Psionic Iris

Nice to meet you too Anon! To answer your first question about being a ghost researcher I guess you could say that since I'm a paranormal investigator! That means doing your research is a huge part of the job!

As for the second question, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that supposedly another name for the Wisconsin Ghost? According to my sources there have been a lot of sightings of him here in Amity Park recently so I'd definitely be careful if I were you. He's a very dangerous ghost. Especially considering the whole vampire theme he's got going on which hopefully doesn't mean his powers are similar in nature since it wouldn't be the first time someone like that showed up in town. But it's hard to say for sure at this point until I can get more information.

Hello hello my cherished readers! Sorry its been so long since I shared my last case report. Just been busy with life and doing research in general to make sure I've got my facts straight. Anywho, to anyone who is just joining us now here's a bit of a refresher. Last time I shared a case with you guys we were discussing Casper High's very first major ghost sighting of a huge monster made of meat! Feel free to check out the full details of the case by following the link down below!

The official second sighting looks like it might have been more of a one off thing along with the third but I decided to include them anyway since I feel like all of them are important if we want to get a better picture of just how haunted this town is. It happened to Mikey in the library. He went to use one of the computer's in the school library to work on an assignment and ran into someone he didn't realize at the time was a ghost who turned around and attacked him! Luckily Mikey wasn't hurt, just gagged and hung upside-down by some kind of energy net that vanished into thin air a few seconds later.

According to Mikey once he calmed down enough to remember exactly what the ghost said to him, he referred to himself as Skulker. This might only be a code name though so I'll have to look into this further for another article.

Moving onto the third ghost sighting at Casper High this one is pretty incredible if you as me! Why? Because it was the first close up sighting of Danny Phantom himself and an honest to goodness dragon! A ghost dragon! That can only mean one thing folks, dragons are real is now confirmed! I mean think about it. How could there be a ghost of a dragon if there was never a living one at some point flying around?

But moving on...

Before I dive into our next story I'd like to preface this by saying most of these are based entirely on witness accounts that vary a lot in levels of detail which is totally understandable when you think about it. It's kinda hard to pay attention to the specifics when you're running for your life from a huge gout of green flames from the maw of a ghost dragon! Moving onto the case report itself the first reported sighting of this dragon was apparently at the Amity Park Mall in the Abyss clothing store.

There was a sale on the entire discontinued line of Fleecy-T blouses and somehow or another a customer wound up possessed and transformed in front of the very eyes of the acting manager on call at the time. Paulina said she sorta remembers being there that day too but was too excited about managing to guy the very last shirt they had left in her size to really pay attention to what happened when she left the store.

The second sighting of the same dragon was on campus that night at Casper High where it destroyed the girls bathroom (although this wasn't discovered until later the next day by the janitor cleaning up the mess left by the first dance of the school year) then flew off to the football field where our next two witnesses, Dash and Tiffanie, saw Danny Phantom rescuing Paulina. My guess is he saved Paulina from the dragon at some point when the bathroom was wrecked which would explain why she was out cold at the time. The dragon was then defeated by our local ghost hero and the rest as they say is history! I also wonder how they replaced that whole row of bleachers...?

To end things off, I found out there was another ghost sighting the same night by Tucker Foley and the DJ in charge of the school dance's music. Tucker didn't tell me much apart from that he was really taken aback when this ghost girl just floated up to him, insisting on enjoying the last dance with him. As for the DJ, he noticed them while getting ready to pack up his gear once the last song finished and noticed the girl Tucker was dancing with looked out of place in her get-up, aka a medieval styled gown not to mention her feet were literally gliding across the dance floor. Well, assuming they had been ever touching the ground to begin with!

Tucker tells me she was surprisingly mellow and sweet but at the time his nerves were a bit frazzled from trying to help his best friend Danny Fenton keep his parents from getting too talkative about certain happenings at school. The rest of their little waltz is a bit of blur though so Tucker couldn't tell me any more than that. As for why Danny's parents were chaperoning the dance I'll leave that to your imagination since I doubt it's a very fond memory for the poor guy.

Hey guys! Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. Been doing a lot of investigating around Amity Park and research in general so there’s so much history here. I barely know where to start half the time when it comes to what topics to talk about because there are so many.

So in the end I decided hey, why not talk about some interesting facts I’ve learned about natural anti-ghost deterrents? You know, the usual where we separate fact from fiction when it comes to what works and what’s nothing but Hollywood movie magic. I actually have a friend that knows a lot about this sort of thing so I got most of my information from them.

Oh! And huge shout out to Danny who let me borrow this antique sketch of his ghost hunting ancestor, John Fenton Nightingale, which I’ll get into talking about a bit later. He’s not the friend I’m talking about either by the way but I did learn a lot thanks to him and talking to his parents. Boy was that an experience because it took forever to get them to let me leave. I get that they were excited to talk to me about their ghost expertise but my dad wasn’t thrilled that I got home hour later than planned. Danny warned me this would happen but I guess I underestimated their enthusiasm.

Anyways, in my experience, nothing beats the classics but for safety reasons I would take a minute to share a quick disclaimer and tell everyone be sure to take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt since a lot of it only works in specific situations depending on the kind of ghosts we’re talking about here. Sadly, as much as I wish the joke I snuck in there was true the myth about making lines or circles of salt to ward off or trap ghosts and evil spirits doesn’t seem to work. But what does work is the thought behind doing it in the first place since its usually a means to cleanse an area of negative energy...

You see, just like the rest of us ghosts have feelings too, but theirs are a bit more intense than others because they’re now supernatural beings whose powers are often tied to their emotions. Some ghosts even feed off of OUR emotions to gain more power, especially through very strong or negative ones so its a good idea to keep your spirits up around them And I mean that literally since it will help make you a lot less appetizing to them. That’s why even if the actual method of purifying your home isn’t a surefire way to keep ghosts and other unfriendly visitors away I’d highly suggest doing it anyway by doing things burning sage, aka smudging, or placing crystals around your home.

On the topic of plants, the best known ghost repellent is called Blood Blossom. It’s an ancient plant that once grew in Salem and a few other isolated locations I’m still looking for back in the 1600′s and was used in a wide variety of ways, including cooking if you can believe it! Unfortunately though, as far as I’m aware of this rare flower went extinct some time ago and you can’t find live specimens of them anywhere. I did manage to track down a sample of some petals that had been pressed between the pages of an old journal and according to my friend, these flowers were often used in to make all kinds of things ranging from  tea, since they’re edible believe it or not, to healing salves made with a mixture of other medicinal herbs with natural anti-ghost properties.

There are a lot of herbs you can still find today that can help keep ghosts and other spooky stuff away, but I won’t list them all since that would take forever. All you need to know is that most stories about plants with supernatural powers? Yeah, almost all of them are true. They’re not as powerful as those ancient Blood Blossoms were according to all the books I’ve read, but if you know what you’re doing most of them can get the job done of keeping you safe.

And like I said before though, using any of these plants only works in a case by case scenario. For one thing, yes wolvesbane can act as a werewolf repellent if you need it, but the real plant is extremely poisonous to humans so I’d suggest against planting any in your garden without the proper safety equipment:

“... Since ancient times, poison made from wolfsbane has been used to coat swords and arrows in battle, execute criminals, commit murder, and has made its way into many spells and rituals. In medieval Europe, some magical uses for the plant wrapping wolfsbane seeds in lizard’s skin and carrying them to become invisible (if you ever try this, please report back!), warding off werewolves and vampires, and shapeshifting into animals.” ~ https://www.osgf.org/blog/2021/10/25/the-most-magical-plants

Oh wow, I totally forgot it's my birthday today! Time sure flies huh? Yep, that's right! I was born on June 7th! I wonder though...does that make me 17 or officially 16 like it says on my character sheet? I guess I'll leave that up to your imagination!

You know, it's funny how it feels like the same people are always somehow involved with all the ghost stuff at this school but hey, it's a small town. So lately I've been going around interviewing the other students here because I wanted to know when the earliest ghost sighting was. Also, on a side note, I wound up taking down my haunted painting post since I think you guys get the general idea of what I'm saying, which is how over the years I've learned that some classic ghost stories hold at least some truth to them. And that's what brings me to the topic of this post!

It's a bit hard to see him, but I managed to track down one of the first sightings of our local ghost fighting hero Danny Phantom taking on some kind of meat monster. Now there's no way to confirm this, but when I asked a few people if the ghost said anything when they first appeared and they told me it said "it's lunchtime" so it's possible that somehow that ghost was a former employee of this school. I'll have to do some more research about that later on though.

As for what happened, apparently Sam Manson proposed a new experimental lunch menu that wasn't exactly well received by her classmates or teachers, although the latter tried to hide their secret buffet from the rest of the school who had to try the new menu. Guess it must've given this ghost indigestion too because the next day, they attacked during a pair of protests between local meat lovers and vegetarians led by Sam and her friend Tucker Foley...

And look, I get it. Personally I wish our school system had a better lunch menu with healthier options, but at the same time a balanced diet is important too. Honestly that's why most of us bring our own lunches, myself included. Plus, you can't just expect everyone to give up on meat at the drop of a hat. So if you're reading this Sam, I think you had the right idea, but next time maybe you should come up with a compromise that makes everyone happy. I'd be happy to help with that actually!

Ok, going back to the meat ghost. Sadly I don't know what happened after it first appeared but I'm assuming the ghost boy took care of it since everyone else had run off. That reminds me! Huge shout out to the guy (who asked to remain anonymous) for sharing this picture with me. I'm really excited to learn more about the ghosts here and the stories behind them.

So thank you all for tuning into the first official installment of what I think I'm going to call the "Creepy Cases of Casper High!" To be fair I should have started with the story about Sidney Poindexter, but I decided not to since that's an older local legend of this school from before Danny Phantom appeared and ghost sighting in general became a lot more commonplace. I'm sure I'll be having my own first encounter any day now so wish me luck.

Honestly this is one of my favorite topics since my dad's a photographer and taught me pretty much everything I know about cameras. The earliest cameras were said to be invented around 400BC by a Chinese philosopher named Mo-tzu and in the 4th century the Greek philosopher Aristotle realized it could be used to see a partial eclipse.

It wasn't until the 11th century that the camera obscura was used to reflect a full still image. As for the name, the actual term wasn't coined until 1604 by Johannes Kepler who invented a portable version he used for his astrology research in Austria.

Obviously there's a lot more to the camera's history, but I only wanted to share a quick overview of what a camera obscura is and how it got it's name before we get into the cooler and spookier aspects. So to give you a bit more context, one of my favorite videogames is called Fatal Frame or Project Zero where you have to defend yourself with only a camera with the ability to exorcise ghosts. It's a really good game, especially if you like the classics. Too bad real ghosts aren't so easy to deal with...

Moving on though, I mentioned in my previous post about how mirrors, photographs, and self-portrait paintings were sometimes believed to steal the souls -or at least a small fragment of them- of whoever is being reflected inside. And when you think about it, early cameras were pretty much the same thing. It's a lens that reflects the inverted image of something or someone in a dark room and later on it became possible to 'capture' the image on film by burning the image onto it.

Fun fact, that's why people had to stay perfectly still when taking a family portrait or something because the process of imprinting their image on film took time and moving would make the image blurry.

As for the rest when it comes to the paranormal myths about cameras, over the years I've learned that some stories about ghosts caught on camera are sadly either made up or clever hoaxes. There are definitely some cases where real ghosts have appeared on camera, but the idea that they can only been seen that way by normal people like us isn't true. The fact of the matter is you usually need a special camera to be able to see them if they're invisible since ghosts still have a low temperature, which means that you can detect them with an infrared camera but that only matters if you're out doing a paranormal investigation.

As far as actual photographs being haunted or possessed by ghosts...well, judging from what I've seen it's usually not so much that the photos themselves 'trap' ghosts, it's more like they're the ones who can't move on so it's an emotional attachment keeping them in there. Or at least an echo of their strong feelings and memories. It's the same with paintings in most cases.

Hey there! It's been a while since my last post so I wanted to share a few things with you guys. As many of you know I recently moved to Amity Park and have been hard at work getting to know more about the local legends and history of not only the town, but also my new high school. It's called Casper High, which is ironic since we deal with a lot of not-so-friendly ghosts here...

Now I know not everyone believes in ghosts, but even if you don't I hope you learn something interesting today about a couple of myths about mirrors, photographs, and self-portrait paintings.

It's hard to tell when it all started, but in general all three of these share one thing in common, which is the belief that sometimes they can steal your soul or at least a fragment of it. Just like shadows in some cultures, our reflections are believed to be, well, a literal reflection of our souls. That's why vampires and demons in mythology don't have a reflection, it's because they don't have a soul.

Anyways, before I get too off topic since I'd like to talk about how ghosts in photographs and paintings have some cool stories behind them too, let's get back to the subject of mirrors specifically. So one of the ghost stories at my school is about a cursed locker and a mirror that was once inside it. Both belonged to a kid back in the fifties named Sidney Pointexter. Sadly I haven't been able to find out much about him like where he lived, who his parents were, or any of that but from what I've been told the poor guy was bullied by basically the entire school.

From what I can tell Sidney left Amity Park as soon as he graduated and lived out the rest of his life somewhere else. But here's where things get complicated. According to a couple people I interviewed he was in such a hurry to get out of dodge after being humiliated on graduation day in front of the whole school that Sidney left behind everything in his locker, including an antique mirror given to him by a lunch lady he was friends with before she passed away from a heart attack the year before.

He used to look in that mirror every day whether he wanted to or not trying to keep his unruly hair tidy and give himself motivational speeches to cope with the relentless bullying. As for why I said it was sometimes unwillingly, that's because Sidney was constantly shoved into his locker by the jocks and such. Honestly I'm not sure why the school didn't mail it to him but maybe because it was owned by someone who used to work there before she gave it to him maybe they considered it part of Casper High's history? Kind of a jerk move if you ask me since Sidney already had to deal with so much crap from his fellow students.

But, moving on. So the legend goes that any time someone was bullied near that locker...unexplainable things would start happening. Sometimes shoelaces tangled on their own, a disembodied voice could be heard, or the nearby lockers would start shaking as if someone was banging on them from the inside. That's why no one was assigned that locker for a long long time until Danny Fenton came along.

It's a shame I wasn't able to see it myself, but long story short, the mirror I'm talking about that once hung inside that locker ended up breaking because of him. Not that I'm too surprised since he can be a bit of a clutz sometimes, but if he thought it was haunted I don't really blame him. I just hope the poor guy doesn't have to deal with seven years bad luck too. Like I said, mirrors were often suspected of being windows to the spirit world which is part of why they reflect our souls. So in theory, they can also trap souls inside of them too just like photographs and paintings that depict real people.

I think that's what happened to Sidney Poindexter. A part of him never left that locker or maybe when he passed away from old age, the memory of that place haunted him so much that his soul was pulled back there and trapped. If that's the case I really hope he finds peace someday since I've had to deal with a fair share of bullying myself for one reason or another and so has Danny Fenton. Who knows, maybe the ghost of that kid sensed it and showed up which would spook anyone if you think about it. His parents may be ghost hunters but my guess is actually coming face to face with one is an entirely different story...