The Meeting

Today I finally got to meet the people I have been talking to online. A couple of days ago Peter, the reporter, suggested we all get together, so we decided on today at noon in Jay's Daily Grind. I was nervous, because meeting everyone in person made the whole thing seem more real. People talk about crazy things online all the time, but meeting up with strangers to talk about paranormal activity in a coffee shop felt like a point of no return.
Things were a little awkward at first. The five of us (me, Peter, Tim, Alcyone, and Agnes) huddled around a table in the corner to ensure privacy. No one really seemed to know what to say at first. Alcyone finally broke the ice by talking about her knowledge of spectral activity and sharing some of her own paranormal experiences. She seems more comfortable discussing the supernatural than the rest of us. After that, one by one, each of us shared our own experiences and opinions on the existence of ghosts.
After talking for around two hours, we decided it was time to take action. We agreed to conduct an official investigation of a supposedly haunted location, Hotel Morgan. Up until this point, all of our paranormal experiences had been completely unexpected and out of our control. As a result, it is hard to determine how much of what we saw was real or the product of fear and panic. Hopefully, since we're going to the hotel in search of paranormal activity, we'll be able to record and process anything we see more reliably and rationally. I jokingly suggested we should give ourselves a group name like those douchey ghost hunter guys on tv, and everyone really jumped on the idea. So, after a few minutes of deliberation, we decided to call ourselves the Morgantown Association of Paranormal Investigators (MAPI). I guess that makes everything official.

Reported Hauntings

I’ve been talking to my online friends a lot lately. We’ve come up with a list of possible haunted locations. We plan on visiting all of these places and trying to determine whether the hauntings are real or just the result of overactive imaginations. I know Alcyone believes in paranormal activity, but I’m not sure about the other 3. As for me, I’ve come to the conclusion that I truly did encounter the ghosts of murdered college students, and I’m ready to prove that the paranormal exists.

Cheat Lake (obviously)
Hotel Morgan
Morgantown Public Library
East Boreman
Oak Grove Cemetery
West Run Road
Peirpont Apartments
Seneca Center
East Moore Hall-Elizabeth Moore's ghost spotted hovering over pool.
WVU Library
Gobblers Knob

More on My Ghosts

So, it occurred to me that if I did in fact encounter ghosts, then there might be a record of their deaths. I assumed they probably died at the same time since they prowl around together and suffer from the same injuries. As it turns out, my hunch was accurate. After a little bit of googling, I discovered my ghosts' real names: Karen Ferrell and Mared Malarik. In 1970, the 19 year old WVU students decided to hitchhike from dowtown Morgantown to their Evansdale dorm. They disappeard, and their decapitated bodies were found 3 months later. Eventually, 36 year old Eugene Paul Clawson was sentenced to life in prison for their murders. However, their heads were never found. Here are the links to the articles about the investigation and Clawson's trial.

 http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19761030&id=LuZdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GF8NAAAAIBAJ&pg=4367,4335466


  http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19761113&id=jUViAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MXcNAAAAIBAJ&pg=3370,1937890

Coping With Crazy

It's been three days since I got up close and personal with two headless ghosts in the woods near Cheat Lake. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to cope with this. I've changed (because I'm scarred for life) but no one else has. I mean, the only people I've talked about my experience with are strangers from the internet. I guess I talked to the reporter guy over the phone, but the conversation wasn't exactly therapeutic. There's no way I can tell Sandi, my roommate, or any of my friends in Morgantown. Sandi is so self-absorbed she makes the cast of Jersey Shore look humble and my friends are more like casual acquaintances (and you do not share traumatic ghost encounters with casual acquaintances). Calling my friends and family in Sacramento is also out of the question because they already think I'm off my rocker for wandering aimlessly across the country for two years and deciding to live in West Virginia. Now, since I can't share my experience with anyone in my life, I'm walking through my days in a daze and starting to feel kind of isolated. As a result, I'm beginning to get a little testy, which is very abnormal for me. For instance, yesterday at work (I'm a waitress at Boston Beanery), I almost dumped a plate of food over a customer's head when he complained that his fish tasted too FISHY!!! All I could think was, "I'm sorry you're fish tastes like fish, I almost got eaten by decapitated growling ghost girls two days ago, but you don't hear me complaining about it, do you?!!!" So, as you can see, keeping everything bottled up inside isn't going so well. I'm afraid I may do something rash and unfortunate if I can't vent or blow off steam soon. I'm thinking about asking the people I met on the internet if they'd like to meet in person. We could go to Jay's Daily Grind or something. That way, if they turn out to be complete weirdos at least I can enjoy some decent coffee.