How did houses in the Colorado mountains become haunted?
It’s a little known fact that the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are filled with haunted houses. Not the cheesy fake ones that pop up every October in cities, I’m talking REAL haunted houses. How did this happen? At the end of the Colorado gold and silver rush that occurred from the late 1800’s to early 1930’s, thousands of prospectors simply up and left the mines because metal plumes became too hard to excavate, and profits fell. It was literally a mass exodus where people left their homes behind still furnished and standing, and vehicles to rust among the Aspens. The souls of these abandoned structures sublimated up through the pine tress and congealed together with the lingering energy of unfinished business in the mines. When these two derelict forces combined, they created the spirits that today haunt abandoned structures in the Colorado Rockies.
Are spirits in haunted houses dangerous?
With the current Ebola outbreak and impending Zombie apocalypse, this is a good question. The spirits living in haunted houses, in Colorado anyway, are not able to touch, move or manipulate physical objects. I’ve been shooting haunted houses in Colorado every October for over a decade and have never been harmed by a spirit.
However, as you’ll see examples of below, spirits are actually able to influence the mood, atmosphere and lighting around their domiciles when you approach.
Rest assured, the threats from Anthrax, Ebola, Zombies and White Walkers are potentially much worse than from spirits in haunted houses.
How do you detect/photograph the presence of spirits?
The spirit living in this haunted house is grumpy, as you can tell by the spooky colors that it rendered that my camera was able to record. This spirit was able to create conditions similar to if I had desaturated the colors and heavily burned the corners in post processing.
I use a special photography technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. HDR is simple to accomplish in the field, and it’s highly sensitive to recording paranormal activity. In HDR photography, you shoot the same framed scene with several different exposures. Each successive exposure adds a stop of light to the scene. The exposures are then combined into a single image using editing software. The end effect is that all areas of the scene are exposed and illuminated, whereas some areas would be dark or black if only one exposure was made. HDR records such a broad spectrum of light that the final image reveals the spirits’ influence on the lighting conditions and atmosphere of the scene.
The best time to photograph haunted houses is October when the colors of things dying are evident-yellow, brown and orange. This seems to invigorate spirit activity, whereas the cheery, joyful blooming of wildflowers in July tends to damper spirit activity.
This spirit is apparently a happy one as it has rendered the colors around its house bright and almost glowing. It probably enjoys having those sweet lawn chairs and marble patio furniture.
Are spirits in haunted houses evil?
It’s a common misconception that spirits are always malicious, but this is not true. Though their presence is often born of macabre events, the demeanor of spirits is as varied as that of humans. Their demeanor becomes apparent in the final image taken of the haunted house, as you’ll see in these images.
Can spirits haunt Vintage Cars and Junkers?
Energy-based entities love to stretch out and expand into the space available, and this spacious old Dodge wagon is perfect for haunting.
As it turns out, yes. It took me years of photographing abandoned vintage vehicles deep in the mountains to discover that, while they cannot drive them, spirits do haunt old vehicles. The evidence that I found was that after processing images of rusting vintage cars on my computer, they had the same spooky, other-worldly look as haunted houses, thereby substantiating the presence of spirits.
But I’m afraid of spirits, what areas in Colorado should I avoid?
As stated above, spirits cannot hurt you and there’s no reason to be afraid. In fact, abandoned haunted structures are so prevalent in the Colorado mountains that they would be hard to avoid. To find such places, all you must do is pull off into any mountain town and explore its back neighborhood roads. However, if you feel strongly about avoiding spirits in the Colorado mountains, by all means do not pass through Marble, Ridgeway, Animas Forks, Crested Butte or anywhere throughout the San Juan Mountains.
Do I need to wear special clothing to photograph haunted houses/spirits/ghosts?
No.
This spirit just wants to be left alone.
Creepy gothic door knockers may indicate a haunting
Sometimes it doesn’t take the camera to reveal a spirit. Cobwebs are a sure sign of a haunted house
This is the home of a happy spirit, as I would be with a hot tub in the sun room
I’m glad spirits can’t drive because this haunted truck might be something of a road menace.
Here the spirit tried to scare me away with angry rain and a creepy flare cast from the clouds. Amazingly it looks very similar to if I had added a lens flare in photoshop and used the “brushed metal” texture overlay to create the rain.
Something is here.
It’s a common question…can hay barns be haunted? Yes.
