Gainesville House Investigation: Quick Review
 

So we did the investigation at the house in Gainesville Saturday night (and Sunday morning, technically).  I haven't even started to review all the evidence on my Mini DV, my digital camera (still photos), and my 2 audio recorders, so all I can tell you right now is what I personally experienced and what I witnessed others in the group experience.  So here it is:

Mike, Shannon, Robert, and I arrived at the house a little after 7PM.  I loved the house as soon as I saw it.  It's a gorgeous Victorian that's got A LOT of character.  Linda (who ownes the house) and her husband were there to greet us when we arrived, and right after brief introductions, Linda took us on a tour of the house. 

 Only two-thirds of the house is live-able (one side of the downstairs, and the upstairs), the other third (downstairs) is in the process of being renovated.  I didn't get any kind of spooky feeling while we were downstairs.  Linda was leading us through the "storage side" of the house, when Mike felt a cold spot.  Since I was closest to him, I stuck my hand out to try to feel it too.  I couldn't feel it where he had felt it, but I did manage to find it a couple of feet behind him.  As soon as I said I had found it, it disipated.  It felt like i had stuck my hand into a freezer.

  We didn't have any of our equipment with us, so we weren't able to catch it as evidence.  Linda continued the tour of the maze-like "storage side", and none of us experienced any other phenomena.  We headed up staris, and about 3 steps from the top, my chest started to get heavy, and my heart started racing.  We reached the landing, which Shannon starting referring to as "the disorienting room", and the sensation increased.  Shannon mentioned that she was feeling the same thing. 

 We continued on into the rooms on the top floor, including "the window room", a bathroom, a kitchenette, and "the fireplace room".  As soon as we were no longer on the landing, the heavyness on my chest disappeared and my heartrate returned to normal.  Linda mentioned that people refused to use the upstairs bathroom after dark.  I noticed that the bathroom had 3 doors, a mirror on the back of one of the doors, a mirror above the sink, two cabinets (with doors), a "hide-a-hole", and a window.  Now, I'm one of those people who can't stand to have their back to a door for more than about a minute, so I figured that all the doors and reflective surfaces would definately creep-out someone who wasn't used to it.  I know it freaked me out for a minute.

  Also, we noticed that one of the cabinet doors wasn't shut all the way, so we pushed it closed.  On our way back towards the stairs, Linda showed us a small closet outside the door into the "window room" that was latched with a hook-n-eye system.  Linda made the statement that it was strange that the hook was latched, and we quickly found out why.  Shannon unlatched the hook and had to pull very hard on the door to get it open, and push very hard to get it to close.  I also pulled it open and pushed it shut, just to see for myself how hard it was, and let me tell you, it was VERY hard to open and close that door.  So Shannon and I made a point to leave the hook unlatched, and we told everyone that we were doing so.

  With our tour completed, we all returned downstairs and began setting up our equipment.  We placed 2 IR (Infra-Red) cameras that were hardwired to the DVR-System upstairs (one in the "disorienting room, and the other in the "fieplace room") and the other 2 IR cameras downstairs in the "storage side"; one in the "refridgerator room" (the larger room that just happened to be the resting place for a refridgerator), and one in the "secret room" (the small area that is very hidden in the interior of the house). 

 We also placed a couple small toys upstairs in the "disorienting room" and the "fireplace room" in hopes of getting one of the child spirits that are believed to be there to "play" with them.  We had everything set up, sealed off, and went dark at about 9:30 PM, and Mike started the DVR-System recording.  We all went outside for a little while to allow the dust to settle, and to allow Mike and Shannon to have a cigarette before we started the investigation.

  We were also waiting on Bridget Michelle to get there because she had gotten stuck at work late.  When Bridget (or as I call her, "B") arrived, Linda and Shannon took her on a quick tour so that she could be a little familiar with the house.  B is a sensitive, and as soon as she had stepped onto the property, she told me she could feel the energy from the spirits in the house.  We didn't tell B anything about what had been experienced in which rooms when she arrived, and after their smaller tour, Shannon told me that she had hit on all the hot-spots that Linda had mentioned to us.  We shut off all the rooms again to allow the dust to settle again, and Mike, Shannon, and B grabbed another cigarette before we began.

When they were finished, we all grabbed our hand-held equipment (Mini-DV cameras, audio recorders, digital thermometers, EMF detectors, and flashlights) and began our investigation with a group walk through.  It was a little hard to get all 5 of us through some of the areas, but it helped us acclimate ourselves to the house in the dark.  Then we broke down into 2 groups of 2, and 1 at the "command center" watching the DVR.  We investigated until around 4AM, when we finally gave in to our exhaustion, broke down the equipment and called it a night.

  There were a few personal experiences during the night.  Mike, Shannon, and B went out together first, and Robert and I stayed at the "command center" to keep an eye on the DVR.  Then Robert, B, and I headed out, and Mike and Shannon watched the DVR.  We stopped in the "fireplace room" for a few minutes hoping to see something.  B was reassuring the child entity that it was ok for them to play with the toys that we had left out, when I got the idea to tell it that it could play with Roberts hair too.  He has a 36 inch ponytail.  After I said that, I snapped a picture, but didn't see anything. 

 We continued on into the kitchenette, but didn't experience anything, so we headed into the bathroom.  I noticed that the cabinet door was open again.  I said something to Robert about it, and he came over to look at it and pushed it securely closed.  That was when we noticed that either the door itself or the door-frame was not level.  That debunked (disproved) any spirit activity around the door as far as we were concerned.

  We then headed into the "window room" and stayed there for a few minutes, but didn't experience anything, so we made one more quick sweep of the rooms, and headed back downstairs.  Later, Mike had gone upstairs to the landing, where we had placed a toy car, to put out some blocks, and he heard what he said sounded like furniture being dragged across the floor in one of the rooms up there.  He checked all 4 rooms, but couldn't figure out what had made the dragging sound.  While B and I were investigating together, she felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness in a little hallway area in the "storage side" of the house.

  She and I continued on back to the "secret room", but she didn't experience the feeling again.  We were heading back to the front of the house to go upstairs, but for some reason we both stopped in the same area where she had felt overwhelming sad before.  She got the sad feeling again, and this time, she had tears in her eyes.  I asked the spirit why it was making her cry, in hopes to capture an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon: disembodied voices captured on a recording device that were not heard at the time of the recording).

 B felt a cold spot, but lost it as fast as she had felt it.  She believed it had gone into the small closet in the area, and was using the digital thermometer to try to find it, when I felt a cold spot at my right elbow.  I didn't want to move, because I didn't want to lose the cold spot again.  I told B where it was, and she turned around and tried to get the thermometer to register the temperature difference, then I handed her the digital camera that was in my left hand so that she could hopefully capture something in a picture.

  As soon as she took the picture, I felt the cold spot leave my right elbow, pass infront of me (between B and I), and come to a stop at my left elbow.  I still had my elbow bent from handing B the camera, and as I told her where it was, I extended my arm downwards, into the cold spot, and it covered my entire forearm from elbow to wrist.  Again, as soon as B took a picture of my arm and the surrounding area, I felt it again pass between us, and return to its previous place at my right elbow.  It continued to "play" with us for nearly 5 minutes.  It reminded me of the way a young child plays peek-a-boo with someone around one of their parents.  It was absolutely amazing. 

 When the cold spot finally disipated, we made our way back to the "command center" and told the rest of the group about what had happened, then we headed upstairs.  We stopped in the "firplace room" for a few minutes, then moved on into the window room.  We had only been in the "window room" for a couple of minutes when B said she had heard the same dragging sound that Mike had heard earlier.  I hadn't heard it, but B said it sounded like it was in either the kitchenette or the "fireplace room", so we went to see if we could figure out what it was.  We checked both rooms, but couldn't find anything that looked out of place. 

 We stayed upstairs a little while longer, then headed back down stairs.  B and Shannon decided to take a smoke break, so I parked myself infront of the DVR system, while Mike and Robert tried not to fall asleep on the couch.  I was watching the monitor, when suddenly it flashed black, then came back up.  But when it came back, all the cameras had switched.  And the switch was completely random.  There was no pattern to it.  I woke Mike and Robert up and told them what had happened.  It was just after 3AM. 

 Right after the cameras switched, B and Shannon came back inside because B felt like something was happening and wanted to go back upstairs.  So Shannon and I grabbed some equipment and headed up with her.  While we were upstairs, Shannon and B both heard what they said sounded like breathing.  After a while, B said that she wasn't feeling anything anymore, so we headed back down, and that was when Mike decided to call it a night, so we all started gathering up our cameras and wires and other equipment.  B and Shannon and I went upstairs, and Shannon and I made a point to check the hook-n-eye latch on the closet door.  It was still unlatched.

 I was untaping the wires on the staircase, and I heard what sounded like a woman breathing heavily.  I knew it wasn't B or Shannon, because I could hear both of them talking.  I looked at the foot of the stairs and saw Robert gathering up the wires from the "storage side", and asked him if he was breathing hard.  He assured me that he wasn't.

I know that there are other personal experiences that I didn't mention.  I just simply can't remember EVERYTHING that happened to EVERONE during the night.

Even though the evidence has not been analyzed yet, B and I both agree that the house is definetly an active site.  And I'm sure that Mike, Shannon, and Robert would agree with our conclusion.

  It will probibly take us about a week to get all the evidence reviewed.  After that's all done, we will post a blog on our team myspace page (Texoma Area Paranormal Investigations in my Top Friends) and any evidence we discover will be posted, along with a summary of the night's events, on our webpage, www.texomaghosts.com.  I will let you know when Mike has gotten everything posted and updated.

Well, it's about time for me to head off to bed.  I have a LONG day of analysis ahead of me.  I sure hope that we caught some good evidence.