The idea of legend tripping has been around for thousands of years. There's a good chance you've already done it. Remember sneaking off into that cemetery at night as a kid to see if there were any ghosts? Remember hearing there was a monster lurking in that old abandoned building and wanting to check it out? Or hearing about a UFO landing site and wanting to plan your next vacation in the area so you could stand where the craft was said to have left its mark? That's legend tripping. But it can be so much more. We can become part of the story. Today people still seek out these legends in record numbers in an effort to touch the unexplained. In Jeff Belanger's new book and accompanying DVD, Picture Yourself Legend Tripping: Your Complete Guide to Finding UFOs, Monsters, Ghosts, and Urban Legends in Your Own Back Yard, he explores how to find, experience, and chronicle these legends.
Legend tripping offers a unique and inexpensive vacation opportunity for those with a big sense of adventure, and it's an activity that can be done alone or in groups. You don't need complicated or expensive equipment, just your human senses and a sense of wonder.
"Legends are real," said Jeff Belanger, author of Picture Yourself Legend Tripping, "They are born, they can travel, spawn offspring, and they can die. For millennia humankind has told stories of ghosts, creatures from distant planets, monsters, and religious legends to each other as a way to connect with the past and explore the future. These legends can be experienced almost anywhere, and oftentimes they are based on more than just stories."
Any television program you've ever seen that explores haunted places, ancient mysteries, UFO sightings, or strange creatures is legend tripping. First there was a story: a legend that was born and grew because people had unexplained experiences and shared what they saw, heard, and felt.
Belanger draws on over two decades of legend tripping experience to show readers how to find these legends close to home or in their travels. When a person stands where the legend is said to have stood, when they interview eyewitnesses, there's a transformation that often takes place: stories become real, and sometimes, if you're lucky, you catch a glimpse of something paranormal.
"The journey is everything with legend tripping," Belanger said. "Imps, fairies, aliens, bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Bloody Mary, ghosts, demons-it's time to start believing."
In addition to the new book, Belanger also announced today the launch of a new Web site: http://www.legendtripping.com/ an online resource for legend trippers that includes a directory of paranormal legends from around the world. Belanger said, "The goal of the Web site is to have legend trippers everywhere submit their local legends and tell our readers about their own experiences while out hunting the paranormal."
Source: PR Web (Press Release)
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I FIGURED I'D CATCH UP ON SOME READER EMAILS....THE FIRST IS FROM MY CLAIRVOYANT FRIEND, SUNNY:
Hi Lon,
I thought you might be interested in what I experienced last week, concerning a ghost.
On Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010, I was in a meeting held at the public library in Ranger, Texas.
It was after the meeting and I was in the foyer talking with some of the other ladies, when the Librarian came out of her office and asked if any of us smelled cigarette smoke.
"Oh, that's the spirit. You do know you have a ghost, don't you?" I remarked, to which the Librarian replied, "So I have been told but I've never seen or heard it."
One of the other ladies remarked that it was an old building and had been someone's home. It was about that time that I felt a sharp chill as the spirit passed right though me on it's way into the next room, where our military veteran husbands were in a meeting.
I turned to the Librarian and said, "The ghost is a man in uniform (Khakis), smoking a cigarette." She then told me how strange that was, that the building had been part of some old military barracks. I had no idea that the building had anything to do with the military, other than we were part of a group meeting of veterans and wives that had just started meeting there two weeks prior.
I'll be investigating this incident more, as we will be having our meetings there twice a month. Maybe I can find out what this man's name was, how/when he passed over to the other side and why he remains, or if he is just "visiting".
On a side note: the Librarian told me that her house is haunted, so perhaps she will be willing to allow me a walk-thru of her home. She doesn't seem upset that ghosts may reside in her home, which is evidently a good thing.
Take care and Happy All Hallow's Eve.
Sunny Williams
THE NEXT EMAIL IS FROM A 'PHANTOMS AND MONSTERS' READER:
Hello, my name is Jordan Lok and this is my story of a close encounter when I was about 17.
It was a Friday night in Phoenix, Arizona...believe it or not it was raining heavily and the clouds were very low. Me and 4 other people were at a friends house watching a movie trying to kill time. My friend Daniel and I were getting hungry so we had both decided to walk to the gas station and get some snacks. I walked outside and the clouds were extremely low. I have never seen them like this before...they were just above the street lights to give you an idea. As Daniel walked outside he exclaimed, "What the hell is that!?". He pointed to the house right across the street and it looked like there was something on the roof. As I got a better look at the object it looked like a balloon floating in the wind right above the house. But as I stood there looking at it, it stopped in mid air just floating there almost as if it were staring at us. That's when I knew this was no balloon, because balloons cant just stop and hover.
We approached it and I got a better look at it. It looked like a robotic jelly fish, if that makes any sense at all. It had a blinking red light on it. There were various things hanging down, what looked like tentacles. It was probably a little bigger than a basketball. Daniel grabbed a few rocks and threw them at the "balloon"...that's when the object zipped behind a tree faster than anything I have ever seen. I was extremely frightened as was Daniel when we realized that what we were dealing with was intelligent.
We both took off running down the street, I was looking behind me with every chance I got and I could see the blinking red light behind the tree. The thing was watching us...I knew there was something operating it. My friend, whose house we were at, had also seen the same thing but was in denial that it was a UFO. This experience changed my life forever. You hear of big UFO sightings but I have never even heard of a sighting like mine. I was so close to it, it was amazing. After much thought (many years) I believe that it was a probe used for surveillance. I have never seen anything like that again, until i looked up flying humanoids in Phoenix, AZ. I believe that they are kind of similar but not completely. I would love to have a reasonable explanation for this event in my life!
THE FOLLOWING IS AN EMAIL I RECENTLY RECEIVED FROM A READER:
Hi Lon,
I really enjoy your blog but honestly, it scares the hell out of me sometimes. I wanted to relay a weird experience told to me a while back that I have only told to one other person...my wife. When I was with the police department in a jurisdiction near Ames, Iowa in 1988 a deputy told me about an experience he had one evening while driving down an isolated country road. The area was new to him as he was covering for another off duty officer. He told me it had just finished raining at about 6:30 pm when he drove past a cemetery on his right. About a quarter mile down the road he noticed a girl walking on the side of the road. He stopped his cruiser to offer the girl a ride to wherever she was going. She accepted his offer and sat in the back seat during the ride. The deputy remembered how pretty she looked dressed in beautiful pink prom gown. She explained she was on her way to her school prom and after about two miles down the road, asked to be let out on the dimly lit corner at an old filling station. He dropped her off then proceeded down the road to continue his tour.
It was a dark evening and he got concerned about the girl's safety so he turned around and went back to where he had dropped her off but she was no where to be found. He passed the old abandoned filling station and continued back down the road to the cemetery and a small house located next to it. He parked his cruiser in the dirt driveway and knocked on the door. An old man answered the door and the police officer described what had happened and he had wondered if the girl possibly came to his house. The old man just smiled and said to come inside and he would explain.
It seems that the girl the deputy picked up that night, was killed on her way to her school prom back in the 1940's by a drunk driver. The old man stated that several times a year she walks down that same road trying to get to her prom. He took the deputy into the cemetery and showed him the girl's gravestone. After shaking off the shivers the deputy returned to his cruiser and began his tour again. He was driving on the same road but at the corner where the old filling station was located there was just an open field with trees. The deputy asked me to never tell anyone about this experience.
I no longer live in the area but I have been told that the pretty girl still frequents the old country road searching for a ride to the prom.
Jim Carr
Springfield. MO
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