Mary Jo Fister
A paranormal investigation in Central Florida.
Recently, it was my pleasure to be a co-presenter with Mary Jo Fister and Greg Bush from Offthetrails Paranormal Investigations (OPI) at the Orlando Public Library. That evening I then joined them for a ghost hunt at Paula Thompsons’ Here Be Dragons Bookshoppe in Winter Garden. What a great adventure with lots of activity.
Greg Bush
Below you will find the OPI posting about that event. And below that you see some of my comments about my own experiences:
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“When our friend Doug Dillon suggested Here Be Dragons as an investigation site, he told us the owner had been experiencing activity. Nobody was being hurt, but she would find books stacked on the floor when she opened in the morning, and they weren’t there when she closed in the evening! Books would sometimes fly off the shelves! We love books and reading, so the idea of spending time in the store really appealed to us!
“Paula, the owner, told us the activity had quieted some in recent months. Her daughter had refused to stay in the shop alone. The store had been a thrift shop and children’s clothing store before Paula took over the space. Originally, it was Western Union, and the sliding metal door and barred window in the back of the store are the reminders.
“Angel and I did our baseline sweeps. We found nothing unusual. There were spikes near the fuse box, but we expected that! Doug’s books are carried there, and we checked those for residual energy, but found nothing. We set up our static night vision cameras with the monitors. We left the Mel Meters set up to catch any activity: one in the front and one in the back.
“While Greg and Doug snapped photos, Angel and Rob monitored the monitors, and I set up EVP sessions. I employed the camera, ovilus, spirit box, and flashlight! That flashlight is one of our favorite tools! Its magic was with us tonight! I started in the back of the store. The flashlight did nothing. The words “fact, word, and verbs” came through the ovilus. They seemed relevant to the space.
“Next, I started a spirit box session. It was very fruitful! A girl’s voice said ‘Pamela’. In answer to my question about throwing the books, we heard ‘No’ and ‘No one’ in a male voice. ‘I did ‘em’ was the answer to my query about standing the books on the floor. Another voice said “hip hop” for no apparent reason. When I asked, ‘What color is my shirt?’ responses were white, grey, and purple. In reality, my shirt was black. Remember that ghosts may not see in our spectrum! When I was ending the session, I asked if there was anything else anyone wanted to say. ‘Don’t give up!’ and ‘F – – – you!’ were my answers.
“I moved to the tiny alcove. The ovilus relayed the words “Lynn, focus, cloister, and Japanese” which seemed relevant, especially cloister. Japanese, however, had us baffled.
The book stack on the floor that fell lover
“My final spot was near the front of the store. This is where we had our best results! The ovilus relayed a laugh for some reason. Then the spirit box said ‘Can you say f – – – it?’ The ovilus then gave us the word “laugh.” Clearly, there was a joker with us. Suddenly, a pile of books behind me fell over. I had not bumped them! Paul laughed and said the place where I was sitting is the spot she had the paranormal books until just the other day! The flashlight was one, and I asked, ‘If someone is here and wants to turn this off, go ahead.’ The flashlight went off, and the conversation began!
“The ghost told us he is a Cuban boy, between the ages of 10 and 15. His name is Eric. He lived before 1950, and came to the US with friends. He told us he is in the shop alone. However, he may have been mistaken, or misleading us. Other voices came to us on the spirit box! However, he did admit to us, after a little prodding that it was he who stacked and threw the books. He came to Here Be Dragons in a case of books as an attachment haunting! He said he wanted people to know he was there. He confessed that he was lonely, and never left the shop.
“Paula agreed to say ‘hello’ and ‘good bye’ each day. She also told Eric she would tell some of her customers about him, and ask them to talk to him, too. Eric spoke to us for a very long time, much longer than most other ghosts! He told us he liked classical music, and Paula said she’d play that more often. The group of us spoke about books, and when Lemony Snicket came up, the ovilus said ‘twist.’ During the flashlight session, the ovilus said very little.
“When I asked, in a spirit box session, if he could see Doug, a voice through the spirit box replied, ‘I see ‘im.’ In answer to the question about my hair color, (blonde) voices said ‘purple and aqua!’ When I asked, ‘How many of us are here?’ The response was, ‘4 women and 3 men.’ Who weren’t they counting?
“We did several flashlight sessions with Eric. During one of those, there is unexplained music and a little girl said, ‘Mommy!’ Might it be his little sister?
“We still have questions about the store. Who might be the other voices? We wish Eric all the best, and hope he and Paula and the store’s customers continue to peacefully co-exist. We are glad Doug was able to be there! We will stop by the next time we are in the area!
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At one point in the investigation, I walked over to where the monitors were located for keeping track of any activity captured on the two TV cameras that had been set up. As I watched the monitor on the left, a pinpoint of light spiraled from deep in the store right up to the camera that was just behind me. It then spiraled backward the way it came. That all happened within a couple of seconds or even less.
While Mary Jo talked to the spirit named Eric, I sat on the floor about six feet behind her. All of a sudden, another pinpoint of light popped on and then off in my peripheral vision–to my right. It appeared in a bookcase, below the shelf where OPI has stationed one of their pieces of energy sensing equipment.
Click here to see the Here Be Dragons website.
To see the Offthetrails Paranormal Investigations website, click here.
To see the original posting of the Offthetrails posting and their photos, click here.
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