The Paranormal Hobo – West Virginia Bigfoot with Les O’Dell On the Road with the Paranormal Hobo Topher heads back to West Virginia to talk with Les O’Dell of the WV Cryptids and Strange Encounters group. He even gets a critique of his Bigfoot calling skills.
The Paranormal Hobo – Flatwoods Monster Museum
The Paranormal Hobo – Flatwoods Monster Museum On the Road with The Paranormal Hobo Continuing his paranormal roadtrip, Topher the Paranormal Hobo makes a stop in Sutton WV.
The Paranormal Hobo – Georgia Expedition Bigfoot Museum
The Paranormal Hobo – Georgia Expedition Bigfoot Museum On the Road with The Paranormal Hobo Topher continues his cryptid search with a dip into Georgia with the Expedition Bigfoot Museum in Blue Ridge Georgia. Then heads out to the location of a recent sighting
The Paranormal Hobo – Point Pleasant and Mothman
The Paranormal Hobo – Point Pleasant and Mothman On the Road with The Paranormal Hobo Topher the Paranormal Hobo is back on the road looking for interesting places to explore. Today he wanders to West Virginia and comes across Point Pleasant WV. and the Mothman.
Taking a trip… to the Crossroads
This past month, I decided to take a job in Louisiana. For some that doesn’t seem like a stretch. I mean, some of you may live in Texas, Mississippi, or even Arkansas near the line. However, for me, that meant a thousand-mile move. There were some bumps in the road on the way down, but I’m not going to complain. But what I did do, was to stop by a couple places that I have wanted to see for years and have never made the time to do it. This trip I did. The first stop was on Beale Street in Memphis. Those of you that follow us on twitter seen the photos. I have been through Memphis several times, always saying that I would like to step foot on Beale Street and check it out. Finally, I did. Second place I wanted to see, and the main focus of this article, is stop by the crossroads where it was said that Blues legend Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil to master the blues guitar. That was actually harder to pin down than I thought. Even though there is a giant sign in Clarksdale, Miss stating that it is the location of the crossroads in the legend, there is another in Rosedale, Miss that locals claim as the true crossroads. Then it gets a little murkier, there are crossroads in Dockery, Hazlehurst, and Beauregard that have the dubious claim to be the actual crossroads. However, before we get into that. In case you don’t remember, or don’t know the story, let me start from the beginning. Robert Johnson was an American bluesman who, before he disappeared for a while, was as Son House said, “a decent harmonica player, but a terrible guitarist.” Accounts differ as to how long of a disappearance Johnson made, some said a year, House’s account said just weeks. No matter how long. He came back as someone who created the sound of the Delta Blues. He started off as someone who played the street corners. He got the occasional gig at a juke joint or at Saturday night dances. However, for the most part, he was forgettable. When he disappeared and re-emerged onto the scene, the difference was beyond the pale. Legend has it, at a crossroads somewhere near the Dockery Plantation around midnight, Johnson sat down in the middle of the road and prayed to heaven for help. Seemingly in answer to his prayer, a large black gentleman walked out of the darkness. He took Robert’s guitar, tuned it, and then played a few songs on it. Once he handed the guitar back to Robert, he completely mastered the instrument. So, as I took on the herculean task of trying to track down, through the literature, the internet, and on the ground in Mississippi. I stood in the two spots that claim the distinction, it just happened the second time I was in those places it was midnight as well. I found a couple places around the Dockery area that locals say it happened, as well as Hazlehurst and Beauregard. As cool as the story of Robert Johnson is, no large black gentleman approached me. Actually, nobody was anywhere near at that time. The only creepy thing that happened was completely losing all cellphone signal in just the area of the crossroads. It was a fun trip, and I would suggest it to anyone who wants to try to track down the actual place. Just remember, the actual place might be forever lost to history because, as historian Steve Cheseborough once wrote, “Robert Johnson was a rambling guy”.
Growth of a Ghost Hunter
I start out most of my talks by relating some stories. Granted I have not had very many chances to conduct these “talks” with large audiences, however, the small groups that I had worked with had enjoyed them. I connect to my listeners that way, by reliving some of the more humorous things that I have experienced during my life. Like the time that a friend and I decided to do an investigation of a cemetery. It was a long time ago. We had gotten the itch to do something that evening. It was a regular thing at that time, we would go to “haunted” locations and walk around with some of our equipment and see what we could find. The night went on like any other, pitch black and quiet. We walked through the graveyard talking about what we hoped to find. It was just a normal night. As we walked, we split up. I followed a strange EMF reading, and him walking down a small path. Mid-sentence my friend lets out an ear-piercing scream and jumps straight up in the air. “Jesus Christ, what the FUCK!!!” He literally cleared two headstones and was making his way, very quickly I may add, up the slight hill in which the cemetery was situated. After a rather hilarious sprint uphill, an exhausted and quite flabbergasted friend looked at me and smiled. “Did you see the size of that damned dog?” Apparently, unbeknownst to us, the farmer who lived next to the cemetery had released his dog Rox, who happens to be a black Bull Mastiff. The dog, thinking that we were a couple of guys that he could play with, decided that a playful full-speed nudge would get us to play with him. To this day, I am not sure if he saw us walking around the cemetery and thought it would be funny, or just let his dog out to use the restroom. Either way, my friend almost had a coronary. This other time, not so long ago, I was with a small group of investigators who was invited to investigate an old building in a local small town. According to the records, this building had been used as the town’s only mortuary in the late 1800’s. For the last few years the building has been turned into apartments and storage space. We spent the whole night on the third floor, conducting EMF sweeps, doing EVP sessions, and looking for whatever we could to explain the reports of voices and footsteps. As we were walking through the building, we noticed that in the back of the building there was an old dumb waiter-style elevator. The story, according to the property owner, was that they would park the wagons downstairs at street level and use the elevator to raise the bodies up for preparation and showings. We decided that this spot would be a good spot to stop and do some provoking. We did this for like fifteen minutes. “You know, if you are here I don’t think that you are strong enough to do anything.” That type of stuff. I said that we were going to leave because whatever was there was weak, and we started to move away from the elevator. Just as we took a step, we heard a creak. We froze, turned around, and the rope holding the elevator broke sending the whole thing to the basement. BOOOOOMMMM!!! Dust flew everywhere, and the whole building shook. If felt like the whole world was rocking because of this. We dove to the ground and laid there for what seemed like an eternity. The whole crew ended up outside, all of us needing a cigarette. I don’t even smoke, but I did then. Nobody went back in for an hour, we just let our equipment run. The owner was beside himself. He wanted to make sure we were not hurt, and I think he was scared out of his wits. The next day, we went back in and found that the rope was dry-rotted and just the weight of the elevator brought the whole thing down. We just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way you look at it, we were scared to death when it happened. Some of us might have had even to change clothes after that, I think I did. I tell these stories to show that not everything that happens during an investigation is boring. Some exciting things happen, however, they are not always going to be paranormal in nature. You always have to be alert to everything that is going on around you. I have not always been that way. I started doing this when I was nineteen. We would go off to spooky spaces, and see what we could get. Of course, when I first did this it was for the sheer fun of it. I loved to scare myself. The fear response was like a drug to me. I had to have the hair on my neck stand up as often as possible. That was my start in this field. A thrill-seeking adrenaline junky, that is what I was. I loved it. I admit it, I started doing the same things that I hear other people distance themselves from. However, the more I went out the more I wanted to find out what actually was going on. I never wanted anything big. I joined some small groups in the late 90’s early 2000’s. They showed me what I was doing wrong and how to conduct myself in a more professional manner. I still did public locations, and I admit I trespassed a few times (as evident in the cemetery story). The more I went out with these groups, the more I learned. I used new equipment, I found out that I could conduct EVP sessions in new ways, and I generally grew up. I wanted to focus on the science that involved. I still went
