Return to Powhatan

Location: Powhatan Courthouse and Jail; Powhatan, AR

Date: December 18, 2010

Group photo courtesy of Kenneth Heard.

On a cold night in late December, SPI (this crew consisting of Hayley, Don, Beverly, John Z., and myself) returned to Powhatan Courthouse. We had originally planned this return trip for early January, but after that night’s scheduled visitors (another investigation team) canceled their reservation, we got the invitation to move our return trip up, and this time we would be accompanied by Kenneth Heard, a reporter for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
We were concerned that this second visit would yield very little excitement, that there wouldn’t be much for Mr. Heard to write about. These concerns turned out to be unfounded.

Upon beginning the investigation, we split into two groups. John and I went down to the jail to set up a voice recorder, take some pictures, and experiment with a K-2 meter. The others remained in the courthouse to set up the rest of the equipment-- including our Jurassic era video camera.

John and I had moderate success with the K-2 meter. The device flashed over to the red level several times, mostly in response to some of John’s questions. During analysis of our compiled materials, we discovered some unexplainable phenomena on the audio recording from this early stage of the hunt: a raspy voice saying “keep going” and an inexplicable, female-sounding murmuring that occurred during an otherwise quiet segment of the audio track.

Haze visible on the cell bars in the upper right corner.

After leaving the jail (in search of a picture on Hayley’s camera that depicts a mist-like substance hovering in front of one of the jail cells),  I stumbled into the middle of one of the most significant pieces of evidence we’ve ever gathered.

I stepped into the courtroom and received word from my mother and sister that a presence in the room had been turning their flashlight on and off. This was hard enough to believe (although I did believe it, and there’s video evidence of the claim to back it up)… but when the presence turned the flashlight on again… and turned it off again on request… I wasn’t sure what to think. And I’m still not. A flashlight blinking on and off isn’t tremendously compelling. But a flashlight blinking on and off several times-- on request-- is another matter altogether.

After coming on without being touched, Beverly is asking for the flashlight to be shut off.

The other significant occurrence in the courtroom involves Mr. Z, some talking mannequins, and an unexplainable voice speaking in an apparently foreign language.

Before the ordeal with the flashlight, Mr. Z was pacing the courtroom with a K-2 meter. He approached a section of the courtroom allotted for a recreation of an old trial-- mannequins are set up here, and at the push of a button, the scene will “come to life” and reenact an old court scene. Without him touching the button, these mannequins began to “talk” to Mr. Z. And to add further mystery to this occurrence, analysis of this event’s audio recordings reveal a soft-spoken voice in the background of the court reenactment. As of this writing, we have not determined what the voice is saying-- it is very soft and doesn’t seem to be speaking English.

Unexplainable red orb in the mannequin's room.

I have outlined here the three major phenomena we were fortunate enough to gather during our second visit to Powhatan. It would be nearly impossible to recall every orb in our pictures or every random blip on our K-2 meters. This was an investigation worth remembering, and we were fortunate enough to be in the presence of a news reporter… and have our evidence secured on video tape and audio files.

Mitch


**Below you will find a video featuring the four separate instances when the entity turned our mini Maglite flashlight on and off upon request.

*This next item contains the three EVPs we caught while at Powhatan.