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October 22, 2024 19 mins

Welcome to the innagural episode of Hey Ghost Hey! In this episode, Bellingham Ghost Tours owner/tour guide/psychic Charles Crooks shares some experiences from the historic Sycamore Square in Fairhaven. Hear real ghostly voices captured on recorder from Crooks himself as he shares some Electronic Voice Phenomena of Sycamore Square.

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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
Welcome to Hey Ghosts! Hey! The podcast about ghost, ghost hunting, and other paranormal

(00:28):
phenomena of the Pacific Northwest. I am your host Charles Crooks, owner, tour guide, and psychic
of Bellingham Ghost Tours. We are here because I like ghosts a lot. Now let's begin. Hello,
hello, and welcome to the very first episode of Hey Ghosts! Hey! I am very excited to be doing this

(00:50):
with you as I really had no intention to kind of make a podcast ever. But as I started the tours,
I started Bellingham Ghost Tours in 2023 at the request of the Good Time Girls. And as I continued
to kind of ask people what they wanted and find out what they were interested in, the number one

(01:11):
thing that people said that they wanted to see or hear was more ghost stories. They wanted to know
more of what was happening in their home area of Bellingham. So here we are. And when I decided to
look at the very first possibilities of where I might focus on, it was kind of a no-brainer that I
start with Sycamore Square. This is a building that has a lot of history to me as a ghost hunter and

(01:38):
somewhere that I feel a very deep connection to because I have spent many hours overnight, many
hours just hanging out, waiting for things to happen, and it has produced. I would definitely say
it's one of the more active buildings within the Farahaven area. And even when you walk in the feeling
of it, it just has a not just an old-timey vibe to it, but almost kind of like a coziness as well,

(02:05):
a kind of familiarity to it. Maybe it's just all the wood in there or the giant staircases.
I've even had people say that it kind of compares to the feeling of Harry Potter with the staircases
and how they're kind of laid out throughout the building. But it definitely has a feeling that's
not of this time. And so when you step into it, it's very easy to feel transported. And so I would

(02:31):
say it's one of one of the things that made it so easy to go into and investigate because I felt so
comfortable there. And as soon as I did start investigating, the spirit started to really give
and talk and give evidence to when I would go in and record. So I'm very happy to even share some

(02:52):
of that with you guys in this episode. So I definitely aim to always share a part of some
evidence of whether I found something from that investigation or not. So I look forward to being
able to share that with you guys as that's definitely one of my favorite parts of the tours
and being able to share that with everyone. All right, first up, here's a brief history of the

(03:16):
building. Thanks to the Society of Architectural Historians website. Originally known as the Mason
Block, Sycamore Square sits at the corner of Harrison 12th Street and occupies one quarter
of the block and is actually one of the largest buildings in Fairhaven's historic district.
It was named for Alan C. Mason, the Tacoma investor who funded it and designed by Tacoma

(03:42):
Architects James Pickles and Albert Sutton. The Mason Block originally served as a commercial
and professional building. Ground floor businesses including clothing, hardware, groceries and dry
goods. Many tenants were in the medical professions including doctors, dentists, and pharmacists.
While the railway express occupied a street front office. In the early days, the Cascade Club,

(04:07):
a men's club that hosted such distinguished visitors such as William Howard Taft and Mark Twain,
was located on the top floor. Later, the third floor was occupied by renters with housekeeping rooms.
Rehabilitated by developer Kenneth Imus in 1973 and renamed the marketplace,
the building was the beginning of Fairhaven's physical renaissance and his gradual transformation

(04:33):
into the historic district. Its current owner renamed the building Sycamore Square.
Alright, on to the ghostly stuff. So my very first time inside Sycamore Square was with the
group called Boo which stood for Bellingham Observers of the Audnab Skiur and it was one of our
regular places that we could investigate or kind of like the training ground that they used as we

(04:58):
had a key to the building so we could go in there and hang out whenever we wanted. And so I was very
surprised in my first time going in there that I had never actually encountered the building as I had
been going to Fairhaven my whole life especially when visiting my grandparents here in Bellingham.
Originally I'm from Washington but then I grew up in the Midwest before moving back out here about

(05:21):
15 years later. So when I moved back to Bellingham one of the very first things I did was join Boo
and so that's what got me into the Sycamore. And so from the very first night one of the stories
that I heard the founder Sherry she told me about a man who got locked in the building and I believe
specifically it was inside the black cat and he was he had drank too much passed out and was locked

(05:48):
inside the space and no one knew that he got left behind. And so as he kind of came to and realized
what was going on there were chairs across from him that started to pull out from the table
like someone was having a seat with him. And I guess this was too much for him to bear so he
actually ended up pulling the fire alarm and the fire department found him waiting at the door

(06:13):
trying to get out. So that was my very first impression of the Ghosts of Sycamore Square.
And I have to talk about is definitely most famous full body apparition who we believe to be
Miss Flora Blakely. Now unfortunately we don't have any pictures of Flora to really connect

(06:34):
whether that is her or we're calling the right ghost by the right name. So I as far as I know I
want to say it was a psychic that possibly made the connection that the ghost that people were
seeing known as the Lady in Green or the Green Lady was actually Flora Blakely. So I as far as I
know that is the connection that we have today of making the ghost the name but absolutely no

(07:00):
proof on that. And so she has been seen by multiple people throughout the businesses of the building
and she really doesn't seem to interact with them. So my first inclination is wondering if Flora
herself is more of a residual kind of energy that people are encountering. But it's definitely

(07:23):
interesting that a lot of people have encountered her especially being the only full body apparition
that is seen on a regular basis. And so when it comes to Flora's history there's there's
really not a whole lot known surrounding her death. When you actually look at the historical
documents thanks to the Good Time Girls they provided this that listed on her death certificate.

(07:50):
It just says illness of the mind. And unfortunately that could mean so many things for the time.
A lot of people do speculate that Flora possibly might have fallen over one of the fourth floor
railings and met her demise that way. But we really have no proof of that. I always kind of

(08:10):
thought initially when I started the tours if that someone had fallen over one of the railings
that you would have had to have some sort of reconstructive something to the body or to the
face or even some sort of makeup cover up to cover up energy. But I've been told by medical
professionals that if you do snap the neck just right then you would be none the wiser. You could

(08:36):
throw a scarf on there and no one would have any clue. So it is possible that maybe she did meet
her end that way. It also is possible that maybe she did commit suicide. There are so many possibilities
within this illness of the mind that we really do not know. But she is the story that is definitely
continued throughout today. And I do hope that one day myself I actually do get to see her as I

(09:02):
have not encountered her as a spirit in the space. So even though I have not personally encountered
Flora myself I have had plenty of other interesting or kind of weird things happen. What are my
favorite things about Sycamore Square is that it often would produce EVPs almost every single time

(09:23):
I would go on an investigation. So EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena and basically the way
that it works is I would take a digital voice recorder with me. There's nothing special about
the recorder. You could get it anywhere in my preferred brand is Sony. So Best Buy Walmart,
online, Amazon, anywhere possible. You don't need to spend any more than 50 to 60 dollars on one.

(09:46):
And so if I'm out investigating for four hours at a time I would then record the entire session
and then have four hours of audio to go back through. So every time I would go out to Sycamore
investigated with Boo I would go through this process. So at first I would get very just very
brief whispers that seemed to almost kind of come out of nowhere in the recordings where I almost

(10:11):
had to question whether it was someone in the group or if I was really getting responses from
from things that were not there for from people that I was not hearing or seeing with my own eyes
or ears. So it definitely was interesting. And so I'm going to share with you guys a few of those
recordings that were a little more simple. And I'm going to start with something that actually

(10:36):
seemed to have response to it, which was pretty rare for Sycamore. Anytime that we would go in
there, and we would get serious and ask questions about like, what's your name or how do you die,
how do you pass away, we would rarely get any sort of answer to to what we were talking about.
So it was really when we let our guard down and just started having fun with each other that they

(10:59):
really seem to jump in and be a part of the conversation. So this first one, I'm going to
play for you. I like it simply because it is just a question and a response. So I will just play
the clip for you here now.

(11:20):
Does this building hold something special for you?
So as you can hear, it's a very breathy response. But let's do that again.
But let's do that again.
Does this building hold something special for you?

(11:41):
As for this next one, I'm not 100% sure what was going on at the time as I don't have the full
audio clip anymore. Keep in mind that these were both probably recorded over 10 years ago,
probably close up to 15 years ago now. So unfortunately, I don't have those original audio

(12:01):
files. But here is the next one.
So in this one, you just hear a whispered voice, which was very common for Sycamore and a lot of
the EVPs that I got. And to me, it sounds like the whisper is kind of quickly saying,

(12:24):
I'm not going out. So knowing that, listen again.
All right. For this next one that I've got for you guys, I've actually never shared it publicly
before or other than with the group Boo back when I was investigating. So this one kind of comes

(12:48):
with a unique story. There was a time when it was myself and three other investigators and
we were standing up on the fourth floor looking out towards the courtyard. And then out of nowhere,
really, a basketball size white orb that we visibly saw with our eyes came out of the third floor
wall, moved its way into the middle of the courtyard, which is just a giant empty space,

(13:14):
and then kind of moved upwards and then proof it was gone. And all four of us were kind of stunned
in the moment because we really had a question whether we really saw but we're so grateful
that the others were around because we had that confirmation that each other had really seen it.
And I would say this is definitely the most visual anything I had ever encountered within

(13:38):
Sycamore. Usually anything that I'd ever witnessed with my eyes was always just in the periphery,
something moving by really quick, or maybe it was just kind of a shadow that would walk by
very quickly, but you really had a question a lot of when that would happen. But this,
we very visibly saw full on with our eyes. And I think I got an EVP to go with it. So

(14:04):
I'm just going to play that for you now. And then fly to the courtyard. Yeah, go off that way. Yeah.
Cool. Let's go tonight. So I think this one's a little bit harder to pick up unless you know
what you're listening for. So in this, we're excitedly talking, but you hear a voice go whoo
that kind of echoes throughout the space. And then I hear a male voice say missed me,

(14:29):
like almost as if the orb was possibly talking to us. However, we did kind of catch it with our
eyes at the time. So here's that one more time. And then fly to the courtyard. Yeah, go off that way.
Yeah. Cool. Let's go tonight. All right, I've got one more that I would like to play for you guys.

(14:49):
That is one of my personal favorites and is also one that I play on the fairy haven tour.
It's very rare to get EVPs throughout the evening where it typically tends to reference itself.
You'll usually get very quick responses or the yeses or the no's.
But to actually have something that kind of spans throughout an entire recording is really,

(15:14):
is really rare. So that is one of the reasons why I like this clip. But the second one is
it almost seems that there's two voices kind of having a back and forth in this. And that's one
of the things that a lot of people on the tours have pointed out as well, that they do hear kind
of two voices almost disagreeing with each other in a way. And then the third thing that I like

(15:38):
about it is that like I was kind of mentioning earlier, it did reference itself. So earlier in
the evening, I got a clip of kind of a breathy female voice saying this is fun. And then later
on that same evening, it comes back and kind of starts in the clip with some whispered and I'll
just play it for you first so you can hear it before I talk about it again. So here we go.

(16:03):
Oh, I want to take the elevator. Thank God it's Sunday, man.
I'm really curious. All right, so there's definitely a lot going on in this one. So to kind of revisit
from the beginning, we have that kind of breathy voice say this is fun. Also, people have suggested

(16:26):
that they hear the spirit possibly saying this is fine instead of this is fun. So keep that in
mind as you listen. So we have the whispered this is fun, this is fun. And then it kind of goes into
that heavy breath. And I'm not quite sure what's surrounding that either. But it very clearly
ends with he's a weirdo. So I have no idea if I'm that weirdo if they're talking about me, but I

(16:52):
will gladly take it any day, especially if they want to give recordings like that. So here it is
one last time. I'm really curious. All right, and there you have it as far as some direct evidence

(17:15):
goes from Sycamore Square itself. Keep in mind to that we did not hear any of these recordings
with our ears or any of these voices, I should say, with our ears at the time, they were only
on the recording. And so that's kind of what makes the telltale mark of a true EVP is that you don't
hear it with your ears. And that's only on the media that you go back to. And so a lot of people

(17:41):
when they do tend to hear things with their ears, those are usually classified as disembodied voices.
All right, it is time to wrap up this visit to Sycamore Square in historic Fairhaven, Washington.
I cannot thank you enough for being a part of this very first episode of Hey Ghost Hey. Huge thank

(18:04):
you to everyone who has listened. And if you do want more, you can join the Bellingham Ghost Tours
Get tickets at BellinghamGhostTours.com or if you don't live in the area, you can still follow us
at Bellingham Ghost Tours on Instagram or TikTok. Once again, thank you so much for joining.
I hope you have a wonderful, happy, and safe October. Stay spooky, my friends.

(18:54):
Bye.
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