Eerie Experiences Around The Augusta Area – Interview With A Paranormal Investigator
After stumbling upon a post in an Augusta group on Facebook, I reached out to someone who was asking about the most haunted places around the Augusta area. As it turned out, that person was Ricky LaFountain Jr., a paranormal investigator. And of course, I was super excited to make the connection. Paranormal experiences have always been fascinating to me, and to talk to someone who investigates these things was so exciting.
We communicated back and forth on Facebook Messenger to talk about collaborating and chatting about the paranormal experiences he had. And then we set up a phone interview. Hear it here:
We’re hoping to set up an investigation with Ricky soon… and of course, we’ll bring you along with some audio and video!
Transcription:
Dub [00:00:00] Kicks 99. It’s your Wake Up Krew, Dub and Cody with you this morning. We make it no secret that we like spooky stuff.
Cody [00:00:05] We do.
Dub [00:00:06] Yeah, but we really like, like, honest, like true ghost stories. Like things that have actually happened and really things that have happened here in the CSRA.
Cody [00:00:15] Yeah. Those things are so fascinating to me.
Dub [00:00:17] I’ve always loved, like, haunted stuff here and hearing the stories behind it. And you actually reached out to an actual paranormal investigator.
Cody [00:00:25] I did.
Dub [00:00:25] About a week or so ago. And we’ve got Ricky on the phone with us this morning. Ricky, good morning. How are you?
Ricky [00:00:30] I’m good. How are you doing?
Dub [00:00:32] Man, we’re good. We just want to kind of give you a call and get some of your stories, man, about some of the stuff that you’ve experienced kind of around the CSRA. You got like a few good ones you can think of?
Ricky [00:00:44] Uh, let’s see… You mean like specifically Augusta?
Dub [00:00:46] Yeah, or just around like, well, like of all the places that you’ve been, like, what would you say you had the most paranormal activity at?
Ricky [00:00:54] Let’s see, I’ve only done a handful of places here in Augusta since I moved back here. One of the main ones has probably been Magnolia Cemetery.
Dub [00:01:00] Okay, so what, like when you were over at Magnolia Cemetery. Because we heard, like, you know, all some of the stories about, like, the Confederate Ghost and stuff like that over there. What all did you experience when you were over there?
Ricky [00:01:11] Well, I was over there with a small group. One of the big things we had happen is that one of the lady’s cars had an air freshener hanging in the rearview mirror. There’s no breeze or anything, you know, as a swinging wildly back and forth. We tried to replicate it, but couldn’t. We don’t know if that was actually a natural phenomenon or something paranormal.
Dub [00:01:27] Wow. Oh, but there’s no there’s no breeze. Right? So. So. So what? Were you all in the car or were y’all outside the car?
Ricky [00:01:34] We’re outside the car.
Dub [00:01:35] Okay, So. So the ghost was in the car apparently like he’s in there getting a little sniff.
Ricky [00:01:41] Yeah. We got some video of it too, on my YouTube channel.
Dub [00:01:43] Okay, very cool. Now what? Okay, where. What else? What else did you guys experience? Did you all see the Confederate ghost that everybody talks about over there?
Ricky [00:01:50] We haven’t actually seen anything, but we did get lots of responses using a spirit board and some of our apps that we use to pick up, you know, like EMF and EVP.
Dub [00:02:01] Yeah, Yeah. So like when you guys saw, like, the spirit box, like, I think I’ve seen these on TV, is this the kind that like, it kind of like, lights up or kind of explain that to me a little bit or, or to our listeners because I think I know which one you guys are talking about, but like, kind of clarify it for us.
Ricky [00:02:16] There are different types of spirit boxes. The one I use actually emits AM/FMt signals and it scans so fast it can’t pick up any specific words. So when they do get like a word or response, you know that it’s something potentially intelligent because it’s scanning too fast to pick up any specific phrases.
Dub [00:02:31] So you guys have actually gotten like word like responses to questions with words from from paranormal spirits, right? Like, like what kind of what kind of things did you get?
Ricky [00:02:40] A lot of times is really random and hard to make out because a lot of static. For example, we may get like a name like Henry or John. We got a few names actually that were actually lining up with some of the grave markers we were at.
Dub [00:02:51] Really?
Ricky [00:02:52] I can’t remember right off hand, which names that were that would be my content again. But things like that you potentially get, you might get like a hello or just random words really, and you kind of determine if it’s specifically intelligence towards you or if it’s completely random or you’re just picking up some, you know, random words.
Dub [00:03:09] Right? So but y’all but y’all were like you were say you were standing by a grave and the person’s grave was like John or whatever, and you were getting the names John or whatever on the spirit box?
Ricky [00:03:18] Yes.
Dub [00:03:19] Alright, that’s weird.
Cody [00:03:19] That is so…I’m fascinated by this kind of stuff. I have to know, though, like, how did you, like, really get started with this?
Ricky [00:03:27] Well, what got me into the paranormal when I was a little kid, and this is probably 40 years ago, I was asleep in my parents room, went from, you know, when it came and got me, it put me in my room when I went to bed. And when I woke up one night and some caught my eye standing at the other side of the room. And what I saw was this silhouette like a dark shadow, a shape of a man standing there. And it was wearing like a hat. And it started walking towards me before it got to me, you know, jumped over the side of the bed and ran out of the room. And actually, if you look at it now on Google it’s something called the Hat Man. It’s actually been seen by a ton of people.
Cody [00:03:56] Mmhm. I’ve heard of it.
Ricky [00:03:58] And that’s what my very first memorable experience in the paranormal world, that’s what got me into it.
Cody [00:04:02] So how long have you been doing like these paranormal investigations?
Ricky [00:04:06] I’ve doing them on and off for years. I move around a lot, but I had groups in Oregon, Washington State. I’ve done things in Florida, South Carolina. But my focus now is here in Augusta with the potential, you know, history of the area.
Dub [00:04:18] Yeah. So so where. Okay. Like, like of all your travels, like what? What is the best or what is the biggest experience that you ever had? Like, whether it was in another state or whatever, what’s something where you were like even somebody who has done these as many times as what you have, you walk away going, Okay, that was freaky?
Ricky [00:04:35] That would be an easy one. That was when I was still living in Oregon. We actually went to a friend of a friend’s house that was having issues and while we were there all kinds of stuff was going on. She actually saw the reflection of this guy in a mirror behind us. By the time we turned around, it was already gone. But we got EVPs of people just wheezing and coughing and stuff. You couldn’t hear while you were there. There was just all kind of freaky stuff going on in that place.
Dub [00:04:55] And we would love to like, go and do one of these one night. Man. Like, one of these, like. Go back to Magnolia’s.
Cody [00:05:01] I definitely want to go to Magnolia. I don’t even know where it is, actually.
Dub [00:05:04] It’s over off of like, like Walton way, right or not? Not Walton Way, but the kind of like, over by Surrey Center right Ricky kind of. It’s kind of like is across the street from Surrey Center.
Ricky [00:05:13] It’s pretty close to downtown. I can get you the exact address. But I definitely go back out there too and re-investigate. The only thing is you can only be there during the day because they close the gates at night.
Dub [00:05:22] Right.
Cody [00:05:23] Well they laughed at me because I asked what time the cemetery closed. Because I wanted to go there at night.
Dub [00:05:30] And, well, the good thing is, now, even especially in the next few weeks, with it getting darker earlier, you can still be there, you know, at 6:00 and it’s still going to be dark. So, well, dude, hey, please let us know. We would love to, like, go out there here within the next couple of weeks, man. So let’s, let’s coordinate something. And I know you said you want to get back out there. We’d love to let go and just, like, be a fly on the wall and kind of like experience it. Looks like we we hopefully we’ll get something set up with Ricky the Ghost Hunter, and we can go out and check out Magnolia Cemetery.
Cody [00:05:56] Fingers crossed.
Dub [00:05:57] Yeah. Maybe it’ll be scarier than The Exorcist.
Cody [00:06:00] I hope so.
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