What better way to end an awesome day at Flagler's Florida Heritage Book Festival than to embark on a GHOST HUNT with St. Augustine's Ghost Girl!
With the full moon above, Carol, Melanie, Taira, and I strolled along Aviles Street, approaching Antiques & Uniques Collectibles only minutes before the witching hour. Cellar 6 across the cobblestone street was in full swing. Music blared as pretty people danced and drank... but we couldn't be distracted (for long) because our long awaited Para-Force Investigation was about to begin!
We were promptly greeted by our guide Heather, a.k.a. St. Augustine's Ghost Girl, who graciously shared the history of the building and immediate surrounding area. The building is in the process of renovation. Nothing new, as it has served many functions including a small city jail many, many moons ago.
We did an initial sweep of the property, walking through the charming storefront with Elvis's eyes following us into The Record Room to the rear left corner of the store. The name says it all. It's basically a storage/display area filled with crates of records, cd's, and collectible recordings. In this room dwells Henri, a friendly Haitian Slave spirit who provides comfort and protection for the patrons and staff of Antiques & Uniques Collectibles. Too bad he's not the only presence lingering in that room...
The room to the right rear corner of the building is referred to as The Library because it holds many rare and out-of-print books, among the army of porcelain dolls standing watch. But we weren't there to shop. This room had two other doors, and first we chose to see what was behind door number one. It was The Library's back door leading directly into The Garage where the ripe and rude Mr. Creepy resides. It was brutally humid in there, and I felt nauseous so I left the area early, choosing to wait in The Library, a room that once served as a holding cell for petty criminals and drunkards.
After smelling Mr. Creepy's "swamp butt stench", my friends were ready to pass under the wooden cross affixed to The Library's ceiling as we entered doorway number two: The Closet. Legend has it that The Closet is where 4 children were locked away by an abusive man (most likely suspect: Mr. Creepy). Often people experience child-like activity and moving toys while investigating The Closet. But, wait. There's more to The Closet. After all, that's where skeletons are hidden, right? People from all over log in to upstream.com watch the 24-hour GHOST-CAM surveillance of The Closet since it's widely thought to be a vortex or a portal for an ever renewing surge of spirits entering our physical world.
Once we finished our brief tour, we returned to the front counter where Tim, a youthful prankster spirit, enjoys communicating through games and toys, of which there were no shortage of in this nostalgic treasure chest! We can attest that Tim, or another spirit, rolled a baseball on the countertop for us, and three times sent the white toy truck wheeling off the counter to land neatly in the basket below.
Now that we'd heard the stories and were familiar with the layout, it was up to us to decide where to start investigating! Wanting to start with a benign presence, we chose The Record Room with Henri. Armed with an Ovilus, a Rem Pod, a spirit box, E.D.I. multi-meter, laser thermal reader, and an EM pump, we asked Henri to demonstrate his presence by lowering the ambient temperature as reported by the E.D.I. multi-meter. When we began, the temperature reading was 79.9 degrees, and we asked for the temperature to reach 77.7 degrees. It took several minutes to achieve, but you can see in the video it finally happened. However, we're not convinced that Henri was the only ghost in the room, much less the spirit responsible for the temperature fluctuation! There seems to be an unnamed and unfriendly female spirit who others have encountered, as well. Some of our experience with her is documented by video when we went live on facebook. Follow the links to the videos.
Over the course of nearly 5 hours, we investigated each room, though dying cell phone batteries limited our facebook live posts. We do, however, have a link to the upstream.com feed of when we spent time in The Closet.
You'll see energy ribbons, and orbs at various times throughout our time there, and Melanie and Taira felt the cob-webby feelings of being touched while we sat there. Also, we witnessed a single strand of a wind-chime begin to steadily sway for several minutes before coming to a complete stop. I wish I was able to take more pictures and videos, but, alas... my phone was quickly dying. By the end of the night, we walked away with more believers than non-believers... and for me, LOTS of research accomplished!
Boo, for now!
