He is slow on his feet and loves to take mid-morning, afternoon and evening naps, but Slater seems to have caused quite a commotion at Beban House since his arrival.

The family pet now calls the Nanaimo Tourist Information Centre home, but his owner fears the cat has stirred up the building's ghostly past. Employees at the Nanaimo Tourist Information Centre in Beban Park are familiar with the buildings haunted history. But it was only recently that they started to take it a little more seriously. Recurring incidents left them with chills down their spines and prompted them to contact the Vancouver Island Paranormal Society to investigate their ghostly suspicions.

Mark Drysdale, executive director of Tourism Nanaimo, says he's not convinced there are ghosts roaming the rooms and halls of the historic building. He doesn't even believe in ghosts. But after moving his cat into the building, strange things started to happen with no good explanation. Co-worker Amanda Envoy shares Drysdale's practicality, but they both figured it couldn't hurt to seek the opinion of a professional ghostbuster.

Rob Turner with the Paranormal Research and Investigation Group is still reviewing the evidence they collected in Beban House on the night of July 4. Envoy is eager to find out the results, even though she passed up on the opportunity to sleep over with the ghostbusters while they conducted their research. She's already spooked enough and didn't think trying to meet and greet the ghosts, if there are such a thing, would be in her best interest.

"Lets just say if ghosts do exist, then there's one here," Drysdale said with a laugh.

Beban House is one of Vancouver Island's most well-known hauntings, which was even featured on the television series Creepy Canada.

Before becoming Nanaimo's tourism building the top floor was used as a daycare. The operator of the facility often heard stories from preschoolers about an oddly dressed child playing with a red rubber ball. It was later realized that it is more likely one of the Beban's Chinese servants, a young boy who died in the house.

Drysdale has heard all the tales, but it wasn't until a few unexplained incidents got his wheels turning. Doors and windows he had locked were opened. Doors he left opened were locked. A vital key went missing and then reappeared weeks later. And Slater who was locked in a room over a weekend was sitting in the foyer on the following Monday. It's a mystery because the door to his room was still locked and there was no other way out.

Drysdale called the security company a few times to check to see if the alarms had been set off at any time or if they had detected any movements inside the building. The security records came back clean. That's when the tourism team decided to call in the experts.

Even when Drysdale and Envoy are in the office all alone, they never really feel alone. It's not that they feel like someone they can't see is staring at them. But rather, there's a presence of someone else in the room, on the stairs or in the corridor. Despite the eerie feeling, they don't believe the ghosts, or spirits, to be evil.

"It all seems to be quite harmless," said Envoy. "But it still creeps me out."
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SALEM — Three Revere teens on the hunt for ghosts at the Old Salem Jail yesterday will tell a judge today why they should stay out of the current jail.

Police arrested Jeremy McCarthy, 18, Anthony Enriquez, 19, and Anthony Pio, 18, on charges of breaking and entering to commit a misdemeanor and trespassing.

The three teens told police they heard the Old Salem Jail is haunted and wanted to take pictures.

One of the teens did have a camera with him.

Police Lt. Scott Englehardt said police received a call at 6:20 p.m. to say three men jumped a fence at the old jail property, which is under construction.

Patrolmen James Johnson, Rafael Gonzales and Brian St. Pierre responded to the Old Salem Jail and jumped the fence themselves.

New Boston Ventures plans to convert the jail, a burned-out jail keeper's house and a crumbling old barn, which will be replaced, into 23 residences.

In addition, they plan a restaurant and a jail exhibit space, which will display three of the old jail cells. Some of the cell doors will be inlaid into the walls of the corridors of the main jail building.

All three will be arraigned today at Salem District Court.

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Superstition play a major role in how people perceived cemeteries. Cemeteries were held to be the doorways for the dead to leave this earth. Later, ghost hunters declared cemeteries were not a part of any emotional or traumatic experience for the deceased, therefore, cemeteries would have no ghosts. This belief persisted and old castles and spooky looking mansions became the focus for haunted sites.

Dave and Sharon discovered that cemeteries were very active with the spirits of the dead. Based on photographic evidences, a new theory was proposed that essentially stated that many old cemeteries were like train stations and that inbound and outbound passenger trains discharged their passengers at these stations for local area destinations. The analogy of the train station is simply but the mechanism that enables this transfer to happen is very complicated and may involved hyperdiminsional physics, wormholes and dimensional discontinuity.
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Why Do Some Spirits Stay Earthbound?
by Dave Juliano

An earthbound spirit is a human spirit that has not properly passed over.  They

have not gone onto the next level, the light, heaven, whatever you choose to

call it.  They remain behind, here on earth, and they account for many ghost

sightings and haunted places.

The reasons for this are varied.  Some are complicated and unique to that spirit

and others are simple to understand and relate too.  I will discuss a few of the

most common reasons that a spirit remains earthbound.

Some spirits remain at or near the site of their death, especially if it was

sudden and unexpected.  They remain confused and don't know or accept that they

have died.  These spirits remain in the area and try to make contact with anyone

that passes by that is sensitive to spirits.  This type of spirit can be found

almost anywhere a death has occurred.

Sometimes a spirit realizes that it is dead and that life continues beyond that.

 They do not go to the light for reasons such as the fear that their existence

will end, fear of the unknown, fear of going to hell or being judged for past

deeds.  These spirits are bound here because of their own fears.

Other spirits stay behind to take care of unfinished business.  It may be to

make sure their finances and their loved ones are ok or to pass along one final

message.  Often these earthbound spirits do not remain here for long, once they

can complete their goal, they normally pass over.  If the deed that they are

attempting to finish is complicated they will often contact the living to assist

them.  In many cases the living are unsure of what the spirit wants and it adds

to the length of the time the spirit spends here.  Almost anything that a spirit

feels compelled to do before it goes to the light can make it remain here until

it feels comfortable with how they have left things.

Guilt can also be a reason for a spirit being stuck here.  They may feel like

they have left the family or loved ones too soon and uncared for.  This is also

the main reason why suicide victims and other spirits whose death was caused by

their actions (alcoholics, drug overdose, etc) remain behind.  They feel guilty

over taking their life or contributing to their death.

The living can also hold a spirit here.  By not letting go of them, they can be

bound here by our love and unable or unwilling to go on until the living can

come to terms with the loss.  This happens when people go beyond the normal

grieving process and become obsessed with the deceased person.  They feel that

they left things unsaid, undone, etc. and they feel guilt over it.  This keeps

the spirit from going over many times simply because it does not want us to feel

this way or be that upset.

There are many other reasons that a spirit cam remain earthbound, I have just

touched on a few of the most commonly encountered ones here.
 
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CROP CIRCLES
On Sunday, June 14, 2009, the two men had their respective visible light video cameras with them when they visited what was known as the Aztec bird below Barbury Castle, first reported that morning north of Marlborough. Paul Jones had a tripod mounted with his JVC Hard Disk Camcorder and its 32 times Mega Pixel Optical Zoom. Andrew Pyrka did not have a tripod for his older hand-held Panasonic Video camera.

The two men encountered an angry farmer who told them they could not enter his field containing the Aztec Bird. So at 8:30 PM, June 14, 2009, the two men were driving down a hill away from Barbury Castle when they both saw a dark, swirling mass near the horizon.

Paul Jones and Andrew Pyrka stopped their van and each got a pair of binoculars. I could see a silver disc that either had a bright white light or the sun was glinting off. Andrew thought it might be a helicopter, Paul told me.

I have watched a half-hour of their visible light videotape and the aerial object appears to be silver metal with a bright, white light at one end that at first is shining toward Paul's camera on the tripod. Then the unidentified aerial object rotates so that the white light moves to one side and the strangely shaped object - not a perfect disc shape, but almost trapezoid - hovers without moving for ten minutes. Then the silver object began to descend for ten seconds until it goes behind the horizon hill down toward land between Barbury Castle and Swinden.
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