The Scouting Mission to Washington, CA

Paul Dale Roberts & his Sister Sharon Circa 1966

Let’s take a roll call, the ghosthunters-in-training that became part of the Washington Scouting Party are as follows: David Mace, Karen Mace, Eileen Verttulst, Donna Jackson, Lia LaBella, Melody White, Chantal Apodaca, Helen Dennis, Susan Regney, Dianne Davis, Tammy Straling, Jeannette Lehman, Kathryn Richardson, Annie Rolls, Leatherface, Tony Gold, Flex, Dave Hirschman, Barbara Rubis-Johnson, Tom, Kathy, Mike Moreno, Brenda Baskerville, Barbara from Paso Robles.

Leading this scouting mission is no other than I….Paul Dale Roberts. Film crew Off-the-Hook TV that has been involved with TV shows such as LA Ink, Jackass & MTV were here in Washington. The crew to Off-the-Hook TV: Leatherface, Tony Gold and Flex were eager to discover what we will find in our investigations and they will be documenting this event.

I picked up some of my scouts at Starbucks in downtown Sacramento and we headed up 80 towards Ca 49/20 to Washington. Of course, some of my scouts got lost. I finally rounded everyone and the exploring was ready to commence. Toby Dixon (Washington Historian) gave us the grand tour of Washington. She showed us a picture of a full body apparition of a little girl standing next to a living little girl at the Washington School grounds. The first place we scouted out was the school yard. Armed with temperature gauges, digital audio recorders, video recorders, 1 sound enhancer/recorder, digital cameras and EMF readers we did a full sweep of the school. Afterwards we went to the Washington cemetery for another scouting investigation. Suzanne Ganare & Mark Womack (residents of Washington) were able to confirm and collaborate on to Toby’s ghostly stories. Our next guide was Washington resident Jade Herron, who works as a chef at the Washington Hotel.

Jade Herron took us on a long hike to the Ice House. The Ice House is called the ‘ice house’, because even on the hottest days, the house is as cold as ice. As I walked into this house, it was true, the house is ice cold. A multitude of cold spots? This house is supposed to be one of the most haunted houses in Washington, we actually received an inside tour. The townsfolk say that a family of apparitions are seen sometimes on the balcony, a man & woman have been seen embracing and dancing on the balcony. A little boy that the townsfolk think has the name of Pete with another little girl have also been seen on the balcony. The one entity that seems to harbor negative energy is a male apparition in an orange shirt sharpening a knife. The house is now abandoned. One scout felt oppressed when walking into the home. Another scout said she felt like she was touched on the arm and another scout felt lightheaded. It is believed that the new structure of this home is built on top of an older structure that dates back to the 1800s.

There was one area of the house, that some of the scouts felt could be vortex activity. A couple of scouts thought they saw mist in this vortex activity. I will let you know what I experienced at the vortex activity. I placed my hand in the area of the vortex and felt electrical static, some of the other scouts felt the same thing. A scout felt she took a picture of an orb where the vortex was, when checking the picture and rechecking to see the location of where the picture was taken, it was discovered that the orb was actually a metallic light socket. The unusual photograph was debunked after I ran up the stairs to measure up the photograph to the actual area where the picture was taken. As a paranormal investigator, I can only record what my scouts feel. My scouts can relate their experiences to me, but I cannot confirm their experiences and these type of experiences cannot be used as evidence of the paranormal. Even though I can tell you I felt an electrical static around my hand at the so-called vortex area, this is only my statement of what I felt, this is not evidence. Another story about this house that I can’t verify, but various locals believe it to be true is that a miner killed a family at this residence. He killed a man and woman that were husband and wife and their two children.

After we left the Ice House, we walked down the road for half a mile to the area where the Tommyknockers are heard clinging onto rocks. Mike Moreno, one of my scouts did some research on the Tommyknockers and discovered that it originates from the Irish immigrant miners who claim they brought over some leprechauns. The Tommyknockers are regarded as either leprechauns or elementals. They are known to make picking noises against the rocks to either warn the miners when there was a possible cave in, or they could be mischievous elementals that cause mine disasters. The Tommyknockers are known to have a green glow that surrounds their bodies.

After this investigation, it was time to set up the séances. We were very fortunate because we met Lil’ Debbie (who is affectionately called the Mayor of Washington) and we convoyed in our cars to Lil’ Debbie’s home that is built over a mine shaft. She told us that she has a lot of activity at her home, things move around, strange knockings occur, etc. We conducted a séance in her home. At one time the guitar on the wall fell from the wall, when I asked for some type of sign. The fire from the candle flickered around here and there, when asked to move side-to-side. This séance is inconclusive, because there was no 2nd witness of the guitar falling on it’s own accord. The flickering of the fire on the candle could have occurred because of a breeze that may have been entering the home from outside. We left this home and headed back to the Washington Hotel. Most of the scouts were checked in Rooms 11, 9, 4 and 12. Since there were so many of us, I broke up the scouts into 3 teams. My team was called Team Alpha. Kathy lead Team Beta and Tammy Straling lead Team Charlie. Each team member was equipped with walkie talkies. There would be one videographer for each team. We would spend up to 30 minutes in séance sessions in each room and then rotate. If one team had activity, they would go over their 30 minute period and continue with the seance. Using candles, hedge of protection prayers and closing prayers, we attempted to summon up paranormal activity to record scientifically. Team Beta received results in Room 4. David Mace with sound enhancer/recorder received an EVP in real time that said: “Me Neither”, when a certain question was asked. The voice sounded like a woman’s voice. The entity Alma is supposed to stay in Room 4. She was known to wear Victorian garb that consisted of a skirt and blue blouse. She usually wore her hair up and was known to check into the hotel on occasions and enjoyed staying in Room 4. Tammy felt she was searching for her long lost lover. Some of the scouts in the séance session in Room 4 felt their faces touched. When the second round of séance sessions commenced, I had a couple of people stand off from the séance circle to take digital photographs. In one set of pictures, a distinct shadow is seen, when the second picture was taken, the strange shadow was gone. There were many orb pictures taken at the local cemetery and at the hotel. Some of the history of the hotel is that in Room 9, Wyatt Earp slept there. Josephine (Wyatt Earp’s 2nd wife) was known to frequent the hotel and it is claimed that she owned a mine.

We did have a bit of drama this night. We had to conduct a ‘search and rescue’ team to locate Barbara who wondered off to the cemetery by herself. After scaring everyone in the scouting party, Barbara promised never to wander off by herself, unless she notifies someone where she is going and preferably would be with another scout.

After this investigation concluded, it was discovered that David Mace also received another EVP in which his first name was called twice by the female entity of Room 4.

This was a long and somewhat tiresome scouting mission, but it was well-worth the efforts, especially when David recorded the clear and concise EVP responses. We finalized the investigation by setting our alarms to 3am to see if we can hear the ghostly children playing at the creek or the sounds of the Tommyknockers. At 3am we heard no sounds of a paranormal nature from the creek area, we could only hear running water from the creek. I went back to my shared room with Barbara and Kathryn and fell asleep in our very comfortable room. Room 14. Don’t worry, I slept on the floor! Let’s not get any rumors started!

Now before I end this article. I would like to discuss an email I received. A man from Denver, Colorado claims he saw a UFO hover over a library in Denver. A light beam (maybe a scanner?) from the UFO was over the library for several minutes. It was 4:07am. The UFO darted rapidly into the night skies. As he drove off startled, he ran a stop sign. The police pulled him over and he related his UFO story to the policeman. The policeman laughed at him and told him that he was getting a ticket for a ‘Hollywood Stop’. He got the ticket and I told him to fight the ticket, because when the policeman said it was a ‘Hollywood Stop’, it is still a stop and to bring a Webster’s dictionary to the courthouse and read the definition of stop to the DA. He did exactly that and beat the ticket. By the admission of the policeman, he made a stop, but called it a Hollywood Stop. My new friend from Denver was grateful. He asked what I thought the UFO was doing. I believe the UFO with a high tech scanning device was scanning the books in this library. If this is what was occurring, could our extraterrestrials friends also be scanning all of the books in the Library of Congress and all of the libraries in the world? Could this mean that the Library of Alexandria still exists, because ancient astronauts scanned all of the scrolls from this library? But, just in case the scrolls from this lost library were not scanned…did you know that everything contained in this library still exists? Yes, it exists in ‘light form’. Anything we see is reflecting off light. Light is energy. When the scrolls were created and later read, it was reflecting light and that light of the past still exists. Of course time travel is another way to see the lost collection of the Library of Alexandria. The Library of Alexandria may be lost to us, but it is not lost in the realms of science.

I spent last night listening to the rest of my recordings in room 4. It appears there are a lot more EVPs that were captured. I am in the process of trying to clear them up so I can post the best ones. Many of them I also heard while the séance was in progress, but I wasn’t sure. There are a few that seem quite amazing but I am not completely convinced that they were not simply voices from the bar below. Here is a list of what I have so far.

1. During a period of silence: “Mommy?”. (At first I couldn’t make it out but after changing the pitch slightly it became very clear.
2. After the question was asked: What’s your name, very faintly you can hear possibly “Amy”
3. Our leader says: If you would like to speak to these ladies through me you can” a faint whisper is heard saying “I Like”.
4 A male voice says “Hi.” It is very clear but I am not sure if it is something from the bar.
5 When the question is asked “Do you know what year it is, a male voice says “1949″.

I have others but they are closer th class “C” EVPs. It would be interesting to see what if any history connects to these. The owner’s wife told me she was expecting us to find someone else beside Alma in room 4????

Dave Mace

I’ll post some of these when I can…

Correction:
In my article “Scouting Mission to Washington”, I mentioned that Karen Mace was the group leader of Team Beta, when in fact it was Kathy. Kathy conducted the seance in Room 4, that enticed an entity to speak. A great EVP was recorded from this seance. Kathy did so well, that I had her conduct the very next seance for all of the scouts.Hi Paul,

here’s those websites where I found the info I mentioned at the Washington
Scouting Mission.
sorry for the mixup; but I had quickly read these sites and I guess I
focused on the Irish/Leprechaun connection there a little too much….these
guys (Tommyknockers) are actually of Cornish origin ; instead of Irish ;
hopefully that doesn’t offend too many people out there in the world….you
can put a correction in your next article if that’s the best way to handle
this…..I’ll leave that up to you.
Well ; take care and thanks for leading us ; it was an awesome
experience……Too bad we didn’t get to see you guys before you left–We
got out of there about 11-ish ; then went to Nevada City and spent the day
there shopping and Wine-tasting….it was FUN