Saturday February 05, 2011
Author Kat Klockow
Earlier in the week (Monday, actually), Henry provided Craig and me the Facebook page for Urban Legend Detective Kat Klockow, our guest for this date. I sent to Kat an Add Request, adding that I'd also already ordered her book Haunted Hoosier Halls: Indiana University, a link within her site of which Henry provided us. As I'd already been promoting her book with the direct one-click link to its Amazon page both at the February 5th date on my upcoming-guest-listing Event Calendar page, as well as on my Metaphysics Books page (as well as below on this page), I didn't really need to update anything.
On the day, before logging onto Skype, to make sure there were no hiccoughs, considering I was composing a new report page for an upcoming TV show shoot the following Wednesday, I rebooted my computer so any goofed up memory would be cleared.
After the new intro, in which the D in Gould was very clearly enunciated, one of the first things I/we learned that Klockhow is pronounced kloe-coe (not out of the inkwell... oh wait...). Interested in the paranormal since she was nine, she started collecting books on hauntings in Ohio, what with her having seen a full body apparition of her grandfather at that young age.
She spoke about Raintree House being part of the university but not part of the campus, nearby Cemetary X (simply called that), Kat spoke of seeing a pair of Just Legs crossing a street (even indicating it being on page 187 in her book). She was the historian for the documentary Ghost Stories 4, directed by Dat T. Hall, set in Black Moon Manor.
Kat has worked with several ghost groups, including but not limited to the Midwestern Researchers and Investigators of Paranormal Activity (MRIPA) and Ghost Trackers.
Henry announced that there'd be a new segment on Paranormal Groups, being hosted by the lovely Patty of the chat room, (in the chat room known as IrishEyes).
I actually managed to make several horrific quips during this particular edition of the show; Kat mentioned a pregnant ghost, seen as a full body apparition. I figured it was most likely a full body and a half apparition; and that as it was on campus maybe she was looking for a trimester semester (or a womb with a view)....
She told a great story of a pre-med student killing a co-ed, even removing her face...
She related about another girl who threw herself down a stairwell that every December 12th one can hear the girl fall again... I had to posit if they want to stop having so many campus ghosts they shouldn't be leaving around so many student bodies...
In one school investigation, Kat indicating Being Poked (I figured it was a Facebook Ghost).
She also spoke about Whispers Estates of Mitchell, Indiana.
At one point I told her about years ago my having heard a tale of a haunted university years ago but could not recall its name: apparently the building in which is its auditorium and such is so haunted, campus security will not go in after dark, even when through windows it is very visible that lights are seen flashing on and off inside. Kat immediately knew it to be Notre Dame. She figured it was similar to stories of the Crump Theatre in Columbus, Indiana She also conveyed that MRIPA had captured a video of what appears to be a full body semi transparent apparition resting in the chair, enjoying the show, though (when I later viewed it), I could not make it out. I checked out another Crump Theatre video of theirs, which was sort of a a mini webisode of highlights from an investigation of the Crump Theater.
Asking her, apart from being stalked by raccoons and coyotes (as she indicated they tend to scare her), what has been the scariest place to which she'd been, she responded it'd be the toilet room of Mansfield Reformatory at which she had an "electrical charge" that clarified she Should Not Be In There...
After talking about Buskirk Mansion, she got into the subject of Japanese ghost stories
Go to your toilet and cuss at it; flush thrice and a blonde ghost is supposed to emerge and kill you.
Towards the end of the show, Kat gave out her Facebook page.
When the show as over, off the air we discussed more regarding Japanese ghost stories and culture stuff. She wants to write a book on the subject but as there's "no market" for it (her publishers say), it was implied after her third or fourth book she could write that one.
We talked about a Brazilian urban legend called "a loira do banheiro:" a strange Mary Bloody Mary type tale of cursing at a toilet while flushing it thrice, causing a blonde women to emerge from the toilet to kill the provoker. While research on that, I came across another toilet-ghost urban legend of Toire no Hanako-san, about which Kat was also quite familiar.
Henry told her that Karin had relayed for Kat that she visit the Fourth Street Bar in Columbus, Indiana, which apparently is haunted.
Through Craig we learned Kat also used to do comic strips, including but not limited to Miss Grey.
It was revealed that Kat had also done up a sketch of we three as caricatures, promoting the show on her Urban Legends website, indicating "looking at [our] Facebook photos," despite making me completely bald on top, Jeffrey Tambor style, with a near (animated) Karl Pilkington expression on my face (interestingly and amusingly enough, in the sketch she has us in the same seating positions: Craig is in the Steve Merchant seat, Henry in Ricky Gervais's seat, and me in Karl's seat...).