We had a recent case where a disaster may have played a role in the paranormal activity of the home. I will discuss that case further into this blog. This disaster made me think about other disasters, natural or otherwise, and if there were claims of paranormal activity following them. So, there I went. I started surfing the web and low-and-behold, there are numerous accounts of paranormal activity following major disasters.
It makes sense there would be activity, right? The souls of the victims were suddenly taken with one foul swoop and have no idea what happened. Then, there are those souls that lingered in the rubble of the disaster and remain earthbound to make sure they are found, and closure is completed. I would imagine that some of the souls from the 9/11 tragedy linger to embrace their loved ones when they come to visit the memorial.
There are many stories I discovered about disasters that created paranormal activity. I chose three of the more interesting ones that also included pictures. I want to start off by saying that the stories are recounts of what I read, and the pictures have been made public. My team or I did not take them.
Although warning systems have come a long way, the tornado will find victims as it did in Moore, OK. An EF5 tornado roared through the town on May 20, 2013. The tornado leveled entire neighborhoods and ultimately killed 24 people. Seven of the victims were elementary school children, including nine-year-old Nicolas. However, Nicolas’ father Scott, insists his son is still around.
An Oklahoma news station reported that Scott claimed his son appeared in a photo taken on the Fourth of July. The photo shows Nicolas’ cousin Madison playing with sparklers while a blurred face hovers in the background (left). Scott is certain the blurred face is his son’s.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” McCabe said of his reaction to the photo. “My brother, when he saw it, said the hair stood up on the back of his neck.”
Skeptics say the image is nothing more than motion blur or a faulty camera phone, but McCabe is unconvinced.
“I feel it, you know. I feel that he’s here. They can say what they want. I believe. I believe he’s watching over us.”
Weather related disasters, I feel, are the worst. An avalanche that occurred in Wellington, WA on March 1, 1910, was the deadliest avalanche disaster in history. Just after 1 AM, according to experts, lightning struck the mountain causing an avalanche. The avalanche smashed into a railway depot throwing trains 150 feet downhill. The avalanche was preceded by a week of heavy “blizzard-like” snow. Even with the depot worker’s best efforts, they could not free two of the remaining trains. One train, the Spokane Express and a mail train, was stranded on the tracks. To make matters worse, the telegraph lines were downed from the storm, leaving Wellington without any means of communication. Several passengers grew impatient and left the Spokane Express and trudged through the snow and off the mountain. Many of the passengers remained on the train, hopeful the weather would change, and their train would continue its journey. Sadly, their wish for the weather to change is what caused their deaths. The change in the weather came in the form of rain. The lightning came with the rain. The lightning strike then caused the avalanche.
The avalanche killed 96 people. Many of the victims’ bodies could not be retrieved until 21 weeks after the disaster. That’s over five months! Many paranormal investigators believe Wellington is one of Washington’s most haunted locations for this very reason.
Legend has it a ghostly woman wanders the area, humming and singing, but never staying in one place long. Some visitors hear children playing, even when there are no children around. Disembodied screams and voices are also common.
Hurricane Katrina was one of our nation’s worst disasters. The monstrous storm hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. The storm was bad enough, but the aftermath of stressed levees and natural predators, humans included, caused so much destruction, and opened the doorway to many paranormal happenings.
A guardsman encountered a young child, he claims, to be a girl. First, it was laughter and one incident, his gun being unloaded, hearing shell casings hit the floor. When he shed light on the area, he found bullets on the floor and his gun feet away from where he left it. He did a perimeter search and could not find a living soul.
The Charity Hospital, the hospital that was in the center of the disaster was closed after the hurricane. There are photos of a lone ghost spotted in the window of the hospital. One account from the sighting was a lit-up Christmas tree. This was hard to explain because the hospital had been closed for years and no electricity was connected to the abandoned hospital. The images are photos I found on various sites. These pictures are public, and my team did not take them.
The photos are compelling and certainly makes me want to go to these places and investigate for myself.
As I promised in the beginning of this blog, during a recent case, we discovered a disaster that probably, or at least has the potential to, have created paranormal activity.
On June 28, 1983, around midnight, unbeknown to the travelers of a certain bridge on I-95, a structural pin had given way causing the bridge to collapse and fall
into the Mianus River. The sudden collapse caused several vehicles to plunge into the river causing multiple injuries and three deaths.
In mid-February, my team and I investigated a home that was located on the banks of the Mianus River. I was traveling to the case when I received a vision of a person standing on the shore looking at a body of water and a woman looking at the same body of water from her home. I mentioned my vision to a team member to get validation and she confirmed that the home was near a body of water and some of the claims could be related.
David and I were waiting to go into the house while the rest of the team did the introductions and walkthrough. I found myself standing at the same spot I had my vision. I was seeing three souls walking from the river. At one point, I had my back to the river, and I heard a loud crash. I quickly turned around and looked to the bridge in the distance and saw the bridge falling into the river along with several vehicles.
I stated to David, “That bridge collapsed.” I asked him to look up bridge collapses on his phone and it showed the article of the Mianus River Bridge collapse. I was pleased and excited to get validation of my vision. There are claims of the homeowner seeing full-body apparitions, along with shadowy figures walking around his property. At one point, the apparition was so lifelike, the homeowner came out of his home with a gun just to scare the individual away, only to find no one there.
The sightings from the homeowner are not isolated to just his property. I would bet that other homeowners in the area on both sides of the river have seen apparitions or other ghostly images. I should mention that we have not finished the investigation. So, there is a lot more work to be done, but it goes to show you that another disaster has created or potentially has created paranormal activity.
The photos below show the bridge then and now. The photo from 1983 was copied from an internet article and the current photo was taken by our photographer.
Our investigation sparked me to look into other disasters and the amount of paranormal activity attached to them. There are many horrible disasters that have occurred in our country and around the world. I encourage you to research disasters and see for yourself. Read each story with an open mind and then make the determination of the story’s validity, even our case.
Chris O’Connor, M.A.
Co-Founder/Gifted Psychic Medium
Eastern Connecticut Paranormal Society