Book has 24 tales of paranormal activity
Heather Thorstensen
Date Modified: 11/04/2009 2:57 PM
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Agri News staff writer
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- After researching ghost stories, Christopher Larsen turned from a ghost skeptic into a firm believer.
His book, "Ghosts of Southeastern Minnesota," has 24 tales of paranormal activities based on true events. It includes pictures of places believed to be haunted and stories of what happened when he spent time ghost hunting at about half of them.
The alleged hauntings take place in Albert Lea, Cannon Falls, Faribault, Mantorville, Goodhue County, Winona, Owatonna, Northfield, Rochester, Forestville, Dennison, Lanesboro, Red Wing, Wabasha and Austin.
Larsen considers himself a science-minded person and looked for alternative explanations to disprove ghost theories. He admits he never actually saw an apparition. He did, however, come across some spooky activity, such as voices caught on his digital audio recorder, or, as Larsen puts it, the DARREN, which stands for Digital Audio Recorder of Really Eerie Noises.
The clearest voice he caught on the DARREN was taken at Rochester's Mayowood Mansion. Dr. Joseph Mayo, the son of Dr. Charles H. Mayo, died in 1936 as he was returning to Rochester from a hunting trip. His car was struck by a train in Wisconsin. It was deemed an accident, but some say it was a murder. According to Larsen, an autopsy found a bullet in the head of Mayo's hunting dog.
Larsen said the DARREN picked up a voice at Mayowood that says "deny it."
"That one was so clear," he said. "I can't explain that."
He learned ghost hunting techniques by watching the SyFy Network's "Ghost Hunters" series and working with the Twin Cities Paranormal Society, who joined him in Mantorville in November 2007. That was his favorite investigation.
He felt dread in the blackness of the Mantorville Opera House's basement and sensed someone was just inches from his face.
"I could literally feel the energy right in front of me," he said.
The scariest ghost hunt took place at the St. James Hotel in Red Wing, which could've been straight out of a Stephen King novel, Larsen said. The story goes that it's built on a Native American burial ground, that a little girl drowned in a well on the site, that a former owner committed suicide nearby and that he and his wife still haunt the place. Larsen said managers gave him a tour and told him of their own unexplained experiences. The DARREN picked up voices there, too.
He believes people who seek out ghosts create a catalyst that connects the afterlife and the world of the living. He encountered weird happenings in his own home while he wrote the book. A cup repeatedly set on a ledge always fell off, his childrens' toys started going off in the middle of the night and he began hearing strange noises.
"Someone open to it will experience it a lot more," he said.
It seems to Larsen that ghosts mostly just want people to be aware of their existence.
"There's nobody I've talked to that has ever been physically hurt," he said. "It seems they're not there to hurt you, they're there to make you aware."
Larsen encourages readers to start their own paranormal investigations. A chapter has ghost hunting tips and a list of handy equipment, such as a flash light and ectromagnetic field detector, which is said to reveal the spirit's energy.
If more people ghost hunt, more evidence will be collected, which would encourage more scientific methods to prove they exist, he said.
His 256-page book from Schiffer Publishing is available at Barnes & Noble for $14.99.
Larsen's next book is set for release in October 2010. It's working title is "Strange Minnesota Monsters."
He lives in Rochester with his wife, Nancy, two sons -- Zach and Alex -- two dogs and a cat. When he's not monster-hunting, he works as a computer consultant.