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Paranormal activity nothing to be spooked about
Posted on Oct 29, 2009 by Dave Rasdal.
Is the Capt. D.S. Lee Mansion in Independence haunted? Members of the Buchanan County Historical Society, including Tony Bengston, were curious enough to know that they allowed paranormal investigators access to the mansion earlier this month. Photo was taken Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette)
Craggy oak branches twist like bent fingers in front of the two-story 1867 brick Capt. D.S. Lee Mansion in Independence. Fallen leaves crackle beneath foot. Creaking front porch boards make you hesitate to enter.
Inside the Veterans Memorial Building, also Cedar Rapids City Hall, the cavernous emptiness left by the Flood of 2008 echoes with each footstep.
Haunted houses?
Whoooo knows.
But paranormal investigators want to find out.
“I believe,” says Joy Jager of Ryan, “that there are things on this earth seen and unseen.”
On a lark this month, Joy and long time friend, Jacqui Carpenter, a paranormal investigator from Maxwell, popped into the memorial building which Joy’s husband, Mike, manages, to set up recording equipment.
“Jacqui is a psychic and she is really good,” Joy says. “She immediately picked up a presence, something.”
Jacqui, a practicing spiritual medium for 35 years who formed International Paranormal Research Association Inc., works with 1,500 volunteer investigative teams around the world.
Recordings revealed the faint voice of a singing woman, apparently warming up for a performance.
Is the Capt. D.S. Lee Mansion in Independence haunted? Members of the Buchanan County Historical Society, including Tony Bengston, were curious enough to know that they allowed paranormal investigators access to the mansion earlier this month. Photo was taken Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette)
“It does not mean you have ghosts,” Jacqui says. “It means there is unexplained activity.”
Since only one in ten scientific investigations reveals such findings, Jacqui hopes to return this spring.
“Nobody is an expert in this field,” she says. “We just know these things are happening.”
At the mansion, an investigation was conducted Oct. 9-10 by the South Central Iowa Paranormal Investigative Team of Pella and the Iowa Paranormal Advanced Research Team of Des Moines.
Do ghosts haunt it?
“I have no idea,” says Tony Bengston of Littleton, on the board of the owning Buchanan County Historical Society. “I’ve never heard any stories that there were.”
But, the mansion seems ripe for the paranormal. After all, Daniel Lee and his wife, Fannie, died there. And, beginning in 1917, it became the cornerstone for the community’s first hospital and later a nursing home. Obviously, plenty of deaths mean plenty of potential spirits.
While the historical society is more concerned about repairing the mansion — a $12,000 west wall restoration is under way — Tony says the board found no harm with a paranormal investigation.
At 10 a.m. tomorrow, on Halloween, investigators will reveal if, in fact, the Capt. D.S. Lee Mansion is a haunted house.
Paranormal activity nothing to be spooked about - Cedar Rapids Gazette | Psychic Hub
29. Oct, 2009
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Paranormal activity nothing to be spooked about (The Gazette) | Ghost Hunting Central
30. Oct, 2009
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Dostoevsky
30. Oct, 2009
People who fall for this paranormal or any other ghost crap are the kind of people I want to have invest in my get rich quick schemes.
PT Barnum absolutely loved the likes of you.
Ann_Onamouse
30. Oct, 2009
You have obviously not had anything unusual happen in your life…I won't say what, but for me, I'm a believer…And I am about as skeptical as they come…
Dostoevsky
30. Oct, 2009
I've had plenty of bad things happen in my life. We all have had some events in our lives .
Ann, I'm saying that everything can be explained in some way or another if you analyze the facts.
The human mind is an amazing device. It will allow one to believe and see whatever it wants.
Creaking doors, curtains moving, shadowy images moving across the floor…..voices..ghosts appearing on old photos…..etc…
All of this has an explanation.
It's no coincidence this is a multi-million if not billion dollar industry of preying on ones belief in the so called supernatural.
Ann_Onamouse
30. Oct, 2009
Well, bad things happen, hopefully you learn and grow from it. I would have to say some of the" unusual" things I've had happen, there were no logical explaination for, and if and until something "unusual" happens to you, then you too will perhaps be a "believer". Unfortunately there are too many who prey on those who are willing to open their wallets, that is human nature, some things just can't be explained. And nothing will ever change my mind. Supernatural things do occur…
I also believe in miracles
We will have to agree to disagree on this one…
GrandpaR
30. Oct, 2009
And all this is brought up JUST in time for holloween. How amazing…..how ridiculous. Some people have real good imaginations. If someone killed thier family,for instence, and told the jury; " a voice told me to do it, so i did it ". Do you think a jury would buy into it ? Do you think the person would escape the nut house ? Get back to reallity before you harm your brain any more.
OwenHarper
30. Oct, 2009
I'll have an Egg McMuffin and a small coffee.
Dostoevsky
30. Oct, 2009
Do not feed the trolls.
ctiger
30. Oct, 2009
You DO believe in fairy tales!!!
OwenHarper
30. Oct, 2009
So says Mayor McCheese.
Dostoevsky
30. Oct, 2009
I have an online stalker……cute.
Sorry, unlike you I'm not on the down low.
You may have better luck at the local mall cruising for runaway boys.
Southern_Yankee
30. Oct, 2009
I believe!!! When there has been scientific research and that evidence supports the unexplained.
AnnaGraham
30. Oct, 2009
In 1994, Carl Sagan said:
"It's a foreboding I have, maybe ill-placed, of an America in my children's generation or my grand children's generation. When all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries. When we're a service and information processing economy. When awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues. When the the people – the broad population in a democracy — when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or even to knowledgeably question those who do set the agendas. When there is no practice in questioning those in authority. When, clutching our crystals and religiously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in steep decline, unable to distinguish between what's true and what feels good, we slide almost without noticing into superstition and darkness. That worries me."
It worries me too.
Ann_Onamouse
30. Oct, 2009
Uhmmm, I am more afraid of the religous, right wing, My Country Right or Wrong, psuedo- patriots…those are the ones that do not question authority…not a few "fluff bunnies"…I believe in the supernatural, AND question authority…the 2 do not necessarily cancel each other out…
GrandpaR
30. Oct, 2009
Phychic's are people that see things that aren't there. Hear things that aren't said. Phychic's are people that one goes to to for advice and the phychic feeds off the words you tell them and repeats the words back to you only in the phychics own words and you think " my they are right on ". You people that talk to phychics, listen closely to what they are telling you and remember what you have told them. I have a relative that claims to be a phychic AND a HEALER ,but is niether,but takes their money.
Ann_Onamouse
30. Oct, 2009
It isn't all about psychic readers, Gramps…I wouldn't talk to one of those charaltens if they paid me…there is a whole 'nother world out there to explore…
(well maybe I would if they paid me, but I still wouldn't believe them…)
GrandpaR
01. Nov, 2009
I agree. But they fall into the same family. Kinda…sorta!! Could be my comment wasn't relative to the article.
BigGun
30. Oct, 2009
I believe that when you die, you go to heaven or hel l. Your spirit doesn't hang around on earth or in limbo. All these things people claim to see or hear are figments of the imagination or something that can otherwise be explained. Same with aliens and UFO's. Nothing there. It they existed, wouldn't there be actual proof by now? Just a bunch of video that could have been or was faked. I don't have a problem with people believing in it, that is their own belief. This stuff can be quite entertaining too with all the cover-ups and such but in the end I know it isn't real.
Ann_Onamouse
30. Oct, 2009
But yet, you believe in God. Every thing you say here can be applied to the same concept as God, heaven and hell.
"All these things people claim to see or hear are figments of the imagination or something that can otherwise be explained"
You could say that about many of the stories in the bible, also…
I don't get it….burning tree's talking, writing appearing on walls..same thing, as far as I can see.
JohnClark
30. Oct, 2009
There are many phenomena on this earth that currently cannot be explained by science. In a few years and with more research, who knows. The human brain is a vast and complex organ that we still know very little about, the fact is we actually use only a small portion of its potential. Is this the cause of strange sightings of ghosts, UFO's, etc, I really don't know. What I do know is that there are things out there that are not easily explainable that happen to people all the time, even "normal people".
Could ghosts exist, possibly, I don't know because I've never met one myself that I know of. Could UFO's exist, sure, I've seen strange things in the night sky that I could not explain and checked on various known phenomena with little luck ID'ing the things I observed. I'm not saying they are flying saucers with men from Mars, just something I haven't been able to find an explanation for. What about instances of deja vu? I think everyone has experienced it before at least once. Part of the problem with science in relating to these issues is how to judge a person's perception and meet all the conditions of the environment when a person experienced something. Add to that the fact that the human brain and all of its functions are still a mystery. Science is not able to explain all the mysteries of the universe real or not, and many times have explained things inaccurately based off the knowledge that was available at the time.