Episode 80: The Ghosts of Greystone
Kia ora, welcome everyone. Thank you so much for joining us this episode, which I should say is the last episode in this current season, and I’ll be taking a four-week break between seasons. But, of course, it’s only a break on the airwaves. I’ll still be very busy lining up guests and topics for our next season. So be sure to like and follow Walking the Shadowlands, on Instagram, TicTok, or from the podcast website www.walkingtheshadowlands.com for hints on our next upcoming season, at least, the first two or three episodes of that season. If you are on Twitter than look for me under shadowlands10, or check out our FB page Walking the Shadowlands.
In the meantime have you ever driven past an old house and looked at it wondering if it could possibly be haunted? Sometimes, simply because of how it looks? With houses, most of us say well, maybe it might be, perhaps it isn’t? BUT, if we were to look at some old, palatial mansion, then we are more likely to consider that it might be actively haunted. But why would that be? Why would we consider it more likely that a castle, or an old decaying mansion is haunted? Is that because, of the possible history of such a place? All of the lives that were lived and possibly died in such a mansion? The stories hidden behind those imposing walls? Or is it, that we as humans, like to consider those who could afford to live in such wealth were not immune to normal human trials, and tribulations any family might face? Human nature can be a very funny thing.
Sometimes haunted mansions can be found in the most surprising of places. Such as in the case of the genuine hauntings of the Greystone manor. Greystone manor is situated in a very rich area of Beverly Hills, surrounded by palatial mansions, owned by people who are fabulously wealthy. And who live lifestyles that most of us can only look at, and perhaps dream about. But, honestly, who knows what goes on behind those gated walls and carefully manicured lawns and gardens? Who knows what pain and suffering, or nefarious dealings are made in such places? Who knows what dark underbelly hides behind those facades? And certainly, the Greystone manor has seen its share of tragedy and pain, of nefarious dealings in political circles, greed and avarice, and ill treatment, resulting in the deaths of several female servants.
In this episode we are going to take a look behind the walls of this exclusive manor, and learn of some of history that has caused this place to become a genuinely and actively haunted place. But the question is, are you willing to walk with me into this part of the shadowlands and see what we will find? Let’s begin.
My guest today knows of the hauntings of Greystone manor from very intimate knowledge, having worked in and around the Doheny estate for over 20 years. He has had the experience of seeing and having his own experiences there, and of being able to hear countless experiences visitors to the mansion, and other staff working with the mansion have had.
Having taken retirement from a job, and a place he loved due to the effects of the covid outbreak, Clete decided to take a retirement package that was offered to him and to collate all the experiences he had gathered over his time working at the mansion into a book. This book has 22 years of research behind it, with a collection of two-hundred and thirty-seven experiences from eighty-six people who had experiences. With so many more he was unable to add, simply because the book would have been over 750 pages long. Their eyewitness statements detail many, many supernatural activities in the mansion. So if anyone could be called an expert on the history and hauntings of this estate, then Clete definitely is the man. My guest Clete Keith.
The Ghosts of Greystone
Marianne: Thank you very much for joining us today. I’m really excited to talk to you about your book, ‘The Ghost of Greystone’, and about your experiences. I read your book. I absolutely loved it. I really love the way you interviewed the people. Got them to come back and talk about their experiences is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So perhaps we can start with a little bit about you, a little bit about your background and where you came from? And why you decided to write this book?
Clete: OK, so my background is I’m from a an entertainment family. My dad was an actor. My mom was an actress. My sister acted as married to a writer. My brother’s a producer and an editor. So and my grandfather was a director. And when Hollywood, like in the forties, he was a well-known director. And so it’s always been part of, we’ve been part of a business. And I was acting when I was 17. I was in the theatre, did that for 17 straight years. But at the same time, I needed to get some work and a friend of mine turned me on to working with him at events for the city of Beverly Hills. So I got a job there just to work on events. And part of that job was putting on events up at Greystone. And that led me – I did I actually did a movie called Cabin Boy, which is one of the worst films ever made. Please don’t look at it. And, literally one of the worst films ever made, and they had a day where I said, where are you guys shooting? And they said, we’re going to be up at Greystone. I go, what is that? They said, it’s a mansion in Beverly Hills. And oh, OK. Little did I know. Like, five years later, I would be working. That would be my, my home, my location to work.
So I started working at Greystone and I’d never really thought about the paranormal at all. I had several things happened. I had like three incidences that took place in my life when I was younger with my parents. They ended up going up north in California to my, my great uncle. His name was Wes had cancer and he was with his wife Margie, and they lived right on the ocean right in California and. He was really ill and he slipped out of bed without her knowing. And he sat out on the porch looking at the ocean at night and took a rifle and shot himself in the head because she couldn’t take it any more. My parents have to go up there and clean up the house. Margie, end up having a stroke. This is all wonderful. Happy news for everybody. Had a stroke and then so they had to get the house and sell it and get the money to take care of her.
And while my dad and mom were up there cleaning up in the garage, they heard three knocks on the front door. My dad said, hang on, I’ll go get it. So he went he came back and said, You heard that, right? She said, yeah, there’s nobody there because maybe it’s the kids playing around the neighbourhood or something, and start working again. Three more knocks than my dad went out there and looked and went back and mom said, we’re out of here. Let’s go. You couldn’t, he – my mom kind of had the gift. She could kind of feel things. He wasn’t into it. He just said, oh, we’re out of here. So he left.
And I was with a woman who did a play with me and I went over to her house, oddly enough, from Beverly Hills. She was into the paranormal. I was not. And where I was at her place. And she starts telling me, she actually had a beautiful coffee table with candles and that and the glass housings on the candles. And she starts telling me that she saw she wakes up and she sees a woman at the end of her bed all dressed in white. I’m like, come on, man, seriously? Really. She goes, Yeah, I’m telling you. Don’t you just soil yourself? I mean, I would be so frightened. She goes, No, she was a friendly spirit, OK, in this apartment? Yeah, OK. And then she tells me that her piano has played by itself and then she pulls out a book called Seth Speaks. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that book?
I’ve heard of it, yeah.
OK, so the first like the first couple rounds of that book when it was printed, had a photo of this woman, I believe, when she was channelling. She was channelling Seth. Right? And the face on this woman looks so bizarre. She looks so strange. I looked at her. It looks like she ate some bad shrimp and she’s like, don’t make fun of the spirit. I said, I’m not. I’m just saying, look at the face. What then happened to her? And you’re telling me about your piano playing? I did all these jokes, and suddenly the glass housing on one of these candles shattered. And I’m not talking about just cracked. It exploded! And, that glass is made to withstand that little candle in there. just I grabbed my guitar, and I went, later. I ran out of that place. It horrified me.
And the last little thing I’ll tell you really quickly is my mom was an actress and she, before she passed, she was that the motion picture and television fund home, in Woodland Hills out here in L.A. And that’s where if you’ve done films, you have enough credits too, stuff like that and get into one of these homes. Right?
Yeah. I’ve heard about that.
So we’re lucky enough to get her in the home. And little did I know when she moved into one of the rooms, she had a roommate. And that room-mate, I’ll call her Betty. Her son is a very famous actor. Still is. I didn’t know that, I just said, I said, Mom, how how’s Betty today? She’s very quiet now. She didn’t talk much. And then I showed up one day and the nurses were running around and I said, what’s going on? She said, Betty passed away. Did you call this actor to let him know she was? Yeah, he’s on his way. I said, OK. And then the nurse at the front desk said she just had this look Marianne, that was like she was freaked out. So I went over to her. I said, Are you OK? She goes, the weirdest things going on. I said, what is or what’s going on? She said, I keep getting a phone call to our desk here in the centre from Marianne’s bedside. I said, – I mean not Marianne, I’m sorry.
That’s alright.
You’re still alive, I take it? Betty’s bedside and I said, You’re kidding? She goes, No, no, I had a telephone guy come up here. He traced it. The phones are fine, but there’s a call keeps coming in from her bed, the phone by her bed. And I said, well, you know what that is, right? She goes. No, no, I don’t I don’t want to, I don’t. It’s, it’s, Betty. She’s still here. She goes, No, no, don’t, don’t, don’t. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t wanna hear that. I said, OK, OK, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I walked into the room and I said, Betty, honey, you’ve passed it. It’s you’re out of the body now, so you don’t have to be here anymore. And if you look in the corner of the room, look for a light, you can go. You’ll be fine. And I walked out of the room, came back to the rest of the day, I was there with my mom, the ladies came up, said, hey, no more calls. She didn’t know I did that. Yeah. So I said, oh, really? OK, cool. So I ended up telling this famous actor one day I saw him at a play and told him that story and he was blown away by. It was pretty amazing. It’s a long story. I’m sorry to go through.
No, no, that’s great. And I actually remember reading that in your book as well.
Oh, ok. OK. Yes, yeah.
In the beginning of your book. And it really struck me that, that was very smart thinking on a your part, Clete. So obviously, you went into this position with a little bit of background, and a little bit of knowing. Even if you weren’t like fully aware of, of, spiritual things at that time, you did have a little bit of basis of knowing. So, when you were working at Greystone, now it’s Greystone isn’t – the Greystone mansion’s actually name is the Doheny estate, is that correct?
Yeah, it’s Doheny. Yeah, it’s the Greystone Mansion, the Doheny estate. Because it was the, that was the family that built it, were the Doheny’s, yeah.
Right. So maybe before we go into the paranormal stuff, actually, maybe you could give us a bit of the history of the property.
OK, so I’ll tell you about the family a little bit, that leads into the property. And Edward Lawrence Doheny was a man who came from Fond du lac, Wisconsin, and he came out to L.A. in the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, because, he wanted to find gold in L.A. Came out here, didn’t find gold, ended up finding out that there was – he saw a guy with a cart pulling this cart and had all these black blobs on the cart. And he went up to the guy and said, What do you have there? And the man said It’s Brea, which was like tar that was seeping out of the ground, and would harden once it got into the air after a while. And they would take that, put it in a cart, wheel it down to the train stations and stuff, and sell it for fuel.
And he said, you can make money on that? And he said, yeah. He goes, oh? OK. So Edward and his friend at that time, was who was out here, Charles Camfield. They went and they purchased a teeny little – they got I think it was four hundred dollars. They, they managed to scrub up. This is back in the early nineteen hundreds. It’s a lot of, relatively a lot of money.
It’s a lot of money
So they got the money, they bought this little plot of land near Wiltshire and Alvarado, near downtown L.A. And they got this land and they started digging. This is, this is a crazy story. They started digging with picks and shovels. And they went down one hundred and fifty five feet. That’s fifteen stories. Digging by hand. And they did not hit oil. And so they went out. Imagine this. They went out and they found a eucalyptus tree, the straightest eucalyptus tree they could find. And they found this eucalyptus tree and they shaved it. And at the very end, they, they carved into what it looked like a drill bit. So at the end of this tree, they brought it back, lowered it into the hole. And I’m guessing, I’m guessing I don’t know how they did it? With some kind of ropes of ties, and maybe donkeys, or mules, turned it. And kept turning it. And I don’t know how they did this, but they dug down four hundred and sixty feet! That’s forty six stories down!
How could they do that?
I don’t know, and they hit oil. And they started bringing up seven barrels a day. and then it was forty barrels a day. And then, they started bringing up a lot of oil. He made money. Charles Camfield, made money. Then with that money, Doheny went down to Mexico, and he found areas where he saw oil seeping in. And so, he basically, honestly fleeced the Mexicans of their land. Bought back their land, but for nothing. And started digging and bringing in drills and all this stuff. And he hit a six hundred foot geyser. Still one of the largest today, capped it in two weeks and then became a billionaire, when a penny meant something. This is back in early nineteen hundreds.
Then it became the Rockefellers and the Doheny’s. Came back into L.A. and he bought four hundred and twenty nine acres. He bought a bunch of land. He bought a house near USC and downtown. And he bought four hundred twenty nine acres, way north way north of that, which turned out to be Beverly Hills. And he gave his son Ned a twelve point five eight parcel of land, for him to build a home for he and his wife Lucy, their daughter Lucy, and their four boys. And that’s how it began with that land. And they started building the home in nineteen-twenty-seven.
Wow. That’s a fascinating story. Oh, my goodness. Phew! OK. So how big is how big is the mansion? How big is it?
So the mansion is once they, they, it is, it’s another crazy story because, once they had the land they started building the mansion in nineteen-twenty-seven, September fifth – ah no February fifteenth, nineteen- twenty-seven. They start building the land, the mansion on that land by September of twenty eight. The next year, like a year they were able to move into that mansion. The mansion is forty-six-thousand square feet. Forty- six thousand square feet. Fifty-five rooms. Sixty-seven altogether meaning walk-in closets and stuff like that , but fifty-five rooms now.
And it’s the man who built it, was Gordon Kaufman and Gordon Kaufman was a well-known architect at that time in L.A. And he built the L.A. Times building, which is still standing downtown. And also, he was one of the architects of the Hoover Dam, which is the one. So he was a guy who used a lot of concrete and cement. Greystone is poured concrete with rebar, and which is unusual, especially now, it’s like a fortress. So you’ve got all that concrete and rebar and along with that, it’s faced with Indiana limestone. And as you know, Marianne, I can see that look already as, you know, limestone as a conductor of energy. And Stephen King wrote The Shining at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado, which is built on limestone stone.
And it’s very, very connected to the activity, spirit activity. So this place not to say that there was activity then, but when you fronted it with limestone, it was Welsh slate on top. You’ve set up like a little container. Not a little container, a huge container that will keep, I believe, keep energy within. So it has a recreation wing. I don’t know if you ever saw There Will Be Blood? That movie? At the end of that film is inside Greystone. It’s the bowling alley within the right wing Greystone. There’s also a theatre up above the bowling alley. There’s a boys wing, there’s the family living quarters, there are the servant’s wing. And then downstairs, the guest quarters, in essence, where there’s a card room and a living room. A dining room, breakfast room, the pantry and the kitchen. And what we now call, the murder room, downstairs. So it is a huge, huge home, that is surrounded by limestone.
Massive. So what’s the home used for these days? Obviously, the family no longer owns it. Does the city of Los Angeles sign up?
Yeah, it’s the city of Beverly Hills. So what happened was. After there was – a we’ll talk about the paranormal aspects to all this, but there was a murder suicide within the home after that, Mrs. Doheny still lived there until nineteen-fifty-five. She married her financial adviser, Lee Batson. They stayed until fifty five. They sold the house to Henry Crown, who was part of the builder of the Empire State Building. He had all his holdings in Chicago. So he they said they thought he might move into Greystone. I think his wife found out and said, hell no. And ended up staying in Chicago. And so he rented the building out to two film companies. So that was fifty-five to sixty-five. He was renting out to film companies. And then, eventually the American Film Institute came in, and they had the home as their campus. I think was from sixty-nine to eight-two, sixty-nine to eighty-two. And then it became a historic park within I think I was actually I can seventy five whatever became a historic park or something. So that’s, that was the chain of command as far as who lived in the home and who eventually owned it. Now the City of Beverly Hills owns it.
And so I presume it’s rented out for events and it’s used for social – right.
Yeah. Yeah. So we’ve done a car show, many car shows, up there. We did design shows which brought on a lot of energy and we’ll discuss that later. But design shows, meaning a magazine, a design magazine would come on board and say, OK, we would like to be the ones that host this. So we will get our designers to buy a room and buy – they would, in essence, come in and they would pay the city of Beverly Hills. I don’t know what it was, honey, but let’s say four hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars that would allow them to have a living room. Then they would come in and design the living room. So and then we would sell tickets and we’d have tons of people coming through the house. So we do those types of things, along with tours. There would be tours. And that was the weddings, wedding photo shoots and stuff like that. Events like that.
So that that pays for upkeep and the. . .
Correct.
I imagine there’s a huge amount of staff that work there.
Oh yeah. It’s and at one point they had me – near the end before I retired. I retired December fourth Twenty-twenty-one. One of the things that they have to do was to work on the weddings and the wedding photo shoots and everything. Which was not my forte. Let’s be honest. My forte are ghost. So right. So I’m like, I’m like, I’m writing a book about ghosts. And my boss at that time says, do not talk about spirits, ghost entities. I don’t want to hear. We’re trying to sell this place as a place for them to come and have their best day of their lives. Please don’t do this to me. I said, well, I won’t, but I would still I would still get people. The bride and groom would come up. This is such a beautiful place. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Let me take you through the formal garden. Then they look at me and go, is this is a place haunted. I’ve been told not to talk about it. I know the truth. But, should I tell them the truth? Or should I just say, oh no, have your wedding here and you may be attacked or something.
I’m sorry, but the point was that there was a couple that came to me and said we’re interested in doing our wedding here. Great, great! ? Is it haunted? And I said, well. What do you mean by haunted? I don’t know what to say? So I said are there ghosts here? I said, well, do you want the truth? I could tell you the truth or we can just kind of keep moving. No, we want the truth. I said it is, this place, what I say is, this place has been known to be active. And that couple said, awesome. That’s why we want to get married here, because we heard about the ghost. Very rare. I went, oh OK. Well then, if you want to know then I would tell the story. Oh my God, this will be the place for us!
Other people. I had a couple that I talked to, and they asked. And I said, well, there are rumours. And they went rumours like what? I said, well, to be honest with you, and to be totally upfront, there was a murder suicide in the home. When was that? Nineteen-twenty-nine. That was a long time ago. So they felt because it was a long time ago, it wouldn’t be active. I just went along with. Right. You know, that Marianne. I just went along with them, said, OK, good, cool, let’s keep going. So I had to walk a fine line with all the people I met because the city did not want to talk about the ghosts. Don’t want to hear it. Right.
So we had show’s call us, ghost hunters and all these guys call us. And I would usually end up getting the call. And I’d say city does not allow people to come in and just shoot over-night, number one. Because, you have people living next door, zillionaires, they don’t want any noise. But, number two, is that it’s just not, they don’t want it. They don’t want to promote people staying in the house. And it’s a, it’s a haunted home. That’s not what we’re trying to promote here. We’re trying to make some money, not scare people away. So that’s what was going on.
That must have been quite frustrating for you, actually.
Yeah, Yeah, it was. It really was, because I know the truth and I know what’s going on. And so, I could tell them the truth and if I could trust them that they, they, would be OK with it. I would do it. But other times I had to be I danced around it. I could you could tell after a while you could tell after ten, twenty minutes you could tell people’s attitudes and whether they could handle it or not.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So how many years did you work there altogether then?
So I was there twenty two years.
That’s a long time.
Yeah. It was a long time and but you know some of the best years of my life there, the, the mansion itself, the location is really beautiful. It’s really unusual, eclectic. There are no mansions like it around in Beverly Hills. A lot of mansions of Beverly Hills, but nothing like this. And I was very privileged to work there. And then to be able – I was also a ranger, so I worked events. But then I also worked with the Ranger program, the Park Ranger program.
So there were times where if they found shooting a movie there, they would say, we need your help. I said, OK, put on a uniform and I would be there overseeing, helping them oversee the shoots and all that stuff. So I had several different hats that I wore and enjoyed them all because it was – you’re doing events. But. you’re also at a place that is unbelievably haunted. And still to this day, we get new recruits, new rangers that come in and you have to let them know. I’m just going to tell you up front, ahead of time, there will be a day that you have to close up by yourself. And this place is massively haunted. And they’re like, you’re joking, right? No, I’m not. So if you want the job, that’s going to be part of your , so. . .
So can you explain for the listeners, what a ranger actually is?
So a park ranger basically is someone who oversees. We have many parks in Beverly Hills, even though it’s a small little place called La Cienega Park, Greystone Park, Roxbury Park. It goes on and on through the city. They have, you can’t have police overseeing those parks. If people are doing something they shouldn’t be – there could be anything from smoking, to a dog off leash, to having an event on their own, that they shouldn’t be, they need permits. Exercising, you have to have permits to do all that stuff there. So they need quite a few rangers to cover that whole city’s park programs. And then, when we do events, that adds to their list of things that they have to oversee. If it’s like we said, the design show or the car show, or an art show or any of those things, you need a ranger. Several actually.
So like security pretty much.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
OK, cool. After you first started working at Greystone, when did you first become aware of paranormal activity?
Well, when I started working up there, I was told that they were shooting a Sprite commercial up there. And I said, oh, cool, I want to see how they shoot up there, and what. Because, I’d done films and things before. But I was curious to how they would handle the mansion, because, it’s such a huge location. And so, I went up to the west courtyard, to walk up to the front door. And as I did, I see this guy running out of the house swearing like f this place! F this! Running out.
I’m going like, whoa. And he, bolted out of that front door and out through the courtyard. And then I never saw him again. And so I went to a friend of mine. Who just started he started when I did. His name is Ranger Steve Clark, who was who was retired and now is no longer working for the city. But one of my best friends, and he didn’t know. He was brand new to the program. So he didn’t know really how to oversee a shoot, a film shoot.
So, these people were throwing stuff on the marble floors. Drilling into the wood, painting walls, they shouldn’t be. And he’s like, I’m trying to stop people. And I go yeah, whatever, whatever. And they just did what they wanted to do. And I think, that is what stoked the fire of activity for that set. Because one of the guys went upstairs, and was wrapping up cable and throwing it into a crate. And one of the crates moved from one side of the room to the other by itself!
In front of his eyes?
Yes. And that’s when he ran out, said f this place, what the hell’s going on? And he ran and I went up to Stevenson. What was that about? And Steve checked into it, came back and said, I don’t think they’re happy with how they’re dealing with this place. Because Steven had his first incident when he became a ranger, was close up the mansion at night, put the safety alarm, get it all set and close the gates and walk away. So he closed up the mansion, put on the alarm, closed the front door, locked it, started out to the gate and looked back and one of the windows was open up in the servants wing and he went, wow. I thought I shut it. Went back to the door, open it up, turn off the alarm, went in, shut that window and that window. You pull shut, you crank it shut and then you crank it, you lock it.
Oh? So it’s quite involved. Yeah.
So it’s not just like a pulling a window shut. Exactly. So he did that and said, I hope I didn’t miss anything else. He was brand new, went through the whole house, went out the front to the front door, put on the alarm, lock the front door, walked out and that window was open again. And he just went, wait a minute, somethings, something. – I’m not going back in there. And he didn’t go back in there and had wait till the next day, then go inside and close it.
And at that time, we had a boss who was very particular about how you dealt with the mansion. Nobody was to go inside unless you had the list. You had business. So nobody from the outside. No, just checking it out and see what it’s like. You didn’t go inside there and that alarm was set, and you did not leave the mansion unarmed. You had to arm it, every night. Well, he didn’t arm it that night. He had to go and explain. I don’t know what that was. And his boss was, I believe his boss. His name was Bill. And he was just like, just lock it up tonight, make sure it’s locked. Little did Bill know that, through his time there as the manager there, things happened so crazy, not just with Steve, but with a bunch of different people. But Steve did have the gift, still has the gift, I’m sure But, he could feel things. And so they kept trying to connect with him. And it scared him, terribly.
Of course. Yeah, of course. Spirit are very aware of people who, who are mediumistic, or who are aware of spirit in other ways. It’s like you’re a light in the darkness and they automatically try and connect with you.
That’s exactly right. Because, I was told that when you have that gift, that there’s an aura. And they, just like you said, they can see that aura, and go ooh! I can connect with them. I can’t connect with him, but I can connect with him. And Steve was the guy, they connected with Steve.
And they obviously scared him. Yes, it does. Some people can’t deal with it. And, it is scary because it’s unknown. It’s unknown. So. . .
Marianne, I have a question for you?
Yeah, please.
Have you have you got to the basement chapters yet?
Yes.
OK, so that’s Steve. That’s Steve.
Ah right!
So he’s the one – he’s the poor guy that had to go down to that. . .
Heard the growl?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that’s, that’s a frame of reference for you. You’ll know that he is the guy that throughout the book, had things happen to him that weren’t really simple, fun things. They were like scary, weird, bizarre things. So anyway, I just want to know if you know?
I remember, reading in your book about how he went down to the basement, and he was doing something, and he heard this growl. And then he remembered, oh, you’ve got to check things out! Some advice he was given. I can’t remember the exact wording. And so he thought, well, maybe it’s wind, maybe it’s that? And so, he verbally spoke and said, look, if there’s anybody there that made that sound, can you do it again? And he heard the growl again, and he was pretty petrified.
He, he – Marianne, when I brought him back there to – I said, would you please come back. He lived , he lives now in Santa Fe, but he was in town. I said, please come with me. And let’s just go through the house, and it’ll help you remember things that happened. I said I remember almost everything that’s happened, because I was so fascinated. So I said, if you forget something, I’ll let you know. But let’s just walk through the house.
And we did our walk. We got down to that basement. The look, because it brought back those memories, it brought back the feelings that he had that night! And in his face, the fear that he had that, during the day with me, because I know him so well. I’ve known for 20 years, I can see in his face how horrified he still is about that night. And, he doesn’t really talk about it too much. He doesn’t want to talk about it too much. So, but you’re correct. He was he was the one down there with the growl.
Pretty terrifying, pretty terrifying to hear something like that. I have a paranormal investigation group that I run – although, New Zealand’s a very small country, so we don’t have a lot of places to investigate. But there have been times when I have, or a team member’s caught growls on the recorder. And ,they are pretty scary to hear. So, to hear it audibly, a disembodied voice like that, that’s a pretty freaky thing when you’re in a big building by yourself. And in the goes into something else which I’ll bring up a little bit later. One of the questions that I had is that and it’s going back to history – there was not only the murder suicide, there’ve been a number of deaths on that property, correct? More than a handful.
Yeah. So there was there was a murder suicide with the – he was the husband to Lucy, that moved in. He is known as, his name was Ned. He was Edward Jr., Edward Lawrence Doheny, who made all the money in oil. This was his son Ned. So Ned was in the home on the night of February sixteenth, nineteen-twenty-nine. His male secretary who showed up – and this all goes back to, excuse me, the Teapot Dome scandal. Which I don’t know if you want me to get into it. I can definitely do it. It’s about oil, obviously, and there was a big trial that was coming to fruition in the start, actually, right around the thirties. And it implicated Edward, the father, who had sent Ned and Hugh to New York to deliver a satchel of money to a man named Albert Fall, who was the secretary of the interior. Because, he allowed Edward, who was a friend from years before, to have access to what was called Elk hills, and then Evista Naval Reserve Oil Reserves. There was no bidding.
Teapot Dome was another oil reserve, which a man named Harry Sinclair, he was a buddy of Albert Falls. He let him go there. So they made – Albert, I mean, Edward made approximately, I think, one hundred million dollars off that deal, right? For having access to that oil, which was a naval reserve oil place. So, he made a lot of money. It was found out because he sent his son, Ned and Hugh to deliver this hundred thousand to Albert.
He took it suddenly. Albert had a lavish lifestyle, not real smart. It was found out. He went to trial. He went to prison for it. Now, they wanted to go after Edward L. Doheny, but they thought, let’s go through the son, and the secretary who delivered the money. We’ll start there. Then it became a thing where the pressure that took place between Ned and Hugh, they felt the family, they say, felt Hugh couldn’t withstand a trial, that he may snap. And they didn’t want the beans spilled. So they were trying to convince him to go into what was called a sanatorium, for what they said was cocaine, for his teeth. Back then, they used cocaine to dull pain in your teeth and that he got hooked on it. And so he’s in a sanatorium. So we can’t have him come to the trial.
Well, Hugh’s feeling was they may not let me out. I know too much, and so he went and confronted his best friend, Ned, about that specific situation. And, they were drinking. There was an argument. They think that Hugh brought in a gun – or did Ned have a gun? We don’t know, this whole night -we know what took place, but we don’t know the specifics to it. Because, it’s a billionaire family. And once all this took place, it was out of the papers and out of the radio within twenty-four hours.
Hmm, hmm. Money talks.
Exactly! We’re not going to talk about it. It’s done. And so, Ned was shot in the temple, in the head. And so was Hugh. So one was a suicide. One was ta murder. And they’re both friends. So if the gun went off and shot him or he went and said, shut up, we’ve been drinking, they shot them, and he went, oh, my God, what have I done? And then killed himself? Or did they say, did Lucy step in after that and say, look what you’ve done now to Hugh? If Hugh shot in Ned first? I happen to think that Ned shot Hugh and then killed himself, but. Go ahead, I’m sorry,
I have a feeling about the situation. And I think it’s more to it than simply the scandal, that scandal. And you said you felt that Ned shot Hugh? I agree with you, because, if, if Hugh had gone to trial, there would have been more come out at than merely that scandal.
And what do you mean by more come out?
I think they were lovers.
I do, too. So that, that’s part of that pressure. And it could have been, like you say, it could have been. He was saying, if you put me away, if you don’t support me, I will tell everybody about our affair.
I’ve got goosebumps!
And that means that maybe we’re right on that. Right?
Yeah, yeah. That’s always a sign for me.
OK, well, then we know that there was more to it, than just like we can’t go through this trial bang, bang, bang. It was really involved. And the crazy thing about it is, Marianne, that once there was the murder suicide, they set out to still take Edward to court over the Teapot Dome and the Elk Hills and everything. So they, they did. They took him to court still. But the jury felt so bad that he had lost his only son that they acquitted him. So the man that gave the money, one hundred thousand dollars, which was a lot of money back then, like millions, to Albert Fall, the man who gave him that money is set free. The man who took the money is in prison. And that’s where the term the fall guy comes from.
Oh? Very cool. I didn’t know that.
Albert Fall. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, that’s very, very interesting. Very interesting. Wow. And so following that, there were also a number of other deaths.
Yes. I’m sorry. I went way off the mark, didn’t I?
No. No, that’s ok. The reason I’m bringing up that, is because, I tend to feel that there is, ah, on that property, on that land, a being that encourages this behaviour.
Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. OK, let’s talk about that. Let’s get into the other suicides and murders. And, and then we’ll talk about. A demon. Have you heard of Chris Fleming? OK, he’s he’s a psychic that’s out of Chicago but s has had several programs. He’s been on ghost adventures and all that stuff. So I will tell you about what happened when he came to Greystone. So I met him and things happened then. But so you have the murder suicide of Ned and Hugh. You had two maids that committed suicide in the mansion. One maid hung herself. And the other slit her wrists in the meat locker. Which, so her friends didn’t have to clean up after her. It would go down the drain. And how we know – because, we thought this was all ranger folklore, you know? That was passed down to us.
And then Steve Clark one day was working and a woman came up to Steve and said. Is there any way I can get inside the house? And he said, no, I’m sorry, it’s closed to the public, it’s always closed the public. And she said, well, OK, well, my grandmother, she was best friends, with the woman who slit her wrists in the meat locker. And Steve was like, you’re kidding, that’s real? She goes, Oh, honey, yes, it was real. So, that is a true story. And the reason both these women killed themselves was because they got pregnant. And they got pregnant out of wedlock, by someone in the home. I’m not going to say who it is. I’ll tell you off air, in the home and the shame, tremendous shame. And so they ended up killing themselves within the home. So, there were two more deaths there.
A little girl, that I call Emily, died at that location, and we’ll get into that later, if you like, or whatever. But she died, so that’s another death. I was told by a man named Clark Fogg, who is the forensic specialist who was there for like thirty-four years or what have you, with City of Beverly Hills. He became a good friend of mine. He told me that – he goes, did you ever hear the story of the triangle at the house? I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about? He goes, there was two males and a female. An affair triangle. And it ended up with the woman being strangled to death, put in a carpet. And carried out the back servants’. Where I said, I have never heard this,. He says, I have, I have at the station. I have all the information. That never came out in the public. And then in two thousand and three, I got a call from this woman, Brandi, who’s the secretary at Graystone. And she called me, said, Where are you? And I said, I’m home today. She said, get up to Greystone. A guy just shot himself. And I went where? By the Willow Pond. And the Willow Pond is near the firehouse, which is right next to the mansion. If you, if you go in there, Marianne, and you look up in the book, the maps in the back, which are really great, you should be a hopefully be able to see them, where the Willow Pond is.
So I went up there, and the police had tape, kept everybody away. But, I was able to get close enough to see this, this poor guy sat on a bench right by the little pond there. And just took out half his head! And was still sitting up, by the way, which was bizarre. And, something even more bizarre than that was, we have what’s called Catskills Kids Camp up there. It’s a, it’s a dramatic drama camp up there. A woman was driving up the hill, bringing her kid to the camp. She gets up to the top parking lot and she says to the camp counsellors, a guy just shot himself by the pond in the head. I’m late for work. Here’s my daughter and left. You can even believe that? Left her daughter there, after a guy just blew his head off.
Oh, my God!
Only in Beverly Hills, Marianne.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It’s just crazy. So those are those are the ones that I know about. I’m trying to think of anything else. They also we were also told, but I didn’t put it in the book, because, it wasn’t substantiated. If it wasn’t substantiated, I wasn’t going to put it in a book. And there was a murder down in the basement. That was two men fighting and one stabbed or whatever, and he was killed down in the basement. I don’t know. I didn’t put it in there. I couldn’t substantiate it.
Right. But, that wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
OK, there you go. So, there is quite a bit. So think about all that energy inside there. It’,s it’s going to stir up. And your question is, was there something there prior to all this that goaded these people into doing these things? I don’t know.
That’s the feeling that I get, that it encouraged this behaviour, fed off it.
Wow, ok.
I don’t know that anybody who lived in that place was ever really happy.
Interesting. I mean, I don’t know, I think maybe when the children were children? They don’t know from that. I mean, Dad died. They probably weren’t told how he was killed. So they kept playing , and there’s things there I’m sure you’re reading. It’s called the Greystone Historical Report. And it tell’s about what the place used to look like. And what the family, or Tim, Tim Doheny is throughout the book, who was the youngest son of the family. And he’s always like, wow, we used to, we used to take cardboard and go down the stairs like a roller coaster and everything. But, when Patrick, one of the sons, came back and it was during a design show, and he was in the boys wing and I went to see him, he was in his eighties, probably mid-eighties, and I knelt down next to him, I said, Hi, Patrick, my name is Clete. I work here. He’s like, OK. And I said, what do you think of being back here like this? What is it like? Do you miss being here? No!
Oh, OK, I could tell that. He wasn’t a fan jus, because, I think of all the things he found out about the home. And he said the only time he had a it was a good time for him was, you remember the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder. That was back then in their time, so the family hired security guards for each of the kids. To follow them, to make sure they’re safe and the kids hated it. So the only way they could get away from these security guards, was to go up into the attic, into these – when you go up there. It’s like all these – what do you call them? Boards that hang down from the rafters that you could walk through. I can’t even think of the name of that, but they’re all throughout the roof, all throughout this forty-six-thousand square foot home, so that they can get to lights or whatever to pull them up and clean them, and fix them without busting into walls and things. So everything was able to be pulled up and fixed. And it’s a really scary place, to be honest, up there. And the kids used to go up there and hide and then the guards were like, oh, my God, I’ve lost them. Where are they? So that was the best fun that Patrick said he had, was hiding from them.
Wow. So that says a lot, doesn’t it.
Yeah. It says a lot.
Yeah. And, you know, like, kids are very resilient, but kids also feel energies, and I’m pretty sure that at some point in their lives that they would have felt the energy of the place.
You know, one of the thoughts that I keep having is, and it’s what you kind of brought up, and that is. Did, was there energy there prior to the murder suicide, because I truly believe the murder suicide may have opened a portal. Because there is a portal within the home. Oh, that was that was pointed out to us, to me by Chris Fleming, who is a very well-known psychic medium. And then another guy named Peter James, who was very well known out here. He’s now passed. And he showed up one day and he walked in and said, do you know you have a portal here? No? And he pointed up to this one corner. Well, ten or fifteen years later, Chris Fleming shows up and says to me, Do you know you have a portal here? I said, I’ve been told that. He goes, right up there. And he points to the exact same spot!
The same spot?
Yeah. So was there a portal that opened, because, of these horrible situations that took place, possibly the murder suicide? Did that cause the portal to open? Was it there prior to the mansion even being built? Was this sacred land? I don’t know?
Yes, yes, yes! My – I’m a medium.
I could feel that already.
Yeah. And my intuitive gut feeling is the portal was always there. And that’s what that entity uses, to enter in. Not there all the time.
Right ok, I totally agree with that, because we have we talked about with Steve Clark and the growling down in the basement, there was another incident that took place up in the attic when Chris Fleming was there, a lot of things took place with him. I think, like you said before, when you have someone who has the gift, they see that. And boy, do they come out. He had a recorder and things were coming out left and right on these recorders. I was like, wow. And, he eventually said, can we go up in the attic? And we went up in that attic and he went through the – the catwalks, is what I was trying to think of.
Catwalks, of course. Right, OK.
So all these catwalks he went through, he went there and he said to this other woman who was a psychic with him, Do you feel that? You feel that? I do. I do. We have somebody. It’s gone. It’s gone. And then he points across into the attic and says, what is in that door? And I said, it’s just another catwalk. Can we go in there? I said, OK. And we walk over to this door, open the door. He takes one step inside, stops, turns and looks at me and says, You’ve got a demon here and I never say that! But you’ve, you’ve, got a demon in here.
Now I’m trying to just – it’s 11 o’clock in the day, I’m thinking I’m safe. And then he says that to me and I’m like, OK. And in my head, you know, I’m like, if I don’t see it, don’t believe it. Just act like he didn’t say that. So then I said, OK. And he takes a step inside. He turns on his recorder and starts in. And part of what he said, the recorder is, I know who you are. I know that you’re the spirit that scares all the other good spirits in here. But guess what? You don’t scare me. Are you human, you’re not, are you? And then, he plays it back, and after he finishes his speech, you hear? I can’t do it because I don’t want to get you in trouble here, but it’s like the a word. A-hole, strained. Screams on his recorder I looked at him and he looked at me. I said we’re done, we’re done. I can’t do I don’t want to get jumped. We’re done.
So I start to escort them out of the attic. And the woman who’s with him turns on her recorder, unbeknownst to me, and says, well, then you must take Jesus Christ is your lord and saviour. And I go, No, no, that’s not good. Don’t do that. Put that away. She plays it back and then it screams the F word screams. And I want that to. Come on, let’s get out of here. Let’s get out of here. And I walked out of the house as well, said goodbye. And I stood outside the mansion going, did that actually just happen? That was along with a lot of other things that took place. And the reason I bring it up, I’m sorry Marianne
No, that’s cool.
Is that Chris Fleming said, that sound up there, because, I played him the sound. Of this other thing, I call the screams and wails, which are – I left my recorder in one night, just by chance. Left it in the night, in the house. And you hear a little girl. With an owl and helicopters and all these other things, but through it all, you hear a little girl. And then you hear a scream and this goes on for eight minutes. This arghh, arghh. And I played it for Chris Fleming and he’s just staring at me. He said, I can’t believe you got this. I said, I just it was I was the luck of the draw. I put it in one night and I got that. And he said, Do you know that, that is what was up in the attic when we were up? There he goes. It’s also what’s down the basement when Steve Clark was there. You were going to say that weren’t you?
Yes. Yes, I was.
OK, so there is, I believe you’re correct. I believe there is a demon. And he even said, he’s not here all the time, is he comes and goes, just like you said.
Yeah. I personally don’t believe in demons. That’s a solely religious construct. However, I do believe in interdimensional beings, and this would definitely – this entity is definitely an interdimensional being, and he uses that portal to come and go.
OK, OK. So let me ask you a question. If it’s an apparition. Is that an interdimensional being? Or is that someone who’s past and. . . ?
An apparition, spirits, ghosts, they’re interdimensional as well. But, there’s many different dimensions. There are, there are multiple dimensions around our reality. And. . .
OK, OK, go ahead. I’m sorry.
It’s all about vibrational rates. And each dimension vibrates at a different rate, which is why we can’t generally see spirit, because, their vibrational rate is higher than ours.
So I’m guessing that the vibrational rate of Donald Trump is a lower vibrational rate.
Oh, let’s not get into that.
OK, I just, just had to throw that out, I can’t take it. I’m in America, you’re not ok?
I actually interviewed James , have you heard of him? James Fox. I actually interviewed him last week.. And he made similar comments, I have to say.
Yeah. James Fox. OK, yeah.
Have you had much feedback about your book?
Yeah, I have. And it’s. It’s pretty surprising to me in that I wasn’t expecting people to relate to it as much as they have, because you always think when you’re in that I’m in that one location, I’m dealing with activity every day at that location. And so you just think it’s that location. And then, people who have had things happen to them, have a frame of reference. And so they’re really interested. So, when they buy the book that I get people emailing me saying, you’ve got to guess what happened to me. And I went oh? And not at Greystone, in their own lives. And I think that’s what’s really fascinating, is it brings up other memories for people that, that they want to share with me, which is fabulous. I love it, it’s really great!
And I could see another book coming out of that, actually.
Well, I got rid of fifty stories, Marianne. Yeah, because the editor called us and said, you’re on your page. It’s going to be seven hundred. You can’t do this. We’re like seven hundred pages? Yeah. So my brother said you got to go back through it. And you’ve got to find some stories that you’ve got to take out. And so what I did was if I had stories in, there were people said that they felt this, then I took it out. If they were inside the house, and they said I was standing there – and the stories are true. But if they said anything about a feeling, that’s how I approached it. I was standing up in the servants wing and I felt behind me, like somebody was staring at me, whatever. Then I had all those interviews, but then I took those out. Just if it’s a feeling, I’ll take it out. So I took out fifty-one stories and got it down to five hundred and twenty-eight pages. Crazy.
Wow. So all, of all the experiences – and in your book, for the listeners, what Clete’s done, is he’s taken people who have had experiences in the house. He took them back to the house ,and interviewed them at the house. And the stories are the verbatim recordings, that he recorded in that interview. So, of all the experiences in your book, Clete, that you covered, of all the many, many, many experiences, what would be your favourite ones?
Well, one of my favourites you haven’t read yet, I don’t want to ruin it for you. But I’ve got others I’ll come up with. But, there’s one that you’re going to read down by the stables, There are horse stables, back by the car garages. That will blow your mind. There are two of like that, and I don’t want to ruin it for you, so I’m going to pick out some other ones. Can we talk about Emily?
Yes. Let’s talk about Emily.
Have you gotten there yet? Have you. Are you there yet? In the book?
I can’t remember
The little girl
Oh that. The little girl, she’s come up a few times, hasn’t she? Where the guards have seen her?
We’ve got something here. So let me start. And if you don’t want to hear it, I can come up with something else. But I was inside the mansion one day and it was a film shoot and it was a scout where the director, the DP, the director of photography, line producers, a lot of the crew are there to go through the mansion, because, they’re going to shoot inside the mansion. So I was there watching them inside the mansion, making sure everything’s cool, and one of the women breaks away from the group and comes over to me. And as she approaches me, I can tell something’s happened to her because her eyes are like she looks freaked out and I go and I’m thinking like, I think I should just get out of here because I know something, I start to turn goes, excuse me, I go, Yeah, what is it? And she says, Can I talk to you for a minute? Yeah, sure. She leans into me and said. Is this place, you know, and I go, no, I don’t know, I don’t know because I want them to tell me, I want to I don’t want to lead them in any way. And I wasn’t going to write a book then. I just was just hearing people talking to me. I said, no, I don’t know.
She said is it is it haunted? And I said, why do you ask, which I’m glad to ask that question, because I didn’t it’s such a down the middle of the road question that I didn’t set her off in anything. I let her talk and she said ever since I was a little girl, I could see, hear, feel, sense, spirits. And she said when I turned 15, I couldn’t take it anymore. I shut it down never again. But when I walked in here today with the crew. She said, I’m standing there, I look over and this little girl runs at me. And says, my name is Emily, it’s Emily. My name is Emily. And she said, I’m looking at her, she runs right up to me, the crew is not paying any attention to her and she goes, Oh my God, they don’t see her. It’s happening again, like when I was 15. So she said I slowly stepped away from the crew, went around a wall that was there where she was standing and looked at this little girl and she said, OK, your name is Emily. Don’t do this to me. Please, don’t do this. Stay away from me. So she said so my question is, is this place haunted? And I said yes. Did a little girl die here? I said, yes. Is her name Emily? I said, we don’t know. She goes, It’s Emily.
And from that day on, I’ve always walked in the house when I was working. I keep thinking I’m still there when I walk in the house and say, hi, Emily, it’s Clete. How are you, honey? Just coming in to check the place. And I would always talk to her. And it got to a point where now, when I started writing the book I would say I’ve got to interview Steve about all his stories. And Steve would say, well, you better talk to Marianne because she’s gifted and she can tell you all those stories. Who’s Marianne? I call Marianne. Marianne. You talk to me and tell me all your stories and you say, hey, but you better talk to Dan.
So this is how it went and ended up eighty, eighty-six people, whatever it was. But I ended up getting this guy named Glen. Glenn. And he they said you should talk to him, and I said, OK, I got hold of Glenn and Glenn tells me, I said, Glenn, somebody said, you know, a story about a little girl. And he goes, oh, man. Now, this is years later, Glenn used to work there, I think, like probably the early nineties or something like that, maybe in the eighties. And at Graystone, we have the mansion, we have the recreation wing, which is tied into the mansion, and then there’s a little, what we call the East Courtyard. And then, there’s a firehouse that used to have their own little fire department, in essence. There’s like three bays where they would have a cart, a horse and cart, and a probably a water cylinder. And because, remember, it’s four hundred and twenty-nine acres on that property. So if something happened. They just hook up the horse, and let’s go!
So, that now is, are offices. That’s where my office was. It was up above the firehouse. But back then and in Glenn’s day, it was an office for the camp counsellors. So he said he got there early morning, eight o’clock in the morning, parked in the west, the east courtyard, went up to his office, was getting clipboards and things for the day. And when he walked outside, he looked straight across. And if you look at the maps Marianne, you’ll see how close the firehouse is to the right wing. And you’re upstairs, second floor and the firehouse and the right wing roof is equal to the to the fire house balcony. So you can look straight across.
He walks out and look and glances over and there’s a little girl standing there looking at them in a white dress. And he tells me I’m looking at her like, first of all, how did she get up there? Secondly, what is she doing here? The park is closed, or the parents couldn’t have dropped her off, because, the park’s closed. And third, why is she up there? Why would she climb up to the top of the roof there? So he’s looking at like, OK, well, I’m going to go talk to this girl. As he turns to go down the stairs, go down to the to the floor, to the to the ground, he glances back at her. She gets up on the railings and slips off. And he, down into the courtyard and he flips out, he said his heart was racing. Oh, my God. Oh my God. She’s, she kills it.
He runs down, runs into the courtyard. And he’s looking for he can’t find her and he’s panicked. He thinks maybe she got hurt and she ran. So now he’s running around the recreation wing. Other counsellors show up because look over there. Look, look, look on the, on that side. Look behind the wall. And then they go up to the top parking lot. Now they’re up the top parking lot, looking for her. They cannot find her. And suddenly stops and goes, what the hell just happened here? What did I just see? When I’m talking to him about that situation, he starts, which a lot of people do in the book,. They, they justify because it’s too incredible, it’s impossible. So they it well, maybe it’s just – he says to me. Now, I looked OK, maybe it was just, maybe it wasn’t a little girl, maybe I just saw it was a light or something. I said, what was she wearing? She was in a white dress. I said, Then you did see her. It’s like, oh, God, God, no, no, no, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. No, I did. She was up., yeah, she was up there!
So, that story is pretty incredible by itself. But then, he says you should talk to this other woman. I call her, for her stories. And I said, what stories? She goes, I have a story about a little girl. I went do you do? Interesting. Why don’t you tell me that story? She’s up in the firehouse. She’s a camp counsellor, a different day. Glenn is not there. She’s there and she’s inside the offices. She has the young kids, like, the five year olds are out on the balcony doing painting. So they all have their pieces of paper. They’re painting paper. She’s inside getting clipboards and things. And she hears these kids scream bloody murder! And she said, I was a lifeguard. I know what that scream is. I felt, I dealt with that forever, when I was a lifeguard. She goes, I my heart raced. I panicked. I ran out onto the, to the balcony. And I’m looking I’m looking at these kids and they’re just they’re quiet now and they’re just pointing across to the roof.
Isn’t like I’m just a horrible, creepy movie? They’re just pointing at the rooftop of the recreation wing. She’s going, like she’s grabbing. Talk to me. Look at me. What happened, honey? What happened? Tell me what happened. And then what I’m finding says she climbed on the railing and jumped off. She’s like, who? This little girl in white, she fell off the roof! So then, she runs down and checks in there and she’s not there, that corroborated Glenn’s story. Glenn’s story corroborated her story. But Emily has been seen probably five times. Those two times, she was seen by other rangers inside the house looking at them and running away. So she is very active in there. She’s still in there today.
But when I went in. I talked the city into allowing me to put a camera inside the house. Now, you’re not supposed to do that. And it was like, almost like a nanny cam. Right? Where it you can control it, like with my iPad. You can, you turn left, right up and down. But it can also be infrared for at night, and you can speak through it. So I went to it in the city. I said, hey, is there any way that you could put this, hook me up here? I got the camera. I just need you to get on your what’s called a VPN. I don’t know any of this. They told me after you need a VPN. OK, can we do that? And they’re like, what is it for? I said, well, it’s for inside the house. We know that. But like for what? Inside the house. I said, well., it’s to look at the girls inside. Seriously,, what is it for? And I go, No, no, I just said, it’s for the ghosts. They go, Yeah, whatever, whatever, OK. And I said, look, I’ll leave you with the camera. Check out the camera, then let me know if you could do this for me?
Two days later, I contact him, and the one guy says this camera’s kind of cool.. He, he didn’t believe in ghosts. He didn’t care about any of them. He just says, hey, this camera’s kind of cool, I’d like to set it up. And I go, come on over. So without anybody knowing, we were inside the mansion on the second floor landing, which is really haunted. I don’t know if you’re there in the book. That’s one of the most haunted places, the second floor landing. There is a pedestal in the middle of that landing that we put because there’s a chandelier that hangs a lot of time. People, it’s really low people, tall people go and hit their head in the chandelier. So we put a pedestal underneath it, like you would put a piece of artwork on a pedestal there so you’d have to go around it so you wouldn’t hit your head. So I put the camera on that pedestal and I aimed toward that portal, that’s in that corner. And I got everything set up. And then I waited.
One night and I went in there and I said, Emily. Honey, I’m going to show you this is going to be fun for you. I’m going to give you some things you can play with tonight. This is going to be kind of cool. I said, look at this light. It was a Maglite, like look just like, see, I turn it here, I can turn it on, turn it off, turn it on. Just barely turn it off. Look at that. I’m going to leave that right there. And I put it in the floor EMF meter, the REM pod, which is thing you touch me, I placed these things out and then I talk to said, honey, I’m going to go, but I’m going to leave this for you. And I’m talking to her like she’s right in front of me because she is. So I believe these for you. You play with them and I’ll come get them tomorrow. I just want to have a good night, OK? And I’ll talk to you tomorrow. What? Turn the alarm on. Go to the house. Went home. So now I’m in my place in Santa Monica and I turn on my iPad. And I’m like, come on, and I’m seeing that flashlight go on and off. And I’m like. You’ve got to be kidding me, so I get on the microphone. And, see now when I speak from Santa Monica, there’s a delay to Emily. Emily, there’s a delay in the house, so. I get on the mike and I go, Emily, Emily. Turn it on one more time, please? Turn it on one more time, please? The light comes on and I’m like, Wow, I said, OK, OK, could you turn that off for me, please? And it starts to flicker, keep turning out to keep turning, keep turning it. Perfect, perfect. Honey, how old are you? Are you eight? Nine. Ten. Eleven light comes on. We thought she was 11 or 12. I said, OK, great, thank you. Can you turn that off for me? You have to, perfect. Thank you. I had like, I think it’s between right around six minutes of a conversation with her, asking a question. Do you have friends at the house? Do you like Clete? Light didn’t come on by the way. Do you like skiing? the light comes on. How dare you! It haunts me.
So, it was incredible. And I’m not in that house. She’s hearing me. And she’s responding to a voice that’s coming out of a box. Imagine her if she’s she was, let’s say, eleven years old. Nineteen-twenty-nine and thirty. She’s going like, how is that even possible with this little box thing? And, it was an incredible, incredible night. So my point is, after all that, she is still here. She’s in the house. That she has been seen, and has responded to several people on, on – the investigations that have been done in the house, have been done by myself and some other people. Steve Clark, there was a guy named Rob Ludarski who is somebody you should interview. Marianne, I’m going to give you his information. I’ll send it to you.
Oh, yes please.
This guy who’s done so many of the Queen Mary. He does everything. He’s been doing it for probably fifty years. And he became a friend. He’s the one who told Steve Clark down by the basement, verify if you hear something don’t automatically think – he’s the guy, right. So but, Rob, I’ve done probably four investigations with him, over twenty-two years in the house, and he has the gift. He can feel things and stuff as well. And some things. I was actually downstairs one time and the group had gone upstairs. I was checking out something else by myself downstairs and I hear them all screaming. And I go what? What? And I run upstairs. By the time they get there, they’re going, oh my God! I guess ectoplasm was forming on the second floor, it started to form. And they are like, look at that, look at that! I’m going to like, what? Course, I missed it. So he is a good one to talk to. But, we don’t open the house for investigations. It was the only reason I did it was, because, I had access to the house. Right. And that’s why a lot of people in the book are Rangers are the ones who have access to the house.
Of course. Of course. Right now. And talking about investigations, you sent me a number of sound clips that you’ve recorded, or people have recorded in the house? And they’re really, some of them are very, very, very clear. And the ones that I – So, what I’ll do is I’ll actually play each recording a couple of times, so people can hear them. Except for really obvious ones.. So let’s, let’s play some of these sound clips now. Now, the first one that you’ve got here, you’ve called National Treasure Book of Secrets. And it’s a number of sounds. How did you how did that come about?
Well, there’s a man named Peter Devlin and he’s an Academy Award nominated sound mixer. He did National Treasure Two, Book of Secrets.
Oh, is that what that’s from? Ok.
Yeah. Yeah. And he also recorded he was the sound mixer on. What was it? Oh, it was Wonder Woman and a lot of big movies. And so on National Treasure, he was there. – everybody, it was a big, a big crew. And so, they finish the night. Peter, put his sound cart, which has the microphone on it, the recorder and all the stuff. He covered it and he just put it in the corner. We put it in the corner right there, right in the portal. He had no idea, but he pushed it right into the portal. After all this was said and done I went, oh, my God.! He placed it in the portal, and he put it on. He had the recorder run all night.
And, he said he just wanted to hear what he would get in the house. He wasn’t thinking paranormal, just thinking like creaking sounds and, an old mansion. Maybe he could use somewhere down the line and he got it there in the morning. I opened up, opened up all the cast crew come in. They get their cases, their camera equipment, their whatever they have, and they start moving around and setting up. And Peter took his cart, moved it into what was called is called the master, the sitting room, the master sitting room, and which we call Mr Doheny’s room. And he set up the cart. So I just walked around and I wait a minute, and finally walked into that room. I look over and I did know Peter at the time, but I looked over. I see him at his cart and I see him with his headphones on.
And then I see him take his headphones off like – and he gives it gives a look like, what the hell was that like? And I go oh, something happened. So I start to get out of the room and go, hey, what’s up? And he said, did you have security here last night? And I said, Yeah. So you had security outside? Yeah, outside, We have security outside. What about, did you have the alarm on? I said, yes, we did. What is the problem? He goes, I’ll show you, come here. I go over there. He goes here, he puts his headphones on me. And at twelve-fifty, twelve, fifty-eight at night, this is what you hear.
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. That’s really cool, And that’s from a professional audiologist.
Yeah, yeah. And now that you’ve played it for everyone. I can comment on it and let you know what I feel it is. OK, so what it sounds like it’s hard to hear the clip that you have. It’s hard to hear footsteps, but there are footsteps. But it’s really you have to really listen to it. And I don’t think you can really hear it on that clip. But footsteps come in to the closer to the to the recorder and then. You’ll hear what’s called layout board, which is a four by eight sheet of cardboard that’s placed down to protect the floors. Right. And that’s picked up and thrown and you’ll hear it sliding and that it hits a wall. And then after that, it sounds like camera equipment being shoved over and it goes, bam, bam, bam. And that’s, that’s, what you’re hearing in that sound.
I wondered what it was, oh wow. Very, very interesting. Now, I’m not going to use your spirit box ones, because, they might be a bit difficult for some to hear, because of static. However, now this next recording., is what I would call a residual sound. We’re talking about the gunshots. So did you leave your recorder running or not to capture this?
Yeah. So there are two – I gave you two recordings. One’s a louder gunshot than the other. And the reason I gave you that is to show you that it’s not the same thing. Right. And it was done recorded probably years apart, by the way. So it’s not like it was recorded one night, the exact next night. Same thing. It was either months or a year or two apart. And I put my recorder in there. It was probably on the second floor landing, which I always mostly used to leave my recorder up there. And, was just luck of the draw again, I left it there and when I heard that. And it was probably 12 or one at night is when I caught that it is so clear and there is an echo to it Marianne, which I thought was fascinating, because there was there’s no furniture, anything within this forty-six-thousand square foot home. So it’s echoey. You talk in one room, you can almost sounds like you’re in the next room and it’s out in the living room. It’s vacant in there, and this sound of the gunshots have an echo to them, which fascinated me.
Very, very clear. Those gunshots are really clear. No mistaking them, no mistaking them. Not like a car backfiring.
I had a guy that showed up and I played it for him. And he was a gun expert. He just happened to be, was out with a group where my other office was. And he says this place haunted. We were through all that stuff. And I said, OK, here, if you don’t think so, let me play this for you. Tell me what this is. And this guy went, well, I’m a firearms expert. That’s a gun. And I just want to I’m thrilled that you’re a firearms expert, and that just solidifies my thoughts about that, those recordings.
Brilliant. That’s brilliant to get that feedback. Now we’ve got three more EVP. This next one is very clear and it’s very quick. Comes in very easily. And this one was recorded in the kitchen. Is that correct? And. . .
Yeah. Yeah. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
No, go ahead. You can set the scene up, if you like.
OK, so I’m in the house with my friend Steve, Ranger Steve. And another guy who worked at that time for the city, named Tim, and his brother Matt. Matt had never been inside the house. He’s from San Diego. And Tim said, Could you please take him in the house one night? I said, OK, we’ll do that. This was the night. We brought him inside and we set up a card table in the Grand Hall. We have some, bought some glasses of Scotch and we have some cigars, cause, that’s what Ned liked. And we set it all up. We just sat there and we started having these just chatting and talking, didn’t hear anything. Nothing happened on the recorders either. So, finally it was right on midnight. And I said, look, I don’t want to be here all night. I’ve done that. Let’s get up. Let’s show Matt the house.
So we started walking. As we’re walking toward the kitchen. The historic kitchen, we call it. I’m talking to Tim, fellow worker, about the equipment that I have, like a laser pointer that has all the little dots, you can see in case something, a shadow goes in front of it. And so I’m just chatting with him about that. Steve’s walking with us with math. We enter the kitchen. And we immediately hear – now, I didn’t Steve didn’t Matt, Tim didn’t Matt was the only one who heard it, and you’ll hear him comment on that and you’ll hear what, what the voice says.
[ EVP recording
- “So what you want to do is stand here. . .
- Hello [EVP]
- I’ve gotta tell you man, I felt like there was some wind or air coming through the kitchen. Cold air.
- What was that noise just now? Who said hello? Was that you?
- Well, it’s going to be on the recorder right?
- I thought there was someone there.
- Is there anybody here with us?” ]
And that’s really clear. He comes in, it’s a very quick hello. And you can hear him, did you guys hear that? Or whatever it was he said.
Yeah, and I didn’t hear it. And I said, well, I’ll tell you what, if there was a voice, I didn’t hear it. I probably recorded it, which I did. Plus, just like with the gunshots, there’s an echo to that voice. Right? You’ve heard it. There was an echo to that. Hello.. Hello. Hello. There’s like an echo to it. And that kitchen is so echoey. It’s a, you know, like cement kind of walls that are painted and everything. But it really echoes inside there. And so that would make sense.
Yeah, absolutely .And for my listeners, that is not an EVP An Electronic Voice Phenomena, that is a disembodied voice. When it’s heard audibly, it’s disembodied. When it’s only captured on the, on the recorder, it’s an EVP. Now, this next one is a bit fainter and I’ll try to, actually try to enhance it a little bit. So it’s a bit clearer. So what I’ll do, is, I’ll play the original one that you sent us a Clete, ,and then I’ll play an enhanced one, where I’ve tried to bring the audio out a little bit more. So this was recorded with Ranger Chen Chan.
Yeah. Up in the attic. Right. So, Chan has had things happen to him which were not cool, and he’s afraid of the place. He has an uncle, I think, who has the gift and tells him if you have to go in the house, you get in and then you get out immediately because the uncle knows the place is active. Chan had some things happen in – a framed picture in glass, flew off a cabinet and crashed right in front of him. You’ll read about it in there and scared him so much. And he was up in the top parking lot shaking, called me. I was just showing up for work, and I’ll never go back in there again. Calm down. Calm down. Just tell me what happened. I said I’ll go back in. And I went in and did my investigation with my cell phone recording, and I, and I just recorded things that later on he looked at. And he went no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I did not close that door! I ran out of that room. I didn’t close the door. Was it closed. when you showed up? Look at the video, when I showed up was closed. So, a lot of things didn’t make sense to him. But he feels things. And he was the one who saw Emily, by the way, he looked at the front door and there she was and he was like, how did that little girl get in the house? So Chan has had things happen to him.
This time, I brought him up to the attic because. I told him that we’ve had things happen up in the attic. I was interviewing him for the book and he said, I have to tell you that you never told me anything had happened up in the attic. I said, no, I never did. He goes, well, he used to have to go up in the attic for Steve Clark. Steve Clark would be at the grand entry. You first walk into the grand entry, there’s a huge chandelier that hangs all the way down. Like, two stories down. And the only way to clean it, is to go up the attic. You take off this cover and there’s a hand crank and, you [makes cranking nose], you crank this chandelier down, so you can change the bulbs and clean the glass.
So, Steve Clark said you’ve got to go up and you have to go up there and crank that down there. You’ll see it. There’s a, in the floor there. Take that lid off and crank it down, and I’ll change the bulbs. And he goes, OK, Steve. He had no idea that the attic is active. So Chand’s up there, he said, as I’m starting to crank it down, I take the lid off to start to crank it down. I’m feeling something weird to my left. And I said, OK. He said, so as I stop and I look to the left and what he tells me is, he’s looking at a door. And that’s the door where I went in with Chris Fleming and it screamed a**hole – that thing, right!
And so I said, well, do you know that’s where that happened with me and Chris Fleming, right? He actually goes, Oh my God, I’m so glad you didn’t tell me when I was up here, he said. But I’m cranking it and feeling it to my left. I turn my whole body. So, I faced toward that door and kept cranking, because I did, I knew something was there. I said, OK., Now, as he’s telling me, this story for my book, for the interview. A voice comes in, and we didn’t hear it. We both didn’t hear it. And this voice comes in and has some direction for us. So I don’t know if you want to say it, or if they just want to play it. It’s OK.
I’ll just play it and they can listen to it. So, this is the unedited version. It’s very faint. So you need to listen quite carefully. And this is the enhanced version.
[ EVP recording
- “Open the panel, put the
- Go ahead. Get out! “[EVP] ]
So this last recording, was – it’s kind of an emotional one, actually. Can you tell us a little about this last one?
Yeah, yeah. So let me set you up with this. And one of the things is when I put the word out, that I wanted to talk to people about any instances that they had in the house, I got a lot of people through friends. I got their number, I got their number. One of the people was this woman named Luz, L U Z, Luz Rodriguez. And she was a ranger, I think, for four years up at Greystone. Like ninety-four to ninety-eight, something like that, nineteen-ninety-four, to nineteen-ninety-eight? So I talked to her and said, did you have things happen? She goes, Oh, my God, I said, Really? She said, Yeah, OK, could you meet me up at Greystone one day and we can talk about it? She said, yeah, set up a day. We went up there that day. She remembered eighteen different stories that all were awesome stories, crazy stories that happened to her, because, she has the gift.
And so, as you have mentioned before, when you have that, they want to connect with you. Constantly trying to connect with you. They did that a lot with her and they did it on my tour with her during the interview. So actually, excuse me, it happened twice. So what you’re going to hear is I’m walking with Luz. We’re in the servants wing. Walking to the room where the woman hung herself, that happens to be the rangers break room, now, oddly enough. Why? I don’t know?
So we’re walking toward that room and she’s starting to get emotional. Now, I look to my left to see her and I see that she’s almost wiping tears and I’m going like, I’m just going to let her go. She’s going through something here with this. Let’s see where this takes us. So I’m walking through up with her, and she’s talking to me. And as we go up these three steps that lead to the break room. She starts to explain that she’s getting emotional and I think that’s what you’re going to hear. And then, but somebody interrupts while we’re talking, while she’s talking to me. But we didn’t hear this voice, so that’s what you’ll hear.
[ EVP recording
- “I get teary eyed
- DON’T! [EVP]
- It’s just the energy.” ]
And the female voice is actually quite tender and quite compassionate. It feels to me like she’s trying to comfort. Comfort her.
Yeah, and telling her not to get emotional,
Don’t, don’t, don’t. Hmm and. . .
What you don’t, I’m sorry.
Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.
What you don’t hear, Marianne, is – I don’t think it’s in that clip because that’s that was the main thing that you could. That you could understand. So she’s talking, pardon me if I get emotional, don’t. But I suggest that she continues on. When she takes a pause later on, but you don’t have. That same voice comes back in and says loud and clear, just like the don’t. It’s words I can’t understand. I don’t know if it’s another language, or if it’s a confused – It came out confusing for her. But, it’s like ‘in dis is house brook’. In dis is house brook. When I played that back and went, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who was there with us? Wait a minute. In dis house brook. I don’t know what that means? Now, I will say that there were a lot of the servants were from Europe,
Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, is it German?
Swedish? Wasn’t Irish-Scottish, but could have been maybe Irish in dis house. I don’t know? Maybe what I should do is send it to you and then you can maybe put it out there for your listeners and see if somebody goes, oh, I know what that is?
It’s a good idea. Yeah, that’s a good idea.
You want to do that?
Yeah. Yeah.
I’ll give that to you.
[ EVP recording
- So I had trouble breathing
- Hmmm
- But it’s
- [EVP]
- Just the energy
- ]
So if any of you listeners know what this voice is actually saying, can you let us know? And I’ll pass that information on to Clete.
Awesome, awesome.
Brilliant! So Clete, it’s obvious. There’s no two ways about it, that Greystone mansion is haunted. No two ways about it. There’s just so many accounts. And, how do you feel now that you’re out of that, out of the house?
Well, I’m kind of sad. I mean, it was very emotional for me to leave.
Yes. I can imagine.
I hadn’t planned on leaving. Covid came along, shut everything down, which put us into a whole different world of you’re on your computer and this event will now be done through a virtual thing. I’m just like, oh, this is not my thing man. And so, then they said, we’re going to give handshakes and buyouts to people that are eligible that would like to leave. And I’m like, well, if I’m ever going to leave, I guess would be now, because then I’ll get an extra couple of bucks, whatever it’s going to be.. And I checked into it and they said, you are eligible. What am I really going to leave this place? A third of my life spent in this location. And I love this house, even though it’s scarier than hell. I love this place.
So I said, OK, and my one of my best friends is a Ranger, a senior ranger, there named Dan Hernandez. And it was hard to leave him, because, he and I were, every day we’d get there at five in the morning. And go over what’s going to come up that day, talk about the Lakers basketball, get into all that stuff. And then we’d start our day. That was for how many years? So, it was hard to leave. And then the very last day, my friends did a really sweet thing. They all came up in their cars because I’m on the hill where you drive into Greystone. I would keep people out because it’s covid. Keep the cars out. The people were doing construction on the house. They can come in, police can come in. I had to organize all that. And, at the very end of my day, I’m looking like, what is going on here? And all these cars caravanned up with signs, saying good luck. And huge cut outs of my head, which is not a good looking head. Everybody in their cars had one of my heads, waving. And it was really, really emotional. And it was really beautiful. And I love that place was very, very difficult to leave.
I can imagine. Yeah, I can imagine. After investing so much for your time and your energy in it. So Clete, where can people get your book from, The Ghosts of Greystone?
Well, what they can do is, what I’d appreciate them to do is to get it from our website, because, it’s just like Amazon. So if you go to www.ghostsofgreystone.com , go there and you can purchase the book. I’ll sign it. I’ll even inscribe it, however you would like it to be signed. Or, I’ll put a little comment in there that might be fun for you, along with some other little goodies we give you like a bookmarker, and some really kind of cool things that have to do with Greystone itself. The other thing is you can also go to Amazon. Amazon has it there. And they also have the e-book, which you can get the e-book as well. And then we’re finishing up literally, I think this coming up week, we’re finishing up the audio book and then that will take probably a month to get on to Amazon. And you can get that from there as well.
Oh, that’ll be awesome. Now, are you on any social media?
Instagram and Facebook, www.ghostsofgreystone.com
Your Instagram’s label is Ghost of Greystone?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, cool. So yeah.
Thank you for asking.
So thank you so much Clete. This has been an absolutely interesting conversation. And I’m really thrilled that you agreed to talk to my listeners and I. I encourage everybody to go out and get the book for yourself. It’s a great read.
Thank you so much. It was so great meeting you.
Listening to experiences like these we have heard over this episode can spark questions for some, and for others it’s simply entertainment. Whatever you choose to take from this episode, at the very least these experiences will have gotten you thinking and perhaps questioning, what we understand to currently be our reality. That’s not a bad thing at all. It’s always a good thing to question and to see where these questions lead you in the search for your truth, whatever that may be.
I never get tired of hearing of stories like the ones Clete kindly shared with us this episode. I find them endlessly fascinating, sometimes touching and sad, sometimes with curiosity, and an increased desire to learn more. I know you, my listeners enjoy these episodes as well. Thank you so much Clete, for your time and expertise you shared with us, I appreciate it immensely. And I so enjoyed our conversation.
Just a couple of reminders. One, this is the last episode in this season and I will be taking a break for a period of four weeks from the digital world, at least as far as posting new episodes. . . I may however do a season’s round up so you have at least something to listen to between seasons. Still debating that one. Let me know if you would like to hear that. You can contact me via the podcast website, www.walkingtheshadowlands.com, or you can email me at shadowlands@myyahoo.com . Or if you are on Anchor.fm, you can leave me a voice message using their app.
Two, another reminder that most of the episodes in this series and the first few next season were recorded before Christmas. This was because of family issues, that I didn’t want disrupting the podcast. I do generally try to have three episodes in advance pre-recorded in case of illness or unexpected disruptions. So, I worked very hard to get these done. Then, what I do is record the intro and exit portions of the show separately afterwards as I edit each interview. That is why in a lot of these episodes there is a discrepancy in the quality of the sounds of the interviews and intros. When the interviews were being recorded, my old iMac was literally dying on me, and the sound quality was a wee bit crap. Hopefully you can tell the difference with the new machine.
Today’s bumper music is called Creepy Lullaby, by Rafael Krux. I sort of felt it belonged with a haunted mansion, and it’s definitely mood inducing.
As always I can’t end this show without thanking my patrons for their ongoing support of this podcast. If you want to become a patron of the show, then head over to patreon.com/mcc15and sign up now. The continued support of my patrons, makes it possible for me to financially cover part of the costs of producing this show for you all. So thank you all so much.
If you have any suggestions for topics you might like me to cover in upcoming episodes, then please don’t hesitate to contact me. Or, if any of you have any questions, suggestions, or any comments that you’d like to make, or experiences that you might like to share with myself, or my audience – or, if you feel you might be a good fit as a guest on my podcast, then just email me at shadowlands@yahoo.com. Or, check out the ‘be a guest’ page on the podcast website.
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