Boo's Bulletin
 | Volume II Issue 3 | Boo's Bulletin |
March 12, 2009
The Ghost of Abraham Lincoln
On Good Friday April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential balcony at Ford’s Theatre and shot President Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head. The President lingered for many hours before he passed away in the early morning.
Since his death on that April day, many people have reported seeing the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
A young clerk who was part of the Roosevelt White House claims to have seen the President sitting on a bed pulling off his boots.
Calvin Coolidge’s wife reported seeing the ghost of the President standing at a window in the Oval Office with his hands clasped behind his back, staring in deep contemplation at the battlefields just across the Potomac.
Queen Wilhelmina of the was spending the night at the White House when she heard a knock on her bedroom door. When she answered the door she was surprised to find ’s ghost standing in the hallway. She fainted and when she came to the ghost was gone.
Winston Churchill was surprised by Lincoln’s ghost at a most inopportune moment. Mr. Churchill was staying at the White House when he climbed out of the bathtub and walked into the adjoining bedroom naked except for his cigar. Upon seeing the ghost of the President standing by the fireplace he said “Good evening, Mr. President. You seem to have me at a disadvantage.” then smiled and disappeared.
There have also been reports that his ghost walks near his gravesite in Springfield, IL.
One other ghost story involving the President is that of his funeral train. It is reported that every year on the anniversary of the journey the funeral train is seen. It has been reported that there are two trains. One train is a line of black-draped cars and the second pulls the one flatbed car that carries the President’s body. Witnesses report that clocks and watches stop as the train passes by. They also report that in the area between the tracks the air is frigid cold, but on either side of the tracks the air is warm. Other reports are that the trains are manned by skeletons.
This is a faked photo of the ghost of the President standing behind Mary Todd Lincoln. The photo, taken by William Mumler, was caused by an accidental double exposure but it started a series of fake “spirit photographs”.
Why does the President linger in this world? Is it because his life was ended so violently? Or is the guilt he feels for the thousands of young men killed during the Civil War? We will never know, but can only hope that someday he finds the rest that he deserves.
Michele Hale
DirectorGadget Corner
Digital Ovilus
I was watching one of my paranormal investigating TV shows one night when they used a device called the Ovilus. The description was very interesting; “Able to create speech and phonetic speech from the immediate environment” as stated on their website. At first, I was amazed and very excited to get one and test it out. Once you sit down and think about it, how does this thing really work? Theories are all that drive us to using certain tools to investigate the paranormal. How in the world will this thing turn environmental energy into words? What is the “environmental energy” they are referring to? They claim not to have a random word generator or sweep function running on the device. Maybe they have some type of decent theory on how to pull words from the surrounding environment. It would be nice if they shared.
Be sure to read the online manual carefully, certain mentions may turn you off such as “for entertainment use only” but this is understandable for something that runs off of theories. In their defense, you have to protect yourself. They didn’t seem to be very careful when they wrote the disclaimer. The first line states “The Paranormal Puck is sold as an entertainment device only”, Ok, this is another device that Digital Dowsing LLC. Sells, but I’m reading about the Ovilus. All this considered it is a neat device.
What does this device claim to do? The Ovilus 1 has a speech mode where is says words included within the programmed dictionary, speak using phonemes, a mixed mode which uses both speech and phonemes modes together, An EMF mode, A “yes” “no” only mode where the device will respond with a “yes” or “no” depending on environmental changes, a level mode where the device will only show the energy levels without speaking, and a digital dowsing mode. This is a lot of stuff all in one small device. It would be nice to get one to test, but the price of $199.00 is a bit steep for me. Maybe if they subtract about 100 bucks, I would consider it. Check out http://www.digitaldowsing.com for other details on this product.Noah Carlise
Tech SpecialistLocal Haunts
Loveland’s Castle
We may not have Ireland's Leap Castle (viewed as Ireland’s most haunted castle) but here locally we do have a castle, Chateau Laroche (French for House of the Rock). Locally known as Loveland Castle. Now Loveland Castle clearly does not have the violent history of Leap Castle, far from it. Sir Harry Andrews built the castle. He purchased the first plot of land in 1927 along the Little Miami River, this area was also known as Loveland Park . This land was for his Sunday school boys; he would later name the group the Knights of the Golden Trail (KOGT). Over time with the help of the boy’s parents (they donated the parcels of land) he obtained more land through a promotion by the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune to invest in land along the shore of the Little Miami River with a year’s subscription.
So in 1929 Sir Harry embarked on the building of his castle. For over 50 years Harry worked and lived in his castle. He flattened all the land around the castle to create beds for gardens, laid out a drainage system, built a wall along the road, and dug a moat and a dungeon. Constructions of the castle as per by Sir Harry consist of 2,600 sacks of cement, 32,000-quart milk cartons for concrete bricks, 54,000 five-gallon buckets of dirt, and 56,000 pails full of stone.
In April of 1981 Sir Harry Andrews was injured in a fire on his property, he succumbed to his injuries on April 16 at the age of 91.
The reported paranormal activity includes: cold spots, electrical malfunctions, the feeling of being watched. In an interview with a local TV reporter the knights reported a woman floating to the front gate, knights covers being folded and hung up and when something not of Sir Harry’s is placed inside of a display case things turn "topsy turvey".
During the filming of the movie "Lives No Longer Ours" the cast and crewmembers reported having ghostly encounters. The production assistant claims to have had an encounter with a "female" entity while shooting. They would not comment on their other encounters.
The folklore of the castle is that a king who was attached to an imported throne haunts historic . At the castle they have a picture of a young page sitting on the throne from Europe. They obtained it by using a camera that detects heat. The reason they took the picture was that the imported throne from would start rocking back and forth.
There have been other strange events that have occurred; the castle has a dungeon that people claim has cold spots. A woman who died in a still explosion haunts the castle. Is she the woman at the castle gate?
Well, I hate to bust the folklore but in true CAPER style here it goes. The “throne” was not imported from but was purchased from a local church. As for the picture of the “page” It’s this investigators opinion that the camera was being used improperly and that we are looking at nothing more than the heat signature from someone sitting in the chair.
Onto busting other stories, the “dungeon” is nothing more than the basement area that houses the furnace, electrical box, and plumbing but all castles need a dungeon so the basement is the logical location. As for the woman who died in the still explosion I’ve uncovered through local newspaper articles that there was a still explosion down river but a man died in that explosion. A woman did die at a later time up the river by committing suicide her name was Pearl. Maybe over time those two stories combined.
As for Sir Harry haunting the castle, know one really knows. When we were conducting our first investigation of the castle back in 2007 we did have some strange encounters. As our K II meter is being used in a Q&A; session being recorded by a digital audio recorder in the second floor bedroom. An investigator asks "Sir Harry could move the keys on the typewriter?" After a comment from another investigator there, in the background a faint typing noise. All investigators present verify no one touched the typewriter. This session ends with no other incident.
We don’t normally use dowsing rods but for this investigation we decided to test all theories so we started a Q&A session at approximately using the dowsing rods and an EMF meter while being recorded by an audio recorder in the German game room along with multiple digital cameras. One investigator sitting in the chair (throne) makes mention that they feel something touching their ankle at this same time an investigator with dowsing rods are having the rods cross with an addition of an EMF meter spiking over 10 milliGause (this is an above normal range). At this time a picture is captured with an anomaly by the said investigators foot. One of these events by themselves would be inconclusive. Multiple correlating events lead to further questions. You can view this investigation report and the evidence captured at our website.
This investigator grew up in the area and my father and I would go to see Sir Harry many times. Though I was not privy to their conversations I know they had a lot in common. I would think that if one put a lifetime of work, love and energy into this project that you would on occasion in the afterlife come back and check on it from time to time.Joy Naylor
Director