New book features old haunts around the Show-Me State

Mr. Offutt’s book contains tales about his experiences at various sites rumored to be haunted. Many of the places Offutt writes about have been the scenes of war, family tragedy, suicide, murder and other events alleged to have given rise to supernatural happenings.
“Haunted Missouri” covers only public places and includes a map of all locations so that readers can pursue their own paranormal adventures.
Mr. Offutt interviewed quite a number of people who had reported happenings in and around the Jesse James home in Kearney. The ghost of his mother, Zerelda, has been seen. A rocking chair has been known to move.
Mr. Offutt said he was talking to a tour guide inside the James home, when the guide called Zerelda “A stubborn old cuss.”
“At that time, and this was witnessed by a number of people, the handset flew off the phone next to her rocking chair toward the guide,” he said. “I don’t think she liked being referred to as a stubborn old cuss.”
Mr. Offutt, who was born and raised in Orrick, said he saw a ghost himself when he was a boy, maybe eight or ten-years-old.
“I was walking out of my room into a well-lit hallway,” he said. “I saw a boy. He was about six. He was standing there, staring at me.”
Mr. Offutt said he lived on a farm and there were no other boys living in the house, and no boys that age within a three mile radius.
“He shouldn’t have been there,” he said. “He had brown messy hair, a flannel shirt, blue jeans. I could see the bookshelf through him. I turned around, ran into my room, and shut the door. I didn’t talk to my family about it for 30 years.”
Among all of his investigations into haunted sites, Offutt has not gone back to investigate his own house.
“I guess it’s just too close,” he said. “Investigating paranormal experiences is really fun, unless it happens to me.”
Mr. Offutt has heard a lot of ghost stories. It’s not always easy to determine what’s a real experience and what’s the result of an overactive imagination.
“If somebody sees something, sees a person, a shadow in the dark, or hears a creaky floor or a baby crying, well, cats can sound like a baby crying,” he said. “A lot of things can be explainable by natural means. All the people I interviewed for the book were sincere. They were positive they’d heard, felt or saw something.”
Hearing footsteps or things falling off a shelf are fairly common reports.
“Seeing one, or having one touch you, is rare,” Mr. Offutt said. “People claim they can feel something playing with their hair. I don’t know what would explain that.”
Carl Asher’s story, in the Oct. 31 issue of the Gallatin North Missourian, of actually being knocked unconscious by an unseen force rang a bell with Mr. Offutt.
“I heard a very similar story from a Clay County park ranger,” he said. “A person I’d think would be a reliable source. He said it felt like a linebacker ran into him.”
Are some people tuned in to the paranormal? Are there some of us who have a sort of sixth sense?
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately,” Mr. Offutt said. “I’m starting to lean toward the fact that everybody can pick up on the paranormal. But we’re trained early in our society to think that these things don’t exist, so we really don’t pay any attention to it. As a rule of thumb some people, and especially children, are more perceptive than others. Children don’t have all of the preconceived notions of adults about what’s real and shouldn’t be real.”
Mr. Offutt points out that his experience seeing a ghost happened when he was a young boy. He hasn’t seen anything like it since.
Mr. Offutt says paranormal activity is all around us.
“The only time you’re really going to experience anything, is when you put yourself in the right place at the right time,” he said.
The right time, he explains, is at night. Not necessarily because ghosts are any more active at night, but it’s quieter and you’re more apt to hear something. The right place is any place that has a haunted reputation.
“If it’s open to the public, and you’re curious, you should go seek it out,” he said. “Don’t trespass, of course.”
Mr. Offutt’s subject turned out to be very popular and his book is doing really well. Haunted Missouri is on its third press run. The publisher  (Truman State University Press) has told him it’s their all time best selling book and it has only been out since June.
Since working on the book, he’s been inundated with stories of haunted houses, mostly private houses. And he has another book about paranormal stories in the works. A couple of publishers have already expressed interested. He hopes it will be out by 2008.
In the meantime, be sure to pick up a copy of “Haunted Missouri.” The book is available through a link to the publisher’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com. You can also find it online at Amazon.com or from the publisher.
In addition to teaching journalism courses at Northwest, Offutt is a syndicated columnist whose work has appeared in the “Kansas City Star,” “Missouri Life Info” and the “The Examiner.” His previous book is titled “On Being Dad.”