Paranormal Nation

by Marc E. Fitch

  First, it is simply traditional to listen to and appreciate a good story without undue questioning of its premises. Second, “belief” in an item of folklore is not of the same kind as believing the earth is round or that gravity exists. A “true story” is first and foremost a story, not an axiom of science. And third, the legends fulfill needs of warning (don’t park!), explanation (what may happen to those who do), and rationalization (you can’t really expect sensational bargains not to have strings attached); these needs transcend any need to know the absolute truth.1

  Take, for instance, the story of the Amityville Horror, which is widely believed to be a “true” story: The Lutzes purchase at a bargain price a home in which a multiple murder was committed (we know from records; that much is actually true). However, upon moving into the home the family is set upon by demonic forces. Add to this fact that, according to the book written by Jay Anson, “It seems the Shinnecock Indians used land on the Amityville River as an enclosure for the sick, mad, and dying. These unfortunates were penned up until they died of exposure. However, the record noted that the Shinnecocks did not use this tract as a consecrated burial mound because they believed it to be infested with demons.”2 There are some lessons to be learned from the Amityville Horror: beware of houses where a murder has been committed (an age-old belief), beware of houses that are being sold dirt cheap, and respect the former lands of Native Americans and their belief systems. This is not to say that the Amityville Horror story was not true, although there is much debate about its merits; but this shows how certain stories can become folklore if presented with the right ingredients, drama, rumor, and publicity (the Amityville Horror house made headlines across the United States).

  These stories work their way into the American culture, particularly through the youth. Stories about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, and The Exorcist are told among adolescents as true stories, and thus, they create a tendency towards belief in the paranormal from an early age. As a preteen I recalled hearing a story in my hometown of Brookfield, Connecticut, about a boy who had become possessed by demons and murdered his family. The boy was supposedly still living in the town. My best friend remembered the incident well as his family had just moved to Brookfield because it was a safe town. When the murder and subsequent story of demon possession hit the newspapers, his mother was rather distraught. Only at the age of 30 did I finally research the story to find out what really happened as presented in the book The Devil Comes to Connecticut. It was a bit different from the rumor I had heard. The boy did not kill his family; it was a member of his family that had killed someone else. However, it did make headlines across the nation because it was the first time a plea of “Not Guilty by Reason of Demonic Possession” had ever been used in court. The plea was rejected, and the accused was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years. However, that story and its subsequent rumors have endured in Brookfield. The story was told on Discovery’s A Haunting, and there are rumors of a movie deal, thus regenerating the cycle of occurrence, rumor, and publicity; and in the end, money is made on the back of a legend.

  Books make up the other major money component of the paranormal. Stephen King is one of the most celebrated and widely read authors in history. His books have been turned into films; some have been box office hits and memorable horror films such as Carrie ($33 million), The Shining ($44 million), and Misery ($61 million), while others have been flops that were quickly forgotten—films such as Dream Catcher and Salem’s Lot. However, his stories of the paranormal have made him one of the wealthiest authors in history, topped only by J. K. Rowling with her Harry Potter series. The paranormal provides readers with a fantasy background for escape in much of the popular fiction. The current trend shows that the vampire books and the increasing number of zombie novels are ranking high on the best-seller lists, influencing the youth and introducing them to paranormal ideas, and subsequently being turned into hit movies, such as the Twilight series.

  Aside from the traditional horror fiction market, there has been major growth in the nonfiction market in recent years. The emergent popularity of ghost hunting programs on television has brought about an increased interest in nonfiction books that tell stories of hauntings or how-to books for amateur ghost hunters. New Page Books was launched in 2000 from Career Press as a line of books devoted solely to spirituality, history, science, and the paranormal. Some of its major titles include Flying Saucers and Science, Witness to Roswell, and 2013: The End of Days or A New Beginning, a book concerning the Mayan calendar and a global transformation. Some Christian publishers such as Anomalos Publishing have also found a niche with readers searching for answers to the paranormal within a biblical context. The Omega Conspiracy, written by Dr. I. D. E. Thomas, asserts that UFOs are actually demonic harbingers preparing the world for the return of the Nephilim—the Nephilim being a race that was created when the “Sons of God” reproduced with the “Daughters of Men” to create an evil race that God subsequently washed from the earth with the great flood. Other titles such as Nephilim Stargates: The Year 2012, The Return of the Watchers, and The Emerging Brave New World have found a home and a willing audience through this Christian publishing company. These books assert a Christian viewpoint and biblical answer for questions concerning UFOs and aliens, thus blending one of the world’s largest religions with one of the most debated paranormal phenomena. It is a powerful mixture, and the authors’ ability to tap into the Christian background of the American public carries a strong influence in the public and among believers. Amazon’s ability to hold a near infinite number of books, and the development of print-on-demand technology has allowed for a large number of obscure publishers to increase their sales and reach buyers across the world. By and large the Internet has been a boon for publishers of paranormal nonfiction and theory.

  This, however, does not sit well with the other side of the paranormal aisle at your local Barnes & Noble. For every paranormal book, there is a book positing the opposite, skeptical viewpoint. These books are also well received by the public. Carl Sagan’s works all made the New York Times best-seller lists. His work is largely scientific and skeptical of the paranormal. Often it is the scientists and skeptics that attract the larger publishing houses as the authors can be touted as leading thinkers and scientists in their respective fields. Careers have been made on both sides of the book aisle—both debunking the paranormal and advocating for it. While the debunkers may get the bigger publishing houses in the nonfiction market, the number of books proclaiming the validity of the paranormal, both fiction and nonfiction, vastly outnumber them. It would seem that scientists face an uphill battle, and the numbers are against them. They face cries of elitism when trying to disprove or even debate the paranormal, and their work is often thankless despite the fact that they want to believe. Carl Sagan writes, “I would be very happy if flying saucer advocates and alien abduction proponents were right and real evidence of extraterrestrial life were here for us to examine. They do not ask us, though, to believe on faith. They ask us to believe on the strength of their evidence. Surely it is our duty to scrutinize the purported evidence at least as closely and skeptically as radio astronomers who are searching for alien radio signals.”3 Scientists feel it is their duty to debate paranormal claims, but it doesn’t get them invited to many parties.

  The scientific debate aside, the point is that both belief in the paranormal and skepticism of the paranormal have a large stake in both the book and film industry. Any follower of horror or science fiction films can surely attest to the marketing and money-making potential inherent in the very suspension of disbelief that analytical scientists decry. While books, television, and film are by far the largest industries that find the paranormal profitable, there are other, more obscure ventures that are profitable, particularly in the tourism industry. The U.S. fascination with the paranormal has many places in which it can thrive—places that open the door to exploration, wonder, mystery, and fantasy.

  IF T
HESE WALLS COULD TALK

  Ted and Carol Matsumoto run Captain Grant’s Bed & Breakfast, located in Preston, Connecticut, just outside of the tourist destination of Mystic. They have owned and operated the inn for 14 years and have developed a bit of a reputation, but not just for Carol’s delicious blueberry pancakes and homemade syrup. Captain Grant’s has established a reputation as being a haunted house, and people are more than willing to pay to sleep beneath the ancient wood beams that traverse the ceiling.

  If a location has the right to be proclaimed as haunted, it is Captain Grant’s. It is a time capsule of American history. Built in 1754 by Captain William Gonzales Grant, it housed three generations of the family long after Grant died at sea. It served as a garrison during the Revolutionary War and protected runaway slaves during the Civil War. Some of the most heart-wrenching times in U.S. history flowed through this house.

  What’s more is that it lies in the middle of a triangle of lost souls. Across the street from Captain Grant’s is St. James Cemetery—a quiet, small patch of land that pushes far back into the forest and is barely visible from the road. The names and dates here are old and all seemingly familiar. It is the resting place of the young—sailors and fishermen—who lost their lives at sea, soldiers who died in battle, and those who were struck down by disease. The ages on the stones are a reminder that more than a century ago life was much more fragile, and much more dangerous. Just up the street and within sight of the house is St. James Church; a fine-looking façade with a history as long and varied as Captain Grant’s. Its inception was during a time of great conflict for the Church of England, and the building of St. James was not without strife and public difficulty. Unfortunately, the church has occasionally encountered bad luck; it was split apart by a hurricane in the thirties and burned to the ground in the sixties. It has been twice rebuilt as a religious landmark. However, the most interesting and haunting area is the abandoned cemetery that lies across a field behind Captain Grant’s. Surrounded by a crumbling stone wall and covered by trees, you could easily trip on one of the sunken tombstones before realizing that you were in the midst of the dead. The grass and shrubs are tall and overgrown, the stones have sunk into the dirt—sometimes only a few inches of the stones are still showing. The sepulchers seem to blend with the landscape as if they had been formed during the glacial age. Only when you look closely can you see that they are man-made. The abandoned cemetery, known as Cemetery 17, looks as if it has become a part of the natural landscape. Truly, it is ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

  In the middle of this triumvirate of lost and forgotten souls is Captain Grant’s Bed & Breakfast. My wife and I spent our first anniversary in the Adelaide Room, supposedly the site of the most paranormal activity. We spent a lovely night there without incident except for a very friendly cat that found its way in from the hallway and spent a large portion of the evening with us. In the morning we ate breakfast with Carol on the veranda, served with her finest antique silver and her very own homemade pancakes and syrup (if it sounds like I’m plugging the place, I might be just a little). This gave me a chance to speak with Carol and find out her history with Captain Grant’s old home.

  While they do not advertise the bed and breakfast as being haunted (they have previously lost bookings from religious groups who believe that all ghosts are demonic), Carol is the first to tell you that the place is haunted and that she has had many experiences of her own in the 14 years that she has operated Captain Grant’s. She showed me two photographs that were taken on the property. The first is in the second floor hallway, just outside the Adelaide Room. It is a white glowing mist that appears to have arms and legs, like a tall, lanky man walking across the hallway. It could be a spot on the lens or an error in the film development, but Carol claims she saw this materialize out of thin air. The other photograph shows the backyard of Captain Grant’s—bordered by a large fence-like structure. Carol explains to me that there has never been a fence in the backyard since she has owned the place, but it appeared in this photograph. It looks plain as day, solid and physical.

  Of course, no haunted house would be complete without its ghost stories. Ted told me of a New York City detective who stayed one night and woke up the next morning, angry with Ted and Carol for making so much noise in the attic above his room the night before. Ted explained to him that he and his wife weren’t even in the house the night before and then showed the detective the attic, which was so cluttered with building materials that no one could possibly have been walking around up there. The detective came back the following Halloween to participate in the annual Halloween party held at Captain Grant’s. He became a witness and a believer. Then there was the shower rod in the Adelaide Room. No matter how hard the couple tried to secure it to the wall, it would repeatedly “fly off” as if someone had knocked it from its perch. Ted finally had to bolt it to the walls. More recently there had been a ghostly experience that lost Ted and Carol a member of their staff. Amy, one of their cleaning persons who had been skeptical about the haunting, was in the Adelaide Room fixing the blinds when a young girl appeared and walked right through her arms. Amy was so hysterical that she had to be sent home; she never returned for work again.

  Stories like these, and others, draw a large number of customers to Captain Grant’s Bed & Breakfast, and the location is well known among paranormal investigators. Ted and Carol claim that “quite a few people come for the ghosts, a lot of ghost hunting and ghost hunting training” takes place at Captain Grant’s. Naturally, Ted and Carol aren’t going to let this economic resource go untapped. They host an annual Halloween night that attracts tourists, researchers, and people who have had ghostly experiences. They begin the night with a flashlight tour through St. James Cemetery and end the night with cider, a big bonfire, and personal stories of ghostly encounters. In the morning they tour the abandoned gravesite out back. They are sold out every Halloween.

  Stephen King writes in The Shining, “…every big hotel has got a ghost. Why? Hell, people come and go. Sometimes one of them will pop off in his room, heart attack or stroke or something like that. Hotels are superstitious places. No thirteenth floor or room thirteen, no mirrors on the back of the door when you come through, stuff like that.”4 Indeed, it would appear that hotel builders build and design with a reverence for superstition and the paranormal and, over the years, certain hotels have gained reputations and notoriety through paranormal experiences. Strangely enough, Stephen King wrote The Shining while staying in room 217 of the Stanley Hotel, which is listed as one of the most haunted hotels in the United States. The made-for-television version of the film was subsequently shot there. The number of “haunted” hotels, inns, and B&Bs appears to be growing as more and more people “come and go” through the years.

  Hotels and B&Bs often harbor storied pasts of violence, suicide, romance, and mystery. The Lizzie Borden House in Massachusetts, where Lizzie Borden allegedly took an axe to her father and stepmother thus inciting the trial of the century, is now a B&B for $200 a night. The Hotel Coronado in San Diego is supposedly haunted by a woman who was found dead on the beach from a gunshot wound after her lover did not meet her at the hotel. The Lizzie Borden House, the Coronado, and the Stanley are all listed on Forbes’s Top 10 Haunted Hotels.5 While these represent some of the most elite and storied places across the United States, Canada, and Britain, they are, by far, not the only game in town. The fact that a publication such as Forbes even has such a list should be testament to the new popularity of haunted hotels. And Forbes isn’t the only list; USA Today and the Travel Channel all have similar lists, but often with different hotels. In other words, there are many supposedly haunted hotels, and apparently they don’t mind the attention and free advertising that comes with their reputation. As in the case of Captain Grant’s, ghosts are good for business.

  The paranormal has had a love-hate relationship with tourism over the centuries. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, places reputed to be haunted were avoided out
of fear; however, in the Victorian era, with the rise of Spiritualism, “haunted locations were advertised as tourist attractions in Victorian travel guides, such as Harriet Martineau’s Guide to the Lake District (1858), and in attempts to attract English middle-class visitors to Scotland by advertising places mentioned in the hugely popular Scottish novels of Walter Scott.”6 This mirrors the fact that fans of the hugely popular Stephen King are attracted to the Stanley. So are we living in a modern Victorian era? With the phenomenal growth of the Internet, hotels are able to market their “haunted” status to potential customers, and with the rise in the popularity of paranormal programming, there are more and more hotels claiming to be haunted, and more and more people paying to stay overnight. While it is difficult to estimate the revenue produced by people interested in staying in haunted hotels, based on the increased popularity of paranormal television programs, many of which feature the above-mentioned hotels, it is safe to say that these rumors of ghosts and hauntings are certainly not hurting their business.

  Staking claim in this new tourism fad are also bars, taverns, and restaurants. The paranormal program Ghost Hunters regularly investigates hotels, bars, pubs, tourist sites, and museums that were formerly residences of historical figures, as well as general points of interest in the American landscape. In his book, Ghost Hunters, John Kachuba and a demonologist investigate a supposedly haunted coffee shop. Bill Ellis outlines the legend of the Fast Food Ghost that is seen in a local McDonald’s or Pizza Hut or whichever establishment happens to be in the area where the legend is spreading. However, hotels have a special place in the paranormal heart of the United States. Perhaps it is because hotels, especially older ones, have a natural storied past because they have seen so many people’s lives over the years. If their walls could talk, what kind of stories would they tell? Throughout the hundreds of years that some of these hotels have been in business, thousands, if not millions, of people have come through the doors and spent a small portion of their lives in these rooms. They are vestibules of time. Moments of life, death, love, and hate have played out repeatedly over the years, making hotels largely haunted, if not by ghosts, then by the history of all those who have come before.