Municipal Cemetery
Clearwater
December 12, 2007
We were doing an investigation of the cemetery based on a story I received word of mouth. We thought that it might relate to the Cecil legend (see Urban Legends page). The story came from a young man who, several years ago, said that he enjoyed hanging out in the cemetery. He and a group of friends had been up late that night (it neared 3 or 4 a.m.) and decided to go for a walk; the were walking through the cemetary when the felt a horrible sense of dread. The person who relayed this to me said that he looked up to see a well dressed man in a 3-piece suit standing in the light of a street lamp. The man was older, silver hair, and had no eyes (or black spots where the eyes should be). The entire group felt terror. The old man asked them what they were doing there, and suggested they should leave. The young man answered this spectre very politely (I can't remember the exact quote), but turned to his friend, a young man known for his resoluteness, and asked him if they should run. The friend agreed, and in unison the entire group bolted from the cemetary. This young man said that he felt as if the old man were right on his heels, his hands reaching for the back of his neck. The resolute friend grew angry after they had cleared the cemetary -- this behavior was not at all like him. He turned around got in his car and drove into the cemetary to confront the old man but no one was there. The group saw no one leave.
This sounds remarkably like the "black eyed entity" stories that I hear about every now and again. These are entities that look like normal people except that they have no eyes, and they inspire terror. People also report feeling as if they want something from them, or as if the black-eyed people want near them to cause harm. I asked the young man if he had heard of the Cecil legend, about a ghost that, when invoked by name 3 times, follows the invoker home and often creates a sense of terror. The young man had not, but he did say that he had been discussing a mutual friend on the way to the cemetary -- whose last name was Cecil, and to whom they referred to as "Cecil". (He was quite pale as he told this to me).
We opted to investigate the cemetary. However, we went just prior to sunset and left within 30 minutes after the sun went down. The cemetary crossed over two streets, but Jeanne had scouted out and determined which of the two was older. We went into the older section and immedately, Verna and Mary described being pulled to one corner of the cemetary. They described an older man there, and a sense of terror or heaviness. Mary reported that her stomache was upset and there was a sense of tightness in the chest.
In the area where my meter gave a nice EMF spike, Jeanne also had a spike.
I brought with me my EMF meter, which did spike for reasons unknown. At one point, we stopped in the corner of the cemetary where the pressure was reported and I set the meter down on an old bench. We timed the spikes to the meter (19 secions, 9 secionds, 48 seconds, 28 seconds, 26 seconds, 1:12 seconds, 10 seconds) and found no true pattern.
A short time later, as Verna was walking in front of me, she suddenly stopped. She felt something tug on her hair. She stopped where she was and looked around. There were branches above her, but they were too far out of reach to have touched her.
We attempted to find the grave of the individual who might be the old man who manifested. There were several graves that related to the 1800s; Mary honed in on an individual from the late 1800s who was in the cemetary the older gentleman that she sensed. EMF was not of much use and we were not able to pinpoint any single grave. Mary felt as if the entity had come into the area and was not buried there.
In review of the film, I found what I initially thought were some odd light shots. A second look reveals that these images are just streetlights coming through the trees. The video that I took did have an odd section of noise that I heard when we were actively looking in the "haunted area" for the old man's grave. I listened to it several times and believe that it may be a car stereo that I'm picking up in the distance. In checking with the other individual who used a video camera, however, he did not find any car noise in his film. Other images on the video included bugs flying by the lens.
Overall, we would like to go back to that cemetery, particularly when it's lighter, and stay through sunset. It does appear to have something to its history but what, exactly, that is is hard to tell. More research is needed.
One member did find a large glass jar that was sticking out of the ground. We were able to see a picture of two women, writing in red ink on a brown paper bag and what looked like salt or sugar inside the jar which indicated a Santeria ritual. The location is near the area where on previous visits the team had picked up EMF readings with no apparent source and sensitives had felt an unfriendly male presence. The jar was returned to its place just as we found it.
There is a spell called "Witches Jar." It is done when there are bad feelings between people, relationship breakups, etc. Most of the time it involves putting a photograph of the person, perhaps a list or a letter to the person in the jar, then adding broken glass, rusty nails, that type of thing and then filling the jar with urine and adding a few drops of blood. The jar is then sealed and buried. It is considered a way to keep the other person at bay, not a way of harming the other person, in most cases...there are some less scrupulous people who have been known to use the jar to cause ill will to come to the other person. (Investigator research)
