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Wagner takes<br />
photos using her<br />
phone in hopes<br />
of seeing a spirit<br />
in a window of<br />
an old house at<br />
Waterloo Village.<br />
Mike Hangley, Amanda and Dan Braico and Brianna<br />
Boehm listen to Jacki Hangley describe her findings.<br />
to happen.”<br />
While experiencing premonitions, Wagner<br />
also learned she could not prevent the actual<br />
event from happening. “In one instance I blamed<br />
myself,” she said. This led her to stifle her gift until<br />
the age of 30, when the death of her father caused<br />
a re-awakening from within.<br />
“I was on the George Washington Bridge<br />
rushing to get to my father’s bedside,” she said.<br />
“I had a vision. He sent me this vision like a<br />
full-fledged movie that lasted just seconds. In it,<br />
I knew he was gone. That was my first of many<br />
visits from my dad after his death. I knew I was<br />
back and wasn’t going to be scared anymore.”<br />
Even as a child, Wagner gravitated toward the<br />
horror and ghost genres, immersing herself in<br />
novels by the likes of Stephen King and Dean<br />
Koontz.<br />
“I wrote my first poem in seventh grade, and it<br />
was about ghosts, goblins and witches,” she said.<br />
She credits her seventh-grade teacher for<br />
inspiring her to write, and she boasts a half dozen<br />
published books as proof.<br />
It is in these books where Wagner has<br />
documented some of the experiences told to her<br />
by people who sought her expertise.<br />
Such was the case with Richard Clarkson, a<br />
former Hopatcong resident, who is “pretty certain”<br />
the outline of a phantom that burst through his<br />
closet in 1989 would still exist—if the house<br />
hadn’t been remodeled after his move in 1997.<br />
“If the closet door is still on the door of the<br />
main bedroom, you could see the outline of<br />
the phantom, including the eyes,” he said of his<br />
former Durbin Avenue home. “You have to look<br />
hard.”<br />
Precipitated by a violent thunderstorm, the<br />
phantom appeared over Clarkson and “plunged a<br />
sword into my heart and removed my soul,” he<br />
said.<br />
During the storm, lightning struck and entered<br />
the house, hit the ceiling fan and started a small<br />
fire. Neighbors called the fire department, but<br />
Clarkson remembers none of it. During his<br />
blackout, he said he was<br />
transported to England and found himself in a<br />
vault where he saw an elderly man and heard the<br />
voice of his grandmother.<br />
“There was this elderly man standing there,” he<br />
said. “And I hear my grandmother’s voice behind<br />
my back: ‘Albert, this is ridiculous. You need<br />
to come with me. It’s been 80 years. Stop this<br />
nonsense. It’s time to go.’”<br />
Clarkson realized his grandfather was there to<br />
tell him the real story about his death in 1924,<br />
which was somewhat of a family secret. “He was<br />
hanged.”<br />
His account will be detailed in Wagner’s<br />
upcoming book: “Sussex County and Other<br />
Strange Phenomena: Part III,” coming out later<br />
this year.<br />
Wagner stores each account in digital folders,<br />
which are organized according to county.<br />
“If I get enough [material], I write a book,” she<br />
said.<br />
Her first in-person investigation took place<br />
in 2019 at the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in<br />
Ogdensburg at the request of the staff.<br />
“We were there for six hours and got some<br />
great footage,” she said. “Everyone was videoing<br />
different stuff. There was this misty, foggy thing,<br />
almost like cigar smoke, that was communicating,<br />
and you could smell that the spirit was smoking.”<br />
Wagner, accompanied by her team of six Lady<br />
Ghostbusters, sensed a “brotherhood” of about 30<br />
“happy” spirits.” The team was accompanied by<br />
museum staff.<br />
After trying to coax the spirits into the light,<br />
Wagner said about half didn’t want to go. “So,<br />
they all decided to stay,” she said.<br />
Wagner never intended to build a team of<br />
ghostbusters. “What ended up happening is that I<br />
would be asked to bring a team,” she said.<br />
Wagner reached out to some of the people she<br />
had interviewed for her books, and that is how<br />
the Lady Ghostbusters team came to fruition.<br />
The group consists of mediums, psychics and<br />
clairvoyants—to name a few—“each with their<br />
own special gifts,” she said.<br />
Following the investigation at the mining<br />
museum, Wagner sent the footage to “Paranormal<br />
Caught on Camera,” a show on the Travel<br />
Channel. It aired in the fall of 2020.<br />
After the broadcast, Wagner was bombarded<br />
with people reaching out with their own footage,<br />
pictures and audio.<br />
These included accounts of Big Foot and even<br />
Continued on page 16<br />
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