\The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Dispatch! 22 May, 2026

--By Maddie Kosloski of the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum

Welcome to another week of paranormal news from the San Benedetto Paranormal Museum! It's warming up here in Central California, but our A/C (and the occasional ghostly draft) are keeping visitors cool!

And now, here's my top five list of paranormal news stories for the week!

First off, there’s a fresh look at dreams and how they might do more than just replay yesterday’s leftovers. A new study tracked hundreds of dream journals alongside what people were thinking about while awake, and it turns out our personalities and big shared events shape what shows up at night. Folks who daydream a lot get wilder scene jumps in their sleep. People who take their dreams seriously report them as more vivid. And during something huge like the early pandemic lockdowns, dreams got heavier with feelings of restriction. It lines up with what I’ve heard from visitors here—dreams that feel like they peek around corners in time.

That ties right into a piece on precognition and retrocognition I came across. Some researchers still chase those stories of dreams that seem to show future disasters or past events the dreamer couldn’t have known. The Aberfan coal slide in 1966 gets brought up a lot—dozens of people reported vivid warnings in their sleep beforehand. Even if plenty of those accounts came after the fact, they still give you that little shiver. Makes you think about those liminal moments right before sleep or right after waking, when people spot shadows or feel a presence that might just be the brain glitching between states. I’ve had my own head-scratcher dreams (one involved an entire cottage stuffed floor-to-ceiling with toilet paper rolls, of all things), but nothing quite that prophetic.

On the other side of the world, police in Ahmedabad, India, started treating ghost stories like actual leads. After cracking two cold murder cases by following up on locals talking about hauntings—one body under a kitchen platform, another after 34 years—they’ve told officers to keep an ear out for any new “ghost” chatter. The idea is guilt or knowledge of something bad can bubble up as ghost tales. They’re staying evidence-based, of course, but it’s a reminder that sometimes the spooky rumor mill points straight to very human trouble.

And because no paranormal roundup feels complete without a classic, a driver in Washington State recently reported seeing Bigfoot cross the road. Details are thin, but those sightings never get old. They always make me smile—proof that the world still holds room for the unexplained.

I also poked around a comparison of GhostStop and SpiritShack gear for anyone building their own investigation kit. Both have solid options for spirit boxes, EMF meters, EVP recorders, and trigger objects. GhostStop leans into their own designed tools and has a big U.S. following. SpiritShack works great for folks in the UK who want quicker shipping and beginner-friendly kits. Either way, it’s smart to start small and learn what actually helps you notice the odd stuff instead of chasing every blinky light. (We sell GhostStop at the Paranormal Museum).

Reading about all these strange happenings around the world makes me think back to some of the odder cases right here at the San Benedetto Paranormal Museum. If you’re enjoying these weekly dispatches and want more ghostly mysteries with a side of small-town sleuthing, you might like the stories I’ve lived through myself in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum cozy mystery series. Swing by the museum in San Benedetto sometime—we’ve got signed copies on the shelves, and I’d love to chat about your own spooky encounters.

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