Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

“UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, A PART OF ONE’S SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED”
Anatole, French Novelist

There is only one statue in all of New York City that does not need to be polished in spite of weather, bird droppings, dust, grime and elements, and that is the statue of BALTO.  Balto is the beautiful Siberian husky sled dog that is immortalized as one of the 150 dogs that brought relief in the form of serum to the citizens of Nome, Alaska in 1925-26 from the horrible diphtheria epidemic killing the residents.  And the reason the statue does not need continual polishing and cleaning is because residents and guests to the site pet the statue continuously as if it were a real dog.  This says something to all of us about our love of animals.  All people with souls love animals.

And as running the largest and oldest paranormal investigative organization in the world, Gold Rush Ghosts International Paranormal Investigations, no investigation of the existence of life after death could be complete without the mention of ANIMALS WE HAVE SEEN IN SPIRIT.  Because (in my opinion) animals are Angels, put only on this planet to help man to often times be treated abominably by the cruel and uncaring.  And for the gift that animals give us and their unfortunate yet unnecessary sacrifice, it is clear to me that no loving Universe would deny them immortality, for they are so much more advanced than man.  And so as we explore the depth of our own immortality, as investigators it is important to me that we must incorporate into that investigation animals that we have known and loved, and some that just show up from spirit to wish us well.  Here are the stories of a few of them.

My dog Sammy, a Whippet adopted one of my cats many years ago.  Little Second Chance was the sole survivor of a dog attack, and he came to me a wet few day old yellow kitten starving and fighting for life.  For several weeks as I went about doing my Psychic Readings and Counseling Sessions as well as other daily chores he lived in a harness close to my heart, as I fed him hour by hour and allowed him to hear my heartbeat.   We loved him from the start and as soon as he could waddle and walk he came into the unlikely care of our male dog Sammy who could not have loved him more. 

As time went by the name Second Chance was shortened to Chance, and being yellow and white as is Sammy, their unlikely friendship took on the appearance of matching bookends, one a little smaller than the other.  They were always together.  Although my bed is always open at night for cats and dogs to jump up and cuddle, Sam and Chance took to bedding down on the couch at night, and they would cuddle up together and enjoy only being with each other.  Both rescue animals, they had something in common, both being loved and finding a second beginning in our family.

This went on for several years, until Chance suddenly died.  Having a rocky beginning we could not expect that he would have a long life, who knows what damage was done to him before he could even walk.  But Sammy and our family did have him for seven years, and when he died, the loss was almost too much for us to handle. 

The day Chance passed my granddaughter was visiting.  She had a special bond with Chance, and to this day she still maintains that same special bond with Sammy.  Because it was she who found Second Chance and saved him from that vicious dog. 

On the day of his death we were all in mourning.  My husband suggested we take a picture of Sammy with our granddaughter right at the spot where Chance would curl up for the night in his paws.  From the photo you can see that Chance has not left us at all.  He is still there.  Many times since his death we have seen him in Sam’s embrace and the two of them walking through the house together.  Nothing changes except the etheric.  No one and nothing really dies, just goes on to another place.

Judy Coopers Mr. Stubbs

Here are a few other heartfelt stories of other animals in spirit.

“One of the most precious cats I ever had was Mr. Stubbs” states Judy Cooper, GRG investigator. “He was a black Manx without a tail weighting in at 15-16 lbs.  He was such a love bug.  When he was in the mood for attention, he would literally grab your face with his paw and pull it toward him.  Once he passed away I’d catch him out of the corner of my eye by his food dish which is where he seemed to be most of the time while he was alive. 

“A few months after he passed I was lying in bed and I felt him jump up on the bed.  Startled for just a moment, I saw him come right up to me for some love, and felt the covers move as he walked towards me. Ever since that time I know he’s still around me.  He evens shows up in my dreams.  I know Stubbs will always be with me.”

“What I would like to say” stated paranormal investigator Laura Martucci and great animal lover, “would take its own book about all the animals in my life, you know, it is very hard to keep it down to one.  But Grover is the one pet for my husband Mark and I that has been with us consistently in spirit.

Laura Martucci’s Grover

“Grover was the product of a golden retriever and Labrador/border collie mix.  We rescued him in the parking lot of a shelter from the woman that raised him from a puppy.  I do know that Grover was one of many she saved from the shelters.  The women that gave him to us named all the dogs she rescued after Presidents.  Grover’s full name was Grover Alexander Cleveland.   He was playful and fun from the beginning, and he turned out to be an extremely smart dog, touching our lives in so many ways.  He continues to do to so to this day. 

His passing was a sad day for all of us.  But he decided to stick around after death knowing we still needed him.  Today he has the ability to let us know when he is with us, as he generally shows up in spirit when we are going through some hard times or maybe just having a bad day.   After his death he came with me to my first reading with Nancy, and of course he was clearly the reason why I made the appointment.  Mark was having a very hard time of getting over his death.  This is very hard for me to convey, because Grover was very young when he died.  He was only part of our family for four and a half years, so he died early at only 6 years old.  Yet he was meant to be ours and though the years on THIS plane were short, the love and connection remains long.  And he has been with us in spirit now almost as long as he was with us in life. 

“I know that our current dog Nattie sees Grover.  All of a sudden he will wake and be playing with something that only he and I can see.  Grover.

“One recent morning I woke up and realized I could not move my legs.  Looking down they had something laying across them.  I could see that it was Grover.  Not wanting to disturb him, I laid there still for a long time until he disappeared.”   

Sable

According to GRG Investigator Elizabeth Harrison, “The dog I have lost and feel the most still at my side is my little Pomeranian Sable who passed away from old age but still comes back and crawls into bed with me.  I feel the movement as she gets under the covers, but when I awake I realize it is her spirit.  She was only 4 lbs in life and yet it is a very distinct movement that I feel.  She loved to curl up next to me when she was alive and I kept her warm and it was a comfort to both of us. I feel her around me often, and know that she still comes back to visit.  I also periodically have Dakota our precious Rottweiler visit us since her death. I know because I will be walking down the hall and all of a sudden I bump into the wall. That is something that happened often to me when she was alive, as she would rush to walk beside me even when there was not room for the two of us.  This was because she always wanted to go with me and wanted to be certain that I took her along.  Nancy fell in love with her when she accompanied me to the television show THE PSYCHIC HOUR WITH NANCY BRADLEY, and insisted she sit on the stage with her.  Dakota apparently liked her time there as well, as we still feel her at the television station.”

Robert King with Bandit

“Bandit showed up in our driveway in February” states Bob King, photographer for GRG Investigations.  “Being in southern California, it was a warm winter day, and this starving black half-dog, half-puppy walked the few steps down to our garage and collapsed in the yard.  My younger sister Robin, a toddler, found old boxes we had in the garage, and made a makeshift enclosure around the dog so she would not leave.  Bandit could have gotten up and jumped over them at any time if she had the strength, but she lay down, contented, and did not resist.  Soon our mother came out of the house and saw the dog.  A sucker for any animal, she fell in love immediately and Bandit became a treasured part of our family.

Now the new dog did not come with a name, and so when we took her to the vet for her first check-up and to have her spayed, the technician hearing the story of how we acquired her, said “Well, you are clearly a BANDIT, running away from something!”  The vet seconded this opinion, adding that the dog was likely given to a family for Christmas, and it grew bigger than they had anticipated, or their kids did not take care of it, and so she had been dumped it on our cul-de-sac.  Cruel as people can be, in this case it was a good ending for this helpless animal, they picked just the right house.  The vet determined that Bandit was the cross between a collie and lab, pitch black, and regal.  Her name was born that very day.

Bandit saw me through my adolescence, running around a pond at the end of our block, playing with friends, through my teenage years of hidden drugs and alcohol, to leaving for the military and coming out an accomplished man.  Bandit saw my sister through several teenage crushes and heartaches, and my mother through an abusive marriage.  She saved us from a burning hill behind our house by breaking through the door and pulling my mother out of the bathtub allowing her the opportunity to put the fire out before the fire department got there.  One day we watched our Bandit come down the hill with a newborn kitten in her mouth, still wet from birth.  A ferrel cat had obviously abandoned it, and Mama Bandit picked it up and carefully carried it to the house for Mom to care for.  Bandit loved everything, rabbits, kittens, squirrels, anything in need of her help.  The kitten survived and they became inseparable friends and the cat and Bandit moved with us wherever we went up until their deaths.   Bandit was one of us kids.

Bandit was old when she died.  Mom had doctored and cared for her through her years of arthritis and old age, and just could not bring herself to ‘put her to sleep’ regardless of what people thought would be the best thing to do. ‘Long as she is not in pain’ she would reason.   But inevitably, one summer afternoon Mom came home from work to find her at the back door, soundly sleeping for the last time.  Cuddling her, my mother’s heart broke.  She was gone.  I was not home at the time but the decision was made to bury her in that yard, the house she had known for 11 years. It was a hard decision because we knew we would be moving soon.  Yet it seemed the right thing to do because it was the home and acreage that Bandit loved the most, and a place was found just under the trees where she loved to roam.  We placed her body there in the country, a place where we knew she would never be disturbed. Every time we go by that old house today we always scream ‘HI BANDIT!’ 

But we don’t need to.  Bandit is still with us wherever we go.  I feel her around me all the time.  Mom sees her in dreams and also when she is working late nights on her next book or novel, still lying at her feet.  She accompanies her in the car, something Bandit hated in life.  She is there for all occasions, Christmas, birthdays.  Whenever we run and play, have an outing, Bandit is there.

We have many animals in our lifetime, and they are all special.  Bandit was my childhood dog, and there are none to replace her.  She lives in our hearts, and continues to walk with us to this day.”  Those horrible people that ditched her those many years ago gave us the biggest gift of our lives.  It’s one that lasts forever.”

Written by By The Celebrities Psychic, Nancy Bradley, Copyright 2009