The 15-room house  was built in 1902 by William D. and Clara Chiles and joined by a large barn and other outbuildings on the cemetery-adjacent property, which today is located at 2411 East 8th Street and known as Sunrise Farm. 

The property remained in the Chiles family until the early 1960s, when the house and about five acres of surrounding land were purchased by Larry Z. McFarland, an anatomy professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. He lived in the home with his wife, Sonia, and three children, Michael, Kenneth and Nina.

By April 7, 1972, Larry and Sonia McFarland had separated, and Larry McFarland had moved into an apartment at 1521 E. Eighth St., just a few blocks from the house. That day he flew kites with his children, and made plans to go fishing the next day with his sons and father-in-law, who lived nearby in El Macero. That night Sonia McFarland put Kenneth, 10, and Nina, 9 — both students at Birch Lane Elementary School — to bed for the night, while Michael, 14, attended his first dance at Holmes Junior High School. She picked him up from the dance at about 10:45 and returned to the Chiles Mansion at about 11 p.m.

The Davis Fire Department received a call at 11:50 p.m., reporting that the Chiles Mansion was totally engulfed in flames. The entire home was gutted before the flames were controlled and firefighters could enter. In the master bedroom, they found the charred bodies of Sonia McFarland and the three children lying face up on a bed, with the body of Larry McFarland, 41, slumped over them. Several of the bodies, including Larry McFarland’s, bore gunshot wounds. An empty gasoline can was found near the front door, along with evidence that fires had been set in four or five locations downstairs.

Investigators found a two-page, eight-paragraph, handwritten note titled “last will and testament” in Larry McFarland’s pickup truck, which was parked nearby. “I am taking the life of myself and my family in the belief that a family should remain together in life or in death,” the note read. Other portions of the note, which had been carefully signed by McFarland on each page, designated McFarland’s mother as the sole beneficiary of his estate, and stated that the bodies should be cremated and buried together in Davis Cemetery. The note was dated April 7, 1972.

After a lengthy court process, Mary Bado Simmons, the mother of Sonia McFarland and grandmother of Michael, Kenneth and Nina, won the ability to not bury their remains with “the murderer.” She also won full legal rights to the property.

The house was never rebuilt. All that remains are the surrounding sidewalks, as well as barns and other outbuildings. Mary Bado Simmons kept the entire property in an undeveloped state as a memorial to her grandchildren, son-in-law and daughter.

The grounds are still haunted to this day by the ghost of Larry McFarland as well as it’s original owners William D. and Clara Chiles. This property is depressing and the ghosts live in torrment.

The Plas Teg house in Pontblyddyn, near Mold, Flintshire, is one of the most haunted homes in all of Britain in fact spirts here are so overwhelming anybody who is sensitive to the spirit world should avoid this location.

The most notorious ghost that lives here is Judge George Jeffreys nicknamed “Hanging Judge Jeffreys”  because of the punishment he handed out at the trials of the supporters of the Duke of Monmouth.

As far as the home goes one of the downstairs rooms are the most active, the “dining room” was where the criminals were sentenced before being sent into an adjoining room to be hanged.  In this room, below the hanging gallows, was a trap door in which the bodies dropped through, to be collected later through a small side door by the relatives.  The staircase is next to this room and this is where you will see most of the spirits.

If your looking for the judge be sure to check out the Regency room he tends to hang out here and get into fights with a ghost named Sir John Trevor who is  bound to the room.

Overall the location is great to meet a wide varity of spirits but be sure to bring some aspren.

Legendary pirate Edward Teach is still as colorful an individual as ever and calls Beaufort, North Carolina home. Blackbeard’s main place of residency is at the Hammock House his former home when he was alive. The house boasts a 300 year old cemetery in which Teach’s 18 year old French common-law wife was hung from a oak tree in and is buried.
Blackbeard is actually a very well educated man and most of the legends of how barbaric he was are completely fabricated on his end in order to drive fear into the hearts of his “victims”. However in the afterlife he has turned into the person he wanted people to believe he was because of his violent death in which he was shot five times and stabbed more than twenty times before he died and was decapitated.
Teach loves to hang out at the house and sit looking out over what is now Taylor’s creek. However if you do come across him I suggest you RUN!!!

OK, I’ve been going back and forth on if I should place this post on the internet or not and I have reluctantly decided to go ahead and make this post.

I’m saddened to write this post and I hope that my source is wrong. I have been told that pop star Britney Spears is being accompanied by two troublesome ghost’s one named Artie and the other James. These two ghosts tend to only hang around a person who is extremely depressed and considering suicide. They love to try to push people’s buttons and drive them over the edge usually resulting in a violent suicide such as a gunshot or a long leap off of a tall building.

I really hope Britney is able to get past this because she has so much to live for. Sorry for this semi off topic post but I just felt the need to post it.

People have been fascinated by castles for thousands of years, offering a gothic allure, being surrounded by myths or supposedly frequented by ghosts. In Europe, numerous castles are recognised as being haunted by ghosts, vampires or witches. If you would like to experience how real these ghost encounters really are, here are five of the most haunted castles in Europe!

1. The Bran Castle, Transylvania, Romania
Situated deep inside the Carpathian Mountains, the castle which is over a thousand years old is best celebrated as being Dracula’s Castle. In the 1400s. Vlad III Dracul is probably among the most infamous images of cruelty, due to his preferred method of torture, the impalement. Only the cruelness does not end here. Dracula preferred some even more gruesome tortures, including pounding nails into the thief’s head, hacking off limbs, blinding, and strangulation, burning or boiled alive, scalping or skinning alive. The castle is filled with instruments from the time of Vlad, being a museum for over forty years now.

2. Windsor Castle, London, England
Home of the present Queen of England, the Windsor castle is over 900 years old, and it is host to several ghosts from England’s past. King Henry VIII has been seen walking the hallways of the castle. Many guests said they heard footsteps, agonizing moans on several occasions coming from the castle’s corridors. Some people said they even saw Queen Elizabeth I in the Royal Library, in a black gown walking about. The first Duke of Buckingham, Sir George Villiers, is known to haunt one of the castle’s bedrooms, while the Long Walk is filled with wondering spirits.

3. Dragsholm Slot, Sealand, Denmark
Constructed in the twelfth century, the Dragsholm castle was home to kings and noble families has now been converted into a hotel, home to three ghosts: a gray lady, a white one and the ghost of the Earl of Bothwell. The gray lady is said to be a maiden that worked in the castle, while the white lady is the daughter of one of the owners of the castle. Her father caught her in love with a common man and imprisoned her in the castle’s dungeons. In 1930, while building new toilets for the castles, the workers found a skeleton with a white dress imprisoned in the wall.

4. Edinburgh Castle, Scotland
Located on a volcano that turned into a rock, the castle is the center of Scottish history for over 800 years now. After a terrifying plague, officials decided to build the new city over the remains of the old one. The Underground city was discovered in 1990 perfectly preserved while some people were renovating a home. There have been stories of people grabbed by icy hands, shows of light of unknown origin or voices heard throughout the grounds.

5. Ballygally Castle, Ireland
Built in 1625, the Ballygally Castle has now been turned to a hotel, occasionally haunted by Lady Shaw, a former lady of the Castle. She  loves knocking at the doors of various hotel rooms and finds it amusing when guests find no one there. Ballygally is located near the Giant’s Causeway, offering superb views of the Antrim Mountains and the Irish Sea.

I read this article in the telegraph and thought I’d share

Round-the-world flying adventurer Steve Fossett may have faked his own death, investigators have claimed.

Fossett, a friend of Virgin boss Richard Branson, and the first man to fly non-stop round the earth in a hot air balloon, went missing last September when his final flight in a light plane over the Nevada desert went missing.

However, Lieutenant Colonel Cynthia Ryan of the US Civil Air Patrol has said Fossett, whose body or plane was never found, could still be alive.

She said: “I’ve been doing this search and rescue for 14 years. Fossett should have been found.

“It’s not like we didn’t have our eyes open. We found six other planes while we were looking for him. We’re pretty good at what we do.”

Fossett’s disappearance sparked the biggest search in American history, with the Civil Air Patrol’s Black Hawks, fitted with infra-red technology, joined by over 30 private planes and internet experts scanning the Nevada desert looking for clues.

Lt Col Ryan believes Fossett may have faked his own death due to personal problems or fears about his business dealings.

There are also a number of anomalies that question whether Fossett’s plane ever crashed.

Only one witness, a pilot at hotel magnate Barron Hilton’s flying ranch near Reno, claims to have seen him take off that day.

That witness claims Fossett asked him to prepare the plane for take off, even though he had never allowed anyone else to do this before.

Fossett also apparently claimed he was going to scout for locations for a land speed record attempt, but he supposedly took off with no emergency equipment.

The choice of plane was also a baffling one – a Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon, which, according to risk assessor Robert Davis said was constructed from a steel and wood frame, but actually covered in fabric, making it easy to dismantle.

Davis conducted an eight-month investigation for insurers Lloyd’s of London, said to face a £25 million payout on Fossett’s death.

He said: “What I’ve strived to find out is what happened to this man in the run-up to his disappearance, why did he disappear?

“I spoke to reporters who were on the scene, people who were helping out with the search efforts, anyone whom I thought could shed some light on this.

“I discovered that there is absolutely no proof that Steve Fossett is actually dead. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I’m a man who deals in facts, and I don’t really care if he is alive or dead, it make no difference to me.

“What I am interested in is the truth – and a proper criminal investigation of this man’s disappearance was never undertaken by law enforcement or officials in the state of Nevada.”

To me this would explain why I can’t seem to contact him.

People have been emailing me asking

What ever happend to brian on ghost hunters international?

Just to be clear I have nothing to do with Ghost hunters or ghost hunters international however I did some research and learned the following:

Brian was a member of the Ghost Hunters International on the SciFi Channel. He announced his departure from GHI on Beware Radio 7/23/2008 He left the show on April 12, 2008 to spend more time with his family. He also announced that he has retired from ghost hunting and is pursuing another career path.

I thought I would put in my 2 cents about the people who claim to have found a bigfoot body in Georgia. I will eat my laptop if this claim is true and here is why.

1) The group did a bigfoot hoax before

2) This time the “Scientist” that was supposed to be an expert was really a brother of one of the groups members pretending to be an expert.

3) Press conference seems like they were just trying to get listeners to the radio show they have

4) Leading experts still not contacted

5) The photo’s look like a Chewbacca costume with a worn out Gorilla mask and guts thrown on top for good measure.

Borley Rectory bears the dubious distinction of Great Britain’s most haunted home. In perspective, there’s nothing extraordinary about the case. There are the typical sightings of apparitions, cold spots, poltergeist-like activity and a legend enshrouded in mystery. Even the building’s physical appearance bestows itself nicely to the legend. What is extraordinary is the excessive amount of press coverage and attention it’s received, primarily due to the personal involvement and intervention of the celebrated English “ghosthunter”, Harry Price (founder of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research of London).

The site of Borley, (around sixty miles north east of London in the Essex countryside), was first noted in the 1066 Doomsday Book where a Borley Manor was situated – it follows that a wooden church would probably have been built on the site. It’s history is shrouded in myth and mystery, but the first indication that something was amiss on the site of Borley was in 1362 when a Benedictine monk attempted to elope by horse drawn coach, with a nun from the nearby nunnery. Their plans were thwarted – the monk was hanged and the nun was bricked up alive in the walls of the nunnery.

The red brick building that was Borley Rectory was built by Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull (rector of Borley) in 1863, who later settled there with his wife, Caroline Foyster (where she mothered 14 children).

In time, witnesses reported seeing stones being thrown from some invisible source, ghostly footsteps were heard and the specter of a nun, the most reported event at Borley, began to be seen, often in broad daylight and on a stretch of ground to be named the “nuns walk”. On July 28, 1900, three daughters of Henry Bull saw the nun and, assuming she was flesh and blood, went to greet her as a guest on the grounds – she mysteriously disappeared. The nun was also seen standing by a gatepost on four separate occasions by a passing carpenter.

It was in 1928 when the full haunting of Borley Rectory got underway. ( This is also the time when Harry Price became involved – Price was later to be accused of fraud). The Bull family had died one by one, or moved away, and after a short period standing empty the Reverend Guy Smith and wife took up residence.

Immediately, there were reports of whispers in the night, the sound of footsteps, objects being thrown at guests, illumination from dark rooms, two maids saw the apparition of the nun and even a phantom coach was seen. The words ‘Don’t Carlos, don’t’ were, reportedly, wailed late at night on more than one occasion – Carlos was the nickname for Henry Bull.
borley2

In 1929, and at their wits end, the Smiths contacted the Daily Mirror, a British journal, requesting help. Harry Price then invited himself to the Rectory to carry out a full investigation. On their first visit the group, comprised of Price, his secretary and a reporter, all witnessed what they described as “poltergeist activity”, spontaneous displacement of inanimate objects, strange odors, cold spots and the sound of galloping horses to name but a few. Most notably, the Daily Mirror reporter, Mr. C.V.Wall, saw the nun. Within a year, the Smith family left the Borley Rectory forever, dismissing their move as forced ‘due to a lack of amenities’.

In October of the same year, the Reverend Lionel Algernon Foyster, wife Marianne and daughter Adelaide moved in. Within a year, the activity increased to such an extent that, after a visit from Harry Price he voiced his fears for the family’s safety. Reportedly, the phenomena had become more violent and Marianne appeared to be the “focus” of the attacks. She was assaulted at least twice, once being struck in the face, another time being flung from her bed after an “exorcism”. Perhaps the most interesting paranormal evidence came in the form of notes and wall writings addressed to Marianne. During the investigative period, Price claimed that at least 2000 separate paranormal events had taken place.
borley3

Not surprisingly, in 1935 the Foysters left Borley Rectory and two years later Harry Price leased the house for a year. He conducted endless experiments and vigils but the activity appeared to have subsided considerably. At this time Price was accused of fraud on several occasions (Price was allegedly caught with a pocketful of pebbles after a short pebble throwing, assumedly paranormal, episode concluded.

After a séance on March 27, a message was received that ‘Sunex Amures and one of his men ‘ would burn down the rectory that very night. Nothing happened that evening but on February 27,1939 a fire broke out at midnight and razed the building to the ground.

To this day the site that Borley Rectory occupied holds a certain mystique for parapsychologists and psychic researchers. It is unlikely that all the reported events at Borley were fraudulent, but there is evidence and testimony to bring ALL of Harry Price’s conclusions into question. All the families leaving the rectory claimed that their decision was in no way related to any strange activity regardless how it was reported in the press. Of course it is entirely possible the families were seeking to avoid potential ridicule and harassment they may have received for supporting such incredible claims. Unfortunately, as Borley Rectory no longer stands no one will ever know the truth, only the legend remains – a fitting epilogue for Britain’s most haunted house.

Back in the early 1800′s. Australia was then a rough, rugged and mostly unsettled wild country. It was then full of convicts who had been shipped to Australia for punishment for crimes such as stealing loaves of bread, murder and any other acts deemed as criminal.

Frederick George James Fisher was a 35 year old ticket-of leave man who originally came to Australia from England as a convict. He left England on a ship named the ‘Atlas’, and arrived in the colony in 1816. Soon after he acquired his ticket of leave. A ticket-of leave was something convicts, who were particularly well behaved, could gain for themselves to be able to buy themselves land and settle without being imprisoned.

He soon bought 30 acres of land in Campbelltown, the house being close to the spot which the Old Post Office now occupies. His property extended out to and ended at the Bow Bowing creek line.

Fisher’s close friend, confidant and neighbor was a man named George Worrall, who was also a ticket-of-leave man. He rented the property next door to Fisher and envied his prosperous neighbor.

At one time, Fisher got into debt and counted on his best friend Worrall to help him out. He signed over his property to Worrall to either stop it from being seized by the law or to give the impression he had no assets. Fisher was then arrested and sent to Jail. Worrall was noted to be boasting at this time how his own land had suddenly increased by 30 acres. He was heard to say “It’s all mine now…..all that was Fred’s…..he give it to me ‘afore he went to prison,’.

Fisher was released 6 months later and did the natural thing, returned to claim his property back off Worrall.

Frederick Fisher then suddenly and mysteriously disappeared on June 17, 1826. The last that was seen of him was by Jane Hopkins on June 17th, 1826, who saw Fisher give money to some men who worked on his farm to buy drink.

Worrall, while walking around town wearing Fishers pants, told a story of how Fisher supposedly returned back to Sydney and then sailed back to England on the Lord St Vincent and had therefore left Worrall in charge of his estate. The story was soon investigated and it was discovered that no ship by that name was docked at Sydney. Suspicion turned on Worrall as to mysterious disappearance of Fisher.

Over the years there have been many people who have seen the ghost of Fisher usually on cool nights sitting on a fence post near his land or hanging out at Fishers Creek singing. Fisher is Australia’s most famous ghost because he has been seen by hundreds of people.