Paranormal State: The Tillie Pierce House

The last Paranormal State I watched, far more interesting than the GH self-plug of their own "Ghost" Hotel or Inn, was of the Gettysburg, PA Tillie Pierce House. This house saw action in the Battle of Gettysburg as a "field hospital" kind of a M.A.S.H unit in the most basic of ways considering it was almost 100 years before the Korean War, amputations without anesthetic was common, Doctors trying to amputate limbs in seconds to minutes to keep up with the battle wounds and just to make it as quick on the patient as possible. We've seen pictures of the battlefield and all the bodies, although we cannot take all the pictures at face value, there was a photographer who did move bodies to make the sight even more gruesome, not sure if this was Gettysburg or Bull Run, but it did happen.

But the fact does remain, this was a horrific battle, and if anything could leave lingering paranormal activity, this could. But it also makes me ask the question, why don't we hear more about other major battlefields around the world? You would think Okinawa, where the forced suicides of many of it's own civilians by the retreating Japanese Army, which itself had lost over 100,000 soldiers to the Allies (plus the 42,000-142,000 civilians killed by Japanese who forced them to fight, killed for speaking a different dialect or suicide) to the over 12,500+ Allied deaths, would be a prime spot for paranormal investigation. However, the people of Okinawa have different thoughts about the paranormal and messing around with the paranormal, as we saw in a similiar Japanese reluctance to even talk about it in a Destination: Truth episode about the suicides under Mt. Fuji. We have to respect those wishes.

But back to the Tillie Pierce House, this investigation starts out with research on the Tillie Pierce House as well as Tillie Pierce, who was just 15 it turns out when the battle occurred, this is a big burden for such a young lady, she saw things someone her age shouldn't have had to see, but sadly, this happens. Our neighborly psychic Chip Coffey shows up but doesn't seem to have all the usual information that he has when he comes to some places, maybe too many to remember in Gettysburg. Obviously a female being involved is a good guess as it's the Tillie Pierce House and her picture is visible inside the house, the fact that a lot of people died there was a pretty obvious observation as well, but there were no names and such as he usually has. However, I do respect the tone he took in respecting these passes souls.

There were about 3 incidents that happened that may have been paranormal, all do have some possible explanations though. 1. The moaning heard, no mention of the wind is made, although the furnace is checked, sounded strangely like when you blow air over a soda bottle, maybe same effect over a vent pipe? Still pretty creepy, not an EVP as you could hear this as it happened. 2. The door moves behind the big bearded guy, one of the cameramen I believe, but he's a big dude like myself and may have inadvertly bumped it causing it to hit the wall, with guys like us, don't take much of a bump to get it moving and not notice it, he was close enough, but who knows. I don't really like to say someone is pulling something off unless I know THEY know they are pulling something off...like Grant and the moving lamp at Myrtle Plantation. And 3. The mysterious moving soap bottle, the only person who could have possibly done this was again the camera guy. If he did it, he's pretty quick with the hands, it was also done when Ryan yelled "Stop" or "Don't Move!" He then said he thought he possibly saw a shadow person. Now a "shadow person" why is it different than an apparition? Does it appear only on solid surfaces? Or is it just a dark shape in the figure of a person, which would still be an apparition, wouldn't it? Sometimes, all these terms can be confusing, but doesn't mean that after the first couple of episodes we do not need "EVP" and "EMF" explained in detail by the people in the show to fill dead space...a simple caption would do. But apparently, shadow people are different than apparitions or ghosts, wha??? See what I mean!

All in all, an interesting episode, as I've said before, I think these guys are the most sincere of the bunch. But as I say that, The Paranormal Research Society of Penn St. is splitting from Ryan and his group, as of course, they have graduated, done Master's thesis' and whatnot and are going to form their new group, still somewhat tied to PRS, but PRS will be a Penn State project still and the new group can go out like the GH and GA groups if the original members so decide. Ryan will of course still be a part of this new group which will be called PRS, LLC. With the Penn St. group being a branch of this new National group. They have already named a new director of the Penn St Group, which will be given some office space at the National PRS Group Office. The new director of the Penn St. group wasn't named on the PRS website at this time. (Source: PRS Website).


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