Well, this forum has been a bit on the dead side lately, so I thought I�d regale you all with a somewhat humorous yet annoying as hell investigation my team and I went on a few months back.
We received a call from a frantic husband and wife, that for the sake of anonymity, I�ll call �Joe� and �Flo�. Well, �Joe� told us that he was seeing children all over his house. They would supposedly move things, play with their household pets, and sing.
That wasn�t what was causing the husband and wife duo the distress�there was another entity that they claimed was malevolent. It was a dark figure with no facial figures as far as they could detect. You know, a basic �shadow person�.
Apparently, this being would appear at the same time every night and, if you haven�t already guessed the time, it�s 3:00 AM. As an investigator I am very suspicious of everything a client tells me. It�s required of me. But not so suspicious that it contaminates the way my team and I investigate. We walked in with open minds but also open eyes, if you get my drift. Sometimes things that seem paranormal are anything but. Such as high EMF readings. They are not paranormal per se. Unusual fluctuations
can be. That is one reason why we get baseline readings before we begin our investigation. So we can categorize the normal from the paranormal. Most of our clients are surprised to hear that high EMF (even those caused by normal occurrences) can cause feelings of paranoia, depression, that terrible �sense of foreboding� that we all know and hate, and even vertigo. We�re talking something as simple as an electrical problem in the home. I would go into the whole schpiel about what could be the
real cause of �hauntings�, but I won�t. Feel free to ask me questions, though, if you need to or even correct me if you think I�m misrepresenting information. On with the story.
During the face-to-face interview, the couple seemed genuinely frightened. They stuck to their story, not deviating once. Unfortunately, we kind of let our guard down. We�ll just have to count it as a lesson learned. My team generally spreads out in groups during investigations in order to cover more ground and it also serves as a validating tool by allowing us to compare any shared experiences that have occurred between multiple groups.
Before splitting into groups, we walked throughout the house gathering baseline readings, with �Flo� leading the way and �Joe� bringing up the rear, advising us regarding any areas where specific unexplained activity had occurred previously. We were able to debunk many of the supposed paranormal occurrences on that initial walkthrough and as we explained our findings to the couple, they seemed to grow more and more agitated and belligerent (a sharp contrast to the very polite but very frightened people we had spoken to in the face-to-face interview), even to the point of insisting that their house was haunted and that they had proof.
It was then that our suspicions were rekindled and as we made our way back out of the hallway where they had most often heard children singing, �Joe� yelled, �I told you!� We asked what he was talking about, and he pointed to a series of wet-looking handprints that were on the wall that had not been there previously. As he was pointing, my team made note of a wet spot that was on the front of his jacket pocket. It appeared as if something was leaking through. After we wrapped up our investigation (with no further results), we all shook hands with the couple and thanked them for letting us investigate their home. We noticed that Joe�s hand had strange greasy film over it�there was the source of the mysterious handprints. As I said before, we count this as a lesson learned.
Does anyone else have any interesting experiences in dealing with investigations regarding supposedly haunted residences or other paranormal sites?
Lissa
