What compelled you to begin investigating ghosts and hauntings?
It all started for me when I was seven years old. I grew up in a house that was built on Arapahoe Indian burial ground. I would wake up in the middle of the night with the three-dimensional shadow of a little boy standing at the end of my bed, always silent and motionless. It scared me horribly, and when I told my Catholic, skeptic father about it, he told me that I had a “great imagination.”
I realized that I was on my own and eventually found the courage to start speaking out loud to the ghost, and over time he stopped materializing at the foot of my bed. The problem was, once I acknowledged his existence, the haunting really started. Things started to disappear almost immediately. Anything form silverware to tools would mysteriously vanish into thin air, usually getting me into trouble with my father, and then reappear in strange places like the freezer.
He finally witnessed the phenomena for himself when a friend of mine and I were playing in the basement kicking a ball to one another and the spirit would kick it out from in between us. My friend got scared and ran up the stairs to tell my dad. My father decided that I had told my friend about the ghost and got upset with me. To prove the point that there was no such thing as the supernatural, he decided to take all of the adults downstairs and then instructed us to resume kicking the ball to one another. He was sure that this would prove that there was nothing strange happening. While nothing transpired with the ball, a large box of floral clay shot from one wall across the room to another on its own fruition. He simply turned and walked up the stairs, not saying a word about it. It took a long time for him to come around.
When I was sixteen, my family moved to a new home about five miles away from the last and I decided at that point that I didn’t want to be different or strange. I convinced myself that I had an overactive imagination and that the ghosts were just in my head. I was excited to move into the new house as I would be moving into a fully finished basement apartment that would afford me some privacy.
To my amazement, I had more paranormal activity happen to me in the first night that I was there than I had in my entire life to that point. Voices, lights, shadows and objects moving were never uncommon there. I realized at that point that I had to make a decision. I could either accept my “gift” or put it away in the proverbial closet. I decided to learn as much as I could about the subject through trial and error as an amateur investigator.
Being a musician who was fortunate enough to play and tour with several hard rock and heavy metal bands, I was able to explore many of the purportedly haunted locations throughout the United States. I was only armed with a 35mm camera and bulky video camera, but I was able to capture some pretty incredible evidence. When I stopped playing and touring, I decided to take a deeper look at what the evidence I captured was and how I might be able to capture more.
I started speaking with scientists, quantum physicists, psychics and anyone associated with the paranormal. My goal was to be able to record and document the things that I was able to see and hear for those who couldn’t. I’m sure that part of that had to do with proving things to my father. My abilities and interest led to me and a ghost hunting partner opening an online magazine called Ghost Hunter. While that only lasted for a short time, I eventually opened Haunted Times Magazine with, of all people, my skeptic father.
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