Negative Energy at the Hill House Manor

Date: November 2, 2012

Location: Hill House Manor; Gainesville, TX

Almost a year to the day after our first investigation at the Hill House Manor, we decided to do a return visit. Mitch could not make the trip, but in his place my mom’s sister Linda decided to tag along on her first ghost hunt.

We arrived at the house around 7pm, and were welcomed by the owner, Linda, who gave us some brief updates about the house’s activity and the new infrared cameras and monitor she had installed. Only four cameras were left running at any one time, but many others had been placed around the house to help monitor any paranormal activity. For the first hour or so of the night, nothing at all happened. There were no obvious EVPs, nothing interesting on camera, and even our K2 meters seemed dead.

Orb in the window room.

In the window room upstairs, my mom and I sat for about a half hour and only got very minor spikes on the K2 when we asked questions. At one point, though, we did hear some faint footsteps on the back staircase as though someone was walking up from the unfinished downstairs apartment. Little did we know that those faint sounds would be the start to a very interesting and mindboggling night.

While we were upstairs, my dad decided to venture into the unfinished part of the house on his own while John and Linda watched the infrareds on our monitor. He wandered around for a while and then settled on the couch at the back of the apartment. The couch sits in what is often called the “murder room” and faces down the narrow hall into a larger room where one of the owner’s unused infrared cameras sat on an old cabinet. Although the camera was not plugged in to the DVR that night, it did have power so the lights on it shown in a bright red circle. After asking many questions and getting no responses with his K2 or flashlight, my dad began to think nothing was going to happen in this part of the house.

Orb in the unfinished side of the house. The camera at the end of the hall is the one that first seemed to move.

Just as he was about to give up, though, he asked whatever was in the house if it had moved over there after the old school across the street was torn down a few months before. Soon after this question, he saw a movement at the end of the hall. It looked as though the infrared camera in the other room was moving on the table, rotating in circles and moving side-to-side several inches. My dad claims he had never seen anything so confusing— he could tell the camera wasn’t physically moving, yet it looked as though the red circle of lights was dancing before his eyes. Even stranger, the phenomenon seemed to happen on request. It stopped and started again several times while he sat there on the couch. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him in the dark, but after the lights veered straight to the left and all but disappeared behind the door frame on more than one occasion, he was convinced that was not the case.

After a few minutes, my dad left the unfinished half of the house and came out to tell everyone what was going on. Although we were all baffled by his claims, John and I went back into the murder room with him and sat on the couch hoping to see the strange movement ourselves. We sat watching the camera at the other end of the hall for several minutes. Soon my dad began to see the camera seeming to move once again, but neither of us saw anything. This went on for so long that my dad became frustrated that we weren’t seeing the same thing, and we actually became worried that something might be targeting him. Finally, and not necessarily to his delight, John saw the movement too. He too became excited, yet confused, because he could tell what he was seeing wasn’t real, but only in his mind. The camera itself never moved, but both men were seeing the lights on it move several inches at a time in circles and from side to side.

Soon after John began to see the movement, I felt as though I was attacked. My throat tightened so that I could barely breathe and a very oppressive feeling arose in my chest. At that time we all realized that whatever was in the room was very negative and we quickly left, rejoining Linda and my mom in the front hall where our monitor was set up.

My mom seemed to be in disbelief at the strange occurrences and wanted to experience it for herself. Although she, my dad, and Linda went back to the murder room and he once again saw the same phenomenon, neither of the women had any personal experience. While John and I continued to feel shaken by our own encounters, my parents went upstairs to investigate the front bedroom and kitchen. While no camera lights seemed to move while they were up there, they did hear what sounded like a set of keys falling in the kitchen and found no source for the sound. At approximately the same time, both of them noticed that the moonlit hallway suddenly became dark and my mom got a strong sense that something negative was in the area and felt afraid to move from her chair to investigate.

At around 10:30 or 11:00 pm, I ventured upstairs to join my dad in the window room. He sat on a twin bed in the corner of the room, looking through the bathroom to the kitchen where one of our own infrared cameras sat on a table. As he sat there, that camera began to “move” in the same fashion as the one downstairs. I was sitting on a different bed a few feet away and tried to get up to look down the hall. Before I could move, I felt a heavy pressure pushing on my chest, making it hard to move. Once again I felt like I couldn’t breathe and had a very strong sensation that something negative was in the room with us. Once I could get up, I quickly went downstairs to talk to the others. The monitor confirmed that the cameras were not in fact physically moving— the entire experience seemed to be mental, as though whatever was in the house with us was projecting the vision on the men, only allowing them to see the red lights dance and move. A short excerpt from our conversation during this incident (as well as one undecipherable EVP) is posted below.

My dad remained upstairs, and my mom soon joined him, challenging whatever was in the house to show itself to her somehow. While my parents were upstairs, Linda and I went in the kitchen for a few minutes, leaving John alone at the monitors. As he sat there watching the cameras, the empty chair beside him flipped over very forcefully, hitting the filing cabinet behind it. The crash was loud enough for all the rest of us to hear. John quickly jumped up and moved into the living room, and all the rest of us rushed towards the entryway to see what had happened.  After the negative feelings and unease caused by the strange visions and anxiety attacks, this physical act seemed to be a sure sign that we were unwelcome in the Hill House.

The chair on the top was knocked over by an unknown force. The bottom chair fell over as John jumped up in reaction. 

Throughout the entire night, nothing had happened that seemed welcoming or interested in communicating with us, so we decided it might be best to pack up after the chair incident. On our first investigation my mom and I had seen a shadow figure in two different places upstairs, and that in itself was unbelievable. This entire night, though, had been baffling and full of negative feelings. The oppressive feelings and strange visions were far beyond anything we have ever experienced on an investigation. This second trip to the Hill House was full of negative energy and mysterious incidents, and it certainly left us with more questions that answers about what or who dwells in the house.

Hayley.

Third Time's A Charm at Powhatan

Location: Powhatan Courthouse and Jail; Powhatan State Park, AR

Date: September 7, 2012

On a dark and very stormy Friday night, all six members of our team headed up to Powhatan Courthouse for a third investigation. On previous trips we had experienced various types of activity from EVPs in the jail to something turning a flashlight on and off in the courtroom and even activating the voices for one of the museum’s many displays. With plenty of energy in the air from the night’s storms, we hoped to experience similar activity and maybe uncover some of the mysteries surrounding the reported deaths in the area, including a man who hung himself after trying to kill his wife and a woman who died after killing her infant.

Things in the courthouse were fairly slow on this trip. While on previous trips we had very good luck communicating with someone using flashlights, that trick didn’t seem to interest the spirits this time. We did have a couple of interesting results there, however. Early on in the night, Mitch was taking pictures in the courtroom but didn’t seem to be getting any interesting results. My mom commented that whatever was in the room should step in front of the camera so Mitch could see it. In his next couple of photos after that, strange white streaks were very apparent. These were not shaped like typical orbs, but more like something caught in motion.

The moving orbs caught in the courtroom.

Towards the end of our investigation, my parents were in the courtroom and my dad was jokingly acting out a court seen, doing voices for a judge and defendant. At some point during his scenario, our audio recorder picked up four quick taps in the background that sounded like a gavel hitting judge’s bench.

While the courtroom wasn’t very active throughout the night, the jail proved a little more interesting. When my dad, Mitch, and Samantha first went down to the jail, the K2 meter indicated there were high energy levels present. This energy seemed to follow Samantha around for a few minutes and then dissipated. After a few minutes, Mitch and Samantha returned to the courthouse and I took their place in the jail with my dad. We spent about an hour sitting on the floor of the jail attempting to communicate with someone using the K2 meter and a flashlight. On several occasions both pieces of equipment were activated, but we could not get any solid responses to our questions. What was most interesting about these occurrences is that we had two audio recorders going at the time, one lying on the floor a few feet from the K2 and flashlight and one across the room on a bench. Whenever enough energy approached us to turn on the flashlight or register on the K2, strong electrical interference can be heard on the nearest audio recorder, but the never happened to the recorder that was across the room from us.

Orbs in the jail.

We had two other interesting audio pieces from the jail as well. One EVP was caught only seconds after I entered the jail. While my dad was telling me that he felt like something had just briefly touched his hand, across the room the audio recorder Mitch had left on a bench picked up the name “Emily” in a very plain, but whispered tone. Although we cannot trace this name directly to any of the suspected spirits at the park, one of the park employees told us that the wife of the hanged man had been named Mary E. Mosby. 

The second EVP we caught in the jail was less direct. Throughout the night my dad tried to get responses by singing or whistling. Towards the end of the night he gave  one last attempt at whistling a song but lost his breath and let the tune die off. After he stopped whistling, very faintly the audio recorder picked up two short whistles from another unknown source.

Even though the weather was nasty and activity seemed pretty slow compared to our first two visits at Powhatan, this trip proved worthwhile in the end. The historic courthouse and jail once again provided us with some intriguing evidence and left us hoping to return again someday to try to find out more about Miss Emily.

Hayley.

Below is a short video of the flashlight coming on in the jail, followed by our EVPs from the night.

Spirits in the Cemetery

Location: Providence Cemetery; Providence, AR

Date: August 13, 2012

The Providence Church sits on a narrow two lane highway in the town of Providence, Arkansas, which is home to only a few hundred people. The town cemetery surrounds the church, with many graves dating back to the 1800s behind the church and a designated veteran’s section to the right.

SPI decided to conduct a short investigation in the cemetery after hearing stories about paranormal activity there from a couple of family friends who mow the property several times each year. On one occasion the wife was mowing the veteran’s section and accidentally ran over a flag that had fallen from a nearby grave. Moments later she saw a movement from the corner of her eye and looked over to see a man in a Confederate uniform watching her, perhaps annoyed by her hitting the flag.

Orbs around John and a neighborhood dog.

Only a few weeks ago the husband was mowing in a newer part of the cemetery when he noticed that the middle blade of his mower didn’t seem to be cutting the grass. Upon investigation he found out that the middle blade was missing, and had been for some time… After searching for a few minutes he found the missing blade— nut and bolt attached— sitting on top of a vertical tombstone in the older portion of the cemetery. This couple also told us of several rumors they have heard about the cemetery, including violin music that can be heard late at night near the veteran’s section.

An orb near the treeline. The photo is facing south.

While we didn’t encounter any soldiers or even get any EVPs from our brief investigation, my mom did have an interesting session with the Ghost Radar app on my phone. Although we remain slightly skeptical about this app’s performance, on this occasion it gave us something to think about. Throughout the evening only a few words popped up with it, but as the sun was setting the radar screen became more active, showing a couple of bright energy sources that seemed to be following my mom as she walked back towards the church. The word “mad” came up at one point, and after asking “Who are you mad at?” the word “her” appeared on the screen.

Bright orb near Beverly.

Moments later my mom asked if someone could tell us their name and “Dick” appeared on the screen along with a couple of bright energy signatures. My mom then said that if whoever was with us had enough energy to be picked up by the phone then they should let me take a picture of them. After this request I actually took several photos that contained bright, sometimes moving, orbs. Almost none of the pictures Mitch and I had taken before that contained even faint orbs. The words “finish” and “am” then came up on the screen, and after that nothing else registered on the Ghost Radar despite our prompting.

Orbs in motion.

Our short investigation did not yield solid evidence that Confederate soldiers or any other spirits reside in the cemetery, but it certainly added to the pile of stories related to the area and peaked our curiosity enough to hope for a return visit in the near future.  

Hayley.

The Many Spirits of Miss Molly's

Location: Miss Molly’s Bed and Breakfast Hotel; Fort Worth, TX

Date: May 28, 2012

Miss Molly’s Bed & Breakfast Hotel sits in the middle of Fort Worth’s Stockyard district.  SPI made the trip south after hearing of its claims of extensive paranormal activity from several different sources.  The hotel is located on the second floor of a building that was originally built in 1910.  It is located above a bar and restaurant, and there are several more bars in the immediate area.  Because of this, we were told to expect to hear loud music until 2:30 in the morning.

The hotel’s eight rooms are all located around a main hall at the top of a staircase.  Each bares its own unique name (as in, the “Cattlemen’s Room”, “Miss Josie’s Room”, and the “Railroader’s Room).  We set up infrared cameras in Josie’s Room (this room is named after a woman named Josie King, who ran the business as the Gayette Hotel; it was actually a bordello), the Cattlemen’s Room, the Railroader Room, and the entryway—we wanted a camera aimed at the stairs, as we’d heard of a specter who likes to occasionally wander up and down the staircase.

Our night in the hotel proved to be very productive.

The first occurrence came before our investigation had officially begun.  We were looking around and talking to the innkeeper when Hayley snapped a picture of me standing in front of a mirror.  In the background of the mirror is the clear outline of a woman wearing a sunhat.

Original photo with woman circled.

A closer look at the woman in the mirror.

The investigation’s first occurrence involved Hayley and my mom while they were sitting quietly in the Railroader’s Room.  Stories of a spirit named Jake surround this room, and the two of them had invited Jake to communicate with them somehow.  The door slammed shut and locked—which the doors in the hotel automatically do.  A few minutes later, John caught a bright, baseball-sized orb on the monitor flying between their heads.  Both Hayley and Mom described a chilling draft in the room about the time this occurred.

This was not the only unnatural orb to appear on our video footage.  We also caught an orb of a very strange, irregular nature flying up the stairs and across the room, moving generally towards the camera.

Not long after this, after failing to communicate via the flashlight method in Miss Josie’s Room, I was able to communicate with an unknown presence in the Cattlemen’s Room.  I entered the room with a digital recorder and a flashlight.  I placed the flashlight in front of me on the bed and told any possible entity to make its presence known.  Not long after this, the light came on.  The light shut off instantly at my command. 

My dad had numerous experiences with a presence in Miss Tiffany’s Room.  He went in about eleven ‘o clock and lay down on the bed closest to the window.  After several minutes, the floor creaked numerous times.  He asked the presence if it was Miss Tiffany, or someone else—perhaps a lady associated with the building’s days as a bordello.  A cold, uneasy feeling came over him, starting at his feet and moving up.  This disturbing coldness passed, but came back again, once again following a creaking noise in the floor.  After this second time, he regained his composure and asked her to show her presence one more time; if she would do this, he’d leave.  Once again, the coldness came over him, starting at his feet and moving towards his chest.  This time, the effect was even stronger.  He reported when he came out of the room that, as the coldness passed over his body, it slowly took his breath away, till finally he was gasping for air; it took at least half an hour, maybe longer, for this unpleasant sensation to pass.  Around three a.m., he went back into the room.  Upon request, two more times, the presence obliged, but the effect was more comforting, and he told her as he left that he appreciated her hospitality.

We have numerous footage of extensive EMF activity.  The meter flashed brightly in the Railroader’s Room while Mom was sleeping there; it also flashed for no apparent reason in Miss Josie’s Room and the main hall.  Also with the EMF meter, late in the investigation, sometime during the early morning hours, my dad was able to pinpoint the locations of two separate presences in the Cowboy’s Room and Miss Amelia’s Room.  One presence seemed to be lying in bed in the Cowboy’s Room, while the other was standing at the door that connected the two rooms.  The EMF only lit up in these locations—in a small circle in front of the door, and from “head to toe” on one of the Cowboy’s Room’s beds.

Miss Molly’s also provided several EVPs.  Most of these occurred in Miss Josie’s Room, and they started late in the night.  At approximately 2:45 a.m., when everybody except Hayley and my dad were asleep, you can hear a few seconds of obvious singing. By this point, the bars were quiet.  There is no music, and the phenomenon does not last long.  Also from Josie’s room, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes later, a little girl can be heard speaking the name “Alan.”  An hour or so after this, the recorder picked up what sounds like very suggestive moaning—this went on for quite sometime throughout the final dark hours of the morning.  There were other EVPs, and they can be found below along with our video footage.

Miss Molly’s Bed & Breakfast Hotel provided some of the most profound evidence we’ve gathered in recent memory.  It’s a building with an extensive, sometimes troubling, history, and it proved to us, over the course of one night, just how haunted it is.

Mitch.

Here are our EVPs from the night:

Here are a few video clips from the night:

Haunted Home

Location: Private Residence; Centerton, AR

Date: May 26, 2012

The entire SPI crew (Don, Beverly, Hayley, John, Samantha, and myself) made a trip to Centerton, Arkansas to investigate a private residence.  The house was purchased several years ago during foreclosure.  It was the old, run-down “haunted house” of the town, and they have since done extensive renovations.  The homeowners and their children told us of numerous paranormal occurrences during their time in the house, some minor (like noises), some more severe (like one of the children being “clawed” in the back).  Unfortunately, they could not tell us much about the house’s history, as most of it is unknown.

We arrived at the residence with plenty of daylight still available and were given a tour of the two-story house and its deep back yard, which goes back at least a hundred yards and contains numerous old buildings, most in shambles, that most recently have been used as chicken coops—but they almost certainly housed people at one time, probably for the nearby railroad.

Our investigation began shortly before dark and yielded several interesting occurrences.  Unfortunately, all but the first hour of our video footage was lost from the DVR, and we came away with very little tangible evidence.

The night’s first event came in the front upstairs bedroom.  Samantha and I entered the room and asked any possible presence to reveal itself.  A couple of seconds later, the door (which I had shut but not latched) creaked open a couple of inches.  I shut it and asked the presence to do it again.  And it did.  Later in the night, we turned off the upstairs fan to rule out the possibility of the door being moved by a draft.  Not only did the door once again open, it shut as well, with considerable force.  It’s hard to say with certainty that this phenomenon was paranormal in nature—the house is old, and old houses have creaking, uneven doors—but many aspects of it, such as it seeming to open upon request, were certainly strange.  It should also be noted that we kept our eye on the door all night via an infrared camera, and it did not move again, despite being left unlatched. In the first hour of footage that survived on our DVR, we were able to capture the door opening once. This video can be seen below.

Most of the night’s other events occurred upstairs as well.  In the oldest daughter’s bedroom, Hayley and my parents asked a series of questions to any possible presence and asked it to communicate with them by turning a flashlight on and off.  They learned that the presence in this room was apparently something the residents called a “shadow man.” 

In the living room area outside the two upstairs bedrooms, a door creaked when there was no one in the area.  And about this same time, Hayley and my parents again used the flashlight method to communicate with a spirit that turned out to be that of a seven-year-old girl.  My dad narrowed her age down by asking her if she was younger than ten but older than five.  And the flashlight came on strong when my mom asked if she was seven. A few days after our investigation, the homeowner found out through historical research that the original property owners (the Womacks) had in fact lost a daughter who was between 7 and 8 years old to typhoid.

The night’s only event to not take place upstairs occurred outside, at the edge of a ravine beyond the back of the property.  My dad and I hiked back to this location once it was dark outside because the homeowners had mentioned that a train used to run through this ravine.  We did not see or hear any sign of a train, but we did hear something in the woods across the ravine from us.  It was a noise that almost sounded like rushing water—or perhaps a very large animal crashing through the brush.  It came and went several times, and it was most certainly not caused by birds or wind and seemed even stranger because the noise often occurred when my dad asked it to.

The house was active and definitely worth our time.  We regrettably did not come away from it with large amounts of evidence, but we did have several interesting encounters.  The residents were kind in letting us into their home, and perhaps they’ll allow us back in the future for a follow-up investigation.

Mitch. 

Upcoming Events

SPI has two upcoming investigations in May to look forward to. On Saturday, May 26th we will be visiting Centerton, Arkansas to investigate a private residence with an exciting history. Only two days later on Monday, May 28th we will be traveling to Fort Worth, TX to investigate Miss Molly's Bed and Breakfast near the historic stockyards.

We are very excited about both investigations and hope you will all stay tuned to read about our next paranormal adventures!

A Night with the Allen Family

Location: The Allen House; Monticello, AR

Date: February 18, 2012

While Hayley and John were back in Arkansas for a long weekend, SPI visited the home of Mark and Rebecca Spencer in Monticello, Arkansas—otherwise known as the Allen House.  The house dates back to the early twentieth century and has a storied, troubled past.  Mr. Spencer has written a book, A Haunted Love Story, that details the house’s history and discusses its paranormal activity.

After arriving at approximately seven ‘o clock, our crew was given a tour of the property, which detailed the stories and locations of many of the paranormal events.  Following the tour, we set up infrared cameras in the breakfast room, the parlor (which now serves as Mr. Spencer’s library), the master bedroom (where Ladell, one of the Allen daughters, committed suicide by cyanide poisoning), and the attic.  We also set up a standard video recorder in the room adjacent to the master bedroom.  With the video equipment in place, we turned out most of the lights; distributed our voice recorders, walkie-talkies, K2 meters, and flashlights; and began the investigation.

The two photos above were taken only seconds apart prior to the investigation. The ghosts of the Allen House are known for peeking out the windows at passersby. The window in question is in Ladell's bedroom, and the bottom photo seems to feature a grown woman that could perhaps be her. The top photo features perhaps a small child (maybe Allen?) or crouching figure.

No more than five minutes had passed before things got interesting.  I was sitting quietly in Ladell’s room with a recorder and K2 meter.  John and Samantha were watching the infrared monitor at the top of the stairs, just down the hall from me.  Samantha and John called me on the walkie-talkie to ask if I was in a nearby bathroom, because someone, they said, was shuffling around on the other side of the door…  I said no, but curious, I proceeded through the adjacent room and into the bathroom to find that it was empty… and one of the cabinets was open.  

During my initial walk-through of the house, I was sure that all the cabinets had been closed.

The house went on to provide evidence that is a bit more tangible, albeit still open to interpretation.

The Allen House’s attic is a vast room with a slightly-separated turreted section that, according to story, served as a favorite play area for Allen Bonner.  Towards the end of our investigation, at approximately ten p.m., we discovered an anomaly on our infrared feed from the attic turret.  A shadow that seemed too small and faint to be a human shadow passed in front of the window curtains and faded to nothing.  I was excited…  but not convinced we’d found anything special: I’d been up in the attic just a brief time before, readjusting the camera after one of the Spencer’s many cats bumped it out of position. The cat had become distraught while Beverly was investigating in the attic, and in it’s unexplainable frenzy it jumped on the table and bumped the camera. It’s possible, I thought, that this was my shadow. However, I was walking the opposite direction (leaving the attic) of this shadow at the time it appeared.

When I went to debunk the image, our findings were inconclusive.  My human shadow, on video, appears tall and defined.  The shadow in question seems, as stated previously, smaller, fainter.  Had I not so recently visited the room, this phenomenon would be a slam-dunk.

Shortly before we discovered the attic shadow, Hayley and John captured on video an invisible presence knocking over a flashlight.  They were sitting in the breakfast room.  John stood his flashlight up on its end and invited any lurking presence in the room to knock it over.  A couple of seconds later, the flashlight swayed, and fell.  The video footage of this event and the shadowy attic figure can be found below.

In addition to these pieces of video evidence, Don captured two EVPs.  While investigating the breakfast room, he heard an audible noise above him, a deep, groan-like noise that seemed to come through the ceiling.  Despite people walking throughout the house all night, and despite the night’s rainy weather, this noise was not heard again at any other point during our visit, by any ear or voice recorder.  The other EVP came from the parlor.  Don asked any possible presence if it would be willing to come in and talk to him for a minute.  A raspy voice replies with a resounding, “No.”  This occurred while the rest of our crew was upstairs, going over the attic video. Both of these EVPs are featured below as well.

Overall, the Allen House provided us an interesting experience that was well worth the travel, and we would like to thank the Spencers for allowing us to investigate their home.  They were hospitable, informative, and supportive of our efforts.  

Mitch

We once again found ourselves at the Crescent Hotel...

Location: Crescent Hotel; Eureka Springs, AR

Date: December 26-27, 2011

The day after Christmas, a large crowd descended on the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs. The occasion? John and I were getting married at the nearby Thorncrown Chapel and a reception was to follow at the Crescent. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to investigate, my parents requested Michael’s room, 218, for our two-night stay. Also joining us for the ride up to Eureka were two of my cousins, Cameron and Connor, who had been intrigued by some of our past investigations and wanted to experience something paranormal for themselves.

Orb above the lobby fireplace captured by Cameron and Connor.

The night before the wedding my mom and I shared Michael’s room, hoping he would show his true colors if there wasn’t a man staying in the room. After all, some of the most colorful stories of Michael’s antics occur when women, particularly soon-to-be-brides, stay in his room— water in the shower changing temperatures unexpectedly, the chain on the door rattling, footsteps, etc.

Fortunately, we were not disappointed. While I was showering that night the water, which had maintained a comfortable warm temperature for several minutes after I first turned it on, began to alternate between extremes, going from scalding hot and freezing cold with no in-between. The temperature was so extreme I couldn’t touch it without fear of being burned. It surprised me so much I called my mom in to try to adjust it, which took quite a while. She got it back to a mild temperature, but not for long. I tried to wash my hair, but it once again began to alternate between hot and cold, making the entire experience quite unpleasant. I guess Michael thought it was all in good fun towards the bride, because when my mom used the shower the water temperature never varied at all.

Gold orb on the window and unexplained
 flash of color in the lower corner.

Before I had gotten in the shower my mom and I had been discussing the numerous photos on the wall beside the bed. Many were of orbs or other paranormal phenomena from the hotel’s past, but there was a portrait in the middle of these of a man most likely from the early 1900s. I commented on how unfortunate the man’s hair was right before going to take a shower, and Michael seemed to not like my choice of words. While I was in the bathroom and my mom was going through her suitcase, the portrait was moved. When my mom looked back at the wall the portrait was tilted so far sideways that it had also tilted a couple of the paranormal photos into each other. There had been at least two inches of wall space between each of the pictures when they were straight.

Red orb above the tour group.

Elsewhere in the hotel that night Cameron and Connor had captured some interesting photos. We all went on the ghost tour, and during it they each took a large number of photos. They got a few orbs, a red one and a gold one being the most unique. Coincidentally, when they captured these orbs my mom and my cousin (and flower girl) Julia were both getting fairly high spikes on their K2 meters in the same areas. The most interesting find, however, occurred in the basement. Before the crowd of people entered the “morgue,” the boys were snapping pictures in the dark room. One photo was shot down the hallway off the back of the room, and upon closer inspection the boys realized that it contained a faint, misty figure standing against the end door. The entire photo is a bit grainy from being taken in the dark, but the figure is visible without any alteration. We couldn’t do much to clear up the photo, but by overexposing it slightly, I was able to make him a bit clearer. It looks like a man with a cap, turned slightly to the side with one arm down in front of him.

The original photo with the misty figure circled.

An overexposure of the photo, making the figure slightly clearer.

The next night after the reception, my dad joined my mom in Michael’s room. As a joke, when he heard the late-night ghost tour going by, he rattled the chain on the door lock when he heard the guide telling the crowd about Michael liking to do that late at night. After the tour moved on, he returned to the couch to listen to some audio we had recorded in the room. As he sat there the chain on the door rattled on its own.

We recorded several hours of audio in Michael’s room, but none of it contained any plain EVPs. It did contain a wide variety of unexplainable noises, though, from floor and door squeaks in the middle of the night to what sounded like the chain on the door rattling a couple of times. Overall most of what happened with Michael was personal experiences that couldn’t be documented. The photo Cameron and Connor took in the basement, however, seems like pretty solid evidence for all of us.

Hayley

A Local Hunt

Location: Boyett Residence; Searcy, AR

Date: November 26, 2011

Recently, SPI investigated the home of Susie Boyett. Since this was a local investigation, all of our members as well as our young, part-time investigator Julia (a niece who is very interested in ghost hunting) were able to join us.  The two primary “hot spots” in her home were a bedroom upstairs where lights apparently flicker on and off, and the basement, where a woman felt a deep and unexplainable cold sensation while working on a mural.

Upon arriving, we set our computer up in the downstairs office/library and placed infrared cameras in two of the upstairs rooms and the basement.  We then broke into groups and began the investigation.  Initially, there did not seem to be much taking place.  The lights did indeed flicker upstairs, and while down in the basement, I thought I saw a shadow pass into a dark corner on the opposite side of the room.  Obviously, neither of these experiences offered concrete, tangible evidence of the paranormal.

Later in the evening, my dad went upstairs to investigate the bedroom “hot spot.” My dad and my sister had both experienced an unexplainable heavy feeling in this room on a previous visit to the house. I went into the room next door with a flashlight, a K2 meter, and my iPhone, which was running the Ghost Radar app.  This app has received mixed reviews from paranormal investigators.  No one really knows how the application works, but most of the people who use it do tend to encounter something unexplainable.  On this evening, it apparently proved itself as a thought-provoking tool.

The iPhone’s screen becomes a green and black radar.  If the radar picks up energy, it produces a spot on the screen, which can be blue, green, yellow, or red, depending on the strength of the signal.  The app also claims to look for patterns in the signals it is reading, to see if the energy is “intelligent” and trying to communicate; if it notices a pattern, it will produce words.  While we were in Ms. Boyett’s home, the Ghost Radar produced the following words: “Jones”, “judge”, and “Ellen.”  All of these, in some way or another, are directly related to the house’s history.

While the Ghost Radar app was running, I also performed an experiment with the flashlight.  I twisted it so that it was powered off and asked if anybody or anything was around to turn it on.  The flashlight flickered and came to life.  When I asked the presence in the room to turn it off, it did.  This phenomenon occurred again in front of my parents, even after trying it with my dad’s flashlight.

The Ghost Radar readings and the flashlight experience were the only pieces of solid evidence that we collected while in the house.  But something else occurred after our investigation was over.  Ms. Boyett called my dad again a few days later with a strange story…  Apparently, the morning after our investigation, she found a note that had been missing for almost a month.   It was on the floor with three damp tissues.  And neither the note nor the tissues had been there before.

Our investigation of Ms. Boyett’s home was brief but intriguing.  It was the first time anyone’s actively attempted such an investigation in the home, and it’s reasonable to think that a follow-up could stir up more activity.

Mitch