by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground

We returned to Wellington yesterday afternoon/evening. We even spent about an hour there after dark. We had the kids with us again – they’ve been begging.

It was a gorgeous evening up at Steven’s Pass. Sunny, clear and upper 60s. Plus I think I had on enough DEET this time that the skeeters left me alone – I am not at all itchy today.

As we walked into the snow shed, I felt fine – except that I’d had a growing migraine all day. Either Wellington is having less of an impact on me as I return, or my migraine sort of made me not really aware of other stuff – pain has a way of focusing you away from what it is you are trying to do.

In our first walk down the snow shed, I felt that familiar tingling “there’s something here” feeling. Matthew was walking ahead with a Trifield natural EMF meter, so I called him back and he came to where I was. The EMF meter did crazy things in that spot – it essentially “danced” – or the needle did. We marked the pole with a random piece of debris and went on to the overlook.

I sat on the overlook with the kids for a few minutes while Jim ran back up to the car to get something else. As we sat, Mackenzie and I both experienced our bench feeling as if something was bumping against the back of it. There was also a subtle rolling of the overlook under our feet. Nothing huge – just subtle stuff, although Mackenzie and I felt and experienced the same things at the same time.

Mackenzie was also experiencing a narrowing of her field of vision, which she’d only experienced once before. Sitting on the same bench the last time we were at Wellington. At the same time, I was seeing what looked like a shimmering of the air in spots around the bench. It could have been migraine, however. Sometimes my migraines have ocular components. It was still light at this time.

We left the overlook and ran into Bert and Jayme Coates of NWPIA, who spend a great deal of time up at Wellington investigating it. Bert told me that they’d had an especially active Friday night this past weekend, with black shadows, whispers in their ear and more.

I waked Bert and Jayme to the pole we’d marked. They have a numbering system so that they know which snow shed support has had activity. Bert immediately recognized the support and said it was the center of much of their activity on Friday. Interesting!

We gabbed with Bert and Jayme for a bit, and then they headed up the trail while Jim, Matthew and Mackenzie headed down to the debris field by the river while we still had daylight left. Tanner, Kevin and I returned to the overlook for a few minutes, and then we hiked down the snow shed towards my favorite (or not so much) bridge. Part way there, we pulled out my handy-dandy iPhone and played some music with Italian lyrics. We stood for a minute with the music playing and things started to change a bit – the air got heavier. Just as I was about to say something about the air getting heavier, Tanner said in a really anxious voice, “It’s HERE!” and started back in the other direction. At the same time, Jim contacted me on the walkie talkie and said they were headed back up the trail, so we went to meet them. As we were walking, something was whispering in my ear. Nothing I could understand.

We hiked back up the snow shed and went to have some dinner in the parking lot, where the kids had a chance to run around and get their sillies out before it got dark. As twilight approached, we re-entered the snow shed. It was getting pretty dark in there.

Our first order of business was to set up our motion activated IR game cam facing the pillar we’d marked earlier. Then we continued onto the overlook, where we sat for a few minutes. Someone stroked the back of my neck. I decided not to say anything, because I wanted to have the kids tell me their experiences without relaying mine. Immediately after that, Mackenzie had someone stroke the top of her head repeatedly. Matthew had a good, solid poke on the back of his head. Tanner and Mackenzie (who were sitting side by side) had someone simultaneously touch their legs.

While we were on the bench, we played some more music with Italian lyrics, and we started to hear noises in the snow shed.

We went to investigate. There was no one there – but by this time it was quite dark, so we headed down the snow shed once again. The dark will do things to you in that place. The kids were all seeing shadows flitting across their field of visions as we walked. So was I. Several times I actually saw something glowing – but it was quite far away and difficult to know if our eyes were playing tricks on us or not.

When we got to the bridge, we stopped and went totally lights out. We blew train whistles. We called out things in Italian (which we learned from a CD in the car on the drive up) about it being cold, it snowing and about trains. We turned on the music with Italian lyrics again. Matthew jumped sky high. Something had thumped his head pretty hard. We got Matthew calmed down and then Tanner startled like Steve Gonsalves when he sees a spider. Something had very firmly grabbed his lower leg.

While the music with Italian lyrics played on, we had two pieces of equipment fail simultaneously. The H4 I was carrying turned off. Jim’s video camera – and IR lights (which were powered separately and attached in no way) all turned off at the exact same time.

We remained on the bridge for a few more minutes, and then calling out, “Ciao! and Grazie!” and headed back up the snow shed. As we were walking, something grabbed my arm. I thought it was one of the kids – until I noticed that all of the kids were on my other side.

We went back out to the overlook and had an EVP session with the two recorders that continued to work. We began to hear noises in the snow shed and in the bushes behind us. One was so loud that I jumped up and whirled around with my flashlight to look for a wild animal.

After the “wild animal” incident (which Jim swears wasn’t him farting this time), the kids were ready to go. We packed up our belongings, gathered the game camera, and headed up to the car.

Some interesting things this time. We had a lot of equipment and battery malfunction, which isn’t something we’ve experienced before. More than just the stuff that I mentioned above. I replaced EVERY single battery before we left the house. One recorder was dead the second I turned it on up there. I replaced the batteries again and it started to work. Another recorder claimed its memory was full in spite of the fact that there was nothing on it – I’d also cleared all of the recorders prior to leaving. Mackenzie’s camera claimed it had no battery while she was down in the debris field. Then it started working just fine. Kevin’s video camera was fully charged. It had 90 minutes of recording left, and in a period of about 30 seconds, none. It turned on and off a few times – which was probably its attempt to deal with its lack of battery.

The other stuff we experienced seems par for the course with Wellington. The ground sort of waving under our feet with mini tremors. Sounds of rumbling as if something was rolling down the hill. Touches. Whispers in your ear. Flitting shadows. Lots and lots of the hair standing up on our arms. That type of thing.

We packed up and headed out. Again, I felt like something might be in the car with us, but I also felt that my perception was off because of the migraine, so I kept quiet. Still, strange things were happening in the car – more equipment “malfunction” type stuff. My iPhone kept making a sound and lighting up and then going dark – something I’ve never observed it doing before. Tanner’s iPod started randomly skipping through songs in the middle of a song, which it hadn’t done before. The video screens in the back seat were blinking in and out. Finally, Tanner said something to me, and I asked if he thought someone was in the car with us. He did – and I told him that all we needed to do was ask anyone who had come with us to please go. We did. From that moment forward, every malfunction that had been occurring in the car for the past hour stopped.

I haven’t reviewed anything yet. No video, no audio. I haven’t tried to download from the game cam. I’ll do that later today as time permits, and, as you know, I’ll post what I find here.

Wellington continues to be a mystery.

Oh – one last thing. On the way home, I asked Jim, “So – have you changed your mind? Do you believe in ghosts?”

His answer, “Yeah, I do.”

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