Real-Life X-Files (48 page)

Figure 45.2. Does this corridor view in Colorado’s Hand Hotel show spectral entities, or just silhouetted students? You decide. (Photos by Joe Nickell)

This is not to say that all such pronouncements are insincere. Those who fancy themselves psychics may exhibit the traits associated with a “fantasy-prone” personality—a designation for an otherwise normal person with an unusual ability to fantasize. As a child, he or she may have an imaginary playmate and live much of the time in make-believe worlds. As an adult, the person continues to spend much time fantasizing, and may report apparitional, out-of-body, or near-death experiences; claim psychic or healing powers; receive special messages from higher beings; be easily hypnotized; and/or exhibit other traits (Wilson and Barber 1983).Anyone may have some of these traits, but fanta sizers have them in profusion. Sylvia Browne, for example, as a child had what her parents called “made-up friends,” particularly a “spirit guide” —still with her—that she named “Francine.” Browne undergoes “trances” in which “Francine” provides alleged information from “Akashic records, individual spirit guides, and messages from the Godhead.” Browne also claims to see apparitions, talk to ghosts, have clairvoyant visions, make psychic medical diagnoses, divine past lives, etc. She has even started her own religion, Novus Spiritus (“New Spirit” ) (Browne and May 1998;Browne 1999).

The use of psychics is a stock in trade of many so-called parapsy-chologists. Among them is Hans Holzer, one of whose many books bills him as “the world s leading expert on haunted houses” (1991), while another avows that his “cases” were “carefully investigated under scientifically stringent conditions” (1993). Unfortunately, these claims are belied by Holzer’s credulous acceptance of “spirit” photos, anecdotal reports, and other doubtful evidence. For example, he “investigated” a former stagecoach inn at Thousand Oaks, California, by relying on self-styled “witch” Sybil Leek(1922-1982). In one room, Leek “complained of being cold all over ”and “felt” that a man had been murdered there. No verification was provided, and Holzer admits that Leek “did not connect” with a female ghost whose “presence” had been “sensed” by the inn s owners. Nevertheless, Holzer casually opines that “Like inns in general, this one may have more undiscovered ghosts hanging on the spot” (Holzer 1991,192).

Fantasy Quotient

Professional “psychics” like Sybil Leek and Sylvia Browne a side, we may wonder whether ordinary “ghost” percipients also have similar tendencies toward fantasizing. During three decades of ghost investigating I have noticed a pattern. In interviewing residents or staff of an allegedly haunted site, I would usually find a few who had no ghostly experiences—for example, a bell captain at La Fonda Inn in Santa Fe who had spent forty-three years there. Others might have moderate experiences—like hearing a strange noise or witnessing some unexplained physical occurrence such as a door mysteriously opening—that they attributed to a ghost. Often, those interviewed would direct me to one or more persons whom they indicated had had intensive haunting encounters, including seeing apparitions. In short, I usually found a spectrum that ranged from outright skepticism to mediumistic experiences. I also sensed a difference in the people: some appeared down-to-earth and level-headed, while others seemed more imaginative and impulsive, recounting with dramatic flair their phantome sque adventures. I had no immediate way of objectively measuring what I thought I was observing, but I gave it much reflection.

At length I developed a questionnaire that on the one hand measures the number and intensity of ghostly experiences, and on the other counts the number of exhibited traits associated with fantasy-proneness. Tabulation of a limited number of questionnaires administered thus far shows a strong correlation between these two areas—that, as the level of haunting experiences rises, the fantasy scale tends to show a similarly high score. As this and other evidence indicates, to date there is no credible scientific evidence that inns—or any other sites—are inhabited by spirits of the dead. As Robert A. Baker often remarks, “There are no haunted places, only haunted people.”

References

Baker, Robert A., and Joe Nickell. 1992.
Missing Pieces.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus.

Browne, Sylvia, with Lindsay Harrison. 1999.
The Other Side and Back. New
York: Dutton.

Browne, Sylvia, and Antoinette May. 1998.
Adventures of a Psychic.
Carlsbad, Calif.: Hay House.

Emmons, E. Thayles. 1959.History of Belhurst Castle.
The Geneva (New York) Times,
Nov. 11.

Gerbracht, Molly. 1997.Pre-interview notes for Discovery Channel special, “Americas Haunted Houses” (in Nickell 1972-2000).

Gibson, Benjamin S. 1999.Report on interview with then-current manager, March 29, (in Nickell1972-2000).

Green, Andrew. 1995.
Haunted Inns and Taverns.
Princes Ris borough, Buckinghamshire, U.K.: Shire.

Haraldsson, E. 1998. Survey of claimed encounters with the dead.
Omega: Journal of Death and Dying
19: 103-13.

Hauck, Dennis William.1996.
Haunted Places: The National Directory
New York: Penguin.

Holzer, Hans. 1991.
America's Haunted Houses.
Stamford, Ct.: Longmeadow.

——— . 1993.
America's Restless Ghosts.
Stamford, Ct.: Longmeadow.

Klingel, Marion. 2000.Interview by author, May 3. (Also cited in Safiuddin 1994.)

Linenfelser, Teddy. 2000.Current Grand Island historian, interview by author, May 8.

MacKenzie, Andrew. 1982.
Hauntings and Apparitions.
London: Heinemann.

Martin, John. 1999.Interview by author, June 25.

Mason, John. 1999.
Haunted Heritage.
London: Collins and Brown, 60.

Mead, Robin. 1995.
Haunted Hotels: A Guide to American and Canadian Inns and Their Ghosts.
Nashville, Tenn.:Rutledge Hill.

Myers, Arthur. 1986.
The Ghostly Register.
Chicago: Contemporary.

Nickell, Joe. 1972-2000.Case files for sites named in text. Except as otherwise noted, this is thesource for information in this article.

——— . 1995.
Entities: Angels, Spirits,Demons and Other Alien Beings.
Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus.

Safiuddin, Farrah. 1994.Ghostly guest refuses to check out of Grand Island haunt.
Buffalo(New York) News,
Oct. 30.

Sit, Mary. 1991. Maine'sfriendly ghost.
Boston Sunday Globe
(Travel section), Oct. 27.

Tyrrell, G.N.M. 1973.
Apparitions.
London: The Society for Psychical Research.

Wilson, Sheryl C., andTheodore X. Barber. 1983. “The Fantasy-Prone Personality,” in A.A.Sheikh, ed.,
Imagery: Current Theory,Research and Application.
New York: John Wiley 8c Sons.

Winfield, Mason. 1997.
Shadows of the Western Door.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Western New York Wares.

Wlodarski, Robert, AnneNathan-Wlodarski, and Richard Senate. 1995.
A Guide to the Haunted Queen Mary.
Calabasas, Calif.: G-Host.

Chapter 46

In modern police parlance, a long–unsolved homicide or other crime may be known as a “cold case,” a term we might borrow for such paranormal mysteries as that of the Flatwoods Monster, which was launched on September 12,1952, and never completely explained.

About 7:15 p.m. on that day, at Flatwoods, a little village in the hills of West Virginia, some youngsters were playing football on the school playground. Suddenly they saw a fiery UFO streak across the sky and apparently land on a hilltop of the nearby Bailey Fisher farm. The youths ran to the home of Mrs. Kathleen May, who provided a flashlight and accompanied them up the hill. In addition to Mrs. May, a local beautician, the group included her two sons, Eddie, 13, and Freddie, 14; Neil Nunley, 14; Gene Lemon, 17; and Tommy Hyer and Ronnie Shaver, both 10; along with Lemon’s dog.

There are myriad, often contradictory versions of what happened next, but UFO writer Gray Barker was soon on the scene and wrote an account for Fate magazine based on tape–recorded interviews. He found that the least emotional account was provided by Neil Nunley, one of two youths who were in the lead as the group hastened to the crest of the hill. Some distance ahead was a pulsing red light. Then suddenly, Gene Lemon saw a pair of shining, animal–like eyes and aimed the flashlight in their direction. The light revealed a towering “man–like” figure with a round, red “face” surrounded by a “pointed, hood–like shape.” The body was dark and seemingly colorless, but some would later say it was green, and Mrs. May reported drapelike folds. The monster was observed only momentarily, as suddenly it emitted a hissing sound and glided toward
the group. Lemon responded by screaming and dropping his flashlight, whereupon everyone fled.

The group had noticed a pungent mist at the scene, and afterward some were nauseous. A few locals, then later the sheriff and a deputy (who came from investigating a reported airplane crash), searched the site but “saw, heard and smelled nothing.” The following day, A. Lee Stewart Jr., from the
Braxton Democrat
, discovered “skid marks” in the roadside field, along with an “odd, gummy deposit”—traces attributed to the landed “saucer” (Barker 1953).

In his article, Barker (1953) noted that “numerous people in a 20–mile radius saw the illuminated objects in the sky at the same time,” evidently seeing different objects or a single one “making a circuit of the area.” Barker believed the Flatwoods incident was consistent with other reports of “flying saucers or similar craft” and that “such a vehicle landed on the hillside, either from necessity or to make observations.” (At this time in ufological history, the developing mythology had not yet involved alien “abductions”)

In addition to Barker’s article (1953) and later his book (1956), accounts of the Flatwoods incident were related by another on–site investigator, paranormal writer Ivan T. Sanderson (1952, 1967), as well as the early ufologist Major Donald E. Keyhoe (1953). More recent accounts have garbled details, with Brookesmith (1995), for example, incorrectly reporting five of the children as belonging to Mrs. May, and Ritchie (1994) referring to the monster’s hoodlike feature as a “halo,” which he compared with those in Japanese Buddhist art. However, Jerome Clark’s
UFO Encyclopedia
(1998) has a generally factual, sensible account of the affair, appropriately termed “one of the most bizarre UFO encounters of all time.”

The UFO

On June 1, 2000, while on a trip that took me through Flatwoods, I was able to stop off for an afternoon of on –site investigating. I was amused to be greeted by a sign announcing, “Welcome to Flatwoods / Home of the Green Monster.” Although the village has no local library, I found something even better: a realestate business, Country Properties, whose coowners Betty Hallman and Laura Green generously photocopied articles for me and telephoned residents to set up interviews.

Johnny Lockard, 95, told me that virtually everyone who had seen the alleged flying saucer in 1952 recognized it for what it was—a meteor. He, his daughter Betty Jean, and her husband Bill Sumpter said that the fireball had been seen on a relatively horizontal trajectory in various states. In fact, according to a former local newspaper editor, “There is no doubt that a meteor of considerable proportion flashed across the heavens that Friday night since it was visible in at least three states—Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia” (Byrne 1966).The meteor explanation contrasts with the fanciful notions of Sanderson (1967). He cites several persons who each saw a
single
glowing object. Although observing that “All of the objects were traveling in the same direction and apparently at the same speed and at exactly the same time,” he fails to draw the obvious conclusion: that there was one object, albeit variously described. (For example, one report said the object landed on a nearby knoll, while another described it as “disintegrating in the air with a rain of ashes.”) Instead of suspecting that people were mistaken or that they saw a meteor that broke apart, Sanderson asserts that “to be logical” we should believe that “a flight of aerial machines” were “maneuvering in formation.” For some reason, the craft went out of control, with one
landing
rather than crashing at Flatwoods, and its pilot emerged “in a space suit.” Observed, it headed back to the spaceship, which—like two others that “crashed”—soon “vaporized” (Sanderson 1967).