Haunting accounts from a Paranormal Author
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Kat vs. the Paranormal
Mother of a Roller Ghoster
It was a dark and stormy night, a team of paranormal investigators stalked through the darkened hallways lit by only the lightening striking outside the very windows they passed. “Did you hear something?” one asks, looking alarmed and pointing towards a stainless steel kitchen. “Yeah” replies his partner, then the show cuts to commercial.
I sat on my sofa with my puppy Wheatley watching the recording of SyFy’s Ghost Hunters, this episode was their season eight premier and the focus was on a location I know well- Kings Island amusement park. This particular episode is also the perfect example of media sensitization of the paranormal which drives me to be the “urban legends detective” in the first place. For me a ghost story is far scarier when there is a ring of truth to it, but for Ghost Hunters I fear that ring has become dimmer and dimmer which is why I had stopped watching it. For the past two years I have been compiling information about the haunting at Kings Island, something I learned about from Cincinnati locals during my first visit to the park. Early on Wednesday, the day the episode aired, I learned through a friend on Facebook about the upcoming show and that I may be interested in watching it. You see, although I am involved in the paranormal community that doesn’t mean I watch every show about the subject. Ghost Hunters hasn’t been in my play book for a year or two now so I appreciated the mention about the upcoming show and made sure the record it. What I found with this episode was that the facts left out ended up being the more interesting points, and that unknown to them evidence caught did support a prevalent paranormal claim.
To briefly recap the episode: the Ghost Hunters team has returned for their eighth season on the SyFy Channel. The lineup of team members had changed a bit since the last time I watched the show but the show staples, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson were still ever-present. Along with them were Steve Gonslaves, Dave Tango, and Amy Bruni (who I refer to as the ‘other paranormal red-head’) in attrition to Britt Griffith and Adam Berry who were less familiar to me. The team is met by Don Helbig, the public relations representative for the park who mentions that there have been unexplainable things occurring in the park since it opened in 1972. I wonder if this includes the episodes of the Brady Bunch being filmed there? Helbig also mentions that employees suspect that the paranormal activity is from an ammunition factory accident that happened 30 years before the park was built. According to the episode, the accident apparently killed nearly 100 men in 1942. I sit up on the couch learning this new information and my puppy rolls onto the floor staring at me with sleepy eyes. This is a fact I had not come across before, there is an ammunitions plant in the vicinity of Kings Island, but I hadn’t looked into its’ history before. The OCD historian side of me bolts to the computer desk and immediately starts going through the Kings Island file again.
In the episode the team visits the International Restaurant which sits above the entry gates to the park and is currently it is closed to the general public. Helbig then shares reports that employees of the park have heard the sounds of pots and pans clanking about from the kitchen, even seeing a shadowy figure move around the restaurant at night. Now this I can find correlating accounts to, what is not mentioned is the urban legend of the chef who committed suicide in that kitchen. Helbig then brings up one of the more prevelant ghost stories from the park known as the Little Girl in the Blue dress. She is a ghost seen by employees or late-leaving guests after dark, wandering around the entry gates and the White Water Canon ride. The show cuts to an interview of Jim Wilson, a supervisor at the park explaining his personal experience with the ghost he believed was the Girl in the Blue Dress. My ears perk up when see him on TV, this is a man I have spoken to before this episode was filmed. He mentions his experience in Tower #2 of the White Water Cannon ride, hearing the sound of a little girl laughing when absolutely no one is around. Trying his luck at opening the door, he finds it unable to open as if some heavy force was locking him in the tower just as the little girl laughed outside. Jim is a guy you can believe to be telling the truth, he doesn’t have a hobby of spinning yarns for the entertainment of the masses. His story also correlates to ones I have read about from other previous employees of Kings Island who worked in Tower #2. According to them, stones and acorns have been thrown against the windows while they sat in the tower working after the park had closed down for the night. One former employee even reported seeing a child riding in a raft on the ride during the final equipment check for the night, but when her coworkers checked the marked raft when it arrived in the stalls- no one was there. What isn’t mentioned by the team on Ghost Hunters either is an original farmhouse which still stands in the vicinity of Tower #2. If you take the train ride that backs up to White Water Canon, it encircles an undeveloped part of the park. During the ride you will pass an old, run down house that may or may not have props sitting around it. This house is an original Hoff or Dill family farm house, not a prop building built by the park as some visitors believe.
Cemeteries are some of my favorite places to visit, and wouldn’t you believe that there is a real cemetery on the Kings Island Property? Although it goes unnamed in the episode, the cemetery they stand in is colloquially called Dog Street Cemetery, also known as Union Methodist or Hoff Cemetery depending on which time period you are looking at. What the show tells us is that a girl named Missouri Jane is buried in the cemetery and that she was a mere five years and three months old when she passed away in 1846. Staff believes that there is a connection between this grave and the little girl ghost seen around the park. What really isn’t emphasized here is that the Ghost Girl’s most reported haunt is the parking lot around the cemetery- and that she likes to cross paths of oncoming cars and trams during the night. According to reports submitted by former staff members, tram drivers would believe they hit a park guest after seeing her apparition dart in front of their vehicles.
The headstone of Missouri Jane, now forever linked to Kings Island's urban legends. Wonder how long it will be before it is stolen.
I won’t get into the details of the episode here; if you want to see it you’ve probably watched it already. In their reveal they play some Electric Voice Phenomena (otherwise known as EVPs) of a little girl or girls mumbling in the International Restaurant, one bit of audio specifically says “Finding my mom.” At first I don’t pay too much attention to these findings until coming across a bit of information via cemetery records. Missouri Jane Galeenor was the daughter of Steven B. and Nancy Galeenor, and she died on March 10th, 1846 at the age of 5 years and 8 months, not three months as stated on the show. But you know how 8’s can look like 3’s on old, worn, headstones. This is what caught my attention- her parent’s grave is not in Hoff Cemetery. This revelation gives credence to T.A.P.S. EVP of Missouri (if that is her) looking for her mother.
That fired me up and I started looking into other questions brought up by the episode, mostly about the authenticity of the explosion story. Hoff Cemetery is not, as stated in the episode, the burial site for the workers who died in the cartridge explosion. The cemetery was originally for the John D. Hoff Family Farm (circa 1891), one of many family farms Kings Island is built over. Since the farm changed hands over time other families buried in the cemetery are the Dill Family and the R. Eugene King family plus any other relatives. The most head stones counted in the cemetery were 69, counted May 31st, 1983. You may have noticed a disparity between when the cemetery was established and Missouri’s death date, it isn’t uncommon for cemetery land to have been in use long before they are officially noted on record, so I am not surprised by the presence of headstones older than the graveyard itself.
The Kings Powder Company and Peters Cartridge Company buildings- the companies said to have exploded in the episode in 1942- do still exist. In fact I drive by the old buildings when visiting a friend up in Mason. Their buildings sit directly north of the Kings Island property along the Little Miami River and are currently leased out by the Kings Mills Commerce Park. According to my online records, there are currently twenty tenants. The buildings themselves have had a long history which started in 1884 when the town Kings Mills was set up as a community for the Peters Cartridge Company and Kings Powder Company. The parent company of the two was the King Powder Company, started by Joseph Warren King and established in Deerfield Township while the Peters Cartridge Company was built across the Little Miami River in Hamilton Township. The two companies were related since Gershom Moore Peters married King’s daughter, and it was Peters who invented the automatic cartridge-loading machine the companies relied upon for commerce. The Peters Cartridge company was run by Gershom and his brother O.E. Peters, and their company was officially set up in 1887. The companies supplied ammunition throughout the First World War, but shut down after the Second World War leaving thousands of men without jobs. During its history there were a total 17 explosion accidents, only 12 people were killed at the factory in total from those explosions, 11 at one time.
Peters Cartridge Company building as it stands today. Photo taken by Andrew Henderson.
On July 15th1890, at 3:50pm a train car collided with two other cars already loaded with 800 kegs of gun powder. From initial explosion a chain reaction of explosions occurred along the manufacturing plant, obliterating 1,600 kegs of gun powder within seconds. Eleven men were killed instantly and to several wooden buildings being burned to the ground that day. In 1942 there was an explosion that did kill 53 men; it occurred June 5th at the Elwood Ordnance Plant within the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant in Joliet, Illinois. Similarly that same year at the Remington Arms Ammunitions Plant in Bridgeport, Connecticut (which I will note, another popular haunted location); seven men were killed and 80 injured in an incident thought to be an act of wartime sabotage. Neither of those explosions occurred at the Kings Powder Company however, it is quite possible the events were mistakenly attributed to the local ammunition plant.
Satisfied with the answers discovered among the historical records, I pull away from the computer and resume watching the episode although I am unable to concentrate on it. What troubles me, and in the end pushed me to write this article, is the complete shower of misinformation spewed at the viewers of Ghost Hunters. If the historical information was so poorly gathered for this episode, it calls into question all historical information ever uttered in the series. The EVP of a female voice saying “finding my mom” was compelling, but only after the fact that the girl is not buried with her family was discovered from my own personal musings. Knowing show business, I am left wondering if there was more to the investigation than was shown to the viewer.
Late last year I interviewed two men, Lee Allen and David Jones of ParaVisionz, a paranormal team based out of the Cincinnati area. Their team, up until T.A.P.S filmed, had been the first and only paranormal team to investigate Kings Island. Much of the evidence and data they have collected from their years of investigation there is kept classified by the request of the park but some pictures can be found at their website of their investigations. From the information gathered by both T.A.P.S. and ParaVisionz, Kings Island does seem to have some paranormal activity occurring on site. Later in the year I will touch upon the other haunts at Kings Island since Missouri Jane Galeenor isn’t the only ghost in the park. Tower Johnny, Racer Boy, and the ghosts of workers and guests will have their time to speak their stories.
Bibliography
Jenkins, Sherry. “Dog Street Cemetery.” USGenWeb Archives – Census Wills Deeds Genealogy. USGenWeb Archives, 5 Nov. 1999. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://files.usgwarchives.net/oh/warren/cemeteries/dogstreet.txt>.
“Peters Cartridge Company.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, 29 Nov. 2011. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peters_Cartridge_Company>.
“Kings Mills, Ohio.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, 2 July 2011. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_Mills,_Ohio>.
Henderson, Andrew. “Peters Cartridge Co.” Forgotten Ohio. Forgotten Ohio, 2002. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.forgottenoh.com/Peters/peters.html>.
McNutt, Randy. “Peters Factory a Giant in Ruins.” Forgotten Ohio. Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 Oct. 2004. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.forgottenoh.com/News/petersruins.html>.
Burba, Howard. “Remember When the Powder Mills Exploded.” DAYTON HISTORY BOOKS FREE ONLINE. Dayton History Books Online, 5 Mar. 1933. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/powdermill.html>.
Becker, Michael, prod. “Roller Ghoster 801.” Ghost Hunters. SyFy. SYFY, 11 Jan. 2012. Television.
Bendici, Ray. “Remington Arms, Bridgeport – Damned Connecticut.” Damned Connecticut » Hauntings, Legends, Weird Places, Weird News, Adandoned Places, Strange Animals, Investigations. Damned Connecticut, 6 Jan. 2009. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.damnedct.com/remington-arms-bridgeport/>.
Moran, JR, Edward P. “Explosive Accident Summary: WWII.” DTIC Online. DOD Explosives Safety Board, Aug. 1992. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2>.
“Joliet Army Ammunition Plant.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, 29 Dec. 2011. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joliet_Army_Ammunition_Plant>.
Links:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/oh/warren/cemeteries/dogstreet.txt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peters_Cartridge_Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_Mills,_Ohio
http://www.forgottenoh.com/Peters/peters.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28935044@N00/sets/72157594448610605/
http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/powdermill.html
http://www.forgottenoh.com/News/petersruins.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2160805/
http://www.damnedct.com/remington-arms-bridgeport/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joliet_Army_Ammunition_Plant
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA507027
This article is © 2012 to Kat Klockow, do not reproduce without permission. The opinions expressed are solely my own.
Final gallery of photos for the 2011 clean-up is from the first ever Bellbrook on Lockdown ParaCon! The convention was pretty cozy, but the ghost hunts were awesome! I attended two ghost hunts, one on Saturday night while the other was Sunday afternoon. For both hunts I was teamed up with Scotty Rorek, and for the Sunday hunt I also worked with Patrick Burns.
Sunday was also the introduction of my new para-pup Wheatley! He captured the hearts of many people at only 10 weeks old.
One of my favorite events each October is the annual horror movie and ghost hunt at the historic Artcraft Theater in Franklin, Indiana. This year Indiana Ghost Trackers- Southeast Chapter (the team I am a member of) lead the weekend ghost hunts.
IGT-SEC has had various experiences in the old theater from year to year. The most common reported haunting is that of shadowmen either walking on stage or along the aisles of the theater. There is even the ghost of the “Popcorn Lady” said to haunt the lobby! Artcraft’s history and ghostlore will be explored more in a future article.
Here are some pictures from the 2011 ghost hunt.
All photos ©2011-2012 Kat Klockow
Time to step into the way back machine for Spring 2011 for the Posttown ParaCon. I was invited to tag along with Henry Foister, co-host for the Paranormal View, a radio show I have been a guest of several times. Although I live in Southwest Ohio I didn’t know many of the paranormal groups, Henry saw this as a good opportunity to introduce me to the variety of groups around here. This is actually the first time I met the ParaVisionz group who are fellow Haunted Entertainment members.
If you interested in attending the MidOhio ParaCon in April 2012, it is being held in the same {very haunted} old Posttown Elementary School. At the moment I haven’t had any personal experiences at this location, but many other individuals and groups have. Posttown Elementary is available for ghost hunts or investigations, just contact The Ohio Ghosthunters Association {TOGA}.
The one scary encounter I did have at the elementary school was being rushed by a pack of feral dogs (mostly pit bulls but there was a golden retriever too). The caretaker for the property though did a good job of shooing them away so I could get into my car.
Included at the end of the gallery are pictures of the Sorg Opera House and the Sorg Mansion. The opera house once was available for ghost hunts, but I have been informed that it no longer is. The Sorg Mansion, although beautiful in its creepiness, is definitely off limits for paranormal enthusiests. It is one location that if I was made of money, I would buy.
Photos are all ©2011 Kat Klockow. Only use with permission.
The cleanup continues with photos from the 2011 MidSouth Paracon, in particular, the awesome hunt at the Morrison Lodge in Elizabethtown, KY.
This was my first time at MidSouth ParaCon although I had heard about this convention through the years from various people and radio shows. MidSouth was from August 26-28th, 2011 at the Fern Valley conference center. Although the convention wasn’t as big as it had been in years past, according to people I talked to who had been at previous ones, it was still a good turn out and I got a chance to talk to lots of new people. This included talking to Dan Guthrie of Haunted Entertainment and Lee and Dave of ParaVisionz; a paranormal investigative team located just north of where I live.
If you ever have a chance to visit Morrison Lodge, I say DO IT! I thought my experiences at Prospect Place would be the only “paranormal” thing to occur for me this year, since let’s be realistic, I only get one or two parculiar events to happen on ghost hunts once a year. But at Morrison, where I did experiment with Dowsing Rods and a Pendulum from Marley Gibson-Burns, lots of interesting events took place there that night.
For the most part the general ghost hunt at Morrison Lodge and the two other locations we visited were quiet, there were some shadow person activity in the basement of the Shriners building were were investigating, but not much else. After most of the attendees of the convention left to head back to the hotel, around 1 in the morning, I was left with members of the Louisville Ghost Hunters Society and some Masons who were giving the tours of their haunted lodge. It was at this time when activity really started to spike up.
The group of us were sitting in the Blue Lodge, one of the lodges for Masonry, which was a large room with chairs along all four sides. To the South was the doors into the Blue Lodge in addition to a stairwell that lead up to a balcony where observers of different rituals would sit (usually family members of the different Masons). According to lodge lore that I was told, a young daughter of a lodge members was killed by her father, one the Masons in that lodge. Now she haunts the entire building, focusing on the Blue Lodge’s balcony. People have left presents for her, offerings of candy or toys hoping to make contact with the little girl.
At around 3:30 AM the group of LGHS guys, the Masons, and myself heard the little girl. Twice actually, quite distinctly from the balcony. She sang us a little song, very short, only lasting about three seconds or so. One of the younger masons from the Lodge who I had just been chatting with turned to me, his eyes as big as saucers while a large grin on his face, and said “she’s here!” All I could do was nod. We all listened as the quiet voice sounded again, this time more faint than the singing, before she was gone.
It was quite an interesting experience, and I do have audio recordings from that hunt that need to been canvased for any third party voices. I would love to visit Morrison Lodge again, maybe we’ll hear the little girl once more.
Photos are all ©2011 Kat Klockow. Only use with permission.
We continue the photo dumping with that of Prospect Place, an 19th century mansion nestled among the rolling hillsides of central Ohio. This was a really awesome place to visit, it is even on the National Registration of Historic Places, but if you do I have one thing to say to you- bats.
Bats, bats, batty, bat, bats!
Yes, the house is full of bats, and they will contaminate any audio or recorded video you choose to set up and record with on the second and third floors. The place is also really dusty and full of mold, reeking havoc on my allergies. However, with that all said and done, I had the most encounters with living history than I have had in years. Not to sound batty (pun intended) but during my overnight at Prospect I encountered five different experiences with the paranormal.
1. Meeting old man Adams: 3rd floor dance hall
2. Seeing the form of Constance: 2nd floor parlor
3. Arm reaching out for my arm: basement outside the freed slaves quarters
4. Followed by a shadow person: 1st floor-going to the restroom from the mens’ parlor to the restroom in Old Man William’s room.
5. Shadow person checking up on me: 1st floor parlor (investigation HQ)
The encounters will be the subject of an upcoming article. I don’t think of myself as a psychic or medium (although others may say otherwise) but I do attract spirits. Don’t know if it is my relaxed attitude towards the dead or my orange hair is just a bright beakon in the darkness? But I will say that nothing “evil” or “demonic” were after the team I was with, although we did have a few run-ins with Mr. Adams who was less than pleased to have us around, and his actions can be misunderstood as a malevolent spirit.
Note: audio of upcoming as well, at the moment I have lots of lovely bat recordings but nothing otherworldly.
Note #2: We visited Prospect Place August 6th, 2011.
Photos are all ©2011 Kat Klockow. Only use with permission.
Going through my computer’s picture files I found many photos that I had forgotten to include in updates last year!
So we start this photo tour at the famous Ohio State Reformitory, otherwise known as Mansfield Reformatory, in Mansfield, Ohio. This was the second time I visited this haunted location, the first was in 2010. Like the first trip, the host was Indiana Ghost Trackers (which I am a member of since 2007.) We visited July 29th, 2011.
EVP review of the trip is forthcoming.
Enjoy!
Photos are all ©2011 Kat Klockow. Only use with permission.
‘ello ‘ello everyone!
We have officially moved into the Year of the Dragon, and with that some changes and updates have been made on the site! The first is the overall layout and design of the site has changed to this nifty messy coffee table look. It is what my desk looks like in real life, so why not spread the cluttered-chic aesthetic to the web?
The events page has been updated to reflect what has been planned for 2012, the largest event by far being the 2012 Frontier ParaCon at the {very haunted} Stanley Hotel!
Get your tickets today! Rooms are going quickly at this famously haunted mecca.
This year I am introducing the article series “Kat vs. the Paranormal,” chronicling my adventures on ghost hunts and on topics dealing with the paranormal. Stay tuned to Facebook to see when new articles go up! As of now, they will only be available here.
This year was the third annual Chicago Ghost Conference at the (haunted) Portage Theater in Chicago, IL. Guests were Dave Schrader, Jeff Belanger, Christopher Felming, Jeff Mudgett, Michael Kleen, Joshua P. Warren, and Linda Godfrey.
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