A Deeper Look into the West Texas Paranormal

SAN ANGELO, TX – Today is Halloween, and many people are getting ready to spend time enjoying a bit of paranormal fun by wearing costumes, attending parties and/or trick-or-treat events and watching scary movies.

But what if you could make every day about the paranormal?

There are quite a few people from different walks of life who devote their lives to finding out if there are really such things as ghosts, and one long-time local group, West Texas Paranormal, shared their experiences as to why they are believers, why they joined the group, and what they have witnessed since.

Paranormal Investigator Steve Haidinger

Steve Haidinger said his interest in the paranormal goes back to 1968 when, as a Boy Scout with Troop 215, in San Antonio, Texas, he had his first close-up encounter with a ghost. This occurred while on a camp-out trip near Lake Buchanan.

He said, like many kids, “I was told there was no such thing as ghost. Our Boy Scout Troop was on a weekend camp-out at the Ink’s Lake State Park, not far from Lake Buchannan. Our troop had been out on a midnight hike when we came upon a wide-fenced field. In the field, at a distance, I saw a horse galloping toward us. In the full moon light, the horse was pale gray. As the horse drew near, I noticed that I could not hear its hoof beats or see any dust rising from its trail. The horse seemed to pass through a fence; I assumed there was a gate. The horse came onto the road where we were standing and trotted up to me. I put out my hand to touch its nose. I heard another boy holler out, “It has no eyes!”

At that point, Steve bent to one side to look at the horse’s eyes, just as his hand passed through the horse’s head the way “your hand might pass through thick fog.”

“We all took off running for the camp sight,” Steve recalled. “The horse trailed after us until we crossed a bridge on the park road where the horse vanished. I told this story for years to a far too frequently skeptical audience. Yet, a dozen other boys and I witnessed the event. When I became a parent, my kids asked me if there were such things as ghosts? What was I going to tell them? Little by little, I began my own self- study course to discover all that I could about ghost and the paranormal.”

And that is what Steve did.

Steve’s first “real break” into paranormal research started with finding the Texas Shadow Chasers. He said the group consisted of young twenty-somethings who needed a patron.

“I came to the Shadow Chasers as the “old guy,” Steve said. “I was in my late 50s with a wealth of research books, a background in forensic fire investigation, and a

Bachelor of Science degree. We transformed from snipe hunters to paranormal investigators. Together, we set up the first Ghost Hunting classes here in San Angelo, Texas in 2008. Later, we changed our name to West Texas Paranormal Organization to better describe our mission and core values. We do not chase anything; we research, verify, and collect data to support or reject local ghost stories, and the Concho Valley has many!”

In a recent case, Steve said they investigated a multi-story stone structure near Abilene built in the 1870s to serve the Buffalo Hunters and the local military cadre. It later became a family farm that remained in the family until the 1930s.

“The current occupants decided to renovate the old home, and that is when strange things began,” Steve noted. “In our initial intake interview, the owners describe being woken up by a disheveled man standing next to their bed. They hear old-time music inside the house late at night. Doors open and close violently. The husband reported hearing what he said were children running up and down the stair case.”

During the group’s research on Ancestry.com, Steve said members turned up the Federal Census birth and death records on the house. They pieced together a comprehensive picture of family life in the 1880s, 90s and the early 20^th century of the family who called the house their home.

“Like many frontier families, life was a struggle,” Steve said. “They lost children to disease, mishaps, and encounters with Native Americans who felt that their lands were being trespassed [upon].”

During the middle of October, the group showed up to the structure with a family profile, names, and knowledge of the family.

Once they set up their equipment and sampled energy readings from the land and building, they set out to investigate things further. The team uncovered an abandoned graveyard about 230 feet from the home.

With photographs, the group did research through the State of Texas archeological society database, and learned there was a graveyard in the area in the mid-20^th century. Their research also revealed over 30 graves situated in the backyard of the house. It appeared the cemetery was abandoned in the late 1890s.

“Our research also found the unmarked graves of three children of the former residence to the northwest of the house,” said Steve.

During a 12-hour investigation, the group uncovered two paranormal events.

Steve said, “In the main bedroom where two female investigators were conducting an investigation, a male voice chimed in telling them that his name was Sammy White. The invisible residence also engaged one of our investigators in a knock-knock game, where they respond to her tapping on a wall.”

The group also picked up two children whispering in the stairwell. Steve said one of the children had what sounded like a girl’s voice, and called her companion Harold.

In the children’s bedroom, the group’s digital recorder picked up the disembodied voice of a man who called himself Fabon.

“Around 2:00 a.m., the house came alive with activity just as the homeowners had conveyed,” Steve continued. “We heard children laughing with glee first inside

the house, then outside. In the dining room, a lone investigator video recorded a K-2 electro-magnetic meter sparkling to life showing a wave of electromagnet energy entering the dining room followed the same device picking up a deep male voice inquiring, “What are you doing in this?”

Overall, Steve said being a good paranormal investigator means not following television shows; showing respect to the ghosts and spirits; and to stay clear from graveyards because they are sacred space for the visible and invisible.

Paranormal Investigator Raymond Francis

Raymond Francis said he got into WTP three years ago, and did so because, one night, he and some guys were working patrol, and they saw people at Fort Concho.

When they stopped to see what was going on in OQ1, which is where Edie Grierson’s room is, he was interested. He said he always had an interest in the stories of Edie Grierson, the 13-year-old girl many people have reported seeing and hearing at the Fort.

Raymond said he knew one of the members, Heather, through his wife, and started talking to the group about what they do.

“It’s always been an interest, a curiosity of sort,” said Raymond. “I wasn’t a firm believer, but I wasn’t a firm disbeliever either.”

Raymond said he has some of his own experiences that swayed him to being more of a believer.

Growing up, Raymond said he always heard footsteps in his parents’ house.

“I always had a feeling that there was someone there, and felt a presence; but I didn’t see anything,” he said.

He added that once, when his family took their first vacation to Ohio where his dad’s from, the first trip was to the cemetery in Dayton where family members were buried.

His dad had a map from the caretakers, and they were having problems figuring out “who was where.”

“I’m just walking to each grave site,” he said, and that’s how they located them.

Raymond said the next time they went, he didn’t find the grave sites. However, his dad did so “just like that.”

About two years later, when Raymond returned, he said he didn’t feel anything, but he walked directly to each person’s grave as if he was guided.

Overall, Francis has attended about five investigations with WTP. He likes WTP because they gather evidence through research and scientific means. They’re investigators. They collect video and audio evidence, and review everything to determine paranormal activity.

They also don’t antagonize the spirits, but rather talk to them like people.

The best evidence collected was at Ft. Concho and Healthy Families San Angelo, Raymond said.

“That one was probably the biggest one to say, ‘Yes, there is something here as far as evidence goes’,” he said.

Raymond added that they got good audio at the same time, and video evidence, caught from a night infrared camera, showed a shadow stand up and run.

“It’s just a small form,” he said.

That was found on the second review during a follow-up investigation.

“We all looked at it several times, and it literally looks like something was hiding behind the desk, and behind something on the desk, and you see it stand up and go,” Raymond recalled.

As for the audio, the group recorded voices upstairs and downstairs in the basement. He said they were just simple responses to the questions they asked like “yes,” “no,” and someone gave them a name.

After that first investigation, three people there wanting to join the group experienced major tragedies. One woman was struck by a drunk driver two weeks later, and another lady, her grandmother was in a house fire that same night.

“We all thought that was very weird,” Raymond said.

He said because of this, Steve changed the selection process. He’s more careful about bringing on new members.

Also, during the follow-up investigation at Healthy Families (see our story here), Raymond said his wife had to drop his daughter off to him, and originally, when he showed up, he was good. He felt fine. But within 10 minutes of his daughter showing up, something inside him said, “You need to get out of here.”

He then got physically ill.

“I told the team, ‘I got to go. Something does not want her here’.”

As soon as he left and got home, he felt normal again.

The history of the town makes San Angelo a great place for paranormal groups, Raymond said.

“There’s a lot of history here; it’s just a matter of what’s been found and what hasn’t been found.”

Paranormal Investigator Sandy Morgan

Sandy Morgan joined WTP 10 years ago, and also did so because the group was at Fort Concho doing the night tour. Her husband was working that night at Ft. Concho.

“I was kind of walking around, checking everything out, and I got to talking with [one of the members], and he told me a little about what they do and some of the evidence that they’ve caught,” said Sandy.

The members mentioned a man in OQ1 who spoke Lakota. Sandy told the member her husband speaks Lakota Sioux, so the couple asked to be guests during the investigation.

During the investigation, Sandy’s husband asked questions in Lakota, but nothing happened. But when they got to Edie Grierson’s room, the closet door kept opening, but no one was near it; it opened three times.

“I was like, ‘This is so cool. I want to do this’,” Sandy laughed.

At that point, Sandy talked to Steve about what she needed to do to join, and she’s been doing it ever since.

Overall, Sandy said she’s done about eight investigations, but they have gone to places more than once.

She said three of the cases really stand out to her, but the “coolest” one (and she can’t prove “a lick of it”) occurred at one of the houses they investigated. Nothing came up on tape, but she had walked over to look at a closet with an infrared camera, and as she went through it, she saw the little boy they were talking to. He was scrunched down in the closet.

“He liked to play hide-and-seek,” she said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t record.”

As the skeptic of the group, she said this really impacted her because it’s the only time she has seen a ghost.

Personally, Sandy said there was something that followed her family around for as long as she can remember.

“It followed us from place to place,” she said.

She added that it showed its presence in subtle ways. When she moved into an apartment in San Angelo with her boyfriend, who is now her husband, something followed them.

“In all honesty, I think it was what’s called a guardian spirit,” she said.

She said the spirit never hurt her, but it did annoy her cats.

“It was playful. It would hide things. It would turn the TV on, until I told it to quit. It would annoy my cats.”

To the people who think WTP is a hoax, she said if you’ve never had anything happen to you, it’s hard to be open minded. It’s hard to explain her view point.

She said people have to work for a place for almost 30 years that’s haunted to know what she knows. Even non-believers go to the Fort and say, “This place is creepy!”

“That’s your belief, and that’s fine,” Sandy noted. “I’m not one of these ones who, every time that any insignificant thing happens, I say, ‘Oh that’s a ghost!’ That’s why they like me. Even though I’ve had my experiences, I’m still the skeptic.”

Paranormal Investigator Heather Tisdale

Heather Tisdale joined WTP in 2009 when the group was doing a tour at Ft. Concho. She went with a friend, and didn’t know anything about it. She said she thought it was cool, so she contacted Steve. She’s been with them ever since.

Since joining the group, Heather has participated in 15 to 20 cases, and the most interesting case she experienced was at Ft. Concho.

“That’s probably my most memorable and favorite because every time we go there, something always happens,” she said.

The case that stands out the most occurred several years ago. There was a group of people who wanted to sit with them for the night at Ft. Concho, so she took several people upstairs to Edie Grierson’s bedroom where she passed away.

As Heather was talking about the two investigators who experienced the blue light around the door and the Native American caught on tape, all of a sudden, her right arm, from her elbow to the tips of her fingers, felt ice cold.

She had the recorder in her hand, and she shook it off. She continued talking about the Native American and what he said, and she was trying to remember what it translated to.

“We went downstairs about 15, 20 minutes later, and Steve starts listening to the recorder. Steve said, ‘Oh my God Heather! Come here!’ Right after I said my arm got cold, you hear Edie tell me White Claw (the name of the Native American). So that, by far, was my favorite experience out of everything I’d done.”

She said Edie was trying to help her and she thought that was “really cool.”

Like the others, Heather had a personal experience that prompted her belief in the paranormal. She said in on Dec. 27, 2003, while in college, her maternal grandfather died. She was extremely close to her grandparents, and on the day of the funeral, she was in her room at the time getting dressed.

Heather explained that her grandfather had suffered a stroke and was paralyzed on his right side. However, there were still certain words he would say. He believed it important to give women compliments when they looked nice. When women looked nice, he would tell them, ‘Pretty-Pretty.”

“I remember this as if it were yesterday,” Heather recalled. “I was sitting there pulling my shirt down, and I could have sworn I heard him say, just as clear as day, ‘Pretty-Pretty’.”

She said she started looking around and freaking out. She originally thought she was hearing things, but, a few moments later, she met up with her mother and sister, and they both said they heard the same thing.

Later that day, they went to their grandmother’s house. Heather said her grandmother told them her grandfather appeared in their doorway that night and said, “Billy, everything is going to be all right.”

“After that, I said, ‘Yep, I’m a believer’.”

Heather said she has had so many experiences, and has seen and heard so many things, that she’s a believer. She has met others who are not, and she’s okay with that.

“If you don’t believe in it, that’s okay,” she said.

To those people who do want to get involved in WTP, the group welcomes them with open arms, but previously, they had issues with membership. They would take people to a case and nothing would happen, so the people wouldn’t show up again.

Or, it was the opposite, Heather said. Crazy things would take place and scare them, and they wouldn’t show up again.

“We’re not Ghost Hunters,” she said. She explained that, on television, people are going to see a case every time because that’s how it’s made to look.

“It’s not like Ghost Adventures; it’s not like Ghost Hunters,” Heather stated.

She said people have to be patient. Paranormal activity doesn’t occur at every investigation. This is also not for the faint of heart. For people who have real fear of the paranormal, this is not for them.

For more information about West Texas Paranormal, click here.