A few months ago I wrote an article on the Winchester Mansion in San Jose California. It was the first article in a series I will be doing on the more popular woo-woo stories Northern California is known for. In that article I praised the management of the Winchester Mystery House for not hyping up the hundreds of paranormal stories that surround the house despite the fact that the house is touted as the most haunted place in the world by many websites and articles on the subject. Nowhere on the mansions official website could it be found stories of the house being haunted. This seems to have changed in the few months since then as a visit to the site will now show the opposite. The houses unique architecture and mysterious story is no longer the center piece, it has now been replaced by mysticism and paranormal stories.

The Winchester Mystery House’s website now features a page dedicated to the alleged hauntings of the house, featuring a plethora of anecdotal accounts of sighting and sounds of those spirits who roam the grounds there. Another page titled Spirit Sightings, is dedicated to reporting the strange occurrences people report while visiting the house and encouraging those who have had similar experiences to share their stories. It features a graph outlining the reported incidents that have taken place every year broken down by month, as well as a count of how many incidents have taken place in each room. Most of the stories that are featured on this page have to do with the patron thinking their name was called or thinking they saw someone (or thing) go around a corner.

What has encouraged the sudden shift from no mention of paranormal activity in the house to a site that seems to be dedicated to just that? A change in management? No. A piece of extraordinary evidence that supports the many paranormal claims that have been made about the house? No. It seems that this update to the site has everything to do with an upcoming movie project that is supposed to be based on the Winchester Mansion. It is being produced by Andrew Trapani, who also produced the paranormal based horror movie The Haunting in Connecticut, which promoted itself as being based on a true story (See my earlier post, Skeptics at the Movies). Undoubtedly the Winchester film will promote itself in the same manner, resulting in fantastic publicity for the Mystery House. It also appears that the official website for the film, while it is in pre-production at least, will be the Winchester Mystery House’s website itself.