Mount Road (Chennaionline Archives)

There were not many buses in those days in Chennai and even the buses that were plying were relatively smaller. The other alternatives available for the commuters were the hand-drawn-rickshaw or the horse-drawn-cart, popularly known as kai-rickshaw and jutka. There was a belief in those days – I am talking about 40 or 50 years back – that ghosts would follow anyone who travels by a rickshaw through Mount Road. Yes, I am talking about the present Anna Salai.

My friend used to describe how a ghost would look like. ‘You know a ghost is not white in colour. It is jet black. It should be around fifty to sixty feet tall and its legs would be as red as burning coals.’ He was travelling the Mount Road for years together in ‘kai-rickshaw’ followed by apparitions and died when he was sixty.

Read complete article here. {via chennaionline}

OUIJA

Almost everyone has taken a turn on a Ouija Board.

Most people say they find the experience creepy or downright frightening. It’s the rare person who isn’t drawn to the board at least once in a lifetime, and it’s an even rarer person who goes back to the board on a regular basis.

Ouija Boards are notoriously unreliable and disturbing sources of information. They’ re also practically irresistible, especially to adolescents.

The Ouija Board is one of the best selling board games of all time.

But where did it come from?

Read complete article here. {via The Examiner}

Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven/Public Domain/Wikimedia

The first memory of seeing him was when I was six-years old. Peaking at me from around a large tree, he wore a black thigh-length coat, black pants, black large-rimmed flat top hat, white collared shirt and a bolo tie. Thinking back, he reminds me of an old-fashioned preacher-type.

I wasn’t scared of him. In fact, I was quite fascinated by him. He was there one minute, gone the very next. I remember going around the tree calling to him, “Hey, Mister! Where’d you go?”

Read complete article here. {via The Examiner}

The Jewish legend – an obedience story – of the spirit Dybbuk. {source: ParanormalTV}

Spirit or Dust?

Lately I have been reading a lot of different opinions on paranormal research. Many groups believe orbs are dust. Just as many groups believe orbs are spirits. Same theory applies to EMF meters and even EVP’s. Why are there some many different opinions on these items which paranormal investigators base their “scientific research” on?

Simply put, we don’t know the answers yet. That is why we do what we do. But we need to do things better. Aside from going out and investigating the places we do, we also need to sit down and experiment with what we do and how we do it. We are not all scientist and I believe many do not even know how to formulate a scientific hypothesis that can be verified. This has to happen in order for anyone in the paranormal community to say they have the answer. Right now none of us do.

Read complete article here. {via The Examiner}

Evil Ouija?

The Ouija board, also known earlier in time as “the talking board,” has fascinated people since the 1800’s. Many believe the Ouija opens a portal to dialogue with spirits of both a positive and negative nature. Sold and peddled today as a glow-in-the-dark toy by Parker Brothers; is the Ouija board a precarious tool for spirit communication or just the users psyche playing tricks?

The Ouija board is many things, but a toy is not one of them. Having witnessed the bizarre messages brought forth on the board, whether instinctive or imagined, was enough to realize there exists danger in tinkering with this so-called toy.

A few years back in summer, a bored group of local teenagers started messing with the Ouija board and became obsessed with not only asking it questions, but also the answers they received. However, it was all fun and games until the messages turned malicious and threatening.

Read the complete article here. {via The Examiner}

So have ya heard of the Union screaming house? Well I hadn’t and I can’t wait to be able to un-remember it. This has to be one of the most horrifying, f’ed up hauntings I’ve read about since probably the first time I read the Amityville Horror. As a matter of fact, I  read most of this book during the day with plenty of glorious sunlight, and it still gave me chills. So there’s your warning.

Just when I thought there couldn’t be anything worse then demonic pigs, fly-infested rooms, Indian burial grounds, spinning heads and televison poltergiests, along comes the The Uninvited: The True Story of the Union Screaming House. And you know as well as I do, when you see the “True” stamped on the cover, that means the pucker factor goes up tenfold.

The Uninvited: The True Story of the Union Screaming House (Paperback)

LaChance takes us on a hell ride, a.k.a. his life, that doesn’t let up for 200 plus pages. The tale begins with Steven’s wife abandoning him and their three young children as well as the tragic death of his older sister. Now as a single dad, and without a home, he begins the search for a new place to call home. He soon finds what appears to be the dream home. But of course nothing could be further from the truth. Within the first couple of days the paranormal activity begins. And it’s not pretty. We’re talking things like demonic basement clowns. Ugh…clowns. Why did it have to be clowns? Plus, there is constant noise coming from empty rooms, a freaky butcher shower, doors opening and closing, and finally a smoky-shadowy figure that searches room to room for the LaChance family. Within a couple of weeks, Steven and his children decide to flee as the activity becomes increasingly disturbing and possibly life threatening. Sounds like the end right? Wrong! This is where it really begins and all hell breaks loose. After moving out of the house, he hears that the house has been rented to a family with young children, despite his warnings to the landlord. Steven ends up befriending the new tenants, who are really getting pummeled by the demonic. In an effort to help this family deal with the day to day demonic pounding Steven forms a paranormal group and takes the demonic presence head on. Oh, and a priest comes to bless the house and basically runs away with his tail between his legs after being in the house for five minutes.

In The Uninvited, Steven LaChance gives us one of the most frightening haunted house accounts ever told as well as reminding us to always ask our realtor if there is a butcher shower in the basement.

For more info on Steven LaChance.

There’s nothing quite like a good scary ghost story. For many of us, it’s probably the love of these old tales that got us interested in this subject in the first place. And Paranormal SPY would like to continue this tradition of supernatural storytelling with weekly stories featuring the likes of ghosts, goblins, midnight shrieks, stormy nights, ghost ships, demons, and disembodied voices. So pull up a chair, dim the lights and prepare for a weekly chill. (Paranormal SPY is not responsible for any loss of sleep or bodily function.)

For those of you not in top physical condition, the  Old Hill Burying Ground in Newburyport, Massachusetts might not be the place for you. Unless of course, you don’t mind sweating all over yourself, like myself and Paranormal SPY colleague Ronin did the other day. But you know what, it was well worth it.

The cemetery was established way back in 1729 on a hill that was allegedly the result of an earthquake 250 years ago. Newburyport didn’t exist yet as it was still part of Newbury. It’s full of revolutionary war soldiers, privateers and ship captains. One of it’s most infamous buried there was Lord Timothy Dexter, an eccentric businessman who was really concerned about what people may say about him when he died. So he faked his death and attended his own wake.

Now if the history isn’t enough to get you excited, then the weirdness will. First they’ve had multiple incidents with people braking into crypts and desecrating corpses. One goof bag actually photographed himself dancing around with the skull of a civil war veteran on his shoulder. There was also a case where a local homeless woman had a favorite table-tomb for sleepy-time. I don’t know how anyone could sleep in this place. Oh, and there are some that even say that people have become temporarily possessed while walking through the cemetery. So you may want to say a few prayers before you enter.

As far as experiencing anything paranormal we can’t give anything specific other then it definitely has an overwhelming presence once that sun starts to set. Plus, we were not really there investigating as much as documenting the location. But one of the things that gives it that creepiness factor are the actual headstones. They’re really old and carved with some extremely haunted faces. It makes you wonder what these people were thinking when they ordered their headstone. Even some of the inscriptions were strange, such as long drawn out descriptions of suffering and pain before death. Although we couldn’t find it, there is a woman’s headstone describing how she choked to death on a pea. Now that’s something to be remembered for huh?

If you do go to investigate this place be extremely careful. It’s in really bad condition. Not only are there holes everywhere from some gopher or something but the headstones are leaning almost horizontal in some cases. And just for the record there’s more than one hill, so we would also recommend hiring a couple sherpas to lug your gear. Happy hunting.

Two days ago Ronin Fuse and I went on a quick paranormal jaunt through the Old Hill Burying Ground in Newburyport, Massachusetts. And when I say quick and jaunt in the same sentence, I mean it. We were both sucking wind after about five minutes of trekking up the 18th century hills. So we had to cut it short. Plus, I’m not going to lie to ya but the sun was setting and the heebie-jeebies were rising. This place definitely had a presence which you’ll be able to see tomorrow. We shot a ton of photos and video. So make sure to check out the post tomorrow for the complete story on how two knuckleheads survive a thirty minute walk through a cemetery with clean shorts.