Give Credit Where Credit Is Due (January 2023)

We have two ghosts living in our house. One of them is a visiting 9-year-old named Becky. The other is my grandma, who used to live across the street from me. My grandma used to have the run of the house and we knew all the activity that was coming through came from her. Then, on December 11, 2022, a new spirit entered the house and took the focus away from my grandma. Whenever something would happen in the house, we immediately attributed the activity to Becky.

For example, we leave a para-lantern up in the living room and it goes off randomly throughout the day. We've just assumed that it was Becky, because my grandma usually only notified me of her presence upstairs on the REM-Pod. So when it would light up we'd say, "Hello Becky!" or "Good morning, Becky." Not thinking anything of it.

Since Becky's arrival, I've noticed my interactions with my grandma have gone down. This was partly because Becky was sending mixed signals about communication. For instance, my grandma would usually make the REM-Pod beep one to two beeps on green. That's how I knew it was her. They were short and crisp and made the point she wanted to make: I'm here. Well, Becky started doing it, too. Even though I had asked Becky to treat my room as a private space for me, she comes to my room often. She makes the REM-Pod go off and then gives me "ghost fuzzies" that sometimes are very similar to my grandma. The other day I had to get the divining rods out and through our interaction she revealed that she was just playing with me and that it was her talking to me the whole time. So Becky has a tendency to be playful and just wants to get attention. She is 9 afterall.

Well last night I got one singular beep on my REM-Pod in my room before I went to bed. I decided to get my rods and hopefully talk to my grandma. Lucky for me, it was her and she was pulling out all the stops to make sure that I knew it was her. It was all of her trademark "ghost fuzzies" and style of rod responses. I asked her if Becky was in the room and she said no. I asked her about the two dark men and she knew about them and had seen them in my room. She didn't know much about them, though. I also asked her if she gave me the "ghost fuzzies" while I was on the treadmill earlier that day and she said yes. (My grandma likes to cheer me on when I'm working hard on the treadmill.) But the discussion finally turned to us. I asked her if she was upset about something or if something was bothering her and she said yes and sent me some very strong "ghost fuzzies." I was having a hard time keying into her energy, but I tried my best to figure out what was wrong. It had something to do with us not talking very much and not getting to communicate much anymore. I apologized for that and said I would try to improve that and explained that we do have another spirit in the house which does make it complicated sometimes. She agreed. We ended our conversation with a ghost hug and I went to bed.

The next morning I went about my usual routine. I opened up the lantern in the living room and set about my day. This time when the first blue flash went off, I did not say "Good morning, Becky." Instead I said, "Good morning! I hope you have a great day!" Subsequent flashes I also said "hello" or "hey" without adding a person. Then I continued on with my day.

Eventually it was time to do my treadmill walk and I got on as usual. Halfway through I started getting my grandma's trademark "ghost fuzzies" on my cheeks and the tingles on my head. They were strong. I greeted her and thanked her for her support and eventually the fuzzies faded. My walk slowly came to an end.

I went to sit on the couch afterwards and the lantern went off to blue. I said hello and then asked if this was grandma. The lantern lit up to green (the next color higher than blue). Is this what you were mad about? That you made the lantern go off and I said it was Becky? The lantern lit up to blue. I asked her if she said hi to me on the treadmill a few minutes ago? The lantern lit up to blue. Is it easier to use than some of the other equipment we have? No response, but then my husband came in the room and all future answers sort of dwindled. I'm not sure why. He's present during our nightly conversations, but in this instance, the two things just seemed to overlap. Later, though, I asked it something (that has slipped my mind) and another intelligent response came through in the form of a blue light.

It dawned on me that we never really knew how my grandma would respond to the para-light. We had only had it for a few days before Becky arrived at our house. I had just made assumptions about my grandma and her use of our other equipment as she only ever used our REM-Pod in the past and even that she would only ever give those one or two greeting beeps and not intelligent responses. It was like the new shiny thing took my attention and I forgot about her. I didn't really forget about her, but we just weren't connecting like we had before Becky had showed up. 

The take away when you're entertaining multiple spirits in your home is to make sure that you honor their individuality. Don't make assumptions about who is attempting to connect with you. On the flipside, I wish the spirits would actually answer the question "is this so-and-so" when a connection is trying to be made. If you make the lantern flash, maybe also flash a yes when asked if it's you. If anything, I've learned that ghosts can be stubborn with their communication. And I definitely don't want to get the divining rods out for every little light flash just to have confirmation. If I make the effort to ask, I've told them the ball is in their court to answer. 

Graveyard Pinging (January 2023)

Lately I've been working on opening myself more to understanding my sensitives as a medium. I've learned that I'm incredibly sensitive to various energies, which is what gives me so many "ghost fuzzies" as I like to call them. It's not quite full-blown goosebumps, but it's this almost indescribable tingle. Becky knows that I can sense her, so she triggers these "ghost fuzzies" in me often. Right now, as I type this out, she is standing next to me sending out her vibes. I've also been working to distinguish the different types of "fuzzies" the ghosts project on to me. For instance, my grandma only sends out a certain type of "ghost fuzzies." I know that when they are of that intensity and in those places that she's near me. The same goes for Becky. But I'm learning, as I understand the location of a "ghost fuzzy" is not a fingerprint. Becky is so active and energetic that sometimes what I feel from her is like what I feel from my grandma, but never vice versa. She seems to have a wider spectrum through which she can interact with me. When I was hunting this past summer and fall, I also realized that "ghost fuzzies" are a way to acknowledge a spirit in your area. 

So today I wanted to put this tingle to good use and try to "ping" some ghosts. What I mean to say is that I believe I can attune myself or open myself up to feel the "ghost fuzzies." That means I just put myself in a calm state and I focus on who I want to make contact with. I've done this with my grandma before, because it's hard to have two ghosts in your house sometimes. I was hoping to try it at my mom's house, where I know there is more than just my mom there. 

As we drove past the cemetary on our way home, I felt this pull. I immediately blurted out, "We should go ping there today for those mean guys." My husband didn't sounded excited about pinging anything, but I was driving, so I turned the car right to head towards the driving entrance. As we drove the two blocks to the entrance, I tried to calm myself and open my mind, focusing on the two men who were in our house, specifically their residual energy that I had picked up on. 

I drove on the snowy path focusing my energy and then all of a sudden, I got a hit. It was a faint hit, but I tried to process it. Was it the masked man? Maybe. I decided to drive on to see what else turned up before committing to every ping I made. This was, after all, still the beginning of the drive into the cemetery. 

We continued forward, past the military memorial flags, down towards the end of that side of the cemetery. I passed the Mueller mausoleum and shortly after, I pinged again. This time it was strong and sharp, coming at me from the left side of the car. I stopped and I immediately knew in my mind that it was the Tweed Man. I turned to my husband and said that his grave was somewhere in this area of the cemetery. I sat there for a moment trying to process. I wasn't getting much more than the sense that it was him and that he was buried in this area, so I moved on around the U of the drive and came up the other side. 

Slightly past the area on the other side from where I pinged the Tweed Man I let out a little gasp. Something had tried to scratch the left side of my cheek and neck. When I raised my hand to feel it, nothing was there. My husband asked me what was wrong, but I told him I didn't want to talk about it. So we kept driving and as we got closer to the exit, I told my husband we should take another turn around to make sure my pings are right.

Back around we went. This time I got a stronger ping from the Mask Man. I stopped and my husband took a picture of where I stopped (for future reference). I wasn't getting much from the ping, though, but it was definitely him. I could see him in my mind and he didn't look happy with me. 

We drove down farther to where I pinged the Tweed Man. I stopped where I felt like stopping, which wasn't perfectly where I was before, but something said stop there. I was pinging like crazy, even more than the previous time around. I stopped next to a grave for someone named Robert and the name and grave stone really grabbed at my attention. It made me wonder if that was actually the Tweed Man's grave. It felt too new to be his, but the name resonated with me nevertheless. My husband took a picture.

I also had a mental image come to me of the two men hanging around the mausoleum. That's where they like to hangout and plan together. It allows for them to get a great view of all the houses across the way from the new cemetery. This was their stomping ground when not out trying to harass people at night. Sadly, I also had a gut feeling that, since they weren't happy with what I just did, they might make an appearance at my house tonight. They typically target my daughter, but now I think I put a target on my back.

After that I knew it was time to hightail it out of there! We honored the 15mph speed limit, but I was ready to go. And as we drove down the exit lane, I started to feel funny. I was getting ghost fuzzies that weren't the two dark men. They were other spirits from the cemetery. I felt really uncomfortable and I admit that I sped up a good bit to get out of the cemetery. These ghost fuzzies were coming from the exceptionally old part of the cemetery. I began to think opening up had drawn attention to myself, made me a beacon of sorts. I was not quite ready for that.

I breathed a sigh of relief to be out of the cemetery and nothing bothered me as we drove down the longer stretch next to the cemetery. But as we turned onto our street I was taken over by ghost fuzzies. Full body ghost fuzzies. I stopped the car and loudly declared, "Anyone who is in this car with us is not welcome and needs to go away, unless you're Becky." The fuzzies went away, but I still felt uneasy.

We walked into the house and as I walked towards the kitchen I was overtaken my full body fuzzies and I called out again that if you were not my grandma or Becky you are not welcome here. I even went for my recorder and was going to do an EVP session, but the dogs were being too loud and noisy for that. So I got out my divining rods and I asked Becky if she was with us in the car, to which she said no. She also confirmed there were not others in the house and she gave me the ghost fuzzies when I walked in. I apologized for yelling at her and we ended our talk with a hug. 

This experience made me feel incredibly empowered about my own abilities. I've been spending time trying to understand what I am capable of and it's starting to blossom. I am also proud to have walked away from this understanding more about the two dark men. I believe I've pegged them as all bark and no bite. They just want to scare people to make themselves feel good. They don't have the energy to actually hurt someone.

It's hard to treat today's exercise as a full-blown success without taking a leap of faith. I have no way to verify the feelings I had or information I believe I gleaned from my encounter. That said, I think I have suppressed whatever ability I have for far too long. I need to learn what I am capable of and try to trust in it. Perhaps someday soon an opportunity will present itself where my feelings and the evidence we uncover will coincide.

Two Dark Men (January 2023)

 My sleep was restless. I remember a point in my night where I was unhooking my Fitbit band from my wrist (which is no easy feat when you can't see it), but I was later woken up by a loud noise and without opening my eyes, I realized I had thrown my Fitbit onto the floor and it hit a box next to my bed. I didn't open my eyes to confirm this. I just knew that's what happened. I debated over getting it and refused, because it felt dangerous to lean out of bed to retrieve it. Later that same night I awoke and stretched down to get the Fitbit and I struggled to put it back on without opening my eyes. Then I fell back asleep and fell into an incredibly weird dream that was uncomfortable for me as it had to do with my old job and my old coworkers. 

Finally, I woke up from this night of restless and disturbed sleep. I went downstairs and I shared with my husband the strange events that happened. Then he told me our daughter had experienced a troubling night as well. 

My daughter had woken up around midnight and told him there were two men in dark shadow staring down at her. One of them had been wearing a hooded mask. She said they really scared her and it had been hard to get out of bed. She finally made it downstairs to tell my husband, who then soothed her and sent her back to bed. 

Hearing this hit me oddly, so I went to check my sleep record from the night from my Fitbit, knowing that a portion would be missing due to taking it off. I discovered that my strange wakefulness activities started at 12:30am and extended until around 3:30am. So if my daughter was freaked out around midnight, what was stopping the spirits from coming down to my room and harassing me in my sleep?

I thought back to that night and I remembered that at some point I woke up, because I was experiencing extreme goosebumps all over my torso. This is not something I am used to feeling in bed, as my bedroom had been considered my safe space until Becky arrived. Even with Becky, though, she and I established that at night I'm sleeping and I'm in my personal space. So to have this feeling in the middle of the night was greatly disturbing and I knew it was a spirit of some sort next to my bed, touching me while I was sleeping. Something was trying to get my attention.

I meditated on the situation for a while, trying to mine my subconscious for anything that I wasn't remembering. Suddenly I was hit with something of a "download" of information. I saw two men. One was shorter than the other. They weren't "living" in my house, but visiting, and I felt like they were from the cemetery about a half mile up the road. Immediately I took to my divining rods and wanted to talk to my grandma about the situation, maybe seeing if the information I downloaded was fitting into the greater narrative.

My grandma wasn't there to answer my questions. Sometimes she's gone during the day. I asked for Becky to see if she could help me with anything and, my goodness, she knew what I was talking about. 

Becky informed me that it is two men. They only show up every couple weeks or so. Their intent is to behave like boogeymen and they try to scare and disturb people. She's seen them in our home before, which made me think back a few weeks to another really difficult night that I had. I started to wonder if that had been them, too. Becky shared that they've been in Isabelle's room and my room. She said that they are not good men, but they just visit when they feel like it. 

I thanked Becky for her help and sat for a bit processing the information and also looking at what supported my own mental download of information on them. Then I sent my daughter some messages to find out more details about what she saw. I figured she could answer during her lunch/recess time when phones were allowed, but it turned out she forgot her phone. So I had to wait until she got home to get to the bottom of this information.

When she arrived home, she answered the questions I sent her, but apparently my husband had sent her the same questions, so all the answers went to him. I had asked her which one wore the mask and was the mask a half-face mask. She sent this picture to my husband:

Then she explained that the mask was just like that, but without the mouth, nose, and eye spots. My husband joked, "So basically Slenderman?" My daughter doesn't believe in the existence of Slenderman (When my husband asked, "You know Slenderman is just fiction, right?", she scoffed and responded with, "Obviously.") but she knew who he was and what he looked like, so she agreed that that would be an accurate description of what she saw. No, we are not operating under the assumption that Slenderman is haunting our house and we will not be entertaining that theory either. Dare I mention that we're from Wisconsin and the Waukesha stabbings are not lost on us. But my husband and I were around for the invention of this popular internet "creepypasta", and while we're *fans* of the monster and its lore, it's just fun fiction. Nevertheless, she saw what she saw so we'll roll with it for now.

My daughter did confirm that one of the men was shorter, wearing a top hat of all things, and the taller one was wearing the creepy mask. She couldn't make out their clothing, so she wasn't sure if one of them was wearing tweed. She said they were just looming over her and then just disappeared after a couple seconds. 

After processing everything, here is my acting theory on these two men:

They are two men who come from the cemetery about a half mile up the way. One of them is taller than the other. They have chosen to behave like boogeymen and get a kick out of "scaring" people. We're not the only people in the area that they've done this to. I feel like they had gone to other houses in our neighborhood as well, especially a certain house on the corner of our neighborhood. When we drove past the house, I felt like they were a prime target for these two men. I also felt that these two men did not know each other in life, but met after death and are from the older part of the cemetery. The other night was not their first time meeting us, but they've been coming to our house for a few years now and we just weren't tuning into what was causing these restless and disturbing nights. The other spirits leave these two spirits alone, because they are so hostile and nasty. They come late in the evening, sometime between 11PM and 4AM, when people are most likely asleep and easily manipulated. My husband has never had any negative encounters, but then he is almost always awake during these hours. I don't feel the taller one always wears a mask, but I feel like he changes up his look to scare different types of people. The shorter one I picture in a tweed jacket and the taller one is in a black suit. 

So I guess I'll have to keep aware of when these spirits come to my house. Since writing this, it has been brought to my attention that they have returned within a week. This time they were focused on my daughter in her room, but she didn't have anything happen to her. I guess we need to stay ever vigilant and if things get really bad, we will look into how to stop them from coming to the house. 

Coming up on Ghost Stories: These lurking men get a taste of their own medicine.

The Year of the Ghost

Somebody asked me what word describes my 2022. I thought about it quite a bit, because so much happened to me last year and it's all so disconnected, yet connected. One word, though, stood out to me and that was "ghost." And as I looked back on my year, it seemed to be the common thread that ran through the good and the bad of the entire year. 

~ My dad came to my house and contacted me, because of my mom. 

~ A spirit was visiting me in my house that took me a while to figure out was my grandma.

~ My husband and daughter got me a REM-Pod for Mother's Day.

~ I started this blog to record my paranormal experiences.

~ Rewatched all of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters Academy.

~ I went on a ghost hunt in July, which I had not done in a long time, at the Sheboygan Asylum.

~ I met Adam Berry and had a small ghost hunting session with him at the Sheboygan Asylum.

~ My mom passed away in July and, post-passing, I engaged with her extensively.

~ Took my daughter to her first ghost hunt at the Sheboygan Asylum in August.

~ In October I went on a ghost tour (with mini-hunt) at The Grand Oshkosh with my daughter.

~ In November my family went on a ghost hunt at The Farm in Shawano, Wisconsin. 

~ For St. Nick I got a mini Para-Light to use for ghost hunting.

~ On December 9 my family went to the Glenbeulah School for a ghost hunt with Adam Berry.

~ On December 10 my family went to the Sheboygan Asylum for a ghost hunt with Adam Berry.

~ On December 14 I learned that we had a spirit come back with us from Sheboygan.

~ On December 15 we realized Becky, who we met at the Glenbeulah School, had come home with us.

~ For the rest of December we interacted with our visitor and my grandma, who was/is still present in the house.

I think that "ghost" really does fill up my year and really embodies an image for where I'm heading in 2023.