Our House is Haunted

Holly fights evil spirits in her sleep

2012-08-01T10:15:00.002-04:00

Last night was interesting. Holly woke me up last night by talking in her sleep. This was a first for me. She sometimes mumbles softly but this was the first time she actually spoke words that woke me up.

"I command you to leave. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"

I was instantly awake, my heart pounding. What added a certain creepiness what that her speech was slowed down, like a 45 record played on 33 rpms. I wasn't sure if I should wake her or not, so opted instead to put my arm around her. She fell silent and I drifted off to sleep.

She doesn't remember the dream, and is a bit mortified that it happened. We can only guess what she was dreaming about.

A long hiatus...

2012-06-19T08:35:00.002-04:00

Life moves quickly. I can't believe how long it's been since I posted something here. The activity hasn't stopped; we've just gotten used to it. The girls come to me at least once a week and tell me of something that has happened to them or something they've heard. It's all been benign things, but things that would make me raise an eyebrow or two. We've been lucky, or Father Patrick's blessing really had an impact. It just hasn't been convenient at those times to walk downstairs to the computer and write an entry.

Early this year Shelby saw the girl. This is how she described it to me: Shelby was alone in the house at the time, sitting in the living room watching some anime on her lap top. She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye in the direction of the stairwell leading to the upper floor. As she looked up she caught a glimpse of a young girl, leaning over the banister and trying to look at Shelby. As soon as Shelby saw her, she was gone.

Last week, the girls and were in my game room, just hanging out. Holly was doing a load of laundry, and as she carried it upstairs she was thinking to herself about something, and said to herself, "OK." Immediately, she heard a nearby whisper repeat. "OK."

She stopped, and called out to the the girls, "Did either of you just say OK?" They responded that they did not.

I was downstairs in the basement at the time. All the good stuff happens when I'm not around!

I'm still recording sporadically. I've picked up a little girl humming here and there. I'll need to post it soon.

Sarah hears a girl voice call Daddy

2010-09-14T00:09:00.001-04:00

Sarah told me today that last night after everyone went to sleep she was still awake. From the hallway of her open door came the voice of a girl calling, "Daddy?"

She thought that it might have been one of her sisters awake and trying to wake me up. But she had a clear view of the hallway, and there was no one standing there.

I record the girl ghost humming

2010-09-01T09:22:00.001-04:00

Back in January (I know, I'm behind with this stuff) I switched over to using my Sansa e280 as my primary recording device. The day I decided to use this we were running into town in the evening. I wanted to record the house while we were gone just for shits and grins to see if I could capture anything.

Note that there was no one home at the time.

I was a bit surprised at the results. In two different occasions, 9 minutes apart, I captured the girl's voice humming some tuneless song.

Clip #1, 7:06 pm, 0'13''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:03: A girl humming

Clip #2, 7:14 pm, 0'10''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:03: A girl humming

Wow, what a night!

2010-08-31T09:23:00.000-04:00

Last night something kept both Holly and Sarah, both in different rooms, awake through the night.

Holly told me this morning as I was getting ready for work that something like the sound of a plastic grocery bag was made in her ear and woke her up. She couldn't go back to sleep so read for a while.

Sarah called me while I was driving into work and told me that, even though she did not have her cat in her room last night, something kept knocking things over in her room, and she heard footsteps on carpet walking around her room.

Come to think of it, I did hear something get knocked over in her room during the night, but lately I've been attributing it to her cat.

I told her that next time things are going on like that, turn on the recorder on her phone, and I'll figure a way to get it off her phone and into my analysis software so I can have a listen.

In fact, I might just keep a recorder in her room tonight anyway.

A flurry of activity after a long hiatus

2010-08-29T13:11:00.000-04:00

The past week has had a lot of stuff happening. It started early in the week of the girls complaining that they are seeing lots of shadows out of the corner of their eyes. They've been used to this stuff for so long now it no longer scares them - it just bothers them. So when they see this stuff they report it to me. I've not seen any shadows though.

Sarah has seen the girl outside, peeking at her from the porch as she is swinging on the swing.

Then three nights ago, it was late and Holly and I were retired to our bedroom for the night. The girls had watched just finished watching a movie in one of their bedrooms and were getting ready for bed, going in and out of various bedrooms and the bathroom. At one point, there was silence in the hall outside Holly and my bedroom - all the girls must have been in their own rooms.

There was a knock on the door - three distinct raps.

"Yes?" I asked, thinking it was one of the girls.

No reply.

"Yes??" I asked again, a little annoyed now.

No answer.

I realized that it wasn't the girls that had knocked, but something else. Holly was already asleep so didn't hear it.

The next night (two nights ago), the knock happened again. This time, Holly was a awake and asked the same question I did the previous night. "Yes?" thinking it was one of the girls knocking.

I told her don't bother, no one was there.

This got her a little upset. "This stuff is not supposed to be happening any more." She was referring to the fact that the house had been blessed. I didn't know what to tell her.

And finally, this morning something new happened. Ok, some background: we have a chihuahua, who, we discovered, likes to howl if prodded. So on many occasion one of us will hold him, and howl into the air. It only takes a few tries of this to get him to start howling. It's very cute. Shelby does it the most often - to the point where I have to say, "Ok, enough!"

This morning, I was downstairs in the basement, looking something up on the computer. Holly was upstairs in the kitchen.

I heard someone howl - a child. It came from above my head in the living room where the dogs were. It was a howl in the exact same way that Shelby howls to get Ignacio (the chihuahua) to howl.

I heard Holly say, "What was that?" from above. I went upstairs and told her that I heard it too. I asked where the girls were, and she said that all the girls were on the top floor in their bedrooms.

So we sort of looked at each other and realized that it had to be the child, girl spirit that we see most often. We had just heard her howl at 'Nacio, playing with him and trying to get him to start howling.

*That* is weird.

Strange things wake both Holly and Sarah

2010-06-20T21:14:00.000-04:00

Sarah (my oldest daughter) told me this morning she was up for several hours last night, listening to footsteps go up and down the stairs, walk around the landing outside our bedroom doors, and walk around her room.

I asked her how long this went on, and she told me off and on for several hours.

I mentioned this to Holly (my wife) while we were drinking coffee outside on the deck, and Holly told me that a woman's voice woke her up last night. It was sharp, and loud, and said "Go to your room!" It was like a woman scolding children, she said.

I asked Holly if she heard any footsteps. She didn't.

I then asked Sarah later on today if she heard a anyone talking loudly. She didn't.

I'm going to record every night this week and see if I can catch either phenomenon on the recording.

Just got touched

2010-05-03T20:24:00.000-04:00

I'm doing the dishes in the kitchen, and I feel someone touch my left shoulder blade, almost as if picking off a piece of lint from my shirt. I fully expected Sarah, my oldest, to be behind me, even felt her presence behind me, but when I turned around there was no one in the kitchen with me.

EVP Session: The Farmer's Walk

2010-03-31T14:50:00.002-04:00

This is the the second EVP session I have conducted in an area outside my house I have called "The Farmer's Walk".

This session was performed at 9:30 March 18th (contrary to what I state in the session).

There is a loud whine the first 10 seconds of the recording. I will try to remember to let the recorder go for 10 seconds before beginning so I can cut this out next time.

I think I did a better job this time asking questions. When the session starts, I accidentally fall back to my old ways with an unfriendly tone, then quickly recover by starting over and stating my name with a friendlier tone. I still ask questions too brusquely - it's hard not to be self-conscious basically talking to yourself.

I also need to stand still after I ask a question. The rustling of my movement is obscuring any possible answer I could be picking up.

3:06 something taps the recorder. It wasn't me. I was holding it in one hand, and keeping a tight grip on it.

3:35 In response to my question "What did you do for a living?" there is something imprinted on the recording. I tried reducing the background noise in audacity, but it's intelligible. I also tried reversing the audio, but that turned up nothing I could understand either.

4:08 the recorder is tapped again, harder this time.

5:03 noise from the recording software

5:21 noise from the recording software

I see something peek it's head over the bed at me

2010-03-28T17:31:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning I was on the bed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a white flash of movement. It looked distinctly like a small head that peeked up over the side of the bed and quickly ducked back down.

EVPs and Bumps-in-the-Night: Recordings from January 5th, 2009

2010-03-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

Here are more recordings that have been stored on my digital recorder, this time from early 2009.

Clip #1, 3:00 am, 0'13''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:05: Me breathing
0:06: Something is being banged or taped around. The taps start quick, then slow down.

Clip #2, 4:21 am, 0'10''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:06: A small voice humming.

Clip #3, 5:34 am, 0'13''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:05: A loud bang, which is enough to wake one of us up.
0:09: Holly making a sound as she is half-woken from her sleep either by the sound, or me turning over.
0:13: A little girl's voice - not Holly's.
0:21: As we are still getting comfortable to fall back asleep, you hear a little girl's voice say "Hi".

EVP Maker software

2010-03-23T09:00:00.005-04:00

Following on the heels of my mention of the Ghost Box software, I discovered another interesting tool for us "amateur" investigators. This is some software called EVP Maker.

The premise behind EVP Maker is that it takes any sound clip, chops it up, then randomly spits out slices of the clip. In this way, it behaves more like a controlled version of a Ghost Box.

An excellent bonus is that the developer has created a cued wav file of all the allophones in the English language. The software also knows how to handle cued files, and can therefore output a random stream of these allophones, hence making a ghost box that removes false positives from radio station voices!

My only con with this is lack of portability. You could install it on a laptop, but it would be great if it were ported to the iPhone/iPad and the Android OS.

EVPs and Bumps-in-the-Night: Recordings from June 18th, 2008

2010-03-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

Date Recorded: June 15, 2008

Analysis Started: 2/5/2009 11:34am
Analysis Completed: 2/10/2009 3:54pm

Here is the last of my 2008 clips that I had stored on my digital recorder. I'm finally getting them off the darned thing and onto the blog. I analyzed this recording last year! Time just slips by too easily.

Clip #1, 12:24 am, 0'15''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:05: A small tap or click
0:09: A rapid series of clicks. I have no idea what could have caused this.

Clip #2, 6:04 am, 0'15''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:05: A huge, violent bang. You can actually hear something bounce right after from the impact. I am amazed we did not wake up from this. You can hear us slightly stir after the noise.

Sarah hears a little girl singing in Sophia's room.

2010-03-19T09:00:00.035-04:00

A while ago Sarah related this story to me. I don't always have the opportunity to write in the blog immediately, but I at least try to put a little place-holder in there so I could go back later and fill in the blanks. This is one of those times.

So Sarah came to me about a month ago and told me that she was cleaning her room a few days before. Shelby and Sophia were still at school. She heard humming or soft singing coming from Sophia's room. Sophia's door was closed (at it usually is because of her cat). Sarah went over to Sophia's room and opened the door. There was no one in the room, except for the cat.

My first active EVP session

2010-03-18T09:00:00.002-04:00

I've made it clear in past posts that I have not wanted to perform EVP investigations in my house. I don't want spirits to become more active and try to interact more with people in the house, simply because I have younger girls that are already freaked out about the whole haunted thing.

But Monday night I had an epiphany: Last summer, Sarah saw an apparition walk up our yard. I realized I didn't have a problem at all doing EVP sessions outside of the house.

So Monday night, I went outside after the kids went to bed and walked over to the spot where Sarah claimed to have seen the apparition. I only planned to be out there a few minutes because Holly was still at work and I knew she would be coming home very soon. So I already had a bit of a time-crunch on myself mentally. I brought out my Sansa e280 hacked with Rockbox software and started the recorder, which has turned out to be a real kick-ass recorder, because the software allows built-in gain with the microphone.

So here's the session. WARNING! The first 10 seconds contain a high-pitched whine. This is a bug in the Rockbox recording software. I apologize for it:

There was a slight wind blowing, and there was quite a bit of interfering events like cars passing (which drives me crazy because the country road I live on almost never has traffic, but two cards passed by during my short little session)

Anomalies noticed:

00:51: Some sort of metallic bang. I did not hear this while recording.
02:56 Although I failed to tag this, this was a semi truck decelerating.

Ok, so it was my very first EVP session. Nothing paranormal was captured, but I've listened to it a few times now, and realize there are some improvements that I need.

1) I need to have an arsenal of questions ready. I ran out of questions early. I also need to figure out how to have a longer 1-way conversation. Easier said than done!

2) I was too quiet in the beginning. I also need to introduce myself in the beginning.

3) I need to be friendlier and more conversation-like.

4) I think I did a good job tagging noises that I heard. And it was helpful, because at 2:37 there is a noise, and immediately my ears perked up while listening to it the first time, and then I hear my tag, "dog".

I think I'm going to be doing quite a few more EVP sessions in the area I'm going to refer from now on as "The Farmer's Walk Area".

EVPs and Bumps-in-the-Night: Recordings from May 31, 2008

2010-03-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

Date Recorded: May 31, 2008

Analysis Started: 01/18/2009 9:12am
Analysis Completed: 01/21/2009 7:24pm

Here's another clip of footsteps while we sleep.

Clip #1, 3:34 am, 0'41''
Noise Reduction: 10db
0:10: Footsteps start

Ghost Boxes

2010-03-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

I recently discovered an interesting device called a Ghost Box. At its most elemental level, it is a hacked Radio Shack AM/FM radio. Only specific models of their catalog can be hacked, but once the modifications are made, it automatically scans the airwaves at a fast clip, playing small sections of voice and noise from the radio stations in the area.

The theory goes that ghosts or spirits in the vicinity of the unit can manipulate the sounds and voices coming from the speakers and answer questions or make statements to those listening. Here is a sample from YouTube:

However, speculation exists that claims the voices being picked up are simply random and could be construed as coincidence. The trick is to ask questions that are in context, for example what color coat am I wearing?

So I am now on a quest to obtain a hackable radio. I obtained a list of hackable models from the web. I found one of them at our local Radio Shack for $30. I'll be getting it soon to hack it.

I still have a policy of doing no EVP sessions in my house. I have teenage daughters and I really don't want to draw attention to my family in that way. I don't want to stir things up or make things more active. But I am thinking about starting an investigation group, and a tool like this would be very handy.

EVPs and bumps-in-the-night from December 29, 2008

2010-03-15T09:54:00.004-04:00

I'm finally getting back to posting the stored clips of sounds that I've recorded the past few years.

Here are three more from the end of Dec '08.

Clip #1, 1:17 am, 0'14''
0:05: A quick series of taps that appear to travel from one area of the house to another. This is a very strange set of sounds.

Clip #2, 1:25 am, 0'10''
0:05: This sounds like an object moving quickly across a smooth surface, ending in the object smacking against another object. Whatever it is moved quick, like it was thrown across the surface with a lot of force.

Clip #3, 3:53 am, 0'11''
0:05: A bang so loud that it echoes in the hollow of the walls.

Holly hears the little girl play with the cats and then giggle

2010-02-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

I sat down with Holly for "happy hour" after work in our kitchen a few weeks back. This is the time when Holly and I kick the kids upstairs and talk about our day. Holly had been alone in the house all day, and she told me that she was doing laundry and heard the cats running back and forth inside Shelby's room. Initially she thought nothing of it until she heard a little girl's giggle from upstairs somewhere. All the kids were at school.

Her theory is that the girl was playing with the cats, causing them to run back and forth, or they were playing with each other without the girl's intervention, and the girl was enjoying watching them play.

I get more techincal in my recording techniques

2010-01-19T09:51:00.001-05:00

Up until now I've been using my trusty Sony ICD-B600. It's a digital recorder, but has no way to offload the recordings. So my process for analysis of a night recording is as follows:

1) Plug in a pair of headphones and listen to the entire recording
2) Clip out parts that are of interest
3) Record the clips via Line In to my computer into Audacity.
4) Listen again to the clip to see if it's something worthwhile.
5) If so, export to MP3 and upload to the blog.

The Sony is not very good at playback - even with the volume turned up all the way and wearing a set of "cans" I have to be in a quiet room to really hear faint noises. At work, with many co-workers around me, this can prove difficult.

A year ago for Christmas I got a Sansa e280 mp3 player so I could have something to listen to whilst I work out. A week ago I replaced the "operating system" of the device with an open-source software package called Rockbox. After going through it's features I had an epiphany: the mp3 player had recording capability, and also had some things I was desperately needing.

A friend on Facebook suggested a while ago that I should go digital completely, and have the computer look for anomalies in the recording. Most of the things that occur barely register a spike, so I would be problematic to write software that wouldn't miss important things - nay, I'll still have to listen to the recording and let my ears pick up the telltale whisper or voice. But going digital does have some added benefits.

For one, Rockbox has some excellent settings for the recorder, mainly the ability to turn up the gain for the mike. This would allow me to record very faint sounds in the house, and allow me to pick up things like the whisper a lot better.

Secondly, the device is also a USB hard drive, so the recordings can be copied off of it to my desktop's hard drive. From there I can load the entire recording into Audacity, amp the volume, and listen with as much gain as I need. Tre chic!

Three Knocks at the front door

2010-01-17T10:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday evening, Holly and I had the house to ourselves. Sarah was at work, and the other two were spending the night at respective friend's houses.

Holly and I sat at the island in the kitchen. We had opened a bottle of Shiraz and were sitting down just talking and enjoying each other's company. There were three soft knocks at the door. I heard them. Holly did not. But all the dogs did. They raced towards to the door, barking, and jostling for the best position.

The knocks were very faint, almost as if the knocker did not want to perform the action, and for some reason, I knew already there no one was going to be at the door.

Holly got up from the island, and walked to the door. There was no one there.

I record a segment for the Anything Ghost Podcast

2010-01-15T11:28:00.000-05:00

Back in August 2009, I recorded a segment for the Anything Ghost Podcast #96.

I found myself rambling a bit too much in the beginning, but the EVP I provided was pretty popular afterwards. I planned on recording more segments for the show, but never got around to it.

The EVP was from the first night of recordning, where I picked up that strange girl talking in another language.

Holly sees the little girl run up our stairs

2010-01-09T18:50:00.000-05:00

This morning Holly and I were in the kitchen making breakfast. All the kids were just sent upstairs for being annoying. Ten minutes later Holly asked me, "Did one of the kids just go upstairs?"

I had not heard anything, and told Holly as much. Normally a teenage girl going quickly up the stairs sounds like a herd of elephants charging. I went to the landing of the stairs and looked up. All the girls were in their respective rooms with the doors shut.

I asked Holly what was going on.

"I just saw a little girl dressed in white run up the stairs."

Nice. This is the second sighting of this little girl is less than thirty days. Shelby saw this same girl on the stairway landing last month.

More New Windsor history

2010-01-07T14:05:00.002-05:00

While doing some research of paranormal activity on Google, I came across more history from the Weird in Maryland blog from this post.

I live in New Windsor, MD, which is a typical small, Carroll County town that was a far busier place 100 years ago. There are a handful of small businesses along Main Street, but generally it's mostly a residential area now. We do however now have a small museum, located in one of the oldest houses in town, and rumor has it, we have a few ghosts. Back in the fall of 2006, just before the museum opened to the public, the local history group, the New Windsor Heritage Committee, invited a paranormal investigator to speak with the group. She was from the Gettysburg area and had spend some time a few days taking pictures in the old graveyard right behind the museum.

She told us during the meeting that she had detected a young girl's spirit in the upstairs, and had felt several other presences as well. And the photos she showed us from her trip to the graveyard were jam-packed with orbs.

If any house in town deserves to be haunted though, it's probably the Bloom House down by the railroad tracks, built in the late 1800's. Adam Bloom and his young family moved in to the house in 1890 and he opened a creamery nearby, which was, apparently, quite successful. His oldest daughters attended private school in town and life proceeded on an even keel. But several years later, Adam grew more and more despondent and his daughter Estelle later claimed that he had been heavily influenced by a traveling missionary who convinced him of his own sinful nature. Whatever the reasons, on May 20, 1898, Adam shot himself in his workshop and took quite a few hours to finally die of his wounds, no doubt in a great deal of pain. Local historian, R. Bryce Workman, has written a small book, available at the New Windsor Museum, detailing the life of Estelle (Stella) Bloom and her sister Marion, both of whom had become involved with very prominent writers during their lives, in and around our sleepy little town. At the end, though, Estelle died alone in the old family home, having suffered the ravages of both cancer and too much alcohol.

Also This Haunted Place has a blog entry about New Windsor history.

I was reading an article recently that mentioned that areas with high amounts of limestone may be more prone to paranormal activity. If so, perhaps that explains some of the more interesting features of the little town of New Windsor, Maryland. Apparently some of the purest limestone deposits on the East Coast reside below the surface surrounding this little town.

Near the center of the little town lies the old Presbyterian cemetery, final home to many of the earliest inhabitants of the area. In the south-western corner of the yard can be found the grave of noted physician Roberts Bartholow. Bartholow was born in 1831 in Carroll County and obtained his bachelor’s degree in Arts from New Windsor’s own Calvert College. He then went to the University of Maryland to pursue his medical studies. Having entered practice in 1852 and serving as a US Army Surgeon until 1864, he settled in Ohio on the staff of Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinatti. It was here in 1874 that he first met Mary Rafferty, a ‘feeble-minded’ young servant girl with an ulcerated cancer of the brain. After treating Rafferty unsuccessfully for about a month, Dr. Bartholow decided to try some experiments with electric stimulation of her brain, as he had already determined that her case was hopeless. The experiments went on over the course of several days -as Rafferty did not appear to be in pain with low intensities of current, Bartholow increased the charge until Rafferty ultimately entered a coma that lasted about 20 minutes. She died several days later and though her death was listed as being caused by the cancer, the scarring from Bartholow’s experiments no doubt hastened the end. Bartholow ’s techniques were censured heavily at the time, even in that time of little or no concept of patient consent, but had little long term effect on his career. He died in 1904 and was buried near his parents in New Windsor.

So much for the background story. Several years, the local heritage group invited a paranormal investigator to town. Armed with an array of equipment, she was able to determine that the old graveyard was quite an active place, including the spirits of several Confederate soldiers were were none too happy to be buried on top of each other at the eastern end of the graveyard. Her strongest impression, however, came as she drew near to Bartholow’s stone and noted an almost violent energy coming toward her. Apparently, he was telling here over and over again, “they didn’t understand, they just didn’t understand.”

I absolutely find it incredible that there is so much history in this town.

Night Recordings from May 15, 2008

2010-01-04T20:30:00.001-05:00

Date Recorded: May 15, 2008.

Analysis Started: 11/10/2008 4:02pm
Analysis Completed: 1/05/2009 1:34pm
Location: Master Bedroom
Filter: Noise Removal

Clip #1, 12:06 am, 0'18''
0:05: A small child's voice
0:13: A loud knock

Clip #1, 1:23 am, 0'14''
0:05: A small child's voice
0:08: A small child's voice again