Archive for the ‘Personal Experiences’ Category

This year the intrepid traveler embarked on his early July jaunt south in the wee hours of the morning…the expressway traffic was light yet still spotted with cars and trucks as are all of the highways that skirt the Chicago periphery…despite the absence of congestion and aggravated commuters this early on, the alleviation of urban angst was every bit as tangible the farther from the metro core I drove… and the closer to the Illinois/Indiana border I motored, the greater the volume of “Krazy Kaplin’s Fireworks” roadside adverts I noticed especially so closely following the 4th of July where you always get “more bang for the buck” and “pyrotechnics for the price”…in addition to constant the roadside reminders of this fireworks emporium, there are the assorted salacious signs and lubricious billboards to also remind us that The Shangrila, Deja-Vu, Club O, Pole Katz, Showgirls and Atlantis gentlemen’s clubs were just an off ramp away and these prurient signposts continued well past Gary Indiana recurring only on the outskirts of Indy, Louisville and at times in close approximation to the larger truck plazas… the neighborhood homes along part of this economically challenged stretch of road was also the scene of a surrealistic two story house inferno that illuminated the surrounding night scape on the final leg of my journey home…

The seedier side of interstate travel advertisements was quickly annulled by the sprawling farmlands south of Merrillville, Indiana and replaced by a sense of tranquility and quietude that to some is the unequivocal panacea to the hypertensive stress of the daily grind only a drive in the country can provide…the wind generator farms that are now popping up along
the rural horizons do not detract from the heartland skylines as I feared, they actually broke the emerging, featureless monotony with a futuristic abstract surrealism as their enormous blades slowly turned in unison against the orange tinted, predawn glow of the eastern sky like the props of a giants sky ship or the propellers of a fleet of ocean liners that floating eerily above the patches of morning fog that blanketed the ground below….

The emergent mountain region that is always a such a spectacle to us Midwestern Flat-landers is probably taken for granted by those that see it every day much the way the city sky scrapers that define the Chicago skyline eventually fade from our notice but astounds Out-Of-Towners … even the iron rich, red dirt of the Appellations proved to be a renewed source of amazement to me when a freshly bulldozed plot of crimson colored, roadside property burned past my speed blurred periphery again invoking the equation of a Martian landscape …The composition of the soil in conjunction with the crystalline base of this mountain mantle has been theorized to be a catalyst for supernatural activity by many …

This trip included return visits to a couple of sites that yielded some interesting photos last time around in addition to several new locations that have raised the ire of the locals more sensitive or adept at detecting potential supernatural activity or spiritual presence…there were a couple of old houses that radiated a familiar resonance that regional or geographical diversity seldom diminishes or amplifies but at times can exude a distinct energy signature that is innate to certain areas …and this particular variable seems to be specifically engendered to distance as opposed to the history inherent to a certain site …perhaps this is related to the iron rich, crystal quarts abundant mountain base in this case …

One aspect of this excursion that deviated from my usual quixotic quests was the moral conflict I had to wrestle with in regard to chronicling the investigation of the crash site that claimed the life of a popular High School athlete as the result of apparent speeding and or reckless driving by the vehicle’s driver (whom survived the crash) and perhaps to a degree his own negligence as his failure to wear a seat contributed to his tragically premature death as the young man was ejected from the car … from the looks of the crash site, damage to the trees and Googled news photo of the car it was a horribly violent wreck… and apparently these abruptly curving and dipping mountain back roads have claimed many lives judging from the preponderance of makeshift memorials I noticed within the radius of this particular grid of notoriously dangerous cris-crossing roads …a grid that claimed 2 seniors from the same HS weeks apart and so close to graduation …

When I arrived at the site that has generated reports of strange, inexplicable activity in the wake of the accident, the first thing I noticed was the graffiti spray painted all over the street by classmates, family and friends…a permanent looking memorial was erected on the exact spot where the car came to rest complete with a cross and an accompanying inscribed stone…beyond the marker and bent or broken tree limbs was a medium sized tree trunk with a bark bare spot marked with a red X…a few feet below and away from the base, red spray paint was still visible despite the efforts of the amber colored earth sprinkled liberally over that specific spot to deliberately conceal the markings on the ground were this young man evidently perished after being thrown from the cartwheeling car…

The personal conflict I was experiencing over including photos and commentary was immediately replaced with a moment of clarity and the decision to include these photos in hopes of instilling a cautionary reminder of the consequences of reckless driving, drag racing, DUI or neglecting the simple snap of a seat belt that spared the driver albeit his flagrant carelessness and perhaps a momentary lapse in judgment that will haunt him and others for life…there is no mention of the specific circumstances that precipitated this tragedy only that a seat-belt may have saved the life of teen with so much promise. And as I decided to include the still shots of the crash site, I also decided not to analyze those photos for anomalous features….

There was always an attraction felt for a certain old house along one of the main stretches of road the last few times I made my way through this part of the mountains as it was perched so precariously atop a hill, irresistibly curious in all of it’s run down ruminations…across the street it’s yellow colored vacant counterpart must have finally succumbed to seeming uninhabitability as one of the back window was broken out and the previous occupant’s possessions were stacked haphazardly on the front porch and strewn about the front lawn as the probable result of rummaging looters… my passing observation of the two odd homesteads from the past year’s visit to this area included the presence of assorted vehicles parked in front and this to me was the initial deterrent from pulling off of the main thoroughfare for a closer look last time around and now none were to be found…

The gray, fading pallor of the old single story house may have instilled a sort of nostalgic charm if the stained imprint of generational oppression had not so inexorably permeated the very grain this of the structure itself and the hilltop for which it at one time was so majestically perched…a number of old rusty paint cans lined the railing of a front porch
that creaked with each step closer I took to the unhinging wooded screen door …the tinny twang of an old spring affixed to the inside of the door seemed to herald my final crossing of the threshold to the interior… the musty, dank air was to be expected as the ambiance of the dim light filtering through the dirt and dust opaqued windows confirmed the long absence of occupation…the creaking recrimination of the aging floorboards threatened to introduce me to the crawlspace below with each increasingly cautious footfall as if it was voicing in opposition for my non verbal expression of disdain for the state of disrepair the house looked to have been in prior to abandonment…

A lone Christmas wreath sat on an old folded up throw rug draped across a number of window screens leaning against the wall next to a window …the growing discomfort I was feeling intensified as the nascent nausea I experienced upon entry overwhelmed me with the added component of equilibrium instability and I knew I needed to get out of there as this was either a portal to hell or a bio hazardous, former meth lab (or both) but persevered the instinctual need to flee in favor of a few more photos …as I made my way to the partially opened window facing north and glanced outside through the frame of another screen door placed crookedly over it, I noticed a gleaming white Ford F250 “dualie” rolling down the gravel driveway from an impeccably neat ranch style homestead atop an even higher vantage point overlooking the two ramshackle shacks (and me) …fearing an unpleasant confrontation with a shotgun wielding
southern gentleman charged with the deed of overseeing the now vacant 2 homes that were already the objects of indiscriminate looting, I bolted for the front door and sprinted to my faithful Chevrolet steed, lighting up the tires in a hasty, cliche’d departure as the shining chrome grill of the white truck glinted in my rear view mirror rounding the turn from the steep driveway less than a half a block behind …the fortuitous lull in traffic at the intersection provided an ample window for me to jump on the main road and slam the accelerator to the floor forcing the powerful V-8 to lunge forward in a surge of unbridled exaltation…several darting mirror checks could not locate the pursuing pickup and I even mad a few fast head checks to be sure but there was no sign of Pale Horse to be found …in retrospection I couldn’t resist citing the symbolic equation of  my metaphoric Guardian Angel descending from above in a giant white pick-up to chase me out of that house on the hill…

The other house that I tracked down acting on a tip was even more dilapidated and in a state of perpetual collapse…rumor has it that shadowy figures milling around outside on front stoop, faint laughter and odd lights were spotted shining from the interior in the middle of the night and the vigilant neighbors would never be able to catch anyone inside or nearby…and based on it’s current state of structural instability that I observed, the thick overgrowth, boarded rear windows, and general inaccessibility, I find it highly unlikely the lights were in realty; mischievous neighborhood kids exploring the old spooky house …a litany of complaints and concern over a certain group of incorrigible local hooligans placed them at the top of the neighboring resident’s list as the culprits for the disturbances reported there considering that one of these hardened young delinquents had in the past committed the unconscionable act of riding his bicycle through his back yard (gasp )…A carefully plotted climb over everything (including a kitchen sink) from a bathtub, wooden cabinets, old tires, pallets and other miscellaneous debris permitted me a glimpse through the darkened front window and aside from a haphazard stack of old mattresses, boxed junk and assorted end tables, what I did notice was that the dust on the inside was extremely thick and undisturbed thus lessening the likelihood of the anomalous lights being the surreptitious shenanigans perpetrated by flashlight wielding whelps as theorized by the 2 sets of adjacent neighbors I interviewed …the rear of the house is completely overgrown and borders a vacant lot that incidentally ends at the rear of a small cemetery and church…pushing my way through a small opening in the thorned thicket to try a photo of a small window that looked to be nailed shut, covered from within and undisturbed proved to only further confirm my doubts that the anomalous night lights spotted by several witnesses were resultant of young explorers on yet another nocturnal adventure…as I backed out of the thatch heavy patch and admired the new scratches running up the length of both forearms while I surgically extracted the burrs now embedded in my shoelaces, I suddenly heard dogs barking off in the distance and many dogs at that …I imagined some old codger running behind a leashed team of bloodhounds searching for some lost hikers or worse; a suspicious, unadvised neighbor “releasing the hounds to chase away them trespassers”…the barking became louder and more frenzied as I rounded the front of the house and once again darted for the car …I expected my protégée to be semi panicked and already in the car waving at me to get in but seemed startled by my harried demeanor as I reached the front yard were she was nonchalantly admiring a twisted old oak tree …I realized then that I no longer heard the dogs and she claimed to have heard nothing ( we left anyway ) …

Another location that I considered a prospect for exploration was again related by word of mouth and involved an old building that was a combination antiques mall and storage facility…
reports of a full blown apparition milling about the store after hours has been reported by several witnesses (leaving a nearby drinking establishment) but the store owners themselves have complained of certain objects constantly falling from shelves or tables regardless of the concerted efforts made to keep them stationary or even locate them to different tables, shelves or display cases … I have not examined all of those photos yet either but again found myself enamored by the efforts made to preserved this area’s small town charm while the economically unaffected continuing growth of this region threatens this main street economy with obsolescence in the face of progress….

There was an new (old) Baptist Church/Cemetery added to the itinerary this time around and was well worth the added travel as I did in fact capture some very “interesting” night photos there …there has been mention on the net of supernatural activity associated with this location but I have elected to not name the site keeping with policy when I venture out of my own realm to visit less known or unknown locations nationally …the progressive additions and remodeling projects over the years did not seem to detract from quaintness of the church and grounds … the old original church stands in it’s revered pristine state and even looked to be the recent recipient of a fresh coat of white paint …the cemetery is very old and many of the monuments closest to the buildings either collapsed or are partially disintegrated …one of the more recent new additions looked almost like a residence or perhaps retreat housing and is literally mere feet from the closest tombstone in the rear of the structure …the cool, jeweled full moon peeking over the pine line where the property ends provided an added combined element of preternatural glow to the already strange jaded emerald colored streetlight that stood at the cemeteries edge…as I made my way over the small incline to the bordering shrubbery that separates the church from what looked to be the large backyard of a private residence, I was stopped in my tracks by a horrible moaning ”ooooooooooooooooooohhhhh”…then a second time “oooooooooooooooohhhhhhh”
it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was being “punked” by a valiant effort made by some kids in the yard next door that must have noticed the occasional intermittent shots I was taking with a flash and decided to try and spook us…I have to compliment the youngster making the moaning sounds as he exhibited almost operatic vibrato skills in the effort …

I was fortunate enough to make it to one return site with an encroaching thunderstorm rolling in from the west and could almost taste the ionic static charge in the air…the base photos alone from that afternoon are quite amazing really and I plan to afford all of the data collected from this trip extensive examination as some of my recent evidential analysis has been either hastened or distracted, but I have recently pledged to shift my focus back to the research and study of the sites from this trip or the ones I will be exploring in the future and the data acquired …I will no longer permit myself deviation from my objectives regardless of the morbid fascination I occasionally entertain with the devolution of  certain elements of the paranormal community ….b

Here are the unedited (compressed to 1 MB) photos from Road Trip 2010 (389 total)….b
http://s890.photobucket.com/albums/ac105/HalfhandParanormalChicago/Road%20Trip%202010/

Be sure to visit the PUG forum for photo analysis updates of this topic -click here

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Seasonal highlights from world famous haunted location Resurrection Cemetery, the home of Chicago’s premiere spook: Resurrection Mary spanning 4 years of coverage…Part three includes inside shots of the famous Willow Brook Ballroom that harbors it’s own non corporeal residents. Courtesy of renowned paranormal pundit and supernatural journalist extraordinaire; Barek Halfhand

Resurrection Mary Cemetery-Willow Brook Ballroom Part One

Resurrection Mary Cemetery-Willow Brook Ballroom Part Two

Resurrection Mary Cemetery-Willow Brook Ballroom Part Three

The Site Of National Headlines: Burr Oak Cemetery

The Burr Oak Cemetery has been the subject of national headlines on more than one occasion in the last few years …

The most recent news story involved allegations of cemetery employees disinterring bodies to sell plots in the already capacity exceeded graveyard and reselling them surreptitiously to unwitting grieving families wanting to bury loved ones in a place steeped with African American history and Chicago heritage often carelessly discarding the remains of those usurped from their graves in the rear of the cemetery near a rubble and dirt pile…in some cases there was such blazon, flagrant disregard for the deceased that apparently very little effort to conceal the remains was even afforded the discarded dead and there was as authorities reported, visible bones at the rear of one of these dirt piles …

Investigators also discovered the original casket of Emmit Till in a litter strewn storage shed that the (former) cemetery manager pledged would be part of a memorial funded by private donations solicited by herself under the pretense of the murdered 14 year old’s pivotal role in the advancement of Civil Rights in the mid 1950’s …

Emmit Till was an African American teen from Chicago visiting his great uncle in the small Delta community of Money Mississippi during the summer break of 1955 and made the fatal error of insulting a grocery store clerk where he and his cousin stopped in to buy candy and soda …it is still unclear what precipitated the indignation of this woman, Till’s cousin claims he simply whistled at her as they departed acquiescing to the dare of the other black youths with them that afternoon to flirt with her as a joke …accounts range from him simply saying “bye baby” after making their candy purchases or him grabbing her hand and asking for a date, to the store clerk’s (Carolyn Bryant) assertion that he used language so vulgar she couldn’t repeat it and behaved in a lewd and lascivious manor throughout the duration of his time in the store …regardless the punishment certainly did not fit the crime if there even was one …

Allegations are that when the store owner ( Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant) returned from a trip later that week, he was so incensed by his wife’s contention that this insolent black boy would insult his woman with sexual overtures that he decided to reprimand this lad personally …

The perpetrators of Emmit’s kidnapping, torture, murder and disposal into the August murky depths of the Tallahassee River, barb wire bound to an industrial fan and beaten beyond recognition, are assumed to be Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam, but there is controversy surrounding testimony that others were in the car that drove to the house of Till’s great uncle; Rev Moses Wright…most believe that Carolyn Bryant was present to identify “the talker” …the original trial acquitted Bryant and Milam and they are protected from retail per “double jeopardy” laws albeit the fact that the they admitted to killing the teen to a journalist in a post trial interview conducted for a substantial sum of money by the magazine for the “exclusive”…

The reopening of the case years later would reveal new testimonies and allegedly suppressed evidence that implicated up to 14 others either present at the kidnapping and or murder, but a 5 year federal statute of limitation relating to Civil rights cases even those involving death greatly hindered the FBI’s involvement in the investigation and restricted it to the potential for prosecution at the Mississippi State level if any federally assisted investigations yielded sufficient evidence to indict additional murder suspects or accompli that are (were) still alive amid the discourse of that latter investigation …emergent evidence implicated Mrs Bryant and several others as either present or active participants in the kidnapping, torture and or murder, concealment of a homicide, harboring a fugitive, obstruction of justice and the list goes on and on …Law enforcement agencies, prosecution, defense council and political figures at all levels involved in the 1955 case faced potential new indictments relating to official misconduct amid
rumors ranging from evidence suppression, evidence tampering, witness intimidation, perjury etc…

No new charges were leveled in the recent investigation as inadmissible circumstantial evidence, deceased or incapacitated suspects/witnesses and assorted legal loopholes still on the books hindered any new charges or revelations in the case…but this was the catalyst for former President George W. Bush signing a new law named “The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act” in to effect back in Oct. Of 2008 that abrogated some of those limitation statues involving murder and further granting federal investigative and prosecutorial entities additional funding, resources and entitlement to reopen and prosecute cold civil rights cases of this nature if the criteria is met to warrant such reexamination …

The reopening of the Emmit Till case in 2005 included the exhumation and a second autopsy of his body at the Burr Oak Cemetery and this was the basis for this location first making national headlines …Emmit was re-interred in another section ( as I found out later ) and his original coffin never restored for the promised memorial but instead housed a family of raccoons in the rear of a dilapidated shack before it’s discovery as a side note to the second in a decade of national headline capturing stories related to Burr Oak that surfaced in 2009 …

The desecration of a body is considered an unconscionable and despicable act and a felony in some cases…the official charge was dismemberment of a body, a class X felony punishable up to 30 years in prison for the four charged with reselling deeds to occupied plots …estimates vary from 200 to over 300 plots were resold and the original occupants were either disinterred and unceremoniously dumped in a ravine at the back of the premises or the original casket was pounded down and the newly departed buried on top of it …either way this abhorrent act of monumental disrespect sparked outrage and transformed the unremarkable appearing cemetery into an FBI cordoned crime scene and yet another media circus …a long line of relatives grasping any records or documents they could find waited in a single file line into the cemetery office …there was very little in the way of records kept by previous administrators so consequently local funeral homes and the county records office was inundated with calls and inquiries from relatives unable to locate the graves of loved ones at Burr Oak …many were so appalled with this abomination that they wept inconsolable in the July heat waiting their turn to consult the assigned interim cemetery management and county officials serving as a liaison between the public, the media and the intermediary management…the Rev Jessie Jackson was on hand to express his dismay over this atrocity and even went as far as to comment that “there is a special place in hell” for people like those accused of this crime”…all four suspects are African American….

One wonders if there is truly a correlation to elevated spiritual activity and disturbing a corpse …and if so, is a body that is exhumed for the purpose of forensic examination exempt from such supernatural implications or are these imprecations exclusive to the disrespect of grave desecration …Kathleen Savio, Drew Peterson’s third wife who died in 2004 was exhumed for examination from her resting place at Queen of Heaven in 2007 when authorities began to suspect foul play following the disappearance of his 4th wife Stacy … I have personal impressions that in the case of Kathleen Savio’s disinterment three years later and perhaps even in the case of Emitt Till 2 months shy of 50 years later, that there may actually be an appeasement of restless spirits that perished unjustly…regardless of the fact that no additional charges were brought about as the result of Till’s long term post posthumous re evaluation, his story created enough attention to motivate President Bush to sign an amendment of the limitation laws pertaining to civil rights and in the case of Kathleen Savio, a precedent was set that was signed as Illinois law passed in 2008, and commonly referred to as the “Drew’s Law” that permitted what would have been previously construed as hearsay to be admissible in court under certain circumstances…This seems to elevate these two victims to martyrdom status for the advancement of a greater cause thus letting them ascend or rest peacefully at last or least …

On the other side of the coin the black arts practice of “necromancy” specifically calls for desecration of the dead and the rifling of graves to invoke the spirit of the deceased but the consequences or “corpse bothering” especially on a large scale like that of Burr Oak are often said to be that of supernatural disturbance regardless if the motivation is that of occult ritual, violence or greed …

Conversations about nearby Bachelor’s Grove with locals has included mention of Burr Oak before and after the most recent debacle on more than one occasion and there has been unsubstantiated reports of gaunt, black tux clad figures lingering near the old gates adjacent to the tri state on-ramp and gawking at Starbucks sipping motorists embarking on their workday in the predawn glow of the expressway lighting overhead …of course as any of you that has braved the gauntlet of the Chicago toll-way system knows, a phantasmic specter at the onset of any morning commute here will soon be forgotten amid the unbridled chaos and carnage known as “The Morning Rush” no mater how terrifying the supernatural encounter may be …other claims have been strange lights and a wailing, moaning sound emanating from the cemetery at night that the apartment residents on the east and north end of the grounds maintain has been an ongoing phenomena there for years but again, this is based on second and third hand accounts I have heard over the last few years …

The clear blue sky and temperate, breezy upper 70’s weather belied the threatening the blaring tornado sirens that echoed throughout the western burbs the previous evening …my thoughts returned to that late afternoon of the preceding day when the blackened thunder heads and ionized static of lighting flashes intensified as the preternatural glow of purple orange cloud cover gradually resigned to the darker front approaching that heralded it’s arrival with the deafening boom of thunder claps to rival the still wailing sirens …the hours of torrential downpour that followed was a welcome alternative to the twister that would have undoubtedly tore my house from it’s foundation and dropped it on a witch somewhere in psychedelic midget-land, but I digress ….

The old gates where reports of a loitering, grimacing apparition appeared to morning commuters was clearly visible as I turned left instead of right on 127th street like I have so many times before en route to Bachelor’s Grove …I stopped and took a few photos of the current entrance near the front office and an old unoccupied looking house near the east fence and was immediately aware of the dread one of the windowless windows towards the back instilled …a mail carrier frowned at from his mail-mobile as I was casually making my way back to the open door of my ride because he had to turn the steering wheel a quarter of a turn to go around me and past the open gates …

I noticed 2 rectangular, above ground style crypts or sarcophagi at the fork in the roads where the first section begins at a point and upon reading the plaques mounted on the front realized that this was the grave of Mamie Till-Mobley along side of her boyfriend and apparent life partner…The internet; in it’s notoriously impeccable accuracy placed Emmit Till’s grave just across the way in the first section but after crisscrossing a grid pattern failed to yield his tomb …

A gentleman in casual business attire emerged from the office across the street and was sort of heading my general direction so I at first thought he was going to challenge my presence there being the site of so much recent media notoriety and infamy and before he uttered a word I laconically asked him if he knew where Emmit Till’s grave was and if I was in the correct section…he amiably informed me that I was not and he would print me a map of the correct location from the office …while I waited nearby, I drifted off to the side in the direction of the old house and took a few photos of the front but retreated back towards the office instead of proceeding along the side and back of this vacant structure that was really bothering me because I didn’t want to miss the map the gracious cemetery employee was providing me and this proved to be a prudent decision because he eyed me suspiciously as I rounded the corner to meet him as he exited the office…I thanked him for his generosity and offered the unsolicited explanation that I was writing an article relating to the Emmit Till case as he handed me the print out and headed to the middle of the cemetery and the sections the printed page denoted as the correct location …

As 98 percent of the markers at Burr Oak are modest, nondescript ground flush stones, the marker would have been virtually impossible to pinpoint had it not been for the wooden stakes that marked the lots by increments of 5 as a probable result of the recent investigation and the one next to Emmit’s even had his name written on it ( pictured below) …intermittent puddles of standing water soaked my Puma sneakers despite my hop scotching efforts to the dryer patches closest to the grave and much to my chagrin, several inches of rain water covered the grave itself…

The familiar photo of the teen in a white button down shirt and black tie that his mother bought him for as part of a suit and dapper looking brimmed hat outfit he wore at a Christmas dinner she hosted in 1954 was affixed to the top of his tombstone…an outfit she really couldn’t afford but wanted him to have so she gave him $100 and he exhibited impeccable taste for a boy that age in selecting that suite…several pennies and nickels were placed on the marker as tokens and albeit the fact that the flash flood onslaught of showers the area experienced the night before overwhelmed even the most contemporary of irrigation engineering strategies and design, it still struck me as sadly ironic that this poor child that was pulled from the Tallahassee River over half a century ago was staring up at me from below a shallow water surface…a still pool of water that was almost like the glass top that covered the original coffin at his funeral in 1955…

Another example that the warm summer sun that replaced the early AM drenching did not completely extirpate all evidence of earlier inclement weather was that many of the Burr Oak’s interior roadways were partially if not completely flooded…in some places towards the back I estimate the water was close to 3 feet deep and my professional journalistic demeanor was quickly abandoned in favor of diving my jeep through the highest standing water I could find covering a section of paved surface ( being the mature, consummate professional that I am )…as the steam rose from the under carriage and I tuned in the middle of one of the deeper parts of the flash pond for yet another childish, accelerator stomping splash through the Carmel colored rain water, I realized that it was so high it was splashing up over my hood and a glance out the driver’s side window alerted me to the fact the water was a mid door level…realizing this was deeper than most of the off road sludge sloughs I have attempted to date in my beloved, aging Jeep, I slowed down enough to stave off the water flow over the hood but maintained an even speed to prevent a stall in the middle of the corpse-water pond and navigated towards dry higher ground …the childish compulsion that placed me into this predicament forced me to glance into the rear view side mirror to admire the bubbling wake spreading behind me and for an instance in the spray mist and steam there was a disconsolate looking, pale figure standing in the water glaring at me or in my general direction and when I whipped around to look to the rear it was gone …

More on the net:
Emmett Till; is the investigation over?:
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-17-2006-91327.asp

Burr Oak Cemetery nightmare:
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/07/sheriff-bodies-dug-up-dumped-at-cemetery.html

Here are the unedited (compressed) photos my 6/2010 visit (70 total)….b

Be sure to check out this topic at the PUG forum for updates and photo analysis:
Burr Oak Cemetery forum Thread-CLICK HERE

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An Old VA Hospital

My recent expedition to the old Manteno State Hospital complex has piqued an interest I have had in facilities like this that began with the encounter working in the basement of a Joliet Illinois penitentiary annex building of few years back that housed sex offenders and culminated in my coverage of a west suburban retirement home demolition (Plymouth Pace) in early 08…I have heard rumors over the years and have even been privy to first hand accounts related to me by sources of impeccable credulity and even former employees of a now closed Veterans Hospital in my zone being the site of numerous inexplicable occurrences and even full blown apparitions sightings before and after the doors were padlocked and basement windows boarded…

Reports from a current employee of ongoing ”paranormal” activity in the operational parts of the hospital and rapidly multiplying satellite specially treatment centers concentric to this University Medical Center are also abundant, but I have elected to forgo pursuing this sort of ongoing covert investigation as the reality of doing so respectfully seem to be severally limiting and unconscionably inappropriate…it’s amazing how many out there in the paranormal community espouse this unwavering “respect for the dead” but reverence for the living or ailing be it in an institutionalized environment or private residence seems to fall by the wayside…

I would prefer not name this location as it may jeopardize future investigations and the full access I am negotiating, but it probably wont be hard to deduce by description and appearance to those indigenous to or familiar with he Chicagoland area …A day earlier the new VA Hospital was visited by the President so I suspect my exploration of the old building would have been greatly impeded by the stepped up security measures … As usual my air of confident officiousness and a largely innocuous agenda in conjunction with the added advantage of my usual solo sojourning methodology presented me with unchallenged admittance…

World War One Veterans are really the first to exhibit the PTSD related syndrome
known as Shell Shock …that and a myriad of other obvious complications compounded by exposure to viruses, poison gas, exhaustion from “heavy packing” and hastened redeployment to the front lines following combat related injuries, illness, battle fatigue and psychoneurotic afflictions denied many soldiers the benefit of proper rehabilitation which often ultimately left them bereft of full long term recovery…

Korea and Viet Nam presented many of the same syndromes and a plethora of new maladies related to Agent Orange and diseases specific to that geography of the Asian Theater …

The long term effects of Persian Gulf Veterans is inconclusive but dessert Storm Vets have had inordinately high incidents of children with birth defects aside from the typical stress related disorders and the garden variety of somatic ailments inherent to all wars since these case studies began following The Civil War…

And while I would prefer delve into another broad sweeping indictment of the treatment many post war Vets received, be it by populist public opposition to foreign policy or the governmentally institutionalized post war care many were provided that was often less than commensurate to the sacrifices they made…many were left to vacillate in the abnegated dignity of neglect, poor funding, mis management, public apathy, and even abuse suffered by those rendered disabled as a result of combat related injuries or left indigent by the debilitation of the
associated PTSDs and the efficacy of treatment they received…

How prevalent any of this was (if at all) at this particular facility is not widely known
or reported as it was one of the original of the post WWII medical centers for veterans
originally funded by private grants and the philanthropic generosity of a local lumber magnate (another hint) before incorporation by the VA and relocation to a nearby new construct that was also an adjunct to a prestigious medical school…Being one of the original VA prototypes and being subjected to the auspicious eye of the conjoined Medical School, the staff there was probably held to a much higher standard as this was considered a high visibly model (like the new one) so perhaps the inequities inherent to these institutions were not as severe as some of the others of the day but the visage of the forgotten, wheelchair bound Vet that I encountered that afternoon erased the preconceived timestamp from the plight of the post war disabled Veteran as exclusively a social problem from the past…

My first impression as of this site as I made way west from the inconspicuously innocent anonymity of visitors parking was that by all outward appearances it seemed unobtrusive even in it’s starkly contrasting obsolescence as the physicians rolled by in their new cars to the gated parking that awaited them ahead …the over growth obscured the majority of the mid level windows but a few of the top story ones remained visible and the brooding that radiated from those seemed concentrated as a result of the others being bordered or blocked by trees, shrubbery and vines….

The North Gate looked locked (wasn’t)so I opted for a trek along the gate south that runs adjacent to what I’m assuming is a still occupied VA assisted living or convalescent center …A backhoe was parked on the front lawn of the hospital along a flatbed truck that likely delivered it, but the dismay I felt from the threat of pending demolition was quickly abated by a long trench with dirt steeped on both sides at the rear of the occupied quarters …

The old hospital building sits quietly within a fenced off, but unlocked western perimeter
of hospital campus…the derelict institute’s east side is cordoned off from the bustling,
modern, medical metro-plex monstrosity by a rusted, unlocked fence that separates the still occupied residential quarters opposite the old abandoned VA hospital…somewhere within this card accessed gate that looks to have stopped working long ago and is propped open during the day then padlocked at night, is or was a mental health center, but like the main VA hospital building; it too has been shuffled around in favor of a new or remodeled facility…

Rounding the front of the probably convalescent residency, with my cell phone affixed to my ear as it often is, I walked up on a lone elderly, wheelchair confined gentleman languishing sedately at the side of the building seemingly oblivious to my approach…as I ambled by he gazed up at me with an apoplectic expression that I met with a smile and a nod, then he jerked erect in the chair and reacted violently as if in a phobic aversion my very presence until he screamed “ Get that cell phone away from me, it’s bad for me! ” I promptly obliged him with a stunned “sorry” and terminated my call by folding the phone closed and stuffing it my front pocket as I simultaneously made a wide bypassing arc around him…he continued to notify my of his disapproval even as I rounded corner out of his range of sight …I reminded myself that this man may have fearlessly put his life on the line to ensure my freedom to use that phone at my discretion and to ultimately post the photos I was about to take on the internet…of course the appointment of an internet regulating czar may restrict this in some capacity for all of us soon, thus making the uncompromising bravery and selfless sacrifices like the wheelchair bound man I just encountered to upheld the ideals of liberty an effort fought in vain…

The trench entrenched construction workers paid little attention to me and seemed more focused on cajoling one of crew to intimate details of the preceding evening’s date that was apparently the culmination of weeks of nervous anticipation for this ordinarily hapless and unconfident co worker…aside from a few ephemeral inquisitive glances as I passed within their immediate range of vision, I was left to my photographic endeavors unhindered…

The broken concrete slabs symmetrically stacked and backhoe-at-the-ready parked nearby reinvigorated my recent assertions and ruminations that construction work and the accompanying incursions of the vibrational changes that powers tools and heavy equipment will often interject into active yet docile (haunted) location…the front walk was partially obstructed by the flatbed trailer but the front steps were still traversable save for the irrepressible weeds that wield the supernatural seeming force to split and crack even the most fortified of concrete surfaces…the front double doors were chained and padlocked through the dual handles as the manually released striker was probably in the past triggered from a security guard within to grant entry and departure and was stripped and salvaged for parts to be used elsewhere …

Even with the trenching activities and the traffic flow on the other side of the fence facing the rear of the main hospital complex, there seemed to be this static bubble of antiquity within the immediate cynosure of the building’s red bricked walls…the ivy vines, trees and thicket of thatch that buffered the east side along the fence was not as fecund on the west side but a wall that backed an L shaped tunneled walkway and led from the rear of the building to a satellite structure that no longer exists or perhaps the old parking lot, created a cordoned off quadrant
of quietude from the chaos of activity that buzzed like hornets from all directions …

The insular respite that the ivied west wall and the brick backed and partially overgrown roof of the in-ground passageway provided was especially poignant and almost peaceful…that is until I found a few open basement windows where the plywood was removed and the stale, cold, damp air wafted from below in that all to familiar assault on the senses that never fails to compromise my composure before the tell tale tingle from my solar plexus even has a chance to disconcert me legitimately…

Before I waded too deeply into the facade of isolation that this concave of concealment provided, I was jolted back to the here-and-now by the rotary reverberation of helicopter blades descending to the landing pad on the other side of the fence that I captured shots of landing…the “Life Star” logo on the side became visible through the zoom lens and as soon as the runners hit the floor of the landing pad, the side doors were already opening to meet the ambulance that was pulling up to shuttle the patient the short distance to the ER across the parking lot…I did fact manage to capture a closeup video from the landing pad of the chopper taking off on the way back to the car and the You Tube link is below …

The invasion of reality into my fantastical mind set was short lived as I returned to the west end
and proceeded to cup my hands over several of the basement windows that were not covered or missing and noticed many in the northeast portion of the basement were retrofitted with interior chain link style security bars …most of the east facing windows were covered by plastic sheeting that looked like a concerted effort was made to block visibility from the hospital parking lot or perhaps discourage the voyeuristic viewing of the living from within…it seems as though painstaking efforts were made to opaque or obscure the windows that were not boarded or overgrown and as the boarded windows presented a considerable eye sore as opposed to the visibility of empty rooms from the perspective of the hospital or VA residence, I am of the opinion that simple aesthetics or added fortification against trespassers was not the only motive for this based on the illogic of the scheme …this summation was further solidified by the confided reports of apparitions glaring from the second and third story windows at overnight hospital employees showing up for third shift duty sending them fleeing in terror LOL (sorry) …

I decided to hop over the wall and roof of the in-round corridor in order to circumnavigate the backtracking required to reach the north (rear) of the building where the loading dock and service elevator is located…the crumbling walls of the recessed, narrow driveway created a horse blinder effect limiting my vision to the ivy strangled north face wall as I descended towards the open gate of the service elevator …a stagnant pool of mud-rust tinted black of interminable depth reflected the cloud cover above in it’s darkened stillness but after a couple of obligatory photos a splash rippled the 10 X 10 square box of rainwater from an object that must have dropped from above …considering that the bottom of the lift platform was visible as stopped at the ground floor and just a few feet over my head at loading dock level, the source of this object left me baffled especially since I made no physical contact with the frame or base of the gate for the 2-3
photos I took…as I turned to commence with my ascent up the ramp, I glimpsed a figure in the second story window that seemed to retreat beyond the periphery of my sight as soon as I reacted to spotting it …I rounded back at ground level to see if I could detect any activity within but could see none …

The tunnel was partially accessible and I bristled when I was able to peer into the barred basement windows and noticed the darting shadows the plastic covered windows created when the traffic along the fence diffused the light filtering in danced over the still present stainless steel examination tables visible within…at the far end of the tunnel; the shrill shriek of noncompliant, rusted metal hinges and the accompanying scrape of a heavy metallic door on loose rubble echoed through the pervasive narrow darkness that was only dotted by the intermittent small, square, eye level windows along the sides …a shriek that almost matched the bizarre noise my cell phone made in my front pocket as I backed toward the door and hastened yet another stiff legged retreat through the rusted gate …

Life Star Liftoff:
click here for video

Here are the unedited (compressed) photos my 6/2010 visit (90 total)….b
The Old VA Hospital Photo Bucket Album-click here

Be sure to visit the PUG forum thread on this topic for photo analysis updates:
An Old VA Hospital forum thread-click here

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Here’s the latest “Best Of” video ….
Best Of Barek 7

by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground Magazine

This week’s evidence is kind of a smorgasbord. Many of you know that I have pretty heavily investigated the site of the Wellington avalanche in Washington State. I wrote about it in my recently released book, Avalanche of Spirits: The Ghosts of Wellington.

We spent Saturday evening there doing our first investigation there in several months. We were with members of NWPIA and Cascade Paranormal.

I’ll start at the beginning. One of the phenomena that people report is a woman singing in the parking lot. As a matter of fact, I have a few EVPs I can post (they’ve been posted here before, but I’ll post them here, as well.)
singinginparkinglot
sing -parking lot

So – flash forward to last night. We were doing some cautious experiments with a Ouija board – something I have never tried. To me, a Ouija board is just a game – like monopoly. I know many other people feel that Ouija boards are portals to the dark side. We thought we’d give it a try. Two of us were sitting at the Ouija board. We were both barely touching the planchette with our fingertips – to the point that you could probably have shined a light underneath our fingers. As the planchette moved, both the other person operating it and I could both feel the planchette actually sliding under our fingers as they remained stationary – I’d have to move my fingers to catch up to the planchette. It was moving very, very slowly – so we were sort of looking away, chatting with the people with us as it took its time moving. When it would stop, we’d look down at it and read what it had stopped on.

Long story short, what we discovered is that yes, there was someone there who was from the town of Wellington. Their name was G-E-R-T (at which point I said, “Gertrude?” and the planchette moved agonizingly slowly to yes.) I asked Gertrude if she was the one who sang in the parking lot. The answer was yes.

So that was the entire Ouija board session. The planchette was so slow in moving that we gave up after the few slow coming answers we’d gotten.

Now I am going to whisk you back through time. About three months ago, I had my first psychic reading ever with a psychic medium named Jennifer Hicks. I did it for an article I wrote for Paranormal Underground. It was an odd reading, because it seemed to be mostly the spirits from Wellington coming through. You can read the article in our April, 2010 issue of Paranormal Underground.

One of the questions I asked back in March when I had the reading was, “Who is the woman who sings in the parking lot.”

I came away with the understanding that my answer to that question was a woman named Sara Jane Covington, who was one of the passengers on the train killed in the avalanche that took place there in 1910. I reached that conclusion because Jennifer told me that the singing woman had an “A” in her name (Sara Jane was a proper lady who went by the formal name of Mrs. M. A. Covington). She also said she was highly religious (it is known that Sara Jane was) and that she kept seeing nuns in a convent (convent sounds like Convington.) Yeah – it was a stretch. Turns out it may have been too much of one. In reviewing today for the first time in a few months what Jennifer said to me when I asked about the singing lady, the first thing she said to me was, “I’m getting a religious vibe. She calls out the name ‘Gertrude!’”

I don’t even recall her saying that. I had discounted that information thinking it was a “miss” and I was onto something with the whole Sara Jane Covington thing. So I was kind of surprised when I found that, to say the least.

That’s my story. Now here are my questions:

-Coincidence?
-Did I somehow remember the name Gertrude subconsciously and then use my brain/ideomotor response to move the planchette to spell out Gertrude in spite of the fact that the planchette moved from under my fingers rather than me using my fingers to move the planchette?
-Could there be something more to this?

Enjoy Karen’s evidence from Wellington? Check out her book, Avalanche of Spirits: The Ghosts of Wellington, now available at Amazon.com.

Let me know what you think. Please don’t chastise me for using a Ouija board. I am well aware of what many others think about them. I’ve read all of the arguments both for and against. It was an experiment. I am interested on what you think of the rest, though.

Here’s the question

The Manteno State Asylum
by Barek Halfhand

It has been close to a decade since I have been to Manteno Illinois, and while growth and development has since peppered the predominately rural landscape with prefab-ish subdivisions along the straights of Rt 57 just north of the Manteno exit, the small town, Main Street charm beside the railway looks unchanged. The community of approximately 7,000 is still largely a farming/agricultural community but also hosts a balance of industrial, corporate and small business transplants as well, such as being home to one of K-Mart’s main distribution centers…yet the still operational grain elevator that sits along the train tracks and dominates the northern downtown view seems to be revered and cherished as opposed to being shunned as archaic…The Farmers Elevator Company that was founded in 1913 proudly displays “Village Of Manteno” on it’s main freshly painted, track-side grain silo ….

The State Hospital has a profound and complex history and since it’s inception back in 1929 and dedication in 1930…today over a third of the campus like, single or 2 story buildings have been renovated and is owned by the Illinois Department of Veteran’s affairs and this was my first exposure to the area a decade ago when a contractual project assigned me there for the majority of a summer, and yes some the structures occupied or otherwise that lie within the fenced perimeter of the Vets Home are considerably active…

The State Mental Hospital/ Asylum had been a source of employment for many in the area at the time , fear for some when the facility began housing “mittimus residents” (deemed non violent but not fit for release felons) and perhaps even shame as the rumors of abuse and neglect surfaced during the post WWII overcrowding…the under staffing dilemma and the now archaic and questionably ethical practices of electro shock therapy, cold water treatment and orbital/full frontal lobotomy was commonly administered then. but some feel it was abusive barbaric, or at least irresponsibly overseen by today’s standards…

What has not been renovated, rehabed or demolished outside of the DVA property is boarded up tight or so structurally comprised by outward appearance that slipping inside one of the few buildings that still contain the artifacts of it’s past will soon be merely a notation of historic record and fading memory… but I was fortunate enough to experience just one of those remaining sites…I do not recommend that anyone ventures inside alone as I often do …and yes I went in the basement…

There is a palpable stress dissipation that I experience the farther from the elevated urgency of urban proximity I journey…it may be the uncluttered mundania of emerging farm-scape, the liberation from the congestion and chaos of the convergent interstate toll way systems near the Indiana-Illinois border to the east or perhaps it is the facade of ephemeral expatriation from the pulsating negativity endemic to Chicagoland commuting…a negativity that most would agree is physically perceptible regardless of their personal beliefs related to PSI sensitivities inherent to all of us….

The Veteran’s Home was easy enough to find just from memory, but it proved to be a daunting task locating the last of the remaining State Hospital structures outside of the DVA fences that were not converted to offices, training centers, day care and machine shops as I seldom roamed south of the Vets home in the past…The old hospital administration building managed to retain it’s classic architectural aesthetics despite the current occupancy by HomeStar Bank…
the preservation efforts appear to have exterior upgrades limited to the retrofitting of energy efficient windows and the modernization of secure and accessible door schemes …
my understanding is that this commendable commitment to authenticity was extended to the
interior restoration efforts as well…

..I did get a shot of the gazebo steepled front of the building but the distraction of
locating an asylum structure that was not gutted or leveled hastened my departure ..

The Google Earth topographical perspective is usually deceptive when utilized as a navigational tool from ground level ( especially when you are too lazy to include your laptop with your journalistic field accouterments and have to work from memory )…there is an odd
checker board of single story townhouse apartments and converted office/industrial park sites beyond the old admin building and with each block I circled the consternation of possible defeat intensified …then I found what may be the very last of the original facility that has not been completely stripped of it’s interior fixtures and residual impressions …

This remote corner of the property seems like it is intentionally avoided and the adjacent roads, sidewalks and empty lots are purposefully neglected ..there is farmland to the west and an overgrown vacant stretch of field bordering a golf course to the south…the virtually identical building directly across the street to the north has a tall fence that severely limits or completely restricts visibility of this enigmatic structure from within and to the east all facing windows are bricked up and painted…it seems like an exorbitant amount of effort was made by both neighboring offices/shops for it to simply an attempt to block an “eyesore” from view that is slated for inevitable demolition or rehab ….

My initial circumspection of the facility was not encouraging as the first entrance I noticed was a chained metallic double door that looked to be bulging from a force exerted from within, leaving a notable gap in the middle that was wide enough to permit a glance into the stale, dank darkness that awaited me…the front entrance foyer sits at the end of a broken yet traversable sidewalk flanked by a lawn that looked like it has had not met with the mighty blades of a state or locally subcontracted maintenance crew yet this year and if left unchecked would likely require a machete to wack the burgeoning grass blades and dandelions that are mutating into sunflowers to a manageable length..

The box fronted foyer looked to have a framed door the was deprived of its plated windows long ago but from the distance appeared to be small and festooned with jagged glass shards thus prompting a westbound reconnaissance hike around the building to seek out alternative access…the rain soaked grass from the overnight deluge was already starting to penetrate my boots so I retreated to the relative dryness of the sidewalk along the road that provided me with a panoramic perspective of this enigmatic structure that seemed to be in a much worse state of disrepair than I at first surmised…visible missing portions of the roof implied a comprised overhead structural integrity and when I approached the Pantheonic styled pillar lined western entrance I found myself further disconcerted to find large and rather heavy looking portions of
sheet-rock from the underside of the veranda’s roof had fallen to the cloister’s concrete slab below…

The west side door was completely removed revealing the stillness of the one the recurrent large halls that may have served as a dinning room, common area or perhaps even one of those wards that the old photos depict as filled with rows of beds along the walls and down the middle with only small isles and spaces in between…there was once over 22 of these identically designed “H” shaped buildings in this new and innovative for the time; campus style state facility …

The feeling of hubris I was enjoying for locating this holdout building at a site that is on the brink of extinction and further finding it readily accessible was quickly abated when I crossed the
threshold of that side door …depressing and sad and in some instances there is an anguish of despair like I have yet to experience to this extreme…why anyone would be cursed to such a tormented existence in life continues to elude me, but my tenable conjecture and intuitive affirmations that those that are already suffering with mental illness may also be subject to the selective harassment of low level predatory entities is repeatedly reinforced by places like this be it occupied or otherwise…

The holes in the wooded roof created a spotted suffused lighting to add to the bleak eeriness inside and the debris strew floor had standing water up to a few inches deep in some places rendering my already soggy boots to a soaked state of squishiness that you all better appreciate…
I’m still waiting for someone tho express gratitude for me almost freezing to death at
Peabody Estate on New Years Day just to get those sunrise shots lol…

The water on the floor was negligible in most of the places that was not completely covered with broken glass, beer cans, miscellaneous debris and portions of the ceiling that fell to the floor thus exposing the decaying wooden roof above…there is a cacophony of sounds ranging from birds fluttering about the rafters, water dripping, wind moaning through the holes in the roof that the elements and time continue to multiply and others that I have yet to discern…the graffiti and gratuitous vandalism is utterly senseless to me and even in my youth I can remember being at a quandary as to why some kids insisted on participating in such wanton destructive behavior …some of the markings on the walls were of such an obscene nature that many of the non conventional camera angles you will see in a the PB album are intended to limit or obscure visibility of the content…

The bathroom and tub-room fixtures are still recognizable even though almost all of the toilets have been smashed into porcelain shards … probably the cathartic expression of a self actualization achieved by the liberating epiphany of acknowledging and confronting a deeply buried and sublimated potty training trauma …the concrete bases of the bathtubs have even been subjected to the nihilistic seeming need of someone to obliterate all traces of the asylum’s dark and sordid past (that or they just like to break stuff )…

The oppressive mood there is probably palpable to everyone whether they are sensitive, psychic or “normal” alike…but if any of you that decide to make the pilgrimage there before this last symbolic relic of what many construe as a failed state medical institution and (imho) a place of highly localized, elevated and concentrated paranormal activity is gone, I suggest that those that are endowed with psychical proclivities or may simply be sensitive to these energies, observe self shielding practices, religious protective invocations or employ simple mental preparation exercises prior to entering this site as it drained me really bad…

While much of the graffiti is of a pruriently depraved nature, there are instances in certain areas that overtly suggest satanic overtones as much as they are likely gang tags…and while dabbling with either can obviously have adverse consequences, this far enough away from the city that
I tend to attribute the gang symbolism to suburban middle class mischief more than real gang affiliation…although I hear those “Manteno Warlords” are serious players with a lot of “street cred” these days …

The small, square courtyards that are on both sides of the dual hallways and interconnect the east and west sings, have long since reverted to an overgrown thicket from that of a carefully manicured patch of lawn, meticulously pruned trees and sculpted shrubbery…the are basement windows on opposite sides of the walls below ground level and boxed off by railings…a copse of full grown trees are growing from a couple of the basements wells in a constricted bundle contained by those metal piped railing bars …the seedlings that found their way into the sediment rich bottom of the window wells and the roots continue to crumble the concrete that confines them from beneath …

One of the basement wells that was not claimed by migrant saplings and long since relieved of it’s glass presented a forbidding yet irresistible allure of ominous intrigue…as I approached the moss marred bars of the railing a stream of cold air flowing from the darkness below stopped me in my tracks for a moment but I proceeded to climb the railing and drop to the mystery flooring below …the only thing visible were a few insulated pipes but the cold intensified as I crouched down to stick a single camera clutching arm into the blackness to secure a few shots with the flash on …Only after I was satisfied with number of varying photos I could achieve from the restrictive vantage point of the narrow window did I realize that my free arm was white knuckle clutching the railing …not necessary to prohibit falling but more likely subconscious defensive posturing…the concerted effort to severely limit contact with the filthy and lichen slicked railing was like an arthritic game of “Twister” as I attempted extricate myself from the well without getting even dirtier than I already was …much to my chagrin I later found an unobstructed staircase to the basement as I circled the building from the east wing doors and rounded my way back to the north end where I started and parked …

The stairs were caked with mud but easily traversable as I cursed myself for the now
black streaked jeans I was wearing by climbing the courtyard railing just to acquire a couple of shaky shots through the window…as I stepped on the staircase landing the gust of almost industrial grade frigid air flowing from the open door below actually forced me to tack a few steps back in retreat as this preternatural cold was enough to trigger a reflexive response from the shock …

As I turned the corner to a small room that served to accommodate the fire, electrical, phone and other specialized, antiquated control panels, I noticed on the wall opposite the entrance was a small flight of 3-4 steps leading to another door-less opening in the wall, from which even colder air and blacker darkness threatened …the sardonic, cackling laughter similar to what I heard at the Mayslake Friary faintly echoed through the opening at the top the short stairway leading to the main basement of one of the wards that I struggled to photograph from the courtyard window well …the growing sense urgency was escalated by the low ceiling and limited visibility beyond the split level entrance that revealed the main expanse of one of the ward’s sub spaces…the inexplicable cold was intense enough now to cause me to shudder slightly as I leaned against one of the square, intermittently spaced, main structural support columns closest to the door to adjust the camera settings (Heaven forbid I should ever bring a flashlight along) …

The state of marginally manageable discomfort I felt when I transcended the perceived safety line of demarcation at the door frame moments early, was now culminating into almost full blown panic
as the claustrophobic confinement of the low ceiling and restrictive low light vision pressed down on me…the maddening, inescapable drops of tainted water that filtered their way down
from above continued to find me as I shifted nervously in my crouched defiance…even as I write this; my skeptical rationale is attempting to deny, mitigate or completely extirpate the familiar, seething black mist that coalesced out of the darkness towards me thus abruptly terminating my first visit….

Here are the unedited (compressed) photos my 5/2010 visit (146 total)….b
The Manteno State Asylum Photo Bucket Album- click here

Be sure to check the PUG Forum thread on this topic for photo analysis updates.
Manteno State Asylum thread-click here

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by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground Magazine

This week’s paranormal evidence of the week is a personal paranormal experience that I relate in my book, Avalanche of Spirits: The Ghosts of Wellington. It is the one thing that my uber science-geek husband, Jim, has been unable to explain away and is, perhaps, the one thing that has him pretty darn convinced that ghosts are real – or at the very least, that something paranormal that defies a natural explanation is going on at Wellington.

A little background. Wellington is the site of a 1910 avalanche disaster in which at least 96 people were killed. You can read more about Wellington and the disaster on my Wellington website, or by using the search term “Wellington” in the Paranormal Underground blog.

About the site itself: The site is entirely outdoors up in the mountains. There is no power wiring for about a mile all around the site – it is quite isolated. When you walk through with a Trifield meter, the baseline reading is always zero. The site sits along the Iron Goat Trail in the Cascade mountains. As you walk along the path, there is a huge, 1/2 mile long concrete snow shed. There are also a lot of granite deposits in the mountains around the site.

Our experience occurred in the snow shed at a certain spot where a lot of sightings of black shadows and apparitions have occurred. Some people (me included) often feel a great deal of anxiety and other physical symptoms when passing through that area. The Trifield regularly reads zero in this spot, as well – so there is no naturally occurring electromagnetic activity there that we can tell.

We were up filming – me, Jim, our two sons Tanner and Kevin, and two of their friends, Matthew and Mackenzie. Jim had a Sony hi-def handi cam that was mounted on a GlideCam camera stabilizer. On top of the camera in the hot shoe was an IR light that was connected to the camera’s power supply. Mounted to the GlideCam, he also had two driveway security IR lights that Jim has modified to work on separate battery packs, which were also mounted to the glide cam. The two IR lights have separate mechanical on/off slider switches (the kind that it takes some effort to slide and it will actually click into the on position or the off position.) My step son was carrying another Sony HandiCam. My son was carrying an Olympus DS-40 recorder. I was carrying a Samson Zoom H4 recorder.

We reached the spot where people feel anxiety (an area that NWPIA has termed “area 61″ because of a 61 that has been painted on one of the snow shed’s support poles) – and every single piece of electronic equipment we were carrying turned off simultaneously. I suspected battery drain – and on all of the equipment except for the two modified IR lights, that made sense. When Jim checked the two IR lights, the mechanical slider switches had slid to “off” and clicked into the off position. When the power source dies on these two items, the mechanical switch typically stays in the “on” position.

We were all able to turn all of our equipment back on and resume filming. The odd thing for me (and for Jim) is those two mechanical switches sliding to the “off” position. That and the simultaneous nature of the event. Everything was on a separate power supply with the exception of Jim’s camera and the hot shoed IR light, which ran from a common power supply (the camera battery).

I’m open to alternative explanations for this one. Anyone??

Enjoy Karen’s evidence from Wellington? Her book, Avalanche of Spirits: The Ghosts of Wellington is now available on Amazon.com and other book e-tailers.

Mount Carmel Update: Al Capone-The Italian Bride

Mt. Carmel’s primary point of interest has generally been the grave of Chicago’s seminal Mobster: Al Capone, but that is just a 3rd of a triumvirate of accompanying legends… a distinction shared by “The Italian Bride” and “The Revolving Tombstone” aside from an assortment of other less notable esoteric oddities and various reports that have surfaced over the years of discarnate entities rumored to linger within the denizens of Queen Of Heaven’s venerable neighbor to the north…

Historically there are notable figures ranging from members of The (da) Bears, The Blackhawks and The White Sox…War heroes, gangsters, politicians are all here as well (is “politician and “gangster” redundant? )There is even a famous, turn of the century Japanese acrobat that was a star attraction of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus when he was contracted to perform under the Big Top …a stark reminder that regardless of your station in life, inevitably we will all return to our “roots” (not to come across as overtly existential, but I cannot resist an opening for the inclusion of a bad pun )…

The most perplexing of the three (in my opinion) would be the grave of Julia Buccola-Petta or “The Italian Bride” that is situated facing the northen most fence of the property and is briefly visible from the street by passing motorists before the view is obscured by an office building next to the entrance …her marker includes a life sized statue of the 29 year old that died giving birth in 1921 donning her wedding gown and solemnly holding a bouquet…the base of the monument has a photo affixed to the front that depicts one of the strangest cases of documented, inexplicable phenomena I have studied to date in all of my excursions to famous locations at home, nationally or even abroad….

Following Julia’s untimely death as a complication of delivering a stillborn, Julia’s mother: Philomena Buccola was understandably fraught with anguish upon losing both her daughter and granddaughter so suddenly …as she struggled with the ensuing stages of grief she began having recurring dreams and visions of Julia beckoning her from the grave, almost insisting that she was still alive and pleading with her mother to have her exhumed and released …Philomena petitioned local authorities and finally after permission was granted by a local priest the governmental body of the day that presided over these matters conceded, Julia’s coffin was disinterred six years later in 1927 ( apparently the requirement for a mandatary judicial order was not enacted until 1978 ) ….

When the wooden coffin was unearthed, it was rotted and sodden from the 6 long years it was in the ground …but when the lid of the coffin was carefully removed the witnesses were astonished to discover that Julia’s body bore no sign of decomposition, her skin retained it’s color and not the pallor of death…she basically looked exactly like she did the day she was laid to rest aside from the decay that had partially disintegrated the coffin… embalming was not practiced in the 20’s..

Some refer to her unchanged state as “uncorrupted” …a post mortem condition that the tenants of Catholicism attribute to the candidacy of saintly canonization…of course selfless acts of martyrdom in life are the biggest prerequisite for sainthood consideration, but I personally would deem any woman that dies attempting to deliver life an ultimate act of sacrifice …Julia’s mother; Philomena suffered the ultimate sacrifice as well and perhaps Julia’s uncorrupted condition was (and still is) a sign from a higher power intended to grant solace to Philomena and martyrdom to Julia..there has been an explanation proffered by (objective) skeptics citing certain soil compositions that has been proven to impede the decomposition process known as “adipocere” or “grave wax” but most agree that this explanation is incongruent with the state of deterioration of the coffin and the unblemished condition of her body…several onlookers described her appearance as pristine and some even touched her face lamenting that: “it was still soft, and her cheeks were still rosy red.” …there were allegedly visible signs of interior coffin liner decay and dry rot of her dress…

It is unclear if the infant child was buried with her as was the tradition back then, but no evidence of the child was revealed…it is unclear if the child is buried nearby, if it was cremated or if the child survived but was reported stillborn as an effort to sever all ties with the father that was estranged from his in-laws …there was said to be animosity between Philomena and her Son In Law and it was later confided that mention of him on the tombstone was intentionally omitted …

There are conflicting reports as to how many were present at the exhumation, and it is unclear how many were on hand to witness the removal of the coffin lid, but the photo of Julia taken by her Mother in her uncorrupted state after almost 7 years in the ground is still attached to the front of the monument today after it was added to her memorial along with the stoic, “bride in waiting” statue…

Reports of a spectral woman in a white dress is a recurring theme in ghost stories, and not unlike Resurrection Mary; there are incidents of the local police department officers catching glimpses of her…at Mt Carmel the police have admitted personal sightings either passing by on Harrison Avenue or when patrolling the cemetery …

Reports of Julia sightings seemed to have spiked in the mid 70’s when students of the Proviso East High school across the street emptied a school dance close to Halloween after a car load of dance attendees claimed to have witnessed a woman in flowing white gown slinking between the stone markers near Julia’s tomb … thinking this was a seasonally inspired prank they turned around and approached the fence for a closer look where they where stunned by the discovery that the woman who seemed to not notice them, appeared to be completely dry in the downpour rain…

One reported incident involved a family accidentally leaving a small boy at the cemetery in the vicinity of Julia’s grave and when they returned they spotted the child from a distance, emerging from a cluster of tombstones holding the hand of a woman in a white gown…as they drew closer the woman released the hand of the child and receded back among the monuments leaving the boy to the embrace of his relieved parents that found no trace of the white clad woman that was visible a moment prior to their arrival… Other reports made by patrolling police officers and passing motorists describe luminous, amorphous shapes and phantasmic floating forms near her grave …one woman of impeccable credulity in the community swore that she witnessed her statue glowing in the early twilight hours of a mid 80’s summer evening …

Last summer I was able to locate the graves of Big Al’s north Side Nemesis: Dion O’Banion and a few of his confidantes and lieutenants such as Hymie Weiss, Vincent Schemer” Drucci ( who serve under both O’Banion and his successor Bugs Moran) and the final resting places of a few less known underlings, henchmen and subordinates…ironically these North Side Gang members are all interred on the north side of The Bishop’s Tomb that is a centralized line of demarcation between north and south of the grounds, while Big Al and his loyal second in command of the south side’s The Chicago Outfit and eventual successor: Frank Nitti rest on the southern most section of the cemetery …

Al Capone often complained of being “haunted” by past adversaries that met their demise by his hand or directive …he claimed to see a spectral embodiment of a the brother-in-law of Bugs Moran: James Clark… a victim of the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre orchestrated by Capone that left seven dead in a conflagration of Tommy Gunfire …this apparition was repeatedly reported by
Big Al as he languished along side of the man made lake at his lavish Miami estate and semi retirement headquarters to the Chicago mob outfit that he only lead symbolically at the latter stage of
his life that the debilitating, advanced degenerative stages of syphilis had by then dominated…this was said to be the basis for these hallucinations as premature senility would often be the result of syphilis complications …other rumors of Al’s ghost haunting Alcatraz and the sounds of phantom banjo music emanating from his privileged size cell continue to make the rounds in the contemporary Ghost Hunter pop culture community where locations like this and Waverley Hills are pay-to-investigate style tourist destination for aspiring ghost busting “teams” modeled after the para-TV fad of 2006 through 201X thus lessening the credence of this allegation because of media sensationalism….

Many mafia, gangsters or members of organized crime remained devout Christians thinking generous offering plate contributions would offset the murderous misdeeds that their chosen livelihoods entailed , leaving their conscious unfettered by the guilt of the preceding week’s sins…
the spiritual presence at Mt Carmel is not really in question to me, yet I find myself at a philosophical quandary as to what confines or binds many of those that dwell there …some may simply remain bound to the consecrated ground where their earthly bodies have been commended pending the prophetic biblical protocols outlined in Revelations coming to fruition and in adherence to their religious convictions, some may remain in a state of spiritual status or hyper dimensional hibernation in acquiescence to “the rapture” ….or perhaps in accordance with the tenants of Christianity that requires one to “rest” until “both the quick and the dead” may be judged, they dwell in a perpetual dream state …although there seems to be more than a little “sleepwalking” going on if this is the case …I also have also conjectured that we may discard the negative, worldly aspects of our “selves” upon death to dissipate or descend, while our higher harmonic, vibrational essence achieves ascension…perhaps we have antimatter versions of selves like Mr Spock with a goatee…ironically Kirk’s antimatter alter ego seemed more like William Shatner than the good Kirk from our universe …

Perhaps some are inured to the restriction of cemetery property by a sort of self imposed proverbial purgatory, hoping that by serving a pious penance surrounded the dead their sentence will be commuted and absolution achieved by way of post life contrition…many embrace religion in their
the autumnal years hoping that the vicissitudes of life’s transgressions may be mollified by simple repentance or resignation …perhaps it IS that easy? …I would be arrogant in scoffing such a notion as no ideology is more prudent than the other until one offers a quantifiable explanation as to precisely what occurred in the instant before “The Big Bang”…until then only a fool is sure about anything as an absolute (imho) ….

Temperatures peaked in the low 80’s for this mid April 2010 return to Mt Carmel…
this was the first time I have entered through the Harrison Avenue gate and made a concerted effort to remember a snapshot of the fence from the road this time…arrival from the south gate is usually tempered by the gargantuan death shrine that is the Queen Of Heaven Mausoleum to the left and no
amount of visual aversion or spiritual shielding will dissipate that contamination …

A single file procession of preschoolers on the sidewalk opposite the cemetery smiled and seemed to be enjoying the warmth of the pre summer sun that left their morning jackets hooked at the
back of a stuffy classroom…the inspiration for the cherubic imagery that is so recurrent in Mt Carmel’s artistry becomes obvious when the effervescence, innocence and trusting faces of these little ones came into focus lead by a protective looking teacher/surrogate mother and followed by an aid, assistant or some other designation that comprised the matriarchal monarchy charged with the daytime care these children …the obvious and symbolic “cycle of life” contrast between the preschoolers on the right and the cemetery on the left was quickly replaced by the recollection of the volume of children interred beyond the fence and the sprawling expanse of marble and granite monuments within, and with it the realization that there are probably countless stories of sorrow that each and every one of those tiny tombstones promulgate…my thoughts reverted to previous visits and I again found myself distraught over the ordinate seeming amount of child graves from the early 1900’s that research has revealed is attributed to the introduction of toxins and carcinogens as a result of the industrial age in Chicago…one portion of the cemetery dedicated exclusively to children is indelibly stained by sadness and it is quite targetable even to the less adept …

The monolithic granite statues that serve as silent sentinels at the immediate right of the north gates are daunting by their sheer enormity and superhuman size alone …one wonders if the Arch Angels or fallen angles of Enochian texts were really Giants of extra terrestrial origin that bread a race spawned by the intermingling of Angles and humans
and if descendants of this hybridization walk among us today shrouded by ethnic diversity or if they have long since fallen extinct?..

The single story admin building to the immediate left has yet to show any indication of activity aside from the accessible and relatively clean restrooms at the far end that faces the grave of Julia Buccola-Petta a.k.a.“The Italian Bride” …the mood at her monument seemed sedate until
the view of the exhumation photo prominently affixed to the front of the base came into focus …there is a timeless beauty about Julia that may be described as “buxom” or perhaps “voluptuous” and by today’s standards may be labeled as “full figured”, but it is the humble demure that is exuded from her expression captured in the wedding photo also lacquered onto the upper tier of the base that is most enamoring…the photo which

served as the model for the statue her mother selected to exalt the adulation she had for the departed daughter she loved so dearly …

The decision to cover the entire site in one fell swoop this time around struck me as even more of a daunting task once the sheer enormity of the property was again realized …previous visits here were abbreviated, bifurcated or subdivided depending on my objectives or focal points of study at the time, but this was the first time I have attempted to adequately represent this location photographically in one aggregate session without hastening or overlooking some of the aesthetic highlights offered in each section…

The trek south was a zigzag through the area north of the bishops tomb and preoccupied with photographic optimization and conceptualization … that is until I reached the crypt of Earl “Hymie” Weiss and was informed that “compared him, I was a choir boy”…I nonchalantly reminded him that it was this sort of incorrigible attitude that landed him where he is at age 30 ( after I curtly inform him that: deprived of his Tommy Gun he would not have lasted long in my arena) …sadly the ineluctable
belligerence he displayed is what restricts him as the etheric echo of the past he represents…

In retrospection; I feel that there is a little Hymie Weiss in all of us…while most of us a capable of sublimating that part of ourselves while others demonstrably seem to lack such composure at times … I dismissed Mr Weiss as he comported himself as being less than receptive to spiritual
intervention or even the incorporation of an arbitrator from different astral address than ours that were overlapping at that particular temporal pinpoint…

Deanie Obanion’s tall obelisk seems to be almost in defiance as opposed to being in deference of The Bishops Tomb that is majestically perched on a hill across the narrow road that separates the sections (and probably the riff-raff) where the North Side Boss’ marker is placed at the closest border to the adjacent small hill topped by an ornate mausoleum that serves as the final resting place of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin…the view of Obanion’s grave from the hilltop always makes me think of Dean giving them “the finger” when I see it…

The Rotating Tombstone was imported from Italy and the figures depicted in the statuettes atop the monument represent the members of the family interred below in memoriam and this upper portion is pinion mounted atop a flat base …having never attempted to move the famous marker myself and the added temptation fueled by the unusual absence of other (live) visitors in the immediate vicinity, I set the camera down and gripped the ladies on the outside of the group pose by the hips and really had to exert a
significant effort get it budge …it moaned in protestation as I swung it clockwise about a quart of a turn when much to my dismay an officious looking gentleman drove by in an Impala that appeared to be wearing a uniform of some sort …he slowed down to extend the glare and exaggerate a glower of disapprove and I responded by picking up my camera and snapping a photo of my handiwork (below) but he had already passed beyond view when I moved the top of the monument back into place …

There have been stories of lone visitors walking past this grave marker and it’s upper and lower segments being in perfect alignment one minute and then being flabbergasted to find it rotated 45 degrees after averting
their attention from it only for an instant with no sign of anyone in the immediate vicinity before or after…more recently an inside (culpable) source intimated to me (another Halfhand Exclusive) that a certain member of the grounds crew was extremely frightened by the fact that the monument was turned to a different angle every time he made a pass with
the lawn mowing apparatus he was riding and pleaded be reassigned to a work detail that excluded approximation to The Revolving Tombstone …my source does not question the credibility of this employee, but he does in fact suspect other employees of perpetrating what they thought would be an innocuous prank but vowed silence and feigned innocence after their coworker reacted so extremely fearing harsh reprimand …plus the employee that reported the incidents was considered a “pasar la brocha” and not held in the highest esteem by his fellow Groundskeepers….

Al Capone’s grave is almost incognito in it’s modesty especially when the baroque extravagance of other memorials nearby offer such comparison…perhaps the most enigmatic icons of organized crime, Big Al’s name is almost synonymous with the mobster, gangster, mafia or syndicate image that many not indigenous to the area still associate with Chicago even today …the current tumult of political corruption at all levels here does little to help exonerate this misconception and seems to imply a cycle of recidivism that only serves to reinforce this misnomer…

Nestled between the other ground flush stones of his father; Gabriel Capone, his sister; Mafalda and his mother; Teresina (December 28, 1867 – November 29, 1952) here lies the grave of Alphonse Capone…
this was another unusual occasion where there were no other visitors to this famous site …the Queen Of Heaven Mausoleum across the street features a 3 story Madonna effigy on the it’s west wall that almost seems to be looking down in disdain from it’s lofty vantage and insinuated righteous, aristocracy protected within…Big Al doesn’t care though because “they don’t allow cigars in that joint anyway” ….

Here are the unedited (compressed) photos from my mid April 2010 visit to Mount Carmel….b
The unedited album of Mt Mount Carmel Update-click here

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Be sure to check the PUG forum thread on this topic for photo updates…
PUG forum thread-click here

I have always considered Queen Of Heaven one of my personal favorite sites out of the circuit of famous haunted locations that remain supernaturally active within my immediate proximity …and while repeat visits to these sites may seem redundant or at times even moribund to some,
I feel that making one visit to a location for a couple of hours is less likely to yield any data or enable even the most astute of “paranormal investigators” to make any sort of an assessment as to the voracity of a clients claim of “activity” and to suggest such is simply absurd at best,
thus making the multi trip methodology that I embrace one of prudence and obviously one of preference …

There is a confluence of energies here that fluctuates between negative, positive and nondescript …the south end of the property that still attracts a fairly steady stream of the devout faithful making their pilgrimage to the famous apparition site that was formally investigated by the Chicago Archdiocese in the early 90’s and deemed inconclusive yet has engendered enough interest to necessitate a separate parking lot and circular platform for those that continue to flock to the location to pray in silent vigilance hoping to catch a glimpse the miraculous manifestation similar to that alleged by Joseph Reinholtz in 1990 …his quest to remedy his ailing vision lead him to war ravaged Bosnia in the late 80’s to visit one of the 6 children alleged to have experienced a Marian vision …a vision that subsequently attracted over 11 million globally, much the way the purported repeat visits to three children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917 precipitated the continuing pilgrimages there by those seeking spiritual alternatives to medical convention as a cure to the incurable or terminate illness deemed terminal…Mr Reinholz’s eye sight returned when he returned to the states after being prayed over in Bosnia by one of the Medjugorje, 6 ( Vicka )…this miraculous and inexplicable return of his sight prompted him to return to Bosnia and “Vicka” a second time in ‘89 where she instructed him to pray and hold vigils at a location near his home in The States where there is a solitary large crucifix next to a three branched tree.

His search for the location prognosticated by the youth on the other side of the globe lead him to Queen Of Heaven 1990 where he experience repeated Virgin Mary and Angelic visions that increased in frequency to a being a daily occurrence before the Archdiocese invoked a sanctimonious seeming “restriction of obedience” order prohibiting Reinholz from returning to the site and launching an official investigation into the validity of the sightings reported ( deemed inconclusive) but as the multitude of those motivated by faith and curiosity alike flocked to the site, the reports of these visions have not relented and the allegations range from the appearance of the effulgent lady to the inexplicable remission of progressive, later stage cancer…the photos continue to surface on the net, some interesting if not compelling, others not so much, in fact one of my fledgling journey there yielded a photo of an image containing an “item” (spotted by an ardent believer) that bore a remarkable likeness to a cherubic angel complete with wings and hands fixed in prayer-like repose (so not metal, but I was intrigued none the less)…a common thread at all of the apparition sites of this propensity are the intermittent, recurrent appearances, anomalous photos, the unmistakable aromatic presence of roses when there are none to be found anywhere nearby … many claim to experience a sense of renewed spiritual vigor following a site visit and this rejuvenated dedication to their faith would
in some instances manifest itself days, weeks or even months later in the form of Rosary beads changing colors commonly interpreted as encouragement to remain pious …

The psychology of mass hypnosis/hysteria is one of complexity and of course controversy when the precepts of religious ideology is involved, yet one wonders what the precise mechanics,
environmental factors or atmospheric conditions are conducive to lull thousands into believing the have experienced a common sighting or collective vision …While locations such as Queen of Heaven, Bosnia, Fatima, Guadalupe and the more famous of these apparition sites are often cited as suspect by skeptics because the visionaries are often small groups of children, the ill stricken, the indigent or those relegated to the lower economic strata of third world origin, the cases of mass sightings such as the one in Cairo Egypt where biblical histrionics contend that Mary, Joseph and Jesus fled the infanticidal tyrant Herod and in 1968 Marian apparitions were viewed by thousands gathered at the site and over a million watched one of these broadcasted on Egyptian television…while the accusations of hoax perpetration abounded following the broadcast, there were scouts dispatched to search the 15 mile radius of the site in an earnest attempt to detect or spot a device capable of projecting this image that would shimmer and coalesce into recognition, but none were located although the integrity of the “scouts” were later scrutinized by a coalition of skeptics claiming it to all be an elaborate ruse intended to infuse tourism into the depressed (at the time) local economy…

The cemetery has a variety of both famous and infamous alike interred and represented in memoriam, including the innocent young souls victimized by the fire that ravaged the West Side: “Our Lady Of The Angels” school on a cold December morning in 1958, claiming the lives of 92 children and 3 Nuns most of which perished by way of smoke inhalation while some fell to their death jumping from upper floor classroom windows to escape the raging inferno that quickly engulfed the antiquated building…a building that was slated to be retrofitted with proper fire escapes, sprinklers and alarms assorted budget constraints and uncertainly concerning the school’s future …many municipal regulatory changes were made pertaining to fire code adherence and enforcement following this tragedy …a tragedy that was later determined to be resultant of a boy playing with matches whom was a student of the school and later admitted to
setting fire to the school in 1962 under interrogation …

There are a couple of pro football players from the early days of organized leagues and the NFL , here…there are senators, luminaries from literary circles, decorated war heroes , Bishops, Cardinals, Priests, Nuns and even a Monk or two …There are of course nefarious characters such as the Spilotro Brothers, the older of which Anthony (a.k.a. Tony The Ant) was the model for Joe Pesci’s character, “Nicky Santoro” in “Casino”…And yes, both him and his younger brother met with a rather unpleasant and ignominious demise at the hand’s of fellow gangsters that left them in a shallow Indiana corn field grave …There are numerous other mobsters from the annals of Chicago’s illustrious organized crime history too numerous to mention, plus I would prefer to restrict that aspect of local lore to Mt Carmel across the street where Al Capone rests along with his North Side arch rivals …

The mausoleum was my initial interest there, being situated so close to the road have always been aware of it even when glancing the other direction or engrossed in a cell phone conversation the sensations I experienced would always be enough to prompt me to stop in mid sentence and glance toward the ominous structure that has always insinuated harboring concealed secrets from within …that is when the call didn’t drop …
I remember the first trip there ( especially the late August aroma ) and the feeling of almost static shock and rush of anxiety I felt in a staircase when I made the turn at the mid flight platform between floors and touched the brass knob attached to a small wooden door and turning to shoot the camera in mid back-step upwards that yielded one of my first really “interesting” photos from the site, as I was evidently being pursued up the stairs ….

There are varying energies suffused into this building and the many religious icons represented in paintings, etchings and assorted saints in repose that invoke reactions in even those that consider themselves the most impervious to this aspect of symbolic theosophical provocation…often this much of a visceral representation of our inevitable mortality when aesthetically confronted with the endless rows of rectangular crypt embedded in the walls can prove efficacious when viewed by even the most that comport themselves as un effected by such….

the Madonna statue in the basement holding the Christ child has evoked a multitude of differing reactions from a plethora of many adept mediums, clergy and shaman alike…regardless of how diverse the beliefs, cultural backgrounds and ideological perspectives, most seem agree that it is imbued with a vibrant, radiant force or cursed with an unsavory attachment or two …I have in more than one instance been informed by seemingly culpable sources and unsubstantiated rumors that the early morning hours there, have in the past played host to surreptitious acts of ritualistic desecration…rumors range from live animal sacrifice by occultists attempting to extract the life force released in the death throes and writhing agony of the sacrificial animals to blood basted orgies the likes of which sound more like the sub plot to Roman Pulanski film than reality …this mammoth, death cult edifice of a building has been the source of much yarn spinning as long as I can remember, in fact the first time I have ever heard of the concept of an EVP came from an older sibling relating the story of older kids hiding cassette recorder inside and hearing moaning voices on the tapes when they retrieved them the following day …

There has been much speculation, theories, conjecture and even channeled messages tossed around in the assorted forums I have lurked in the past years whenever this site in particular resurfaces …The Gnostic architecture of the mausoleum and other satellite buildings situated at almost polar vectors of the periphery the property is believed by some to hint at pre Christian, Paganistic influences that those of the more traditional faith orthodoxy have lamented as contributory to the harmonic variable and energies intrinsic to the site while the more metaphysically oriented have speculated that the geometric design of the buildings, the triangulation of ley line vectors, geomagnetic polarity and other assorted unseen forces may contribute to the activity here when this site is the focus of discussion…I personally find myself spending more time trying to differentiate the metaphysical from the metaphoric when these discussions transpire, but I digress … I personally have postulated the theory that the intersecting networks of Chicago land/Illinois expressways that all converge and bottleneck adjacent to the cemetery in what locals has dubbed
“The Hillside Strangler” (being located in Hillside Ill.) And the endless infusion of negativity that constantly flows from this notorious traffic gridlock continues to reanimate the lower vibrational forces that like to dwell and feed on psychical duress emanating from the suffering survivors of the recently interred …I have seen many question why a cemetery would be “haunted” …much of it can be directly attributed to the unintentional channeling you see as in the case of those that make daily or weekly trips to the cemetery in the wake of a recent loss that tend to languish grave side
carrying on a conversation with an unseen participant ….stages of grief effect people in different ways but the emotional state of those in a cemetery is seldom one of unadulterated joy and exultation…if this presiding psychical state resonating from funer repeat visitors that attracts those recently departed ones, personal “guides”, angels or the less savory opportunists of the etheric realm or lower vibrational plains is a matter of personal belief but I am personally of the opinion that there are components of all of these as described above using the closest words I can conjure to definitively describe what I feel may be at work in some of these larger, ecclesiastically themed sites, and the added complication of the almost incessant communal group meditation/genuflection at the apparition site has certainly suffused an energy into the mixture that as at least diversified the almost rainbow tinted aura that encapsulates the site with a luminosity that is visible to some up to a mile away…

The late morning/mid-day visit this time around started as tradition now dictates with the apparition site…this heathen still clings to the notion of good luck charms and the implied protection of dogmatic observances by way of reverence to religious patronage…the section at the southeast corner bordered by the freshly tilled dirt of an undeveloped portion of the property was relatively inactive for a pre spring, unseasonably mild day, save for a couple of somber looking elderly visitors that were departing upon my arrival leaving me and an unoccupied yellow lawn chair positioned facing the crucifix alone to photograph the area uninhibited …The Madonna statue that has been present at the edge of the asphalt circle has now been elevated to full blown shrine status by way of a new wooden enclosure protecting from the elements the diminutive effigy and a plethora of floral adornments, rosary beads, religious metals and other trinkets offered as symbolic tithing…

I neglected to pinpoint the precise location of the Our Lady Of Peace memorial and had only a vague reference of it by way of the section number to guide me, but being the intrepid traveler that I am, and much the way I located the grave of Mary Alice Quinn (The Miracle Child ) at Holy Sepultre when I got out of the car and wondered blindly into the middle of a huge section of stone markers and found my self standing in front of it; I folded up the targeting array and “used the force” thus driving right to it…I no longer consider this coincidence or simple chance fortunate happenstance his sort of thing occurs as it has happened way too many times for it to be such…

The older section to the north remains stoic in it’s antiquity, yet there is evidence of almost iconoclastic vandalism most prevalent in the Madonna statues with broken off thumbs, fingers or
other extremities…the decapitated statues are usually effigies of Saints while the Arch Angels seem to have their hands removed …there appears to be symbolic dismemberments meant to insinuate impeded dexterity and disfigurements intended to butcher that revered as most beautiful and putrefy the pulchritudinous ….

The Mausoleum is surreal in it’s abstract opulence albeit the fact that there is almost always a brooding presence perceivable that is immediately imposing and intrinsically deleterious to those sensitive to it … beyond the defiant, lethargic wooden doors of the main chapel entrance is a foyer with a portrait of a vehement looking late Cardinal whom is almost sneering with disapproval at Mr Halfhand’s impudent irreverence (gulp) …the chapel has an other wordily purple hue and the wooden crypts flanking the pews are beset by carved wooden figures of Saints either beseeching or exulting God or exhibiting a expression that was intended to be one of contemplative composure yet almost all of them imparted an almost dour grimace in the uneven lighting of the chapel and reflective varnish veneer sheen …the smell is always the same and is relived with even a cursory glance at any one photo of the interior…it is a stale, rank odor that words cannot be conveyed
adequately by words but it ineluctably etched into my memory and I one I start to experience as soon as the building comes into site in my windshield or Photobucket album index ….

There is only one floor above the chapel that leads to a small concave of crypts and platform overlooking the chapel from the dual pane, tinted opaqued windows …as I made my way up that solitary staircase leading to this room that beckoned me from below, I was immediately disconcerted by the dank darkness beyond the opened stairwell landing above …much to my chagrin; the motion sensor lighting failed to activate upon my entry into the room …the sinewy wooden statue of Mary that is contorted in abstraction is one that I have always found vexing even in the full illuminated lighting of past visits, but now appeared as nothing more than a dark, hooded figure backlit by that chapel balcony windows …whatever dwells in that observation promontory seems to linger near the statue in a sort of abject mockery…it also seemed to take particular delight in chipping away at my inured composure while I stood there in the darkness ….

Here are the unedited (compressed) photos from my mid March 2010 return to Queen Of Heaven (311 total)….b
Queen OF Heaven Update Photo Album

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Be sure to check the PUG forum thread version of this topic for photo analysis updates….b
Queen Of Heaven Update-PUG Forum

A sun drenched, mild mid February afternoon brought me back to the Maylake/Peabody Estate to complete the Friary edition of the site update…on a day with highs in the upper 30’s it seemed like a comparably temperate climate as I flashed back to the frost bitten, sunrise sojourn through the fields and sparsely wooded east side of the property to bypass the locked front gates of Maylake Hall…one wonders if the frigid cold winter and excessive snow fall of 2010 will be attributed to “global warming” or if now our carbon footprints will be the catalyst for the next ice age…either way I suspect the unpredictability of Chicago winters will defy any or all regulatory efforts to stave off the inevitable cataclysmic consequences of our evil, imperialistic ways…the direct sun was a welcomed warmth as the dampening depth of the snow crunched underfoot when I departed the well traversed path that circles the outer parameter the lake…I have had little luck pinpointing the original location where Mr Peabody expired while participating in a a fox hunt on the south side of the lake and the subsequent original site where the replica of the Portiuncula Chapel was constructed in memoriam, but I shall endeavor to continue research on that in the future …

The history of this property is certainly not restricted to the relatively contemporary Eurocentric
cultural heritage, but as early archival records and archaeological evidence indicates; there where as many as 50 Potawatomi villages in the area between the mid 1700’s and mid 1800’s and one is described as “near Mayslake in Oak Brook” …these homogenous, interwoven Native Americans
managed to maintain a relatively peaceful and symbiotic coexistence as fur traders
with the early settlers, many of which intermarried with the migrant French, English, Scotch and Irish while the primarily ”purebred” tribes consisting of Potawatomi, Chippewa and Ottawa were forcibly relocated to reservations west of the Mississippi by way of Andrew Jackson’s “Indian Removal Act” …the decedent lineage of the “Metis” families (French for “mixed blood”) became the sole remaining Native Americans in the area by that late 1800’s…

The future of the enigmatic red bricked building at southern most end of the Mayslake property remains uncertain …following the Franciscans vacating the premises in late 1991, and following it’s acquisition by the Du Page County Forrest Preserve, it has been at the epicenter of litigation…at present a morass of legal wrangling has stymied all proposals including those
pursuant to the ambitious 12 Million dollar renovation plans to convert the facility into a 93 unit assisted living center by the Du Page Housing Authority… a project that remains contingent on the resolution of a quagmire of zoning restrictions, revamped regulatory commissions and the continued exorbitant expense of heating, grounds maintenance and vandalism prevention measures…the adjusted cost of which is estimated to be well over $60,000 a year, plus it has already been the recipient of several preservation oriented grants, bonds and provisional incentives to reinvigorate the aging, dilapidation besieged behemoth of a building …there has even been proposals for low income, studio style apartments but that was quickly squelched by local zoning commissioners in the wake of a torrent of protests from the adjacent wealthy subdivisions …little has been reported in the way of recent updates …
The building was built entirely by hand by the industrious Brothers of the Franciscan Order over the course of 17 years between 1950-1967 …following the purchase of the entire estate by The Franciscan Order of the Sacred Heart for $450,000 in the wake of Mr Peabody’s death in 1925,
the original seminary was built on the west side of the property between 1925-27 and was demolished in 1992 …

Incidentally one of the most recent documented cases of stigmata was that of Franciscan; Saint
Padre Pio …and as members of this order have been alleged to have the most reported instances of visions and stigmata, the highest concentration of Padre Pio’s exhibition of this occurred during the time frame of the Franciscans acquiring the Peabody property…

The St Paschal Friary is an almost symbolic edification of the changing ecclesiastically institutionalized secularism that sub denominated Catholicism in favor of more archdiocese
concentric ordination …the blue tarp that is draped precariously over a large portion of the southeast wing’s roof is as unlikely to prevent water saturation as efforts to cling to antiquated theosophies will prevent the ebb and flow of religious modernization …this building is the is the ultimate iconoclastic religious relic ….

The tracks of a big wheeled, off road vehicle systematically compacted the snow in circular, concentric patterns on the friary’s north lawn…the efforts to meticulously flatten and compact the snow on the stately, hickory and oak dotted stretch of land that overlooked the lake to the north struck me as bizarre …I thought back to my pervious trip and to the multitude of inexplicable and almost identical in diameter bonfire remains that I encountered as I plodded through the fresh powder padded fields en rout to Mayslake manor as the sun rise pursued me from the east…

My annoyance at the prospect of having my photos tainted by the tread marked landscape was quickly replaced by relief after a mere hundred or so yards of quicksand-like deep snow suddenly transformed into an easily traversable hike across the tractor flattened winter landscape…I elected to make an approach from the northwest as the past summer visits denied me exploration of the overgrowth that strangled the western portion of the property beyond the flight of stairs and Stonehenge like monolithic benches that lined the edge of the western driveway and terminated at a rather steep decline into the thicket below …
As anticipated; the winter stripped underbrush was now visibly accessible save for assorted burr hitchhikers and thorn pricks…the bottom of the staircase revealed a concrete wall and what proved to be a boarded up doorway next to a long inoperative water fountain and PA speakers …

A square hole in the concrete slab under the staircase almost mocked me with the darkness it exuded …the flash of the camera exposed a small room with what appeared to be tightly sealed off doorways…one leading south in a probable tunnel to the garage and one to the left, that likely intersected with the boarded up outer entry and back under the pavement overhead to the main building in what I in visualized as an elaborate network of underground catacombs and secret passages… my imagination requires little in the way of provocation to construct such elaborations ( no really) …when I walked up to the square foot opening in the wall, an almost paralyzing apprehension built up inside of me as my arm crossed over the concrete threshold separating the inside from the out…I felt a gust of putrescent air rush past my shoulder with an almost audible moan…the flash from the camera lit up the black void long enough to confirm the narrow space beyond was also subject to a concerted effort to seal off all of the interconnecting passage ways as described above…the nail secured inner doors and spot weld fortified connecting door leading to the south in the general direction of the parking garages, left me a quandary as to where the stale, crypt like air could have originated but the view I had was limited and a good portion of the room was obscured by this limitation…I actually stumbled back away from the gaping hole as I remembered that I experienced the same fetid, inexplicable groan of exhalation when I crouched down to get a shot of the basement in the courtyard from a small circular hole in a boarded window last summer ( now patched ) …I followed the outer lower level wall along the entanglement of vines overgrowth until a snow caked ramp led me to street level in between the garage and the main building …further exploration of the rear of the garage and some careful circumnavigation of spike tipped bushes unveiled a two story chimney incinerator that I was unable to open for inspection because the cross bar latch seemed to be pounded in to immobility by a hammer flattened iron sleeve thus locking the free end of the latch bar in place

As I skirted the evergreens that were once decorative adornments to the rear of the garage but now struggled for distinction among the reclamation efforts of the prairie vegetation, I discovered a short but steep flight of powdered steps along the side of the incinerator structure… stairs that spilled out into an open patch of grassland to the rear and opened bottom portion of the chimney stack …the scorched, blackened brick interior retained the carnal stench of countless refuge infernos, but even the burned remnants of the last incendiary cinders that once smoldered were now symbolically doused by the squared mound of snow that flaked it’s way down the open flue …

As I coursed my way back along the back of the rear if the evergreen lined garage, I noticed that every possible window, door, hatch and vent had been effectively barricaded…as I rounded the southeast end of the virgin snow depth that rudely packed my ankle length, side zip business-man style boots, I longed for my snowmobile footgear that I wore last time around …and while those boots resemble an Ace Frehley costume accessory, they were well insulated and water tight…

Almost all of the lower level door windows were boarded up and while there were some signs of recent vandalism by way of broken windows on the first floor, many of those that remained un shattered were plywood plated from the inside …contrary to common sense; I found myself wondering if this was intended to circumvent something from escaping from within as much as it was a preventive measure against an illicit entry as I proceeded under the arched passage leading into the courtyard in the center of the main building …the last time I was here was a night visit and the pervasive darkness of the courtyard and intermittent interior lighting created an eerie, shadow shifting translucent effect when intermixed with the headlights streaking down Rt 83 that bled through from the north facing windows to the 4 stories of narrow windows facing the south end of the courtyard …

The howling winds of that summer night provided a cacophony of creaking, cracking, whistling, moaning and tarp flapping sounds ….the stillness and light drenched afternoon of this visit did little to help diminish the growing unease or abate the closed in sensation that the outer walls incurred …sensations that were already welling up inside me as soon as I passed under the arched buttress that seemed like a line of demarcation that separated the relative security of the exterior from the dark oppression dwelling within …the acoustically isolated quiet was instantly shattered by a concussive thump when a huge slab of sun dampened snow slid from the steeply slanted roof and landing at my heals …an insidious, cackling laughter echoed from a gaping hole in a fiberglass ceilinged basement addition that extended into the ground at about waste level…I continued to shoot off the camera in defiance until I was beset by a sudden loss of equilibrium and nausea…the vexing snicker followed me past the arch as I hastened a my unsteady retreat ….

Here are the unedited (compressed) photos from my mid February 2010 visit (181 total) ….b
Peabody Update II photos

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PUG forum thread of this topic