The Para-Adventure

Paquita Estrada, New HPI Paranormal Investigator/Psychic

I set up a scouting mission for Whiskeytown in Redding for June 7, 2008, Saturday. Guess what happens? Our guide calls me the day before and says she has to cancel due to a family emergency. Oh my! I have 12 scouts planning to head up to Redding for an overnighter after we investigate Whiskeytown. The overnighter would be at a private residence. I am at work when I get this message and I cannot contact the scouts from my work. I desperately call Shannon ‘Ms. Macabre’ McCabe – President of HPI, Donna Reynolds and Jennifer Baca to send out an emergency email to the scouts that the scouting mission has been canceled. Yes! It’s canceled, but a good organizer, a good ghost hunter will not let his people down. I had a Plan B.

I do a lot of preliminaries, where I establish contact with the owners of various haunted establishments. I did a preliminary investigation of Volcano. I made some great contacts and those contacts are ready to have HPI scouting missions at their establishment. I call them all and let them know about my Plan B of bringing some scouts to investigate. They are okay with it.

I gather my scouts, they are: Abigail Glaster, Julie Matta, Carrina Hanson, Michele Stump/Core Member/Researcher & Historian, Brittany Sellers, Gary Matta. We also have para-seekers Barbara Rubis-Johnson from Ceres, Dave Hirschman from Ceres and Eileen Verttulst from Modesto. They are with Central Valley Paranormal Investigations. Three more scouts who don’t want to be identified join the party that are connected to Julie, Brittany & Gary. We are using 6 cars to convoy to various locations starting from my house at 9am in the morning. I lead the convoy with my walking GPS system/guide named Carrina in the passenger seat, with Michele Stump kicking back in the back seat. Getting to Volcano can be tricky, because there are a few fork roads and no road signs. Our first stop is the fabulous Volcano Union Inn and the lovely Laurie Lockhart gave my scouts a briefing of the activity of her hotel. Ever since Laurie discovered an old Civil War shirt hidden inside a wall, there has been some unusual activity. We analyze the tattered Civil War Shirt and discover it reads ‘Govt Special’ and the word ‘Drab’ is also on it. This hotel has many strange things occurring within its walls. Michael Vasquez who frequents this establishment discusses how he placed his shoes by the stairwell and then when he returned, the shoes found their way into one of the rooms. There was no one around to move his shoes. He was more upset having to walk home from the hotel in his socks, than having missing shoes. Other stories about this hotel, is when a guest from Placerville stayed at the hotel and she heard boots clamping around in the hallway. She makes claim as a sensitive and felt that her presence was stirring up ghostly energy. Before she knew it she saw a Civil War soldier walk past the French balcony door 4 times. Other times guests heard sneezing and again there is nothing around to cause the sneezing sounds. While we were doing our investigation the distinct smell of cigar smoke resonated in the Limon Room. As fast as the smell came, it disappeared. Many other clients have smelled the same cigar smoke from this area. The lights will dim off and on or become brighter by themselves. When we left the hotel, the electricity went out. If you ever come to Volcano, make sure to eat in their patio restaurant, there food is tremendously good! I had one of the best cheeseburgers ever. The thick cheese melted over my hamburger tantalized my tastebuds. While I was eating my big burger, I thought in my head…”don’t bother me, I’m eating”. Of course, I became very protective over my scrumptious French fries too. Kudos to head chef Chris Chastain!

Before, I move on with my article, check out some of the pictures from this scouting mission at:
http://ghosts.meetup.com/231/photos/?photoAlbumId=371581&photoId=4386911

Also special note: The ghosthunting convoy were equipped with walkie talkies in each car, provided by Dave. The walkie talkies were essential in keep track with the convoy. There was a few times where I had to pull over and allow 1 or 2 cars that were part of the convoy to catch up.

Our next stop was the Volcano Methodist and Catholic cemeteries. Equipment my scouts were using were video cameras, digital cameras, EMF Readers, temperature gauges, digital audio recorders. I explained to my scouts the importance of checking out areas on a solo basis, eliminating needless noise for EVPs. It’s not good trying to get EVPs with a clump of people causing audio interference with the sounds of walking and talking. Also when trying to obtain EVPs, say a quick question like…”is there anyone here?” Wait a while. Give the entity a chance to speak back to you.

While in Volcano, talked with a lady on the street named Lorraine Taylor who told me that she recently went to Preston Castle and was checking out the 1st doctor’s quarters. As she turned towards the main hall, she saw a white mist swoop by.

Before we left Volcano, we did another stop at St. George Hotel and the ruins of Volcano. I had them do more EVP work and seek some photographic evidence.

Finally we were convoying back down the road, our next stop was Imperial Hotel in Amador City. The owner Mary Ann McCamant allowed us to go into the cellar and investigate the garden and first floor of the hotel. Behind the hotel is a very old cemetery that we also investigated. We obtained many orb pictures at all locations that we investigated this day.

Our next stop was Antiques (store) in Drytown, owned by Charles Dunklee. 3 miles up the road the Rancheria Massacre took place. The year was 1855. 12 bandits rode into town killing many of the townspeople. The bandits burned down the hotel and murdered a husband and wife. They took the child from the husband and wife and threw the baby over the balcony. Drytown has had its share of tragedy. The Rancheria Bandidos finally met their fate when they were captured, tried and convicted for their horrendous crimes. Charles tells me that he has heard walking from the back door of his store to the front door. When he investigated, there was no one there. Julie Matta did some EVP work in this store. Guess what kind of EVPs she acquired? She recorded the sounds of Celtic music, the sounds of wind chimes, old Irish tunes and the sounds of dancing bells, as if the bells were placed on someone’s ankle. Many of us were in this old antique store and none of us heard any music at all! There was no music, but yet on her recorder she is playing back music that sounds like something from our distant past. Music that touches on Celtic and music that touches on Native American Indian.

As we left Drytown, our next stop was Ione. We stopped at the Ione Hotel and Mahmood Ghani, the owner of the hotel showed me a fantastic photograph of a full body apparition taken at his hotel. The apparation is wearing an old time 1800s style suit and the face in the photograph has a beard. He also shows me a certificate he received from Nancy Bradley, certifying that his hotel is haunted. Mahmood allows us to investigate his hotel and we get all kinds of orb pictures throughout the hotel. He tells me that one of his guests at the hotel, told him that he was tapped on the shoulder when he was asleep. The tapping came from an unknown source. Tragedy fell upon this hotel, when a fire took place and two children were consumed by the fire. The mother of Irish background, yelled in desperation the names of her children. Guests of this hotel, on certain nights still hear the mother yelling for her children.

After all this investigating, the sun has made us tired and we were ready to head home. Our final and last stop was a private residence in Elk Grove. The occupants of this home turned off all the lights and the photographs analyzed this night were photographs of designer orbs and faint orbs. Carrina took a picture of what looked like a moving orb. The scouts spent the night at this haunted residence. After their investigation, some scouts actually put up tents in the living room. Some laid out their sleeping bags or found a place on one of the four couches. Some scouts that had a hard time sleeping enjoyed a horror movie marathon watching movies like The Eye, Venom, Mosquito Man, The Killing of John Lennon, the best of Sci Fi Channel’s Ghosthunters with an assortment of beverages and snacks to hold them over during a full night at a haunted home. For the residence haunting investigation we brought along my two ghosthunting dogs Pika and HPI, Michele Stump brought over her Chijuajua. Only Pika was seeing things that we couldn’t see and would stop and bark at areas of the house where there was nothing. After ending this adventure I asked my scouts if they had a good time. They did. I ended this adventure by crashing out while listening to the theme from the movie Inside Man…’Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint’.

I have some exciting news about Ghost Girls and Celebrity Pyschic Nancy Bradley, that can be found at this link:
http://forums.jazmaonline.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=643

If you have time, read Molly Baumann’s interesting article on Demonology, found at this link:
http://forums.jazmaonline.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=649