The Dyatlov Pass Incident

The Dyatlov Pass Incident is, in the my opinion, one of the most intriguing unsolved mysteries in history.

A group of ten skiers set out on an expedition through the Ural Mountains in Russia on January 25, 1959. After one of the party, Yuri Yudin, fell ill and turned back, the remaining skiers went off course and were forced to make camp on the side of the mountain Khloat Syakhl (Mountain of the Dead) on February 1. It was on the night of February 2 when things went horribly wrong. 

The expedition party's tent, February 26, 1959.

It was almost a month later when search parties discovered their tent. The tent had been torn down and evidently slashed open from the inside. Following the trail of footprints leading away from the tent, they soon found the bodies of five of the skiers scattered throughout the forest near the camp. They had all died of hypothermia. Some of them were partially clothed, suggesting that they left the tent in such a hurry that they could not get dressed. 

A strange, out-of-focus picture taken from the camera
of one of the victims. Were they trying to show us something?

Things got much stranger when the other four bodies were found in May. One died from the cold, but one was killed by trauma to the skull and two others by severe chest fractures typically associated with people involved in auto accidents. The tongue of one of the victims had also mysteriously vanished. There were no other footprints in the snow to suggest that they were attacked and, to add one more mystery to the disaster, testing showed that some of the clothing wore by the victims were highly irradiated. 

So many things about what happened that night remain unexplained. What drove these people out of their tents to freeze to death? Who or what could have inflicted the fatal wounds without leaving any evidence behind? What is the meaning behind the radiation and the missing tongue? Are there answers out there or is this truly unsolvable?

John Keel's Mothman Prophecies

I just finished reading The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel. If you're interested in Mothman or UFOs, this is a great book to read.

Let me start out by saying that the title of the book is a little misleading. Sightings of the Mothman are brought up but the entity itself is not focused on too much. The book is more about the various mysteries surrounding Point Pleasant as a whole.

Possible Mothman sighting

Throughout1967, the sleepy town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia was plagued by many unusual occurrences. Unidentified flying objects and unexplained lights appeared in the sky regularly, bizarre strangers in black suits began showing up in town, and a six-foot-tall, gray creature with glowing red eyes and wings was seen repeatedly over the course of the year. Some people were even contacted by aliens who claimed to know the future. These things continued to happen until the tragic collapse of The Silver Bridge on December 15, 1967.

The fact that the author of the book was actually investigating Point Pleasant at the time when all of this was happening lends a lot of authenticity to the book. The narrative is centered around facts, dates, actual events, and interviews with eyewitnesses, but Keel manages to make the story seem much more like a fictional thriller than a textbook. My only minor gripe about his writing style is that he seems digress from the main narrative a little too frequently (although these tangents are usually relevant and always interesting).

Keel spent several years researching and writing the book. In the book, he explains his theory that the aliens who contacted these people are actually entities that use hypnosis and forms of propaganda to perpetuate the myth of aliens for some unknown purpose. This theory is a little far fetched for me, but it suppose it can't be ruled out.

I came away from The Mothman Prophecies feeling inspired. Writing an investigative piece on a paranormal phenomena like this would be a dream come true to me. It's just too bad that nothing this strange ever happens in Michigan.

Bowers Harbor Inn

Image: Bowers Harbor Inn

Bowers Harbor Inn – Traverse City

Another well-known haunting in Michigan is the Bowers Harbor Inn. It’s located on the Old Mission Peninsula just north of Traverse City and it overlooks West Grand Traverse Bay. According to the Inn’s website, it was originally built in 1885 as a summer home for J.W. Stickney, a wealthy Chicago industrialist.

After Stickney’s death, he left the house to his wife, Genevieve, while his mistress, Genevieve’s former nurse, got Stickney's entire fortune. It is said that this betrayal led Genevive to hang herself in the elevator shaft of the house.

Since then, the building has become a bed and breakfast hotel.

According to hauntedhouses.com, there has been a steady flow of supernatural activity at the Inn since Genevieve’s death in the earlier part of the 20^th century. Doors slamming and inanimate objects being thrown are common occurrences.

There have also been manifestations of the deceased. The most notable instance took place in 1964. A woman who was staying there was looking into a mirror on the second floor of the inn. The gilded mirror, which belonged to Genevieve, was designed to make the subject look thinner. As the guest admired herself into the mirror, she saw a woman standing behind her. She turned around to find that there was no one there. The reflection she saw matches descriptions of Genevieve.

I would like to investigate Bower’s Harbor Inn myself, but I’m too busy with work right now. I’ll go there at some point, though.

http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/mi/bowers_harbor_inn.htm

Holy Cross Orphanage

Holy Cross Orphanage/Old City Orphanage – Marquette Michigan

The Holy Cross Orphanage (sometimes called the Old City Orphanage) in Marquette, Mich. is considered to be one of the most haunted sites in the state. According to a 2007 article in The Marquette Monthly, the orphanage, located on the corner of Altamont and Fisher Street, was opened in 1915 and still stands today. The rundown building was abandoned in 1965 and is closed to the public.

When the orphanage was open, the nuns there were notorious for their strict, even cruel, punishments. Many children who grew up at Holy Cross have said that the sisters were abusive toward them.

 Image: Irisarbor

A number of investigations at Holy Cross have turned up evidence of paranormal activity and there are several stories of children who died in the orphanage. However, because there are no names or dates to go with the stories and the possibility of a cover-up, there is really no way to verify these rumors.

According to an article by photographer Ray Anthony, one of the children at the orphanage died from pneumonia after wandering outside in a winter storm. Supposedly, when the body was recovered, the sisters put the child’s body on display in the lobby to scare the children into obedience. Another legend describes a drowned child whose body was hidden in the basement of the building by the sinister sisterhood. A variation of this story blames the boy’s death on a beating he received from one of the nuns, according to minbcnews.com.

Strange occurrences at the Holy Cross Orphanage include unexplained lights and a ghostly apparition of the drowned boy seen in the basement late at night. Witnesses have described the ghost boy as being surrounded by a green glow.

mincbnews
http://www.minbcnews.com/community/story.aspx?id=193306#.T72ApkWvKSp

Ray Anthony’s Article
http://www.examiner.com/article/halloween-exclusive-marquette-s-paranormal-holy-cross-orphanage

The Search Continues

I’ve been researching supposedly haunted places in and around Flint. Honestly, none of them really come across as credible to me. I even scouted a couple of the places, like the Dryden building and Capitol Theater, but I didn’t get the impression of anything supernatural.

If anyone has suggestions of genuinely haunted places in town, please leave a comment and fill me in.

For now, I think I’ll just look into some other hauntings around the state and I’ll visit them when I get a chance.

Intro

My name's David Rafferty. I'm an online journalism student at the University of Michigan Flint. My advisor  suggested starting a blog to showcase my writing skills, so here it is.

After a lot of indecision about the topic, I settled on the paranormal. I've always been really interested in that sort of thing and I figured that I could start off by investigating some local haunted houses. I'll be sure to post what I come up with in the next couple of weeks.