Do JW's now believe in heaven?
http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2005/01/11/news/top_story/555cf4c353e9bc9186256f860048ae24.txt
Ghost story: Waverly couple believes image captures great beyond
By DENNIS MAGEE, Courier Regional Editor
WAVERLY --- Matt Davenport doesn't want to believe.
His upbringing, in fact, precludes accepting what his eyes see. Jehovah's Witness reject the notion spirits roam the earth. A person dies, they go to heaven. That's what Matt was taught.
"Ghosts are just out of the question," he says.
The darkened background hints of an ordinary room. The void suggests more. Blue wisps shroud a swirling mass of white. Orbs dot the surrounding space. An empty sleeve extends toward a face, perhaps a woman's.
"I still, in my heart, I want to believe there's some kind of mechanical error that made this photo," Matt says.
Great-grandma Klein could barely work a camera, let alone come up with something like this, Matt's wife, Melissa, adds.
The contents may be open to debate. But the extraordinary nature of the picture's path to an otherwise ordinary Waverly home can't be denied.
Great-grandma Klein was a psychic and palm reader. She lived in California and one of her haunts was the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.
The estate belonged to Sarah Winchester, heiress to a $20 million fortune created by the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. Her tale began when a medium suggested vengeful spirits could be held at bay if Winchester never finished construction on her mansion.
Work began in 1884. At the time of her death 38 years later, the structure included 160 rooms, 10,000 windows and 467 doorways --- but about 950 doors.
To keep carpenters busy around the clock --- and to confuse any sinister presence --- stairs were installed that lead nowhere and doors opened onto blank walls. One floor contains a window, and one staircase has 42 steps but only rises 9 feet.
On a visit to the Mystery House, Klein brought a cheap camera. Matt and Melissa know she took at least one photo. Markings stamped on the back show the Olympic rings and word KODAK, suggesting the picture was processed sometime around 1984, the year Los Angeles hosted the international games.
Klein snapped the image, processed the film and labeled the print "Ghost --- Winchester House, San Jose, CA." In her worldview, that was far from remarkable.
"It was no big deal. It was just in with the rest of her photos," Matt says.
Then, in December, she died. Some of her belongings passed to her daughter. That would be Matt's grandmother, Lorrie Janca, the witch.
"We're talking pentagram-on-the-floor black magic," Melissa says.
Matt and Melissa asked for the ghost picture and a few other things. And then life got interesting for the Waverly couple.
"When I saw the photo the hairs on the back of my neck stood up," Melissa says.
Mike Walden hasn't seen great-grandma Klein's photo. But he has seen a good many like it. Three or four show up every year.
Walden is one of the owners of Walden Photo, which has stores in Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Ames. His grandparents, Harold and Frances Walden, started the company in 1929. His father, Bob, and uncle, Dick, then ran the business.
So Mike Walden has been around film and photographs his entire life. All that experience adds up to a healthy amount of skepticism about Sarah Winchester's apparition being caught on film.
Dozens of suspects are capable of generating otherworldly images.
"It could be as simple as dust on a lens," Walden says.
Damaged film will also produce unnatural results. Long exposures, smoke in the air and cheap cameras with plastic lenses can add unique qualities, too.
"The vast majority of times, it's a fluke that can be explained," Walden says.
The couple have two copies of great-grandma Klein's image. One is darker, revealing more information along the white bottom edge. On that print, the space could be interpreted as a window frame. Trying to take a photo through glass while using a flash can bend imagination as well.
Matt and Melissa aren't experts, and they aren't hiding their interest in making a few dollars off the images on eBay. The auction continues until Wednesday. Whatever money the Davenports make will first go to reimburse grandma Janca for funeral costs.
Problems with the plan started, they say, when Matt tried to scan the better print into his computer, which doesn't seem to like the image.
"Well, like right now, my printer doesn't work," Matt says. "Error message after error message shows up."
The machine is only 6 months old and Matt recently installed a new ink cartridge. Then, a power supply adapter burned up and the monitor developed a habit of blacking out.
Minor concerns as it turns out. Melissa says she recently had the sensation of someone sitting on the couple's bed. She assumed it was Matt, but he was still at work.
"It was weird. It still gives me the creeps," Melissa says.
The final straw followed an incident involving the couple's infant son, Ethan.
"All of a sudden he started panting like he was having a panic attack," Melissa says. "That shouldn't happen in a 7-month-old."
Melissa says she took Ethan to an emergency room where physicians determined nothing was wrong. At that point, she demanded her husband remove the photo.
"I told him, 'It does not come back in this house.'"
Matt put the picture in his van's glove compartment --- which he says started smelling like sulfur. The computer room smells, too.
The couple understands those who may doubt the image and their experiences. They also know what they believe --- even though they'd rather not.
"Too many strange things have happened," Melissa says.
"To me it looks like a ghost," Matt says.
Call Dennis Magee at (319) 291-1451 or e-mail [email protected].