Investigations

ECWPI splits into 2 separate groups

2006-07-03T11:16:00.001-05:00

Due to geographic circumstances, ECWPI has split into two ghost investigation groups.

Fox Valley Spirit Hunters can be found at http://fvsh.sillybirds.com

Midwest Preternatural Research can be found at www.midwestpreternaturalresearch.com

This blog will no longer be updated. Thanks for reading!

JFK Prep investigation report -- by Matt

2005-12-13T17:54:00.008-06:00

Investigators present on Night 1 (August 5, 2005): Matt from Midwest Preternatural Research, Katie, Keith and Jody from Fox Valley Spirit Hunters, Kurt, Mark, Rhonda and Barry from HPI, Michael from Kettle Moraine Paranormal, and Jaeson Jrakman (www.jaesonjrakman.com). There was also a whole second group that we collaborated with the first night. But they disappeared the second night and didn't get back to us or the owner with their findings. We don't know what happened and we're sorry it didn't work out.

Investigators present on Night 2 (August 6, 2005): Matt from Midwest Preternatural Research, Katie, Keith and Jody from Fox Valley Spirit Hunters, Barry from HPI, Michael from Kettle Moraine Paranormal, and Jaeson Jrakman.

Also present: Client (J), worker (W)

Equipment used: Trifield Standard EMF meter, Trifield Natural EMF Meter, Cellsensor EMF meter, Digital Cameras, Digital Voice Recorders, Dual Infrared Non-contact Thermometer/Air Probe Thermometer, Sony Camcorders w/Nightshot

Background: The site is an abandoned Catholic school/church with five run down buildings (the school, the old dorms, the church, the library, and the printing building) and two fixed up buildings (the new dorms and the renaissance building, where we set up our headquarters for the investigation). These were the only two buildings that had electricity. There's also a cemetery with all priests and the crypt of the founder of St. Nazianz, Father Oschwald, and an underground tunnel system.

DO NOT go there without permission! You'll be arrested and fined $5,000 for breaking and entering, NOT for trespassing which is a lesser offense.

History: In the months leading up to our investigation, we researched the history and compiled this packet of information:

--The death and body of the founder Father Oschwald:

Page 1

Page 2

"Anton Stoll records: 'A number of times, I have observed that [Father Oschwald], with closed eyes, when there was no one else in the room but I alone, would extend his hands in blessing, and then with his hand, signal someone away, and yet I saw no one in the room.'"

Father Oschwald was dying and could have just been delirious, not seeing ghosts.

It is strange that Father Oschwald's body didn't decompose for all those years. This is supposed to be a saint thing. Lenin's body doesn't decompose either, but his body is preserved by biochemists using chemicals. And it is taken in to a laboratory every 18 months. According to the Russian doctor who not too long ago did a makeover on Lenin's corpse, "He looked terrible when he died, but what you see now is Lenin's face, not someone else's." In Moscow, "mausoleumists" earn most of their money by preserving the bodies of dead mafia bosses. In 1970, the staff secretly embalmed the body of Ho Chi Minh that was on display in Hanoi. I'm not saying there were hoaxers at work on Father Oschwald's body, as the then-untested chemical process used on Lenin was developed in 1924 and Oschwald died in 1873. And even if somehow somebody could get into the vault and sneak out Oschwald's body once every year and a half without anybody noticing, the process used on Lenin takes 30 days. But it makes you think if there could be a scientific explanation.

--The "curse" of Father Oschwald:

Popular legend has it that Father Oschwald was evil and he cursed the town of St. Nazianz because the State took the land away in 1896, and that's how the haunting started. But Father Oschwald died in 1873. The land was taken away twenty years after Oschwald's death. He couldn't have cursed it.

It is true that as Father Oschwald lay dying there were poundings heard on the doors and walls all around town -- everywhere except in the room where Father Oschwald lay dying:

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But this, again, was not because he was EVIL. This can be explained by a phenomenon called Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK). RSPK is an unconscious form of Psychokinesis. Sometimes when a person is in physical or emotional pain, or just under a lot of stress, they can unconsciously make their own bed shake or make knocking sounds on the walls, because they're rebelling on a subconscious level. If you have a lot of stress or trauma in your life, it can continue and it can follow you from house to house until you solve the emotional problem that's causing it. Another term for this is a "poltergeist" -- poltergeists really don't have anything to do with ghosts, despite what you've seen in movies. The only thing the "Poltergeist" movies got right is it's typically a young girl going through puberty who's causing it, but not always. Father Oschwald was not lashing out on the town, he was just dying and in a lot of pain, and he was psychokinetically pounding on the doors and walls all over town because he wanted the pain to stop. He didn't even know he was doing it.

All that being said, the rest of the town does have a history of devastating fires, and there are stories of some ghost sightings, if there's any truth to the stories:

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The whole town is not haunted. There is nothing to support that but 100-year-old personal experiences, and in most of the cases there was only one witness so it could have been a hallucination or an outright lie. How do you interview someone who's been dead for 100 years? Even if the witness was credible and *believed* what they were seeing, there still could be a psychological explanation. Of course, you could argue it the other way too and say you can't disprove it either, because it happened 100 years ago. But I think if you make a trip to St. Nazianz, all you'll find is a regular town and regular people, not the frightened townsfolk of Blair, Maryland. EVERYTHING about this place was exaggerated. Also, some of those stories, like the boy riding a deer with a superlarge horn and throwing fireballs everywhere he went, allegedly happened when Oschwald was still alive and still had the land, before the land was supposed to have been cursed.

So then how did JFK Prep become haunted? There are stories of physical and sexual abuse at the school as to the origin of the haunting, however we couldn't back that up either. In fact, there's one urban legend about a student who hung herself from the basketball hoop in the gym after being beaten and molested by a nun. There really was a girl who hung herself on campus, but it didn't happen in the gym and it had nothing to do with a nun or a beating. I know this for a fact because I was emailed by the girl's old roommate. I was given her name, a little bit about her, and why she did it. I've since received emails from other people who went to school at Prep, including another one of her friends who was able to confirm it, the room she did it in, and even shared her suicide note with me. She had been over to the girl's house and was able to tell me about what her family was like and who they were. Out of respect for the student and her family I won't post what building she did it in or what her reason was.

We got a few EVPs that sound like they're saying "burning". Maybe the haunting is because of the great fire in 1871 where all those people died.

The fact is we don't know how the haunting originated. I think in a place like this with so much history, there's just bound to be something. There could be residual energy from all the students that passed through here. But on our investigation we also had a few occurrences that would imply an intelligent style haunting. Maybe there's a little of both.

--The graves in the cemetery alternately rising and sinking:

Another urban legend is that the graves in the cemetery up on Loretto Hill, where Father Oschwald's crypt is and where all the priests are buried, alternately rise and sink. They do not. And the cemetery is actually still used, as some of the graves were new.

--The sounds of students laughing in the halls:

You're supposed to be able to hear students laughing in the halls of the school. Actually, we found the school to be the least active of the buildings. The one time we did hear footsteps above us on one of our subsequent visits, it turned out to be *living people* who were caught trespassing.

Our Investigation: Katie, Keith, Michael, Barry and I arrived at 3PM and spent the afternoon just walking through the buildings and thinking about how we were going to set up. On the initial walkthrough back in May, the owner only had time to show us through two of the seven buildings and the cemetery. The plan was to spend the afternoon taking some base readings with our EMF meters, mapping out the buildings, and doing some control audio recordings with nobody in the buildings. But the place is so big that we didn't get done and had to get going on our investigation. However, we were able to do more on our follow up.

The rest of the group arrived later, and we started the investigation at 8:00PM.

NIGHT 1, ROTATION 1 (8PM-12AM):

We split up into three groups. Jaeson was the zone leader for Group 1. There were six people in that group including Jaeson and myself, and there was an EMT in case anybody got hurt. Barry was the zone leader for Group 2 and there were five people in that group including her. She had one EMT in her group, just in case. Michael was zone leader for Group 3 and there were six people in his group including himself. Michael has medical training and he's a psychic.

Then we also had someone stay in headquarters all night and monitor Michael's live video feed on a laptop. The three groups communicated by walkie-talkie and were assigned to separate buildings.

Group 1:

Jaeson's group investigated the school building first. We did a sweep of the building, then set up a video camera and Trifield Natural EMF Meter in the only hallway where the owner left a power strip for us. (The buildings have no electricity.) We put motion detectors around the camera so that nobody could tamper with it, then we left the building and sat outside. (You can't walk around with the Trifield Natural Meter because it's so sensitive it can detect the nerve impulses in your body when you move. But it's also one of the best EMF meters you can get for that same reason.) Since there was one group in each building that first night (but not in the printing building which the owner didn't let us in to until the second night, and not in the two fixed-up buildings, which we didn't investigate), we had to just sit and wait for the end of the rotation because we had no place else to go. Jaeson admitted to me that there were just too many people (the owner also kept going back and forth between the groups to see how we were doing) and this wasn't his normal ghost hunting method. The second night and follow-up investigation were more high quality experiences where we had smaller and fewer groups, and we had impressed the owner enough with our professionalism the first night that he let us have the place all to ourselves to do with what we wanted in our subsequent visits.

Group 1 didn't come up with anything in the school.

Group 2:

Barry's group, meanwhile, was investigating the cemetery, church, library, and basements underneath (that was all one zone...it was a lot smaller than it sounds). Barry said in between rotations that it was pretty dead and uneventful.

Then later upon reviewing their audio, they came up with this possible EVP. What you are about to listen to was recorded by Mark. First, you'll hear the owner ask, "What should we do with the place?" Then, you'll hear Barry repeat, "What should he do with the place?" The others present were Kurt and Rhonda, and two other investigators from the other group. None of them recall hearing what comes next:

Clip1

Mark had his digital voice recorder in hand and we have a log of where everybody else was at the time. Kurt said that Barry was doing a very good job of identifying any sounds that could later be mistaken as EVPs into the recorder ("that was a stomach" or "that was me shifting"), but nobody made any comment on the recorder after this sound. If this was just someone clearing their throat, it sounds like it's right there in the room and we think someone would have heard it and asked, "That was so-and-so clearing his throat?" or at least made a mental note of it, especially after THAT question.

However, there's really no way to be 100% sure because nobody was videotaping the EVP session. We now videotape all our EVP sessions, but because this was one of our first investigations we hadn't thought to do that.

Group 3:

Michael's group, meanwhile, was investigating the old dorms. Michael said he felt drawn to a room on the fourth floor that became known to us as "the suitcase room". There are a pair of old suitcases lying on the floor in this room that someone must have discarded. One of the suitcases was all the way open. Due to weathering of the item, it couldn't be completely shut tight. Michael kicked it closed with his left foot. When he came back, it was re-opened, all the way, and back to its original position. Michael said he assumed someone else opened it, so he kicked it closed again, and turned around. He was standing outside, in front of the stairs, and when he turned around it was open again. He said that's when he seriously started to question it. The first time, someone could have been playing with him. But the second time no one went past him. Michael forcibly closed the suitcase, so maybe it was just returning to its natural state of being partially open but opened all the way. That's possible, but it was only open a couple of inches in the first place and it was also pretty decrepit. In our return visit, we were unsuccessful when we tried to get it to open like that again. After it opened the second time, Michael took his pocket knife and cut away the liner a bit and he checked it well over for any electrical device, and found nothing.

But we didn't get it on video, and upon further inspection Michael says they didn't note any temperature oddities or get any EMF readings. So we can't present it as evidence to anyone. We can only give it as a personal experience.

----------

After the first rotation ended, we met back in headquarters for an hour break, and I took a head count to make sure we still had everybody.

While we were eating, Michael excitedly talked about how it went in the old dorms.

Barry's group was assigned to the old dorms next, and she was intrigued by Michael's story and asked me if it would be okay to have her group and Jaeson's group investigate the dorms together so we could have cameras on all floors. I was intrigued also, so I said let's try it.

NIGHT 1, ROTATION 2 (1AM-4AM):

So Jaeson's group and Barry's group went up to the old dorms together, and Michael's group went to the school building.

But it was dead now, and there were way too many people now in the old dorms, so Jaeson just left his camera and some of his equipment so they could have it, and we left to go investigate the church.

Meanwhile, the church/library/basement were also dead. We did a sweep, and just took some pictures and recorded for EVPs. Then we went up to the cemetery, but it was really peaceful there.

On our way back from the cemetery, that's when we saw Michael's group up on the roof of the school with their flashlights. They radioed us to come and help, and we did. They had been taking pictures from the roof, and these huge red mists were showing up in some of their pictures. We debunked these as REAL mist that was invisible to the naked eye but could be seen when illuminated by the camera flash. The red was the result of light refracting inside the camera lens. You can view one of the pictures here.

We went back to the church, but by this time my camera's memory card was full and so was my voice recorder, so I just walked along. I couldn't do anything. We all ended up back in the renaissance building because we were going to call it a night early. But first the owner showed Jaeson, Barry, and I the boiler room behind the renaissance building. Then he took Jaeson, Barry, Michael, and I into an underground tunnel that led into the basement under the library. I would like to go back and investigate that tunnel -- we really only poked our heads in.

We called it a night early at about 4AM and drove home or back to our hotel rooms.

NIGHT 2:

We met back at 7PM. The owner opened up the printing building and underground tunnel for us (which just leads from the garage into the printing building), and we did a walkthrough. He also opened up this little yellow barn for us next to the renaissance building, if we wanted to go in there.

We started our investigation again at 8PM, with a much smaller group. Kurt wasn't able to come back the second night, but let me know a month in advance that he could only stay one night. And Mark and Rhonda had kids at home so they couldn't stay two nights either, so they drove down to tell me this in person and then Barry just walked them through the buildings they hadn't got to see yet, then they went home.

So the second night we only had seven people -- the three zone leaders, and Katie, Keith, Jody, and I.

With the fewer people, there was no rotation schedule. You just worked with who you wanted and investigated what you wanted, and I kept track of where everybody was on walkie-talkies.

Barry, Katie, Keith, and Jody started in the church, and Michael, Jaeson, and I headed straight for the old dorms. Michael showed Jaeson and I around the old dorms and he showed us the "suitcase room". Also on the fourth floor across the hall from the "suitcase room" is the alleged Satan Room where, according to urban legend, the founder of St. Nazianz, Father Oschwald, or just a regular priest had an encounter with Satan and then the room was boarded up to protect the students and faculty. The Satan Room is a dud, no surprise. It's not boarded up, and we didn't experience a thing in there. It's just a room. Father Oschwald could not have had an encounter with Satan or anything in that room because the school was built 100 years after Father Oschwald's time.

We set up a video camera and voice recorder in the "suitcase room", and we put motion detectors at the stairs on the third and fourth floors. I left my voice recorder in a closet on the fourth floor.

Then we went down to the third floor and just sat quietly in the hallway and waited for something to happen. Around the same time that Michael had the experience with the suitcase the first night, the motion detectors started going off all over the place. We got up and walked toward the stairs to see if we could see what was setting them off. Bats? There were bats in that building. Jaeson was walking with his Trifield Standard EMF Meter (the one you CAN walk around with) when his needle started going crazy. There was no power in the building. A few moments later I saw a door open. A door opening can be recreated very easily, if it's not shut tight, and it wasn't. The wood expanding can cause it to swing open. It may still be worth noting that it happened right after the EMF spike, but it doesn't prove anything.

We radioed for the others to come, and then a little while after they got there things got dead again. Jaeson and Barry left for the printing building. Katie, Keith, and Jody left for the cemetery. Michael and I stayed in the dorms for a little while longer and then left to go back to base for a short break. Then we went to investigate the little yellow barn that the owner had opened up for us. The owner said he had heard stories of cult activity in that barn from long before, and was curious if we would find anything in there.

Michael and I set up motion detectors at the entrances, then explored it by ourselves while taking some pictures and asking questions for EVP. There was nothing in there, and in the subsequent times I've been back I never came up with anything in that barn or even got a creepy feeling. Michael and me then left to meet Jaeson and Barry in the printing building.

We stayed together and stopped to do EVP circles in all the big rooms and took lots of pictures.

Next we moved back into the school and walked around the tunnels where Michael thought he'd seen a shadow the night before. As we walked we again took pictures and EMF readings, and we stopped in all the big rooms to do EVP circles. We continued on through the locker rooms, then through the cafeteria directly under the gym, and then up into the gym.

After we left the gym we decided to walk the perimeter of the grounds because there were also stories of ghost sightings in the surrounding woods. We didn't experience anything, and in fact we only got as far as the cemetery.

It was now about 2:30 in the morning, my voice recorder was full again, and we'd spent about 15 hours total investigating so far. We'd also been up till 4 in the morning the night before. We were all getting tired, and were ready to go home early. Everybody was back in the renaissance building again and starting to pack up.

Michael and I wanted to go up to the old dorms one last time before going home. We went alone, and when we entered we went straight up the stairs to the fourth floor.

The air felt really heavy, though admittedly that could have just been because we were alone.

After checking on the suitcases, we went back out to the parking lot where everybody was getting ready to go home and go to sleep, and I think it was Barry who got us all to stick it through to the end of the night.

We all went back up to the fourth floor together as one big group. The owner came with us too. We set up shop in the "suitcase room". Keith set up his video camera, and we sat in an EVP circle and turned off all our lights so we wouldn't be distracted. We asked, if there's a presence in this room, could it please show us a sign of its presence and then we'll leave and we won't bother it again. Michael soon after started to feel cold and said that we should take some pictures.

So Barry snapped a picture. Then she took another picture just to verify, looked at the view screen, and then took a few more. What appeared was a solid white form in the left hand corner that seemed to grow brighter in each picture. At the time these pictures really excited us, but now we believe that it was just Barry's finger in front of the camera. Barry had actually tried recreating the pictures at home with her finger, but it didn't look exactly the same. It was very similar, but she couldn't get it a solid white. However, after seeing another picture taken that night by another investigator, a reflection off the chair could have made her finger appear solid white. You can view the pictures here, here, here, and here. Here is the picture where you can see a reflection off the chair.

Barry wanted to get back to headquarters right away and put the pictures on her computer before she pushed a wrong button and erased them or something. So we left the suitcase room and made our way out. When we got to the second story landing, Michael said he heard a dog growl but nobody else did. We went to investigate, and we entered into a little chapel with a balcony over it where you can look down from the third floor where we had come. Michael said there was something watching us from the balcony. We snapped some pictures and asked some questions, but nobody else experienced anything.

After returning to the renaissance building and putting the pictures on Barry's labtop and showing them to the owner, we went back to the "suitcase room" again. We stayed until dawn, but nothing more happened.

We left the building, shook hands with everyone, and there ended our first investigation of JFK Prep.

FOLLOW-UP INVESTIGATION (OCTOBER 8, 2005):

Investigators present: Matt from Midwest Preternatural Research, Katie, Keith and Jody from Fox Valley Spirit Hunters, and Kurt and Mark from HPI.

We did a follow-up a couple months later on October 8th. Without nearly as many people this time, we broke up into small groups and split up over the campus to try to recreate some of what we had experienced on the first visit. We also just wanted to get in and do some more investigating, and try new things.

Katie, Keith, and Jody were in a group together, and they headed over to the church. Katie had brought a CD player along to introduce music in the church and see if that would get a reaction, but it refused to work (she admits she was already having problems with it before she left home). So instead, she thought she would just sing in the church to see what would happen.

The first thing she sang was "Ave Maria" by Schubert. After she finished singing it, she got this on her recorder:

Clip2

A few moments later, she decided to try a Christmas carol (having run out of memorized hymns), even though this was still early October. Then, about an hour or so after Katie's group had left to go investigate somewhere else, Kurt and Mark were camped out nearby on the first floor of the old dorms (which leads into the church) recording for EVPs. They were sitting quietly when this happened:

Phone

In the clip, Mark and Kurt are sitting quietly when you hear something start to play an electronic version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". Mark asks Kurt if that's his cell phone, and he tells him that it isn't. After taking *everything* out of his pockets (recorder, digital camera, walkie talkie, etc...), Kurt finally takes out his cell phone, and realizes that the sound actually *IS* coming from his phone.

What makes this so unusual is, Kurt says that song isn't anywhere on his cell phone. He says he knows what ringtones he has, and he knows what sounds are on his phone, and he can say with 100% certainty that "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" is *not* anywhere on there.

Kurt also says that the sound plays at a much lower volume than his ringtones and other sounds do, and the sound seemed to be coming not from the speaker, but more from actually somewhere inside the phone.

When he hit a button on the phone, the song stopped.

He says he has no explanation for this. His phone isn't very advanced, so there is no way that someone could send him the sound without him knowing.

It could have been a glitch in the system, or some kind of hidden "Easter Egg" on the phone, but why would it play THAT song in October?

He says that honestly he didn't put much thought into it at the time, passing it off more or less as a glitch. When they got back to the main building, however, and Katie told him how they had been singing Christmas carols in the church not too long before this happened, it really made him wonder.

Was it a glitch, a strange coincidence, or something else?

MISC. POSSIBLE EVPS:

Recorded May 1, 2005 by Katie during our initial walkthrough of the old school building. Katie and Barry have stopped to chat somewhere on the first floor and this came through:

Clip3

Again, recorded May 1, 2005 by Katie. Recorded after we entered Father Oschwald's crypt in the Salvatorian Cemetery just above the property:

Clip4

Recorded May 1, 2005 by Katie. Katie's camera has failed and as she is fussing with it, this came through. The person she's talking to is the owner. It could be a human whisper, but why would someone say THIS in the vicinity of a client?

Clip5

Recorded November 13 when Kurt was there by himself helping the owner clean. He was in the old dorms sweeping the floor and the owner was outside. There was only one other person on the grounds at the time, and there were no females anywhere:

Clip6

We recorded several more possible EVPs during our investigation, but I've chosen not to include them because I can't be sure it wasn't one of us. When in doubt, throw it out.

FINAL ANALYSIS: There aren't ghosts in white sheets rattling chains at JFK Prep, but based on our findings I think *something* was going on. But it's also exaggerated (about 90% of the time we were there nothing was happening), and a lot of the stories are nonsense, like the town being cursed and Father Oschwald being evil. I don't believe the place is evil or demonic or that there's anything dangerous there. Most of the time it just felt peaceful. I think there's a lot of imagination and psychology involved. I think if you go in to a big spooky place like this shivering with fear and anticipating being possessed by evil spirits, in your *head* you're going to get an attachment and be followed home. The couple of people that I've met who claim that they were followed around by something while they were here were all people who were quivering with fear before they even set foot on the grounds. I think it's in your head. Go in with a level head, and nothing can hurt you. Also, a lot of the stories about JFK Prep that you can find on the internet were written by teenagers and young kids who were trespassing, and I wouldn't give them much credibility because they were after all just after a cheap thrill.

JFK Prep

2005-11-21T11:50:00.000-06:00

ECWPI and Southeast Wisconsin Paranormal Research (SEWPR) have pulled out of JFK Prep. If you want to know why, email me in private at ghost_matt@hotmail.com.

We still have stuff left to post of our report from ECWPI's investigation, and we will finish off by posting that, but it may be awhile because we have 15 pages that need to be scanned, copied to a CD, and then mailed to me so I can upload them.

2005-10-26T14:25:00.001-05:00

2005-10-24T23:00:00.001-05:00

Scariest Places on Earth (Katie's opinion ONLY)

2005-10-23T20:51:00.000-05:00

Well the air date has come and gone, so now we can mention JFK Prep's somewhat-starring role on the 10/23 episode of "Scariest Places on Earth". For those of you unfamiliar with this high-brow program, it consists of putting the world's dumbest people in spooky settings such as Dracula's castle for an overnight stay with what is probably production assistants doing things in the dark to scare them silly. Then we as viewers get to stare at them up their nostril-cam (and hope they keep their noses clean) as they cry, scream, jump, yell, pray and generally make fools of themselves over pretty much nothing.

Ok, that being said, the segment featuring JFK Prep was shortchanged as Prep actually DOES have an interesting history and really DOES have "something" going on there. So why spend just seven short minutes at Prep and yet spend almost fifteen minutes having production assistants in black clothing chase teenagers around an empty amusement park? Was the girl locked screaming inside the old concession stand with HUGE GLASSLESS WINDOWS SHE COULD JUST CRAWL THROUGH really all that scary?

But kudos go to our investigative buddy Barry who was well-versed in JFK Prep lore and definitely had us on the edge of our seats. She was our featured interviewee and was well-spoken and obviously the producers realized that. A lot of this lore was not known to me, as I didn't do the research on this one. Did those nuns do THAT? They dumped WHAT babies in the pond? We also know Tracy V. who was interviewed and whom we KNOW has been there, but who in heck were those people on the street in Milwaukee? I assume that they were friends of some of our fellow investigators from SEWPR, maybe?
And why did the producers keep insinuating that St. Nazianz was somehow a suburb of Milwaukee?

Also, Jason and Erica from Southeastern Wisconsin Paranormal Research (SEWPR), who followed Father Dan around while he did the exorcising, hung in there with their candles. Jason looked a little uncertain and Erica looked relieved, but you guys are real troupers! :)

And as always, Linda Godfrey and Richard Hendricks showed that they know their stuff about Wisconsin lore. If you get a chance to see either of them at an Unexplained Conference, go do it. They are fun and you'll learn a lot.

Anyway, that's all I'll say about that. Technically this is an INVESTIGATION blog so I think we should try to keep it that way. But I did have to mention this program, as some of us participated in it. Also, I just want to remind readers that YOU SHOULD NOT GO THERE WITHOUT PERMISSION. If you are caught on the grounds without a written pass (and that may not help anyway), you will be charged with BREAKING AND ENTERING, fined $5000.00 and serve jail time. However, if you really want to visit the place, contact Jason Beno(as I mentioned a couple of entries ago) and get on a list to be included in a paranormal tour of the place when the next one is scheduled.

Getting back to our followup investigation (well after the production crew left), this time, we didn't have near as many people. We broke up into groups of 3-4 and split up over the campus to try to recreate some of what we had experienced. Hubby Keith, buddy Jody and I worked together for awhile, trying to recreate the footage of the knocking in the old library building. While we were actually there, not much happened--I got one knock right behind me but that was about it. So we decided to leave the camera alone for awhile and go down to the church and see if we could get any EVPs there.

I had brought a CD player along to introduce music in the church and see if that would get a reaction, but it refused to work (I admit, it was already temperamental before we left home). So instead, I thought I would just sing in the church to see what happens.

Anyway, the first thing I sang was "Ave Maria" by Schubert. Hey, I sang it for my niece's wedding years ago and I still remember it! Anyway, after I finish singing it,
this is what is heard. What is it saying? I'm not quite sure and there are people debating it.

To complicate things further, what follows is a reversed version. I don't recommend speech reversal as a valid form of investigation, but it is sometimes very interesting! Here is a slowed-down, reversed version. I also did filter it a bit to make it clearer.

I don't know what you hear, but in the reversed version, I hear "simply want to say to the Lord." Now taking into account that I was singing a hymn and we were in an old desanctified church, this is intriguing.

A few moments later, I decided to try a Christmas carol (having run out of memorized hymns) and another interesting thing happened. Part way through it, you can hear what appears to be some sort of stringed instrument being plucked a couple of times. Listen for yourself. Sorry if you don't like my singing, but listen closely after I say "did you like that?" Do you hear a response in the echo? I'm not sure if I do.

Later on, we went over to the 4th floor in the old dorms, where the most activity seems to happen. I don't know if it was just because there was only three of us (usually we go up there with at least six) or if I was just a nervous nelly. But the atmosphere up there seemed even more dense and depressing than normal. It was also absolutely pitch black and with the dust that is always floating around up there, it really seemed to close in around me. Keith and Jody decided to walk a few feet down the hall while I sat on the top step resting my back. While I was sitting there, this voice was recorded.

So maybe they were close to me as I feared.

Anyway, regarding the Christmas carol, something kind of odd happened to our investigator Kurt later on, but I'll let him post about it.

BTW, when we went through the video caught by the camcorder when it was left alone in the library, you guessed it, the knockings and poundings were going on throughout the video. I guess whatever is doing it is shy when the living are around.

As always, everything above is my opinion only and worth about what you pay for it.

katie

Tourists, Ghosts and Me (Katie again)

2005-09-28T12:05:00.000-05:00

Well things are changing at old JFK Prep.

Fundraisers to help repair the church (pictured in the blog's main page) are underway. This is a direct result of other ghost investigators such as us becoming involved with the facility, specifically from Southeastern Wisconsin Paranormal Research (SEWPR). These are great folks with whom ECWPI is building a good relationship (for a change, based on our past experiences with working with other groups). They have a similar philosophy to ours, which makes it easier to understand each other.

One of the fundraisers is a ghosthunting class and a tour being offered on the third Saturday of each month (see my previous entry for contact info). The first class didn't work out, but the tour was much more successful and I got to assist in taking some new folks around the buildings. This particular group of people included a family who had experienced paranormal phenomena in their daily lives for years. It's easy to 'poo poo' accounts like these, but photos I got in certain areas where they were that night were very interesting.

Normally I don't pay much attention to orbs, but these orbs seemed to be following us around! They had a very distinctive size and shape. Also, they really did tend to hang around this family as they went. I even got a photo of a huge orb right on the face of one of these folks! I am trying to find out what he was sensing at that time but it will take a few days to get back in touch with these folks. I have checked the camera for a dirty lens, as the orbs seemed to appear in the same area on each photo, even though we moved around. The lens looked fine, but I cleaned it and we are going back next week to do some more investigating. Unfortunately these folks can't come with us, as it is just ECWPI going back, but I'm going to see if I can't reproduce some of these things.

Unfortunately, I was experimenting with a new microphone for audio recording and despite all the orb photos, I forgot to TURN IT ON. So I got nothing on audio. Hubby was videorecording though so I hope to be able to review his video this weekend. Maybe he got something.

Oh well, another chapter closes and next week, another opens on JFK Prep for us as we return to do some debunking. These are different times for the old place. Instead of falling down into decrepit nothingness, it appears to have some life left in it. If we can get the church into use again, maybe the buildings around it will begin to rise from the ashes too. The grounds are still beautiful and peaceful, with athletic fields still in use-able condition behind the buildings. It would be a shame to see this interesting and unique piece of Wisconsin history crumble into nothingness with only another fricking Walmart to take its place. Of course, I assume the spirits inhabiting JFKP would just move on into sporting goods or housewares. Let's hope Ash Williams isn't working there if that happens.

Return to IZ (Katie)

2005-09-19T11:14:00.000-05:00

It's amazing but the owner of the site has allowed us to return and wander around the grounds a couple more times. Although we haven't done a full-scale investigation again, just being free to explore and experiment basically to our heart's content is very gracious of him to allow.

I'm not under the same restrictions that Matt is, so I can talk a bit about what has happened there since. For instance, I can now tell you where the site is. I hope you'll forgive me when I say that I lied in my initial posts to keep readers off-balance about the site. It's not in southwestern Wisconsin but in east central Wisconsin (like you couldn't guess from our name?). The building complex is called JFK Prep and it's fairly notorious for being haunted. I won't tell you the town name here--I have to give the reader SOME work to do, right? It has been investigated before but we were the first group to investigate it for the current owner, who was impressed enough by our professionalism to basically give us carte blanche with the place in our subsequent visits.

Before you go rushing off to ghosthunt there, I want to caution you---YOU MUST HAVE PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION TO BE ON THE GROUNDS AT ANY TIME, DAY OR NIGHT! It is under surveillance and there are security people there. If you are caught on the grounds, the police will be notified, you will be arrested, jailed and fined $5000.00 for breaking and entering, NOT trespassing (which carries lesser penalties). The owner is serious--he wants the grounds to be secure.

Now, if that puts you off, I can help out a bit here--there are plans to have ghosthunting classes conducted there once a month, topped off by a walk through the buildings. YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST PRE-REGISTER FOR THESE by contacting ghost_matt@hotmail.com. YOU CANNOT GO TO THE CLASSES BY JUST SHOWING UP. You won't be allowed past the front gate (or anywhere on the grounds) if you are not on a list of class registrants.

There will also be volunteer opportunities as the owner tries to revert some of the buildings to community use. If you are interested in that, please email Matt at ghost_matt@hotmail.com. Serious volunteers will be accorded ghosthunting time on the grounds as long as they put in some quality sweat equity for it. You'll find more info at http://jb8301.tripod.com/index.html.

Okay, all that being said, what happened when we returned? I can only speak for my own experience so I'll go from that. The most active area on all visits continues to be the building known as the old dorms, especially the 4th floor in a room we call "the suitcase room". This is room 412, where there are a couple of old decrepit briefcases on the floor. (If you enter this room, please don't move these briefcases--they are subjects of experimentation).

One of these briefcases reportedly has a habit of closing itself when it is left flipped open on its back. I didn't witness this but the room seems to attract a certain amount of energy. I've gotten one EVP there ("no no no"). On our return trip, one of us had a geiger counter, which we used as a type of communication device. We used the needle gauge (VU meter) to get what could have been responses from unseen entities (right for yes, left for no, middle for no answer of course). While the needle fluctuations witnessed when we were asking our questions MIGHT have been some kind of communication, the most significent response was to "we should wrap this up and leave" which buried the needle to the right (YES!). Hmmm...

Also, as I am very slow, I am always the last one to leave a building. I was recording during this time and as I was going down the last flight of stairs, I recorded a strong whispered voice. There is debate over what it says--at first I thought it said "all pissed off", which seemed logical given that it could be conceived that we were pestering the ghosts. But others have interpreted it in other ways, such as "longest hallway" (it felt that way to me). So interpretation is up in the air.

Also in the old dorms, I asked questions of the spirits. In our first visit, I had gotten an EVP that said "doctorproof". I assumed this meant that the speaker had been terminally ill or injured and considered themselves beyond a doctor's help. On our return, I asked the spirits what they had meant by "doctorproof". I got an EVP response saying "docproof". This is my first (and only) case of getting a direct response to a question.

We also walked through the basements of some of the buildings. There is a large bakery in one area, which we surmise was used to bake bread for the students and possibly to bake communion bread for sale to area parishes. In one part of this area, I recorded a whispered voice saying quite clearly "bake bread". I don't know if this was an observation or an order. LOL! I'm fairly sure that it wasn't one of the living investigators present.

The buildings have some interesting aspects that I had not yet explored. This time we went down into a sub-basement area that appeared to have been either a stable for horses or a storage area for grain (possibly both at different times). There are also tunnels and other sub-areas that suggest the underground areas are very extensive. Down in this sub-basement, my legs apparently were bitten very badly by some "no-see-ums" and I got some large swollen itchy welts the next day! Ouch! If this happens to you, calamine lotion is like tossing a bucket of water on a forest fire. Go straight for antihistamines. Always wear long pants and sleeves, and good sturdy shoes if you visit these buildings.

Anyway, that's a short summary of some of our subsequent experiences there. We plan on going back in the next few weeks sometime to try to do some debunking and experimentation.

Investigation Zero

2005-09-05T13:17:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately I can't post my impressions of Investigation Zero at this time, but they will be posted and we will explain everything then.

--Matt

Investigation Zero--Katie's impressions

2005-08-24T10:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, IZ has been and gone, and I can only say... awesome!!!

We were there for two full nights. I can only give you my impressions because I didn't make it into every nook and cranny of the place but I got some interesting stuff, especially on the second night.

This is a first for me, but if you had to press me for an opinion on whether it is haunted or not, I would have to say yes, it's got something going weird going on there. Now I'm not saying that there are spooks in white sheets floating around, but there is an energy or presence there that can make itself known.

There were some hindrances that can raise questions though. One was the fact that the owner and his people kept going in and out of the buildings uncontrolled while the investigation was going on. They also had the tendency, when present, to interfere with audio and video recording for EVPs. For instance, if an investigator was using a question and answer method for obtaining EVPs, sometimes the owner would pipe up with answers to the investigators questions on the recording, obscuring any possible EVPS. There were also problems with outside people being allowed access without our knowledge and with activities such as running ATVs around the property while we were recording. Now this might not be so much the owner's fault as ours for not explaining it to him better, so we can't place any real blame there. And after all, it's his property--even TAPS couldn't get that Louisiana restaurant to give them complete use of the floor they were investigating on one show and the owners put a PARTY ON in one of the rooms right next to where they were recording! Talk about a waste of time!

Also, there was another investigation group assisting us on the first night and unfortunately we had not had the opportunity to meet and get to know each other ahead of time. Methods of investigation, attitudes, even style of dress were not in synch and contributed to what could be termed as a conflict of sorts. As this is the second time we've worked with another group and had problems, this will be the last time we bring in outside groups to help. We have wonderful independent, experienced and knowledgable mentors who help us out and we will continue to utilize these people but for now, we will not be working with other investigation GROUPS again.

That being said, any further problems would be our own as it was a huge investigation and we were a relatively small group of about 12 people. However, I have to say that despite our inexperience and lack of organization, we did all right.

Friday night was our time for getting to know our way around so I didn't get much in the way of EVPS (which now have become a focus for me as I can get them literally ANYWHERE and there's no explaining them away as dust motes or pollen!). The two investigative groups combined and formed three teams of investigators. Each team consisted of at least two members from each group. We were assigned buildings to start and rotated every 3 hours or so, communicating by walkie talkies. Our group started in what would become the focus of activity on the second night, but on the first night, only hinted at what was to come.

We worked the building floor by floor. Being a fat girl, I decided to take my little folding chair with me, find a spot and do audio recordings on each floor. This actually led to a little unintended humor as I was sitting there asking questions when a police officer walked in and asked "what's going on?" Thinking it was another investigator, I started to say something about "burning" (referring to the EVPS I had gotten in May) and turned to him. Startled at seeing it was a police officer, I just said in a wondering voice "Oohh, you're not one of us...?". Actually it was fine as the owner had told us the police would be stopping in. We got in touch with the owner via walkie talkie and the officer was satisfied that we belonged there. Ouch! LOL!

We had two investigators in our group who are also psychics and they both became rather focused on the building's top floor, which was a harbinger of Saturday night. Something was up there and they literally seemed to chase it from room to room up there (Michael, correct me and elaborate if I'm wrong). I didn't go up there when this was going on as two of us were "guarding" the stairwells to keep this thing from coming downstairs and away from them. I'm still not clear on just what I was guarding against, as nothing seemed to come downstairs.

Later in the evening our group made it onto the roof of another building and suddenly "things got hot", almost literally! It was very late and dark up there by this time and two of us began taking photos over the side of the building. Incredibly, red mists of enormous proportions were turning up in the shots of BOTH photographers. Unfortunately by then my camera's card had "died" AGAIN in this building (the first time in May) and I got zilch! But I've seen these photos in the making and again in the camera's viewscreens--no explanation can be made for these. At first I thought maybe somehow a bonfire about 100 feet away was the culprit, but how could it make these huge red mists?

Saturday night, when we were working on our own without help from the other group, was more fruitful. We split up into groups of our own choosing and got to go where ever we hadn't gotten to on Friday night. This time I got to go to a nearby cemetery, where I saw what could have been a "shadow being" in the dark. It was weird because I was looking over into an empty field next to the cemetery and saw the darkness literally "swirl around" for about a second. Yow. I also saw what almost looked like the illuminated "back" of an individual walking downhill a few feet away from us. This also was just for an instant. Later on, descending from the cemetery, I got the distinct impression that my husband was walking just behind me on my right. But then I glanced ahead and saw that he was actually about 10 feet in FRONT of me. Ok, all of this could be attributed to being overtired and my eyes not working well, but spooky just the same.

Later on, we went into another building and had what was called an "evp circle" where we sat quietly recording and asking questions of the spirits. This particular building, for reasons unknown to me as yet, is full of rappings on the wall and we got rapped responses to some of our questions. We are going to go back and check that building more closely to make sure it isn't a natural phenemona. However we did leave a camcorder there unattended for about 40 minutes. We didn't get anything visually on that tape except a bug or two flying around but the noises in that building are amazing. Low rumblings, like someone shaking sheets of metal, rappings, doors opening and closing--it was incredible! Yet we have to make sure that the living wasn't involved with these things so we'll be going back to do some re-investigating.

This was also about the time things began getting interesting back in the first building we investigated the night before. We got a call on the walkie talkie from another investigator over there who told us that the motion detectors our group had set up there were going crazy. One of them was going off on one floor while the investigators were on another floor. The people would run to see what was going on and when they got to the floor with the beeping motion detector, the OTHER motion detector on the floor where they had come from would go off. Possibly it was bats flying through the building but it was enough to bring focus back there. We went over there to see what was going on. It was going a bit crazy over there so we went over to help out.

Apparently on the top floor of this building, one room had a couple of what I would call large briefcases sitting on the floor. These were old, dusty, crappy looking things that had obviously been there for a long time. One of them was closed and the other was too delapidated to close completely, so the lid was partially open. One of the investigators had apparently opened the latter one completely to see what would happen and left. When he returned, it was partially closed again. Gravity? Possibly but it seems like the hinge was too decrepit to move that easily. Another possibility for re-investigation, but this room was the focus of what was to come.

We went back to retrieve our camcorder, took a break and then, with the two groups together, we decided to hold an "evp circle" in this room. We returned and all gathered around the partially open briefcase. My husband ran the camcorder and we all had our digy cams and recording devices. Once more however, I concentrated on EVPS. One of us began asking questions of the spirits there.

Now also in the group was one of the investigators who had been "chasing" a ghost on that floor the night before. Suddenly he became very cold and after a few moments I believe he said for us to take photos. My camera was put away but another investigator got photos of an incredible aura of energy surrounding him--I saw these photos in the camera's view screen so I know they are not manipulated. And I saw them being taken so I know they aren't photos of her fingers--besides, I know what finger photos look like and there is no way that these photos are that way. However, on the flip side of things, I saw nothing via my eyes and did not feel any cold, but I was sitting about ten feet away from him. It could have been very localized.

Since I don't own the photos, I can't publish them here but I will look into getting them put on our ECWPI website.

I did get some EVPS during this weekend. I can't publish them here yet due to some legalities with the owner, but I can tell you what I think a few of them say. Remember, I got some EVPS in May that said "Burning (town name)" and "Burn the Earth" (reversed--it says the town name again!). The small town in question, where these buildings are located, has a history of fatal fires.

Remember, all the EVPS I have gotten so far are whispers. Here are a few of what I think they may be saying:

"Joshua" (the ghost's name?)

"Hi Mike." (The investigator who was surrounded by the aura is named Mike).

"Oh no no."

One that was unintelligible but reversed, sounds like "infiltrate".

Another one that's unintelligible but reversed, sounds like "all right."

Another one that's unintelligible but reversed and _heavily_ filtered, sounds like "we need help."

"Doctorproof." (Very clear, perhaps inferring that the speaker was at one time terminally ill and beyond the help of doctors?)

"Burning" (not sure about my interpretation of this one)

Reversing EVPS is not in general use at this point, though some investigators certainly use it, so I just present the reversals here as food for thought. All interpretations of these EVPS are mine only and may not in fact be anything at all. Just breezes and noises that somehow formulate into words, don't ask me how.

Also, I should mention the use of walkie talkies. They are useful tool for investigators on a large site, but I believe a powerful enough invisible presence can make use of them as well. We got some strange noises over them, including what sounded like a scream and also one nasty growl that sounded like the owner's name. Now it is entirely possible that living beings screamed and someone really did say the owner's name in a nasty way, but not all investigators who had walkie talkies heard these things, so they seemed localized. Again, just food for thought.

Anyway that's just my impressions. I'm sure if other investigators post here, they may have different interpretations of events. All was not just serious ghosthunting however--we have some pretty funny recordings of the investigators themselves but I'll leave that for them to post about.

2005-07-24T23:50:00.000-05:00

Investigation Zero is almost here (sorry, can't be more specific), and this weekend we had a meeting in Madison for everybody who is going. This is really exciting for me because we are collaborating with a published ghost hunter and others with years of investigating experience. The demonologist from TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) knows about this investigation and says if we find anything, TAPS may fly down and film an episode of "Ghost Hunters" in Wisconsin!

If we find anything there, the owner (our client) said he may allow us to post about it on our website, but for now everything has to stay confidential.

This is going to be a 2-nighter, with 17 investigators (split up into three groups, and communicating by walkie-talkie), EMTs, and tech people to monitor the live video. Everybody is there for a reason; there will be no observers as they tend to muddle things.

I assigned each group a leader, and we will follow that leader's methods. The second night, we're going to rotate so we can observe different investigators' ghost hunting methods.

Cemetery Investigation (Kurt's Entry)

2005-07-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

July 2nd, our group did an investigation of a local cemetery. The town is very strict about people being in it after dark, so we had to do a daytime investigation.
The cemetery is small and very secluded, with one road going in and out of it. This cemetery was quite possibly the quintessential "spooky" cemetery, set back away from the town and overgrown with tall grass and old broken gravestones. The members of our group were the only people present in the cemetery at the time of the investigation.
Everyone in the group fanned out around the cemetery, looking at gravestones, taking pictures, and recording for possible EVPs.
Even though I took about 100 pictures, nothing out of the ordinary appeared on any of them. Not even an orb. But I think the fact that this was a daytime investigation probably lessened our chances of getting anything out of the ordinary in a photo.
There was one corner of the cemetery that I found myself being constantly drawn to. At the time, I assumed that was because it was quiet and in the shade. Towards the end of our time there, I moved my stationary recorder to the area and set it down. I met another group member walking towards me, and we walked away. Upon listening to this recorder the next day, I found this on it:

http://home.ripway.com/2005-5/317761/Cemetery2.wav

It appears to be a young-sounding voice saying something. Some people hear "Renee", while others hear "oh no". I was standing down the path from the recorder, and if anyone would have been near the recorder when I got this, I would have seen them. Plus, with one road in and out of the cemetery, they would have been easy to spot. The only possible explanation for this that I could think of is that it's a buzzing insect near the recorder. I personally think it sounds too much like a voice to be an insect.
On my journal recorder (which I was carrying around during the investigation), I found this:

http://home.ripway.com/2005-5/317761/Cemetery3.wav

I was walking past two (or possibly three) group members talking, and in the middle of this clip, you can hear what sounds like a child's voice say "yeah". It almost sounds like they are responding to something that someone said. I can't recognize this voice as being anyone's in the group because it's so young-sounding, like a child's voice.
Based on these findings, I think that further investigations at this cemetery would be useful.

More about future investigation

2005-06-22T17:15:00.000-05:00

I have found some further EVPs on the recording done at this site. They are rather curious because they actually seem to name the site itself. One of them whispers "burning..". The other one initially seems to be saying "burn the earth", but when reversed, clearly says the name of the site again. (We are keeping the site confidential so we aren't overrun by vandals while we are investigating).

BTW, here is a link to the first evp.
http://www.sillybirds.com/images/oslongver.mp3
What do you think of it?

We've been reviewing some video of that day too and one of our number spotted something I had missed when initially viewing it. In one sequence, a figure appears, seems to solidify and then dissipates! It appears to be a slim male and is standing in profile, hands behind back. It has no feet but the arms grow solid enough to be three dimensional. It only remains in form for a second or two before the "head" literally melts away into a wisp! If you slow down the video enough, you can see the head wisp away and even a small orb shoot upward as the thing dissipates. The camera then pans away, then back to this area which now shows the thing to be completely gone.

WHen I can figure out how to convert DVD to AVI easily, I'll see if I can make a clip of this sequence.

EVPs?

2005-05-23T14:41:00.000-05:00

I take back what I posted earlier about not hearing moaning or chains rattling. Upon listening to my audio files from that day, I've found what could possibly be EVPs (electronic voice phenomena). EVPs are purported to be the recorded voices of ghosts. In this case I was using a Sony ICD-ST10 audio digital recorder. In both cases, an offsite investigator has evaluated them and found these voices to be within normal human ranges. Therefore it is inconclusive that these are real EVPS. All I can say is that I was there and no one said these things in the presence of my recorder.

Recording no. 1
In this case I was chatting with another group member. We were standing in a long hallway near a window as I recall. There was no one else close enough to be heard by my recorder in this way. At this time we haven't reached a definite conclusion as to what the voice is saying.

Recording no. 2
This was on another floor where some work was being done by people about thirty feet away, so this is the pounding you hear. I was attempting to show the building owner some photos I had taken on my digy camera. The camera's memory card chose that moment to die and I was fussing around with it trying to get it to work. At the end of the recording, you hear me call out in frustration to the spirits.

I haven't finished listening to the entire recording yet and it is possible that there are more voices to be heard.

group name change

2005-05-15T13:47:00.000-05:00

The name of our group was recently changed from Wisconsin Ghost Network -- East Central to East Central Wisconsin Paranormal Investigations.

Investigation Zero

2005-05-08T20:13:00.000-05:00

A group of us gathered to tour our next large investigation, some empty buildings in the southwestern part of the state. We are not revealing even the town's name in this case because the investigation is going to be very sensitive so we just call it Investigation Zero. I'm not sure we can post much about it here, but whatever I can post without violating our client's right to privacy, I will.

The buildings involved are good sized, with a lot of work to be done in them. With the owner's permission, we will be conducting at least one overnight investigation, possibly more than one night. The buildings have been unused for a number of years so there is some inside damage to them, caused by both mother nature and vandals. There is also a lot of dust and dirt, and no electricity or working toilets. There is also a cemetery close by that we will be investigating as an adjunct to the main investigation. Should be very interesting as these buildings are "off the radar" of most paranormal investigators so it should be new territory. On the down side, since they have been unoccupied for so long, there really isn't any recent oral history we can track down as far as paranormal activity is concerned. There is the usual "I thought I saw..." kind of stuff but it will be hard to pin down. Older accounts state something like "I felt a presence" or "I thought I saw something hanging there", but nothing concrete.

During our initial walkthru (to get some idea of how many people we'll need and how we'll conduct the investigation) we did take some video and photos. So far the video has not shown anything but some people report getting red mists and possible even "faces" in their photos. I have yet to see these photos, so I can't verify this. My personal experience was that I took a few photos with my Olympus D-340L digy cam, then when I wanted to review them, the camera's card died. I couldn't revive it without deleting all the photos. I'm trying to retrieve the photos using a utility software for retrieving lost data but so far no luck. My husband took the video with a Sony Mini-DV camera and reported lots of "going out of focus" episodes, more than you might expect. Some of it could be attributed to the niteshot light going from complete dark to a bright sliver of light, but sometimes it happened for no apparent reason. We haven't used the camera long enough to get a good idea of its reliablity though, so we're not attributing the problem to anything other than the camera itself at this point.

So that's my report so far--no moans or rattling of chains were heard but these buildings have a lot of story left to tell. We'll be conducting our investigation later this summer and hopefully I can post more then.

Second Store Investigation -- Kurt's Impressions

2005-04-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

I don't really have a lot to add about the way the investigation was run. Matt's post below this one does a very good job of explaining the way we handled our second investigation at the location. I think we handled this investigation *much* better than the first. We were aware of our weaknesses, and we had a much better schedule of who was going to be investigating what.
As Matt mentioned in his post, I was quite frustrated by the level of noise in the building. On all of my recordings, you can hear people talking, giggling, and laughing in the background. I have absolutely NO problem with people wanting observers to be there, but I do think that we need to establish guidelines when it comes to extra people being at the location. On the other hand, the owners and their friends couldn't have been nicer and couldn't have went more out of their way to accommodate us.
Unlike Matt, I *do* feel that there is some sort of presence in the building. There is just something about that upstairs hallway that makes me feel uneasy. I'm not easily claustrophobic, but I admit that it could very well be a combination of the cramped hallway and the lack of windows there that gives me the creeps. Plus, the two figures that I glimpsed out of the corner of my eyes on the first investigation leads me to believe there is something there.
As far as any sort of conclusive evidence, I have none. The only semi-suspicious thing I caught on my digital recorder was something that I thought sounded like a laugh while we were all outside of the building, but Matt thinks that it might be pipes squeaking or natural building sounds. I think that it may have been one of us outside laughing at something. And all I got on my digital camera photos were a few orbs (mostly in the rave room area).
All in all, I thought we did a pretty good job this time with the investigation. But as far as to whether or not the building is haunted, I think it's still inconclusive.

Kurt

store investigation -- our second visit -- Matt's impressions

2005-04-17T23:18:00.000-05:00

This, again, is not yet the official group report. This is just my observations from when we went back on April 9 to continue the store investigation that we began on March 12.

This second visit was better than our first. We brought a smaller group – only 7 people this time – and we had better strategy and coordination.

The store has a basement and two floors. The basement was one zone and the top floor was our second zone. We left the middle floor empty, so the investigators trying to record in the basement wouldn’t have feet stomping around above them. We rotated zones every hour, and we all rotated at the same time by communicating with walkie-talkies. Last time, we had a problem with people not taking good notes, because they didn’t want to stop every five minutes to get out their notebook. This time, we had everybody take notes into voice recorders that they carried with them and just let run all night. Some of us had more than one voice recorder, to use as a stationary. We kept the talking down, and when we did have something important to say we spoke at normal volume. However, the store owners did have some observers in without our prior knowledge, and while they stayed in the office the whole night, they did make a lot of noise depending on where in the building you were. (Speaking for my zone, we stayed on the opposite side where there was quiet; and when we did investigate where we could hear talking, I made note of it into my recorder, so as not to later mistake it for an EVP.) I’m not ungrateful – the owners were very friendly people and did us a favor by inviting us to investigate their store not once but twice. I just want the reader to know that there wasn’t total silence in the building all night.

We all arrived at the store at 6:30PM, and spent about an hour in the office talking about our last investigation, and about our strategy for this visit. The investigation then ran from about 7:30PM to 10:45PM.

Again, Mara, Phil, and I were in a zone together. The other zone was Katie, Keith, Mark, and Kurt. My zone started off in the basement. We investigated one half of the basement only – the 185 N. Main half – and left the other half for Katie, Keith, Mark, and Kurt when we rotated.

I used a Panasonic RRUS360 digital voice recorder with an omni-directional external microphone. I did not use the voice activation mode; I just let the recorder run the whole night, because from experimenting I’ve found that the voice activation mode on this recorder is not very sensitive, and I don’t want to miss an EVP. For taking pictures, I used a Fuji Finepix digital camera.

I did not get any pictures or EVPs while in the basement. I did not feel any cold spots or experience anything at all.

At 8:30PM, I radioed Katie to rotate zones. We all met back in the office where we started. Next, Katie, Keith, Mark, and Kurt went down in the basement, while Phil, Mara, and I took the upstairs.

The upstairs hallway, and one of the adjoining rooms which was unfortunately closed to us this visit, is the only area in the building that made some of us feel uneasy. At the end of this hallway is the stairwell where Amelia, the little girl, supposedly died. But my personal explanation for that feeling of uneasiness is that the hallway is very dark and claustrophobic, not because there’s a ghost girl floating around.

We quietly snapped some pictures of the stairwell, then we took some in Amelia’s room (the room with the doll). Again, I got nothing. So then I left my voice recorder in Amelia’s room, and we went into the rave room to take more pictures.

Kurt came up from the basement while we were taking pictures in the rave room, because he said there was noise and so he couldn’t do anything in the basement. So a few minutes later, Katie radioed me, and everybody in the whole building (the owners, too) just stepped outside from about 9:15 to 9:45, so there would be complete silence. We left our cameras and audio recorders running inside the building. I left mine in Amelia’s room.

It would have really been something if I had caught an EVP during that half hour when everybody was outside, but I didn’t get anything. However, listening through all my recordings from the visit was good for me anyway. It taught me to distinguish between different sounds, like cars driving by outside on the street, squeaky pipes, and other human voices in the building. I won’t believe it’s an EVP unless I can hear it clearly, and it sounds like it's in the room with me, not somebody outside on the street or in the hallway.

When it was time to go back inside at 9:45, we decided to go home, after first sitting down with the store owners for an hour and sharing some of our impressions.

Everybody in our group is encouraged to post their impressions of our first ghost hunt, so hopefully some of you will! Personally, I didn’t believe the store was haunted (that is not a group consensus; some in our group believe there was *something* going on), but I was only there two nights while the owners have been there for years. Perhaps the spirits didn’t like all these strange people in the building.

Thank you to the store owners for inviting us! It was very good for us, and I certainly learned a lot. We would like to come back again sometime soon, with only three or four people, set up our equipment, and then just have everybody go do something else for an hour or two. And that would be our investigation.

Katie's impressions, part deux

2005-03-20T00:51:00.000-06:00

I've had the opportunity to interview the store manager who allowed us access to the building and have gotten some clarification and new information regarding the reputed hauntings at this location. In my interview, we discussed her experiences and she explained that she was psychic and her first encounter with the child's spirit was a psychic one.

She stated that she was in the building on the second floor, cleaning up prior to the store's first day of business, when she psychically heard a child's voice going "here kitty kitty kitty." There was no power in the building so it was very dark, but she said she got away from there as quickly as she could. Later on she had psychic communication with the child and explained to her that she preferred to have communication in a less shocking way.

The child who died apparently did not trip over her cat but instead somehow fell in the stairwell for some other reason. Bearing in mind that the manager has only been in the building for six and a half years, I can't really say for certain that anyone really did die until I can verify at least part of the information presented in some way. I did get what could be the child's full name, which is something to start with, and it is possible that the child was visiting a relative in the building and not a resident. It was possibly her grandmother that she was visiting and the cat could have been the grandmother's cat.

A few other experiences were recorded, including a second hand account of seeing a ghostly woman dash quickly up an invisible stairway leading to what would be a non-existent third floor. The building is not known to have ever had a third floor and the area in which this was seen shows no visible evidence of a stairwell ever having been there. Another episode in the history of the site is that there could have been a 19th century brothel present in the building at one time. Legend has it that a prostitute was murdered by her pimp and that could be the woman rushing up the stairs.

It is possible that someone observed what could have been the dead child's grandmother, that of an older woman sitting in a rocking chair. Another experience was recounted of a (living) child asking her mother "who that man is over there?" when there was no one present (the pimp?). Lastly was an incident where a baby said the name of the "visiting spirit" out of the blue. However, the child's older brother shared the same name so the baby could have been simply practicing saying his brother's name.

There was also discussion of people working in the building reporting the feeling of "not being alone", including the following account. I had the opportunity to talk to one of the tenants in the artist studios on the second floor. She is in the habit of being in the building alone late at night. She told me that the evening before, while going down the hallway to visit the restroom, she suddenly go the distinct feeling of something being there in the darkness so she aborted the trip half way there and went back to her studio.

I want to clarify the situation between the two stores a bit more. A subsequent visit to the street side of the two shops revealed that there is a smaller sign for the second store, but it is not as obvious as the first. Also it should be made clear that the manager who let us into the building for our investigation is not the main lessee, but is actually subletting her space from the manager of the second store. This is the reverse of their earlier relationship, where she had previously been the main lessee, but for financial reasons had to make this arrangement with the manager of the other store. This could be contributing to some of the tensions between the living in the two stores.

Also, the fact that the building was once two separate buildings (and structurally still is) could be a factor in the reputed hauntings as there have been more reports of experiences in one than the other. The room referred to earlier as the "rave room" could have been a dance hall at one time, and the manager reported hearing (psychically again) 1940s dance music from it once.

Because of the problems caused by our inexperience with our initial visit to the store, we have asked (and been granted permission) to return for a follow up investigation on April 9. This time we will be going with fewer people and following a strict strategy for coverage and control of both the investigators and the investigation. The camera will probably be set up in the same spots, but I am also considering bringing along a boombox and playing music from the 1940s to see if we can get any response that way.

Hopefully we'll get more positive results this time.

3/12/05 store investigation -- Matt's impressions

2005-03-15T17:33:00.000-06:00

This also is not our official report. And Katie covered most of the bases, but I wanted to take what I learned from this first investigation and give a "do's and don'ts of ghost hunting" to help other people starting in this field.

Though I thought everybody in our group conducted themselves well (no touching, no moving things around without the owner's permission, etc.), we just brought too many people along. The store we investigated was fairly big -- big enough that 11 people could divide into 4 groups, and each could be assigned to their own zone. But I learned from this investigation that a site has to be HUGE for you to have 11 people.

I went down in the basement with my group, which consisted of Mara, and Phil, and me, hoping to capture some EVPs with my digital voice recorder. But there were so many feet stomping around on the floor above us that I didn't even bother. We learned that, when you're doing an investigation and you have 3 floors like we had, you should leave the middle floor empty.

We also learned that, when trying to capture EVPs, if you talk or make any noise you should identify yourself and always speak at your normal volume. You should never whisper. Some of us thought that by placing the recorder down and then going in the other room to whisper, our voices wouldn't drown out any EVPs we might catch. And they didn't...but now we have a different problem. Now, because everybody was whispering that night, we can't identify who was talking when we're at home later listening for EVPs. We can't discern what's an EVP and what's a human voice. So on our next ghost hunt, we'll have to try to keep it quiet, but if anybody has something to say, they should talk at normal volume.

Personally, I won't believe what I have is an actual EVP unless I was holding the recorder in my hand when it was captured (so that I know it wasn't manipulated by someone else), the voice is distinctly not one of us, and it answers one of my questions directly. There is a theory among skeptics that when you catch an EVP, you are just picking up someone talking on a CB radio.

You must also take a notepad with you and record everything, like what room you were in and when, so you can compare notes later. This is something most of us did do, but a few did not.

We are actually going to go back to this store for a second hunt, this time with fewer people. After that, then we will post an official report here.

3/12/05 store investigation-Katie's impressions

2005-03-14T16:15:00.000-06:00

What follows is NOT THE OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION REPORT. It is only my impressions as part of the investigation team!

Our first investigation as the Wisconsin Ghost Network-East Central took place on 3/12/05. Being our first, it was a large group including four "visiting" investigators from a partner group in Green Bay.

The site was a pair of gift shops sharing a single site in east central Wisconsin (of course). The store haunting lore is that a young girl tripped and fell over her cat in a front stairwell, dying as a result of the fall. The child is reported to haunt the building and is a spirit of the type that you spot out of the corner of your eye. She is dressed typically of the turn of the century. Also another spirit of a ghostly child from a building a few doors away is supposed to come visit and play with her. The cat is also supposed to be in the building, along with at least one other cat that had belonged to one of the store managers. There may also be other spirits as 1940s music has been reported to come from the 2nd floor ballroom (aka "rave room") when no such music was being played.

This particular store was interesting because it is (or "they are") in an approximately 100 year old building in the downtown area of the town where it is located. From what we were told, the building has been an office supply store, carpet store and a furrier. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were coldwater flats on the 2nd floor.

In today's shops, the gifts range from metaphysical books to handmade jewelry, artwork and clothing on one side, and handmade crafts, gifts, artwork, snacks and Beanie toys on the other side. The physical plant also has a dual identity, being once two separate buildings that were joined together sometime in the past. There are two shop fronts (only one has a door), two basements, two upstairs areas, all joined.

The contrast between the two buildings is sharpest in the basement, where one side is obviously been dug deeper and a new floor (perhaps a whole new basement) put in, while the other is a step up and the ceiling is dangerously low. The basement contains a large variety of items in storage, an old fuel oil tank, a couple of smaller "alternative" stairways leading upstairs (one completely blocked off) and a pair of old wooden doors leading into either a coal shute or into an old tunnel system reportedly existing between some downtown buildings (it does not look tall enough to walk thru).

Upstairs on the second floor, one side consists of small rooms off a long hallway that are leased out to artists as studios or offices. The other side contains a large ballroom type area that is used for classes and is rented out for "rave" parties. The condition of the two buildings is also different. Some of the studio rooms are being repainted and repaired but there are places where you can see up through the ceiling in the hallway and the wooden floors haven't been attended two in awhile. Some of the studio rooms have avant garde type paintings directly on the walls. One of the front rooms contains an old rocking chair with a rag doll in it. The doll is said to occasionally slightly change positions, as if someone picked it up, and then tried to replace it in the same position. There is also a steep wooden stairwell leading to the street, obviously used by tenants to enter and exit the building. This is the area where the child is reported to have died.

On the other side, the "rave room" floors appear to be in better condition and the walls more recently painted plain white. There is furniture, including an old sofa and some upholstered chairs. Access to the building's attic is also in this room (you need a tall ladder).

The mezzanine between the first and second floors consists of some small sitting areas, office space, coatroom and extra space.

The two stores also have different managers which leads to some conflict in personalities and temperament. There is only one store sign on the front even though they have different names so the identity of the store without a street side sign is covered beneath the identity of the other one. The two stores are also not distinguishable on the inside except for two checkout areas. There is nothing to tell the customer that he or she is leaving one store and going into the other. (I have some experience with this, working in a shop that shares an entry with TWO other stores!). There is also the possibility the the building itself was constructed on the site of an earlier wooden building that burned down in part of a major 19th century fire in the district.

Initially most of us came by the store at 4PM for a daylight "walkthru" with one of the store artists. This gave us the opportunity to learn the layout of the building and make decisions in the way we would approach the investigation. My hubby also had the EMF reader and tried to map out EMF "hotspots" for logging. Surprisingly, he did pick up a slight moving EMF "trail" near the floor in front of a bank of breaker switches that did not appear to be coming from the switches.

After our walkthru, we all headed to my house for spaghetti dinner (thank you to our partner group for providing DELICIOUS garlic bread!)

For this investigation, we were greeted by the manager for the store with metaphysical products and our earlier artist guide, along with some friends and individuals I did not identify that evening.

There were a total of eleven investigators to cover the three floors (plus small mezzanine). We arrived at 9PM for the main investigation and left around 12:45AM.

Before we actually started, hubby and I went upstairs to set up a camera in the room with the rag doll. The camera was a Sony nightshot camera which was set up in front of a window (outside of which was a large street light). The camera was set in nightshot mode (not the enhanced nightshot mode) and aimed at the chair holding the doll. The camera was left running for about an hour (the length of the tape), then moved to the top of the stairwell leading down to the street for an hour. We haven't reviewed those tapes completely yet.

The group split up into three sections after that, each taking a different floor for investigation. Hubby and I took the main floor and walked around with an EMF reader, digital camera, temperature sensor and a digital voice recorder. The problem with the recorder was that the wooden floors squeaked quite loudly as we walked around, plus there was a loud cooler that would cycle on and off. These are the trials and travails of ghost hunters however, so we figured these things in when listening to the recordings later. (results will NOT be posted here, at least for now). If we do this building again, I think we will bring chairs and sit down for awhile in each area, rather than walk around.

After about an hour, we met the other investigators in our "home base" area in back of one of the stores and we decided who would go where. Hubby and I spent some time in the back of the store doing recordings and photos in a private room that was opened for us and got some more history from the store manager. After that we went upstairs for awhile but recordings may have been hampered by the fact that unknown to us, some of the other investigators returned to the second floor. Also some of us tended to whisper rather than talk in normal tones, which causes confusion when listening later for EVPs (electronic voice phenomena). So results from our time on on the second floor are open to speculation. We got some whisperings but they could be coming from other living people who were on the floor. (My voice recorder is a Sony ICD-ST10 digital with a very sensitive, aim-able microphone.)

We spent some time relaxing and chatting with the manager in a sitting area before returning downstairs. One of the other investigators came in the rave room, reporting that his camera battery had died (just after I recorded some "whisperings" over our voices, I found later). He also stated he had seen some small shapes in the long hallway, one going around the corner and out of sight, while the other was a smallish white shape that disappeared (correct me if I'm wrong, Kurt!). They could have been construed as being "cat-like".

(I should mention here that I have visited this building in a more informal "ghostwalkthru" last year and got some interesting photos, mostly orbs. But my most interesting experience was spotting what looked like a gray "cat's tail" out of the corner of my eye, scooting across a walkway, going from one wall straight into the opposite one! Here is a link to a DRAWING of what I saw: click here)

We decided to go back downstairs. I'm a large SLOW person with bad knees, so I went first down the stairs, taking one step at a time. Hubby followed me down and at this time got the most interesting temperature reading of the evening. He had the sensor pointed at my back as I went. The normal temp when he aimed it at me was about 78 degrees (taking into account the ambient temperature and the fact that I had a thick sweater on). For a moment, the sensor plunged about 20 degrees WHILE it was pointed at me. Possibly not coincidentally, this was time when I experienced one of my "chills down the back" episode. Was I being followed by something unseen? Hmmm...

Hubby and I went back downstairs and spent a few more minutes in the basement. This was unremarkable except for a few orb shots. The conditions down there were dusty even though we all tried not to stir up dust. By this time, everyone had finished, the store people were exhausted and we packed up and headed for home.

Thanks to everyone for coming to the investigation and especially to the store folks for having us. It was a fascinating experience which we hope to repeat with a smaller, more subdued group in the future.

Welcome

2005-02-04T21:34:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the first posting from the Wisconsin Ghost Network. In this blog, investigators will be posting news about ongoing investigations, techniques, findings and research. Wisconsin is home to many ghost stories and it is our goal to investigate and try to prove or disprove the hauntings, as well as try to help our clients. We will only label a place as haunted if we are left with evidence that we tried to, and could not, disprove; otherwise, we will call it inconclusive, or – and only if we can substantially prove it – NOT HAUNTED.

Please check back from time to time for more information, as our group is just organizing and we will be developing our own methods for paranormal investigation.