Back to New Orleans. The destruction from Hurricane Katrina is still a part of this fabulous (as in "fabled") city. Rick Pustanio, who oversees the Haunted America Tours (www.hauntedamericatours.com) website, whose patrons have voted Ghosts of Gettysburg Tours the #1 ghost tour in America three years in a row, offered to be our guide. For a couple of hours every day he donated his time to take Carol and me on a tour of the areas of devastation and for his hospitality we are very grateful.
We saw where one of the breaches in the levee, which everyone saw from the helicopter viewpoint, took place. Believe me, Katrina was an equal opportunity destroyer. She took out million dollar homes in that section. She took out regular people's homes in others. Twelve feet of water in sections of the city was not unusual and most of the streets are still buckled and almost un-passable because the underground infrastructure was wiped out. Still, the very soul of "The Big Easy" is still there—in its people. Standing in front of the Bourbon Orleans Hotel with Ray Couch waiting for Rick to pick me up for a visit to the Chalmette ("Battle of New Orleans") Battlefield, I saw something legendary: Marching down the street was a "parade," New Orleans style, for a deceased member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The surviving members of the band marched playing Dixieland; behind them, replete with bouncing umbrellas and twirling bodies, were people off the street, joining in because they just couldn't help themselves—it was all I could do not to follow. A city with a soul like that deserves a second chance. Go visit New Orleans this year. Leave some money there, in the bars, at the fabulous restaurants, in the magnificent hotels. See the cemeteries, take the ghost tours, and visit the voodoo queens. New Orleans is a unique world unto itself.
Ray Couch, leader of "Southern Ghosts," (www.southernghosts.com) one of the more highly respected ghost investigation groups, had set up an investigation weekend based in New Orleans. He graciously invited Carol and me to attend. I was to help out gathering EVP in a couple of the haunted venues he had secured for the group's purposes.
I had worked with Ray a couple of times in Gettysburg and was always impressed with his professionalism and creativity when it came to investigations. (Laine Crosby and I recently interviewed him for "Ghost Talkers," our internet talk show found at www.ghostchannel.tv. He talks about our investigations in New Orleans. It's a great interview.) Our first stop was the Ashley House, a pre-Civil War house which is now surrounded by a modern hotel. We arrived shortly after 11:00 pm and got a briefing and a tour from Ray. Located in the "Garden District" of New Orleans, the house was built in the 1840s originally owned by a man named Phillips, who apparently still visits, decades after his death. (His was one of the names Ray gave us to try to get EVP.) During the Civil War (or, as they call it down south, "The War for Southern Independence") it was owned by a Mr. D. R. Carroll and used by the occupying Union Army as boarding for captured Confederate soldiers. There is ancient graffiti on the walls—obscene, no less—denigrating women (or at least one particular woman.)
We began our investigation. One man and his son began getting high readings on their EMF meter in the graffiti room on the second floor. I warned them that it might just be electrical wiring in that area. After several minutes of the meter going off, they moved on. A few minutes later, they returned to the active spot and the meter was silent—no readings whatsoever. Apparently, what they were getting was NOT something in the wiring, since it had apparently left the area.
Ray had mentioned something about an antique mirror in the one bedroom that caused some individuals to act oddly—women would stare into the mirror and suddenly regress, begin to giggle and play with their hair like little girls. Looking into the darkened room when no one was in it, I thought I saw a dark, shimmering figure standing in front of the mirror—a "shadow person" perhaps? As I approached the doorway, the image ceased to exist.
I got a dozen samples of EVP before we took a break around 12:52 am and met in the courtyard outside. Ray offered to stay later for a second round of the investigations, but everyone said they were exhausted. I know for a fact that paranormal investigations can be utterly energy-draining affairs. It seems that the entities are "energy-thieves." Why, I don't know. I do know that they seem to need more energy to manifest, and often they will drain batteries in cameras, as well as the investigators themselves of energy. Most people do not consider this feeling of exhaustion after an investigation a paranormal experience, but it is, just as surely as being touched by an unseen hand. All of us caught cabs back to the Bourbon Orleans Hotel where we were based—another New Orleans haunted site.
