Recently, we
had the opportunity and good fortune to
spend a day on Cape Cod with Derek
Bartlett, President and Founder of CAIPRS (Cape and Islands Paranormal
Research Group) and Deb Ahern, CAIPRS
Director of Ghosts and Hauntings.
Gracious hosts that they are, they
agreed to take the RISEUP team on a tour
of many of the most famous (and
infamous) haunted locations on their
home turf, based in West Barnstable, Ma.
(A little
background music if you please...)
CAIPRS
was founded by Mr.
Bartlett back in 2001 and since then has
become one of the most highly respected
organizations in the field of paranormal
research. We actually met Derek
and Deb through some rather fortuitous
circumstances. A few months ago Dave and
myself attended a taping of a local
public-access TV show called "Ghosts
'R Near" hosted by Keith, Sandra and
Carl Johnson of New England Anomalies
Research (NEAR). As you may already
know, they have worked extensively with
The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS)
in past years and are well-respected
paranormal investigators specializing in
demonology and the occult. We had
occasionally corresponded with the
Johnsons since attending one of their
lectures here in Tiverton in October of
2007. By chance, their guest that night
was Derek Bartlett (with Deb in
attendance as one of the three members
of our studio audience). We were
immediately impressed by his knowledge,
theory and methodology of paranormal
investigation. It fell right in line
with precisely who we were and aspired
to be. We all made some small talk
afterwards and Derek offered to take us
out there for a look around anytime we
could agree on a date. Deb, as usual,
was bouncing around snapping pictures
and generally cracking a joke here and
there. (A portend of things to come.)
Needless to say,
we didn't forget about that offer.
We stayed in touch
with Derek and his group via email and
message boards and managed to attend one
of their
lecture series,
given each month at the Cape Cod
Community College. The speaker that
night was none other than Jeff Belanger,
author of
Weird Massachusetts and
we had ourselves a great time putting
faces with names and meeting their team.
Long story short, Derek and Deb were
wonderful, down-to-earth folks with a
wealth of knowledge and made us feel so
comfortable that we eventually dispensed
with formalities and got down to what we
were hoping for - a group of people
swapping questions and stories about our
passion - the investigation of the
paranormal. We've had the experience of
seeing some very territorial,
condescending people in this field -
these are not those people. They could
not have treated us with more respect
and courtesy. Later we got the
chance to meet Derek's lovely wife
Joanne, also an investigator who could
not have been nicer and their beautiful
little daughter, who even we big lugs
fell in love with. We ended the evening
on one of Derek's
walking tours,
which has to be made a priority on
anyone's visit to the Cape that is
interested in its paranormal history.
The fact that CAIPRS has investigated
many of the sites you will visit just
adds to the creepy vibe. This is the
real deal. Anyway...
This is what we
did and how we did it. Roll 'em.
After pointing out some local "haunts",
history and legends on our trip as we
followed the distinctive "CAIPRS-mobile"
(below) in our gas-sucking Trail Blazer,
our first stop was the Sagamore
Cemetery, where smelling cigar smoke and
hearing a girl's laughter are always a
distinct possibility.
"It's the
car.....chicks dig the car."
The Infamous
Hanging Tree - Quite the shnozz on it,
too. The sounds of female laughter have
also been heard around this spot. Could
it be the spirit of an 11-year-old girl
who was buried next to her husband(!)?
"Wolfstones" -
early form of grave security
An eternal
restroom?
An elaborate
family mausoleum.
An Ellis family
monument. A descendant, Jerry Ellis, is
the caretaker here and wonders if the
odor of cigar smoke that sometimes can
be detected comes from Emory Ellis, a
cigar lover who once held state
officials, dredgers and diggers at bay
with a shot gun as they tried to move
the original Ellis family plot to where
it now stands. The Ellis family plots
along with those from the Collins Farm
Cemetery had to be moved when the Cape
Cod Canal was dug.
Derek Bartlett
(partially seen in yellow) leads the
group into the most haunted and secluded
part of the cemetery.
Dave (partially
seen) Ken, Derek and Ryan check out an
older family plot.
A more simplistic
grave marker
Some other
interesting notes about the Sagamore
Cemetery:
-
The graves of
Capt. William Burgess and his wife
Hannah Rebecca are located here.
Hannah once navigated her husband's
ship to safe port in Chile after he
had died suddenly at sea.
-
A Mr. Stillman
Ellis is buried here. Not much of a
story there, except he once was
mistaken for presidential assassin
John Wilkes Booth.
-
There is a man
named Charles Manson buried here.
-
One person who
very well might haunt this place is
Isaac Keith who owned the Keith Car
Works, who constructed most of the
coffins in which displaced souls
were re-buried in the cemetery.
Unfortunately many graves had the
wrong headstones placed on top and
it has been said that Keith roams
the graveyard looking to correct the
mistakes. Keith was also a big cigar
smoker.
The next stop on
the graveyard shift was Sandwich Old
Burying Ground (aka Old Town Cemetery).
This was the most beautiful of
locations, situated on the banks of a
lake in a quaint part of town. Derek
feels this is the perfect location for a
horror movie with a mist moving over the
graveyard. Don't know how he feels about
the whole zombie phenomenon, but he did
have a point. Of particular interest
were the carvings on many of the older
stones there - the oldest tracing back
to 1683, although, according to records,
burials took place there 20 years
earlier. Carvings ranged from winged
skulls to cherubs. While there are no
reported hauntings - it is a very
picturesque location.
These people were
not in the picture when it was taken
Same photo from
another angle - see what I mean?
A beautiful
location with so much history
Of note:
-
One of the
preeminent names in this cemetery is
that of the Dillingham family. There
is some paranormal history involved
with the Dillingham House in
Sandwich, which was the home of
Edward Dillingham, one of the
founding fathers of the town. Police
have paid many visits to the house,
mainly responding to alarms that go
off. While there they have witnessed
doors that would not open suddenly
do so and lights that were turned
off when exiting a room would be on
when re-entering. Footsteps and
apparitions have also been reported
by guests. For some strange reason
the activity seems to be at its peak
in October.
The next stop was one we had been
looking forward to since we first heard
Derek and Deb discuss it with us -
Cemetery "X" (name concealed out of
respect to the location).
The place where noted paranormal
investigator John Zaffis claims there is
an elemental lurking in the woods with
unfinished business to attend to with
one of the cemetery's residents and
where author Rosemary Ellen Guiley, one
of the foremost authorities on the
paranormal was frightened half to death
by a yard reflector (there's more to
that story, naturally). An old hag has
also been seen crossing one of the
cemetery's roadways in shadow form and
appears to follow you around the place.
We were like kids at Christmas when we
got here (but maintained our cool
persona).
What appears to be
the shadowy outline of a female has been
seen crossing the far end of this road.
Another spot where
this figure has been seen.
Chris, Derek, Ken
and Deb Ahern at "Cemetery X".
Approaching the
southwest corner of "X", where John Zaffis sensed an
inhuman entity that dwells in the woods.
People often experience strange
sensations, including nausea and a
"heaviness" when standing near the
roadway that borders the woods. You will
also notice some white reflectors that
match the kind that caused Ms. Guiley a
fright when mistaken for something
"else".
A shot of the
wooded area. The pile of debris in the
foreground is obviously dead grass
clippings and brush cuttings dumped
there by the maintenance crew...nothing
more sinister, folks.
Despite the
cautionary stories, we just had to get
right up close. In fact we were looking
toward a short walk deeper inside, but
one look at the underbrush, and another
at the shorts most of us were wearing
nixed that idea. For those of you
staring intently at this picture and the
one below....no matrixing!!!
Derek pointing out
a few notable spots to us. About this
time I began to have a sort of
adrenaline bump with a quickening of
pulse and a jumpiness in the chest. I
attributed this to the latte I had just
finished before we arrived.
The rather serene setting belies more
disturbing experiences some visitors
have reported.
Of note:
-
The earliest gravestone here dates
back to 1698
-
There is also a headstone upon which
is written a curse directed towards
the good people of Yarmouth by a
woman named Mary Dolencie who was
born in New York on May 14, 1906 and
died in Yarmouth on November 9,
1985. It reads:
-
According to what we have gathered,
Mary and her neighbors feuded over,
among other things, the number of
cats she owned . When this tombstone
was erected, the neighbors went to
court in an attempt to have it
removed, but the stone carver had a
paid contract in place and was
required to honor it, so it remains
in place.
The last stop on the cemetery tour was
Cobb's Hill. This was a truly
fascinating place and the visit
eventually turned into a
mini-investigation. While we did not
have nearly all our gear, we did manage
to bring a couple of digital recorders,
a digital camera and two IR cameras.
Reports of a shadowy figure known simply
as "The Dark Man" roaming the grounds
peaked our interest and we listened
intently while Derek and Deb told of
their own encounter with this entity.
When we reviewed our video and
recordings, we didn't catch anything on
this particular night, but we did have a
couple of unusual things take place. One
was Deb's reaction inside the cemetery
which manifested itself in a coughing
fit. She informed us this was not
unusual for her (being a sensitive) and
this was how she normally reacts to a
presence. At one point, she let us know
that "it is not happy we're here".
The other point of note was our digital
camera. David was able to snap one
picture (of me doing an EVP session on
the gravestone of Dr. Samuel Savage, a
somewhat tragic figure who Derek feels
may be the "Dark Man" who haunts this
place). I mention the one picture
because after that the camera would not
function properly and kept shutting
down. The camera would function properly
again after leaving the cemetery. This
is not an unusual occurrence to
paranormal investigators, but was an
interesting (if not frustrating)
sidelight to the event.
On the trail of the "Dark Man"
This is the clip we caught from Cobb's
Hill.
I want to make mention of a similar
event we read about a couple of nights
later that happened to Michelle Kerr, a
dispatcher with the Barnstable County
Sherriff's Office, whose family
coincidentally owned the house across
the street from the cemetery. Michelle
has had experiences in that house and in
the cemetery that Derek shared with us
(we won't divulge them here, but they
will send a shiver through you). Here
are Michelle's own words in an interview
that appeared in the book
Cape
Encounters:
"It was the year that disc cameras came
out.....We decided to go into the
cemetery and we brought the camera. . .
. It was eerie, but it was calm - very
serene. The camera wouldn't work in the
cemetery at all. It did work later when
we were back in the house."
We finished our walk through the heart
of town and visited the sites of some
ghostly activity and got a sense of the
history of the village. The night ended
at the Barnstable House (or The House of
11 Ghosts), the most haunted building on
Cape Cod. I cannot do the tour the same
justice as our guide did, so it's futile
to even try. I urge you to contact Derek
through CAIPRS and take a walk with him
on the Cape's wild side. We are grateful
to he and Deb for their time and we came
away better for the experience.
