THE KUDOS PAGE!
Seahorse, Getaguru Tarpon Springs 11.01
Thanks for sending the article and for all of your correspondence that has kept me completely up to date every step of the way. I apologize because I don't think I replied to your last note even though i fully intended to. I LOVE the things you wrote-you are indeed 'She of all things pithy' you are a wonderful
writer and thorough examiner.
You as well as your group have done an impressive job in your coverage of this story/ghost hunt. I haven't seen any on television presentations that are anymore professional that you all. You should do your own show. Have you ever thought about it?
All in all I have to say that this has been a really wonderful experience and I thank-you all for doing this.
The photos as well are excellent.
I now have your site bookmarked so that now I can keep up with all of your
investigations :-)
All the best,
eleni
The SPIRITS of St. Petersburg
www.spiritsofstpetersburg.com
tbspirits@netscape.net
The S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of St. Petersburg organization was established in 2000. This ghost investigation group is a voluntary organization that investigates local paranormal activity within west central Florida. There are no charges for our services.
A typical investigation takes approximately 3 hours to complete. A secondary 1-hour visit may be made to the premises to compare images and attempt to duplicate results. Visits are scheduled according to the property-owner’s schedule, as well as the date and time when the most SPIRITS members may attend.
The SPIRITS attempt scientific, psi-sensitive, and historical research on a location. We do not perform exorcisms, endorse occult techniques, nor are we demonologists. We approach investigations with respect for both the living and the potential entities on location.
SPIRITS outreach:
2001: October: Interviewed by a number of local media, including Channel 8, Tampa Educational Channel (channel 18), The Carrollwood News, WUSF 88.9, and Thunder 103.5. October 2001: The SPIRITS also hosted a successful “Ghost Hunting 101” seminar.
2002: (January) The SPIRITS web site won a “Haunted Places Report Website of the Month Award”. (September) the site won additional awards from www.sunflowerstar.com, the Spirit Searchers website and Dixieland X-Files site. (April) We received an award from "Winter Steel's" MISTS site in the category of informative paranormal sites.
(July) The team experienced its first out of state interview with the Simmons Media Group of Albuquerque, New Mexico. (August) We featured an education and artistic show entitled “Spiritual Encounters.” Images from paranormal investigations were presented. Some images contained anomalies, false positives, potential paranormal activity, or were aesthetic or unusual images taken through our investigative procedures. (October) We were the feature for Channel 13 news. We also served as feature articles for the Tampa Tribune “Baylife” section and Imago Magazine. Suncoast News did an article on one of our investigations in Tarpon Springs. The Weekly Planet included our public investigation into the entity at Tampa Theater in their ghostly articles. Channel 10 asked us to do a one-hour ghost investigation and report our findings live on air. The radio station 100.7 also called and interviewed the team about our Haslam’s investigation.
2003: (October) The SPIRITS were interviewed by "Entertainment and the Arts” on WTAN 1340 in Clearwater and WZHR 1400 in New Tampa, Florida. We were featured on channel 10 segments about the Tampa Theater, WB38, and WUSF radio (89.7 fm).
2004: The group was featured twice on “Entertainment and the Arts” on WTAN. Brandy Stark spoke on behalf of the SPIRITS to the Sunshine chapter of the Kiwanis group. She also was invited to speak to the Brandeis University Women’s Committee. (October) She was also an invited guest speaker (“History of Ghosts” and “Ghosts of Tampa Bay) to the 2004 Necronomicon Convention.
2005: (August) Brandy started to work with Downtown St. Petersburg Ghost Tours as a tour guide. (October) The SPIRITS starred as feature articles for “Tampa Bay Times” (*TBT) for Hallowe’en and the University of South Florida paper, The Crow’s Nest. She was also invited to speak about ghosts at the St. Petersburg History Museum and The St. Pete Beach Library. Brandy Stark was invited as a guest to represent the SPIRITS on “Magic Mind Radio”, and “Entertainment and the Arts.” (March) Brandy and the SPIRITS were the featured guests for “Coast to Coast.”
2006: (July): Brandy of the SPIRITS was featured in a WUSF (University of South Florida) televised documentary on ghosts in the Tampa Bay area, which aired July 17. Brandy Stark represented the SPIRITS on the Lou Gentile show July 27. (October) Brandy spoke on local ghost stories on Arts and Entertainment Oct. 29. The SPIRITS of St. Petersburg also featured their spin-off website The Urban Legends Page, which was the featured article in the October 9 edition of Creative Loafing. The SPIRITS were also featured on Channel 10 for two segments, and on Hallowe’en day Brandy was invited to speak on the Channel 10 Morning Show at 10, the Cathy Fountain Show n Channel 13, and Magick Mind Radio Show. Sterling Powell’s CitiLife St. Petersburg featured a full-length article on local haunted activity written by Brandy Stark, also citing the SPIRITS site and the Downtown Ghost Tours. (December: organizational presentation; radio interview Dec. 27).
In addition, the team is featured on the Shadowlands web site (http://theshadowlands.net/ghost/)
(Our link: http://atwork.ghosthunting101.com/stpeters.htm)
One SPIRITS member, Brandy Stark, won Second Place in the Horrorfind.com ghost photo contest. Her entry was judged on paranormal probability, among other criteria. The winning entry is posted at: http://www.horrorfind.com/contest/ghostcontest.html
Articles featuring the SPIRITS ghosts hunts are also published in the following periodicals:
The Haunted Places Report, an internationally read this newsletter. The Report currently goes out weekly, via email, to over 1200 subscribers and multi media groups. It's related website "Haunted-Places.com" has over 500 visitors each day. (http://www.topica.com/lists/HauntedPlaces
And: http://www.tristateghosts.homestead.com/)
The SPIRITS web site which includes individual teammates’ reports, pictures, and published articles: http://centralflghosts.homestead.com/home.html
The E-Zine, Psychic-tymes.com (www.psychic-tymes.com), features articles about the SPIRITS’ hunts, as well as historical and academic essays about the evolving role of ghosts through ancient history written by Brandy Stark, with references spanning the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment.
Individual members host their own interest in the paranormal.
Brandy Stark hosts several of her own web sites, including the multi-award winning Paranormal Pugs Page, a site specializing in pug-oriented ghost stories.
http://starkimages.homestead.com/paranormalpugspage.html
The multi-award winning paranormal site, Ghostly Images, features Brandy Stark's own individual ghostly and unusual experiences. It can be located at: http://starkimages.homestead.com/ghostlyimages.html
Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, please contact us at:
tbspirits@netscape.net
12.11.06
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:54:55 -0500
Subject: Re: Topics and Content for Presentations
Hi Brandy,
Attached is one of the original messages we exchanged in setting up the Meeting. This allows me a bit of nostalgiafrom humble beginnings great things come.
I was very pleased with the meeting. It proved to be exactly the kind of give and take and moments of discovery that make all the effort worth while. I am very pleased with what WE ALL ACCOMPLISHED.
A show and tell session which included camera and video images gleaned by The SPIRITS from their ghost hunts and pictures and stories brought by memebers of the audience developed into a stimulating group discussion and exchange of ideas about ghosts the novel light images presented.
Many thanks again for the time and effort you and your team put in on this project and I look forward to hearing about your future shoots.
Sincerely,
David M. Ring
Oct 6, 2005: Magic Mind Radio Interview with Brandy Stark, 5 - 6 p.m., Florida time! (Archived on site for future listeners -- so please check it out!)
December 21, 2006:
Hello. I am a cofounder of GSI: Ghost Scene Investigation in Aurora, IL. We are a new group starting out and we are very much in the process of deciding how our teams will conduct investigations. As I'm sure you know, there are as many philosophies on how things should be run as there are groups. In a nutshell, we attended a meeting of a local group after visiting their web site. The meeting went well but we differed on some of our beliefs such as orbs and psychics. The group said during the meeting that they needed assistance in several areas like converting EVPs and video to be placed on the web. I offered my assistance then and Emailed them later with instructions on how to do both. It has now been over 2 months and we have not had a reply. Their web site has not been updated in close to a year and we get a strong feeling that they are more interested in running ghost tours (for money) than conducting actual investigations. We decided to take all of the energy we were prepared to put into their group and invest it into our own. This is where you come in. :-)
As I was looking at other sites on the web today I came across your site and in particular your
page on what to expect from an investigation. I really liked what I read. I am writing to ask permission to use a modified version of it. I have made some changes to reflect our group but overall it is yours. I didn't want to plagarize it without your permission. Below is my revised version. Also, if there are any changes that you like you are more than welcome to use them.
Thank you for your time.
Joe Willson
CoFounder GSI:
5/3/02To: Brandy Stark
Hi!
Congratulations! you are the Second Place winner in the HORRORFIND Ghost
Photo contest.
The prize you have won is "$25.00 and an AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF GHOSTS
AMONG US by Mollie Stewart".
We are shipping the prize to you today.
Thanks for entering and tell your fiends about us, new contests every
month.
Thanks,
Zombiechick
2/24/03
Wow- I'm so glad that you got such good pictures. If you ever want to go back again and take more pics, just let me know- I'll give you the keys. Personally, I think there is a heck of a lot of activity in the green bedroom.
I just wanted to say THANK YOU!! to all of you for coming out and spending your time to do this. You've certainly given me quite a lot to think about. As well, you've answered SO many questions that I had. A lot of the strange things that were going on with me a couple of years ago.
All I know, is that since I've gotten away from that house in August- my life has improved all the way around. It's really a very oppressive atmosphere in there- and I finally feel like I can breathe again. I have no intentions of ever going back there. Perhaps I should just sell the place and be done with it.
Well, Good luck to all of you- You guys are awesome!! I can't wait to see the report.
"Phoebe" 7th Ave. N.
(below) Image by Zubrova
3/2/04
From : <bmartin11@tampabay.rr.com>
Sent : Tuesday, March 2, 2004 1:16 PM
This week on "Entertainment and the Arts" we are starting with the wrap up of last week's remote show broadcast live from Clearwater's oldest building, the Royalty Theatre, which is believed to be inhabited by ghosts. If you joined us last week, you know we had some very interesting and unexplained experiences.
Visit the "S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of St. Petersburg" (Servicing Paranormal Investigators Reporting Information Through Study) website to see several of the photos, including one Ginny took with her digital camera. We were standing there still looking at the auditorium seats, NOT SEEING the image which was CLEARLY VISIBLE on the picture she had just taken!
SPIRITS members Susan (left) and Brandy (right) met Ernie Hudson, Winston, of the Ghost Busters at Dragoncon 2004. How exciting!
