Well, that is quite the list of reasons for getting into ghost hunting. You guys have experienced quite a bit as a group. So why don’t we discuss what happened to you guys when you went to the old Anderson house, or should I say Johnson house?
“You know that the Johnson’s built that house? How? We just learned about it the other day”, asked Jessica.
Brenda took a sip of her coffee and said, “It’s really quite simple, I grew up around here. I moved away to go to college and never came back for a few years, but as a teenager we used to go hunting for ghost around town all the time, even at the old mill. No one ever admitted to ever seeing an apparition back in those days, but we did hear some weird noise and voices. We never had digital cameras or digital recorders. We had cameras that used 35mm film, and cassette tape recorders to capture sound. We also didn’t have computers with fancy software to help clean up anything we caught. Because digital equipment was new, it was far too expensive for us to get a hold of. Nowadays, you students all have digital cameras and recorders on your phones. You can capture stuff at anytime, even if you forgot your hunting equipment at home.”
Sarah just shook her head, “How on earth would you get it touch with your friends without being able to text them?”
Brenda smiled, “Easy, we picked up the phone or just walked over to their house and knocked on their door.”
Matthew: “Sounds like a lot of work?”
William: “I almost forgot about another experience that I had a few months ago. This one was just weird.”
The group looked at William as Brenda told him to continue.
William: “It happened one day when I was returning from a fishing trip with my dad. We left the house before sunup so we could get to the lake at start fishing early, as my dad always said the fish bite better at dawn then at noon. We fished for the whole day and started heading back around four o’clock. As we were driving down the highway, I was looking around at the trees on the side of the road. I turned my head to look at my dad, then all of a sudden I saw myself sitting beside him with my eyes closed. I was so freaked out that all I could think of was I need to get back in my body now, because if I somehow end up outside the truck, I’ll be stranded. Next thing I know, I’m looking around at the sides of the road again. My dad looked at me and just said, “I wondered if you were going to sleep the whole way home?” I did not feel like I was tired, so how I fell asleep I don’t know. I do know that the view of my body from the outside was really weird. I read up more on out of body experiences, and learned that to return to your body, all you need to do is tell yourself it’s time to return to your body. I was so freaked out by the occurrence on the highway that every time I’ve tried to astral project myself based on any courses and lessons I read on it, I just cannot leave my body.”
Brenda: “Well, when it happened and you weren’t prepared for it, it put up walls in your mind that basically tell your spirit to never leave your body again. You can break down these walls over time, but it can take years, depending on how traumatic the experience was. I for one haven’t been able to successfully astral project, but we have done studies in a controlled environment where some people seem to be able to do it at will.”
William: “Well I hope to be able to do it again one day. Now that I understand it and know more about how to control it, I think it would be awesome to go places and see things that you normally can’t.”
Matthew: “Yeah, like the girls locker room!” Matthew smiles as he imagines travelling there.
Everyone was a little stunned by Matthew’s comment. Not surprised he would think of something like that, but that he’d just blurt it out while an adult was present.
Brenda: “Slow down Matthew, it doesn’t work that way. There are rules that govern out of body experiences, just like there are rules that govern everything in the universe. It seems, the way I understand it from my studies, you cannot astral project yourself anywhere that you would not be allowed to go in your physical form.”
Matthew: “Well that sure makes it sound less intriguing.”
Brenda: “I am not surprised you’d say that. But who knows? During the cold war, both the US and Russia were running test on astral project into their opponents secret bases. Since all the data is still classified, we really don’t what someone trained in controlled out of body experiences can actually do. But before you will ever have a successful out of body experience, you will need to open your mind up to the possibility that it can happen. A closed mind is like a closed door. Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. You have to open the door to your mind and allow new ideas to enter, if you want to grow in any type of psychic or paranormal way.”
Everyone was a little surprised with how calmly Brenda dealt with Matthews smart mouth comments. Most people either ignore him, or get angry with him and snap, but this was someone who it seemed might be getting through to him. They could only hope.
William: “I’m really sorry I interrupted Brenda; please continue with what you were saying about hunting for ghosts when you were a teen?”
Brenda: “Well I basically was finished any way. What I’d really like to do is listen to your experiences.”
Jessica: “Well, what we did was we had talked about going to the old mill for some time. We decided to go last weekend because everyone was available, and the weather was supposed to be nice. We met at the big tree at school like we normally do on school days, and made sure everyone was prepared with their cameras and voice recorders. We then we headed out to the mill.”
William: “Right. And when we got to the Anderson, I mean Johnson property, we broke into three groups and started looking around the property for any signs that anybody else was there at the time. Since it seemed deserted, we decided to go into the old mill. Since we had no apparent luck in there, we decided to go into the main house.”
Sarah: “Yeah, but when we got inside, some of us were a little freaked out. I don’t mind admitting I was a little jumpy, and so were some other group members.”
Alexis: “Thing is, some of us had never actually been to a place that looked haunted. It reminded me of a place from a horror film.”
Samantha: “It sure did. And since this was my first real hunt in a strange location, I was expecting to see either ghosts flying from room to room or furniture moving or something. I was just waiting for something it to start.”
William: “We did try to tell the group that real life hunting was nothing like the movies or some of the big production television shows. But until you experience for yourself, you’re really not going to change your expectations and beliefs based on someone else’s opinion.”
Jessica: “So any way, we go into the house. First strange thing is the doors unlocked. We walk in and yell out “Is anybody in this house?” We heard nothing, so we assumed we were alone. We decided to break into three groups. Since this was only our third real investigation, and the first two were a little disorganized; William, Matthew and I would each lead some of the younger members through the paces of performing a proper ghost hunt, based on what we’ve learned from shows, books and personal experiences. I decided to take Sarah and Alexis with me, William went with Samantha and Matthew went with Jacob. We would each take a floor and meet back at the main entrance in forty-five minutes to an hour to change search locations. William and Sam went to the attic, Lexis, Sarah and I went to the second floor and Matt and Jacob went through the main floor. We decided to leave out the cellar since it was full of water as William checked there as soon as we entered the building.
William: “Right, so Samantha and I headed up to the attic. While we were walking up the stairs to the second floor, we heard what we thought were footsteps going up from the landing and down the hall leading to the attic. I raced up the stairs to see what it was, with Samantha close behind me.”
Samantha: “I don’t know why, but when I saw William run up the stairs, I guess my blood started pumping and I wanted to see what it was. I didn’t even think it could be a ghost.”
William: “Yeah (laughing), I wonder what you would have done if it was a ghost? Anyway, we got to the bottom of the ladder leading to the attic, but couldn’t see anyone anywhere. You’d have to be a world class athlete to run all the way up down the hall and up the ladder for me not to see you by the time I reached the top of the stairs. As we were peaking into the rooms, we heard what sounded like voices coming from the attic. We carefully proceeded as quietly as we could up the ladder. When my hand was up enough to raise the camcorder higher than the floor, I lifted it up and panned around the entire attic. The fact that nothing showed up was a bit of a disappointment during the review. Sam and I went throughout the attic looking behind boxes and old furniture but didn’t find anything. The windows were intact so the sound we heard wasn’t from outside. We did an EVP session, asking if there was anyone present, if they wanted to tell us anything, to tap on the floor; pretty much all the basic questions, and after about ten minutes decided to call it quits. We then headed downstairs to meet the rest of the group.”
Jessica: “I saw William and Samantha run up the stairs as we were getting ready to check the second floor. I wanted to run after them, but my brain told me to continue with the investigation as originally planned. So I went to the second floor with Sarah and Alexis. As we were walking done the hallway, we heard a door slam at the end of the hall. Sarah and Alexis both let out a bit of a scream, as they were quite startled. We went down to investigate, but all the doors to the rooms were all open. We went into a couple of the rooms to try EVP sessions, with the same basic questions that William and Samantha asked, but nothing responded to our questions. Nothing supernatural was seen anywhere, so we went back downstairs to meet up with the rest of the groups.
Brenda: “I’m curious to know what you guys consider basic questions. And how do you guys all know what to ask?”
William: “That’s easy (he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper and hands it to Brenda), we made a list and handed a copy of it out to each group member. We came up with it from different shows we watched as well as books we read on ghost hunting.”
Brenda unfolds the paper and starts to review its contents:
Basic EVP Questions
(Wait a few minutes for a response after each question)
Optional – ask questions directly related to the location or the spirits if no response is given to any of the above.
Brenda: “This is quite the complete list of questions. I am starting to think you guys are quite serious about investigating the paranormal. This isn’t a game to you guys, is it?”
William: “Not at all. We are genuinely interested in the unexplained. Ghosts are our main interest, but we’d love to investigate other unexplained stuff too. If anything was ever sited close to town, like a Bigfoot or a UFO, we’d jump right on investigating that.”
Brenda: “I am starting to understand just how serious you guys take this. So I guess it would be Matthew and Jacob to tell what they encountered next?”
Matthew: “Not much. While everyone else was searching upstairs, Jacob and I were going room to room on the main floor. We tried different EVP sessions and stuff, but didn’t see or hear anything.”
Jacob (disappointed): “Yeah, we never find anything.”
Brenda: “You know Jacob, based on the visitor you have in your room, I’m thinking that maybe your subconscious mind doesn’t want you to see anything. You’ve had such frightening visits in your room that perhaps your mind is telling you that you don’t want to see any more ghost? And since your partner is a sceptic who up until now wasn’t very open to the idea of the supernatural actually existing, could help explain why the two of you never see things when others do.”
Jacob: “Is there any way to change that? I want to be able to experience things like my friends do.”
Brenda: “First you will need to wait until the old man in your room reappears and tell him to leave. After doing so, say a prayer and see if he vanishes. If this works, it will be the first step at conquering your fear. If this works, then your mind should start to become more acceptable to seeing things that up until now you were blocking out.”
Jacob (in a timid voice): “Guess I’ll give it a try then.”
Brenda: “Great. So shall we continue?”
Jessica: “It was our turn to check the Attic, so while I was walking up the stairs with Sarah and Alexis, we also heard footsteps going up the stairs ahead of us. We got a bit excited and started up the stairs quickly to see what it was.”
Alexis: “Excited would be one way to describe it. I would say Sarah and I were more scared then excited and we just ran up behind Jessica because we didn’t want to be by ourselves were we first heard the sound. My heart was racing so fast I could feel it in my throat!”
Sarah, who was listening intently, looked over at Brenda and just nodded her agreement with Alexis’s statement.
Jessica: “Well, whatever the motivation to come up stairs with me was, we were all together. We looked in the rooms quickly as we made our way to the attic, but didn’t see anything. As we were searching in the attic, we didn’t see or hear anything. We continued with our EVP sessions, but unfortunately were unable to make contact with anyone. After about twenty minutes of uneventful searching, we went back downstairs.”
Matthew: “While Jacob and I were searching the second floor, we heard and seen nothing out of the ordinary. We did EVP sessions in every room and received no replies to our questions. While we were heading downstairs, Jacob stopped, and looked a little strange so I asked him what was wrong.”
Jacob: “When we were about to head down the stairs, I thought I heard someone say something behind me. I turned expecting to see the girls but no one was there.”
Matthew: “So when Jacob told me this, I decided we should try an EVP session right at the top of the stairs. While asking our questions, a couple times we both heard what sounded like whispering after our first and third questions, but I assumed it was the wind. It wasn’t until later when we reviewed the tape that I started to believe it was whispering because the wind doesn’t blow on cue, right after you ask something. Only problem was we couldn’t amplify the whispers enough to make out what they said.”
William: “It was mine and Samantha’s turn on the main floor. We waited until the other groups were up stairs before we started doing our sweep of the main floor. We were going from room to room try EVP sessions, when we suddenly saw a door open to the cellar. As we were walking over there, I was looking at the door so intently that I didn’t even notice Samantha had stopped following me.”
Samantha: “This was when I saw the figure of a man who seemed to be yelling, it was like a movie in my mind. He would say something, looking beside himself, then turn away, then turn back again and repeat the same sequence. I tried snapping a couple pictures, but nothing turned up. When I looked up from the camera, the image was gone. I assumed I imagined it because it was a little dark in that corner and my eyes weren’t really focused when I seen it.”
William: “When I got to the cellar, the door was still open. I looked down stairs with my flashlight, but could only see water. I shut the door again and pulled on it, but it was latched solid. I could only assume that when Matt had looked down there, that he didn’t shut it fully. When I questioned him about it, he couldn’t remember if he shut it fully.”
Matthew: “I thought I did, but I couldn’t be sure.”
Brenda was taking notes as the kids were talking and trying to see if there were any logical explanations for anything they saw. She was rather impressed with what they weren’t calling paranormal. There was no mention of floor creaks; or shadow figures when the glanced in a room, that are usually just the eyes adjusting; and no “sheet” like ghost walking the halls. She was starting to become extremely impressed with how they were conducting their investigation. She looked up from her notes and asked, “Is that all that happened?”
Alexis loudly shouted, “No!”
This made everyone jump a little. Brenda looked at Alexis, “You seem a little enthusiastic. What else happened?”
Alexis put her head down in embarrassment, as everyone was now staring at her, “Sorry, it’s just that we still haven’t told you about the traveller.”
Brenda was really confused. “Who’s the traveller?”
William took over the conversation. “Well what happened was everyone was doing there last floor investigation, repeating the same steps as they did on every other floor. Nobody seemed to experience anything else out of the ordinary. Jessica, Alexis and Sarah were standing around in the sitting room discussing the events of the investigation so far, when Samantha and I entered the room. We joined their conversation and were waiting for Matthew and Jacob, when all of a sudden, the girls faces turned white. I turned to see a figure of a man moving from one side of the room to the other. Jessica and I had lifted our camcorder to record the image, but all I caught was a flash of light on my video. Just as it disappeared, Matthew and Jacob entered the room.”
Brenda: “And what was on Jessica’s video?”
Jessica, feeling rather embarrassed: “I didn’t realize my camera was already on and actual turned it off as I was trying to video tape what we saw.”
Brenda: “So why did Alexis call it the traveller?”