If you were to drive down Franklin Blvd in Sacramento, you would enter Elk Grove. As you cruise further on Franklin Blvd, you would actually come to the small town of Franklin, California. As you enter this small town, it's hard to believe a city like Sacramento is a mere few miles away. You feel like you have stepped into a time machine, because all of the buildings are past vintage. There are buildings that were erected from the 1800s to buildings that were erected in the early 60s. I was notified by email of a ghostly phantom that haunts the town of Franklin. Here is what the email said (some words and sentences were changed to make the email more comprehensive):

"Hi Paul, I have a cool place for you to scout out. Check out the town of Franklin. When I was in high school (early 80s), my friends and I, were playing kickball in the street. The sun was settling down and we all saw a tall dark figure walking towards us. The figure was wearing a large black hat, black trenchcoat and it appeared that he was holding onto two guns holstered to his waist. We got scared and ran. As we looked back, there was no one there. I asked my grandfather about it and he said we saw the ghost of gunslinger Calvin Colt. His first name is Calvin, but he took on the name of 'Colt', because he harnessed two Colt 45s to his gun belt. The townsfolk said he was a bragger and he had claimed to have killed two men in Kansas after a drinking binge. Calvin Colt met a mysterious death and one morning, the townsfolk found him laying face down in the cemetery with a bullet in the back of his head. The story goes that Calvin Colt still haunts the town of Franklin, looking for his killer. Signed Marge of Franklin."

After reading this email, I cut and pasted it into my list of places to scout out. I love scouting out areas that may be haunted and I knew one day, I would have to verify the claim from this email. That day is here. Today is Friday, April 25, 2008. I decided to have a small scouting party for this mission. I called upon Anne Atwell (former ballerina of the New York Broadway Show The Nutcracker) and HPI Ghosthunter-in-Training. The next one on my team was Pika (Jack Russell Terrier) - HPI Ghosthunter/Sensitive. We all hopped in my vehicle 'The Ghost Tracker' and headed to the small town of Franklin. Our first stop was the Franklin Cemetery. Pika would be the lead investigator for the Franklin Cemetery, because he can spot out paranormal interference with his acute sixth sense. I snapped many photographs in this cemetery and obtained only one orb shot. Apparently Calvin Colt didn't want to hang out at the place where he died. Anne found a very unusual tombstone, it read: Alexander Hamilton Willard - born Charlestown, NH August 24, 1778 - Died Franklin March 6, 1865 Last Surviving Member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Wow! In this small cemetery, here was a piece of history. The last surviving member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is buried in this graveyard. How Mr. Willard found his way from New Hampshire and then went on the Lewis and Clark Expedition only to finally settle down in the small town of Franklin is beyond me.

Our next stop was at C.J.'s Dining - 10408 Franklin Blvd. I have heard many times over that this establishment is haunted. I started snapping pictures and when analyzing the photos, I noticed I had orbs in almost all of my photos. Most were 'faint orbs', but I got a clear picture of a 'crystal orb' near the window. I am not saying that orb pictures are paranormal activity, but when you go to a place that is reputed to be haunted, it's kind of odd how orb pictures are established so quickly. I can get an orb picture usually by the third picture taken. Then if I go to a place that is not haunted, not one orb picture. Of course when you use a video camera, you can determine if an orb has intelligent movement. For an example, Shannon McCabe was once sitting on a haunted stairwell. She asked the orbs to move towards her outreached hand. They did exactly that, several times over. This shows some type of intelligence. When taking pictures in the patio area of C.J.'s, my camera batteries died. The batteries were brand new. Anne also noticed that there was a power pole in front of C.J.s, a good conduit for entities to draw energy from. After our investigation in the town of Franklin, we did not meet up with Calvin Colt. Pika didn't react to anything unusual at the cemetery, so it was time to wrap it up.

Anne, Pika and I decided to go over our photographs at a very haunted establishment called Elk Grove Brewery (see my article about the Elk Grove Brewery). As I looked at the digital photographs, Anne related a story to me. When she was vacationing in India and staying at the Clark's Hotel that overlooks the Siege of Lucknow or also known as the Lucknow Rebellion, she saw 2 full body apparitions. She was no more than three feet away from the apparitions and they looked like real people to her. She saw a doctor that seemed to be treating a wounded soldier, while another apparition that looked like an officer was standing over the chair that the doctor was sitting on. Anne saw the apparitions at 3:15am and actually thought they were breathing living human beings. She says that the air felt electric. She said a few words to the apparitions and they vanished in front of her eyes. Anne at a later time will go into full details with her own written version of this account and you will be able to get her full story that will be linked into one of my future articles.

Paul Dale Roberts,
HPI Ghostwriter

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