FAMILY STORIES OF SPIRIT
Spirit 1)
Family Story-Mom
The beginning of my investigations into the Spirit World began before I have conscious memory, starting with my encounters as a two-year-old with the Spirit of my Great-Grandfather, Fred Lincks, “Boppy ie”. When I was 11 my Mom and I would spend Friday nights watching a TV program “Most Haunted" and during a promo they said that the resident psychic used to talk to his Grandfather as a child, ...who died before he was born. I said to my Mom that was too freaky and she proceeded to scare me by telling me that when I was around 2 years old (the time my brother was born), that I used to tell my parents that I was playing with a really nice old man.
Finally, after a few times they asked me to describe the old man and I apparently described Boppy ie to a tee and even referred to him as ‘Fred’. Boppy ie didn’t go by his first name (George) and instead was called Fred which was a nickname for his middle name. I don’t remember playing with Boppy ie but I remember seeing a large figure made from a bright white/yellow light in my room when I was 6 years old. It woke me from my sleep, and at first, I felt fear, and then a voice coming from down inside me told me that it was Boppy ie coming to say goodbye to me, and not to be afraid. This experience inspired my research into the paranormal and psychic abilities. It led me to seek out other books, TV shows and podcasts that discussed the Spirit World.
Spirit 2)
Personal Experience with a friend
Other friends lived by the Mill River, including a friend Alex, whose family lived in a newly constructed home feet from the river. When I slept over at Alex’s house, it was often with our group of friends, and we would sleep in the basement. One night, I was the only one staying over, so we slept in Alex’s second-floor bedroom with an attached bathroom. We watched as the light switch in the bathroom started moving on and off, and we could see clearly that no one else was in the bathroom with us. After eventually working up the courage to go into the bathroom, we watched with horror as the light switch continued to physically flip on and off. I don’t think I will ever know the source of the haunting in my childhood home or at Alex’s house, but I always theorized it was related to the nearby river. The river is the most ancient thing in Alex’s neighborhood, and through my personal family hauntings in our house by the river it became my theory as to the source of the activity in a relatively new house. This story supports my question by providing more personal experiences from my childhood in a very haunted town on the Long Island Sound. The town, Uncoway, also has a major river and many marshes, which led to my belief that water can amplify the Spirit World.
Spirit 3)
Phone call with my Mother-in-Law, Mary Ross
Mary was searching for Brendan’s great-great- grandfather, Matthew Charles Brown, who was the child of Irish immigrants born in Quebec in the 19th century. Mary told us family stories, in particular ones about Matthew Brown and his children and grandchildren. Mary told us that she had recently had her recurring dream of “Pop”, her grandfather, again.
“You know, the one where he’s not really dead. That he’s alive and that Grandma has been keeping it a secret from me the whole time, and I’m so angry with her…I think it means that he’s really close to me.”
This story supported my questions about dreams as research and the significance of recurring dreams. The audio from this phone call was taken and used in the video Coven.
Spirit 4)
Interview with Aunt Chrisanne
Aunt Chrisanne discussed the haunting in the Golden Valley house by the previous owner who died there. She recounts finally talking with her partner, Randy about the strange things that she had been experiencing in the house.
“I’ve just started seeing things. I’m seeing a ghost. Have you been seeing a...sensation here? Have you been seeing a ghost? I would this sensation when I would be vacuuming and I would see this sensation of white mist going over the couch. He didn't believe in ghosts or other worlds, but I was a believer. I looked at the ghost and I said this is our house. This is our house, you have to leave. This is our house, In Golden Valley now.”
Chrisanne also told the story of the fire in the Golden Valley home in her ex-partner Randy’s screen-printing studio. Chrisanne also talked about her close relationship with her grandma May, and that Grandma May grew up speaking Finnish, but that when she entered elementary school, she was forced to learn English. This audio was used in the videos Down the Well and Pledge Allegiance.
Spirit 5)
Interview with Lorraine Zinnia Johnson.
Zinnia and I discussed the history of Cape Cod, including theories as to why it is so haunted. We discuss the story of the bridge acting as a boundary for Spirit, and Zinnia reminded me about our visit to the haunted Sagamore cemetery, where many of the bodies exhumed during the bridge construction were reburied (several were buried with the wrong headstones). Zinnia shared personal stories about Cape Cod and paranormal experiences that she’s had, and we discussed experiences that we’ve had together, notably at Pine Grove Cemetery in Truro.
Established in 1799, Pine Grove is currently located in the middle of the coastal forest of Truro; the church that used to stand next to it has long been reclaimed by the forest. Pine Grove Cemetery is pictured in the video and its nearby vicinity to the Atlantic Ocean and Pamet Harbor confirms my original suspicion that water affects the Spirit World. Pine Grove is most famous for its connection to the media craze of 1969 around serial killer, Tony “Chop Chop” Costa. Tony dismembered and buried his victims at the cemetery and in the woods behind it. The newspapers at this time were quick to mention that behind the cemetery, there is an old crossroads. Crossroads are considered in most European and New England lore and literature as a liminal place of special magical power; that in Europe and the colonies was closely associated with witches and the occult. Only twice were Lorraine and I brave enough to drive the long dirt road through the trees to visit Pine Grove at night. The first time was in 2023, about two weeks before my UAP sighting that November, and as Lorraine recounts.
LZJ: We pull up as we're like driving down this completely dark dirt road...cause it was so dark but the moon was like basically full so you could like still kind of see everything.
JG: It was right before Halloween.
LZJ: Yeah…and I remember like pulling up and then I was sitting there and I had this like nasty feeling in my gut…I remember walking in and as we were getting started, I heard like two men just like talking outside the border…I could swear that I could see it like moving like shadows. I was looking around and I swore I could see people, like looking out from beyond like the gravestones. And it was...full head and shoulders…Just kind of peeking out. And then when I would look at them for too long, they would kind of slink back…It was horrific. I remember you poured libations [herbal tea] and then we ran.
Lorraine’s experience of seeing people who would then hide behind the tombstones was something that I observed as well, the second time we visited the cemetery at night. Pine Grove Cemetery is located near the Pamet Harbor, and not far from the bayside. Pilgrim Springs is only a few miles away, closer to the Ocean, and Lorraine and I have often theorized about the role all this water plays in the hauntings at Pine Grove. There are springs and underground aquifers that supply water on the Cape, and people often say the most haunted buildings on the peninsula are the ones that are located above underground springs. Lorraine Zinnia and I enjoy conducting amateur paranormal research, and we regularly visited haunted places by the Ocean together when I was living in Nauset, including several historic cemeteries. One particularly notorious and historic cemetery, Pine Grove, is featured in my videos, Down the Well and Pledge Allegiance. This audio from my interview with Lorraine Zinnia was also used in the video Coven.
Spirit 6)
Interview with Mom
When I moved to our cottage in Nauset in 2018 I remember asking my Mom how she first came to believe that the cottage was haunted by the former owner, Hattie. Mom said that in the first year that we owned the cottage, my brother and I were trying to sleep in the bedroom, but we were being kept up by the sound of scratching coming from within the walls. The cottage is not insulated; there is no real space in the walls for an animal to be in, the walls are merely constructed out of beaver board. My Mom said that she was telling herself logically that it was some kind of an animal, but she said that Tommy and I were getting increasingly upset. She finally had a moment of desperation, and she burst out, “Hattie please stop! The kids really need to go to sleep, and you’re scaring them!” The scratching stopped immediately, and my Mom had a chill run up her spine.
This story was the first time my Mom believed that we were experiencing interactions with Spirit and it ignited my curiosity in the paranormal at a young age. This experience led me to ask my parents to buy me books that we saw in tourist shops about the history of hauntings on Cape Cod specifically. I also use tell this story as part of the audio soundtrack for the video Down the Well, saying that “All houses on Cape Cod have a ghost. Ours was no exception. Our house was haunted by the former owner, a woman named Hattie Jennings, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in 1999.”
Spirit 7)
Interview with Mom
My Mom spoke about the female Spirit in Boston in Mom’s apartment (in the building that my Dad owned). She describes what the woman looked like and that my grandparents consulted the family psychic, Eve Olsen, who was a Spiritualist medium. Eve told my Mom that she should[GU1] talk to the ghost and tell her that she is studying for a very important exam and that she needs to get her sleep. My Mom describing the ghost in Boston that, “I opened my eyes and saw what looked like a woman. Like the knees up, or, and I think, she was suspended off the ground.” This story supports my research question through providing personal connection to psychics and the Spiritualist movement. This story also reinforces the importance of including women’s voices in discussions of the paranormal, as Eve Olsen was clearly a powerful medium. The audio from this interview was used in the videos Down the Well and Coven.
Spirit 8)
Personal Experience with Mom
My other Great-Grandmother, Nonnie, also loved Cape Cod, and I have photos with her at Longnook Beach. Longnook is a very sacred place to my family; it is where we spread the ashes of our loved ones and a place we visit to appreciate the beauty of nature. I feel close to my Ancestors there, to Betty, Nonnie and Boppy ie. This story reinforces my ability to attract Spirits and find signs from my Ancestors during daily life. Nonnie and Boppy pie were avid bird watchers, and they particularly loved blue jays and cardinals. Years after Nonnie died, my Mom and I were at Longnook Beach completely by ourselves one beautiful Monday morning in October.
We were unloading our beach gear from the car when a blue jay flew inside the back seats. Shocked, I tried to gently shoo it from the car, and it then flew into the front passenger seat where I had been sitting. It didn’t want to leave the car or go far from me, as it then landed on the front passenger mirror. It flew around my head and eventually, unable to shake it, we gave up and I walked down the long dune to the beach with a blue jay circling my head. Finally, it flew down the beach before later returning and surprising me by landing on my shoulder for a moment before it left us. One day, I will spread the ashes of other family members here, and maybe they will send me signs in the form of beautiful birds, quiet reminders from the Spirit World that love is immortal. This story supported my thesis question by showing that the messages from the Spirit World are amplified when next to a major body of water, such as the Atlantic Ocean.
Spirit 9)
Experiences with Roommates (2014-2018)
While I was a student at Parsons School of Design, I lived in both of the two apartments in The Trapeze Loft, we referred to them as the front and back apartment and they shared a front door and a hallway.. My Aunt Tanya has had the lease for The Trapeze Loft for 30+ years in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The apartments were just three blocks away from the East River. I first moved into the front apartment at The Trapeze Loft by myself in October 2014. While I lived there, I would hear strange noises that I explained away by inconsiderate neighbors, but there was something that felt unsettling at times. Once I rescued my two cats that December, I felt more comfortable because I could blame the strange noises on them. My roommate Jess eventually moved into the front apartment and told me that she would also hear strange things. Jess said one night she woke up around 4 AM and saw a man with long hair and a hat standing in the kitchen, just meters away from her bed. Jess sat up and said “Hello” to the man and he disappeared before her eyes.
In July 2015 I moved into the back apartment, down the hall from the front apartment of The Trapeze Loft. There was always an uncomfortable feeling in the bathroom, in part due to the skylight in that room. It always felt like someone was staring down at you, angry that you were invading their space. During the first year that I lived there with two roommates, Jess Pantano and Amelia Lintern-Smith. One day Amelia asked me if I had moved her two pill bottles that she always kept on the shared desk in our living room. I told her that I had been washing dishes the whole time in the kitchen and that our roommate Jess, was in her room the whole time. We both came into the living room to help Amelia look but we couldn’t find the pill bottles anywhere. We both returned to the previous rooms when I heard Amelia yelp. I ran into the living room to find her standing shocked in front of the red desk, where her pill bottles had suddenly reappeared. It became harder to ignore the strange occurrences in the apartment but we collectively decided to ignore it.
Once Jess moved into the front apartment, we found another roommate to take her room, for privacy reasons I will call her Colleen. Colleen lived in the back bedroom in our apartment that was a lofted room over the kitchen. The Trapeze Loft was a former warehouse that had 20-foot ceilings and was separated from our neighbors by a maze of temporary walls (a fire would have killed everyone) and strange rooms created from the haphazard design and illegal re-purposing of the building. During this re-design there was a room created in our apartment over the bathroom that was separated from the back bedroom by a wall with a hole in it where a large pipe ran through. Colleen came downstairs one morning and began telling me about the strange, vivid dream that she had the night before. She said there was a very angry woman in the dream who told her that the room over the bathroom was her space so Colleen should keep out!!! Colleen said that this woman didn’t like us and that she wanted us to stay away from her.
A few weeks later when I was in the apartment alone, I accidentally recorded a woman’s voice in a video on my phone, she was cut off at the end, but it sounded like she was asking me a question, “Are you-.” I texted my Aunt Tanya and asked her if there was ever any paranormal activity in the apartments. She replied, “Oh yeah lots, why do you ask?” We met over dinner that week and she confirmed for me that there was a hostile female Spirit living in the room over the bathroom and that there was another male Spirit in the front apartment, but that he was more friendly. My roommates and I always noticed the male spirit on nights when we were throwing a party and joked that he just liked to hang out with us.
I asked Aunt Tanya if she knew who the Spirits were and she told me that she had researched the history of the broom factory that was the original building. Aunt Tanya said that no one had ever died there or been seriously injured, so she thought that the source of the paranormal activity was something older, possibly coming from the land. Aunt Tanya ended our conversation by telling me that, “Don’t forget, the living can leave ties too, you know.”