Compliments of MeekOneGOP.
Would you please post the ping list for us (if you don't mind)
Posted on 04/30/2004 7:12:03 PM PDT by CurlyBill
ST. THOMAS -- Somebody calls the newspaper with a tip and I find myself clambering up the steps of the old St. Thomas courthouse, thinking I'm wasting my time on a wild goose chase. Maybe a wild ghost chase.
It's a grand old building, to be sure. First built in 1852, it burned down in 1898 and was rebuilt the following year. Situated atop the hill on Wellington Street, the three-storey structure features five arches out front and a cupola on top.
The building, which is being renovated, holds a Crown attorney's office, a land registry office and provincial and Superior courtrooms.
Maybe the courthouse holds something else, too.
Several people tell me that years ago, a husband and wife team of custodians lived on the top floor. They say the wife died in a tragic accident and she has haunted the building ever since.
I tug on the door leading to the top-floor apartments, but it's locked.
I hear that, for years, there have been strange things happening here. Most of the people who tell me these tales don't want their name in the newspaper. Not in a ghost story, anyway.
One yarn goes like this: A caretaker, spooked by a vacuum cleaner that kept mysteriously turning off, finally lost his patience and spoke aloud. "Now look," he said. "The sooner you let me finish my work, the sooner I'll be out of here."
The vacuum immediately started up.
I'm told nighttime cleaners have found all the trash cans upended. I'm told a worker changed the brand of liquid cleanser she was using; later, she found all the new cleaning bottles on the floor, tops off, spilling into a drain.
I talk to a St. Thomas police officer in one of the courtrooms. He tells me that about 20 years ago, he and his partner responded to a possible B and E -- breaking and entering -- at the old courthouse.
It was a hot summer night. But, he says, as the two men climbed a rickety staircase to the top floor, the temperature suddenly dropped.
"It got so damn cold," he says, "it was like climbing into a fridge."
Then, he says, he felt a pressure on his left side and was shoved aside with such force that he would've tumbled off the steps if his partner hadn't grabbed him.
"That was my last experience being in here at night," says the cop. He laughs, but I don't think he finds it funny.
Then I meet a couple of electricians working on the renovations. Do they know anything about the ghost? One nods.
Dave Eels tells the story matter-of-factly, almost as if I'd asked him how to upgrade a fuse box.
Eels says it happened back in February. It was dark, about 7:30 p.m., and Eels and two other men were working in the courthouse. One of the guys asked if they wanted to go outside for a break.
Later, the man explained why he'd wanted to leave the courthouse: He'd been working alone in the basement when he felt something tug his overalls.
Then the room turned suddenly cold -- so cold, says Eels, the man could see his breath.
While they were standing outside, the three men heard a loud noise -- a sort of banging -- echo from the supposedly empty building. One guy figured a sheet of drywall had fallen. They heard more noises and went back to investigate.
And this is what they found in the small basement room where the one man had been working: They found the man's drill case, where he'd left it. Atop that they found the man's sweater, where he'd left it. And atop that they found a wooden chair, smashed to pieces.
Eels says the chair had been sitting, intact, in another room down the hall.
Eels shows me the broken chair. I ask if he believes in ghosts.
"Something was going on that night," he says.
Later, I re-enter the small basement room, with its curved, brick ceiling and old stone walls. I'm a skeptical guy. It's mid-afternoon. There are at least a dozen people upstairs.
Still, it feels good to get out of there. And I do. Fast.
By the way, the Mauvilla was the towboat that picked up the Cahaba's tow and carried it on to Mobile.
Which reminds me, did you ever see the post here on FR about the computer 'eggs' a university here in the States (MIT?) had placed around the world and linked back to a central server on campus? If I remember correctly, there were basically shielded headless computers generating random numbers. The central server then tried to find synchronous patterns among the random numbers generated from these geogrpahically separated eggs. Anyway, they showed a strong peak of 'collusion' on 9-11. And the eggs located on the east coast showed the strongest. What really got me is that they started to 'sync' app. an hour before the first plane hit.
Anyway, I have no trouble believing in 'shared consciousness' or even a 'soul tree' which enables thoughts to transcend one individual to another family member. Too much we simply do not understand at present.
No. I haven't seen this. I searched and found some info about it (the study is out of Princeton, btw). More info at: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
It's kinda interesting stuff. I don't put a lot of weight on what people who call Art Bell/George Noory say, but apparently a lot of them have had dreams or visions in which '11' is quite prominent.
Believe it or not, I tend to be extremely skeptical about anything paranormal, and usually mutter 'koo-koo' when someone else starts up about something in such a vein. However, I enjoy studying and reading about such events, especially when there is some hard data behind it (such as the noosphere project).
Of course, I fully realize my story here is prolly causing the same reaction ("koo-koo") among many, and I would prolly be sitting in front of a shrink if it had not happened to my mom first, but hey, 'Net anonymity gives me cover. And as a band of prominent philosphers of the late 20th century pontificated, "Anonymity is a virute in this day and age".
A snake made my husband walk on water once.
Compliments of MeekOneGOP.
Would you please post the ping list for us (if you don't mind)
Would you please post the ping list for us (if you don't mind).haha ! Sure. ;^)
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
I'm up and flying by this point. I grab the 10mm, roll out of bed and chamber a round at the same time. Dog is still in a frenzy. All I can think of as I'm walking down the hall is that this is real, and this will be to the death. Once I get half way down the hall, the dog goes silent. I find him in the living room munching a milkbone, we have them in the pantry, don't think we left the pantry open that night..although that is possible. The front door is closed and locked, I check all of the rooms, doors, windows. Everything is closed and locked. The strangest part about it, is that I was able to go back to bed and go to sleep.
When the wifey got home, I told her "Hey Hun, we've got a ghost". She just rolled her eyes.
So, then in December, I was out walking the dog. Beautiful night, just incredibly still and silent. The dog and I get about half way around my usually route and I get a weird feeling. So we head back. My wife greats me at the door and urging me to get inside. She was so shaken, it took her a couple of minutes to settle back down and tell me what was wrong...other than "It was here".
Apparently she had heard two footsteps on the front porch, like someone had skipped the steps and simply landed. The porch is 6ft above ground level (the house is a split level). She thought it was me until she got a chill, and what she described a "wrong" feeling. She then heard two hard impacts on the wall of the house next to the door. She spun around just in time to see the porch light dim as a shadow slowly moved off the the side of the porch (again, 6 feet off the ground, and through a guard rail).
My sister urged us to tell our pastor about it. His explanation is that there are no ghosts, and that hauntings are real, but demonic. That made me feel real comfy. In short, we declared the property under the name of Christ. We haven't noticed anything obviously strange since then.
Psalm 91 is your friend.
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