Deaths, banshees, green, white, angry, and trapped… boo! That’s what comes to mind for most when thinking about ghosts. I’ve never encountered an angry spirit or been contacted by a ghost who had been trapped here due to unfinished business. I think I’d be somewhat consoled by the existence of a ghost simply because it would be proof of life after death, even if it meant being trapped on earth until the unfinished business was tended to… well, initially it’d be a consolation.
I’ve never taken a Ghost Tour, but I understand there is one in San Diego, and of course there is just this whole “death” business in Los Angeles. There is the dead pool (bets for which celebrity will die next), the graves of celebrity tours – oh yeah, they take you to all the various cemeteries where the notorious, or celebrated are interred. One cemetery, “Forever Hollywood” takes this whole share-a-night-with-the-Hollywood-departed to a whole new level, and they even show films: http://www.hollywoodforever.com/culture
If there is a buck to be made, they do it in Hollywood, just look for yourself:
http://www.findadeath.com/DDT/tours.htm (aka dearly departed tours)
http://www.starlinetours.com/los-angeles-tour-22.asp (aka The Haunted Hollywood Tour)
I will admit I have been to several cemeteries in the area but most were to attend funerals of people I had worked with or in a couple situations because I was writing a script which happened to include someone who had been murdered and was buried in the cemetery (i.e., Forever Hollywood). I have not run into any ghosts since living in Southern California… Maybe it’s too loud here for them to be noticed.
I did however have a spiritual encounter in Colorado. I was a senior in high school. Due to the snowstorm, school was out early. So there I was, home and nothing to do but take a nap till the folks got home from work. I recall waking and looking at the illuminated digital clock which noted it was well after 5 pm. I looked over to the entry of my bedroom and there was this apparition — a white outline of a woman… like anti-matter in a matter world, for lack of a better explanation. She had long hair kept in a braid, really high cheekbones and she was wearing a apron.
There were no words in this exchange, but I knew there was danger. To be exact it was my mother who was in danger, and then the woman was gone. I checked the house and the parents weren’t home and they were a couple hours late. I paced. After six, and just when I was ready to grab the car keys and start out searching in the blizzard, my parents arrived home. I demanded to know why they where home so late (yeah, that’s just funny the 17 year old getting on the parental units’ case).
My mother told her story of how the blizzard’s white out had her fish tailing it into a ditch on the way home – I need to explain here that at that time we lived 30 miles north east of Denver out in rural America off a county road. It was a dire situation to be in for sure as she could have died and no one would have found her till after the snow stopped, and this was years before cell phones, so… was dire. As the universe would have it a guy in a snow plow clearing the road stopped – because my mom was flagging him down in a blizzard! Just as she was about to climb into the cab (he was going to take her into town, even though it wasn’t something allowed), my dad pulled up. Instead of traveling his normal route home, my dad went home the long way as he had a strange feeling.
My mom asked as to why I had been so agitated when they arrived home, and I explained about the woman in the doorway. I described the woman and my mom began to cry as I’d just described her mother who had died when she was just 11 years old.
Well you’re probably thinking I’d seen family photos, and I’d love to tell you that were the case, but I’d not seen such pictures until several years later at a family reunion and still it was the exact pose, etc. The only picture I was aware of seeing was my grandmother’s wedding picture, which was when she was years younger with hair much shorter than my vision.
So it would seem I’d been visited by my grandmother who conveyed that my mother was in danger. According to American Indian lore, a woman that dies in order to give birth to a child is the most honorable way to die, and in turn a most powerful spirit and one that guards loved ones. My grandmother of Indian descendent had given birth to a son and died shortly thereafter, so there you go.
Of course I may not have run into any ghosts in Los Angeles as I don’t think any of my close family members died here or are buried here, so for that I have to go back to Colorado. Still maybe one day I'll be visited by a celebrity ghost. You never know.
