So the five of us met at the house, along with a part time group member, T. The set up went smoothly and the client, while visibly anxious and worn out, was obviously relieved to have some help.

The Boy and our fearless leader had interviewed the client in her home earlier in the week. They both claimed the house felt uneasy, particularly on the second floor, which the client stated was the most active area. We were all pretty excited. We were really going to try to help someone, and the activity level was high enough we really thought something might happen. I should mention, in case I haven’t, that I have personally never experienced anything supernatural. I consider myself an open-minded skeptic. I really hoped I’d experience something that night.

Each one of us spent time with the homeowner throughout the night. She was obviously on edge, constantly moving, talking, smoking, and quite willing to talk about the incidents. She was blatantly nervous. I wondered how much sleep she was getting. We toured the house, taking time in each room on the second floor. Nearly all the activity surrounded that floor alone. Even the few things occurring on the main floor centered on the stairs or noises heard from above.

The largest concern, for the client, was the bed shaking. She’d even tried sleeping in the guest room to avoid it, with no luck. So we set up in the bedrooms, the hallway and the living room. We used a handheld in the office, where loud thumps or footsteps were heard from the attic. We set a DVR in the attic and the basement, as well as carrying them with us for EVP sessions.

An EMF sweep prior to the investigation turned up some surprising results. There were many strange areas, including the whole front wall of the house on all floors, with very high spikes that didn’t seem attached to wiring or electronics. Some rooms even changed as we took readings. The kitchen read normally when we first started. By the time we worked our way back, the readings were all over the place, 2 and 3 mgs in a doorway that had been flat just a few minutes ago. The beds were even weirder; one of them had ridiculously high readings at the foot, but not on the sides or the floor. Half of one closet was high, but not against the wall, where wiring might be, only in the middle, at chest height. Since there was no obvious explanation for the high readings, we decided the information was unreliable. It still bothers me though, unless there was a problem with the reader, the readings were definitely high enough to cause a reaction. But why were there no devices or wiring to account for the readings? Why did some rooms read differently at different times? What was up with the beds? I love a good mystery!

So the night started with much anticipation. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver. Nothing of any note happened during the 5 hours we investigated. I won’t bore with the play by play, unless you really care who investigated with whom and in what order. A few knocks that could have been footsteps were heard, but really, that was it. We haven’t finished reviewing the evidence yet, but I don’t have much hope. Who knows, I could be wrong (it does happen, rarely) and we’ll have a dozen EVPs after review, but I doubt it. It’s possible whatever is there hid from us, after all, it’s used to dealing with the client alone. Or there could be another explanation.

My pet theory has to do with the client. I wonder if maybe living alone for years, without even a pet, has started to catch up with her. She stated many times that she liked being alone, her family lived close by and she didn’t need a man. I believe her, but seeing how much she relaxed while the six of us were around made me wonder if there wasn’t something subconscious going on. She may not be the right age for classic poltergeist activity, but the mind is a powerful tool. No one really knows what we are capable of.

Truly, she was an awesome client. We are professional when we interact with a client, but we like to have fun too. She fit right in with our elementary school sense of humor. The farts jokes flew (blew?) that evening. I think one of the main reasons we work so well together is that we all have the same sense of seriousness versus fun. We do this for research and to help people but it could be really painful and boring if we never cracked (hee hee) a smile. 

By the end of the night, although nothing had been experienced, we were all tired but laughing, even the client. Everything seemed relaxed and calm. The Boy and our fearless leader agreed the house felt nothing like it had earlier in the week or even earlier that night (for the record, I never really felt anything, I’m starting to think I maybe totally insensitive to that stuff). I felt good about the hunt, thinking we had really done some good. The client confirmed it by having no issues that night or the next day.

I figured all was well until this morning.

I let you know what happens

**Title Credits: The Simpsons, Tito Puente “Who Shote Mr. Burns, part 2″ Season 7 Episode 1

            But then, twenty minutes or so after ‘lights out’ and we began walking around the freezing, eerily empty school and the fear just dissolved. It was fun! It was a lot of fun! Like a treasure hunt or mystery game. You have to look for clues, or evidence. You have to look at alternate explanations for lots and lots of things; you have to be smart and pay attention, but still get to have a lot of laughs. In short, I loved it. We didn’t find anything that night, but we still had a great time.

            The Boy knew a few people there and pretty soon we started talking about forming a group of our own. One thing led to another and Saturday night was out first hunt. There are five of us: #1, #2, #3, the Boy and me. I know they need clever names; I’ll get to it at some point. For reference, #1 is our Fearless Leader, #2 is his girlfriend who went to school with the Boy and how we all got introduced in the first place and #3 is our fearless leader’s cousin and also doing the tech stuff with the Boy.

            So our first case: Our Fearless Leader’s sister’s house in random small town Iowa. Built in the early 1900’s it was used as a doctor’s office and maybe as a funeral home or morgue, although we haven’t confirmed that.

            The major activity: Front door opening and closing, feeling uncomfortable in the basement, the kids seeing shadows and hearing voices and one little girl refusing to sleep in her bedroom if the closet door is open. Our client had not told the spirits to leave, only not to bother or scare her children. Also the attic is creepy. I don’t remember the specifics, but attics are always creepy in old houses.

            So we arrived about 8pm to begin setting up. That was interesting of course, since we’d never done it before. There was a lot of standing around and adjusting and figuring. We only ended up using three of the four cameras in our system due to the need for some more adaptors, but that was alright. We set up in the living room, solarium right next to the living room and the little girl’s room, with the closet door open, of course. We also have two handheld digital cameras and each of us has a DVR (digital voice recorder, for catching EVP- electronic voice phenomena- basically, little devices you can use to pick up sounds humans don’t hear or at least, living humans anyway). We decided to use a handheld in the attic and carry the second into the basement as teams went in. We also left a DVR in the girl’s room, just in case whatever was there didn’t want to play when people were in there.

            So we split up into teams. #1’s mother joined us for our first hunt and brought lots of goodies. Mothers are great for that stuff. I think she should come to all the hunts, except I may end up forty pounds heavier. Foreshadowing- she’s also an awesome hunter.

            So #1’s Mom and #2 sat in the solarium at first, while the Boy and #1 went into the basement. #3 and I stayed in the command room with the client. We watched some orbs that were likely dust for about half an hour until the Boy and #1 came back. We all gathered to listen as they talked about hearing some things that may or may not have been the house settling or the pipes and getting weird feelings and upset stomachs. An interesting way to start things off.

            #3 and I then decided to hang out in the little girl’s room. We looked around, checked out the closet with a flashlight and EMF detector (electromagnetic field- the theory goes that unexplained spikes can mean spirit activity, of course you have to be careful, as electronics, wires of any kind and lots of other things can set them off). Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. So we tried an EVP session, introducing ourselves to whoever might be listening, asking questions- What’s your name? How old are you? What’s your favorite color?- and whatever else came to mind. Nothing seemed to be responding. We did determine that the old heating system and pipes made a LOT of noise in that room. Clicks, pops, gurgles, you name it, we heard it. All could be explained by the house settling or the various systems.  We decide to head across the short hallway to the one of the other kids’ rooms. #3 determined that the shadows they had seen were likely caused by headlights on the street in front of the house. So we decided to try another EVP session. The house sounds were much less audible in that room, so perhaps because of that we got an interesting result.

            We had been talking to the spirits in different ways, at this point we were asking questions you might ask a child. #3 asked “Do you like to play hide and seek?” and he turned at looked at me. “Did you hear that?” he mouthed (whispering is a bad idea in EVP sessions) “footsteps!” I shook my head. I didn’t hear a thing. Then it happened again, and I definitely heard what sounded like two steps in the hall outside the door. The steps to the main floor were in the hall and it really seemed like there was someone walking up them. But there wasn’t. It was pretty damn cool. I surprised myself even more by not really being scared, more surprised and excited. Foreshadowing: I would surprise myself even more before the night was out.

            #3 and the client decided to try out the girl’s room after we came down, testing the theory that whatever was there would be more likely to respond to someone it knew. No luck. No ghosts appeared but the first in a long line of fart jokes was begun. It’s hilarious to watch on night vision.

            So #3 and the client wrapped that up and went back down the (empty) stairs to tell everyone about it. Soon there after we decided to try out the basement, but half an hour reveled nothing, not even the stomachaches the Boy and #1 had reported. It was difficult mostly because the walls and floors, although insulated, were still thin, causing the sounds from the floors above to travel really well. We could hear almost everything that went on.

While we were down there, the Boy and #1 decided to try the girl’s room. Again, not much happened, but they heard a sound that #3 and chalked up to the pipes that they thought may not be pipes but something else. So #1, #3 and the Boy went to the basement to mess with the pipes, trying to replicate the sound. The rest of us hung out in the command room. We were tired, it was 2:30am and not that much had happened. Then the Boy came up stair and asked for someone to go up stairs and sit and listen for the sound. Since I knew what I was listening for, I decided to go. You can’t go anywhere alone in a ghost hunt, so #1’s Mom came with me.

(Cue scary, suspenseful music) I led the way, walking up the stairs to room, just off to the right. Just as I walked in, flashlight in hand, I heard a motor-like sound, followed by a high pitched screechy voice saying “heee hehehe” then, “Mama” “gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, coo” coming from the closet. I almost dropped the flashlight. BUT! I did not scream, run or even curse, which is a huge triumph for me. I did turn on the light, which is a no-no, but in the grand scheme of things I think I managed ok. Not only that, but #1’s Mom came to my rescue, she knew it was a doll (it is her granddaughter that lives in the room after all, I’m guessing she had heard it before) and started digging through the toy box in the closet, all the way to the bottom, where a creepy baby doll was found, twisting and moving in weird ways and saying unintelligible baby crap with the occasional ‘mama’ thrown in. Damn, that thing was creepy!

So, I jumped on the walkie-talkie and told #1 about it. As they finished up whatever they were doing in the basement, #1’s Mom and I found the on/off switch on the doll and got the light off again. The next half hour was taken up by trying to figure out what set off the doll. It was in the bottom of a toy box, in a closet multiple groups had checked before. Why did it wait until almost 3am to go off? Trial and error determined it was light that made it start talking/moving, but numerous lights had been shined in the closet in the hours before #1’s Mom and I walked in. Anytime a flashlight was shined at it, it starting gurgling and moving, but somehow didn’t go off when any of us had been in there before.

The creepiest part of the whole thing began after we all started messing with it. In the midst of its random coos and ‘mamas’ it started saying something a little clearer. It sounded an awful lot like, “don’t like the light.” We listened to it over and over, trying to figure it out. The phrase didn’t always come out, and sometimes it was at the end of the series of coos, sometimes in the middle. It was really fucking weird. Can ghosts speak through toys? God I hope not!

Stay tuned for further ghostly adventures. Maybe I’ll find a way to get an audio sample up here, so you all can hear the creepy as hell doll.

Title Credits: the Simpsons Episode 20 season 12 Rainier Wolfcastle