I am Haunted: Living Life Through the Dead

by Zak Bagans

  Vicki Graves said that she felt scared at times, especially in the master bathroom, and she would shake at the thought of being in the presence of Herb’s spirit. Rob, however, didn’t flinch. He was adamant that the spirits were there in the house because “[Herb] liked it here, and the victims are still here.” He even had a creepy demeanor at the times when Vicki seemed the most scared. Sometimes as we filmed, I would catch Rob watching us through the blinds, as if through Rob, Herb was keeping an eye on us so that we didn’t learn too much (or maybe to ensure that we saw something he wanted us to see). Rob also got uncomfortable when we talked about certain parts of Herb’s life. I’m not saying that Rob Graves is a serial killer, but I couldn’t shake the idea that the spirit of Herb Baumeister could be affecting him. I think if you spend a long time in a place filled with bad energy, that energy becomes a part of you, and that’s what was happening at Fox Hollow Farm.

  The people who live in the locations we film for Ghost Adventures often ask us to investigate over here or over there, or ask us to come in early so we can find more, without realizing that the spirits are actually the ones guiding them. The spirits know what happened there and channel that information through the living. This was true of Fox Hollow Farm. The family pointed out details of the property, and I kept wondering if it could be the spirit of Herb (or his victims) channeling information through them.

  As I said earlier, many places where mass murders or other atrocities occur are changed or torn down in order to wipe away the memories. The ones that survive (like the Viscilla Axe Murder House in Iowa) are usually turned into tourist attractions. But Fox Hollow Farm was different. Not only was it still intact, but a family was living there among the remnants of Baumeister’s life. They swam in the same pool in which Baumeister drowned people. They showed me pictures of bones of unnamed victims that they found popping up out of the ground in the backyard. Items that Herb might have used as murder weapons, like the hose with which he strangled some of his victims, were still being used. A serial killer is the closest thing to a demon walking the Earth, and this family was living in his house with all the same stuff. Being there was deeply disturbing, and I can’t help but think that the Graves family was being affected by Herb’s spirit.

  (NOT SO) FUN FACT:

  WHILE WE WERE FILMING A SOUND BYTE IN THE BACKYARD (WHERE THE BONES WERE FOUND), SOMETHING COMPELLED ME TO LOOK UP AT THE UPSTAIRS WINDOW. WHEN I DID, A CURTAIN DREW OPEN AND ROB GRAVES STARED BACK AT ME, BUT ALL I REALLY SAW WAS HERB BAUMEISTER LOOKING AT ME. SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

  The whole time we’re looking for spirits in the nooks and crannies of a place, the spirit may actually be found in a person who lives there. Many spirits just want their physical bodies back, after all. They want to smoke a cigarette, eat a pancake, lay out by the pool, and feel the wind on their face or the touch of a loved one.

  The David Oman house in California is another prime example of a person rather than the location itself being haunted. David lives in a house that even the most intelligent and respected paranormal experts fear to enter. Barry Taff is a parapsychologist and PhD who has done more than 4,500 investigations using the most advanced equipment, yet he says that the David Oman house is the only place he feared to set foot in again after investigating it once. Dr. Taff claims that the house almost killed him and that nearly every time he goes there (more than twenty visits so far), he winds up in the hospital. So I had to ask: How could someone live there and not be affected?

  When I met the owner, David Oman, I knew right away that something wasn’t right with him. I couldn’t tell if it was personal, mental, or the house, but it didn’t take long for something powerful and dark to affect me and my crew. It seemed to control David Oman and was trying to gain control of us, too. The question was, what was it? The spirits at Fox Hollow Farm were easy to identify because of the murders that had been committed there, but the David Oman house was different. As far as we knew, no deaths had occurred on the premises. The house was in close proximity to the mansion where Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered by members of the Charles Manson cult, but that was all we knew of, and those murders had occurred at least 200 yards away in a house that’s no longer there. Oman was quick to tell us that he feels he’s being affected by Tate’s spirit, but Dr. Taff felt that something more was going on, and I agreed. Taff described the energy of the house:

  My instruments (Geomagnetometer, Natural Tri-Field Meter, Air Ion Counter, etc.) indicated bizarre and totally unprecedented magnetic field amplitudes and polarities throughout the entire house combined with an ambient electromagnetic background anywhere from 20–100 times normal. This house was a compass needle’s worst nightmare. In fact, there were several locations in David’s home where compass needles would spin wildly as if near a quadrapole, which does not occur in nature. And on other occasions almost everything in the house seemed to be emitting a very strong magnetic field, including glass, wood, plastic and leather. None of which are ferromagnetic or paramagnetic…

  While on the stairwell, disembodied voices could be heard, but [were] not always recordable. At times, it sounded like someone loudly snoring or with severe asthma. At other times, it was like very muffled conversations were occurring. If I stood on the stairway too long, I became dizzy and nauseous.*

  Even more amazing is that the David Oman house allegedly sits on Native American burial grounds—never a good idea. Benedict Canyon is said to have been a sacred burial area for native tribes, but there’s no way to know for sure whether this is true. There were no historians, no record keepers, and no technologies to record their lives. But we do know that natives lived, fought, sacrificed animals, and buried their dead in this area. They had no crystal ball; they couldn’t have foreseen that one of the largest cities in the world would one day overtake their sacred land with tractors, homes, technology, parties, and even murders.

  We have to remember the way native tribes thought. They had a relationship with Mother Nature on this land, and then we came along and desecrated it. Can you blame them for being pissed? I believe it curses the spirits and taints the energy there. The land is not supposed to be disturbed, let alone have houses built on it. It’s like an Egyptian sarcophagus that shouldn’t be opened. In my opinion, the Sharon Tate murders only agitated the energy even more. I think those heinous acts awakened something in the ground that either wants them to leave or wants vengeance, and whatever spirits were awakened are so strong that they are also affecting David Oman.

  David is a nice guy, but we had issues with him. When the cameras were off, he liked to argue. He would be nice one minute and then be causing problems with the crew the next. He made the biggest deal of the smallest issues, like a mark on a wall that made him snap. We were wary around him and almost scared of him at times because he was so unpredictable. He could turn into someone else at the drop of a hat. But was that really him, or was something manipulating him?

  David seemed to know when something paranormal was about to happen in the house. We were interviewing him once with the camera off, and he could tell us when figurines were going to fall over or loud noises were going to be heard. He seemed to have a relationship with the spirits, and Dr. Taff even said that he may be a “poltergeist host.” He talked to the spirits the way a parent talks to a noisy child when the family has company: with terse scolding. At times we were almost investigating David instead of the house. Dr. Taff was definitely afraid of him.

  David Oman is another example of spirits living inside or through human beings, I believe. The affected people take on bizarre personalities and unpredictable behaviors. When I look into their eyes, I don’t see the person, but the spirit inside them—not their own spirit, but the spirit of someone else who’s passed over. They are half alive and half dead, almost like zombies. They have a hard time answering questions because they confuse the history of their own life with the history of the spirit inside them…like half their life is gone, or they just can’t remember it. Haunted lo
cations can change people.

  MAYBE THE SPIRITS WHO REFUSE TO LEAVE

  THAT LOCATION ALSO REFUSE TO LEAVE

  THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE.

  15

  DOLLS

  I hate them.

  Believe it or not, this is easily the hardest chapter of this book to write, so it won’t be long. I hate dolls almost as much as I hate clowns, but for a different reason. When I’m around dolls, I can feel their eyes looking at me, and even though I know they’re not human eyes, it makes me very anxious, because I honestly believe that dolls can harbor spirits better than any other objects. To you, dolls may seem like harmless inanimate objects or playthings for children, but to me they’re vessels for spirits, and they scare me to the bone.

  I’m not alone here. Hollywood tends to depict dolls in evil, horrible forms—think Chucky, Jigsaw, Blade, and the super-nightmarish clown doll from Poltergeist. Of course they’re not real, but I look at them a little differently because I have a theory that dolls can store paranormal energy better than most inanimate objects. There’s one simple explanation for this: They’ve been loved.

  To a child who receives a doll as a gift, the doll is alive. It’s everything to them. They name it. They nurture it. They dress it up and talk to it like a friend and take it everywhere. To the child, the doll is real, just like everyone else around them. Children put a lot of love and feeling into their dolls, and I believe that some dolls not only retain that emotion, but also become doorways for spirits to get back to the physical world. And a doll can become a nest for a spirit to roost in after it’s crossed over. So when I see one, I don’t see factory plastic and fake horsehair; I see a container that could be holding a spirit.

  This isn’t an entirely new theory. Shabti dolls were ancient Egyptian figurines that accompanied the deceased to the afterlife to carry out specific duties. They’ve been found in tombs dating back as far as 1500 BC. Each one represented a worker to serve the dead after he left this world. Each doll was inscribed with a spell, which outlined what that worker was supposed to do when he met Osiris, the god of the dead, and was asked to carry out his duties. So it was believed that the dolls actually crossed over with the person who died.

  In the present, every paranormal group I’ve ever seen uses dolls as trigger objects to attract child spirits. They do this because it’s effective at encouraging a spirit to manifest, right? Maybe, but I think there’s more to it. I don’t think that using a doll brings a spirit closer; instead, the doll attracts the spirit to possess it. The doll becomes a container for the spirit to get into and manipulate, like a person opening a car door, stepping in, and taking it for a spin. Dolls are not just trigger objects to attract spirits, but can actually carry spirits and even be possessed by them…and usually not the good type.

  When we filmed the Island of the Dolls episode of Ghost Adventures, I knew that I was in for an uncomfortable, emotional ride. On this island that lies between the canals of Xochimilco south of Mexico City, there is a swamp where a little girl drowned under strange and disputed circumstances. A man named Don Julian Santana Barrera saw a floating doll in the canal and assumed that it belonged to the girl. He picked up the doll and hung it from a tree as a way of showing respect and supporting the spirit of the girl. But he didn’t stop there. Don Julian hung thousands of dolls around the island for the little girl and believed that her spirit possessed them. After being there, I don’t disagree.

  A local psychic medium said that a snake-like negative spirit was the cause of the girl’s drowning. So many legends surround that ancient Aztec canal that I don’t doubt it. It’s a very scary place to go, whether you have a fear of dolls or not. If the girl’s spirit is truly trapped on that island and all these dolls attract her, then I think other spirits can also be attracted to her and the thousands of dolls as well. I believe that the spirits connect through the dolls, which basically makes this place my nightmare. Think about this: who knows where Don Julian got all these dolls and what kind of love was given to them by their living hosts? For all we know, it could be a network of spirits there who seek love from a human. Maybe the spirits possess the dolls in order to find a kid who gives her love to a doll and in turn gives her love to a spirit. So many possibilities…

  For that episode, I brought along Harold the Haunted Doll to see if it could open up a connection with the spirits on the island. I totally regret it. This doll has been connected to death on several occasions and has bounced from family to family over the years because no one wants to keep it. I’ll never forget picking up that doll in Mexico and then feeling my arm start to itch like it was on fire. Not long after, I developed three bruises the size of fingerprints on my left arm (the one that picked it up).

  The psychic medium had told us not to touch the doll or we could lose our own limbs, just like the doll was losing its left arm. We did anyway (go figure). When we took Harold out of his case, cats went crazy, and other dolls suddenly started laughing. With no electrical source at all, they laughed! On a thermal camera, we documented unexplainable heat coming off of Harold when we put him in a shed on the island. It was absolutely nuts. If anything from my travels gives me bad dreams, it’s the Island of the Dolls and Harold the Haunted Doll.

  Just thinking about this makes me feel uneasy, and talking about Harold and the island creeps me out like nothing else. That investigation is the most difficult one of my career to speak about. It’s 40 degrees in Vegas as I’m writing this chapter, and I’m sweating. If you ever see me in public, don’t pick a fight with me, because you’ll get one. But come up to me with a bunch of dolls taped to your body and I’ll run like a girl.

  I’M DONE.

  16

  WEATHER

  It’s a bigger part of the paranormal than you think.

  I believe that when a person dies and his or her soul remains on Earth for whatever reason, the soul becomes intertwined with the electromagnetic and geomagnetic forces of the planet. Under the right conditions, these forces, along with certain weather events, can enable spirits to manifest and be seen by the living. Even with all the tools and data we have at our disposal, the weather can be unpredictable and trick us, just as the manifestation of spirits seems random and unpredictable. But it doesn’t have to be. I believe that the two are interconnected, and that just as we can predict the weather with a lot of accuracy, someday we will be able to predict apparitions and sightings. We just have to understand all the variables and be in the right place at the right time when all the factors line up.

  I hate to make this analogy, but if you remember the movie Ghostbusters, then you remember the green slime left behind by the movie ghosts. Like those Hollywood ghosts, I think people leave behind a residual energy after an extremely emotional event, but it’s more like a burn mark on a wood wall after a fire. This residue contains the emotions of the event, and certain meteorological conditions can reignite it. It’s like a combination lock that’s opened when certain conditions are met. What is the combination of climatic conditions that opens this lock? That’s the million-dollar question!

  When we investigated the Old Charleston Jail in Charleston, South Carolina, we captured the wails and cries of inmates who were tortured there. I believe this is the residue of their emotional lives and/or deaths being unlocked under certain conditions. Think about the Stone Tape Theory that I described in chapter 14, “Carrying Spirits,” which says that certain materials (such as sandstone or silica) can store life events and replay them the same way a cassette tape records and plays back music. The circumstances of release are usually consistent, meaning that the stone lets go of the event at certain times of day and maybe even under certain weather conditions.

  This theory has some validity when you consider that iron oxide is the main component of audiotape. Iron oxide is everywhere, and the Earth’s core is made mostly of iron and nickel. It also has been proven that certain crystals, like quartz and silicon, can retain information and are found almost everywhere, even w
ithin some rocks. Computer chips used to store data are made from silicon, which is the second most abundant element on the planet next to oxygen and is found in almost every form of rock. So it’s not a stretch to imagine that certain natural materials can store traumatic and emotional events and release them when the conditions are right.

  Maybe it’s the weather that unlocks these events that are stored in natural materials. When the barometric pressure, humidity level, temperature, moon phase, and even running water (which increases electromagnetic activity) connect in the right way, I believe that the residue of someone’s life can be released in the form of audio and visual presentations. Voices and apparitions could be triggered by environmental elements when they synchronize, possibly when they match up with the weather conditions that were present at the time of the emotional event (like the death of a loved one).

  Of course, this would indicate that the residue is not an intelligent spirit; it’s only a moment of a life recorded by natural materials and released under certain conditions. It’s a moment in time captured and played back like a cassette tape or computer chip. It’s just stored energy unlocked by the weather.

  So how does the weather react with intelligent spirits? First, think about spirits and why they are here. I believe spirits that don’t move on to the next life either didn’t pass God’s judgment or have unresolved issues that keep them earthbound. That means they’re angry or confused and therefore want to be heard. They gather their energy to move objects and communicate, which sometimes means that they attack humans to get the attention they crave. When they can’t gather energy through electronic means (like stealing energy from computers, light fixtures, camera equipment, or whatever), they turn to weather phenomena to get the boost they need. I’ve seen this happen during investigations.