Jayme Coates and husband Bert are ghost hunters and founders of Northwest Paranormal Investigation Agency. Their van is filled with tools of the trade such as flashlights, colored lamps to illuminate ghosts and a video camera with a spotlight they say helps brighten infrared imaging.
Bert and Jayme Coates, founders of Northwest Paranormal Investigation Agency, go downstairs Friday to check out the basement of Central Saloon in Pioneer Square.
the world is certifiably mad.
Why not hunt for elves and leprechauns while they’re at it? Sheesh...
Did she tell him about the Twinkie?
Ghost Ping...
Ghost story time!
In 2003, I lived in an old house in New Orleans. The house had been built sometime in the early 1930’s, it was a shotgun double that I shared with my dad. I had always felt that there was something not right about the house. The house was in a “decent” part of a really bad neighborhood, basically right on the edge of certain blocks that you did not want to be in at anytime of day or night.
I had always feared criminals breaking and entering. I had two large dogs which is just about the best security you can buy for such neighborhoods, but still I feared coming home or waking up to intruders. I had gone to sleep one night, all was normal, nothing occurred during the night. Whenever the sun would come up, light would invade my room and usually wake me up around 6:30 am or so. The same occurred that morning, my room was light by the sun. My eyes opened, and I saw two figures standing next to each other at the foot of my bed.
The figures had on what I would describe as heavy parkas with hoods pulled over their heads. I could not see their faces. I thought oh s**t, there are intruders in my house, and instantly I was wide awake. Being that I am not the type of person to go down without a fight, I sprang from my bed and charged them. I recall throwing a punch at the figure on the right, and then throwing another punch at the figure on the left, and then nothing else.
Some period of time later, I awoke on the floor of the second room of my house. My bedroom was the third room, and it was separated from the second by the bathroom. I remember thinking to myself, “Why am I in this room?” I tried to get up, but I couldn’t, because my legs hurt very badly, so I crawled on my stomach to my bed and went back to sleep having no recollection of the events that I described.
I woke up around 10:00am, and I got out of bed to go and brush my teeth. At this time, I became aware again of pain in my legs, so I looked down at them. There were deep, black, narrow bruises on the insides of my thighs and calves on both legs. I had no idea how they got there. I didn’t think much of them at the time, and proceeded to finish my morning routine and prepared to leave.
As I walked toward the front door, I passed through the second room. I was surprised to notice that an end table that was formerly right next to the headboard of my bed was standing upside down vertically in the middle of the floor. I thought to myself..WTF? So, I went to pick it up. As soon as I touched the wrought iron legs of the table, I instantly remembered the two hooded figures from the night before, I remembered punching them, and I remembered crawling back to my bed with severe pain in my legs, but nothing else.
I asked my dad as well as my other neighbor if they had heard anything odd, and they both said that they heard a tremendous noise at around 7:00 am, but I did not tell them what happened.
The table was a marble top wrought iron legged type that I had received after my grandmother had passed away. There were various nic nacs on the table, such as these odd, little brass camels which were dated from the 1930’s. Some people whom I have told this story to suggest that I was dreaming, and that I picked up the table to use it as a weapon, and then stumbled over it thus bruising myself on the legs.
But I remember differently. When I saw them, I was instantly awake, and I had a massive adrenaline rush from fear. It wasn’t a dream at all. When I charged the figures, the table was then behind me near the headboard of the bed. I would have had to turn around to get it, and due to its weight, it would not have made a suitable weapon for me. What I believe happened is that I saw something while awakening from a sleep state that I wasn’t supposed to see. I theorize that when I hit these figures, they didn’t like it, and they used the table on me.
The bruises on my legs lasted for more than a month, and I still have no recollection of what happened to me from the time I threw my second punch until the time I awoke on the floor of the second room. I have wondered what could happen if I was hypnotized and asked about this event, but I cannot be hypnotized for some reason.
Ghosts exist. This is not the only event that occurred to me in the house in New Orleans. If anyone would like to hear more, just let me know.
Someone has requested that I tell another story, so here goes. This one is a bit more personal than the last.
This occurred in the same shotgun house in New Orleans that I shared with my dad. He lived on one side, and I lived on the other. One night I was falling asleep on the sofa in the living room at about 1:00 am. I wasn’t quite asleep yet, I was just resting on my side facing the back rest of the sofa. I became aware that something was in the room with me, something very powerful and very fearful. Even though I could not see it, I was aware that it was walking over to me. I could not move at all, I was absolutely paralyzed with fear.
Whatever it was in the room with me stood right next to me as I lay on the sofa. Its presence was so powerful that it seemed to push the air away from me. I had tremendous difficulty breathing. I am not sure how long it stood there, but at some point I realized that it was no longer there, and I fell asleep. I woke up the next day remembering what happened, but I did not know what to make of it really. But this would not be the end of the story sadly.
I went to sleep the next night around 2:00 am or so, nothing eventful had happened since the night before. I awoke around 8:00 am to the sound of someone beating on my front door. I went to answer it, and it was my grandmother (my dad’s mom). She said, “Mr. Conrad (across the street neighbor)called me and said that your dad was taken away in an ambulance at 5:00 am this morning.” I said, “Well, Maw Maw, did Ernest (my dad) call you yet?” She said’ “No.” It was at this point that I knew he was gone, but she didn’t seem to realize that yet.
We went to Mercy hospital which was where the ambulance had taken him. We were greeted by the grief counselor at this point. My grandma didn’t seem to understand yet as she kept asking where is her son and is he okay. I felt like I was going to pass out. They took us to his room where he lay dead. He was still hooked up to the devices that they tried to save him with. We both broke down.
About a week later, my grandma and I were inside his side of the shotgun house arranging things and just trying to get stuff in order when she said, “Chris, come here.” I went over to her where she was sitting at his desk. She had found something.
My dad was a very troubled man. At some point in his life he became lost. He had done many bad things that I won’t describe here, except to say that he had been a heavy drug and alcohol user for a long period in his life. He quit about two years before his death, but he suffered memory problems as a result of this abuse. In order to compensate for this, he often wrote down every important date, appointments, and phone numbers in calendars so that he would not forget.
She had found a calendar on his desk under some other papers. There was no entry anywhere on this calendar except for one. On the box of October third was the message “5:15 am DieD”. It was written in sharpie marker, but no sharpie marker could be found on the desk. She asked me if I wrote this, and I told her ,”No, it’s not my hand writing.” I looked around on his desk and found another note that had been written previously. It contained the word “DiD”. The reason I capitalize the D’s is because his D’s were absolutely uniquely written, and it was clear that he had written the note in the calendar at this point.
The problem is he died in the ambulance on the way to Mercy hospital. The time on his death certificate was 5:15 am. He was not in his house at 5:15 am...I thought maybe he wrote this as he left, but I can’t see ambulance attendees allowing a man in the throws of a fatal heart attack to stop and sit at his desk, thumb through a calendar to the exact date and write this prophetic message while he was still alive.
I still have this calendar, and when I look at this message, I know that it was written by him after he died. I don’t have an explanation as to how. My dad died of a massive heart attack about 27 hours after I was visited in my living room by a very powerful entity. I am not going to speculate as to what that was, because my dad and I look exactly alike and lived right across the wall from each other.
I heard a news story informing us that a class in this “vocation” would be held at our local tech school. The last class will be on Oct 31, so they might practice what they have learned. I wanted to go just to see who would go. You must be at least 16 to sign up.
I heard a news story informing us that a class in this “vocation” would be held at our local tech school. The last class will be on Oct 31, so they might practice what they have learned. I wanted to go just to see who would go. You must be at least 16 to sign up.
“I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks. I do — I do — I do — I do — I do — I....”
Another fellow chimed in, “Well, I actually touched one - it was pretty creepy.”
With this, interest was beginning to peak. One of the boys read everyone’s mind, “I wonder if anybody has ever had sex with a ghost? You know - made love.”
One of the gang stepped forward, "I have”, he said.
We all stood there staring and transfixed - “What's it like to make love to a ghost?”, I asked.
He look me right in the eye and said, “Ghost? - I thought you said goat!”