Beale AFB German POW Camp Haunting Investigation

By Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter
Edited by Shannon 'Ms. Macabre' McCabe and Tim Hawkins.

Today is Sunday, September 2, 2007, Labor Day weekend. But, before we move forward to the Beale AFB investigation, I get a call from new HPI Paranormal Investigator Debbie Butler on Saturday. Debbie actually joined HPI, after learning I was in HPI and hasn't been on any investigations yet. But, she is ready! Debbie tells me she has a very interesting story that may just peak my curiosity. We meet at Tower Cafe and with big sparkling eyes, she tells me a long story of paranormal experiences that have plagued her life. At the age of 7, she saw her stepbrother's deceased mom. She learns that she is an intuitive, at times she sees 'dead people'. All through her life, she feels presences. During her early years, late at night, she witnesses a shooting star. After the shooting star disintegrates into nothingness, spirits start whispering into her ear. They tell her soon there will be a crisis in her family. The prediction comes true. Debbie's deceased grandfather blows into her ear. When he was living, blowing into a family member's ear, was something he was fond of doing. Debbie's deceased grandfather would also make his presence known to Debbie's grandmother. He would also walk around the house, waking Debbie. Debbie has seen full body apparitions, she has had ghost dreams. In one dream she says 'boo' to the spirit and the spirit jumps out at her. There has been times when spirits gathered around her bed and held her down with her own blanket. She discovers that at her mom's house, a young child died of some sort of illness and she feels the presence of that child. As an intuitive, she walks up to a K Jeweler clerk and has an urge to tell her something important, because the clerk's deceased husband is now standing next to Debbie. The deceased husband who has died 3 months ago tells his ex-wife through Debbie that she has something very important to do, it had to do with his son wanting to get his share of money from the house and he was trying to stop his son, he wanted the house left as is, with his wife. He proved he was standing next to Debbie, when he told Debbie to tell his wife what his favorite song was. The clerk does what her deceased husband suggests and stops the son from taking his share of the house.

Besides ghosts, Debbie had the strangest paranormal experience in 1994, when the lights of the house she was living in would flicker on and off. Then all of a sudden 2 'gray' aliens appeared in front of her grandmother, hands outstretched. There was light emitting from the palm of their hands and eyes. The aliens glided to the left and disappeared. Her grandmother was not aware of the presence of the aliens and Debbie does not know why they appeared. This is Debbie's story and what a story it was.

Now, let's move up to Sunday. 7pm, I arrive to the Countess' home. Yep, I'm talking about Countess Shannon McCabe. Rolling in was Tim Hawkins in his VW Golf he calls the 'Blue Orb'. I look at Tim, I look at Shannon and tell them both, we are not rolling in Shannon's Ectoplasma Mobile and we''re not rolling in Tim's Blue Orb, we're rolling in the Ghost Tracer, my car. Shannon looks around for another team member. Jennifer Baca was missing. I told Shannon that Jennifer has fallen ill and won't make this investigation. She is disappointed that she got sick, but I promised I would keep her appraised of our investigation. Tim and Shannon with their cases filled with equipment pile in my car and we head up I-5 North towards Marysville/Yuba City to meet up with Randy McCuddy, who is in the Air Force and his wife Alexis McCuddy. They brief us about the haunting activity at the former Camp Beale POW Camp that held German and Japanese prisoners of war. At one time this camp held 1000 prisoners. The POWs would provide agriculture labor to the nearby farmers. For recreation the POWs played soccer. There was tragedy at these POW camps. There were suicides and there was retribution by other POWs, In 1944, the POWs did other side jobs like mending clothing. In 1946 the camp closed. The POW cemetery was moved from Beale AFB to a site in San Bruno. Randy in his Mustang Cobra leads us to the base, Beale AFB. We check in with the guards, they take our identification and they take my registration to my vehicle and my insurance information. I guess they were checking that we weren't Al Queda. The security guards were looking me over and looking over my documentation real carefully. Since, I can pass as an Italian, as a Mexican or someone from the Middle East, due to my olive dark complexion, I started feeling nervous. I started hearing the theme song to Midnight Express and at any time I would have machine guns pointed to my head, as my arms are being raised over my head. Finally with a sigh of relief, they gave me my passes to enter the base. The Midnight Express song started to fade away as I re-entered my vehicle and got the go-ahead to move on.

We arrived at the Camp Beale German POW Camp. As we took video footage of the POW camp, checked for EVPs and took digital photos, Randy started getting a burning sensation on his arm. We looked at his arm and a scratch mark was forming. How he obtained this scratch mark is anyone's guess. He said, he didn't bump into anything that would have caused the scratch mark. The scratch mark on his arm is inconclusive on how it was caused. Tim and Shannon used the dowsing rods to try and communicate with any spirits that may be lingering at this POW camp. Tim and Shannon would think of questions and have me relate the questions in German. I used to speak fluent German, since I spent 3 years in Germany, while in the Army. I am still versed in German, but I'm not as good as I used to be in speaking it, but I was able to translate most of Shannon and Tim's questions. If we get any German language EVPs, I will be shocked! While Tim was using his dowsing rods, they indicated that we were speaking to a Japanese soldier captured at Iwo Jima in 1942. This is obviously incorrect as the battle of Iwo Jima was not fought until 1945.

Alexis who speaks Japanese helped Tim translate his questions. After checking some of my photographs, I did notice I captured some unusual orb activity. Of course, orbs really don't have any foundation, except for the fact I can't capture any orb activity at my own home, even after I have taken over a thousand photos in the darkness of my house.

We didn't see any paranormal activity with our own eyes, but we did manage to see a ton of black birds hanging around one particular tree, some bats flying in and out of the POW camp and of course some rabbits. We ended the investigatin at the POW camp and stopped over by some reconnaissance aircraft and took some pictures by the aircraft. Randy lead us out towards Marysville and Yuba City. He took us to places that may be haunted, or the local people say that these places are haunted. We arrived at the abandoned Marysville Hotel, built in 1872 and took some pictures. We checked out the abandoned State Theatre and took more photos. There were not findings at either location. Our final stop was the Yuba City cemetery. We captured some orb activity at the cemetery and one orb was a bright red in color. It seems like I get a lot of red orb shots at cemeteries for some reason or another. After this long night, we took off and headed back to Sacramento. Shannon needed something to perk her up, so she started playing 'Chase Me - Confunkshun, Bodytalk - The Deele, Make That Move - Shalimar, Good Times - Chic, I'm Every Woman - Chaka Khan, Theme from Shaft - Isaac Hayes, Superfly and Pusherman by Curtis Mayfield, Double Dutch Bus by Frankie Smith.' Before I knew it Shannon was rocking out in my car. Then Shan looks at me and said...'Paul, I don't believe you were ever a dancer!' I have told Shannon I used to be a professional dancer with Jeff Kutache's Dancing Machine in Lake Tahoe and that at one time we were the first number for Cher in 1979, when she went solo. Shannon scoffed. I told Shannon that I was the 3rd and 5th Disco King of Sacramento and won dance contests that were judged by Wolfman Jack and Monterock III (who played the DJ in the movie Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta). More scoffing. I then got so irritated that she was debunking my claims of dancing, I pulled the car over and turned the bright lights on myself and Shan threw on Meeting in the Ladie's Room. I did some freelance dancing on the side of the road, while Shan video taped it and said that this made her whole night. Tim clapped enthusiastically. Yep, I still know my dance moves, don't ever call me out Shan! You're talking to the former disco king of Sacramento! This ended our evening and our investigation of Beale AFB.

Findings:
No EVPs recorded. While we had some interesting responses during the dowsing sessions, we were able to debunk some of the information given.

Conclusions:
This place certainly is an interesting part of history. Whether it is haunted or not is inconclusive just based on what we gathered on this evening. Our host was scratched or burned by something that we can not explain, and some of us felt some strange energies around the cellblock. The dowsing sessions repeatedly identified energies in a particular area, but when it came to answering questions, the rods moved slowly at times, and we were able to debunk some of the information given. It would seem that with such conditions and tragedy surrounding an area, that there would be some haunting activity. While we didn't gather conclusive evidence on this particular night, this would certainly be an interesting place to re-visit.

For more on H.P.I. Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern California, go to their website at: www.hpiparanormal.net

Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter
Email: JazmaPika@cs.com
Paranormal Cellular Hotline: 916 203 7503 (for comments on this story).
If you have a possible investigation call: 1-888-709-4HPI

The Silhouette Foundation, a 501(c) non-profit corporation, is now developing the screenplay for an upcoming movie starring the Legendary Dark Silhouette (a character created by Paul). The movie is to be produced under the supervision of producer Howard Nash, whose credits include “Tracks”, “Sleepless Nights” and “Children of the Night” (the two latter both available on DVD). To read more, and possibly donate to the non-profit foundation, check out the Dark Silhouette website.

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