Shock, Awe, and Possession - Sugar Hill, NH

Shock, Awe, and Possession
Return to Sugar Hill Inn
Sugar Hill, NH

Special Guests: NEPI-Anthony Ardolino, Nancy Fortin, Phyllis Ardolino, Michelle Lafontaine, Keegan, Lewkis, and Faith MacBean; along with Val Fortin, Chris Loveday, and Gregg Dumont

From Scared Sheetless article: Shock, Awe, and Peace

"'April 17^th, 2010 will most likely live in infamy with me as well as the rest of the North Eastern Paranormal Investigations(NEPI)as it was just a night of full shock, awe, and peace. It was just one of those events where in one word you can not describe to anyone what it was like. One of those events where you just say, “You had to be there.'"

Until now...

We returned to the Sugar Hill Inn on Sunday, November 11th, 2012. Now that is the new day that will live in infamy with NEPI. However, unlike last time, where we felt at peace; towards the end, there was just so much tension and negative energy.

Let me start from the beginning:

We arrive at around 7:30 at the Inn, ready to relive the night from two years ago, ready to help those spirits in need, and let their voices be heard. We were accompanied by Chris Loveday; host of Shadows of the Night, and Gregg Dumont; owner of KillerReviews.com and Wegga Productions. Very nice fellows, with an equal interest to the paranormal. This was actually Gregg's first investigation, hopefully he learned a thing or two from the NEPI gang.

We split up into teams, as we always do during big investigations like this; Anthony, Gregg, and Chris; Phyllis and Faith; Lewkis was walking around, taking pictures; while me, Michelle, and Nancy were in the Bette Davis room. For those who don't know, Davis was one of the most famous actresses of her era (1930's to 1980's). A career that spanned well over fifty years. She got her first big break, when a Universal Studios talent scout saw her in the Broadway play, Broken Dishes. They got her for a screening test and her career took off after that. However, in 1939, she wanted a break. She was exhausted and the Lowell, Massachusetts native wanted to return back to the northeast. Davis owned a house in Bath, NH as well as rented a room at the Sugar Hill Inn. Would NEPI be able to get in contact with her?

We asked if there was any spirits there, and it said yes. We then asked if it was an adult female, and it said, yes. We tried to pinpoint of who it could be and I suggested, ask if it is Bette Davis. Nancy didn't believe that it could be her, because even though she was noted of being a big patron of the Inn, she did pass away in France. I egged Nancy on to ask though and we got a yes, it is Bette Davis. We asked her questions, such as was she in the movie, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? A 1962 thriller. We got a yes. Nancy then asked if she was in an episode of Bonanza and it said yes. And for Gunsmoke, we got a no. However, upon further research, it shows Bette as starring in an episode of Gunsmoke and not Bonanza. After some time communicating with Bette, we told her thank you and if she wanted to say goodbye by stroking our hair or something along those lines, she could. Michelle said, she felt at peace and it was as if she felt like someone was hugging her; I felt a warm spot on my back. Could it be the spirit of Bette Davis?

We went into another room, just two doors down from the Davis room. It was calm, at first. We got no response from the Pendulum, but I felt cold. Really cold. Like an air conditioner was blowing right on me. Nancy asked if there is a spirit attached to me and it started to go to yes. We then asked if the spirit is a female, it said no; a male, it said yes. It made me wonder. On October 22nd of this year, I lost my grandfather, Richard Paradie, after a long battle with sickness. A man who was stronger than death and gave Death itself one hell of a fight, I figured his spirit would be strong enough to do what it wants. I wanted to know who it was and asked Nancy to ask if it was him, it said yes. I asked him questions I was pretty sure of what the answers would be: I asked him if he was mad that I haven't walked lately and if he was mad I was smoking again, both times it sung fast enough the chain was hitting Nancy's fingertips. It also looked at times as if it was vibrating; something that has never happened on any investigation. I asked if he was watching over me, Tyler, and Tazia (his grandchildren), it said yes. Lewkis came in and we
stopped the Pendulum and after that, I got warm again. I felt like he was gone, for the time being. He, if it was him, wouldn't make another appearance the rest of the night.

We then went downstairs to the bar area to do a Ghost Box session. This is where we were joined by Val, Phyllis, and Faith. We were getting some pretty interesting results with this session. Names that included: Martin, Arthur, and at one point, we even heard the name Fortin. Nancy and Val's last name is Fortin. Later on, we would hear both their names; Nancy on more than one occasion. Could this spirit be referring to them, seeing as they work there? We actually heard the name, Martin, on at least three different occasions. As quickly as the talking came, it ceased. We then proceeded to do what we were all anxiously waiting for - Glass Swirling.

For those who don't know, Glass Swirling works similar to an Ouija Board, however, you don't have letters and you use a glass, rather than a Planchett. The participants put their fingers on the bottom of the glass and tell the spirits, that they are allowed to use our energy freely, as long as they mean us no harm. It took awhile, but the glass started to really move. We asked if there was an afterlife and again, like in April of 2010, it made an 8, which means eternal life. This is the fourth time this has happened to us in an investigation; two of which that were not at the Inn. Could this be evidence that the afterlife really exists?

As we were doing this, Anthony, Chris, and Gregg came into the room. Chris was saying how he felt like this little girl was following them from room to room upstairs. He also said he saw a shadow crawl under one of our cameras, as if to stay out sight. Their meters were also going off, but they said, it was as if a spirit would try to get in contact, when something would come in and stop them. Anthony said this could be either a protective spirit thinking we are harming them or a bully. We are very compassionate about clients and spirits, but not bullies. We give them a taste of their own medicine. Chris and Gregg bid farewell and left back for home in Manchester. The fun was just beginning for us.

We went back to Glass Swirling and Val started to have a little too much fun with the spirits. He started saying he was bored and for the spirits to start liven things up a bit. The glass started to take off, going in circles, weird directions, and going fast. He then asked if he was "P*ssing them off" and sure enough, it kept on going, at full speed. Anthony asked if the spirits had the [another word for courage] to slam a door. Nothing happened. Now, nobody is guilty, because we were all egging them on, but you shouldn't do this in any investigation, because you leave yourself open for something really bad to happen...we would learn this the hard way pretty soon.

Getting out the Ghost Box, while doing a Pendulum session, it wouldn't take long before an event would happen that we've only seen on TV. The Pendulums were
swinging at full force, spinning in synch from Anthony's to Nancy's, we then got the name Ralph on the Ghost Box before fear struck in all of us. Michelle has well known habit of hiccupping during Pendulum sessions, it has become sort of the norm, but this wasn't ordinary. She started hiccupping faster and faster; she said, she didn't feel like herself. Suddenly she turned around and started doing a mix of hyperventilating, crying, and growling. Anthony recognized it right away for what it was...Michelle was being possessed by a spirit. Some people will say, Bull, but we would say not, you'd have to be there. She grabbed a hold of Val's jacket and Val said her stare was blank, she had saliva coming out, and she gasping for air. Anthony told her to tell whoever was trying to get in, to get out. I take no shame in saying that I got out of my seat, mostly because I was sitting right next to her, and I didn't want to be in the line of fire. We called in Phyllis, who's had experience in the field of Reiki. She did her thing to Michelle and Michelle turned around and said, she was fine. Simple as that. But this incident would scare the group into just abandoning the investigation. Which is understandable, but this is what we do, and we should know that consequences are expected for our actions.

Anthony, Michelle, and myself would continue. We went up into the old wing of the building to try out the RT-EVP. The RT-EVP is a experimental instrument that has a playback option, so you can actually hear the 'spirit voices' as you are doing EVP sessions. Anthony was amazed by it, because he thought he was getting direct responses. However, later, I would find out that the RT is so sensitive, it was getting the rest of the group talking downstairs. After this, we packed up and left, a piece of all of us wanting to stay and get more answers out of this marvelously mysterious place.

Until next time, this has been Scared Sheetless. Happy haunting, everybody.

 

Shock, Awe, and Peace by James Paradie - Sugar Hill, NH

Shock, Awe, and Peace
Sugar Hill Inn; Sugar Hill, NH
Written by James Paradie

Published in White Mountain Shopper on May 21st, 2010

April 17th, 2010 will most likely live in infamy with me as well as the rest of the North Eastern Paranormal Investigations(NEPI)as it was just a night of full shock, awe, and peace. It was just one of those events where in one word you can not describe to anyone what it was like. One of those events where you just say, “you had to be there.” There was just so much that happened that you would have to be there to believe it and we had eleven people there to prove what happened as well as video, audio, and picture evidence.

For those of you who are not familiar with NEPI, the group consists of: Anthony Ardolino(leader), Nancy Fortin, Phyllis Ardolino, Michelle LaFontaine, Nicole Ardolino, Keegan MacBean, Lewkis MacBean, Val Fortin, and myself as I joined the group in October of 2009. The guests who joined us tonight were Ron Kolek and Ron Kolek Jr. from New England Ghost Project, and Paul Hayes of the Littleton Record.

The investigation roughly started at about 9:30ish as we had to set up base, we all got acquainted with the guests of the evening as well as a tour of the Sugar Hill Inn for our guests. The Sugar Hill Inn is quite small, but is nice for a place in the back woods of New Hampshire. Touring the Bettie Davis room was quite unique knowing she was at one time present in this room. Was she that night? We don’t know, but Anthony went over a story while we were showing our guests of the night the tour of the Inn and he recounted a story of how he was in Bettie Davis’ room on the last investigation and started singing some of her tunes. After that, Tony said if Bettie Davis is in the room at that moment, then she has permission to poke him and sure enough he felt a poke.

But there was no poking that night. There was just…intensity. Quite honestly since writing this up I still can’t think of a word that sums up that night. Maybe once I go threw everything with yourself, the reader, you can tell me yourself.

After the tour it was time for lights out. Complete darkness inside the, at the time, quiet and inactive Inn. We split up in two groups, let’s just call one Team Anthony and the other Team Nancy. Team Anthony was: Anthony, Ron Kolek Sr. and Jr., Nicole, and Paul. Team Nancy: Nancy, Phyllis, Michelle, Val, and myself. We went upstairs as Team Anthony was downstairs.

But, before lights out even began, the spirits started to make their presence known to their new guests. While Nancy and Phyllis were upstairs they were met by a surprise. Every room in the upstairs has a fire place in it. One caught them by surprise though as they went passed one of the rooms and the fire was going full blast. But, before hand, about a half hour before that, there was no fire’s going at all. I did video tape Nancy and Phyllis talking about this and it is on the NEPI Paranormal Experience page(Look for “Fire Place Starts on It’s Own?”)

Upstairs was already given us a Goosebumps type of vibe. The rooms were different temperature wise. One room would be chilly, one would be warm, and then another would be ice cold. One room seemed to be doing all three. Nothing came about though except for a strange breeze in the hallway; no windows were open at all during the investigation.

We then went into the library were there’s been some activity in the past to do a pendulum session. A pendulum is a chain with a stone hanging from it and the purpose of it is to make contact with a spirit who is either condemned to the property or visiting. Basically what we do is we tell the spirit who we are and tell them to show us a “yes”, a “no”, and a “maybe”. The way the stone swings to either yes, no, or maybe is totally up to the spirit itself, and sometimes we don’t get anything. A lot of people may also think this a fix and that we’re swinging the pendulum ourselves, but Nancy, who always handles the pendulum, has her hand still during the whole process(you can check out a pendulum session on our Facebook page to see for yourself). We believe we got in contact with James Oakes who had died in the kitchen area back in 1800’s. Later we asked if James was the one who started the fireplace upstairs, it said no. Then we asked if he starts the stove in the kitchen, it said yes. We asked if it would stop and it turned no to all amusement and fright for Val as he’s the head cook at the Sugar Hill Inn. Towards the end we got in contact with a child. We asked if the child was in visitation at the Inn, it said yes. If he was with his mother-no. Father-yes. We then switched and got back in contact with Mr. Oakes who was still with us and asked if he had a son-yes. Was he eight? Yes. The little boy replied to yes when we asked if he was with his father and if he was eight, so we believe that this child maybe Mr. Oakes son. Very interesting and intense stuff there(it’s all on video at our Facebook group).

We then proceeded to go into the bar room. We then tried to do an EVP Session, but we all just started chatting about miscellaneous stuff which we always do anyways, because you could go hours without getting anything, but Mr. Oakes was going to keep his promise about something happening that night and he did. When we were talking, we heard a loud bang, Keegan took out his flashlight and there was one of them small, narrow, Shark vacuums on the floor. But, what’s odd, we didn’t see a vacuum and the tip was under the couch that Nancy and Phyllis was sitting on. It get’s odder though, we then purposely started chatting again about random things, because it seemed to us that we got more of a response when we weren’t giving our full attention to the spirit itself. Then, moments after, we heard ourselves talking back. Thinking that was strange I took out my flashlight and saw that my tape player which was actually still recording was playing at the same time. This got us all hyped up and excited, because it’s not a digital recorder, it’s an analog recorder. You have to put some pressure on the buttons in order to get the buttons down to do whichever task they have. Needless to say, the night was just going to get even more interesting.

Ron Kolek Sr. came downstairs, who was apart of Tony’s group, and we were going to try something called “Glass Swirling”. I really didn’t know what to expect from this as we just used an ordinary glass table with an ordinary drinking glass. I believe I have seen this on other shows and was skeptic about it, but you have to see to believe. How Glass Swirling works is that you need to envision yourself in a powerful light and give the spirit your energy to make the glass move. It took a little bit before the glass actually started to move, I tried to get the first part of it recorded but my camcorder doesn’t have a flashlight on it(I know, not great), but I ended up using Tony’s camcorder later that came out pretty good and I will try to post it on the NEPI Facebook page as soon as I can. But, the glass swirling experience was a pretty memorable one as half the time nobody could even keep their hands on the glass. Val, who is a skeptic, or was, then did it and he was amazed as was the rest of us. The glass actually kept on going to Tony for help, because Ron asked which one of us the spirit would like to help it. Sure enough, the glass kept on going to Tony and stopping. The glass would actually go so fast that not only could Nancy, Phyllis, Ron, Michelle, Nikki and Tony keep their fingers on it, but the glass was actually scrapping the table(no damages though).

After that, we got to witness the Frank’s Box. The Frank’s Box is where you use AM/FM frequencies from a radio to get in contact with a spirit. This was also mind blowing as well once we got it going. Ron would ask questions and we’d mostly get a yes or a no. Like for instance, Ron asked if the spirit wanted us to find something and we heard the word “picture.” Then, it said museum. But, the moment of that session was when the spirit said, “Anthony” clear as day. This spirit was really attached to Tony.

It was time for another break as well as saying bye for now to the great fellows from New England Ghost Project-Ron Sr. and Ron Jr. They were a pleasure to be around and if you want to learn more about NEGP go to their official website www.neghostproject.com We started packing, but we weren’t finished yet, we all wanted to do the glass swirling again, and this time we got some pretty intense results.

This time it was Nancy, Michelle, Phyllis, Val, Lewkis, and myself doing this next session. But, with no Tony in the mix we were all curious who the glass was going to go to; the lucky person was Michelle who thought we were doing this on purpose to freak her out. Val was mostly asking the questions this time around which range from what’s heaven like-is it as beautiful as Earth and sure enough the glass started going in circles. Then, he asked is there any grass, the glass stopped right on a dime. But, two fascinating parts about this session was: when the glass stopped it felt like it was spinning on an axis, spinning in place, that freaked us all out because we all felt it. Then, Phyllis-I believe-asked if there is an afterlife. The glass started making figure eights(8). Everyone started going ecstatic, because figure 8’s means eternal life. That got us all excited, but the spirit seemed like it was starting to get weak, so we then thanked it-it went into circles-and then we wished it goodnight and it stopped dead on it’s tracks.

After we said goodbye we all felt like at ease with life. Like everything was going to be okay. We felt at peace.

My Opinion: I believe that the Sugar Hill Inn definitely has some activity within it’s walls. It was an incredible experience, and it left all of us wanting more. I really hope we can do the Inn again as it was awesome.

Update: We did ... and this time it's not so peaceful. Click here to read all about it.

Until next time, this has been a NEPI Paranormal Experience. Take care.