Written by Administrator Tuesday, November 17 2009
On my list of ghost locations, this week, I'll be covering a portion of Alcatraz as it's always has been a fascinating place of alleged hauntings, ghost stories and paranormal-happenings.
Located about 1.5 miles from the shores of San Francisco, California lays "The Rock" as it was often referred to as. The official-name is, of course, Alcatraz.
Alcatraz had served a few different purposes in its time(currently it's a museum) but it once took the role of being: a lighthouse, a military fortification during the Civil War, a military prison and most popularly a federal prison until 1963. It housed some of the most notorious-criminals of the time including: Al Capone, (the birdman of Alcatraz); Robert Franklin Stroud, Alvin Karpris, James "Whitey Bulger and George "Machine Gun" Kelly.
As with any maximum-security prison, death was present at times within the walls of The Rock, either from shankings, guard-attacks, escape-attempts, suicides, etc...and so begins the rumors of Haunted Alcatraz.
It's believed that Alcatraz contains many spirits that have once inhabited the prison, some feel that the spirits located within are not able to venture anywhere else being that the facility is located on an island, surrounded by water. I don't know whether this makes the haunts reported at Alcatraz any more credible or likely to happen, but it's a plausible theory.
During the day, Alcatraz is a popular tourist-attraction, filled with many people at any given business-hour, scouring through the prison, buying gifts at the gift-shop. However, at night, the atmosphere changes to a dark, stale, dingy facility of eeriness, not witnessed by many.
Visitors, guards and even inmates have reported seeing, hearing, sensing, feeling and smelling things that were unexplainable. For instance: Guards on duty would occasionally smell smoke with no source of fire, unexplainable cold-spots in just certain areas of the prison, some even seeing the ghosts of past prison personnel , inmates and even further back, during Alcatraz's military days, apparitions in military-uniform.
A few interesting ghost stories:
Warden Johnston's Experience: Warden Johnston was well, the warden of Alcatraz from 1934-1948. During a tour with a group of guests the warden and those accompanying him, witnessed unexplainable sobs near an area they were in. Soon after they had all felt a very cold breeze whisk past their group.
Cell14D: This cell is said to always be colder than any other cell, many believe that the cell is a huge hot-spot for spiritual-activity. One guard even reported that it could be 70-degrees outside, and cells nearest to Cell14D would be nearly as warm as the 70-degree outside weather, but that Cell14D required a jacket if you were in there long enough, usually the cell had a sudden intensity within it as well.
- A prisoner during the 1940's was holed up in Cell14D, who is rumored to have screamed throughout the night that something was in the cell with him, a creature, complete with evil, glowing eyes was killing him. Supposedly, the following morning the prisoner was found, in his cell, strangled to death. No one was ever held responsible. However, a guard the next day had accidently included the dead prisoner during a head-count with assumptions that he'd seen the prisoner in line, but only for a few short seconds.
The A, B and C cell-blocks: Guests and inmates have reported hearing sobbing, moaning and crying in the A and b cell-blocks, while in cell-block C a medium had allegedly contacted the disruptive-spirit known as Butcher. Indicated through prison-records, it's documented that an inmate murdered Abie Maldowitz, a well known mob hitman known as Butcher.
Written by Administrator Tuesday, November 10 2009
For decades the most popular ghost story to be told and retold in the Chicago-area is none other than that of Resurrection Mary. Mary as she is supposedly known as(however, her identity is really unknown. There are a few different rumors that detail who she might be).Anyway..."Mary" was a beautiful, blonde-hair, blued-eyed young women who attended the O'Henry Ballroom dance back in the 1930's(the O'Henry Ballroom is now known as the Willowbrook, located at 8900 Archer Avenue).
Legend states that she had gotten into an argument with her boyfriend, stormed off and began hitchhiking down Archer Avenue. Not long into her walk, she was hit and killed by an unknown-driver somewhere in-between the Willowbrook and the main-gates of Resurrection Cemetery. Ever since, Mary's spirit has made contact with numerous people and reportedly been seen standing on the side of the road along Archer Avenue in the white dress she wore the night of the dance waving people down and hitching a ride.
The first-account of contact with Mary after her death came from a Mr. Jerry Palus. His story is as followed: He seen and picked up a girl that waved him down near 47th and Mozart, he stated that they went dancing for the whole evening, but noted that she was quite cold to the touch. At the end of the night, Mary asked for a ride home, and of course Jerry agreed.
Mary supposedly lived near the Bridgeport Area of Chicago but said she'd like to go for a ride past Resurrection Cemetery again located at Archer Avenue on the way. As they approached the gates to the cemetery the young girl began acting very odd. She excitedly told Jerry to pull-over close to the cemetery, when she suddenly opened the door and made a dash towards the cemetery gates, telling Jerry not to follow her. Jerry states that before even reaching the gates the young-girl disappeared in plain sight of him. Jerry pulled himself together and realized that for the entire evening he had escorted a ghost to and from the dance.
Upon further investigation, Mr. Palus learned through young-Mary's mother that she had been long deceased. While at her house he had seen a picture of her in a frame and was convinced that that was the young-lady he was with on that strange-night.
Another interesting rumor surrounding Mary came to be in May of 1978. A couple (Shawn and Jerry) where driving along Archer Avenue when they saw a young -girl dart out in front of the vehicle the two were traveling in. Jerry yelled at Shawn "Watch out for the woman!" however, it was too late even with tires skidding along the road, they hit the young-girl with the right part of the cars bumper only to watch young-Mary cut right through the bumped and car and slowly vanished as they came to a stop. Nowhere to be found.
Of course, with any popular ghost-story, there are many other rumors of Resurrection Mary to be told. I may save the others for a different article.
Written by Administrator Monday, November 02 2009
If you typed in "Exorcism" in Google or any other popular search-engine, you'll find that there are many results linking to the Exorcism of Anneliese Michel. For those not in the know, The 2005 popular-film "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" as well as "Requiem" a German-film, were both based off of the events that took place in Anneliese Michel's life.
Anneliese Michel was born in Leiblfing, Bavaria, Germany, September 21, 1952. She was raised Catholic and was very devout to her religion and lead a normal life up until 1969. This is when she had experienced her first epileptic-attack and was soon after diagnosed with having grand-mal-epilepsy.
Not long after her diagnosis, while praying, she had stated that she heard voices telling her that she's damned, even worse she reported seeing evil (devilish) hallucinations. This became so common that by 1973 Anneliese she suffered from depression and was open to the option of suicide. Her behavior become very erratic and unpredictable. She began eating coal, tearing off her clothes and drinking her own-urine.
Not long after, she was admitted to a psychiatric-hospital which only worsened her condition, her depression and her bizarre-behavior. All attempts at medical-intervention had failed. Around this point, she begin to feel that her behavior, her condition was the result of demonic-possession and was then prescribed anti-psychotic drugs.
Anneliese suffered her third-seizure in the summer of 1970 and was prescribed anti-convulsants for the first time, however the drug had little-effect on her and stated that she seen "devil faces" at various times throughout the day. She felt that medicine was of no help at all to her, and was convinced that what she was dealing with was spiritual. Anneliese was then prescribed another anti-psychotic drug that had little to no effect on her.
At age 23, in 1975, two others(including Anneliese and her parents) felt that she was possessed by demons being that all psychiatric-treatments have failed and all treatment from this point forward solely relied on exorcisms as healing. Over the course of 10-months sixty-seven exorcism sessions were held. Usually resulting in 4 1-2 per week, with several lasting up to about 4 hours in length. All medical care was refused, and Anneliese refused food and stated that her death would be a form of atonement for other people's sins.
July 1st, 1976, Anneliese passed away in her sleep with the autopsy reporting that the cause of death resulted from dehydration and malnutrition, mostly due to 10 months of semi-starvation when the exorcisms were performed. After a lengthy-trail her parents and a priest were accused and found guilty of manslaughter and were given a light-term.
Below you'll find an actual recording of one of the exorcisms of Anneliese Michel. Whether her condition was caused by a mental-illness or actual demonic-possession we'll never know which is the case with anything dealing with the paranormal. The recording sounds extremely disturbing and resembles of nothing I've heard on this planet. Thoughts?
