With scouting missions, you really don’t know what will occur or if you will be successful with a scouting mission. For example. Someone calls and says…”hey, Paul, you should check out the F Street Boarding house, I heard that it’s haunted.” Key words: “I heard”. This person says they heard it was haunted, second hand information. With a scouting mission, you round up a team and check to see if the place is haunted or not. Sometimes you will have success, sometimes not. If there is success, then you can determine if you want to conduct another investigation into the area. This October 6, 2007, Saturday, I gathered my team at Starbucks on Howe ’bout Arden. I gave my briefing on Leonard Lake and Charles Ng. Basically what I said is that Leonard Lake was a survivalist, he built an underground bunker underneath his ranch home. He thought there would be a nuclear holocaust and by kidnapping women and bringing the women to his bunker, he and Charles could repopulate the world. Instead, they took 25 women to this underground bunker, tied them up, sexually assaulted them, tortured them and killed them. These heinous crimes were caught on video. When the seasoned detectives saw the videos, they were appalled at the ghastly sights. Leonard committed suicide, while his buddy Charles went up to Canada and killed 8 more people before getting arrested. He was extradited back to California, where he now sits on deathrow. I had Michele Stump – paranormal investigator/researcher fill in any gaps to my story and had Chris Grissom – video technician/paranormal investigator chime in on any key points of these serial killers.

Let’s take a roll call: Paul Dale Roberts – Lead Investigator – Ghostwriter; Jenna DeLaughter – Paranormal Investigator-in-Training; Holly DeLaughter – Sensitive/paranormal investigator; Angel Kesti – Paranormal Investigator-in-Training; Stefanie Belson – Sensitive – Paranormal Investigator in Training; Donna Reynolds – Sensitive, Paranormal Investigator, Chris Grissom – video technician, paranormal investigator, Michele Stump – Researcher, Paranormal Investigator. What is unique about this team, two of our sensitives are Wiccans, Donna Reynolds with the Sacred Fire Circle and Stefanie Belson with Luna Grove, she is a heredity witch and her mother was considered a healer.

Angel Kesti volunteered to drive us all in her van, while Holly and her daughter Jenna wanted to follow us to the various sites. Before, I went on this mission to the unknown, I received a visit from a sensitive named Kathryn Newbold who gave me some insight about this trip and felt positive results would occur. After my visit with Kathryn, I knew this would be a good scouting mission. I made sure there were plenty of snacks for this trip and picked up Ritz crackers, Farmer John ham, salami, pepperjack cheese, Pepsi. When I was getting these snacks, Melissa who works at Bel-Air and knows that I am a ghost hunter assisted me with my groceries and said she wanted to relate a story to me. She said that when her mother died in May 07, she heard the sound of keys. When her mother was alive, she would always jingle keys. It was as if her mother was keeping an eye on her. Melissa’s sister also thought she saw her mother immediately after her demise. Melissa and her sister haven’t experienced any more manifestations of their mother or any key jingling. Melissa felt by telling me this story, I would be the one person to understand her story. I completely understood, because when my mother passed away, my father saw my mother glide down the hallway and after that never experienced anything again. Most likely Melissa’s mom and my own mother went into the light and are in a better place now.

Sorry, about that, sometimes I get wrapped up in other stories and get a little bit off track to the now-and-then story about this road trip to the town of Wilseyville, where Leonard Lake owned a ranch with a torture chamber bunker. On our ride to Wilseyville, we kept thinking how Hollywood horror movies always have a group of people on a road trip in a van, heading out to some small town, laughing all the way down the road, telling stories, then bad things start happening. On our trip to Wilseyville, we almost ran out of gas, our cell phones were dead, even my Verizon was dead in some parts of the trip and I was looking around for my ‘network’ and they were no where around. We almost hit a mother deer and her two calves as they crossed the street, we almost got stuck on a muddy hillside and we went around a lot of curves pretty fast zipping through a stop sign that popped out of no where. Some of the locales of Wilseyville looked somewhat odd and I kept thinking of that weird guy in Texas Chainsaw Massacre that would always clean your windshield, even after you tell him to stop, while the driver is trying to get directions. Finally we did locate 2 local cops and they never even heard of Leonard Lake. As we continue through these winding roads…did I just see a sign to the Crystal Lake camping site? No, just my imagination, I watch too many horror movies!

Whoa..whoa.…..why am I jumping ahead of myself and telling you about the Leonard Lake/Charles Ng investigation, when I didn’t tell you about our mini-investigation of The Leger? Before, we started roughing it, we stopped at The Leger http://www.hotelleger.com ‘Miami of the Sierra’, 8304 Main Street – Mokelumne Hill, CA 95245. Michele Stump our researcher blurts out…”hey, that the Leger, it’s reputed to be haunted!” I tell everyone, let’s make a pitstop. I introduce myself to Jane Canty, owner of The Leger and she gave us a personal tour of the hotel and explained the history of the hotel to all of us. She even opened up the wine cellar and we were able to explore this area of the hotel. The Leger has been featured on the Discovery Channel. Jane explains that sometimes keys wind up missing, there are blue orbs that are seen. There is a spirit that everyone calls ‘George’. The hotel once burned down and it was rebuilt. As I was walking around this hotel, Angel Kesti was telling me about her own experiences, she now lives in a haunted house and she constantly hears footsteps. Angel is very much aware of hauntings and gives me her insight to this hotel. Jane shows us George’s room and George’s portrait. George’s room is Room 7. At one time a ghost-hunting group came to investigate and their camera tripod was mysteriously thrown to the ground. While we were taking digital photos, many of the investigators were capturing orbs on their photos. Holly, a sensitive was focused on the Leonard Lake investigation and while driving to The Leger had to tell me that she was getting images of Leonard Lake and Charles Ng partying with girls that they would meet at local bars in Jackson and driving them up to Leonard’s ranch in Wilseyville. She was having a hard time getting these images out of her mind. I talked with a gentleman that was staying in the hotel and he looked at me and says…”did you know that Black Bart used to stay in this hotel, I think I am staying in the room he stayed at!” Jane Canty mentions the legends that stayed in this hotel, but never indicates that Black Bart stayed here.

As we continued with our tour of The Leger, I was told stories by Jane Canty about Rosa Leger, that wore a long white dress and she was a very proper person, she is sometimes seen at this hotel. Jane feels that there are 3 entities in this hotel. Jane provided email copies from some of her guests and as I was looking over one of the emails, a guest says that he heard an electrical buzzing while in bed and felt something touching his legs, it felt like bread crumbs landing on his leg and then felt electrical charges on his body. Another patron in Room 7, said she felt something pushing on her legs while she was trying to sleep, she was very scared from this experience. Some guests have heard the sound of children giggling in various rooms of the hotel. Another email, a patron experienced a ‘shadow person’ gliding from one area of the room towards the window and disappeared. Other patrons describe objects moving around, the smell of old aftershave mingled with copper, a woman’s hair lifted from her scalp and suspended in mid-air in front of family witnesses. It appears from these emails, that many patrons experience paranormal activities in this old historical hotel.

As I explored this hotel, there are jail bars on the bottom windows. The hotel was once a jail and courthouse. The lavish banquet room was once the old courthouse. There was a fire in the hotel in 1875. I was taken to Room 11, which is known to be haunted by a female phantom. The HPI team were telling me they were capturing orb pictures in Room 7 and in and around the hallway. Stefanie was feeling a lot of human activity in the hallways. Patrons have said that they have heard a little girl crying in Room 3 or in Suite #1. Luminaries such as Grover Cleveland, Mark Twain and the bandit Joaquin Murriata have stayed in this hotel. When Jane told me that Joaquin Murriata stayed in this hotel, the image came in my mind of the wanted poster of Joaquin, it read: “Wanted, the head of Joaquin Murriata and the hand of 3-Finger Jack!” Joaquin did lose his head, when he was killed. Teddy Roosevelt of the Rough Riders once stayed here too. Jane says that she thinks there are 3 entities in this hotel, but by looking at the patron’s emails, there seems to be a whole lot more. The history of this hotel is amazing. There was a hanging tree out back. So a criminal could be heard in the courthouse, land himself in jail and later hanged out back at the hanging tree. How convenient for the criminal. As I entered the cellar, I was told that patrons feel there is a teenage boy that haunts the cellar, something tragic happened to this boy in the cellar and not too many people want to stay in this cellar long. The place does feel quite creepy as I visually surveyed this underground dwelling.

Michele Stump and I, did some more exploring near and around The Leger, we stopped over at the Town Hall on 1901 Main Street and the Adams & Company/I.O.O.F. Hall, we discovered that The Leger was built in 1875 and it was built on the site of Hotel de France. Hotel de France was built on this site in 1851.

Some of the sensitives reported feeling a woman’s presence, a sad lamenting sensation, or hearing people talking in the larger rooms.

I talked with Celeste Garamendi, an employee of the hotel and she tells me that one night while cleaning up the bar area, the grate fell to the floor fell on its own. Her sister Cherie who also works at the hotel had her arms full and the doors mysteriously opened by itself, allowing her to enter the other room without opening the doors herself. Wow!! The Leger is a place that we definitely need to come back and do a full blown all night investigation as I related this to Shannon ‘Ms. Macabre’ McCabe, President of HPI on my cell phone. Shannon was working the information booth at the Renaissance Fair this day and told me she met my father Paul M. Roberts and his wife Cindy Anderson/Roberts who also attended the Renaissance Fair. Shannon enjoyed hearing about my scouting mission and was completely fascinated with our experiences at The Leger. This report not only was being related to Shannon McCabe, but also to R.V. Scheide of the News and Review who is incorporating this story in his HPI Halloween story.

Back on the road again and we were heading for Schaads Lake Road/Blue Mountain Road where supposingly Leonard Lake and Charles Ng deposited some of the charred bones of their victims and took the lives of some of their victims near and around this area. What was unusual is that Stefanie related to everyone in the van that she felt like the cabin with the big cinder block was Leonard Lake’s ranch home, she got this strange sensation as we passed it. Well, during this same time Holly, another sensitive was telling her daughter in her car she was feeling the same thing about this ranch house that we were passing. Both sensitives felt the same thing passing this ranch house and were in two separate vehicles! That was amazing! As we explored the area, I didn’t pick up anything on my Listen Up sound enhancer device. Holly feels she needs to investigate this one location and starts snapping pictures and when we look at her digital photo, it looks like the beginning stages of a full body apparition near a tree! The photo is incredibly strange! Holly takes a second photo of the same area and the photo is normal, it’s just a picture of the tree and surrounding bushes.

We stayed up in this area for a while exploring and saw a strange man in a blue pick-up with a woman in the passenger seat. The woman would not make eye contact with us, but the strange looking man driving was staring at all of us. We all thought he had a crazy look on his face and that creeped us out more than any ghosts. It was time to look for a gas station. We found that gas station at Jackson. We decided to make one more stop. We stopped at the National Hotel in Jackson and I introduced myself to the owner. I told her I was a journalist with HPI and she smiled and said…”I know who you are.” (because I wrote an article about National Hotel in regard to an all night HPI investigation at this hotel). I asked her if I could bring my team up and explore the hotel. She looks at me and smiles again…”Paul, you are welcome to do whatever you want, have fun.” So, I took the team up to the various rooms and we snapped many pictures and tried to capture some EVPs, before heading home. The EVPs have not all been analyzed yet and I am still getting photographs sent to me for this article.

Angel told me that when she was driving home, she thought she may have brought a ghost home with her, because as she was driving, she heard a woman in the backseat of her van yell…’aaaggh!’ in her ear. She was concerned about this. I explained to her that most ghosts are harmless and she probably has nothing to worry about, but to keep me informed. The only ghost in recorded American history that has ever been connected to a death, is known as The Bell Witch. When I was driving home, I don’t think I had any ghosts in my car, but I thought about what happened this day and listened to ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ by Bob Dillion. I kept thinking this turned out to be a very good scouting mission with some spectacular results! Now, I must go over the evidence. Before I close this article, make sure to be on the lookout for Shannon McCabe and Nancy Bradley’s DVD documentary Ghost Girls, for more information go to http://www.nancybradley.org and see Shannon’s interview at Haunted America Tours at http://www.hauntedamericatours.net Well, I guess that winds up another investigation into the paranormal!

For more on H.P.I. Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern California, go to their website at: http://www.hpiparanormal.net

Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter
Email: JazmaPika@cs.com
Paranormal Cellular Hotline: 916 203 7503 (for comments on this story).
If you have a possible investigation call: 1-888-709-4HPI

What is Lycanthropy you may ask? According to The American Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 134, No. 10. published in October 1977 it states:

“Lycanthropy, a psychosis in which the patient has delusions of being a wild animal (usually a wolf), has been recorded since antiquity. The Book of Daniel describes King Nebuchadnezzar as suffering from depression that deteriorated over a seven-year period into a frank psychosis at which time he imagined himself a wolf. Among the first medical descriptions were those of Paulus Aegineta during the later days of the Roman Empire. In his description of the symptom complex, Aegineta made reference to Greek mythology in which Zeus turned King Lycaon of Arcadia into a raging wolf. Thereafter, references to lycanthropy appeared in the ancient literature. Many medieval theologians envisioned lycanthropy as a consequence of the evil eye.Delusions of being a wolf or some other feared animal are universal and, although rare in the industrialized countries, still occur in China, India, Africa, and Central and South America. The animals in the delusioned transformation include leopards, lions, elephants, crocodiles, sharks, buffalo, eagles, and serpents.Not infrequently, bizarre and chaotic sexuality is expressed in a primitive way through the lycanthropic symptom complex. Patients whose internal fears exceed their coping mechanisms may externalize them via projection and constitute a serious threat to others. Throughout the ages, such individuals have been feared because of their tendencies to commit bestial acts and were themselves hunted and killed by the populace. Many of these people were paranoid schizophrenics.”

Thoughts of werewolf movies may come to your mind from: The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Blood, Bad Moon, The Curse of the Werewolf, Death Moon, Face of the Screaming Werewolf, Teen Wolf, The Wolfman, Project: Metal Beast – DNA Overlord and Ginger Snaps. But, we’re not here to talk about good werewolf horror movies, we are here to talk about two real werewolves! Lolita Moonshadow and Katrina Kanine!

I get a call from Lolita Moonshadow and Katrina Kanine. They are self-proclaimed werewolves. What the? Okay Lolita and Katrina, where can I meet you at? We first met at the Avid Reader at Broadway and crossed the street over to Starbucks for a refreshing frappachino. Lolita and Katrina are cousins, they claim to be of Romanian descent. They claim to have a long history of werewolves in their family. I asked them, how do you know you are werewolves, besides the Romanian descent and thinking your family members are werewolves? They said they both crave raw meat. When a dog, cat or a rabbit crosses their paths, they have the urge to ‘chase’. They feel domination over men, physically and mentally. When the full moon rises, they feel the urge to hunt. They must suppress their dark desires. They said they have a lot of dark desires within their inner souls.

I asked them to elaborate on their dark desires and they asked me if I ever saw An American Werewolf in London and they left it at that. I pondered…do they have the desire to kill? They both feel they have a chemical imbalance during a full moon, but feel they have everything under control. They both showed me their unusual long canines. I don’t know if they were unusually long, or if they stood out more. They said that during a full moon, they get more hair on their arms and legs. They said that they have a keen sense of smell and after they get used to my smell, they would be able to sniff me out a block away.
Katrina took my arm and dug in a bit with her fingernails and looked at me and said…”Paul, I have a hunger!” Okay, okay, just as long as it is not me! We discussed if silver bullets can kill werewolves and they said that a real werewolf can be killed by any bullet, that is a myth. They told me that their eyesight changes over to seeing everything in black and white during a full moon, they feel greater strength and are quite agile. They claim that if they are with their boyfriends during a full moon, their sexual desires are greatly heightened and their boyfriends are not able to handle their wild frenzy. They describe it as throwing a bull carcass in the Amazon river and watching piranhas go into a feeding frenzy. They said that their love life had dwindled, when anytime their lovers discovered the true essence of their beings. They said that last week, their boyfriends left them and they are single again.

At this point of time, I noticed a bead of sweat dripping from my brow. I knew I better end this interview as quickly as I started it. I noticed that Lolita had purchased a werewolf book from Avid Reader. Yes! These girls were truly into lycanthropy. Before, I left, we discussed werewolf sightings in Placerville and the Sierras. They said, that at times they feel a calling for the Sierras to find their brethren. What is so unusual, after I met them, I have been contacted by another werewolf girl in Fremont and I plan to interview her too. She claims that there are werewolf sightings in Antioch. She has a very interesting story to tell also! When I stood up from Starbucks, both were eyeing me strangely and both stood around me, as if they were blocking me from the entrance. Lolita grabbed my shoulder and said…”Paul, remember one thing, doctor up our photo, we do not want to be identified for this article and make sure not to identify us in anyway in this article. We know where you live!” I looked back at Lolita and Katrina and said…”sure, no problem, no problem at all!”
As I left Starbucks, I thought how safer it would be to just hunt ghosts, they don’t make threats! Before I close this article, I met Tanya Filer, a clerk at my local Bel-Air and she told me about an abandoned house in Elk Grove that she wants me to investigate. The house has been abandoned for 7 years, because no one will purchase the home, its reputed to be haunted. The story goes that a builder of the house, killed himself with a nail gun. People who have entered the home, claim that the phantom builder looks at them and is holding a nail gun in his hand. Okay, Tanya, where is this house? I am willing and ready to investigate! As I rode home tonight on the lightrail, Julie Surjan a good friend of mine, who knows I am a ghost hunter, had me all hooked on her story. She said, that a strange thing happened to her last night. She was watching TV and saw something at the corner of her eye, it was dark and black. I asked…”was it a shadow person?” She looks at me and laughs…”no, it was a black widow spider! I had the hardest time killing the thing!”
For more on H.P.I. Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern California, go to their website at: http://www.hpiparanormal.net

Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter
Email: JazmaPika@cs.com
Paranormal Cellular Hotline: 916 203 7503 (for comments on this story).
If you have a possible investigation call: 1-888-709-4HPI

Before I encountered my third werewolf. The first ones being Lolita Moonshadow and Katrina Kanine, in which I have already written about, I will tell you what I did September 30, 2007, Sunday. I went to Nancy Bradley’s (Psychic to the Stars) office (called the Haunted Cottage) to film Ghost Girls. I brought paranormal investigator Chris Grissom with me and we met up with the Ghost Girls themselves…Shannon ‘Ms. Macabre’ McCabe and Nancy Bradley! Nancy and her husband Robert Reppert treated us to a lavish Mexican dinner at Casa Romos Restaurant. Robert Repport, Paranormal Investigator for Gold Rush Ghosts took us to about 5 family cemeteries in Placerville, where we took pictures of Shannon & Nancy at various gravesites for the upcoming DVD ‘Ghost Girls’. In one of the cemeteries I turned on my Listen Up – sound enhancer device and picked up a small girl saying 3 inaudible words. Nancy determined it was a small girl named Betty Carlton, age 5 years old. When I was leaving this local Placerville cemetery, it was as if the little phantom girl didn’t want me to leave and she said a distinct ‘hey!’ After we filmed in Nancy’s office and I was heading home, Nancy gave me her book ‘The Incredible World of Gold Rush Ghosts (The Big Picture) by Nancy Bradley & Robert Reppert and signed it “To Paul, My New Partner in Crime – Blessings to my friend Nancy Bradley 2007.” What a sweet lady and I will cherish her book forever! Make sure to pick up the DVD Ghost Girls, for more information, check out Nancy’s website at: http://www.nancybradley.org

Now to the werewolf I was talking about! Meet The Mundane. This is the name that our werewolf girl calls herself. I met her at Starbucks in Vallejo. She drove up from Fremont and I drove down from Sacramento, we met half way. I have never seen The Mundane before, but I was able to spot her out easily. She wore cat ears head band, a pentagram ring and a black T-shirt that read ‘Live Animal’. Not hard to find at all. She was busy drawing, this 21 year old girl can draw as good as Boris Vallejo. She displayed some of her wonderful fantasy artwork. This is her story. About 4 years ago, she was bit by a mountain lion while doing voluntary work at the San Diego Zoo. The male mountain lion was playing with her at first and had her arm in his mouth, then he got rough and actually bit her. The Mundane tells me that everyone has an animal spirit within their being and when she got bit, it brought out her wolflike attributes that she was born with. She tells me she even knows a were-moose. When she got bit that day, the essence of the wolf took over her persona. It possessed her. She tells me that she is friends with a were-panther named Cassandra, that has actual bat wings attached to her back. She tells me that it’s rare for werewolves to really transform and that she can’t transform at all.

The Mundane says that on the energy plane anything is possible and that includes living fire-breathing dragons. She said that she has heightened senses, such as hearing, smell, eyesight and even the sense of touch. She can feel the fluctuations around a person’s body. When she became a werewolf, the hairs on her arms became dark. She pulls up her pants leg and displays a whole lot of hair on her legs. The Mundane was born and raised a Catholic, but has embraced the Pagan beliefs. She craves meat, has eaten raw meat, but mostly orders medium rare steaks. During a full moon, her senses sky rocket in intensity. This happens the day before a full moon, during the full moon and after a full moon. Three nights of sensationally heightened senses. She tells me that silver cannot harm her, but she has heard that silver can cause an allergic reaction to some werewolves. She doesn’t like to be in enclosed spaces. She lives a normal working life as a hostess at the Olive Garden, she has a boyfriend and her boyfriend is not ‘awakened’, but he is also a werewolf. None of her relatives are werewolves. She tells me that she believes in the afterlife, she listens to Celtic, country and blues music. She loves to hunt and she will hunt deer with a long bow. She adores animals and will help animals, she has been known to take in stray dogs. Vultures, any bird of prey, ravens and crows follow her around. She is also a ‘falconer’, she is able to hunt with falcons. She displays no canine teeth. She tells me that she knows a few vampires (energy and physical vampires) and that werewolves and vampires are not mortal enemies as Hollywood would like you to believe. She has gone to a vampire club and she wasn’t welcome. This was just the way the club treated her, not because they didn’t like werewolves. To pass time, she at times plays Dungeons & Dragons, Masquerade and Werewolf Apocalypse. She tells me how she first learned about HPI, through one of my articles on my scouting mission with Athena Quinn to Sutter’s Fort. She is very familiar with Sutter’s Fort and the church nearby where we found some EVP evidence. She explains to me that she is a slight empath and that when she lived in Sacramento on 50/Bradshaw, she would hear noises at night and the lights turned on randomly on their own. At her friend’s house in Sacramento, there was an explosion heard in the house and when she investigated the explosion with her friend, they discovered a plastic mug had shattered into 5 pieces for no apparent reason. She elaborates more on how she loves animals and fondly talks about her black Labrador retriever named Brutus Maximus. She calls Brutus, her baby. One of the psychic abilities that she has is being able to know when her friends will call her or visit with her, before it happens. Her sixth sense ability seems to be centered on her closest associates. Her favorite movies are Van Helsing, American Werewolf in Paris, she even loved the werewolves that were featured in Harry Potter and Dr. Who. During a full moon, she is more sexually aroused.

Here is the strange part of my interview, I learn that certain entities inhabit her body. They are Isis the Dragon, Dartanian the Raptor (yep, a dinosaur inhabits her body), Thane the Chinese Dragon – Protector of the 4th Tower, Kata the Demon – which is in the form of a black spectral tiger. She has a Phoenix named Moonshadow (no relation to Lolita Moonshadow) that is her guardian. She has learned to write in ancient pagan runes. I got curious and asked her what animal spirit inhabits my body? She said it was a raccoon, because of my journalistic curiosity. Before I left, she asked if HPI could investigate two areas that she has frequented, the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz and some overgrown weed infested cemetery in Fremont. I explained to her that I have been to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz and found the place….mysterious, especially when balls roll up hill and trees grow to a slant. I have always theorized that The Mystery Spot is a point of origin for a leyline, but that is only my theory. When I visited the Mystery Spot, I also stopped over for a tour of the Winchester Mansion….I love that place!

I will be enclosing drawings that The Mundane showed me, some of the drawings are the entities that inhabit her body, some are drawings of her were friends and some are just drawings from her mind. The white wolf is called Ghost, that is the essence of the wolf that now inhabits her body.

Being a paranormal investigator, I have investigated so many things paranormal, such as a numerologist, psychics, the Wicca culture, werewolves, vampires, UFOs, cults, secret societies, ghosts, possible demon possession and I soon will be investigating the last of the Lemurians at Mt. Shasta, along with Bigfoot. I have always wanted to investigate dopplegangers, incubus, succubus, Mothmen, Men in Black, Reptilians, sea serpents, zombies and anything else considered paranormal. So for the reader reading this article, if you have something unusual you want me to check out, let’s say you have a crop circle in your backyard, give me a ring. I will be there in a moment’s notice, because stepping into the paranormal is my business. As I headed back to Sacramento, I threw on the song ‘Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon’ and ‘Monster Mash by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett’, you know how I like getting into the mood of things!

For more on H.P.I. Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern California, go to their website at: http://www.hpiparanormal.net and see Shannon and Paul’s interview at http://www.hauntedamericatours.com

Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter
Email: JazmaPika@cs.com
Paranormal Cellular Hotline: 916 203 7503 (for comments on this story).
If you have a possible investigation call: 1-888-709-4HPI

Before, you read this article, I stand corrected by lady vampire Rhiannon. She sent me this email, correcting my article. Thank you for allowing the readers and I, to better understand the vampire culture. Here is her email in her own words:
“Thank you for sending this article. This is a very detailed and interesting piece, good work, but there are two problems I noticed, and you said we should point out to you any problems with what was written when we got this.

One was a misquote of what Cole said about blood drinking. You state that he said he drinks blood, but that is not what he said. Cole does not drink blood, but he did say that even vampires who drink blood rarely drink very much at a time, and sometimes only perhaps a teaspoon or two per feeding, maybe once in a month.

I will elaborate a little for you, since you forgot to ask us about it. This can vary, actually, from
blood drinker to blood drinker, and some take more than the amounts he was talking about, just not usually. Some vampires, though it is the energy that they require, and not the blood its self, they feel that this is the only way they are able to connect enough to take from another person. I think they might be able to learn how to do it other ways, some like to do it both ways, since it is a very intense way to connect.

And since you were curious but didn’t ask me, I will tell you that though what I usually take is energy, I do drink a little blood, but my blood drinking is only from two of my closest friends, both people I know are healthy and clean of infection, and have lifestyles that would not make them likely to contract things like AIDS, hepatitis, or other blood carried disease.

I am able to pull the blood through the skin in a very tightly concentrated area with my mouth, and this is good because I don’t like the risk factor for scarring or infection involved with anything that breaks the skin. I take much more energy, more deeply in this way, but since this method is not required for me, I don’t do it often.

The second thing I would ask you to be more careful about how you put is when you talk about us having fangs. You make it sound like we’re walking around with theatrically huge pointed teeth, and claiming they are natural. In fact, our teeth might be considered subtly unusual (a thing I was careful to point out is something I think is purely coincidence), but they are well within the realm of normal length or sharpness for humans. People reading your article as it you have it now might easily get the impression that we have huge fangs, when really, they’re just healthy teeth.

-Rhiannon”

Now, let’s dive into my article, where I did some misquoting or did some misinterpretation, I apologize to Cole and Rhiannon.

Shannon McCabe, President of H.P.I. (Haunted and Paranormal Investigations) of Northern California learned about The Vampire Tour of San Francisco through Ricardo Pustanio of Haunted America Tours. Like I have said many times before, we investigate all things ‘paranormal’ and vampires are not an exception to the rule. September 29, 2007, Saturday, I headed over to Shannon’s home and met up with fellow paranormal investigator Chris Grissom. The three of us were heading to San Francisco this day in Shannon’s Ectoplasmobile aka Ecto 1, with Shannon driving. It was around 1:30pm when I arrived at Shannon’s and she told Chris and I, we’re going to pound flesh and hand out fliers at Sierra 2 Center and Curtis Park, where they were having a festival in the park. The fliers indicated that HPI is having a Halloween Bash at the Sierra 2 and the community was invited. So, that is what we did, introduced ourselves as HPI paranormal investigators and handed out fliers. After walking around the park for a good couple of hours, I heard my stomach growling, it was time to eat and head off to San Francisco. We got back in Ecto 1 and stopped at Shannon’s favorite eating spot. AM/PM Mini Mart for hamburgers and hot dogs. Okay, maybe that’s not Shannon’s favorite eating spot, but the meal was a reasonable price and we weren’t hungry anymore. Shannon treated Chris and I, to bottles of Starbucks ice coffee that she had in the trunk of the car. Now, that was a good pick me up.

Shannon, like a bat-out-of-hell, zoomed down Hwy 80 towards San Francisco and maneuvered through the streets of San Francisco with the experience of a street cop. We finally located a place to park and headed over to the elegant Hamilton Hotel to meet with our first vampire. As we waited for our first vampire interview, we dined on decadent spring rolls with shrimp and crab and chased down some Heineken and Anchor Steam beer. Then as I looked over to the left corner, I glimpsed a lady in black, it was our first vampire. She calls herself Mina Harker (a character from Bram Stoker’s book Dracula). Her real name is Kitty Burns.

I learn all kinds of fascinating things about Kitty. She was actually a host at a vampire tour in Transylvania twice and once spent the night in Dracula’s Castle. She hosted one tour with Eddie Munster aka Butch Patrick. She tells me how she once booked a vampire tour in New Orleans, during a business trip and wondered why San Francisco doesn’t have a vampire tour in their own city. Then it dawned on her, she is a published playwright and why not start her own tour, she immediately started writing a script for the tour and has been giving the tour for 6 years now. She says the tour is more lighthearted and really doesn’t dwell on the dark side of vampirism. It’s more comedy than horror. I can just imagine that the script must have been pouring through her mind, while she cruised down the Mississippi River, when she made that business trip in New Orleans.

As I let Kitty talk, she discussed a very colorful character Emperor Norton and how no mortal could pull off printing his own money and collecting taxes from the people. She talked about James Flood, a successful businessman and how the vampire community loved him. In fact the vampire community learned how to start their own businesses through James Flood. We discussed various vampire clubs in existence around San Francisco and how people have embraced the vampire culture. Some of the vampires play the game Masquerade. Masquerade is a role playing vampire game. I mention to Kitty, that role playing games like Masquerade can sometimes get out of hand.

For an example:
A group of three teenagers were charged with the bludgeoning death of a Florida couple, parents of a fourth girl in their group. These teenagers were involved in the fantasy role playing game Vampire the Masquerade. Police said They “tortured puppies” and even “drank one another’s blood.” “Police said [the teens] were attracted to vampires by the best selling role-play game.

A Virginia Beach man was sentenced to 26 years in prison for sexually molesting [and biting] eight teen-age girls he [had] recruited for his vampire ‘family’ through the playing of “a game in which players assumed the roles of ancient vampires.”

This is the dark side of vampirism that Kitty shuns and doesn’t want to think about. It made me think, that everything seems to be a balance of Yin and Yang. There is the balance of good and the balance of evil. There will always be a balance of good and evil, it has been with us since the beginning of mankind and it will be with us to the end of days. Fortunately, this evening we are seeing the good side of vampirism through Kitty’s eyes.

Kitty tells me that she dresses for the tour and wears a vampire costume of all black. Many Goths have taken her tour. She was approached once by a vampiress . The vampiress placed her hand on her shoulder and said “some of us really do exist darling.”

Mina Harker, aka Kitty Burns, gets 15 to 30 people that take her nightly tour, at one evening she had 95 people show up! The vampire movies that Kitty loves are Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein, Interview with a Vampire (except that it was too bloody for Kitty’s taste), Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. She goes on to tell me that one time Kim Basinger took her tour and she didn’t point out Kim to the crowd and just let her enjoy the tour. After the tour, Kitty approached Kim and said…”has anyone ever told you, you look like Kim Basinger?” Kim laughed and said…”yes, all the time!”

After I interviewed Kitty, I went over to the park across the street to interview two more vampires. Shannon introduced me to Cole and Rhiannon.

Cole states that when he was 17 years old, he had misconceptions on vampirism, he compared vampirism to what he watched from Hollywood movies, until he met a woman that explained to him what vampirism is really about, then he knew that true vampirism implied to his own persona. This is a woman he met at a Goth club. Rhiannon said she didn’t realize it at first, but something was different about her, starting from what she felt in the 3rd grade. She felt other people’s energy, she felt empathy for others, she could feel people’s energy signatures left behind on objects, sort of like psychometrics. She could go past a school desk and feel the energy signature of the person that sat on that desk. Cole says that the scientific community needs to catch-up and discover what vampirism really is, it could be referred to as bio-deficiency syndrome as Cole likes to call it. Rhiannon says maybe vampires should be called energy absorbers. Cole elaborates and says that certain people as we call vampires, don’t create enough energy within their beings and must acquire energy from others. Blood is a source of energy, some vampires may take their energy from ambient energy sources, like from a Black Sabbath concert, where there is a high abundance of energy. Rhiannon says she does better from one person, a willing host to her energy feeding. She and Cole can absorb energy from a touch and do not attempt to take energy from an unwilling host. The touch can last from 30 seconds to a minute.

Rhiannon, a lovely red haired vampiress tells me that she met Cole at a vampire oriented club called The Glass Cat. The Glass Cat was having a vampire ball. The Glass Cat is known to play electronic and industrial music. When Rhiannon met Cole, they knew they’d be friends for a long time to come.

I asked Rhiannon and Cole how they acquired their canines. Both have small fangs that stand out a bit more than usual, and they told me that their fangs are actually natural. Cole is a handsome young man, that wears a black trench coat, black shirt, black pants, black tie and has long black hair, he definitely looks the part of a vampire. These two were a pleasure to meet and I and HPI thank them very much for letting us into their world.

As the interview ended and I saw Rhiannon and Cole walk away, I remembered something that Cole had told me. He said that at times he takes in 2 or 3 teaspoons of blood. I forgot to ask him if that was human blood or animal blood and how does he acquire that blood? Does Rhiannon also drink blood? I was completely absorbed with the energy absorbing topic, I completely forgot about the consumption of blood. (Found in Rhiannon’s email above.)

Well, it was time to move on as Shannon, Chris and a Berkeley journalist named Kevin Jones were approaching me. Kevin Jones was here to interview Shannon, Chris and I, about our ghost hunting. He has a show for the Berkeley University radio station called the Berkeley Radio Magazine.

As I was walking with Shannon, Chris and Kevin, I remembered how Cole told me that psychos are psychos as I questioned about the darker side of vampirism. Such as the serial killer Richard Trenton Chase, aka The Vampire of Sacramento. Cole also told me that he was aware of 10 true vampires in San Francisco and how vampirism is a condition. The reason why vampires wear black, is because black is an absorbent color. I talked about physical vampires, vampires that get their boost from the physical exertion of others, or sexual vampires, a person who goes from one partner to another, acquiring energy from their conquests. Cole tells me that in all cases, it’s energy they are acquiring. To have sex, is exerting energy. To be physical as being pushed to do a lot of exercises, is exerting energy. I can only wonder if Army drill sergeants who push soldiers over the limits are energy vampires? I can only wonder again, if playboys like Warren Beatty who go from one conquest to another, are also energy vampires?

Cole and Rhiannon are two delightful people that enjoy life and Rhiannon’s favorite vampire movie is Interview with a Vampire, while Cole enjoys the old Bela Lugosi’s Dracula movies.

Vampires are everywhere. Right down the street from where I live, I have a vampire neighbor named Tremaine. He has silver plated vampire fangs. How Tremaine became a vampire is anyone’s guess, he really doesn’t discuss it, but he came from a family that was once associated with the Los Angeles Crips, his family is now disassociated with the Crips and live a descent suburbia life in Elk Grove. In HPI we have a ghost hunter named Carol Gillis that is a self-proclaimed vampiress. Also, in HPI another ghost hunter named Cherie Vincent embraces the vampire culture and has two vampire bite tattoos on her neck. Like I said, they are everywhere…

The SF Vampire Tour commences: Kitty takes on the character of Mina Harker. Mina Harker tells of falling victim to Dracula. She discussed Bram Stoker’s book Dracula and elaborates her transformation of a living human being to a vampiress. There is black lining around her eyes, her skin is pale white, she wears a black cape and her outfit is all black. Mina carries a candleabra as she starts her tour. She discusses everything about an underground vampire culture that originates in Nob Hill, San Francisco. She blurs fiction with history as she talks about the following:

1. First Stop: The Grace Church. Mina talks about the battleship General Harrison and many ships that are part of the landfill that San Francisco is built upon. Beneath San Francisco are buried opium dens and brothels. That Hollywood has us snowed on what real vampirism is all about, that vampires can actually walk into churches. While Mina is talking about the graveyard of ships that San Francisco is built upon, towering behind us is the majestic Grace Church where once Charles Crocker lived on that land, before the church was built. Charles Crocker is the founder of the Crocker Bank. Mina discusses the Wall of Spite and the presence of skull and crossbones near the wall. How fires at the church were blamed on the vampire community and further discussions of Mark Twain residing in San Francisco and the colorful character Emperor Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico and that the things that he pulled off, he couldn’t have been a mere mortal, that he must have been a vampire to excel with the accomplishments during his reign. Some of those Norton accomplishments were making it a misdemeanor if anyone said the name ‘Frisco’ referring to the city of San Francisco. San Franciscans do not like the name Frisco and until this day, this misdemeanor is still in the law books. Mina connects Dracula to Emperor Norton and goes on to discuss a Masonic cemetery. She tells how the Bay Bridge may be renamed to the Norton Bridge.

As I surveyed the crowd, I came upon another HPI paranormal investigator named Hanako Zeidenberg. When Hanako lived in Sacramento, she participated in the 400 Capitol Mall Haunting Investigation. She now lives in Oakland and decided to see what the vampire tour is all about. Shannon and I, gave Hanako a big warm welcome hug. Hanako has been away from HPI since her move and Shannon tells Hanako, she is always HPI and is part of the family forever. Hanoko radiates a big beaming smile and I tell her about the Mt. Shasta UFO/Bigfoot Pre-Investigation that is coming up and she is interested in participating in this pre-investigation. I hope she does!

2. Second Stop: Nob Hill Cafe. Mina explains that Jack the Ripper (who she claims is a vampire) came to San Francisco and changed his name to Choker Barnes. She claims at the cafe, the greatest vampire vs. mortal battle happened, in which 20 people were killed. It was because that a vampire den was discovered at the cafe and since vampires are very secretive, they fought the mortals to retain that secrecy. Mina elaborates on another Hollywood myth and talks about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She says that Buffy can kill vampires with any type of wood, that this is an untruth. Vampires can only be killed with ashwood, the wood from the cross that Jesus Christ was crucified on. Mina says that San Francisco City Hall is the 2nd most haunted building in San Francisco and Alcatraz is the most haunted and takes the #1 spot.

3. Third Stop: James Flood’s Home, which is now Pacific Union Club. Mina explains how the vampire community gave James Flood protection and security, because they respected his knowledge on business affairs. They also wanted to make James Flood a vampire and James stood up to the vampires and proclaimed that he came into the world as a mortal and is leaving this world as a mortal. James Flood had an underground tunnel from his mansion to his mistress house across the street. Some underground tunnels in San Francisco lead to brothers and clubs, Mina explains. When Mina entered James Flood’s home one night, she heard an unearthly voice tell her ‘it’s true!’ from a comment that Mina had made in the house. Mina talks about the comedian/ accused murderer Fatty Arbuckle and how he was associated with the St. Francis Hotel.

4. Fourth Stop: The Fairmont Hotel. Many movies were made at this hotel from Vertigo to The Rock. Prince Charles to Mick Jagger have stayed in this hotel as guests. The 7th Floor is reputed to be very haunted. It could be haunted by WWII soldiers that once stayed on that floor. A lady of the evening was murdered in the tower area of the hotel and a guest once saw the phantom of this murder victim as she laid on a 4 poster bed that no longer exists in the hotel, she was in a red teddy and actually talked to the guest. When the guest told hotel management, the management explained to him that they no longer have 4 poster beds in the room and when they went back to the room, there was no woman laying on a 4 poster bed in a red teddy. The guest was startled and realized he encountered the phantom of the murdered woman that night. The penthouse of this hotel is reputed to be haunted and Mae West’s ghost is sometimes seen near the Penthouse. President Truman once stayed at the Penthouse. The lobby area of the Fairmont Hotel has a gorgeous staircase, this is where Gone with the Wind was filmed. Chris Grissom, HPI investigator, points out to Shannon “Ms. Macabre”, that there was a figure in one of the darkened windows that peaked out at the crowd. Shannon saw the figure too, it was a head moving swiftly to the window and then moving back to hide. Chris and Shannon both thought this was quite odd. If it was a normal person, why wouldn’t they just look normally from their window upon the crowd, why go back and hide behind the wall? Could this have been a phantom?

5. Last Stop: Mark Hopkins Hotel. During the last stop I was being interviewed by Kevin Jones about my own ghost hunting activities with HPI and didn’t hear much about what Mina had to say about this magnificent looking hotel, and only gathered some information about 100 variety of martinis and the variation of martinis that is associated with this hotel.

The tour was fun and informative and Mina presented the information with enthusiasm and delight. As I was leaving the tour, I got a tap on my right shoulder. I turned around and a man dressed all in black asked me how I enjoyed the tour. I told him, it was a blast and wished it didn’t have to end. He smiled and said that I have a lot more to learn about vampires. I asked him what his name was. With a hypnotic stare, he said ‘Lee Stat’ and walked backwards into the shadows. As I tried to follow his steps, he was no where around. As I rejoined Shannon and Chris, I thought about the name. Did he say Lee Stat or Lestat? Hmmmm.

After the insane day of vampire chasing Chris and I piled in Shannon’s Ecto 1 and headed over to The Gold Cane on Haight Street and came upon Puppy, a guy we interviewed during the Haight Haunted Walking Tour. We talked with Puppy for a while, while Chris and I had a round of Jack and Coke. Shannon had to play the straight arrow, since she was driving Chris and I home. All three of us were getting tired and we rushed back to Ecto 1. Going to San Francisco, expenses gather and this is how I add things up for this trip.

Gas for Shannon’s car: $20.00 Paul’s pocket.
Parking for Shannon’s car: $15.00 Chris’s pocket.
Drinks at Hamilton Hotel: $20.00 Shannon’s pocket.
Drinks at The Gold Cane: $15.00 Chris’ pocket.
Midnight Snacks at McDonalds: $14.00 Paul’s pocket.
The San Francisco Vampire Tour: Priceless!

For more on H.P.I. Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern California, go to their website at: http://www.hpiparanormal.net

Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter
Email: JazmaPika@cs.com
Paranormal Cellular Hotline: 916 203 7503 (for comments on this story).
If you have a possible investigation call: 1-888-709-4HPI

From September 17 to September 20th, I flew on Southwest Airlines from Sacramento to Phoenix, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico and last location Midland/Odessa, Texas. I was greeted by my ex-wife Patricia Mary Boyd, her husband Gary Boyd and their son Markus Boyd. They drove me to Midland Memorial Hospital, where I could be with my stepson who I raised from a baby.

My son Jason Randall Porter was lying in a hospital bed from a ruptured appendix. There were complications to the rupture and I was there to support him. He was back to normal by Thursday and was allowed to go home. But, the reason I am telling you all this is because when Jason was sleeping, I had a hard time sleeping on the cot in his hospital room, I roamed the hallways and talked with two employees of this hospital. They don’t want to be identified, so I will call them Nurse X and Cleaning Lady X. Yes! I did a small investigation of this hospital, by doing the first thing in an investigation, interviewing the witnesses. Nurse X explained to me that she used to clean the Hospice rooms and one night, she felt a swift cold breeze move quickly down the hallway and a door opened and then closed on its own accord. Another night, she said a nurse heard clanging sounds from another room and went into the room to investigate and some hospital items were moved. Cleaning Lady X told me that when cleaning in the morgue area, she has heard strange banging’s on the wall. Once she thought she saw a shadow move across the hallway. As we all know, hospitals are reputed to be haunted and Midland Memorial Hospital is no exception.

When I was flying from Sacramento to Phoenix, I sat next to Julie Dennis of Nevada City, CA. She asked me what my occupation was. I told her my real job and then told her I was also a paranormal investigator for HPI on the side. She then told me that she had a spectacular UFO event that happened to her when she was in Los Angeles. She saw a huge mother ship UFO go over the horizon and dart away towards the East. She said she will never forget this paranormal event for the rest of her life. As you can see, when I am not supposed to be paranormal investigating, I am still on the job, no matter where I am.

Now, everyone who is reading this article is probably saying…”why is Paul talking about hospitals and UFO’s? When is he going to talk about San Francisco? Okay, okay, hold your dang britches….I have one other story to tell you. I correspond a lot with the legendary famous psychic, Nancy Bradley. I met Nancy through Shannon McCabe, HPI’s president. Nancy has so many ghost stories! I received an email, in which she tells a very unique ghost story. This one really grabbed my interest. Nancy told me that the reason why this happened to her is because spirits are able to see light and are drawn to that light. The light is Nancy Bradley. Of course, if the spirits knew Nancy in real life, they’d be drawn to that light even more. Here is what Nancy had to say:

“I would love to do the interview with you, we can set up a time, and (Yes, I will be doing an interview with Nancy Bradley, I can’t wait! Paul)……share Vincent Gaddis’s work with you as well, I have a lot of it here.

When Vince died (not anywhere near Placerville, CA) I was in the shower. I came out and he was sitting on one of my big stereo speakers. For whatever reason, this did not surprise me even though he had not been to the Enchanted Cottage, ever, and I was naked. I said “Vincent, hang on, I am going to get a towel”. Totally comfortable with my old friend, glad he was there, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me and came running back into the living room. I never gave thought that he did not have a house key to get in. “What are you doing in town Vince, it is so good to see you!” I said. It had been 4 years since we had seen each other though we kept in touch by phone and letter. “I’m dead!” he said.

He looked perfectly normal and I refused to believe him. Not that he would lie, or I did not know, I just did not want to believe it. So I called The Borderland Science Foundation, where he lived and worked (founded), and said “Vincent is here” They said “Vincent just died”.

So, I went back to the speaker and he was gone then, but we have had many conversations since. Nancy Bradley http://www.nancybradley.org”

Absolutely fascinating! Thank you Nancy for sharing this story! Wow!

This woman is incredible! Okay, I know everyone wants to know what happened on the ‘Haunted Haight Walking Tour’. http://www.hauntedhaight.com Lets go for it! The date is Saturday, September 22, 2007. I pull up to Shannon’s house at 12 noon, jump into the ‘Ectoplasmobile’ and Shannon picks up one of her lead investigators, Tim Hawkins. We’re off and running to San Francisco, CA. I get a call from Donna Reynolds and Athena Quinn, they are already in San Francisco and they are lost. Shannon directs them to where they need to be and relieves Donna’s stress of driving through busy San Francisco traffic. I knew at this time we should have placed a HPI GPS tracking device on Donna’s car.

When Shannon, Tim and I, arrived we saw the HPI army of paranormal investigators sitting in on Sharon Leong’s ghost photography classes and Anne Leong’s dowsing rod classes. As I looked around the classroom, I was counting heads and saw that the following paranormal investigators showed up: Dee Pizarro, Lou Paman, Jean Paman, Marcus Stout, Julie Grissom, Chris Grissom, Mary Casiano, Alicia Perry, Athena Quinn, Jennifer Baca, Tony Baca, Joey Paman, Donna Reynolds, John Wachter aka Vlawde (he got that name Vlawde from some online video game, I always wondered about that), and Michelle Paykel. Marcia McCord of the Diablo Valley Paranormal was also there.

I went to the restroom to see if I had a nosebleed from Shannon’s erratic driving to San Francisco. As I walked into the restroom, I now knew what it was like to be a L39-C Albatross jet fighter pilot, that has been exposed to 4000 lbs of thrust, receiving the ultimate adrenaline rush! The G-Force in Shannon’s car, the Ectoplasmobile, thrust my face into the side window of her car, maybe a dozen times. Drivers on the Bay Bridge must have thought I was making faces at them, as my face was contorted against the car window. Anyway, I survived. “I like to arrive fashionably late” Shannon says. HA! We could have been there last week with driving this fast!

Chris Grissom (HPI video tech expert) and I, set up the camera for Shannon’s class on ‘Haunted Highway 49, A Driving Tour’. Shannon laid out some cute jokes and passed out chocolates everyone. Her descriptions of the various haunted places were done with the expertise of someone who has experienced these places first hand. Believe me, she has experienced these places and the class was very attentive to her stories. The driving tour can be downloaded here: http://www.ghosts.meetup.com/231/files/ I recommend taking the driving tour, there are plenty of spooky spots to get you in the mood for Halloween!

After the classes, we were all ready to kill some time before the Haunted Haight Walking Tour was to commence. Shannon lived in San Francisco for 5 years of her life and she knows the mean streets well. She even appeared on Nash Bridges with Don Johnson, Cheech Marin and Willie Nelson.

As we walked down the San Francisco streets, I looked around me, especially in the Haight Ashbury, district and saw the last of the hippies. Bohemian musicians and the Goth culture flourishing, I knew at this time, I was no longer in Kansas. At one point in time, I thought I saw Dirty Harry Callahan, Robert T. Ironside, Detective Mike Stone, Detective Steve Keller, Nash Bridges, & Monk at some crime scene, along with Trapper John MD pulling up to check out the victim. As I looked at the rooftops, was that the Charmed witches Paige, Piper and Phoebe looking down at us? There I go again, letting my imagination get away with me, it must have been that Red Victorian Punch and Orange House Punch I drank at Hobson’s Choice Bar with Shannon and Tim.

It’s easy to kill time in San Francisco, as Shannon interviewed people on the street and asked them if they ever had a paranormal experience. We stopped at the Cha, Cha, Cha Restaurant and sampled their Sangria (Frutas para La Putas) which loosely translated means ‘Fruit for the Whores’. We did some more interviews; Shannon interviewed some Irish guys at the bar, while my ghostwriting apprentice Athena interviews a guy named, Puppy, at another table. Tim, Donna and I grooved to the music ‘Jamie’s Cryin’ by Van Halen.

While at the Cha, Cha, Cha, I met Kate and I asked her if she ever had a paranormal experience, and she describes that when she visited the Joshua Tree Desert in 1999, she was with a group of people and she witnessed a cloud flashing red and blue lights for about 7 minutes. It was a bizarre cloud that had lights inside of it. This occurred around 9pm and as the crowd watched a blue streak go by, the cloud dissipated. From our interviews, it appears that many people have had paranormal experiences…

As I look across the bar, I wonder is that Dirty Harry Callahan walking toward me? Ugh! It must be the Sangria! As we left Cha, Cha, Cha, we stopped at The Gold Cane for more refreshment, and finally stopped at the Coffee to the People, where we met up with Tommy Netzband. Tommy wears many hats; he is the Tour Guide of the Haunted Haight Walking Tour, Paranormal Investigator and founder of the San Francisco Ghost Society, local historian, sensitive, and one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.

Here are few highlights of the dozen stops on the Haunted Haight Walking Tour…

We talked about the over 18 cemeteries once in San Francisco and how they removed them to develop businesses and homes. By 1901 it was declared
law that no body could be buried in the city and county of San Francisco. Later, many bodies have been found under San Francisco because they were never
removed! Yikes!

Tommy told us about a famous ghost story at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park, where it is believed to be haunted by a woman, that legend says, died there in a tragic boating accident. She is often seen floating above the lake and weeping in her long flowing white gowns. She is known as the “Lady of Stow Lake”.

There are not only ghost stories on the tour, but infamous places to visit…like the home of Cult Leader Jim Jones, of the Peoples’ Temple. Tommy describes the
deeds of Jim Jones that lead up to the tragedy in Guyana. Remember the ‘Electric Kool-Aid’? Later, we even saw where Charlie Manson camped out in his psycho van during the “Summer of Love” of 1967.

I want to mention everything about the tour because there was a lot of great information…however, Tommy Netzband insisted I leave some out so people could
come out and experience the surprises that wait in the “dark side” of the Haight Ashbury. As Tommy was giving his spiel, a man on the street says: “Don’t exaggerate Tommy”. It appears that everyone knows who Tommy is, as I walked past two girls sitting on the corner, they smiled at me and said: “Tommy gives an exciting tour, we have been on it!”

Some people felt a heaviness in the air as they approached a haunted home on the tour. Karma Bennet, an empath, smelled gunpowder in the area, before Tommy even told his story of a shooting! My apprentice, Athena, alerts me to Karma’s insight on this location. I quickly interviewed Karma, and discover that her mother Karel Bennett is also an empath, and knew a tragedy would happen at a Led Zeppelin concert in Tampa, Florida. Her prediction was correct.

Another thing Tommy mentioned is that San Francisco is the #7 most haunted city in America, with New Orleans being #1. Tommy also mentioned one of the top ghost sites in America, Haunted America Tours, and that if anyone wants to know about some of the most haunted places in America, this is a website that they need to check out. http://www.hauntedamericatours.com

As we ended our tour, we stopped at a bar on Haight to refresh ourselves, again. The bar was hopping like most places on Haight on a Saturday evening. People were shooting Patron Tequila and gyrating to Britney Spears’, ‘Toxic’. Shannon sang me the words, so I knew what the heck Britney was saying. “With a taste of your lips
I’m on a ride -You’re toxic I’m slipping under-With a taste of poison paradise I’m addicted to you- don’t you know that you’re toxic” Dang.
Tim and Shannon leave me in the bar to ponder the Britney Spears song… Then I find them back out on Haight Street teasing me with this huge slices of pizza. They purchased them for a mere 3 bucks at the Fat Slice Pizza! Hey, you guys, you didn’t tell me you were going to get pizza! Ugh!

You now must be thinking that my evening should be coming to a close, not when I am on official HPI business! We reconvene with Tommy and his team, SFGS, at Golden Gate Park. We get to go deep in the park and investigate ‘The Lady of Stow Lake’. Tommy has us all break up into teams. Each team leader would have a walkie talkie and it was up to us to conduct our own investigations. I joined up with the ‘Paman Stow Lake Task Force’ (cool name eh?), Joey Paman lead the investigation with Jean, Lou, Dee and I, in tow. I brought out my sound enhancement device and at one time, I heard a woman’s laughter and a man saying ‘no’. But, of course, I could have been picking up the sounds of the other teams. Jean hears a woman humming, while using the sound enhancement device. Joey used his video camera and the rest of the team used digital cameras for the investigation. We snap a lot of digital photos of small moisture orbs. The team, especially Jean, (who is a sensitive) feels heaviness near Strawberry Hill. Jean at one point feels like she is being pushed up the steps. As all of the teams reunite, many people from the various teams felt or witnessed something. Jean thought she saw a crossing shadow that moved across the lake. One of the paranormal investigators named, Cathy Lawson, told me that her mom’s ashes were thrown into this lake. Her sister had nightmares, because the ashes weren’t delivered to the lake, and when the ashes were finally thrown in, her sister’s nightmares ceased.

This was an outstanding and very enlightening day and night in San Francisco. I give Tommy Netzband a standing ovation for this fun-filled spooky tour, and conference at the SF library. He is a great local historian and a great guy to hang out with. Everyone felt fulfilled with newfound knowledge about the dark side of San Francisco, a side of San Francisco that most people are either unaware of or are too afraid to discover.

As we departed, Shannon blasted some old disco tunes in her ‘Ectoplasmobile’ driving like a bat outta hell and driving Tim, in the backseat, nuts. I, again experience the G-Force and look at Shannon and tell her, “yeah girl, whip it real good!” As we sped down the streets of San Francisco, Shannon said, “would you two like to see some hookers?!” Uh, yeah. She took us to the lovely and seedy Tenderloin district of SF. There were plenty of sex shops and really TALL ladies of ill repute standing by. What a treat. I looked at Shannon and Tim and say….”Weren’t Donna and Athena supposed to be behind us following us out of the City?” Shannon looks startled and says…”oh crap, we must have lost them while we were looking for the TALL hookers!”

Donna if you are reading this, I hope you and Athena made it back safely….sorry! There was a happy ending, Donna and Athena did make it home safely. Donna’s words: “You’re a dead man Paul!” Oops!

For more on H.P.I. Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern California, go to their website at: http://www.hpiparanormal.net

Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter
Email: JazmaPika@cs.com
Paranormal Cellular Hotline: 916 203 7503 (for comments on this story).
If you have a possible investigation call: 1-888-709-4HPI