SPI featured in Arkansas newspapers

On our recent hunt at Powhatan State Park, Arkansas Democrat Gazette writer Kenneth Heard joined us to see what the rumors were all about. His story about the park and our hunt can be read online here. Thanks again to Mr. Heard and Powhatan State Park Superintendent Corinne Fletcher for helping us out.

Another Visit with Dr. Baker

Location: Crescent Hotel; Eureka Springs, AR

Date: December 30, 2010

After hearing our stories of paranormal encounters for many years now, some of our extended family members finally decided to join us on a ghost hunt. My aunt and uncle, Tina and Steve Hooper, decided that as a gift for their daughter, Julia, they would book us all a night with Theodora and Dr. Baker at the Crescent Hotel. Julia has been fascinated by our ghost stories for quite a while and wanted to go on a hunt of her own.

With our equipment in tow, Julia’s new K2 meter and voice recorder included, we all headed towards Eureka Springs hoping that something exciting would happen for us during our stay… And we weren’t disappointed at all.

Tina and Steve opted to stay in Theodora’s room, and Julia chose to join myself and my parents in Dr. Baker’s suite... for a while anyway. We were all hoping that the young girl who responded so well to my cousin, Christine, on our previous visit would respond equally as well to Julia.

A blue orb in the hallway.

The night’s strange events began on the ghost tour we all went on. As we toured the hotel we heard many old and some new tales of the strange past surrounding the hotel. At one point we stopped in a hallway on the third floor, and our guide told us about some fairly recent phenomena that had been occurring there. Beginning on a tour a week or so before, people had started discovered strange green and blue paw-print shaped orbs on the carpet in this hallway. These orbs were always arranged in pairs that trailed along the floor and walls. After hearing that, myself and others on the tour began taking turns snapping photos down the hall to see what we could catch. And low and behold, one of my photos had a nice blue orb on the carpet a little ways down the hall from where we all stood. What was even stranger, though, was that a photo not long afterwards showed a tannish-white blob moving across the shoulder of a man who was on the tour with us. The photos taken directly before and after this one both showed this man but included no such phenomenon.

This photo shows the mysterious moving phenomenon on the man's shoulder.

This photo, taken less than one minute later,  shows no such phenomenon.

While we were gone on the tour, one of our voice recorders was running up in Dr. Baker’s suite. This recorder was left on the dining room table in a completely silent room. Even voices from the hallway below could not be heard up in the suite…And yet on several different occasions on this audio you can hear garbled conversations between a man and a woman. On other occasions a small child is heard yelling, a man is heard laughing and coughing, and a door is heard closing. Apparently the room wasn’t so silent while we were gone after all. To top it all off, when we returned we found that the upstairs bedroom light and fan had been turned on and that Julia’s baby doll, who had been sitting up prim and proper on the bed, had been knocked over.

After reviewing this audio and finding all these strange noises we decided to leave another recorder going while we slept that night. We positioned both the recorder and our video camera on the dining room table, aimed towards the living room where my dad slept on the couch. Unfortunately it was a little too dark for much of our video footage to be useful.

         
The audio from both the camera and the voice recorder turned out to contain several mysteries, though. At one point not long after we had all gone to sleep, our suitcase, which also sat on the dining table, was moved and unzipped. On the audio recording you can distinctly hear the suitcase being drug across the table, and then the small clink of the zippers is heard and the sound of the bag actually being unzipped. Not long afterwards, footsteps are heard coming across the room with no person being seen on the camera.

         
Throughout the audio there were numerous other mysteries, from heavy breathing directly into the audio recorder to a strange male voice practically moaning “hi." The most mysterious EVP we got throughout our stay, though, was one caught near the end of our night's recording that says, "Here we are."

All in all it seemed to be an eventful night as we slept, not just for us, but for Tina and them as well in Theodora’s room. Though they caught no strange images or EVPs, Tina had a personal experience that convinced her something was with them in the room. As she lay awake in the middle of the night, Tina heard an off-key whistling that seemed to be moving closer and closer to her. Once the whistling got directly beside her, a pressure came over and seemed to lie on top of her for several seconds.

While we got no full-body apparitions on our trip, we did come away with some strange photos and some audio that has left us scratching our heads. We are more certain than ever, though, that the long and disturbing history of the Crescent has left it with many spirits who will continue to roam its halls.

Hayley.

         
*Below is a combination of all the EVPs we caught while staying in Dr. Baker's suite.