HPI Chronicles: Looking for Ghosts in Downtown Sacramento

By Shari Aresta

Before I get started with this story, I got an email update from Sean Gilleran of the Holbrooke Hotel: He says:
“Ruff and Ready was named after President Zack Taylor they suceeded in 1850 for 3 months and came back on the 4th of July. Room 14 and 15 were the Holbrooke company’s offices were the money was kept and that’s why they were guarded.” Sean is referring to my article about the very haunted Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley and the small town that is close by called Ruff and Ready and how that town got it’s name. Thanks Sean! Now, let’s move on with my story, that occurred this Saturday – March 22, 2008.

The air is fresh, warm and crispy and I am out mowing my lawn. There is a lot of cleaning around the house that I need to do and it’s time to put my ghost hunting to the side. What a beautiful day, no ghostly worries and I can live a life of normalcy for this one gorgeous Spring day. So, I thought. My paranormal cell phone is ringing and on the line is a family in Tennessee. They recently moved into their new home and all kinds of entities have made their presence known. A woman and a child have appeared before the family. A strange dark man has been seen walking through their house. Another ghostly phantom of a man peers at them from outside, through their bedroom windows. There are series of knockings on the walls, things get thrown around and they are terrified. I have been helping this family go through their torment for the past week and a half, I have also been assisting a New York family that may fly me over to bless their home and another family that doesn’t want to be identified. The New York family believes that their daughter is demon possessed and the daughter said that she recently seen the demon. She said he was all black, it appeared he had horns and he definitely had red eyes. Demons are deceivers and they can appear in many forms. They can even look angelic and if we all believe that they were once angels, then this would be their actual true appearance. Demons can feed off our fears and look frightening, it’s a scare tactic that they use. If the girl in New York really saw this ominous figure, it was most likely a deceiving image and not the true image of the demon. The other family is being terrorized by angry ghosts and a demon. They call the demon the Dark One. It seems that the entities walk through the walls. Then they continue to walk towards the occupants of the house and then fade into nothingness. As a demonologist, the New York family wants me to do the actual blessing of their home. I have made other suggestions to them, but they persist they want me to do the blessing. The family that doesn’t want to be identified and the family in Tennessee have taken my suggestion of bringing in a Baptist congregation into their home, to sing spiritual songs inside the premises of their home. I have studied some success rates of eradicating evil from homes by bringing in a Baptist congregation into the home vs bringing in a Catholic priest. I am Catholic and I would rather have a Baptist congregation in my home than a priest any day. Why? Because a Baptist congregation singing their spiritual songs will bring so much positive energy into a home, that anything that is harboring evil or negative energy will dismiss itself from the home. It’s like a rocker walking into a rap concert, the music is so disturbing to the rocker, he is forced to leave the concert. Same thing with positive energy vs. negative energy. If you ever witnessed the spiritual music of a Baptist church, the whole church resonates with a purity that is unbelievable. So, I am looking forward to the results since these two families are trying the Baptist congregation route. Godspeed to them all and I am here for them, in case they need further guidance.

Enter the Demon Warriors. Imagine a home that is being terrorized by a demonic force that is so powerful, the family can’t even stay in their own home. Right now, I have two demonologists-in-training. I have Chris Grissom, HPI lead investigator and I have Shannon McCabe – President of HPI. When I have them fully trained and if you have a demonic possessed home, imagine a knock on the door. You open it and there are 3 people at your doorstep. Chris and I are wearing all black suits, sunglasses, large silver crucifixes around our necks, communication headpieces and carrying black bibles. Shannon is wearing a black skirt, silver crucifix around her neck and is also carrying a black bible with a totem bag filled with bottled holy water. Yes, enter the Demon Warriors, preparing for battle! Well, I admit that sounds somewhat far-fetched, but to do battle with a dark entity, you must be fearless and maybe it is necessary for us to look fearless. Ancient gladiators and ancient warriors donned wolf masks or jaguar skinned masks to look fierce in battle. It was a shock effect on their opponents. Remember the movie Braveheart? Remember the blue facial war paint that Mel Gibson wore? Perhaps when we truly face demonic forces, let me reiterate again, we must also prepare to appear fearless. Demons have intellect, they can perceive our image. Perhaps they can also harbor fear when faced with forces that represent the light. We can only see.

After I talked with the family in Tennessee, I started cleaning around the house, still thinking that my day would be somewhat normal. The paranormal cell phone rings again and it’s Anah Denzeiberg, HPI paranormal investigator from Oakland. Conversation went like this. Anah: “Hey, Paul, I’m in the area, you want to hang out?” Paul: “Sure Anah, what did you have in mind?” Anah: “Let’s scout something out, I will be over in 40 minutes!” Well, there goes my life of normalcy, it was time to ghost hunt again. Let me go over my huge list of places to scout out for possible haunting activities. I created this list from everyone who reads my paranormal articles, they want me to check out this and check out that. When Anah arrives, she hops in my car and we head out. She asks what we will be scouting out. I tell her several places in downtown Sacramento. Here is a list of the places we went and our discoveries.

THE ELEMENTAL OF THE ELK’S TEMPLE:
Elk Lodge #6 – Elk’s Temple: Received an email from an unknown source that claims he is a member of the Elk’s Lodge. He said that he was on the 10th floor and he saw what appeared to be a tiny human that seemed to be on fire, it was flying down the hallway of the 10th floor and went out an open window. This happened in 1972. Anah and I, interviewed Dahlia Lutter who works as a waitress of McCormick & Schmicks Fresh Seafood Restaurant that is on the first floor of this old skyscraper. I asked her if she has heard any rumors that this building may be haunted. She told me that she hasn’t heard any stories, but that I should come back later and ask some of the employees that work here late at night. I was unable to enter the 10th floor and the Elk’s Lodge was closed to the public. This was an unsuccessful scouting mission and my interview with the waitress and later with the bartender was unfruitful. If there was a small creature of fire on the 10th Floor, could this have been a rare elemental, that somehow has transported itself from some European country to America, maybe brought over by an Elk’s Lodge member? Finding: One photograph displays strange light anomaly in the lobby of this building.

STRANGE ACTIVITIES AT SACRAMENTO PUBLIC LIBRARY:
Sacramento Public Library, Sacramento Room. This special collections area opened on the second floor of the central library in April 1995. The staff can hear sounds like Mylar rustling or someone shelving books. Two witnesses have seen and heard one of the glass doors close by itself. According to The Shadowlands website, “One employee working in the office a little before 7 a.m. heard the wooden shutters on the door leading into the copy machine area rattle. Thinking it was a custodian entering, he initially paid it no mind until he realized he had not heard the front door, which was locked, open.” Needless to say, no custodian had been there. I tried to get some EVP readings outside of the library, but after checking my recorder, I didn’t obtain any good evidence. Unfortunately, the library was closed.

OLD LADY SPECTRE OF K STREET RECORD SHOP:
K Street Mall Record Shop: This record store is now closed. Very unfortunate for Anah and I. In the 80s, I came to this record shop and sold the owner a huge collection of my 45s and record albums. Yes, I gave up my Pink Floyd The Wall, Michael Jackson Thriller and Santana Abraxas records to this store. The story goes, that a woman in Victorian dress will make her appearance known if you are making too much noise in the store. Once there was a client that was making a disturbance and she appeared in front of the client and told him to keep the noise down. This old lady phantom resides in the basement of the store. Now that the store is closed, she is probably getting a lot of rest.

POLTERGEIST ACTIVITY IN EVANGELINES?
Evangelines in Old Sacramento. Interviewed an employee named Donald Peat, he says that in the costume room on the 2nd floor and in the basement things are constantly moved around. The lights flicker on and off and there are strange noises that come out of these rooms. Anah and I, roamed around the store and besides all of the cool costumes that we saw, we didn’t run into any ghosts. The email that I received that told me that Evangeline’s was haunted, said it was a mischievous poltergeist.

After walking around downtown Sacramento all day, looking for ghosts, we finally threw in the towel and headed back to my place to have a nice dinner, relax and watch a good angelic/demonic movie called Gabriel. After the movie, I remembered I didn’t check my mailbox and I went to check to see if I had any mail and I found a package, inside the package was three magazines, they were: The History Channel Magazine 4/08, Wild West 2/08 and Piq #1 4/08. Certain sections of these magazines were flagged. The note read…”Paul, read the areas that are marked, these places sound like good places to check for paranormal activity.” Ahhh…more tips. I guess, I will never run out of places to investigate.

Well, as I finish up this article, my cellular hotline rings again, the time is 2:26 am. What the? Who is calling me at this late hour? Seeing that it is a 209 area code, I figure it’s my crazy friend in Stockton that just got done dancing and partying. I ask…”ahh..what are you doing watching a movie now?” The caller says: “do I know you?” Paul: “Well, you called me.” Caller: “Is this the paranormal hotline?” Paul: Oh, you read one of my articles. I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. The caller is Alyssa Stafford, she just finished reading my article on the Martinez House in Sacramento, she said she went by the house and smelled a strange cologne smell. She thought that was very odd and was quite surprised that in my article, I mention the cologne smell. As we got to talking, she told me that when she was 16 years old, she received an old Ouija Board that her mother bought from a thrift store. She couldn’t wait to use it and invited her friend Cat over to her home, so they could utilize the board and try to summon up a spirit. They played around with the Ouija Board for awhile and nothing was happening. Then all of a sudden, things did start happening. Cat and Alyssa both got teary eyed at the same time and felt a feeling of sadness. The atmosphere of the room felt heavy. They both felt like they went into a time warp. When they looked at the time, it was 12:15am. It seemed like they were only playing on the Ouija Board for a short while, but somehow there was some time loss. They lost 3 hours of time. After they put up the Ouija Board, Alyssa felt a bizarre dark mood come over her. Other times when they played the Ouija Board, the board, the board would spell out Satan. After this happened a few times, it was time to put up the Ouija Board. She still has the Ouija Board, but will not pull it out to play with it anymore. I advise her, not to ever play with it again.

No wonder everyone at my real job calls me ‘Spooky’, my whole life is becoming an X-File reality. It’s the company I keep, the places I visit, even my phone calls. The paranormal is part of my life now and it will always be waiting for me.