A spooky mausoleum...

San Juan Island, Washington. It is a beautiful, magical place teaming with wildlife, forests, and history. Our family travels to this slice of heaven each year. We are captivated by the Orca whales who call this place home. To us, this is the only place to vacation, and we enjoy sitting out on the west side of the island, waiting for the whales. They are magnificent, and we fell in love with them over 15 years ago on our first visit.




Afterglow Vista

Earlier this week, Kacie and I returned from our beloved island, and while we were there we checked out a spooky old mausoleum that we had learned about, but never seen.  For many years we have heard about the Afterglow Vista from a lot of islanders, including our friends Gayle and Hugh. Tales of  ghosts materializing after midnight and cruising the place as well as well asother otherworldly events abound. 

I have to share a little history of the place, it is quite interesting. John S. McMillin, an industrialist, came to the island in the late 1800's and bought a company that mined the pure limestone once in abundance on the island, "cooked" it in ginormous kilns, and then barreled it, and shipped it off to distant places worldwide to be used as a strengthener in concrete and mortar.  After the San Francisco earthquake in the early 1900's, most of that city was rebuilt using the island's lime in a concrete mix that is stronger than the normal concrete and mortar.

John S. McMillin built Roche Harbor Resort which is quite the place, and today it is lavish with every amenity available. As he was becoming an old man, he decided to build a mausoleum to house his and his family’s ashes after they died.
Today, the old cemetery on the hillside and the mausoleum is open to the public, and so Kacie and I made our way up to the exclusive resort and found the trail marked “Mausoleum”. We parked in the lot and began ascending the hill on the twisting and turning trail that lead us through the very old cemetery, where almost all of the graves date back to the late 1800’s. We arrived just as the sun was beginning to set and the woods were dark, the sky above was still light and streaked in the beautiful colors of the sunset.

Orbs/ moisture and supernatural

It was, well, eerie walking through that old place. Each grave was surrounded by either a picket or wrought iron fence; some of the grave sites held an entire family. The tombstones were cracked and falling apart; some of the graves had trees now fully grown inside the fences. We stopped at one of the large gravesites, and I could feel a presence. Kacie could also feel this spirit, and though we had only our cameras, Kacie took her cell phone out and hit the record button. We did a short evp session, but we knew that chances of catching anything were slim as the big resort was ending the day with the big daily ceremony performed  when taking down the flags at sunset.

We couldn’t find any kind of building, and it was after sunset and quite dark when we climbed down the hillside and left the area. Photographs we shot show various orbs which indicate paranormal activity, but all in all no concrete proof, no ghosts flying overhead for example.

The next day after talking with our friends, they told us that we hadn’t gone far enough, so the next night we went up and on the trail we went. It was about a half mile trek from the end of the old cemetery to the mausoleum, and worth every step. This place is unbelievable, and so surprising. Who knew? We go to this island yearly and never knew that this masoleum was so grand, well we had heard stories of the place but we never expected it to be quite as, well, unbelieveable as it is.  We were quite amazed to say the least. A big pillar old world looking structure stuck way back in the woods. Can I just say -- CRAZY? Well, it is, but also quite otherworldly.

Old man McMillin built this structure with pillars built to the specifications of King Solomon’s temple from the Bible; one of the pillars is broken, indicating life’s unfinished business. Inside the structure is an enormous round limestone table with limestone chairs surrounding it, one for each family member; inside the base of the each chair is the cremated remains of the family McMillin. Creepy? Oh ya, but very, very interesting. The sun had set by this time, and so we shot several photos, some in this blog, and made our way back through the woods to the car.

An investigation of this amazing dedication to John S. McMillin’s family as well as the old cemetery would be awesome to do. The ghost stories of this place are many and as with all stories, there probably is a small slice of truth to them. We did feel a presence in the cemetery and our photos show paranormal activity, it would be phenomenal to investigate there.

Perhaps the owners of the resort would welcome an investigation.  The SIM Crew would do an awesome job, I have no doubts.  You just never know, the summer of 2012 may be Afterglow Vista's very first paranormal investigation ;)

 

For more detailed information about this historical landmark, you can click on this link: http://sanjuanmasons.com/mausoleum.html

Scared.......

I pride myself for not fearing the supernatural.  Being a paranormal investigator, I am among ghosts on almost every investigation.  I have always been able to feel them, an ability I inherited from my mom and my grandma, but to be honest I have never been face to face with one until last weekend.

The SIM Crew was invited to lead two ghost hunts and present at an event called Northern Frights in northern Minnesota.  On the second night while investigating with Katie and a group of event attendees, I had to leave for a moment to bring a key to another room to Jerry and his group.  As I walked out into the dark hallway (no lights were on for the investigation) and began the walk to that room, I sensed something to my left.  I turned to look and found myself looking into the face of a ghost.  No more than two feet away, the apparition of the face of an otherworldly being appeared to be coming out of the door to one of the rooms. 

Obviously I don't have nerves of steel, and I screamed (yes I screamed) and turned to move away from this apparition.  I turned back though to see it again, but it had disappeared.  Even though I could no longer see it, I felt this spirit follow me down the hallway, and I nervously kept looking over my shoulder for it.  Now, what should I have done?  I should have stared that ghost down and asked some questions.  Instead I called Jerry on my walkie and told him the story.  A missed opportunity to be sure.  Sigh. 

Jerry and his group were anxiously awaiting my arrival.  I finally arrived at the room, key in hand, wild eyed and obviously shaken up.

"Are you OK?" They asked, concern etched on their faces.  They wanted to hear all about my experience, but I'm pretty sure they were taken aback my wild appearance.

"I'm scared.......and I am a GHOST HUNTER" I blurted out.  Now what I meant by that was that ghost hunters aren't supposed to lose it like I did and be afraid.  Now this statement will be forever in the minds of the SIM Crew.  They laughed and laughed at this, and immediately began planning t-shirts that will read:

"I'm a ghost hunter......and I got scared!"

OK.  Whatever.  So I ran and screamed like a silly school girl.  Sigh.  I was scared, no doubt, but I'm still trying to figure out if I was really scared or just startled?  Scared? Really?  I've been with and around a lot of ghosts and not been scared.  But I guess there's something about coming face to face with one that drains the blood from your face.

Later on during the investigation, Jerry and his group got the key to the room where the manifestation occurred, and as they entered they were hit with a palpable force.  They stood their ground and entered the room where they observed a filmy shadow move across the room.,  The same ghost that scared me I'm thinking, and I'm sure that ghost had a good laugh at Northern Frights, which to me at that moment was indeed frightening ;)

--SA

New Teammates and Other Things.....

December and January were quiet months for our ghost hunting group.  Mostly self-imposed because well, December is hectic with Christmas and New Years, and January is the month of rest after that hectic schedule in December.  For me the entire month of January and the beginning of February was pretty much spent in a fog.  I was sick the whole month of January with a nasty virus that made me cough incessantly, and pretty much sapped my energy, and that left me feeling, well, quite under the weather.

The SIM Crew did however add two additional people to our team.  Why?  Well, after much consideration among us, it was decided that we needed additional members mainly because our investigations really require "more bodies".  We just did not have the number to do a sufficient job on the larger properties.  It's exciting but at the same time quite stressful adding new people to the mix.  Our original six members are very close and we have a unique relationship.  My main question as we entered this new era, was simply could we do this without losing the special and unique bond we share?  I hope so, I really do.  Time will tell, but I'm hopeful that we will be better and stronger :)

That said, we chose a couple of very competent and fabulous people out of the many that came to meet us on a very cold January evening at a local restaurant.  Both are very personable and friendly.  Annette, comes to us with the sensitivity of a physchic.  Several of us are sensitive to the presence of spirits, and now with Annette on board we have that additional boost of sensitivity during investigations.  Our other new teammate Jaffe comes to us with a healthy skepticism, and along with George he will keep the rest of us "highly excitable" members in check.  He has great interest in the supernatural and he is a wonderful addition to the SIM Crew. 

In February, we had two investigations with the "newbies".  Jerry and Mae each teamed up with a newbie on last Friday's investigation for training, and it's good to say Annette and Jaffe both did a phenomenal job.  The property we investigated is quite large, rich in history, and boasts a lot of paranormal stories.

The crew will gather soon to go over all the evidence from both investigations and prepare for the reveals.  Stories to come soon, here!  What I can say is that the first investigation in February we revisited a home we investigated last Fall and we were not disappointed.  We caught some amazing evidence, so stay tuned my friends, I will be blogging about both --- soon ;)   Until then, stay warm!