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    Haunted Idaho: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Gem State
    Haunted Idaho: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Gem State
    Haunted Idaho: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Gem State
    Ebook176 pages1 hour

    Haunted Idaho: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Gem State

    By Andy Weeks

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    About this ebook

    A collection of frightening stories from the Gem State.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStackpole Books
    Release dateApr 1, 2013
    ISBN9780811749800
    Haunted Idaho: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Gem State
    Author

    Andy Weeks

    Andy Weeks is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books and short stories. His work has been featured in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including national publications such as Fangoria, Fate and Wild West. Books include Ghosts of Idaho's Magic Valley, Haunted Idaho, Haunted Oregon and Haunted Utah. He writes near the Snake River in south-central Idaho and is currently at work on his next book.

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      Book preview

      Haunted Idaho - Andy Weeks

      For my son, Brayden

      My best buddy

      Copyright © 2013 by Stackpole Books

      Published by

      STACKPOLE BOOKS

      5067 Ritter Road

      Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

      www.stackpolebooks.com

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books.

      Printed in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      FIRST EDITION

      Cover design by Tessa J. Sweigert

      Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

      ISBN 978-0-8117-1176-0

      eBook ISBN: 9780811749800

      Contents

      Introduction

      Northern Idaho

      Vacancy at the Bates Motel

      The Wandering Spirit of Potlatch

      The Ghosts of Pierce

      The Railroad Ghost of Colburn

      The Ghostly Miners of Wallace

      UFOs at the Top of Idaho

      Bigfoot in Bonner County

      Boise and the West

      A Threatening, Phone-calling Ghost

      The Ghost Lady of Fort Boise

      Middle School Hauntings

      Jailbird Spirits at the Old Pen

      The Cantankerous Ghost of a Barroom

      The Intelligent Ghosts of Pete’s Tavern

      The Ghost of Glenns Ferry High School

      The Haunting of Lake Lowell

      Boise’s Haunted Egyptian Theatre

      Spooks of Boot Hill Cemetery

      The Evil Spirits of River Road Bridge

      The Bloody Walls of a Boise Hotel

      Wood River Valley

      A Hemingway Haunt

      The Spirit of Russian John

      Bigfoot Encounters

      The Ghosts of Custer

      Hunters Encounter UFO

      Magic Valley

      Moaning at the Perrine Bridge

      Playful Phantoms at Pandora’s

      The Pioneer Spirits of Stricker Ranch

      A Good(ing) Ole Haunt

      Encounter with a Bigfoot

      Funeral Home Guest

      Phantom Voices and a Monkey’s Ghost

      Ghosts of the Ballroom

      The Drama Queen of Oakley

      Lady Bluebeard

      Albion’s Haunted Campus

      Hidden Treasures at the City of Rocks

      Eastern Idaho

      The Phantom House of Idaho Falls

      Emmett’s Haunted Bridge

      The Werewolf Legend of Rose Hill Cemetery

      Spirits at the Monarch

      Haunted Hospital

      No Cheesy Ghost Story Here

      UFO over INL

      Ghost Students at Pocatello High School

      Trains, Lanterns, and Railroad Ghosts

      Southeast Idaho

      Monsters in Bear Lake

      Bigfoot in Franklin County

      Indian Spirits of Fort Hall and Bear River

      Ghosts of Malad City

      Enders Hotel

      Bibliography

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Introduction

      A door opened and footsteps padded across the bedroom carpet. A moment later I heard the clink of hangers being moved. Heidi, I called from under the sheets, my face buried in a pillow. When my wife didn’t answer, I called again. The clinking sounds stopped. She was getting dressed for work, as she does most every morning—or so I assumed. I was still in bed, not having to go to work myself until sometime later. But why didn’t she hear me calling? The closet was just a few feet away. I removed the pillow from my face and called again. When she still didn’t answer, I turned over, sat up in bed, and looked at the closet. The door was open, but the light was off. Hmm, I wondered. I turned to look at the clock on my nightstand—and goose bumps crawled up my nervous skin. Heidi already had left for work—and had been there for a while, according to the red digital numbers that glared at me from atop my nightstand. So who, or what, had just entered our bedroom, walked across the room, and moved hangers in the closet?

      I’m a journalist, I told myself, a person whose profession and lifestyle deals with the facts of life, not its myths and mysteries. But to my chagrin, I admitted that I had experienced enough of the unexplained in my life that I knew sometimes things really do go bump in the night—or, for that matter, during the daytime too.

      The sun already was crawling up the eastern sky as I picked myself out of bed, my mind trying to wrap itself around the pieces of the puzzle that had been thrown into my morning routine. Had I just experienced a haunting? Or was it the remnants of a dream being shaken off as I became more conscious? After all, what would a spirit be doing playing with clothes hangers in a walk-in closet?

      I got out of bed and checked the closet. Nothing was there except for clothes and the hangers they hung from. After deliberate thought about the episode, I think I may have put a few pieces of the puzzle together. The picture I’ve created may not be definitive, but it has helped me better grasp what might have happened on that lazy morning in our cozy home in south-central Idaho.

      Paranormal researchers have said there are at least six different types of hauntings, the most common of which is of a residual nature. In its usual definition, a residual haunting is the remnant of a traumatic event that occurred at the location—a suicide or violent crime, for instance. The emotional impact of the episode imprints itself on space and time, so to speak, and like a recording, plays itself over and over again. I believe, however, that such a haunting need not always be from a traumatic event. Life itself is full of energy, so why wouldn’t our actions—however mundane they might seem to us—such as rustling hangers in a closet every morning before work, leave an imprint in the space-time continuum?

      And then there’s this: Do residual hauntings occur only at locations, or do they happen also in our minds? For instance, I was used to my wife’s morning routine, even subconsciously while I slept. Was it my mind that played the haunting, or was it the house? I know one thing: I wasn’t dreaming. The sounds woke me, and I lay in bed awake listening to the hangers move.

      If nothing else, chalk it up as another weird episode in Idaho, a place of raw beauty and strange phenomena. There definitely is something of the ghostly here, though according to at least one paranormal investigator, the Gem State is not as haunted as some of the longer-settled states in the union. It’s not as active as some places in the East, but that’s because Idaho is a newer state, said Jennifer Morin of Paranormal Investigators of Idaho (PII). It doesn’t seem like paranormal investigations are as big in the West as in the East, so there’s a lot of undiscovered stuff out here.

      The group tries to do at least two investigations a month, and most of the hauntings seem to be of residential homes. There’s a lot of debunking that goes on in residential homes, she said, adding that the genuine ghost activity they do find usually is quite rambunctious. In one home her group was called to investigate, for instance, the homeowners had been attacked and scratched by unseen entities. When the investigators showed up, they told the spirits that they would have to leave the house, because it now belonged to the living people who currently resided there. Things quieted down after that, said Morin, who’s experienced quite a few weird things since she started investigating with her dad.

      Morin’s first paranormal experience happened when she was just seventeen. She was living with her father in Virginia at the time. Her father’s house was nestled in a neighborhood that sat near an old Indian trail, she said, and she often wondered about the trail’s history. What were the Indians like who once lived there and used the trail? One night she found out. She got out of bed to use the bathroom and was startled by the apparition of a large Indian standing in the hallway. It was a full-bodied apparition, Morin said. I could see the paint on his chest, everything. I turned away for a moment, and when I looked back, he was gone.

      Morin, who described the experience in a phone interview on July 10, 2012, said the Indian’s spirit was a calming presence. She didn’t feel any fear or threat during the encounter. It was her dad’s basement that frightened her, a room she would not visit by herself. Whatever was going on in the basement was the exact opposite [of what I felt with the Indian spirit]. I never went into the basement alone.

      There are few explanations for the sighting of an apparition. Was Morin dreaming or sleepwalking when she encountered the alleged Indian spirit? No, she said. She was fully awake. Her bladder told her so, which is why she rose from bed in the first place.

      She shared the experience with her dad, and they started talking about life’s paranormal mysteries. Because her dad was a Civil War buff who had visited Gettysburg on numerous occasions, often touring its allegedly haunted sites, they decided to start ghost hunting together. When Morin moved to Nampa, Idaho, a year later, she joined PII. Her curiosity for exploring the unknown hasn’t left her, and she’s had many experiences with the unexplained since that night at her dad’s Virginia home.

      That’s how it is with some people. For some reason they’re attuned to the supernatural, while others are numb to such experiences and sensations. What is it that makes certain people receptive to paranormal activity and others ignorant of it?

      And what is it about places? Why are some places more haunted than others? Morin says it’s about the people. Plain and simple, Idaho doesn’t have as many as other states. But I disagree with Morin on one account: There is no dearth of ghost stories here. I found enough to fill this book and had to leave others to float in the recesses of my own mind or computer files.

      I hope you’ll enjoy reading the ones I’ve chosen. Some of the stories came from the historical record or are well-known legends, at least in paranormal circles, and others were told to me by real people.

      The unusual in the Gem State begins with its name. Idaho, lobbyist George M. Willing stated in the early 1860s, was a term derived from the Shoshone language, meaning the sun comes from the mountains or gem of the mountains. It was reported that Willing later admitted he had

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