Disclaimer:

~The views and opinions expressed here are of the blog author and not necessarily of CCAPSG as a whole~

Monday, December 21, 2009

A Message From Pastor Baz:



Merry Christmas from the CCAPSG team,

Well, it's the end of our first year as a blog.

Part of me knows all too well, the draw behind the world of cryptozoology and the paranormal. 
Like so many mysteries that become defined by subcultures, it is a place of new information about the mysteries of the world.
For some, it relieves boredom. For others it gives them community. For researchers it is part of the quest to find out 'how stuff works'.
But like so many other things, it can become 'an idol' the thing in our lives that gets the most attention, that consumes our thinking, and takes us away from the reality of life.

One thing is for sure - for all the ghosts, Yowies, Sasquatches, Chupacabra's, UFO's, Goatmen, Dogmen, Skinwalkers and other anomalies out there that are yet to be even proven to be true, the search for them, even firm conclusions on them, if they ever come - will ultimately never bring us happiness.

It might bring us a sense of excitement in the same way buying a new car, cd, going to a party, having a new partner etc might do. But just like those things, when the polish wears off, we'll need another fix that won't bring us happiness the same way the last thing didn't.

So my encouragement this Christmas is, as exciting as finding out how things work is, or what things are, don't let that define who you are or get your affirmation from it.

Because the Bible says you are made in the image of God and that you were worth dying for.

So your identity is actually someone who is loved by the God of the universe.

Will you recieve that free gift of revelation about who you are to God this Christmas?


True peace is found in the restoration between things that are broken.

Restoration between:

- God and us (the relationship broken by sin, unbelief and making ourselves God).

- Us and others (the relationship broken by self centredness in our intentions and interactions)

- Us and ourselves (getting rid of the false self that we portray to the world).

- Us and the planet.(Proper care of what God has given us)


So as much as I'd like to know what a Chupacabra is, ultimately it's meaningless in the bigger picture.

What I'd much rather know is that you are now free by Jesus' death and ressurection and filled with the only ghost worth knowing - the Holy Spirit.

Restoration can start today, simply by a simple act of faith of believing in Jesus as Gods Son. He will change the way you see yourself and the world.

I hope that you recieve the peace, love and hope of Jesus Christ this Christmas.

Pastor Baz.

Paranormal In The News - Christmas Holidays





UFO Pyramid reported over Kremlin
A giant pyramid which appears to be a UFO hovering over the Kremlin has caused frenzied speculation in Russia that it is an alien spacecraft.
Click here for a link to the news story from the Telegraph newspaper.


Bryony's thoughts - Not entirely sure what to think of this footage, it could be a reflection of something thats inside the car. But what makes it slightly more convincing is the footage of the pyramid shaped UFO from during the day - unless of course its just one big hoax? I mean surely if a huge pyramid shaped UFO was hovering over the Kremlin more people would have reported it and the Russian army would have gotten involved? My opinion is its a hoax. What are your thoughts?

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The Star of Bethlehem: A Paranormal Event?
Was the star of Bethlehem a paranormal event - a miracle - proclaiming the birth of the Messiah? Or was it a natural, if spectacular, celestial event that happened to take place at the same time that some historians reckon that Jesus was born?

Click here for the rest of Stephen Wagners blog from www.paranormal.about.com

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My dead son has miraculous powers, says Lina Tannous

A SYDNEY couple believes their son - "hand-picked by God" - could be Australia's first male saint.
To read more click here


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Reeking Aliens Wake Up Darwin


A TOP End politician says exhaust from a visiting space ship may be responsible for a nauseating stench that descended on Darwin in the dead of night.

Click here for the rest of the story.

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Parramatta Wall Weeps Miracle Oil 
"Thousands of people have started to flock to the western Sydney home of a Catholic couple where oil and ash have started to appear on the walls of the bedroom of their late son who was killed in a car crash last year."

Here is another link about the Michael Tannous house with quotes from a few people who've visited the house. It's interesting to read the varying opinions. To read more click here.

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"Parishioners at one of Canada's oldest Anglican churches will be puzzled by an enduring enigma when they gaze heavenward this Christmas."
Click here for the news story.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Real Life Stories: Clairvoyant meets Jesus


By Lee-Ann Kelly

Many people who develop an interest in Paranormal activity may have at some point been to a clairvoyant, Tarot reader or Fortune Teller.

Clearly some of these people are gaining information from the spiritual realm. Claims to see loved ones that have “passed over” knowledge of things the clairvoyant could not possibly know. Often visits to clairvoyants bring comfort to those grieving for their loved ones and a sense of peace that they are happy and will meet again with them someday.

Before becoming a Christian I was one of those people who on a few occasions sought insight into my life and future from “mystics” I also spent a few years learning tarot, healing and psychometry (ability in which a person can sense or "read" the history of an object by touching it).

I denounced all of these crafts well before becoming a Christian as I was made fully aware I had opened doors to a spiritual world which were not of God and I again denounced all of my past involvements on becoming a Christian and accepting Jesus into my life.

As Christian’s (followers of Christ) we are made very aware of the spiritual realm both good and evil through Gods Word and what God Himself reveals to us. God clearly tells us not to seek fortune tellers :

Leviticus 19:31 "'Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 20:6 "'I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people.



Spirits can easily masquerade as a loved one and in turn lead you in a direction further away from God and His plan for your life. The easiest way to put it is that God created you in His image with a purpose and destiny in Him and His kingdom so God wrote the instruction manual for you and your life so who better to ask for guidance that the designer! If you bought a new Television you wouldn’t want to read a Washing Machine Manual to set it up! The enemy on the other hand will deceive at any opportunity if it means leading a person away from God’s grace,salvation and plan for your life.

The last time I visited a Clairvoyant was January 2004. Why would I remember the exact date? Read on to find out!

I was staying in Tammworth for the Country Music Festival when I stumbled across a Physic Fair. Why not I thought. I paid my money and took my place at a small table across from a man in his 40’s. I was ready to hear what the future had in store for me and was single at the time so keen to hear of the prospect of a new relationship. The man reached across the table and took my hands in his, closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “Here we go” I was thinking. Already sceptical of what he was going to say.

A minute passed and suddenly the man jolted back in his chair at the same time letting go of my hands. His eyes were wide as dinner plates and the blood drained out of his face. I was feeling pretty shocked and scared at that moment. What on earth had he seen?

His voice quivering he stammered out the words “Jesus is with you”. I remember smiling at him and saying “I know” as a feeling of amazing peace flooded through my entire body. He repeated “No..you don’t understand” “Jesus is REALLY with you”. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and again smiled and said to him “Yes I know”.

At any moment I thought this guy was going to drop off the chair!

He then said “ No Jesus is standing right next to you! I saw Him!”.

I smiled and said to the guy “ Well I guess thats all I really need to know” and I thanked him and got up and left leaving him sitting as white as a sheet with his mouth open to the floor.. I skipped around all day knowing that Jesus was with me!

Just 3 months after this happened I met a lady who began sharing the Gospel with me. I picked up a bible for the first time in my life (other than short stints of reading in hotels over the years).

My friend had advised me to pray before reading the bible that God would reveal His truth to me. I never forget praying and opening the pages and there staring back at me in red was the following scripture spoken by Jesus. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." -- John 14:6

As I read each day the words literally jumped off the pages! I discovered that the spiritual hunger I had felt for years, the same hunger which drove me to study many religions and occult practices was now finally being fed. Reading for hours each day I discovered that through the bible God was speaking directly to me and showing me His love for me and the plan he had for my life.

Lee-Ann Kelly

Monday, December 14, 2009

Real Life Stories - The Magic Sand Poltergeist


Once again this series of real life stories has the theme of Indigenous artefacts and the resultant chaos that occurs when they are brought into the homes of naïve westerners.



Last week we talked about the ‘cursed keyring’. This weeks story is about relics that had been in a family for years.



Often when someone we love dies, we cherish the things they collected in their lifetimes. It reminds us of what they did and who they were. Sometimes it’s furniture, books, antiques or other collectibles. Other times they are items from another culture they visited.



That is where our story begins..



Years ago ‘P’ lost his beloved father and grief stricken he kept his dad’s items in storage. ‘P’ was married with three beautiful kids and a senior position in aviation – life was going well - but he mourned for his dad and began to go through his old belongings.



He found an old Aboriginal midden (used to store and cook shellfish) and a glass jar full of colourful sand in layers – with distinct images of birds between the layers. He remembered this was known as magic sand and was meant to have spiritual meaning to the Aboriginals. He placed the midden at the back door of his family home, at the base of the steps. The magic sand was placed inside the house.

From that point onwards It took many months for ‘P’ to raise the subject with me, but when he did the events that were taking place at his house sounded very familiar.



“Baz, can you and the elders come and pray for my house, there are twenty pound weights being thrown around downstairs when no one is down there, wind out windows are opening and closing of their own accord and footsteps that come up the back stairs, then go onto the roof and over our room happen all the time”? I confirmed these events with his wife and noting that this sounded very unusual indeed promised to organise a team to do deliverance prayer at his house. This was at a time when CCAPSG did not have an investigative arm or equipment to check for other natural phenomenon. We treated it with what we had – faith.



The elders of the Church did go and pray, but I did not due to other things that were on. ‘P’ was upset with me for not coming and rang me to let me know. I explained my absence and as we sorted things out amicably, firstly on the phone and them over coffee more of the story came out.



The events had not subsided.



Even worse, now a dark cloud of ‘malevolence’ had crept up the stairs at night, a phenomenon that was palpable to the point that ‘P’ could trace it’s journey as it moved up the three levels of the house.



The footsteps continued as did night terrors and they always emanated from the area where the midden was. Strange behaviour by Ravens in the area around the midden only intensified the feelings that they were being watched all the time.



Then the penny dropped. All the occurrences started when the midden and magic sand was brought into the house.



We discussed it and ‘P’ decided he needed to get rid of the items.



Guess what?



As soon as they were removed the phenomenon also ceased.



When I became a Christian in 2000, I had a lot of stuff in my house that had been used ceremonially (for example animal fetishes) as my wife worked in a Native American Art Gallery.. We simply got rid of those items and kept the others that had not. We were simply more aware of what had gone on in my wife’s house as a child and realised we wanted a clean house with no unwelcome visitors. This is not a ‘fundamentalist’ mindset – it’s common sense when you have experienced horrific phenomenon before that was linked to a ceremonial item. I hope this story encourages us to be on guard and realise that at times we need to do what was done in the book of Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament.



From Acts 19:11-20 (NIV)

11God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

13Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." 14Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. 15(One day) the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" 16Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

17When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. 18Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. 19A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.[a] 20In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

Let me make this clear - by no means are we encouraging people to randomly destroy items from other cultures which can be so rich in history, art and legacy, but to be very discerning about what you buy or allow yourself to inherit and what you put in your house. It’s important to realize that when something gets in to our lives through those entry points that we can’t let the financial cost of the item dictate whether it has permission to stay in our homes – the long term cost is far greater in the toll it can take on our families.

By Pastor Baz

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Paranormal In The News This Week 14/12/09


"Entitled “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” the report points out that many Americans are now choosing to “blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs” and that “sizable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups” said that they have had supernatural experiences, like encountering ghosts."
An article regarding The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life - Click here to read more from the article in NY Times. And click here for Pew Forum website.
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"THE ghostbusters of reality television never actually see dead people. They spend an awful lot of time talking to them, though"

Click here to read more of this article from the NYtimes...
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Jack Black Studying Cryptozoology
"Having hit it big with Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black is delving back into animation, albeit behind the camera this time, for a film about Cryptozoology."


Click here to read the rest of the article from Empire online.

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"I stumbled across this article in the Sydney Morning Herald about Ghost Hill Road, Bilpin."
Click here to read more from the blog post regarding the Sydney Morning Heralds article on Ghost Hill Road.

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Click here for some Christmas themed paranormal encounters from paranormal.about.com

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Click photo for link to a news story about a ghost at Bents opera house. Some people claim to see the image of a ghost in this shot.



Our opinion is that the orb is dust in the air and the "figure" is something called matrixing where the brain tries to find a recognisable image within a pattern.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Black Mass Ghost Photo From The Villisca Axe Murder house



Background
For those that haven't heard the story - The Villisca Axe murders happened on June 10, 1912 in Villisca, Iowa, USA. 2 adults and 6 children were murdered in their beds and no murderer has ever been found. The house hasn't changed too much in the 97 years since the murder. In 1994 the Linns bought the property and restored it to its original condition and it is now listed on the national registrar of historic places. The house is now open to ghost tours. To read more click here for the official website.


The Photo
Jeff Ulmer recently went to the Villisca Axe Murder House with AGH Nation for the Merry Axe-mas event. He experienced a few things there including hearing whispers in the blue room and a very low loud growl in the cellar but the most impressive piece of evidence is the photo taken above. Two minutes after walking into the house Jeff snapped a few photos, neither the photos before or after have this black mass in them. Interestingly enough the group that had gone in the room before Jeff went in had apparently been provoking whatever entity might be there to show themselves in the name of Jesus Christ. It seems it worked because when Jeff went into the bedroom he said he could feel the energy in there and snapped the photos. It's best to hear the story straight from the person who experienced it and thankfully Jeff did a video the same night documenting his experience.



Photos and video provided by Jeff Ulmer.


Monday, December 7, 2009

Paranormal in the news 7/12/09


"Haunted" woman loses 20kg in 2 weeks
"A 37-year-old Chinese woman from Englor claimed that she has been haunted by a "female ghost" every night over the past two weeks and her weight dropped from 70kg to 50kg as she had to withstand mental torture everyday." click here for news story.

"This is a very strange story. I think of it often and always fill with that fear one feels when experiencing one of those “close calls” in life.
I was 23 at the time. I was married and had a three year-old son. I was just a young woman like any other. I stayed home with my child..."
To read more click here


From Rick Phillips, 'The Anomaly Man': Hello, welcome back to what is now the second annual listing of The Top 10 Anomalous, Dubious, Hoax, Events and Links of 2009 - a year end tradition started at The Heavy Stuff. This year, like last, we have a bevy of links that appeared on the internet that qualified as anomalous in many areas of ParaNormality - but - ...
to read more click here for the Phantoms and Monsters link or here for The Heavy Stuff link.


Spiralling light baffles experts.
A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled.

Click here for link to news story and video.

The cursed Keyring



This series of real life stories has a consistent theme. Indigenous artefacts and the resultant chaos that occurs when they are brought into the homes of naïve westerners.



Whether it is the story of the Hexham heads in the UK, to the stories in this series including the Churinga Stone tale, artefacts can literally ‘unleash hell’ in our homes.



That is not to say that all artefacts have these problems associated with them. But it does appear when you look at the cases, that artefacts used ceremonially or with religious purpose in mind (and with a curse in some cases if removed from the tribe) tend to be the biggest culprits.



Pastor Robin Swope, the Paranormal Pastor, made a statement in his excellent book “An Exorcists Field Guide” that “….There are times when the practice that harbours occult focus or power might be an innocent thing in and of itself. Likewise there can be seemingly occult practices made by the owner of resident that have no occult power or entanglements (Page 154).



So sometimes items or practices that seem to have occult ties are not and others that do not appear at surface level to do. And they don’t need to be indigenous artefacts to have weird ties to the spirit realm. Sometimes we make things ‘spiritual’ by the agreements we unwittingly make with them. One example is my old Bible study teacher’s story about his Jim Beam keyring. On the surface it had no occult ties whatsoever. It was simply a pewter keyring with a ceramic logo on it. But when my teacher in his youthful exuberance made the statement that ‘the keyring would be his lucky charm and he would always have it with him’ something shifted….or acknowledged that agreement.



So much for luck. Within days he was nearly run over by a car that killed the dog he was walking, who was his best mate as a youngster. Then a series of unfortunate events unfolded withing the next couple of weeks. Was it just coincidence…..this keyring was anything but good luck. He took it to a nearby creek and threw it in. He was glad to be rid of it.



The next morning as he went to get dressed he opened his sock draw – and there neatly laid out on top was the keyring.



That was the first of many attempts to detach himself from it. Every time he threw it away it returned. People would bring it back to him saying “isn’t this your keyring mate, I found it in the strangest place”.



He was sure he had brought some sort of horrific curse upon himself as not only was the keyring continually coming back, but the bad luck events continued to unfold.

Like so many of these stories, and it is now almost a cliché in this blog, it was only prayer and the name of Jesus that ended the cycle of the curse.



So next time you worry about the Papuan New Guinean war masks that are staring at you on your wall being demonised, remember that is often the agreements we make that start the spiritual wars we have to endure.



For more information on dealing with issues like this, we recommend Pastor Swope’s latest book via amazon

By Pastor Baz

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Real Life Stories: The Angel Apparition


by Lee-Ann Kelly from CCAPSG.

I lost a cousin to suicide about 12 years ago. Justin was just 21. A few years after his death I was at my Auntie's house (his mum) I was talking about Justin and how much I missed him.
My Auntie was hesitant but asked me to her bathroom to show me something. It was kind of weird. She pointed to a tile over the bathroom tap and said look there and see what you can see. I looked at the tile and it looked like any other tile to me. In my head I thought "nope I dont see anything" I was just about to let those exact words leave my mouth when presto! There on the tile was a perfect apparition of an angel sitting with legs crossed and wearing a t-shirt (you could see the outline of a fitted tshirt and wings were outstretched behind.)
I seriously nearly fell on the floor. My Auntie then took me to their lounge room and showed me a black and white professional photo that Justin had done right before his death. There was a photo of him sitting in the exact position with the exact t-shirt on, the only difference was in the black and white photo he had no wings.

Remember: I saw the tile before I saw the photo and the apparition was a replica of the photo.

Do I believe in apparitions.......??

Absolutely!

Do I know why they appear or from what source?

No.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

This Weeks Paranormal In The News 30/11/09


Click here for a news story from The Pueblo Chieftain newspaper on some footage that the Southern Colorado Paranormal Researchers think they've captured.


An interesting take on Paranormal Activity from the guardian newspaper. click here


The UFO landing at Presque Beach
Not a recent news story but interesting none the less click here.


What better way is there to decorate your tree than a bigfoot/yeti Christmas tree ornament? Click here to check 'em out.


Is bigfoot loose in San Antonio? click here for Cryptomundo's article.


Ghost hunters claim apparition led them to discovering bones. Click here for news story.

Bowen Mt – one of the world’s most mysterious places



From Pastor Baz

I have lived in a place called the Sutherland Shire now for around 20 years. It is a place of sun, surf, sport, leisure – and the occasional race riot (remember Cronulla in December 2005?).

But from 1978-1988 I lived around 70km north west from the beaches of Cronulla at a small mountain top town with not even a shop or a school on it called Bowen Mt. It is around 20km from the Richmond RAAF airforce base and has an interesting history and a myriad of fortean phenomenon and high strangeness.

Because I ended up marrying the girl across the road at Bowen Mt, we still regularly visit the area to see our in-laws, so I get a lot of opportunities to interview, investigate and revisit the stories from my childhood. Among the strangeness were:

- One one side of Lt Bowen road, from the bend in the corner where the Bowyer Family originally lived all the way to to Maple St, convicts were seen and heard re-enacting their daily grind that according to rock carvings started in 1809. The sights and sounds of horses, carts and hard labour were repeated regularly where an old trail ran parallel to the existing road – even 200 years later.

- The Bowen Mt Park has always had a strange coldness and eerie sense about it, which is noted by many of the locals. There are convict wells in there that are now filled in, but first hand accounts of giant orbs of light as big as basketballs, moving through the air and literally chasing people out of the park have been reported by reliable and multiple witnesses.

- A Yowie (Australian bigfoot) was seen on Maple St in the early eighties and is thought (though not witnessed) to be responsible for house shuddering wall banging at the time of the sighting.

- Black Panther sightings are common in the area, with animal carcasses and paw prints adding to the already long list of evidence.

- A ghostly figure appeared in the room of a young boy in the mid eighties in a house adjacent to Maple St.

- Neighbours reported that ‘The ghost of Lieutenant Bowen” visited all new arrivals to the town. (This is urban myth and we did not experience it, but it is an interesting folklore).

- When an aboriginal stone was dug up and placed in a house, unusual sickness and poltergeist and UFO activity occurred in and around the premises.

- Seasoned locals who would walk 20k through bush in the daylight and knew the area back to front would go for walks at night time along Lt Bowen Rd and return ashen faced declaring ‘they would never walk around this area at night again” explaining an unknown dread had stalked them as they walked the dark and unlit streets.

- Front doors would fling open suddenly with no one there, especially at dinner parties and gatherings when there was no wind or problem with hinges or hanging. And I can vouch that it wasn’t us kids – we were as terrified as the rest of the adults when it happened.

- Magnetic Hill is between Carters Rd and Grand View Lane. Long considered to be an urban myth or illusion, Shannon and I stopped his 2 tonne SUV a the point where the hill is undeniably on an upward slop – and after he took his foot off the brake we rolled 3-4 feet UPHILL. I was highly sceptical of the whole phenomenon until that point and I have no explanation for it.

So there you have it, and they are only the stories I know of. How many other true tales exist amongst the community of Bowen Mt, NSW Australia.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Paranormal in the News 23/11/09


Is West Virginia part of Bigfoot’s migration route? click here for the article.


Burmas junta leader orders spirit to be handcuffed every night - read the story here on phantomsandmonsters.com


Peter Jackson's ghostly encounter in Wellington, NZ click here for news story.


Headline reads - "Mysterious Skeleton Haunts the Chelsea Hotel" To read the blog click here A mother and daughter had a ghostly encounter whilst staying at the Hotel Chelsea. Lights would switch on and off, the drains would bubble and they heard a disembodied voice. During there stay they took a photo of a closet and when they looked at the photo when they got home they noticed a skeleton face. I can see what they are looking at but in my opinion it doesn't resemble a skeleton face. It actually appears to be a mark on the wood and the "skeleton" is a product of matrixing where the brain tries to make sense of random images.
It would be good if someone else could take a photo of the same area to see if the mark is there.

Click here for a list of the oddest haunted places on earth. There's pizza hut, thorntons chocolate shop, cinemas and a blockbuster in Arizona thats mentioned and its not the only blockbuster thats supposedly haunted...check out this video they linked to thats done the rounds on youtube.

Real Life Stories: The Disembodied Voices


ANON
On numerous occasions whilst carrying out my duties as a cleaner at my local church I have encountered some strange things...

The thing I have experienced most often is the cry or yelp to describe it better of a woman and sometimes what sounds like young children... this always happens in the same location.... outside the toilets and councelling room where there is various councelling, prayer ministry and deliverance..
Alough a little unnerving this has not been a particularly frightening experince.

A little more unsettling was the shadowy figure or shape or I don't really know how to describe it... kind of lightening bolt but not really. Anyway this thing whatever it was was only in my line of vision for a few seconds then darted off towards the offices, as this was upstairs near the fire hydrant.. I was in the building on my own it was about 7am.
Although I didn't see the shadow again that morning I felt like I was being watched while I carried out my duties.

I have heard footsteps many times when the building has been empty, aside from myself, not creaking but the definate sound of feet dragging on the carpet.

And finally about 8am one Saturday I was cleaning one of the rooms upstairs when I heard someone call out "hello". This was nothing unusual as people often come and go from the church so I called back but no answer other than "hello hello" I thought whoever it was had not heard me and was probably wondering why the alarm wasn't on if there was no one there so I proceeded to follow the voice which was periodically calling out "hello" to let them know I was in the building.

I checked every room following the voice (male) around the building thinking it odd that they had not heard me or answered me.
I started to feel my heart pumping as I realised there was no one there. I could still hear "Hello" but could find no one. I ran outside to look for a car
but there was none.
I was so frightened I stood outside for ages watching all the doors that exit the church. waiting for someone to come out... no one did.

Scared out of my wits I re-enterd the church and called out one last time "who's there?" but there was no answer. I did not hear the voice again that morning...

Monday, November 16, 2009

The Paranormal Pastor: 2012 and the Coming Apocalypse

Check out Pastor Swopes latest blog by clicking on this link The Paranormal Pastor: 2012 and the Coming Apocalypse

Paranormal In The News This Week 16/11/09


An interesting article from CNN - Ghosts, monsters, dragons: What to tell kids. click here for the article.


The creature in Central Park - click here for a link to the story.


Headline says "Tourist captures "ghost" near old hanging tree." Click here for the news story. There is a form here that is slightly angel/human shaped but I think this is due to matrixing (an effect where your brain tries to make sense of patterns by making them look like something familiar) I think the image could be attributed to cigarette smoke or breath in the air as Scotland is not a warm place. What other explanations could there be for this photo? Please comment below.


Big cat print found in scotland click here for the Big Cats In Britain website.


Photo from the Former Roe Valley Hospital. What are your thoughts as to what this could be? The news story is saying its a ghost. Click here for the story. In my opinion it is likely to be motion blur ie something stationary in the photo but the camera has been moved (not necessarily deliberately) and produced this effect. Also without another photo of the same area to compare it to we can't say what it is.


Headline says "Unconfirmed photo of alien in Queensland" click here. It is a human/alien shape but because of the lack of information we can't really make a comment as to what it actually is.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Blue Mountains Ghost tour Part 4: The Convict Wells and the hanging tree


by Pastor Baz
The longer the night of the tour went on, the greater sense of sadness I felt at how humans treat each other. We had heard stories of murder, disease, legally endorsed racism and segregation (and the punitive action that followed any breach) and systematic police and military brutality of prisoners and convicts.

Which brings us to the hanging tree.

Chosen because of it’s sturdiness and shape, the hanging tree had brought, according to ‘Paranormal Pete’ many a sensitive person undone. People who were tuned in a little bit more than the average punter would put their hands on the tree and feel a sense of choking, smell, see and taste things that were horrific and see visions that were even more so.

One of our entourage named it the ‘boobie tree’ because it had two pendulous mounds near the base resembling…..you guessed it….boobs. (10 year old boys laugh….now!!)

As we rounded the corner to the tree, we noticed that school students were on a camping trip around and near it. Shannon and I will both confirm that the EMF (K2) Meters redlined as we came into the area – and the problem with these tours is that even though people have promised their phones are off that is not always the case. You soon learn what a mobile spike looks like on the meter and what is something different by the speed and the duration of the spike. This didn’t meet the criteria for a mobile spike compared to the previous three hours.

I felt the hanging tree was a sad place simply due to the fact that people were killed for doing things that in today’s society you would be given a good behaviour bond for. How many potential lives that could have been rehabilitated with the right type of Chaplaincy, mercy and support were ended at this tree? What happened to those who die in the prime of their lives, in traumatic situations who may be given a token Christian burial due to culture they live in but do not hear the good news of Christ and the Kingdom of God (in it’s true sense, not the hijacked, truncated, westernised fundamentalist sense) while alive. It is a question that further drives our research into this area and the need to provide well thought out answers to our readers.

As we drove off, the campers, unaware of the gallows they were bunked around and its history, text messaged each other, laughed and probably told ghost stories. I wonder if anyone experienced anything that night that was more tangible than the urban myths they scared each other with.

The next place we headed to were the convict wells. I had encountered these in my youth at Bowen Mt and although they had long been filled in, people still had strange sensations and experiences around them – a sense of ‘oppression’ that made a lot of people simply avoid the park, even though it was outwardly pleasant.

Pete warned us (again, this is great for the tour in terms of building expectation, but terrible for setting up false positives) of others experiences at the ‘wells’ including his own of being ‘pierced’ by an orb that told him to get out of the area, leaving him in a state of weakness, trembling and mental and emotional anguish, sitting on the ground, explaining his symptoms as anxiety rather than disclose what had happened at the time.

The wells were found down a dark bush track, renowned for suicides, usually via car and hose on the tail pipe. It’s interesting to consistently note how past dark deeds in an area continue to attract negativity, despair and loss of hope.

Essentially, the wells were holes dug in the ground to house convicts who were at high risk of escaping. All the way through the Blue Mountains and along the roads over the mountain and into the heartland of NSW were convict settlements of road workers, whose jobs were to carve roads into the new frontier (which was basically slave labour which resulted in hundreds of suicides for those who lost all hope) or simply maintaining what had been already created. At each convict outpost, those men who had life sentences or deemed a general flight risk were the ones placed in the wells instead of being allowed to live in huts with the rest of the community. This inhumane treatment now appears to leave a residual negativity over all the places this happened – what the negativity is I cannot say conclusively. But it is almost sentient, and at times exerts it’s will over others well and truly over a century later. As a Pastor, this leads me to a hypothetical position, based now on many personally documented experiences, that the ‘demonic’ realm feeds into and is attracted to the trauma of human tragedy, abuse and anger and unforgiveness. Is that what we were now experiencing at some of these places?

Our experiences were mixed but there was one consistent thing that happened. When the EMF meters went off, the frogs stopped their noises. It is a very similar experience in relation to wildlife that is reported around Yowie sightings and also noted in the appearance of UFO’s in regional area’s (I didn’t say alien, I said UFO which is what they are – unidentified flying objects). What we are looking for is the connection between the phenomenon manifesting and the reaction wild life has to it.

We took a lot of photo’s, got a lot of orbs (which most can be explained away as being dust or dew points) and in one photo of a water filled well a face of a person appeared to be present. This was later debunked by a TAPS forum member who showed it was matrixing from a reflection off the ground above it when the flash went off – and I agreed with that assessment. We have to be really careful in this area not to get caught up in the hype and the excitement, only to be the one’s responsible for ensuring skeptics have a reason to remain skeptical.

So after a long night of history, interesting experiences and personally, much prayer, we bid our new found friends farewell and arrived home at 1am to watch the Kangaroo’s play France, but the set top box refused to work. Shannon and I imbibed in a VB longneck together as we debriefed the night until 2am.

It had been a huge learning curve and we look forward to sharing our next adventure with you.

Baz, Bryony and Shannon.

Real Life Stories: The Flying Cup


By Baz

We’ve talked in the last couple of weeks about how malevolent spirits seem to be attracted to conflict, unforgiveness, bitterness, envy etc.



This story reinforces my view on that.



Every time a particular conflict arose at Church, we would experience paranormal phenomenon. If it wasn’t shadow people and disembodied voices, it was a general feeling of malaise that could not be attributed to anything else and it permeated certain area’s with a ‘jelly like’ intensity, ie you could just walk in a room and it would stick to your very being.



This time it was my office. It felt incredibly heavy in the room. There was no chemical reason, I am reasonably sure my fish tank filter was not producing infrasound between 17-19hz J but this particular day it felt like the 'devil was sitting in my office' for want of a better selection of words.



How had I allowed this to happen? Possibly by getting involved in other people’s disputes and picking up their spiritual warfare as a by product. Then when it was attached to me, not bringing the cross of Jesus Christ between myself and their ‘spiritual stuff’.



This is not meant not to apportion blame to other people, nor to not take personal responsibility. It was simply a process where I allowed conflict to come into my office via counselling/mediation/prayer times, feeling the heaviness during the session and then not clearing the place out spiritually. As a tip, if you do this in one particular area, you can contain it better. But if you do this in your house or office, especially where the person feels a malevolent entity is at work, you can end up with it hanging around.



So after one of our admin team complained that my office made them ‘feel like crying’ it was time to do an cleansing/binding/exorcism on the room.



Pastor Robin Swope, the ‘Paranormal Pastor’ had just releases his book on the subject of exorcism and it had arrived via Amazon two days before. I went and got a cup of water, prayed the blood of Christ over it and placed it on my filing cabinet.



I then started the cleansing from the book. The room felt better.

Now the sealing part. In the name of Jesus I sealed the room off from other spirits and also so any spirits within may not leave.



That’s when things got funky..



The cup of water on my cabinet was flung off where it was safely away from the edge and perfectly upside down on the floor. I looked at it for a number of seconds and then yelled for assistance.



As we completed the binding part of the process, papers ruffled and noises emanated around the room, like an angry child trying to make known their discontent.



Then finally, the casting out. The room became as light as a feather and peace was restored. Since that time my office is once again an awesome place to work in.



The name of Jesus has authority for believers - and that's all it takes - a step of faith. You don’t want to be like the ‘Sons of Sceva’ in the book of Acts in the Bible, the Jewish exorcist whose boys tried to copy the apostles in their deliverance ministry methods, but in rote form, not as believers who had received the Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus Himself. They were stripped naked by the man possessed of the ungodly spirit and beaten. Seven of the boys came undone that day.



So I encourage our readers, to pursue God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, believe in His Son Jesus, and receive the Holy Spirit, because that is how the Kingdom of God comes to earth as it is in heaven. It starts with us. It’s not just about ‘avoiding hell’ but about seeing the captives set free on earth, one by one as the good news is proclaimed, sometimes in words, sometimes like in these stories in supernatural signs and wonders and other times in love, mercy, justice and hope.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Blue Mountains Ghost Tour Part 3: The Jail and The Courthouse


Hey Bryony, what did you notice about the courtroom? Did you feel any false positives were being set up by the story about the girl who died in the fireplace grate ( A two year old girl got her head stuck in the grate and suffocated many years ago)? Did the EMF or camera's pick anything up?

We were being told what we'd feel and therefore we'd begin to feel it. But to be fair to Pete that is his job as tour guide. If he took us around and didn't tell us anything about the places then he wouldn't be a very good tour guide. And I have to say he is very good at his job. The amount of knowledge he has of the area is amazing.
In the courtroom there were no results with the k2's that I was aware of and although "orbs" came up in photos I would say they were dust kicked up by us walking around.


Did you notice that where people sat during sentencing there were nail marks in the wooden beam, from anxious picking? I sat in there and was told psychics get hammered in that spot, but (and I'm a Pastor not a psychic) I felt like I was just sitting in a seat. What were your thoughts on the stories we were told in there?

To be honest I didn't notice where the nail marks were. It was funny as I was in full debunk mode and being very skeptical. For example we found a speaker under a table but it turned out they use that for re-enactments. When we did lights out and had the silence for a few minutes I honestly didn't feel anything. As for the stories we were told in there, they were all personal experiences. They were from mainly clairvoyants, psychics etc who experienced things in a certain chair. This could have happened but there's no way to prove or disprove it. I didn't feel/see/catch anything but that doesn't mean there was nothing there. I didn't risk sitting in that chair though!! ;-)


The jail was a different story. The presence of something was palpable without the stories (in my opinion). We were warned that prison officers and police who do the tour are often bounced off the walls and attacked (would like to interview anyone who had that experience if you are reading this). Kel and I just prayed, again asking God to bless and consecrate the area and forgive what was done there. What did you experience?

In the room where the prisoners were kept there was definately a feeling in the air - quite heavy and oppressive (in my opinion). To me it felt residual, there would have been such emotion in there that I think some of that was hanging around.
Im not sure if anyone had k2 hits in there as I wasn't holding mine but I dont think there was.
In the room before the jail our k2's all went off as Pete (the tour guide) pulled the whip out (the whip was used to punish prisoners). That was weird but I would have to investigate more as to what caused the k2's to go off. There was a cupboard FULL of electrical stuff right near where the k2's went off so not sure if something in there made them react? They didn't react again though so maybe it was something paranormal? Like I said, I was trying to be very skeptical about everything and not jump to conclusions.


And then there were the toilets down the back right next to where the zombies live (just joking). I felt safer down there with my torch than I did at the courhouse.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few zombies lurking down there! It was a pretty freaky looking building and us girls ended up going in the boys toilets because we were scared! haha. Nothing happened though except giggling :)


One of my observations, totally unprovable, is that when you pray, even if people aren't aware of what you are doing, the 'foreboding' or 'oppresiveness' for want of a better word 'heaviness' seems to break. My theory is that Jesus has authority over the spirit world and when you ask Him to come into the situation He does and a sense of peace returns. I'm not sure if it stays that way long term but that was how I felt. Did your friends who may not share our Christian views entirely feel any of that?

Maybe subconciously we could sense a change in the atmosphere. One friend who knew you guys had prayed said she felt better but i'm not sure anyone else was aware of it. I certainly felt better after you said a prayer in the graveyard.


to be continued...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Blue Mountains Ghost Tour Part 2: The Courthouse Part 1

From Baz




Once you have visited a haunted graveyard on a ghost tour as your first stop (and you are creeped out), there is a sense of safety back on the bus. You laugh, compare notes, it’s warm, you can eat a chocolate bar, it’s almost civilised. The bus drives along dark roads and you don’t notice until it hits the brakes. You look out your window through streaks of rain and there you see it – the creepy old courthouse and jail.

The girls decide it’s time – time to go to the toilet that is. But the toilets are wayyyyy down the back and look ever creepier than the ‘haunted’ courthouse. So they wait.

Pete shows us behind a fenced off area next to the courhouse, the foundation stones for the solitary confinement area which has since been torn down. “You would be placed in there for fourteen days with bread and water if you were lucky, living in your own excrement – simply for being found in the company of Aboriginals:

It seems life was a lot hasher in the middle of the 1800’s. And very harsh if you were an indigenous Australian.

Once we entered the building Pete took us into what was usually the most active room – the clerics office. A few people felt wobbly but apart from that not a lot of k2 meter action. The real action was in the next room.

“This is the room where the red coats used to live” Pete pointed out to us. Red coats were soldiers aligned with the British Empire and some were ex-convicts themselves. Apparently they were men who didn’t understand ‘mercy’ and ‘compassion’.

“….In this cupboard is a whip….” Pete pulled out a replica whip and showed us “…and that device you see there is the whipping stool, you placed your arms along here and they gave you lashed on it”.

Pete explained that in this room has a few issues. The door slammed really hard last time they were there freaking everyone out. The whipping stool often moves of its own accord and thumps and bangs it’s away along the floor.

“I don’t come out here when it does that, I give it 15 minutes and then I come back out from the court room. Sometimes when I crack the whip it seems to stir things up…..”

Pete lifted the whip and gave it a fairly underwhelming crack.

Within seconds the K2 meters went ballistic. You could feel a presence in the room. And even worse for me a white shape appeared to my right and moved straight into me, making my eye go blurry for about four seconds and my hand numb for half an hour.

Had I just been slimed? (That’s a joke, I’m still using null hypothesis for all you skeptics)

“Dahhhh…something just ran into me”. I rubbed my right eye (which stayed blurry and sore for the next 48 hours).

Let me clarify just the facts:

- The whip cracked.
- Seconds after the crack the K2 meters went off – all the one’s I am aware of that were in the room.
- A white misty shape without form moved up the side of the room right next to me. (And to my knowledge no-one else saw it).
- The shape passed through me and affected the sight in my right eye, and I lost my clear vision for around four seconds, in a similar feeling to conjunctivitis, my eye felt gooey to the point where I was trying to rub it clean afterwards.
- The shape moved through my right arm and my hand which was on an old fireplace went tingly like it was asleep. That lasted for maybe half an hour.
- There was no sense of heat or cold. In my head I would have expected it to feel cold just from the ‘stories’ but instead as it moved into me it affected my senses (vision and feel) rather than any feeling of energy transfer.
- I didn’t say it was a ghost.
- It moved really quickly and had no obvious form.

After a quick debrief we were told that we were heading into the courtroom and the jails, where the real action normally took place.

It was time for a quick prayer. Once again I felt this was an issue of horrible deeds being done, which attracted dark things. I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to take authority here, to protect us and once again, an overwhelming sense of asking for forgiveness for what had been done here.

And without further ado, we moved onto the courtroom, which had sentenced the murderer of the black lady to death…..

To be continued.


Monday, November 9, 2009

Blue Mountains Ghost Tour – Part 1: The bus trip and the cemetery.

From Baz



A lot of people wonder – why would a Pastor go on a ghost tour?

The question can be answered like this:

Because more people visit paranormal websites, psychic hotlines, mediums and mystical practitioners than go to Church in Australia. As a Pastor, if that doesn’t disturb me about what the Church isn’t offering in terms of giving people answers and hope, then I’ve joined the long queue of the comfortable and complacent Church in Australia. And I don’t want to.

People are having a myriad of paranormal experiences which leads them to believe that dead people do indeed walk the earth. As a Pastor who deals with the issue of life and death daily, I need to adequately understand why people think what they do and experience that first hand rather than read a book written by an author with a Christian evangelical bias which is sitting safely on the shelf at Koorong.

I want to prove who really has authority in the spiritual realm and test it in the intensity of real life situations.

4. I saw Ghostbusters in year 6 in 1984. Who didn’t want to drive Ecto 1 and fire a proton pack in a cemetery?

The team met team outside the council chambers at Katoomba. There we met our enthusiastic guide Pete. For Shannon, Kelly and myself, it was great to finally meet Bryony and her friends Brooke, Sean, Moira, Patricia, Justin, Kyle and Natasha.

After checking out previous experiences, spiritual giftings and equipment, our guide showed us photo’s of what had been captured on previous tours. Strange shapes, orbs with faces in them and lots of eerie backdrops gave us an air of what was to come. It was obvious – Kel, Shannon and I were the Noob’s, so we took a posture of humility and asking lot’s of questions.

And Pete sure knew his stories. He knew the locations back to front. And as someone who claimed to be psychic he believed he could feel what was happening as he went about the tour.

But Pete, as lovely as he was, maybe didn’t realize he was the master of setting us up for false positives. That is, he would tell you stories and ‘facts’ complete with the sensory phenomenon associated with the manifestations of them that ensured that every experience you had could be identified as spiritual. So much for the null hypothesis approach I had planned to take.

The other thing was, and this needs to be mandatory on every ghost tour – NO MOBILES. It is impossible to use an EMF meter with any integrity when mobile phones are on.

But onto the night…….

As we head down the highway, away from Katoomba and down the mountain toward Hartley we heard the story of ‘the black lady’. She was left for dead by her husband when an ex lover ambushed them in a fit of jealousy. When the police arrived she had been bludgeoned to death by a large rock. Her assailant was charged in our next second stop of the night (The Hartley courthouse) and later hanged at Bathurst.
As we drove down Mt Victoria, we approached a bend “…a lot of trucks have gone over here….” Said Pete and we heard the gruesome stories of tragic and traumatic deaths. “All the truckies at sometime have seen the black lady….she runs across the road and tries to make the trucks swerve. Some of them have crashed. Legend says that she hates men and wants revenge…”.

As we came within 300 metres of an old iron fenced bridge, opposite a huge drop off into the valley, Pete advised that usually the EMF meters go off as this was the site of the murder. And we weren’t disappointed – the meters went off all the way to the redline on cue and stopped as we passed the site. I felt strangely nauseous, which is usually a sign for me that something is not quite right in the spiritual realm around me. I can’t prove that, but know from experience with exorcisms what the symptoms are compared to…for example….a bad Kebab and indigestion.

After turning off the main road at the bottom of the valley we headed off as the sun started to wane and the rain softly started to come down. We pulled up at the gates of an old cemetery. Pete explained to us a number of things:

- The cemetery had been regularly desecrated and bodies removed for occult purposes. The caretaker had caught people dancing around graves and performing satanic rituals.
- A black panther was spotted by himself in the very paddock we were now standing next to.
- Yowies had been seen in the area.
- That the cemetery was haunted and even had a ‘dark spirit’ named Tom who pushed and pulled people, particularly those in the back of the line.

click to enlarge

Before long we had traversed the 500m long track away from any semblance of civilization and were standing in, to be honest, was a pretty freaky looking graveyard at sunset. The sort of place you say to each other “Would you sleep here by yourself overnight for $1,000.00”?

Pete started with the stories of tragedy and trauma, of disrespect and desecration. Camera’s refused to work. People saw orbs. We were warned that our hands or pants may be tugged on by phantom children, that the headless reverend lived by the northern fence and that Tom was waiting to get between couples to avenge his lovelorn losses in the past. False positives aside, I could feel the presence of something otherworldly. The EMF meters did not back me up. But I did feel the need to pray and to shift the authority in the graveyard. I asked for forgiveness on behalf of what was done here. I prayed the blood of Christ over the desecrated tombs. So did Kel. A couple of the ladies felt very ill at ease and Kel offered prayer. The most creepy part was in the pitch black when we turned all our lights off and the light of an orb moved around the gate area. As the lights went on Brooke claimed to see someone at the back of the cemetery. Again, we prayed and we felt the peace of Christ.

“Most Pastors that have been on this tour are very cynical” Pete told me and then shared with me the stories of many of the psychics who had been on the tour who had been traumatized by what they felt there. He talked about people who had things jump on their back and photos that showed misty forms on their shoulders, of strangulations and of push and shove from and angry Tom. He seemed to be frightened to be there in some ways.

There was one area where unbaptised Aboriginals were buried outside the consecrated grounds.

“I don’t like the feel of that area” Brooke said.

I didn’t either and something told me (not literally) that if Yowies were seen, they would always be seen around Aboriginal burial grounds. But I didn’t get to ask that.

Some of the others, Justin, Natasha and Kyle said they experienced nothing ethereal and it was just a historical experience.

But as we walked out of the grave yard to once again traverse the dark track back to the bus I turned back, prayed a prayer of protection in Jesus name and consecrated this site that had experienced so much darkness and desecration to God.

Onto our next stop, the Hartley courthouse, where some of the real action was about to begin.

(Oh...footnote..and as we were leaving, after standing under what was meant to be a haunted tree, I felt a tug at the back of my pants which stopped me in my tracks. I turned around and there were no snags of any kind to be seen, or little children).

To be continued...



To see Bryony's review of the tour click here

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Paranormal in the news this week 09/11/09


Did these guys catch a ghost on film? Click here for more information.



Did Destination Truth find evidence of the Yeti? click here to find out.


Women in the Paranormal click here for an interview with Alexandra Holzer, daughter of Hans Holzer


Was bigfoot caught on camera? Click here for the story on Phantoms and Monsters blog.


Your ghost photos revealed on WGAL.com click here to see.


Black Panther spotted in Factory. Click here for the news story.


7,000 flock to shrine to see 'apparition'. Click here for the story.


Theme Park had to be excorcised after employees used a Ouija board. Click here for article.




Apparition caught on camera at Union Restaurant, Northampton, MA. Click here for story.