Portland Web site solicits paranormal travel tales

Portland Web site solicits paranormal travel tales
March 07, 2009
Terry Richard
The Oregonian

Sometimes travel can be downright spooky.

When it happens to you, you're invited to share your experience on www.travelparanormal.com. This is an other-worldly companion site you may be familiar with, beach connection.net, a site that covers the Oregon coast.

Do you have a paranormal experience in your hometown you'd like to share? Know of a creepy hotspot? Or have you traveled to one outside of town? And what if you want to debunk such tales?

Share you're experiences on travelparanormal.com. Here's a post from the site, slightly edited to protect the spirit world.

From this popular Web site: www.ghostsofamerica.com, come reports of ghosts from Pacific City to Newport, occasionally headless or drinking blood, staggering at Salishan Spit, and drifting at Devil's Lake. Native inhabitants, who called it Skookum Lake, meaning place of the evil spirit, noted a strange tentacled creature there. A similar creature was seen by a local author and sport fishing company owner, who observed huge yellow tentacles reaching from the ocean onto the beach near his home. At Taft one can reflect on the history surrounding Schooner Creek, which flows under U.S. 101. Some say that the ship this creek was named after still plies the water around Siletz Bay. I invite you to come and walk this beach _ TONIGHT.

Recently launched, TravelParanormal.com is asking the public to send in their tales of the road, near their home, or evidence against them.

Whether it's hauntings, poltergeists, ghost photos, UFOs, witches or other strange encounters, TravelParanormal.com wants to hear about them.

It's a way to get 15 minutes of fame (or longer), said editor Andre' Hagestedt, and to open up discussions on the weirder side of travel destinations.

The subheading of TravelParanormal.com sums up its approach: "Paranormal Fun for the Traveler and the Skeptic."

"On the Internet, it's a subject usually left to strictly to people who believe just about anything they hear," Hagestedt said. "We approach all this with an open mind, but we want to hear from folks who don't believe as well, and we want to know why. But mostly, it's about being entertained. Whether or not you believe in the creepy stuff, it is fun to read about."

Along with the skeptics, those who know of paranormal spots in their own towns are encouraged to submit their experiences or what they hear, as well as travelers who have had paranormal experiences or sightings while on the road.

TravelParanormal.com needs at least two or three paragraphs from submitters - or about 250 words. They will accept less, but those will be published at a later date in compilation form with other experiences. Photos from the public of paranormal sightings are greatly appreciated.

Full credit and links to the submitter's website will be given, which also gives submitters a chance to promote their own Web sites.

And don't wait for Halloween to get started.

TravelParanormal.com covers weird travel concepts and locales for all 50 United States, with a special section for international travel, along with constantly changing news articles from various media.

Its parent site, Oregon Coast Beach Connection (beachconnection.net), covers the Oregon coast in great detail, including odd science of the region. It is based out of Manzanita, while TravelParanormal.com is based out of Portland.