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Saturday January 26, 2013
Micheal Rivers
Tonight's guest for our global listeners, and those in the live
chat room,
was author
Micheal Rivers.
With me off on a paranormal investigation, Barbara/CC introduced our guest, and Henry asked how Micheal how he got into the paranormal.
Micheal replied he's a Sensitive
(he Hears, Sees and Feels),
and to Kat's clarifying question, spoke of sleeping upstairs at his grandmother's house, awoke, hearing a massive sound descending to the bottom on the stairs, but those downstairs could not hear it.
Years later he was able to pry from his family that it'd happened more than just that once.
He and the
Smokey Mountain Ghost Trackers
team investigated the
Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
in West Virginia, his first time there.
On arriving he was able to convey the team aspects of the place to which he'd had no previous knowledge.
Taking the daytime tour before investigating that night, in one room the guide told of an inmate killing another; Micheal was able to discern the original location of the bed had been at another spot in that room.
He feels it's almost as though haunted places he passes send out calling cards for him to come in and see what they have to offer.
Micheal discussed his story selection process for his books; having grown up in the area, he knew what stories had never previously been published.
In his
Ghosts of the North Carolina Shores
there's only one story that ever been already published in another book.
Over time on various investigations, Micheal has been physically assaulted: kicked, punched, slapped, etc., once hit so hard it brought the former Marine to one knee.
A quickly-taken photo revealed an opaque black mass between the photographer and Micheal, a mass through which one could not see.
Another investigation in a house the front room was a bedroom not a living room.
The next room was a sitting room, attached to which was a bathroom.
The owners would lock the doors, place under the bedroom doorknob a chair to keep it closed.
Staying over, Micheal awoke in the wee hours to find all the doors open, as well as the back door of the house.
Suspecting an intruder, none was found.
All the doors were re-locked, and back to bed; waking again about thirty minutes later, all the doors and unlocked and opened again.
Micheal re-checked the house, re-locked all the doors and went back to bed.
Barely forty-five minutes later Micheal woke up and could see in a straight line to the kitchen from where streams a magnificent blue light, which was not coming in as moonlight.
One more time re-locking the doors, and this time even used the chair under the doorknob trick; beween 1-1:30am he awoke to find all the doors unlocked and open again, the chair sitting across the bedroom.
That was the only place that ever creeped him out; sadly the Very Active house burned down in late 2012.
Micheal has investigated all the places of which he writes in his books, even if his personal investigation doesn't yield any EVPs or other evidence.
He's never feared going into a place, given every place a shot, though now and then he senses a place intends to be Challenging.
Micheal's home back in North Carolina contained thirteen different spirits.
One with the most power was named Bertha, who introduced Micheal to the other spirits, including her quiet husband Frank.
Bertha helps a lot with his investigations.
Unsure whether it would work, Micheal invited Bertha to come along on investation/s, and it proved spirits can go anywhere, anytime.
Sometimes she will fetch the spirit/s at an investigation and bring them to the investigators.
He's had some great successes, such as one ghost from the war between the states being able to convey his own resting place, all of which turned out to be accurate.
Micheal spoke of a negative entity he'd experienced on the North Carolina coast, close to Port Fisher.
Whilst taking photos he felt something come up behind him, attempting to instill fear, but Micheal wasn't buying into it.
It seemed as though he as well as the entity got angry at each other.
Micheal lost; his $200+ camera was no longer functional, and irreparable.
In other places keeping a battery alive was near impossible.
Other places he's had electronic equipment fail to capture evidence visible to the naked eye.
He's not been able to correlate whether weather conditions
(rain, dry, lightning, full moon),
has any distinctive affect on activity.
CC posited he may be a spirit magnet; he related that a friend named Sue Micheal's not seen in a while is such that when they go out investigating together they get far more activity and evidence than not.
Another friend named Copperhead seemed to attract spirits, and their first meeting involved Copperhead walking up to Micheal from behind at an investigation to convey a specific spirit at the location did not like Micheal and wanted him to leave.
Coming back from the first break, CC reported tonight we had listeners in Canada, the US, India, Finland, France and the United Kingdom
(so many listeners on a night I'm absent...).
Micheal was surprised at all the countries from which we had listeners.
Henry started out asking about
Ghosts of the North Carolina Shores,
specifically a dead Confederate soldier who's still standing his post.
Micheal has seen that apparition four to five times himself, as early as when he was twelve years old.
The mansion that once stood there is gone
(now there's a high school),
but the tree up in which the soldier stood guard remains, the signal for approaching enemy troops being the simultaneous lighting of three matches.
The northern troops managed to outflank them, a sniper taking out the guard in the tree across the road from the mansion.
Not long after, travelers have spotted the soldier either in the tree or at the foot of the tree.
Micheal's grandfather was coming from St. Johns, and he saw the soldier in the tree.
He asked the store-keeper about him, and the reticent store-keep relented that the apparition was sighted quite often at the time.
Micheal indicated the ghost is being sighted less and less; he was fifteen years old the last time he saw it, at the base of the tree.
Micheal was raised to treat spirits with respect as one would a living person.
At Kat's query about any distinctions Micheal notices about ghost hunters in the south and those in the north, Micheal reported he finds in the north it's a bit more sceptical and a bit more fearful.
It also seemed to him no matter how often one hunts or how much evidence one accumulates, one comes up with more questions than answers.
With a seeming disappearance of Henry for a while, CC wanted to hear about pirate ghosts: the
Flaming Ship of Ocracoke,
and such, Blackbeard being the most famous.
Many believed Blackbeard mostly lived in
Ocracoke,
his ship's portage, when actually, due to his friendship with
Govenor Eden
and Eden's daughter, Blackbeard lived in
Edenton.
Kat brought up Blackbeard's actual name
Edward Teach,
and Micheal spoke of his use of a cannon's Slow Match within his beard and hair to make it appear it was on fire, to make himself look demonic.
Micheal spoke of a Shadow Person he once experienced, seemingly in colonial dress, creating visual distortions as it moved.
CC asked about how, like Scottish Highlanders who settled there, Appalachia folk seems to accept superstition and the paranormal.
Henry suddenly reappeared as Micheal described the dreaded shipboard punishment of
keelhauling,
when he asked Micheal about a story in his book regarding a woman
in Weldon,
with whom one waltzes until she dematerializes.
Interestingly, Skype began giving them a few audio issues they might have heard during the show itself as they made no reference to it.
After the second break, asked after which of the stories from his book was Micheal's favourite, Micheal indicated being of Cherokee heritage;
when he father was a young boy, his uncle was about to pass away, kept in a bed in the corner in which to pass, at the time it was customary to keep open the doors due to lack of air conditioning.
At one point people were talking and distracted and not paying attention to the uncle, when suddenly they all got real quiet for a few moments, then began speaking again.
During that time, Micheal's father came in, and was about to told to leave as the uncle was due to pass at any time when Uncle John drew his last breath.
At the same time, from under the bed came the biggest black bear ever seen, stood on its hind legs, and ran from the room to the front porch.
The family pursued it but when they reached the end of the porch, there was nothing: no bear anywhere.
The family acted as though it was no big deal; asked what happened, they explained it was Uncle John's spirit departing.
They moved into Micheal's book
Appalachia Mountain Folklore,
many of which being superstitions, not all ghostly stories; an intermingling of the settlers and the native Americans.
Henry asked about the famous, centuries-reported
Brown Mountain Lights,
which Micheal explained, debunking the ludicrously varied standard-lies provided by the government, who can't otherwise explain them
(many of which were modernized theories despite the lights being sighted for centuries before what would corroberate their theory existed).
Kat and Henry and CC posited some possible ideas, but such had been considered before.
(As I listened to the podcast playing, just as I was thinking What I Would Have Said),
Micheal added some people swear it's the work of the Little People, much to Henry, Kat's and CC's amusement, their apparently having forgotten
Washington Irving's
classic story
Rip Van Winkle.
Micheal spoke about the two to two and a half foot earth-gnome like creatures from Cherokee legend, for which local people with fences would allow a gap large enough through which for such Little People to pass back and forth.
Some are helpful, some are mischievous and some are flat-out mean.
It is highly disrespectful to speak of the Little People after dark.
One highly-respected credible woman swore in the 1940s that her son took a short-cut across the mountain, and at night, despite lifelong warnings against such.
He reached a path of the start and the rock there.
Sitting on the rock was one of the Little People who would not permit him to pass.
The fool man throws rocks at the Little Person and drives him off, continuing on the path to home, sensing having been followed.
Once in the house, he discussed it with his father who, understanding the consequences, reprimanded the son for his behaviour.
The son went to bed that night upstairs, and the father set up by the fire, waiting for something to happen, until he heard a noise upstairs.
By the time he got there, the son was still asleep but Something was behind him the father couldn't clearly see, pushing the young man out the upstairs window.
One shaman went to the Little People to request help from a sickness hitting the tribe; medicines were given that the shaman was allowed to keep for seven years.
He stayed with them for two moons, returned to his people with the recipe, and faithfully did as he was told; he used and returned the recipe to the Little Peeople once the sickness had passed.
Kat felt the Little Persons descriptions reminded her of
Kobolds
of German folklore, and
Puckwudgies.
Micheal also indicated some similarities to the India
Acheri,
and that India children wearing red is due to red being a deterent against the Acheri, as the Acheri makes children sick with tuberculosis-like symptoms.
Henry asked about the
Green River Plantation
Micheal said is a wonderful place; apparitions, audible baby cries, an unmarked grave close to the house where the child is buried.
At one time the owner had two dogs of which he was quite fond; the ghosts of the dogs have been sighted, witnessed by dozens of different witnesses.
It's now a
bed and breakfast
and the owners welcome investigations.
A black housekeeper's spirit can be seen leaving the house from the kitchen and going to the unmarked grave; she has also been seen standing at the foot of guests' beds
(Micheal indicated their having
excellent food).
Henry asked Micheal's favourite place in the Appalachians, the answer being
Nantahala,
which isn't surprising considering his
Moonlight on the Nantahala
book.
Micheal gave out his
his email,
that his team is on
Facebook
and that he's on
Twitter,
but surprisingly, not his
website.
Henry pointed out the following week our guest would be
Elaine Kuzmeskus,
who would be a
return guest,
having made some predictions during that show, and we'd be seeing which came to pass.
I was not available I was unable to provide the show's various page locations
(my site's
Paranormal View hub page,
that we're findable
on Facebook,
et al);
Kat
gave out her
her website
on which is her graphic novel; and gave her shout-out to her friends'
Relay for life Indiana Ghost Trackers Southeast Central Chapter team
event link, as I added to a few of the previous weeks' editions, indicate a "hunt for cancer cure,"
the fact the
cure for cancer exists
notwithstanding.
Closing out, Henry gave out the show's
official site,
and reminded everyone of the
show report pages
I do.
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