♦♦ Part Two ♦♦

(in a two-part series of newspaper articles)

"Haunted Chapel"

Ghostbusters Uncover Ghostly Activity

May 25, 2007 | Old Colony Memorial

By Emily Wilcox, CNC Newspapers

"There are more things under heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” ~ William Shakespeare

PLYMOUTH - The two pugs stared at the bureau in the darkened room, their eyes transfixed by a circle of translucent light about the size of a fist with fuzzy edges. The circle of light was right in front of the bureau, sort of hanging there.

I was staring, too. It was Sunday morning and I had slept in, waking to the sound of a mower next door. I didn’t think much of the light at first; I figured it was a reflection of the sunlight outside dancing off something in the room.

But then I realized the shade was drawn, the door was closed. This was no reflection.

So, what was it?

It was a question I couldn’t answer. And, just as my mind was circling around this odd event, a plastic bottle of medication on the bedside table went flying across the room. It didn’t just fall off the table; it flew, the way it would if a hand slapped it. The dogs flipped out, and I frowned in thought.

I’d heard of this sort of thing before. Odd, whitish see-through blobs I can handle, but I’d prefer it if vials of medicine didn’t fly about on their own volition. I have a serious co-pay.

Independent filmmaker and producer Dominick Arena has been filming ghosts for almost two years, and he’s as skeptical as the next guy. But he has a hard time explaining these motes of light, like the one in my bedroom last month. The day after Thanksgiving, last year, he grabbed his infrared and movement-activated cameras and filmed all night at The Antwiques Chapel on State Road in Manomet. The store’s owner, Trish Machaby, was there along with camera crew and psychic medium Dawn Carr of Brockton. Arena had stumbled upon Carr’s Web site, Angels of Dawn - now www.PsychicStew.com, and contacted her about a possible story on the chapel. Carr, who gives psychic readings during The Antwique Chapel’s Medium Night, asked Machaby if she’d be interested. Customers and workers had reported sightings. The next thing they knew, Arena was setting up his cameras.

They filmed all night, last Nov. 26, and Arena taped Carr’s reading of the building and its spirits.

Carr says a 19th century woman who died in a fire haunts the Antwiques Chapel, continually replaying the scene of walking into the chapel supported on either side by her father and husband, grieving the loss of her son, Matthew. It’s what Carr described as an “imprint” from the past, the imprint of a funeral procession that others claim to have seen shadows of. They particularly note seeing the grieving woman in the bonnet, who later died in a fire. Standing in the dark while the cameras recorded the scene, one of the film crew said she felt someone pass by. Seconds later, Arena caught a tiny mote of light on film. The light was circling around a crew member. It wasn’t a dust particle, he said, because it didn’t behave like one. This tiny circle of light entered the gathering just as Carr was picking up on the presence of a little boy who had died young.

“Her spirit was there because she was earthbound,” Carr said of the mother. “I was channeling her. I was repeating everything I knew about her. After a few minutes, one of the other people in the crew said, ’Something is next to me.’ At the same time, I could feel something coming in on that side. Her son, who had died as a child. He had passed and he had crossed. We got his orb on film.”

It’s hard to see this tiny light, but, as Arena replayed the footage on his computer, it was absolutely there, moving in a very deliberate way around the crew member and Carr. It didn’t float the way a dust particle does, and it wasn’t an insect. It was like a tiny version of the fist-sized thing I’d see in my room last month.

So, is the Antwiques Chapel haunted?

Arena said he’s a skeptical, too, and makes sure he rules out all rational explanations before considering a picture might have captured a spirit’s orb. He showed countless pictures taken just weeks ago in a historic restaurant in Nashua, N.H., which featured the same kind of orbs in several rooms. He said his electromagnetic meter spiked when he stood in a corner of an upstairs room where he felt a presence. He could feel the charged electricity in the air. But when he returned to the corner later, the meter stayed at zero.

Arena said he’s compiling the footage from the New Hampshire and Manomet sites for a documentary on ghosts he plans to sell to local stations. Stay tuned for info about the films official release.

To Carr, none of this is terribly freaky. Before the face-to-face interview we had Wednesday, she calmly informed me during our phone call that my mother was “in spirit” and was with her son, my brother, and wanted me to know this. I hadn’t asked for a reading; we were talking about the Chapel taping. Carr simply offered it. Yes, my mother and brother passed away, I told her.

Carr finally stopped fighting life as a psychic sometime in her 40s and began giving readings.

Medium night at The Antwiques Chapel is all about these kinds of messages from the great beyond. The event is scheduled for every other Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m.; it’s $20 for a reading. Participants sit in a circle in the back of the old chapel and a medium goes around the room, from one to another, offering readings.

As far as my orb is concerned, I haven’t seen it since, and no vials have flown about lately. It’s not a big deal, really. It’s actually a little comforting to know there’s another dimension out there that my limited senses can’t perceive. I’ll worry when this “energy” decides to chuck knives about or my pugs break into a chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody.

The Antwique Chapel is located at 631 State Road in Manomet. Aside from ghostbusting, the building also functions as an antique store.***

***Additional Notes***

***{Dawn gave two interviews to Emily Wilcox, the reporter of these news articles. She had no prior introductions or information about Ms Wilcox - simply a name and a telephone number. While Dawn was giving the first telephone interview, two spirits came in and stood next to Dawn. The first was of a woman with a great deal of maternal energy. The second was that of a young man. She was told by these two spirits that the young man was the son of the older woman and that they were connected to the reporter on the telephone. As their energy intensified, Dawn was told that this was the mother and brother of Ms Wilcox and that they wanted her to know that they were present. During a pause in the telephone conversation, Dawn relayed this information to the reporter who was able to verify the information about her mother and brother.}

{An imprint is like a memory that is stamped in time in a certain area. They do not contain actual spirits. It's more like a video of an event that plays over and over again at the location where it first took place. The "haunted" imprint that replays itself over and over again in the Chapel is that of a funeral procession. The procession consists of three people: a father, daughter, and the daughter's husband. The procession begins at the front door of the Chapel and continues down the aisle and disappears into the back room. The daughter is in terrible grief during this procession because it is a funeral for her eight-year-old son, Matthew. The mother of this boy later dies in an accidental fire and her spirit remains earthbound at the Chapel. This information was told to Dawn while she was channeling the spirit of the woman and then that of her son. The son, Matthew, has crossed into the Light. He told Dawn that his mother would also cross eventually with the help of higher beings. She doesn't realize that she has died and she searches and waits for her beloved son Matthew. Matthew said that when he appears, his mother cannot see him because she is earthbound and confused. He has tried to help her but has accepted that she will cross over when the time is right.}

{Also, Dawn finally gave in to her grandfather's wishes and became a professional psychic and medium during her 30's, not in her 40's as the article states.}