Psychic Energy Cloud
Witness: (name withheld)
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date of Encounter: 1997
Six years ago I had moved to Los Angeles, and while there I had (so I thought) the fortune of working with a paranormal investigator pursuing a life-long passion. Shortly after working for him (whom I shall keep nameless) I became severely disenchanted with the paranormal since he seemed more focused on somehow connecting with the Hollywood scene and did not, in my opinion, care much for the scientific aspect of paranormal research. It is hard for me to say whether he EVER cared for it, or was, to put it bluntly, a con artist. It was probably one of the most interesting moments in my life however, and I both loved and loathed it. Regardless of the pseudo-parapsychologist (who among other things stiffed me $600 in back wages for performing administrative duties), the experiences I had on the job were genuine. One in particular comes to mind because I really have not read anything similar to that experience, at least with any frequency.
We were investigating an old Los Angeles hotel that had been converted into low-income housing — a place that we had plans to bring tourists to at a later date. While we were on — I believe the fourth floor by one of the suites, the team encountered a very peculiar phenomenon. Outside the suite there was a patch of space about waist-height where vision was distorted. We discovered the spot because someone was carrying a magnetometer and I remember first feeling a funny sensation, like static and the hairs of my arm began to pick up — not dramatically, but enough to be noticeable. As we all formed a circle around this patch of air running our hands through it to feel the "charge" we were all thrilled to see optical effects. Faint blue auras trailed from our fingertips as we waved out hands through and soon there were after-images of our hands themselves in mid-air. I hate to use the word because of its drug connotation, but the best way to describe the phenomenon was like a psychedelic trip producing trailing images of one's own hand. Soon, the effect was so blurring I had to look away because it was making me dizzy.
I was thrilled! A bona fide unexplained phenomenon and here we were, at least five individuals experiencing it at the same time. I turned to the parapsychologist hungering for a theory about what it was we were experiencing, but he was backing away from it unnerved. I asked him what he thought it was and he merely shook his head said he didn't know and proceeded to back down the hallway. I think that was the point when I started to have my doubts about him. Honestly, it was not frightening, but rather fascinating. I had other experiences while working with the team but after a month I quit — as I said, disenchanted and bitter. I have since moved back to Massachusetts and will still religiously watch "Haunted History" and other documentaries and (god help me for admitting this) "World's Scariest Places" on Halloween. I have not actively gone ghost hunting for a couple years (my last attempt was an abysmal failure ended by being harassed and followed by teen-age townies), but once in a while I'll walk into a building, get that shiver and say "Oh yeah, this place has got something going on!"
