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TRESPASS: The FBI agents took me to Pat’s trailer today to see if I could help identify anything belonging to my mother. I think they were looking for items which they thought my mom would never give up without being dead, like a favorite peice of jewelry she never took off, somehting like that. Pat’s trailer was a fucking pig sty. It was just crammed with stuff, including shelves stuffed with canned food like he was preparing for the Apocolypse or something. I went through as much as I could with the agents, but there’s so much we’re going to go back tomorrow too. I was kind of surprised that he didn’t have much in there to hint at a former life. The agents told me that the photos he had were hidden in an old suitcase in a closet, but he didn’t have any on display. I looked at those too, but there were only a few of my mom. Most were of Pat’s life before he met my mom, I think. There were a lot of Meryl, who was his daughter from his first marriage. [For more about Meryl, see our ENEWSLETTER 01-2008: OUTCAST EARTH'S INVISIBLE MEMBER.]

The agents are now trying to retrace his movements following [Hurricane] Katrina. It looks like he may have stayed in a few other places before he made it to Daytona Beach. Everyone seems to think that he probably left my mom’s body in Louisiana as there wouldn’t have been any reason to take it with him. The bayous have plenty of places you can stash a person. He’s still sticking to his story (new version) that my mom died accidentally and is now saying that he left Lousiana and assumed the new name because he needed a fresh start after the trauma of the hurricane. Can you tell that he’s been talking to his attorney???? The FBI isn’t buying it of course, and neither am I. Click here for additional information on this subject.

POLARIS: Ghosts on the Rock
As Trespass deals with his family issues on the other side of the country, our remaining team members began to wander the streets of San Francisco. We spent the last three days just sight-seeing, but today we got down to business when Cipher, Ash and I caught a ferry to the city’s most notorious spot: Alcatraz. (It's ironic – although unintentional – that we should choose this as our first investigative stop in SF, considering that Trespass has been visiting his stepdad in prison, too.)

No trip to San Francisco would be complete without a visit to the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary which sits on an ugly wedge of rock in the middle of the bay. The alleged haunting phenomenon on Alcatraz has been the source of numerous books, website articles and documentaries. Professional and amateur psychics -- not to mention thousands of visitors -- have toured the prison's crumbling edifices and described a variety of experiences which may or may not be paranormal in nature. After all, this is Alcatraz and perhaps the place itself, and the memory of how it was once used, is enough to make anyone feel the hair on the back of their necks go up. As Ash, Cipher and I were standing on the dock waiting for the ferry to shuttle us across to prison (now a national park), there was a big banner hanging from a railing which read "Break the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz." I couldn't have said it better myself.

Considering how "over analyzed" the place is, there was some debate among the team as to whether we should even bother with it. "Alcatraz has been done to death," Meridian said... and she's right. Hell, a lot of the information you find on it online seems pulled (sometimes verbatim) from the same source, a constant and stale retelling of the same old stories. Still, how could we not try? So with only Cipher and Ash willing to tackle The Rock with me, we braved the lines, crowds and choppy waters of San Francisco Bay. Our first reaction to the prison upon arrival was to the smell. In 1993, the National Park Service enacted a plan to make the island accessible to the public and to the native bird life. Part of the smell was related to the latter, as hundreds of birds were nesting among the island's rocky slopes and on the various buildings. The other prominent smell was the San Francisco Bay, a mix of salty brine and rotting fish. From what I've read, the island was originally quite devoid of plant life, so we were surprised to find it as forested as it was. Trees, flowering plants and succulents now grow thickly on almost every part of the landscape that isn't covered in concrete or asphalt; and the birds use all the nooks and crannies in between.

Once exiting the ferry, we walked up a wide ramp to an old sally port, which is one of the oldest structures on the island and dates back to the original military post which was constructed to protect San Francisco from Confederate attack during the Civil War. An example of an old canon is still on display here and the basement areas were used as virtual dungeons for holding captured enemy soldiers or disobedient Union men. This was the first use of The Rock as a prison, but the idea seemed to stick. After the Civil War ended, the need for Alcatraz as a military citadel seemed ridiculous but the government had just created the largest fortified structure on the west coast. What now? The island continued to be a repository for POWs through the Spanish-American War and in the early part of the twentieth century the army built the first blockhouse. Alcatraz was to become the military's first long-term prison and its less-than-illustrious reputation began here. The army closed the prison in 1934, but thanks to Prohibition and the rise of organized crime in the United States, the government still found its impenetrable walls valuable.

We decided the walk the perimeter of the island first, checking out the crumbling remains of the officer's mess, the lighthouse and the old guard stations which are still staffed by petulant seabirds. There's a mound of rubble on one corner of the island, which is apparently the bulldozed remains of the officer apartments and the military parade ground. Many of the old staircases and walls are also decaying and sealed off by the park service. Naturally, these were the places where Cipher, Ash and I wanted to go most, so we might have violated that "stay on the paths" rule once or twice. Finally we climbed a scary flight of narrow steps to the prison's exercise yard. It's hard to fully appreciate the size of the cellblock until you're in the yard and looking up at the monumental concrete walls lined with narrow windows. Cipher stood there looking at it and commented that it reminded him of "a really ugly Greek temple." From there we entered the cell block on a search for convict ghosts. The conditions, which included hundreds of other visitors milling around, were less than ideal for ghost-busting. But all things considered, it was relatively quiet. Most of the other tourists were wandering around like the living dead listening to the pre-taped narration over headphones offered by the NPS. Even so, it was still too noisy to detect those "rattling chains" that after-hour visitors claim to hear when the place is empty. Every cell block (A, B, C and D) has its own ghost stories, but the most haunted is said to be C. There are dozens of stories about cold spots, disembodied voices and footsteps, strange music and unearthly screams from this area. Reports of apparitions are rare, although we found a few reports of vaporous inmates dressed in fatigues wandering the corridors. The most infamous cellblock is D. Perhaps that's because D block is home to the "hole," isolation cells that were cut off from the entire population and even deprived of light. One inmate named Rufe McCain was said to be held here in solitary confinement for over three years, although even for the time that seems like cruel and unusual punishment to me. Cipher, Ash and I went inside one of the "dark cells" and all of us were creeped out by the experience. Was this due to residual psychic energy or just because we knew what these cells were used for? Probably the latter.

In the end, we can't deny that Alcatraz probably is haunted. Along with old hospitals, sanitariums, military posts and morgues, it has a lot of history going for it. None of us felt anything noteworthy, or at least nothing more than you would expect from being in one of the most notorious prisons in the U.S. Still, I think all of us were glad we went, if only just to say we had been there.

[WEBMASTER'S NOTE: We have a couple of corrections to Polaris's journal entry. First, the name Rufe McCain is incorrect although it is frequently used in websites and other resources on Alcatraz hauntings. The inmate's real name was Rufus McCain. Additionally, Rufus was not held in solitary confinement for three years. Rufus was murdered by another convict named Henri "Henry" Young, and it was Young who was held in Cell block D for three years, although he was not stripped naked and forced into a dark cell. These "details" were the invention of the 1995 movie MURDER IN THE FIRST starring Kevin Bacon and Christian Slater which like many films that are "based on actual events," played loosely with reality in general. You can learn more about the haunting stories of Alcatraz by viewing our short documentary produced in part by Polaris, Ash and Cipher. See the link below.]

CIPHER: Famous Escape Attempts from The Rock Yes, there was more than just that one immortalized by Clint Eastwood. In fact, there were fourteen separate escape attempts involving thirty-six men. All were allegedly unsuccessful, although the jury's out on a couple.
April 27, 1936: Joe Bowers attempts to climb over a chain link fence while burning trash at the prison's incinerator. He is shot by a correctional officer and falls one hundred feet to the shore below.
December 16, 1937: Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe file their way through iron bars and make their way successfully down to the water's edge. They jump into the San Francisco bay during a heavy storm and are never seen again. They are presumed dead but no bodies are ever found.
May 23, 1938: Using a hammer they procured from the prison's woodworking shop, inmates James Limerick, Jimmy Lucas and Rufus Franklin killed one correctional officer and then crawled out onto a roof with the hopes of overtaking a second officer stationed in a guard tower. The officer shot Limerick and Franklin and captured Lucas. Limerick died from his wounds. The other two men were given life in prison for murder.
January 13, 1939: Inmates Dale Stamphill, William Martin, Arthur "Doc" Barker, Henri "Henry" Young and Rufus McCain escaped from the cell-house by sawing through or bending the bars covering the windows. The five men were able to make it down to the west shore of the island when they were stopped by correctional officers. Barker and Stamphill refused to surrender and were shot. Barker died. The rest were brought up on additional charges for escape and ultimately received longer sentences behind bars.
May 21, 1941: In one of the few escape attempts that ended peacefully, inmates Joe Cretzer, Arnold Kyle, Sam Shockley and Lloyd Barkdoll took several correctional officers hostage. The prisoners surrendered without any violence after the officers convinced them that escape was impossible.
September 15, 1941: In what was probably a spontaneous escape attempt, John Bayless jumped into the San Francisco Bay while on garbage duty. The freezing temperature of the water seemed to inspire a change of heart, however, and he quickly surrendered himself to the authorities on Alcatraz.
April 14, 1943: Inmates James Boarman, Harold Brest, Floyd Hamilton and Fred Hunter seized two correctional officers and then escaped the prison through a window. They were already in the water and swimming for the mainland when correctional officers opened fire on them. Hunter and Brest were apprehended, but Boarman and Hamilton disappeared beneath the choppy water. Hamilton was found two days later lurking around the prison after apparently hiding out in a shoreline cave. It is assumed that Boarman was hit by the gunfire and sank. His body was never recovered.
August 7, 1943: Inmate Huron "Ted" Walters escaped from the prison laundry room but like others before him, his flight to freedom was stopped by the formidable waters of the San Francisco Bay. We was captured and returned to Alcatraz.
July 31, 1945: In a brilliant and audacious escape attempt, inmate John Giles carefully collected the pieces of an Army uniform from laundry shipments sent over to The Rock for processing. Once his outfit was complete, he calmly walked onto an Army transport which he assumed would sail him back to San Francisco. Unfortunately for him, the launch was bound for Angel Island where Giles was met by corrections officers and returned to Alcatraz.
May 2 through 4, 1946: The bloodiest escape attempt in the prison's history became known as "The Battle for Alcatraz" or the "Alcatraz Blastout." Amazingly, six prisoners were able to overpower all the cell-house guards and take control of Alcatraz's main building. Although they were well-armed and in a strategic location, none of the guards they held hostage had keys for the outside doors, thereby rendering the escape attempt null. As tempers and desperation rose, two guards ended up dead -- one in an act of cold-blooded murder and the other while attempting to subdue his captors. The U.S. Marines were ultimately called in to retake the cell-house, strafing it with machine gun fire and lobbing hand-grenades through the broken windows. Sensing defeat and fearing for their lives, three of the escapees returned to their cells before the Marines stormed the cellblocks. Three other inmates -- Sam Shockley, Miran Thompson ad Clarence Carnes -- were captured by force and stood trial for the correctional officers' deaths. Shockley and Thompson were sent to the gas chamber. Carnes received a second life sentence behind bars.
July 23, 1956: Inmate Floyd Wilson ran away from his job on the Alcatraz dock and spent several hours hiding among the rocks near the shoreline. He surrendered peacefully when discovered by correctional officers.
September 29, 1958: Inmates Aaron Burgett and Clyde Johnson again dared to challenge the waters of the San Francisco Bay after abandoning their garbage detail on the island. Johnson was caught in the water, but Burgett was nowhere to be found. His decomposed body was founding floating in the bay two weeks later.
June 11, 1962: In the most famous and most controversial escape attempt, four men devised and elaborate and creative way to escape both Alcatraz and detection. Frank Morris, Allen West, and brothers John and Clarence Anglin spent months preparing for their flight from the island. Using tools they created or stole, they chipped their way through the back walls of their cells to the utility corridor behind. They disguised their work (and their frequent absences from their cells) by creating false walls and plaster heads decorated with human hair they pilfered from the prison barber shop. To navigate the cold and dangerous waters of the bay, they stitched together prison-issued raincoats to make life vests and an inflatable raft. Their inventiveness paid off in that their escape was not discovered until the following morning. (West was not able to dig out the back of his cell effectively and ultimately was left behind by the other escapees.) A massive search turned up some meager artifacts such as oars, letters and photographs... but Morris and the Anglins were gone. Several weeks later, a body wearing what appeared to be an Alcatraz uniform was found up the coast from San Francisco. Unfortunately, the corpse was so badly decomposed that a positive identification was impossible.
December 16, 1962: Inmates John Paul Scott and Darl Parker escaped through a kitchen window and ran down to the shoreline. Parker had second thoughts about risking the swim and was captured there. Scott was more bold, but the swift currents in the bay pulled him out toward the Golden Gate Bridge and landed him on the rocks near Fort Point. He was discovered by several teenagers who alerted the authorities. Amazingly, he survived the ordeal and was returned to Alcatraz.

POLARIS: Alcatraz's Infamous Inmates
Alphonse “Scarface” Capone: (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947) The Prohibition Era's most famous mobster was also Alcatraz's most famous resident. For a decade, Capone was the undisputed kingpin of the Chicago underworld. Considered to be untouchable due to his immense wealth, cunning and brutality, Capone ran an intricate business world which included gambling, bootlegging, prostitution, dog racing and much more. When Capone was finally convicted on federal income tax evasion in 1931, he was sent to a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Unfortunately, Capone was able to bribe most of the prison's guards and led a privileged life behind bars with virtually no interruption in his criminal activities. Concerned that Capone's associates could easily break him out of such an insufficient facility, the federal authorities elected to send “Scarface” to Alcatraz with the first shipment of inmates drawn from around the country. At Alcatraz, Capone's cushy lifestyle came to an abrupt halt. He simply became Prisoner 85. Desperate to earn early release, Capone was a model prisoner. Many of the other inmates had an ax to grind with the former mob leader, however, and there were several attempts on his life during his tenure on “The Rock.” Capone was finally released the prison system in 1939 and returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida. By this time, Capone's central nervous system was ravaged by syphilis and he was literally out of his mind. (There was a popular rumor at the time that Alcatraz was such a traumatic experience for Capone, that his stay on the island rendered him insane.) He died at home in 1947.

Alvin “Creepy” Karpis: (August 10, 1907 – August 26, 1979) Although his name is not as well known as his fellow gang members “Ma” and “Doc” Barker, Karpis was one of the most malevolent characters to be housed at Alcatraz during its thirty years of service. Although his criminal history included numerous store and bank robberies, Karpis's downfall came with from the occupation of kidnapping. When the Karpis-Barker gang received the ransom for a bank president, they were unaware that the authorities had marked all the bills. Government agents killed “Ma” and “Doc” Barker in Florida, but would not find Karpis. “Creepy” quickly became “Public Enemy Number One” until he was eventually arrested in New Orleans in 1936. Karpis spent more time in Alcatraz than any other inmate in the prison's history. He was given his unusual moniker – “Creepy” – by the other inmates and prison guards who were regularly startled by Karpis's erratic behavior. A cellmate described him this way: “Old 'Creepy' came to 'the Rock' with a lot of national publicity hanging all over him, like decorations on a Christmas tree. He was a big shot, and he didn't want no one to forget it. 'Creepy' has the mind of a ten-year old kid, and still has. I wouldn't trust 'Old Creepy' as far as a kid could throw him.”

George “Machine Gun” Kelly: (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954) Although probably one of the best known names from Prohibition era crime, “Machine Gun” Kelly had a limited criminal career when compared to contemporaries like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. He began as a simple bootlegger and later graduated to bank robbery. When he married Kathryn Thorne in the late-20s, however, things began to change in a big way. Many historians believe that Thorne probably encouraged his new career focus – kidnapping – and created his unusual moniker to distinguish him among other underworld figures. Unfortunately, Kelly or Thorne were foiled by their first victim, an oil tycoon named Charles F. Urschel. Urschel was careful to note everything he could about his kidnappers, details that ultimately led the FBI right to Kelly's hideout. Kelly spent the rest of his life behind bars where he continued to be a master of self-promotion, even without Thorne's help. Apparently the other prisoners at Alcatraz were less than impressed, referring to him as “Pop Gun Kelly.” He died of a heart attack in Leavenworth Prison in 1954.

Robert Franklin Stroud (a.k.a. “Birdman of Alcatraz”): (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963) Stroud's story was popularized by the Burt Lancaster movie which depicted the “Birdman” as mild-mannered, humane and intellectual. (Well, two out of three weren't bad.) Stroud spent nearly all his life behind bars. Stroud committed his first murder at age 18 when he shot a friend who has slept with his prostitute-wife and failed to pay her. He was tried in federal court as the crime occurred in Alaska prior to its statehood and no local courts were in existence. He stayed in federal prison thanks to a long series of violent behavior, including stabbing a prison guard to death in front of 1,100 other prisoners eating in the mess hall of Leavenworth Penitentiary. Stroud was sentenced to death for this second murder, but the sentence was commuted to life in solitary confinement. Stroud began his fascination with birds to pass his time alone and was even allowed to keep cages of sparrows and canaries in his cell. Ironically, when Stroud was transferred to Alcatraz from Leavenworth, he was not allowed to keep pet birds at all. Even so, Stroud contributed volumes to the study of bird physiology. Stroud died behind bars at the age of 75 after spending three-fourths of it in prison.

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TRESPASS: Pat discussed the final resting place of my mom for the first time today. He said that after she died, he couldn’t bury her because of all the flooding (even the Dry Tree cemetery was flooded, as Rune and I found out when we went there later) so he just took her back to our family trailer and left her on the bed. He said he locked the place up tight to keep animals out, but didn’t have the resources or time to do anything else with her. What he didn’t know, of course, is that Rune and I were in that trailer six months after he supposedly wrapped my mom’s corpse in blankets and left her on her bed. Guess what? The place wasn’t locked up because there was very little left inside anyway. And there was certainly no dead body or any trace that a dead body had ever been there. Since Rune and I took tons of photos of the place at the time, our webmasters are turning all that over to the FBI which had Agent Ritchie excited because it showed the “crime scene” in the same state Pat presumably left it. Hopefully he’ll shit his pants when he finds this out, although I’m sure he and the lawyer will come up with some way of explaining all that.

I kind of fed up dealing with this, so I’m going to spend the afternoon on the beach looking at hot girls in tiny bikinis.

Click here for additional information on this subject.

MERIDIAN: Although one would expect the prison renowned for housing the worst of the worst to have its fair share of negative energy, one personality in particular is cited as being the institution's most active ghost. Abie Maldowitz was allegedly a hired killer attached to Murder Incorporated, the league of assassins that was formed by Benjamin "Bugsy" Seigel and Meyer Lansky. [For more on Bugsy Seigel, click here.]

During the 1930s and 40s, Murder Inc. killed hundreds of individuals under the direction of the mafia, including government informants, witnesses, public officials and disobedient mobsters. Most of these crimes were unsolved. According to numerous printed and internet accounts, Maldowitz was himself murdered by another convict in the laundry room in C Block and his psychotic spirit still roams there. The story was enhanced by an account that professional psychic Sylvia Brown [For more on Sylvia Browne, click here] felt Maldowitz's spirit in the laundry room while in the company of CBS News team and a former inmate named Leon "Whitey" Thompson.

Thompson, who wrote and lectured extensively about the prison prior to his death in 2005, may have been the first person to publicly identify the hostile entity in the laundry room. When Sylvia Brown made her pronouncement about sensing the ghost of a man who was called "The Butcher," Thompson reportedly stepped forward and said, "“I remember Butcher. He was a hit man with Murder Incorporated before they caught him. His name was Abie Maldowitz but we called him Butcher. Another prisoner killed him here in the laundry room.”

But was Maldowitz even a real person? The problem is that there's no independent information on Maldowitz or any citations connected with these stories, most of which appear to nothing more than the same information reworded for a different format. The OCE webmasters could not find any listing of Maldowitz in connection with Murder Inc. or gangland activities. Nor does he appear anywhere on the roster of convicts at Alcatraz during its entire thirty year operation. Likewise, since there are no dates attached to the Sylvia Brown visit, we are unable to determine if the Maldowitz story was in existence before or after she toured the prison. In the end, Does this mean that Maldowitz didn't exist in the first place? No, not necessarily. It's possible that he was a minor gangland figure so his name wouldn't appear in the books and other references we consulted on Murder Inc. Or maybe the inmate records from Alcatraz are simply missing him for some reason, although that seems unlikely? For me, however, this ghost legend is the second I've encountered in which it is believed (or so it seems) simply because Sylvia Browne said it. Where's the proof? Where's the historical record of Abie Maldowitz? Is that too much to ask for, really?

The Rock's most popular ghost story is more of a mystery than originally thought.

[Webmaster’s Note: This may not have been the only time professional psychic Sylvia Browne “missed the boat” with a reading of a haunted place. Read Meridian’s analysis of Browne’s seance at the famous haunted Toys R Us in Sunnyvale, California, by clicking here.]

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TRESPASS: Hey, everyone! Sorry it’s been a while since I was able to send an update, but I’ve been spending a lot of time seeing the sights here in FL between meeting with the FBI. Our webmasters sent the FBI all the photos Rune and I took when we were in Dry Tree, [Louisiana] about six months after my mom apparently had her fatal “accident.” Since [Rune and I] didn’t find her body where my stepdad said he left it, they’re pretty sure he must of buried or hidden it somewhere. There would be lots of places in the swamp to stash it. The agents now think that Pat had to get rid of it before he left Dry Tree. It’s not like he’d carry it with him, so they are making arrangements to head back there to search the area. I’m probably going to fly into New Orleans and then drive in to meet them. This will probably happen in the next few days, but I will try to stay in better touch and let you all know what’s happening. How are things in San Francisco? I was ready all the stuff you posted about Alcatraz. Wish I could be there to see that. Later, T.

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TRESPASS: I arrived yesterday back in New Orleans and drove today with the FBI agents back to Dry Tree. The agents were concerned that they wouldn’t be able ti find either the town or Mom’s trailer, which is probably true. Dry Tree isn’t so much a town as a a collection of homesteads so there’s not even street maps of it. The roads were in much better condition from when Rune and I went in ’05, so the trip was quicker too. Some of the people who lived around us had returned, which surprised me. Mom’s trailer looks pretty much the same as it did when Rune and I visited, except that the roof’s falling in. The agents started inside the trailer using blood detection instruments and apparently they found a lot of it in the kitchen and living room. Since Rune and I didn’t see any [blood] during our visit, it was everyone’s guess that Pat cleaned it up after killing my mom. Agent Ritchie told me that there was a lot on the walls and floors, more than we would expect if my mom just fell accidentally and cracked her head on the floor. There was no blood in the bedroom, which is where Pat said he left my mom’s body, so that’s obviously another lie. They took samples for DNA testing and will need to get sample from me to confirm identity. We still don’t know what Pat did with my mom’s body and so far he’s not saying.

POLARIS: The Great Suicide Bridge
We all piled into one of the Camels and drove around to some of the more famous landmarks in the Bay area. Our first stop was the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge, considered by some to be one of the modern wonders of the world. For us, however, it was the allure of the macabre that drew us to the two-hundred and twenty-two foot behemoth.

Although it has always been OCE policy not to research a place prior to visiting it (our webmasters will make suggestions as to venues we should visit, but deliberately withhold any information about hauntings or other paranormal phenomenon until after the visit is concluded), you’d have to live in a cave not to know something about the bridge. In particular is its reputation as the preferred “jump site” for all the suicidal folk residing in the bay area. Over fifteen-hundred people have leapt to their deaths from its railings, averaging about two dozen suicides per year or approximately one jump every fifteen days. When we parked the Camel and started our walk over to the bridge itself, this tragic statistic became even more obvious. Just outside the parking area was a large blue sign which read EMERGENCY PHONE AND CRISIS COUNSELING. The word “suicide” didn’t appear anywhere, but the purpose of the phone was obvious.

We crossed under the bridge and through its impressive orange metal skeleton. The thunder of the traffic above and the booms of the surf below made the journey ominous to say the least. On the opposite side of the bridge is an observation deck where you have an amazing view of the San Francisco shoreline and Alcatraz Island [click here for more information about Alcatraz].

The reason why the Golden Gate attracts the suicidal is obvious. The present railing is only about waist-high which would make it easy for individuals to climb and jump. And the fall is impressive... over two-hundred feet to the frigid water and deadly current. Up until 2005, the local government apparently tracked suicides and suicide attempts at the bridge and came up with some interesting statistics. For example, it was found that many of the victims seemed to travel long distances to die at the bridge, including coming from out-of-state. Many seemed considerate of others around them, leaping only when there were no witnesses to traumatize. Most chose to leap from the east side of the bridge, although the reason why is not clear. The studies also estimated that the fall lasts four-seconds and a body hits the water at nearly one-hundred miles per hour which virtually ensures death. Most die from internal injuries and those who aren’t killed by the fall either drown quickly or are ripped apart by the violent tide and sharp rocks. A large percentage of jumpers are never recovered at all as the current sweeps the body out to sea where it is lost forever. Only twenty-six people have ever survived the fall as of the 2006 study.

(As of this writing, the last attempted suicide was a middle-aged man who threw himself over the railing in March 2008. He amazingly survived and was reported in stable condition in a local hospital.)

Needless to say, none of our team were able to detect any residule psychic energy from all these tragic deaths due to all the noise, tourists and traffic. There are reports, however, that visitors and employees at the bridge have heard ghostly screams and the splash of phantom bodies hitting the water. Considering the rate of jumpers off the bridge, however, I would hazard to suggest that many of these noises are not phantasmic at all.



RUNE: Cinema Suicide in "The Bridge"
The first ten minutes or so of “The Bridge,” an documentary made by an independent filmmaker named Eric Steel, has the same kind of emotional impact as, say, the first ten minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.” The film opens with various shots of the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge, its orange skeleton rising out of the mists of the San Francisco Bay like something out of a dream. Clouds swirl through its towers and cables. The bawling of seagulls pierces the air. Bicyclists, tourists and lovers amble along the concrete deck in the bright sunshine. An older man, probably in his late 60s, leans over the railing and peers down at the dark blue surf some seven hundred feet below. Then calmly and effortlessly, he climbs over the bars and flings himself over the edge. His fall lasts nearly four seconds and his body hits with such force that it raises a huge plume of foam off the ocean.

Our webmaster suggested the team watch this video after visiting the Golden Gate Bridge and being amazed by the number of suicides that are committed there every year. After this opening scene of “The Bridge,” I think amazement turned to horror. I watched the rest of the two-hour video with tears in my eyes.

Eric Steel, the director, set up cameras around the bridge and filmed it day in and day out for a year. During that time, he was able to capture on film twenty-three of the twenty-four suicides committed during that year. Most occurred in broad daylight, in clear view of the hundreds of other souls who were strolling around the bridge’s immense span. A few were rescued before they could jump... only to return later to try again. There is no narration to the film except for the words and remembrances of the surviving friends and family of all the jumpers. Many of them tell the same story – about lost souls who struggled for years with mental illness, failed relationships, an abiding sense of failure... I was barely able to sleep after watching it, haunted by the thought that one’s life could be so consistently painful that overcoming your natural fear and sense of self-preservation and throwing yourself to your death is preferable to living. Sad. So very sad. I will never be able to look at that bridge in the same way again.

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TRESPASS: We were back in Dry Tree again today. The agents were using ground-penetrating radar around the trailer looking for Mom’s grave but didn’t come up with anything. They did find some of my mom’s old clothing stuff under the kitchen sink so the FBI took that to try and pull DNA. I also walked over to the neighbor’s who have moved back and me and Agent Ritchie talked to them. They really could tell us much because they fled Hurricane Katrina before Pat and my mom did. They did confirm, however, that my mom was alive as of August 27, 2005 and that she and Pat were packing up the truck and preparing to leave when they saw her last. Agent Ritchie thinks that Pat probably intended to murder my mom early on, but let her live to help him pack up the place. Once they were packed and all the witnesses had fled the area and the storm, Pat killed her and then escaped the state during all the mass confusion of evacuation.

Rune suggested that I see if Meryl could provide any insight, but she's been unusually quiet on this whole mess. Usually I can feel her nearby, but so far nothing.

MERIDIAN: Cosmic Temples, Power Stones and Other Fantasies At the Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
I had to beg the team to let me write this entry. After my journals about the Sunnyvale Toys R Us and the Abie Markowitz “haunting” on Alcatraz, I have the deserved reputation as the team skeptic. (I guess I always had that, but I’m trying hard to solidify my position!) Our readers may be relieved to know that I’m not taking professional crack-pot psychic Sylvia Browne to task on anything this time ‘round... instead, I’m going after a bunch of other crack-pots.

First, let me clarify my position on the paranormal. Obviously, since I gave up my life to be a part of Outcast Earth, I believe that paranormal phenomenon is real and deserves serious discussion and investigation. I also believe it is rare, as most valuable and unusual things are. Our society goes through phases where this topic becomes “hot” and inspires great interest and great fraud. We saw this happen during the Spiritualism movement in the late-Nineteenth century and then again during the New Age movement of the 1980s and 90s. I think we are now in another such age, as our televisions and book stores are filled with all kinds of offerings about ghosts, reincarnation, psychic ability and supernatural powers. I do not wish to be lumped in with the various charlatans who promise extraordinary insight into the unknown in exchange for a hefty fee. For all of us interested in this subject, it is definitely a matter of “buyer beware.” That being said, I wanted to address some of the stories that our webmasters asked us to investigate at the Golden Gate Park, which is located to the south of the Golden Gate Bridge.

According to some New Age practitioners, the Golden Gate Park is the ancient site of a city called Tlamco which was originally built by survivors from the lost civilization of Atlantis. Tlamco contained a series of temples that were arranged to represent the orbits of the first seven planets in our solar system and the entire area is considered a virtual hotbed of cosmic energy. This esoteric belief appears to have originated from a nineteenth century novel entitled Yermah The Dorado by Fiona Eunice Wait. Originally published in 1897, the novel tells the story of how survivors of the doomed island culture of Atlantis resettled in the New World and built a utopian society on this peninsula which is today in the heart of San Francisco.

The following is a passage from Wait’s novel which describes the arrangement of the cosmic temples:

...It was the first time since his arrival from Atlantis that Yermah had ventured outside the city limits alone. When once the temples, forts, and market–places of Tlamco were left behind him, he had given Cibolo the rein and abandoned himself to the exhilaration of going like the wind. Tlamco, the Llama city whose passing was so complete as to leave no perceptible traces for the men who founded Yerba Buena on the same peninsula ages after, and whose very existence would be laughed at by the nineteenth–century inhabitants of San Francisco, were not the hills in and around Golden Gate Park living witnesses of great mathematical skill.The first denizens built some of these hills and shaped others, to give the diameters and distances of all the planets. Who of to–day will believe that Las Papas, or Twin Peaks, show the eccentricities of the earth’s orbit to one fifty-millionths of its full size..?

Devotees of the Tlamco story claim that the hills in the Golden Gate Park coincide exactly to the orbits of six of the planets and the sun. According to Wait’s novel and those who have taken this early science fiction novel literally, the temples are located as follows:

TEMPLE OF THE SUN: Located at the intersection of Haight and Shraeder Streets in the Haight–Ashbury District
TEMPLE OF JUPITER: Located at the Lone Mountain Campus of the University of San Francisco
TEMPLE OF VENUS: Located at Alamo Park
TEMPLE OF MARS: Located to the southwest of the Lone Mountain Campus of the University of San Francisco
TEMPLE OF SATURN: Located at Buena Vista Park, facing Corona Heights in the Haight– Ashbury District
TEMPLE OF URANUS: Located at the edge of the San Francisco Presidio, near the upper end of Mountain Lake
TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE: Located near Strawberry Hill in Golden Gate Park

According to some sources, the Golden Gate Park became a virtual mecca for New Agers during the late 1980s and early 1990s after a construction crew unearthed an egg-shaped rock. New Agers immediately claimed that the rock was a shivalinga, a sacred stone that represented the Hindu god, Shiva. Shivalingas are found throughout Hindu temples and are generally described as phallic-shaped stones. Devotees of Wait’s story pointed to this stone as proof of the existence of Tlamco and immediately went to great measures to preserve the stone. Believers claim that discovery of the shivalinga, combined with the unique placement of the Golden Gate Park hills (temples), is why San Francisco is a center for spiritual enlightenment and free thought. (It should be noted, however, that neither I or our webmasters were able to independently confirm the discovery of the shivalinga or the great pilgrammage to the park that allegedly occured after its discovery.)

I also found it curious that the origin of the Tlamco story and its resurgence in popularity coincided with two eras in which interest in the paranormal and metaphysical was very high. Wait published her novel at the height of the Spiritualism movement at the end of the Nineteenth century; and the discovery of the shivalinga and renewed interested in Tlamco coincided with the height of the New Age movement during the late 80s and early 90s. Everything’s cyclical, isn’t it?

With all due respect to the beliefs of others, there are some obvious problems with the Tlamco story. First and foremost, Tlamco was just that – a story, a piece of science fiction written by a nineteenth century author who intended it to be an engaging fantasy but not necessarily the foundation for religious belief. (In this respect, I suppose the belief in Tlamco has some similarities with several other prominent belief systems in the United States.) The seven cosmic temples were a unique creation of Wait’s imagination and the excavation of the “shivalinga” was probably a coincidence, as any rounded, phallic-shaped rock pulled from the site might have been so identified by true believers. It is also fascinating to me that the Tlamco story now incorporates elements which Wait never included in her novel. For example, many online descriptions of the “lost city” claim that its construction was undertaken by everyone from Atlanteans to ancient Mesoamericans to extraterrestrials. The discovery of the shivalinga is also an anachronism, giving a Hindu element to the story as well. The incorporation of such divergent cultural elements is a hallmark of many New Age beliefs, however. Often, if the intermingling of such elements cannot be explained in a logical way, then the intervention of extraterrestrials is a convenient “bridge” to connect the pieces. In this case, apparently lifeforms from the Pleiades also had a hand in Tlamco’s design.

There are plenty of areas around the world that could be described as “hotspots” for cosmic or psychic energy. It could be said that the OCE team encountered this firsthand during our recent visit to the Big Basin Redwood Park. The mysteries of nature are something I would not presume to say we understand in the slightest. However, since the origin of Tlamco was purely fictional and can be documented as such, I am not convinced that the Golden Gate Park has any special cosmic powers. The power it does possess may be more individual. I would love to spend more time there. Aside from the natural beauty and gorgeous views, the park is filled with amazing museums, a Japanese tea garden, a flower conservatory and plenty of other inspirational attractions. But for me, the power it possessed did not originate with Atlantis but from a more personal, inner source.

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EMAIL FROM ASH TO TRESPASS: Trespass, I tried to dream about your mom last night and had a dream about a woman who went into a honky-tonk bar and the place had alligators lying all over the floor. The place was crowded with people and a loud band was playing but no one was even noticing the gators. Every once in a while, one of the gators would attack a person in the bar and eat them but [no] one would notice. I hope this helps because I don’t really know what that means.

EMAIL FROM TRESPASS TO ASH: Thanks, dude. I don't know what that means either, but I'll think about it for a while and see if something comes to me. Not much to report still. The FBI have been back out to Dry Tree two more times, still looking for my mom's body, but still nothing usable has come up. I've kind of lost hope that we'll ever find it because of all the damage to the area that the storm [Hurricane Katrina] caused. Any way, thanks for trying to help. Tell everyone I said hi.