Happy 4th of July from your friends at GHOULA!

On this day that we celebrate the creation of the United States. Let's stop a moment and give a patriotic "thank you" to another great creation, one of America's favorite entity from the spirit world, Casper the friendly ghost.

Casper was created in the late 1930s by New York native Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo, the former devising the idea for the character and the latter providing illustrations. Intended initially as the basis for a 1939 children's storybook, there was at first little interest in their idea. When Reit was away on military service during the Second World War before the book was released. Oriolo sold the rights to the book to Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios animation division, for which he had occasionally worked.

"The Friendly Ghost," the first Noveltoon to feature Casper, was released by Paramount in 1945 with a few differences from the book. In the cartoon adaptation, Casper is a cute, pudgy ghost-child with a New York accent, who prefers making friends with people instead of scaring them (Casper used to scare people but got tired of it all). He escapes from his home and his brothers and sisters at the Winchester Mystery House and goes out to make friends.

So, It turns out that although Casper may have been born (or died) in New York, it seems he resides in California, and spends most of his time in Hollywood... visiting the actually haunted Chinese Theater and Paramount Studios... at least according to this cartoon...

GHOULA, as protectors of local lore, on this day salutes CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST.

June Spirits with Spirits Event Summary: Hotel Roosevelt

Here are some of the breaking headlines from last Friday nights “Spirits with Spirits” at the famous Roosevelt Hotel…

THE MARILYN MONROE MIRROR IS GONE!

Perhaps the most famous “haunted” mirror in the world has been removed from its usual location in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel.

Tourists and “Marilynites” are now greeted by an empty wall, where once hung the mirror that was used in Marilyn Monroe’s private poolside suite.

Not too long ago, one could stare into the same mirror that Marilyn would gaze into, and possibly see Marilyn, herself, staring back in the reflection.

A representative of the hotel has assured GHOULA that the famous mirror will return to its proper location once the hotel has finished remodeling the lobby. In the meantime, it has been safely stored with other items from the hotel’s art collection.

NEW GHOST DISCOVERED IN HOTEL’S BASEMENT

While wandering around the Roosevelt Hotels public spaces, Psychic Lee Barron picked up a lot of unusual but unfocused energy like orbs and a blue cloud in the Ballroom. Then, he came upon an empty hallway directly below the famous haunted lobby, and in that darkened space, the energy intensified revealing a new ghost. Psychic Lee Barron reports that it was an apparition of a man wearing a janitor-like uniform and holding a mop.

Although, Psychic Lee Barron sensed the male spirit toiled for many years in the hotel, its energy was contended as if, in life, this janitor enjoyed his job, and his role in keeping this historic hotel looking beautiful. Perhaps, this ghost lingers to keep a watchful eye on his fellow staff as they maintain the hotel’s high standards.

Note the ghost orbs in the foreground to the left side of the old service hallway beneath the glowing red light. Using flash photography with a standard digital camera, three orbs are clearly visible. Below is the same point of view photographed without flash.

NEW GHOST THEORY REVEALED

Mrs. Carradine discussed her new “Energy-Transference Theory” that answers the question that has troubled Ghost-hunters for the last two-hundred years.

“Why do ghost wear clothes?”

More specifically, how can the spirit realm be inhabited by inanimate objects, or in other words, how can you have ghosts of things that had no “life force” to begin with? How are things like ghost ships or phantom carriages possible? This question was first asked by Frederic W.H. Myers in Phantasms of the Living (1886) and to this day, debate rages on. Until now?

Mrs. Carradine’s solution is very simple and straight forward. All objects, no matter how “inanimate,” are made of energy. At their core, they still have electrons swirling around (and perhaps even vibrating strings at the sub-sub-sub atomic level). Since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and it can only be transferred, it is therefore possible that “inanimate” objects can “absorb” some of that “life force” from humans (i.e. the uniform and sword of a soldier will also carry that same emotional residue of that tormented the soldier, himself.)

NEXT HAUNTED LOCATION
FOR “SPIRITS WITH SPIRTS” ANNOUNCED!

July 13, 2008
El Compadre Restaurant
7408 W. Sunset Blvd.
Full event info to be posted on July 1st.

Thanks to everyone who attended a wonderful event. The handmade Victorian-era scrying tool pictured above will soon be available exclusively in the GHOULA online store. See you soon!

(to read about the SPIRITS of this location...)

Manson Family Vandalizes Nevada Ghost Town

Excerpts from Manson's name left at ghost town building (UPI) from May 22, 2008:

Paula Kniefel, a caretaker and tour guide at the long-abandoned building in Belmont [Nevada], said that the carving -- "Charlie Manson + family 1969" -- appears to have been made with a pocket knife, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The carving is in the entrance of the county recorder's office.

Kniefel says that Walter "swore up and down" that Manson did not bother her. Henry Berg, who operates the Belmont Inn, said that Walter gave him a slightly different version -- that she ran the group off with a shotgun.

THEY'RE BAAAACK: Prospector's return to California's Ghost Towns

Excerpts from BBC News' Joining the California Gold Rush by Rajesh Mirchandani:

In America, record prices are fuelling a new Gold Rush - 160 years after thousands descended on California, seeking riches.

"You can pay your bills, if you live meagrely," says John Gurney, who gave up his job six months ago to become a full-time gold prospector. John is standing in a shallow river in Jamestown, California, in the heart of Gold Country: in 1849, the same dream brought hundreds of thousands of people to towns like this.

He is panning for gold: he shovels rocks and dirt from the river bed into a bucket, sifts out the bigger pieces, transfers what's left into a ridged plastic panning bowl, and then, using a light movement back and forth, shakes the bowl, separating the lighter material from the heavier, including gold.

"It's not a lot of money," John says, "but it adds up quite a bit... But you never know - you may hit the jackpot sometime." The original 49ers - as they've become known - used this technique, as well as mining. Fortunes were made - and lost - in the wild towns that sprang up almost overnight along 200 miles of central California, an area they called the Motherlode.

Places like Jamestown and Coloma - which, in its heyday, nearly became California's state capital - have been mining tourists ever since. But now these ghost towns are stirring again, as more and more amateur prospectors try their luck.

Brent Shock wears a huge gold nugget as a ring; with his long leather coat and wild eyes, he has clearly seen a thing or two in his 25 years of gold mining.

He runs gold-panning tours in Jamestown and says it is busier now than he has known it for years.

"You've got a tremendous amount of interest from people now," he tells me, "because gold's at $1,000 an ounce."

Near San Francisco, a city that boomed thanks to the first Gold Rush, Mike Dunn recently opened a shop selling prospecting equipment. You can buy anything from plastic goldpans all the way up to floating dredges at $3,400, with long plastic hoses for sucking up large amounts of material from the river bed.

In the studied atmosphere of the What Cheer Saloon in Columbia, Ben the barman wears period costume but serves modern drinks. A sign outside offers sarsparilla (an old type of root beer). All along the main street in fact are shops and signs from a bygone age - Columbia is a living museum to its glittering past.

"It's good for this place because it brings tourism," Pat Narry says. "Tourism has always been gold!"

Bob Beck tells me: "Areas have been milked dry but with the rain and the seasons the gold comes to the surface... so they're praying. At $1,000 an ounce, they're praying!"

Back at the creek in Jamestown a group from the east coast are trying their hand at gold-panning.

Just like in 1849.