unexplained

Ouija Boards – Making Contact With The ‘Other Side’

Ouija boards have been around for generations.

Some people say that the spirit boards are just harmless fun, something kids can use to scare each other.  After all, they ARE sold in Toys “R” Us stores amongst other places.

Other people claim that Ouija boards can open a portal and be used to speak with deceased relatives and other spirits.

And still other people are fearful of the boards, claiming that they should be destroyed immediately.  Opening a portal and attempting to communicate with the other side can have tremendous consequences in this world and the next.

But does it really work?  Can you actually speak with spirits through something like a Ouija board?

A Ouija board is simply an ordinary board with the words “yes” and “no,” drawings of the sun and the moon, the alphabet, the numbers zero through nine, and the word “good bye.”  Some versions also include “hello,” but that isn’t as common.  The people participating in the spirit board sit around the board and place a finger on a device known as a planchette.  Planchettes can be a variety of items from a plastic or wooden game piece to a shot glass or even a coin.  While everybody is touching the planchette, the spirit on the other side is supposed to move the planchette around the Ouija board in response to questions asked out loud.

A 1991 TV commercial for the Ouija board.

The biggest question is, is somebody in the group intentionally moving the planchette and acting as the “spirit”? Read more…

Hello, October!

My favorite month of the year has finally arrived.

Actually, it officially arrived while my girlfriend and I were on vacation in the north Georgia mountains.  On October first we came home and attended a carnival-themed party hosted by a very good friend of ours.  The next two days after that have been, well, a recovery period from the change in weather and wee bit of drinking that took place at said party.

But October is here!

It’s the time of cooler weather, leaves changing color and falling to the ground, earlier evenings, the absolute best month in college football, and of course, harvest time and All Hallows’ Eve.

Halloween.

I love Halloween.  From the spooky decorations to horror movies on TV to haunted houses to Halloween parties to trick-or-treating, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I’m addicted to watching all of the Halloween related shows on Travel Channel, that is, as long as it doesn’t conflict with watching my beloved Detroit Tigers in the MLB playoffs.

So, yes.  October is here.  This month is awesome.  The Tigers are playing right now in Game #4 of the ALDS against the Yankees.  New episodes of South Park and The Walking Dead resume this month.  Halloween is fantastic.

Great times for all.

Two More Unusual Recent Events

Two more unexplained events just occurred over the past couple of days.

For the first one, I was standing by my aquarium and feeding my fish when I heard a squeaky, plastic scraping plastic sound like when you insert a straw into a plastic lid.  Next to my fish tank is my trash can, and on the floor was a recent cup from a fast food place.  That cup was where the sound came from, and sure enough the straw had risen by a couple of inches.

I still don’t know how this occurred.

The air pressure, temperature and humidity in the room have been at a constant level all summer.  The floor was still.  Nothing was moving except for me putting food into the aquarium, and that was just a gentle, upper arm movement.

What’s interesting is that I’ve had a lot of fast food cups in my room at times (it’s a habit) under a wide variety of atmospheric conditions, and none of them have ever made a sound like what I heard the other night.  Throw in the fact that the straw was higher and is believed to have physically moved, and there you go. Read more…

An Interesting Experience Early This Morning

Have you ever had a dream experience that you could swear was so real that you intentionally woke yourself so it would end?

Perhaps from a nightmare?

That’s kind of what happened to me early this morning, but the strangest part is what happened after I woke up.

Lately I’ve been restless at night, often waking up several times before the alarm clock.  For the past few days I would wake up an hour before my alarm sounded, immediately fall back asleep, and during that last hour have the most vivid dreams of the night, many of which turned into a nightmare of one form or another.

But last night was different as I was from what I believe to be sound asleep all night.  That is, until 7 am when the experience began. Read more…

“Destination Truth” – Last Three Episodes

Season Three of Destination Truth ended last week with an episode showing the team first looking for spirits on the mysterious Easter Island and then looking for a large bird thought to be extinct.

Actually, the last three episodes followed the same pattern:  Each first half had the team hunting for ghosts with marginal, inconclusive results followed by proving a cryptozoological or extinct creature not to exist.

In other words, boring.  Just reality television that focuses on exotic locations and cultures.

So were those last three episodes a total waste?

No, certainly not.  Let’s take a look at the non-paranormal part of each episode and see what happened. Read more…

“Destination Truth” – The Jersey Devil and The Yeren

Last night’s new episode of Destination Truth brought the investigative team to New Jersey in the hunt for the legendary Jersey Devil.  The second half of the show had the team hunting for the Yeren in central China.

As a whole, this has been one of the better episodes for this half of the season, even if the team didn’t uncover any solid evidence into either creature’s proven existence.

The Jersey Devil:

The hunting in New Jersey for the Jersey Devil marked the third time that the team has searched for an American legend, the Swamp Ape in Florida and Thunderbird in Alaska being the previous two investigations.

The Jersey Devil

The legend of the Jersey Devil dates back to colonial times in America, but sightings and talk of the creature continues today. Read more…

“Destination Truth” – Ghosts of the Great Wall and the Israeli Mermaid

The latest episode of Destination Truth had the team investigating reports of paranormal activity along part of the Great Wall of China, and then hunting for evidence of a mermaid that is said to live along part of Israel’s coastline.

Ghosts of the Great Wall:

I don’t know if it was just me, but the first half of the episode was pretty weak.

The show started off with the usual reality show format, showing Josh and the gang heading off to China and doing all of the “fish out of water” jokes.  It’s interesting when the show goes to exotic locations, but it needs to focus more on the actual investigation and less about how different the location and people compare to back home in the States.

Great Wall of China

The problem with ghost hunting (as proven by all ghost hunting and paranormal shows on TV), is that you really need solid visual evidence to convince the skeptics that spirits can exist in that format.  Seeing mysterious shadows out of the corner of your eye and having feelings of being touched, grabbed or pushed make for some great storytelling, but that’s just it.  Stories.  Not concrete proof. Read more…

“Destination Truth” – Ghosts of Masada and The Leprechaun

Last night saw the return of the Season 3 episodes for Destination Truth.

For the first half of the episode, the investigative team headed to Israel and conducted paranormal research at Masada, a site of mass suicide during the First Roman-Jewish War.  The ancient fortress high on the steep plateau made it an isolated and protected spot on the edge of the Judean Desert.  After this, the episode had the team heading to western Ireland in search of the mythological leprechaun.  The team spent a night in a forest, hunting for the small but fast creatures.

As a whole, the investigation at Masada was much more entertaining than looking for leprechauns in Ireland.

Ghosts of Masada:

The investigation at Masada started out great as the team headed to Jerusalem, Israel.  It was fascinating seeing some of the sights, and of course, taking a stroll through one of the markets.  After Jerusalem, the team made a stop at the famous Dead Sea before proceeding to Masada. Read more…

One Week and Counting . . .

. . . until the premier of the second half of season three for Destination Truth.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t wait to see more adventurous episodes where the team explores exotic locations and searches for the truth regarding cryptozoology and the paranormal.

Last Fall’s mid-season finale, “The Bhutan Yeti,” was one of the best episodes of the show yet!  The trip to the Kingdom of Bhutan was awesome enough, but the evidence captured of the elusive Yeti was quite fascinating.  It seemed that enough evidence was collected to warrant a second and longer trip to that region and resuming the hunt.

The episode listing for the remaining season three episodes look pretty interesting.  A handful of them deal with paranormal topics, while the remainder hunt for cryptozoological creatures.  The only disappointment right now is that there are only six more episodes for the rest of this season.  An addictive show like this certainly deserves a much bigger budget and longer production schedule. Read more…

“Extreme Paranormal” – Another Ghost Show on TV

The other night saw the premier of Extreme Paranormal, yet another ghost hunting show to premier on a cable TV channel.  This one can be seen on A&E along with Paranormal State.

So what exactly is Extreme Paranormal?

Apart from the documentary-style of the supposedly investigative show, I would best classify Extreme Paranormal as a cross between Ghost Lab and Ghost Adventures.

The unique angle in this new show is the usage of an expert in the occult, and said person is there to basically help stir up paranormal activity.

Read more…