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The Haunted Guitar

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"The devil is most dangerous when he is being pleasant."

*****

Patrick Cross is widely known and recognized as a paranormal researcher in the United States and Canada. Cross is also an accomplished musician whose life changed when he purchased a copy of the Gibson Flying V guitar in 1992.

The white V shaped guitar had been passed down by various musicians but Cross felt that it was in good shape and played well despite the fact that it had a slight crack on the neck. The guitar ended up for sale in Oakville, Ontario after it had been the sole surviving item in a Michigan bar fire which took the life of one of the band members who had been playing a gig at the bar.

Cross was very drawn to the guitar when he saw it and claimed it was almost as though the guitar was telling him to play it. He also claimed to feel a "tingling electric sensation" when he played it. He never looked at any other guitars but purchased the white V and took it home.

Oddly enough, the guitar which played fine in the store seemed to go out of tune when he tried playing it at home unless he played tunes that were more dark in nature and sound like "Smoke on the Water" or "Purple Haze." Cross passed this oddness off until two days later when strange things started to happen.

Noises began emanating from the closet where the guitar was stored. Upon inspection which showed nothing unusual, Cross heard hispanic voices as though coming from  two men arguing over money. When Cross left the room the voices ceased. A short time later, Cross noticed his car keys would disappear and reappear, shadows would move on the walls, cuppboards would open and close of their own volition, footsteps and knocks and bangs would resound, the TV would turn itself on when he was not home, his cat began scouting something invisible and the guitar seemed to always have cold air surrounding it.

Despite all of this Cross decided to use the guitar in his rock band, "SCI-FI Prodigy." Keeping in step with the strange things happening back at his apartment, equally strange things began happening at rehearsals and band performances. There was equiptment failure,  weird voices emanating from amplifiers, lights going on and off or simply blowing out and fires starting from floodlights. The drummer had trouble with cymbals falling off and his drums sounding odd and the band members would hear voices around the guitar when they left the room - empty.

Often, the guitar would go out of tune on fifth and sixth strings and another guitar would have to be used unless the band was playing songs with negative lyrics or heavy metal songs. Cross had written a song titled Something Is Out There which was paranormal in nature as the title suggests and the guitar obliged his effort by staying in tune when he played it.

Cross began to feel that the guitar had an aura of evil. With the advent of time, Cross began to experience what he termed as bad luck in the form of lost jobs, bad health and car problems. The guitar acquired a stench resembling a burnt dead smell. After photographing the guitar he captured both orbs and a strange misty presence.

Problems began cropping up with more significance in other job locations. In a bar in London, Ontario a fire broke out  and glasses would shatter if they were carried past where the guitar lay.

According to http://www.burlingtonghostwalks.ca/weird.htm the following incidents happened to the band:

The bass player mysteriously and without reason has his wrist broken.

On the night of a performance, the drummers's car is suddenly thrown out of control.

The Lead Vocalist, Patrick Has His Car Suddenly Explode Into Flames. Then When He Goes To Put It Out! There Are No Flames and No Fire..Just A Ghostly Black Smoke Figure Of A Man Disappear Into Thin Air.

Various gigs have been cancelled due to strange occurrances and mysterious accidents.

Ghosts appear in the studio and paranormal sound recordings of ghosts are often captured on studio tape recordings. Actual EVP sound recordings of the paranormal.

Telephone lines get cut off and on while in conversation, Images of a ghostly face appears on computer screens and televisions even when turned off.

The keyboard player is haunted by ghosts and spirits and black shadows

The entire band's instruments light on fire while performing"live" at a haunted house in 1994

At a recent performance-the band that performed after Sci-Fi,could not get their instruments in tune and both the bass player and guitarist broke their guitar strings at the same time. The lights everywhere in the bar where going on and off.

Summer of '97-The keyboard player was playing a tape of us in his car,when the music and tape started playing backwards,it then ejected out of the tape deck on its own and flew into the back seat of his car!

October 30,1999-Car Crash of friend just a couple of days before Halloween,causes back-up vocalist-Ann to cancel attending Ghost Walk Tour at Fort George, Niagara On The Lake, Ontario.

In 1999, Cross decided to take the guitar with him to a conference, the X Zone Symposium in St. Catherine's, Ontario where he was to be a guest speaker. He was hoping to find some psychic individuals who could help him obtain information about the guitar. Most of the psychics said they felt an evil presence around the guitar. Two psychic, Janet Russell and Eugenia Macer-Story thought they could help via channeling. Eugenia felt the guitar had an entity was inside the wood of the guitar and that the entity had a controlling effect on anyone who touched it. She claimed the guitar told her it did not want to be on display but to cause evil and destruction and, to start fires. All of this struck a deep chord with Cross who admitted that he had been having vivid dreams and odd images entering his mind about killing when he was around the guitar.

Eugenia further channeled that the guitar had a powerful Voodoo hex placed upon it called EXU by previous musicians who owned it. It was supposed to bring wealth to the person who owned it if they did the guitar entity's bidding. It backfired and killed the owners. Eugenia also claimed the guitar used profanity and was trying to possess her because it wanted to be released in human form. All of this confirmed the problems Cross had been having. The only way out was to bless the guitar or completely destroy it.

Cross put the guitar in its case and covered it with salt to contain the evil energy and then he wrapped the outside of the case with a blue cloth. On Sunday evening after the conference he took the guitar to a remote parking lot, doused it with lighter fluid put it in a steel garbage can. poured salt around the can  and then lit it on fire. He recited the Lord's Prayer three times ordered the entity away in the name of God. A misty cloud rose out of the can and the wind kicked up putting out the fire. He added some wood and doused it more heavily with some gasoline and after about twenty five minutes the guitar began to burn. As the flames rose higher, Cross heard a high pitched scream and he tried pouring more gasoline on the fire. Flames leaped out and set fire to his clothes but he was fortunately able to put them out.

Once he was satisfied that the guitar was totally burned down, he poured more salt over the burnings. He left the guitar in the garbage can grabbed the case still full of salt and rewrapped it in the blue cloth. Then Cross went home.

Life greatly improved for Cross after destroying the guitar.

Summary rehash resource: Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits and Haunted Places by Brad Steiger, 537-542