Our meeting yesterday July 22
nd we have Gene
Lafferty of Buckeye State Paranormal and Haunting Investigators join us as our speaker. First I want to thank Gene for making the 2 hour drive from
Bellefountaine. He spoke about a recent trip to the Mansfield Prison and other investigations he has been on. The sound bites and photos he showed and and personal stories were interesting.
BSPHI is the first and only paranormal group that has been accepted as a member of the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums. (
OAHSM)
What I found the most interesting is the detail and historical information that goes into each investigation. The
organization also donates money to the
Children's Miracle Network or to the Historical location they investigate and never turns down an investigation if kids are involved. They cover the entire state of
Ohio and do several investigations a month.
Once the first question was asked many of our members opened up about personal experiences. Watch out for Edna! And if you see Chris Palmer running from the golf course you know why!The presentation and topic was a nice break from the norm and seemed to be enjoyed by all in attendance.
Gene also handed out a list of possible places near us! In case you missed it here is the list:
Sandusky Area Alleged Haunts
Cedar Point: a young woman walking past
CJ's Provisions in the Frontier Trail. Anyone working in that stand has reportedly felt someone there or has apparently seen someone walking by the doors when they are closed before the season begins. Legend has it that a young woman walks up and down frontier trail looking for her boyfriend / husband in that area. Strange things have happened in
CJ's. If you leave a sponge on the sink in the fudge area and leave to go and do something, like take your break or go outside to get something and you come back and your sponge is gone. No one else has taken it or even seen where it went to. Then when you go back, sometimes the sponge reappears in the same place that you last left and there are only 2 of you in the stand.
Hotel Breakers: There are two known reoccurring instances of haunting in Hotel Breakers. Hotel Breakers has now four sections all of which were built at different places in time, the oldest and still central being of the hotel is "The Rotunda" which is named so for its circular five floored circular structure of which live it's majority of rooms. "The Lobby" is a two story structure in which contains offices and old meeting rooms on the first floor; second floor has rooms that were once guest rooms, now employee dwellings. This is that which we are most interested in for in one of the two second floor hallways is room #169. The very room in which during the early 1900's when the park was still just a beach resort, a guest by the name of Mary hung herself in dismay (supposed to that of a lover), hung herself in her room. Since then, Employee and guest alike have had odd occurrences, disturbances, violent unseen actions, noises, problems with electronics occur. The third oldest portion of the hotel "Breakers East" Which in itself wasn't built until the mid 90's and is portioned into three and four floors. The occurrences in this section were sightings of "Faceless apparitions" in a small combination of number. All other sightings and instances are not known as re-occurring and random. The whole park is rumored to be haunted, and also rumored to have been built on a native burial ground.
River Well House: In the 1800's, the
McGreen was given money as a gift. They argued among each other what they should do with it. They left the money in their wagon until the morning so they would have time to decide. When the family awoke, the money was gone. Mr.
McGreen was so mad that he killed everyone and hung himself in the well. Strange things happened in the house for almost 200 years later. Doors would open by themselves. Pets refuse to go into the dining room nor would plants ever live in it. Small fires would start in the fireplace on their own. Door handles would be witnessed as wiggled when no one was on the other side. Shadows are seen and images are seen outside a huge picture window that looks over a river. The well is still there and nothing will grow with in a 10 feet radius of it. In 1979, the house mysteriously burned down without any indication of a cause.
Sleep Inn: When employees walk the halls of the third floor at night, there is an uncanny feeling that they are not alone. The television in 317 will turn on and flip channels all by itself. A laundry attendant was trapped in 315 (the locks are on the inside, and the door opens to the inside, but the door would not open from the inside.) Housekeepers cleaning room 324 have seen the curtains in 312 fluttering/opening, but when the room was checked, the AC unit was off and the room was vacant. Doors slamming and footsteps can be heard when employees are up there alone, but when they call out or go to see who's there, the halls are empty.
Johnson's Island: In the frigid waters of Lake Erie lies a 300 acre dot of land called Johnson's Island. Designed as a prison camp for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, the place was especially brutal in the winter months to men who hailed from a much more temperate climate. The compound here was designed to hold 1000 men... but actually confined up to 15,000 at one time. Here, these prisoners lived and died in barracks with only single pine walls to hold back the chilling winds. There was no escape from this place and during its years of operation only twelve men ever made it to freedom and their fate is unknown. They vanished across the winter ice towards the Ohio shoreline and were never seen again. Today, the island is a lonely place with worn stones marking the graves of the soldiers who died in captivity here. It is here, and among the trees, that apparitions of Confederates have been seen for many years. Strangely, their voices have been heard also. Many years ago, Italian workers who were hired to dig at the stone quarry, began singing a song that many of them had never heard before. In fact, according to the superintendent, many of the men did not even speak English.It was not a song that reminded them of home... but it may have reminded previous occupants of the island. The song was "Dixie". Johnson's Island is located on Lake Erie, about three miles north of
Sandusky, Ohio and a half-mile south of the
Marblehead Peninsula.
Green Hills Golf Course: The haunting here has to do with the railroad tracks which run beside Green Hills. In the 1960s, according to legend, a car full of teenagers stalled at the crossing and was destroyed by a train, killing all four passengers. If you make a trip to the crossing alone at midnight, and stop your car similarly on the tracks, you will be able to see the twisted metal of their car scattered along the rail bed--and four severed heads.
Tindle Bridge:
Tindle Bridge in Fremont is haunted by the ghost of a murder victim from the 1950s. She roams the area under the bridge, sobbing and asking for help. Another murder victim was found in the field across from the bridge several years ago.
Gibsonburg High School: Mysterious occurrences abound at
Gibsonburg's high school. Janitors who chain doors return to find their chains dangling with the locks
unhasped. Footstep sounds echo through the gym when no one is there, and the lights go on and off of their own accord.Green Springs Elementary School: The spirits in the elementary school are leftovers from the high school which once occupied this spot. It burned down sometime in the late 1800s with a handful of kids still inside. Now their spirits open and close doors and pester people, but seem to be confined to the second floor.
The Headless Motorcyclist: One of the most talked-about ghost stories is the Elmore Ghost Rider, whose story is related in an old issue of the Journal of the Ohio Folklore Society. Apparently once a year (or maybe more often) a headless motorcyclist repeats his final trip across a bridge near the town of Elmore. His origin story, although almost certainly legend, goes like this: when the guy got back from World War One, he discovered that his girlfriend had shacked up with another man. In a rage he hopped on his motorcycle and drove off down the winding road. Maybe it was raining. Maybe he killed them first. It all depends on who you ask. But ultimately he wrecked and died, either on the bridge or shortly thereafter. Today it's said that if you stand on the bridge at the right time the motorcycle will really mess you up. If you stand to the side it'll pass you by. Police used to park at this bridge on certain nights making sure no one would stop and get out investigating, because it had gotten to be such a nuisance. As of late no one seems to know exactly which bridge it is--something the local police are probably happy about. But according reports, the bridge is located just across the county line in
Sandusky County, near the town of Lindsey, at the place where Fought Road crosses Mud Creek.
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http://www.bsphi.com/
