Paranormal Veracity Magazine Issue #1 by Paul Welch - HTML preview

In early June of 2016, I once again had the opportunity to spend a weekend in my favorite ghost hunting playground Virginia City, Nevada. There were still many haunted locations I hadn’t been able to visit previously that were on my must-visit list. However, I was completely unaware of the historic St. Mary Louise Hospital building which is now the St. Mary’s Art Center.

After staying my first night in a haunted room at the Sugarloaf Mountain Motel and channeling one of their resident ghosts, I prepared to go on foot and hike around Virginia City to see what other kinds of ghostly experiences might be in store for the day. The first place on the top of my list was the notoriously haunted Mackay Mansion.

After the Mackay Mansion tour, the very gracious and informative tour guide suggested that I go check out the old St. Mary Louise Hospital. She told me that she had some cool paranormal experiences there and that because it’s off the main street, less people go there, or even know about it for that matter.

I didn’t quite realize how much of a journey on foot it would be to the old hospital turned art center, but I walked all the way down the hill until I arrived at “R” street. It turned out to be an amazing trek, however, because I was also able to experience my very first encounter with Virginia City’s wild horses! Five of them to be exact, including a juvenile and a pregnant mare. I was ecstatic!

As I approached the land with the old, big building I also noticed there were even more wild horses relaxing in the shade near a sign that read: “St. Mary’s Art & Retreat Center.” I made my way toward the big, four-story brick building, and past a large group of people enjoying a cookout in the front lawn of the property until I was greeted by a friendly dog at the top of the front steps.

The front door was open and as I walked in I noticed a few women in an office to the right. I told them who I was and why I was there

The building was mostly empty of the living as I made my way through it. I could hear voices now and again, and I ran into a couple of jovial teens during my tour, but I was there to interact with the dead. As I worked my way up and through the building, I could constantly feel some sort of unseen presence. I continued taking photos and speaking aloud to the entity, knowing it would only be a matter of time before I per- formed a crystal channeling session.

Once I finally made my way through most of the building and to the top floor, I decided it was time to channel. I settled down in a cozy bedroom with a long, wooden bench which was likely an old pew. I took off my backpack and retrieved my amethyst crystal pendulum from inside one of the pockets.

I connected immediately with my Spirit Guide, Michael who then introduced me to an entity who wanted to communicate. From the channeling session I was able to determine it was a female spirit who had died on the premises years ago and chose to stay to watch over those in the environment. I could tell she had a very loving and positive energy, and genuinely cared for the living. It was a very cool channeling session.

Once I completed my haunted tour of the building, I went back downstairs to pow wow with Jill and Jaedene about my findings at the St. Mary’s Art Center. I still had to review my photo and EVP evidence, which ultimately didn’t substantiate anything paranormal, but I spoke with them about my channeling session I had in one of the rooms with a friendly female spirit.

“The woman told me she died here while it was a hospital and that she likes it here, so she chooses to stay,” I informed them. “She definitely isn’t malevolent and she’s more of a protector here in spirit.”

“That sounds like our White Nun,” Jill immediately responded. I was happy to have my channeling session validated. After a bit more dialogue, I exchanged information with the ladies and thanked them for allowing me the experience to tour the building. Then I set back on foot for a very steep uphill hike back to town.

Upon arrival, the Fear Factory buildings were staring at us as if in anticipation of our visit. We met up with Rachel, Fiona and Rocco near the entrance and they proceeded to give him the low down of the property and its history. Both Rachel and Fiona were very insightful with information about this crazy location that not many get to see while not operating as a haunted attraction.

They proceeded to take us into the main factory building and thru the maze into the clown area. We climbed up these make shift stairs to this overlook deck that I am sure an actor hangs out on and scares unsuspecting visitors. As we look over the top of the facility and its decorations we see the complexity of the maze and even spot some movement in the distance. Getting down off our perch without falling we proceeded to head back the way we came armed only with the lights on our phones (we came a little unprepared).

After we exited the main factory building we walked into the silos on the west side of the complex. We walk thru 2 of them just checking out the setup and decorations laid out everywhere you look. While walking into the Hell Silo we caught glimpse of the door that we came in open and close on its own. We stand there for a second thinking about what we just saw trying to think of what may have caused this naturally. While we did have some rain move through earlier there was no wind outside. The buildings were extremely quiet and still. After a little tour of Hell's Silo we go outside and take some photos just for good measure. I ask Bill if he would like to go up and do the Zipline and his response of "Fuck that, fat people don't do ziplines" had me laughing for a moment. This is exactly something I would say if someone ask me so I thought that was awesome. Really liking this guy already.

Out last stop on the tour was to go into the tunnels below the complex. For sure the best part of the complex for me when investigating. It's so quiet down there it is a good spot to sit down there alone and run some audio recorders. While we did not have any experiences down there at the time we still enjoyed it and Bill used one of the hanging body bags as a punching bag for good exercise. By this time almost two hours have passed and it was time to hit the road and make our way to the airport. Bill had a great experience there and looks forward to more tours by Grimm Ghost Tours on his next visit. If you have not joined Grimm Ghost Tours on one of their tours or investigations its a must do if you are visiting or live in the Salt Lake area.

By: Paul Welch

Last weekend I had some experiences at Leslie's Family Tree that still give me nightmares today. It was the first time I got to investigate with WISPS and the first trip to Family Tree all year. Even though i have investigated here a bunch of times I have never had anything really happen to me during my investigations there. I have investigated a couple times with some of the WISPS members but never attended one of their investigations. As a newly added Honorary member of the squad they let me tag along on this one. i was excited as this is one of my favorite locations. Not sure why but I get a good feeling when I come there.

The night started like most with eating and waiting for the restaurant to get closed to get going. We started off in the West Room asking questions in the quiet for the Ghost Pro Meter. We were getting responses but it seemed as some names where brought up it would just stop altogether. After a while Tim kicks on the Echovox on his mobile device and we quickly start hearing names like "WISPS" and "CASTLE". Tim is using the 3.0 version of Echovox and we decide to use mine the classic 2.0 version to see if the results are different. We get most of the same responses. During this time the geophone I set in the bathroom hallway in the west room would tap in response to some of our questions.

After a little while I decided to put myself in a bad spot by sitting in a chair with my back to that hallway. The geophone would still tap behind me when asked if there is a spirit behind me. I started to feel a weird tingly sensation that started at my neck and moved across my body and even down to my left calf. Shortly after this I started feeling relaxed. So relaxed, I wanted to kick off my shoes and lay down and fall asleep. I think I stopped asking questions at this point as I felt like I was there alone. It felt like I was dreaming and I suddenly realize Cory is asking me if I was ok and thought I should step outside for a bit. Normally I deny any assistance but felt under the circumstance I should take some advice and go outside as I am not sure if I was out of it for a while.

I got some fresh air and had some conversations with Cory outside. When we came back in I decided I would go downstairs after Castle tells me about the book down there that I should stay away from. I have never heard about this book before so I had to check it out. So we venture downstairs and I get the low down on this book which appears to be some Health Encyclopedia that has seen better days. We were using the Echovox with no real interesting responses for some time as I snap some photos and wander about the basement as if I could not get comfortable. It came to a point where Castle decided he was going to Salt and Basil the book so he headed upstairs.

My eyes follow him as he walks up and out the basement and was now fully adjusted to the dark. Shortly after he is up-n-out and around the corner I see some movement coming just to the right of the stairs from my point of view. It moved fast but I caught a good full view of what it was. Or what I think it was. It was on all 4's crawling very fast. Like a spider trying to get away from danger. The top of it was just over knee height and it appeared somewhat human looking. About the size of a teenager but skinny as if it seldom ever eats. Mostly it looked like a shadow but I can see some details in the front part of his body (head and shoulders). The head seemed big for this thing. As quickly as I saw it appear it vanished and the audio did not reveal any noise from it's movements. I remember jumping up and heading over to the spot to investigate the area. At some point the investigators upstairs can hear me yell out "what the hell did I just see"...(or some similar wording). Still pacing from what I saw I asked the Echovox if I just say that and there was an immediate "Yes". Castle soon came down and I proceed to tell him about what I had seen. He proceeded to pour some salt and basil on top of the book and the Echovox was responding with words like "no, stop, don't, please". We continued to ask questions in the basement and I take some more photos. Took three straight of Castle and they were all cloudy compared to all my other photos. Before we knew it the time was up and we had to call it a night. I took part in a prayer before leaving which is not like me what so ever but if it helped me cope with what I had seen all the better.

I thought about that creature all the way home on my drive. Driving the hour back alone it was the only thing to really think about. Thankfully I was so tired it did not take long to fall asleep but since have had a bad night of dreaming about that thing. I am pretty sure I am not the only one that has seen this thing. Did talk of messing with that book bring it out. Did it follow me? I hope the hell not.

By: Paul Welch

Corel VideoStudio Pro X9

I have been using Corel VideoStudio Pro since the very early versions of this program and have seen this program grow to compete against some of the monster video editors out there like Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas. Unlock those expensive programs, this one is actually easy to learn and use and does not require rendering. The features and add on allow you to make beautiful paranormal videos with a lot less time spent versus more complicated and expensive programs. Corel VideoStudio Pro and Ultimate can be found for purchase usually around $70 or less which makes it affordable for most of us to put this program in our arsenal. It includes multi-layer tracks, multi-layer title tracks and a mic and music track. You can even split audio off from your video track to make it a separate audio track. It is extremely easy to edit the audio levels and fade in and outs in this program on the fly.

This program will tackle the smallest of video projects all the way to full feature films if you so choose to go after that. It does come with some built in intro, middle and ending templates for those who like to use them. After a few videos, you will soon be editing like a pro and if your struggling there are YouTube videos galore to show you the way on anything you are looking to do.

Freeze frame has been added to this awesome program so now you can stop the action mid-play for some effective show- ing of evidence on the screen. Love to use your DSLR? Stop action ability is built into this version allowing you to get ultra creative if you so choose to get the urge to make your very own Lego movie. I have not used this feature yet but I can dream about doing all that work. Use the variable speed option to slow down and speed up your video as needed or even show it in reverse. This is especially useful when filming action scenes like your local youth football squid.

There are creative built in fades and transitions to get you smoothly from one clip to another in your timeline. Motion track- ing allows you to track up to 4 points so you can blur out unwanted parts of your video like license plates or offensive logos on t-shirts.

Need to add subtitles? The built-in subtitle editor will pick up the words from the audio and then allow you to edit as needed to correct any mistakes. Multi-trim feature allows you to take one long clip and quickly trim out the unwanted parts. Ever leave the camera rolling for a while and film the floor by mistake? I know I have a bunch of times so it is a very useful feature to remove those unwanted parts and make your clips more manageable.

Screen capture allows you