Recap

Voices of the Dead

Brendan Cook and Barbara McBeath from the Ghost Investigators Society returned with a new selection of actual recorded voices of ghosts, known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). This time out they brought several recordings taken at an abandoned mental hospital.

Cook described a particularly disturbing EVP from the mental hospital as the "oddest recording that we have ever recorded." In the nearly two minute clip, the voice of a young child can be heard saying, "Help me, can't breathe, I couldn't breathe." Other voices come in as the child continues to call out "I can't breathe," followed by the sound of water thrashing, a thud, then silence. Cook claims that at the time of the recording no children were present and there has been no running water in the facility for almost 20 years.

Cook believes the recording is a residual of the traumatic event that was somehow caught in the atmosphere and gets played back from time to time. McBeath is not convinced the recording represents a residual haunting, since according to her research, residual hauntings are always at the location where the event took place. She said there is no evidence that bath tubs or a pool were ever in this room, though she admitted the building's basement does contain an old well.

Special Note: Brendan Cook will be presenting a free EVP seminar at the 2005 Annual Paranormal Researchers Convention during September 9 - 11, 2005.

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Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II died Saturday night in his Vatican apartment, ending a long struggle with a series of debilitating illnesses. He was 84. The charismatic pontiff led the Roman Catholic Church for 26 years and is credited for helping topple communism in Europe.

Catholics around the world united in prayer and mourned his loss from St. Peter's Square to St. Mary's church in the Pope's birthplace of Wadowice, Poland. John Paul II was the first non-Italian to lead the world's 1 billion Catholics in more than 450 years.

No autopsy will be performed on the Pope's body and, according to Church rules, the Pope's mourning rites will last for 9 days. His body is likely to be laid to rest in the crypt underneath St. Peter's Basilica.