It’s All About Connecting

Sometimes, a paranormal investigation isn’t just about the paranormal. There are times when I load up my gear not just because I want something to go bump in the night while I’m nearby, but because I want to make a connection with my fellow investigators or our client.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to help people and answer their questions about the paranormal and help them feel comfortable in their own homes. And, yeah, let’s be honest, I want to hear that disembodied voice or see that apparition because it makes my heart pound in a good way. That’s why I got involved in paranormal investigations. But I also enjoy talking to people, hearing their stories, and finding out who they are.

For instance, take this most recent investigation. On the drive home, fellow investigator Jordan and I talked music. I told him about my first 45 records (Yes, I’m that old. Shut up!) and we discussed the first cassette tapes/CDs we bought with our own money. I constantly shook my head over the fact that when I saw Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” tour in 1986, he was three years old to my 14. He talked about what it was that made him fall in love with the Beatles and I talked about my LP of John Williams’ music.

It was a discussion that had nothing to do with the paranormal or the house we had just left behind, but it was a connection and that is what is so important as human beings. We need those connections to feel alive and not so alone in this big wide universe. By having these types of conversations with one another then we, as an investigative team, can work more cohesively together. We can be more sympathetic to our clients and what they are going through and we can treat our main clients, the spirits of those who have gone before, with compassion and patience.

It’s not just about the EVP sessions in a darkened room, trying to talk to someone we cannot see, hear, or feel. It’s also about the VP sessions at the restaurant before the investigation, on the client’s front porch between walk-throughs, and with the client on their sofa, that can have the greatest impact on our lives.

Case Study #1 – When a house just isn’t active

It’s time to kick off a review of our cases since we became a team several years ago and we hope you, our readers, enjoy our findings. Or, in this case, a lack thereof.

Our client was convinced her house was haunted. With a story of a body found in the basement, a former owner complicit in an armored car robbery, and the client convinced she’s a sensitive, we went in expecting a night full of paranormal hijinks.

What actually happened was, well, nothing. The most interesting parts of the night occurred when two possums attempted to bum rush this investigator right out of the driveway and when our client had a psychic experience in her living room that left our two sensitives shaking their heads in confusion.

When we returned home and reviewed our audio and video files, we were left with nothing. No EVPs or full-body apparitions and especially no personal experiences. Except for the human-hating possums, it was a quiet night and a quiet evidence review. It wasn’t what we had hoped for our first official investigation and we were nervous about reporting the lack of activity to our client.

What we came to understand with this case was that the client enjoyed the notoriety of having a haunted house. The majority of our investigations involve clients who are scared and want nothing to do with the paranormal and they are crossing their fingers for a final report that says “We found nothing” or “Call an exterminator because you have squirrels not ghosts” or “Stop watching scary movies and let your imagination rest. Oh, and fix your high-EMF-emitting clock radio”. This was the complete opposite and having to tell her that we found absolutely nothing during our investigation was difficult.

Regardless of the final outcome of any investigation, we firmly believe that honesty is the best policy. No matter what happens and what evidence we find (or don’t) we know that our clients deserve our honest opinion. She was disappointed that we didn’t uncover evidence to support her haunted house claim, but she had a great answer for us.

“Maybe my ghosts are just shy and didn’t want to come out and play.”

Maybe so.

Waverly Evidence, Part 2

Dear readers, you deserve an award for waiting this long for more Waverly evidence.

My sincerest apologies.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

(Don’t forget to put on your headphones/earbuds and crank up the volume on your computer!)

These are all EVPs recorded on investigator, and sensitive, Tammy’s digital recorder. The first two EVPs are from the first session conducted in the first floor electroshock therapy room. The first EVP is loud and noticeable. You’ll hear Tammy and then myself talking and then you’ll hear a loud bark or yell. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, there were no dogs on this investigation and no dogs on the property. What is this? I don’t know.

Waverly Electroshock Therapy Yell

This second EVP occurs right in the middle of the audio file. You’ll hear a team member talking and then what sounds like a yell or bark. It’s pretty loud and sounds just like the yell/bark from the first EVP.

Waverly Electroshock Therapy Bark

This third EVP was recorded in the former hospital gift shop. Tammy says it was recorded as we were walking into the room and getting settled. Please turn up your volume for this one! Listen closely and tell us, in the comments, what you think is being said:

Waverly Gift Shop Sentence

To us, it sounds like an entire sentence. “Jim…. the dead-eye people.” What do you think?

The fourth EVP was also recorded in the old gift shop on the first floor. This was captured just as we were leaving the room. You’ll hear footsteps moving across the floor and, in the middle of the clip, a whispering male voice say, “Don’t leave us!”

Waverly Gift Shop Don’t Leave Us

One of the stories of Waverly is that a homeless man died there, after the hospital was shut down, when he fell down an elevator shaft thinking it was a stairwell. With him was his dog that also passed. Now, I can tell you that we constantly heard a dog barking during our investigation. We didn’t hear this dog from a distance, out in one of the surrounding neighborhoods. No, this dog sounded like a large breed dog that was in the building with us. Could this have been the dog that died with its homeless master after Waverly shut down? Possibly. In the next EVP, captured on the third floor, you hear a dog bark twice.

Waverly 3rd Floor Dog Barking

Not only did we leave our pets at home, but we also left our children with babysitters. Again, there were no children on the property with us during our investigation. So, how do you explain this child’s voice trying to get our attention? Could it have been the spirit of Timmy, a child who contracted TB and passed away at Waverly, wanting to play?

Waverly 3rd Floor Child

And finally, the last EVP from Tammy’s many recordings proves that the resident dog spirit was trying to get our attention. This was recorded on the fifth floor. You’ll hear the background noise and then the sound of the dog bark. To us, the barks always sounded close by, as if they were happening in the next room or the floor below us. This bark sounds like it’s right in the recorder’s microphone!

Waverly 5th Floor Loud Dog

Listen to all of these EVPs and tell us what you think in the comments. And if you haven’t listened to our first round of Waverly evidence, check that out here.

Our Paranormal Story Winner!

Hey, readers! Heather here! I would like to introduce you to Carey, our paranormal story winner! Enjoy the story she submitted to our contest. Thanks to everyone who participated and congratulations to Carey!

My name is Carey W. I was born a highly sensitive person (meaning that I pick up on energy of other people’s emotions and stuff like that) and I was an Indigo (meaning that I was born highly aware in tune with divine energy as well as the spirit realm) and this is the story of my first experience with the spirit realm.

I was in 8th grade (it was in middle school so I think it was 8th grade). We were in south Georgia in Darien, Georgia and we were going to Fort King George. We were going to sleep in the re-constructed blockhouse. The second our school group got on the fort grounds my stomach started doing flips and I got really nervous, the tour guides that it was haunted and that there are ghosts. I told the teachers that the energy is really off there (this was way before I knew that I was a highly sensitive  person to energy and that kind of stuff). I wanted to leave but I could not since I was with the school group. I kept getting more and more and more anxious and I felt a very strange energy there that no one else felt. I thought that we were crazy for sleeping in a haunted building. That night I slept on the second floor of the blockhouse and I had my glasses off but for some reason I woke up, it was either really late at night or early in the morning, I don’t remember the time, I saw in the corner a full figure almost like a person but it was misty and looked like fog. I had my flashlight on but I immediately turned it off when I saw the ghost. My glasses were off but I could see it. It was holding a lantern and it started moving so I crept back into my sleeping back and I was in full blown panic at this point. I had no idea if it could or if it was going to try to hurt me or not. It started to walk around and I felt it step on the corner of my sleeping bag. It did not hurt me but being as young as I was I did not know what to make of it. This was my first of many paranormal experiences.

Are You Scared, Yet?

It’s natural to be frightened during an investigation. If you are touched on the arm and there is no one physically next to you doing the touching, then of course you may be scared and exclaim, What the !@#$ was that?!? As professional investigators we always try to remember, though, that the clients may be there in the room with us during the investigation or will be hearing the exclamation on an EVP session recording a few weeks later and if they hear us acting out in fear, then they too will be frightened.

We, as paranormal investigators are being held to a higher standard and that rather than run away from the unexplained, we must go toward it. If the client jumps, then we comfort them and wait to jump when we get home. To help allay the fears of our team, we make sure that none of our members investigate alone. Everything from walk-throughs, baseline readings, EVP sessions, are all done with at least two investigators. We make it clear to our team members that any one person can step outside the location at any time, whether it’s due to fear, illness, or an emergency, and that anyone can call an investigation at any time, for any reason. Knowing that we’re not alone and that we each have control of the situation allows all of us to better handle those fearful moments.

To quell the fears of our clients, we investigate by the adage “they are more scared of us than we are of them” and that ghosts were once people who, right now, are probably confused and frightened of everything happening to them. As long as we make it clear to the spirits that this is our space, the space of the living, clients and investigators alike can confront those who have passed with respect rather than fear.

This investigator’s most frightening investigation took place in a little three-bedroom, two-bath ranch home in Dallas, Georgia. That’s right, sometimes the most haunted locations aren’t the creepy Victorian houses with chipping paint and crows on the fence. The 11-year-old son claimed to be experiencing paranormal phenomena and the mother called for our assistance. During the investigation, there were light anomalies that we couldn’t debunk and shadows moving through pitch-black rooms. My hair stood on end for three solid hours. I can remember a lot of scrunching down into the client’s couch and several “Holy crap!” exclamations. It was an incredible night, I stuck in there and didn’t run away, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it except I wish I had taken my handheld video camera. DANG!

So, tell me in the comments, when have you been scared? What one moment in your life (that may or may not have involved the paranormal) had your heart pounding, goosebumps on your arms, and your hair standing on end?

(Psssst! More Waverly evidence is to come! We will also begin posting non-Waverly evidence from our other investigations now that the school year is in full-swing and this investigator’s children are over their yearly Bubonic Plague. Thanks for your patience!)

Waverly Evidence, Part 1

Well, folks, here it is. We are finally ready to post our evidence from Waverly! We will do this in several parts as this place is an evidence gold mine! To post everything all at once would mean a blog post that would take you all day to read.

This first round of evidence is from my little digital voice recorder. I use an Olympus WS-311M digital voice recorder. After announcing the beginning of the EVP (electronic voice phenomena) session (names of people in the room, beginning time of the session, location of session), I set my recorder down and do not touch it for the duration of the session unless I want to move the recorder to a different location in the room. Please note that several of these EVPs are very clear but some will require headphones (or, at the least, earbuds). I suggest you listen to these with headphones, and the volume cranked, to make sure you hear what we heard.

The first EVP was recorded in the Electroshock Therapy room on the first floor. At about 2.9 seconds into the recording, after I’ve been in the background talking to a team member, you hear a sigh and mumbling that we cannot attribute to anyone on the team. This is definitely a Class C EVP. (Click on the link below to listen to the audio file. After you listen, click on your browser’s “Back” button to return to this blog post.)

Electroshock Therapy Sigh-Mumbles

This second EVP was also recorded in the Electroshock Therapy room. I’m talking and at the 1.8 second mark, you hear what sounds like a man, screaming in the distance.

Electroshock Therapy Scream

Yeah. That one gets me every time.

Next is an EVP from the Old Gift Shop, also on the first floor. In this recording, you hear our footsteps as we walk through the room, getting our equipment set up. At about 2.6 seconds (and you’ll probably need to crank the volume), you hear a far-off scream/shout, much like the previous EVP, except I think this one is shouting “NO!” or “GO!” You decide.

Old Gift Shop No

Moving up to the 4th floor of Waverly Hills, we were told by our tour guide that the spirit of a child has been known to play with toys brought by investigators and EVPs of children’s voices have been captured. This EVP may demonstrate this. Halfway through the recording, at about the three second mark, you hear a very quick, high-pitched giggle. Again, crank the volume.

4th Floor Giggle

Now, on to my favorite room in Waverly… the 4th floor operating room! While we were there, actively investigating, the room itself was quiet, not much activity. But, when I returned home and started listening to my audio, I found most of my EVP evidence here. This first bit of audio was captured before I even set down my recorder. At the beginning, you hear a quick giggle and some whispering. Some background about our group first. We DO NOT whisper during EVP sessions. We always speak in normal voice tones because whispers can later be mistaken for EVPs. If we have to whisper, we make note on the recording, “Hey, it’s Heather. I’m whispering to Tammy.” So, whoever this is whispering, they’re not on my team. After the quick giggle then whisper, you hear me begin the audio session.

4th Floor OR Giggle-Whisper

So, I begin the audio session by announcing who was in the room, what time it was, and where we were. Then you hear Tammy mumbling, I set down my recorder, and you hear a female voice ask “Anything else?”

4th Floor OR Anything Else

That, folks, is a Class A EVP and is the first one I’ve ever captured. That is not my voice (you just heard what I sounded like) and it’s not Tammy’s voice as hers is deeper and much more Southern!

Just a minute or two later into the session, Tammy and I ask the spirit(s) to close the door to the room. Our tour guide told us stories of said door slamming shut on its own, locking investigators inside. So, we asked whoever was with us to shut the door. Tammy talks about the door, then me, then you hear a male say, “I wish!”

4th Floor OR I Wish

Yeah! I got the chills, too!

The final 4th floor OR EVP comes in the form of a female voice. When I first heard it, I couldn’t make out what she was saying. You’ll hear her at about 3.8 seconds:

4th Floor OR Female Voice

She’s definitely not me or Tammy, and we think she sounds British. Tammy says she hears the word “buttons” and maybe she’s asking about the buttons on our equipment. “What kind of buttons are these?” or something to that effect.

My final EVP is from the 3rd floor. Now, when I listened to all of my Waverly audio, it was middle-of-the-day, sunshine coming in through the windows, birds chirping outside, nothing like the dark, dingy scenery of Waverly. When I heard this next bit of audio, I had to put down my headphones and walk away. This one gave me chills and still does.

3rd Floor Shout

Does that sound like a very emphatic “OUT!” at about 2.6 seconds or is that just me?

More evidence to come!

Jordan’s Waverly Experience

Hey, all! Heather here! I’m re-posting this from fellow Investigator Jordan’s blog. Hope you enjoy!

Get ready guys, this is a long one!

We arrived a little before 8 p.m. and met with the tour guide to show us around this massive place. We learned about this history of the building as well as where the heavy activity was experienced.

After an hour or so of the tour, we were ready to investigate. There were 16 of us there that night, so to optimize our investigation time, we broke into 3 groups and headed out for 8 hours of having this building to ourselves.

My group started on the 3rd floor. It’s very hard to describe the scenery of the entire place without having seen it first hand. There is 30 years of walls crumbling, doors falling of the hinges, and graffiti on every way. This place is creepy looking with the sun up, it was even more so AND amazing after nightfall.

Supposedly there is a spirit of young boy named Timmy that likes to hang around on this floor. Timmy has been known to play with a ball, so throughout the entire floor there were inflatable balls everywhere. My team and I sat down to have our initial EVP session and as we were getting settled, a member of our team’s equipment pouch came completely unlatched when it was tightly secured to her waist seconds before. It just snapped open.

As we continued the EVP session, probably about 20 or so minutes into it, there seemed to be minor shadow movement at the far end of the hall from where we were sitting. I only caught a glimpse of one good shadow during the night and this is where it happened. I turned to my right and saw that at the far end of the hall there was red ambient light coming from an EXIT sign. A black mass on the right of the hall blocked out my view of this ambient light and darted into one of the rooms. Sadly I was the only one who saw it, but as I told a fellow investigator about it he got up to check and as he passed each room, he asked “Is this it?”  and as he passed the room where I saw this shadow, he stopped where he stood and got chills/goosebumps/etc, the whole nine yards. Before he could ask me, I said that was the room I saw the shadow dart in.

We made our way down to the 2nd floor and had an EVP session there. Aside from a few knocks and cricks I don’t really remember anything interesting happening to us on that floor. After the EVP session we held there, we headed back to the meeting hall to grab a quick drink of water and a snack then got right back to investigating.

This round we were on the first floor, so the first thing we investigated here was the body chute. I’ll let you guys click that link and read through. Back? Good. Now to stand where hundreds of fresh corpses were at one time was a little on the unsettling side, but what really added to the experience was that it was so dark in there that you couldn’t even see your hand an inch in front of your face. It was that dark, it was that creepy, and I LOVED every minute of it!

A lot of people are said to not go all the way to the bottom of the body chute, not because it’s scary, but just because it’s a long way down and an even longer way back up since you’re working against gravity. They’re right. It was a very long walk back up, but it was worth the trek down there. I took full advantage of checking out the body chute

Here is a picture looking down from the top of the body chute.

And here is a picture look up from the bottom of the body chute.

After making the trek a little more than halfway, we stopped and had an EVP session. We heard some knock and bangs, but couldn’t for the life of us see anything down there. It was just too dark. So we decided to take our investigation to the morgue on the first floor.

On our way down the hall towards the morgue we started to hear clanking noises coming from ahead. The closer we got to the morgue, the louder they were, but once we entered the morgue, they were gone. We heard stories on our guided tour at the beginning of the night that when people investigate the morgue, they tend to have experiences when they lay on the retractable gurneys there. So who was the only guy in my group to lay on one? That’s right. THIS GUY! I laid down on the bottom gurney just because it was the easiest to get in and out of.

While I was laying on the sliding gurney, another investigator set his K-2 meter on the middle gurney on top of me as well as his flashlight. In Paranormal Georgia Investigations we do what is called the “flashlight trick” and that’s when you unscrew the backing of a flashlight to where the batteries aren’t touching both ends of the inside of the flashlight to give it power, so the flashlight is off. But if something applies the slightest pressure to the end of the flashlight, the batteries connect and the flashlight illuminates itself.

We did this while I was laying on the gurney and the flashlight seemed to come on after asking a good number of questions. Sadly, there were no hits on the K-2 meter at the same time. Was this paranormal? Who knows. It would have been nice to get a hit on the K-2 meter to back up the flashlight trick though. Also, when I got out of the the gurney, I was covered in about 30 years of dust and debris. It was worth it.

When we were done with the morgue area, we made our way up to the 4th floor. The 4th floor is the most notorious floor for shadow people and shadow movement. And I can honestly tell you that I was disappointed when I experienced little to no shadow movement in this hallway. Some of the other people on my team saw some thing, but not I. We had an EVP session for a while and scoped the floor out, then we headed to the Operating Room. There were some radical experiments done to patients in that room in Waverly Hills. Some people had lungs collapsed in an effort to make them stronger, and some other patients had pieces of their rib cage removed in and effort to help the lungs take in more air. Unfortunately, there was only about a 5% survival rate of the latter. So many people lost their lives in that room.

We conducted an EVP session there but no hits on the flashlight or on the K-2. We did hear a decent bang in the adjoining prepping room. And a couple members in my team claimed so see a face look back at us from the square window of the adjoining room’s door. If it did happen, I missed it.

To conclude the evening, we met back up with the other 2 teams and do one last EVP session in the area where we all thought had the most activity. So we headed to the 3rd floor. We had some luck on the flashlight trick again, but that was about it. So we packed up and headed back to the hotel.

I wish I could sit here and tell you that we saw shadows galore, that we saw full-bodied apparitions (the holy grail of paranormal investigating), that we had face-to-face conversations with spirits. Unfortunately, we only had a handful of personal experiences, paranormal-wise. But to even just have the opportunity to investigate there was fun and great in and of itself.

Everybody is in the process of going through their raw audio and video to see if we caught any evidence. So far some team members are saying what we lacked in personal experiences, we’ve made up with in EVPS! Lets hope so! Once we’ve gone through everything, we’ll post our findings.

If there is one that to be said about Waverly Hills, it’s that if it isn’t haunted it is, indeed, very haunting.