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My Haunted House ~ Part V: The Investigation

Saturday, January 24, 2009

I have mentioned before that I have been a tour guide for The Spirits of La Grange ghost tours. In preparation for these tours, a local paranormal research team (PROOV) was called out to investigate some locations on the tour to gather additional information. As a tour guide, I was invited to tag along during the initial investigation of the various stops. The team was comprised of 5 or 6 investigators as well as the group’s clairvoyant.

The walk through finished up earlier than expected and someone, knowing what life was like at my house, recommended we use the extra time doing a walk through of my house. So that’s what we did.

The group entered my house loaded up with cameras, digital recorders and a clairvoyant. This was about five years ago, so I was not as comfortable with my abilities as I am now. I remember the clairvoyant asking me why I didn’t “embrace what I had”.

I wanted to flip her the bird.

However, I simply said, “No, I would rather you just talk them and let me know what I need to know.”

I had never experienced a clairvoyant personally, so I was a bit skeptical. But this woman blew me away. She gave us so much information about the history of my house, that she didn’t even know she was coming to by the way, that it took me weeks of research at the courthouse to verify all she had said. She knew names, dates and personal information about previous families here that I eventually verified through community members that have occupied my house in the past or at least knew who did (very small town).

Here’s the short list of some things she told us:

• Switch the baby to another room. What she didn’t know was that he was waking up all night terrified. He would wake up screaming and when we got to him he seemed genuinely frightened. He would scratch and pull at us to get as close as he possibly could and hold on with all he had. This had been going on since his birth. After we took the advice and switched him to another bedroom, his the night terrors significantly decreased. I don’t think we’ll ever know what the poor little guy was going through to cause such a reaction.

• She had drawn a “floor plan” of our house the night before she came over. Except, not as it is now, but how it was originally when I purchased it. She had no idea we had done the remodeling ourselves, so she was showing me the picture and explaining to what it used to look like as if I didn’t know already. And she was dead on.

• It was explained to us that there was an older couple where the man was “trapped” in the room where our bed was. And that he loved having the children around. What I found out was, through my mother’s electrician, is that when he lived in the house with his aunt and uncle, his uncle was confined to a recliner in that room due to the effects of diabetes making it unavailable for him to move around much. And he always kept candy in his pocket for the kids when they visited.

Those are just a few of the things she told us. I remember her stopping and looking at me to say “I don’t know how you live here”. Sometimes I feel the same way. She requested to not be brought back to my house for the full all-nighter investigation, or for any other reason for that matter.

We got some interesting pictures during that couple of hours.



During the investigation, books were being tossed off the shelves in the baby's room while the clairvoyant was in the room.


This is me freaking out a little because as I went to enter the room with the clairvoyant, I was grabbed by something around my waist and pulled back out.

Damn startle factor! I was not expecting that right then! Look closely for the couple of possible orbs, especially the one by my head. I don't usually put much stock in people's "orb" photos because most of them are moisture, bugs or dust. However, on this particular day, they only show up in the pictures (3 different cameras by the way) when there was activity. There were hundreds of digital shots taken throughout the investigation, most of them had no "orbs". I do find it intriguing that the orbs only showed up this day during moments of activity. Dust doesn't do that.


This is immediately afterward. Look closely...there is a possible orb at my knees.
Because of the evidence the group collected in the short preliminary visit, they did decide to come out for a full scale all nighter. Here are a few more pics collected during the second investigation.



Find more photos like this on The Reluctant Medium

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Back to the Pharmacy

Friday, January 9, 2009

My friends, Barbara and Farley, asked if I would join them to a return trip up to the old pharmacy to visit the spirit that I became fast friends with last time. I am always up for a little practice honing my skills, especially with a known friendly spirit.

This time was a little different.

We walked into the building and headed upstairs to his space. At first I felt like we were chasing him down as he kept moving around as to avoid us. So we decided to just have a seat in the middle of the dark room just as before.

I felt confused by the energy, because it was different that the past couple of times I have been in the building. But the friendly spirit I was looking for was definitely present. I found out later what all the confusion was.

We announced ourselves and let him know we had no recording devices or electronics of any sort. We just wanted to visit with him. We asked if he could do something to announce his presence as well. Immediately I began seeing bright streaks of light all around the room in front of us. After a few moments it was pretty clear that I was the only one seeing them.

I explained to him that, while I appreciated his efforts in response to our request, I was the only one that could see him. So I requested something that all three of us could see or hear.

The response to this request was pretty astounding and like nothing else I’ve ever experienced first hand.

All three of us noticed the floor starting to sway. I’m not sure how this effect was caused, because I’m fairly certain that the whole building was not actually swaying. Yet, all of us experienced the same sensation simultaneously.

Then, we began to hear a series of taps and pops across the pitch black room. When this started, I began to feel weak and nauseated. Then I began to vibrate.

Yes, vibrate.

I assumed the floor was vibrating and I was feeling it from the floor, but no one else could feel it. Both of my friends touched me and could feel the vibration. It was truly bizarre.

Barbara asked if I needed to leave because of my obvious discomfort, but I was intrigued by what was happening and was willing to endure the discomfort to follow through. After five minutes or so, though, I needed it to stop. I stated out loud that I understood that making the sounds was hard for him, and he was making it hard for me. Please stop.

The sounds immediately stopped. We didn’t hear one more tap or pop from across the room. Up until that point, I wasn’t entirely certain that the sounds we being caused by a spirit using me as a viable energy source to comply with our requests or just an old building settling in the cold temperatures. But in the next few moments following my request for him to stop, I began to feel back to normal and the vibration stopped. I was sure then exactly what had happened.

It was then that the energy confusion I felt earlier became clearer. I looked to the left and could see the silhouette of Farley because of a small light source from downstairs. Then a dark shadow of a large man walked quickly behind him and into the darkness. I caught a glimpse of him again on the other side of the room before he disappeared into the darkness completely. Before I could even say anything, Barbara asked me if I sensed a presence to our left behind Farley. She didn’t see him, but it was a strong presence and easy to sense. We all noticed the energy difference the room held.

He didn’t feel aggressive or dangerous, but very protective and seemed irritated that we were there. His vibe was not welcoming. This explained the confusion I had coming into the building. He had yet to show himself to me before in this space.

With this energy shift, we went ahead and packed it in and went home.

I got in my car and shut the door and noticed the energy in my car was no different than in the building.

This guy is trying to follow me home!

Well, I did fail to tell them all on this trip that they were not to follow me out of the building. You know, minor details, right? When I pulled up to my house just a few blocks away, I told him that my house is crowded enough and he would be sleeping in the car tonight and was not allowed in my house.

The next morning my car battery was dead.

Maybe he did sleep in the car. Hmmm…

He must have not enjoyed his sleeping accommodations, because I haven’t sensed him around since that night and have had no more trouble out of my car battery.

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My Haunted House ~ Part IV: Some People Won’t Come Back

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Not everything in this house is all that uncommon. There isn’t always a goat in the house or things flying across the room.

We experience fairly common phenomena around here that I've heard others claim happens with their hauntings as well. Footsteps during the night, the dogs barking at “nothing”, cold spots, you know, things like that. And the kids toys are always playing on their own. We do live about 50 yards from a very active train track, so at first we thought it was just the vibrations setting them off. However, that just simply isn't the case. After living here over 10 years, we are pretty familiar with the train and it’s effects, and I’m sure the train has set off a toy or two, but sometimes we know it isn’t the train or toy malfunction.

Case and point: I had a friend over on a night that was particularly active. This is the same friend that found the change stacked in the fridge, so she's aware of our little situation over here. But she is not so interested in being present for our ghosts mischievousness. This was one of those nights when the toys kept going on "by themselves" and each time she got more and more jumpy. Trying to accommodate my guest, I got up and actually turned them all to the 'off' position. I knew it wouldn't help, but it seemed to make her feel better. Shortly after I sat back down on the couch, sure enough, the toys started singing little songs and lighting up. I giggled. She, very seriously, looked at me and said, "You might think this shit is funny, but I'm not laughing! I'm out!" And with that she up and left.

Now, I know that she’ll come back over, but sometimes our friends will experience something here at the house that keeps them from ever setting foot back in our house.

My sister-in-law was over one evening and was sitting on the floor with my husband in front of me sitting on the couch. She is Iranian and has long, very thick hair that she had in a braided ponytail. I watched as her hair was slowly lifted in the air and then quickly slammed onto her back hard enough to send the rubber band flying across the room and a welt left on her back from the impact.

That was the last time she was here.

There are others who think my house is a novelty and try to provoke things to happen. This behavior annoys me because I’m always the one left here alone when they go home. My sister is one of these people. My favorite experience was when she was clearly asked to leave by one of our ghosts. Here’s how it went down…

One morning I was making coffee as my husband showered. I set a spoon down next to the coffee maker and walked away for roughly two minutes. When I returned, I found the spoon bent in half. Truthfully, my heart almost jumped out of my chest. That startle factor gets me every time! I picked up the spoon and took it into the shower and showed my husband asking, “What do you make of this?”.

His response was, “Should we call somebody?

So, my sister heard this story and decided next time she was over that she would get them to do it again for her. I try to explain to her over and over that they aren’t performance artists and don’t seem to appreciate being treated as such. She ignores me.

Next thing I know, she’s laying out spoons on the counter and demanding an encore. Which she obviously did not get. So the rest of the evening, against my wishes and advice, she was taunting and provoking to get a response. I guess they got sick of her after a while because during one of her taunting sessions, the front door to my house flew open! She got up to close it and as she was placing her butt back on the couch, it happened again. And then again, and maybe another time. After several attempts to get her to exit the front door, she finally got the message and shut up. When she stopped with the taunts, the front door remained closed and she was once again welcome to stay as a guest in our home.

Occasionally, I take a step back and look at the life I have and wonder how I have gotten used to it. I remember the first time this thought occurred to me. I was sitting on the couch watching TV early in the morning when an empty cup flew off a chair, went through the air across my field of vision and hit the wall to my right.

The odd part was when I realized that I didn’t even glance to my right to take note of the cup laying on the floor after it bounced off the wall. That’s the moment I realized how strange it is that that sort of event can happen without note being taken in this house.

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