Trip Report: 12 Scariest Haunted Places In Los Angeles
9:01 PM
Posted by Philip Walter

Beverly HIlls
The Paul Bern Death House of Beverly Hills is a weird one. He'd been married to Jean Harlow for only two months when director, screenwriter, and producer Paul Bern was found naked and shot in the head inside his home at 9820 Easton Dr. Death motive theories include: suicide due to impotence, murder by crazy ex-wife, and murder by MGM's studio manager. Gripskipper reports claims from Creepy LA that, "subsequent owners have reported sobbing and the sounds of a struggle from the location of the shooting," and also that Sharon Tate stayed here, telling friends she was awoken "by Paul Bern's ghost, who showed her a vision of herself, tied up and slaughtered."
Long Beach
The Queen Mary is certified haunted according to the countless seekers who claim to hear voices, rattling chains, and maritime clanking on their paranormal ghost tours and overnight stays. If that doesn't sound creepy enough, simply pay someone to scare the bejeezus out of you at their Shipwreck Haunted House event. After a spin through the Ministry-soundtracked, boat-bowels maze, you will BEG for a haunted room. You will also be peeing yourself. Gross.
Hollywood Hills
Dan Ackroyd cites his former haunted Los Angeles address as the inspiration for Ghostbusters. However the house at 7708 Woodrow Wilson Drive is probably not brimming with Zuul, it's more likely the former owners Mama Cass Elliot or Natalie Wood.
Pasadena / Altadena
Despite architectural arches and rows of romantic lampposts, Colorado Boulevard's "Suicide Bridge" has a less than glamourous past -- it's said the bridge claimed the life of a construction worker during completion, as well as many greatly depressed Great Depression jumpers who continue to haunt the location and Arroyo Seco below.
And who can forget the Enchanted Forest. If you like to be chased by red orbs and headless apparitions through hots spots in a tar black forest, make sure to add this vaguely located woodland treasure to your map.
Playa Del Rey
Really? You need to be told not to build on the Ballona Wetlands? Not building on wetlands seems like an obvious gimme, especially when those wetlands are found to contain human remains a from Native American burial ground. Didn't anyone see Poltergeist? Construction crews and locals have reported strange mists and a plague of unexplained problems.
Downtown LA
Mobster tales, prohibition-era folklore and Great Depression suicides have lead to rumors of underground tunnels and major spookings at the historic Alexandria Hotel. LAist operatives went to investigate a while back and spoke with residents who reported chills in front of the Rudolph Valentino suite and someone touching their hair in the middle of the night... could be a mouse?
Addressing these allegations, the team spoke with a security guard and several employees who confirmed supernatural sightings of a little girl walking around in a white gown, as well as access to said tunnels (our not-so-fearless ghost hunters found only blocked access when they tried to get downstairs).
Continuing their shadow quest, the team found a room closed for construction and was quietly let in by their newly befriended security guard. Inside, they heard phantom footsteps from a room upstairs that was said to be empty and closed off. Then, "in the dark corner, we all saw this white glowing mist. We thought it was a trick so we shut the door and it was still there. OF COURSE I ran out screaming."
The energy in the ballroom was also deemed unsettling, with several explorers reporting unusual headaches. They were told the ballroom mirrors are known to show an unexplained image of a lady and were slanted oddly as not to reflect each other.
Similar sights and sounds, doors and elevators inexplicably opening and closing, spectral apparitions, and decidedly creepy vibes were also reported at the PE Lofts, Mercantile Lofts and the Cecil Hotel (where the Night Stalker serial killer, Richard Ramirez, once lived).
The Forever 21 offices downtown also appear to be a portal to the dark side. According to an employee, the building was formerly some variety of a mental facility as evidenced by the marketing department occupying the padded rooms. Insert joke here. We were told that stylists and reps keep clothes for photo shoots in the floor to ceiling padded chamber with a single, thick window and a giant lock. Employees reported seeing a vanishing girl inside late night and for some reason they don't like to stay there after dark anymore.
Angelino Heights
If I were Michael Jackson I would totally haunt the Thriller house in Angelino Heights. And then moonwalk to the Pantages if I got lonely.
Obituary: Alvin Lawson dies at 80; UFO researcher questioned beliefs of alleged abductees - latimes.com
12:38 AM
Posted by Philip Walter
Death toll not up in Hungry Ghost month
6:20 PM
Posted by Philip Walter
ACCORDING to Chinese folk tales, the gates of hell open annually during the Hungry Ghost month, which causes more deaths in this period, but Singapore statistics show a different story, China Press reported.
The daily reported that the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which usually falls in July and August, did not show a rise in the death toll.
Some funeral parlour operators said their business even declined compared with other months.
An undertaker said his business dropped 10% to 20% on the seventh month, so he would usually travel overseas on this particular period.
However, there were a number of undertakers who said their business increased as old people easily fell sick due to the weather change in the seventh month.
A feng shui master jokingly said it was baseless to claim that more people died during the Hungry Ghost month.
“The ‘officers’ from hell are too busy monitoring the ghosts, which can roam freely during the month, so they may not have time to take in new ones,” he said.
Another feng shui master said some older people believed that their spirit might be forced to wander around if they died during the month.
The daily also reported that a temple caretaker did not cut her hair for nine years to show her faith in God.
The 65-year-old Indian from Teluk Intan, known only as Soma, also did not wash her hair during the period, causing her hair to tangle and become hard like tree bark.
“This is the second time I have kept my hair for so long.
“The first time I kept it for 10 years before it dropped off,” she said.
Soma said she was used to people staring at her hair and that her mane did not affect her daily life.
Feature Article: Legend of the Week
12:39 AM
Posted by Philip Walter
Black Annis
Black Annis, also known as Black Agnes, is a bogeyman figure in English folklore. She is imagined as a blue-faced crone or witch with iron claws and a taste for human (especially child) flesh. She is said to haunt the countryside of Leicestershire, living in a cave in the Dane Hills, with an oak tree at its entrance.
She supposedly goes out onto the glens at night looking for unsuspecting children and lambs to eat, then tanning their skins by hanging them on a tree, before wearing them around her waist. She would reach inside houses to snatch people. Legend has it that she used her iron claws to dig into the side of a sandstone cliff, making herself a home there which is known as Black Annis's Bower. The legend led to parents warning their children that Black Annis would catch them if they did not behave.
It is thought that the earliest written reference to Black Annis was from the eighteenth century, from which a title deed referred to a parcel of land as "Black Anny's Bower Close". Ronald Hutton, in his book The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, suggests that the Black Annis of Leicestershire legend was based on a real person, Agnes Scott, a late medieval anchoress (or by some accounts a Dominican nun who cared for a local leper colony), born in Little Antrum, who lived a life of prayer in the cave in the Dane Hills, and was buried in the church yard in Swithland. Hutton suggests that the memory of Scott was distorted into the image of Black Annis, either to frighten local children, or due to the anti-anchorite sentiment that arose from the Protestant Reformation. In Victorian times, the story of Agnes Scott, or Annis, became confused with the similarly-named goddess Anu. T.C. Lethbridge made this connection and went on to claim that Annis was the personification of the Great Goddess in crone form, leading to interest from Wiccan groups.
While Agnes Scott may have been the inspiration for the local legend, the Black Annis figure has several possible origins. Some have claimed, as Lethbridge did, that the origin can be found in Celtic mythology, based on Danu (or Anu), wife of the Celtic God Llud, or it may derive from Germanic mythology (see Hel). It has been suggested that the legend may derive from a popular memory of sacrifice to an ancient goddess. Black Annis has also been identified as being the same as the Gaelic legend Yellow Muilearteach, with the wearing of the victims' skins a local addition to the myth. Others have identified her with the Celtic legend of Cailleach Bheare. The origin of the legend may go back to the mother-goddess of ancient Europe, who was remembered as a devourer of children.
It is thought that offerings of children may have been made to the goddess that inspired the legend in the archaeological Hunting Period, the oak tree at the cave's entrance also a common site of local meetings.
Annis was also represented in cat form and the legend led to a local ritual in early spring, when a dead cat would be dragged before a pack of hounds in front of her bower, to celebrate the end of winter.
Nuclear Weapons Have Been Compromised by Unidentified Aerial Objects
5:14 PM
Posted by Philip Walter

Ex-military men say unknown intruders have monitored and even tampered with American nuclear missiles
Group to call on U.S. Government to reveal the facts
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby. Six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality.
One of them, ICBM launch officer Captain Robert Salas, was on duty during one missile disruption incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base and was ordered to never discuss it. Another participant, retired Col. Charles Halt, observed a disc-shaped object directing beams of light down into the RAF Bentwaters airbase in England and heard on the radio that they landed in the nuclear weapons storage area. Both men will provide stunning details about these events, and reveal how the U.S. military responded.
Captain Salas notes, "The U.S. Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it." Col. Halt adds, "I believe that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted—both then and now—to subvert the significance of what occurred at RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practiced methods of disinformation."
The group of witnesses and a leading researcher, who has brought them together for the first time, will discuss the national security implications of these and other alarmingly similar incidents and will urge the government to reveal all information about them. This is a public-awareness issue.
Declassified U.S. government documents, to be distributed at the event, now substantiate the reality of UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites extending back to 1948. The press conference will also address present-day concerns about the abuse of government secrecy as well as the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons.
WHO: Dwynne Arneson, USAF Lt. Col. Ret., communications center officer-in-charge
Bruce Fenstermacher, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer
Charles Halt, USAF Col. Ret., former deputy base commander
Robert Hastings, researcher and author
Robert Jamison, former USAF nuclear missile targeting officer
Patrick McDonough, former USAF nuclear missile site geodetic surveyor
Jerome Nelson, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer
Robert Salas, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer
