Here are a few photos from last year that weren’t included in the Halloween 2007 page. This first image is a shot of the decorations on the front porch- a location that’s never seen by a lot of trick or treaters! Many of them don’t make it past the yard display and if they do, there’s usually a surprise or two standing near the bushes on the way up the drive. In all seriousness, we take it very easy on the little ones. I can’t say the same for the older kids.

The following images are a variety from the cemetery display and my prop previews that were also never included. I hope you enjoy them:

Related Posts

Halloween Past

I decided to post a few old photos from our Halloween nights during the 90’s. To this day, October 31st is still a family affair, but ten (plus) years ago everyone got heavily involved. Back then I used to take a week off from work so my grandfather and I could build these long enclosed hallways that led up the drive to the front door. Inside the halls were windows which opened up into separate rooms. As the trick or treaters passed by the windows, a scene would unfold inside each room- and since I needed actors to create the scenes, my family came in mighty handy.

Every year there were different themes inside the rooms. We had a corpse rising from a grave, a machete sharpening ghoul, a straight jacketed asylum patient, an axe wielding fiend and several other undead looking things roaming around the hidden panels inside the hallways. These hidden panels allowed a couple of actors to move in and out of the flow of trick or treaters, undetected, to provide a great scare.

The hallways and rooms were always built from sturdy lumber and covered with heavy duty cardboard. The cardboard was then covered with box upon box of black trash bags. It wasn’t all that spooky under the flash of the camera, but in the darkness, with strobes and black lights, it had a creepy appearance. The topper, however, had to be the fog chiller. With the entire haunt being enclosed, including a door to get in and out, the wind was kept to a minimum. This allowed the fog machine to produce cool, low lying fog that caressed everyone’s ankles and kissed the ground the entire length of the haunt. Man, I miss that effect since I’ve gone to an open air, yard haunt.

Now, I have to admit our costumes weren’t always that great and the props used to fill the inside of the haunt weren’t very professional looking- especially the Spirit Store plastic blucky skeletons, but we had loads of fun! The neighbors were and have always been great and very receptive of our “productions.” And the trick or treaters and their parents consistently provided kind feedback. My favorite experience was bumping into someone in public that knew of my Halloween pursuits. They were always curious as to what we had up our sleeve for that particular year.

There is a part of me that misses doing something as elaborate as setting up a large enclosed haunt, but the creative expression and outlet I have found in my yard haunt design more than make up for it. Still, I find myself tempted to revisit my Halloween roots from over a decade ago- with better looking props of course!

The Halloween 2008 Preview page is officially up and running…finally! This year I am continuing to expand upon the cemetery display from the previous two years. The Halloween ’08 Preview page contains four images of my current corpse prop and I’ll be updating with more images as the prop continues to develop.

I’m probably going to be adding three brand new zombie torsos to my graveyard this year, along with a major tweak to the scarecrow from last Halloween. My main focus is going to be on the overall atmosphere of the haunt: more fog, more leaves, more jack-o-lanterns, a better sound system, and of course more corn.

Welcome to the second entry of the latest Ghost Hunters Giveaway. The following supernatural tale comes from Alecia Gibson:

“It was September 1993 when my family moved to Ogilvie, a small town of four hundred people in northern Minnesota. I was seven years old and had spent my whole life, up to that point, in the city. I was excited about the move to the country and looked forward to making friends. Our “new” house was built solid of cement and rock, two stories tall and nestled in the woods, ten miles out of town. Though the home’s basement was converted into a large family room, complete with a rock wall fireplace; it was dreary and smelled musty. The upstairs contained a vintage 1970’s kitchen which opened into a large dining room, living room combo. Outside, there was a chicken shed, a small cabin which had fallen into disrepair and a huge pole shed.

Strange things began happening immediately in the house. Many items disappeared. Doors would mysteriously shut by themselves and on several occasions we were awakened by weird sounds in the middle of the night. At first it was easy to attribute some of these events to living in new surroundings and being unfamiliar with the home, but after a while we began to have our doubts.

A few days after moving in, we met our first neighbor. He was an elderly, decrepit looking man whose spooky appearance was only outdone by his ominous warning to my family. He drove his huge tractor up our driveway, stopped and told us in no uncertain terms that our house was haunted, then without saying another word, he turned around and left. Apparently our suspicions were well founded.

The next week, we started school. I made friends with a girl named Anita and decided to invite her over for a weekend slumber party. When I told her where I lived, she gave me a strange look. Anita informed me that her uncle had built my house and that she would feel very uncomfortable sleeping there, but didn’t say why. She told me that she would much rather visit during the day. So, it was agreed we would spend Saturday together.

Saturday came around and her parents dropped her off. She spent the whole day telling me about her Uncle Minor and how he had built the house by himself but died before he could live in it. Anita told me that after Minor passed away his wife moved into the home. A short time later, she died of a heart attack in the kitchen, while washing dishes. I asked Anita if she thought there were ghosts in the house and she was convinced that there were.

Well, now I was interested. We talked my mom into taking us to the library, where we checked out every book we could pertaining to paranormal activity. One book claimed to have several tests we could perform to see if there really were ghosts in the house. After Anita went home, my brother and I were ready to do some ghost hunting. We decided to focus on the kitchen since Mrs. Minor was said to have died there. We carefully sprinkled flour on the floor and put dental floss across the doorways. Then we hid behind the couch in the living room. I don’t know how long we lasted but at some point we eventually dozed off. The next morning, the floss was broken and there were footprints in the flour. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a ghost. It was just our dad.

Even though our tests failed, we encountered enough strange phenomena to indicate there was a ghost haunting our house. The basement door would open by its own accord, the TV would turn on and off, and the strange disembodied noises and sounds persisted each and every night. Anytime something happened, my dad would always say “There goes Old Man Minor.” Although we don’t live in that house anymore, I’m convinced Anita’s uncle is still there, haunting the next family.”

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Alecia!

If you are interested in entering your ghostly experience or spooky paranormal tale into the Ghost Hunters Giveaway, then please check out the entry guidelines.

Related Posts

The Three Ghosts
Returning to my Family’s Haunted Home

Welcome to the first entry of the Ghost Hunters Season 2 – Part 2 Giveaway. The following submission comes from Brian M. of Myerstown, Pennsylvania:

“My wife and I are both very interested in the paranormal. This is, at least in part, because we have had personal experiences with what we believe are ghosts or some sort of entities.

My own experience came when I was around six years old. I was visiting my aunt in her 18th century New England farmhouse. She had claimed for years her home was haunted; citing examples ranging from noises, to shadows, to an antique toy collection being moved. The movement of the old toys always gave the impression someone or something had been playing with them.

I can recall looking out of her kitchen window and telling my mother I wanted to go outside and play with the little girl who was waving to me. Upon looking out the window, my mother and aunt saw no one. They asked me if she was still there. I said she was and that her name was Emily. Through research, my aunt did discover there was a little girl who suffered an accidental death in the home. Her name was Emily.

My wife’s paranormal experiences have been just as pronounced. One of her encounters also occurred in an old farmhouse, turned restaurant, that was formerly known as the Hannah Jack Tavern (it is now called The Common Man) in Merrimack, New Hampshire. This location has historical importance because Hannah, the original owner, was the wife of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The restaurant was divided into a number of small rooms for its patrons. Assuming my wife and I were eating dinner alone in our section; I was surprised when she quietly asked me if I could see the woman in the room with us. I responded that I could not. She described the woman as being dressed in colonial era clothing. She appeared to be watching us eat and seemed content that we were enjoying ourselves. After arriving home that night, I did some research online and found that a number of other diners shared the same experience as my wife.

Finally, the most eerie, and at the same time comforting, experience occurred before my wife and I were married. We had a slightly rocky engagement with the occasional argument; just as many couples do. One evening, after a fight, she went to bed questioning whether or not she was making the right decision in marrying me.

In the middle of the night, she felt some pressure on her legs. She looked down; assuming it was our cat, but instead found the figure of a man peering back. My wife claims that the man stared at her, then looked over at my sleeping form lying next to her, and then back at her again. Suddenly, he nodded (as if in approval) and then vanished. The next day, my wife told her mother about the entire experience and described the man in detail. My mother-in-law informed her that the person she described sounded just like my wife’s grandfather, who passed away when she was only three years old.

Even today, my wife and I both feel we have some sort of paranormal activity in our current home; having experienced unexplained noises and frequently seeing an unexplained shadow, just out of the corner of our eyes.

I hope you have enjoyed my stories. I can only hope that I will continue to have more to tell.”

Thanks for sharing your great stories, Brian!

If you are interested in entering your ghostly experience or spooky paranormal tale into the Ghost Hunters Giveaway, then please check out the entry guidelines.

Related Posts

Returning to my Family’s Haunted Home

Welcome to the seventh Giveaways of Spirit installment. Jason, Grant and the rest of the Ghost Hunters gang are back for another appearance! The prizes for this contest are three DVD box sets of Ghost Hunters - Season 2 - Part 2 to be given to three winners. Each set contains the last eleven episodes from the second Ghost Hunters’ season.

The guidelines for entering have changed. This time around, I’m looking for your real life spooky encounters with ghosts. Please see the guidelines section (below) for further details.

Here’s a summary from the second half of Ghost Hunters Season 2:

“Season 2 of Ghost Hunters contained just too many bone-chilling spine-tingling jaw-dropping investigations for just one DVD collection! Part 2 brings 11 more episodes packed with 19 ‘leave no stone unturned’ investigations. Will their searches turn up evidence of a haunting or debunk claims of paranormal activity? Join Jason, Grant and the dedicated members of the TAPS team as they attempt to bring peace of mind to those who claim to be experiencing hauntings; all while trying to avoid getting spooked themselves!”

I wish everyone the best and look forward to contacting the winners!

Don’t forget, you can now subscribe to the Season of Shadows blog via email. Each time the blog is updated with new information, including the latest ghost story entries in this giveaway, you’ll receive them in a clean, advertisement free, non-html format. They’ll be delivered to your inbox by the good folks at Feedburner. You can sign up at the top of the sidebar under the subscribe heading.

To be entered into this Ghost Hunters giveaway you must submit a story relating a paranormal or ghostly experience which has happened to either you, a member of your family, or to a friend. Please, no UFO, alien or cryptozoology tales. I’m looking for stories related to ghosts, hauntings and spirits only.

Submissions must feature original nonfiction content (minus any copyright) and be at least 500 words in length. Longer stories are encouraged, but winners will not be chosen based on essay length. Entrants should also include how they want their name displayed in the byline of their story.

Each legitimate entry will be featured as a Season of Shadows blog post over the course of the giveaway. All submitted entries become the property of Season of Shadows. This does not mean Season of Shadows owns your story flat out. It only means I have the ability and your consent to feature the content and alter it (for flow, spelling and grammar) at my discretion. Your original experiences will always remain intact.

Including contact info in the submission is helpful (in case you win), but not required. All contact info will be kept confidential and will not be included in the blog entry featuring your submission. If you choose not to include contact info in your entry, then please be certain you are using an email address I can respond to.

I will need to contact you after the drawing closes, if you are a winner. Email addresses, provided by entrants, will never be shared with any third parties and you’ll never receive unsolicited mail from Season of Shadows when entering any Giveaways of Spirit drawing.

Each essay will be assigned a number as they are received. After the giveaway closes, three numbers will be randomly drawn to determine the winners of the Ghost Hunters Season 2, Part 2 DVD box sets.

All essays must be emailed to me here, four days prior to the official close of the contest.

This Ghost Hunters Giveaway will close at 11:59 pm (Eastern Time) on September 12th, 2008. Your essay entries must be received no later than 11:59 pm (Eastern Time), September 8th, 2008.

Please, only one essay entry per household. This helps to make it fairer for everyone. There’s no catch here; the entire giveaway is free- including payment of shipping and handling- I cover all costs.

All winners will then be notified, via the email addresses they’ve provided, no later than September 15th. If one, or all three haven’t already included their shipping information, with their essays, and don’t respond (with their shipping information) within a week, then one (two or three) more number(s) will be drawn to determine the new winner(s). After receiving their consent, I’ll be announcing the winners’ names in an upcoming blog post.

Once again, all essays must be emailed to me here, by September 8th, 2008. If you have any further questions or need to get in touch with me, you can also reach me through the above email link or through my contact page.

If you have a website or a business you would like to see promoted through this blog, and you’re interested in donating some great paranormal or Halloween type gifts to the Giveaways of Spirit, please contact me.

Related Posts

The Season of Shadows Giveaways of Spirit
Returning to my Family’s Haunted Home
The Ghostly Cannons of Fort Craig
The Strange Figure at Jackson Lake

Similar to last year, my blogging frequency has been slowing down, over the summer, for this site. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m devoting more of my time to blogging at my new site as well as building a cemetary full of zombies for Halloween. I still plan on posting blogs here at Seasons, but they are going to be far less frequent until after October 31st. The closer we draw to the big night; I’ll also be reviewing some of my favorite Halloween sites on the web.

For your convenience, you can subscribe to this blog, by email, with the form located in the sidebar. Your address is never sold or shared by Feedburner and you’ll always know when posts have been added to this site. This also makes it handy for those interested in knowing when my latest giveaways have been posted. Speaking of which- the Ghost Hunters DVDs will be continuing right on through the summer. And in September and October I’ll be gifting a gift certificate or two to great online Halloween retailers like the Fright Catalog.

As always, I appreciate everyone’s patience with my slow addition of summer time content, here in the blog, so I can gain momentum on my ghoulish, Halloween prop building activities.

Today’s spooky experience once again comes from my uncle’s bag of tales. His various outdoor excursions, over the years, have taken him to the stomping grounds of ghosts and other forms of paranormal activity. The following encounter may not be entirely ghostly in origin, but it appears to have a connection to something ethereal. I’ll let you be judge.

“Many years ago I spent a lot of time hunting for coins at a popular recreational destination- Jackson Lake, just outside Farmington, New Mexico. While locals, flocking to the location, provided a steady flow of dimes, nickels and quarters for metal detector enthusiasts, the lake was always easier to search when attendance was down. The last thing I needed was a bunch of kids and the occasional old man pestering me about how much money I had uncovered.

So, I waited until summer dwindled down, picked an off-season Sunday morning, packed up my detector and cruised down to Jackson. The early morning air, whipping through my half cracked driver’s side window, was crisp and clean. Last night’s rainfall washed away any remnants of the usual Saturday night parties held at the lake. As I pulled into the parking area, I was pleasantly greeted by empty spaces everywhere, not a single vehicle sat in the flooded out lot.

I grabbed my detector with headphones in tow and started the muddy, quarter mile hike. When I reached the lake, there wasn’t a soul to be found. It was extremely eerie, to say the least. In all of my previous trips, I don’t think I had ever found Jackson totally devoid of activity. However, the creepy feeling didn’t last long; it was time to get down to business while the getting was good. I began making my way around the lake to the typical hot spots for lost coins.

After a short while, I noticed something really odd moving through my peripheral vision. I glanced toward the dam and that’s when “he” came fully into focus- a man dressed in a pious looking white robe with a hood pulled over his head. He was outlined by the cobblestone formation of rocks behind him, standing on an overflow pipe that extended through the bank of the dam.

The figure was no more than one hundred and fifty yards from me and I could see he was pacing back and forth on the pipe. He seemed to be performing some sort of ritual; chanting or singing with his hands cupped in front of him. Attire aside, what really struck me as odd was the figure had not been there just a few minutes earlier. And there really was no place he could have come from, without being detected, prior to reaching the position on the overflow pipe. It seemed as if he had just appeared out of nowhere.

I watched him for a short while and then went back to working my detector, this time minus my headphones so I could hear any subtle movement. I also fixed my gaze in such a way I was able to see the ground and maintain a constant bead on his whereabouts. The hooded figured continued his ritual for the next ninety minutes.

And then, the movement completely ceased. I quickly looked up and he was gone. I knew it was utterly impossible for him to have climbed off the pipe without having fully caught my attention. For the last hour and a half I had become intrigued by this strange figure and there was no way I was letting him get away without satisfying my curiosity. I dropped all of my gear and sprinted the entire one hundred and fifty yards, just as fast as I could.

When I reached the dam, I couldn’t locate him anywhere. I then peered down from my vantage point to the parking lot, only to find my lone vehicle. I searched around the entire lake, including the far side of the dam and never found a trace of him, or whatever it was.”

And that does it for another of my uncle’s experiences. Stay tuned, as I’ll soon be featuring a few other family member’s encounters with possible paranormal activity.

If you have any ghostly or supernatural encounters you would like to share, with the possibility of winning a Ghost Hunters DVD box set, be sure to check back for the next Giveaways of Spirit Contest, coming July 29th.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with others. Thank you.

Related Posts

The Ghostly Cannons of Fort Craig
Returning to my Family’s Haunted Home
Family Spirits
Family Spirits: Part 2
Haunting of Ramstein

Question: I’d like to hear your opinions and ideas pertaining to ghosts’ ability to interact with us while we sleep. Specifically, I’m curious if they are capable of haunting more than just our physical world? What about our dreams? When I’m asleep, I sometimes have strange haunting encounters with what appear to be ghosts or spirits trying to speak to me. – Lynne R.

Answer: Thanks for your interesting question. I don’t follow commonly accepted psychological or medical interpretations of the dream environment. I personally believe dreams absolutely have a reality and validity that the medical establishment refuses to acknowledge.

On the whole, humanity still knows very little about consciousness, where it stems from and the abilities contained therein. I believe the dream environment is no less legitimate than this physical state we call reality. Dreams represent another way and another world in which consciousness explores itself.

Just as we interact in a consensually agreed upon physical reality, I believe we can also interact in consensually agreed upon dreamscapes. So, if your consciousness is capable of exploring the world you venture into when you close your eyes, it should be possible for other forms of consciousness to do the same thing, right along side you.

Those other forms may be simultaneously attached to a physical body, or they may not be. In other words, some of the beings you encounter during your nightly treks may be other dreamers (like yourself), and then again they may be forms of energy that are no longer “alive” in the way we think of the term.

I used to have several recurring dreams where I found myself walking through strange homes which gave off the impression of being haunted. These locations seemed to have several “nonliving” occupants residing within. Many of them would try and communicate with me in ways that ranged from casual to forceful.

I have even had dreams where these “ghosts” appeared to propel me into out of body experiences just by whispering my name. One minute I was in the dream environment and the next I was fully awake and experiencing symptoms of astral projection- talk about a rude (but interesting) awakening!

Now, even though I feel dreams have a solid validity to them and they absolutely offer the potential for other beings, like ghosts, to interact with us; that doesn’t mean everything is as it appears at that level of conscious exploration. Dreams also have the opportunity to be symbolic representations of things we are experiencing in our physical lives. Then again, our physical world also has this same ability. So, how can you tell what’s “legitimate” and what’s merely symbolic?

Many people believe the way to tell the difference is through the presentation of the dream. I tend to agree with this, as it’s probably the only barometer we have for gauging our experience. I can tell major differences between many of my dreams. Some feel far more real and solid than others. At times, it’s almost impossible, even after waking, to tell the difference between this environment and certain dreamscapes.

To get back to your original question- I do believe the energy, we call ghosts, are capable of interacting in the dream world. I believe consciousness has the means for expressing itself in multiple environments simultaneously. However, most of us, while we are among the “living”, are only capable of zeroing in on two of those means: wakefulness and dream time.

Just because I believe the potential is there for ghosts and spirits to interact with us while we’re asleep, it doesn’t mean we should be frightened. In all of my after hours encounters with “ghosts”, I’ve never had an experience that caused me any serious problems- outside of waking up in a cold sweat.

Often times, the entities we think of as spooky ghosts are nothing more than amiable spirits interested in communicating with us. If we are tuned out and closed off to this potential when awake; they may try when our mind is much more open to the possibility: during sleep. It’s not uncommon for the energy of individuals that have passed on to make contact during the dream state.

If you’re interested in learning more about dreams, altered states of consciousness and astral projection, you may be interested in visiting my new website.

And that does it for this question and answer installment. I would like to thank Lynne for her question, along with everyone that took the time to read this post. If you have any paranormal questions you’d like to see addressed, please contact me. As always, your name will be kept private unless you request otherwise.

If this post has been interesting or helpful to you, please share the information and this site with others. Thank you.

Related Posts

Q & A: Are Ghosts the Energy of the Deceased?
Q & A: Haunting Voices & Ghostly Leverage
Q & A: Can Hauntings be caused by Dark Energy?
Q & A: Seeing Body Doubles in a Haunted Location

This visitor’s spooky story was provided by my uncle. You may recall me speaking about some of his encounters with ghosts in a previous entry. I’m not sure if he has a knack for being in the right place at the right time, or if he’s just strange like me! Personally, I’m leaning toward the latter explanation. Either way, he’s had his fair share of run-ins with things deemed supernatural:

“After a long week of work, my dad, his brother and I were all looking forward to getting away for a few days. We loaded up our gear and headed south down interstate 25; destined for the location of some of New Mexico’s fiercest battles during its involvement with the Civil War: Fort Craig.

We weren’t on a relic finding mission, although we had been known to uncover the odd piece of shrapnel every now and again. No, this trip was to practice our wild calls and do a little hunting, if the opportunity presented itself. The location of the old fort is deep in the desert southwest near scraggly volcanic outcroppings and mesas- a perfect location for bringing in coyotes.

As we drove through the last signs of civilization, that familiar lonesome feeling returned. Sand and scrub brush, as far as the eye could see, hinted at the element the confederate soldiers faced while marching northward. It’s impossible to not be reminded of this state’s history as you stare out at the unforgiving landscape unfolding through your windshield. The farther you journey into its back country, the more New Mexico has the uncanny ability for activating the past within you. No wonder ghosts have an affinity for lingering here.

Another quick reminder of civilization appeared on the horizon, momentarily distracting me from my trance like fixation on the scenery. We knew we were getting close as we passed through the city of Socorro and then watched it disappear in the rear view mirror. After leaving the interstate and traveling dirt and gravel packed side roads, we reached our location to make camp, just a short distance from the ruins of the fort.

Rather than bedding down for the night we decided to take advantage of the brisk air by getting some calling in. The three of us hiked out of camp about a mile, stopping sporadically to entice a few coyotes along the way. It was actually quite comforting when someone would break the silence now and again with their call. Being in the middle of nowhere, knowing you were standing on ground where so many men had died, with darkness surrounding you, was a little unnerving.

No sooner had I heard the familiar sound of my dad’s call, when our attention was drawn to the north end of Valverde Mesa. Three successive booms echoed out into the night. These were not the familiar cracking sounds of a rifle but rather an explosive reaction that seemed to be powered by black powder. I have used a muzzle loader before, and these sounds had a much stronger but similar resonance.

The three of us, shining flashlights in one another’s faces, stared dumbstruck. We knew we were the only people out there and we also knew those sounds didn’t resemble anything we had ever heard in the realm of hunting rifles. My uncle suggested dynamite, but I reminded him of the time- 12:35 A.M. And that’s when it hit me! We had taken our trip on February 20th. It was now the morning of February 21st, the anniversary of the Battle of Valverde. The direction in which we heard the sounds was the primary location where the battle had occurred.

I have thought long and hard about that night. I can almost say, without a doubt, no one else was there. This was in 1977 or ‘78, long before civil war re-enactments were popular. Fort Craig is in such a desolate location, not many people would be interested in attending a re-enactment anyway, not to mention at 12:35 in the morning. I would have to say the sounds certainly appeared to be a ghostly form of cannon fire stemming from the original battle in some way.”

An interesting side not to my uncle’s story: A few years ago a ghost hunting group known as the Southwest Ghost Hunter’s Association (SGHA) visited the old fort at night time. While they were there, many members noted smelling “fresh” black powder in the air as well as hearing gun shots near the southeastern edge of the fort. Sounds of gun fire were also detected across the river at a location well known for skirmish activity during the war.

If you have a ghostly experience you would like to share on this site, please contact me.

Related Posts

Featuring Your Ghostly Encounters & Spooky Experiences
Returning to my Family’s Haunted Home
Family Spirits
Family Spirits: Part 2
Haunting of Ramstein