It has been almost a year since the 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 community was launched. It was created to provide a fun and safe space for people to learn about and talk about the paranormal. Many of the conversations on social media are filled with negativity and bullying, and I wanted to create something that was not that. I spent many, many hours working on creating classroom content and planning weekly discussion topics. My hope was that this community would grow and thrive with like-minded people sharing about their personal experiences, paranormal theories, investigation evidence, and more. While it was a slow start, we gained many new members, and I was very excited that our community was growing. However, despite the growing number of members, there was not much increase in discussion. After a while, it was slowly becoming a ghost town, with many members never even logging in, joining in on discussions, or making their own posts. I was driving the community posts, which was fine for a while, but with little to no engagement, it became exhausting and frustrating. The idea I had for this fun and exciting community was dwindling. The excitement of coming on here and reading people's discussions was gone. It now feels like a chore to even make a post because I know people won’t read it or respond. Not only that, but Skool as a platform has made some changes and is slowly changing into something different. I have been thinking a lot about the future of the Paranormal Explorers Collective. As it is right now, it is not a sustainable community, and I don’t want to be posting into the void. That being said, I am going to give it one more month, and if engagement doesn’t increase, I am going to archive the community. What does that mean? That means you will no longer be able to make posts or comments in the community, and it will be in a “read-only” format. This gives me the opportunity to come back and reopen the community in the future if I want. If this happens, 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝘀𝘁 will be the last day for the Paranormal Explorers Collective.

In the small town of Yorktown, Texas, is one of the most famous and haunted locations in all of Texas. It's known for things such as shadow figures, disembodied voices, phantom footsteps, unexplained touches, and EVPs. Apparitions of former patients, nuns, and children spirits. The Yorktown Memorial Hospital opened in 1951 and was operated by a Catholic religious order called the Felician Sisters. It was built to provide medical care to Yorktown and the surrounding communities. The hospital was open for just over 30 years, closing due to financial difficulties and declining patient numbers in 1986. It was reopened for a brief time as a drug and alcohol rehab center before permanently closing in 1992. So, you may be wondering, with such a short operating history, why is it haunted? While no publicly available hospital records can confirm the exact number, it is said that an estimated 2,000 people died at the hospital. We also have to go back and look at the land. The land has a lot of Native American history, which included many battles and lots of bloodshed. The official website for Yorktown Memorial Hospital has more information you can check out: https://yorktownmemorialhospital.com/history-of-yorktown If a building like Yorktown Memorial Hospital has accumulated decades of emotional experiences, trauma, and thousands of reported paranormal encounters, do you think investigators are interacting with the spirits of former patients or with a form of residual energy imprinted into the location itself? Why?

Let's try something a little different today. Here are some fun icebreaker-type questions for everyone to answer. 1 - Would you rather receive one undeniable EVP or see one full-body apparition? 2 - If you could ask one spirit a single question and be guaranteed a truthful answer, what would you ask? 3 - What's the most unsettling feeling you've ever had in an ordinary place? 4 - If money weren't an issue, what haunted location would you investigate first? 5 - Which haunted location would you never visit? 6 - Have you ever seen something from the corner of your eye that disappeared? 7 - What's one piece of equipment you never investigate without? 8 - What's your biggest investigation mistake? 9 - You wake up in an empty hotel at 3:00 a.m. and hear a child laughing. What do you do? 10 - If you could witness one famous paranormal event in history, which would it be? And... GO!

Tornadoes ripped through Illinois and Indiana and did some damage to Ashmore Estates. You can check out their facebook page for more, including how to help them get started on repairs. No one was hurt but the building took some damage. https://www.facebook.com/share/1GqjXvZx2n/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Do children experience paranormal phenomena more often because of perception differences or lack of skepticism? Are children seeing things adults have learned to filter out? That is the question for this week. Think back to when you were a kid. Did you have an imaginary friend? Did you just make that person up, or did you believe they were 100% real? Why are reports of imaginary friends, spirits, and unusual encounters so common in young children? Do children have a stronger connection to the spiritual world because they are newer to physical existence? Or could children possess intuitive abilities that diminish with age? Maybe children are more likely to communicate with entities because they have less fear and fewer preconceived ideas. If children truly perceive more, why do many lose those abilities as they get older? Has modern skepticism weakened paranormal sensitivity? If you had an imaginary friend as a kid, did you believe they were real, or did you just pretend they were there for the sake of having someone to "play" with?