Saturday March 10, 2012
Richard Senate
Tonight's guest was respected ghost hunter Richard Senate, author of Ghosts of the Haunted Coast, The Haunted Southland, Ghost Stalker's Guide To Haunted California, Erle Stanley Gardner's Ventura: The birthplace of Perry Mason, Ghosts of the California Missions, and the narrative novel Flight of the Hercules et al.
He started out speaking about how he's worked with such notables as Hans Holzer and Thelma Moss and such. He had not been invited to the Queen Mary event but was somehow considered "not celebrity enough" to be invited on the evening ghost hunt.
Craig asked about the Glen Tavern Inn, what with the scheduled Glen Tavern Inn Event Richard spoke of lots of evidence and experiences, photographic evidence, etc. They once rented out the third floor and closed it off, and got some great little girl EVP recordings, and even a dog whimpering and panting. The room they were in was the same room in which Rin Tin Tin had been a guest!
Henry spoke about Richard's Top List of Most Haunted Cities, #6 being Virginia City, Nevada. Forty to fifty thousand people used to live there, now it's bare bones comparitively; the winds there were "just savage," as Richard put it; lots of death and such there. The town's cemetery is huge and very active. Sink Mary's was a hospital, now a place to stay in the former gold-rush ghost town. Richard stressed it was one of the most active places any ghost hunter should check out. In the chat room, Sally Richards pointed out that in its hey day there were 15,000 people, Asians making up 7.6% of population, and now there are like a thousand living there. Richard pointed out his Top Number One Most Haunted City as being New Orleans.
Before going to the first break we spoke a bit more regarding accounts on animal pet ghosts.
Noting that the Glen Tavern Inn does serve Fettuccini Alfredo, all the more reason I someday get out there.
At Sally's suggestion from the chat room, when we came back I asked about Richard's time-travel experience with Debbie. Investigated a Santa Paula 100 year old mansion; in its tower was a window, but sometimes a phantom window would appear then vanish, the second window had been there but closed up in the 1940s. Once while investigating, Debbie went up to the tower with two people, and they saw the window, through which she stuck her head and outside she could see a scene from the 1930s. Debbie came in and recounted her own experience: the husband living there had the moon shining in his eyes With the curtains billowing, she stuck her head through, and it seemed very two-dimensional; she felt like she was in quicksand: slow motion. She could see a wooden sidewalk below with a little girl jumping rope. At one point the girl below looked up and clearly saw Debbie and jumped as though the little girl had seen a ghost. As she was pulled back in, the window vanished from the wall.
Henry got back to Richard's list, on which #13 being Williamsburg, Virginia, even though Richard has not actually investigated it himself; having received enough accounts from friend investigators Richard felt he could included it in the listing.
Richard spoke about his favourite aspects and tools with which to best investigate. He suggested the old 16mm spring-wound camera for investigations where batteries generally get drained.
Before we went to the second break, Richard declared his list's #1 was the Tower of London in England.
Henry reported we had listeners tonight from the US, UK, Switzerland, and five from Other...
Richard spoke of the Santa Paula area Billiwhack Monster is described as nine foot tall, built like a WWF wrestler, covered with white fur, huge arms and horns on its head and a snout. The legend: there had been a then state-of-the-art dairy farm which went out of business. The former owner was a member of the SS during WWII, and they wanted to created a super soldier with which to win the war. The scientists were dedicated Nazis and sabotaged the experiment, creating a half man, half goat. While they tried to shut down the experiment, the creature escaped into the hills.
Henry asked after the Pio Pico Hotel, which Richard recounted being one of the last governors' mansions before California was taken over, and it being very active, though only open for special groups.
Richard discussed the famous Hollywood Forever Cemetary and its activity, as well as how active a ghost is Rudolf Valentino, showing up almost everywhere.
Richard spoke of some of the places he like to investigate such as Gettysburg, Washington DC, Versailles, the Alamo, and off the coast of Vera Cruz in Mexico the Fort San Juan de Ulúa which is very haunted.
Richard gave out his site information, that he's on Facebook (we did not get into the fact thereon he is "Richard Leonard"...), and while he mentioned having a new website regarding his upcoming Ghosts of Santa Paula book, somehow the actual URL was not imparted.