Talking to a Ghost Guide By Katie Pratt, Albany Times Union When there isnt a show at the Times Union Center, downtown Albany at 9:30 at night can feel a lot like a ghost town. This makes it a perfect location for the Ghosts of Albany tour — an hour and a half long walking tour of downtown Albany’s historic haunts. Colin Dermody has worked as a tour guide with Ghosts of Albany for over a year after having been a historical guide for the Albany Aqueducts. We sat down with Dermody to talk about a job he calls one of the joys of my life. Have you encountered any paranormal activity while giving one of the tours? If so, describe the experience. No, I have never encountered a paranormal experience while on one of the tours. If I ever do you will be the first to hear about it. Was there one paranormal experience that sparked your interest in the paranormal? If so, describe it. As far as a paranormal experience goes, I have had a few that seemed paranormal but I would like to have more experience in the field and speak with experts before claiming that my experiences were truly paranormal. I do believe in an afterlife, I do believe in intelligent design and I do believe that the universe was purposely created to be imperfect not only in this sphere of existence but in that which is beyond. ... I am at the present putting a team of paranormal investigators together. I called them ghost seekers instead of ghost hunters. I have just last weekend started a blog for this (albanyfog.blogspot/) and will soon be starting a website. The f-o-g stands for friends of ghosts; we will be taking the friendlier approach [to paranormal investigation]. That is why I call it ghost seeking not ghost hunting. We already have a few people interested in having us come in and investigate. What is your favorite Albany Ghost story? My favorite ghost story is The Murder at Cherry Hill Mansion. This story has everything, a wild young woman, an ambitious young man, a lowlife who abandoned his wife and children and was willing to murder for a life of wealth with a young woman. It has money, violence, betrayal, corruption, all the makings of a great story plus it yielded two ghosts to the Albany area — Jesse Strang and John Whipple. What is the scariest paranormal experience youve ever had? Once when I was 19 years old, I worked in a warehouse and a metal barrel filled with scrap metal fell from a height of about 15 feet. It crashed onto the concrete floor about 2 feet to my left while I was looking to my right. The fright caused what I believe to be an out of body experience. When I looked back to see what happened, I found what seemed to be my spiritual self standing about 2 feet from my carnal self with the barrel and the debris in the background. Needless to say, I immediately moved to return to my carnal self. I felt quite weak after. It was years before I told this to anyone but to this day, I remember it like it happened yesterday and it seemed very real. One person that I told this to try to debunked it by saying that the fright caused me to pass out on my feet and it was all a dream that happened seconds; others have told me that they had similar experiences and they to believe them to be real. This is one reason why I believe that we do have souls within us.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 04:38:50 +0000