Often when people here that I’m from Wyoming, they refer to covered wagons and rodeos. I suppose they aren’t to far off as we do still find entertainment and some of us even a way of life within living Wild West. Now days, our farms are giving way to highways and development. There’s is a an unorthodox way that we remain in a time long ago. It’s not so much a foreign concept to me; being an empath, I’ve seen the story that emotions (outside my own) have told. As if reading a book, they take me back to a time I never knew and a place I’ve never been. I have many stories that could change the way you may think about paranormal. This one, however, was so profound it literally changed my life.
I had been increasingly sick since my twenties. I was married and had two amazing sons and was blessed with a step daughter. By my mid thirties, I had under gone multiple surgeries and suffered pain on a level words couldn’t possibly describe. My illness had already taken my life once before and continues to threaten taking it everyday. All in all, this heart has been recorded not beating three times. Lord knows how many times it stops when I faint. Perhaps this suffering is what allows me to feel beyond what we define as normal. Sometimes I feel it can be a blessing- such as dreaming I have a flat tire. That’s made me check before I left plenty of times and always with good reason. Then there are times my gift is a curse. I feel all the pain and sadness in a room with me. At one time, I vowed to walk away from Paranormal investigating.
As fate should have it; I left a group of investigators that had far more chiefs than Indians. It started out as a way we could find time outside being mothers and wife’s. We loved having each others company and the weekend get-a-ways that allowed us to openly embrace the possibility of spirits and the sort. By the time I left it became far more about two main girls that dictated everything possible. It became drinking and egos so I chose to walk away. To this day I can’t help but think we stumbled on a darkness that turned the girls so far south. Or, maybe life just has a plan and our group simply wasn’t made to be.
In the weeks to come my chronic life took its toll on my marriage. The boys and I moved to a little town known as Byron, Wyoming. My grandmother had lived there her all her life. She raised my father, his two brothers, and his sister in this small town. I’m not sure what called me to move there but all stars lit the way and we soon called it home.
I rented a small two bedroom trailer home that allowed a quick escape on a limited income. Not long after we moved in with what little we had to our name, a handyman came by to fix an appliance. He recognized me from the YouTube videos of our previous group. He mentioned a glass case being shattered at the local museum. He insisted, even after I explained my situation, that I call the mayor in response to her interest in a paranormal investigation. Like a moth to the flame, the story captured me and I couldnt resist. I made the phone call and she took my offer to do the investigation.
I met with the curator at the museum. She was an older woman of Mormon faith. She was beautiful and kind, very soft spoken. Despite the fact that she wasn’t so sure she was a “believer”, he curator joined me for the investigation. I was nervous; I had never done this on my own before. I was far more a photographer/videographer than I was an investigator.
I did what I knew best. I explained what I was doing just before I would start recording or running equipment. It was just as important to me that she learned the process as it was that I obtained evidence. What happened in that musuem was beyond overwhelming. This was a level I had never before experienced- and I thought I had experienced it all.
As soon as the lights went out we began to hear footsteps walking around us from above. There was no crawl space in that area of the building and we ruled out any rational explanation. When I wondered down into the display room I began to feel so many emotions. I wanted to cry, laugh, be angry- just about anything you could think of- I felt it. I began to see a constant flow of energy. I knew it wasn’t human or animal. After a few moments it came to me, it was water.
The further I would walk I would “feel” even more. I knew there was a woman looking for a girl. She was desperate to find her near water. She was re-living a memory over and over. She felt loss and sorrow that I could only explain as an emotion you would feel when losing a loved one.
Normally, these images are like reading a book. The emotions I feel put a corresponding image in my mind; as if reading the details within a chapter. This one- this was different. I could see her. I could see every part of her and the pain she carried in her eyes. If she were here as only a memory, then how was she looking back at me? How was she able to communicate with me? What was she asking me to help with?
She was there as if she knew only she and I were in that room.  She didn’t see the living curator with me. She didn’t give notice to the spiritual man I could feel telling me to stay away, the ghostly woman who was grown with the mind of a child, and deceased young man who watched from the walls of the adjoined town hall. She didn’t notice any of them.
I couldn’t understand why she kept referring to a town two hours away, known as Thermopolis, Wyoming. The story wasn’t adding up. The water I could see wasn’t the water she referred to. They were different. There was a river not far from the museum that I felt maybe she could be pertaining to? If so, what was the water I was seeing that she didn’t acknowledge? Why was she pointing me to a town two hours from that place? Who is the young lady or child she is looking for? It didn’t seem to be her daughter, or at least, not an infant or young child.
I had to step away several times. The emotions were too much to receive all at once. Every time I returned from my short “re-set” time outside the building, she was ready to re-live the same presentation over and over. This wasn’t scary as much as it was puzzling. What is she trying to tell me? Why am I seeing her not just feeling her? It was, no doubt, hard to move on in the investigation and the frustration of not understanding was hard to work beyond.
The town hall and museum told many stories with the emotion that laid sight unseen. Our evidence would later validate everything I “felt.” We had whispers that clearly said, “Kirby. In the orange shed,” “coo-coo-birds coop” and several other unmistakable eps. We documented the sound of slamming doors and verified we were the only living souls around or in the building. We couldn’t explain a great many things that happened during our short stay with any conclusion other than that of a haunting.
I assumed that any energy that may be in that building would be connected to the objects that lay preserved in time behind glass cases and locked doors. However, that wasn’t the case, or at least, not the case entirely. Just before my presentation to present the mayor and city council with my findings, I was informed that the museum had a natural water drainage system in the ground below the building. Maybe this gave these spirits the means to present themselves?
It took a year to find my dear lady and what she so desperately wanted me to see. I spent time thumbing through the pages of scrap books and newspaper articles. I came across an article that read something along the lines of, “Family In Crises After Vehicle Accident.” There was a car accident that involved a family from this town. The Brown family was returning home from their celebration of one of their daughters birthdays. Byron was, is, and always has been a large Mormon community and the families tend to be rather large.The family (originally from Thermopolis) piled in the station wagon: mother in the passenger seat, father driving, the birthday daughter and her siblings further back.
Along their path back to Byron from Cody, they came upon a truck that had been hauling an oil storage tanker. The tanker failed to see the car- the car failed to stop and ultimately crashed into the truck. The driver of the truck wasn’t harmed but the Brown family lost greatly. The mother died at the scene. Two of her children were found at the rivers bank. Her daughter, who was celebrating her 17th birthday, was sent to Billings, Montana to St. Vincent’s Healthcare where she would be declared deceased only three days later. The father, also sent to a larger hospital facility, would give his last breathe just one day shy of a week since the accident.
The paper later noted that the investigating officers found no trace of evidence to suggest that Mr. Brown had tried to apply the brakes before hitting the truck carrying the oil tank. This led the officers to inspect the brakes on the vehicle. They ruled that the brake line had been damaged and Mr. Brown had no way to slow or stop his vehicle to avoid the truck.
After a year of seeing Mrs. Browns face burned into my memory with so much pain and sorrow, I sat in the very same museum and became overwhelmed with emotion. It was as if I were her and all this time I spent looking for my daughter had just devastatingly come to an end. I honestly didn’t know what to say or how to react on my own behalf. I collected myself after several minutes. As if to say, “Go be with her” I said all I had learned out loud. As I closed the books that contained the articles and I placed them back into the cases that homed them, I felt suddenly alone. I gathered my things and and walked up the stairs to let the clerk know I was leaving. Just as I walked up to her door, the cash register started printing receipts all on its own.
I can’t say for certain that this was the story of Mrs. Brown and her search for her daughter. The clerk reports that the activity has spurred up intensly once again. If this was Mrs. Brown, is she upset? Is she bound here; if so, by what? Is this another woman entirely? The museum has asked me back to do another investigation. I have spent many days in the building doing research. I still go there with the curator who has become an amazing friend, and yes, I still feel the emotion and energy in the building. However, I don’t feel or see the woman and I haven’t since that day.
In the year I spent trying to solve the woman’s mystery, I discovered that the building was actually originally the lunch room and ag room from abandoned school across the street. We had voices telling us, “connected” all during the investigation. I contacted the owner of the school property who welcomed me to continue our investigation into the school.
The school, the musuem, the town- it all offered a mystery I couldn’t help but want to solve. Was it my ancestry that pulled me so close to this? Was this what fate should have in store for me? I was offered an opportunity to educate the public. I started a business that inspires unity and embraces differences. A business that educates about being open to possibilities and holds high the history, the sacrifice and the stories of our ancestors before us. I named my business, Bodhi Paranormal. By definition, Bodhi stands for, “awakening” or “enlightenment”. I have witnessed group after group (helping me run investigations) go from critics to believers. I have seen these groups start as strangers and throughout the investigation- each and every member played their part in contributions/roles/responsibility. They protected one another, they united in efforts to dispel drafts, slamming doors and foot prints. They started lighting up our Facebook page with clues and mysterious, stories and new friendships.
This tired body inspired my soul to long for purpose. I know how precious my time in this life is. I spend my days advocating for acute chronic pain and rare illness. I spend my nights helping people embrace something they never knew was possible. The Byron Museum inspired me to embrace a part of me I had long suppressed and tried desperately to ignore. A part of me that allowed and encouraged empathy for both the living,the dead, and for history. I no longer felt ashamed or indifferent. I found purpose, pride, respect and honor. Now, Bodhi hosts investigations at the old Byron school. Our adventures have truly only begun. Just last Saturday, we experienced foot steps walking on the landing above the pool.
As I looked up, I couldn’t believe what my eyes had just seen. I had never been so scared in my life! I wanted to run, hide, but I knew I was the host for the investigation- I had to stay strong! The mission for my business was not to install fear, but rather to embrace the notion that maybe all that’s left behind isn’t evil or scary. This, however, gave an emotion I still can’t explain. I saw it there. It sat crouched, with its arms around its knees. It was flesh colored as if naked and exposed. I screamed and cried, “Did you see that!”...... (To be continued..The Bodhi Project)