People are always asking me questions about myself, so I thought I would do a little write-up on me and the page.
About www.ghosts.org
The first incarnation of this site was actually an ftp site. I started reading the newsgroup alt.folklore.ghost-stories in 1993, and I noticed that people would often ask for stories that had been previously posted. (This was before the arrival of the handy Deja News.) So, in late 1993 or early '94 I created an ftp archive of all the stories I had saved. This allowed people to download and read true ghost stories at their leisure. Also in 1994, I wrote and made official the alt.folklore.ghost-stories FAQ.
Time marched on, and the web became more popular. In early 1995 I made public the first version of Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. (Although it was sitting there on the server in 1994, I didn't announce the site until March of 95). The title stemmed from the fact that, at the time, almost all the paranormal pages I could find were about UFOs. As I am not a believer in the UFO phenomenon, this disappointed me. There were a few paranormal pages that contained some information on general paranormal phenomena, but there were none devoted to ghosts. It's hard to believe now, but the most I could find were some pages of ghost stories from a college and a few other incidentals in that vein.
The first version of the web page had the stories, a few articles, some information on haunted places, and about twenty links to other sites. (Just for some perspective on how the web has grown and changed since then: at the time I was cited by several reputable sources for having a comprehensive collection of links!) The page changed servers twice, and in February 1997 I secured the ghosts.org domain name. The rest is history, I suppose.
About Obiwan
I've been interested in ghosts and hauntings (along with other paranormal phenomena) since I was a small child. My mother was a librarian and fed my obsession by bringing me home numerous books on the subject. I still have fond memories of hanging out in the "stacks" in the 001 section (where the ghost books were filed).
I have experienced some odd things, but I've never seen a ghost. My best friend has, and my mother lived in a haunted house when she was a teenager, but that's about as close as I've gotten. Maybe that will change someday, or maybe I'm just not sensitive, or perhaps (gulp) ghosts don't exist after all. I suppose I won't really believe until I see one, but until then I am always on the lookout!
I work on these web pages in my spare time. The rest of the time I'm a homeschooling mother to my two very adorable but BUSY children. That's why sometimes this page doesn't get updated as soon as you or I would like -- but I have to admit my children do take priority over html. Unlike some other websites, I am the only person working on these pages; I have no helpers or anything like that, and I write the html myself (no html editing programs are used). This is NOT my profession, and so I can't give it all the time I would like. Thanks for being patient with the oftentimes long periods between updates.
My hobbies, besides researching the paranormal, include watching movies (especially horror and scifi, but I enjoy all genres), playing word games, writing, learning new languages, and reading. I'm afraid I'm a diehard New England sports fan still waiting for a repeat of 1986, except with better overall results. [Update Feb 2002: The Pats broke the curse! Can a World Series win and an NBA championship be far behind? ... Update Feb 2004: The Pats did it again! And yet the Curse lives on. Damn you, Babe Ruth, can't you find some other team to haunt? ... Update Apr 2005: The Pats did it AGAIN and the Red Sox did it at last. Even the Celts are headed for the playoffs. In related news, pigs can fly, it's snowing in Hell, and the Earth has been proven flat.] My favorite music includes modern and traditional Celtic, 80s pop/new wave/rock, and a few semi-recent bands like Blink 182, Green Day, Lit, Lifehouse, Bowling for Soup, and Evanescence. My favorite author is F. Paul Wilson. My favorite movie is Raiders of the Lost Ark, and my favorite books are A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and An Enemy of the State by F. Paul Wilson. I have one cat who the kids named Fluffy. Besides my paranormal site, I also maintain a fan page related to F. Paul Wilson, the website for my kids, and The Paul Verhoeven Fan Page.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the site.
This page (http://www.ghosts.org/me.html) last updated April 1, 2005.