S1: It's time for Midday Edition on KPBS. Halloween is just a few days away , so we're talking about some of the most haunted places in San Diego. I'm Jade Hindman with conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. First , the unexplained happenings inside the Whaley House and what happened there years ago.
S2: It's 1:00 in the morning. You're the last one in here. And you hear , why are you here ? I mean , that's freaky.
S1: Then the story behind the haunted halls of the hotel del Coronado. Plus a paranormal expert joins the show. That's ahead on midday Edition. Have you ever visited the Whaley House , built in 1857 ? Some call it the most haunted house in America , right here in Old Town San Diego. These days , around 120,000 visitors tour the Whaley House each year. Some opt for daytime tours , while others brave the supernatural tours at night. But there's a dark history behind the Whaley House. It starts with Thomas Whaley.
S2: Thomas Whaley comes out to the west coast in search of new opportunities. He eventually marries his sweetheart Anna and they have six children , three boys and three girls.
S1: That's Victor Santana , he's operations manager for the Whaley House Museum.
S2: The house itself became a center for the community. It was San Diego's first commercial theater , one of the first courtrooms in the area , and it is believed to be one of the first bilingual general stores as well. Along with being a residence.
S1: Back then , the general store sold everything from oil lamps to fabric guns and weapons , even food. The county courthouse shared the same wall.
S2: So everybody knew who the walls were , and they definitely knew where they lived and where they could go to get whatever they needed at that time.
S1: Over the years , tragedy struck the Whaley family. Thomas Whaley Jr died at just 18 months old from scarlet fever. One of the daughters , Violet , committed suicide on the property after her husband abandoned her. Anna Whaley , Thomas wife , died in the house in 1913. Their spirits are thought to haunt the hallways today. Victor Santana , the operations manager for the Whaley House , took the Midday Edition team on a tour.
S2: The nursery is known for some paranormal activity. You might see the rocking chair rocking on its own. That is one of the original pieces that belong to annually. You might also hear a baby crying , and they believe that's the ghost of Thomas Whaley Jr in the master bedroom itself. That's where Mom and Dad used to sleep. Some guests say that when they walk outside , they'll see a woman looking out at them through that window. And that's believed to be the ghost of other Annalee or Whaley , one of the daughters.
S1: There's also the ghost of Thomas Whaley himself. Some folks say they smell his cigar smoke.
S2: When you look at the staircase , you might see him at the top of the staircase looking down at you. People often refer to his piercing blue eyes as something that is seen fairly often.
S1: The most famous ghost , though , is James Robinson. He was executed on the property before the whales moved in.
S2: He was executed by hanging , and many believe you might feel pressure on your chest , or might even have a red line around your neck. Associated with this particular story.
S1: Now , of course , the staff at the Whaley House can't prove any of these ghosts are real. But if you go on a nighttime tour , they'll give you the gear to help you find out for yourself.
S2: So this is called the REM pod. So that's the noise you're going to hear wherever it's placed. Right now , we do not have a sound. We're good. But if something gets close to it , it reacts. So if you leave this in a location where no one's walking around , there's nobody close to it , and it goes off. Then you know that something was there.
S1: There's also the music box. It pretty much does the same thing , but it's a little creepier.
S2: So now if no one's around the room , you won't hear it go off. But if something goes off in front of it , it'll make that noise.
S3: For some , horror is.
S1: Best paired with.
S3: A side of humor.
S4: My name is Bullit and I am one of the tour guides here at the Whaley House Museum.
S1: He considers himself a more interactive tour guide , not just a talking head.
S4: A lot of people kind of try to make it scary. I do , you know , they say we can't jump out of people , but , you know , there's ways around that as well. So maybe a little funny , a little goofy. But getting to the point of what the history of the house is all about.
S1: But we had to find out if Victor Santana , the operations manager , had witnessed anything himself. After all , he's been at the Whaley House for almost 25 years , so he took Midday Edition producer Ashley Rush back to the Paranormal Room to talk about it.
S2: I have definitely encountered different things in the museum. I've seen red lines on people's necks. Um , I have seen people react to scratches. For example , we were filming for a TV show , a very popular TV show , and the main host was standing in front of me and he very loudly reacted with an owl and lifted the back of his shirt. And sure enough , you could see scratch marks on it. Um , I thought at that point , oh , maybe it's TV , it's part of the show. Um , the camera guy in real time showed me the recording that he had just taken. And sure enough , you see this guy standing in front of me , and then you see a white streak of light go down his back , and that's about the time he reacts to it. So that was interesting to be a part of. Um , I've been involved with several overnight investigations. Um , and one of them , um , probably 20 years ago or so , I was locking up and I heard footsteps come down the stairs. I thought somebody had snuck in because the house was empty And there was nobody there. So I went back to set the alarm to call it a night. And sure enough , the footsteps got louder closer , and at that point I figured maybe somebody is in the house. Turned out the lights went around. Nothing. Okay , I'm going home. And then as I'm setting the alarm , I heard a woman's voice say , why are you here ? And you know , it's 1:00 in the morning , you're the last one in here. And you hear , why are you here ? I mean , that's freaky. And knowing the stories of a woman being witnessed by other people , you know , we believe that it could have been something paranormal.
S5:
S2: Uh , we used to open the museum at a regular time , and we used to close at a regular time. By regular , I mean 9 p.m. at latest. That was one of the first times we were open later and we had somebody in the house later being me. Uh , and I think they weren't used to people being in the house that late , so they were probably wondering why I was still there.
S5: So you've seen a lot of paranormal investigators come through here , and people really obsessed with horror or really interested in it.
S2: So it's no longer a I feel that something's here. It's I feel , but now let me use this device to try to confirm that information and the fact that all these advancements have come up in the paranormal field , have generated an overall interest with everyone to want to become self-appointed ghost hunters in some way.
S5: And lastly , you know , you earlier said that this isn't just a haunted house. It was a community center. There was a lot of different things that this house did for the community.
S2: The Whaley Houses , a museum , has been around since the 1960s. Between that time period , there used to be a school program that brought children to Old Town , and it was normally in the fourth grade , and that happened for many years. One of my favorite parts when I work in the museum is seeing adults bring their children and say , I was here in the fourth grade and now I want to bring my kids to see it. So I think it's an important approach to sharing San Diego history and including families in the community , because that's ultimately what the whales did. They included themselves in the community , and they were a big part of it. And , you know , the fact that the generations continue to come and continue to share the history , it's important , it's very valuable , and it's a great direction to take overall.
S1: If you want to get a look at the Whaley House yourself , there's a variety of tour options to choose from. Of course , no promises. You'll see any paranormal activity , but you will have an up close look at some San Diego history. Coming up , we explore the haunted halls of the hotel del Coronado.
S6: The IT department thinks it's a possum. Uh , I don't I didn't see a possum there either. I didn't see anyone. So there are things that we can explain.
S7: Here more when.
S1: Midday Edition returns. Welcome back to KPBS midday edition , I'm Jade Hindman. Spooky stories aren't all about the fear factor. They often teach us something about our region's history , too. One example is the hotel del Coronado. Guest and employees have reported supernatural occurrences since the hotel opened in 1888 , 88 , and many of them point to the story of Kate Morgan , who checked in but never checked out. Joining me to discuss the details is Gina Petrone. She's the heritage manager for hotel del Coronado. Gina , welcome.
S6: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
S1: So glad to have you here. Uh , before you introduce us to Kate Morgan , paint the scene for us. What was the late 19th century like in San Diego ? The hotel had just opened a couple of years prior.
S6: It wasn't quite as developed as I think the hotel would have liked at the time. The nation as a whole had gone through a recession in the 1890s , and so things were a little quieter at that time. And when Kate arrived , we still had very famous visitors , such as Andrew Carnegie. Cornelius Vanderbilt had come out to the hotel. Uh , so we we were still being frequented by guests from the east , but it's important to know that the hotel was busy in the wintertime. That was our peak season , um , because we were mostly attracting visitors from the East who were escaping the winters. So our busy season in 1892 was from about December , November , December until about May of the following year. So Kate was coming at peak season in 1892.
S1: Okay , so it is peak season. Bring us to the day when Kate arrives at the Dell on Thanksgiving Day in 1892.
S6: At the time , we had two separate entrances to the Dell. We had the main entrance into the office or lobby , as we call it today , and there was a second entrance that was dubbed the Ladies entrance. At this time , women who were traveling alone or unaccompanied would use this entrance , because Victorian customs dictated that women did not appear in public places without a male escort. So Kate would have arrived at the hotel , and she would have used the staircase on the left and gone up into the hotel , into Our Lady's reception room. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. Well , and just to be clear , Kate Morgan was a real person who checked into the Dell. Absolutely.
S6: Absolutely. We have the guest register that recorded her arrival and the room that she was assigned. She didn't write her name. The clerk typically would do that for a lady. And so she checked in , though under a different name. She used the name Lady Bernhard from Detroit , Michigan , when she checked in. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. That's curious.
S6: Um , Kate , at the time when she arrived at the hotel was asking about her brother. She asked if a doctor Anderson was registered at the hotel , and she explained that that was her brother and she was trying to meet him. They had become separated at the train station , and so this is where they were to meet. And she was anxious to connect with him because he had the claim check for her trunk , which was being held at the train station. So when we told her that he was not there , she went ahead and registered under the name Lady Bernard and was assigned a room up on the third floor. Interesting.
S1: Interesting. So she's checked into the hotel. She's got her room on the third floor.
S6: Uh , it was noted that she seemed to be in a in a great deal of pain that when she was walking , she seemed to be hunched over , uh , clutching her stomach. We know that. She went downstairs to our pharmacy that was there and was inquiring about tonics or medication , and each time that she went. The pharmacist later testified at her inquest that he told her she should see a doctor , that she seemed to be in a great deal of pain and needed better attention. And each time she explained oh , my brother's a doctor. He'll be here any day now and wouldn't , wouldn't see the hotel physician who was on staff at the time and then would continue back up to a room she kept pretty much to herself.
S1:
S6: And that's when the mystery of Kate Morgan really began , because it wasn't so much what happened to her. The coroner quickly determined it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The gun was found near her body. The mystery really began as to who what was her true identity ? Because when they went into her room , they saw some things that they pretty quickly determined that Lady Bernard was not her real name and that she had used a different name. There were pieces of paper where she had practiced writing out the name Lottie Bernard , and a few other things that that led them to believe that she was hiding her identity. And that's really where the whole mystery began , was who was this woman who had committed suicide at the Hotel Del ? And that's what made national news. Yeah.
S1: Yeah.
S6: Uh , she had worked for them as a servant for just a couple of weeks , and she had asked for permission the day before Thanksgiving to leave the household for a brief time to get some papers signed. And they said , okay , you'll be right back , right ? Because tomorrow's Thanksgiving and we need your help. And she said , absolutely , I'll be right back. And she never came home. And so when they put a sketch of her face in the paper a few weeks after her death , they identified her. They had reported her missing on Thanksgiving Day up in LA. And so that's how we were able to finally identify her. When the authorities went up to LA , her trunk was up there. Her trunk never left Los Angeles. And in there is where we found a marriage certificate that identified her as Kate Morgan. And so that was really the catalyst of finding out who she was. We still don't know why she came to the hotel. Uh , Kate did not have a brother. She was an only child. So that wasn't true. So there's a lot that we don't know. There were some papers that were burned in the fireplace in her room. We don't know what those papers were. And if they were the important papers , she needed to get signed. She also had a relative that said she that contacted the hotel and asked if we had found a large sum of money because when she had visited him a few months before near Fresno , she had a large sum of cash on her. So , so many mysteries still revolve around Kate and really , what happened to her and why ? Why she took her own life at the hotel.
S1: Well , the story goes that strange things have been reported at the Dell ever since her death. Can you give me some examples of those strange occurrences ? Sure.
S6: Um , some of them are very , um. That could possibly be explained. They're electrical in nature. Like the television will come on , the phone will ring , and nobody is there. The ceiling fan will start to spin. Things like that that have happened , but other things that you can't so easily explain. Like her initials sometimes appear on the ceiling in the room , and sometimes it's been CM , sometimes it's been l b uh , it's been different initials in the facilities team goes and repaints the ceiling and it still comes back.
S1: Huh ? And nobody knows how this paint gets up there.
S6: No , no they don't. And so and also an indentation appears on the bed that seems to appear and disappear where it looks like someone's laying down , and then it looks like someone's gotten up and the covers kind of straighten and look better. And nobody can explain how that happens or why they can't smooth it out. If it looks like there's an indentation , why they can't make that disappear , because it's as if someone is actually laying on the bed.
S1: Well , you mentioned the bed , so what are some common and not so common experiences people have had in her room up on the third floor.
S6: Uh , some things like , uh , they're sensations. People that have , you know , felt as though someone was touching their face. Um , one woman was in a shower and said she she felt the sensation of fingers on her back. Uh , but of course , nobody's there. Uh , others have opened a suitcase on the bed , gone into the bathroom , come back out , and the clothes have been pulled out of the suitcase , or the suitcase has ended up on the floor. So it's a lot of mischievous little things. Um , pals move around. A little bit of poltergeist activity , but , um , typically it varies , uh , tremendously over the years.
S1: So do you have people just check out early or requested different rooms ? Yes. Yes.
S6: We have had people check out early , uh , for a while. When I first started at the hotel , we didn't tell people that that was Kate's room. We just treated it as a normal guest room. Uh , of course , people have come and requested that room particularly. But in general , our policy was not to explain what it was. Some people , not everybody's , familiar with Kate's story. Um , but now I know today we do tell them that. Okay. You know , that's Kate Morgan's room , and some people say , great. Other people. Who's that ? So. But , uh , the experience just depends.
S1: Well , I imagine you've had paranormal investigators go into that room.
S6: And it was about a year long investigation of both Kate's room. And we also have a room up on the fifth floor that has had some mysterious activity. And the room on the fifth floor actually had more activity than Kate's. It recorded over 400 anomalous events in the room , and a lot of it was captured on video. Now it's it's old video from the 90s , but , uh , we do. We're not doing it this year , but we'll resume it next year. Uh , we do tours where we go in the room and show the actual footage that was captured in the 90s of some of the things happening , so they can stand in that room and watch video of showing it's the curtains being pulled , opened its door swinging open and shut back and forth and water suddenly turning on out of a faucet , things like that , which is quite a unique experience to be in that room where that footage was captured , you know , many years ago , 30 years ago.
S1: Well , what's the story with the room on the fifth floor.
S6: That when we haven't been able to trace , there's , um , the first mention of it I can find is in 1969 , where we talk about the haunted room of the hotel. That's what staff referred to as it wasn't Kate's room at all. Um , we referred to the room up on the fifth floor , and the story was that a woman in the 1890s checked in and then disappeared. An elderly lady. And the staff then started saying that that room was haunted or strange things were happening , and that I haven't been able to corroborate yet. But I do know that up until Kate's story was not really discovered until the 1980s , that things started to get attributed to Kate , and then as well. But before , if you asked where the haunted room was in the Dell , everybody would have said it was on the fifth floor.
S1:
S6: He to him , the lobby was full of spirits. He said. I can see people in Victorian where standing on the mezzanine looking down , and he thought that was one of the most haunted rooms. Uh , when I , we took a group of people up to Kate's room , and I was with him and he and Kate's room , he just felt overwhelming sadness. He just thought it was very sad. He saw a hat , but he really claimed to have felt Kate's pain , and he , um. We had only brought up half the group. And after he had spoken and talked about what he had sensed , I said , okay , I need to take these people down and bring up the second group. Can you just wait here ? And he said , no , I'm not staying in this room at all. I'm leaving. He said , it's just too sad. And he wouldn't stay , so I had to escort them down , bring up the second group and say , well , James , from Prague said he felt sad he saw this , which isn't nearly as effective as as having the gentleman there himself.
S1: Well , I don't blame them. So listen. So the Dell gets about 50% of its revenue from nightly ghost tours. That's pretty significant. That's a huge chunk.
S6: There's something about walking the halls , um , and standing in a lobby , knowing , you know , Kate story , hearing it , walking the same pathways she would have walked or going into her guest rooms. That's going into our guest rooms. Not a normal activity on our tours , uh , because usually there are people staying in the room. So we do that , though , in special events in October , but just being in that room and being in the places and hearing the stories where these things occurred , I think is really a very sensory experience for people , and I think they just appreciate feeling a part of that history.
S1: And you actually wrote those ghost tours.
S6: It was very interesting. I spent so much time researching things that had happened at The Dell because I was , I think I was trying to find reasons why there might be a spirit there. It was I was really delving into some deep , dark things. And and we included them in our initial tour. And after a while , the guides came back to me and said , you know , they don't really care that so-and-so , you know , had a fatal accident here or this happened. They really want to know what's happening today and what are people experiencing and what can you show us ? And so the tour has really kind of morphed from being really heavy history lesson to look , here's a photo someone sent us from last Christmas. They're looking at the Christmas trees , but we see a figure in black that a see through picture , very transparent. Woman in black appears in the foreground. And people are really enjoy that and taking their own photographs. So I don't think a week goes by that I don't get a photo from somebody that's been on our ghost tour , or just been walking around property and captured something. So it's been less about the the history.
S1:
S6: Um , I work in the Oxford building , which we go into on our tour , and the Oxford was one of the first commercial buildings in Coronado. It predates The Dell , and it served as a hotel for a very brief several months here in Coronado. And then it was when the main hotel opened , it shut down and kind of became storage , and our owners actually purchased it and used it as a warehouse. Later it was moved across Coronado and was a female dormitory. And then it was moved to the property in the early 80s. And today it's our administrative building. There was a murder in the building in that brief time when it was the Oxford Hotel , uh , where a gentleman was shot during a confrontation , mistakenly. And there are strange things in this building. It's an old building. I'm down in the basement. I've worked on the second floor as well. And the house cleaning keepers will not clean it after dark. They will only come in during the day because so many people reported children running and laughing is a common report. Usually you just get the sense that somebody is here , and I've been in the building late at night and walking through back to my office , and I walked by some cubicles and I heard these papers all shuffle and move around , and I stopped and went , wait a minute , no one's here. And I backed up and looked , and sure enough , there were a lot of messy papers on someone's desk , but nobody was there. So the IT department thinks it's a possum. Uh , I don't I didn't see a possum there either. I didn't see anyone. So there are things that we can't explain. All of this.
S1: Are so many things to think about there. I've been speaking with Gina Petrone. She is the heritage manager for hotel del Coronado. Gina , thanks so much for sharing this ghost story with us.
S6: Now you're welcome. My pleasure.
S1: Still ahead , a paranormal expert shares his fascination with the spirit world.
S8: Don't want to antagonize the ghost , you know , like if you're in somebody's house , that's their home. It's not your home.
S1: Midday edition is back after the break. Welcome back to KPBS midday edition. I'm Jade Hindman. This Halloween eve , we've been talking about the spookiest stories and haunted locations of San Diego. Well , some have been documenting those ghostly encounters for decades. David Hanson is the founder of the San Diego Ghost and Paranormal Group. It's the largest paranormal enthusiast meetup group in the area. He's also a member of Pacific Paranormal Investigations , which looks into reports of ghostly activity. David , welcome.
S8: Well , thank you for having me on.
S1: Well , I'm glad to have you on. And I know already that this is going to be a fascinating conversation. Well , I hope so. Yeah.
S8: Yeah.
S1: I have so many questions. Um , so.
S8: We do do the occasional investigation , but our main purpose is to understand the paranormal and all its various facets , and then use that knowledge to either help people or , uh , do better investigations , uh , whichever is appropriate in the different cases.
S1:
S8: Uh , one thing we don't handle at my group is we don't talk about UFOs , but pretty much everything else. Um , obviously , ghosts and spirits are the most popular topic , but we also handle things like cryptozoology , which is the study of unknown creatures like Bigfoot or Loch Ness. Uh , psychokinesis , which is mind over matter. Shadow people is a fascinating topic. Uh , there's just various things under the paranormal umbrella. All these things are kind of considered pseudoscience right now , but we're trying to , um , make it a mainstream science thing by getting it understood and documenting it.
S1:
S8: One statistic we used to have was that a third of the people believe in ghosts. A third of the people don't believe in ghosts , and a third of the people are kind of on the fence. Not sure what to believe , but my favorite category is the people who did not believe in ghosts. But now they've had their own personal experience and now their mind has been changed. People are fascinated by the unknown and a little afraid of the unknown , which in most cases is not really justified. If you look at what the movies and TV portray in terms of ghost activity , they always portray the most negative things because that's what gets them the ratings. But the average ghost encounter is not negative. The way I explain it is if a ghost is a detached human soul , that soul retains its personality on the other side. So if it's a good person or a neutral person , it's going to be a good or neutral ghost on the other side. And since you rarely run into a Charles Manson type of evil character , you're really going to run into that type of evil ghost on the other side. Not to say that it doesn't happen , but it's rare. It's like the common experience is the kindly old grandfather who has passed on , but now he's keeping a watch over his grandkids.
S1:
S8: They didn't claim that they were under control , but they complained that this entity was always with them and they could not get rid of it. But in general , it seems to be a very rare occurrence. Uh , at least from the people that come to my group. My group tends to also serve as kind of a support group. People come to us wanting to share their story , and they can't share it with , um , friends , coworkers , family because they're afraid of , you know , how they may be reacted to , but they can come to my group and share those stories and ask questions , and there's no judgment on our end. So it's a friendly environment where they can ask questions and say , how can you explain this ? Or what do I do about this ? Or we try to help them as much as we can.
S1: Yeah , it's great to have that community. Okay. But to be clear , as a responsible news organization , um , we cannot fact check whether paranormal beings exist. We can't deny it tonight either.
S8: And one thing I like to tell people is that , uh , if you look back to the Middle Ages , they were aware of phenomena like gravity , magnetism , electricity , but they couldn't measure it. They didn't have the tools to measure it. They didn't have the scientific theories to put into a textbook. They couldn't explain it. Well. And that's kind of where we are today with the paranormal. I consider the paranormal just to be another scientific area , but we're currently labeled as a pseudoscience because we don't currently have the right tools to properly record it , and we don't have it nailed down in the scientific journals or textbooks. So we're kind of on the fringe right now , but hopefully at some point in the future , technology will catch up to us and we'll be able to record it in such a way that it's , um , can be replicated and better understood. Mhm.
S9: Mhm.
S1: Well , speaking of tools , I know that you investigate ghostly occurrences with a group called Specific Paranormal Investigations. But , you know , when I think of a ghost investigation , I think of the movie Poltergeist. But , I mean , how does it really work ? Yeah.
S8: There's the medium sensitive approach where you bring in someone who is , uh , classified as a medium or a sensitive who can sense that the ghosts or spirits are there and maybe even be able to communicate with them. The opposite end of the spectrum is the scientific approach , and that's what Pacific Paranormal does. They do it by a set of rigid scientific protocols , and then the information that they capture with their instruments is data that they can analyze and will stand up to scientific scrutiny. My approach at SD gap is kind of a blend of the two , so I like using mediums to help with the investigation , but it's the science that will actually decide. Is there something there like a medium could say ? I sense that there's something in this room here. This room needs to be investigated. So rather than set up cameras all around the house , we might focus on that particular room , because we got the tip that there seems to be something paranormal going on there. And of course , you listen to the owner of that house or business or wherever you happen to be investigating. You research into the history to see what's been recorded at that location. We try to get people to write a journal to document things that they encounter , so we can try to find a particular time that these events normally occur , because you want to investigate when they're going to occur , rather than at an off time , you know , not to waste your time.
S1:
S8: But I've been working with various other groups in town , and I started working with this other San Diego group that was very medium based , and after working with them for a number of years , I came to trust what they were reporting to me , and some of them become very good friends of mine. So those people I trust , other people not so much , but ones that I've worked with for years. And I know their methods and I know their skills and capabilities. Those are the ones that I work with and tend to believe when they tell me what they're encountering or seeing , because they're basically sensing something in another dimension that I can't see. And sometimes I can feel or sense parts of it , but they're filling in more of the picture for me. Hmm.
S9: Hmm.
S1: All right. Well , so what kind of equipment do you use for a ghost investigation outside of mediums.
S8: The equipment that we're using , what we started using a decade or so ago , was stuff that was borrowed from other scientific disciplines , uh , the electronics field , engineering field. But lately , devices are actually being built with the paranormal investigators in mind. For example , we want to note the changes in the electromagnetic fields. So an EMF recorder or meter can tell you if there's changes in the EMF field , which some believe that is an indicator that you've got a ghost or entity coming into your environment. One of my particular EMF meters also has a thermometer sensor on the top , so it gives me a digital readout in terms of the temperature and changes in temperature. Fields can also be an indicator of something that's happening. I'm sure you've heard of the term of cold spots where people are encountering a ghost and they say , oh , I feel cold all of a sudden. One of the theories for that is that in order for a ghost to manifest or do what it's trying to do in our plane of existence , it has to have energy to do that. So it's pulling the heat out of the air and using that heat as a form of energy to work with. So that's why we get cold spots. As the theory goes , we like to use Geiger counters because measuring the background radiation , we have found that to be an indicator. So a variety of meters. But some of the important equipment would be audio recorders. I mean you can use the recorder on your phone , but you really want to use a high end quality audio recorder. It's worth it to pay , you know , 200 bucks for a a good audio recorder that won't give you false positives as opposed to just paying 25 bucks for something cheap that may lead you astray.
S1: Well , I mean , I got to ask you this.
S8: Um , well , I've been doing this for 18 years , and I've worked with a number of groups , uh , had some interesting experiences , had various things happen around me. And to me. I've been touched by ghost. I've smelled things that were paranormal. I've seen things happen that can only be explained by the paranormal.
S1: Well , you mentioned you. You've smelled it and you've seen things.
S8: Um , you're familiar with the Whaley House ? Of course. Mhm. Um , and you've probably heard of orbs which people find on their camera shots all the time. Um , however , 99% of the orbs that people get a photo of can be logically explained. And you always want to look for the logical explanation any paranormal encounter. If you can see it with your own eyes and not through a camera , then it becomes interesting. So one day I was in the courtroom of the Whaley House , sitting in a back bench , and something caught my eye , and I turned and looked at it , and just a few feet away from me , there wasn't a ball of light or energy with light that was floating in the air , and it kind of bobbed up and down , went in front of me and then just went zoom and disappeared. And it happened so quick I couldn't bring my camera up to get a photo of it , but I realized I just seen an actual energy orb right in front of me , which I'd heard of before but hadn't personally encountered. So people ask me , are those orbs ghost ? And I say , not necessarily. It could be , but the way I look at it is you as a person. If you're out in the sun , you'll have a shadow on the ground. That shadow is not you , but it's an indicator that you are there. And I think that's what an orb is. It's an indicator that something is there in that space with you. Wow.
S1: Wow.
S8: And I'm like , wow , that sounds really interesting. That just kind of hung around in the background for my , my early life. And then when I started actually doing the investigations and encountering these interesting things , it made me want to understand why are they happening this way ? How can you explain this ? And then I would read about other people's experiences. It's fascinating. From a science standpoint , I'm kind of a logical person , but it's also giving me comfort in some ways. You know , having loved ones like my parents pass on knowing that I will see them on the other side , and the death is not final. That provides comfort to me , and I've researched Animal Ghost , and I've had encounters with pets that have passed on that were still making their presence known in the house. So knowing that , I will also meet those loved pets on the other side , that's also a comfort.
S1:
S8: We're basically curious creatures and having , you know , seen all these movies and these shows all your life , you're kind of wondering , what is it really like , and how can this relate to me , and what would I do if I was ever in this circumstance ? But for some people , it's comforting knowing that death is not final. For some people , it's a fascination in terms of this is a line of scientific inquiry that needs to be finalized. I think it's just a fascinating subject because nobody can really explain it well at this point.
S1: Well , David , this has been a very interesting conversation. I've been speaking with David Hanson. He is the founder of the San Diego Ghost and Paranormal Group , the largest paranormal enthusiast meetup group in the area. David , thank you so much.
S8: Well , thanks for getting a hold of me. I hope you have a great Halloween season. Hope to help everyone understand what's going on in this fascinating field.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
