Category Archives: Uncategorized
Ramblings and Ruminations: Old Ghost Bridge in Lincoln, Illinois
Have you ever taken a trip (drive or other forms of travel) where you set off for one kind of adventure and end up having a completely DIFFERENT kind?
Well, this is one of those stories. I set off for Central Illinois with my regular ghost adventure buddy, John Hoblit. We were returning from something (neither of us remembers exactly what) and decided to stop at Lincoln, Illinois where John’s father’s family hails from.
John had mentioned this road that leads to an abandoned bridge called “The Ghost Bridge”. Well, I, of course was up for that! John had done some research through a cousin of his named Leigh Henson and Troy Taylor’s website that talked about this bridge that was
located between two old cemeteries.
We arrive and find the gate that leads down this old road. ( The following picture is from John’s cousin, Leigh Henson). These are the kinds of places I LIVE for.
It is about a 10 minute walk (taking time to slap the mosquitoes!) the road winds through some pretty dense trees with a few clearings that show the fields that surround the area.
(This picture is from Leigh Henson’s site as well.)
So we come around the corner and there it is…the last remnants of this old bridge. Read the rest of this entry
Event at Willow Creek Farm! A MUST see!!
One of our favorite places to investigate is Willow Creek Farm in Shannon, IL. In fact, Willow Creek was THE first investigation that Bill,
Sara B, and myself had the opportunity to be apart of. This was our very first location and we have returned numerous times – as we like to refer to it as a “mega-haunting.” If you have ever met me face-to-face you have probably heard me talk about my most mind boggling paranormal experience as I distinctly began hearing Native American drumming and chanting at around 4:00 am at Willow Creek Farm. I could not explain this noise that seemed to be coming from my right side – no matter which direction I was facing.
Anyway, Al Kelchner, owner of Willow Creek Farms, is hosting an event called ” An Evening at Willow Creek Farm.” This is most definitely a MUST SEE if you are at all interested in the paranormal. Al is genuine individual who takes great pride in his farm as well as the spirits that reside there. This event will be produced by two excellent paranormal investigative teams, the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee and Confidential Paranormal Investigators. Below is information about this event and links to various web pages. -Aaron P.
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October 15 – 6:00PM to 12:00AM
Come and join us at a major, haunted location for what we believe will be a unique event! On October 15, An Evening at Willow Creek Farm will be held for people to share experiences, information and stories about the paranormal. There will be presentations, area history, story-telling, a ghost hunt and a late evening EVP session to close the event.
Participants and presenters for the evening are:
- Edward F. Finch, Executive Director, Stephenson County Historical Museum,
- Noah Leigh, Founder of Paranormal Investigators Milwaukee,
- Kathy Richardson, Founder of Confidential Paranormal Investigators,
- Vangie Bolio, Paranormal photographer and ghost hunter,
- Stephen Osborne – Author,
- Barb and Beth Reittinger, Psychics.
A non-refundable fee of $50 per person must be received no later than October 7, 2011
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Willow Creek Farm [Official Website]
Rockford ParaCON 2011 – October 8, 2011
Please join us for our second annual Rockford ParaCon – a paranormal conference for those interested in all things of the supernatural.
Where: Rockford College – 5050 E STATE STREET ROCKFORD IL Grace Roper Longe
When: October 8th 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Admission: $15 in advanced or $20 at the door. Tickets can be purchased in advanced at the Rockford Public Library.
Numerous paranormal investigators will be there along with notable authors, speakers, owners of various haunted locations, and information about local haunted tours. We are extremely excited for this event. We are always pleased to meet new people who share a common passion for the paranormal.
More info regarding speakers and admission coming soon.
Ramblings and Ruminations: “tales of the weird and peculiar”
When one thinks of the library, they often call to mind long stacks of colorful bindings where tall, thin, darkly dressed women glide through putting away books and shushing patrons. That has not been my experience over the last 15 years of library work. (For those of you who have met me in person, you know I am neither tall nor thin and I am usually the one being shushed!)
I am very fortunate to wear many hats at the library and one reputation that I have inadvertently earned is the collector of the odd and unusual. The goddesses that work the Local History room come across some of these stories while researching things for people and always share them with me. I have tucked them away in a file but have decided that this would be a good place to share these tales of the weird and peculiar.
This story came from a Register Gazette article that appeared on August 22, 1908. The headline reads: Mystery at Winnebago. It seems that on this Tuesday morning, Sexton Joseph Dunkley and his assistant James Bouton were hard at work preparing a place to lay the newly departed Mrs. Bradshaw. They were both surprised and a little startled when they stuck the shovel in the dirt and heard a metallic clunking sound. They were only about a foot down so they continued to dig and unearthed the remains of what proved to be a corroded cracker tin such as the one pictured below:
One can only imagine the thoughts that were running through their minds as they pulled the tarnished box from the dirt. The article described the box “badly decayed only one side being in any state of preservation.”
Their greatest fears were realized when they opened the box and there looking back at them were the empty eye sockets of not one but three skulls!
The box also contained the “major portions of the larger bones of the human body, all of which were the bones of adult persons.” As if that wasn’t enough, there was also a black string necktie which it mentions is the “only clothing found”.
There was no more mentioned in this article- nothing to tell us what was done with the bones, where it was thought they might be from, or who they might have been. The last line only yielded another mystery. It mentioned “The Reflector suggests it is not likely to prove another Gunness affair.”
There was stated in such a manner that it implied that this was a name that the reader should know. This intrigued me enough that I again turned to my Local History sages where they declared that the name Gunness refers to a woman of the time period who is suspected of being a female serial killer!
Apparently, this Belle Gunness (who was later found to really be Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth), was believed to have killed over 40 men, women and children (including her own!) for money. Belle was at first believed to have been killed herself by a handy man that worked for her. The bodies of her two children and a decapitated woman’s corpse were found in the ashes of their LaPorte, Indiana home in February 1908. The handy man was found guilty of the arson but not the murder since he claimed that the body was not Belle Guinness but a woman that she had poisoned and put there as a “body double”, even though the woman was shorter and much thinner.
I will definitely be writing an article in the future to fill you in on all the sordid details! This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I find history so fascinating!
Kathi Kresol is the organizer of the Haunted Rockford Tours and Paranormal events through the Rockford Public Library. She is also a team member of the Forest City Paranormal Society. You may contact her at kkresol@rockfordpubliclibrary.org or 815-987-6682 for information on events or investigations.
Chicago Paranormal Meet & Greet – “Be there or be square”
This is a GREAT opportunity for those of you who are interested in learning more about the field of paranormal investigation. This is FREE event and there will be a lot of great people and investigators present. More than 20 paranormal groups from all over the area will be there hosting the event as well as notable authors and researchers. Therefore, if you are an investigator or simply ANYONE WITH THE SLIGHTEST interest – I HIGHLY recommend that you stop by and pay a visit.
The Chicago Paranormal Meet & Greet will take place on Saturday, August 20th, 2011 from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm (or later).The event will be held at Chet’s Melody Lounge – 7400 Archer Road, Justice, IL 60458.
You can be sure to find us – the Forest City Paranormal Society – at the event on Aug 20th.
Take Care,
FCPS
Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee & Paranormal Documentary
Since my move to Milwaukee about a year ago I had the opportunity to work with a local paranormal group in the Milwaukee area. Noah Leigh is the founder and lead investigator of the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee (PIM). He and I met while investigating Willow Creek Farms in Shannon, Illinois just before I moved to Milwaukee for grad school.
Having been invited on a couple of their investigations it was easy to see that PIM took the paranormal seriously – making it their goal
to not only know everything their is to know about the way their equipment functions and why but also make sure they they are investigating in a logical and systematic way. They understand that the most important part of a single piece of evidence is not the evidence in itself but how they went about obtaining that piece of evidence and limiting the amount of potential error that may discredit that piece of evidence. For instance, PIM is a group that recently began using – what they like to call – “control recorders”. These are simply recorders that each investigators will have on their person at all times – no matter what. This is to prevent any confusion while reviewing the digital recorders. If you are an investigator you know you have been in a situation like this while reviewing evidence – “hey Bill – is this you singing again?” Rather than taking Bill’s word (although I do trust him) I can simply review his control recorder at that exact time during the investigation. I know in the past we have thrown out a lot of evidence because we thought that it might have been one of the investigators. This is a great idea and I think a lot of groups will benefit from using these recorders.
Soon after Noah and I met we began to brainstorm an idea for a documentary. This is something that I had always had an interest in doing. Of course, I know nothing about mass producing films and such so we agreed to simply make this an online documentary where everyone can watch on youtube/vimeo. So, throughout the past year I have been vigorously learning all that I can about cameras and audio to make this documentary look great. I have also interviewed numerous people in both PIM and FCPS as well as some local enthusiasts. Our purpose for this project is to simply show what investigating the paranormal is REALLY like. It’s not like what you see on t.v. I believe this information will get people to think about the way they investigation and encourage them to want to learn about being logical investigators. Know how your equipment works is crucial in understanding your data. This documentary will also give insight to those who are thinking about joining or even starting a paranormal group of their own. Whatever way you see it this documentary will be a tool for all paranormal enthusiasts.
The documentary will be released on both youtube and vimeo during the month of October 2011. Each Wednesday of the month we will release episodes ranging from why investigate the paranormal , what are sensitives and why?, types of equipment, and the final report.
The above video is a short equipment review that we did during our last investigation of the Brumder Mansion. This will give you an idea of what the documentary will be like. For those interested, they use Polaroid PDR400 recorders as our control recorders. These recorders record in .wav, have 2 GB built in memory with a miniSD card slot that is expandable up to 16 GB, has great stereo microphones, and of course USB connector. You can find these recorders for only $24.95. I highly recommend that your group invest in these recorders since they are cheap AND record in WAV.
Thanks again for stopping by our site!
Aaron Powers Co-founder of Forest City Paranormal Society
Paranormal Night At Midway Village Museum
HistoricMidwayVillageand the Rockford Public Library are honored to offer a special paranormal evening at theMidwayVillage. We will be joined by special guest, Spirit Communicator, Mark Dorsett. We will have exclusive access to this historic place which will include a tour and a chance this very active site. The price for this evening will be $10.00 per person to be paid at the door.
The Midway Village Museum
Friday, July 22, 2011
7:00p.m.- 10:00p.m.
6799 Guilford Road
Rockford, Illinois
Please contact Kathi Kresol for reservations at
815-965-7606 ext. 682 or by email at kkresol@rockfordpubliclibrary.org
Haunting Illinois – A Tourist’s Guide to the Weird & Wild Places of the Prairie State – Michael Kleen
For over a decade, Michael Kleen, author of the Legends and Lore of Illinois, has researched and traveled to mystery spots all over the Prairie State. Now, he has created the most organized and comprehensive guide to haunted and legendary places ever written about Illinois. Haunting Illinois is that guide. Haunting Illinois contains 200 mystery sites and 85 individual illustrations. In this book, Michael not only examines the sites, but also the hobbyists and professionals who have devoted their lives to exploring the strange and unusual in our great state. Divided among eight distinct regions and listed by county, each location features a description, directions, and sources drawn from a diverse variety of books and articles. Haunting Illinois challenges you to get off the couch and start exploring our wonderful State of Illinois. You might be surprised at what you discover! - http://trueillinoishaunts.com
Order your copy at Amazon.com – On Sale for $11.01
FCPS has their copy on order! Check back at a later date for a compreshensive book review on Michael Kleen’s latest edition of Haunting Illinois.
Our first Rockford Public Library Paranormal Night!
The Rockford Public Library held its first Paranormal night event. We visited the Roadhouse restaurant in Oregon,Illinois. The wonderful evening started off with a great buffet dinner. Mike Arians, the owner, and his gracious staff were very welcoming. After dinner, the group gathered in the large dining area where Mark Dorsett shared his impressions of the ghosts that still linger at this historic place. The evening was topped off with Mike sharing his moving story into his quest to search for the true killer of a young girl, Mary Jane Reed and her beau, Stan Skridla. There were around 40 people who attended this event hosted by Kathi Kresol.
To read more about this intriguing story vist the Roadhouse website at www.rhouse.org
The Rockford Public Library will be holding monthly Paranormal Nights. For more information contact Kathi Kresol by phone at 815-987-6682 or by email at kkresol@rockfordpubliclibrary.org.
A Great Big Thanks to all who attended this first event!
