Local Church Investigation Reveals 31 Word EVP

Date: August 14, 2021

Location: Local Church 

 

On the morning of August 2^nd while picking up his tools to leave a remodeling job in the sanctuary of a local church, Don glanced up and out of the sanctuary into the reception area of the church and saw something entirely unexpected – A gray shadowy figure walking, swinging arms and moving legs included, across the reception area towards the stairs that lead up to the office. 

 

This sighting lead Don to ask church leadership for permission to investigate, which was happily granted since many members of the church staff have heard unexplainable things there themselves. And so, on August 14^thwe (Don, Beverly, and I) packed some small pieces of equipment and ventured to the church on a Saturday evening to see what we could find. 

 

Shortly after arriving we began experiencing things. EMF levels throughout the church were low, with the EMF and KII meters never showing any spikes. We set up in the reception area and began asking questions with the REM pod. On multiple occasions almost immediately after we captured asking questions or asking something to approach the REM pod would light up and beep for several seconds in response. 

 

The EVPs were the highlight of the night. The first was captured upstairs in the office. Don was alone in the office asking questions, and after several minutes of sitting in the office/library he decided to change locations. After saying aloud that he was going to walk away, he gets up, sighs, and then a male voice whispers “Tell ‘em I’m doing just fine.” Moments later on the opposite side of the office there was a brief word captured that sounds like “Hynum”, but was challenging to make out.

 

Soon after this, after checking out the basement and moving into the sanctuary, Don’s audio recorder picked up the longest EVP we have ever captured. Don was alone in the sanctuary while Beverly and I were upstairs in the office. After stating that he was going to walk up the main aisle to the front of the room to see if anyone is near the front door, the following statements were all recorded in the same session, uninterrupted, for a total of 31 discernable words: 

 

“I got this. Call me in the morning. I think we’re in vain. But once you hear it… When you can hear, anybody, tell them, tell them I’m doing just fine.”

 

After listening to this EVP a multitude of times, this is our best interpretation of what is said. The majority of the statements are very clear, but small portions were challenging to make out, especially since the statements don’t seem to be a coherent train of thought. 

 

Back out in the reception area, Don’s recorder captured one last (mostly) intelligible EVP for the evening. He requested whoever was with us in the church to confirm their presence with a loud resounding knock. Instead, he was told a name several seconds later: “Brother Gary Stillman.” Immediately after the name there is another word that we can’t quite discern. At first it sounds like “a pharaoh” or perhaps “of arrow”, but upon closer listening it could be the word “avero”, which in Latin means “I approach”. 

 

Moments later the recorder captured one final word for the evening, and it sounds like “cancer.” Perhaps the male entity at the church was trying to tell us how he passed?

 

Although Beverly and I didn’t see the grey misty figure that started this adventure for us, as a team we captured the most audio phenomena we have ever heard from a single investigation, much less in a span of less than three hours. We’ll call it a Saturday night well spent, and hopefully someday we can piece more of this mystery together. 

Each of the EVPs described above can be heard in the clip below. They are included in sequential order as described in the story above. 

 

Hayley.

The Return Visit: Miss Molly's

Date: April 18, 2019

Location: Miss Molly’s Hotel, Fort Worth, TX

On a Thursday night in mid-April, the SPI team (Don, Beverly, Hayley, John, and a family friend, Karen) drove south into the historic Stockyards of Fort Worth. We were headed to Miss Molly’s Hotel for the second time in hopes of once again encountering the many “ladies of the night” who once worked in the building when it was a bordello.

Our first visit to the hotel took place in 2012, and it was quite a memorable experience for all of us. Enough so, that we have all been interested in going back for several years.

This trip was not quite as exciting as the first, but there was still enough activity to let us know the spirits haven’t left their residence. Our infrared cameras captured orbs all throughout the night, and on multiple occasions the REM pod went off with no one in the vicinity. The REM pod is a type of electromagnetic field (EMF) detector that can be turned on and left alone. When something enters the EMF field the device produces a loud beeping and colorful lights flash. We had REM pod activity in the Railroader room as well as in the central landing area at the top of the stairs. On several occasions we observed EMF pulses with the K2 meters as well. We were not able to get anyone to answer specific questions using either the REM pod or our K2 meters, but we weren’t able to find any “normal” source for the EMF pulses either.

Flashlight turning on and off in Ms. Josie's Room

We also had a few instances where something turned a flashlight on and off, but we weren’t able to get anyone to interact with us this way to answer questions.

On our first visit to Miss Molly’s we ended up with some very interesting EVP recordings throughout the night. The spirits were not as talkative on this return visit, but we did capture one interesting clip. The hotel has two adjacent rooms called “Cowboy” and “Miss Amelia.” Miss Amelia was an employee of the establishment who frequently visited the Cowboy in the adjoining room. Don went into Miss Amelia’s room and began asking questions. When he first asked for confirmation if the spirit in the room was Miss Amelia, he got back a very prompt confirmation of “Amelia.”

The only really personal encounter we had happened again in the Railroader

The Railroader Room

Room. At around 1:30 in the morning, John went into the room alone and laid down on the bed. While he lay there, he had a K2 meter lying on the bed beside him. This flickered off and on intermittently as the REM pod had done in there earlier. At one point, the infrared camera captures an orb that crosses the room and swoops down over John’s leg. Just after the orb disappears, you can see John rise up and look towards his leg. After John came out of the room just a few minutes later he reported that something had touched his leg while he was laying on the bed. When he saw the video, he confirmed that the touch he felt is what made him raise him and look down at his feet. It seems like that particular orb was definitely more than just “dust.”

Our return visit may not have been as eventful as the first, but enough happened that we know the many spirits of Miss Molly’s are still alive and well, keeping the guests of the Stockyards company.

Hayley

Returning to Miss Molly's Hotel

We are excited to be returning to Miss Molly's in the Fort Worth Stockyards this April! Just before Easter we will be headed back to Cowtown to spend another (hopefully) exciting night at this charming old hotel. Miss Molly's has a rich history as a boarding house, a bordello, and now a lovely hotel located perfectly in the downtown Stockyard region of Fort Worth.

Several years ago we spent a night here and had many personal experiences and captured some interesting EVP evidence that has made this one of our favorite investigations to date. You can read about our last encounters at the historic bed and breakfast here.

We will keep you posted on this adventure in the coming months.

Hayley

Strange Mountain Encounters

Hello to all friends and followers of SPI, and a special welcome to our future followers. 

            I’m Don, the old guy of the group, and I’d like to tell you a story that has my son, Mitch, and me totally baffled.  Please remember that we treat the field of paranormal investigations with respect.  We don’t stretch the truth or put anything on this website that is not 100% factual or clearly stated as our opinion.

            First, some background: Every summer, Mitch and I travel to Colorado for a week or so of hiking.  Colorado has 54 “14ers”—mountains that reach an elevation of at least 14,000 feet.  Most of them can be summited with strenuous hikes and maybe some mild scrambling or boulder-hopping near the top.  The average round trip on a 14er is around ten miles—quite a trek for somebody from the south, considering how thin the Rocky Mountain air is. 

            In June of 2017, we hiked several of these mountains.  The last one we summited was Mount Shavano.  This is a high mountain that looms over the Arkansas River Valley just west of Salida. 

As usual, we got an early start—around 3 a.m.—so we could be off the exposed slopes and ridges before any afternoon thunderstorms could build up.  When we started, Mitch’s truck was the only vehicle at the trailhead, and during those first few dark hours, lit only by flashlights and moonlight, we were totally alone. 

Even after breaking the tree line at dawn, we were alone.  The trail on Shavano emerges from the trees and runs along the southern slope of a high ridge as it ascends toward a low point, a saddle, between Shavano and another peak.  As we progressed out of the trees that morning, the entire route up to Shavano’s summit became clearer and clearer, and we both commented that we were alone on the trail: there were no signs of anybody behind us, and certainly, there was nobody on the slopes ahead of us.

We commented that we might actually be, for the first time ever, the first ones to reach the summit.

As we neared the saddle, we finally saw signs of life on the mountain.  A group of four hikers—little more than specks from our vantage point—were coming up the slopes approximately two miles below us.

Again, this was the first time we’d seen any other hikers or climbers (some prefer to reach the saddle via a snow slope just below the main trail) on the mountain….  Yet, when we reached the summit, we were surprised to see a female hiker there, getting ready to descend.  She was around forty and wore a lavender-colored top or jacket and a cap that hid her eyes.  In a rather stern, firm voice, she said hello and proceeded to tell us that she’d come up the mountain via an alternate trail, or a “back” way.  Mitch asked her if that meant she’d come over Tebeguache Peak, a nearby fourteener that many people climb with Shavano via a connecting ridge. 

She said no and began to descend.

We shook our heads and wondered where she’d come from.

To be clear, there are only three established routes to the top of Shavano: the main trail, the previously mentioned snowfield, and the trek over Tebeguache.  Any other route would be a bushwhacking wilderness romp—not something a solo hiker should do.

We sat for a few minutes, ate a snack, and decided to go down.  As we picked our way around and over the summit boulders to begin our descent, we were shocked to find that she was nowhere in sight.  We could see all the way down to the saddle, across to the top of the thirteener on its other side, far down to the trees to the east, down into the deep valleys to the west…  We had nearly 360 degrees of view, and there was no sign of the lady we’d just talked to just moments ago.

We did, however, see the group of four hikers we’d spotted earlier.  They were cresting the saddle.

When we reached them, I asked if they had seen a woman hiking down from the summit.  I briefly described her.  All the hikers said no.

We kept hiking, and at some point I turned to Mitch and said, “I think we talked to a ghost.”

We half-laughed about it, but I was very serious and still am.

This was, as I said, in June, 2017.

But just a few days ago, on October 7, 2018, we learned that a woman’s bones were found on Mount Shavano.  Authorities believe they are the remains of a homicide victim from the early eighties.  After reading about this, I again started thinking about that woman we met at the top of Shavano. 

Based on my experiences with the paranormal, I believe a spirit will wait as long as it takes to speak to someone who can help them.  I don’t know if there is any connection between the hiker we met on the summit and the human remains found on the mountain.  I do know that the woman—where she came from and where she went—remains a mystery.

Again, we don’t know much, only that the woman we met was around forty.  She was in good shape.  She wore a cap and a lavender top or jacket. Mitch and I would be willing to re-hike Mount Shavano with proper equipment if a friend or relation wished to make contact.  I truly hope that anyone with any potential knowledge about this will contact us through this website (sebournparanormalinvestigations.blogspot.com) or via email at sebournparanormal@gmail.com.

Haunted Hill House

Date: September 2, 2018

Location: Haunted Hill House, Mineral Wells, Texas

Over the Labor Day weekend, my dad and mom, Don and Beverly drove down to Texas from Arkansas for an investigation at the Haunted Hill House in Mineral Wells. John and I joined them, and this time we were accompanied on the investigation by three friends, Karen, Cindy, and Richard.  

The Haunted Hill House, Mineral Wells, Texas

The Haunted Hill House is located near downtown Mineral Wells, TX just a block away from the legendary Baker Hotel. The Hill House is believed to have been a brothel decades ago, and since then it has undergone many changes in ownership. Although the house was purchased by the current owners in a very rough condition they have made it functional for investigations and furnished much of the house so that overnight stays can be comfortably accommodated. To add an extra level of “spooky” to the evening, we also got to spend the evening with several dolls, dummies, and other assorted ghouls that were being set up for an upcoming Halloween event.

Before beginning our investigation we took a stroll down to the Baker to peek in the windows and imagine the potential of the old building if it is someday restored to its former glory. It was at the beginning of this walk that I captured a couple of intriguing orb photos (see below).

First photo of the Baker Hotel. Orb visible in tree line.

Enlargement of orb from first photo.

Subsequent photo of the Baker taken seconds after the first.
Orb is brighter and closer to the hotel.

Enlargement of the orb from the second photo.
Notice, the orb has moved and is now on the other side of the power pole.

After returning from the Baker the Hill House’s very kind owners gave us an extensive tour of the property and told us many stories regarding the numerous spirits that are believed to inhabit the home, including a couple of children, several women, and some aggressive male spirits.

Moving pink orb in the "dark room."

Our first experience of the evening occurred while we were on this tour. We were all clustered together in the attic near the fireplace wall, and one of the owners was telling us about the ghost of a young disfigured boy. I was using a Kinect SLS based camera and which was picking up some anomalies standing around Don near the fireplace. As we were getting ready to move onto another room, we all heard a very audible growl from near the back wall of the room.

I also caught our one and only orb photo from the house while we were wrapping up the tour. There is a small closet or “dark room” off of the living room that the owner encouraged each of us to check out. I snapped a couple of photos, and one of them contained a pink orb in motion.

Around 10:30 p.m. Don and Karen were investigating in the “scratch room,” so named due to the number of people who are scratched by a male entity in the room. The table in the room was set up with a poker hand dealt out, and all of the cards on the table were laying face up. While Don and Karen were talking, Karen looked down at one point and noticed that the cards at her seat were flipped over. Unfortunately the infrared camera didn’t pick up the card flip because of where Don was seated.  The incident may seem simple, but it certainly caught their attention. None of us experienced any scratches in the room that night; however.

Much of the night was quiet, but two of us did have interesting personal experiences later in the evening. My mom and I were sitting on a sofa in the back living room looking through a scrapbook of findings from other investigations. The book was lying on the coffee table, so we were sitting towards the front of the couch seats. First my mom felt something sit down on the seat next to her, then she felt that cushion begin to bounce. She asked if I felt anything, and I told her “no”. While she was describing what she was feeling, she felt it move closer and felt as though it sat down behind her. As suddenly as the sensation started, it stopped and none of else felt anything else like it.

Beverly sitting on the couch after she felt something sit down with her.

Later in the night, I went out into the hallway and stood at the foot of the stairs to see if I could get the little boy from the attic to come down. A floor-length black cloth hangs down over the staircase, and the owners indicated that people often see the imprint of the little boy on this sheet, as though he is hiding behind it and pressing on it gently. I never saw anything on the stairs, but I did feel as though something was playing with my hair right before I went back into the kitchen. It didn’t last long, but I felt something gently lift the hair on top of my head as though someone was lifting and running fingers through it momentarily.

Although I was not quite brave enough to go back up to the attic after hearing the growl and stories about potential demonic entities being bound up there, my dad did not share those fears. Early in the evening he and Richard went and sat in the room where we all heard the growl during the tour. My dad spent much of this time sitting against the back wall. There were no toys in this room at that time.

Don investigating a sealed bathroom.
The room cannot be accessed from inside the house.

Much later in the night, my dad went up to this room again with Karen and my mom. Since his first trip to the attic no one had been back in this room. While in this room the K2 meter my mom was using detected low levels of energy, lighting up to the middle yellow light. What was more curious, though, was that when my dad went to take his former seat against the back wall, there was a little toy fire truck in his spot. No one else had been in this room since he and Richard left it the first time.

Towards the end of the night my dad decided to go alone into the bedroom located off of the living room. Although the owners indicated that this was the least oppressive room in the house, it is known as the “Shadow Man” room because Charles, a sometimes-unpleasant shadowy man, is often encountered here. Soon after he went into the room he captured our only EVP of the evening. My dad was sitting in a chair in the room and asked Charles if he was in his seat. My dad then whispers to himself “I think I will get up and move,” and a very fast-paced male voice says over him, “Don’t go over there.” The tone of the voice is similar to my dad, but the speech pattern is much faster and the voices overlap. The new seat my dad was talking about moving to was the bed where, according to the stories, many women have felt Charles’ touch while laying on that bed. The audio clip of this EVP can be found below. 

While we were all a little sad that we didn’t catch anything more tangible, such as photos or video evidence, we all felt and sensed enough in the Hill House to know that there is definitely something paranormal living there.

Hayley

Coming Soon

In a few weeks, over Labor Day weekend, SPI will be traveling back to Mineral Wells, Texas. This time to investigate the Haunted Hill House. The house is in close proximity to the famous Baker Hotel, and is believed to have once been a brothel. The house is believed to be haunted by multiple spirits.

We are looking forward to this upcoming adventure, and will keep you all updated on what we find!

A Haunting in Rural Arkansas

Location: Woodruff County Hospital, McCrory, AR

Date: November 21, 2017

Two nights before Thanksgiving five of us met up at an abandoned hospital in rural Arkansas to investigate claims of some very active spirits at the old Woodruff County Hospital. The hospital dates back to the 1960s, and has also been used as a nursing/rehabilitation center. In recent years the building has been mostly vacant, but a portion of it has been kept in use by a local farmer, Mr. S. Peebles, as temporary housing for migrant field workers.

Photo courtesy of S. Peebles

Over the summer Don received a photo that was taken by a worker staying at the hospital.  The photo appears to contain a partial body apparition of a woman reflected in a window. The workers reported seeing this woman as well as a man in what appeared to be a white doctor’s coat and a young boy in the portion of the building they were using. At first these encounters were so frightening that many of the workers avoided the building. When the harvest season ended and the workers moved out of the building for the winter, we decided to see if we could find any evidence to validate these stories.

Green haze in the break room. 

We stayed at the building for only a few hours, but we got some interesting results in that short time. In particular, we had quite a bit of activity in the wing that was most recently inhabited, especially at the end of the hall near the nurses’ station. Photos taken in this area of the building often contained a green haze that didn’t appear elsewhere. At least three of us had our flashlights turned on and off in this hall, and on two separate occasions, John’s flashlight was turned off and he was unable to turn in back on for at least a minute. Beverly felt something tap her on the hand while standing at the nurses’ station during one of these flashlight episodes.

Fast moving orb in the gift shop.

At one point, while in the old gift shop, Mitch saw an orb coming towards him on his camera screen. He was able to snap a photo of it as it flew past him towards the ceiling. He captured only one other orb, and it appeared in the hallway near a room that was fairly active. The room was located  down the hall from the break room where the apparition was first photographed. On more than one occasion during the night we heard noises coming from this room, such as metal chairs clinking, but we could never find the source.  Beverly noted some higher EMF readings in this room, and her flashlight was also turned on and off multiple times in this room.

Second orb captured in hallway between break room and nurses' station.

We captured three EVPs during our time at the hospital. The first occurred only about 20 minutes into the investigation. When we arrived, the hospital was open so all of us besides John went inside to walk around and scope out the building while we waited for Mr. Peebles to arrive and give us a quick rundown on the place. When Mr. Peebles arrived we went to meet him, and as we walked down the hall towards him, Mitch and Don fell behind while shutting down the audio recorder. While they were looking for the power button on our newest recorder, a female voice is heard very loudly saying “Hey, Hey”. Just before the very clear “Hey, Hey,” another voice can be heard saying something like “good God.” Given the circumstances, it sounded like the female voice may have been greeting Mr. Peebles, but we can’t be sure.

It’s also worth noting that while all of this occurred, John was standing outside by the car. Just before we started back down the hall to meet Mr. Peebles, John said he could see our flashlights in the windows at the opposite end of the building, but he also saw something else – a tall shadow figure standing at the closest entrance of the building.

Green haze in the hallway. 

The second EVP was captured while Mitch and Don were off on their own exploring some of the older portions of the building. After Don turned off the “Ghost Box” they had been using, he inquired whether anyone was there and wanted to talk now that the room was quieter. A very breathy voice whispered what sounds like “help me.”

The final EVP was caught during a rather active part of the evening. We had all gathered near the nurses’ station after Don walked down there alone and something started turning off his flashlight. As we were standing there, we noticed that the heavy tarp blocking off the older wings of the building from the recently used wing was moving. Although the movement was most likely explained by a draft or difference in air temperature between areas, it caught our attention at one point in particular when Mitch pulled the tarp out about a foot to see what would happen. Rather than gently falling back into place as it had been doing, the tarp was jerked backwards in a several quick motions. During this incident, John wandered back down the hall towards the breakroom alone. About halfway down the hall his flashlight was shut off and wouldn’t turn back on. He could hear movement down the hall but wasn’t able to see what it was without his light. At the same time, a male voice said “Hey, folks” and then laughter can be heard. These voices were coming from the far end of the hall where John had heard movement, because they were also picked up much more faintly on a second recorder that was located around the corner from this hall.

While we didn’t personally encounter the apparitions that workers had lived with all summer, we did get enough activity to convince us that some of the building’s old inhabitants seem to still be around.

All of these EVPs can be heard in the clip below. 

Hayley.