Philip J. Imbrogno - Haunted Files from the Edge: A Paranormal Investigators Explorations Into Infamous Legends & Extraordinary Manifestations

About the Author

Philip J. Imbrogno has researched UFOs and other paranormal phenomena for more than thirty years and is recognized as an authority in the field. A retired science educator who taught earth science, astronomy, and chemistry for thirty-one years, he has been int erviewed by the New York Times and Coast to Coast AM , has appeared on The Today Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show , and has been featured in documentaries on the History Channel, A&E, Lifetime, and HBO. Imbrogno worked closely with many top UFO investigators, including Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Budd Hopkins.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Haunted Files from the Edge: A Paranormal Investigators Explorations into Infamous Legends & Extraordinary Manifestations 2012 by Philip J. Imbrogno.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the authors copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition 2012

E-book ISBN: 9780738731469

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Cover images: House: iStockphoto.com/Shaun Lowe
Ghost: iStockphoto.com/Ivan Bliznetsov
Window: iStockphoto.com/Shelly Perry
Stairway: iStockphoto.com/Giorgio Fochesato
Man: iStockphoto.com/Cameron Whitman
Opened tomb: iStockphoto.com/Csaba Peterdi

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publishers website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

: In the Shadow of Science

: Domestic Terror

: Angry and Friendly Spirits

: Ghosts of Sleepy Hollow

: The Curse of the Green Witch

: Extraordinary Manifestations

: Haunted Places

: Ghosts of the Alamo

: The Curse of Owlsbury

: Out of Time and Place

: Lands of Dreams and Visions

: The Unseen Universe

Preface

The world of the paranormal is quite fascinating to explore, since it takes us outside of what we call normal everyday experiences. When dealing with the unknown, many people look upon it as an exciting adventure, much like the seafarers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who sailed across the stormy Atlantic with hopes of making magnificent discoveries in strange new lands. The alien lands that existed beyond the Pillars of Hercules across the great ocean were very different from those explorers home countries. They were full of wonders beyond the sailors wildest dreams and were full of unimaginable dangers.

These brave explorers of long ago had a burning curiosity and an insatiable appetite for knowledge and new discoveries. This was the driving force that made them want to see what was over the next horizon.

In many ways, we who research and investigate paranormal events are like those great seafaring adventurers of old. The difference is we are not looking for new lands to discover, but a new reality that lies just beyond normal human perception.

In the Beginning

My interest in the paranormal began at a very early age. I paid many visits to my local library, reading books and magazines, and at home I watched all the television shows that dealt with the strange and unusual. Although I watched every type of paranormal presentation, my main interest was and still is the UFO phenomenon.

Who wouldnt be interested in such a topic? The thought of an alien intelligence visiting Planet Earth for scientific exploration in fantastic spaceships with exotic propulsion systems would inspire the imagination of any young person. Then one day my interest in hauntings and ghosts was triggered by one popular writer at the time by the name of Hans Holzer.

Born in 1920, Holzer was one of the most prolific and popular paranormal researchers and writers of the twentieth century. A member of both the American Society for Psychical Research and the British Society for Psychical Research, as well as the executive vice president of the Center for Paranormal Studies, in the late 1970s Holzer became research director of the New York Committee for the Investigation of Paranormal Occurrences.

He wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles on psychic phenomena and related subjects. Through the 1970s he turned out numerous books on ghosts, the occult, and psychical topics that reached a popular audience. At his peak he wrote three to four books a year. Several of his books helped promote the spread of Wiccan and Pagan beliefs. In the early 1980s Holzer wrote two books about the so-called Amityville Horror: The Secret of Amityville and The Amityville Curse.

After reading several of his books and watching a number of television specials that focused on his investigations of haunted places, I was intrigued. Holzer was, in my opinion, the first real ghost hunter, and although much of his work is criticized today, it was his passion that fueled my interest in this phenomenon. Today, as a result of his early explorations, I have become a more seasoned researcher. My ability as an investigator was enhanced, as I looked at the broader picture and not a small part of it.

Over the course of my thirty-plus years in this field, I have seen researchers (including yours truly) who were once wide-eyed weekend investigators probing the darkness with the hope of shedding some light on the focus of their passion evolve into seasoned investigators with professional backgrounds using their skills to explore and document a new frontier.

Documenting a Hidden Reality

During my three-plus decades of investigating the paranormal, I have collected a great deal of data. For the most part, paranormal researchers do not actually investigate the paranormal directly; they study the reports of such events that have been experienced by other people.

Although I was fortunate enough to have witnessed a number of ghostly manifestations during my investigations, most of my work has been collected from the accounts of credible people who in my opinion experienced something truly incredible.

At the conclusion of each investigation, each individual case study was placed in a large binder and kept in my office, where they remained for years. At the time I really didnt know what to do with many of the more bizarre cases or how they applied to my main interestthe UFO phenomenon.

Although I collected a considerable number of paranormal reports made by excellent witnesses, I classified such cases as being High in Strangeness. In other words, these were experiences that were so bizarre that even true believers found them difficult to accept and impossible to explain. After cataloging and looking over the hundreds of High Strangeness case studies I had collected over the years, it was clear they had great diversity and spanned the entire paranormal spectrum. I feel it is important that the most well documented of these files be released to educate and inform the general public concerning experiences of a growing number of people who honestly believe they have had a brush with another reality.