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Today my grandfather, Samuel Esordi, would have turned 100 years old. To remember him on this day, I wanted to share that little story and hope it inspires someone else to go after their dream. December 1st, 2009 |  One comment - (Comments are closed) |  Tags: believe it, dream, explore |  Category: believeitology, michael esordi  Believe It Tour Please help us today by making a donation for the tour at: Once on the above page just click on the Believe It Tour “Chip In!” button on the right hand side to make a donation. Thank you for your support in making this tour a success! May 25th, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: 2009, believe it, Believe It Tour, Bigfoot, California, chip in, cryptozoology, donation, Happy Camp, haunted houses, Lake Tahoe, paranormal, Redwoods, San Diego, travel, UFO | Category: believeitology, diana smith  Sacramento City Cemetery Another ghost hunting adventure led me to Sacramento,CA and the historical Sacramento City Cemetery located at 1000 Broadway on the corner of 10th Street and Broadway. The cemetery is one of California’s oldest and was established in 1849 with a ten-acre gift to the city from John Sutter. The earliest known burial in the cemetery was of Captain James Homans in 1849. The expansion of the cemetery continued and was finally complete in 1880 with a donation from Margaret Crocker that brought the city land holdings to 60 acres. Currently, the cemetery covers only a portion of that and contains over 25,000 graves of pioneers, immigrants, and many people important in the early days of California’s history. One poignant spot in the cemetery is a mass grave for almost 1000 people that perished in the 1850 cholera epidemic and then a separate commemorative marker for the 17 doctors that lost their lives caring for the cholera victims. There is also a marker that states over 3,000 pioneers were buried in unmarked graves somewhere within and around the cemetery. The area surrounding the cemetery is all residential and built before careful excavations would have taken place, so it’s quite likely there are many remains under the homes in close proximity to the cemetery. While I was in the cemetery I took numerous photos, but never captured anything except some interesting grave markers and monuments. Another person was managing a recorder in the hopes of picking up some EVPs, but we didn’t get anything when we listened later. I personally didn’t experience anything out the ordinary while I was at the cemetery, but one person did feel like something grabbed her and then quickly let go. She wasn’t scared, but she was definitely caught off-guard and stayed in the area for a while to see if she heard or felt anything more. Over the years, I’ve heard stories that people have had many different encounters while visiting the cemetery. While I didn’t experience anything paranormal on the particular day I went I did see some amazing monuments and get a little glimpse into California’s history and some of the people that figured prominently in it. Maybe next time I’ll have a different tale to tell. April 20th, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: believe it, Believe It Tour, California, cholera, EVP, ghost hunting, John Sutter, Margaret Crocker, paranormal, pioneers, Sacramento, Sacramento City Cemetery | Category: believeitology, diana smith, paranormal  Maydestone Apartment Building Always on the look-out for a new adventure I decided to explore an allegedly haunted location in Sacramento, CA on a recent trip to the area. I was able to squeeze in a quick trip to a historic building known as the Maydestone Apartments. It’s located at 1001 15th Street, on the corner of 15th and J Streets, in Sacramento’s mid-town area. The building’s history is a little mysterious. It was built in 1912 and continually had tenants until 2003. Over the years tenants frequently complained of sudden cold spots, strange electrical phenomenon, unexplained noises, and an unknown presence that was felt throughout the building. In the late 1980s the Maydestone gradually became a dilapidated haven for drug addicts, prostitutes, and other assorted criminals. Apparently, on Halloween night of 2003 the building suffered a serious fire that resulted in substantial damage to the interior. It was closed for repair work, but never reopened. However, in 2009 Sacramento developer, D&S Development, took over an option to purchase the historic 34 room building. When I arrived at the building the sun had already set, which gave the building a very oppressive and unsettled feeling. I’m normally never uneasy or prone to being jumpy, but for some reason I was definitely on guard that evening. I decided I would just walk around the building, get a few photos, and then leave. I got my camera out and used a parking meter as my unofficial tripod, so I could quickly snap a few shots. No sooner did I take my first few shots when my fully-charged camera stopped working and I had the overwhelming feeling I shouldn’t be taking any more photos of the building. All of my camera buttons stopped working and my display window kept flashing on and off. Then my camera gave me an error message just before powering down with a “charge battery” message. I was astonished as my fully charged camera would usually work weeks without needing a charge and here in a matter of minutes the battery was drained. At that point, there wasn’t much more I could do, so my friend and I decided to go have dinner instead. Over dinner we discussed seeing the building and both of realized we had the same uneasy feeling while being there. I also mentioned how odd it was that my camera had such major issues, but I figured something must have happened on my plane flight. Maybe I bumped my camera and had accidentally turned it on. I reached into my bag, retrieved the camera to take a second look at it, and much to my surprise it fired right up complete with a fully charged battery. I was even more surprised to see I had gotten one shot and only one shot of the building. Now keep in mind it was completely dark out and I didn’t use a flash when I took the shot. Now I can’t explain what happened that night, but I do think there was a reason my camera stopped working and I felt so unsettled being near the building. What do you think? I’d love to hear any comments or experiences you might have had like this. April 6th, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: 1912, believe it, Believe It Tour, California, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, historic, J Street, Maydestone, mid-town, paranormal, poltergeist, Sacramento | Category: believeitology, diana smith, paranormal
I can’t get away from blogging about movies. Today I actually pulled over to take this photo. Not only does the list start with the two movies I blogged about recently, but they have added Race to Witch Mountain and Knowing. So for any movie fans out there, who also happen to be fans of any of the topics on Believe It Tour, this small four-theater cinema has it all and for all ages. The movies range from a classic remake with aliens to monsters saving the earth from more aliens and also from knowing what the future will be all the way to a very disturbing story of a real-life haunting in Connecticut. Maybe it will rain this weekend and you can catch them all. April 2nd, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: believe it, Believe It Tour, cinema, future, ghosts, haunting in connecticut, Killingly, knowing, monsters vs. aliens, movies, paranormal, race to witch mountain, theater | Category: believeitology, cryptozoology, extraterrestrial, michael esordi, monsters, paranormal
 Bigfoot Ale Certainly many of you can relate to being so busy at times that simple errands sometimes get overlooked. This can be something as basic as keeping the refrigerator stocked with necessities. With all the planning and negotiations taking place for Believe It Tour summer events, I’ve been grinding away behind my computer non-stop. Recently after letting my groceries get so low, I was rummaging in the kitchen for a snack when it happened. There it was. Without anywhere to hide, I came face-to-face with what other cryptozoologists have spent years searching for…Bigfoot! Well, okay, a Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale, but I had forgotten it was hiding in the back of the fridge. Seeing it also reminded me that I need to keep a look out for the new 2009 bottles. I’ve been a collector since my early days of BigfootSurplus.com when Sierra Nevada’s marketing department gave their Bigfoot Ale the honorary status of being the official beer of Bigfoot Surplus. Maybe it’s time to reconnect to see if they would be interested in the same for Believe It Tour… P.S. April 2nd, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: ale, believe it, Believe It Tour, Bigfoot, Bigfoot Surplus, cryptozoology, sasquatch, Sierra Nevada | Category: believeitology, cryptozoology, michael esordi  Guest speaker - Liz Souza The month’s featured guest speaker, Liz Souza, was an engaging and knowledgeable lecturer who regaled the audience with personal tales and an educational glimpse into the different aspects behind the business of divinity and the world of the paranormal. She spoke about a variety of extremely interesting and intense experiences she’d had over the years as a psychic and medium. Liz also addressed the many aspects of looking into the future using tools like numerology, tarot cards, skulls, pendulums, and the infamous Ouija board. After she ended her lecture the audience had many diverse questions that she graciously took the time to answer. A new component was added to the monthly lecture series when Believe It Tour launched their first book review and discussion section. The book reviewed was GhostHunters by John Kachuba. This book explores the world of paranormal investigators and takes the reader to many places across the US. This is an easy to read and entertaining book that would be a good additional to any paranormal library. Look for the next Believe It Tour – New England lecture in April as it’s sure to be another exciting and interesting time. We look forward to seeing you there! March 30th, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: believe it, Believe It Tour, ghost hunting, GhostHunters, ghosts, Ides of March, John Kachuba, Liz Souza, medium, numerology, ouija, paranormal, pendulums, prophecy, psychic, skulls, Tarot Cards | Category: believeitology, diana smith, paranormal Imagine my surprise when I turned on the news the other morning only to discover there is a mysterious feline problem in my neighborhood. Now I’m not talking the feral cat variety of feline problem that neighbors get up in arms over. I’m talking about the elusive Black Panther. In case you aren’t familiar with these infamous creatures let me give you a little background. Black panthers have been a familiar figure in the cryptozoology (the study of hidden animals) world for many years. In mainstream zoology there are only black leopards or jaguars. The word panther is more commonly associated with cougars, mountain lions, or pumas. However, all three of these are a light golden brown color rather than black. To date a black “panther” has never been identified or earned a place in zoological taxonomy. Apparently, in the last few weeks, a number of people have spotted some large black cats in the Palisades and Sneaden’s Landing areas of New York’s lower Hudson Valley. All of the people involved have described the animals as shiny black, 4 to 5 feet in length, about 3 feet tall, and having a long black tail. A father and son were biking in the Tallman Mountain State Park when they spotted two of the cats about 25 yards from them. According to Fox News police investigators haven’t found any hard evidence of the cats, but some unidentified prints were found and police are continuing to investigate the situation. Wendy Rosenbach, a spokeswoman for Department of Environmental Conservation, said the agency has never found any evidence of mountain lions or cougars in the lower Hudson Valley. So far I haven’t had any wildlife encounters outside of seeing some relatively large squirrels in my yard recently. However, I will keep my eyes open for any Black Panthers that might wander into my neck of the woods. Has anyone out there ever had any encounters with Black Panthers or anything else mysterious? March 29th, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: believe it, Believe It Tour, black leopards, black panther, cryptozoology, Fox News, Hudson Valley, jaguars, New York, Palisades, Sneaden's Landing, Tallman Mountain State Park, zoology | Category: believeitology, cryptozoology, diana smith It must be fate… I haven’t logged on in a while, and Diana’s posting from today on the printed word goes hand-in-hand with the stuff currently rattling around in my head. Recently I have been getting back to an old love of mine and reading a lot of science fiction – running the gamut from current (like Reed and Reynolds) to classics (like Asimov and Dick). A couple of reoccurring extraterrestrial concepts have started intriguing me as I dig into these sci fi stories. The first concept has to do with the almost unimaginable vastness of time and space. It blows my mind when I really start thinking about the monster distances between all the objects in the universe and the time it would take to travel between them. Realistically, given all that time and all that space, it is pretty unlikely that “us” and “them” will ever actually come face to face – even if we both are trying really, really hard to make it happen. I wholeheartedly believe there are other beings out there, the hard part is making the ET high-five actually connect (on a side note, I heard the other day that the trick to never whiffing a high-five is to watch the other guy’s elbow, not the hand…). The second concept is one of recognition. Are we even looking for the right signs? We only know what we know, right? Maybe you have come face to face with ET hundreds of times in your life and just were not equipped to recognize the contact. ET could be too small, too big, on the wrong wavelength, or in the wrong dimension for your senses to pick up. And, ET could be having the same problem when “staring” back at you. This “sensory malfunction” idea is basically an extension of the “guy walking a dog” joke — if an extraterrestrial pulled up in his ship and looked down on a guy walking a dog on a leash (and picking up his poop!), he would (rightly) assume the dog was in charge and check in with the pooch first. Don’t get me wrong, I find none of this discouraging. If anything, the inherent difficulties in connecting with extraterrestrial life, just makes the search more exciting. Keep looking people. written by: John Patzman March 25th, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: Alastair Reynolds, believe it, Believe It Tour, ET, extraterrestrial, Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick, Robert Reed, science fiction, space, time | Category: believeitology, extraterrestrial
We know you’ll be so excited at this new feature we’ll even make it easy for you to get your hands on a copy of the books by providing some easy to use links. We’re also open to suggestions from readers since one of the concepts behind Believe It Tour is about meeting new folks and sharing information. If there is a book you’ve been curious about or a great author you’d like to share feel free to send an e-mail to diana@believeittour.com with your suggestions. Look for the March book review coming soon. March 25th, 2009 | Comments are closed | Tags: authors, believe it, Believe It Tour, Bigfoot, book review, books, cryptozoology, extraterrestrial, folklore, Lake Monster, literature, literature review, monsters, paranormal, review | Category: believeitology, diana smith |
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A few years back, when I was thinking about a name for my latest project, I thought of how my grandfather would always end a story by saying, “You better believe it brother.” That, together with his encouragement to always explore and do what you love, was the ideal concept to name Believe It Tour after.
In the next week or two Believe It Tour will be offering something new and exciting for its fellow believers. We will be starting a monthly literature review where books that explore topics like cryptozoology, the paranormal, extraterrestrials, folklore, or monsters will be featured and reviewed. Our hope is that through the reviews it will be a good way for you to learn about new authors or interesting topics you’ve never explored before. This might be a good introduction for you if you’ve only been exposed to the paranormal or extraterrestrial worlds, but have always wondered about Bigfoot or lake monsters.
