Location: Books and Crannies / Iris Theater,
Terrell, Texas
Almost two
years ago to the day, we investigated a used bookstore located in the old
downtown Iris Theater in Terrell, Texas. On that trip we had quite a few
personal experiences, one very intriguing EVP in the basement, and video
footage of a book coming off a shelf. This time around, we did not capture any
video or audio evidence, but we did have a few personal enco
unters.
One item we
found particularly interesting was that the presence we encountered in the
basement the first time around didn’t seem to be there anymore. The basement
seemed peaceful, and whomever the man was that told us he “never drank” on our
first visit didn’t make himself known at all on this trip. While we will never
know for sure, we hope that he may have moved on.
This time
around we did have a few encounters with what seemed to be a young boy. On two
occasions, my dad laid down in the aisles of the bookstore with an audio
recorded and tried to talk to the children who are suspected to haunt the old
building. The recorder picked up a few faint responses that sounded like “uh
huh” or “yeah,” but they weren’t very solid responses.
My mom had the
most lively encounters of the evening. There is a hallway at the back of the
store that leads to the rear exit, and the storeowners had told us that people
tend to feel uncomfortable in that area. On our previous visit we picked up
consistently high EMF readings in that area, but on this trip the meters detected
only very low levels of EMF. However, when my mom went down there on her own
with a flashlight, the batteries were quickly drained even though they were
fresh out of the package.
The most
interesting personal experience of the night, which we were very sad to have
not captured on camera, occurred in the children’s section of the store. After
my dad caught the faint EVPs that sounded like a young boy, my mom decided to
sit in the children’s section and read a story aloud. While she was reading,
her flashlight was turned off at least twice, and at one point several books
from a low shelf were slammed to the floor only a couple of feet behind her.
Even though the books appeared to have come from a low shelf, they must have
been dropped with some force because the noise was loudly heard throughout the
store. After that, whoever had caused the scene seemed to calm down because she
finished reading the story aloud without further incident.
While our
return visit didn’t yield the solid evidence of our first trip, we enjoyed it
nonetheless. The old Iris Theater is still a charming downtown building, and we
enjoyed the company of Maddie the bookstore cat and our very kind hosts once
again.
Next month the SPI team will be traveling to Terrell, Texas for a second investigation at the Old Iris Theater (now Books and Crannies). It's been almost two years since our last visit, so we are excited to return and see what else (or who else) there is to find in the historic theater/book store. As always, we will keep you posted on what we find!
Friday, July 24, 2015
The Sebourn Paranormal team recently visited the Caribbean on the Carnival Sunshine. Although we didn't find any ghosts at sea, Don did meet fellow paranormal enthusiast Scott Bee from Illinois. We look forward to finding some investigations up his way in the future so he can accompany us on a hunt!
Family friends
Jennifer and Rusty went on this investigation with us to the Lake Norfork Inn
in Henderson, Arkansas. The hotel and accompanying restaurant sit on a hill
overlooking the beautiful Lake Norfork. The hotel was built over an old
cemetery that could not be excavated, potentially giving rise to a wide variety
of spirits and energy.
The show was
featured on SyFy Channel’s Haunted
Collector, but despite John Zaffis’ team removing several “haunted” objects
from the property, the owner and her staff still regularly encounter multiple
spirits at the hotel and the restaurant. The owner and staff were gracious
hosts for the evening and told us many of their own personal experiences with
the local spirits.
I began taking
photos as we toured the property upon arriving. While in The Club
Windjammer
restaurant my camera was persistently having trouble focusing and flashing to
take pictures in the dark rooms. However, when I hung back to photograph the
kitchen after everyone else had proceeded back into the dining rooms, I
captured an interesting image of a tall, dark figure standing across the room
from me, hidden from the waist down by a food preparation counter. Although the
image is dark because the flash did not work on the camera, it appears that the
figure has one hand on his hip and the other raised, almost like he is waving
at the camera. In the next photo, taken only seconds later, the flash on the
camera worked and there is no one on that side of the room.
The original photo of the shadowy figure with no flash.
The photo taken immediately after the one of the shadowy figure. Taken with flash.
A zoomed in and lightened version of the original photo.
The other
interesting encounter we had in The Club Windjammer occurred without our
knowledge in the dining room where we had our monitor set up. Photos of the
room taken by Jennifer and myself between 8:15 and 8:30 p.m. show that all of
the chairs in the dining room were setting firmly on the ground. However, at
around 9:45 p.m. John was alone in the room watching the monitor and looked
across the room to find that eight chairs at the long back table were now
sitting on top of the table, six lined up in a row with the right-most chairs
double stacked. At the time he noticed this, John was the only person in the
restaurant building, and the dining hall was never left empty. At least one
member of our team was there at all times watching the monitor, and none of us
heard or saw the chairs moving.
Photo of dining room tables and chairs taken at 8:37 p.m.
Photo of rearranged dining room chairs taken at 10 p.m.
In the hotel
itself, the staff and visitors encountered a wide range of spirits. Reports
include hearing children playing in the atrium around the pool, seeing a lady
in white, and footsteps wandering the halls. Room 212 is reported to have a
wide variety of activity, so we focused a lot of our attention in the hotel on
that room. Early in the evening my mom, Jennifer, and I went into the room to
do an EVP session and noticed that we were hearing a low but continual
conversation that included 2-3 different male voices. We could not make out
particular words in the conversation, but at times it sounded like it was
coming from all around us. The hotel was technically closed for the winter already,
so the only guest staying in the rooms was a young nurse who was already in bed
at the time of our investigation. Despite that, we still went looking for the
source of the conversation, thinking someone may have snuck into a room or left
a TV on in a room above us, but we found no answer.
Jennifer and Rusty investigating in a guest room.
Later in the
evening we returned to room 212 with my dad and Rusty and were able to
communicate with a spirit that identified itself as Richard using a flashlight.
The spirit was also able to tell us that his age was around 31 and that he had
somehow been involved in the building of the hotel. Based on the owner’s
research into the hotel, we knew that the primary spirits identified in the
restaurant was of one of the three developers of the hotel whose name was Richard.
Although the developer Richard died when he was in his 40s, we still believe
the male spirit we talked to could be the same one that the owner encounters in
the restaurant. Throughout this session with the flashlight we all again heard
the muffled multi-person conversation going on around us, but it was too low to
be picked up by our audio recorders and we once again could not find a source
for the voices. A brief excerpt from our half hour EVP/flashlight session in room 212 can be viewed below.
This hunt did
not yield any EVPs for us, but it did result in some interesting personal
experiences, a photograph of a full body apparition, and some great memories.
The Lake Norfork Inn was well worth the drive and we certainly hope to return
again in the near future. Based on the wealth of experiences the hotel staff
and guests have reported, we feel that we most likely just scratched the
surface in unearthing its secrets.
We first
learned about the VFW from a friend in Texas, and after contacting the Post
Commander, Jim Branson, we discovered that the building has a long and mostly
undiscovered history. What is known is that the structure was originally opened
as the New Milling Sanitorium pre-1920. The building was later purchased by a
different doctor and renamed the Irvine Sanitarium. The hospital treated a
variety of ailments and mental disorders with the healing mineral waters from
the local springs. VFW Post 2399 purchased the building in the 1970s and have
utilized the building ever since.
On our visit
to the VFW we were shown around by Commander Branson, who told us many of the
paranormal encounters that have occurred in the building, including a female
spirit known as Florence who hangs out in the bingo hall, a young boy named
Michael who often plays upstairs, a chef who watches over the kitchen, and many
other spirits that roam the halls at all hours. Other VFW patrons such as the
very friendly and informative Mr. Walter Choate, welcomed us to the Post and
told us their personal encounters with the spirits as well, many of which
focused on hearing footsteps in the halls, mysterious voices, and feelings of
being watched.
An orb along with a creepy mannequin in the upstairs storage room.
After touring
the facility and setting up our infrared cameras to monitor the upstairs, which
still closely resembles the original hospital setup in half of the building
(and was still partially set up for the annual haunted house in the other
half), John had the first of many personal experiences for the night. Around 10:30
pm he was alone watching the infrared cameras at our monitor. We had the
monitor set up in the chapel room upstairs, so he sat with his back towards the
long wing lined with small hospital rooms. The rest of us were downstairs with
the Commander waiting for Mitch and Samantha to arrive, and John first noticed
his water bottle shaking, soon followed by the sound of footsteps walking the
length of the hallway towards him. Of course no one was there when he turned to
see who was coming, but he did have the feeling that someone was standing
nearby. Beverly had a similar experience while watching the monitor about a
half our later, except the approaching footsteps culminated with someone
touching her hair.
Around this same
time, my mom and I decided to check out the Bingo Hall while we waited. After
entering the Hall we heard a noise coming from some tables on the far side of
the room to the right of the stage. We sat down and started asking questions and
monitoring for energy with the K-2 meter. Base readings were low on the meter,
with only the green light being on, but we soon had several small spikes towards
the yellow light. The meter had its highest readings (the red light) after we
asked “Are you a woman?” and “Is your name Florence?” My dad joined us in the
Bingo hall and we decided to play Patsy Cline music (which Commander Branson
said Florence seems to enjoy) to see if Florence would dance with my dad. I played
the song “Crazy” and the K-2 immediately flashed over to red. My dad soon felt
a presence near him where he stood on the stage. During this episode, our audio
recorder picked up a very audible female voice humming and singing along when I
played the song a second time. While my mom and I were in the room, we can be
heard whispering in the background during the singing, and neither of us are
capable of singing as high as this voice is. Audio of this EVP is included in the video below. Later in the night Mitch played a
different Patsy Cline song while he was in the Bingo Room with my dad, and the
audio recorder again picked up a brief instance of a female humming along with
the song.
Orb following my mom at the end of the night.
Later in the
investigation (around 12:40 am), my mom and I decided to go sit in one of the
hospital rooms that is particularly active according to the local stories. The
young boy named Michael, who is most frequently encountered in the large open
room on the other side of the building, has been known to visit the old
hospital rooms as well. We began asking questions with both a flashlight and the
K-2 laying across the room from us in a doorway where Mr. Branson said other
visitors had been touched or had seen a shadowy figure. While the K-2 never lit
up, something began answering questions with the flashlight laying in doorway.
Through approximately 30 minutes of questioning we learned that the spirit
claimed to be Michael and said that his age is around 12 years, that he was a
patient at the hospital, and that he liked to play stickball (It took going
through a long list of sports to get a response for that one). During this
session we also picked up an EVP of a small voice saying something similar to
“wow” after I said that I put the flashlight back down for him. Both the EVP and video of a couple of the flashlight questions is below. We spoke to
Michael again later using the flashlight in what is said to be a very
high-energy corner of the upstairs storage room.
Blue haze over the Bingo Room
The night also
yielded several odd photos. After telling Michael that we were leaving, I
captured an orb floating near my mom’s back. Mitch captured several strange
lights in his photos, including one taken in the Bingo Room that shows a blue haze
over the room. The photo was one of many taken in a row in the room, but only
the one had blue light or haze in it. The infrared camera in the upstairs storage
room also caught an odd oblong orb or light moving quickly across the screen.
We saw no insects in the building that night, and the movement pattern of the
light/orb didn’t resemble bugs we’ve caught flying past the cameras before— It
did not flutter or move erratically at all; it just glides across. What is more
strange about this is that my dad, Mitch, and Samantha were at the other end of
the room at the time the light/orb is seen, and just before it came into view
they heard a sound of glass shattering at the other end of the room where the camera
was. They found no evidence of anything being broken and nothing was caught on
camera other than the odd light. At the same time, Mitch snapped a picture and captured the above photo of an orb floating near where they heard the noise. The brief video clip of light/orb is featured at the end of the clip below.
Overall the
Mineral Wells VFW Post 2399 turned out to be pretty exciting, and we are
positive that we captured our first instance of a singing EVP. This is
certainly on our list of places worth a return visit.
SPI is pleased to announce that along with our upcoming investigation of the Mineral Wells, TX VFW, we will also be visiting the Lake Norfork Inn located on Lake Norkfork in Henderson, Arkansas next month. The Inn has been featured on SyFy Channel's Haunted Collector and is reported to have a wide variety of activity, ranging from a "lady in white" seen on lake to children's laughter in the halls. We look forward to bringing you the details of our Black Friday investigation soon!
In early November, SPI will be venturing to Mineral Wells, Texas to investigate the VFW Post 2399 building. The Post building originally served as the Milling Sanatorium and later as the Irvine Sanitarium and was one of many facilities of its type in the town, which has long been visited for its healing mineral spring waters. Follow this link to learn more about the Post.
