Our Lives in Stories

This past week I heard an interview on Darknessradio.com which really caught my attention.  The interview was with author and paranormal investigator Andru Hunter and he talked about his book, The Veil Beyond the Grave.  It is the story of how a murder case, cold for 127 years, was solved  in 2009 partly due to paranormal means.  Mr Hunter, who is a Vietnam vet and Forensic scientist, attributed the cracked case to  “about 60% forensic and 40% paranormal means.”  Although this post is not an endorsement of this book, as I personally have not yet read it, I felt somewhat validated as a paranormal investigator  listening to him speak.

All of us who investigate the paranormal do it for our own reasons.  I outlined some of my thoughts on why I do it in my earlier post, entitled, “To give Thanks…”  As we advance in skill, knowledge, and technology, there will come a time when our work will be more widely utilized and accepted for the greater good of society as well.  I believe we are coming up on that horizon now.

Our history should be told in stories.  Too often as students and children, we are taught by text books, stats, and facts and we neglect the actualities that have led to those stats and facts.  The result is an abysmal knowledge of our past and a lagging sense of who we are as communities, or a nation.  (MSN Report: Students Don’t Know Much About History.)

We have come to the point when we can now utiize the paranormal to help tell the stories of our past; of our heritage.  The Midwestern Paranormal Investigative Network has been able to do exactly that.  It’s always exhilerating to hear the random EVPs that we gather as evidence from our network.  But it is quite a different feeling when those EVPs can only be explained as a direct link to our history, a voice crossing over threads of time, allowing us into their lives and thoughts from long ago…

• Such as the stories we learned at the William Rhodes House.  We knew it as a beautiful Bed &Breakfast; a Victorian home built by the 1st grocery store owner in Appleton, WI in 1897.  Knowing that history is one thing… catching an EVP stating “Can’t go bankrupt” is quite another.  It brings you into a single moment of  time; a moment of despair someone felt long ago.  The primary source himself, gone for decades, allowing you into his struggles which are unknown to anyone living today.  No history book comes close to that power.

• Such as verifying a long told story of an old woman falling down a staircase in an old farmhouse in New London, WI.  A story told to us by the current owner of the home having no idea if this was true or merely a legend.  Evidence caught at the scene, “I’m Down…” not only leaves no doubt the story was true, but brings you to that very moment when the tragedy occured, in heartwrenching detail.

• Such as the stories we learned at Saloon #10 in Deadwood, SD.  We know what history tells us about the murder of Wild Bill Hickock…and evidence caught in 2011, at the very spot of the murder in 1876, “He fell quickly. He could’ve hit me.” gives us the point of view straight from the assissin himself.

• Such as the stories we learned at Little Bighorn.  Touring an American Battlefield is an experience not well articulated.  Thoughts and emotions run through one’s head endlessly.  Thoughts of valor, loss, honor, brutality, sadness; the list goes on and on.  However, conducting a paranormal investigation on a Battlefield compounds those emotions when statements like this are caught: “I’m down there…dead!”    – An actual voice from a soldier who parished on that sacred ground well over a century ago is still able to speak to us.

Imagine the possibilites.

Paranormal investigating is still virtually in it’s infancy.  Equipment will improve.  Knowledge will improve.  Skills will improve.

Our stories are still there to be discovered and shared.

MPINetwork will always be listeing for them.

Happy Holidays!

Scott