THE sale of the Old Geelong Gaol for potential housing or tourism ventures is being explored by the city council.
Talks about the future of the historic 19th-century building and Myers St property are ongoing in private council briefings, with the issue set to come to an open meeting in early March.
Early plans canvassed include a reception centre, residential development and space for offices and a gallery, with development estimates at more than $10 million.
The investigation comes after the heritage-listed Old Castlemaine Gaol was sold by Mount Alexander Shire late last year to developers for $550,000.
Cr Tony Ansett said Geelong's former maximum-security prison was under-used and a lot of it remained untouched, including substantial carpark space.
"The gaol is one of the most under-utilised sites in town that we've got," he told the Geelong Advertiser.
"I am keen to see it better utilised, but am also aware that it's getting some use in the community already.
"I would like to ensure they can still access the site."
Rotary operates the gaol and has restricted opening hours on weekends and some public holidays for tours of the facility.
Cr Ansett, the council's heritage spokesman, said any development would have to retain the site's heritage aspects, which are listed as having state significance.
While the council will seek public comment on possible future options for the prison, Cr Ansett floated the idea of converting the former cells into accommodation.
The four-storey gaol, which opened in 1864 and shut down in 1991, stands mostly unchanged from its time when it detained criminals in extreme conditions.
Men were hanged there for their crimes, including in 1863 police murderer James Murphy, who features in a current gallows exhibition.
The Pentonville-style facility has attracted the attention of paranormal researchers due to graphic accounts of bodies swinging from the hangman's noose and other so-called ghostly encounters.
The council assumed ownership of the site after it was decommissioned as a prison.
The Geelong Advertiser reported in 2007 that the council had identified the need for substantial investment to repair rotten timber and joinery in the gaol.
Ghostly History: Since its closure as a prison in 1991, Old Geelong Gaol has been open to the public for tours. History fans and ghost hunters alike pay visits to the jail to see its tiny cells, and to see the place where, in 1863, James Murphy was hanged for beating a constable to death with a hammer. Old Geelong Gaol is certainly dark as tourist attractions go, but darker still is the fact that many have reported seeing apparitions walking up and down the hallways of the prison, and hearing the sounds of young girls crying. Quite a few ghost-hunting teams have investigated paranormal phenomenon within the walls.
Here is a `paranormal short` of an investigation of a Napoleonic Fort at Harwich, Essex.
In this investigation a spirit voices respond to a verbal statements inside the prison cells, and a very weird light anomaly appears on photo and on video.
Here is a compilation of two separate dates when ghostly cat EVP has been captured during investigations inside my very actively haunted home. It is unknown for any evp to continue so abundantly in a haunted property, and especially that of a cat. Hope you will enjoy and `like` on Youtube. Thanks :)
Some of the earliest-known writings on Nessie's less well-known cousin shed new light on the community which lived in its shadow more than 100 years ago, according to the researcher who uncovered them.
Morag, a mysterious creature supposed to inhabit the depths of Loch Morar, in the Highlands, is the subject of three separate writings from Alexander Carmichael, a prolific gatherer of folklore in his day.
The scripts, believed to date from 1902, have been uncovered by the Carmichael Watson project at the University of Edinburgh library.
Dr Donald Stewart, a senior researcher on the project, discovered the texts while leafing through a "mad mixture" of folklore collected by Carmichael over 50 years. "We were so pleased when we found them, it was just totally unexpected," he said.
The writings paint a conflicting view of Morag. On the one hand she is presented as a mermaid-like character with flowing hair, while another description paints her as a grim reaper whose sighting was viewed as a death omen.
In the first text, Carmichael states: "Morag is always seen before a death and before a drowning." A second text reads: "There is a creature in Loch Morar and she is called Morag. She is never seen save when one of the hereditary people of the place dies. The last time she was seen was when Aeneas Macdonnell died in 1898.
"The Morag is peculiar to Loch Morar. She is seen in broad daylight and by many persons, including church persons. She appears in a black heap or ball slowing and deliberately rising in the water and moving along like a boat water-logged. The Morag is much disliked and is called by many uncomplimentary terms."
A final description, penned by Carmichael at a later date, retains Morag's association with death, but sees her take on more human characteristics.
He wrote: "Like the other water deities she is half human half fish. The lower portions of her body is in the form of a grilse and the upper in the form of a small woman of highly developed breasts with long flowing yellow hair falling down her snow white back and breast."
Carmichael, who became a figurehead for the celtic artistic movement, originally wrote the texts in Gaelic. He is thought to have spent only a couple of days in the area of Morar and did not claim to see Morag for himself. His main source of information about the monster appears to be a local named Ewan MacDougall.
At long last here is the February 2013 edition of the Haunted Earth Show.
In this month`s edition, a return to the haunted house and lots more activity, a visit to a beautiful haunted church, weird EVP accidentally caught on cam, and lots more!
QUICK LINKS:
03:18 - An investigation at a haunted house.
13:07 - Field test of an amazing new camcorder, Sony, model HDR-PJ260VE
18:28 - EVP accidentally caught on cam during field test.
21:36 - Ghost Story - Naze Tower.
25:58 - A visit to Copford Church.
38:52 - A special report on location.
March 2013 promises to be an even greater show with some fantastic night investigations planned.
A big rig was spotted hauling a haunted house through Iowa this week.
Tuesday morning, the ghosts of the Maple Grove Hill House got to take a road-trip down the highway. The historical haunted house was witnessed en-route on its way to its new destination in southern Jasper County.
The mansion avoided demolition thanks to its new owner, Sherri Meeker. Meeker, purchased the historical house for $2,000, although it was nearly $90,000 to move it. Meeker has plans to restore the home and part of the restoration process involved moving it to a new location in Jasper County.
The Maple Grove Hill house was built in 1865 by Joseph Grayson Long for his family. The house is also known as the J.G. and Regina Long House. Maple Grove Hill, got its name because the Longs planted maple trees on the property.
The house has had a reputation for being haunted for over a hundred years. The question that everyone is wondering is, will the ghosts move with the home?
In many previous cases where old, and allegedly haunted properties have been moved, the occupants have followed. Take some special open air museums which have re-erected ancient dwellings that were in threat of demolition. There have from some been reports of spectral activity. Spirit is very much linked not only to sites known in life, but also the buildings which still hold an appeal for them. A few years ago (2010), I visited such a site, Den Gamle By, `The Old Town`, at Aarhus in Denmark. There were some recorded EVP`s from the visit, which were shared on a full video with a Danish friend who knew the site well. For those of you with some time on your hands, here is the actual video. The EVP was recorded inside a tobacco shop exhibit. (Listen from: 05:09 and 06:46)
Missing woman, 21, found dead after 'ghostly' encounter at hotel
The body of 21-year-old Elisa Lam, the Canadian undergraduate who had gone missing during a stay at the allegedly haunted Cecil Hotel on Jan 31, has been found in one of the hotel's four water tanks.
Eliza Lam
According to the Los Angeles Times, police confirmed her identity through body markings on Feb 19 after she was found by a maintenance worker investigating complaints about low water pressure.
How and where did Elisa Lam die?
Los Angeles robbery-homicide detectives are treating this as a suspicious death for obvious reasons, Police said. Falling into a covered water tank behind a locked door on top of a roof would be an unusual accident.
An autopsy was completed, but the cause of death is deferred pending further examination, assistant chief coroner Ed Winter said Thursday. That may take six to eight weeks.
It will be several weeks before investigators have the toxicology lab report which would show whether Lam had any drugs in her system.
A CCTV camera footage showing the young woman acting strangely in the hotel elevator the night before she went missing is circulating on the Internet. In the video, Lam could be seen pressing buttons for multiple floors in the lift before stepping outside suddenly. She then looks quickly to her left and right before moving her arms around wildly.
Hotel Cecil is known for having been home to serial killers like Richard Ramirez, alias the 'Night Stalker', who was convicted of killing 14 people, as well as Jack Unterweger who committed suicide after being convicted for several murders involving prostitutes. (See full history below next video).
The actual video believed to be of Elisa Lam`s last sighting.
Crime History of Ramirez a.k.a `The Night Stalker`
On April 10, 1984, 9-year-old Mei Leung was found dead in a hotel basement where Ramirez was living at the time. In 2009, Ramirez's DNA was matched to DNA obtained at the 1984 crime scene.
On June 28, 1984, 79-year-old Jennie Vincow was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed repeatedly, and her throat was slashed so severely she was almost decapitated.
On February 21, 1985, sisters Christina and Mary Caldwell, aged 58 and 71, were found dead in their home. They each were stabbed dozens of times.
Ramirez shortly after capture
On March 17, 1985, Ramirez attacked 22-year-old Angela Barrios outside her home. He shot her before entering her house. Inside was Dayle Okazaki, age 34, whom Ramirez immediately shot and killed. Barrios survived. The bullet had ricocheted off the keys she held in her hands, as she lifted them to protect herself. Within an hour of killing Okazaki, Ramirez struck again in Monterey Park. He attacked 30-year-old Tsai-Lian Yu and pulled her out of her car onto the road. He shot her several times and fled. A police officer found her still breathing, but she died before the ambulance arrived. The two attacks occurring on the same day bolstered media attention, and in turn caused panic and fear among the public. The news media dubbed the attacker, who was described as having long curly hair, bulging eyes and wide-spaced rotting teeth, "The Walk-in Killer" and "The Valley Intruder".
On March 27, Ramirez shot Vincent Zazzara, age 64, and his wife Maxine, age 44. Mrs. Zazzara's body was mutilated with several stab wounds and a T-carving on her left breast, and her eyes were gouged out. The autopsy determined that the mutilations were post-mortem. Ramirez left footprints in the flower beds, which the police photographed and cast. This was virtually the only evidence that the police had at the time. Bullets found at the scene were matched to those found at previous attacks, and the police realized a serial killer was on the loose. Vincent and Maxine's bodies were discovered in their Whittier home by their son, Peter.
By this time, a multi-county police investigation was in operation. The law enforcement agencies worked through the month of April with no additional attacks by Ramirez. Two months after killing the Zazarra couple, Ramirez attacked a Chinese couple: Harold Wu, age 66, who was shot in the head, and his wife, Jean Wu, age 63, who was punched, bound, and then violently raped. For unknown reasons, Ramirez decided to let her live. Ramirez's attacks were now in full throttle. He left behind more clues to his identity, and was named 'The Night Stalker' by the media. Survivors of his attacks provided the police with a description of a tall Hispanic man with long dark hair.
On May 29, 1985, Ramirez attacked Malvial Keller, 83, and her disabled sister, Blanche Wolfe, 80, beating each with a hammer. Ramirez attempted to rape Keller, but failed. Using lipstick, he drew pentagrams on Keller's thigh and on the wall in the bedroom. Wolfe survived the attack. The next day, Ruth Wilson, 41, was bound, raped, and sodomized by Ramirez, while her 12-year-old son was locked in a closet. Ramirez slashed Wilson once, and then bound her and her son together, and left.
On June 2, 1985 Edward Wildgans, 29, was shot and killed by Ramirez. His girlfriend was raped several times by Ramirez but survived. From early June through early July, three more women were killed. Two had their throats slit, one was beaten to death, and all three had their homes invaded. On July 5, sixteen-year-old Whitney Bennett survived after being beaten with a tire iron by Ramirez.
On July 7, Linda Fortuna, 63, was attacked and Ramirez tried to rape her, but failed. On July 20, he again struck twice. In Sun Valley he shot and killed a 32-year-old man, Chitat Assawahem, and his wife Sakima, 29, was beaten and forced to perform oral intercourse. Ramirez then collected valuables and proceeded to leave. Later in the same day a Glendale couple, Maxson Kneiding, 66, and his wife Lela, also 66, were shot and their corpses mutilated.
On August 6, Ramirez shot both Christopher Petersen, 38, and his wife, Virginia, 27, in the head. Miraculously, they both survived. On August 8, Ramirez attacked a Diamond Bar couple, fatally shooting Ahmed Zia, 35, before raping, sodomizing, and forcing Zia's wife, Suu Kyi, 28, to perform fellatio on him. The description of their attacker fit the previous ones given for "The Walk-in Killer".
Ramirez then left Los Angeles, and on August 17, he shot to death a 66-year-old man in San Francisco, also shooting and beating his wife. The wife survived her wounds and was able to identify her attacker as "The Walk-in Killer" from police sketches. Since "The Walk-in Killer" no longer fit the modus operandi of the attacker, the news media re-dubbed him the "Night Stalker".
The next big break in the case came on August 24, 1985; Ramirez traveled 50 miles south of Los Angeles to Mission Viejo, and broke into the Mediterranean Village apartment of Bill Carns, 29, and his fiancée, Inez Erickson, 27. Ramirez shot Carns in the head and raped Erickson. He demanded she swear her love for Satan and afterwards, forced her to perform oral intercourse on him. He then tied her and left. Erickson struggled to the window and saw the car Ramirez was driving. She was able to give a description of both Ramirez and his orange Toyota station wagon.
A teenager later identified the car from news reports and wrote down half its license plate number. The stolen car was found on August 28, and police were able to obtain one fingerprint that was on the mirror of the vehicle. The prints belonged to Richard Muñoz Ramirez, who was described as a 25-year-old drifter from Texas with a long rap sheet that included many arrests for traffic and illegal drug violations.
On August 7, 2006 his first round of state appeals ended unsuccessfully when the California Supreme Court upheld his convictions and death sentence. On September 7, 2006, the California Supreme Court denied his request for a rehearing.
Hotel Cecil`s Cursed History:
Cursed? Hotel Cecil
Take a deteriorating building, a skid row neighborhood, proximity to a clinic for sex offenders, and serial killers as long-term guests, and you come close to describing the magic of the Cecil Hotel in the 1980s.
The hotel is now a boutique establishment that plays on its access to the nearby Staples Center, but in its glory years it hosted a ghoulish assortment of losers and killers, including "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez and Austrian journalist-cum-murderer Jack Unterweger.
Ramirez, who was found guilty of 14 murders in the 1980s, stayed on the 14th floor for several months in 1985, paying (creepy coincidence alert) $14 a night.
And Unterweger, a writer and prostitute-killer released by Austrian authorities for good behavior and then sent to America on a high-profile journalistic junket, also used the hotel as a base to pick up at least three prostitutes who were later found murdered. The two may have been feeling the vibes from Pauline Otten, who jumped out a window in 1962 and killed a pedestrian, as well as herself, in her fall; or from the still unsolved murder of Goldie Osgood, the "pigeon lady" of Pershing Square, who was found strangled in her Cecil room in 1964. But you have to give the new management some respect: At least they haven't named a drink after Ramirez or done up Unterweger's room in period decor.
DEER CREEK, Okla. – It’s been seen prowling in a field, eating the carcass of a dead animal but what is it?
Everyone has an opinion.
“Starving coyote to be honest,” one viewer said.
Some are convinced this is something more mysterious.
“Chupacabra? Yeah! There ya go,” one man said.
Others agree. “It does look like one to me. It does. It really does,” Carmen Himes said.
A chupacabra is a legendary animal rumored to feed on the blood of goats.
Believers said it’s making its way into Oklahoma from Mexico.
Chupacabra, coyote what ever you think this animal is, it’s in the Deer Creek area at Hwy. 74 and Waterloo Rd.
Craig Martin snapped pictures of the animal when he spotted it in the field.
The avid outdoorsman said it looks just like a chupacabra.
“That’s immediately what we thought and it looks exactly the same,” he said. “There’s not much difference at all.”
He said it looks much different than a coyote.
Martin isn’t the only one who has caught the animal on camera.
Video of a possible chupacabra was captured by a south Texas patrol officer.
Oklahoma Department of Wildlife biologists said Martin’s picture is of something less mythical.
“What we’re dealing with here is just a coyote with a bad case of mange,” Department of Wildlife Spokesperson Michael Bergin said.
“I’m not saying it’s not part coyote but I think it could be a hybrid,” he said. “I think it’s probably mixed with another species of dog, but it’s definitely not just a reg. coyote. They can say what they want.”
He said they should consider researching and documenting the animal more seriously since it has been spotted around the southern United States.
Experts admit a hybrid is possible and either way, people in Deer Creek will be watching.
“I just might be looking for it because this is hilarious,” he said. “I love stuff like that!”
Through sightings and pictures, the mystery of the chupacabra in Oklahoma remains.
Fatal fire in Oklahoma's Sequoyah County is 'bizarre,' sheriff says ..
A retired man's burned body was found in his home. One fire investigator said the man's death appeared to be from “spontaneous combustion.”
The torso of Danny Vanzandt, 65, was burned to ash. But his head and face were intact. The only damage in the house was on the floor underneath Vanzandt's body, and throughout the house the only damage was from smoke not flames, Sheriff Lockhart said.
No fire accelerant was used, and the body appeared to have burned slowly, Lockhart said.
Another fire investigator who responded Monday to the scene between Sallisaw and Muldrow said the man appeared to have “spontaneously combusted,” Lockhart said.
“It's bizarre,” he said.
Lockhart, a former arson investigator for the Fort Smith (Ark.) Police Department, said he has never seen a case of someone spontaneously combusting, but he can't rule it out.
“I've never seen anything like this,” he said. “We've got a body with the torso incinerated.”
About 10:50 a.m. Monday a neighbor saw smoke coming from inside Vanzandt's home about four miles west of Muldrow on Bawcom Road.
Vanzandt weighed about 190 pounds, was retired and lived alone. He has no known criminal history.
He was known to drink and smoke heavily. His relatives told investigators he never drank water and rarely bathed, Lockhart said.
The body was taken to the state medical examiner's office in Tulsa, where an autopsy will be performed to determine a cause and manner of death.
There have been more than anecdotal recent incidents attributed to Spontaneous Human Combustion (S.H.C).
In November, 2011, a man standing outside a record store in the city of Gothenburg's train station suddenly burst into flames. But an off-duty tram driver was able to tackle and extinguish the fire.
Michael Faherty, 76, died at his home in Galway, Eire, on 22 December 2010. A coroner ruled the case to be S.H.C.
And in April 2011, another man spontaneously combusted inside a porn shop in San Francisco, USA.
A victim of S.H.C - note the unscathed surroundings
There are literally hundreds of cases going back as far as the 18th century when people have combusted either in public or privately.
The effect is that their bodies literally turn to ash, but leaving other parts unscathed as with the immediate surroundings untouched.
Scientists have been at a loss to find a solution, because for the manner these victims have burnt, you would ordinarily need a commercial incinerator as used in crematoriums.
Originally, scientists believed that these people - both male and female, old or young, died through an outside body source of ignition which triggered a combustion within their body fat.
This was dubbed, `The Wick Effect`, but despite using pig corpses to replicate this, it has been so far unsuccessful. But why, if true, would it spare other parts of the body and not trigger a blaze around the body?
This undoubtedly is one of the great mysteries that has yet to be resolved, and despite numerous theories.
Alcohol was at one time blamed, but subsequent tests on some remains prove this not to be so.
Tall or short, fat or thin, you are just as much likely to be a victim.
But like many things that exist in the world of the paranormal, there are always half-hearted excuses, but very little proof.
This is certainly one purchase where the buyer should beware.
A couple of flatmates are hoping there will be a few brave souls left at the end as they auction a 'haunted' mirror which they claim has brought them nothing but misery.
Student Joseph Birch, 20, and painter Sotiris Charalambous, 34, acquired the antique mirror when their landlord put it in a skip outside their in Muswell Hill, London five months ago.
But ever since then, the pair claim they have been brought nothing but bad luck, misery, financial problems and illness.
Mr Charalambous says it has caused him to wake up screaming with 'stabbing pains' in the night.
He said: 'The landlord said keep it, I don't want it.'
Joseph, an art and design student, and his flatmate began seeing 'flickering shadows' and 'glimpses of black darkness' in the mirror and orbs of light in the room.
Since the walnut mirror was painted metallic silver by Sotiris two months ago, the flatmates began to suffer intense nightmares and their problems escalated.
Claims: Student Joseph Birch reported seeing 'flickering shadows' in the mirror and orbs of light in the room
Joseph woke up covered in red scratch-marks in the middle of the night last week and both have had sleepless nights which they blame on the antique.
But if that's the bad news, the good news is the mirror only has a few scratches and is not broken.
They have placed the mirror on internet auction site eBay with a price of £100 but say it is 'only right' that a potential buyer knows about the problems it may bring.
The flatmates have had a number of bids slightly below the reserve price so far.
And one prospective buyer is even eyeing up the mirror as a gift for an ex.
Sotiris said: 'I think someone could have been murdered in front of the mirror and that's why it has been haunting our house.
'I don't think it the mirror likes it since I painted it silver. I took it to an antique dealer who said it was worth £100 once and that's why we're asking for the price, but we would ideally like it to go to someone who has experience of the paranormal.'
The item has attracted interest from all over the country, with 20,000 people having viewed the item so far.
Joseph said: 'We've had a lot of queries from people interested in the paranormal and skeptics too.
'I just know we don't want it in the house any more, but we didn't think it was fair to sell it without warning people.'
The mirror is described as a 'beautiful grand Victorian style mirror' which had enjoyed pride of place in the pair's North London studio apartment.
Joseph said: 'Since the mirror was put up, everything has gone wrong.
'A few days after we put the mirror up, both myself and my flat mate have woken in the early morning hours screaming in pain.
'We both experienced what I can only describe as intense sharp stabbing pains throughout our bodies.
'They would strike us both at the same time, then disappear as fast as they came.
'Originally we thought somebody was performing some kind of voodoo or black magic on us, but the mirror gives us the creeps and we started seeing strange shadows in it.'
The mirror was later sold for £100, with the buyer collecting.
A weird "slime" is baffling boffins at a nature reserve.
The jelly-like substance has been found at the RSPB Ham Wall nature reserve in Somerset, but as yet the mystery slime has not been identified.
Steve Hughes, the RSPB site manager at Ham Wall, said: "This past week we've been finding piles of this translucent jelly dotted around the reserve. Always on grass banks away from the water's edge. They are usually about 10cm (4in) in diameter. We've asked experts what it might be, but as yet no one is really sure. Whatever it is, it's very weird."
Scientific speculation as to the nature of the jelly is varied.
One of the more favoured explanations is that it is a form of cyanobacteria called Nostoc.
Some, however, suggest that it is the remains of the regurgitated innards of amphibians such as frogs and toads and of their spawn.
Alternatively, it may be related to the intriguingly named crystal brain fungus.
Tony Whitehead, RSPB spokesman for the South West, said: "Although we don't know what it actually is, similar substances have been described previously. In records dating back to the 14th century it's known variously as star jelly, astral jelly or astromyxin. In folklore it is said to be deposited in the wake of meteor showers."
Mr Whitehead added: "It's great that in this day and age there are still mysteries out there. We've read a few articles now and much speculation. One suggested it was neither animal nor plant, and another that it didn't contain DNA, although it does give the appearance of something 'living'. Our reserve team will be looking out for the slime over the next few days, but if anyone can offer any explanations we'd be glad to hear."
Members of the public are being warned not to touch the mystery substance and to inform nature reserve staff.
Further research on the internet reveals another case of slime in August 2012. Here is a news report from `The Sun` newspaper.
Very similar to the English slime
BAFFLED hillwalkers fear ALIENS have landed — after mysterious slime started appearing in the countryside.
They have discovered a strange jelly... and some experts believe it’s landed from space.
The first report of an unidentified fluid object was in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, triggering a flood of similar sightings.
Now National Geographic Channel documentary Wild X Files attempts to solve the mystery after they had the weird samples analysed by scientists.
Paranormal investigator Steve Mera is convinced he was dealing with aliens after a sample he collected DISAPPEARED.
He said: “I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what it was.
“I thought ‘let’s get some samples.’ The next morning, I saw the sample jar and I did a double take as there was nothing in it. It was there the night before, now it was empty.” Steve was sure he was dealing with star jelly left over from a meteor shower. He said: “It comes from space.”
Steve Mera, left, and Andy Turner try to identify the mystery slime
Euan McIlwraith, presenter of BBC show Out Of Doors, added: “A call came into the studio from somebody who had been hillwalking and found this substance. We knew we were on to something strange.
“There are lot of people out there who believe it comes from the stars.”
Deer hunter Andy Malcolm thought the goo was stag sperm — but this was ruled out when perplexed fungal ecologist Dr Andy Turner found the samples contained NO animal DNA.
He said: “We could see almost no cellular structure within it so it was difficult to determine what it was.”
Algal researcher Dr Hans Sluiman found it “unlikely” that it was from a plant while Prof Malcolm Kennedy, from Glasgow University, believes the jelly is from frogs used for spawn.
He explained: “When it’s made it has DNA excluded from it. When frogs come under attack, fear causes them to expel the jelly normally used to protect eggs.”
The National Geographic Channel has declared the case closed but Euan said: “There’s still that bit at the back of my head that isn’t exactly convinced.”
There is a place in South America that was once the end of the earth. It lies close to the 41st parallel, where the Maule River empties into the Pacific Ocean, and in the first years of the 16th century it marked the spot at which the Empire of the Incas ended and a strange and unknown world began.
A photo sometimes said to depict members of Chiloé’s murderous society of warlocks—founded, so they claimed, in 1786 and destroyed by the great trial of 1880-81.
South of the Maule, the Incas thought, lay a land of mystery and darkness. It was a place where the Pacific’s waters chilled and turned from blue to black, and where indigenous peoples struggled to claw the basest of livings from a hostile environment. It was also where the witches lived and evil came from. The Incas called this land “the Place of Seagulls.”
Today, the Place of Seagulls begins at a spot 700 miles due south of the Chilean capital, Santiago, and stretches for another 1,200 miles all the way to Tierra del Fuego, the “land of fire” so accurately described by Lucas Bridges as “the uttermost part of the earth.” Even now, the region remains sparsely inhabited—and at its lonely heart lies the island of Chiloé: rain-soaked and rainbow-strewn, matted with untamed virgin forest and possessed of a distinct and interesting history. First visited by Europeans in 1567, Chiloé was long known for piracy and privateering. In the 19th century, when Latin America revolted against imperial rule, the island remained loyal to Spain. And in 1880, a little more than half a century after it was finally incorporated into Chile, it was also the scene of a remarkable trial—the last significant witch trial, probably, anywhere in the world.
Bruce Chatwin
Who were they, these sorcerers hauled before a court for casting spells in an industrial age? According to the traveler Bruce Chatwin, who stumbled over traces of their story in the 1970s, they belonged to a “sect of male witches” that existed “for the purpose of hurting people.” According to their own statements, made during the trial of 1880, they ran protection rackets on the island, disposing of their enemies by poisoning or, worse, by sajaduras: magically inflicted “profound slashes.” But since the same men also claimed to belong to a group called La Recta Provincia—a phrase that may be loosely translated as “The Righteous Province”—and styled themselves members of the Mayoria, the “Majority,” an alternative interpretation may also be advanced. Perhaps these witches were actually representatives of a strange sort of alternative government, an indigenous society that offered justice of a perverted kind to indians living under the rule of a white elite. Perhaps they were more shamans than sorcerers.
The most important of the warlocks brought to court in 1880 was a Chilote farmer by the name of Mateo Coñuecar. He was then 70 years old, and by his own admission had been a member of the Righteous Province for more than two decades. According to Coñuecar’s testimony, the society was an important power on the island, with numerous members, an elaborate hierarchy of “kings” and “viceroys”—and a headquarters located in a vast cavern, 40 or more yards long, whose secret entrance had been cleverly concealed in the side of a ravine. This cave (which Chilote tradition asserts was lit by torches burning human fat) was hidden somewhere outside the little coastal village of Quicavi, and was—Coñuecar and other witnesses swore—home to a pair of monsters that guarded the society’s most treasured possessions: an ancient leather book of magic and a bowl that, filled with water, allowed secrets to be seen.
Coñuecar’s testimony, which may be found lodged among the papers of the Chilean historian Benjamín Vicuña McKenna, includes this remarkable recollection of his first visit to the cave:
Twenty years ago, when José Mariman was king, he was ordered to go to the cave with meat for some animals that lived inside. He complied with the order, and took them the meat of a kid he had slaughtered. Mariman went with him, and when they reached the cave, he started dancing about like a sorcerer, and quickly opened the entryway. This was covered over with a layer of earth (and grass to keep it hidden), and under this there was a piece of metal [...] the ‘alchemy key.’ He used this to open the entryway, and was then faced with two completely disfigured beings which burst out of the gloom and rushed towards him. One looked like a goat, for it dragged itself along on four legs, and the other was a naked man, with a completely white beard and hair down to his waist.
Chiloé, Chile’s second-largest island, is about the size of Puerto Rico and full of legends—many of them concerning La Recta Provincia.
It is possible, from other records of the Righteous Province, to learn more about the hideous creatures that Coñuecar swore he had encountered in 1860. The goat-like monster was the chivato, a deformed mute covered in piggish bristles. The other—and by far the more dangerous—of the cave’s twin denizens was the invunche or imbunche. Like the chivato, it had once been a human baby, and had been kidnapped in infancy. Chatwin describes what happened to the baby next:
When the Sect needs a new Invunche, the Council of the Cave orders a Member to steal a boy child from six months to a year old. The Deformer, a permanent resident of the Cave, starts work at once. He disjoints the arms and legs and the hands and feet. Then begins the delicate task of altering the position of the head. Day after day, and for hours at a stretch, he twists the head with a tourniquet until it has rotated through an angle of 180, that is until the child can look straight down the line of its own vertebrae.
There remains one last operation, for which another specialist is needed. At full moon, the child is laid on a work-bench, lashed down with its head covered in a bag. The specialist cuts a deep incision under the right shoulder blade. Into the hole he inserts the right arm and sews up the wound with thread taken from the neck of a ewe. When it has healed the Invunche is complete.
Naked, fed principally on human flesh, and confined below ground, neither the chivato nor the invunche received any sort of education; indeed it was said that neither ever acquired human speech in all the years they served what Chatwin calls the Committee of the Cave. Nevertheless, he concludes, “over the years, [the invunche] does develop a working knowledge of the Committee’s procedure and can instruct novices with harsh and gutteral cries.”
It would be unwise, of course, to accept at face value the testimony given at any witch trial—not least evidence that concerns the existence of a hidden cave that a week-long search, conducted in the spring of 1880, failed utterly to uncover, and that was extracted under who knows what sort of duress. Yet it is as well to concede that, whatever the Righteous Province actually was, the society does seem to have existed in some form—and that many Chilotes regarded its members as fearsome enemies possessed of genuinely supernatural powers.
Accounts dating to the 19th century tell of the regular collection of protection money on Chiloé–what Ovidio Lagos describes as “an annual tribute” demanded of “practically all villagers, to ensure they would have no accidents during the night.” These make it clear that islanders who resisted these demands for payment could expect to have their crops destroyed and their sheep killed—by sorcery, it was believed, for the men of the Mayoria were believed to possess a pair of magical stones that gave them the power to curse their enemies. The records of the trial of 1880-81 make it clear that the proceedings had their origins in a rash of suspicious poisonings that had claimed numerous victims over the years.
The Chilean historian Benjamín Vicuña McKenna (he was of Basque and Irish descent) preserved transcripts of the trial of Chiloé’s warlocks, which long ago vanished from the island’s archives.
Whether one takes literally the many supernatural claims that litter the trial transcripts, though, is a very different matter. The members of the Righteous Province claimed, for example, to possess the ability to fly, using a special word—arrealhue—as they leapt into the air, and wearing a magical waistcoat, known as the macuñ, that gave them the power to defy gravity. Each novice, when he joined the sect, was expected to fashion his own waistcoat; Chatwin reports that it was done by digging up and flaying a recently interred Christian corpse, though other sources say the waistcoat was made from the skin of a virgin girl or a dead sorcerer. Once dried and cured, the skin was sewn into a loose garment, and Chatwin adds the detail that “the human grease remaining in the skin gives off a soft phosphorescence, which lights the member’s nocturnal expeditions.”
Nor were the chivato and the invunche the only supernatural beings thought to be under the control of the Righteous Province. The prisoners who testified in 1880 admitted that, on joining the society, each warlock was given a small, live lizard, which he wore strapped to his head with a bandana so that it was next to the skin. It was a magical creature from which the novice might imbibe all sorts of forbidden knowledge—not least how to transform himself into an animal and how to open locked doors. Among the islanders, initiates were also believed to use seahorses to convey them to a magical vessel owned by the society and known as the Caleuche—a word that means “shapeshifter” in the local language. The Caleuche was a brightly lit ghost ship that could travel under water and surfaced in remote bays to unload contraband cargoes carried for the island’s merchants, a trade that was one of the chief sources of the warlocks’ wealth. This tradition has outlived the warlocks of the Righteous Province, and even today, many Chilotes firmly believe that the Caleuche still haunts their coast, harvesting the souls of drowned sailors.
When the witches needed spies and messengers, they drew on still other resources. The society was widely believed to use adolescent girls, who were stripped naked and forcibly fed a drink made of wolf-oil and the juice of the natri, a fruit found only on Chiloé. This potion was, supposedly, so noxious that it made them vomit up their own intestines. Thus lightened, the girls turned into large, long-legged birds, resembling rooks, whose caws, Lagos says, “are the most unpleasant sounds ever to fall on a human ear.” When their mission was completed, the birds returned at daybreak to the spot where the potion had been drunk to re-ingest their entrails, and once again they became human.
The power to perform such spells was never conferred lightly, and the testimonies collected in 1880-81 suggest that the society developed elaborate initiation ceremonies to test would-be witches. Initiates were first required to wash away all traces of their baptism by bathing in freezing waters of the Traiguén River on 15 consecutive nights. They might then be ordered to murder a close relative or friend to prove that they had cleansed themselves of human sentiment (these murders, for some unstated reason, were to take place on Tuesdays) before running three times round the island naked, calling to the Devil. Chatwin, eccentric as ever, adds two further details that do not appear in the surviving trial transcripts: that the novice was required to catch, without fumbling, a skull thrown to him from the crown of a tricorn hat, and that while standing naked in the freezing river, prospective members were “allowed a little toast.”
It was only when these tests had been completed that the initiate would be admitted to the cave at Quicavi, shown the secret book of magic, and allowed to meet the elders who ran the Righteous Province. (Lagos suggests that the word mayoria refers to these elders—mayores—rather than to the proportion of Chiloé’s Indian population.) There he received instruction in the strict code that governed members, including prohibitions on theft, rape and eating salt. It was claimed that these ceremonies concluded with a great feast in which the chief dish was the roasted flesh of human babies.
The Traiguén River in 1915. It was here that initiates of Chiloé’s sect of witches were said to wash off the effects of the Christian baptism, bathing in the freezing waters for 15 successive nights.
Thus far, perhaps, the details uncovered in 1880 are of value chiefly to folklorists. The organization of the Righteous Province, though, is of interest to historians and anthropologists, for it consisted of an elaborate hierarchy whose titles seem to have been deliberately chosen to ape the established government. Chiloé was, for example, divided into two kingdoms, each with its own native ruler—the King of Payos, who held the higher rank, and the King of Quicavi. Below them came a number of queens, viceroys and finally reparadores (“repairmen”), who were healers and concocters of herbal medicines. Each ruler had his own territory, which the society gave a name associated with the old Spanish empire—Lima, Buenos Aires, Santiago. Perhaps, Lagos suggests, it did this in the belief that “this change would not only encourage secrecy, but also magically recreate a geography.”
The fine detail of the trial transcripts suggests that an intriguing marriage had taken place between local traditions and Christian belief. Chiloé was, and is, inhabited largely by the Mapuche, an indigenous people, noted for their machis (shamans), who had long resisted the rule of Spain. Flores, with his background in anthropology, suggests that the Righteous Province “succeeded in establishing deep ties to rural communities, providing solutions to needs the Chilean State could not satisfy.” This same model, of course, has driven the emergence of secret societies such as the Mafia in many different jurisdictions. It helps to explain why the Mayoria had an official known as the “Judge Fixer,” and why—laced though they were with magical trappings—the most important of its activities revolved around its attempts to compel obedience from poor local farmers.
Several of the warlocks who testified in 1880 expressed regret at the way their society had changed in recent years, becoming ever more prey to personal vendettas. Both Mateo Coñuecar and José Aro, a Mapuche carpenter who was his co-defendant, shed interesting light on these attempts to exercise power. According to Aro, he was ordered to kill a couple, Francesco and Maria Cardenas, who had fallen out with Coñuecar. He invited the pair for a drink and slipped a preparation of arsenic into their cups when he served them; when the couple failed to notice anything, he attributed his success to the fact that his potion had been prepared according to a magical recipe. According to Coñuecar, when an islander named Juana Carimonei came to him to complain that her husband had been seduced by another woman, he arranged the murder of her rival in exchange for a payment of four yards of calico.
The waters surrounding Chiloé are cold and often hazardous to navigate.
The idea that the Mapuche still aspired to govern themselves years after the Spanish conquest is not especially far-fetched; Spanish rule was only lightly felt in Chiloé, and representatives of the central government were rarely encountered outside the island’s two main towns, Castro and Ancud. This vacuum in authority no doubt helps to explain why much of the evidence collected in 1880 related to struggles for power within the Righteous Province itself. These had apparently been going on for decades; writing in June 1880, a columnist for a newspaper published in Ancud recalled the details of a murder inquiry that had taken place in 1849 when one Domingo Nahuelquin—who as King of Payos was in theory the supreme leader of the sect—had disappeared without a trace. Nahuelquin’s wife alleged that he had been killed on the orders of the King of Quicavi, the same José Mariman who a few years later took Mateo Coñuecar to meet the invunche, and that Mariman had thereby seized control of their society. The mystery of Nahuelquin’s disappearance was never formally resolved, since Mariman, it seems, had his rival and several of his supporters dropped into the sea with large rocks chained around their necks.
Mapuche machis—healers and shamans—photographed in 1903.
It may be asked why—if the existence of the Righteous Province had been known to the Chilean authorities for more than 30 years—the government chose 1880 to clamp down on the Mapuche and their murderous sect of witches. The answer, so far as can now be ascertained, has to do with shifting circumstances, for in 1880 Chile was in crisis, fighting Peru and Bolivia in a brutal four-year conflict known as the War of the Pacific. As a result, the great bulk of the country’s armed forces were committed far to the north—a situation that Chile’s old rival, Argentina, was quick to take advantage of. The Argentines chose 1880 to revive a number of claims they had to land along their border, and this threat was keenly felt on the western side of the Andes until it was defused by the 1881 Tratado de Límites—a treaty that continues to determine the boundary between the countries. Chiloé’s witch trial is probably best understood as a product of these tensions; certainly the first published references to the Righteous Province appear in decrees ordering the roundup of army deserters that were issued by the island’s governor, Louis Rodriguez Martiniano.
Luis Rodriguez Martiniano, who in 1880 put in motion the investigation that led to the great witch trial.
If this interpretation is correct, the persecution of the Righteous Province grew out of official concerns that the native Chilotes who were sheltering indigenous deserters from the Chilean army might also be sheltering Mapuche sorcerers. The pursuit of the deserters seems to have turned up evidence against the Mayoria. Flores points out that Rodriguez proclaimed one month later that “sorcerers and healers have for many years formed a partnership that has produced misery and death for whole families.”
The governor did not believe in magical powers, and found it easy to convince himself that the men of the Righteous Province were nothing more than “thieves and murderers.” One hundred or so members of the society were rounded up, and if their interrogation revealed that at least a third of them were harmless native “healers,” it also produced evidence of a number of murders and—perhaps still more damagingly—proof that other members of the group believed themselves to represent a legitimate native government.
It is not, perhaps, surprising in the circumstances that the Chilean authorities went to considerable lengths to destroy the power of Chiloé’s sorcerers. Two members of the Righteous Province were sentenced to serve 15-year terms for manslaughter, and 10 more were convicted of membership in an “unlawful society.” The old warlock Mateo Coñuecar was sent to prison for three years, and his brother, Domingo, for a year and a half. Not, it should be noted, on charges of witchcraft—Chile, in 1880, had long ceased to believe in such a thing—but as racketeers and murderers who had subjected their island to reign of terror for the best part of a century.
The governor’s triumph was short-lived; the dubious testimony of the prisoners aside, it proved all but impossible to uncover credible evidence that the Righteous Province had wielded real influence in Chiloé, much less that its members killed by magic or could fly. The majority of the sentences imposed in 1881 were overturned on appeal. But on Chiloé the imprisonment of many of its leaders was widely believed to have finished the Righteous Province off for good, and no conclusive trace of any such organization has been found on the island since.
Still, several mysteries remained when the verdicts were handed down. Had every member of the Mayoria really been accounted for? Had the society actually been headquartered in a hidden cave? If so, what happened to its ancient leather book of spells? And what became of the invunche?
It is interesting that in debate with `orb` deniers, they invariably pull up a supposed scientific report written for Para Science, a collective of `hard nosed` researchers of the paranormal.
This report entitled, `Orbs, or a load of balls` (snigger) attempts to dismiss beyond all reasonable doubt that the phenomenon of digitally captured light anomalies called, `orbs`, can all be explained away as either, dust motes, water vapour, hair fibre, and so on.
Accordingly, the writer claims that `Para Science has also observed and recorded these Orbs and over the past 5 years have extensively studied the phenomenon in order to try and understand exactly what it is that they represent`.
Sounds very grand, so let`s look at this `report`, and find out what tests were performed, where they were performed, and the nature in how they were obtained.
Simple, but relevant concerns that would lead one to think that this indeed has been scientifically researched report., and with provable facts, and not opinions.
However, reading further raised the ire of suspicion that this `report` relies more on personal opinions, and throwaway remarks designed to denigrate believers of this phenomena as something akin to what I interpreted as `fruit loops` and weirdo`s, which of course would imply that the author or authors are right, and the believers are easily led fools.
The report then tries to set the table straight by discussing the history and development of digital still cameras. Here the author has thrown in some `techno-babble` to assure the reader that he or she knows what they are talking about when it comes to cameras.
Without going through the minutia of all it contains - as these are merely general facts and do not focus directly into the contention that orbs are all explainable anomalies.
But there are `facts` claimed by the author, which are highly questionable, which suggests the author may not be so technically correct as he/she or they would like you to believe.
It is claimed, (quote), `Digital cameras currently have up to 14 million pixels. That may sound a lot and it certainly offers fantastic picture quality but to put it into perspective a single 35mm film frame on the cheapest disposable camera has the equivalent of more than 30 million pixels!`
I must admit, I was truly staggered by that claim, and have often heard that 35mm film is far superior to digital because of the quality of the film. And of course, to `orb haters`, they represent a positive boon to their argument, as 35mm film rarely show orbs because it is a higher pixel (quality) camera.
However, research via professional photographic sources reveals that the claim of 30 million pixels isn`t quite as wonderful as the writer claims, as this statement implies that 35mm is intrinsically far superior as it shoots at 30 megapixel. But the statement is deceptive, as I will show below.
I found this piece from a now defunct web site which can still be accessed by Archive.Org.
`From testing image detail, I have derived the following empirical equations that relate film resolution to the equivalent number of pixels a digital camera would need. The digital camera equivalent applies to a monochrome (Bayer) sensor that is common in consumer and pro digital cameras currently on the market. In the following equations lpm1.6 refers to the published film resolution in line pairs per millimeter with a target with a contrast of 1.6.
digital megapixel equivalent (35 mm film) = 10 * (lpm1.6 / 80 lpm)2 (eqn 1)
digital megapixel equivalent (6x4.5 cm film) = 31 * (lpm1.6 / 80 lpm)2 (eqn 2)
Further, for color film, digital Bayer sensors record one color per sensor element (pixel), thus color detail is less and one needs higher numbers of pixels to match the color resolution of film. My research shows about 1.6 times more pixels are needed to record the color detail of film.
Example:
Fujichrome Velvia has an lpm1.6 = 80 lpm. Equation 1 gives 10 megapixels for intensity detail, but color detail would require 16 megapixels.`
Hardly 30 megapixel, is it? And I have researched other sites who more or less give the same equations from comparative research. Whilst I may be accused of `splitting hairs`, I`m actually putting this `report` into it`s truly inaccurate perspective. So let`s continue further.
`The Early Orbs`
Well from here on in, the report becomes confusing and quite contradictory.
Let me explain why.
This early orbs section deals with orb anomalies (or `light balls`) being captured on their camera equipment following a reaction triggered by an EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) meter.
They couldn`t understand why this was so, and apparently had used their own devised software to analyse these images without any result that could dismiss them as explainable.
They even captured on camcorders moving `light balls` at the time the EMF was triggered, and discovered they reflected light. They even go further by stating, (quote) :
`The pictures and a full description of the events were sent to Sony UK for their comments and they confirmed that the camera was not at fault - these 'Lightballs' as we christened them could not be easily explained`.
In all that they have described and examined, there seems to be some quite conclusive data that `light balls` may well be of a paranormal nature.
But in reality, they are attempting to set the stage for their `scientific` dismissal of these anomalies further into the report. After all, you have to be seen as being firm and fair in all events, which (hopefully for them) will convince the world of paranormal investigators that orbs are well, rubbish, and should be dismissed out of hand.
`Orbs, The Next Generation`
Here the writer(s) launch their first salvo of insults at those, like me who believe `orbs` to be significant of paranormal research.
The report here appears to be based at the time that digital cameras became much better and more affordable, and at a hunch I would say in the early years of the 21st century.
Reference is made to a number of theories by believers, that the report appears to delight at quoting.
As a quoted example:
`Many believed that they were direct evidence for ghostly manifestations, the first stage of the appearance of a ghost. Some thought them to be a visualisation of Poltergeist activity. Others believed them to be Angels and could even tell the sex of them by looking at the colour of the Orb - naturally, Pink for a Girl and blue for a Boy! Faces were seen in the Orbs and they moved about in a controlled and intelligent way responding to the investigators requests for them to perform! `
The first part and the latter part are clearly digs aimed at serious researchers who have spent many hours within provably `haunted` locations, and recording and interacting experiences with these anomalies. I would not disagree that some believers have some rather fanciful interpretations of what they could be, but then so do supposed serious men and women of science who attempt to discredit anything that they cannot answer empirically and `orbs` are an area that they find uncomfortable to deal with. I will answer this further into this article and in detail.
I personally have never believed that colours have any relevance, and some in the past believed that colours denote moods. I have no evidence of that. But I have hours of footage and examples that show evidence that completely contradicts this report. Again, I will deal with this at the end of this article.
Again the report resorts to more throwaway comments which dilutes any credibility that it craves.
Here in the report, we arrive at the most interesting and hotly contested part of the case against `orbs` - the comparative substances test.
They detail experiments using a variety of mediums to replicate `orbs` on camera.
All kinds of powder, dust and even water moisture caused `orbs`, and in the case of moisture, lots of them.
And now in the minds of the author(s) they can sense the scent of their quarry as they attempt to chase it to ground. `Orbs` can be explained!!
After going through some more `techno-babble` which I have shown is highly questionable for complete and provable accuracy, we arrive at a penultimate statement:
`So, that was that - Orbs were nothing more than microscopic dust and water vapour droplets reflecting back the light of the flash that was often too close to the lens axis - Orbs were in fact dust and water suffering with Red Eye, like those pictures of a Demonic Auntie Nellie with her glowing red eyes and purple hair!`
Again, more sarcasm follows through the dubious `techno-babble`, and in their minds the phenomenon is truly laid to rest.. `Orb` followers on digital still cameras are stupid, Para Science wins through proven intellect.
And on the back of their self-serving congratulations with still cameras, they launch a full offensive on video camcorders.
Here they opine that `intelligent` or as I call them, reactive anomalies, are really nothing more than bugs. They postulate this opinion on what they claim as `bugs` that exist all year around in buildings that have heating, or, surviving in very mild winters in unheated ones.
If that statement wasn`t farcical enough, their follow-up is even more deserving of derision, (quote) `An evening spent in a haunted building with some flypaper and a UV Insect acuter soon proved they existed`,
As a researcher and investigator of all things `paranormal`, and more importantly as a former Police Intelligence Officer and a Detective, who was taught professionally in analytical crime and intelligence procedures, these statements are so woefully inaccurate. And here is why.
Weather scenarios and some conclusions.
I personally have captured winter `orb` activity in buildings that are open to the elements, have no heating whatsoever, and in all types of weather conditions - and no freeze enduring `bugs`.
From well below `0` degrees Celsius to overbearingly hot evenings, the same anomalies have been seen and captured on camera. And of course regular investigators know fully well what bugs look like!
Much of my research was split between my own home (which arguably would be warm all year around) to former WW2 Nissen huts bereft of windows and doors, and also a concrete WW2 command bunker at the same location.
Another point - which Para Science have omitted in their opinion biased report, is that often inside draughty buildings, `orbs` have moved into a room or location AGAINST the draught.
Also, they have failed to take on-board (in this report) just exactly how these `insect acuter` bugs actually move.
Insects fly in a swaggering side by side motion. Genuine `orbs` do not, and as far as I am aware, have never done so. A `fact` worthy one would think, of reporting.
Before responding with a full defence to this palpably poorly written and researched `report`, I note that at the end they add a caveat by stating:
`So, perhaps after all, there really is a phenomenon that can be seen by the digital camera that may ultimately have a cause that cannot be explained and thus will be paranormal, if there is it is extremely rare - less than 0.01% of all the Orb pictures we've looked at over the years - we still only have less than a dozen examples on record and all in places where ghostly activity has been reported. If there is a genuine Paranormal Orb it was very nearly lost and buried forever under a mountain of lookalikes caused by microscopic dust and water vapour droplets.`
I find this `orbs in terms of percentages` quite amusing, as this was the self-same `crime` they accused some websites of who supported `orbs`. And here is what Steve Parsons wrote in another piece, gloatingly claiming a victory in the `orb` debate: Link: http://www.parascience.org.uk/articles/orbkill.htm
`Many paranormal investigators now prefer to try and steer a middle ground through the orb problem - accepting that dust, flying insects, water vapour and other airborne particles are the likely cause of most orbs they find on their digital pictures and acknowledging the likelihood that the majority of orbs can be explained. All too often, they then go on to state that there remains a number of orbs, a figure of around 1% or 2% is usually favoured, that cannot be explained and so must therefore be paranormal. This small percentage are usually to be found on pictures they have taken! I also wonder how they achieve their statistical probability?`
Probably from the same source you claim yours Mr Parsons! Such self-assured arrogance.
Defences
I have over the years, and with video evidence to back up most of my findings, noted many aspects of `orb` related activity.
Firstly, I will agree and state unequivocally, that `orbs` mostly captured on digital still camera cannot be proven empirically as being entirely paranormal. And so the focus of much of my research has been on `orbs` captured on video camcorder.
The one notable exception was one late evening at the WW2 site - a former USAAF and RAF bomber base in Essex.
I was taking digital still photographs from the entrance area of the bunker and into the permanently dark operations room. Each flash reflected an anomaly of irregular shape which I could see quite naturally. This was one rare occasion where a `spiritual` mass took on solid form. I took a sequence of three photographs where the object moved back and away from the camcorder and towards another doorway. Each flash reflected back a white solid mass with a rather curious blue light on top.
Importantly, the object wasn`t `orb` shaped, it was irregular, as many of these anomalies are.
I was with a colleague who noted my report on camcorder, but sadly did not experience this event on film.
The camera used was checked and found to have recorded the three shots which are replicated below:
The initial shot - Very bright reflected white and blue light.
The object still reflected white and blue light but was slowly dissolving.
By now it had dissolved into `orb` shaped anomalies.
You`ll note four important observations, which contradicts the `Para Science Report`.
1) It temporarily had solid mass
2) It moved away from the photographer - check relative positions
3) They look nothing like, `dust, water vapour, bugs`, et al.
4) They were not initially `orb` shaped, but devolved into them.
My view on `Orbs`.
I am a full time researcher on all types of paranormal activity. Apart from being intelligence trained and analytical in my work, I have undertaken `orb` research primarily from my own experiences, and also from that experienced by others.
For me to believe in anything paranormal, I have to experience it, and if I haven`t experienced it personally, I remain open minded to the possibility.
Being wary of `orbs` being dust, etc, I always allow a few minutes before filming for any dust raked up by feet, etc, to settle naturally. Dust particulates or hair fibre caught on camcorder is heavier than air, and soon returns back to the ground after being kicked up by feet. And on camcorder, dust motes are relatively easy to spot as they move very quickly and haphazardly before returning to the ground. So whilst that may remain a good argument for still images, it is easily spotted and dismissed on video investigations.
The atmosphere in virtually all buildings contain literally millions of dust particulates which are so tiny that they do not generally show up on camera - either still or digital, but if you hold a flashlight/torch illuminated in the dark, and in an upright position you will see millions of them.
When shooting in my own home I have noticed that before an `orb` event, a tiny orb shoots out first, and then is followed by the main anomaly. These anomalies aren`t orb shaped, but quite irregular.
In my home there is a deltoid or crescent light anomaly which has appeared time and time again over the years, and always retaining a similar shape. It has also appeared on request. Again, if this was explainable in terms that only Para Science could comprehend, why has it retained a similar form, and why does it come towards the videographer, AGAINST a door draught, and often on request?
These are valid observations, which have not been addressed in the `report`. Para Science self admittedly came onto something with the apparent connection between `orbs` and EMF reactions, but failed to follow it through and were instead easily persuaded by the dust argument. Any serious researcher would realise that such a link is symbolic, but of course is outside of their `dust` mandate. That is a very unprofessional admission.
Please review video links and then continue further down the page for more revelations. These are three videos sharing the same anomaly. There are many others covering a 5 year period.
Another point of contention echoed by `non believers`, is the fact that I claim to be able to see anomalous activity in total darkness and without the aid of a light or camcorder. As an indication as to how narrow minded and unprofessional some `professional sceptics` are, I was accused of having my eyes `lasered` to see in the dark!
And another, having failed to satisfactorily offer a suitable explanation to fit within their `orb` theory, then accused of me of being a `charlatan`.
I am not sorry to say I can see them, and in my eyes they are either a mass of tiny red or blue light dots, or I see them as a grey or white energy mass.
In daylight I see only those that appear as red or yellow flashes. I cannot apologise for this ability, it is there along with other abilities that I can use to sense activity. I believe that we can all do this, but it requires faith and a belief in one`s own ability to sense and feel this energy.
My reputation as an investigator and researcher is built on trust and proven results from my detailed investigations, anything less is not within my remit. If I can see these anomalies, then clearly, there is much room for further and serious research into this phenomena. You will note on the next video I report that I couldn`t see a bug in darkness, so that seriously contends the `bug theory`.
From a professional stand-point I am very concerned about individuals who write a `report` that clearly leaves more questions than answers, and actually ignores much material either through their own sources or others such as myself. I am not a fool, neither am I easily led or persuaded with anything.
Yet a lot of their argument against `orbs` is characterising believers as fools.
Like them or hate them, `orbs` are part and parcel of what is contained in this crazy world of the paranormal. To dismiss it with a badly written and biased report and expect others to follow that belief rather than to encourage others to experiment and finding out for themselves, is simply another form of censorship through peer pressure.
Author: Chris Halton - aka (apparently) `The Dust Whisperer`
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