The Southern Ghost Girls have proof that sometimes the police really do work with psychics! Today, they tell us a story about a shape-shifting pterodactyl demon following them home from one of their investigations; care to join them on the next one?

Episode Summary: Paranormal Investigations and Ghost Tours in Alabama

When you visit a haunted location, it’s all fun and games until something follows you home. The Southern Ghost Girls, a team of paranormal investigators in Alabama and surrounding states, use period equipment, clothing, and tools to communicate with the ghosts in haunted homes, museums, and jails. However, they’ve had a few encounters with entities that wanted to keep interacting, even after they started on their way home.

Let’s chat with Lesley and Makayla, just two psychic Southern girls trying to preserve history and help people, today, on Homespun Haints.

AI-generated transcript of this episode available upon request.

About the Guests: The Southern Ghost Girls

Leslie Ann Hyde of Southern Ghost girls is a psychic medium who worked with the Alabama Police to solve a murder.
Leslie Ann Hyde, Founder of Southern Ghost Girls
Makayla Neighbors, psychic medium investigator with Southern Ghost Girls specializes in ghost hunting at the Jasper Jail, in Jasper, GA.
Makayla Neighbors, psychic medium investigator with Southern Ghost Girls

The Southern Ghost Girls Tours and Paranormal Investigations, LLC is a team of about 10 professional women who perform paranormal investigations and lead tours in Alabama, Georgia, and the rest of the South. They focus on US history and historical value. To honor that, they donate profits back into the historical venues they investigate to help with preservation. And even more fun, they dress in period costume to ghost hunt!

Everyone on the team has some sort of inborn or inherited psychic gifts. Also, they have all agreed to use their gift for the good of mankind. Today we speak with founder Leslie Ann Hyde of Birmingham, Alabama, and paranormal investigator Makayla Neighbors of Jasper, Georgia. Follow them on Facebook to keep up with their investigations. Join them on one of their tours or investigations at SouthernGhostGirls.com and experience a real live paranormal investigation for yourself!

Episode Show Notes about Psychics who Work with the Police and More

Ghosts of The Haunted Jasper Jail in Talking Rock, GA

Makayla tells us about the many ghosts at her hometown historic prison, including:

  • Shadow Man on the men’s side upstairs.
  • Cherokee spirits still bound up in the Trail of Tears on the Old Federal Road.
  • Children of the old sheriff, in the sheriff’s quarters.
  • The entire family haunting the Kirby Quinton Cabin next door.
  • The elemental shape-shifter that attached to Leslie Ann and followed her on her drive home.

Since they lead tours of the jail, the Southern Ghost Girls are familiar with all of the above. But none of the Jasper Jail ghosts could have prepared them for what followed them home from the Brown-Proctor Museum.

What is a human pendulum?

Becky uses a pendulum to speak to ghosts when a Ouija board would be too clunky. Becky’s pendulum is a semi-precious, carved, polished stone in a plumb bob shape that dangles from the end of a delicate chain. But really, any necklace or bob can be used as a pendulum, as it purportedly runs on intention and spirit interaction. Several guests we’ve had on the show use some sort of pendulum similarly. But what else can you use as a pendulum?

An obsidian pendulum in front of a spirit board accompanying an article about whether police work with psychics
Becky’s obsidian pendulum

According to our guests today, one’s very body can be a pendulum, in the right circumstances. Since the spirit has to directly manipulate the person acting as pendulum, this adds a whole new creepy factor to ghost hunting. According to Makayla, it can be a very intense physical experience for the person acting as the pendulum. Does the spirit possess the person-pendulum, or just shove them around a bit? Or does the spirit merely whisper suggestions into the person-pendulum’s subconscious, causing them to sway subconsciously in the direction that gets the spirit’s point across? Or is the person-pendulum allowing their intuition to subconsciously guide their sway?

What is a tipping table?

The tipping table is a classic Victorian spiritualist movement tool. Leslie Ann says it was popularized by Queen Victoria herself, and that mediums of the day may have used a tipping table for readings for the likes of Mary Todd Lincoln and Albert Einstein.

We had grand visions of ghosts literally toppling the séance table, like an angry drunk losing at Monopoly. But the reality is much more modest. Basically, a tipping table is a marble top lazy susan. The mediums and spiritual séance attendees put their fingertips lightly on the lazy susan like they would a planchette. When the lazy susan spins, the medium interprets the message based on a meaning she establishes with the ghosts. If you compare it to other spirit communication methods, a tipping table is basically a large pendulum.

Do the police really work with psychics to solve murders?

While it may sound like the theme of a TV show from the Naughties, the police in Auburn, Alabama are actually open to working with a psychic medium to solve crimes! In this episode, Leslie Ann tells a story about the time she just couldn’t not come forward with her knowledge. Most surprisingly, the police still treated her with respect even after they realized she had gleaned her knowledge on the case through clairvoyance.

Should you wear period costume while you ghost hunt?

Part of what sets The Southern Ghost Girls apart from other paranormal investigators is that they dress in period costume while they ghost hunt (and while they do live interviews, which is really what makes us love them). In today’s episode, they go into details about how this practice comforts the spirits they attempt to contact. As female-led and female-dominated team, they find their strength in gently and respectfully meeting the spirits on their own terms, at their own comfort levels. Leslie Ann believes this is what gets them the awesome evidence they frequently collect.

Paranormal investigations and Ghost Tours in Alabama

What do you think? Would the police in your town work with the evidence brought forth by a psychic medium? And would you dress in period costume to get better ghost hunt evidence? Would you visit the ghosts at the haunted Jasper Jail, knowing they might follow you home? Is there a right or wrong way how to be a medium? If you do, that’ll be a spooky day!