INVESTIGATIONS

Lucknow Castle

Castle in the Clouds is located in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. It was built by the eccentric millionaire Thomas Plant. It is now part of the 5000 acre Castle Springs estate which is the location of the Castle Springs water bottling plant.

A Side Note: Moultonborough is named after the famed General John Moulton. There is some great New Hampshire Folklore about the General who 'Sold his Soul to the Devil' for a boot full of gold every month. As written about by 19th century poet John Greenleaf Whittier. It's been said that no Whittier character is more compelling than General Jonathan Moulton, who was real (1726-1787) and was the wealthiest Man in Hampton, ( perhaps one of the top 10 in the state ) . The Devil took his revenge in burning the house, and it's rumored the Generals corps disappeared before burial, but that's a story for another time, look it up.

Castle in the Clouds, AKA 'Lucknow', Built by Shoe Manufacturer Thomas Plant, who made his fortune making machinery for other factories. He was one of the wealthiest Men of his day, but oddly enough, he died penny-less.
Lucknow was named after Lucknow in India. Thomas and his young wife Olive Plant fell in love with Lucknow, India, they had first wanted to build the 'Castle' there.

One of the reasons Plant died Penny-less, is because of his eccentric spending. A good example of this is the way 'Lucknow Castle' was built. It was totally state of the art, it had the most sophisticated pluming in the country, all fed by a pristine mountain spring just above the castle. It took quite some time to build this elaborate building, each stone used had to be cut to the shape of a pentagon, complete with hidden rooms. It was common for only a few stones to be cut and placed per day by a team of Masons. He would even make them redo sections if one stone wasn't properly cut.
This site is also available to tour in the summers, and one look at the view, you'll see why Mr. Plant Built it here.
Check out their website: www.castleintheclouds.org

PORTSMOUTH LIGHTHOUSE 

The following Story was written by Reporter Mike Pon

from the Villager News: www.cvvillager.com

The Portsmouth Lighthouse, the Lighthouse Keeper's House and Fort Constitution form a compound bordering the Portsmouth Coastguard facility, and share a common history dating back to pre-Revolutionary times. As Granite State Paranormal (GSP) of New Hampshire found out, this common history is laced with tales of paranormal activity.


James Snell, director of GSP, arrived at the facility with his crew on Saturday, Nov. 18 to set up paranormal detection equipment in several areas of the compound. They were joined by two other groups, Paranormal Investigators of New England (PINE) and the "Scared" crew from Staten Island, New York City. "Scared" is a paranormal investigator team that airs a public cable television program around Staten Island and lower Manhattan.

Jeremy D'Entremont, co-chairman and founder of the volunteer organization, Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse, a chapter of the American Lighthouse foundation, cleared the project with Coast Guard officials.

D'Entremont has led only two other groups through the compound, searching for evidence to support the stories of sightings and other audio and visual activity that have been reported over the years. Even members of the Coastguard have given accounts. One said the activity is most likely in the dead of the night.

Auxiliary civilian volunteer Ron Theriault was on the scene when GSP was setting up equipment at the gate of Fort Constitution, which has seen centuries of use, dating back to the first simple fortifications built there by the British in the 1630s. But according to Theriault, the incidents he has experienced took place in the Coastguard facility itself, in the watchtower, a large room lit by red lights to allow a view of the harbor without reflections on the plate glass windows.

"It sounds very much like footsteps, somebody coming up the metal stairs. My experience was between 2:15 and 2:30 [a.m.]," said Theriault. "At least a dozen times. I've been here four years. It's usually in winter. It's usually in January or February, and it sounds just like somebody coming up the stairs. I've unlocked the hatchway, fully expecting somebody to be there. I think the last time was in March, when I was on watch - like the weight of a person coming up the stairs."

Another Coastguard official, who would not identify himself, would only speak to his experience in vague terms. "I venture to say there are probably three or four people here in the station who have had some things go on, some strangeness . . . I had something a couple of years back, and I ran that up the chain to see if we could talk, and they've asked us not to."

But several days later Senior Chief William Lindsay, in charge of the station, gave permission for these comments to be printed.

"I've had no experiences," Chief Lindsay explained. "I go home at night. They stand at watch at night, so they would know better than I would."

Chief Lindsay said he has been at the station for three-and-a-half years.

One other member of the Coastguard, Ryan Niemiec, said he and several others do not like to go near the powder magazine in the fort. This is a room roughly 12 feet square. According to D'Entremont, it is the oldest surviving structure still standing in Fort Constitution. The GSP crew set up a camcorder and a transit that shot a level laser line onto the perimeter and entrance of the brick room. If an object or form of some sort passed through the laser, the red line would have squiggled. So far GSP has not reported that anything interrupted the laser.

Perhaps the most provocative account members of the Coastguard related is the story of the footprints that appeared on one of the compound's tar parking lots. One member of the Coastguard said the incident took place a couple of years ago.

"They saw one large set of footprints, described as looking like a man's boots coming from one corner of the lot," D'Entremont said. "The footprints were described as dark and oily, ending at the middle of the lot. Then coming from the opposite corner of the lot was what appeared to be a set of child's footprints that also looked dark and oily. The two sets of footprints met in the middle of the parking lot, and didn't go anywhere from there. The Coastguard personnel tried touching them and nothing would come off on their hands. They also tried cleaning them up."

After several days the footprints disappeared.

"They were serious about it. I was told by at least two Coastguard personnel," said D'Entremont, who has been studying the history of the Lighthouses for years.

D'Entremont came across these accounts while doing his research on New England Lighthouses. He has written about 300 articles for Lighthouse Digest, and is finishing a series of books on lighthouses in New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. His histories sometimes include stories of paranormal activity, but that is not the focus of his work.

The Portsmouth Lighthouse is not the only one D'Entremont come across with reports of paranormal activity. But it is the only one his wife, Charlotte, will not return to.

Charlotte, was taking down Christmas decorations inside the 48-foot high Portsmouth Lighthouse, built in 1878 out of cast iron segments forged in Maine.

"She was absolutely sure she heard a man's voice," D'Entremont said. "She looked around and outside, but no one was there. Several months later in the spring, one of our volunteers was painting the stairs inside, by himself during the day, and he described exactly the same thing."

D'Entremont has led two other paranormal investigative groups through the compound over the past year. One in August 2005 and one recently on Oct. 7. One investigator recorded a voice in the Lighthouse, which simply said, "Captain." A psychic reported communicating with several spirits, one which actually seemed to know D'Entremont. On the night of Oct. 7, leaving a room described as a pillbox to shoot from on top of a corner of the Fort, he thought he saw a "figure."

"I thought I saw a figure zip around the corner of the pillbox," he said. "I asked the person next to me: Did one of our group go back there? She said no, but I went around back to check anyway. It was a very fleeting thing, very quick."

Although neither GSP, PINE, nor the crew from "Scared" found any conclusive evidence of paranormal activity while there, all three concurred on some suspicious electromagnetic field (EMF) readings in a part of the Fort. An EMF is created when an electrical source is present. But EMFs also have the reputation of appearing when ghosts are said to have appeared. Jeff Stewart of PINE found an EMF in the Lighthouse Keeper's house, only to find it was emitting from an electrical line in the ceiling. But the one in the pillbox of the Fort, where D'Entremont saw his "figure" a little more than month before, had no practical explanation.

Stewart found that ratings on his EMF meter were high in certain areas of the square pillbox. These high readings appeared to travel about the room, for when he went back to a corner in which he'd had a reading a moment before his EMF meter no longer picked it up, and then he would pick up readings in other parts of the room. There is absolutely no electricity in that part of the Fort.

"Scared" psychic Joe Rice was present with Stewart as he took the readings. Rice said he felt at least three figures in the pillbox and claimed one was a drill sergeant. He said the drill sergeant was upbraiding him. He said one figure had a red coat, which could possibly identify him as British.

About an hour later, GSP's Snell, Brian J. Cano of "Scared," and D'Etremont returned with Stewart to take EMF readings in the pillbox again. They found the same activity was going on, but only Stewart's meter was reacting to it. Cano's meters were a different brand and only had three lights, whereas Stewarts had a dial and a pin that rose with the readings. Although Stewart's was the only one to pick up the readings, everyone in the room was able to confirm that it was doing so.

In a subsequent conversation with GSP's Snell, he pointed out that the Fort was within a couple of hundred feet of the pillbox, and that it has radar, and "who knows what else" that could affect Stewart's EMF meter. Although he agreed the readings were curious, he did not claim to have any substantial conclusion as to what caused them.

"An unanswered question," is how Cano of "Scared," described the EMFs in the pillbox. He is the skeptic of his crew. Like Snell and Stewart, his goal is to prove or disprove any activity scientifically.

"The stories from the coast guard were pretty intriguing. Stories will swirl around in a group, and become folklore, and that has a big psychological play into it," said Snell. "I think it was different and interesting for us to be working with a psychic, although nothing hard and significant came from it. It was wonderful to have access to the site. Even if you don't find paranormal activity, to have access to a site like that is significant in its own right."

VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO: Jeremy D'Entremont, Mike Pon, and the US Coast Guard!