Investigation: A “Haunting” in Historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
to him, I went into the kitchen to talk to Mother and the phone rang. I said I wanted to go home, but she motioned for me to stay, then answered the phone. The caller was Dr. Osis.
There was to be no investigation, as things turned out.
My father died on May 19th, 1991. My mother, brother and I were deciding what he would be buried in. The new grey suit that had just come back from the cleaners. My brother reached for a pair of black shoes, but Mother shook her head. The shoes of choice were brown wing tipped. This was what I had seen in January 1973 in the doorway of Mother's room. When I told Tracey, my daughter-in-law about this, she seemed skeptical. James told her that I had told him about the phenomena years earlier.
My grandson, Kevin, was born during the blizzard of March 13, 1993. That Christmas, James, Tracey, Kevin, Gerry, a friend, and I were in the living room. We smelled Dad's pipe tobacco. This was not the first or last time that we would smell it. Gerry claimed it was emanating from the drapes and was not paranormal. The drapes had been cleaned at least once since dad died and it was over two years since this happened.
Easter, 1994, while at the dinner table, we smelled the tobacco. Mother said she would also smell the ointment Dad used on his knees. At times, the dog reacted to a presence.
It took me years to research and finally figure out possible explanations of what happened. Only one person died in the house and this happened in the second floor apartment. The house was about thirty yards from the second oldest cemetery in town, but this did not explain the phenomena.
I read about earthbound spirits and continued researching. According to one theory, they are those who travel and are not tied to the location where they died. If this is true, it would explain the visual phenomena.
As for the smell of the pipe tobacco and ointment, apparitions, that part of the human that survives the death of the physical body, can be smelled. I have read and been told about this by witnesses of people smelling flowers after a loved one died. Two days after Dad died, I smelled carnations, one of Dad's favorite flowers. There were no flowers in my apartment. Psychic smelling is called clairaroma.
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