Due to the reemergence of students filtering back into my high school classroom — new unit plans, seating charts and the such, my post this week will be short and sweet. That said, I wanted to introduce readers to one of my all-time favorite paranormal websites circling the tubes: Shadowlands.
The website is a typical paranormal site, with a focus on ghosts, UFOs, and Cryptozoology. There are subpages dedicated to famous hauntings, photographs and videos, reader story submissions and ghost hunting equipment (my next post will look at the now-flooded market of ghost “hunting” tools). But what separates Shadowlands from the thousands of other websites dedicated to the supernatural is the “Haunted Places Index.”
Here, visitors can look up his or her home state and hometown and read up on all the places nearby with supposed paranormal activity. Visitors can submit their own locales, and the list is constantly updated as buildings are torn down or when the local police get hip to possible trespassers. The Index covers not only North America, and its world grows bigger and bigger each month.
I would be a liar if I said that I didn’t plan vacations around the Index.
It is in the Haunted Places Index that the little known Carbur’s building in my former hometown of Burlington, VT keeps company with the infamous Winchester Mystery House [Editor's note: see my earlier photo essay] and the Borley Rectory — the dual Meccas of the paranormal community.
Visit the page, scroll through some of the local legends and lore of your surrounding area and plan a road trip. Let me know what you find.
