May 1, 2011

Patricia Marin first contacted me last fall for a phone interview. the following article was released on May 1, 2011.

Thank you for the nice article Pat and thank you from Avenel as well.

Sue Sereno

Ghostec.us

Haunted Avenel in Bedford, Va.

http://www.examiner.com/ghost-hunting-in-national/haunted-avenel-bedford-va-proves-active-for-ghostec-paranormal-group

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February 21st, 2009

On February 21st, 2009 Ghostec was asked to present a program for the Star Trek club. We accepted with great pleasure. We had been their guest once before and they are a wonderfully civic-minded group with many agendas. Thank you Willy and Linda Smith for such open arms to our team; such warm and gracious people you are!  We welcomed a Q&A, which was well received. Your questions were great and we hope we helped with answers. We enjoyed our time with you. To all of you Ghostec says, “Live Long and Prosper.”

Sue

he Rainbow Connection

The Official Newsletter of the U.S.S Heimdal

 The Rainbow Connection

Email: HeimdalCo@aol.com

Website: www.ussheimdal.org

February 2009 meeting

Note: The "abandoned farmhouse" was actually the Avenel Plantation, which is not abandoned. The other paranormal group who had also recored the same cat sound had gotten it a few weeks prior.

Pictured are Peggy Graybill, Jonathan Ayers, Sue Sereno and Sandy Ayers in Avenel, Bedford, Virginia. Pictures and article are by John Barnhart of the Bedford Bulletin newspaper. Ghostec hosted it's first night of five nights in October 2008 for the ghost tours of the old Plantation Avenel. We met lots of new people and they seemed receptive to our talk, show and tell presentations of what we do. Thanks to John for the news article and thanks to Avenel for having us. The biggest thanks goes to those who made reservations and came out to join us.

Sue

Photo and article By John Barnhart

Avenel is an antebellum plantation house has stood since 1838. Sue Sereno of Ghostec believes that some of its former residents may have left something behind, something of themselves.

Ghostec, which Sereno and a few others formed three years ago, investigates paranormal activity — ghosts. She believes a ghost is what is left after a person's body dies — a field of energy, collected in one place, that contains the person's personality.

Based on this energy theory, Ghostec goes looking for ghosts with gear that can measure energy. Members use infrared video recorders. They have gaussmeters, which measure electromagnetic fields. They also use equipment that can measure solely an electric field or solely a magnetic field. They also use non-contact thermometers which allow them to take a reading from a distance, without touching a spot. They also like digital audio recorders. Sereno said that they produce cleaner sound and ghosts sometimes make noise.

Sereno said that she has been interested in ghosts all her life. She has also been interested in Avenel for years and has done investigations there since the '70s.

Ghostec was formed to do paranormal research from a scientific approach. Soreno is a nurse, one member has a degree in electronic engineering and two have law enforcement backgrounds. Ghostec's Web site notes that members do not recommend using Ouija boards, seances or the specific use of psychics on ghost investigations.

Sereno said members have done several investigations in Avenel. They always ask if there is anybody there who would like to say something.

“We've gotten replies,” she said.

One was in the Lee Bedroom. It was a whispering female voice that sounded like a woman saying “Help me,” she said. Members also picked up a masculine voice in the master bedroom, also a whisper. Soreno said voices always come in whispers and she thinks this is because ghosts, being energy fields, don't have voice boxes.

Annette Allen, a member of Avenel's board of directors, said the house seems to become active after 9 p.m. Allen was on the board from 1989 to 1998, rejoining the board last year. The hiatus was due to the demands of raising three small boys.

The early stages of renovation involved grunt-work clean-up as the house, while structurally sound as a fort, had fallen into disrepair. Allen said that she would get a feeling that she described as a “cold electrical sensation” that raised goose bumps.

“You could hear a swishing sound,” she said of the times she had this feeling. “Then, it would just fade away.”

It made her think of the sound of a woman walking in a mid-19th century century hoop petticoat. She also said she would hear sounds of footsteps after 9 p.m.

According to Allen, Mary Frances Burwell, one of the daughters of William and Frances Steptoe Burwell, married Captain James Breckinridge, a Confederate Army Officer, in a ceremony held at Avenel in the spring of 1862. The wedding took place at 9 p.m. She died of typhoid four months later at the age of 23. Breckinridge ended up being killed in one of the last battles of the war, Allen said. According to Allen, witnesses said he deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire. Both are buried in Longwood Cemetery.

Allen also said that plantation families would generally entertain guests late. Dinner guests would arrive at 9 p.m. and, after dinner, gather in the parlor and stay up late talking.

She feels that the activity that she's experienced after 9 p.m. is just old fashioned Southern hospitality in ghostly form.

“They want us over there,” she said. “They want the visit.”

Ghostec has done several investigations at Avenel and will conduct presentations at the house on Oct. 2, Oct. 9, Oct. 16 and Oct. 23. Each session starts at 7 p.m. and the number of attendees at each session, not counting ghosts, is limited to 30. The cost is $15.

The admission fee won't apply to the White Lady. According to the Avenel Foundation, some people have claimed to have seen a woman dressed in white and carrying a parasol disappear into a tree on the other side of the street from the house. In one sighting she is said to have been seen walking with a uniformed soldier. Next month's presentations will include witnesses who say they have seen or heard the White Lady.

To reserve a space at one of these presentations, call (540) 875-9180. For more information about Ghostec, go to its Web site at www.ghostec.us.

6/1/2006

Ghostec was accompanied on our Avenel House Investigation by Lynchburg News & Advance reporter/author, Darrell Laurant. After our initial investigation Laura Gardner, photographer for the newspaper and colleague of Darrell Laurant, expressed an interest in another investigation. Laura accompanied us on the second visit and took numerous photographs and audio recordings. The article appeared in the paper under the title "Searching for Spirits". A link to the online article (minus the pictures) can be found here.

Laura Gardner put together a multimedia presentation that is available here. Many of the pictures in the multimedia presentation were published in the newspaper article.

6/15/2006

A picture of Sue from our second Avenel House investigation was included in the "Do You Believe in Ghosts?" Halloween article in the Lynchburg News & Advance by Darrell Laurant.

7/29/2006

Sue was interviewed by Joshua Warren on his radio talk show "Speaking of Strange." She was invited on to talk about her book "Ghosts? I Think So!" (more information here) and Ghostec. "Speaking of Strange" is broadcast on WWNC 570AM from Asheville, North Carolina, Sue's hometown. The show aired on 7/29/2006. WWNC keeps archives of some of it's programming for listening on its website, unfortunately that nights show was not one of them. The "Speaking of Strange" website can be found here. Joshua Warren is also the founder of paranormal investigation group L.E.M.U.R.

Sue was invited to speak about her book "Ghosts? I Think So!" at the November meeting of the U.S.S. Heimdal Science Fiction Club. Several members of Ghostec attended as well and we held a Q&A after Sue's presentation. The public was also invited and around 31 people (including U.S.S. Heimdal members) showed up.

In 1984 the Richmond Times-Dispatch did an article on the "Haunt Hunters", a paranormal investigation and research team founded by Philip Goodwilling. Sue and Sandy were members and were featured in the article. While "Haunt Hunters" no longer exists and is not connected to Ghostec, we thought it was good for showing how long some members of our team have been involved in paranormal investigation. A scan of the original article, dated September 30th, 1984 can be found here. Be aware however that the file size is large (2MB).

6/2007

Ghostec got a nice mention in Rick Fisher's June 2007 newsletter for the Pennsylvania Paranormal Society, for having helped him to participate in a Remote Viewing session.

9/13/2007

Sue was the guest on Rick Fisher's Paranormal Pennsylvania 9/13/2007 BlogRadio show. The entire show can be listened to here. Clicking on it should start your computer's default media player, or you can right-click and click "Save Target As" to save the entire file. The file is in MP3 format, and is rather large at 40MB, but it is the entire one-hour show.

Sue and her book were mentioned by Amy Hanek in her Notes from a Ghost Writer blog. Check it out!

Sue's book received another review, this time from Heather Froeschl. An author and editor who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Check out her blog here!

10/30/2007

Ghostec was featured in the 10/30/2007 Richmond-Times Dispatch article "Ghosthunting at the Byrd". The article can be found here.