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.