[In Texas news] Couple says old haunt in Coupland has unwanted guests
MrPepper11
Friday, July 9, 2004
Couple says old haunt in Coupland has unwanted guests
Paranormal investigators say they've found evidence of ghosts in
century-old Coupland Inn and Dancehall
By Camille Wheeler
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
COUPLAND -- The Old Coupland Dancehall was dark and quiet. Kathleen
Kelso had just unlocked a pool table and was getting ready to dump a
drawerful of quarters into a beer pitcher.
Suddenly, an electric fan standing in a corner roared to life. Just a
power surge, Kelso thought, listening to the thunder one day last
spring.
She looked at the wall. The fan wasn't plugged in.
Just as suddenly, the fan shut off.
Terrified, Kelso says she raced upstairs to the inn next door.
"Talk to them!" she shrieked at her husband, who owns the century-old
buildings that house Coupland's dance hall, inn and restaurant.
Larry Kelso remembers inspecting the cord.
Unplugged.
He called out to the spirits: "Are y'all unhappy we're here? . . . Are
you unhappy here?"
Silence.
"Damn it, if you're here, give me a sign."
The fan came back on, and Larry bolted.
Since Larry Kelso bought the two buildings in this tiny Williamson
County town about 25 miles northeast of Austin in 2002 and 2003,
customers and employees have described run-ins with ghosts.
The Kelsos say they've grown comfortable with the notion that white,
jellyfish-looking orb spirits, visible only in photographs, are
floating through the air. Two amateur paranormal investigators from
Austin Area Ghost Watchers, John and Lisa Tracy of Jarrell, have
captured infrared video footage showing what they say could be orb
spirits zipping around the old buildings.
Skeptics dismiss this all as spooky nonsense.
"Those people are amazingly willing to accept anything whatsoever,"
said University of Texas physics professor Rory Coker, whose
"pseudoscience" classes challenge students to weigh scientific
evidence against undocumented claims.
Nevertheless, theories abound from those who swear there's spooky
stuff happening in Coupland.
One is that the Kelsos' ongoing renovation of the inn -- a building
that once held doctors' and dentists' offices, a drugstore and
possibly a brothel -- has stirred up old spirits.
Another is that a mother, distraught over her child's death, hanged
herself a century ago in what now is a guest room at the inn. Or maybe
some of the familiar items in the dance hall, such as the antique bar
that sports buckshot scars, keep dead folks coming back.
Some orbs might be spirits who simply like it here, said John Tracy, a
database administrator by day.
"It may be someone not ready to move on who just wants to hang
around," he said.
That might explain the growing number of orbs that appear to be
popping up in photographs taken on the dance floor, he said.
"Any band that plays the 'Cotton-Eyed Joe,' the dance hall is packed
with them," Larry Kelso said.
No orbs were visible in photos taken by the American-Statesman on June
30 and July 2.
The Tracys spent the night at the Coupland Inn on July 2. "We're not
ghost busters," said Lisa Tracy, who works in the Williamson County
clerk's office. "We're just trying to scientifically prove that
paranormals exist."
The Tracys said they documented paranormal activity the first time
they visited the dance hall, in September.
John Tracy said his electromagnetic field meter showed an unusually
high reading when he sat in an old shoeshine chair. The Kelsos said a
young boy recently refused to go near the chair because he insisted
there was a man sitting in it.
Lisa Tracy's infrared film footage showed a most curious thing: As
soon as her husband sat down, a shimmering white orb appeared to shoot
through his body and toward the ceiling.
"That film clip, combined with that high EMF reading, to me is an
indicator of paranormal activity," John Tracy said. (A word of caution
to would-be ghost photographers, though: Lots of things, including
insects, pollen and dust particles, can cause orb images, he said.)
The Tracys use a thermal probe to detect cold spots supposedly created
by spirits when they draw energy from people or other sources.
Customer James "Cricket" Grant said he once saw the ghost of a
brown-haired girl standing near the restaurant's cash register.
Waitress Donna Tiemann said she's seen water turn on by itself in the
women's restroom at the back of the dance hall.
Then there was "Freaky Thursday" last August, when a liquor delivery
man said three ghosts climbed into his vehicle.
Later that day, water pipes inexplicably broke, the large Texas flag
secured with concrete nails fell from its perch above the bar, and
controls on the dance hall's sound-board system were moved into the
wrong positions.
Also that night, customer Don Meine said he saw the kitchen door swing
open by itself, and his wife, Cathy, said an invisible hand lightly
tapped her head.
"None of the ghosts have gone up to somebody and said, 'Let me tell
you all about it,' " Kathleen Kelso said. "I wish they would."
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