GHOST HUNTING in AMERICA

Spring Texas

My friends were interested in haunted places, and asked if I would plan something that involved a little supernatural. They knew that I, (as a geocacher), know where all the haunted graveyards are.

One of the girls had gone with me before to find "Ectoman" off FM 1960, but we weren't too successful. This time we headed out to Tomball, Texas, and Salem Lutheran Cemetary. We were headed to try to make contact with "Mike". For good footage of Mike, go here:http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/01/ghost/video.html.

Walking in to the graveyard, I got chills. I am usually not scared of graveyards but I had a little of the spook in me here. I was headed straight for the back of the cemetary, where the geocache hidden there was supposed to be hidden. Becky was walking near me, and Lara and Jinny were scouting good recording sites. We started moving past a tree and I was suddenly very cold, then I heard a squeak. Becky says, "Be careful around that tree, those are bats".

She didn't even need to tell me because I really didn't want to get close to there. It was creeping me out.

We established that the tree the geocache was in was cut down recently, probably a victim of Ike. It made a good place to rest Lara's laptop and recording equipment for a while. Jinny and Becky went close to the bat tree, recordng, and then got really freaked out about something and came swiftly back. Lara recorded them talking about their experience, which I will post when she sends it to me.

In all the pictures I took, there is this "orb" right behind Lara. We had an period of recording near a "hot spot" that Becky found, and her cell phone had gone off strangely when she walked into it. There wasn't a ton of supernatural activity, though. After about an hour of recording audio, video, and digital camera footage, we had a spotlight on us. The cops had shown up, which probably should have been anticipated with the dog barking at us the whole time. He didn't seem too concerned with us, but also did need us to wrap it up and leave.

After this, we had to formulate the rest of our plan. We were still into what we were doing, but didn't want to attract any more police attention.

We headed to Bonin Cemetary in Spring, near The Woodlands, off Gosling Road. Now, there was no reported ghost activity, that we were aware of here, and truly nobody seemed to have much of a feeling here. However, the recording activity was higher on some equipment. Jinny told a ghost story for the camcorder again.

I was quietly freaking out about the neighbors. That was the scariest part of this cemetary to me. Their house was right next to the cemetary and the TV was playing. Lara and Becky went up to ask them permission to record, and no one answered the door. The door, however, was cracked open. Jinny and Lara then went to ask another neighbor, whom they kind of knew, while I recorded with the camcorder. During this time, the cracked door opened almost all the way. Door wide open, TV on, and no one seen. I kept imagining them coming out with a gun, or sneaking up on us. The weirdness in people is scarier to me than ghosts or vampires are.

After this, we met up with some of the spouses of the girls in our group at a restaurant for a late dinner and coffee, then went back out to explore Old Town Spring. This area is supposed to be haunted in several locations. There is even a "Ghost Tour" that takes you on an hour and a half stroll through these areas. We did our own mini-tour, the six of us, with Jinny as the leader. She took us to Doering Court, where a ghost named Sarah inhabits this window and plays with Beanie Babies at night. We walked over to the Wunsche Bros. Cafe, where we saw only a person moving around in the second floor. We decided it was a real person, and it seemed like a couple of places around had real people in them. We stopped at Puffabelly’s Depot, where we recorded a bunch of these orbs dancing with Becky. This was the spot with the most action this night.

We had Old Town Spring all to ourselves this night, just the six of us strolling down the darkened lanes,by cute little shops, looking into the windows. We ended our tour at Whitehall, which is a now a bridal shoppe and hosts weddings. There was something spooky and yet charming about this house, which has gone through several stages in the past. In the sign in the picture, it states that in the sixties, it was even a hippie commune!

It was a great night, with no amazing pyrotechnics or ghosts frights, but a good time with girlfriends having fun. Who knows what the recordings might reveal?

Oh, and by the way, the picture at the top - lights inside a wedding dress at Whitehall gives an ethereal touch.