Case Files

Fear is a powerful emotion. It alerts us to the presence of danger, and our built in fight-or-flight instinct is highly effective in keeping us out of harm's way. But running away from a dangerous situation is futile when the thing you are attempting to run from turns out to be a ghost.
     In January of 2020, Tom Holzer and I visited Linda and Jack Campone in Meriden, Connecticut where they live with their two year old son, Jake. Linda’s mother, Mindy, was also staying with them for a few months. The couple contacted me because they were concerned for their safety after seeing and hearing strange things in their 1928 home, and I was more than happy to run a paranormal investigation to see if I could be of any help.
     The family bought the home three years ago, and as soon as they moved in they had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. At first it was just an uneasy feeling in some of the rooms. Linda explained, “I feel uncomfortable in some rooms, and sometimes I will have a feeling come over me, like someone is watching me."
     And then there were the odd noises. Linda's mother, Mindy, would often hear the sound of someone walking around upstairs when she was alone in the house.
“It started back when I first came up in 2017,” she said. “I would hear things. Like people walking, and tapping on the windows. Linda would work nights, I would be down here in the living room with the baby in the pack-and-play. Sometimes I would start to doze off when all of a sudden I would hear tapping on the windows that overlook the front porch. But nobody could get onto the porch because the door locks from the inside. I would look out to see who it was and no one would be there, but I could still hear the tapping.”
Another day, Mindy was walking up the steps that lead from the main floor to the second floor when she clearly heard a small child’s voice call out, ‘Mama!” from upstairs.
     In addition to the strange sounds, the family began to smell unusual odors in the house. Linda said, “I’ve smelled cigars a few times, and none of us smokes cigars or even cigarettes. I’ve smelled cigar smoke both on the first floor and upstairs. Once in a while we’ll also get this really bad smell in our bedroom. It smells like rancid milk. We checked all over to try to figure out where the smell was coming from, but we could never pinpoint it. Then just like that it’ll be gone.”
     After living in the house a few years, Linda began to see shadowy figures out of the corner of her eye. “If I’m laying in bed with my son,” she said, “I’ll see something in the hallway just kind of passing by. I don’t see it directly. I’ll just see it pass by slowly. Occasionally, I’ll also catch what I can only describe as a flash of white light.”
     In late 2019, activity in the home began to ramp up. In addition to the shadow figures and odd knocking sounds, the couple began to see a mysterious figure in their son’s baby monitor. They described it as looking like a man dressed in a military uniform. I examined the footage and could see odd black shapes that seemed to form out of the video’s pixels which would quickly fade. Some resembled human forms, others looked like faces that would appear for a few seconds before vanishing. The shape of the military man was seen several times by both Linda and Jack. This same man’s face also appeared on the window in the nursery as viewed through the baby monitor.
"When we first moved into the house," Linda said, "for the first probably six months or so, I used to see a man standing on the back porch looking through the kitchen door window. It seemed as though he was watching us. I can only describe him as maybe a farmer. He was very tall, kind of on the heavy side, dark hair. He wore bib overalls. I don't know why, but for some reason I kind of got the impression that this may have been his house, or maybe his land at some point. He never scared me and after a while I just didn't see him anymore.
     When I first saw him he startled me. I thought it really was a real person, or that I was imagining it, but then I saw him more and more. I probably saw him about 10 times or so. I would usually see him in the early morning, but never for long periods of time; just long enough for me to notice that he was there and then he would be gone.  One thing I'm sure of, he was definitely a different man than the guy I saw upstairs who literally scared me to death."
     One night in December of 2019, Linda was exhausted from trying to get her three-year-old son to go to bed. She explained, “I was having trouble sleeping. I was in our bedroom which is right across the hall from our son’s room. At the time, he was in the room with us in his Pac-And-Play, and he kept waking up, crying, and talking in his sleep. After he finally went to sleep I dozed off, but I suddenly woke up at around 2:30AM. I turned my head to the side and there standing beside my bed was a man. He was just standing there staring at me. Although it felt like forever, I saw him for what was probably just a few seconds. I totally panicked because I thought that someone had broken into the house, so I sprang straight up in bed ready to run out of the room. But as soon as I sat up, he disappeared.”
     When we arrived at the house, I conducted an extensive interview with the family. The following transcript is verbatim from that interview.

Barry: I know that you’ve been having a lot of different experiences in the house. Tell me what’s been going on.

Linda: With me, I basically see like shadows. Usually when I’m in with him (her son), if we’re laying on the bed or whatever I’ll see a shadow in the hallway just kind of passing by. I don’t see it directly. I’ll just see it pass. It’s really kind of slow.

Barry: Is it a darker shadow?

Linda: Yeah. Then I saw the guy beside the bed. This was about a month ago. That was rough night because my son wouldn’t sleep. He was tossing and turning and crying. And when I finally did fall asleep, I woke up and he was just standing there like staring at me, and I just lost it.

Barry: How old would you say he was?

Linda: He was older. He had dark hair, short dark hair. Tall and skinny. Around six foot one. Really skinny. It was quick because I sat up and I panicked, my chest was hurting because I thought it was a real person standing there. And then, it was just gone.

Barry: What was he wearing?

Linda: Dark clothes. Dark pants, dark coat, and a white shirt.

Tom: Linda, about how old would you say he was? I was picking up an impression that he was in his 50s.

Linda: Older than that. Sixties maybe? Dark eyes. He was staring at me.

Barry: How was he standing.

Linda: His hands were straight down. He was standing facing me, just staring at me. He was right by the window next to our bed in our bedroom. He was by my hip area just staring at me. Maybe I scared him. I shot up because I panicked. I thought it was a real person. I shot up and he was gone.

Barry: In addition to seeing this man, have you ever smelled something like perfume or smoke.

Linda: I’ve smelled cigars sometimes, but not very often. I’ve smelled it both on the first floor, and upstairs. In our room, we got this really bad smell like rancid milk. We smell that once in a while, but not much.

Barry: Has anyone else seen anything in the house?

Mindy (Linda’s Mother): I did. It started back when I first came up in 2017. I would hear things. Like people walking, and tapping on the windows. I would be down here in the living room. Linda would work nights, and the baby was in pack-and-play. If she would work overnights and I would kind of like doze, I would hear tapping on the windows. Nobody could get on the porch, the door was locked from the inside, but I still heard the tapping.
I went back to Virginia for a year, and when I came back here in 2018, I saw a man in the basement. I was getting clothes out of the dryer and I heard something on the side say, “Hello”. And I stood up and I said, “Do you realize I can hear you?” And directly in front was this guy. He was in his late 20’s or 30. He was really small boned, about 5’ 5” or 5’6”. He was dressed like someone would dress back in prohibition days. He had on a pinstriped suit, brown shoes, and a brown hat, and he was leaning against the wall. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring directly towards the opposite wall. He was there a few seconds, and then he was gone.

Barry: What is over at the walls that he was staring at?

Mindy: There wasn’t anything. There are shelves there now. But there wasn’t anything at that time. Then the same day, when I was upstairs coming up the steps I heard a child crying, hollering for ‘Mama’.
I also saw a lady at the bottom of the stairs. I was in the living room, and I heard someone coming down the steps. Those stairs make a certain sound because they’re old. At first I thought it was the big dog they have because he goes up and down. But then I realized that he was down here with me. The sound came all the way down the steps, and then I couldn’t hear it any more. I looked over and there was a small lady who appeared here behind the door. She was a small framed woman. She had on like they dressed back in the 30’s or early 40s, like with the slippers, the dress to the ankles, the sweater, the apron. And she had her hair pulled back like, tucked in the back like she had long hair and it was tucked back. She was staring at this corner, and she disappeared. I was sitting on the couch, and she was looking at the corner next to the front door. She wasn’t there very long, she just disappeared.

Barry: What color was the dress.

Mindy: It was really light. I don’t know, like a light grey sweater she had on. I didn’t see her face. Her hair was grey, so she was an older woman.

Barry: You mentioned that you've had other paranormal experiences when you were living in Virginia. Can you tell me about those?

Mindy: When I was 13 years old in Fredericksburg, PA, my aunt lived in an old Confederate house that was built during the war. It was so old that it was put together with wooden pegs. The teenagers used to get together, and we had one room where we could play records and all. And the house had this staircase. It went from one side to the other, and it was divided. The house was divided. When you went up the staircase, you’d go up four steps and there was a flat space. And then you went to the top of the stairs.
I went running over there one day and got to the bottom of the steps and looked up and saw this lady in colonial dress. I stared at her and she stared at me, and I didn’t know what I was seeing. So I ran to my aunt and told her that I saw someone over on the steps. They said that I saw the original owner of the house. And she was dressed in the colonial white dress, black hair, everything done. And then she just disappeared.

Barry: How long did you see her for?

Mindy: It was just seconds. It was just like she was there, we looked at each other, I guess she was looking at me or somebody else, and then she was gone.

Barry: And she was solid, right?

Mindy: Solid, yeah. She was solid.

Barry: Can you describe the dress she was wearing?

Mindy: It was way down to the floor, it was tied with a bow at the waist, it was sort of like a white … it was around, like they used the old hoop skirts. It had the puffed sleeves and solid front. And she had like a little ribbon necklace, and she had coal black hair. Her hair was up. You know, like the curls they used to have? That style. She had a small, slender face.

Barry: What was her expression? Did she seem stern, or gentle …?

Mindy: She looked gentle.

Barry: Did you get the sense that she saw you?

Mindy: I think she did! She was looking right at me. We were looking at each other, so I’m thinking she wanted me to see her.

Mindy: I have one more that I can tell you about when I was much younger. I must have been about 8, 9 years old. My parents used to travel a lot, and one time we traveled from Indiana to Kentucky to visit a friend of my mom’s. And we got there and we spent the night there. And so, we slept upstairs. They had like a loft with beds up there, we slept upstairs. And I went to sleep and I woke up and I saw a man standing by the bed across from me by the bedpost and I screamed and I hollered. And mamma then got up and they tried to convince me that it was a shirt by the bed, but there was a man there. He stood right there, he looked at me and I looked at him.

Barry: Do you remember what he looked like?

Mindy: No, I can’t. Because it was dark. I could tell it was a man, but I couldn’t tell what he looked like.

Barry: Have you had any other experiences?

Mindy: Three years ago I was working downtown taking care of this old lady in Spotsylvania, VA. She was about 98 years old, and she lived in this old brick house. It’s been there I guess since the late1800’s or 1920s. And it was original just like it was then. And she was upstairs, and I’d have to use the butler’s to go up, the house was that big.
   I went in there into her bedroom because I heard her laughing one night. So I went in and I said, “What are you laughing about?” And she said, “I’m playing dolls”. I said, “OK, who are you playing dolls with?” She said, “With Martha Rose”. I’m like, OK. I didn’t even know there was anybody there named Martha Rose. So she settled down, and a couple nights later I saw Martha Rose.
     Martha Rose was a little girl, she’s about I’d say about four or five. She had long, curly brown hair down her back, with a ribbon down her hair. I think the ribbon was blue. And she had a little dress on like with the sash over the top. And she looked at me, and she had a round face and bangs and no shoes on.
     And then one night when I went into the bathroom which is on the lady’s floor, I found powder on the floor and I seen two or three little footprints. And I’m thinking, now, can ghosts really make footprints? So, they lay there until the lady came to work the next morning and I showed her and she said, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Barry: And they were bare feet?

Mindy: Little bare feet. One of them was just a heel, and one was solid in the powder on the floor.

Barry: When you saw the little girl, where was she?

Mindy: In the old lady’s room.

Barry: How long did you see her for?

Mindy: Not long. Just a little while.

Barry: Did she look at you?

Mindy: Yeah. She looked at me like the lady on the stairs.

Barry: You could see what she was wearing, but did she have dolls that she was playing with?

Mindy: No, I didn’t see any dolls.

Barry: Was she sitting on the floor?

Mindy: She was standing. But the old lady said that she played dolls with Martha Rose.

Barry: That’s a really sweet story.

After the interview, Linda, Jack and Mindy leave us alone in the house for a few hours which gives Tom and me a chance to try to get to the bottom of what the family had been experiencing in the house. There were a number of ghostly characters who made themselves known over the years—a tall man, an old woman, a young man in a suite, and a man in overalls. I had a hunch that not all of them were active spirits, but rather residual energy; shadows from the past. But there was definitely at least one active spirit; the man who appeared next to Linda’s bed. He seemed to be the key part of the haunting, and I’m hoping to make contact with him.
     Since much of the activity occurred on the second floor, we decide to start there. A staircase runs along the wall to the right of the front door. As Tom and I ascend the stairs I begin to get the feeling that we aren’t alone. I say to Tom, “As soon as I set foot on the stairs I started feeling that someone is with me on the staircase.” Tom feels it too. “Yeah,” he says, “it was waiting for me at the top when I went up before to set up the sensors. Something was definitely walking up there. I’m glad you picked up on it too.”
   As we climb the stairs, I mention something to Tom that happened when we first met the family that day. “When we first got here,” I say, “I actually saw a semi-transparent shape pass in front of the bathroom. It was white, going from the right to the left, and it was low to the ground—lower than the towel that’s hanging there, so that would put it at around four feet tall.
   “I’m feeling it on the stairs with us now,” Tom says, “but I’m sensing that it feels more at home upstairs.”
At the top of the stairs I suddenly stop because a chill goes right through me. This is a clear indication that a spirit is with us. As we stand at the top of the landing, just outside of the bathroom where I had seen the white shape I say, “Yeah, I feel it right here. It’s really strong here. And this is right about where I saw that white shape.”
   Across from the bathroom is a small bedroom. I enter the bedroom hoping the spirit will follow me. I get a sense that he’s curious about us even though we haven’t tried to make contact with him yet. Tom is in the hallway looking into the room I was in.
   As I stand by the front window I say, “I’m starting to have the same feeling that I had on the landing. I’m sure something is here with us. It seems to be in the room with me now. At first I felt it by the window, but now it’s in the room with me.”
   From the hallway Tom calls, “This thing is definitely moving because I felt it here with me in the hallway, but when I walked towards you it completely dropped off. That’s probably when you started feeling it.”
   “Come in here and let me know what you’re feeling,” I say. As Tom enters the bedroom, the energy makes a sudden shift. “Now I feel like it’s behind me,” I say. “As soon as you walked into the room, it moved away from me.”
   “Yeah, this thing is moving fast,” Tom says. “Now I feel it really strong—really, really strong.” At this point, Tom takes thermal readings to see if there were any shift in temperature anywhere in the room, but everything seems normal. No cold spots, and no sudden changes in temperature.
   The spirit was really giving us a run for our money. “Now I'm feeling it behind me again,” I say.
   After a few minutes Tom says, “I literally don’t feel it at all now. This thing is so odd. First it’s intense, then it completely drops off.”
   Linda said that a lot of the activity on the second floor seemed to be centered on the baby’s room. Orbs were recorded on a baby video-monitor, as well as strange shifting shapes that resembled a man in a uniform. This is the same room where Linda captured a clear EVP of a man saying the word “cheated”. I’m anxious to see what kind of energy this room holds, and to find out if the entity that is playing cat-and-mouse with us will join us. Unfortunately, the spirit wasn’t in the mood to join us. Neither Tom nor I feel a presence in this room.
   As we leave the baby’s room and step into the hallway I comment, “I’m feeling it right here in the hallway. It’s as if he had been waiting out here while we were in the baby’s room. Interesting.”
   I decide that it ’s time to reach out to the spirit. I introduce myself and Tom, and ask the spirit to come forward and make contact with us. I explain that the digital recorders I held could pick up his voice, and that I am there to help him. After a few minutes, I enter the master bedroom. I can tell that the spirit is being shy, as his energy immediately drops off as soon as I entered the bedroom. I say out loud, “You can just watch us if you want, but show yourself if you can.” We wait several minutes, but there are no unusual sounds that would indicate the he is willing to communicate with us.
   Tom left the master bedroom briefly and walked back down the hallway and into the bathroom. I heard him call out, “It’s really strong in here now.” After a few minutes Tom returned to the bedroom.
“I wonder why it’s moving around” he asks. “Now I’m feeling it really strong. I don’t feel that it’s negative.”
“If there is a spirit with us, can you move this marble I put on the table?” I ask aloud. This seems to have made the spirit curious because I feel a sudden rush of energy in my direction.
   “It’s right on top of me,” I say to Tom. “I feel that it’s just one person,” I add, “and I think it’s a male.”
   “Yeah,” Tom says, “I’m getting that too.”
   Suddenly, we both hear a distinct but unidentifiable sound coming from downstairs. “What was that? I ask Tom. He shrugs and says he doesn’t know. “It sounded like it was coming from downstairs,” he says.
   I decide that this is a perfect opportunity to reach out to the spirit, “If you made that sound,” I say aloud, “can you do it again? The spirit wasn’t being very cooperative, though. We wait several minutes, but the house remains silent.
   Since the spirit seems to be moving around, we decide to head back to the baby’s room. “I’m not getting a bad feeling or anything,” Tom says. “This is really fascinating.”
   “The question is where to do an EVP session if it’s moving around,” I wonder.
   Tom thinks for a minute then says, “I think it’s moving around because we’re moving around. That’s the kind of feeling that I’m getting. My intuition is telling me that if we stay central to one area it will come to us. It wants to be in one of these two room.”
   “OK,” I say aloud, “we’re going to stay put in this room. It feels like we’re chasing you around, so we’ll just stay here for a while.” Just as I say this, Tom feels the spirit move next to him. “It’s really strong right now,” he says. “Really strong.” A few seconds later I hear a distinct whisper in my left ear.
   “Did you say something?” I ask.
   “No,” Tom replies.
   “There was a whispery sound just then. It was right in my left ear. It sounded like two syllables.” I imitate the sound I heard. “Like that,” I say. Interestingly, after the investigation I payed particular attention to this part of the recording to see if a voice had been picked up. At that exact spot there was a sound right before I commented on the whisper. Unfortunately, the sound was inaudible.
   As we sit in the baby’s room, Tom says, “Now I’m feeling it … and now I’m not. What is going on with this guy?! It’s almost like he’s anxious or something.”
   “If you would stay in one place or come see us, we’re pretty harmless; and we’re really here to figure out what you want and to help you. Can you tell us your name?” I ask. “Is there something that we can help you with?” The room remains silent, but I continue to have a sense that the spirit is constantly coming and going quickly in and out of the room.
   “Wow, he’s really moving around a lot. Maybe he’s pacing. It could be a spirit who’s not aware that they’re gone and that’s what they used to do when they were alive, or what they do now. Pace back and forth.” Tom’s intuition really starts to kick in at this point. “He didn’t like that,” he says. “He just got really fired when you said that. He’s like right on top of me right now.”
   I had to get to the bottom of this. “Was this your house?,” I ask. “Did you used to live here, or do you think you still live here?” Suddenly, a name pops into my head.
   “I’m getting a name,” I say. Just as I’m about to say the name a light knocking sound drifts up to us from the first floor.” Tom and I look at each other. “Did you hear that?” I ask. Tom nods.
   “Do you like that we’re here?” I ask. “Why don’t you want us here?” Right after I say this, my digital recorder picked up a faint EVP which said, “Don’t be in here”. It seems we are not welcome.
“I don’t think he knows that he’s dead,” Tom says. “Or, he’s very confused by it. I’m getting that he’s really frustrated.”
   “Do you know that you passed on?” I say aloud. “Do you realize that you are no longer alive? That you passed away many years ago? This may have been your house one time, but it’s not anymore. And that’s why we’re here. To let you know that, and to show you what to do about that. Because you’re probably really frustrated about what’s going on.
   “I’m still feeling him around,” I say. “He kind of comes and goes around me now.”
   “Yeah. He’s been coming and going,” Tom says. “He’s been hitting me hard. I’m feel like he’s … what’s the best way to describe it … emotionally erratic. Not malicious.”
   “I’m standing in the hallway outside the master bedroom and Tom is in the baby’s room. It’s back again. It’s giving my head the chills, like a crawly feeling in my scalp.” This chilled feeling is usually an indication that spirit is very close by.
   “We know you’re here,” I say. “We can feel you here. But we need to know what it is you want and how it is we can help you.”
   The name that popped into my head before is as strong as ever. I want to see if Tom is coming up with anything, and if the names matched. “Are you getting any names coming to you?” I ask. “Because I get one that keeps coming up.”
   “No name,” Tom answers then suddenly asks “Is there something in the attic?” Right as Tom says this we once again hear a strange sound coming from downstairs.
   “Did you hear that?” Tom asks. I reply, “Yeah, I heard that. The sound is exactly like the one we heard about 10 minutes ago.” Tom suggests it might be the sound of a heater turning on, but as soon as he says this I pick up an EVP saying, “It’s not” — as if it wasn’t the sound of the heater.
   As I walk into the master bedroom Tom says, “Now it’s gone completely cold. I don’t feel anything. I’m going to go downstairs for a second to check on the meters.” I continued to reach out to the spirit, imploring him to communicate with us either through sounds or through the digital recorder, but the house begins to feel eerily silent.
   Since things are so quiet, and the spirit seems to be purposely keeping his distance, I decide to join Tom downstairs. As I make my way to the staircase, a strong feeling overtakes me on the top lading. Something is definitely here with me, but apart from a few very odd sounds, he seems to be purposely keeping quiet.
   Linda’s mother, Mindy, had a number of odd experiences on this floor. She saw an old woman standing by the front door; she heard a child calling out ‘Mama!’; and she saw a young man in a suit in the basement. Although these seemed to be residual images—like short movie-clips playing over and over again from the past—I feel that we might pick up something if we spent some time on this floor and in the basement.
   On the first floor, Tom and I do a quick walk-through, but neither of us are picking up any energy. The spirit who was with us upstairs seemed happy to stay there, and so far no other spirit had made an attempt to make themselves known to us. But that was about to change.
   We spy a door that we figure leads to the basement, but the doorknob is one with a child-proof design that also proves to be adult-proof. Both of us struggle to get the knob to turn. I say to Tom, “I guess it’s child-proof and adult-proof. I'll let you figure that out.” On my recorder, an EVP is picked up saying, “It’s not.”
   The investigation seems to be at a turning point because at the top of the stairs that lead to the basement I pick up an amazing EVP. While Tom is searching for the light switch he says to me, "Is that the light? Is that the light switch over there?" Immediately, a clear male voice can be heard saying, “Yes, that's the lights". It sounds like a teenage boy’s voice to me. For the record, this voice was not heard by us while we were trying to find the lights. I discovered it on the digital recorder when I was going over the recording several weeks later.
   The name that was gnawing at me refuses to give up. “Let me see if I got this name right,” I say to Tom. I often use a pendulum on investigations. I take it out of my pocket, hold it in front of me and ask it if I was getting the correct name. I watch as the pendulum swing back-and-forth indicating that I am correct. But I want to keep the name under wraps for the time being. If this is the spirit’s name, he certainly isn’t with us on the first floor. I decide to wait until we are on the second floor to call the spirit by his name for the first time.
   The basement is a neat, unfinished room that has an exit to the outside through a set of bulkhead doors on one side of the room. On another side of the room is a small door that Tom decides to explore. Little did we know, we were about to get another outstanding EVP.
   As Tom is peering into the room, using the light from his iPhone to help illuminate its interior I ask him, “Is there another room?” Tom continues to move his phone light around, exploring the room without entering it. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s another room, but it’s not that big.” As Tom closes the door to this room a very clear EVP says, “So don’t go there”. It is the same teenage boy’s voice that appeared on my recorder at the top of the stairs. Could this be the voice of the young man that Mindy saw? She said that he was young, and both EVP voices were those of a young man.
   Even though we unknowingly picked up two amazing voices on the recorder, neither of us are feeling a presence in the basement. But this is not too surprising. Sometimes spirits don’t resonate with certain people, or they make such a brief appearance that their presence isn’t felt. Either way, this spirit definitely made himself known to us loud and clear on the recorder.
   We exit the basement and make our way back to the second floor. I’m ready to call the spirit by his name, and I’m anxious to see if it will have any affect.
   In the master bedroom I tell Tom, “I have a name. Let me see if I get any reaction.” I sit on the bed and close my eyes. “Is your name Robert?” I say aloud. Just as I say this, a strange sound emerges
from the first floor. It is identical to the two other sounds that occurred earlier in the investigation.
   “I really don’t have any idea what the hell that sound just was,” says Tom. “But it definitely came from the first floor.”
   Because there was such a strong reaction when I said the name I say aloud, “I’ll ask again, is your name Robert? Well, I’m going to call you Robert. Robert, if there’s anything we can do for you I’d like you to let me know right now.” Interestingly, right I say this the recorder picks up a fairly loud thump that neither of us comment on. It sounds like it’s coming from downstairs.
   In a loud voice I say, “Robert, you seem really agitated. It seems like something’s really bothering you. You’re pacing and you seem anxious for us to leave. What is it you want?” Suddenly, there is a fairly loud bang whose vibration we both felt. It was similar to the other odd sounds we have been hearing from downstairs.
“Did you feel that?” I ask Tom.
   “Yeah, I heard it and felt it,” he answers. “It was a bang of some type, and it was strong enough for both of us to feel it.” It feels that we finally made a breakthrough with this spirit.
   “Well Robert,” I say, “we’re hearing things and feeling things, but nothing in the room with us. So if you can make some sounds that are in the room, or knock something down, please do so. If you want us to leave, knock something down to show us that you really want us out of here.” We wait several minutes for a reply, but Robert seems to have gone silent again. At the same time, I get the distinct impression that he is allowing me to access information about him.
   I say to Tom, “The person I’m seeing in my mind’s-eye is a male, and he seems very tall, around 6’ 1” and not thin, but not heavy.”
   As I look at Tom, he seems to be reaching out for intuitive information. “I don’t know if he actually lived in this house,” he says slowly. “I’m getting the sense that he claimed this house. Like it was a safe place for him to be, and claimed it as his own.”
   “He could have rented it,” I suggest. “Like, it’s wasn’t his home but he stayed here often.”
   “I mean, it might have been his home,” Tom says. “I don’t know. But I’m getting the feeling like he passed on someplace else, but for whatever reason this place was like a sanctuary to him.”
   “Yeah. I see what you mean,” I say. “Even if this was a place that he felt safe in, it doesn’t mean that he actually died here. He could have died someplace else and comes back here because he feels safe here.”
   “I’m not getting a sense that he died here,” Tom says. As he does, there is a slight sound in the upstairs hallway.
   “There was a little click in the hallway,” I say into my recorder. “Robert, can you come close to us right now. Even if you want us to go, can you come in here and tell us your story?” After I say this, we hear another banging sound coming from downstairs.
   “There was a bang downstairs,” Tom affirmed.
   “What are these sounds?” I ask. “It seems like he wants us to know that he's here, but at the same time he's staying away from us. I’m trying to figure out what his agitation is.”
   Tom says, “I’m getting the feeling that this is like a sanctuary he found. This could possibly explain his erratic movements. I don’t feel like he necessarily feels at home here. It’s more like a place of refuge for him.”
   I really want to get to the bottom of this. “Did you used to live in this house? You can talk into these things, the digital recorders, or you can move something, or make a loud sound. What can we do for you?”
   I say to Tom, “I almost get the sense that he’s breaking down a little bit and he’s finally willing to give us some information. What’s going on, Robert? What’s bothering you so much? Something’s really bothering you.”
   Something is beginning to take shape in my mind. It’s almost as if I’m hearing Robert’s voice speaking. I say to Tom, There’s something he just doesn’t understand. I’m getting, ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand.’”
   “Do you know that you passed away?” I ask aloud.
   “I think he does,” Tom says, “but he doesn’t want to accept it.”
   “Uh, huh. I’m picking up something else. I don’t get a sense that he had a family, this person. He seems just a solitary … he never had a family. And I don’t think he was too old when he died.
“I agree,” says Tom. “I was getting that he died in his 50s or 60s. Definitely not a young man.”
   “I’m seeing the 1940s for some reason in my head,” I say. “I can kind of see him.”
   Just as I’m about to describe the person I’m seeing in my mind’s eye, a strange sound comes from downstairs.
   “There’s that sound again from downstairs,” I say.
   “That’s what the sound was that I said sounded like something that you would expect would come from a bathroom, like an automatic air freshener or something. That’s the same sound. But it didn’t sound like it was coming from the bathroom when I was standing outside the bathroom door. It was the same sound, so my first thought was that it’s something automated in the house. We’ll have to check with the homeowners.”
   After the investigation I played a recording of the three sounds and asked the homeowner if she could identify them. She said that there is nothing in the house that is on a timer that automatically goes off, and she couldn’t identify the sounds we picked up on the recorder.
   Images continue to flood my mind. “He’s tall,” I say. “He doesn’t have a dress shirt on or a workman’s shirt, but he has a casual shirt on. His hair is combed to the side with that greasy stuff they used to put in it. But he’s neat. He’s a very neat person. He’s not slob-by or anything. He’s got dressier pants that are like baggy pants.”
   “Robert,” I say, “we really want to help you. You seem really agitated. I see you just standing in one spot. Even though you’re rushing around with us, in my mind I see you kind of standing with your hands in your pocket and looking down.”
   Suddenly, I get a clear message. I say to Tom, “I’m getting, ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this’. The information he’s giving me is that the panic and the confusion is because something that happened to him ‘wasn’t supposed to be like this’. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I think he’s finally accepted us by now. I’m getting that information that he’s allow me to access or that he’s giving me. But it’s not that helpful because of his confusion. It may be tied into the way he died, or what his expectation was about the afterlife. That it wasn’t supposed to be this way and this wasn’t supposed to happen. But I’m not sure if that’s it. Something is REALLY bothering him that it’s not the way that it was supposed to have been.
   Tom surmises, “Something wasn’t his fault?”
   “Did you get accused of something Robert? Accused of something that you didn’t do?” I ask.
   “Tom, the word refuge that you’re using also seems to tie into him being accused of something, or to him feeling that people thought that he was something that he wasn’t.”
   “Like leaving on a bad note?” Tom suggests.
   “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “And it isolated him from his friends and his family, or society or something.”
   Addressing Robert, I say, “So, you didn’t do this thing that you were accused of or that people think that you did. Or you weren’t the person that they thought you were.”
   Tom adds, “Or you did but you didn’t know how to recover from it.”
   I want to get some more information about this spirit. “What kind of a job did you have? What kind of work did you do. Show me some symbols of what you did.”
   “I’m seeing a shovel,” I say, “so it might be manual work.” What’s interesting about this statement is the fact that I was unaware that Linda had seen a man wearing overalls looking into her window. This type of person would fit someone who did manual work, or farm work, using a shovel.
   “What is it we can do for you Robert?” I ask. “It seems that you’ve tried to contact this family and you’ve shown yourself to this family at least once. Were you trying to get them to do something for you? If I asked you to leave, what would you do?” As soon as I say this I picked up a clear message from Robert—‘Go? Where would I go?’
   Tom says, “I’m getting a real sense that he’s more concerned about how he’s remembered than where he’s going.”
   “I’m going to try to get some more information from him,” I say. “Robert, what is your last name? If you know that you have passed on, are you buried around here somewhere? Did you die around here? Did you die in Meridan? Did you die in this house?” At this point the recorder picks up a thumping sound that neither of us seem to hear.
   Tom says, “I’m just getting a sense that he’s not comprehending the whole thing, but he’s more focused on how he left his life.” Unbeknownst to us, the recorder picks up two more thumps. Neither were acknowledged by us.
   “We can help you if you let us, Robert,” I say. “You really don’t have to be in this pain and confusion any more. Because you’re really agitated all the time. What is it you want from the family who lives here? You seem to have shown yourself. Was that a coincidence? Did they just kind of catch you looking at them?
   I say to Tom, “I almost feel that he’s just curious about this family
“Robert, do you like the family?” Tom asks.
   “I’m getting, ‘No, they’re fine’. It’s like he’s saying, ‘I don’t care either way.’ I say.
   “I agree,” says Tom. “He seems indifferent”
   “Well think about it Robert,” I say. “You’re here. I know you’re here, Tom knows you’re here, and the family knows you’re here. But nobody really knows really what you want. It seems like you’re confused yourself. If you can give us an idea so we can help you.
   Tom asks, “Was it over a woman, Robert? Was it over money? Was it something shameful?”
   Something suddenly occurs to me. “All the time we’ve been here, it’s not like there’s been a strong sense that he’s anxious to be with us. Sure, he pops in occasionally, but it’s more like he’s standing out there, looking in at us. Observing us. I get the sense that his whole life was like this; that he was on the outside looking in. He wasn’t very popular, he wasn’t very sociable. He was pretty much a loner.” I must have hit a nerve just then because as soon as I say this we hear that same strange sound as we heard twice before. “There’s that sound again!”
   “Yeah,” Tom says. “The same sound. I really don’t know what that is. But there must be some reason he’s making it. As for what kind of a person he was like in life, I don’t get a sense that he was like the pillar of the community.”
   “No,” I answer. “And he was really frustrated that he wasn’t more popular The whole thing about ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen this way’ and ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen’. It almost sums up how he feels about his life.”
   Tom looks lost in thought before adding, “I’m feeling like he’s really requesting a lot more attention than he feels like he’s getting.”
   “Even now?” I ask.
   “I think he’s holding onto it,” Tom says. “He didn’t get any attention. He’s not over that now.”
   “I see him as the type of person who tries to be friendly with people and for some reason they’re put off by him. Somebody for whatever reason people just didn’t take to him.”
   I leave the bedroom and go to sit on the landing. I feel that Tom and I have discovered Robert’s secret. He was a loner, misunderstood, and very lonely. He found refuge in this house when he was alive, and in his loneliness he comes back to be in the place where he was most comfortable.
“Are you here with us still, Robert? I feel like you’re around but you’re still coming and going. Can you make that sound that you’ve been making, if that was you making that sound? Come on Robert. For somebody with such as life that you had, you should really appreciate that we’re trying to help you and that we’re maybe the friends you didn’t have in life.” Just as I say this, we hear a sound like a door opening downstairs.
   “What the hell was that? Asks Tom. “It sounded like a door.”
   “Was that you Robert?” I ask, and we hear the sound of the door again coming from downstairs.
   “I don’t know why he would make sounds downstairs when we’re upstairs,” I say. “Every time we hear something downstairs it’s not where we are. I don’t know why he would do that.”
   “He doesn’t want to be on the same floor as us I think,” says Tom.
   “Come on Robert! Can you give us another sign?” We hear a slight sound, but can't determine where it came from. “Was that you Robert?” I ask.
   Tom looks down the staircase, “He’s definitely here somewhere,” he says.
   “Can you come close to me Robert?” I ask.
   “Wow,” says Tom. “It’s like he’s gone all of a sudden.”
   “I don’t think there’s much for us to do here now,” I say. “Let’s go down to the living room. He keeps moving around and I don’t know where he is.”
   “I don’t think he likes it downstairs,” says Tom, “but he definitely doesn’t like it up here with us.”
   “Well, he can stay up here because I don’t want to be up here anymore,” I say. “Come down with us Robert, I want to be downstairs.”
   We walk down to the living room and sit on the couch. “Can you make a sound down here Robert?” I ask. But the only thing we hear is the clock on the wall ticking softly.
   “I wonder what those sounds were,” I ask Tom. “We haven’t heard them when we’re down here.”
   “I don’t know,” Tom answers. “I’d be surprised if they have any activity down here. He doesn’t like to be acknowledge. It’s like he wants to be like a wallflower. I’m just thinking out loud, I’m not feeling anything.” After a pause in our conversation, we hear loud knock in the room with us.
   I ask, “Is that you Robert?” But the room remains silent. The homeowners arrive home and we tell them the tale of Robert, a lonely spirit who feels safe in their home. As much as I would like to do a clearing and move him along to the other side, I know that it is no use. He is too confused, and too attached to this home and to this family. In time, he will move on on his own and find peace in the afterlife with family members who are long gone, and who have been waiting for him for a very, very long time.

Meridan Investigation EVP Examples

This video was recorded by the homeowner. You will hear a male voice saying, "Cheated" or "Cheating".

The Haunting of an American Icon

Anyone who has been to my lectures knows how much fun they can be. Sure, I tell a lot of pretty scary ghost stories, but the fun comes at the very end when people share their own true paranormal experiences. You have no idea how many people have seen or heard a ghost, or have had something totally unexplainable happen to them. After the lectures, there is usually a small crowd waiting to talk to me in private, and I’m always happy to oblige.
After a lecture I did last October, a woman stayed after and told me about a haunted estate that her friend lives on; then she casually mentioned that it was once the home of one of the most famous American icons in history! Obviously, I was fascinated by the ghostly stories she shared with me, but when she asked if I would like to visit this historic home I was dumbfounded. First of all, this house is not open to the public, so the only people who are invited there are the current homeowners' friends and, occasionally, historians. What’s more, no one has ever conducted a paranormal investigation there. I would be the first. So, as you can imagine, I jumped at the opportunity to visit the estate. The next day I contacted the homeowner, and we set the date of my visit for January 26, 2019.
Now before we go any further, I would love more than anything to tell you the name of this historic figure, but I can’t. As is the case with all of my investigations, preserving the privacy of those who are kind enough to open their homes to me is of the utmost importance. So if you care to guess who it is, be my guest--just don’t ask me if you’re right or wrong, because I’ll never tell! But for the sake of having something to call this distinguished and very famous gentleman, I will henceforth refer to him as Mr. Forrester.
     The Forrester estate lies at the end of a long, narrow, winding country road dotted with modest private homes. I pulled my car up to the two stone pillars that flank the driveway and paused to consider the hundreds of people who passed through these same gates in the early 1900’s. How thrilled they must have been to spy these stately stone columns in the distance as they approached the estate. After all, the man they were about to visit was a living legend, and from all I’ve read about him, he was hysterically funny and a great host. As I drove past the columns and entered the grounds, I was as thrilled as any guest who had met the great man himself all those years ago. With any luck, I still might have a chance to meet him--or at least, to meet his ghost.
     The main house sits on top of a hill that overlooks 28 acres of beautifully manicured lawns that cascade down to the surrounding woods. It is a fine looking house--large, but by no means ostentatious. The house was originally nestled in the middle of over 200 acres of land, so one can imagine how peaceful and serene this country home must have been.
     I had a special assistant joining me on this investigation--my son Ryan. Ryan pulled up to the house a few minutes after I arrived, and after getting our ‘ghost hunting’ gear out of the car we walked up to the front door and rang the bell. The homeowners, Marissa and Jack, greeted us at the door and invited us inside.
     As soon as I walked in the front door my psychic senses immediately kicked into gear. I felt strong energy in the front hallway. I was sure that I was feeling more than just my own excitement about entering this historic home. This was the very same doorway that hundreds of guests had used to enter the home of this larger than life gentleman, so I have no doubt that their excitement and anticipation left an indelible imprint on the entranceway.
Ryan and I put down our gear in the kitchen, and Marissa invited us to do a walkthrough of the house. As I explored the first floor of the house not much was coming to me, until I entered the dining room. Here I immediately felt very strong energy along one wall. I sensed that this was a place where people met and socialized, and where guests were treated to hearing Mr. Forrester’s humorous observations about life. I could feel his strong energy all along the back wall of the dining room near the three french doors that overlooked the rear of the estate. As I stood there looking out at the beautiful lawn that ran down to the woods below, I could imagine the man standing at these doors smoking a cigarette and contemplating the beauty of his new home. It certainly was a stunningly beautiful place. When Forrester moved here in the early 1900s, he praised the estate for its peace and tranquility.
     I walked back and forth in this room for a long time and wondered why it was just along this one wall that I was feeling such strong energy. The rest of the room felt clear. It was almost as if the energy was coming from the patio area that lay just beyond the French doors. I was told later that an important family wedding ceremony was held on the back patio. Family was extremely important to this man, so it’s very possible that the energy I was feeling was connected to that ceremony and other family celebrations that once took place in this room and on the patio.
I was lost in my thoughts when Marissa walked into the room, cell phone in hand, and apologized for disturbing me. She was on the phone with someone who had a first-hand paranormal experience in the house, and she was anxious for me to talk to her. Her name was Katie, and she and her mother had stayed in the home two years earlier. It was summer, and the two were the only people on the estate, the homeowners being away at the time. I took the phone from Marissa, and Katie shared the following story.
     “This happened two years ago,” she said. “I was 21 years old at the time. My mom and I were staying over that summer, it was just the two of us in the house, and I slept in what had been Mr. Forrester’s bedroom. It was hot that night, so I was just in my shirt and my underwear. I fell asleep with no blankets on, just the sheet.
I woke up in the middle of the night, and the entire bed had been made around me; the quilt tucked into the mattresses and everything.”
I said, “I know it was just you and your mom in the house at the time. Did you think that she was playing a prank at first?”
     “No,” Katie said. “I was half asleep when I woke up and saw it, so I thought, ‘Oh, I guess I must have just pulled the covers over myself.’ But when I woke up in the morning I was like, “What the hell? Who did this?”
     “Were the covers tucked in around your body?” I asked.
     “No,” she said. “They were tucked UNDER the mattress. It was just like someone had made the bed and tucked the quilt and the sheets and everything under all four sides of the mattress.”
     “So, you were kind of locked in there like a tamale!” I said.
     “Yes!”, Katie exclaimed. “It was crazy. It was so crazy. It was really weird.”
     I asked, “Was the bed neatly made? In front of your face, where your neck would be, was the quilt folded down?”
     “I honestly don’t remember,” Katie said. “I just know that everything was pulled neatly. It was just like someone had made the bed with me in it!”
I hung up the phone and thought, ‘What an amazing story!’ Two things occurred to me. First, Mr. Forrester was a kind man, but I couldn’t see him tucking someone in at night. It just didn’t suit his personality. At the same time, he was a very funny man. I could definitely see him doing something like this as a prank. As a matter of fact, Mr. Forrester wrote about a similar practical joke in a piece of fiction he published in 1876. In the story, a young character played a joke on a friend while he slept.
But there is another possible explanation. After Mr. Forrester’s death, the house was used for a short time as a hospital for recovering war veterans. Mr. Forrester’s room housed soldiers who were recuperating from wounds they sustained in the war, and they were attended to by a small staff of nurses. The description of the way the bed was made--the sheets and quilt being tucked underneath the mattress--is reminiscent of the way a soldier would make a bed, or the way a nurse would make a bed. Of course, neither would make the bed this way with a person in it! So, the mystery continues.
I asked Marissa if she or her husband had experienced anything unusual in the Forrester bedroom. She told me that in all the years they lived here, they’ve spent just two nights in the bedroom. “We had intended it to be the master bedroom,” Marissa explained, “but that was short-lived. As soon as we moved into the house we tried to sleep in there--but we never fell asleep. We never got one minute sleep in that room. We just lay there for two nights in a row, then we gave up and made the room down the hall the master bedroom.”
In fact, in all the years they owned the home there were just three people who have actually slept in the Forrester bedroom--Katie, a visiting historian, and a girl named Jeanne. “Jeanne was the first person to spend the night in the bedroom room,” Marissa said. “She was actually the only person up to that point who had slept in that room. But that didn’t go well either.
We were away for a week, and my friend Diana and her sixteen-year-old daughter Jeanne were taking care of the dogs for us. Rather than have them drive over each day, which would have been a long drive in each direction, I invited them to stay over.
     One night Diana, was sleeping in our bedroom while Jeanne slept in the Forrester bedroom. Diana woke up in the middle of the night because she heard Jeanne come down the hall from the Forrester bedroom. She then heard her come into the bedroom and stop by her bed. She thought that Jeanne was standing right at the end of the bed. Diana said, ‘What Jeanne, what is it? Jeanne, what is it?’ When her daughter didn’t respond Diana said, ‘Jeanne, it’s not funny anymore,’ then she flipped on the light. The room was empty. She was absolutely convinced that Jeanne was right there because she heard her coming down the hall and into the room. She ran down the hall to check on Jeanne, but she was in bed, sound asleep. After that, Diana refused to stay in the house. I tried to talk to her about it, and I reminded her that no one was hurt. It was just a sound--like the sounds my husband and I used to hear when we first moved in.”
     Soon after Marissa and Jack purchased the estate, they began to hear strange sounds outside. I asked Marissa to tell me about these mysterious sounds. “This happened during the first year and a half that we were here. It was much more pronounced the first week we were here, but now it doesn’t happen at all. There would be the sound of crunching on the gravel driveway, and I would run and look out the window to see who it was, but there was never anyone there. The sound of the gravel would be just about the amount of time that you would expect for someone to come onto the property from the road and pull up outside the house. But it didn’t sound like a car. It sounded like the wheels of a carriage. But like I said, I would always look out, and there would never be anyone there.
     Jack and I were always aware of the gravel sound. We were hyper-aware of it because one of our dogs was very protective. She was a really sweet dog, but she was scared of everybody. And she was a fear biter, so we were super cautious about opening the door. The reason I say all of this is because we were very, very alert and aware of the sound of people coming. So when there were gravel sounds it wasn’t like, ‘The mailman’s here!’ It was more like, ‘Quick, get the dog!’”
Marissa and Jack weren’t the only ones to hear strange sounds at night. I interviewed a family friend who stayed over with her daughter. She said, “One weekend my daughter and I were staying over while the family was away. I was sleeping in Marissa’s room, which is right over the back patio, and that’s where I would hear footsteps--on the slate patio underneath my window. It was like someone was actually walking around on the patio. But then when I looked out there and turned the lights on, there was absolutely no one there. My daughter and I would sometimes hear other noises outside, and the dog would pick up his head as if he had heard them too, and we’d look outside to see if anything was out there but there never was. Once in a while we would hear the floors creaking inside the house. That frightened us a little bit, but then we’re like, ‘Well, if it’s Mr. Forrester, at least we know it’s a friendly ghost!’”
     The family’s housekeeper, Bernice, was the only person to actually see something strange on the property--an eerie, full body apparition of a woman with a large dog. Bernice was working the day I arrived, so I asked if she wouldn’t mind showing me exactly where she was when she saw this mysterious woman. It was cold that day, so Bernice, Ryan and I bundled up and walked out the front door and across the front lawn to a spot that overlooks the property.
     Bernice looked down the road to the front gates and said, “I started working here about three years ago. This happened somewhere between the spring and summer while I was taking care of Marissa’s youngest boy. We were here on the front lawn playing and I looked down the hill toward the driveway entrance and saw an old lady walking on the road about to come onto the property. She had a big brown dog with her, and she was coming from the direction of the pool house which is just down the road. When I saw her she was almost coming past the posts that lead onto the property. I thought, ‘I wasn’t told that anyone was coming today. Maybe it’s someone from the neighborhood.’ I picked up the boy then looked back at the driveway--and there was nobody there! I thought,‘That’s strange. She couldn’t have moved that fast because she’s old, so where did she go?’ I looked everywhere.”
     I asked Bernice how old she thought the woman was. “I don’t know because she was far away, but she was definitely an older woman. When I saw her, I wasn’t thinking that she was a ghost or anything like that. I’m thinking she was just a person, maybe a neighbor. I tried looking around the property because I thought maybe she was walking around, but it only took a couple of seconds for me to pick the boy up. I picked him up because I thought she might be coming up to the house where we were, and she had a big dog. Someone in the neighborhood walking around with a dog, you know? I picked him up because he’s so little and I was worried about the dog, but a second later I looked and she wasn’t there. I’m looking around and she’s not here. I couldn’t believe it because I just saw her a few seconds ago. ”
     “You said the dog was brown. How big would you say he was?” I asked.
     “It was a large brown dog,” she said. “About four feet tall.”
     I asked Bernice to describe what the old woman was wearing. She said, “She was wearing a dress, like an old fashioned dress. The type of dress that you would see in pictures from a long time ago. The dress was very long. Maybe not all the way down to the ground, but very long. Since then I’ve looked to see if I can find a picture of the kind of dress she was wearing, but I can’t find one that looks exactly like it. One thing I noticed is that she was wearing…you know when a person is cooking they’re wearing something over them to protect their clothes? An apron. That’s it. I think she had an apron over her dress, or something that looked like an apron.”
     I asked Bernice if she was frightened when she saw her, but she said that she wasn’t. At first she was just puzzled. She said, “I looked around and thought, ‘I’m not crazy. I know there was a person over there, but where did she go? No one could walk or run that fast; especially an old woman with a dog. I looked around thinking that maybe she was sitting down somewhere. I tried looking around, but you can see everywhere from here and she wasn’t anywhere. I wasn’t afraid then, but as I’m telling you the story I’m feeling a chill just thinking about it!”
     I looked down the stately driveway to the gates where Bernice had seen the mysterious woman with the dog. I could see for myself that there was no way anyone could be seen walking onto the property from the road, then vanish a few seconds later. It’s just impossible because there’s a clear view of the gates and the surrounding woods from the front lawn.
     The entire time we were on the lawn talking, I had been recording our conversation using a digital recorder. A few days after the investigation I listened back to the recording and made a startling discovery. I had picked up an EVP--a spirit voice--as Bernice was telling her story. The voice was quiet, so I boosted the volume and removed some of the background hiss to get a better idea of what it was saying. It was clearly a man’s voice, and as far as I could tell he spoke with a slight accent, either German or Scottish. To me, and to everyone I played it for, he seems to be saying, “Couldn’t pass”.
     Keep in mind, the only people on the lawn were Bernice, Ryan, and myself. My son didn’t talk the entire time I was interviewing Bernice, and there was no one else on the lawn with us.
Listen for yourself. In the following clip, you’ll hear me say to Bernice, “So, she was close to the post when you saw her …” Bernice answers, “Yeah, yeah” and immediately after, the man’s voice jumps in and says, “Couldn’t pass”. I repeat the voice several times in this clip because it goes by so quickly.

What could this strange message mean? It’s possible the the voice was that of a former grounds worker who had been listening in on our conversation. It’s interesting that Bernice and I had been talking about the woman about to walk through the gates when the voice says, “Couldn’t pass”. It was as if he was saying that the woman couldn’t pass the gates for some reason. But why? Maybe the woman had been a neighbor and she was not allowed on the property. Or, maybe he knew that she too was a ghost, and that she literally couldn’t pass the gates because she was not a living person.
     We walked back into the house, thankful to be out of the cold and Marissa said that she wanted to tell us about an amazing thing she and her family witnessed in the upstairs master bedroom. We walked upstairs to the bedroom and Marrisa shared the following story.
“I had gone to a dinner party one night,” she said, “and I was shocked to hear how many people had personal paranormal experiences. It wasn’t like, ‘My cousin or my mother saw a ghost.’ These people were telling their own firsthand experiences. I was really surprised at the sheer number of regular, normal, trustworthy people who had stories.
      So when I came home I was thinking of all of these stories. I walked into our bedroom and my husband was in bed reading to our youngest son. Our older son was in his room, but when he heard me come upstairs he came into the bedroom to say hi, so all four of us were there.
      I said to my husband, ‘You’re never going to believe this. This person, this person, all these people who you know were sharing their ghost stories at the party. You’d never believe how many people have ghost stories from their own houses. You’d be so surprised.’ And while I’m saying this we all just stopped cold. We all stood exactly as we were, stock-still—our youngest son included, which is a lot for him. A toy car rolled out from behind this chair. It just rolled like this.” Marissa paused her story to show us how the car came from behind the chair in a curve, then straightened out. “It came across the room, and it came to rest at my feet. Now, if it had been any other time and we had been talking about anything else, that exact same experience probably wouldn’t have registered that way. I would have assumed, ‘Oh, I never knew that that toy was a pull-back car that moves when you pulled it back, or there must be an air vent that I didn’t know about.’ I would have assumed that it was one of those things. But the timing of it was just weird. And it wasn’t a pull-back toy. It was just a regular toy car.”
     Marissa was anxious to have Jack tell me his version of the story, so she called him upstairs and asked that he share it with me. Jack said, “I was in bed reading to our son, and I was kind of groggy. I just remember a car, a toy car, coming out of nowhere. It was over there and it kind of came rushing over. My wife was talking to me about the party she had just come from, and this car just took off. It was pretty fast. It was one of those toy cars, and it just started taking off. It started over there, and it came all the way over to here to the middle of the room. And I was like, ‘Alright, that’s weird!’”
     I asked Jack if his son would be willing to tell me his version of the story. Luckily he had just gotten home from school, so Jack asked him to come into the bedroom and tell me what he had witnessed that day. The boy said, “It was a toy car, and it was weird because it started here behind the chair, and it rolled AROUND the chair. It definitely wasn’t the kind of car that you pull back then let go to make it go by itself. It was just a regular toy car, like a Matchbox car. I remember it coming around the chair. It came out from behind the chair, then it slowed down. It moved slowly, and I thought it was going to stop. But it kept going all the way to here.” At this point, the boy pointed to a spot in the middle of the room--the same spot his mother and father said the car stopped.”It was going pretty slowly,” he continued, “then it was going really slow at the end.”
     I was impressed that all three had seen the same thing, and that their stories were nearly identical. The only discrepancy was the speed at which the car moved. Marissa and her son said it moved pretty slowly, while Jack thought that it shot out quickly from behind the chair. All agreed that the car came out from behind the chair, not in a straight line but in a curve. They also agreed that it had travelled approximately seven feet, and that it came to rest in the middle of the floor.
     I thanked Jack and his son for sharing their stories and decided to explore the other rooms on this floor. I was hoping to pick up some intuitive information that might help solve the mystery of whose spirit resides in this house. As I walked toward the front of the house, I suddenly stopped at the top of the staircase. There was a strong feeling here. Something had happened right on this spot. My head began to hurt, but the feeling quickly passed. I got a sense that someone had either fallen on this spot, or that they had experienced some sort of physical distress here. I later learned that Mr. Forrester had spent his last years in this house, and that his health had deteriorated considerably soon after he moved in.
     I turned right at the top of the stairs and walked into a bedroom at the far end of the hall near the back of the house. Ryan and I both commented on feeling something peculiar in the corner near the window. My son described it as a “creepy feeling” whereas I was feeling something very quiet and still. It was as if there was a stillness to the energy in the room; that it rested in just one place and was very quiet and motionless. I later learned that a close relative of Mr. Forrester died tragically in this room. Although I’m not at liberty to go into the details of this tragic death, the stillness I felt in this room seems in alignment with the way the person had died.
     We left this room and went down the hallway to a room near the rear of the house. Here I got a very strong sense that a lot of people met in this room, but this made no sense to me since the room is currently a nursery. Marissa later told me that the floorplan of the house had changed since the early 1900s, and that the room had originally been a sitting room where Mr. Forrester used to entertain his guests; so I was correct when I felt the energy of large numbers of people in the room.
The Forrester bedroom was across the hall from this room, and I entered with slight trepidation. After all, this was the room where the girl had woken up to find herself tucked into bed by unseen hands. It was also the room where Marissa and Jack were unable to sleep, and where footsteps were heard coming down the hall. So, I was more than a little disappointed when I didn’t feel very much in the room. There was some residual energy running along one wall, but other than that the room felt clean.
     Although there are some striking paranormal incidents associated with the Forrester bedroom, it helps to know a little about how spirits operate. First of all, they aren’t imprisoned in a room. They can move about freely. Just because I walk into a room hoping to make contact with a particular spirit; it doesn’t mean that they are always on hand. Second, spirits are ‘attracted to’ certain people. For example, if a spirit is that of a mother who had lost a child in life, then she might only make herself known to mothers, or to children. Third, there is often more than just one spirit in a home. As I theorized earlier, the incident with the bedcovers being tucked in around the girl could have been a soldier, a nurse, or Mr. Forrester himself. Or, it could have been someone totally different, like a former maid or Mr. Forrester close relative who died in the room down the hall. As for the footsteps heard coming from the Forrester bedroom--well, they could have been the ghostly footsteps of just about anyone.
     It was getting late, and Marrisa and her family had plans for the evening so Ryan and I wrapped up the investigation. I reiterated how thrilled Ryan and I were to have had the opportunity to run the investigation, and Marissa invited us to come back some day to explore one other house on the property. It’s a house that comes with a number of intriguing tales that involved Mr. Forrester directly--but that’s a ghost story for another day.
     As I drove down the long, dark, winding driveway I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I paid particular attention to the sound of the gravel crunching under my car’s tires. And you can be sure that as the beams of my headlights illuminated the stone gates in the distance, I was hoping against hope to catch even the most fleeting glimpse of an old woman in a long, old fashioned dress walking a large brown dog.

Ghost Girl Captured on Video - Oxford, CT

Original video (above)
Slowed/brightened version (below)
Cropped and Very Slow (bottom)

“Maybe all the people who say ghosts don't exist are just afraid to admit that they do.” - Michael Ende, 'The Neverending Story'

    The first thing I noticed as I pulled up to the house in Oxford, Connectiut was how un-haunted it looked. This was no surprise. In all the years I’ve been conducting paranormal investigations I can count on half a hand the number of houses I’ve been called to that even vaguely resembled the stereotypical ‘haunted house’. The house was built in the late 1990s, it was neat and inviting, and it was on a residential street with other homes just as friendly looking. But there was one thing that set this house apart from the others on the street. It was haunted.
     I met Lauren after a lecture I had given at the Oxford Public library in Oxford, Connecticut in October 2017. After the crowd thinned out she shared a number of amazing stories about her haunted house. “We actually have a video of the ghost that was captured on our security camera,” she said. “Do you want to see it?” Is the Pope Catholic? Is rain wet? Does a bear … well, you get the idea. Lauren brought up the video on her iPhone and I leaned in to take a look.
     Although the clip is just a few seconds long, it’s totally amazing. It shows a girl in a long white nightgown or dress standing at the bottom of a staircase. Her back is to the camera, and her long, straight, dark hair hangs down to the center of her back. If you look closely, she seems to have a large black bow in her hair. Oddly, she takes a step backward towards the camera, turns, then steps backward again down the hallway to the left of the staircase. Something in the front of her gown can be seen as it swings around just before the entire figure steps out of the frame. This might be her hand, a large bow on the front of the dress/nightgown, or a sash that swings around as she turns.
     I asked Lauren to tell me the specifics about the video. She said that on August 22, 2017, she and her husband, Connor, went out to visit friends who lived nearby. Prior to leaving, Connor moved a home security camera from outside the house and placed it inside on a shelf in the front hallway. He moved the camera because their dog, Biscuit, had been acting strangely, and he wanted to keep an eye on her. The camera had a clear view of the bottom of the staircase, the front hallway, the front door, and the dining room just past the staircase.
     A few hours later Lauren’s phone indicated that the security camera had detected motion. Her first thought was that it had recorded a raccoon or some other animal outside the house because she didn’t know that her husband had moved the camera indoors. She turned on her phone to have a look and was stunned to see a strange girl in a long, white gown standing in the front hallway. Who was this girl? It certainly wasn’t one of her daughters. And what was she doing in their house? Lauren quickly called home and her teenage son, Ethan, answered the phone. She told him about the video clip and asked him to check on his sisters, Jordan and Riley, and to ask them where they had been a few seconds earlier. Ethan ran upstairs.
     Twelve-year-old Jordan was laying on her bed and said that she had not been downstairs. She was wearing a bright pink shirt and black jeans, not a long white nightgown. Fourteen-year-old Riley was in the shower. Ethan went downstairs and waited until Riley was finished with her shower. When she came downstairs and went to her bedroom, he asked her if she had been downstairs. She told him that she had been in the shower the whole time.
     I exchanged contact information with Lauren, and I promised that I would stop by her house to conduct an investigation. She emailed me the video clip for analysis and we set up a paranormal investigation for January 28, 2018.
    Prior to the investigation, my paranormal teammate,Tom Holzer, analyzed the clip and he was as intrigued as I was. We both thought that the video was playing in reverse because the girl appears to be walking backwards. As a result, you never see her face. I checked with Lauren, and she assured me that the clip she sent me was exactly as it appeared on her phone.
     Tom was eager to get to the house, take measurements, and to examine the security camera to find out what type of lens it uses. Tom is a professional cameraman. By knowing the lens type, the distance the camera was from the subject, and by taking measurements of nearby objects, he was sure that he could determine the height of the girl in the video.
     Tom and I arrived at Lauren’s house at 3 PM on the appointed day. Lauren’s two daughters were present, but her husband was out with the boys. I asked Lauren to tell me about some of the things that were happening in the house.
     “I have to start back in 1999 when the house was being built,” Lauren said. “At the time, the only other house on the block that was finished being built was the house across the street. My husband and I used to come to our house all the time to watch it being built. One day I came over with my brother-in-law to meet my husband at the house. When we pulled into the driveway we saw a young girl walk in the front door from the concrete front steps. She looked to be about 7 or 8 years old. We walked in the house and looked around for her, but we couldn’t find her anywhere. The house was still being built, so the sheetrock wasn’t even up at the time. We looked upstairs saying, ‘Where did this girl go?’
     I know that two young boys lived in the house across the street, but no girls. We had talked to the family when our house was first going up and we asked them about their kids. So when my husband walked in with the builder we said to him, “Oh, by the way, is your daughter with you? Because we can’t find her in the house.” The builder said, “What are you talking about? I don’t have a daughter.” We said, “We saw a girl walk in the house when we pulled up. She walked right in the front door before we came in, but we walked all over the house and we can’t figure out where she went.” He said, “I don’t know who you saw, but there are no kids around here except for the boys across the street. We were outside the whole time, and no one came out the back door.”
     I asked Lauren if she had seen the little girl any time after that.
     “I’ve seen her twice,” she said. “That first time when the house was being built, and then another time when I was sitting here in the kitchen filling out the kids’ soccer registration forms. As I sat there at the table I felt like someone was watching me, and of course I figured it was one of the kids. I thought, ‘If I just ignore them they’ll go away!’ because I really needed to get it done. Finally, I turned around and there she was! I turned and I screamed for my husband who was in his office, then I turned around again and she was gone. My husband came running in and I said, “I just saw her! Oh, my god I just saw that little girl again!”
     “How tall would you say she was?” I asked.
     “Like a seven year old kid,” Lauren said. “Small, around four feet tall or so.
      “Did you see her face clearly?” I asked.
      “It was very quick,” she said, “so I didn’t really get a chance to take a good look.”
      I asked if anyone else in the family had seen this little girl.
     Lauren’s 12-year-old daughter Jordan said, “I saw her once. It was late at night. I couldn’t fall asleep that night, and I was just laying in bed playing around on my phone. I don’t know why, but I just had this urge to get out of my bed because I felt like something was wrong. I went to my door, which was open, and I saw a little girl with long black hair standing right outside my doorway. She was wearing a long, white gown, and she was just standing there, not in my room but in the doorway. I blinked and then she was gone.
      “Was she looking in at you,” I asked, “or was she looking somewhere else?”
     “She looked like she was looking at me, but her hair was kind of hanging down in front of her face so it was hard to tell.
     I asked Jordan, “About how old would you say she was?”
     “She was a little girl”, she said. “She wasn’t that tall, so I guess she was around 7 or 8-years-old."
     "Did you see her on the first floor, or upstairs?” I asked.
     “My bedroom is upstairs. I saw her upstairs standing right outside of my bedroom door."
     I asked Lauren if there had been any other odd occurrences in the house. She said that when her mother was staying with them the TV in the living room would often turn on and off by itself, and the channels would suddenly change even when no one was near the remote. The television in Riley’s room also has a habit of turning on by itself. Sometimes she finds it on when she comes home from school, other times it turns on by itself when she is in the room.
     Other electronic devices seem to have a mind of their own. Lauren said, “I can’t tell you how many times the fan in our bedroom has turned on for no reason. You can actually hear the switch click on. This actually happens a lot in the winter time when we’re not even using the fan.”
     In addition to the problem with the televisions, the electric garage door would often open on its own. The family would go out for the day, close the garage door, and return home to find the door open. Other doors in the house also seemed reluctant to stay shut. Lauren’s 14-year old daughter, Riley, told me about an ongoing battle with her bedroom door.
     “Sometime around the time that the girl showed up on the video, I came home from school one day and found my bedroom door open. ”
     Lauren added, “We didn’t want the cat going in there because Riley’s room has a shag rug, so we don’t want the cat thinking it’s a bathroom. So that’s why Riley is very careful about making sure that door is shut.”
     “At first I thought that maybe I hadn’t shut it,” Riley continued, “so I made sure it was shut but it kept on happening. I was really confused because I was positive I was shutting the door before I went to school. I even took a video of myself shutting it, and pushing on it to make sure it was shut. When I got home from school that day, it was open again. I even took a picture of it!”

Riley took out her phone and showed me the picture of her bedroom door taken from the hallway. It showed that her door was about half-way open. I examined the door and found that once it was closed, there was no way to open it unless you turned the doorknob.
     Another odd thing that the family reported was the sound of voices in the house. These weren’t the voices of strangers, they sounded exactly like members of the family calling to one another. These ‘doppelganger voices’ were heard by several members of the family.
    “My husband used to videotape weddings,” Lauren said. “He would get home late at night and sometimes he would think I was yelling for him at the top of the stairs. He said he would hear me calling his name and he would go upstairs only to find me asleep in bed. He said it sounded just like me. I don’t have a history of talking in my sleep.
    I’ve heard someone call ‘Mom!’ and I’ve heard ‘Lore’ which is what my husband calls me sometimes. It’s short for Lauren. One time when our family friend Jack came to visit, he and I both heard a boy’s voice calling from upstairs. My sons, Ethan and Aiden, were upstairs and Connor was asleep in our bedroom. Jack and I were downstairs and we heard a boy’s voice calling loudly from upstairs, “Mom! Mom! Mom!” All I could think is ‘Connor’s upstairs with them, what could they want?’ I went upstairs to see what the problem was and everyone was sleeping.”
    “It sounded like a boy’s voice?” I asked.
    “Yes, and Jack heard it too. We both heard it coming from upstairs.”
    Tom asked, “Are the voices always familiar?”
    “To me it always sounds like it’s one of my kids,” Lauren said. “And Connor said the voice that he’s heard sounds like me.”
    “Have the boys ever experienced anything in the house?” I asked.
     Lauren laughed and said, “Aiden was in his room and his stack of video games just fell on the floor. They had been stacked there forever and had never fallen before. They fell on the floor, and then the hangers in the closet started moving back and forth. He was getting dressed at the time and joked about the ghost-girl in the video, ‘She’s a pervert! She’s watching me get dressed!’”
    Lauren told me about an experience she had that was more than a little unnerving.
    “I was in bed just about to fall off to sleep when it literally felt like someone had put their hands on the back of my neck and pushed me into the pillow. It woke me right up and I looked over at Connor and thought, ‘Did he do that?’ But of course it couldn’t have been him. He was already asleep.”
    In addition to the activity that Lauren told me about, she said that the family dog, Biscuit, has been acting strangely.
    “We’ve had Biscuit since she was a three month old puppy. She’s nine years old now. She doesn’t like closed confined spaces. She has anxiety and doesn’t even want us to put her in her crate. This past 4th of July we came home from a baseball game and my husband thought somebody had broken into the house because we found Biscuit locked in the downstairs bathroom. But we have the security camera and would have seen something on it, so no one had been in the house. The bathroom door wasn’t locked, but it was closed all the way. Then two weeks later we came home and found her in the same bathroom again with the door completely shut. She really never goes into any of the bathrooms, and she definitely does NOT go in our bathroom upstairs. She won’t go into any of the bathrooms to drink toilet water or anything like that. In August, around the time that the ghost-girl was captured on the video, we came home and found her upstairs locked in our bathroom! All these years we’ve never had a problem with her getting locked in any rooms, now all of a sudden she gets locked in three times.
    Also, there are certain times that she goes outside and refuses to come back in. She sits at the bottom of the front steps, stares up at the house and shakes. She won’t come in even when we try to bribe her with a cookie. You can put it to her face and she won’t eat it. This is the reason the security camera was in the house, because she’s been acting weird and not wanting to be left alone so my husband put the camera there to see what she was doing.”
    I asked Lauren if she knew of anyone in the neighborhood who had seen or experienced anything unusual in their homes. Lauren said, “I was chaperoning a field trip with the son of the man who built many of the houses around here. He’s lived in this neighborhood since the very beginning. I told him what was going on in our house. This was prior to the girl video. I said to him, ‘When you were growing up here, did anything weird ever happen?’ He said, ‘I can’t say very much about it here because the kids might hear me and I don’t want to scare them, but I’ve seen strange things in the woods.’ As a boy growing up, he said that he has seen things that definitely freaked him out, but he didn’t give me any details. Riley’s friend, Richie, rides his dirt bike around in these woods. He said that he’s seen shadowy figures darting out from behind trees, and sometimes just standing there as if they’re watching him.”
    Once I finished interviewing the family, it was time to take a look at the hallway where the ghost girl was captured on video. Tom Holzer is a professional cameraman. He is skilled in knowing about cameras, and how different types of lenses affect the images they capture. Some lenses distort distance, others alter things such as lighting and color. As we began our investigation I asked Tom about the lighting in the video. I noticed that the bottom of the girl seemed to be darker than the top, and that her hair had a bright spot on it.
     Tom held up the camera that had captured the video. “This camera is equipped with night vision,” he explained, “so the figure is illuminated with infrared light from the camera. So you can see the light all across the wall. It’s lighting up her dress, and it is lighting up the hair too because of how it’s flowing against the head and the shoulders. Because of where the camera was situated on the shelf, it illuminated the upper part of her body more than the lower part. That’s why the bottom of her gown looks slightly darker than the top, but it’s actually all the same color.”
    When I mentioned that Lauren originally thought the girl in the video was facing forward, and that the bright spot was her face, Tom said, “If you at her head you’ll see that it’s pretty much the same tone of light. That’s not the way somebody’s face would be lighted. The face would have a different tone than the hair. The bright spot around the neck area is where the hair might be curving in a little bit and not reflecting back as much light.”
    We went into the front hallway where the video was captured and Tom took some measurements and made an amazing discovery. Because of the type of lens used in the security camera, the girl in the video is actually much smaller than she appears to be. The doorway just past the staircase can be seen in the video, so it was a perfect place to help determine the height of the girl. By measuring the height of the doorway, and the approximate distance she was from the camera, and by factoring in the type of lens that the security camera was equipped with, Tom estimated that the girl in the video was actually between 4’ 11” and 5’ 1”. This means that the girl seen in all four sightings was approximately the same height which suggests that they were all the same girl. For the record, Lauren and Jordan are both 5’ 2” tall, and Riley is 5’ 4” tall.
    I was curious to see if I could pick up any intuitive impressions in the hallway, but even though I was standing in the exact spot where the ghost-girl had been spotted I wasn’t picking up anything. There is no way of knowing why this girl showed up where and when she did, but since it was a one time occurence she didn’t leave behind any residual energy. I asked Tom if he was picking up on anything, but his intuitive senses were drawing a blank as well.
    We proceeded to the second floor and did a walkthrough of the three bedrooms. The master bedroom felt clear of any spirit energy, as did the hallway. The boy’s bedroom at the end of the hall also felt clear.
     We made our way to Jordan’s room where the little girl had made an appearance in the doorway. I wasn’t feeling anything, but Tom experienced an odd sensation in the room. “It’s like everything is almost too quiet,” he said. “It’s like everything is muted. It feels unnaturally quiet in here, like when you don’t hear any insects in the forest at night. It’s too quiet.”
     I was interested in Tom’s impression. The absence of something implies that something that had been there is now missing. It’s possible that he was picking up on this type of feeling--similar to walking into a room where something was removed, but you can’t quite place your finger on what’s missing.
    As we made our way into one of the boy’s bedrooms on the left side of the hallway, a strong feeling began to press in on me. “There’s a feeling of something there in the corner,” I said to Tom. I walked over to the corner and stood for a while. “I’m feeling something odd here in this part of the room. Not in the main part of the room but just in this corner. The feeling I’m getting is in the front of my body. It’s a clutching kind of feeling in my chest, like the feeling you get when you suddenly go over a bump in a car. This is the only room I’m reacting to at all up here.” I left the room and came back several times to see if I would react differently, but each time I came in I had the same feeling in the same spot. I said to Tom. “Every time I leave and come back in, I still feel it. As a matter of fact, the more I come back in this room, the stronger I feel it.”
    Although the energy was strong in that one corner, it wasn’t the feeling of being watched, or that I had invaded the space where a spirit was standing. It was just strong energy, as if something was imprinted on this spot. Lauren pointed out later that the spot where I felt this energy is located directly above the front door where the video was captured.
    After finishing the walkthrough of the upstairs, we checked out the basement which was clear of any type of spirit energy. We finished the walkthrough of the house by checking out Riley’s room on the first floor, as well as Lauren’s husband’s office. Riley’s room felt fine, but in the office I picked up a strong energy-feeling similar to that which I had experienced in the upstairs boy’s bedroom.
    As Tom and I walked around the office I said to Tom, “Here by the computer, I’m starting to feel something similar to what I felt upstairs. That dropping feeling. It’s pretty strong in here.” Tom took some EMF readings of the area to make sure that I wasn’t reacting to the electromagnetic field coming off of the computer. The reading was normal, and there were no EMF spikes.
   Strangely, my digital recorder picked up a distinct buzzing sound during much of the time we spent in the office. No buzzing or static was heard in the room at the time, but something had caused interference on my recorder. This has never happened before, and it was odd that it occurred in this room where I was experiencing an energy sensation. After we left the office the buzzing on the recorder stopped.
    Tom and I met with Lauren and her daughters to discuss the walk through. We told them about the areas where I was feeling some type of energy -- in the boy’s room and in Connor’s office. Other than that, the house felt clean. Tom’s feeling of things being a bit quiet was also discussed, but in the end neither of us had picked up the presence of a spirit. Considering the sporadic nature of the activity over the past 19 years, and the fact that there had been no recent spirit manifestation, I wasn’t surprised that we weren’t picking up on anything.
    I told Lauren that I would listen to the recording I made during the investigation for any EVP that might have been captured, and Tom said that he would examine the data collected by the data loggers he had placed around the house. If we came up with anything unusual, we would let her know.
    Spirit voices sometimes answer questions during an EVP session, but more often than not they simply jump in when they can or when something strikes their fancy. In the case of the house in Oxford, the spirit-girl took an interest in a conversation we had in the kitchen prior to the walkthrough. Tom and I were on one side of the kitchen ‘island’ and Lauren and her daughters were on the other side. Lauren was telling us a story about how their cat was nearly swooped up by a hawk. In the recording Lauren says, “A hawk totally missed her. We watched the hawk swoop and totally miss it. I’m like, come on!” You hear Lauren’s daughters laugh, then a girl's voice says very close to the digital recorder, as if she had leaned in to be heard, “We didn’t see her.”

     The voice on the recording is absolutely clear, and it definitely is not Jordan or Riley. For one thing, neither of the girls were anywhere near the recorder. In addition, the phrase is spoken in a very deliberate way with each word pronounced separately, and the word “see” raised up in pitch. It’s simply not the way that one of the girls would have said this phrase. They might have quickly added, “We didn’t see it happen” or “Were weren’t there” to the conversation. They would never have said “We didn’t see her” with each word articulated individually. And they absolutely could not have come close to the recorder even if they wanted to. It was directly in front of me.
    The phrase “We didn’t see her” implies that more than one person didn’t see the event. I asked Lauren if the girls had witnessed the cat vs. hawk incident. She said that only she and her husband had seen it happen. With that in mind, my take on the phrase is that the ghost-girl considers herself to be one of the family. In her little ghostly mind, she’s just one of the girls.
    Even though the video is very short, it contains a lot of information. The measurements that Tom made of Jordan and Riley, of the doorway shown in the video, and of the distance from the camera to the place where the spirit appeared all point to a girl who was between 4’ 11” and 5’ 1” tall. Both girls were upstairs at the time that the video was captured, and Jordan said during the interview, “We don’t even own nightgowns!” The timeline, measurements, and statements from the family members all prove that the figure captured on the video was not of flesh and blood.
    To date there have been four sightings of a mysterious girl in the house -- the little girl seen walking into the unfinished house by Lauren and her brother; the young girl with dark hair seen by Jordan; the young girl seen in the kitchen by Lauren; and the girl whose image was captured on the security camera. The question is, are they all the same girl? We have to keep in mind that all of the sightings were very brief, so no one can say for certain exactly what age she was or how tall she was. The girl that Lauren and her brother spotted walking into the unfinished house was seen at a distance, but she appeared to be young. Lauren described the girl she saw in the kitchen as looking to be around 7 or 8 years old, and Jordan said that the girl she saw was young. Although the girl captured in the video appears to be rather tall, Tom proved that she is actually much smaller than she appears due to the type of lens the security camera was equipped with. My conclusion is that all of the sightings were of the same girl.
    But who is this girl, and why would she haunt a house that is only 19 years old? The obvious answer is that there had been another house on the property at one time. Lauren said that the area had just been farmland, but I found a map from 1868 that showed that two houses one stood where her house is. One was owned by the Geary family, and the other by the Patterson family. Could the spirit have originated from one of those homes? It’s very possible. The ghost-girl was seen wearing clothing from another time period, a long white gown or white nightgown.
    My instincts tell me that this spirit is from an earlier time, and that she gravitated toward this family for a reason -- to be part of the family. The EVP I picked up gives us a clue -- “We didn’t see her”. The ghost girl considers herself as one of the family, and she thinks of Jordan and Riley as her sisters, or as her close friends.
    It’s important to remember that medicine was in its infancy in the 1800s, and pandemics of influenza, yellow-fever, cholera, smallpox, and measles had claimed the lives of millions world-wide. Unfortunately, children were often the victim of these outbreaks.
    Whoever this spirit-girl is, she is not out to do the family any harm. If anything, she is simply looking for companionship. At some point I will return to the house in Oxford to do a clearing and attempt to set this spirit free. Any spirit who finds solace and companionship among the living is unaware of the beauty and joy that lies in the world beyond. Until then, this little ghost girl has a warm, happy family that she can be part of as she waits to be reunited with her loved ones on the other side.

The firehouse above is for illustration only. It is not the Tarrytown firehouse. It is the firehouse used in the film "Ghostbusters".

The Haunted Firehouse - Tarrytown, New York

Twenty Five miles north of New York City, and situated on the eastern shore of the Hudson River lies the village of Tarrytown. The area was settled by the Dutch in the early 1600’s and it is rich in history. Tarrytown’s most famous resident was Washington Irving, author of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. He based many of the characters in his stories on actual residents of the town, and his famous ‘headless horseman’ is described as having ridden through the Old Dutch Cemetery and across the bridge through the village of Tarrytown which has recently been renamed “Sleepy Hollow”.

In June of 2018 I was contacted by the producers of the Discovery Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” who were looking for haunted places to investigate in Tarrytown. I told them about several haunted historic homes in the area that I knew of, and I offered to put out feelers for more haunted spots. After posting on Facebook requesting information about haunted houses in Tarrytown, I was contacted by a fireman named Jake who said that he works in a haunted firehouse. A haunted firehouse! How cool is that? I set a date to run an investigation, and promised the “Ghost Adventures” producers that I would let them know if the firehouse would be a good place to shoot an episode.

There are several firehouses in Tarrytown; some are very old, and some are quite new. The firehouse I would be investigating was built in 2008. It replaced one that dated from the early 1900’s which was torn down because it was structurally unsafe. The new firehouse was built several blocks away from the original firehouse, and all of the contents of the old firehouse -- the fire engines, trophies, firefighting gear, historical documents, parade banners, plaques, and awards -- are housed in the new building.

The firehouse is overflowing with historical artifacts, and as any respectable ghost hunter can tell you, all objects retain the energy of the people who handled them. In addition, two firemen were tragically killed on the property when they were overcome by poison gas while trying to clear a blocked sewer, and another fireman was killed after falling off of a truck while coming back from a local parade. I wondered if the firemen who had lost their lives on the job could be responsible for the paranormal occurrences reported at the firehouse.

Tom Holzer and I arrived at the Tarrytown Firehouse on a hot, sunny Saturday in June and we were greeted by Jake and two other firemen who introduced themselves as Ryan and Dennis. The three men were excited to have an opportunity to share their stories, and they wasted no time in telling us about the paranormal activity they personally witnessed in the firehouse.

“The other night I was in the engine room where the fire engines are parked,” said Jake. “I opened the door that leads from the engine room to the foyer and it sounded like I startled somebody and I heard them run up the stairs. It sounded like someone had been standing on the second landing, and then I heard footsteps shoot up the stairs. They went all the way up to the second floor and then stopped as if they were standing outside the meeting room door. I thought it might be a homeless person or something, and one of the other firemen who also heard the running footsteps ran upstairs to check it out, but there was nobody up there.”

Ryan added, “You’ll hear footsteps going up and down the upstairs hallway all the time. If you’re sitting in the engine room, right above is the meeting room. It’ll sound like people moving the furniture around in that room. There are heavy, wooden meeting chairs up there, and when you drag them across the floor they make a really loud sound. So it’ll sound like people are rearranging the furniture up there, but there’s obviously nothing going. There’s never anybody up there when we go to check it out.”

Jake chimed in, “One time, Bryan and I were alone in the firehouse. We took the elevator to the second floor and as we got out of the elevator we heard a cabinet slam in the kitchen, so we thought somebody was up there. We walked down the hall to the kitchen, and as soon as we opened the door we heard another cabinet slam shut. We looked around, but there was no one there. It freaked us out so we came back downstairs.”

Dennis brought us over to the front door. “This door is really heavy. It’s unlocked right now, but when it’s locked you have to punch a number into the keypad to get in. After you do that you’ll hear a click, and when you open the door it’s really heavy to open. One time I was alone in the garage, and there was no one else in the firehouse. All of a sudden I heard the front door open and shut, so I looked out the window but I didn’t see anything. Then I heard it open again and I looked out and I watched the door open halfway, and then SLAM shut. So I ran from the engine room to the foyer thinking that maybe someone was in here, but no one was around."

“Do you need a code to get in?” I asked.

“Right now it’s unlocked because we knew you were coming,” he answered, “but at that time it was locked and you needed a code to get in.”

“How far did you see the door open?” I asked.

“It was like here (demonstrates by opening the door very wide) and then it slammed. It didn’t shut like that (lets the door close by itself), it slammed shut like someone outside was pushing it. There was no wind or anything that could have made it do that. The door’s too heavy anyway, and you need a code to unlock it.”

“But here’s the thing that really creeped me out the most,” Jake said. “Bryan and I were backing one of the trucks out of the engine room. This was at night and the lights were on in the engine room. At night you can see into the room from outside when the lights are on in there. The garage door had closed and we were backing the truck up. We looked at the garage door and we saw a shadow walk past the six garage door windows. It looked like the head and shoulders of a man walking behind the glass, like a shadow. It was walking between the garage door and the truck.

“I told Bryan to stop the truck because I thought it was like a reflection or something moving. And then this thing just continued to walk across the engine room, in front of the truck, then through the door that leads from the garage into the foyer. When it got to the foyer we saw the full figure of a man walk into the elevator. There were no details, it was just a black shadow of a man, but the entire full figure from his head to his feet.

“I didn’t say anything to Bryan until I saw the figure walk into the elevator. I was like, ‘Did you see that?’ Bryan was like, ‘Yeah, I was just about to tell you.’ That was the freakiest and craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“So you saw it and who else?” I asked

“Me and Bryan. Bryan’s inside.”

“How tall did the person look?” I asked.

“It was probably shorter than me, maybe around 5’ 10."

“So just to clarify, you had shut the garage door?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “The garage door was shut, and you have the six windows in there on the garage door. The lights were on so you could see in. So it looked like it was walking between the garage and truck that was parked in there. And it was only cut off at the shoulders in there, but when it came through the foyer it was like a full, long figure.”

“So it was cut off at the shoulders because that’s just as much of it as you could see through those six windows, right?” I asked

“Yeah. That was just as much as we could see because of the size of the windows. And then it went right into the foyer. It was literally like someone just went to the elevator. And we both saw it, and I was really creeped out.”

Bryan joined us and told us about his experiences in the firehouse.

“I’m sure about the footsteps coming up the steps,” he said. “I’ll be coming in here some days and it sounds like somebody is literally running up the steps and I think it’s one of our members who sometimes stays here or something. And I’m like, ‘Alright, I’ll get him a cup of coffee or something.’ Nothing. I’ll go up and check. Nothing.”

“Are the footsteps always running?” I asked.

“Two times when I heard them on the steps, it sounded like somebody was on the last three steps with their feet scuffling around, like running up the steps. It’s sounds like, ‘Oh, somebody’s coming in. Let me run as fast as I can to get away so I’m not seen.’ I’d say I’ve heard the footsteps more than ten times, especially when we used to hang out up there before the engine room was done.

“I saw a figure walk through the engine room, past the windows on the garage door, then through the door into the elevator. Jake and I saw it clear as day, then it was gone.

“Then, I heard the chairs in the conference room moving around many times. I’ve heard the cabinets slamming shut in the kitchen upstairs. I went up to investigate, nobody was there. I’ve seen the front door opening and closing a couple of times when nobody was here. I used to lay or sit in the engine room and you’d hear like wet footprints, and you’d hear keys like real quick in the hallway upstairs.”

Another firefighter, Neal, came out of the engine room and joined in on the conversation.

“I was never a really a big believer in any of this kind of thing,” Neal explained, “so when it did happen I was like, ‘Alright, that’s messed up!’ Because I knew no one was here. The furniture moving around upstairs is absolutely the most common thing I’ve heard. It’s constantly happening.”

“When you heard the furniture move around, how long did it go on for?” I asked.

“It’s like a quick … like they literally would take a chair run it from one end of the room to the other. And then you come up here and there’s nothing out of place. Also, a few times I heard a slam of a cabinet. But mostly for me as far as my experiences it’s been the chairs. The meeting room chairs in particular. Because they make a really loud sound.”

Tom asked Neal, “When you heard the chairs moving across the floor, could you tell roughly the number of chairs that were moving?”

“It varies,” Neal said. “Most times it’s definitely more than one, but sometimes it sounds like one going straight across the floor. But quickly enough that someone’s pushing it hard enough that it’s making that type of sound. It’s not like they’re subtly moving it. You don’t hear footsteps or anything like that. Just the chairs moving across the floor.”

I asked if there was any other activity in the firehouse, and there was plenty. The motion sensitive security cameras in the meeting room are often triggered at night, but nothing shows up in the video. This sometimes coincides with the sound of the meeting room chairs moving. In addition, the firemen have had some other very unusual experiences.

Ryan said, “You know those ballet things on a stand that you wind up and they play, and the ballet dancer spins around? You know, like on a music box? Well, we had one in the engine room, but it was broken. It didn’t work at all. Then one night when we were asleep back there, all of a sudden it started playing. I’m telling you, this thing was totally broken and didn’t work at all. It just started playing all by itself. And then the next day, we found a pair of rosary beads hanging from underneath it, and no one knows where the rosary beads came from.”

Jake added, “The first time we found those rosary beads, they were tied onto the old antique truck we have in the back of the engine room. That’s where me and Bryan found them. We came into the engine room one morning and saw them and we were like, ‘Who tied rosary beads to the truck?’ They weren’t just hanging from the fire engine -- they were, like, tied to it. We asked around but no one said that they were theirs. No one said that they put them there. So then, we just left them.”

Photo of the beads found in the firehouse

The other thing that the firemen report hearing is the sound of someone walking up and down the upstairs hallways accompanied by the sound of jingling keys. They describe it as sounding like someone has a large keychain on their belt that has a lot of keys on it, and they’re jingling the keychain as they walk.

Dennis said, “There was an older firefighter, a real prominent guy named Ian who passed away a long time ago. He was never actually in this firehouse, but some of the old firefighters think that the jingling key sound is Ian because he used to have this big set of keys on his belt. Everybody here has heard someone walking up and down the upstairs hallway, and the sound of keys jingling.”

I asked, “How often are the keys heard?”

“It could be every night,” Ryan said. “If we’re not listening or paying attention, or there’s many people here, you’re not going to notice it. But if it’s like just a couple of people sitting downstairs watching TV, you’ll hear it.”

“Is it always a night thing?” I asked

“It is a night thing,” said Jake. “I don’t really hear it during the day. Or maybe you just don't pay attention during the day because we’re always doing something during the day.”

Ryan added, “I might have heard it once or twice sitting in the office doing paperwork during the day. Maybe once or twice I might have heard it during the day, but definitely 99 percent of the time it’s at night.”

Tom asked, “Was there anything in this firehouse that Ian worked on or anything like that?”

Ryan said, “The antique engine was in the original firehouse, so I’m sure he worked on that and rode that truck. We have his hat, old trophies, and old plaques in the meeting room cabinet. Maybe his spirit is attached to those things.”

“Besides the people who work here, has anyone else had a paranormal experience in the firehouse?” I asked.

Dennis said, “My wife is creeped out by this place. She gets weird feelings that someone is watching her and that type of thing. But she’s never seen anything.”

At this point we all made our way upstairs. At the top of the stairway is a long hallway that runs from the front of the building to the back. At the front end is a small office, and at the far end is the entrance to the kitchen where the cabinets have been heard slamming.

Jake said, “This is the hallway where we hear the walking and the keys jingling, and this is the meeting room with the chairs.” We walked into the meeting room, and I immediately felt a presence.

“As far as feeling something,” I said, “this is the spot. As soon as I walked in the room, I felt it right here in this room. I didn’t feel anything in the hallway. Wow! It’s really strong in here. So these are the chairs you hear moving?”

Jake said, “Yes. They’re not light chairs. Here’s what we hear downstairs in the engine room.” Jake demonstrated just how loud the chairs sounded when they are dragged across the floor. The chairs have heavy wooden legs, and the make a very loud and distinct sound when moved.

Ryan said, “We’ll be downstairs in the engine bay where we sit, and you’ll hear (moves the chairs which make a loud sound) just like this.”

“How long does it go on for?” I asked.

“Until you notice it,” Jake said. “We come up here to check it out, and the room is set up normally. Nothing is moved.

I asked, “Does it stop as you’re on your way up the stairs to check it out?”

“Definitely,” Ryan said. “It’ll be going on, you’ll open the engine bay door and you’ll still hear it. You’ll start going up the stairs and it’ll stop.”

Jake added, “And it’s not like just one person hears it. We’ll all hear it and one person will say, ‘Hey guys’ and we’re like ‘Yeah, we all hear it.’ If there’s ten of us down there and it’s going on, we’ll all hear it.”

“Does it sound like one chair moving around,” I asked, “or like a lot of chairs moving.”

Ryan said, “No, a lot. A bunch of chairs. Like ten of them. Like they’re rearranging all of them”

Jake explained, “If we have events in here, we move all of the chairs to the side. So it sounds like someone’s rearranging it to set up for a party or a dinner or something.

Tom asked, “Do you know roughly the time that it happens?”

Dennis answered, “That’s not usually during the day. It’s more of an evening thing, like when it starts getting dark out. It could be 8:30 at night and you’ll hear it. It can be one o’clock in the morning and you’ll hear it.”

I asked, “Does it sound organized? As if someone is moving the chairs to set them up for something, or does it just sound like the random movement of chairs?”

Dennis thought for a minute, then said, “I don’t think it sounds chaotic. I don’t know if it’s actually the sound of someone setting up for an event or a party, but that’s the only thing I can think that it sounds like. I would say that it sounds like someone is trying to organize the room. To keep it neat, you know? Instead of trying to make a mess.”

We walked into the kitchen area, and Tom got a strong feeling as he entered the room. He said, “I stepped right in here and I got hit. It’s like residual now, but the moment I stepped in everything fired up.”

“Do you have anything happening back here?” I asked Ryan.

“This is where we used to sit and hang out and watch TV,” he said. “This is the old rec-room. We have the TV downstairs now because we didn’t like being up here cause it kind of got a little too creepy. And the hallway that leads to the kitchen and this room is where you would hear someone walking. We would look over to see who was here, and no one walks through, or like you hear the keys jingling. There would also be times when you would hear the front door opening, and you’d go out to look out the window over there and no one else was here. If you open that door downstairs and you shut it, you’re going to hear it up here.

“One day we were all sitting here in the rec room, and I was sitting right by the door. I was in one of these chairs, sitting right here. I was leaning back in my chair, but not to the point where I was going to fall over or anything, I was just leaning back. Then all of a sudden I felt someone grab me by my collar and pull me back hard, and I fell backwards. I jumped up thinking someone was there, but the door was closed. I had goosebumps and my hair stood up.”

“Did this happen after the two firemen had passed?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “But it wasn’t right after. It was like two or three years ago.”

We walked back to the meeting room. As I passed the trophy case, another strong feeling came over me. I said, “I know that you guys are hearing footsteps in the hallway, but there’s something here in this room. Whatever or whoever it is, it’s big-time in this room. Whether it’s just the energy coming from this stuff I’m not sure. I know that many people have handled these things over time though, so it doesn’t surprise me that they’ve stored up a lot of energy.”

Dennis said, “A lot of these things are very old. I’m sure that Ian and everybody has had their hands on them. He was the chief, and some of these trophies, parade banners, and plaques are a big deal. Ian’s got emotion for them I guess.”

In the short time I spent in the firehouse it became clear that the men who fight fires alongside one another are not just colleagues or friends, they are family. So when a fireman loses his or her life on the job, it truly is like losing a family member.

In September of 2010, two firefighters lost their lives after they succumbed to toxic fumes in a manhole just outside the back door of the firehouse. Although it was hard for the firemen to discuss the tragedy with me, they did their best to fill me in on what happened that day. We walked outside to the manhole, and Ryan recounted the details of that tragic day.

Pointing to the manhole, Ryan said, “That’s where John and Anthony passed away. Anthony went down to clear a blockage in the sewer, and then passed out from the fumes. So then John saw it, went inside and grabbed a pair of boots, came out, got maybe about three or four rungs on the ladder, looked up, then dropped right down. The gasses got so strong by that time that they were coming out of the top of the sewer. Anthony was fine going down. He was down there for a couple of seconds, looks up, drops. John was going down a couple of rungs, looks up … They pulled John out first, and then Anthony.”

“Did all of you know these two men?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jake said, “we grew up with them.”

It was understandable that this was a very difficult thing for them to talk about, so I didn’t ask many questions. One thing was certain; the two men were loved and missed by their friends and colleagues, and eight years later the tragedy still affects everyone in a profound way.

“When would you say all of the paranormal activity started in the firehouse? Was it as soon as the firehouse was built, or was it shortly after the death of the two firemen?” I asked.

“They sound of the jingling keys was before John and Anthony passed away. When we moved in the keys jingling definitely started,” said Ryan.

Dennis added, “It’s definitely escalated over the years. It definitely has gone from whatever it was to more stuff happening. I think that everyone here has experienced something different too. I don’t think it’s always the same thing for each of us, which is the other thing that’s very weird and unexplainable. We’ll experience things together, like the sound of the chairs, the jingling key, and the footsteps running up the stairs. But other experiences seem more personal.”

Because the majority of the activity centered on the meeting room, I decided to hold an EVP session there. As we sat at the large meeting desk, I asked the spirits to make themselves known by speaking into the digital recorder that I was holding. I asked a number of questions, and invited them to make a sound in the room, but all was quiet. A few times during the session, I felt a presence around me, but it quickly moved away. I got a strong impression that whoever was haunting the firehouse, they felt it was their job to protect the firemen and to watch over them. I ended the EVP session after about 25 minutes, confident that I would receive a message from one or more of the spirits who inhabited the building. As you will hear, I was not disappointed.

Tom and I returned to the firehouse a few weeks later. Tom was armed with an array of data collecting sensors that he was anxious to put in the upstairs meeting room. His plan was to leave them for 24 hours to see if there were any unusual temperature or humidity changes. A drop in temperature, or a sudden change in humidity levels may indicate the presence of spirit energy. But Tom’s long-term goals with collecting data during investigations goes far beyond proving or disproving spirit activity. He has a theory about the way that spirits use energy to manifest, and he is hoping to gather enough evidence to support his case. Joining us was my dear friend Karen Darby. Karen is an incredible psychic intuitive, and her readings during investigations are always nothing short of amazing. I purposely kept Karen in the dark about the details of the investigation, only telling her that it was in Tarrytown.

IMPRESSIONS FROM A PSYCHIC INTUITIVE
Karen rode in the car with me from Danbury, Connecticut, and as we made our way to the investigation I casually asked her if she had picked up any precognitive impressions about the case. The very first thing she said was, “I smelled smoke”. When I asked her to clarify this, she said, “It’s more of an impression of smoke, but it’s so strong that I smell it.” I asked her if she picked up on anything else. “I’m seeing bricks, and hearing a bell ringing, like a large bell clanging.” Both of these impressions were pretty stunning considering Karen had no idea we were on our way to a firehouse which, by the way, was made out of brick. Regarding the bell, prominently displayed outside of the firehouse is a large fire bell.

As we continued making our way to the firehouse, Karen said that she had also picked up the impression of children, and of an older man. Interestingly, both impressions had to do with fire. “I saw several small children sitting on the edge of a meadow. I could see a forest right behind them. In the impression, it looked as though they were playing with matches, but no fire was started. The other impression I had was of an old man sleeping in bed. He had a cigarette dangling from his hand.” It’s unclear whether Karen was picking up on actual events, or if these were simply more images of fire. Either way, her impressions were stunning.

When we arrived at the firehouse, Tom unpacked his data collecting equipment, and the three of us met with Jake and a few other firemen. I introduced Karen and asked if it would be okay if she took a walk around the firehouse to gather some intuitive impressions. They thought it was a great idea, so I suggested that we start at the upper level and work our way down. I cautioned them not to say anything, as I hadn’t given Karen any details of the case.

As we walked up the stairs where the running footsteps have been heard, Karen paused at the top of the landing and commented that there was a strong feeling of energy there. I suggested that we walk down the hallway where the footsteps and jingling keys were heard. We walked all the way down to the kitchen, but did not go in. Karen was quiet, but on her way back, something curious happened. We both stopped suddenly at the exact same spot and commented that we felt a wall of energy that made us both pause at the same time. Karen wasn’t able to pick up any specific information, but the feeling that we both got in this spot was extremely strong. We made our way back to the kitchen, but Karen did not pick up any impressions in this area.

We entered the meeting room, and Karen said that the meeting room was a major source of energy, and that it was related to whatever was going on in the firehouse. As she walked around the room, she was drawn to a white hat that was among the antique trophies, plaques and banners. She touched it lightly and said, “This hat is interesting. It has the energy of someone who was in control.” We learned later that the hat belonged to Ian, the former captain of the old firehouse, and who many believe is responsible for the sound of jingling keys heard in the outside hallway.

As Karen started walking towards the front of the meeting room, she stopped abruptly and said, “There was something that happened suddenly. I don’t know if it happened in this room or somewhere else. It was something that couldn’t be helped because it happened so fast. It was like a sudden collapse.” At this point Karen motioned with her hands in a downward sweep, and she allowed her body to go limp as if someone had died suddenly and had fallen down. She also commented that it was difficult for her to breathe, that she felt dizzy, and that someone had rapidly lost oxygen. “Someone hit the side of their head. I don’t know if this was the actual cause of their death, but they injured the side of their head in a fall of some kind.”

Karen’s impressions were nothing short of amazing. She had accurately described how the two firemen had died when they were overcome by poisonous fumes. Even more amazing was the fact that we were told later that one of the men who died in the manhole had suffered a blow to the side of his head as a result of the 15 foot drop to the bottom of the sewer.

As an intuitive, I know how important it is to voice all of the impressions we pick up on, no matter how far-fetched they may seem. Later in the day, after all of the details of the case had been revealed, Karen said, “I really should have said what I was experiencing while I was in the meeting room. I kept smelling gas! But I didn’t say anything because of the proximity of the kitchen area to the meeting room. I just assumed that I was smelling gas from the gas stoves in there.”

We made our way to the lower level, and I suggested that we take a walk down the hall toward the back door that lead to the manhole where the firemen were killed. I wanted to see if Karen would receive any impressions as we approached the back door. She stopped just outside the door and said, “There’s a terrible feeling of sadness here. Heartbreaking sadness.” I couldn’t help but think that Karen was picking up on the sorrow and loss the firemen felt, and still feel, over the death of their two friends and colleagues.

We walked outside, and I suggested Karen walk around on the grass area near the manhole where the tragedy occurred, but she did not pick up any further information. The only thing she reported seeing were the fields and forests of a former time.

We finally made our way to the engine room where the shadow figure of a man had been seen walking. As we walked toward the front of the room, Karen commented on a flood of impressions that came from one of the fire engines. “When I touch this truck, it’s like a vortex of voices and emotions. I can’t decipher any of what is being said. It’s all coming so fast.” Karen asked if the truck had been involved in the 9/11 tragedy. The firefighters said that a couple of the guys had gone to help during 9/11, but they didn’t have any further information about their involvement or about that specific engine.

GATHERING DATA
Tom’s data sensors have been invaluable tools during paranormal investigations, and I am immensely grateful for his scientific expertise. In summarizing the data collecting portion of the investigation, Tom wrote:

“The data loggers I use sample temperature, humidity and barometric pressure at predetermined time intervals. The phenomenon I’ve begun to pay close attention to is a specific temperature drop - about 2.5 degrees F - over the course of 20 minutes or less. I theorize that this change may have a direct correlation to hauntings and paranormal experiences.

My theory is based off of the concept that in order to “do” anything (living or dead) you need to start with a potential difference between two points, otherwise known as voltage (technically electric potential difference). That’s basically the foundation of my theory -- you find the voltage, you find the energy. So where does this voltage come from? The places I’m “currently” paying attention to are temperature variations, but it could also be things like ionic charge or chemical interactions to name just a few. I don’t believe spirits are only using one type of technique to create voltage to present themselves, but you have to start somewhere.

I have recorded this type of temperature drop on a few other investigations that Barry and I have conducted, and I noticed the exact same change in temperature the first day we visited the firehouse. During the first day of our visit, I set up sensors in the upstairs hallway right outside of the meeting room. You may recall that this is where the phantom footsteps and jingling keys were heard. The sensors recorded a 2.5 degree drop over a period of 15 minutes.

During the second day, I would be setting up four data loggers on stands to try to get to get a real time, 3D environmental snapshot of one of the most ‘active’ rooms in the firehouse - the meeting room. The plan was to leave the loggers for 24 hours, and to monitor them via IP cameras for the duration of the experiment. After setting up the stands and checking the cameras and data loggers, I closed the doors, turned off the HVAC system, and took plenty of pictures. I also took some physical measurements before finally leaving for the evening. My hope was to find some sort of environmental change that corresponded to a paranormal event that was caught on camera.

The next day I went back and was very eager to start looking at the data. I scanned through the data and compared it to data I had collected from my own backyard weather station during the exact same time period, but in the end I concluded that there were no abnormal readings occurring in the firehouse hallway over the course of that 24 hour period.

So what do you do with this data? You make lemonade! This was an excellent demonstration that the data loggers were functioning as expected, and now we had at least one baseline reading to work off of if we ever go back. By comparing my weather station against the data loggers I concluded that everything responded as to be expected and no abnormal readings were present.”

EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon)
EVP is one of the most fascinating and compelling pieces of evidence collected during paranormal investigations. The voices that show up on digital recorders and magnetic tape are not heard at the time they are recorded; they reveal themselves upon listening back to the recording. Although I run EVP sessions at every investigation, the ‘voices on the tape’ don’t always show up when you expect them to. Often, I’ll listen back to a 20 minute Q&A session and am rewarded with nothing but silence. But because I run the recording from the minute I step foot into a haunted location, there are plenty of opportunities for spirits to jump in and say a few words. Such was the case with the firehouse investigation.

During the first day of the investigation, I was talking to the firemen about the men who died in the manhole accident. We were in the foyer near the front door, and Ryan was explaining how a stream used to run under the firehouse, but it was diverted after the men were killed by the poison gas in order to prevent further tragedies. As Ryan was talking, the voice of an older sounding gentleman talks over him and said, “It confused me”. Ryan was about six feet away from me, and there were no other firemen close to me at the time. Yet, the man’s voice sounded like it was speaking directly into the recorder.

I emailed the EVP to Jake and requested that he share it with the other firefighters, and to ask them if they recognized the voice. Jake got back to me the following day and said that a few of the men thought the voice sounded just like Ian, the captain of the old firehouse who used to jingle his keys as he walked. Although the message is puzzling, this striking piece of evidence, along with reports of the the sound of jingling keys, suggests that Ian is still watching over the firehouse, and that he is able to communicate with the firemen when the conditions are right.

The second EVP was captured in the upstairs hallway; the very hallway that Ian is thought to haunt. It was during the first day of the investigation and Jake, Dennis, Ryan, Tom and I were all walking down the hallway toward the kitchen. No one was talking. All of a sudden a voice says, “STEP careful!” For the record, the hallway was complete empty, so there was no danger of any of us tripping over anything. Ironically, the voice doesn’t sound like Ian's voice. In fact, after sharing the recording with the other firemen, no one was able to identify the voice. It clearly didn’t belong to any of the people who were walking down the hallway that day, but the voice remains a mystery.

In researching the Tarrytown fire department, I discovered that many local firefighters had died over the years. Some died of natural causes, others died in the line of duty. The voice in the EVP could belong to any of these firefighters. In my opinion, the message “Step careful” wasn’t just warning us to watch our step was we made our way down the hallway. It was a general message to all the firemen in the firehouse to ‘step careful’ when on the job.

CONCLUSION
Regardless of the fact that the Tarrytown firehouse was built just eight years ago, there are definitely spirits who walk the halls, open doors, run up stairs, move heavy wooden chairs, yank on people’s collars, and walk past windows. They materialized a string of rosary beads, and they made a broken music box play in the dead of night.

Why do these spirits haunt the firehouse? The entire time I was in the firehouse, I got a strong sense that whoever was responsible for the paranormal activity, their mission was to watch over the firemen, and to make sure that everyone is safe. The EVP message summed it up best: “Step careful”. When you stop and think about it, this message is elegant in its simplicity. When someone tells you to “step careful”, it implies that they see something that you don’t, and that they are attempting to prevent you from injuring yourself. They see something that you don’t because they are watching over you. So there is not a single doubt in my mind that these are not simply the spirits of fallen firefighters. They are this and so much more -- They are the guardian angels of the Tarrytown firehouse.

In June of 2018 received an email from a woman who was seeking help because of the alarming activity she was experiencing in her Enfield, Connecticut home. The entity was clearly demonic, and although two pastors and one Catholic priest had visited the home, the activity continued unabated. Luckily, I was able to help the woman and put an end to the activity that was plaguing her and her four year old daughter.
The following interview is from June 21, 2018
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Enfield Demon

I live on _____ Street in Enfield, Connecticut in a housing unit which is on a cul de sac. The 8 units on the cul de sac were built in 1991, and most of the people who live here are original to when they were built. I moved in and for almost a year nothing creepy happened, and then I started to notice things.

Now, I know the people who lived in the house before I moved in. They moved out because a bigger unit opened up. They told me that the first family that lived in this unit was a pastor and his wife. They had a son who was around junior-high, high school age. The father beat and raped the boy all the time, and he finally got arrested and is in prison. I don’t think any of the people in the family died. Now, I don’t know if that means that they brought in a negative spirit because of that whole thing.

The woman that lived here before me moved to the unit across the street. There were 8 people living in my 2 bedroom unit, so the house was just too small for them. All the kids in the unit grew up with each other. They’ve all told me that when they lived there they saw a man walking around the house all the time, and that it actually touched them. The neighbor Alex said that he and his cousin had also seen it. He said, “We saw the guy walking around all the time.” The mom who lived here told me, ‘Oh, nothing really happened, except one time I was in the basement watching TV and I thought my boyfriend had come home because someone grabbed my leg and was squeezing it and wouldn’t let go. I turned around and nobody was there.” She kind of brushed it off and was like, 'Yeah, nothing has ever happened except that one thing,' but I’m like, ‘Your son, the neighbor, the kids …' All the people who would sleep over in the bedroom have all told me that they saw the guy all the time.

So, about a year ago dumb little things start happening. Like the lights. It was all of my lights, and it was only my lights. I would go to bed and I’d wake up and the hallway lights would be on. It also used to make strobe lights come out of my smoke detectors. The house would be dark and I’d wake up to go to the bathroom and I’d have to actually close my eyes because such bright lights would shoot out of it. All of this was strange, but it was only messing with the lights, so it didn’t really bother me.

It didn’t happen all the time. When it started it was so seldom. When I really started to pay attention is, my house is pitch black at night when nothing is on. I drink a ton of water I have to pee like eight times at night, so I get up the lights are off. You can tell, you open the door to the hallway and it’s pitch dark. You get up again, it’s pitch dark. You get up a third time and all of a sudden it’s super bright downstairs. So you know that the light is on and it wasn’t on before.

My dog who passed away in December was scared of everything. She used to see it all the time. She would be scared of it. I used to have to bring her to work with me or have my mom pick her up because it used to make my smoke alarms in the house go off, my CO2 detectors go off randomly even though the batteries were changed.

Then my four year old daughter told me that there was someone at the foot of our bed trying to take the blankets. She also said that she saw a man sitting at the bottom of our stairs. She started getting really scared to go to bed at night.

About three months ago, in April, I went to bed and woke up to someone holding my arm and squeezing it so tight that it woke me up. It held on for a while before finally letting go.

Barry: Was it holding one arm or two arms?

One arm. I was laying on my back and my left side is on the edge of the bed. My daughter sleeps with me against the wall on my right side, so it was holding my left arm. But squeezing it tight enough that I didn’t have any marks, but tight enough that it woke me up and I could really feel it. And for about 30 seconds after it I could still feel it. Like if I squeeze you really hard and let go, you’d feel it for a while afterward.

B What part of your arm was it?

My upper arm. Well the next week I was laying on my left side facing out away from the wall, my back was to my daughter, and I woke up with the most awful feeling. The hair on my arms was standing up. I opened my eyes and someone was RIGHT in front of me hunched down face-to-face looking at me. I thought that someone had broken into the house. My room at the time was pitch dark, I don’t sleep with a nightlight or anything on so it was pitch dark, but I could see this silhouette of someone directly in front of me, face-to-face with me. They were hunched down, literally nose-to-nose, face-to-face with me.

B How far was their face from your face?

Maybe like two inches. Like face-to-face with me. I could feel my heart beating in my ears. The hair on my arms was standing up and I was processing that someone had broken into the house, and as they stood up, they just disappeared. I was like, 'Oh -- there’s not a real persons in my house.' And then I just felt awful. I couldn’t go back to sleep. The dog was going crazy. The dog was growling. This is a new dog I got in February.

B When you saw the face and it vanished as it stood up, did it look like a shadow person, something that doesn’t have any features, or did it look like a real person in the dark?

It was so dark that it looked like a silhouette, like a shadow person with no features. It was like the outline of a tall person but with no features. When it first happened I thought it was a person that had broken into the house, but within seconds I realized that it wasn’t a person.

B That’s really frightening. It sounds like things started to ramp up rather quickly. What happened after you saw this man?

When I moved into the place, all of the closets had been taken off of every room. There’s just the open space of the closet there. They’re were originally sliding door closets. And there’s like a two foot drop down at the top of the closet where the doorway would be in the middle. They’re like walk-in closets. March was my birthday and I had balloons in the house, and there was one in my bedroom. I sleep with the air conditioner and two fans on. I had to buy a second air conditioner because no matter what I do to my bedroom, it’s super hot at around 2 or 3 in the morning, to the point where the air conditioner blows just air, not cold or hot, just air.

When I got the balloon, even with the two fans and the air conditioner on, the balloon in the corner of the room never moved, the string never blew. Like it literally never moved. In the middle of April I was in my bedroom laying in bed and all of a sudden the balloon at a very fast pace went from the corner of the room to the end of the closet which is halfway across the room. It went from there to there really fast, then it actually turned, like a person was holding it and pacing. It turned the whole balloon. It didn’t just go back and forth; it turned, went back to the end, turned again and went back, turned again and went back to the end. It did this for like 5 minutes. Back and forth, back and forth. It was really dramatically fast. And I’m laying in bed like, ‘You friggin’ kidding me?’ I didn’t know what to do. Honestly. I’m sitting there, my daughter’s asleep, and I’m just watching it. Then all of a sudden it gets in the middle of the closet and it starts spinning. Spinning like it’s in a tornado spinning. Like FAST spinning. Then it went into the closet and stopped moving. It was so freaky.

I’m like ‘OK, I’m just going to have to deal with this’. I can’t move. I have another big dog, which is part of my problem, finding place to rent. So I’m like, ‘OK, it’s in the closet. It’s not going to come out. I’m just going to have to deal with this.’

I wake up almost every night because my daughter wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, “Leave me alone, you’re hurting me, stop touching me.” It’s the same thing every night. Then she starts screaming, “Get away from me. Get off from me.” She never remembers it in the morning. I’m like ‘You had a bad dream last night,’ and she’s like, ‘No I didn’t”. So she’s screaming, I’m laying on my side facing her. The fan is like two feet from my head. I have one of the fans right there next to me. I woke up, and the balloon is not in the closet anymore . It's in front of the fan; but DIRECTLY in front of the fan being held there. It’s not moving, not blowing, not moving. It’s sitting like a statue right in front of the fan that is on high in front of my face. So, the balloon was right in front of my face, and the fan was blowing right behind it.

B How far away from your face was the balloon?

Maybe like a foot. If I had leaned forward I would have hit my face on the balloon.

B How big was the balloon?

It was like a dollar store silver ones that they blow up that says ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. One of those silver
mylar balloons. So I grabbed the balloon and I started screaming, “I’ve had enough! This is my house! You need to go! This is my house!” And I popped the balloon, threw it on the floor and went back to bed.

I had my friend and her husband come over to bless the house. She pastored a Christian church in Hartford, and her husband came. Both are pastors at the church. They came and blessed my house the first week in May. That was on a Thursday. On Thursday and Friday my house was quiet. Saturday, I woke up at night to go to the bathroom and the strobe light came out of the smoke detector again.

I was standing in my doorway like, ‘Are you friggin’ kidding me?’ I thought it was gone because it had been so quiet. So I’m standing there leaning on the doorway and I said out loud, “Are you back? Are you really back?” And it freaking GROWLED at me out loud. I didn’t see it. It growled at me like a lion -- like so loud like a lion. It was so loud that my dog who was behind me in bed jumped and started growling. I went back in and shut the door. I had a whole list of prayers that I was told to say. I say them every night. They gave me this anointed oil. Sign of the cross. Everything. I’ve sprayed holy water. I sprayed salt water.

B When you heard the growl, where did it sound like it was coming from?

You know if you stand in a door and you kind of lean on it? I was leaning so my right arm was leaning on the doorway. If I look straight ahead I’m looking at my daughter’s bedroom door. If I turn my head a foot or half a foot to the left I’m facing the closet, and in-between me and the closet is the smoke alarm. It flashed. So I was looking at the smoke alarm facing the closet, and it growled like it was not even a foot in front of me. When I tell you it was loud! I mean HO-LY-CRAP! It was loud. It was not a muffled, ‘Did I hear something? Is that something outside?’ It was like in my face, and it growled at me. Like some sort of animal. I mean it was like this big, deep, growl.

Then a few days later my daughter tells me, “Oh look at this. It’s so pretty. There’s this sparkly, crystal-looking thing that’s flying around the bedroom.” And she’s trying to chase it. My older daughter was home from school for a few weeks in May, so we were both looking. We couldn’t see anything; only she can see it, and she’s chasing it around the room. I said to her, “Come here. Leave it alone”. And she’s like, “It’s a butterfly. It wants me to follow it.” It was trying to get my daughter to go over to the door. I’m like ’No’. I said some prayers and went to bed. In the morning we woke up and my daughter said, “That butterfly is back, but it’s really mad at me because I didn’t go with it. It’s over by the door again, and it wants me to leave, but it’s really mad and I can’t get out of bed until it’s gone.” She was terrified. People have told me that because it’s changed shape for her to see that that’s a bad sign. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this.

B Was that the last thing that happened?

Not at all. Pictures fall off the walls, lights go on. Apart from the growl, this is the strangest thing that happened. In February I had piles of folded laundry in my bedroom that I had washed and folded. I had washed all of my daughter’s clothes one night, like 90 percent of her clothes and put them in my room and folded them. The next morning I woke up and every bit of her clothes were gone. I never found them. I had to buy her all new winter clothes.

B How many pieces of clothing disappeared?

Like literally $400 worth of clothes. At least 10 pairs of pants, maybe like 8 or 10 sweatshirts, like 15 to 20 long sleeved shirts. Piles of clothes. All at one time disappeared.

B Did you go to sleep, wake up and the clothes were gone? Or did you leave the house and came back to find that they were gone? It’s not like someone could have come into the house when you were gone and taken the clothes?

No. I put the clothes in the closet, went to bed, woke up, and they were gone. There were in the closet just a few feet away from the bed, and in the morning they were gone.

A paranormal investigator came to the house last week. I don’t know anything about him except my girlfriend used to live in a haunted house and she told me about him. He came over last week and tried to do some readings on my house. Usually when anyone comes, the first few times it’s really quiet. It doesn’t show itself. It doesn’t do anything. My girlfriend from work came over a few times when I was at work so she was alone in the house. She tape recorded her conversation with it, and it growled at her a few times on tape. It didn’t really say real words, it just kept growling.

My dog is very protective. The paranormal team had a girl who I guess was psychic, and when she kept trying to channel it my dog would run into the room and go and lay on top of her. He does that whenever he feels someone needs protection. He does it to my daughter and me all the time.

The bedroom that would be my daughter’s room if I let her sleep in it; everyone who has ever come into my house says they get a bad feeling in there. Three different people came to do smudging in there. In the closet, when they were taking the feather to blow the smoke into the closet, it actually blew the smoke back out of the closet and wouldn’t let it go in. It wouldn’t let candles be lit in there. I had a squirt bottle of salt water. It works everywhere in the house except in her bedroom. As I was actually squeezing the nozzle to spray it, I could feel it put it’s hand under it and pull the nozzle back the other way so I couldn’t spray it. But if I left the bedroom I was able to spray it.

Around this time the dog started acting up. Once or twice a week it will wander into my bedroom. Like, two nights ago he came into my bedroom. My daughter was asleep. My dog, Pongo, lays at the foot of my bed. I’m texting one of my girlfriend’s, we’re talking and all of a sudden Pongo gets up and starts to growl, then he gets up and lays across my daughter, like across her middle. He lays over her and he will not move. You cannot move him no matter what you do. I don’t know if this thing came closer to me or not, but Pongo crawled over to me and put his front paws on my chest and stayed that way for about 20 minutes. Then I watched him watch something go toward the door, and then he got up and sat back down at the foot of the bed.

B Has anyone else experienced anything unusual in your house when they were with you? Friends or family?

I had gotten home from work on Saturday at around 9. My mom was over with my daughter who was asleep upstairs alone. My mom and I were downstairs in the kitchen and she was getting ready to leave. Pongo was downstairs with us and he stood up and started growling in the living room. We looked toward the living room and it sounded like somebody was moving heavy wooden furniture on wood floor. Like pushing dressers around the living room. My mom totally heard it. But the room is carpeted , and I don’t even have furniture like that in the living room. Pongo went crazy growling about it and then it just stopped.

B This might sound like a strange question, but have you ever played with an Ouija board or had a seance or anything like that?

No. Nothing like that at all. I believe in God 110 percent. My daughter and I pray out loud before we go to bed. We pray out loud together in the morning when we wake up. We’re very that way. So I don’t know if it’s that aggravating it.

B What are some of the things that you've done to try to protect yourself?

In addition to the pastors, I also had a Catholic priest come over and do a blessing on the house. He came in, he sprinkled holy water in every room, said some prayers from the bible, and he left. He seemed really nervous. He seemed scared out of his mind. I didn’t call him back because it felt like he couldn’t be bothered. He literally ran out of here.

My friend had her priest call me from the Catholic church. He said, ‘I have dealt with this before, and the symbol of it changing into a butterfly is a horrible sign. I think it’s a demon. You need to leave right now.’ And I told him that I can’t afford to leave.

One of the pastors had brought me anointed oil. I do a sign of the cross on my daughter’s forehead, my forehead, and the dog’s forehead before I go to bed.

B Do you ever talk out loud to this thing?

My friends who say they know about these kind of things were like, ‘You can’t let him think that you’re afraid of him.’ So I tell him when he comes in the room, ‘This is my house. We live here. You might make me jump, but understand that I wasn’t expecting it. You startled me. I’m not afraid of you. Yeah, you growled at me and made me jump, but I’m not scared of you’. And I tell him that stuff at night when he comes in my bedroom.

B Do you feel it helps?

I don’t know. He kind of leaves. I watch the dog watch him walk out.

B Well, as much as you might think it’s helping, don’t talk to it. Not because you’re going to get him pissed off or anything. It’s just that the more you interact with it, it feels that it’s familiar. It’s like, ‘I’m part of this, and I’ve got her going, and I’ve got her talking to me.’

Is it OK to say the prayers out loud? I say it out loud when I’m in bed before I go to sleep.

B Yes, that’s OK. Just don’t mention it out loud in your prayers.

Don’t acknowledge it, right? Don’t give it credit. Don’t make it think that I’m trying to talk to him, right?

B Right. You don’t want to do anything to give it more recognition. Remember, this isn’t a ghost. This isn’t some cranky old man that used to live in your house and he won’t leave. This is demonic. You don’t want to acknowledge it.

EPILOGUE
I was going away on vacation that week, so I told the woman that I would stop by when I got back to see if I could help. In the meanwhile I told her to stop talking to it, and to not acknowledge it in any way. Even when saying her prayers, she was not to mention it.

I told her that I would mail her two Padre Pio cards. Padre Pio is a Catholic saint who had the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, for 50 years. Writing about the experience, Padre Pio said, "It all happened in a flash. I saw before me a mysterious Person, similar to the one I had seen on August 5th, differing only because His hands, feet and side were dripping blood. The sight of Him frightened me. What I felt at that moment is indescribable. I thought I would die, and would have died if the Lord hadn't intervened and strengthened my heart which was about to burst out of my chest. The Person disappeared and I became aware that my hands, feet and side were pierced and were dripping with blood."

I blessed the two Padre Pio card with holy water and mailed them to the woman. I told her to put them in the closet in her bedroom as soon as she received them. Three weeks later she contacted me. She said that she had followed all of my instructions. She stopped acknowledging the demon and put the Padre Pio cards in her closet. Immediately, all of the demonic activity stopped. The lights stopped turning on and off, the smoke detector strobe stopped, the dog stopped behaving strangely, and the woman's daughter was able to sleep by herself for the first time. Her nightmares stopped completely.

The Farmhouse Haunting

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
~ Hugh Mearns, “Antigonish”

Reports of faint footsteps heard in the dead of night, an occasional cold spot, or the brief sighting of something indistinct out of the corner of the eye are interesting phenomenon, but not very exciting to a seasoned ghost hunter. But occasionally an investigation comes along that is so packed with paranormal activity that is simply irresistible. The following is the story of a farm house where spirits were determined to make themselves known to the living, and they would stop at nothing until someone paid attention to them.

     In the summer of 2016 I received an email from a woman named Brigitte. The message read:
‘I need your help as soon as possible with some very troubling issues at an old farmhouse my husband and I purchased a few years ago. I am nervous about the escalating activity. Can you call me?’
     In spite of the brevity of the request I was intrigued, so I picked up the phone and gave Brigitte a call. A half hour later I hung up absolutely stunned by what I had just heard. The amount of activity Brigitte and her husband had witnessed was incredible to say the least. Needless to say, I was more than just a little eager to meet Brigitte and to conduct a proper investigation.
     Brigitte’s house is a gorgeous farm house in a suburb of New York. The house sits on a parcel of 15 acres of land, and the accompanying barn, stables and outbuildings give the impression that one has traveled back to a time when horses, donkeys, chickens, ducks and vegetable gardens were once both commonplace and a necessity.
     I interviewed Brigitte to get the specific details of the activity that had been plaguing her and her husband since they bought the house, and she was eager to tell me about their experiences.
     “As soon as we bought the house I had a sense that something wasn’t right. Sometimes when I would stop by the barn to check on the horses it felt like someone was following me, like they were right behind me. It was almost as if I could hear them. I’d turn around and look, but of course there was no one there.
     Then an odd thing started happening. I would come outside to tend to the animals and the horses and donkeys would be running loose. All of the barn doors somehow got unlocked. At first we thought that the person who was in charge of the barn wasn’t locking them properly. We had surveillance cameras installed, partially to show the guy that he hadn’t locked the barn. But in fact the cameras showed that he had secured the locks. The barn was clearly locked, but the deadbolts on the doors were somehow unlocking by themselves.”
     I asked Brigitte about the first activity the couple noticed inside of the house.
     “I would say the first thing we noticed was upstairs in the original part of the house. The house was added onto over the years, but the original part was built in 1812. One day I walked upstairs and found that the door to the attic was opened. It’s the pull-down type, and I found it open about three feet. It was startling seeing something like that because someone had to have reached up and pulled the door down with a considerable amount of strength in order to move it that far. Other freaky things happen in the original part of the house.
     One time I found all of the dresser drawers open in the upstairs bedroom. Every single drawer from the top to the bottom was opened exactly the same length. All ten drawers were evenly pulled out from top to bottom all exactly the same, as far out as you could pull them.
     Another day, in that same bedroom, I found that a lamp had been pushed all the way to the very edge of the table and the lampshade was hanging totally crooked. It looked as if someone had pushed the lampshade all the way down on one side, it was that crooked.
     The dogs don’t like going into that part of the house unless they follow me up there. They’re very spooky about it. They’re always barking at the walls a night in that part of the house.
     Just the other day I was laying on the bed with the dogs in the upstairs bedroom doing stuff, looking at my computer and at my Kindle. I was doing like three things at once, so I was fully awake. All of a sudden the dogs started barking, and out of the corner of my eye I saw movement on the dresser. I looked over and two of the dresser drawers were open. The drawer two down from the top was open, and one up from the bottom was open. I’m positive they were closed before. Then the door to the room slowly started to close by itself. It had been half open, and as I lay there I watched it close all the way then open up again.”
     One of the most frightening things to happen to Brigitte in this upstairs bedroom came in the form of two dreams she had while sleeping there. Or were they dreams?
     “In the first dream I was upstairs looking around for something. I walked out of the bedroom and started to go into the bathroom. All of a sudden this little girl came running straight at me out of the bathroom.”
     Brigitte stopped her narrative to show me how the girl ran out of the bathroom with her hands straight out in front of her as if she was pushing. The girl made an angry screaming sound as she ran toward Brigitte.
     “She was screaming and pushing me backwards, trying to push me down the stairs.”
     A few weeks later Brigitte had a second dream of this girl while she was sleeping in this same bedroom.
     “It was about three o’clock in the morning. I was sleeping and the dogs, who were in the room with me, just started going nuts and barking viciously. I opened my eyes and there she was, this creepy looking little blonde girl. She was the same girl I had seen in the other dream. She had blonde hair and was dressed the same as she had been in the first dream, wearing a nightgown of some kind. She looked very depressed. She scared the shit out of me! And the weird thing is, the curtains were billowing behind her. It was so scary.”
     I asked Brigitte if she thought it was a dream, or if she thought she had an actual visitation by the spirit of this menacing little girl?
     “It started as a dream. But then the dogs started barking, and I sat right up in bed. I can’t be certain if it was a dream or not. But I woke up right after and the curtain was absolutely billowing. There isn’t a vent there, and all of the windows are new and airtight. There’s no airflow over there. So I woke up from this ‘dream’ and saw the little girl with the curtains billowing around her. After she disappeared, the curtains were still billowing. I know I was awake when I saw that. I was definitely awake watching the curtains as they continued to billow out from the window.”
     Brigitte is not a very good artist, but the dream was so frightening that she did a quick sketch to try to illustrate what she had just seen. The next day she brought it to a friend who is a professional artist. By using Brigitte’s rough drawing and the description of what she had seen, her friend was able to draw an accurate depiction of the girl in the dream. This drawing can be found at the top of this case file.
     The activity isn’t confined to the original wing of the house. Brigitte said that things happen all over the house.
     “I came into the family room one afternoon and found that a religious book had been thrown off the shelf. It was lying on the floor, quite a distance from the shelves. A few days later, I found some cards from a box of Tarot cards lying on the floor. Not all of the cards were on the floor, just about nine of them. The others were still in the box. As was the case with the book, the cards looked as if they had been thrown off the shelves. In both cases it looked as if these things had been thrown, not that they had fallen. They were laying approximately four feet away from the book shelves.”
     Brigitte and her husband are the only occupants of the house. I asked Brigitte if her husband had ever witnessed anything unusual.
     “Yes. Oh my god. My husband, Andrew, had the freakiest thing happen in the kitchen right in front of him. I was in bed one night and I heard the alarm go off. The alarm ‘talks’ to tell you which door or window is open. It said, “Kitchen window alarm”. Then my husband starts yelling, ‘Brigitte get in here!’ So I ran into the kitchen. He was totally freaked out.
     Andrew said that he had a glass bottle of milk out on the counter, and there was about a quarter of an inch of milk on the bottom. He had placed the bottle cap loosely on top of the bottle because he had just used it. He said that all of a sudden the cap just flew up in the air. It hit the ceiling, then flew across the room at about a forty-five-degree angle and smashed onto the window which set the alarm off.”
     I stopped the interview briefly to measure the distance from the window to where the bottle had been. The cap had traveled over 15 feet!
     “This doesn’t even make sense,” Brigitte continued. “There was no gas build up in the bottle. It was good milk, and he had just used it. The cap wasn’t even on tight. And it hit with such force that it set the alarm off.”
     Andrew was also a witness to something else that was truly disturbing and unexplainable. Brigitte explained, “I was in bed at around 10:00 o’clock at night. Andrew went out the front door to feed the horses and came right back. He just ran out to the barn, threw them some hay and ran back. He was gone for no more than three minutes. He said that as he was coming back in, he heard what sounded like a party going on inside of the house; that there were tons of people all talking. He said it sounded like both adults and kids, as if there were a bunch of people in the house. He said that he could hear kids laughing. As he walked up the steps to the front porch he could still hear all these people talking and laughing. As soon as he opened the front door, the sound suddenly stopped. He looked over into the dining room and all of the chairs were all over the place. On one side of the table they had been pushed right up against the walls. On the other side of the table, they were pushed back into the middle of the doorway. There were six chairs in all at the table. The three that were pushed totally back against the wall were pushed neatly back and lined up against the wall. The ones that were on the other side looked as if someone had tossed them.”
     I stopped the interview to do some measuring. The chairs that were found pushed neatly against the wall had moved four feet. Those that were scattered on the other side of the table had traveled over five feet. As I moved the chairs back from the table I could feel their weight. These are very heavy, solid wood chairs. Somehow, in the space of three minutes every chair went from being neatly placed around the dining room table to being pushed 4 to 5 feet away; all with the accompanying sound of a party with adults and laughing children.
One day Brigitte was in the kitchen when she noticed someone standing in a doorway several feet away. “I was in the kitchen making coffee and playing with the dogs and I could swear there was a man standing in the doorway near the stairs that lead to the upper part of the original house. I thought it was my husband because we were the only two people in the house. This figure blocked out all of the light coming in from that room. He was just standing there and I thought it was Andrew on the phone. I mean, why else would he just be standing there? I was down on the floor playing with the dogs and I started joking around and said, ‘Come and join the love-party with the dogs.’ I was really hamming it up because I thought Andrew was standing there staring at me. But when I went to look at him, out of the corner of my eye I saw this person going up the stairs. So I called, ‘Andrew?’ And I suddenly got this really foreboding feeling. I went upstairs into the old part of the house looking for him, and I went through all of the rooms calling, ‘Andrew? Andrew?’ But he wasn’t up there. The next thing I know I hear him call to me from downstairs, ‘What do you want? I’m down here in the bedroom’.”
     Other activity seems to center around the area of the master bedroom and bathroom.
     “My husband has hair products in the bathroom – a brush, hair gel, stuff like that. He’s the type of man who knows where every single thing is. Often you go in there and all of his hair products are strewn about the floor, or they’re just thrown around. He’s also found some of his hair stuff in the shower. This has happened at least five times that I know of. Sometimes it’s his brush, sometimes it’s the other stuff.
     The shower has also turned on by itself in the middle of the night. It wasn’t just trickling as if someone forgot to turn it off completely. It was turned on full force. With this type of faucet, you have to pull it up from the bottom, then around to the top in order for it to fully turn on. I had the guy who installed it come back several times to look at it. I asked him if there is any way that it could turn on by itself and he said, “No Brigitte, it can’t open on its own.”
     Sometimes, it seems as if something is trying to help Brigitte. One incident in particular seems to point in this direction.
     “One night I was awoken by a loud sound in the bathroom just off of our bedroom. I walked in and found the source of the sound -- my toothbrush had been thrown into the bathtub! I always keep the toothbrush in the toothbrush holder on the sink. How did it get from the toothbrush holder to the tub, which is about six feet away? As I was looking at the toothbrush I noticed that all of the drawers in the closet were open. Just like the dresser drawers that I had found open in the upstairs bedroom, all of the closet drawers were opened exactly the same amount from top to bottom. Seeing the drawers opened like that lead me to go into the closet. At the end of the closet is a window with shutters that looks out onto the barn. I always keep the slats on the shutters closed, but when I walked in there they were wide open. I looked out the window and there was my horse on the ground. He had developed colic and was laying on the ground suffering. So, I felt like some spirit had woken me up out of a sound sleep to try to help me rescue my horse. I did get him surgery, but he died a month later.”
     Other times, it seems that something is so desperate to get Brigitte’s attention that it ends up scaring the hell out of her.
     “This next thing that happened was terrifying - absolutely terrifying. My husband was away and I was alone in the house. I was a sleeping in my bedroom and at 2 AM I heard distinct footsteps right outside of my bedroom door. It was so real that I thought a prowler was in the house. The dogs were in the room with me and they weren’t reacting to the sound, so I figured it was more ghost stuff happening. I got up, locked the bedroom door, turned on the house alarm and fell back to sleep. At 2:45 AM I was awoken by a horrific BANG on the bedroom door followed by the door shaking. It was exactly like someone either pounded their fist on the door, or they threw themselves against the door and then grabbed the whole door and shook the whole thing. I could hear the doorknob shaking. Suddenly, it stopped and everything was quiet for twenty minutes or so. Then all of a sudden there was another BANG on the bedroom door. I could also hear the sound of things being thrown around the bathroom. I turned on my TV to drown out the sounds and I didn’t get any more sleep that night. In the morning when I went to let the dogs out, my bedroom door was unlocked! I’m absolutely positive I locked it when I heard the footsteps. Creepier still, I examined the door and found that the pins to the door hardware were all loose -- the top pin was almost all the way out.”
Brigitte and her husband are not the only people to have witnessed activity in the house. A good friend of theirs had two frightening experiences in the basement.
     Brigitte explained, “My friend Janet was in the basement candling my eggs, and my little chickens were down there with her. All of a sudden, the door to the room she was in slammed shut and then opened again. She said that it was really loud and that the sound startled her. Another time she told me that she was down in the basement when she heard a deep man’s voice say loud and clear, ‘GET OUT’. At first she thought it was me making a joke. She’s like “Brigitte, what are you doing here? Brigitte? Brigitte?”
     Several other people witnessed activity on the farm. Hector, the man who takes care of the horses, witnessed doors unlocking right after he locked them, and the doors opening right in front of his eyes. Another time he went to feed the chickens in their coop when all of a sudden the door closed behind him and the deadbolt locked. He actually had to cut open the screen to get out of the chicken coop. Anyone who has used a deadbolt knows that this is just impossible. Someone would have to turn the deadbolt all the way around in order to lock it. Another time, Brigitte was standing on the front porch talking to Hector who was down on the lawn a few feet away. She had been standing there talking to him for several minutes with the front door open behind her. Hector watched as the front door slowly closed behind her, locking her out of the house. The front door cannot lock on its own. It has to be manually turned in order to lock. There was no breeze that day, so the door couldn’t have just blown shut.
     The handyman, Jacque, was alone working in the attic when he heard someone calling his name. The voice sounded like it was in the room with him. Other times the lights have gone out while he was working in this room. There have been times when he has been forced to stop working in the attic because a strange feeling will overcome him, as if someone is watching him.
     Brigitte’s 20-year-old niece refuses to stay in the bedroom in the old portion of the house because she has horrible nightmares whenever she sleeps there. In the dream she sees an old man just inches away from her face staring into her eyes.
     Many times people have smelled cigarette and pipe smoke in various parts of the house even though neither Brigitte nor Andrew smoke.
     Other activity seems to center around the dogs. Several times the couple has come home and found their Pug dog locked in the master bedroom.
     Brigitte explained, “Several times I’ve come home to find my little dog locked in the master bedroom. There’s just no way that can happen. The dogs are allowed in the other part of the house, but I always keep the bedroom door closed because we keep that as a ‘hair-free zone’. I found her locked in there several times. I tested the door myself to see if it’s possible for her to push the door open with her nose or something, but it’s impossible. And even if she got in there somehow, there is no way for the door to close on its own.
     Another time I found my other dog locked in the master bedroom, and she was totally panicked. I went for a horseback ride and I came back and there she was locked in the bedroom in a panic.”
     The house is equipped with a state-of-the-art surveillance system complete with motion sensors and cameras. Activity has actually been recorded and captured with by this equipment.
     “The motion sensors have gone off many times while we were away. We had the equipment checked and it’s in perfect working condition. The police have called us while we were on vacation because the living room sensor and the sensor in Andrew’s office were going off. Other times the sensor in our bedroom has gone off. But the main motion sensor that keeps going off is the one in the living room in the old part of the house.
     Last January the cops came because our front door had opened and closed on its own. You could see it in the surveillance video. One of the cameras is pointing right at the front door, and you can see it open and then close. The door was locked, but in the video you can see it open wide, then close again. When the police arrived, the door was locked. That means that someone unlocked the door, opened it, closed the door, and re-locked it.”
     I asked Brigitte, “How far could you see the door open in the video? Was it just a little, or did it open wide?”
     “It clearly opened wide and then closed. It was dead bolted and the alarm was on. It set the alarm off when it opened.
    The surveillance cameras have also recorded lights going on and off in the house while we’re away. The cameras have night vision, and you can see the whole house from the different cameras. I’ve checked the surveillance videos and I can see that lights have turned on, then off by themselves in various rooms in the house.”

The Investigation
     I work with several psychics, all of whom possess various abilities. But as I considered the magnitude of this investigation my thoughts immediately went to my former investigative team mates from Katonah Paranormal, Kathy O’Donnell and Karen Darby. The two women are sisters, extremely gifted psychics, and they are both dear friends of mine. I was thrilled when they jumped at the opportunity to help me with this fascinating case. I purposely did not tell Kathy or Karen any details about the investigation. They did not know any specific details of the activity that Brigitte and her husband had experienced.
     We arrived at the house and were greeted by Brigitte. Over coffee, we told her the precognitive impressions that each of us received the previous week. Kathy started by telling her about a message she received that actually woke her up that morning.
     “I was seeing people dressed the way Pilgrims or Puritans dressed. They were in a little village made up of a bunch of small houses and a blacksmith shop, and they were just going about their business. But what woke me up was a male voice shouting “Hutchinson” in my ear, and then he whispered, ‘Anna .... Anna’ So clearly a female is involved here.” Interestingly, we were later able to confirm that in 1643, Anne Hutchinson and six of her children were killed by the Algonquin Indians in retaliation for a slaughter of over 100 of their people by the Dutch settlers. Although this incident happened in what is now The Bronx, New York, Brigitte's home is built near the site where another Native American tribe had been slaughtered by settlers. Could there be a connection between these incidents from long ago and the activity on Brigitte's farm?
     I had a vivid dream earlier that week that I knew was connected to the case.
     “I dreamt that I saw a large, circular pond with a very low stone wall around it. It was winter, and it was frozen over, and there was a little girl playing on the ice. She looked to be about seven or eight years old. From the way she was dressed, I would say this took place at a very early time period; maybe the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. She was wearing a long, old fashioned looking dress. I was on the edge of this pond poking the ice with a stick. The ice was soft and slushy on the edges and I said to the girl, “Don’t come near the edge. It’s dangerous. Don’t come here.” But she didn’t listen. She went near the edge, and she fell through the ice. She fell all the way under. I started breaking the ice in order to get some light in there so we could see where she went and to make a larger hole for her to resurface. When we could finally see her under the water, someone jumped in and got her and pulled her out. The next scene was of the girl’s father standing over me as I was trying to revive her, but it was too late. She had died, drowned. Her father was calling out to the people who were there, ‘Somebody’s got to do something. Go get somebody.’ I said, ‘It’s too late, nothing can be done.’ This dream was really strange because I never dream about people I don’t know. I mean, how many times have you had dreams about something taking place in the past and seeing people you don’t know? I didn’t know any of the people in this dream.”
     Karen’s impression had images that were similar to my dream, which we hadn’t discussed before.
     “My impressions were very similar to Barry’s. I was seeing a round shape which I think was an artesian well; something they used back in the day to feed cattle in the pastures. It didn’t seem to be as large as the one in Barry’s dream, but it was a good size. The stone that they used to put on top for safety years later was off, and I also saw a girl. I would say she was dressed from a later time period than the girl in Barry’s dream, maybe from around the 1920s. The name “Rosie” kept coming to me. I think this was a nickname, something they just called her. She had a younger brother with the name Joshua. Both were very fair haired. I’m not getting a real strong grasp on how she passed, but I see something like thunderstorms and lightning. I don’t know if that has anything to do with how she passed, or if it’s just symbolic of deep anger that she has in her about something. I’m also hearing ‘dolly’, so was it a doll that she had that was special to her that got taken way, or that she lost, or maybe it fell in the well and she tried to reach for it and that’s how she passed? It’s really hard to pinpoint with her, but I keep seeing the same thing. One minute I see her all dressed out with the ribbons and her hair neatly combed, wearing a light blue dress, very pretty -- and then the next minute I see this angry look about her.
     The last thing I saw this just this morning. I was sitting across from her and there was a large woven basket between us. She was at one end and I was at the other. I didn’t see anything in the basket. It seemed to be empty to me. Maybe it represented something like a peace offering? I’m just not sure. But there it is again, the symbolism of the round shape – Barry’s pond, my artesian well, and the basket.”
     Brigitte told Karen the dream she had of the little girl who stormed out of the upstairs bathroom and tried to push her down the stairs. It sounded like the angry looking girl in Karen’s vision.

     We proceeded to do a walkthrough of the house, starting with the living room. Both Kathy and Karen felt active energy as soon as they walked into the room. Kathy also described a feeling of “a soft electrical buzz” when she was in various parts of the room. I commented that it felt as if something bad had happened in this room at one time, some sort of a tragedy. Suddenly, Karen exclaimed, “It felt like somebody just took my hand. My right and is buzzing.” The feeling in her hand stayed with her as we went into the next room, the master bedroom.
     Kathy said the bedroom felt ‘pretty charged’ but thought it was because someone was following us from room to room. Karen continued to comment on the sensation in her hand, at one point saying, “My hand is on fire, I’m telling you.”
     We went back into the living room where something interesting happened. All three of us felt intense energy in the exact corner of the room. As we stood there talking about who strong it felt Brigitte laughed and said, “That’s right where the front door used to be! We redesigned this room, but you’re standing exactly in the spot where the door was.” Doorways, especially front doors, often retain a lot of residual energy from all of the people who came through the over the years.
     We made our way upstairs to the old part of the house. On the way up Kathy exclaimed, “Oh! Oh my gosh. Somebody just pushed my right shoulder and I hit the wall. They pushed me!” Kathy was totally unaware that this was the same stairway that the little girl tried to push Brigitte down in her dream. As I reached the landing at the top of the stairs, I was overcome by a strong, unpleasant feeling.
     As we were conversing in the hallway near the stairs, Kathy suddenly looked over at the bedroom and said, “What was that? Did anybody else see someone enter that room over there? No? Well, somebody just walked in there.” We walked into the room to investigate. This was the same bedroom where Brigitte found the dresser drawers had opened by themselves, and where the lamp was found pushed over. It was also the same room where Brigitte had the dream of the little girl, and where the curtains were billowing out from the window.
    Kathy said, “I am not sure it’s because someone had some sort of pneumonia or something, but I’m getting a crushing feeling in my chest in this room. Chest pains. It’s like a heart attack or pneumonia or something. Just crushing chest pain. I don’t like the energy in that room.”
     Karen added, “My throat feels very thick, like it's hard to swallow. I’m also getting that someone might have had really bad pneumonia or something. It’s strongest when I stand at the bottom of the bed. I feel it coming towards me.” She also picked up the name Josiah in this room.
     Brigitte said that our impressions echoed an experience she had several weeks earlier. She was sleeping in this bedroom when she was overcome by a crushing feeling on her chest. The feeling woke her up out of a deep sleep. She actually thought she was dying because the pressure was so strong and she couldn’t breathe. She managed to stagger to her feet and make her way to the bathroom in the hallway where the feeling finally subsided.
     Just down the hall from this bedroom is a study that overlooks the front of the house. An interesting architectural detail in this room is a small, pyramid shaped nook with a decorative window. Brigitte said that the space was once part of the attic which was opened up to become part of the room.
     Kathy felt very uncomfortable in this small attic space, saying it made her sick to her stomach. She felt that something highly charged had happened in there. Karen got a number of odd sensations when she walked into that space. “I definitely felt a younger person, a young adult in that area. And then it just kind of felt like - I’m not saying this happened - but it’s just a feeling that I get, like a knife in the back as I walked out. And then I kept getting pulled back. It was like something replaying over and over again. It could have been someone with a really hard punch, or they had a hard object that they hit someone with.”
     From the top floor, we made our way all the way to the basement. Although Brigitte’s friend had the door slammed on her in one of the basement rooms, and had heard the voice say, ‘Get out’, none of us felt very much in this area of the house. The only thing anyone picked up was Kathy who said she heard a ‘wheezing sound’ while she was walking around the basement.
     At the end of the investigation we chatted with Brigitte about some of her experiences and reminded her to stay positive. Although living in a haunted house can be unnerving, ‘ghosts’ cannot harm people. I let her know that it would take a few weeks for me to go through the recordings to search for EVP, and that I would send her any spirit voices that I might discover.

The Evidence
     Scouring hours of recordings is seriously difficult work. I spend days and days listening closely to the recording with headphones for any areas that might contain EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomenon. These voices can be as quiet as a whisper, as loud as a speaking voice, or sometimes they are heard talking over our voices during the investigation. It took a full two weeks to go through the recording, and I was rewarded with three very strong EVP.
     The first was recorded in the upstairs office in the original part of the house. You might recall reading that the three of us had uneasy feelings in the small converted attic space of this room. As I listened back to the recording, I could hear the four of us telling each other of the negative feeling that seemed to be emanating from the attic space when suddenly a whispery female voice chimed in saying, “Douse the light”. This voice is quickly followed by a male voice saying “Answer me”. The phrase “Douse the light” is archaic, and the voice I picked up made me think of a young girl who is urging someone to quickly extinguish an oil lamp. The meaning of the male voice saying, “Answer me” immediately after is a mystery. Kathy, Karen and I picked up strong negative energy in that room, so the message may involve an incident from the past where a man and a woman had a heated, or even violent altercation.
The second EVP was also recorded in the upstairs office. In it, you can hear a whispering voice say "Help me" while I'm asking a question about the room. The office itself did not feel negative, just the small attic space. It's possible that the spirit came from that space asking my help.
   The third EVP was captured in the hallway of the old section of the house. This is the area where Kathy felt someone push her against the wall, and where Brigitte had the dream of the little girl trying to push her down the stairs. Fittingly, the EVP is a male voice saying "You fall down".
You can hear these three EVP at the bottom of the “EVP Examples” page.

The Clearing
     A few weeks after conducting the investigation we returned to do a clearing of Brigitte and Andrew’s home. The purpose of a clearing is actually three-fold. First, if there are active spirits present, the clearing will help move them out and lead them to “the other side”. Second, a clearing will help remove negative and residual energy from the home. Residual energy is an imprint from the past that continues to have an influence in the present. The third purpose of a clearing is to bring positive energy back into the home.
     Kathy, Karen and I met with Brigitte at her house and discussed what the clearing would entail. Brigitte was eager to participate in the clearing, so the four of us lit incense sticks and got to work.
     First, Kathy lit a white candle in a crystal bowl filled with Kosher salt to absorb negative energy and to encourage healing. She then read a prayer asking for God’s intervention in helping clear the house of unwanted spirits and negative energy. After putting on a CD of healing music we made our way through the house, slowly and methodically clearing each room. While I won’t go into the specifics of what is said during a clearing, the basic message is that any spirits who occupy the house must leave and go on to be with their loved ones on the other side. Along with this is the visualization of God’s light filling the house with love and dissolving any negative energy.
     We cleared every corner of every room, from the basement all the way up to the attic. Curiously, at one point the four of us felt a sudden blast of cold air while clearing the master bedroom. We actually got goosebumps from the unexpected chill that hit us simultaneously. Although it’s not rare to experience a reaction from spirits during a clearing, it’s often a bit of a surprise when it actually happens. It’s actually an indication that the clearing is working; a sign that the spirit has moved on.
     The clearing took over an hour to complete, but by the time we were finished the house felt amazing. We all experienced a profound sense of serenity and peace, and an almost palpable feeling of lightness seemed to have settled on the home. At one point Brigitte commented that it felt so good that she finally realized just how negative the house felt to her prior to the clearing. She felt that she finally had a home that was hers, not one that was shared with spirits and negative energy.
     We reminded Brigitte that a clearing is just the first step in healing a home. The rest would be up to her. We suggested that she do a mini-clearing once a month whether she felt the house needed it or not. We also gave Brigitte instructions on how to make a healing spray out of fresh, white sage leaves and other herbs to use both in the house and on herself. In addition, we told her about on the benefits of using Kosher salt as a clearing agent, and how to properly dispose of it in order to help keep the space clear.
     Although it may take time for a clearing to fully take hold, Brigitte and Andrew are well on their way to life in a home filled with peace, love and serenity.

The Bronxville Public Library

On May 17, 1942, the residents of Bronxville, New York were thrilled to attend the dedication of the village’s new public library. The building, designed by architect Harry Leslie Walker, was an adaptation of residential Georgian architecture. With its pine paneling, oriental rugs, lush draperies and comfortable chairs, the library had a home-like atmosphere. In order to stimulate an interest in both literature and art, paintings were donated to the library by residents. These were hung in various rooms, and an art committee was formed to oversee the monthly art installments that were exhibited in a room dedicated to that purpose.
     In the 74 years since its opening, Bronxville residents have enjoyed the library’s fine collection of books, works of art, lectures, and family events. It’s not known exactly when odd things began happening in the library, but the librarians have had many experiences that they shared with me during an investigation I conducted in 2016. One librarian was an eyewitness to paranormal activity soon after getting a job at the library.
     “I had only been working here a couple of weeks and I was on my first night shift. I had been working in the teen room and was leaving through the stacks when I hear something loud clunk to the floor. I went back toward the teen room, turned the corner, and there lying in the middle of the floor was a book. It had fallen off a shelf, and I could see the empty spot on the shelf where it came from. I had just walked through that area, and there was no way that this book was hanging off the shelf. I got the feeling that someone was letting me know that they were here in the library with me. I quickly finished my work and at the end of the night I literally ran out of the library. I turned all the lights off and ran downstairs. Everyone asked, ‘What’s wrong?' I just said, ‘Don’t worry about it’, then I got out of there as fast as I could!”
     Another librarian reported hearing voices in the teen room stairwell. “There is an emergency stairwell that leads from the teen room down to the basement. The door used to be open to the public, but the library finally installed an alarm on it. If you try to get into the stairwell from the basement or from upstairs, the alarm goes off. One night after the building was closed for the day, one of our librarians heard talking coming from the stairwell. It sounded like two people having a conversation. She used her key to check the stairwell, and the talking stopped. No one was there. She said that she heard the sound of people talking in the stairwell on several occasions. Each time she checked, the stairwell was empty and the talking stopped.”
Other areas of the library are also reportedly haunted. One librarian reported hearing something very strange coming from the radiator in one of the administrative rooms. “It was a snowy day around Christmas, and we had closed the library early. Betty (not her real name) was in one of the administrative rooms by herself. As she sat doing her work, she began to hear music. At first she couldn’t tell where it was coming from, then realized that it was coming through one of one of the radiators. It sounded like hip-hop music! Betty looked outside, but no one was there. She went all the way downstairs, but not only was there no one in the library, the music couldn’t be heard in any other room. She just heard it in the administrative room. She went back to the room where the music was still coming from the radiator, then it suddenly stopped.”
     One of the librarians was working in this same room when she noticed that one of the computer chairs was spinning slowly by itself. It’s the type of chair that you can turn around in, but no one had been near the chair. The librarian came running out and called in several members of the staff to show them what was happening, and they all saw the chair moving by itself.
     Two librarians experienced unusual activity in the attic. “Years ago there was something rolling around up in the attic. We couldn’t figure out what it was. We heard the sound of something rolling back and forth up there. It sounded like a metal pipe rolling back and forth across the wood floor. It was weird. We went up to take a look. When we went to investigate the noise stopped. We looked all around the attic, but we couldn't find anything that would have made that sound.”
     I conducted an investigation of the library on March 24, 2016 and was joined by my friend, Maureen Amaturo. Maureen is not only a talented writer, she is very intuitive and has had a number of psychic experiences. Prior to our investigation, I had encouraged Maureen to ‘reach out’ to see if she could obtain any information about the upcoming investigation. As we entered the library, she shared her precognitive impressions with the librarians.
     “Two visions came to me on two different nights. The first one was of a young man who looked to be between 18 and 25 years old. I could draw his face. I knew exactly what he looked like. Dark hair, fair skin, freckles, dark eyes, and he had this intense look of surprise like he was coming at me — almost as if through a windshield, but there was nothing else there but him. The look in his eyes was like he was just so surprised.
     The second image I got was of a woman. It was almost as if I was looking at a 1960s color photograph, like I was looking at a snapshot of a woman dressed for an event or an occasion. Something like a wedding or Easter Sunday, like in the 1960s when getting dressed up for Easter was a big deal and you wore your hat. The woman had on a deep pink, sequined sparkly dress with a scooped neck, short sleeves, white wrist gloves, a small purse. She had short hair, lipstick, was wearing a pillbox hat and she was looking at me. She had an elongated space between her nose and her top lip, and thin lips. She was going like this (Maureen imitates the look she saw in the vision) being playful.”
     A Tarot card reading I did prior to the investigation echoed some of the information that Maureen had picked up on. My reading revealed the presences of a young man. I explained to the library staff, "The knight of wands is an energetic young man. He’s the subject of the reading. A practical joker, trickster type of a person. which would account for knocking the book over or poking someone. I wouldn’t be surprised if people feel poked or if things are moved. This young man is immature, a restless spirit. The reading also shows that this person is actively trying to communicate with people. When things move or are knocked down, those are spirits trying to get your attention. It can also be a practical joker. According to the card reading, this young man had a hard life and died suddenly.”
     We began our investigation in the reading room on the main floor. The reading room is a beautiful space with floor-to-ceiling windows where patrons can read, and in one corner of the stacks is a portrait of a library patron affectionately known as “Miss Aimee”. This woman was very active in the library, and some feel that Miss Aimee is responsible for at least some of the paranormal occurrences. Although no unusual activity has been reported in this room, some librarians simply don’t like to be alone in this area of the library. I’m not surprised, as the feeling that one gets when entering the area is downright eerie.
     Upon entering the stacks Maureen said, “I’m getting chills and goose-bumps over and over again.” This didn’t surprise me, as I felt the typical heavy, “creepy” feeling that one gets when entering a haunted location. The feeling was strongest near the portrait of “Miss Aimee”, and faded as we moved away from it. At the end of the row we barely felt any energy. Ironically, as we made our way through the stacks I noticed the book titles, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, and “Ghost Walk”. As we approached the painting of Miss Aimee Maureen said, “I get a sense that the spirit who is here with us really liked this area of the library. I get a real sense of happiness here.” There was no feeling of a presence in the large room with the windows. All of the energy was concentrated in the stacks near the portrait.
     One of the most poignant parts of the investigation was when Maureen first spotted the portrait of Miss Aimee. As we walked to the back of the stacks and saw the painting, Maureen stopped in her tracks and exclaimed, “That’s her! That’s the woman I saw in my vision. But she was showing herself to me when she was young.” As I examined the painting, I could see the resemblance to the woman Maureen described. Although the woman in the portrait is very old, the space between her nose and upper lip is noticeably elongated. She has short hair and thin lips like the woman in Maureen’s vision, and there is a hint of a playful look in her eyes. I am convinced that Miss Aimee paid Maureen a visit prior to our investigation.
     We left this area and made our way to the teen room where so much activity had been reported, but neither Maureen or I felt very much in this room. We conducted a lengthy EVP session, but it didn’t yield any evidence. It is not unusual for reportedly active areas to be quiet during investigations. Our stay in the library was just a few hours. The activity reported by the library staff occurred over a period of years, and was experienced by several different people. We may have been in the library at a time where spirit energy was low. It’s also important to keep in mind that spirits don’t always stay in one place. They wander around. It’s very possible that they were not present at the time that we were investigating the teen room.
     We continued our investigation by visiting the lower level of the library, but apart from some weak energy in the room where the DVD collection is housed we didn’t feel very much in this area. We returned to the room that housed the portrait of Miss Aimee and conducted an extensive EVP session. Our feelings about this room were correct, as I captured two excellent EVP during the session. In one clip I encourage the spirits to tap a device that is sensitive to touch or movement. I say, “If you touch this box it will show us that you’re here.” Immediately after I say this a male voice can be heard saying, “I’m here”. At another point I say to the spirits, “Jump in and talk any time that you want” and a male voice answers, “OK!”. It is very possible that this is the voice of the young man that Maureen saw in her vision, and who I picked up on in my Tarot reading.
     The Bronxville Library is a fantastic place, and one that no one should be frightened of. The library has a warm, inviting atmosphere, paneled reading rooms with comfortable chairs perfect for curling up with a good book, beautiful art work, a children’s library filled with books and fun activities for kids, and a state-of-the-art room where lectures are presented. I was lucky enough to give a lecture there, and I was delighted with the large turn-out and warm reception I received. The spirits who roam the library seem to love the place as much as everyone else in Bronxville does, which is why they might have lingered so long after their passing. If you get a chance to visit the Bronxville Library, take a few minutes to wander the stacks and say a quick hello to Miss Aimee and the mysterious young man. If you’re lucky, they might just say hello back to you!

You can hear the EVP recorded during the investigation at the bottom of the "EVP Examples" page.

Layers of Ghosts, Layers of Time

     I was watching a crime show recently where several people had witnessed a crime and an artist was called upon to make a sketch of the suspect based on their descriptions. The sketch was fed into a computer and it matched with a man who had a record a mile long. The criminal was caught, and the case was closed. If only paranormal research was that simple.
     While many of my investigations center around the sighting of solitary spirits, there are those cases that involve not only the sighting of several different spirits in the same location, but several different types of activity. Although cases of multiple spirits are difficult to untangle, they are certainly interesting, and they hint at layers of time intruding upon the present. The case of “Layers of Ghosts, Layers of Time” is one of those cases. The investigation has left me thoroughly intrigued as I continue to try to unravel the layers of sightings and activity witnessed by a family.

     Caitlin and her husband Edward live in a beautiful home in Westchester County, New York. They share the house with Caitlin’s elderly father, her mother having passed away several years ago. The house has been in Caitlin’s family for over forty years, but they were not the original owners. They purchased the home in the 1970s from a family who had it built sometime in the 1950s.
     Caitlin contacted me because unsettling things were happening in the home. Objects would disappear, and then turn up in odd places. Some of these objects would turn up in places that had already been searched, others remained missing. Stranger still, things the family had never seen before would show up in unusual places. Once, a life insurance policy was found among some papers in a document folder where the family's important papers were kept. This policy had never been seen before, and was not in the document folder prior to it being found. Another time, Caitlin’s mother’s will was found in a secret drawer in a desk.
     An incident involving a doll was even more perplexing. Some time after Caitlin’s mother died, Caitlin decided to redecorate her mom’s former bedroom. One addition to the new decor was a small doll table and chairs at which sat two dolls. One doll was a regular girl-doll, and the other was the kind where the face can be swiveled around to show either a happy face or a sad face. Caitlin placed the dolls at the doll-sized table on the floor with the two dolls facing each other. The happy face was showing on the doll with the two faces. The next morning, Caitlin found the doll lying on the floor near the table with the sad face showing. The doll was far enough away from the table that it couldn’t have just fallen off the chair. It had to have been deliberately moved.
     Caitlin’s mom had recently passed, so Caitlin thought that perhaps her mom was trying to give her some sort of a message. Caitlin said out loud to her mom that she was taking care of things at home, that everything was OK, and that she shouldn’t worry. Caitlin put the doll back in the chair, adjusted it so the happy face was showing and left the room.
     The next day Caitlin entered the bedroom and found the doll was gone from the doll table. It was now sitting on top of her mother’s bed, and the sad face was showing. Caitlin was having Masses said for her mother, so she left information about the Masses on the bed and propped both dolls against the pillows. She made sure to change the face back to the happy face. The next morning, she found both dolls still propped up against the pillow, but the sad face was displayed once again.
     Caitlin thought that her mom might be trying to tell her that she was unhappy about some structural work that was planned for the house, so she put the plans for the house renovations on the bed and assured her mother that the house would be in better shape because of the changes. She said aloud, “Look at all the work we’re doing to the house!” The next day the doll was untouched with the happy face still displayed. Caitlin left the letter and the doll there for a week and there were no further incidents.
     Someone was certainly trying to get Caitlin’s attention. First it was the missing object, then the odd incidents with the doll. Next came the poking. Several times, Caitlin was woken up out of a deep sleep from being poked hard on her arm. The poking startled her out of her sleep, and it actually hurt. Upon inspecting the area, she was alarmed to find a large bruise on her arm. The poking occurred only at night, but interestingly it happened not only in her house, but also while she was visiting friends in Florida.
     We all hear odd sounds at night from time to time, but the sounds heard in Caitlin’s house were different. These sounded like muffled conversations, as if groups of people were having a conversation where the words were indiscernible. Of course, the outside of the house was examined to see if there was a party going on, but the sound wasn’t outdoors. The faint sounding conversation was coming from two different corners of the bedroom.
     Were there any sightings of spirits in the house? There were plenty. Several years ago, Caitlin’s father was lying in bed with his wife sleeping beside him and he was startled to see a thin man in a grey suit and tie looking out of the window. The man appeared to be in his 40s. He was standing by the window, looking out as if waiting for someone, or as if he was just checking out what was going on outside. The man turned around and started looking around the room. When he made eye contact with Caitlin’s father, he suddenly vanished. Caitlin’s dad would see this same mysterious man on two other occasions. All three sightings took place in the master bedroom, and in all three instances the grey suited figure was looking out the window.
     Then there was the sighting of the old man. When Caitlin’s mother was living in the house, she was sitting in the living room and happened to glance across the room to the office. The office door was open, and she saw a man that she described as being in his 80’s wearing a dress shirt neatly tucked into his pants, and he was wearing a belt. He was looking out of the front window. Caitlin’s mom was to see this man several times, always in the same room – the office. Once the man was dressed the same as always, but this time he was also wearing a sweater. Another time he was not looking out the window, but instead he seemed to be looking around the room as if searching for something. Caitlin’s mother would watch this man from the living room. He would turn, see her, and then suddenly disappear.
     These two men of different ages, and perhaps from different time periods, were seen in the house. But there was one more uninvited guest, this one far more chilling -- the woman in black. Caitlin’s mother walked into her bedroom one day and stopped dead in her tracks. Standing on the far side of the room in front of a curio cabinet was a woman dressed completely in black. This eerie apparition vanished before Caitlin’s mother’s eyes, but not before she got a good look at her. What she saw was truly frightening. The woman standing on the other side of the room was not only dressed entirely in black -- she looked exactly like a witch. Fortunately, this fiendish looking woman was only seen once.
     After receiving Caitlin’s email requesting help and speaking to her over the phone, I realized that her home was a hotbed of paranormal activity and I eagerly called on my friends Kathy O’Donnell and Karen Darby to join me on the investigation. I worked with Karen and Kathy for several years in the paranormal investigation group Katonah Paranormal, and I was anxious to see what kind of intuitive evidence they might be able to provide.
     Prior to the actual investigation, Karen, Kathy and I ‘reached out’ for intuitive data that we hoped would give us insight as to what was going on in Caitlin’s home.
     Kathy reported seeing an image of an older woman in a bathrobe standing at the bottom of a staircase. The woman was holding the bathrobe around her as if she was cold.
     Kathy also received the impression in the back yard of a Native American woman and child, as well as a man with a fringe coat and a musket. The three seemed to be a family. These impressions, as well as an impression that there had once been a Native American village nearby lead Kathy to believe that layers of residual energy were present in and around the house.
     Karen picked up on a very tall, thin man who she described as “a younger Dick Van Dyke kind of an individual. The word “huckster” came into play, as well as something to do with finances. As I listened to Karen talk about this man, I wondered if she was picking up on the thin man in the suite that Caitlin’s father had seen in the master bedroom.
     Interestingly, all of my intuitive impressions were related to finances. Several Tarot card readings pointed to someone being swindled or cheated out of money, or someone having gained something that they shouldn’t have; perhaps an inheritance that someone defrauded someone out of.
     The paranormal investigation took place on a Saturday afternoon in February 2016. Caitlin and her husband greeted Karen, Kathy, and me. We explained what the investigation would be like, and then revealed our intuitive impressions.
     The older woman that Kathy described as wearing a bathrobe seemed to be Caitlin’s mother who, when she was ill, would often complain about feeling very cold.
     Karen’s impression of the thin man could have been tied to the thin man in his 40s with the suit. Her hearing the work “huckster” may be related to the missing objects in the home - someone playing a trick on the family, or hiding things to get their attention.
     My impression of someone being cheated was right on target. Over the years, Caitlin’s family had a string of incidents where they had been swindled out of money and cheated out of financial deals. It is also possible that the spirits haunting the house were once involved in shady business dealings.
     During our walk-through the house we were able to pinpoint many of the areas of activity. A small office on the main floor had a lot of male energy, and we commented that a man spent a lot of time in this room. We found out later that this was the same room where the old man had been seen by Caitlin’s mother.
     The three of us felt energy on the stairs where Kathy ‘saw’ the woman with the bathrobe. On the second floor we all felt energy in the corner of one of the bedrooms. Karen described it as a ‘fluttery heart feeling’. This room, it was revealed later, was the room where Caitlin’s mother had seen the “witch”.
     One area in the master bedroom held a great deal of residual energy. Kathy singled out a particular spot where energy seemed to be sweeping back and forth. This was the bedroom where Caitlin’s father had seen the man in the grey suit.
     We also picked up on fairly strong residual energy in the corners of a third bedroom. These coincided with the corners of the room where Caitlin reported hearing voices.
     At the end of our walk-through we checked out the basement, but it felt clear to us.
     We determined that there is a lot of residual energy in the house from the previous owners. Although the thin man in the upstairs bedroom and the older gentleman in the downstairs office seem to have vanished when making eye contact, it is more likely that they vanished once they were finished looking out of the windows of those room. This would give the appearance of making eye contact when they were probably just looking away from the window in the direction of the viewer.
     One other possibility, though I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a theory, is that those sightings were essentially shifts in time. Imagine that 50 years ago the older gentleman is looking out of his window in his office. He finishes and glances into the living room and is shocked to see a woman sitting on the couch staring at him! Seeing her startles him, and the woman immediately vanishes. The man believes he has seen a ghost when in reality he is looking at someone from the future, and the future is looking at the past.
     The other layers to this mystery are the missing objects, the incident with the doll, and the poking. The paranormal team agreed that these are indications that someone is trying to get Caitlin’s attention. The most likely person would be Caitlin’s mother. It’s important to remember that spirits are just people in a different form. A common reason for spirit activity is unfinished business. It is likely that even in spirit, Caitlin’s mother still has concerns about her daughter, about the house, and about the family’s physical and financial health.
     The incident with the doll points to her mother’s concern with the work being done on the house. The life insurance policy that had never been seen before, as well as the copy of Caitlin’s mother’s last will found in a secret drawer in the desk both point to her concern about finances. The poking and the hiding of the household objects both hint at someone trying desperately to get the family’s attention. The message is simple: I am here, and you have to listen to me! She has given Caitlin all of the clues she can without being able to speak to her.
     Audio evidence was picked up during the investigation that gives credence to the intuitive information I received via the Tarot cards about shady financial deals and swindling people out of money. The EVP recorded in the basement was a male voice saying, “Vincent did more time”. I firmly believe that this phrase refers to someone named Vincent who did time in jail as a result of cheating someone out of money.
     The second EVP was recorded as I was explaining about the spirit I picked up on who was either swindled out of money, or who cheated someone out of money. In it, a spirit voice can be heard saying the name “Felice”. A spirit clearly went out of his or her way to say this name in reference to someone who was cheated. While not very much is known about the former owners of the house, it is possible that these names and phrases refer to their family members or even their extended family members.
     Our recommendation to Caitlin and her family is to continue to assure Caitlin’s mom that all is fine at home. Whenever activity occurs that seems to be trying to get Caitlin’s attention, we suggested that she say out loud, “Everything is fine here, mom. You don’t have to worry about us. You can go on and be with your sister and other family members now.”
     Apart from the areas of residual energy outlined earlier, the house has very positive energy. There was no need to do a clearing. As for the Native American spirits on outside of the house, they pose no threat and their residual energy will most likely fade over time.

Intruders from the Past

     When we think of a haunted house our minds usually conjure up images of a Victorian era home complete with antique furniture and creaky floorboards. But many hauntings take place in homes that were built much more recently, some even in homes that were newly built. But how do we explain reports of spirits who look as if they come from a different era appearing in newer homes? Sometimes a house is built on the site of an older building and the spirits are of the people who once lived there. Some spirits who appear to be dressed in old-fashioned clothing are actually relatives from the distant past trying to make contact with their descendants. And there are traveling spirits - those who once lived in a home nearby the one where the haunting is occurring. The following is a case where spirits from more than one era haunted a house built in 1985.

     I received an email from a woman, Fiona, asking for some help with the disturbing activity she and her family has been experiencing. Fiona reported that a group of ghosts haunted her house and that more than one person has witnessed these spirits over a period of several years.
     During the investigation Fiona explained, “My oldest daughter sees them the most. She has seen a male ghost -- an older man who seems very mean. She’s also seen a woman who also seems very mean and angry. She sees them downstairs, in the basement, and both seem to be from modern times. The little boy she’s seen on the main floor, and she has seen a little girl upstairs.”
     When I asked Fiona to describe how the boy and girl spirits were dressed, I was surprised at her answer.
     “The little boy is dressed in clothes that look like they’re from the 1800’s. They remind me of the kind of clothing that very religious Jewish families used to wear. The boy looks to be about 6 years old, the girl about 8 or 9. The girl is dressed in old-fashioned clothing as well. My husband said that he once saw her in a ruffled dress. He saw her walk across the hallway and into the upstairs bathroom and he thought it was one of our children. He got up to see who it was, but there was nobody there. He said that the girl had very long hair and that she looked similar to our daughter.”
     When I asked Fiona about the woman, she said that she was dressed in modern clothing. Fiona explained, "My daughter has seen a woman dressed in modern day clothing in the house. She has seen her wearing a woman's dress suit."
     What was more shocking was the sighting of this same woman outdoors by Fiona’s mother and her oldest daughter. They were in the backyard and something made them look up at the same time at one of the trees. There in the tree was the same woman who had been seen in the house, dressed the same way. When I asked if she was just sitting in the tree looking down, Fiona said, “No. My daughter and my mother said that she was actually hanging from the tree.”
     These chilling sightings weren’t the only type of activity occurring in the house. One of the children’s bedrooms gets icy cold for no reason. Things have gone flying off of the dressers, and glasses have fallen over. The children have changed rooms on several occasions because they have nightmares and vivid dreams when they sleep in that room.
Fiona continued, “When I am home alone there are a lot of strange noises, and I often have to keep the TV on otherwise I will get totally freaked out. I have heard what sounds like scratching on the windows and also the sound of someone walking around. When I was working night shifts, I would sleep during the day. My father would be downstairs and he would hear someone walking around in my room. Other times we’ve heard the sound of someone coming in the front door and walking up the stairs, but when we check no one is ever there. There is a baby gate at the top of the stairs and I’ve heard that gate open and close when there is no one upstairs.”
     In addition to the sound of footsteps, voices have been heard in the house. Fiona reported, “One night I was in the back bedroom trying to put the baby to sleep when I heard a girl’s voice say “Mommy”. I am certain it wasn’t any of the other kids. The voice was in the room with me.
     My oldest daughter told me that they speak to her and that they often whisper her name when she’s in the basement, so I set up a tape recorder. When I played back the recording I heard a very deep man's voice calling both her name and my other daughter's name. I also heard him yelling at them to “stop it” when they were fighting.
     If I call someone from my cell phone and have them on speaker phone in areas of the house that have more activity, the other party can often hear a man talking in the background.”
     The family has captured photo evidence as well. Fiona explained, “I have caught these entities in pictures. In one picture I saw the girls face looking over the railing to the stairs. In another picture, I saw the boy's shadow by the garage door. In another photo it looks like a close up shot of the man's face. He looks evil and the vibe I always get from him is that he is mad or very upset. He hangs out in the studio room in the basement and I never want to go in there, because I get the feeling that I don't belong in there. There was also a series of disturbing photos that my children took on their iPad. In the photos was a black blob that continued to get closer and bigger in each photo they took.”
     I enlisted the help of my friends Karen Darby and Kathy O’Donnell for the investigation. Kathy and Karen are both highly sensitive paranormal investigators who never cease to amaze me with their descriptive and accurate intuitive impressions. I kept all details of the haunting from them so as not to influence their findings.
     We arrived at the house on a Saturday and proceeded to do a walk-through of the house. As we ascended the stairs that lead to the second floor, we immediately experienced odd physical sensations. There was a feeling of pressure in our chests, and we all experienced a shortness of breath. Kathy complained of feeling a tightness in her chest, of having a sudden headache, and of feeling her heart fluttering. She felt that someone may have had asthma, or that they may have passed as a result of a heart attack. Karen described having a ‘smothered feeling’ on the top landing of the steps. I felt as if someone struggled to get up these steps daily, not only having trouble breathing but having a great deal of difficulty walking up these steps.
     The back bedroom where the children are reluctant to sleep was very interesting. My EMF meter, which usually reads 01 was registering as high as 77 in this room. Although we discovered that electrical lines run along the side of the house, it did not account for the fluctuating readings that occurred the entire time we were in the room. When the meter was placed in the center of the room, far away from the wall with the electrical lines, we watched as the readings inexplicably rose and fell from 30 to 77. This unusual behavior of the meter could indicate the presence of a spirit.
     We also were able to detect fluctuations in temperature. My thermometer registered a three-degree drop in temperature soon after we entered the room. The room kept getting cold, then warm again.
     The front bedroom was also interesting, not because we felt anything particular in that room, but because of what we heard. As we were talking in this room, the three of us heard something that sounded like a guitar strumming. We were unable to pinpoint its source, as it sounded like it came from all over the room. We made note of it and waited to ask Fiona if there was a child’s toy in the room that might have made the sound, though we really couldn’t explain why it would have done so by itself when we were in the room.
     The next room of interest was the basement. Although we did not feel anything particular in the large play area where the girls have heard the man calling their names, we did get strong, negative impressions when we entered a back office. I felt the energy of someone who used to hang out in this room a lot. Karen and Kathy felt that it was angry energy, and Kathy got the distinct impression of a man chewing on a cigar and looking out the back window. She said, “I just keep getting a picture of this guy, a big guy, fat, sitting here and he’s chewing a cigar, rolling it and chewing it. It’s pretty gross! As he’s doing this he’s staring out the window.”
     Karen said, “I’m sure that when Fiona’s doing laundry she doesn’t like to be down here. I wouldn’t be surprised if she sees things out of the corner of eye when she’s doing the laundry over there,” referring to the laundry room adjacent to the office.
     After the investigation I discovered that I had captured a clear EVP in the office. I had asked the spirit to tell us his name. The voice on the recording said, “My name’s Charles”.
     While we didn’t pick up any strong impressions from the laundry area, I did feel a pain and pressure on my ribs while we were in that room. It felt as if someone was slowly pushing their hand into my ribs, increasing the pressure slowly until it hurt, then slowly releasing it.
     We concluded the investigation and shared our findings with Fiona. The boy and girl spirits are clearly from another time period. We felt that they traveled from somewhere nearby. Spirits usually do this because someone in the house is sensitive. Fiona and her children all seem to be sensitive, as is Fiona’s mother who saw the girl outside.
     The chilling sighting of the woman hanging from the tree in the backyard cannot be ignored. It is very possible that this woman committed suicide, either in the backyard or somewhere near Fiona's home. Such a horrific end to someone's life is bound to leave an indelible psychic mark on the surrounding area and the spirits of suicide victims are often restless.
     The male spirit in the basement is the type that refuses to leave a location because he feels it’s his home. This type of spirit does not respond to the kind of clearing where they are asked to move on. Can you blame them? If someone rang your doorbell tomorrow and asked you to leave, you’d probably say, “Leave? This is MY home. You leave!”  Territorial spirits are stubborn, sometimes grumpy, but never a threat.
     Although we could have performed a clearing, homeowners are often best at clearing their own homes because they can keep on top of the situation. Fiona shared with us that she was skilled in performing simple clearings with incense, and we felt that if she continued to work on the upstairs bedroom the energy would dissipate over time. The energy on the stairs was residual and would also respond to Fiona smudging the area with incense. Although the male energy in the basement was fairly strong, it too can be handled with periodic clearings with incense. We gave Fiona some other tips, such as letting light and air into the rooms as often as possible, adding plants to the areas to reduce negative energy, and using salt to clear spaces. We offered to come back to do a clearing if the activity ramped up.

While it’s not always easy to figure out just why spirits from other time periods haunt modern homes, these types of cases illustrate that time doesn’t always behave the way we think it should. After all, the ghosts we see wandering the halls of our home just might think of us as the ghosts who are haunting their house.

The Haunted Bed

I’m often asked if a spirit has ever followed me home after an investigation. I’m happy to report that this has never happened, but I did unwittingly invite a spirit into my home once. The following is my personal story about a bed frame I purchased as a surprise for my daughter. Unfortunately, the surprise was on me!

The bed frame leaned up against the wall of the thrift shop, looking like something abandoned. I spied the headboard peeking out from beneath a tattered quilt that had been thrown over it. It was ornately carved and in perfect condition. It was obviously antique, but not being anything close to an expert on antiques I could only guess that it was at least 80 years old. I searched around behind the headboard and found the two side boards. They were in decent shape; in need of some cleaning, but nothing a little furniture polish wouldn’t take care of. After searching for a few minutes the saleslady helped me locate the footboard. It too was ornately carved and in excellent condition. There was a price tag on the footboard - $50. Fifty dollars for this beautiful bed-frame? What a steal! Without even considering how I would fit it in my car I, I paid for the bed and left feeling as if I had just won the lottery. Little did I know that the bed I had just purchased came with strings attached - it was haunted.

My daughter was at college and I decided to paint her bedroom and install new hardwood floors. Her old bed was falling apart and was of the ‘little girl’ variety that she had grown out of years earlier. The bed frame I had purchased at the thrift shop would look beautiful once the room was finished. After a few weeks work the room was painted, the floors installed and the antique bed frame assembled. The room was perfect. Or, at least it looked perfect. That first day when I stepped back to look at the finished room something seemed … off. I couldn’t put my finger on it. At first I thought that the bed needed to be placed against a different wall and the dresser moved to a different location, but after trying various configurations I went back to the original setup. The new hardwood floors looked great, the color on the walls was rich and soothing, the new rug provided a splash of color - but something was wrong. I shrugged off the feeling and took some photos to send my daughter at college. I texted her the shots. She loved the look of the room, especially the ‘new’ bed. She had a break coming up in a few weeks and couldn’t wait to come home to see it in person.

The night after installing the bed I had one of my typical bouts of insomnia. Rather than wake my wife up with my tossing and turning I decided to try to get some sleep in my daughter’s newly furnished room. I went down the hall to the newly renovated bedroom and climbed into the antique bed. It was very comfortable, but after a short time I noticed that something just didn’t feel right. As crazy as it may sound, I had a strong feeling that someone was standing right next to the bed staring at me. I turned over to look, but of course there was no one there. I turned onto my other side but the feeling persisted, this time as if the ‘person’ had moved to the other side of the bed. After trying to shake off this feeling I turned the light on and read for a while until I was good and tired, then finally fell asleep. I slept for just about an hour, but my sleep was plagued with horrible nightmares. My dreams were filled with strange images, people I had never seen before, and a feeling of sickening fear. I woke up with a start, thankful that the night was finally over.

I didn’t mention my disturbing night to my wife, but when I got home from work I found that the room was having an effect on her as well. Earlier that day she had folded some of my daughter’s clothes and had put them in her dresser. As she was in the room putting the clothes away, she started feeling very uncomfortable. She too felt as if she was being watched, and as much as she tried to ignore this feeling she just wanted to get out of the room and quickly left. She thought this was strange because the room looked so nice now, and she had never felt this way before about any room in our house. As the weeks went on, the feeling of being watched intensified and she avoided going into the bedroom. After a while, she stopped putting clothes away in my daughter’s dresser. She just left the laundry basket with folded clothes on the floor and made a hasty retreat.

I attempted to sleep in the room a few more times, but the feeling of being watched was overwhelming and the nightmares were becoming more and more disturbing. I found myself dreaming of strange people, being unable to find my way out of a house I have never seen before, and being taunted by groups of people without faces. During the day, it got to the point where just passing the room gave us the creeps and we took to keeping the bedroom door closed.

Now, you would think that a ghost hunter would immediately come to the conclusion that the bed was haunted, but it actually took me a while to put two and two together. The biggest problem? I never believed in haunted objects before! I remember watching John Zaffis’ show “The Haunted Collector” and, as much as I loved the show I found myself laughing at the simplicity of tracing a haunting to an object, removing it, and solving the problem. But here I was faced with the same problem. I had purchased a haunted bed and needed to do something about it. My daughter was due home any day, and I didn’t want to subject her to any of the bizarre nightmares and creepy feelings my wife and I were experiencing. However, it was too late to get a new bed so I thought I’d just wait and see how things went once she got home.

My daughter came home from college for the weekend and was delighted at seeing her new room. I didn’t tell her about the problems we were having with the bed. It might sound cruel, but I didn’t want to scare her and was interested in seeing if she had any feeling about it. As it turned out, she didn’t! Her sleep was undisturbed, she loved the bed, and she didn’t complain about the room feeling any different than before. Some might say that this proves that the bed was not haunted to begin with. Not so fast! Even in the most active haunted houses, some spirits resonate with certain family members and others are often not disturbed at all. The bed was obviously having an effect on my wife and me, but not my daughter.

After my daughter went back to college I decided to conduct an investigation on the bed the same way I would with any other haunted location. I set up my digital recorder, took photos, and tried to connect with the spirit who had attached itself to the bed. I had a strong impression of an old woman, laying in bed sick and unable to take care of herself. The phrase, “I fell down the stairs” repeated over and over in my head. In listening back to the digital recorder, I was surprised to hear a male voice saying, “Don’t drink”. I was sure that the spirit was that of an older woman. It’s possible that the voice was that of a close family friend who had died in an alcohol related accident just a few days earlier.

Satisfied that the bed was indeed haunted, I did a clearing using sage, holy water, sea salt, religious objects and prayer. Although it took over a month, I finally cleared the bed of the spirit. The room feels fine now, and I have spent spent several nights sleeping in the bed without being bothered by nightmares. Another satisfied customer!

The Haunting of Apartment A-1

I’m always amazed at the variety of places that restless spirits reside in. I’ve been called to do investigations at restaurants, barns, bars, mansions, historic homes, back yards, and raised ranches; but I’m always surprised when I get a call about a haunted apartment. It really shouldn’t surprise me at all, as apartments house more people over time than private homes do and therefore have the potential for more paranormal activity. And besides, when something ghostly shares an apartment with you, there are very few places where you can hide.

When Colin and his mother rented the sunny, three-bedroom apartment in Ossining New York, the last thing on their mind were ghosts. The apartment is on the ground floor, and is one of just four in a building which sits on a quiet street corner near a public park. But soon after they moved in, things started happening that first left them puzzled, then frightened.

Colin contacted me and asked if I might be interested in conducting a paranormal investigation at his apartment. He explained that one night he was awoken by three loud knocks on the wall next to his bed. These weren’t just light tapping sounds -- they were powerful knocks, loud enough not only to wake him, but so strong that he could actually feel their vibration as he lay in bed. The knocks came from the wall right near his head. Noisy neighbors? This would be an easy explanation, except for the fact that on the other side of this wall is the hallway in his own apartment. The knocks continued and were keeping him up at night. There was other activity as well, but knowing that I prefer not to be provided with too much information before conducting an investigation Colin refrained from going into detail.

I sent Colin a questionnaire just to make sure there was enough activity for me to take the time to conduct an investigation and it came back with a clear indication that there was something going on in his apartment that warranted a closer look.

I arrived at the apartment one sunny Saturday afternoon in August and was greeted by Colin and his mother. They had been renting the place for about a year, but for the past four months strange things had been happening that left them wondering what they got themselves into.

Paranormal investigating starts long before I enter a client’s home. Prior to every investigation I ‘reach out’ intuitively to see if I can pick up any precognitive impressions. These often come in the form of names, visions of faces or places I’ve never seen before, physical sensations that might be related to the way a spirit passed, or phrases that go over and over in my head. I share these premonitions with the homeowners when we first meet and ask if they have any importance to the investigation.

More often than not I get a wealth of information that is useful to the investigation. In this case I picked up a vivid pre-cognitive impression of a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. I could clearly see her face and her long blonde hair, but it was if I was seeing her through a purple haze or mist. She had on a headband, the type that you might imagine hippies wearing in the 1960’s, and she was looking up at me as if she were sitting on the floor. She seemed very frightened and I got the impression that she had died of a drug overdose, or that she was high and died very suddenly. The young woman was very confused because she wasn’t aware that she had passed, but she somehow knew that Colin could see her so she was constantly reaching out to get his attention.

I shared my impressions with Colin who gave me an odd look, but said nothing. I always ask my clients not to reveal the details of the haunting until I am finished with the investigation, but from the look he gave me I felt I had hit on something important.

I did a walkthrough of the apartment and felt strong energy in the bedroom where the knocking was heard. I also felt energy in the hallway outside of the bedroom, and in a sort of pathway that lead into the living room to the front door. It felt as if someone were constantly walking back and forth between the bedroom and the living room, walking up and down the hallway between the two rooms. In the bedroom there were two strong areas of energy: one near the bed, and another near a dresser on the far side of the room. I continued to pick up the image of the young woman with the purple hue, and could feel her sense of confusion and panic as she tried to figure out what was going on. I picked up the name “Meghan” and was fairly certain that she had died of a drug overdose.

I related my impressions to Colin and his mother and asked if any of what I shared meant anything to them. Colin told me that he was shocked when he heard my precognitive impression of the woman with the purple haze.

“Last night I was laying on the couch in the living room. I wanted to get some sleep, and I suddenly awoke and saw, really quickly, a woman wearing something purple. It was either that she was covered in a sort of a purple haze, or she was wearing something purple – a scarf or something. The day before that I was watching TV and I thought I saw a woman with a child near the front door; but then they were gone instantly.”

Colin told me that the areas where I felt the energy were the exact location where the activity was occurring.

“When I’m in bed, just as soon as I start falling asleep I start feeling this odd sensation near my hips. The best way I can describe it is that it’s kind of like a cat kneading up and down with their front paws. If you’ve ever seen a cat do that, you’d know what I mean. This happens during the day, at night, it even happens when I’m in the chair in the living room. When I’m in the bedroom, I can feel someone entering the room. First I feel a cold breeze, then I start to feel flushed in my face and my head, and I then feel someone sit on the edge of my bed.

“Prior to all of this my dog had always slept on my bed. Always. Then a few nights in a row he started getting up and looking in my closet. Now he won’t come in the bedroom at all. I’ve seen shadows near the window there (indicating the area where I felt the energy), and someone actually pulled my foot while I was in bed and I got startled. The time I felt my foot pulled I saw something that looked whitish. I saw it really quickly. Another time I saw a misty green thing.

“I’ve lived here for a year now. For the first 8 months it was okay, but then I started to feel uneasy in the apartment. Around 4 months ago a new tenant moved in upstairs, and that’s when things started happening down here. I don’t know why, or if there’s even a connection between her moving in and the activity, but that’s when it all started.”

I asked Colin to tell me about the knocking. I had felt strong energy on the wall above his bed and in the hallway, and I was sure that someone was trying to get his attention.

“It’s always two quick knocks, a slight pause, then one single knock. It’s always on the wall that the bed is on, but not always the same area of the wall. Sometimes it’s high up, sometimes it’s low, and other times it’s a little further over on the wall. It’s always the three knocks, and it’s loud. It happened again just this morning about at about 7AM. It used to be just at night, but now it’s doing the same thing in the morning, but even louder. The knocking doesn’t happen anywhere else in the apartment, just in my room.”

When I asked Colin if there was any other activity in the house he told me, “One night I was laying in bed and I heard a dog whimpering in my room. As I said, my dog won’t come in my bedroom anymore, but I got up to check if he was nearby but found him sound asleep on my mother’s bed as usual, so the whimpering wasn’t him.”

Colin also told me that his brother came to visit once. After ringing the doorbell, his brother heard a loud, demonic sounding growl coming from inside of the apartment just on the other side of the door. It couldn’t have been the family dog because Colin was out walking him at the time. Another time a small hooded figure was spotted in the bedroom, and also a creature that looked like a wolf. The wolf might be indicative of Native American energy.

I did a clearing of the apartment, and was satisfied that much of the negative energy had dissipated, but was still puzzled about the ‘purple haze’ woman with the drug problem I had picked up on. Was this a former tenant, and if so why hadn’t Colin heard about her before? He was friendly with his neighbors, most of whom had lived there quite a while, but no one ever said that anyone had died in the apartment -- though one person said that the former tenant claimed that the place was haunted.

Two weeks after conducting the clearing, Colin contacted me with some startling news. He had done some investigating of the neighborhood and discovered that a young girl had died of a drug overdose in the house directly across the street from his house. Her name was Meghan. Perhaps the “Purple Haze” Colin and I saw was symbolic. After all, “Purple Haze” is the name of a Jimi Hendrix song, and Hendrix had died of a drug overdose. The headband and “hippy” look I picked up on might also have been a symbol of drug use, though the girl might have really looked like this.

Spirits can travel, and they often travel to those who can sense them. I theorize that Megan had been going back and forth between the two houses, hoping that Colin can help her. After the clearing, the majority of activity in the house ceased, and the woman in purple hasn’t been seen since.

A Demon in Upstate New York

What follows is an absolutely harrowing tale of demonic assault. The women who experienced the activity first-hand have edited and approved the writing of this case file, but be warned – it is truly frightening reading, and not for the faint-of-heart.

Of all the cases I’ve investigated, the following is by far the most disturbing; not only because of the bizarre and frightening nature of the activity reported, but because I quickly discovered that this was not a haunting – this was demonic possession. The women who contacted me were not imagining things. Both are highly educated women, and one is a psychotherapist. They were clearly in need of a demonologist. I am not a demonologist. Demonologists specialize in ridding a person or place of demons; non-corporeal beings who have never been alive and never will be.  Still, I was eager to help so I agreed to take down the details of their case, conduct an investigation, and to seek the help of a trained demonologist.
When Claire and her sister Linda moved into the senior living facility in Upstate New York it seemed like the perfect place for them. Both sisters were chronically ill. Their poor health left them unable to work and in need of low income housing. They felt safe when they first moved into the small apartment which had a back lawn and serene woods that they could view from their beds.
As the months passed everything was fine, until one day a new resident moved in down the hall; a man in his mid-50s named Carl. The sisters learned that he was schizophrenic, but he tended to stay in his apartment and was rarely seen by anyone in the facility. However, as soon as Carl moved in all hell broke loose in the sister’s apartment. It seems that the man brought something with him when he moved in – something evil that was bent on plaguing Claire and Linda.
It started when Claire woke up in the middle of the night and saw blood dripping from the shades. Although this vision quickly passed, it left her frightened. She had never had an experience like this before, and she knew it wasn't a dream. During that week and the months to follow, the women were regularly woken out of their sleep to view violent objects like knives floating in the room, or to see a hooded figure dressed in black. Over time this figure also appeared as a man without a hood, and sometimes even took the form of a large animal. One time the animal that appeared had a trunk. Although it had a trunk, it wasn't an elephant in shape, but more like a conglomeration of different types of animals. Both sisters would see these things at different times during the night. In the morning they would compare notes and were shocked to discover that the same visions were appearing to both of them.
The demon also tormented them through creating dreams which he entered, and where they had to fight him off. He gave them bizarre images of death when they were trying to go to sleep with their eyes shut but fully awake. He also would enter their bodies when they were sleeping, and they would wake to being held down and in a paralysis in which they had to fight him to get out of and open their eyes. These kinds of attacks were the worst type for them to endure since they were particularly frightening and draining. Claire described some other details to me this way, “He is very aggressive. He shows us murders, bloody objects or large spiders and insects - sometimes as big as a dog! A few times he has held us down and has gone inside of us for brief moments as if we were being possessed. Mostly he wakes us to show us the objects floating in front of us or gives us nightmares, which he is in. He has growled and we’ve heard the sound of dogs as well.”
Things were to continue in this manner for Claire and Linda for the months to come. The demonic, black hooded figure continued to harass them nightly and to keep them up by waking them over and over again in order to show them images in the room. He had the ability to do this; to actually force them awake to see these things. So they began losing sleep and their already weakened bodies began to deteriorate even more. This is the method of demons; to weaken the body of the person and then the mind in order to try to overpower the person and cause their demise. Demons are unlike other spirits who only seek attention. Demons are evil entities whose ultimate goal is destruction.
Sometimes the demon took the shape of a huge spider-like shadow that would crawl up the wall and slowly melt into it. The scenes of horror and visitations by the hooded man continued nightly for over a year, wearing down the sisters and affecting their health. Toward the end of the year a black shape was seen hovering over Linda’s bed, and both sisters have been held down in their beds at night. It also showed them a ghoulish looking little creature with fangs all along its mouth. The demon seemed to be growing in strength.
A Catholic priest was called in to do a blessing of the apartment, but it did no good. In fact, the activity increased. Attempts to use holy water or prayers only made the demon retaliate, as he would litter their dreams with even more disgusting images. Attempts to ‘clear’ the apartment of the entity the way I would normally clear a house of an unwanted spirit were also met with strong resistance. The demon had no intention of leaving that easily.
I conducted a brief investigation at the facility in October 2015. After doing a walkthrough of the apartment, I was able to pinpoint an area that felt very negative, and very strong. It was against one wall of the spare room, which is used as an office. This disturbing force can be felt coming through wall and extending out approximately 4 feet into the room.  Other than that area, the apartment felt clear. This didn’t surprise me, as demons don’t necessarily stay in one place. They come and go at will. I have a feeling that it retreats to Carl’s apartment during the daytime. If this is the case, then I am certain that it plagues him as well.
After nearly a year of trying to find help for Claire and Linda, a professional demonologist is scheduled to rid the sisters of this demonic presence. He is scheduled to arrive in late November (2015). I will post an update after the demonologist pays them a visit. I pray for the sisters nightly, and ask that you do the same.

Is this the ghost of the outlaw Claudius Smith? - Goshen, New York

A few years ago a friend of mine bought a home in Chester, New York. The house was beautifully situated on several acres of land, complete with horse stables and plenty of room for horseback riding. Although the house itself was bright and cheerful, whenever I visited I would feel extremely uneasy in the driveway and in an adjacent field. It was a feeling of dread and danger, and as soon as I parked my car I would hurry to the house where I would feel safe. One evening the feeling got so strong that I felt compelled to take a photo of the field next to the driveway. Upon viewing it I was shocked to see a human figure in the field wearing a crumpled hat walking away from the camera. He seems to have either a hood hanging down in the back, or a bag slung over his shoulder. My friend thinks the ghost might be that of Claudius Smith, an outlaw who was hanged in Goshen, New York (a town adjacent to Chester, New York) in 1779 and who was known to frequent the area where my friend's house was built. His wanted poster shows him wearing a similar hat to the one worn by the figure in the photo. Click HERE for information on Claudius Smith and to view his wanted poster. Is this the ghost of Claudius Smith, or simply the spirit of a farmer walking home from a long day's work in the fields?

This has gone on long enough! -- A Haunting in Westchester County, New York

When someone contacts me for an investigation, they don't just have a vague feeling that their house might be haunted. They usually have been experiencing unusual, disturbing, or alarming activity for a long time and are at their wit's end. A family in Westchester County, New York experienced terrifying activity after moving into their rental home. It took them several months to contact me. when you read their story, you'll wonder why they waited so long.
Shortly after moving into their home, the family began hearing a little girl saying,“Good Morning!". On several occasions they also heard her say, “Hello.” She sounded as if she was around three or four years old. In spite of the fact that she said ‘good morning’ the family would only only hear her at night, right around the time that the children, four young boys, were put to bed.
While sitting in the living room, the parents would often hear the children's toys being played with in the boys' bedrooms. They could hear the toys moving across the hardwood floor even though all of the boys were fast asleep
Each of the four boys were having terrifying experiences of their own. The youngest would wake up screaming every night and point at something in the room that no one else could see. The middle child was petrified of a "wolf man" that he saw in his room - something he described as a man's body with a wolf's face. The third child would wake up at 11:00 each night and go into the parent's bedroom to sleep because he was afraid that there was something in the room with him. The oldest boy would often feel someone poking him hard while watching television in the living room. On several occasions, while sitting on the couch with his mother, he would tell her to stop poking him. She would tell him that she was not touching him, but he would continue to feel someone poking him and blame his mother. Over time the activity became more alarming.
One morning, three deep scratches were found on both sides of one of the boy's ribs. These scratches could not have been self-inflicted, and there were no sharp objects in or near the child's bed that could have caused them.
But young children were not the only ones to witness activity in the house. In addition to the parents who heard the little girl's voice at night, a grown daughter witnessed the basement door opening and the appearance of a shadow-man standing in the doorway. There was a feeling of menace attached to this man whose image slowly vanished. On another occasion, a smoke alarm that had been securely attached to the ceiling above the staircase came off of the ceiling and flung itself at her. She was sitting in the living room at the time, and the smoke detector actually flew down the stairs at an angle toward her.
Paranormal occurrences such as these are usually tolerated for a while before I am called upon for help. After conducting an investigation and performing a clearing, the activity in the house calmed down - at least for a while.
Several months after the clearing I checked in with the family to see how things were going. Although the activity died down for quite a while, it started up again. The man in the basement is still making his presence known. A little girl with pig tails was seen outside looking in the window. When the husband went to investigate she was gone.
The little girl who said "Good Morning" seems to be gone, but a different girl's voice has been heard in the house - perhaps it is the girl with the pig tails. This little girl has been heard saying "Grandma", "I love you", and "Can you come here?".
More disturbing, one of the boys reported that his mattress was moving, as if someone were underneath pushing up. This same boy also sees a figure leaning against his dresser at night, just watching him. In addition, various family members have heard knocking on their doors, but when they check no one is there.
Some homes require several clearings before activity stops for good. There are many reasons for this. Some spirits are stubborn and refuse to leave. Other times a vortex or a portal is open somewhere in the house which allows spirits to enter even if a clearing has been done. Activity can also ramp up if a family is going through an emotional crisis such as illness in the family, the death of a loved one, a divorce, or the loss of a job. I offered to do another clearing and am waiting to hear back from the family.

Totally Unexplainable: What one family found in their home

My favorite type of cases involve stories that cannot be explained. This one tops them all!
I was called upon to conduct an investigation at a private home in Stamford, Connecticut. The homeowners had been experiencing a number of disturbing phenomenon, but what they came home to one day was beyond anything they could ever have imagined.
The family had been out for the day and upon entering the living room noticed that a grill that covered the fireplace had been moved to one side, and the heavy cast-iron grate that held the wood in the fireplace was rotated sideways. There was no explanation for this as no one had been home at the time, and the family members were the only ones with a key to the house. The fireplace grill is made of heavy iron and it takes considerable strength to move it. Even if an animal had come down the fireplace, something that has never happened before, it wouldn't have been able to move the grill out of the way of the fireplace. But this was just the beginning.
As one of the family members walked upstairs to the second level of the house, they stopped dead in their tracks. At the top of the stairs was a perfectly formed mound of ashes! It was several inches tall and looked as if someone had molded it with their hands. The ashes were obviously from the fireplace, but how had they gotten to the top of the stairs? And who had formed them into a perfectly symmetrical mound? There were no tracks leading from the fireplace to the mound of ashes, nor were any trace of ashes found leading from the fireplace to the mound.
Was a spirit trying to send a message to the family? If so, what could it be? What significance did the mound of ashes and soot have? This mystery has never been solved.

The Vanishing

This group of four stories falls under the heading of "Disappearing Object Phenomenon" or DOP. Some attribute DOP to poltergeists, temporary invisibility, a dimensional shift, or even a time flux. Whatever the cause of the phenomenon, the following stories are fascinating and utterly baffling - and I was a witness to all four of them.
THE SUGAR BOWL
Several years ago, I came downstairs in the morning and made myself a cup of coffee. I always keep the sugar bowl on the ‘shelf’ on top of the stove. By this, I mean the shelf that is part of the stove, right above where the clock and buttons for operating the stove are. Here’s a photo of the bowl, and the location where I keep it.

I took the sugar bowl off of the shelf, spooned out some sugar for my coffee, and returned it to the shelf. I then walked into the family room no more than 15 feet away, and sat down to have my cup of coffee. A few minutes later my son walked into the kitchen and asked where the sugar bowl was because he wanted sugar for his cereal. I told him it was on the stove, but he called over to me that it wasn't there. I told him that I had just used it and had put it back, but he insisted it wasn't there. I told him that I was so positive it was there that he would have to pay me $5 when I showed it to him. I walked over to the stove and sure enough the sugar bowl was not where I had left it.
   There was no one else in the house at the time, so I assumed that I was mistaken and that I hadn't put it back on the stove - but where was it? My son and I looked all over the kitchen for the sugar bowl – on the stove, in the cabinets above the stove, in the cabinets next to the stove, and on the kitchen counters. The sugar bowl was nowhere to be found. This was extremely puzzling, as I knew that I had just used it, but since we couldn't find it I took out a bag of sugar from the pantry and gave my son sugar for his cereal.
I went back in the family room which is in full view of the kitchen and finished my coffee. About 10 minutes later I walked into the kitchen to get a glass from the cabinet next to the stove and there on the stove in its regular place was the sugar bowl! I actually gasped when I saw it. I called my son down from his room and asked if he had put it there, but he swore he didn't. He confirmed that the sugar bowl had not been in its usual place, and that we both had thoroughly looked all over the kitchen for it.
Remember, there was no one else in the house at the time and I could see the kitchen the entire time I was in the family room drinking my coffee. As you can see, if you are looking in the cabinets above and to the left and right of the stove, you can easily see the shelf. There is no way that we both could have missed seeing the bowl had it been on the shelf. The disappearance and reappearance of the sugar bowl is a total mystery.

THE SCISSORS
This next story is taken directly from an email that I sent to a friend immediately after it happened on 13 February 2012. I sent the email at 6:55 AM.
"Hi -- Just a quick but STRANGE story about my morning. I was in our ‘master bathroom’ getting ready for work. I had used a pair of scissors earlier this morning to cut open a package and they were still on the bathroom counter. I was worried that my three-year -old daughter would get a hold of them and hurt herself, so I took them out of the bathroom to the vanity just outside the bathroom door and put them in the top drawer. As I put them in the drawer I was thinking that I would put them right in the front rather than push them to the back of the drawer so my wife would be able to find them, and so no one would cut their fingers on them if they rummaged through the drawer looking for something. I put the scissors in the drawer and closed it. I then went directly back to the bathroom and shaved and brushed my teeth, then I walked into the bedroom to finish getting dressed.
   I never left the bedroom, and no one came in the room while I was getting dressed. After I got dressed, I walked back into the bathroom. As I was combing my hair I looked over and the scissors were back on the bathroom counter!! They weren't in the exact same place as they had been before I had put them in the drawer, but they were in the same general location. I was really stunned. I clearly remember putting them in the drawer, and even remember noticing which way the points of the scissors were facing when I put them there."

THE COMPUTER KEYBOARD
This next story happened while I was at work. I walked into my office and sat down at my desk in front of my computer. I went to put my hands on the keyboard to login, but noticed that it was missing. The monitor was on my desk, as was the computer itself, but the keyboard was missing. I sat there for several seconds, surprised that there was no keyboard. The desk is very old, and I noticed all of the scratched wood on the desktop - something I don’t normally see because it’s always covered by the computer keyboard.
   I went around to the back of the computer to see if it had somehow fallen off the desk. I checked the computer port where the keyboard should have been plugged into and found that was empty. I checked the floor under the desk to see if it was there, but it was not. After searching for a while I assumed that the computer technician had taken it way to replace it for some reason, so I got up from my desk and moved to my colleagues computer which was on the other side of the desk. I logged in and did some work online.
A few minutes later my colleague came into the office. I explained that I was using her computer because the keyboard to mine was missing. A short time later I got up from my colleague's computer and went to my side of the desk to retrieve some papers. I was totally shocked to see my computer keyboard sitting in it's usual place!! There is absolutely no way that I could've missed it. I had sat at my computer looking for it for quite a while. I am positive the keyboard was gone. I never left the room the entire time this incident occurred, and my computer was right across from me the entire time it was missing. No one could have returned it without my having seen them as they would have to have passed by me to get to my side of the desk.

THE CAR
This last story involves something a little bigger than a pair of scissors, a sugar bowl, or a computer keyboard. It involves a missing car!
   One Friday evening my daughter, Carly, borrowed one of the family cars to visit her friend in a neighboring town. She said that she might stay overnight at her friend’s house, and if she did that she would be back sometime in the morning.
   Early the next morning I had to drive my son to the train station. We got into my car and drove up the driveway and we both commented that Carly must have stayed over her friend's house that night because the car was not in the driveway. When I came home from the train station, I looked to see if the car was back but it was not. I assumed that Carly was still at her friend’s house.
Later that morning, my wife went for her daily run. She went through the garage, ran straight up the driveway, went for her run around the neighborhood, and ran back down the driveway to the garage. When she came into the house I asked her if the car was back yet, but she said it was not.
   I started to get concerned because I hadn't heard from my daughter, so I called her cell phone. She picked up immediately. I asked her where she was and she said that she was upstairs in her bedroom! "You're in your bedroom? Where is the car?" I asked. She said it was in the driveway. I told her it wasn't there, but she insisted that it must be because she parked it in its usual spot when she got home the night before. I looked out the window and sure enough the car was sitting in its regular spot! It is absolutely impossible that three people could have passed the car without seeing it.
   By the way, people often ask why I never noticed that she was in her bedroom. When she was in high school my daughter was not the neatest child on the planet, so we always kept her bedroom door closed. It was closed when i went to bed that night, and closed when I woke up the next morning, so it never occurred to me that she might be home.

These four stories illustrate just how strange DOP is. People have reported objects even larger than a car disappearing, then reappearing later. There are often several witnesses to the phenomenon. Have you had a DOP experience? If so, go to my contact page and send me an email. I'd love to hear your story.

The Haunted Spa

I received an email from a woman who wanted to know if I would consider doing a paranormal investigation of the Day Spa she worked at in a small town in Connecticut. Of course I jumped at the opportunity, but I admit that it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint exactly who might be haunting a business. Businesses often change hands or undergo major renovations. Two small stores may be bought up and become one large office space; a large space may be divided into smaller storefronts, offices, or other types of businesses; a pizza place might turn into a beauty salon. You get the picture. Luckily, the investigation turned out to be one of the most interesting I’ve ever conducted and I am happy to be able to share it with you here.

   Healing Waters Spa (a fictitious name used to protect the privacy of the owners) offers massages, facials, acupuncture, reiki sessions, and other holistic, health-related services. I arrived at the spa on Saturday, October 16, 2016 and one of the spa’s employees, Chiara, let me in before the shop opened so I could conduct the investigation without distractions. In the front of the spa is a gift area where clients can purchase candles, incense, books, and other holistic and spiritual items designed for peace and serenity. I was soon to discover that the spirit haunting the spa was not the least bit serene, and he wasn’t afraid to make his presence known to the employees and customers.
     After turning on my digital recorder, I prepared to make my way through the spa. I got my EMF meter and camera ready and kicked off my shoes. I often conduct investigations barefoot in order to keep the sound of my footsteps from contaminating the digital recording, and to ground myself. Scientific studies have shown that when we are barefoot, the earth’s electrons are conducted to our bodies bringing it to the same electrical potential as the earth. Grounding myself in this way protects me from negative energy and to allows positive energy to flow through me.
     A long hallway runs the length of the spa with several treatment rooms on either side. The area closest to the gift shop felt clean, but I could tell that a spirit often makes his way into the gift shop and into the treatment rooms closest to the front of the store. I asked Chiara to keep the lights out for the time being, as I didn’t want any electrical current to influence what I was feeling, or possibly scare away any spirits that might be around.
     As I slowly walked down the dark hallway I began to get a familiar feeling — the feeling that a spirit was present. I often describe this as the feeling you might get if you drank several strong cups of coffee, and the caffein kicked in all at once. I get a shaky feeling inside, something like feeling afraid without actually being afraid.
     As I neared the end of the hallway it became obvious that someone was with me. It was a male spirit, and the name I was picking up was Andrew. The feeling of this spirit’s presence grew in intensity as I walked down the hallway toward the last two treatment rooms, and as I turned into the last room on the left I came face-to-face with a strong male presence. Although he didn’t seem angry that I was there, he was very reluctant to communicate with me. After a short time he moved out of this room and into the room across the hall. I followed him into the room and tried to pick up some intuitive information, but once again he moved out. Whoever this spirt was, he wanted to be left alone even though I was saying out loud that I was there to help him. I turned the lights on in these two rooms so I could take a few readings with my EMF meter. I took some photos, then made my way back to the front of the spa where Chiara was waiting for me.
     I told her about the male presence, and which rooms I felt him in. She confirmed that the rooms I had pinpointed were the rooms where things were seen and felt by employees and customers alike. Chiara joined me on my second trip down the hall where I conducted an EVP session and took some more photos, then we made our way back to the front of the store where I asked her to tell me about the activity that has been plaguing the workers and clients.
     “It started with me just feeling creepy down there,” Chiara said. “The room on the left side of the hallway where you are feeling the ghost — It’s that room that I always felt weird about. In the morning I come into the store and light the candles to get ready for the day, and it always just feels creepy down there. It’s right in the exact spot you felt it. It’s in those two rooms at the end of the hall. I also feel cold spots down there.
     One day I was in the first room, and I was about to come out to go into one of the massage room and I saw a man -- or rather, a large, dark shadow in the shape of a man. This shadow was very dark, but not solid black. I couldn’t see features, but I could see that he was was taller than me, around 5’ 8” or so. I saw it very quickly, but it was very clear.”
     Another day, Chiara saw something else that totally took her by surprise. “I was in the front of the store looking down the hallway and I saw a leg walking into Nora’s room. It was just the end of the leg, the way you would see it if someone had walked into a room and you just saw them taking their last step into the room. It had on pants and shoe. It looked like a man’s leg. Of course, I took a look in there, but the room was empty.
     One day, one of the reiki therapists walked a client down the hall to bring her into one of the treatment rooms. As soon as they walked into the room the client got startled. She stopped, caught her breath and said, “Oh, I thought someone was sitting there!”
     Patrons of the spa often report feeling a male presence. “One woman said that she sensed that there was a man, a farmer, in the back of the spa. This woman claims to be sensitive to such things. She said that this man was from a long time ago when this was all farm land.
     Another client said that she also sensed a male presence. I came into one of the back rooms where she had just had a facial treatment and she said, ‘You have a man in here! He was just sitting in here with me. He had on a fedora hat.’ I don’t know who she was picking up on, but I do know that there was a man who worked in this building for 30 years when it was a bar/restaurant. He’s now deceased. One day, just for fun, a friend brought over one of those devices that randomly spews out words. It’s called an Ovulous. When we ran it, it came out with the words ‘bar’, ‘party’, ‘beer’, and ‘drunk’. So, we were thinking that it might have something to do with the man who used to work in the building when it was a bar.”
     Chiara went on to describe some of the other unusual activity in the spa. “Things disappear all the time. They go missing and they never turn up again. The cords that we have to charge our iPhones keep disappearing. Over the past few months about 15 of them vanished and we never found them. The workers are the only ones who use them to charge iPhones. The customers don’t have access to them, so it’s not like someone is taking them or anything.
     About 4 months ago I was sitting at the desk with another woman and one of the lavender potpourri bags came flying off the shelf. It didn’t just roll off, it flew off and landed about four feet away. Another time the owner of the store was talking about the strange activity in the store when two ornamental pillows fell off of the table. No one was near them, and they had been about half-way toward the center of the table before they fell off.
     Our supply closet always locks by itself. You have to use a key to lock it, but whenever Carol comes to open it, she finds that it’s locked. There’s really no way that that can happen by itself because you have to turn the key all the way around to lock the door.
     One thing that happens all the time in the gift shop is that two heavy candles move by themselves. They move all the way from the wall to the edge of the shelves.” Chiara brought me over to two shelves on which were two large candles in heavy glass jars. “We find these two candles moved all the time. Sometimes it’s one, sometimes it’s both. One minute they’ll be pushed right against the wall, the next they’re all the way to the edge of the shelf about to fall on the floor. One time we opened the store in the morning and actually found both of them lying on the floor. But it didn’t look like they had fallen off the shelves. We found them all the way over near the middle of the floor. There’s no way they could have fallen and travelled that far. And there’s no reason for them to fall off the shelves anyway.”
     Before we left this area, Chiara made a point of making sure that both candles were securely placed back against the wall before continuing her story. Later in the investigation we both came from the back of the store and found that one of the candles had moved all the way to the front of the shelf. There were just two of us in the shop at the time, and we were together the whole time, so the movement of this heavy candle was a real mystery.
     Although the moving candles is baffling, it doesn’t compare to the bizarre thing that happened in the gift area one morning. “Nora was working in the front of the shop and I was in the back. I heard her call my name, and she sounded really scared. So I came running out and found Nora standing there staring and pointing at one of the tables. We have a large, very heavy metal decorative piece that’s roughly in the shape of large piece of coral. It weighs about 10 pounds, and it always sits in the middle of this glass table.” At this point Chiara walked over to the table and showed me the object. It was made out of shiny, silver and gold metal, and it was indeed quite heavy.
   Nora continued, “So I came out and Nora is pointing at the table, and I looked over and saw the coral piece was no longer in the center of the table - it was balanced in mid-air on the edge of the table! The entire thing was off of the table, and just a tiny edge of it was touching the table’s edge. It looked like something was either holding it up, or that it was levitating.
     So, as I ran out Nora is pointing at it and as soon as I looked at it it fell flat on the floor. But it didn’t just fall down, it fell at an angle so it ended up UNDER the glass table perfectly upright. And even stranger, even though it’s a heavy, metal object it didn’t make a sound when it landed. The way it was levitating, and the way it ended upright under the table without making a sound — it’s just not possible. We tried every which way to make it to that, but we couldn’t do it.” I tried to make the shell balance on the edge of the table the way she described, but there was absolutely no way to make it do that. It was simply too heavy.
   Although moving and levitating objects would be enough to frighten anyone, by far the most chilling occurrence was the sound of a man -- screaming. “This past week, three days in a row, Carol and I were right here in the front of the store at about 9:30 in the morning. The first day we heard a man screaming. It was really frightening.” Chiara imitated the sound she and Carol heard - a blood curdling scream. I asked Chiara where the scream came from. “It was down there at the end of the hallway,” she said. “Our first instinct was to help this man who sounded like he was in agony, and Carol actually started to head down the hall. Then she stopped and said, ‘What am I doing? There’s nobody here but you and me.’ It was a loud scream, definitely a man; someone in agony or in pain — almost like the sound a cat makes, but it was definitely a man’s voice. It was very scary.
     The following day we heard him again, but this time it sounded like he was calling out to us. He said, “Hey!” in a loud voice. The day after that we heard a woman’s voice say “Hello?” the way you would if you walked into a house or a store and you wanted to let someone know you were there. But of course, there was no one in the store at the time because we hadn’t opened yet.

   It was obvious that something needed to be done to help this poor soul find his way. Although I sensed that he was shy and reluctant to communicate, I was convinced that a part of him was anxious to be free. He just didn’t know how, or he was afraid to “go to the light” because he didn’t know what was on the other side. There was also something else that I was picking up on. A terrible sadness. I was puzzled by this, as I was sure that he was ready to leave.
     Right before I was to begin the clearing the spa’s owner, Ruby, arrived. I told her what I had picked up during the investigation, and the three of us walked down the hall to the room where I felt the spirit. As we walked into the room I said, “He’s been moving around all of the rooms at the end of the hall, but he’s in this room now. I’m going to try to get him to move on.” Just as I said this, the most amazing thing happened — soft music started playing all over the spa. The sound system had turned on by itself.
     “That’s impossible!” said Chiara. You have to log into the computer, go to Spotify, and choose the spa station.” We quickly walked back to the office where the computer was. Although the computer was turned on, no one had logged onto it.
     We walked back to the treatment room where the spirit was. Ruby and Chiara were still talking about how amazing it was that the music had started playing by itself when the music in the room we were in began to get louder and louder. The volume in each room can only be turned up by pressing the volume button on the speaker. We walked out into the hallway to check the volume in the other rooms. Every room had soft music playing except for the room where I felt the spirit. In this room, the volume was turned up loud. It was clear that “Andrew” had made his presence known, and that he might be persuaded to move on to be with his relative and friends on the other side.
     I asked Ruby and Chiara to wait in the front of the store as I conducted the clearing. For this clearing used a spray I made earlier that morning out of white sage leaves and rosemary, both of which have clearing properties. To this I added some holy water. As I walked around the room I said a number of prayers; asked angels, saints and spirit guides to help guide this spirit on his way. I then got into a meditative state and in my mind’s eye I opened a doorway of brilliant white light. The things we imagine become a reality in other dimensions, and this doorway was the spirit’s entrance to the other side. I said out loud, “It is time for you to leave now. Your family and friends are waiting for you. They have waited for you a long time, and they are anxious to be with you again.”
     At this point an unbelievable sadness washed over me. I actually had to hold myself back from crying. It was a feeling of complete hopelessness and sorrow. The message I got was, “No one is waiting for me. I have no one. No one is waiting there for me.” This explained the sadness I felt earlier, and the reluctance for this spirit to move on. Although he was in agony, he felt as if there was no one for him on the other side, and that staying where there are people would be better than leaving for the unknown. I explained to him that God is on the other side, and that unbelievable beauty and peace was waiting for him. I continued to urge him to leave, and felt that he might be willing but that he was still hesitating.
     In the end, I left the doorway of light open. I would close it remotely after a few days, hoping that “Andrew” would go through on his own. I made my way back to the front of the spa where Chiara and Ruby were waiting for me. “Did you finish the clearing,” they asked? “We both felt so sad when you were doing it.” It seems that the women had picked up the same sorrow that I felt when doing the clearing.
     I left the spa with little doubt that I had made contact with a very lonely spirit. Only time will tell if the clearing worked and if this poor soul eventually joined the multitude of friends and relatives he is totally unaware of and who are waiting for him on the other side. If Andrew is still there, I’ll be back to run another clearing until he finds the peace he deserves.

Listen to the EVP below that I captured at the spa. The first was caputred during my first visit. At the time, Chiara I were in the gift shop area and I asked her if she ever feel cold spots in the spa. Chiara said, "Well, down there, yeah," indicating the end of the hall. A male voice then comes in and says, "Come down".
The second EVP was captured during a return visit to the spa where I did a second clearing. The voice I captured while I was clearing one of the rooms says, "My name is Derek".

The Strange Case of Maria Sanchez

I received an email from a former client asking if I might be able to give some advice to a friend who was experiencing paranormal activity in her home. The friend, Maria Sanchez, is a 60 year old widow who lives just outside of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Maria and her husband moved into their home in 2001. Mr. Sanchez died three years ago, and she currently lives with an adult cousin. Because of the distance involved, the best I could do was give her a call to get some more information about the case, and refer her to a reputable paranormal group in her area.
     I conducted a series of phone interviews and email exchanges with Maria, and I was concerned about the frightening activity she had been living with for the past few weeks. Neither Marie nor her cousin had experienced anything unusual until just a few weeks prior to our phone conversation. The activity in the home started suddenly and without warning. Objects moved of their own accord, coins and other items materialized out of thin air and were thrown on the floor, personal items went missing, and there was a sighting of a ghostly visitor.

[Note: Maria is Hispanic and speaks with a heavy accent. In order to preserve the exact wording of our interview, the following quotes are direct and reflect her accent. While I did have the option of re-writing the interview with corrected language, I wanted to maintain the authenticity of the dialog by preserving Maria’s original dialect.]

     When asked when the activity started, Maria told me, “Nothing happened until three weeks ago. They throw glasses on the floor, they throw the cups on the floor. They throw all the things from the kitchen counter on the floor. Do I see this happen? Yes! Right in front of my own face!
     “Another thing that happened, I have a metal thing in the kitchen that holds the paper towels. They throw that on the floor. Another time that take a cup in the kitchen and they moved it. I put the cup back again, and then they threw it on the floor.“
Another time I have tea cups on the counter, and they throw those on the floor. They fly right in front of my face, and in front of my cousin’s face too. The other day I was getting hot water and they throw a glass at me. They don’t hit me, but they throw the glass right at my back and it lands on the floor behind me.”
     I asked Maria what other activity she had experienced. She told me that pennies mysteriously materialize out of nowhere, and she has witnessed them being thrown on the floor right in front of her.
     “They throw me pennies. In my bed I lay down, and they throw pennies in front of my door. I don’t leave money all around the house, so I don’t know where these pennies come from.” Maria had some of the pennies that she had saved. All were from the 1990s. I wondered if the dates on the coins were some sort of a clue.
     I asked Maria if the pennies had been thrown at her, or if they were just thrown around. She said, “They thrown them on the floor, so I can hear the noise. I’m in the room, I hear the noise of the pennies, then I look and see the pennies rolling on the floor.” So, Maria has seen the pennies after they landed, but she hasn’t actually seen them falling to the ground. She also said that her cousin has witnessed the pennies being thrown onto the floor.
     One night when Maria was laying in bed, she heard something hit the outside of her door. She opened the door and found a bracelet laying on the floor. She said that it looked like a baby bracelet, one that had little plastic pacifiers attached to it. She had never seen this bracelet before.
     I asked Maria what else she was experiencing. She said, “The other day I was mopping the floor, and right in front of my eyes the garbage can cover rose up in the air, fell on the floor, and slid across the floor onto my feet. It’s up by itself, falls on the floor, then slides right to my feet!”
     “How far did it travel?” I asked.
     “It flew like six feet,” she said. “Right in front of my own face! And my cousin was there too.”
     Another incident happened in the basement. “I went to the basement and one of the lightbulbs in the ceiling was thrown out of the socket on the ceiling. They take it out from there and they throw it on the floor in my face too.”
     While listening to Maria tell the story, it sound pretty frightening. A lightbulb unscrews itself from the ceiling light fixture, then is thrown to the floor by invisible hands and shatters. But when pressed for more details, the story breaks down a little.
     “Did you hear the light bulb unscrew, or did it just fly off of the ceiling?” I asked.
     “No”, she said. “I see it when it’s laying on the floor and it’s on the floor in pieces.”
     “So, you didn’t see it happen in front of you then?” I asked
     “No,” she explained. “I just hear it when it’s flying and then the lightbulb was on the floor.”
     I wondered, can someone in the family be playing a trick on Maria? I know for certain that one piece of evidence was fabricated; not by Maria, but by a young cousin. It was a photo showing an evil looking face on the wall.
     “Tell me a little about the photo that you sent me? Who took the photo, and what were the circumstances?” I asked.
     Maria explained, “I was in the bed to lay down and my young cousin was watching TV. She told me laughing, ‘I want to show you a picture! I want to show you a picture!’, and that’s when the picture comes out.”
     “So, tell me again about that picture. Was it you who took the picture, or did your cousin take the picture?” I asked.
     “She take the picture. You can see her hands with the cell phone in the picture. And I was laying down.”
     “So, you were in the room when she took the picture?” I asked.
     “Yes,” she said. “I was right in the room with her.”
     “And was it right after taking the photo that your cousin said, ‘Look at what’s on this picture?’” I asked.
     “Yes!”
     After hearing that Maria’s young cousin was laughing about the photo, I was sure that something was up. I did some research and found a phone app that inserts eerie faces into photos. The app is just for entertainment, and is all in good fun. It was obvious that the cousin was amused by Maria’s belief in the paranormal, and that she had tricked her with the photo.
     I asked myself, even if someone had deceived Maria, does that mean that all of the activity was caused by deceptive family members? I don’t think so. Maria claims to have seen objects move right in front of her face. These include rosary beads being thrown to the floor, small bottles of holy water being thrown on the floor, and hangers falling off of a doorknob. She also reported that the TV shakes by itself.
     Maria told me that a few days prior to our phone conversation, her adult cousin who lives with her said out loud to the ghost, “You don’t scare me. I’m not afraid of you,” before going into his bedroom and closing the door. As the door closed behind him a cup flew off of the kitchen counter and threw itself against his bedroom door. There was no one in the room with Maria who could have been responsible for this to happen.
     Another curious incident leads me to believe that the activity is genuine. One night, Maria was in her bedroom about to pray. She was concerned about the activity, and she hoped that prayer would help. Maria took two pairs of reading glasses out of a drawer next to her bed, and put them on her bible which was laying on the table. She then went into another room and had a conversation with her cousin telling him that she was going back to her room to pray. When she returned to the room, one lens from each eyeglass frame was missing! It seems that something didn’t want her to pray, so it removed the lenses from the glasses so she wouldn’t be able to see.
     When asked if she had ever seen any visions of people in her house, Maria replied, “Well, at the beginning when all of this first started, when I first started hearing all of these noises, I wake up at night and I see a man sitting in my dining room. From my room I can see the kitchen. The man was in the dining room sitting in the chair. I just waked up to go to the bathroom and I looked and saw the man sitting in the dining room. And I said, ‘What are you doing there? What are you doing there?’ My cousin who was in the bedroom located in front of the dining room called to me, ‘Why did you just say, What are you doing there? ’ I told him, ‘I just saw a man; a paper man with sunglasses sitting in the chair.’”
     A paper man? At first I didn’t think I had heard her correctly so I asked Maria to describe the man she saw in detail.
     “He just have a regular shirt on, and like green sunglasses,” she said. “He was like a paper man. He was brown paper with the sunglasses on, but he was a man. And I yelled at him, ‘What are you doing there? What are you doing there?’ And when I was, you know, clear in my vision — he disappeared.”
     I asked, “Did he look familiar to you? What did he look like?”
     “No,” she said. “I don’t know him. He was like a paper guy.”
     In addition to flying objects and the sighting of the mysterious ‘brown paper man’, Maria said that knocks have been heard in the house. She explained, “Oh, they knock my door and they knock my wall too.” She said that the knocks come in groups of 6. Another time a church group was over at the house, and they all heard loud knocks on the outside of the house. Other sounds have been heard as well. Maria described these as sounding like someone clicking the countertop with their nails in groups of three.
     Maria said that the spirit seems to get angry when she or her cousin prays. “They get mad when we pray, and every time I pray something moves. My cousin was praying and the TV shakes so hard. This thing shakes the TV and throws candles on the floor, throws the holy water on the floor, all when I start praying. One day I was praying with my cousin together, and one of the salt shakers from the dining room table they fly, they hit the china and broke both of the china.”
     One night after getting off of the phone with Maria, I received an email from her which said, “Hello Barry. Three minutes after I finish talking with you, I was talking with my cousin and that thing throw me with a salt shaker in my head.”
     Spontaneous Paranormal Activity (SPA) is puzzling, so when a case like this comes my way I look for something that may have triggered the unexplained events. One reason for SPA is the introduction of haunted physical objects into the home. Most people don’t realize that anything purchased at a thrift shop, yard sale, or antique shop can be haunted. We associate hauntings with houses, but spirit energy can attach itself to any object. I always caution people to pay close attention to what they are feeling when they are interested in purchasing something that once belonged to someone else. Haunted items seem to call to us, practically begging us to bring them home.
     Another reason for SPA is the introduction of cursed items into the home. Yes, I know, we live in the twenty-first century, but it’s true; if someone means you harm, they can put a curse on an object and present it to you as a gift. This ‘gift’ can act like a Trojan horse filled with evil intentions.
     Even minor changes to the structure of a house can cause SPA. Home renovations can often jump-start spirit activity. Spirits who once lived in a home want it kept just the way it was when they were alive.
     Finally, I always caution against the use of Ouija boards or participating in any type of occult ritual. Engaging in such activities, even in jest, can result in horrific paranormal activity. Why do I think that Ouija boards are dangerous? Think of it this way: when you use an Ouija board you are essentially putting up an Open House sign which says, “I give any and all spirits, good or bad, permission to temporarily take possession of my body and to control my hands in order for messages to be spelled out for my entertainment. I have total faith that you will leave my body when you’re done with it, and that you won’t hang around my house afterward … even though you’re dead and probably have nothing better to do.” Get the picture? Don’t use Ouija boards.
     There seemed to be no reason at all for paranormal activity to start up out of the blue in Maria Sanchez’s home. Foreign objects were not brought into the home that could have been haunted or cursed. The home was not being renovated in any way. And there had been no occult interests, Ouija boards, or rituals performed in the home. In fact, Maria is a devote Catholic and she holds regular bible study and prayer meetings in her home.
     Although Maria’s young cousin played a trick on her by showing her a fabricated photo, that doesn’t mean that all of the activity is fraudulent. Obviously, without conducting a full investigation it’s difficult for me to come to any solid conclusions. Thankfully, a paranormal group from Rhode Island agreed to take the case. They conducted a short investigation and afterward prayed with Carmen. Maria reported that the house was quiet after they left, but she was waiting to see if it would stay that way. A priest is scheduled to bless the house in a few weeks.

UPDATE
The paranormal group who took the case blessed the house and the activity stopped for a few days. Unfortunately it started up again. Maria emailed me several updates, which are below. She also sent photos of some of the objects that are being thrown at her and her cousin, which you can see at the end of the update.

9 February 2017
Hello Barry,
Today is Thursday no work today because the Blizzard. I when to the basement to get some shovels and when I come upstairs from my hallways they throw to me a heavy little metal lion I have. They almost hit me in my head. I put that back in its place. I was in the kitchen my cousin was inside his room and they throw a piece of plastic at me, and a few minutes later it thew a penny at me. I try to don't pay attention.
Maria

I asked Maria about the piece of plastic that was thrown at her, and the next day she reply ...

10 February 2017
Good morning Barry,
The piece of plastic I have never see around the house. No, it did not hit me, but I am scared things come flying around the house. Everything he throw at me is old except the bracelet.
Thank you Barry they has to stop. I can not live with this Paranormal situation for the rest of my life.
Thank you
Maria

12 February 2017
Hello Barry,
At 9:15 PM that thing throw a vinegar bottle on the chair I have in the kitchen. A few minutes later I have the door refrigerator open and it threw a metal napkin holder on my feet. Then I was in my bedroom and it throw a glass cup from the kitchen at me. The cup fly inside my bedroom.
Maria

19 February 2017
Hello Barry,
I don't know what to do next. Paranormal activities in the house don't stop. It's happening to my cousin and me every day. One of the guys (from the paranormal group) came and blessed the house with oil and holy water. It calmed everything down for 2 days, but the paranormal things are back again.
A pastor came to the house he calm everything once again, but the activities came back. I know its a spirit inside the house. I feel him next to me a lot of times. I am afraid he move things and he can hit me. I had to put away the kitchen knife. The other day i was talking with my cousin and whatever is inside here threw a glass cup at his head and my cousin put his head down.
Barry, it is not my cousin doing this. It is happening to him too, and lot of things have been going on when he is not in the house. Early tonight the spirit threw a lollypop at me. It also throw bread, a box of crackers, candles, napkins and salt pepper shaker. I start to put holy water at kitchen and he touch my arm for the first time, trying to stop me from spraying holy water. Things are getting worse. I don't know what to do anymore.
Maria

20 February 2017
Hello Barry,
Last night after the the spirit touch me I feel very tired. My sister came home to get something and we were talking in the kitchen. The spirit threw a little decoration bottle I have in the kitchen on her back. When she was leaving, the spirit throw her with a glass ball I had on the dining room table.
Before that happen i was in my bedroom and the spirit open the sink faucet in cold water, and when I see the faucet open the spirit throw me with the empty milk gallon that I had on the floor. My cousin was inside his bedroom. I know is something inside my house, and that thing don't want to hear nothing about God.
Maria

20 February 2017
This is when the spirit throw the crucify in from of my bedroom door. (see photo below)

20 February 2017
Hello Barry,
Sorry to bother you but this is very scary. Right now I am inside my bedroom. I lay down on my bed with the door semi open and the spirit open the door totally and few second later throw inside my bedroom the metal napkins holder i have on the kitchen counter.

20 February 2017
Hello Barry,
The spirit throw me back again the napkin holder, and this time hit me in my feet hard.
Maria

25 February 2017
Hello Barry,
Today I went to wash clothes in the basement with my cousin, and we had to run back upstairs because the spirit throw me with bottles, lights (lightbulbs) and chairs. When I was in the kitchen, it threw throw a chair on the kitchen floor, and threw bottles of vinegar that were on the counter, and much more.
When I was in my room the spirit closed my door. When I had the door closed, he opened the door. He threw candles on the floor, as well as decorations I had. I don't know what to do anymore. I am scared and nervous. I can't sleep well because I am terrified. Today I am going to talk with the priest.
Maria

27 February 2017
Hello Barry. The picture I send you is just happened tonight. Finally the priest is coming home tomorrow at 5:30 or 6:00 PM. Pray for me.
Thank you,
Maria
(photos sent were a penny, glass, and broken white china plate)

1 March 2017
     Maria sent me an email saying that a Catholic priest came to the house, prayed, and did a house blessing. The priest told her that there is a "sad spirit" in the house who throws things to show her that he is there. The priest thinks that this spirit may be a deceased relative trying to communicate with Maria.
     I was impressed that a priest would be so open-minded about paranormal activity. The Catholic church does not normally view unexplained events in this way, and their view of heaven and hell are pretty straight-forward.
     Maria ended the email by writing, "Right now I am in my bedroom with the door closed and the spirit is in the kitchen in front of my bedroom. He threw 2 glass cups on the floor very hard."

It Came From the Ouija Board

Ever since the Garner family bought their home in Danbury, Connecticut, things had never been quite right. But it wasn't until daughter Abigail and a friend decided to try the Ouija board that strange things really started to happen. Like most teenagers, using an Ouija board was seen as just a game; but the spirit that came through was nothing short of terrifying, and the activity that followed would remain for a long, long time. Now a grown woman Abigail and her husband, James, share the house with Abigail’s mother and their three year old son, Andrew.
     Abigail contacted me because of the alarming activity in her home. A few weeks earlier, a reputable paranormal group had done an investigation and a house blessing, but the disturbing activity in the house had not abated. I arrived at the Garner home with my paranormal teammate and tech expert, Tom Holzer, on a Saturday evening in April of 2017. While Tom set up his scientific data collecting equipment, I did a walkthrough of the house to try to pick up any intuitive impressions, and to try to pinpoint areas that felt active.
     Apart from some residual energy in the livingroom, the first floor felt fine to me; but as we climbed the stairs to the second floor, I began to feel uneasy. It seemed that each step brought with it a sense of anxiety and foreboding. As soon as I hit the top step I knew that something was with us, and I voiced my feeling that this was an area where Abigail and her family most likely experienced paranormal activity. The feeling was strongest at the top of the stairs and outside of the bedroom door at the top of the staircase. Abigail confirmed that on several occasions she has seen a strange, dark figure at that exact spot.
     As I made my way down the hallway, I continued to feel the presence. It felt unfriendly and brooding, and I had the distinct impression that I was being watched. Abigail’s son’s bedroom was on the right side of the hall and, thankfully, I didn’t pick up any negative impressions in his room. The bathroom across the hallway also felt clear. It wasn’t until I entered Abigail’s room that I encountered the full force of the presence. I felt not only that I was being watched, but that whoever or whatever was watching me wanted me out of there. I mentioned to Abigail that one corner of the room had a particularly nasty feeling attached to it. In this corner was a small doorway near the floor that lead to a storage crawlspace. Little did I know, that crawlspace was where Abigail had conducted an Ouija board session years earlier. She confirmed that the majority of activity took place in their bedroom, and in the hallway where I had felt the presence.
     After the walkthrough I was ready to hear about the paranormal activity the family had been experiencing, and I was particularly interested in the Ouija board session that Abigail had mentioned in her email. I was curious to know whether or not the activity in the house started with the Ouija board session. She told me that although she had experienced a number of minor things throughout her childhood, such as seeing things out of the corner of her eye, most of the activity started right after the Ouija board session.
     It was Abigail’s senior year of high school, and she and a friend had decided to play around with an Ouija board. They set up the board in the living room and put their hands on the planchette. As the it moved under their fingers, the answers that they got to their questions were mostly “Yes” and “No”. Once the word “Hi” was spelled out. In addition to the messages spelled out on the board, both girls distinctly heard a woman’s whispery voice say, “Hey”, right in their ears. There was also a feeling of a soft whirlwind that blew quickly by. Abigail thought that this might have been the spirit of her grandmother trying to contact her, so she wasn’t frightened. If anything, she was happy that she might have been in touch with her grandmother. Overall, their first experience with the board was tame and, for the most part, positive.
     A few nights later the girls decided to try the Ouija board again, this time in Abigail’s bedroom. The small crawlspace in the corner of the room, a frequent play-place for Abigail as she was growing up, seemed like the perfect place to try out the board a second time. But this time, things were totally different. Abigail explained, “We had an OK experience the first time we used the board so a few nights later we were like, ‘Let’s try it again’. It was about midnight. My mom was home, so we went upstairs to my little cubby hole. That was a bad idea. The messages were spelled out on the board were “Get out”, “I don’t like you”, and “I’m gonna kill you”. Then we heard a bunch of swearing.”
     “Did you actually hear the swearing in the room with you,” I asked?
     “Yes,” said Abigail. “It didn’t swear on the board, it swore out loud. It was getting mad at us. We heard the swearing right in the cubby hole with us. I don’t know if I can do it justice but it was like ‘YOU …’ then a bunch of curses. It was a deep, growling type of voice. It wasn’t the female whisper we had heard the last time we used the Ouija board. It was a full grown man’s deep voice, and he sounded very, very angry. We could also hear stomping in our bedroom and we peeked out and there was nothing there. It sounded like heavy boots stomping on a wood floor, and it went on for a long time. We came running out of the room screaming, and my mom was like, ‘What are you screaming at?’ She hadn’t heard a thing; not the man’s voice, not the boots, nothing.”
     After the Ouija board experience, things went from bad to worse. Abigail started feeling as if she was being watched. “In my bedroom door near the door knob there’s a little peephole that looks into the hallway, and when I felt like I was being watched I would sometimes look through that little peephole. Once day I had a really strong feeling that I was being watched, so I looked through the peephole to see if someone was in the hallway. I put my eye up to the peephole and looked through, and all I could see was a red eye looking back at me; a red eye with a black center, and it was looking straight at me. I totally freaked out.
     A few weeks later I was sitting on my bed and I felt a hand grab my left arm, and it actually left a print. Like, if you were to grab me really hard, you would see prints on my skin. It was like a really hard grab that held onto me for couple of seconds and then let go, but the print stayed for about five minutes. I even got to show my mom.”
     Abigail described another incident that took place a few months later. She explained, “One night I went downstairs to get a midnight snack. The curtains in the kitchen were closed, but not all the way and as I was standing in the kitchen doorway I saw someone outside looking in the window at me. It looked like a big man. I could see him looking through the part of the curtain that was open, and the rest of him was in silhouette against the curtains. I freaked because I thought it was an actual person, so I screamed for my mom and ran upstairs. We called the police, and then came back and it was gone. When the police came I told them what I had seen. They went through the whole house, then went outside and walked the perimeter, but they didn’t see anything. Not only that, it had just snowed but there were no footprints anywhere in the snow. Whatever was standing out there looking in at me didn’t leave footprints.”
     The activity in the house died down for nearly seven years, but as soon as Abigail’s husband and young son moved in with her, the disturbing events started up again.
     James explained, “One night, something touched me while I was laying down in our bedroom. I could feel knuckles pressing down into my chest, then running slowly down to my bellybutton. It started out slow and then near the bottom of my ribcage it moved really fast, and then it was gone. It felt like someone had put their fist on my chest, pressed down really hard, and then ran their fist down the front of my body. It didn’t leave any marks or anything but it was really weird, and it woke me out a sound sleep.”
     A few nights later, James was lying awake in bed. Suddenly, he saw a blue orb come out of the closet, float into the bedroom, travel across the room to the window, and disappear. Although the event lasted only a few seconds, it startled James. Light from the street is always blocked with heavy curtains because Abigail sleeps better with the room darkened. The blue orb that James saw wasn’t a reflection of any kind. It was floating a few feet away from the wall.
     Soon after James saw the orb in their bedroom, Abigail had an experience that left her fearing for the safety of her three year old son, Andrew. “One day I was giving Andrew a bath and he wanted to stand up in the tub and take a shower like a big boy. The shower was running, and I was holding him so he wouldn’t fall down when suddenly it felt like he got yanked out of my arms. I pulled him back toward me, and then he was pulled back again. It was as if someone was pulling him away from me toward the wall. I quickly swooped my hands under him so he wouldn’t fall back and took him out of the tub. He was so scared. Now he is terrified to be in the bathtub.
     Like many haunted houses, the Garner residence had it’s share of electronic oddities. One day the lightbulb in the kitchen ceiling fixture exploded with such tremendous force that it caused the thick glass globe that covered it to crack in two. A few weeks later a clock radio in the kitchen began to turn on by itself, and the volume would turn higher and higher. Although electronic devices are known to malfunction from time to time, the volume on this particular radio is controlled by a knob that must be turned manually in order to increase or decrease the volume.
     One night Abigail and James heard little Andrew laughing hysterically in his room. As James explained it, “A lot of strange stuff has been going on in this house, but I think this one was a visitation from my dad who had died in November. A month or so later, Andrew was in his crib sleeping when all of a sudden we heard him laughing hysterically. For almost three hours he was laughing, just non-stop hysterical laughing. I turned on the video baby monitor to see what was going on and there was a giant orb by his rocking chair. The next morning when he woke up he made this breathing sound (imitates heavy intake of air) and he was saying “Pop-Pop”, the name he used to call my dad. My dad had been on oxygen, and it sounded like Andrew was imitating the oxygen sound. That was the first and last time that he laughed like that in the middle of the night, and the only time I’ve seen an orb on his monitor. Just a side note, the batteries in the bear that was on that rocking chair kept dying. We would replace them, and a week later they would be dead. We would replace them again, and a week later they would be totally dead. Then all of a sudden, they’re fine. They stopped going dead and we haven’t had any problems with them since then. But it was right after seeing the orb that they started going dead. Weird.”
     One thing that makes me think that the Ouija board was instrumental in starting the paranormal activity in this home is the sighting of dark figures in the house. Abigail said, “One day was I was standing in the kitchen looking into the dining room and I saw a black head with red eyes. I just saw a head, a black head with glowing red eyes staring at me and then, poof, it went away. It was high up on the ceiling, it was upside-down, and it was staring straight at me.” When asked to describe the eyes, Abigail said, “They weren’t human. They don’t look like my eyes or his eyes or yours. They’re not that size. They’re bigger than normal, like the size of ping-pong balls.”
     Abigail also reported seeing large black masses in the house. “The black mass, it stands there and almost taunts me. It just stares at me.” When asked how long these sightings last Abigail answered, “Between five minutes, or until I run! You can just stare at it. You can have a staring contest with it.”
     I asked, “So, it looks human shaped with a head and shoulders?”
     “Yes,” Abigail answered, “it’s human-like, but a black mass without any features. Sometimes I get a feeling before I see it. I feel like there’s something watching me and then I see it. The feeling that I get from it is pure fear, dread. The last time that I saw it I was coming out of our bedroom and it was just standing at the end of the hall staring at me with those red eyes. It was standing right in front of the door to the room at the opposite side of the hallway.”
     Tom said, “I wanted to ask, when you see a black apparition or anything like that, are you seeing it directly? Are you staring at it, or are you seeing it out of the corner of your eye?”
     “I’m staring at it directly,” said Abigail. “The black mass, the eyes, they stared straight at me. I stared straight back at it and it didn’t move, like it wasn’t afraid of me. The black masses don’t move, the eyes don’t move.”
     Tom asked, “But you see those things dead center, not out of your peripheral vision?”
     “No,” Abigail replied,”not from my peripheral vision. I’ve seen other things in my peripheral before, but I see these things straight on.”
     “How about hearing voices or hearing footsteps around the house?” I asked.
     “I heard fighting downstairs in the kitchen one time,” said Abigail. “One of the voices sounded like that deep man’s voice I had heard during the Ouija board session, the other was a regular-sounding man, and they were fighting with each other.”
     “Did anything sound familiar about the voices?” Tom asked.
     Abigail replied, “No, and I couldn’t really understand what they were saying. It was all mumbled. They were yelling at each other to the point where I was like, ‘What the heck is going on down there? Did two people just break into the house, and now they’re having a fight about what to take?’ So after about five minutes of listening to these guys fighting I went downstairs. I could hear the voices as I walked down the stairs, but as soon as I turned to walk into the kitchen they stopped. I peeked around the corner, but there was no one there. Then as soon as I turned the corner, I heard footsteps running away.
     “Where did the footsteps sound like they went?” I asked.
     “They went into the dining room, so I came around through the other entrance to the room. I went into the dining room, but there was no one there. There was no way anyone could go out of the room without my seeing them.”
     “Did you think that it might be the neighbors?” I asked. “Did you look outside?”
     Abigail said, “I looked outside. There was nobody outside and all of the neighbors’ lights were out.”
     After hearing Abigail and James’ report, Tom set up some of his data collecting equipment in the basement and in the livingroom and I ran an EVP session in Abigail’s bedroom. Tom joined us briefly to install some data collection devices in Abigail’s room. These highly sensitive instruments are designed to detect changes in temperature and air pressure.
     Abigail sat with me throughout the EVP session, and at times it felt as if a presence was in the room with us. Other times, it seemed to have moved out. At one point Abigail commented that her left arm felt cold. I turned on my digital thermometer and aimed it at her right arm. It was 82 degrees. I aimed it at her left arm, and it was 77 degrees. There was no way to account for this 5 degree difference in temperature. In fact, Abigail’s right arm was facing the window and should have been colder than her left which was facing a wall. All of the walls read a uniform 71 degrees, so this was an interesting piece of data.
     Tom is an amazingly thorough investigator. He takes great care in the placement of sensors, and he pours over the data looking for anomalies that may either coincide with or suggest the presence of paranormal activity. A few days after the Garner investigation, Tom was reviewing the data from his temperature collecting devices when he noticed some unusual readings. Between the hours of 8:01-8:16 PM, during the time when I was conducting the EVP session, all of the sensors in the house recorded a 1 degree drop in temperature; but the readings in Abigail’s room dropped nearly 4 degrees in the same period. If anything, the temperature in the room should have risen due to the body temperatures of two people in an enclosed room. This drop in temperature seems significant, especially in light of the 5 degree difference in temperature on Abigail’s left arm during the same time period.
     The only piece of evidence that I captured during the investigation was an EVP recorded during the session in Abigail’s room. Although the voice is clearly female, the word or words she is saying are unclear. You can hear this EVP at the bottom of the case file.
     Toward the end of the investigation, three year old Andrew started pointing up at the ceiling in the dining room near the chandelier. When we asked him what he was pointing at he said, “Look! Look! The fat man, the fat man.” Could this be the same man that Abigail had seen staring at her through the kitchen window? A week after we concluded the investigation I received an email from Abigail -- “Andrew is back in our room. He screamed and said, "Fat man. Help!".
     Several days after the investigation, we received a number of emails from Abigail saying the activity in the home was escalating.
     One day Abigail had opened all of the windows on the second floor to air out the house. After several hours the house was beginning to feel chilly, so she went through each room and shut the windows. When she arrived at the bedroom at the end of the hall she was shocked to find that the window in that room was not only shut -- both locks were in place. She had been in the room just a few minutes earlier and was positive that the window had been open.
     One evening black mass was seen hovering over Andrew when he was in his playpen. The boy was terrified and Abigail grabbed him of the playpen and fled the room.
     Another night, Abigail was laying in bed on her using her cellphone. She looked up and saw a huge black figure at the foot of the bed, then felt a burning sensation on her lower back. She ran out of the room. The burning on her back continued, so she went to the bathroom and lifted her shirt to look at the area. Two large, red scratches were on her back. Abigail sent me a photo of the scratches which looked to be approximately 4 inches in length. These scratches mysteriously vanished the next morning.
     Tom and I returned to the house a week after the investigation to do a clearing. As Tom set up his data collecting equipment, Abigail and I talked about the clearing and about her family's role in keeping the house clear of negative energy. Just as all hauntings are different, all clearings are different. Sometimes spirits leave immediately and never return, other times they are reluctant to leave and further steps have to be taken. But it is essential that homeowners realize that they always have the upper-hand. The living are infinitely more powerful than any spirit who chooses to hang on, and more powerful than negative entities who are bent on scaring people and disrupting their lives. Fear feeds negative entities and spirits. Deprive them of fear, and they will literally fade away. Once a person realizes that dark shapes, noises, voices, and even scratches are harmless, they can begin to take back their home and their lives.
     In doing house clearings I rely on a number of methods. I don’t enter a house knowing exactly which ones I will use. The exact method seems to reveal itself to me when I am in the home. In this case, I began the clearing with a prayer to Archangel Michael against evil spirits and entities. I then made my way through each room with sage that had been blessed with holy water ordering any and all spirits and to leave and to never return, and reminding them that there is a place of beauty and light waiting for them on the other side. After finishing a room I blessed each door jamb and window sill with holy water, thereby protecting the room from reinfestation. As I cleared the last room, I ushered the spirits out of a window that was left open for this purpose, then blessed and sealed this window. Lastly, I said a special prayer that protected the entire house and called on the protection of God, and of all his angels and saints.
  By the end of the clearing I felt totally energized. The house felt clear and fresh, and Abigail was crying with emotion. Tom reported that the temperature in the house remained constant throughout the clearing, another indication that it was a success. I am confident that the Garner family are finally able to reclaim their home, and that they are stronger spiritually from the experience.

An Undying Friendship

One of my favorite parts of doing library lectures are the interesting conversations I have with audience members. Before each lecture, I arrive early to set up my equipment and to chat with people as they arrive. Afterward, there are usually a group of people waiting to talk to me. This invariably leads to the sharing of personal stories of paranormal encounters, which often leads to a future investigation. Such was the case when I met Caroline at a lecture I gave in Southern Connecticut. She was anxious to share her personal paranormal story with me, but there was a long line of people waiting to talk to me after the lecture so she promised to email me. A few weeks later I received Caroline's email. In it she related the very sad story of the death of her close friend Jamie, and the series of unexplainable events that followed. Jamie’s death was ruled an accidental suicide.
The apartment where Jamie died is located above a barn on a small farm where the owners raise corn and other vegetable crops which are sold to local stores and restaurants. A few weeks after Jamie’s death, unexplainable things started happening in the now vacant apartment. Caroline and the other farm workers began hearing strange noises coming from the apartment, as if someone were dragging things across the floor or moving something around. On several occasions, Caroline and her colleagues have seen the lights turn on in the apartment at night even though the place has not been rented out since Jamie’s death, and the apartment is kept locked at all times. Some of the farm workers have heard the sound of footsteps and the opening and closing of doors in the empty apartment. Caroline witnessed many of these things herself, but feels that it’s just her friend letting her know that she’s still there and that she’s OK. At the same time, Caroline wanted to have confirmation of this due to the unusual circumstances of her friend’s death, so she asked if I could stop by and possibly help provide some answers.
On a chilly morning in early November, I arrived at the farm with my good friend and paranormal colleague, Tom Holzer. The farm was bustling with activity as everyone was getting the produce ready to deliver to stores and restaurants for the Thanksgiving holiday. Caroline lead us to Jamie’s former apartment, but she was dismayed to find that the door was locked, and that the farm’s owner was not available to let us in. Undaunted, I suggested that I run an EVP session just outside of the apartment door. If Jamie’s spirit was still in the apartment, she would have no problem paying us a visit. Luckily, the barn was empty that day. Everyone was busy loading trucks at the front of the farm, so all was quiet. Tom set up some scientific data collecting equipment at the front and back doors of the apartment, and I settled down just outside the apartment door with my digital recorders. Caroline had invited her sister Linda to join us. As soon as Tom finished setting up his equipment, we were ready to begin.
I started by asking any spirits who were present, especially Jamie, to make contact with us by speaking into the recorders. I said aloud, “If you have a message, speak very clearly and come very close to me”. Although we didn’t hear anything at the time, upon listening back to the recording, a quiet but clear voice could be heard saying the word, “Help”. The voice didn’t seem to be pleading for help. It was just saying a single word. Surprisingly, another voice came through just ten seconds later. This one was a long, drawn out “Hello” in an eerie, whispery voice. My gut feeling was that there were a number of spirits who were around us trying to make contact, but Jamie had not shown up yet. This whispery voice seemed to mimic the sound a ghost would make, so it’s possible that the spirit of a trickster type character was trying to have some fun with us.
I asked Caroline if she had a question she would like to ask. She said, “Jamie, I know that you’re a very private person, and I hope this does not bother you, but is there anything you want to tell me? Are you OK. Are you in a better place? And I want to let you know that I’m sorry that I was not more in tune to what was going on with you at that time of your life.”
As we waited in silence, hoping that Jamie was able to leave a message on the recorders, the four of us began to sense that someone was with us on the wooden stairs that lead up to the apartment door. I commented, “Jamie is here with us. She comes very close, then she moves away.” Soon after, Linda said, “I feel like my eyes are tearing up like I want to cry.” Sensing that her friend was with us, Caroline asked, “Was it an accident?” Upon listening to the recording at this point, a loud “Yes” can be heard six seconds after Caroline asked the question. Jamie’s suicide had been accidental.
Right after this I got a very strong feeling that Jamie was very close to us, and she began to communicate with me. I said to Caroline, “When you were asking that question I got a profound sense of sadness. Jamie really regrets setting in motion the actions that eventually lead to her death, even if it was an accident. I'm also receiving a message that she does watch over you, Caroline, and that she is around the farm, but mostly in the apartment. She is not at peace because she has regrets, and she hasn’t moved on to where she should be. Jamie is still is here, and the thing that is preventing her from moving on is the regret of what she did. It had been on her mind for a while to do this. She’s telling me that after she did it, it was too late to turn back. She’s saying, ‘No, no, no. This is not really what I want.’ But it was too late to change it. She’s also telling me, ‘It was such a bad time’. Something happened at the end that kind of sealed it for her. Her depression had been building for some time in secret, and something happened that was ‘the last straw’. Whatever this was wasn’t necessarily the thing that made her attempt suicide, but it was the last straw. It was very impulsive. But what’s keeping her here is the guilt. She needs to let go of the guilt in order to move on. If she moves on she can still be around you and protect you, Caroline. But her soul is not settled. She feels that she let someone down by not being here for them after she died. She also wants me to tell you that you didn’t do anything wrong; that her death doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
As we continued the EVP session, Tom asked Jamie's spirit if there was anyone else there with her. Most likely, Tom was sensing some of the other spirits who had secretly made themselves known on the recording earlier by saying “Help” and “Hello”.
I suddenly got a clear vision of something that didn’t make sense to me. I said, “This is odd but I keep getting something about her car. Is there something about her car that had some importance? I’m seeing a Jeep. Did she have a Jeep?” Caroline said, “Wow! Yes, it was a Jeep. She had a Jeep. Wow, there’s no way you could have known that. After she died they put all of her personal things in her car, and it was put it in storage for a long time.” It’s possible that there is something in the car that might give us a clue as to what finally put Jamie over the edge, but the car is now inaccessible.
Sensing that Jamie was with us and still not at peace, I said, “Jamie, you do know that you can move on from here, right? You can move on and go where you belong. You don’t have to stay here. And the regret that you have shouldn’t be the thing that keeps you here. You can definitely move on to the light and go to the other side and be where you belong and be happy, because it’s beautiful there.”
Tom suddenly asked, “Did she have dark, wavy hair or curly hair - shoulder length to about here?” “Yes!” Caroline said, “She did. It was brown/dirty-blonde colored. Long and curly. And she had gotten it cut, so it was right to her shoulders.” Tom’s sensitivity to spirit messages has been building since we started working together, and this psychic impression came through loud and clear. It was as if Jamie was saying to Tom, ‘This is me! This is what I looked like. Tell them and they’ll know that I’m really here.’
Tom also felt a strong physical sensation come over him when Caroline mentioned the ‘shame and regret’ that might be keeping Jamie earthbound. He said, “I think it is what you just said - that she has feelings of shame and regret. I get physical responses sometimes — the only way I can only describe it is I have a wave coming over my body that’s either a Yes or a No. When I feel a particular wave it’s a positive response. When you said that Jamie might continue to have feelings of shame and regret I got a clear yes response.”
We invited Jamie to make a noise, or to turn a light on, but the apartment and the barn remained silent so I decided that it was time to wrap things up. I said, “Jamie, we’re going to go now. Hopefully you were able to give some messages on the recorders. Please know that I did hear what you were telling me, and understand that there is a way out. There is a way to get to where you belong. You don’t need to hold on to that feeling of regret that is keeping you here. You have family and relatives who are waiting for you on the other side who can help get you where you belong. After we leave, you can give Caroline a message in your own way.” I told Caroline to be on the lookout for a sign of some sort because I got a strong sense that Jamie would be sending something in the way of a synchronicity — something that had special meaning to her and her friend.
I contacted Caroline a month after the investigation, but apart from more strange lights continuing to appear in her friend’s still vacant apartment, Jamie’s spirit seems to have remained quiet. The EVP and intuitive information that came through that day all point to a spirit who remains earthbound for now. Because I am unable to get access to Jamie’s apartment, I cannot do a proper clearing in order to assist Jamie's spirit to the other side. But I have begun a remote clearing that has proved successful in the past. In time all spirits make their way to the light, so I am confident that Jamie’s spirit will find peace in the end.

Someone To Watch Over Me

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. ~ Marie Curie
Do you believe in guardian angels? You might after you read the following interview. The activity that the woman in this story experienced happened immediately after she attended a lecture by a psychic medium. Apparently, someone on the other side was interested in contacting her at the lecture but didn't get a chance. So they did the next best thing -- They followed her home. Sounds scary? It's not. It's a very uplifting story of a group of caring souls watching over one woman's life, making sure that she is safe and sound.
Special thanks to my good friend Marie who joined me on this investigation. Marie is a highly gifted clairvoyant, and the intuitive impressions that she picked up during the investigation were accurate and insightful.

Barry: Hi Connie. What an interesting story you have to tell! Let's start at the beginning. You mentioned that the activity started right after you returned from a lecture given by a psychic medium at your local library. Can you tell me about that?

Connie: I came home from the lecture that night, and that was the first time that there was any inkling that something was either following me or ... I don’t know. I was lying in bed when all of a sudden I felt the bed shaking up and down. The shaking was just in the corner of the mattress at the foot of the bed. It was was if someone was doing this to me (pushes down on the bed with force several times rapidly). So I asked, 'What are you doing?' Then I said, 'Please don’t do that anymore,' and the shaking stopped. But the next minute I felt the same shaking in the middle of the edge of the mattress. I thought to myself, ‘What do I do now?’. It stopped for a couple of minutes, then started up again. I said, 'Look, now you’re scaring me. I’m really very frightened. I don’t know what this is all about and I’m finding myself beginning to cry, so please go.' And then they left, which I thought was very nice.

Barry: Did you know that they left because the shaking had stopped, or was there something else that lead you to believe they were gone?

Connie: I knew they had left because I had a sense that there was a feeling of vacancy here.
     That was one of the early things that happened. The thing that they do which I really, really appreciate is they let me know they’re here. They either have a bell or a gong type of thing that they ring. I can walk in a room and I don't even know they’re here, and I can get into bed and I hear this gong and I say, “Thank you for letting me know you’re here.”

Barry: It just alerts you to the fact that they’re with you?

Connie: That's right. Sometimes when it's after midnight, I'll be sleeping and the bell will ring right next to my bed and I’ll say, ‘Come back early tomorrow night or something.' And sure enough, they will be here when I come in to my bedroom the next night. But I don’t know if it’s one, two or three of them. I have no idea.
     The night after the shaking mattress episode I was in bed and I could hear this crinkling noise, like the sound of paper being crumpled in someone's hand. I listened and I tried to form in my mind where it was coming from. I had the sense that it was a man doing this, and that he was just playing with something made out of paper. Then finally I said, “It’s time to go, I’m really very tired.” And the sound stopped.
  I remember the next morning I woke up and there was nothing in sight that would have made that kind of a sound. But in the top drawer I have sweaters that are covered with tissue paper. That was the only thing that could possibly have made that sound. I opened the drawer and looked at the paper, but I couldn’t tell if it was disturbed because it was paper that had been used, so it wasn’t fresh and and neatly stacked. You had asked me if there was anything in the drawer that might have belonged to someone. There were some of my mother’s sweaters in that drawer.
     Another time, I came home one night from being out quite late and I walked into my bedroom and heard the bell again. I simply said, “Thank you for letting me know you’re here.”

Barry: Is it always the same bell sound?

Connie: No, when I heard it right next to me, right next to the bed, it sounded like the type of bell that you would see at a hotel desk. The kind that you push the little metal thing down on top to ring for service. That’s what woke me up. I think they’re trying to do things to wake me rather than have me wake up and then be startled by them. To me it’s a positive thing that they’re doing. It usually precedes the feeling that they are here, and I say, ‘Thanks for letting me know you’re here.’ Another time the bell sounded more like a kitchen timer sort of an alarm.

Barry: You had mentioned that after the lecture, you heard a woman’s voice in your room. Can you tell me a little about that?

Connie: One night I got a sense that there was someone standing next to me by my night table, and that it was a woman. I wasn't afraid, but I knew she was there next to the bed and she seemed to be looking at something. I said to her, “What are you doing?” and a woman's voice said, “I just want to see what you keep at your night table.” That was what she said. She said it very nicely.

Barry: So, you’ve heard the sound of a bell, and the woman’s voice. Have they done anything else to let you know that they are around?

Connie: An interesting thing is, I have a doorstopper on the bedroom door and twice they closed the door behind them when they left. I keep the window open, but only a few inches and there would have to be a very strong wind blowing to close the door like that, which there never is. I don’t know why it is they would leave through the door when they can just leave anyway they want. Why would they do that?

Barry: I think that just as they let you know they’re here by ringing the bell, sometimes they close the door so you know that they've left.

Connie: The second time it happened the door slammed, and the third time I could hear the door very gently touching against the iron door stop. It closed very gently. I just feel that it’s a nice group. They’re milling around sometimes, and sometimes I say, ‘Go home’. They seem to leave, but I don’t always know. I mean, they’re quiet and not doing anything so who knows?
     Now, let me tell you the pièce de résistance. I was in the study sitting at the computer. This was 3 or 4 weeks ago. I’m sitting at the computer and something touches my arm and I turn and there is woman there. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but she was built, squarely built, not fat or obese. She’s got white, white hair. Beautifully coiffed, beautifully done, and I could only see what she was wearing from her waist up, I couldn’t look down below because I was sitting down looking up at her.
     But the thing that really scared the hell out of me was to look at her eyes, and she looked right at me. Her eyes looked like painted marbles, or else maybe contact lenses; but they were yellow, they were red, the pupil part. She looked at me directly and then she turned away and looked over toward the side of the computer.
     I said, ‘I would very much like to talk to you. I would like to ask you some questions’. Now, I figured that maybe she couldn’t speak, I’m not sure why I thought that, but I said, ‘If the answer is yes would you please just hit the table one time, if no hit it twice?’ I wanted to write the questions down that I was asking her and what the reply was, so I reached to get a piece of paper, and then she was gone! I got up quickly and I went from door to door. Nothing was open, nobody was there. It was quiet, she was gone and that was it. That was the only time I had seen her. This was about three weeks ago.
I thought to myself, ‘Who in my history might this woman look like?’ Nobody identical, but my husband’s father’s cousin resembled her. She was a model, and I only met her once. She was an impressive woman, impressive in that she was a fashion model when she was in her eighties. And her hair was white and it was done not unlike the woman that I saw in my room. She’s the only one that would come close to fitting that, and yet the face was not exactly the way I remembered her.

Barry: Let me ask you a few questions about this woman you saw. Tell me what she was wearing.

Connie: I assume it was a skirt she was wearing, but as I said I couldn’t look down because I was sitting. It was fairly colorful. It was a sort of a light blue and white. It had a blouse with a little jacket on it. Again, I’m not really sure about the bottom. But she was beautifully coiffed and I didn’t look to see if she had makeup or anything like that on.

Barry: Did she have an expression that you can describe?

Connie: She didn’t smile, didn’t move. Her face didn’t move at all. It was like a statue, but then she turned from me and looked over to the computer. I was wondering if there was something I could say that would hit a soft spot with her, or at least something that she would react to. But I didn’t try very hard then. That was when I was reaching for a piece of paper, and then she was gone.

Barry: Tell me again about where she was looking after she turned her head from you.

Connie: She was looking at the computer. She was standing right here to my right, she turned slowly. She turned her head when I said, “Can I ask you some questions?” As she turned her head, I thought that might be the beginning of a “No” from her (laughs). But she turned her head from me and looked toward the bottom right side of the computer. I looked at the bottom right side, but I couldn't figure out what she was looking at. Maybe it was just a turning away. I was taken by surprise. She wasn't there very long. I wonder why.

Barry: It takes a lot of energy for spirits to materialize, and they usually don’t last that long. You rarely hear of instances where someone sits and has a long conversation with a spirit who has made themselves known visually.

Barry: I want to ask you about the woman’s eyes.

Connie: They were amazing. Do you know what an Immie is? (Note: Immies were glass marbles streaked with color so they look as if they were made of real agate. Immie is short for imitation.) They were small marbles and they were very colorful, but they were not the big size. This woman’s eyes looked like that. Like the colors were painted on. I saw yellow, blue, red -- bright, bright happy colors. But she couldn’t possibly see through them, so why … but then again, maybe she could see through them. If she’s a spirit if she can see out there, maybe she could see through those eyes. I don’t know. But I was wondering, what is the purpose of showing me her eyes looking like that?

Barry: When you are shown something by a spirit that’s striking like that, it is usually symbolic of something. She wouldn’t show herself with these very strange eyes unless there was a reason. She must have been trying to get a message to you.

Connie: There is definitely a connection with my eyes. My ophthalmologist recently told me that I’m in the beginning stages of a degenerative condition with my eyes. I’m sure the message from that spirit has something to do with my eyesight. The colors of her eyes were so beautiful. I hope it was a good message -- maybe that my eyesight will be okay.
    These spirits have not been a problem at all, and I would like to get to know something about them as individuals, and how many there are. I know there’s a woman, but I don’t know who else. In my mind I saw a man standing there.

Barry: Did you get a sense that the woman that you saw was the same woman whose voice you heard next to your bed that night?

Connie: No. Oh no. The woman that I saw one didn’t smile. She didn’t move or anything. The one that I heard sounded friendly and healthy, and much younger. A much younger voice than the woman I saw would have had.

Connie: Oh, by the way. During the night I heard a noise on my nightstand and the next morning I found some writing on a little pad I keep by the side of the bed.

Barry: It looks like a number. 1,500. When did this happen?

Connie: Sometime within the past month. I have the paper right here. Here it is. You can see the number. I can't tell if that's a 6 or a 5, but it looks like 1,500.

Barry: I’d like to ask Marie what impressions she might be picking up on.

Marie: I had a strong impression that there’s a woman in her late 20’s that visits. I very clearly saw the essence of a woman with long brown hair. She seems to be looking for someone she can’t find. Then I picked up different levels of spirits. There is at least one man who knew you at some time in your life, and another man who knew you many, many years ago. He was in love with you for years, ever since he knew you when you were in your twenties.

Connie: That's really interesting. Do you see that picture over there, the one in the frame on my dresser?  That’s my husband. He died in the 1990s. I know that he’s still around me. I’ll never forget one time that I went to Staples to get some paper and things, and I had a discount card that I just couldn’t find. I looked in the house, I searched every drawer, the wastepaper basket, all over the car, all through my purse and it just wasn’t anywhere. So I drive over to Staples and I'm about to go in and I say, “Goddamn it Al, if you are anywhere that you can hear me, why didn’t you help me find that card?”
     I went into Staples and loaded my cart, and when I went to pay, the boy at the checkout said to me, “Do you have a card?” I said, “I used to, but I can’t find it.” And I opened my purse, and there was the card sitting right on top of all of my things in my purse. Right there on top. So that was the first time that I wondered if he’s still around watching over me.

Barry: The sense I get is they’re all protective of you. The statement, ‘I just want to see what you keep on your night table’ sounds very cryptic, but you have to think of it logically. If someone is out to watch out for you, they would be very interested in what’s on your night table for your own safety. It’s as if she was saying to you, ‘I want to make sure you have what you need. I want to make sure that you can call somebody if you have to, that you can see by using the flashlight. I want to make sure that you’re safe.’ I think that that’s what this is ALL about. All of these visitations are spirits who are interested in your safety. Some may be the spirits of people who knew you at one time, but they are all watching over you to make sure you’re safe. I’m sure of it.

Connie: Once a person dies and their spirit moves on, do they come back?

Barry: Yes. Sometimes they come back to help people out.

Connie: Well, I have to tell you this. My mother was a widow living in the Bronx, scared to death to live by herself. And since her side of the family was Swedish, and I grew up with my grandmother living with us who spoke Swedish, she kept calling me and telling me the latest place that she had hid the bankbook, or where the newest place where all the things were that she hid. And then the next week she would change it, and it would be under the ironing board underneath the cover. And I don’t know those words in Swedish! I said to myself, 'God, if anything happened to her I would have to go through everything piece by piece'.
     So, I’m living in in Bedford and we get a phone call from a neighbor who was concerned because my mother hadn’t taken in her papers that morning. Something’s wrong. So I called my mother and there was no answer. So Al and I went down and found that she had died.
     After that, of course I had to go through her apartment and go through all of her things. I went through it as carefully as I could and gave some stuff to the Salvation Army and moved the rest into my garage where thought I’d go through things very slowly.
     One morning the kids left for school, my husband left for work, and I was upstairs in the family room, We had brought one of her couches up into the room. There were pillows to match the couch, but when I went to fluff them up all of this dust and rubber stuff came out. They were in really bad shape. I took three of them downstairs to the garbage and put them in the pails because I knew the collection was going to be the next morning.
     That night I dreamed of my mother. She was in her grave, and she was in the coffin. And she’s trying to get me to hear her to understand her, and I don’t know what the heck she’s saying. All I know is that she’s really terribly frustrated. So the next morning I went downstairs and thought, 'Something’s wrong'. I went back downstairs to the garbage and took out the pillows. They all had zippers for the lining, and I opened them up and there was $15,000 worth of war bonds hidden inside, and they were all made out to me! So, I guess I do believe! I know that there are different ways of communicating.

Barry: Well, again. If you think of the way your mom communicated, she communicated through an image, not with words. A lot of times the message you get is symbolic. Your mom didn’t say, 'The bonds are in the pillows'. It would be nice, but that’s not what she did because that’s often not the way they communicate.

Connie: I really wish I could talk to them.

Barry: You can. When you know they’re around, when you hear that bell, say out loud, ‘I know that you’re here, but I don’t know what it is that you want. If there’s some way that you make it clearer to me what it is that you want, then please do so. Otherwise, I just appreciate you being here and watching over me.

Connie: You know, I can remember when I was between 10 and 12 years old and having the sense that I was being followed in a room, that there were people all around me. I kept saying, 'I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you'. And I never let anybody in at all. Now that they can all come!
  Thank you so much, Barry and Marie. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. Now I want to learn more about all of this, to understand it better. Thank you so much. Now come on and let’s have something to eat and drink and be merry. Okay?

The Uninvited

Most people would never consider contacting a paranormal investigator when buying or selling a home -- but they should. Sometimes that charming house you have your heart set on comes with uninvited guests. The Dalcro family had just moved into their Orange County home when things began to happen that made them realize that the house they had just bought wasn’t exactly empty - it came with a ghost or two.
First there were the odd sounds that couldn’t be explained, like the sound of typing on the computer keyboard at night when everyone was in bed. Then there were the footsteps. Around midnight for more than a week straight, the sound of footsteps were heard running up the stairs.
Then things started to get really strange. Mrs. Dalcro explained, “When we first moved into the house, toys would turn on and off. TV sets would go on and off. The fire alarms would come on when my husband went to work. After my third daughter was born, the mobile in her crib would come on by itself, and she would be staring as though she was looking at someone. One night I was in bed while everyone was asleep and I saw the lights come on in the downstairs kitchen, then go off again. I called one of my kid's names to see if she had gotten up, but there was no response. A few minutes later, the lights went on and off again. When the lights came back on a third time, I asked my husband to go downstairs and take a look because I was worried that someone had broken into the house. He walked down the stairs that lead to the kitchen and as soon as he walked into the room the lights went out. He came back upstairs and said, ‘That was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’”
But strange noises and lights turning on and off were the least of their problem. The unwanted guests were beginning to show themselves. Mrs. Dalcro said, “My eldest woke up one morning and asked me why I was in her room at 2 AM going through her drawers. I asked her what she was talking about, and she said that she saw the back of a woman that looked like me opening and closing the dresser drawers as though she was putting clothes into the drawers.”
The two younger daughters saw someone as well, a man they described as being in his 40’s wearing a plaid shirt. Then there was the woman. One of the girls went into the kitchen to get a drink and saw a woman standing at the bottom of the stairs. She described the woman as wearing a Victorian era style dress with her hair in a bun.
Another time, Mrs. Dalcro was outside holding her youngest daughter in her arms. “My daughter looked up at the house and said, ‘Tori, what are you doing?’. Tori is her older sister's name. I looked up, but there was no one there. She then quickly clutched onto me and buried her head into my shoulder.”
Spirits will try to get our attention any way they can. One day, the eldest child was in her room when a book flew off of a shelf and across the room. In that same room, a closet door would mysteriously open by itself at night. This was witnessed by two of the children and was a frequent occurrence.
Spirits also get our attention by touching us. Mrs. Dalcro said “It often felt as if someone were putting their hands on my head. It wasn’t a scary feeling. It actually felt very peaceful and comforting. It would make me stop whatever I was doing, and the effect was incredibly calming.”
Although the family loved their home, sharing it with so many uninvited guests was becoming too much for them. They put the house on the market. Although the real estate agent brought many potential buyers to the home, no one seemed to want to buy it. It’s very possible that people were reacting the presence of spirits in the home. I conducted an investigation and a clearing and all activity in the house ceased. A few weeks later not only did the house sell; there was a bidding war between two buyers and the Dalcro's ended up getting a higher price than they anticipated.

My Wife's Historic Double

Has anyone ever told you that you look just like someone they know, or that you look exactly like a famous celebrity? Apparently everyone has a double, but not every double is from the time period we live in. If you look online you’ll find scores of photos of celebrities who look like people in old photographs and tintypes. I’m no stranger to this phenomenon. While on a family vacation, I stumbled upon a painting that left me speechless.
My wife and I had taken the kids on a trip down South and stopped by the Wright Brothers National Memorial museum in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. We viewed the outdoor stone monuments, then made our way into the museum and viewed the various exhibits which included a wall displaying paintings of famous aviators. My daughter suddenly exclaimed, “That lady looks just like Amy!” At first I looked around the room thinking there was a visitor in the museum who resembled my wife, but my daughter said, “No, the painting!” I looked and was stunned to see that the woman in the painting bore an uncanny resemblance to my wife. I quickly called her over and asked, “Who does that woman look like?" Without missing a beat my wife said, “She looks like me!” I took a photo of the painting and it became a topic of conversation for years.
I recently came across the photo and decided to see if there were any photos of Louise Thaden online. I figured that the painting might look like my wife, but a photograph probably wouldn’t resemble her. It would be too much of a coincidence. Not so. My wife really does bear an eerie resemblance to the famous aviator.
Is this proof of reincarnation? Perhaps not. But it makes me wonder whether or not our double is out there somewhere, either in this time period or from somewhere in the distant past.

Painting of aviator Louise Thaden - Wright Brother's museum, Kill Devil's Hill, NC.

My wife (Center) with photographs of Louise Thaden.

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A Haunting in Meridan, Connecticut