The MinnDak Paranormal Society (MDPS)

2011 Paranormal Convention at the Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen, MN

I'm going to write a review on this weekend, but for right now, here are the pictures from that weekend.

Barry Fitzgerald and I on Friday afternoon. Great guy to talk with, full of information.

Kris Williams and I on Friday afternoon. Awesome to talk music with.

Chris Zaffis, me, and Brain Cano on Friday afternoon. John Zaffis was no where to be found for this picture.

Barry Klinge, me, and Brad Klinge on Friday afternoon. Really fun to chat with.

Me and John Zaffis on Saturday morning. Godfather of the paranormal and really hard to track down.

Ok, that's it for pictures, I was to busy chatting and networking to take too many pictures. My review of the weekend will be coming soon, so check back often.

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207 by Jill Marie Morris

My review of the book

The story 207 by Jill Marie Morris is a riveting and suspenseful story of a young family, ripped apart by demonic oppression and possession. Jill Marie has an amazing ability to bring the reader right into the story, as she describes the details of both her physical surroundings and that of what she “sees.”

Both well written and awe inspiring, the story draws you in, until you find that you have trouble putting it down. I found myself reading it and seemed to lose track of time. As the story grows, so does your curiosity about finding out what happens next. From the opening page to the final paragraph, Jill Marie keeps you on the edge of your seat.

From a truly tragic standpoint, Jill Marie has been able to open up to her audience about a truly horrible time in her life. From the wonderful and happy birth of her first son to the tragic death of her husband, Jill Marie takes the reader on a journey that will not only change the way that you look at the world around you but will also open you up to the possibility that there really are things out there that are not understood, even feared.

Hopefully through her research for her second book she will be able to find answers to the questions that she has been living with for over 20 years. I really look forward to the chance to read it. Even though we have only known each other a very short time, I feel very honored that I can call Jill Marie my friend.

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The Technology Gap and the Paranormal

A few weeks back, Justin brought this idea to me. We got to talking about, is it possible that “older” entities have trouble with “newer” technology. I'll elaborate on this more as I go here. Being a very legit question, I decided to run with it and see how the ideas unfolded.

Is it possible that the technology and equipment that a paranormal investigative team uses during a investigation can cause problems? I'm not saying problems with contamination, I'm talking about the technology gap between us and an “old” spirit. A lot of the cases that we deal with seem to be based on older spirits, and I don't mean old like grandparents old, I mean from years ago. The spirit in question could be 20 years old when they died in 1918. That's what I mean by old. Now that being explained, how does the technology gap between now and then work out. Close your eyes and think of it this way, you were born in 1891 and in 1911, you were somehow brought forward in time, 100 years, to 2011. Think about how much of a shock that would be to your mental systems. In 1911, most people didn't have electricity, let alone running water in their house or an indoor toilet. Back then it was sun up to sun down, anytime after that was by fire or candle light, and hopefully on the night that you woke up and had to use the john, there was a full moon out. Now, jump forward to 2011 from your picture of 1911. You now have “candles” that “light” with the flip of a switch, noise and moving picture boxes that allow you to see and hear what is going on outside your house, indoor toilets, running water, and the list goes on and on. See where I'm going with this?

Now imagine yourself, not as a person, but as a spirit. No one around to explain what everything is or to answer your questions. Just you. Okay, so I don't believe it would be quite that drastic. You would be able to look over people's shoulders as the time passed to learn, but remember, how do you ask a question? Or on the other side, how do you know that you're not just stuck with the 1911 ability, meaning that everything you see isn't what you would have seen in 1911. Unfortunately, no one has been totally successful at getting a direct answer from the other side but then again, maybe no one has asked the proper questions. In most investigations, we ask mainly about the spirit itself, such as, “What is your name?” and “How old are you?”, not things like, “What do you see?” or “What is it like as a ghost?” Maybe those are some questions that I should talk with my team about adding into the normal set of questions. Kind of a way to relate to a spirit, in less of an invasive way. Maybe it doesn't want to tell me its name or age, maybe it wants to talk about the weather or what the glowing green light on the desk is that we keep calling a K2 meter and saying that it's not going to harm them. I don't think they don't know, but maybe they think that's the light that everyone keeps telling them to go to. You see, this is where the technology gap comes to rear its ugly head. What is that little green light on the “K2” or the red light on the “recorder” that you speak of? You keeping saying catch, why should I let you catch me?

In a previous article, I spoke of using an EMF (ElectroMagnetic Field) meter during investigations and I'm sure I have raised a few eyebrows of the people that don't watch shows such as “Ghost Hunters,” “Ghost Adventures,” or “Paranormal State.” An electromagnetic field is defined as a physical field produced by electrically charged objects. A light bulb, a battery, or your computer would be examples of electrically charged objects. You can even get an EMF reading off of a person who is wearing wool socks and had been dragging their feet on the carpet for the last 2 hours in a dry room in the middle of winter. Yeah, you know that shock I'm taking about. That charge can actually be measured with the right EMF detectors. A normal EMF detector functions in the 50 to 60 hertz range. They're designed to be used in the electrical field, which runs in the 50 to 60 hertz range, they have just been adapted over and I will explain soon. A K2 meter is designed to function in a much larger range, mainly from 30 to 30,000 hertz. Now that you have a little bit of grasp of the EMF/K2 meters, I will explain how they are used in an investigation. When an entity “manifests” itself, it attempts to draw energy from any source that it can. The batteries on your camera, your cell phone's battery, or in some cases, they're said to draw off a person's energy. This is what we use the EMF/K2's for, to find the areas of high energy that can't be easily explained away, such as a TV, hair dryer, or radio. Once we find the areas, we set to work, either trying to find out what is causing it or to try and find out if it is a spirit trying to manifest.

This bring us back to where we started from, how does the technology gap affect a spirit. I really don't know how to answer that question. I have my theories and speculations, but I can't say for sure, so I am going to go off of those ideas. As I said earlier on, no one, as far as I know, has been successful in finding out what it is really like on the other side. I think it really has to do a lot with the spirit and the situation. Some people welcome change and embrace it, where as others want nothing more than for things to stay exactly the way they are. Is that same mentality carried on to the next life? Does the spirit of the crabby old neighbor that had to have everything just so, is he still that way on the other side or has he mellowed out? I guess where I'm going with this, is if you don't want to learn and adapt with the changing of the times, who says you have to? Why couldn't you be that old grump that you were when you passed?

I am continuing to work on this topic so if you have any suggestions, questions, or comments, feel free to email me and let me know.

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Vile Vortices

Vile Vortices, also known as the 12 Devil's Graveyards of the World, are 12 areas across the planet that have had strange phenomenon connected to them in one way or another. Most phenomenon is either disappearances, time lapses, failure of electronic equipment, and the appearance of strange creatures. The most popular of these vortices is the Bermuda Triangle or Devil's Triangle, followed by some lesser known ones, including Dragon's Triangle or Devil's Sea and the Michigan Triangle, both of which I will cover in the next paragraphs.

Everyone knows about the Bermuda Triangle, but almost no one knows of the Dragon's Triangle, or Devil's Sea. Some reports say that the Dragon's Triangle is more dangerous than the Bermuda Triangle. An interesting note, while I'm thinking about it, is that both the Bermuda Triangle and the Dragon's Triangle are polar opposites. In other words, if you were to start at the center of the Bermuda Triangle and bore a hole straight through the center of the earth, you would end up in about the center of the Dragon's Triangle. Most legends of the Dragon's Triangle date back as far as 1000bc and tell of dragons that live in underwater palaces hidden in caverns. With more recent technologies, these so called dragons are really underwater volcanoes. Now while that explains the fire from underwater, it doesn't explain why when a ship does disappear, there is little to no debris to be found. The last disappearance that drew large amount of attention was that of the Kaiyo Maru No. 5, a research vessel of 31 crew members, sent to study the claims of disappearances. When the Kaiyo Maru itself disappeared, Japan aborted the study. Japan later recovered some of the wreckage of the ship, but were never able to recover all of it. It is believed that the Kaiyo Maru was destroyed by an underwater volcano.

Another little known triangle is the Michigan Triangle. It is said to be located right over central Lake Michigan. It is said to have similar characteristics to both the Bermuda Triangle and the Dragon's Triangle, which include but are not limited to, disappearances, time lapses, time slowing or accelerating, and reports of strange creatures. One claim is that of Northwest Orient Flight 2501, which disappeared on June 23, 1950. Light debris was found, but divers were never able to recover the entire plane. Another claim is that of the disappearance of George R. Donner, captain of the O.S. McFarland. The report claims that the captain told his crew that he was going to retire to his cabin for a few hours of sleep before the ship reached port and to wake him when they started to get close. Several hours later, the first mate went to wake the captain, but he was not in his cabin and the door was locked from the inside. A search was conducted but he was never found.

This is just a touch of the information that my brief research was able to turn up. Since this is an area of interest to me as well, I will continue to research this topic and publish more information as I find it. If there are any questions out there, feel free to email me.

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Click on each picture for a full size view of these news paper articles. Each will open in a new tab or window. Once open, click on the thumbnail to maximize. I recommend you read these before you read the following blog so that you know what I am talking about. These articles are used with the permission of the Sanborn Weekly Journal of Woonsocket, South Dakota.

The Paranormal*

Written by Seth Swenson, Director of The MinnDak Paranormal Society

“We Are Not Alone” as written by Jill Swenson and “Casper” as written by Dan Hagman are both thought provoking and well written pieces. Both columns pose the question, what is out there after we are done here. As a paranormal investigator and researcher with ten years of experience, I can say, there is something out of our definition of normal out there. Fifteen years ago, the paranormal and ghosts were experienced, but never spoke of for fear that your peers would call you crazy and loony, but times have changed and conversation of strange occurrences is more common place. This has a lot to do with the large amounts of TV shows that have to do with the paranormal and the study of poltergeists (poltergeist, by the way, is German for “noisy spirit').

Reading both columns work on the history of Woonsocket. Another question we have begun asking is, “why do all paranormal investigations seem to be based on past events?” Every case that my team has ever worked, has been based on past events. What is it that causes a spirit to be trapped here? There are many theories as to why this happens, two of the most popular being that they are trapped here after a tragic event and don't realize they've passed, or the other, they have unfinished business. But why does that have to be the case? Why couldn't the spirit be determined enough to decide that it wants to stay right where it is? Does it have to “cross over” if it doesn't want to?

Who really is “Casper?” Is Casper your grandfather, great-great uncle, or some other close or distant relation? In Ireland, the Banshee is a misunderstood spirit. Some say that it is evil and you will die if you see it or death is soon to come to you if you hear the Banshee's cry. The Irish believe that the Banshee is actually an ancient female spirit of the family or clan. She has been chosen to watch over her clan and warn that death is soon to come, not necessarily by tragedy but perhaps by natural causes. There are many different stories from all across the world of this sort of phenomenon, this is only such one case. Really, that being said, Casper could be anybody. Many religions believe in Guardian Angels, why couldn't those Angels be Casper?

Now Jill talks about bumps and noises in an old house in her article. While the possibility exists that the noises are caused by some sort of paranormal activity, during an investigation, the team spends a good amount of time trying to find a logical explanation for what is causing the noises. We also use a wide variety of equipment to try and capture, either on video, still image, or audio, any type of activity to support what our client has told us. But why does activity have to be tied to the location? Why couldn't it be tied to an object or even a person? We handled a case where the client owned what appeared to be a late 1930's or early 1940's rotary desk telephone. The entire investigation was quiet except for when we put an EMF (ElectroMagnetic Field) meter near the phone. One of the investigators working this case picked up the phone and said “hello,” at which point the EMF meter went crazy. This would appear be a case where it was an object that brought the activity to the location, not the location itself.

My team has developed a formula for what we find. Normal, not normal, abnormal, and paranormal. Normal being that we have found a perfectly logical explanation for the activity. Not normal is that we are about 50% sure that we have an explanation but are not positive that explanation is the case. Abnormal is that we have some theories as to what is causing the activity, but we can say with no certainty that that is the real reason for the activity. Paranormal, you guessed it, we have no explanation at all. In all the cases we have handled, we have only ever once been able to label something paranormal, simply because the EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) we caught had no possible explanation at all. Even the case involving the telephone was only able to be classified as abnormal, simply because we had a couple good theories as to what was causing the spike on the EMF meter.

Being an investigator and researcher for over ten years has taught me one major lesson, you can never go into a case expecting it to be normal or routine. Every case we handle is as unique as the individuals involved in it. You can go from a case where the client has been living with the entity for many, many years, and loves it, even thinks of the spirit as a novelty or part of the family. Other clients will live in shear terror, because they don't understand what is going on. That's where we come in. If the client is comfortable with the spirit, they call us in to try and document the entity's existence. They may not know who it is that is with them and would like to try and find out who it is. In cases where the client is living in terror, we do our best and try to help them find a solution to the trouble.

If you would like to learn more or contact us, visit us on the web at WWW.MINNDAKPARANORMAL.ORG.

*This blog was originally written and published in the Sanborn Weekly Journal.