Andy Weeks - Haunted Idaho: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Gem State

For my son, Brayden

My best buddy

Copyright 2013 by Stackpole Books

Published by

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Printed in the United States of America

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FIRST EDITION

Cover design by Tessa J. Sweigert

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-0-8117-1176-0

eBook ISBN: 9780811749800

Contents

Introduction

A door opened and footsteps padded across the bedroom carpet. A moment later I heard the clink of hangers being moved. Heidi, I called from under the sheets, my face buried in a pillow. When my wife didnt answer, I called again. The clinking sounds stopped. She was getting dressed for work, as she does most every morningor so I assumed. I was still in bed, not having to go to work myself until sometime later. But why didnt she hear me calling? The closet was just a few feet away. I removed the pillow from my face and called again. When she still didnt answer, I turned over, sat up in bed, and looked at the closet. The door was open, but the light was off. Hmm, I wondered. I turned to look at the clock on my nightstandand goose bumps crawled up my nervous skin. Heidi already had left for workand had been there for a while, according to the red digital numbers that glared at me from atop my nightstand. So who, or what, had just entered our bedroom, walked across the room, and moved hangers in the closet?

Im a journalist, I told myself, a person whose profession and lifestyle deals with the facts of life, not its myths and mysteries. But to my chagrin, I admitted that I had experienced enough of the unexplained in my life that I knew sometimes things really do go bump in the nightor, for that matter, during the daytime too.

The sun already was crawling up the eastern sky as I picked myself out of bed, my mind trying to wrap itself around the pieces of the puzzle that had been thrown into my morning routine. Had I just experienced a haunting? Or was it the remnants of a dream being shaken off as I became more conscious? After all, what would a spirit be doing playing with clothes hangers in a walk-in closet?

I got out of bed and checked the closet. Nothing was there except for clothes and the hangers they hung from. After deliberate thought about the episode, I think I may have put a few pieces of the puzzle together. The picture Ive created may not be definitive, but it has helped me better grasp what might have happened on that lazy morning in our cozy home in south-central Idaho.

Paranormal researchers have said there are at least six different types of hauntings, the most common of which is of a residual nature. In its usual definition, a residual haunting is the remnant of a traumatic event that occurred at the locationa suicide or violent crime, for instance. The emotional impact of the episode imprints itself on space and time, so to speak, and like a recording, plays itself over and over again. I believe, however, that such a haunting need not always be from a traumatic event. Life itself is full of energy, so why wouldnt our actionshowever mundane they might seem to ussuch as rustling hangers in a closet every morning before work, leave an imprint in the space-time continuum?

And then theres this: Do residual hauntings occur only at locations, or do they happen also in our minds? For instance, I was used to my wifes morning routine, even subconsciously while I slept. Was it my mind that played the haunting, or was it the house? I know one thing: I wasnt dreaming. The sounds woke me, and I lay in bed awake listening to the hangers move.

If nothing else, chalk it up as another weird episode in Idaho, a place of raw beauty and strange phenomena. There definitely is something of the ghostly here, though according to at least one paranormal investigator, the Gem State is not as haunted as some of the longer-settled states in the union. Its not as active as some places in the East, but thats because Idaho is a newer state, said Jennifer Morin of Paranormal Investigators of Idaho (PII). It doesnt seem like paranormal investigations are as big in the West as in the East, so theres a lot of undiscovered stuff out here.

The group tries to do at least two investigations a month, and most of the hauntings seem to be of residential homes. Theres a lot of debunking that goes on in residential homes, she said, adding that the genuine ghost activity they do find usually is quite rambunctious. In one home her group was called to investigate, for instance, the homeowners had been attacked and scratched by unseen entities. When the investigators showed up, they told the spirits that they would have to leave the house, because it now belonged to the living people who currently resided there. Things quieted down after that, said Morin, whos experienced quite a few weird things since she started investigating with her dad.

Morins first paranormal experience happened when she was just seventeen. She was living with her father in Virginia at the time. Her fathers house was nestled in a neighborhood that sat near an old Indian trail, she said, and she often wondered about the trails history. What were the Indians like who once lived there and used the trail? One night she found out. She got out of bed to use the bathroom and was startled by the apparition of a large Indian standing in the hallway. It was a full-bodied apparition, Morin said. I could see the paint on his chest, everything. I turned away for a moment, and when I looked back, he was gone.

Morin, who described the experience in a phone interview on July 10, 2012, said the Indians spirit was a calming presence. She didnt feel any fear or threat during the encounter. It was her dads basement that frightened her, a room she would not visit by herself. Whatever was going on in the basement was the exact opposite [of what I felt with the Indian spirit]. I never went into the basement alone.

There are few explanations for the sighting of an apparition. Was Morin dreaming or sleepwalking when she encountered the alleged Indian spirit? No, she said. She was fully awake. Her bladder told her so, which is why she rose from bed in the first place.

She shared the experience with her dad, and they started talking about lifes paranormal mysteries. Because her dad was a Civil War buff who had visited Gettysburg on numerous occasions, often touring its allegedly haunted sites, they decided to start ghost hunting together. When Morin moved to Nampa, Idaho, a year later, she joined PII. Her curiosity for exploring the unknown hasnt left her, and shes had many experiences with the unexplained since that night at her dads Virginia home.

Thats how it is with some people. For some reason theyre attuned to the supernatural, while others are numb to such experiences and sensations. What is it that makes certain people receptive to paranormal activity and others ignorant of it?

And what is it about places? Why are some places more haunted than others? Morin says its about the people. Plain and simple, Idaho doesnt have as many as other states. But I disagree with Morin on one account: There is no dearth of ghost stories here. I found enough to fill this book and had to leave others to float in the recesses of my own mind or computer files.