Bellingham native documenting ghosts at N. Cascades disaster site

DEAN KAHN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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The first time Karen Frazier had a possible encounter with a ghost, she wrote it off as maybe a dream, or just her imagination.

But the second time, years later, convinced her that they're real, and the Bellingham native is helping to make a documentary about the experience.

A 1984 graduate of Bellingham High School, Karen (Riseland) Frazier attended college with plans to become a teacher, but instead took a series of writing and marketing jobs.

About 20 years ago, she and a former husband lived in a small apartment in Bremerton while he was stationed at a nearby submarine base. Strange things would happen while he was at sea and she was home alone, Frazier said. Latched doors would open and close.

"The bed would depress next to me," she continued. "I would hear this voice whisper in my ear. 'I love you,' it would whisper."

Then, in August 2008, she became a writer, editor and marketing director for Paranormal Underground e-Magazine, even though she still considered herself a skeptic about the supernatural.

But Frazier, 43, is nothing if not inquisitive, and energetic. She now writes, blogs and does other media work about all things paranormal. She also has co-written a book about past lives, and her own book, "Supernatural! Exploring the Mysteries of Our Universe," is coming out soon.

Last July, she and her current husband explored Wellington, in the Cascade Mountains, with Bill Robards, an Oak Harbor actor developing documentaries about the paranormal, and with two teams of paranormal investigators researching the presence of ghosts at Wellington.

If there's a potentially spooky place, it's Wellington, a remote, mountainous site near Stevens Pass. On March 1, 1910, an avalanche there rolled two snow-bound Great Northern trains into a ravine, killing at least 96 people. It's one of the worst train disasters in U.S. history.

While visiting the site, something or someone poked Frazier in the shoulder and back of the head while she was sitting down, she said. When she turned around, no one was there.

Then, driving home, "it felt like there was something in the car with us," she said.

About a week later, at home in Chehalis, she heard something click in her marble entryway and her dogs began barking. She investigated and found her son's saxophone strap on the floor, instead of under his yearbook on the stairs, where she had placed it, she said.

When she stepped outside to see if someone was there, she heard someone behind her, in the house.

"I heard a little kid's voice say, 'hi,'" Frazier said. "I turned around, nothing was there."

Back at Wellington, the investigators have reported hearing disembodied voices, seeing shadowing figures and tiny lights speed about, and ghostly figures peeking from behind concrete pillars.

Two weekends ago, Frazier visited Wellington again and says she saw a "full-body apparition."

First one I've seen," she said in an e-mail. "Pretty cool."

Frazier and her husband are helping produce the documentary, and she's writing the script for the 90-minute production. They hope to release the film March 1, the centennial of the disaster.

"To me, the history is almost more important than the ghost part," Frazier said. "The ghost part is just interesting."

SITES ON PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

A.P.A.R.T. of Washington: apartofwa.com

Avalanche of Spirits, The Ghosts of Wellington: avalancheofspirits.com

Northwest Paranormal Investigation Agency: nwpia.com

Paranormal Underground Magazine: paranormalunderground.net