Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown (34 page)

When most people think of ghosts or hauntings, they usually imagine an intelligent haunting. Most of the ghosts from scary stories and movies fall into this category. In these cases, the spirit is aware of its surroundings and can move around freely. The spirit may also interact with people. In movies, ghosts are often shown to have super-speed or to be strong enough to move heavy objects. But in our experience, spirits are usually limited in what they can do. For instance, a spirit might move an object to get attention. But most of the time, it will be able to move only very light objects.

Spirits in this situation can be friendly—like Paul O’Leary in the story “Play Dead”—or disruptive—like Eloise Cavanaugh in “It’s Just a Dream.” It depends on the reason why they are haunting a location. They may be haunting a place because it was once their home. They may be searching for an object they don’t want to leave behind. Or they may be trying to communicate something important to the living. It’s also possible they are looking for a particular person. And then there are some who just can’t accept the idea that they have died. Whatever the reason, they are here, and usually they do not want to leave.

A poltergeist haunting will start off with knocks and bangs. The furniture may start to move around by itself. The activity will become more and more intense. Eventually a poltergeist may show itself—sometimes just by making voice sounds—other times by appearing as a full-bodied apparition.

We have personally seen chairs slide across the floor and beds shake. Objects can even fly across a room. Poltergeist hauntings are loud and rowdy. In fact, that is how this type of haunting got its name.
Poltergeist
is actually a German word that means “noisy spirit.”

Most of the time, a poltergeist haunting is connected to a single person. It may seem that most of the activity doesn’t happen unless that certain person is present, and usually the activity appears to stop when that person leaves the home. Often, but not always, the person is a child. It is thought that a person’s energy can affect spirits, resulting in a poltergeist haunting. So a very stressed person could be causing the haunting without knowing it.

In most poltergeist cases, the spirits will disappear without any warning. The haunting may stop within a few days. Other times it may take years. And you may never know the reason why it happened. Most people are just happy to see the spirit go.

This is the most common form of haunting. We see it often, especially at historical sites like Alcatraz or Tombstone. In this type of haunting, the spirits are completely unaware of their surroundings. They don’t see the people around them. They are in their own world and their own time. In fact, the spirits are
caught
in their own time. That explains why people often make claims that they’ve seen a ghost wearing old-fashioned clothing, like the ghost in “Restless Spirit.” These spirits repeat an action over and over again, in the same place every time. The haunting may occur every night or every week or even every year, like in “Cries in the Night,” where the spirits relived their shipwreck every year.

The event being repeated is always something that was important to the spirit when it was alive. It can be an everyday activity or it can be an event that was very sad or painful. We’ve had cases where we hear screaming or crying. We often find out the site was the scene of violence or death. That was what we had thought when we heard the woman in the St. Augustine Lighthouse. In many cases, the spirits have no idea that there are now live people in the house.

There is very little you can do to get rid of this form of haunting. We have found that the best thing is simply to make the family who is living with it understand what is going on. They aren’t in any danger. The spirit means no harm and will just continue to do whatever it’s doing no matter what.

Demonic hauntings are very,
very
rare. They are caused by an inhuman entity. These spirits are nasty. They are like the evil spirits you see in movies. We have heard of cases where people have been thrown through the air and even attacked. But so far these claims have not been proven.

We have debunked several hauntings that looked like demonic hauntings. We had a case where a boy woke up with cuts and bruises and his parents thought he was being attacked by spirits. But we found out that he was doing it to himself—while he was asleep. He was like a sleepwalker and had no memory of what happened when he was asleep. But he was actually scratching himself.

Some people have reported that during a demonic haunting, there is an awful odor, like decaying flesh or sulfur, and the air in the room feels hot and thick, like fog. We have also heard reports of a growling sound coming with the odor. We once investigated a case like this. We smelled the nasty odor and we heard the growls. But we didn’t find a demonic spirit—the growls and the odors came from the homeowner’s dog! Turned out the dog had a “digestive problem” that was causing the rotten odor. Get what we mean? Of course you do!