Helen's Bridge - Asheville, NC

Now, as much as I despise being called a "Ghost Hunter" (as you all know), sometimes it's true. It truly is good to have a hobby and just geek out with your friends and do a little hobby time. Being serious investigators all the time can wear a team out. So if you're a team leader or founder of a group take them out for some honest fun once and awhile. That is what I did!

Why is it that in any urban legend or ghost story you only get a general description of where to go for the location? Of course, I only had a general idea as to how to get there and where it was since NO ONE ever posts directions to this sort of urban legend location.

Yeah well, in keeping with tradition...here is a map showing a general road in a general location, this may or may not be the actual location of Helen's Bridge.

(Just kidding! These are the actual directions to Helen's Bridge and the driving directions are posted below.)

The legend is that the Zealandia castle caught fire and a young woman lost her only child in the flames. Helen was so lost without her daughter she hung herself from a small stone bridge not far from the castle. Since then it is said that if you go to the bridge late at night, turn off your car, and call her name you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her. Dressed in a long gown, it is said that she may ask you if you have seen her daughter. If it so happens that you do see her your car will be unable to start for a while.

Ghost hunters, paranormal enthusiasts, and teenagers looking for a scare, have flocked to this site for many years. It is obvious that the local teens hang out here with the amounts of litter and trash that lay about and the amount of teens that came to explore while we were there. During the 1940’s there used to be many Indian burial locations and it is rumored that these graves were disturbed. Apparitions and orbs have been documented (ORBS!) and some people have even described being pushed, slapped, scratched, and kicked. It is very possible it is not Helen but another darker entity. Zealandia website owners ask that no one provoke the “spirits” that lurk on or near the bridge.

Being the sort of skeptic's that we are, provoking is our specialty. Don't get me wrong, we respect the dead but stories of slapping, hitting, and scratching, is too irresistible for us. An entity that is willing to do physical harm is not just a lonely spirit and we want evidence of that particular existence.

Look closely above our heads the rocks are shaped like a skull. We thought that was cool, (not paranormal)

We had two recorders running at the same time on opposite ends of the bridge we had been calling for Helen for about fifteen minutes when jokingly a member asked "have you seen my daughter?" This is the response we got. Click Here. We were not kicked, scratched, punched, etc. as we had hoped and expected. The woods are loaded with thorny vines so any scratches we did get was from the greenery.

So go and have fun my paranormal friends! Send us your pictures of Helen's Bridge here and be entered for your chance to win Season 1 of Ghost Adventures on DVD! (The pictures do not have to be paranormal in nature.) You can also be entered to win just by commenting on this post. The winners will be announced within one month of this post.

Please, tell us what you think and leave comment below. Remember to "like" us on facebook by following the link on the right. You can also follow us on twitter @WNCPRS as well. If you would like us to investigate your area, send us an email here.

EVPs from 05/28/2011

(NOTE: I had to delete the original post as to some sort of corruption. This is the original post just moved to a different location.)

Every once in a while I grab my team and we investigate abandoned cemeteries. Not because I believe that there are ghosts there but because it keeps us all on our researcher toes. I use cemeteries to train new researchers, test new devices, and keep the veteran researchers from becoming complacent during investigations. Practice makes perfect and when requests are slow to come in, this is what we do. We are not Ghost Hunters and never will be. We do not actively seek out “haunted” locations we are asked to come and investigate to try to explain what is happening. We are researchers and like every great researcher, we must keep up to date on the latest technology and practices. I do not begrudge anyone who does call themselves a ghost hunter. I respect what you do and I know for a fact, that without the hunters we wouldn’t know what to do with most of the equipment we have. I’m just saying that we do not seek out these locations normally.

With that said: Excerpt from the survey done in 2000 for this particular cemetery just to give you an idea as to how the place looked. Our night vision camera refused to behave so we have no photos but I will go back and take some daylight pictures and update this post as soon as I do.

Though the cemetery is still in use, it is in extremely poor condition, and many gravestones may soon be lost to neglect. At the time of the survey weeds, shrubs, and trees made it difficult to complete the work. Many gravestones are leaning, sunken, broken, deteriorating, or just plain missing. Several graves have only a funeral home marker (marked by the letter "F" to the left of the death date). There are many more graves in this cemetery than the survey shows if one includes the sunken graves, mounds, and the pile of fieldstones found near the back of the cemetery. The church building is still standing, but it appears to be abandoned.

I attempted to do the survey in rows to show possibly relationships, but the rows are very irregular. I started the survey AT THE ROAD and worked back through the cemetery. A date that appears to fall between the birth and death columns indicates that there was only one date on the stone, and I could not tell if it was a birth or death date.

The oldest date on a grave was that of Larence Morrow, whose birth date reads: ___ 24, 1835. His death date was unreadable.

The first EVP we obtained was two footsteps. I hated how these turned out upon upload to sound cloud. You may have to listen to it a couple times. The footsteps are faint but after you hear them, you can clearly hear our trainee say that he is now leaving. It did freak him out a bit but he hung in there.

The second one is a breath or a sigh, none of us were standing anywhere near the voice recorder as it was atop a gravestone alone.

Lastly, this one is the most difficult to hear once it was uploaded and is best heard with headphones. Again, it is barely above a whisper. We enhanced the audio only to make the volume louder; it is clearly audible without any enhancements but the upload completely distorts it. We believe it is saying, "I'm judging you," referring again to our trainee.

If anyone has any recommendations as to a better uploader please let us know! Please, tell us what you think and leave comment below. Remember to "like" us on facebook by following the link on the right. You can also follow us on twitter @WNCPRS as well. If you would like us to investigate your area, send us an email here.

http://snd.sc/l49xNA

Ghostly Pictures or Trick of Light?

It has been so long since I've been here it's almost as if I turned into a ghost! No, I haven't left or become extinct, I've just been horrendously busy with everyday life as I am sure you can understand. I have been meaning to post this for over a year now and just never got around to it. I promise to continue to keep this blog updated now that I am live and active on Twitter. You can follow me @WNCPRS for all things paranormal.

I know, I suck at life. Perhaps my afterlife will be better.

Anyway...

I received these pictures from Alison (a friend of mine) a while back and she asked me to look them over. She believed that she saw something in the reflection of the window panes. Unable to identify it she sent them to me for review.

In this picture, there is a reflection of a face and if you look closer a small shadowy figure to the right. Clearly, the face is not a likeness of the person taking the photo as you can see for yourself in the comparison. Looking at the frame, the face appears to be looking off to the right towards the cemetery located behind the photographer. The woman taking the picture is looking directly at the window frame to take the photo.

My skeptic side rejects the idea of the face being there almost immediately due to lighting, shadowing, and the fact that the old windows are wavy and not flat like our windows today, which would cause some interesting effects on a digital camera lens.

The shadow figure is odd considering the back of the building is inaccessible to people at this time. This also means I cannot get back there to see what could have possibly created the shadow.

Alison took a picture from almost the same angle (but not close enough) a few days later and the face does not appear nor does the shadowy figure. My believer side wants to say they captured something, perhaps a woman in mourning for someone in the cemetery. Unfortunately, my skeptic side prevails in this case, as I am unable to produce enough evidence to the contrary.

Please, tell us what you think and leave comment below. Remember to "like" us on Facebook by following the link on the right. You can also follow us on twitter @WNCPRS as well. If you would like us to investigate your area, you can send us an email here.

Changelings

Okay, so anything to do with small children happens to be my biggest fear. Think, "Children of the Corn". So last night being bored to tears and not being able to watch any of my normal ghostly shows Hubby and I put in Supernatural Season 3. The very first episode happened to be about changelings. Which, of course, made me wonder. Do they actually exist? The voices of small children can be heard at most haunted places without having any connection to children in its history. Is this the changeling? What is it? When has it been seen? Under what circumstances? Of course most of the idea of the changeling has been embellished for the television series. But isn't fiction based on some form of truth?

I set about my limited research. What I found from ever faithful "Wiki" was that a changeling is a creature found in folktales. Generally it can be described as the child of a fairy or troll that is able to take the place of the human child. Basically, the idea stems from the inability to define the sickness or deformities of afflicted children. The reason the child looked or acted the way they did was because they were the "changeling" and not the real human child.

As a parent of three small children, I believe that the idea could make sense to a mother who is helpless to do anything about her sick child. As a researcher I find it ridiculous that this would still occur today. However, it does and in many cases the mother has a mental illness. While I didn't answer my own questions just yet, perhaps one day I will be able to.

Please, tell us what you think and leave comment below. Remember to "like" us on facebook by following the link on the right. You can also follow us on twitter @WNCPRS as well. If you would like us to investigate your area, send us an email here.

Meet the Crew of WNCPRS

We have posted a little about ourselves so that you can get to know us! We all have different interests in life, we have very different backgrounds, but we all have at least one thing in common. That "thing" just happens to be our interest in the paranormal. Check out our Who are WNCPRS Members? page!

Happy New Year

2010 has finally come to an end. WNCPRS is looking forward to their future investigations for 2011. We hope to keep you posted and update in our adventures this year. All of us at WNCPRS wish you a happy New Year and we do hope all of your dreams come true this year. Please remember us as well and send in your investigation requests here. "Like" us on Facebook by using the link to the right and you can also follow us on Twitter @WNCPRS.

EMF (Electromagnetic Force)

Electromagnetism is one of four forces found in nature. It is the force that causes the interaction between electrically charged particles; the areas in which this happens are called electromagnetic fields. It is said that this is where paranormal phenomena occurs. Spirits can lock on to the electrical fields and draw energy from the area. Paranormal researchers can tell you that when they are experiencing something, hairs standing on end, touching, breathing on the neck, there is usually a high EMF reading associated.

I don’t necessarily believe that spirits appear every time there is a spike on a meter nor do I believe that there is a spike because a spirit is present. Remember, this is just my opinion so please don’t be offended if you use a meter. Yes, I have a meter. Yes, I use it. I use it as a tool to determine what ELSE could be causing the strange feelings we feel like our hair standing up on end. I do not use it as you see on the multitude of TV shows and say things like “look at that! There MUST be a ghost around me.” No. I am a researcher so I use tools to explain reactions not to determine them.

Most EMF detectors are scaled from 1 to 10. A reading of 4 and higher is said to be where the phenomena will occur. There is no scientific data to backup this theory as of yet. Some EMF detectors are scaled 1 to 5 thus removing the readings for basic household emissions. I have both types of EMF meters but again, I only use them as tools to define what I may be feeling.

Electromagnetism is responsible for practically all the phenomena encountered in daily life, with the exception of gravity, IE the ability to see light. High EMF levels can cause nausea, skin rashes, fatigue, headaches, forgetfulness, paranoia, and other more serious conditions like leukemia, brain tumors, birth defects, and cancer. Always be aware of where you are when determining high EMF readings and paranormal activity, under power lines for example will give a gigantic reading of 10 or higher!

There is a story about a local news station who called in an investigator about the strange happenings going on in their newsroom. People were seeing things, having a feeling of someone standing behind them, and even rashes. It was later determined with all of the electronics they have running in the newsroom alone and the EMF spikes being off the charts that they were not in fact haunted.

Please, tell us what you think and leave comment below. Remember to "like" us on facebook by following the link on the right. You can also follow us on twitter @WNCPRS as well. If you would like us to investigate your area, send us an email here.

Doppelgangers

The doppelganger is presumed to be the double of a living person that typically represents evil or darkness. Doppelgangers are said to bring bad luck, illness, or danger, if they show themselves to family and friends. Seeing your own generally means death. They are generally seen through your peripheral vision. (Not unlike the Shadow People mentioned here) Some doppelgangers will impersonate its double to play tricks on friends or insulting family or they even attempt to kill the original.

Sorry...I couldn't resist.

Generally speaking, or at least on a paranormal researcher stand point, there is not much information regarding the doppelganger. We have yet to find any reports of a doppelganger on any related websites for  investigation which leads us to believe that we are either looking in the wrong area for information or there is not much a researcher can do to prove or disprove the existence. One may conclude that we are speaking of paternal or fraternal twins. We are not. We are more interested in the reports of persons born as a single infant seeing themselves or friends noticing that the person “was two places at once.”

Studies have been completed to try to find out why the brain would perceive something so sinister. Using electromagnetic stimulation to a specific part in a patient’s brain caused the patient to feel another presence in the room; the patients would describe these “people” as faceless, silent, motionless, and with a body structure not unlike the patients own. Different effects were identified when the patients were placed in different positions and the stimulation increased. Other reports of doppelgangers may be due to a failure of that section of brain.

Please, tell us what you think and leave comment below. Remember to "like" us on facebook by following the link on the right. You can also follow us on twitter @WNCPRS as well. If you would like us to investigate your area, send us an email here.