[singlepic id=63 w=320 h=240 float=right]You can ask anyone who knows me. I have always been very busy. It hasn’t just been me in my family either. My kids were always very busy with their activities. I would drive them to dance, soccer, football, track, swim, musical theater etc and wait for them to get done. I spent much time in the car waiting. While waiting instead of doing crochet I would pull out a cake decorating stash and make gum paste flowers. Oh yes I did! Once I had a project that required me to make 350 hand made gum paste roses. That took me some time to get done and the car time was perfect. One of the kids best loved activities was being on the swim team of the Timberlane Tigersharks. I could not make flowers during this activity unless it was only practice. I was required to stand on the side lines every Saturday and scream as loud as I could for them to win.

Our team song still rings in my head at times. Why does it get stuck in my head? Has anyone conducted research about this yet? Here are the words to the song:  “Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are, so we tell them, we are are the Tigersharks the mighty mighty Tigersharks … keep repeating and get louder and louder each time”.

[singlepic id=56 w=320 h=240 float=left]One of the teams we would go against was Newport. It was a huge team that dwarfed ours. I still remember their pool right across from the golf course. The kids enjoyed their time there swimming. They would sit with with their arms and bodies all doodled on with a blue magic marker. The shark and Eat my bubbles! were things they liked to have drawn on their back. They didn’t realize that while we were there we were at a famous housing edition that made national headlines. They didn’t know the housing developer ignored a fence and markers signifying that part of the area was a cemetery. Sometimes in life you will spend time in a haunted location without knowing it. If you would have known at the time you may have treated your time there differently. I wonder if the kids would have known would they have refused to get in the pool thinking it was haunted? Have you ever swam in an a haunted pool?

[singlepic id=58 w=320 h=240 float=right]I will be posting an an article about my experience investigating Newport soon. For now I will leave you with the information that the story about this subdivision has been featured on Unsolved Mysteries, has been the subject of several books and has been made into a movie for television. Alarms trigger the local fire department and nobody is home and no fire is present. These alarms seem to come more from the part of the neighborhood that covers the old cemetery. Are there restless spirits triggering the alarms to go off? Some
in the fire department seem to think so. Neighbors have also reported activity from the time they have moved into the neighborhood. I will cover a few of these stories next time.

One dark stormy night while on an investigation I heard a noise. I turned to see what caused the noise and saw a shadow standing in the doorway. It darted away before I could take a picture. I hoped that the storms stirred things up. Most long time investigators have had some experience with storms generating activity. Everyone knows it is typical to begin a scary story by saying “one dark stormy night”. Why? Is it because we are afraid of storms or is it because there may be something else going on here? One theory is that electricity is needed for spirits to manifest. On active nights I have seen for myself that batteries drain, lights flicker and electronics malfunction. The atmosphere is charged from all the lightning

Let me give you some data on thunderstorms. In a typical thunderstorm approximately 5×10 8 kg of water vapor is lifted and the amount of energy released when this condenses is 1015 joules. This is the same magnitude of energy released within a tropical cyclone. It is also more energy than was released during the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan 1945. Lightning can travel at speeds of 140,000 mph and can reach temperatures approaching 54,000 °F. Lightning can occur with both positive and negative polarity. An average bolt of negative lightning carries an electric current of 30,000 amps. An average bolt of positive lightning carries about ten times that of negative lightning. The average peak power output of a single lightning stroke is about one trillion watts. During a positive lightning strike huge quantities of ELF and VLF radio waves are also generated. All of this energy usually makes for an interesting investigation!

We just had the luck to be at Fort Chaffee during a storm. The clouds were even rotating and diping. Logan called Marc to see if we were under a tornado watch. It turned out to just be severe storms. I was excited to see what would happen now that the environment was charged. The buildings also cooled down which was a blessing. We all noticed more activity after the storm passed then before. We had clear audible voices heard by all, bangs, knocks and cold spots. I have hours and hours of audio to review to see if we caught any evidence. I will soon post an article to my blog on my experiences here. For now I just wanted to share the information about storms

By the late 1800’s tuberculosis was taking over the population of the United States. The disease is highly contagious and was poorly understood at the time.It was almost impossible to cure with the mortality rate being at 80.2 %. Health professionals believed that clean, cold mountain air was the best treatment for lung diseases. Sunlight was also believed to be an effective treatment. Sanatoriums were built with large windows, patios and terraced areas with fresh air and sunlight in mind. Sometimes the roof of the buildings were
used as for patients.

Patients who were only suspected of having tuberculosis were admitted to prevent the spread of the disease. Patients who did not have the virus were now be exposed to the virus and would then become infected. My husbands grandfather was one of these patients. As a child he lost a tooth that showed up eventually on an xray in his lung. Long before that xray he was believed to have TB and was admitted into a facility. Now exposed to TB he would always show positive on testing.

The discovery of the antibiotic streptomycin in 1943 became the first cure for tuberculosis. In 1944 Merck and Company began major production of the drug. The first randomized trial of streptomycin against pulmonary tuberculosis was carried out in 1946-1947 by the MRC Tuberculosis Research Unit. TB was now shown to be controlled by antibiotics rather than extended rest. By the 1950s tuberculosis was no longer a major public health and the sanatoria began to close. Most sanatoria have now been demolished. Several were converted into hospitals for other uses including aids. Those hospitals remaining are abandoned.

Paranormal teams investigate places like this to see if they can capture any evidence of residual energy of the past. There have been reports of an active haunting at some locations. The rate of mortality being at 80.2 %. puts these places at an advantage for the possibility of capturing evidence. One of the locations we are investigating is nestled in the hills in it’s own complex. It was a self sustaining city of its own. It had a municipal like water/sewer system, fire department, and a farm with dairy and swine operation. Built in 1910 covering 973 acres of land. It was closed in 1973. Some of the complex has been converted for other use.

Driving through the gates of the facility knowing the mortality rates of the people that passed here was very sad. The gate was imposing because of what it represented and not because of the architecture. As we drove up the hill and turned the corner seeing all of the buildings of the compound you could see how it was separated from the rest of the world. The main hospital still stands as an imposing gothic type structure. There have been many reports of activity in this building. We are hoping to be able to validate the activity ourselves.

Go see the photo gallery for this amazing place

One of the places I lived as a child was on Long Island in a place called Ronkonkoma, New York. I have wonderful memories of the town. I remember enjoying the things to do in the area and spending time with great friends. One activity we had was to go to the lake. This lake had many stories attached to it which I was fascinated by. The lake was haunted by the ghost of an Indian princess. When I was in the water I never went too far out because I wondered how I would react to her touching me. One day I spent the day ice skating on the lake and wondering if she would break the ice. I was not so worried about her hurting me because the stories all really involved her needing a man or a young couple. I remember laying on my stomach on the cold ice trying to hear her or see if I could see her. It was too cold to stay like that for long. While driving along the lake I have seen a fog hanging over the lake that looked eerie. I saw lights and could not figure out if they were boats or what they were. One day while riding along Lake Shore Road from out of nowhere a dog came running into a car next to us. I was very upset until the dog got up and ran away. When I went home and told some friends about it they all said it was the lady who did it. Everyone who lives there knows the stories. Let me give you some history of the lake.

Lake Ronkonkoma is known as a kettle hole lake that was carved out by a retreating glacier 20,000 years ago. It is the largest lake on Long Island..The lake was considered the most sacred lake by the Indians and it was the meeting point between different tribes. It was settled by Europeans in the 1600s. In the 1900s there was a population explosion due to the waters of the lake being known at that time as having healing qualities. The lake was considered a resort and a place for summer homes. Today you can see evidence of the early 1900s in remnants of old resorts which can still be seen around the lake’s shore.

The lake has of a number of urban legends. There is a mysterious rise and fall of the lake that doesn’t have a relationship to local rainfall totals. There is fresh water coming in from an unknown source. With this in mind it is said that there is a tunnel that leads to Connecticut and another one that leads to Sayville New York. One tunnel is said to lead to hell. The lake been rumored to be bottomless, however it is really approximately 100 ft deep at the southeastern side. The bottom is hard to find because of the loose particles at the bottom. Piranha are said to inhabit the lake. There have been stories of people being attacked by piranha most likely from people dumping live fish into the lake that they could no longer care for. Some say the bites have to come from pike which are well known to be moderately aggressive.

The most prevalent stories concerning the lake come from the legend of “The Lady of the Lake”. In one story every year the lady calls a young man between 18 and 28 years old out to be her lover. She lures them to the middle of the lake and drowns them. The most popular story is that every year two lovers are killed by the vengeful spirit. They usually die in an automobile accident. Who is this
“Lady of the Lake”?

The lady is a Native American princess who herself drowned in the lake. Her death story varies from it being an accident to a suicide. The Native American Princess Ronkonkoma fell in love with a European settler named Hugh Birdsall. She was forbidden to pursue the relationship and was forced into an arranged marriage. The forbidden relationship however persisted. One evening she tried to swim all the way across the lake to meet her lover. On the way she suffered fatigue and drowned. One variation is that she rowed to the middle of the lake in a canoe to await her lover and when he did not come she committed suicide by drowning herself. Another variation is that he was coming to join her and drowned so she decided to join him in death because she was too overwhelmed by grief. There are several other variations to the story.

The fact is that locals and historians will claim that almost every year for 200 years someone has drowned in the lake and it is usually a male. From 1877 to 1977 there were at least 147 drownings. Another fact is 32 deaths by drowning in the lake have taken place since1963 and are all men.One lifeguard said that in 32 years of being at the lake there have been at least 30 drownings that he was aware of.

Sometimes I think about Lake Ronkonkoma. I would love to be able to go back and run the equipment that I have now to see what is there. I do believe legends are born from some truth. I know some of the facts about the lake help perpetuate the urban legend. Whether the legend is true or not the stories are fantastic to toss around a campfire! Would you go swimming in the lake now?