By Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter (Duke of HPI),
Haunted America tours Staff Writer
Edited by Shannon 'Ms. Macabre' McCabe (Queen of
HPI),
Tommy Netzband, President of the San Francisco Ghost
Society
Ricardo Pustanio of www.hauntedamericatours.com
From September 17
to September 20th, I flew on Southwest Airlines
from Sacramento to Phoenix, Arizona to Albuquerque,
New Mexico and last location Midland/Odessa, Texas.
I was greeted by my ex-wife Patricia Mary Boyd,
her husband Gary Boyd and their son Markus Boyd.
They drove me to Midland Memorial Hospital, where
I could be with my stepson who I raised from a baby.
My son Jason Randall
Porter was lying in a hospital bed from a ruptured
appendix. There were complications to the rupture
and I was there to support him. He was back to normal
by Thursday and was allowed to go home. But, the
reason I am telling you all this is because when
Jason was sleeping, I had a hard time sleeping on
the cot in his hospital room, I roamed the hallways
and talked with two employees of this hospital.
They don't want to be identified, so I will call
them Nurse X and Cleaning Lady X. Yes! I did a small
investigation of this hospital, by doing the first
thing in an investigation, interviewing the witnesses.
Nurse X explained to me that she used to clean the
Hospice rooms and one night, she felt a swift cold
breeze move quickly down the hallway and a door
opened and then closed on its own accord. Another
night, she said a nurse heard clanging sounds from
another room and went into the room to investigate
and some hospital items were moved. Cleaning Lady
X told me that when cleaning in the morgue area,
she has heard strange banging's on the wall. Once
she thought she saw a shadow move across the hallway.
As we all know, hospitals are reputed to be haunted
and Midland Memorial Hospital is no exception.
When I was flying
from Sacramento to Phoenix, I sat next to Julie
Dennis of Nevada City, CA. She asked me what my
occupation was. I told her my real job and then
told her I was also a paranormal investigator for
HPI on the side. She then told me that she had a
spectacular UFO event that happened to her when
she was in Los Angeles. She saw a huge mother ship
UFO go over the horizon and dart away towards the
East. She said she will never forget this paranormal
event for the rest of her life. As you can see,
when I am not supposed to be paranormal investigating,
I am still on the job, no matter where I am.
Now, everyone who
is reading this article is probably saying..."why
is Paul talking about hospitals and UFO's? When
is he going to talk about San Francisco? Okay, okay,
hold your dang britches....I have one other story
to tell you. I correspond a lot with the legendary
famous psychic, Nancy Bradley. I met Nancy through
Shannon McCabe, HPI's president. Nancy has so many
ghost stories! I received an email, in which she
tells a very unique ghost story. This one really
grabbed my interest. Nancy told me that the reason
why this happened to her is because spirits are
able to see light and are drawn to that light. The
light is Nancy Bradley. Of course, if the spirits
knew Nancy in real life, they'ed be drawn to that
light even more. Here is what Nancy had to say:
"I would love
to do the interview with you, we can set up a time,
and (Yes, I will be doing an interview with Nancy
Bradley, I can't wait! Paul)......share Vincent
Gaddis's work with you as well, I have a lot of
it here.
When Vince died (not
anywhere near Placerville, CA) I was in the shower.
I came out and he was sitting on one of my big stereo
speakers. For whatever reason, this did not surprise
me even though he had not been to the Enchanted
Cottage, ever, and I was naked. I said "Vincent,
hang on, I am going to get a towel". Totally
comfortable with my old friend, glad he was there,
I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me and came
running back into the living room. I never gave
thought that he did not have a house key to get
in. "What are you doing in town Vince, it is
so good to see you!" I said. It had been 4
years since we had seen each other though we kept
in touch by phone and letter. "I'm dead!"
he said.
He looked perfectly
normal and I refused to believe him. Not that he
would lie, or I did not know, I just did not want
to believe it. So I called The Borderland Science
Foundation, where he lived and worked (founded),
and said "Vincent is here" They said "Vincent
just died".
So, I went back to
the speaker and he was gone then, but we have had
many conversations since. Nancy Bradley www.nancybradley.org"
Absolutely fascinating!
Thank you Nancy for sharing this story! Wow!
This woman is incredible!
Okay, I know everyone wants to know what happened
on the 'Haunted Haight Walking Tour'. www.hauntedhaight.com
Lets go for it! The date is Saturday, September
22, 2007. I pull up to Shannon's house at 12 noon,
jump into the ‘Ectoplasmobile’
and Shannon picks up one of her lead investigators,
Tim Hawkins. We're off and running to San Francisco,
CA. I get a call from Donna Reynolds and Athena
Quinn, they are already in San Francisco and they
are lost. Shannon directs them to where they need
to be and relieves Donna's stress of driving through
busy San Francisco traffic. I knew at this time
we should have placed a HPI GPS tracking device
on Donna's car.
When Shannon, Tim
and I, arrived we saw the HPI army of paranormal
investigators sitting in on Sharon Leong's ghost
photography classes and Anne Leong's dowsing rod
classes. As I looked around the classroom, I was
counting heads and saw that the following paranormal
investigators showed up: Dee Pizarro, Lou Paman,
Jean Paman, Marcus Stout, Julie Grissom, Chris Grissom,
Mary Casiano, Alicia Perry, Athena Quinn, Jennifer
Baca, Tony Baca, Joey Paman, Donna Reynolds, John
Wachter aka Vlawde (he got that name Vlawde from
some online video game, I always wondered about
that), and Michelle Paykel. Marcia McCord of the
Diablo Valley Paranormal was also there.
I went to the restroom
to see if I had a nosebleed from Shannon's erratic
driving to San Francisco. As I walked into the restroom,
I now knew what it was like to be a L39-C Albatross
jet fighter pilot, that has been exposed to 4000
lbs of thrust, receiving the ultimate adrenaline
rush! The G-Force in Shannon's car, the Ectoplasmobile,
thrust my face into the side window of her car,
maybe a dozen times. Drivers on the Bay Bridge must
have thought I was making faces at them, as my face
was contorted against the car window. Anyway, I
survived. “I like to arrive fashionably
late†Shannon says. HA! We could
have been there last week with driving this fast!
Chris Grissom (HPI
video tech expert) and I, set up the camera for
Shannon's class on "Haunted Highway 49, A Driving
Tour". Shannon laid out some cute jokes and
passed out chocolates everyone. Her descriptions
of the various haunted places were done with the
expertise of someone who has experienced these places
first hand. Believe me, she has experienced these
places and the class was very attentive to her stories.
The driving tour can be downloaded here: www.ghosts.meetup.com/231/files/
I recommend taking the driving tour, there are plenty
of spooky spots to get you in the mood for Halloween!
After the classes,
we were all ready to kill some time before the Haunted
Haight Walking Tour was to commence. Shannon lived
in San Francisco for 5 years of her life and she
knows the mean streets well. She even appeared on
Nash Bridges with Don Johnson, Cheech Marin and
Willie Nelson.
As we walked down
the San Francisco streets, I looked around me, especially
in the Haight Ashbury, district and saw the last
of the hippies. Bohemian musicians and the Goth
culture flourishing, I knew at this time, I was
no longer in Kansas. At one point in time, I thought
I saw Dirty Harry Callahan, Robert T. Ironside,
Detective Mike Stone, Detective Steve Keller, Nash
Bridges, & Monk at some crime scene, along with
Trapper John MD pulling up to check out the victim.
As I looked at the rooftops, was that the Charmed
witches Paige, Piper and Phoebe looking down at
us? There I go again, letting my imagination get
away with me, it must have been that Red Victorian
Punch and Orange House Punch I drank at Hobson's
Choice Bar with Shannon and Tim.
It's easy to kill
time in San Francisco, as Shannon interviewed people
on the street and asked them if they ever had a
paranormal experience. We stopped at the Cha, Cha,
Cha Restaurant and sampled their Sangria (Frutas
para La Putas) which loosely translated means 'Fruit
for the Whores'. We did some more interviews; Shannon
interviewed some Irish guys at the bar, while my
ghostwriting apprentice Athena interviews a guy
named, Puppy, at another table. Tim, Donna and I
grooved to the music "Jamie's Cryin" by
Van Halen.
While at the Cha,
Cha, Cha, I met Kate and I asked her if she ever
had a paranormal experience, and she describes that
when she visited the Joshua Tree Desert in 1999,
she was with a group of people and she witnessed
a cloud flashing red and blue lights for about 7
minutes. It was a bizarre cloud that had lights
inside of it. This occurred around 9pm and as the
crowd watched a blue streak go by, the cloud dissipated.
From our interviews, it appears that many people
have had paranormal experiences…
As I look across
the bar, I wonder is that Dirty Harry Callahan walking
toward me? Ugh! It must be the Sangria! As we left
Cha, Cha, Cha, we stopped at The Gold Cane for more
refreshment, and finally stopped at the Coffee to
the People, where we met up with Tommy Netzband.
Tommy wears many hats; he is the Tour Guide of the
Haunted Haight Walking Tour, Paranormal Investigator
and founder of the San Francisco Ghost Society,
local historian, sensitive, and one of the nicest
guys I've ever met.
Here are few highlights
of the dozen stops on the Haunted Haight Walking
Tour...
We talked about the
over 18 cemeteries once in San Francisco and how
they removed them to develop businesses and homes.
By 1901 it was declared
law that no body could be buried in the city and
county of San Francisco. Later, many bodies have
been found under San Francisco because they were
never
removed! Yikes!
Tommy told us about
a famous ghost story at Stow Lake in Golden Gate
Park, where it is believed to be haunted by a woman,
that legend says, died there in a tragic boating
accident. She is often seen floating above the lake
and weeping in her long flowing white gowns. She
is known as the "Lady of Stow Lake".
There are not only
ghost stories on the tour, but infamous places to
visit...like the home of Cult Leader Jim Jones,
of the Peoples' Temple. Tommy describes the
deeds of Jim Jones that lead up to the tragedy in
Guyana. Remember the "Electric Kool-Aid"?
Later, we even saw where Charlie Manson camped out
in his psycho van during the "Summer of Love"
of 1967.
I want to mention
everything about the tour because there was a lot
of great information...however, Tommy Netzband insisted
I leave some out so people could
come out and experience the surprises that wait
in the "dark side" of the Haight Ashbury.
As Tommy was giving his spiel, a man on the street
says: "Don't exaggerate Tommy". It appears
that everyone knows who Tommy is, as I walked past
two girls sitting on the corner, they smiled at
me and said: "Tommy gives an exciting tour,
we have been on it!"
Some people felt
a heaviness in the air as they approached a haunted
home on the tour. Karma Bennet, an empath, smelled
gunpowder in the area, before Tommy even told his
story of a shooting! My apprentice, Athena, alerts
me to Karma's insight on this location. I quickly
interviewed Karma, and discover that her mother
Karel Bennett is also an empath, and knew a tragedy
would happen at a Led Zeppelin concert in Tampa,
Florida. Her prediction was correct.
Another thing Tommy
mentioned is that San Francisco is the #7 most haunted
city in America, with New Orleans being #1. Tommy
also mentioned one of the top ghost sites in America,
Haunted America Tours, and that if anyone wants
to know about some of the most haunted places in
America, this is a website that they need to check
out. http://www.hauntedamericatours.com
As we ended our tour, we stopped at a bar on Haight
to refresh ourselves, again. The bar was hopping
like most places on Haight on a Saturday evening.
People were shooting Patron Tequila and gyrating
to Britney Spears’, "Toxicâ".
Shannon sang me the words, so I knew what the heck
Britney was saying."With a taste of your lips
"m on a ride -You' re toxic I'm slipping under-With
a taste of poison paradise I'm addicted to you-
don't you know that you're toxic" Dang.
Tim and Shannon leave me in the bar to ponder the
Britney Spears song… Then I
find them back out on Haight Street teasing me with
this huge slices of pizza. They purchased them for
a mere 3 bucks at the Fat Slice Pizza! Hey, you
guys, you didn't tell me you were going to get pizza!
Ugh!
You now must be thinking
that my evening should be coming to a close, not
when I am on official HPI business! We reconvene
with Tommy and his team, SFGS, at Golden Gate Park.
We get to go deep in the park and investigate 'The
Lady of Stow Lake'. Tommy has us all break up into
teams. Each team leader would have a walkie talkie
and it was up to us to conduct our own investigations.
I joined up with the 'Paman Stow Lake Task Force'
(cool name eh?), Joey Paman lead the investigation
with Jean, Lou, Dee and I, in tow. I brought out
my sound enhancement device and at one time, I heard
a woman's laughter and a man saying 'no'. But, of
course, I could have been picking up the sounds
of the other teams. Jean hears a woman humming,
while using the sound enhancement device. Joey used
his video camera and the rest of the team used digital
cameras for the investigation. We snap a lot of
digital photos of small moisture orbs. The team,
especially Jean, (who is a sensitive) feels heaviness
near Strawberry Hill. Jean at one point feels like
she is being pushed up the steps. As all of the
teams reunite, many people from the various teams
felt or witnessed something. Jean thought she saw
a crossing shadow that moved across the lake. One
of the paranormal investigators named, Cathy Lawson,
told me that her mom's ashes were thrown into this
lake. Her sister had nightmares, because the ashes
weren't delivered to the lake, and when the ashes
were finally thrown in, her sister's nightmares
ceased.
This was an outstanding
and very enlightening day and night in San Francisco.
I give Tommy Netzband a standing ovation for this
fun-filled spooky tour, and conference at the SF
library. He is a great local historian and a great
guy to hang out with. Everyone felt fulfilled with
newfound knowledge about the dark side of San Francisco,
a side of San Francisco that most people are either
unaware of or are too afraid to discover.
As we departed, Shannon
blasted some old disco tunes in her "Ectoplasmobile"
driving like a bat outta hell and driving Tim, in
the backseat, nuts. I, again experience the G-Force
and look at Shannon and tell her, "yeah girl,
whip it real good!" As we sped down the streets
of San Francisco, Shannon said, "would you
two like to see some hookers?!" Uh, yeah. She
took us to the lovely and seedy Tenderloin district
of SF. There were plenty of sex shops and really
TALL ladies of ill repute standing by. What a treat.
I looked at Shannon and Tim and say...."Weren't
Donna and Athena supposed to be behind us following
us out of the City?" Shannon looks startled
and says..."oh crap, we must have lost them
while we were looking for the TALL hookers!"
Donna if you are
reading this, I hope you and Athena made it back
safely....sorry! There was a happy ending, Donna
and Athena did make it home safely. Donna's words:
"You're a dead man Paul!" Oops!
The Haight-Ashbury
A district of San Francisco, California,
USA named for the intersection of Haight
and Ashbury Streets, commonly known as The
Haight. The Haight-Ashbury generally encompasses
the neighborhood surrounding Haight street,
bounded by Stanyan Street and Golden Gate
Park on the West, Oak Street and the Golden
Gate Park Panhandle on the North, Baker
Street and Buena Vista Park to the East,
and Frederick Street and Ashbury Heights
and Cole Valley neighborhoods to the South.
The district is famous for its role as
a center of the 1960s hippie movement, a
post-runner and closely associated offshoot
of the Beat generation or beat movement,
whose initiated and "beatific"
youth swarmed San Francisco's "in"
North Beach neighborhood two to eight years
before the "Summer of Love" in
1967. Many of those who could not find space
to live in San Franciscos northside found
the quaint, relatively cheap and underpopulated
Haight Ashbury irresistible. The 60's era
and modern American counter culture has
been synonymous with San Francisco and the
upper Haight neighborhood ever since.
The Haight Ashbury's elaborately detailed
19th-century multi-story wooden houses became
a haven for hippies during the 1960s, due
to the availability of cheap rooms and vacant
properties for rent or sale in the district.
The bohemian subculture that subsequently
flourished there took root, and to a great
extent, has remained to this day.
San Francisco and the Haight gained a reputation
as the center of illegal drug culture and
rock and roll lifestyles soon after, especially
with the use of marijuana and LSD and other
hallucinogenic drugs. By 1967, the neighborhood's
fame chiefly rested on the fact that it
became the haven for a number of important
psychedelic rock performers and groups of
the mid-1960s. Acts like Jefferson Airplane,
the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin all lived
a short distance from the famous intersection.
They not only immortalized the scene in
song, but also knew many within the community
as friends and family.
|
For more on H.P.I.
Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern
California, go to their website at: http://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
