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July 13, 2006
A Look at Our Haunted LivesBy Jeff BelangerSince I began writing about the supernatural almost 10 years ago, Ive had the pleasure of speaking with many hundreds of people about their brush with the unexplained. Ive learned that just about everyone has a ghost story -- something theyve either witnessed personally or a ghost experience they know about that has been told to them by someone close. Ive been at parties where people find out what I do for a living and then laugh at me. The laughs dont bother me anymore, though, because I know from experience that in most cases those same people who laugh will pull me aside later and say, You know, there was this one thing that happened to me With so many ghosts around, some ask if we even need the words supernatural or paranormal in our lexicon. If ghosts are as common as they appear to be from all of the recorded accounts, spirits must certainly be natural. Normal. While I understand this line of thinking, I also recognize that until 100% of the population accepts this phenomenon as reality, we need these words to describe those events that are beyond our understanding of everyday life. We should also remember that experiencing the supernatural is a very rare occurrence. The event is special, profound, life-changing. Im leery of those who claim to see spirits all of the time. Ive been called a ghost hunter. I accept that term, though I go about this research a little differently than most of the investigators we see on TV with their myriad of gadgets and computer equipment. For me, my ghost hunting kit consists of four basic items I cant function without: a notebook, a pen, a hand-held tape recorder, and breath mints (because I talk to the living a lot more often than I speak with the dead). My tape recorder is my most prized piece of equipment because when Im speaking with a witness of a ghostly event, I want to concentrate on what they have to say. I want people comfortable that theyre having a conversation and theyre not being judged because of what they saw, heard, or even smelled. The most compelling evidence for the existence of ghosts is when you look into the eyes of someone who experienced them. They know what they saw, and theres conviction in their voices. When you speak with enough people, you can tell when someone is telling the truth. Last year I embarked on a mission to document significant ghost encounters. My objective was to speak with people from many different walks of life and find out not only what supernatural phenomena they experienced, but how it has affected their lives. I wanted to present these encounters in the words of the witnesses, leaving the nuances and language of the conversations as intact as possible -- because this is how people talk. I also wanted to look closely at one of the most famous hauntings of all time: the Amityville, New York case from 1975. There have been many books and movies made based (often very loosely) on the events that happened to George Lutz and his family. Some claimed Lutz to be perpetrating a fraud. Others said the house on Ocean Avenue was home to something truly evil. To get the whole story, I spoke with George Lutz himself. We spent several hours going over everything that happened to him from the summer of 1975, right up until present day. Heres a short excerpt from George Lutz:
In May of 2006, George Lutz passed away unexpectedly. He was 59 years old. This interview was one of the last major interviews Mr. Lutz gave on his Amityville experiences. Im honored to be able to pass on his story in his words in
Our Haunted Lives.
Hollywood would like us to believe that ghosts only lurk in graveyards or old, abandoned houses, but experience tells us this simply isnt true. Ghosts can be in new homes, in open fields, in grocery stores, even in modern water facilities. I spoke with Jeff Revis who had an encounter while working the overnight shift at the local water plant.
One of the most significant types of ghost encounters involves seeing a recognizable person that you know to be dead. When the ghost is that of a relative, the encounter is even more powerful. For millennia people have reported being visited by the spirits of their parents, grandparents, and other kin. Imagine having the experience when youre only five years old. Thats what happened to young Sierra Gregoire after her Uncle Jimmy died.
Some of the people I spoke with had their ghost encounter within the last year or two. With others, their experience may have been decades in the past, but they still recall the details with amazing clarity because the event was so profound.
Jeff Belanger founded Ghostvillage.com on October 31, 1999. Since then, Jeff has gone on to become an author and lecturer on all things supernatural.
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