the girls last night alive was so horrific that she said she would never go up Mills Creek Road again. And to this day… we haven’t.
Murder Beyond The Vortex
Grants Pass, Oregon. 2001. Shannon drives down from Washington state and I drove up from California to meet for three days of vacation. We go and visit a local tourist attraction where Shannon senses two things with her psychic medium gifts; 1. There are no animals within the grounds of the Oregon Vortex. And 2. There is a young girl in the woods sitting on a log or boulder and wailing at the top of her lungs. As Shannon tells me this, I listen and respond with, “But I don’t hear anything.” Shannon says, “No silly, she’s a ghost.” But Shannon can’t really pick up more than that, and since we were done with the tour, I suggested we leave.
As we’re out in the parking lot walking towards my car, Shannon suddenly stops and excitedly says, “I know what it is! I know what happened to her now! She was raped and murdered up in the woods near here! But there is still more to the story! I just don’t know what it is yet!” Since Shannon can’t pick up anymore, I also suggest that we go up the road and look around, and Shannon says, “I’m not going out in those woods. It’s starting to get dark” So I asked her what she wanted to do and she said “Lets go back inside and ask the tour guides if they know anything.” So Shannon goes back in while I wait by my car. Remember, this only happened just three weeks after Shannon and I had met, so I was still on the fence about her being a psychic medium even though the day before she nailed the reading at the Chateau near the Oregon Caves, which is another short story titled The Suicide Bride. Anyway, Shannon shortly comes back out with one of the tour guides and they proceed to tell me what just happened inside.
When Shannon went back in, she asked the two tour guides; who were both young girls in their early twenty’s, if they knew anything about the rape and murder of a young girl out in the woods. That’s when one of the young tour guides turned white as a ghost and burst out crying. The owner of the vortex; hearing what was just said, came running out of her office and hugged her employee to calm her down. Once the girl did calm down, she told us it was her sixteen year old sister, three years prior, who had been raped and murdered. She told Shannon they never found out who did it and just assumed it was some drifter. Shannon said “No. While your sister was jogging, a pick up truck with two boys from her high school; who she thought was her friends, were the ones who showed up and raped and murdered her.” The young spirit then communicated to her sister; through Shannon, that she is safe now and will be happy when her family accepts her death and moves on.
At this point both Shannon and the young tour guide are crying and hugging each other for comfort and support. While this was going on, I just stood there in shock, thinking to myself how cool it is that my girlfriend (who is now my wife) can talk to ghosts. Soon afterwards as we were driving away, Shannon tells me about how my deceased cousin Kirby brought us together at the Boomtown Hotel & Casino several weeks prior, and this is when I fully realized and accepted that Shannon is a legitimate psychic medium.
Paranormal Epiphany
My wife Shannon and I met in 2001, and we were introduced by my cousin Kirby… again, in 2001. The catch to the story is, my cousin Kirby died in a car accident in 1981………… Shannon is a psychic medium.
Boomtown Hotel & Casino. 30 minutes outside of Reno Nevada. Friday night. Memorial Day Weekend. 11pm-ish. I am in the Cabaret listening to my cousin Robert’s band; The California Cowboys, while Shannon is on the other side of the casino gambling. For about an hour and a half she ignores disembodied whispers in her ears, saying, “Go to the cabaret. Go to the cabaret.” She also feels an occasional tug on the back of her blouse from an unknown spirit. Shannon gets pestered by dead people a lot so she ignored the voice at first because she just wanted to gamble and enjoy her vacation, but after about an hour and a half, she begrudgingly gives in, mumbling to herself, “Fine! I’ll go to the damn cabaret!” which is where we meet. Instant chemistry. Instant attraction. Our souls instantly recognized each other. We spend the next three days together as if we went there as a couple.
Afterwards, Shannon goes back to Washington state and I back to Fremont in Northern California. We meet up again several weeks later in Grants Pass, Oregon during my vacation where Shannon; after an amazing psychic reading she does and is a later short story titled Murder Beyond The Vortex, tells me that she is a psychic medium and that I had a spirit with me in Reno who was responsible for her coming into the cabaret. She describes him as a male teenage relative with sandy blonde hair and who has an infectious laugh. All true about Kirby. But she is puzzled. She says, “He’s legally your cousin, besides being your best friend and one of your soulmates, but he’s not related by blood or marriage.” Stunned and a little emotional at what Shannon just told me, I quickly gathered myself, smiled at Shannon and said, “That’s because Kirby was adopted.”
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